Earth's Survivors: box set

by Wendell Sweet

  It was not the first bread they had made, but it was one of the first batches of bread since they had gotten the sourdough batch working right. There were so many people now that they needed to bake bread every day. They kept the working batches of sourdough stored in the cooler reaches of the cave. It gave the dough more than enough time to work, usually two days before it was needed for baking.

  Shar had made a batch of mustard using wild mustard seed, turmeric, dill and some horseradish root. It sat on the table next to a bowl of thick, fresh butter. There was cold water, powdered drink mix and hot coffee, as well as fresh milk to drink.

  The mustard, dill and horseradish root had come from the first experimental herb garden they had planted. The week before they had transplanted most of the herb plants into larger containers for the winter. In the spring they would plant cuttings in a much larger herb garden James had plotted out close to the cave.

  The rear recesses of the cave were already colder. They were still not freezing, but James had opinioned that they probably would be in the next few months and they would probably stay frozen long into late spring, early summer. They had shifted most of the vegetables that they did not want to freeze into rooms closer to the main cave area. It had been a lot of work, but they would only have to do it once, Janna pointed out. After this coming winter they would know which rooms froze and which did not.

  They were not at an extreme elevation, but they were well up into the foothills. The lower ranges of the mountains were framed against the sky just a few miles away. They had not done much exploring, but they knew there were small fields in the mountains above them.

  There were two fields above their own small ridge that they had explored. A path ran from the rocky ledge that fronted their cave, up and around the stubby peak above them, ending in a long field of mixed grasses and a few stunted pine trees. A narrow stream wandered the length of that field, falling down off the back side of their little mountain as it left the field.

  The first field opened into an even smaller field, enclosed on all sides with high rock walls. That field was where James hoped to summer the deer, and the sheep he hoped that Conner and the others bought back with them. They could easily winter in the huge steel barns that they had erected from the kits they had bought in with them like the horses and cows were going to do.

  With lunch finished, the four woman picked up the remains, and then sat back down to watch the sun travel slowly across the sky. Amy laughed quietly.

  “What,” Katie smiled.

  “Well... All this evolution. Out of the caves, into houses, woman’s rights, and here we are sitting in a field, having just served lunch to the other women and men who are doing the field work, and we live in a cave,” She laughed as she finished.

  Janna laughed as she got to her feet. “And this woman is going back out to work in those fields,” she said with a smile. She looked down at Amy. “And you are bare foot and pregnant too.”

  Amy, Katie and Lilly burst into laughter. Amy and Katie clutching their bellies as they did.

  “I have my sneakers around here somewhere,” Lilly protested. That set Amy and Katie off into gales of laughter that followed Janna as she chuckled to herself, walking back out to the fields.

  A few minutes later Lilly dragged out a huge hardcover book on knitting, and they sat talking quietly back and forth as they practiced stitches, getting themselves familiar with the needles, and the method Janna had shown them.

  Janna had started them on the huge supply of synthetic yarn they had bought in with them. In the coming year they hoped to have wool yarn to work with.

  Lilly held up a small, perfectly made pair of booties.

  “Nice,” Katie told her. “But those booties wouldn't fit your kids big toe,” she told her.

  Lilly laughed.

  Katie laughed as well. “Mine either, or yours,” she said turning to Amy.

  “Okay, you,” Amy said.

  “So... How do we make them bigger?” Katie asked.

  “Add more stitches. I think that's what Janna said,” Lilly answered. “But doesn't it look good? Like the real thing?”

  “Absolutely. You got that part right,” Katie agreed. She held up her own. Slightly larger, with a few bumpy areas here and there. “Maybe I added one or two too many,” she sighed.

  Amy held hers up. A perfect pair of booties, but about twice the size of Lilly's.

  “Hey, that's as nice as Lilly's, only bigger, Aim. Good job. How did you do it though?” Katie asked.

  “Yeah. What gives,” Lilly echoed.

  “Thanks,” Amy said. “I added about twice the stitches, same as Lil said, but I watched as I did it and it didn't come out to exactly double everywhere. Like the top part,” she held one of the booties up. “It folds over. That didn't take only a couple of extra stitches. Let's see...” She told them exactly what she had changed. They each pulled theirs apart and began again with the modified pattern.

  Conner

  On The Road

  The truck was parked blocking both lanes of the highway. Conner and Aaron, driving the lead truck, had topped the small rise and come to a fast stop.

  They had stopped so quickly that the other trucks behind them had not even topped the rise. Dustin and Adam were in the truck directly behind them, Dustin driving. He had seen the brake lights come on and had reacted just as quickly as Conner had. Aaron’s voice came over the radio every bit as quickly.

  “Stop! Stop!” He called into the radio.

  Grabbing the hand held microphone instead of the grab bar as Conner stopped the truck, cost him a broken nose as Conner locked up the brakes. His face slamming into the padded dashboard.

  “Shit... Goddamn,” Aaron yelled as he rebounded off the dashboard. The big truck was probably a little slow to stop because of the four by four it was towing behind it. Even so when the truck came to a stop the tow vehicle was still at the crest of the hill.

  “Don't come over that hill,” Aaron said into the radio. His voice was clogged sounding, his nose already swollen and bleeding freely. He gingerly touched his nose as he surveyed the truck ahead in the road. Just the small touch made him wince. He looked at the blood on his fingers. “Great,” he grumbled. “Just great.”

  Conner glanced over quickly. “Dash?” he asked. He didn't wait for an answer. “Sorry, Man.” As he spoke he picked up his machine pistol from the floorboards where it had come to rest, thumbed off the safety and raised it above the dashboard. His eyes scanned the road.

  Below them, a truck was parked blocking both lanes of the road. Two other vehicles were parked off to one side. A half dozen people were off the side of the roadway in the field that ran beside the highway, gathered around a horse that was down.

  Conner's eyes took in the rest of it: The skid marks from the truck. The crumpled front end, hood and roof line. The reddish-black smear on the road. An accident, his mind supplied.

  “Looks like an accident,” Aaron said. His voice was nasally and he was searching the front of the cab for something to hold against the flow of blood, which was coming faster now. Conner looked over. “Christ,” he said, “I had no idea...” He ripped off the bottom of the flannel shirt he wore and passed it to Aaron. “Sorry, Aaron... Really,” he told him.

  “Ouch... Goddamn,” he said, as he pressed the rag tight enough to his nose to stop the flow.

  “Tilt your head back,” Conner told him.

  “What's Going on?” Adams deep, bass voice over the radio.

  “We don’t know yet. It looks like an accident,” Conner told him as he took the radio handset from Aaron. “It looks like a truck hit a horse.”

  Three from the crowd around the horse, two women and a man, turned away as Conner watched and began to walk back out to the highway. Another woman, one of the three still surrounding the horse, pulled her pistol from a side holster, thumbed off the safety, Conner knew, although she was too far away to actually see it, the motion told him that was what she had done: She aime
d the pistol and shot the horse in the head. The horse's head jerked, but that was all. She turned and looked at the truck where Conner and Aaron sat. A small woman, dark skinned. Blood ran down the side of her face from a cut above one eyebrow.

  The three who had come back onto the highway stood staring at the truck as Conner turned his eyes back to the roadway.

  “That was a gunshot... Speak to me,” Adam's voice said calmly.

  “Yes,” Conner agreed. “They shot the horse they hit... Stay where you're at... I really don't know what's going on over here.”

  One of the women that had stepped out onto the highway called out.

  “We hit that horse... You're freaking me out just a little, sitting there and not saying anything... There are more of us than you, if we wanted to hurt you we could. We obviously don't have any intentions like that.” Her pistol was out of her holster and she was holding it to one side, Conner noticed.

  The woman back with the horses had not put her pistol away. The other two on the road were holding rifles.

  “Hunting rifles,” Aaron said as he tilted his head a little more forward to see better. Conner nodded. The other two by the horse were not holding weapons at all. They were both older... A man and a woman.

  Conner looked at Aaron. “What do you think?”

  “Un-break my frigging nose, is what I think.” He looked out the windshield. “I say, just to be safe... Let them know we're not alone,” he said after a long pause. He met Conner's eyes. Conner nodded.

  “Adam... Dustin, everybody else get behind Adam... Get your machine pistols, if you haven't already, and walk to the top of the hill. Keep them pointed at the ground, but be ready... We'll be waiting on you,” Conner told them.

  They knew without looking when the others had crested the hill. The machine pistols were nasty looking weapons. Compared to the simple hunting rifles that this group carried, that alone would probably have been enough to shake them, but Conner was sure that just the size of Adam silhouetted against the sky at the top of the small hill added its own edge to the mix. Now they knew that they were not alone, that they did not outnumber them. Conner and Aaron levered their door handles and stepped out onto the roadway. “Got your back,” Adam said in his deep bass rumble from behind them.

  Conner turned to the people in front of him. “We're not looking for trouble,” he told them.

  The woman by the horse snorted derisively. “With all that firepower?” she asked. She walked the low rise back up to the highway from the field and then walked past the others towards Conner and Aaron.

  “Jess,” one of the others in her group called to her.

  “It's okay,” she said as she continued on. She stopped in front of Aaron. She was even smaller in person; dark, flat features that he found hard to place. Asian? Native American? She nodded at his dripping nose. “Did that trying to stop,” she asked Aaron.

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  “It's broken, you know... Pushed over to the right... I mean your right... I'm a doctor.... Well, I used to be a doctor anyway. Let me fix it... It's the least I can do.” She looked around. No one spoke for a second.

  “Well?” she asked. “It's a push. Believe me. We don't want problems. We are not looking for trouble either.” She holstered her gun and folded her arms across her thin chest.

  “Alright,” Conner agreed. “But you should know this isn't all of us.” He turned and looked back at the hill. “There are ten more behind them, and I'd like to get them all on this side of the hill.”

  “We'll have to push that truck. It's done up.”

  Conner turned to Adam and the others. “Tell them what's going on... Tell them we'll be a few more minutes.” He made eye contact with Adam, Chloe and Josh, then finished with Dustin. Making it clear he wanted only Dustin to go. “You guys come on down. Help push this truck out of the way.” He turned towards the front directing the question at the other group.

  “You are not making this easy,” the woman called Jess told him.

  Conner nodded. “We've been through some bad stuff... I suppose you have to. I had thought at one time that all the being careful stuff was over with... Then the dead came along... And the living too. I'm not as trusting as I used to be... I can't see myself apologizing for that either,” he finished.

  She nodded. “Okay... We'll do it your way... Let's get this truck off the road.”

  One of the women got in and steered as they pushed the truck to the side of the road.

  Blood was smeared across the outside of the windshield. Aaron walked alongside and kicked at the drivers side tire which seemed to have a mind of its own, to keep it pointed in the same direction as the others. Something made a loud, grinding, clicking sound in the front end as they pushed. Something else made a metallic clanking noise. Fluids leaked onto the roadway.

  “You know, you got a bad cut yourself,” Conner said. He pointed to her forehead.

  She frowned, touched the spot Conner had pointed out and then looked at the blood on her fingertips. “Damn,” she said. “I didn't know.”

  He came closer, and carefully looked her over. “Pretty deep... About two inches long.” He shifted his gaze to the radio on his belt, picked it up and spoke. “Bring them over, Dustin.”

  Chloe and Debbie went back along with Josh. Adam stayed behind, jumping into Conner and Aaron's truck and pulling it down off the roadway, over to the side of the cracked pavement.

  The Nation

  Beth sat up on the edge of the bed, got her feet under her and then stood. “Whoa,” she said as she sat back down.

  “Slow, Honey,” Susan told her. Susan was on one side, Sandy on the other, Cammy anxiously standing in front. “Take a deep breath or two. Let the dizziness pass.”

  Beth did as she was told, the dizziness passed, and she stood once more. This time her feet felt steady. Her stomach did not flip flop. All three of the other women hovered close by but did not attempt to help her. She laughed nervously and then walked to the door.

  “Hmm. A little shaky,” Sandy said. “You feel up to an outside trip?”

  “Oh, God yes. Please,” Beth said.

  Cammy laughed. “She will never be any sweeter,” she said.

  All four of them laughed. Sandy stepped ahead, opened the door to the room, and Beth followed her out into the main cave area.

  Beth looked around as she walked through the main area. “I had no idea it was so big.” Her eyes rose to the ceiling some hundred feet above her.

  “This is nothing, only the main meeting room. The passages go all through the mountain. It's riddled with them,” Susan told her.

  Sandy swept open the main door, and a cool breeze came in as she did. The four women stepped out onto the ledge with its rock wall edge and its view of the valley below.

  Beth drew a quick breath. “My God, it's so beautiful,” she said.

  Cammy came up behind her and rubbed one hand across her low back. Beth turned and looked at her. “Anything else?” Beth asked.

  “No. They're on the way,” she told her.

  “Cammy,” Beth started.

  Cammy shook her head. “I know. He told me that he told you, and what he told you was the truth.” She smiled as she finished. Susan and Sandy slipped past them and walked over to the long waist high rock wall that had been built on the edge of the ledge. Beth looked pensive, but allowed a smile to float up from the depths of her worry. She made her way across the ledge and looked down into the valley.

  “It's so pretty,” Beth said. She breathed in the cool, fresh air.

  “You are officially off bed rest,” Sandy said.

  Beth smiled. Her eyes slipped over to her arm and the thick pad of bandage at the elbow. She sobered, but as her eyes swept back out into the valley, the smile surfaced once more and stayed. Cammy settled beside her and looked out onto the golden foliage of the trees and the tall golden-brown fields of wheat.

  “I will never leave here,” Cammy said.

  Beth nodded.

/>   Cammy looked at her. “Do you think this can hold him?”

  Beth shook her head, but the smile stayed. “I don't think a woman or a place can hold Adam,” She said.

  Cammy nodded, her face a careful mask.

  “Feel up to a short walk down there?” Sandy asked.

  “I say, let's go,” Beth answered.

  “You get tired, say so,” Susan told her.

  “She will,” Cammy said. She linked one arm through Beth’s good arm, and the four women started down the ledge that dropped down into the valley.

  Evening

  The sky was a beautiful mix of yellows and pinks as Lilly and Katie stood on the ledge looking down into the valley. A hot supper was ready in the cave behind them. The children were helping Janna get bowls, cups and utensils ready. Down the valley the rest of the people were on their way back, walking in groups, laughter and conversation rising on the air currents to the ledge.

  The horses had been put away. The wagon, loaded with corn now, was parked inside one of the barns. It only remained to bring it from there up into the storage area of the cave. They would do that tomorrow.

  The entire crop was picked: Half already in the storage area, the rest waiting on the wagon.

  Janna walked up behind them. “We would never have finished it today if not for the longer days. We had close to seventeen hours of daylight today,” she told them.

  “You know,” Lilly said, “It doesn't seem as though it took any great effort to get used to it... a few more hours every day, I mean.”

  “It doesn't, but I wonder what it means long term? What this winter will be like, and the rest of it,” Katie said, half to herself.

  The Dog and Angel looked off down the valley from the top of the ledge, wagged their tails, and took off running to the people who were coming to the cave. Angel was showing more and more, her belly getting closer to the ground daily.

  “I wonder what those puppies are going to look like,” Lilly said aloud.