by T. L. Payne
“I’m sorry I scared you,” the boy said, his voice timid and low.
Maddie remembered hearing a gunshot before she fell. She looked up at the boy, his head held low, looking into his bowl.
“What were you shooting at?”
“A rabbit,” he said, lifting his head as broad grin crept across his face.
“Did you get him?”
“Yep. That is what is in the soup,” he said with pride.
Emma sat her spoon down with a thud. Her face was drawn up and her eyebrows furrowed.
We’ll all be eating lots of things we found gross before things return to normal, Maddie thought.
“It is tasty,” she said, smacking her lips.
She thought it tasted just like chicken. She had never had wild rabbit before. She had heard that some wild game like rabbits and squirrels tasted like chicken, but until now, she had thought it to be a joke.
Darlene placed her mug down on the table and slid in beside Ray Junior.
“I guess if the power don’t come back on soon, we are going to have to cook up the meat from the freezer before it all goes bad. That sure is going to suck to have to throw away all that beef, chicken, and pork.”
“And my deer,” said Ray Junior.
Maddie wiped broth from her chin with a paper napkin and placed it in her lap.
“You should start canning it now.”
“Can it? I got a whole freezer full from when we butchered a steer and half my chickens, not to mention the summer fruit and vegetable from the garden. Most of that was canned, but the berries, peaches, along with peas and squash, well, I froze those. There is probably half a hog left from the butchering last spring.”
Darlene lifted her mug to her lips, took a sip, and held the cup to her mouth as she stared off into the kitchen, lost in thought.
Maddie looked at Ray Junior. He was a thin, scrawny boy, but he could hunt and probably fish. They would likely do okay even without a freezer full of food. But if the power stayed off, they would need all they could get for the harsh Illinois winter.
“You could dehydrate the vegetables and make jerky of the meat. At least they would not go to waste.”
“You think the power will be out that long?” Darlene asked, her voice pitchy.
“If it is out because of what my dad called an EMP or CME—electromagnetic pulse or coronal mass ejection—then, yes, it could be out for months.”
“What is an electronic magnet pulse?” asked Ray Junior.
“An electromagnetic pulse. It’s caused by a nuke being set off in the atmosphere. It sends energy waves or something crashing to earth, basically frying anything electrical or electronic like radios and things.”
It occurred to Maddie that she had not felt naked without her phone as she would have normally. Like most everyone else, she was never without her phone, usually checking her social media feeds every hour at a minimum. She even did her homework on her phone many times.
Darlene picked up her mug from the table and stood.
“Well, I guess I better get busy figuring out how to dehydrate three hundred pounds of meat and vegetables.”
They spent the day preserving the food from the freezer. Maddie’s headache was just about gone, but the cuts to her hands and elbow still hurt. Darlene and Ray Junior seemed like good people. Maddie and Emma like them. The four of them had worked past dark constructing a smoker out of scrap lumber that Darlene’s husband kept behind the barn. Scrounging in the family dump, Ray Junior found grates from long-abandoned barbeque grills. Maddie showed them how to build a firebox to attach to the smoker and how to hang the meat on the racks for drying. Darlene cut a roast from the refrigerator into strips and soaked them in brine, readying them for their turn in the smoker. The meat from the freezer would last a few days before the freezer temperatures dropped enough to start thawing its contents—as long as they kept the freezer door closed. They removed the frozen fruits and vegetables to defrost first because they would be first on the list to dehydrate.
While Ray Junior chopped wood for the smoker, Maddie and Emma cut up the vegetables as they thawed. Maddie taught them how to take the screens from their windows to use as drying racks for the vegetables. Darlene and Ray Junior had stared at her like she had two heads when she suggested they lay the vegetables and fruits out on the window screens and place them in the junk cars on the property. There sure were enough of them to get the job done. Maddie thought Darlene’s husband must be an aspiring salvage yard manager with the number of broken-down cars out beside the old wooden barn.
“Where did you learn this stuff?” Ray Junior asked, wiping sawdust from his pants. Maddie stopped chopping and placed the knife on the cutting board. A pang of grief gripped her heart, and she could not speak for fear of bursting into tears. The grief that she had so successfully suppressed in the three years since her father’s death had been an ever-present companion since the lights went out.
“My dad.”
“Your dad must be pretty smart. Where’s he at?”
The words caught in her throat, and Maddie could not speak them. Those two damn words had replayed in her head over and over—the two worst words in the world. Maddie swallowed hard, fighting back the tears that were forcing themselves forward.
“He’s gone.”
She said it. She said it out loud. It felt as raw and painful to her as the day she had heard her mother say them. “He’s gone. Your daddy is gone.”
Tears streamed down Maddie’s face. She wiped them with the back of her hand. She looked to the sky, willing them to stop. Blurring her vision, they flowed against her will. Emma flung her arms around Maddie’s waist. The two of them wept. Maddie patted Emma on the back, feeling the girl shuddering in her arms. She stroked Emma’s hair and rocked her gently. Maddie stared down at a colorfully braided rag rug on the floor by the old porcelain sink. The wood floor bore the scars of many years of use. A path had been worn by decades of feet traveling from the back door to the living room. It reminded her of Uncle Ryan’s house.
Releasing Emma, Maddie turned and walked into a tiny bathroom off the kitchen. Shutting the door behind her, she slumped down to the floor and wept like she had the day her dad had left her.
Maddie washed her face in a bowl of water Ray Junior had drawn from the well. The water was cool and felt refreshing on her sweaty, tear-stained skin. She blew her nose with toilet paper. It would not be long before tissue, paper towels, and toilet paper were a luxury that few, if anyone, would enjoy. Maddie stared at herself in the mirror. Her left cheek was bruised and swollen. Her top lip was scraped, and her chin had abrasions. But it was the huge bags under her eyes that caught her attention. A good night’s sleep was another luxury that few would enjoy from now on.
When she opened the door to the bathroom, Ray Junior stood in front of her.
“I’m sorry I made you cry.”
“Oh buddy, you didn’t make me cry. I just miss my dad.”
“I miss my dad too. I hope he’ll make it home soon.”
“I am sure he is doing everything he can to get back here to you and your mom. From what I can see around here, your dad is a pretty resourceful guy.”
Maddie patted Ray Junior on the shoulder and returned to chopping vegetables. Emma sat on the rug, stroking the head of a big white dog in her lap. Emma smiled and kissed the dog as he rolled over to have his tummy rubbed. Maddie looked out the kitchen window into the backyard.
Ray Junior opened the back door. The dog stood.
“You can stay, Coop,” Ray Junior said to the dog.
The dog returned to his previous position in Emma’s lap.
“Mom don’t usually let Cooper be in the house. He is supposed to stay with the goats. It’s his job to watch over them, but he wanders off a lot. Daddy says he is patrolling his territory for threats, but Momma thinks he is off looking for a meal from the neighbor. Old Mr. Jenkins feeds him jerky.”
“I’d wander off for jerky too,” Maddie said.
“Well, after y’all get done with the veggies and start cutting up the meat, you won’t have to wander too far too soon.”
“I can’t wait!” Maddie said.
“I best get to chopping some more wood. Looks like we are gonna need a ton of it to smoke everything in the freezer,” Ray Junior said, as he closed the screen door.
Returning to the task of cutting vegetables, Maddie watched Emma playing with the dog. She thought of her mom and brother as she chopped. All those weekend drills hadn’t been for nothing. She and Zach had rolled their eyes when their dad would declare, “One more time.” He would have them repeat tasks over and over to create muscle memory. At the time, all she had wanted to do was forget. She did not want her muscles to remember the ache and pain of carrying that heavy pack up and down the hills or the cover-and-concealment drills.
Maddie’s mom, Beth, hadn’t been eager to create muscle memory, either. She went along because she knew her husband was passionate about it. But Maddie had heard her telling a friend that she thought it comforted him and gave him something to focus on. Beth believed it helped with his PTSD. She had said that all the ugly he had seen in the war made him want to protect his family, and she would not fault him for that.
“Besides,” she had said, “At least he is spending time with his kids. Lord knows he was away from them most of their lives. They deserve some of his attention now.”
Mom will make it home.
All that time sweating and freezing in the woods and marching down back roads had not been for nothing. Dad knew what he was doing. He had prepared them for this world even though they had stopped drilling after he passed. To her surprise, she remembered the things he’d taught them. She remembered, and so would Zach and Mom.
Maddie was jolted out of her thoughts by the screen door closing hard into the jam with a bang.
“I’m ready for the next batch if you have enough cut,” Darlene said, placing a large empty bowl on the kitchen island.
Darlene brushed a loose strand of her salt-and-pepper hair from her face. She wiped perspiration from her brow with her apron.
“I just cannot thank you enough for helping us out like this. You have saved us a fortune in groceries. There’s no way we’d make it this winter, power or no, without the food from that freezer.”
“It is my pleasure. You took us in and bandaged me up. If Ray Junior had not rescued me, there’s no telling who might have come along and done who knows what to me laying there unconscious like that.”
Maddie placed the knife on the cutting board and looked at Darlene. The woman’s wrinkled mouth formed a smile. Her eyes beamed with pride.
“He is such a good boy. I could not ask for a better son. He ain’t nothing like those other teenagers at his school. He is kind and cares about people. That boy never complains about doing chores around the farm—even the stinky, messy ones. With Ray on the road most of the time, Ray Junior steps up and takes care of what needs doing. We are darn proud of him.”
“He is a very sweet boy. My brother, Zach, sort of stepped up when my dad died. He was only eleven, but he took on a lot of Dad’s chores. He even tried to boss me around. I think he resented when my Uncle Ryan came around to help out because he felt it was his job and Ryan was stepping on his toes.”
“Yeah, I think boys somehow believe they have to grow up and take care of things when the dads aren’t around,” Darlene said, scraping squash into a bowl.
Maddie thought about that a moment. She had not seen it before, but Zach had grown up faster than other boys his age. When his friends had been interested in playing baseball and video games, Zach had been fixing broken faucets and cleaning the gutters, even after her mother remarried. Jason was worthless when it came to fixing stuff. They both had grown up too fast. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. But they’d need to grow up even more quickly now.
Chapter 20
Red Cross Disaster Shelter
Decatur Airport
Decatur, Illinois
Event + 2 days
As Zach had feared, the bus had not headed west on Interstate 70. Instead, it traveled north. Zach was sure that he had made the wrong decision when the bus stopped at a gate guarded by armed soldiers. His dad had not spoken about camps or what would happen to stranded travelers in an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario. But Zach had read about it in his research. A lot of the YouTubers had talked about FEMA’s plans for internment camps, much like the ones that held the Japanese during World War II.
Zach had read about camps being built in every state. He had even tried to get his mom to take him to Grandview, Missouri, to see for himself if the rumor of a FEMA camp there was true. The camp for Illinois was supposed to be near Marseilles, Illinois, where his dad’s best friend, Ryan, lived.
Ryan had refused to answer any of Zach’s questions about its existence when he had last spoken to him about it. Zach didn’t understand why Ryan was shutting him down like that. Ryan and his dad thought alike, and he should have known why Zach needed to confirm its existence. He lived right there next to one. Why, if it was just a conspiracy theory, had Ryan not jumped to debunk it?
The bus door opened, and a guard stepped in. The bus driver handed him a piece of paper. The guard handed the note back, stepped off the bus, waved them through as the tall chain-link gates opened, and the bus rolled forward.
They stopped at another gate to another fenced in area where a complex of several tall, white tents were all connected together by what looked like hallway tunnels. Above each tent entrance, one banner read, “American Red Cross” and another read, “FEMA Disaster Recovery Center.”
The door to the bus opened again and a man in his late forties wearing a red vest and khaki pants stepped onto the bus.
“Okay, listen up, folks,” he yelled.
Zach’s classmates were audibly displeased with the situation, and their complaining grew louder as the man tried to gain order. Mr. Dean stood and held his arm over his head, his hand making a fist. It reminded Zach of his days in public elementary school assemblies.
The bus slowly quieted. When the noise was just a low mumbling, Mr. Dean spoke.
“All right, class. I know everyone’s tired and we all just want to get home. But there’s a procedure that has to be followed in a national emergency. We have to be patient and let these folks do their jobs. If everyone cooperates, we can get through this stage and be on our way home soon. So everyone, quiet down, and let the gentleman tell us what we need to do to get home.”
Mr. Dean turned and gestured for the man to continue as he took his seat.
“In a moment, we’ll have you exit the bus and proceed to the in-processing station. We’ll be processing you in alphabetical order. There’ll be three lines with one line for A-H and so on.”
The man pointed to the first tent.
“We will need you to have your student identification card or driver’s license ready if you have one. After you’ve filled out the registration forms, you’ll be able to proceed to the check-in station. From there you will be directed to where you need to go next.”
“When are we getting home? I have a date tonight.” Connor yelled.
Everyone turned and laughed at him, prompting Mr. Dean to stand to get them to quiet down.
“The president has issued a shelter-in-place order, effective until further notice. Until we know what is going on, we’ll need everyone to remain here. We will get you home as quickly as possible. But first we must get through this process. Everyone, would you please stand and proceed in an orderly fashion to the front of the bus.”
"What do you mean, shelter-in-place? What the hell does that mean?” someone yelled.
"No one is allowed to travel at the moment. We are doing our best to locate stranded motorists and provide shelter until the travel ban has been lifted," the man responded.
"What happened? Was it terrorists again?" another asked.
"Unfortunately, communications are down, and we do not
have a lot of information right now. We do know that when it is safe to do so, the travel ban will be lifted and we will get you all home to your parents. But right now, we just need a little cooperation while we get you settled here.”
“Do we take our bags and stuff?” a girl asked.
“Bags?”
“Our backpacks and gym bags,” she clarified.
“Yes, bring your things, but leave them outside the tent. They will need to be inspected before being allowed into the facility.
"Inspected? Why?" Jacob yelled.
Leaning in close to Connor, Jacob said, "Man, you better stuff that weed down your pants.”
Zach’s heart sank. There was no way they were ever seeing their belongings again. Zach never went anywhere without his GHB, or get-home bag. He took his GHB to sleepovers, school, the dentist’s office. He slept with it beside his bed. It was a part of him. There was no way in hell he was leaving it behind.
"It is to ensure everyone’s safety. Now if you will exit the bus, we will do our best to get you processed as quickly as possible and then on to the food tent. I am sure you all would like a nice hot meal by now.”
Everyone on the bus stood and proceeded to the front. Zach hung back. He was desperately trying to form a plan. He went over all the scenarios he had trained for with his dad, but none of them fit the situation he now found himself in. He was screwed. He had let himself be taken behind enemy lines, and he could not think himself out of this one.
Zach was the last one to step off the bus. A mound of gym bags, back packs, and handbags lay on the ground outside the tent. The thought struck him about how much money was lying there. While there were Nike or North Face brands, there were many more expensive bags than those in the pile. Most of his classmates came from wealthy families. Many were sons and daughter of doctors, lawyers, and business owners. Their parents could afford to replace the stuff heaped there. Most of it was useless to them now, anyway.
Zach’s bag, however, was priceless to him. It contained all the things he needed to survive until he got home. The contents had been carefully chosen by his father. Each item had a purpose. There was nothing in the pack he was prepared to part with.