by Tom Abrahams
“Then that ground won’t be as hardened, right? The first few feet should be more pliable than the surrounding rock and dirt.”
Steve narrowed his eyes. Clayton couldn’t tell if he was expressing his disapproval or merely thinking about the proposition.
“So,” Steve said, “you’re suggesting we bury two people under my garden, essentially making it a burial ground?”
Clayton lowered his head. “You’re right. It’s a lousy idea. I’m just—”
“It’s not lousy,” said Steve. “I’d be honored to provide the final resting place for a couple of heroic explorers. My garden is plenty big. I can spare the room.” Clayton lifted his head and found Steve smiling broadly. The man was like a fictional character in a book. He was endlessly kind, offering his truck, his home, his garden, and his own safety for men he’d never met. In the midst of the world falling apart and rumors of martial law from militias and doomsdayers, Steve Kremer was a reminder that good existed on Earth. He was the beauty that Clayton had seen from 249 miles up.
Clayton extended his hand to Steve and gripped it firmly. “You’re too good to be true,” he said, shaking Steve’s hand. “I owe you. I don’t know how I’m ever going to pay you back, but I owe you.”
“You already paid me,” said Steve. “I got that wicked Russian axe pistol.”
Steve let go of Clayton’s grip and clapped his hands. “Now, I know you’re a little woozy, but we should get going. It could take us a few hours to do what needs to be done. First things first, I’ve gotta break apart that sheet of ice atop the tarp.”
***
Clayton used the shovel as a crutch while Steve used a tamper to even out the dirt covering the twin graves they’d dug and filled. They’d dug separate holes, one for each man. They hadn’t quite reached two meters, which would have been optimal, but it was close enough. Exhausted, Clayton shifted his weight onto his good leg. The pain in his injured limb was intensifying, but he refused to take any additional medication.
Steve finished the job and walked over to Clayton. His breath puffed from his mouth in thick clouds of vapor. “Should we say a little something?”
Clayton nodded and used the shovel to cross the short distance to the foot of the graves. Ben was buried to the left and Boris to the right. He ignored the ache in his stiffening joints and knelt on his good knee. He closed his eyes and pictured the men in his mind. They were smiling. They were happy. They were alive.
Clayton tried to think of something profound, something worthy of the sacrifice they’d made. He wanted to eulogize them with the respect they deserved and thank them for their friendship. Instead, he took a deep breath and whispered the Lord’s Prayer. It was the best he could do. Clayton arose with an emptiness, a sense he’d failed again. He wouldn’t be bringing them home. They would be forever buried in unmarked graves on the property of a kind loner in the middle-of-nowhere Canada.
He’d have been better leaving them in orbit. Once some semblance of normalcy returned in the coming months, NASA or Roscosmos or even ESA could send up a crew to retrieve them and give them the heroes’ welcomes they deserved.
Then again, this might be the new normal and the men could have been stuck up there for years, until the ISS orbit degraded enough that it entered the atmosphere and burned up on reentry. If he’d learned anything in the last four days, it was that every choice he made was monumental. Every decision had consequences. Every turn led him in an irreversible direction.
As it was, Boris’s family might never know what happened to their strong patriarch. Clayton clenched his jaw and stared at the disturbed mound of soil to the right and the man buried underneath it. He envisioned Boris’s wife, Albina; daughter, Nadia; and son, Alexei sitting at their dinner table with an empty chair, Albina cleaning the dishes by herself, the children doing their homework without help from their father. He only knew them by the photographs the Russian kept in his sleeping space aboard the ISS, but it was enough to know they loved each other.
Ben didn’t have a family. He didn’t have children or a wife who loved him. He’d been a content bachelor with a Harley and a ridiculous canal-front house on Clear Lake. He left behind the promise of a lucrative future on the commercial side of the business. His genius was gone. It was frozen in a grave nobody who knew him would ever visit.
Clayton sucked in more cold air, the chill streaming into his lungs. He took one more look at each grave, closed his eyes, and spun around.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get going. I want to see this plane.”
“You got it,” said Steve. “I’ll fix the tarp later. We need to get you home.”
The men loaded into Steve’s truck and traveled the short distance to a narrow airstrip, which was more of a grass and dirt runway with a trio of large steel hangars to one side. A tattered windsock atop one of the buildings spun and whipped intermittently.
“I know this guy,” said Steve, slowing at the entrance to the airstrip. “He owns a lot of land around here and grows canola and wheat. He’s got a few airplanes. A couple of them are for crop dusting and the rest are for fun. He’s an odd fellow. Built these hangars with solid steel all the way around and spent a lot of money. I’ve done some work for him. Actually, I’ve done a lot of work for him. He owes me a fair amount of money—thousands of dollars. He said he’d pay me. He can afford to pay me. He never did. So I’ve got no issue permanently borrowing the plane.”
Steve maneuvered the narrow paths that crisscrossed the property until he wove the truck to the three tan-colored steel buildings that served as rental hangars. He slowed the truck at the third building and parked.
“I know the combination to the lock,” he said. “Some of the work he had me do was carpentry inside the hangar. He never changed the combination.”
The men hopped out of the truck, and by the time Clayton had limped to the hangar door, Steve had it unlocked and was rolling the bay door open to reveal the aircraft. Clayton recognized it instantly as a Van’s RV-8. It featured a streamlined cockpit with tandem seating. That meant the pilot was at the centerline of the aircraft. It was sleek and Clayton had flown one before. Of course, each kit-built plane was unique to its builder’s specifications, but he was overjoyed at seeing the bright red single-engine beauty.
“We’ll have to fuel her up to see if the engine is working,” said Clayton, stepping into the hangar. He tapped on his flashlight and scanned the large space.
Steve pointed at the walls and the high, thick ceiling. “There’s a good chance,” he said. “There’s a lot of shielding in these buildings. The steel should act like a Faraday cage, like the little ones I use to keep my radios safe.”
Clayton ran his hand along a wing and pulled himself up to the open canopy. He dropped into the pilot’s seat and checked the instrument configuration. The RV-8 had a wide cabin and generous legroom, especially compared to the Soyuz. He gripped the control stick between his knees and rubbed his thumb across the top.
“I’ll need to carry some additional fuel on board,” he said. “It’s not ideal, or safe really, but it’s my only option. This plane has a range of about seven hundred and eighty miles with a forty-gallon tank. If we can find some gas canisters, I can put one in the forward storage compartment and one in the aft. That gives me another three or four hundred miles if my first stop doesn’t have refueling capabilities.”
“There are a couple of ten-gallon plastic gas cans in here somewhere,” said Steve. “We could use them. And it shouldn’t be too hard to fuel up. There’s a gravity pump on the other side of the hangars. You don’t need any power to draw from it.”
Clayton pushed himself from the cockpit. “I feel strange stealing a plane,” he said, lowering himself down to the floor. “I took these clothes from the gift shop at the visitors’ center and left an IOU at the register.”
Steve chuckled. “You’re not the one stealing the plane. I am. Look at it that way. And like I said, this man owes me a lot of money. I repaired and
installed irrigation on dozens of hectares. I fixed some of his expensive combine harvesters. Don’t feel guilty, Clayton Shepard. Now, c’mon, I’ll show you the pump.”
Clayton slapped his new friend on the back and they walked from the hangar and onto the gravel path that surrounded the three buildings. At the end of the third hangar were four elevated fuel tanks. They were large white cylinders speckled with rust, perched atop steel lattice frames, and positioned ten feet off the ground.
“Each of the tanks holds two-hundred and twenty Imperial Gallons. About a thousand liters.,” said Steve. “There are four of them. Plenty of fuel, right?”
“Plenty,” said Clayton.
“He put them here because a big windstorm can cut power here for a couple days at a time. The elevation lets gravity do the work. No power needed to get the fuel from the tank into the planes. Smart thinking…for a crook.”
“Most crooks are smart,” said Clayton. “It’s the stupid ones who get caught.”
“I guess that’s probably true,” said Steve. “Let’s roll the plane out here. It’s getting late.”
Clayton looked at the sky. It was growing darker, the warbling aurora still visible and slightly brighter than it had been earlier in the day. A stiff breeze caught the wind sock, blowing it full and pushing it stiff. The chill caught Clayton’s eyes and he blinked against it.
Taking off in this wind wouldn’t be easy; flying at night was even more dangerous. He followed Steve back to the hangar, dragging his injured leg from the combination of exhaustion and pain. As much as he didn’t want to admit it to himself, his gut told him to delay his departure.
“Hey, Steve?” he said when he reached the hangar. “I think we should wait.”
The Canadian Samaritan was already on his knees under a wing, pulling the blocks from in front of the left side landing gear. He stopped, the short yellow rope wrapped around his hand. “I get it,” he said. “Better safe than sorry. It is getting late. We can camp out here tonight or head back to my place. It’s probably warmer there.”
“Let’s head back to your house,” said Clayton, “after we make sure the plane powers up first. That okay?”
“Good by me. Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER 27
MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 2020, 5:42 PM CST
CLEAR LAKE, TEXAS
The sun sank beneath the horizon and, for the fourth night, Justin Watson was living in a world without power, without authority, without rules. This was the time for someone like him, someone upon whom life had spit repeatedly, to get what he was owed.
He walked with purpose back to the neighborhood where he’d spent the previous night. Palero walked alongside him, the other four accomplices marching a step behind, approaching the entrance to the upscale development. They understood the task ahead of them. After Justin had sobered up from a morning of drinking, he’d given them his version of a pep talk.
“This is an empty house,” Justin had told them. “We should hit pay dirt. There shouldn’t be anybody home.”
“What if somebody is there?” Palero had asked. He’d flinched when Justin stepped toward him.
“We take care of it,” Justin had said, individually eying each of his followers. “Is that understood?” He’d handed the baseball bat to the youngest of the group, a fifteen-year-old nicknamed Greasy, the revolver to Palero, and he’d kept the Glock for himself. The others carried pillowcases.
The Glock was tucked in the front of his pants, underneath his shirt, as he strode into the neighborhood and approached the main loop. He’d promised his woman he’d bring back something pretty, assuming it wasn’t all gone. She’d warned him not to come home if he didn’t.
As smart as she was and as naturally intimidating as she could be, Justin thought she was naïve. She clearly couldn’t see the bigger picture, the long haul. Jewelry was worthless. Food, water, working transportation, and weapons were the new currency. At least, they would be soon. He’d seen the military gearing up. This was no hurricane. It was a seismic societal shift.
Justin rounded the corner toward the cul-de-sac with his chin up, his shoulders back, and his stride long. He flexed his hands into fists and then stretched his fingers straight. The adrenaline pumped through his body, coursing with more force the closer they got to the house. He fought the urge to sprint and bolt to the target. He was ready.
“All right,” he said to his gang as they rounded the corner onto the street. “Up on the left there are a bunch of burned-out homes. There’s nothing left. A lot of these houses on the right have people living in them still. I say we approach from the left and then hit the target from that side.”
The boys followed Justin through the charred debris. They picked their way across the mess, a couple of them holding their noses as they did, and found the target house. It was dark. There was no light coming from inside the house.
“I’m telling you it’s empty,” said Justin. “Nobody’s here.”
The group slipped to the side of the house and through an unlocked gate into the backyard. At the side of the house a solid door led into the garage.
Palero tried the knob and it spun. “It’s unlocked,” he said, his voice full of surprise. “We can go in through here.”
Palero shouldered open the door and stepped over the threshold into the pitch-black space. Greasy, the fifteen-year-old with the baseball bat, pulled an LED flashlight from his pocket and shone it inside the garage. He followed Palero inside, as did the others. Justin was last and quietly shut the door behind him.
The bluish white beam was narrow, but helped the gang identify the obstacles in their way. There was a single car to one side of the two-car garage. On the other side were a lawnmower and a pair of bicycles. Greasy’s light passed over them and toward a large A-frame ladder hung horizontally on the wall.
“Hey,” said Justin. “Go back. Put the light on the bikes.”
Greasy swept the light back to the bicycles and held the light. “There?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Justin stepped his way across the garage, using the hood of the car for balance as he passed it, and stopped at the bikes. He pointed at them. “These are the bikes.”
“What bikes?” Palero asked.
“The ones from the other day,” said Justin. “The ones with those women. We tried to take them. These are those same bikes.”
“I’m definitely taking one,” said Greasy.
“We’ll take both,” said Justin. “Move your light to the door.”
Greasy aimed the flashlight toward a door that presumably led from the garage into the house. Justin moved to the door and tried the handle. It turned.
“This one’s unlocked too,” he said, and opened it. He led the others into a laundry room and they left the door to the garage open.
One at a time they filed through the laundry room into an open space that separated the front of the house from the back. It was large, much larger than Justin expected it to be. He took the flashlight from Greasy and scanned the first floor. He could see the entryway and an open dining room to the right. Straight ahead was the beginning of a large open living room that backed up to the kitchen, which was to Justin’s right.
“This place is huge,” he whispered as the gang gathered around him. “Let’s hit the kitchen first and see what food we can get.”
The team shuffled left and found the pantry first. It was large, its shelves stocked with canned and dry goods. They stuffed the pillowcases, banging around in the pantry as if they were running out of time. This was every bit the haul Justin had promised them it would be. He stood at the pantry’s entrance and aimed the flashlight at the shelves, highlighting the boxes and containers of food worth taking.
“I told you,” he said to Palero. “This is a good one.”
***
“Did you hear something?” Jackie said to nobody in particular. Her entire houseful of people were packed into the media room. They’d spent their day lazily enough, reading and sleeping. They’d eaten an
early dinner together in the kitchen and then, at Chris’s suggestion, huddled in the media room to play Monopoly. Jackie had agreed because having everyone in one space cut down on candle usage. They could light one room and keep the rest of the house dark.
Betty Brown had insisted on being the banker. Her son, Brian, helped her distribute the properties as each of the eight players landed on one and decided to buy. The Vickers had teamed up, agreeing to give each other free passes on each other’s holdings. Nikki owned Boardwalk and Park Place but didn’t have the money for houses or hotels. Chris had built a small empire with all four railroads and both utilities. Marie was disinterested and was only playing because Jackie demanded it. They’d been lost in the game until Jackie heard a banging noise.
“Hear what?” asked Nikki.
“I think I heard something downstairs,” said Jackie.
The room hushed. Chris held the dice in his hands, awaiting his turn to roll.
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Betty.
“I didn’t either, Mom,” said Marie.
Nancy Vickers slid closer to her husband, her eyes narrowing with concern. “What kind of noise?”
“I don’t know,” said Jackie. “I’m going to check it out.”
Nikki pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll go with you.”
Chris dropped the dice onto the game board. “Me too.”
Jackie shook her head. “No. I’m going to crack open the door and peek. Then I—”
Bang!
Jackie’s heart skipped. “Did anyone hear that?” she whispered.
Everybody nodded, their eyes wide. Chris sat down. Nancy buried her head in her husband’s chest and he wrapped his arms around her. Brian rocked in his seat. He gripped the remaining property cards tightly in his hand, crushing them.
Jackie whispered, “I’ll take a look. Marie, blow out the candles.”
Marie puffed gently on each of the three candles and left the room in darkness. The dark amplified the anxiety, the palpable fear smothering the room.
Betty Brown shook her head. “Don’t open the door,” she whispered. “Keep it shut. We can lock it.”