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Post by bretf on Jun 11, 2022 6:11:38 GMT -6
Chapter 17
General Brown paused before stepping into his office. “Get me Admiral Wilson on the line,” he said to his aide and closed the door behind him. He sat at his desk and stared at the phone. Admiral Mack Wilson was the commander of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
“Sir, the admiral is on,” the aide said through the phone’s speaker. Brown closed his eyes and rubbed his temples before he picked up the receiver and acknowledged Admiral Wilson.
“General, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Wilson asked.
“It’s not a pleasure call, Admiral.” In detail, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described the recent meetings of the National Security Council, his comments in regard to the boil that was Syria, and the President's decision. “We’re certain the Russians won’t be happy, but the big question is how will they react? Will this give them the impetus to do what they never did in the past, though we know they wanted to? The President is concerned they will, and we won’t have time for standard protocol. She is releasing control to you; authorization will follow our conversation. If they retaliate, you’ll need to react with everything we have without delay.
“And one more thing for you to consider Mack, and it isn’t official. It’s between you and me. China is poised to seize Taiwan, and North Korea is ready to go into the South. If the Russians hit us hard, I don’t know that we could do anything for Taiwan, but we sure could remove one more boil off our ass in Pyongyang. Give it some thought.”
#
Sergei Bubka sat on the rooftop of the tallest building in the compound where he’d spent most of a year and soaked up the last warm sunshine of the day. He lit another cigarette and looked out across the landscape. It was so much more open than in Russia, and from his vantage point, he could see farther than he would’ve imagined possible. The sun’s sharp angle enhanced the surrounding features. It was his favorite time of day to go to the roof.
He went to the rooftop daily to enjoy the warmth and the view, and have a smoke or two. It was the only positive thing about the arrangement; at least it was warm. At times it was down-right hot, other times cold, but he didn’t mind. What he did mind was the feeling of entrapment. He was surrounded by sour-faced men who glowered each time they looked at him. Their glares were especially fierce after they finished their prayers. His mother used to pray, but nothing like these people. These zealots were on their knees five times a day. His knees hurt to watch them.
Everything they’d promised him; the money, the home on the beach with lapping waves of warm water, the freedom; he hadn’t seen any of it. He was their prisoner, having made the mistake of giving them what they wanted before they made good on any of their promises. The least they could do was give him vodka, he reasoned, but they wouldn’t even allow that, the rotten zealots.
Six feet away, a guard drew on his own cigarette and tossed it away. Bubka had decided the guards didn’t watch him but watched for threats to the compound from outside. Not that they’d hesitate to shoot him if he tried to run. He was certain of it.
The rooftop was lined with sandbags and had a large gun mounted on a tripod behind them. Bubka assumed it was a machine gun, but he didn’t know weapons at all. Other weapons were there also, and boxes of ammunition. He didn’t understand any of it, nor did he try. He knew he’d be killed easily with any of the weapons if he chose to run, so he stayed, smoked, and soaked up the sunshine.
Bubka stood and took a final drag on the cigarette, and tossed it off the roof. He stretched, looking to the south one last time before he’d take the long staircase down and go back to his quarters. An intense bright light appeared out of nowhere. It was like he’d looked directly at the sun, the light was so bright. Pain seared through his eyes, and he raised his hands to cover them. The pain remained, and Bubka fought to open his eyelids despite it. The world was black. No light showed behind his cupped hands. He lowered his hands and the world remained dark. Panic flashed through his brain. What’d happened? What was that light, and why couldn’t he see?
He stumbled in the direction he thought the stairs were located. The guard shouted in Arabic, but Bubka continued to stumble and winced when his arm was grasped by a powerful hand as his foot hit a sandbag. The strong grip yanked him backward and off-balance. Bubka and the guard were knocked off the rooftop a moment later when the shockwave hit.
Bubka lay where he fell, his body twisted in an unnatural angle. His brain registered pain everywhere, and neither arm would work right, nor would his legs. He tried to move and the pain intensified and he shrieked. The pain and blindness ended moments later in another intense flash within yards of where he lay.
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Post by bretf on Jun 11, 2022 6:12:16 GMT -6
Chapter 18
It was twelve hours after receiving the notice before the pickup truck pulled to a stop in front of the farmhouse. Frank Jeffries got out of the passenger side and fought off exhaustion as he forced one foot in front of the other. His crews were overwhelmed with casualties with little time for rest. The ring isolation method had failed in the immediate area, damn that Sean Jackson for not staying home. The people he’d contacted at the bar made it bad enough, but throw in a packed gymnasium, and it was impossible to track everyone down. Actually, reports said it was failing everywhere and the pandemic was raging out of control.
The blue-suited driver joined him at the back of the pickup and they pulled a gurney out, ducked under the quarantine tape across the driveway, and headed for the house. A boy stepped out of the house and stared at the gurney as two girls huddled together behind the screen door. “Do you have to take him?” he asked. “My dad was hoping he could be laid to rest here.”
Jeffries looked at him numbly. He couldn’t arrange a special burial on top of everything else. He wanted to load the body and get to the next victim they had to pick up. And the next, and the next. He tried not to think of the victims they’d never know about, the ones who died alone, or everyone in a house died without sending a notice. It was going to be a mess that could never be cleaned up. Those houses would need to be burned to try to prevent the disease from spreading further. If anyone was left to burn the houses anyway. He looked through bleary eyes at the boy and said, “I’m sorry, but we need to take him. Can you stand aside and let us in please?”
The boy’s face showed disappointment and he said, “All right, but he’s not in the house. He’s out in the shop. I’ll show you.”
Jeffries thought it odd the effort had been made to move the body out of the house. It wasn’t as if the rest of the family wasn’t exposed but to each his own. Since the whole mess started he’d seen too much odd behavior. But he didn’t want to puzzle over it, just pick up the body and leave. He and his partner followed the boy to the backyard.
The boy pointed at the shop and said, “He’s in there.” He went to the back door of the house and watched. The girls had walked through the house and stared out the back window.
Jefferies was surprised when he stepped into the shop. The room looked cozy, with the cots, the camping equipment, supplies, and wood stove. A flushed woman sat in one chair. A second chair was occupied by a man with heavily pockmarked features who stared at him.
Then Jeffries understood; the man hadn’t died in the house; the family had isolated the infection in the shop. It made good sense to him. The man was flushed, unshaven, and squinted his eyes because of the pox around each eye. A hint of recognition came to Jeffries, a feeling he should know the man, but he couldn’t make the connection. They wheeled the gurney between the two cots and lowered it.
The man stood unsteadily and stared at him, and rasped, “So, I guess we can’t bury him here, huh?”
“I’m sorry sir. We don’t have the manpower or equipment to do that. We need to take him with us.” Jeffries positioned himself at the head of the bed, the other man at the foot, and they shifted the victim to the gurney and covered him. They raised the gurney to an easier height to maneuver, and Jeffries turned back to the pock-covered man. “Sir, I don’t mean to be callous at a time like this, but, well, if you survive, you should burn your bed and this other one.”
The man gave a slight nod and reached out an unsteady hand to stop Jeffries from taking the gurney away. “Just a moment, please?” he said. He pulled the blanket back from the victim’s face and looked at him one last time while he gripped his cold, stiff hand. The woman walked up behind him and placed a supportive hand on his shoulder. “Goodbye, brother,” he murmured and stepped back.
Jeffries spread the blanket back over the victim’s face, gave a nod to the man at the other end of the gurney, and they rolled it out the door. He felt the other man’s eyes on his back until they rounded the corner of the house.
The boy stood near the pickup when they rolled the gurney up. “Son, you need to step back,” Jeffries said.
The boy eased back a few steps. “Sir, I was wondering if you had any contamination suits you could give out. Not like the one you wear, but I saw video clips on the internet with people wearing suits that looked disposable.”
The gurney was at the back of the pickup and the men moved to the sides to lift it. “And why would you want one of those?” Jeffries asked.
“Because my dad is really sick, and my mom started feeling sick today. They’re staying in the shop. I might have to go in and take care of them, but I’m taking care of my little sisters and I don’t want to spread it to them. I mean after Matt,” he pointed towards the gurney, “They might need me to help them.”
Jeffries helped set the gurney in the pickup, turned, and studied the innocent, earnest face of the boy before him. Recognition dawned on him. The boy was the younger version of the man who’d made such an impression on him the first day he’d been involved with the isolation team. That was why the sick man in the shop looked familiar. “Sure, son, I’ve got a box of suits on the seat that are better than the disposables. I’ll set one out. But my gloves could contaminate it, so I'll wipe it down for you. I’ll put a box of wipes with it that are supposed to kill the virus so you can clean it up if you use it. Let’s hope you never do.” Jeffries wiped his gloves down before touching the suit and set the items on the ground. He hoped the information was true, that the wipes would work against the virus. He’d had his fill of bodies and didn’t want to see the boy or his sisters catch it. And he didn’t want to return for the boy’s parents.
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Post by CountryGuy on Jun 11, 2022 7:46:20 GMT -6
More great installments. Being totally serious, I could see this being turned into a movie for TV or big screen. Your story telling and putting in the feelings of the moment are exemplary.
Can't wait to see where it goes. But please, take your time and maintain the quality.
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Post by imahic on Jun 12, 2022 17:54:51 GMT -6
Great story. Even though the current situation in our country with the pandemic is a little different I can't help but feel it was a deliberate act by the Communist Chinese government. And it doesn't help that Fauci and his cronies helped finance it.
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Post by iamnobody on Jun 13, 2022 10:06:39 GMT -6
Sadly, I could see this as a future newspaper headline.
And in my lowly opinion, it would be a 50/50 possibility of from an outside source or from TPTB inside our own country.
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Post by bretf on Jun 14, 2022 6:38:29 GMT -6
Thanks for the comments!
Chapter 19
The statement by the President was short and to the point. She laid out the evidence tying the pandemic to Syria and gave an overview of the results of the virus being unleashed on the world. She verbally painted a bleak picture of the United States and the rest of the world following the viral attack. That was followed by confirmation of the United States’ response to the unprovoked attack, that yes, they had deployed nuclear weapons against Syria. She concluded the brief address with a strong warning. She made it clear that although the country was weakened by the epidemic, they were prepared to react with previously unseen force if faced with further hostilities. The retaliation against Syria was only a small demonstration of their capabilities.
Miller stood to the side and watched while the statement was recorded. He thought the President acted like a person with nothing left to lose, and everyone knew how dangerous those people could be. He wondered if it would’ve been different if Johnny and his family hadn’t died, but they’d never know the answer to that question.
As was to be expected, the statement and the retaliation against Syria created outrage in Muslim countries but was praised in others. The epidemic had spread worldwide and no country was unaffected by the virus, resulting in far more fury expressed than sympathy for the Syrians. Commerce was at a standstill everywhere, and health facilities were overrun. Chaos reigned amidst reports of several governments being toppled. Overall, outrage was the predominate reaction toward the terrorists who had unleashed the plague upon the world.
Russia did not condemn the bombing nor cheer it. In fact, the Russian government was silent. CIA operatives in Moscow could only confirm private meetings were taking place. No information was leaked by those attending. The silence was deafening.
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Post by bretf on Jun 14, 2022 6:39:01 GMT -6
Chapter 20
Heather spent the rest of the day on the internet, learning everything she could. When the news of the action against Syria flashed on the screen, she stared at it, dumbstruck. “No stinking way!” she told the monitor. No other words could form as she read the accounts. She was so engaged in the story she had to be called for dinner three times.
When working, her research occupied her so completely, she tended to skip meals and let the house go. At the urging of friends and Lisa, she’d hired a caretaker couple to alleviate those needs. Kate and Rudy took care of the house and kept her fed in exchange for their own meals and housing. It worked well for all three of them.
Heather sat at the table, and once her plate was filled, she played with the food, hardly eating. “I’m going on a trip tomorrow,” she announced.
Kate looked shocked and asked, “Why, what’s happened? You never leave when you’re working. It’s hard enough to get you to stop to eat.”
Heather related Lisa’s call, and what she’d learned on the web. “So I’m going to stay with the kids until Lisa is better. As soon as she and Dan are past the contagious stage, I’m bringing the whole family back here. And Rudy, it sounds like people have fled the cities in droves. You should carry a gun at all times and be ready to keep people away. Anyone could be carrying the disease. I’m surprised we haven’t seen refugees already. I suppose our isolation is the only thing that’s saved us so far. Although, I honestly don’t know why anyone in their right mind would come out here,” she said.
Heather’s home was seven miles from the nearest paved road and it was another thirty miles to a town. A number of buildings, a post office, and one business were scattered about where her gravel road met the pavement. It even rated a name on the map, but she didn’t consider it a town. If you couldn’t sit down to a beer and sandwich or attend church, it wasn’t a town. In her opinion a real town didn’t need both, but, had to have one or the other, and her flyspeck on the highway had neither.
Not only the paved road was miles away, but the grid was as well. The power and phone lines didn’t extend beyond the highway, and the population in the area was too low to justify a cell tower. Heather’s electricity came from solar panels and a propane powered generator. Her phone and internet were from satellites. A spring provided the home with fresh water.
Kate and Rudy tried to dissuade Heather from leaving, but nothing would change her mind. Her sister and family needed help, and no way was she was going to wait around. She spent the remainder of the evening gathering up what she needed to take with her.
Heather gave her Jeep Wrangler a quick check, topped off the gas tank from her bulk tank, and checked her gear. She always kept the vehicle equipped for spending a few days away from home. When she’d first moved to the area, she found out the hard way about the mud on the unmaintained dirt roads in the backcountry. One memorable hike of twelve miles to a ranch house after spending the night in the car had been enough for her. After the rancher dragged the Jeep out of the mud bog, she’d taken his advice on what to carry and had used it on more than one occasion. Besides a bag with camping gear and supplies, the car carried a well-stocked toolbox, tire chains, spare gas can, a high-lift jack and a winch.
After she was finished with the Jeep, she went back to her bedroom. She opened the safe and took out her AR-15, a bundle of magazines, and ammo. Regretfully, she didn’t have a pistol. Despite the area’s sparse population, hers had been stolen from the Jeep, and it’d been her intention to get one on her next trip to town. “Oh well, hindsight shows his head again,” she murmured.
She cleaned the rifle and filled the magazines, putting them in her vest pouches, and set the rifle and vest with her bag. She’d rarely fired a gun since she’d gotten out of the army but was steeling herself to the idea things could change soon.
When everything was ready, she taxed her brain for anything she’d missed. Only one thing came to mind, and she resisted it. She hadn’t prayed for a very long time but decided if there was ever an appropriate time, she was facing it. How would God take it after not hearing from her for so long? Her prayer was short, asking for the well-being of her family and safe travel to reach them. She finished it with the request that no one get in her way on the trip because she didn’t want to have to shoot someone.
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Post by bretf on Jun 14, 2022 6:41:15 GMT -6
Chapter 21
Chad stood in front of the open refrigerator and puzzled over what to make for breakfast. It had to be something the girls liked, but simple enough he wouldn’t mess up. He’d done alright the past few days, but their mom had been in the house then. Things had changed.
Their mom was in the shop, and talking to her on the radio wasn't the same. And although she said he could reach out to her if he needed anything, he didn’t want to disturb her or let the girls disturb her either. So he’d better get it right. His sisters wouldn’t forgive him anytime soon if he messed up, and they might run for the shop and Mom if he messed up too much. He couldn't let that happen. It was his responsibility to keep them safe.
He made his decision. Boiled eggs and toast would be the thing, oh, and bacon too. Everything was better with bacon. But he had to be careful not to burn it. He remembered once when his mom had the bacon started and went to do something else. It filled the house with smoke and stunk it up when she took too long. He couldn’t allow the same thing to happen to him. If anything else needed his attention, he’d have to turn the burner off, regardless of the extra time it’d take to cook. He got everything out and started the eggs and the bacon.
The aroma of cooking bacon filled the house when Brooke emerged from her bedroom rubbing her sleepy eyes. She looked around the kitchen in confusion before she remembered their mom was in the shop. She walked to the stove and wrapped her small arms around Chad and edged him towards the living room with its inviting couch. It was something she’d done the past few days.
After their dad got sick, Brooke needed snuggle time when she got up, so Chad filled that role as well. He started for the couch with her and they were sitting down when he remembered the bacon.
“Just a minute Brooke,” he said, and went back to turn the pan off, mentally berating himself for almost forgetting. That wouldn’t do; he’d have to do better if he didn't want to burn the house down. He got a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach at the thought of all the responsibility on his shoulders.
Chad sat on the couch and Brooke snuggled in against him. He put his arm around her and held her tight. It was nice sitting with his sister, but he longed for his parents. He could use a hug or a pat on the back himself. He’d had no idea how important those were when his parents gave them, or how much he’d miss them when he didn’t get them anymore. Brushing at his cheek with his free hand, he hoped Brooke wouldn’t look at his face.
The two of them were still snuggled together when Alison came out of the bedroom. “Yum, Chad, you’re cooking bacon. Is it ready? 'Cause I’m ready to eat it. I’m really hungry,” she said. She was a sharp contrast to her sister, getting out of bed wide awake and ready to go.
“No, it’s not ready yet. What do you think Brooke, should we finish making breakfast?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m hungry too,” she said.
Chad extricated himself from her and stood. “Do you guys want to help? It sure would go easier if you do.”
“If it means we can eat sooner, we’ll help, won’t we Brooke,” Alison said.
While not as enthused as her sister, Brooke nodded her head, stood, and followed along to the kitchen. As if on cue, the timer went off, indicating the eggs had cooked long enough. “I’ll drain the hot water off the eggs and one of you can put cold water in the pan with them,” Chad said.
With that done, he started the burner under the frying pan and set out mugs and chocolate mix, got the toaster out, and set it on the counter. At his direction, the girls put cocoa in the mugs and bread in the toaster. Chad didn’t mention the chocolate spilled on the counter. He was glad they were willing to help. With a pang, he remembered messes he’d made while he ‘helped’ his dad on projects. He had a greater appreciation for his dad’s patience as he watched his sisters.
Chad poured hot water from the teapot into the mugs of cocoa mix. “Now can one of you refill the teapot and put it back on the stove. After I turn the bacon, I’ll pour the milk and you can put the cups on the table,” he said. The twins did as they were told, and without being asked, set the table, got the butter and jam out, and stirred the mugs of cocoa. The whole time Chad kept his mind focused on the bacon; he really didn’t want to scorch it.
When they sat down to eat, Chad praised the girls for their help. He knew things wouldn’t always go smoothly, but if he kept them involved, it would beat arguing with them.
A lot of work needed to be done and they’d always liked to be outside working with their parents, so maybe . . . “Can you help me outside today? I sure could use your help. And we can read one of your books when we take a break,” he said.
#
The sun was peaking over the horizon as Heather drove down the gravel road as fast as conditions would allow. She made good time; the county kept the road well maintained, had kept it maintained, she decided. With the plague sweeping the nation, it would be the end of road maintenance. And bird studies too, for that matter. It was just as well Lisa called her; she didn’t need to complete her paper now. She thought wryly that because of the plague, the birds might stand a chance to make a comeback. She hoped they would.
In the area she worked, wildlife biologists were grouped in with the tree-hugger ilk, but Heather did her best to be different, trying hard to befriend all the farmers and ranchers and fit in. She wasn’t at all like the self-proclaimed “eco-warriors”. It so happened she liked open spaces and solitude a lot more than she liked the detestable cities with all those people packed together.
Before she left the army and enrolled in college, she’d done careful research into occupations that’d allow her to work in the open, away from the congestion of too many people and too damn much concrete. Once she landed her current job, she couldn’t have been happier with her choice.
Her mind jumped to the plague. Yes, she knew it was genetically modified smallpox, but it was simpler to consider it the plague after what she’d read. The way it spread and was wreaked havoc was reminiscent of accounts of the Black Plague that swept through Europe in the Middle Ages.
What was happening was tragic, but she didn’t dwell on the lost lives. She was only concerned with one family that’d contracted it, and it made her fume. She seethed that after all the time and resources spent in the Middle East – her own time notwithstanding - they were no closer to peace in that wretched region than ever. And now those bastards had pulled off this crap. That part of the world had never known peace, and she didn’t think it ever would. Well, maybe part of Syria would be peaceful for a while. But the rest of the wretched region wouldn’t; the people weren’t wired for it.
The buildings clustered at the intersection where her gravel road met the state highway came into view and she slowed, scanning the area for signs of life and possible trouble. No one was visible at the early hour; she made the turn onto the blacktop and floored the gas pedal. Cops won’t be out watching for speeders, will they, she asked herself. Her Jeep was the only car on the highway as she sped towards Johnsonville, thirty miles away.
Heather slowed on the long straightaway leading into the town when she saw something in the road ahead. It looked to be near the state highway maintenance facility. She slowed more and wondered if the equipment had broken down. Her tires screeched on the pavement when she recognized what it was stomped on the brake pedal. Highway department dump trucks were parked end to end from fence row to fence row, effectively blocking the highway and the barrow pits on each side. She voiced her frustration, her words in sharp contrast to the words and tone of her prayer the previous evening.
She hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t dump trucks blocking the highway. She picked up her binoculars from the passenger seat and studied the roadblock. She could see three men, all armed with rifles. One appeared to be in a county sheriff’s uniform. Unsure if the officer’s presence was good or bad, she dropped the Wrangler back into gear and approached the roadblock at an idle.
When she was a hundred yards from the trucks, the man in the uniform raised a bullhorn and spoke into it. “DO NOT COME ANY CLOSER. IF YOU DO YOU WILL BE FIRED ON.”
Heather stopped the Jeep and got out slowly, making sure her hands were visible. When she was clear of the car, she yelled to the man, “I only want to drive through town and cross the river. I’ve been back on Reynolds Creek for months and haven’t had contact with anyone. There’s no way I’ve been exposed to the plague.”
“Do you see anyone else with her?” the officer asked in hushed tones. One of the other men had a spotting scope and studied the Jeep carefully.
“No, just her,” he said.
“Keep watching,” the deputy ordered, and stepped out from the truck. “I’m Deputy Douglas, ma’am, with the Sheriff’s Department, and I have to order you to return to your home. The Governor has mandated that everyone stay in place for the duration of the emergency. All travel has been curtailed in order to stop further spread of the disease.”
“But I only want to go straight through town, cross the river and get to my sister’s house at Sand Creek. Her kids are alone,” Heather called back. “I swear there’s no way I’ve got the plague. I won’t stop anywhere; I’ll drive straight through.” From what she’d read the previous day, travel restrictions came too late; the disease had spread far and wide.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but we can’t allow that. We aren’t making exceptions. Now get back in your vehicle, and return to your home.”
She stood and glared at him, shooting daggers with her eyes. At last, she turned back to the car, muttering. “Idiot! More like Deputy Dawg than Deputy Douglas! Give a bumpkin a badge and a gun and he loses every bit of sense he might have once had. It probably wouldn’t do any good to shoot the fool either, there’s bound to be more of his kind in town.” She got in her car, turned it around, and drove back up the highway the way she had come, watching the lunkhead in her rearview mirror.
When the trucks were tiny in the distance, she stopped the Wrangler, got out and dug the tube of topographic maps out of the back seat. She pulled the rolled maps from the tube, located the one for her immediate location and laid it out on the hood of the Jeep. She had to find a way to get across the river. It was wide, with few bridges.
The map showed an unmaintained road running along the river, but she didn’t think it would help. It ran into the city park below the bridge at the edge of town. If the road was blocked where she was, the bridge was undoubtedly blocked. The largest population area in the state was right up the highway on the other side of the river. That would be the town’s biggest chance of exposure, and they had to have it blockaded. She cussed the map, the disease, Deputy Dawg, the Governor and everyone else she could think of.
She took out another map showing a wider area. Studying it confirmed what she knew, but she had to make sure anyway. Each bridge was next to a town, except the one near Boone. That one was a few miles upstream of the town. If the Johnsonville Bridge was inaccessible, chances were high the others next to towns would be as well. There had to be more Deputy Dawgs out guarding them, all well-meaning, but unable to bend a rule. She looked back at the Boone Bridge and calculated how far out of town it was.
Expanding her search, she saw the next bridge was another twenty-five miles or so upstream. She looked the other direction and found the next crossing downstream was at the state border, and of course, a town was nestled around it. The town was small, but the bridge would certainly be blocked and heavily guarded. The Boone Bridge drew her back. It was the only possible crossing she saw. She decided to drive up-river. The big question was if the bridge was far enough out of town to not be guarded.
She put the maps away and started driving, irritated she was going further away from Lisa’s home. She drove slower than before, more alert for trouble. The next town past the road to her home was Bonita. More caution would be needed in that area with the close proximity to the Air Force Base. Security was sure to be high. A long string of cussing directed at the deputy and the terrorists blasted through the car as she drove down the deserted highway.
#
“Good job you two,” Chad told Alison and Brooke as they finished watering the beds in the greenhouse. While they’d done that, he’d watered the trays, with new seedlings. “In another week, these plants will need put in bigger pots or in those beds. I’ll bet with your small hands, you’ll be better at it than me,” he told them.
“I guess, Chad,” Brooke said and dropped the hose. She bent over the raised bed, grasped a carrot and pulled it. “I want a carrot with my sandwich for lunch,” she stated.
Chad had promised grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. He hoped he could get them cooked right. “Pull one for me too, please. Do you want one Ali?” he asked.
“Uh uh, I want two,” she said.
Chad took his pocket knife out, cut the tops off all four carrots and dropped the greens in a bare spot in one of the beds. “Okay, let’s go have lunch,” he said, and they headed for the house. He looked at the shop like he always did. The chimney pipe drew his eye. The smoke that’d been heavy and gray and hardly cleared the top of the pipe had changed. It was lighter and shooting skyward. Their dad or mom had opened the stove draft and put more wood in, so one or both were awake.
“When we get to the house, you guys can talk to Mom a little bit on the radio. After that, you can wash the carrots and set the table,” he said.
Their faces lit up at the prospect, and they hurried to the house, urging Chad to keep up. They rushed to the table and picked up the FRS radio. Alison squeezed the transmit button and spoke softly. “Mom, are you awake . . . Can you talk to us?”
Their mom’s voice soon came over the radio. “I’m here, Baby. Is everything all right?”
Her voice full of excitement at hearing their mom, Alison said, “We’re okay, but we miss you. We helped Chad make breakfast, and then we helped him in the greenhouse.” The girls went on to tell their mom everything Chad had done with them since she’d gone to the shop. At the stove, Chad listened to his mom talk and wished she was making the sandwiches while he told her what he’d done with his dad.
After lunch, with the dishes washed and drying in the rack, Chad had the girls get their copies of Where the Red Fern Grows. One sister sat on each side of him on the couch and took turns reading alternate pages while Chad helped them with any words they had trouble with. It wasn’t long before each girl slumped down on him, asleep. He laid them down carefully and covered each with a blanket.
He looked through the back door window at the shop in hopes of seeing one of his parents. When they didn’t appear, he went to the bookshelf and found The Encyclopedia of Country Living and sat down at the table to look through it. He certainly wouldn’t read the Dickens’ book, not unless he was forced to. Despite how much he detested it though, he’d give anything to have his mom tell him to put the other book away and read what he was assigned. But that wouldn’t happen, and it was time to read a book with useful knowledge. He didn’t look for anything in particular, just ideas for whatever he might face. The possibilities were endless.
#
Heather figuratively turned the air blue with her colorful language as she looked through her binoculars at Bonita. Not only did the bridge leaving town appear to be blocked, but the highway leading into town was blocked as well. A car behind the roadblock was definitely from the sheriff’s department. She mixed in more colorful phrases about hillbilly deputies while she got the topo maps out again. She found roads that would go around the town, a long way around and slugged her seat in frustration. She’d thought even if she ran into problems, it might take up to four hours to get to Lisa’s place, but no more. She hadn’t imagined anything to make the trip take any longer, but her opinion was changed. “Four days might be more like it at the rate I’m going,” she snarled.
She tossed the map for the local area on the front passenger seat and returned the tube of maps to the back. She pulled out a bag of jerky and another with dried fruit and nuts mixed together and topped off her water bottle from the jug in the back. As she chewed on a strip of jerky, she consulted the map one more time and was happy to see a few ranches scattered along the route she planned to take. “Well, maybe the road will be gravel and not mud, but I sure wouldn’t count on it,” she muttered and turned the Wrangler around to backtrack to the gravel road, cussing everything and everyone she could think of.
The road was in fact graveled and she was able to make good time. No movement was seen at the first ranch house she drove past. At the second home, smoke was coming from the chimney and a tractor was pulling away from the haystack, the wagon it towed loaded with hay. The pasture fence was lined with Black Angus cattle watching the tractor. The grizzled man on the tractor looked up and waved at Heather like any other time. “Wow, a bit of normalcy. Maybe he’s like I was and doesn’t know the news. Although I guess the cows need to be fed, regardless,” she said and drove on in a better mood for the next two miles.
Her good mood evaporated in an instant when the gravel ended next to a sign. “ROAD NOT MAINTAINED – DRIVE AT YOUR OWN RISK”.
“GREAT,” she yelled at the sign. “JUST STINKING GREAT!”
#
The girls were refreshed after their nap and ready to help more. They put their coats and hats on and followed along with Chad to do the outside chores. They filled the feeder in the chicken pen, gathered the eggs, and refilled the water dishes.
On the way to the house, Chad asked, “What do you think we should have for supper?”
“I want mashed potatoes,” Brooke said.
“I want corn,” Alison said.
“Why don’t we have both? I took a package of steak out of the freezer early this morning. Both of those will go well with it,” Chad told them.
“Can’t we have hamburgers instead of steak?” Alison asked.
“It wouldn’t thaw in time for tonight, but if we get a package out now it’ll be ready for tomorrow. Now let’s get the potatoes.” Chad led the way to the root cellar and went down the steps. The girls stayed back; they thought the cellar was spooky and only went in when forced to. Chad returned with his coat pockets full of potatoes, and they went to the freezer for the corn and hamburger.
They filled the wood box, the last thing to do outside until it was time to milk. They hung their coats, and the girls took turns watching the shop door while Chad peeled potatoes at the sink.
“Brooke, it’s Mom,” Alison said excitedly a while later.
Brooke ran and stood beside Alison. They watched their mom as she stood at the shop window and gazed at the house. They wanted to run out to her but obeyed Chad when he told them not to.
Chad left the sink and went to a place where he could also see their mom. After studying her, he looked past, hoping to see his dad, but he was nowhere to be seen. As terrible as his dad looked when Chad saw him last, he was frightened at his absence. Then their mom waved to them, a forced smile on her lips, and disappeared deeper into the shop.
Chad heard his sisters sniffle from their vantage point. He walked over to them, and with a catch in his voice said, “Hey you two, turn around. I need a hug.” They turned, and the three of them wrapped in a tight embrace.
#
Heather threw her muddy coveralls onto the passenger side floor, slammed the door and stomped around the back of the Wrangler, and got in. Mud flew as she floored the gas pedal. Her fury raged and brought to life every anecdote relating to her red hair.
She’d wasted the better part of an hour to get through a muddy stretch of road. Two earlier encounters with mud pits hadn’t been as bad. She’d put the tire chains on and plowed through, having to back up and take second and third runs through the ruts she’d created. The last pit, however, was a different story. After numerous times of rocking back and forth, mud flying everywhere, she was stuck in place. She fought into her coveralls, no easy task in the driver’s seat, put her rubber boots on and stepped out into the muck. When she did, every step threatened to suck the boots off her feet.
She scrutinized the fence along the road and found the posts were set deep and firm. When she had the winch cable run out, she wished it was longer. The angle was so sharp she was afraid it would pull her sideways instead of out along the road. After another slow trip through the sucking mud to the back of the Jeep, she got out a thirty-foot chain and hooked it onto the end of the cable. She wrapped the other end around the base of the farthest fence post it would reach. It lessened the angle but still wasn’t ideal. She slogged her way back through the muck and cussed the mud on her boots when she got in her car. She was no clean freak, not by a long shot, but it didn’t mean she liked all the mud on the Jeep’s floor.
With the winch’s remote in hand, she tightened the cable and put the Wrangler into gear. The cable tightened while the wheels spun in place. Instead of the Jeep moving forward, the fence post started to give and the four strands of barbed wire secured to it grew tighter until they resembled strings on a guitar.
“Come on you dirty son of a . . .” she shouted. Concerned the fence wires were going to start snapping, she let off on the winch control just as the Jeep moved forward a hair. She depressed the control again and was gratified when the Jeep began to inch forward at a snail’s pace. Her jaw ached from clenching it by the time the Jeep got enough traction to pull itself free. The countryside echoed with her yell of triumph and curses at the mud bog.
A few miles later, a ranch house was set back from the road, and she whooped when she saw the road leading to it was maintained gravel. She removed the tire chains, relieved she might be able to travel at a decent speed again. The sun behind her made long shadows, and she wondered how the day had flown by so fast. Despite all her effort, she was no closer to Lisa’s place than when she’d started the day. After one more check of the map, gravel flew as she sped away.
The roads she’d taken bypassed Bonita and the town of Boone - at least some people called it a town. Well, she could sit down and have a beer if things were normal, so she decided it was a town, small though it was. And it had a church too, though she’d never been inside it.
Another side road tempted her, but she resisted. A natural hot spring was a few miles up that road, and she’d love to soak a while and clean the rotten, stick to everything mud off. But she couldn’t. She’d have to wait to clean up; she had to get to the other side of that stinking river first.
The highway was deserted when she pulled onto it, the same as it’d been between Johnsonville and Bonita. It gave her an uneasy feeling, dreading what she’d find at the bridge. At the top of a long hill, she stopped, the river and the bridge in the distance. Getting out of the Jeep for a better look, she didn’t like what she saw, not one bit, but raised her binoculars to make sure.
Large flat-bed trailers were parked across the bridge entrance, effectively blocking it to motorized traffic. The highway that led to it from the other side looked like a parking lot. Carloads of people had evidently fled the cities and gotten boxed in. Visible at the place opposite her vantage point, was a pile-up of vehicles that had dropped blind over the hill and plowed into the stopped cars ahead of them. The people in those cars and trucks must’ve been like animals running from a wildfire; a flight in a blind panic, heedless of other hazards.
She shuddered and looked at the bridge again, and as her frustration boiled over, slammed her fist into the roof of her car. Maybe the hot spring would be a good idea after all, to soak the mud off, drink a beer if she only had one, and figure out what to do next. But no, she decided, it wasn’t an option no matter how appealing it was; not at the present time at least.
She had to find a way to get across the rotten river! She studied the bridge and the parking lot behind it. It would be easy enough to cross the bridge on foot, and she could “borrow” a car on the other side, but should she? How did the plague spread? Did it survive in the cars of infected people? A shiver ran up her spine at the thought.
She might be able to find a docked boat she could borrow as well, but again, she’d be on foot and would have to procure another ride. She wasn’t thrilled at the idea. She couldn’t carry all her supplies on her back and she hated the thought of leaving any of it behind. There had to be a way across the cursed river she hadn’t seen. "Think, Heather!" she growled to herself.
She spread the map out across the hood of the Jeep and studied it again, looking for bridges upstream. She saw a few, going further from Lisa’s house, and still with no guarantee she could get across. Maybe she should desert the Jeep. She started looking the other direction and froze when she saw the dam.
The Swan Valley dam, constructed over a hundred years ago, was tiny by modern standards, and it really was in the middle of nowhere. But was it possible it could offer a crossing? She got her laptop out, booted up and linked to the satellite. She thoroughly cussed it for taking so long, and when it was finally connected, pulled up Google Earth. The dam came into view as the picture formed, and she let out a slow breath she didn’t know she was holding. It looked like a dirt road led up to a gate on her side of the river and part of the dam itself resembled a paved road. The big concern was the building across the dam, the old powerhouse. Could a vehicle pass through it? There was only one way to find out. She moved the view to follow the road to the spot where it intersected with the highway.
“Son of a . . . man, I can’t believe this crap,” she fumed. The road she needed was less than a mile from the intersection with the Reynolds Creek Road where she’d started the day.
Thoroughly ticked off at the loss of a full day, she started back the way she’d come. Back towards the same stretch of mud that passed as a road that’d taken so long to get through the first time.
The sun dropped behind the horizon before she left the gravel. The temperature plummeted with the sun. It gave her a bit of hope for getting through if it got cold enough to firm the mud up.
Her thoughts grew fuzzy as she drove, she hadn’t slept well the night before, and it was harder and harder to stay awake. Her eyes widened in recognition and she was nearly too late when she stomped on the brake pedal. The Jeep shuddered to a stop, mere feet from slamming into three deer in the road.
If she didn’t get sleep, she was going to mess up bad and be of no use to the kids. With her eyes drooping, she decided she’d sleep in the Jeep, short of the huge mud bog. And maybe it would freeze enough overnight she could get back through it without the winch. The way the day had gone she doubted it, but it was the most she could hope for at the moment.
#
Brooke and Alison sat on a bale of straw and watched Chad milk the cow. They’d been quieter than normal after seeing their mom earlier.
“Chad, when we saw Mom, she didn’t have any spots. Maybe she doesn’t have the same stuff Dad has. Maybe she won’t get as sick as him,” Alison said.
“I don’t know, Ali, but you could be right. We can only wait and see.” He was glad she hadn’t mentioned Matt in her comparison.
The girls stayed in the kitchen with Chad while he prepared supper, each helping as much as they could. At times, they were more in the way than helpful, but Chad was glad to have them close. After supper, they didn’t want the movie he offered, choosing instead to sit close on each side of him while he read.
When he tucked them into bed, they took turns praying. “God bless Mom and Dad, and help them feel better, so they can live in the house with us again. Say hi to Matt for us, he was nice and made us laugh. Amen.”
Chad put another block of wood in the stove and shut it down for the night. After he made sure the doors were locked and turned out the lights, he went to his bedroom and pulled the curtain back to look out at the shop. “Goodnight, Mom. Goodnight Dad. I love you.”
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Post by CountryGuy on Jun 14, 2022 15:37:54 GMT -6
Yep, I'm a total FanBoy... this is excellent work Bret...
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Post by bretf on Jun 17, 2022 6:49:27 GMT -6
Thanks CG!
Chapter 22
Groggy and yearning for more sleep, better sleep, Heather clambered out of the Jeep. She was thrilled to see the world around her was white, the grass and brush glistening with heavy frost. The puddles at the side of the road had a layer of ice on them, and when she stepped onto the mud, it was firmer than it’d been the previous day. Now, if only the mud in the road was set up enough. She wasn’t near as pleased with the frost when she crouched too low to take care of nature’s call. Whoa, that was cold! She finished in a hurry and shivered as she pulled her jeans up.
Looking at the large patch of muck and her car, she sighed in resignation and had a few choice words at the prospect of putting the tire chains on again. But she knew she couldn’t get through the wretched mud without them, so she got them out with more colorful words for the mess left behind. Grumbling the whole time, she got all four wheels chained up, got in the Wrangler, and hit the bog hard.
Mud flew as the tires churned. The Jeep slowed more and more, but still inched ahead. She squeezed the wheel as tight as she could, leaned forward and shouted at the top of her lungs for it to keep moving. Several minutes passed as the mud-caked car crawled forward at an excruciatingly slow pace. At last, one front tire got traction and then the other and the Wrangler lurched forward, throwing her back in her seat. She pumped her fist in the air and whooped.
As she sped down the road, the Jeep resonated with loud thumps as mud flew from the chains and slammed against the wheel wells. A loud growl from her stomach added to the noise. She growled in return and wished she’d thought to get something out to eat, but had been in too big of a hurry, and no way was she stopping; not yet anyway. She had to get back to gravel before the temperature rose and the mud got soupy again, she HAD to. Just because she’d gotten through the other bad spots the day before, didn’t mean she’d have the same results if she waited around. Food would have to wait until she took the chains off. With nothing at hand to eat, she took a long drink of water, wishing it was coffee.
The other mud pits were no harder to get through than they’d been the previous day as the chained wheels plowed their way through. Once on the maintained section of the road, the filthy chains were returned to the back of the Wrangler and Heather gave herself a thoroughly inadequate cleaning with wet wipes. She’d have to wait to do a better job; how long a wait was hard to guess after the wasted day.
For the first time, she looked in the small ice chest Kate had put in the car before she left home. It contained an English muffin, ham and cheese sandwich she especially liked for breakfast. She had no idea how Kate anticipated she’d need breakfast on the road but was glad she had. It also held two cans of beer, and she mentally kicked herself for not finding them the previous evening. But she hadn’t, so she’d look forward to having them when she got to Lisa’s place. With the breakfast sandwich in hand, she started down the road, wishing Kate had also anticipated coffee to wash it down with.
The highway was as deserted as it’d been the previous day, but she drove slowly and watched all around. Thoughts of all those cars at the bridge troubled her. Had the people in them gone ahead on foot? And if so, to where?
The turnoff she looked for came into view, and she took it, but with no lack of inner turmoil. She was so close to her own house and could go get a shower and clean clothes without losing much time. She could get coffee too. It was very tempting and nearly swayed her, but thoughts of Lisa’s little girls forced her to stay on task. They were with Chad of course, but he was young as well. So she kept going forward and mumbled than the day better not turn out anything like the one before. She was consumed with thoughts of the kids fending for themselves when she topped a hill and saw the river ahead, Swan Valley Dam spanning its width. She slammed on the brakes, shifted into reverse and backed behind the hill.
When she was certain the Jeep couldn’t be seen from the area around the dam, she got out and crawled to the crest of the hill. Lying prone behind a thick patch of brush, she studied the area through her binoculars. The gate at the end of the dam was a pipe, mounted to swing from one end, with the other end secured across the dam’s approach. Beyond it, the dam was open and broad for the first two-thirds of the way from her side. It would serve as a perfect roadway.
The final third of the dam was the stickler. It was covered by the aged powerhouse building. She had no idea what it was like inside but was heartened to see large doors sized for a truck on the end she faced. Past the old powerhouse on the backside of the dam, was the new, modern powerhouse. Beyond the dam was a park and picnic area, and further up the valley, was resident housing for the power company workers.
She watched for several minutes and saw no signs of life, so she went back to the Jeep and dug into her emergency bag. She wanted to study the area more before revealing herself and figured she could at least have a cup of coffee while she watched. She set up her backpack stove beside her vantage point and placed her Sierra cup full of water on top to heat. When the water was hot, she stirred in instant coffee, sugar, and powdered creamer. It was a far cry from what she drank at home, but she contented herself with what she had, happy to have the hot, liquid caffeine.
Taking her time to savor the coffee, she studied the area carefully but still didn’t see any signs of life at the dam or elsewhere in the valley. When her cup was empty, she figured it was time to move and find out what the building was like up close. She packed her supplies back into her bag and stowed it in the Wrangler.
With her rifle held ready, she moved slowly down the slope towards the dam, keeping brush and rocks between her and the structure as much as possible. At the last cover, she remained behind the brush for several minutes and studied the dam before she stepped tentatively into the open. Crouching to make herself small, she hurried across the dam, bracing to be spotted at any moment. She breathed a deep sigh of relief when she flattened her back against the wall of the powerhouse.
So far so good, she told herself, and edged around the corner and inched to a window and peered inside. She was elated to see the interior was empty on the immediate end. If she could get in, the area would easily accommodate the Jeep. Wide doors led into the next section of the old building. But what’s behind those doors?
She moved further along the wall and peered into the window beyond the doors. Her elation was short-lived. The next section appeared to have been converted into a museum. A plaque at the corner confirmed her conclusion. The Dam and power plant were built in 1901. The old power plant was decommissioned in the 1990s when a modern power plant was constructed at the site. The old plant became a museum at the time.
Heather studied the displays closer. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, they looked like they were constructed to be portable and could be moved without much work. She just had to get inside and determine if the doors were functional; the keys to success or failure.
Although it left her exposed, she checked every door and found them all locked. Not liking the idea, but unable to come up with a better solution, she broke a window to access the latch, opened it and crawled inside.
After a quick look at the displays, noting bolts anchored them to the concrete floor, she went to the wide door. It was actually two swinging doors, and they were latched from the inside without keyed locks. She released the latches and the doors swung easily. With a fist pump, she walked to the other end of the structure and checked. Those doors opened with the same ease. Everything was well maintained. She relocked them and breathed a big sigh of relief.
After exposing herself, she was concerned she may have drawn attention, and peered out first one window and then another, and searched for any signs the facility was manned. By all appearances, it was deserted.
She left by the first doors, leaving them ajar and headed for her Jeep at a jog. At the pipe gate, she studied the locking system and gave a slight nod. Although the lock was a quality brand, it could be opened by the master key she carried in her car. She hurried up the hill and stopped at her earlier vantage point, scanned the area one more time, then went to her Jeep, got in and drove down the hill.
Her bolt cutters, also known as her master key when circumstances required it, made quick work of the lock. The pipe swung easily to the side and she drove past it, across the dam and into the powerhouse. With the Jeep out of view, she jogged back to the gate, closed it, and hung the cut lock to hold it in place. She ran back to the building, hurried inside and locked the doors behind her, and slumped against one. The moment the doors closed, she felt relief and exhaustion. The tension she’d been under since leaving home had sapped her energy as effectively as if she’d run a marathon.
After she got an MRE – Meal, Ready-to-eat - and a bottle of water out of the Wrangler, she sat on the floor with her back against the wall. While she ate, she studied the displays. As she’d surmised from the window, they’d been designed to move easily. They were mounted on rollers and lag bolted in place. Remove the bolts and they could be rolled out of the way. She was glad to see that, as she wanted to make sure she didn’t damage anything further. It was bad enough she’d broken the window.
As she looked at the information displayed, she felt it would undoubtedly come in useful in the future. When she researched the pandemic after Lisa’s call, she’d come to the conclusion it would be impossible for the nation to avoid a complete meltdown. The rebuilding process, more like crawling out of smoking ruins, would be monumental. The technology from over a hundred years ago would be easier to restore than the modern computerized systems. She wondered if civilization could ever be restored as she dropped off to sleep.
Heather was rested but stiff when she awoke. The cold concrete wasn’t the greatest place for a nap. She checked out the windows, looking for people and to see the sun’s position. She’d debated the best time to leave the relative safety of the dam. Once she left it, she would enter the general area of the highest population in the state. The chances of running into trouble would increase dramatically. It would be safest to travel at night. The full moon was two or three days past, and if the sky remained cloudless, she could travel without her headlights on. Running dark, she’d drive slower, but was certain it’d be worth it.
After she set up the stove to heat a pot of water, she dug into her toolbox. With the proper tools, it was quick work moving the displays. When it was finished, she used the warm water to try to clean up. The water was brown in no time.
With the displays out of the way, she parked the Jeep short of the door. She poured the gas from the spare can into the car’s tank and ate more. When she was finished, she looked at the car and couldn’t think of anything else to do. She was as ready to leave as she’d ever be. She looked around the room and her gaze stopped on the broken window. It felt wrong to leave the room exposed. She kept a roll of Gorilla Tape in her toolbox, so she searched until she found a sheet of cardboard she could cut to fit over the broken pane. After taping the patch in place, she drove the Jeep through the doors and blocked them shut from the outside with a large rock. She planned to come back through with the family when they could travel, and it would be nice not to have to crawl through the window again to get in.
With the sun setting beyond the distant hills, she drove out of the river valley. She noted heavy clouds to the west she hadn’t seen from the dam and hoped they wouldn’t block the moonlight. After the trouble she’d had so far, she didn’t hold out much hope for that.
“Well, Lisa,” she said out loud, “It’s taken a lot more than four hours, but I should be at your place before morning, barring more problems. According to the map, it’s around fifty miles.” She thought how in good times it was only one hour away and wondered what the night would bring.
#
Chad was glad to be in the house with supper finished. The day had been harder than the one before. The girls missed their mom more, and from Chad’s point of view, they’d gotten pretty whiny at times. He’d only made it worse when he snapped at them in return. The load he was under was getting to him. It nearly overwhelmed him to take care of everything, and fill in on the projects his dad would do if he were able.
He thought again how he’d gotten snappy with the girls. “Hey Alison, Brooke, I need to apologize. I was a little short tempered today, and I guess I didn’t treat you as well as I should have. I’m sorry,” he said.
Brooke’s answer held the wisdom a child can have and express so easily. “That’s okay, Chad. We know it’s cause you miss Mom and Dad. We do, too. Now can we watch the show you promised?”
“Sure. Go ahead and start it,” he told them. He’d told them they could watch a “Veggie Tales” show after supper. He was going to watch too but wanted to check the online news first. He hadn’t given up hope a cure for the disease would be found. Bob and Larry, the stars of the show, started to sing the show’s theme song while the computer booted up.
#
Heather slammed her hand against the steering wheel in frustration. “FIRST THE RIVER, NOW THE FREEWAY!” she shouted. The interstate lay ahead of her, and the road across it was packed with cars, choking off access to the other side. It was reminiscent of the scene at the bridge the previous evening; the roads looked more like parking lots. “Stupid people drive like idiots and don’t pay attention to a damn thing!” she fumed and turned the Jeep around to drive further west. It wasn’t necessary to cross the interstate, but it was the most direct route to Lisa’s house. Instead, she’d have to go the long way, in a wide arc around it.
And on top of the clogged roads, the clouds she’d seen earlier looked ominous. To the northwest, towards Lisa’s house, they blotted out the stars. Closer, they were still building, but patches moved across the moon, partially obscuring the light. It was harder to see, and she drove slower the farther she went. If it kept up, she was afraid she’d have to use the headlights before long.
She had more colorful words for the terrorists, wishing she’d met up with those particular individuals when she’d been stationed in the Middle East.
#
Dan woke and lay in place, trying to understand; he felt different but wasn’t sure what it was. His mind spun before it occurred to him. After the endless days and nights, delirious and burning up, his fever had broken. Although still damp with sweat, he felt more comfortable than he had in days. Relishing the sensation, he tried to recall the past few days. It was all hazy, and he soon fell back to sleep, a dreamless, restful sleep.
On the other cot, Lisa tossed. Her fever raged as the virus manifested itself throughout her body.
#
Admiral Bill Wilson stepped into the war-room at NORAD and surveyed the wall of monitors. Tension had been high since the decision was made to strike Syria. The continued silence from Moscow compounded it.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary on the screens, so Wilson started for his office. A loud alarm, accompanied by changes in the displays froze him in his tracks. “Missile launch detected, missile launch detected,” the computer voice blasted from the speakers. Everyone else in the room had frozen as well.
“Launch? They launched?” He was broken from his reverie moments later when the message changed to, “Multiple missile launches detected.”
Able to think again after the initial shock, part of him still resisted what he’d heard and seen on the screens. Was Russia doing it? After all those years and all the posturing, they were actually doing it? A child of the cold war, he’d grown up with the menace of nuclear destruction always present. But like other hazards, familiarity led to indifference.
With both nations assured they’d be annihilated, neither wanted to start a war that would only end badly. Instead, they supported opposite sides in every petty conflict around the world. They constantly played a high-stakes chess match and sacrificed the pawns from other countries. But they always stopped short of direct confrontation which would ultimately lead to the destruction of both. Apparently, the smallpox pandemic changed the balance, at least the Russians thought it did, and they’d decided the United States was weakened enough they would come out the victors. Admiral Wilson stood straight and barked out the commands to show them how wrong they were to make that assumption. Dead Wrong!
“Sir, do I include the other targets, the boils as you referred to them,” the man nearest Wilson asked. He stared at his computer monitor as his fingers flew on the keyboard.
“Yes, those targets too,” the Admiral responded. Wilson had spent a lot of time the past few days rehashing his conversation with General Brown. The lunatic in charge in North Korea had certainly run his mouth off a lot, but did it justify what the General suggested? The lunatic also had nukes of his own. Wilson tried to picture the region if the United States wasn’t available to help South Korea. It wasn’t a pretty picture. He could imagine the South falling in short order and the people enslaved. The same thing would surely happen to Japan. The more he considered it, the more he was convinced if nukes started flying, the threat had to be eliminated.
After making up his mind on Pyongyang, he considered another problem area. He pictured his brother, dead for many years. He’d been so proud to serve the country and was killed when the Islamists overthrew the Shah’s regime in Iran. The Iranians were also trying to develop nuclear weapons. What would the results be if they became the major power in the Persian Gulf region? Again, he didn’t like the images and made up his mind. If the Russians made a move, North Korea and Iran, with their nuclear aspirations would experience firsthand the power of what they were messing with. He’d come to the decision two days earlier, and his resolve hadn’t wavered.
On the Day of Atonement, he’d answer for his actions, but so be it. For the present, however, he’d do what he could to remove two of the world’s major threats. His country was weakened, if not dying outright, but that didn’t mean they were defenseless, not in the least. If they went down, they weren’t going down alone.
He turned to a woman, still frozen over her monitor. “Alert the President and the Joint Chiefs! We don’t have time to stall! Get the rest of our bombers off the ground! NOW!” he commanded.
#
While the computer booted up, Chad went to the sink, filled a glass with water, and carried it to the back door. He drank and studied the shop. Disappointed he didn’t see any movement, he went back to the computer desk, settled into the chair and clicked on the web browser. The message on the news homepage in bold red letters immobilized him. “UNITED STATES UNDER ATTACK. MISSILES LAUNCHED FROM RUSSIA, THE ATLANTIC, AND PACIFIC OCEANS, ON TRAJECTORY FOR UNITED STATES”. He clicked on the headline. The story didn’t load right away; it timed out. He hit refresh with the same results. The last time he hit refresh the screen went blank.
#
Heather continued the slow journey towards her sister’s house, thoroughly ticked off at the pace. It seemed every time she picked up forward momentum, she ran into another obstruction and had to backtrack. And it continued to grow darker and darker, with little moonlight breaking through the clouds and snowfall. She glanced at the dashboard clock and voiced her frustration at it. “Oh for the Love of God, how can it take so long to drive fifty miles? I swear I could do better on a bicycle.” She continued to fume, as she turned onto a road in the right direction. “And I’m damn tired of all the stinking detours.”
A bright light in the rearview mirror drew her eye. “I know I’ve been slow, but not slow enough for the sun to be coming up,” she muttered. The flash was wrong, unnatural, so she stopped and got out of the car to look behind her. The clouds thinned at that moment and allowed moonlight through to illuminate the mushroom cloud rising above what could only be the Air Force Base. “Holy . . . Mother of God . . . This . . . can’t be . . . happening,” she stammered. “Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord!” She got back in the Jeep, turned the headlights on high beams and floored it. She was done driving at a crawl.
She squinted her eyes as a pair of blinding flashes lit up the sky east of her, in the area where the state capitol and the Air National Guard Fighter Wing were located. Lights in houses, yards, and intersections went out as far as she could see. From those bright flashes, the entire area was plunged into darkness. The only light was from her headlights. Even the moon’s glow faded to nothing as the clouds thickened and blotted it out. After neglecting the practice for years, for the second time in three days she prayed with an intense passion.
#
Years later, scholars would question if the Syrians acted alone in regards to Sergei Bubka and the virus he developed or were merely pawns in the chess game. It was universally accepted they’d arranged for the virus to be released, but one side would contend the Syrians had only followed orders. Those would argue Vladimir Putin had enough of the endless staring matches between Russia and the United States. The United States support of Ukraine was the final straw. Those scholars would argue Putin directed the Syrians and delivered Bubka to them with one directive: to bring down the United States. No definitive answer to the debate would ever be found. The Russians had guessed very wrong concerning the weakened state of America. As Admiral Wilson stated, they were dead wrong. Little was left alive in a large section of Asia following the quick exchange of missiles.
#
Chad’s water glass rattled on the desk as everything went dark.
“Chad, why did the lights and TV go out,” Brooke asked. She was more concerned about missing the rest of Veggie Tales than being in the dark. They’d seen the show numerous times; it was their favorite episode. It was the story of Rack, Shack, and Benny, based on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the Bible. Bob, Larry, and Junior, the stars of the show, were moments from being incinerated for being bad bunnies. “I wanted to see the angel save them before they were burned up,” Brooke added.
Chad was afraid he knew why the lights had gone out and it was related to the bulletin he’d seen, but he didn’t want to say so. Brooke’s statement was haunting; he was afraid multitudes had just been incinerated and no angels had come to save them. He got up and opened the blinds, but it didn’t help. “I’ll find a flashlight, and then light a candle,” he said, feeling his way to the cabinet where they were kept. “We should brush our teeth and head to bed anyway. It’s pretty late.” He was amazed he was able to talk to the girls in such a calm voice. He didn’t feel calm, not in the least. He was terrified, more than at any other time in his life.
After the girls were tucked in, Chad stood at his parent’s bedroom doorway and stared at the plastic covering the entrance. The shotguns and rifles were locked away behind the cover, and he debated with himself if he should go in and get one. What was going to happen next and would he need his shotgun? He decided he was just upset over what he’d seen online and was silly to worry. Things would be fine overnight. Besides, it’d be better to go in the room wearing the bio-suit once it was light. He told himself all that but was still terrified.
He did have another option, though not as comforting as a shotgun. The air rifle was in the broom closet, kept close at hand in case of dogs attacking the chickens. He told himself he was acting silly as he got it out, pumped and loaded it. He had no idea what he’d do with it, just that he was scared and wanted protection, any protection. More than anything, he wanted his dad to give the protection. He stared out the back window at the shop, missing the little comfort he’d gotten on previous nights when he saw the glow through the window.
Instead of going to bed, he sat in his dad’s recliner with two blankets covering him. He was glad his sisters weren’t in the living room with him, to see him crying in the dark.
He finally fell asleep and was woken sometime later by the beam of a car’s headlights shining straight into the house. The car was stopped at their driveway. He heard the door slam and saw the dark form of a person at the quarantine tape. The person soon got back into the car, turned into their driveway, and drove to the back of the house and parked next to Matt’s pickup.
Chad untangled himself from his blankets and hurried to the back door. The pellet gun was clutched tight in his shaking hands. His heart pounded a staccato beat and tears ran down his face again. He looked with severe longing at the dark shape of the shop, then at the strange car. The brake lights went dark, and the black night engulfed the car. Everything on the other side of the door was black, the car and its driver hidden. Chad stood at the door and trembled in fear.
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Post by bretf on Jun 19, 2022 5:49:35 GMT -6
Chapter 23
Chad’s senses were numbed by fatigue as the horrifying night dragged on. It got harder and harder for him to keep his eyes open and not slump to the floor, but he held on and stayed upright. As far as he could tell, nothing had changed with the dark car since it’d parked beside Matt’s pickup. His mind so numb, when the change happened it didn’t register right away, and when it did, near-panic instantly replaced his fatigue. The interior light of the car glowed brightly in the pre-dawn gloom, showing the open door.
His heart hammered and the air rifle waved around, and he made himself as small as possible while watching the open car door. Time seemed to move slower than normal. A foot and leg emerged from the car and dropped into the fresh snow. He squeezed the rifle tighter and hot tears ran down his face. The mere hint of the second foot and leg followed. He brushed away the tears and saw the shadowy shape of an arm and hand extend and grasp the door. His tears ran faster and he sobbed out loud. A head emerged, and the person stood beside the car, turned, and faced the house.
It felt like the unseen eyes were boring into him, and Chad tried to shrink, to melt into the wall. Silently, he pleaded for the person to get back into the car and drive away, JUST DRIVE AWAY! But it didn’t happen. The person stretched and ran fingers through the mop of hair. Chad let out a soft, wordless wail as the dark shape started walking towards the house. The air rifle fell from his trembling hands and clattered to the floor. He picked it back up, afraid he’d lose it again.
He looked hard at the rifle and wished it was his shotgun. But it was what he had, so it’d have to do for the time being. Maybe it looked enough like a dangerous gun in the poor light to dissuade the stranger from getting any closer.
Regardless of the virus risk, he’d have to get the guns out as soon as the stranger was dealt with; if he could deal with it. Taking a deep breath, he stepped outside. Whoever it was wasn’t getting near his sisters if he could help it.
In a quavering voice that betrayed what he was, a terrified youth, he said, “Don’t . . . come any closer . . . stop right . . . there.” He’d wanted to sound threatening. And if it wasn’t hard enough to hold still and keep the gun steady, he needed to pee, bad. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
The shadowy person stopped, and Chad wished for enough light to make out the stranger’s face. “Hey Buddy, do you greet your other aunt this way, or is it special for me because I got your birthday present two days late? I told you I was sorry. Sheesh, talk about holding a grudge. I’d hate to see how you’d greet me if I’d missed it altogether,” his Aunt Heather said.
It took a few moments for terror to be replaced by recognition and relief, and Chad ran off the step into the fresh snow, mindless of the fact he was in his socks. “Aunt Heather! You scared me!” he cried.
Heather held up a hand to stop him. “Hey Buddy, hold up there. You know, I’d love to give you a hug, but we need to keep our distance until we know if you’re carrying the plague or not,” she said. “But hey, it looks like you’re doing a great job watching out.”
“It’s not the plague, it’s genetically altered smallpox,” he stated.
Aunt Heather chuckled at his response.
“So what are you doing here?” Chad asked, and added hopefully, “Are you going to stay?”
“Your mom called me when she got sick worried about you guys being alone. After I researched the smallpox, which I’m still going to call the plague mind you, I got here as soon as I could. But we’ll talk more in a bit. You need to get dry socks and shoes on, and I need to go out behind the haystack. After that we can figure out together what to do from here,” Aunt Heather said.
The cold had leached into Chad without him being aware of it. Aunt Heather’s mention of his feet made him feel every bit of it and his nose took that moment to drip. He was shaking from the cold instead of fear as he hurried into the house.
#
After his fever broke during the night, Dan’s sleep was the best he’d had in more than a week. He got out of bed feeling better than he had since the rotten mess began. A glance at Lisa told him she hadn’t been as fortunate.
He cocked his head and listened. Is someone out there, he wondered. He no more than thought it than the talking stopped. At the side window, he caught a glimpse of a slim figure walking towards the haystack. When the figure didn’t reappear, he looked out the window in the door and saw the tightly closed back door of the house.
Who was that? What’s going on out there, he asked himself. One voice sounded like Chad, but the other wasn’t Alison or Brooke. Who would be at their house so early in the morning? Was it one of the Blue Suits, or someone else? He felt a touch of dread and snatched the radio up. “Chad, are you all right? What’s going on?” he demanded. He’d had too many nightmares of the kids hurt or threatened. When Chad didn’t answer right away, Dan reached for his boots to go out and check. He had one on when Chad’s voice came through the radio.
“Dad, you sound so much better. That’s great! Are you feeling better?” Dan didn’t detect any duress in his son’s voice. In fact, he sounded cheerful.
“Yeah, I’m feeling better, but I thought I heard you talking to someone and saw them at the haystack. What’s going on? Who was that?” Dan asked.
“Man, I’m glad you’re better Dad. I was pretty scared after I saw you that one day, and well, you know with Matt, and all. Does it mean you’ll be able to come out soon? I sure hope so,” Chad said.
Matt! He wished that’d all been a fever dream, but it was real, too real. The grief hit him again. He cataloged it to be dealt with later; he needed to know what was going on. Chad’s answers, rather, his lack of answers was frustrating. “We’ll talk about that later, Chad. Now, who’s here? Who were you talking to a minute ago?” The demand was obvious to Chad, having heard it before when his dad expected answers or results.
Despite his dad’s tone and the news before the internet went down, Chad laughed, relieved to have a responsible adult around. “Oh yeah, that’s Aunt Heather. She got here about an hour after the bombs hit,” he said.
“What? Heather’s here? Bombs? Chad, you need to start making sense,” Dan said. It hadn’t registered to him the shop was dark. He stood where he could look out the window at the back door of the house. “Chad, don’t mess with me. I’ve been danged sick, and the last few days are a muddled mess in my head. I’m not sure what was real and what was a dream,” he said. He glanced at Lisa’s dark form on the cot, the same cot Matt had slept on. Unfortunately, those parts were real.
“So let’s take things one at a time. You say Aunt Heather is here? When did she get here? You didn’t let her in the house did you?” Dan asked.
“No, she didn’t come in the house. I think she just wanted to let me know she’s here. It was her idea for me to stay away. Then she said she needed to go behind the haystack. I think it’s to go to the bathroom, so she must know not to come into the house,” Chad said.
“And you said she came after the bombs. What did you mean?” Dan asked. Bombs? Have things gone downhill that much since I got sick?
“Yeah, there were bombs and I think it’s really bad. I’ll bet it’s because we nuked Syria,” Chad said.
Dan stopped listening and snapped, “WAIT A MINUTE, DID YOU SAY NUKED? That’s it. I’m going outside. We can talk across the yard easier than on these radios.” He looked out the window. The sky was light enough he could see the trees sway and snowflakes falling sideways. “You can get upwind of me. Give me a few minutes,” he added.
Though he wanted to rush outside, Lisa needed to be cared for first. Her fever was raging and he needed to try to cool her down. With the wash basin at hand, he began to give her a sponge bath.
Her eyes opened at the cool touch. In a voice little more than a whisper she said, “Hey, thanks Hon; that feels good.”
“Glad to do it. Do you want something to drink?” he asked.
“Yes, cold water please,” she said hoarsely.
“Alright, just a second,” he said, and moved to the workbench. Several seconds passed before he knelt beside her. “Here you go, and take these Tylenol too,” Dan said as he helped her sit up and tilted the glass to her lips. “I’m going outside for a while. Your sister’s here.”
Lisa stiffened. “Heather? She made—”. Her question was cut short by a coughing fit. Dan winced and wished he’d waited for her to swallow before saying anything. He continued to support her back until the coughs subsided. When she was able to speak, Lisa asked, “When did she get here?” It was difficult and painful for her; the sores had formed in her mouth.
“I don’t know anything,” Dan answered. “I woke up and heard Chad talking to her. I’m going outside to find out.”
Lisa stiffened and asked, “Is it safe? We can’t let them get this.”
“There’s a breeze. If I’m furthest downwind, then Chad, then her, they should both be alright,” Dan said.
“Lord, but I hope you’re right,” she said. “Now lay me back down and get outside.” She sighed in relief when she was settled back onto the cot.
Dan pulled his second boot on, along with his winter chore coat and hat, opened the door and looked out. The sky was dark with cloud cover save for the eastern horizon where the sun was emerging. He stepped outside, and the breeze and soft touch of snow on his cheek felt better than he could find words for. He reached back into the shop for his lawn chair, pulled it outside and placed it near the door. Despite feeling better, he couldn’t remember ever being so weak.
“Hey Dan,” Heather’s voice came from the side of the shop. “You’ve got a good man keeping an eye on things here. He was determined to keep me away from the house. Everything appears to be in order and it looks like he’s doing a great job. You on the other hand, well, nothing personal, but you look like crap. I wouldn’t call those beauty marks you’ve got all over.”
Dan turned enough to see Heather, a wry grin on her face. “Heather, make sure you’re upwind of me. Upwind of Chad, too, for that matter when he comes out.” Making sure the chair’s legs were set right, he plopped down in it. “You can get a chair from the shed,” he said and gestured in the general direction. “But what are you doing here? You should be out in the boonies away from all this.”
“Let me get a chair so I can sit while we talk,” she said and went to the shed. Chad had stepped outside and heard the end of the exchange, and he went back into the kitchen for his own chair. He set it by the back door, making sure the breeze wasn’t blowing to him from his dad. Heather returned and set her chair upwind of both of them.
Dan waited until she was seated before he spoke. “So? What are you doing here, Heather? You must know it’s not safe.” Lisa had told him she’d called Heather at the height of his fever. It was one of the things he’d forgotten.
“No, it’s not safe, but it’s not safe for three kids on their own either. So I came to help keep an eye on things, although it looks like Chad’s doing a great job of it,” she said. The statement was spoken with complete sincerity, without a trace of the teasing she’d used before. Chad got a knot in his throat from the praise and the look she gave him. The moment passed and she was back to her usual self in an instant. “Now, if he’d offer me a cup of coffee, he’d be an excellent host,” she said.
Chad reddened at the comment and stood so fast his chair rocked back. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said and disappeared inside the house.
When Chad was gone, Heather was serious again. “Okay Dan, you really do look like crap. So how bad is it, honestly? How’s my sister?” She asked, in a soft voice that couldn’t be heard in the house.
Dan was glad she’d gotten Chad out of hearing. “I’m not sure, but I think I’m over the hump with a long way to go. I don’t know, but maybe the way we lived and what we ate gave me more resistance than most people. I pray that’s the case and it makes a difference for Lisa as well,” he said as his eyes misted over. “But anyway, the Blue Suits gave me some paperwork –”
“Blue Suits?” Heather interrupted.
Dan described the CDC personnel who’d arrived at the shop, and how he’d referred to them that way ever since. “Anyway, based on the information they gave me, and . . . Sean and . . . Matt . . .” the final words were forced and tears ran down Dan’s face.
“Lisa told me about Matt. I didn’t mean to dredge it all up for you,” Heather said.
Dan regained his composure and continued. “Anyway, Sean also worked with us. He was at the game, and he . . . died first. Based on how fast he and Matt went . . . I’m guessing I’ve passed the worst of it. Lisa however . . .” he let the rest of the statement go unsaid. “But I think my fever will come back and I’ll still be contagious for a few more weeks until all the scabs fall off these rotten spots.”
The door to the house opened and Chad stepped out with a tray. The teapot was on it with two mugs, instant coffee, sugar, and fresh cream. He’d also put the box of wipes Frank Jeffries had given him on the tray. “Sorry, Aunt Heather. Without electricity, I couldn’t use the coffee maker, but Dad had this instant in the pantry. Do you want a cup too, Dad?”
“Yeah, that’d be great Son,” Dan said.
They were quiet while Chad cleaned the cup for Heather with a wipe and made two cups of coffee, one doctored to Heather’s direction, the other black. He carefully offered the box to Aunt Heather for an additional wipe with an explanation of what they were and where he’d gotten them. He held the tray with the mug and wipes out to her, and the other to his dad.
Dan took a sip. “Thanks, Chad. It might be instant, but this is the best cup of coffee I can remember.” He took another sip and relished the flavor of the hot liquid. He wanted to savor the moment but had to find out what Chad had been talking about earlier. “Okay Chad, you said we don’t have electricity, and earlier, you said Aunt Heather got here after the bombs. What did you mean? What’ve I missed?” He noticed Heather’s expression, replaced by what . . . was it fear?
“Yeah, Dad, bombs. I’m pretty sure the Russians nuked us,” Chad said.
Dan’s lips formed the words but no sound came out as his brain had a hard time processing what he’d heard. A minute passed before he said, “Nuked us? The Russians nuked us?”
Heather cleared her throat and said, “I think he’s right Dan. I think they hit the state capital, the Air Guard, and the Air Force base. I saw a flash and mushroom cloud where the airbase is, or was, and two more to the east. I can only think of two spots in that direction they would’ve targeted. That’s when all the lights went out for as far as I could see. It was dark everywhere. Anyway, if they nuked those places, think of all the other places they would’ve targeted too. I think they hit us with everything they had; an all or nothing strike.”
Dan found it hard to wrap his mind around. Of course, he’d grown up with the nuclear menace, but it’d never seemed that real a threat. “But why now?” he asked. “After decades of rhetoric and wars everywhere, why would they do it now? What else do you know, Chad?” he asked.
Chad told his dad about the President’s statement after bombing Syria, that they were the ones responsible for the pandemic, and what he’d seen on the internet before it crashed. Aunt Heather silently nodded her head.
“Really? President Morton did that? I never would’ve thought she’d have it in her. And Syria, well, I guess they always were the Russian’s hand puppet in the Middle East. But still, there must’ve been more we don’t know. That’s not Morton’s style,” Dan said.
“I think it was because of her son and his family,” Chad said.
“What do you mean?” his dad asked.
Chad looked from his dad to his aunt and said, “Remember President Morton’s son Johnny? He was in San Francisco with his wife and son for the Super Bowl. They all got the disease and died. I think it was personal for the President.”
Dan took another sip of his coffee and tried to get a mental grasp on everything he’d heard. “You might be right,” he said, knowing how incensed he’d be if one of his kids were killed. He stared at his feet in the fresh snow.
“Oh crap! Nukes, fallout, snow?” He was unable to make a complete sentence, but Heather got his meaning.
“This snow might be a good thing, Dan,” she said. “Granted, I might not have paid total attention to the lectures on fallout since I never thought it’d happen, but I do remember quite a bit. Rain and snow help knock the contamination out of the air and put it on the ground.” The color drained from Dan’s face and he was pale as the snow. “But if snow fell through the nuclear cloud, it would tend to be dirty snow. This is clean. The storm hit before the nukes did, before any fallout. I think the storm contained a lot of the local radiation. I bet the snow around the impact areas is dirty, maybe with a pink tinge, and the ground will be a lot hotter with radiation than if it’d been able to stay aloft longer. A lot hotter than here. And hopefully, it was a big enough storm front to knock down a lot of the radiation coming this way from other areas.”
Dan squeezed his coffee cup tight. “Are you sure,” he asked.
“No, I’m not. I wish we could check, but I don’t have a monitor, do you?” He shook his head. “So, we’re all going to have to reduce our exposure outdoors. Even if the storm knocked a lot of it out of the air, it’ll soon be everywhere in the atmosphere if this exchange was anywhere near as big as I’m guessing it was,” Heather said.
It was quiet, each of them contemplating the ramifications of the new development. Heather broke the stillness with another question. “Do you have any potassium iodide? Please say you do.”
Dan shook his head, a grim look on his face. “No, I don’t. I never dreamed we’d need it.”
“What about plain iodine?” Heather asked.
“That we do have. But why, how can it help?” Dan asked. “You can’t take it orally.”
Chad watched the exchange, and his eyes lit up as he remembered something. “Dad, it can help! Remember the paper I did on the down-winders and all the cases of cancer it caused?”
“Down-Winders” was the term for people who lived in areas which received high concentrations of radioactive fallout following the above-ground nuclear tests in Nevada. Chad had researched the problem and written a report on it for school a few months earlier.
“Now remember, I’m not talking about radiation exposure like people around the blast sites will get, but the stuff that’s launched high in the air and will fall back slowly like it did over those areas way back then. There’s a lot of evidence that exposure to the radiation caused thyroid nodules and cancer later in life for those people. The thyroid absorbs iodine, and radioactive iodine was in the fallout. That’s why the potassium iodide is made, to protect the thyroid.”
Dan nodded his head. “So do you have a point?”
“Yeah, I do,” Chad said. “You’re right, you can’t take iodine orally. But when I was doing my research, I found an article that told how to use regular iodine for thyroid protection. It said if you paint a large part of your chest with it, the body will absorb a lot of it, and it will get to the thyroid and fill it so it won’t absorb the radioactive iodine.”
Dan perked up at hearing that. He looked over at Heather who nodded confirmation. “Well, I guess that’s one nugget of good news considering the circumstances. Chad, go get the iodine and cover your chest and have the girls do each other,” he said.
Chad didn’t move; just sat with a troubled look on his face. “I don’t want to disobey, Dad, but well, I think it can wait for a while. The girls aren’t up yet, and well, a little bit longer shouldn’t hurt me. I mean, well, I want to be included. I have to watch over stuff and take care of the girls, so I want to stay until we’re done talking.”
Dan looked at his son and remembered a comment Lisa had made. The crisis was forcing him to grow up too fast. Besides everything else, this rotten crap was robbing him of his childhood. “I suppose you’re right, Chad. Okay, you two know a lot more about this than I do, so tell me, what are we going to do to get through this.” To himself, he added, And what’s going to happen next?
Heather glanced at Chad before starting. “Shelter and lessening our exposure to the fallout is a big thing. Dirt is supposed to reduce gamma radiation. Chad, maybe you and the girls should sleep in the root cellar, and only go outside when you have to.”
“That’s a good idea, but it won’t work,” he said. “They hate to go in there, and that was when the lights worked. I think if they had to go in it to sleep, they’d be scared the whole time. And if they could sleep, it’d give them nightmares. I think it’d be worse than the good it’d do. Really, I think they should stay in the house. I’ll keep them inside and make sure they have iodine on.
“And that reminds me of another article I found in my research. A lady around Saint George, Utah, right where the radioactive cloud was after one of the huge blasts, was outside in it with her sheep. Her kids were in her pickup. Anyway, she got really sick, the sheep got sick, but the kids never did. Maybe years down the road they had problems, but right after the blast, even the pickup gave them enough protection not to get sick like their mom did,” Chad said.
After a couple of minutes of silent consideration, Dan said, “He’s right Heather. They won’t go in the root cellar unless they’re forced. But you could stay in there out of the weather and fallout.”
“I’d rather the kids were in it, but I guess I’ll defer to you two. So Chad, when you’re outside, cover up everything you can. Wear your coveralls, hat, gloves, goggles, and a dust mask, pretty much everything. Brush it all off with a hand broom and leave those things by the door. Don’t take it in the house. I wish you could shower after each time you go outside, and wash those clothes too, but is it possible? Do you have a generator to run the well pump?” Heather asked.
“Unfortunately no, and we don’t have a hand pump either. We’ll have to make a well bucket and pull water up with a rope,” Dan said. “I’ve got everything we need in the shop. I’ll make one today and set it outside. You’ll have to clean it before you use it.” Although he’d wanted a generator, he never saw it as a critical item to have. Other things were always more pressing to spend their limited resources on. Now, how many other things would they want that he’d never gotten? He was certain the list would be long.
“Sounds like a lot of work,” Heather said wryly. “Especially with three cows. Oh crud, the cows and milk. We have to make sure they only eat clean hay.”
“What about the milk?” Dan asked.
“Drinking milk is one of the biggest ways to ingest fallout. It gets on the feed, the cows eat it, and it concentrates in the milk. That’s one reason for so many cases of cancer in down winder areas, because of all the milk cows,” Chad said.
“I saw you have a tarp over the haystack. But even with that, let’s make sure we feed them hay from the bottom of the stack. I don’t know if that’s safe, so maybe we don’t drink milk that comes after today,” Heather said.
Chad’s head dropped. “I guess you’re right,” he mumbled, disappointed.
“How are we for food?” Heather asked.
“The CDC was having food dropped off when they quarantined us but I’m guessing that’s finished. We have a lot of home canned food and the freezer is full of meat. It’s going to thaw out without electricity, so maybe you guys can make jerky and can the burger and chicken,” Dan said. “You’ll have to figure out racks to dehydrate it over the woodstove, and I guess you’ll have to use the wood stove to heat the canner and cook with.” Things seemed to get worse, the more stuff Heather brought up.
Heather nodded at the suggestions and said, “Chad, you know a lot of people will be hungry. You need to think hard about operational security. You’ll have to keep cooking odors as minimal as possible and you’re going to need more firepower than your air rifle. You’ll need to keep your rifle and shotgun handy.”
“Why do I need those, you’re here,” Chad said.
“Oh, if it was only so simple, Buddy. People will be looking for food, and won’t care how they get it, they’ll be willing to kill for it. The quarantine tape will help, but if they’re starving, they’ll risk it if they smell food.” Aunt Heather said.
“Can’t we share if people are hungry?” Chad asked.
“If we do, we won’t have enough. We share, we starve. We can’t feed everyone,” Aunt Heather said.
Chad looked troubled. “I’ll get the guns out of the cabinet today,” he said. At the startled look on his dad’s face, he added, “I’ll wear the contamination suit the CDC guy gave me.” Softly he added, “But I won’t shoot at people who just want something to eat.”
Dan stared back down into the snow. Yes, he thought, it gets worse and worse. I DON’T want my son packing a gun all the time.
He looked up to see Chad stifling a big yawn. “Okay, we’ve talked enough for now. Chad, you need to get iodine on and milk the cow and take care of your sisters. We can talk more after we’ve rested and taken time to consider all of this,” he said.
Chad stifled another yawn as he stood and said, “Aunt Heather, I’m glad you’re here. But please be extra careful. We can’t let you get sick too.” He picked up his chair and carried it into the house.
Dan and Heather stood and looked at the closed door. “See Dan, I told you that you have a good man keeping an eye on things here,” she said.
Dan nodded and picked up his own chair. “I’d rather be the man in charge, and have my young son,” he said and opened the shop door. He paused, and added, “I need to lie down. We’ll talk later, but he’s right, we need to keep you from getting sick.” He stepped into the shop and closed the door.
Dan opened the door to the wood stove with a shaky hand and picked up a piece of firewood. Such a simple task was the limit of what he could accomplish. After he had wood on the fire and the door closed, he sat on the side of his bed. He looked at the cot where Lisa lay, the cot Matt had lain on, had died on. Sweat beaded Lisa’s lovely face, her skin flushed red. “A smallpox epidemic. Nuclear war. How can all this be happening; it’s like the end of times,” he said, and dropped his face into his hands. He emitted a soft, pain-filled sob. “And I can’t do a dang thing to help, or I’ll pass on this rotten crap. Why did all this have to happen? WHY?”
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Post by iamnobody on Jun 19, 2022 6:49:23 GMT -6
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Post by bretf on Jun 20, 2022 6:17:07 GMT -6
Chapter 24
Chad grimaced as he poured the milk out in the garden, “Are you sure we can’t keep it? I mean, with the iodine on our chests, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad for us.” He liked the rich milk best of everything they produced at their home and he hated to waste it.
The period each year when his dad stopped milking and dried off the cow was torture to him. At least he’d considered it torture before the pandemic. The drying off was done a few weeks before the cow had a new calf as her body needed the break from milk production. His dad planned on drying her off in three weeks anyway, so since they weren’t using the milk, Chad had started the process. He couldn’t just stop milking; it was hard on the cow to do it that way. Instead, he would skip one milking per day for a few days, bump it up to two consecutive milkings for a few more days, and allow the cow to gradually slow production before he stopped altogether. His dad usually took two weeks for the process.
It was four days after they’d decided it’d be best not to drink the milk and they’d been pouring it out. It seemed like such a waste. They didn’t even feed it to the chickens like they normally did when they had excess milk. Even if it was the right thing to do, he didn’t like it one bit.
He voiced his opinion to Aunt Heather as the milk flowed over the ground. She watched him from outside the garden fence at what they considered a safe distance, but still near enough to hold a conversation. It was a practice they’d developed over the previous days, always conscious of air movements.
“You know as well as I do we shouldn’t keep it. But I agree with you. I already miss it, well at least the idea of going without it when we run out, and I don’t drink near as much of it as you do,” Aunt Heather said. They weren’t out of milk yet, but without refrigeration, what they had on hand would go bad soon. Rather than allow that to happen, they were drinking as much as they could.
Heather looked away from Chad to the east, where the capital city of the state was, at least it was before That Day. It was hard to guess what was left since the blast and she had no intention of finding out. But she was concerned they’d find out soon enough. More refugees were sure to show up before long; in fact, she was surprised they’d seen so few. While a good distance into the country, the little farmstead wasn’t far enough out for her taste. She was itching to get back to the remoteness of her own home.
She refocused on the conversation with Chad, and said, “Yes, it’s terrible to pour it out, especially with the food distribution system down. I bet the survivors are getting pretty hungry and won’t be too concerned about cancer risks. You know, I used to think a nuclear war was the worst possible thing we might ever face. Now, after nuking it out and having time to consider the results, I think there might be worse stuff to follow.”
Chad swung the empty bucket upright, brushing it against the holster on his leg. He still wasn’t used to it. When he’d opened the gun cabinet to get the shotguns and rifles out, he’d also taken out the two revolvers and shown them to Aunt Heather. One was a .357 magnum, and the other a .22. After seeing both guns, Aunt Heather chose the larger gun and insisted they each have one with them anytime they were outside. While inside, Chad needed to keep his close and drill into the twins it was dangerous and not to be handled, at least not until they were trained to use it.
Chad found it awkward with the gun hanging off his belt, unlike Aunt Heather. Her only problem was the type of pistol resting on her hip. “I sure wish your dad had a good old 1911. That would be a lot handier to have than this six-shooter,” she lamented.
“What’s a 1911?” Chad asked. Unable to stop himself, he flashed her a smile and said, “Besides the year you were born.” Not that Aunt Heather could see the smile behind his face covering, but she knew it was there.
“Wow Chad, that was a real knee slapper. You know, you’re very funny, a real fun-guy. Now maybe you should go crawl into a hole with the rest of the fungi.” Heather went on to explain about John Browning’s venerable .45 caliber automatic pistol with magazines holding seven or eight rounds which were quickly exchanged. “It would give us more firepower if we get into a dust-up. But I guess we’ll use what we have.”
Chad was still smiling when he said, “So what you’re telling me is, you’re not a very good shot and need more than six chances. Didn’t you ever learn to aim? You know, proper shot placement?”
Aunt Heather gave him a flat look; he made a good point after all. “You realize,” she said, “You’re lucky I have to keep my distance from you. Otherwise, I might teach you to show proper respect.”
Heather and Chad did one more thing with the guns he wasn’t sure his mom would approve of. The two of them drilled the twins on how to use the shotguns. When Aunt Heather thought they knew enough, the four of them went to the back side of the small rise behind the pasture. Heather hoped it was far enough from the shop to muffle the sound, but she didn’t want to get any farther from the house. Once there, Alison and Brooke took turns shooting the twenty gauge. Although Heather would’ve liked them to shoot more, she limited their shots, concerned they might attract unwanted attention. The Lord willing, it’d turn out to be unnecessary, but she had a gut feeling the day would come she’d be glad they’d done it.
Chad repositioned the milk bucket to his other hand to keep it away from the gun. “You really think things will get worse than this?” he asked.
“Yeah Buddy, I sure do. According to what I found on the internet before I left home, our country was pretty much at a standstill from the plague. Throw in the nukes on top of that, and wow!
“We have no idea what those bombs took out, but the main points of warfare are to disrupt the enemy’s ability to strike back, their communications, and the chain of command. I can’t help but think the local Air Guard and our state government were way down on the list, so a lot of other more crucial places had to have been hit.”
“Why do you say that?” Chad asked. “They had fighter planes. And that was the first thing you said, our ability to strike back.”
“Yes, but the planes we had wouldn’t have been a threat in a nuclear war,” Aunt Heather said. “They were A-10 Warthogs. The A-10s work best for close air support in a ground war, in fact, the infantry loved them in the sandbox. They were perfect for busting up armored vehicles and tanks. But they’re not first strike planes. So I think bomber bases would’ve been a higher priority. Those, and more critical areas than our local government.”
They were quiet for a while and both gazed off to the east. The hills rising above the capital were dark muted shapes in the distance.
“We haven’t seen many people on the road,” Aunt Heather said. “But those we have seen, well, the way they slow down and check everything out makes my skin crawl. Let me tell you I haven’t felt like that since I was overseas. As strange as it sounds, thank goodness for the quarantine tape across the driveway.” Her hand dropped and rested on the revolver.
“Now think about this. The average American home has enough food for three days. That’s it; three days. Very few are like your folks and raise and store stuff. It’s been five days since the bombs. You said the CDC was dropping food off at quarantined homes. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since That Day. So they aren’t able to continue. Obviously, the food distribution system is toast. It’s going to become a jungle I’m afraid, with nothing safe.
“Now look at the sky,” Aunt Heather directed. They raised their gazes from the horizon to the gray, overcast haze. The haze had spread across the sky two days earlier, blanketing it with high clouds that never thickened and let loose with rain or snow. The clouds and diminished sunlight seemed to suck all heat out of the air. The recent snow had melted off, but most days stayed a degree or two above freezing, while the temperature plummeted again at night. Normally, sunny days would reach into the forties and fifties. But in the short time since That Day, it was like prolonged winter. In fact, Heather said that’s what it was; scientists called it nuclear winter. A result of all the detonations; the atmosphere was filled with particles of dust, ash, and smoke.
“So our food distribution system is gone. The survivors are hungry, and we won’t get a normal summer. It’ll be colder than usual and the surviving farmers most likely won’t have enough fuel on hand to raise crops. I also bet very few of them store seeds. So yeah, Buddy, I think things are going to get worse, a whole lot worse,” she said gloomily. Again, silence enveloped them. A dark silence that matched the sky.
“Aunt Heather,” Chad said in a soft voice. “I’m so glad you’re here. I . . . I . . . I’ve never been so scared in my life. After Matt died, I . . . thought Dad was dying too . . . and Mom got it and . . . I . . . well . . . when the girls couldn’t see me, I . . . cried a lot. I didn’t know what we’d do. It’s all so scary. So . . . well . . . thank you for coming. Now, please don’t get sick too. It’s not fun being in charge.”
“Chad, Buddy,” Heather said, “I wish we didn’t have to keep apart because I’d sure like to give you a hug. But let me tell you, for all that’s been thrust on you, you’ve done a remarkable job holding things together. And you know what? It takes a real man to admit when he’s scared like you did. A lot of guys can’t do that. That’s a sign of maturity. I’m glad to be here with you. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather face this with.
“But enough of that,” she continued. “You said the CDC people gave you guys some paperwork on the plague. Let’s go to the back porch; I want to go over those documents. Maybe we can learn something.”
“Back porch” was a generous term. Dan had put a twelve-foot-long metal awning on the wall above the back door to keep rain and snow off the step. That was it. Chad opened the door and called inside, “Hey Brooke, Ali. Please get me those papers by the computer the Blue Suits left us. And could you make me a cup of hot chocolate and a cup of coffee for Aunt Heather, please.”
“Why don’t you do it?” Alison asked. The more she missed her mom, the more she chafed at doing what Chad asked.
Chad rolled his eyes and said, “Because I’m going to stay outside with Aunt Heather for a while longer. I don’t want to get out of my poison clothes to get those things. Remember the clothes I told you about? I can’t wear them inside because it would contaminate you two.” The girls weren’t the only ones missing their parents.
“Alison, you know what Mom said when we talked to her on the radio,” Chad heard Brooke say before he closed the door.
A few minutes later the door opened and the girls set two mugs and a bundle of papers on the step. “Sorry Chad,” Alison said in a petulant tone.
“Thanks,” Chad answered with no feeling.
“Thank you, girls!” Aunt Heather said, her voice full of cheer. “You made my day. I’ve wanted a cup of coffee all morning.”
They both smiled at her. “You’re welcome” they chorused, their frowns replaced by grins from those few words.
Heather took the wipe the girls left with her coffee and cleaned the cup. “I wonder if this is worthwhile or are we wasting these? Oh well, get your cup and let’s see if we can learn anything from those papers. I’m especially interested in what it says about contagiousness and how long the virus’s life is.”
After Heather moved away from the step and sat in one of the lawn chairs, Chad got his cup and the bundle of papers and sat down in the other chair at the opposite end of the porch. He pulled his scarf away from his face enough to take a sip of the hot chocolate, then set the mug on the stand next to his chair and read.
“The first page is a bunch of government talk.” He flipped to the next page, scanned it and told Aunt Heather what he was reading. “This document was put together based on knowledge of standard smallpox virus, blah, blah, blah. It says where they have data, corrections are noted based on the mutated strain.
“The first part is called “Incubation Period”. Traditional smallpox has an incubation period of seven to seventeen days. During incubation, the victim is not contagious. In bold red print, it has this, “Mutated smallpox deviation: the incubation period can be as short as two days. Victims are contagious within hours of exposure, including incubation period.” Chad took another sip of his hot chocolate and looked at Aunt Heather with a questioning look.
“I think that’s good news for us,” she said, “Your Mom called me a week ago today, so this is day eight since she got it. I don’t think you and the girls are going to get it from exposure to your folks or any virus they might’ve left in their bedroom, or anywhere else in the house. Now we have to keep it that way until your folks are safe to be around again. What else does it say?” She raised her own cup for a drink.
“The next part is Initial Symptoms,” Chad continued reading. “It says with smallpox this is six to ten days, but the mutated variety has been faster to develop. It is accompanied by high fevers, malaise; what on earth is that?”
“Basically, feeling sick and lousy.”
“Okay, so malaise and body aches; and of course, this strain is contagious at that stage also. It says it presents faster, and they think it can last up to four days before the next stage. That stage is the initial rash and also is supposed to take four days. They note all information from here to the end is regular smallpox as they don’t have data on the mutation to make any determinations.” Without commenting, Heather nodded to him to continue.
“So it says the red dots form on the tongue and mouth at that stage. They become sores and break, spreading the virus over the whole body. When those sores break it is the most contagious, and again it notes that was the case with normal smallpox, but this mutated strain appears to be very contagious at each stage.” Chad took a drink and read to himself. “Hmm, that’s different than Dad when he felt better that day, so maybe Mom will get to feeling better soon.”
“Why, what’d you see?” Heather asked.
“Oh, sorry; it says at that time the fever can drop and the victim can feel better. On the third day the rash becomes raised bumps, the fourth day they fill with thick liquid and the fever rises again and they become pustules. I guess that means bumps of puss. Anyway, Dad had the raised bumps when his fever went down, and it only stayed down for less than a day. So that’s different than the paper.”
“Well, hopefully, your mom will get a better day soon. Have you spoken to her or your dad today?” Heather asked.
“Not yet. I told the girls we’d call after I finished outside.”
“Good idea. Does the paper have more?”
“Yeah. It has three more stages, all dealing with the pustules. The first part is the pustular rash that lasts from four to eight days. During that stage the pustules scab over. It says by the end of the second week since the rash appeared, all of the sores should be scabbed over. Next is a section about when the scabs start to fall off. It says that part can take from five days to three weeks. Man, I hope it doesn’t take that long for Dad and Mom.
“The next part they call resolving scabs, which apparently is the falling off part. And scabs resolved when they are all gone. Crud, it says they’ll leave scars where each one was. That’s crummy. Then,” he read to himself as his face broke into an increasingly rare smile.
“Well?” Aunt Heather said. “What do you see?”
“When the scabs all fall off, it’s not contagious. Dad told us yesterday a couple of his sores had scabs on them. In two or three weeks, he might be safe to be around again.” The smile stayed on his face. Heather was happy to see it after the serious look had seemed to be permanently etched on his young face when she could see it.
“That’s great, Buddy. Add that to the part at the top,” she stood and walked to him, stopping in front of his chair. “I don’t think you or the girls will give it to me either. Now get on your feet. This is long overdue!” He stood and Aunt Heather pulled him into a tight embrace.
It felt so good to Chad, to draw comfort from an adult. A great weight had been lifted from his shoulders and maybe he could have time to be a kid again. He returned the embrace. “Thanks, Aunt Heather. I’m so glad you’re here.” His voice caught and his eyes flooded with tears.
“What do you say I move my stuff into the house? Can you guys share your space with me? I see why the girls don’t like the root cellar. There’s nothing quite like spiders crawling across your face when you’re trying to sleep.”
Chad’s answer was to squeeze tighter. In spite of what Aunt Heather told him in the garden about maturity, he hoped she wouldn’t see the tears soaking into her clothing.
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Post by bretf on Jun 21, 2022 7:54:22 GMT -6
Chapter 25
With a grunt, Heather made the final pull, hauling the full well bucket up, and poured the water into the bucket at Chad’s feet. The well bucket was a piece of pipe, two feet long. It was capped on one end, and the opposite end had holes in it with a rope tied through them. It had to be lowered in the well casing into the standing water, and the rope pulled back up hand over hand.
“You know,” she said, “This is the pits. I’m glad you guys only have three cows. I can’t imagine what people with a lot of cattle are doing.” Each day they carried buckets of water to fill the cow’s water trough. After that, they drew more water for the chickens, for the house and shop, and on occasion, a bucket or two for the greenhouse. Without sunshine, the plants weren’t doing well, but Chad insisted on watering them anyway. The process made for sore, tired arms and red, cracked hands before they were done.
Heather finished filling the bucket, another bucket beside it already full. “Okay, your turn,” she said. Chad repositioned their third bucket and took the rope while Heather squatted to grasp the bail of a bucket in each hand. She picked the buckets up carefully, mindful not to slosh any on her legs. It was too much work getting all the water they needed to waste any. Besides that, it was too cold to be outside with wet pants. She got to the cow trough and emptied both buckets into it, and started back to the pump house. Before she’d made it halfway, she heard a car coming down the road.
“Chad, a car is coming!” she shouted and dropped the buckets. She grabbed the shoulder sling and whipped her rifle into her hands in an instant, and made sure it was visible as she faced the road. Chad stepped out of the pump house with his shotgun ready but stayed near enough to the building he could jump behind it if he had to.
The amount of traffic past the house had increased, the cars and trucks filled with gaunt faces looking over the farmstead as they drove slowly past. Heather knew the quarantine tape wouldn’t keep them all out much longer. They used up precious fuel and would need something to show for it. She and Chad decided seeing both of them with their guns would be another deterrent, but it’d be tough to do while trying to limit their outside exposure time. Heather hoped it would remain enough of a deterrent, but she had a gut feeling the day wasn’t far off when it wouldn’t be. Someone would be too hungry and decide it was worth it to test a woman and a youngster. Despite their bulky clothing, they didn’t’ make very imposing figures.
The car came on, slowing to a crawl as it approached and the heads inside swiveled as they took in everything they could see. Chad thought the car was going to stop, and his breathing rate increased and his heartbeat raced. NO, DON’T STOP! PLEASE DON’T STOP! he shouted inside his head.
The car slowed more, the bearded driver looking directly at Chad. He repeated the plea in his head.
As if the driver heard his silent message, the car’s speed increased and was soon a good distance down the road. Chad let out a long sigh of relief as Aunt Heather walked up beside him.
In a shaky voice, he said, “I thought they were stopping.”
“Me too,” Aunt Heather said, “But they didn’t, thank goodness, so let’s finish up out here, okay?”
They finished filling the water trough and filled a bucket with water for the chickens. The chickens didn’t like recent events any better than Chad and the girls did. Generally free-ranging, they’d been locked inside their coop since the day after the nukes hit. Just as their egg production had risen from the increased sunlight of spring, it dropped back off with the limited light they received through the window. Heather and Chad had decided it was best to keep them inside, eating feed that was stored in barrels. While radiation was sure to penetrate everything over time, the isolation had to help. Heather carried the water bucket while Chad carried the egg bucket. He grumbled when it rubbed against the revolver and he would’ve switched hands if he wasn’t carrying his shotgun.
“This isn’t right,” Chad said. The gate into the chicken pen was open. He never left it open, even with the chickens locked inside their coop. It wasn’t only the gate; the door to the henhouse was ajar as well. They walked carefully to the door, looking all around as they went. Chad pushed the door open the rest of the way and looked inside. The hens and rooster were gone. The only evidence of their presence was manure and feathers on the floor. Chad knew for certain the door had been latched the evening before.
“Da . . . ang it all!” Aunt Heather said emphatically and slammed her open palm against the wall. “Man, I can’t believe I was so stupid. We knew things were getting bad and I still let this happen. Oh man, I’ve got to do better . . . we’ve got to do better.” She repeated her first statement at seeing the chickens gone but failed to censor it the second time. “We need to do a lot better if we’re going to survive,” she said softly, shaking her head at their negligence.
“We’re facing a whole new situation pal. With the system broken down, there’s not enough for everyone. It’s harsh, very harsh, but we have to protect what we have. If we share, we won’t have enough, and we all die, your parents, the girls, all of us,” she said.
A lump formed in Chad’s throat. He couldn’t respond even if he had anything he wanted to say.
Heather stewed over their lapse and the missing hens while Chad looked around. “Do you think they took anything else?” he asked.
“Good point Buddy. I’m glad at least one of us is using their head,” Aunt Heather said.
They checked the entire farmstead with more scrutiny than normal. Inside the shed where the animal feed was kept, Aunt Heather snorted when she saw the barrels of chicken feed. “Well, isn’t that great,” she said, her voice full of scorn. “They left us the chicken feed, but a lot of good it is to us now.”
“Well, it is good. We can eat it if we need to,” Chad said.
“I hope we don’t get that hungry.”
Chad gave her a look and raised the lid on one barrel. “You haven’t paid attention to what we fed them, have you?” he asked. Removing a glove, he reached into the barrel and scooped a handful of feed. He lowered his face scarf, blew lightly over his hand, and popped the feed into his mouth and chewed. “We fed them whole wheat, well that and oyster shells. Dad figured with everything they ate free ranging, they didn’t need expensive chicken feed. So he only bought wheat for them.”
“That’s better than nothing I guess, but I’d rather eat eggs and chicken than bird food,” Aunt Heather said. “But you’re right of course. Now let’s finish looking the place over and figure out what we’re going to do to protect what we have left.”
Nothing else was missing that Chad could determine, but Heather was concerned it wouldn’t be long before other necessities began to disappear in the night. “We’ve got a lot of stuff that could walk away. With only two of us to watch over everything, it’s going to be next to impossible to keep an eye on all of it,” she said.
Chad was quiet. Doing chores was one thing, but guarding the home and belongings would be a huge job, a terrifying job. His relief at having Aunt Heather close had been short-lived. Their problems grew larger and larger every day. It felt like they’d overwhelm him. Again, he wished his dad was his regular self and able to take care of everything. He didn’t realize he’d voiced his thought out loud.
“No, your dad is still too weak, but he might be able to help a little. We need to get a rifle and shotgun to him. Seeing him with a gun might help scare people off, but not the desperate ones. So, how do we deter those ones without force?” she asked.
Without force. He didn’t want anyone snooping around, and he certainly didn’t want to use one of the guns to chase someone off. What if they weren’t chased off? What would happen then?
He stared at the shop, longing for his dad. He looked away, and turned from Aunt Heather, hopeful she wouldn’t see his tears through his goggles. It felt like he was crying all the time lately. He tried without success to stifle a sob and more tears flowed. He hated losing control in front of her! It was one thing to do it alone in his bedroom, but it was embarrassing to do it in front of Aunt Heather. His parents had tasked him with watching over things, and he was breaking down like a little kid. He sniffed and pinched his eyes closed. As his vision cleared, he focused on the entrance to the root cellar and the nearby haystack.
“Aunt Heather,” he said, trying hard to keep his voice steady. Maybe she hadn’t noticed his breakdown. “Maybe we can hide and camouflage the stuff.”
“Good idea Buddy. What do you have in mind?” she asked.
A sniffle came unbidden and Chad started talking to cover it up. “The root cellar . . . It’s underground, with only the entrance showing . . . And the haystack is right beside it. We could hide stuff inside the cellar, and hide the cellar with the hay.”
Aunt Heather cast her gaze over the area Chad was referring to and studied it. “I said good idea, but I was wrong,” she said. Chad’s face fell and tears filled his eyes again before she completed her thought. “Nope, not a good idea at all, that’s an excellent idea. Great job, Chad!”
Chad sniffed and looked at her. “So we have a place to hide stuff Aunt Heather, but what all do you think needs hidden before it’s stolen?”
“Well, I’d imagine all of our refineries were destroyed, so chances are there won’t be any more fuel,” Aunt Heather said. “And farmers won’t be able to produce much. So first off, we need to get all food and fuel stashed away.”
Chad nodded in understanding and said, “Dad has two or three gas cans that might have gas, and a can mixed for the chainsaw. Both propane tanks are full too. And most of our storage food is kept in there.”
Heather wondered if she should tell him her next concern, but he had to hear it sooner or later. It might as well be sooner. “While hiding stuff is a great idea, I don’t think it’s our long-term answer,” she said. “We’ve also got to plan on leaving as soon as your folks can travel, and figure out how we’re going to live after that.”
He looked at her in shock. “Leave?” he squeaked out. “What are you talking about? This is our home. We can’t leave here. Where would we go anyway?”
“Chad, Buddy, I know it’s a scary thought, but, I think we’re too vulnerable. You and I can’t guard what we’ve got. Consider what would happen if a load of goons drove up shooting at us. How long do you think we could hold out? While this is a nice home, it’s not a fort. Besides, we’re not armed for a siege. And without a lot of other people to help us, someday we’d be overwhelmed. You’ve seen the way we get looked over when people drive past. It’s not going to be long before some of them don’t back down and we’ll have to fight to keep what we’ve got. I want to avoid a fire-fight if we can, and I don’t want anything to happen to you and the girls. I want to be gone before that day comes. I hope it doesn’t come before your folks can travel.” She saw him stiffen and his eyes flashed with terror. Heather crossed the space between them and wrapped an arm around him. “Hey, Buddy, it’s not that bad. If we get messed with, we’ve got something they don’t.”
He turned enough to look at her mostly hidden face, searching for reassurance. “What’s that?” he asked.
Her grin extended to her eyes. “If anyone messes with you and the girls, you’re going to have one ticked off redhead fighting for you. And everyone in their right mind knows better than to kick that hornets’ nest.”
In spite of the situation, Chad couldn’t help but laugh. He’d seen her temper on occasion. She could be scary when she was mad. Some of the tension left him. Ready to break down a few moments ago, the stiffness was gone, and he looked around with new interest. “I’ll try not to make you too mad,” he said. “Now we’ve stood around too long. Don’t we have things to get done?”
She squeezed his shoulders again. “Yeah we do, and nobody else is going to do it for us. But I was wondering about one more thing. Does your dad have a stock trailer? I’ve never seen one here. If we leave, I mean when we leave, we’ll need a trailer to haul the cows.”
His shoulders re-tensed. “No, we don’t have a trailer. Dad only used one once in a while, so he borrowed one when he needed it,” Chad said.
“Well, shi . . . er, shucks. Nothing’s easy. So we have to figure out how we’ll move them,” she said.
“That’s all right. I’ve heard that word before, the one you wanted to say. But don’t say it around the girls. Or Mom and Dad either. Mom’s quick with the soap when she hears a word like that. So anyway, where would we go?” he asked.
“We’ll go to my place on Reynolds Creek. It has water, solar power, and it’s pretty isolated. It’s not the best farm ground around, but I think we can coax it into providing enough for us. It’ll take a lot of work, though, a lot more than you ever had to do here. But you’re right, we need to get busy. Let’s see if your dad feels up to talking with us. I’m sure he’d have ideas neither of us would come up with.”
They walked together to the shop and Heather tapped lightly on the door. When there was no response, she tapped a bit harder, but still soft enough it wouldn’t disturb Dan and Lisa if they were sleeping. “I guess it’s you and me, Buddy,” she said after the second knock failed to bring Dan to the door. Heather led the way to the chairs at the back of the house.
“So we mentioned fuel and food. I think we include anything and everything that’s edible, including the chicken feed. And we should fill every container we can find with water,” Heather said.
“About food though,” Chad said. “I’ve been getting most of what we eat out of the cellar. If we’re hiding the entrance, we don’t want to go in there all the time, do we?”
“No, you’re right,” Aunt Heather said. “Before we hide the entry, we need to get enough food out to last us for a while. I guess enough to last until your mom comes out of quarantine.
“So we need to stash food, fuel, and water. I think your camping supplies might come in handy too. So what else? Oh, garden seeds; we need to get them hidden. I doubt people will think of them right away, but in time they will. And tools to do the whole gardening thing. Regular tools too, I guess.” Heather rubbed her temples and thought. “Maybe we start with that and see if we notice anything else that needs to be moved while we’re working. Go get your strongest binoculars and let’s get busy,” she said.
“Binoculars? What do we need them for?” Chad asked.
“We need to take a while and look all around and make sure we aren’t being watched. It wouldn’t do us any good to hide everything if our every move is monitored,” Aunt Heather said. She sighed and stared off into space. “Man, what a mess. The plague and the nukes were devastating enough, but starvation might deliver the knock-out blow.”
After they spent a long time searching for hidden watchers with none detected, they got to work. Everything they wanted to conceal in the cellar was staged in the shed. Then Heather wanted to check for watchers again before they exposed the cellar entrance. After another long period studying their surroundings carefully, they started moving things. As they carried items into the cellar, other boxes of food were carried back to the shed. When the last things had been moved, they set planks across the entrance to the cellar and stacked hay across the planks.
“I think we’ve got it,” Heather said. She stepped back and looked the area over. A careful study would reveal something wasn’t right, but for a quick look, the entrance was well hidden. “Now we can only hope it was all unnecessary, but does the job if we get people snooping around.”
“Yep, it looks good. Now if you’d carry enough water for me to shower . . .” Chad said. Despite the cool weather, they’d both worked up a sweat, and dust had worked into every opening in their clothing.
“Not gonna happen, Buddy, but I will pack two more buckets of water for us both to clean up with while you move those boxes to the house.” She indicated the shed with the boxes they’d left. “You should get the girls to help with that so we can get done faster.”
Chad was tired from everything they’d done; he wanted to leave the stuff where it was for the night but knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. Besides, there was no way Aunt Heather would allow it. He bent over and picked up a box of potatoes and trudged towards the house.
His dad stepped out of the shop as Chad neared the back of the house. He pushed his hand through his hair and scratched his scalp. It needed to be washed – bad – after long bouts of sweating. “Wh . . . what are you doing Son? That’s a lot of potatoes. Are you guys having a feast?”
“No, but I wish that was the reason. The chickens got stolen and Aunt Heather thought more stuff might get stolen, so we hid everything we could think of in the root cellar today. Now we’re putting a bunch of food in the house,” Chad said.
“Someone stole the chickens?” Dan asked.
“Yeah, last night. And we don’t want to show the entrance to the cellar so we hid it too,” Chad said. “Oh yeah, I just remembered, I’ll bring your shotgun and rifle out and lean them next to the door and knock to signal you. If somebody tries to steal our stuff, Aunt Heather thinks we might need your help.
“Then, when you and Mom get better, we’re going to move to Aunt Heather’s place,” Chad continued. “She thinks it’ll be safer there. Sorry, Dad, I’d like to talk longer, but I have more work to do before it gets dark. I’ll get the guns out to you in a little while.” Chad turned and walked to the back door, balanced the box against the door jamb, opened the door, and disappeared inside.
#
Dan stared at Chad’s back, not wanting to accept it. He’d seen Heather and Chad carrying guns after all but tried to ignore it. He turned and went into the shop. “They’re planning on leaving? But this is our home.” His addled thoughts couldn’t piece it together. He rubbed his head again and looked at Lisa. “Sure would like to wash this gungy hair, and yours too,” he murmured. Instead, he got the wash basin and started giving Lisa a sponge bath.
Her feverish eyes opened and she mouthed, “Thank you,” though no sound came out.
When he was done, he settled back into his chair and wiped down his face and neck with the sponge. After talking to Chad, he couldn’t feel happy when several of the scabs released from his pustules from the wiping.
Too soon, he heard a knock on the door. Opening it, he saw his shotgun leaning against the wall alongside his rifle. Three boxes of shells were on the ground beside them. Two were for the shotgun; a box of magnums he used for geese, and a box of lighter loads. The third box of shells was for the rifle. He looked at the guns and ammo and shook his head at Chad’s retreating back. The revolver was prominent on his hip.
Dan had a hard time accepting it all. How on earth had everything fallen apart? Not merely fallen apart, but so fast. It seemed like it was only a few days ago the guys at work were chumming it up about a football game. Chad was telling him all about his day. Then the world shifted abruptly. Instead of providing for the family, Dan found himself stuck in the shop with his wife. His sick wife; her beautiful face marred by all those spots. And his son walked around armed at all times. His thirteen-year-old son, for God’s sake, armed while doing chores, and planning to leave their home. How had it all happened? Why had it all happened?
It was too much to contemplate. Dan picked up both guns and took them inside the shop and went back for the shells. He wanted nothing more at the moment than to ignore them, but he fought the impulse. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he checked each gun out. While looking them over he came to a decision, a decision he didn’t like one bit. It might be necessary, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. In fact, he disliked it as much as knowing their country had been nuked. But it’d happened, as unlikely as it seemed. So he loaded both guns, including one in the chamber, safeties on, and stood them within easy reach. What good was an unloaded gun after all; he was too weak to swing a club. He collapsed onto his cot and stared at the guns until they blurred. He wiped his eyes and closed them, seeing Chad with the revolver looking so big on his narrow hip. “How on earth has it come to this?” Dan muttered.
#
Despite their earlier resolve to limit their time outside, it’d taken Chad and Heather most of the day to accomplish everything. Heather packed enough extra water to the house for both of them to wash thoroughly. She didn’t know if it would help but it seemed like a good idea; a thorough scrubbing followed by applications of fresh iodine. She told Chad if she could clean up first, she and the girls would work on supper while he got cleaned up. He agreed with no debate and slumped wearily into a kitchen chair after setting more water on the woodstove to heat. He wanted his Dad’s recliner, but avoided the upholstery; he’d wait until he’d scrubbed and changed clothes before moving to the comfy chair. The wooden chair could be wiped down easier. Like his Aunt, he didn’t know if any of it would help with what they assumed was radioactive air surrounding them, but he supposed it couldn’t hurt.
During supper it was all Chad could do to stay awake. As soon as he finished eating Aunt Heather ordered him to bed. “I’ll stay awake and keep watch. If something comes up, I’ll wake you before I go out to check. If I wake you, you’ll need to jump out of bed and be ready to help me. So on those cheery thoughts, good night, Buddy.”
Despite his weariness, Aunt Heather’s words wouldn’t leave him. Her words and the fact they’d be leaving the only home he’d ever known kept him awake deep into the night. He lay on his bed staring into the darkness and longed for his parents to come in and tell him goodnight and everything was all right.
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Post by bretf on Jun 22, 2022 6:56:05 GMT -6
Chapter 26
Chad awoke and rolled over with his stomach churning. He sat up and the discomfort intensified; his stomach threatened to erupt. He had to get to the bathroom, fast. He clenched his mouth tight and moved as quick as he could, making it just in time; almost. Part of his discharge missed the toilet bowl and would have to be cleaned up. But not right away; at the moment he was totally incapacitated. With his head over the bowl, he grasped each side tight and retched again and again until he thought his stomach lining must be coming out.
He was drenched in sweat and trembling when the nausea lessened and he was able to raise his head. Fumbling in the dark, he located a washcloth on the towel bar and pulled it off. After he mopped sweat from his forehead, he cleaned the vile remains from around his mouth and chin. A stool was kept in the room, and feeling blindly, he located it, pulled it near the toilet, and sat on it with a heavy sigh. Man, that wasn’t a fun way to get up. And it isn’t even morning yet, he thought, as he glanced at the window. It was as dark outside as in the room.
He took several deep breaths, shaken from waking in such a manner. When his breathing was under control and he was relatively calm, he searched on the vanity and found the flashlight they kept on it. In the beam of light, he saw more than a little vomit had missed the toilet bowl. He reached for the toilet paper to clean it up but yanked his hand back at a thought. They had yet another problem to consider on top of everything else!
They weren’t going to get any more toilet paper. Once they used what they had on hand, they’d have to come up with an alternative. Things get worse and worse, he thought. He’d better not waste something so precious to clean up. The washcloth would do fine since it needed to be washed anyway. It would require a little more water, but carrying a little extra water wouldn’t be near as bad as life without toilet paper.
With the flashlight in one hand and the washcloth in the other, he wiped up all the puke he could see and dropped the washcloth into the sink. Standing brought nausea, but nothing like when he woke up. After he flushed the toilet, he refilled the tank from the water bucket they kept at hand for the purpose. It worked, but at the moment he really missed running water. And the exhaust fan. The puke might be gone, but the stench remained and he couldn’t do a thing about it.
Leaning back against the vanity, he realized he was sweating. The awareness sent an icy chill through him. No, not the pox, he screamed silently. I can’t have it. Dad and Mom aren’t better yet. I can’t give it to the girls. They’ve gotta stay healthy. He was in a near-panic as he thought about keeping the girls safe and what would happen to them after he joined their parents in the shop.
He found a clean washcloth, dipped it in the wash basin and wiped his face. It gave a little relief, but did nothing for the despair he felt over his sisters. A pitcher of water and a cup were on the vanity, and he filled the cup, rinsed his mouth and spat, and sipped a little. It was a mistake. The water felt like a Superball in his stomach as if it hit bottom and bounced around. He bent back over the toilet bowl expecting it to come back up at any moment. It didn’t, but he held his position, ready.
He thought about Aunt Heather and all they’d been doing together. The stark realization hit him like a punch to the gut. “Oh man, if I got it, she will to,” he told the dark and silent toilet bowl. The water did come up then, and he retched over and over.
When he’d cleaned his face again, he stepped out of the bathroom; he had to find Aunt Heather. If she had it too, they needed to get away from the girls, but how could they do it? How could the girls manage? They were too young to be on their own.
Aunt Heather materialized near the door when his flashlight beam swung through the room, causing him to jump back. He sucked in a ragged, gasping breath before he realized the dark shape was his aunt.
“Hey Buddy, calm down. It’s just me,” she said. “From the sounds of all the puking, it hit you pretty good. It shouldn’t last too long though. Sorry, it nailed you; I was hoping it’d only get me.”
“What do you mean, “Hoping it’d only get me”? And what do you mean about it not lasting long? Dad’s been sick for at least two weeks,” Chad said. He thought more about what she’d said. “Oh man, you got it, didn’t you?” His voice rose the more he talked until he was nearly hysterical. “Mom and Dad, you and I; we’ve all got it. All of us except the girls. What’re we going to do about them?”
“Shh, shh. You need to calm down, Buddy. We don’t want to wake your sisters,” Aunt Heather said.
He spoke softer but not calmer. “Calm down? But . . . but . . . how do we keep them safe? They can’t take care of themselves.” As if the nausea hadn’t been bad enough before, his stomach boiled more at having his fears confirmed.
“Chad, take it easy. We’ll take care of them; you and I. We don’t have the plague. What we have isn’t contagious.” Aunt Heather said soothingly. “I’m pretty sure we’ve got radiation sickness.”
“What? Radiation sickness? How, er . . . why . . . why do you think that?” Chad asked. He hoped she was right. Anything but the pox.
“Come to the table,” she said. A candle was burning on the kitchen table next to an open encyclopedia. The papers from the CDC were on the opposite side of the candle. “Luckily, your parents still have old-fashioned reference books and didn’t rely strictly on the internet. Now have a seat.” She sat in the chair in front of the open book.
“I started feeling queasy a couple of hours ago, and since I was up anyway, I figured I’d do a little research,” she said. “So think about it. We’ve been going outside quite a bit, and we stayed out pretty much all day yesterday. We know those have to be radioactive clouds, so we had a lot of exposure. I’m sure we’re ingesting radiation with our food, too. I think with all our time outside and what we’ve eaten, we accumulated enough in our systems to make us sick.
“So, the book says the first symptoms of radiation sickness are nausea and vomiting. It says for mild exposure, those symptoms come on approximately six hours after the exposure. For heavier exposures it’s more like two hours, and as soon as ten minutes for severe exposure. It goes on to say that soon after nausea, is fever. Later still is headaches and weakness; and if we got enough radiation, our hair might start falling out in a week or more. Again, it all hinges on how much radiation we’ve taken in. But I think it’s a good sign it’s held off this long,” Aunt Heather said.
“What time is it anyway? How long since we were outside?” Chad asked.
“It’s around 4:00 am. We finished up outside about nine hours ago. I started feeling queasy about seven hours after we came in,” Aunt Heather said. “So, pretty much on schedule for mild exposure, according to the encyclopedia.
“Now, compare that to the plague. It starts with fever, headache and body aches, all before vomiting, and not everyone shows that symptom. After I read all this and compared everything, paying close attention to what I felt like, well, I think it’s radiation,” she said. She reached out and took his hand and gave it a soft squeeze. “I think the girls are safe.”
“But how can we know for sure?” Chad asked in a soft voice.
“We can’t, at least not until other symptoms start to show for one or the other. But I’d bet everything I have it’s not the plague,” she said.
Shadows and the flickering candlelight danced around on Aunt Heather’s face and made it hard for Chad to see well. Still, he studied her, hoping to see reassurance and resolve. “So what do we do now?” he asked.
“Well, we don’t go outside unless we absolutely have to. And when we do go outside, we wear different clothes. The ones we’ve been using have to be contaminated and probably give us more radiation than they keep off. I guess that’ll mean more water for cleaning ourselves and our clothes when we come in.” Heather took a sip from a glass of water and grimaced, but it stayed down.
“Do you think that’ll be enough?” Chad asked. “And everything outside will be okay?”
“We can only hope it’ll be enough. We’re in the proverbial spot, stuck between a rock and a hard place. If we go outside much, we’ll get more radiation and be sick longer. So we have to hope everything we did yesterday was enough of a safeguard.”
They sat in silence, and then in darkness as the candle stub sputtered out.
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Post by bretf on Jun 23, 2022 19:41:39 GMT -6
Chapter 27
Exhausted, Aunt Heather had gone to bed soon after convincing Chad he didn’t have smallpox. But before that, they’d set a watch schedule. She’d sleep during the day while Chad kept watch, and he’d sleep at night while she kept an eye on things. They would have an overlap when both were awake, but during those times, she and Chad would have to get all the outside chores done as fast as possible.
As if recent days hadn’t been bad enough, Chad felt like life had taken another turn for the worse. After being thrust into the role of watching out for Brooke and Alison, it’d been a tremendous relief when Aunt Heather moved into the house. Seemingly overnight, that comfort was gone.
He felt miserable, and after Aunt Heather went to bed, it felt like it was turning into the longest day he could remember. He thought how earthquake force was measured and wondered if a comparable scale for misery had been created. His personal scale had gone up another notch.
The twins, who’d been so agreeable with Aunt Heather around, were sullen and withdrawn. When pressed, they did as Chad requested, or ordered, it was a fine line differentiating what motivated them. They also resented it every time he shushed them so Aunt Heather could sleep. They decided they’d stay up later than normal so they could have more time with her.
Along with missing Aunt Heather, they no longer had the limited access to their parents. With the loss of power, the chargers for the FRS radios no longer worked and they didn’t have new batteries. The radios had become worthless. Chad looked at the shopping list on the refrigerator. The second item written on it was batteries.
He ripped the paper free from the pad and read it, certain they wouldn’t be going shopping. “Flour, batteries, sugar, coffee, storage bags,” he read. He wadded the paper up and threw it into the trashcan. Of course, his mom had run them low on baking supplies before the world fell apart. He admonished himself for the thought. “It’s not Mom’s fault those . . . those . . . people caused all this,” he muttered.
A calendar hung next to the pad the shopping list had been written on. Chad took it from the magnetic clip and carried it to the table. February 16th and 22nd were both circled in red; the days each of his parents had first shown symptoms of the plague. Smallpox, he corrected himself. Aunt Heather was rubbing off on him.
He consulted the papers on smallpox again even though he knew what they said, and counted the days it took for the disease to run its course. The numbers added up to twenty-four to thirty days on the short side, with up to ten more days possible. Looking at the range, he decided on one month and circled March 16th and 22nd in red also. The dates weren’t certain, but they gave him targets for his parents to walk healthy out of the shop. On the margin of the calendar, he wrote, “Could be a week either direction.” He hoped it would be on the short end, but knew better than to count on it.
His stomach took that moment to clench. “And I hope Aunt Heather was right about the nausea not lasting long, too,” he said. When his stomach felt semi-settled, he refocused on the calendar. February 28th had a black X drawn through it; he’d done that the previous evening. He counted the days from the X to the first red circle. Still, more than two weeks before his dad might come out. Chad didn’t think he would, though. Knowing his dad, he’d stay with his mom unless an emergency made him leave her. He’d insist they leave the shop together.
Chad stared at the calendar and wiped his eyes. As if they sensed he was vulnerable, the girls started to squabble. He was ready to shush them yet again as a tear dropped onto the calendar. He wiped it off and had an idea at the same time. Maybe if he explained the calendar to them, it might keep them quiet for a while and maybe he’d enjoy their company at the same time. No maybe about it, he knew he’d enjoy time with them. As long as they didn’t get argumentative anyway; he didn’t feel up to dealing with that. He called them to the table and explained the red circles and his hopes for seeing their parents.
“Do they really have to stay out there that long?” Brooke asked. “That’s sure a long time.”
“I don’t want them to be gone that long,” Alison added.
“I don’t either. But just think, they’ve made it halfway,” Chad said. Both girls had pouty looks. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to include them after all. He was trying to come up with something positive to say when he heard a vehicle on the road. He looked out and saw a blue Dodge pickup truck with dark-tinted windows coast to a stop in front of the house. The pickup moved, but only twenty or so feet before it stopped again.
Looking around the room, he saw the absence; his mistake. “Brooke, Ali, I forgot to bring the guns out of my bedroom.” They hadn’t crossed his mind after leaving his bed in such a rush. “Bring them to me, and be careful with them. Then go wake Aunt Heather and tell her to come out right now. No arguing, just do it!”
His voice was full of urgency and their pouts disappeared, replaced by fear. They followed his gaze out the front window. He paused and considered. “And take my shotgun and go to your room. Stay there until one of us tells you it’s all right to come out. Remember what Aunt Heather told you and do it all exactly like she said.” Chad didn’t look at them but continued to watch the pickup.
“Chad, you’re scaring me,” Alison said.
“Just do it, NOW!” he snapped.
Brooke returned with the pistol, and he strapped the belt around his waist while she went to his bedroom for his rifle. The belt threatened to fall off his narrow hips. He’d been wearing it over his outside clothes and it was too large to fit snug without the extra padding.
Alison was still standing in place. “Ali now, get Aunt Heather!” he snapped again and nudged her into movement. He took the rifle from Brooke and moved slowly to the window. The pickup was still in the road. Chad took a deep breath and crossed to the door. His heart threatened to burst out of his chest, it was beating so hard. Unable to control the tremor in his hand, he reached out and gripped the doorknob. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and slowly turned the knob.
“Hold on Chad,” a voice said from behind him, making him jump. He was relieved to see Aunt Heather; she stood where she could see out the front window.
“I think they’re leaving. Now we have to hope they didn’t see anything they want to come back for.” Heather sighed and settled onto the couch after the pickup was out of sight. “How’s your stomach?”
“It’s better, but still not good. I heated chicken soup for the girls and I had a little. It stayed down, but I thought I was going to hurl.”
“Do you have any left? I’d try a bit. Mostly broth, though, if it’s doable,” Aunt Heather said. Her pale complexion was whiter than normal.
“Chad, Aunt Heather, can we come out?” Brooke asked. She peered around the corner of the door frame with the shotgun clutched tight in both hands. Alison was right behind her.
“Sure come out,” Chad said. To Aunt Heather he said, “Yeah, I’ve got a little left in the pan. I’ll get you a mug. But that pickup, what if they’d gotten out and started snooping around?”
When she didn’t answer right away - her mouth was stretched in a big yawn - he went to the wood stove, picked up the saucepan, and carried it into the kitchen. He returned with broth in a mug and handed it to her.
After Heather took a tentative sip of broth, she said, “We stick to our earlier plan. Stay behind cover and tell them there’s nothing here for them.” Heather had lectured him on the difference between cover and concealment. Concealment might hide him, but it wouldn’t stop a bullet. They’d picked out and mentally cataloged every bit of cover they could determine.
“We tell them we’re starving, but too sick to go look for anything to eat. Point out the quarantine tape. And if that doesn’t work we fire a warning shot. But I’ll be the one to decide on that. You just back me up.”
She took another sip and cocked her head, a thoughtful expression replacing her frown. “I wonder . . . you know, it might help.” Her expression became a grin. “I think we need to go through your Mom’s makeup. If we’re going use the plague as a deterrent, we need to look the part.”
“What do you mean?” Chad asked.
“Spots, we need spots. That way, if someone looks at us they think we have the plague,” she said.
Chad got it and returned the grin.
“Hey girls,” Aunt Heather said to Brooke and Alison. “I need you to draw spots on me. Make me look like your mom. Could you do that please?”
“Sure,” they chorused. Both loved to play dress up and had play make up kits. They ran to their bedroom to get them. It would be fun making Chad and Aunt Heather look like they had the disease.
“It might work,” Heather murmured. “Except for the people who don’t have anything to lose.”
The girls returned and stood in front of her. She stifled another yawn and said, “Start with Chad,” and her eyes drooped closed. Chad took the mug out of her hand and set it on the end table before she could drop it. “Thanks,” she murmured without opening her eyes.
Chad checked the road one more time where the pickup had disappeared and sat where he could see out the window, his left hand on his knee. “Start with this hand and you can work on getting the color right,” he said. He hoped no one ever got close enough to determine if it was right or not. The girls started applying makeup, accompanied by soft snores from the couch. Heather would wake hours later, looking like she had a full-blown case of smallpox.
#
Chad’s nausea remained with him through the day and his fever stayed constant, but it wasn’t near as high as his parents had with smallpox. He had a slight headache as well, but it also was nothing like his parents had gotten. It was a relief to decide Aunt Heather had been right. It was only radiation sickness, not smallpox. An adult who’d lived under the nuclear threat would laugh at the irony of his thought. It was ONLY radiation sickness.
Chad was pleased no other cars drove past or stopped as the day dragged on. His chair was positioned where he could see out the front window, but he didn’t see anything new, only the dull gray day that dragged on and on.
As he watched out the window, he caught movement with his peripheral vision. A black jumping spider moved across the molding board.
“I wonder how this fallout will affect bugs and spiders,” he murmured. “Will it kill them? Will I get spider powers if one bites me?” He snorted at the absurdity of the thought, causing the girls to look up at him. “It’s nothing. I just had a silly thought,” he told them.
He continued to watch the spider and think. It was too bad the internet was down. If it was working, he’d try to find the answers. Before That Day, maybe it had real data from that place in Russia, Chernobyl, or whatever it was called. The more he thought about it, he decided it wouldn’t be a good thing if most of the bugs died off. Not that he’d miss ticks, flies, and mosquitos if they were gone, but if honeybees died off, as crucial as they were to crops, it would add one more factor to decreased food production and pending starvation. The spider continued to move, suddenly jumping. Chad figured it’d caught a smaller bug he couldn’t see. He wished it was a fly.
#
“Aunt Heather,” Chad said softly. “Aunt Heather,” he repeated and gave her shoulder a tender shake.
“Huh, what?” she said, blinking her eyes a few times.
“Aunt Heather, I hate to wake you, but it’s time to do the chores. I wanted to do them myself and let you sleep but figured I better not. Having a ticked off redhead on the warpath wouldn’t be good.”
Heather rose to a sitting position, grimaced at her uneasy stomach, stretched and yawned. “You’re right about that Buddy. It’s a dang good thing you woke me because I don’t think you’d look too good in a diaper.”
“Huh, what’re you talking about?” Chad asked.
“If you’d have done the chores alone, I’d chew your butt out so bad, you’d need a diaper to soak up all the blood,” she said.
“You’re right, it’s a good thing I woke you then. I think we’re all out of diapers,” Chad said with a chuckle.
Heather yawned again. “So, I can’t remember. Does the cow need to be milked tonight?” she asked.
“Yeah, I should milk her,” Chad said.
Heather’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “You know I don’t know a thing about cows, well, except they taste good when cooked right, but would it work to only milk her part way? Since you’ve skipped some milkings altogether, what if you did half today so we can get everything done that much faster?”
“I don’t know, but I guess it’s worth a try. I might have to milk her again sooner, though,” Chad said.
“I think it’d be worth it this time so we aren’t out there too long this evening. But while we’re out, we’ve got to bring in extra water too. We’ll need to scrub ourselves and wash the clothes we wear. Plus, we seem to be flushing the toilet more today,” she grimaced again at her queasy stomach. “What about the greenhouse? Do we need to water in there?”
“I think we can skip it. With all the clouds, the beds aren’t drying out as fast as normal,” Chad said.
“Okay, let’s get to it,” Heather said. They both dressed for outside, got their guns and buckets, and went out into the gray evening.
After chores were done, Chad and Heather scrubbed themselves and washed their clothes in buckets. The portable drying rack was set up near the stove, with the wet clothing hanging on it. They joined the twins at the table for supper, home canned stew for the girls, and chicken soup for Chad and Heather. The girls had also set out a jar of applesauce.
“Chad, will you read with us tonight?” Alison asked between bites. “You skipped last night.”
He didn’t want to sit up and read; all he wanted was to eat as much as he could without throwing up and get to bed. Despite laying around all day, he was tired and felt worse after doing chores. It was definitely a good thing he hadn’t tried doing everything alone. Unfortunately, the soup hit his stomach like a rock and he considered going straight to bed.
Before he could answer Alison’s question, Aunt Heather spoke. “Chad is really tired this evening Ali, but tell you what. I’d love it if you two would keep me company while I stay up, for a while anyway. After we wash the dishes,” she paused and reached for the candle in the center of the table. She made a mark with her fingernail a short distance below the melted top. “We’ll read together until the candle gets this low. Then you’ll need to go to bed. We don’t have a lot of candles, so we need to be careful about using them. They might have to last us for a long time. How does that sound to you?”
Chad was amazed Aunt Heather could sound so chipper and was grateful she’d offered. He noticed she wasn’t eating any more than he was.
“But what if we aren’t done with the chapter when it burns to there?” Brooke asked. “We don’t want to stop in the middle. That’s a bad way to read books.”
“We’ll have to see where we are at the time, and maybe we can go a little longer. But just in case we do read more, you need to get your pajamas on and brush your teeth before we start. That way you can go right to bed when we stop,” Aunt Heather said.
“But, what if—” Alison started.
“What if I change my mind and don’t read at all?” Aunt Heather interrupted.
The girls looked at each other and passed a silent message. “Okay, Aunt Heather. We’ll get ready for bed. But do you think me and Alison can do the dishes tomorrow when it’s light out?” Brooke said.
“Alison and I, you mean. But okay, I suppose that’d be alright, but do an extra good job of brushing your teeth,” Heather said. Despite her unsettled stomach, she couldn’t help but smile at her nieces as they raced for their bedroom.
“What about our smallpox spots? They washed off after we did the chores,” Chad said.
“Let’s wait until morning to put them back on. They wouldn’t be effective at night anyway, and yours would get rubbed off in bed if we did it now,” Heather said.
#
“Chad, Chad, get up, quick! Something’s happening outside. I’m going out!” Aunt Heather spoke quietly, but her voice was full of urgency. She was gone from his bedroom in an instant.
Chad rose fast and regretted it. Dread for what they might find outside on top of the sickness caused his stomach to roil. His mouth flooded with saliva and he fought desperately to keep from puking. Bending over the side of the bed, he fumbled in the dark for his boots and the foul taste of bile mixed with the saliva. He grimaced and found the boots and pulled them on, followed by the coat and hat he’d laid out on his nightstand. Still fighting the urge to vomit, he strapped the gun belt on and found his shotgun.
A glance out the window only revealed blackness. He hoped Aunt Heather was wrong, and it’d only been her imagination. She had to be wrong! Or maybe it was the wind, yet he didn’t think the wind would fool her. His heart pounded as he went to the back door and he chided himself for taking too long. If there was trouble and Aunt Heather needed him, he was afraid he was moving too slow.
He stepped out the door in time to see the dark shapes of the cows running down the driveway with another dark figure behind them. Aunt Heather, where are you, what’s happening? The words screamed silently in his mind. He wanted to call for her so she could tell him what he should do, but he didn’t. Where was she anyway?
Instead, he hurried into the yard and turned on the flashlight duct taped to the barrel of the shotgun as she’d drilled into him. Pointing the beam of light and the gun barrel at the running shape, he yelled, “STOP! Stop or I’ll shoot!” His stomach twisted and he wasn’t sure if his shot could land anywhere near what he wanted to hit.
But he didn’t want to shoot; that dark form was a person after all. The beam of light danced all around, and his words had as much effect as they did on television shows; the figure kept running.
“Lower the gun,” a deep voice said behind him. Something hard jammed into his backbone. Chad bent over and threw up.
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Post by CountryGuy on Jun 23, 2022 20:33:48 GMT -6
Man that is a cliff...
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Post by bretf on Jun 27, 2022 18:13:22 GMT -6
Chapter 28
Chad’s knees buckled as he puked and he fell to the grass on all fours. The shotgun was forgotten near his trembling hand as his stomach heaved over and over. He shuddered and retched more despite already voiding his stomach. One knee of his long underwear soaked through with vomit, but he was oblivious to it. The sound of running cows faded in the distance.
“Do you know what that red dot is?” he heard Aunt Heather say. “See it on your chest? That’s where the bullets are going to rip through you if you do anything to that young man, ANYTHING AT ALL!”
Chad wasn’t certain, but he guessed she was talking to the man behind him. Hopefully, he was the only one left. He retched again.
He heard a pained sob from behind him, and whatever the man had pressed to his back dropped to the ground. Chad had the wherewithal to cover it and found the man’s “gun” was a broomstick. After another loud sob, in jerky delivery, the man said, “I’m . . . sorry . . . I’m so sorry . . . It’s my kids . . . They’re hungry . . . all the time. We haven’t had anything to eat . . . for three days.” The words were accompanied by more sobs. “They need to eat and I . . . saw you pour the milk out on the ground . . . It’s just being wasted.”
The red dot never wavered on his chest. “You realize the milk is radioactive, don’t you? You’ll be poisoning them if you let them drink it,” Heather said.
“What choice do I have?” The man asked, his voice full of anguish. “They don’t have anything at all to eat. They go to bed crying. Radiation is better than starvation. We didn’t mean for the other cows to get out too. We only wanted the one in milk.” Another pained sob sounded. “If we could pay, we would. My . . . my wife and oldest son . . . they were taken away . . . and they . . . died of the pox. I have three little ones and the boy that was behind the cow . . . I . . . I don’t know what else to do.”
“You could have asked for the milk, you know!” Heather snapped.
“I . . . I . . .” the man sobbed.
The door hadn’t latched when Chad rushed out. From the edge, Brooke called out. “Chad, Aunt Heather? Chad, I’m scared . . . Chad . . . Chad, answer me, I heard voices . . . Chad, I’m scared.” Alison was with her and began to cry. She sounded unnaturally loud in the still night. “Chad . . . are you . . . there?” Brooke began to cry as well, the sounds chorused with Alison’s.
More sobs came from behind Chad. “My . . . kids . . . are . . . starving.”
Heather swallowed hard and said, “Take the damn cow and feed your kids! But listen and I mean listen close. Do not ever, and I mean EVER come back here again! If you do, those kids will be orphans. They need a parent now more than ever.”
The dark dressed man choked out something incomprehensible and faded away into the night leaving his broomstick.
“Some guards we are,” Heather growled. “Let’s get in the house.” Chad didn’t move for a bit. In a gentler tone, she asked, “Is your stomach settled enough?”
“I think so,” he said, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and picked up the shotgun.
Heather led the way into the house. “Danged kids anyway,” she fumed and slammed the door after Chad got inside.
At her Aunt’s outburst, Alison’s crying intensified. Over the sobbing, Brooke’s voice quavered as she asked, “Did we do something wrong, Aunt Heather? We didn’t mean to. I’m sorry if we did. We got scared when we heard loud voices.”
“No Sweetie, it wasn’t you guys.” Heather leaned her rifle against the wall and found the girls in the dark kitchen. “Come here,” she said and gathered them both into her arms. “It wasn’t anything you guys did that made me mad. It’s some other kids, well, their dad actually. He’s an idiot and doesn’t know how to take care of them. He’s not smart like your dad, but he loves his kids very much like your dad loves you. And because of that, for those other kids and their dumb dad, I may have just done the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And let me tell you, I’ve done some really stupid things.” Heather squeezed the girls tighter and buried her face in Brooke’s hair. “Danged rotten kids.”
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Post by bretf on Jun 29, 2022 7:34:48 GMT -6
Chapter 29
“Chad, can you make pancakes for us this morning?” Alison asked the moment she stepped into the living room. She didn’t give a “good morning” or any other greeting or mention the night’s happenings to Chad’s relief. She was focused on eating and didn’t want the same old fare. “I’m tired of oatmeal and fried potatoes. And you never let us have enough bacon.”
Brooke had been out of bed for a while and was snuggled with Chad on the couch. She hadn’t spoken a word as yet and Chad suspected she was troubled by the night’s events. But she perked up at the mention of pancakes. She turned her face to Chad, waiting for him to say he would, in fact, make the requested breakfast.
Chad would love to have pancakes himself, but he had to be cautious with their limited supplies. He’d been making a lot of fried potatoes because they had an abundance of potatoes. They’d harvested a bumper crop from the garden the past fall. Besides the potatoes, they had a lot of rolled oats. His dad bought them in fifty-pound bags and had recently purchased two bags. So potatoes and oats had been breakfast almost every day. But supplies for pancakes were a different story. “Maybe we can, but I’ll have to see if we have what we need to make them. I know we’re low on sugar,” he said. “And we only have a few eggs left. Pancakes will taste different when we’re totally out. And we’re almost out of flour.” His tone told the girls pancakes wouldn’t happen.
Brooke had an answer for one of his concerns. “Well, let’s make flour, silly,” she said. The idea of pancakes had her mind whirling. Alison wasn't the only one who wanted a change in the breakfast menu. Brooke sprung off the couch, ready to help.
“Uh . . . that would be hard to do,” Chad said, dismissing the idea.
“Cha-a-ad,” Brooke drew out his name, her small fists on her hips. “You aren’t thinking hard enough. You don’t feed the grain to the chickens anymore, so use it to make flour. You know, like The Little Red Hen. She found the wheat, grew it and made bread. We can make flour from the chicken wheat and make pancakes.”
“Right, and how are we supposed to grind the grain into flour?” he asked. “We don’t have a grain grinder, you know.”
The look Brooke gave him was accompanied by a silent Duh. Out loud she said, “You need to pay attention to our books, you know. You use stones to grind the grain into flour.” The unspoken Duh hung in the air. She stared at him, waiting for him to quit being so dense.
“Those stones are called a mortar and pestle, and we don’t have those either,” he said, tired of her attitude.
“I know that; geez, Chad. But we have those flat stepping stones Dad got to make the path with. You put the grain on one and use another one on the top.” Brooke stared at him, waiting, but not long. She threw her hands up. “You won’t let me go outside, but I’m gonna have to go get the grain and stones to show you.”
Looking towards Brooke, but not seeing her, Chad pondered over the idea. “You know, it might work,” he said.
“I know it’ll work. So are you going or should we?” Brooke asked. Alison had moved to stand beside her.
Chad glanced at the closed door to Aunt Heather’s room and said, “I’ll go. Draw spots on my face first, though. And when I go, you guys keep watch out the windows for anyone or anything out of the ordinary. Yell at me if you see anything at all.”
With his face spotted, he slipped into a jacket and strapped on his belt with the holster and pistol. He peered through the window, didn’t detect anything out of place, and went outside and jogged to the feed shed. The grain barrels were as he’d last seen them. He and Aunt Heather had located enough empty buckets with lids to hold the wheat from one barrel, which they’d moved to the root cellar. They’d debated about moving more of the grain, but the steps to the room were narrow and steep, and it would’ve been a bear of a job getting a barrel down them. So, much of the grain remained in the feed shed. They planned on transferring the rest of it into feed bags and moving it soon, but for the time being, much of it was still loose in the barrels.
Chad filled a bucket with wheat, looked around again, and jogged back to the house. Everything seemed normal and quiet, both outside and with Aunt Heather’s bedroom door, so he made a second trip outside, going to the pile of pavers near the greenhouse. He picked two and hurried to the pump-house. He dumped two well buckets of water across each, picked them up dripping, and quickly returned to the house. The door sounded loud to him when Alison closed it behind him and he cringed, not wanting the noise to alert Aunt Heather. After what’d happened with the cows, he expected her mood to be volatile at best.
“I’ll start breakfast if you two wash the pavers with soap and water. You can stand them by the stove to dry when you get them clean,” Chad said. “I don’t know about the grain and radiation, so why don’t you rinse some of it a couple of times and dry it on a cookie sheet on the stove.” He kept his voice low, glancing towards the closed bedroom door. “After we eat, we can try to grind it. It might take us a while to figure out the best way to do it.”
The girls went right to the sink to do as Chad said while he got out the ingredients for pancakes, as well as a Mason jar of bacon. They still had enough flour for pancakes, but he’d use it all; he hoped the girl’s idea worked to make more. Soon, the house was filled with cooking aromas.
Aunt Heather’s bedroom door opened and she wandered into the living room. Her eyes were red and puffy. “That smells good, Buddy,” she said. “Are you making enough for me, too? I think my stomach is settled enough for real food.”
“Yeah, there’ll be enough, but I wasn’t expecting you. I thought you’d sleep longer so you could guard tonight,” Chad said.
Heather harrumphed. “Some guard I am. I . . . I let that guy have the cow, and we know how important she is. The chickens, well, losing them was plain stupidity on my part. But If I would’ve tried, we could still have the cows.”
“Tell you what,” Chad said. “Make coffee, and we’ll eat while the food’s hot. After we clean up we’ll discuss it, okay?”
Heather raised an eyebrow at him, but he didn’t say more, just turned back to the pancakes on the griddle. “A cup of coffee does sound good,” she said. She got out a saucepan, put a scoop of ground coffee in it, and poured in hot water from the teapot. She put a lid on the pot, and set it on the stove to brew, noting the stones beside it. Once the coffee cooked for a while, she’d strain as much of the grounds out as she could before she drank it, although she’d still end up with some in her teeth.
After she refilled the teapot, she looked at Chad with arched eyebrows. “I suppose you’re going to explain where those pavers came from.” She nodded towards the stones drying by the stove. “And the wheat the girls are rinsing?”
Chad cringed, waiting for the eruption of Mount Heather, but it didn’t come. Instead, she said, “I’m sure you were cautious so you can tell me your plan over breakfast.”
Chad looked at the griddle on the stove and fiddled with the turner; glad for an excuse not to look directly at her. “Yeah, I guess we can talk about it then,” he said.
“Chad, are the pancakes ready yet?” Alison asked as she carried the cookie sheet filled with wheat to the stove.
He cringed again and flipped the pancakes. He should have known Aunt Heather would figure out he’d been outside and he could never keep it secret with his sisters involved.
Over breakfast, Brooke explained the idea to make flour to Aunt Heather. She had her book and showed how the Little Red Hen started with a few grains of wheat and ended up with bread.
Chad was quiet and deep in thought while Brooke and Aunt Heather talked. His pancake was gone and the slice of bacon he’d eaten was a pleasant aftertaste. It’d been a nice change from their regular breakfast. His mouth watered as he considered the serving plate which still held four pancakes. Unbidden, he heard the man’s voice again, the man from the last night, how he cried as he described his starving children. Chad laid his fork across his plate and pushed the pancakes closer to his sisters. If Aunt Heather mentioned it, he’d tell her he was still queasy.
#
Chad hadn’t slept well after the encounter with the cow thieves. He’d lain in bed and heard the man’s pained voice and his sisters’ crying. When he did doze, his sleep was filled with dreams of the twins, gaunt, hollow-faced, and begging him for something to eat. In the dreams, they were always hungry.
He sat across the table from Aunt Heather and steeled himself to state his case. “I guess I’ve got problems with the whole guarding the cows deal,” he started. “I’m not saying you’re wrong; I hope you don’t take it that way, but you need to quit beating yourself up over it. The cow was important to us before, and I know how important she’ll be in this new world. But right now the way things are, I don’t see how we would’ve been able to make it all work.”
Chad took a sip from his water and used the pause to gauge how she was taking it. So far, so good. It looked safe to keep going.
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I laid awake and thought a lot about the cow and what we need to do when Mom and Dad are better. I think you did too, but I think my thoughts were different than yours. You’ve been around and seen the world. I’m just a farm kid who’s never been more than a hundred miles from home, so I have pretty limited experience,” Chad said.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Heather said. “I’ve seen more common sense from most farm kids than from a lot of educated idiots. And you’re right. I was seeing doom and gloom for the family.” She sniffed and brushed a knuckle under her right eye.
Chad took her comment as a signal to continue. “Okay, so the way I see it at this time, for us the cows were useless. Actually, they were more than useless. They were a . . . a . . . a . . . detriment. Yeah, that’s the word. We couldn’t use the milk, but we had to go outside and take care of them. We got more radiation exposure each time we went out with nothing to show for it. So now we won’t have to be outside as much. Maybe we can get over the sickness faster.”
“Sure, right now we weren’t getting anything out of them, but later on we would have,” Aunt Heather protested.
“Yes, later; but how much later? And what do we do in the meantime? Feed, water, guard, and repeat. If we kept them safe, I guess we could’ve butchered one. But I don’t know what is safe with this whole radiation thing, do you? I mean, is their meat safe to eat? If we had enough exposure to feel crummy, what about them? I think if it made us sick, anyone that ate them might get sick, too. I don’t know, but I’m trying to connect the dots. So, they were outside, exposed to it all the time. Will the meat be safe later? How much later? But for you and me to butcher one, even the young one, I don’t know if we could’ve done it. Have you ever helped butcher a cow? It’s a big job, no, it’s a huge job.”
“I’ve taken care of deer before,” Heather answered defiantly.
“That’s no-where near the same. But suppose we did decide the meat was safe, and you and I managed to butcher one,” Chad stopped talking and snickered.
“What’s funny about that?” Heather asked.
“I think butcher is a good term for what the two of us would do.” He snickered again. “It sure wouldn’t be a clean job,” he said. “Anyway, if we could have done it, then what?” He couldn’t keep from snickering one more time. “Would we eat it fresh and dry it? Because I don’t think we could hang it to age like Dad always does when we butcher one. It would be certain to get radiation; I mean without its skin on. I read up on how to can meat since the plague of smallpox and the nukes happened.” He grinned at his play on words, combining her term with the real term. “Then I canned the burger and chicken from the freezer.
“So if we butchered the calf, we could’ve canned the meat I guess, until we ran out of jars and lids. We could’ve started drying it too, but you know, we just finished everything from the freezer and it was smelly at the end. And that meat started out frozen. We wouldn’t have that going for us with fresh meat. How much could we take care of before it spoiled?
“But I still wonder if we ate one, would we be doing ourselves more harm? Maybe if I knew the answer to that, I might think differently.”
He fidgeted with his glass for a few moments before he looked defiantly at his aunt. “Sorry, but I won’t do anything I think might make my sisters sick. They might be pains in the . . .” he paused and looked around and continued softly. “But I’ll do anything I can to keep them safe and healthy.”
He swallowed a bit of bile when he remembered Aunt Heather’s laser sight on the man’s chest and her comment about the bullets ripping through him. Anything to keep them safe? he asked himself and fought through the wave of nausea that assailed him.
“We would have managed some way. But I don’t know if the meat would be good, either,” Aunt Heather said. She didn’t want to but had to agree with him.
Taking a deep breath, Chad turned and looked his aunt in the face. “So losing the cows makes it easier for us. We won’t have to move them. The way you talk about the road from the dam to the Reynolds Creek Road, I don’t think we could pull a trailer up it even if we had one. We knew it would be a problem, and we aren’t thieves, and I don’t know how we could get a trailer unless we steal one, and maybe get ourselves shot doing it. That or trade a cow for a trailer.” He said it with a wry grin, as he considered getting rid of the reason to need the trailer to get it. “So we don’t have to worry about it or attracting extra attention, because I think if we drove down the road with a loaded stock trailer, it would be a lot more dangerous for us.
“I also got to wondering what we’d feed them at your place. Do you have a haystack I’ve never seen? Those hills aren’t lush pastures, so they’d have to range far and wide to eat. Shoot, it’s tough enough to try to guard them here with a fenced pasture. I don’t see how it would’ve been possible to move them or keep them at your place. So we were going to lose them in a couple of weeks anyway, we just did it sooner. If we were staying here, we should’ve tried harder to keep them. But since we’re leaving, well . . .”
Heather took a drink of her cold coffee and studied Chad’s face. She had to admit he made good points, but there had to be a way to have made it all work. She didn’t know what it was, but Dan would’ve figured it out, she was sure of it. “We could’ve butchered the young one, traded the other steer, and taken the cow with us,” she said with a note of defiance.
“MAYBE we could’ve traded for a trailer, but we still don’t know if the meat is safe to eat. We have a lot of food in the cellar. It’s not a huge variety and won’t seem like that much if we’re not getting new stuff from the stores, but we really do have a lot of stuff in there. We’ve been canning hundreds of jars every year for as long as I can remember. Sure we’re short of some things, but we’re better off than most people. And yes, I’d rather have fresh meat than the dried stuff we made, but can we eat it safely and feed it to the girls?”
“But –” Heather started before Chad interrupted.
“So the chickens and cows are gone, and we don’t have anything to make it look like we have food. We might’ve been able to hide the chickens, but not the cows, no way. Maybe we’ll be safer from snoops without them.
“I know you said how we can’t share stuff or we’ll starve, but, well, if one chicken makes the difference in someone else not starving, I’m glad to give it up. When I stepped out and saw that kid behind the cows, the idea of shooting at him almost made me sick. And well, you know what happened after that and . . . yeah.
“When the guy told us about his family, well . . . that kid and man are like me and you. They’re trying to keep his little sisters safe and alive. How can I shoot at someone for doing what I’m doing? I might as well have aimed the shotgun at the mirror when I aimed it at that kid. It’s too hard to consider.
“I’m afraid what would happen if Ali and Brooke were crying because they were hungry. I’m not sure what I’d do or how far I’d go to feed them, and I, well, I hope I don’t have to find out. Yeah, I’m rambling and not making a lot of sense, I know it.” A tear dripped onto the table before Chad brushed at his face.
“Well, I should have thought of all that stuff. I came here to keep an eye on things and I’m doing a dam . . . dang poor job of it. I’m always two thoughts behind.” Color came back to Heather’s face as her temper started to grow.
Chad’s face split into a wide grin. He knew he shouldn’t mock her, but, oh well. “Now don’t make me go . . . oh, what’s the word . . . oh, yeah. Don’t make me go cliché on you.”
“What do you mean?” Heather asked.
“It’s what Dad told me one time when I first started milking the cow. She kicked the bucket, I mean she kicked the milk bucket, not died, in case you weren’t sure which way I meant it. So, all the milk spilled out on the barn floor. My bucket had straw and flecks of manure in it and my arms were killing me. All the milk was lost and I was upset. Dad was totally fine with it; he said it happened to him on occasion too. He said to learn from it, and stay attuned to the cow. I asked him what ‘attuned’ meant and you know Dad. He told me to look it up once we got back to the house because I might remember it better that way. Then he said he knew a cliché that fit perfectly: “Don’t cry over spilled milk.” I was, well, more upset after he said that. It seemed like he was making fun of me. He said, “Okay, here’s another one more fitting.” He looked around to make sure Mom wasn’t close,” Chad paused and looked around like his Dad had. Alison and Brooke were standing nearby, so he changed the story slightly. “He said, ‘Stuff happens’.” Chad looked at the girls again and whispered to Aunt Heather. “But he didn’t say ‘stuff” if you know what I mean.”
Heather couldn’t help but grin at the seriousness on his young face. Chad welcomed the change but had one more to tell her. “So the baboon in the Lion King had another one that fits. He told Simba, ‘It’s in the past,” and had a very effective way of delivering the message. Do I need to use his methods on you?”
Heather snorted and flashed him a half- smile. It surprised him; he hadn’t expected to see that from her. Then he remembered she’d watched the movie with him and the girls the last time she’d visited.
“You know, a sharp crack to the head with a stick might be needed sometimes, but I think I got it.” She stood up and walked around the end of the table and wrapped an arm around Chad’s shoulders. “You’re a pretty smart kid, you know that? Are you sure you’re only twelve?”
“I turned thirteen eight months ago,” Chad said with an eye roll.
“No way, it wasn’t that long ago we celebrated your birthday.”
“Yes, it was. I think you hang out with your birds so much, you’re turning bird-brained.”
“You better watch it buster, I can still whip your butt if you get too smart-mouthed.” Chad was glad to hear the comment laced with humor, instead of the brooding temperament that’d accompanied her from bed.
He wasn’t sure he should continue since she was pulling out of her dark mood, but he plowed on. All the mirth was gone from his tone. His next words were somber. “But, Aunt Heather, I really don’t want to have to shoot at someone. The idea that human life isn’t as important as the cow or the chickens, well, it makes me sick to think about it.”
“That’s one more reason why I love you, Buddy. You’re a great young man.” She gave him another squeeze and asked, “When did you get so danged smart?”
“Are you two done talking yet?” Alison asked. Neither of them had noticed her approach. She stood at the end of the table and glared at them. All that was missing from the look was a stomp of her foot. “We need to make flour, remember?” Her chin jutted out and sarcasm seemed to run from the final word.
Heather bit her lower lip. Chad shook his head and pushed his chair back from the table. His response was also laced with sarcasm, not that his sister noticed. “Yes, I think we’re done; thank you for being patient. Well, don’t just stand around. Let’s make flour.”
Brooke got a clean hand towel out of the closet. “We need to spread this out first. Mom will skin us alive if we scratch up the table.” She flipped the towel across the end of the table and worked it flat. Heather helped her while Chad got the pavers. He laid one flat on the towel and stood the other on its edge.
“Would you mind getting a hot pad to put the wheat on?” he asked Alison. His tone showed he was still a little miffed at her, but it’d lightened. He put on the oven mitt they kept beside the stove, picked up the pan of wheat, and carried it to the table. Alison was as fast and set the hot pad near the center of the table. Chad put the wheat on it and said to Brooke, “This is your idea. How much wheat do you think we start with?”
“When we did it outside, we just put a handful on the stone.”
“You mean you’ve done this before?” Chad asked, only partially surprised.
“Well yes,” she said, indignantly. “That’s why I knew it would work.” Brooke reached into the cookie sheet of grain and jerked her hand back. “That’s hot. I think we cooked it too long.”
“We need to try it anyway,” Chad said, and went to the kitchen and got a large spoon. He returned and scooped wheat onto the paver. With the second paver in both hands, he placed it over the wheat and started to rub it back and forth. “I don’t know if it’s doing anything. It feels like it’s rolling on the wheat.” After a few passes, he raised the paver and looked under it. A few kernels of wheat were cracked, but most were whole.
“You have to push down harder. Geez, do I have to show you what to do?” Brooke said.
“Have at it,” Chad said. He stepped away from the table and pointed to the spot where he’d been standing. With little sleep the previous night, his patience level for his sisters was pretty low.
Brooke didn’t notice the stern look on his face while she pulled a chair into position to stand on in front of the paver. The paver looked large for her small hands, but she grasped it hard, bent her weight over it and started sliding the stone back and forth. Soon, she raised it to look at the results. No whole kernels remained but it wasn’t flour, just cracked wheat. “See, it breaks them first, but if you keep this up, it makes flour.” She fixed her look on Chad and jutted her chin forward and returned to pushing the stone back and forth. The next time she raised it up, the lower stone was coated in powdery flour with only a few pieces of cracked wheat spotted through it.
“Nice job,” Chad said quietly before he went to the kitchen cabinets and took out a second cookie sheet. He set it beside the paver, tilted the stone over it, and brushed the flour off. It was a meager amount and would take a long time to accumulate much. But, he decided, time was one thing they had in abundance. He put more kernels on the paver and looked at the girls. “This really is a good idea Brooke, thank you. Do you want to do another turn?” The answer was a shake of the head. “Then I guess it’s your turn, Ali.” Alison wasn’t as enthusiastic as her twin, but took her spot on the chair and started pushing the stone back and forth.
The wheat in the cookie sheet had cooled enough Chad could handle it with his bare hands. Digging to the bottom, he found toasted brown wheat. He carefully scooped up a small handful; it was still quite warm at the bottom. He studied it and then put it in his mouth and chewed. “Hey, this isn’t half bad. In fact, I like it better than regular wheat.” The grinding operation stopped for a time while everyone tried a small mouthful.
“You girls might be on to something by toasting the grain,” Aunt Heather said as she munched. They both smiled at her like it’d been planned all along. “Hmm. That makes me wonder.” Without saying more, she went into Dan and Lisa’s bedroom, leaving Chad to supervise the flour production.
They had a small pile of flour on the cookie sheet when Heather returned, carrying a book. “I thought your mom might have a book like this. Take a break and check this out,” she said.
“What book is that? I don’t think Mom ever read that one to us,” Brooke said.
“No, I doubt she did. But the roasted grain made me wonder if we could find other ways to use wheat, and this book has the answers. See this one here? It’s called thermos wheat. You put wheat and boiling water in a thermos, and when it’s cooked long enough, you eat it like oatmeal. With this one, you cook it the same way or in a pan, and you use it like rice.”
“Can we try that for supper today?” Alison asked.
“We might as well. It will be good to try something new,” Heather said. “Will that work for you Chad? I might be sleeping then.”
Chad read the paragraph next to the picture. “Sure, we can try it. Look at that one, ‘popped wheat’. That’s what we made in the bottom of the cookie sheet if we’d have had oil in it.”
They continued to look through the book, commenting on different methods to try. Heather was all for starting sprouts, but the girls didn’t want to eat wheat grass. In fact, it caused a giggle fit with Alison stating, “I don’t eat grass, I’m not a cow.” Her comment caused Aunt Heather’s smile to disappear.
Chad read ahead and pointed to a section. NOTE: If you add TOO MUCH wheat into your diet TOO FAST it can give you digestion problems. “We don’t need that on top of everything else, so we should take it easy,” he stated.
“And we have to save some, too,” Brooke said.
“What do you mean?” Heather asked.
“The little Red Hen never could’ve made bread if she didn’t find the grain first. We might not be so lucky, so we have to save enough to plant for next year.” Brooke looked back and forth at Chad and Aunt Heather to make sure they understood.
Chad was ready to agree when the silence was broken by the sounds of a diesel engine. His heart raced and he started breathing fast when he looked out the front window. The same blue Dodge that’d checked out the house the day before was stopped in the road. Chad thought he was going to be sick again, and swallowed over and over as saliva flooded his mouth.
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Post by bretf on Jun 30, 2022 6:35:42 GMT -6
Chapter 30
“Son of a . . .” Heather muttered. She moved to her rifle where it leaned against the broom closet door, her eyes never leaving the window.
Chad was motionless at the table as he tried to control the urge to puke. It felt like an eternity while the truck’s door opened and a man stepped out. He glanced at the house, and Chad noted his dirty hair, the stained slacks, and the untrimmed beard. Chad gulped in air and forced his feet to move to his shotgun. The gun felt slick as his clammy hands wrapped around the stock. The barrel moved wildly as he raised the shotgun in his shaking hands. His breath caught when the man reached into the bed of the pickup.
To Chad’s relief, when the man straightened and turned from the pickup bed, he held a large box. It was a relief, but not enough to slow Chad’s racing heart or rapid breathing. His brain told him to move, but the signal never made it to his feet. He stood transfixed while the man carried the box to the driveway and placed it on the ground, turned, and returned to the cab of the idling pickup. The man looked at the house again, nodded his head, and got back into the cab and drove away. Chad was shaken from his reverie when the girls wrapped their arms around him from each side and Aunt Heather moved to peer out the window.
“What do you think is in the box, Chad?” Brooke whispered.
Chad let out a long breath, swallowed, and said, “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to go look to find out.” His feet shuffled towards the door, following Aunt Heather.
Heather opened the front door, stuck her head out and looked in the direction the Dodge had disappeared and then checked the other direction. When she didn’t see anything, she walked slowly to the box, still watching down the road. Chad had made it onto the front step, and after a quick glance in his direction, Heather balanced her rifle across the top of the box, picked it up, and walked back to the house.
The girls watched every movement through the window and then ran to the door. They held it open and stepped back while Aunt Heather walked through with the mysterious cargo. She carried it across the room and set it on the table. The girls wrapped their arms around her waist and looked out with wide eyes, one on each side. “Aunt Heather,” Brooke whispered, her words barely audible. “What’s in the box?” She accented the question by squeezing Aunt Heather tighter. The action was mimicked on Heather’s other side.
Aunt Heather dropped a comforting hand onto each girl’s shoulders. “I’m not sure what all is in it, but I can see some hardware gadgets, and there’s a note on top.” She turned her head to Chad. “Keep an eye out, Buddy. This might be a Trojan Horse.”
“Huh?”
“Make sure he didn’t drop it to occupy our attention so someone can sneak up on us.”
“Oh, yeah, I get it,” Chad said. His face reddened at needing to have the reference explained. He knew he should’ve understood what she meant. He turned from the table and looked out the windows, searching for anything out of the ordinary.
“I’m so sorry,” Aunt Heather said.
Chad turned to look at her, unsure of what she needed to be sorry for. She held the note from the box in front of her face, so he quickly turned back to watching out the windows. Aunt Heather continued and he could tell she was reading.
“I really shouldn’t have done what I did. You were right, I should have asked for the milk. It was stupid and wrong what I did, I know it, but I was desperate. I can’t ask for your forgiveness; I can only thank you for not pulling the trigger. After everything that’s happened, well, I would have shot someone if I had a gun doing that at my home, so thank you for not shooting me.”
Aunt Heather turned to Chad and said, “The part about would have shot someone, he crossed out “If I had a gun”. So that’s why he was armed with a broomstick I guess.
So anyway, he continues, “I know this is inadequate payment, but my wife collected antiques, and maybe there’s something here that can help you.
“These coins aren’t a lot to compensate for three cows, but my Dad always told me to keep them; someday they might be worth a lot of money. I don’t know that it’ll happen, they just look like old quarters to me. But they are yours. I know it’s not a lot, but it’s all I had.”
It was quiet for a few moments before Heather set the paper on the table and said, “I think it’s okay Buddy, but we still should keep an eye out, just in case.”
Brooke loosened her hold enough to stand against the table. She strained on her tip-toes, trying in vain to see over the top of the box. “Can we see what’s in there, Aunt Heather?” she asked.
“Of course, honey,” Aunt Heather said. “Why don’t you two stand on the chairs so you can see over the top?”
Aunt Heather picked a large metal contraption out of the box and held it up. “This would have been nice for the last few weeks, huh, Buddy?”
“Is that one of those old-timey water pumps?” Brooke asked.
“Yeah, it is. It needs pipes and a foot valve to work right though. Also, it has a leather gasket inside that seals it for the water to flow. As rough as this one looks, I bet it needs to be replaced. It’s a nice thing to have but I’m not sure we have what it takes to make it work,” Aunt Heather said.
“What’s that thing?” Alison asked pointing into the box.
Heather picked up the gadget Alison indicated. “I’m pretty sure that’s an apple peeler. I guess it might be useful if we ever get a bunch of apples, but I don’t know where we’ll come up with them.”
Brooke picked an item out of the box and studied it. Chad looked at it over her shoulder. “That’s a candle mold. I saw one at the museum,” he said. He reached into the box and pulled out a washboard. “I saw one of these too, and I think we can put it to use.” He glanced into the box again. “Too bad there isn’t a grain grinder here.”
The box also contained a pair of ice tongs they couldn’t imagine needing, a sewing awl that had possibilities of use, and a narrow leather case Chad picked up to look at. He pulled a straight razor out of the case, opened it, and examined it. Extending it handle first to Aunt Heather, his eyes danced and he said, “I don’t shave yet, so I guess this is for you since you shave your legs and pits.”
Heather held it up and looked at the sharp steel and shuddered. “You know, with the world as we knew it ending, a lot of the old rules ended. I think it’s time to go granola; those gals are the new trendsetters,” she said.
The girls could care less about shaving, be it faces or legs. They looked back in the box and took out a matchbox. “This is heavy,” Brooke said. “I don’t think it’s got matches in it.” She slid the box open and they saw it was full of coins.
Heather picked one up and read the date, “1956. Do any of you know why these might be worth more than regular coins?”
“Is it because they’re old-timey like the other stuff in the box?” Brooke asked.
Chuckling, Heather said, “No, it’s not. These old ones were mostly silver. It has a lot of uses and is more valuable than the metal in coins nowadays.” She reconsidered her phrasing. It wasn’t like new coins were being minted, but she decided not to bring it up. “So a lot of people liked to save these because they thought the silver would be valuable if our regular money wasn’t worth anything. Someday they might be, well they probably will be. But not now. I don’t think we could buy a hamburger with the entire box of coins. Not even if they were gold. But maybe someday.” She put the matchbox back in the larger box.
“The dang fool should’ve done this before sneaking around at night,” Heather said. “It’s something I guess, but all together, it’s a pretty hollow gesture, coming after the fact. I suppose it makes him feel better though.” She put everything except the washboard back in the box, carried it across the room, and set it beside the television. “Most of this stuff is as useful as this TV.” She looked at the blank screen a few moments and laughed.
“What’s funny?” Chad asked.
“Oh, I thought of some good news in all this stuff that’s happened.”
“Really, because I sure haven’t seen it,” Chad said.
Heather indicated the dead television. “Yeah, really. This is an election year. We don’t have to listen to those buffoons lie to us in their ads all the time. I certainly won’t miss that.”
Chad gave her a wry look and shook his head. “I guess.”
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Post by bretf on Jun 30, 2022 6:37:52 GMT -6
Chapter 31
Chad seemed fully recovered from the radiation sickness, but he was having serious difficulty being cooped up inside all the time. He could only read and play board games with the girls up to a point before it made him stir crazy. The visits with Aunt Heather were too short for his taste with her sleeping through a large part of the day. And when they were together, they talked and planned most of the time. It scared the daylights out of him as they worked through all the scenarios she could think of they may encounter. Chad prayed none of them ever happened.
He looked out the windows and longed to go outside, despite the perpetual clouds. He longed to be out with his dad, to work, talk, and help him. Just to see his dad would help but he did so rarely. Two times when he got the firewood, they spoke a few words through the door. His dad indicated he and Mom were both getting better, and though weak, seemed to be recovering. All of their pustules had scabbed over and a fair number had dried and fallen off. The conversation made Chad recheck his calendar along with the documents from the CDC. They were within his anticipated window for being over the pox.
“Please get better soon,” Chad murmured, looking out the kitchen window at the shop. He glanced at the calendar again. It drew him like a magnet every time he was near it. March 18 was the last date with an X drawn through it. His dad had to be coming out any day, he had to!
Chad turned and looked at the bag full of bedding and clothes on the counter he’d take outside when he and Aunt Heather got the firewood and water. His dad had requested them, along with a lot more water, shampoo, soap, and more firewood, but hadn’t elaborated on the request. Chad wanted to read something into it but was afraid to get too hopeful; it seemed they’d had nothing but disappointment for weeks.
It was an hour before he’d go outside, so Chad was drawn to the bathroom. He picked up his comb and ran it gently through his hair. More loose hair filled the comb than the last time he’d done it. Despite Aunt Heather’s warning it might happen, it was still a shock to see so much falling out. He peered into the mirror and wished the light worked. On second thought, maybe it was a good thing it didn’t work. Maybe it was better not knowing if the hair loss was noticeable. He didn’t see any change in Aunt Heather’s hair, so maybe she couldn’t notice any difference in his, either. The head of hair he saw in the mirror needed to be cut, but if it was thinning, he couldn’t tell. “I’m too young to be bald,” he told the mirror.
Back in the living room, he looked out each window in turn, scanning as much area as he could see. For the past week, occasional large smoke plumes were visible in the distance. When he pointed one out to Aunt Heather and asked her what it meant, her answer was terse and short. “Nothing good, I guarantee that.” He was glad to only see the ever-present clouds and no new plumes adding to them.
#
Dan stepped out of the shop and squinted. The overcast sky had never looked so good and he had to remind himself what’d caused it. The muted light seemed bright after the long seclusion in the shop; it hadn’t been set up for natural light and was always dim inside. His eyes twinkled while he moved the things Chad and Heather had left him inside the shop.
A large pot was on the woodstove, heating all the remaining water from the previous day. The stove was stoked up and he put more water on to heat. Dan took the galvanized washtub down from the wall and set it in a cleared spot near the stove. Testing the water, he decided the first pot was warm enough. He dumped it into the tub, refilled the pot, and returned it to the stove. Kneeling on a garden weeding pad beside the tub, he lowered his head and sloshed water over his grungy hair. “Let me,” Lisa said and put a hand over his. When his hand relaxed, she used a cup to dip water and thoroughly wet his hair, worked shampoo into it, lathered it and massaged his scalp. “I think this will need a second time to get it clean,” she said.
“Do it as many times as you want, it feels heavenly,” Dan said. After the month of being sick, he wasn’t exaggerating. He tingled all over from Lisa’s hands on his scalp.
When his hair was clean, Dan stood and poured the other two pots of water into the tub, refilled them to heat more, stripped down, and with Lisa’s help, bathed the rest of his body. “You were right, Hon,” Lisa said. “The only ones left all came off with the washcloth.” No scabs remained on his body, only the scars that would mark him forever.
Dan looked down at the water. “That’s great. But would you mind dipping water out of one of the pots on the stove to rinse me? The water I’m standing in is pretty gross.”
“Of course, Hon. And you can do the same for me.”
When Dan was dressed in clean clothes, he couldn’t believe the feeling. “Wow darling, this feels amazing. I’ll pack the water out and we’ll get you your bath.” The clothes he’d taken off were in a pile, and he decided he’d burn them at the first opportunity.
Dan stood outside with a bucket in each hand and looked around. He didn’t know the best way to dispose of the water or if it carried the disease. All he came up with was to dump it in an area no one would go to. Looking around more, he decided on the back fence of the pasture. Hopefully, it wouldn’t allow the virus to spread.
Once the water was dumped and the tub scrubbed out, Dan tested the water on the stove with a finger. “It could use a little more time to heat. While we wait on it, I want to change my bedding. I can't stand the idea of crawling back into that sleeping bag again.” He looked inside the bag and found evidence of the pox scabs scattered everywhere. It would have to be burned along with his clothes.
He remembered stories of native Indian tribes, decimated by smallpox after receiving blankets containing scabs with the live virus. He didn’t want anything like that to happen because of his bag. He’d have to keep it away from the kids at all costs. He rolled it and put it with the clothes he’d torch the next day. “You know, I sure hate to burn this bag. Before this crud, I only used it last fall when Chad and I went hunting. I hardly had the new worn off it.”
“Yes, but it served its purpose at a critical time,” Lisa said. She rested a hand on his shoulder as he looked down at the bag.
“I wonder if Cabela’s will ever open again so I can replace it,” Dan said. “Look at that,” he pointed. “We didn’t get the tag off it.” He gazed at it a moment longer before he turned to put fresh bedding on his cot. “Okay, I’m bummed I have to destroy the bag, but not at all bummed I’ll sleep between clean sheets tonight. This will be so much nicer.” By the time the two of them had Dan’s bed made, the water was heated enough for Lisa’s bath.
Dan took his time while he shampooed Lisa’s hair, enjoying every moment of it; Lisa enjoyed it as much if not more. Once her hair was clean and rinsed, he helped her to her feet and put more water in the tub. He fought to keep his hands from shaking while he helped her undress and step into the wash tub. He lathered the washcloth and rubbed it up and down her back. “It’s doing it, Babe. Everywhere I wash, the scabs come off. I’m not pressing too hard am I?” he asked.
No, you’re not,” Lisa chuckled. Dan’s touch was very tender, hardly exerting any pressure. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensations.
As Dan ran the soapy washcloth up and down Lisa’s firm legs, he said, “You know, it’s too bad we had all this time alone and weren’t able to take advantage of it.” The tone of his voice was joking, but like most jokes, it was rooted in truth. It felt to him like an eternity since he and Lisa had enjoyed the pleasures of each other’s bodies. He washed her other leg, his hand shaking, anxious for her response.
Lisa smiled and looked down at him. “Let’s see how well I clean up first. I might like the feel of clean sheets too.”
#
“Fireworks? Thunder? No way.” Heather crossed the dark living room and looked out the window. She couldn’t see anything but came to an instant decision. What she heard was worse, a lot worse than thunder or fireworks she was certain. She went into Chad’s room and shook his shoulder. “Chad, wake up Buddy. I need you to get up.”
“Huh, what . . . what’s going on?” he asked.
“Something’s going on up the road. I’m going to go see if I can tell what it is. I want you to get up and be ready for anything.” She squeezed his shoulder, straightened and left the room in a hurry.
“But,” Chad said to the empty room. He was pulling his pants up when he heard the front door close.
Heather went up the road at a steady jog. The nearest house in that direction was a half mile away. The moon and stars were blotted out by the heavy cloud cover, so she jogged down the center of the road, trusting that anyone coming would have a light and would give her enough of a warning to hide. The silence was occasionally broken by a pop or two from further up the road. Out of the house where she could hear better, she had no doubt what the sounds were. A glow lit the area ahead of her, and she slowed as she neared the top of a slight rise. She lowered to the ground and crawled, with only her head above the rise.
The scene before her was like something out of a bad movie. An outbuilding was fully ablaze and illuminated the side of a large house beyond the well-maintained yard. A line of motorcycles and trucks were at the edge of the firelight. The fire illuminated numerous shapes as they darted around in the flickering light. One held up a rifle and fired at the house, followed by the sound of breaking glass. No one in the house returned fire. Shouting ensued that Heather couldn’t understand over the sound of the fire, but a number of the shapes broke for the house and crashed through the door. Muffled gunshots sounded from inside the home. Four or five minutes later, a man stepped out the door, brandishing a short rifle in one hand and a bottle in the other.
“This is the wrong damn house,” he yelled. “He must live in the next place. But anyway, there’s nothing here to be concerned about. The so-called man of the house was going to chase us off with a flippin’ golf club.” He laughed hard at the absurdity of it. “He claimed they don’t have any food, but they do have liquor and wine.” He waved the bottle around to accent the statement.
Another man left the shadows and approached the house. He said something Heather couldn’t make out with his back to her.
“How am I sposed to know if the wine’s any good? I don’t read frickin’ French. But it sure ain’t Two-Buck-Chuck.” He laughed hard again.
The other man turned and looked out past the burning building. His rasping words carried clearly to Heather. “Well, I’m hungry. Let’s have a couple of drinks and go see if you’re right about that guy having food.”
“He’s supposed to be a hunter, so he’ll have more than a golf club,” the other man said.
Heather’s blood ran cold. Theirs’ was the next house along the road, they had food, and Dan was a hunter. The group had evidently targeted Dan’s home and missed by one.
She eased away from the rise and stood and ran for home at the top speed she could maintain. While she ran, she went through the options of what to do. The guys looked like a bunch of gomers, but even gomers could get lucky and hit their target once in a while. She was certain she could eliminate three of four of them, but she’d counted two dozen and may have missed more. It was too many to fight. If she did get into a firefight, some of the family would surely get hurt. She ran on, certain the best option was to hide and only fight if it came to it. It was a version of one of the scenarios she and Chad had discussed at length; with luck, it would be the right thing with the numbers they faced.
Her breath was in ragged gasps when she ran down the driveway. She flew into the house and yelled, “CHAD, GET THE GIRLS UP, WE’VE GOT TO GET YOU GUYS HIDDEN IN THE ROOT CELLAR! HURRY!” She ran out the back door before Chad could get a word out.
Heather banged on the shop door and opened it without waiting for a response. Dan was jerked from the most peaceful sleep he could remember in a long time, Lisa’s naked form still entwined with his. NO-NO-NO! Dan screamed silently in his head. After everything that’s happened, just give us this night, this one uninterrupted special night. Dan’s plea would go un-granted but the night would be memorable for other reasons. He lifted his head to look towards the door.
“DAN, LISA!” Heather cried out. “Please tell me you’re safe for the kids to be around!”
“Is one more night too much to ask for, Heather?” Dan growled. “I’m finally able to appreciate my alone time with your sister and you’re putting a total damper on it.”
She’d had an inkling they might be safe after the requests Dan made but hadn’t been sure. She leaned against the door frame her breath still ragged, “Cry to me later, big guy. We don’t have time for it now. So are you safe or not?”
“Yeah, all the scabs washed off, we should be okay.”
“Good, get up and get dressed as fast as you can! We don’t have time to waste!” Her voice conveyed urgency without talking about it.
Dan stood and handed Lisa the fresh clothing she hadn’t managed to get into after her bath and started to put his own clothes on. “What is it, Heather?”
She explained as fast as possible, and added, “So I want to get all of you hidden away in the root cellar. I’ll stay out and cover the opening. If any of them find it, I’ll start shooting.”
“Maybe I should stay out with you,” Dan said.
“No, I want you and Chad both in there with your shotguns and rifles pointed at the door. So if someone does get by me, it’ll be up to you two to stop them. Now get out there, I’ve gotta go get the kids moving.” Before Dan could protest, she rushed back to the house.
“Chad, do you have them ready?” she asked loudly, as soon as she was inside.
“Yeah, just getting their coats on,” he said.
“Good, I’ll be at the cellar.” She rushed out, and with an electric lantern to light the immediate area began moving the hay away from the entrance. It was a struggle to be careful while fighting the urge to throw the bales. The last bale was moved and she reached for one of the planks when Dan picked up the other end, surprising her.
The girls and Chad arrived right after their parents. Chad stopped and tried to stand between his mom and his sisters. At seeing their parents, the girls started to go around him. He blocked them with his lowered shotgun on one side, and the rifle on the other. They weren’t strong barriers, but it was enough. “Hold on girls. Mom, Dad; should you be here with us?” He fought an urge to close the distance and hug them. That would have to come later.
“It’s okay son. According to the papers, we shouldn’t be contagious. We were going to rejoin the family tomorrow. I guess we’re a little ahead of schedule,” his dad said.
As Chad raised the gun barriers, Alison squealed, “Mom,” and ran to Lisa and embraced her, Brooke squeezed their mother a moment later.
“Oh babies, I’m so happy to see you,” Lisa said. Her face was covered with tears in an instant to be holding the girls again. It’d been so long.
The distinct sound of a Harley Davidson engine in the distance broke the silence. “Save the reunion for when we’re safe, now get down there!” Heather snapped, giving Lisa a none-too-gentle shove. The girls followed her, then Dan. “Chad, get down there!” Heather snapped.
Chad followed, but only to hand the shotgun to Brooke before he rushed back up the steps.
“Chad, in the cellar, NOW!” Aunt Heather commanded.
“We don’t have time! I’ve gotta help you with the covering!” he said and grabbed a plank. The Harley engine was echoed by at least two more.
“If I had enough time, I’d teach you to mind your elders,” Heather grumbled as she placed a hay bale over the planks.
“Shut up and work,” Chad panted. “Those bikes are getting close.” He was breathing hard as he put the final bale into place. Heather turned off the lantern and grabbed Chad’s hand and tugged. The rumble of the engines was loud, too loud. Chad grabbed his rifle, and he and Heather ducked behind the haystack as a headlight beam flashed across the front of the house.
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Post by imahic on Jun 30, 2022 9:43:34 GMT -6
These cliff hangers are killers. But it's a great story. Thanks for the update.
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Post by gipsy on Jun 30, 2022 10:21:13 GMT -6
The killers are hanging on the cliff
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Post by CountryGuy on Jun 30, 2022 12:07:33 GMT -6
I was wondering when that shifty kid from the shop was going to rear his head...
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Post by bretf on Jul 1, 2022 7:03:01 GMT -6
Chapter 32
“Dan, oh God, Dan, Chad’s not with us! Why isn’t he here? What happened to him?” Lisa’s voice increased in volume and pitch with each word. She yanked on the just-closed door and slammed it against Dan’s back.
Dan winced from the sharp contact and gritted his teeth to keep from crying out. He leaned back against the door to stop Lisa from pulling it open and shone his flashlight around, searching frantically for a spot to put his guns and ammo to free his hands. “Lisa, stop it!” he commanded quietly.
“But Chad’s still outside,” she said in a loud voice, too loud.
“Ali, take these!” Dan snapped and pushed the guns in her direction. She got ahold of the rifle in time, but his shotgun fell to the dirt floor.
“Lisa, stop it,” he hissed, clamping one hand over her mouth and the other on her wrist. “We have to be quiet. If we aren’t, we’ll be found, and those guys will know someone is outside, and hunt for Chad and Heather. You have to settle down,” he said in a gentler tone.
Lisa’s eyes flashed with fear, and her free hand went to his hand over her mouth and tugged on it. Quieter, she said, “But he’s in danger.”
Dan heard the rumble of a Harley engine outside. It accented her statement.
“Yes, he is, but we all are,” he said. Lisa seemed to relax, and he chose that moment to get free of the canvas bag holding the ammo. He reached for the bag’s strap and Lisa took advantage of his lapse and yanked at the door again. The door opened wider and the rumble of motorcycle engines drowned out both their labored breathing as they strained against each other.
“Lisa, we don’t want his and Heather’s efforts to be for naught. We have to be silent,” he spat out and freed himself of the bag. With both arms free, he wrapped them around Lisa and shoved at the door with a foot, failing to get it closed.
She struggled against him and the flashlight fell out of his hand. It rolled on the floor and shone its beam across the girl’s feet for an instant, then went dark. Total blackness engulfed the room. The girls whimpered at the sudden loss of light.
The struggle over the door drained what little energy he had. His words came in jerks between gulps of air. “Lisa . . . stop fighting me . . . I’m not sure . . . why Chad’s not here . . . but he’s with Heather . . . so I’m sure . . . he’ll be all right.” Aside from gasping for breath, it was a struggle to speak calmly to Lisa, when he had a near-overwhelming urge to run back outside himself; if he was stronger, at least. Chad should be in the cellar, and he should be the one watching over the place, for God’s sake. Heather better know what she was doing, and keep that boy safe!
“But, Dan, we’ve been separated so long. Just when we can be together again, we’re being pulled apart. Dan, I—” Lisa said before Dan fumbled around in the blackness enough he managed to get a finger over her lips.
“You’re too loud, Babe,” Dan whispered. “Don’t you hear those motorcycles? Listen, they’re so loud they’ve got to be in front of the house. The thugs might be sneaking around. We’ve got to be quiet.” He reached back and pushed the door closed.
“But Dan, Chad is—”
Dan placed his whole hand over her mouth and put his lips near her ear. “Our son is with your sister. They are watching out for us and our daughters. We have to be quiet so we don’t draw the thugs to where we’re hiding.” Despite being short of breath from struggling with her, he made his words steady and measured.
Dan was shocked at the filthy phrase that emitted from her lovely mouth, especially with the girls present, but at least she wasn’t loud. She twisted free from Dan’s grip and pulled the girls to her in a tight embrace. They welcomed the reassuring, familiar contact.
With his hands free and the door closed, Dan knelt to the floor and searched until he located the flashlight. Please, please, light back up, he silently begged. He switched it off and back on, and lightly tapped the side and gave it a couple of gentle shakes. A beam of light shone from the LED, and he released the breath he hadn’t known he held. Moving the light beam around the tight confines of the room, he pointed out a box. Lisa sat on it and pulled the girls onto her lap. Dan noticed the tremor in her arms and chest. It’s a good thing she sat down before she fell down, he thought. When she was settled, he moved the light around more and positioned a wooden crate so he could sit on it and face the door. Taking the rifle from Alison, he looked at Brooke, still holding Chad’s shotgun. “Do you know what to do with that shotgun?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah, Aunt Heather and Chad showed both of us,” Brooke said.
Dan sighed, closed his eyes briefly and said, “Ali, I guess you better get my shotgun.”
When she had it and they were all settled, he whispered, “Okay, I’m turning the light off.” The whisper seemed too loud to him. He clicked the light off and grasped his rifle tight. Behind him, Lisa murmured softly to the girls. He resisted an urge to crack the door open a little way. He wanted to be able to hear the outside, but if the open door allowed sound in, it would also allow sound to get out. If the girls or Lisa made any noises, the thugs could be alerted to their presence. He wondered how well Chad and Heather had concealed the vent pipe, and if it would muffle any sounds they might make.
“Are you sure we can’t open the door a little?” Lisa asked quietly. Dan flinched at the break in the silence, right on top of his thoughts about the vent pipe.
Quietly, he said, “We better not. Any sound we make might give us away.”
“But we’ll be quiet, won’t we girls?” Lisa said.
“I know you’ll try, but what if we sneeze or something because of the dust in here?” Dan said. He strained to hear any outside noise.
“They can’t hear anything over those horrible motorcycles. You know how loud they are.” Without realizing it, Lisa’s voice grew louder as she spoke.
“Shh,” he said. “I’d imagine they’ll shut them off when the rest of their group gets here.”
It was quiet in the cellar for only a little while; Lisa chewed on her lower lip while her mind worked in overdrive. “Dan, I’m scared for Chad. He’s so young, and Heather said there were a lot of those guys. What if they see him?”
“Mom,” Brooke said, making her mother jump. “Chad is really smart, and Aunt Heather, well, she’s nice to us, but I think if someone tries to hurt us, she’ll knock the living dog crap out of the ones she doesn’t shoot.”
“Brooke, you know I don’t approve of that sort of language.” Lisa was aghast her little girl would say such a thing.
“Shh, shh,” Dan said. “It’s getting too loud.” Every sound seemed magnified in the cellar. “We have to be quiet, remember.” He was glad he hadn’t opened the door to listen.
“Aunt Heather said it!” Brooke said, quieter, but with a level of defiance. “And I think she meant it too! One day she got really mad at a guy in front of the house, and she was scary mad! She and Chad will be okay.”
“Really Mom, she did say that, but she didn’t think we could hear her,” Alison chimed in. “She says funny things when she thinks we can’t hear. “Knock the livin’ dog crap out of them”; isn’t that funny?”
“HUSH!” You’ve got to be quiet, remember?” Dan said, trying to be forceful and quiet at the same time. He got off the crate and stood with his ear to the door.
Barely audible to Dan, Brooke whispered, “She really doesn’t mean for us to hear, and I know she can keep Chad out of trouble.”
Lisa sighed heavily. “Okay Brooke, but don’t talk like that anymore; you either Alison. Now we have to be very quiet. I’m sure you’re right, and they’ll be safe,” she said without conviction.
“Mom,” Alison whispered. “You’re squeezing my hand too much. It hurts.”
The statement made Dan notice his grip on the rifle. His fingers tingled. Alternating hands, he opened and closed each a number of times. Heather, you better know what you’re doing and keep that boy safe, he thought.
“So what do you think is happening out there?” Lisa whispered.
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