I didn’t know what to do. They’d already had Zee for several days now. I hadn’t found her body on the trail, so I didn’t think they were planning on killing her.
I decided to stay where we were until the snow melted.
The snow melted, but it took three days. The snows this winter were heavier and lasted longer than I remembered. But then, my memory was short. Mr. Earl, who lived down the street from us, was eighty-five. I used to sit on his porch and listen to him tell stories of how it used to be. He described a winter worse than this one, so I guess this one wasn’t so bad.
I wondered what happened to Mr. Earl. I hadn’t seen him since four days after the lights went out. Mom said maybe his people in Memphis came and got him, but I didn’t see how that was possible. But I heard a car on our street one night a few days after the lights went out. What did I know anyway? I was just glad to travel without clumsy snowshoes.
Me and Sackett made it back to the trail. I couldn’t find any tracks, so we just started down the trail in the direction Tolliver’s men had been going.
I had no idea what I’d do if I ran into them. Maybe I should just ask them to turn Zee loose? But I knew that wouldn’t work. Neither would storming into their camp like some movie hero and rescuing her. I didn’t know how to do that anyway. All I could do was keep going the way I was going.
“Sackett,” I said, “please pay attention to your sniffer and let me know if you smell those guys.”
Sackett just kept walking. I had the impression sometimes that he figured most of our conversation was unnecessary.
I roughly knew where we were. King had spent hours drawing maps of the area in the dirt and having me memorize them. As best I could tell, we were going southeast and would be out of the Ozark National Forest in less than fifteen miles. Then it would be only twenty miles back to my hometown. I doubted that was where Tolliver and his men were going.
Five miles outside the national forest, I found Zee. Or rather I should say Sackett found Zee’s body. It was discarded in the woods like a broken toy.
If Sackett hadn’t picked up the scent, I would have in a mile or so. Zee’s body was decomposing. She’d been dead several days and gas from decomposition had bloated her body horribly. She looked more like some horror film balloon animal than human. I knew her by her bracelet.
I reckoned watching those CSI shows on TV taught me a lot, but they didn’t help me when it came time to bury Zee. If TV’s had built-in smell generators, a lot of popular shows would have never become popular. Nothing prepared me for the stench when her bloated body split open as I dragged it to the shallow grave. If I ever told the guys at school about this, I would deny vomiting, but that’s just what I did—more than once. Okay, no CSI career for me.
Once Zee was buried, I said a few quick words, and walked away from her grave as fast as I could. I found a stream and took a bath and washed my clothes. The water was almost freezing, but I bathed anyway. I needed to get that smell off of my clothes and me.
I changed into my spare jeans and shirt, courtesy of the dead man in the trailer. I thanked him again for his generosity. Then me and Sackett found a good spot and built a fire. I made us a small lean-to and covered it with one of Al’s space blankets, a heavyweight one that was camouflage green on one side.
Sackett ate from our venison jerky, but I wasn’t hungry. I tried to go to sleep but I couldn’t. Sackett had no trouble. I watched him while he was sleeping. Sometimes I wished I were a dog too. Life seemed so much simpler for Sackett.
I felt guilty because I was relieved that I no longer had to rescue Zee and I felt even guiltier because I hadn’t rescued her. At the moment I was a psychiatrist’s wet dream. Man, one of those fuckers would charge me a million bucks to straighten my head out now. I laughed at the thought, and then reluctantly conceded it might be worth it.
I finally fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning, right after I weeweed.
I kept going in the same direction just because I didn’t know what else to do. Two days later, I found myself on the outskirts of my hometown. Suddenly it occurred to me. I had to bury the remains of Mom and my sisters. I owed them that much, and more, even if Mom did kick me out.
Burying their remains took me only a little while. Only a few bones were left. I assumed scavengers had carried off the rest. At least there was no bad smell, only the musty old sock smell of an unoccupied house.
I couldn’t bring myself to stay in the house so I decided to walk down the block and see what happened to Mr. Earl and some of our neighbors.
Our street felt strange. It hadn’t changed much. The houses were mostly built shotgun style, deep and narrow so that if you fired a shotgun through the front door, the buckshot would exit through the back door. I knew there were fancier houses in other neighborhoods, but this was the only kind I ever remembered living in.
Some of the houses were painted white or gray. Some had never been painted and the bare board siding had faded to a brownish gray. And some, maybe a dozen, were brightly painted, blues, yellows, and even one in red. Most of the yards were surrounded by rusty chain-link fence. All of that was the same. What was different was the silence.
I didn’t hear a single sound that could have been made by a human. It was like everyone had just vanished. King told me that a lot of people had died from starvation and been killed fighting over food, but this… This was far beyond what I thought I would find.
Then I saw the smoke wafting into the air from a single chimney down the block. I didn’t know who lived there since Mom forbade me from going that far away from the house, but that’s where I was headed now.
I eased my way close to the house with the smoking chimney. I didn’t want to be seen before I had time to determine if whoever was in the house was a threat. Moving through the neighborhood felt strange to me now.
There was a man in the back yard digging in the frozen ground with a pick and shovel. At first I thought he was digging a grave, but when I got closer, I saw he was digging up the entire back yard. There was a rifle leaning against the fence. Soon a boy about my age came out of the house, picked up another shovel, and started digging too. When I saw the woman come onto the back porch, dump a pan of water, and then go back inside, I thought they might be okay.
“Hello the house,” I yelled.
The man dropped his shovel and grabbed his rifle. Four more little kids and the woman dashed out of the house. The woman held a shotgun. The little kids just looked around.
“Who is that? Show yourself.”
“I’ll show myself if you won’t shoot.”
“I won’t shoot if you make no threat.”
“Okay, here I come,” I yelled. I unstrung my bow, and put the pistol in my pocket hoping I wasn’t being a total damn fool. There were a few times Mom had called me that, a total damn fool. Right now I was afraid she may have been right.
I stepped from behind the house next door, holding my hands out from my side.
The woman said, “Bub, he’s just a boy.” The she said. “Boy, come on over here. We won’t hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt my dog either?”
“Lord no, child. I love dogs.”
I motioned Sackett to come out and we walked over to the people who were now gathered in a group waiting for us. The man lowered his rifle and the woman set the shotgun against the back wall of the house, next to the door.
As I approached, one of the older kids said, “Is that you Trevor?”
“Yeah, Danny,” I said. “It’s me. I thought you lived closer to us.”
“Used to,” Danny said. “Now I live here with these folks.”
When the woman went back in the house and brought something out for Sackett to eat, I knew everything was okay.
Chapter 19
The man’s name was Bubba Johns. Bub was short for Bubba. The woman was his wife. None of the kids were theirs. I learned they’d been childless and took in six kids after the lights went out.
Mrs
. Johns sure was a good cook, but the table wasn’t overloaded with food. I dug some of the venison jerky out of my pack and Mrs. Johns laid it out all fancy-like on a plate.
“Thank you, Trevor.”
You’re welcome, Ma’am.”
The kids dug into the jerky like it was candy.
After we ate, I asked Mr. Johns, “Where is everybody?”
“You weren’t here?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve been in the national forest.”
“You survived out there all by yourself?” Mr. Johns looked surprised.
“Mostly.”
Danny, the oldest boy, said, “Wow.”
“Tell us about it,” Mr. Johns said.
“I’d like to know what happened here first.”
“Well, okay. There’ll be plenty of time to talk, I guess.” Mr. John’s paused. “Food and water got scarce real fast after the lights went out. We’re a poor neighborhood and nobody ever kept a lot of food on hand. Before the EMP, we used to drive to the store every other day.”
“Yeah,” I said, “Mom did the same.”
“I think those fancy houses closer to town had more food. I hear there are more people still alive there but I haven’t been over to look for myself. I wonder if some of those rich folks are digging up ground for a garden. That’s what we’re doing. I wish we had a gasoline powered tiller.”
“Isn’t it early to put in a garden?”
“Yes, but we have to get an early start because it takes so long to get the ground ready with pick, shovel, and rake.”
“Is there anyone else in the neighborhood?” I asked.
“There are two other families. You can meet them tomorrow if you want. We all get along really well.”
“That’s all that’s left?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so. It got really rough around here for about six months after the lights went out.”
I did a few calculations in my head. My teachers would have been shocked to know I could do that.
If everywhere was about like here, or had more survivors, that meant that something like ninety to ninety-five, percent of the population had died. The number shocked me. Maybe in other areas more people survived. I suddenly realized that, in spite of the hope in the back of my mind, the world was never going to be the way it was before in my lifetime. Shit. I missed watching TV sometimes.
“I had no idea it was this bad,” I said.
“If someone had told me how bad something like this could be before the lights went out, I would have laughed at them and called them crazy. But it did get bad and it’s not good yet.”
“I think y’all are doing great,” I said.
“If the raiders would leave us alone, we’d get by. There were four families here two months ago. A party of raiders killed the Simpsons.”
“Why haven’t you folks all moved closer together so you can help protect each other?”
“We’ve discussed it, but it’s hard for some of us to move out of our homes.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Johns said. “There are so many memories in our house.”
“You have to be alive to remember them,” I said, suddenly realizing I’d been rude. “Sorry, Ma’am, I meant no offense.”
“It’s okay, Trevor. I think you’re right,” Mr. John’s said. “We do need to do something or the raiders will just kill us off.”
Raiders? That sucked. I decided right there and then that I wasn’t gonna hang around here for very long. I thought I might kill a deer or two for these folks and then go home to the national forest.
The Johns' didn’t have a spare bed so me and Sackett slept on the back porch. I thought about sleeping in the empty house next door, but that would've been too creepy.
I rose at first light and checked the perimeter around the house, just like I did wherever I camped. I didn’t see any tracks, human, or critter that weren’t there yesterday. Check, everything okay.
I was sitting on the edge of the back porch when Mr. Johns joined me almost an hour after sunrise. Man, he slept late. Then I remembered. Unless I was going to the woods, Mom could hardly get me up before noon.
Mr. Johns sat there and stared at the ground he was breaking for a garden. It was hard work and I could tell it was hurting him. He moved like he was sore.
I wondered how these people were feeding themselves. I didn’t see any box traps, or deadfalls for squirrels and rabbits around the house. I didn’t think Mr. Johns was a hunter, so I asked.
“Mr. Johns, if you don’t mind telling me, how are you folks finding food?”
“I don’t mind telling you Trevor. We have a small stock of canned goods left, not quite enough to last until I can get the garden in. As soon as I get the ground broken, the heavy work, the wife and kids can hoe and rake the garden into shape. Then I’ll go hunting.”
“Are you a hunter?”
“No, not before. Now I try, but all I’ve been able to shoot were a couple of rabbits and a half-dozen squirrels.”
“Do you have any traps set?”
“No, I don’t know anything about trapping. I was a clerk in an office supply store. I wasn’t interested in outdoor stuff then. I was into computers. I was very good with them.”
“Have you ever grown a garden?”
“No.”
“Me neither,” I said.
“We may not have much, Trevor, but you’re most welcome to stay and be part of our family.”
“I’ll think about it, Sir,” I said. It felt good to be around nice people. I realized that for most of my life, I hadn’t been around nice people. My family wasn’t particularly nice, nor was the old neighborhood. Then I thought, everyone who had been nice to me since the lights went out was now dead. Was I a jinx of some kind?
I helped Mr. Johns break ground that morning. Lunch was mostly my deer jerky, but I was happy to share.
After lunch I took the two oldest children aside and taught them to make a figure four trigger and how to set deadfalls and box traps with it.
I also told them what I knew of the habits of mice, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and anything else I thought they were likely to catch. Then we walked around the neighborhood and I showed them some good places to set traps.
Once the boys were doing okay, I found Mr. Johns.
“I’m going to be gone tonight and most of tomorrow.”
“Where’re you going?”
“Deer hunting. I hope to bring a deer back with me tomorrow afternoon.”
“That would be fantastic. Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, me and Sackett have lots of practice hunting together.”
“At least take my shotgun…”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer this.” I held up my bow.
About an hour before dark, me and Sackett headed for the rock overhang where I camped after Mom kicked me out. If the deer weren’t hunted out, I knew where to find one.
We made it to the overhang just before the sun went down and made a dark camp, no fire. No point in spooking deer with smoke.
I was hungry the next morning. Sackett was too the way he kept nosing my pack and giving me the me just a poor dog, feed me look. But hunting hungry gave me an edge.
I was in position close to a tiny creek before the sun was hardly up. Ten minutes later, I loosed an arrow that dropped a doe on the spot. Five minutes after that, I killed another one.
Neither doe was very large, but, after I gutted, skinned, and butchered the two deer, there was over 200 pounds of venison to take back to the Johns’. It was more than Sackett and I had ever hauled before.
I made a travois using the axe from Al’s cabin and some cordage from my pack. I rigged it so Sackett could pull from between the poles. I used my belt to make him a sort of harness. Then I used some more cordage to make myself a harness so I could pull too.
Soon we were on our way. The travois moving smoothly behind us. It was heavier than we were used to. Sackett was loving it. He dug in and pulled harder than I’d seen him pul
l before.
Using a travois is simple, but there are a few tricks that make it easier. The first is to choose poles with a natural bend at the end that goes on the ground. That way the travois doesn’t hang up on rough ground as often. Also, the poles have to be sized to the load. They need to have some bend and bounce to keep the poles from beating you black and blue, but not too much. And, the travois has to be loaded toward the back, keeping the weight as close to the ground as possible. No point in lifting too much when you’re pulling.
Yet, even well set up, this was a heavy pull. Me and Sackett had to stop every now and then and rest. It was mid-afternoon when we dragged the deer meat into the Johns’ yard.
I must admit, the Johns were some happy people. It was almost like a party at supper, but nobody got drunk. I liked it much better than the booze parties at home.
Mrs. Johns wasn’t much good at cooking venison, but nobody cared.
I stayed with the Johns for the next two weeks. The boys were getting pretty good with their traps and now had over a hundred set around the neighborhood. They were catching one or two critters a day. Mr. Johns had the garden broken and everyone was scrounging through all the empty houses in the neighborhood looking for seed. I wondered why they didn’t look for seed before they even broke ground, but I was having too much fun with Danny and the other boys going through other people’s shit to say anything. It was the closest thing to play, other than with Sackett, I’d had in quite a while.
And it was amazing what we found. Danny had collected a box full of dildos and vibrators that he kept hidden in the empty house next door. I had no idea what he wanted them for and he wouldn’t say. And then there were the skin mags from under mattresses, and cigarettes, a shit-load of cigarettes.
We also found dozens of hidden pistols, most of which were loaded. These we took back to Mr. Johns and he unloaded them and stashed them in a box in the rafters of the single car garage attached to the house. Like the few other garages in the neighborhood, it was too small to hold a car, but that didn’t matter. It was somewhere to pile shit. In this neighborhood, that was a luxury.
EMP (Book 3): 12 Years Old and Alone Page 15