The Systemic Series - Box Set

by K. W. Callahan

  By noon, we’d finished with the wood cutting and Jonah told us he was running low on water. After getting the wood back and stacked behind the house, he had us load a large plastic barrel onto the back of Poobah’s cart and we followed him and his old horse nearly a mile to a small pond. He told us that the barrel typically lasted him and Wilma at least a week, sometimes longer if it rained, providing them with water for cooking, cleaning, and drinking. But with our arrival, its level had dwindled rapidly.

  “You have to come all this way just for water?” Ray asked him as we used small buckets to ladle water from the pond into the barrel.

  “Use to be a pond near the barn. Dried up last summer and never came back. It’d been there ever since I could remember. It was almost as though it knew the world was coming to an end and just decided to give up along with it,” he said wistfully.

  When we got back, Wilma was on the front porch knitting in a wicker rocking chair. The fence crew was already inside cleaning up for lunch. We dropped off the water barrel and then stabled Poobah. Dad and Paul were at the barn finishing up their own lunch that had been brought down earlier, coughing and hacking together as they ate.

  “See you guys have been well fed,” I said as we led Poobah inside.

  “Yes,” said Dad. “Wilma brought us out some lunch.”

  I thought I caught Dad give me a strange look when he said it, but my hunger and the thought of waiting food caused me not to question him further about it.

  “Can you two make sure Poobah gets watered and fed?” I asked them, in a hurry to get watered and fed myself.

  “Sure thing,” said Dad as he started into another coughing fit.

  “You all doing alright out here?” Jonah asked, walking up behind us.

  Dad pounded his chest and held up a finger for us to wait. “Just fine,” he finally managed.

  I was worried about him and Paul, but I would have been just as worried were they sleeping inside with us. Plus, then I would have had to worry about the others potentially catching whatever it was they had. The barn was safe and warm. The only thing that really concerned me was the dust from the dirt and hay inside. I wondered if it was making their coughs even worse.

  As we walked back from the barn up to the house, we could hear a raised voice and what sounded like someone arguing. Upon nearing the house, we could see Wilma, still rocking in her chair, but she’d dropped her knitting and was gesticulating wildly with her hands out in front of her and shouting loudly.

  “Oh no,” Jonah said, rushing ahead of us and hurrying up the front porch steps to Wilma. He knelt before her, grabbing her hands and holding them down as he began whispering to her in hushed tones. We couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it seemed to have a calming effect on his wife. By the time we reached the porch, she seemed unperturbed.

  “Lunch is ready inside,” she greeted us warmly as though nothing was out of the ordinary.

  Jonah, still knelt beside his wife, scooped up her knitting, placing it back in her lap, and then stood. He opened the screen door and led us silently into the home. He stopped just inside and closed the front door. Turning to us, he said somewhat uncomfortably, “I’m sorry about that. She gets a little…flustered at times.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” I asked, genuinely concerned about the old gal.

  “Oh yes,” Jonah said quickly. “These things happen from time to time. I think she’s just a little wound up with all the people here. She’s not used to having visitors, and I think it’s gotten her overexcited is all.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, somewhat uncertainly. “Well, let us know if there is anything we can do to help. If we need to give her some space or anything like that, you just tell us. We don’t want to be an imposition.”

  “No, no, no,” Jonah said quickly. “We’re so pleased to have you here. You’ve already been such a big help.”

  I could hear Wilma starting to babble away again out on the front porch. I caught little bits and pieces of what she was saying – something about children, but I couldn’t hear exactly what it was.

  “Please, go have some lunch,” Jonah said, nodding toward the kitchen while turning back to the front door. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  I was concerned about Wilma, but I figured Jonah knew what he was doing, so I let it go. I could see how living out here all alone for such a long time and then being inundated with people – not to mention children running around all over the place – could come as sort of a shock to the system for the poor lady. A minute later, Jonah was back inside and sitting down at the dining room table with the rest of us to eat.

  “Wilma not joining us?” Claire asked innocently, not having witnessed what I just had.

  Jonah shifted uncomfortably in his chair, “Uh, no, not right now,” he said. “Maybe a little later. She wants to finish up with her knitting.”

  And he left it at that.

  We dined on the few bits of venison that were left and that Wilma had fried up on the stove, more pickled eggs, more beats, canned peaches, and some bread that Wilma had baked.

  “So Jonah, how’s the hunting around here?” Will asked.

  “Used to be real good,” Jonah nodded. “Last ten years or so though, hasn’t been worth a darn. Used to be deer, geese, rabbit, and the pond was stocked up full with fish. Now it don’t seem like there’s nothing come around here at all no more.”

  Will nodded and kept eating.

  I knew what he was thinking. He was wondering how the hell we were all going to survive here on canned beats and peaches. He was a meat man, and unlike his wife, he wasn’t going to be satisfied subsisting on twigs and berries.

  After lunch, we heard the front door open and Wilma came inside. As I sat feeling the pleasant effects of being fat, full and happy again, she came over and whispered in my ear, “Would you be a dear and help me bring some things up from the cellar?”

  “Certainly,” I agreed amicably. “Just give me a minute here to digest after your delicious meal.”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “No hurry. No hurry at all.”

  After a well concealed burp or two, I forced myself up from the table and found Wilma tidying up in the kitchen, wiping the counters and putting away dishes. “Ready when you are,” I said.

  She set her cleaning rag down. “Follow me,” she smiled pleasantly.

  She led me through the mud room and outside to the back of the house. There we found two doors set into the ground at an angle beside the house and that formed the hatch to the root cellar. At Wilma’s direction, I unlatched and pulled them open and then followed Wilma down into the darkness.

  Wilma seemed to have no trouble finding her way in the pitch blackness below, and I waited at the base of the steps until she found a flashlight on a shelf and flicked it on.

  The cellar had dirt floors, and wooden shelves lined three walls. Along the back wall of the space was a huge freezer.

  I was surprised at the lack of foodstuffs on the shelves – a few scattered jars here and there, some of which were empty or only partially full. I followed Wilma slowly around the room, doing a quick count. There were 17 full jars and three half full.

  “The freezer have stuff in it?” I asked hopefully.

  “Why no, dear,” Wilma said smiling sweetly. “Why do you ask?”

  I shrugged as though it was unimportant. “Just curious,” I answered her question nonchalantly.

  She certainly didn’t seem perturbed by the fact that there was an extremely low level of food for the number of people consuming it. But I began to reconsider our being here, not so much for our best interest but for Jonah and Wilma’s. We were quickly going to eat them out of house and home in just a matter of days if we didn’t start adding to their food supply. And we were still at least a month away from the start of the growing season.

  I walked over to the big freezer. “Is there anything in it?” I asked, not wanting to push the subject, but needing to know.

  “No,” she frowned, shaking
her head as though she didn’t understand. “You’re not thinking of robbing us now, are you?” she said somewhat defensively.

  “Come on, you know we wouldn’t do that,” I said, giving her a smile, but knowing full well she knew nothing of the sort. She just eyed me warily. It was an awkward moment. “So what do you need me to bring up?” I asked, wanting to change the subject.

  She turned to the shelves, looking them over, and then said merrily as though nothing in the world could bother her, “Well now, let me see. I could use tomatoes…” she pointed me to the correct jar, “…more peaches…” she pointed me to another, “…and hmm, let’s see…one of string beans, and yes, I think that ought to do it.”

  I carried the glass canning jars in a cardboard box Wilma had provided me and followed her as she turned off the flashlight, put it back on the shelf, and led us up the stairs.

  “You can put them right there on the counter,” she directed once we were back in the kitchen.

  Jonah was still sitting nearby at the dining room table, but everyone else had adjourned to the front yard to continue work on the fence or to sit on the front porch with the kids and await further instruction.

  Suddenly Wilma spun around, so fast in fact that I almost dropped the last jar as I was setting it on the counter.

  “I have an idea!” she clapped her hands together almost childlike, a huge grin on her face and her eyes wide. “It’s such a lovely day! Let me take the kids to the swimming hole!”

  I was caught completely off guard. “But Wilma, the water will still be freezing,” I shook my head in confusion. “Plus, the pond is almost a mile away.”

  “No silly,” she shook her head. “Our swimming hole,” she pointed out toward the area between the house and the barn.

  “But Wilma, that pond is dry now,” I explained.

  “Oh please, please, please!” she pleaded with me. “Please let me take them?” she wrung her hands in front of her and then began pulling at her apron. “I so miss children. I want to do something…something special with them. Oh please,” her voice grew deep. “I just want to see them in the water. They deserve to be in the water.”

  This sudden turn from Wilma surprised and somewhat concerned me.

  “I want to take them! I want to take them! I want to take them!” she chanted like a little kid, continuing to pull at her apron. “I want to! I want to!”

  It was at this point that Jonah intervened, making his way from the dining room into the kitchen. “Now Wilma, you know that pond is all dried up,” he told her. “Wasn’t fit for swimmin’ when it was full. That was for the animals.”

  “But these children are little animals,” she said wild-eyed. “All little children are animals!”

  “Shh…shh…” Jonah soothed, coming close and holding his wife tight. “Now you know that’s not right,” he said letting her go and taking her by the hands. “Come along dear, you’re tired. You need rest. The excitement of all our guests being here just has you a little flustered. Let’s have you lie down for a bit,” he led her away upstairs.

  Jonah was back down a couple minutes later. I was still standing in the kitchen taking it all in. I pretended I was finding a place for the jars I’d brought up so he didn’t feel too uncomfortable about what had just happened.

  He smiled at me. “All these people here,” he said shaking his head. “We’re just not used to it. I think all the excitement just gets to her a little. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand,” I nodded, though I didn’t completely. “Nothing at all to be sorry about. I can see how thirteen strangers appearing on your doorstep out of the clear blue after all these months alone could throw you off you’re regular routine a bit. You have been very gracious, and we appreciate it.”

  “Thank you for understanding,” Jonah smiled.

  I paused for a second, trying to decide whether to bring up my concerns about the food, and then I decided it couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, wait.

  “Jonah,” I said.

  “Yes?” he tilted his head to one side, waiting for me to go on, his blue eyes catching the sunlight through the kitchen windows.

  “The food situation here…it’s not good, is it?”

  He took a deep breath and then walked back into the dining room. I followed him and we sat down at the table where he exhaled heavily. “When this thing all started, we had plenty,” he said. “The chickens went first. We had two cows. Ate one toward the end of October and another in December. And as you probably noticed, the cellar ain’t got much in it anymore either. Used to be those shelves were stocked full. We were expecting to maybe get to spring with what was down there. Food starts going faster than you expect though. And with the hunting as bad as it’s been around here lately, I’ve even been considering putting ‘ol Poobah down and eatin’ him.” He took another deep breath, “So to answer your question, no, the food situation is not good here. And having added all these new mouths to feed, it’s gone from bad to worse.” His voice sounded worried. “But I like having y’all here,” he looked at me smiling. “And I think it’s good for Wilma to have people around again.”

  I understood his dilemma. He finally had the muscle he needed to get his farm back into shape, but it was too soon. It wasn’t time to plant and he couldn’t continue to feed us until spring. I felt bad leaving them, not only for their sake, but for ours as well. We had nowhere to go, and in so doing, we might be signing not only Jonah and Wilma’s death warrant, but some – or even all – of our own as well.

  “Let us go out and see what we can do this afternoon,” I told him. “We might be able to come up with some food.”

  He looked at me and smiled, “You have a go at it,” he nodded appreciatively. “Couldn’t do any harm.”

  “I’ll take Ray with me,” I told him. “I know most of the others are working on the fence right now, but if you need them to do something else, you just tell them. Whatever we can do to help, you just let us know.”

  “Will do,” he said, his tone sounding a little more confident now. I stood and patted the old timer on the shoulder, “It’ll be alright,” I said.

  CHAPTER 17

  Atlanta was a mess. What had survived there was like what had survived in Memphis but ten times worse. It quickly became apparent that what was left behind in the big cities in the wake of the flu was the absolute armpit of society.

  Upon their arrival, Jake and Ava rapidly made their presence felt in and around the metro area. They hit several small supply dumps they’d scouted on the outskirts of town, and in the process picked up more gas, more guns, plenty of ammo and booze, and most importantly, added new mercenaries to their rapidly expanding group. They were up to 12 members in their private army – including Ava and Jake – by the time they made their first real foray into the city.

  The spot they’d selected for this strike was a boarded up storefront that Jake had heard was a supply depot of sorts for an area trader. Traders had become the new supermarkets for those who had survived the flu. These entrepreneurs would keep their supplies safely and securely stashed until they decided the time was right to sell, then they’d load up some or all of their stock and take it to an area market place – typically a flea market or swap meet type environment – where they could barter for other goods, services, or a local script of some sort. In the Atlanta area, the main such market was located in the former ‘Underground Atlanta’ downtown.

  This spot became the perfect location for all the dirty dealings of an infested city. Pre-flu, Underground Atlanta had provided a vast array of retail shopping and entertainment options in the Five Points neighborhood. Now it was one gigantic flea market of merchants hocking their wares to what was left of Atlanta’s consumer populace.

  Ammunition, flasks of booze, and cigarettes were currently serving as the new currencies. Someone might trade a cigarette for a fresh tomato, a couple rounds of ammo for a fresh egg or two, or a flask of whiskey or vodka for a pound of meat. Silver coins were given largely
as change when items of exchange couldn’t be agreed upon in the heat of the negotiation or if the goods a customer or trader wanted weren’t available or available in the quantity desired.

  Boots were another hot commodity these days, as were luxury items such as batteries, toothpaste, candles, deodorant, and prophylactics. Things like medicine and medical supplies, as well as bulkier items like guns, generators, and tanks of propane or gasoline were the new gold as they were highly prized and sought after.

  The top business in the underground markets though? Sex. And business in the skin trade was good.

  For Jake’s men, going to the Underground was their reward for jobs well done, and Jake ensured that the opportunity was typically only offered to his men when they earned it. This is how he and Ava kept them in line. Otherwise they were wild dogs without leashes, roving the landscape at will, humping whatever they could find. Jake would only allow them time at the Underground or an area brothel after a successful operation. Drinking, smoking, and just about whatever else the men wanted to spend their spare time on, was allowed. But if they were caught with a woman at base or weren’t present for a raid because they were shacked up with a broad, the punishment from Jake was swift and severe. It only took Jake making a few examples of his crew to ensure that the rest of the men fell into line with his expectations. Sex was a powerful incentive, and Jake realized that he could utilize the energy and drive that pent up testosterone created to his advantage when conducting his raids.

  But Jake had changed his stance on Ava since his early days. No longer was Ava his sexual lure, the motivational carrot he dangled before his men. There were other women for that. Ava was all for him. Jake found that there was something about her now, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, something that had changed about his woman. It worried him, yet excited him all at the same time, and it made him want to keep her closer than ever before. This was also part of the reason why he had let Ava help plan the upcoming raid on the trader’s downtown depot.