SUNFALL: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Fiction Series: Book 2: ADVENT

by D. Gideon

  “Sheriff Kane, I thought you’d be busy putting people in jail after all that mess last night in town. What can I do ya for?”

  “Miss Dotty tells me you’ve got a lot of chickens you’re trying to get rid of. I’m out of meat at the Federal prison and the last two deliveries haven’t shown up. I was wondering if we could make some kind of a deal,” Simon said.

  John lifted his hat and scratched at the short hair underneath. At their feet, a barn cat rubbed against Simon’s ankle, emitting a rough, broken purr.

  “Simon, I have to tell you, I’m not too keen on the idea of supporting a bunch of criminals, even if the meat is just going to go to waste otherwise. And it’s not a long-term solution. I don’t think they’ll be bringing me more chicks when they’re supposed to.”

  “I understand where you’re coming from, and it wouldn’t be an ongoing deal. The prisoners have been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches since the weekend. I just want to give them one last good meal before I drop them off in Annapolis.”

  “Drop them…excuse me? You mean you’re transferring them, right?”

  “I’ve heard from three different sources now that either the Federal government or our esteemed Governor has made a decision. Because of the emergency and the State’s inability to keep the prisons running without a steady influx of resources, all prisoners below maximum security are to be let go. Mayor Wilhelm’s gone to Annapolis this morning and I suspect he’ll come back with those orders in hand. So, I’m making preparations for that.”

  John shook his head, eyes wide. “You can’t just let those people go. You’ve got what, three hundred? Four hundred people over there? They’ll overrun the town. I’ve got little girls here, Sheriff…”

  “There’s no way I’d let them out anywhere near Snow Hill. If the orders come through, I plan to do exactly as the Governor asks. I’ll let them go…as close as I can get them to the Governor’s mansion,” Simon said.

  John leaned back against the wide boards of his trailer and crossed his arms. “So instead of letting them out here, where my little girls will be at risk, you’re going to drop them where some stranger’s little girls will be at risk?”

  Simon frowned and shook his head. “I won’t let the dangerous ones go, John. I can’t. I’ve been up all night going over all the inmate files. There’s a lot of prisoners there that I wouldn’t even let out of their cell to eat if I didn’t have to. But the ones in there for petty shit, non-violent crimes, prostitution? I’ll let them go…in Annapolis. The Governor could do something about this, but instead he’s dumping it in the laps of the people to handle for some reason. Screw that. I’ll drop them right in his lap. It’s his problem, he can handle it.”

  John blew out a breath and looked out over his land, towards the long white chicken houses in the distance. “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t either, but I’m running out of fuel for the generators, and they keep the cells locked. Every gallon that gets used means less time that I’ve got to figure out what to do with these people. From the sounds of it, the State’s not coming to get them, and the Feds sure as hell aren’t coming.”

  “You said you had three sources. You trust those sources? You sure this isn’t just disaster rumors?”

  “I’ve got a witness account of Somerset inmates being let loose in Salisbury. The Somerset deputies verified it last night—they’re mad as hell about it but there’s nothing they can do,” Simon said.

  “Someone else might decide to drop prisoners off here,” John said. “No one wants them in their own town. Ship ‘em off a good ways away.”

  “Yep,” Simon said. “That’s another possibility I’m having to prepare for. I’ve got roadblocks set up leading into town…not that it would help you out here.”

  John dropped his eyes to the pistol on Simon’s hip and looked back up. “If they come on my land, they’ll disappear.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” Simon said, smiling a little.

  John levelled a look at him. “I’m serious. Charlotte’s the best thing that ever happened to me. She kept me from going insane when I came back. Then when we had the girls…I’m not letting anything happen to them. Laws, or no laws.”

  Simon and John stared at each other for a moment, and then John’s gaze went towards his house. “When I was over in the sandbox,” John said, “there were things we had to do that never made it onto any reports. Bad guys had to disappear, Sheriff. I was one of the people that made sure they did, so they couldn’t keep hurting anyone, like little girls. They like little girls over there. Little boys, too.”

  He looked back at Simon. “What’s your plan for the ones you won’t let go?”

  “I hadn’t figured that out yet,” Simon admitted. “I’m still working on it.”

  “And how many dangerous inmates are we talking about?”

  “About two hundred, give or take,” Simon said.

  John gave a low whistle and thought a minute. “Hop on in the truck, and we’ll drive out behind the barn. I’ve got to load up a chicken tractor for Miss Dotty; you can help me get it on the trailer. Then I’ve got something to show you.”

  Chapter 28

  Wednesday, September 5th

  Snow Hill, Maryland

  Dotty dropped another handful of string beans into the soft canvas bag at her waist and adjusted its strap on her shoulder. She had on her carpenter’s apron, but it was too small for all that needed to be harvested here in the Miller’s garden. A long time ago, her Momma had kept clothespins in this bag, and wore it when she hung the wash out to dry. She’d dreamed of that last night. This morning, she’d gone down to the laundry room and pulled it down from its hook. It had been hanging there for years as decoration. She’d emptied the old clothespins out of it and hung the strap across her chest, just like Momma used to. It was the perfect size, and maybe she felt like she needed a bit of her Momma with her today.

  Her deft little hands plucked another fat handful of beans and a thought occurred to her.

  We’ll need to be washing clothes by hand and hanging them out to dry now that there’s no power.

  Maybe that’s why she’d had that dream. Maybe her subconscious was trying to work out problems. Or maybe it was just Momma trying to give her some help. Dotty put her hand on the top of the chain-link fence and looked out over her backyard, trying to figure out where she could have Thomas hang a rope for a clothesline. Momma used to have big steel pipes welded into T-shapes standing in the backyard, but she had nothing like that.

  “Isn’t it too early to be daydreaming?” Seth said, stepping through his back door.

  “I thought you’d be sleeping in, as late as we were up last night talkin’ and movin’ things,” Dotty said. They’d worked hard, first in the Millers’ house and then in her own, taking things to the cellars. Anything a thief might think was valuable, like Seth’s television, and anything they didn’t want getting vandalized, like Dotty’s old photo albums, had gone down first. When Dotty had told the story of Cathy on the porch, Lily had insisted they also take down every scrap of food and groceries.

  I don’t want that woman getting sight of it and thinking she’s entitled to some of it because we’re neighbors, Lily had said.

  “Couldn’t really sleep. Brought you some coffee.” He passed her a steaming mug. “So, penny for your thoughts?”

  She blew across the top of the coffee and took a small sip. “I was just thinking without the dryer, I’ll need to string a couple clothes lines inside my back porch.”

  “Good idea. And we should be using the water in the tubs to wash clothes instead of sending it down the toilet,” Seth said. Dotty gave an Mmhmm in agreement.

  The morning mist was still thick near the ground, swirling around Seth’s feet as he turned and looked to the backs of their properties, frowning.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Dotty asked.

  “Ugh. Where do I start?” he said, shrugging. “I’m wondering where to dig a hole for an outhouse
. Where I can get scrap boards for it. Where to pound down a pipe for a well. Wondering if I’ve got any leftover pipe to drill out my own well point. We need water, we need an outhouse…we can’t have them too close together.”

  “Teddy used to keep a couple of well points in stock every spring. The cattle farmers use them sometimes; drill a well right out in the field and put a hand pump on it. Cheaper than pumping water to the troughs out there.”

  “You think he’s still got one?”

  Dotty shrugged. “This late in the year? Probably not. Doesn’t hurt to check, though.”

  “Okay. I’ll do that. Gotta go by there later anyway; need to get some PVC to ventilate the outhouse.”

  “I haven’t used an outhouse since I was a little girl. You really gonna dig one?”

  “Got no choice,” Seth said. “After everything you told us last night? It’s not like we’ve got property out in the country to escape to. Gotta make do with what we’ve got.” He squinted up at the rising sun and pulled a baseball cap out of his back pocket. “Speaking of, better get to it. Holler if you need me.”

  “I’ll do that. Thank you for the coffee.” She watched him weave his way through the garden and duck inside the shed. The sounds of him moving things around inside the big metal structure was amplified, like he was standing in a speaker. No doubt that would catch attention. She walked to the end of the row and set her coffee down on a little wooden stool she kept there for picking cucumbers.

  The hum of an engine came closer and stopped in front of her house, and she craned her neck to see who it was. A deputy she didn’t know by name was getting out of a marked county car with a deputy’s uniform shirt over his arm. Her heart did a little flutter, but then she remembered that Thomas was supposed to do a ride-along this morning and help man one of the roadblocks. She heard her front door bang shut, and then Thomas was limping down the front walk. He was carrying his knee brace, just in case. He looked around, and finding Dotty, gave her a wave. She forced a smile and waved back. Thomas buttoned up the uniform shirt over the plain t-shirt he was wearing, and she couldn’t help but sigh as he carefully tucked it in and smoothed it down. Even with his jeans on, he still looked…official. She thought she’d have more time before she had to deal with him going off to be a policeman.

  She thought she’d have more time for a lot of things, but apparently God had other plans. She lifted her little cross necklace and kissed it, then turned away so she wouldn’t see him leave. It was bad luck to watch a loved one until they were out of sight. You had to get about your business and have faith they’d come back to you.

  A few hours later Seth had a fire blazing in a burn barrel near the shed, and had collected all of the loose trash bags off of the street. They’d talked a bit about when Dotty had to use her grandparents’ outhouse as a little girl, and she’d remembered sprinkling a cup of wood ash down the hole after using it. Her grams had insisted on it, to keep the outhouse from smelling and help the waste break down. Seth didn’t have any ash left from the wood stove; he hadn’t used it since last winter. But there was plenty of trash out on the street he could burn, and he’d immediately set to gathering it up before people started hauling it to the landfill themselves. It stunk to high heaven, and the smell from the fire was even worse. It burned quickly, though. Dotty was looking forward to using some of those ashes to mix in with her garden soil.

  Lily had found plans for a solar dehydrator in the I.C.O.E. book that used vegetable cans to heat air and pass it up into the dehydrating cabinet.

  “There’s probably hundreds sitting out in those recycle bins,” Lily had said, gesturing towards the street. “All we gotta do is get them, cut the bottoms out with a can opener, and paint them black.” She’d taken her now-empty rolling trash bin and gone down the sidewalk, picking through the short recycle bins and snagging every can she could find. She’d gotten a few weird looks, she’d said, but no one was brave enough to ask what she was doing.

  But not everyone washed out their cans before tossing them into the recycle bins, and some didn’t even bother to use the recycle bins. So now Dotty was wearing her gardening gloves and picking through Seth’s garbage pile. She pulled out vegetable cans for the dehydrator, bigger cans in case they needed them later to store things in, and even the thinner soda cans. Seth could flatten those and use them as shingles on the outhouse. Lily sat on Dotty’s little stool near the hole Seth was digging, ripping labels off of the cans and cutting the bottoms out with a manual can opener. Then she’d drop them into a bucket of gray water to soak loose the food dried onto the inside. Jax sat near the growing mound of dirt Seth was making, her ears pointed forward and head cocked. She was probably wondering why Seth didn’t just use his hands to dig up the dirt.

  Something with a big engine rumbled by, but Dotty paid it no mind. The loud, rattling sound of sliding metal made them all jump. Jax immediately headed for the front yard.

  “What the devil?” Dotty asked, standing.

  “I’ll check it out. I need a break from this hole, anyway,” Seth said, stepping out. He’d made the hole three feet square, and was already about three feet deep. “You two stay back here.”

  He took the shovel with him, Dotty noticed. She cast a glance at Lily, who stared after him with a worried look.

  “Maybe I should’ve been doing this inside,” Lily said. “We’re all back here in the corner of the yard; someone could’ve gone right in our front doors and we’d have never noticed.”

  “We’ve been so busy, I didn’t even think about it,” Dotty said. “I hope it’s not those kids coming back, starting trouble.”

  “You think we should get Seth’s rifle?” Lily dropped her things on the ground and stood up.

  “If it’s bad, it’s probably too late for that.”

  They waited for a tense moment, straining to hear over the sound of the crackling fire.

  Seth rounded the back corner of the house, smiling broadly. “Dotty, John says you’d best come up here, before Charlotte changes her mind and decides to take her chickens back home.”

  Chapter 29

  Wednesday, September 5th

  Snow Hill, Maryland

  Simon stepped through the propped-open door of the Sheriff’s office and took off his hat. Behind a counter, Deputy Williams looked up from paperwork and gave a weary smile.

  “Hey boss. You want the good news or the bad news?”

  Simon used his hip to open the low swinging door separating the lobby from the administrative area, and sat a large brown bag and a pack of water bottles on the counter. “May as well give me the bad news first.”

  Jacob dropped his stack of paperwork on the counter and straightened. “Bad news is, we’ve had about thirty people come in with reports of vandalism last night. Broken windows in houses, a couple stores broken into and looted, a bunch of cars busted up.”

  Simon grimaced. “What’s the good news?”

  “I’m not done with the bad news. We still can’t find the judge, and it looks like the D.A. has taken off now, too. Sean’s out of the med center, which is good, but somehow his firearm went missing.”

  “How the hell did that happen?”

  “The nurse says that when everyone came in all at once, it was a mess and they just cut his clothes off and dropped all of his belongings in one of those big tubs. She says they put the tub on the shelf under the bed like they do for any emergency patient, and forgot about it until Sean was released today. So either it went missing at the gas station riot before he got loaded up for the med center, or someone took it out of his room. He was unconscious when they transported him, so it’s a case of hide and seek now.”

  “Not good. Do we have someone on that?”

  “Sean’s on it. Doc said he shouldn’t drive for a few days because of the concussion, so he’s got his son driving him around. He’s trying to track down that Italian guy that was in the room with him.”

  Simon shook his head. “Stubborn idiot. Concussion patients are
supposed to keep still.”

  “Yeah, well, you know how he is. He wants his weapon back.”

  “You got any more, or can we get to the good news?”

  “The good news is the folks we got back in the lockup finally quit yelling about half an hour ago. I think the heat put them to sleep.” Williams said. “I was thinking about kicking my feet up and napping, myself, now that it’s quiet.”

  Simon patted the Deputy on the shoulder. “I appreciate you stepping in and manning the desk here this morning, last-minute and all.”

  “Hopefully Frank will come back with some good news for us from the Governor. With the Mayor, maybe they won’t turn him away like they did me,” Williams said. “I’ll be honest with ya boss, having the force stretched thin like this is playing hell on the home life.”

  Simon saw an opportunity and pounced on it. “I tell ya what. I’ve got some sandwiches here from the ladies at the Federal prison. How about you go ahead and go home, get some rest before duty tonight? I’ll give the folks in lock-up some lunch, and man the desk until relief comes in. Sound good?”

  Williams grabbed his hat from a peg on the wall and pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Good enough that I’m leaving before you change your mind.”

  Simon grinned. “Anything I need to know? Something I need to finish up for you?”

  Williams pushed through the door to the lobby and shook his head. “I was just splitting those reports up so they could be filed. I had the prisoners go out and empty their toilet buckets into the trash bin about two hours ago; that won’t need doing again until next shift. They’re all bitching about that. Oh…one of the rioters we put in Cell 3 wouldn’t eat his sandwich this morning. Skinny redhead guy. Says he requires gluten-free food and it’s against the law to not honor his dietary needs.”