Meanwhile, the man inside was staring at him. Nash shook his head, telling the guy that this wasn’t going to work. There had to be another way in. He climbed back down the hill and walked around the house, studying the structure. The steel walls came down over the windows—that suggested there was a pully system and some type of gears. All he needed to do was reverse the direction of the pullies. He walked back to the stoop, where one of the smaller steel walls covered the front door. This was his best chance at getting in.
He pressed himself against the wall, looking up and trying to find the mechanism, but it wasn’t visible. He was going to need to make a lever to ratchet up the heavy steel door if he had any hope. His mind was already whirring, trying to think outside of the box. He’d aced physics in high school. This was nothing more than a simple problem that could be solved with a simple solution—if he could only think of it, and then come up with the right tools.
He walked up to the door again, cupping his mouth to hopefully project his voice. He doubted it would work, but he had to try.
“I’m going to make a lever!” he shouted. “Hold on!”
He looked around the property, hoping to find a crow bar. Finally, his eyes hit on the SUV and he grinned. The tire iron would work if he could find the right fulcrum. He pulled up the handle of the SUV, happy to find that the vehicle was unlocked. That would save him the trouble of smashing the window, though he imagined that the guy inside couldn’t have objected, given his situation.
“Hey! What are you doing?” a male voice shouted.
Nash froze before spinning around to see a man walking up the drive. “Who are you?” he asked the newcomer.
“The better question is, why are you breaking into my friend’s car?”
“Your friend?” Nash asked, checking out the man standing about ten feet in front of him.
He was of average height, with a thin build. His dirty blond hair looked truly dirty, but remarkably he had no real facial hair.
“My friend Ennis lives here. Why are you here?” he asked, obviously trying to be intimidating… but failing miserably.
“Your friend is trapped in that house. I’m trying to figure out a way to get him out. He asked me to help,” Nash explained.
“Trapped?”
“Yep. Those doors are solid, and he can’t get out. I was going to use the tire iron to try and pry the door up.”
“Will that work?”
“I don’t know. I guess we’re going to find out. I’m Nash, by the way,” he said, extending his hand.
The other man stepped forward, taking his hand in a puny grip. “Wendell Carter Nills the third,” he announced, as if they were in some conference room setting up a business deal.
Biting back a laugh at the guy’s attitude, Nash nodded, finding it more than a little odd that the guy used his formal name like he was a member of the royal family. He tried not to judge entirely off first impressions, but the reaction in this case was undeniable. Nash immediately disliked him. But he wasn’t the one who needed rescuing.
Ignoring his distaste for the new arrival, Nash focused on the problem at hand. “Great. Well, I need a fulcrum,” he said, turning back to dig through the SUV in search of the tire iron.
When he found it and pulled it out, however, he realized he didn’t need a fulcrum at all. He had a jack. It made perfect sense!
“What’s a fulcrum?” Wendell asked for the second time, Nash having ignored him the first.
“Never mind. We don’t need it,” he explained, pulling the jack out and holding it in the air.
He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it earlier. He blamed the lack of sleep and lack of food. He was tired, hungry, and hoping like crazy that the house had running water for a hot shower inside. Or a shower in general.
Upon reaching the door, though, he realized he still needed a fulcrum. The steel door rested flat against the cement stoop.
Wendell loomed behind him. “How’s that going to work?
“I need a rock—a steel ball would be better—but I need something to help hold the door up high enough to slide the jack under it once we pry it up with the tire iron,” he explained. “A rock will serve as a fulcrum so I can get the leverage I need.
Wendell looked at him like he was crazy, but sprang into action. There were plenty of rocks around, but they needed one that would hold up to the weight without rolling around. When they finally found one that worked, Nash got to work with the tire iron and his fulcrum, getting the door up a few breaths at a time before pushing the rock closer and closer until the door was high enough for the jack.
“Push it under,” he grunted.
With the jack under the door, he slowly pried the steel up, inch by slow inch.
“Ennis!” Wendell shouted.
“Wendy?” a muffled voice came through the door.
Nash heard the man next to him curse before answering, “Yes, it’s me, Wendell.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Can we work on getting you out before you two catch up?” Nash growled.
“Sorry,” Wendell mumbled.
“Ennis?” Nash yelled.
“What?”
“I need you to open the door. Will it open?” he asked.
He listened to the door rattling. “No!” Ennis shouted back.
“Get a screwdriver and take it off the hinges!” Nash shouted, finally beginning to grow frustrated with the ineptness of the people around him.
“The hinges aren’t inside!”
“Then take off the door knob!” he shouted, slamming his fist against the steel.
“You’re testy,” Wendell commented.
Nash stood up to his full height, towering over the other man. “I’m testy because I’m trying to help the guy and I would appreciate a little help in return. I can’t do it all myself.”
Wendell took a step back. “Relax, Ennis will get it.”
A few minutes later, they heard the door knob being jimmied, and then the door opened.
“It worked! I’m free!” Ennis said, popping his head out from under the steel door.
“Be careful! I don’t know how sturdy that jack is, man. We need to find a way to get the door all the way up or support it better,” Nash advised him.
Ennis was already shimmying under, stepping into the bright light of day, his arms wide as he spun around.
“Thank you!” he said, stepping forward to shake Nash’s hand.
“You’re welcome. You have food and water in there?” he asked.
“I do, and you’re welcome to it. I’m going to stay out here for a minute. I’m Ennis Merryman, by the way.”
“Nash Glasdstone. Happy to help. If you don’t mind, I’m going in. I haven’t eaten in a while,” he said, looking between both men.
He knew it was bad manners but really didn’t care. He was tired, hungry, and thirstier than ever. He dropped to the ground and began shimmying under the door, hoping the jack didn’t slip. That would be just his luck, to get so close to food only to be killed after saving a man.
“Wendy, I can’t believe you’re here,” he heard Ennis say to his friend.
He wasn’t sure why he kept calling him Wendy, but assumed it must be a term of endearment, although Wendell hadn’t looked like he appreciated the nickname.
“I came out to check on you,” Wendell said. “I’m hungry, too, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to raid your kitchen with that kid.”
Rising on the other side of the steel, Nash moved on through the house, briefly glancing around the wide-open space with its high vaulted ceilings. It was a nice place—something he’d have expected to see in a fancy mountain retreat. Décor didn’t concern him, though. His focus was on food and water, and nothing else. When he got to the kitchen, he pulled a water bottle from the fridge and drained it.
“I’ve got freeze-dried meals in the pantry,” Ennis called from behind him.
Nash turned around just as the other two men came into view aga
in. “This is a nice house,” he commented.
“It’s a great house. It was designed to ride out the apocalypse. Something malfunctioned, though, and the thing locked me in. I had no way out,” he muttered, opening a thin door that matched the woodgrain in the kitchen. “Thank God you came along, man.”
Nash’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw the assortment of food in the pantry. “Man, I’m hungry,” he commented, taking a step forward. He’d take anything this guy would give him.
Ennis pulled out a large can that claimed to be spaghetti and meatballs, setting it on the counter before moving to the tap and filling a pot with water. Nash watched in awe as he set the pot on the stove and manually ignited the pilot for the propane burner.
“It’ll be a couple minutes,” he said before moving to a cupboard and pulling out two bowls.
“How do you have running water?” Nash asked. That option hadn’t even occurred to him.
“Gravity. I have a large stock tank up on the hill behind the house. I can get about three gallons a minute. It’s enough to run the shower,” he explained.
“Do you have hot water?” Nash asked, hope blooming inside him.
“I do. Not a lot. It’s a solar hot water heater; holds about twenty gallons,” he said.
“Do you have power?”
“Well, that’s the tricky part. I have some power, but somewhere, something malfunctioned. I think the batteries for my solar power system are fried. I’m running directly off the solar panels. When it’s dark, I have no power. I don’t know the specifics about the electronics, but I’m guessing I don’t have enough juice to run the mechanism that powers the doors,” he explained.
Nash nodded, certain Ennis had guessed right. “This is still pretty cool. You live up here all the time, or did you come up here after the disaster?”
“I live here.”
“Wow. Nice.”
“After you eat, I’ll give you the grand tour. I spared no expense and have all the gadgets and gizmos a prepper could want. Unfortunately, I think I got taken on a lot of this stuff and it’s all pretty much useless,” he grumbled.
Nash was anxious to see the house, but more anxious to eat and shower and sleep, in that order. Ennis filled the two bowls with a scoop each of freeze-dried food before pouring hot water over the top. Nash couldn’t wait the full minute for the food to turn into a delicious meal, however. He dug in, listening to Ennis and Wendell talk.
“You walked all the way out here?” Ennis asked his friend.
“I did. Anything for an old friend,” Wendell replied.
“Thank you. I really appreciate you thinking about me,” Ennis said, beaming.
Nash studied both men from his seat at the end of the counter, feeling better now that he’d had a few bites and telling himself to take his time. Truth be told, he had a feeling the real reason Wendell had made the long trek out to the house had a lot more to do with his own survival than worrying about his friend. Nash had seen the pantry, and he’d be willing to bet that Wendell had seen it at some point in the past. The house was built with a doomsday situation in mind. Wendell was probably hoping to crash with his friend, or maybe worse. There was something about him that put Nash on edge. He’d watch his back around the guy until he could get a better read on him, but for now, he was going to fill his belly and rehydrate. After all, the way he saw it, Ennis owed him for saving his life. He doubted his buddy Wendell would have figured out how to get that door open.
“Can I take advantage of that shower?” Nash asked when he’d finished eating.
“Of course. I’ve got a bathroom upstairs and downstairs. It will need to be a quick shower—a Navy shower as we call it,” he joked.
“A Navy shower?” Nash asked, a little worried he was about to say they had to share the shower, but he followed behind Ennis anyway, his legs and feet exhausted from days on the move. “Get in, turn on the water, get wet, and turn off the water,” Ennis explained. “Lather up and then rinse. If you do it right, you’ll only use a gallon of water. With your size, maybe two.”
“I can do that,” Nash said, not caring if it was a one-gallon cold shower now that the idea of real bathing was before him.
Ennis gave him the grand tour of the bathroom, complete with radiant heat that ran off a boiler. It was plenty warm in the stuffy house and the heater was unnecessary, but in the winter it would be nice.
When Nash had finished showering and putting on his dirty jeans—having opted to give his underwear a quick shower, as well—he wrung out his shirt and hung it over the shower curtain rod along with his socks before moving back down the hall, taking in the abstract art hanging on the wall. It wasn’t his thing, but it looked expensive. He moved down the stairs, taking in the fine furnishings and realizing that, whoever this Ennis guy was, he was wealthy. Or, he had been when money had mattered. If Nash was right and they were dealing with an EMP, that would seriously change the world as they knew it.
“How was it?” Ennis asked.
“Awesome. Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how good it felt to wash away the sweat and dirt,” he said, moving to take a seat on the couch.
Wendell looked at him, staring at his bare chest and sneering. Nash raised an eyebrow, essentially asking the dude what his problem was. He was in good shape and wasn’t ashamed of his body. Clearly, scrawny Wendell was a little jealous. He’d have to get over it. Nash was too tired to care if the guy didn’t like it.
“You’re welcome. It’s nice to have company after being locked in here for so long. What’s it like out there?”
“Bad,” Wendell jumped in.
Nash shrugged. “I was in a cave. I had one run-in with some guys who said it was pretty rough in town. I heard a plane crashed down somewhere on the other side of the mountains and started a forest fire.”
Wendell, clearly not wanting to be left out, chimed in. “I was in town. It’s ugly. People are looting and things are dangerous. They’re killing each other, man. There’s some military faction that’s moved in and is trying to take over. I figured I’d wait until things settled down before I went back.”
Ennis got up from the couch and was moving into the kitchen when he called out to his so-called friend. “Is that why you came out here, Wendy?” he teased.
Nash saw the man’s face twist in rage. It was alarming. When Ennis turned back to look at his friend, though, Wendell’s expression morphed into a friendly smile.
“I was worried about you. I figured I’d check on you, stay for a day or two, and then head back,” he said easily.
Nash doubted Wendell had any plans of going back to the city if danger was involved, but Ennis chuckled, clearly not realizing his friend was shooting daggers at his back. Nash rubbed a hand over his face, too tired to worry about the drama between old friends.
“Did you want to shower, Wendy?” Ennis asked, coming back into the room with a glass of water.
“Yes, that would be nice. I’ve got a clean change of clothes to change into,” he said, gesturing to a backpack and shooting a look at Nash.
Nash looked down at his naked chest. “I wasn’t planning on the apocalypse. My stuff is mostly at a hotel in the city,” he explained. “I have a small pack outside, but the stuff in there’s dirtier than what I was wearing when I got in here.”
Wendell rose from the couch. “I know where the bathroom is. I’ll use the one downstairs,” he said, shooting Nash a look that said he was more important because he knew where the bathroom was.
Ennis sat down, a smile on his face.
“How long have you known that guy?” Nash asked.
“Since high school. He was the guy who was always there, you know? Like, you turned around and there he was. He was a decent guy but didn’t have a lot of friends. My brother and I kind of took him under our wing,” Ennis explained.
“He’s, uh… different,” Nash said.
Ennis laughed. “He’s an acquired taste. He doesn’t mean any harm. I think he just wa
nts to be accepted.”
“I guess.”
“Come on, you can’t be that far out of high school. You have to know what it’s like,” Ennis prodded.
Nash knew what people thought of him. “I’m eighteen, but I’ve been out of high school for a couple years. I graduated early—already earned my bachelor’s degree.”
Ennis raised both his brows, his eyes widening in surprise. “You one of those prodigies?”
Nash shrugged. “I don’t play a musical instrument, but I do know things.”
“Good to know. I’ll bet you’ll be handy to have around.”
They chatted a bit more about where they’d come from and briefly talked about their families, offering each other the proverbial small talk. Eventually, Nash noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up to find Wendell standing in the hallway, listening to them talk. He looked angry—violent, even. A cold shiver ran down Nash’s spine. Wendell was definitely one to keep his eye on.
24
Zander jumped off the horse and moved towards the edge of the stream. There was a lot of disturbance on the ground. A hose was tied to a tree, telling him that someone had gone into the water. Most likely, that someone had been fishing out an injured person. Finally, it seemed he’d found signs of Merryman after days of searching. With every passing hour over the last few days, he’d grown madder and madder at Ben. But this looked like progress.
It had seemed like a longshot to question people at the properties along the river, but finally he’d hit pay dirt when someone had told him they’d seen a body rushed by in the rapids on the night of the EMP—the old woman he’d spoken to had been guilt-ridden, and her family had thought she was hallucinating. Zander hadn’t disillusioned them, but had spoken to her at length. Not far beyond that property, the combination of rapids and a powerful stream shooting off from the river had led him here. Luck, maybe, but it seemed to be offering him the proof he needed that Austin was alive rather than drowned.
Survive the Chaos (Small Town EMP Book 1) Page 18