“No, they promised me that they were going to ask him if we could get some milk. He’s got goats in the back pasture, and she’s been so sick, she hasn’t been nursing and now I’m not producing…”
“How long has it been?” I asked her, looking at the baby.
“Off and on for a week and a half. I got her to take a bottle, but it was mostly broth and water. She’s going to die if I can’t—”
“Dick,” Courtney’s words were quiet, despite the hitching in her chest.
“Go get the Hummer.”
“Mr. Dick, my mom is up, want me to get her?” Ricky said as I walked up to the screen door.
I looked back and Courtney was sitting beside Lucy and the baby in the rear seats. I turned back to Ricky and nodded. He took off with a drunken gait from the concussion and I could hear some murmured words, and then Rhonda came out.
“Is it done?” she asked, her eyes red.
What is it with women crying that killed me? If I could figure out how to turn that part of my brain off, I could live life a lot easier.
“Mostly,” I said, and made a motion with my hand.
The door opened and I turned, watching with Rhonda as Lucy and Courtney stepped out, Lucy holding the baby.
“Is that Lucy McCord?” she asked me without turning her head.
“Yeah, apparently, she has a one-and-a-half-month old baby.”
“Why is she…”
“Ma’am,” Lucy said as she walked up, her voice stronger than the sobbing woman I’d met half an hour ago. “I’m very sorry for the actions of my husband and his kin. I didn’t want this to happen to him, and to mine as well…”
She stumbled and Courtney caught her shoulder before she could go over.
“My baby is sick. He was supposed to ask if we could buy, barter or get some goat milk, so I can…”
“Oh, honey,” Rhonda flew past me as she ran to the woman and embraced her warmly.
For a moment, I thought the baby would be squished between the mass of female flesh and raging hormones. So much so that I took a step back and felt little hands wrap around my leg. I looked down and little Becky was holding onto my leg. I felt somebody put arms around my waist and turned to see Ricky was holding on, either for support or to make sure I didn’t turn and run, probably like he wanted to do. Courtney took the baby from between them when it started squalling and walked toward me, so the women could embrace and talk.
They were so close, it almost looked like more than it was, but their words were both comforting, forgiving, and too much.
“Do you two rascals know if your mom has a baby bottle?” Courtney asked Ricky.
“Yeah, ‘Becks still has one now and then.”
“Do not,” she said softly.
“Momma has one on the sink strainer with the lid thing,” he shot back.
“Milk?”
“In the basement cooler,” Rebecca told me.
I felt two sets of hands let me go, and then both of my hands were grabbed by their smaller ones.
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
I looked over my shoulder to see Courtney smiling at me, despite the tears in her eyes.
“Give me Doc,” I said into the radio, once I got through to Steve’s people.
I’d set up a shortwave set and dialed in the frequency that they monitored.
“Wait one,” a voice said, and I could almost hear the sneer in the operator’s voice.
“Doesn’t look like they forgive all that quickly,” Courtney said from beside me.
She was looking exhausted. She’d bottle-fed the baby once and had been refilling it when Lucy had taken over, and had told Courtney that the baby needed a burp or she would puke for sure. The baby would probably puke anyway, even I knew that, with what little knowledge I had of babies.
“No,” I said.
“Doc, here,” his voice came out of the speakers quicker than I could have imagined.
He must have been in the bunker already.
“Doc, sick baby girl. One-and-a-half-months old. Fever, worse than normal diarrhea, vomiting and a cough. What do you think?” I asked.
“Bad water issues where you’re at?”
I thought on that, and then nodded and answered, “Rumors of contaminated water as the area had a big die off. It’s probably been a month or so since then,” I said, looking at Rhonda who nodded.
“You have that kit I gave your girl?”
“You gave them what?” another voice cut in on the transmission.
“Yes, I do,” I said as Courtney nodded.
“Stay off the line, I’m talking,” Doc admonished whomever it was who had interrupted him.
“We’re talking to Steve and Jamie later,” the voice said and then was gone.
I could hear a sigh and then Doc spoke, “Courtney, write this down.”
He gave her the dosage of a shot to be given to the baby. With it being so young, there was no chance of getting it to swallow a pill, and making a liquid suspension that the infant could keep down was probably beyond our means. As it was, we had some broad spectrum injectable antibiotics. She repeated his instructions back twice to make sure, and he said she had it correct. Courtney handed the handset back to me and went outside where her gear bag was.
“Doc, what’re the baby’s chances?” I asked him.
“Is it eating?” he asked me.
“Almost six ounces in one sitting.”
“How long has it been sick?” he asked.
“Week and a half. Her mom was getting frantic because her own milk dried up. Luckily, a family around here has a goat in milk and…”
“Good, good. Sounds like the biggest part of the danger is over then. Clean water or milk, that injection and some prayers.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“The baby probably is going to beat it on its own, as long as it doesn’t die of dehydration. Listen, do you know how to purify water?” His voice was raspy and it crackled at the end.
“Yeah, I’ve got tabs, but boil, bleach, filter with sand and charcoal… Listen, bad water won’t be a problem anymore.”
The R family had a windmill, and the well had always tasted fresh and clear of any contaminates.
“Good, well, if that’s all you need, I’ve got a broken jaw to heal shut.”
“Broken jaw?” I asked.
“Yeah, whoever it was that Jamie threatened to throw out, got mouthy with Steve. You know what a jealous, overprotective bastard the sheriff is.”
“That I do,” I said laughing.
“He’ll be on the broth diet for a while, himself. Maybe I’ll even give him some of Ensure I stockpiled for myself… with a little Milk of Magnesia mixed in.”
I laughed, “You’re an ornery one, Doc. I’m glad to have met you.”
“Wish I could say the same. As much as I like you, Dick, part of me wonders if you can keep on dealing out violence and death without it breaking you. I’d think about that, and I’ll pray for you, my friend.”
His words somewhat mirrored what I’d been thinking earlier and I had to admit, he was right.
“I was thinking of retiring to a farm myself. Raising some chickens, playing cards with the neighbors, and hanging up my guns.”
Doc chuckled before going on, “That all sounds good and well… but if you’re a fan of spaghetti westerns, there’s a Clint Eastwood movie you might like… An old gunfighter hangs up his guns— till trouble finds him.”
“What happens then?” I asked, despite myself.
“He becomes a gunfighter again. You’re a lot like him, you know. You’re a shit magnet. Trouble seems to follow you, even though you don’t want it to. You were put on Earth for a reason. I’d like to hope it is to confront and fight evil at every turn, but it isn’t a life for everyone. I wish you a quiet retirement, though, Dick. I hope you find contentment and happiness.”
I chewed on that a long while.
“Still there?” Doc asked.
“Yeah,” I
said and paused again. “Thanks, Doc, you’ve got great bedside manner. I’ll make sure to stay in touch, so you and the men with the white coats and butterfly nets can scoop me up when it’s time.”
“Bedside manner? Shit, son, that’s like trying to pick up a turd from the clean end. Ain’t gonna happen. You just keep you and your girl safe till you get home. Give Miss Mary and Maggie my best.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I said.
“Doc, Out.”
I heard the baby suddenly let out a loud wail and murmuring female voices. I tossed the handset in the front seat of the Hummer and went inside the farmhouse. Courtney was carrying a slim black case and passed me on her way out to take it back to the Hummer.
“Baby didn’t like the shot,” Becky said.
I looked at the ladies who were in recliners across from each other. The kids were sitting on a loveseat facing an old stone fireplace, and other than the kitchen chairs, the couch looked to be the safest place to sit to wait on Courtney. There was a lot of gear and supplies to get from the houses, but it was getting late and I’d only eaten an MRE out of desperation.
“Here, you hold her,” Lucy said, handing me the baby, who was still making crying noises.
I held her up and then pulled the blanket from her face, my fingers supporting her head. She quieted and looked at me. Then I put her head on my shoulder and leaned back, rubbing the back of the small lump of baby. I could feel its body relaxing and then the soft regular breathing in my ear. My eyes drifted shut as I let the day’s events wash through my head. My thinking slowed, and I felt somebody prop my feet up on a stool. Then a heavy blanket was placed over me, and I realized somebody was taking the baby from my arms.
“Shhhh,” Courtney whispered to me, “We’ll do the rest tomorrow.”
I felt her head rest on my shoulder and I took a deep breath to say something, but I must have drifted off.
48
It took us two days to move all of the supplies. The first house we investigated, we hit a major jackpot. Apparently, the man who had lived there, at one point had worked for the DHS and had partially looted a stockpile before going AWOL. He didn’t have any family other than cousins and uncles, yet he’d never once mentioned that he was sitting on more food than Rhonda’s family. We even found a couple cans of formula at the bottom of the pantry. The real shocker was the cans of ammo; 5.56 in loose rounds and a couple cans of linked rounds for the SAW.
We kept the SAW and the ammo for it, but when we found the older style M16s we gave those, the mags for them and all the ammunition to Rhonda. Courtney gave them a primer on how to load, fire and clean the guns. I could have taught them, but I’d found out something about myself a long time ago: I may be pretty good at what I do, but when it comes to teaching, I suck. Courtney seemed to have a natural knack for teaching, so I let her do it.
Also the food. It wasn’t as good as Steve’s cook would have made, but I couldn’t tell them that. The two ladies had decided to throw in together, and they treated us to a big home-cooked meal. I didn’t understand how them coming together had happened, but maybe it had something to do with now being widowed parents, trying to survive the apocalypse together. More power to them. Still, I spent two days as a draft horse, moving supplies to the old farm.
I didn’t know what they were going to do about the corn, but that wasn’t my concern. The little boy, Ricky, got better a lot faster than I’d expected, though. Nausea plagued him off and on for the first day, but by the end of the second day, he was mostly better. He clung to me when he could, and I recognized part of it. He’d lost his father, and even though I never would be him, I was at least somebody he trusted, that he felt safe around. It had been like that with the kids of mine, back in Chicago.
“When are we going to go?” Courtney asked me, as I checked things in my bag for the eleventh time.
“In the morning, I think. I’m going to hang out here for a while, and try to see if I can get anybody on the horn from my area back home.”
“Where are we headed, exactly?”
Good question, I guessed I hadn’t talked about that much. Simply saying ‘Arkansas’ had seemed good enough at the time, but we were getting close now. Southeast for a good twelve hours, during normal traffic patterns, but there was nothing normal about these days. So two days travel, maybe?
“Russellville,” I told her.
“Huh, ok.”
She reached across me and pulled out the maps, kicking back while I tried the radio. The heat from the day felt good inside the Hummer. It wasn’t oppressive, but it was heavy, like a warm bath after waking up sore. I turned the radio off and leaned back, knowing I was getting sleepy.
“I’ll make sure everything is topped off. The ladies said we can fill everything up with their big tank for the tractor.”
“Ok,” I told her, drifting.
I knew I was dreaming. The colors were too bright, too vivid. The sounds had a quality to them that seemed off, flat.
I was walking up to the gate that separated the drive to the farm from the country road. No neighbors as far as the eye could see. A sign had been hand painted, and probably just propped up against the gate. It had fallen, so I leaned down and picked up a 2’x3’ piece of plywood that had letters made out of black spray paint.
‘Plague. Do not enter. Sickness and Death.’
I dropped the sign, not wanting to think about it and used my hands to lever myself over the top of the tubular gate until my boots hit the ground on the other side, making my ankles scream with a brief flash of pain. Normally in dreams, I didn’t feel the pain, but clearly this wasn’t a regular dream. I decided not to fight it too much, but just see where the journey took me.
As if I was watching myself in a movie, I moved down the gravel drive, which became circular and twisty as it wound its way to the bottom of the valley. Trees obscured the clearing where the farmhouse sat. I had been there a time or two, and I remembered the red colored t-111 plywood exterior and metal roof. The house had been remodeled so many times, it was hard to tell where the old moonshiners tar paper shack had been extended into a modern residence. Well, modern if you still lived in the boondocks in the thirties and forties.
“No,” I said, my words making steam rise in the crisp autumn air.
As I rounded the last curve, I could see no smoke coming from the chimney. They would have run the fireplace at this temp, I was sure. Maybe there was some truth to the sign after all. I started to jog, not feeling the impacts in my knees like I would have, if it was real life. As I hurried, I took in the unkempt appearance of the homestead. All the machinery to keep the farm running was overturned, some disassembled near the barn. There were scorched areas in the hay field where something had burned and the sickly smell of death grew deeper, the closer I got to the house.
I hesitated at the door, more afraid of what I’d find than anything else. I’d been gone so long, so far from here, that last step, a knock, seemed more difficult than I’d expected. The door opened and I almost fell back in shock. James stood there, gore smeared down the sides of his face and his filed teeth glinting with a red tint as he smiled at me.
“Come in, come in, Mike. We’ve all been waiting for you.”
James was mad. He’d suffered a brain injury in real life and had turned into a different man, one I’d had to kill. I’d been exonerated when the truth had come out and I’d almost lost my retirement over the fiasco, but this had the quality of a fevered nightmare, and I knew not to take anything too seriously. Still, my heart hammered in my chest as I stepped across the threshold and followed him.
“Why do you call me Mike?” I asked, wondering if my nightmare was twisting the death of both of my friends.
“Oh, it’s just a dream. Or is it? Besides,” he paused and turned, opening his arms as if to say “tada!”, “he’s dead, she’s dead, they’re all dead. Down here, it’s all we have. Nightmares, bad dreams and our own personal devils to face.”
I looked and even though
I knew it was coming, I saw the corpses. Mary’s parents had been sitting side by side on the couch when their throats had been cut. Mary was half off the couch when a knife had been buried in her back between her shoulder blades, and Maggie… I just saw a pair of legs, already mottled in color from death and decay. I was breaking. I wanted to scream incoherently, but I was rooted to the spot. The vision of their deaths was the worst thing I could have—
“See, down here in Hell, it really doesn’t matter what I call you, does it, sweetheart?”
He came for me, the filed points of the teeth flashing—
“Dick!!!!!”
I was thrown forward until the restraints of the seatbelt pulled on me painfully, almost crushing the air out of my lungs. As fast as I was flung forward, the sudden stop pushed me back into the seat. My heart was rushing itself into a stroke or heart attack. I looked around and wiped the moisture off my face and saw Courtney in the driver’s seat, pulling off a pair of NVGs.
“Dick, are you ok?”
“Where… what?”
“You were having a nightmare,” she said. “I was worried you were going to stroke out.”
I felt for the release, and when I found it, I threw the belt off and opened the door, stumbling outside. I started retching and dry heaving on the side of the road, my entire body cramped up, and only when I finally let out a wet burp, did my stomach settle again. I stood, wiping my mouth with my sleeve and looked around. Daylight was starting to filter across the horizon, but it was pretty dark still. Early morning.
“Where are we?” I asked, getting back in the Hummer, feeling as weak as a kitten.
“We’re between Pittsburg and Joplin,” she said, giving me a wan smile.
“Missouri?” I asked, trying to remember the geography.
“Yeah, about to cross into Arkansas.”
“I thought we were going to leave in the morning?”
The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark Page 53