He went on to say that even without power, communication, transportation, and the full array of goods and services that had once been available to them, things were still bearable. They grew their own food and hand pumped water, so they had plenty to eat and drink. They preserved fruits and vegetables during the summer for use in the winter. They hunted and raised chickens for meat, burned wood for heat, and re-invented alcohol lamps for light. They also continued to home school their children and entertained themselves with board games, reading, drawing, and things like that. In short, they did okay.
Things continued to change for the worse, though. People would occasionally stop by looking for food. Others would just help themselves to what was growing in his fields. Most of these people were from the cities. Apparently, once the grocery stores were empty, they decided to look for food elsewhere. When he came across someone trying to steal food, he’d usually just run them off with a little bird shot from his shotgun. The ones with small kids, though, he’d give some food to as long as they promised to move along.
He stopped after telling; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4tif this part of his story, and his face squeezed in on itself in great despair. “Turning good people away like that …the children …well, I just hope there’s forgiveness for me is all. I didn’t see much of a choice, you know. I had to think of my family first. There just wasn’t enough food for everyone who needed it. I know they suffered.”
Anna told him she would have done the same thing, which seemed to give him little comfort. After a few moments, when nobody said anything more, he started in again.
As the weeks went by, he began to hear terrible stories from some of these trespassers. They told him that in the world outside his farm, law and order had completely broken down, and murder, robbery, and rape were commonplace. There were even rumors of cannibalism, though none had personally seen it. He also learned that a second epidemic had killed thousands and thousands of more people, so many that cities and towns were little more than cemeteries. Additionally, in some places, religious zealots claimed that all this was happening because God was punishing man for his sins, and only they knew the way to salvation. These charlatans and crazies formed and armed groups of survivors, who in turn murdered and stole from different survivors. Still other groups like these were formed by people who were just your plain, everyday, garden variety, hardened criminals. These different groups sometimes even competed with one another over food and territory and slaves, (there was that too, slavery) with many more lives lost.
After hearing all this, Hank told us that he and his wife went armed everywhere, even in the house. They kept the kids close, taught Hank Jr. how to shoot, and made plans on what to do if they were attacked. They also hid their vegetable gardens as best they could because people would still occasionally stop on their property.
Hank said that during one of these encounters with people looking for food, Margaret, his wife, must have become infected with the new virus because she got sick, really sick, and soon died. After that, it was one child after the other until they were all gone.
Hank, in telling this part of his story, let his voice drop to almost a whisper. “For some reason I didn’t catch it. I kept waiting for it to get me, prayed for it, but I didn’t get the sniffles, a headache, nothin’. It just doesn’t make any sense; why me and not Marge or one of the kids? Maybe it was better that way,” he said without any further explanation.
He brought his head up, took a deep breath, let it out and said that he thought about leaving, finding other people to be with, but he just couldn’t abandon his family. So he just stayed where he was. He told us that for a while, a long while, he didn’t see another human being. They stopped passing by on the road. Recently, though, there has been an increase in the number of people he’s seen, at least two groups a week, sometimes more, and they were all going south.
He looked at me when he said this, eyeball to eyeball so to speak, and I thought he was expecting me to provide an explanation. He seemed like a decent enough man all right, but it was just too early to give him that kind of trust. So instead, I just shrugged my shoulders and gave him a “humph.” pickup truckwot
Toward the end of our conversation, as it relates to this matter, Hank pushed his plate away and told us that about three days ago two men came onto his property. “They broke into the house here and started taking things.”
Anna interrupted at this point and said, “Hank, I feel terrible about coming into your house uninvited like that. If I’d known someone actually lived here, I never would have done that.”
He held up his hand and said, “Don’t worry about it. Of course you didn’t know. Besides, I think I’ve been through every house within a mile of this place. It’s no different.”
He continued talking after that and said he waited for the men to come outside before he confronted them. While so engaged, he was able to overhear their conversation. These men talked about a number of things, including a group of people they had murdered on the road north of there and their amusement over the manner in which one of them begged for his life before they finally killed him, it apparently being a running joke between them. The pair also spoke about how they were on their way to meet with a number of others to attack a settlement of people who were rumored to have a great deal of food and guns. They were dispatched in small groups toward their objective because there wasn’t enough food to support a large group traveling together. The reason this came up in their conversation was because these two men considered finding Hank’s farm “a goldmine” and made promises to each other that they wouldn’t share the information of its existence with the others because the others would strip it of everything, and they would get very little.
By the time the two men came out, Hank had heard enough to know what kind of people they were and killed them both He then took their bodies out to one of the nearby fields and buried them. He explained that he told us this story to let us know that we were walking into trouble. There were a lot of bad people on the road, all going our same direction.
We thanked him for the information, and I assured him that we’d take the precaution of staying off the road so we wouldn’t have to deal with the people he had been talking about.
After eating, he excused himself for a moment and disappeared into the back of the house. At this, Gabriel got up and moved to a different location in the room and stood watching for Hank’s return. His eyes never left the hallway down which Hank had gone.
It continues to amaze me the change that has come over Gabriel. It seems he’s quietly taking on responsibility and becoming more and more independent of thought. I look at this as a good thing in these times. Survival skills you could say. In this case, he changed his position because if Hank came back armed, Gabriel would be in an unexpected location and have a better chance to defend us. It’s a tactic I hadn’t previously considered and also one I’ll adopt as my own in the future. I wonder what made him think of it.
When Hank did come back, he was carrying some children’s books and a pair of denim, bib coveralls. He held the coveralls up to Petra and announcedse people want you so bad?”
Anna asked Petra if she had anything she wanted to say to Hank. He shook his head indicating a thank you wasn’t necessary and, when he turned, I could see tears just forming along the lashes of his lower eyelids. Petra looked up at him and said thank you, to which he responded with a smile.
We had previously made it clear to Hank that we intended to leave in the morning so he didn’t feel we would be a burden to him. At the time, he said nothing about our planned departure, but now, at this point in the evening, he told us that when we leave we could take anything that he had that would help us during our travels. Gabriel was obviously suspicious of this offer and asked him if he expected anything out of us in return. “Not really,” he replied, “just a favor is all.” He explained that he needed help moving something he’s been unable to do by himself. After that, he looked at me and said he had s
omething he wanted to show me in his shop. Gabriel, still the suspicious one, asked if he could come with us. Hank just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sure.”
Once inside, Hank lit a series of alcohol lamps placed around the structure. At first, the lamps only moderately aided our vision. Eventually, though, our eyes adjusted to such a degree that we could see quite clearly and every corner of the building was revealed.
The shop was obviously well cared for. There was a long, uncluttered workbench with a thick, scarred wood top. A huge steel vice was mounted on one end, a smaller one on the other. Hanging above it, on the wall, were tools of all sorts, with still more in drawers underneath. I saw coils and coils of wire and rope hanging from wooden pegs as thick as a shovel handle. There were also cans of oil, solvent, and paint in place on shelves, next to various metal parts of unrecognizable purpose. A stack of heavy, rough cut, well seasoned planks rested on the floor along one wall, and a stainless steel washbasin with a length of black hose was near the door we entered. There was an electric powered pickup truck, so useless, washed, polished, and half-covered with a coarse white canvas tarp. To this he commented, “I had the notion of getting it running someday but could never figure out the circuitry or how to power it.”
There was also a big, sheet metal bin containing what he said were sugar beets and another one that contained potatoes. These he grew himself. He explained that he had several large garden areas surrounded by tall weeds, so therefore well hidden, where he grew his other crops. He hand-pumped water to a storage tank that, in turn, gravity fed the irrigation system as well as the house. He seemed very proud of this. He also said that the showers in the house even worked, and we could use them if we were willing to brave the cold water.
He then pointed out a contraption that consisted, as best I could see, of a metal fifty gallon drum with pipes and tubing sprouting from it in different places. He said it was the “still” he used to produce alcohol, which he used as fuel. Without a pause, he next walked to a tarp covered object that was maybe four feet by six feet by four feet high and pulled the covering off. Underneath pickup truckwot was a small, green, four wheeled vehicle with a two person bench seat in front and a small bed in the back. Mounted in the back of it were two five gallon fuel cans. He told us that the alcohol he made in the still, he used not only for cooking and light but also for powering the vehicle.
Hank called it a “UTV” and explained that it was an old one he had always maintained himself. Because of that, it didn’t have the micro circuitry that was vulnerable to the bombs our enemies exploded several years before or the even earlier failure of the computers and power grid. He was also able to convert the simple gasoline powered engine to work with alcohol. He now used it to cultivate his gardens and sometimes for hauling wood for cutting and burning. He told us it didn’t go much faster than thirty five, forty miles an hour on flat ground, but it was reliable.
At this, he removed a key from its hiding place under a nearby drawer, climbed into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. While doing this, he said that when he hasn’t driven it for several days, he sometimes has to push start it, but on those occasions it always caught quickly. He then shifted it into gear and drove it forward the width of the shop before reversing it back into place and killing the engine. He finally returned the key to its hiding place under the drawer.
“That’s not really what I wanted you to see, though,” he said. “I just wanted you to see what might be of use to you if you want it, such as the potatoes there.” After that he proceeded to open cupboards and cabinets, revealing various items including tarps, more tools, and several boxes of shotgun shells along with reloading equipment.
Showing us these treasures, the still, the little car, and the stored food, struck me as much too trusting for such a new acquaintance as ours. He didn’t really know us. If we wanted to, we could take it from him with little effort. Then again, he was offering much of it to us anyway, so why would we steal it?
I thanked him for his generosity and asked for one of the tarps, a dozen potatoes and a box of shotgun shells, all of which he willingly supplied. Of course we could have used more than that, but we were on foot (he certainly wasn’t going to give up the UTV) so I had to give due consideration to bulk and weight. Gabriel and I then walked to the door and watched Hank move about extinguishing the lamps, variously placed. I think this show of generosity made Gabriel feel a lot better about Hank and any threat he may have offered to us.
As darkness slowly closed in around him, one flame less at a time, I found myself staring at this man to the exclusion of everything else. I don’t know if this will make sense to you, whoever you are, but at that moment I felt him well more than I saw him. I have before mentioned how sad his eyes are. Now, it seemed that a melancholy, no less profound in its affect than the disease that struck down the whole of his family, had invaded him from top to bottom and filled him so full that it wept from his pores and carried out into the air around him with each breath spent. So too, I found it affecting me, as a virus might spread its sickness from man to man. I feel bad for his loss. I feel sad that such a decent family is no more. I think it unfair that a good man should have lost so much.
Standing there, I suddenly wanted to be away from this desperately dark, lonely place. It’s not good here. It’s not good for Hank to be here either. He needs to leave.
It’s obvious now that he is a good man, and I think we could be friends. He also has skills and knowledge that would be useful to us, to Woburn, to everyone. So I’ll talk to Anna and Gabriel in the morning about taking him with us. We could use the help; an extra gun, an extra set of eyes. Surely they’ll see the advantage, so I think they will agree. I’m just not so sure he will. I think he is wedded to this place.
As for the rest of the night, nothing is worth recording. We agreed to meet in the morning and everyone went off to bed, although I stayed up a while to write out the last of these words.
On April 16, 2054
I awoke at first light with a weird feeling I wasn’t awake at all but still somewhere in a dream. I attribute this to Anna being beside me, a yet strange but agreeable sensation, as well as being indoors and in an actual bed, with an actual pillow, and with no wind or rain or chill on my face. I righted myself quickly, though, rolled out of bed, and dressed. As I did, I detected no other movement in the house, but that didn’t mean I was the first to rise. Gabriel has taken that place lately.
The kitchen window framed a clear, pale blue sky and immediately filled me with a careless sense of promise. I guess I should have known better.
When I stepped out onto the front porch, Gabriel was there, seated on the step, hunched-over and leaning back against one of the support posts. At first he didn’t move, instead staring straight ahead at nothing that I could see deserving his attention. Finally, he looked back and up at me, over one shoulder, with a beat down expression that immediately impressed me with the feeling that something unpleasant had happened — again. He tipped his head in the direction of the shop, got up, and started walking that way without so much as a word of explanation. His manner of movement, though, as he crossed the yard, slope shouldered and shuffling, well enough told me of trouble. Though I had slept well, I suddenly felt exhausted.
Before we got there, I could see a piece of paper taped to the door. Gabriel stopped, several feet away, and allowed me to pass on by.
“Alan: Please meet me around back. I need your help with something. Hank.”
I looked back at Gabriel, who shook his head but again offered no further. I guess, though, I really didn’t need more than was given.
Out behind the shop, taped to the gate of the little cemetery I’ve previously described, was a second note. My eyes, however, didn’t catch there but instead fixed to the shovel stuck deep down into the dirt piled alongside the open grave — Hank’s grave. As I neared, more and more of the hole availed itself to my vision; face, shoulders, chest, legs, the body of Hank@font-face {fo
nt-family:atatj Thompson. He had shot himself with a chrome plated, .45 cal semi automatic pistol, that now rested on top of his chest just below his chin. The marker above showed, “Date of Death, April 16, 2054.”
Strangely, I didn’t feel that bad. Surely, there was the body of a man who in life could have continued on to the benefit and good of others. As I’ve written, I think we could have also been fast friends and maybe have even accomplished something fine together, maybe. But the grave is where he wanted to be. He missed his family and in his mind, there, next to them, is where he belonged. So in death, he got what he most wanted in life and no doubt found peace in at least those last few moments. I guess for that I am happy for him.
Gabriel sided me at this point and handed me the note that had been taped to the gate.
“Alan: I apologize for doing this to you, but it’s something I obviously couldn’t do myself. I waited for you or someone like you to come along; someone who I could trust. I know you’ll cover me up and after do just one more thing before you go. If I can ask you to give the flowers a last watering, that would be nice. Marge liked her flowers. They will bloom soon, I think. There’s not much else to say other than take care of your family. Hank.”
My “family,” we’ve become that haven’t we? I guess so. I’ll do my best Hank.
Gabriel leaned his rifle against the fence, but I told him that I’d take care of things (I wanted to be the one to do it) and suggested that he re-survey the shop for items that might be useful. I also told him he may as well familiarize himself with the UTV while he’s at it. I then entered the cemetery and shoveled dirt into Hank’s grave. Before finishing, Anna joined me and together we patted the earth firmly into place. Each of us, I think, said a silent prayer, I know I did, and it was back to business after. Once again, I had the feeling of being outside myself. The earth was off its axis. Things weren’t normal, even for this world.
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