She’d never carried a five gallon Jerry can before. It was heavy enough when it was empty, since it was made of sturdy steel.
When it was full it weighed over fifty pounds. And it wasn’t soft and pliable, like a sack of potatoes that one could throw over their shoulder.
Just getting it back when it was full would be a daunting task.
But knowing something would be hard wouldn’t deter her. It never had. If she waited until something was easy she’d have starved to death long before.
The night was frigid cold but dry, a new moon directly above her head as she made her way to the disabled truck.
Even after many months the stench of the garbage in the bay of the truck was terrible.
Still, it was nowhere near as bad as the decaying bodies she encountered during her scrounging runs.
Her plan to join up with others for mutual protection hadn’t worked out.
Oh, she and Angie did join up with the Martinez kids, Amy and Robert.
But none of them were capable of handling a rifle, and could get only a single shot off with a .45 pistol before being knocked dead on their little asses.
As a security team they were pretty much worthless.
She knew of no one else who was both capable and trustworthy, so she’d given up on finding additional members for their team.
She continued to go out each day not because she had to, for there was certainly plenty to eat at the Spear house.
No, she went out each day because she was a big believer in preparing for the worst case scenario. That worst case was that the Spear food stores wouldn’t last forever. A year, a year and a half… who knew?
However long it lasted, there was no reason not to try to add to it as long as more was available for the taking.
If, by going out each day to gather food, she could extend the time before they ran out of it, it would be foolish not to do so.
Besides, it was a pride thing with her.
She didn’t want Amy or Robert to think that she and Angie moved in with them to take part of their food supply. She wanted to show she could contribute by adding as much to the food stores as she took from them.
There wasn’t enough light from the moon to determine whether the fuel tank held gasoline or diesel.
She lit the lighter a couple of feet away from the tank, just in case there were any ignitable fumes around. She couldn’t smell any, but then again the smell of the garbage overpowered everything else anyway.
Holding the open flame a foot away from the truck, she was able to make out the words stenciled just above the tank:
DIESEL FUEL ONLY
She doused the flame and tucked the lighter back into her pocket.
She’d never siphoned fuel before, though she’d watched other people do it.
Siphoning fuel, like most other things in life, does not come naturally. There’s a learning curve involved. And by the time she was able to get the fuel flowing through the hose she’d taken in three mouthfuls. Further, she swallowed a good potion of that, causing her to gag and spit and curse and grow very nauseated.
From half a block away she already had the attention of a ruthless scavenger everyone called Sid.
Sid was a smoker, you see, and a year and a half after the blackout working cigarette lighters were hard to come by.
So were cigarettes, for that matter. The ones still around were stale as hell, and were mostly menthols, but he was able to gather enough extra food to trade some of it for smokes.
He had four cigarettes in his pocket now, as a matter of fact. But his lighter was spitting and sputtering and threatening to give up the ghost.
From half a block away he’d seen the flame and knew what it was. He couldn’t see who had the lighter or what they were doing with it. But seeing an unbroken flame for twenty or thirty seconds told him it was a good one.
He was walking toward the source of the flame long before Kristy got her flow going and went to one knee to wretch.
From a nearby bush he watched her, totally alone and almost totally incapacitated, and he smiled.
This would be like taking candy from a baby.
Chapter 32
Sid wasn’t always a sadistic scumbag.
Once upon a time he’d been a pretty decent guy.
A produce manager at a chain supermarket less than a mile away.
They say that great adversity changes men.
Sometimes it changes them for the better. War, it is said, makes heroes and cowards. And not even they know in advance which one they’ll be.
War isn’t the only thing that does that to people.
Times of great personal stress do as well.
Few times in all of recorded history was there more stress laid upon the shoulders of everyday people than during the current catastrophe: what people now called the great blackout.
Sid, like most Americans, had never been tried by the trials of warfare.
He was just an average guy, going to work six days a week and overseeing his tomatoes, his cucumbers, his squash.
In the evenings he went home and, not being blessed with a family or a girlfriend, kept mostly to himself.
Most nights found him spending hours playing video games against people across the globe, or watching television until he fell asleep in his recliner.
But there was nothing wrong with that.
That was the type of life a lot of people led.
When the lights went out he went to the supermarket.
He was no hero, bent on protecting the store’s merchandize from stampeding hoards of looters.
Rather he went there because his apartment was dark and lonely, and his usual pursuits, gaming and television, were now impossible.
He’d gone to the supermarket just to be with others he knew.
And to be sure, he wasn’t the only one who went in to work. There were four others who did as well.
They secured the store from the inside, and had a grand plan to make it their new home. While others were starving on the outside they’d be living high off the hog on the inside. They’d get fat while most others melted away.
That plan didn’t last for long, for when the front windows started to shatter from the bricks being thrown they all ran to the bowels of the store.
It was then they were finally confronted with the hard facts: not a single one of them was a warrior. Not one would offer up his body or his blood to protect food which didn’t belong to them.
Instead they rolled over and watched as the food they’d been gorging themselves on disappeared from the supermarket’s shelves.
Within hours it was all gone.
All of it, that is, except for the things nobody either wanted or needed.
The kitty litter. The laundry detergent. The paper napkins.
That was merely nineteen months or so before; Sid had lost count.
But it seemed like forever.
These days Sid was much tougher.
He’d had to fight for his food, like everyone else.
He’d stolen food from others, without caring that they might need it more.
He’d hurt people for a can of soup. Beaten them for a package of Ramen noodles.
He’d learned to take from others without letting his conscience get in the way.
Truth be known, he didn’t have much of a conscience left.
He watched from the bush as Kristy threw up, then stood and wiped her mouth on her coat sleeve.
He watched as the Jerry can started to overflow, and as she removed the hose from the fuel tank and fastened the can’s cap.
He watched as she struggled, using both her hands and all the might her little body could muster, to lug the heavy can a mere fifteen yards or so.
He watched as she put it down and stood before it, glowering at it and studying it. Trying to determine whether there was a better way of carrying it.
He laughed at her when she decided there wasn’t, took a deep breath, and used the same technique to
lug it another fifteen yards or so.
At this rate it would take her an hour to get it back to the Spear house, she knew.
But she simply had no choice.
She remembered seeing a two-wheeled dolly in Dave Spear’s garage when she was searching the house for diesel fuel.
She wondered if it would be better to hurry back there, to reenter the yard through that trap door, and then to retrieve that dolly.
But no. That was a dumb idea. She wasn’t even sure the dolly would fit through the trap door with its oversized wheels.
And surely there were other people out there who could use five gallons of diesel fuel. They couldn’t be the only ones with a diesel generator. And she knew damn well there were such things as diesel stoves and diesel heaters.
What if she went to get the dolly, and came back to find the Jerry can gone? In her mind that wasn’t just a “maybe” but a probability.
No, she had no choice. Maybe next time she did this she could explore the possibility of bringing the dolly. But this time she was stuck having to struggle with it, and moving it just a few yards at a time.
She drew a deep breath once again, picked it up with both hands and carried it a few more yards.
Sid had no idea what she was thinking, of course, but he was enjoying the show.
While he watched, it occurred to him that this young woman in front of him was very pretty, what with her big blue eyes and long flowing blonde hair.
And it reminded him he hadn’t been with a woman in… what? More than two years now, since his last girlfriend dumped him for some guy who was better looking, with a flashy car.
He didn’t need diesel fuel. He’d commandeered an abandoned house with a wood fireplace, and only used that on the coldest of nights. Most nights he just covered himself with several blankets and toughed it out. He boiled his water in the fireplace over the same wood which cooked his meals.
No, he had no need for diesel fuel.
The gun the woman carried, now he could use that. He could barter it for food or a bottle of whisky. Guns were always in great demand.
And the woman? If she didn’t put up too much of a fight, he’d have her too.
Chapter 33
The holster Kristy carried her weapon in wasn’t made for quick draws.
Such holsters were certainly available, and many people used them. But when she found her .45 on a closet shelf in a suicide house the year before it came in an old strapped holster. That’s what it came in and she never saw a reason to switch it out.
The holster she had was made for safety rather than speed. It had a leather strap which lay over the top of her weapon and snapped to the outside of the holster.
It was made to keep the gun from falling out should she twist or turn or bend over to tie her shoe.
Quick-draw style holsters weren’t the best for holding onto their weapons under such circumstances. But then again, they weren’t made for such circumstances.
That isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with either style. They’re just made for different things.
You wouldn’t try to move a refrigerator with a Volkswagen Beetle. And you wouldn’t try to carry a family of ten in a tiny pickup truck.
Well, you could.
But they wouldn’t be very comfortable.
When selecting a vehicle, or selecting a holster, one should consider its intended purpose.
Quick draw style holsters have no straps or covers to hinder a weapon in any way. They’re made and used for one purpose and one purpose only: to allow the wearer to get his weapon out of its holster and on target as quickly as possible.
The owner’s life depends on it.
Most holsters, though, are made for leisure users; ones who aren’t expecting to be ambushed and who must therefore always be ready to draw.
That’s why they have safety straps or covers.
Kristy, in the wee hours on this frigid night, never unstrapped her weapon.
She just never thought of it, honestly. And even if she had thought of it, she likely wouldn’t have.
Struggling with the heavy Jerry can as she was, she didn’t want to bend over too far or turn the wrong way and have her weapon spilling out of her holster and onto the ground.
Also, the AR-15 rifle she typically carried at the ready, or at least strapped across her back, wasn’t with her tonight.
She realized it would be cumbersome to carry both the rifle and the Jerry can, so she left it at home.
She only had one weapon with her on this particular run. And strapped into its holster as it was, it wasn’t very accessible.
Especially when she had both hands on a fifty pound and very awkward can of diesel fuel.
It didn’t take Sid very long to determine that this woman was a blonde haired blue eyed sitting duck.
He held his position until she passed him by, figuring that with every advance she took she grew more and more tired.
And the more and more tired she got, the less she’d be able to struggle.
At the same time, though, he didn’t want to wait too long. For all he knew there were others out there who were also eyeing his prize and awaiting their own opportunity to pounce.
Life in the dark world, it seemed, wasn’t so different than life before the blackout.
At least in some ways it wasn’t.
Before the blackout it was said that the only two kinds of people out and about at three in the morning were criminals and the policemen trying to catch them.
In the post-EMP world the policemen were pretty much all gone.
But the night still belonged to the criminals.
Kristy, carrying her Jerry can just a few yards at a time, was determined to get it home. It wasn’t easy, and it was getting harder every time she lifted it.
She was having to focus all her strength on her task.
And unfortunately, that meant she put her personal safety on the back burner.
It was easy for Sid to sneak up behind her as she hobbled up the street under the weight of the fuel.
Easy for him to get right up on her.
And to mercilessly hit her across the back of her head with the butt of his pistol.
She never had a chance.
It really was, as he’d surmised, like taking candy from a baby.
Chapter 34
There happened to be a 1980s-era sedan abandoned in the middle of the street, not far from the shrub Sid was hiding behind.
He was quite familiar with the sedan. He’d sat in it a couple of times in the past when he needed to get out of the rain, or was waiting for a vulnerable scrounger to come by he could rob food from.
He’d even slept in the back seat once when he was caught in a bad rainstorm that didn’t let up for hours.
He remembered the back seat as being roomy and fairly comfortable.
Perfect for what he had planned.
Once Kristy made her way past him, sneaking up on her was incredibly easy.
Not only was her only weapon strapped into its holster and pretty much useless, she’d forgotten to focus on her surroundings.
Every bit of her attention was focused on the heavy can of diesel fuel, and her efforts to move it a few yards at a time.
Sid merely crept up behind her as she grunted and struggled and cursed beneath her breath.
When she finally put the can down, she realized there was someone behind her and started to turn her head.
But that’s all she had time to do.
Before she saw him clearly, she was struck on the back of her head with the butt of Sid’s revolver.
She was down in a flash and not moving. Not even twitching.
Sid hit her much harder than he had to. He hit her so hard he was concerned, and knelt down beside her to make sure she was still breathing.
Oh, he wasn’t concerned for her.
He couldn’t have cared less for her.
No, he was concerned for himself, for if he’d killed her he wouldn’t have been
able to violate her.
He wouldn’t have been able to do the vile things he wanted to do with her.
She wasn’t dead, but was badly hurt.
She was breathing, and softly moaning in her unconscious state.
Sid took both of her hands and dragged her to the sedan.
The human body sometimes has mercy on us when we’re injured and lets us sleep through some pretty bad times. That’s why when we’re knocked unconscious we sometimes wake up in the hospital, and it’s only then we feel the pain. Often victims of car crashes, for example, wake up in a hospital bed bruised and bloody, and yet don’t remember the accident or what put them there.
When Kristy finally came to twenty minutes later she was very close to being completely helpless.
She was aware of a filthy, smelly brute of a man on top of her; she saw his face and though he looked vaguely familiar, she couldn’t say why.
Moreover, she was unable to fight him off. She couldn’t muster enough strength to raise her hand, much less fight off someone who was much stronger and hell bent on doing what he was doing.
In fact, she was only awake for a few seconds. Just long enough to realize she was being brutally raped, but unable to stop it.
Then, mercifully, she passed out again.
When she came to a second time, another half hour had passed.
The animal who attacked her was long gone.
She lay there for quite some time, wondering whether she’d imagined it all. But no. She didn’t. Her head was pounding; she didn’t know it, but she’d suffered a bad concussion.
That wasn’t all of it, though. Her whole body seemed to be hurting. From being dragged, from being raped, from lying in an awkward position for… who knew how many hours?
She was unable to sit up, but got the sense she was completely naked. She didn’t have a clue where her clothing was. With her left hand she felt on the car’s floorboard. She felt something soft, something rather odd.
She clutched it and lifted it up.
There was just enough light to see what she was holding, and was assuming was a piece of her clothing.
An Unwelcome Homecoming Page 11