“I haven’t been away from the house since you guys brought me home,” she reminded him.
“Speaking of home, have you guys finished your various security projects?” James asked.
“I think our preparations are finally just about done,” Shane said. “The fence is complete and reinforced, the doors are strengthened.” He gestured at the sliding glass door. Though the door was currently open, Jodi could still see the sturdy panels that had been put in place of the glass, the reinforcing bars over the intact panel on the inner door. “The solar panels are working well, so we’re not without power. The garden is growing, and we even got Beth’s old water pump in the shed working. There’s not much left to do.”
“That’s good to hear,” James said, adjusting his hat. “As far as how things are going in town, people still have a little respect for law enforcement, but overall, it’s not good. As the weeks pass, they become less optimistic. I see them losing hope. I’m telling you, Jodi, when you drive through town these days, you see grim faces peering out of the doorways and windows. We’ve got a big tent camp in the park near the high school, and you’ve never seen a sadder collection of lost souls in your life.”
“What’s the situation with food?” Jodi asked
“As bad as we feared,” he replied. He finally went to the kitchen and discreetly, with his back turned to the dining room table, poured the too-strong coffee into the sink. Jodi could tell what he was doing, but it made her smile. In her previous life, she’d been used to measuring coffee in K-cups. “The C & R Supermarket had a break-in a few days ago. A team of thieves looted an impressive amount of food. The store added armed guards—well, local volunteers with guns—and they’re working around the clock to protect the place. They’ve already had a couple of dust-ups with wannabe burglars. They’ve also adopted what the locals are calling, ‘The Costco Model,’ limiting the number of customers in the store, limiting the quantity of items that individual shoppers can buy. That’s got people steaming mad, but what else can they do? The supply chain is almost entirely disrupted. It’s near impossible to restock the shelves with even basic foods.”
Jodi felt a squirming unease in her belly. Hadn’t she seen the real danger that lurked out there in a crumbling world? The sheriff claimed most people still respected law enforcement, but how much longer would that last? How long would it be until men like Talon ruled the world? Between Augusta and Macon, she’d run into two bloodthirsty gangs robbing and killing at will. How many more were there now?
“Sheriff Cooley, do take care of Mikey,” she said.
“Like I said, I won’t put him in any real danger,” James said, rinsing the coffee cup with water they kept in a basin for that purpose. He set the clean cup on the counter and turned to them. “I didn’t actually come here to recruit a deputy. I came here with some…well, possibly good news. We’ve scheduled another town meeting in two days, and I figured you’d want to be there.”
Jodi glanced at Shane, who gave her a little frown. The previous town meeting hadn’t been all that productive, but it still seemed like the right thing to do. Better to get everyone in the same room talking rather than let the community thrive on gossip and whispers.
“Anyway, if you folks care to attend, I’ll swing by tomorrow evening,” he said. “We can ride together.”
“We’ll be ready,” Jodi said.
“For sure,” Shane added, returning to the dining table. “Thanks for letting us know.”
Jodi noticed Beth in the backyard. Jodi’s mother must have come from the garage, but she was now working in the garden. The cabbage and summer squash had started to ripen, and she was plucking the ripest vegetables and putting them in a plastic bucket.
A moment later, the teens came scurrying after her, bearing buckets and gardening tools, Owen and Corbin in the lead, Violet following with Ruby at her side, and the Horton kids bringing up the rear. The one named David still insisted on wearing that silly blue trilby hat, even in the sweltering heat. Somehow, Beth had put the whole lot of them to work, and they seemed to be chatting and having a good time.
“If you’ll excuse me,” James said, slipping past Mike and moving toward the door. “I need to talk to Beth for a moment. Mike, meet me at the office in about an hour, if you would.”
“I’ll be there, Sheriff,” Mike replied.
As James headed out to the garden, Mike excused himself. That left Jodi and Shane sitting at the table. They traded a meaningful look, a question lingering in the air. Finally, Jodi said it out loud.
“Are we safe here? In this town, I mean.”
Shane didn’t answer for a second, biting his lower lip as if debating with himself how honest he should be.
“I don’t know,” he said, finally, “but I doubt we’d be safer anywhere else.”
Jodi nodded. It was the answer she’d expected.
Not safe here. Not safe anywhere. This is the world now.
2
The paper target danced at the end of the nail, as the 9mm round punctured a neat hole near the very center. Owen had grown strangely fond of the feeling of the Glock, the warm nylon polymer pressing against his palm, the sharp mechanical pull when he fired. He couldn’t quite pinpoint why. Maybe it was just the comfort of being armed, knowing how much the safety of his family depended on it these days.
The other kids were working in the garden, but Corbin stopped what he was doing and turned to watch Owen line up his next shot. They’d set up a semi-permanent gun range against the fence near the shed. It was the safest place in the backyard because it meant no guns were pointed toward the garden or toward any nearby houses. Beyond the back fence, there was only an undeveloped field with a line of trees on the far side. Corbin was wearing his old gray shirt from juvenile boot camp. Overall, he looked pretty rough, and if Owen hadn’t gotten to know what a decent guy he was, he would probably have avoided him.
“Nice shot,” Corbin said. “Almost a bull’s-eye.”
“I’m getting there,” Owen said.
The Horton kids rose to watch. He could tell by the unease on their faces that they still weren’t used to being around guns. Libby seemed intrigued, but her sister Amelia grimaced. David just stared blankly, his expression unreadable from under the brim of his hat. All of the Horton kids had proved to be decent people, friendly enough, but they were strange, each in their own way. David was the hardest to read, and he mostly kept his thoughts to himself. Amelia was, in Owen’s estimation, the most normal of the three—certainly the most pleasant-looking. Indeed, as they rose, Owen’s gaze lingered on her. She had nice eyes and an athletic figure. Owen studied her just a little too long, as Amelia suddenly turned and met his gaze. With a flutter of embarrassment, he looked away.
He noticed the ejected shell casing on the ground and stooped down to grab it. It was hot, but he didn’t want to leave it in the yard in case the lawn mower ran over it. He tucked it into his shirt pocket and lined up a second shot, trying to drive Amelia from his mind. The sound of footsteps on the back porch made him pause. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Sheriff James Cooley. The sheriff’s mustache was more impressive than ever, swooping off in either direction above his top lip like glorious gray wings. As Owen expected, he made a beeline for Grandma.
“Well, look at you, Beth Bevins,” the sheriff said, his voice dancing as it always did when he spoke to her. “You’ve put this whole passel of young’uns to work.”
She rose, dabbing sweat from her cheeks and forehead on the back of her gardening gloves.
“That’s right,” she said. “I’m a harsh taskmaster.”
“Now, I don’t believe that for one second,” he said, taking his hat off and fanning his face. “You’ve clearly won them over with your sunny disposition.”
“That must be it,” she replied, smiling at him.
Owen waited a few seconds, in case the sheriff was about to share useful information, but the pleasantries continued. He would never have admitted it, but seeing his
grandmother in a romantic context, seeing the sparkle in the sheriff’s eye, made him uncomfortable. His sister felt the same way, he could tell. He wondered if Violet even realized that the mild look of disgust on her face was noticeable as she felt for the knots of crabgrass along the edge of the garden. Her guide dog stood nearby and panted.
“Those are just about the healthiest cabbages I think I’ve ever seen,” James said. “What’s your secret?”
“Nutrient-rich soil,” Beth replied.
Owen turned his attention back to the paper target, but now he felt bad shooting. He didn’t want to interrupt the conversation.
“I wonder who owns the field on the other side of the fence,” Corbin said. “It would be a much better location for a shooting range.”
“I’m not sure,” Owen replied. “I think it’s city property, but maybe a developer owns it.”
“It almost doesn’t matter, in a way,” Corbin said. “Nothing will ever get developed over there. Who the heck would build new homes now?”
“Yeah, it wouldn’t make much sense, but the property probably still has some financial value.”
Corbin shrugged. “For all we know, the owner is among the thousands—tens of thousands—who got stuck out in the world somewhere and never came home.”
The thought chilled Owen. Vehicles had died, phones had died, public transportation had become nonexistent, and everything had been thrown into chaos after the EMP. A major side effect of this was displacement, people scattered all over the world. Some had been on vacation, some traveling from city to city, some at work, some running errands, and the simple act of getting home had proved impossible for many of them. Heck, it had taken Uncle Mike, Owen, and Mom days and days just to make the short trip from Augusta—and they’d almost died more than once on the way.
Owen recalled the great swell of people marching down the highway outside of Augusta, a lunatic screaming about the Rapture as he fired a gun indiscriminately. He thought of the people he’d seen sleeping in their cars by the side of the road, the roadblocks and debris. Grandma’s house was somewhat orderly, so it was easy to ignore, if not forget, how chaotic it was beyond the fence.
“It’d be hard to push a mower through the wild grass over there,” he said, “and all the ticks and chiggers would probably bite the heck out of us.”
“I read that if you drink a lot of apple cider vinegar the chiggers won’t bite,” Corbin said.
The sheriff was heading toward them, so Owen holstered the Glock. Beth was kneeling in the garden, smiling at the back of James’s head as if he’d said the absolute cutest thing in the world. Owen tried not to react to the look on Grandma’s face—so girlish—and he felt bad that it bothered him. Why shouldn’t she like the guy, giant mustache and all, if she wanted to?
“Hey there, Owen,” James said, stepping around Corbin to approach him. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Of course,” Owen said. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing bad.” James took him gently by the upper arm and guided him a few feet away.
This immediately drew the attention of the Horton kids, Violet, and Corbin. Only Grandma returned to gardening, and only Ruby seemed utterly disinterested in anything but panting and waiting.
“Is something the matter?” Owen said.
“No, no, nothing like that,” James replied. “I just had an idea I wanted to run past you. I thought maybe you’d be interested, especially seeing how good you’re getting at hitting your targets.”
The first thought that crossed Owen’s mind was that the sheriff was going to recruit him into law enforcement, and he immediately tried to come up with a friendly way to get out of it. Owen had no intention of working out in the community, and he didn’t want to be away from home. The family needed him.
“Now, don’t get nervous, Owen. I’m not about to ask you to scrub the jail toilets. I’ve just been thinking lately that it’d be good to start learning how to live off the land, especially with the grocery stores running empty. Fresh meat is one thing that can’t be stored long, you know? We can dry-cure it and do all sorts of other things to make it last, but we can’t store it fresh for more than a few days.”
Owen breathed a sigh of relief. Hunting. That’s what this was about. “What sort of animal did you have in mind? Deer?”
James shook his head. Out of the corner of his eye, Owen noticed the Horton kids creeping closer. Libby was wearing a long, loose dress, a belt with a big silver buckler, and black boots. The kid certainly had an odd fashion sense. She created an unusual counterpoint to her athletic sister, Amelia, who preferred gym shorts and tennis shoes.
“Gators,” James said. “That’s what I was thinking. How would like to join me on a gator hunt?”
“I don’t know,” Owen replied. It certainly wasn’t what he’d expected. He had a certain image of the kind of guys who hunted gators—leathery-skinned, barefooted fellows with a less-than-average number of teeth. “I’ve never hunted alligators.”
Libby stepped forward then, her dress brushing the pea plants. She’d braided her hair, though not particularly well, and pulled it over her right shoulder.
“I want to hunt alligators,” she said. “That sounds awesome.”
The sheriff glanced at her but quickly turned back to Owen, waiting for an answer. The suggestion of hunting alligators was so out of left field that Owen didn’t know what to say. He’d certainly never eaten gator meat. Wasn’t that something people did down in the bayou?
“It really does taste like chicken,” Corbin said, as if he thought it would be helpful. “That cliché isn’t always true, but in this case it is. The texture’s not the same, but the taste…”
“Of course, you’ve eaten alligator,” Owen muttered. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“It sounds kind of gross to me,” Amelia said. Of the three Horton kids, she was so “normal” by comparison that she scarcely seemed related. However, there was just a touch of similarity in the roundness of her cheeks and chin that indicated she was David’s twin. “Where does someone even go to hunt alligators? Don’t you have to go to the swamp?”
“You would think it’s gross,” Libby said. “Everything interesting is gross to you.”
“Uh, your Japanese cartoons are definitely gross,” Amelia said, “and eating alligators is a close second.”
Libby gave her sister a scowl that might have been half-affectionate; Owen couldn’t quite tell.
“Kids, kids,” James said, holding his hands up to stop the bickering. “Look, there’s nothing gross about it. Gator meat is perfectly fine. I’m not trying to send us off one some kind of exotic wilderness adventure. People go gator hunting every year. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. There’s a great place along the Ocmulgee River south of Macon.”
“Can we all go?” Libby asked.
James looked at the teens, who had circled around him. Only Violet hung back.
“Well, do all of you want to go?” the sheriff asked.
“No, thanks,” Amelia said. “It sounds gross to me. I don’t want to shoot alligators, and I definitely don’t want to eat them.”
David took off his hat and pressed his hair back against his skull. He was sweating so profusely, he looked like a leaking bag of water. “I’m not really interested. I mean, I don’t give a crap about the gators so much, but I don’t want to hang out by the river. It’s hot and miserable enough around here. I don’t need to go off into the forest or whatever.”
Amelia and David looked at each other, traded what Owen thought was a proud grin, and went back to the garden.
“Well, they were always wimps anyway,” Libby said, waving them off. “I want to go. I’ve never been hunting, but I can learn.”
James looked at her, and Owen could see he wasn’t entirely pleased at the thought of bringing her along. Owen was about to come to her defense, if for no other reason than to prevent her feelings from being hurt, but then the sheriff said, “Okay, you
’re in, Libby. Who else wants to come?”
“I’ll go,” Corbin said. “I can show you the proper way to field dress an alligator. It’s important to do it right away to preserve the meat.”
“Very good,” James said. He gestured at Owen. “How about you?”
James, Corbin, and Libby—somehow that didn’t seem like a good group to be stuck out in the wilderness together. All hard edges.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll go,” Owen said.
“Great. Make sure your parents are okay with it. We’ll set out tomorrow morning bright and early. I’ll need to get back here in time to prepare for the town meeting.”
He clapped Owen on the back, shook Corbin’s hand, and tipped his hat to Libby. Then he walked back toward the house. Once he was gone, Libby made a fist and shook it in the air.
“It feels primitive and weird,” she said, grinning at no one in particular, “but I like it. I hope we don’t get eaten.” This made her laugh, and when neither Corbin nor Owen responded, she turned and walked back to the garden.
Owen didn’t get around to telling his parents about the hunting trip until after dinner. They were just finishing up a glorious spread of vegetables, bread, jelly, and dried beef when Owen remembered his conversation from earlier. The Horton kids had been eating at a card table in the living room, but they excused themselves and walked back to their house next door. As they were leaving, Owen overheard Libby make an offhand comment about alligators, and it reminded him of the trip.
He waited until Violet, Kaylee, and Corbin left before mentioning it. His dad was clearing the table while his mom washed dishes in the sink.
“So, I don’t suppose James told you about his idea,” Owen said.
“You mean having another town meeting?” his father said. “I think it’s a good idea, but I’m not looking forward to it.”
“You’re not going, Owen,” his mother said. “I want you to stay at the house and keep an eye on things.”
Surviving The End (Book 3): New World Page 2