A. R. Shaw's Apocalyptic Sampler: Stories of hope when humanity is at its worst

by A. R. Shaw

  In the morning, Graham watched as Macy high-fived Marcy before dragging her own tired butt up to the cabin door. He knew he wasn’t the only one exhausted. Ennis and Bang were still asleep, snoring softly as Graham and Macy made their way to their own beds, pulling the covers over their heads because the dawn was beginning to show already through the windows.

  31

  An Extra Setting

  When Graham awoke a few hours later, he saw Macy still sleeping, so he slipped off to the shower. When he was done he woke her so they could get their errand underway. He wanted to get the platforms built before the day was over and the night watch began.

  While Macy was in the shower, Graham wandered into the dining room, where Tala handed him a cup of steaming black coffee.

  “This is going to be an adjustment for all of us,” she said.

  “You don’t look so perky yourself,” he said.

  “Well, Marcy scared me to death last night. I’m surprised you didn’t wake up. I heard her call out, and I ran over there to find her trying to climb up a madrone tree; a raccoon had scared her.” Graham choked a bit on his coffee at the thought.

  They were both chuckling as Macy came out of the bathroom. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing much, but ask your sister about raccoons when you see her,” Graham said, then turned his attention back to Tala. “Who’s where right now?”

  “Marcy is taking her turn fishing with Bang on watch there, and Ennis is by the entrance,” she said.

  “Okay, that’s good.” Tala had made more biscuits, and Graham went to grab one. She wrapped several in a cloth napkin and handed it to him as Graham went out onto the porch to enjoy his breakfast, waiting for Macy to be ready.

  The morning mist gave way to blue skies, just like the day before. They took the new truck and drove slowly with the windows down, listening and watching for anything to move as the dirt road gave way to pavement. At one point Macy held up her hand to alert Graham to stop as a parade of four turkeys crossed in front of them without any sense of haste, puffing their black and white feathers out and displaying their bright red neck waddles as they crossed to the other side and disappeared into the brush.

  “Should we go after them?” Macy asked.

  “Not today, but we will soon. A couple of turkeys could feed us for a week. My mother used to save the turkey carcasses after Thanksgiving and then boil them to make broth. We just have to be careful not to take too many of them at once.”

  As he pulled up the long gravel driveway, Graham half expected the paperboy to pedal by and toss a bundle at his feet. That’s how normal everything felt here now, and he had to find a way to reconcile this vision with their current circumstances.

  He listened for any potential danger, and then waved for Macy to join him. They unlocked the door and he had Macy keep watch at the window while he went into the kitchen to retrieve the two-way radios. It was quiet in there—too quiet, unlike the other day when they’d all been busy scavenging.

  Graham opened the cupboard and saw the radios right away. These weren’t the cheap toy models either. Probably a Costco find. There were three units, perfect for their current needs. He also grabbed the charger base just as he heard Macy scream, “Graham!”

  He dropped everything, pulled up his rifle, and ran for her. He found her staring out the corner of the window, trying to be inconspicuous, “Come here,” she waved frantically.

  He looked out the window and saw an old camo-painted army jeep parked in the street at the end of the long driveway. One man dressed in a dark blue hazmat suit with a respirator got out of the driver’s seat and stood guard, while the passenger, also in a hazmat suit and respirator, exited and moved to the back gate of the vehicle.

  “What the hell?”

  As they watched through the window, the man in the back struggled with something. Macy turned the deadbolt, as if that would help against an intrusion. The driver could clearly see Graham and Macy, but made no motion to do anything but guard the jeep as the other man emerged from the back of it carrying a body, zip-tied at the hands and feet and with a black sack tied over its head. The captive person struggled.

  “Shit!” Graham said.

  “What are they doing?” Macy asked.

  “I don’t know, honey,” he said.

  The man carried the uncooperative body with some difficulty. He walked partway up the grassy yard and laid the body on its side while the driver aimed his weapon in their direction. The other man pulled out what looked like a note and held it up for Graham to see, then dropped it on the body and walked away. They sped off quickly. By the time Graham got down the long drive, there was no sign of them.

  He knelt by the body and untied the black bag over the head, pulling it off, revealing a blond teenage boy struggling against the gag still in his mouth. When Graham tried to help him, the youth jerked away as much as the ties would let him. Fear flared in his brown eyes.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Graham said.

  The boy shook his head violently from side to side and pulled back again, tears forming in his eyes.

  Graham pulled out his pocketknife and grabbed the back of the boy’s head, shoving it forward to release the gag.

  With bruising on his cheeks and bloodshot eyes, the young man had clearly been beaten.

  “Are you a prepper?” he asked Graham as soon as he was able. His lips were cracked and bleeding, making it difficult for him to be understood. His mouth was probably dry as a bone, too.

  “What? A prepper? No,” Graham said, reaching for the note when he heard Macy approaching.

  “Stay back, Macy,” he said. “Just wait there.”

  He opened the note and read it aloud:

  We took this boy after accidently killing the man he was with. He’s a carrier, like you all. We cannot keep him with us, and are making a goodwill gesture by turning him over to you. In return, we expect you to adhere to the boundaries on attached map marking our territories. One encounter will kill us all. We have voted to let you live, but one act of defiance and we will exterminate all of you.

  D. H., President, Cascade Prepper Assoc.

  Graham folded the note, put it into his jacket pocket, and reached for the boy’s hand with the pocketknife. When he flinched away again, Graham said, “Now look, I’m trying to untie you, all right?”

  After the boy’s arms had been freed, Graham helped him bring them around to the front. He knew the boy’s muscles must ache from struggling against the restraints. He cut the ankle bindings.

  “Can you stand?” he asked him.

  “I don’t know. My legs are really weak.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “What’s yours?” the boy shot back.

  Macy came around before Graham could answer and said, “Look, kid, he’s trying to help you. Don’t be such a loser.”

  “It’s okay, Macy,” Graham said to her.

  “Mark. My name’s Mark.”

  “How old are you, Mark?”

  “Sixteen.”

  Graham touched his cheek. “Did those guys hurt you?”

  “No, not really. I tried to untie myself and fell face first on the floor of the shack they had me in.”

  “Did they feed you?” Graham asked while he and Macy helped Mark to the truck.

  “Once a day they gave me an MRE. They said it was all they could spare,” Mark said.

  “How’d they come across you?” Graham asked.

  Mark lowered his head, breathing hard, and Graham saw that he was trying not to cry.

  “Macy, go in the house and get those radios and the charger that goes with them,” Graham said.

  When she’d run back up the drive, Graham gave the boy’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. Tears filled the kid’s eyes.

  “Mr. Bishop was the only one left here, so I stayed with him after my folks died. We saw these guys coming door to door one night from across the street and they were wearing blue hazmat suits. Mr. Bishop,
he shot at one of them but missed. I told him not to, but he didn’t listen. The one guy shot him. He was standing right beside me!” Graham watched with sympathy as Mark turned white at the recollection of the terrifying ordeal. Mark turned his face away.

  “Was he the man I found dead in the campground office?” Graham asked.

  “Yeah, that’s where I dragged him and he died there on me. There was blood everywhere. I tried to stop it with my hands, but I couldn’t. Then I heard the guys arguing, and they broke the door open and dragged me out of there. They blindfolded me, and the next thing I knew, was tied to a chair in a wood shack somewhere. That was at least two weeks ago. Two different people came in every day in those suits, blindfolded me, took me somewhere to do my business, and then took me back into the shack. They gave me water in a bag with a straw and an MRE thing. They made me eat all of it quick, tied me back up, put me on a cot, and left me till the next day. I heard one of them say I was a carrier and too dangerous to keep around,” Mark said.

  It looked to Graham as if the boy’s statement drained everything out of him. It would be a while before Mark was healthy again, but he could see that he possessed an inner strength and was sure he’d be all right. He heard Macy coming up behind him. After she had put the equipment into the truck, she helped Graham walk Mark over to the cab. He practically lifted the emaciated boy into the seat and Macy stayed with him while Graham locked up the house again.

  When he got back to the truck, Macy held the boy up; he was shaking from the cold. “Why’d they do this to him?” she nearly yelled.

  “We are carriers of the virus, and some are still susceptible to it,” Graham explained.

  “They almost killed me. I could hear them arguing about doing it,” Mark said through chattering teeth.

  “That is the million-dollar question. Why didn’t they? You were a great threat to them,” Graham said as he put the truck in gear and headed back to the cabin.

  They pulled up to the cabin and took the boy inside. Graham watched anger flare in Tala’s dark, expressive eyes as she treated the bloody marks on Mark’s wrists and ankles and expressed anger over his poor treatment. She gave him a glass of water, told him to sip it slowly. When it stayed down, she made him a cup of hot tea. A few minutes later she broke up a couple of leftover biscuits, moistened them, and fed them to him slowly. They sat him by the woodstove and piled extra blankets around him

  Bang went up to him shyly and showed him his bow and arrow. Mark held it, felt the smooth wood, and smiled at the boy. He told him it was good and asked him to show him how to use it sometime.

  Ennis called Graham outside to discuss the situation.

  “What the hell happened to the new stray?” Ennis asked.

  Graham explained in detail about the boy’s delivery and showed Ennis the note with the territory map.

  Both men were breathing hard and angry. The old man had his hands on his hips and scuffed the ground with his boot. “This ain’t right,” he said after a bit.

  “They should’ve killed him, and us too. Why didn’t they?” he asked Graham.

  “I don’t know. They sure as hell have the equipment, and reason enough to do it. Why’d they keep the boy and go to the trouble to seek us out to keep him alive? We carry the virus that with one contact could wipe them out completely.”

  “Do we know where their camp is?”

  “I can only assume it’s somewhere in their territory.” Graham ran a finger around the edge of the map, “They kept the boy blindfolded, so he doesn’t know where their base is.”

  “You think he’s the one that left the bloody handprints at the campground office?” Ennis asked.

  “Yeah, the kid told me the guy he was with shot at one of them, and then they returned fire and killed him. They took him and kept him in a shed all this time, with these low temperatures at night. It’s a wonder he survived without even a blanket.”

  “It just don’t make sense,” Ennis said.

  “I know. For now, I say let’s just get that kid past the hypothermia stage and fatten him up a little. It’s going to snow soon, and getting through the winter might prove to be a bigger enemy than the preppers at this point.”

  Graham started to walk toward the cabin when Ennis called out, “We only have room for this one Graham. No more strays.”

  Graham nodded, then thought to ask, “Who’s on watch?”

  “Me and Marcy.” Ennis shuffled off to his hideout at the entrance in the woods, while Graham pulled out the radios and connected the battery packs, testing them to see if they worked properly.

  Tala kept pouring warm tea into Mark, worrying about dehydration. A bit later she gave him some of the dried venison and told him to eat it slowly. He tried to pull a chunk off with his teeth, winced, then tore it with his fingers into small pieces and chewed it with an expression on his face that made it clear he savored every bit of its sweet taste.

  “When you want to, Mark, the bathroom is this way,” Tala pointed. “I’ve set out some clothing on the counter in there for you. You can take a warm shower if you like.”

  The young man looked at Tala. “Thank you,” he said in a way that showed he truly meant it.

  She could see the pain in his young eyes. Like the other survivors, Mark had suffered deeply, been through and witnessed too many things for a person of his age. For a person of any age, she thought. She stroked his head and, at first reluctant to receive caring of any sort, he pulled away. She murmured softly to him until he relaxed against her, allowing her to hug him. He was sixteen, still just a boy, as her brothers had been.

  “You’re going to be fine here,” Tala said. “We all get along pretty well. You haven’t met Marcy yet. She’s Macy’s twin sister. She’s on watch right now, but she’ll be back here soon.

  Graham came in the front door and the boy started to get up on shaky legs. Graham helped him to the bathroom and, smiling, the boy told him that he could handle it from there.

  “Well, that’s a darn good thing,” said Graham, grinning at Mark.

  “He’s been through a lot,” Tala remarked after the door was closed.

  “Yeah, haven’t we all.” Graham then called to Macy. “Yes?” she answered from the bunkroom, zipping her jacket.

  “We’re up, kiddo,” he said.

  He gave her one of the radios and they first walked out to Ennis’s spot together to try them out. Macy used long strides to keep pace with Graham, crunching the autumn leaves and dry needles underfoot with her brown suede work boots.

  He gave her one of the radios, having left one in the kitchen with Tala, who listened to their conversation from there. Ennis walked up to them and talked about police radio codes; he told them that 10-12 meant people were present and that 10-34 meant trouble at this station, but terms rather than numbered codes came to him more readily when Graham asked about them. Ennis couldn’t remember the code for “all clear,” so they decided that the phrase itself would suffice.

  Marcy greeted her twin happily, admired the radio, quickly learned the code system, and then raced back to the cabin, ravenous for more of Tala’s cooking.

  Inside she warmed her hands by the fire and removed the pistol from the holster Ennis had made for her, placing both on the table by the door. She then removed her coat and hung it on a peg and pulled off her boots and lined them up in their spot within the range of biggest to smallest.

  She turned around to warm her backside in front of the stove. Tala smiled at her from the kitchen. “Is it getting cold out there?” she asked.

  “Yeah, especially when you’re sitting up in a tree for hours freezing your buns off.” Marcy walked into the kitchen to wash her hands. “Do you want me to set the table?”

  “Sure. We’re seven now, so add an extra place,” Tala said.

  “What? Why do we have an extra?” Marcy asked as she pulled the right number of plates out of the cupboard.

  “Didn’t Macy tell you?” Tala asked.

  “No, who is it?”
Marcy asked.

  Mark opened the bathroom door, and warm mist spilled out. Dressed in gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt, he said hi to Marcy, then asked Tala, “Where do I put these?” He was holding a bundle of dirty clothes in one arm and the doorjamb with the other as he swayed, a bit unsteady.

  Marcy put down the dishes and hurried over to help him. Mark acted kind of embarrassed to have her support, but he accepted it. She took the dirty clothes from under his arm, walked him over to a chair at the table, and shot Tala a questioning look.

  “Marcy, meet Mark. Mark, this is Macy’s twin.”

  He stared at her. “Wow! You and your sister . . .”

  “Yeah. I know,” she said. “I’ll take these and put them with the others,” Marcy said.

  “You might want to burn those,” Mark said.

  “Dinner’s almost ready, Mark. Are you hungry?” Tala asked.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Marcy returned to the stack of plates and began laying them out. Mark reached for one to put on his side of the table, trying to help her. Marcy could smell his shampooed hair, still wet from the shower. He looked pale against his bruised cheek, which had shades of deep purple spreading out to green.

  As if her glances made him uncomfortable, he refused to meet Marcy’s eyes. “Tala,” he asked, “is there something I can do to help?”

  “No, you need to rest and get better so that you can help us in lots of other ways later on. There is certainly plenty to do.”

  Tonight they were having pinto beans and rice, like Graham’s mom always made. It was a nice break from all the strange types of meat they’d been eating. Tala managed to make a peach cobbler out of canned peaches as a surprise for after dinner, and though they now ate in shifts, there would be plenty for everyone. With two good meals a day, they were gaining back the weight they’d lost during the chaos. They were also gaining muscle as their work schedule demanded a lot of physical labor that none of them were used to.