“Mr. Perkins, we can’t accept this. This stuff could keep you going for months.” Scott said.
“To what end, Scott?” The old man asked. “Son, I’ve seen ninety-one winters. I know it ain’t gonna be long for me now.” Scott tried to interrupt him, but the old man charged on. “Listen to me, boy. I’ve only got about another week or so of my meds left. They ain’t gonna be makin any more mail runs for some time. I figure I can probably get another week outta these old bones after my meds run out. I’m done for, and I’m ok with that.”
“Mr. Perkins, What kind of medications are you on? Maybe we can find you some.” Jimmy said.
“Jimmy’s right, Mr. Perkins. You could come with us. Maybe we could find a pharmacy out of town that still has some medicines.” Scott said.
“Shit, son. They got me on so much stuff there’d be no way to find it all. Who knew it took so much to keep a cranky old bastard like me alive? Blood thinners, high blood pressure, heart medicine, you name it I’m on it. Besides, I doubt there’d be any Viagra left in those pharmacies!” He laughed as he slapped Jimmy on the shoulder. Scott smiled.
Mr. Perkins paused and fixed Scott with his good eye. “Son, ever since I stepped off that boat into France in 1944, I’ve treated every day I’ve had since as a gift. I shoulda died a dozen times that day and I knew it. God gave me the rest of my days. Even these last few days, as bad as they’ve been, are a gift. I’m just one of the lucky ones who was able to see it. A lot of my buddies never got those gifts. Now, if something a tired old man can do to give Jimmy here and my sweet, little Lucy a chance to have those gifts, then I’m more than happy to do it. Hell, boy, it’s my duty… I’ve seen the grim reaper before and cheated him more than once. I guess I’ve kept that old son of bitch waiting long enough. This time it’ll be like meeting an old friend. Now quit that bawlin and help me back to my chair. I’m tired and need a nap.”
Jimmy and Scott led the old man back to his living room and settled him into his chair. Jimmy covered Mr. Perkins with a blanket. Scott tried hard not to cry. He leaned over and hugged the old man as hard as he thought the old man could stand. “Thank you so much, Mr. Perkins. I don’t know how we can ever repay for this.”
“Don’t you worry bout none of that. You boys just get them womenfolk down to Alabamy. Now you better go get all of that shit loaded up and ready.”
Scott and Jimmy loaded the supplies into the Bonneville. They went to check on Mr. Perkins before they left. They found him snoring, his mouth agape, and drool running down his chin. Scott leaned over and wiped the old man’s mouth without waking him. He turned and left the house.
Scott opened Mr. Perkins’ garage and fired up the Bonneville at 2:43 PM. He pulled out and drove over to Jan’s house. Tara, Sherry, and the girls streamed out of the house and climbed into the SUV. Scott spotted Tom and one of his lackeys running toward the car. They must have heard the Bonneville when Scott started it. “What are you doing, Scott?” Tom asked as the two men approached the car. Jimmy climbed into the passenger’s seat. Scott opened his door and told James to take the wheel and leave the car running. He stepped out of the car, determined to do whatever was necessary to make sure Tara and his family got away from here.
“We’re leaving, Tom.” Scott said.
“What’s in the back of the car?” The lackey asked.
Tom shifted so that he could see the back seat. “That’s a lot of food, Scott. Where did you get it and this car for that matter?”
“That’s none of your damned business.”
“That’s food that the community could use. Hell, we need it, Scott. You’re not planning to steal all of that from us, are you?”
“It was never yours to begin with. You talk about the community needing it. We need it, you arrogant ass.” Scott said.
“The hell it’s not!” Tom shouted. “The only way we can survive is to share resources and wait this thing out.”
“Wait what out, Tom? You heard the National Guard guys. The whole world is fucked, and you will be too if you stay here. All those starving people from the FEMA camps, you think you can keep them out with your shitty car fence?” Scott asked.
“That’s our food and we’re not going to let you take it.” The lackey spoke again.
“Yeah, by what right do you have to stop me, asshole?” Scott said.
“This right, right here!” Tom said as he unslung the M-16 he had gotten from the National Guard boys.
Scott had prayed this moment wouldn’t come. He had hoped they could get out without having to confront Tom. Well, a lot of good the hoping and praying had done. The two jackasses in front of him had been so focused on the car and the food that they hadn’t noticed that Scott had kept his hand in his jacket pocket during the conversation. That hand slid out of his pocket and pointed the little three eighty at Tom.
Scott’s reflexes weren’t fast enough as he pulled the trigger. The brief moment of hesitation allowed Tom to get the M-16 on him and fire a shot. Scott didn’t even feel the hit as he watched his own bullet punch a neat little hole right above Tom’s naval. He didn’t have time to enjoy his luck. The lackey pulled a pistol from behind his back where it had been tucked into the waistband of his pants. Scott fired twice in rapid succession. His first shot grazed the man on the arm, but his second shot took him right below the chin.
Scott stood transfixed, looking down on the two men bleeding out in the street. Holy shit! He thought. I did that. Jimmy’s yell broke the spell. Scott’s mind snapped back into his body. Tom wiggled on the ground and groaned as Scott stepped over him and grabbed the gun. He did the same with the silent lackey. Scott raced around the car to the passenger’s side, threw the guns into the back seat, and climbed into the car.
Sherry’s SUV lurched forward and did a quick U-turn. Jimmy copied her. Scott was glad he had been teaching his grandson to drive for the last few months. He felt too nervous and disturbed to drive at the moment, especially since he couldn’t feel his right arm. He glanced down at the sleeping limb and realized that he had been shot. He had heard Tom’s gun fire but assumed the man had missed. Now he knew better. A trickle of blood leaked from a hole in the upper part of his shoulder. No time to treat it now. They had to collect Jan and Clay and get the hell out before more of Tom’s lackey’s tried to stop them. He looked around for them but saw only a few of the compound’s residents. Most people had run inside at the sound of the gunfire. A couple of the braver men had stepped out in front of their homes, holding whatever makeshift weapon they could find, ready to defend their families. They watched in disbelief as the vehicles headed toward the exit. Jan and Clay rolled the gate car out of the way when the SUV and Bonneville turned the corner and sped their way. They didn’t know what to make of two cars but had no time to question. They piled into the SUV and were off.
They planned to drive as far west out of the city as possible until it got dark. If they made it to an unpopulated area, they would stop for the night and assess the next part of their route. They hadn’t driven two blocks when they saw a mass of two hundred refugees approaching from the north. Several tried to flag them down or leapt in the road to stop the cars. “Don’t even slow down. I don’t care if you hit them, just don’t stop the damned car!” Scott told Jimmy. Luckily all of the walking dead jumped out of the way of the speeding vehicles as they swerved around burned out cars and piles of debris in the road. Scott looked back at the crowd as they drove away. Some of the desperate bastards ran after the car, but others turned to where the car had come from. He figured a group that large would find the compound soon enough. When they did, whatever protection the compound had enjoyed would vanish. He wished his formed neighbors well but knew that was not how it would end.
Chapter 13
Will looked at his watch, not to check the time so much as to check the date. With no regular schedule, the days blended to together. His watch read Thursday, 3 April 2014. He stuck the shovel into the ground, crossed his hands over the end of the handl
e, and rested his chin on his hands. The sun began setting as he finished his side of the defensive ditch. He watched the clouds turn to golden shades pink and vanilla as the sky behind them settled into a deep purple. Sweat rolled down his face. He looked down at George as he dug the last few feet of his side of the ditch. Will smiled. He hadn’t worked this hard since he left the Marine Corps. It felt good to do hard physical labor again, but he doubted the feeling would last till morning.
The family had made a lot of progress in the last week. When George finished his part of the ditch, their defenses would be fairly sound. The ditch angled in toward the cabin and met a vertical side about three feet deep. They had piled up the disturbed earth into a mound on top of the vertical section. The ditch stretched a little less than a hundred yards from tree line to tree line, across the dirt road that provided the only access to the property. Joey walked up to the ditch, carrying the modified four wheeler ramp. The ramp would be their bridge to get vehicles in and out of the cabin area. “Hey, bro, wanna give me a hand with this?”
“Sure. Let’s have a look and see how you’ve done.” Will was glad he had brought his small welder to the cabin and taught Joey to weld a few days ago. It was a simple job. They had cut out the folding metal spacer bars in the middle, spaced them back out to fit vehicle tires, and welded reinforcing metal pipe, left over from the cabin’s construction a few years back, to strengthen it. Will inspected the welds as Joey sat down the new and improved ramp. “It’s a little messy, but it should work. Good job, Joey.”
“Thanks. Let’s see if it fits.” The two men walked past George as he finished his side of the ditch. George followed them over to where the ditch cut through the old dirt road. They lowered the ramp into the ditch. It didn’t fit well, but it would work.
“Looks good. We can go out and find some rocks to stack on the bottom there and level it up.” George said as he walked up to join the guys.
“That’s a good idea. Hey fella’s, it’s getting dark. You guys about ready to head back? We still need to get some grass to feed the rabbits.” Will said.
“I already fed them some of your uncle’s feed corn from out back.” Joey said. He was proud of the live traps he had made from old scraps of fencing they had found behind the cabin. He had twisted them into an open ended, rectangular box and made a door on the other end that hinged where it met the top of the cage frame. He fastened the door to the top of the inside of the cage with a bend in a wire that ran along the top of the trap and down to a flat lever on the bottom. Joey had explained the idea was that the animal would go into the cage after the bait and hit the lever. This would push the bent wire up and out releasing the cage door to fall down and trap the animal. Will had his doubts, but Joey swore he had seen a guy selling traps like this at a flea market years ago. Joey caught three rabbits last week and one raccoon. They had built small cages for the animals out of some of the remaining pipe and fencing wire. Everyone had been worried that Joey was wasting valuable food trying to trap the animals, but now he had turned those few bits of scraps into a renewable source of food that could last years if managed correctly. One of the female rabbits was already pregnant. This early in the year, she and maybe even some of her baby girl rabbits from this litter, would breed again this year. If they could keep them fed and build a cage big enough for them, these rabbits could provide them with protein all year round. The rabbits would also be a good trading commodity if the family ever ran into someone to trade with.
While the rabbits were vegetarian, raccoons ate anything they could get their grubby little paws on. If they could catch a male to go along with the female they had, they would be a good garbage disposal that had the added benefit or giving back some meat to the family. While neither Will nor anyone else at the cabin had ever eaten coon, they couldn’t afford to dismiss the option if everything didn’t get back to normal. Will’s dad pointed out that he had known of some old folks that ate opossum. He hoped they could catch a few of those as well. Will thought he could eat coon, but possum stretched even his strong stomach. Those goddamned things were just hideous and nasty. He decided the he would make every effort to see that the rabbits did well.
As the three men walked the back to the house, they saw the lights in the cabin were on. The electricity had come back on five days ago before going out again a day later. It had come back on yesterday. Will took it as a good sign. Maybe someone, somewhere was doing something to fix the problem.
Ever since the satellite broadcasters had gone off the air, their only source of news was from a hand-cranked radio that Joey had brought. They had trouble finding signals. Either the radio wasn’t the best quality or broadcasting had stopped. Every once in a while, they picked up an emergency broadcast message, but it didn’t relay anything useful. It just repeated a loop that directed people to the various FEMA shelters scattered around the big cities. They knew from the last thing they had seen on TV that most of those shelters had collapsed under the weight of supporting so many people.
“I’m glad the lights came back on.” Joey said.
“Me too.” George agreed with him. “I hope they stay on for good this time.”
“What do you think, Will? You think the lights are back on for good?” Joey asked.
“I honestly don’t know. I’m hoping that since they’ve been on again, off again, on again, it means someone is working on them; and will fix them for good.”
“Yeah, I bet the guys up at the TVA have been working round the clock. They could be getting rid of that computer virus we heard about. Maybe the shutdown we had the other day was them cleaning the last of it out of their systems.” Joe said.
“Maybe.” Will said. “But I wonder how many people are going to be there or out riding around to fix the lines if something goes wrong. If we get another storm like the one we had back in February, we could be without power again for a long time. One damn storm or tornado could put us right back to where we were. I just don’t trust the power anymore, and I think we need to make sure that the family is ready to go on without it again.”
“Shit, Will!” George said. “Things are already fucked up enough without you being a downer. Let’s just enjoy them while they last.”
“Oh, I agree, bud. I’m gonna take a hell of a long, hot shower tonight and enjoy every precious drop of warm water. All I’m saying is that we can’t take it as sign that everything is ok and give up on our other projects.”
“I agree with, Will. We need to keep up with our plan. Just look at us. We all had jobs, so did a lot of other people who just didn’t go back to them because of the economy or the riots. I don’t imagine the power company will be all that different. We need to press on until we can call up a Domino’s and get a large supreme with cheesy crust delivered to our doorstep in thirty minutes or less. Then we’ll know everything is back to normal.” Joey said.
The other two men laughed. “Shit, I’ll even cut them some slack. They don’t even need to get it here in thirty minutes. I’d settle for an hour or two.” George joked. They continued laughing when Bear came running at them, barking up a storm. Will hoped the big dog would end up being a good watch dog. They needed one now that they had the rabbits and the raccoon. Hell, maybe with a little work, the big mutt could even help them hunt.
The smell of roasting turkey hit them as they walked into the cabin. Kerry and Betty were in the kitchen cooking up some canned vegetables to go with the turkey. Jenny and Pam set the table. As Will walked over to give Jenny a kiss hello, she protested violently, telling him to wash up before he got near her again. The other men walked in the back door of the cabin. “Hey, hun.” Barry said as he walked up to his wife and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. He looked over to the younger men. “You boys get the finished with the ditch?”
“Sure did, Dad. You guys get the outhouse finished?” George asked.
“Yep.” Jim answered. “As soon as we move it over the hole you guys dug earlier, we can use it.”
“It’s
not the best quality of work I’ve ever done. But considering it was a tree last week, I think it’s pretty good. Shouldn’t even give you splinters.” Chuck said.
Kerry came out of the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready as soon as you men go wash up.” She said as she sat the bird on the table.
The men filed into a line to use the bathroom. Joey looked over at Will and said, “Jesus, dude, you stink.”
“And you’re as fresh as the north end of a south-bound mule.” George shot back in his cousin’s defense. Even the older men got in on the joking and teasing.
Chuck looked up into the mirror and addressed the other guys. “I never really understood how much we took for granted. All the teasing aside, we do smell like shit.”
“I doubt that will get any better. The one bar of soap we found is almost gone. What are we going to do after that?” Jim asked.
“I don’t know. But I think we need to add it to our list of stuff we need to try and make or buy.” Barry said.
The family had diner and enjoyed being with each other. Joey had thought that such close quarters would drive them insane. Surprisingly, it made them closer. He hoped that continued, but he had his doubts. A week was one thing. Six months would be another. After dinner, they took the scraps out to the back porch for Bear and, the family gathered in the living room. They checked the TV and radio for any news. They found no broadcasts on the TV and the same emergency broadcast information on the one radio station they could receive.
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