The Pulse Effex Series: Box Set

by L. R. Burkard

  “Thanks a lot, Mom!” I felt my face grow hot. “Wouldn’t you want us to go looking for you if you were the one whose horse came back without you?”

  She gave me a long look. “You are not sending your father out there to search for a woman who should have known better!” She paused, her eyes wide. “Y’all know that if she and Mr. Washington were able to come back to us, they would! I am not about to see your father put himself in harm’s way for two people who chose to do that to themselves!”

  My dad put an arm around my mother. She turned to face him and they went into a full embrace. I stood there glowering, still trying to decide if I should argue my point any further. But my dad glanced over and said, “Don’t you have chores to do?”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I insisted. “If mom’s horse came back without her, wouldn’t you go looking for her?”

  “Lexie, I will not discuss this with you right now,” my dad said. “Mr. Washington had a horse too, and that animal did not come back. Rhema found her way but we have no idea how far she had to come, or how long ago Mrs. Patterson gave her up.”

  “She wouldn’t give her up! She was forced to!”

  “Which is why we’d be on a fool's errand to go looking. Looking for trouble, is what I’d call it, as your mother said.” A sound from the doorway just then made us turn to look. I saw Andrea’s distraught face just long enough to know she’d heard some of that conversation before she turned and hurried off. I felt awful for her. I gave my dad an accusing look.

  “I’m truly sorry we can’t help Andrea or get her mother back—I know she’s lost both her parents—.”

  “And now she might have lost Roper, too! The least you could have done is told Roper not to go with Jared! Andrea has no one!”

  “Andrea has us!” my mother said, in a scolding tone. “She has you, and she has her brothers and Lily, and she has us! And she has the rest of the compound, just like we do. She is not alone.”

  “Yeah. That’s a big comfort,” I said, turning to leave.

  “One moment, Lexie.” My dad’s voice made me stop but I didn’t turn to face him. “You seem determined to see everything that’s happened to Andrea’s family as being our fault. May I remind you that you were the one who insisted we go get the Pattersons to begin with?”

  My mouth hardened into a tight line and I spun around to face my father. “You’re right, Dad, I know that! Why do you think I want us to do something to help?”

  He took a breath and let it out. “We did help. We brought them here. Her mother is an adult and didn’t consult us before leaving. She’d be alive and well if she’d stayed. There is no reason for you to blame yourself for what’s happened—but we aren’t to blame, either.”

  Someone touched my arm and I looked up to see Blake, his expression one of sympathy. “C’mon, Lex, I have something to show you.”

  Taking my hand, he led us out of the room. “I thought you might need a distraction.”

  “Thanks. I do.”

  Bach and Mozart had been dozing peacefully on the floor but they immediately scrambled to their feet as if they knew we were headed outdoors. We let them trail along.

  “You okay?” he asked, once we got outside. “At least you’ve got Rhema back. That’s great!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I can hardly believe it! But I still think we should keep looking for Andrea’s mom.”

  He was silent a moment. “That’s what Roper and Jared are doing.”

  “We hope.” He didn’t answer and for a few minutes we walked in silence. I felt self-conscious knowing our lookouts were probably watching.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, though my heart and mind were still on Andrea and her mother.

  “You’ll see.” Blake took us around the riding ring, past the cabins towards the hill. When we reached the bottom he veered and headed towards the tree line.

  “Are we heading to the stream?” I asked.

  Blake nodded. “Uh huh.” Beyond a narrow stretch of trees, a lazy stream meandered along the property, rocky and shallow and shaded. It was so quiet you’d never even know it was there until you’re right on it. In the hottest summers it sometimes dried up. We hadn’t reached it yet but memories bubbled up.

  “There used to be more water in it,” I said. “When I was little I used to wade to my knees trying to catch frogs or crayfish. I also loved to pull out rocks. They always looked so pretty and colorful in the water. I once asked my mother if she’d traded all my pretty rocks for ugly ones. That’s how boring and gray they looked when they dried. I still don’t understand how water can make a drab rock look pretty, but it does.”

  Smiling, Blake nodded. “You may find the stream worth wading in again now.” I looked at him with surprise—and admiration—trusting that he’d done something wonderful.

  “You did it, didn’t you? You got more water to flow?” I was grinning in delight and hurried my steps towards the stream. Even before reaching the embankment, I knew there was a change. “I can hear it!”

  Blake watched me with a hopeful little boy look about him. We were both smiling as we hurried through the brush and came out by the stream. The dogs, as if they couldn’t wait to get wet, splashed happily into the water, staring into its shallow depths. Bach seemed especially curious about what was beneath the surface and dipped his head low to find out. But as soon as his snout got wet he snatched his head out again, shaking the water from his whiskers. Mozart seemed transfixed by the water rushing past his legs and stood looking around and around as if to solve a mystery.

  “How’d you get it deeper?” I asked. “It hasn’t been raining a lot.”

  Blake shrugged as though it were nothing. “I detoured water from a cross-stream higher up on the property. We just dug out a trench for about fifty feet and then we made a dam in the other stream, so now it’s all coming this way.”

  I laughed. “Wow! Why didn’t we think of that sooner?”

  “Because no one else thought about utilizing water power except me.”

  “So we’re going to get some power from this?”

  He nodded. “That’s my next step. I think it will work. It won’t be much, but enough to—.”

  “We have an old Frigidaire from, like, the sixties. Could we power it?” I asked, as excitement rose within me. “Wouldn’t that be heavenly to have cold drinks again?”

  But Blake’s expression sobered. “My dad thinks we’d need to put any power we can harness into re-charging car batteries—which could theoretically work, but probably won’t. Anyway, the council will have to decide what the power can be used for.”

  I frowned. “Oh. Yeah, I guess.” Nevertheless, having any power was a blissful thought. I looked up at him admiringly. “You’re a genius, you know that, right?”

  He laughed. “Water power’s been around for millennia.”

  “Maybe, but not on our compound.”

  “Well, it’s not here yet, either.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

  I wrapped my arms around his middle and nuzzled my head into his chest. “I will.”

  For a few sweet seconds we shared a good hug, which morphed seamlessly into a good, long, kiss. Then Blake gently drew me apart from him. “We gotta be careful.”

  “What do you mean?” He took my hand and started leading me up the ravine on to where the new trench had been dug.

  “I mean, your dad gave me a talk the other day about the ‘danger of temptation.’”

  I stopped cold. “What?” I felt my face burning.

  Blake grinned sheepishly. “It’s okay. I know where he’s coming from. If I had a teenage daughter...”

  “No, it’s not okay! If he wanted to talk about something like that he should have talked to me, not you.”

  Blake nodded, still smiling faintly. “I guess he figured I’d be having more trouble handling it than you.”

  I practically snorted. “I think he got that backwards!”

  Blake
chuckled. “Yeah, maybe—but that’s okay.”

  “What’s okay? That I’m more attracted to you than you are to me?”

  We’d resumed walking, but now Blake stopped. “That’s not it, Lex. I just don’t let myself think about it.” He paused, searching my face. “That’s. Not. It.”

  “Fine.” I said, but I didn’t feel reassured.

  We came to the new trench but I was starting to feel uneasy about it. We’d passed a boundary of the property and had kept going. It was a beautiful trench, already lined for twenty feet with stone and rock to prevent erosion.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” Blake asked.

  I hesitated. “Um. There’s one problem.”

  “What?”

  “The trench…it isn’t actually on our property.”

  “What? You own a hundred acres!”

  “A hundred and twenty-six. In that direction.” I pointed to the right.

  “But back there,” he said, pointing beyond the stream, “is your land, too. We have lookouts over that way!”

  “I know. I know,” I said, shaking my head. “But this area isn’t ours, I’m just telling you. Property boundaries are weird.”

  “So who does it belong to?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t remember their name.”

  In a softer tone, he asked, “Are they still alive?”

  “I don’t know. We never got to know them.”

  He sighed. “Well, if they miss the water, I guess we’ll find out about it.” He looked back up. “If they’re alive.”

  “I’ll ask my dad. Maybe he knows.”

  Bach and Mozart had stayed with us but zig-zagged around with their natural curiosity. They came up, tongues lolling, from the heat.

  Blake took my hand again. “We need this water, Lex. Having a little power will be a major encouragement to everyone on this compound. We could run a clothes washer one day a week, maybe!”

  “Oh, man, I’d love that!” He’d found my sore spot with that suggestion. Like most every other woman, I detested hand-washing heavy clothing. It took hauling water and then the actual washing, and the use of manual wringers just wasn’t fun. Clothes stayed plenty wet without a washing machine to spin them before drying. I missed a washing machine more than I missed air conditioning. On wash days, anyways.

  As we went back down the hill with the dogs at our heels, Blake talked about his plan to get actual power from the stream. He had to build a waterwheel but it wouldn’t be very difficult, he assured me. As we walked and talked, I almost forgot that our biggest worries weren’t about having no electric gadgets, or about the manual labor required to get life done. Our biggest worry was about the next attack on our compound. We had no way of knowing when or if it would come although past incidents assured us that it would.

  We just didn’t know when.

  Chapter 9

  LEXIE

  I woke up not feeling well. After thinking about it, I realized I haven’t been feeling quite myself for a few days. But today was worse—I felt totally zonked. I complained to my mother and she gave me the day off—yay!

  Of course I still had to go lay eyes on Rhema and feed and water her. Then I put her in a separate pasture that Dad sectioned off with chicken-wire and metal poles so she can get used to the other horses again and so they can get used to her. Horses can be funny that way, and I didn’t want to take any chances of Rhema getting bullied.

  Now I’m back in my room and I have time to write more than usual but all I can think about is the latest scoop Dad got from the ham radio. There’s something new we have to worry about: suicide bombers! The compound has successfully fought off attacks since the grid went down; and the last time we were up against foreign soldiers it was hardly something to sneeze at—but they didn’t use bombs against us. The only grenades in play were ours.

  But Dad says there are now VBIEDs—“vehicle borne improvised explosive devices,” to be precise, causing a lot of death and destruction in nearby states. Manned vehicles. Supposedly run by extremist Muslim invaders.

  They drive into places where they think people are congregated—like our compound! If they find us, I’m so afraid they’ll find a way to get past all the obstacles we’ve put out front and do the same thing to us.

  Jared pushed really hard for us to build a fence along the front. Not out by the street but closer to the house. We’ve already got heaps of obstacles along the front, including the two trucks that were destroyed during the last attack—thanks to Jared’s home-made grenades. Plus, there’s other debris and garbage and tree trunks and anything big we can find that isn’t needed. But the fence never got built—now all the men are scrambling to get one up. We’ve got the hill behind us which is a natural defense, and acres of woods on one side. The fields are less of a barrier, but there are ravines here and there that should keep anyone from being able to come at us by vehicle through them.

  Anyway, putting up a fence—a strong fence—is now top priority. The idea was to gather fencing from other places in the area that were abandoned since the pulse and cart it here using our wagon. But after scouting out some fences, the men decided it would be too arduous—even with a hydraulic jack it was a lot of labor, and would require being off the compound and in harm’s way. So today a new open shed went up that is solely for the purpose of making cement blocks. Well, it’s sort of cement—it’s a homemade mortar, which we pour into scavenged, cleaned-out boxes and cartons—then let dry. We’re hoping these blocks dry quickly. (The summer heat is awful without air conditioning, but at least it will help the blocks dry.) When they’re fully dried, the men will use them to put up the wall across the front of the house and yard.

  My dad had the idea of leaving some holes here and there in the wall—places to rest the barrel of a rifle and shoot from. “Better than a trench,” he said. “And a heck of a lot safer.”

  Eventually we hope to surround the houses and cabins with this wall. Then we’ll really be what we call ourselves: A compound! I asked my mother if we could possibly enclose most of our land—like China’s great wall. But she said, “That would be impossible. We don’t have the materials.”

  Even so, if we get the wall built around the house and cabins before one of those suicide VBIEDs finds us—I’ll give a great big Hallelujah!

  I prayed with Andrea last night. I heard her crying from below me. She sounded so sad it made me miserable. She’s worried about Roper and I don’t blame her. She’s lost so much this year! I mean, not even counting the stuff we’ve all lost like technology and normal life. She’s lost her dad and mom, and Roper and Jared have been gone far longer than we anticipated they would be. But I couldn’t tell her I’m worried. My mom cautioned me against expressing any negative thoughts about Roper because Andrea’s already been through so much.

  We’re all doing our utmost to stay positive around her. Except Cecily, who doesn’t have to work up a positive attitude. She’s just naturally positive. Or maybe I should say she’s supernaturally positive because she says she gets her hope and faith from God. She feels strongly that both Roper and Jared will return to us. I wish I had her faith to believe it!

  Cecily is an amazing prayer warrior and she gets lots of good words to share with us during her closeted prayer times with the Lord. I pray she’s right about the men! Because I feel guilty around Andrea. Compared to her, I’ve had it so good. I live in my house, I have both my parents. We’ve had to accommodate a lot more people on our land, but we’re on OUR land. It’s still home. Andrea’s home is like a distant memory. All of life before the pulse is like a dream. I wish we could go back to that dream and sleep forever—but we can’t. We can’t do so many things. So I can’t tell her that I think the men have been gone too long.

  I can’t add to her worries.

  And we don’t know for sure they won’t return, and we do have Cecily praying for them EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

  EVENING

  We hold church services at night because there’s so much work to do while t
here’s daylight. It’s nice, because every service is a candle-light service! Even though we’re used to candle-light now, when it’s a church meeting the feeling is different.

  Anyways, Cecily must have heard about Andrea’s mom not returning with Rhema and how worried Andrea is about Roper. She stood to share some encouragement with us—not an unusual thing for her to do—but her remarks were aimed at Andrea more often than not.

  She reminded us (ostensibly all of us, but she kept looking at Andrea) that we must never give in to despair. She said, “Whatever the worry, whatever the fear, give it to God. He’s the only one who can give you peace when everything in the world points to unrest.” She quoted Isaiah 26:3, reminding us that God gives perfect peace to those who keep their minds on him and trust him. And she encouraged all of us to memorize I Cor.10:13.

  When we were in our room later I asked Andrea if she felt encouraged.

  “Honestly? No. My heart is bleak and dark. I know I need to believe what God says in the Word. But sometimes I feel like I can’t endure this—this worrying. Or maybe it’s the thought of losing someone else I love.” Tears filled her eyes. “If he—if he doesn’t come back—.”

  “He will!” I wanted her to feel better. I can’t stand it when Andrea cries.

  She nodded, sniffed, and even tried to smile a little. “I need to believe that.” After a second she added, “The only good thing about having to watch Lily so much and having all our other chores, is that it keeps me too busy to wallow in self-pity like this all day long!”

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling stupid because I hadn’t been wallowing in self-pity—but I wanted her to feel I understood.

  “I have moments when I’m convinced I’ll never see my mother again, or Roper.” She looked at me with her large brown eyes, filled with pain. “I can’t stand those moments!”

  I nodded.

  “Lily still asks for my mom. She looks at me with her blue ‘Lars’ eyes, and asks, Ma-ma? Ma-ma?”

  I resisted the urge to smirk at her reference to Lars—he was her mother’s gym trainer, and Lily’s father. It wasn’t a high note in Andrea’s life when her mother admitted to the affair, so I kept listening as though she hadn’t said it.