Many of the homes not only had storm shelters to protect them from weather, they had root cellars to store food during long periods with no rain.
Those were as good as explanations as anything else, but Mayor Bud Allen had his own idea.
“Somebody had to be the luckiest city in America to have such a survival rate. It might as well be us as anyone else.”
He also had a dire warning.
“We can’t push our good luck any further. If this showed us anything it showed us that we can never tell when a disaster is coming. Let’s take plans now to prepare for the next one.”
The city had a one hundred percent unemployment rate. It was desperate to get its people working again.
The problem was there was no monetary system. The dollar had crashed. Those lucky enough to possess gold or silver were hanging onto it.
The city could create jobs, but it couldn’t pay the workers.
So it did what many other municipalities around the country were doing.
It started trading land and real property for labor.
The city council already had a competed census. They knew who lived and who died. It was an easy thing for them to decree that all unclaimed property was now owned by the city.
That included all buildings on said property, and anything of value on such property.
And who, really, would dispute such an order?
All the original owners were dead.
They then advertised for essential personnel: policemen, firemen, and people to run the electric and water plants.
“Everyone will work for the city of San Angelo,” the mayor explained. “We will be the city’s only employer, until such time as entrepreneurs take over to reopen retail establishments and provide other services.
“As pay, our employees will have two options.
“Option one is real estate credits. They may choose a vacant property and move into it. The city will underwrite a mortgage for the full value of the property and everything on it.
“Once we have an assessed value and both parties agree to it, an agreement will be drawn up.
“Workers will be assessed a dollar value for each hour they work.
“Instead of receiving a weekly paycheck they will receive a weekly statement of dollar-points earned.
“Say for example, a firefighter accepts a position of twenty dollar-points per hour. He works forty hours a week and each week he takes home a statement crediting him with eight hundred dollar-points.
“He’ll take the statements to the city tax assessor occasionally and turn them in for credit.
“Each dollar-point he earns will be deducted from his mortgage. When his mortgage is paid off he’ll own his property outright.
“Until that time, though, his property is subject to foreclosure if he quits his job or gets fired before the note is paid off. However, payments may be temporarily placed in arrears while he looks for another job, provided he finds such job within ninety days.
“Another option, if the homeowner already owns his own home, is to work for future credits. Future credits will work similarly to municipal bonds.
“For those workers who work for future credits, they will be given a future credit statement each week.
“Say that same firefighter we talked about already owns his home and doesn’t need another one.
“At the end of each week he’ll get a statement for eight hundred future credits.
“The future credits won’t be payable for a period of thirty years. At that time they’ll be due and payable for the full face value.
“This option will be ideal for people who want to work because they have nothing to do and because they want to help the community rebuild, even though they really have no needs at the present time.
“They can, in essence, work now in exchange for promise of compensation later. Or they can leave their credits as an inheritance for their children or grandchildren.”
There were a handful of naysayers. A few people thought, in essence, they didn’t need the city’s permission to move into the home of someone who didn’t survive the freeze. Certainly, they reasoned, the city had better things to do than to go around evicting people.
Then again, people were genuinely bored. The TV stations were no longer working. Neither were the radio stations. Neither was the internet.
There were twenty four hours in each and every day and one could only sleep so many of them away.
Most people took the city up on their offer just to have something to do with all their free time.
Once the police and fire departments were running again, the city moved to the second stage in their grand scheme at getting San Angelo back to normal again.
They needed a huge project. An infrastructure project, which would benefit everyone and which everyone could take pride in.
It was actually the mayor’s twelve year old son who hatched the idea.
“Why not build shelters so we don’t have to worry about this happening again?”
The idea took off like wildfire. More than half the survivors were put to work around the city, digging huge holes in the ground, pouring concrete, stocking hardened underground shelters with all manner of essential and nice-to-have supplies.
Most of the survivors still got their food from abandoned trailers. But there would be a time when the trailers were empty.
San Angelo signed contracts with area farmers to stop growing cotton.
One couldn’t eat cotton.
Instead, they grew a variety of shelf-stable commodities. Beans and rice mostly, but also potatoes and corn.
Lots and lots of corn.
The city bought as much as the farmers could grow for two straight growing seasons before Cupid 23 came down and spoiled all the fun.
And every bit of it was stored inside the new shelters.
No one expected to have to use the shelters for many years.
That was the plan.
But everybody knows that plans seldom work out.
Marty and Art were impressed with the shelter they were assigned to.
It was a little bit… cozy.
But it was warm, there was plenty to eat, and the beds were incredibly comfortable.
As they left the shelter the following morning Marty remarked, “That’s the best night’s sleep I’ve had in months.”
-50-
Marty cranked up the new Peterbilt he’d taken from a dealer on the north side of town the day before.
Despite being a trucker for more years than he could count, he’d never had his own Peterbilt. He’d always wanted one. They had a reputation for being top of the line.
He figured if he was ever to have one, now would be the time.
It would likely be the last time in his lifetime he’d be able to drive one off the dealer’s lot without having to worry about making payments on it.
The shiny red model 579 purred like a kitten.
A kitten with the heart of a tiger.
“So now what?” Art asked.
“We hit Fire Station Number 1,” Marty replied. “They were going to question the last of their firemen last night. They’re spending every day on the highways, keeping the roads cleared. The cops haven’t seen Frank. If the firemen haven’t seen him either we’ll wrap it up, assume he never came through here, and head back to the compound for another assignment.”
They pulled up to the main fire station to find Captain Jason McNeil waiting for them.
“I’m sorry, fellas. I personally talked to every one of my men, on both day and night shifts.
“Not a single one of them saw your man.
“Ordinarily I’d say that didn’t necessarily mean anything. That he could have just slipped past them.
“But a brown Humvee would have stuck out like a sore thumb. At least a quarter of my men told me the exact same thing: ‘I’d definitely remember if I saw one of those come through, Cap.’”
Marty was disappointed but not surprised.
&n
bsp; “Any other suggestions?”
“I’m sorry fellas, but no. Wish we could help.”
The men shook the captain’s hand and headed south on Highway 87 toward Eden. In Eden they’d stop by the old prison to say hello and have lunch. Then they’d head back to Salt Mountain and get another search assignment.
Twelve miles away from them, in a desperate condition, was a twenty nine year old woman named Charlotte Ansley.
Charlotte was very near death. She’d been trudging along on auto-pilot for hours. She hadn’t stopped when darkness fell, thinking help was only a short distance away.
It just had to be.
She’d been an orphan since the age of five. Her parents were killed in a terrible car crash, and neither of her uncles were in a position to take her on.
At age five, she wasn’t quite unadoptable. Not yet. She was nearing the age where children are pretty much stuck in state care until their eighteenth birthday, but wasn’t there yet.
There were five year old girls who were occasionally placed in loving homes.
The problem was Charlotte was rather plain. Instead of blue eyes and flowing blond hair and adorable dimples, her eyes and hair were both brown. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you. Some of the most beautiful women in the world are brunettes with brown eyes.
But unfortunately some things, when it comes to the adoption of children, are just painful facts.
One is that most people want to adopt babies or infants. The older a child is, the less chance he or she will be adopted.
Of the older children who are adopted, it’s almost always the pretty or handsome ones. Few people, when shopping for a child, select the plain or the average looking.
So Charlotte had little chance, at five and average, of leaving Shady Rest before her eighteenth birthday.
It wasn’t her fault, then, after living in such a sheltered environment, that she wasn’t well versed in the way the world worked.
She’d set out on her long walk north thinking surely there would be houses along the way. Places with their arms open and their welcome mats out.
People who’d run to her and offer to help her. Who then would take her back to the van to help her friends too.
The fact was, though, the stretch between Eden and San Angelo consisted of miles and miles of farmland. Cotton mostly, and some sorghum.
And darned few people.
-51-
When Charlotte saw the desolation that actually lie ahead of her she became more and more disheartened with every step.
There was an occasional farmhouse, but they were set half a mile off the highway and were impossible to see in the dismal haze.
She might as well be in Antarctica. She felt totally and hopelessly alone.
When darkness fell Charlotte looked upon it as a blessing. She assumed that in the dark it would be easier to make out structures.
After dark, she reckoned, the porch lights would be on. Surely she could spot them in the haze. Then it was just a matter of heading toward one until she got help.
It just wasn’t so.
No one turned on their porch lights anymore.
There was simply no reason, for there was no one expected.
Most of the rural houses were running on generator power. And those houses were conserving electricity to stretch their fuel.
Conserving fuel mostly by turning off unnecessary lights and appliances.
Lastly, many of the farms had been abandoned, either because the farmers thought they would fare better in the city or with relatives elsewhere… or because they hadn’t survived the first freeze.
Charlotte, bless her heart, kept trudging on even when she realized it was a dreadful mistake to set out.
She was committed now. She’d already traveled several miles. She couldn’t go back even if she wanted to. She’d collapse and freeze to death before she made it back to the van.
If she kept going forward, though, there might be help around the next curve.
Over the next hill.
Luckily, there happened to be a full moon that night.
She couldn’t make out the moon. It was blocked by the dirty brown sky.
But the full moon lightened the sky to a certain degree.
The limited light reflected off the blanket of snow beneath her feet and made it easier to make out the ghostly cars in front of her.
She could no longer differentiate between the highway she was on and the horizon in front of her. Only the cars told her she was on the right path. As she passed one abandoned car she’d look ahead to the next one.
Then she’d shuffle along in the snow toward it.
Her eyes teared from the cold. The tears froze on her face. Her eyelashes were frozen. So were the corners of her mouth.
As for her body, it was shivering almost uncontrollably despite the extra coat she wore.
Her feet were numb. She couldn’t even feel them striking the ground, although she knew they must have been. For she kept moving forward.
All night long she walked, one agonizing step after another.
There were times when she seemed to walk in her sleep. When her chin dropped and jarred her back to reality.
When she noticed she was farther along on the highway than she ought to be. When she was now past that blue Volkswagen. The one that had been fifty yards in front of her seemingly moments before.
By the time the sun rose to her right she was so far out of it she didn’t even notice.
The sky grew lighter now, but not enough to warm her. Not enough to comfort her.
Not even enough to give her a renewed purpose.
Step by painful step she trudged along, now just a couple of miles south of Wall.
Wall wasn’t much of a town. Smaller than Eden, even.
But it did still have one operating service station. It was just south of town on Highway 87.
On this day it was lit up, bright enough for her to see. The good folks there could have taken her inside, let her warm up. Would have immediately dispatched someone to rescue her friends and then to bring them back too.
But she never made it that far.
Because Marty and Art had just left the service station, headed her way.
Against all odds she caught a glimpse of headlights in front of her.
Weakly, she tried to wave her arms to get the driver’s attention.
All she could manage was to raise one hand in his general direction.
But that was enough.
Marty had been behind the wheel for almost forty years, not counting the seven he spent hunkered down at the Trucker’s Paradise Truck Stop waiting for the world to thaw again.
In all that time, he’d had a reputation as the consummate professional.
Out of the cab, he was a bit of a cornball, a sometimes-practical joker, as easily distracted as any other man.
Behind the wheel, though, Marty was all business.
He saw Charlotte long before she saw him and was already applying his brakes when she motioned to him.
Slowly and steadily. For if he’d jammed on them as most drivers would have he’d have jackknifed the rig for sure.
“What in the hell is that?” Art exclaimed when seeing a mostly snow-covered figure in the roadway ahead of them.
“Not what,” Marty replied.
“Who?”
-52-
The hiss of the big rig’s air brakes hadn’t finished sounding before Marty had his door open and was crawling out.
Art wasn’t far behind him.
He reached Charlotte in less than a flash, taking off his coat and wrapping it around her shoulders.
He suspected it did her little good and was of little comfort to her in the brutal cold. But the gesture, more than any words he could use, would convey to her that he was there to help and not to hurt her.
“Are you alone?” he shouted to her.
She looked at him, but not with all her functions. She seemed to be in a daze.
; Or more likely in shock.
“Are you alone?” he shouted again.
This time his words seemed to register.
But she was unable to answer him. Her voice just didn’t seem to want to work.
She shook her head no and pointed weakly back down the highway.
“Art, go. Check all the stranded vehicles. Keep an eye on her footsteps. If they leave the roadway follow them. If you find anyone else get on your radio and I’ll come running. Otherwise I’ll tend to her and then come and pick you up.
“Do you have gloves?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go.”
Marty helped Charlotte into the sleeper cab and onto the bunk.
His own handheld wouldn’t reach to the compound. He leaned from the sleeper into the cab and grabbed the truck’s radio.
“Hannah, Sarah, whoever’s on duty, this is Marty.”
The response was immediate. The tone of his voice signaled a crisis.
“This is David. Go ahead Marty.”
“David, I need Debbie’s help. Stat.”
Debbie was an emergency medical technician before Saris 7 terrorized the earth. She’d ridden in an ambulance for years. Had worked the most gruesome of accident scenes. Had treated patients for all manner of injuries and illnesses.
And had saved a lot of lives.
Since the earliest days in the mine, she was also the group’s medic. She was the first call when anyone needed first aid or medical treatment of any kind.
She was sitting in the dining room enjoying a hot cup of coffee.
David yelled at her from the control center. She left her coffee and went running.
“Marty, this is Debbie. Go ahead.”
“Debbie, we’ve found a woman wandering down the highway. She’s half frozen. How do we treat her?”
“Where is she now?”
“On the bunk in my sleeper cab.”
“Is your heater on?”
“Yes. Going full blast.”
“Okay. Make sure it’s warm but not hot. If we warm a hypothermia victim too fast it could send her into shock.”
“Okay. What else?”
“Is she conscious?”
One of Our Own: Final Dawn: Book 11 Page 16