by Shane Woods
Having made my escape from Shannon, I went down to our currently barren Command Center. Putting aside my curiosity for what Jennifer and Shannon would come up with, we began laying out plans for the day.
“Well, I’m thinking power. Power, and any weapons or food we find along the way,” I began, then, “We won’t totally clean anything out today, so we won’t mark them as such, but keep track of places with the most useful shit along the way. Right now, it’s all good. From guns to clothing. Toiletries, all that, but not for now. Let’s get the lights turned on.”
“We can start with the house with those wind collectors you pointed out,” Dave suggested.
“We’ll need batteries and shit, too,” Tony added.
“Batteries and equipment are heavy,” Rich observed. “We can put all that by the front door and come back before dark with the truck.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Tony said.
“Yeah, works for me,” I supplied. “I’d love to have more people. One for basic scavenging, one to come by the next morning with a vehicle and load up once we’re done, and maybe a couple smaller long-range scout teams.”
“Lots of things to consider. We ready to go?” Clara asked, just a hint of impatience in her tone.
“Yeah, move out. We’ll head west to the house first, then make a plan from there,” I ordered. “Let’s go!”
NINETEEN
Closing the gate behind us, we set out. It still felt so damn alien. No cars moving, no people aside from us, oh, and, we just left the safety of a giant hodge podge wall surrounding a two-building apartment complex. Yeah, world’s gone tits up. Boy, has it ever. But it was nice in its own way. Sure, we had death staring us in the eye everywhere we looked, but there was none of the other stuff. No work, taxes, riots or protests, no politics. Christ, I’ve spent so much of my life battling out politics with people online that I’d never even met, now it was all gone, and I kind of felt good about it.
Of course, it held a heavy price. So many people gone. I couldn’t help but wonder about my parents. They lived in the country, the second dirt road off of the secondary road, they might be okay, but Melissa was gone. I felt a pang of grief when I struck this thought and decided to discard my internal dialogue and focus on the matter at hand.
The neighborhood looked even more alien on these nearby streets. There were the now commonplace sights of a world gone kaput, but it was made even odder to behold by the lack of any fencing or barriers. Bare lines of dirt, or the inverse, overgrown lines between properties where the fencing we appropriated had divided neighbor from neighbor. No need for privacy now, I guess. No need to worry about your dog biting a neighbor kid, or that same kid gaining access to your swimming pool. Hell, nobody even needed to mow anymore.
We moved quietly, split into two groups, one on each side of the street on the sidewalks. It reminded me of stories I’d read about wars past, soldiers moving on each side of the road, eyes shifting, looking for Krauts or Charlie or whomever we were throwing lead at that decade. I was on point in my line-up, Tony heading his formation.
We reached the end of the second block, and the end of our fencing thievery. The scene here was much more foreboding, due to the presence of so many more hiding places for pretty much anything hostile.
I stopped moving at our edge of the intersection, and motioned Dave up to me. As he approached, I whispered for him to find something heavy and breakable in a nearby trash can, and then motioned for everybody to fan out around the street and hunker down. I took a crouching position myself, waiting, and watching.
Dave returned a moment later with three empty beer bottles and took a knee next to me. On a silent three-count, we both let a couple of the bottles fly as far down the street as we could. The containers flew through the air, both striking the pavement and shattering within a dozen feet of each other. We heard nothing at first.
A few beats later, a fast fucker came running out from between two houses. No shriek, no barking, she just took off. She stood right in the center of where the bottles shattered, making motions like she was sniffing the air, but all that came out was a sickening gurgling sound. I threw the third bottle, this one landing much closer to us, and her head snapped in our direction. The freak bolted in our direction, hit the landing site of the bottle, and just stopped, looking around and gurgling as she tried to sniff again.
Nobody moved, and nobody fired. Could she not see us? She was obviously having problems scenting us, but could she not see us, either? She could detect the bottles, why not us?
I motioned for Dave to go back in line, across the street, over by Rich. As soon as he moved, the bitch zeroed in on him and shot off like a starting gun had been fired. I said as quietly as I could for all to still hear that everybody holds their fire. I didn’t want to make a bunch of noise this early in our day.
She continued after Dave, now zeroed in on him like a missile. As she hit the intersection, we could make out more detail. The freak was average height, but rail-thin. Dressed in a black uniform with the logo of a nearby gas station on it, the Get-Go. She had a round face, and a thin pair of glasses that slid down her nose more with every step. And bare feet. Bare feet? Yeah, bare feet. Don’t ask me, I’m just living it, I didn’t write this!
Her feet slapped the pavement with every step as she drew closer, and just as she was about to fly by Tony and get to Dave, Tony stepped up. He drew out a police-style black collapsible baton, and, in one solid motion, swung it overhand directly at the thing’s face. She ran, he swung, and the baton impacted the freak right square in the lower forehead. Shit, he nailed her. All conventional forward momentum ceased as her feet left the pavement, arcing up into the air as her head rushed to make friends with the street surface.
She hit, damn did she hit. A second sickening crunch echoed through the neighborhood as the back of her skull connected with the ground, followed by several more as Dave moved forward and butt-stroked her cranium a half-dozen times.
“Why didn’t that one make noise?” James asked, his voice rising with every word. “Why didn’t we hear it? Why didn’t it scream? FUCK!!!”
We quieted James down, and all that could be heard now was Dave’s panting. Rich and James stepped forward to inspect the fresh corpse.
“That explains it. Good Lord,” James said softly.
“No throat,” Rich observed. “No throat, no scream, no grunt, no sniff. This one’s defective.”
He garnered a few chuckles with this, so I added, “Yeah, must have been a smoker.”
With the mood lightened, we proceeded on to our destination. Dave fished another pair of bottles out of the garbage and passed them to me and grabbed two more for himself.
We passed by several more houses, and Dave held the group up, so he could throw a bottle. Nothing came out to meet us. In fact, the street was abnormally quiet. We followed this process for the next two blocks, until we reached the house we were looking for.
The house was very average for the neighborhood. Set near the middle of its block, the only thing about it that stuck out and made it noticeable was three garbage can-sized bladed cylinders on the rooftop, and row after row of solar panels lining the rooftop. I couldn’t make these out from the apartment, being blocks away from the dwelling, but man, this was good. This made the trip even more worth it, but it also meant we had much more work ahead of us.
The house itself was a basic small ranch. Pale blue in color, set back just a bit from the sidewalk with a small patch of front yard, and neatly trimmed hedges rising over a wrap-around flower bed with not a single weed in sight. A door in the middle, and a driveway up one side of the fenced-in property leading back to a single car garage. It looked…well…it looked exactly like a hundred other houses within walking distance.
“Damn,” James stated, stepping up next to me. “This guy got a whole lot of power collection for one house.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking between him and the house.
“A house this size?” he started.
“Shit, he should only need a quarter of this.”
“What do you think he needs the extra power for?” I asked, then ordered, “Tony, Dave, Rich, check around the building. Make sure we’re alone.”
The three nodded and left as James continued, “I don’t know, man. Maybe a nice garage setup, but he just got the one-car.”
“I guess we’re about to find out,” I said, as Rich came around the corner, shaking his head in the negative.
“Nothing man. We’re good,” Rich stated.
“Okay, cool,” I replied, then another order, this time to everyone, “Clara, with me. We’ll knock. James, Wayne, you two provide rear cover. The rest of you, be ready to breach it on my signal if I don’t get an answer. Two teams. Us, and Tony and Dave. We go right. Fan out and clear. Keep low on your corners.”
I received affirmative nods all around, and Clara and I approached the front door. I slung my shotgun forward and ready, but still on its sling over my shoulder, muzzle down.
Now at the door, Clara gave me a thumbs-up, and I knocked a few times, softly, with my knuckles. We waited several beats, and there was no answer. I pounded harder the second time, still no answer. Clara reached out and rang the doorbell. I was perplexed at the ringing noise until the reason we were here flashed in my mind; renewable energy. Of course. This house was actually not off the grid, because they had their own grid.
“Hello?” I called out. “We would like to know if you’re willing to sign up to receive a lower rate on your gas bill! Hello? We have some great deals!”
Clara rolled her eyes. Okay, humor not appreciated here.
I signaled the group, took a step back, and put all of my two hundred and twenty pounds behind a solid kick just beside the doorknob. As soon as the doorframe splintered, I dropped low and moved aside. Tony was first through the door, followed by Dave. I squeezed in behind the latter, and Clara followed, tailed by the rest of the group.
The second group went left through a dining room of sorts. We were immediately in a living room. Or, a family room, if you’re an oddball like my wife.
A gruesome sight greeted us. In the still glowing lamplight from an end table near the couch, we could see a corpse sprawled out. He was leaned back, as if he were relaxing with his arms out, staring at the ceiling. A dead dog, looking to have once been a pit bull, had its massive head in his lap.
There was blood everywhere, and the stench of the room was enough to be nearly visible. Flies buzzed around, three of us retched, and Clara immediately grabbed a trash can and vomited into it, adding her own aroma to the mix.
It looked as though the owner killed his dog, then, judging by the .38 revolver still clutched in his hand, took his own life. The blood spatter on the wall behind him was almost impressive in its height, reaching up to the ceiling, and still holding a few small fragments of where it started within the medium.
There was obviously nothing alive left in this room, save for the swarm of flies, and we continued onward. We poured into a hallway behind the living room, Tony kicking open a door to a microscopic master bathroom, while Clara and I breached a sparsely furnished bedroom. Nothing.
We regrouped and checked the closet at the end of the hallway. Nothing but towels and toiletries, so we opened the final door. It opened into a master bedroom, and the stench of death greeted us again.
We steeled ourselves against the horrific odor and entered the room. Tied wrists and ankles to the bed in the middle of the room was a woman about the same age as the man we already located. Her eyes oozed the bloody streams of the infected, but she did not move. There was a single darkened black hole right in the center of her forehead, and the bed coverings and mattress paid the price for the aftermath. Her white night gown was also stained with the ugly brownish hue of blood gone bad.
“Clear!” I yelled back into the house. Almost as if on cue, Rich and James came around the corner to the hallway.
“Dude, you gotta see this,” Rich exclaimed, still panting from clearing their end of the house.
“Alright. Let’s go. Clara, go block off the front door. No surprises,” I instructed, then the rest of us followed Rich.
We made our way through a few rooms adjoining the main living area, and to a doorway with a set of stairs going down to a basement. Immediately a new, somewhat- okay, not somewhat, a very familiar scent had replaced the stench of the rest of the house. Looking down the stairs, the basement was flooded with more light than had ever seemed possible.
Moving down the steps, we met the others in a totally open basement area. The place reeked of marijuana. The lights were going full-bore, illuminating several rows of man-sized plants. Topping the plants, and growing throughout their sections, were buds of nearly every color imaginable. Below the plants were long handmade boxes filled with water, instead of dirt. Upon closer inspection, everything in the basement was run on mechanical timers. Each vat of water was set up with its own pumping and filtration systems, and there were even fish swimming around in the boxes. Air filtration was running to the outside with huge carbon filters set inline, each canister seemed to be made from two five-gallon buckets joined together. The walls appeared to all be double insulated, and then covered with some reflective material that seemed to be foil, but upon closer inspection it was some other material I’d never seen before.
I was astounded. This was hands-down the most impressive grow room for weed I’d ever seen in my life. The couple of dead people relaxing upstairs were absolute masterminds!
“I…well…wow” James said, stepping up next to me. “I guess now we know why they were running so much power off of the grid. Shit.”
“Holy sweet fucking mother of Jesus,” Tony said, stepping up next to me.
“Dude. Fuck. Dude. Wow man. Dude,” came Dave’s reply, apparently having run out of better words to describe the moment.
“Jesus, you guys are like a couple of kids in a candy store,” Clara observed, rolling her eyes.
“Hell, even I’m impressed,” I added.
“And these. Wow!” James exclaimed, motioning to a series of strange looking boxes on the wall, “Do you know what those are?”
“Expensive?” I asked, trying to use humor to take the place of ignorance.
“Yeah, they are,” James explained. “Those just came out. Tesla Powerwall boxes. They can store a couple days or so of power in each one. Like a long-term capacitor for your home. They use- ”
“Can we use them then?” I asked, cutting James off.
“Yeah. Sure!” James said, excited. “We can use this whole system. This is perfect!”
“Okay well we are still time crunched,” I began. “James, you and Rich are coming with me. We need to get back to Henry so he can set up a work party to your specs, James, and begin converting our building. Or at least the command and storage floor.”
“Okay, I know just what we need,” James grinned.
“Tony, Dave,” I began, feeling like I was about to tell them they’d won a prize, “six hours. Full harvest. Let’s get all this dismantled and saved by then, and I’ll bring the truck around. Then we can remove the power system tomorrow.”
Their eyes lit up, and they high fived like high-schoolers.
“You mean,” Dave began, “we can keep them?”
“Yeah dude,” I answered, “what the fuck? Like y’all asking about a puppy. Yes, we keep it all. We strip this house bare and bury the owners. Show them respect for helping us so much after death. The rest of you, start clearing the first floor. Keep watch and block the door behind us when we leave.”
With not a word, everybody started moving and tending to their duties. I stopped and turned back before leaving.
“Save the fish and water for last,” I instructed. “Farmers use fish in water crops for parasite control and supplemental fertilizer. Dismantle the bucket filters and save what you can.”
I was met with an enthusiastic nod and grin from Dave, and I walked out the front door with James and Rich trailing.
We stepped out into the light of the outdoors, and nearly as soon as we made our way down the single step near the front door, Clara closed the house up behind us. Almost as if it were planned, the sun slowly started to disappear behind a light, fluffy cloud.
Instead of following straight back down the street we’d come from, I led Rich and James across the street, where we disappeared between a house and its detached garage.
“Where we going?” James inquired.
“Couple blocks over, then back home,” I explained. “No point covering the same ground twice, when we have so much to scout still.”
Both guys nonverbally agreed, and we made our way through a gap in the fence along the back of the property, and into the next yard.
We made it to the second street over, and, coming to a stop near the corner of another small ranch house, we saw our second freak for the day. It was a lone male, wearing the outfit of a mailman, but I don’t think he could even tell what address he was at anymore. The guy looked ragged. His uniform soiled and filthy, torn in several spots, his trademark hat was missing, and he still wore one of two earbuds to a pair of headphones that were no longer plugged into anything.
Rich was the first to move. He slowly pulled his long hunting knife and started to step forward. I caught him just before he broke cover, motioning to a couple of houses down the street in response to his inquisitive expression. We only had a moment to wait before three freaks appeared in a driveway, walking casually down the slight slope of the pavement towards the street as if they belonged there. A moment later, two more crept out of the open front door of a house, stepped onto the lawn, turned, and disappeared along the side of the house, only to return a moment later, the female in the lead sniffing the air in several directions. She meandered a moment, went back to sniffing, and darted back into the house with the other following. She appeared just a second later, standing pressed against the door frame, and began issuing a few of those barking coughs before going back inside.
“What the fuck are they doing?” James asked, his voice low and very shaky.