“The bodies… have they been recovered?”
“Not yet. I didn’t want to do it when Charlotte was there to watch. The problem is, they’re frozen solid in all kinds of positions. Three of them were sitting up and leaning against the van’s windows.
“One sat in the driver’s seat. She had her arms crossed across the steering wheel and her head rested upon her arms.
“The smart move would have been to recover them while we were there. But I didn’t want to put the survivor through that. It was just too macabre a sight to force her to witness.”
“I understand.”
“Knock knock.”
The men looked up to see Tony Allen at the open door to Mayor Al’s office.
Tony was a popular guy, and a man who’d helped Marty several times with various projects.
Marty liked Tony a lot.
He hoped it wasn’t him.
“Come in, Tony,” Mayor Al said warily.
Tony’s smile disappeared when he realized there was absolutely no frivolity in the room.
“Have a seat, Tony,” Al went on. “We’re going to have a meeting as soon as a couple of other guys get here.”
The next man was Rick Ortiz. He was a loner who seldom socialized with anybody. But he had a good head on his shoulders and Marty couldn’t see him making a blunder that would cause the deaths of others.
“Who died?” he said, rather ironically, when he looked into the office and saw all the glum faces.
He immediately regretted his choice of words.
“Have a seat, Rick. We’ll get started in just a minute.”
The last to arrive was Bill Brady. In Marty’s estimation he was a nice enough guy. But he was an ass-kisser, always wanting to better his lot, sometimes at the expense of others.
He looked around the room and saw the solemn look on the other men’s faces. He didn’t say a word, instead merely taking a seat..
“Let’s get this party started,” Al said. “Marty, you have the floor.”
-6-
“The day before yesterday a van load of women approached our gate and asked for help,” Marty began.
“They said they were forced out of the orphanage where they lived by armed men. That they had nowhere to go. They were desperate.
“Instead of giving them help, though, we refused them. They were sent away and seven of them perished.
“The only survivor was the driver, who set out on foot when their van slid into a ditch. She walked twelve miles over fourteen hours. She was close to death, but she made it.
“She described the man who sent them away as wearing a military uniform.”
Richard took over.
“The three of you were the only uniformed members of our group who worked the gate two days ago. Which one of you sent those women away?”
Tony and Rick both shook their heads in denial.
Bill Brady looked at his feet and didn’t say a word.
Marty calmly said, “If I have to I’ll go get the survivor and bring her here so she can point out the man who sent her friends to die.”
He was bluffing. He wouldn’t subject Charlotte to anything else after all she’d already been through.
But he felt Brady needed a nudge to do what was right.
Brady never looked up.
But he did speak.
“I was following orders.”
Mayor Al was incredulous.
“Excuse me? You were following orders from who, exactly?”
“From you, Al. You too, Marty. On the day we all gathered here you called everyone together and went over the rules. You said we were not to let anyone in. You said you didn’t care how sad their stories were. That we’d all worked too hard to prepare this place to run out of provisions by giving them to outsiders.”
His comment hit Marty like a ton of bricks. For as much as he hated to admit it, he was absolutely right.
Brady went on.
“Look. I didn’t want to send them away. I really didn’t.
“But the orders you guys gave were very plain and I was told they were not debatable.
“I convinced myself they’d make it to San Angelo. I mean, they gave me no indication they weren’t capable of making the drive.
“They never said they were having trouble with their vehicle, or that the roads were too bad. Or that they were inexperienced in driving on ice.
“I felt bad for them, but I had my orders and I followed them to the letter.”
Marty thought back to that day a couple of weeks before. When he and Al had given a blanket order to all sentries to send people away.
He remembered all too well feeling bad for those left to fend for themselves on the outside of the prison’s walls.
But at the same time, he remembered feeling he owed no allegiance to the people outside the walls. He owed his allegiance to the people of Eden.
Mayor Al turned pale.
His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, and then tried again.
He said, “My God in heaven, he’s right.”
Richard said, “I bear some responsibility too. I turned that simple statement into policy. I’ve been briefing my guards daily to turn everyone away, regardless of their circumstances.”
It was now apparent Bill Brady wasn’t the only guilty man in the room.
Far from it.
The room fell uncomfortably silent, and justifiably so. Each man was lost in his own thoughts.
Even Tony and Rick felt sick to their stomachs.
Not because they felt any semblance of guilt, for neither was on duty when they came through.
But rather because both of them knew they’d have done exactly the same thing.
Brady put on a look of defiance, as though he had an excuse for his behavior.
Deep down inside, though, he knew he didn’t.
The truth was the faces of those women, pleading with him for shelter and help, had been haunting him.
He didn’t know for sure they’d died until now. But he’d had a pained feeling for the past two days that they were doomed. That there was no one left in Eden to help them. And that the odds of them making their way safely to San Antonio or any other city were slim at best.
Perhaps nonexistent.
Brady hadn’t slept well since sending the women away.
Every soldier knows there are some orders which should be challenged.
In the military any order which violates an existing law is, in effect, an unlawful order.
And every soldier knows that to accept such orders, and to follow them, places himself, the soldier, at legal peril.
This particular order was more gray than black and white.
There was certainly no malice intended when Mayor Al gave the order. No desire to harm others or to break a law.
He’d consulted with Marty and a couple other trusted confidants and it seemed the prudent thing to do.
Prudent, maybe. Humanitarian, no way.
But at the time it made sense.
Any court martial, or civilian court for that matter, would acquit Brady. They’d say the order was legal and lawful and meant to protect the people of Eden from running out of provisions.
But lawful doesn’t always mean right, and each man in the room knew that.
Brady finally spoke.
His voice was no longer defiant, but rather was more a pathetic whimper.
“I didn’t know they were going to die,” he said. “If I did I would have tried to help them in some way.”
Despite his reputation as cocky and self-serving, his sentiment was genuine and heartfelt.
And the others believed him.
Mayor Al asked, “The survivor… what’s her name?”
“Charlotte,” Marty answered.
“And she’ll recover fully?”
“Probably. She’s being treated with antibiotics to keep gangrene from setting in. And she may lose some toes. Probably the biggest thing she’ll suffer from is the psychological dam
age.”
“We can’t bring her friends back. But we’ve got to do something to try to make things right for her.”
Up to that point, Al hadn’t been much of a mayor. He’d only taken the job because nobody else wanted it.
But he was not a leader of men.
Not until today, anyway.
Today he was ready to step up to the plate and do the right thing.
“Richard, I want you to get the word to all our sentries. Tell them to rescind that order immediately. From this moment on our new policy is to greet each visitor warmly. And instead of sending them immediately away, we will assess their needs. We will help them as much as we can.
“And if our assessment is that they cannot survive on their own, we will bring them in with us.”
Richard noticed the transformation. He saw in Al a newborn leader, a man due respect.
“Yes, sir. I’ll make sure the word gets out. Anything else?”
“Yes. Tony and Rick, you’re dismissed, and thanks for coming. The rest of you get your coats and gloves. We’re headed out.”
-7-
An hour later the four of them were in the cab of Marty’s new Peterbilt, dragging an empty trailer north on Highway 87.
The conditions were treacherous.
But no more treacherous for them than for the search teams out looking for Frank.
Marty had been a trucker for many years. More than half his life, in fact.
He knew instinctively that if they didn’t find Frank and bring him home in the next couple of days they wouldn’t bring him home at all.
The roads weren’t far from being buried beneath the snow.
The snowfall was light, but almost constant.
Even light snow tended to accumulate over time if unabated.
And it seemed to show little interest in stopping.
Mayor Al, sitting in the passenger seat of the big rig, was terrified.
It was not unlike walking on ice. Marty was fighting the wheel every inch of the way.
He was having second thoughts about insisting they get out.
“My God, Marty. I had no idea it was this bad.”
“It’s getting worse by the day. It’s just a matter of time now before we all have to shutter ourselves in for the duration.”
Behind them, Richard and Brady shared space on the sleeper’s bunk.
They too were wide-eyed and worried that any minute they were going to end up in a ditch.
But they knew Marty was a professional. He was obviously having a devil of a time controlling the rig, but he took it in stride. It was obvious he’d driven in worse conditions many times.
Or perhaps he was faking his self-confidence to keep the others from freaking out.
Visibility was near zero.
“Watch the shoulder of the road closely,” Marty told the mayor.
“The van is just off the shoulder of the road, it’s white, and we’re in near whiteout conditions. It’ll be hard to spot if you’re not paying close attention. We probably won’t see it until we’re right up on it.”
“How much farther?”
“I’m not sure. But we should be close. I’d say any time now.”
They chugged along at a whopping ten miles an hour for several more minutes.
Then Al said, “There. There it is.”
Marty didn’t lock up the brakes. Even at ten miles an hour, he risked a jackknife by doing so.
Instead he applied his brakes slowly and came to a straight-line stop. Then he backed up until the rear of his trailer was about even with the van.
He applied his hazard lights not because he expected anyone else to come along, but out of habit.
He applied his brakes but left the big tractor running, and turned to the men in the back.
“You guys ready for this?”
Brady said nothing.
Richard said, “Yes.”
It was a lie.
None of them were ready for what they were about to do.
But it had to be done.
“Don’t forget the blankets.”
It was a gruesome chore, and one which would haunt them all for the rest of their lives.
None of them wanted to be here. But collectively, decisions they made cost these women their lives.
They owed them a proper burial.
They placed the blankets atop the snowy highway, spread them out completely and then stacked one upon the other.
One by one they brought the bodies out, lay them upon the stack of blankets, and then wrapped each one.
Then they carried the women to the rear of the trailer and placed them in the back.
Gently, almost tenderly.
As though they could feel it.
It was a gruesome detail, made more so by the fact the bodies were frozen solid, still in the positions they were in when they died.
They went slowly and methodically. Despite the conditions, they mustered as much dignity as they could.
They owed the women that much, anyway.
It took almost an hour.
The project done, they climbed back into the tractor and welcomed the warmth.
Marty put the big tractor into gear and released the brakes, then changed his mind and reapplied them.
He’d forgotten something.
The others were puzzled when he opened his door and stepped down once again to the icy pavement.
A minute later he returned, carrying of all things a teddy bear.
Charlotte told him her friend Rebecca never went to sleep without her bear.
Rebecca was now in an eternal sleep. And Marty would be damned if he’d separate her from her furry friend.
None of them had said a word in over an hour.
And now none of them had anything to say.
Instead, they were lost in a sea of thoughts, each man dealing with his own feelings of guilt.
Of sorrow.
Marty had to drive several more miles just to find a place to turn around.
He pulled into the only service station still open south of San Angelo: a Citgo station just outside the tiny town of Wall.
As he whipped a u-turn in the station’s parking lot the station’s manager was hanging a sign on the front door.
It said:
HEADING HOME
CLOSED UNTIL THE THAW
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON US ALL
-8-
Frank Woodard wasn’t happy. He’d just arrived at the Food World Distribution Center and was convinced it was run by a bunch of circus freaks.
He’d spent the better part of four days on the road, trying his best to get to know captors John and Justin Dwyer. He figured his best chance of avoiding getting shot was convincing them he was human and a fairly likeable guy.
He was still alive, so it must have worked.
Or maybe it was because John Dwyer, the oldest of the brothers and leader of the pack, had his own plans for Frank.
Plans which required Frank to be alive.
John had never been to the massive distribution center. He’d been in prison when the world froze solid the first time.
During the two year thaw between Saris 7 and Cupid 23, little brother Justin had gone looking for him.
It was Justin who filled John in on their new home outside of Plainview.
Overall, Food World’s massive warehouse wasn’t a bad place to ride out a long freeze. It had plenty of everything they needed to survive, and was fortified against attack from marauders.
But there were some not-so-nice things about it as well.
Chores to be done.
Food to gather.
Dogs to clean up after.
Porta-potties to empty and clean.
Stuff nobody wanted to do.
It was actually John who came up with the bright idea to let Frank live after he drove them to Plainview.
Not because John was a kind man.
And certainly not to show his appreciation to Frank for getting them there safel
y.
No, it was because John wanted to play the hero for his collective family by bringing them some relief for all the nasty things they didn’t like doing.
His plan was to keep Frank alive.
As a slave.
Frank saw his new role as something he didn’t particularly want to do. But he couldn’t argue the fact that being a live slave was better than being a dead… anything.
So he willingly went along with it.
He pretended to relish his new role.
He did whatever he was told to do, and did it well.
He even went out of his way to do more than was asked of him.
Meanwhile he plotted and planned his chances to escape.
The Dwyer family was a motley crew at best.
Justin, on the long trip, had filled him in on a troubling family legacy.
The problems dated back to 1907, when Grandpa Bud Dwyer murdered the Hale County sheriff and was hanged in the courthouse square.
An indelible stench was placed on the family name and from that point on the Dwyers were more likely to go to prison than graduate from high school.
The first Dwyer ever to cross the stage to get his diploma from college was shot dead in a drug deal two weeks later.
The second college graduate was sent to prison for life.
The third and last one, a woman named Josie, was there in the center with them.
It wasn’t a stretch to say this was a family who wasn’t destined for great things.
It could also be said that capturing a prize as grand as the Food World Distribution Center was probably the greatest thing they’d ever accomplished.
The center was coveted by many other gangs, as well as bands of marauders.
Several had tried their luck at taking the place from them, but had been driven back.
The problem was there was no way to tell how many people were in the center, or how well armed they might be.
Each time a rival faction attempted an assault, bullets came flying from within the structure.
And each time, the rival faction was repelled.
If they’d known the interior of the building was occupied by a handful of freaks and clowns they might have tried harder. But for all they knew there was a well-armed militia inside of a hundred men or more.
The Dwyers were able to keep their prize, therefore, through the long freeze Saris 7 brought with it.
Final Dawn: Book 12: Where Could He Be? Page 3