Fifty Falling Stars

by Wesley Higginbotham

  “Now, a word of caution! Our homes have been without power for over two months. We just don’t know the state of the wiring in those homes. That’s why we had our teams come in and turn off your building’s power at the breaker box. Over the next couple of days, Mr. Porter and his crews will come through and inspect your buildings and turn the power back on. Please do not do this yourself. ‘Why not?’ You ask… Fire. We want to make sure that all of the buildings are safely powered up. With all of the extra people in town, every building is needed to house us and shelter our work. We just can’t risk having one of them burn down.”

  “Now, the moment of truth. People of Celina, friends and neighbors, we will once again have lights at night! We will once again have heat in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, and power to cook our food! We will have working refrigerators and freezers to preserve our food supplies! We will have a working hospital equipment that will save lives!” The crowd vibrated with excitement by this point. The sheriff unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. “Mr. Porter, let there be light!” A little over two miles away, a nervous man flipped a breaker switch in the power grid control room at the Dale Hollow Dam.

  The crowd held its breath in anticipation. The sky darkened as night began to fall. Nothing happened. Seconds stretched on like hours. A flickering of light caught Will’s eye as one of the street lamps fluttered to life. Suddenly, the entire courthouse lit up, every light in the building burning. The Sheriff turned toward the courthouse and made a “roll it” gesture with his right hand and arm. The old loud speakers on the outside of the courthouse screeched and wined as current rushed into them. The “Star Spangled Banner” began to play. The crowd erupted in every imaginable display of excitement. Somme yelled. Men and women danced in the streets. Some placed their hand over their heart and sang along. Some cried, either alone or hugging a friend or loved one. As the lights burned in the coming night, they burned away more than the darkness. They returned hope to the people of Celina.

  Will walked into the First Baptist Church, heading for his bay after a long day of work. He smiled as he opened the door and saw the lights on. Three days after the power had been restored and almost every house and building in the town had power. The city council had assigned people to work on getting the water system back up and running. It would only be a few days before hot showers became commonplace again. He couldn’t wait.

  Work on his secondary defensive positions had sped up since the crew was able to use power tools now. In a couple of days, they would complete the guard towers and the chevaux de frise barriers around the downtown area. While the wooden spikes of the barriers wouldn’t stand up to trucks, Will figured that it would slow down any advancing invaders on foot. In retrospect, they should have set them up back at the cabin before it was overrun. No time like the present to remedy old mistakes. Will thought to himself. Cutting the wood, building the actual barriers, and moving them into place had been quite a job. He was tired and looking for sleep when he opened the door to the room that held their bay.

  His mom, Chuck, and Jenny were waiting on him. Jenny and Betty sat on opposing cots, holding hands as Chuck stood behind, his hand resting on Betty’s shoulder. “What’s going on? You guys look like something’s wrong.”

  The women sat up straight and stopped holding hands. Chuck didn’t move. He just looked down at Betty and seemed uncomfortable. “You know when we had that discussion the other night about how much our parents had been spending time together and you saw them holding hands?” Jenny asked. Will nodded.

  “You know how we were going to talk to them about it but just weren’t sure how to approach them?”

  “Yeah.” Will said. “I guess that’s what we’re doing now?”

  “Kinda.” Jenny said with a smile. “They actually came to tell us something.”

  “Mom?” Will asked. She blushed but didn’t speak.

  Chuck looked Will in the eye. “We’re getting married, son.”

  Will was speechless for a minute. His dad had passed away only five weeks ago, and Kerry only a week after that. Did they not have any loyalty their former spouses? Will wanted them to find happiness and live their lives, but this was too soon. He had expected that they might say that they’d started dating or talking or something. But married? He just stared at Chuck. Anger, jealousy, compassion, revulsion, and love all swirled together inside of him, turning his emotions into an incomprehensible mess.

  “Anyway,” Chuck continued, “we’ve already talked it over with Brother Bob here at the church. We told him we just wanted something small and private. No big show on Sunday or anything. He said he can do it tomorrow… We just really wanted to get your and Jenny’s blessing.”

  Will stuffed down his anger for the moment. “What did Joey say?”

  “We haven’t told anyone else yet.” Betty said. “We wanted to let you two know first. Maybe if we get your blessing, you can help tell Joey.”

  “Why?” Will asked. “Why now?”

  “Listen, Will. I know it hasn’t been very long since your dad passed away and Kerry too. But over the last few weeks, your mom and I have been talking and getting close. It all started as we consoled each other over your dad and Kerry. Then we became friends. It was a pretty rough time, but we bonded over that. The more we talked, the more we liked each other. We fell in love.”

  “Neither one of us really thought we would survive in that week after Kerry passed. Lord knows, if it wasn’t for you kids, I probably would have given up. But your mom, she kind of saved me… Well, when you led us here, to this little miracle of a town, we found safety. Your mom and I found the time to get to know each other even better.

  “We began talking about the future, something I think we had both sort of given up on. When we really thought about it, we realized that we don’t have that much time left.”

  “What do you mean?” Jenny said. “We’ve gotten power back on and we’ll have the hospital back to normal in no time. Why don’t you have much time? What’s wrong?”

  “Well, sweetheart,” Chuck continued, “all of those things are great, but the world has moved on from what it was. The hospital may be back up and running, but the medicines aren’t. Where am I going to get my next prescription filled for my cholesterol medicine? You see, while Betty and I were talking, we realized that even as good as the town is, the average lifespan is going to go down quite a bit. Before, you had medicines and other things that prolonged our lives. We watched our parents and some of their friends climb on into their eighties or nineties because of all of the great medicines that you studied. We’re just not going to have that luxury anymore.”

  “I’m with Jen.” Will said. “I just don’t get it.”

  “Ok. What are we going to do if we need surgery? There’s not going to be any more shipments of anesthesia coming in. What little we do have needs to go to you younger folks. That’s only right and the way we both want it. As we talked through all of this, we thought back to our grandparent’s time when people generally lived to about sixty or sixty-five. We realized that we’re coming up in that age range, and that’s if nothing else goes wrong. This town is still a pretty fragile place.

  “Since we make each other happy and realize that we may not have much longer, maybe a good decade or so together, we decided that we shouldn’t wait. We figured we’d just do it now… If we can get your blessing?”

  Will sat down next to Jenny. Emotionally, he rejected it outright. It was just too soon. Didn’t he still owe loyalty to his dad? What about Jenny’s mom? When he thought through it rationally, Will realized Chuck made sense. Old age wasn’t the only killer. There would be more accidents now. The annual flu season would begin to kill off the young and old in the population like it did in the days before antibiotics and antivirals. Any number of things could still upset their lives, whether they liked it or not.

  Will looked up at his mom. Tears rolled down here face. She started to speak but Will cut her off. �
��Ok.”

  “Are you sure?” Betty said as she smiled through her tears. “I won’t do it if it hurts you. I just want to make sure that you’re ok with this.”

  “I’m all right… I understand. If it’s what you want and you make each other happy, then I shouldn’t stand in the way.”

  “Thank you!” Betty said. She got up and hugged her son. Chuck put an arm around them and shook Will’s hand when he and his mother released their embrace.

  “Thank you, son. I swear, I’ll take good care of her.”

  Will looked down at Jenny. She was the only one not standing. Her eyes were wet with tears. “Are you ok with all of this, sis?” Will asked.

  Jenny laughed as she wiped tears from her eyes. “That’s not funny… But, yes, I’m all right with it. I’m just happy for them.” She wiped away more tears. “I’m just a little emotional.”

  “Is everything ok?” Betty asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Jenny assured them. She took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. She giggled to herself. “Since this seems like the day to drop news in everyone’s lap, I have some of my own.” She looked up and met Will’s eyes. “I’m pregnant.”

  The discussion with his mom and Chuck had trashed his emotions. Coupled with the long hours of work and the emotional beating he had just received, he didn’t know how to handle this. So many thoughts raced in his head. They all collided together like an interstate pileup. He felt overjoyed. He felt scared. I’m going to be a dad! Then the worry set in. How the hell do you take care of a baby in times like these? What if something happened to the town? How do I feed a wife and kid? Oh my God! There aren’t going to be any more vaccines? What if… What if… His mind almost shut down. It was too much to take. He sat down on the cot because his knees threatened to go on strike. He didn’t know what to say or do. He just said the first thing that came to mind. “Holy shit!”

  Jenny laughed uncontrollably. “I know!”

  Chapter 25

  Kirk rolled over in his makeshift tent and hugged Sherry as the first rays of light filtered through the trees. She lay naked, next to him under the sleeping bag. He breathed in the scent of her hair. It didn’t smell like some flowery perfume or some bullshit Irish dew-mist shampoo. It smelled much better than that. It smelled like her. Their relationship had skyrocketed the day after their encounter with the militia that had butchered Owensboro. Kirk didn’t know what had made Sherry catapult their relationship so far ahead. Maybe it was the fear of losing him? He thought about it and decided that he didn’t care.

  Raindrops rolled off the poncho as Kirk looked up and smiled. He thought it was weird, but he couldn’t remember being happier. They were living in the woods, having to hunt and forage for their meals, the whole world gone to hell; and he was having the time of his life. Having a family again had gone a long way toward repairing damage inside of him that he had barely known existed. He had shared all of his past with Sherry after they had made love for the first time. She was such a sweet, caring woman that she had wept with Kirk during the retelling. A part of him would always be in her debt for that and her acceptance of him. His new family didn’t replace the family he had lost all those years ago, but they did provide a lifeline back to the life he should have had, the fulfillment in his life that he had given up for dead.

  He heard Scott snoring in the tent they had made out of the old tarp they had found in an abandoned barn outside of Buffalo, Kentucky a little over a week ago. Lucy and Jimmy shared it with Scott. Kirk heard someone stir in the other tent occupied by Leesha and Clay. He had given them his spare poncho. The new sleeping arrangements had worked out perfectly in Kirk’s estimation. Lucy and Jimmy had accepted the fact that he and Sherry were in a relationship. Jimmy had been a little hesitant at first, but Lucy had reacted with excitement, surprising both Kirk and Sherry. Jimmy had come around in the following days.

  Kirk tried not to wake Sherry as he retrieved his road map from his pack. He opened the atlas to Kentucky. He wasn’t sure where they were. They had passed few landmarks and had avoided all towns and cities since they had fled Owensboro some sixteen days ago. The last landmark they had passed was the town where they had found the abandoned farm house. Everything of any real value had been scavenged, with the exception of the tarp and a couple of small hand tools. Any sort of triangulation wasn’t really possible since the maps he had were road atlases, not navigational maps. He had no idea what the compass offset would be in Kentucky, nor did the map have any topographical information on it to assist in identifying features. He tried dead reckoning, but that was unreliable.

  He had led them more east than south for four days after they had crossed the Ohio. He figured that was the best way to put some distance between his new family and the animals who now occupied Owensboro. On the fifth day, they had turned south. By his estimates, they should be coming up to the Tennessee border either tomorrow or the next day. Kirk knew that they would need to cross the Cumberland River at some point. The closest options he saw on the map were Burkesville, Kentucky or further southwest at Celina, Tennessee. Because of the way the river wound around the area, making loops to the south before heading back up to the northwest and turning south again, the best way would be to cross at Burkesville and then cross a smaller river that fed from a place marked on the map as Dale Hollow Lake.

  The trepidation Kirk felt at crossing another river surprised him. He knew it was all in his head, but with the new relationship he had found with the family and the near catastrophe that he had almost stepped into at Owensboro, he felt pressured to be overly protective of them. He had to make sure the crossings were safe. While he told himself that it was just bad timing with the Owensboro crossing, he couldn’t shake the feeling. He had begun to grow comfortable in their life the last couple of weeks, even though he knew it couldn’t last. They had lived off the land. Life was difficult, but simple. The family had become acclimated to roughing it. The bland food, the hard sleeping conditions, and the elements no longer affected them. He felt happy out here and hated to risk another encounter, even though he knew it had to be done. While he might live out here forever, he needed to find the others a home. They needed to be grounded somewhere. He thought about Sherry. He would be where she was from now on.

  A rustle from Clay’s tent broke his train of thought. He peered around the side of the poncho and saw Leesha stirring. She gathered some of the dried wood left over from the night before and lit a fire. Kirk yawned and his stomach rumbled. He might as well get up and help Leesha with breakfast. He yawned one last time and felt at his beard as he covered his mouth. It had gotten long again. While he thought it ridiculous to shave out in the woods, he did like to keep the facial hair down. The grey streaks it showed at the sides of his mouth and his sideburns made him feel old. Keeping the hair trimmed made him feel like he could hang on to his youth. He laughed at himself and how ridiculous the thought was, but it didn’t stop him from retrieving the little scissors in his grooming kit.

  The rain lessened after noon. The camp made a big lunch, using the oldest of their dried meat for the stew. They still had plenty left after cleaning out the old. The game and wild plants had been plentiful on their trek. Jimmy had turned into a good hunter. It was a rare day when the young man didn’t take the pellet gun out when they made camp and come back with at least a couple of birds, a squirrel, or a rabbit within the hour. Under Kirk’s tutorship, both Jimmy and Clay had become proficient at living in the woods. They had improved on their marksmanship, both long gun and handgun. They knew how to make fire, find food, make shelters, set traps, hunt, treat small wounds, and defend themselves. Kirk still trained them hard for an hour or so before the end of each day. He taught them self-defense moves, weapons handling techniques, small unit guerrilla tactics, and some ambush techniques. Although he wasn’t sure if Clay or Jimmy had caught on, Kirk had laid the foundation for his replacements. He knew that at any moment, any of them could be taken away. If the situation in Owensboro hadn’t w
ent quite so well, the group would have lost him then. He took pride in the fact that the two men had come so far in just a few short weeks. While they weren’t Kirk’s equal yet, they would have a fighting chance surviving without him. Kirk had also been pleasantly surprised when Leesha and Sherry had begun participating in the training. They weren’t the equal of Clay or Jimmy yet, but they were gaining fast.

  The next afternoon, the family crested one of the taller hills around them and looked down on a road. Kirk had the family stop while he and Clay went to check out the road. Jimmy and Scott stayed behind to guard their gear and the women. The two men avoided the small farm houses and buildings scattered along the road. Most of them seemed to be abandoned. The sign about a hundred yards from where they crossed the road told them that it was Kentucky Highway 90. Kirk covered the road while Clay returned to gather the family and bring them across.

  Once they were in the woods across the road and half way up the small mountain, Kirk stopped the group. He retrieved his road atlas and studied it for a few minutes. He looked up from the map and smiled.

  “What’s with the shit-eating grin?” Clay asked.

  “We’re closer to Burkesville than I thought. It shouldn’t be more than four or five miles east of here. You boy’s feel like doing a little scouting?” The men smiled.

  “You mind if I come along?” Leesha asked. Scott, Sherry, and Lucy moved off a little to find cover and harvest any edible plants in the area, following the routine they had developed whenever Kirk would take the guys out scouting or training.

  “Baby, it might get dangerous. I want you to stay here with Scott and Sherry.” Clay argued.

  “All right.” Kirk agreed with Leesha.

  Clay frowned at Kirk and was about to begin an argument when Kirk cut him off. “It’ll be a good training opportunity. She’s been training with you guys for over a week now. I hadn’t been teaching you much longer than that when I took you along. Besides, another pair of eyes couldn’t hurt.” Clay looked annoyed, verging on pissed; but he nodded.