“John was into prepping. Not a lot of people saw the blackout coming, but he did. He was able to save this, a microwave oven, a hotplate, a Mr. Coffee and the ham radio. The generator’s big enough to run all four of them at the same time.”
He showed Scott where the spark plug wire for the generator was hidden, underneath the driver’s seat of a Chevy Cobalt which was also parked in the garage.
“This was Hannah’s car. He keeps the plug wire hidden in case anybody breaks in when nobody’s around. He hopes they won’t take the generator if they can’t start it up and use it. So far the house has been broken into twice, and it’s been left behind both times. So I guess his plan’s working.”
He pulled aside a large, nondescript bookcase that covered a good portion of one wall in the garage. Behind it, several pieces of sheetrock had been carefully cut away. In the compartments were stacked canned goods and dry goods. Scott saw several boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese, and his mouth watered.
“Like I said, John and Hannah were preppers. There are stashes like this all over the house, hidden behind furniture, in the mattresses, in the attic. We’ve been using it sparingly, but combined with the MREs we get from the National Guard, it’s enough to keep us going.”
Scott was impressed.
“I’ll tell you what. Let’s get the generator started and you can go call the family while I’m heating us up a couple of cans of Ravioli. It’s not gourmet, but it’s much tastier than those damn MREs. I’m sure you’d like some privacy while you talk to your girlfriend and kids. So I’ll stay in the kitchen and cook while you’re enjoying your reunion.”
Scott was relieved. He thought there was a good chance he’d shed a tear when he heard Zachary’s voice again. And he didn’t want Robbie to see his weakness.
“This thing’s kind of old and temperamental, so be sure you prime it three pumps before you crank it. Four is too much, it’ll flood the carburetor. If it doesn’t crank right away after three pumps of the primer, wait a couple of minutes and then repeat the process. It almost always starts on the second attempt.
He took an old coffee cup and filled it from one of several gas cans in the corner of the garage.
“We only run one cup of fuel at a time. It’s not so much to conserve fuel, because fuel is plentiful. All of the abandoned cars have tanks full of it. It’s so that we don’t have to come back out to the garage to turn the generator off. If we did that, we might be overcome by the carbon dioxide fumes, pass out and die.
One cup of gas runs the generator for about an hour or so, which is plenty of time to do what we need to do. Once it runs out of gas, it dies on its own and the carbon dioxide in the garage slowly dissipates through the cracks around the garage door”
He depressed the primer three times and it started right up.
“Okay. Now we’re good to go.”
They walked from the garage into the house.
“Be sure you close this door tightly so that the fumes don’t seep into the house. And now you have about an hour or so to talk to your loved ones, eat a hot meal, and drink some hot coffee. A whole hour to pretend the world is normal again before the generator dies and brings us back to reality.”
Robbie headed for the kitchen with the two cans of Ravioli.
“Enjoy your chat with the family.”
-21-
“Joyce, Linda… whoever’s at the security desk, come in. This is Scott.”
Sara was pulling her normal shift when the familiar voice came over the radio.
“Oh, my God! Joyce! Linda! Come quick!”
Joyce and Linda, and pretty much everyone else, came running at Sara’s sudden cry. They all thought something was wrong.
Then Joyce heard Scott’s words again.
“Joyce, Linda… this is Scott. Come in.”
Joyce grabbed the microphone, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. Linda said, “Oh, my…” and then placed her hand over her mouth.
“Scott, this is Joyce. How are you, honey?”
“I’m fine, babe. Much better now that I can hear your sweet voice. How is everyone there?”
“We’re all okay. We miss you, but we’re getting along. Everyone, Jordan especially, has stepped up to fill in for you while you’re gone. It’s so good to finally hear you again.”
“Please give everyone my love, okay? And a hug for the boys too. I miss all of you. Did Robbie tell you what was going on here?”
“Yes. He’s been calling every other day, like clockwork. He said you went and got yourself shot. Now why in the world would you go and do something like that? Is my cooking so bad that you wanted hospital food instead? Should I feel insulted?”
“You know better than that. I sure would like to have some of your good cooking right now.”
“And what’s this about you becoming a cop?”
“Just to pass the time and help out until I can come back. They need all the help they can get down here. The policemen are trying to keep the city together and they’re being run ragged. It’s the least I can do for them saving my life.”
“Do you know how long you’ll be there?”
“No idea. FEMA is giving the mayor and police chief a briefing every third day. They say it’ll be the CDC’s call to decide when the plague has finally run its course. Once they give the all clear, I’ll be able to come back home. They’re estimating anywhere from several months to a year.”
“That’s a long time to stay away.”
“I know, honey. But if I came back before then I would risk infecting all of you. And it’s not worth taking the chance.”
“I agree. But that won’t make it any easier.”
“How’s Sara? Is she getting as big as a house yet?”
Sara, standing next to Linda, made a pouty look. Joyce took notice.
“Scott Harter, you should know better than to make such comments about a pregnant woman. You’re lucky you’re not here, or Sara would kick your ass. And I’d help her.”
“Oh, Sara knows I’m teasing. She knows I love her and that she is absolutely beautiful.”
Sara’s pouty face turned to a smile.
“Hannah’s standing here chomping at the bits about news from John. Anything to tell her?”
“Yes. I finally got a chance to meet him. He’s a great guy. We’re already good friends. Tell Hannah that Robbie and I are going to crash at her house for awhile. It was John’s idea. That’ll make it easier to get to and from work every day. And we can talk to you guys daily instead of every other day.”
“Oh, baby! That’ll be great!”
“Also, tell Hannah that John should be home in a few days, so he can talk to her himself.”
“Hannah took the mike and said, “That’s wonderful news! Thank you so much, Scott!”
“You’re welcome, dear. I’m going to see him again the day after tomorrow. Is there anything you want me to tell him?”
“Not unless you want to give him a big sloppy kiss from me.”
She smiled and winked at Joyce.
“Uh, no. I’ll pass on that. How about if I shake his hand for you?”
Hannah laughed.
“Oh, never mind. I’ll wait until I come back home and kiss him myself.”
“Great idea.”
“How’s Robbie doing?”
“He’s fine. He’s in the kitchen cooking supper.”
Joyce got back on.
“Scott, please tell Robbie thanks again for saving you and getting you to the hospital. Tell him I’ll be forever grateful and that I’m looking forward to cooking him a real meal as soon as we can arrange it.”
“Okay. I’ll tell him. I’m pretty sure he’s getting tired of canned goods and MREs.”
“Now, back to you being a police officer… is it still dangerous down there?”
“Well, they tell me that most of the bad guys are gone. Either dead or moved elsewhere. Most of the police work these days is just helping people.”
“Good. So I should
n’t worry about you then?”
“Nope. I’m a tough old guy. I survived getting shot, remember? I’ll even show you my scars when I get back home to prove it. They’re pretty impressive, if I say so myself.”
“I don’t want to see any stupid old scars. All I want is for this plague to go away, and for you to come back home again.”
“I won’t stay a day longer than I have to, I promise. Hey, are the boys around?”
“Would you settle for a boy and a man?”
“Sure.”
Jordan beamed with pride at Joyce’s correction.
“They’re right here.”
“Jordan? Zachary? How are you guys?”
Joyce handed Zach the mike.
“We’re fine, Dad. Jordan is still a butthead, though.”
“Well, of course, he is, son. That’s never gonna change, no matter how old he gets.”
“Hey Dad?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, son. I love both of you. And I’m very proud of you both too. You guys keep up the good work until I get home again, okay?”
Jordan said, “We will, Dad. You be safe, okay?”
“I will. I promise.”
-22-
As fall turned to winter, Scott settled into a routine, as did the people in the compound.
The cattle were penned up full time now in the back of the compound. No longer allowed out to graze outside the wall because the grass was more sparse, they were fed a full-time diet of hay and cattle feed. They were getting fatter and were blissfully happy, totally unaware of their eventual fate.
Even when Tom and Jordan culled three head from the herd, one at a time, and slaughtered them to fill their freezers with meat and to make jerky to send to San Antonio, the cows didn’t seem to notice their ranks were thinning.
Or maybe they were just happy that the thinning herd meant they had more hay to eat.
In San Antonio, the cold nights were a godsend.
The Alamo city never had really harsh winters. But this one was marked by an early freeze. The decomposing bodies froze solid and their awful stench largely, but not completely, went away temporarily.
Since nearly all of the bodies had been collected from the outdoor areas by this time, virtually all that remained were in private homes or office buildings.
Shaded from the daytime sun.
Even though the daytime temperatures rose above freezing, the bodies’ location in the dark shade of unheated houses kept them cool enough to reduce the stench and to slow their decomposition.
And that made body collection a lot easier to handle.
There was a downside, of course. The cooler air made the fires go out a lot faster, and each pile of bodies had to be relit four to five times to burn completely to bones, instead of the twice to three times during the warmer months.
But that was a small price to pay, considering. After all, fuel was plentiful and restarting the fires was easy.
At first, Scott had nightmares, seeing the bodies of the children he collected in his sleep. He started praying each night that God watch over the littlest victims, and expressed his hope that they hadn’t suffered greatly.
He also developed a habit of wrapping the children’s bodies in sheets before he placed them gently on the burn piles. His paramedic assistant was puzzled by the habit, until Scott explained. He just couldn’t bear to see their little faces as he struck a match to their bodies.
“I know they can’t feel the fire,” he’d explained. “I don’t do it for them. I do it for me. It just makes it a little easier to deal with.”
Word got around, and before long the other teams were doing the same thing. As it turned out, every one of them was troubled by burning the bodies of the children. And wrapping them in linen made it easier for all the men to deal with. Even men hardened by the harsh realities of massive loss of life were loving fathers and husbands at their core. And none of them liked looking into the faces of small children under such circumstances.
Scott was able to help in other ways as well. Having helped harvest his own crops of corn and wheat the previous spring, he was able to show the residents how to beat the wheat stalks against the inside of a cardboard box to free the edible kernels.
And also to leave some ears of corn on the stalks to dry out naturally, so they could be used as seed for the next growing season.
He learned that very little of his time was spent doing actual police work. An occasional thief he had to put in handcuffs and hold in the city jail for a few days before setting free. Sometimes a domestic dispute. The domestic disputes were almost always neighbors pitted against neighbors. And they almost always involved one party claiming the other was eating more than his share of the community crops.
Once, Scott came racing to back up John, as John was pursuing an attempted rape suspect. They caught the man after a struggle and placed him in cuffs.
Then they were unsure what to do with him. There was no court system to deal with him. No judges they knew of to try him. No prisons to care for him.
They finally drove him a hundred miles south of San Antonio and made him walk back with a stern warning.
John told him, “It’s going to take you at least a week to walk back. During that time, you need to reflect on your behavior and figure out a way to control your urges. And by the time you get back to San Antonio, you’d best have a way to control yourself. Because if we ever bring you out here and drop you off again, you’ll be walking back home with a few less body parts.”
Scott could tell that John meant it, too. It occurred to him that this was a life not too different than the days of the old west. Once again, lawmen had wide latitude to apply justice as they saw fit.
-23-
Tony Pike and his friend Kevin finally got the full moon they’d been waiting for. They could see it in the eastern sky in the late afternoon, long before the sky started to darken. Tonight would be the night they’d go check out the old man’s place.
They’d gotten two horses and tack from an old couple outside of Kerrville. They could have just shot them, but the woman reminded Tony of a kindly old teacher he once had in grade school. She’d been one of the few adults who treated him well during his early years, so he cut them a break. He traded a case of spaghetti noodles and a case of macaroni and cheese from an HEB supermarket truck for the two horses and the riding gear.
It wasn’t much of a trade. But the old couple had no reason to ride anymore and were worried about the horses dying during the coming winter, when food became scarce. So they accepted the offer without hesitation.
Kevin was an experienced rider. Tony, not so much. He was able to stay on the horse until it started to run at a fast gallop. Then he pulled back on the reins to slow it down. Kevin laughed, but not too much. Tony had a vicious temper, even toward his friends, and Kevin knew not to push him too far.
They arrived at Tom Haskins’ old ranch house with a little less than an hour of daylight left, and approached the house slowly. If they encountered Tom, they’d have claimed they were just out hunting and stopped by to give their horses a drink of water. No rancher worth his mettle would deny a horse a drink, whether he liked the man on the horse’s back or not.
The house was empty, of course. The only things Tom had left behind were a few pieces of furniture that wouldn’t fit in his new bachelor pad, and some old clothes and dishes he didn’t expect to use again. Around back were a shovel, an old wooden ladder, and a generator with the spark plugs missing.
Tony was disappointed, and about ready to count the mission as a failure, when he remembered the dirt berm blocking the end of the roadway.
“Come on. There’s got to be a front end loader or a bulldozer out back, for him to build that pile of dirt. Maybe we can steal the battery and some other parts and use them to get one of the cars in town running.”
Once again, though, they struck out. The field in back of the house was as empty as the house
itself.
But Tony noticed a couple of things in the waning hours of daylight.
The field of hay had been mowed.
Tony knew that the hay had to have grown during the spring and summer, after the world went dark. It couldn’t have been mowed unless a mower, or a tractor with a cutting blade, had survived the blackout.
And Tony also knew that a mower or a tractor could not build a wall of dirt. That meant there were at least two vehicles that had survived.
But where the hell were they?
Kevin noticed a set of tire tracks headed toward the back fence of the property, and the pair followed them.
They came to an old cattle fence, three strands of barbed wire evenly spaced twelve inches apart on a fence that rose to a height of four feet or so.
The funny thing about this fence, though, was that one of the posts had been removed. The wire had been cut and wrapped around the posts left behind, creating what was in essence a passageway about sixteen feet wide.
In the middle of the gap was a downed mesquite tree, laying on its side, with what had been the top of the thorny tree facing the two men.
They couldn’t go through the tree without getting torn to shreds by the thorns. And they couldn’t go around it, because there were a long line of similar trees laid down in the same manner on either side of it.
The vehicle tracks disappeared under the tree.
They sat on the ground and pondered the clues they’d found, and what they meant.
“The hay in this field didn’t grow until after the blackout. If it’s cut, then they have to have a means of cutting it. That means at least two vehicles. And if they have the smarts and the parts to get two vehicles running, then it’s my guess they have more. That guy with the old car we tried to hotwire didn’t leave. He’s on the other side of these trees, hiding.”
“But here’s what I want to know. Why in hell would they cut hay? They’ve got livestock over there as well as vehicles. And if they’ve got livestock and vehicles, than what else might they have?”
Tony had an idea.
“Did you bring your knife?”
Rise From The Ashes: The Rebirth of San Antonio (Countdown to Armageddon Book 3) Page 9