SURVIVING ABE: A Climate-Fiction Novel

by O'Brien, J. Z.

  Gus turned to see Ela and Con coming toward him cautiously, waiting on his call, "He’s dead, Con."

  She looked at Ela for a relay of what he'd said. "He’s dead," Ela repeated and Con nodded her thanks.

  "Let's go see what’s inside," Con said.

  Gus pulled the magazine out of the AR and saw that some rounds remained. Then he reinserted the magazine and started for the house, carrying the AR at the ready with the safety off.

  Con started to follow with her Beretta in her right hand, and her left hand reaching back for Ela.

  She hesitated for a moment. "Ela Nor, you’ve got to be my ears and stay right behind me, now grab my hand and give it a squeeze when you hear something. Don’t let anybody sneak up on us," she looked at her daughter for confirmation that she understood. When Ela nodded Con turned and, with Ela in tow, rushed to catch up with Gus who was already at the front door.

  Tess - Chesapeake Bay, MD

  When she had the spare anchor up and temporarily secured on deck the black, stinky muck that came up with it covered her and the deck, seemingly impervious to the rain. Tess ran back to the cockpit and got Robin headed toward the buoy on the end of her anchor rode, she put the transmission in neutral and slowly coasted the rest of the way toward the buoy. Arriving alongside, she quickly ran forward and used her boat pole to snag and pull in the buoy and anchor rode. With nimble movements she removed the buoy, threaded the rode through the fairlead and back to the windlass where she tied it off, and then she went quickly back to the helm.

  Robin slowly drifted ever closer to shallow water. A few tense moments later Tess had Robin moving and drifting toward a safer depth and away from the powerboat. After making sure the transmission was in neutral, she ran forward to the bow.

  By hand, and as quickly as possible, she took up slack in the rope part of the anchor rode before taking a wrap around the gypsy on the windlass; then she stepped on the "up" button. The windlass started winching in her primary anchor rode without moving the powerboat; a happy smile appeared on her tired and mud-streaked face.

  Bewilderment, quickly followed by a strong sense of danger, came over her as a big Danforth anchor, with her anchor-chain wedged in its fluke, flashed into view. With a crash it jammed in Robin’s fairlead before she could get her foot off the windlass "up" button. Her primary anchor dangled uselessly a few feet below the jam, with no way to raise or lower it—she had to clear that jam.

  Kicking and prying on the anchor did no good. Both boats were adrift at the whim of any winds until the jammed Danforth anchor could be pried loose. The slight breeze blowing at the moment denied Tess time to think through solutions.

  She made a dash to the cockpit and retrieved a crowbar from the aft locker. Back at the bow, the crowbar's longer purchase broke the Danforth free with a bang, and it fell into the water. She ran for the cockpit at the sound of its splash. The first item she checked on after returning to the cockpit stopped her rush dead. The depth meter indicated a reading of 4' 2", well below Robin’s draft. Robin was aground, no need to hurry now.

  She walked back to the bow and recovered the primary anchor. It had taken all day, but at least she had both of her anchors aboard. She rested for a few minutes to catch her breath and focus. First she would try to free Robin by powering off the mudbank, if it worked she would be on her way. If not, she would again have to put the secondary anchor out in deeper water and try to kedge off of the bank; a much longer process.

  At the helm Tess put Robin's transmission in forward, but made no progress, other than stirring up mud in the water. She then tried the transmission in reverse with the same results; Robin remained immobile. Beaver-tail keels, like Robin's, were wonderful for cruising shoal waters, until they're in the mud; then they’re held from suction like a boot. Robin remained upright, indicating her keel had punched into the soft muck; but it held fast as if it were concrete.

  The day’s physical activity and mental stress wore on her. When she was younger she would still have been moving, but at age fifty she sat in the cockpit depleted of energy. All day she had struggled with anchors and had ended the battle with both anchors aboard and her boat in the muck—exactly the opposite of the planned results; a ludicrous finale.

  With a sinking feeling Tess knew she had one more job to do before she could rest. Once again she needed to take the spare anchor out in the dinghy and set it in deeper water, to keep Robin from being blown further into the mud. If she didn't, she probably wouldn't be able to free Robin by herself. Summoning the last of her energy she headed for the dinghy.

  Andy & Jennifer - East Texas

  "You lost another truck?" Tye asked, as Jennifer and Andy walked up to the front porch of the family's farmhouse.

  "Ran out of gas this side of the intersection, you said ten miles to the gallon. Creeping along the shoulder in second gear it's more like ten gallons to the mile. Got any heat? We're frozen."

  "Hi Andy, come on in and close the door. Don't remember the temperature ever falling this fast," Tye said. He looked around to see his wife coming from the kitchen. "Andy this is my wife, Reb. Reb, this here's Andy."

  A high-energy, older version of Jen came toward him, grabbed his hand and pulled him into a hug. Then she held him at arm's-length inspecting him, "Andy, I had some trouble believing all the stories I've heard about you." She looked closely at the knot on his forehead, "But now that I have seen the evidence it looks like Tye wasn't embellishing anymore than usual. What do you think of Texas so far?"

  "Well . . . May I call you Reb?"

  "Of course."

  "Reb, the most striking aspect of Texas is the people that live here. The land has shaped all of you more than you've shaped it, and it's a tough place in my short experience. It's a state of mind people have here like no place else I've been. That mindset led your daughter to charge into a dark and rainy night with a shotgun, draw down on Jeff, and stop him from pulverizing me. My thanks to you and Tye for instilling her with the courage to do that."

  Reb looked over at Jennifer, who had a little more color in her cheeks than normal, and said, "Gosh, he made me blush too."

  "Andy, I hope Jen warned you that we would put you to work. I need to get the generator up to the house, and then we'll go get the flatbed. Are you up for all that?"

  "No problem, I like to stay busy."

  "We'll chain up the Jeep first, then we can use it to drag the generator up to the house. Want to get started?" Tye asked.

  ~~~

  In the shop Tye found a pair of chains, which they put on the Jeep's front tires. They loaded the back of the Jeep with gas cans then hooked a tow strap to the generator's frame. The chains on the Jeep's front tires gave them enough traction and steerage to control the Jeep as it towed the generator over the icy ground to the back porch. Once there, Andy took the job of wiring power into the house while Tye maneuvered the Jeep around to the front yard.

  On Andy's way through the house Reb gave him a handful of homemade cookies while thanking him for saving the food in the refrigerator. Tye came in and picked up a shotgun identical to the one he'd loaned Jennifer and said, "We better take this along, just in case."

  ~~~

  When they drove up to the flatbed it was obvious someone had been there.

  Most noticeable, the truck's windshield had been shattered on the driver's side. All the food and Andy's bicycle were gone. Jennifer and Andy's clothing were picked through and strewn on the ground around the vehicle, along with the packaging material the food had been in.

  "Looks like somebody tried to steal the truck, good thing it was out of gas. They were hungry enough to eat some of the food as soon as they found it by the look of all the wrappers around the truck," Andy said.

  "It's a sure bet the stores, including ours, have been looted by now. People are getting hungry enough to do things they wouldn't ordinarily do. Let's see if we can get the truck started and home before they come back. There're chains for it under the bed in the toolbox, but let'
s wait on that. I don't like being out here and leaving the women alone with stuff like this happening so close to the house."

  Tye dumped in five gallons of gas, brushed the broken glass off the seat, then climbed in from the passenger side and started the truck. "Whoever robbed us actually did us a favor by breaking the windshield, now I have one spot I can see out of." As the engine warmed for a minute he said, "Andy, you drive the Jeep and we're outa here."

  "Lead on," Andy said and then carefully walked across the ice to the Jeep. Tye kept to the side of the road where the truck had enough traction to move. With the front-end of the Jeep chained up Andy drove on the highway alongside the flatbed, to give Tye an additional reference point to steer by. He also wanted to be in visual contact with Tye in case trouble came calling.

  ~~~

  "Well, that certainly shines a new light on the conditions we find ourselves in. In less than two hours someone found and robbed the truck," Reb said.

  "The minimalist inside me should be jumping for joy, I'm down to my daypack and the clothes I'm wearing. Jeff destroyed my tent and these guys got my bike with the rest of my gear. I'm about to put myself up for adoption," Andy said with a smile.

  "That's two of us. I need to go through your closet, Mom."

  "Looks like our chances of catching up on all the stuff that needs to be done on the farm just got better; we appreciate both of you volunteering. Where's that list, Reb?" Tye asked, trying to hide a smile.

  Con, Gus & Ela - Unaweep Canyon, CO

  They knew as soon as they were in the house a tragedy had just taken place. A trail of bloody drag marks led from the front door toward the back of the ransacked home. The amount of wet, sticky blood on the floor shocked all three of them as they tried to avoid walking through it to enter the home. When they passed by a door to the kitchen they saw the room had been raided and the floor was littered with contents of some of the cabinets and drawers.

  Ela jerked her mom’s hand, "I hear something," she whispered. She saw by the look on Con’s face that she didn’t understand. Ela pointed to her own ear, then pointed to where the sounds came from, and then shrugged. Con nodded and turned back to the front to see Gus looking back at her. He nodded toward the sounds, Con nodded back. They proceeded cautiously following the blood trail to the doorway at the end of the entrance hallway.

  Gus waited until Con was right behind him. Then, as fast as possible, he popped through the doorway and moved to its side, looking over the AR's sights, as he scanned for any threats. He found horror instead.

  Judging by the furnishings Gus realized he had entered the living room. Today, however, dying room would be a more appropriate term. In the corner, opposite from the television, sat a medium-sized gun safe with two bleeding bodies in front of it; the pool of blood much larger near the man than the woman.

  "Oh, no!" Con came into the room and went to the woman first, checking her pulse. "She’s still alive, but barely conscious, just moaning."

  Gus was at the man’s side with his ear near the man’s mouth. After a moment he sat up and said in a rush, "I can feel his breath, but I can't find a pulse."

  Ela unbuckled the man’s belt, slid it out of his pants, and started putting it around his leg, trying to keep it above where the bleeding seemed to be the worst, but the wound was almost in the hip, making it difficult to apply enough pressure in the right area to stop the bleeding.

  Con went in search of some clean towels to wrap the woman’s head wound, which was bleeding a steady flow. She thought she’d seen some towels on the floor in the kitchen, just to the side of the front door, where they had entered.

  In the kitchen Con saw a drawerful of dishtowels, which had been thrown on the floor, and a roll of paper towels on the kitchen counter. As she reached for the paper towels it gradually dawned on her that the sound she was hearing wasn’t the normal tinnitus or ringing she usually had in her ears. She turned her head back and forth in an effort to localize the source of the sound. Having just one hearing aid confused her, but she thought it sounded louder when she was facing the kitchen window—the one with the missing glass.

  She reached the window just in time to see a snowmobile whip past, as it headed toward the front door of the house; its rider was dressed the same as the man she'd just shot, and he had a rifle slung over his shoulder. She ran out of the kitchen toward the front door, drawing her pistol on the way. At the front doorway she went down to her knees and then prone as fast as she was able. From inside the front doorway she had an angle through the open door allowing her to see the snowmobile stopping, as the rider looked first at the body in front of the house, and then at her.

  Both of them started firing at the same time. Con saw her first shot kick up some snow behind the man; she re-steadied her hands and concentrated on the M9's front sight. Her second shot hit the man causing him to duck behind the snowmobile.

  She fired two shots at the machine hoping that penetrating bullets or shrapnel would hit the man. A black rifle came up spraying bullets without aim, and Con held fire, waiting for a shot.

  When Con stopped firing, the man popped up behind his semi-automatic, and using the snowmobile's seat as a rest, started firing a more effective barrage.

  As soon as the man's upper body appeared Con fired three more shots, as rapidly as she could bring the front sight back on target.

  It took seven total shots from Con before the attacker quit firing and toppled over beside the snowmobile—two shots of his final volley hit Con. She took one in the shoulder and fired again. The last shot from the attacker, fired as he fell, struck her in the middle of her forehead, killing her instantly.

  A heavy silence momentarily descended over the scene, until Ela screamed, "MOM!" and started running to find her. Gus, with rifle in hand, took off running after Ela, catching her just before she rounded the corner toward the front doorway. He grabbed her arm and stopped her. "Ela, wait! Let me go first, stay behind me!"

  Gus took a quick look around the corner, spotted Con lying next to the front door, and ran to her, with Ela right on his heels. Even before he made it halfway he could see that the back of Con’s head was missing. Behind him a low keening from Ela began, as she too saw her mother, and she pushed past Gus. He took a quick look out the front door and saw a body laid out flat, with both arms outstretched, alongside a snowmobile. Then he ducked back inside.

  A second or two later he burst through the doorway, aiming the rifle on the body as he ran toward it. For the second time in his life he prodded a human body with a rifle barrel, checking to be sure no life remained. He picked up the dead man’s AR-15 and ran back to the house carrying both rifles.

  Ela held Con's body and wailed by the front door, screams from the woman in the living room added to the torturous soundscape in the house. The riot of sound, sickening odors, and sight of the floor, now tracked with even more blood, cranked up Gus's neurology to the point he wanted to scream, SHUT UP! Instead, he crossed the bloody floor into the living room.

  The woman had regained consciousness and was attempting to get to her husband, repeatedly crying out to him not to die. When she saw Gus enter the room she screamed even louder at Gus to stay away. Gus stopped, knowing his presence was making the situation worse for her. He retreated from the room, going back toward the front door. He tried to think of what to do, while watching a devastated Ela.

  Ela felt hands on her, lifting her away from her mother's body. She resisted, but was subdued by an overpowering, yet gentle strength. Ela stopped fighting and tried to control her breathing. She felt like her world had just ended, it couldn’t exist without her mother in it. The only person in the entire world that had been there for her, no matter what; now wasn’t. In the blink of an eye she just was not, anymore.

  Mostly carrying her into the kitchen, and away from Con's body, Gus picked her up and sat her on the kitchen counter and stood in front of her. When she started hitting him he grabbed her wrists and held them steady.

  Gus cam
e into her focus through her tears, as he stood in front of her, still holding her wrists. "Please, let go of me," she said through her sobs. He did, but he still stood there looking at her.

  "Ela, I’m so sorry this has happened. I only just met your mom, but I found her to be a truly remarkable person. I can't help but think about how your mother saved us both today—twice. She didn’t think about it, she just instantly did what needed to be done. She had strength . . . she had courage. She gave her life for ours.

  I can’t think of a better way to honor that . . . to honor her, than to try to be as strong as she was; and pay it forward. Two people in the other room need our help, right now. Please Ela, they . . . I . . . need your help, now."

  Ela watched Gus grab a roll of paper towels and rush back to the living room. She remembered thinking how brave her mom had been for her. She dried her eyes and considered that Gus was right; her mother had shown her how to be brave. To give in to the urge to cry, when others were dying, would dishonor her mother’s spirit. Ela slid off the counter, gathered some dishtowels, and went to help.

  When Ela walked into the room she saw Gus kneeling beside the man, opening his bloody pant leg to look at the injury, trying to stem the flow of blood. The wound was high on his leg, too high for a tourniquet, only direct pressure had any affect.

  The woman was against the couch screaming, trying to get further away from Gus. Ela went to her, talking calmly, trying to get the woman to understand that they meant them no harm.

  The woman settled down when Ela got down on the floor right in front of her, blocking the view she had of Gus leaning over her husband. "Your head is bleeding badly, please hold still, and let me help you," Ela said as matter-of-factly as she could. The woman complied.