Countdown to Armageddon

by Darrell Maloney

  Jordan spoke up.

  “I already had one, when Zachary relieved me from guard duty this morning. I’m fresh. I’ll take over the watch while you guys grab some sleep.”

  Scott admired his son for stepping up to the plate. He was becoming more and more of a man as each day went by.

  “Good job, son. Did you remember to wind your watch?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, good. I don’t expect any prowlers as long as it’s light outside, but if I’m wrong, wake me up immediately. Otherwise you can wake us all up at five.”

  Scott laid down, Joyce at his side. He suspected it was a worthless cause, but he tried anyway. He dozed a couple of times, but never got any real sleep. There were just too many things running through his mind.

  Jordan stood at the window, watching the street below him. There were a lot of things going through his mind as well. He felt sad for Sara, for having to leave her family behind. He had never been in love before, not really. But he was convinced that he was with this girl. He wondered how living together under the same roof would affect their relationship. As they walked the day before, down a lifeless highway strewn with disabled cars and frightened people, she had teased him.

  “Maybe if we live in the same house for awhile, you’ll start thinking of me as more of a sister type than a girlfriend. Maybe you’ll lose interest in me, and when the time comes to marry you’ll say you don’t want to.”

  He’d stopped her and looked at her.

  “No way,” he’d said. “Living together will only bring us closer.”

  It was a claim he had no business making. The truth was, he didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, much less the distant future. And he had no clue how their feelings would change in the months and years ahead.

  All he knew was that, at this time and in this place, he loved this girl. And he was all she had now. He’d do his level best to prove himself worthy.

  The street outside was dead. Every once in a while, a neighbor would come out and look around, as though watching out for the trucks from the power company that would be coming to their rescue. Trucks that should have come long ago but didn’t. Trucks that some were starting to suspect were never coming again.

  Still, it seemed that the more optimistic, or perhaps more naïve, kept their hopes alive.

  Invariably, the neighbors who did journey outside to look around would shake their heads and slowly go back into their homes. Back into hiding. Back into hoping someone would rescue them from whatever in the world was going on.

  Jordan was puzzled by the lack of children playing outside. They were lots of kids who lived on the block. Any other day before the blackout, they’d be all over the place. Riding their bikes and skateboards up and down the sidewalks. Playing football in the street. Playing basketball in their driveways.

  But today, nothing.

  Jordan wasn’t sure if it was because their parents saw the danger of playing outside in this new, uncertain world, and perhaps had banished them to their back yards or indoors.

  Or, perhaps they were still trapped at whatever schools they attended when the lights went out the day before. Perhaps the schools went on lockdown and were holding the students until their parents came for them.

  And perhaps their parents lived or worked so far away, they couldn’t come for them.

  Jordan kept a close watch on the time, and at five o’clock sharp, he reached over to his little brother, who was sleeping peacefully in the bed beside him.

  He grabbed his brother’s shoulder and said, “Zach! Zach! It’s time to get up.”

  Zachary stopped his soft snoring, snorted a couple of times, and opened his eyes.

  He was wide awake and out of bed in seconds. He wanted to get this show on the road. He was tired of being cooped up in this house, worried about being attacked and maybe killed by marauders.

  He went to his Mom’s room and shook her by the shoulder.

  She opened an eye and said, “Well, hello, little man.”

  “Hi, Mom. It’s time to get up.”

  “Nope. I cannot possibly get up until I have a hug from my son.”

  “Aw, Mom…”

  “Aw, Mom nothing. Come on. It won’t hurt you.”

  He laid his head on her shoulder and put his arm around her waist.

  “Mom, are we really going to be okay?”

  “Of course, honey. Why do you ask that?”

  “I kinda had a bad dream. That we were on our way to the compound and somebody started shooting at us.”

  “That can’t happen, honey. That’s why we’re going at night. Nobody will be able to see us. At least, unless they planned ahead like we did and protected night vision goggles and batteries. And that’s probably not very likely.”

  “Mom, I love you.”

  “I love you too, honey. Did you wake everybody else?”

  “Nope. You were the first.”

  “Thank you for the hug, sweetie. Now run along and wake everyone else, okay?”

  Zach was off like a shot to Sara’s room. He stood in the darkened doorway and said, “Sara, are you awake?”

  “Yes. Is it time?”

  “Yes.”

  She arose and followed Zach to Scott’s bedroom. It was empty. Scott and Joyce were already downstairs, preparing dinner. Joyce had a pot on the camp stove, boiling spaghetti noodles. On the auxiliary burner she was heating up a can of Ragu. It wasn’t the fanciest of dinners. But it was food, and it would help fill their stomachs for the long journey.

  Joyce took the noodles off the burner and drained them in the sink. Then she tasted the sauce, declared it done, and placed it on the counter.

  “Okay, you guys dig in. This will be the last hot meal you get for two days, so eat up.”

  While everyone else sat down to eat, Joyce opened the back door and let Duke in. For the rest of the evening, he was their security system.

  -47-

  Scott finished his dinner first, having fairly wolfed it down so he could get started.

  “I’m going outside. You boys join me when you’re finished.”

  He looked at Linda, then at Joyce.

  “You girls know what to do?”

  “Yep.”

  Joyce looked at Sara.

  “Sara, would you mind helping us?”

  “Sure.”

  Jordan and Zachary followed their father into the back yard, and Sara, anxious to earn her keep and prove her worth, asked, “What can I do?”

  “Why don’t you grab those four large coolers in the den and bring them in here?”

  Sara did as asked, and Linda gave her more instructions.

  “There are a couple of cases of bottled water over there by the refrigerator and a case of sodas. We want two coolers to be water and one cooler to be sodas.

  “If you’ll leave some room at the top of each of the coolers, you can go out into the garage to the chest freezer. There are about twenty or so frozen blocks of blue ice you can top off the coolers with. That’ll keep the drinks cold for at least a day, maybe longer.

  “Once they’re full, don’t try to carry them. Just drag them over to the back door and let the guys know they’re ready and they can come get them. Might as well let them put those muscles to work.”

  Sara set about her project while Linda and Joyce started making sandwiches. They made a variety, using up all of the lunch meat and fresh produce in the refrigerator. They also boiled three packages of hot dogs, rolled each of them in a slice of white bread, added a line of mustard, and sealed each one in a zip-lock snack bag. The boys loved mustard dogs, and they’d wolf these down two or three at a time.

  Once the sandwiches were done and packed in a cooler, they made a huge tossed salad. They split it up into roughly equal portions and put the portions in twelve zip-lock sandwich bags, added assorted flavors of salad dressings into each bag, and shook them up.

  Joyce took a black sharpie, and on each bag she wrote either an “F” for french dressing, an �
��I” for italian, or an “R” for ranch. Then she looked at the bags and laughed at her wasted efforts. It was easy to tell the difference even without her marks. The salads went in the cooler on top of the sandwiches.

  While Joyce was marking the salads, Linda went to the garage and got four blocks of blue ice to keep the food cold. When the cooler was finally closed, the women each took one handle and carried it over to the back door.

  Sara finished her task and asked for more to do.

  Linda said, “There are three laundry baskets stacked together in the laundry room, dear. Take them into the cupboard. Fill them up with whatever snacks you want to take for the trip. Enough snacks for seven people and one dog for two days. You decide what to take. There are potato chips in there, and cookies, and breakfast and granola bars, and all kinds of other stuff.”

  Sara disappeared, and Joyce commented, “What a sweet and helpful girl. I think I’m going to enjoy having her as part of the family.”

  While the girls were making their preparations, the guys had work of their own. Scott had opened the large storage building that doubled as a Faraday cage and had driven the two additional Gators out into the back yard, where he lined them up behind the one he brought off the mountain.

  When he bought the all wheel drive vehicles, he had the option of getting them with four wheels and a short bed, or with six wheels and a longer bed. He chose the longer beds. They’d carry a lot more cargo. They also had a larger engine, which would help them get up the mountain easier when fully loaded.

  “Okay, Zach, you take the double air mattress and blow it up, but not all the way. Blow it up about halfway, and then wedge it into the bed of the first Gator. Then go into the house and get a couple of blankets and a pillow. Somebody’s going to have to pull guard duty tomorrow at the camp, while everybody else is sleeping. They’ll have to get some sleep in tonight.”

  “Jordan, the middle Gator will be our food supply. Go get all the coolers and stuff that the girls are putting by the back door and load them up. Put the coolers on the outside, so it’s easier to get drinks along the way.”

  Scott opened the hoods on the Gators and checked their oil and water levels. The batteries were sealed, but almost new, so he expected no problems with them. He also did a thorough inspection to make sure all the belts were tight, none of the hoses were hard or brittle, and nothing looked amiss. They all appeared to be in top working order.

  He closed the hoods and went into the garage. Weeks before he’d bought rear view mirrors for the driver’s side of each vehicle. He’d never gotten around to installing them, but it wouldn’t take long. The Gator’s hood was made of a heavy plastic instead of steel to reduce its weight. Even without a working drill, he could force screws in to hold the mirror in place, just by applying pressure as he turned them. It was essential that the drivers be able to keep track of each other. In the darkness, it would be easy to get separated, and the mirrors would make it easier to keep the back vehicles in view. That way the slower vehicles wouldn’t get left behind along the way.

  Scott reached under the dash of each of the vehicles and removed the fuses for the headlights, tail lights and brake lights. Lights would be a beacon that would alert others for hundreds of yards that they had working vehicles. They were therefore a major liability.

  And they didn’t need lights anyway. They had night vision goggles, which would amplify the light from the stars and enable them to see.

  Jordan finished loading the coolers and food, and asked, “Okay, what next?”

  “Take the night vision goggles and install the batteries. The battery box is at the very top, on the inside. They take four AA batteries, if I remember right. There are several boxes of batteries next to them. It’ll be dark within the next twenty minutes or so, and you can test them out when you’re done. Also, you can get that blue box off the back of the second Gator. You’ll like what you find in it.”

  “Oh, I will, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, how about if I open it first then?”

  “Nope. If you open it first, you might not get the batteries in the night vision goggles before it gets dark. Besides, what’s in the box is your reward for putting the batteries in without screwing it up. You can’t have the reward until your mission is done.”

  He looked at Jordan and smiled.

  Jordan grinned and said, “Sheesh…”

  Zach finished making a bed in the back of the first Gator and returned for more instructions.

  “Go ask the girls if they’ve got all of their stuff packed, and bring it out and put it in the last Gator. Leave room at the back of the bed for Duke, though. Throw his bed and blanket, food bowl and water dish in the very back. But make sure the dishes are empty. Then take his bag of dog food and put it in the back as well.”

  Twenty minutes after sundown, they were ready to go. Everyone had their goggles on, and was looking around in amazement at the view they cast.

  Sara asked, “How come everything is so green?”

  Scott explained, “They take the available light from the stars above and amplify it. Green is the color they found that amplifies it the best.”

  Zachary looked at Jordan through the green lens.

  “Boy, do you look like a dork in that thing.”

  “Yeah, like you look any better.”

  “You guys stop. Jordan, did you ever open that blue box I gave you?”

  “Oh, no, I forgot about it.”

  He opened it up and said, “Hey, cool! MP-3 players! But how come they’re so big?”

  “They’re battery operated. They don’t need a computer to recharge. When they go dead, you just replace the AAA batteries. I figured you guys would need them to keep from being bored on the trip.”

  “Cool. What kind of music did you put on them?”

  “All country. Waylon and Willie mostly. The good stuff.”

  All three of the kids looked at him. The goggles hid their expressions, which was probably a good thing. Zach’s jaw had dropped.

  Scott laughed.

  “I’m just kidding. It’s all of that rap and pop and other crap you guys downloaded onto my computer.”

  The three appeared to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

  “Now remember, once we leave the yard, no talking. If you want to talk to somebody, tap them on the shoulder, and then use hand signals. If they are close enough to you, whisper in their ear. But no talking. Talking is dangerous from here on out.”

  “Okay. Who’s riding with who?”

  “Zach will be riding in the first Gator with me. Jordan, you and your mom will be in the second Gator. Your mom has volunteered to pull guard duty when we camp tomorrow. That means she’s going to be in the back of my Gator sleeping for a good portion of the trip. When she does, you can drive, and Sara can sit with you and keep you company. Otherwise, Sara, you can ride in the third Gator with Joyce.”

  “What about Duke?”

  “Duke will follow us. You girls in the back keep an eye on him, and if he starts to lag, it’s probably because he’s tired. When that happens, Sara, you run up and tell me and we’ll stop the convoy. Jordan can pick Duke up and put him on his bed to take a nap and rest.”

  “How fast will we be going?”

  “Not fast. The Gators will creep along at about three miles an hour, maybe a bit more, in silent mode. The engines won’t make any noise at all at that speed, and the only sound you’ll hear is the occasional stick or leaf being crushed under the wheels. That’s the safest way. It’ll be too dark for anybody to see us, and if they can’t hear us either, we should be able to get up the mountain without anyone trying to take our vehicles or food away from us.”

  Joyce added, “It’s going to be a long hard trip, especially since we can’t talk to each other. It’s also going to be very boring. If you get sleepy, just step off the vehicle and walk for a bit. If you walk at a fast pace, you’ll be able to stay up with your Gator and the walk will wake you back up again.”


  “Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “Okay, I’m going to take the fence section down so we can drive the Gators out. This will be your last chance to use a real bathroom for the next two days, so if anybody wants to go, I’d suggest you do it now.”

  Sara and Zachary immediately scrambled back into the house.

  -48-

  By the time the kids did their business and rejoined the others, the three Gators were already idling in the large field behind the house. Zach and Sara ran through the opening in the fence and Scott replaced the panel, locking it into place. Then he climbed over the fence and hopped to the ground on the other side.

  The convoy crept slowly through the brush to the long line of power poles, which stretched high into the night sky. Duke followed dutifully behind the vehicles, not sure where they were going and why, but happy to be out of the back yard.

  Once they neared the power lines, the heavy brush gave way to mowed grass. The electrical coop had always gone a great job of keeping this area maintained, and it would work to the group’s advantage.

  They swung onto the road that ran directly under the towers. In the daytime, a week before, they would have been intimidated by the massive two hundred foot tall structures over their heads, with a dozen deadly electrical lines humming loudly.

  Now, though, the lines were dead and silent. And the tall towers themselves were merely green tinted shadows.

  As planned, the three drivers kept their feet off the accelerator pedals, and just let them creep along. They were virtually silent, except for the occasional crunch of something under one of the balloon tires.

  The hardest part, of course, was the pace. It was dreadfully slow. Jordan stepped off of his Gator for several miles, walking alongside the one Sara was in so he could hold her hand along the way. In lieu of words, they exchanged hand gestures, blowing each other kisses and touching fingers to their hearts and pointing to the other.

  Joyce, sitting next to Sara and driving the third Gator, enjoyed the spectacle. It reminded her of the days when she was young and in love, and desperate to express that love in every way possible.