AFTER THE DUST SETTLED

Darrell Maloney

Copyright 2014 by Darrell Maloney

A Recap of Book 1 of This Series,

COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON

     Scott Harter was nothing special. An ordinary guy living in the suburbs with a typical family and a dog named Duke.

     If anything set Scott apart from everybody else, it was his extraordinary luck. All his life, he seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He’d started his business at just the right moment, getting in early on what would become a booming self storage market. He seemed to know when and how to play the stock market so that his money grew at a steady pace.

     And he took most of it out of the market to invest in real estate. Just before the market took a huge downturn in 2007.

     It was also his good luck that drove him to dig inside a storage locker when its renter defaulted on his contract.

     And maybe just a little bit of curiosity as well.

     What he found in the locker didn’t make much sense at first. Some old maps of the heavens. A lot of literature about the Mayans. And a journal, left behind by an old college professor who seemingly vanished from the face of the earth.

     Scott read the journal. And the more he read, the more concerned he got.

     “The Mayans never said the world was going to end,” the old professor wrote. “They said that December 21, 2012 started a new era. An era they called ‘the last period of progress.’”

     The implications were worrisome, and drove Scott to investigate the clues the mysterious professor had left behind. He’d noted that the Mayans had identified every one of the planets and all their moons, even though they had no telescopes. The Mayans learned to predict earthquakes and tidal waves. Modern scientists still couldn’t do that, even with all their knowledge and fancy equipment.

     And then Scott found the answer he’d been looking for. It turned out the Mayans could also predict solar flare activity. They discovered that solar storms, like most other things in the universe, run in cycles. Just as earth had seasons of increased storm activity, so did the sun.

     But where earth has a hurricane season each year, the sun’s storms happened less frequently. Every two hundred years, give or take a few.

     The professor noted that in 1820, a mysterious thing happened on a global scale.

     Millions of people around the world suddenly felt nauseous and disoriented. Many of them threw up or fainted. Farm animals lost their balance and fell over.

     Doctors at the time had no answers for the malady. But it only seemed to last for a few hours, and left no long term effects. So it went down in history as one of those things man just wasn’t meant to understand.

     The Mayans also foresaw the coming of technology. Archaeologists had deciphered Mayan hieroglyphics that spoke of machines which allowed man to travel about without the aid of animals. They even described airships and radio waves.

     And the Mayans seemed to understand somehow that the reason the 1820 event would cause no real harm was because there were no powered machines.

     But during the “last period of progress,” there would be plenty of them.

     And just as the Mayans had seen the planets and their moons without the aid of telescopes, they also knew, beyond all reason, that the cyclic solar activities around the year 2020, give or take a few years, would cause unfathomable damage.

     But not to people. The people might get sick or dizzy. That would be a minor inconvenience.

     The machines, on the other hand, would take the big hit. For when the massive solar flares sent electromagnetic pulses streaming toward the earth at half a million miles an hour, it would affect anything electric. Or electronic. And while humans and other mammals might throw up or feel faint, the machines would be shorted out.

     Forever.

     But Scott did his homework, and his research. He discovered that scientists had long before developed something called a Faraday cage, which had the capability of protecting electronics and electric items from the electromagnetic pulses, or EMPs.

     And he figured out how to build modified versions of the Faraday cages.

     Scott knew that when the EMPs bombarded the earth, everything with circuits and batteries would cease to function. All the vehicles on the roads would stop dead in their tracks. Airplanes would fall from the sky. The entire world would experience an immediate blackout.

     People would wonder why their televisions and lights didn’t work. They’d try to call the power companies to complain. But their cell phones wouldn’t work either. They’d get into their cars and their cars wouldn’t start.

     And the world would quickly descend into chaos.

     It was an ugly vision.

     But with the mysterious professor’s notes and the research Scott did at the library, he had the tools he needed to prepare for the inevitable. He had the know-how and the drive. What he didn’t have was the time.

     A big problem, as Scott saw it, was that the Mayans weren’t very specific. The professor said that the solar storms came about every two hundred years. He’d commented in his notes that it was akin to predicting on which day the first snowstorm of the winter might come. It was obviously coming. But pinning it down far ahead of time was just a little bit harder.

     Once the window opened on December 21, 2012, it might be a day before the EMPs hit. Or it might be several years.

     Scott had been a pessimist pretty much his entire life. So he did what was prudent. He hoped for the best. But he expected the worst.

     He enlisted the help of his girlfriend, Joyce, and borrowed from the bank to purchase a section of land in the hill country above San Antonio. Far enough away from the city to be safe from the turmoil that would engulf the urban areas. And rural enough to be able to grow crops and raise livestock.

     For the better part of two years, the pair worked against the clock, praying each day that the EMPs would hold off a little longer, until they were finished.

     Finally, their compound was ready to occupy. They’d prepared a large field for growing crops. Enlarged a small playa lake and diverted a stream to fill it; then stocked it with fish.

     They’d built a tall security fence around most of the compound, to hide the fact that they were keeping cattle, pigs, chickens and rabbits on the inside.

     And most importantly, Scott built a huge Faraday cage, the size of a two car garage. Inside the cage he’d placed the small things they’d need to carry on the lives they’d become accustomed to. The television sets and microwaves and video games.

     And the important things, too. Batteries. Spare parts to get the vehicles running again. Spare pumps and transformers and surveillance cameras.

     On the day the EMPs came, Joyce and the rest of their small group were all in San Antonio, ninety miles away from their safe haven. Everyone except Scott, who was still at the compound.

     It was a school day, and Scott’s boys were in class when the lights went out.

     They were well versed on what to do. Scott had drilled them many times. They each removed a black backpack from their lockers and headed for their house in the suburbs. On foot.

     Inside the backpacks were water and food for their journey, and a tiny Faraday box containing a walkie talkie and batteries.

     The boys’ mother Linda was sitting in traffic when her car died. She looked around at dozens of other motorists getting out of their cars and cursing. Then raising their hoods and scratching their heads. And she noticed that the stop lights were no longer working. Neither was the marquee outside a movie theater she’d been reading a few moments before.

     Joyce, Scott’s girlfriend, walked out of her darkened office just in time to see a commercial airliner fall from the sky.

     They all knew what had just happened. And they knew what they had to do.

     Coming from all different directions, the group gathered at Scott’s home in north San Antonio.

     And they had an unexpected guest. Scott’s oldest son brought his girlfriend, Sara.

     “Her parents are in St. Louis,” he’d explained. “I couldn’t leave her all alone to fend for herself. She wouldn’t make it.”

     The group welcomed Sara as one of their own. But Linda, the boys’ mother and Scott’s ex-wife, could see that Sara had a secret she was keeping.

     Scott, meanwhile, had removed a four wheel drive utility vehicle from his Faraday barn and was high-tailing it south, following a string of high tension power lines that would never work again.

     He was ninety miles away, and wouldn’t make it until after nightfall.

     Once the group was together in the city, they spent the next day preparing for their long journey back to the compound. Knowing it was too dangerous to travel during the day, they napped and waited for the darkness.

     When night fell the second night after the blackout, the riots started all over the city.

     But this group of six, and a black lab named Duke, were headed out, slowly working their way north to the compound. Traveling in a group slowed them down. It took two full nights to get there, but when the sun broke over the horizon at the end of that second night, they were safe.

     The world around them was going mad. In the cities, people were outraged at the electric companies for not having the power back on. The water was no longer flowing, and people were getting desperately thirsty. They were angry and looking for someone to blame.

     The vehicles weren’t running any more, and the streets were littered with abandoned cars and trucks.

     Even the police and fire crews were helpless, and having to resort to riding commandeered bicycles to help those they could get to.

     All the ugliness of mankind came out. The looting started, and then the violence. Buildings were set on fire and cars were overturned. The decent people holed themselves up in their houses. The bad roamed the streets, looking for whatever they could plunder.

     At the compound, the group of six was safe. But there was a lot to be done.

And now, Part 2 of the series,

AFTER THE DUST SETTLED

-1-

     It was just past sunrise when they’d pulled the two Gators into the compound. And they were exhausted. Scott ached over the entire length of his body, from sitting on that damn seat, creeping along at three miles an hour so their engines wouldn’t attract the wrong attention.

     He was stiff, and sore, and beat. But he couldn’t go to bed. Not yet.

     It had been two full nights and a day since he’d left the compound. The livestock needed to be fed. The damage needed to be assessed. He had never really been sure what kind of damage the EMPs would cause to his small wind turbine. Or to the array of solar panels on the roof of the main house. He knew the turbine’s generator would be shorted out. And that wasn’t a problem. He had a spare in the Faraday barn. What he wasn’t sure of was the wiring. If the wiring was fried, he’d be hurting. It would take several days to do a rewire. And that would mean several days before his elaborate system of surveillance cameras would be working again.

     He fed the horses and the cattle. The pigs saw him coming and raised a ruckus, chastising him for leaving them so long without food. He hated pigs to begin with. They were a pain in the ass. But he couldn’t live the rest of his days without bacon. So the pigs were a necessary evil.

     The chickens and the rabbits were next. The rabbits were caged separately. Three males in one cage, three females in the other. Tomorrow, he’d set them all free within a large pen in the back of the compound, so they could start doing what rabbits do best. But he’d have to keep a watchful eye on them, until Duke was used to them.

     Duke had never been around rabbits. And he was as gentle as a newborn baby, so Scott was pretty certain he wouldn’t jump over the low fence and kill them. At least not intentionally. Duke was five years old, but still full of puppy. He loved to play. If the rabbits were in any danger from old Duke, it was the chance of being nuzzled to death.

     Scott looked around for Duke. They’d surprised him with his own companion. Appropriately named Duchess, they’d bought her just a few weeks before. A sleek black Labrador retriever, just like Duke.

     By pure happenstance, she happened to be in heat when the group pulled up to the compound. She was doubly happy to see Duke, and Duke spent the first hour of their relationship getting to know her intimately.

     But that was the whole idea, after all. The reason they got Duchess was so that they’d have an endless supply of guard dogs well into the future, in case they had to spend the rest of their lives up here.

     He trudged to the gate, to make sure it was locked and chained from the inside. He’d already checked it twice before, but he was tired almost to the point of delirium. One more check couldn’t hurt.

     Joyce came out of the darkened house and took his hand.

     “How are you holding up, baby?”

     “I’m okay, doll. Damn happy to be here. How about everybody else?”

     “We’re okay. You need to go inside and get some sleep. You look like you need it worse than anyone else. I know you haven’t slept much the last couple of days.”

     “I can’t. There’s so much to do.”

     “So much that it can’t all be done today, or tomorrow, or the next day. I know what your plan is, and I won’t allow you to work on getting the power back on while you’re exhausted. That’s stupid. You’ll slip off the top of the wind turbine and fall fifty feet to your death. Or you’ll electrocute yourself.

     “And whether you believe it or not, Cowboy, we’ve all grown quite fond of you. We’d like to keep you around.”

     “I’ve got to get the surveillance system turned on, at least. Everything else can wait a day or two. But we’ve got to get the cameras running.”

     “Scott, no. I’ve talked to Linda and to Jordan. We’ll do security the old fashioned way for today, and for tonight if you need that too. Linda was able to get some sleep in the back of the Gator on the way up the mountain. She’s fresh. She’s going to take the first watch. If I wake up before Jordan, I’ll relieve her. If he wakes up first, he’ll do the same.”

     “Baby, I can’t sleep when there’s so much to be done.”

     “Yes you can, and you will. And if you need to, you can sleep into the night tonight. There will be a full moon. We’ll have a good view of the roadway. And you know there’s only one way on and off the property. No one can sneak up on us.”

     She looked past Scott, to Duke and Duchess going at it over by the feed barn.

     “And if those two ever get finished trying to make puppies, they can help us keep watch too. Duchess started barking when we were still a quarter mile away. They’ll let us know if someone is out there.”

     Scott hated to admit it, but Joyce was right. She usually was.

     He dragged himself into the house and up the stairs.

     He saw his ex-wife Linda, with an AR-15 rifle in her hand, standing watch out the window in the east bedroom. He paused in the doorway only long enough to look at her.

     “I’m surprised she was able to get you and your hard head up here, Scott. Good for you, Joyce.”

     She smiled, and then went on.

     “Go in there and get some sleep. We’ll wake you up at the first sign of trouble, I promise. Not that there’ll be any, of course.”

     “But how can you know that for sure?”

     “Scott, you’d know that too if you’d had any decent rest the last three days. You can’t reason when you’re exhausted. We’re ninety miles from the city. It took us two full nights to get here, and we had vehicles. Slow vehicles, sure, but we didn’t have to walk. How long do you think it would take anyone else to get up here if they were on foot?  A week, maybe more?

     “And that’s even if they knew we were here. We’ve been very careful this whole time to stay hidden, remember? Now, please, go lay down and get some rest. We’ve got this.

     “Besides,” she said with just a touch of bravado. “Nobody’s gonna mess with us when Annie Oakley’s at the window with a shotgun.”

     “It’s a rifle.”

     “Whatever. It’ll still make a very large hole in any prowler stupid enough to walk into the yard. Now go get some sleep. Seriously.”

     Scott and Linda had a unique relationship. They’d been divorced for several years, but remained great friends. And he’d never been able to win an argument against her, either. He disappeared into the bedroom, and laid on the bed with Joyce. He was expecting to stare at the ceiling for hours, going over in his mind the multitude of things he needed to do.

     But within two minutes he was out, sleeping like a baby.

-2-

     Joyce napped fitfully. Without a working clock to guide her, she guessed it was about noon when she carefully worked her way out of bed and away from Scott. The sunlight was no longer shining directly into the east facing window. It appeared to be above them now.

     She crept out into the hallway and into the watch room.

     Scott’s oldest son Jordan, a senior in high school, greeted her.

     “Good morning, sleepy head. Did you get any rest?”

     She hugged him and said, “Yes, honey. Enough to keep me going for awhile, anyway. How long have you been standing watch?”

     “Not long. I relieved Mom about half an hour ago. What’s the game plan for today?”

     “Well, your father’s going to catch up on his sleep, and then he’s going to try to get the electrical system going before nightfall. I told him to sleep all day into the night, but you know him. He’s as stubborn as a mule. The moment he awakens he’ll be off and running again. He’ll need your help later.”

     “Doing what? Maybe I can get an early start while he’s sleeping.”

     “No, you can’t do this yourself. He’s got some really huge batteries out in the Faraday barn that’ll need to come into the house and down into the basement for his electrical system.”

     “I don’t need any help carrying batteries. I’ll bring them in while he’s sleeping.”

     Joyce laughed.

     “You haven’t seen these batteries. They were made for electric forklifts, and they weigh about three hundred pounds apiece. I had to help your dad unload them and put them in the back of the barn. And there are six of them, so I hope your muscles are working today.”

     “Wow. What are they for?”

     “I’m not an electrician, so I can’t explain it, other than the way your dad explained it to me. He’s going to set up a battery bank in the basement, where all of our electricity needs will come from. That way our power won’t be dependent on the wind blowing or the sun shining. When the sun shines, the solar panels will charge the batteries. When the wind blows, the wind turbine will also charge the batteries. We’ll get the power for the house and outbuildings directly from the batteries instead of from the turbine or solar panels. That way our power is uninterrupted.”

     “Sounds complicated. So what happens if it’s overcast for a couple of days, and we have no wind?”

     “That’s funny. I asked him pretty much the same thing. He said he’s got a diesel generator that will come on automatically when the batteries drop below twenty percent of capacity. He even sketched out everything so I could see how he planned to configure everything.”

     “Dad’s always been the planner in the family.”

     “No doubt. Are you hungry?”

     “I’m starved.”

     “Is your brother up?”

     “No, I haven’t seen the little pest yet.”

     “Well, if he gets up, send him downstairs to help me. I’ll see if I can find a way to cook us up some breakfast. We’ll bring you a plate, and I’ll relieve you at the window in a little while. If Sara gets up, and wants to keep you company, you two behave yourself.”

     He turned red.

     “Okay. We will.”

     Joyce turned for the door but he stopped her.

     “Hey, Joyce?”

     “Yes?”

     “I never said thank you. For being so good about letting Sara join us, I mean. I was afraid you and mom and dad would send her away. But she’s got nobody else.”

     “I know that, Jordan. And we could never send her away to fend for herself. The world is getting very ugly out there. And it’s going to get a lot uglier in the weeks and months ahead. She wouldn’t have stood a chance out there alone.

     “If we gave you the impression she wasn’t welcome, put that thought out of your mind. She caught us off guard, yes, just showing up with you out of the blue. But any concerns we had were for her, and how she would get along without her family. And how they would be thinking she was here all alone, fighting for her own survival. I wish there was a way we could get word to them that she’s okay. That she’s one of us now. And that she’ll be safe.”

     “If they can find a way back here, they’ll find her note. And then they’ll know. And thank you again for being so understanding.”

     “You’re welcome, sweetie. Now, you remember what I said about you two behaving yourself.”

     “Yes, ma’am.”

-3-

     Joyce was right about Scott’s jumping out of bed as soon as he awakened. It was mid afternoon, and he cursed himself for sleeping most of the day away. He didn’t have too many hours of light left, but it would be enough to get the generator hooked up and running. It would power the house directly while they were dragging the batteries out of the barn and down the sixteen steps into the basement. And he’d stocked plenty of diesel, so if they couldn’t get the battery array set up until the next day, it wouldn’t be a major crisis.

     In fact, that was probably the smarter way to go. He was just passable when it came to working electrical projects. An experienced electrician knew exactly what he could and couldn’t get away with.

     Scott was less sure. So he’d move slowly and carefully. He was always extra cautious when it came to dealing with electricity.

     He found Jordan and Sara sitting together at the dining room table, looking forlornly into each other’s eyes. His youngest son, Zachary, sat on the couch reading a copy of Sports Illustrated.

     “Hi, Dad,” he said as Scott walked through the room.

     “Sure is boring. Sure wish I could play a video game or something.”

     Scott chuckled, but didn’t stop. Zachary was as subtle as a bomb blast.

     He found Joyce and Linda in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do about dinner.

     They’d made a point to keep the freezers closed, in an effort to preserve the meat inside. For breakfast, they’d managed to cook bacon and eggs on a skillet on the propane grill out back, using fresh eggs straight from the chicken coop. They still had water even without the well pump working, thanks to the 300 gallon elevated tank out back. The water was cold, but it was better than nothing.

     “Don’t worry about cooking anything on the grill,” Scott told them. We’ll have generator power within the hour, and we’ll run off of it constantly until we get the batteries up and wired together.”

     Then he stood in the middle of the kitchen and made an announcement.

     “Attention in the house. Any teenage boy who wants to play video games or take a hot shower before he goes to bed needs to come and help their father. No pressure, but no complaints will be heard from anyone who doesn’t help.”

     Both of the boys were there within seconds. Sara made her best pouty face and said, “I guess teenage girls aren’t wanted.”

     Linda laughed and hugged her.

     “Hey, you don’t want to work with those stinky old men anyway. You can help us carry appliances into the house.”

     “Appliances?”

     “Yes. Scott is going to check out all of the electrical items that were in the house when the EMPs hit. Some of them might have survived, but he won’t be able to tell until he breaks into them. If they look like they suffered any internal damage, he’ll toss them so they don’t present a fire hazard.

     “It’ll probably be a few days until he gets around to it, so we’re going to assume everything is bad. But that’s okay, because I’ve been hitting garage sales for months. We’ve got a huge stack of replacement items in the Faraday barn ready to come in here.”

     “What kinds of things?”

     “Basically anything that plugs into a wall. Lamps, clocks, televisions, video game consoles. If it runs on electricity, we’re going to set it aside and assume it’s damaged until we find out otherwise.”

     “And once we have power, we’ll stop long enough to fix something to eat. I know the boys are starved, because they’ve each told me so at least twenty times. You probably are too.”

     “Just a little, but I can wait,” Sara said. “I’m ready to go.”

     Joyce got up from the dining room table and said, “Well, then. Let’s get to it.”

     Scott and the boys beat them to the Faraday barn and dragged a three thousand watt generator out of it. The back side of it had wheels, and that was a good thing, since the beast weighed almost three hundred pounds.

     Scott had cleared a space in the basement for the generator more than a year before. He’d toyed with the idea of putting it in the basement beforehand and just building a Faraday cage around it. But its new home in the basement was surrounded by three walls, and had less than a foot of work space on two of the sides. Working in cramped quarters, Scott knew he was risking a costly mistake. If the cage wasn’t connected properly to provide a free flow of current around it, the generator would probably be ruined. Or, at the very least, the electronic ignition would be shot and the copper wiring would be melted.

     So his workaround was to take the new generator out of its crate and run it in the yard for two straight days to make sure it worked. Then to put it in the Faraday barn with everything else.

     The wheels helped a lot in getting it down the stairs, but the “thump, thump, thump” it made when dropping down each step alarmed the dogs outside.

     But even that was a good thing. When Duke and Duchess started barking, it made Joyce suddenly realize they’d left the lookout window unmanned. They were fortunate in that the dogs were only barking at the noise in the basement, rather than a bunch of armed bandits coming to do them harm.

     Joyce took watch at the front window.

     It was still quiet as far as she could see. But she could only imagine the turmoil and violence that was going on in San Antonio. She still had friends there. She hoped they were safe.

     “Linda, when one of you starts to get tired of carrying things, let me know. We’ll swap out.”

-4-

     Sara asked if she could pull a shift on guard duty.

     “I feel like I’m just in the way. Everyone else is running around doing things, like they have a place here. All I’m doing is going from person to person, hoping they’ll have some little minor thing I can help them with. Even Zachary has important things he’s doing.”

     Then she realized that Zachary might be hurt by her words. Even fourteen year old boys have feelings, even though they’re just barely humans in a lot of respects.

     Sara looked at Zach and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

     He interrupted her.

     “Hey, that’s okay. No offense taken. In fact, now that we have electricity again, I’d be glad to give you my chores. I’ll go watch a movie.”

     Linda gave him a stern look, and he backtracked just a bit.

     “Or not.”

     Sara went on.

     “Anyway, I can stand by the window. At least that’ll make me feel worthwhile. And it’ll free up someone else, since you all know what needs to be done and I don’t.”

     Scott asked, “Can you shoot?”

     “No, I’ve never shot a gun in my life. But I can yell. And if I see anyone out there I’ll yell loud enough for all of you to hear me.”

     Scott looked to the others who, with the exception of Joyce, were all chowing down on spaghetti. Joyce was still upstairs at the lookout window.

     Linda shook her head yes and said, “I don’t see anything wrong with that idea. One of us can be up there within seconds if she spots someone approaching.”

     Jordan smiled.

     “I can testify from personal experience that she’s real good at yelling.”

     Scott said, “Okay, honey. You’re on. From now on, until we get the security system up and running, you can pull a regular shift on guard duty. How’s your night vision? Can you see well in the dark?”

     “Yes, sir. Very well.”

     “Okay. Go ahead and finish your dinner, and then you can replace Joyce so she can come and eat. We’ll rotate duty at the lookout window until I can get all the cameras replaced tomorrow. Then we’ll rotate duty at the security console.”

     Sara smiled.

     “Thank you. Now I finally feel like part of the group. And I’ll do a good job, I promise.”

     “I know you will, honey.”

     By the end of their first day back at the compound, the group was still on direct generator power. All of the electrical items were put in the barn, where Scott would go through them one at a time at a later time. He’d look at the damage each one sustained and would make a determination on whether each item could be safely used without melting down and catching fire.

     Those which he deemed destroyed still might find a use. He might be able to cannibalize some switches or relays or wiring from some items to use to repair others.

     But that was a future project.

     Right now there were other, more pressing things to worry about.

     Scott and Jordan worked long into the night setting up the security console in one corner of the dining room. It consisted of five flat screen monitors, which they mounted on the wall over a desk. Each monitor was split screen and would be assigned to two specific high definition cameras, which would give them an unobstructed view of the area around the compound day or night.

     In the desk drawers were stored ammunition, spare walkie talkies, miner’s lights and night vision goggles. And a first aid kit. Zachary called it “the war room.”

     On top of the desk sat a battery charging station to recharge batteries for the flashlights, walkies and night vision goggles. And an MP-3 player with a small speaker.

     Jordan asked, “How come not a TV and DVR, so I don’t go crazy while I’m sitting here?”

     His father rolled his eyes, and Jordan understood that it wasn’t a well thought out question.

     “Because when you’re sitting here, you’ve got the most important job in the compound. You have the security and safety of all of us in your hands. We want you watching the monitors. Not The Simpsons.”

     “Okay, okay. I get the point. And for the record, I don’t even like The Simpsons. Marge gives me the creeps.”

     The night was quiet, and the next day started without incident. Things went smoothly until just before ten a.m., Sarah began screaming from her lookout post.

     “Man on a horse! Man on a horse!”

     And everyone else came running.

-5-

     Scott was the first one up the stairs. He grabbed the AR-15 from the corner next to the window and motioned Sara to step aside. Then he lifted one of the blinds and peered out into the front yard.

     He had an unobstructed view from the house to the end of the driveway, a hundred yards away.

     He saw a man, sitting on a chestnut bay, just inside the property. Watching the house, but knowing not to come any farther without permission.

     Scott smiled, and said, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

     He put the weapon back in the corner and said to Sara, “It’s okay, honey. He’s a friend.”

     Scott shoved aside the heavy dresser they’d used to barricade the front door and walked out into the yard. Only then did the horseman draw closer.

     “Hello, neighbor!” Scott cried out to Tom Haskins.

     Tom rode over to him and got off his horse. Then he offered Scott his big meaty hand.

     “Good morning, Scott. Looks like you were right about this whole power outage thing. Any idea how bad it is?”

     Tom Haskins was a widower who lived by himself a few hundred yards up the road. He was the county road’s only other resident, and between the two homesteads, they were the only humans within a mile radius. He was also the man Linda had taken a liking to in recent months.

     “It’s pretty bad, Tom. We made it up here from San Antonio the night before last. They’re starting to riot and burn buildings down there. And they’ve got no way of getting fresh water or more food. So it’ll get a whole lot worse. Is this your first time off your property?”

     “No. I took a ride up Highway 83, east and west, a couple of hours after the power went out. Wasn’t much else to do. I came across a few motorists who were stranded. Gave them water and a bit of food, and pointed them toward the nearest gas station in Junction. Not that they’d get a lot of help there, but at least it was civilization.”

     “Are you okay over there? You’re welcome to come in here and join us. In fact, I really wish you would.”

     “Thanks for the offer, little buddy, but I’ll pass. Shoot, I’ve lived by myself for so long, I’m pretty much set in my ways now. Get up when I want and go to bed when I want, and don’t have to answer to anybody. I do plan to call on Linda occasionally, as long as she amenable to it.”

     Scott laughed.

     “I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have any objection. But bear in mind that people will eventually start working their way up here from the city, to hunt and fish. And they’ll be desperate for food. Desperate enough to break into houses and try to take whatever they can get.”

     “Well, they’ll have to get past me and my Remington first. Got me a handgun too, although I haven’t used it in awhile. If things get too hairy I’ll take you up on your offer and join you. But I’d like to try it on my own first.”

     “Tie Bonnie up and come in the house. I’ve got something for you. And you can stay for lunch, while you’re here.”

     “Oh, hell, Bonnie’s fine just grazing. She’s a good horse. She won’t wander away.”

     The two walked into the house and Tom said hello to everybody. Jordan relieved Sara at the lookout window so she could come down to meet him.

     “Sara, this is Tom Haskins. He’s our only neighbor, and a good man.”

     Tom was the biggest man Sara had seen in awhile. But she also got the sense that he was kind and gentle, like a big teddy bear.

     Over lunch, Scott asked Tom what his plans were for the day.

     “I’m riding Bonnie up to the auto parts store up in Junction. I might be wrong, but I think I can get my old car running again. So I can at least get around a bit better.”

     “I’m sorry to say this, Tom, but all the vehicles are dead. Never to start again.”

     “Not all of ‘em, Scott. Shoot, it took me half a day yesterday, but I finally got my old tractor running.”

     Scott’s jaw literally dropped.

     “Really?”

     “Yeah. And my old car, it’s a 1963 Ford Galaxy 500. It’s seen better days, for sure. But I’ve gotten my use out of the old girl. Cars that old, and farm tractors too, don’t have all of the complicated electronic ignitions and computers and all that crap on them. They’ve got just a few basic parts that make the engine run. So I think it’s possible to get the car running like I did the tractor.”

     Joyce asked, “But how did you get the tractor to run, with everything shorted out?”

     “Well, I checked the starter and solenoid first. The starter was fine. The solenoid was shot. Damn near melted. But I had an extra solenoid in my workshop. It was fine, I guess because it wasn’t hooked up to anything when your electromagnetic- whatever you call it, hit.

     “Anyway, I took the starter off, replaced the solenoid on the top of it, and then reinstalled it. The starter switch was shot all to hell, but the one on the Galaxy was in pretty good shape, and they were similar. So I swapped them out.

     “The battery, of course, was fried. But I dug through my junk shed and found an old dry battery, still in the box, that had been there for several years.”

     Linda was puzzled.

     “What do you mean, a ‘dry battery?’”

     “Well, these days, all car batteries are maintenance free. They’re sealed at the manufacturing plant. You couldn’t service them even if you tried, because you can’t get into them.

     “But that wasn’t always the case. Fifteen, twenty years ago, they still made batteries for cars that had removable caps on them. You took the caps off periodically and added water to them to extend their life. You had to service them just like you changed your oil and tuned your car, and all the drivers back then knew how to do it.”

     Scott offered, “I remember those days. Linda, you probably don’t remember the batteries he’s talking about because I always checked your batteries for you. But I remember them well.”

     Tom went on.

     “Anyway, this battery was still in the box. And it was still dry. Never had acid in it. And I guess that’s what saved it from being fried. Because once I filled it with acid, I ran a long screwdriver blade across both terminals and it sparked like a son of a bitch.”

     He remembered that Sara and Zachary were sitting there at the table and said, “Oh, excuse me. I guess words like that just spill outa me sometimes.”

     Joyce laughed.

     “Shoot, don’t worry about that, Tom. They hear much worse than that from Scott.”

     “Anyway, I got acid for the new battery by busting open the old battery. It was fried, but the acid inside was still good.

      “And after I replaced the battery, solenoid and ignition switch, I said a little prayer, crossed my fingers, and turned the key. And it cranked right up.”

     “And you think you can do that with other vehicles too?”

     “Not all cars, maybe. But some of the older ones. The newer cars have computer chips and electronic ignitions that would have to be replaced as well. And they’re not so interchangeable as old fashioned ignition switches on older cars and tractors. But I’ll bet that any car made in the eighties or before can get going again with a little bit of work.”

     “But the battery… the one you had in your shed. Do they even make batteries like that anymore?”

     “Oh, sure. That’s why Bonnie and I are headed to the auto parts store. They don’t make them for cars anymore, but they still make them for tractors and farm equipment. And since we’re in a rural area, that store sells tractor and harvester parts as well as for cars. They also have old fashioned ignition switches. So Bonnie and I are taking a road trip.

     “But the store won’t be open without power.”

     “I already thought of that. I have a small crowbar in my pack. I’ll pry open the back door and get what I need. I’ll leave some cash on the counter for whatever parts I take, and a little extra for the damage to their door. Just in case anybody ever comes back. Which is probably doubtful.”

     “Wow, that’s amazing. So you’re saying that any old car can be repaired so that it’ll work?”

     “Yes, I think so, as long as there’s enough old fashioned batteries around. Any battery with acid inside of it was probably ruined. Only the dry ones should be okay.

     “And hell, for that matter – pardon me, kids…  For that matter even never cars should be okay, provided they replace the electronic ignitions, main computers and fuse boxes. And all the fuses too. But I’d be willing to bet those parts are hard to come by. I don’t think they burn out very often, and even dealers are only likely to have a few on hand.”

     Linda took his hand.

     “Tom, it’s not safe out there anymore. We heard a lot of gunshots before we left the city. And saw a lot of fires in the distance. Won’t you reconsider coming in here with us?”

     “Thanks, but I’ve become something of a loner since the wife died many years ago. I’m set in my ways. I would like to come and visit you sometimes. But I think I’d do better on my own. At least unless things start getting really bad out there. I grew up a cowboy. I can rough it if I need to. And I can live off the land.

     He smiled.

     “If I need to. I may not need to.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “While Bonnie and I were riding on Highway 83, we came across two Walmart trucks. Parked on the side of the road, a hundred feet apart. They must have gotten off the I-10 and were heading toward San Angelo to deliver to the Walmarts there when their engines died.”

     “I plan to make a few trips there the next few days to gather provisions. I’ve never stolen anything in my life, and I won’t this time either. I’ve got money in the bank I’ll probably never use now. I’ll write a check and leave it on the steering wheel. If they can figure out how to cash it, they’re welcome to it.”

     Scott turned to Zachary.

     “Zach, go upstairs and ask Jordan if it’s clear out front. If it is, open the gate to the compound and drive one of the Gators out there. The keys are in them.”

     Zach didn’t have to be told twice. He seldom got a chance to drive the Gators. To him, they were like go-karts on steroids.

     “Tom, I want you to tie Bonnie to the back of the Gator and take it back to your place. We’ve got two others to use for chores. We can spare one. It’s got a good sized bed on the back and it’ll be a lot easier for you to gather your provisions from the trucks.”

     “Thank you, Scott. I wasn’t looking forward to hauling that stuff back by horseback, a couple of boxes at a time.”

     “I’m also going to give you a walkie talkie and some batteries to take with you. And some flashlight batteries. You’ll need a working flashlight at the parts store. They’re all rechargeable, and we’ll have the ability to recharge them when they go dead. So just bring them back here and swap them out when they get weak.”

     “What’s the walkie talkie for?”

     “Leave it on channel five. We’ll have another one on our security console, and we’ll leave it on twenty four seven. There will always be somebody sitting there, so anytime you want to come over and visit, just let us know ahead of time.

     “After I get all the security cameras set up, I’m going to block the end of our drive with dead mesquite trees. They’re thorny enough to keep people out. Better than concertina wire, in my opinion. The rest of the property is already lined with them. Once I block the drive, you won’t be able to get in unless we know you’re coming and use the tractor to drag the trees out of the way for you.”

     Linda tried one last time to talk him into staying.

     “Please, Tom. You may be stubborn and set in your ways, but you know there’s strength in numbers, and you’d be safer here. Heck, we all would be, with an extra man around to provide security and such.”

     He softened the resolve on his face, but he still didn’t bend.

     “I’m sorry, little lady, but I’ll take a pass. At least for now.”

     She went on.

     “And besides, it’s not fair for us who care about you to have to worry about you all the time.”

     Linda and Tom had gone out dancing a few times, and had even been intimate. But it was the first time that Linda had hinted she might be emotionally attached to him.

     A weaker man might have given in. But Tom Haskins was strong as a bull, and had a will to match.

     “Maybe if things get ugly. But not now.”

-6-

     Jordan was a big help when setting up the electrical system. It reminded Scott that his son was almost a man now.

     Scott climbed to the top of the wind turbine to check out the generator. Although this wasn’t one of the full sized turbines used to generate power for cities, it was still pretty tall. And as he looked down seventy feet below into the compound, it struck him that this would be a great place for a sniper to perch and take pot shots at him and his family if he ever made it into the compound.

     He made a mental note to take a blow torch and cut the rungs off the ladder for the first twelve feet after he finished bringing the turbine back to life. He could always bring a ladder from his shed to service the tower after that.

     But chances were, any marauder happening by who wished to do them harm wouldn’t have a ladder in his back pocket.

     The wind was barely blowing when Scott climbed the tower, so he had no problem braking the propellers. It was unnerving enough being that high, for a man who wasn’t particularly fond of heights. But the rotating props made the whole tower sway, and that made it ten times worse.

     As for the generator, it wasn’t producing power, even before he’d stopped the props. So it obviously suffered some damage.

     Scott looked at it, and didn’t see anything visible.

    He surmised that the wiring on the inside of the generator was fried. That wasn’t something he could repair seventy feet off the ground. And he wouldn’t need to. He had a backup generator in the Faraday cage to replace it.

     Now his biggest problem was getting the generator down, and the replacement up. They weighed just over two hundred pounds.

     He’d run a length of rope over the housing above the generator and tied it to tie-down rings on the generator itself. The other end of the rope was three hundred feet away, tied to the front end of his Bobcat. And behind the wheel of the Bobcat, with a walkie talkie in hand, was Jordan, awaiting further instructions.

     They’d used old fashioned hemp rope, because it tended to stretch less than nylon. And stretchy rope in this case would be a very bad thing.

     The plan was simple. The rope that Scott ran over the housing and tied onto the generator would keep it from falling when he removed the bolts holding it in place.

     Once the bolts were out, he’d give Jordan the go ahead to drive the Bobcat slowly toward the tower. As he drew closer to the tower, the weight of the generator would lower it to the ground.

     Scott had gotten the idea from the days he went hunting with his dad when he was a kid. Sometimes when the deer they shot was too big to manhandle, his dad would use a rope around a nearby tree branch to heft the carcass across their fender in a similar manner.

     As the generator was lowered, Scott climbed down the tower and together, he and Jordan untied the old generator and then retied the rope to the new one.

     Then Jordan was back in the Bobcat, slowly backing up to his original position, while his father was on his way back up the ladder.

     Scott had to wrestle with the swinging beast to get the bolts to line up. But once he got the first bolt in place, the rest were easy.

     And once most of the bolts were in, he called Jordan on the walkie.

     “Okay, son, I’ve got it from here. You can go install those cameras now.”

     Jordan enjoyed working with his father on these kinds of projects. Scott had never had any formal training on electrical systems, plumbing, carpentry, or any of a dozen other talents that come in handy to keep things running. Scott had learned what he knew mostly by watching his own father as he grew.

     And his own sons would learn the same way. Scott knew that Jordan was capable of installing the new video cameras without supervision. Scott would go behind him to check his work, of course. But he didn’t expect to find any errors.

     Jordan was only doing the cameras on the house and the perimeter fence. There were two other cameras that needed to be installed, on the two hundred foot tall tower just east of the property. It was one of the line towers they’d followed up from San Antonio when they’d escaped from the city. It was strewn with eight high tension electrical wires, each one two inches thick. But they no longer carried electricity.

     After the cameras were installed on the outside of the house, Scott and Jordan would go off property together to install the tower cameras. It was just safer to use the buddy system any time they were away from the protection of the compound.

     Scott finished the last bolt. The generator was in place.

     He looked over his shoulder and inspected the ham radio antenna that he’d attached to the turbine the previous spring. In the days ahead, he’d dig out the ham radio from his Faraday barn and use it to contact other survivalists around the world.

     Scott knew there were others out there like him. Others who saw something ugly on the horizon. And who took steps to protect their electronics so that they could maintain more or less a normal lifestyle after the catastrophe hit.

     He hoped there were enough of them out there to set up a network to pass news back and forth. The ham radio, he strongly suspected, would be their only link to the outside world.

-7-

     Scott checked the last of the cameras Jordan had installed on the outside of the house. They weren’t complicated. The cameras were the same brand and model as the ones he took off. It was just a matter of connecting the same colored wires together and tying off the excess. A no-brainer, really.

     But Scott was happy to see that there was nothing haphazard about the job Jordan did. He very carefully trimmed the wire ends so that there was no copper exposed. He made sure the electrical caps were securely in place. And he tied off and tucked the excess wiring away loosely, so it wouldn’t be pinched and cause a short.

     “What are we going to do with the old ones, Dad? Are we going to throw them away?”

     “No, we’ll put them in the workshop for now. Whenever we get some free time, we’ll take a look at them. If we can repair any of them, we’ll save them as backups in case any of the new ones ever go bad. Are you ready to go out there in the big bad world and hang the tower?”

     “Sure.”

     “Okay, why don’t you go inside. Get an AR and a couple of magazines. Bring one of the handguns too. They’re already on web belts with extra mags.”

     “Okay, but do you really think we’ll need weapons?”

     “No. I don’t think anyone will start working their way north out of the city until the food runs out down there and they really start getting desperate. And then when they do evacuate, they’ll be on foot, and it’ll take them several days to get here. Actually, I’m hoping that they all find places to relocate to along the way, long before they get here.

     “I just want to be safe, that’s all. Since we have the weapons anyway, we might as well make use of them. Just in case I’m wrong, and there’s already somebody out there.”

     The pair loaded a tool bag, the two camera kits, a cutting torch and acetylene tank, and the AR-15 rifle onto the back of a Gator and headed out the gate of the compound. Zachary locked them out as they left, and was given specific instructions not to let them back in unless the lookout verified there was no one in the area.

     Jordan drove the Gator to the end of the long drive and turned right on the dirt road that fronted their property. It was actually a county road, but one which seldom got any maintenance. And now it never would again.

     They followed the county road until it dead ended at the power lines. And they drove under the nearest tower, a steel and iron behemoth that looked ten times taller now that they were directly beneath it.

     The tower had iron rungs welded eighteen inches apart, so that linemen could climb up to do maintenance.

     Scott donned a safety belt, removed the brace and solar kits from the camera boxes, and went up.

     Sixty feet above the ground he clipped onto the tower with a carabiner clip attached to his safety belt. If he happened to fall, he wouldn’t fall far.

     He spent the next forty five minutes installing two camera brackets and two small solar panels. Each of the solar panels had built in batteries to store the power for operating the cameras twenty four hours a day. The cameras themselves were wireless, and would send their signals to a receiver at the security console. When they were done, they would be able to see intruders coming, day or night, from half a mile away in either direction.

     Once finished, he climbed back down and took the AR-15 from his son.

     “Tag. You’re it,” he said.

     It was important to Scott that Jordan did an equal part of the work on this project. It would help build his self confidence, and give him some investment in the job.

     So Scott took over guard duty while Jordan carried the cameras up to install on the braces.

     Once done, Scott called Linda on the walkie.

     “Linda, this is Scott.”

     “Go ahead.”

     “We’re all hooked up, and the sun is shining. You should be getting a signal on cameras five and six.”

     “I’m looking at them now, Scott. The signals are clear, but camera five is aiming too much toward the ground.”

     “10-4. Do you copy that, Jordan?”

     “I copy.”

     Jordan adjusted the south-facing camera.

     “How’s that?”

     “Much better. Now we’ve got a clear view in both directions.”

     “10-4.”

     Jordan came down from the ladder and took off the safety belt. He handed it to Scott, but Scott waved it off.

     “Don’t you want to check my work, Dad?”

     “No. I’ve seen your work. You’re thorough and careful. I’ve got to start thinking of you as a man instead of a boy. And I’ve got to trust that you have my back, and the backs of the others. So, no. I’m not going to check your work.”

     A tear formed in Jordan’s eye. For the first time in his life, he felt on an even par with his father. It was a good feeling.

     “Ever used a cutting torch before?”

     “No, sir.”

     “Well, it’s about time you learned. Watch every move I make while I cut a few steps off this tower. Then you can do some too.”

     Scott climbed up the rungs until he was about fifteen feet from the ground. Then he opened the valve on the wand of his cutting torch to release the gas, and used a flint sparker to ignite it.

     The torch cut through the rung above him like a warm knife through butter.

     “Watch out!” he shouted just before the rung broke free and fell to the ground. Jordon stepped aside out of its way.

     Scott did the first few rungs, then let his son do the last few.

     Jordan had a blast.

     “Wow! That was fun. Too bad there aren’t more to do.”

     “Well, it’s funny you should mention that, son. Because we have to do the same thing to the next two towers.”

     “How come? There aren’t any cameras on those.”

     “No, but these are the three towers that are closest to the compound. If you climb up on these three towers, you can see the house and over the fence. You can see the livestock inside the fence.

     “That’s a bad thing. We don’t want anybody to see that we have livestock and crops. We want them to just walk on by and never even notice.”

     “And what if we have to get up there and adjust the cameras again later on?”

     “Then we bring the extension ladder out of the work shed. It stretches to sixteen feet. That’s plenty to reach the rungs we didn’t cut off.”

     The walkie came back to life.

     “Scott, this is Joyce.”

     “Go ahead, Joyce.”

     “I’ve got two mesquite trees I just uprooted with the Bobcat. Got thorns on them two inches long. Really nasty suckers. I’ve got them standing by to block the end of the drive after you guys get back in. Let me know when you’re headed back so I can close the door behind you.”

     “10-4. That was my next project. Thank you.”

     “No thanks needed, Sugar. Us women do a lot more than cooking, you know.”

     Scott smiled.

     “Yep. I know.”

     After they finished with the other two towers, Scott and Jordan returned to the compound. Joyce, who’d driven the Bobcat often enough to be an expert at it, placed the first tree upright at the end of the driveway. Then she loosened the grip of the hydraulic jaws and gently pushed it forward until it fell perfectly into place. There was still a slight opening, so she did the same thing with the second tree.

     They now had a wall of uprooted mesquite trees that completely encircled the property. It would take a brave soul to fight his way through thorny trees to trespass into the compound. And if anyone was fool enough to try it, he’d be shot anyway.

     Scott was hoping that no one tried. He’d been too young for Vietnam, and too old for the Iraq war. He’d never taken a human life, and he didn’t relish the thought of doing so.

     He knew he would to save his own life. Or the life of someone he cared about. But the way he figured it, if they kept a low enough profile and stayed to themselves, that particular dilemma might never have to present itself.

-8-

     Their fifth day in, Linda was taking her turn at the security console when Tom Haskins called in on the walkie talkie.

     “Hello, hello. Anybody got their ears on?”

     Tom hadn’t used a radio since his CB radio days.

     Linda smiled.

     “Hey, Tom. How are you doing over there?”

     “I’m okay. A might lonely is all. This not going to work anymore and not seeing people is harder than I thought.”

     “Well, you can come and see us any time you want. And the invitation to move in here with us still stands.”

     “That’s why I’m calling. I’m headed by for a visit. Can you open the gate for me?”

     “How soon will you be here?”

     “Five minutes, maybe. Ten at the outside.”

     “Okay. We’ll be waiting.”

     “Scott or Joyce, did you copy that?”

     “Yep. Sure did. I’ll take care of it.”

     Scott and Joyce were outside the compound, with the kids, in the one acre field just outside the fence. They’d prepared it a year before by removing the grass and rocks from it. Now they were in the process of planting corn in it.

     It was a tedious and backbreaking process. They hadn’t thought to purchase a seed planting machine, so it had to be done by hand. Row by row, they were using screwdrivers to poke holes in the ground and dropping corn kernels inside them. Every three feet they repeated the process. To plant the whole acre, it would take all of them, six to eight hours a day, at least a week to complete.

     But they’d be rewarded by a glorious harvest of corn that was intended to last them for three years.

     Scott asked Joyce, who was in the row next to his and a little bit ahead of him, “Hey, Doll. You need a break?”

     “No, baby, I just had one. You go ahead.”

     Scott walked over to the end of the driveway, where the two mesquite trees were blocking the entrance to the yard. On the way, he called in.

     “Linda, you still on security?”

     “Yep.”

     “Anybody visible on any of the monitors?”

     “Nope. It’s all clear.”

     “10-4. Let me know if you see any activity out there while we have the gate open, will you?”

     “10-4.”

     Scott backed the Bobcat up to the tallest of the two trees blocking the drive, and tied a chain around its trunk. He dragged it out of the way, got out of the Bobcat and took off the chain. Then he turned the machine around, used the hydraulic jaws to pick it back up, and waited for his friend to appear.

     And it was quite an appearance Tom made.

     Scott was expecting him to ride up on Bonnie, as he did before, or perhaps the Gator they’d given him.

     Instead, a beige 1963 Ford Galaxy 500 came rumbling into the yard, loaded down with boxes of all sizes and shapes. Every spare inch was packed, and there were even four boxes tied to the roof.

     If the Beverly Hillbillies had moved to Beverly in a car instead of an old truck, this was what it would have looked like.

     Scott smiled and said to himself, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

     Once the old car was in the yard, Scott put the tree back into place, climbed out of the Bobcat and greeted his friend.

     “Hello, Tom. I see you got your car running. And not only that, you’ve turned it into a truck.”

     Tom laughed.

     “Well, I found that it hauls more stuff than your Gator. It has a huge trunk and a huge back seat, and a sturdy roof. This is one of those steel cars that you whippersnappers have heard about but never seen.”

     Joyce had seen the car pull in and thought it a good time to take a break after all.

     “Well hello, neighbor!”

     “Hello, Joyce. You’re looking well.”

     “Thank you. You’re looking pretty bright and cheerful yourself. What’s with all the boxes?”

     “Well, I wrote out a check for twelve thousand dollars and left it on the steering wheel of one of the Walmart trucks. It’s all the money I had left in the bank, but I figure that’s enough to own what’s in the back of the truck. And I’m finding all kinds of good stuff. And it’s way more than I need. So I figured I’d share it with you good folks.”

     About that time Sara came running out of the field and over to the car.

     “Oh, my God! Am I really seeing this?”

     Her eyes were locked in on a box on top of the car that was imprinted with the Brach’s Chocolates logo.

     Tom laughed.

     “I thought the kids would especially like that one.”

     Joyce corrected him.

     “Not just the kids, Tom. Us ladies like our chocolate too. Thank you so much. You are staying for dinner, aren’t you?”

     “Well, to be honest, I was hoping for an invitation. I’m used to eating like a single man, but a good home cooked meal sure sounds good occasionally.”

     “Okay, then, it’s settled. We’re having pot roast tonight. It’s in the crock pot cooking now. I hope you brought your appetite with you.”

     “I certainly did. Now, where can I put this stuff?”

     Scott said, “Just drive it on into the compound and we’ll put it in one of the sheds. And while we’re unloading it, you can tell me all about how you managed to get this thing running again.”

     As they stacked cases of canned goods, breakfast cereals and boxed pasta into the shed, Tom explained what he’d been working on the previous days.

     “Like I suspected, the auto parts place had everything I needed. A new solenoid for the starter and a new ignition switch. They had the old fashioned glass fuses this old girl uses, so I was able to replace all the fuses in the fuse box. Now it runs like a champ.

     “I picked up some extra stuff for you too. In the trunk are a couple of dry batteries. Eventually you’ll need them as your others wear out. Have you ever used a dry battery before?”

     Yes, but it’s been a few years.

     “It’s easy. It has caps that come off and there’s six cells on the inside of it. There’s a plastic package of powered acid for each battery. You pour the acid more or less evenly into the six cells. Then you add water, and the acid reacts to the copper plates on the inside. That’s what gives it its power. With these kind of batteries you’ll have to pull the caps off every month or two to add water. These aren’t maintenance free like the newer batteries.”

     “So they survived the EMPs because they didn’t have water in them?”

     “Exactly. Since there was no water, there was nothing to connect the two terminals and short the battery out.”

     “Thank you, Tom. I appreciate you thinking of us.”

     “Shoot. Why wouldn’t I? You’re great friends and great neighbors and you’ve treated me kindly. It’s the least I can do.”

-9-

     Over dinner, Scott asked Tom, “Would you be willing to share the information about fixing your car with the San Antonio police?”

     Tom gave him a blank look.

     “Sure. But how?”

     “I set up my ham radio the night before last just to try it out. I didn’t do any talking. I just listened in to see how many people were out there who still had radio capability. It was mostly quiet, but I did stumble across two men talking. I knew they were very close because the signal was so strong.

     “They were both preppers who’d protected their radios from the EMPs, and they were talking about how bad the situation was in San Antonio. Thousands of people dead, either by suicide or murder. The whole city is in full chaos. One of the men said he was a cop, and that they were overwhelmed, with no vehicles, and that many of the cops just didn’t even try to help any more.

     “I wrote down his call sign and frequency. If I can raise that guy on the radio again, would you share what you know with him? Maybe if the SAPD can get even a few cars running, it might save some lives.”

     “Sure. I’d be happy to help. With newer cars, they’d have to bypass all the fancy electronic ignitions and on board computers and all that. But I could explain to them how to rig them up.”

     That evening Scott and Tom went to the ham radio and found the frequency Scott had been listening to two nights before.

     “This is K57B59. Looking for K408T1. Are you on tonight?”

     “There was a brief delay, then, “This is Kilo-408-Tango-1. Do I know you?”

     “No. But I was monitoring this frequency the other night and I’m aware of your situation. I think we can help you get some of your police cars going again.”

     “Seriously? How?”

     Scott handed Tom the microphone.

     “My name is Tom. Are you a mechanic?”

     “No, I tinker is all. But I have a neighbor who is. I can send my wife to get him.”

     “That would probably be best. It’s not a difficult process, but if you skip a step it won’t work.”

     “Okay. I just sent my wife. She’ll be back with Paul in a minute. My name’s John. Where are y’all at?”

     Tom looked at Scott, who vigorously shook his head.

     “We’re near Dallas.”

     “Do y’all have your cars running up there?”

     “Only one so far. Maybe after you know how to do it you can help spread the word to other police departments.”

     “Buddy, if you can help us get our cars running again, we’ll tell the whole damn world.”

     There was another pause. Then,

     “Okay, our mechanic is here. His name is Paul. Go ahead.”

     “Paul, my name is Tom. Can you get to an auto parts store?”

     “Yes. We’ll have to walk, but there’s an Auto Zone about half a mile from here.”

     “What you’re going to do is grab some old fashioned car parts. The old two port ignition switches that used to attach to a car’s fender wells. Have you seen them?”

     “Yes. But not for awhile.”

     “You might have to search for them, but they’ll have them for older model cars. You’ll also need some old fashioned batteries. The dry ones. The ones that aren’t maintenance free. Since you guys live in the city, they may not stock very many of them. But once you get a couple cars running, hit rural parts stores, or farm implement companies. They’ll have a lot of them, because they still use them on tractors and harvesters and such. You’ll also need solenoids and fuses, because yours are going to be shot. But I’ll bet that your starters are okay. I think the solenoids all shorted out, and that’s as far as the damage went. The generator on my car was okay, but you might want to grab some of those too in case yours were damaged.”

     Tom paused to catch his breath.

     “Am I talking too fast?”

     “No, you’re doing fine. And John’s taking notes. Go ahead.”

     “Okay. Your newer cars have way too much crap under the hoods. Electronic mumbo jumbo and pollution prevention type of stuff. But when you get right down to it, the main parts, the starting system and engine and such haven’t changed much over the years.

     “You’ll have a dedicated wire inside the wiring bundle that goes from the battery to the steering column. It’s probably red, but I don’t know if that’s industry standard so don’t count on it. It should be easy to spot because it’ll have an in-line fuse. Find that wire and replace the fuse.

     “Now take that good old fashioned ignition switch. It used to bolt under the hood on the fender well closest to the battery. It normally mounts with two bolts, but I know you can’t drill any new holes so just do the best you can. Mount it someplace where it’s stable, and make sure it’s grounded.

     “Then wire that to the solenoid. The new solenoid, after you take the starter off and replace it. And don’t throw the old solenoid away. The copper will be fried on the inside of it, but any good machine shop technician can rebuild it for one of your other cars.

     “Replace all of your fuses and you should be good to go. You’ll bypass a lot of the sensors and other junk you don’t need anyway. But the car should run. Don’t forget to check your generator to make sure it’s charging the battery, though, or you’ll only get a few starts out of it.”

     Scott and Tom couldn’t see them, but John was looking expectantly at his friend Paul. Paul shook his head yes, meaning that, in his opinion, it sounded like a good plan. He thought it would work.

     John got back on.

     “Thanks, fellas. You can officially consider yourself heroes. If we all survive this and things ever get back to normal, I’ll make sure the city of San Antonio throws a parade in your honor.

     Scott replied, “Hey, we’re just glad we can help. Once you get your cars running again, don’t forget to help spread the word to other departments.”

     “We’ll do that, Scott. Thanks again, and keep in touch.”

     “Okay. Will do. K57B59 out.”

     Another voice came on.

     “Hey, K57B59, this is BR671K14. We took notes too down here in Orlando. Hope you don’t mind.”

     Scott laughed.

     “Don’t mind at all, Orlando. Spread the word, will you?”

     “Roger. Gonna do that now.”

-10-

    In the weeks after their arrival at the compound, the dust finally began to settle and the group developed a routine of sorts.

     Everyone had chores to do, and there were plenty to go around. They were able to relax a little now, knowing that their compound was not only very well hidden, it was also almost impenetrable.

     They still took turns at the security console, of course. Just in case. They switched off every four hours, around the clock. Even Zachary and Sara took their turns. The short four hour shifts kept anyone from becoming too bored, and since there were six of them, it enabled each of them to pull security duty at the same time each day.

     And that enabled their body clocks to stabilize.

     Outside, there was plenty of work to do. The livestock had to be fed and cared for. The eggs had to be gathered, and someone had to milk old Bessie every morning.

     The garden that Joyce and Linda planted required a lot of care. So did the acre of corn. But everyone pitched in to pull weeds, water and fertilize the plants. There wasn’t a single slacker in the group.

     The rabbits had dug their way out of their pen and now had free run of the yard. Scott was okay with that as long as the dogs didn’t bother them too much. But when they found a dead rabbit and several half-eaten heads of cabbage, he had to rethink things.

     His solution was to take six sheets of plywood and build the rabbits a new pen in the back corner of the compound. He buried each sheet of plywood a foot deep into the ground to keep them from digging out again, and he thought he was finished with them for awhile.

     It only took them half a day to get out again.

     It was Sara, of all people, who came up with a better plan. She and Scott spent three days digging a patch of dirt twelve inches deep, eight feet wide, and sixteen feet long.

     Then she dragged two sheets of half inch plywood into the hole and filled it back in again. Scott rebuilt the plywood fence, and the problem seemed solved for good.

     The rabbits still dug, of course. But once they hit the plywood they abandoned the hole and went elsewhere. Within a week, the pockmarked piece of land looked like an artillery range. But at least it kept the rabbits in.

     Sara asked Scott while they were working on the project together, “How come you have so many rabbits? Do you like bunnies?”

     “No, honey. Those three females and three males we let start mingling will produce a couple of hundred offspring a year. We’re going to eat them.”

     Sara was shocked.

     “No way!”

     “Yes. Sorry, but they’re a good source of protein. They grow faster than any of the other animals, and they’re a renewable source of food.”

     She started to pout.

     “But how can you look such a cute little bunny in the face and then kill him?”

     He bit his lip to conceal a smile.

     “Honey, I’m sorry, but this is the new reality. We can’t go to the supermarket to buy groceries anymore. We have to grow our own food to survive. And rabbits are going to be part of that food.”

     “Why not just eat the cows and pigs? They’re stinky and dirty. And they’re ugly. They’re nowhere as cute as the bunnies.”

     “Oh, trust me. We’ll eat them too, eventually. I’ll tell you what. I still have the two wire cages that we used to separate the males from the females before we moved up here. The females are all pregnant now. If you want, you can pick a couple of the babies after they’re weaned and make them your pets. You can fix up one of the cages real nice and feed them every day and take care of them. You can even name them. And I’ll promise you that we won’t eat your pets. Would that make you feel better?”

     “Yes, and thank you.”

     “You’re certainly welcome, sweetie.”

     “I want to pick a boy and a girl. Would you help me tell them apart?”

     “Um… you might be better off selecting two boys or two girls.”

     “Oh. Yes, I guess that might be a better idea.”

     And so it was that two rabbits named Monica and Chelsea would become a permanent fixture, in a shaded cage next to the tool shed. And they would spoiled rotten by a teenaged girl who had so much love in her heart she couldn’t bear to see them put down.

     The rabbits weren’t the only ones who were pregnant. Duchess began gaining weight, and her nipples became more prominent. Joyce was the first to notice, and made the announcement one evening at the dinner table.

     “We’re going to have puppies!”

-11-

     Outside the compound all appeared to be quiet. They could occasionally hear gunshots in the distance, but they were always single shots spaced several minutes to an hour apart. Hunters, probably.

     The only activity they’d seen on the tower-mounted cameras was a lone rider on horseback, a deer carcass tied across the horse behind the saddle, riding slowly back toward San Antonio. A hunter gathering food for his family. The camera was sharp enough to show that he carried no sidearm, and the only rifle he had was his hunting rifle, sheathed and on the side of the saddle.

     Scott didn’t consider him a threat, especially when he rode past the tower without taking any interest in the surroundings.

     Scott had moved his ham radio from the den to the security console. It made more sense there, since the security console was manned twenty four hours a day.

     Three or four times a day, the radio came to life, and each time whoever was on security detail would call Scott to come running.

     Word was spreading around the world to first responders and others. Many mechanics had already discovered the same thing Tom had. But those who didn’t would call to ask questions about the process. Or just to say thanks.

     Many police departments were getting as many cars running as they could find dry batteries for. And they were putting people to work rebuilding their starter solenoids using the copper from electrical cords.

     They were in touch with the Dayton, Ohio police department as well. The Dayton police convinced a Dayton battery factory to start removing the tops of thousands of maintenance free batteries, saving the acid and taking out the shorted out cells, and then rebuilding them. The company still had no lights, so they moved their operations into the plant’s parking lot and only worked during the daytime.

     The problem was one of logistics. The country was slowly getting some of its vehicles running again. But only to the degree that old fashioned automotive parts and dry batteries were available. The San Antonio Police Department, after scouring every conceivable place to look in and around the Alamo city, only found enough parts to get eighty of their cars running. Eighty cars out of a six hundred vehicle fleet.

     The police still had most of their officers dispersed on foot or bicycle. The cars were used mostly for emergencies, mainly to back up the foot patrol cops when they were under fire or outnumbered.

     And in the front seat of the patrol cars, they carried paramedics. Many of the calls they went on were now ambulance calls, since they were only able to restore five ambulances for the entire city.

     But at least it was something. It was a start, a foot in the door, and it gave the city something to hope for, that there might actually be brighter days ahead.

     On the third day of the crisis, engineers at San Antonio’s main water plant had managed to rebuild one of their generators and two of their eight pumps. The faucets around the city got little more than a trickle, but it was enough to keep people from dying of thirst.

     But mostly it was still chaos. Most of the residents of the city were holed up in their homes, trying to conserve what was left of their food, and to defend it from thieves.

     Texas had always been a big second amendment state, and most of its residents had some type of firearm. Many had their own private arsenals.

     That was a good thing for San Antonio residents. And a very bad thing for those who went from house to house trying to steal food.

     The streets were littered with the bodies of thugs who’d been shot while breaking into homes. There was no way to call the police, or even an ambulance, when such incidents occurred. And the residents surely didn’t want the carcasses to stink up their homes. So they typically just dragged them to the curb outside their homes, hoping the city would figure out a way to come and collect them.

     And in the meantime, the bodies served as a big red flag that sent a very strong message to other potential thieves. Better stay away from this house. These people don’t play.

-12-

     Tom was tired of lugging supplies from the Walmart truck. It was only six miles down the highway from his place, so the drive there wasn’t the problem. It was the process that was getting monotonous.

     Once at the truck, he had to break down each pallet of mixed boxes to see what he could use and what he could set aside. Then he had to load as much as he could into his old Ford. And once back to his modest ranch, he had to find hiding places to put everything in case marauders ever tried to rob him. He’d made two such trips a day for two straight weeks, and it was getting old.

     But at least he could see the back wall of the trailer now. To him that meant the light at the end of the tunnel.

     And the bright spot was that he had more than enough canned goods, pasta, and Ramen noodles to keep him fed for two or three years. And a lot of other foods thrown in to boot.

     He’d been single long enough to know that there were certain shortcuts a man could take to prepare his food. One night several months before he had a hankering for Kraft macaroni and cheese. It was only after he boiled the noodles that he realized he was out of milk.

     So he did what single men have done for many generations. He improvised.

     Tom cooked the macaroni and drained it, just like the box said. But instead of adding a quarter cup of milk and a quarter cup of margarine, he added three eighths of a cup of Wesson oil. And he found out that it looked exactly the same. It was just a tad bit oily, and a tad bit less creamy, but it was darn good eating. In fact, by the time he finished his meal he decided he liked his version better, and made a habit of cooking it that way every time.

     He was happy to see not only six cases of macaroni and cheese on the truck, but a case of Wesson oil as well.

     He also took things he knew he’d never use, like women’s products, and perfume, and foo-foo smelling soaps and such. He figured that maybe, just maybe, he could do something else single men had been doing for generations. Bartering stuff they didn’t need for things they could use.

     In this case, he was hoping to keep Linda, Joyce and Sara in perform and soap, in exchange for a couple of loaves of fresh baked bread occasionally.

     At least that was his plan.

     Tom had power running to his house again. He’d overhauled the diesel generator he had in his shed, and gotten it working again. His house didn’t have a breaker box. It had an old fashioned fuse box which used glass tubes of different wattage.

     The EMPs blew every one of his fuses, but he had spares. And since the spares were in boxes instead of being screwed into the fuse box, they were spared the damage.

     As it turned out, he was lucky. His well pump survived intact and the majority of his ceiling lights still worked. The television came on, but it just hummed and the picture stayed black. But that was okay because he knew the TV stations were out of commission anyway.

     And also because he could count on one hand the number of times he’d watched the damn thing in the previous two years.

     What Tom really missed was his stereo. He used to pop CDs into it and crank it up loud, so he could sing Folsom Prison Blues with Johnny Cash, Whiskey River with Willie Nelson, and Cool Water with the Sons of the Pioneers.

     He still had the CDs. Maybe he’d see if Scott had a spare player he’d barter for a case of M&Ms or something.

     He finished loading up the car and was getting ready to head back, when he remembered the three gallon diesel can on his front passenger seat.

     He only ran his generator in the daytime. He was afraid that lights on in his house would attract the wrong kind of company. So as twilight approached each evening, he killed the generator and read a book by a single candle’s light in his back bedroom.

     But even running his generator only during the daytime required diesel fuel. And his plan was to stock up so he had enough to last awhile.

     He had four old 55-gallon drums on his property. They’d been there for so long he couldn’t even remember where they came from. They were empty and smelled of herbicide, although any markings they once had on them had rusted away.

     The inside of the drums, though, weren’t rusted at all. So they’d make good containers for storing diesel fuel.

     The tractor which hauled the 53-foot trailer from one Walmart to another was equipped with twin hundred gallon saddle tanks, one tucked beneath the running board on each side of the cab. It appeared the truck driver topped off his tanks in the city of Junction, on Interstate 10, about twelve miles away.

     That was good news for Tom, because they were both almost full. And two hundred gallons of diesel fuel would power his generator for a very long time.

     His Ford was another matter entirely. It needed gasoline. But it was surprisingly good on gas, and he never took it anywhere except to and from the truck. So the gas in his tank would last him awhile. When he did run low, there were several stalled vehicles on the same highway as the Walmart truck he could siphon some from.

     He knew he’d feel a little bit guilty about doing that, when and if the time came. It would almost be like he was stealing it. But then again, chances were that none of the vehicles would ever be used again. And if he didn’t make use of the gas, it would just go to waste.

     So he didn’t figure the little bit of guilt he’d feel for taking the gas would prevent him from doing it.

     He took the three gallon diesel can out of the front seat and used a section of garden hose to siphon enough fuel from the truck’s driver’s side tank to fill it.

     It was a slow process, transferring the diesel fuel from the truck to his drums, using a three gallon can. But it was the only can he had, and he fully expected to make at least forty trips to the trailer to get everything he could use from it. He never realized how much merchandize a full sized trailer could hold until he started sorting through it all.

     So if he didn’t get all of the diesel, three gallons at a time, he’d darn sure get most of it.

     He put the full can in the front floorboard and headed back home. Six miles up the highway, he turned onto the nondescript county road that fronted his house, and then Scott’s house a little farther on.

     It was getting late in the day as he made his turn, and the sun was low enough in the sky to make it hard for Tom to see in front of him.

     Had that not been the case, he’d have seen the two men who were two hundred yards farther up the highway from where he turned off of it. They were walking toward him with the sun at their backs.

     And although Tom never saw them, they certainly saw him.

-13-

     It was an absolutely beautiful day. And for a change, the group was more or less caught up on their chores. The corn was growing quite nicely in the north field, the animals were all happy and getting fat. Duchess was ready to give birth any day, and they still hadn’t had any trouble with marauders.

     It was too gorgeous a day to let go to waste, so Scott announced that he and the boys were going fishing.

     “Oh really,” Joyce said. “Just like that?”

     “Yep. Just like that.”

     “And what if Linda and I want to take a day off and go fishing?”

     “Then you can come along. Sara can watch the monitors and call if she sees something out of the ordinary.”

     “Oh, yeah? Well, what if she wants to go too?”

     “She doesn’t. We already invited her. She said she hates fishing.”

     Then Linda started in.

     “Wait a minute. You invited Sara but you didn’t invite us?”

     “I thought it would give her and I a chance to bond a little. You two have bonded with her, but I’ve been so busy lately I haven’t had a chance to.”

     But Joyce wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily.

     “So you figured you guys would just go relax by the side of the lake, and then bring back a big bucket of smelly, slimy fish that Linda and I would have to clean and cook for you. Is that it?”

     Scott gave up. He rolled his eyes and said to Jordan, “Tell them, son.”

     “Dad wanted to surprise you. We were going to catch a few catfish, and we were going to clean them and cook them with some cornbread and beans, while you two took a night off from the kitchen and watched chick flicks with Sara.”

     Joyce and Linda looked at each other and suddenly felt foolish.

     Then they burst out laughing. Linda said, “Well, far be it from us to dampen such a great plan.”

     Joyce added, “Yes, indeed. Happy fishing, men. As you were and all that. Better get on your way now, the fish aren’t going to wait for you forever, you know.

     As Scott, Jordan and Zachary headed out the back door, Joyce caught Scott’s eye and blew him a kiss.

     She said to Linda, “You know, dear, that husband of ours isn’t such a bad guy after all.”

     The fish were still getting used to the new pond that Jordan had dug out for them the previous summer. Presumably, there were still worms coming out of the new mud. And a swarm of mayflies had swept through the area a couple of nights before. Many of them stopped for a sip of water and drowned or were eaten as they skirted the top of the water.

     Whatever they were full of, the fish showed little interest in the bait the guys were offering. At least at first.

     That gave them plenty of time to talk.

     “You guys remind me to plant some trees along the bank of this thing so we can have some shade to sit in later on.”

     “Where are you gonna get trees, Dad? Aren’t the nurseries like, closed and stuff?”

     “Don’t listen to him, Dad. He’s such a dork. They don’t have to be open. They deliver. Duh…”

     Scott laughed at both of them and shook his head. Sometimes they seemed absolutely clueless.

     “No, I’m thinking a couple of oak trees. I’ll gather some fresh acorns and bring them down and plant them sometime in the next few days. Right next to the water. And then mother nature will do the rest.”

     “And that’ll make shade next time we go fishing?”

     Scott laughed again.

     “No, but we’ll twist the green branches if we need to to make sure a good strong branch goes directly over the water. In your lifetime, you’ll be able to watch your grandkids swing on a rope into the water below. And you’ll remember this day, when we sat here cursing the fish for not biting and saying we wish we had a shade tree.”

     “I can’t curse the fish. Every time I say ‘damn’ you yell at me.”

     “I do not. Only when your mom or another female is around.”

     “Why only then?”

     “Cursing is like farting. It’s okay to do it when you’re around your friends, or other men. It’s part of being a guy. Women say we’re barely civilized. We like to scratch our ass when it itches, fart when we want to, tell dirty jokes and curse. But women are more refined. They’re God’s gift to man. They make our life so much more pleasant. So we treat them with a little more respect. We do things like open doors for them and compliment them when they’re feeling a bit down. We tell them we love them so they know they’re appreciated. And sometimes we give them a night off from cooking and hope the damn fish are biting. But we don’t fart in their presence or use foul language. It’s just disrespectful. They don’t like it and shouldn’t have to listen to it. Women are soft and sweet and refined, compared to us.”

     Zachary looked at him.

     “Dad, I’ve heard mom curse. Sometimes she’s worse than you.”

     Scott pondered his words for just a moment.

     “Yeah, well, she’s not always refined. Sometimes she just gets down in the dirt with us apes and wallows around in it for short periods of time. But generally, treat her with the respect she deserves. Joyce too.”

     He looked at Jordan.

     “And Sara as well. She’s turning into a woman. If you two stay in love, then it’s likely you’ll marry someday. Always treat her with dignity and respect. Don’t ever lay a hand on her, and watch the words you say to her. Angry words can hurt more than a slap to the face. If you love her, tell her often. And more importantly, show her. Be kind always.”

     Jordan merely nodded as he absorbed the advice.

     Zachary said, “I’m still not happy that I don’t have a girl. I mean, you’ve got Joyce and Butthead has Sara. Even Mom has Mr. Haskins. Shoot, Duke has Duchess. Who do I have?”

     “You’re young, Zach. There’s plenty of time for you to find a special girl. I’m hoping with all my heart that the world calms down enough someday to allow us to venture out. There will be other survivors, and some of them will be girls about your age. And I’m sure some of them would love to spend time with a boy like you.”

     Jordan couldn’t help himself.

     “You mean a brainless freak?”

     “You must be looking in the mirror, shithead.”

     “All right, you two. Be nice before you scare the fish.”

     “What fish?”

     The fish must have heard Jordan’s words. For it was at that exact moment that Scott had his first nibble.

     They’d finally decided they were hungry after all, and within another hour the three were on their way back to the house with a stringer full of catfish.

     “Dad,” Zachary asked as they walked along. “Do you think Amy is okay?”

     Amy was the love of Zachary’s life, his one big crush, and the girl he reluctantly left on the outside when they left San Antonio.

     I think so, Zach. I’m sure she has a mom and a dad who care just as much for her as we care for you. And I’m sure they’re doing all they can to keep her safe.

     “If we can go back to the city sometime, I want to find her again. I think she’s the one I want to marry.”

     As promised, the boys cleaned the catch while the girls relaxed. Well, most of the girls. Sara had security duty, so she sat at the console watching the monitors and occasionally stole a glance into the den. When Hope Floats was finished, Linda put in Pretty Woman. Joyce switched places with Sara, since Sara had never seen the movie and Joyce had watched it a thousand times.

     In the kitchen, Scott had cornbread in the oven, battered catfish fillets in the deep fryer, and ranch style beans on the stove. Jordan and Zach were teaming up to make Cole slaw with cabbage and carrots they’d picked fresh from the garden out back.

     For some reason, out of the blue, Scott thought of his friend and neighbor Tom Haskins. He didn’t know whether Tom even liked fish, but he wished he’d invited him over for dinner. It was probably too late now. Tom had told him before that he liked to eat early, so he could turn in as soon as the sun went down and he turned his generator off.

     He decided that he’d take the leftovers to Tom the next day, find out if he liked fish, and invite him to come along the next time they went fishing. Tom was a good man. God fearing, honest and tough. Scott had liked him the first time they’d met two years before when Scott walked into the feed store where Tom had worked, and they’d become good friends since.

-14-

     Just after midnight, the group was awakened by a flurry of gunshots. Scott, Linda and Joyce went running downstairs to the security console, but there was nothing to see. All of the cameras were operating properly, but showed no prowlers, no sign of movement at all.

     “Which direction did they come from?”

     “I’m not sure. I think from the woods on the other side of the power lines. But it was hard to tell.”

     “No. I think it was more in the direction of Tom’s place. I hope he’s okay.”

     Scott picked up the walkie talkie. “Tom, this is Scott, can you read me? Just want to make sure you’re okay.”

     Nothing.

     Scott wasn’t surprised. Tom had said he only turned the walkie on when he was going to call them. He said he wanted to conserve the batteries. It had sounded like a good idea at the time. Now it sounded like the worst idea in the world. It hadn’t occurred to anyone that there might be times when the group might want to call Tom.

     Scott made a mental note to give Tom more of the rechargeable batteries, and to tell him to leave the walkie on all the time.

     He tried again.

     “Tom, this is Scott. If you can read me, come in. If you’re under duress, key the mike twice.”

     Still nothing.

     “I’m going over there to check on him.”

     But the women didn’t think it was such a good idea. And they ganged up on him.

     Joyce said, “No you’re not, Scott. If he’s under fire, he’s capable of defending himself. And if he needed your help, he’d have called us by now.”

     Linda added, “She’s right, Scott. If you go out there and there are bandits at Tom’s place, you’re likely to get shot yourself. And what good is that going to do to help the situation?”

     “I can’t just leave him over there by himself. He may be outgunned.”

     “Scott, stop and think about this. He is a strong man. He’s old school. He’s an experienced cowboy. He can defend himself. He said as much when we tried to talk him into coming in here with us, remember? He said not to worry about him, to worry about whoever tried to come after him instead. He said it with a laugh, but he was confident he could defend himself and his property.”

     Linda added, “And we’re not even sure where the shots came from. They may not have been anywhere near his place. But here’s what we do know for sure. He’s got a walkie talkie and he knows how to use it. And he knows we monitor channel five twenty four hours a day. If he needed your help, all he had to do was turn on the walkie and say so. And he didn’t. So that means either he’s got things under control, or the shots didn’t come from his property, or he’s still sleeping soundly and never even heard them.”

     “Linda’s right, Scott. If he needed help he would have called by now. If you go over there in the dead of night and start poking around, he may think you’re a prowler and you may get shot yourself. And that’s a tragedy none of us are willing to risk. In the morning, if Tom hasn’t called in, you can go over there and check on him. But you’re not going anywhere until morning light.”

     The kids were all up and watching the debate. Scott looked at Jordan for support but could tell by the look on Jordan’s face that he agreed with the women. The kids liked Tom Haskins just as much as the adults did. He was kind to them and funny in an easy going way.

     But none of them thought it wise for Scott to risk his life to help a man who didn’t ask for help and in all likelihood didn’t need it.

     Scott was all alone. So he finally surrendered. Joyce made hot chocolate for everyone, since they were up anyway. Scott monitored the security console, and picked up the walkie at least five times to make sure it was on and the volume was up. His sons raided the refrigerator and heated up leftover fish and cornbread in the microwave.

     Joyce and Linda stood in the kitchen, watching Sara watch Jordan eat. They sat at the dining room table together, holding hands and staring dreamily into each other’s eyes.

     None of the romance movies they’d watched the previous evening had anything on these two. They were watching true love blossom before their very eyes.

     Joyce eventually relieved Scott at the security station and he went to bed. He slept fitfully, still worried about his friend and might have happened at his place during the night.

-15-

     Scott was up well before dawn and had already formulated his game plan. Just in case Tom’s place had been overrun during the night and was occupied by marauders, he decided not to show up in a vehicle. They’d be able to hear it coming, and would likely shoot him off of it as soon as he came into view.

     He also thought it was a bad idea to enter from the front of the yard. If marauders were expecting the cavalry to come, that’s where they’d be watching.

     No, Scott had a better idea. His property and Tom’s shared a common fence line, on the north side of Scott’s property. It was barricaded by toppled mesquite trees now to prevent intruders from sneaking up on the group, but that wasn’t a problem.

     Just before sunrise, Scott put his side arm on, threw his AR-15 over his shoulder, and kissed Joyce goodbye.

     “Please be careful,” was all she said.

     Scott walked out the front door and north of the compound. He climbed aboard the Bobcat and drove it to the fence line, where he tied a chain to the trunk of one of the mesquite trees and dragged it out of the way.

     Then he very carefully climbed over the barbed wire fence and made his way slowly toward Tom’s ranch house two hundred yards away.

     As he neared the house, he wasn’t sure what he’d find. The handgun he carried on his side was already charged and ready to fire. He carried the AR-15 at the ready, just in case.

     And he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw no marauders in Tom’s yard. Instead, he saw Tom himself, working underneath the dashboard of his old Ford Galaxy 500.

     The hood was raised, and Scott assumed he was having trouble getting it started.

     “Good morning, Tom.”

     Tom crawled out of the car and offered his hand.

     “Well, good morning, good neighbor. Where in hell did you come from?”

     Scott laughed.

     “I took the scenic route, through the back door, so to speak.”

     He pointed in the direction he’d come from.

     “We heard some shooting last night, and we were afraid it may have come from here. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

     As he spoke, he cleared the rifle and put it back on safe. Then he leaned it up against the rear fender of the old Ford.

     “Well, there was a bit of trouble, Scott, but it’s all over now.”

     “What happened?”

     “I was sleeping all peaceful, and I was woke up by voices. I sleep fairly light, you see. Anyway, the voices were coming from the front yard. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I had a suspicion they were up to no good.

     “So I took my 30.06 out the back door and went around the corner of the house to get a good look at them. They had the hood of my car up, and were trying to figure out how to hotwire the son of a bitch.”

     “So, what did you do?”

     “I fired a shot over their heads and told ‘em to get the hell off of my property. Well, they took off lickity split thinking the next round was gonna get one of ‘em in the head. One of ‘em turned around and fired three or four shots on his way out, but he didn’t hit anything.”

     “Do you think they’re still around?”

     “Nope. Me and old Blue followed their scent up to the highway. They headed east from there but were nowhere in sight.”

     “You went after them in the darkness? Don’t you think that was kind of foolish?”

     “Probably, but nobody ever accused me of having any common sense. Anyway, I had the odds on my side. I had a dog and they didn’t. But they were long gone, so nothing else came of it.”

     “You know they’ll come back. Probably with reinforcements. Your car is worth more than gold to them. They won’t give up until they have it.”

     “I know.”

     “Did they do any damage?”

     Tom laughed uproariously, catching Scott totally off guard.

     “They were rank amateurs. Probably couldn’t touch their ass with both hands if you gave ‘em three chances. They tried to hotwire the damn thing, probably going by what they saw some actor do in a movie. They crawled up under the dash and snipped the first two wires they found. Then tried to cross connect ‘em to start the car.”

     “And I’m guessing it didn’t work?”

     Tom laughed again.

     “Hell no. The idiots snipped the wires to my radio and to my turn signals.”

     Now it was Scott’s turn to laugh.

     “How much damage did they do?”

     “Next to none. I don’t ever expect to use the radio or the turn signals again, so I just taped over the cut wires and that was the end of it.”

     “Okay, so that fixed the small problem. The bigger problem is that they’re coming back, and you know it. Only this time they’ll have to shoot you so they can get the keys. And once you’re dead, they’ll not only take your car, but they’ll take Bonnie and Blue too. So what’s your plan to deal with that problem?”

     “Well, my friend, that’s pretty much up to you and the girls.”

     “Meaning what? Are you saying you’re finally going to do what you should have done in the first place and join us?”

     “Well, when you put it that way it makes me sound like I’m a might stubborn.”

     “Only because you are.”

     “I suppose if I argued, it would just prove your point.”

     “Yep.”

     “Okay, then. I give up. I honestly didn’t think the violence would make it this far.”

     “Maybe it was an isolated case. Maybe they won’t be back. But they know you have this car and they know it runs. So my guess is, they’ll keep coming back until they get it. And if they fired back at you, then they don’t mind using force to take it.”

     “Yeah, I guess so. You sure you don’t mind me moving in over there?”

     “Nope. We don’t mind at all. We’ve got a partially finished basement. We can put you in there until the winter time. You’ll have it all to yourself, so when the kids get on your nerves you’ll have someplace quiet to hang out. The only thing is, it gets cold down there in the winter time. So before the weather gets cold, we’ll convert the old Faraday barn into a bachelor pad.”

     “Oh, I don’t want to put you through any trouble.”

     “It’s no trouble. You see, we’ve already bought all the materials. The toilet, sink and shower, all the pvc pipe to connect it to the plumbing system. All the conduit, outlets and wiring we need to power it. Even insulation and sheetrock. It’s all sitting in a big pile in one of the other Butler buildings.”

     Tom gave him a puzzled look.

     “We told Jordan we would use all the materials to make the place for him. So he could feel more like a grownup by having his own place, of sorts. The problem is, when we evacuated, he brought Sara along. And that’s not a problem. We’re all getting to know Sara, and she’s quickly becoming part of the family.

     “The problem is that Jordan doesn’t see her as a sister. He sees her as a hot chick. And he’s a teenager with raging hormones. So is she, by the way…”

     “Okay, I get the picture. You’re afraid if Jordan has his own place, that she’ll sneak out at night and they’ll do some things they have no business doing.”

     “Exactly. If they’re in the same house as us, it’ll be easier to keep track of them.”

     “And you’re sure that Joyce and Linda are okay with me crashing their party?”

     “Shoot. They told me if I didn’t talk you into it they were going to hang me by my ankles and castrate me. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

     Tom winced.

     “No. Wouldn’t wish that on any man. Especially a friend.”

     “Okay, it’s settled. How soon can you move over?”

     “Well, by the end of the day I suppose. I’ll have to make several trips with the Ford to take all of my Walmart stuff over there, and a few furniture items and clothes and such. But what if those bandits come back while I’m moving?”

     “I’ll sit at the end of the road, where it connects with the highway. If I see them crest the hill half a mile away, I’ll call you on the walkie talkie. You’ll have plenty of time to get there to back me up. And I’ll have the boys help you. They can drive two of the Gators and it’ll go a lot faster.”

     “Thank you, Scott.”

     “Don’t mention it, partner. That’s what neighbors and friends do for each other. Now why don’t you start loading up. I’ll head down the road to keep watch. And I’ll get the boys out here to help.

     “Have you gotten everything you need from the Walmart trailer?”

     “Yep. Done cleaned her out. At least of the stuff I can use.”

     “Good. Maybe after we get you moved in and settled we can figure out a way to barricade the end of the road. Maybe put a big sign that says trespassers will be shot. Maybe it’ll discourage your friends and others from coming to call.”

     “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

     Once he made sure the highway was clear, Scott called in on the walkie.

     “Joyce or Linda, come in.”

     “Go ahead, honey. How is he?”

     “He’s fine. But I need the boys. Can you put them on two Gators and send them over? I’m going to the end of the county road. I’ll keep watch while they’re over here, but they’ll need to have walkie talkies in case they need to get back to the compound in a hurry.

     “And can you open up the back Butler building and do some rearranging in it? See if you can make some extra space?”

     “Sure. But what are the boys going to do?”

     “They’re going to help move boxes. Tom’s moving in.”

     Both women smiled.

     But Linda was most happy, and it didn’t escape Joyce’s notice. Linda had taken a shine for Tom Haskins since the day they’d met. And she wanted to spend more time with him.

     Joyce winked and said, “Well congratulations, sweetie. Looks like Santa’s bringing you an early Christmas gift.”

-16-

     Scott called John Castro on the ham radio every few days now, just to stay abreast of the situation. John was the San Antonio police officer he’d talked to about the process for getting some of SAPD’s patrol cars working again.

     That was two months before. They’d become friends of sorts, although they’d never met in person. There weren’t a lot of people John could talk to away from the job, and to him Scott was a reminder that there were still places in the world where people were relatively safe, the environment more or less serene.

     “John, this is Scott, are you on?”

     They’d stopped using the required FCC call signs weeks before, deciding that they were an unnecessary burden.

     “Go ahead, Scott. How are things in Dallas?”

     Scott winced. He’d told John the first time they’d talked that he was calling from Dallas because he didn’t want to disclose his true location. Now every time John mentioned it, he felt he was living a lie.

     “Things are okay here, my friend. Are they getting any better in San Antonio?”

     “Well, I don’t know about better. But they appear to have stabilized. We’ve got enough vehicles running now to collect the bodies. They’re burning them in several of the high school parking lots, because people are dying faster than they can be buried. Suicides, mostly. But the crime spree has pretty much stabilized. The bandits have either all been shot by homeowners, or they’ve finally come to the realization that knocking on doors without an invitation is tantamount to a death wish.

     “Either that, or they’ve finally realized that people have no more food to give them.”

     “Is your water still flowing?”

     “Oh, yeah. The water plant got their second generator running, and their last pump has finally been repaired. The water is flowing fine. Too bad the food issue isn’t so easy.”

     “What’s everybody doing about food?”

     “Eating what they can. We’ve got the hospitals reporting cases of poisoning from people eating animal carcasses and poisonous plants. They’ve already looted all the food from the grocery shelves. What’s scary is they’ve looted all of the rat poison and insecticides too. I guess that’s the Plan B for people who don’t have guns, when they get desperate enough. FEMA’s continuing to do what they can, but it’s not enough.”

     “FEMA’s helping? How?”

     “They’ve got five tractor trailers they’ve got running. And they’re showing up every day and going to the various high schools to distribute food packets. One per person, first come first serve, but each one is supposed to have enough calories to keep someone going for three days. I don’t know where they’re getting them, and they won’t tell us. I guess I can’t blame them. If people knew where they were stored they’d probably be overrun. I know secrets are sometimes necessary to protect yourself.”

     “Hey, listen, John, about that. I told you the first time we talked that I was calling in from Dallas. I lied, and I feel bad about that. It’s just that I didn’t know who you were, and I wanted to protect my family.”

     “Oh, hell, Scott. I know that. I know you’re close to San Antonio. And I don’t care specifically where. And don’t worry about lying about it. We all do what we have to do to protect our families.”

     “You knew? But how?”

     “It’s a no brainer, really. Why would somebody in Dallas be so anxious to help out the San Antonio Police Department? Why wouldn’t you help out the Dallas police instead? And also, the more we talked, the more obvious it became that you were from here. I mean, you’re familiar with the roads and highways that go through here, you’ve asked about things in certain neighborhoods, and even mentioned certain schools.”

     “I’m sorry I lied.”

     “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal. But I’m glad you came clean. And I promise that I’ll never ask where you are. I’ll just assume that you’re somewhere close by that’s safe. And to be honest with you, my friend, it gives me some comfort that there are still safe places out there. I’m hoping we can make San Antonio safe again sooner than later.”

     “How are you holding up? Not the department. You, and your family?”

     “As well as can be expected. My wife shot at a prowler the other night. She was in hysterics when I came off shift, but I couldn’t find a blood trail so I think she missed the son of a bitch. She’s terrified that he’ll come back, but hopefully he got the message and will stay the hell away. My daughters have started calling her Wonder Woman.”

     “It’s nice that they can find a bit of humor in the situation. Do they have enough to eat?”

     “It’s getting thin, but we’ve been prepping since before the whole Mayan thing in December of 2012. Just like you won’t tell me where you are, and I really don’t want to know anyway by the way… I won’t tell you how much food we’ve got stashed. I will tell you this. My wife Hannah is really struggling with the morality of all this. We don’t have an abundance of food, but we’ve got enough to survive for a while. And she looks out her window and sees people walking down the street, heading out of the city. And they’re starving.

     “And the Christian part of her wants to take these people in and feed them. But the mother part of her says no. That every bite she gives to a stranger is a bite she’s taking out of the mouths of our daughters. So she lets the people walk on by. But it’s tearing her up inside.”

     “Wait a minute, John. Did you say people are leaving the city?”

     “Oh, yes. Droves of them. By foot. The rumors have spread that some of the smaller towns around San Antonio that don’t have as many people as San Antonio have food to spare. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I doubt it. But people by the thousands are hearing those rumors, and they’re desperate. Because they’re starving. So they’re packing backpacks full of bottles of water and what little food they have left. And they’re striking out on foot. And they’re collapsing on the highways and dying there. The city has four dump trucks running and that’s all they do now. Just drive around and pick up dead bodies, like last week’s garbage. And they take them to the nearest high school and throw them on the burn pile. They say we’ve lost a third of the population already, and they’re expecting no more than ten percent to survive this.”

     Scott had heard enough. He’d been using a headset lately when talking to John, so nobody else in the house could hear how bad it was on the outside. Now he didn’t want to hear it either.

     “I’m signing off now, John. I’ll check in again in a couple of days.”

     “Are you a praying man, Scott?”

     “Yes. Although to be honest I’ve lost a lot of my faith lately.”

     “Oh, God’s still out there. I look at this as just another means of cleansing God’s earth, much like the great flood. Most won’t survive this ordeal, but some will. And perhaps those that do can lead more righteous lives. Would you do me a favor, Scott, and say a prayer for us?”

     “Yes, John. I’ll do that. And to be honest, we’ve all

been praying for you and your family every night. And for the whole city of San Antonio, after we found out how bad it was. So, yes. We’ll continue to pray for things to get better soon.”

     “Thank you, Scott. You stay safe and we will too. Signing off.”

-17-

     There were some days when Scott really had a hard time living with himself, knowing what he knew about what was going on in the outside world. He purposely withheld many of the gory details from the others to spare them the same pain and self doubt he was having.

     On the one hand, he felt like the coldest son of a bitch on the planet. Like a guy who’d walk down the street in normal times and kick a hungry man in the teeth for asking for a handout.

     On the other hand he’d say no. This was what he signed up for. This was what he knew what was going to happen when he began preparing for the biggest disaster ever faced by modern man. That it was his duty, as a father and lover and friend, to protect the people in his group, for as long as he could.

     And he went back and forth each and every day.  Sometimes several times a day. He’d alternate between self hatred and pride in himself that he’d provided for his family when most other men missed the opportunity. And he tried to convince himself that anyone could have made preparations as he did, and been spared the wrath of the solar storms.

     And then he wondered if he did wrong by keeping the old professor’s notes to himself. Maybe he should have stood upon a mountaintop and announced it to the world.

     Of course, then they’d have likely locked him up. Or at least his friends would have thought him crazy and abandoned him. Considered him an outcast. They’d have scoffed at his assertion and ignored him.

     And they’d have wound up in exactly the same situation they were in now.

     In the end he decided that, knowing what he knew and loving the people he loved, that he’d done the right thing. That someday he’d die and he might well wind up roasting in hell for all eternity.

     But at least his family and friends would survive. And so would his grandchildren, and their grandchildren. The name Harter would stretch into perpetuity, when a lot of other names wouldn’t.

     But that wouldn’t necessarily mean it was right.

     He did what his friend John asked, and continued to pray for John and his family. And he went one step farther and said a prayer every night for the city of San Antonio.

     It was, quite literally, the least he could do to sleep at night.

-18-

     It was about a month after Tom came to stay with them that he and Scott finally finished the old Faraday barn. They’d turned it into a respectable studio apartment, about the size of a two car garage, with a half bathroom and some of the furniture from Tom’s house.

     Scott had used the Bobcat to scrape dirt from the ground, and built a berm three feet high at the end of their road. They’d never seen any sign that the men who tried to steal Tom’s car had returned, but they wanted to make it apparent to them that they were not welcome down this particular road. Nor was anyone else.

    The makeshift sign they’d installed in the berm drove that point home. It said:

NO TRESPASSING. ANYONE GOING PAST THIS POINT WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT

NO WARNING SHOTS WILL BE GIVEN

     They still heard gunshots occasionally. But they were usually quite some distance away, and usually in the hours around dawn. That told Scott they were probably deer hunters.

     And he wasn’t keeping track of the number of shots, but it occurred to Scott that they were getting fewer and fewer as the weeks dragged by.

     Which would make sense if they were indeed deer hunters. As the population of available deer dwindled, Scott expected the gunshots would stop altogether.

     Linda had had a brief romance with Tom Haskins in the months before the EMPs struck, and they rekindled it. She waited until the kids went to bed at night and Joyce took her regular shift at the security console. Then she tiptoed out the back door and spent the night with Tom, getting up early enough to relieve Scott on security duty at dawn. Tom was pulling his own shift now, as well as his share of the chores, and everybody seemed to be getting along great.

     Linda’s big secret was no secret, of course. The kids knew. They just didn’t say anything. Linda had been abused emotionally and sometimes physically by a long line of boyfriends since her divorce from Scott. Her sons remembered the nights she cried herself to sleep, and the days when she tried to hide her bruises from them.

     Jordan and Zachary liked Tom. And they were glad she’d finally found someone who was good to her.

     And good for her.

     So they knew. But they didn’t let her know they knew.

     Perhaps it was because Linda was no longer sleeping in the house that another problem arose. Of course, the two didn’t necessarily have any direct correlation. But on the night when Jordan got up at 3 a.m. to get a drink of water, and then tiptoed down the hall on his way back to bed, things might have turned out differently if Linda had been there.

     Perhaps if she had, he’d have followed the rules when he heard Sara softly crying.

     And to give him his due credit, he tried to follow the rules. He crept quietly past Sara’s door and back to the room he shared with Zachary.

     Zach was sound asleep on his side of the room, snoring softly and dreaming whatever dreams teenaged boys dream.

     And Jordan lay in bed for awhile, trying to go back to sleep.

     And wondering what would be troubling Sara so much that she sobbed quietly in her bed instead of going to sleep herself.

     He struggled mightily with his dilemma. On the one hand, his more chauvinistic instincts told him he should swoop in and save the day, asking her what was wrong and fixing it, whatever it was.

     His other side, the side that always obeyed his parents, told him no. Whatever was bothering Sara was her business. That there were plenty of people willing to listen if she wanted to share her problems. And that perhaps tomorrow, in the light of day, he could take her aside and ask her if there was something she wanted to talk about.

     It might have been the fact that he cared for this girl, and truly felt he was in love with her. Or it may have been his raging teenage hormones subtly pushing him in that general direction.

     Or perhaps he just saw it as the kind of thing a gentleman would do, perhaps what his father would do, under similar circumstances.

     In the end, it didn’t matter what drove his decision. The result was the same.

     He tapped very lightly on Sara’s door. For a few moments there was utter silence. Then the door opened.

     He saw the tears on her cheeks. The redness in her eyes. And whatever resolve he’d had before was gone forever. He gently pushed open the door and wrapped his arms around her. He whispered, “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

     She whispered back, “I can’t tell you. I want to. But you’ll hate me.”

     “I could never hate you. I love you. Now tell me how I can help make things better.”

     “Would you… would you lay with me for a little while?”

     Jordan slowly pushed her bedroom door closed. And didn’t sneak back out again until just before daybreak.

-19-

     “No. I will not let you do it.”

     “I’m sorry, honey. It’s not your decision to make.”

     “It’s not yours either. It’s God’s decision. If he wants Duchess to have a large litter of puppies, it is His will. Who the hell are you to say you have a right to second guess him?”

     Joyce was outraged.

     It wasn’t often that she and Scott argued, but this one, this one had the potential to be a real doozy. The mother of all spats.

     And she hadn’t even heard him out. All he did was mention that Duchess was about ready to deliver. And that they needed to keep the children away from the newborn pups until he had a chance to cull the litter. And get rid of the ones they didn’t need.

     She hadn’t let him get beyond that point, when she went into a rage.

     “Cull the litter? You mean kill the ones we don’t want? Like they’re nothing more than used Kleenex, and deserve no better than to be thrown out with the garbage? How dare you even think of such a thing?”

     Scott had tried to explain that their supply of dog food was finite. That it wouldn’t last forever. And that at some point they’d run out, since they couldn’t grow more. Moreover, with no way to spay or neuter their dogs once a new litter was born, they’d be overrun in just a few years. That dogs could multiply almost as quickly as rabbits if they weren’t controlled.

     And now that Blue was here, the supply of dog food would be depleted even that much faster.

     Joyce didn’t want to hear any of it.

     “Bullshit, Scott. You’re a better man than this. There has got to be another solution that doesn’t involve the killing of innocent creatures.”

     Linda and Sara walked into the room, and Linda asked, “What’s wrong?”

     “Scott wants to save our next generation of dogs. One male and one female. And then he wants to murder the rest of the puppies.”

     Linda and Sara shot him daggers with their eyes. Linda said, “Scott! Seriously? You’ll kill puppies?”

     “Look. It’s something I’ll take no pleasure in doing. And it’ll be painless and quick. I’ll do it before they even open their eyes. They’ll never even see their mother. They’ll never even know what life is all about. And they’ll feel no pain, I promise.”

     Tears welled in Sara’s eyes.

     “But surely there’s another way.”

     “Honey, I’m sorry. We only have so much dog food stored. There’s no way to get more, and it’s something we cannot grow. If we have too many dogs it will run out that much faster. And if it runs out before the world is sane again, we’ll have to face the choice of feeding the dogs our own food or putting them all down so they don’t starve to death.”

     Zachary was on the security console. He listened in but didn’t add anything to the fray. Jordan, in the corner of the room, went to Sara and hugged her.

     Tom was outside feeding the livestock.

     Scott was certain that if Tom were in the house at the time, then he’d hate Scott too.

     Linda asked, “Have you asked Tom if maybe he could go to the feed store where he worked? Maybe he could load down his old car with bags of dog food. I’ll bet if he crammed that sucker full it would hold another two years worth of food”

     “I thought of that. It won’t work. You can’t get to Tom’s old feed store without driving through Junction. The people there have got to be armed and desperate. There’s no way they’re going to just let a man in a car drive right by them without trying to block his path and taking it from him. Or even worse, just shooting him as he drives past.

     Joyce finally put down her foot.

     “You will not put down any puppies. I forbid it. We will figure out a solution. We’ve been able to solve all of our other problems without killing innocent things. We’ll solve this one too. And I swear to God, Scott Harter. If you harm just one innocent puppy, I will never speak to you again!”

     In the end it was a moot point.

     And it was a huge burden off of Scott’s shoulders when Duchess finally gave birth two days later. To one healthy male, and one healthy female.

     They had their next generation of dogs. When Duke, Duchess and Blue passed on, there would be two puppies to carry on the cycle of life. And with any luck, by the time they had to make such a decision again, the world would be back to normal again.

     Now all they had to do was keep Duchess away from Duke and Blue when she went into heat again.

-20-

     “Hey, John, you got your ears on?”

     “Hello, Scott. How are you doing, buddy?”

     “I’m good. I’ve tried to reach you three days in a row now. I was starting to worry.”

     “Yeah, well, sorry about that. My generator bit the dust. The engine started smoking real bad while I was on duty. Hannah, bless her heart. She’s a wonderful woman. But she doesn’t know beans about anything mechanical. She saw the smoke, and the only thing she could think of was to throw water on it. And all that did was make it spit and sputter a bit. But it kept on running until it burned away all the oil and seized up.

     “It probably could have been saved if she’d have killed it when she saw the smoke. But I’ll never tell her that. She’d feel terrible if she knew. And she’s under so much stress now I’m just not willing to lay that on her.”

     “Where is she now?”

     “She’s in the back bedroom. One of the girls had a nightmare and she went in there to comfort them. I peeked in a little while later, and the poor thing passed out. Right there in bed with them. The three of them, peacefully sleeping, like they didn’t have a care in the world.”

     “What’s the situation in San Antonio? Are things getting better?”

     “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. The violence has gotten better. The CDC was here yesterday. They showed up in a helicopter, of all things. I don’t know how in the hell they got it running, but they swooped in and asked who was in charge. We took them to the mayor’s office, and they said their next big concern is the spread of disease. From all the decomposing bodies. They’ve got us wearing masks now, like surgeons wear in hospitals. Any time we’re outdoors. And they’re saying that the sooner we burn the bodies the better.

     “I don’t know if you’re close enough to the city to smell the smoke, Scott. But let me tell you, it’s terrible. The smell of burning bodies. It permeates everything. It even gets in your clothes and hangs around long after the fires are out. And the fires are everywhere. The bodies are piling up so fast that we’re not taking them to the high school parking lots anymore. We’re just dragging them into the nearest street and piling them up. Then we’re soaking them in diesel fuel and setting them ablaze. When we come by the next day and notice the fire’s gone out, we douse them again and restart the fire. And we keep doing that until they’re reduced to a pile of bones.

     “That’s what we’ve turned into, Scott. A city of abandoned cars and piles of bones.”

     Scott’s heart quite literally hurt. He was glad he was wearing his headset, so that the others in the room couldn’t hear what he was hearing.

     “Most of the large cities have reestablished radio contact now. We communicate with Dallas and Houston and Lubbock Police on a regular basis. The same situation is happening everywhere in Texas, and pretty much all over the country. Agricultural areas have it better than most. The Lubbock PD told me yesterday that most of the farmers up there have their equipment running well enough to grow crops, and they’re growing wheat and corn and other things that grow quickly to provide food for the survivors. They’re worried about growing enough to get them through the winter, though.

     “As for us down here, San Antonio isn’t exactly known for its agriculture. We’ve emptied out all the seed stores in the area and are trying to distribute them among the neighborhoods. We’re taking big fifty pound sacks of corn and wheat seeds and breaking them down into one pound baggies. And we’re going block by block now. We’re giving each block the choice between wheat or corn, but not both.

     “We’re telling them to get shovels and dig up all their front yards. Dig them up and loosen the soil, and try to get all of the grass out. And to toss the grass aside, and then redig the soil, and get more grass out. We’re telling them that it’s essential they remove as much of the grass roots as possible, before they plant their crops. And then once they have the grass out, to fill their front yards with corn or wheat.”

     “Will that be enough to feed them?”

     “In theory it will. Most of the blocks are pretty decimated. The dead outnumber the survivors. On most blocks there are no more than five or ten people left alive. If they can work together and plant crops on every front yard on the block, it should produce enough food to keep them alive until the next year’s harvest.

     “At least that’s the general plan. The scientists at the college are saying we’re getting pretty close to the sustainability point. That’s the level where the amount of food we can grow is equal to or greater than the number of people left alive. They say that once we get to that point, we’ll stabilize. Provided we can avoid a plague from the decomposing bodies, that is…”

     “You and Hannah… do you plan to stay there?”

     “We’re hoping to ride out the storm. I mean, the worst of it is over now. And we’ve still got our food stores. It’ll keep us fed until the crops come in. Hannah is sneaking some of it out to share with some of the neighbors. She thinks I don’t know, and she’s trying to keep it a secret because she thinks I’ll be upset about it. But I think she’s a saint for doing so.

     “She’s also volunteered to head up our block committee. She’s coordinating all the efforts in the yards, getting them all dug up. We’re all tired all the time and weak from malnutrition, but we’re doing the best we can. Even when I come off a twelve hour shift and I’m exhausted, she’s got me out there digging for an hour. She says I have to help her set the example.

     “And I have to say, yesterday when I was out there with the neighbors, I saw something I haven’t seen in awhile. I saw hope in some of their eyes. Some of them are starting to believe that we can lick this thing. That they can survive.”

     “How much longer did your scientists say before you get to your… what did they call it?”

     “Our sustainability point. The point where we can grow enough crops to keep our population alive. They say for San Antonio the magic number is about a hundred thousand people or so. And at the rate they’re dying, they estimate we’ll be there very soon. That’s sad, because we had just over two million people on our last census. I know that nearly all of our friends are gone. All of Hannah’s brothers and their families. Suicides, mostly. It’s a dreadful situation, Scott. Be glad you got out when you did.

     “And fall to your knees and praise God that you’ve still got your children. That’s what I do each and every night.”

-21-

     “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

     “You’re welcome. But I can’t take credit for it. I stole it from Mom’s flower garden. It’s the only thing in this whole place that’s as pretty as you.”

     Sara blushed.

     “Thank you. That’s sweet. And that’s why I love you so much. You’re so tender and gentle and wonderful. Nothing at all like…”

     She regretted the words as soon as she’d said them. She saw a strange look on his face, but he didn’t say anything. She hoped he wouldn’t. She hoped he’d just let it drop.

     He took the single yellow rose from her hand and placed it in her hair. But her hair wasn’t thick enough to hold it into place and it fell into her lap.

     “Oops. Sorry.”

     He tried again.

     And it fell a second time.

     “I don’t think it’ll stay in my hair without a pin.”

     “Oh. Okay. I guess there’s still a lot of things I need to learn about having a girlfriend.”

     “I think you’re doing just fine.”

     They were sitting in the grass in the back yard, watching her bunnies frolic. She had a habit of taking Monica and Chelsea out of their cage every afternoon so they could eat some of the fresh grass and get their exercise. It was always an adventure when it came time to pick them up and put them back in the cage. She and Jordan sometimes had to chase them through the garden and around the yard for several minutes before they finally cornered and caught them.

     But they had a blast doing it.

     “Sara…”

     “Yes?”

     “A minute ago you said something about others not being gentle…”

     This was it. This was what she’d been fearing for a long time. She almost told him to shush. That she didn’t want to talk about it. But he deserved to know the truth. It was starting to become more and more obvious that this was the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.

     He had a right to know about her past.

     “Go ahead. Ask your question.”

     “A while back, that first night I came to your room and laid with you. Do you remember, you were crying and I came in to comfort you?”

     “Are you seriously asking me if I remember that night? It was one of the most amazing nights of my life. It started out so bad, and you turned it around and made it so very wonderful. And you think I could ever possibly forget that night? Sheesh. You really do have a lot to learn about girls.”

     Jordan felt sheepish. He thought he was being scolded, until he saw the smile on her face. She was teasing him.

     He cleared his throat and went on.

     “Anyway… I know I was clumsy and didn’t really know what I was doing, and I’m sorry if I wasn’t gentle or anything.”

     “Hush. You were wonderful. And you were amazing for a rookie.”

     “No, that’s not what I wanted to ask you. But thank you.”

     He smiled before going on, and she held her breath. Here it comes, she thought.

     “This might not be any of my business, and if you don’t want to answer I’ll understand. But that night was the first time I ever… did that thing. I think you could probably  tell that.”

     “Yes…”

     “Anyway, I had been looking forward to my first time for a long time. Preparing myself for it in my mind, I guess, so I could do it right. I paid attention in all the biology and sex ed classes so I knew how to do it without hurting you too much and such. But, well… it just wasn’t what I expected.”

     She could tell he was struggling to find the right words. And her instincts told her that, despite it being an uncomfortable subject for her, that she should help him.

     “You expected it to cause me pain and be bloody.”

     “Well, yes. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was dreading that part, because I didn’t want to hurt you in any way. So I was glad that you were able to… do it without pain.

     “But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me wonder. And then you made that comment a few minutes ago…”

     She felt bad for him. He was trying so hard to find words that would answer his questions without hurting her.

     She put her finger to his lips to stop him. Then she drew a deep breath.

     “This is very hard for me. But it’s something you need to know. Because it’s part of my past, and a very big part of my life and why I’m the emotional wreck I am sometimes. It may make you hate me, but you need to know.”

     “I could never hate you. Never. No matter what you’re going to say.”

     She smiled. He was so sweet.

     “I was not a virgin that night. You already knew that, or at least suspected it. But it’s not what you think.”

     She drew another breath before she went on. This was going to be harder than she thought.

     “When I said that I left a note for my parents, to tell them I was going with you… I lied. But I swear, it’s the only time I’ve ever lied to you. I promise.”

     “But… I saw the letter.”

     “No, you saw an empty envelope that I said had a letter in it. But it didn’t. I left behind an empty envelope with their names on it.”

     “But why?”

     “Because the last thing in the world I wanted was for them to know where I went. To find me. This… electronic thing that caused so much damage to the world is a terrible thing. But to me, it also presented something I’d been praying for, for a very long time. It finally gave me a chance to escape.”

     She paused, and a tear fell from her left eye.  He reached over and wiped it with his thumb. But he didn’t interrupt her. He’d wait patiently while she found the words she was looking for.

     “I haven’t seen my father- my real father, since the day I started kindergarten. I remember being so excited that day. Mom and Dad dropped me off, and walked me into the school and to my classroom. They spoke to my teacher and then asked me twenty times if I was okay to be left alone with the teacher. But I was excited. I said, ‘heck yeah!’

     “I think leaving me there was harder on them than it was on me.

     “Mom picked me up that afternoon. I remember being so excited, and talking nonstop all the way home. I had so much to share about my first day, and I couldn’t wait to share it all with my Daddy when I got home.

     “But Daddy wasn’t there. Mom wouldn’t tell me where he went. She just said that he decided he didn’t love us anymore and no longer wanted to live with us. I remember going from so happy to so sad. I cried myself to sleep that night and couldn’t figure out what I did to make my Daddy hate me.

     “To this day, I don’t know where my father is. Mom told me once that he died in prison. But then another time, later on, she said he was living up north somewhere. So I don’t know if he’s dead, or just doesn’t want anything to do with me. And I still don’t know what I did to make him not love me any more.”

     She stopped. The tears started to flow freely now, and Jordan reached out and held her.

     Linda and Joyce watched from the kitchen window. It was obvious to them that the discussion was serious, but they respected the kids enough to not interfere.

     “You don’t have to say any more, baby. It doesn’t matter. I still love you and always will.”

     For a full thirty seconds there was dead silence between them. He wiped her tears when they fell, and ran his fingers through her long chestnut hair.

     “No. You need to know this. It’s a big part of me.”

    More silence.

     “A couple of years ago my mother and I argued. I called her a tramp. She didn’t say anything, but she looked hurt. Then she just turned and walked out of the room. I felt very bad, and I apologized the next day.

     “But then I got to thinking, and despite how the word hurt her, I honestly couldn’t come up with a different word that described the type of life she was living. Does that make me a hateful bitch?”

     “No, baby. Not at all.”

     “She’s an alcoholic. I don’t know if I ever told you that. She’s always gone on these drinking binges occasionally. They really caused her problems. She got arrested three times for driving drunk and kept getting fired from jobs.

     “Finally she just quit working altogether. She found a better way to pay the bills. In the years after that she found a steady stream of scumbags who would move in with us for a few months and pay our bills and buy our food for us. Then one by one, she’d get drunk and fight with them and then they’d get pissed off and leave. But within a few days, she’d always bring home another one.

     “Then, three years ago, she found Jesse. I thought Jesse was different. He didn’t do drugs, and he didn’t ride a motorcycle. He was a businessman, and I guess a successful one. He put money down on a house and made the mortgage payments, and we finally had a home we could call our own. We finally had nice furniture and nice cars and nice clothes.

     “And with Jesse, he didn’t mind when Mom got mad at him and got drunk and called him names. Even when she told him to get the hell out, he just let it go in one ear and out the other.”

     “So that’s good. She finally found a guy who loved her enough to stay.”

     Sara laughed. But it wasn’t a happy laugh. It was more a laugh of irony. Like she knew the punch line to a joke that no one else knew.

     “No. You don’t understand. He didn’t stay for her. He stayed for me.

     “The first time I was alone with Jesse was about a month into their relationship. He told her he’d cook steaks for dinner, if she would go to the grocery store and get stuff for a fresh salad. He said he’d babysit me while she was gone.

     “He molested me. Made me do things I didn’t want to do. And he told me that if I said anything to her, he’d snap my neck like a twig.

     “It got worse from there. He would actually encourage my mom to get drunk. Even though he knew she was an alcoholic. He’d push drinks on her, saying ‘here, try this new cocktail I heard about,’ or ‘one more won’t hurt you.’

     “And two or three times a week he’d get her to drink so much that she’d pass out cold. And then he’d make me take a bath with him, or even worse.

     “He finally took my virginity a year or so ago. And once he passed that point, he wouldn’t stop. He tried to make her pass out almost every night. And he would brutalize me for hours in my bed.”

     Jordan finally found his tongue.

     “Oh, my God! Why didn’t you tell your mom?”

     “I finally found the courage to. I was terrified that she’d tell him, and he’d carry out his threats to kill me. But she told me never to say anything. I think she had already known for a very long time.

     “She forbade me from telling anyone. She said the reason we had nice things and a nice house was because of Jesse. And if I told anyone they’d put him in jail, and we’d lose everything. And we’d be homeless and living in a car somewhere.

     “Lately, it was happening with her consent. He’d make a pass at her and she’d say she wasn’t in the mood, and she’d make me go to him instead. And she’d cook dinner or watch her shows while Jesse was abusing me in the next room, and she didn’t give a damn. She’d even turn up the television to cover up the noise.

     “I learned a long time ago how to escape it in my mind. I’d try to remember Bible verses or fairy tales from when I was little, or all the words to a song. Anything I could think of, so I wouldn’t have to think of what was going on at the time.”

     She pushed back from Jordan and looked him in the eyes, as though to reveal a great secret.

     “But here’s the thing. I never had the chance to escape for real, physically, until that day the electronic thing hit and all the power went out. It was a terrible thing for the whole world. But it was also my one chance for freedom.

     “And I damn sure wasn’t going to give them the chance to come and find me. For things to go back the way they were. That’s why I lied to you. I’m sorry.”

     For a full minute he didn’t know what to say. So he just held her close while she sobbed into his shoulder.

     Then he whispered, “I’ll promise you this. I will never let anyone hurt you again. And if Jesse ever shows his face around here looking for you, I will tear him apart with my bare hands.”

-22-

     It was seventy five days since they’d started planting the corn in the one acre field north of the compound. According to the planting schedule that came with the seed, that meant it was time to harvest.

     It had taken almost a week to plant the seeds, one at a time, by hand. Everyone had pitched in to help, switching off every couple of hours. It was back breaking work, and it just wouldn’t make sense for one or two people to endure all the pain and misery alone.

     They’d started planting on the first row on the west side of the field. Then worked their way to the east. Since the plants on the west side were a week older than the ones on the east side, they’d start their harvest in the same manner.

     Just as they’d had no seed planter to begin the project, they also had no harvester to finish it. This part of the process would also be done by hand. And the harvest was a lot easier than the planting. Mainly because it didn’t involve crawling around on one’s hands and knees.

     Tom Haskins started by walking down the outside row, cutting off each ear of corn at its base, then tossing it into the back of the Gator. Zachary drove the Gator at Tom’s pace as Tom walked along. And Zach had a blast, because he loved driving the Gator.

     Tom hadn’t been around for the planting, but he complimented Scott and the others on their handiwork. The rows were straight, and the plants were evenly spaced. It was unusual, he’d said, for a crop so planted to be spaced out so well.

     Tom was in charge of the harvest, because he’d been a farmer and rancher for most of his life. He knew what he was doing, and the others were just faking it. So when he offered to head up the project, he got no arguments.

     The rows were a little over a hundred yards long. By the time they made it halfway to the other end, the back of the machine was heaped to capacity.

     Tom hopped into the passenger seat.

     “Okay, boy. Let’s see if you can drive this thing over to the feed barn without killing anybody.”

     Once at the feed barn they lowered the tailgate and unclipped the front of the tilt bed. It had no hydraulic lift, so Tom got on one side and Scott got on the other. They manhandled it to dump almost three hundred pounds of corn ears onto the barn floor.

     “Okay, you guys ready to husk and debone these suckers?”

     Everyone else was in the barn, ready to help, except for Joyce, who was taking her turn at the security desk.

     Scott had purchased two manual corn shuckers at a farm auction when they were building the compound a year before. He didn’t have a clue how to use them, but figured he’d learn on the fly. One thing he liked about them was that they were manual in the literal sense of the word, in that they required no electrical power.

     At Tom’s direction, they placed the machines facing opposite directions, one on each side of the barn. Between them was about twenty feet of open floor space.

     “Okay, the first thing you ladies need to figure out is deciding how many ears you want to keep whole. Set that many aside and pull the husks off of them, then put them in plastic bags in your chest freezer. That’s what you’ll cook every time you want to make corn on the cob with supper. Once you put those aside, we’re going to husk and shuck the rest of the ears. Then we’ll dry out the corn and store it in sacks. You guys ready?”

     “Yes.”

     “Okay, we need two people on the shucking machines. Who wants to volunteer?”

     Jordan said, “I’ll do one.”

     Linda didn’t say anything, but went and stood by the other one.

     Tom grabbed an ear and held it up so Sara and Scott could see what he was doing.

     “Okay, you husk each ear just like you’re peeling a banana. Just grab the husk and pull it all the way down to the bottom, and keep pulling until it comes off. Throw the husks in a pile. It’ll make good cattle feed. Throw the naked ear in a pile next to the machine. You’ll have to be pretty quick to stay ahead of the deboners, because they’ll move pretty fast. Let’s peel a few and get a little pile started.

     On her second ear, Sara suddenly squealed.

     “Of, I forgot to tell you about the corn worms. They’re pretty common. And they don’t eat much. So just knock em on the floor and we’ll sweep ‘em up and feed ‘em to the pigs.”

     Sara shook the cob in her hand until a pale white worm about an inch long fell to the floor.

     “Ewww, gross,” she said as she kicked it to one side as though it were toxic.

     After they’d thrown about a dozen ears into a pile next to the shucking machine, Tom picked up an ear and placed it inside a three inch diameter hole on top of the machine.

     “Always put the pointy side down. Otherwise it’ll get gummed up in there, and we’ll have to take the cover off to fish it back out again. Once the cob is in the machine, turn the big wheel one full revolution, counter clockwise. Don’t do it clockwise, it’ll shoot the ear back out of the top and then you’ll have to go chase it. Remember, one time around, counterclockwise.”

     He demonstrated, and as if by magic, the corn cob came out of a slot in the front of the machine and shot through the air, landing about five feet away. All the kernels of corn had been stripped off. They came out the side of the machine, and landed in a little pile on the open floor between the machines.

     Scott said, “Well I’ll be damned. I didn’t expect that to happen.”

     Zachary was more succinct. He smiled and said, “Cool!”

     “Okay,” Tom went on. You’ll have to stop periodically, to clear out your piles. Once the pile of cobs starts to get in the way, just shove them outside. We’ll let ‘em dry in the sun and then we’ll put ‘em in the feed barn. The pigs love ‘em. They’re like ice cream to pigs. So we’ll feed ‘em to the pigs a few at a time, and that’ll help stretch your pig feed a bit. Which reminds me of something, Scott. You’ve got too many pigs and cows. Talk to me later about that, okay?

     “Anyway, your corn pile will get pretty high, too. When it does, just stop and use one of those garden rakes. Rake it all over to the middle of the floor.”

     Linda turned up her nose. “Shouldn’t we mop the floor first, or at least sweep it to get the dust off of it?”

     Tom couldn’t help but chuckle.

     “You’ve never lived on a farm, have you, dear?”

     “Well, no.”

     “There’s nothing clean or dainty about feeding pigs or helping a cow deliver her backwards calf. Nothing neat about butchering a bull or making sausage with leftover parts and pieces and such. And there’s nothing dainty about processing corn. It’s gonna be laying here on the floor for days while we dry it out. It’s gonna get stepped on, visited by flies and spiders, and maybe even a caterpillar or two. But don’t worry. Once it’s dried and packed away it’ll be safe to eat. It’ll just have to be rinsed real good before you put it in a pot to boil.”

     Then Tom did something no one expected. He walked over to Linda and kissed her.

     “Blessed be the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

     She turned red, and said, “Thank you. I guess.”

     “Anyway, just rake the corn kernels into a big pile here in the center of the room. By the time we’re done, it’ll be huge. It’ll take up most of the floor space.”

     He looked at Sara and said, “And it’ll be just as high as your pretty little head, little lady.”

     With that, he turned on his heels and headed toward the door, gathering Zachary along the way.

     “Come on, little man. Let’s go back and get some more cobs so we can stay ahead of these folks.”

     Over his shoulder he shouted, “Y’all can compete with each other to see whose pile is biggest. That’ll make it more fun. And be sure you switch off between the huskers and the shuckers. That’ll keep it from getting too boring. And don’t goof off, now, or we’ll bury you all under a big pile of ears.”

     He chuckled and looked at Zach.

    He lowered his voice and said in a conspiratorial tone, “By the end of the day every one of these city slickers will be dragging like a twenty year old dog and sayin’ their arms are gonna fall off. You watch.”

     They drove back to the corn field and harvested the second row of corn in the same manner as the first, with one key exception.

     “Okay, little man, you’re gonna think I’ve gone pure crazy. But you can’t drive alongside the corn field like you did last time, because I won’t be able to throw the cob in your Gator like I did last time. The first row of corn that we already plucked would be in the way. Any idea how we’re gonna deal with that little problem?”

     Zachary shook his head no.

     “I want you to aim your vehicle for dead center on that row of corn we already plucked clean. Just drive right over that first plant. Pretend it’s your brother and you’re mad at him. Just flatten that son of a gun. Then run over the next one and the one after that and the one after that, all the way down the row. And I’ll be walking beside you, plucking the next row and tossing the cobs in the back of your green machine.”

     “But won’t that kill the plants?”

     “We’re done with ‘em, son. Once we make ‘em naked they’re nothing but cattle feed. We’re gonna kill ‘em anyway when we cut ‘em down and feed ‘em to the cows.”

     “I never knew farming was gonna be this much fun.”

     Tom smiled. If he only knew…

-23-

     By the end of the third day, every living soul in the compound was tired, stiff and sore. Even when Joyce joined the group, and Tom and Zachary took their turns at the shucking machines, it was more backbreaking grunt work than anyone could imagine. Other than Tom. He knew exactly what they were in for.

     Tom was happy to see that the yield was greater than expected. So much so that they had to take a good size portion of the corn and rake it onto a large plastic tarp, and set it out in the sun.

     “Sure wish we had a weatherman to tell us it wasn’t going to rain,” Scott observed.

     Tom sniffed the air.

     “Nope. No chance of moisture for at least two days. We’re okay.”

     Scott didn’t ask any questions. He wasn’t wise to many of Tom’s ways, not coming from a farming and ranching background himself. But he was learning to trust this man immensely. So he took it on faith that there would be no rain for the next two days.

     “Keep the dogs away from it. They’ll go romping through it and think it’s something to play in. They’ll spread it all over the yard. Especially those puppies.”

     Both piles of corn were raked into more or less flat sheets, a few inches thick, so that as much of it as possible was exposed to the open air. Every two hours someone in bare socks walked upon it and raked it over again, to rotate the wet kernels on the bottom up to the top.

     “When you’re done, look at the bottom of your socks,” Tom advised. “That’s how you’ll tell your progress. The first few turns, the bottom of your socks will be soaked. When you finish a turn and your socks are still dry, that’s a sign we’re getting close.”

     Close to the end of the fifth day, Tom and Zachary were back at the barn, and dumping the Gator onto a high pile of cobs. Scott was there to help tilt the bed.

     Tom looked at Zachary and said, “You were a great helper, little man, and you did a super job. I want you to be proud of yourself. This will be our last load.”

     “But Tom, there’s two more rows of corn we haven’t plucked yet.”

     “Those don’t get plucked, son. We’ll let those dry on the stalk. Once the husks turn brown and they sag toward the earth, we’ll know they’re dry. And then we can just pull them off and toss them into a pile, where they’ll sit for a couple of months. Those will be our seeds for the next harvest.”

     Scott, eager to learn, asked, “Why not process it with the rest of the batch?”

     “Well, two reasons, actually. The machines cut off the pointy tip of the kernels. They won’t grow plants next time unless they’re intact. In order to remove them intact, they have to dry on the cob. And the second reason is, you can’t run dry cobs through the machines. It’ll dull the blades faster than you’d believe. The cobs still have to be just a little bit soft, have just a little bit of moisture in them, to keep from dulling the blades.

     “And besides, this way we’ll finish a day or too sooner. And that’s important because everybody is exhausted and needs a break. There’s plenty of time to pull the dry cobs off and process them for seed later on.”

     “How will we process them when we get around to it?”

     Tom chuckled.

     “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

     “Uh, oh. Is it that bad?”

     “We’re gonna do it by hand. When the cob is dry you can just twist it and it’ll loosen the kernels. Then you just kind of rub them off the cob into a pile. It doesn’t sound so bad, but it takes strong arms and a tight grip to loosen those suckers. The first few will be easy. But after you go through four, five hundred cobs, your forearms will be on fire and feel like they’re ready to fall off. And when you’re eating supper that night it’ll be hard to hold a fork, because your arms will be tremblin’ so bad.

     “And you’ll curse the day you ever decided to plant corn to begin with.”

     “Hell, I’m already regretting it.”

     Tom laughed and slapped him on the back.

     “Hey, this is easy. Just wait until next year when you plant wheat. Now that’s a real pain in the ass.

     “And that reminds me, Scott. Did you know the type of wheat you bought is ready to harvest in seventy days?”

     “No, I didn’t. To be honest, I just bought that kind because the internet site had a map, and said that kind would grow best in this area. Why, is that important?”

     “Well, you’ve been saying you wished there was something you could do to help your friend John down there in San Antonio. I know they’re short on food down there. I just wanted to point out that if you’ve a mind to, you’ve got time to grow a wheat crop and get it harvested before cold weather sets in. You could save part of it to replace the seeds you use, and we could haul the rest down to San Antonio to help John and his people get through the winter.”

     “Seriously? Let’s do it.”

     “Hold off, now. I have to tell you, we have to finish this job first. A few more days of this and we’re all gonna be so stiff and sore we’re gonna be crying. And when we’re done, we’re all gonna want to lay in bed and rest for a week.

     “But if we’re gonna plant a wheat crop, we won’t have that luxury. We’ll need to get those seeds in the ground soon. And the process is gonna be the same as when you planted the corn by hand. Days of crawling in the dirt on your hands and knees, poking holes in the ground and dropping seeds inside. It’s back breaking work, as you well know.”

     The others were close enough to hear the conversation.

     Joyce spoke up and said, “I’m in.”

     Linda said, “Me too, if it’ll help those poor people survive the winter.”

     Sara said, “Count us in. Me and Jordan.”

     Scott chuckled. He looked at Linda and Joyce. They were smiling too.

     Jordan wasn’t even there. He was pulling his shift on the security desk. But Sara was confident enough in their relationship that she felt it okay to volunteer him for a very painful task he didn’t even know about.

     Tom whispered to Scott, “Is Jordan henpecked already?”

     Once all the corn was shucked, it took another five days to get it all dried out. Tom showed Scott and the boys how to dismantle the shucking machines and clean out all the corn ooze that had collected on the cutting blades and beneath the machine. Then they sharpened the blades, put the machines back together, wrapped them with heavy plastic and shoved them to the corner of the barn.

     Scott couldn’t help himself. He gave them a proper sendoff that they all felt, but that only he found the words for. “Good riddance, you sons of bitches. I’m glad we don’t have to look at you again for three more years.”

 -24-

     Once the dry corn was shoveled into burlap bags and stacked in the feed barn, attention focused on the wheat project.

     Tom graced them with two full days off while he cut off the first ten rows of corn. He cut each stalk off at its base and threw them into huge piles next to the field.

     Later, he’d explained, they’d shred it and harvest it into hay bales, at the same time they’d mow and bale the high grass surrounding the field. He said that between the grass and the corn stalks, they’d get a couple of hundred bales of hay to help the horses and cattle get through the winter.

     After the stalks were removed from the first ten rows, he plowed the stumps under, then put the rake attachment on the back of the tractor and raked it several times from one end to the other, to get rid of as much corn debris as possible.

     “You want most of it out of the way, but not necessarily all of it. You just want it out of the way so it doesn’t get in your way while you’re planting. And the little bits and pieces that are left behind aren’t any problem. They’ll just rot and help fertilize the wheat.”

     Linda considered Tom her man now, and she was a little concerned about him working so hard while the others rested.

     He said, “Shucks. This is the way I was raised. It was my life from the time I could walk. And my daddy’s life, and his daddy before him. A farmer’s work is never done, so you get used to working from dusk to dawn. I’m not saying anything bad against you folk, I’m really not. But a city slicker is raised in a different way. You folks aren’t used to this kind of work. You will be, after you’ve done it for a few years. But not right yet. You need to rest, so you can get your second wind before you start the next crop.

     “And shoot, I don’t fault any of you for needing a break. You all just went through hell getting the corn in and processed. And I’m damn proud of you.

     “As for all agreeing to grow a crop of wheat that you’ll never eat, just so you can help give people you never met a chance to live through another winter? Well, I’m even more proud of you for that.”

     No one said anything for several seconds. Scott noticed that Joyce had a tear in her eye.

     Finally, Jordan broke the silence.

     “Wow, Tom. I think that’s the most words I ever heard you say at one time.”

     Everybody laughed, and Tom took off his hat and threw it at Jordan.

     This group of people, coming from all walks of life and sharing little other than a desperate need for survival, had somehow morphed into something wonderful. They were no longer strangers living in the same compound. They’d become a family.

-25-

     Tom was in a feisty mood at breakfast the third day after they’d finished working the corn.

     “Okay, folks. I hope you enjoyed the two days off, and I hope all your sore muscles are all better now. It’s time to go back to work.”

     Joyce was less enthused.

     “You didn’t get a break. You kept working while we were lollygagging around. How in heck can you be so gung-ho?”

     “Oh, I don’t know, Sugar. Maybe because it’s just been me for a very long time, sitting over there in that old ranch house next door. Just fending for myself for all these past years. When you spend some time like that, your life kinda loses its meaning.

     “And then you folks come along and it’s like I have a new purpose in life. I can just watch y’all stumble along, or I can help you. Share what my daddy and grand-daddy taught me. And what I picked up myself over the years.

     “And it gives me a mission. Something I can do to make myself worthwhile and relevant again. Like I have a reason for being again. And then when you agreed to plant an out of cycle wheat crop, to help folks you don’t even know survive, well, that just sweetened the deal.

     “Now I can have a purpose again, and maybe I can do some good at the same time. If we can work together and maybe save a few lives, then maybe all the hard work will be worth the misery.

     “Now then, little lady. You asked me a five cent question and I gave you a three dollar answer. Should I stop talking now? You give an old codger like me a chance to say something and I’ll talk non-stop for hours.”

     Joyce laughed.

     “Number one, you’re not an old codger. You hide your age well, Tom Haskins, and you won’t tell any of us how old you are. But I’ll bet you’re not much older than Scott and Linda and I. More seasoned, maybe. And a lot more experienced in certain things like farming and ranching. But I don’t think you’re as old as you let on. I just think you pretend to be old so we’re more shamed when you outwork us so badly. So that maybe we’ll try to work a little harder to prove our worth.”

     “Well, darlin’, maybe you’re right. I ain’t sayin’ you’re right or you’re wrong. But if I get a little bit sneaky so’s y’all will work a little harder, is that really a bad thing?”

     Scott sat at the dining room table, listening to the two volley back and forth. He was enjoying every minute. Linda stood behind him, shaking her head and laughing.

     Tom seemed to have made his point. Now he decided to get serious again.

     “Everybody done eating? Ready to go to work?”

     Scott stood up and stretched.

     “Might as well get to it. It won’t get done til we get started.”

     Joyce looked at Scott.

     “Oh, great. You’re turning into Tom. You’re starting to sound like him.”

     All of them went to the field except for Sarah, who was on duty at the security console. She was supposed to be relieved at ten a.m., but she wasn’t feeling very well on this particular morning. She skipped breakfast because she was nauseated and light headed.

     “You just stay in the house and watch the monitors today,” Scott told her. No sense in putting you out there in that hot dirty field if you’re not feeling well.”

     Tom started working the next ten rows of corn, cutting each stalk off at the base. He worked two rows at a time, cutting the stalk to his left and letting it fall, then pivoting and doing the same thing to the stalk on his right. Within an hour and a half, he’d worked his way to the other end of the field, a little over a hundred yards away.

     But that was only half his task. Then he gathered the stalks, two handfuls at a time, and dragged them off the field and off to the side, laying them in piles in the tall grass. It was a lot of walking and a lot of dragging, and a much slower process than just cutting the stalks. But by the time they’d break for lunch, he expected to have the first two of his rows clear.

     The rest of them- Scott, Joyce, Linda, Jordan and Zach, each picked one of the first ten rows that Tom had already plowed under.

     Their mission was a lot slower, but equally taxing. Every twelve inches, they poked a Phillips head screwdriver into the soil, making a hole about an inch deep. Then they dropped a single wheat seed into the hole, shoved dirt over the hole with the palm of their hand, and moved on another twelve inches. It would take each of them the better part of a day to finish each row.

     The plan was for Tom to stay ahead of the rest of the crew, clearing the next ten rows of corn stalks and then plowing the corn stumps under. If the planting crew caught up with Tom, they’d take a break from planting for a day and help him get ahead again. If he finished the corn before they caught up with him, he’d help them finish. He wasn’t looking forward to that, because he had bad knees that tended to get worse when he crawled around. But he’d do it because he was a tough American farmer.

     By the time he made it to the last two rows, the corn that was left on the stalks for seed was dry enough to cut off. Tom spent half a day cutting them, tossing them into the back of a Gator, and throwing them into a big pile on the floor of the feed barn.

     That was the group’s next project.

     It took a full week to get the wheat planted. And when they were finished, they all walked stooped over, like little old men.

     But they were all glad they’d done it.

     “I can’t believe this is the way people farmed before there were machines,” Jordan commented one day near the end of the project.

     “Yep,” Tom said. “Those were the days of the family farm. Back then, there were no big commercial farms, because there just weren’t enough people to do all the labor that needed to be done. Families had half an acre, or maybe an acre or two. They all pitched in to help, and the work was never done. If they weren’t working in the fields, they were taking care of the livestock, or sewing their own clothes, or walking three miles to the grocer to get what few items they didn’t grow on their own.”

     Zachary asked, “So when did they have time to watch TV, and play video games and stuff?”

     Jordan punched him in the arm.

     “They didn’t have that stuff back then, brainiac.”

     Tom laughed.

     “Very few places had power. Most didn’t have running water. You went to the bathroom in an outhouse and drew water from a well to wash up. If you were lucky, once a week your mama lugged enough water from the well so you could get a bath, and you shared that water. It generally went from oldest to youngest. The father first, then the mother, then the oldest kids on down. I missed most of that, but my Daddy told me about it. He was the youngest, and by the time he got his bath the water was pretty dirty. He said he never saw the sense in even bathing, but his mama made him do it. If you ever heard anybody say they got a bath every Saturday, whether they needed it or not, that’s where it came from.”

     Tom chuckled as he remembered something else.

     “My Daddy was the youngest of seven kids. Folks had big families back then because the more kids you had the more workers you had to help out. He got the last of the bath water, as I said. His brother, my Uncle Walter, confessed to him years later that he used to pee in the tub every time he got a bath, just out of meanness. That was at a family reunion. Walter thought he was being real clever. But then his older brother, my Uncle Stuart, admitted to the same thing.”

     He drew melancholy.

     “God rest their souls. They’re all gone now. I sure hope they don’t have to share bath water in heaven.”

     To Zachary, this was all unfathomable.

     “What did they do to have fun?”

     “Oh, they found ways. They hunted and fished, and swam at the local swimming holes. In the evenings, they played checkers in the living room, or told stories, or made up a hundred different kid games to play until they lost their daylight. Once the sun went down, everybody went to bed because there wasn’t much they could do in the dark.

     “They were generally tired from working the fields all day anyway. And they were up again at the crack of dawn. If it was a school day, the kids would walk to the county school, generally barefoot. After school they’d get home and do their schoolin’, which is what you kids call homework these days. Then they were out to the fields helping out until Daddy said the day’s work was done.

     “Saturdays was what everybody looked forward to. After the crops came in and most of it got sold off to coops, families had money to spend. Sometimes they’d go into town and see movies together. Movie houses were as cheap as a nickel back then, and they’d let you stay all day long and watch the same movie over and over again. It was great fun and real good times.”

     Linda could see a twinkle in his eye, and knew that Tom loved reliving old memories.

     Everyone else seemed to enjoy them too.

-26-

     “Joyce, can I talk to you for a minute?”

     It was Sara, peeking into the doorway of Joyce’s bedroom.

     “Sure, honey. Come on in. What’s on your mind?”

     “I hate to bother you. In fact, I hate to ask, because I know we don’t have a lot of stuff up here, and can’t get more…”

     “Just ask, honey. What is it you need?”

     “I… I’ve been wearing some of Linda’s clothes, because they fit me when I first came, and I only had a couple of outfits of my own. But now I’ve grown a little bit, and her clothes are too tight. I was wondering if you had anything you don’t wear anymore that you might be willing to share.”

     Linda, Scott’s ex and Jordan’s mother, was one of those lucky individuals whose metabolism didn’t change as she entered her middle years. She still had the same rail-thin body she’d had in high school.

     Joyce, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. She was two sizes larger than Linda, and although she was active and in pretty good shape, she just hadn’t been able to shed those extra few pounds.

     “Well sure, sweetie. You’re welcome to anything I’ve got. You don’t mind wearing old women’s clothes?”

     Sara laughed, and said “You’re not old. Don’t even try it.”

     “Well, thank you for that. Let’s go see what’s in the closet.”

     An hour later, Sara put Lilo and Stitch into the DVD player and sprawled across the couch to watch it. She was more comfortable now, in a pair of Joyce’s jeans. She no longer felt the tightness of Linda’s jeans, stretched tightly across her expanding midsection.

     Scott came in and asked if he could join her. He bore a gift: a bowl of fresh strawberries he’d just picked from the garden out back.

     Sara mustered a smile.

     “Sure. You can join me any time you bring strawberries.”

     “Yeah, I thought so. You’re just like Joyce. She only loves me when I’m carrying fruit.”

     “Do you want to watch the movie with me?”

     “No, actually I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes if you don’t mind. I wanted to catch you alone, and the only time I can do that is when Jordan is on security duty.”

     “Um. Okay.”

     “You know that Tom and I have been talking about how we’re going to get the load of wheat down the mountain to San Antonio in a couple of months. And we wanted to find out what your feelings were about an idea we had.”

     She looked at him but didn’t know where he was going.

     “You haven’t spoken of your parents lately. I know that they were in St. Louis when the lights went out. And Jordan told me you left them a note saying you were going to our house in the city, and left them the address.

     “And I don’t want to get your hopes up. They might still be in St. Louis, unable to get out.

     “But I’ve been a father for a long time now. And if one of my children was alone in a city far away, I don’t care what I had to do. Even if I had to walk, I’d get to him.

     “What I’m saying is, I think there’s a good chance that your parents have returned to San Antonio. Like I said, I don’t want to get your hopes up. But when Tom and I take the wheat into the city, we are planning to go to the old house. To see if your parents have been there. And if so, well, hopefully they’re still there waiting for us to bring you back.

     “The reason this is important, that you know about our plans, is because if they’re not at our old house, we want to make our way to your old house too. In case they went back home while they’re waiting for you.”

     Sara swallowed hard and her eyes started to moisten. Scott, being a man, misread the cues.

     “Oh, no no no. Don’t cry. I don’t want you to misunderstand what I’m saying. We’re not taking you back to live with your parents in San Antonio. It’s far too dangerous.

     “What I’m saying is, if we can find them, we want to invite them to come back with us and stay with us. You said you don’t have any brothers or sisters, right?”

     It was all Sara could do to shake her head yes.

     “So, then. It’s just the two of them. We figure that’s two more mouths to feed. But it’s okay, because it’s also two more people to help out, and we can grow more crops to give us the extra food we’ll need.

     “But here’s the thing. If they’re not at our old house… if we have to go and search for them, we need your help. Jordan doesn’t know your address. He just remembered your street, and what your house looked like from when he used to drop you off and pick you up.

     “We’ll need for you to draw us a map and write down your old address for us. Can you do that?”

     Sara seemed to struggle for words. Scott knew this was painful for her. She’d probably just assumed that she’d never see her parents again. She was surely worried sick about them and afraid that they weren’t even alive any more.

     Finally, she found her voice again, and Scott was startled at her choice of words.

     “No. I won’t.”

     His face must have said it all. He was confused, and maybe a little shocked.

     She looked at him, and her face contorted into a look of sadness. She took his face in her hands and looked intently into it, as though it were crucial he understand her next words.

     “No. I hate them. I never want to see them again.”

     She dropped her hands and buried her own face in them. And she started to weep.

     Scott, like most men, had never been able to figure out quite what to do when faced with a crying woman. Joyce and Linda would have been much more able to deal with this situation. But they weren’t here. He was. So he did the best he could.

     His instincts as a father took over, and held her. He gently rocked her back and forth, and whispered to her, “Shhhhh… it’s okay. Take your time. Cry all the tears you need to cry until it feels better. Then we’ll talk some more. But there’s absolutely no hurry at all. We’ve got plenty of time to work through this.”

     They sat there for what seemed to Scott like an eternity, but was really only a few minutes. As he rocked her gently back and forth, he saw silly cartoon characters doing a hula dance on the muted television, and he wondered how different his life would be if he’d had girls instead of boys.

     He decided that girls are great in their own special way. They’re sweet and kind, and wonderful in so many ways. But darn it, they could be so hard to figure out, too. He decided he was better off having boys. He was much better at explaining fishing and small engine repair than such things as feelings and flowers and emotions and such.

     Finally, the tears stopped.

     She’d no longer look at him. She seemed ashamed, although he couldn’t understand why. She broke away from him and sat next to him, staring intently down at her hands.

     And she shared her story.

     “The day the power went out, I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on, or even if we were going to survive to see the next day. It was a day full of terror.

     “But it was also a joyful day. Because it was the day I was finally free to break away from my awful parents and go with the boy I loved. To a better family, who would take me far away from the hell that my life had become.”

     “I don’t understand. I’m sorry. What are you saying? You were glad to get away from your parents? But why?”

     “I’ve already shared most of the details with Linda. She’s known for quite awhile. Please, don’t make me explain them all again. It’s embarrassing, and I’m ashamed. I could talk to her because she’s… well, she’s a woman and you’re not. It’s hard telling a man that I was raped and sodomized for years by my step-father. And that my mother knew about it and allowed it to happen…”

     Scott stopped her. It finally made sense now.

     “Shhh. Say no more. I finally get the picture. I’m sorry I didn’t figure it out sooner. And I’m sorry to make you have to relive that part of your life.”

     She looked at him intently.

     “I don’t ever want to see either of them again. They’re no longer my parents. They’ve given up that right.”

     Then she fell into his arms again. The tears came back, but were mere sobs this time. He held her and rocked her again.

     But this time he finally understood her pain.

     “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Those days are over forever. You’ve got a new family now. One that loves you and will protect you from the evils of the world. We will cancel our plans to look for your parents. God will see that they pay for what they did to you. And I promise you, we will never speak of this subject again.”

-27-

     Sara’s secret was out. After Scott, she took Joyce aside and told her about her past, and she asked Linda to tell Tom just the basics. So that he didn’t wonder why Scott cancelled plans to search for her parents out of the blue.

     But that wasn’t her only secret.

     She stood in front of the bathroom mirror, naked, and looked to see how her body was changing. It still was barely noticeable, at least she thought. She might be able to hide it a little bit longer, if she continued to wear loose clothing. Joyce had given her a couple of pairs of sweat pants, and some loose blouses. It would make an odd combination, fashion-wise. But it would buy her more time to figure out what to do.

     She looked down. That was when it was most noticeable. She could see the bump, and less of her feet than before. She also noticed that her belly button had started to distend.

     When she’d missed the first period, she wasn’t that concerned. They were still irregular for her sometimes. Especially when she was stressed. And God knew, there had been a lot of stressful days then.

     When almost a month went by, she tried to convince herself that it was somehow normal for a seventeen year old girl to occasionally skip a period for no reason. That must be it. She counted the days on a calendar, sure that the next one would come right on schedule and everything would be okay again.

     Now all pretense was gone. All the fairy tale logic and false hopes wouldn’t bring it back. And she was terrified. Terrified at what Jordan would say. And terrified that the family, which she’d grown to love, would send her away.

     There was a tap on the bathroom door. A very subtle, almost a secret tap.

     She went to the door and placed her face against it.

     She whispered, “Yes?”

     The response was another whisper.

     “It’s me.”

     She opened the door to Jordan, fully naked and unashamed. Jordan was somewhat taken aback, but not unpleased. He held her and complimented her, told her she was beautiful beyond description.

     She was half hoping he’d notice the bump. So she wouldn’t have to explain it. And also half hoping he wouldn’t, so she could carry on her charade a little bit longer.

     “How much time do we have?”

     “A little. But probably not much. They’re all downstairs playing cards. Except the twerp, and he’s watching the monitors. Probably half an hour or so. Want to sneak into the bedroom?”

     “No.”

     He looked crestfallen.

     “I mean, I don’t want to get caught. It would mess everything up. Wait until tonight, when they’re sleeping. It’s just safer that way.”

     They kissed, and he dejectedly headed for the door.

     “Jordan?”

     He turned and looked at her, once again unable to take his eyes off her body.

     “Yes?”

     “Tomorrow I’d like to take a walk. A long walk. Like down to the fishing pond, and maybe around it a couple of times. I have something important I want to talk to you about.”

     Jordan hated it when someone knew something he didn’t.

     “We have a few minutes now.”

     “No. I mean, I want to talk about something important. And I have to figure out exactly how I want to say it to you.”

     Jordan went to bed, but he couldn’t sleep. Left to his own thoughts, he considered the worst. That this girl he’d fallen so much in love with was trying to find a soft way to say she didn’t feel the same way.

     He looked at the clock on his bedside table. It would be at least two hours before everyone was settled in for the evening and asleep. Two more hours of wondering what in the world she wanted to say to him.

     And even then, in her room, they’d only be able to speak in whispers. Was she going to break up with him as the two lay entwined in her bed? Speaking in hushed tones so no one else could hear?

    And why break up with him? Why now? It wasn’t as though she had any other options. She didn’t exactly have a lot of guys their age coming to call.

     Jordan struggled with his thoughts.

     It seemed to take forever, but finally, a little after one in the morning he deemed it safe enough to tiptoe down the hall. But when he tried the knob, the door was locked.

     In the room, Sara watched as the knob twisted slightly back and forth. She saw the twin shadows his feet made beneath the door and knew he was there. Knew he was confused and didn’t know what to do. She felt bad about leaving him hanging. But she’d made a mistake by hinting to him that there was something serious to discuss. She knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t wait for tomorrow. That he’d pressure her for answers tonight. And she didn’t want to tell him this way. Couldn’t tell him this way. She needed to see his face. So she would know if whatever reaction he had was genuine.

     She cried herself to sleep. He looked at the ceiling for a long time before he finally drifted off. And neither slept very well that night at all.

-28-

     As it turned out, Jordan took the news better than expected. She hadn’t given him enough credit.

     He didn’t get angry and yell at her and insist that she leave the compound and walk back to San Antonio. He didn’t insist that they try somehow to abort the baby. If he’d done that, she’d have walked back to the city on her own accord.

     No, he took it quite well. He seemed happy. And he began to fawn over her and treat her with a tenderness that he hadn’t before. Like she’d suddenly become a fragile piece of porcelain.

     Yes, she sold him short. She expected him to take the news like a boy, and to try to escape the reality of the situation.

     Instead, he took it like a man, and dealt with it head on.

     She felt something new for him. Something besides the love she’d felt before. She felt proud of him. And she knew at that moment that he would make an excellent father.

     He still asked a lot of silly questions, though.

     “When is it coming?”

     “I’m not sure, exactly.”

     “How can you not be sure? I mean, don’t you have like, female schedules or stuff that tell you when it’s due?”

     She laughed.

     “Female schedules?”

     “You know what I mean.”

     “Periods. They’re called periods, silly. And mine were pretty irregular. So I can guess, but I’m not sure. I think around late November or early December.”

     “December’s not good. We have too many birthdays in December already. How about January?”

     “Seriously?”

     “Is it going to be a boy or a girl?”

     “I don’t know. How would I know?”

     “Your friend, Ariana. The one who got pregnant her senior year. She knew it was a boy before it was born. They even had a name picked out. Julian. Who the hell names a baby Julian?”

     “Baby, we won’t know the sex until it gets here. And it’ll happen when it happens. And it’ll be beautiful, you just wait and see.”

     He reached out and held her close. He lifted her chin and kissed her, then wiped the hair from her eyes.

     “Of course it will. You’re beautiful. How could it not be?”

     The parents to be beamed, and held hands, as they walked back to the compound from the fishing pond. And it wasn’t until they were near the gate that another thought suddenly popped into his mind. And the expression on his face turned from one of content to one of sheer terror instantly.

     “What in heck are we going to tell my parents?”

-29-

     Tom and Scott were dealing with their own problem, and it had nothing at all to do with babies.

     They were brainstorming, trying to figure out how to get three tons of wheat safely down to San Antonio, and how to get back without getting hijacked or shot.

     “Those two Walmart trucks out there on Highway 83, I noticed that the drivers left their keys on the visors before they walked away from them. I guess for the mobile mechanics to use when they came to fix them.”

     “Do you think you can get one of them running?”

     “Oh, yeah. I mean, in theory. I’ve worked on diesels all my life. Most farm equipment and generators run on diesel because diesel engines are more efficient and the fuel is safer to store. I should be able to get the parts I need at that same auto parts store.”

     “Do you think it’s safe to go back there, with those two bandits out there?”

     “I’m sure those bandits are long gone. I’m pretty sure they were just hunters out looking for game who happened to see me driving the Ford and decided they wanted to have it for themselves. They probably came back to my place and saw that I lit out. And I’ll bet they gave up at that point. They’ve probably gone elsewhere, wherever the game is leading them.”

     “Speaking of that, Tom, when was the last time you heard a gunshot?”

     “Shoot, now that you mention it, not for several days. A week, maybe. Do you think all the game’s been cleaned out of this area?”

     “I think it’s possible. I mean, we were hearing several shots a day for a long time. Now nothing. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

     “That’s a good thing, don’t ya think? I mean, if the hunters know here’s nothing to shoot up here, they’ll go look somewhere else.”

     “Yeah, maybe. Or it might make ‘em look harder. And maybe do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. Like climb up towers and such trying to see what’s out there besides woods.”

     “Well, as I see it, we’ll just stay vigilant, just like we always have. And if anyone does find out we’re here and tries something stupid, we make sure they don’t make it out alive to tell anybody else.”

     “Back to the Walmart trucks. How confident are you that you can get one going?”

     “Getting it going won’t be a problem. All the parts I need will be at the auto parts place except the batteries. You said your buddy in San Antonio grabbed all the dry cell batteries from all the auto parts places in the area. There were three or four I left behind when I got the parts for my Ford. Looking back, I should have grabbed them. But it’s probably too late now.”

     “So, what’s your plan, then?”

     “Oh, I’m still going to try it. Maybe they didn’t want to drive a hundred miles just to get batteries. But I’ll assume they’re already gone. And if that’s the case, I’ll go back the other direction. There’s a farm implement place about three miles in the other direction. The front of the place is covered with attachments. Plows, sprayers, irrigation sprinkler parts. No powered equipment. So any policeman that drove up from San Antonio probably wouldn’t know that even though they don’t sell tractors, they do service them. Only area farmers would know that. And I’ll bet they’ve got at least four there.”

     “You need four batteries?”

     “Yes. And, well, not really.”

     Scott gave him a puzzled look and he explained.

     “Well, if you look inside a truck’s battery box, you’ll see at least three, and sometimes four batteries. And it does take a lot more battery power to crank a diesel engine. But another reason there are so many batteries is because truckers sometimes park on the shoulder of the highway to sleep. They like to leave their trailer’s running lights and parking lights on while they’re sleeping so they don’t get rear ended or sideswiped by passing trucks. But they don’t want to run the engine and burn a lot of diesel while they’re sleeping either. So part of the reason for the extra batteries is so they can run their lights with the engine off, and still be able to start it again when they wake up.

     “Here’s the thing. We won’t be doing that. We won’t be using lights at all, not even when we’re moving. We’ll go down the same way you said you all came up here. Blacked out and using night vision goggles.”

     “So, that being the case, we won’t need as many batteries.”

     “Exactly. We can probably get by with two. But if we can find a third, we’ll hook it in line just to be safe.”

     “Okay, next question. Have you ever driven a tractor trailer?”

     “No. But I’ve towed a twenty five foot horse trailer behind a pickup many a time. The braking system is completely different, but I know about air brakes. And the Walmart rigs have sleeper cabs and 53 foot trailers. So I’ll have to take the turns wider. But the basic principal is the same.”

     “Sounds good. We’ve got what, two months to go before harvest?”

     “Less than that now. Figure five weeks.”

     “Can you get the truck running and over here by then?”

     “Does a dog have fleas?”

     Scott laughed.

     “Okay, then. Sounds like we’re all set.”

     Two days later Tom Haskins got up early, packed his weapons and gear, and saddled up his horse Bonnie. Scott came out of the house just as he was mounting up.

     “Hey, Tom. Where you going? Was it something I said?”

     Tom chuckled.

     “No, not this time. I’m heading over to the parts store to get what I need for that rig.”

     “How come you’re not taking your Ford? Or one of the Gators?”

     “Well, a couple of reasons. If we see something or somebody out there we don’t like, Bonnie and I can cut out and duck into the brush. Then we can follow the highway from a hundred yards off of it until we get past the ugly part. You can’t do that in a vehicle. There’s too many arroyos and thickets.

     “And also, the vehicles are our backup plan. If I can’t find any batteries and come back empty handed, we’ll pull the batteries from the Gators and the Ford and use them. But if I take a vehicle on my parts hunt, and if the wrong person sees me, there’s a chance I’ll lose not only the vehicle but the battery as well.”

     “Okay. Makes sense. Are you sure you don’t want me to go along?”

     “Scott, I like you, man. We’re good friends now. So I feel that I can be honest with you without hurting your feelings. Am I right about that?”

     Scott hesitated. Then he said, “Yes. Go on…”

     “Scott, I’ve been a cowboy a long time. This mission I’m going on is easy, because I know what I’m doing. But if I took along a wet-eared tenderfoot, there’s a good chance we’d both get killed.”

     Scott couldn’t argue the logic.

     “Okay, then. Good luck, then. And be careful.”

     “Will do, good buddy.”

      And with that, Tom gave Bonnie a slight kick and rode off in a cloud of dust.

-30-

     “Hey, Scott, this is John in San Antonio. Are you listening today?”

     Joyce was sitting at the security console when the call came in on the ham radio. She picked up the mike.

     “Hello, John. This is Joyce, his girlfriend. How are things in San Antonio? Any light at the end of the tunnel yet?”

     “Well, if you mean have we hit our sustainability number yet, I don’t know. FEMA’s not visiting us anymore. Haven’t been here in a couple of weeks. They said they’re focusing on other cities now, that are worse off than we are. I guess that’s a good thing. I mean, if anybody’s worse off that we are, then logic says we must be doing some things right. Or they’re in really bad shape.”

     “Scott’s out working in the field, by the way. I’ve sent his son to go fetch him. He should be inside in just a minute.”

     “Okay, your turn, Joyce. How are things on your end?”

     “Well, I hesitate to tell you, John. Anything I say will be like rubbing salt into your wounds. I mean, we’re having to learn a whole new way of life. And a lot of things are damn hard. But at the end of the day, we go to bed with full bellies, and we don’t much have to worry about anybody shooting us over a box of food. So I’d say we’re doing a lot better than you guys are.”

     “Yes, I suppose so. But I’m glad you were able to get away. It reminds me that there are still places where people get enough to eat and are safe at night. And we’re working hard to make San Antonio that way again. And it’ll get there. We’ve come a hell of a long way, after all, in just a few short months. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’ll get there.”

     “You sound like a good man, John. Do you have a family?”

     “Oh, yes. My wife, Hannah, is the light of my life. Still is even after all these years and all we’ve been through. She’s the glue that holds the family together. And we’ve got two wonderful little girls, Rachel and Misty. My little angels.”

     “Is Hannah a policewoman too? I’ve always heard that cops marry cops a lot.”

     “No. She works at a hospital. At least she did. When the lights went out we were afraid to leave our girls at home alone, so she stopped going in. She felt real bad about that at first, because there were so many shot and injured that the medical people were being run ragged. But she had to put her priority on people she knew and loved, instead of on strangers she’d never see again. So she stays at home with a loaded gun and watches out for bandits. And she makes damn sure that Rachel and Misty stay safe.”

     “Scott’s here now, so I’m going to step aside. He’s talked about you and the situation in San Antonio a lot lately. It’s nice to finally get a chance to talk to you.”

     “Same here, Joyce. You take good care of everybody there, okay?”

     “Okay, John. And we’ll continue to pray for you all.”

     “Thank you.”

     “John, this is Scott. I heard you tell Joyce that the hospitals were run ragged. It sounded like you meant past tense. Does that mean things are getting better?”

     “Yes, I think so. At least from that perspective. I mean, it’s still a very hard life. And people are continuing to commit suicide. But the violence against others has gotten a lot better over the last few weeks. I don’t know if it’s because the bad guys have given up stealing, or have moved on to other cities, or have realized there’s not much left to steal. One of the guys I work with thinks that once the pickings got slim, they started shooting themselves. That the reason they stole their food from others was because they were too lazy to scavenge for it themselves. And that when they started going through ten people just to find a single meal, it was too much work for them. And the same laziness that drove them to steal drove them to just give up and end it all. It’s as good a theory as any, I guess. But I’m still skeptical.”

     “Are people still leaving the city in search of easier places? We haven’t seen any sign of them where we’re at. Maybe we’ve just been lucky. Or they’re not here yet.”

     “Well, they’re still leaving. I know because the trucks are still collecting bodies by the hundreds, on all the outbound highways. I think most of them don’t get very far before they collapse and die. That may be why you haven’t seen any. You have to remember that nobody wants to have to walk fifty or a hundred miles to look for food unless they’re really desperate. And by desperate I mean really hungry. And when people are starving they have no strength. I’ve seen estimates that as many as ninety percent of the people who leave the city on foot won’t make it twenty miles.”

     “Are you still getting help from the government?”

     “Well, I was telling Joyce that FEMA has abandoned us. They were doing a real good job of handing out MREs and food kits for awhile, but they finally said we were doing better than some of the other cities, so they were refocusing their efforts elsewhere. They brought in several truckloads of MREs and planting seeds and turned them over to the National Guard. They’re trying to do a good job of distributing them, but they’re not as experienced as FEMA was. Some days they show up at the distribution centers, some days they don’t. I suppose they’ll get better at it over time, but so many people are surviving just on that food. So it’s disheartening when they’re hungry and the truck doesn’t show up.”

     “What about the community gardens? Are they helping feed the neighborhoods?”

     “Yes, they help tremendously. But there aren’t enough to go around, unfortunately. And I know it’s maddening for these folks who are starving to have to look at these crops each and every day waiting for them to mature.”

     “Have I told you much about my friend Tom?”

     “No, I don’t believe so.”

     “He’s the one who helped you guys get your cars working again. I think I’d be lost without his knowledge. He’s a farmer and a rancher, old school. And he’s been teaching us a lot about farming. One of the things he taught me that I didn’t know is that if you plant early enough you can bring in two harvests in the same year.”

     “Well, I didn’t know that either.”

     “You might spread the word to the neighborhood gardeners to save some of their seeds and plant a second crop right away. If San Antonio doesn’t get a freeze until late October or November, they should be able to get a second crop for their efforts.”

     “Well that’s definitely worth knowing about, and we’ll for sure get the word out to the block supervisors. Hannah’s heading up the garden for our block, by the way. She’s doing a great job. She’s got wheat planted on one side of the street and corn on the other. Prettiest plants you ever saw.”

     “I hope it feeds you and your neighbors for a long time. We’ve planted an acre of wheat as a second crop. It wasn’t something we planned to do, and can get by without it for our own use. Tom and I are planning on bringing it down your way if we can figure out a safe way to do it. And I think I know a way.”

     “Oh, wow, Scott. That would be great. And it would be good to finally meet you, too. What’s your plan?”

     “I don’t want to say my last name over the air. I don’t know who else is listening in. But I told you my last name in one of our first radio calls. Do you remember it?”

     “Yes. Don’t you remember? I told you it was my Aunt Millie’s maiden name, and asked if you two might be related.”

     Scott smiled. He had forgotten that.

     “That’s right. So you know my full name. I know you cops relied on big computer systems that don’t work any more. Is there an old fashioned way you can find out my address in San Antonio without your computers?”

     “You had a telephone, right? Were you in the phone book?”

     “Yes! But there were two or three other guys with the same name, as I remember. The first two digits on my house number were 64. That’ll help you find the right address.”

     “Okay. Got it.”

     “When you’re on duty again and have some time, go by my old house and check it out. We left the front door unlocked, so it’s almost certainly been looted of all its food. But if you go through the house and into the back yard, look closely at the back fence. There’s a section I cut out, and it’s being held into place by six slide bolts. It can be removed in about ten seconds. On the other side of that fence is a big grassy field that connects with a long line of Southwest Electric’s power lines.”

     “Okay, I’m writing all of this down, and I’ll check out the house tomorrow so I’m familiar with it.”

     “I’ll let you know in advance when we’re coming. Our crop will be ready in about four weeks, and it’ll take a week or so to harvest it. Then we’re going to put it in the back of a big Walmart truck and drive it down there. We’ll back it right up to that back fence and leave it there, if you can get some volunteers to unload and distribute it.”

     “Volunteers are no problem. I can borrow half a dozen soldiers from the National Guard. They’ll be happy to help, because it’ll get them off the body gathering detail for a couple of days.”

     “Sounds good. I’ll let you know at least a day in advance when we’re coming.”

     “That’s great news, Scott, and thank you. I’m signing off, now, my generator’s almost out of fuel and getting ready to cut out.”

     “Okay. Take care and be safe, my friend. Scott out.”

-31-

      “Mom, Dad, Joyce, after dinner can we all get together out in the garden? Sara and I have something important we want to tell you about.”

     Linda said, “Well, sure, honey.” She looked questioningly at Scott, and then Joyce. They just shrugged.

     Zachary, ever the smart ass, said “What are you going to do, tell them you want to get married? We all know that already. We can tell by the way you’re always looking goo-goo eyed at each other.”

     Jordan said to Zachary, “Shut up, twerp.”

     Then Linda, in a show of support for her oldest son, looked at Zach and said, “Yeah. Shut up, twerp.”

     Everyone at the table laughed. Except Zach. He sulked, but he couldn’t hide the smile on his face.

     Tom was pulling security duty, and called over from the console.

     “Hey, little man. We don’t want to hear any old mushy secrets anyway. You hang out with me and help me watch the monitors, and I’ll teach you how to tie some fishing knots.”

     “All right! That’s more fun anyways.”  

     After they’d cleaned their plates and placed them in the sink, Jordan and Sara waited outside. Sara sat on a lawn chair that he carried over to the tomato patch for her. He chose to stand next to her and hold her hand.

     One by one, the others came out. If any of them saw Sara sitting down resting next to Jordan as a clue, none of them let on.

     “Mom, Dad, Joyce. I have to apologize to you all. I feel that you all trusted me. And I let all of you down.”

     He looked at Sara, who had tears in her eyes.

     Linda’s hand went to her mouth, but she said not a word.

     Joyce’s mouth dropped open. She said, “Oh, my…”

     Scott, perhaps because he wasn’t a woman, was still clueless. He looked puzzled at Jordan and Sara, expecting Jordan to finish explaining exactly what he was sorry about.

     Then Sara stood, and without saying a word, lifted up her loose fitting blouse as high as the bottom of her bra. All three saw the baby bump, which was becoming quite prominent.

     Linda sighed and went to hug Sara. Joyce was right behind her to do the same. Neither of them could find words yet.

     Scott seemed in shock.

     “But how…”

     Joyce gave him a certain look.

     “I mean, not how, but… I mean, we thought we were watching you like hawks.”

     “You did at first, Dad. But then you began to trust me. And you eased up a little. And I took advantage of your trust, and I’m so sorry.”

     Sara squeezed his hand and looked at him. Then to the others.

     “It’s not just Jordan’s fault. I kind of played a role in it too. And I’m sorry too.”

     Linda held her.

     “How far are you, honey?”

     “I honestly don’t know. Four months, I think. Maybe four and a half.”

     Scott finally found more words. And he meant them sincerely, to both of them.

     “It’s okay. It would have happened sooner or later. The timing isn’t the best, but we’ll deal with it, just like we’ve dealt with everything else.”

     Jordan audibly breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that he expected rage from his father. It was just that he needed so much for his father to forgive him. It was the biggest betrayal he’d ever made to either of his parents, the biggest secret he’d ever kept.

     Joyce said, “Well, you certainly did a good job of keeping it a secret. I for one didn’t have a clue.”

     Sara smiled through her tears and said, “The secret was getting harder and harder to keep. This is the last pair of jeans I can get into.”

     Joyce smiled and wiped her tears. Come on into the house and take those off. I’ve got an elastic panel I can sew across the front of them. Should get you through your last few months.”

     She looked at Jordan and said, “And you, Mister. I know you’ve got a couple of pairs of gym shorts you can loan your wife, now don’t you?”

     “My… wife?”

     “Well, there aren’t any preachers around to say the pretty words and sign the papers, but I’d say that baby in there makes it pretty official, under the circumstances.”

     She began to tear up too, and Linda was struggling. Scott went over and hugged his son and Sara at the same time. He looked at Sara and held her tiny face in his hands.

     “Don’t you worry, honey. We’re going to take good care of you and make sure that you and this baby are as healthy as can be.”

     At the end of it all, the day that Sara had been dreading for so long wasn’t traumatic at all. It was joyful. And she was happy. Because this was the last secret she’d had. Her last bit of deception. And she’d sleep better at night now, knowing that everything was out in the open. She’d never again have to worry about someone finding something out and sending her away.

     She’d finally found a family and a home.

-32-

     “How are you going to get there?”

     “On Bonnie, of course.”

     “Is it safe to tie her to the back of the truck? Won’t she spook?”

     “Don’t plan to, Scott. Shoot, Bonnie’s been out of her corral more times than I can count. And she’s wandered a lot farther than that truck, and always found her way back. I purposely fed her a little less than normal this morning, so she’ll be getting hungry soon. She always comes home when she’s hungry. My guess is, she’ll be less than an hour behind me.”

     “Okay. Did you put fresh batteries in the walkie talkie?”

     “Yep. They’re plenty strong.”

     “And you’ll call at the first sign of trouble.”

     Tom looked at his friend and smiled.

     “Stop it. You’re as bad as a nervous old wife. You keep this up and people are gonna start getting the impression you’re sweet on me or somethin’.”

     Linda and Joyce couldn’t help but laugh.

     “I’m just concerned for your safety, is all.”

     “Well I appreciate that, little buddy. But I’ll be fine. You’re going to be out there and vulnerable too. You worry about your own safety, and I’ll take care of my own. Fair enough?”

     “Yeah, okay.”

     “Now, then, let’s make sure we’ve got this down. Give me one hour after I ride off. I should be about at the truck by then. Everything is all hooked up and ready to go.

     “When I’ve been gone for an hour, take that Bobcat of yours down to the end of the dirt road and move that berm out of the way for me. That truck is only eight feet wide, but it don’t turn on a dime. So give me a break in the berm of at least ten feet. Twelve would be better.

     “Then go back to my place and park your Bobcat in the shrubs, where you’re out of sight. I’ll call you on the walkie when I’m getting close so you can watch out for me. As soon as you see me roll by, you put that berm back into place as quick as you can and get your happy ass back here pronto.”

     Tom turned to Joyce and said, “I’ll let you know when I’m five minutes out. Have one of the boys standing by the gate. He’ll hear me when I roll into the yard. Tell them not to open the gate until they hear the truck, okay?”

     “Got it.”

     Tom smiled his big country boy grin and asked “Okay, everybody know what they need to do?”

     Everyone nodded or said yes.

     “Well, then. In that case, let’s get ‘er done.”

-33-

     Tom was more than an hour overdue. They tried him several times on the walkie talkie, but he didn’t answer.

     It was entirely possible, of course, that his walkie talkie was merely out of range.

     Or that he saw something he didn’t like and had to take a circuitous route to get where he was going.

     Or that he had a little bit of trouble getting the truck started.

     Or a thousand and one other things.

     But they just didn’t know, and they started to panic.

     Scott had been sitting anxiously in the Bobcat for a full twenty minutes now. The berm was cleared, and he just knew that something had gone terribly wrong. He called Joyce and Linda.

     “Would one of you check and see if Tom left his keys in the Ford? It’ll move twice as fast as the Gator. I’m heading back to the compound to get it. It’s been way too long and I’m going after him.”

     Even Joyce, the most level headed of the three, was getting nervous.

     “I’ll go check.”

     Linda, who’d developed feelings for Tom over the previous months, was beside herself, nervously pacing back and forth. She was certain that Tom was dead, and was close to tears.

     Then Tom came on the radio.

     “Okay, Scott. I hope that door is open in that berm. I’m about five minutes out. Joyce and Linda, do you copy?”

     Linda fell to her knees, overcome with emotion. Joyce, running through the compound toward Tom’s old Ford, stopped dead in her tracks, looked to the sky, and said, “Thank you Lord.”

     Then she got on the walkie and said, “We copy, Tom. We’ll be ready.”

     Jordan was pulling security duty. His mom told him, “Watch those cameras extra close, son. That driveway will be unblocked for at least another half hour, until your dad finishes putting that berm back together and gets back here.”

     “Yes, ma’am.”

     “Zach, go stand by the gate. But don’t open it until you hear Tom’s truck.”

     “Got it.”

     Six minutes later, Tom came bumping along down the dirt drive in a big blue Kenworth Tractor, towing a long white trailer with the Walmart logo emblazoned across each side. Zachary, right on cue, opened the gate, and Tom eased the rig into the compound.

     Once he was fifty feet inside the gate, he applied the brakes, turned off the engine, and stepped down from his cab.

     And into the waiting and anxious arms of Linda.

     “You old coot! Don’t you ever scare me like that again!”

     The group walked en masse down the drive and waited for Scott to replace the berm at the end of the road. Five minutes later, they could hear the Bobcat headed their way.

     But beating the Bobcat by at least thirty seconds was Tom’s chestnut bay Bonnie.

     Bonnie went right to Tom and huffed loudly as she scratched the ground with her hoof. She obviously wasn’t very happy about being left behind, and she wanted him to know it.

     He patted her shoulder in delight, and said “Atta girl! You made real good time. I’ll make it up to you come feeding time, I promise. I’ve got a handful of sugar cubes in the barn just to show you how much you mean to me.”

     He turned to the girls and explained, “I saw in my rear view mirror how she took off at a full gallop behind me. I knew she wouldn’t be long.”

     Scott drove into the yard and stopped the Bobcat. He jumped out of the cab and he and Tom worked together to remove the bucket attachment from the front. In its place they quickly installed the tree cutting attachment. Scott jumped back on and used the new attachment to gently work the two dead mesquite trees onto the end of the driveway, once again sealing them off from the outside world.

     It was only then that the group felt comfortable enough for a round of high fives and hallelujahs.

     “Did y’all miss me?”

     Scott was finally relieved enough to laugh.

     “Miss you? Hell, we were already planning your funeral, and arguing about who had to be your pall bearers and lug your big butt to the grave.”

-34-

     Tom explained to the group that he’d reached the truck on schedule and was ready to pull out but couldn’t get enough air pressure to release the brakes.

     “I crawled under the trailer and found a gash in the air line. It was totally shot, and the air was coming out as fast as the compressor could charge it. I was out of radio range and couldn’t let you know what was going on, and I had no tools to swap out the line with the other trailer.”

     “So what did you do to fix it?”

     “I didn’t. I dropped the busted trailer and used cargo straps to drag the dead tractor off the other trailer. And then I brought the other trailer instead.”

     “You brought the full trailer?”

     “Yep. And I have no more money in my checking account to pay for these goods. This one is on you.”

     Jordan asked, “Like it matters?”

     Scott pondered the question before answering.

     “It probably doesn’t matter a hill of beans, other than the whole morality of the thing. After we drop the trailer in San Antonio and bring the trailer back, we’ll put it back on the highway and I’ll put a check under the visor. I don’t need the money anyway, and I doubt if Walmart will ever be able to cash the check. But at least my conscience will be clear.”

     “Well, then, can we open it up and see what’s in it?”

     The metal seal had been snapped off the trailer door, and the first couple of pallets had been rifled through. A few boxes were almost certainly missing, although there was no way of knowing for sure without a load manifest. And it didn’t matter anyway. The truck was still over ninety percent full with a little bit of everything, from food to clothing to electronics.

     “I’m surprised there’s not more missing. Probably those two who tried to steal my car. They left my place on foot. You can’t carry much when you’re on foot.”

     Zachary crawled onto the back of the trailer and said, “Wow! This is better than Christmas.”

     “Tom, have you looked at the wheat the last couple of days?”

     “Yep. I went out there this morning. The stalks are turning brown and they’re starting to sag. Another two days and we can start the harvest.”

     “Any idea how we’re going to harvest it without a thrasher?”

     Tom laughed.

     “I suspect what you’re really asking is, will it be easier to harvest than the corn was?”

     “Well, yes.”

     “Nope.”

     “Great.”

-35-

     The next morning, after breakfast, Sara pulled her shift on the security console. If it hadn’t been her turn anyway, someone else would have probably swapped shifts with her. What they planned to do on this bright sunny day involved a lot of climbing and lifting, and it just wouldn’t do for a pregnant woman to get all mixed up in that.

     Everyone else assembled at the back of the Walmart truck.

     The plan they had was to go through each of the twenty four pallets, one at a time. Each pallet had from forty to sixty boxes of mixed merchandise on it, although there appeared to be a little bit of method to Walmart’s madness. The food seemed to be on separate pallets from the non-edibles.

     Jordan climbed aboard the trailer and placed the boxes on the end, one at a time, reading the nomenclature printed on each box.

     “Okay. Men’s shirts, assorted.”

     “I’ll start a men’s clothing pile over here. We’ll go through it all later and divide it up.”

     There were four men in the group, and they all wore different sizes. So dividing such goods was a no brainer.

     “Paper Towels.”

     “House pile, right here.”

     “Compact disk, music, assorted artists.”

     “Put that on the luxury pile.”

     The group had decided the night before, by mutual agreement, to place all the luxury items in one of the barns. Whenever one member of the group had a birthday, each of the other members would go into the barn and select a birthday gift. At Christmas, they would draw names, and choose one gift for their recipient. They thought this would be a good way to stretch the luxury items over the course of several years, and bring some surprise and joy to special events.

     When the group broke for lunch, there were piles everywhere. It looked as though the truck had exploded. But each pile had a specific purpose.

     Joyce was happy to see a whole pallet of dry dog food.

     Jordan was especially happy to see half a pallet of disposable diapers in assorted sizes. His mom had already told him that she could cut up several old towels to make diapers, and one of his fatherly duties was going to be to wash out the dirty ones. Seeing the word “Huggies” on the side of several boxes made him whoop and holler.

     All of the food items were placed in the largest pile.

     Once the truck was completely empty, the plan was to put all of the food back into the trailer, so they could send it to San Antonio with the wheat. To keep from running out of space for both the food and the wheat, though, they’d pack it differently.

     The wooden pallets would come out. They were the platforms on which the boxes were originally stacked at the distribution center, so that drivers on forklifts could load the trucks quickly. But the people in San Antonio wouldn’t have a forklift, or a dock from which to operate it.

     So the pallets were just wasted space.

     Also, there was a lot more wasted space above each pallet, between the top of the stack of boxes and the ceiling of the truck. They planned to make use of that empty space as well.

     So the concept was simple. Pull every single box out of the truck and remove the pallets. Then loose load the food, from the floor to the ceiling, packing it as tightly as possible. They expected to use less than half the trailer for food, which would leave the rest for the wheat crop.

     It sounded good in theory. Only time would tell how it worked in practice.

     “Save the empty boxes,” Scott said. We’ll need containers to put the wheat in, and we can thrash them and store them in the same box.”

     And so it was that the people in San Antonio, who so desperately needed food as well as seeds to grow the following year’s crops, would receive wheat in boxes marked “alarm clocks,” “Socks, Girls, Finding Nemo,” and dozens of other things.

     But the name on the box didn’t matter. What mattered was they could either grind the wheat into course flour for bread, tortillas or hard tack, or they could eat part of it and plant the rest in the springtime.

     Either way, the truckload of food would ensure the further survival of many people the group had never met, and would likely never see.

     It was a very small gesture, considering everything they had. But it wouldn’t be the last such gesture. They’d already made plans to plant an extra corn crop the following year, and to slaughter a couple of cattle when the weather turned chilly, then to spend the winter turning the meat into beef jerky.

-36-

     “Okay, is everybody ready?”

     “As ready as we’re ever gonna be.”

     Tom was explaining how the wheat harvest was going to work, since they didn’t have a wheat thrashing machine to bring it in.

     “There ain’t nothing complicated about this. And to be honest, it’s not really that hard. What it is, though, is tedious. It’ll seem like it’s taking forever. But I figure we can get through this acre in about a week, if the weather holds and we stay after it.”

     “I spread these empty boxes about every twenty feet or so. Your box represents your piece of the crop. For about ten feet on each side of the box, that’s where you’ll work. Now just watch, and see how I do it.”

     Tom went to one of the wheat stalks and used his cutter to cut each stem of wheat that contained the wheat germ. In the same manner a woman might pick flowers, he packed as many of the stems into his left hand as he could, while cutting with his right.

     When his left hand could hold no more, he put his cutter into the sheave on his belt. Then he went to the empty box adjacent to the first row of wheat.

     At the box, he beat the handful of wheat against the inside of the box, until all the loose kernels came loose from their shucks and fell into the box.

     “Now, each of you look into the box and see what I got for my three or four minutes of hard labor.”

     Scott peered into the box and said, “That ain’t much.”

     “No, sir, it ain’t. Maybe a cup and a half to two cups. Like I said, it’s a very long and tedious process. You’ll work all day long, just to fill up one box. You’ll think you ain’t making any progress at all. But when you’re done, you’ll have accomplished more than you realize. Because believe it or not, this box will feed fifty hungry people for a whole week.

     “Now, then, these wheat stalks are like the corn we did before. Once we cut off the parts we can use, the rest of the plant is worthless. They won’t grow any more wheat this year. So after you clear all the wheat from the first row you’re working on, cut each stalk off close to the ground, and throw it over there in a pile. When Scott and I cut the tall grass in the fall and make bales of hay, the wheat stalks will get caught up in it. The cows love wheat stalks, just like they love the corn stalks that are already piled up from before. You folks think we’ll be eating good this winter, but the damn cows, they’ll be eating bovine gourmet.”

     His efforts to lighten everyone’s spirits fell flat. To a man, the rest of the crew was busy eyeing the field of wheat and thinking it was going to take forever to get through it.

     It was as though Tom read their minds.

     “Oh, come on. It ain’t as bad as it looks, really. Once we get going and get into a routine, it’ll go faster than you think. I’ll bet it won’t take any more than a week to go through it all.”

     Tom was wrong. It actually took eleven days. But they did a thorough job, and the final tally was fifty two boxes of unprocessed wheat.

     The fifty two boxes were of varying sizes and shapes. Some said “Pampers” on the sides and others said “Glad Trash Bags.” All in all it looked a ridiculous sight, those boxes taped closed and stacked onto the back of the Walmart truck. But those fifty two boxes would help a lot of people survive the winter. And they’d provide seeds in the spring for the next crop too.

     Just for good measure, before they pulled the overhead door down at the end of the trailer, Scott pulled two burlap bags of corn seed from the seed barn and threw them on the back.

     “We’ve got more than we need,” he said in answer to Tom’s inquisitive look. “And if they can refrain from eating it before springtime, this will give them another four acres of corn.”

     Tom patted his friend on the back.

     “Atta boy!”

     When the truck was loaded and ready to go, the crew took a day off to recuperate. Tom had been right. It wasn’t a difficult job. More tedious than anything else. But it did require an awful lot of bending and stretching, and at the end, they were all stiff and sore from head to toe. They needed a day just to feel human again.

     On the second day, Tom and Scott sat down to form a game plan. They’d go together. The girls didn’t particularly like that idea, but they had no choice. Scott had never driven a truck before. And while there was nothing exceedingly hard about driving it, backing it into place once they got it to San Antonio would require the experience that Tom had and Scott didn’t. Also, if the truck broke down along the way, Tom had the know-how to fix it. Scott didn’t.

     “Why can’t Tom go on his own?” Joyce asked.

     “Because he doesn’t know where the house is. I can draw him a map to the place. But there are a hundred houses in the development that all have almost identical back fences. He would never find ours in the middle of all the others.”

-37-

     “John, in San Antonio. This is Scott, somewhere outside the city. Are you listening today?”

     “Hello, Scott.”

     “What’s the matter, my friend? You sound exhausted.”

     “Everything’s gone to hell down here, Scott. The plague that the CDC said would come from all the decomposing bodies is starting to sweep through the area. People are getting sick and having to go into quarantine areas at the hospital. The weaker ones, and a lot of the children, are dying from it. The stronger ones are being treated with antibiotics, but are going to be bedridden for weeks in the meantime.”

     “Oh, no! How are you and your family?”

     “We’ve taken precautions. Hannah and the girls aren’t allowed out of the house. They haven’t been outside in over a week now, and they won’t go out until this passes over. I asked Hannah to put some masking tape across the doorway to the living room. To remind them not to go in. Because that’s where I’m living now, and they have to stay six feet away from me. The CDC says that’s the contamination zone.”

     “I’m sorry, John. That sounds like a dreadful situation.”

     “You know me, Scott. From the first day, when the lights went out, I saw this as my problem to solve. I’ve dedicated my life over the last few months to help save as many as I could, and to ease the pain as much as I could, for everyone else. I saw a lot of crap in the world during my two tours in Iraq before I came back and became a cop. I thought after everything I saw over there, that this whole blackout thing would be a piece of cake. But we’ve been through hell, Scott. And just when things were starting to normalize again, the plague came around. It’s like getting kicked in the gut all over again.”

     “Didn’t you say that Hannah is a nurse at the hospital? Can’t she get your family some antibiotics, or something to protect you from the plague? It would break my heart if I could see my children and wife, and not be able to hold them. Especially with the hell you’ve been through already.”

     “No, she’s not a nurse. She’s a midwife. And all the antibiotics are needed for those who are infected.

     “Hannah is broken hearted that she can’t help. But we had a long talk the night we put up the tape in the doorway. It’s just not worth the risk of infecting our own children. The kids and the elderly are most vulnerable, and Misty has had asthma all her life. She’s doubly vulnerable. You had the right idea in getting the hell away from the city, Scott. There are a lot of times I wish I could have evacuated my family when I had the chance.”

     “John, we’ve got our truck loaded and ready to go. We’re going to bring it down in a couple of nights. Have you been to my old house? Have you found the secret gate in my back fence?”

     “Yes, Scott. I was there last week. That was ingenious. I’m impressed.”

     “Well, don’t be too impressed. It’s the only good idea I’ve ever had. We’ve commandeered a Walmart tractor trailer. The front half is full of food. Canned goods, breakfast cereals, pasta and all kinds of other stuff. The back half is full of wheat. About three tons of it, as best as we can figure. And two sacks of corn seed too. If you can have some of the National Guard soldiers meet us there to open the gate, we’ll back the truck up to the gate and help them unload it.”

     “I don’t think it would be wise for you to help, Scott. That would expose you to the plague. They may be carrying it and not show any outward signs. How about if you just back it up and drop it, and we’ll do the off-load?

     “Okay, that sounds like a plan, then. We’ll just drop the trailer and head back.”

     “Okay. And Scott…”

     “Be careful out there. It’s an uglier world than the one you left behind.”

     “Will do. Signing off.”

     Something bothered Scott about the whole situation with John and his family.

     And he had an idea.

-38-

     “Just hear me out, okay? This is just an idea. There are pros and cons to every idea. Let me pitch a proposal to you, and then get your feedback, okay?”

     The four of them- Scott, Joyce, Linda and Tom- were sitting at the dining room table. Zach was on security duty, and the young parents to be were outside playing with Sara’s rabbits.

     “I’ve never met John in person. But I trust him enough after all this time to take him at his word. He’s done a lot to help the people in San Antonio. So has his wife. And it seems like they just can’t get a fair shake.

     “Just when San Antonio was finally starting to get back to something resembling normal, they got hit with this other problem. There’s some kind of respiratory plague going around. Apparently it had its roots in the thousands of decomposing bodies they haven’t been able to burn yet.

     “Anyway, it’s passed by close human contact. John and his family have their own house sectioned off between places he can go and the places they can go. Since he has to go out in it every day, he has to stay away from his own family in case he’s a carrier.”

     “And one of his girls already has respiratory problems. She’s already high risk, and may not survive if she catches it. He and his wife are terrified. And I want to help if I can.”

     “How?”

     “By taking the wife and the girls away from there. Bringing them up here temporarily. The CDC says the plague will run its course after a few months. Once John tells us it’s safe again, I can take them back.”

     “Are you sure they’ll want to come?”

     “No. I haven’t asked yet. I wanted to talk to all of you about it before I got their hopes up and you all talked me out of it. There’s a chance they won’t want to. That they’ll prefer to just ride out the storm like they’ve ridden out everything else.”

     “This plague… how deadly is it?”

     “John says it’s treatable with antibiotics. He says most healthy people survive it, but may be bedridden for weeks or even months. The ones most susceptible to dying from it are the elderly and infants, and those with preexisting health problems.”

     “I’m okay with it. But you’d better be damn sure about it being safe. We’ve got a pregnant woman here now, remember.”

     “Oh, that reminds me. That’s another thing. Hannah, she’s a certified midwife.”

     Linda and Joyce’s eyebrows went up and they looked at each other. They’d spent hundreds of hours on the internet before the blackout, researching things they thought they’d need, and then printing out reference material.

     They thought they’d covered everything, from how to kill common garden pests to treating people having heart attacks. But because of their ages, the thought of printing out how-to information about having babies never occurred to them. They didn’t have a clue how to be on the receiving end of childbirth.

     “I don’t have any problem with you bringing them back. But what will it do to our food supply to add three more mouths to feed?”

     “It shouldn’t be a problem at all. In fact, it should be an asset. Just like when Tom joined us. It was an extra mouth to feed, yes. But it was an extra pair of hands to help with the chores, and an extra person to help raise food. We were able to grow enough additional food to cover what he eats, and a lot more.”

     “I agree. With three extra people, assuming the girls can help, we can plant a bigger crop than we did this year.”

     Zachary, who had been eavesdropping on the whole conversation, yelled from the security console.

     “How old are the girls?”

     The group cracked up laughing.

     Scott asked, “Why?”

     “Because I’m the only one who doesn’t have a girlfriend. Even Duke has Duchess. The cows all have girlfriends. So do the pigs and chickens and horses and rabbits. I’m the only living thing in this whole darn place who doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

     Joyce said, “Zachary Harter! I always thought I was your girlfriend.”

     “I’m serious. It’s just not fair.”

     “Well, to answer your question, Zach, I don’t know. But if we decide to bring them here, you’d probably want to be careful not to fall for a girl who’s only going to be here for a few months.”

     Scott turned back to the others and asked, “Shall we put it to a vote?

-39-

     “John in San Antonio, this is Scott. Are you listening in?”

     “Hey, Scott. How are you, buddy?”

     “I’m okay. Probably a lot better than you. I hope things are better there since the last time we talked.”

     “Not really. It’s an ugly world down here. Most of the people who aren’t already infected are staying indoors so they don’t catch it. I guess that’s a good thing, actually. But the people who are already sick are bearing the brunt of the burden, keeping the crops watered and such when they should be in hospitals.”

     “So the hospitals are still operating? How are they getting their supplies?”

     “Turned out FEMA had mass supplies of bandages and medication and stuff stored somewhere nearby. They won’t tell anybody where, but they have helicopters that fly in every couple of days with cases of saline solution and penicillin and other meds. I hope they don’t run out, because the deliveries are the only thing keeping a lot of people from dying.”

     “Any good news?”

     “Yeah, actually there is. Hannah and the girls are still healthy. Every night I fall on my knees and thank the good Lord for that. And you’re not the only one who had an idea of bringing in crops. Some of the farmers north and east of San Antonio got their old tractors started and have been dragging farm trailers full of produce into some of the neighborhoods over there. We’ve told them not to get too close to anybody, so what they’re doing is dropping their trailers and leaving them. Whenever they return with another full trailer, they’re taking back the empty one with them.”

     “Well, we’re ready to come tomorrow night. That is, unless you need more time to consider my proposal.”

     “Proposal? I’m sorry, Scott. I’m already married.”

     Scott laughed, and it occurred to him that it takes a very strong man to make jokes under such circumstances.

     “That’s good, John. I don’t think you’re my type anyway. I’ve talked it over with everyone here and explained the situation with the plague down there. I also explained what you said about you being worried about your wife and little girls. We want to help. If you and Hannah are willing, we can bring your family back with us until the plague blows over.”

     There was a full minute of silence on the other end. And when John came back, his voice was changed. It was obvious that he was moved by Scott’s offer.

     “I… I don’t know what to say. I would love to send them to a safe place. But… are you sure? I mean, you’ve never even met them, and you’d welcome them into your group?”

    Joyce had been standing behind Scott listening in. She tapped him on the shoulder and held out her hand for the microphone.

     “John, this is Joyce. I’m Scott’s girlfriend. I just wanted to tell you that Scott has kept us informed from the beginning about your ordeal. We’ve never met you or your family, but in a way we’ve come to know you from the things you’ve been telling Scott.

     “We’ve all wanted to help for a long time. But I’d be lying if I said we weren’t being a little bit selfish at the same time. Scott has said that Hannah is a midwife. We have a young pregnant girl in our group. It’ll be her first birth, and we can probably handle it if everything goes well. But if things go wrong, it sure would be nice to have an expert around to help. So Hannah would be helping us at least as much as we’d be helping her.”

     John lowered his voice, and was now barely above a whisper.

     “Can you guys still hear me?”

     Puzzled, Scott turned up the volume on the receiver.

     “Yes.”

     “Since we’re being honest, I have to tell you something that Hannah doesn’t even know. I’ve been light headed and dizzy the last couple of days. Enough of my fellow officers and the civilians I deal with have come down with the plague to make me familiar with the symptoms. It starts with light headedness and dizziness. Then a couple of days later the cough starts. Then the vomiting and nausea. Then dehydration and loss of consciousness.”

     Joyce covered her mouth and her eyes widened.

     Scott said, “Oh, my God…”

     “No. It’s okay. The survival rate is eighty percent or better if the sick make it to the hospital in time. And I will. I will probably be there for many days, or even weeks, while I recover. And once I recover I’ll be immune. I won’t have to worry about catching it again.”

     “And Hannah doesn’t know?”

     “I haven’t had the heart to tell her. And to be honest, I’ve been terrified that while I was in the hospital, they’d be defenseless without me here to protect them. Your offer is a godsend.”

     “Are you going to tell her?”

     “Yes. I’ll tell her before they leave. Our marriage is based on honesty and trust. She won’t be happy about leaving under these circumstances, but she’ll do it for the girls’ sake.”

     “Okay, it’s settled then.”

     “Scott?”

     “Yes, sir?”

     “There’s one more thing. Like I said, the survival rate is eighty percent or better for those who recover in the hospital. And I’ve always been a lucky guy. So I don’t anticipate any problems. But if I run out of luck…”

     Joyce leaned over Scott’s shoulder and keyed the mike again.

     “You shouldn’t have such thoughts, John. But since you are, don’t even ask. Hannah and your daughters will have a home here as long as they want to stay. With or without you.”

     “Okay, thank you for that. When do you expect to arrive?”

     “We’re shooting for midnight tomorrow night. Can you have your wife and daughters there by then?”

     “Yes. I’ve them start packing today. How much room will you have for suitcases?”

     “The truck we’re bringing has a full sleeper cab. It should be plenty big enough for them and for several suitcases.”

     “Okay, then. We’ll be ready. I’ll have her drive my patrol car, and I’ll get a ride with another officer. I’ll wear a surgical mask and sit in the back seat. I know my girls will get a kick out of seeing that. And seeing their mom drive a police car.”

     “Okay, then. See you tomorrow night.”

-40-

     It was only ninety miles from the compound to the back of Scott’s old house in San Antonio. Almost a straight shot, following the high tension power lines.

     They could easily make it in three hours, if they didn’t encounter any problems. But they couldn’t count on that. So they planned to give themselves an extra hour, just in case.

     Just before sunset, Scott opened the gate to the compound and told the others to stand back. He spotted Tom as Tom slowly backed the big rig out of the compound and into the front yard.

     Then Tom stepped out of the rig and he and Scott said their goodbyes.

     The tension was heavy in the air. No one knew what or who was out there. There was a chance the road under the power lines had been blockaded by marauders. Or that somebody would see them coming in time to get a bead on them and shoot out their tires.

     Or to shoot them as they drove past.

     They had no idea when they planned their departure how much light there would be as they traveled. They looked up and saw a crescent moon, in its last quarter. And lots of clouds. They’d have no trouble seeing, with the night vision goggles they’d be wearing. Scott hoped that there was no one out there wanting to do them harm. But perhaps the lack of a full moon would make it easier to slip by unnoticed.

     The tractor was dark blue in color and would be running without lights. They’d already removed the fuses for all of the lights, including the brake lights. The electrical pig tail that would normally run between the tractor and the trailer was intentionally left unconnected.

     Scott wished the trailer wasn’t painted white. And that it didn’t have Walmart painted on each side. If there were marauders out here, and if it was light enough for them to read the Walmart logo, they’d likely see the truck as a gold mine.

     But in the end, it was what it was. There was nothing they could do about it. They would be as careful as they could, and hope for the best.

     Everyone other than Jordan assembled in the front yard to say goodbye. Jordan was at the security console, pulling his regular shift. He and Scott had already spent some time together earlier in the evening, and had said their goodbyes then.

     Outside, there was a heavy pall in the air. It was a feeling of sadness. Of the possibility that this could be a final goodbye.

     Joyce fought hard to keep from screaming, “Don’t go.”

     She looked at Linda, who was looking longingly at Tom. It occurred to her that Linda was probably thinking the same thing.

     Neither women wanted their men to leave on this mission. But they knew that it would be a big help to the people in San Antonio. And bringing back Hannah and the girls would strengthen their group. Having Hannah standing by when Sara gave birth could prevent a tragedy if there were complications.

     As the truck idled behind them, the group joined hands and said a brief prayer. Then there were final hugs and a couple of kisses, and Tom climbed back into the driver’s seat. Scott got into the passenger seat. Scott wanted and needed to learn how to drive the rig, in case something happened to Tom and he had to drive it back. They would swap out the first time they stopped for a restroom break. But by that time, they’d be on the relatively straight road beneath the towers. That would be the best place for a rookie driver to get some behind the wheel experience. Not on the tight twists and turns between the compound and the towers.

     Scott got on the walkie.

     “Jordan, any activity out there?”

     Jordan hadn’t taken his eyes off the monitors.

     “All clear, Dad.”

     Joyce hopped on the Bobcat and dragged the two mesquite trees blocking the end of the drive out of the way, and Tom eased the rig out of the driveway and onto the dirt road. And they never looked back.

     As Tom drove slowly toward the power lines, Joyce put the trees back in place, and the group somberly reassembled behind Jordan at the security console. On the monitors, they followed the truck’s progress. No one said a word.

     Finally, they watched the rig as it pulled onto the paved road beneath the towers and headed south. They followed it until it disappeared from view in the darkness.

     Scott called in.

     “Radio check. How do you read me, Jordan?”

     “Loud and clear, Dad.”

     “Good. Just a reminder, we’ll lose radio contact in a little while. On our way back, though, we’ll try to raise you every few minutes until we get back into range.”

     “10-4. And Dad…

     “Be careful. I love you.”

     “I love you too, son.”

     Linda had to turn away. She didn’t want Jordan to see the tears in her eyes.

-41-

     The trip down the mountain was mostly silent. Tom and Scott made occasional small talk, or Tom explained some of the gauges on the control panel, or how the air brake system worked, or a few other things Scott would need to know once he took the wheel.

     But mostly they just watched for signs of trouble as the big rig cruised down the blacktop.

     The road was only twelve feet wide. If there was something blocking the road, there wasn’t room to go around it without leaving the pavement. But that shouldn’t be a problem, since there were twelve feet of gravel shoulder on each side.

     About an hour in, Tom asked Scott if he was ready to take the wheel.

     “I have to step out to take a leak, so this would be a good time to make the change.”

     “Sounds good to me. I’m ready.”

     Scott took his place in the driver’s seat while Tom urinated against the back wheels of the tractor.

     “Okay, you can skip first gear and start out in second. When we drop the trailer and head back, you can start out in third. It works more or less like any other vehicle, until you get to the higher gears. But we’ll stay off of those for now. You ready?”

     “Yep.”

     “Okay. Pull out the yellow knob to release your air brake and let’s go.”

     They’d planned for the worst and hoped for the best. Tom held an AR-15 rifle, locked and loaded, at the ready in case there was any sign of trouble. Occasionally he looked over and gave Scott a tip, or made a comment on his driving. But so far Scott was doing quite well. The only problem he seemed to have was skipping an occasional gear. The shifter had a very tight shift pattern, and it was easy to do, even for experienced truckers. And it was minor. He never killed the truck, only made it chug a couple of times while it worked its way back up to speed.

     They made it down the mountain and into San Antonio without incident. They’d seen a couple of dead bodies along the way. The smell sucked in by the truck’s air vents made it obvious that they’d been decomposing for awhile. Scott wondered how they’d been killed so far away from town.

     It was as though Tom read his mind.

     “Maybe it was hunters, coming back with game, who got shot and robbed of their kill. Or maybe they were just trying to find a better place and collapsed from hunger or exhaustion.”

     “Yes, I suppose.”

     “In any event, their concerns are over. May God have mercy on their souls.”

     As they neared Scott’s old neighborhood, Scott asked Tom if he had the time. Tom had tried to reset the clock on the tractor’s console, but it was forever frozen at 11:47. A casualty of the EMP that hit at that exact time of morning several months before.

     “Eleven twenty. How far away are we?”

     “Maybe ten minutes. I’m going to slow my speed a bit so we don’t get there too early.”

     Twenty minutes later, Scott slowly left the paved road and turned east, into a large field of wild grass and scrub bushes.

     “This thing won’t get stuck, will it?”

     “As long as the ground is dry and relatively flat, it’ll be fine. If there’s any big ditches along the way, let me know now.”

     “No, it’s flat the rest of the way. And I don’t trust myself to try to back this thing to the fence. Would you mind?”

     Tom smiled.

     “Not at all. You’ll have to get out of the truck and spot me, though.”

     “That’s a deal.”

     When they came to Scott’s neighborhood, he recognized his back fence from the shape of the houses. He aimed the truck at his fence, then swung it around in a huge arc.

     Then he put it in neutral, applied the air brake, took a deep breath and stepped outside.

     Tom walked around the truck and climbed back into the driver’s seat.

     “Okay, stay on this side of the truck, but far enough back to where you can see both sides of the back end. Use hand signals only. Don’t yell. And keep looking at my mirror. You’ll have to move back and forth, side to side, to keep my face in the mirror. If you can’t see my face, then I can’t see you.”

     “Got it.”

     Tom nailed the backing on the first try, and stopped about six feet from the fence.

     He stepped out of the rig, took the other AR-15 rifle, and joined Scott at the back of the truck. Each of them took a post, watching in opposite directions, for signs of trouble.

     And they waited.

-42-

     John was nothing if not prompt. At just before midnight, Scott heard the patio door on the back of the house slide open. He heard John’s voice, and some others as well.

     John asked in a loud whisper, “Scott, are you there?”

     “We’re here, John.”

     Scott heard John talking to someone else in his back yard.

     “Okay, you guys stand over there. Don’t get close. I’m going to take this section of fence off and put it to the side. Then I’ll stand back and I want you guys to go through the fence to my friends on the other side, okay?”

     It broke Scott’s heart when he heard a little girl’s voice ask, “I’m going to miss you, Daddy. Can I give you just one hug before we go?”

     “I’m sorry, honey. We can’t take that risk. How about if you blow me lots of kisses and we’ll save the hugs for when you come back someday.”

     “I love you, Daddy.”

     “I love you too, Sugar.”

     John slid open the sliding bolts that held the section of fence into place. Then he dragged it aside and backed up until he was in the middle of the yard.

     Scott took off his night vision goggles so he didn’t frighten the girls. Tom kept his on and maintained watch.

     A striking woman came through the fence, carrying a suitcase in each hand. She stopped in front of Scott. He couldn’t see in the darkness, but her face was wet from tears.

     “Hi. I’m Hannah.”

     “Hi, Hannah. I’m Scott. This is my good friend Tom.”

     Hannah looked at Tom and he nodded.

     “How many more bags do you have?”

     “Only three more. I’ll get them. It’s probably better if you stay as far away as possible from John.”

     Scott took the first two bags and carried them to the door of the sleeper cab. He shoved them inside, and then crawled into the sleeper so he could stack them out of the way.

     He turned around to see Hannah, lifting the other bags into the doorway for him.

     Scott stacked all five of the bags on the end of the bunk and climbed back outside.

     “The accommodations aren’t that great, but it’s only for a couple of hours.”

     Scott took over watch from Tom, and Tom disconnected the air hose from the trailer and cranked down its legs. Then he pulled the pin to disconnect the tractor from the trailer.

     Scott returned to the rear of the trailer, where for the first time he saw two girls, one fourteen and one eleven. They were standing next to Hannah looking forlornly at their father, on the other side of the fence about twenty feet away.

     Scott waved at John.

     John waved back and said, “I wish I could come and shake your hand. But that’ll have to wait for another time.”

     “Looking forward to it, John.”

     “Thank you again, Scott. I know I can never repay you for this…”

     “You can repay me by getting better so the next time I see you we can shake hands and sit down and have a drink together.”

     “Okay, that’s a deal.”

     Hannah and the girls said goodbye to John from afar, blowing him kisses and air hugs, and telling him they loved him.

     Then they crawled into the sleeper cab. The curtain that divided the cab from the sleeper was open, and the girls watched as Tom took the wheel and Scott climbed into the passenger seat.

     Scott put his night vision goggles back on. It was still dark, since the fuse for the interior light had been removed. But Misty, the youngest, was able to make out the goggles in the moonlight.

     “Mom, why are they wearing those weird masks?”

     “It helps them see in the dark, honey. So they can drive safer.”

     Tom put the tractor into gear and eased forward until he was clear of the trailer. Then he slowly drove back to the power lines.

     In the passenger side mirror, Scott could see several uniformed national guardsmen open the trailer and climb aboard it to start unloading the cargo.

     He turned toward Hannah and said, “I know it’s dark back there. I’m sorry. It’s going to be about two hours or so before we get to the compound. If you want to sleep, we’ll wake you up when we arrive. If you don’t feel like sleeping, I put some flashlights under the bed pillows, and some kid’s books for the girls. The portable television and DVD player work. They were protected from the solar storm and we installed them yesterday. We brought Lion King and Lilo and Stitch.

     Misty immediately cried out, “You brought Lion King?” and it suddenly dawned on Scott that these young girls had done without the simplest joys in their lives for more than half a year.

     He turned toward Misty and said, “Yes, ma’am. And even something better. If you look in that top drawer, you’ll find a box of Twinkies, just for you guys.”

     He said, “With your Mom’s permission, of course.” Then he looked at Hannah, and could see tears well up in her eyes as she shook her head yes. Scott wondered just how long it was since she’d seen her youngest smile.

     Hannah put her hand on Scott’s shoulder.

     “You guys sure know how to soften a sorrowful goodbye. Thank you for bringing us along.”

     Scott said, “It’s our pleasure. I’m just sorry we couldn’t bring John as well.”

     “He wouldn’t have come, even if he hadn’t been exposed. He’s trying to save the city, him and a handful of others. When this thing is finally done, I hope they erect a statue to John and the other officers and firefighters who are out there each and every day saving lives and convincing people there’s a reason to hang on.

     “He’s a good man, isn’t he?”

     “He’s the best. I’ll bet he didn’t tell you he’s a war hero, did he?”

     “Really?”

     “He lost the lower half of his left leg during his second tour in Iraq. But he still dragged his buddies to safety while under heavy fire. He lost so much blood he was in a hospital for four months. But he was credited with saving four lives and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

     “It doesn’t surprise me that he didn’t tell you that, though. He’s a very modest man.”

     “Wow. You must be very proud.”

     “I am. Supremely proud. He’s my hero, and has been for a very long time. Even before he went to Iraq. He was able to get hired by the San Antonio Police with a prosthetic leg. He had to get the mayor on his side to make it happen. He’s the first officer on the force to ever have one, and even with the prosthetic he finished the Academy obstacle course faster than anyone else. I think he’s most proud that he’s been able to prove that wounded veterans are still capable of many things, and shouldn’t be just pushed off in a corner like many people try to do with them.”

     “I can’t wait to meet him- really meet him some day.”

     Hannah joined her daughters and watched Lion King. She prodded Rachel into opening the curtain long enough to hand Tom and Scott each a Twinkie, and to thank them for their generosity. Hannah called out from the back, “I just wanted to make sure they shared before they ate the whole box and got tummy aches.”

     The rest of the trip was uneventful. Scott and Tom debated on the reasons.

     “Maybe people don’t come out at night any more. I mean, there’s not much left to steal, if the families are living off the MREs that the trucks bring them every day. Maybe the bad guys hole themselves up in their houses at night now like everybody else.”

     “I don’t think they’re out here because they’ve already killed all the animals. You remember the other day we were talking about not hearing any gunshots for several days. I think the game is all gone, and they’ve finally figured out there’s nothing out here for them anymore.

     Hannah came through the closed curtain and joined them, adding her input.

     “I think you’re both right. But there’s a third factor. There just aren’t that many people left alive. FEMA told John the other day that they’ve done an estimate, and they figure there’s only about a hundred thousand people left alive in San Antonio. Maybe even fewer.

     “Most of the deaths were suicides, I think. People just couldn’t handle it. They couldn’t live off the land, and they didn’t know how to hunt or fish. So they just lived until their food was gone and then killed themselves and their families in various ways. It was dreadfully sad.

     “And they say that’s where the plague came from. All the decaying bodies. They were able to find the ones in the streets and burn them. But there are tens of thousands of them still in the houses. In some cases whole families huddled together in death. Just rotting away without anybody knowing about them. The flies carried the disease from the corpses and landed on people. That’s how it started.”

     The rest of the trip was completed in somber silence. There just seemed nothing more to say.

-43-

     As they entered the last few miles of their journey, Scott picked up the walkie talkie and called in.

     “Whoever’s on the desk, this is Scott. Come in.”

     “Scott, this is Joyce. You’re very weak. Can you hear me?”

     “Yes, honey. A little bit of static, but otherwise clear. Your voice sounds like that of an angel.”

     “So does yours, honey. Did everything go okay?”

     “Yes, it went very well. We’re about half an hour out. You’ll have to wake up somebody to move the trees and open the gate for us.”

     Joyce laughed.

     “I don’t have to wake anybody up, Scott. They’re all standing behind me. They couldn’t sleep. Nobody could, knowing you and Tom were out there. And they all wanted to be up anyway, to welcome our new guests. We can’t wait to meet them.”

     Scott looked at Hannah, who put a hand to her mouth and started to tear up again.

     “10-4. I’ll call back when we’re five minutes away. You can probably pick us up on the tower cam by then.”

     “Okay, honey. I’ll be watching for you. And we’ll be ready.”

     At a little after 3:30 a.m., the blue tractor pulled into the compound and Linda replaced the mesquite trees at the end of the drive. Jordan closed the gate and then went over to the tractor to help carry in the luggage.

     The day before they’d had to do a little bit of juggling to make room in the house for Hannah and the girls. They’d finally given into Zachary’s pleas and let him move down to the basement. He was warned that even with a portable heater and extra insulation on the walls, it might get a little bit chilly down there in the wintertime.

     “Oh, who cares?” he’d said. It’ll still be the coolest place in the house.”

     Sara and Jordan moved in together, at last, into Jordan and Zachary’s old room. Even though they weren’t officially married, and likely never would be, they were very much in love. And Sara was pregnant, so the damage was already done. Scott was happy to find a case of Trojan condoms in the Walmart truck they’d unloaded. He gave them to Jordan and said, “Use these after the baby is born. So we don’t have to go through this again anytime soon.”

     Linda officially moved into Tom’s little cabin in the compound. Everybody knew she frequently snuck out there anyway, and since the secret was out there was no more need for pretense.

     And that left Linda’s and Sara’s old rooms for Hannah and the girls. They’d grown accustomed to sharing a single bed, so the second room would remain empty while they adjusted. Once the girls were comfortable with their surroundings, Hannah would move them out and have a bed to herself.

     After they’d been shown around the house and met everyone, Hannah asked Scott if she could use the ham radio to call John.

     He said, “Sure. And if you don’t mind keeping an eye on our security monitors, we’ll all clear out of here and give you some privacy. Just yell if you see anything on the monitors that looks suspicious.”

     “Oh, no. Please. John and I have no secrets. Besides, he promised to call me every day or two. You can’t hide every time we talk. But thank you for the thought. Girls, would you like to say hello to Dad on the radio?”

     “Yay!”

     Scott showed her how to use the radio. She’d used John’s before, but not recently, and this one was set up a little differently.

     “John, this is Hannah. Are you on?”

     “Hi, honey. Yes, I’ve been patiently waiting to hear from you. How was the trip?”

     “Not bad. These are wonderful people. They made sure we were comfortable. And they even managed to scare up some Twinkies for the girls.”

     “That’s great, honey. I’m already missing you.”

     “Me too, baby. It seems strange, us being the ones to leave. It’s always been you that left before, getting on that airplane and going off to war. It’s a little bit different from the other side.”

     “I’m beginning to see that myself. This old house was never as empty and lonely as it is right now.”

     Hannah managed a slight smile.

     “Hey, but at least you can wander around the whole house again, instead of being restricted to the living room and garage.”

     “True.”

    “Don’t forget your promise. I agreed to take the girls to safety, and you agreed to check yourself into the hospital. Today. Not tomorrow. That was the deal, remember?”

     “Of course I remember. You’d never let me forget. Sheesh!”

     This time Hannah chuckled.

     “Oh, don’t give me your ‘picked on little boy’ routine. You go in that hospital and get better so we can put this stage in our lives behind us and get reunited.”

     “Yes, ma’am. I’ll go today, just like I promised.”

     “And you talked to Robbie?”

     “Yes. I told him where I hid the spark plug wire for the generator and how to get it started. I told him the radio is set on the right frequency and not to mess with the dial. And I told him I’d leave the front door unlocked for him. And where the house key is hidden so he can lock it after that.”

     “Did you make him write it all down? You know how his memory is.”

     This time John laughed.

     “Yes. I not only made him write it down. I made him read it back to me.”

     “Atta boy.”

     “He’ll call you every day or two to let you know how I’m doing. And I’ll call you myself as soon as I get discharged, I promise. I love you, sweetheart.”

     “I love you too, honey.”

     “Are the girls there with you?”

     “Right here, Daddy!”

     “I love you guys. Remember what I said, now that I’m not around, it’s up to you two to keep your Mommy in line.”

     “Okay, Daddy. We will.”

     They giggled. Hannah stuck her tongue out at them.

     “And if she doesn’t behave herself, you have my permission to spank her.”

     Hannah looked at the girls and faked a shocked look.

     “Okay, Daddy. We will, the first time she misbehaves.”

     “Scott, are you there?”

     Hannah handed Scott the mike.

     “Right here, John.”

     “Thank you for this. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you…”

     He wasn’t finished with his thought, but choked up and couldn’t go on.

     “No thanks are necessary. But you can repay us by recovering and calling us back real soon so we can see the faces on these girls light up.”

     “Okay, that’s a deal. Hannah, baby, the generator’s starting to sputter. It’s almost out of fuel. I love you.”

     “I love you too, honey.”

     But John didn’t catch her last words. His generator died and he lost contact.

-44-

     Later in the day, little Misty was sitting in her mother’s lap, watching Finding Nemo.

     Zachary was in the compound, getting grilled by Rachel.

     “So, how old are you?”

     “Fourteen. How about you?”

     “Me too. When is your birthday?”

     “April third.”

     “Ha! Mine is September tenth. I’m older than you. I’ll be fifteen next month.”

     “Okay.”

     “Don’t try to get fresh with me. My daddy was a Marine. He taught me karate and jiu jitsu. Do you know what that is?”

     “Are you kidding me? I can’t even spell it.”

     “Where did you go to school?”

     “Jay Middle School. How about you?”

     “Vale. We kicked your butts in football.”

     “I know. But our football team sucked. Everybody kicked our butts.”

     “You got that right.”

     “Can I ask you a question?”

     “Yeah, sure.”

     “Is your little sister as mean as you are?”

     “Do you really think I’m mean?”

     “Well, to be honest, you’re not being very friendly.”

     “I’m just trying to set boundaries. Dad says it’s important that I set boundaries with boys right from the start. Because otherwise they’ll start thinking that they can be my boyfriend and thinking I’ll kiss them and stuff like that.”

     “Did it ever occur to you that when you’re so mean to boys from the start that you might scare them all off? And that maybe you’ll never have a boyfriend?”

     She paused just long enough to think about it.

     “Why? Are you scared of me?”

     “No. But I’d never try to kiss you or anything with the way you’re acting.”

     “Really? Good. Because if you ever try, I’ll kick your butt.”

     Zachary smiled, but didn’t say anything else. If there was anything he enjoyed, it was a good challenge.

     “So, I thought you were going to show me around this place. Are we gonna stand here all day, or what?”

     Zachary took her first to the huge garden that Linda and Joyce tended in the compound behind the house. Rachel seemed mesmerized by the variety of vegetables and fruits they were growing. She stopped short when she came to the strawberries and looked longingly at them. Zachary suddenly felt sadness for her, when he realized the life she must have led in the previous months.

     “Go ahead. Pick a few. Mom says she doesn’t care if we raid her garden, and long as we don’t go too crazy.”

     She wanted to, but was bound by a promise she’d made.

     “No. I can’t. I promised my mom I’d be on my best behavior.”

     “Fine. I’ll pick enough for both of us then.”

     Zach picked a handful of the most succulent of the berries. He had no intention of eating any of them himself. Instead, he passed them to her one or two at a time while they walked.

     He led her to the feed barn, and asked if she wanted to help him.

     “Do what?”

     “One of my chores is to feed the horses, rabbits, pigs and chickens twice a day.”

     “Okay. What do I do?”

     “First, the horses. There are four buckets, one for each horse. You grab two and I’ll grab the other two.”

     “Okay.”

     They took the buckets to an open bag of horse feed, and pulled out two scoops of pellets for each bucket. Then, from a wicker basket on a shelf, Zach took four apples. One for each bucket.

     “When we dump the buckets into their feed bins, the feed pellets will cover up the apples. It’s fun to watch them, because they’ll use their noses and move the pellets around, or blow them out of the way with their nostrils so they can get to the apple. They always eat the apples first.”

     They dumped the buckets into feed bins in each of the horses’ stalls, and watched as Bonnie did exactly what Zach predicted. Digging out her dessert before she ate her breakfast.

     Rachel said, “I’m surprised you feed them apples. I’ve dreamed of having apples, and there just weren’t any to be found.”

     He explained, “One of my other chores is to go to the apple tree by the fishing pond every couple of days and pick a few apples to bring back for everybody. While I’m there, I take a second bucket and pick up the apples that have fallen on the ground. I look at them, and if they look rotten, I’ll just leave them there. But if they’re only slightly bruised, I’ll bring them back for the horses. Do you ride?

     “No. But I’d like to learn if you’ll teach me.”

     “Okay. I’m not real good myself yet. I only learned a few months ago. But I’ll teach you what I know.”

     They pulled off two flakes of hay for each of the horses, and fed the pigs.

     At least Zach fed the pigs. Rachel watched from a distance, refusing to go too close because of the smell.

     “Ewwww,” she said. “They stink something awful! I’ll never eat bacon again.”

     Zachary laughed and said, “I’ll bet you will.”

     The cattle were still grazing and needed no food. They fed the chickens and the rabbits, then took a walk out of the compound and to the huge old apple tree by the pond.

     “Dad and Joyce planted some more trees, over that way. More apples, but different kinds than these. Also peaches and pecans and plums, I think. They don’t have any fruit on them yet, so these will have to do for another couple of years or so. But they’re good apples.”

     Rachel thought so too. She ate two of them while they sat under the tree getting to know each other. She’d have eaten more, but she felt her stomach getting just a bit queasy.

     And she found two of the best looking apples on the tree to take back to her mom and sister.

     By the time they made it back to the house, they were on much better terms. She, for her part, softened just a bit. At least enough to have opened up a bit on her dreams for the future.

     As for Zachary, he was still trying to decide whether he liked this girl or not. She had a rough exterior, but he suspected she was all girl on the inside. She might never become his girlfriend, but they’d at least be great friends. He was sure of that. As long as she didn’t start threatening to beat him up again.

-45-

     There was no longer room at the dining room table for everyone in the group, so they set up a kids table in the corner of the dining room for Zach, Rachel and Misty.

     At first, Zach was offended, and stated so.

     “I’m not a damn kid anymore. I’m fourteen years old!”

     Linda was having none of that.

     “You use that word again you’ll be fourteen years old and missing some teeth, young man. And last I heard, fourteen wasn’t grown up yet. So technically you’re still a kid.”

     He sulked, until little Misty chimed in.

     “If you’re not a kid, how come you’re acting like one?”

     Out of the mouths of babes…

     In the end, though, Zachary learned to like the kids table. He got to sit next to Rachel, who he was developing a real fondness for, and they could talk about things that interested them, instead of the gloom and doom that the adult conversation usually steered to.

     On this particular evening, talk at the “big people table” turned to the changing weather, and things that needed to be done before winter set in.

     Scott said, “We still need to dig that trash pit before the ground gets hard. It’s a lot harder to get motivated to go out and work when it’s cold outside, too. Jordan, do you want to help me?”

     “Sure. But tell me again why we need a trash pit? I mean, we’ve been burning the trash in a pile all this time and it seems to have worked out fine.”

     Scott laughed.

     “Sure, it seemed to for you, because you were always in the house watching it from the windows. You weren’t the one out there when the wind started to swirl, standing by with a water hose in case one of the embers got blown onto the roof of one of the barns.”

     Tom added his two cents.

     “Yep. The wind does tend to go in circles inside the compound. I guess that’s Mother Nature’s way of telling you she wasn’t happy about you putting up a big fence to block her wind’s natural course. But I’ll help as well. What’s your plan?”

     “I thought I’d dig a pit about six feet square and sixteen feet deep. Not so deep we can’t climb back out of it with a ladder. Put sections of irrigation pipe in the corners with half inch holes drilled in it so it gets air all the way down. Then once it’s done we can just fill it up with garbage. When it’s full we can dump a little gas on it, let it smolder as long as it wants until it burns down to ashes. Then we can fill it back up again.”

     “How do you plan to keep the youngsters or the animals from falling into it?”

     “Well, I first thought about putting a plywood fence around it, but decided that might be a bad idea because of the ember problem. Then I remembered that we have all that sheet metal left over from when we turned one of the barns into a big Faraday cage. Might as well put it to use to line the plywood on the inside of the fence so it doesn’t catch fire and burn down.

     “Want to start tomorrow?”

     “Sure. Why not? With the three of us working a few hours a day, it shouldn’t take but a few days. Then maybe we can start thinning the herd after that.”

     That got Joyce’s attention.

     “You’re going to thin the herd? But why?”

     “I’ll let Tom explain it. He’s the expert, and the one who suggested it.”

     Tom finished chewing a bite of pork roast and said, “You’ve got too many cattle. You should only have two bulls. Your best breeding bull, and another one in case the first one goes sterile or dies. And two or three cows. If you have any more than that, they’re just taking up space and eating up your feed supply.”

     “Well, I guess that makes sense.”

     “Something else we’ve decided to do is talk to John when he gets out of the hospital. See if he can find a big patch of grazing land and the people to guard it. If he can set something up where a herd of cattle can grow without somebody poaching them, then we’ll take him a bull and a couple of cows. If they slaughter their oldest cow for every second calf that’s born, their herd will grow and also give everybody an occasional steak. Eventually their herd will be big enough to feed hundreds of people, if they can protect it.”

     “So after what we want to leave for our own herd, and what we want to take down the mountain, we’ll have three head to butcher.”

     “Wow, that’s a lot of beef. Where are we gonna put it all?”

     Tom said, “I looked at the chest freezer over at my place. When I cranked up the generator, it seemed to work fine. So Scott and I are going to put it across the bed of one of the Gators and haul it over here. Between that one and the two you’ve already got, it should hold most of the beef. And we’re going to turn a bunch of it into beef jerky to take back down the mountain with us. It’ll be shelf stable and won’t have to be refrigerated, but will retain most of the protein that those folks will need down there.”

     “Have you guys ever butchered a cow before?”

     “I have, many times. And I’m going to walk Scott through the process. Anybody else who wants to learn, too. It’s one of those things that you never know if you’re going to have to do someday. Especially in these troubled times we live in.”

     Linda said, “I’d like to learn.”

     “Well, come on out then, little lady. The more the merrier. But I have to warn you ahead of time, it’s not a clean process. You’re likely to lose your appetite for meat for a few days the first couple of times. It’s not like walking into a supermarket and picking up a couple of steaks.

     “After a time or two, though, you’ll get past the bad part and won’t think anything of it.”

     “Okay, count me in. When do we start?”

     “We’ll wait until after we dig the trash pit. By then we’ll see if the flies are gone for the year. If they’re gone, we’ll go ahead and do the butcherin’”

     “What do the flies have to do with it?”

     “Once we skin the carcass we’ll hang it up to cure for a day before we cut it up. That lets the adrenaline work its way out of the meat and it tastes better. If you’ve ever eaten beef with adrenaline in it, you’ll know how bad it tastes.

     “We need to wait until the flies are gone so they don’t lay eggs in the beef while it’s curing. Don’t want maggots in the meat either.”

     Joyce put down her fork and looked Tom directly in the eye.

     “Would you three mind terribly finding something to talk about besides blood and guts and maggots? Some of us are still trying to eat our dinner.”

     Tom felt sheepish.

     “Oh. Sorry.”

-46-

     Hannah was a go-getter and a hard charger. She jumped right in, helping out wherever she could and insisting that she and the girls have chores to do like all the others.

     Linda tried to protest.

    “But you’re our guests here. After everything you’ve been through, you should just relax and enjoy life again.”

     But Hannah was having none of it.

     “I appreciate it, sweetie. But us being here makes more work for everyone else. More food to cook, more vegetables to pick, more dishes to wash. It’s only fair that we pitch in to help. And besides, it may sound strange, but doing housework and working in a garden and doing laundry makes me feel… normal. And I haven’t felt normal in quite a while.”

     Jordan happened to be walking by.

     “Oh, then you can relate to Zachary. He’s never been normal.”

     Zachary, working the security console nearby, yelled, “I heard that. Shut up, Butthead!”

     Hannah spent some time with Sara too. They’d taken out a calendar and tried to figure out when she’d conceived. Their best guess was that she was about five months along now, give or take two weeks. That meant they’d welcome in the new year with a new baby.

     Hannah was concerned, though, to find that Sara’s family tended to miscarry, especially with the first baby.

     “My mom had two miscarriages before she had me,” Sara told her. “My aunt had them too. She, my aunt, never was able to have any children. I was the only one for my mom. She said she wasn’t up for trying for a second one. She used to call me her special gift when I was little.”

     Hannah wasn’t aware of the recent problems Sara had had with her mom and step father.

     “Your mother sounds like a very sweet woman.”

     “Yes. She once was.”

     Hannah sensed there was more to tell, but Sara didn’t seem to want to talk about it. So she didn’t pry.

     They would have been interrupted in the middle of it anyway.

     “Hannah!” Joyce yelled from the security console. “Robbie’s on the radio for you!”

     Hannah went running. It had been two days since Robbie’s last update on John. Two long days of wondering and worrying, and it had been driving her crazy.

     “Hi, Robbie. It’s Hannah. How’s he doing?”

     “Well, it seems to have hit him pretty hard. The doctor said he’s having a rough time of it because he was just so damn exhausted, and that complicated things. Also, the doc said he waited too long to go in. He should have gone as soon as he felt the symptoms.”

     “That’s my fault. He wouldn’t go in until the girls and I were safely away from there.”

     “Oh, hush. It’s nobody’s fault. And the doc says he should be fine despite that. It just might take him a little longer to recover.”

     “Did they say how long?”

     “No. They said it depends on how their supply of amoxicillin holds out. Did you know he’s allergic to penicillin?”

     “Yes, I knew that.”

     “Well, the penicillin is plentiful, but they couldn’t give him that. They’re giving him amoxicillin instead, but they don’t have a lot of it, so they’re only giving him half doses. They say it’ll keep the infection in check, and will eventually cure him, but it’ll take longer.

     “I guess the bottom line is this. Get comfortable and don’t promise the girls he’ll be out any time soon, because it may be a few months.”

     A tear formed in Hannah’s eye but she ignored it.

     “That must be driving John crazy. He hates lying in bed. He always has.”

     “Oh, you don’t know the half of it. He’s driving the nurses nuts. Keeps trying to get up and walk around. They had to hide his prosthesis, thinking that would keep him in bed. But he got out anyway, started hopping around on one leg. Said he needed his exercise despite his exhaustion.”

     “Yep. That’s John, all right.”

     “Anyway, the doctors finally told him he was too weak for such foolishness and that such antics would delay his recovery even more. That’s when he finally calmed down and accepted the inevitable.”

     “Did he have any messages for me and the girls?”

     “Just that he loves you all very much and to please give the girls each a kiss. But he said to be sure to say it was from him so they knew it was special. Otherwise they’d think it was just a regular old Mommy kiss.”

     Hannah managed a laugh.

     “Tell him I love him too. And thank you, Robbie.”

     “You bet. I’ll call again in a couple of days. Signing off now.”

     Joyce looked at Hannah and said, “He sounds like a wonderful man.”

     “He is. He really, really is.”

-47-

     While the men were digging a big hole in the yard, the women had their own fall project. They’d taken two ladders to the old apple tree behind the compound, down by the fishing hole. And they picked as many apples from the tree as they could, so they didn’t freeze on the tree when winter set in and went to waste.

     After they’d gotten as many as they could reach, they tied a rope around the branches and played tug-of-war with them, trying to shake them enough to make the higher apples fall. And they were successful, for the most part.

     Their yield was a little over two bushels. Not bad at all for one old tree that had been picked at all season.

     And for the next three days it was hard for any of the group to walk into the house without feeling their mouth water. The women had baked five apple pies. Three were served after dinner, on three consecutive nights, with fresh cranked homemade vanilla ice cream. The others went into the freezer for another time.

     The apples that weren’t used for pies were canned or turned into apple butter.

     Their next mission was to gather as many pecans as they could from an old pecan tree even farther back on the property. They were a poor quality nut, not much bigger than a hazelnut, and with thick shells. But it was all they had until the paper shell pecan trees they’d planted started bearing more nuts. So they would have to do. They shelled them and put the nuts aside for Thanksgiving.

     As Tom put it, “I won’t mind having chicken for Thanksgiving instead of turkey. So long as there’s some good ole Texas pecan pie to wash it down with.”

     Linda did manage to put enough of the pecans aside to make a batch of pecan rolls. When they were hot out of the oven, she took a tray out to the yard for the men working on the pit.

     And after they finished the treat, she stayed and watched them for awhile, fascinated by the project.

     They were about twelve feet deep or so, judging by the distance the sixteen foot ladder protruding from the hole.

     Scott climbed down the ladder to take his turn. Jordan had just finished his shift in the hole, and was covered with dirt.

     Once Scott was at the bottom, Tom lifted the ladder to give him more space.

     Linda peered over the side and saw Scott below, digging up dirt and filling four buckets. Each bucket was attached to a rope, which was tied loosely to the bumper of the Gator.

     Once the buckets were filled, Scott yelled, “Okay.” Then he stood back to take a break while Tom and Jordan pulled the buckets to the top and dumped them into the back of the Gator. Once they dumped them, they lowered them back down and repeated the process.

     “Where are y’all dumping the dirt?”

     “We’re using it to build a low berm around the corn and wheat field. It’ll help keep some of the rainwater from running off before it can soak into the ground. Hopefully it’ll make it easier to irrigate the crops.”

     “It looks like a slow process.”

     “Well, yeah. But it’s not that bad. We’re pulling out about three feet a day or so, and this time a year there’s not much else to do. No crops to tend or anything.”

     “When are you going to start your butchering?”

     “We’re going to see what the weather looks like after we finish this project. If it’s still warm like this, and the flies are still out, we’ll wait a little longer. Bringing in the hay and tall grass will take four or five days. We’ll do that while we’re waiting for the flies to die off. Then we’ll winterize all the equipment and dismantle the shed over at my place.”

     “How come?”

     “To give the cattle some shade. The shed ain’t doing any good over there. So we’re gonna bring it over here and put it in the pasture, over the stock tank. Next summer it’ll keep the direct sunlight off of the cattle’s water and give them a little bit of shade on a hot day. Nothing worse than drinking hot water on a hot day, whether you’re a man or a cow.”

     “That’s true. You’re a good man, Tom Haskins, thinking of the herd and all like that.”

     “Well, I figure they give their all for us. Might as well be civil to ‘em. Even if they are dumb animals. They’re still God’s creatures, and they give us an opportunity to survive. What are you ladies working on the next few days?”

     “We’re going to start harvesting everything in the garden today. I figure we’ve got three or four bushels of cucumbers and squash, and probably that much of tomatoes and potatoes. And that’s just the beginning.”

     “What are you going to do with ‘em?”

     “We’re making pickles out of half the cukes, then canning the rest. Canning the tomatoes and squash. We’ll put twenty pounds of potatoes in paper bags, then put ‘em in a tub surrounded by peat moss. According to the research we did on the internet last year, that’s the best way to preserve them so we can cut them into plugs for the spring planting.”

     “Joyce is going to use some of them to slice real thin and make potato chips. And the rest we’ll dry out in the oven. Some thick sliced for au gratin potatoes, and some grated for potato flakes.”

     “So I don’t have to give up my taters and country gravy over the winter months?”

     “No way, Cowboy. I know you wouldn’t survive without your taters and country gravy.”

     Tom smiled and leaned over to kiss her.

     “Ew, back off, Cowboy. You’re covered in dirt.”

     “Aw, a little dirt never hurt nobody.”

     “Come and see me after you clean up later. Then we’ll talk about it. You boys want some iced tea?”

     “Sure, that’d be nice, and thank you.”

     Linda turned to go into the house and met Sara halfway.

     Sarah asked, “What can I do to help the harvest? Hannah says we’re going to start gathering vegetables today.”

     “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

     “Oh, yes. Hannah says it’s important that I stay active and get some exercise, right up until the end. And that I need to spend time in the sun too so the baby gets lots of vitamin D.”

     “Well, I’m getting ready to bring the boys some iced tea, and then we’ll pull out the bushel baskets and start picking. Is it just us?”

     “Nope. Joyce and Hannah are both changing into old clothes. They said they’d be out in a minute. Zachary’s manning the security console and Rachel is going to keep him company. Misty said she would help us pick, if she can eat a strawberry occasionally.

     “So we’ll have plenty of help. It should be lots of fun. Oh, and can I help you do the canning, too? I want to learn how to do that.”

     “Sure, honey. The more people who know how the better.”

-48-

     Summer took its last gasps and then surrendered to fall. The nights turned cool enough for light jackets, and Duke and Duchess started seeking out the sunny spots to lay, instead of hiding from them.

     Thanksgiving came and went. Everyone sat together and held hands around the table as Tom said an old cowboy prayer handed down from his grandfather. At the kids’ table, Zachary continued to hold Rachel’s hand even after the prayer had ended, until she noticed and pulled it away. But she didn’t mind. She thought it was kind of sweet.

     Everyone in turn talked of something they were grateful for over the waning year. In a year where the world was in such chaos, it was still possible to find some joyful things. Tom said he was most grateful for finding Linda, and she blushed. Linda said she was most grateful that her family was given a chance to survive, when so many others couldn’t. Scott was most thankful for Joyce and the help she gave him to make the compound possible. Joyce was most thankful for such a wonderful group of people that God had brought together.

     Hannah, of course, was most grateful for Tom and Scott plucking her and her daughters from a dreadful situation, and for God watching over her sick husband and keeping him safe. Sara was most happy for the baby inside of her, and she glowed as she spoke of it. Jordan seconded her sentiment, and threw in that he was lucky to have found someone as wonderful as Sara.

     Zachary said he was most grateful that everyone present was healthy and seemed to get along well together. Rachel thanked the group for making her feel so welcome and said she was grateful to have a safe place to sleep at night. Misty generated some smiles when she said she was most grateful that not all the doggies died. “And for strawberries,” she added.

     All in all, things were going fairly well. Because that’s the way life usually goes, just before something goes terribly wrong.

     On the Monday after Thanksgiving, Scott and Tom moved several of the dead mesquite trees that stood guard between Scott’s place and Tom’s.

     They cut the barbed wire and took out a fence post to allow free access for the equipment they’d need to move back and forth between the properties. And then they drove Scott’s Ford tractor over to Tom’s place to hook up to Tom’s mower.

     The mower wasn’t powered. It was made to drag behind the tractor, and the turning of the wheels cranked two huge blades. Tom kept the blades almost sharp enough to shave with, and they did a very effective job of cutting Tom’s hay field, as well as the tall grass that grew wild in the region.

     Scott didn’t know beans about using a hay baler, so he ran the mower across Tom’s whole property. Tom followed closely behind with the baler, which dropped bales every forty to two hundred feet, depending on how thick the growth was.

     Jordan and Zachary had the hard part. They each drove Gators in tandem, right up to the bales. Jordan  lifted half the bales onto the back of the Gators, and helped Zachary with the other half. Zach couldn’t quite get them up high enough on his own.

     “There’s got to be a better way to do this,” Jordan announced after he helped his little brother lift the tenth bale.

     “I’ll tell you what. If I put them on the Gator, can you drag them off back at the barn?”

     “Yes. It’s a whole lot easier getting them off than getting them on.”

     “Okay. Instead of loading both Gators at the same time, I’ll load one, and you can take it back and off load it while I’m loading up the second one. Then you can come back and get it, and we’ll just keep swapping out. Okay?”

     “Sure. Sounds like a good plan.”

     And it was. It seemed to work quite well.

     Around mid afternoon, Zachary came back from the compound with a thermos full of iced tea and some plastic cups. He waved down his father and Tom, who drove their equipment over to the boys and took a break.

     “Joyce gave me this and said to bring it back, that we were probably ready for it. And there’s something going on back at the house.”

     Scott suddenly got concerned.

     “What do you mean?”

     “All the women are crying. Even Sara. I asked Joyce what was the matter. She just shooed me away.”

     Scott looked at Jordan, and knew exactly what he was thinking.

     “No. I’m sure the baby’s fine. I’ll go check it out. You go get on the tractor, and just drag the mower back and forth over the grass. The mower will do all the work.”

     Scott jumped on the full Gator and drove back to the compound.

     Linda was standing at the kitchen window and saw him pull into the yard. She met him outside.

     “What’s wrong? What happened?”

     “It’s John. Hannah got a call from their friend in San Antonio. Robbie, I think. He said that John has gone into a coma. That they were so short of amoxicillin that they weren’t giving him as much as he needed. And that he took a turn for the worse.”

     “Oh, no.”

     Scott kicked hard at the dirt beneath his feet.

     “This wasn’t supposed to happen. John is a strong man. A combat veteran. A wounded warrior. He lost a leg in Iraq, and still came home to serve his community. Was fighting very hard to save people he didn’t even know, day in and day out. This shouldn’t happen to a man like John. It just isn’t fair.”

     “I know, Scott. It isn’t fair. None of this is fair. It hasn’t been fair for a very long time. John’s not the only one. Millions and millions of good people have died. At least John’s still alive.”

     “What did the doctors say?”

     “They said not to give up hope. They said if they can find some more amoxicillin to give him, to finally kill the infection, that he may have a fighting chance. Right now they just don’t have enough to fight his infection. And if they give him penicillin, it’ll kill him.”

     “Where’s Joyce?”

     “Inside, trying to comfort Hannah and the girls.”

     Scott turned on his heels.

     “Hey, where are you going?”

     “I’ve got to talk to Tom.”

     “Why?”

     “Because Tom did his shopping in Junction. I didn’t. Tom will know where the pharmacies are in Junction. He can draw me a map.”

-49-

     Tom was adamant.

     “No, Scott. I’m not going to let you go. It’ll be safer this way, I swear.”

     “Safer for me, maybe. But not for you. This isn’t your problem. John is a friend of mine. You’ve never even talked to him. This is my mission to go on. Not yours.”

     Tom smiled. He was only twelve years older than Scott, but sometimes his demeanor made it easy to think of him in a grandfather role, or as a wise statesman. And when he took that tact, he was usually able to speak calmly and rationally, and to bring others to his way of thinking.

     “Look, Scott. I know you want to rush off and help your friend. But we have to look at this rationally. If you drive into Junction on your Gator looking for a pharmacy, somebody is going to shoot you right off of it and take it from you. If you’re lucky, you’ll die right away. If you’re not lucky, you’ll lay there and die a miserable death. Either way, they’ll have the Gator and you’ll be dead and you won’t do John a damn bit of good.

     “The same thing will happen if you drive my Ford in there. Whoever is left alive will be hungry and desperate. They’ve probably been raiding Walmart trucks at the truck stop for months, just to stay alive. A working vehicle will give them mobility. A chance to venture out for better food and other provisions. They’ll be desperate. And they probably won’t ask. They’ll probably just take.”

     “How about if I ride in on horseback?”

     “Seriously?”

     “Yes. You used Bonnie to go into town to get your auto parts. Why can’t I do the same thing to get medicine?”

     “Well, partner, I hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings, but you can’t ride a horse worth a damn. Oh, you do okay when the horse is walking down the road or moving along at an easy gallop. But if somebody starts shooting in your direction and you have to high-tail it into the brush you’ll fall off the damn thing for sure.

     “It makes much more sense for me to ride in. I can take off on Bonnie like a bolt of lightning if I need to. But here’s the deal, partner. I’ve lived up here for a lot of years. Done my shopping and other business in Junction since I was a whippersnapper. I know most of those people. And even if they’re desperate, I think I can deal with them. I’ll take some food in a knapsack. I can trade it for the medicine if I need to, or exchange it for safe passage. If I have to, I can promise to bring more back. They know me, and they know I’m a man of my word. They don’t know you from Adam.”

     “Well, what if we both go together?”

     “No. You on horseback is still a bad idea, even if I’m with you. And we shouldn’t be going anywhere together. The two of us together is a bad idea, because we don’t want to risk these women folk losing two of their men at the same time. We come in handy around here, you see, for lifting heavy things and stuff like that.”

      He smiled at Joyce and Linda, who were listening in but not saying anything.

     Tom turned back to Scott.

     “Look, I know we went down the mountain together to deliver the wheat and to pick up Hannah and the girls. But that couldn’t be helped. You couldn’t have gotten the truck down there and into position without me. And I couldn’t have found the right place without you. So we had no choice but to team up.

     “But this is different. There’s absolutely no reason for two of us to go after medicine. I can do it on my own.”

     Scott thought for a minute, and then relented.

     “Okay. You go to Junction and get it. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on things. And after you get back with it, I’ll go down the mountain and deliver it, and you can stay back. Fair enough?”

     “Now you’re talking sense, little buddy.”

     Scott had to admit, Tom was very good at thinking things through instead of going off half-cocked.

     “Now, let’s go finish up that hay before we lose the daylight. I’ll set off for Junction first thing in the morning.”

     Tom and were pleasantly surprised that the boys had made good progress during their debate. Jordan didn’t know how to run the baler, but he’d stopped mowing long enough to load the second gator for Zachary, and Zach was headed back with it. He waved as they passed each other along the way.

     Jordan was back on the tractor, making short work of the tall grass.

     Scott said, “How about showing me how to use the baler? After we finish up here, we’ll move the equipment over to my place and do it while you’re gone tomorrow.”

     “Sounds like a good plan to me. Climb on board and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

-50-

     It was just after daybreak when Tom walked out his door and over to the stables to saddle Bonnie. Bonnie loved to get out, and started pawing at the ground as soon as she saw him opening up the door to the tack room. They’d been together for going on ten years, and were quite close. If horses were capable of feeling love, then she surely felt it for Tom.

     While Tom was at the stables, Linda went to the kitchen and fixed him some bacon and eggs. Everyone else in the house was sleeping except for Sara, who was on the security desk.

     “Would you like some breakfast, honey?”

     “Sure. That sounds wonderful. Thank you.”

     Linda put the eggs into the fry pan and then slipped away for just a moment with Sara. She walked up behind her and hugged her.

     “How are you feeling this morning?”

     “Fine. The baby kicked again last night. I’m starting to love that feeling, even though it hurts a little sometimes. It reminds me that there’s a tiny little person in there. I hope he looks just like Jordan.”

     Linda chuckled.

     “I don’t know. I kinda hope she looks just like you.”

     Sara smiled.

     “Well, whether it’s a boy or a girl, it’s going to be the most loved baby ever.”

     “Yes indeed. I’m so looking forward to being a grandmother. At first it scared me a little bit. The term ‘grandmother’ conjures up visions of little old gray haired ladies in my mind. But then I remembered something my own grandmother said to me once. She said that grandchildren don’t make you old. They bring such joy that they keep you young. I hope she’s right.”

     “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you what Jordan said last night.”

     The mischievous smile on Sara’s face made Linda curious.

     “Just what did my son the big turd say?”

     “He said he was going to teach the baby to call you ‘Granny Goose.’”

     Linda went back to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “Oh, you just wait until he gets up. I’m going to beat that boy silly.”

     “Don’t be too hard on him. When I got up to relieve Joyce he stirred a bit and then woke up. He’s all stiff this morning, and in a lot of pain.”

     “Why?”

     “From lifting hay bales all day yesterday. He said he used muscles he’s never used before.”

     “I’ll be sure and give him some ibuprofen with his coffee this morning.”

     Tom tied Bonnie to the hitching post by the back door and came inside.

     “Smells good in here. Nothing like the smell of bacon frying to get a man moving in the morning.”

     He looked around.

     “Everybody else still sleeping?”

     “Most of them. Seems you and Scott wore everybody out yesterday.”

     “Ah, hard work’s good for ‘em. They’ll get up, as soon as that bacon smell starts drifting down the hallway. It’s like a pretty girl in a short skirt. It’s kinda hard to resist.”

     “Oh, listen at you, mister feisty pants. Didn’t last night get it out of your system?”

     Sara, from the other room, reminded Tom and Linda they weren’t alone.

     “I’m here, you two, in case you’ve forgotten.”

     Linda blushed and Tom chuckled. “You’re cute when you’re red.”

     Tom was right about the bacon smell. Before he finished his breakfast, everyone except Joyce had stumbled into the kitchen for coffee and food. Joyce had just gotten off security detail two hours before and would sleep right through breakfast, bacon smell or not.

     It was a good thing Linda made plenty of extra.

     After breakfast, Linda walked Tom outside to tell him goodbye. The rest of the group gave them their privacy, except when Hannah rushed outside to hug him and thank him for what he was doing.

     “Ah, shucks, it ain’t nothing. John’s one of us now, he just ain’t here is all. And I’m sure he’d do the same for me.”

     Linda kissed him goodbye and told him to be careful. Then she opened the gate to let him out. Scott had already moved the mesquite tree at the end of the drive, and he and Linda waved at him as he rode off into the early morning sun.

-51-

     An hour and a half later, Tom slowed Bonnie to a walk and drew closer to a checkpoint blocking the road.

     A sheet of plywood leaned against two sawhorses. Spray painted across the plywood were orange letters.

             STOP! OUTSIDERS NOT WELCOME.

     Behind the barricade were two armed men. Tom didn’t recognize either one.

     “Hold up there, mister. State your business.”

     “I’m headed to Johnson’s Drug Store to buy some medicine.”

     “Johnson’s Drug Store is closed. Has been for a spell. Are you familiar with it?”

     “Tony Johnson and I have known each other for years. And I shopped there even before he ran it. When Frank, his father, was still alive. What’s with the roadblock?”

     “Trying to keep out strangers from San Antonio. They been coming up on horseback, or on bicycles. Some on foot. Coming up here looking for provisions. We ain’t even got enough food for our own families, let alone strangers and theirs.”

     “Well, I ain’t after no food. Just need some medicine is all. And I ain’t from San Antonio. I live eight miles from here, off Highway 83.”

     “Before or after the Cutler Ranch?”

     “Just east of it.”

     The two men whispered between themselves, obviously debating whether Tom was enough of their own to pass by.

     A third man walked up behind them.

     “Let him through.”

     He was obviously the man in charge.

     Tom rode past the barricade and up to the third man, then leaned over to shake his hand.

     “Hello, Keith. How have you been?”

     “Been better, Tom, but it don’t do no good to complain. I’d have guessed you to be dead. Haven’t seen you since this whole ruckus started.”

     “No. Had some trouble at my place one night. A couple of fellas trying to take stuff that didn’t belong to ‘em. Since then I’ve just been hunkered down and laying low. I’m just coming to town now because I need medicine.”

     “Well, the Walgreen’s been busted into, and so’s the CVS. They’ve both been picked at, but if you can find what you need, just help yourself to it.”

     “Thanks, but I’d rather deal with Tony Johnson if he’s still around. He still lives in the house next to his drug store, right?”

     “Last I heard. He’ll be happy to see you’re still alive. We’ve lost so many of our own, Tom, it’s nice to see an old face.”

     “I know what you mean, Keith. Thanks for getting me in the door.”

     “I hope these boys didn’t give you too hard a time.”

     “Nope. Not at all. They’re just protecting what’s theirs. I understand.”

     “You take care, my friend. I hope you can find the medicine you need to get you better.”

     “Thank you, Keith.”

     Tom gave Bonnie a small kick and rode the rest of the way into town. It was still. Deathly quiet.

     He rode up to Johnson’s Drug Store and tied Bonnie to a small tree outside it. Then he took a pouch off the back, behind the saddle, and carried it to the house next door.

     He didn’t go up to the porch, though. He suspected it was a good way to get shot.

     “Hello in the house,” he said in a loud voice. Tom Haskins here, looking for Tony.”

     Tom saw a curtain move in the front window, then heard a deadbolt unlock. The front door opened and a familiar face came out.

     “Well, I’ll be damned. As I live and breathe, it’s old Tom Haskins. It’s good to see you, Tom, I figured you were dead.”

     “Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

     “Come on in. Get out of the sun.”

     “Okay, but just for a minute. I need to do some business and then head back.”

     In the living room, Tony sat across from Tom and said, “Okay, Tom, what kind of business?”

     “I need some medicine. Some amoxicillin. However much you think is safe to spare.”

     “Well hell, that would be all of it. Ain’t nobody asked me for any, so I guess nobody else needs it. I reckon the two big drug stores downtown have enough for everybody else. You got an infection of some kind? You didn’t catch the clap again, did you?”

     Tony smiled. It almost seemed out of place under the current situation.

     “Not me, it’s for a friend. He’s in bad shape, and he’s allergic to penicillin.”

     “Well, I’m sorry for your friend. I hope he pulls through. Let’s go next door and see what we’ve got.”

     Tom looked around. “Where’s Cathy? I might as well say hello to her too while I’m here.”

     The look of pain on Tony’s face told Tom he’d stepped in it with both feet.

     “Oh Jesus, Tony. I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

     “I’m sorry too, Tom. She was a wonderful woman. But she couldn’t handle it. She chose her own way and went peacefully. And I know I’ll see her again someday.”

     Tony took his key ring from a hook by the front door. The two walked in silence to the drug store next door.

     “I’ll get the amoxicillin from the back. You’d never be able to find it. Look around and grab whatever else you think you might need.”

     Tom looked, but didn’t see anything the group was hurting for. So he left it all on the shelves.

     Tony returned with a plastic bag full of bottles.

     “Like I said, nobody else has asked for this stuff, so you can take it all. It’s not doing anybody any good collecting dust on a shelf.”

     “Thank you, Tony. I wish I had cash money to pay you. But I spent it all on provisions.”

     “Oh, hell, Tom, you don’t have to pay me. Besides, money’s no good any more anyway. All the banks are out of business, I hear probably forever. Consider this a gift, from one old friend to another.”

     Tom hefted the pouch onto the counter and opened it. He took out two large zip lock bags.

     “Eight pounds of beef jerky. I made it myself, and I don’t mind telling you it’s damn good.”

     He could see Tony’s mouth water, and wondered how long it had been since he had a decent meal.

     “Oh hell, I told you, Tom. You don’t have to pay me.”

     Tom threw Tony’s words back at him.

     “It’s not payment, Tony. Consider this a gift, from one old friend to another.”

     Tom stuffed the medication into the empty pouch and rolled it closed. Tony walked him out to the front of the store.

     “Is there a place where Bonnie can get a drink before we head back?”

     “The water plant is still down. Take her around back. There’s a stream back there. I’ve been getting my water from there and boiling it over an open fire.”

     Tom mounted up, then leaned over and shook his friend’s hand.

     “Good luck to you, my friend. The worst is over now. It won’t be easy for a long time, but we’ve made it this far. We can go the rest of the way.”

     “Good luck to you too, Tom. Don’t be such a stranger.”

     Tom tipped his hat and rode Bonnie around to the stream to let her fill up before the two hour ride home.

-52-

     When he was twenty minutes away from the compound, Tom reached down and pulled the walkie talkie from his saddlebag. He stopped under a shady oak tree to let Bonnie catch her breath and sample the tall grass beneath the tree while he turned it on.

     “Scott, this is Tom. You out there?”

     “Tom, this is Joyce. Scott’s sleeping so he can get out tonight. How are things with you?”

     “Everything’s good. I got what we needed, and I’m on my way back. Should be there in about fifteen, twenty minutes.”

     “Okay. We’ll have the gate open and the welcome mat out for you.”

     A short time later Tom rode into the yard. He was just barely off his horse before Linda was upon him, wrapping her arms around him and gushing, “It’s about time you made it back, Cowboy. I was worried sick about you.”

     “Well, I thought I made pretty good time.”

     “You did,” Jordan said while walking up behind them. “She’s just a worry wart is all.”

     “You hush, young man!”

     Jordan chuckled as he climbed aboard the Bobcat to put the dead mesquite tree back at the end of the driveway.

     “Did you miss me, little darlin’?”

     “Yep. Sure did.”

     “How much?”

     “A bunch.”

     “Words are cheap. But did you miss me enough to make me a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch?”

     “I think we can probably arrange that.”

     “With sliced jalapenos and chopped onions?”

     “Hey, don’t go pushing your luck now…”

     Tom left Bonnie to graze for a bit and took Linda’s hand, and they walked into the house.

     Joyce woke Scott up when Tom returned, as he’d asked her to do. He got up just long enough to ask if Tom’s mission went well, and if he encountered any problems.

     Then he went back to bed. He had his own mission later, and it would require him being up all night.

     When Robbie made his usual check-in call, he sorrowfully told Hannah there was nothing new to report. John hadn’t stirred in the previous forty eight hours and the doctors were saying it didn’t look good.

     “Robbie, we have some amoxicillin. We can get it to you tonight, if you can meet us.”

     “Seriously? Where on earth… I mean, not even FEMA has any more. And I’ve been to all the pharmacies in San Antonio looking for it myself. It’s all been cleaned out.”

     “Let me just say that the people who have taken me in are angels among men…”

     “Okay, where and when?”

     “The night I was picked up and left San Antonio… the night before John checked himself into the hospital, my friends brought a truck full of food and wheat to a house on the western outskirts of town. Were you aware of that?”

     “Yes. I was with John a couple of days before that. We went to the house to make sure no squatters were there, and to check out the back fence. Somebody had cut a section away and it was held in place with sliding bolts.”

     “Exactly! That’s the one. Do you think you can find that house again?”

     “Oh, hell, yeah! What time?”

     “The man who will bring the medicine is named Scott. He’s a friend of John’s as well.”

     “I’ve heard John speak of him.”

     “Scott said he can be there around one a.m. tonight, give or take half an hour. He said to remove that section of fence, and to set it aside. That will be his signal that you’re there and that it’s safe to approach the house.”

     “Tell him I’ll be there. And tell him thanks. From John and from me.”

     “I will, Robbie. And thank you too.”

     Hannah signed off and sighed. Joyce could see the worry on her face. She needed something to keep her mind off the situation.

     “Hannah, I’ve got a project to do, for Scott’s trip tonight. Would you mind helping?”

     “Sure. No problem.”

     Scott had left instructions to wake him up at seven, but he was awake long before then.

     He dressed, knowing full well that this could be the very last time he did so. But he tried to shake the sense of dread that kept creeping into the recesses of his mind.

     Linda made him dinner. It was lasagna. One of his favorites.

     He couldn’t help wondering if he was a condemned man, and this was his last meal.

     He didn’t know where these thoughts were coming from. He was normally a very optimistic man. But this night, preparing for this trip, he had an ominous feeling that something was going to go wrong.

     He couldn’t explain it. And he certainly didn’t understand it. But he’d do his level best to hide it. Letting anyone else know he was concerned wouldn’t help the situation. It would likely encourage Joyce to try to talk him out of it.

     And this was something he had to do.

     The rest of the group said goodbye to Scott in the house. Then they let him have some alone time with Joyce, in the front yard, where they could share a few more intimate minutes together.

     They walked to the Gator, which Joyce had prepared while Scott slept.

     “The fuel tank’s all topped off, and you’ve got two fuel cans in the back. You probably won’t need them unless you develop a fuel leak. But they’re there if you need them. The bag in the front seat contains sandwiches and bottled water, and fresh batteries for your night vision goggles and walkie talkie, just in case you need them. You shouldn’t, because I just put fresh batteries in them. But just to be safe…

     “The AR is locked and loaded, but the safety is on, so be sure you switch it off if things look like they might get ugly. I also wedged two extra mags for your handgun between the drivers seat and the console, where you can get to them easy if you need them.”

     “Sounds like you thought of everything. But what’s with all the garbage in the back?”

     He was referring to a pile of black garbage bags on the back of the Gator, each tied tightly.

     “It does look like garbage, doesn’t it?”

     “Well, yeah… if it’s not garbage, what is it?”

     “Hannah and I made them. Each bag contains four bottles of water and four granola bars. There are nine of them. We want you to drop one by the side of the road every ten miles or so on your way down the mountain.”

     “Okay. But why, may I ask?”

     “Because I’m not willing to trust the life of the man I love to some damn machine. If this thing breaks down and you have to walk back, it’s a nine day hike. You’ll never make it without fresh drinking water and some kind of nourishment. If you don’t need them, then fine. Someone else will eventually find them and make use of them. But if you do find yourself without a vehicle, and have to make your way back up the mountain on foot, they’ll be there for you.”

     It was something he hadn’t thought of. But he certainly couldn’t argue with her logic.

     So instead, he thanked her and kissed her goodbye, and was on his way.

     She went back inside and watched the monitors at the security console until he disappeared from view.

-53-

     Scott’s journey down the mountain went smoothly. He tried to keep a steady pace. The Gator’s engine was fairly quiet, as long as it was running at more or less the same speed. Slowing down, and then gunning the engine, made considerably more noise. So he’d avoid that as much as possible.

     He very seriously doubted than there was anyone else running around with night vision goggles. They were fairly common among preppers, but the prepper community was rather small. And even those who might have a pair, and still have batteries to operate them, would still have to be in the right place at the right time to hear Scott coming in time to take aim before he sped past them.

     No, Scott was more worried about the moon and the stars. The moon wasn’t full. If it was, he might have considered waiting another night. But there was a half moon in the heavens, and not a cloud in the sky to block its view. Between the half moon and the stars, even someone without night vision goggles could see Scott from fifty yards away. Certainly close enough to get in a lucky shot.

     He’d worn all black, to make it harder to see him. And at the first sign of another human he could gun the engine and lay across the seats to lessen his profile. It wouldn’t guarantee his safety, but it would help. And it was all he had.

     He checked his watch frequently. It was imperative that he arrive at the house right at one a.m. Any earlier and he’d have to wait, exposed, to anyone close by who heard the sound of the Gator and went to check it out.

     Any later, and there was a chance that Robbie would get tired of waiting and leave. Scott didn’t think that would happen. But then again, he didn’t really know anything about Robbie. So he couldn’t discount the possibility.

     He pressed on, adjusting his speed occasionally in an effort to make his arrival time, but trying to maintain as steady as speed as possible.

     And all the way down the mountain, he couldn’t shake the feeling of dread.

     Finally, at a quarter to one, he made it to his old house. On a lark, he decided not to approach it on vehicle. He wasn’t sure why, exactly. But if the meeting with Robbie was a trap, he didn’t want to easily give up his ride back up the mountain.

     So he parked the Gator in the brush a hundred yards from his back fence, dismounted, and shouldered his rifle. Then he grabbed the black backpack which contained the medicine and a sealed love letter from Hannah, and walked the rest of the way.

     As he approached the back fence to his house, he could see that the section of fence had been removed and placed over to the side. Inside his back yard he could make out a single shadowy figure. The figure had no goggles. In all likelihood, he still couldn’t see Scott, still forty yards away in the heavy brush.

     Scott paused for a moment and watched.

     The figure appeared to be alone.

     He went closer and called out, “Robbie?”

     “Yes. Are you Scott?”

     “Yes.”

     “Okay, I can see you now, Scott. Please don’t come too close. I haven’t shown any symptoms, but the doctors tell me I can be a carrier since I visit John frequently.”

     “Very well. I’ll place the bag outside the fence, and you can get it when I leave.”

     “Thank you, Scott, for doing this. I know John would thank you himself if he was able. The doctors think this will clear up his infection and save him.”

     “It’s no problem, really. I consider him a friend too. Hannah wrote him a letter, for when he wakes up. It’s in the bag as well.”

     “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

     “Is there anything else I can do to help?”

     “Pray. That’s about it.”

     There was nothing more to be said. Scott left the bag on the ground just outside the fence and turned to leave.

     It had gone smoothly after all.

     But halfway back to the Gator, his feeling of paranoia and dread returned. Had he made a tactical error by leaving the Gator unattended? Was it surrounded now by marauders who were trying to figure out how to hotwire it? Or who were waiting for him to return with the key?

     Or maybe there were no marauders but the Gator  wouldn’t start. Had it been a mistake to kill the engine?

     The Gator came back into his view. There was no one around. He climbed on board, placed the key in the ignition, and he held his breath.

     It cranked right up. His paranoia almost subsided as he turned the machine around and headed back to the compound.

     Almost subsided, but not entirely.

     He still had a long way to go.

*************************

Thank you for reading

AFTER THE DUST SETTLED.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed it.

*************************

Please enjoy this preview of

The next installment in this series,

RISE FROM THE ASHES:

THE REBIRTH OF SAN ANTONIO

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     They struck Scott as rednecks, from their language and demeanor. Scott had nothing against rednecks. He considered several of them his friends, back in the old days. As a group, they weren’t a bad lot.

     The problem was, once a redneck made up his mind about something, he seldom changed it. And that worried Scott.

     “What do you think we should do with him, Joe?”

     “I say let’s just shoot the son of a bitch and be done with it.”

     “I don’t know. I’m down to my last few bullets. Don’t want to waste another one on this scumbag. He’ll bleed to death soon enough from his first wound. You’re getting careless in your old age, Davey. Used to, you’d have blown him away instead of just wounding him.”

     “Please,” Scott pleaded. You’ve got my vehicle. Killing me won’t get you anything else, or help you any more. Just leave me to die in peace.”

     “Maybe we should just beat him to death. How about it, Joe?”

     “Nah. He’s right. It makes no sense to waste any more effort on a man who’s just gonna die anyway. Let’s get the hell out of here before those shots attract anybody else.”

     Scott lay in the dirt, trying to come to grips with the pain. But his mind overruled him. The human mind, in its mercy, shuts down when the physical pain becomes too great for one to bear.

     The last thing Scott heard before he blacked out was the sound of his Gator driving off in the distance.

*************************

RISE FROM THE ASHES:

THE REBIRTH OF SAN ANTONIO

will be available from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers in July, 2014.

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If you enjoyed

AFTER THE DUST SETTLED

You might also enjoy

FINAL DAWN

ESCAPE FROM ARMAGEDDON

Available now at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

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     What would you do if you finally found the love of your life, and were making plans to spend eternity together - and then found out that eternity was only two years? Mark is a romantic and carefree young engineer, and a bit of a cornball. His beloved Hannah is a beautiful scientist. Pragmatic, intelligent and analytical, she longs for the family she never had, and a change from her horrific childhood. Mark offers that change, and her life is finally complete.

     Then Hannah discovers that mankind is doomed. Suddenly their lives become a mad scramble, to find a way to save themselves and everyone they love.

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An excerpt from “Final Dawn: Escape From Armageddon”…

    Sometimes the gods of fate smile upon you, and bestow on you a treasure of such magnitude, such wonder, that you pinch yourself over and over until you finally believe it’s really real.

     And sometimes those same gods bestow upon you a bowl of smelly, steaming crap.

     They seldom do both within the same week.

     Mark Snyder finished the breaker box tie in just before losing his daylight. He’d been working in an empty house for days, all alone in his thoughts. He hated jobs like this. No one to talk to, no other voices to listen to, other than the ones in his head. The house was only about eighty percent complete. Not far enough along yet to have power.

     The electricians were supposed to button everything up by the end of the week. And yes, he could have waited until then to start installing the security system. But he had several other jobs going on at once, and he was trying to maintain his good reputation for coming in on time. So while most people would have taken Sunday off to watch the ball game and relax, he was here instead installing security cameras.

     He’d come back on Saturday and check all the cameras to make sure they were working, then install the operations console.

     But for now, he’d done everything he could do without electricity. He loaded his tools back into his Explorer and headed home. Enough is enough.

     Mark picked up his cell and called Hannah.

     “Hey, Babe. I’m on my way. Is the game still on?”

     “Hi, honey,” she said. “No, it’s over, but you’ll be proud of me. I recorded it for you so you can watch it when you get home. The Cowboys lost at the last second when Washington kicked a field goal.”

     Mark winced and bit his lip. He resisted the urge to tell her it’s not so much fun watching a close game when you know how it turns out.

     Instead, he praised her. Because after all, she was the light of his life and the best thing that ever happened to him.

     “Well, thank you, my love.” He said. “Are you trying to out-sweet me again?”

     Hannah replied “Nope. Not trying. I won that contest a long time ago. I just wanted to show you how much I love you.”

     She went on. “If you want some beer you’ll have to stop and get some. Bryan came by to watch the game with you. I told him you were working and he asked if we had some beer. I told him to check the fridge. He took all we had and left. Said if we weren’t going to watch the game, then we wouldn’t need it. He said he’d take it to someone who had the game on.

     “How did you manage to grow up with him without ever killing him?”

     Mark laughed. “Because he was the baby of the family and Mom always took his side. If I had killed him she’d have grounded me for at least a week, maybe two. But I thought about it many times.”

     He made a mental note to find a way to get back at his brother. And yes, he’d have to stop for beer. The last hour of the job tonight, the only thing that kept him going was the thought of downing a cold Corona or two.

     Mark walked into the Exxon convenience store and waved at Joe Kenney, the assistant manager.

     Mark shouted across the store as he pulled a six-pack of Corona from the cooler. “Hey, Joe! All that I have are these, to remember you.”

     A couple of the other customers gave Mark the strangest look. A “better stay away from this guy” kind of look.

     Joe yelled back from behind the counter, where he was inventorying cigarettes. “Jim Croce. Photographs and Memories.”

     They’d known each other since high school, where Joe was one of the coolest guys Mark knew. Joe knew everything about music from the good old days. The music from the 60s and 70s. Back when music was good, and you could understand the lyrics. And every other word wasn’t profane.

     They’d played this game almost as long as they’d been friends. Mark would find an obscure song lyric and try to stump Joe. But he seldom succeeded. Joe played five instruments, and had been in various garage bands since he was ten. Music was pretty much his life. At least when he wasn’t at Exxon counting cigarettes.

     The line was a lot longer than usual. A rolling marquee above the cash register said the Powerball jackpot was at $310 million. Mark let out a slow whistle. That was a good chunk of change.

     He seldom played the lottery himself, but Hannah did all the time. Poor sweet thing. She’d been stuck at home with the flu for the last week and hadn’t been able to get out. But he knew she’d have gotten herself a ticket if she hadn’t been sick.

     So as a last-second lark, he told the clerk to throw in a quick pick for the lottery, cash option, and paid two extra bucks. It was worth two dollars to make Hannah smile that beautiful smile. And it was the least he could do for her, for thinking enough to record the game for him.

     But Mark forgot to give her the ticket. Forgot to even take it into the house. He laid it on the passenger seat of his Explorer and it sailed down to the floorboard when a dog ran in front of him and he had to hit the brakes hard. And he pulled into the driveway, took his beer and watched the game, and never gave it another thought.

     On Thursday, Mark was doing a sales pitch to a banker who was worried because his neighbor three doors down had been a recent victim of a home invasion. The banker’s community was gated and a private security company made their rounds occasionally, but none of that had stopped the brazen thieves from posing as utility workers.

     In broad daylight, they knocked on his neighbor’s door, and flashed fake IDs to gain access to the back yard “to check the power lines.” From there, they cut the phone cable, kicked in the back door, and tied up the occupants before leisurely looting the place of all its valuables. They even stopped long enough to make themselves a sandwich before leaving.

     Thievery, it seems, works up one’s appetite.

     The banker decided he needed a better security system, and Mark was trying to convince him that he was the man for the job.

     Mark’s cell phone went off. A little bird whistling “I’ve Got Sunshine” told him he had a text message from Hannah. He hit the mute button and went on with his presentation.

     Half an hour later he’d sealed the deal and was returning to his Explorer when he remembered the text. It said “Call me ASAP.”

     Oops.

     But luckily Hannah wasn’t mad. She was way too excited.

     “Did you hear about Joe’s store?” she asked him.

     He answered with a bit of apprehension. “No. Did they get robbed again? Is he okay?”

     “Oh, yeah, I’d say so! I heard on the news that they sold the winning ticket to the Powerball drawing. Somebody won over two hundred million dollars after taxes. And it’s somebody that lives right here in San Angelo. Wouldn’t it be cool if it’s somebody we know?”

     “Baby, hold on a minute.”

     Mark put the phone down and took out his wallet. The ticket he had purchased on Sunday night wasn’t there. Crap! Did he leave it on the counter at the store? Did some cretin come up behind him and pick it up?

     He instinctively felt his pants pockets, even though he knew he wasn’t wearing the same jeans he had on Sunday night.

     Then, on the floorboard of the passenger side of his ride, he saw a lonely piece of paper. And he remembered that damn dog.

     He picked up the ticket, then the phone.

     “Honey, don’t freak out,” he said. “But I bought you a ticket on Sunday night and forgot to give it to you. Would you go on line and see what the winning numbers are and read them to me?”

     The next thirty seconds lasted twenty years.

     Hannah came back on the line and said “Okay, here goes. 13, 25, 26, 44, 57, and the Powerball is 18.”

     Mark’s chest actually started to hurt, and he felt faint. In his mind’s eye, he saw Redd Foxx playing Fred Sanford, holding his chest and saying “This is it. It’s the big one…”

     But Mark wasn’t having a heart attack. Mark was experiencing what it felt to find out that you were suddenly a multi-millionaire.

     Hannah didn’t believe him, of course. She thought he was playing one of his dumb practical jokes. She met him at the door as he walked in and presented her the ticket as a new father might present his first born to a hospital nursery visitor.

     “Be careful,” he said. “Don’t damage it or tear it or sneeze on it.”

     The next day was Friday, and Hannah insisted on getting up and going to work. Even though she only got an hour’s worth of sleep. Mark stayed behind in bed, telling her just to call in and say “Go to hell, you bastards. I’m rich!”

     But Hannah was a scientist and an honorable one at that. She was above doing such a thing. She’d wait until her boss pissed her off. Then she’d tell the bastards to go to hell.

     When they parted that morning, both of them were on cloud nine. They’d spent most of the night talking about all the great things they’d do with their new fortune. They laughed when they thought of sour old Reverend Samuels, and how he might actually crack a smile when they presented him with a tithe check for ten percent of their winnings.

     They talked about which European countries they’d visit first, and even considered buying their own Caribbean Island.

     Yes, when they parted that morning, neither had a care in the world.

     What a difference a day makes.

*************************

Please enjoy this short story,

The Journey of the Hands

And thanks for reading my books.

-Darrell-

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     I was born in a big marble building in the middle of Philadelphia in 1925.

     Back then I was sturdy and strong, with a sharp chiseled face. I even sparkled in the sunlight, although I didn't see sunlight for the first time until I was six months old.

     I took my first boat trip on the Erie Canal, in a canvas bag with 999 others just like me. It was cramped but not uncomfortable. I had no idea where I was going, but was happy for the company of the others.

      From time to time the bag we were in would be tossed from hand to hand as workers moved us from the boat to an armored car, then into a bank in Detroit.

      The first time I was touched by humans, I was picked up by a grizzled old merchant named Hanz, at his family's apotheke, in Taylor, Michigan. He handed me to a lovely woman named Clara, in a beautiful gingham dress and a bright yellow Easter bonnet.

      Clara immediately passed me to a young girl named Betsy, who held me up in wonder in the dusty sunlight breaking through the store's east window, and marveled at how I shone.

      I remember the brilliance of the light, and the warmth of her little girl hands, sticky from the gumball she had been passing back and forth between her mouth and her fingers.

     Thus began my journey of the hands.

      I took my first train trip in a rickety old Pullman car, nestled into the pocket of a man named Gustafson Baker. He preferred Gus, although his wife used his full name when she was peeved at him, which she frequently was.

      The train moved west over the Rockies, into Salt Lake City. I was rooted from my nest in Gustafson’s pocket and dropped into the hand of a young porter named Joe, who helped carry the Bakers' bags from the train into the station. Joe traded me for a piece of penny licorice a couple of days later.

      I look back at my days in Salt Lake City with fond memories. I got to meet a lot of people and felt the warmth of hundreds of hands, as I was passed around, sometimes several times a day.

      Sometimes the hands were soft, and smelled of sweet lilac or perfume. Sometimes the hands were grimy and gnarled, covered with dirt or coal dust, or heaven knows what else.

      Sometimes I would ride around in a genteel lady's pocketbook for days or weeks at a time. The women tended to hang onto me longer than the men did. I suppose that's because in the bottom of a pocketbook I could be easily forgotten.

      Once I got to go to a magnificent schoolhouse, in the small pocket of a girl of nine named Millicent. She traded me and an old buffalo nickel for a bowl of soup and a biscuit. Then she sat down and ate her lunch amidst a chorus of chatter and giggles, while I sat in a cold cash drawer, waiting to be passed to someone else.

     By the time I was five years old I had given up on my goal of counting the number of hands I had touched. The quest was borne out of boredom, and I had no idea it would be so many.

     After the first hundred hands or so I gave up on trying to remember all the names, or the details. After a thousand or so I gave up altogether. Suffice it to say it was a lot of hands in those early years.

     When I was ten, I was on the move again.

     This time was not so glorious a journey. I slipped through a hole in the pocket of a farmhand who was loading steers into a cattle car heading south.

     For days I lay on the hard wooden floor of the car as it lurched along its tracks, occasionally being stepped on by a four-legged beast who had no more idea where we were heading than I did.

     We wound up in southern California, where the cattle were turned into steaks and I was passed many times from one hand to another. I learned my worth was two tomatoes or one apple. I was in the land of itinerant farmers, most of whom were displaced by the dust bowl and the depression, and moved west in search of a better life.

     I would go back and forth, from a set of scratched and cracked hands belonging to a picker, to the soft and lotioned hands of a grocer, in exchange for two tomatoes, or an apple, or a pat of wrapped bread. Then given in change back to another set of cracked dry hands.

     Back and forth, day in and day out. It was monotonous. Sometimes I was passed back and forth in poker games, where I was apparently enough to ante my owner's hand of cards into the game.

     In 1943 I belonged to a man named John.

     John had picked me up on a sidewalk in Waco, Texas, where I had been carelessly dropped by a small child whose hands were too tiny to carry a handful of change.

     John looked at the my date and proclaimed me his lucky penny, since we had been born the same year. I knew it was 1943 because the other pennies being jostled about in John's trouser pockets were marked with that date, and were shiny and new.

     They never stayed around long, though. John carefully picked through his change whenever he paid for something. The shiny pennies would leave, never to be seen again.

     I would stay with him to bring him luck, he'd say.

     John worked in an armament factory outside of Waco, making gun barrels, until the day he changed careers and put on an ugly brown uniform. He stopped being John and began being Private Moseley, and he kept that name for the rest of the time I knew him.

     Private Moseley always rubbed my face before going into battle. For luck, he said. In those chaotic days, scared men in faraway lands did whatever they could to calm their nerves and convince themselves that they would live to see another sunset.

     The last time I saw Private Moseley we were on a landing craft in rough seas, heading toward something called Omaha Beach. He rubbed my face, said a short prayer, and placed me in his left breast pocket. Then he patted me through the pocket. I heard him tell a buddy that his lucky penny would keep him alive.

      For two long weeks I sat in a box alongside a handful of other change, some love letters from Mary, three worn and tattered photographs of Private Moseley's mom, Mary and his young nephews with their ear-to-ear grins.

     I was jostled about in this box, not knowing where I was, or where I was going, but knowing from the constant rocking that I was in the cargo hold of a ship.

      Later I could feel the vibration of a truck that seemed to labor forever across the dusty and bumpy roads of west Texas. Finally I heard voices, then light, as the box was finally opened.

      I saw Mary's face, red and puffy, polluted by too many tears rolling from her pretty blue eyes. I saw her clutch the love letters she had written to Private Moseley, to John, so many months before. I felt the warmth of her fingers as she picked me up, his lucky penny, and gazed hard at me.

      Then in a rage she threw me from the porch swing where she was sitting, and into the soft green grass of her front yard.

      For many years I sat in the dirt of that front yard, watching seasons come and go. In the spring and summer months, the grass would grow tall, and would block out the sun. Then someone would cut it and I'd see light for a few days or weeks, until it went away again.

     My life became a series of cycles. I became very good at guessing the seasons. The grass growing and cutting cycles meant spring. When the growing slowed marked summer. When it stopped altogether it was fall. The cold marked winter, and I lost track of how many winters I laid there.

      One year in the cycle I knew as spring, I could hear voices. A lawnmower had passed over me not too many days before, and sunlight was penetrating through the shortened grass and warming my face.

      Suddenly I was up, away from the earth, feeling fresh air for the first time in way too many years. A smallish hand scraped the dirt from my sides, and I went into a dark pocket, where I joined two other pennies. One of them was rough cut, with freshly minted features. I could not see it well in the darkness, but I could tell from the feel of it and the smell of new copper that it was recently minted. It said 1963 on its face.

      Suddenly I was alive again. I was being used again in the manner in which I enjoyed, being passed from hand to hand to hand. Children buying candy. Ladies buying produce. Men buying flowers for angry wives they had slighted in various ways.

      I sat in a coin tray at a 7-11 convenience store, unwanted by one customer, then picked up and used by another.

     One day I was dropped at a bakery and rolled under a display case. For several months I lay, smelling the glorious smells of fresh donuts each morning, and hearing the joyous laughter of children begging their mothers for cookies.

     Eventually the smells drifted away, never to return, and the laughter went away as well. For a long time I was once again alone, day and night. At least I wasn't getting rained on as I had been in Mary's front yard.

      Eventually the old bakery was reopened, only it wasn't a bakery any more. It was now an insurance office, and of course the old ovens and display cases had to be removed to make room for desks and chairs and typewriters and such. As the display case was lifted off of me, a worker picked me up, dusted me off, and thrust me into a khaki pants pocket. The pompous, overbearing quarter beside me said 1981.

     These days I don't go anywhere. I am confined to an airless, clear plastic pouch, which I assume is for display purposes.

     On the white cardboard label attached to the pouch are the words "Lincoln Cent, 1925 P". I don't know what that means, but I do know that I am lonely. I miss being passed from hand to hand and traveling across the country and around the world. I miss being admired by children and hearing the joy in their voices as they traded me for the latest sweet thing.

      It’s funny, but I also miss the grumbling of some adults who cast me into parking lots or sidewalks, as though carrying me was not worth their effort. I knew that invariably, someone would pick me back up, recognize my worth, and pass me along.

      I even miss feeling the ants run across my face in Mary's yard, and shuddering each time the lawnmower passed over, ten to twelve time a year, in the season I knew as spring. I would love to break out of my plastic prison and feel the warmth of the hands. I really miss them...