Chapter 52
Sarah Anna Speer had thought of Randy often since the blackout. What happened to him, where he was, whether he was okay.
Whether she’d ever see him again.
She’d been awakened by her roommate Mary Elizabeth on the morning after the power went out. Mary Elizabeth was in a panic because she’d overslept and was late for work. Further, she couldn’t find her uniform hat.
Peterson’s Bar and Grill was a stickler when it came to its image. Showing up without her hat for the third time would mean a mandatory write-up. She might even be left off the following week’s schedule.
And she needed the money.
Both girls searched desperately through the darkened apartment without success, until Mary Elizabeth suddenly remembered the hat was on the front seat of her car.
She flew out her door and into her car, which of course wasn’t going anywhere.
It wasn’t until the car failed to start and Mary Elizabeth had cursed a blue streak that she noticed all the other cars stopped dead in the street with their hoods up, puzzled drivers beneath them scratching their heads and wiggling wires.
She’d gotten back out of the car to find the neighborhood pervert, whom they called Slick Willie, looming large over her.
“Hey, honey, it’s no sweat. I’ll get it running in no time, if you can give me a ride across town. I gotta score some stuff from a friend over there, and then we can come back and have a real good time, you and me. What do you say, honey?”
“Um, no thanks. I’m just gonna go call in sick and take the day off.”
She was halfway back to her apartment when he called after her.
“Yeah. Good luck with that, honey. The phones ain’t workin’ so good either.”
Sarah and Mary Elizabeth barricaded the door for almost two full days, too scared to go out. It wasn’t just Slick Willie, who kept coming by every couple of hours to see whether she’d changed her mind.
Three doors down in one direction was a notorious drug dealer who was rumored to cut the fingers off of those he felt wronged him.
Four doors down in the other direction was the leader of a biker gang. He’d fancied Sarah for quite some time, and had boldly told her so on several occasions, “I’ll wear you down, you’ll see. You’ll come around someday and I’ll make you my old lady.”
It hadn’t been that bad when they’d first moved in, but the neighborhood had gone steadily downhill since then.
They’d thought of moving several times but had never gotten around to it. Instead, they relied upon their alarm system and the 911 speed-dial on their cell phones to give them a false sense of security.
After the blackout, of course, both of those things were gone.
They knew they’d have to come out eventually.
They just hadn’t yet gotten up the nerve.
Then Sarah’s boss came to the rescue.
Actually, Karen Feeley was more than a boss. She and Sarah had hit it off from the start. They shared a love for the cartoon character Garfield and the music of Randy Travis. And they shared the same personality traits. Each of them was sweet and kind to a fault, loyal to their friends, and eager to stand up for the oppressed.
The one thing Karen had which Sarah didn’t was a toughness instilled in a lot of women of her particular generation. She was the equal of any man, and took no smack from anyone.
In no time at all Sarah and Karen had become the best of friends.
Toward the end of the second day of the blackout there had been a loud knock on Sarah and Mary Elizabeth’s front door.
They crouched in the darkened kitchen, Sarah with a butcher knife in her hand and Mary Elizabeth with a baseball bat. As they had each time before, they were certain Slick Willie or someone else was coming in after them.
And by God, whoever it was would pay a heavy price for whatever they managed to take from them.
Chapter 53
But it wasn’t Slick Willie this time. Nor was it the leader of the biker gang who had the hots for Sarah. Nor was it the drug dealer, or any of the thugs going from door to door trying to take advantage of the weak.
The knock came again, much louder this time.
“Sarah, are you in there? It’s Karen.”
Marty, the biker, approached Karen and asked who she was looking for. Marty was as intimidating as they came. A big burley man with a ragged black beard and a swastika tattoo on his right cheek, he made many men shake in their boots.
Karen? Not so much.
“What are you looking at, creep? Go climb back under your rock.”
Marty slunk away.
The door opened, and Sarah grabbed her friend by the shoulders and fairly dragged her inside.
“Karen, what are you doing here?”
“No, Sarah. What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“I don’t care. The world is going to hell. This is one of the least safe places I can think of for you girls to be. You should have left immediately and gone someplace safer.”
“But we were afraid to leave.”
“I suspected as much. Pack your stuff. Both of you. You’re coming to stay with me.”
Sarah paused before saying, “But you live all the way on the other side of town.”
“I know, honey. That’s why it took me so long to get here. But I made it here and we’ll all make it back.”
Sarah hugged her, trying not to show that her eyes were moistened. Mary Elizabeth felt no such shame and openly cried in relief.
“Now then. I stole a shopping cart as I passed by the Walmart. It’s parked outside, and if I find anybody messing with it, by God I’ll kick their butts. It’ll hold a lot of your stuff. If you each have a suitcase with wheels you can pack it, and if you have three backpacks we can all carry one.
“Just remember to pack light. It’s almost fifteen miles from your front door to mine. If you pack heavy you’re gonna be miserable. We’ll stay here tonight and leave at first light.”
Mary Elizabeth was incredulous.
“You walked fifteen miles just to rescue us? And nobody messed with you?”
Had she known Karen better, Mary Elizabeth wouldn’t have been so surprised.
Karen was the sweetest person in the world, and the best friend a girl could have. But one didn’t cross her. One didn’t disrespect her or try to take advantage of her. To do so was to risk being pummeled.
“They wouldn’t dare,” Karen smiled and said as she patted the .45 on one hip and the Bowie knife on the other.
“Now go, you two, before we lose the light. Bring your bags out here by the front window. Then gather everything you want to take and bring it as well. I’ll pack it while you’re going back for more.”
That was six weeks before. It had taken them two full days to get from Sarah’s home to Karen’s. As they passed the Walmart a second time they procured a second shopping cart from the parking lot. It helped lighten their load and made the journey easier.
As it turned out, taking the cart wasn’t just Karen’s idea. They passed many others moving about the city using the same method. Shopping carts and suitcases with wheels had replaced U-Haul trucks and pickups as the go-to method of moving.
They’d stayed the night in a real estate office five miles from Karen’s house. Karen would have preferred to have made the trip in one day. She, although twenty years older than the girls, was up to the task.
Unfortunately, Sarah and Mary Elizabeth had spent too many of their college days studying in front of the television or partying with their friends.
And far too few hours at the gym or walking.
Karen selected the real estate office because she thought it would be relatively safe.
The front window had been shattered and the office ransacked, sure. Karen presumed it was done early on in the crisis, when looters were still looking for cash and laptop computers.
Now, though, both had been deemed worthless.
The looters woul
d be out in force after the sun set. But she expected most of them to be hitting the supermarkets and lugging away as much food as they could carry.
The police and firemen were trying to spread the word that there was no longer a need to loot the stores at night. That there was plenty of food to keep everyone alive for months, as long as nobody got greedy.
Their intent was two-fold: to keep greedy people from hoarding more than their share; and to keep the streets of Lubbock safer at all hours of the day and night.
Neither appeared to be working all that well.
There would always be a certain element in any society who didn’t adhere by the rules.
Even if the rules were designed to help everyone.
Those people would take as much as they could carry, and then go back for more. They’d keep going back until they were exhausted or challenged. And they’d stockpile their booty not so their family and friends could survive.
No, they’d guard their loot as a treasure, and would trade it for gold, or for drugs, or for sex.
So yes, the looters would be out in great number, but not at the real estate office.
“I’ll stay here in the front office and keep watch,” Karen had told them. You two find places to sleep in the back. Two different offices. I don’t want you to stay awake talking into the night. I want you both to get some sleep. When you wake up, come out here and see if I’m ready for some relief.”
It had been hell that night.
But just before noon the next day, they arrived at Karen’s house on 91st Street, just a few blocks away from Raleigh Avenue.
They were exhausted. Their feet were blistered. But they were safe.
All three of them collapsed in separate rooms, where they’d sleep for hours.
Karen relied on her two black labs, Smoky and Pepper, to ward off any prowlers.
Mary Elizabeth was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
And Sarah Anna Speer fell asleep thinking about Ranger Randy, and wondering whether she’d ever see him again.
Chapter 54
Randy was on the fourth day of his five day detail now, and had developed an easy working relationship with Brandy and her crew.
They were heading back to the Walmart on Loop 289 where they’d spent the entire day the day before working their way through its massive produce section.
None of them had a clue that the produce contained on the sales racks constituted only half of what was available. In the back of the store, behind two massive swinging doors, was a walk-in cooler with even more. Pallets and pallets of cantaloupes, cucumbers and all manner of berries.
Outside the cooler were items which had been taken off the sales floor the day of the blackout, deemed no longer fit to sell.
They would have been disposed of had the blackout not occurred.
But the crew had no qualms about taking the items along with everything else. For the seeds within them were still intact and could still be garnered.
They’d made two trips, with heavily loaded wagons, the day before. Today they’d try their best to get the rest in two more loads.
But Randy had his doubts. In his mind, they’d start the fifth day of his detail coming right back here for a fifth load.
He didn’t mind.
He was starting to consider the crew not as co-workers, but as friends. He was getting to know them well, and they him.
He was already looking forward to the next time he’d be back to work with them.
And in the spring, after the seed detail was done and they started hauling water from Buffalo Springs Lake, he promised he’d sign up for that escort detail as well. They’d made a pact, the five of them, to work together every chance they could.
As they turned into the Walmart parking lot Randy’s heart sank.
They encountered two small boys, not much bigger than the case of Campbell’s soup they struggled to carry between them.
Their hair was unkempt, their clothing ratty.
“Oh, my God,” Shannon said. “Please stop, Brandy.”
Shannon’s request wasn’t necessary. Even as she said the words, Brandy was already pulling back on the reins and preparing to pull the rig’s brake.
They all climbed down and gathered around the boys.
To their credit, the tiny tykes didn’t seem intimidated by the adults surrounding them. They seemed to sense they weren’t like some of the other bad men they’d encountered.
Like the one who’d confronted them the day before and stolen the first case of soup they were carrying.
Shannon went to one knee and addressed the boys.
“Hello, there. That’s quite a load you’re carrying.”
The little one just looked at her. His big brother said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“How far are you going?”
They put the box down and the older child pointed.
“That way. About eight or nine blocks. I’m not sure how many, exactly.”
Shannon looked at Brandy and said, “Oh, that’s much too far for these little guys to walk.”
She turned back to the boys and asked, “Where’s your Daddy and your Mommy? Don’t you have anybody to help you?”
“No, ma’am. Our Mommy is gone. So’s our Daddy. All we have is our Nana. And she can’t walk. She’s in bed all the time.”
“Where did your parents go? Are they coming back soon?”
This time he pointed in a different direction.
“We found them over there, about two weeks ago. They were both dead. Somebody shot them. They went for food and never came back. And then Tommy and me, he’s my little brother, we found them. The cats were eating on them. We chased the cats away, but they kept trying to come back.
“We sat with them for awhile to guard them from the cats, and then a policeman came by on a go-cart. He was nice, and he buried them for us.”
Randy’s heart melted.
Brandy had to turn away.
Shannon tried hard to hold herself together.
“And you guys have been coming here for food all by yourselves since then?”
“Yes, ma’am. Our Nana, she’s in bed and can’t come.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m seven. Tommy, he’s five. He don’t talk much since we found them dead. Not even to me and Nana.”
Chapter 55
Shannon looked hopefully at Brandy. Brandy was the wagon master and team leader. As such, it was her responsibility the mission got done.
But Brandy wasn’t going to dash her friend’s hopes by refusing to help. It was a given. They were all on the same sheet of music.
Brandy took a knee beside Shannon and asked the older boy, “What’s your name, little man?”
“I’m Jake.”
“Well, would you and Tommy like to ride in an old-timey covered wagon?”
His eyes grew large and she could just read the excitement in them.
But she also saw suspicion. The kind of suspicion borne from having encountered bad people before.
“Where? We just want to go home with our Nana.”
“We’ll take you home, I promise. We’ll take you home to see your Nana.”
Half an hour later they left the parking lot, Tommy and Jake crammed into the wooden driver’s seat alongside Brandy.
In the back of the wagon was the boys’ case of Campbell’s chicken and dumpling soup.
Along with several other cases of canned pasta, spaghetti noodles and dry breakfast cereal, courtesy of the Walmart.
Randy was well aware they were violating the mayor’s policy of only taking a forty-eight hour supply of food at a time.
But there were exceptions to every rule. And he didn’t want these two little boys to have to take that treacherous walk to and from the Walmart any more than they had to.
There was a shiny red wagon in the back as well, taken from the toy department.
So when they did have to go on a food run again, they wouldn’t have to struggle to haul back their
goods.
Jake pointed the way as they worked their way north, several blocks from the store, to a residential area of tiny homes.
Once on the front porch of their particular home, Jake rapped loudly on the front door.
“Nana, it’s okay. It’s us.”
From his pocket he produced a key, way too big for his little fingers to handle, and struggled as he reached up to insert it into the keyhole.
They’d decided, on the way over, that they wouldn’t all rush into the house as though it were an amphibious landing. Rather, Brandy and Randy would act as emissaries, to greet the boys’ grandmother and to assess her needs.
Randy expected the woman to greet them at the door, but that wasn’t the case. From the living room, Jake pointed toward a bedroom door.
“Nana’s in there,” he stated, and led the way.
Randy and Brandy found a frail woman, in her seventies, who looked at them from her bed in a state of panic.
Jake tried to calm her by saying, “It’s okay, Nana. They’re nice. They’re my new friends.”
Brandy went to one knee at the woman’s bedside and took her hand.
“Hello, ma’am. My name is Brandy. This is my friend Randy. He’s a Texas Ranger.”
Randy tipped his hand to the woman, who seemed a bit relieved the pair wasn’t there to rob what little she had left.
Jake’s eyes grew big once again. He wasn’t aware until that moment that one of his new friends was an honest-to-goodness Texas Ranger.
The woman relaxed a bit.
“My name is Millie. I’m sorry. I was once a good hostess. I would have offered you tea or coffee. But these days, it saps all my energy just to get to and from the bathroom.”
Brandy asked, “Are you ill? Are you in need of medicine?”
Millie looked toward the boy.
A Whole New World: Ranger: Book 2 Page 16