Pulse

by David Lisenby

  “Were you talkin’ about Lyrica or brains?” Squirrel whispered to her friend as they passed by the group where the guy was.

  “Both.” The girls laughed.

  By the time they made it to the high school, Beetle and Squirrel had traded for about 60 Lyrica capsules. They had also made a couple of good connections of people who had access to propane tanks, several solar panels and a few other items that could probably be of use to the folks at the Landing. They assured those people that they would be back in a day or two to make a deal.

  “You want to make one trip around the school grounds before we head home?” Beetle asked as the scouts stood and looked at the sea of tents that had been erected in and around what used to be the football field and parking lots at the high school.

  “I don’t know,” Squirrel said anxiously. “There sure are a lot of people out there.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Beetle said. “Besides, we can cut through that patch of trees back there and not have to go back down that scary road.”

  Beetle pointed out the wooded area behind the tents and smiled at her friend.

  “C’mon,” she said, “You’ll never know what treasures we might find if you don’t take a chance and get out of your comfort zone.”

  Squirrel squinted at her companion. “Why do you always have to be right?” she said.

  “It’s a curse,” Beetle said with a faux sigh, “but I’ve learned to live with it. My minions depend on me.”

  “Oh,” replied Squirrel. “So now I’m a minion?”

  Nah,” Beetle smiled, “you’re my Squirrel friend.”

  Squirrel let out a sigh but started walking toward the crowd of people scurrying around the busy community. Beetle hurriedly caught up with her and laced arms. The two girls started skipping, keeping stride with each other effortlessly.

  The dynamic duo waded into the crowd with confidence and determination. Or so it appeared. They would occasionally ask a group of people if they had any Lyrica, but, for the most part, kept walking toward the wooded area that they knew lay on the other side of the seemingly endless rows of tents.

  They reached an intersection of cement pathways. The girls stood for a moment, as if trying to decide which way to go from there. Sounds of crying babies, children playing, mothers calling for their kids, a guitar being strummed, a man yelling to another something about needing a roll of toilet paper, and other unidentifiable things filled the air. If one didn’t know better, Beetle thought, one would think they were at a state fair. The atmosphere was similarly hectic.

  “Vicky!” a high-pitched voice screamed above all the rest. Beetle looked at Squirrel. Squirrel turned around, looking for the source of the familiar voice.

  Then she saw her.

  “Lyss?” she said softly before running toward a smiling girl with her arms wide open. “Lyss!” Squirrel exclaimed as she grabbed the girl and hugged her with all her might.

  Beetle stood and stared in astonishment at the two girls who were caught up in a tearful embrace. She slowly walked over to them.

  “I take it you know each other?” she said after a couple of minutes. Squirrel turned and looked at her friend through tear-filled eyes.

  “This is my sister,” she sobbed and hugged the girl again. A minute later she stepped back, one arm draped over her sister’s shoulder. “Alyssa, this is Beetle.”

  Alyssa, Lyss (as her sister had called her), averted her gaze from her younger sibling for only a moment to look toward the dark-haired girl she had been introduced to. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

  “What are you doing here?” Squirrel asked. “I thought you were in Dallas. Shouldn’t you be at the campus? Where’s Hunter? What are you doing here?”

  “Slow down a little,” Lyss said. “Take a deep breath before you hyperventilate.” The two sisters hugged again.

  “Mama’s gonna’ be so glad to see you,” Squirrel said. “She’s been so worried.”

  “We went to Buna to try to find ya’ll but you weren’t at the house,” Lyss said. “We’ve been here for the past week. Where’s Mama? I want to go see here.”

  “She’s not far from here,” Squirrel replied. “We can go right now.”

  “Let’s go to our tent and get Hunter,” Lyss said. “He’s gonna’ be so surprised. We thought we were never gonna’ see you guys again.”

  The trio of girls made their way through the crowd with a newfound purpose. It wasn’t long before they reached their destination and a new round of hugs began between Squirrel and Hunter. They decided that Hunter would break down their tent and pack their belongings. Then they would all head to the Landing together.

  As Hunter and Beetle worked together to pack, the two sisters sat and caught up. Squirrel learned that Hunter had driven to Dallas the Friday before the pulse. They attended the Dallas Chocolate Festival the next couple of days and somehow, he had slipped an engagement ring into a chocolate truffle during a Chocolate Tasting class. When she bit into something hard and looked down to see what it was, he was on one knee when she looked up.

  “It was the sweetest proposal ever,” Lyss beamed as she held her hand out to show off the diamond on her ring finger. Squirrel was in tears.

  Lyss had talked to her professors on Monday and made arrangements to miss their class for the upcoming week. She and Hunter drove down on Tuesday, which was the fateful day of the pulse. As luck would have it, they had stopped off at Hunter’s house in Silsbee to … um … take a little nap before driving on to Buna to share the news with the family.

  The rest, as they say, is history.

  As Lyss finished catching her sister up on recent events, Beetle and Hunter finished folding up the tent and stuffing it in a backpack. Hunter looked around at the belongings they had accumulated over the past few days.

  “Hey, Dude,” a man a couple of tents over said, “I’ll give you a bag of weed for those MRE’s.”

  “Forget it,” Hunter said. “We’re gonna need those.”

  “How much pot you got?” Squirrel interjected into the conversation, catching the attention of both the men.

  “We don’t smoke dope, Vicky,” Hunter said to his future sister-in-law. She turned and glared at him.

  “There’s over an ounce in here,” the stranger said as he pulled a bag of weed out of his fanny pack. “I’ll give you half of it for the … what … five MRE’s you have there.”

  “Give him the whole bag and we’ll throw in all the bottled water he has,” Squirrel counter offered.

  The man winced. “Then I wouldn’t have any smoke left for myself.” A young lady with a toddler on her hip walked up to the man’s side.

  “Give up the peyote,” she said to the man. “We need that food and water. You don’t need the weed.”

  “But, Baby,” the man said with pleading eyes. Squirrel could tell that she had just closed the deal when the young lady shot a look at the man. He stopped talking and just held the baggie out toward the lady with the food. Squirrel grabbed the marijuana from the man’s hand with her left hand and shook his empty hand with her right.

  “Deal,” she said as she stashed the bounty inside her shirt. She then reached down and picked up the stack of MRE’s, handing them off to the smiling woman. “You want to grab this water, Dude?”

  Hunter just stood there with his jaw on his chest. He had never imagined that his fiancé’s sister could be so aggressive or that she smoked pot. “What just happened?” he asked.

  “Barter at it’s finest,” Beetle said, proud of her fellow scout. “Never pass up a good deal.”

  “But we need those supplies,” Hunter argued. “What are we going to do for food and water now?”

  “We’ve got it covered,” Squirrel said. “Now we can handle carrying all of this crap.” She bent over and grabbed the backpack with the tent inside, securing it on her back. “Shall we go?”

  Hunter reached for the other backpack and manhandled it onto his back. Beetle grabbed the remaining goods, which were shov
ed inside a pillow case. Lyss just stood there for a few seconds looking from one person to another. She was silent, but it was obvious the wheels were turning in her head.

  “O.K.” she finally said. “You’ve really got to tell me how you learned this barter thing.”

  “We’ve got plenty of time to catch up while we walk,” Squirrel said as she prodded the group toward the wood line. “And for the record; everyone calls me Squirrel now.”

  As they reached the patch of woods, Beetle took the lead. Hunter followed close behind, with the two sisters lagging behind, chatting away as they fought the underbrush. It didn’t take long before the small group punched through to the other side of the woods, coming out close to where they had anticipated.

  They walked a little way down the railroad tracks before reaching the farm-to-market road they had come in on. The two girl scouts looked into each other’s eyes and knew what the other was thinking. Although they had grown accustomed to traveling along the sidelines, their two companions obviously weren’t. They decided to travel on the roadway. A nod of the head was all that was needed to convey the message to be cautious.

  Chatter between the siblings died down as they made their way west, toward Pine Plaza. Coming around a curve in the road, the quartet approached a dirt road where a couple of scruffy men were standing. The closer they got, the more disgusting the men appeared to be.

  “Looks like them thar bags are purty heavy,” said one of the men once the group was within earshot. “Reckon we kin take some of that stuff off yer hands where’s ya’ll want hafta carry it.”

  The two vagabonds laughed at their own joke. “Ya’ll sure is purty,” the other man said. “Yew kin hang out wit us fer a while if’n ya’ll wanna.”

  “I believe we’re just fine,” Hunter said when the two groups met. “Move aside and we’ll just pass on by.”

  One of the men raised his hand and flashed a Bowie knife that nobody had noticed before. “Yew sure ya’ll don wanna share sum of them thangs?” he asked with drool running down the corner of his mouth.

  “Click,” the sound of a hammer locking in place filled the air.

  “You boys wouldn’t mess with a bunch of poor, fragile girls, would you?” Beetle asked as she pointed her 9mm revolver at the two men. Both men stared at the barrel.

  The sound of a feminine voice clearing her throat caught their attention. They saw a 9mm semi-automatic also pointed their way. “I sure like that tooth pick,” Squirrel said, shaking her gun barrel toward the knife. “If you’d be so kind as to drop it on the ground maybe I won’t have to waste any bullets on ya’ll wild animals.”

  There was a pregnant pause. Neither man moved. “Will I?” Squirrel said in a slightly more insistent voice. The man dropped the knife. The blade sliced into the ground and stuck with the handle sticking up.

  “Now I’d suggest you boys move on up the road there before my friend realizes that bullets are still pretty cheap,” Beetle said coldly. The men backed away slowly before turning and running up the dirt road. Beetle bent down and picked up the knife. She shoved it in the backpack Hunter was carrying.

  “What’s gotten into you, Vicky?” Lyss asked in disbelief.

  “Contrary to popular belief,” Beetle answered, “Squirrels don’t like nuts.”

  Squirrel glanced at her friend and winked. “Or disrespect,” she added.

  “I had that situation under control, you know,” Hunter said.

  “We know,” said Beetle. “Sometimes we just like to play around; have a little fun with the crazies.”

  Hunter looked at the dark-eyed girl. “OK,” he said. “As long as ya’ll know that.”

  “Of course,” said Squirrel as she turned and started walking again. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  The rest of the small group also began walking. Lyss wasn’t sure about the change in her baby sister, but she was sure that she had definitely adapted to the new world they lived in. She was actually proud of her. She would have never imagined her little Vicky … Squirrel, could find such confidence and strength.

  Chapter 5

  Eyes wide open

  Arlene stood up and stretched. Her knees and back were aching, having spent the past hour bent over in the spice garden making sure the insects and other tiny varmints didn’t eat up the plants before she could harvest enough for the upcoming change of weather. She knew she would need as many natural remedies as she could gather to help combat the colds and flu’s that always accompanied the cooler weather.

  She had picked a few sprigs of rosemary and basil and stored them in her apron pocket. Once she worked the kinks out of her back, she intended to gather a few onions and as many tomatoes as possible where she could can some delicious (and nutritious) paste. It could serve many purposes in the coming months, but the main plan was to start feeding it to Sierra.

  The paste could be used on any number of foods, or it could be diluted and turned into a soup. The spices would add a robust flavor. Each of them also had their own antibacterial properties and should pass their benefits to the unborn child the young mother was carrying. Once the baby was born, which could be any time, Sierra would still pass them on with her mother’s milk.

  Goodness knows that baby is going to need as much help as it can get once it’s born.

  As she twisted at the waist, Arlene noticed Kenneth and Jerry coming from the shop toward the Grub Hut. She didn’t have to look up at the sun to tell that it was lunchtime; the emptiness in her belly reminded her of that. She was looking toward the men strolling across the backyard, but she really didn’t see them. Her mind wandered to a time when she could go inside and make herself a salami and pickle sandwich with a touch of Miracle Whip. Her mouth watered just thinking about it.

  Arlene snapped out of it and turned her gaze toward Roxie, who was frying up a batch of hot water cornbread. It wasn’t exactly the same, but she knew that her new friend’s sweet cornbread was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Since you couldn’t just run down to the supermarket and get a loaf of bread anymore, that hot water cornbread was sounding mighty good. If it was covered in some of the fresh honey that Abe had stolen from the hives yesterday … yum!

  She glanced over at Jerry. He was staring at her but jerked his eyes away the second she gazed at him. Curious. She’d noticed him looking at her a lot. A lot. She really had no desire to confront him and ask him to stop. Their paths were bound to cross on a daily basis; there was no sense in making it uncomfortable.

  She turned her attention back to the task at hand. The onions were a couple of rows over and a few yards to the west. So, Arlene turned and walked in that direction. She didn’t see it but could feel Jerry’s eyes on her as she walked away.

  She was right. He was watching her.

  Over at Kay’s store, Harold and Jake were installing a new set of shelves they had finished building earlier in the day. It seemed like they were constantly having to build new shelves or opening more rooms up in the store. Business was certainly good, but it sure put a strain on the manpower around the Landing.

  As they were securing the section of shelving to the wall, a couple of strangers came in and were looking around lazily. Harold wasn’t sure what it was about the men, but he felt uneasy. They had brought a knapsack in with them that was full of rice; probably 50 pounds or more. It was be a good trade if Kay could make the right deal.

  Harold knew that Kay always made the right deal.

  The men walked around for about 10 minutes or more, checking out almost everything the store offered. Harold and Jake slowed their pace, so they could hang around in the store however long the strangers were there. Jake, too, felt uncomfortable about them.

  Eventually the men made their way to the counter and placed a bag of coffee, a handful of peppermints and eight MRE’s on it. “We got a trade?” one of the men asked in a gruffy voice. He tapped the knapsack.

  “Let’s see what you have here,” Kay said as she reached for the rope tied around the top
of the sack. She untied it and opened the top. A flurry of small bugs flew out of the opening of the bag before she could close it back up.

  “Sorry, guys,” she said, “I can’t trade for rice that’s full of weevils. I’d appreciate it if you’d take that knapsack outside before those bugs infest my store.”

  “They just add more protein to the rice,” the second man said coldly. “We’ll just take four MRE’s.”

  “Like I said,” Kay replied, “I can’t trade for infested rice. Bring back something of value and we can work something out, but we can’t do business if all you have is that rice.”

  The man standing closest to the counter quickly pulled a large knife from a sheath on his side and held it up before him, “Maybe we can make the trade and you can have someone take the weevils out of the rice. It’d be good as new. Whatcha’ think, Hot Wheels?”

  The double-click of a 12-guage shotgun being loaded filled the small room. “I think I don’t appreciate ya’ll admiring my wife’s wheels,” Harold said as he pointed the gun at the men. They both snapped their heads in his direction when the gun was loaded, but there was no sign of fear in their eyes.

  “Is that right?” One of the men asked.

  The sound of a revolver hammer locking into place caught the attention of both men. “He’s kinda’ possessive of his wife,” Jake said. “She takes real good care of him and he gets jealous if another man gets too frisky with her.”

  The men stood still.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d lay that knife down on the counter,” Kay said.

  “Real slow,” Harold added.

  The man slowly lowered the knife to the counter and released it. “Looks like ya’ll have the upper hand this time,” he said.

  “Yep,” Jake said.

  “Why don’t you men take your rice and move on?” Harold said. “I don’t think we’ll be doin’ any tradin’ with ya’ll today.”