The Pulse Effex Series: Box Set

by L. R. Burkard

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  But she’d reminded me of Mrs. Preston, and now I felt sad. I missed the old lady. We’d buried her on the hill (which, sadly, I now think of as Burial Hill) but I’ve always wondered if she’d prefer to be on her own land. My dad says it’s too late: he’s not about to go dig her up when she didn’t have a coffin, and besides, the extra work is about the last thing he needs right now. Life is work. Speaking of which, when we got to Mrs. Preston’s house, we could tell other people had been there—and trashed the place. Her nice little house. I could understand hungry people looking for food; but what I don’t get is why they have to destroy every place they loot. The mess really bothered me. Blake reminded me that lots of homes got burned down after being looted so leaving a mess wasn’t really too bad.

  But I couldn’t leave it. So Blake and I cleaned it up, spending hours. We threw broken furniture on dad’s cart, canning equipment, pots and pans, and some gardening tools from the shed. There was no food left, not even a ketchup packet from a fast food joint. She’d been thoroughly cleaned out. I blinked back tears once, passing the empty tray in the hallway where she used to keep chocolates. I miss Mrs. Preston. But I’m glad she’s in peace.

  I still treasure Butler for her sake, since he was her cat. I pet him as much as he’ll let me, though he isn’t the most affectionate of cats. Moppet is far more of a people-cat, but the girls like to claim her as theirs. I don’t begrudge her pets their food allowances, either, which reminds me of the last reason I don’t trust Jared. He said feeding the pets is only worthwhile in case we need to eat them one day!

  I hope Andrea will be cautious about Jared. I don’t feel any better about him.

  Chapter 7

  SARAH

  Old, weathered barns seem to be our lot in life. We were fortunate the one we found had hay to sleep in. Sometimes with no animals in residence, hay would be cleaned out too. But we never slept in a barn that had animals—they were usually guarded, for one thing; and we didn’t know what kind of people might discover us there if we overslept and they found us. It could mean our lives.

  I woke up long before dusk, but as usual Richard wanted to wait for nightfall to get moving so we stayed put, resting, and conserving our energy. I marveled as I stared out the opening at the surrounding countryside. You would never know a tornado went through yesterday. The sky was blue and cloudless, sunny and warm. The countryside looked so peaceful! If only… If it was, we wouldn’t have to do our moving at night.

  It used to be hard for me to rest when I didn’t want to—but I fell back asleep easily until it was finally growing dark, and Richard woke me.

  We were making good time, using Richard’s compass and heading steadily towards the Indiana border. Well, steadily as much as was in our power. I’ve learned when you’re walking in woods, it’s not much different than having to take roads somewhere. Meaning, as Richard says, we can’t walk as the crow flies. But instead of following a winding road, we had to wind around ravines, impassable brush, and houses and fields. All while trying to stay westward. We’d learned, if Richard didn’t check the compass every so often we could get surprisingly off kilter. Tonight he thought we were getting near the state border.

  Fortunately, the population was sparse over here. Small towns were surrounded by hundred-acre farms—now defunct and weedy, but unpopulated. So we could avoid the towns, sticking to the edges of farmland and woods, skirting pastures as usual. Even through darkness, we saw those ever-present plumes of smoke in the distance. A large, dark plume was due west, in our path. It looked like a giant inferno as we drew closer.

  When we finally reached the area, we saw an entire row of houses was burning. All these fires! Why are there so many? I could understand in winter when everyone was doing anything to stay warm, including building indoor fires which got out of control. But I don’t understand why there are so many now when the weather is much warmer. Granted, it still isn’t hot at night. But it’s hard to believe so many fires could be started from carelessness.

  It seems like there’s always smoke in the sky rising from somewhere just out of view. Always plumes of smoke. Sometimes they remind me of the tornado—except they are fainter as they rise.

  We walked through the night, eating one half of our rations. But we’d run out of water. Seeing a lone farmhouse with a pond in front, Richard stopped to study it. The place looked absolutely forsaken. Like so many other homes, it was probably abandoned. And yet we never knew for sure because most houses looked rundown even if they were still occupied. The lack of power mowers and other power equipment, combined with the struggle for just plain survival, meant no one kept up their property any longer.

  Worse, even if it was abandoned, it could be home to opportunistic looters (I never thought of Richard and myself as such) and they could be dangerous. Or, the homeowners might be jumpy and take a shot at you just for being on their property.

  Richard came to a decision. “We can fill the water bottle here.”

  He looked around warily, then told me to lay low while he went to the pond. I stayed behind a large bush and tried to watch but Richard’s outline faded into the dark night quickly. I heard a sound and saw a man carrying a lantern emerge from the front door of the house.

  “Richard!” I didn’t know if he’d heard me or not. “Watch out!” In his other hand the man held something I couldn’t identify but I was sure it was a weapon. And then I saw Richard coming into view carrying the bottle, trying to cap it as he hurried towards me.

  Behind us the man yelled. “Get out of here! We got nothing here!”

  “We were just getting water!” Richard yelled back. When he reached me we turned to leave, automatically taking the road though we usually avoided them because it was clear and easier to manage. We’d gone maybe five feet when the man was there, on top of us. He’d come out through an opening in a hedge. He had a rifle in his hands and a ferocious look on a weathered, wizened face.

  We froze. Richard grasped my arm painfully, shoving me behind him. The man, only a foot away now, held up the lantern, searching Richard’s face. Then he stretched around Richard to get a good look at me. I held my breath, thinking he was surely going to do us harm.

  Richard held up our water bottle. “I was just filling this. That’s all we wanted.”

  Again the piercing, suspicious look was fastened on my brother. Then he spoke. His words were gruff and ominous. “You can’t drink that water.”

  Richard and I were mute. Was he saying he wouldn’t let us keep the measly bottle of water?

  “You’ll get sick,” he added.

  Richard replied, “We can treat it.”

  “How?”

  “Purification pills. I’ve got a few left, hopefully enough to get us to Indiana.”

  “Why? What’s in Indiana?”

  “Our aunt. She has a farm. We have nothing left here.”

  He eyed Richard again, thinking, as if trying to decide whether to speak. Finally he said, “How d’ya know your aunt’s still there?”

  “We don’t.”

  Now he shook his head, muttering something to himself.

  “I’m Richard Weaver and this is my sister Sarah—”

  “Don’t tell me your names! I don’t-want-to-know-your-names!” In a strident tone.

  He looked regretful after saying that, shook his head some more and then said, “If you need water, I have some. It’s about all I have, but I can give you some before you go.”

  Richard and I looked at each other. This was the first time anyone had shown us kindness since we’d been homeless. From the time we left our town, no one had given us anything, not even spoken nicely to us!

  We followed him towards the house but Richard whispered in my ear behind the man’s back, “Stay alert.” I noticed he’d taken his pistol and put it in his front coat pocket. As we walked, the old man stopped every few feet to study the ground, holding out his lamp with a look of deep perplexity. Often he’d move
us to one side or the other before continuing on. He gave no explanation but we followed his lead, especially after he said, “Follow my footsteps EXACTLY—or you’ll live to regret it.”

  As we walked, Richard asked, “Where do you get your water?”

  “Stop! This way!” he barked suddenly, pulling Richard’s arm hard, moving him sharply to the right, and then watching for me to follow. As we moved on, he said heavily, answering my brother, “From a well. I have a hand pump. It’s old-fashioned.” He actually turned and smiled at those last words. “We old-timers have a good amount of information you young people have no clue about. We know how to survive.”

  As we entered the house, he stopped to face us. “That is, if we’re left to do it. People keep trying to kill us, though. Don’t they, Martha?”

  “They do,” said a voice, to our left. And there, on her feet in a little side room stood “Martha,” the littlest old lady you can imagine. She had on a nightgown and robe, and an old-fashioned sleeping cap from which white curls stuck out on the sides. She would have been cute, like anyone’s grandma—except she glowered in our direction and held a shotgun—pointed right at us.

  Chapter 8

  LEXIE

  This morning we woke to a brand new dark plume in the sky, to our south. A big one. I tried to ignore it and headed to the barn to tend the animals. While I was there, Jared and another of our newer residents, a young black father by name of Mr. Washington, came in to get Molly the mule. Molly came to us with Mr. Washington and his eleven year old daughter. I felt queasy as soon as I saw them saddling her because I knew why they were doing it.

  “How’s your horse?” Mr. Washington asked, pulling me from my musings. I’d been shoveling hay into her stall, not realizing I’d stopped working to watch them. “What’s ‘er name again?”

  “Rhema.”

  “That’s an unusual name.”

  “It means Word of God.” I watched for his reaction. He nodded, but I figured he was being noncommittal, not wanting to show he thought it was a weird name. I guessed he was trying to distract me from their grisly business. See, there is so much work to be done on the compound without any power tools that we can’t bury the dead marauders—the fours. There is simply too much sheer manpower necessary. So I knew they were gonna put the bodies on Molly’s back, take her for a long walk, and dump them in a ditch somewhere off our property. They’d throw brush and leaves over them, and then return. I understood—it needed to be done. I just hated thinking about it.

  While Jared readied the mule, Mr. Washington came over to pet Rhema. I took a good look at him—smooth, light mocha skin, short black hair—he was younger than my folks, and wore jeans and cowboy boots. He and Andrea’s mom are good friends. Andrea resents him; she says her mother flirts with him. He’s a widower, and Andrea’s mom is a widow, so they have that in common. But Andrea’s dad’s only been gone a few months, so their friendship upsets her. She really loses it when she sees them near each other. Anyways, it’s great having a mule, and Washington’s daughter, Evangeline, plays very patiently with both sets of twins. They are a good addition to our community.

  Jared finished saddling up Molly and nodded darkly at me as they left.

  After they’d gone I thought about the four kinds of people in the world now. I never got to explain about this in my journal, so here goes: The first type, the number ones, are people like us. Survivors who have made it this far by living off their ingenuity and stored supplies. Most are homestead preppers like we are; or urban preppers—meaning they didn’t have land or livestock, but they stored a lot of provisions and it’s kept them alive. Urban preppers are valuable to a compound because they usually know how to garden—even if they’ve only done it on a balcony—and how to purify water; many of them are trained to protect themselves with a firearm, too.

  Most of the people in our compound are number ones who were running low on resources and needed a place to live where they could work and eke out a living—but the main thing about number ones is that we mean no harm to others and only fight to defend ourselves. That is important! We deplore the violence of our attackers and we deplore having to be violent in return! I never told my folks this (not even Andrea. Blake alone knows about it), but I got sick after we fought off Roy and his gang. I still feel sick about shooting at people. I worry that I’m weaker than the others, but really, there is something very wrong about teenagers having to fight for our lives.

  Anyways, number ones can be self-reliant with the proper tools. But if we lost our home and property, we’d be about as helpless as the unprepared. Some number ones are true survivalists—they’re like preppers on steroids!—and can live off the land without a home or property of their own. But that isn’t us. They’re often loners and keep to themselves, which is good because Dad says if they’re not friendly, they could be as dangerous as number fours—maybe worse, because they’re often well-trained in combat.

  So anyways, then there are the number twos. These are folks who have survived the first wave of death, but just barely. (Blake once called it “mass extinction,” but I asked him not to say that, because it sounds so horrible.) Number twos had enough supplies or managed to find enough to survive but are at the end of themselves. They can’t make it through another winter without help. Unlike number ones, they are clueless about methods of survival; they don’t know gardening or food preservation, and they have no necessary skills for the compound.

  There aren’t a lot of number twos, simply because most people without food storage or survival skills didn’t make it through the winter. The ones that survived are not usually a threat, but they can lead number threes or fours to us. But mostly they’re just regular people who are scared. They roam in pairs or small groups, wearing backpacks and looking like hikers who’ve been on the trail too long. They come in all kinds of weather, morning or night. They see the flickering light of our oil lamps, or smell our grill fire, or see someone heading from the barn to the house and they come.

  We sometimes give small amounts of food or water to such people, but we can’t take them in. I hate to be around when my dad or someone else turns them away. It’s heartbreaking! But I know the reason, I know it’s necessary. Because if we let them join us, we’d deplete our stores and soon we would be in no better shape than they are. Our only option for long-term survival is to follow FARMSEC (farmstead security) rules, which says we can’t open our doors to these people.

  Everyone in the compound gets instruction in FARMSEC, from the youngest to the oldest. (It’s a play on words from OPSEC, a military term meaning Operational Security. Survivalists and preppers took the term for themselves, so that OPSEC means any type of security measure taken to protect one’s home or compound, or farm—you get the idea.) Anyways, FARMSEC means border security so we can keep operating; keep milking, keep growing chicks and kits (baby rabbits), and keep up a survival garden. We have to be our own little army. We are the military inside our compound and any stranger—no matter how innocuous they may look—is a civilian. And civilians are automatically suspect. I hate to see people this way—as immediate needs for threat assessment. But that’s what many people are—a threat.

  Most number twos would starve before killing another human being, no matter how desperate and destitute they are. I wish we could help every single one of those people. I have to accept that we can’t.

  If a number two approaches the farm, a single warning shot from a lookout will turn them away. Sometimes that isn’t enough. Then we know they aren’t a number two at all. They’re either a number three or four.

  Number threes are a bigger threat than number twos, a more insidious threat, because like Roy the bus driver, they look normal. They act innocent, like they’re a number two, a miraculous survivor who just happened to make it this far. They approach us with their hands up (so we can’t shoot; they count on us not being heartless, and we’re not); but when we turn them away, they retreat only far enough to be out of sight. We’ve learned the
y’ll wait for an opportunity to take something, to sneak up on us. Sometimes they creep up behind the brush line and then charge the chicken coop or make a dash for the barn.

  Number threes aren’t necessarily willing to kill us for what we’ve got, but they’re more than willing to relieve us of some of it. Sometimes they will open fire. Most of them don’t want it to come to that. They aren’t well organized, and they don’t want a full-scale battle; they’re looking for the easy targets, and often when they realize we’re not one, they go away.

  But then, there are the number fours. These are the most dangerous, because they’re reckless, ruthless, and vicious. They don’t come alone. Like Roy and his gang, they’re organized. They’ve got leaders and followers and they’re armed and ready for battle. Other than the foreign troops we hear about, I fear them the most. They have no moral compass, and the only life they respect is their own. They are the ones who stole Kasha, our dog—probably for food. They are the main reason we maintain FARMSEC. Why we continue to have target practice, and security drills, and other things; the reason Dad painstakingly removes lead casings from old wiring and pipes and melts it into new bullets.

  I still feel bad for people who need help. But it’s hard to feel bad when some of them just want you dead.

  I was almost done with my chores. When I’d emptied the chicken manure into the garden, glad for the spring air, I remembered Dad’s warning that all types of people would keep coming until next winter set in. The tricky thing was every so often we might get someone (or a family) who would be an asset to have with us. For instance, take our infirmary. It’s a tent, nothing like a true infirmary as far as supplies go, but we have a D.O., Mr. Clepps, who came looking for handouts. A D.O. is just like an M.D., so he stays. (The other day we picked up an obstetrical nurse and her husband. But I’ll write about that later.)