The next day, she was in good enough shape to help out around the camp, but I now had a feeling that showers for Claire at the little waterfall were going to be as close as she came to getting into the water from here on out.
CHAPTER 13
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10th
9:30 a.m.
AVERS, ILLINOIS
His moans had been going on almost continuously for hours and Joanna knew he wasn’t likely to live much longer. At this point, maybe it was just as well. He was in agony, and there was no hope of his pulling through.
After the firefight with the outsiders at the old bank in which Robby had been shot, she’d been afraid to leave the house. There was hardly any reason left to go outside anyway. Their small town had been virtually wiped out by the sickness. Janet, Robby, and Shane – her five-year-old son – were the only ones left besides her, and she didn’t expect Robby to see tomorrow.
She was becoming accustomed to loss, not used to it, just more hardened against its effects. Her father, mother, and brother had already been taken by the flu, along with more than a dozen others from their tiny town.
Their food supply was now almost gone. They’d raided the gas station, the diner, and the kitchens of the surrounding homes. They were afraid to venture outside their tiny community since all forms of communication were now useless and they had no idea what was happening in the outside world. And now there appeared to be roving gangs of armed men coming in to shoot up the town. Robby had been out hunting when he’d discovered them. He’d made a stupid move in trying to scare off the intruders and had gotten himself shot in the process.
Joanna carefully lifted the blood-soaked gauze covering Robby’s wound, eliciting a scream from him in the process. She dabbed gingerly at the fluids leaking from the hole in his abdomen, which only made his cries worse. She wondered why she was even bothering. The exit wound on the other side was even worse, but she dared not move him to get to it.
She gritted her teeth as he screamed once more, begging her to put him out of his misery.
Janet, the neighbor girl who had celebrated her sweet sixteen party with the rest of the town at their little diner just weeks before this hellish disease had claimed its first victim, sat in an oversized sofa chair nearby holding little Shane tight to her. They had turned the living room couch into Robby’s bed largely because they’d been unable to move him anywhere else, and this allowed the kids to sleep upstairs, away from his moaning that continued throughout the night.
Joanna looked over at Janet whose young fresh face just weeks earlier had held so much energy and life. Now it looked tired and haggard. Dark bags had formed beneath her eyes from lack of sleep and her face had thinned noticeably as food had become scarce. “Take Shane upstairs,” Joanna told her.
Robby, who had lived across the street from them before this whole thing started and who had worked at the local gas station, passed out again from the pain, but moments later, he continued to moan deliriously in his sleep.
“Don’t come back down until I call for you. Understand me?” Joanna emphasized to Janet, eyebrows raised.
Janet and Shane nodded that they did and quietly slid off the chair and made their way upstairs.
Joanna waited until she heard the bedroom door close upstairs and then stood, knowing what she had to do. It would be better for everyone she reasoned. Letting Robby live would only prolong his discomfort and the inevitable.
She hated having to use a bullet for the job though; then she hated herself for having such a thought. Robby had dropped his rifle when he’d been wounded several days ago and she was afraid to go out and retrieve it. The armed men might still be out there for all she knew, and if Robby was no match for them, she certainly wouldn’t stand a chance.
She picked up her ex-husband’s old handgun from where it sat on the dining room table and ejected the clip. She’d watched him fiddle with it enough times after dinner to know how. One by one, she used her thumb to eject the rounds from the clip – ten in total, plus one in the chamber. Another eight rounds sat in a small bowl on the tabletop.
It was all the ammunition she had for the stupid thing. She never really expected to have to use it, and had only taken it during the divorce to piss off her ex.
Joanna took a deep breath and then reloaded the clip, slowly, buying time against what she knew was coming, what she knew she had to do. Even though death had made its presence well known lately, it was still hard to see.
As a single mother, Joanna had suffered through some rough patches over the years, but this sort of thing had never been in the cards. Her plan as a 30-year-old, recently divorced mother had been to come back home to Avers, take a breather from life, regroup at Mom and Dad’s house for a little while, get her life back in order, and start looking for work. She’d been waiting tables at the diner across the street when she’d met Robby who had shown some interest. He didn’t have much going for him, but he was stable, hard working, had a house of his own; and most importantly, he got along well with her little boy. Even though she was a single mother, Joanna was still reasonably young, quite attractive, and she thought there might be a future for the relationship. Thankfully, she hadn’t gotten her hopes up. Now there would be no future, at least not with Robby.
He was moaning again. The sound was almost a constant presence now, and it was driving her crazy. He let out a long scream, and Joanna let the clip and the few remaining bullets to be loaded clatter onto the tabletop as she covered her ears with her hands.
Finally, she got the clip reloaded. She slid it back into the gun, chambered a round, rose from the table, and walked back into the living room. Robby started convulsing on the couch and she stood watching, waiting. He suddenly went rigid and then stopped. She found herself hoping he was dead, but a few seconds later he disappointed her with another teeth-grating scream. It was the one that pushed her over the edge. It did something to her brain. Like hitting an “on” switch, it flipped her into a different Joanna. She quietly walked over, picked up a pillow from the end of the sofa and put it over Robby’s face. There she held it firmly in place, pressed the muzzle of the gun hard into the pillow, turned her head away, held her breath, braced herself, and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
She exhaled remembering the gun’s safety.
She could hear Robby’s moans turning from pain to fear. She had to release her hold on the pillow to switch the safety off, and in the process the pillow had slid from Robby’s face. He was aware now and looked scared, his eyes wide.
“Jo, what are you doing? Jo, please don’t. I’m scared,” he whined.
His words stung her, and she felt as if she was doing something wrong, but she was trying to do what was right, what Robby himself had asked of her.
“Jo, no, no, no, please,” he shook his head. “I’m scared,” he began to cry.
She didn’t say a word. It ripped her heart out, but she knew it was the right thing to do, the right thing for everyone. As quickly as she could, she clicked the safety off and picked the pillow up from off the floor. Not even looking back at Robby, she used it to cover his face, moved the gun over it, and squeezed the trigger.
This time she was almost relieved to hear the sound of the shot as it ripped into the pillow, its blast echoing through the house. Robby’s body went still but Joanna held the pillow in place until she was sure he was dead and then left it there, not wanting to see the results of what she’d done. She’d have enough guilt to live with without that last image of Robby etched into her mind.
She called for Janet, and the two of them managed to wrap Robby’s body in a blanket and drag it to the garage out back. It took them nearly 15 minutes, and Shane waited patiently upstairs the whole time. He was such a good boy.
Joanna wasn’t worried about the stink Robby’s rotting corpse would eventually make come spring. She’d already made a decision. It was time to go – time to leave Avers. When to leave and where to go were the questions that now lin
gered in her mind.
10:30 a.m.
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
There was actually a little frost on the ground when we crawled from our tent earlier in the morning. How things had changed. The day we arrived, the heat seemed almost unbearable, and here we were, not even having reached the middle of September, and it had actually gotten chilly.
Yesterday, we’d headed back to the vehicles to load up with some of the heavier clothing we were still storing inside them. And this morning, after our breakfast of peanut butter sandwiches and some hot tea, we even went and started all the vehicles just to let the engines run for a while to ensure the batteries remained charged. We wanted to make sure that everything was ready and running just in case we ever needed to move fast.
After we were done with this, and the others had finished cleaning up from breakfast and getting ready for the day, everyone scattered to work on their chores. Dad and I decided to try our hand at a little hunting. Typically, I would have taken Will with me since he was more familiar with firearms, but lately we’d been trying to do a little cross-training among the group, getting others involved in things they might not have much experience with otherwise. Will was going to give a class on gun safety with the women and kids, so I though it a perfect time to take Dad out for a hunt now that the camp was completely out of fresh meat. I realized that fall would be upon us soon and that we’d be out of many of the foods we’d brought with us or been able to forage for thus far. Added to this concern was the worrisome fact that yesterday we’d finally lost the last repeated radio transmission from the Emergency Alert System.
It appeared as though we’d be fending for ourselves from this point on.
Dad and I walked probably about a half mile along the river that Claire and I had visited yesterday before we discovered a sandy shore littered with hoof prints and other animal tracks. Nearby we found a spot where the river widened out and was shallow enough that we could wade across. Once on the other side, we took up positions atop the bank and behind some brush.
“Wonder what happened to your brother-in-law Kevin and his family?” he said softly after we’d settled in downwind of the shore where we’d seen the tracks. “You sent him one of those letters, right?”
I nodded. “I don’t know,” I said. “They’re probably pretty much stuck if they stayed in Chicago. But I’m afraid most people didn’t start taking this thing seriously until it was too late. And there wasn’t much time once things started falling apart. I’m hoping they’re holed up back home just trying to ride things out. Maybe they’ll make it down eventually.”
He nodded, “Yeah, maybe,” he said, but he didn’t sound very confident in his words.
“I sent letters to cousin Chris and my buddy from college, Ray…you know, the one in the FBI.”
“Oh yeah?” Dad said.
“I thought he’d be down here for sure. I mean, he was over in Iraq for a while and knows how to take care of himself. I just had a feeling he would come.” I shook my head and sighed.
“Unfortunately, with the way things look to be headed, we may never know what became of them,” Dad said sadly.
We sat mostly silent, waiting for the next hour. In the past, I probably would have found myself impatient in such a situation, but now, what else was there to do? This was “work” in our new lives.
Eventually, a mid-sized doe wandered from between the trees across from us. I nudged Dad, “She’s all yours,” I whispered. “I’d wait until she’s focused on drinking and then take her.”
He nodded nervously.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll back you up. If you wound her, I’ll do my best to finish her quick.”
I watched as he waited for the deer to start drinking, and then he slowly raised his rifle. I did the same, ready in case he missed. I could hear Dad’s steady breathing as he aimed, held his breath and then exhaled softly. The shot exploded through the silence of a wonderfully peaceful day.
Through the scope of my rifle, I could tell it was a great shot and the deer dropped almost instantly and remained motionless.
I was probably just as proud of my father as he was of himself. I knew hunting wasn’t his thing, but I wanted him to feel like an integral part of the camp. Up to this point, he hadn’t been able to offer much other than childcare services for the kids and helping to pick apples, which were certainly contributions, don’t get me wrong. However, now he was a provider again, and to a man of his age, really of any age, that meant something.
We worked our way back up stream to cross the river and then down again to the beach where our fresh kill lay. I didn’t really know what I was doing when it came to gutting and cleaning the animal, so Dad and I decided to haul the deer back with us to camp. Steve used to hunt in his younger days and would be able to guide us in the process. We found two small trees, which I cut down with my hatchet, and we formed them into poles. We tied a front and rear leg of the deer to each pole and then used them to lift the carcass on our shoulders and lug it back to camp. It was a tough hike, especially for my father, who having worked in the antiques business for years really wasn’t used to this type of physical activity. But he was so proud of his accomplishment that the effort didn’t seem to affect him much.
That night around the campfire, Dad couldn’t hide his pride as he asked everyone how they liked the meat and beamed as we enjoyed our venison and instant mashed potatoes drizzled in greasy gravy that I’d made from the cooked venison drippings. Shannon of course didn’t partake, choosing to eat the mashed potatoes with some onions and chives she’d collected. We also portioned out some salted peanuts to serve as her protein.
After dinner, the kids roasted the last of the marshmallows that were growing into one giant humidity-formed clump inside their bag. Jason, who ended the day covered in a sticky mixture of blackberry stain from a patch they’d stumbled across during their wanderings, and marshmallow goo, was fat and happy. He crawled silently off into the tent on his own to fall asleep on his full little belly.
Jason loved the tent. He thought it was the coolest thing in the world to get to sleep with Mommy and Daddy in a tent every night. Last night, when it was chilly, I had to admit, I didn’t mind his warm little body there acting as a tiny furnace between Claire and me. We called him “our little lava rock” because he was always so damn warm.
Our camp was becoming a cozy little village. Claire and I had our tent, and Will and Sharron shared theirs’ with Paul and Sarah, which must have been a tight squeeze, but they seemed to make it work. We’d made some improvements to the “lean-to for the aged and infirm” as our parents had now jokingly christened it, and they had made the inside as cozy as an Indian teepee. Emily and my mother had even taken blankets and sewn them together and then stuffed the space between them with pine needles and grasses to add extra cushion and warmth to their air mattress bed. Brian had built himself a small tent of his own, making it out saplings he cut as supports and an extra tarp we had donated to the cause. He then layered the tarp with several heavy-duty garbage bags to keep the moisture to a minimum as well as act as insulation. Atop this he had mounded a thick layer of leaves and then moss to help keep the plastic in place and from being torn by the wind.
All these little homes were formed up around the campfire area, the picnic table wedged in between the old folks’ home and Brian’s tent near where we’d dug our root cellar.
As the group sat watching the fire after dinner, I asked, “Sharron, do you think you can preserve some of the stuff we’re picking now before winter comes?”
She nodded in the darkness of night, her face illuminated only by the warm glow of the campfire. We had all changed into pants and long-sleeved shirts for the evening.
“I think so,” she said. “I might need some help drying things, you know, laying them all out, covering them, and making sure they aren’t disturbed by animals and insects. But yeah, I think with the apples and definitely the herbs and roots and stuff, I can start working on that
.”
“Good,” I nodded. “I think that should be one of our top priorities as we move into fall. Food preservation, hunting, and wood gathering are our top areas of focus for winter prep.”
“I can help Sharron with the food preservation,” Emily piped up.
“Me too,” said my mother. “Kind of sounds like fun.”
“I’ll do that too,” said Sarah excitedly.
“And I can help Brian out with the wood cutting,” Steve added.
“I’d like to do that too,” said Paul. “I can do it when I’m not hauling water.”
“Great,” I said, happy that everyone was finding their niches and wanting to help.
“Dad, Will – you guys good with being the hunting party? I figure we can switch off, me and Dad, Dad and Will, me and Will. The one who stays behind can be the cleaner and preparer of the meat when the other two get back. We still have plenty of salt for helping with preservation.”
They both nodded their agreement.
“Claire, can you remain supply clerk, help with meal planning and preparation, as well as assist with the meat we bring back?”
“Sounds perfect,” she said.
“Good,” I nodded. “I think winter is going to be here before we know it, and we need to be ready. None of us have ever lived outside during the winter, and I think it’s going to be a shock to the system. We need to winterize our tents and sleeping areas. Just from my experience camping, it can be damn cold when you’re sleeping outdoors. Any extra blankets or clothing still in anyone’s car should be brought to camp for additional warmth at night. We should also be checking for any tears or holes in our tents or living quarters and patching or repairing them as needed to retain as much heat as possible. I’d start sleeping in layers now. If you get too hot, it’s easier to shed a few blankets than have to get up in the middle of the night and find more clothing once you’re half frozen. We’ll start cleaning and drying the pelts of any of the animals we kill to make blankets or clothing from because I think we’ll be looking for anything to help keep us warm once winter hits. Maybe in a couple weeks or so, we can make a trip to Avers and check out some of the houses for additional blankets and bedding. If it gets too bad, we can always sleep in the vehicles, but I hope it won’t come to that. And that’s another point, we’ll have to make at least a daily trip down to start the cars once winter hits. I don’t want them dying because they aren’t started regularly.
The Systemic Series - Box Set Page 14