Eliot Strange and the Prince of the Apocalypse

16) Wanted

Believe it or not. The Mount Airy Daily News, now more an every-other-weekly, is still operating. We see a kid on a bike staple gunning it to a telephone pole. On our way to find the prince, Steven and I stop to read the latest edition. There's a picture of the prince in better days, all cleaned up and no beard, on the front and only page. Under his name is the word in big bold letters - WANTED.

There is not much of an article underneath the picture because the photo takes up most of the page. This is what it basically says:

Wanted for crimes against our country. There is a reward for him returned alive so that he can stand trial. The reward is a pick-up truck bed full of canned goods. This man is armed and dangerous. Do not try to apprehend. Contact your local sheriff if sighted.

"Damn," says Steven. "How does Mr. Johnson already know about the prince? He's a great editor. He knows news almost before it happens."

I look closely at the newspaper. "I don't think this is his article. It looks like it has been copied a lot, and there is a typo. You know how particular he is about his paper. Even under these circumstances, Mr. Johnson would check the spelling. And besides, you know now, the sheriff around here is who-knows-who today. That job has changed three times since the EMP. And, there are not many people around left to look for a wanted man now."

"Yeah, it does not mention he is a prince either, but everybody left will be looking. A truckload of food might be the only reward they could have offered to get people to look. We better get to our prince before the military finds him."

Military is a word we use to describe an ever-changing group of authority figures in charge. At first, soon after the lights went out, the military presence in Mount Airy was the actual military - all precisely uniformed and straight and yes ma'aming. And mesmerizing in only a way a man in a clean uniform marching to his destiny can be. Despite what dad said about government and trust, the few weeks of the real military occupation, I felt safe even though the power kept flickering on and off and the country was on fire. The military fed us and their medics tended to the sick and hurt.

Because we were of the right age to attract a man willing to protect us, me and the girl friends I still had left, including Steven, felt appreciated. This was before I was too hungry to think about anything but the next meal. Romance was still on the table, and there was still hope that my future had a future.

I did some serious flirting in those first days. Smiles and batting my eyelashes and listening closely in admiration and wide-eyed wonder to every story they told about how they would annihilate the enemy. Before he left, I decided I was in love with one of the soldiers - a private from upstate New York named Patrick. He was in love too, or so he told me a hundred times before he marched off to war.

Patrick was twenty two years old. He had a perfect-teeth smile and clear blue eyes. He was in town for a week and on his last day, we must have kissed for an hour before he was ordered to pack up and march north. I don't know if I truly loved him or not, this was all new to me, but it all seemed desperate and restless and passionate and dangerous, just like a Nicholas Sparks book. I was the girl crying and waving goodbye to her soldier as he marched off to his fate. If he had stayed another day, I might have done more than just kissed Patrick so much my face was sore.

Patrick promised he would return, but I never saw him again.

Patrick and his beautiful, organized parade-ready military were gone. They headed to the north to defend our country. What was left of them came limping back with blood on their shirts and something I had not seen before. I don't know if it was fear, but it made me afraid. There was an urgency about them that told me we weren't safe anymore. This military hung around long enough to lick their wounds and plan their exit. They were too busy to tend to the needs of the citizens or chat with the girls. They commandeered any supplies they could find that we had not already hidden, and they did not share or offer to give us medicine. These soldiers left and headed back north and when they left, we did not cheer them on. We were glad they were gone.

For weeks, dirty, limping, smelly half-starved soldiers came through our town in small groups. This military had a sadness about them that felt contagious, and their eyes said they had done things they didn't want to talk about. These soldiers did not stay. They were running, and it was now in the opposite direction. They did not ask, they took. They stole what they wanted and moved on. There were stories of what some of them were doing on their way through town, and now the few girls left were hiding. Most of this military said the same thing on their way out of  town. Run - they said. They are coming.

Patrick was not with any of these returning groups of soldiers. I asked, no one seemed to know him. Finally, I quit asking. I quit looking for Patrick to return because it was too painful to keep something so new alive. I let it go, almost like it never happened at all.

The only military in our town now are the self-appointed home militia. The sheriff and his deputies were in charge at first, but desertions and an increase in crime meant the sheriff had to recruit some able-bodied volunteers. At first this worked, until desperation and the death of the sheriff meant this home militia became a marauding, ever-changing group of wannabe soldiers who were more dangerous than the outlaws they were protecting us from. These men were the ones in charge on the day of the massacre.

In a town where there was little to eat, this group was fueled by alcohol and any medicine cabinet they looted. The good news was that they were loud and often drunk or high, so they were relatively easy to avoid.

The men who aimed their guns at us in our old school yesterday were either deserters from our fleeing army, some of our town militia, or the worse case scenario - members of the One Nation Army. We don't know for sure, but we are afraid their friends will come looking for them.

Whoever they were, we need to make sure nobody knows what happened to them. One of dad's rules is when you have to kill - leave no trace.