by Jaron McFall
Denise kissed Charlie on the cheek and then started telling Eliza what needed done inside the house. Even though his brother was about five inches shorter than him, Cedric still listened to most of what he said. When they walked outside, Cedric noticed that the hole Charlie was digging was indeed a ditch: maybe six foot deep. But Cedric wasn’t sure why he was digging a ditch around his yard.
"The windows,” Charlie said bringing Cedric’s attention back to welding. “The cart is down there. Gloves and helmet in the seat. Rods in the cup holder. You need anything else, little brother?" Charlie teased at Cedric as they were walking outside.
"Younger yes, little no," was Cedric's usual response to this, "and I think that’s everything I need. I will get anything else I need from the shed." Denise met Cedric at the cart after Charlie showed him how he wanted the windows barred up and the cellar doors reinforced. The day was cool, but in the direct light of the arc welder, it was steaming, especially under the equipment. Cedric was completely decked out in welding gear. He had a do-rag pulling his messy hair out of his eyes. His welding jacket was a thick, unlined canvas that scratched his arms. And his gloves were leather that made it hard to manipulate the tools. His face was completely covered by a welding helmet that blocked out the light of the electrical arc.
After just over four hours of welding and carrying loads of metal, Cedric was soaked in sweat and tired, but the day wasn't nearly over yet. When Cedric found Charlie again, he was in the shed grinding the ends of metal pipes to a point on an electric grinding wheel. The trench he had been digging was complete and now he was talking about filling the bottom with these sharpened pipes. Not only did he want to fill it with pipes but Cedric noticed there was no way to get out. The trench connected to itself where there should be a driveway. He actually busted his own driveway out? Cedric thought when he saw it. When he pointed this out, Charlie just laughed and told him that’s why he decided Cedric's next project was a drawbridge.
"Listen, Charlie, I get it. Increased home security and all, but isn't this taking it may be a bit too far? I mean we don’t even know if that video is even real. And we don’t know if it will reach us. Not to mention the fact that you just had me ruin your window frames. You guys just bought this house two months ago." Cedric paused to catch his breath and Charlie took the opportunity to interject.
"Ced, why is it, every time someone says not to mention, they mention it anyway?" Now Charlie paused to laugh at his younger brother. "I need you to trust me. Do you really think I would do thousands of dollars’ worth of damage for increased home security if I didn't have a dang good reason? There isn't just one YouTube video, little brother. There are hundreds. Not only YouTube either. CNN released a helicopter video this morning about four a.m. It was bad. I had them show you the lightest video of them all. It’s like that movie I really liked in high school: Resident Evil. Only these guys are not locked up in some underground building. They’re all over Texas, spreading into all the surrounding states. For now, at least it’s contained on that side of the river. Hell, Ced. It's even spreading into Mexico.”
Cedric was lost on his brother’s words. "Hundreds of videos," he said skeptically. "Why haven't I seen any? Until the one your wife showed me, that is."
"The government has been doing a bang-up job of keeping them under wraps. You know how the government is, but when there are thousands of videos, hundreds will leak out." Charlie started loading the pipes up on a small trailer as he talked to Cedric. "What I need you to do is use any of those materials to make a drawbridge sturdy enough to hold a dually." Cedric knew by dually that Charlie meant his Chevy Silverado 3500: the kind with four rear tires instead of two. "If ya need any extra supplies just tell me. Ben is in town right now getting some more stuff. It will be pretty cramped in the house for a while. Ben's family will be staying here too."
Ben was Charlie’s father-in-law. Technically, Ben was Denise’s adoptive father. Cedric wasn’t sure of the whole story and he never asked either. He had a wife, Sherry. They also had a second daughter, Julie, who was eight. Like Denise, she was adopted too. Cedric knew that Julie and Denise were blood relatives somehow, but for all intents and purposes, they were sisters.
Julie had a bedroom in Charlie and Denise's house for when she stayed the night or weekend with them. They also had a spare bedroom, which they were now, according to Denise, using as storage.
"Where will everyone stay?" Ced asked. He knew that many people in that house was pushing it.
"Denise and I will stay in our room. Ben, Sherry, and Julie in hers. You and mom in the living room." Charlie said slowing down at the end and adding, "Hope that's ok."
"OK. How long is this going to last?" Cedric asked.
"Until this whole thing is over. We don't really know when it will be over." Charlie was speaking a little louder than necessary, but Cedric could tell he was a little worked up.
"We don't even know if it will reach us," Cedric said again with a sigh. "And if you think it will, what about Cam?"
Cameron was their oldest brother who was in the Marines. Most of the time they didn't hear from him for weeks at a time; sometimes months. Not because of being a Marine, but because they had never really talked a lot. In fact, Cedric hadn't directly talked to Cameron since Easter.
"He is with the Marines. I'm sure he is fine. Mom tried to get a hold of him, but he is away from the base. They didn't tell her any more than that. Not sure who she talked to, but they said they would give him the message to call home ASAP." Charlie wiped the sweat from his forehead as he said, "Well, Ben will be here in about two hours. Will you need anything else?"
Cedric took a few minutes to inventory what he had to work with before he added a short list of things to bring back: fifty feet of strong chain being the most important thing. “I will need that to make it be a drawbridge; otherwise it’s just a bridge,” Cedric had said.
He also managed to salvage an old Briggs and Stratton engine from his brother’s homemade go-cart, which he would use to pull the bridge up. There was no way he wanted to haul the bridge up by hand since it would have to be huge to hold his brothers truck. When he began making the bridge with the metal and wood he had available, he noticed that the highway in the distance was busy. It was too busy for a Thursday afternoon. Everyone should be at work today. He guessed many had taken off like his family and were preparing for whatever might be coming.
Three hours later, as he was setting the bridge in its place with Charlie's Kubota, Ben's purple Ford F-150 pulled into view. He parked the truck in the road and stepped out. "Man. You two have really been busy." Ben was a big guy, about six-foot-four. He was a muscular African-American man with close-cropped hair.
Ben looked into the trench and stared at the sharpened pipes six feet down. "And I suppose those pipes came from my barn? Well, I guess I won't need them anyway. And I listened to the radio on the way back. The disease, or whatever it is, has spread to Kansas." He looked at the two in turn. "It’s spreading faster," He added grimly.
It was about five in the evening before they finally took a break to eat. Ben had been there a while and helped Cedric finish up the bridge before he pulled his truck inside the yard. Cedric and Ben would have been done earlier had they not had issues with the drawbridge. The drawbridge was so heavy that it broke Cedric’s first support beam. Ben had to help Cedric rebuild the frame with extra supports.
When the job was finally done, they went inside. The food Denise was making smelled good after working hours on an empty stomach. It was beef stew and rolls. Over dinner, Charlie and Ben talked about what else needed to be done. There was still the matter of putting a barbed wire fence on the inner side of the trench, or ditch as Charlie insisted, as a trench made it sound like it was full of manure. They also had to put more pipes around the entire house at an angle so anything running at it would be impaled. “Just like the beaches of Normandy,” Charlie insisted.
After three bowls of stew apiece, Ben, Charlie, and Cedric we
nt back outside to begin driving t-stakes in the ground for the fence. Sherry arrived by seven with Julie and their small dog, Cisco. Sherry was a complete visual contrast to Ben. Where Ben was muscular and tall, Sherry was short and slender. She had nearly pale, Irish skin tones covered in bright red freckles. Her hair was likewise Irish with flaming red curls. Julie looked like neither of the two—she was average height for her age with straight brown hair.
By eight that evening, all the poles were in the ground. Ben was the first to shower, and Charlie right after. When Cedric joined them in the living room after his, they were talking about the news on CNN. The infection had spread to the southern parts of Kansas and Colorado and to the eastern parts of New Mexico. Oklahoma was already as bad as Texas, with most of the cities in chaos.
They all had said goodnight and went to their rooms. His mom was on the only couch, so Cedric laid in his sleeping bag on the floor. He wondered what was going to happen next. Surely this is all just some dream, some frightening, stupid nightmare, Cedric thought.
He was in such denial that this wasn't real that fear hadn't really hit him yet. He just did what everyone was telling him to do, just like any other day. He knew he would soon hear the annoying buzz of his clock, hit the snooze button ten times, and then roll out of his twin size bed to take a shower. He knew that the news in the morning would surely say that the Houston scare was under control. He knew for a fact that he was definitely dreaming this day. He let his eyes shut as he fell asleep.
Chapter Two:
SO IT’S NOT A DREAM
Cedric woke up to what was quite possibly the most annoying sound in the world. He smiled as he heard what vaguely sounded like his alarm clock. Cedric reached for the snooze button but found his arms wouldn't move out from the blanket. It was like the blanket was wrapped around his body. He opened his eyes to find he was in a sleeping bag. Not only that, but his older brother's face was directly above his. Charlie was making a noise that sounded like a cross between a duck and badly tuned radio over and over again. Cedric growled as he realized it wasn't a nightmare like he had been hoping. Then he pulled his arm from the sleeping bag and rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he mumbled to his brother, "Shut that noise up before I make your nose a snooze button."
Charlie laughed out his reply, "Still not a morning person. Well, no shock there. Come on, get up. You’re in the living room floor, remember? You may not be a morning person but the rest of us are. Everyone else has been awake for a couple hours. Mom and Sherry are making breakfast and it's almost done."
Cedric turned his head to look into the kitchen as he pulled himself up onto his elbows. The smell of bacon and biscuits came wafting to him as he unzipped the sleeping bag and climbed out. Charlie helped him roll it up and then they tossed it into the corner with Cedric's bags. "After breakfast, can you help Ben put up the barbed wire? I’m going to finish the pipes around the house. Then, I think we should be done."
Cedric shook his head and asked, "Have you seen the news this morning?"
"Middle Kansas. But it seems like the barricades on the bridges are holding. This is really starting to get kind of creepy. It's like we are just waiting for this mess to get here. There’s nothing more to do. I just hope what we have done works.” He paused then added hopefully, “I think it will.”
"How long do you think we have until it gets here?" Cedric's voice was now touched with fear. He hadn't really been afraid until now: now that he knew it wasn't a dream. He had been telling himself it wasn't real all day yesterday, but now that the truth was sinking in, there was no denying it. Cedric was afraid.
"Well, it made it across half of a state in about fifteen hours; so, two to three days for a state. Two weeks, maybe three, before it reaches us. If the barricades up and down the Mississippi hold, that is. I think they should just blow the bridges up. We aren’t taking any chances, though. They said it may be a terrorist attack, and what if they attack somewhere close to here next.” Cedric could tell Charlie was in one of his ranting moods. He was talking faster with every sentence.
Charlie paused for a moment staring up. He then raised his hands in a helpless manner, “We have to be ready. We are definitely a possible target if it is a terrorist attack. Nashville is only four hours from here. Don't forget about Knoxville and Johnson City, too: both only an hour and a half away. All are large enough to attack."
"None of which are as big as Houston though." Cedric reminded him.
Charlie closed his eyes for a moment before responding, "That makes them all the easier to attack, though. And fine, let’s say they don't attack them. Atlanta is only six hours away. At the rate Houston spread, if Atlanta is attacked today we have less than a week. Three days probably. We have to be ready.
"Don't panic. We will be ready by tonight. We will probably be ready by noon,” Cedric said.
The older brother stared at the younger for a single heartbeat and said, "Ready by noon? No,” Charlie said shaking his head. “But fortified by noon, yes. But ready? I don’t think anyone could be ready for this. Plus, we still need to figure out water. I’ve got the gas generator hooked into the breaker box; so, we don’t need to worry much about power. If the natural gas lines get shut off, it also hooks to propane. So, we have power at least until we run the tank dry. It should have at least two hundred gallons left. Then I’ve got a few grill tanks for emergency if all else fails."
Denise came into the living room with a plate filled with eggs and bacon, a biscuit in her hand, and sat on the couch, ending the brother's conversation. "Breakfast is ready, boys."
The two brothers got into line behind Julie and loaded their plates down. Charlie joined his wife and sister-in-law on the couch but Cedric ate his on the porch with Ben. "What do you think we can do about water?" Cedric asked through a mouth full of food.
Ben swallowed his mouthful of food before answering. "I was thinking about that last night before bed. We have enough to last a couple weeks, but no more. The lake isn't far from here, but I wouldn't want to drink that water. You’re not even supposed to eat the fish more than twice a month. No telling what’s in it."
Ben worked as a general handyman and repairman. He had his own business serving different houses and farms across the county. He and Charlie were fairly close. It wasn’t just because of Denise; Ben had helped Charlie start his landscaping business and helped to repair his equipment regularly. Ben had a deep voice with a slight southern drawl and a rasp. "But if we could filter it, it may be drinkable. But I doubt it would taste good."
"My mom has a distilling kit. Will that work?"
Ben paused before answering, "Yes and no. It will work, but it won't distill enough. Distilling takes time. We are going to save that water for things like cleaning a wound. We will need sterile water for that. At most, it does a gallon of water a day. We would need one of those for every person.”
"How about I work out the water problem; you put up the fence. I will dig a small trench with a mattock and put a hose in it that goes to the lake. Then I can cover it back up with dirt. It’s only a quarter mile from here. I can figure out some way to filter it then. We can put a pump on it. It won't be difficult at all."
"I was thinking something like that myself. Yeah, you dig the trench. I would rather do the fence by myself than have to help with that. Denise and Sherry can go to my barn and get some PVC pipe. It will hold better than a garden hose. You know how to lay pipe, don't you?"
"I know how it's done, but I’ve never done it. Just clean it and glue it, right?"
"Basically,” Ben replied. “But I’ll show you just to make sure," Ben added as he stood up with his empty plate. He went back inside just as Denise came out with Cisco.
Cedric leaned over in his chair with his hand close to the ground and snapped. "Come here boy," he called as the dog ran to him. Cisco was a short-haired, overweight, black and tan dachshund. Cisco licked Cedric’s arm as he scratched behind the dog’s ears. His fur was so soft it was almost silky. He then fed
the dog his last bit of eggs and stood up.
"When he has gas, I am so blaming it on you," Denise said with a laugh.
Cedric also laughed as he replied, "When he has gas, he’ll be asleep in your family’s room." Then they both laughed. Cedric and Denise had been friends for a while, even before she married Charlie. Although she was a year older than him, they had become friends when he had ridden to school with her for two years when his brother and she were dating. They got married the summer after her graduation. Cedric sighed as he added, “is this real?”
Denise lost her smile as she replied, “Sorry, Ced. I have to make myself believe it. But yeah. I guess it has to be.”
After everyone was done eating, they each went to their separate tasks. Ben was setting a fence of three lines of barbed wire on the posts, Charlie sharpening metal pipes, and Cedric digging a small trench for water pipes. The quarter-mile of digging was grueling. No clouds were in the sky to blot out the sun and Cedric poured sweat as he dug.
After an hour and a half, his trench was completed. Cedric's limbs trembled with exhaustion. He began walking back to the house when he noticed something stuck in the mud next to the lake. He reached down and pulled out a piece of steel pipe about two feet long. Cedric thought that they probably wouldn't need it because they had so many pipes already, but as he struck a tree limb with it, a thought struck him. He had seen many movies where an illness much like this had rampaged through cities. In those movies, a short steel pipe was a good weapon. Granted, you didn't want to be close enough to have to use it, but it was good to have anyway just in case. He cleaned the mud off his new weapon and slid it in his belt.
When he got back to the house, he found that Denise and her mother had already left to get the PVC, but not returned yet. So he used this time to begin working on a filtering system. The first thing he would need to do is to run it through cloth. This, he thought, would remove any debris. He then decided something to heat the water would be good so that it killed any bacteria. He went to the pile of extra materials and found some sheet metal that they hadn't used on the bridge.