They arrived at the first greenhouse, dug out the weld machine and tools, and went to work. The dim electric lights gave them everything they needed to dismantle the pumps. The weld machine made quick work of the repairs, although they had to drill holes in a couple of the cast parts to wire cases together and put a bead of weld filler metal along the seam to help the seal.
From one to the next they traveled, fixing the essential equipment. By the time they parked the car at the fifth greenhouse, that of Pepe and Maria, false dawn cast its first light.
Even the Werewolves were tired. The mechanic had wedged himself into the back seat and was sound asleep. Shonna and Merrit laid down in the greenhouse, under the exhaust fan, and were soon out cold.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Terry and Char had the last watch. They walked around the camp, but Char shook her head. There wasn’t anything out there except the wolf pack and they were a few hundred yards away sleeping.
They saddled the horses, trying to be as quiet as possible, so the group could leave at first light. There was enough venison for two more days, then they’d have to hunt again. Unless they started feeding the wolves.
“By all that’s holy, a pack of wolves?” Terry whispered.
“When you let me into your Force de Guerre, you conceded that non-humans were welcome,” Char said softly. “You have ten new recruits. I hope you treat them with the same respect that you treat the rest of the Force.”
“New recruits? What planet are you on? They’re wolves! Real fucking wolves, hairy, slobbering, butt-sniffing wolves.” Terry waved his hands animatedly as he tried to make his point.
“You know that Ted is out there, right? He’s sleeping right in the middle of his pack, because they’ll protect him,” Char said calmly.
“I’ll be damned. You’re not going to do anything about that, are you?” Terry asked.
“Do what? Make sure that Ted can’t protect himself? Of course I’m not going to do anything. Go with the flow, TH.” She caressed his stubble-covered cheek before pulling him tight for a long and passionate kiss. His hands found their way to her backside, where he gripped tightly.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” he finally managed to say. One hand was inside her shirt, caressing her bare back. He’d grown to crave her Werewolf heat, enjoying the burn.
“You’re manipulating me with sex and I tell you, I won’t stand for it,” he toyed with her.
“No. I’m not a fan of standing either. When next we grapple, let it be horizontal,” Char declared, winking one purple eye. The sparkles were like glitter in the dew of the early dawn.
Someone cleared their throat.
“Dammit!” Terry snapped.
“I heard Gerry coming from the moment he left camp. Shame on you, Colonel. You used to be so good before you proved you were so good at something else. I guess it’s one or the other, not both. Pity,” Char quipped.
“Maybe having a wolf pack around isn’t such a bad idea. It seems that I need lots of help.” Terry was only half-kidding. He liked being in control and someone sneaking up on him without even trying was unconscionable.
That put him in a bad mood. He grunted as he headed back to the camp.
“You keep sneaking up on us like that, do you understand, Geronimo? The colonel thinks he’s lost his mojo, but that’s not it at all. He’s better now than he ever was and doesn’t realize it,” Char told the young man.
“I just wanted to water the horses. I thought I saw a pond not far off, that’s all, ma’am,” Gerry explained.
“Then carry on, by all means,” Char replied. She casually strolled back to the camp. Terry was drinking warm water from a flask. Timmons was up, but cradling his arm.
“Still hurt?” Char asked.
“Like I’ve been dipped in lava.” Timmons winced and groaned. “I’ll be fine.”
“Give it a few days.” Char didn’t know what else to say. She pulled Terry aside. “Did you think that maybe you heard Gerry, but dismissed it as not a threat without even thinking about it?”
“What?” Terry asked, skeptical of the idea.
“Is there anything out here that can hurt you?” she demanded. “Anything at all? So what are you worried about?”
Terry had to collect his thoughts, starting with why he loved a Werewolf. She refused to accept status quo or to sympathize with him. She challenged him every day to be better.
And they were both better because of it. “I’m worried about taking three hundred and fifty people on a two-thousand-mile trek,” he confided.
“Exactly. No one is going to sneak up on us. I will guarantee that for you. I’ll take care of the little things and you take care of the big things. If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.” She nodded, eyebrows raised as she emphasized her point.
“Deal, but I still think you’re using sex to manipulate me,” Terry cocked his head waiting for a witty comeback.
“Of course I am. Isn’t that what all women do?” she asked pointedly.
“No,” he answered quickly, not wanting to get trapped in the corner that he talked himself into. “You make me feel funny.”
“Yes, Major Payne, I make you feel funny, but you’re still a big, tough Marine. Now that we have that settled, I think it’s about time we started eating into those two thousand miles, don’t you?”
Terry looked around, finding everyone mounted with Gerry holding the leads of Terry’s and Char’s horses. The animals were calm, despite the fact that a pack of wolves waited not one hundred yards away. Ted was to the side, almost as if blocking the vision of the other horses. He kept stroking his horse’s neck, cooing to the animal.
Terry thanked Gerry and climbed up. Char mounted her mare and sat tall in the saddle, looking regal when outlined by the morning sun.
“Wagons, ho!” Terry called, chopping an arm downward and pointing north.
Ted chuckled. “Come on, my pretties, time to hit the road. We’ve a long day ahead,” he said, seemingly to himself.
***
The first farmers to arrive found that the irrigation system had been working overtime, so they rushed around to drain the channels before the roots got too wet. Once a few boards were loosened and excess water ran toward the fields, they felt much better.
It was the same story for the first four greenhouses, but for the fifth, the pump had not yet been fixed. Pepe and Maria found the mechanic, Shonna, and Merrit sleeping. Maria never liked to wake people up, so she went about her business, stepping over them when she needed to.
Pepe pumped the handle valiantly. The pump was better than it was before James fixed it, but not as good as it needed to be. He never managed to get enough water. His grunting and the squeaking of the pump finally brought the two sleepers around. Merrit sat up and looked around.
“Where am I?” he asked, looking confused. His hair was sticking up and was clotted with dirt and leaves.
“Our greenhouse, sonny!” Maria said proudly. “Would you like some toast with jam?”
Shonna blinked. “What time is it?” Her eyes rolled around in her head as she tried to focus. Maria helped both of them into the chairs at the small table where Pepe and Maria usually sat during their first morning break.
“The pump. We ran out of gas. Where’s the mechanic?” Shonna stood quickly, swayed drunkenly for a second, then grabbed the piece of bread and shoved the whole thing in her mouth as she dashed outside.
The mechanic was wedged into the back seat of the car.
“Get up, you lazy bastard!” Shonna joked. She reached in to shake him, but he was cold and stiff. “Shit!”
Shonna walked back inside to get Merrit. She didn’t say anything to Maria, who was put out at seeing her homemade bread eaten in one bite. Shonna led Merrit outside.
“Son of a bitch,” he cried. “Did you see anything wrong with him last night?”
“No. The opposite! He was as happy as could be. I think it was just his time,” Shonna stated. “So
what do we do?”
Merrit shrugged. They hadn’t been there long enough to know. They worried that someone would think they killed him. They turned to ask Maria, but she was already there, standing right behind them, watching. “Madre de Dios,” she said and crossed herself. “Pepe!”
The older man joined them and sighed heavily. The ashen pallor of the mechanic was obvious when one took the time to look. “Billy needs to know,” Pepe told them.
Merrit and Shonna said they’d take care of it, but that they’d be back to fix the pump as soon as possible. They left the weld machine and the tools, started the car and slowly drove away.
It didn’t take long before they were parked outside Billy’s home. They climbed out and stood there, not having had enough time to figure how they wanted to tell the mayor that his mechanic was dead.
Too late. Billy spotted them from the upstairs window. Of course, he’d heard the car drive up. It didn’t have a muffler and there were no other man-made sounds.
“What’s up?” he called. “It looks like you have a dead guy in the back of my car.” Merrit and Shonna looked shocked and froze.
“NO!” Billy yelled. “You wait right there!”
They heard him pounding his way through the house, throw open the front door, and race out. He stopped when he saw who it was. “Aw, mother fucker. Mechanic? Why did it have to be you?” Billy turned his attention to the Werewolves.
“What happened?” he demanded.
Merrit looked to Shonna and nodded. They’d all seen how Billy looked at the women, so bad news coming from a beautiful women would have to be received better, he reasoned. Shonna agreed.
“We worked in the greenhouses, fixing the pumps in the first four. That took all night. By the time we got to number five, we crapped out. The mechanic took the back seat of the car and we slept on the ground in the greenhouse. That’s it, I swear. Look at him, not a mark on his body. He looks like he’s peacefully sleeping,” Shonna suggested, waving toward the corpse.
Billy relaxed. He moved closer and leaned in. “He does look peaceful. He said that bad hearts ran in his family and that the apocalypse was good for him as he outlived all of his ancestors.” Billy kicked the dirt. “I liked that old guy. He was good people.”
Felicity walked out carrying Marcie. She nuzzled her husband and then told him to go back inside. “The cemetery is down that road.” She pointed. “I’ll get you a shovel.”
Merrit and Shonna didn’t know how they got volunteered for gravedigger detail, but didn’t want to upset the apple cart any more than it was already. Someone had to tell the engineer.
Roman would be upset.
“I guess we’ll be working in the power plant until we leave,” Merrit said flatly.
“Yup,” Shonna agreed.
***
“Come on, Hank! I ain’t got time for any bullshit. We’re running because that’s what you need to do if you’re coming with us,” Blackbeard tried to reason with the grizzly cub.
He had a chain around the creature’s neck, but that only encouraged Hank to sit down, paw at it, and bite it.
He finally removed the chain and went with a hearty walking stick. He opened the gate and blocked it with his body until the bear calmed down, then he took off running as if playing chase. Hank ran after him, quickly catching Blackie and bowling him over.
The two tumbled, wrestled, and Blackie stood up, scratching the back of the bear’s big head. The telltale neck hump of a grizzly was already there. Hank was a notorious digger, able to move a ton of dirt in less than a minute when the mood took him. Which was becoming more and more often the older he got.
“Come on, Hank. You have to run with me,” Blackie pleaded and started jogging again, keeping the bear away by using the stick. Hank started loping along, looking around as he ran. Just when Blackbeard was feeling that the bear understood, Hank bolted into the brush and started digging. The rabbit hadn’t gotten far into its hole when the bear caught him.
Hank killed it by biting it in half, and then devoured it. Hank found a bush nearby with blackberries. They weren’t big, suffering from the heat and a lack of rain, just like everything else, but Hank cleaned off the bush without hesitation. Then he grazed the grass behind the bushes.
“You know what, buddy? I think I’m going about this the wrong way. What do you say we go hunting? You and me, into the mountains right now. Let’s find us something better to eat.” Blackie changed direction and headed west, into the hills, and started climbing.
Hank was right behind him.
CHAPTER SIXTY
They kept going north, the same routine day after day. Up in the morning, run thirty minutes, walk thirty minutes. They took a break any time they crossed a stream to refill flasks and water the horses. Then they continued. The wolf pack kept pace, seemingly without effort. They were always present, originally staying a hundred yards away but they were down to twenty yards now and stayed downwind of the horses.
Maybe it was their natural tendency or maybe it was Ted trying to keep the peace. No one asked. Timmons finally said that he wasn’t in pain anymore, but reported that often he could feel his fingers in the hand that was no longer there.
No one knew what to say to that.
Ted slept in the middle of the wolf pack each night, which meant that he didn’t stand guard duty because no one wanted to be the one to wake him up. Terry decided that Ted and the pack would stand the first watch.
When they tried it, Ted walked the perimeter and encouraged the wolves to do the same. It made no sense to them since they could sense anything nearby, especially when they stayed downwind. Ted could, too, more so than the wolves. It made him question the need for the roving patrol.
Such a human concept. So Ted brought the pack in close while everyone slept and they made themselves at home. Ted never bothered to wake anyone up since the wolves were sleeping in between and around the people. No one or nothing was going to surprise them.
When Terry woke up before the dawn with a mouthful of wolf fur, he was furious. He looked at the mass of people and fur, saw that no one was on watch and exploded. The wolf pack bolted into some nearby trees and Ted ran after them. Everyone stood up. No one was happy.
“Who’s supposed to be on watch?” Terry demanded, looking from face to face.
“Nobody woke me,” James said.
“Or me,” Lacy added.
“TED!” Terry yelled, ready to storm after his wayward nuclear engineer. Char put a hand on his arm and held him back.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because we always stand watch,” Terry insisted.
“The wolf pack was there. Nothing would sneak up on us. Nothing attacks a wolf pack. Let Ted take the watch and make sure we’re watched. And finally, we’ll all get a good night’s sleep, assuming you didn’t permanently scare the pack away.” Char stood with her hands on her hips and glared at Terry.
“Stop thinking like a human,” she told him.
“I’ve completely lost control,” he replied.
“You can’t lose something you never had, lover.” Char smiled.
***
It was something different every single day. Everything was broken and everything needed to be fixed at the same time, but by the end of the day, it was running well enough to get it to the next day. Then they split their shifts, working eighteen hours each and making sure that they overlapped so someone was always there.
They covered for the mechanic and then some.
The engineer was crushed at the loss of his friend. He saw his own mortality starting at him, but he grimly soldiered on. No one talked with him, but they found excuses to stay close. Their presence seemed to give him comfort.
And there was an endless amount of work to do. The engineer was deadly serious that the next time the plant shut down, it wouldn’t start back up.
They needed more and more steel sheeting, which they cannibalized from buildings and roofs throughout the area, to include the walls
of the plant itself. They used the sheeting to wrap pipes, then welded them or strapped them to help contain the steam or water. When they cleaned the worst of the scale, they’d found that the pipe walls had deteriorated to the point of being compromised.
It was a constant race to fix new leaks while trying to keep up with standard preventative maintenance.
Merrit started chalking days on the generator as a countdown until the alpha returned with news of a new home.
So they could pack their shit and leave. Merrit and Shonna were ready to go.
Then there was another leak and they’d race into the fray to save the day.
***
“I think we’re almost to Casper,” Terry said.
“What makes you say that?” Char asked.
“Because that sign says Casper, twenty-five miles.” Terry pointed to a green square of heavy sheet metal that had fallen and was faded, but still legible.
“Your whole plan was to follow the Interstates?” Char wondered.
“Yes. I-25 to I-94 and then follow the Missouri River. I’m still thinking about how to get across Iowa or Minnesota, but I think the northern route is probably better. We’ll know when we get close. Iowa used to be so green. I can’t imagine it as a wasteland.” Terry looked into the distance. Strange looking clouds were forming.
“Oh no,” Terry said. Char squinted into the distance and sniffed the air. She reached out with her Werewolf senses. Ted and Timmons were sniffing, too. The wolf pack was already running.
“We need to find shelter, right now,” Char insisted. As one, they kicked their horses into a gallop, running after the wolves. Timmons was hard pressed trying to hang on with one hand, but he wrapped the reins around his stump and held on the best he could with his other hand. Char had shown mercy by cutting off his left hand, leaving his dominant hand intact.
Gerry swung wide to get a better look at the terrain to make sure they were taking the best route. He was by far the best horseman of the group, so he was able to get more from his animal than any of the others. He surged ahead, closing on the wolves.
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