Chapter 8: At a Standstill

Irritated. That was the only word that could describe how I was feeling. As I had suspected, martial law had not been lifted in a week's time, like they had promised. It had been one month, and we were still under military control. No one came to return my gun, as I had also suspected.

I got up and looked out the window, seeing the steam from the air filtration system the military had built shoot straight up into the sky. It was one thing I would give them credit for, they had started to make the air safe to breathe again. Some people still wore gas masks if they went outside, but most people just remained inside. The nation had become a ghost town.

There really wasn't any reason to go outside, to be honest. The looters had hit the stores hard, stealing pretty much everything in them, turning them into empty shells. Homeless people took advantage of the buildings and began living in them. Since there was nothing to buy, what people had was it. If anything in their house broke, they couldn't buy a new one to replace it. With the military restricting us from going anywhere like movie theaters, art galleries, or anywhere else that could potentially be fun, people pretty much just went to work and then back home.

My stomach growled and I rolled my eyes. I looked around my kitchen, which was decreasing in food much quicker than I wanted. The uneasy feeling I had when the soldiers invaded my home that night was still there, and even though they were doing some things that were helping, I felt like they caused more problems for themselves with the way they were doing most things, such as the fire department closing at the same time as the police department had. It irritated me that the two most potentially helpful public service departments were shut down so quickly after the disaster. Finding a box of cereal in my cabinet, I poured it into a bowl along with my remaining milk. I had opted for the cereal because it was the last of my food I had bought from the store before it was looted dry. The cereal was not going to tide me over for very long and I knew I'd just be hungry again, but I needed it at the moment.

While eating my cereal, I looked over at my sad, pathetic looking stove. It had become dusty from a month's worth of neglect. Since there weren't any fresh ingredients available anywhere, people no longer had anything to cook. The rations that were mailed weekly to everyone's houses were all ready to eat meals that just needed to be opened and microwaved. How exciting. The only job I could find since I'd been "relieved of duty" was at the local diner, which had been turned into one of the military's Food Production Facilities. I had started work there the week after they instated the mailing of the food rations. It was my job to sort the boxes of rations for shipping. Surprisingly, the military had divided the food properly, giving more food to larger families. They seemed to be really good at being borderline helpful and equally obnoxious at the same time.

Every week with my paycheck, I was given my box of rations. Since I worked at the place where the rations originated, it just made sense. I cleaned up my cereal bowl and wandered into my bedroom, pondering whether I should take a nap. As I walked past my dresser, I spotted my new uniform, the uniform which was a lot less exciting than my police uniform. It was all white, with no decorative anything anywhere. Plain and boring, much like what life in this world had become. I had a name tag that was issued to me as well. FRANCIS BELCOURT. It was printed in boring text and it hung off my shirt looking just as pathetic as the entire uniform itself. I looked at my police badge, which I had put with my police uniform after I had been effectively let go and reminisced about the days when I used to be Officer Francis Belcourt. I loved my job. I loved seeing the look on someone's face when hope was restored to their life.

BANG-BANG-BANG!

The hard banging on my door made me jump, adding further to my irritation of this stupid day. Why the fuck couldn't whoever was on the other side of it knock like a civilized human being instead of trying so hard to punch the shit out of my fucking front door?! I stomped out of my bedroom and pulled the front door open forcefully.

"WHAT?!"

A fat man with sunglasses and a receding hair line was standing in front of me. I didn't know why he needed sunglasses, the sun hadn't shone since the attack. He had his arms crossed and a smug look on his face. My outburst hadn't phased him at all and I guessed it was because he got yelled at all the time with the way he rudely knocked on people's doors. He just as rudely stepped inside the threshold of the door and shut it behind him.

"Mr. Belcourt. Taxes are due today."

"What? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You have a job right? At one of the Food Production Facilities? So... therefore, you have a job, you pay taxes. Really, Mr. Belcourt. This should be common sense."

I was resisting the urge to punch this idiot in the face, with the way he was condescending to me. Of course I knew about the concept of paying taxes, but no one had ever come door to door to collect it. I felt like I was living in the medieval ages. I should have known tax collection would be the only thing that survived the chemical attack. There was always someone in charge who wanted money. Since everything broke down, taxes weren't being taken out of paychecks anymore, yet of course, I had to find this out the hard way.

"Mr. Belcourt, you owe $87."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be right back."

I went to my bedroom and got the money to give to him. I placed it in his hand, and he gave me a sheet of paper to sign, acknowledging that he had stopped by my house to collect. He wrote the date down next to my signature.

"Until next month, Mr. Belcourt. Have a good day."

With that, he turned and left. It annoyed me that he could be so polite, addressing me as Mister, yet be so rude, with the way he was pounding on my front door. Nothing could make this day any better, and of course, I had to go to work later that afternoon, which I was not looking forward to. Thankfully, I only had to work for six hours. At least that's what I told myself because the six hours often felt like an eternity. Luckily for me, my television still had some life in it, I didn't know what I was going to do when it decided to die, as I was unsure how confident I would be at fixing an electronic device. Pushing those thoughts away, I turned it on to try to pass the time before work. Sighing loudly because I knew the only thing available to watch was the news, I made myself comfortable in my chair and sucked it up.

At a standstill, that's how everything was now. I watched as the news spewed off bullshit about how things were getting better after the attack because looters had pretty much become nonexistent. Oh yeah? So what are you doing to fix the economic impact of the attack? Oh right, nothing. That's why homeless people are living in the former shopping mall, right? My mind continued to think bitter thoughts about much of what the news said. Jobs were scarce, and there wasn't really any place to work other than things the military set up. I sighed again as I continued watching, and soon I found myself spacing off, thinking about starting a revolution against the powers that be.

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Author's Notes:

***Microwaves will be used in this story because the reason for the apocalypse in my story had nothing to do with radiation.***