She stared at me for a moment, “What should I say?”
“Tell her we had to switch batteries on the radio and change the subject somehow. Just reassure her.”
Mia took a deep breath, “Sorry mom, they had to switch batteries on the radio. We’re all fine. I think Brandy has a crush on Vince’s son Mike and I’ve learned to shoot really well, can vegetables and do garden work. We even have horses we get to ride all of the time.”
“Oh, that’s so wonderful baby. We’re so proud of you.”
“Are you guys safe up there? Are there many people around?”
“Our closest neighbor, Jim, who owns this radio is about a mile from us. We’ve had a few people come through and once in a while we’ll see people on small boats fishing on the lake, but besides that, we’re pretty alone. We don’t go out at night, just in case. That’s why Jim and your friend set the call up for today, rather than night, even though they said the reception would be better at night. Have you guys had any problems?”
“We had some problems at the beginning, but they’ve organized the entire road the house is on, and both ends of the road have roadblocks that are manned on a regular basis. The problem we had has been taken care of. A bunch of the guys here served with Vince in the Army and his son is a police officer.”
Just about that time, the radio started cutting out with static.
“Mom, we’re starting to lose you. We’re getting a bunch of static.”
“We are too baby. I guess it’s time to get off before we lose you. I hope we can talk at least once a week. We love you,” her mom said and then her dad’s voice came over the radio, “We love you, Munchkin. Stay safe and remember what I said, you stay there where it’s safe. It’s a good thing we got out of Detroit because by what we heard on the ham radio, it’s turned into a hell hole. Ungodly things are going on up there. You just stay there with your friends and be safe. Promise us.”
“I will Daddy, and I love you guys too. Please be careful up there also…..” and then suddenly we lost the signal. Mia tried calling a couple of times but with no success.
Red immediately said, “Yeah, it would’ve been better to do this at night, but their friend Jim said none of them like traveling the woods after dark.”
Mia acted a bit sad at first but looked at me, “Thank you. It was best that I didn’t tell them about Carmen.” I just nodded my head and smiled.
Mia then looked at Red, “Thank you for setting this up.” then she reached over and gave him a kiss on the cheek and a big hug. Once again, Red turned redder than his hair color.
From that point on, Mia was her old self and was as happy as anyone could be under the current circumstances. It was like she had a new lease on life.
Chapter Nine
When we got back home, Red immediately went in and got some sleep. Everyone was doing their work, and I guess it was hearing Mia talking about her landing, but I decided it was time to think about taking the plane up for a flight. I wanted to see what Harrisonville, Garden City and the other towns in the area were like. Even though Red and Wit had patrolled much of the area, I gave them specific orders to avoid all towns, knowing we’d check them out by air soon.
Santiago and Tag continued with the conversion of the carport. Paul had been fishing and caught a ton of Bluegill, a couple of nice catfish and three Largemouth Bass, one that weighed about four pounds. Mike took the hassle out of deer hunting. Lately, the deer had been coming out into the back field at about 4:30 every day. They stayed between 250-300 yards away from the house, but for Mike, that wasn’t a problem. Each shot he had made was a kill shot, and the deer didn’t suffer. It took away the art of hunting, but nobody minded. It’s one thing to deer hunt during deer season but a completely different thing when you’re doing it for survival. The easier, the better.
I was starting to get a bit concerned about the deer herd because we had taken a lot of deer. Between what we needed, supplying some for the Pine City bunch and no telling how many the neighbors outside of our group had shot. We had to come up with a solution. We had plenty of deer meat canned and in the freezer but feeding as many people as we did, we’d go through it fast.
Mo and Angela took Lulu, Sofia, and Isabella down to Jake’s as they had scheduled a kid’s party where all the girls could get together. Slowly, Cadence and Beverly were coming around and acting like normal girls again, as Jake and Amy had been working with them. They said the girls have had several nightmares, and have even woke up in the middle of the night screaming. But being in a safe place and living with Jake’s girls, they seemed to be making real progress. Their innocence will always be lost now, but through patience, they would learn to live with it.
Even though Lulu, Sofia, and Isabella were younger than them, Jake and Amy felt the interaction would be good for them.
When Red woke up, we got together while he was eating and I asked him to give me the news he had heard from his contacts over the ham radio.
“Well first, everyone has been hearing those ATVs or motorcycles driving around on the east side again, but this time they sounded a little closer.”
“Hmm. Well, we’ve heard more and more vehicles lately. As long as they’re not creating any problems, I guess we don’t need to worry about it. Just make sure you and Wit keep an eye out when you're on patrol. What about the news from the ham?”
“Well, the southern half of California is basically a wasteland. After the big one hit, most of the major cities were destroyed. Then when you add the fires that were caused by the earthquakes along with the wildfires that were already burning, it spread into many of the towns and cities, not a whole lot is left.
They say the death toll in California is in the multi-millions. Rumors have it that bodies are just rotting out in the streets. In the areas that they’re trying to do something about it, they don’t have any choice but to burn the bodies and they say the fires from burn sites are all over what’s left of the cities.
One of the biggest worries is that it’s suspected that a nuclear power plant is leaking radiation probably caused by the earthquake. One operator said that it was a meltdown, and radiation was killing everyone that was close to the plant. I wrote down the name of the place, and where it was, but I left my notes at Jake’s, I’ll go get it later.”
“Great. Radiation? I hope that’s a false rumor.”
“Also, disease is widespread, and I’m talking about the worst third world diseases you can think of. They say there are even rumors of the plague.”
“My God! You know if that’s true, it’s going to spread. As the remaining people leave the area, they’re going to be carrying those diseases to different states. Someone like that could cause a nationwide epidemic.”
“It’s already started. Typhoid was carried into Nevada and Utah, and now it’s to the point that people are armed and preventing people from entering their state. Some are just being shot down on sight…… Think about it for a minute. The people in those areas are already low on food or starving. Then you have thousands of people migrating in from other areas taking what little food you have left. What are you going to do? That wouldn't be any different than if all of a sudden everyone from Kansas City came through here and started killing all the game, the cattle, and taking what food we have. What would we do?
Also, the ones that are leaving the California cities by foot are having to cross the desert or the mountains and many aren’t surviving, the ones that do are having to travel an extra long distance to find someplace suitable because the earthquake or quakes were so powerful, there was severe damage as far away as Las Vegas. We’re not talking about some buildings being shaken in the bordering areas and states, but severe damage.
In Southern California itself, home after home were totally destroyed and skyscrapers collapsed. That’s one of the reasons the death toll was so high. People’s homes were collapsing on top of them, and it’s not like teams are being driven or flown in to help with the recovery effort. For the most part
, everyone is on their own.
This doesn't count the damage the tsunami caused to the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska, and parts of Canada. Rumor has it the tsunami that hit Hawaii was the tallest in modern history. Apparently, it made the Japan tsunami look like a ripple in a swimming pool.
On top of all that, they say the volcano on the main island of Hawaii is erupting, and they expect it to explode. Because of the evacuation effort going on, very little information is coming out of Hawaii.
On the other side of the country, a massive Hurricane hit Miami, Florida dead on. Reports from overseas say it was definitely a Category 5 and they reported the surge was 35 feet and wiped out major hotels, businesses, and homes along the beach. The storm crossed the peninsula of Florida, and when it entered the Gulf, it was still a category one. As soon as it got over the warm water of the Gulf, the strength intensified and is heading to possibly New Orleans again or farther west. We could have another Katrina or worse.”
“Wow! All hell’s breaking loose across the country. Earthquakes on the west coast, hurricanes in the southeast and the gulf, and disease spreading from probably all directions.”
“That’s not even the worse news. Now, remember, these are all rumors. There are reports that in cities like San Francisco and some of the northeastern cities, there have been widespread rumors of cannibalism. Whether that’s true or not…… But again this could be all bullshit.”
“Red, it’s probably worse than what you're hearing. Think about it. Just speaking of the hurricane, they had no warning that it was coming. Plus, in the past, when an area has severe weather that wipes out a town or neighborhood, you would have the power companies, rescue squads, fireman and the National Guard going into those areas in recovery efforts. It’s not that way anymore. Whatever happens, that’s the way it stays. Bodies aren’t being recovered, they aren’t able to put out fires, and most of all, no medical treatment. Besides those being killed or injured in the storms, some people are dying of even minor injuries as their wounds are becoming infected or they bleed to death.
Think of all the diseases developing and being spread. Look how we found the woman that probably died from not having any insulin. Do you realize how many people have diabetes? Hell, they don’t even have a candy bar to eat or juice to drink, and that’s only one type of diabetes. I mean, you can go insane just thinking about what’s going on across the country.”
“But cannibalism? That’s hard to believe here in America.”
I stood and with real anger, and on the edge of yelling, “Really Red? Is it really that hard to believe? We’ve seen the so-called goodness of humanity ourselves when we were in the Army. Look at the ethnic cleansing we’ve seen in some of the African nations. Terrorists that blow up innocent children on school buses. Hell, it’s an everyday occurrence in the Middle East. Lately, it’s spread to Europe and even here.
Hell, mankind has always been this way. Go all the way back to the Romans with the games, watching people chop one another up in the arenas for entertainment, and we’re talking about the spectators being the citizens of Rome. They went to the arenas like we went to a baseball or football game.
The Christian Crusades across Europe. The witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts, slavery and even modern day drive-by shootings where kids and innocent people are mowed down, and it may be just some punk proving himself; His or her initiation into a gang.
Hell, think about all the serial killers there have been, the school shootings, people rioting and tearing up their own neighborhoods because one of their own kind was shot by the police when that person pulled out a gun or whatever. Even during unjust shootings by the police, does tearing up a city help your cause at all? No. It only hurts your neighbors and families.
Most recently people like Jerome Jackson and Orville Lebowski and his sons. Now that things are really going to hell and people are starving to death, and they know there is no help coming, you can’t believe that people could turn into cannibals?
Look at some of the stuff we’ve had to do. What, we had to kill 38-40 people that thought we should give them what we had. That it was owed to them. I basically cooked two men. I could’ve just shot them, but I wanted them to suffer for what they did.
No Red, we’re just seeing the continuation of what kind of evil can come out of humanity, and you know what? We have all brought it upon ourselves. Humanity deserves exactly what it is getting!
You know God says throughout the Bible that all of this was going to happen because of man’s rebellion. But people don’t want to hear about that. Oh no! You bring this up, and people say “Oh, I don’t want to hear that! Oh no no no! I don’t believe all that stuff!”
Oh, some will believe that some ancient alien civilization flew here on their spaceships and left their seed and that’s where we came from. Or, and by the way, they taught this in schools, that billions of years ago there was a micro speck that blew up and it created the entire universe, and eventually that’s where man came from; and let's not forget that our great, great, great, great ancestors were monkeys.
Oh, they’ll believe in a zombie take over but to believe in God? Oh, they think how stupid that is. And why? Because if God exists then they have to answer to God and people don’t want that. They want what they want when they want it. If God exists, that means they’d have to follow his rules, and they don’t want that. They want to make up all the rules for everyone else, but they’re not going to follow any rules made by God because then they couldn’t have their way.
A lot of the problem is caused by so-called Christians themselves. I remember the last time I was on Facebook. Post after post was people saying stuff like, “If you say three Amens, four Hail Mary’s, and six hallelujahs, you’ll wake up in the morning and have more money than you need.” They’d make Christians look like a bunch of nutjobs, and of course Hollywood always did that on television. Think about all the comedy series that, of course, made Christians look like a bunch of nuts.
Plus, let's not forget some of those television ministers with their big phony smiles, preaching all is well. They teach very little from the Bible, absolutely nothing about prophecy, they use the same few scriptures over and over again, and then they have the audacity to say, “Do you want to prove your love for the lord? Then help us hit our financial goals. Give! Give! Give!”
It always comes down to money. Then, after the service, the minister climbs into his limo and gets driven to his private jet, which flies him home to his multi-million dollar estate.
The biggest turn off for people that were just trying to learn about God was the self-righteousness of several that claimed to be converted Christians. Instead of these people worrying about how to improve their own bad behavior, they were always pointing their finger at someone else. Christ condemned that behavior over and over but obviously these people thought that applied to everyone else but not them.
The bottom line is, humanity, mankind, people, most of us have brought all of this on ourselves! We deserve it!”
Suddenly, I realized that I was ranting. Red was looking at me as though I had lost it and he was right.
“Sorry, Red. I just had to vent.”
“Do you feel better now?”
I laughed, “Maybe a little bit. I just needed to explode. Sorry, you were the recipient.”
“Hey, I understand,” then he got a serious tone and said, “and I agree with you. All people think about anymore is what they get. Not what they can do to make things better. Everyone wants everything given to them, and it’s not just that, they want to control everyone else. They want to dictate what other people think, do and say, in other words, they want to dictate policy, but they don’t want to have to follow any rules themselves especially rules given by God.” Then with a smile and a bit of sarcasm, he said, “You know the rules like love one another, serve one another, be there for one another and most of all, that you’re responsible for your decisions and actions. How dare God say that.”
I looked at
him and laughed, “Yeah, what a terrible supreme being making rules like that.”
“Are you going to fill everyone in on the news?”
I paused for a moment, “Yeah, eventually we need to but not tonight. Things have been going well. Let’s let everyone enjoy it for a while. Plus, I have a surprise for everyone tonight.”
“What?”
“You’ll just have to wait.”
He gave a disgusted look, then with a laugh said, “You’re a bastard.”
****
I was pleased that none of us had duty tonight as the schedule just worked out that way. I went into the kitchen and looked in the back of the cupboard to verify that we still have a big box of microwave popcorn that I had stuck away. Of course, we didn’t have any type of soft drinks, but I did pull out the Gatorade. Not the same as pop but it would have to do.
Kim and the ladies made tacos for dinner. They made corn tortillas and shaped and fried them just like I remember my mom doing while I was growing up. Back then I don’t even know if there were pre-made taco shells.
The girls had a blast during the kid’s party and had pretty well worn themselves out. Tonight, hopefully, I could get everyone to put them to bed early so that we could keep the surprise for the adults tonight.
After dinner, we spent some time with all the kids and then I talked to Mo, Angela, and Santiago about finding a reason to put them back in our bedroom to go to sleep. All three looked at me funny but agreed. The girls put up a bit of a fuss but soon they had crashed and were fast asleep. I knew the next day, they’d get the benefit of the surprise, probably watching some of the Disney cartoons that we had, so it wasn’t as though they were missing out.
Everyone was sitting in the living room talking, and Mike had turned on the radio to try to find some music. I grabbed Kim, and we went in and made up some Gatorade and even broke out a bottle of Vodka for those that wanted to mix it a bit. When we started making the popcorn, besides everyone hearing it, they could also smell it. A couple of them came into the kitchen, and I told them to get out, that we had a surprise for everyone.
Into the Apocalypse Page 13