Pulse

by David Lisenby

  That was fine by him.

  He went into the foyer area and pulled the rope to raise the dumbwaiter they had recently installed. He was going to go out using the ladder and knew that he would have to lower the plates down or chance dropping them as he climbed back down. That was why they had put in the dumbwaiter in the first place; he was tired of dropping things and then having to clean up the mess.

  As he pulled on the rope he prayed.

  “Thank you, Father,” he said softly. “You have blessed me on so many levels. Thank you for taking care of us and bringing us through these trying times. Thank you for bringing my children to this place safely. Thank you for the bountiful harvests that nourish us every day. Thank you for giving us the strength and wisdom to prosper and the humility to share the blessings with others.

  “And God, thank you for bringing Kay into my life. She was just what I needed. You knew that. I am grateful. You have given me everything a man could wish for. My life is complete. You have blessed me beyond anything I could have ever asked for. Thank you. I humbly place my destiny in Your hands and know that Your will shall be done. Please forgive my sins and lead me on the path that You deem right. Amen.”

  Harold then grabbed the rungs of the ladder and began climbing. His heart was full and could feel the weight on his shoulders lifted. This was a good day. He was happy.

  At the top of the stairs Harold stepped out of the little enclave in the tater shed. As he did, he heard a single shot ring out.

  Tommy heard the shot coming from a couple of hundred feet away, from out in the pasture. He sprinted over and grabbed the shotgun from its resting place near the entrance of the loft. He pointed it in the direction of the only tree in the pasture and fired off a round. He could see someone duck behind the tree.

  As the people of the Landing ran for cover, several more shots rang out. The sound of a woman screaming filled the air as people started firing back at the apparent intruders. It sounded like the shots were coming from the south and the west (from the patch of woods and the pastures).

  For several intense moments there was a firefight between the two groups of people. The people of the Landing dug in to their defensive positions as the intruders made their way closer and closer.

  Shiela May and Rickey had been in their trailer near the garden when the firefight began. They grabbed their guns and a few containers of Tannerite and took cover in the new root cellar. That gave them a good position near the northwest side of the Landing, where they could defend against anyone coming from the pastures.

  Tommy, Ellen, and the Caraway brothers took shelter in the barn, which meant they had the southwest side covered. They didn’t have any Tannerite, but they did have shotguns and plenty of ammo on hand.

  Jake and Abe were both in the Main House when the firefight began. They armed themselves and headed out the front door to circle around the house and get a position on the south side of the Landing. Jake told Beetle and Squirrel to cover the north and east side, just in case the intruders tried to circle around.

  Jerry and Kenneth were still in the workshop working when the crap hit the fan. In about a minute they could see that the Costner’s were taking positions around their property and would protect from an invasion from the north, so they retrieved their rifles and made their way toward the wood line to the south. Each one of them had several cannisters of Tannerite with them.

  There was a good 15-minute flurry of fire from both sides. Ray Lynn and Will joined in the fight, creating a pretty good line of defense for the Landing.

  Once there was a lull in the firing and a gruff voice shouted, “Hey! All I want is to get my knife back.”

  Jake recognized the voice and yelled back, “Come and take it!”

  Another flurry of gunfire sounded. Nobody at the Landing believed the shooting would stop over a knife, and none of the intruders intended to stop until they had control of the Landing.

  Two if the intruders crawled from behind the protection of the old oak tree and slowly made their way closer to the small camper-trailer about 50-feet ahead of them. What they didn’t see was the underground root cellar and the two people hidden there. They inched their way closer until they heard something land close to them with a thud. They froze for a minute thinking someone was throwing rocks.

  Suddenly, Shiela Mae had the small container that Rickey had thrown in her sight and slowly squeezed the trigger on her AR-15. The two intruders never knew what hit them when the Tannerite exploded between them, killing them in an instant.

  Two down.

  About that time a truck rounded the corner at a high rate of speed. As it approached the Landing near the store, shots were fired from the north and also from the front of the Main House. The truck veered off the road and crashed into the leaning oak tree across the road at Calvin’s house. Someone fell out of the driver side door and took refuge behind the wheel of the wrecked vehicle.

  “Stop shootin’ at me,” a man’s voice yelled. “I’m one of the good guys!”

  Beetle recognized the voice of Dale Shackleford. She had worked in his video store when she lived on Kountze a couple of years ago.

  “He’s with us,” Beetle yelled. Dale slowly peeked his head over the hood of the truck and assessed the situation.

  “I’m here to help,” he hollered. Beetle waved at him and pointed toward the back yard. Dale grabbed his AR-15 and his extra magazines from the cab of the truck and ran around the house toward the Ferrell’s place next door. He took refuge beneath a magnificent Live Oak tree in the front yard. He instinctively took out his radio and spoke into the mic.

  There were intermittent explosions as defenders found their mark and ignited Tannerite containers. Moans and agony of pain could be heard between the gunshots. It was hard to tell which side the injuries were on. People shouting to each other could be heard from time-to-time.

  The fighting seemed to go on forever, but it was probably about 45 minutes into it when another line of shooters came into play. The shooting was more controlled, coming in bursts of two or three shots at a time. It was obvious to the people of the Landing that there was backup coming from the direction of Hayes Road on the backside of the pastures and the pipeline on the backside of the woods.

  Dale apparently recognized the voices shouting “Police!” coming from behind the intruders. He took a more aggressive approach and advanced on the wooded area. Jake and Abe joined him. The shooting aimed at the Landing slowly decreased until there were only one or two intruders left. In about an hour after it initially started, the firefight ended when Det. Allen took out the last of the intruders with a single shot from his sidearm.

  When all was said and done, nine intruders were killed and four were captured. The ones that were still alive had been shackled in handcuffs and brought to the Landing.

  The people at the Landing were stunned. They had never expected that anything like this would ever happen. They had anticipated dangers, but not on this scale. Some people were in shock. Some were injured. Some were dead. People were crying out to each other. Others were hugging their children. It was heart wrenching.

  Det. Allen walked around and surveyed the damage to the little community. He was the ranking officer in this jurisdiction and this was his crime scene. He wished it wasn’t.

  Over near the fire pit was a man sitting on the ground crying while holding the body of a small boy. The child had been shot in the right side of the head and was obviously gone. A woman, apparently the nurse he had heard about, was tending to a lady next to them who had been shot in the back. It appeared that she had been trying to protect her child and had paid a heavy price for it. She didn’t look good. All color had drained from her face.

  A few yards away, just inside the wood line, he found two bodies lying in the ground. A man and a woman. He recognized the man as Dewey Polk, a man who had been in the Silsbee area for decades. He had never been in any real trouble with the law, but Det. Allen remembered him as a very polite man. The woman m
ust have been someone close to him, as they were together in the fight.

  It looked like their position had been overtaken by the intruders, who had no mercy on the couple. Both of them had been shot several times.

  Det. Allen walked further toward the back of the property and saw two young girls sitting next to the body of a black lab. The dog had also been shot and the girls were crying. He later learned that one of the girls, Whisper, had been shot in the leg and was lying on the ground. The dog was had laid on top of the girl and had been shot while protecting her owner.

  “All dogs go to heaven,” Det. Allen thought. “Especially dogs like this one.”

  Making his way toward a small shack on the south side of the garden, near the wood line, Det. Allen saw a man sitting leaned up against the structure. When he reached the building, he could see his good friend sitting there with a gaping hole in the middle of his chest, his eyes wide open, and an eerie smile on his face. Dead as a doornail.

  Thus, ended the story of Harold Lindsey.

  Chapter 8

  A moment of silence

  The entire environment around Lindsey Landing changed dramatically. For the people of the peaceful, happy community, it seemed like the rug had been pulled from beneath their feet. Evil had invaded their world once again and taken away their comfort.

  They had been spared the pain of loss that had been all around them for the past month. Sure. Each one of them had lost a major part of who they were in the aftermath of the pulse, and some had even lost friends or family members. Those deaths were not really surprising to anyone. Most of the loved ones that had been lost were knocking on death’s door long before the pulse ever occurred.

  But to have such a great loss of life in one instant was overwhelming. A brave puppy protecting its master. Taken away too soon. A loving mother and one of her beautiful twins. Gone. A newlywed couple that had only just begun their new lives together. Violently killed. Wade Caraway, a brother like no other. Snuffed in the prime of his life.

  Harold. The man who had foreseen the tragedy that brought them all together. The man who had prepared for the aftermath of an electromagnetic pulse and had thought of what they all would need before they needed it. The man who always had a kind word and solid advice for everyone. The man who had the strongest faith and kept everybody on the straight and narrow. The man everyone counted on. Dead.

  When Roxie went down into the bus to tell Kay what had happened it was as if she already knew. She was sitting there, still in bed waiting for dinner.

  She had heard that first shot. She heard a muffled thud upstairs. She screamed for her lover but the sound fell on deaf ears. When he didn’t come right back down the stairs she knew something was wrong. The sound of the battle that raged above her went on for an eternity. She could barely hear the gunshots, but the explosions could be felt through the earth that surrounded her.

  She knew that things weren’t alright. She knew that her life, as she knew it, was over. Even before her dear Roxie came through that door and confirmed it. She felt her heart break the instant the heartbeat in her true love ceased to exist.

  The two ladies; the two best friends, sat in the bus beneath the cold, cruel world above them and cried.

  Outside, the lawmen herded the surviving invaders into the new root cellar and locked them inside. The only way out of the space was through one door and Lt. Vincent sat in front of that door with a .357 magnum and a fully-loaded AR-15. There was no way anyone was getting through the door in one piece.

  Tommy, John and the other lawmen went around and gathered up the bodies of the intruders who had died in the battle. They were loaded onto the lowboy that was normally used to transport bartered goods to be carried to the Sheriff’s Office. They decided it would be best not to bury them on the property to serve as a reminder of the damage they had inflicted at the Landing.

  The bodies of the loved ones who had lost their lives to the violence were all gathered and placed in the Main House. They were laid out in the treatment room and the front room (which used to be the living room). The makeshift morgue was packed.

  Most of the survivors spread out in small groups to grieve their losses or to comfort those who were grieving. The smell of the stew that had been cooked for dinner that evening filled the air, but nobody seemed to want anything to eat. They were all dealing with the attack on their community in their own ways.

  Jake, Abe and Whisper all gathered their families together in the warehouse. They had just lost the biggest male influence in their lives and didn’t really want to be around anyone else outside their immediate family for a little bit. The chose the warehouse because they knew that Kay needed to be alone with her closest friend for a while.

  It was almost dark when Det. Allen sent word for everyone to gather at the fire pit. Reluctantly, everyone made their way to the back yard.

  “Look folks,” the detective started once he was sure everyone that was coming was there, “We’ve done just about everything we can do for now. We’re going to take the bodies of the men who were killed here today to Kountze. There isn’t a jail to carry the survivors to, so we’re going to leave them in the root cellar for the night. Lt. Vincent will stay here and guard them to make sure they don’t get away.

  “We’ll be back in the morning to return your truck and trailer. When we bring it back we’ll bring some manpower with us to help dig graves. We’re confident that we’ve neutralized the major threat to your community, and to the entire county. I know it’s of little consolation, but we really appreciate your help with that.”

  There was almost no response from those gathered.

  “I know you folks lost some good people here today,” Det. Allen continued. “I knew some of those people. I knew Harold for a long time and counted him a friend. He was a good man. I wish I could bring him back, but I can’t. Things like this … terrible things … happen. Sometimes they happen to good people.

  “I feel bad for all of you, especially his kids and loving wife. I know you will all miss him, the leadership he provided. But you can’t stop doing what you’ve been doing. You can’t give up. You can’t let evil win. I’ll pray for this community, and for each one of you.”

  “Your prayers won’t bring anyone back or make things any better,” Phil Goode said through tears.

  “Maybe not,” Det. Allen said, “but that’s all I can do.”

  “It’s what my daddy would do,” Whisper said. “Thank you, Detective. I appreciate all you guys did for us today. We all thank you.”

  There was an audible agreement that spread through the group. Everyone apparently realized at the same time that things may have turned out completely different if the lawmen hadn’t shown up when they did.

  “Can you pray with us?” Ashlyn asked, her voice raised above the group chatter. “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name …”

  Almost every voice gathered together around the glowing fire joined in and recited the Lord’s Prayer.

  There was a moment of silence following the prayer for those who had lost their lives that day.

  Dale decided that he would ride back to Kountze with Pam to watch her back. Det. Allen would retrieve his truck from where he parked it on Hayes Road and follow them back to the county seat. He would then go and file a report with Sheriff Mavis.

  As the lawmen left, everyone returned to the smaller groups they had been in earlier. Only this time the Lindsey’s all went to the tater shed and went down to the submerged bus to be with Kay. She was now the eldest member of the family and they all felt they needed to be with her.

  Chapter 9

  The morning after

  Following the invasion at Lindsey Landing, night fell and the people who lived there continued with their lives. That is about all that we know about that night for sure. Nobody that was there talks about it. Nobody.

  The next morning, Bruce got up early, like he always did. He hitched up the water wagons to the tractor and started filling them wit
h cool, clear water. Like he always did.

  Roxie got the fire started and put on the coffee, like she always did. The one major difference was that there wasn’t the usual laughter and picking with one another around the fire pit. The mood was much more reserved and solemn. One might even say melancholy.

  It wasn’t much after sunrise when the convoy of vehicles arrived, bringing with them the truck and trailer that had been borrowed the night before. Det. Allen was back. So was Dale Shackleford, Pam and about a dozen other men and women who had volunteered to come and help at the Landing for the day.

  Sheriff Mavis came, too. After he parked his old Comet, he went and found Lt. Vincent, who was sitting at the fire pit sipping on a fresh cup of coffee. Det. Allen joined them.

  “Shouldn’t you be standing guard over the prisoners?” the sheriff asked.

  “Well,” Lt. Vincent answered, “I don’t think that’s really necessary anymore.” He took another sip from the cup.

  “Exactly what do you mean, Lieutenant?” Sheriff Mavis asked. Vincent just looked at his boss.

  “Let’s go take a look,” Det. Allen said as he turned and started walking toward the root cellar where he had left the intruders the day before. Sheriff Mavis reluctantly followed him. Lt. Vincent just sat on the swing and sipped his coffee.

  When they reached the root cellar, what they saw was far from an underground chamber for storing food … or prisoners. Instead there was a small indentation in the fresh dirt, along with splinters of wood strewn about. Det. Allen stood there and shook his head.

  As the two lawmen stood there in the early morning sun, Lt. Vincent appeared at their side. “You want to tell me what happened to your prisoners?” Sheriff Mavis asked while still looking at the debris.

  “I’m not quite sure,” Lt. Vincent said. “I took a break about two this mornin’ and walked over to the fire pit to grab some cornbread and honey. That’s some pretty good stuff, Sheriff.”