by C. A. Henry
All of Helen’s friends except Jeff stayed at the lodge for a while after their arrival. They were amazed at the cave system and could often be found in the warm, spring-fed pool in the cabana cavern. Stevie, in particular, enjoyed being clean and having clean clothing.
Jeff rested for a couple of days, then Tanner, Vince, and Shane took him to McCurtain in Erin’s Expedition. His family was found safe at their cabin. They had convinced themselves that he must have died, and his mother fainted when she saw him.
Massey and Ross discovered that there was a need for their woodworking skills. They were usually paid in produce or meat for creating furniture, doing repairs, and general carpentry. They eventually moved into the upstairs rooms of a building in town that had survived the tornado, with the lower floor as their workshop.
Using hand tools for the first few years, but thinking ahead, they scavenged power tools around the town, and were ready when the electricity was restored. From that point on, they had more business than they could handle, so they hired three men from the town to assist them. Most of the materials they used were salvaged from abandoned homes and businesses damaged in the storm. For other projects, they debarked cedar trees and created rustic furniture.
Stevie stayed at the lodge with Helen for almost a year. She and Erin became as close as sisters, and soon Stevie decided what she wanted to do with her life: police work. Vince accepted her as a sort of “junior deputy.” She was exceptional as a lookout in the guard tower on the roof of the building, and eagerly started the rigorous training course, which included Kenpo classes with Shane. Within six months, she began accompanying the other deputies as they kept order in the area. She gained a reputation as an officer who was tough, but fair, and earned the respect of area residents.
About eighteen months after they arrived, Massey married Stevie and Ross married Zoe in a double wedding, held in the field near the school, which the men of the town had mowed with scythes and an old push reel mower they found in a garden shed. Stevie wore Erin’s wedding dress, and Frances remade one of Lydia’s dresses for Zoe. Ken Abbott performed the ceremony, with most of the town in attendance.
Both couples stayed married for life. Stevie gave birth to four children, including a set of twins. Ross and Zoe used birth control from Richie’s stash to wait until they were a bit older, but when they began their family, they did it with gusto: seven children total.
One day several years after Stevie arrived in Kanichi Springs, Mac was able to speak on the radio with a neighbor she’d known in Mississippi. Stevie’s mother had, indeed, been killed by the gang on the same day that Stevie disappeared. It saddened Stevie, but she also felt relieved to know that her mother hadn’t had to live a long time, being tortured and raped by the gang. The neighbor also told her that her dad had returned home from the oil rig just a few weeks later, and when he learned of the death of his wife and son, and that Stevie was missing, he secretly organized a group of men to wipe the gang out. The attack was successful, but her dad didn’t survive the fight.
In spite of efforts by the radio crew, Stevie never learned the fate of her uncle. She mourned the loss of her family, but thanked God every day for the new family He had sent her.
Mac’s crew did, however, find a little information about Ethan and Zoe’s parents. They had been picked up by a NERC truck and sent to the camp near Stigler. When the camp closed, guards wrote down where each person was going. Those records were stored in the Stigler City Hall, where one of Mac’s friends worked.
The kids’ folks had informed the guards that they were going back to the cabin where they’d left their children, then to family in McAlester. They should have arrived back at the cabin several weeks before Zoe and Ethan left for Kanichi Springs, but they were never heard from again.
Only a few of those residents of Kanichi Springs who had left at the beginning of the Collapse ever returned. One couple came back to discover that their home had been destroyed by the tornado, so they went on to McAlester, to his parents’ home. A family of four returned, and after doing some repairs to their house, stayed to open a café in the old diner building. They hired Noah as a cook and allowed him to live in the tiny apartment above the café. Four years later, he married their daughter.
Brian used his earth-moving equipment to finish leveling the property where the old church had been. Residents of the town volunteered to convert the old grocery store building into a new place of worship. Massey and Ross were a great help in this project, and in the process, got better acquainted with the townspeople.
Ken and Terri were quite pleased with their work and held a special service and a luncheon to celebrate that the entire congregation could finally be together again. Church attendance grew to a level not seen even before the Collapse, and the members became a charitable force in the area, helping those in need with generosity and Christian love.
A month after Helen returned, Vince finally got up the nerve to ask Lydia to marry him, and they had a quiet wedding at the lodge, then moved into Lydia’s house in town, which had survived the tornado. She’d thought it would be hard to live so close to the storage shed where Richie had been attacked, but Vince and his deputies had torn it down and plowed up the back yard for a garden.
Lydia decided to reopen her shop as an outlet for the handcrafts, jellies, produce, and used items that people wanted to sell. She traded items she already had for other items, and basically, ran a bartering shop where people could swap anything useful. This idea worked well, even though the shop was only open three days per week. After a year of success, she decided that four days a week would be justified. Vince supported her in her endeavors. They were happy together for many years.
Vince was reelected sheriff over and over, and in his second term, the town council began paying him in produce from the community garden. Cash gradually returned as a medium of exchange, and the council decided to propose a small tax each year to pay the district’s law enforcement officers. The citizens were grateful for the protection the sheriff and his deputies provided and voted to pass the measure; nobody complained about being taxed since they’d had a voice in the decision.
Zoe started a daycare in an unused room of the school, with the help of some of the townswomen. This enabled other mothers to work in the huge community garden, sew, or teach at the school. Ross and Massey built a swing set and an old-fashioned jungle gym from scrap materials and created a playground for the kids.
The school officially reopened soon after Helen’s group showed up. At first, it was limited to the younger children; the older kids were needed to work, but as the town progressed, more grades were added. At the next election, voters unanimously chose to rename the schools, separating them into lower and upper grades. Massey and Ross made beautiful new signs for the front of the schools, one of which said, “Ernest Ray Miller Junior/Senior High School.” The other sign proudly read, “Richie D. Baxter Elementary School.”
Erin and Tanner had five children, two girls and three boys. Erin’s knowledge of grammar and literature made her the obvious choice for high school English teacher. Her brother-in-law, John, taught all the social studies courses, leaving behind his career as a college professor.
Gus and Micah moved back to town and began doing minor mechanical work for people. In their new shop across the street from the one damaged by the storm, Gus taught Micah everything he could about cars and machinery. Then one day, about five years after the Collapse, word came that gasoline would soon be available in some areas, including Oklahoma, where one of the Tulsa refineries was back online. Gus and Micah were inundated with requests to work on cars that had been left sitting for years. Gus had to explain to the owners that without a battery that would hold a charge, their cars wouldn’t start. Since most batteries permanently fail after a couple of years of not being recharged, there were many disappointed people in the town.
The batteries from vehicles belonging to people at the lodge had been removed from the cars and stored in th
e coolness of the caves. They only put a battery in a vehicle they needed to use and removed it when they weren’t going to be driving. Gus and Charlie had been diligent about rotating them on trickle chargers they’d scrounged from deserted homes in the area. Folks who had known all along that Erin’s group had running vehicles weren’t upset about seeing them driving in town, but those who returned after leaving resented it.
Gus thought this was ridiculous, and refused to discuss the situation with them, so Tanner diplomatically told them that while he and his friends had taken care of their trucks and SUVs, and had prepared for disaster in every possible way, and that Erin’s uncle had installed solar power, it wasn’t Gus’s fault that others had chosen not to be prepared and had left their vehicles sitting wherever they ran out of gas.
Micah grew into a tall, broad-shouldered man. During Gus’s final illness, Micah and Dr. Bree cared for him with love and gratitude in their hearts. Gus had a handwritten will he’d entrusted to Tanner for safekeeping. He left Micah his tools and business, as well as a substantial stash of silver he’d never mentioned before. Micah instantly became the wealthiest man in town.
Twelve years after the Collapse, when Micah was twenty-five and Kyra had just turned eighteen, they were married in the new church by a gray-haired Ken Abbott. Kyra became a talented seamstress and they raised six beautiful red-haired children.
Jen and Shane had two children, both boys. Shane continued working as a deputy until Junior Deputy Stevie was ready to become a full-fledged officer, then Shane was granted permission to become a reserve officer, only called in for serious emergencies. He and Jen opened the Kiamichi School of Kenpo in the old feed store, but continued to live at the lodge.
Sarah joined the faculty at the school, teaching science, and Ian decided to remain with the sheriff’s department. Unable to conceive, they adopted a baby girl whose mother had wandered through town and left the child on the porch of Lydia’s house. They named the little girl Lena, and she grew into a beautiful, sweet young woman. Nineteen years later, she married Davey, who had been the little boy who helped Kyra escape from captivity. Davey became a deputy, and was elected sheriff when Vince retired, many years later.
Charlie lived long enough to see the electricity come on, and that night, passed in his sleep. He was mourned by the entire town and they voted to change the name of City Park to Charles Farley Memorial Park.
Talako remained strong and healthy until shortly after his one-hundred-and-fourth birthday. He shared his wisdom and skills with all who wanted to learn and was frequently heard to say that having his family around gave him a reason to live and made him feel useful. After his passing, the council voted unanimously to change the name of Main Street to Talako MacNiel Avenue.
Opening a small clinic in town, Bree hung up a sign that said “Bree Nichols, M.D.” in metal letters she found among the items Gus had deemed useful from the hardware store. She continued to provide medical care for the community for almost fifty years. Angie stayed on as her nurse for twenty of those. Angie’s son, Paul, who studied, trained, and worked with them, took his mother’s place. Bree never married, citing her career and the lack of available men as her reasons.
Sergeant Rian Lopez knew how to use the radio, so Mac assigned him to take a shift, listening for any news. Late one night, when atmospherics were exactly right to hear radios across long distances, Rian heard a familiar voice speaking in Spanish. He interrupted and discovered that his parents and siblings had made it safely to the family’s home in the mountains of Mexico. All were safe and healthy, and very relieved to hear that he was alive. Two weeks later, he set out, alone, to rejoin his loved ones, promising to let the folks at the lodge know when he made it.
Six months later, Mac heard “Hey, Mac at the lodge! You there?” and got the news that Rian had arrived in one piece. For the next forty-seven years, Rian spoke with his friends in Kanichi Springs at least once a month.
Ethan, Zoe’s brother, and Nolan, Angie’s husband, became full-time hunters, bringing in meat for the lodge and the town. Ethan lived at the lodge, and loved Amaya in secret, his crush on her from survival camp growing daily.
Toby Buxton, the young man from Paris, Texas who had lived with the Fosters, had gotten over his youthful infatuation with Amaya. He trained with Angie and Dr. Bree, and eventually married a young woman who had grown up in a cabin outside of town and had come into the clinic to have a cut stitched up. With a recommendation from Dr. Bree and Angie, the council hired him to handle medical emergencies that required transport. One of the men in town drove an SUV that Micah converted into a makeshift ambulance, and Toby became the district’s first EMT.
With Angie and Paul busy at the clinic, the younger Foster siblings helped wherever they were needed around town and at the lodge, until Tanner discovered that Quinn had a talent for working with dogs and took him on as an apprentice. Amaya was a whiz with numbers and volunteered to teach math at the high school. Her skills as a teacher earned her the admiration of her students and their parents. After wishing for a few years that Ethan would speak up, she got tired of waiting and proposed to him. She and Ethan had three children, all of whom grew up to be skilled mathematicians and excellent shots.
Yvonne Johnson, the police chief’s widow, continued to live with the Abbotts in Ernie’s house, and became a favorite of all the children in the community. She remained in good health until twenty years after the Collapse, then died quietly, sitting in a rocking chair, knitting a cap for Erin and Tanner’s youngest, Helen Yvonne MacNeil.
Tanner’s sister, Rose LaPointe, raised her children to be fine young adults. Gina continued to be adventurous and athletic, and Isabelle never lost her love of girly clothes and hair bows. By the time they were old enough to think about marriage, several new families had moved into Kanichi Springs. Gina met her future husband at Kenpo class, and Isabelle met hers at church. Wyatt grew as tall and handsome as his father, Will.
When manufacturing started up again, auto parts and tools were among the first things available, so Will opened a store where he sold hardware, and to the delight of many people in the town, car batteries.
Wyatt went into business with his dad, and when he was twenty-three, married the beautiful girl, Lena, whom Sarah and Ian had adopted so many years before. Lena worked in Lydia’s shop for a couple of years, then became a full-time mother; the couple raised two boys and two girls.
Micah became Will and Wyatt’s best customer, ordering auto parts through their store. He was finally able to spend his time working on cars, as Gus had taught him.
Dana and John had another baby girl eighteen months after Helen’s return. They moved into the old MacNeil home and Dana went to the lodge almost every day to help with cooking and sewing. John escorted their sons, Zeke and Tucker, to school and back, and Dana carried the little girls to the lodge to be spoiled by Helen and Frances.
Mac McCoy was contacted by his old boss via radio, and was offered his old job back, driving a truck to deliver gasoline to the point of sale. Not one word was ever mentioned about the truck he had been driving the day he’d heard about refineries blowing up in Tulsa and had realized that the Collapse was going to be lengthy. He took the job, grateful to have an income, because Claire had just told him that their family would increase in size in the spring.
Their family stayed on at the lodge, since their home had burned. Mac and Claire had four more children: sons named for their friends Ernie and Charlie, and daughters named for Erin and Frances.
When all the gasoline in the tanker had been used by his friends at the lodge, Mac returned the big truck. The boss stood in the office doorway and watched him pull in and park, but just grinned, shook his head, and walked away.
Jeff and his family also benefited from the renewed availability of gasoline and batteries. They came to Kanichi Springs to visit several times, and eventually moved into Tanner’s old kennel building; Brian and Jimmy remodeled the kennel part of the facility into a multi-fam
ily dwelling, with room for all of Jeff’s surviving relatives.
Jeff went to work as manager of the town’s water department and got the water treatment plant running again. He continued to have contests with Helen to prove who could come up with the most ways to say someone is dumb. There was never a clear-cut winner.
Lee Gibbs passed away five years after the Collapse, surrounded by his son and grandchildren. They said that he smiled and whispered, “Naomi,” then closed his eyes for the last time. Jimmy went to work for Brian, who was able to resume building houses once lumber became available. Jimmy never remarried, and Brian mourned Valerie for the rest of his life.
The homes that they built were rustic, without the amenities that were commonplace in homes before the Collapse. The new houses lacked dishwashers, central heat and air, whirlpool tubs, and carpeting, but they were well built and cozy.
Jimmy’s twin children, Heather and Hunter, were with David and Price, the “Martin Menaces,” hanging out in town one afternoon, trying to decide what to do with their lives. Hunter had just informed the others that he had decided to ask Micah if he could go to work in the shop, and specialize in motorcycle repair, when they heard the rumble of a large truck approaching from the west.
David and Price stiffened when they saw the lettering on the side of the truck, but it was too late to run.
The truck pulled over and the driver and passenger jumped out, grinning.
“Hello, there. We’re from NERC, and we’re looking for David and Price Martin. Do you know where we might find them?” the passenger, wearing a new style of NERC uniform, said in a cheerful voice.
David looked at Price, and as they often did, thoughts passed without any words being spoken. David turned to stare at the man.
“Why do you want them?” he asked, his expression bland.