Red Death (Book 2): Survivors

by Robinson, D. L.

  Meyers waited, trying to resume a neutral expression. His heart had stopped racing, fight or flight response settling into “listen” mode.

  “Good men, discrete men such as yourself, have much to gain in this new world. They have the opportunity to do things never done, to rise to heights of wealth and power never seen.” He paused. “I have all the wealth I can ever use, but you may find this camp quite lucrative.”

  Meyers listened as the colonel put forth his scheme to use recovered Ebola patients for plasma donors, to create even more donors, and to sell the plasma to the highest bidders—to the truly wealthy survivors. It was the only sure hope for cure for most Ebola sufferers, and they would pay whatever necessary to procure it.

  Meyers’s head spun with the possibilities. The colonel asked only one other question: Could Meyers look the other way while the colonel performed his God-awful experiments?

  Meyers’s distaste at what he’d seen there in the barracks was tinged with fear. The man is insane but I’m going to be rich. He had answered him in the affirmative, and the rest was history. Everything had been going swimmingly until the Resistance, those women, and the old man got involved.

  Meyers’s thoughts jerked back to the present, and his mouth turned down in an automatic grimace. Now he owed the colonel even more for getting him out of the brig. Executing the general was only part of Meyers’s side of this new bargain. The colonel wanted the rest of them taken care of too. But the dignity of a bullet wasn’t good enough, according to the colonel. For him, it was personal.

  Meyers’s lips pressed into a grim line. At least he was only required to facilitate the meeting between those others and the colonel. He didn’t want to think about what would happen to them after that. He didn’t want to be involved really. Let others do the dirty work.

  After that, maybe I can get back to business.

  Chapter 13

  Mary and Tara pedaled to Clyde’s house, the strawberries unloaded and Tara’s bike cart full of cleaning supplies lumbering along behind her. They’d left Lee and Luke eating berries and Julie pink and covered with ointment. Luke had taken her in after an hour and smeared her head to toe. Now it was only left to see whether it worked.

  The women were both quieter than usual, thinking about what Bonnie and Dave Collins had revealed about the Brenner/Morgan family dynamics. Now, between the two of them and Meyers, Tara’s suspicions had coalesced, her earlier gut feelings seemed confirmed. Just after the women parked their bikes at Clyde’s, an ancient diesel pickup came rattling down the alley.

  “It’s Chester! I wonder what’s up?” Tara walked out to the pavement, as the old man leaned out the window.

  “Norma sent you a present—well, three presents I guess,” he laughed as he climbed out, slamming the door behind him. He walked around to the bed of the old truck and leaned into it. Puzzled, Tara approached. Chester lifted something out—it was black and white, fairly small.

  “Dear God, it’s a baby goat!” squealed Tara. Chester belly-laughed at her reaction, but Tara was beside herself. She took the tiny creature from him, cradling it in her arms. It bleated, and she almost burst into tears.

  “Oh Chester, I love him!” Tara rocked back and forth holding the baby as Mary came over.

  “It’s a girl, Tara, a Nigerian Dwarf. We’ll breed her in the spring so she will produce next year. You’ll be able to have goat’s milk and make butter. There’s something else in the truck.” The old man walked over and lifted out a small cage with two peeps in it. “And eggs,” he finished.

  “Oh Chester, how can we ever thank you? This will change our lives!”

  “Well, we knew you guys were our first choice to spread some of the livestock around. But you must watch them carefully, like I said, so many of our stock were stolen, it’s not safe to leave them out all night.”

  “That’s absolutely not a problem, we’ll make a pen inside and out for them both, for night and day.”

  “Thank you, Chester, and thank Norma too,” Mary told him gratefully.

  “It’s okay, ladies, all we ask is you grow your flock and give some peeps to others. When your goat gets a little older, we can mate her and get you started on your own herd there too.”

  Tara was staring at the small animal, petting its head, and she could feel her face about to crack from the gigantic smile it brought. They waved goodbye to Chester, and Tara told him he’d have strawberry shortcake very soon. He liked the sound of that. The old, rusty sounding horn beeped at them as he drove away.

  “Oh Mary, wow, this changes things,” Tara breathed.

  Mary nodded. “They’ll have to teach us how to make butter. I wonder how long before the peeps can lay eggs?”

  “I think it’s usually between five and six months. It’ll be here before we know it.”

  Tara set the baby goat down. It immediately began munching on some clover. She held it by the leash Chester had attached to its collar, like a dog. “Let’s hook her to the bench where we can keep an eye on her out the window while we clean.”

  Tara was rejuvenated, so excited by the possibilities now that they would have milk and eggs at their fingertips. Norma had told her during their visit that their doe gave a gallon of milk per day. That was literally lifesaving.

  They cleaned the house top to bottom until it sparkled, Tara and Mary both keeping an eye on the small animal tethered just outside the door. The peeps too were in their cage beside the stoop.

  Clyde being elderly, Tara imagined he hadn’t done this kind of deep cleaning for many years. They wore their masks and gloves most of the time, until the heat became too unbearable, then they took turns going outside for air and petting the baby goat.

  “I’m going to name her Elvira, after Clyde’s neighbor, Mrs. Baines. He’d get a kick out of that.” Mary agreed he would.

  Tara wondered whether it mattered so much how well they cleaned, since Julie had the same thing Clyde died of. They hadn’t caught it from him yet. Not wanting to take any chances, she did it anyway, making as sterile an environment for the young couple as she could. Finally, the job was done except for the basement.

  “Let’s finish the basement tomorrow, Mary, I am whipped. The strawberry harvest did me in. And I don’t know about watch tonight either. Let’s see if someone else can take our shift, we can trade with them and go tomorrow night, after dinner with Jake. I want to show Lee what Chester and Norma gave us!”

  “That sounds good to me. I need to check my patients at the camp anyway, so I’ll let Craig know. Jenny will still be going on watch tonight, and maybe Craig can get Dave Collins to take our slot.”

  Mary headed off to the camp while Tara decided to round up the cleaning supplies and take them to the basement so they’d be all ready to start tomorrow. After a quick peek down the narrow steps, she decided to light Clyde’s lantern first— there were only a few small windows in the old foundation, and it was dim down there. She was distracted and anxious to spend time with her new pets.

  As Tara descended the stairs, the cold basement air hit her face. It was wonderful. It must be twenty degrees cooler down here. They sure don’t make ‘em like they used to, when people used these root cellars for storage. At this thought, Tara wondered if Clyde had any food stored in one of the smaller rooms. She peered around the space, holding the lantern high.

  There was an old workbench with a vice attached to one end, garden tools, odds and ends, and across the room, a small wooden door. Tara opened it and immediately saw shelves lining one wall, with a few mason jars on them. She had hoped for food, but realized she had been feeding Clyde for quite some time now. The jars were covered with dust—all except one. Tara moved closer, inspecting the bottle that appeared new, the label appearing familiar. Old Town Winery. Clyde must’ve liked wine. The bottle was half gone.

  A tingle ran up her spine, and for a moment a niggling doubt formed in her mind and was gone. Tara stood thinking, exhausted from her day, excited about the animals, but trying to grasp
what it meant. She gave up and headed home with her new gifts of life in tow.

  ~

  Tara slept like the dead and dreamed of Clyde. He was trying to tell her something, but when he opened his mouth, fibers came out in long squiggling strands. Sheer exhaustion from harvesting strawberries and cleaning Clyde’s house had left her bone weary, but apparently prone to nightmares. She woke with her little live presents from Norma on her mind, and ran to the basement first thing to untether the baby goat and tie her outside. Hopefully, Lee was already ahead of her on getting a pen made. He had been just as shocked and pleased with the Heinrich’s presents as Tara was. Tara found him outside, weeding the garden. It looked difficult, trying to balance himself with his bad leg.

  Tara ran through her to-do list. Today she had to manage the animals, check on Julie and make sure they laid her in the sun, make spinach pies and strawberry shortcake for dinner tonight since Jake was coming, finish Clyde’s basement and go on watch. Unreal, I’m too old for this.

  ~

  Jake O’Donnell rolled the large wine barrel into place and finished restocking all the vino-related tchotchkes for sale in the Old Town Winery lobby and tasting room. Ever since the party and Grand Re-Opening, a steady stream of survivors had frequented the place and his boss was pleased. Mr. Brenner recently made a deal with the camp to rent their trucks to deliver wine to military bases and other survivor outposts, so it looked like the winery was going to be a success. Jake thought Mr. Brenner might be one of the few vintners left in the entire world.

  Jake took his job personally, priding himself on providing a clean, fully functional experience for their guests. He checked the huge wheels of ripened cheese the business had purchased before Ebola hit. They had been cut and served to the party guests, but that had barely put a dent in them. Still plenty left. Finally, he scanned all the stemware lined up on the shelf over the bar; pristine and sparkling in the lantern light. He just had to refill one lantern from the five gallon kerosene pails stacked outside the office door.

  Jake stood hands on hips surveying the results of his hard work. The daily chores were nearly finished, and he decided to go into the pressing room to let someone know. He opened the door and started down the corridor of the attached tan brick building, quietly entering the large space filled with gleaming steel. Carrying the lantern and weaving between the huge vats, Jake searched among them for someone to report to. He stopped as movement in the barrel room to the left caught his eye. Jake approached, and saw Mr. Brenner staring lovingly at the wooden kegs. He looked up at Jake with an odd expression on his face.

  “These are the special grapes,” he said, patting the French Oak storage barrels.

  Jake smiled and nodded. “Delicious, I’m sure.”

  “Much more than just delicious, Jake—they’re the perfect product of modern science. Genetically Modified Organism’s, bred with an Agrobacterium and resistant to mold and rot—new grapes in a new world.”

  Jake didn’t understand much about grapes, but he’d heard of GMO’s. Before Ebola, there was a lot of protest against food being messed with in any sort of genetic modification. He assumed there was no one left to care now. “That sounds like it would be a good thing.”

  “A most fitting thing, Jake. The last for the last.”

  Puzzled, Jake didn’t know how to respond and let that go by. The boss was a little strange sometimes. Changing the subject, he reported his progress, filled the lantern, and headed back to the big barn. A stairway in the rear led to his small loft room. He lay down on his cot, his boss’s strange words playing over and over in his head. The last for the last--what the hell does that even mean?

  ~

  Brenner’s words stayed with Jake and he woke with them in his head the next morning. He had been invited to dinner at Tara’s again tonight and he wanted to take some more wine. Jake went to the storage building for a bottle and found his boss there, doing some minor work in the French Oak barrel section. Stacks and stacks of bottles were stored right beside them.

  “Good morning! I would like to take a bottle to dinner tonight at Tara and Lee’s house, if that’s alright.” He knew it was; the boss had already told him to help himself to promote the wine. Jake reached for one of the bottles and Brenner stopped him, laying one hand on his.

  “Not this batch. Not yet.” He walked across the room to the other side where a much smaller stack of wine waited. “These are for your consumption alone.”

  Puzzled, Jake nodded and took the bottle he held out, thanking him. “I’ll be helping Morgan in the vineyards today,” he informed Brenner. As he left the building and walked back into the wine tasting room, a building discomfort grew and expanded in his chest. His mind searched and found the snippets of strange dialogue, the troubling clues he hadn’t wanted to see and finally the pieces all fell together. There’s something bad in the wine.

  ~

  Mary came over to help with dinner, although Luke stayed home with Julie and Ben. The spinach pies were baking on the pot-bellied stove in the basement and they smelled delicious all the way up in the kitchen. Mary ooh’d and ahh’d over the huge bowl of strawberries and sugar, which Tara had sliced and mixed with a little water to make a nice syrup. Mary spooned out a mouthful, shoveled it in, and closed her eyes in food ecstasy. “Divine,” she announced.

  Tara had experimented with making an egg-free-milk-free-margarine-free-shortcake with varying results. Finally, with a cup and a half of flour, a quarter cup of sugar, two and a half teaspoons of baking powder and a bit of salt, she’d added oil and water in small amounts until it looked to be the right consistency. She ladled good sized dollops out on a baking sheet and carried them down. They had just brought Elvira in to the basement for the night, and Tara couldn’t help but pet her head where she lay tethered on her pile of bedding. Tara gently removed a corner of a blanket from her mouth; Elvira was busy chewing it to shreds. In the center of the room stood a pen Lee was building out of some leftover wire and garden fencing. He’d told Tara it would be done tomorrow.

  Back upstairs, Mary was assembling the salad again, and still stealing bites of strawberries as she chopped green onions, lettuce, and radishes. “We need to go back and harvest more berries, they’re just too good to let go to waste.”

  “Stop,” Tara laughed, “There won’t be enough left for dinner!” She agreed they should go back the next day and get more.

  When they had returned home with this batch of berries, Tara dug around in the attic and found some old screens which had come with their house. She washed, dried and sliced the berries, then placed them on the screens, balancing them on lawn furniture around the yard, so air would circulate under them. She knew they would take three or four days to dry, and she’d need to turn them halfway through the process. The humidity was still low enough for this to work, but she would have to bring them inside at night to keep the dew off.

  Mary explained about pot drying; putting the fruit in a large open pan in the yard. It took two weeks and needed stirred once or twice a day to work. “My mother showed me this years ago,” Mary told her. So Tara decided to try this method too.

  Once the berries were done and stored in baggies or Tupperware, they would last all winter. There was no reason not to harvest as many more as they could. They’d go tomorrow for sure.

  Sudden pounding at the front door announced Jake’s arrival. Once again, he came bearing a bottle of wine, and Tara called out a hello and sent Mary in with wineglasses and the bottle opener. Lee and he were old pals by this time and as Tara trotted down the basement steps to check on dinner, she heard them talking and laughing together upstairs. She heard Lee tell him he needed to go down and see Tara’s latest acquisition. She heard Jake’s questioning response, then the sound of his footsteps on the steps as Mary led him down.

  Tara checked the spinach pies—definitely done, and the shortcakes almost. She poked a knife in one and it came out a just a little moist. The mounds of dough had turned decidedly biscuit-li
ke, maybe a little hard, but she was thrilled it would give them a version of shortcake at least.

  Mary and Jake met her at the bottom of the stairs, and Jake burst into laughter at the sight of Elvira. “Isn’t she beautiful?” Tara cried. “I just love her already!” Jake knelt to pet the goat while Tara carried the spinach pies up. Jake rejoined Lee in the living room a few minutes later, still exclaiming about Elvira.

  Tara headed back down to get the shortcakes.

  “The salads are out,” Mary said. “And I think Lee and Jake are planning on getting drunk again,” she nodded her head in their direction. The women laughed together easily, but Tara was glad Lee was having fun. There hadn’t been much of that lately. “How’s Julie doing?”

  “She seems so much better, although two days of sun has given her a burn. I’d say one more day and she needs to take a day off. But she wants to see the house!”

  Tara nodded, this gave her renewed hope. “Wow, she must be feeling better.”

  The shortcakes smelled delicious too, and Tara set them on racks to cool. She carried in the little folded over pies full of Bishops Weed, spices, and leftover cheese cubes she’d saved from the winery party, telling everyone to be seated and dig in.

  “Oh man, that looks good!” Jake cried. He pulled a chair from the dining room table and a package from his pocket simultaneously. “Another present for you—more cheese Tara, the least I could do.” Mary and Lee both oohed over the gift.

  “Fantastic, Jake! I’ll invite you back when I think of something to make with it.”

  They all sat down to dinner and things grew quiet as they focused on the meal. The savory pies were wonderful, and you couldn’t tell it wasn’t spinach. Lee refilled Jake’s wine, and he came up for air, growing serious.

  “Your little goat is beautiful, Tara. It makes me really miss my dog, Caramel.”