Sometimes, I would sneak down in the middle of the night to sit with them and Skylar and I would talk until dawn and, at times, do a little more than talk. We never went past second base, I swear. That would have been disrespectful to our parents, and I wasn’t willing to abuse their trust.
By April, the unusually mild winter had already turned into a warm, beautiful spring, and Robin had exciting news to share with us: she was pregnant. Mom wasn’t surprised, as she had been noticing the signs for a few weeks. She estimated that the baby would be born around Christmas, and we were all incredibly excited. Mom and the grandmas immediately began work on clothes and diapers for the baby. We guys decided to make the baby a cradle and we had so much fun building it that we went ahead and made a crib, as well.
Spring is a time for babies on a farm too, and we were knee deep in them: baby chicks, baby goats, a calf, and two foals. It was a happy time for our family.
Chapter 15
One night, in the first week of April, I awoke with a start to the sound of the dogs barking wildly. I sat up in bed, listened a little more carefully and, hearing nothing, lay back down to sleep, my eyes already closed as soon as my head hit the pillow. It is not unusual for our dogs to bark like that at a coyote or a fox, or even a deer that has wandered onto the property. The dogs were more than able to run off any predator before they could get close enough to the chickens to grab a free Happy Meal.
I was quickly falling back into a peaceful slumber when the scream of air horns blasted away any hope of sleep.
You see, Dad and Rick Thomas had rigged up a defense system all around the livestock fences and the silos. Basically, they had run an electric fence around the outside of the fences and on the ladders to the silos, which were powered by the batteries from their tractors, combines, and other machines. When the fence or ladders were touched, they not only gave an electrical shock but also activated air horns, which could be heard from over two miles away. The wire on the fence and the ladders were placed too high for the dogs or any small predators to hit them, so we knew instantly when we were dealing with something larger than a coyote or even the rare visit from a mountain lion.
I raced to my window, which faces east toward the backyard, while pulling on my jeans, boots, and a sweatshirt, and tried to see what was out there. The moon was not quite full, but still bright enough for me to make out the dogs around the base of one of our three silos. They were going absolutely insane, jumping wildly into the air to snap at a figure on the bottom rung of the ladder. It looked like a person to me, but the angle at which it was hanging left some doubt.
I could see the silhouettes of the horses and cows in their paddock, along with the mule and donkey, which were braying and kicking up their heels in a fit of rage. Mules and donkeys make great guard animals for a herd and will effectively scare off any predators or unwanted guests. We had given our other mule and donkey to the Thomas’s to protect their herd.
As I raced down the stairs, I almost collided with Alex and Calvin, and we met Dad at the bottom, who was holding two rifles. Mom was next to him, clutching the shotgun and another rifle. We had another two rifles and a shotgun, which Papa and the others would use to defend the house, if necessary.
As we flew out the back door, Dad said, “Remember, we want to scare ‘em off, not kill ‘em.” He paused and added, “But make every shot count.” We were already on a limited supply of bullets, after all.
The noise outside was unbelievably loud. Besides the air horns blaring and the dogs barking, the mule and donkey were still braying madly, the horses were neighing in terror, and the chickens were squawking their indignation at being so rudely woken up. The dogs backed up to let us at the figure on the ladder, which we could now see was indeed a man hanging from his elbow, unconscious, and shuddering as the electric current still ran through him.
The ladders on our silos started about five feet off the ground, so you had to jump up to grab the first rung; this was to keep kids from climbing them. We were a little surprised that the intruder hadn’t been blown off the ladder from the initial shock, but maybe his elbow had caught him up. At any rate, Dad flipped off the switch he had rigged on the battery and we pulled the guy to the ground. He was still unconscious, but starting to moan and wake up. Dad told me and Calvin to drag him up to the house for Mom to look him over, while he and Alex checked around for other intruders.
“Keep an eye on him, though,” he warned. “Don’t turn your back on him for a second.”
About halfway to the house, the guy started twisting around wildly like a gator in a death roll, trying to get his hands free from our grasp. Mom ran out with a shotgun aimed right at him and said, in a menacing tone that both surprised me and made me proud, “You better just settle down there, young man, before I fill you full of buckshot.”
The guy stopped struggling and looked at her with such a frightened expression that I almost burst out laughing. I could picture Mom in a long, old-west style skirt holding a shotgun over an unfortunate cattle rustler. My amusement didn’t last long, however, because just then we heard the crack of gunfire and a strangled yell. Then men were shouting and I yelled at Calvin to stay with Mom while I ran down toward the field to see what was going on.
As I neared the field, I could see Dad standing guard over Alex, while he sat on the ground, and the dogs were about a quarter of a mile downfield, chasing three people. Ben, our Great Pyrenees/German Shepherd/who-knows-what mix, was rapidly gaining on them, when one turned around and shot him with what appeared to be a pistol. Ben whimpered and fell to the ground while the men scrambled over a fence and ran off, the other two dogs lunging at the fence that they couldn’t quite clear, all the while growling and barking wildly.
I ran after them, stopping only when I reached Ben, who was whimpering softly and lying on his side. I could see a dark stain of what I assumed was blood on his shoulder as I knelt down to examine and comfort him. Calvin came running up then, and I felt a panic rising in me at the sight of him. “Mom!” was all I could get out, but Calvin quickly told me that Papa was with her and they had the guy tied up on the back porch. In the distance I could see Robin kneeling over Alex and, even at this distance, I could hear her crying.
“Is Alex okay?” I asked Calvin.
“Yeah, it just winged his ear. Lots of blood, though. How’s Ben?”
“He’s been shot in the shoulder, I think. Let’s try to carry him back to the house.”
“What about the bad guys?” asked Calvin, with a little tremor in his voice. I couldn’t tell whether it was fear or adrenaline that caused him to sound like that.
“I think they’re gone,” I said, with more than a little doubt in my voice.
The other two dogs had stopped barking and were sniffing Ben worriedly. I petted each in turn to try to calm them down and assure them that he was going to be okay. I also wanted to let them know that they had done a good job, chasing the bad guys away.
Dad came jogging up to us and said, “Is he alright?” to which I repeated that he’d been shot in the shoulder. Dad scooped him up tenderly and began carrying him toward the house, saying, “Watch my back, boys. We don’t want those assholes to sneak up on us.”
Now as I’ve said before, Dad is strong. That dog weighs at least 120 pounds, but Dad was carrying him like he was a little baby, cradled in his arms with his head resting on Dad’s shoulder. Dad wasn’t usually very demonstrative with the dogs, but they shared a quiet devotion to each other that didn’t need to be advertised.
By the time we’d made it back to the house, everyone had gone inside. Mom was putting some kind of herbal antiseptic on Alex’s ear—or I should say, on the notch that was taken out of the top of it. He was holding hands with Robin, who was still sniffling and leaning her head against his other shoulder. The intruder was sitting in one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs near the fire and was looking down at his hands that were tied in front of him. I looked at him curiously. He didn’t look like a bad guy
at all, just a scared, skinny kid about my age. I felt kind of sorry for him, even though his friends had shot my brother and my dog.
Dad laid Ben on the coffee table and sat beside him with his hand on his head to keep him calm. He glanced over at the stranger and said to Mom, “What’s his story?”
Papa was the one to answer him. “He’s just a kid, John. Scared and hungry. Hasn’t said a word, though.”
Dad thought about that for a minute, then said quietly, “Well, let’s give him something to eat.”
Gram smiled, and she and Granny went to the kitchen to find him some food. Gram never liked to see anybody hungry. She always said, “I lived through the Great Depression, and I’ve seen too many hungry people.”
Gram came back carrying a huge plate of ham, home-canned green beans, and homemade bread spread thick with our butter. Granny handed him a glass of milk. At first, it appeared he wasn’t going to take it. He turned his head to the side and I could see the glint of tears on his cheeks in the soft glow of the oil lamp. But the hunger must have gotten the better of him, because he tore into the plate of food with his bound hands. Gram patted his shoulder and I could see a fresh trail of tears spill onto his cheek.
After he’d finished the plateful of food and a second plateful that Gram gave him, he finally looked up at us. “I’m sorry,” was all he could get out before breaking down. He buried his face in his hands while silent sobs made his shoulders quake.
Gram looked at Dad with tears in her own eyes and said, “John, don’t you think we could untie him now? He doesn’t seem like he’s going to hurt us.”
Dad gazed at Ben for a few seconds then said, dejectedly, “Yeah, I guess so.”
I went over to the kid and untied the rope around his wrists. “What’s your name?” I asked him. He looked up at me kind of scared but also grateful and said, “Ben.”
We were all a little taken aback, what with Ben the dog lying there on the coffee table. At the mention of his name, he lifted his head weakly and tried to make his friendly “hello” bark, but it came out sounding a little drunk. I wondered if anybody had mentioned the dog’s name. Maybe the kid was mocking us, but if so, he must be a great actor because he had such a sincere look on his face.
Mom finished bandaging Alex’s ear, and then moved her medicines and her attention to the dog. After feeling around in the wound, during which time the dog lay perfectly still as if he knew that any movement would make it harder for Mom to fix him, Mom smiled and said, “I don’t think it’s too bad. It looks like the bullet just nicked him too. Thank goodness those guys were bad shots.”
Dad smiled too. We all did, and even Ben the kid couldn’t keep his lips from turning up a little at the corners.
Later that evening, after I had given Ben the kid some of my sweat pants and a shirt, since his were all torn and dirty, he started opening up to us. His name was Ben Michaels and he had come up with three other young men from Kansas City. He told us that his parents had both died during that first hard winter after PF Day. When I looked into his eyes, I could tell that he had buried the pain of the memories, but it was there, lurking right under the surface, biding its time before it consumed him. I couldn’t imagine being in his shoes—homeless, an orphan, starving. Any leftover anger I’d had at him for trying to steal our hard-earned grain quickly flew out the window.
Mom must have felt the same way because she said, “Well, you can stay here, Ben. We have a house and a family and plenty of food to eat.”
The tears started again in Ben’s eyes and all he could do was nod his thanks.
“Come on, Ben. You can sleep in my room. I have two beds in there,” I told him, and then led him up to my room. I could tell he was exhausted as he lay on probably the first bed he’d slept on in months, but he must have had a lot to get off his chest, because he talked to me for a long time, telling me the things he had lived through and witnessed in the year and a half since PF Day.
Chapter 16
Ben told me that he had been living with his divorced dad in an apartment in downtown Kansas City when the first CME struck. His mother lived in a suburb north of Kansas City. He had been out foraging some food and water about four months after PF Day when their apartment building caught fire. Ben had come home to find the building ablaze and his dad nowhere to be found.
His body, along with many others, was never recovered. The building had burned completely to the ground, taking parts of the adjacent buildings with it. Ben had spent the next few days trying to get to his mom’s house on foot through deep snow and bitter cold.
Ben had not talked to his mother since before PF Day. In fact, he had not talked to her often since she married his stepfather two years before, as he didn’t get along with his stepfather, but after PF Day, with no phone service, he had had no contact with her at all. He said he had been meaning to visit her to check on her, but since he knew that she had a husband to take care of her and his father had had no one but him, he had never gotten around to it.
When he arrived at her house, his stepfather told him that he should’ve come sooner—his mother had just died from a bad case of influenza that had most likely turned into pneumonia. He had missed seeing her alive by just two days.
Her body was stored in a shed out back with the lawnmower because they couldn’t bury her until the ground thawed. That really creeped me out and when I mentioned it, Ben said it really upset him too, but lots of bodies had to be stored that way until spring.
Heartbroken, he had spent just a few days at his stepfather’s house before setting off in the snow again.
He wandered aimlessly for a while, finding shelter wherever he could—abandoned, burned out buildings, emergency shelters, friends’ houses, even some kind strangers’ houses. He could never stay in one place very long, though, because hunger forced him to leave to find food, and when he came back his place would always be taken by some other homeless person.
Somehow, he made it through the winter, and by spring had begun hanging out with several other homeless young men, all of whom were several years older than he. He had stayed with them even when the power was back on, squatting in vacant houses or buildings until someone came to kick them out. He had no home or family to go to and didn’t even consider going back to school.
“What was the point anyway?” he said, and I have to admit, I understood completely. I mean, I hadn’t seen the point in going back to school and I had a home and a family. And a girlfriend, of course, which was probably the only real reason I had any interest in going back at all.
Ben described the other men he hung with as just unfortunates like him; not mean guys or criminals, just desperate and hungry. Since PF2 Day, they had been working their way north toward Omaha, where one of the men had family whom he thought would take them all in, foraging and stealing on the way. At first they had begged for food and shelter, but they were run off several times by people who didn’t have enough to share or enough trust to take in four wanderers. Ben said he understood their reaction—“You have to take care of your own first,” he said, with little emotion in his voice. After a while, they just found it easier to steal what they could by night. That is, until they came here.
I told him I was sorry he’d gotten hurt, but he said, “No big deal. I had it coming.”
When I asked him about the gun his friend had used to shoot Alex and Ben, he said, “Funny thing is, he had just stolen that pistol from a farmhouse farther down the highway, thinking we could shoot some wild animal if we didn’t find any food soon.”
He explained that none of them knew anything about hunting, growing up in the city like they had, and they also knew very little about guns and shooting. I said that was no surprise and thank goodness too, because they had almost missed their targets altogether. Ben said he was sorry about the shooting. He said he didn’t know why Doug had shot at them—probably he was just freaked out at seeing his buddy (Ben) dangling from that ladder like a corpse from a noose.
Ben ke
pt saying over and over that his buddies were not bad guys, just scared and hungry. He was determined to make me understand, and I was inclined to believe him; the horrors he was describing might drive anyone to desperation.
I asked Ben if he had any other family, and he answered that he had grandparents and an aunt and uncle who lived in New York City. I asked him if he wanted to try to get there eventually, but he said, “Hell, no! I know how bad it is in Kansas City, and I can only imagine how much worse it’d be in New York.”
He then described what life had been like for him when he was in the city. “First, there was the thirst. After the water towers ran dry and every bit of bottled or canned drink was drunk, everyone started drinking out of the creeks and fountains, but that water was pretty much tainted by sewage because the sewer system wasn’t working, and people started dying from horrible stomach diseases—I don’t know what. If you were lucky enough to live by one of the big rivers and you had something to boil the water over, then you were probably gonna make it, but they were too far away for us.
“You’d try to set out buckets and bowls to collect rainwater, then everyone would try to steal the water you had collected and you had to stand out in the freezing cold rain to make sure you got some. But that fall, after PF Day, it didn’t rain much so most of the time you were just thirsty. We were so thirsty that we were thankful for the snow, even though we were freezing, so we could at least melt some to drink.”
I had heard a little about the troubles cities had had getting water and I asked, “Didn’t the army or National Guard bring in water for everyone?”
Ben laughed, but it was a hollow and sad sound. “Yeah, but it wasn’t even close to enough and there were riots every time a truck came in. Everybody was so thirsty…” His voice trailed off as he remembered the ordeal. After a minute he brightened a little and said, “But it was better in the country; at least in the warmer weather, when sleeping under a tree or in somebody’s shed or barn didn’t freeze your junk off. At least we had water. The water in the creeks tastes good and don’t make us sick. Even if it had, I’d a drunk it anyway. I’d rather die puking my guts out and crapping my pants than dying of thirst.”
Teenage Survivalist Series [Books 1-3] Page 10