Ruins of a Fairground

Ruins of a Fairground

By John Thomas Hill

Phoebe Andrews looked up at the Ferris wheel and smiled, remembering the times growing up and her family went to the North Carolina State Fair every year in the fall. “Remember when you puked on that ride?” she asked her sister Ariadne as she tied her flowing auburn locks into a ponytail.

Ariadne Andrews replied, “Yeah, I shouldn't have ate all that fried crap before getting on!” The older sister laughed as she also put up her hair, which was of a redder shade that favored her mother over her father's dark auburn hair. Their parents, along with all three of their brothers, had died in the recently completed Second American War, and the sisters had stayed behind to try and set up a camp for the survivors who were barely making it after the war had passed the Raleigh area by just a few weeks before.

“Is it true that the old gang is heading to Forest City?” Ariadne asked as she pushed the shopping cart full of canned goods raided from an abandoned Publix store.

Phoebe wiped the sweat from her brow as they made their way towards the campsite deep inside the old state fairgrounds. “Yeah, they've gotten a couple of old school buses and some trucks up and running. After what happened last year, I think we need to head west!” In the fall of 2018, three successive hurricanes had laid waste to most of the mid-Atlantic seaboard, and most of the area from Savannah up to Hampton Roads had been utterly devastated by those consecutive Category Five hurricanes. Phoebe and Ariadne, as well as the rest of the gang, had been lucky to have gone through it safely thanks to a kind old rich woman who housed them in her mansion near Durham. However, the woman died during the third storm, and they didn't wait around much longer, because word had come down from Secularist forces nearby that Fundamentalists were using the storm as an excuse to attack and recapture a lot of the territory they had lost.

They came upon a set of fallen trees, and Phoebe spat and wiped even more sweat from her brow. Even though it was mid-October, temperatures were abnormally high, and had been for three weeks. “Indian summer my ass!” then she turned to her sister and pointed at the trees. “Damn, I'll be glad to get away from this place!”

Ariadne nodded and said nothing. Phoebe knew what she was thinking anyway: that those damned storms had taken two of the men that they had loved. Billy Thornton and his twin brother Bobby had fallen in love with the sisters, who were not twins but were born just a year apart, and they had made a vow that once the war was over with, win or lose, they would marry and start families. The brothers Thornton were denied the chance to honor that promise thanks to a tornado that had spawned in the wake of Hurricane Drusilla, the last of the three devastating hurricanes that struck. The twister had yanked up an old pine tree by its roots, and hurled it like a missile into a brick building where the brothers had sought shelter, skewing them like kebab meat.

Moments went by in silence as they pushed their carts full of canned and dry foods to the campsite. Some in the camp were going out to find farm animals from abandoned farms to bring in and start up a farm on the state fairgrounds site, while others were cobbling together solar collectors to power the indoor buildings to transform them into hydroponic gardens (some of the survivors were grads and undergrads of NC State's agriculture school, and they hit up on the idea of growing food year round indoors). If their family or their fiancees had survived, they might have stayed, but the triangle of Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham was a horrible reminder of their shared pain, and they wanted to get away soon as they could.

It struck Phoebe as odd that, despite all the chaos all around them in the aftermath of the war, most people came together to help out. Not all, mind you, as she and her sister had a stolen automatic rifle slung over their shoulder and the clips of ammo rounds banged against their chests with every step. They arrived at the campsite, and the chef smiled and nodded at their haul. Others had gone out as well to other grocery stores and hauled in their own shares, but none did it as frequently as the Andrews sisters. “I don't know why you two crazy ladies always go out, every day, like you do!” one of the survivors said. He was a Gulf War vet who had fought for the Secularists, and had suffered a leg injury so severe that he had to have both calves amputated, so he got around in a battered wheelchair.

“Gotta do what we got to do, Grumpy!” Ariadne said, and Grumpy smiled and shook the hands of the sisters. Grumpy was anything but, as despite his injury, he was a joyful soul who helped watch the kids during the day. Phoebe had known many like him, who had gone through the Gulf and Iraq wars (some had even gone through Vietnam, but many of those vets did not survive the war), just glad to have been gifted with the precious gift of life after so many had died. However, she knew for many it was a facade, and once in a while, one would go away with a gun and not come back. She didn't have to guess why they did that.

The meal was fairly common: pasta with some veggies, but the survivors ate it up and asked for seconds. Phoebe and Ariadne didn't go for seconds, but didn't complain about those who did, as people had done without for so long. They had a tent to themselves, one that they had shared for years before the war on camping trips with the family. “Good night, sis!” Phoebe said, and Ariadne replied with the same, and they soon were asleep.

“Hey girls!” shouted a voice, and it woke them both up. They knew it was Roger, the black dreadlocked man who looked like he was from Jamaica but was actually from Wilmington, and they got up and opened the flap of their tent. Greeting them was a big, stocky black man who looked like an offensive lineman in football, with a smile that would have blinded anyone had it been actually brightness. “Morning ladies! Are you ready for the big trip?” Roger said with a smile.

“Yeah, we're ready!” Ariadne said, and her sister nodded. Before leaving, they grabbed breakfast at the main tent, saying their goodbyes as they headed out. The others knew this day would come, but were sad to see the sisters leave.

“What will we do without you two? You're both brave, going out for food every day!” said an old woman who shook as she sat in her lawn chair as they came by to bid farewell. Sarah, bless her heart, would miss them, but she knew deep down that there were others who would pick up where the Andrews would leave off, especially the young teens who were becoming men and women, and had already seen plenty of battles to acquire enough survival skills to help the camp.

“One day, we'll be back, if all goes well.” Ariadne said to Sarah.

“I know you mean well, but I doubt I'll ever see you two again!” Sarah replied, “I don't know your pain, but I can see it in your eyes! I see a lot of pain in a lot of eyes around here.” She waved her hand around in an all-encompassing way, then continued, “I hear they are gathering a lot of people down there in the Tri-Cities, what will all the surviving war leaders for the Secularists gathered there.”

“Yeah, and others are coming all around to gather and talk.” Phoebe answered.

“Gonna take a long time to rebuild things.” Sarah said, then took out a small, battered American flag from her pocket. “I was walking around the other day and found this, over by a group of trees at the edge of the fairground. Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to go that far, but I'm an old woman, and if I get killed, so be it! But I wanted you to have this, to remember me by, and perhaps to remind you two of what we once had.” Ariadne took the flag from Sarah's hand, and thanked her, then they both hugged her and then made their way onto others.

By lunchtime, they were on the bus, with their tent packed in the back of it to keep as dry as possible. Roger, who had been a bus driver for Greyhound before the war, cranked up the old school bus, and soon they were on their way westward on I-40, which was fairly intact despite all that had gone on during the war. Once in a while, they had to drive partly off the road because of a shell crater, or a bomb crater, and a couple of times they had to get out to move cars out of the way, as some survivors thought that blocking the highway would help stop bushwhackers from attacking them.

They drove at night, but Ariadne and Phoebe walked beside the bus, rifles in hand. The bus drove slowly, as the lights had been taped over to cut down on the light so as to not let possible attackers know that they were there before they were ready. It was dark as night as they walked, and once in a while they barely had time to avoid a car or a crater, but they managed to get through the night without incident. Soon, the sisters were asleep in the bus, too exhausted to be roused because of the bumps in the road.

A drive that once took four hours to complete took three days to complete, and on the second night, the sisters and the others had gotten into a fierce gun battle with some bandits just south of Greensboro. They had taken I-77 South due to the fact that they had solid information of severe banditry west of Winston Salem. They made it to Charlotte safely, but they didn't stay, as the Queen City had become very unsafe, so once they had resupplied and picked up some more passengers, they made their way west on US 74 to where so many were already gathering.

On the third night, they had stopped in Shelby, where they camped out at the old Cleveland County Fairgrounds. Eating beans while warming themselves by the campfire, one of the locals said, “This time of year, we'd be having the Fair. Such a shame that we won't have it again anytime soon!”

“One day we will!” Phoebe said with a smile, and Ariadne was surprised to hear such optimism out of her voice.

Later that night, she asked Phoebe why she sounded like this, and her sister replied, “We have to hope for things to get better! Can't get much worse than they already have!”

Phoebe sighed and thought for a couple of moments, then said, “Maybe you're right. I just worry that we'll all die from exposure because the last few winters have been kind of harsh around these parts!”

“I'll take that chance, and I know you will too! Besides, we both have to move on! That's why we're here, after all! We couldn't stay around Raleigh and mourn those we've lost for the rest of our lives! Would Dad or Mom or the others want us to do that?” Ariadne said as they arrived back at the bus. They volunteered for guard duty, and while the locals had said that banditry was almost nonexistent around these parts, the sisters didn't want to take any chances.

The night was uneventful, and soon, after breakfast, they were on their way west towards Forest City. Somewhere around noon, they arrived in the downtown section of the small town, and signs of construction were everywhere. “Ahoy there!” someone shouted at the bus.

“You must be Navy!” Roger said to the main trotting up with a rifle.

“Yep, that's me! Where you from, friend?” said the tall, lanky white kid, who was barely out of his teens.

“We're from Raleigh, but we've got some folks from Greensboro and Charlotte here too! Where do we check in?” Roger said as the sisters made their way to the front of the bus.

“Best way to get there is make a left onto South Broadway, then a right onto South Powell, then a left onto Depot Street. Just follow it all the way to the intersection at Main Street and the main offices are there. Someone will show you to a parking space.” the young kid said.

“Why not just go straight there?” Phoebe asked.

“Lots of construction stuff strewn all over Main Street as well as plenty of workers busy along the road, so it's safer to go the bit of the long way to get there. Amanda will be the one to talk to, so look for the big fat black woman in the East Rutherford t-shirt. She'll help get you set up!” the teen replied. Roger thanked the teen, and the kid waved them on, and soon they were at the non-functioning stoplight, turning onto South Broadway and making their way to the headquarters.

Soon enough, another young kid was guiding them to a parking spot. “This used to be where the mill workers parked to go to work in the old mill over here!” said the young black female whose hair was a mess. Despite looking like she had come from the front lines of war (these days, that would be the majority of folks), she had a bright smile and a friendly air about her. “Just go up to the sign that says 'Office', and Amanda will be glad to get you guys set up!”

Roger thanked her and made his way to the office as Ariadne and Phoebe stayed with the bus. The young woman pointed at their rifles and said, “Mighty powerful guns you two gals are carrying!”

“Old habit, I'm afraid. Lots of bushwhackers and bandits from where we came from!” Ariadne said.

“Yeah, we get that on the outskirts from time to time. Not often since the war ended, though. But we can definitely use folks who know how to stand guard!” the young black woman said, adding that her name was Monica.

“Whatever we need to do to help out!” Phoebe replied, and Ariadne smiled at her skeptical sister. “I think I'm going to like it here!”, she added.

Soon Roger came back and told them where they'd be sleeping. The old mill was being rebuilt into a hostel, but it was filled, yet the second building was almost complete, so they had the choice of sleeping on the bus or setting up their tent nearby. The sisters opted for the bus, as the clouds threatened rain, and the wind indicated chilly weather was coming. They opted for a seat on the bus instead of the cold, wet ground.

That night, as they ate a dinner of beans and potatoes, the sisters were amazed to hear the sense of optimism in the voices of those assembled here. Many were Secularist vets of the war (pretty much all the Fundamentalists had died during the war, and the ones who had survived simple assimilated out of perceived fear of their own safety), who Ariadne would think would be jaded, were just as optimistic as the young kids who had come here with idealism in their heads and in their eyes. Word had come that the American government had pretty much collapsed, but instead of worry and fear, they said, almost in unison, that they would simply rebuild it here, and make a new nation.

“So how does it feel to be at the start of something new?” one of the handsome young men said to Ariadne while taking their dinnerware to the cleaning crew.

Ariadne looked at her sister, who had a smile on her face, and then turned to the man, saying, “It feels good!”