Moonflower's Story

By George S Conklin

After a new Civil War and, on its heels, the collapse of the environment, the US descends into violence , depravity and anarchy.

Morning Glory Wilson, Moonflower, is a young orphan struggling to survive on the margins in this dark world. She and a band of survivors fight to live amidst the carnage and in doing that discover technology, frie

• Language: English
• Publisher: George S Conklin
• Release date: Oct 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9780578753843

George S Conklin

George Conklin is the author of several dystopian and crime novels. He retired in 2019 after many years working in healthcare.

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Acknowledgements

I've always wanted to spend extended amounts of time writing science fiction. When I was in high school one of my very best friends, Paul Lentrichia, and I created a small, short-lived sci-fi magazine. We made the grand total of nothing off that venture, but had the great experience of working together to do something unique. I credit Paul for getting me started down this path many years later and, though we have drifted apart, he remains in my thoughts and very fond memories.

Visions of the future have always been exciting to me, and the more dystopian the better. Seeing a world gone horrendously bad and the consequences to people of that were always exciting because they were so far from my reality. So, Mad Max , and movies of that type are great favorites. Well, now, those futures seem to be becoming  more and more the reality. So, while he is the anti-hero in our reality from my perspective, I credit our current President with giving these truly frightening futures a realistic chance of coming to life. I'm saddened by this and the future we're leaving for our children and grandchildren. My only hope is that there is a resolution to the path we're on unlike what I write about here.

The good people who strive, day in and day out, to keep us healthy and safe are heroes that deserve the greatest thanks. Through their sacrifices, leadership and inspiring behavior they give me hope for our country and our world.

Classical music is one of my great loves, along with Rock music from Natalie Merchant and First Aid Kit (among others). Ludwig van Beethoven provided inspiration for the middle section of this book. During the middle period of his life he struggled with growing deafness, but it was during this period that he wrote some of his most memorable music. I borrow from this middle period for a part of the book. He provides the inspiration, but I am responsible fully for the content.

Over the years I have been very lucky to have a number of very good friends and mentors who graced me with their time and attention. I cannot hope to list them all here, but do want to thank, particularly (in alphabetic order): Frani Bickart; Fernando Blanco; Lauren Bui; Alejandro Canavati; Jesus Diaz; Patricio Donoso; Jane Feld; Dr. Horacio Garza; Lynn Gibson; Drs. John and Myra Gillean and their children, Sara and Sean; Mavis Girlinghouse; Dr. Felippe Heusser; Stanley Hupfeld; Larry Jobe; Eugene Laska, Ph.D.; Dr. Nathan Kline; Jon Manis; Robert McDonald, Ph.D.; Randy Osteen; Jeff Puckett; Ernie Sadau; Randy Safady; Dr. Ignacio Sanchez; Lois Stack, Ph.D.; Dr. Jeannette Vega; Sal Vitale; Mona and Stephen Wright and their wonderful children, Kayla, Nathan and Jamie; and all of the wonderful people with whom I've had the chance to work in my various roles at various times. All of these folks have provided thoughtful inspiration to me over the years. A thank you is not enough to say to those who've been great leaders and mentors and so patient with me.

Last, two writers have provided fact-based inspiration for parts of what follows. While unnamed in the story they will not be unnamed here: Brian Greene and Katie Mack are two exceptional writers and scientists who make physics, astronomy and cosmology accessible to all. Their views on the beginning and ending of everything are frightening, exciting and, in the end, hopeful.

George Conklin

Fairhope, Alabama

August 2020

Part 1: Stage Setting

Licensed by Adobe Stock, 2020

1

Times and Things Changed for Morning Glory

Morning Glory Wilson was 14 years old when this story starts. She's an orphan and lives in what had before been called Bon Secour in what had once been called Alabama. That was before the Civil War that ended most things, including the lives of Morning Glory’s parents who just disappeared one day, never to return. Now, she lived with a gang of youths who banded together to protect themselves from the larger bands of youths and adults who preyed on them.

Bon Secour, before the War, had been one of several eclectic communities in that part of Alabama. With the War though, all of that was gone. As during the Civil War back in the 1860’s, the North, in this war, pounded the coast of Alabama from ships in Mobile Bay and virtually obliterated everything. In the years that followed the War, climate change ravaged the coastal areas of Alabama as well as all of the US. Mobile at about 5 feet above sea-level was pretty much underwater; a few fragments of bombed out buildings could still be seen above the Gulf that had cascaded in over the last several years.

The east coast of Mobile Bay had fared somewhat better, being more than 100 feet above sea-level, but even there, because of significant inland flooding what had used to be dry lowlands was now wetland. Communities like Fairhope, Montrose and Daphne, after the war, did what they felt was right and walled themselves in, keeping people from elsewhere out – for the most part.

So, Moonflower, as Morning Glory was called by her friends, lived off the land, foraging and stealing from smaller communities mostly at night and keeping their heads down as well as they could. They lived on a small island in what had become a large swamp that Bon Secour now was, in, what was for all intents and purposes, a barrio. Most of the homes, if you wanted to call them that, were shacks. A few were metal, most were cardboard and the truly lucky lived in the remains of cars or trucks. Many of the people, Moonflower included, had no permanent place to live, so she slept where she could, usually ending up in a tree or in some bushes.

Her best friend called herself Chirp. Moonflower had no idea if she had or ever had another name; she didn't as well. She was, maybe, 9 years old, and had been born at the end of the conflagration that had ended the United States. Like Moonflower, she also had probably not had a bath since the war ended. Both were shaggy-haired and filthy. Their only clothes were what was on their backs and these were beginning to move to beyond end-of-life. They smelled like the swamp around them and the fires they kept going all day for cooking and to keep bad animals away.

Smoke and haze from still-burning Texas oil fields and chemical plants hung in the air and the sun could barely be seen through it. The toxic brew was likely killing them all, but that was the least of their worries, they felt.

After the war and when the North had retreated to their homes, leaving the southern states to try to rebuild on their own (this time), criminal elements took over running most of the communities. For instance, their area was run by the Kingdom Identity Ministries, out of Arkansas. They were a group of very violent white supremacists who saw an opportunity with the war to expand their territory and they did with a vengeance. Moonflower and her friends saw some of them from time to time as they visited their flocks in far southern Alabama. They saw frequent evidence of the Identity Ministry attacks on communities like Bon Secour to capture women and to make others slaves.

Further west, in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, the Mexicans had moved back in to take over lands they had previously owned. They had wanted California, but California was firmly part of the North and so wasn't a candidate for takeover without causing a war with the still-powerful North.

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Moonflower and Chirp were sleeping in a tree outside of Bon Secour, so they were likely among the first to hear the roar of the motorcycles coming down the remains of County Road 49 toward the barrio. Chirp wanted to go and warn their friends, but Moonflower restrained her. She knew there was no way they could get there and to safety by the time the riders reached the community. They watched what happened.

The first riders moved into the barrio, running through fires and over any people who stepped out of their shacks to see what was going on. They quickly rounded up the inhabitants and brought them to the center of the community. Women and girls were separated from the boys and men. Several of the riders walked among the boys and men and culled a few of them out to go stand with the women and girls.

They then shot down all the boys and men remaining.

Turning to the others, the leader said to them, This is your lucky day. You’re going to be taken from here and to our compound where we’ll clean you up and give you new lives in our community. You’ll have food, a real bed to sleep on and productive work with us. Several of his men laughed.

As your slaves, right? said one of the women.

The leader looked at one of his men and he walked over to the woman and shot her in the head.

Any other questions? said the leader.

About this time, several trucks drove up and they loaded the people into them and then drove off.

That could have been us, Chirp, said Moonflower.

It still could be if you’re not really quiet, said a voice down below them on the ground.

Startled, Moonflower looked down and said, Who’s there?

Just shut up and get down here, said the voice.

Not a prayer of that, whoever you are, said Moonflower.

OK. I’ll just leave you two to those guys over there who were left behind to see if there were any of you hiding in the swamp. They could hear him start to move away and saw what he meant by the men that were left behind to search for any people they'd missed.

Wait, we’re coming, said Moonflower.

They climbed out of the tree and walked toward where they had heard the voice. They still couldn’t see the man who'd spoken to them. A few feet into the brush an arm came up and wrapped itself around Moonflower’s waist and pulled her down into the mud. He put a hand over her mouth.

"Not a sound.

You too, kid. Get down here.

Chirp went down on the ground with the man and Moonflower.

I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. Don’t make a sound and follow me. OK?

Moonflower nodded yes and they crawled further back into the swamp. When they had gone about a quarter mile and were doggy paddling through brackish, stinking water, he stood up and, motioning them to keep quiet, started to walk silently through the water. They followed.

Another quarter of a mile or so into the swamp, they came to a pirogue tied to a tree. Again, he gestured at them to be quiet and to get into the boat. He handed Moonflower a paddle and took another himself. He positioned himself at the stern of the boat and they paddled off into the swamp for several hours.

The further they got into it, the worse the stink from the water. Every dead thing in the world seemed to have given up the ghost there and was rotting. Not everything in the water was dead, though. Every now and then Moonflower would see the head of a cottonmouth and she thought she saw an alligator or two as well and maybe a coral snake, but she wasn’t sure about that.

Eventually, they saw a bog hummock in the near distance. The man steered them around the hummock to a small, very rickety dock that had two other pirogues tied up to it. He steered in and said, Grab the rope in the bow up there and tie us off. Help your friend get to shore. The dock can be a little finnicky, so be careful. You don’t want to end up in the water.

Moonflower looked down and saw the large body of an alligator floating just below the bottom of the boat.

That’s Snatch. You got to be real careful around him ‘cause he'll snatch you up, the man said with a laugh. Welcome to île du Diable, our home. He laughed again and walked up a trail toward the central part of the hummock.

They followed.

Up the trail, maybe 50 yards or more they came to a camp that consisted of a cabin, a few old camp wall tents and several large fire pits, with low burning fires in them and large iron pots over them. There were about a dozen people sitting around the camp on camp chairs and logs who looked up at the girls when they came into the camp. A tall woman stood up, walked to a fire and filled three bowls with something from the pot and handed them and some spoons to the man, Chirp and Moonflower.

Sit down and eat, she said not unkindly, You've got to be very tired.

She walked away and sat back down next to a man who could have been the twin of the man who’d rescued them. It turns out he was.

My name’s Luca Hebert, said the man that had rescued them and that's my brother Bernard. The woman who just gave you the gator stew is Bernard’s wife, Jacinthe."

My name’s Morning Glory Wilson and this is my friend Chirp. She’s never told me her real name. My friends call me Moonflower.

Ah, a special kind of Morning Glory, said Jacinthe, I like that.

Moonflower and Chirp moved to sit down next to the fire near Bernard and Jacinthe and started to eat the stew. It was very good. As night fell, they talked, and the girls were introduced to everyone else in the camp. All were Cajuns who had migrated over from Louisiana when their lands there flooded. While coastal Alabama was not like their lands it was enough like it that they set up camp there in the swamp.

Moonflower asked Luca at one point, Why do you call this île du Diable, Devil’s Island?

You know some French, little girl?

Un peu. J'étais à l'école avant la guerre. Mais pas de cajun ni de créole, said Moonflower. A little. I was in school before the war. But no Cajun or Creole ,

Fille drôle. Je vous aime bien. Vous et votre ami venez dormir chez moi ce soir avec Bernard, Jacinthe et moi. "Funny girl. I like you. You and your friend come and sleep at my place tonight with Bernard, Jacinthe and me. "

I’m not sure mister. We may want to stay out here until we feel safer, said Moonflower.

Suit yourself, but there'll be no place indoors other than with us and it gets damned buggy out here.

After everyone went to bed, the girls didn’t last long outside. The mosquitoes were as big as hornets and then there were some other bugs that were uglier and scarier. Chirp went in first and then Moonflower who felt she had to hold out for pride’s sake, that is until a large snake, almost six feet long, slithered through the camp; she went inside as well.

Luca was sitting at a table reading when she came in. He'd washed up and changed out of his muddy clothes into a tee shirt and pair of shorts. He was wearing an old pair of glasses that he pushed up into his tangle of brown hair when she came in.

Got tired of being the last man standing, petite fille? he asked with a smile on his face.

No. Chirp got a little scared by the bugs and said she was coming in, so I decided to come in myself.

Ah. I see. By the way, who gave you the name Moonflower? Luca asked.

I took it, 'cause it’s easier to say than Morning Glory, means the same thing, I've been kind of a night-time person in the last few years and makes me sound like I’m headed for big things of some kind. Why do you ask?

You’re not just destined for big things, Moonflower, you’re a smart-ass as well.

Moonflower smiled to herself and said to herself that she liked this guy. But she wasn't ready to trust him even though he had likely saved their lives.

I never got an answer to my question before. Why do you call this place Devil’s Island? Is it a prison?

Ha! When you’re here for a while, you’ll see why. It never gets too cool and feels like we're living in Hell. I’m going to go to sleep. Chirp is over in the corner on a mattress. Feel free to bed down with her. See you in the morning.

2

île du Diable

The next morning, Moonflower and Chirp awakened before the others. They went out to the fires and got them re-started and set some pots of water to boil. Not knowing where the food was, there was little more that they could do until someone else got up. It wasn’t long, though, before Luca came out of the cabin. He walked over to them.

Good morning and thanks for starting the fires.

We’d have done more if we knew where your food was stored, said Moonflower.

Come here and I’ll show you where it is and around a bit.

They walked down the trail opposite the way they had entered from the dock, deeper into the hummock.

Over there is the larry, he said, You know what that is, right?

Yes, said Moonflower and said to herself, I wasn’t born yesterday.

You’re pretty transparent, petite fille. Don’t like to be lectured, do you? Let’s do this. I’ll simply say what’s what and you ask questions if you need to. Otherwise, I assume you know what I am talking about. OK? said Luca.

Yes, and I don’t mean to be a smart-ass, Luca. It’s just part of the package.

They both smiled and he ruffled his hand over the top of her head. Good God! When did you last have a bath? Your hair is like rusty barbed wire. We’ll fix that with both of you and get you some new clothes too. Those are only good for rags. And, maybe not even for that. I’ll talk to Jacinthe when we get back and she and Bernard are awake.

Stopping in front of what looked like an old trailer, up on blocks, he walked over and opened the locked door with a key that was hanging outside the door.

This is where we have our main stores. Clothing, food, water purification and weapons. The weapons are in a locked area at the back of the trailer. Only Bernard and I have keys for that area. Let’s find you some clothes.

They searched around for a few minutes and then picked out some tee-shirts and pants for each of them. Don’t put anything on until we get you both cleaned up and de-loused.

And you call me a smart-ass, said Moonflower.

Come here, he said. She reluctantly walked over to him and he ran his hands through her hair. Among the filth in it, she saw things crawling around. Lice or some other vermin, he said, Not a smart-ass. Well only a little. And he cuffed her on the back of her head. Let’s grab some food for breakfast and head back to camp.

Can we see the weapons? asked Moonflower.

He stopped and looked at her carefully. OK, he said hesitantly, and they walked toward the back of the trailer. At a large, heavy metal door he pulled out a key that was hanging on a chain around his neck and unlocked a large padlock. He opened the door and electric lights came on overhead.

We've solar panels on the roof and batteries back here that will give us light for a few days if we ever were to need it. We haven’t so far, but you never know. I suppose I ought to show you this as well.

He lifted a portion of the trailer floor and showed them the entrance to a small tunnel, big enough to crawl through. An escape route if we ever need to run. This leads out into the hummock and comes out near another dock where we have more boats hidden. Anyway, here are the guns. And he rolled a sliding door to reveal many weapons and much ammunition."

Holy shit. Where did you get all of this?

"Bernard and I used to be officers in the Louisiana National Guard. When things fell apart, we and a couple of the other guys, raided the armory at our Post and brought it here in this trailer. Quite a bear to get it onto île du Diable, I have to tell you.

A couple of the folks here are a bit religious, so you should watch your language. OK?

Sure, and thanks for showing us this. I’d like to learn how to protect myself and Chirp. Could you help me on that?

"Sad you have to do that at your age, but you’re dead if you don’t know how to protect yourself and to survive. I’ll train you both.

Let’s get back with some food.

They selected food for breakfast and brought it back to the camp where everyone seemed to be getting up. Chirp and Moonflower volunteered to cook breakfast.

Not before we get you both cleaned up, said Jacinthe, Come with me.

They walked behind the cabin and found two large old metal bathtubs sitting up over small fires. The water was steaming.

Take off those clothes and get into the water. We smelled you both last night and saw bugs on your mattress this morning, so, I’m afraid that I'm going to have to cut off a lot of your hair and then we’ll wash you up with medicated soap to kill anything that remains.

Both the girls looked at each other and Moonflower said, I’ve not been naked in years and I don’t know that I've ever seen Chirp naked. It’ll be embarrassing to us.

Jacinthe smiled and said, "One response to that is ‘Get over it’. The other ends up at the same place, but it starts off a lot kinder. I’ll go with that one. I understand completely your shyness, especially at your age, Moonflower. But don’t worry, it’ll only be the three of us and I won’t talk about a thing. Especially you, Moonflower, you’ll need another