The Pulse Effex Series: Box Set

by L. R. Burkard

  “Well, you certainly did a lot of work,” I said. “I like the smell.” I inhaled deeply, relishing the scent of fresh wood, rich and earthy and spicy.

  “It’s even better inside,” he said. “C’mon.” He unlocked the door and we stepped inside. The lovely woodsy smell was even stronger. There was a table and two chairs, a small bedside table with an oil lamp on it, a box of bullets sitting open beside the lamp, and a few candles and boxed matches. One corner held a bed. “My mom sleeps here for now,” he said. “But when I get her bed, it’ll go over there—” he pointed at the far corner. “After I get a wall put up.”

  I nodded, staying just past the entrance. Jolene wasn’t inside. “Very pretty.”

  Aside from the wall lined with boxes and plastic bins overflowing with clothing and supplies, it was pretty in a rustic way. It had the coziness of a small pioneer cabin—the kind I’d seen in reenactment villages, or on famous homestead museums—but they were old. This one was new and fresh.

  Jared took my elbow. “Try the bed,” he said, leading me towards it. “It’s the only comfortable spot in here right now.” He let me go and turned to put his rifle against the wall. I was frantically trying to think of an excuse to dart out, get away from him. Yeah, I felt better about him overall, but I did not want to get on that bed.

  But as I stood there deliberating, I noticed the bed had no frame or headstand, no footboard. And it seemed to be an unusual height. “What’s keeping the bed up?” I asked.

  He looked over, one hand still on his gun. “Just some stuff. Works great, don’t it?”

  There was a sheet draped over the side, reaching the floor. I don’t know what made me do it, but I bent down and lifted it up. Jared said, “Wait! Don’t—”

  But it was too late. I’d seen a row of white containers, standing neatly side-by-side, holding up the mattress upon which Jolene slept.

  The missing food storage containers.

  Chapter 42

  LEXIE

  “What to do about Jared.” That could be the title for my journal entry tonight.

  My dad called an emergency council meeting in his office to determine this. I wished I could’ve attended it. So did Blake, and I’m guessing Andrea, but only the leadership was allowed.

  I don’t know why there’s any question about it—my dad said whoever took the stuff would be banished from the compound. Jared was caught with it red-handed so I think he ought to be banished.

  Jolene is sitting in the living-room red-eyed, saying her son would no more steal our food than shoot himself in the foot. I didn’t want to be the one to say it but I know what the rest of us were thinking. He took it! Period. There’s no denying it. Jared is nowhere to be seen. Blake said he’d been told to stay in his cabin until a decision is made.

  The storage containers have been moved back downstairs. One thing I wish I knew is how Jared got them all out of the house and into his cabin without anyone else knowing about it. He must have done it in the middle of the night. Even then, our lookouts should have noticed any activity—it doesn’t make sense. Blake said if he chose a moonless night and didn’t use a flashlight he could have done it without being seen, one bucket at a time. Especially because his cabin is between two others, not right out in the open.

  Anyways, everyone was sitting around in the living room, chairs and floor covered in people, waiting for the council to get out and tell us their verdict. We were like a courtroom waiting for the jury.

  Food is about our most valuable asset these days. So stealing it is like committing a felony, I guess.

  Blake and I were playing Rummy on the floor. Andrea was sitting next to Roper in a corner, deep in conversation. They looked serious. I know she’s frightened. As the person who blew the whistle on Jared, she’s afraid of him now. Even though I don’t trust Jared—and this episode proves I was right to feel this way—I don’t think he’d stoop to hurting her. I hope not! I know my mom assured her she did the right thing, reporting the theft. To hear her tell it you’d think Jared was ready to silence her; only, he didn’t actually do anything to stop her. He knew she’d seen the buckets; and all he said was, “It’s not what you think.”

  “Yes it is,” Andrea said. I could imagine her large eyes staring at Jared in horror. Andrea’s eyes can look big! He shook his head, folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. Andrea took the opportunity to flee the cabin.

  Suddenly we heard the door to my father’s office open. Everyone came to attention and the room fell silent as we waited for the leadership team who filed in shortly. My dad and mom, the Buchanans, Mr. Wasserman, and Mr. Simmons, an ex-cop. Outside I dimly heard one of the dogs barking, and then Roper’s whispered, “Ask not for whom the dog barks. It barks for thee.” Andrea’s little giggle. Blake and I shared a smile. I’d heard Roper was quick with one-line jokes. Leave it to him to joke at such a time!

  “Okay, folks. Here’s our decision. You all know Jared was found with the missing containers.” My Dad was the spokesperson, as usual. “He says he never intended on using the food—he wanted to keep it safe.”

  Indignant sounds erupted among the adults. Mr. Prendergast snorted. “Likely story!”

  “Safe from who? Everyone but him—and his mother,” said Mr. Philpot.

  “That’s not true!” Jolene cried, her eyes wide with hurt. My mom went to her side and put an arm around her.

  “Hold on, hold on!” Dad cried, raising his arms. “Hear me out. Jared pointed out—and I think it’s a good point—that to keep all the food in one place could be a critical mistake. If anyone not from our compound found the storage, they’d find all of it. Jared says it’s smarter for us to keep it in a few locations, and that two was better than one.”

  “Yours isn’t the only food on the compound,” said Mrs. Wasserman. “So it’s not all in one place.”

  “We’ve got the most of it, though,” said my dad. “Only the Buchanans have anything near it.”

  “But we have some, and I know a few other people still have a little,” insisted Mrs. Wasserman.

  “Well, Jared only knew about ours,” my dad returned. “And he didn’t think it was safe.”

  “Yeah, but why didn’t he come forward about it? Why was he quiet when you asked who took it?”

  My dad nodded. “I know, I know. We asked him about that. He said he was going to tell me—but he needed to make sure it would stay a secret,” and he had to raise his voice here because objections went flying around the room, “TO KEEP IT SAFE.”

  When there was quiet, he added, looking around at all of us, “To keep it safe, people.”

  “I don’t believe that!” said Mr. Prendergast. “How is it safer in a one-room cabin—that anyone could break into—than in your basement in a safe room?”

  “That’s not keeping it safe,” Mr. Philpot added. “That’s keeping it to himself. At our expense!”

  My father held up a hand again. “Okay, but listen up. That food belongs only to my family. In the end, even if his intention was to steal it, he didn’t steal anything from anyone but us.”

  “We’ve all been eating from your food storage,” Mrs. Wasserman said. “That’s everyone’s food!” A murmur of agreement sped across the room.

  “No, it isn’t.” My dad said. “We’ve been sharing it with you all,” and he paused, looking around, “but that was our choice. It still belongs to us. And I have to tell you, I think Jared is an asset for this compound and we need to keep him.”

  Lots of raised voices after that! All of the adults were talking at once. Blake and I scooted against the wall near Andrea and Roper, so we could see the whole room.

  Jolene was crying, wiping her eyes, or looking around despairingly. My mom was mostly silent, still keeping one arm around Jared’s mother.

  Finally my dad blew his whistle. Since whistles were how we first used to spread the alarm on the compound, (before Blake set up the current alarm system using car batteries) we were accustomed to stopping what we were doin
g at the sound of its shrill note. It worked like a charm now. Silence fell swiftly. My father’s stern expression was nearly as commanding as his tone. “I’m sorry to disappoint anyone. But it was our food and we get to say what happens to Jared. He stays.”

  Some disgruntled comments were shared in low tones. Others shook their heads. Andrea met my eyes. I saw fear in hers. We still hadn’t exchanged a friendly word and I felt bad about it. I thought of saying, “If he gets to stay, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” but she looked away and I’d said nothing.

  “Just how do you think he’s an asset?” Mr. Philpot asked.

  My father said, “Jared has lots of battle experience, and weapons know-how. He’s building things we need, like pipe bombs, and smoke bombs, and I don’t know what all. But I don’t think anyone else here knows how to do that, do we?” He looked around. The room fell silent.

  Mr. Clepps spoke up. “He’s been a big help setting up the infirmary. Apparently he has experience with field wound dressing, too. He saw a lot of action over in Iraq.” He paused. “I agree with Grant.”

  Grant—that’s my dad. But I did not agree with him. I felt more distrustful of Jared than ever. Maybe because it was our food—stuff I’d seen Mom storing with painstaking steps. Every storage bucket had oxygen absorbers calculated to keep the contents fresh for up to 25 years, if necessary. Most of them had food that she’d packaged in Mylar with its own oxygen absorbers. I’d helped her seal each Mylar bag shut with a hot iron, racing to finish before the absorbers became useless. Once they were opened out of their packaging, they instantly started absorbing air, so you had to hurry and get them sealed in with the food before that happened.

  Anyways, I felt protective of it all. And it didn’t make sense to me that Jared really thought it was safer in his cabin than in our storage room in the basement.

  But I guess my dad had the final say. I figured the council had already voted on it anyways. Jared would stay.

  The talk shifted to the close call we’d had with the army trucks. My dad’s demeanor became more serious yet. He’d heard on his radio that trucks similar to those we’d seen were sighted coming into the country from Canada in a long procession. A mile of trucks. An iron hand seemed to grip my heart. He went on to say they’d been sighted as far south as Kentucky.

  “We already know they’re in Ohio,” he said.

  “Where else have they been seen?” Mrs. Philpot asked, in a quiet voice. The room was so silent I thought I could hear myself breathing.

  Dad sighed. “The latest sightings place them in Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois. But here’s the bad news: They are not American. They’re not FEMA. They’ve been wreaking havoc wherever they go, killing people, destroying property, mutilating national symbols, buildings, artwork—you name it. They want to eradicate any vestiges that are left of this country’s identity. It’s a well-known tactic of guerrilla warfare, because they want to demoralize their enemy. They want to wipe out America.”

  “So who are they?” Blake asked.

  My dad shook his head. “We think they’re mercenaries.”

  “If they’re mercenaries, who are they working for?” Blake persisted.

  Dad took a deep breath. “That’s still a mystery. Some say they’re from Russia. Others say North Korea, China, or even Iran. Which means, no one knows.”

  Mr. Buchanan spoke up. “It doesn’t really matter. The important thing is, we stay safe. We need to ramp up some outer defenses, like placing stop sticks all over the road, maybe for a mile in each direction.”

  “Do we have stop sticks?” Mrs. Buchanan asked.

  Mr. Buchanan shrugged. “Maybe Jared does.”

  “Or we put other things in the way.” Mr. Philpot said.

  “The trees didn’t stop them,” Blake mentioned. I recalled how we’d watched in horror while a boatload of soldiers had quickly tackled the heavy fallen trees we’d painstakingly placed across the driveway. Our best efforts were merely delays against their numbers.

  “We keep putting them down anyway,” said a strong voice, from the doorway. It was Jared. Everyone fell silent. From the corner of my eye I saw Roper squeeze Andrea’s hand.

  Jared surveyed the room. “The driveway is blocked up real good. Now we put more roadblocks up the road, down the road, in every direction. And we can make stop sticks. They won’t be as good as manufactured ones, and they’ll only slow things down, but if we get slow moving trucks, we can hit them with pipe bombs.”

  “Is that the best you’ve got?” Mr. Prendergast asked. “Roadblocks?”

  Jared returned his gaze, not warmly. “I’ve got other ideas, be sure of it.”

  “And you’re making pipe bombs and smoke bombs?”

  Jared nodded. “I’ve got dozens. We’ll give them trouble, maybe more than they want to deal with right now.” He paused. “If they bring in tanks, all we can do is run.”

  No one said another word about having Jared banned. He cleared his throat. “I’ve got the bombs, like I said, and I can build bigger ones, but there’s a problem. I need supplies. And I need a volunteer to come with me to go find some.” The men in the room turned to their wives, probably discussing whether they should go or not. I heard my mother say to my dad, “No, you can’t! We need you here.”

  Andrea and Roper were talking, too. I think Roper was volunteering.

  Mr. Prendergast said, “I think we need to find out if those mercenaries are still in our area before we let any able-bodied men go anywhere. We may not know who they are, but we do know they want to eradicate us, and could be back at any time. We need our manpower here.”

  “What good is manpower against RPGs?” Jared said. “Make no mistake, if they return, they will have big guns. We need them, too. We need bombs.”

  Jared’s tone of authority must have been convincing because the talk changed to where they could go to find the things he needed to build the weapons.

  Jared continued, “And they are not trying to eradicate us.” His voice wasn’t loud but commanded attention. “When a rogue government takes over,” he continued, “they still need people to populate their country. They’re trying to show their strength, instill fear into everyone. If they demoralize us enough, it paves the way for a government coup. We need to hold them off until our own military can reassert its strength.” He looked around with his usual grim expression. “If our military doesn’t get involved, this is guerrilla warfare and may go on for a long time and get even uglier than it is now.”

  I felt like Jared was drawing a black heavy curtain over the room, making us short on air or something. My chest felt heavy, listening to him talk.

  “That may all be true,” my dad said, “But here’s the good news.” He looked around, making sure he had everyone’s attention. “I do not believe,” and he paused significantly, “that America will go down easily. We will not go down without a fight!”

  The room broke into cheers. Jared’s expression barely altered, but Roper gave a whoop of approval, and cried “Angel armies, man! We call on God for angel armies!”

  “Amen!” cried Cecily. “They saved us before! Remember Psalm 108:12! ‘Oh, grant us help against the foe, for vain is the salvation of man!’”

  “Amen and Amen!” Roper agreed, smiling, as they shared a high five. He then held his hand up to Andrea and we all slapped high fives. I have to say, Roper brings an element of fun with him wherever he goes on the compound. I saw Jared looking over at us like we were nuts, but that’s okay. Not everyone understands why Christians take such confidence in God. Maybe someday we’d have a chance to talk to Jared about the gospel.

  Anyways, breaking up on a high note helped my spirits immensely. The rest of the day felt almost cheery. Somehow though, by the time of curfew I was heavy-hearted. When Blake and I said goodnight, I said, “I guess it’s good, Jared wasn’t banished.”

  He nodded. “I think so.” Then, a short grin. “But I guess if he’d taken our food buckets I might feel di
fferently.”

  “My dad said it turned out well. Nothing is actually missing and it reminded him that we do need to spread out our hiding places. He’s gonna dig a few holes and line them with tarps and put some of the buckets down there. With gravestones on top.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Blake agreed.

  “Well. Goodnight.” I stared into Blake’s warm amber-brown eyes. Was he going to kiss me? He did. I gave him a good hug afterwards. I considered bringing up the future—like, would we ever get married? What were his thoughts about that? But we heard someone approaching and drew apart.

  “Tomorrow’s another lookout day,” he reminded me.

  “You think I’d forget that?” I smiled. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  And I was. When I was on the hill with him, hours flew past. My dad was wrong to have worried about us getting distracted, because I’d been right about Blake. He took the job seriously and wouldn’t let me distract him. I’d gotten used to being up there and wasn’t nervous about it any longer. But if I’d known how the next day was going to turn out? I would have been.

  Chapter 43

  SARAH

  It’s no accident Angel’s house is optimal for wood heat, or that the stove runs on wood or coal; or that they’ve got a root cellar and ice house. They aren’t preppers, she told me (to which I nodded as though I understood what she meant. Actually, I have no idea what a prepper is). Anyway, she said they bought 77 acres out here bordering Ohio in order to homestead. So when we lost electricity and felt like life was over, they barely even blinked. I mean, they had cable TV, and there was a water heater in the barn that was helpful in winter; but overall they were hardly affected.