“We might wanna find another power source for the station,” he said. “That generator is actin’ up.”
“Everything is still working,” Cheryl said. “We just bought a cold pop.”
“It’s makin’ noises, Cheryl. It don’t sound right, so I figure it’s about to go out, and fixin’ it is above my pay grade. It’s been runnin’ solid for two weeks straight.”
“We don’t need it anyway,” she said. “Nobody’s listening out there.”
I sat, and then, through the speakers and interfering with Andrew’s broadcast, there was an irregular beeping noise. Before Canton B, I’d heard the noise many times through my home computer and stereo speakers. It was the sound of a cellphone signal cutting in. Dan, Cheryl, and I looked at each other in surprise. Then I pulled the little device Bruce had given me from my pant pocket. A tiny green LED was lit on the top.
“Are you getting a call?” Cheryl asked. “Or did you butt dial somebody?”
“It didn’t ring or vibrate,” I said. I tapped it and held it up to my ear. “Hello?”
I waited and listened, but there was nothing. Then the chirping in the station’s speakers stopped, and we could hear Andrew speaking again.
“Weird,” Dan said. “Let me have that. I’ll leave it here for Gail so she can take a look. She knows about gadgets. She’ll probably stop by and look over the equipment when she gets back from town. Maybe she can figure out how to answer it or use it to call out.”
“Don’t matter,” Cheryl said. “There ain’t nobody left to call.”
By dinnertime, the rest of the group had returned. We all sat at a long table in a boardroom at the airport and ate green bean casserole. Tim was in his early 20s, thin and tan with a patchy beard. Other than introductions he didn’t speak at all during the meal. Laney did enough talking for both of them. She was at least ten years older than Tim and the dominant personality in the relationship. She was tall, big-boned but not fat, and loud. Her breasts were so large she might have tipped over had it not been for her generous backside to keep her balanced. Gail was younger than the other two and just a wisp.
“Gail knows her stuff,” Andrew said. “She’s overseein’ the solar panel installation. She’s a real crackerjack.”
Gail blushed, “It’s just things I learned from my dad and–”
“Tim knows electrical,” Laney said. “He’s doing a lot of it. He was thinking about being a journeyman once.”
Tim cleared his throat, but didn’t look up from his plate.
“How’d it go today, Gail?” Andrew asked.
“We got one section of lights to work on the top floor, but all the–”
“She hooked them up wrong,” Laney interrupted. “It took Tim an hour to trace the problem.”
“I don’t think we can power the whole building with the panels we have right now,” Gail said, ignoring Laney’s interruption. “I think we should focus on setting up a living area in one section then add more as we really need it.”
“It might be a good idea,” Dan said. “We should go ahead and insulate the space too.”
“Tim says there is plenty of power,” Laney said. “Gail just had it hooked up wrong.”
“Dan, do you think you could go out there with me tomorrow and look it over?” Gail asked. When she said it, she blushed. I knew it was more than just an invitation to check her work.
“What’s he going to do?” Laney said. “He never thought about being a journeyman. He was just a grease monkey that dusted crops.”
“All she wants is another pair of eyes,” Dan said. “Ain’t that right, Gail?”
“Another pair would be nice,” Gail said.
“Do you know what it takes to be a journeyman?” Laney said. “A whole lot more than a pair of eyes.”
“I’d love to hear the qualifications of a journeyman, Laney,” Cheryl said. “In fact, I’d love to hear what one is.”
“Don’t sweat it, Cheryl,” Dan said. “It’s just Laney being Laney.”
“She doesn’t even know what it is,” Cheryl said, “but she keeps saying that word like it’s the damn end-all be-all.”
Laney looked at Tim, “Are you going to let them get away with this?”
“No need to bicker,” Pastor Andrew said and took a sip of wine. “We’re all disciples of Christ.”
The room got quiet, and everyone ate for a while.
“Tell us about Sara,” Laney said to me. “Do you love her?”
I stopped mid-chew and looked around. Everyone was looking at me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, yeah…you know, there have been some complications…stuff happening…yeah…”
“You sound like you don’t know,” Laney said. “Tim knew the moment he saw me.”
Tim cleared his throat again.
“I’m…I’m happy for you,” I said.
“What did you do before all this?” Laney asked.
“I was a museum director,” I said.
Laney laughed, “Well, like they say: those that can, do, and those that can’t…” she ended the sentence with a shrug and eye roll.
“How about you?” I asked. “What did you do?”
“My late husband’s father owned the biggest car dealership in western Kentucky,” Laney replied.
“Oh,” I said.
“One of us will go out with you to your farm tomorrow,” Andrew said to me.
“No,” I said. “It won’t be necessary.”
“I think it would be safer,” Andrew said. “I insist. I can go with you or maybe Tim.”
“I am grateful,” I said, feeling annoyed, “but I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing fine this whole time.”
“I would feel better if–”
“It’s okay, Andrew,” Cheryl said. “I’ll drive out there with him. Why don’t you go with the others and see how the solar panels are coming along.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine,” I said.
“I’m going anyway,” she said. “I’m curious about your cistern setup. We’ll have to set something up like that in town if we can’t get city water working again.”
I sighed and went back to my meal, “Sure…I don’t care.”
CHAPTER 31
“Do you think your farm is a total loss?” Cheryl said as we drove out to the Lassiter place early the next morning.
“No,” I said. “It could be cleaned and repaired, but why would I want to? I could just move in some other place. I’ll wait and see what Sara wants to do.”
“Do you have a lot of supplies? You’d have to move all that, build a new fence…you’d have to start completely over somewhere else.”
“The house is nasty now,” I said. “They got in. They’ve bled all over the furniture and the floor. There’s splatter on the walls. It’s going to stink in there today. Plus, Grant and Christine shot a lot of them around the sides of the property. I was counting on Grant to clean it up. It’s going to stink like rot.”
“It stinks everywhere,” she said.
“But it’ll stink there worse,” I said.
“The furniture can be burned. I’m sure we could take care of the floors and walls with some bleach.”
“Why are you so interested?” I said. “When Sara and Grant come back, we’ll be helping you and your group. I probably won’t have time to do much of anything at the farm.”
“Are you going to live in town with Andrew?”
“No,” I said. “I like the company, but I don’t like to be told what to do anymore. I don’t think I could stand to be around Laney very long either.”
“Then all the more reason not to start completely over,” she said. “Even if we set up a community in town, we’re going to have to plant crops, keep livestock, and hunt for our food somewhere. You might just have the only farm in all of Grace County that’s been kept up.”
“It wasn’t a real farm,” I said, “not in the sense that it produced a lot of food. It had horses on it when I moved in. Besides, it’s gett
ing a little late to be planting crops now. I don’t have a lot of seed left. There’s another place not far from there where I can move. Sara’s teacher was holed up there a few weeks back. It’s fenced and secure. It’ll do…or I could just take over the airport.”
“We’ve collected some seeds. I just think it would be foolish to let the farm go.”
I chuckled, “Why don’t you hold your opinions until we get out there. You might change your mind then. Hell, I might change my mind after seeing it with a clear head.”
There were still five creatures walking around on the property. Cheryl and I killed them and left them where they fell. Once that work was finished, we inspected the house, barns, garden, and cistern.
“You’ve kept most of the property clean considering you didn’t have a mower,” she said as we both leaned against the fence by the front pasture.
“Sling blade,” I said. “I whacked on it some every day.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” she said. “This place is cleaner than any other. It’ll be easier to get it into shape than somewhere else.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve collected a lot of stuff here. You’ve got more guns and food here than Danny had back when he was prepping.”
“So what happened there?” I said. “How did looters manage to take your stuff? You said he was so ready.”
“Danny’s my brother, and I love him, but he’s a blabbermouth. He was always bragging to everybody about what he had. He had a website, and he’d post videos of his stuff. He got too cocky about it. One of the big prepper rules is you don’t talk about it.”
“We made the mistake of helping the wrong person,” I said.
“That’s one thing you can’t control,” she said, “unless you just refuse to help everybody.”
She looked around, then wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.
“This is no big deal,” she said. “I’ll talk to Andrew. With all of us working on it, we could knock it out in about a week. If we could get some power equipment out here, we could do it in less time…maybe even slap some paint over the splatter on the walls. We have more solar panels, too. Maybe we could get that water well working again.”
“Do you think he would go for that?”
“He’d better,” she said. “If he wants to eat, then he’d sure as hell better. He knows as well as anyone that the Chef Boyardee and Rice-A-Roni ain’t going to last forever.”
“I’ve been saying the same thing all this time.”
“Glad we’re on the same page,” she said. “Of course, you should clear it all with your little girlfriend.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean run it all by Sara, and if she doesn’t try to shoot you or if she’s not too busy with another dude…”
“Ah,” I said. “Yeah, you’re funny.”
She smiled and looked around, “Well, we might as well make ourselves useful until they show up. Do you have rubber gloves?”
We dragged all the dead zombies out of the house and piled them in the driveway. Then we moved the living room furniture out and piled it on top of them. I went to the barn and came back with a jug of kerosene. We soaked the pile then set it on fire. Once it was blazing, we went out to collect the rest of the dead. We fed the fire with bodies until noon, then we took a break and went inside to eat.
“They should have been here by now,” I said as I ate some peanut butter out of the jar.
“Maybe they didn’t hear the broadcast,” Cheryl said. “Pass me a beer.”
I handed her a bottle then went to the window and looked toward the road.
“Maybe something has happened,” I said. “Maybe they’re in trouble.”
“It could be they just didn’t want to come,” she said. “She did run off and leave you. She did try to shoot you.”
“I told you–”
“I know, I know, but at least consider that as a possibility.”
“I won’t believe that.”
“How long do you want to wait for them?” she asked. “We can keep working here for a while, but we told Andrew we’d be back before the broadcast.”
“We have plenty of time,” I said.
We dumped the last corpse into the fire after two o’clock. Sara and Grant had not arrived.
“You can try talking to them on the radio again,” Cheryl said. “They probably weren’t listening yesterday.”
“No,” I said. “I’m going to visit Bruce. I’ll bet he knows where they are.”
Cheryl looked at her watch, “Okay. We have time, but do you really think he’ll still be there at that house? I would think he’d move to another place.”
“No, he likes that house way too much.”
“No,” she said. “I’m going.”
“It might take a while,” I said. “Do me a favor. Go upstairs and get me a couple of changes of clothes from my closet and take it over to the airport while I’m at Bruce’s house. You can take a couple of guns and some food too.”
“Enough chatter,” she said. “Let’s get your things now and get on the road.”
“Shit. Fine. I’m going out to the barn to get some extra guns and ammo. You go up and grab me some clothes. I’m not particular; just get two of everything.”
When I came back from the barn with the guns, Cheryl was waiting for me on the front porch. She was holding a cardboard box and my clothes were piled in it.
“There should have been a duffle bag up there,” I said. “Didn’t you see it?”
“Yeah, I saw it,” she said, “but I put some canned goods in here…and a couple of these.” She reached in the box and fished out a Playboy magazine. “I wouldn’t want you to do without.”
“That’s none of your business,” I said.
“And have you been washing your underwear and socks in the pond? They look awful.”
“The wash water is a little muddy sometimes,” I said. “I should have gone up there myself.”
“Yep, but you didn’t. I noticed the Raquel Welch issue was especially worn…dog-eared pages…Oh, and you have quite the condom selection up there.”
“You realize I could shoot you right now, and no one would ever know what really happened.”
She gave me a grin, “You would know.” Then she pulled out the issue with Raquel in her red swimsuit on the cover. “Ms. Welch would know.”
“Whatever,” I said. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 32
Bruce Lee wasn’t home, but neither was the missus, so I knew he had been back since I left. The Leia slave girl costume was soaking in the bathroom sink. The bedroom was clean and smelled strongly of bleach. The toys that had been set up on the dining table were gone as was the gray, plastic tote. However, two of the cellphones were on the floor. I grabbed them, and we went outside.
Behind the house, I found my truck had been vandalized. The tires had been slashed, and there were several zombie heads in the front seat including Leia’s. In the door, with a key, he had scratched the phrase, “I like to suck big dicks.” My guns, bug out supplies, and helmet were gone.
“What an asshole,” I said.
“Nothing to do here now,” Cheryl said. “Let’s go on home.”
“Not yet,” I said. I walked past the truck to the garage and went inside. I went straight to the Romulan Warbird and removed the plexiglass cube that was over it. I took the spaceship model from its display stand and went back outside.
“What’s that?” Cheryl said. “Some kind of toy?”
“It’s a piece of television history, and I’m taking it.”
“The damn thing probably won’t fit in the car,” she said. “That don’t matter no more anyway.”
“It matters to me,” I said. “It matters to Bruce too. This is going to annoy the hell out of him.”
We were running a little late, but we thought we could make it before Andrew finished his broadcast. I wanted to put out another message to Sara an
d Grant.
That would never happen. We saw the smoke long before we got there. The radio station and the grounds surrounding it were in flames. Two of the walls had collapsed outward. Pastor Andrew, Gail, Tim, and Laney were standing away from the remains of the building watching it burn.
“What happened?” Cheryl said when we got out.
“Don’t know,” Andrew said. “Dan thinks maybe the generator got too hot.”
“Where is he?” Cheryl said.
“He ran over to the airport to get the fire truck. I told him not to worry about it. The damage is already done. We won’t be making broadcasts from here anymore.”
“The fire could spread though,” I said. “I’ll go help him.”
Andrew nodded.
There was a field between the station and the airport. I ran down the path that had been made by the group’s daily treks back and forth. Then I passed through the opening in the chain link fence that surrounded the airport grounds–a space big enough to drive a golf cart through. After that, I crossed another field, then the airport’s taxiway, then a median, then the runway…
It seemed to take forever. I was impressed with what a strategic place it was. Anyone–zombie or human–attempting to sneak up on the terminal would be seen long before they got close. There was nowhere for them to take cover, especially if someone was on the roof or in the airport’s modest tower. A shooter with a rifle and scope in the terminal could take down any intruder before they were a real threat. Dan and Cheryl had been smart to choose this place. Whether they had been smart in choosing their living companions remained to be seen.
I had not been given a complete tour of the whole complex, only the terminal. I didn’t really know where I was going, but I presumed the airport’s emergency vehicles must have been parked in a garage or hangar. There were several large buildings away from the terminal so I made for them. I crossed a wide patch of tall grass then ran onto another paved area. The first large building was ahead to my left.
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