The Pulse Effex Series: Box Set

by L. R. Burkard

  I was overwhelmed with sorrow—and anger. I couldn’t believe my own father was using me as bait!

  “Keep going,” Richard said. “And turn around. I can’t let you see how I get in.”

  “If you sneak in there without us—.”

  “I won’t!”

  I wondered what Richard was going to do. He didn’t know a secret way of opening that door! My father and I were about three feet away from it now. And then suddenly we heard sounds from the inside. Richard and I froze in amazement, knowing it was the sound of the locks being opened. My father flung me away to hold out his gun with two unsteady hands.

  As the door began to swing open, I screamed, “Don’t come out! He has a GUN!”

  But the door swung wider and Tex’s tall frame appeared. I lunged at my father to prevent him from shooting Tex but a shot rang out, and then another. I was too late! We fell to the ground, and I huddled there in confusion and horror, sobbing—and too afraid to look at Tex, who must be dead.

  And then Tex’s voice, same as ever, said, “C’mon, Sarah. Angel’s waiting for you.” I gasped and looked up at him. He reached out a strong arm and drew me to my feet.

  “I thought—!” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Tex gave me a rueful grin and moved aside the nape of his shirt. “Body armor. I didn’t forget it this time. Thanks for your help, though. I don’t think he would’ve missed me, if you hadn’t done something.” I threw myself into Tex’s arms, crying pathetically.

  Only then did I understand that the first shot must have been Tex’s.

  And that my father was dead.

  Chapter 53

  SARAH

  I felt less grief over my father’s death than I expected. Maybe because I’d been grieving his loss since the pulse. Or perhaps due to his treachery—using me as bait! Either way, my sorrow about the man in the tunnel paled next to my joy and relief to be with Tex and Angel again. The McAllisters are the most wonderful people I’ve ever known. Angel took us back without a word of recrimination. I’d expected anger but she gave me a firm hug, and then Richard. She shushed me when I tried to apologize. She was so, so, sorry, she said, about our dad. She fed us and told me to take a shower—a shower!! A trip to the past. She had tea and dessert waiting when I was done and in clean clothing.

  “Where’s Tex and Richard?” I asked, as we ate a slice of cake together. (It was NASA food—tasted great!)

  “They’re cleaning up outside,” she said, gently. I understood what she meant: they were taking care of my father’s body. Tears welled up in my eyes. Sitting there in the clean, orderly bunker, bright with electric lights, I felt a world away from the nightmare in the tunnel. But deep inside I was haunted, as though the nightmare would never leave me. The nightmare was my father! And he’d been willing to let me die, if need be, to get into the bunker. I reminded myself that he hadn’t been in his right mind.

  “That wasn’t my father,” I said. Angel looked at me with sympathetic eyes. “The man out there was crazy—he wasn’t our dad. He was like, a shell of the man we used to know.”

  She put one hand over one of mine. “I know, I know that,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “No—I’m sorry. I’m really sorry I ever went out there! I needed to stop Richard from being responsible for— ”

  “I know,” she said again. “But I want you to hear this, Sarah. We’re going to move on and put the past behind us. No apologies, and no regrets. Tex believes it’s only a matter of time now, until our military from around the globe gets organized and will reclaim this country. Life will one day return to where we can live up there like we used to.”

  “But the cabin’s all burned up!”

  She nodded. “I know it. We have another home where we lived before the pulse. It may have been looted, of course, but maybe we can fix it up. Otherwise, we’ll rebuild.”

  “You can do that?” I asked, wiping my eyes. “Won’t that take a lot of money?”

  Angel sipped her tea with a thoughtful expression. “We have an overseas account.” Suddenly, she smiled. “Unless Switzerland was taken out too, we should have more than enough.”

  It might take me a long time to recover from what had happened with my father in the tunnel, but I could tell Angel was doing better. Her old optimism was back.

  LATER

  Richard and Tex came back all hot and dirty. Said they’d buried Dad in one of the decoy tunnels—but evened out the dirt so as not to leave a mound.

  Richard has been silent but less troubled than I expected. He and Tex seem to have made their peace. Like I said, Tex and Angel are the two most wonderful people I’ve ever met. If there’s anyone to live in an underground bunker with, it’s them!

  Angel said when the cabin is safe, that is, when the fire’s all died out and it’s not too hot to enter, Tex and Richard will go up and make sure the hidden door in the wall is still hidden. Once that’s done, they may take a look among the survival garden for produce but then it’s back down here to the bunker. And we’ll stay here until we no longer can. We’re family.

  Chapter 54

  ANDREA

  With Jared gone, the compound seems to have lost the feeling of relative safety we try so hard to maintain. It’s like we’ve gone from yellow alert to red. The council agreed Roper has to get more airbag initiators so we can tear up the road like Mr. Simmons said. (It was Jared’s idea originally, and so it may as well have been written in stone. Jared’s ideas for defense—and offense—are now like law!)

  Even so, I’ve hardly had time to worry about our threat level—I’m too busy taking care of Hope and Lily. But I asked Mr. Martin to let me and Roper get married before they send him out again. He said, no! He wouldn’t explain why but later Roper did, gently. I found him outdoors, where he’d been helping mix mortar for the stone wall. Hope was sleeping and Lily was with the rest of the children, so we got to be alone for a few minutes.

  He stopped and wiped his hands off, and then we strolled, holding hands, towards the playground. When I told him that Mr. Martin had turned down my request to hurry the wedding, he said, “I won’t be gone long, for one thing, so there’s no point in rushing it.” But he smiled and leaned over and kissed my cheek. “If the worst happened, and I didn’t come back—you’re better off without us being married.”

  It dawned on me that what he meant is that if we got married, I could get pregnant right on our wedding night—theoretically. And I wouldn’t want to be left with a baby coming. Since I do have the care of Lily and Hope already, I figure he’s right.

  But—babies or no babies—I still want to get married, and the sooner the better. I just love Roper so much! And I can always find a woman to help with Hope. No matter how busy they are, it’s a rare woman who won’t drop everything to hold an infant. They’re eager to get her and even take turns sometimes. Mrs. Wasserman, whose youngest, Emma, is only three, vies to hold baby Hope, too.

  Right now she sleeps most of the day. And changing her isn’t bad since she’s so little. But when she gets bigger? Let me tell you, Hope is going to be one of the youngest people on this planet to get potty-trained. Without disposable diapers, it is not negotiable!

  LATER

  Cecily held the baby during dinner. Afterwards, she came over to me and Roper who were sitting together in the living room. She deposited the baby into Roper’s arms.

  “You need to stay in touch with your daughter,” she said. Her eyes sparkled at us. Roper took the infant and fussed over her a little, but Hope wanted to go back to sleep. When she was settled snugly against his chest, I asked, “So, why did you name her Hope?”

  He put his head back. “I didn’t even think about it,” he said. “Her name just came to me, because there she was, alive in that van—what were the odds of that? We might have passed that van and gone to a hundred other ones. But she was there, and she was alive. Hope was alive.”

  He met my eyes. “Life seems fragile right now—but the Lord brought her to us f
or a reason, to remind us that with Him there is always hope.”

  I craned my head over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He gave me a sweet look. I thought he might be having a romantic thought, and I waited with anticipation for him to whisper a sweet nothing. He said, “So. Do you want to hold her, now?”

  Chapter 55

  LEXIE

  Andrea and I will both be married ladies in two weeks! It’s hard to believe. Blake, my wonderful Blake, will be my husband! He’s been his usual self for weeks now, though he was easily fatigued after the methane poisoning. Slowly he has regained all his strength.

  Our chores haven’t changed, but Andrea and I are “walking on air.” Days just seem to fly by while we wait to become wives to the men we love.

  I don’t think anyone is sad to see summer behind us. Our garden work through all those awful hot days has paid off with lots of dried food which is stored away for the coming winter. But it’s also a milestone—a whole season gone by during which we suffered no attacks! Not once did we have to rush to arms at the heart-pounding blare of an alarm! Life feels almost—normal. The new normal, of course, with no electricity. But I’ll take life without electricity any day over life under attack—even with electricity. And now, since the bridge over the culvert is destroyed (and with plans to make the road on our west side impassable) we feel fairly safe.

  What better time to hold weddings?

  LATER

  I can hardly contain myself. So much good news! Dad heard on his rig that U.S. military planes have been sighted over a number of mid-western states! We even heard that our nearest air force base, which is Wright-Patterson, is re-opening! There are reports that some of those army trucks have been blown to bits by our planes, and even that supply drops for civilians are happening! This could be the beginning of a turn-around for our country—the best thing to happen since the pulse.

  And there’s more—Dad finally heard from an old contact from California. There weren’t any nuclear strikes! There were attacks by terrorists, who blew up oil rigs all along the coast. They sent plumes into the sky which people mistook for nuclear mushrooms! The rigs are still burning and there’s been a lot of environmental damage. But no nuclear hits!

  The compound had a party this evening to celebrate all the good reports, including a time of thanksgiving to God. Afterward, Blake and I talked while he helped me tidy up the kitchen. “What I don’t get,” I said. “Is what took them so long? I mean, they’re here—so where have they been all these months?”

  Blake nodded. “I read a book about the war in Iraq; it took our military months and months to mobilize enough air power to take on the Iraqi air force. It takes months just to get stuff where you need it. I mean, the big stuff. Armored vehicles. Missiles. And authorization—every movement, every flight, every ship—the military does nothing without written authorization. The grid going down probably slowed them down tremendously—just like everyone else.”

  “They should have a protocol to follow when communications are down!”

  Blake said, “I know. But in the Iraqi war, there was literally tons of paperwork just due to the authorizations needed for every pilot, every pilot’s flight, every missile they armed for; every little thing. The military, remember, is government. And government is never efficient.”

  “But when we’ve needed them so desperately? Don’t you think they could’ve been efficient just this once?”

  Blake held the dustpan for me as I swept up dirt but he shook his head. “If they couldn’t be efficient when we had everything working, all systems go, why would they be more efficient now with communications down?”

  “But my dad said this wasn’t a global event. Our military around the world could still communicate. And why haven’t we had help from other countries? Our allies?”

  Blake emptied the dust pan, took the broom, and put both in the closet. “The military depends on chain of command, and chain of command means you’ve got to have that paperwork. And as for allies? I think we have way more enemies than allies. And even if our allies—say, Great Britain, or Israel—wanted to help, they’d have to be cautious, keeping most of their resources available for threats to their own borders while this mess is going on.”

  “They could have sent food and supplies!”

  Blake came over and took my hands. Gently he pulled me towards him and then gave me a hug. “We don’t know that they didn’t.” He spoke softly into my ear, while I rested my head on his shoulder. “They would have dropped shipments over population centers, the cities. We’d never know about it unless we got word on the radio.”

  “I think we would have got word if they were doing that.”

  Blake drew us apart. “Let’s sit outside.” As we went out, he said, “Our country has always given a lot more than it’s ever gotten back from the worldwide community. And I’ll bet our military has been busy keeping its eyes on the rest of the world so that we don’t get an opportunistic large scale attack. I mean, if they’re keeping all their big guns aimed at Russia, for instance, or China, then they aren’t focusing on home soil. Much as we’d like to believe otherwise, even our military is limited in what it can handle at one time. They can’t keep other nations in check and still carry out rescue missions, or food delivery, or searching out the enemy on our soil. I think they’ve been more worried about the big guys who are capable of doing even greater damage—like taking over the country.”

  “But these guerrilla soldiers seem to want to do that, too!”

  Blake replied, “They’re trying to demoralize us. But they aren’t dropping A bombs.”

  I frowned at Blake, though he probably couldn’t see my face. “Not yet.” Outside, Roper and Andrea called to us. They were sitting on the hill path where the grass was worn and flat, star-gazing.

  “Hey, you guys tired?” Roper asked, when we’d joined them. We sat down ahead of them so we were a little lower on the hill. “Why?” I asked.

  “Because you gotta be tired to appreciate my bad jokes.”

  Andrea laughed. “I love your jokes!”

  “Well, tonight’s jokes are exceptionally poor.”

  “Try us,” I said. Blake threw an arm around me. I felt so comfortable and happy. Blake and I were close, and Roper and Andrea, my best friends, were right there, too. It was a beautiful, starry night and the air was warm for late September.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Roper said. “Okay, did you hear about the yoga expert who refused Novocain during a root canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.” Andrea chuckled appreciatively. Roper continued, “Plan to be spontaneous. Tomorrow. I’d kill for a Nobel peace prize!”

  Blake turned and shook his hand for that one.

  Roper continued, “Did you hear that photons have mass?” He waited a beat. “I didn’t even know they were Catholic.”

  “What day of the year is a command? March 4th.”

  Roper continued to entertain us with bad jokes that made us chuckle or groan until it started getting chilly, sometime around ten.

  When Andrea and I were finally upstairs in our room, I asked, “Whose got Hope?”

  “Your mom.” She smiled at my surprised expression.

  “Justin is still a handful,” I said, picturing my little brother. “I wouldn’t think she’d want Hope for a whole night after dealing with Justin all day.”

  “Newborns are special,” Andrea said. Then we talked about how the news that morning of U.S. airplane sightings was reassuring. For the first time, I had hope, too.

  EPILOGUE

  ANDREA

  We had a beautiful October day for the weddings with a deep blue sky and a warm sun. Lexie and I were now both seventeen and feeling quite mature.

  Lexie wore her mother’s wedding dress, a lovely gown of tulle and lace that needed only the smallest tailoring at the shoulders to fit perfectly. Thanks to Mrs. Schuman, our skilled seamstress, it was no problem. She hand-sewed my wedding gown out of a pair of white charmeuse curtains t
hat Mrs. Martin found in her attic, and gave it an overlay of batiste from cloth Mrs. Wasserman provided. Mrs. Schuman amazed me with her skill. The gown was fashioned in the Empire style. (Like the ones worn in Jane Austen’s day, with the high waist.) I loved it! The skirt fell in a graceful straight line, which made me look taller than I am; and the overlay gave it a flirty, frilly feel—it suited me perfectly.

  The bust (the “décolletage,” according to Mrs. Schuman) was daringly low, if you ask me. But when I voiced that thought, she said, “That’s the Empire style!” And, “If there’s any day where it’s okay to be daring, it’s your wedding day.” Later on, she produced a book with pictures of Dolley Madison, and I saw that yes, it really was the style!

  Roper and Blake somehow managed to borrow three-piece suits. Both men looked handsome, ruddy, and nervous. Roper’s hair was held back off his face and his eyes sparkled at me as I came down the aisle. I know women are considered the fairer sex, but Roper is a gorgeous man. As I took in the sight of him in his suit, smiling at me, I could not believe that he was going to really truly be mine!

  Mr. Martin walked between me and Lexie, giving each of us an arm. The “aisle” was a makeshift center beneath the golden-leaved trees, around which folding chairs held all of our compound members. And though we gave up the idea of having music by opting to hold the ceremony outdoors (instead of inside by the piano) Mrs. Buchanan surprised us by producing an old-fashioned tape player with batteries. They’d been in their storage, she explained, as she started a tape of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” “It’s not ‘The Wedding March,’” she said, apologetically. But Lexie and I were almost in tears just because we had music—beautiful, classical music—at our wedding.

  Because Mr. Martin is the head of the compound, after giving each of us a chaste kiss on the cheek, he switched roles and became the officiator. He did the honors of marrying us! He took the words for the ceremony from an old hymnal. At the end, he concluded, “By the authority invested in me from God Almighty—I pronounce you, Jerusha and Andrea, man and wife; and I pronounce you, Blake and Lexie, man and wife.”