Free A Different Alchemy by Chris Dietzel Page A

smell like absolute shit, but they would never run out of various forms of rubber. He took a bar of soap. There was only one pack of socks left. He took those as well.
    Even though he hadn’t seen a single person since leaving Fort Dix, he kept feeling like it was a matter of time until he would see someone else. All he was presented with was barren land without another living person, but he kept expecting the opposite. If there was a man or a family still in one of the towns he had driven through, though, they were keeping to themselves. Tanks were supposed to mean destruction, invasion. An armored machine appearing in town wasn’t very inviting compared to a cute little Volkswagen or a convertible.
    He wondered if Griggs would tell anyone about the missing tank. What was there to say? It wasn’t like they would come north just to reclaim their property. He wondered how the preparations for the drive south were going, and as hard as he tried not to, he wondered what Katherine was doing. She might have gone over to her parents’ house after the call with Jeffrey and the disaster at the stadium. What kind of comfort did she think they might be able to provide? When he thought about her getting ready for the trip, he imagined Galen there with her.
    He also found himself thinking of all the things he would say to Galen as they passed by each beach town, as if the boy would be there with him the next time he made a similar trip. Sometimes he actually said these things out loud.
    “I used to know a girl from there… It looks like it might rain… For coming out of a freezer, that was a pretty good steak.”
    Other times, he had a quiet conversation in his head. But always, he was thinking of Galen being there by his side, just like they had been on the porch together all those nights.
    After stocking up on supplies, the engine came to life again. The tread began moving. A minute later, he was leaving Monmouth Beach, heading north once more.

Chapter 5
    Three more people were missing from Fort Dix when he went in to work on Monday. One was a second lieutenant who had remained in the military over the years even though he got passed up for every possible promotion. Another was the last remaining colonel. The few remaining men all wondered what the point was to showing up anymore. They certainly weren’t required to be there, they just kept appearing each day as if it were the only thing they knew to do.
    No one in Washington cared if the base was open or not. There were no battles to fight, no borders to protect. There were no secrets worth guarding anymore. The televised meeting of spies had proven that. Jeffrey wasn’t sure which rumors coming out of Washington could be trusted and which were make-believe. He imagined a room full of generals bickering over the future of the Pentagon.
    One general, much more forward thinking and progressive than the rest, would suggest the entire five-sided superstructure be opened to the public and turned into a Block shelter. The other generals would all laugh.
    One of the generals would groan, “Christ, is he serious?”
    Another of the men would rub his eyes to show he was running out of patience. “You want to relegate this building, where the Secretary of Defense has led the armed forces through some of our country’s most important wars, to nothing more than a nursing home for thousands of Blocks?”
    The man saying this wouldn’t mention the fact that the acting Secretary of Defense had supposedly loaded a private helicopter with his family, headed south, and would never be heard from again.
    Maybe a similar conversation was what had led Washington to open Area 51 to the public. After the fears caused by the Russian spy at the end of the TV special, the goodwill gesture would show people there was nothing to be afraid of. Jeffrey could see how the room full of generals would think it was a good idea: it would give everyone something to take their minds off the fading population.