Dave returned carrying his backpack. The one he usually carried into trailers he was searching so he could keep his hands free to look for things.
He’d worn it in the trailer where they’d found the pecans and butter-flavored shortening.
But he hadn’t showed them everything he found that day.
That would ruin the surprise.
He said, by way of explanation, “I tried to find some edible chocolate bars. But it was over a hundred degrees in that darned trailer and they were all soup. I picked one up and the bar literally poured out from a hole in the wrapper.
“So we’ll have to do s’mores some other time.
“Today, though, we’ll roast marshmallows and later we can snack on graham crackers.”
He pulled out a large package of jumbo marshmallows.
Each one was the size of Beth’s balled fist.
“They’re a little bit stuck together from the heat,” he said. “But we can pry them apart. And once they’re cooked it won’t matter what they look like. They’ll taste the same.”
Beth’s eyes widened until they matched her huge smile.
Dave said, “Go see if you can find three long sticks, Peanut.
“I’ll stoke the fire and see if I can get it roaring again.”
Before she set out she went to Dave and wrapped her skinny little arms around his neck.
Then she squeezed with all her might.
Which wasn’t much, but he still enjoyed the hug.
“I love you, Daddy.”
“You just love me because I brought you marshmallows.”
She was quick with a comeback.
“Nope. I love you more because you brought me marshmallows. But I already loved you anyways.”
With that she scampered down the bank of the river toward a stand of willow trees.
Sal, once she was out of earshot, asked, “Do you really think she can stay up for ten more hours?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe she’ll be awake at one in the morning, singing her silly songs and keeping us from sleeping.
“But I won’t mind.
“Nor will I. But I’d rather get a good night’s sleep before I meet your wife and have to explain my actions to her.
“Let’s pump her full of sugar, then. That’ll help. And when we notice her start to nod off I’ll take her swimming.
“The cold water will wake her back up again. If we work it right we can wear her out today so she sleeps like a baby tonight.”
Not long after the three shoved marshmallows on the ends of their sticks.
“The secret to a properly toasted marshmallow,” Sal explained, “Is to make it equally golden all the way around. You have to turn it frequently and make sure it doesn’t start to turn brown on any one side.”
Dave looked at Beth, who simply said, “Yuck!”
She plunged her marshmallow directly into the flames and turned it into a tiny, blazing torch.
Then she held it above the fire while it blackened the sugary treat and burned itself out.
Dave exclaimed, “I’m with you, Peanut. Yuck on the golden toastie. I want blackened sticky.”
He plunged his into the fire in the same manner.
“This,” Dave maintained as Sal’s face demonstrated his disgust for what they were doing, “is the only way to roast a marshmallow.”
Beth agreed.
“The best part is getting the gooey all over your fingers and getting to lick them off.”
“Nonsense,” Sal countered. “You’re burning away all the flavor.”
Dave winked at Beth, who smiled broadly.
And they agreed to disagree.
After they’d all had their fill of sugar Dave and Beth walked to the bank and washed their hands in the river water.
Sal didn’t need to.
His hands weren’t sticky.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, Peanut?”
“We should have got them something.”
Dave was at a loss.
“Got who what, honey?”
“When we were at that last trailer… where you got the marshmallows… we should have gone shopping and gotten a nice gift for Mommy. And for Lindsey too, on account of she’d pitch a fit if Mommy got something and she didn’t.”
She looked directly at her father before finishing the comment.
“Because she can be kind of a pain in the ass sometimes.”
“Beth, your sister isn’t a pain in the ass.”
“Seriously, Dad?”
“Well, yes she is sometimes. But she’s your only sister so you have to overlook that.”
“I do. All the time. But we still shoulda got them something.”
“Who says I didn’t?”
Dave was just full of surprises.
Chapter 40
The afternoon passed more or less without incident.
Dave pulled his backpack out a second time and showed Beth and Sal the gifts he’d found for Sarah and Lindsey.
He hadn’t found them in the trailer where he’d spirited away the marshmallows, but rather another trailer a few days before.
Twenty four caret gold bracelets, each with two entwined golden hearts.
One bracelet said “Mother.”
The other said “Daughter.”
“They’re obviously Mother’s Day gifts,” he explained.
“I know Mother’s Day is long past. But remember when the lights all went out a year and a half ago it was coming up. The stores were stocking up for it.
“So even though it’s a Mother’s Day gift it still signifies the love a mother and daughter share.
“I thought it was appropriate.”
Beth smiled.
She approved.
Then Beth, being Beth, turned up her pouty lip just a bit.
“They’ll love them,” she said. “But that leaves me out in the cold. I’ll be the daughter who doesn’t have one.”
Dave looked crestfallen.
But it was an act.
He’d taken a second matching “Daughter” bracelet from another set.
It was still in his backpack.
He’d slip it to Sarah and let her do the honors of placing it on Beth’s wrist.
It was only right she get to share in the fun.
“I’m sorry, Peanut. Would it help if I took you swimming?”
“I suppose…”
Sal sat beneath a red oak tree and watched as the pair frolicked in the water.
When they took a break and joined him for a bit he complained about the heat.
“Then join us, silly,” Beth implored.
“That storm we had a couple of days ago muddied the river, child. I make a habit of never going in water when I can’t see what else is in it,” Sal replied.
That wasn’t good enough for Beth.
“Grandpa Sal, there aren’t any sharks or jellyfish, I promise. They live in the ocean.”
“Wasn’t talking about sharks or jellyfish,” he replied as he took off his boot and well-worn sock.
“I was talking about things that inconsiderate people sometimes throw in the water.”
To stress his point he showed them a very ugly scar on the heel of his right foot.
Beth spoke for both of them when she said, “Eww.”
“This happened when I was twelve years old,” Sal explained.
“I was wading in a lake in western Kentucky and stepped on a broken beer bottle.
“Seventeen stitches.
“And as if that weren’t bad enough, because it happened in lake water I got a severe infection. I almost lost my foot. I was on crutches for weeks.
“Since then my policy has been to only swim when I can see what I’m stepping on.
“Besides,” he said as he winked at Dave from behind Beth’s little head, “Haven’t you ever heard of river monsters?”
She looked at him, obviously not believing in his foolishness.
“What do you think I am, three years
old?”
Dave stepped in to change the subject.
“I don’t know about river monsters, Sal. But I can help you with the heat if you’re willing.”
“How so?”
“Take off your t-shirt and give it to me.”
Sal wasn’t sure what was up, exactly. But he trusted Dave enough to find out.
He took off the black t-shirt he had on and handed it over.
“I’ll be right back,” Dave said and walked over to the river.
He dipped the shirt in the cold river and wrung it out as best he could.
Then he brought it back to Sal.
“This is a trick I learned as a Marine in Iraq.
“The Marines call it ‘desert air conditioning.’
“Now, I have to warn you that it’ll take your breath away at first.
“But you’ll have to trust me when I tell you it’s worth the shock.
“You’ll be as cool as a cucumber for three to four hours until the shirt dries.
“Then you can take it off and do the same thing again.”
Sal held his breath and pulled the shirt over his head.
Dave was right. Compared to the air around him the shirt felt downright icy.
And it did indeed take his breath away.
It did something else too.
Despite the fact the air temperature was in the 90s, he actually shivered.
Then he felt amazingly cool.
“Told you,” Dave said.
He’d made a convert.
“The Marines are pretty smart guys, aren’t they Grandpa Sal?”
“They are indeed, child. They are indeed.”
Sal blew up his air mattress and placed it in the grass beneath the tree.
“I’m going to take a short nap,” he announced.
And that he did, cool as could be.
The heat woke him up three hours later, after his t-shirt dried and no longer cooled him.
He promptly went back to the river bank to repeat the process.
Chapter 41
Beth, of course, was the first to awaken the following morning.
And despite Dave’s best efforts to wear her out the previous day so she’d get a good night’s sleep she slept fitfully.
“It was like back in the old days,” she explained to Dave. “Like on Christmas Eve, I couldn’t sleep because back then I was a stupid little kid who believed in Santa Claus and I wanted to get a peek at him.
“And even if I missed him I knew there would be lots of gifts under the tree for me.
“I mean, who could sleep under those kinds of conditions?
“It was kinda like that.”
Sal went down to the river bank to catch them some fish for breakfast, but Beth had a problem with that.
“I’m not hungry, Daddy. And you shouldn’t be either. Yesterday you ate enough food for an army.
“Can’t we just skip breakfast and get on the road?”
Dave smiled.
Part of her childish charm was not realizing how transparent she was.
“I think you just want to get started so we get there faster.”
“Oh, no! Well… maybe.”
“Honey if we don’t eat breakfast before we go we’re just gonna have to stop to feed you lunch.
“Either way we have to eat.
“And either way it’ll only delay us for a little while.
“Your mom will still be waiting when we get there.
Beth saw a chance to make a deal.
“So… if I stay and eat breakfast, we can keep going through lunch without stopping again?”
“We’ll wait and see if anyone feels hungry at lunch time. But I’m willing to bet that if everyone has a big breakfast no one will be.”
“Can I at least go help Sal fish so we can eat faster? Sal is the slowest fisherman ever.”
“Go ahead. I don’t think he’ll mind. I’ll get the fire started back up again.”
He smiled as he watched her walk away. She was still, in some ways, the precocious little girl he placed on that plane to Kansas City. It was less than two years before, but seemed like forever.
In other ways, he could see the woman inside of her trying to come out.
She was more self-assertive now. More self-confident.
And, it appeared, fearless.
Truth was, Dave was looking forward to seeing Sarah at least as much as she was.
He was tired of traveling.
Tired of pushing his luck and risking death.
He was lonely and wanted his family back.
He walked through the nearby forest and found several fallen and dried tree limbs.
He cracked one into three pieces and headed back.
Along the way he grabbed a large fistful of dried grass he could use as tinder.
By the time Beth and Sal returned from the river with two small perch and two medium sized trout he had a roaring fire and a skillet full of hot oil.
An hour later they were on the road again.
Dave said his usual silent prayer, asking for safe travels and a happy homecoming.
Less than half a mile from their camp they slowly rolled past a sign which said:
ELY – 2 MILES
Beth had a difficult time containing herself and Dave saw a need to help her control her emotions just a bit.
“Calm down, Peanut. We have to be careful now, just as we always have.”
“Meaning what, Dad?”
“Meaning we’re not going to go charging in without checking things out to make sure they’re the same way they were when I left them.”
“But what could go wrong? I mean, you told me all about that bunker thingy they’re in and it sounded like a very safe place.”
“In my estimation it was.
“But you have to understand that things like that bunker are very valuable to people who want one like it and don’t have it.
“I don’t want to worry you honey. I’m just saying that we want to make sure it’s still safe before we go in.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
But she couldn’t hide her disappointment.
As they rolled down the main street of Ely they didn’t cause a stir.
It wasn’t because the citizens of the tiny town were used to seeing horse-drawn pickup trucks.
Rather, it was because the citizens of Ely were mostly dead now or living somewhere else.
They were hit much harder than the rest of the world.
They had to deal with the same power outage as everyone else, and something more.
They were hit hard by the massive prison break.
Many of their friends and neighbors fell victim to bands of escaped convicts who ran roughshod over the town.
The county sheriff and his deputies were no help.
They were the first ones shot.
Some of the residents were murdered.
Others fell victim to suicide.
Still others read the writing on the wall.
Ely was overrun with hardened and bitter criminals and there was no one who could help them.
They left.
Some by horseback, some by bicycle.
A few by foot.
Now Ely, which once boasted almost four hundred residents, was down to fifty one.
And it would never be the same again.
Chapter 42
Now, way more than a year since the blackout and prison break, things had changed a bit.
Most of the escaped convicts were gone now.
Oh, there were a few pockets here and there, but nobody knew exactly how many or where.
It wasn’t like they were going out of their way to make their presence known.
Most of them followed the citizens’ lead and moved on.
Some, like Swain and his men, were killed by angry residents who took offense to the convicts coming in to steal their land and belongings.
None of that helped bring Ely back to its former state.
The type of town where everyone knew and generally liked everyone else.
Now it was just a shell of its former self.
As they drove slowly through the heart of the tiny town Dave’s mind was occupied with a flood of memories.
During his previous visit he’d discovered Karen and Tommy’s farm had been overrun by very bad men.
He never hesitated to go in.
It was what a man does when someone has taken his family.
He was all alone.
But that was okay. As a former combat Marine he was tougher than any ten men he knew.
He did lack the tools he’d need for a prolonged guerilla campaign, though, and that was a problem.
He remembered the day he stopped by the sheriff’s office to ask for help, and how disappointed he was when told the sheriff’s department no longer existed.
“Except for me,” he was told by a little old man occupying a desk in the center of the office.
“My name’s Lenny,” he’d said. “My last name isn’t important. You couldn’t pronounce it and damn sure couldn’t spell it anyway. Just call me Lenny.”
Dave was curious and pressed him for his surname.
“Michelohowitz,” he broke down and said. “It’s kinda half Polish and half Jewish, like me.”
“I’ll call you Lenny,” Dave said.
“Good idea,” Lenny agreed.
Lenny was a retired deputy and the only one left in town with any experience.
He had nothing better to do with his days, so he hung around the office to give passers-by directions and to tell people if they needed law enforcement help to try the state police.
He was willing, but he was crippled and couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him.
Even with glasses.
Now, that wasn’t his fault.
He was eighty one years old.
And as he pointed out to Dave, most people his age were already dead. So even though he moved slowly he was still luckier than most.
Lenny gave Dave a sniper rifle and some dynamite to help him in his guerilla war.
Dave left town so quickly in search of Beth he never had the chance to return the rifle or to thank him.
Now was his second chance, and he didn’t want to pass this one up.
He pulled the horses to a stop in front of the sheriff’s office and set the brake.
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