“We’re not going to hurt you, ma’am” he assured her as gently as he could. But let’s get everyone out of your car and get it away from the truck. He then stood up. “Quit aiming those damn things and get over here,” he said to his kids. “We got children in the car.”
All three holstered their guns as they quickly ran up to help. “No more drama, huh, dad?” Randy asked. Before Jerry could respond, added “I know, shut up, boy.”
It took them all a little while to get everyone calmed down and make sure no one was injured. Jerry found out the woman, Tia, was the wife of an Army major stationed at Ft. McClellan over by Gadsden. He’d died along with everyone else on the Army base and she was driving back to Reno where she hoped to find her family.
She’d stayed on the base for three weeks after everyone else had died, not knowing why she and her 12-year-old son, John and eight-year-old daughter, Hannah, had survived. She’d decided yesterday that they would drive to Reno and had made it this far last night when she pulled off the interstate and found a church for them to sleep in.
They hadn’t seen any vigilantes nor heard about the not-deads, but Tia was a religious woman and felt the Baptist Church was a safe place for her and her kids. They had just packed up and were going to look for a gas station or another car when she pulled out and hit Jerry’s truck. “I just didn’t think there’s be anyone around,” she told them.
Randy was talking with John who was not crying, Eddie was playing with the big dog and a tree branch while Monica was sitting on the side of the road with the little girl named Hannah.
Jerry explained what they knew about the world, the vigilantes and the not-dead, and the chances of Tia and her kids making it to Reno. Tia didn’t break down like he thought she might. She just ran her fingers through her hair and looked around. “Well, there’s a storm coming, so if you’ll help me, we’ll find another car and then be on our way to find some shelter.”
“We won’t stop you ma’am, but we have a place not far from here where you and your kids and dog are welcome to stay.” Suspicious, Tia almost declined until she heard Kellie call on the radio. “I hope you picked up some more clothes while you were out,” Tia heard the woman say. “I’m tired of wearing flannel.”
Mike picked up the microphone and filled her in on the accident. Tia heard Kellie’s response. “Well bring the poor dear and her kids here and stop screwing around. There’s a lot of work to be done and little time.”
“Who’s she?” asked Tia.
“Someone like you we picked up about three weeks ago. A teacher,” Jerry explained. “And a garden weeder.”
Tia smiled for the first time.
Jerry, Mike and Tia looked over the car. “You won’t be driving this anymore,” Mike said.
“I think I’ll take you up on your offer, Jerry,” Tia said, looking at her kids as they talked with Monica and Randy.
Tia and Hannah were packed into the back of the truck while John wanted to ride with Randy in the Escalade with his new friends and Boomer. They got all the clothes out of the car and some food Tia had brought along, including two 50-pound bags of dog food for Boomer. Tia lifted one by herself and Jerry grunted just a little when he grabbed the other.
Packed up, they left Tia’s car where it had died and headed back to the shelter.
Driving through Moody, everyone kept a look out and Randy was surprised when his dad pulled over in a big parking lot of a strip mall that looked mostly ransacked. Jerry got out of the truck and motioned for Monica to get out of the Escalade.
“I almost forgot to get clothes for you girls,” he said to her. “Do you think you can find what you need over there in that store there?” he said pointing to a clothing retail outlet that had the front windows shattered and doors off.
Monica smiled and just asked for covering fire while she shopped.
Jerry, Mike and Tia all armed themselves while the two adolescents stayed in the vehicles. They stood guard while Monica loaded Eddie and Randy up with clothes for the women and made them carry the clothing to the rear hatch of the SUV. Someone heard Randy say “get this bra off my head” at least once and Eddie ask “Seriously, you wear that size?” followed by a head slap.
It took all of 10 minutes to load up everything Monica could find that she thought those living in the shelter might need and the troop got back on the road.
They arrived at the shelter with the three new people just in time for Kellie to serve them leftover stew for lunch. They all recounted their experiences to Kellie and she listened to every word, smiling at the right places, showing concern and consternation when appropriate. She was the perfect hostess and made sure Tia and her two children felt comfortable.
After the lunch, Jerry suggested jobs to everyone. Mike, Kellie, Tia and her two kids would unload the Escalade while he, Randy and Eddie would unload the truck and trailers and start boarding up the garage and barns in preparation for the heavy weather that was coming.
The winds picked up through the afternoon. Everyone worked hard and as night began to fall jobs that had to be completed outside were finished with flashlights.
The first rains began falling around midnight.
Everyone found a place to sit in the overcrowded living room or in the dining room area. It was more crowded now and Jerry reviewed everything that had gone on during the day. He talked about their mistakes, his included, how they could avoid them in the future and what the storm damage would probably be like on the farm. Mike made some additions and handed out complements to Eddie, Randy and Monica for their quick thinking that day.
Everyone could hear the storm winds picking up outside. Jerry reminded them the shelter, built into a hill, was safe and everyone believed him. But that didn’t stop them from thinking about the barns and garage and fields and anyone else who hadn’t found a shelter as secure as theirs.
When Mike said he was going to bed, Kellie told everyone of the new sleeping arrangements. Tia and her two kids would be sleeping in the room she and Monica had been in. Monica had volunteered to stay in the living room with Tony. Now that he had a splint on his ankle and drugs for the pain, she wanted to stay with him to make sure she’d medicated him right and had already gotten an inflatable bed and put it on the floor.
Mike, who snored rather loudly, had volunteered to sleep in the cellar. “Now you volunteer to sleep in the cellar, old man? Why didn’t you think of that three weeks ago?” Eddie asked and tossed a pillow at the elderly black man. Mike caught it and smiled. He then shrugged and replied mildly, “You didn’t either, and you’re smarter than me.”
“We’ve done all we can,” Jerry said, breaking up the emerging pillow fight before it could start. “Why don’t we all get some sleep if we can? I know I’m beat.” Everyone seemed to agree, but no one moved right away. They all listened to the winds outside, muffled from the amount of earth that protected them, but loud enough to let them know nature was still alive.
It was Tia who moved first, gathering up her kids and Boomer was let outside to do his business. Jerry patted the dog as the animal walked by and Boomer wagged his tail, hitting everyone within reach.
In response, Molly, on Kellie’s lap, lifted her head, and then put it back down. To her, Boomer was just another one of Kellie’s friends.
The boys and Mike went next, the two younger up the stairs and the one elder to the cellar. Jerry made sure the front doors were locked tight when Boomer returned to the shelter. He went to his room while Kellie checked to make sure Monica and Tony were comfortable, everything in the kitchen was turned off, and the three new guests had blankets and pillow and everything else they needed for the night.
Jerry would have liked a shower before bed, but he had put in 18 long hours and was as tired as he’d ever been. He stripped to his boxers and crawled into bed, barely noticing a pile of clothes Monica had picked up at the fashion store were now on his floor in a corner.
He’d just closed his eyes and was nearly asleep when his door cr
eaked open. Molly came in followed quietly by Kellie. “Shhh,” she whispered to the dog as she used a pen light to navigate around the room. Not coming fully awake, Jerry realized Kellie had never said where she’d be sleeping, now that Tia and her two kids had taken over the girls’ room.
Now he knew.
Kellie slipped off her flannel shirt and bra, and took off the new pair of jeans Monica had found for her and crawled into bed, the one Jeff had been sleeping in. They had been arranged to make room for the clothes they’d picked up and also so both people in the room could use the same lamp with which to read.
The heads of both beds touched at the corner, with Jerry’s going down the length of the back wall and the other along the wall on which the door was hung.
All the space in the room was used.
Kellie turned her penlight off after Molly had gotten herself comfortable and the room went totally dark except the red glow from the digital clock on the shelf by the door. Jerry felt Kellie’s hand stroke his head and he reached for it. “Good night, Jerry,” she whispered. Still holding her hand, he fell asleep before he could wish her the same.
~ ~ ~
Morning came with rolling thunder that shook all of them. It was still very dark in his room when the rumble woke him. The digital clock on the wall was out and the light between the beds refused to turn on. He heard Kellie getting out of bed too and was happy with the total darkness for the moment.
Jerry reached for his pants and pulled them on. He had a penlight on the keychain he carried and turned it on to locate his shirt and work boots. Kellie was sitting on her bed hurriedly trying to locate her clothes too and Jerry noticed, but just briefly, because something loud was happening downstairs.
He could hear crashes and voices that sounded like Monica and Tony. He heard the wind outside their shelter and by the sounds of it the storm was hitting them hard. Using the light from Jerry’s penlight, Kellie was able to find her pants and a tee shirt in the pile of clothes. Jerry tried not to look like he was looking, focusing instead on pulling on his boots the rest of the way on, but he had to admit to himself, she was an attractive woman.
“You going to be okay?” he asked as he was leaving the room, making sure to not direct his light at her eyes. “Sure, go,” she said, waving him out. “I’ll be there in a second.”
He rushed out of the room, making sure to close the door to keep Molly from following him. He passed Tia’s room just as she opened the door to look out. He heard her kids asking questions and told them things were okay and that he was going to check on what the noises were.
Looking down the spiral stairway with his light, he saw Tony on the couch looking to where Monica was by the front doors. He saw the doors must have been blown open and she was trying to find a way to keep them closed in the feeble light put out by Tony’s small flashlight.
Jerry grabbed the big flashlight he kept on top of the bookshelf and turned it on. A bright blue light filled the foyer as 32 LED bulbs lit up. He rushed to the doors and leaned against them with Kellie to keep them closed. Kellie took the flashlight from his hand and stepped back to give the two a better view of what they were doing. The doors were closed again, but the locks were broken. The door stayed closed for the moment and Jerry and Monica stood back.
They could hear the ferocity of the winds outside and the rain pelting the doors.
“Wow,” Monica said, still standing by the doors in her underwear. “That wind is strong, Mr. Saunders.” Kellie brought Monica, who didn’t realize she was still standing in her underwear in the reflected light of the flashlight, a blanket to cover herself. Mike opened the door from the cellar and shined his light on the group.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“The doors blew in. Broke the locks top and bottom. Must be something hit ‘em hard because the wind shouldn’t be able to do that,” Jerry said. He heard Tia and her kids at the top of the stairs, but Randy and Eddie hadn’t even stirred yet.
Kellie was shining the light on the doors, looking at where they had been damaged when they flew open again. Hard horizontal and stinging rain and wind came through the door and she dropped the flashlight to cover her face as she and Jerry rushed to close them again. Monica and Mike also helped push against the doors to keep them shut.
“Randy! Get down here!” Jerry hollered as water cascaded over the four and wind battered against the double doors. Randy and Eddie were both on the stairway in seconds, both in their underwear but they didn’t care. They saw what was happening and rushed down to help Jerry and the others. Eddie grabbed two chairs and wedged them against the door handles while Randy put his not inconsiderable weight into keeping the doors shut.
The wind still howled but the amount of water coming through the doors was significantly lessened. Jerry’s luck or foresight, he didn’t remember which, had been to make the entryway to the shelter slope away from the inside of the shelter. The water that came through the cracks in the door frame didn’t flow into the room, but it was easily three inches deep by the door.
One by one everyone moved away from the doors. Randy was the last to move and he did so gingerly, making sure they were going to stay shut. Everyone watched for two full minutes before anyone moved too far from the door. They were all soaked, but no one wanted the doors to come open again.
Mike broke the silence. “Power’s out too, I see.”
Jerry accepted the flashlight from Kellie and walked over to a grey box on the wall. He lifted the latch and opened the front cover. “Yup,” he said. “It looks like we blew the main breakers.
“When I built this place and put in the electricity, I only knew half of what I was doing, but if the water wheel down at the river or the wind turbines got to giving the batteries too much juice, the main breaker would shut down.
“I never thought it would work, but it did just like I hoped it would.”
He switched the breaker back on and every light that someone had tried to turn on in the darkness came on.
“Sweet,” Eddie said, removing a lot of the tension from the room. There was a lot of water on the floor and Mike and Jerry started mopping it up, being more fully clothed than anyone else. The others were deciding it might be a good idea to get into some dry clothes. Tia and her kids, who had remained out of the way, came down to the foyer to help. They joined everyone and it was little Hannah who said something that only the innocence of youth can get away with. In a stage whisper, so her mom could hear her over the noise coming from outside she said, “Mommy, that lady’s shirt is sticking to her boobs.”
Everyone looked and saw that Kellie’s tee shirt had in fact gotten wet and everyone could easily see the gifts with which God had given her. Tia shushed the little girl and smiled apologetically at Kellie. Kellie took it in stride and gratefully accepted the kitchen towel Jerry was handing to her. He was seeing the same things as Hannah had seen when the lights came back on and had the chivalry to avoid staring. Eddie and Randy, he noticed, did not. They raced back up the steps as they were still in their underwear and needed to hide.
“Uh, yeah,” Jerry said to no one. “Let’s get out of these wet clothes. Anyone know what time it is?”
“It’s Oh-Six-Fifty-Two, sir,” John said looking at his watch. Jerry could tell he was an Army child.
“I guess we’re all awake for the morning,” he said, using a towel to dry his head and face. “If the doors stay shut we’ll have to just find ways to keep ourselves occupied while the storm moves through.”
“With the power back on,” Randy said, emerging from his room wearing jeans and a tee shirt, “We’ve got games in our room the kids can play.” John and Hannah looked at their mom and she nodded they could. Randy asked for a few minutes before the kids were allowed in so Eddie could finish putting clothes on.
Monica said she would grab a movie for herself, Mike and Tony to watch and Tia said if no one minded, she’d only had an hour of sleep and she really could use some more. No one minded.
&
nbsp; Mike declined the offer, saying he was going to finish the book he was reading in the cellar.
Monica was heard, as she picked up a pair of men’s underwear from a pile under the spiral stairway, say to Eddie as he emerged from his room to gather up John and Hannah “Seriously, you wear that size?” Jerry chose to ignore them and started looking at the power levels of the batteries which stored the power from the wind mills and water wheel generators. He heard Kellie go up the stairs to change as well.
His shirt was soaked, pants were wet and shoes made squishing noises. There was no way he was going to mess with the electricity in the shelter with this much water on him. He checked the door again and used his towel to tie the two handles together, just in case the chairs slipped. They were as secure as he could make them for now so he went to change into some dry clothes.
Forgetting that he had a new roommate he walked in on Kellie changing into dry clothes. He slapped his hand across his eyes and backed out as fast as he could, apologizing repeatedly for intruding. He stood in the narrow hall until she came back out, embarrassed about what had just happened. She opened the door a minute later, fully dressed and pulled Jerry into the room. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t even think to lock the door. I thought you were going to work on the electrical stuff. But thank you for being a gentleman,” and she kissed him that kiss he had enjoyed so much two nights ago. “I’ll put coffee on,” she said as she left the room.
Jerry locked the door after she left. He didn’t want anyone walking in on him.
The storm raged.
Chapter 5
J erry spent the day shoring up the front doors and checking the electrical systems in the house with Mike. Tia slept until noon and came down to have lunch with everyone. Her kids, who played games with Randy and Eddie for an hour before going back to sleep with their mom, came out of the room around 10 in the morning, wiping sleep from their eyes asking for breakfast.
Tony watched two of the movies found the previous day and played with the CB radio while Kellie and Monica organized and sorted through some of the bounty that had been brought in.
Hell Happened Page 12