by Thunboe, Bo
“We’ll be like a co-op, not like communism.” Carson’s face was red. He chewed his lip. His little fiefdom was coming apart. “Working together will improve our overall chances of survival. Bottom line, you must join with us in order to get a distribution from the grocery stores.”
“There it is,” Snick said. “The strong arm of authority strangling our—”
“We’re in,” said Judy Fleck.
Roland Miller raised his hand. “Us too.”
Snick looked around the room. Most likely doing some mental math about what they had in their pantry. “We’re in.”
Carson looked at Mary, eyebrows raised.
He still hadn’t mentioned his authority. If he had been given any, he definitely would have started with that. Which meant he didn’t have it. “Who runs this co-op?”
“We do it together.” Carson looked away. Liar.
“When we can’t agree, who decides?” Mary pressed. These people had to know what they were getting themselves into. “Are you in charge?”
Carson looked around, gaze darting from family to family. “I have been empowered by the mayor to run my—this—CERT group. Our co-op.”
“So, you collect all our food and, what, dole it back out to us?” Roland Miller grabbed his wife’s hand.
Carson sat back down. “We would put it all together and take an inventory and count up the calories and divide them up by the number of people we have and distribute accordingly. With the goal of making it last through the end of March.”
“What happens then?”
“We die,” Snick said. “Even if we find seeds to plant, nothing will be ready in March.”
Carson licked his lips and scratched his jaw. “We expect the government to be running well enough to provide us with some help by then. There are national stockpiles of—”
“Where?” Snick scoffed. “How will these stockpiles get to us? Horse and buggy?”
“There won’t be any horses in March,” Buddy said. “People will have eaten them.”
Carson looked at Mary. “Are the Fallons in or out?”
Mary bit her lip. Dan would want to help the other families if they could. She needed to finish her inventory and calculate their needs and be ready to talk Dan out of joining Carson’s co-op when he got home. Until then, she just needed to buy some time. “I’ll let you know,” she said.
“I need to have my headcount to HQ by noon tomorrow. If I don’t hear from you by the time I leave for that meeting, you’re out.”
She nodded.
36
Dan came to slowly. A rainbow spread above him. He blinked. As his eyes focused, he saw the rainbow was caused by light refracting off cracks in a piece of glass close to his face. He reached up to touch it and discovered the glass was attached to a helmet he was wearing. A motorcycle helmet.
He sat up and his mind fuzzed over. Take it slow, Fallon. He kept still, breathing deeply, then took off the helmet. The cold air caught in his throat, but it refreshed him. He looked around. He was alone, sitting next to the big front tire of an abandoned semi. He stood up, one hand on the tire for support, woozy, but quickly feeling better. He looked around. He was in the middle of a wide road lined with strip malls and fast food restaurants. The road scattered with abandoned vehicles.
He looked at the helmet in his hand and it came back to him. The EMP, crashing the Lincoln, the motorcycle, the ride home, using the gun, and the two-by-four coming for his face. He was lucky the helmet had taken the brunt of the blow.
But the motorcycle was gone.
He felt his pockets. He still had the gun.
He looked up at the sun, squinting, then at his watch. Almost straight noon. He gazed up and down the street. He was on Lake Street, a major north-south road that linked Kirwin to the towns strung north of it along the Wolf River. The river itself, and the Wolf River Trial, were only a short distance to the east. He could take the trail south, then cross the river and link up to the Prairie Path. He could avoid streets—and people—for the vast majority of the ten miles to home. That was only three hours on foot.
He dropped the helmet and pulled on the hat he had stuffed in his pocket. His legs, butt, and back were stiff from the long cold night on the bike so he started slowly. Within a block his muscles loosened and he walked faster. He went east at the first major road. When the land started to drop away as he entered the river valley, a road to his right led to an entry for the trail. He ducked onto the trail. The shrubbery lining both sides of the trail blocked the wind but it whistled through the bare tree tops that arched over the trail, branches clacking together.
He headed south, walking fast, worried about his energy level. He’d only slept for twenty minutes all night and his legs felt heavy and slow. But they would get him home. He just needed to play it smart. Running would save an hour but might leave him with nothing in the tank if something happened. And something would happen if his experience so far was any gauge.
His mind turned to Mary. She would be worried, but sure he was on his way home. Her confidence in him had always been a source of strength for him.
He left the bike trail at Indian Trail Road and headed east for the Prairie Path. As he crossed the bridge over the river the howling wind slapped at him and chilled him to the bone. He ducked his chin deeper into the folds of the T-shirt around his neck.
He crossed the bridge and Aurora Avenue, then walked along the front of the string of strip malls lining the south side of the road. Ahead, the parking lot was crowded with cars clumped around a bar. Glass from the bar’s giant front window lay shattered across the sidewalk. A shopping cart parked among the glittering glass shards was half full of liquor bottles. As Dan went past it, two men came through the gaping window, arms loaded with more bottles. They froze when they saw him, but said nothing and did nothing. When he was a hundred feet past the bar, glass clinked as they loaded their haul into the cart.
He saw no one else moving over the next half mile. He was tiring quickly and slowed down to conserve his energy. When he saw where the Prairie Path crossed the road, the way marked with diagonal white stripes on the pavement, he crossed the road and got on the trail. It started as a wide paved path running parallel to the road, but soon turned northeast, dropped onto crushed stone and down a tunnel of trees. He paused inside the tree cover and looked back the way he’d come. No one. He was in the clear.
He headed off, his legs heavy and his face flushed with the heat of exhaustion. A few hundred yards up the path the tree cover broke and he spotted a bicycle leaning up against the back of a house, weeds growing up through the spokes. This forgotten bike might make the difference in him getting home. He left the path and headed across the yard. Using an abandoned bike was not stealing, he told himself. Or if it was, it was victimless because no one was using the bike. He heard voices in the house and dropped into a crouch, creeping slowly forward. He was ten feet from the bike when a giant black dog lunged up from the back stoop and charged him.
37
Erin and Cammie got back under the covers, both silent as they thought about what they’d seen. The man had been absolutely smashed under that car… that smear across the pavement. His blood running into the gutter. She shuddered thinking about it, and maybe from the cold. She had already put on an extra pair of socks, jeans over leggings, and her thickest hoodie. But it just kept getting colder.
Dan will come! Erin repeated it to herself over and over. He could get there any minute. He would go to her room and see the note and come right down here and knock on the door.
She looked at the door, yearning to hear footsteps and a knock, but heard only silence and soft sobs from the adjoining room.
“We can’t just sit here,” Melinda said. “We’ll freeze.”
“Do you really think your dad will come for us?”
“Yes.” Erin didn’t correct people who called Dan her dad. It was no one else’s business and as far as she was concerned, he was her dad in every way that mattered.
He just didn’t like the label for some reason she had never figured out.
“How long would it take him to ride his bike up here on that trail you were talking about?”
“How far is it?,” Erin asked. “It took my mom over an hour to drive here.”
“My dad used the GPS on the way here and it told him it was a twenty-three-mile trip,” Melinda said.
“How fast does a bike go?” Cammie squeezed Erin’s hand under the cover. “I walk with my mom sometimes and she uses a pacing thing on her watch. When we’re really moving, we’re doing fifteen-minute miles which is four miles an hour. A bike would go at least twice that fast, right? Eight miles per hour. He could get here in three hours.”
“What time is it?”
All three girls looked at each other. Finally, Erin got up and looked into the other room. Coach stood at the window staring down at the parking lot. The Twins lay huddled under the blankets on the bed farthest from the window. Silent, now. Erin walked over and poked Coach’s arm. He didn’t react. “Coach?” She stood on her tiptoes and whispered louder. “Coach!”
He breathed deeply, as if waking from a nap. “What is it?”
“What time is it?”
He lifted his arm like it weighed a ton. “Almost one.” He let his arm drop and turned back to the window. She followed his gaze and saw only the dead body. The blood had stopped just short of the drain and must have cooled because wind-blown snow was starting to accumulate on it.
“It’s almost one,” Erin told the girls when she returned to their room.
Cammie cringed. “Either he left after ten or he isn’t coming.”
But Dan was an early riser. Especially on the weekend. He said he didn’t like to waste time sleeping on days that were all his own. He was probably up before six, so would have been on his way no later than seven. Which meant he was nearly three hours late already. So he must have—“Shit!”
“What?”
“He isn’t home.”
“Who isn’t home?”
“Dan was out of town for work. He isn’t coming home until Christmas Eve.”
“So, he isn’t coming to save us.”
Erin sat on the bed, but didn’t answer. Where had Dan gone? Somewhere out of state. Iowa or Utah or Indiana. A state that started with a vowel. His car had been gone and he always took a limo to the airport when he flew, so he’d driven wherever he went. Not Utah, then. Iowa or Indiana. Was Ohio within driving distance? Not that it mattered. Dan needed to get himself home before he could do come up here. And he would get home. He wouldn’t sit around waiting for someone to rescue him.
“We need to get ourselves home.”
“What?”
“We need—”
“We can’t go.” Coach stood in the open doorway between the connecting rooms. “Lisa and Sara aren’t as tough as you three.”
He went back into the other room.
Melinda and Cammie both looked at Erin. All they had to do was find the bike path and follow it home. Walking twenty-three miles was totally doable. Three or four miles per hour. Six hours. Ten if they went slow. A lot less if they jogged some of it.
“Are you guys up for it?”
Cammie hesitated, then said: “We should all go together.” Carrie squeezed Erin’s hands. Erin squeezed back, pulsing electricity passing between them.
Melinda glanced at the connecting door, then leaned forward. “Coach always says we should stick together.”
Coach drilled that into them at every practice and before every tournament, going on and on about how the team is your family. Erin had always bought it, but the team wasn’t her family. Her family was her family. She needed to get home to them. “What if Coach won’t go?” Erin asked.
“Maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s just a power outage and it will go back on any minute and everything will be all right,” Melinda said.
“It wasn’t just a power outage. Cars don’t work. Our phones don’t work. My iPad won’t even turn on. Whatever happened is not going to be fixed in an instant.”
Cammie’s eyes got wet and a tear spilled from one eye and ran down her cheek. Erin wiped the tear away with her thumb.
Melinda’s eyebrows rose, then she went back to the window.
Cammie smiled and blinked her tears away. “Safety in numbers, right?”
“Right,” Erin said. If Coach and the Twins didn’t want to go, the three of them—she and Cammie and Melinda—could go. Erin went to the window and stood next to Melinda and looked down at the body. But all of them together would be best. Coach was old and slow, but he knew enough moves to take out anyone who wasn’t trained in a martial art. They needed to talk him and the Twins into going with them.
She crossed her arms and stood at the window as the sun traveled across the southern sky, its light angling across her room. Shadows lengthened and darkness slowly edged into the day.
38
Sean awoke still sore from working on the firewood. He felt a bit groggy from his sleep deficit, but knew from finals week experience that the short nap would get him through the rest of the day. He rose from his nest of blankets on the floor, letting out a small yip! when the abrasion on his hip flared. His encounter with the three men on his way back from the gas station seemed so long ago, that he’d forgotten about the injury. He tossed a log on the fire and closed the screen in front of it. The fire bit into the rough bark surface of the split log, and raced along it, flames rising and crackling. He loved that smell.
He warmed his hands, then turned his back to the fire. His mom was stretched out on the couch, eyes open and watching him.
“How do you feel, Sean?”
“Sore, but a good sore. From doing good work.”
She smiled at his use of one of Dan’s sayings. “He will get home. I’m sure of it.”
“I know.” He sat on the hearth, arching his back and working his shoulders to loosen them up. The heat felt good. “I was thinking about what Carson told you guys at that meeting.”
“Which part?”
“About being in this together and—”
“We are not giving that man our food to distribute.”
“I know, Mom. But the rest of it—working together—I think we should do that.”
She sat up, pulled her knees to her chest, and wrapped the quilt tight around her shoulders. “You have something specific in mind.”
She’d always been good at reading him. He liked that less and less as he got older. “There are deer in Radar Grove. We should get as many of them as we can before other people get them all.” There were plenty of hunters in Weston.
“How?”
“Ed used to go hunting a lot with his dad back before Mr. Fleck got sick.” Sean didn’t remember what he had, but knew it was serious enough that he only left his house to go to the doctor.
“I don’t like the idea of you using a gun. You’ve never—”
“Ed can do the shooting.”
A long silence. “Okay,” she said. “It’s a good idea, but what do we do with the deer if—when you get it?”
“I have a survival book that covers that.”
“Bring me the book and I’ll study up on that while you’re hunting.”
That’s what he’d hoped for. He’d read the chapter on butchering the deer but it wasn’t very detailed. His mom at least knew the meat lingo: loin and roast and all that. He got her the book, then suited up for the weather and went to talk to Ed.
He walked along the back of the houses. There was little snow but the ground was frozen, the grass crunching under his feet. The Flecks lived just the other side of the Bradys. As Sean approached the sliding patio door, Ed appeared. He’d grown so much over the last few years that Sean sometimes had to look twice to be sure it was him. Now nearly six feet tall and slimmed down from his chubby middle-school years, he looked a lot like his dad had, before the illness wore him down. Ed pulled the door open and waved for Sean to come inside. He found Ed’s parents sitting on the couch
in front of the fireplace, blankets over their laps. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Fleck.”
“Hi, Sean. How is your family doing so—”
“I haven’t seen Erin,” Ed said. “Is she okay?”
“She’s not home. She was up in Elgin for a tournament—”
“We need to go get her,” Ed said. His mom reached up and grabbed his arm.
“Dan’s going.”
“I thought he wasn’t home,” Mrs. Fleck said.
“He will be.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Ed looked back and forth from his mom to Sean. “So… what did you want?”
“We’re going to run out of food,” Sean said. “Everyone will. There’re deer in Radar Grove and we should get one before everyone with a gun figures it out.”
“That’s good thinking, Sean.” Mr. Fleck’s voice sounded hollow and phlegmy. He had a clear hose under his nose and breathed deeply through it after he spoke. The hose ran down to the floor and across it to a tall green tank against the wall. “But Mrs. Fleck sold my guns when it became clear I wouldn’t use them again.”
“Well, it was worth a shot.”
Ed looked at his mom, then at his dad. “I kept dad’s bowhunting stuff.”
“I thought I told you—”
“It’s good that you did, son.”
“But I could never hit anything with a bow.”
“I can,” Sean said. Erin had gone through a Hunger Games phase and bought a bow and a bunch of target arrows. Dan set up a stack of hay bales down at the end of their backyard and they’d both become good shots.
“Dad has a compound bow so it’s easier to hold on target than Erin’s long bow.”
“It’s only a sixty pounder so you’ll need to be close.” Mr. Fleck took a couple long breaths. “Ed will talk you through what you need to know and he’s great at field dressing the kill.”