David lost count, and was stunned that Zeke had shot without any hesitation, no warning, and no surrender demand. A memory flashed through his mind of Zeke telling Jorge about killing the greens, “It’s just gun and done. You do it, then think. “The gunshots at close range assaulted David’s nervous system, ratcheting up the adrenaline.
David burst around the corner, and saw blood and tissue splattered all over the recliner, the floor, and the wall. Next to the video screen, David saw now what Zeke had seen. A woman tied up to a chair, with their brains splattered all over her chest. Her hands and feet were bound with an electrical extension cord. She was gagged and bleeding slowly from a chest wound. White, frothy pink bubbles oozed from wounds in her chest.
David left the woman, and jumped in the first bedroom, as Zeke opened the closets. Then Zeke went into the second bedroom, and the bathroom. David checked the closets.
All clear.
David and Zeke then returned to the woman, with the porn movie still playing. David pulled out his knife to cut her loose. He angrily kicked the television monitor over to silence the porn movie. She suddenly tried to throw herself at him, a final attack.
“I am just going to cut you loose,” David said, calmly. “We are here to help.”
David cut off her cloth mouth gag, ripped off the duct tape, then cut the electrical extension cord binding her arms and legs. She had struggled for a long time. The electrical cord had sliced her deeply. Blood seeped in some areas, gushed in others.
Zeke handed her the heavy pink housecoat on the floor. She quickly covered up.
“Are there any others here?” David asked.
She seemed to have trouble talking. Her throat was bleeding and she made a gurgling sound.
Zeke handed her his canteen. Her hands shook as she frantically gulped the water.
“My son is in the attic,” she gasped, spewing blood and water out of her mouth.
“They are the only two,” she said, pointing to the two dead men. “My husband was able to kill the other three before he died.”
“Where is your son?” asked David.
She pointed to the garage. David saw a pull down door in the ceiling. He inserted his knife and a cord fell down. He pulled the cord, and a step ladder came down, folded over taunt against a heavy duty spring.
“Samuel, come on down!” she said from the living room.
A young boy, about three years old, peered down the trap door, saw David, and darted back into the attic.
“Samuel, come here,” the woman said with less force. She was fading, David thought.
Suddenly they heard a loud crash, a whistle blow, as David turned his barrel to the front door.
“Coming in, Karen and Doron!” Karen screamed.
David lowered his gun. Karen rechecked every room. David had noticed Karen always personally double checked to make sure guns were really unloaded, and that every green was actually, and totally, dead. “Dad always said a dying man can pull a trigger, and drop you dead with his last breath,” she had told him.
“This is Doron, he is our Medic,” Karen said to the woman.
David and Zeke had turned their back, away from the trap door. The little boy climbed down the trap door, and ran to his mother.
“Samuel, go with this woman……” she paused, looking at Karen.
“Karen,” Karen said
“Go with Ms . Karen outside,” she gasped, looking knowingly at Karen.
“God sent these young people. Now go! ” Samuel’s Mom ordered.
David never forgot the look of desperation in her eyes. She didn’t want her son to see her die.
Karen hesitated, but Zeke grabbed Samuel’s hand and started down the hall. Samuel grabbed Karen with his other hand, like his Mom had told him to do, dragging her along.
Samuel turned to his Mom as he was leaving. Her hands trembled as she clutched her pink housecoat to cover up. David saw her try to hide the bloody portion of the housecoat from Samuel. David moved to let her lay on the floor, but she struggled desperately to keep standing until he disappeared out the door. The minutes Samuel left, she completely collapsed.
Doron frantically checked, but there was no pulse.
“No breathing. She’s gone,” Doron said, with his ear to her mouth and nose.
David realized she had simply refused to die until they found her only surviving son.
48.
“Take the sheets off the beds, we will use them to bury Samuel’s family,” Karen said. “Be sure Samuel does not see blood.”
Since Samuel’s Mom had bled all over, and her blood was still oozing through the pink housecoat, they cut out a section of floor carpet and wrapped her up. It took them about half an hour to dig a grave. They decided to bury them all in one deep grave, as they needed to leave with enough time to find a campsite before dark. The criminals were left to rot.
Karen watched the young men lower the Mother first, then the Father, then the Aunt, and finally the two boys. David then went over to the truck to bring Samuel, Karen, Liu, and Ashley to the graveside.
Everyone gathered around the grave. David quietly stood with his back to the grave near the pickup, keeping watch during the funeral.
No one said anything.
Karen knelt down next to Samuel, looking him in the eye, with her arm around him. Samuel looked scared.
“Remember your Mom said we would take care of you?” Karen asked.
Samuel nodded his head. He was crying, rubbing his eyes, then held his trembling hand near his mouth.
“Well, that’s just what we will do,” Karen said.
Karen paused. Do three year olds even understand death? Maybe he had a grandparent die, or a pet, she thought.
“Samuel, did you go to Church?” Karen asked.
“Yes,” said Samuel, “and Vacation Bible School.”
“Did they ever sing any songs,” Karen asked.
“Yes,” said Samuel.
“Jesus Loves Me,” Samuel remembered.
Zeke knew the song and started singing, and Jorge, Karen, Ashley and Liu picked it up:
Jesus Loves me this I know
for the Bible tells me so
little ones to Him belong
they are weak but He is strong
Yes Jesus loves me
Yes Jesus loves me
Yes Jesus loves me
The Bible tells me so
Samuel clapped and sang the chorus and the verse three times. Then they all sputtered out. That was all the words they could remember. Karen knew there were other verses, but she couldn’t remember them either.
There was an awkward silence. No one knew what to do.
David walked over and said “Amen,” and that was the end of the funeral.
Karen took Samuel back into the house so Zeke, Doron, and David could top off the grave with dirt.
“Did you have a bedroom?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said pointing.
Karen grabbed his school backpack, and emptied several pillowcases, filling them with clothes from his drawers. She specifically searched for shoes and socks.
“Where is your brother’s room?” Karen asked. Samuels showed her, and she added a couple of pairs of their larger shoes to her bag.
She saw a small red hardback book, My First Bible in Pictures, by Kenneth N. Taylor, with illustrations by Richard and Frances Hook.
“Is this yours?” Karen asked.
“Yes, Mom and Dad read it to me every night,” Samuel said.
Karen put the red kid’s Bible in his backpack.
Karen saw a DVD player in the corner. A DVD was sticking out. Someone had written in black marker on the DVD, “Home movies, Samuel’s Bible Stories”.
“What was this?” asked Karen.
“Mom and Dad would read me the Bible stories and put them on that,” Samuel said. Karen picked up the DVD by the edges, put it in a case, and placed it in the top of her backpack.
“Me and K-Bar would watch the Bible st
ories on TV,” Samuel said, pointing to the DVD disc.
“Who is K-Bar?” Karen asked.
“That’s my Dad’s police dog,” Samuel explained.
“Do you know where K-Bar is?” Karen asked.
“He has two dog houses, one on the back of Dad’s truck, and one in the barn,” Samuel explained.
Karen didn’t say anything else about K-Bar to Samuel. They walked back to the truck, and Karen asked Ashley to watch Samuel.
Karen motioned for David and Doron to come to the other side of the truck.
“The family has a police dog named K-Bar. Samuel says the dog is either in the barn or in a cage on the back of his Dad’s truck,” Karen said.
“This could be extremely dangerous,” Doron said. “The dog’s master is dead. We could be seen as a threat to Samuel, and K-Bar is a trained police dog.”
“We could really use a dog, though,” David said. “And who would even dream we could get a police dog?”
“Be ready to kill K-Bar if he attacks, but I think he will be okay,” Karen said.
K-Bar growled savagely as they approached the pickup truck. Samuel’s Father had left in a hurry, the front truck door was open, and the keys were still in the ignition. The aluminum covered cage dripped blood where K-Bar had thrown himself against the bars, trying to attack the killers.
“Let’s just shoot K-Bar and put him out of his misery,” said Doron, looking at the bloody mess.
“No,” said Karen. “I have an idea, wait here.”
Karen left and returned holding Samuel’s hand.
“Is that K-Bar,” asked Karen, close enough so K-Bar began wagging his tail.
“Oh yes! K-Bar!” the boy called. K-Bar turned his head and wagged his tail excitedly.
“Samuel I need you to reach out and take my hand, then I am going to pick you up, okay?” Karen asked. Samuel touched her hand, then grabbed it, and Karen picked him up. Karen then told Ashley to take Samuel back to Doron’s truck.
“I am going to let K-Bar sniff my hand. Then I will let him out of the cage, and I will step away and use a stick to open the cage,” Karen said
“Be sure both of you are ready to kill K-Bar instantly if he attacks me,” Karen said softly to Doron and David. Both nodded.
Karen approached the cage and let K-Bar smell Samuel’s scent on her. Then Karen backed away and used a long stick to open K-Bars’s cage. K-Bar sniffed towards Karen, paused, then ran away from them.
“Let K-Bar go,” Karen said, turning away. “I think he will join us later.”
49.
They headed east and camped about four miles away on a flat hilltop, trying to conceal their tracks. Karen noticed Samuel seemed puzzled there was no car seat for him in the truck. She should have looked in his parents’ vehicles and retrieved a car seat, she thought. Cowboy up, pay attention, and get with the program, she told herself.
She looked through the binoculars and noticed a trail led down to an abandoned mine shaft bored into the side of the hill. The entrance was covered by scattered rocks, and was ideal for concealing the campfire used to cook.
Karen had been surprised just how psychologically important meals were. They thought about food all the time. Jorge became chef by universal acclamation, he had a unique gift with food. In exchange, he was excused from the guard duty roster, and from dishwashing.
Karen was impressed that Jorge always inspected the pots and pans before cooking, and was extremely careful with sanitation. Doron had noted they would most likely get sick from food poisoning or water contamination. No one ever got sick from either cause, Jorge checked the water every day.
Jorge was quiet, he talked even less than Liu. He did like to practice shooting the M16 and the AK47 with Karen, and Ranger book tactics with Zeke. Every night Jorge briefed David on the food and water status. Jorge was also trustworthy. He did not eat the food he guarded—he had lost weight just like everyone else.
“Samuel is going to need calcium, either dried milk or canned condensed milk,” Karen explained while they waited for dinner.
“Okay, we will look for some,” Doron replied.
“Karen, we need to check with Doron and make sure we know the dose for Samuel to get Potassium Iodide to protect his thyroid, and for the baking soda to drink to bind and flush out any uranium he may have ingested. If we don’t have enough he can take some of mine,” Jorge said.
Karen nodded, but said she would give Samuel some of hers, as she looked for Samuel.
“It’s K-Bar!” Samuel cried, pointing down the hill-Bar was slowly limping up the trail to the camp.
“Jorge, do we have anything we can feed the dog?” David asked.
“Canned salmon, beef soup, or canned chicken soup,” Jorge replied, pointing. David took a plastic gallon water jug and cut it in half to make K-Bar a water bowl. Then he filled it up with water and sat it on the trail about fifty yards away. He opened two cans of beef soup and scraped the soup onto a piece of cardboard, then set the soup next to the water.
K-Bar climbed the trail and lapped up half the water. Then K-Bar ate all the chunky beef soup in four gulps. Then he lay on the trail, but did not approach the camp.
“Why doesn’t K-Bar come?” Samuel asked Karen.
“Sometimes we need time alone,” Karen said.
Samuel seemed satisfied with that, and turned to watch Jorge cook the rice. Everyone sat around the fire, except David, who always patrolled during meals.
“Prime,” Zeke said, as he used his Leatherman tool pliers to pick up his open can of Campbell’s Chunky Beef soup that had been warming by the fire, and dumped it on top of the bowl of rice.
Karen realized Jorge’s idea of letting each person choose what to add to their rice, or pasta, was brilliant. Letting each person have some meal control was important. It even lifted Ashley’s spirits as she thought about what to choose. Trades were common for the canned soup each night, and they spent a lot of time talking, planning, and thinking about their food draft picks each day. It was the topic of conversation. Campbell’s Chunky Beef, and Chunky Chicken were always first round draft picks for the men. Canned Dole pineapple chunks, and Campbell’s cream of chicken were popular with the women.
“Excellent,” Doron agreed.
“You know, I have started dreaming about food,” Karen said. Doron and Zeke smiled, knowingly. Karen realized she wasn’t the only one.
“I was in the mall, at the food court by the movie theater. First I grabbed a Burger King Whopper with cheese. It was fat and juicy. And a couple of Dorito tacos from Taco Bell. Then I got some McDonalds fries and some Chick- fill-a ice cream,” she said.
Zeke laughed, “I stopped by Krispy Kreme and got a dozen mixed doughnuts to start, then got 50 extra spicy wings from Popeyes, and that dirty rice they have.”
“I was more responsible than you reprobates,” Doron said. “I got a fresh baked loaf of whole wheat bread from the bakery, and ate slice after slice, some with butter, some with honey, and some with peanut butter. And I drank a gallon of ice cold milk with it.”
Ashley and Liu both smiled. Ashley told them she dreamed of a special Tiramisu cake. Zeke had never heard of Tiramisu, so she described its ingredients in excruciating detail as their mouths watered.
Liu said she had a recurring dream where she just went up and down the aisles of a fully stocked grocery store filling up her cart, mainly with fresh onions, garlic, broccoli, tomatoes, bell peppers, and other vegetables. She said she absolutely craved them, sometimes when she woke up in her dreams, she was eating them. In her dreams she prepared stir fry, and ate everything, bowl after bowl with Kikkoman’s soy sauce.
Samuel brought his red Bible to Karen, and picked out a story. Everyone listened while they ate. It seemed to Karen that Zeke really liked Samuel’s stories, they were very short, two or three sentences, and had nice illustrations. None of the stories assumed you knew anything about the Bible. You could read one in less than a minute. Zeke told Karen he wished he had known ab
out this kid’s Bible and read it to LeShawn and Monique.
Zeke told them sometimes he felt the darkness return. He remembered his brother and sister, and saw the destroyed monkey bars. He stared into the fire, and said he saw them laughing on the school bus, splattering their wet hands on the window.
Waving goodbye.
50.
“Doron, were you able to hook up the DVD player?” Karen asked.
“Yes, you just plug the inverter into the cigarette lighter outlet in the truck, then plug in the DVD player,” Doron demonstrated. Karen opened the driver door, ran the cord through, and set the DVD player down on the ground.
The camera image shook when the record button was pressed, and Samuel’s Father explained, off camera, that each family member would read Samuel a story from his new Bible. The camera focused in on the first story “God made the whole world.” The camera swung back and forth between the illustrations, the text, Samuel and the reader.
Each story took less than a minute. Samuel’s Mother read about two thirds of the stories, Samuel’s Father read about ten, and his Uncle, a Preacher, and his Aunt picked seven to read. The Preacher Uncle explained that Samuel’s Bible was a great book, but it wasn’t the Bible. He explained the references at the bottom of each page were to the real Bible, as he thumped his Bible.
Samuel’s Father was a large man, over six foot five inches, about two hundred forty pounds with no fat whatsoever. He looked like he lifted weights, and was very intimidating in his Police uniform. He had a very deep voice. Samuel should be tall, Karen thought.
Samuel’s Father finished the last story about Revelation, and the camera optic said “The End” and the screen turned blue.
Karen was stunned. The stories were intriguing, but seeing them read by parents speaking from the grave was breathtaking.
Karen got up to disconnect the DVD player, but she stopped when the screen unexpectedly faded to Samuel’s Mother singing in the rocking chair. Samuel was in her lap, she was in the pink housecoat they had buried her in today. Samuel was getting ready for bed.
A beautiful, clear voice rang out in midsentence, Yes Jesus Loves Me. Suddenly, Samuel’s Mom stops, gently puts Samuel in bed, and moves towards the camera. The camera turns sideways, filming the wall, but the audio still recorded.
Nuclear War Club: Seven high school students are in detention when Nuclear War explodes.Game on, they are on their own. Page 17