“Yes, Dad. For the last time, I ‘got it.’ Do we really have to go over this checklist again? I mean, it’s written down.” She kind of wanted to shrug his hand off her shoulder but stifled the urge. He was only making sure she had it down pat…And if she had to use any of this stuff, it’d probably be when more horrible stuff was happening. It was easy to forget the simplest things when death was knocking at the door.
“Okay,” Abram said. “I get that you’re tired of this. We can take a break, and just go through it once more before I leave.”
“You’re leaving soon,” she pointed out. “This is important to you, and I know you have reasons. So, let’s run through it one more time. You be the other guy, and we’ll roleplay it. If I pass the test, then I get to tell you to be quiet. Deal?”
Abram smirked, an expression she knew well from looking in the mirror.
She and her dad were a lot alike in some ways. More alike than she and her mother, Shelly. He wasn’t as terrified of things as her mom, who was afraid of anything and everything. Ever since the bandits first raided the camp, Emma had begun to work on overcoming that fear she’d once shared with her mom, but Shelly seemed to embrace the fear, refusing to let it go. Well, she hadn’t yet gotten rid of the fear entirely. After all, there was a lot one should be afraid of, these days…
She said, “Well?”
Abram replied, “Deal, I guess. Start at the beginning, though. What’s first?”
“The visual inspection of the gear.” She ran through the checklist of things to check, from cables to dials, and he smiled approvingly. That sent a pleasant shiver up her back. The list of things he approved of was small—he didn’t approve of much—but she’d always known in her bones that she had a permanent spot on that short list.
“Okay, tell me about the logbooks.” He leveled his gaze at her, and she’d heard him complaining often enough to know how he considered the logs to be vital, no matter how pointless most of it seemed.
Her lips flatlined. Repeating basic information she had already learned, before ever touching the radio, irritated her. But she went through the purpose and use of the logbook anyway—it was important she used it right, and besides, she didn’t want to get yelled at later for some minor, preventable mistake.
They went through a mock sign-on, call-sign exchange, and conversation writeup. Then, she pretended to relay traffic. After a few such exercises, she went through signoff and the shutdown process, and all the while, her father nodded as she performed each task correctly. He didn’t seem to mind her voice trembling from being under such close scrutiny.
Ugh. Deep breaths…Her heart pounded hard, and she struggled to catch her breath, but the feeling went away once the exercise was done. Having her dad judge her performance was simply nerve-wracking.
“Okay,” Abram said after double-checking that everything was put away where he liked it.
“Okay, what?”
He smiled and squeezed her shoulder gently. “It’s almost time for me to leave. I don’t like to, you know that.”
She pursed her lips to one side. “So, why do it? You shouldn’t have to go at all. Why can’t Frank and Owen just go by themselves? What if bandits come while you’re gone?”
His answering smile was ridiculously false, but she bit her tongue.
“Frank is going because he knows someone we have to talk to. Owen, because I feel better having a third person with us in case we have to camp out overnight—”
“You said you’d be gone a few hours, Dad. Which is it?” Emma didn’t bother to hide her glare.
“Watch it, young woman. That’s how long we expect to be gone, but you should know by now that things sometimes just happen and plans change. Anyway, nights are much less exhausting if we split watch three ways rather than two. And three rifles is far more effective than just two-plus-one.”
“Triangulating fire.” She’d heard the term from Frank, and why it was important.
Abram nodded. “Exactly. Listen, I know you’ve had a bit of a hard time with things since the raid.”
He watched her, waiting for a reply, looking like he expected one.
So, she nodded. “Mm hm.” She didn’t really care to talk about that, plus, the last thing she wanted was her dad feeling sorry for her. Even if he was right.
“I don’t want you worrying about me. You’ll have plenty of things that need doing, and you need to focus on them, not on me. You can’t help me by worrying. You help me by taking care of our home while I’m out, so I have a home and a family to come back to.”
“That’s…great. I’d love to not worry about you. But I’ll take care of everything we need to do while you’re gone, you know that.”
“I do,” he said, smiling again. Then, his expression turned serious. “But I’m going to worry, regardless. To that end, I want you to also not worry and make myself feel better at the same time.”
He paused, watching Emma expectantly with one eyebrow raised.
Emma nodded, cocking her head to one side. If she knew her father at all, he already had some plan in mind that he thought would make her feel better. “Oookay…How do you want to make that happen?”
“Standard procedure is a twice-daily check-in via radio. Obviously, we’ll still do that. But I want to have a code word between us, just you and me, so you can know I’m truly okay—or even that it’s really me on the other end. Then, if I do not give the right code word, we’ll have an agreed frequency to switch to, so we can talk more or less privately. If I put you on that alternate channel, it’ll mean something is wrong and I need help, or you do.”
Emma kept her face carefully neutral. “That sounds like paranoid-delusional overkill, don’t you think?” Then she smirked. “And I love it.”
Abram’s hand on her shoulder lifted long enough to tousle her hair like she was still seven. “Good. I thought you would. I like it, too. I don’t expect any problems, it’s just a day-long trip, but one never knows, these days.”
Indeed. A flash memory of the recent raid they’d suffered sped through her head, and Emma found herself flinging her arms around her father and kissing his surprised face on the cheek.
The pickup truck, with its extended four-door crew cab to comfortably fit four people, sagged a little on the tail end, but Abram wasn’t concerned. It’d balance out when almost six hundred pounds of human occupied the cab.
He double-checked Nick’s work in tying down the tarped-up goods at the very back, by the tailgate, but as he’d expected, Nick had done a fine job of it.
Nick, behind him, said, “I hope I remembered my knots and used the right ones.”
Abram turned to face him. “Sure,” he replied. “It’ll do just fine, thanks. What’s back there? Everything on the list?”
Nick nodded and frowned.
Abram’s lips flatlined. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, really.”
“Stop that. I’m leaving, and tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us. What’s on your mind?”
Nick paused, then nodded curtly. “Just wondering why I’m staying here, instead of going with you. I can shoot as well as most of us.”
Abram took a deep breath and let it out slowly. They’d already had this conversation. “It’s no rejection of you, Nick. You’re staying here because we all need you here. Someone I trust has to be in charge of getting this place ready, getting those towers up, and making sure the farm chores don’t get ‘deferred.’ You know the priorities. You have to keep everyone on task.”
Nick’s expression brightened a bit when Abram mentioned trust, and by the end, he was nodding. “I still don’t like it, though.”
Abram let his hand fall away as he forced a chuckle. “Me neither. But it is what it is. I just know you’ll handle this place while I’m gone, so I have one less thing to worry about. Keep Emma and my wife safe, and that daughter of yours. She’s too cute. And I trust you to keep Owen’s family safe while he’s gone. You get things done, and I need that right now. We a
ll do.”
Nick walked away whistling softly—praising his kids was always effective motivation for that man, Abram mused.
Owen stepped up beside Abram as he watched Nick heading inside. “Speaking of that, I get why Frank is going. It’s his son-in-law we’re trying to reach. But why me? I can swing a hammer as well as Nick, and he can shoot straight.”
Abram didn’t look away from Nick’s shrinking back. “Not as straight as you can. You’re better backup in a fight than he is, my man. His head is on his kids, on our people, on the harvesting—everywhere it needs to be for the job I gave him, and everywhere it shouldn’t be for the job I’m giving you. You, on the other hand, know the best way to keep your family safe is to survive long enough to see them again—and that means focusing on what’s in front of us, not what we left behind waiting for us.”
Owen shrugged. “Your compound, your call. If we get into trouble, I could see your point, I guess, though I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Me too. But that’s not even including the fact that you’re a solid hunter, and we may need that talent. Plus, roads around here weren’t great before the lights went out, but now, we might really need your mechanic skills.”
Owen replied, “I’m glad I’m going, don’t get the wrong idea. Anyway, we messed around with my beat-up old pickup truck quite a lot, and I want to see how Frank’s baby handles with all the changes. I’d have rather taken your Land Cruiser. That FJ40 is a beast.”
Abram finally looked over, and half-smiled at the man. “No surprise, there. But the ‘beast’ doesn’t have the cabin room Frank’s girl has, or the cargo room. So, the F250 is the right choice. She’ll get us to the ball, even if she looks ugly as sin with the quarter-inch steel plates welded, and the chicken wire on the windows—”
“Not chicken wire.”
“You know what I mean.” Abram’s half-smile extended fully. Owen was always so precise… “Anyway, it’s extra weight, and the balance has to be right to handle well. I also have serious doubts about the hydrolysis contraption you put in.”
Owen shrugged. “That’s just a backup plan. In case. She runs on gas still, for now, but the gas won’t stay good forever, and they aren’t delivering more. Who knows if we’ll find fuel we can use out there if we have to detour. I mean, we do have all those jerry cans in back if we run low, but if we have to tap into those, the hydrogen genny will stretch out our operational range.”
“Hopefully.” Abram’s doubts about the device—heavy water and wires, basically, that would strip hydrogen out of the water and pump it into the engine, spitting vapor out for exhaust—went far beyond mere “serious doubts.” The whole idea was completely ridiculous. But it didn’t hurt anything to let the man feel safer by putting it in. They would never have to turn it on, after all.
Abram added, “Make sure Nick doesn’t pack the food in until just before we leave, in the morning. I’m off to do chores, after double-checking the things we packed, and you have towers to build. See you at supper.”
They shook hands, and then Abram busied himself double-checking their packed gear until Owen left to work on the new constructions. Clipboard in hand with a checklist and pen, he went through and check-marked each item, line by line. Again.
Two full bundles of paracord. A neatly wound hemp rope, thicker than the paracord. Spools of fishing line could be used for their intended purpose, or for rigging traps, and one could never have too much cordage. Four sleeping bags, the three-part military kind for all weather. Machete, hatchet, axe, fileting knife if they had to fish, pocketknives—four of them—and two military-style survival knives. Tackle box. Some Altoids tins with safety pins, needles, bandages, alcohol swabs, and one stuffed with petroleum jelly–covered cotton discs, make-up pads really, for starting fires. Two Zippo lighters with two tins of fluid and extra flints, backed up by a couple cheap spark-striker emergency lighters. Backpacks with big, waterproof removable liners, four canteens, iodine tabs. Two unopened packs of cotton handkerchiefs.
Check.
These were packed in the back, up against the row of gas cans with eight tarps, two for each person in their wrappers and a couple extra that were currently covering up all that gear. If they needed more shelter than the truck itself provided, the tarps were just backup shelter, really.
The weapons would be added right before they left, two 7mm rifles and a 12-gauge shotgun, plus three 9mm Beretta pistols. He’d have preferred various calibers for both the pistols and rifles, but the simple setup ensured they only had to carry three kinds of ammo for the whole lot.
That all left plenty of room in the truck bed for their backpacks—which he’d pack that night, for his—and coolers of food and water bottles. The ice they were making with the jury-rigged generator and refrigerator ought to last at least the whole trip out there to Burnsville, if not the whole way back. That’d depend on how long the journey took, of course.
Abram frowned at the thought of not knowing how long they’d be gone. Once upon a time, this whole trip could have boiled down to one online video chat between Frank and his no-good kid. He sighed. Like everything in this world, even simple communication got hard when you went beyond earshot.
Speaking of which—he double-checked both the vehicle-powered ham unit and the rechargeable hand-held unit. Having two handhelds would have been a comfort, but it was one they couldn’t afford, unfortunately.
Checklist done, he headed inside for his morning radio routine. It would be too much to hope that anyone had reached Kent, Frank’s son-in-law, during the night and thus make the trip unnecessary, but he couldn’t help it—when he got to his radio setup, he had a glimmer of hope as he flipped open the logbook…
Nope—the logs showed nothing. He sighed and flipped on the unit’s power switch.
7
That night, sleep eluded Nick. Thoughts of his children and their safety, worries about his ability to lead and run the compound in Abram’s absence, the pressure of having so many men and women depending on him—these thoughts sprinted endlessly through his mind.
It had to have been a couple of hours later when he at last gave up. He eased out of bed, wiped the sweat from his brow, and ambled to the bathroom near the kitchen. Running the tap, he splashed the cool water on his face, let most of the water drain from his whiskers, then dried off with a nearby towel before stepping into the living room and taking a seat on the couch.
He ran a hand down his cheek, feeling thick stubble now becoming a full-fledged beard. These days, shaving wasn’t the top priority when there were so many tasks to do around the compound. Even with Corey fully recovered from the bullet wound in his side, courtesy of the fallout from Gary murdering someone at a nearby settlement, Nick felt overwhelmed on the best of days.
He let out a long breath and reached into his pocket, and the corner of the photo he kept next to his heart pricked the tip of his index finger. He pulled the picture out and spared a moment to look at it again. His wife. Rochelle, holding baby Rae Ann, with a young Corey by her side. They’d been out on a shopping trip that day, in preparation for Christmas, and they’d stopped at a park on the outskirts of Manchester. Nick had taken the picture with his phone, and eventually had a print made. And he was glad he’d done so—too many of their family pictures were still in digital format, on computers he’d left back home and couldn’t access, and quite a number of the snapshots had been stored on the cloud, which he also couldn’t access. With the internet down, millions—if not billions—of images had simply vanished from the world.
This was one of the few physical photos he had now, and he carried it with him often; looking at it reminded him of the better times.
A lump formed in his throat. Back then, he wished he had done things differently. He wished he’d appreciated what he’d had a bit more. It wasn’t until it was too late, and his wife had succumbed to the cancer, that he had realized that he took a lot of what he had for granted.
But wasn’t this the same lesson the
rest of society was learning the hard way? The way of life they had known and taken for granted was now gone, replaced with the brutal existence every other animal on the planet was accustomed to.
He padded to Rae Ann’s room and stepped inside, making sure the door stayed closed enough that the light didn’t stream in and hit her in the face. For a minute, he just watched her sleeping peacefully, and envied her ability to just trust the adults would handle it all, in the end. Kids were naïve, and it was wonderful, and he wished she could carry that innocence forever.
He swept her hair from her face and brushed his lips lightly across her forehead, a soft peck.
She let out a happy groan, and Nick flinched in fear he’d awoken her, but she stayed asleep, now with a faint smile.
Nick let out a soft sigh, then returned to the living room.
Movement in the kitchen, as he walked toward the couch. Nick shifted his gaze and spotted his son standing in the threshold between the kitchen and living room. “What are you doing up this early, Core?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Corey said, stepping closer. “What’s that?”
Nick patted the couch cushion next to him, and Corey sat down. He wanted to ask Corey how he was holding up since discovering Joshua’s corpse, but he didn’t want to broach the subject, in case Corey’s lack of sleep was a result of something else on his mind—there were many things to lose sleep over, these days.
He handed his son the photo. “Do you remember when we took this?”
Corey squinted at it.
“Hang on.” Nick got up to grab the battery-operated lantern from a nearby table so his son could see the photo.
“I do,” Corey said, bringing the photo closer so he could get a better look. “Wow, Rae was just a baby.”
“And you were, what, ten years old?”
“Eleven. How I’ve grown, huh?”
EMP Crisis Series (Book 3): Instant Mayhem Page 5