Dave had left twenty gallons of diesel fuel, lined up in a row of four Jerry cans on the outer wall of the generator room.
Used sparingly, Monica figured the fuel would last for up to a year.
If it was squandered it would do them far less good.
Next to the Jerry cans Monica found a ten foot hose with an accordion-style squeeze pump on one end. Though still unused and in the package, it was easy to tell why Dave purchased it, and why he left it where he did.
Monica took it out of the package and, using a bucket full of water, taught the kids how to use the hose to pump the water into an empty bucket.
At the end of the block was a truck emblazoned with the logo of the “Three Cousins and a Truck Moving Company.”
When the EMPs struck, the truck died while making a delivery of household goods for a family moving into the neighborhood.
Still half a mile away from the delivery site, the delivery was never completed and the poor family’s belongings were still on the truck.
With Monica’s urging, Amy made another note in her survival book:
When the diesel is gone, take one of the empty cans to the big white truck on the corner. Unscrew the cap on the fuel tank beneath the driver’s door and use the hose to siphon out some fuel.
Go only at night, and when the tank is empty look for other vehicles close by which might have similar fuel. Be sure the truck says diesel fuel on or near the tank. Gasoline won’t work. Be extremely careful and go together. There is strength in numbers.
It was rather ironic that Monica dictated the same phrase Kristy did when explaining her gang concept to Angela.
Neither of them realized it, of course, since the girls had never met Kristy.
But that would change in time.
Chapter 12
Amy hated washing dishes.
So did Robert.
Both were glad that when Dave stocked the third basement bedroom with supplies he included several plastic wrapped bundles of paper plates, and several plastic wrapped bundles of paper cups, but not a single dish which had to be washed.
On all three of the trash cans in the basement were written the same words, in Beth’s childish scrawl:
Don’t be embarrassed to lick your plates clean. Every bit of food left on the plate is wasted nourishment. Compact trash as tightly as possible and place bags in spare room. In nice weather it makes great fuel for backyard campfires.
To Amy, licking one’s plate clean was rather icky and gross.
But she understood the thought behind it; that in a situation where food was scarce it made sense to get every last bit of nourishment from it.
She also understood the logic of… whoever it was who bought the disposable plastic ware and paper dishes.
For water was at least as precious as food and shouldn’t be wasted in such frivolous ways as washing dishes and such.
Just staying in this house once occupied and stocked to the brim by preppers was a learning experience.
For example, Amy never knew that such things as pickles and ketchup and mustard were shelf-stable.
Yes, they had a shelf-life stamped on each container.
But some of the condiments were out of date by several months and still tasted okay.
And the pickles stored in the basement… they were a bit softer than the day they were jarred, but otherwise tasted fine.
Pancake syrup was another thing that seemed to far outlive its shelf-life date.
The squirt bottle they used to cover their pancakes on this particular morning expired more than a year before, according to the date stamped upon the bottle’s neck.
But it still tasted great.
Amy and Robert seldom got anything sweet to eat. The Spears hoarded very little candy.
And like nearly all kids, they each had a sweet tooth.
That made the syrup they put on their pancakes even more delectable.
And in this particular case, neither one of them felt any qualms at all about licking their paper plates clean.
Monica spent a considerable amount of time explaining to Amy what she called “food management.”
“There is enough food in that basement to last you and Robert a very long time. Years, even,” she said.
“But it has to be managed correctly. You can’t afford to let some foods spoil because you’re busy eating something else.”
“I don’t understand, Momma.”
“Well, like the spaghetti, for example.
“Spaghetti noodles are dry and the sauce is a powder so both will last forever. The Spam, on the other hand, has to be used by a certain date.
“I know that you and Robert love Spam. And because you love it you’ll eat a lot of it. Maybe until you’ve eaten it all.
“But let’s say you take a break from eating the Spam and decide to eat spaghetti instead. You eat spaghetti every day for a month and then go back to eating the Spam.
“But you can’t. Because you notice that the date on it has expired. It went bad while you were eating up all the spaghetti.”
Amy looked perplexed. Like there was a lesson her mother was trying to teach her, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was.
“So,” she tried, “what you’re saying is that even though we’re craving spaghetti, we should eat the Spam instead and save the spaghetti for later? Because the spaghetti is dry and will last a lot longer than the Spam, which has a ‘use by’ date? And that the spaghetti will still be okay to eat after the Spam is all gone?”
“Exactly,” Monica said while rewarding her with a hug.
“And I’m not saying you shouldn’t have spaghetti occasionally while you’re trying to eat up the Spam. I’m just saying keep an eye on all the dates. In a world where food and water are more valuable than gold or silver, every bit that goes to waste is a sin.”
Amy, tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, dutifully wrote words to that effect in one of her survival notebooks.
“What else should I write down about food, Momma?”
“Well, honey, as a general rule, you should go through anything which has a shelf-life or an expiration date and put it all in date order. That way each item on the shelf will have its oldest items in front.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Okay, to pass the time on a rainy or really cold day when you can’t go outside and need something to do, try this. Look at all the cans of ravioli and examine their shelf life dates. Put the farthest dates in the back of the stack and the earliest dates in the front.
“Then do the same for the chicken soup, and the tuna fish and the canned tamales and for everything else on the shelf.
“And all the jars full of things the mother who once lived here prepared. She put “use by” dates on the side of each of her jars. Do those the same way. Farthest dates in the back, nearest dates in the front.
“Save most of the dry foods until last, after everything else has been used up. That’s because the dehydrated stuff will last for many years as long as it doesn’t get wet.”
Amy craved spaghetti. She’d eat spaghetti every day of her life if she could.
But the stacked boxes of dry spaghetti noodles on the shelf, next to a huge container marked, “Spaghetti Sauce Powder, just mix with water” would have to wait.
For as much as she liked spaghetti she valued her mother’s judgment and guidance even more.
Robert, standing behind her, liked spaghetti almost as much as she did.
“Ooh, ooh,” he said. “Can we have spaghetti for supper tonight?”
She sighed and said, “Sorry. Maybe for your birthday five years from now. We’ve got way too many other things we have to eat first.”
Chapter 13
The first snowfall hit Blanco like a prizefighter’s best punch.
Without a local television station with a too-happy weatherman in a cheap suit telling them a storm was coming, they were caught unaware.
Well, almost.
Several of the tow
n’s old timers looked skyward and saw it coming.
“That’s a snow sky if I ever saw one,” Woody told Dave as they walked back to town from the lake.
“Really?” Dave scoffed. “I don’t think it’s cold enough for snow.
As they walked up Red’s back steps, though, they checked out the thermometer mounted on one of the porch’s posts.
Thirty degrees.
“Told you,” Woody said.
“Okay,” Dave conceded. “But just because it’s below freezing doesn’t mean it’s going to snow.”
“No, not by itself. But look at that sky, and how thick the overcast is.
“That’s another factor.
“And the fact you can see your breath is an indication there’s a lot of humidity in the air.
“Those three things: low temperatures, an overcast sky and high humidity, they all combine together and make snow very likely to happen.”
Dave, ever the skeptic, asked, “When?”
Woody looked up at the sky again, and then made his best guess.
“Not within the next few hours. I’m betting after the sun drops. Maybe in the wee morning hours.”
Old guys like Woody sometimes felt snow coming. Dave’s grandfather could do that. He was always dead on with his own prognostications and Dave never understood how he did it.
His grandpa always told him, “It’s just a sense some people have. Kind of like smelling a coming rain. Some people can and some people can’t. You either have it or you don’t.”
Dave could smell rain. But when it came to making predictions about coming snowfalls, he didn’t have it. Neither did his father.
But he hoped Woody did.
He’d spent most of the previous winter, trapped in his own home in San Antonio, thinking about Beth and Lindsey and how they loved to play in the snow. He missed building snowmen with his girls, and making snow angels and having snowball fights.
San Antonio is mostly flat, but there was a hill in a nearby park where they used to take a sled. On the rare occasions when the Alamo City actually got snow, Dave and the girls practically lived there.
The previous winter was very harsh. The worst winter in more than a hundred years.
The snow that usually hits San Antonio and melts within a day or two stayed around for almost three weeks.
It was pretty, sure.
But it was unwanted, unwelcome and a major problem for those forced to scavenge for food in the blacked out world.
Luckily Dave didn’t have to worry about that.
All he had to scrounge was firewood.
Still, it was a brutal winter and he hoped it didn’t repeat itself.
He asked Woody, “How much snow do you guys get around here?”
“Oh, it varies. It usually snows two, maybe three times a year. Maybe an inch or two each time. Last year we got slammed. We totaled about ten inches in four snowstorms. And it was cold as hell.”
Dave smiled.
“I thought hell was hot, not cold.”
“You know what I mean, smart aleck.”
Dave went to bed that night hoping Woody was wrong about the snow sky so he could rib him the next day.
He woke up to find five inches of snow on the ground.
He stood at the bedroom window and Sarah walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Not as pretty as you.”
“Ah, thank you. I don’t feel pretty first thing in the morning.”
“You’re way prettier than I am, any time of day.”
He had her there. There was no arguing that point.
“How do you feel?”
“A little stiff. But I like this bed. It’s way more comfortable than the one downstairs.”
Just the night before, Sarah found the strength to climb the stairs for the first time.
She was still weak. But considering she’d almost died a couple of weeks before from severe dehydration, it was a big step for her.
“Do you feel like playing in the snow?”
“Not really. But I’ll go out on the porch and watch.”
“Spectators who stand on the porch sometimes get clobbered by snowballs.”
She held him at arm’s length and cocked an eyebrow.
“Really, now?”
“Accidentally, of course.”
“Dave, if I get hit by a snowball, accidentally or not, you’re going to be sleeping in that barn over there with Red’s chickens.”
“I was gonna go downstairs and make some coffee. Do you want some?”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t I go make the coffee? You can deal with the ogre in the bathroom. Then you can wake up the girls.
“But please tell Beth she can’t go outside until after breakfast. Otherwise she’ll run out there in pajamas and bare feet.”
Dave didn’t hear the last part. He said, “There’s an ogre in the bathroom?”
“Yes. You’ll see him when you get in there. He’s right behind the sink.”
“Oh. I get it. Okay.”
It was Sarah’s subtle way of telling him he needed a shave.
“You need any help getting down the stairs?”
“Getting down is the easy part. Go conquer that ogre and wake up the girls and I’ll have a cup of hot coffee waiting for you to reward you for your efforts.”
“And a kiss too?”
“Only if the ogre brushes his teeth.”
“Deal.”
Chapter 14
Dave rapped lightly on Beth’s bedroom door, just in case she happened to be up.
He knew better. Beth could sleep through a monsoon. But it was common courtesy.
He eased the door open while calling out his favorite nickname for her.
“Peanut? Are you awake?”
Nothing.
He sat on the edge of her bed and said, “Beth, make up, sweetheart. I’ve got something real cool to show you.”
Still nothing.
He almost gave up and decided to let her sleep a bit longer.
Then he remembered something from years before.
When Beth was three, Sarah finished breakfast and sent her upstairs to wake up her father.
The exact phrasing Sarah used was, “Go upstairs and tell your little bone-headed father to get up for breakfast.”
At three “going on four” Beth was all about following instructions. To the letter.
She took her mother’s pillow and wound up like a pitcher getting ready to deliver a world-class fastball.
She shouted, “Wake up, you little bonehead!” and walloped Dave. He opened his eyes to see a pillow bearing down on his face with no time to stop it.
It was a pleasant memory.
One he hadn’t thought of for a very long time.
Should he? Was this a good time to retaliate for something which happened so long ago?
Darn tootin’ it was.
Beth wasn’t like a lot of adolescent girls who covered their beds with pillows of all sizes and shapes.
She slept with one pillow and one pillow only. Because extra pillows took up extra space she needed to stretch out, she said.
Dave left her door half open and tiptoed across the hall to retrieve his own pillow.
He stood over her, yelled “Wake up, you little bone-head,” and clobbered her.
Only he didn’t hit her anywhere near as hard as she hit him. He pulled back as he softly swung the pillow, in the same way a boxer will pull his punch for a wounded opponent. He still punches so he continues to rack up points with the judges. But he certainly doesn’t want to cause the man permanent damage.
Beth woke up to a pillow softly socking her in the face.
Then she started giggling.
She said, “Is that all you got, you big sissy?”
She started laughing out loud.
Now, Dave wasn’t just a goofy dad. He was also a former United States Marine.
No United States Marine, pre
sent or former, tolerates being called a sissy.
Dave conjured up a shocked look upon his face and yelled, “Sissy? Sissy? I’ll show you sissy!”
He scooped up his daughter, still decked out in red flannel pajamas, carried her downstairs, and yelled ahead to Lindsey, “Lind! Open the back door.”
Lindsey, sitting in her usual spot next to the door, reached over and turned the knob, then pulled the door open.
“Where are we going?” Beth squealed with delight.
“I’ll show you sissy!” Dave repeated.
“You go, Dad,” yelled Lindsey.
“Don’t you dare, Dave!” said Sarah as they went past her.
“What in heck is going on?” yelled Lilly from the living room.
“Ooh, snow!” Beth exclaimed with a smile as they walked onto the back porch.
Dave carefully walked down the steps into a back yard full of snow and found a suitable snow drift about three feet high.
And he unceremoniously dumped his little girl into it.
Sarah screamed.
Beth laughed so hard her sides hurt.
Lindsey said, “Say the word, Mom, and I’ll lock them both out.”
Beth sat in the snow drift and fashioned a snowball, which she threw at her dad.
He didn’t mind. It landed with a thud on his chest, exploding against his own flannel pajamas.
He made himself busy lying in the snow and opening and closing his legs, raising and lowering his arms.
He was making a snow angel.
Beth climbed on top of his chest, a second snowball in hand.
This one she mashed into his face.
He said, “Hey, that’s cold.”
“Well, duh, Dad. It’s snow. What do you expect?”
“Think we should go inside where it’s warm?”
Instead of answering she took off running, yelling over her shoulder.
“Last one in is a rotten egg.”
He caught her just before she reached the back porch. He grabbed the back of her pajama shirt and she screeched to a halt.
An Unwelcome Homecoming Page 5