The second entry in the “Shotgun Room” trilogy. For mature readers.

“A family with a tragic history tries to survive during a global food crisis.”

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The world is a hard place: hard ground; hard life. We are all tethered by gravity. When the government officially announced the start of a new phase of food production, some people wished they could defy it and simply float away. No one was prepared for the food shortages, other than the Preppers; but they had bugged-out long ago, holed-up in their compounds with whoever they had decided to allow entry. Climate change had permanently affected crop growth and no new wheat was being produced. No flour; no bread. Milk was a premium reserved for those who still owned viable cattle and even then, reproduction levels had severely decreased and no owner was sure their herd had been affected. It was simply too soon to tell. That was the consensus from the Men In Suits: “We are still working on a solution to the problem, and we assure you that we are doing everything in our power to ensure the future survival of mankind.” The broadcast from one of Virgin Galactic’s completed shuttlecraft took a week to breach the atmosphere and by then, the chaos had already run its course. Crime in the major metropolitan areas was at an all-time high. Seniors and the weak either starved-to-death from isolation or were home-invaded for supplies, or worse. The titular shotgun was stolen from the hospital and used in a shooting spree. There were even reports that some had resorted to cannibalism, as more-and-more half-mangled bodies with teeth marks and handkerchief-thin slices carved out had been popping up all over the city. An alternative had to be found, and it wasn’t Soylent Green.

Military rations. Some balked at eating the prepackaged MREs but coming direct from the Army meant they were guaranteed-free of contaminants; they just weren’t organic, and were parcelled in preservatives and other unpronounceable ingredients that the general public had “gotten-over” eating. There was no more “Kraft”; no more “Knorr”; no more “Frito Lay”: these companies had gone bankrupt an age before the famine, and if it wasn’t farm-to-table then the public wasn’t buying. The survivors who refused the MRE handouts came from middle-class families who couldn’t afford their own life-raft in space but didn’t have the shame to start putting chemicals in their body to live. The Poor were thriving and the Rich were safe. It was the group in the middle who had to worry the most.

The Gordons were such a family. Before the famine, Joanne Gordon – or Jo, as she was affectionately-named – was a care-aid at a hospice and her husband John a self-employed auto-detailer. When the seniors started to die and gas prices shot up so high that no one except the gangs and the police bothered to keep their cars clean, they did what most middle-class families did: they stayed inside. They had to protect their two girls at all cost, and neither Jo or John had any self-defense or weapons training to speak of: the only time Jo had held a bow-and-arrow was in the Girl Scouts of her youth, and those memories had faded long before the birth of her second child. Neither of their girls were built for the New World, either: their eldest, 16, was slender as a twig and good at dancing in the shower but would only be seen as bait to the most desperate marauder; their youngest, 11 and with bright blonde hair, wouldn’t fair any better. As the days ticked by they were thankful for the continued utilities – as they watched the reports on TV worsen to the point that all live broadcasts were terminated in favor of syndicated reruns – but the food situation never got any better. A representative from the government in an armored truck drove down their street a few times handing out MREs to anyone brave enough to leave their house, but the family had gotten used to an all plant-based diet. It broke John’s heart to shut the door to the handout – especially when it was one of the better selections they handed out, like the meat fajitas – but he knew he would never be able to convince his daughters, or even his wife, to eat the food that came in those little brown boxes. He remembered a time when he was a child that his parents would make him tomato soup and grilled cheese to eat: now, that soup had to be from fresh-pressed vine-ripened tomatoes and that grilled cheese non-dairy and cooked on a vegetarian cracker substitute or his girls wouldn’t touch it. His eldest especially: she was on a Keto diet, even though she would be two-dimensional if she lost any more weight. One day, during a typical teenage blowout, their eldest stormed out with their youngest and they never came back. They spent two days scouring the neighborhood with anyone who could help them until the police showed up at their door to notify them that their bodies were found. The girls were mutilated in the same way the other half-eaten humans were: what wasn’t violated had been sliced off. Why couldn’t the police stop this from happening? Why even have a police force anymore if they couldn’t contain the crowds? The conspiracy theorist in John couldn’t stop hypothesizing and he knew that nothing would ever be normal again. After that, Jo and John knew they only had each-other to count on, and they would never put their trust in a governing body again.

Eight months later, the world was far more complacent to its status. More died, some eaten. The mystery of the cannibal cult was never solved. You lived on what was given to you or you didn’t live at all: the new rumor was that even normal vegetation was contaminated now, so you couldn’t even eat the grass. Animals perished. Everyone was scared to try anything new. Interstellar was the number-one watched movie on Netflix. Jo was very pregnant. John and her had a good stash going from before the crisis – feeding two teenage girls was a Herculean task – but it was dwindling now and the only things left in the cupboard needed boiling water and they didn’t want to use the rest of their bottled water supply for cooking. John turned the faucet on in the kitchen and a black sludge you wouldn’t have thought was once water oozed out. Thank God the power was still on. He opened a bottle and wandered into the bedroom where Jo lay. No one knew she was pregnant and she wanted to keep it that way. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing another child. While she slept, she would dream that her girls were still alive. They were in the living room, dancing. A group of men with balaclavas break the front door down. John is shot and killed. One holds her down while the others take what they want from the girls. She is powerless to help. She screams and wakes up in a cold sweat but John isn’t there to console her. He isn’t there now, not anymore. He hadn’t been there at night for months: he was on the roof with his father’s hunting rifle, un-fired since his own youth, watching and waiting for an excuse. She didn’t blame him for not being there with her anymore. In fact, they didn’t speak much to each-other at all since the tragedy. But they still loved one-another: that was unspoken. They were high school sweethearts. Through thick-and-thin, all they had was each-other. She already felt like a mother, even before the birth of her daughters: John’s parents were killed in a car accident when he was young, and even in-and-out of foster care they still managed to lean on one-another. Her mother didn’t like him though, that much she remembered: he always seemed to be addicted to something, or needed bailing-out of somewhere. First he was kicked out for smoking weed, and Jo let him stay in her room when Mom said it was a bad idea. Then he was kicked out of another home for drinking, and Mom only let him sober-up if he slept in the basement and not her daughter’s room. Then it was heroin. Jo’s Mom had enough and kicked them both out. It was when both of them were living in shelters that she found out she was pregnant with her eldest, and that was the moment both of them knew that things needed to change. He went to community college. She volunteered at the same shelters. They gained her family’s trust back. Her proudest moment was having her mother on her deathbed tell her how proud of her, and her husband, she was. She passed away without Jo ever really knowing whether all the second-chances were for a reason. She was too young to ask her mother the questions she wanted, and now she was dead – her daughters too – and she could only ask herself the same: was the perseverance she had then, nature or nurture? How could she get that will back? Would her girls have ever asked the same thing of her?

Blue and red police lights flickered between the cracks of the Venetian blinds and reflected off the white wall of the bedroom. The back door opened and closed. It was John.

“A cop saw me on the roof. I think he’s coming in.”

Jo was very heavy, and it took some momentum to sway herself and her pregnant belly out of the bed and onto her feet. John hid the rifle behind the bedroom door while he took her hand and led her unsteady steps across the floor to the front door. A uniformed police officer was halfway-up the stairs to the landing.

“Good evening, folks! How is everyone this evening?”

“Fine, officer. What can we do for you?”

“Well I couldn’t help noticing you on the roof there with a firearm.”

“We don’t have any guns in this house.”

“Are you sure? It looked like a gun to me.”

“I don’t have any guns and I don’t have a license to fire any, either.”

“If it’s all the same I’d like to see some identification.”

It didn’t feel like a trick: the smile; the demeanor; the badge; the loose hand near the holstered firearm. John walked away for a second to go get what the cop asked for.

“How far along are you?”

“Third trimester.” He called, answering for her.

“Congratulations.” He lowered his voice, “And good luck. It’s hard out here for a child.”

Jo didn’t answer. John came back and handed over the pieces that remained of their old drivers licenses.

“You do know you can still get these replaced? Government services haven’t totally shut down. It’s not the apocalypse, you know.”

“We know, but we haven’t been driving lately. Just trying to stay safe.”

The officer scrutinized the cards.

“Can I come in for a moment, John?”

“Why?”

“I have reason to believe that you are concealing an unregistered firearm in there.”

“And I told you, we don’t have any guns.”

“I understand that, Sir. It will only take a minute. I just want to come in and take a look around.”

Jo whispered to John, “Let him in. Just for a second. Then he’ll leave.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Come in.”

John flicked a light switch and illuminated the foyer. The cop entered to find a suburban living room bathed in a warm glow, that would have been stronger if the bulbs weren’t on their last legs. Against a wall the TV was on; through the repeating images of nature you could see a large, dark, yellow spot metastasizing in the center of the screen, as if they never turned it off. It faced a white sectional couch that sat flanked in the corner of the room with one back against a window that looked out onto the street. The couch was covered in blankets and pillows that were stained and crusty and could only hint at what the cushions naturally looked like underneath. There were photos on the wall of the family in happier days but they were obscured by the reflection of the lumens from the light in such a way that the faces flickered as you walked past. The living room opened into a dining room that housed the patio exit, but you could only just barely see the screen door behind the dining table, which was pushed flush against the door and piled high with miscellaneous things that people accumulate out of complacency. The cop walked in without taking off his boots and began poking his head around the corners and flashing his torch down the long, unlit hallway that led to the stairs to the bottom floor and the bedrooms. The doors down the hallway were closed. Some of them had not been opened in a long time. The Gordons were worried those ghosts would be freed.

“Doesn’t look like you two have left in a while.”

“We don’t get out much, no. But we have the baby to worry about.”

“Yes you do. How long did you say you were pregnant?”

“Eight months,” John said.

“I was talking to her.”

“My husband is right. Eight months.”

“That’s wonderful. I love kids.”

“Who doesn’t?” John took the cop’s attention away again.

“Yep. Well, everything looks in order. I don’t think I need to poke around any more.”

“That’s great.”

“Yes. But I am worried about your wife.” He turned to her, “You don’t have anywhere else you can go?”

“We’re fine here, thank you.”

The cop sat down on the couch and made himself comfortable, “I should probably call this in. We can see if there’s room in one of our Community Centers for her?”

“Listen, Officer… I didn’t get your name.”

“I didn’t volunteer it.”

“…Well… believe me, we’re fine. We’ve managed for a long time on our own and if it’s all the same to you…”

“But John, it isn’t the same to me. You see, I’m the Police. I’m here to serve and protect. And forgive me but it sure looks like you two could use some protection.”

“We don’t.”

“You have a lot of nice stuff here. And the baby.”

“I think you need to leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

A mousey voice squeaked, “If it’s the baby you’re worried about, she’s fine. I can feel her kicking.”

The cop stood up and approached Jo. John instinctively stood in his way. The cop held his hands up, “Whoa there, I’m not going to do anything to hurt the baby. I just want to put my hand on her tummy.” Jo put her hand on John’s shoulder and he stepped out of the way. The cop relaxed and put his right hand on her stomach. He closed his eyes and licked his lips, “So close.”

“Okay that’s enough. I don’t care that you’re Police. You’re scaring my wife.”

“I think I’m scaring you.”

“If you aren’t here to hurt us then you understand why we’re so reluctant.”

“I do. It’s a hard world out there. You have to be able to do, what you have to. Maybe I could have protected my own family better if I had your tenacity.”

Jo took his hand in her’s, “I’m sorry.”

The cop shed a tear and sat back on the couch. He had nowhere to go. And John knew his wife: Jo couldn’t back down from a wounded bird. He shook out his defensiveness and allowed the man to stay. Jo sat next to the cop while he let himself cry. John sat at the other end of the couch. “Why don’t you go get him some water?”

At the end of the second day, Jo began to have contractions: the baby was coming, and they knew it was too early. John continued to refuse an ambulance and after a fashion the cop seemed to agree with him. Jo was on her back on the couch, bound by the wet, dirty comforters and refusing to move from the wedge she had made there since the cop’s arrival. After an eternity, the baby was born and Jo silently passed away in the aftermath. John held his newborn daughter in his hands while the cop watched on from the other end of the couch, still clutching Jo’s lifeless hand. John stood to pull the blanket out from under him and began wiping the baby off and coddling her in its warmth. He had seen the look from a newborn’s eyes twice before but it never got old: such promise. The cop yanked her out of John’s arms and kicked him back down on the couch with his boot. John struggled to catch his air while the officer made a run to the front door. He made it to the top of the entrance steps before John tackled him from behind and pushed him down, chest-first with child in-hand, landing on the concrete pathway with a thud. When the cop rolled over to fight John off he had bits of the infant’s cadaver still stuck to his chest: the child was crushed like a walnut. There was an urgency to John’s hits as he punched the cop in the face over-and-over again until his head resembled the child’s. John scooped up the remnants of the child in its blanket and rushed back inside, not giving the body of the cop another thought as he shut the door behind him.

It didn’t take long for the child to come out of the oven. John devoured it ferociously and was nearly a quarter-of-the-way through before he stopped and had to remind himself to take it in moderation. That’s what Jo always told him any time he would relapse: that nothing was really bad for him as long as he took it in moderation. Eighty-twenty. That’s how he made it through the foster system; that’s how he made it when he struggled to look for work; and that’s how he made it when the food shortages began. He had to do whatever he had to, to make sure he could keep his family alive. “She would never have made it in this world anyway,” he told himself as he wrapped up the leftovers and put them in the fridge, “it was only ever me and Jo.” Now it was just him. He had a feeling that was why the cop hung around but he would never know now for sure. All he knew was that he finally got to have a proper meal, for once.

//jf 5.20.2020

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