Copyright © 2015 Boyd Craven III
Tears of the World, the World Burns Book 4
By Boyd Craven
All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 –
Chapter 2 -
Chapter 3 –
Chapter 4 –
Chapter 5 -
Chapter 6 -
Chapter 7 –
Chapter 8 –
Chapter 1 –
Bobby stopped dead in his tracks, his body going rigid.
“No,” Lisa sobbed, forgetting what she was doing.
“Is he still alive?” Bobby stood.
“No, the man stabbed-“ Patty started to say but was interrupted.
“I mean the bastard who stabbed my brother,” Bobby screamed.
“Yes,” Patty was sobbing, looking at Neal’s body on the floor.
“Lady, please,” Chris tugged at her, pulling her to the kitchen.
Bobby stormed out of the house in a rage. He had one thing in mind, one focus. He could hear shouts coming behind him but no one could follow. They were all busy and he had to get ready. He stormed into the barn and had just opened up the storm cellar door when he was met with a loaded rifle pointed at his face.
“What are you doing?”
“What’s going on?” Melissa’s father asked him, his hand steady.
“I don’t have time for this,” he swatted the muzzle away and pushed past the middle aged man.
“What’s going on?” Curt asked, concerned by the look of bloodlust in a young man he was starting to admire.
“They… They killed my brother…”
They talked for close to an hour. Both tears and vile threats were made by Bobby. All the while, David had sat on his bed. Alone, ignored. He knew why they all hated him. If he was in their shoes or in the women’s shoes, he’d hate him as well. He knew he was weak, he knew he should have done something rather than trying to just go along to survive. He felt ashamed. Worse, he felt like a slug because despite everything he’d allowed to happen around him… These people let him live. Worse yet, they fed him. It was true he never had many friends in life, but they at least gave him some measure of respect by not killing him outright.
The problem was, he also had no trust. He did however, have an idea. One so bold and so outrageous that he thought it would work. He overheard Bobby relay everything to Curt, and he thought he knew how to accomplish a couple really important things at once. Earn their trust, and show his sincerity. If it worked out, they’d have several problems off their back. If it didn’t… They were dead meat anyways.
“Curt, Bobby,” he said softly, trying to be a little louder than their hushed talking.
“Hold on,” Curt said, waving at him dismissively.
Melissa who had remained silent during everything with tear streaked eyes looked at David.
“Please, it’s important,” David pleaded.
“Not now,” Bobby said with a stringer of snot coming out of his nose.
“I need to get to the radio. I have a plan.”
“Shut up!” They shouted and David winced.
The entire barracks fell silent and everyone turned to stare at the four of them.
“I think… I… I think we can take out the rogue guard unit and Weston’s murderer at the same time. Please….?”
The plea in his voice cut through the pain that Bobby was feeling and he slowly turned his head, wiping his nose to look at the man they captured from the raider’s camp.
“If you’re setting us up, I’ll kill you myself,” Bobby told him, his face going hard.
“Listen. I got nothing here. Nobody likes me, nobody trusts me. I know I should have done something before. I didn’t. I’m not brave, not like you guys. I have an idea though. I hope you’ll at least listen to me. I’m not asking you to trust me… Not yet. I’m really sorry for what I allowed to happen and…”
The air left his lungs as Corinne sucker punched him in the gut and his wind left him in a woofing sound.
“Ok… Ok. I deserved that.” David said after catching his breath again, “but I’m being sincere. If you guys fall, I have no future. I’m trying to… I need… I want…”
Curt walked over and waved off the remainder of the squad who had started surrounding David.
“What’s your plan?” Curt asked.
“We have to lure them together. Then blow them up,” David said, his eyes showing the excitement in his voice.
“How are we going to do that?” Bobby asked, interested despite of his earlier dismissal of the former slaver.
“Tell Gerard and the rest of the unit that I’ve located another target, and hopefully have them take out whoever it was who… I’m sorry about your brother. I should have had said that first.”
Bobby waved at him, halfway a go on, halfway acknowledging his apology.
“When we have them in one place, we can set off a charge of some sort.”
“That’s it?” Curt asked. “That’s your plan?”
“They already know about the homestead because of the radio. I also told them you were all dead. Remember?” David asked.
“Yeah?” Bobby said, confusion in his voice.
“Well, we blame your deaths on the guys who killed your brother. Maybe they raided this place. Makes the homestead a target not worth checking and the other one golden.”
Bobby was silent for a long moment and he looked to Curt who stood there with raised eyebrows.
“What do you think?” Bobby asked Curt.
“I don’t know.” Curt replied.
“Sounds too simple, doesn’t it?” David asked.
“Maybe it is, but simple plans have seemed to work for us so far,” Bobby mused.
They talked about it and Curt was the one who had supplied a key piece into a slowly forming plan.
“Blake is probably down for a while. He’s shot up pretty bad. They think he’s going to be ok, but it’s going to take a bit,” Bobby told them.
“Maybe it’s time for those of us living here to earn our keep and show Blake how much we appreciate what he’s done for us,” Curt said, and a quiet murmur around the barracks picked up in volume as people were filled in.
“I’m in,” A young girl said, putting her hand on David’s arm.
“If you double cross us to Gerard, I’ll gut you alive. If you’re sincere, then I owe you an apology. I’m in.” Corinne said, her voice betraying her true feelings.
“I’m in,” “I’m in.” “Let’s show the Jackson’s they didn’t make a mistake in saving us,” different voices spoke up from the growing crowd of survivors.
+++++
That night, Martha removed the bullet from Blake’s shoulder, giving him a heavy shot of antibiotics and sewing shut his many wounds. Chris never left his side, and even took his meals next to Blake until the next morning when he awoke, stiff, more than a little sore and biting his lip not to cry out in pain.
“Good, you’re up,” Sandra said, her eyes red.
“What’s going on?” He asked, his head muddy and his senses confused.
“Martha knocked you out and took out the bullets and sewed you shut. You lost a lot of blood and she used two bags of saline on you. It’s all we had.”
“Tell her thanks,” Blake said.
“You can tell her yourself, once she wakes up, and be careful, Chris is sleeping by your leg.”
Blake grunted and moved until he could see Chris’s small form. He’d fallen asleep sitting up next to the bed and his small head lay against the mattres
s next to his leg. He tussled the little man’s hair and he stirred a bit and then looked up.
“You’re alive.”
“You got it buddy,” he told Chris.
“I was worried, that other man went to sleep forever.”
“Oh no. The woman, what’s her name…” Blake’s mind couldn’t make the connection and her name floated on the tip of his tongue, but Chris interrupted.
“Patty.”
“Yeah, how is she doing?” He asked Sandra.
“She’s been up half the night crying. Sounds like they finally-“ Sandra let her voice trail off as she brushed tears away from her eyes.
“What?”
“The guy she was with, he finally told her he loved her right as he died.” Sandra said softly.
“Oh no, that’s rough,” Blake said, trying not to choke up.
“It is.”
“I smell food cooking,” he said, changing the subject.
“I’ll go get you some. Martha said you have to stay off your leg for a little while. She doesn’t want you to tear out the stitches, and neither do I.”
“My back is killing me,” he grumbled.
“I’ll go see if you can have something for the pain. I know you aren’t supposed to have aspirin right now.”
“How come?” He rubbed his hands across his eyes, trying to wipe the sleep away.
“Don’t want to thin your blood out.”
“You’re going to be ok, aren’t you?” Chris asked.
“I should be. I’ll probably be up and throwing a ball with you in a week or so,” he told Chris.
Sandra gave him a sorrowful look.
“Ok, maybe not a week, but I’ll be good. I promise.”
“Ok,” he said, smiling for the first time that morning.
The three of them heard more rustling sounds in the kitchen and Sandra motioned for Chris to follow her.
“Love you Hon,” she whispered.
“Love you too,”Blake said and he meant it.
They found Lisa had beaten them awake and she was cooking scrambled eggs mixed with smoked pork. She looked at them with blood shot eyes.
“You ok?” Lisa asked Sandra who had Chris’s hand.
“Yes. Just tired. Blake’s up.”
“Should I get Martha?” Lisa said, putting the spatula down.
“No, no. I know he’s in pain, but I think he’s hungry more than anything else.”
“I know I am,” Chris said, giving her hand a squeeze then running over to sit at the dining room table.
“Where is Martha?” Sandra asked.
“Downstairs in the boy’s old room. She finally got Patty to sleep. Want to make coffee for us?”
The women, now mother and daughter worked quickly side by side. Once the percolator was set on the stove, Sandra took over the cooking from an exhausted Lisa who sat down across from Chris.
“So if you are married to Mr. Duncan, does that make you my grandma?” Chris piped up, breaking the silence.
Lisa looked to Sandra who just gave her a tired smile and then motioned at Chris with her head as if to say ‘him.’
“I guess so,” she said after a moment, a smile touching the edges of her face.
“Good,” he scrambled off his chair and into her lap, wrapping his arms around her, “because grandmas are supposed to spoil us.”
Despite the pain of loss, Lisa’s heart warmed at the unexpected emotions flooding her senses and squeezed the little man back, one hand running through his hair like she’d done countless times before with her own sons. The smile that threatened to overtake her features before now showed, and she smiled as tears ran down her cheeks in love and loss.
“Breakfast,” Sandra said, putting two plates down, then returned to the stove before taking a plate to Blake.
She got a plate for herself and joined them, wiping her own eyes. Chris scrambled down and got into a chair of his own and they started to eat. Sandra had planned on eating with Blake, but one look at Lisa and she knew her mother in law needed her right now. Blake understood, and they ate in silence until three quick raps on the door jerked their attention away from their food. Bobby walked in, flanked by David and Curt.
“Excuse me ,Mrs. Jackson, is Blake or Patty around?”
Sandra saw the slaver and a jolt of anger coursed through her body as she tried to comprehend the gall the man had. They had just lost a family member and Patty the love of her life. They were still waiting to bury Neal who’d been laid out and covered with a heavy canvas tarp.
“No,” she said between tight lips.
“Well, uh. It’s important. I need to know some things about yesterday, see I have a plan-“ David was stammering.
“NO,” Sandra said.
“It’s about Gerard and the guys who…”
“What don’t you understand?” Sandra stood, her hand reflexively feeling for the pistol she kept on her side every waking moment now.
Lisa wiped her eyes and took in the somber faces of her son and Curt. Curt wouldn’t willingly be next to Bobby unless it was important, and everyone in the homestead knew about Bobby’s interest in Melissa. If they were together in this, in whatever David was trying to do…
“Ok, please… just… Let me know when. I think I found a way to…”
“Come in and be seated, I want to hear this,” Blake said from the bedroom doorway, sweating from the pain and exertions of getting out of bed.
“Is it a way to pay back those guys who killed my son?” Lisa asked.
“All that and then some,” Curt said.
“Help me to the table,” Blake asked.
David told them, and after a while there were smiles all around. Duncan, Martha and Patty joined them soon thereafter and a plan was hatched.
“What about his daughter?” Blake asked Patty.
“I think he was just saying that to get me to… you know, be with him. I think he’s got a screw loose and doubt he’s even got a daughter,” Patty said, her skin pale and clammy.
“We’ll need some blasting caps or dynamite,” Duncan mused.
“I even know where to get some,” Martha said with a grin, and everyone but Blake a Chris sprang into action.
“Give him this,” Martha said to Chris, “because he obviously isn’t going to listen to me.”
Chris looked at the cane, then at his father who just shrugged.
“Where did that come from?” Blake asked him.
“Probably from the barn. It’s full of junk, we ought to clean it out someday-“
Blake chuckled and took the cane and sat down to have a cup of coffee which had been forgotten by Sandra. It wasn’t warm anymore, but it was exactly what he needed.
Chapter 2 -
Alabama, pre-event.
“Now tell me again?” Michael’s father asked.
“Yes sir. I’m to go to Daniel’s after mowing. But… I still can do my camping trip, can’t I?”
“I don’t know. You couldn’t keep from mouthing off to the deputy. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Come on dad, I promise that won’t happen again.”
“Oh, I know it won’t. You’re 17 now. You want your car back, your responsibilities back, you have to act your age.”
“I will. But please, I’ve got this new fishing hole all mapped out and the catfish there…”
With a chuckle, Michael’s fathers resolve broke. He gave his son a grin and then punched him affectionately on the shoulder.
“Ok, for a couple days.”
“Come on...” Michael pleaded, “I want to try to find grandpa’s old campsite.”
“Hon, we have to go. If we get stuck in traffic, we’ll never make the airport in time.” Michael’s mother’s voice floated out.
“Coming Hon,” he called over his shoulder and turned to Michael. “Do you have your topo map handy?”
Michael’s eyes widened and he almost tripped over his feet as he turned to run for his bedroom. A moment later, he’d returned with a l
aminated topography map and immediately found the Talladega National Forest lands just outside their hometown in Choccolocco, Alabama.
“Take the Skyway Motorway north, then 503b until it ends by the Pinhoti trail. Follow it north until you reach the end of the lake. Follow the creek until you reach here.” His finger stopped at a point that Michael put his own finger over, and then laughed when his father produced a sharpie from his pocket.
“Thanks dad.”
“Don’t thank me, you’re still grounded from your car. You’ll have to take your bike.”
A pained look crossed Michael’s face for a moment, but was gone almost immediately. He could go, and his dad finally gave him grandpa’s fishing camp location, one he’d been looking for since he could go out into the woods on his own.
“I’ll manage,” he told his dad and then gave him a hug.
“Don’t forget your mom.”
“I won’t Dad,” he broke the embrace.
He hugged his parents goodbye and watched as they drove off. A short plane ride to Galveston, and then onto a cruise ship. They had two weeks’ vacation planned and he had the summer off. One more year of staying out of trouble and he’d be graduated and hopefully, enlisting. His parents hated the idea, but his grandpa told him a long time ago that he may have to follow his heart. His grandpa grew up a couple miles from their family home on an old farm. As a kid, his grandpa would pick cotton in the summer time for pocket money, and his parents and siblings grew their own food and to mostly survive a household of nine sons. Fishing was both a hobby, religion and a way to feed the family.
There wasn’t a regular grocery store when his grandpa was a kid and what they couldn’t grow or barter for, they hunted and fished. Fishing was one of Michael’s passions and if his parents would let him out more, he never would have gotten pulled over with the chief’s daughter in the car. They were coming back from the dead end road, necking some, fooling around a bit when the flashers had come on. He’d pulled over, but the cop recognized Beth right off and had started threatening to call first her dad, then Michael’s. He lost his temper, and his parents had to be awoken and to drive him home.
Tears Of The World: A Post-Apocalyptic Story (The World Burns Book 4) Page 1