The Quest: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 6

by Darrell Maloney

  “Yes, ma’am. Can you suggest anywhere else we can look?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. In the old gymnasium is a huge bulletin board that covers almost half the west wall. People have been posting messages for loved ones since the first days of the blackout. If she came by here looking for you, she might have posted a note for you there.

  “If you can’t find anything there, there’s a community locator service at the old library. Do you know where that is?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “It’s the Zavala Branch, behind the old Dairy Queen. Now it operates as a community center. They will have you register, and will check your name to see if anyone has left you any messages. Then you can write out your own messages to your mother and anyone else you want by name. They’ll file them in the event the people you’re looking for ever come in. It’s a pretty good system that has helped reunite many loved ones.”

  “Thank you so much. You’ve been a big help.”

  “I’ve only been a help if you find her. And I hope you do. I love to see families brought back together again. Come, now. I’m headed that way anyway, I’ll walk you to the gym.”

  -24-

  While Sara and Tom searched through the thousands of messages in the old gym looking for one with Sara’s name on it, Scarlett and Rhett were sitting under an apple tree on Baker Street.

  Sharing an intimate moment.

  Rhett was sitting in the grass behind Scarlett, his legs wrapped around her body and overlapping her own.

  Scarlett’s head was leaned forward, her chin resting on her chest. Her eyes were closed and she moaned softly, enjoying the sensation of Rhett running his fingers through her flowing red hair.

  “Baby, if you want to do that for the rest of our natural lives, I won’t mind.”

  Rhett smiled.

  “Do we get to stop occasionally to eat and drink?”

  “Nope. No breaks at all.”

  “Then our natural lives may not be very long.”

  She thought for a moment.

  “Okay. Five minutes per day. You’ll have to eat and drink quickly.”

  “What if I need to stop occasionally to sleep?”

  “Sleep is way overrated.”

  “But if I don’t get sleep I’ll lose my strength.”

  “Okay. Five minutes per day. You’ll have to sleep quickly.”

  “And what if I want to make love to you?”

  “This counts as making love. I love this.”

  “No. What if I want to make love to you the usual way?”

  “Okay. Five minutes per day. No more.”

  He started to whine.

  “But baby, five minutes isn’t long enough.”

  She turned her head and looked at him, with a cocked eyebrow.

  “It never took you more than five minutes before.”

  “Hey, hey! That hurts. And it’s not true, either. I’ve made love to you for ten minutes before.”

  She smiled again.

  “Check your watch, sweetheart. It needs to be fixed. Now then, why did you stop?”

  He went back to running his fingers through her hair and could almost feel the tension coming over her as her mood changed dramatically.

  “Honey?”

  “Yes, sweetheart?”

  “I’m worried.”

  He stopped and leaned to one side to look at her. She turned her face toward his and he could see the strain in her eyes.

  “Whoa! Where did that come from all of a sudden? And what are you worried about?”

  “It didn’t come suddenly, Rhett. It’s been bothering me for weeks now. It comes and goes, but it’s never very far out of my thoughts.”

  “Why are you worried, specifically? Does it have something to do with the baby?”

  “No. At least I don’t think so. Hannah’s been keeping a close eye on my pregnancy. At least she was until John was shot and she started her vigil at his bedside. Since then I’ve seen a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital a couple of times and she says everything is progressing normally.”

  “Then what’s bothering you?”

  “I don’t know. I just have this weird sense of foreboding. Like something incredibly bad is about to happen.”

  “Honey, I learned a long time ago not to make light of your intuitions. You’ve been right too many times. But don’t you have a clue? I mean, how can we prepare for something if we don’t know what it is?”

  “I don’t know, baby. I’m sorry. As worried as I am, I can’t tie it to anything specific.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Like I said, for several weeks. Maybe a month and a half or so. Why?”

  “I was wondering if your premonition had something to do with John Castro getting shot.”

  “No. That’s not it. I kept feeling the same way after he was shot. If anything the feelings got stronger. Like something terrible is getting ready to happen.”

  Rhett stopped teasing her hair and wrapped his arms around her.

  She said, “Thank you, baby. That was nice. But do you mind if we go inside now? Suddenly I’m very cold.”

  -25-

  At the Zavala Public Library Sara and Tom were surrounded by neighborhood kids.

  A bright eyed girl of six or so was particularly mesmerized by the horses.

  “Wow! I’ve never seen a horse before. Not for the real, anyway.”

  Tom was a soft touch.

  “Would you like to sit on him, little one?”

  “Sure! Can I?”

  Tom tipped his hat and in his best Curly Joe impression, said “Why coitainly.”

  Sara chuckled.

  “I hope you know you just opened a great big can of worms.”

  “That’s okay. You don’t need my help in there anyway. You have all the information they need.”

  He turned to the little girl and lifted her onto the saddle.

  “Would you like to ride him, sweetheart?”

  She grinned from ear to ear and said, “Yes, please.”

  Tom took the reins and walked Trigger across the soft lawn of the old library.

  The grass hadn’t been mowed in years, and had grown high and unkempt. Trigger wanted to graze. But he was a good horse and knew he’d be able to in due course.

  He also sensed, as the best horses do, that little riders are more fragile than grownups. And he’d be gentle accordingly.

  As soon as the little girl’s ride started, of course, the other kids started lining up for their turn. Tom called to Sara before she disappeared into the double doors, “Good luck!”

  Sara nodded toward the line of kids and said, “Good luck to you too. You’ll need it more than me.”

  Inside the library, Sara came upon a handwritten sign that said:

  ZAVALA LIBRARY

  AND

  COMMUNITY CENTER

  Registration for Missing Loved Ones,

  Room 3

  An arrow pointed down the hall to the left.

  She was greeted by a young man who reminded her a lot of Jordan.

  “Hello. May I help you?”

  “Yes. I haven’t seen my mother since the day of the blackout. I have reason to believe she has survived and is out there somewhere. I’m trying to find her.”

  The young man immediately offered his hand and said, “I’m Brad.”

  “Sara.”

  “We’ll do all we can to help you, Sara. Have you registered at any of the other community centers yet?”

  “No. I didn’t even know you guys existed until half an hour ago. Do I need to?”

  “No, not at all. I was going to tell you that if you already registered with another community center, then you don’t have to again. We all send representatives to a city-wide meeting once a week, where we share all of our new information with each other.

  “It’s a pain in the neck, because we have to write it all down manually. But it’s easier for us to do that than for you to go to thirteen different places to register.
”

  “Good point. And thank you for that. What do you have to do to register?”

  He produced a card and a pencil.

  “Just fill this out. We started using pencils a couple of weeks ago because all of our pens dried up and quit working. They tell me pencils will never dry up, even a thousand years from now.”

  Sara nodded blankly and looked at the card.

  It asked for basic information about Stacey. Her description, her habits, the place and date she was last seen.

  One question in particular troubled her.

  It asked if the missing loved one used any medication.

  And it dawned on her for the very first time that her mother probably hadn’t had her blood pressure medicine since the blackout.

  Stacey had taken a beta blocker called Timadal for many years. She wondered how the lack of medication affected her mother, and what the long term effects of not using the drug might be.

  The young man saw the concern on Sara’s face as she wrote “Timadal” on the information card.

  “Don’t be too stressed. That might actually work out to be a good thing.”

  “How so?”

  “The SAPD has been trying to get the word out for months that the hospitals are passing out free medicine to those who need it. Not all medicine, of course. Some of it has expired and couldn’t be renewed.

  “But a surprising amount of medications in pill form don’t break down for many years. Many of them can be extended for two or three more years as long as they were properly stored. And many others don’t go bad, they just get weak. So in many cases the hospitals dispense them and tell the patients to double up on the dosage.”

  Sara was a bit confused.

  “I don’t understand. How is that a good thing?”

  “Well, besides the fact that your mom may still be getting her medication, it also gives you another place to look. All the hospitals require a photo ID to dispense medications, and they all share information so that no one tries to obtain more than their fair share. If you show up at one of the hospitals and explain your situation, they can tell you if your mother has been in to get medicine, and when she’s due to come back again.”

  “Oh, well in that case, thank you for the information.”

  He smiled, winked, and said “no problem.”

  “So what do I do next, after I fill this out?”

  “You just wait around here for a few minutes. I already gave the girls in the back office your name and they’re running it through their records. It takes a while, because they’re all just logs full of handwritten notes.”

  “They’re running my name? But why?”

  As if on cue, two young women stepped from a room in the back, smiling broadly and clapping their hands. Immediately, everyone else in the room did likewise.

  Including Brad.

  Amid cheers and catcalls, Brad explained.

  “They always do this when they get a hit.”

  “A hit?”

  “Yes. They have a message for you from your mom.”

  -26-

  A few minutes later Sara went running through the double doors, laughing and shouting.

  “Tom! Tom! She was here, right here, just five months ago. She left a message for me in case I came looking for her!”

  Tom had a haggard look on his face. He was shortening the line by doubling up on the pony rides, putting two kids onto his horse at the same time. The bigger kids rode bareback across Trigger’s rump, holding onto the smaller children in front of them.

  Luckily Trigger had a great disposition.

  Tom’s face instantly brightened at Sara’s news.

  She went on to explain, “Mom said she heard that Jordan’s family might have moved to a place called Castroville, so she was going there to look for me.”

  “Castroville? Never heard of it.”

  “I haven’t either. But they looked it up on a map for me. They said it’s due west of San Antonio, about thirty miles or so. They said all we have to do is follow Highway 90.”

  “Thirty miles? That’s only two days ride. Hot dog!”

  The good news gave Tom a renewed patience. He’d thought about telling the rest of the children in line that the pony rides were over, but he didn’t want to disappoint them.

  “Tell you what, doll. How about you take the girls and put them on Nellie? I’ll put the boys on Trigger. Otherwise we’ll never get out of here.”

  “Are we going to start out tonight?”

  “No. We’ll bed down across the street in the park and set out fresh in the morning. It wouldn’t be fair to Trigger not to let him graze for a while after he’s given so many free rides.

  Sara wasn’t disappointed.

  She was too excited to be.

  But she was brought back to reality by a girl of eleven named Millicent.

  “Who is it you’re looking for, ma’am?”

  “My mother. Her name is Stacey.”

  The girl grew sad.

  “I hope you find her. I really miss my mommy. She died about a year ago.”

  “Oh, honey, I am so sorry. Do you still have your daddy?”

  “No, he died just before mommy did. So did my sister Amy.”

  “Do you have anybody?”

  “Nope. It’s just me. Well, me and Charles. He’s my friend. We kinda take care of each other.”

  Sara wanted to break into tears.

  She looked at Tom, who said nothing but slowly shook his head.

  She understood. But she didn’t like it.

  -27-

  Frank Woodard was a legend in the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. In his nine years as the chief homicide detective, he solved ninety four percent of his cases. It was a record that every other detective envied.

  And a record that likely would never be broken.

  When an old friend needed his skills, he stepped up to the task and came out of retirement. The old friend was the San Antonio Chief of Police, Mike Martinez.

  Frank’s only concern was the impact his going back to work would have on his wife Eva.

  But she was all for it.

  “Frank, you said all you wanted to do was hunt and fish when you retired. Well, you’ve done that. A lot. And you’ve dragged me along every time you’ve gone.

  “Don’t get me wrong, honey. I like to hunt and fish too. Actually, I like to do just about anything you like to do, just so I can be by your side.

  “But I’ve had enough. I’m tired of tossing the fish back and I’m tired of eating them.

  “I’m tired of shooting deer and rabbits, and then carting the meat for miles. Yes, it gives me a good feeling every time we donate the meat to an orphanage or church. But darn it, somebody else can do it for a while. We’ve done our share, and I’m tired of it.”

  “But Eva, I thought you were still having fun. I only continued doing it so long for you.”

  Eva looked him in the eye, not quite sure whether to believe him.

  “Seriously?”

  Frank stifled a laugh.

  “No. But I had you going for a minute, didn’t I?”

  “Frank, I’m serious. I want to stay home for a while and grow food like the other women on the block. I want to catch up on the gossip and find out who’s sleeping with who and whose baby is whose. I want to be one of the girls again.”

  “I thought all you women were liberated now. I thought you wanted to do anything a man could do.”

  “Well, duh… I’ve done that, Frank. I can already catch more fish than you can and shoot at least as well as you. I don’t have anything to prove. And by God, I am a woman. I deserve the right to have a girly side too.”

  “Want to know a secret?”

  “What, Frank?”

  “Hunting and fishing don’t mean as much to me as they once did. I was going out many times just to help you get your mind off of losing the kids.”

  “Good. Then you can take a break from it for a while. Not forever. Just take a hiatus. Help Mike solve
his cases, and let that occupy your mind for now. It’ll do both of us some good.”

  “Yes. I just hope I haven’t lost my touch.”

  -28-

  Frank’s first order of business was to find the only witness to John Castro’s shooting.

  He’d learned over the years that witnesses’ memories tend to fade over time. The longer he waited to find the witness and get a statement, the more likely key details would be fuzzy.

  And fuzzy details tended to result in killers sometimes getting acquitted.

  Frank never heard Luther’s radio transmission himself. But those who did were very consistent in describing it.

  An older black man with a very slight lisp.

  Should be easy to find.

  Or maybe not.

  But Frank was determined.

  Something else Frank had learned from his years as a detective: that people are creatures of habit.

  They tend to hang around the same places. Follow their own footsteps over and over again.

  Frank enlisted the help of a couple of rookie officers after swearing them to secrecy.

  “I have friends all over this department,” he lied. “If any of them come to me and tell me you’ve been discussing this investigation with anyone, you’re fired. Not just from this case, but from the department as well.”

  After he’d walked away one rookie looked at the other and asked, “Can he do that? Fire us from the department, I mean?”

  “I don’t know. But the rumors I’ve heard is that he’s the chief’s best friend. So I’d say it’s a good possibility.”

  “Yeah, I guess. We’d better keep our mouths shut.”

  Frank was already well known for thinking outside the box. He knew that in all probability, John’s assailant was someone he’d never met before. Or perhaps someone with an old score to settle.

  On the other hand, life on the streets of San Antonio was pretty easy these days.

  And getting easier every day.

  The United States Congress had already legalized looting for the sake of sustenance, as long as the looters hurt no one else in the process.