Forsaking Home (The Survivalist Series)

by A. American

  “We’ll find you another one somewhere,” Thad said as we set it down.

  “I’ve got one in the barn over there. I’ll get it put in later. I’m not too worried about that right now,” Danny said.

  “Good, ’cause Thad knows about friends and plumbing,” I said.

  “You guys want to help me with the doors, see what we can come up with?” Danny asked.

  “Sure thing,” I said as Danny headed for the barn.

  Danny found a tape measure in the shop and we headed for the front door. It was a standard 3-0 door, not that that did us any good at the moment, as there weren’t any replacements around. We spent most of the afternoon constructing a makeshift front door out of lumber Danny had in a rack. There wasn’t enough plywood to sheath it with, so we cut one of the one-by-fours in its place. Getting it into the frame was going to be a challenge, but we were up for it.

  In the end, we used a couple of strap hinges Danny had in his never-ending bins of stuff. While Frankendoor wouldn’t close into the jamb, it did close flush to it. A hasp and bolt on the inside kept it secure. The two French doors were going to be another issue. One set came off the downstairs bedroom. Danny decided to just close that one off entirely. Thad and Jeff said they would handle that while Danny and I worked on the other.

  A set of French doors wasn’t a possibility, so we framed in one side of the opening and made a door like the first one. Danny ran a screw in on one of the one-by-fours then held the cordless drill up and looked at it. “Man, could you imagine doing this without these tools?” He laid the drill in the bag with the rest of the tools. In the bag were a reciprocating saw, circular saw, and impact drill.

  “Yeah, cutting all this with a handsaw, not to mention turning screws in by hand—that would suck,” I said as I flipped the door over to do the other side. “Where in the hell did you get all this lumber?”

  “Remember when I worked for that builder?”

  “Yeah, what were you doing, stealing from him?” I asked with a laugh.

  “No, I just went through the trash piles on the jobs. Soon as a house was framed I was there. They left a lot of stuff behind. No sense in hauling it to the dump.”

  “Guess not. Your pack-ratting really paid off here.”

  “It does have its benefits.”

  Once the doors were taken care of, we took a break. No one had eaten anything all day, and all of this work had built up our appetites.

  “Hey, I’m going to go over and get Mel and the girls. I think it’s time for some lunch, or breakfast,” I said.

  “Cool, we’ll get some MREs out,” Thad said.

  I left to go get the girls, surprised at the amount of work they had done while I was gone.

  “Wow, you guys have been busy,” I said, coming in the back door.

  “We want to get things settled, try and make it feel like home,” Mel said as she wiped the kitchen counter.

  “I can’t believe no one broke in here. It’s so nice inside.”

  “Well, from the outside, it doesn’t look like much. Speaking of which, that’ll need to change.”

  I started to laugh at the thought of a honey-do list. “Sure thing, babe. But for now, let’s go over to Danny’s for lunch.”

  “Yeah, lunch!” Little Bit shouted and ran for the door.

  We all walked together over to Danny’s. Everyone was on the back porch. A couple of open cases of MREs sat on the table.

  “You girls pick out the ones you want,” I said.

  “I like these things. They’re cool,” Taylor said.

  “Me too, they’re fun!” Little Bit said.

  I went through the boxes after everyone had theirs and picked one out for myself. While I knew these weren’t the greatest things in the world, today, they tasted wonderful. After so long of eating what we could find and catch, the variety of flavors in each spoonful was impressive.

  After lunch, Jeff threw all the wrappers on the burn pile. “Danny!” he called out. “You want me to burn all this for you?”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  “You two go round them up. Me and Jeff will take care of the trash.”

  “You guys going to get that couple from the campground?” Bobbie asked.

  “My friend is moving here?!” Little Bit exclaimed.

  “Yep, they’re going to live here.”

  “Where are they going to stay?” Mel asked.

  “I was thinking Mark’s house. We know he isn’t coming back.”

  “That’s good, they’ll be right across the street from you,” Danny said.

  “You ready to go?”

  “Yep, let’s go.”

  I looked at Mel. “We’ll be back in a little bit.”

  She smiled a sweet smile. “Hurry back.”

  “I ain’t starting on your honey-do list today, or even this week.”

  “Sure, okay,” she said with a wink.

  Danny disconnected the trailer and we loaded up and headed out. We didn’t talk on the ride, just enjoying the scenery and the beautiful weather. For a moment I was able to ignore the reality of our current life and drift back in time, back to when it was such a normal, not-even-worth-thinking-about event to be driving down the road. Only the litter on the road prevented the scene from being exact.

  Brandy was alone by the fire when we pulled up. As I got out, she ran up, looking relieved. “I’m so glad you guys are here!”

  “Why, what’s up? And where’s Tyler?” I asked, looking around.

  “He’s off in the woods,” she said, pointing off into the bush.

  “Why’s he out there?” Danny asked.

  “These guys came through earlier, three of them. They seemed creepy, the way they looked at me.”

  Tyler was carrying his rifle as he walked up. “Hey, guys, did y’all see anyone when you came in?”

  “No, there’s no one back that way,” I said.

  “What’d those guys do?” Danny asked.

  “Nothing really. They didn’t say much, it was just the way they were looking at Brandy—they wouldn’t stop looking at her.”

  “Well, I guess we’re just in time, then. Let’s get you guys loaded up,” I said.

  A big smile spread across his face. “Awesome, let’s do this.”

  “Hey, Danny, why don’t you keep watch while I help them load up?”

  “Sure.”

  I followed Tyler up to the camp, where Brandy was already packing their things. I was surprised at how neat and tidy the inside of their tent was. Save some sand on the floor, it was clean. Being as everything at the camp had gotten there on two bikes, it didn’t take long for it to be loaded. In less than an hour, we were headed back.

  “This is so exciting! I didn’t even dare think about living in a house again,” Brandy said.

  “I’m glad we came across you guys. It’ll be good to have some friends around for Little Bit,” I replied.

  “I can’t tell you guys how much we appreciate this, guys, really,” Tyler said.

  “No problem, we can use some help and you guys surely can as well,” Danny said.

  “Are we going to be living near you guys?”

  “Right across the road from me,” I said.

  “Oh cool! Whose house is it? I mean, could they come back?”

  I thought about how to answer that. “No, they are not going to come back. It belonged to Lake County sheriff’s deputy, but he died.”

  From the back I heard Brandy. “Oh.”

  “Not in the house, though. Don’t worry about that,” Danny said.

  “Oh, okay, good. I was worried there for a minute.”

  “I don’t think he’ll be haunting you,” I said with a smile, then thought, But he might haunt me.

  As we pulled up to the house that would be theirs, I saw a Hummer sit
ting at Danny’s gate. Pointing to their new house, I said, “This is your place, but we’re going down here real quick.”

  “Sure,” Tyler replied.

  I pulled up into my yard and parked near the fence between our houses.

  We found everyone sitting on the back porch, along with Sarge, Mike, and Ted.

  “You finally get cleared by Doc?” I asked, stepping up on the porch.

  “I don’t need to cleared by no one. I cleared my damn self,” Sarge said from where he sat sprawled on the big lounge chair.

  Little Bit was sitting beside him. When she saw the kids, she hopped up. “Mister Sarge, I’m glad you’re back, but I’m going to go play with my friends now.” Sarge smiled as she wrapped her arms around his neck and quickly ran off. From the amount of squeals from the two girls, you’d have thought there were thirty of them.

  “So you guys heading down to the river?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we’re in vacation mode now,” Ted said.

  “There are extra houses here if you guys want to stay,” I said.

  “No, we want to go to the river, it’ll be nice down there,” Sarge answered.

  “Cool, you guys just drop by for the hell of it?”

  “They brought us a present,” Mel said, kicking the big box of TP.

  “Well, aren’t you girls lucky,” I said with a smile.

  I pointed to Tyler and Brandy. “For those of you who haven’t met them yet, this is Tyler and Brandy. They’re going to live here as well.”

  “Nice to meet you all. This is really something, so many people,” Tyler said.

  “Yeah, we’re like grapes, come in bunches,” Mike said.

  Sarge looked at him, shaking his head. “More like a basket of fruits and nuts.”

  Looking back at Tyler and Brandy, I said, “You’ll have to forgive him. Sarge here is our resident curmudgeon.”

  Sarge leaned forward. “Come a little closer, sweetheart, and I’ll club your mudgeon.”

  “Don’t worry, Morg, a newborn could outrun him right now,” Ted said with a laugh, without thinking of where he was standing. Sarge’s crutch quickly came around into his kneecap. He was leaning against a post and nearly fell over when he jerked his knee up.

  “Ow, dammit, old man!” Ted barked.

  Sarge was laughing. “One mudgeon crushed.”

  Tyler and Brandy looked unsure about what they’d just seen, so I reassured them. “Don’t worry about him. Contrary to how it may appear, he’s actually a nice guy.”

  “Are you guys hungry?” Mel asked.

  “Uh, I hate to say it, but yes, something to eat would be nice. Thank you,” Brandy said.

  “Don’t thank us yet. This is all we’ve got right now,” Thad said as he passed a half case of MREs to Tyler.

  While they ate, we all talked, mainly about all the work that lay ahead of us.

  Sarge said he didn’t know what was going to happen next. “That’s above my pay grade. All I know is what I was asked to do”—Sarge jabbed his thumb toward Mike and Ted—“and these guys went above and beyond.”

  With a big cheesy grin, Mike said, “Was that a compliment? Did that grumpy ole bastard just give us a compliment?”

  Ted reached over and covered Mike’s mouth. “Shut up and take it for what it’s worth.”

  Mike mumbled through Ted’s fingers for a second, then let out a sigh.

  “You two about ready to go? We have to get things set up before it gets dark tonight,” Sarge said.

  Ted and Mike both got up. “Yeah, let’s get this show on the road,” Ted said.

  We all walked out to the Hummer, saying our good-byes. It was nice to know they were temporary good-byes. These guys were safe—for now.

  “It’s all downhill from here, Morg. I think the hard part’s over,” Sarge said as he closed the door.

  “Really? I think the hard part is just getting started,” I replied.

  Taylor was standing beside me. “Dad, is this the end? I mean, is the government still going to try to kill us? Are they going to leave us alone now?”

  I looked at Sarge. He gave a little shrug, then I looked at Taylor. “To borrow a phrase from history, ‘it’s not the end, it’s not even the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning.’” Sarge winked at me and slapped the side of the truck.

  Mel looked at Brandy. “Let’s get you guys settled.”

  As the Hummer pulled down the street, the three youngest kids chased after it. The afternoon was beautiful and with all the laughter from the kids it was like being transported back to a happier time. I hoped that the move back here would bring us full circle—that we’d find real happiness again. A lot of work lay ahead of us, but it was good work: rebuilding our home, our community. We were on the road to recovery. I didn’t know the path we were on to get there, but I had high hopes for it.