Sleepers (Book 5)

by Jacqueline Druga

  “If it is, then we should worry. Because if someone is taking a little at a time, they aren’t doing it to eat, they are doing it to stockpile. If the food is proven to be taken … something is going to happen.”

  “Who the hell would think something is going to—aw hell,” I whined and shook my head. “Phoenix.”

  “If it is grown up Phoenix taking the food, we need to find him. You need to find him fast, Alex. If he’s preparing,” Randy said, “then something big is going to happen.”

  17. Mera

  When Alex came in the block while I was preparing supper, I thought for sure he was trying to sneak some food. Instead he snatched up the Boggle, asked my son if he wanted to get into an intense game and he left, with Sonny.

  I honestly believed that they were playing a pre-dinner game. Had I known what he was up to, I would have lost it on him. Then again, no one knew but Alex, Sonny, and Danny. Perhaps that was one of the aspects that played into the fact that the venture was successful and Sleeper free.

  It could have been a fluke, but another try would tell.

  “That’s the plan,” Alex said, laying down a box on the dinner table. “No one will know when, only me. And I when I go, I’ll bring different people along each time.”

  “Process of elimination?” I asked.

  “Yep. We know now, and I kinda always did, that Sonny and Danny were safe.”

  “How did you get out without anyone seeing you?”

  “Your son, and I swear to God, Mera, if someone finds out, I’m blaming you.”

  “They won’t. Alex, if you use the same way next time, more people will find out.”

  “I’ll switch it up,” he said. “Anyway, Danny brought up the blind spot. It's a small area you can’t see from the tower. We parked a truck out that way. Then we went through the basement from this building into Building B. You can’t see anything out that back door....blind spot. We have a section of fence we lift.”

  “So we’re vulnerable to Sleepers at that point.”

  “Unless they are carrying around bolt cutters, they aren’t getting through our little exit. We have that chained and locked up. Now, go enjoy the box.”

  “You missed dinner.”

  “Damn it.” He nearly stomped. “You have any left?”

  I shook my head. “I figured you were eating with the family-less men.”

  “I have a family.”

  “You weren’t here.”

  “Who ate Beck’s portion?” he asked.

  “Ed.”

  “Ed? Ed? Why is Ed eating our rations?’

  “He’s young, Alex, and he doesn’t have anyone.”

  “Yes he does. He has all the other family-less guys. He can eat with them. Now I have to go find Randy so I can get some food.”

  I thought that was an odd thing to say, then I remembered Randy’s new job. The one Alex assigned the day before. “Oh, because he’s in distribution?”

  “No, because that Renee lady hates me and I appointed her gatekeeper of the kitchen supplies. She loves Randy though. She called him 'hot'.”

  I laughed. “No, she did not.” “Yes, she did. I heard her telling Patty that she ain’t never seen a man fit into a pair of Levi’s quite like Randy. Called him her future love bear.”

  “Get the hell out of here. I don’t believe you. What did Patty say?”

  “She said she’d pray for her.”

  I kind of believed Alex, because that was something Patty would say. “Go get your food.”

  “Yeah, I’ll go pimp out Randy.”

  I laughed again, and excitedly looked in the box. He may have been making fun of our Harvest Festival, but he certainly got enough construction paper, scissors, and other craft supplies for our decorations. I lifted the items and laid them out, making a mental note of each one. When I reached the bottom of the box, I saw the surprise he had left for me.

  “Aw, Alex.” Before the Event, it would have been cute, however, now it was sentimental. I lifted the purple maternity shirt. Across the chest it said, ‘Mommy Rocks’, and across the belly in smaller letters it read, ‘But I can’t wait to meet my Dad’.

  That tee shirt told me a lot. Alex projected he could care less about the baby, that he didn’t want to bother, yet that tee shirt said more than Alex Sans ever could or would.

  18. Sonny

  It took six days for Beck to personally radio into Haven. We had heard progress reports from a Captain Jeter, telling us Major Gavin Beck was doing well and to tell his wife.

  The problem with radio communication is, by the time I was told about the call and found Mera, Beck was gone.

  He was able to leave a message and Mera was happy with that.

  Alex, on the other hand, was not. He wanted to speak to Beck for information on the Sleepers.

  On day seven, Captain Jeter was cleared to give Alex information. “There’s a lot,” he told him.

  To which Alex replied, “Is that an exact mathematical number or are you guessing?”

  I asked Alex, “Why does it matter what the number is?”

  “Because we don’t know where the mass of our Sleepers went.”

  He had a point. Was it possible they were all meeting up somewhere? Sleeper sightings were scattered. We sent out groups to look for them on horseback to conserve gas. No one saw more than we did the day we ran into them at the field. We saw only three when we went to the local home store for lumber.

  That was one of Alex’s semi-secret trips, because the community just exploded with enthusiasm for the Harvest Day festival. Suddenly it went from something they were going to do to an entire event.

  People were using the wood and making long tables. The kids and adults had been making paper decorations and more than I openly admitted, I couldn’t wait for the pumpkin.

  Renee promised me she’d make me pumpkin pancakes as long as I didn’t share them with Alex. Not that she hated Alex, but he unnerved her like he did a lot of people.

  Like the president of the United States, people were nice and supportive to his face, behind his back they blamed him for a lot of things. Alex was leader, whether he admitted it or not. He didn’t get the praise when things went right, but he certainly heard about it when they went wrong.

  Never in my life did I think a man could take so much flack over not getting enough nails.

  The pumpkin run was not going to be secretive. If we were going to run into Sleepers it would be there. I had ridden out three times on horseback to the field a couple of miles southwest of Haven. I never saw a single Sleeper. Though I brought back a pumpkin every time, there was one in particular I wanted. I swear it was the biggest pumpkin I had ever seen. If it were the old days of county fairs, it would win. It was going to take four good men to lift it into the back of the pickup. But we were gonna get it.

  Because we were unable to keep it quiet, we were going to take two trucks. We left the hidden truck by the blind spot area since we didn’t want anyone to know about it. Truck two, barely used, probably started on fumes so I went to the storage shed to get a five gallon can of gas, enough to get us to the pumpkin patch and back.

  A clipboard hung outside of the storage unit where we stored those red five gallon gas containers. Miles was the last one in there three days earlier for gas for the mower. He marked that he took a gallon.

  If it wasn’t a military vehicle, we probably weren’t going to be able to use the gas much longer. It used to be said a year on gas, however, we tweaked the vehicles enough that they chugged the old gas.

  I knew I was only taking five gallons, so I marked that as well on the clipboard and walked in.

  The containers were stack up neatly on a line and I grabbed one. It was empty.

  “What the hell?” I said out loud. We didn’t keep the empty containers in there. Figuring someone made a mistake, I tossed the empty aside and reached for another… empty.

  Out of the forty containers that were lined up in the storage facility, five of them were empty an
d placed next to the others.

  After grabbing a full one, I sought out Alex.

  “Could it have been a mistake?” he asked when I told him.

  “One yeah. Two, maybe. Not five.”

  “Five?” Alex then held up his hand as if he needed to visually reiterate.

  I nodded. “Five. Placed right in position to look as if they weren't empty. Not taken, so no one would know upon sight. They’re emptied.”

  Alex scratched his head. “Who the hell would take gasoline?”

  “The same person taking food.”

  “Renee didn’t report any missing lately,” Alex said. “Now I have to ask if she is counting boxes or looking inside.”

  “We could have the same situation.”

  Alex bit his lip. “Apparently, someone is planning on leaving. Food, gas…”

  “There have to be other supplies missing.”

  “Let’s check on that. Clothing, blankets, stuff like that.”

  “We don’t really inventory, so we can only gauge.”

  “We will start. Let’s not say why. I don’t want people getting suspicious of one another.”

  “Why wouldn't they come to us?” I questioned. “Really, if they said they were leaving, we’d help them out.”

  “Because they aren’t leaving to find a better life,” Alex said. “They’re planning an escape.”

  “Do you think someone may just be paranoid and stocking up because of the last attack?”

  “That’s possible,” Alex said. “We’re all wrapped up in this festival now. When it settles, we'll look into this. Make it top priority, but it stays with you and me. These items are somewhere and not far from here at all. If someone is planning a big escape, there’s a reason why.”

  The entire situation, missing food, missing gas, could be innocent. It could be the preparations of a frightened individual. I wasn’t convinced it was being done with malice.

  Even if it was, perhaps we could learn from this mystery thief. Maybe he or she wasn’t all off target and it was time that we stockpiled things as well, outside our fences. Because as we learned with Grace, until the Sleeper situation is dead and done, nowhere is ever a hundred percent safe.

  19. Alex

  Were we really having a Harvest Festival? It was hard to believe that it was a post apocalypse world, and we were living in a former juvenile correction facility, because the preparations and decorations for the Harvest Festival would rival that of any small town in the pre- Event world. It was crazy.

  It was normalcy that everyone needed. There wasn’t a single person, including me, who wasn’t excited about the festival. I was kind of hoping Beck would return, but knowing that the Reckoning Three hadn’t been initiated, I realized the impossibility of that.

  The only divisions of our community that ran normally were medical, security, and agriculture. Even the kitchen was focused on the festival. Maybe it was because we gathered over five hundred pumpkins.

  Mera said she signed me up for the pumpkin carving contest. I told her I’d pass.

  She did tell me she was saving the purple shirt I found and was wearing it for the festival. That made me feel good.

  I was finishing up my daily checks and enjoying the decorations for the festival that would take place in less than twenty-four hours.

  Paper cutouts of pumpkins and homemade scarecrows were scattered across the yard. Fire pits were being dug. The plan was hayrides, arts and crafts, food, pumpkin carving, and then after the lighting of the Jack-o-lanterns, Michael was going to jam out on the guitar and everyone was going to wind down for the night with song.

  While the community enjoyed their taste of an old world celebration, I would have men on every rooftop, keeping an eye out, finger on the switch to power the fence. If the Sleepers were gonna come, they were going to do so during our event.

  A part of me felt that the community didn’t care. If the Sleepers came and walked into the fence, they would be just an extra added light show. Like late Fourth of July fireworks.

  While I was walking the last of my rounds before I took a midday nap to prep for evening shift, Jessie made it a point to stop by me. She was riding a horse that was pulling a cart full of makeshift hay.

  “Hi, Alex!” She waved.

  “You look good up there, Jess,” I told her.

  “I’m gonna ride people on the cart tomorrow.”

  I heard Bonnie’s voice say, “No you’re not.” And then Bonnie sat up from the cart of hay. She had probably been napping. “I will.” Bonnie said. “You, little one, are gonna enjoy the games and food.”

  “Alex can ride the horse,” Jessie said with a smile.

  I laughed. “Does Alex look like a horseman? No. But I’ll take a hayride tomorrow.”

  Bonnie asked. “Did you see the giant pumpkin?”

  “The three foot one?” I questioned. “Yeah, when we lugged it in.”

  “Oh, you have to go see. They carved it. Got a ton of seed from it.”

  “I bet.” I waved as Bonnie and Jessie went about their trial run for the hayride and figured, since I was close by, I’d stop by the cafeteria.

  The smell of roasting pumpkins seeds filled the air. Damn it smelled good, and the seasoning made my stomach growl.

  No one was around. However, I heard laughter and followed the sound of it, where I found Randy and Renee standing by the back door.

  “Can I steal some pumpkin seeds?” I asked.

  Renee turned around. “They won’t be done til after dinner. I can leave you a bag on the counter.”

  “Thanks. Where’s this giant pumpkin I am hearing about?”

  Randy smiled proudly. “We have been carving it for days. Wait till you see. It is gonna light up the whole yard.”

  “Yep, just what we need,” I said. “A beacon of light for the Sleepers.”

  Renee shot me a glare.

  “Kidding.” I said, then anxious to see it, I stepped out. The huge ass pumpkin was in the yard.

  “We got a lot of seeds and pumpkin fruit from it, enough to last for a while,” Randy said.

  I looked at the large carved pumpkin. “What’s it supposed to be? Not a face, I hope.”

  “Beck,” Randy answered. “We made Beck.”

  “Beck? Beck?” I laughed. “You made a pumpkin carving of Beck, out of a three foot pumpkin? That’s hysterical.”

  “It took days and the likeness is amazing,” Renee said.

  “Ha.” I shook my head, laughing. “If he’s Charlie Brown.”

  “You think it’s funny?” Renee asked. “Let’s see how funny you think it is when I shove that pumpkin so far up your ass you’re spitting seeds out like a machine gun.”

  I did a double take. “Seriously? Did you just threaten me with a pumpkin enema?”

  She folded her arms, apparently offended that I didn’t praise her pumpkin, and not wanting to risk a pumpkin colonic, I left those two budding lovebirds to admire their Charlie Brown pumpkin.

  I was finally able to catch dinner with Mera and the crew and get a nap. Pumpkin Head Beck was on my mind. Maybe it caused a psychic intuition to go to the radio room after my shift. I didn’t feel like going back to the block, I felt as if I needed to wait.

  About four in the morning, a radio call came through from Beck. I was ecstatic. He sounded tired. We talked about the festival, laughed a little, and he got the biggest kick out of Danny being deemed the mighty hunter and bagging the hog, then three large wild turkeys.

  “We know what he’ll be doing for Thanksgiving,” Beck said with a laugh.

  “Yep, we do.” I paused. “Beck, how is it? How many are there?”

  “There’s a lot, Alex.”

  “I’m beginning to think the term ‘a lot’ is military speak for an actual number. What the hell?”

  “Too many to count,” he explained. “It’s like the entire population of South Bend is migrating north.”

  “To cross over.”

  “I think so.”

&nb
sp; “You think our missing Sleepers are meeting them?”

  “Who knows? After tomorrow we won’t need to worry.”

  “What happens then?”

  “The Reckoning. We have been watching them, planning, and we think it’s a good plan of attack. In a few more hours we initiate it. We may have to hit the ground, but I am confident.”

  “Tomorrow is our festival.”

  “Good,” Beck said. “Perfect. You will have so much on your mind, you won’t think about it and the next time we talk, it’ll all be good. It’ll be finished and I’ll be heading home.”

  “That’s all we want.”

  “Take care of them, Alex. Protect my family. Promise me.”

  “I promise. You take care of yourself.”

  “I will,” he said.

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  We talked a little while longer. I asked if he wanted me to wake Mera, he said no., he’d see her soon.

  The Reckoning was coinciding with the Harvest Festival. I had this fear something big was gonna happen during the festival. Maybe the Reckoning was it.

  I hoped so.

  Beck was wrong on one point. He said I wouldn’t have time to think about his fight because of our celebration. Truth was, it would take all that I had not to think about Beck’s fight. Harvest Festival or not, how could he not be on my mind? He was my friend.

  I didn’t care about success in the Reckoning, I wanted him to be safe, alive, and to come home.

  20. Mera

  The world ended two years ago. My world, the whole world. I watched my son die a horrible death and then the virus didn’t just take his life, it desecrated his body. He crumbled to dust in my arms and my soul crumbled right along with him.

  I thought without a shadow of a doubt that I would not continue to live.

  My baby was gone. What were the odds that my other two children were alive as well? The only thing that made it remotely tolerable was that I wasn’t alone in my pain. I wasn’t the only parent feeling the agony that no parent should feel. Then my son Danny showed up and I knew I couldn’t give up. If Danny returned, I had to find Jessie. She was ill, the Sleeper virus had taken hold, but damned if Alex didn’t catch it and turned her around with his soup mixture of medicine. She’d become a child again. A toddler in an adult body, but she was my child.