The Pulse Effex Series: Box Set

by L. R. Burkard

  All our families brought valuable supplies or skills. Andrea’s didn’t, but it turned out she is a sure-shot; she even saved my dad’s life. We have a woodworker, an ex-timber guy who is invaluable when it comes to downing trees for timber, and Mrs. Schuman, who can sew clothing by hand. She brought fabrics—lots of them. All the skilled people we get are Godsends.

  Even Blake’s family, though they are probably the closest friends my parents have (and have known each other for ages) brought their own homesteading skills and tools and animals and know-how. Being fellow Christians didn’t hurt, either. We have Bible studies every week again now, and on many mornings we meet for devotions and praise while breakfast is being prepared.

  I really appreciate Bible Study even though I’m not always in the mood for it. Questions arise for me when I’m reading my Bible and, while commentaries help, study is the perfect place to air my questions. And I do. I’m not taking anything for granted. I’m not a Christian just because my parents are. I’m a Christian because I’ve felt the presence of God, and I’ve heard his voice, and I know he’s real. In some ways, I think I’m closer to God now than I used to be. Devotions and group prayer used to be sporadic in my family. Not anymore.

  Some people think Christians shouldn’t defend themselves; that we should just give up our stuff to those who want it. But there is a time for everything—“a time for war and a time for peace.” Like it or not, it is a time for war. (Even Jesus told his disciples once, “If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” That’s Luke 22:36. There is a place for self-defense in the Christian’s life.)

  Anyways, as I thought about this stuff, I realized we have nothing less than a new class system in America right now. It’s a threat assessment system, but it works pretty much like a class system if you ask me. The fours are the lowest class—the ones we don’t bury.

  After my chores were done, I ran into Blake in the kitchen as I took out school supplies. Andrea would be bringing the children in soon, and I had to get their snack ready, too.

  “Council meeting, tonight.”

  I met his gaze. “Okay. Are you going?” We teens didn’t always attend the council meetings; sometimes it was all about administrative stuff that we didn’t need to be in on. Other times we would be ordered to attend, as when FARMSEC rules would be gone over.

  “Yeah. Did you hear?”

  “About what?”

  “A radio contact from Indiana reported seeing soldiers. A military unit that wasn’t American. I guess we’ll hear more about it tonight.”

  “Okay.” I waited, hoping he would say something more personal. Blake and I have an understanding—we are boyfriend and girlfriend, see, but his idea of a relationship isn’t my idea of one. He thinks we can get by with eyes meeting, holding hands now and then, and sitting together at events like the Council meetings. I dunno, maybe it’s because I’m a girl, but I want a little more than that from him. Even though his family is now living on our property, we don’t spend a lot of time together. Like everyone else on the compound, Blake and I both have schedules we have to follow.

  Blake is one of our lookouts, too, which means he is away, up on the hill or at another post on one of our borders, keeping watch most days, on twelve-hour shifts. When he’s up there on duty, I sometimes manage to finagle my dad’s walkie-talkie from him and I call Blake. But we both know during those conversations that every other lookout can hear us, as well as people at the house. We have a lot of connected walkie-talkies. We can’t say anything that means anything.

  What I really want to do is accompany Blake on lookout duty. My dad never lets me. He thinks we’ll talk or start giving each other moonie eyes or something and totally forget about keeping watch. But that’s not it at all! I just want to be near Blake. We’re gonna be married one day, so we ought to learn to work together. Why can’t my dad trust me to do the job if I’m with Blake? It isn’t fair.

  Chapter 9

  ANDREA

  “Hey.” I was approaching Jared from behind while he worked on the side of the small cabin he was building for himself and his mother. Jared hadn’t wanted to build; he’d asked if he and his mother could stay at the farmhouse like me and my family. But Mr. Martin wouldn’t let him. I didn’t know why, except the Martins have already taken in one extra family—us! And I’m sure glad they did. If they had already formed the compound before we got here, I don’t think we would ever have been allowed to stay. We didn’t bring any useful skills that we knew of.

  It turned out I’m a good shooter—one of the best we’ve got—but even I didn’t know I would be. I’d never shot a real gun before I got here, so I was just as surprised as anyone when it turned out I was good at it.

  So anyway, it seemed for awhile that I wouldn’t have anyone special. I mean, other than my family. Lexie had Blake—I was jealous, but I was trying to accept it. At least we were alive and well fed. Then other families started to arrive. But it was uncanny how none of them had teenagers, particularly of the male persuasion. Very disappointing. We had a few older couples, two more young families, and then…Jared arrived. He’s older than me—I think he’s upper twenties, though I haven’t worked up the nerve to ask him yet.

  Today I brought him lunch. We send out a call on the walkie-talkies when lunch is ready. Everyone is supposed to come to the house if they want to eat. Except the lookouts; they’re supposed to stay put and wait for someone to bring them their meals. But Jared hadn’t come in like everyone else. I took a look outside and saw him at work so I grabbed a plate of grub and headed out. I figured it was a good time to get his attention.

  He glanced over at me, saw I was holding food, and nodded.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. You even have milk today.” I smiled. Most people were happy to get milk. The Martins’ one cow only gives about four gallons of milk a day and it goes fast. Some days no one gets milk except the toddlers, because Mrs. Martin uses it for cheese or butter. Today I’d had to hustle to get a cup of it for Jared. He didn’t seem to care.

  “You can just leave it there.” He nodded towards a workbench. “I’ll bring in the dishes when I’m through.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll wait.” He glanced over at me again, I think he was surprised. I gave him a big smile. I wanted to make it very clear to Jared that I was interested in him. His gaze lingered on mine for a moment.

  I think he got the idea.

  Chapter 10

  SARAH

  “They’re not after anything! They just wanted water,” the old man cried, as we looked down the barrel of Martha’s formidable gun.

  I took a deep breath, trying to steady my hammering heart. One thing after another! We can never relax or rest! When will it end! What particularly bothered me at that moment was how disparate the situation was—these two old folks looked like the safe, kindly types. I felt so distressed at finding ourselves in front of a gun at their hands instead, that without knowing I was going to, I burst into tears.

  Oddly, it turned out to be the best thing I could do. Martha hurriedly put down her weapon and came towards me, utterly transformed, with a look of sheer maternal concern.

  “You poor thing!” she cried, giving my brother a quelling look as though he were to blame for my condition. Putting her arm around me, she led me forward down a hallway that led to a kitchen.

  I felt something jarring loose inside me, ripping at the hardness I’d erected around myself in order to survive—in order to live the way we did, as scavengers and homeless outcasts. There was something about having an older woman caring for me that went straight to my heart of hearts. I felt a wave of longing for my mother and fresh sobs came out of me, wracking my body like a dry cough. This is it, I thought. I’m finally losing my mind!

  I was ashamed, and wouldn’t meet Richard’s gaze even after Martha shooed me to the table, saying, “You sit right here while I get you some tea!” She glanced at Richard, who had followed us, along with the man, who I figured was h
er husband. “Oh, you too, sit down! Both of you take your coats off. We’ve a good hot stove going in here, as you can see.”

  And they did. It was an amazing sight, too! The stove looked like a relic from an earlier century. In fact, as Martha went around lighting oil lamps, I saw the whole kitchen looked like a scene from another era. I dried my eyes (not very wet, after all. I was always somewhat dehydrated) sniffed, and finally got hold of myself.

  We were in a large, old-fashioned room, not a granite counter-top or tiled floor in sight. The black stove was antique and immense, wider than tall, and with a gigantic hood above it which was almost as large as the stove itself. A black kettle graced the broad stove-top, roomy enough to hold numerous pots. The front had two oven doors with ornate steel handles, some lower compartments (which I realized afterwards were for loading fuel) and an additional black shelf over it, holding pottery, utensils and baking implements.

  As if that wasn’t enough, to the right of our table against a wall was a smaller stove, with a second kettle upon it, and a lidded black enamel pot. The ironwork—or maybe it was steel--was more ornate than on the large stove. It was really pretty; with clawed steel feet, and two oven doors, both of which had ornate metalwork décor on them and a long, metal handle for opening.

  Past the stove was a worktable; and then, against an adjacent wall, a long, steel double sink filled with soaking clothes. Between the sink and the stove stood a wooden drying rack, upon which hung some wet towels. Copper pans and metal pots of all sizes hung from pegged shelves on the walls. Pitchers and canisters and such lined the shelves. I found myself staring. When I finally looked back at Martha, she smiled at me, enjoying my amazement.

  Richard let out a low whistle. “This is…really something,” he said. I met his eyes and smiled.

  The old man pulled out a chair and sat across from us. “That it is,” he said, glancing around the room with pride in his eyes. “Martha and I used to own an antique shop. We collected lots of things over the years. Our plan was to open a museum shop, with a working old-fashioned kitchen. But we liked the older things so much we started designing our own kitchen to use them. Only the Man upstairs,” he said, chuckling, and looking at his wife, “could have known we’d need this stuff to survive!”

  I found it amazing that this warm, sweet old man was the same person who had surveyed us with such hostility and suspicion only minutes earlier.

  “The good Lord takes care of his own,” added Martha, confidently.

  I noticed Richard blanch; if I knew my brother, he wanted to disagree with Martha just then, but didn’t dare insult our hosts. I was glad he didn’t. I wanted to stay on their good side. Richard shook his head, and I silently pleaded with him with my eyes, afraid he’d aggravate them. But all he said was, “How do you manage to keep looters away? I know you have firearms, but there’s just the two of you…”

  “We have a son with a wife and children,” said Martha. “When they get here, they’ll help us protect the place.”

  The man nodded.

  “But you’ve survived this long without them; how?”

  Martha and her husband exchanged a look. “Oh, may as well tell them,” she gushed, while taking a steaming kettle and beginning to fill the tea cups sitting before us. She used a potholder to manage the hot handle. I watched, almost mesmerized. It was such an ordinary action—pouring tea. But I felt suddenly outside of myself, like this couldn’t be real. It was too ordinary. It felt incredible, like a picture in a storybook. But the hot steam caressed my cold face, and I smelled the tea. You may think tea has no aroma when it’s poured—it does. To a starving girl, it smells just about like heaven.

  The old man sat forward, clasping his hands together on the table. A bit sheepishly he admitted, “The yard is dotted with mines. They’re homemade, mind you—a trick I learned in the war. But they work.”

  “Boy, howdy, do they work!” chimed in Martha, nodding. She now had a tray with cream and sugar on it—and cookies—which she set down before us. Looking at the tray, I had the same sense of unreality. It threw our recent existence into such stark relief—the desperation, the dirt, the anguish—and now this ordinary tea tray! For a few moments I could only stare, doing my utmost not to burst into tears again.

  Richard had no such compunction and grabbed two cookies. I could tell he wanted to wolf them down but forced himself to be polite.

  I looked up to see Martha watching my face, and quickly tried to gain control of my features. She reached out an arm and softly patted my hand. “It’s okay,” she said, softly. “You eat all you want.”

  “Martha, they don’t want cookies,” the old man said, although Richard’s hand was already out for seconds. “Whip us all up some breakfast! Some good eggs and bacon!”

  Richard and I stared at each other. I think we both felt we’d died and gone to heaven. My only worry was, how long would they let us stay?

  Chapter 11

  LEXIE

  So about that council meeting. Tonight’s wasn’t mandatory for us teens, but I knew Blake was going. Something about seeing that ominous dark plume in the sky made me want to be with everyone else anyways, and I wanted the scoop about that sighting of soldiers.

  I felt cozy sitting next to Blake. Sometimes I have to put Bach out of the room because he likes to jump up beside me on the sofa and doesn’t take kindly to Blake taking his spot. Tonight the dogs were outside. Anyways, Blake usually takes my hand right away but tonight he didn’t. I waited and waited for him to do it. When he finally did, I gave him a look that said, what took you so long? It was after that first time we kissed (right in the chicken yard, I love that memory) that I’ve known we’ll get married someday. But I do wonder at times if Blake has the same idea.

  I’ll be seventeen in two months. I can handle being married. We can’t go to college. We can’t even finish high school. I love him. (I think.) We may as well get married. Except Blake is still shy at times and doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. If we ever talk about it I’ll point out that our lives are dangerous—we don’t have all the time in the world. We ought to get married while we can. But it may be, by the time he gets around to asking me I’ll be thinking the same thing I did tonight: What took you so long!

  Anyways, back to the council. All the adults are council members but if there’s a disagreement only the leadership team can vote. My mom and dad, the Buchanans, the Wassermans and an ex-cop by name of Mr. Simmons are the leadership team. Tonight, they did most of the talking.

  First they discussed the most recent sightings of foreign troops and the possibility of our facing an attack. It was agreed that tomorrow all building will cease so the men can block the driveway that leads to the road. We’ll put fallen tree trunks and brush and garbage across the whole front of the property, hoping to make it look abandoned. Since we’re a quarter mile off the road, you can see the house through the trees only in winter, when leaves are bare. The spring growth has started, but it isn’t enough cover yet. They went on to emphasize the importance of drills and practice and protocol to follow during an attack. I felt my hands grow clammy and had to pull one from Blake’s to wipe it off. I dread such an attack.

  Next up was about creating a firebreak inside the compound, a dead zone perimeter with nothing flammable. Almost every day we see plumes of smoke rising from somewhere on the horizon across the fields, or over the trees in the distance. Sometimes, like the new one today, they’re close, within five miles. A few of our men have ridden out to investigate them in the past and found it’s nearly always houses burning. What’s causing the fires? It doesn’t seem likely that so many homes would burn by accident.

  We fear it’s only a matter of time until whoever is causing these fires reaches us. Our farm has a large perimeter—126 acres—but even if we just tried to protect the compound area, it would be fairly impossible. And anyways, the only way to have a good dead zone would be to start our own controlled burn. My dad was afraid we’d burn the house and cabins down if we
tried.

  “It’s too risky,” he said. “We’ve only got manpower and a well for water to put out any wandering flames.”

  I wish people didn’t have to be so destructive! Isn’t it bad enough they’re looting and oftentimes killing? But it seems like they’re not happy unless they burn things, too.

  So there were three theories about the cause of the fires, and I didn’t like any of them. The first is, people were still trying to heat their homes using wrong methods. That theory was least popular because if anyone was going to burn their house down by heating, it should have happened during the winter. The second was, marauders are torching homes after they loot them; either to destroy evidence, or just because they’re “mean and loathsome,” in my mother’s words. That was the most popular opinion. The third was, those foreign troops are doing it—the ones we keep hearing about.

  Mr. Simmons says it’s guerrilla warfare, and they’ll do whatever they can to lower our morale, to make us cower. My hatred for these foreign soldiers grows by leaps and bounds though I’ve not laid eyes on one of them yet. Are they burning people right out of their homes? Are they killing these people? The looters could be doing that, too. All three theories made me nervous.

  Simmons insisted that to be safe, we shouldn’t allow any strangers on the compound under any circumstances. “We could put warning signs out front, so they know,” he said.

  “Warning signs are welcome signs to looters or military,” said Jared. “We need to keep a low profile and try to go unnoticed.” He paused. “If anyone comes through all that brush and debris, they’re looking for trouble. We shoot on sight.”

  My mom had been knitting while she listened to the talk, but she looked up and added, “Not everyone who has survived this long is dangerous. We can’t just shoot anyone who approaches us.”