He’d gone to Parker to let him know once Manson was dead he wouldn’t challenge Parker’s authority. He’d consider Parker in charge and would follow his lead.
Knowing all that, Parker didn’t have to ask what some would consider the obvious questions: “What happened?” or “Who’d you do battle with?”
Not so obvious was whether Santo was injured.
He was stumbling and dazed.
That could well be the result of having just taken his first human life.
Or it could mean some of the blood which covered the entire lower half of his body was his own.
He shook his head in response to Parker’s question, then said, “I’m okay. I just want to puke is all.”
“Get over to the shower room. Run some water over your face. It’ll help. I’ll go to your bunk and bring you some clean clothes.”
It wasn’t a command. It was an offer to help a man who might not be quite a friend, but who’d just gone through a very traumatic experience and needed a hand.
On his way to Santos’ bunk Parker met Sarah in the hallway.
Under other circumstances they might have embraced. Perhaps even kissed, if no one else was around.
But Sarah had just stuck her head into Manson’s sleeping area and saw his crumpled body upon the floor.
She wasn’t feeling so well herself.
They squeezed past each other in the hallway without saying a word.
He went on to get clothing for Santos, but stopped short and called out to Sarah.
“Hey, I need to assemble the men and talk to them about this. Would you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Come with me to get some clothes for Santos and take them to him. That way I can head off any anger or animosity the men might have for him before he encounters any of them.”
“You think they’ll be angry with him? As I see it he did them all a favor.”
“I agree. But men who’ve been in prison learn to depend on routine. The same things happen at the same times day in and day out, year after year.
“Routine eventually becomes an essential part of their lives. Anything that upsets the status quo and breaks the routine can cause chaos.
“Many don’t do well with change.
“I need to meet with them and explain what happened.”
“What’s going to happen to us? The women, I mean?”
“I’ll tell them for the time being all of Manson’s rules are still in place. That’s typical in a military organization. And remember, these men were all soldiers before they were criminals.”
She merely nodded. She was deep in her own thoughts, but didn’t want to share them with him.
Perhaps later. But not now.
Chapter 29
With the exception of Santos, who typically spent his evenings playing poker with Sarah, the rest of the men hung out at their common bunk area. It was in the first container off the kitchen, in the front of the bunker.
Most evenings found them playing cards or napping, watching movies or listening to music on their mp-3 players.
Being located ten feet beneath the ground in a metal container saved virtually all of the electronic gadgets stored within the bunker from the electromagnetic pulses which caused the blackout.
As a result, the bunker’s occupants had creature comforts enjoyed by few other survivors.
Parker walked into the room with a concerned look upon his face.
Rodriguez asked him, “What’s up, man?”
“We need to talk. All of us.”
The men stopped what they were doing and turned. They liked Parker. He was a fair man and a competent leader.
Some of them might not like that they were under new leadership. But they’d give Parker the chance to explain why it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing before they pitched a fit about it.
“Manson is dead. Santos killed him.”
“Santos? Squishy Santos?”
Rodriguez obviously thought Santos didn’t have it in him.
“Yes. It was self-defense. I don’t want any of you to retaliate against him. I hope that’s plain enough to be understood by all.”
He looked around the room and locked eyes with each of the men. He was confident no one would take action against Santos.
At least for now.
“What does this mean for us?”
“Absolutely nothing. Nothing changes, except that Manson’s no longer in charge. I am, unless any of you want to challenge me for it.”
He looked again from one face to the next.
There were no challengers.
They were all confident in his ability to lead.
There would be no unrest, at least for the time being.
“I want each of you to understand, this is merely a bump in the road. I don’t have to remind anyone that not one man among you liked Manson. Each one of you was routinely berated or abused by the man.
“In the end, his absence will be a good thing. It will reduce the tension here, it will give us all a little more space, and it’ll damn sure stretch our supply of liquor. Because he won’t be guzzling all of it like a drunken sailor.”
The last part was meant to lighten the mood, and it worked to some degree. Several of the men smiled at the prospect their remaining stash of whiskey and vodka would last considerably longer without Manson swilling a liter bottle every day.
“One last thing,” Parker said. “You know I would never ask any of you to volunteer for a mission I wouldn’t go on myself.
“I’m taking Manson’s body out to the woods to bury it. I need two more volunteers to help.”
Rodriguez said, “You mean you need Santos plus one more volunteer?”
“No. Santos is in bad shape right now. He wouldn’t be much help.
“We’re a team. When one of us is unable to carry the load the rest of us jump in to help out. It was that way when we were soldiers, it needs to be that way again.
“Besides, Santos did the dirty work. It won’t hurt us to clean up the mess.”
To a man, everyone in the room knew what he meant.
That killing Manson was something that needed to be done, for the betterment of all.
Santos stepped up to the plate. He did the hard part. His work was over.
“I’ll go,” Rodriguez said. “Might as well get out of this stuffy underground box for a couple of hours.”
“I’ll go too,” Woods said.
Parker said, “Good. We’ll set out in half an hour or so. I’m going to see if I can find a tarp to wrap him in.”
When the Dykes brothers set up the bunker they went no-frills with the shower room.
It was the south half of a shipping container which was affixed with waterproof lights. Two shower heads protruded from one wall next to two on-demand European-style water heaters.
Water was supplied from a pipe which ran from the container, ten feet underground, to a fast-moving spring a little over two hundred feet away.
The brothers figured the spring water was pure enough to drink, so it was probably clean enough to keep their bodies fairly clean.
On the floor was a single drain hole, one inch in diameter. When the brothers used a crane to place the containers into the deep trenches which would become their permanent home, they placed this container and the one next to it directly over the top of a concrete-lined pit.
The pit was six feet wide, six feet across, and eight feet deep, with an earthen floor filled with pieces of railroad ties meant to prevent soil erosion. The concrete walls would prevent collapse.
Water from the showers drained into the pit, as did the toilets from the adjacent container, which was fashioned into a latrine.
There was no privacy in the shower. The plan from the beginning was not to waste time building privacy stalls or hanging shower curtains.
Rather, the shower was designated for women only from five to seven each night and men only from seven to nine.
On this day, Robert Santos st
ood beneath the shower head, letting the water run over his face, trying to bring himself back from the fog his mind was in.
The blood was long gone now, the tiny torrent of water running from his body to the drain clear now instead of red.
The stain of what he’d done would likely never wash away.
“Santos.”
It was neither a question nor a statement, but rather a greeting just to let him know she was there.
Or rather they, for Sarah had picked up Lindsey in the hallway on her way to the shower.
Lindsey cared for Santos because he was the only one of Parker’s men she could actually talk to. They’d become friends of sorts, spending hours talking of anything and everything.
One has a lot of time to kill, it seems, when one is buried ten feet below ground twenty-four hours a day.
Santos felt no shame in showering in full view of the women. They, in turn, took no particular interest that he was naked.
If that might seem odd to others, it shouldn’t have, for as a gay man he had absolutely no interest in either of them. The same was true for them. They were merely sort-of friends and confidants and little more.
“Are you okay?” Lindsey asked.
“I think I will be. As soon as my hands stop shaking and my heart stops racing.”
He looked at them, the water washing over his face. They could plainly see the torment in his eyes.
He was in bad shape.
“Robert, listen to me,” Sarah demanded. “You did a good thing. A brave thing. A noble thing. Do not beat yourself up over this, I mean it.”
“There’s nothing noble about shoving a knife into a man’s throat,” Santos countered.
“You’ll see it differently when you get over the shock of it all. You’ll see.”
Lindsey added, “Your clothes are over here on the chair. We’re going to take your other ones to burn so you don’t have to look at them again.
“I’ll be in my bunk if you want to come by and talk after you’re done.”
“I will. And thank you. Just give me a few more minutes to get my head together.”
So ended the reign of terror of Joe Manson.
He wouldn’t be missed.
Chapter 30
Ronald Martinez had a key decision to make.
Quite possibly a life or death decision.
He sat beneath a majestic oak tree in the front yard of Sarah and Dave Spear’s house in San Antonio, watching the house for signs it might be occupied.
Surely it was, for Dave struck him as a prepper extraordinaire.
He had one great idea after another, not only to prepare for a worldwide catastrophe, but also how to hunker down and wait for the world to get better again.
Surely he wouldn’t go through all that trouble just to abandon his house and leave it for someone else to take refuge in.
Yes, Dave was in there. So was his family. There was no doubt in Ronald’s mind.
The problem was how to get them out.
Ronald tried to remember what Dave had told him about his family.
He seemed to remember meeting his wife and daughter at some PTA meeting his wife made him go to when she was sick.
He couldn’t remember the wife’s name, but remembered she was pretty.
He couldn’t remember the kid’s name either, but remembered her as a bit of a snot.
Ronald didn’t have any qualms about shooting women. He didn’t want to shoot any kids, but figured it was probably necessary. As thorough as Dave was as a prepper, he surely taught his kids how to shoot. They’d therefore be threats to him.
And that made them legal to shoot.
He knew Dave was a veteran. One of the things he recommended to Ronald was digging a cistern in his back yard.
He’d never heard of a cistern before and asked Dave where he’d learned about them.
Dave regaled him with stories about things he learned in Marine Corps survival school and how his training aided him in his prepping activities.
“I even learned which weeds and bugs I can eat and which ones to stay away from,” Ronald remembered hearing him say.
Ronald remembered thinking if it came to eating bugs to survive he might be better off dead.
Since Dave was a veteran he’d be loaded for bear and would be proficient with a weapon. Likely several weapons.
That was Ronald’s primary concern.
He had only one weapon: his AR-15 rifle. And while he was proficient with it, he was certainly no expert.
And while deadly and reliable, it was not a close-quarters weapon.
And with at least three shooters against him he’d have to use the handful of rounds he had left carefully.
Actually, truth be known, he almost didn’t come tonight. He wanted to wait a few more days, and ambush someone with a rifle similar to his.
That was how he typically got his ammunition, and some of his supplies.
Everybody was armed these days.
And many of the survivors were out and about, gathering provisions every day.
For a man like Ronald, who had no scruples, it was ridiculously easy to find a good sniper’s perch and just wait there, as a hunter waits in a deer stand, waiting for a deer to happen by.
Ronald typically found a perch atop an abandoned house.
Not just any abandoned house, but an older house with a tall tree.
Not just any tall tree, though. A tall tree that he could climb, that was close enough to the house to allow him to step from the tree onto the roof.
And then to use the cover of the tree to hide behind.
Sometimes he’d wait in his sniper’s nest for hours, napping and watching the world go by, until the perfect prey happened along.
“Perfect prey,” for Ronald’s purposes, was a lone walker with an AR-15 slung over his shoulder, walking down the street and carrying some type of food or valuables he’d picked from a truck somewhere or looted from a house.
He’d take out a walker who wasn’t carrying food if he had to.
But if his victim had food, that was what kids call a “twofer.” Two prizes for the price of one.
Actually a threefer, because after shooting the prey he was able to steal away not only with the food… not only with the man’s rifle… but also all the ammunition he was carrying with him.
He never shot anyone if his rifle wasn’t slung over his shoulder.
Ronald wasn’t a good shot, you see. And a man walking down a residential street with his rifle in his hands and at the ready was too risky for Ronald.
If Ronald’s first shot missed a man who was ready to fire his target might be able to determine where the shot came from quickly enough to take cover and return fire.
And Ronald didn’t cotton much to getting shot at.
It typically worked out that any man who was carrying boxes of food would have his weapon slung, since it was difficult to carry such food and a rifle at the same time.
Ronald went “hunting” in such a manner a couple of times a week, and had for months. He kept the ammo to use himself, and the rifle too if it was in better shape than his own.
Whichever rifle he didn’t keep he’d trade for additional food or other things he needed.
The barter system was running full-gear in San Antonio, and good rifles always commanded a good price in trade.
He’d noticed, of late, that ammunition was becoming more and more scarce.
More often than not, the victims he was taking out had only the magazines in their rifles and nothing more.
It seemed there was a bullet shortage in San Antonio, and that really sucked.
Dave Spear struck Ronald as the kind of prepper who’d stash a lot of ammunition.
If he was able to take the house he’d likely have several weapons to barter, and enough ammunition to last him awhile.
He just had to figure out how to take the house with only six bullets.
Chapter 31
Ronald considered himself at a disa
dvantage.
He was a novice with a rifle and had only six rounds, going up against a Marine Corps-trained shooter with backup, and likely an almost unlimited amount of ammo.
Also, Ronald had no night-vision goggles, and Dave probably did.
He knew the odds were against him.
But there was something else unsavory about Ronald. Other than the fact he routinely shot down men in cold blood, that is.
Ronald was also exceedingly selfish.
He had a sick wife at home, and two young children.
And he was fond of them, no doubt.
He didn’t want to see them starve.
But he considered them a hindrance, for if it wasn’t for them he’d have shot himself in the head long before.
He wasn’t afraid to die.
He knew a lot of people who’d taken their own lives, and considered them smarter than the survivors.
A bullet took away all the pain and let one finally rest.
Finally quit caring about sick wives and children who complained constantly they were hungry.
He knew that if he died he’d almost certainly doom his family to death as well.
But then again, if he was dead he’d no longer be around to care.
One of two things was going to happen on this particular night.
Either he’d succeed in taking the house, and would win the gold mine it held.
Or he’d die and his troubles would be over.
He could, as the old saying goes, “rest in peace.”
Of course his family would suffer greatly, since the wife was too sick to gather food and the kids were too small.
But he’d be beyond caring.
Yes indeed, Ronald Martinez was an incredibly selfish man.
As he saw it, he did have one advantage.
The oak tree in the Spears’ front yard was at least sixty years old.
It was a rarity in the suburbs of San Antonio.
Most builders strip the land completely of all vegetation before they start prepping the soil for a new development.
But this tree pre-dated the house by at least forty years.
He reckoned Dave’s house was built by the rarest thing in the Alamo City building business: a builder with a heart.
A Stunning Betrayal Page 10