One more thing he had to ponder, was Patty. She was pretty, kind and for the first time in his life, he felt comfortable with her presence. What he didn’t feel though, was the smitten feeling as if cupid shot him with an arrow thing. He wasn’t sure how she felt either and he didn’t feel capable of asking her about it. Little hints suggested to him that she was at least fond of him such as the shoulder bump, the hugs, and the kiss on the cheek… But he didn’t want to push her away because he didn’t have feelings for her, not like that. Neal also didn’t want to be alone anymore. Now that he’d had a taste of friendship, he was cautiously optimistic that this new world may push him into situations that formerly would have overloaded his spinning mind. He would have to adapt, react and survive. Dying because he was afraid to act wasn’t an option. With that in mind, he brought an armload of sticks and twigs to the shack and dropped the pile by the doorway.
Patty smiled and started to break the twigs into small eight to ten inch pieces and fished out one of the numerous lighters she had in her camping bag.
“Do you think we should stick around here for a while?” he asked, watching her pour the rest of her water into a small pan to boil.
“It’s as good a place as any, besides; we have to find water, especially if you want more than a second cup of coffee.”
“Hey, I’ll go use that metal bucket. I can almost smell the water close by. We can boil that or do the bleach trick.”
“Sounds good. Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask… You grabbed that satchel off the Islamist, what was in it?”
Neal’s face squinted together in thought, and then he walked out to the cargo rack on his bike and brought it back into the hut.
“I forgot about that,” he tossed it to her, “It’s probably just his school papers. We can always use it for tinder,” he told her, then put his own bottle down before heading out to grab the galvanized bucket.
Finding the stream wasn’t as hard as he thought, and he could smell the water. The problem was, he could smell it everywhere and as he got closer he found an old pathway through the brush and finally to a fast flowing creek. Frogs croaked and launched themselves into the deeper, faster moving water and cat tails lined the one shore. Neal scooped a big bucketful of water out from the middle where the current was the fastest getting his legs wet and then lugged the now heavy pail back to the shack. He walked in and Patty handed him a steel mug of coffee that she’d made from the single packs of instant coffee she’d had in her camping gear.
Her face was blank, and she looked up at Neal after a long moment of silence.
“This is bad,” she was holding a manila folder with some papers clipped and flipped with some color photos.
“What is it?”
“Plans. On how…” she choked up, “how to destroy our country. Before the invasion.”
“Invasion?”
Chapter 8 -
The Homestead, Kentucky
“They’ve been gone a long time,” Lisa told the group.
“I think we should at least get things ready for us to roll. What do you ladies think?” Martha asked everyone.
“A couple of us should stand guard on the trucks and animals,” Corinne, one of the squad’s young ladies commented.
“That sounds good. Pick somebody to help and the rest of us can go and see if we can push these cars out of the way.”
“Lisa, want to stick back with me while the others go move those cars?”
“Sure. Do you think it’s safe?”
“You heard Sandra, she found something, but I don’t think there’s any more danger down here. If we need to go in a hurry…”
“We’re still blocked in,” Karen, a fiery redhead in her early 20’s said.
“So let’s do something about it squad.” Martha said, a little tingle of excitement working its way up her body.
Corinne and Karen stuck back to watch the supplies, and the rest led by Martha and Karen cautiously approached the road block. Both cars had the keys in the ignition and the shifters already in neutral. It took four of them to rock the first car enough to push it towards the shoulder, where the slope and gravity finally took it over and it rolled into the tall grass. The second car had its wheels turned and wouldn’t turn as quick or easy and it took both Lisa and Martha to turn the wheel straight so they could push it back. Again, with everyone helping it wasn’t that difficult once the car was rolling again.
The ladies gave each other a high five, wiping the sweat from their foreheads and started back to the trucks. They got into position to cover all points of the compass again and Martha was about to key the radio and check on Sandra when Blake’s voice came out of the unit first.
“We’re coming out. Don’t shoot.”
“I hear you. See you soon.”
They waited several minutes until Lisa spotted Blake’s form stepping out of the tree line, followed by Sandra. They were hurrying, and not trying to run crouched down, just running. It wasn’t an all out panic sprint, but everyone tensed as they watched them, their rifles not pointed at the pair, but ready to defend them from whatever they were running from. Blake especially was having a hard time, he was carrying a large pack that he hadn’t gone into the woods with.
“I wonder where he got that?” Lisa asked no one in particular.
“What are they running from?” Karen asked.
“I don’t know, but look sharp. If it’s bad enough to spook Blake and Sandra, it has to be bad.”
“I’ll go fire up one of the trucks. Let’s get everything staged to roll.”
“Mount up ladies,” Martha shouted.
Everyone got in the trucks, and left the passenger side open for each of them. Sandra and Blake jumped into separate pickups like they had been driving earlier and didn’t object when the lead truck punched the gas pedal hard, followed by the second one that Blake was riding in.
“How bad was it Blake?” Lisa asked him.
“As bad as it gets. Do you want me to drive?”
“When we get to the lane. It’s been over 20 years since I drove a stick shift.”
“You seem to be doing alright,” he grinned.
“Fear is a great motivator.”
“True that.”
+++++
Duncan got one look at his daughter and Blake’s expressions and called a mini meeting in the main house, the squad offering to unload the loot at a later time. Lisa just nodded and Martha sent Karen to go fetch Chris and the Cayhill boys from the barn.
“What’s gotten you so shaken up?” Duncan asked his daughter, who just pinched her lips together and shook her head.
She grabbed a large box of medications from the bed of the pickup truck and carried it in.
“Blake, what is it?”
He gave the preacher a long look.
“We better wait for everyone who’s coming to sit in.”
“It’s bad?”
“Its abomination,” he told him and grabbed a load of supplies and disappeared into the house as well.
Duncan stood there dazed at the raw fear and emotion coming out of the two of them, and noticed that no one else there was affected the same way.
“It must be,” he muttered before grabbing a box himself and heading in.
Almost before he could set his box down, he could hear retching noises in the bathroom, and worried, headed over.
“You can’t know that for sure,” his daughter’s voice stopped his outraised hand from knocking.
“Why else would they dress him out?” His words were replaced with more wet sounds and Duncan stepped away from the door, rocked.
“Wipe your face-“ Was the last thing he heard his daughter say before he stepped into the kitchen, looking for something.
“What are you looking for?” Lisa asked Duncan, putting her arms around his chest and hugging him from behind.
“Something.”
“Well, yeah, what kind of something.”
“I don’t know. Do you know what this is about?�
�
“No, Blake refused to talk about it. It’s got him scared, scared badly.”
“Is that him throwing up?”
“I think so.”
The bathroom door opened and a pale Blake stepped out, followed by Sandra. He wiped the sweat off his brow and sat at the kitchen table. Soon, the rest of the core of the homestead was in there, and waited for Blake to speak. Sandra kept rubbing his hand, his arm and everyone could almost feel the waves of unease run off the solitary man.
“We were ambushed on the way back to the homestead. None of us were hurt, and Sandra went out there to scare off or neutralize the threat. There were some complications and she called me on the radio and asked me to come up and look things over,” he took a sip of water and waited for his wife to go on.
“I called Blake up to the North side of the highway where the shooters had been,” she was rolling a black shafted arrow in her hand, “And I found a sniper hide. The shooter was gone. Mostly. I found a broken arrow like this one, in a pile of guts.”
Everyone blanched at that.
“Was it an animal kill?” Bobby asked.
“No, I don’t think so. I think that was what was left of the shooter.” Blake told them.
“Somebody took a shot at me with this arrow,” Sandra held it up, “My pack killed the momentum and it didn’t hit me, just ruined some canned goods. But there was more than one person who was hunting out there. I fired in the direction the arrow came from and I could hear running footsteps.”
“Carbon hunting arrow,” Weston held it up so he could see it better.
“Yeah. When I felt it was safe, I checked around and found a second and third sniping spots. I’d obviously disrupted something, because the body was still there.”
“They didn’t have time to finish gutting the body and carry away the carcass,” Blake told them, looking sick again.
“What do you mean carcass?”
“The other shooter. They hadn’t had time to finish field dressing him out.” Blake told them softly.
Everyone took an instinctive gulp and looked around.
“I told Blake that it doesn’t mean that they were cannibals,” Sandra made their fears heard aloud.
“That first gut pile told me all I needed to know. Especially how they were starting to dress the second shooter.”
“What do you mean?” Duncan asked, his hand over the left side of his chest, massaging it.
“The gut pile. The heart and liver weren’t there. The second man was cut open from crotch to sternum. Everything else was in the gut pile, but they took the heart and liver along with the carcass.”
Everyone looked a little green.
“I didn’t notice that,” Sandra’s voice was small and soft.
She gave his hand a squeeze and looked up.
“From what we could tell, there were at least six to eight different boot prints we could make out.”
“So we have six to eight sickos’ out there?”
“Not necessarily,” he looked at them, sickened.
“There were footprints all over. I don’t know how many of them belonged to the snipers and how many belonged to the cannies.” He said, making a nickname out of thin air.
“This is really worrying,” Lisa said, “first we had snipers waiting for us, and now cannibals? Hunting us?”
“It looks like it to me.”
“I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong this is. We’re going to have to keep working with the squad, and everyone else who can shoot. This way…” Duncan said.
“If we’re ever attacked in massive numbers, we can defend ourselves.” Sandra finished for him.
“Some of the ladies are comfortable around me, I’ll work with any of them or the families who are willing,” Weston said, from where he leaned up against the counter, his expression neutral.
“I’ll do what I can,” Bobby piped in, but like Duncan, he was still on restricted duty.
“Do we have enough scraps to start making more toe tappers?” Sandra asked.
“No, not really.”
“Ok, so new rule. Nobody goes out unarmed.” Blake said, standing up and rubbing his stomach.
“Except the kids?” Sandra asked, watching little Chris play with some toy cars they found in the barn in the open doorway of the other room.
“Well, I’d like to see the 10-12 year olds know how to handle and shoot, if only to keep them from finding something and getting hurt if they don’t know any better. If they can defend themselves…” Blake said.
“Let’s get the rest of the supplies unloaded, and then we’ll all cook a big meal and discuss things.” Weston said, pushing away from the counter and standing next to Blake.
The group broke up, and Blake went in to smiles from Chris.
“Hey Dad, want to play with cars? We found some in boxes in the barn.”
“You know what? I’d love to play cars with you.” He lay down on the floor in front of him, his heart almost bursting with love.
Sandra stood in the doorway a moment, watching her men and then headed off to find Lisa. Her wedding had been rushed because she never knew what the next day would bring, and she wanted to make sure that Lisa and her Father were afforded the same opportunities. She heard Lisa’s voice coming from the basement and she headed down. She was on the bottom rung of the stairs when she stopped dead.
Duncan was down on one knee.
“I never know what’s going to happen anymore. One thing I am for sure about, is my love for you. Times are getting more and more scary and I don’t want to miss out on a life with you. Lisa Cahill, will you marry me?”
“Yes, you big fool. I love you too.” Lisa’s smile was beaming and her skin had flushed an alarming red.
She wiped her eyes and looked up, seeing Sandra standing in the doorway.
“Congratulations.” Sandra squeaked and ran back upstairs, forgetting what she had come down for.
Chapter 9 –
Travelling from Ann Arbor
“Just dangle the hook in front of his mouth,” Patty whispered from the side of the shore.
They hadn’t trusted the old fishing pole enough to lose some line over it, so they improvised a cane pole from a long sturdy stick with the fishing line tied on. A bare hook finished off the ensemble and they had taken it to the creek to try their luck. He had told Patty about the frogs last time, and her eyes had gone wide and she smiled.
Neal all but smacked the bull frog with the hook before it snapped its head almost faster than his eyes could track and the improvised rod was almost jerked out of his hand when it leapt into the water and started swimming. At the last second, he kept grip on it and pulled up, making the wood flex under the weight of the frog. He swung it over to the shore side by Patty, holding it up eye level to her.
“Now what?”
She took it off, put it in the metal bucket and sat across the open top and motioned to the creek.
“You keep fishing.”
They spent the whole afternoon like that, and when they had a dozen croakers in the bucket, they went back to the camp. A fillet knife poked in the head ended the frogs quickly and humanely. Patty cut off the hind legs, putting the rest of the frog into a pile by the outhouse.
“We can use parts of them for bait tomorrow.”
Neal nodded and watched as she used a thin stick whittled into a needled point. The legs were skewered like shish kebobs and she put them over the fire. Slowly, they cooked and she moved the stick constantly. The skin on the legs dried out, and as the meat cooked, it pulled away from the flesh and turned almost black. When the meat looked white, Patty took one leg off the end and pulled the skin back. She broke off a piece of the meat and looked at it.
“Looks good,” she told him, starting to chew on it like a chicken wing.
Neal had never tried frog, but he was hungry and it smelled good. He was having a hard time believing that he was about to eat something that he’d caught, something he watched get killed. His stomac
h almost rebelled, but the gnawing hunger inside of him made it a small almost inconsequential matter. He followed suit and was surprised that the flesh tasted almost like chicken in its neutral texture and flavor. It was done in a moment and he put the bones neatly across the ones that Patty had laid down by the fire.
“Needs salt,” He told her deadpan.
“You just at a frog, and all you can say is it needs salt?”
“Ribbit ribbit?” He told her dead pan.
“Neal, I’m going to get you,” she told him, a mischievous grin on her face as she set the skewer down.
Neal looked up startled, expecting anger but couldn’t process what she was doing. She stalked to his side of the shack, a smile on her face. In three quick steps she was there, almost tackling him, her fingers tickling at his side. He let out a surprised laugh and scooted back until his backside hit the pallets.
“It needs salt?”
Patty was straddling his legs, pinning him in place.
“It wasn’t bad. I kind of liked it, it just needed salt.”
Neal’s heart was racing, and not from excitement. Fear. Suddenly uncomfortable and backed into the wall, he felt helpless, vulnerable. He turned his head and tried to grab her waist to push her back when she kissed him. His whole body stiffened and he held still, letting her, waiting for it to be over. Patty pushed herself back after a few moments, a hurt look on her face.
“I’m sorry Neal. I forgot, and I figured…” She made her way to her feet and went to the other side of the hobo stove and looked away.
“Do you have any pepper then?” He asked her.
“Pepper? Pepper?” The last was almost a shriek.
“I was of course, trying to joke,” he told her softly and stood. “I’m sorry, I just don’t feel the same way about things.” He told her and headed out to the bike.
He sat down on the ground, pulling his knees to his stomach with his arms around them and rocked for a while, his mind whirling. He’d known that this could have happened, and now his own nature had hurt the one person left in this world that mattered to him. He felt the pain in his chest at that thought and then had to stop and wonder. Pain, he felt it. It wasn’t physical, it was more emotional. He considered that some more. It was starting to get dark and they had abandoned the nocturnal lifestyle a week back for convenience. He was deep into his mind, exploring his feelings when he felt Patty drop down beside him and pull him close to her with one arm.
The World Hungers: A Post-Apocalyptic Story (The World Burns Book 3) Page 7