Robbie fell to his knees in front of Scott and pulled Scott’s head into his shoulder. As Scott sobbed and soaked Robbie’s shirt, though, Robbie didn’t know how else he could help. He’d stay there as long as it took for Scott to finish sobbing and then listen to whatever he had to say. Robbie would nod occasionally and try to find some sympathetic words. He knew it wouldn’t be enough to fix the situation. But it was all he knew to do.
John had his own question to answer. As much as he agonized over Scott’s loss, he had to know that his own family was okay.
He picked up the radio from where Scott had thrown it onto the ground.
“Hannah, please, tell me you and the girls are okay.”
Hannah heard her husband’s voice and almost lost it. She choked up and was quite literally unable to talk for several seconds.
It was an almost unbearable few seconds for John.
Finally, Hannah answered.
“The girls and I are fine, John. Joyce is the only one we lost. Linda is banged up pretty bad, and Tom has some cuts on his face. But we’ll all be okay. How is Scott doing?”
“He’s in bad shape.”
“Linda wants to know, if we open up the gate to the compound, can you come in?”
“We’d love to, honey. But it wouldn’t be worth the risk. The plague is a respiratory infection. It’s spread just like the flu or the measles. If any of you get too close to any of us, it could take over your compound and make some of you very sick. It could even kill some of you.”
“I thought since you had the plague and survived, that you were immune to it.”
“I am immune to it. I’ll never catch it again. But I can still carry the virus. And I can pass it on to others. You all have been through enough. We can wait a few more months until the CDC issues the all clear.”
Hannah’s heart was breaking, and she wasn’t afraid to show it.
“It’s just so unfair, John. This whole thing. This whole miserable world, and all the pain it shovels out. It’s just not fair.”
In the basement, standing behind Sara, were John and Hannah’s two daughters.
Rachel, the oldest, reached for the microphone and pressed the microphone.
“I love you, Daddy.”
Now John lost it too.
Through tears, he blubbered, “I love you too, sweetheart.”
Tom got on the radio. He’d heard enough.
“Bull. You guys came all the way here to save our butts. We’re not letting you leave empty handed.
“I’m coming downstairs to unlock the gate. Then I’ll back away. You guys come in and secure the gate behind you. Then hang out in the feed barn while we get everything ready.”
-12-
Before Tom opened up the gate, he took a thermos of iced tea and a few plastic cups to the feed barn.
He heard the four men outside the gate as he removed the slide bolt that secured it from the inside. They were still trying to console Scott, and still not having much luck.
Tom backed away from the gate and walked to the back porch.
“Okay,” he said. There’s fresh brewed tea in the barn. Lay across the hay bales and get comfortable. We’ll be out shortly.”
Actually, it took longer than Tom thought. He and the girls swarmed over the kitchen, boiling ears of corn and frying a batch of chicken. Hannah and Linda were both preoccupied, Hannah stitching up Linda’s forehead and Linda bitching and complaining with every pull of the thread.
She had good reason to complain, though. In the absence of a good anesthetic, she had nothing to fend off the pain except several out of date ibuprofen tablets.
And they just didn’t do the trick for getting stitches.
“Would you stop wiggling?”
“Hey, wiggling makes it hurt less. So does complaining, in case you’re wondering.”
“Well, I don’t mind you complaining about the pain. I know it hurts like hell. But if you don’t stop wiggling, your stitches are going to be crooked. You’ll look like Frankenstein’s bride.”
The two women had been through a lot together since Hannah came to stay at the compound. They’d grown quite close, and were more like sisters than friends. Hannah knew that the next few days would be among the roughest they’d faced.
But she also knew they’d be up to the task.
She finally finished the last stitch and applied a bandage.
“Honestly,” Linda asked. “How bad does it look? Will Tom still love me?”
“Tom will always love you, dear. And to answer your question, you’re still just as beautiful as you always were. It’ll leave a bit of a scar, but you’re still one hot mama. If Tom doesn’t love you just as much as ever, then he’s a crazy old fool and I will personally kick his ass.”
Linda managed a smile.
Hannah continued, “Speaking of Tom, are you up to relieving him so the girls don’t burn the chicken? Send him up here to see me so I can start picking those glass shards out of his face. And, oh, by the way, if anybody needs to worry about losing any beauty in the deal, it’s Tom. It’s a good thing he was no Clark Gable to begin with.”
“Hey, watch it. That’s my man you’re talking about.”
“Well, what are you gonna do about it? I’m not afraid of you. You hit like a girl.”
Linda suddenly grew serious.
“Thank you for sewing me up. Why don’t you come downstairs? You can work on Tom in the dining room. The light’s better down there.”
Hannah nodded at Joyce’s body, her head now resting on a bed pillow and her hands folded across her midsection.
“Thanks. But I don’t feel it would be right to leave her side. Not yet. I know we’ll have to soon enough. But I think she’d like it if we kept her company.”
Linda didn’t argue.
“Okay. I’ll send Tom up. And don’t tell him I cried and complained the whole time.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell him you were a tough old bird. And I’ll tell him if he complains one little bit I’ll tell everyone in the compound he whines like a little sissy.”
Linda went downstairs to help with the chicken.
An hour later, the back yard was set up like a bizarre segregated banquet. Two picnic tables had been set up, thirty yards apart, and each had been covered with a variety of dishes. There were mashed potatoes and gravy and fried chicken, a fresh garden salad and a variety of sliced melons.
There was a pall over the feast, of course. Everyone could see their loved ones at the other table. But not being able to reach out and touch them was maddeningly painful.
Scott tried his best to eat, but couldn’t taste a thing. He only had one thing on his mind, and that was seeing Joyce.
Sara volunteered to sit with her during the meal. It was her that actually came up with the idea. She got on the radio and asked John, “This plague thingy… you said it was spread by close contact, like sneezing or coughing real close to others, right?”
“Uh… yeah. And it is also possible to pass it by touching someone.”
“So… if I went to the first aid kit and got a disposable mask and pair of latex gloves, and then walked outside and left them on the back porch, then…”
Her words clicked to everyone else on the radio. It was a brilliant idea.
John picked up where Sara left off.
“… then Scott could don the mask and gloves and go spend some time with his lady before he had to leave. Sara, you are my hero.”
Scott picked up the radio. It was all he could do to muster three simple words: “Thank you, Sara.”
Before she left the house, though, Sara went to the bathroom and got a wet washcloth and a hand towel. She’d never cleaned a dead body before. In fact, this was the first dead body she’d ever seen.
But Sara wasn’t the timid little girl who’d come to the camp the year before. Maybe it was the group, challenging her to expand her comfort zone and try new things. Or maybe it was the pregnancy, and the responsibility of having and raising a ba
by.
Whatever it was, she was no longer a child. She was wise beyond her eighteen years, and capable of darn near anything.
She could do this.
She didn’t want Scott’s last memory of Joyce to be a painful one. So she spent several minutes washing the dried blood from Joyce’s face and neck. Tenderly, as though Joyce could still feel pain, although she really knew better.
When she was finished, she went into Joyce’s room and got her hairbrush.
Joyce’s hair was long and thick. Covering up the bullet hole in her forehead was no problem, really. It took no time at all.
When she was finished, she stood and stepped back a few steps.
Under other circumstances, it would be easy to convince herself that Joyce was simply napping. She looked that peaceful.
Two minutes later she was on the back porch, as promised. She laid a paper surgical mask and a pair of latex gloves on the top step, and walked over to the first picnic table. She sat next to Jordan, who was feeding little Chris. It wasn’t until she sat down that she finally allowed herself to cry.
Scott waited until Sara was seated before he got up from his own table and walked over to the porch.
He felt numb.
This was something he didn’t want to do. No one ever wants to see a loved one like this.
But he couldn’t go on without the chance to touch her once more. To see her face. To feel her skin.
To tell her goodbye.
He donned the mask first, then the gloves. Then he entered the house.
The silence in the yard was deafening. No one said a word. No one made a sound, other than Sara’s gentle sobs. Most of the group, at both tables, had tears in their eyes or on their cheeks.
And there was absolutely nothing that any of them could possibly say that would have made the situation more palatable.
-13-
As he walked into the bedroom and saw Joyce laying there before him, Scott’s legs turned to putty. He fell to his knees by her side and started sobbing almost uncontrollably.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should never have left. I should have been by your side. I shouldn’t have left you here to fend for yourself.”
He almost took his gloves off to feel the softness of her cheek one last time. But no. He couldn’t risk it. He knew that the others would be handling her body during the burial process. He couldn’t take a chance that a germ left behind from his hand would somehow live long enough to infect someone else.
One death was enough. Was far too much. They didn’t need any more agony.
So instead, Scott lay next to her, as he’d done hundreds of times before. At her side, his head against her shoulder, his arm across her waist.
“It wasn’t supposed to end this way,” he said. “I know we met late in life. I knew we were both seasoned long before we laid eyes on each other. But I still wanted to be your knight in shining armor. I wanted to give you the little house with the white picket fence and live happily ever after with you. I wanted to see you happy and vibrant and make you laugh every day of your life.
“I never wanted to see you like this. I am so, so sorry.”
It was another half hour before he could break himself away from her. He’d have stayed longer, but he knew he was inconveniencing everyone else by making them wait outside in the sun.
He kissed her on the forehead, through the mask. But that was okay. He wanted to remember her skin as warm and soft, instead of the coldness he knew it had become.
He stood and looked down upon her. He sobbed for a moment, then brushed the tears aside.
There would be plenty of time for that later.
After a final long look at the woman he loved, he said, “I love you, sweetheart. I’ll see you again on the other side.”
Then he turned and walked out of the room.
-14-
Just before nightfall, the four visitors walked out the gate again. Tom and Jordan had already placed sleeping bags, camping gear and provisions outside the compound.
It was decided that the four would camp just outside the fence for the night. They still had Scott’s radio, with a fresh set of batteries, and one of them would monitor the radio all night in case any of the ugliness came back. They had their weapons with them, cleaned and ready to fire, and all their magazines were reloaded.
Just in case there were more of Pike’s allies planning a follow-up raid.
Tom himself took the security detail that night. The side of his face Hannah had plucked seventeen pieces of glass from was on fire anyway. He knew he’d get no sleep. So he might as well be up.
Jordan, who like Sara had done a lot of growing in the previous year, considered himself a man now. And he’d proven it lately as well. He stepped up and offered to take the night security detail off Tom’s hands.
But he was denied.
“I’m getting old, Jordan. I get winded these days, doing things that used to come easy for me. Tomorrow, come sunrise, one of us is going to have to dig a grave. I can do it, but you can do it much faster. And it won’t wear you plumb out, like it would do to me. I need for you to get a good night’s sleep so you can do the heavy lifting tomorrow.”
Jordan couldn’t argue. The older man made sense.
As he turned and walked away, Tom smiled and called behind him.
“Hey, Jordan?”
“Yes, sir?”
“When you get upstairs, and lay yourself next to that pretty little wife of yours, don’t you be thinking you can bump uglies all night long and still have the strength to dig a grave tomorrow.”
Jordan laughed. The old guy might be losing his strength. But he still had his sense of humor.
And after they’d all just been through, it sure felt good to laugh just a little.
Outside the wall, there was no laughter or joy. The mood was decidedly somber. It was still a little early in the season for the mosquitoes to be out, so they slept in the open.
Cowboy style, Tom Haskins called it. Like the old days.
Oh, there were tents available. The Walmart truck they’d brought into the yard the previous summer had several of them on it, and they were stored in one of the sheds.
The trouble was, if they came under surprise attack in the middle of the night by a second wave of outlaws, getting out of a tent was just another thing that would slow them down. At a time when every split second might be the difference between life and death.
Randy and Robbie fell fast asleep, Robbie gently snoring a soothing rhythm that under other circumstances might lull the others to sleep. But neither Scott nor John would get much sleep this night, and for completely different reasons.
Scott because he was filled with guilt and blamed himself for Joyce’s death. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her lifeless body. When he looked up at the heavens above him he pictured her in his mind, taking a fatal bullet to the head, then falling backwards onto the floor.
John could easily have slept, knowing now that Hannah and the girls were safe and in good health. But he needed to be there for his friend.
The two of them talked long into the night, barely above a whisper, listening to the turkey buzzards in the darkness, fighting and squawking over the bodies of the bad men in the fields around them.
They talked about life in general, and why it was that when things were finally looking up, they could turn so terribly tragic again.
They talked about Joyce herself. John learned her life history that night, her talents and flaws and what a wonderful woman she was.
And lastly, they talked about God, and whether He really existed. And why He would take someone as good as wonderful as Joyce, yet let all the other bad men of the world live on. To torment others who committed no crime other than try to eke out a meager living.
Sometime after three a.m., they finally faded away, Scott first and John not long behind him. John waited until he heard several minutes of silence, then Scott’s deep steady breathing. Once he was sure Scott was out for th
e night, he allowed himself to join him.
At five thirty, Tom heard someone clattering around in the kitchen, and smelled coffee brewing. A few minutes later Linda came to the control center, walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.
He asked, “Should I ask who it is?”
“It’s your horribly ugly and disfigured girlfriend.”
He never took his eyes off the monitors. If a second wave of bandits was coming, it might be a good tactic to attack this time of day, with the rising sun at their backs.
“I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else. I don’t have an ugly girlfriend. The only girlfriend I have is named Linda, and she is incredibly beautiful and sexy and sensuous.”
She kissed him on the back of the head and said, “Thank you for that. I so love you.”
“Well, I so love you too.”
“Who’s coming on to relieve you at six, and why did you volunteer to do an all-nighter?”
“Sara is going to relieve me, and I wanted to be awake in case there was a follow-up attack during the night. There are few things worse than having a gun battle against ornery outlaws when you’ve just been rousted out of bed and you’re still half asleep.”
“I hope you don’t have so much experience at shooting outlaws first thing in the morning to be speaking from first hand knowledge.”
“Well… no. But I reckon it to be so.”
Linda smiled.
“You reckon it to be so, huh? I love the way you talk Texan. There’s something… rustic and rugged about it.”
“Better’n talkin’ like a damned Yankee.”
“Well, yeah, I guess I can’t argue with that.”
“I can still hear clangin’ and bangin’ in the kitchen. Who’s in there besides you?”
“Hannah and her girls. We’re making breakfast for our guests.”
“Oh, so now only the guests get to eat?”
“You know what I mean, you crazy old coot.”
He lifted his head and kissed her.
“Well, you’d better get a move on. They’re starting to stir.”
She looked at screen six, and sure enough could see Randy as he crawled out of his sleeping bag and ran off into the brush to relieve himself. Scott and Robbie were still in their bags, but sitting up and talking.
An Undeclared War (Countdown to Armageddon Book 4) Page 5