The Last Bastion [Book 3]

by K. W. Callahan

  “We can help,” Jack Franko offered.

  “No,” Josh shook his head. “You want to do the trash dump from the roof, that’s fine. But I have to take the bags up the ladder. It’s dangerous. Your mother would kill me if you got hurt doing this.”

  “Okay,” Jack agreed.

  A few minutes later, Josh and Julia had the bags of garbage, as well as the boys, safely to the tower rooftop. Each bag of garbage had been double bagged. This was done for several reasons. First, the double bagging helped with smells and leakage that might seep from within. All the Blenders agreed there were already enough smells in the tower without more from garbage. The second reason for the double bagging was about to be illustrated by the boys eagerly awaiting their opportunity for the “trash dump” as it had become known.

  Usually, when the adults were doing the job, the dump was conducted from an open window on the fourth floor. But when the boys were involved, the spectacular plunge to the river below meant that the rooftop was the best spot for the drop. Double bagging the trash, and cinching it tightly at the top, helped create a sort of air pocket inside. This meant that when the trash bags, flung from the tower out into the river’s current, splashed down, they floated for a while before eventually sinking. This carried the trash far enough downstream from the tower that it wouldn’t fowl the Blenders’ drinking water.

  “Fling the stuff far out enough so that it makes the current!” Josh reminded the boys now lined up along the tower’s parapet, each prepared to toss a garbage bag. “And don’t get too close to the edge. I don’t want any of you following your bag down.”

  “Don’t worry,” Andrew responded for the three youngsters and Patrick.

  Josh and Julia watched from a safe distance away as Andrew reeled his bag back, took a couple steps toward the tower’s edge for momentum, lifted his back, and hurled it over the tower parapet. All three of the boys peered over the edge, watching the bag descend. Patrick stood behind them, tall enough to see over Justin’s shoulders.

  “Yes!” the group cried in unison as the bag landed in the river and began to bob its way downstream.

  “I would have loved to do that when I was their age,” Josh admitted to his wife. “There’s nothing better.”

  “What? Tossing trash off the tower?” Julia frowned.

  “Yeah…stuff like that. Silly, destructive stuff that you know you’re typically not supposed to do but have been given the go ahead by adults to do anyway.”

  “Maybe for a child…or a man-child,” she smirked, giving him a hard time. “I can’t see taking any pleasure in smashing or breaking things just for the sake of doing it.”

  “Really?” Josh frowned. “Doesn’t even seem a little bit appealing?”

  “Nope,” his wife shook her head. “Not really. I just think about the mess it’d make.”

  “Hmm,” Josh nodded. “Seems entertaining to me. I feel like I’m giving something up by not doing this job myself and letting the kids have all the fun.”

  “Must be a man thing.”

  “I guess,” Josh shrugged.

  “And tossing this trash in the river makes me feel horribly guilty…like we’re the worst people in the world, just trashing the environment.”

  “We don’t have much of a choice. Not like the weekly garbage service is making the rounds.”

  “I know, but throwing it in the river just goes against everything I was ever taught about being environmentally friendly.”

  “I’ll agree with you there,” Josh conceded. “But we start dropping it around the base of the tower and it will begin stinking up the joint. We learned that with the raw sewage. That’s why we had to start putting the excess in buckets and other sealable containers and floating them downstream too. Wait until those biter bodies down there start to thaw.”

  “Can we talk about something else?” Julia made a face of disgust.

  “Sure. What do you want to talk about?”

  The boys, having watched the first floating trash bag pass between the bridge rubble and bob farther downriver before gradually disappearing beneath the water, were now working on launching their second bag.

  “I don’t know. What about the new arrivals?”

  “What about them?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think? I mean, they’re kind of an odd trio, aren’t they?”

  Josh shrugged, “I suppose. They all seemed like decent individuals. The Wendell guy seems like kind of a pretentious ass, but he might just be the type that takes a while to warm up to.”

  “You don’t think the relationship is a tad weird. I mean, Charla and Chris seem like they’re closer than Charla and Wendell. And Wendell seems none too pleased about Chris being here…at least that’s the sense I get.”

  “Yeah, I kind of picked up on that too,” Josh nodded. “I mean, I guess I wouldn’t be too hot on things either if you and Chris were getting cozy. He’s a decent looking dude.”

  “I’d say,” Julia agreed.

  Josh shot her a look.

  “Not as decent as you, of course, but not too shabby either,” she clarified.

  The boys were firing their final bag of garbage over the parapet wall.

  “You think there’s something more between them?” Josh asked.

  “Who? Between Charla and Chris?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t know. That’s why I brought it up. They sure seem cozy to me, but I could be way off. And the way Wendell stares down Chris sometimes…well, if I was Chris, I’d be more worried about Wendell than the biters.

  “You boys about finished over there?” Josh called to the kids.

  “Yes,” came the response.

  “All right. I’m starting to freeze up here. Let’s head back inside.”

  “How about a game of Crazy Eights when we get back downstairs?” Josh heard Patrick ask the boys as they walked over to where he and Julia awaited them.

  “Crazy Eights?” Andrew Franko snorted. “That’s a kids’ game!”

  “Yeah,” his brother added, not sounding as sure about the statement as his brother.

  “I’ll play!” young Justin piped up. “Sounds like fun,” he smiled up at Patrick.

  “Crazy Eights with two people?” Andrew frowned. “I don’t know. Sounds pretty lame to me.”

  “Ah,” Patrick waved him away with a hand. “It’ll be fun, trust me,” he said to Justin, ruffling the boys’ hair with a hand.

  After the three boys and Patrick had descended the ladder back into the tower, Julia looked over at Josh and said, “It’s nice Justin has Patrick. It’s like the older brother he never had.”

  “It is,” Josh nodded. “We’re lucky in that regard. It’s almost like the two Franko boys are a little too old for Justin, but Patrick melds with our nine-year-old almost perfectly. Makes for a nice stand in for us when we need a little break,” he took her hand and pulled her close.

  “Wish it wasn’t so damn cold up here,” Julia shivered. “It’d make for a nice little private spot.”

  “It would,” Josh eyed her lustily, removing a glove and attempting to work his hand up beneath Julia’s coat, tugging at her tucked in shirt.

  “If you think there’s going to be any exposed skin, or that you’re getting those blocks of ice you call hands on me, you’re more than crazy,” Julia pushed her shirt back down and in the process removed Josh’s hand from beneath her coat.

  “Aww,” Josh moaned.

  “Sorry. But there’s only so much a libido can do. And up here with this wind, it just isn’t cutting it.”

  “Okay,” Josh hung his head in disappointment. “After you,” he gestured to the tower’s open rooftop hatch.

  CHAPTER 7

  It was week two of life inside Hofmann Tower for the Blenders and their three recently arrived guests. And time had begun to drag for many of the occupants inside the imposing edifice.

  But while life inside the tower at times bordered on a lesson in tedium, there were plenty of housekeep
ing duties to keep the Blenders occupied and their minds off the continued demise of the outside world. Staying busy was necessary not only to keep their living quarters sanitary but to ensure that everyone staved off the winter doldrums that could easily take their toll on mental health.

  Michael and the other adult Blenders felt it best to try to get the group into a routine in an effort to return some sense of normalcy to their lives. The members of the group had left behind things like school, work, and other aspects of a world that had provided some semblance of purpose to their lives. And while fuel was still at a premium, the group had decided to use their generators to power several electric lights and space heaters on the third floor – their main sleeping/living quarters – in an effort to give it a cozier, more “homelike” feel.

  While it was a far cry from the comforts of home, it was the best they could do considering the circumstances. And much to the delight of the kids – including Patrick Trove – Andrew had smuggled a handheld video game system with several games in his backpack of personal items when they’d left home. The game system was powered by rechargeable batteries that could be charged from the power strip that accompanied one of the Blender’s generators. This small amenity helped add to the semblance of normalcy for the youngsters in the group, and the adults didn’t mind the slight drain on their power supply to keep the kids happy. In fact, they felt it a small price to pay to help the kids cope with the loss of their homes, their friends, their toys, and the otherwise normal aspects of being a kid.

  Beside latrine and watch duty, there were plenty of other assignments to be parceled out among the Blenders. Some assignments were necessary ones. Other assignments were innovations or personal projects that individual Blenders decided to take upon themselves to attempt.

  One such attempt was made by newcomers Charla and former neighbor Chris. Chris, having found a fishing pole among the supplies brought by the Blender crew, had experienced an epiphany while they were eating dinner one evening. The next morning, he had recruited Charla, the person in the tower with whom he meshed best and had known the longest, to explore his idea.

  While they couldn’t go outside to use the pole they’d discovered, Chris didn’t let this deter him. With a little outside-the-box thinking, Chris and Charla headed up to the tower’s fourth floor. It was the first floor offering plenty of open windows. And unlike the third floor, the Blenders weren’t trying to heat the level. There, they opened a west-facing window, maneuvered the pole so that its line and lure dangled several feet from the tower wall, and let the sinker-weighted line descend to the river’s murky waters below.

  Near this point, at the base of the tower where it met with the river, there was once a concrete dam. The dam had begun at the tower’s southwest corner and spanned the length of the river. But after repeated flooding issues upriver, a large section at the dam’s center had been removed. This left the section that began at the tower’s corner, and ran about 30 feet into the river, still in place. This remaining dam portion kept the main current toward the center of the river while creating a pool of very calm, deeper water directly below the tower’s base.

  Prior to the onset of the Carchar Syndrome, this area was a hotspot for local fisherman on the hunt for bass, walleye, catfish, and crappie. Now, it was a private spot for the Blenders to seek a supplemental food source.

  However, fishing at the spot was slightly more of a challenge than it once was. While prior visitors to the area only had to contend with reeling their catches up from where they stood atop a 20-foot-high retention wall bordering the river, Chris and Charla had to add almost another 40 feet to that height due to their position on the tower’s fourth floor. This meant that half the time, if or when the pair actually snagged something, their catch managed to wriggle free by the time they had reeled it all the way up to their fishing perch.

  But by switching off when one of them got cold or tired of reeling, it proved a nice way for the two to relax, converse, occasionally add to the Blender food stocks, and pass the time. Better yet, their activity gave Ms. Mary an idea of her own. Using a similar method, she rigged a bucket and rope system out a nearby window. She could lower her bucket down to the river, scoop up a gallon or two of water, haul it back up, or have someone assist in hauling it up, and the Blender community had a never-ending source of water. And while the water wasn’t drinkable upon retrieval, it was great for washing clothes in, cleaning with, and it could be boiled or otherwise made potable for doing dishes, cooking, or even drinking.

  But then there was the drudgery that came with life inside the tower – all the non-interesting, general housekeeping issues that accompanied everyday living. There was the issue of sanitation that came with 15 people all living under the same roof, albeit a sizeable one. Chores were doled out to handle trash pickup and disposal, dirty water disposal, latrine duty, and dirty laundry washing.

  Then there was the heating/lighting/power generation role. The responsibilities of this position focused on ensuring that the lights and space heaters were working properly, that they were correctly positioned for efficiency, and that the generators powering them were all well maintained and had enough fuel. After hanging several sheets up to block the stairwells at each end of the third floor, and with their space heaters set at the center of the level, the Blenders were able to keep the space’s temperature ranging between 55 and 60 degrees. This was relatively comfortable considering the outside temperatures often dipped into the mid to low 20s at night.

  Then of course, there were the cooking duties. This aspect of the tower responsibilities was one of the most crucial and involved more than just cooking for the 15-person bastion. There was menu planning, which had to take into account more than just the personal tastes of the tower occupants. The tower cook (a position shared between Michael, Ms. Mary, Caroline, and Julia Justak) had to ensure that their food was being consumed in order of “use-by” dates or by potential for spoilage. This meant that in the first few weeks of the Blenders’ stay within the tower, things like any fresher items such as veggies, cheese, lunch meat, and other perishables were worked into the menu first. This also meant that the person serving as chef had to keep a careful eye on inventory. This was done not just to gauge what was being used and in what amounts but also to economize their limited supplies. It also helped to ensure that too much of the propane they’d brought with them wasn’t being consumed during the food preparation process. Thankfully, Michael’s makeshift ‘file’frigerator was helping to preserve the many meat products the Blenders had hauled with them. The winter temperatures were helping as well.

  The tower chef was also charged with handling the post-meal cleanup. And with 15 people to feed, 12 of whom were adults, there were a lot of dirty dishes to be done. This was a task that (much to their dismay) was often delegated to the Blender youngsters. But for the most part, they put their noses to the grindstone, sucked it up, and did their part to help out.

  But it wasn’t all work and no play inside the tower. While the world as they knew it may have been ending around them, the Blenders did their best to find ways to keep themselves entertained. In fact, they probably worked harder at their entertainment because the world was crumbling. They needed a way to maintain their sanity while being locked inside the tower for weeks on end.

  Often in the evenings, after dinner was finished and the dishes had been done, the Blenders got together for an entertainment hour. The tower dwellers tended to break into several small groups to play games that usually involved cards since no one had thought to haul board games with them when they’d left their homes. Manny and Margaret had marked off some space up on the fourth floor and turned it into a sort of beanbag toss, having chalked various point totals on the floor for hitting their marks. To make the beanbags, Ms. Mary had sewn cloth around double freezer-bagged beans to ensure future edibility of the contents inside.

  Often wanting a break from their parents, and finding the tower a pretty cool structure in which to play,
the kids (sometimes incorporating Patrick Trove, whose leg wound had healed enough to allow him decent mobility) would play hide-and-seek. Other times, if people weren’t up for game playing, they would organize skits re-enacting or re-envisioning their favorite television shows or movies. Sometimes, those with stronger voices would even sing songs.

  Not being the most social person, Wendell had found a small hoard of old books stashed near the post office display on the fourth floor that he would read at night. Many of them were historical in nature, which was right up his alley.

  And thus, the Blenders attempted to make the best of a very bad situation.

  * * *

  “Man, it is cold as crap out here today!” Josh shivered as he made his way up onto the rooftop behind Michael. “No wonder no one else wanted to come up with us today.”

  “We’ve hit the January doldrums,” Michael looked up at the ash-gray sky. “Even the sun has called it quits today.”

  “Gotta be what, ten degrees at best?”

  “At best!” Michael agreed as a gusty wind whipped around them. “Wind chill’s probably well below zero. We’ll make this quick,” he pulled out his crank-powered radio. “At least it’s driving the biters to find warmer spots…somewhere other than around the base of our tower.”

  “True,” Josh considered. “You really think anything will have changed?” Josh nodded toward the radio Michael was preparing to tune. “It has just been that same repeated electronic message. You’d think that if they’d gotten their acts together, they would have a new message…or at least have modified the old one.”

  “I suppose,” Michael finished with his radio preparations and flipped it on.

  The two men stood in silence as Michael worked to tune the radio.

  “I left it on the channel with the recorded message the last time we were up here,” Michael frowned. “But I’m not picking up anything now.”

  Michael worked for another few seconds with no results. “Mmm,” he shook his head. “Not good. I’m not getting anything.”