The problem was those two children. The same ones she’d always struggled to feed and clothe.
The husband, Ronald, eventually got paroled from prison and came home.
Instead of being supportive to her, though, he beat her unmercifully almost daily.
Then he went and got himself killed.
His was a fitting end.
He was killed by a sniper wanted to rob him of his stuffed backpack for whatever goodies it contained.
Just like Ronald had killed eighteen others in a similar manner for similar reasons since the blackout began.
It was the ultimate irony.
Or then again, maybe it wasn’t. For it’s said that those who live by the sword will die by the sword.
The only good thing Ronald did since his return from prison was to find a new place for Monica and the kids to live.
Granted, he didn’t secure it by legal means.
He didn’t purchase it, or petition the city for it since it appeared to be abandoned.
And yes, he’d have killed to have it, even willing to shoot little children if it came to that.
Truth was, his tactics weren’t uncommon in the new world.
The property appeared to be abandoned. He came along and moved in.
It was done all the time in a world where the dead outnumbered the living, and where those who abandoned their homes seldom came back.
Dave Speer, when he left his home in the suburbs of San Antonio, was the rare individual who fully planned to return.
Monica Martinez somehow sensed he’d be back. For although she knew nothing about his reasons for leaving, it just made no sense at all for someone to leave a house full of food, of water, of resources which would enable its occupants to live in peace and solitude for a very long time.
So, she had to plan for the future. Of the children, for she’d accepted the fact her own future was no more than a few more weeks or months.
Three weeks before she’d had two things that worried her.
First, that she’d die and Ronald would continue to abuse her children until he accidentally killed them both.
Or second, that Ronald would die too and the children would be left to deal with a cold cruel world on their own.
Maybe Ronald did do something good besides finding the house after all.
Maybe in his passing he took away one of those options and allowed Monica to focus strictly on the other.
What a guy…
Chapter 7
Monica called her children together.
She held them both tightly.
Amy was eight now. Robert was a year behind her at seven.
Amy knew Beth Speer; they’d gone to grade school together.
They sat next to each other in Mrs. Jamison’s second grade class, and across from each other in the cafeteria.
They traded things from their lunch boxes, shared gossip about which boys in their school were trolls and made fun of the principal behind his back.
Now Amy slept in Beth’s bed and wondered why she’d gone away.
Amy wasn’t in school the day Beth very excitedly bounced into class to announce she was going all the way to Kansas City to be in a wedding.
They’d kept it from her until the last minute. Her mom and dad, that is, Sarah and Dave.
They knew that if they’d told her ahead of time she’d have driven them crazy with a zillion billion questions.
So they sent a note with her to school that day.
It said:
Dear Mrs. Jamison,
This is just to let you know Beth will be going on a family trip for a week. She’ll be back next Thursday, and if you’ll allow her to make up her missed work upon her return we’d really appreciate it.
Amy wasn’t in school that day. She’d been up all night nursing her mother after her father beat the hell out of her.
She asked her mom if she could stay home the next day to sleep, and Monica said, “Yes. Just curl up in your closet and sleep there, so your father won’t beat you for staying home.
The following day was better.
Ronald sobered up and apologized, as he had a hundred times before.
Monica was able to move around a bit better despite her bruises and black eyes.
And Amy was back in school, sitting next to an empty desk because Beth was on her way to the airport.
Three hours later electromagnetic pulses from the sun bombarded the earth and the rest, as they say, was history.
Amy liked Beth Speer. Beth was a sweet girl, and Amy didn’t feel quite comfortable sleeping in Beth’s room and wearing her clothes.
But she loved that she finally had a room of her own instead of having to share one with her little brother.
She loved her little brother, but a girl who’s eight and practically grown up needs her private space. A place to call her own. And besides, Robert could be such a pain sometimes.
He told her not long before that it was his job as a little brother to make her life miserable.
She ran to report the comment to her mother, and her mother said Robert was kidding.
Amy wasn’t so sure.
In any event, Monica told them both it was time to put their petty differences behind them and come together as a family.
“I know your father tormented you,” she began. “And I know that after he got out of prison he wasn’t much of a father to you either.
“I don’t blame him entirely for that, because I know something happened in prison that changed him.
“A lot of people would say I wasn’t much of a mother either because I didn’t protect you from him. And there may be some truth to that.”
Amy objected.
“Mom, you couldn’t protect us. Every time you tried he beat you until you were unconscious. But you still kept on trying until you got too weak.”
Robert added nothing, but nodded his head adamantly.
He agreed.
“In any event,” Monica went on, “Your father is gone now. It’s up to us to carry on.
“If there’s one good thing he did for us, he left us with some tips on how to defend this place from people who want to take it away from us.
“He seemed to feel that if anyone comes to attack us it’ll be at night. That they’ll try to catch us off guard when we’re sleeping.
“And he believed they would have a working vehicle. And therefore would only be able to drive it at night, because in the daytime people might try to take it away from them.”
Robert whined just a little bit.
“But Mama, I’m tired of being up at night. It’s hard to stay awake at night.”
“I’m sorry, honey. But it has to be this way.
“We’ll split it up. You guys go to bed early, a couple of hours before sundown.
“I’ll stand guard from sundown until 2 a.m. Then I’ll wake you both up and you can take my place until the sun comes up.”
“But Mama, why do you have to wake both of us up? Why can’t we take turns? You can wake me up one night and Amy up the next night.”
Amy knew the answer to that one.
“Because, you little bonehead,” she told her brother. “If you were standing guard by yourself you’d lie on the couch and fall asleep. I’ll not only have to stand guard against attackers, I’ll have to stand guard on you too.”
“Please don’t squabble amongst yourselves,” Monica said. “This is the way it has to be.
“I have to teach you guys how to keep this place and how to get along without me. I’ll be leaving you soon, and I need to make sure you know how to survive after I’m gone.”
They knew their mother was dying.
Their father had used it as a weapon against them.
“You two better straighten up or I’ll leave you all alone when your mother croaks.”
“You two don’t have a chance of surviving after your mama dies. You’re too damn stupid to listen to what I say, and I’m not going to hang around stupid people.”
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“Y’all will have a little more food to eat each day once your mother dies. Then we can split everything three ways instead of four.”
Yes, they knew their mom was dying.
They didn’t have to accept it.
“We don’t want you to die, Mama.”
Amy now had tears in her eyes.
“I know, honey. I don’t want to die either. And I’ll hold on as long as I can. But you two have to listen to everything I have to say from now on. I’ll teach you everything I know about surviving. It’s the only chance you’ll have after I’m gone.”
Chapter 8
Beth sat on the front porch swing with Sal. They were watching a heavy downpour soak everything in sight.
Beth laughed at Dave as he ran slip-sliding through the mud puddles on his way back from the barn, fuel can in hand.
“Daddy!” she yelled. “I told you to take an umbrella!”
It was Dave’s own fault. He’d seen the thunderhead building to the west. And he knew the generator was almost out of diesel.
But he stood on the porch, talking to his daughter and to old Sal about their plans for the future, the troubles they’d endured and a dozen other things until the clouds opened up on him.
Now he was a spectacle, and Beth was laughing at him so hard her sides hurt.
He didn’t mind. He’d always enjoyed clowning around and doing stupid things to make his girls smile.
He’d fallen a couple of times in the slippery muck and was a mess by the time he made it back to the porch.
He placed the fuel can on the wooden slats and went directly to Beth.
“Just what are you laughing at, you little buffalo booger?”
“You, Dad. You look like a pig that just finished slopping around in the mud. And you’re soaking wet.
“And your hair is all soggy, and it’s making your bald spot show.”
She giggled, knowing his growing bald spot was his Achilles heel.
He laughed along with her, even as he approached her.
It was his laughing which made her let her guard down.
That and the fact that it had been a couple of years since he’d grabbed her and rolled around on the ground with her.
She squealed as he wrapped his arms around her and scooped her up, yelling, “Daddy, you’re all yucky and muddy. Ewwww, yucko!”
He carried her into the pouring rain and over to the muddy path, where he sat her down.
Neither could control their laughter as he scooped up handful after handful of mud and smeared it all over her hair, her cheeks, her back.
He sat down beside her and she took her turn, balancing a huge pile of slippery mud atop her daddy’s head.
“Don’t forget to cover up the whole bald spot,” he instructed, even as the mud ran down his face and into his eyes and mouth.
She didn’t miss a beat, coming back with, “Dad, there’s not enough mud in the world to cover up your whole bald spot.”
By the time they finished their mud party and sprawled out in the grass side by side to let the rain wash them off the entire family was on the front porch watching.
It was a joyous moment for all, but especially sweet for Dave and Beth.
For they’d made a memory neither would ever forget.
Not even if they lived to be a hundred or more.
After they were inside, dried off and in dry clothes, the lot of them sat around the living room in semi-darkness, discussing their plans for the next few days.
Sarah sat next to Sal, holding the old man’s hand as though they were lifelong friends, even though they’d only met three days before.
She’d taken a liking to him almost instantly.
All of them had, but for different reasons.
Karen because he reminded her so much of her own father, who’d been walking the streets of heaven since she was a young girl.
Sarah because he’d taken good care of little Beth and had insisted on helping to bring her back, to make things right.
It would have been so easy for her to hate him instead, for he was the one who took Beth to begin with.
But Sanchez had lied to her. He’d told her that Sal was a bad man who planned to turn the girl into a slave or even worse.
Once she learned the truth, that Sal honestly believed that Beth was an orphaned girl; that he was offering her a new home, she forgave him.
And that was the right thing to do, for Sarah certainly hadn’t been very godly of late herself.
This was a time of atonement, and she couldn’t very well ask for forgiveness of her own sins when she wasn’t willing to forgive others for theirs.
Lindsey felt an attachment to Sal because he was so much like her.
Headstrong, almost to the point of being pig-headed.
He had very strong opinions and wasn't afraid of sharing them.
At the same time, though, a strong believer in all things right.
“I went back to talk to Mrs. Taylor this morning before most of you lazy people got up,” Dave said. “She’s been asking around and hasn’t been able to get a lead on anyone with horses to trade.
“She says the word is there are no horses in this county or the next.
“No able-bodied ones, anyway.
“It looks like we’ll have to abandon the rig and head out on foot.”
He looked to Sal.
“Are you still okay with that, Sal? I know you put a lot of work into building that rig of yours.”
“It’s served its purpose. It got us here, it got your family back together…”
Beth interrupted.
“Our family, Grandpa Sal. Our family. You’re one of us now, remember?”
The old man beamed and said, “Thank you, Peanut.”
He turned back to Dave and corrected himself.
“The rig got our family together again. It’s served its purpose. I think it’s time to retire it and put Cody and Shiloh out to pasture.”
Sarah asked him, “And you’re sure you’re healthy enough to walk?”
He smiled and winked.
“Well, now. I guess I have no choice. I refuse to let you leave me behind.”
Chapter 9
They’d planned to leave the following day, after Dave finished accommodations for the horses in the woods.
Then the downpour came and muddied everything up… including their travel plans.
Dave still had a full day’s work to do in the forest and outside labor on a day like this was next to impossible.
The following day probably would be too, unless he wanted to slog through heavy mud. It would slow him down, turn a one-day job into several days.
No, they were in no hurry now that the family was back together again.
Fall was on the horizon, and they had a good three months before the really cold weather set in.
With any luck they’d be back in Texas before the first snowfall. They’d be near San Antonio before it started getting really cold. For everybody who’s ever lived in Texas knows the winter months are much milder there than in Kansas.
The rains might delay them a couple or three days, but it didn’t really change their plans. They’d abandon the rig, give the horses a nice place to live out their years safe from marauders and predators, and set out on a thousand-mile multi-state walk.
It wouldn’t be easy.
But then nothing had been easy since that day two springs before when the power went out all over the world.
Why would Mother Nature start taking it easy on them now?
Lindsey was happy to see her mother when Sarah and Karen walked out of the woods a few days before. She’d run to her and held her and cried for her and told her she loved her.
Her affection was short-lived.
She was once again furious with her mother. Not only for having an affair with a despicable man while her father was away. But also because Sarah was seemingly taking Karen’s advice and keeping the whole thing a secret.
In Lindsey’s min
d, Sarah should have come clean immediately and asked for Dave’s forgiveness.
No relationship can survive, she believed, without faithfulness and trust and honesty.
It was driving her crazy that her mom was keeping her father in the dark.
Things aren’t always as they seemed, though.
The truth was Sarah was struggling.
She listened to Karen’s argument that telling Dave wouldn’t amend the wrongdoing. It wouldn’t miraculously make it go away, as though it had never happened.
All it would do, Karen contended, was hurt Dave. Unnecessarily so, she believed. She said enough people had been hurt already. That sleeping dogs should be let lie.
The truth was Sarah considered Karen’s argument and discounted it.
She’d resolved to tell Dave everything.
She was just looking for the proper time to do it. When it would hurt him the least. When it would cause the least amount of turmoil.
But Lindsey didn’t know that.
Lindsey watched as her mother and father sat together, his arm around her, her looking dreamily into Dave’s eyes.
The sight sickened her; she considered it all a ruse on her mother’s part.
How could she do what she did and pretend she still loved him?
When she finally had her fill she excused herself and went to bed early.
For hours she tossed and turned, then finally fell asleep around two in the morning.
At six o’clock sharp she awoke suddenly, startled awake by a dream.
A dream of a friend she hadn’t thought of in a very long time.
She dreamed of Stuart.
Stuart was a boy she’d gotten intimate with when she was thirteen. He was the first boy she ever kissed.
She might have fallen in love with him, but he was a bit of an oddball. His parents were hippies of sorts, and allowed him to pierce his tongue, nose and ears while on vacation in Mexico.
He also had fluorescent green hair.
Except in October. In October he died it fluorescent orange in honor of Halloween.
Beth used to watch them as they talked and held hands and sometimes kissed in the back yard.
It infuriated Lind at the time, but she’d made a deal with Beth.
Texas Bound: Alone: Book 11 Page 3