Final Dawn: Book 12: Where Could He Be?

by Darrell Maloney

  In the mine they were still grieving for Frank after giving him up for dead.

  It was like living in a bad dream.

  But Sami and Brad had good news to share, and figured it was about time the rest of the group had something to smile about.

  Brad and Sami had been through some very bad times over recent years.

  They hadn’t known each other at all before Saris 7 left its ugly calling card in northeastern China.

  Brad was a friend of Bryan’s, and Mark knew him peripherally.

  Sami was Hannah’s “other best friend” besides Sarah, and didn’t know anyone else in the group other than Hannah.

  But Sami was a sweet girl and won the other girls’ hearts quickly. And she was a beautiful girl as well, so she got lots of attention from the single guys.

  She and Brad became fast friends, and eventually lovers.

  Brad thought he lost her when she was badly wounded two years before. A band of marauders had attacked the compound and she caught a bullet in a gun battle.

  He helped nurse her back to health and by the time she recovered they were hopelessly one.

  She, in turn, almost lost him twice.

  He was taken hostage by two outlaw brothers who snuck into the mine as his truck was pulling in. They got the drop on him and beat him severely.

  He was lucky to have recovered, but the experience didn’t stop him from being reckless.

  While driving a truck on a very icy road he took an unauthorized detour to cut a few miles from his trip.

  That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The drivers did it all the time.

  But Brad did it after dropping his radio on the ice and breaking it.

  He wasn’t able to notify anyone of his new travel plans.

  And after he jack-knifed his rig and slid down an embankment he spent four cold nights in the middle of nowhere, unable to call for help.

  Brad was the one Frank was looking for when Frank went missing himself.

  Some would say Brad led a charmed life for surviving such predicaments.

  Others would say Brad was an idiot for getting himself into such situations. That if he was more careful he wouldn’t find himself up to his ass in alligators.

  Sami?

  She was just glad she still had him.

  The day after Brad was found and returned safely to the mine Sami stood in her RV looking at a calendar.

  She’d missed her last period.

  But it was a very stressful time, what with Cupid 23 bearing down on the earth and having to get the mine prepared for reoccupancy.

  Add to that Brad getting beaten up and lost in the snow just a few days later.

  There’d been other times in her life when she missed a period because she was overly stressed or going through difficult times.

  Still, though, she wanted a baby so badly.

  She jokingly told Brad not long before she not only wanted to have his baby, but that it had to be a boy.

  “Your luck is so bad you likely won’t live very long, so this way I can have Brad Junior to remember you by.”

  She was joking, of course. And when he was taken hostage and beaten just after that she so regretted her words.

  But it was too late to take them back.

  She got a home pregnancy test from Debbie, thinking it didn’t hurt just to check and see.

  Two days before she’d gotten up before Brad to take the test.

  Shortly thereafter she’d plowed into the bedroom and leapt on top of him.

  He was still half awake when he grunted, “Again? Honey, we just did it last night.”

  She feigned a pout, then said, “Well if that’s the way you feel, we don’t ever have to do it again.”

  She got no response. He’d placed a pillow over his head to ward off her advances.

  “Since I’m already pregnant anyway, there’s really no need to.”

  She sat on the bed beside him, watching him to see how long it took to register.

  A full ten seconds later he moved the pillow away from his face and said, “Um… would you say that again? I want to be sure I heard what I think I heard.”

  But she didn’t repeat herself.

  She didn’t have to. The look in her eyes and the smile on her face told him all he needed to know.

  He picked her up and danced around the room with her.

  Then he put her back in bed and made love to her again.

  After they were finished he looked at her and said, “You know, it’s true what they say.”

  “What’s true? And who are they?”

  “When they say a woman is most beautiful when she’s expecting. It’s true.”

  “You big goof. I’m not even showing yet.”

  “Oh, you’re showing. You have a twinkle in your eye that wasn’t there before.

  “Your smile is much more dazzling than it was before.

  “Trust me, baby. I’m the expert on your beauty. And you’re way more beautiful than you were yesterday. And probably not as much as you will be tomorrow.”

  “You’re just nuts.”

  “Nope. I’m just in love.”

  -44-

  It was Sami’s idea.

  “It’s like a funeral out there. We need to do something to liven things up a bit.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” Brad countered. If we stop them from grieving they might view it as a sign of disrespect toward Frank.”

  “I don’t see it that way, honey. I refuse to believe he’s dead. I think he’s alive and well, but doesn’t have access to a radio.”

  “That’s a pipe dream, baby. If he were alive he’d have found a way to get back. Or he’d have found a radio. He wouldn’t just pretend we weren’t out there looking for him.”

  “Don’t be a bonehead, Brad. You say it’s disrespectful to stop grieving prematurely.

  “Well, I say it’s disrespectful to give him up for dead so quickly. That’s like saying we have no faith in him to survive. And I’m the boss of us, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “Oh, you’re the boss of us, huh? Since when?”

  “I’ve always been the boss of us and you know it, buster.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Yes I am. Want me to prove it?”

  He laughed. She was obviously up to something no good, but he had no idea what.

  “Prove it how?”

  “When I insist on having my way and threaten to withhold sex until I get it, you give in to me every single time.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “But if you ever insisted on having your way and threatened to withhold sex until you got it, I’d say fine. Because we both know that Rusty or Joey or Tony would love the chance to be my new boyfriend. And they’d give me my way without withholding anything.”

  The smile left his face.

  She spoke the truth, and they both knew it.

  “And that,” she concluded, “Makes me the boss of us.”

  “But you can’t break up with me and get a new boyfriend, never again.”

  “Oh yeah? Why not?”

  “Because you’re carrying my child.”

  He spoke the truth, and they both knew it.

  “Darn it. I guess we’ll have to both be the boss.”

  “I guess so.”

  “It was more fun when I didn’t have to share bossly responsibilities with you.”

  “Bossly responsibilities?”

  “Yep. It was more fun when there was only one boss and it was me.”

  He smiled.

  “You’re nuts, you know that?”

  “I know. It’s fun.”

  “So, how do you want to do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Put an end to the wake that’s going on out there?”

  She thought for a moment and said, “I saw one of those party balloon kits in the back of one of those Walmart trucks y’all brought in. Bay 24, I think. Do you know which one I’m talking about?”

&nb
sp; “Yes, I think so. I saw it the other day when I was looking for some duct tape.”

  “Do you think you can find it again?”

  “Probably.”

  “What time does Karen and her crew get to the kitchen and start making breakfast?”

  “I don’t know. Probably five o’clock in the morning or so. Why?”

  “Go to the truck and find that balloon kit. Set it on the end of the trailer, and we’ll set our alarm for five a.m.”

  “What are we gonna do?”

  “Hey. I’m the boss of us, remember? Just do as you’re told and let me be the brains of the operation. Capice?”

  -45-

  Karen was just a tad bit sleepier than usual the next morning.

  She’d had her usual two cups of coffee as she showered and dressed in the RV.

  But she was out of her regular coffee and had to drink decaf.

  Yuck.

  Drinking decaf was like going to a gunfight with a slingshot.

  She knew she resembled the traditional Hollywood zombie as she shuffled past the security control desk.

  David greeted her with a cheerful “good morning.”

  Sure, he could say that. Not only did he have access to real coffee all night long, he was getting ready to end his shift and relax.

  The bastard.

  She managed a half-smile and said, “Ugh.”

  It was the best she could do.

  She went through the mine’s dining room and into the spacious kitchen area beyond it, then turned on the lights.

  The coffee pots were prepped the night before, filled with water and ground coffee. All she had to do was flip the switch to turn them on, and she wasted no time in doing so.

  She was the first one to work, which wasn’t unusual. As the person in charge of the kitchen and its operations, she knew she was the one people blamed when the food didn’t pass muster.

  She was, therefore, a micromanager. Most executive chefs are.

  She walked into the walk-in refrigerator to make sure all the vegetables got chopped for omelets the day before. It helped to pre-chop them, because cooking meals for forty-six people at one time was a chore in itself.

  Every little shortcut one could take, any work that could be done ahead of time, certainly helped.

  They were still gathering vegetables from the compound’s greenhouses.

  They’d brought in six huge industrial heaters and ran power from the basement generator to them.

  The same energy which ran all the electrical needs of the big house: the lights, the kitchen, the HVAC system, was all now devoted directly to the heaters.

  They ran twenty four hours a day now, except when Bryan took them down one at a time for maintenance checks.

  Their efforts held the greenhouse temperatures between fifty-five and sixty degrees. Certainly not warm enough to grow any new plants, but that wasn’t their goal.

  Their goal was to keep the vegetables and berries from freezing until they could be picked and used.

  Karen estimated it would be eight weeks before she was able to use up all the tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and squash.

  Once all the fresh vegetables were used up, they’d turn off the heaters and finally let them rest.

  From that point on they’d switch to the jarred vegetables they’d been squirreling away.

  They wouldn’t be quite as good as the fresh veggies. But they’d be healthy and nutritious and would fill the hole in everyone’s bellies.

  On the menu this morning was a veggie omelet, with French toast and hash browns.

  The hash browns were easy. They came from a box.

  For the omelets and French toast she’d need an awful lot of eggs.

  Most people who buy their eggs in a supermarket think they’re refrigerated from the moment the hens lay them.

  But that’s not true at all.

  Chicken eggs are covered with an invisible film which helps protect them from spoilage.

  Farmers and workers at egg-laying operations know they can be kept at room temperature for up to two weeks, as long as the eggs aren’t washed.

  It’s only after they’re washed that they must be kept refrigerated.

  She checked the counter where her egg gatherers had been stacking her eggs for the previous four days.

  She counted eight dozen.

  That should be enough.

  The first of her helpers to come in would be tasked with washing the eggs. The second would be tasked with cracking them into a huge bowl and beating them.

  It was an awesome job, cooking almost identical meals for more than forty people three times a day. But it was a job she loved.

  Her two helpers on this day were Rachel and Stephanie.

  They walked in together.

  “Good morning Karen.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Uh oh. Karen’s out of coffee again.”

  Rachel said, “Want me to make some?”

  “No thank you, dear. I’m working on it. I consider it a life-saving measure this morning. The sooner I get it out there the sooner I can have a cup.

  “Or a dozen.”

  The first of the coffee pots was done, its little red light shining to indicate it was ready.

  She disconnected the cord and carried it into the dining room, where she placed it on a serving table in the corner.

  She took a paper coffee cup from one of several stacks on the end of the same table.

  They used disposable dinnerware as much as possible. It not only helped conserve their water by cutting down on their dishwashing requirements. It also provided plenty of burnable trash in the event they ran low on diesel before the thaw and had to resort to burning trash to cook their food.

  As she stood in front of the coffee pot sipping her coffee, she closed her eyes in a moment of slight ecstasy. The caffeine went straight to her blood and coursed through her veins, waking up every cell in her body that was still half asleep.

  She was a caffeine junkie. She’d be the first to admit it. She wondered if this was the way a heroin user felt on his first fix of the day.

  With her eyes closed and her back to the mine’s main concourse, she didn’t see Sami and Brad stealing past her like thieves in the night.

  -46-

  One by one, the little red lights of the other coffee pots came on.

  One by one, Karen carted them out to the dining room.

  Breakfast wouldn’t be ready for another forty-five minutes to an hour, but the early risers would start stumbling in soon.

  By the time she carried the fourth and final pot she was on her third cup.

  She topped it off and headed back to the kitchen to coordinate the cooking process.

  She wouldn’t be back to the dining room until five-thirty, when she’d check the pots to see if any were empty or close to it.

  While she and her staff busied themselves in the kitchen Sami and Brad were at the back of a Walmart trailer they’d brought into the mine with many others.

  In the last days before the high snow pack brought their gathering efforts to a halt they worked feverishly to gather every bit of supplies they could find.

  Their preferred method of stocking the mine was to bring in trailers and actually unload them, then to take the empty trailers back out and to drop them on the highway.

  They weren’t able to do that in the last days of gathering.

  They didn’t have the luxury of the time it would take to do so.

  Instead they just dropped the trailers and went back out for others.

  Space wasn’t a problem. Most of the bays stretched back into Salt Mountain for half a mile or more. Only the front part of each bay was typically used.

  But the dark part… the part of the bays which wasn’t lighted because there was simply no need for it… provided a lot of space.

  Mark tried to keep a half-hearted count of the trailers they brought in and dropped.

  But he lost count and gave up after awhile.

  Han
nah asked him how many they’d brought in.

  “My best guess is somewhere between eighty and a hundred. But I could be off by as many as a million.”

  In any event, there was an awful amount of cargo available as they needed it, or were ambitious enough to dig through it.

  After they were used to being in the mine again, after they started to fall into regular mine routines again and started getting bored, they’d likely fill their long days by unloading, sorting and inventorying the cargo in the trucks.

  Right now, though, nobody felt up to that.

  The trailers were basically just sitting there, unused and forgotten until David went looking for things to stock their little “Walmart” store, or somebody else needed something bad enough to go searching for it.

  In this case, Sami and Brad didn’t have to search. They knew exactly where the balloon kit was and they went right to it.

  Sami held the flashlight as Brad ripped open the kit and took out a tiny cylinder of helium gas.

  He ripped open a package of multi-colored balloons and another package of pre-cut string in four-foot lengths.

  “Okay, tell me again what we’re looking for, Miss Boss of Us.”

  She smiled and said, “One pink and one blue.”

  He found a blue balloon and set it aside.

  Then he found a red one and set it aside as well.

  “I said pink, dummy. That’s red.”

  “Are you sure? It looks pink to me.”

  “That’s as red as can be. Are you color-blind, or are you just messing with me?”

  “I’d never mess with you. You scare me too much. And I am color-blind.”

  “You are not.”

  “I am, I promise. I never told you that?”

  “Noooo.”

  “Only certain shades. That’s what kept me out of the military.”

  “Seriously? You never told me you tried to join the military.”

  “Right out of high school. I went to the Army recruiter and told him I would only go in if I could be a military policeman.

  My family were pacifists and never had any guns in the house. I’d always wanted to learn to shoot a gun and figured the best way to do that was to join the Army.

  And, I came from a very small town. The job prospects really sucked. We had a factory that made windshields for cars. If you didn’t want to work there you had to bus tables or flip hamburgers. Those were the only options.