Oil Apocalypse Collection

by Lou Cadle

  Sierra had killed a clerk from the hardware store. Dev might have even known the guy himself, but with the damage her shotgun blast had done to his face, his own mother wouldn’t have been able to pick him out looking like that.

  They all attended a brief ceremony for the dog at the grave Mr. Morrow had dug among the wind turbines. He’d collected field stone too, and after the funeral they left a white-faced Sierra and her dad alone, building a cairn on top of the grave.

  Dev could have fallen down and slept on the porch, he was so tired, but there were still chores to do, though his mother had done the crucial ones involving the animals. The lock on the smokehouse had been busted, and his father insisted on fixing it before night fell.

  As they worked, he kept expecting his father to tear into him for missing his man, but he seemed preoccupied.

  When they were done, Dev wanted to go straight to bed, but his mother insisted he shower and then eat first. While they ate, his mother did laundry.

  It wasn’t until he woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare about being buried in the bed of the pickup truck under dozens of smelly dead bodies that he thought of his mother washing their clothes like that, in the evening, when she hardly ever did laundry that late. He understood that it had been her attempt to get rid of evidence.

  Chapter 19

  Not a day dawned for the next week that Sierra didn’t start the day remembering that Bodhi was gone. She inevitably cried, but she always did it into the pillow so she didn’t upset Pilar any more than he already was.

  She’d fallen into a habit. Before she went to sleep, she thought about the gold-toothed man, and his hand between her legs, and his disgusting cigarette breath, and the sound of the boot tip landing on Bodhi that had killed him. It kept her awake until long past midnight. Nights were reserved for that memory and the fear she still felt.

  In the morning, in the light of day, it didn’t haunt her so. But Bodhi did. She’d failed him. He’d never been anything but loyal and loving and good to her, and she’d let him die. If she’d have given in to the man, disgusting as the thought was, maybe Bodhi would still be alive. She shouldn’t have fought. Or she should have fought harder. There were probably a dozen things she could have done differently that meant that at the end, Bodhi would still be alive, and here, and wanting his morning head-scratching. She felt sick about it. Disgusted with herself, and angry. And so very, very sorry.

  Kelly had said at the grave the dog was in a better place now. Sierra believed that anywhere away from Sierra herself had to be a better place. What dog would want a useless person like Sierra in its life?

  She dragged herself from bed, still tired, aching from all the work they’d been doing. Not sleeping right wasn’t helping. She moved around the place like a robot, doing whatever her father told her, not really caring one way or the other.

  And Arch had them all training harder as a group. He had them play-acting as if someone was attacking, using the whistles and click signals he’d devised. He made Sierra sit in a closet and load and unload every firearm she and her father owned, over and over again until she could probably do it not only in the dark but in her sleep as well. And he had them shooting more at night. Dev had admitted to missing his target at night, shooting high, and Arch wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again.

  In addition, it was the high season for a lot of the vegetables, and she had to help Pilar harvest and can or freeze them. The regular garden work, plus the hens, plus rebuilding the fencing that had been torn down—all that was enough to fill her day. But there were all the rest of the tasks. And then she had to take her daily turn at guard duty.

  She hated guard duty.

  She asked her phone the time and it told her. That’s about all it was good for. In the week since the attack, they’d lost first the internet and then the ability to make phone calls and finally, just yesterday, even the ability to text. The adults had discussed it more than once. Arch was angry about it, her father worried, and Curt Henry shrugged it off.

  Last night as she ate supper, her father had worked on a device to plug into the computer, made of a wok and some wiring. He made her go out with him and they climbed up to the cistern platform and he aimed it toward town. “Antenna,” he explained to her, though she hadn’t asked him about it, just did whatever he told her. “If the WiMax is still operating, it should catch something.” But it didn’t. He said, “I wonder if it’s the power grid.”

  She hadn’t cared enough to ask him for more explanation.

  Time to start the day. Only twenty minutes until her guard duty. She had to move fast in order to collect the eggs and feed Bodhi—shit. Collect the eggs.

  She threw on clothes in dull dark colors and ran past her father, saying, “I’m late,” and walked to the barn to get a wire basket. The thieves had taken one of the best hens, and while there were still plenty of eggs being laid, she noticed the change. They’d miss her, and whatever genes she might pass on to the next generation of layers.

  Sierra walked back to the house with the eggs, saw the time, and said, “Gotta go.” She grabbed her rifle from the rack her father had put up by the door the night after the attack.

  “Eat breakfast first.”

  “I’m not hungry.” She turned to go.

  “Sierra!”

  Her father’s stern voice, hardly ever used, stopped her at the door.

  His chair scraped. He came over, pulled her around to face him, and she flinched at the touch.

  He pulled his hand back. “I’m not him. I’m not going to hurt you. I’d never hurt you.”

  “I know.” His kindness made her want to cry.

  “You have to eat more. You’re burning off a lot of calories right now.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  He blew out an exasperated breath. “You need the fuel to have the muscles to defend yourself. You need to be able to run from, or run at, or climb, or hide or kick and punch. That takes energy.” He was explaining the function of food as if she was a kid.

  “I’ll take some bread.”

  “With peanut butter.”

  “Okay, okay. I have to go.” She waited impatiently while her father threw together a PB and strawberry sandwich on a whole wheat roll for her. “Thanks,” she said, and ran back outside.

  It took her two minutes to run up the road. Curt Henry was on duty. He seemed unperturbed when she ran up and apologized to him for being late.

  “It’s not even five minutes. I’d have stayed here until you came.” He handed her a silver whistle on a leather necklace. That was for emergencies only, when you were certain there was an attack coming. If you blew it loud enough, even Mitch could hear it.

  She slipped it over her head. “You must have work to do.”

  He grunted, an affirmative sound. Then he stood and gathered his things—an old-fashioned thermos, binoculars, and rifle. He started to go, making it a dozen yards up the road before she gathered her courage.

  “Wait. Mr. Henry.”

  He looked back over his shoulder at her.

  “I never did say thank you properly. For helping me in the barn. He would have hurt me—maybe killed me—if you hadn’t come along and hit him just then.”

  “No biggie,” he said, and turned away.

  “Wait,” she said. “Please. I mean it. Really. I know I’ve never bothered to make friends with you. And I’m sorry for that. And grateful for the other. And grateful for you not calling the sheriff when I murdered him.”

  “Murder’s a pretty big word.” He finally turned to face her, but he didn’t make eye contact.

  “Only six letters,” she said.

  He didn’t crack a smile. But then it hadn’t been much of a joke. “I’m not sure the sheriff would have seen it as murder. Maybe manslaughter at worse. Maybe even justified homicide. As long as we removed the ropes before he got here.”

  “I don’t want to find out.”

  “No. I imagine not.”

  “If
the sheriff shows up, I’ll say you weren’t there if you want.”

  “You don’t have to lie for me. The truth about what I did will work just fine.”

  “It’s the least I can do, Mr. Henry.”

  He studied her from under his sharp brow. “You know, now that we’re co-conspirators and all, you could call me Curt. You call Quinn and your dad and Mitch Morrow by their first names.”

  “Curt,” she agreed. She hesitated and then stepped up to him and offered her hand.

  He looked at it a second, seemed to think about it, and then shifted his rifle to the other arm and shook. “You’re welcome,” he said. He looked at her face again and said, “You going to be okay out here alone?”

  “I have to be, don’t I?”

  “You know what to do if there’s trouble.”

  She nodded.

  “And you can keep to the woods, stay hidden, move up and down the line of the road. In fact, you should, not just sit here in one place. They could come in anywhere, so patrol through the woods.”

  “Most likely they’ll arrive on the main road though, right?” She could feel her heart speed up as she imagined it, pictured a bunch of men slipping through the woods, maybe coming up on her from behind. She could even imagine a hand reaching—no, stop. She was scaring herself.

  “If they’re city people, almost certainly they would be using the road. And we’re all patrolling our own property a few times a day, up into the woods in both directions. You know that. You’ve done that with your dad, right? You have your phone?”

  “I do but there’s no signal at all today.”

  “Feeling more comfortable with the rifle?”

  “I prefer the shotgun,” she admitted. “That way, even if I miss a little, I still might hit them with something.”

  “The rifle has more range. I’ve seen you hitting the targets. You’ll do fine. And it’s unlikely anything will happen at all on any one watch.”

  “Okay.”

  She watched him as he turned up the road. About at the Quinns’ driveway, he turned and said—not loudly, but loud enough for her to hear him—“You’re stronger than you think.”

  It was a kind lie. But she’d take it. She lifted her hand in farewell.

  Three hours later, after an eventless watch, Dev came to relieve her.

  “Hungry?” she said, offering him the peanut butter sandwich. The bread was a little stale, she realized, as she held it out and felt the dry edges.

  “No thanks. I’m good,” he said. “Any trouble during your shift?”

  “No. Quiet. Didn’t even hear a car on the road.”

  “Probably won’t for a long while, if ever. Just not enough gas out there.”

  “Did you hear something? Get anything on the internet this morning? A cell signal?”

  “Didn’t even look, to tell you the truth. My mom’s almost given up on the radio. Stations are still working in Phoenix, but you know how they are—some days you can’t get much more than static except at night. She says it’s good news they’re still on the air. When they go off, that means real trouble.”

  “Will people come up from there, do you think?”

  He hesitated.

  “You don’t have to lie to make me feel better. I wish people wouldn’t do that to me. I’m an adult now. And I’m as much a part of this as you are. I can take it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Yeah. I think they will, from Phoenix or maybe some from Cottonwood, though the Cottonwood people would probably hit places like Strawberry first. Whoever it is, they won’t know us at all, like this last group did. They won’t hesitate to shoot. It’s possible they’ll come in huge gangs, a hundred or more.”

  Her throat went tight. “Can we fight off a hundred?”

  “If we get the high ground, use cover wisely, have more training than they do, possibly. We know the land. They might have maps, but the map only tells part of the story. We have the spider holes dug, the trip wire, and we know our own land. If we’re lucky, I think the seven of us can survive against fifty. Remember, ‘What is the object of defense? To preserve. To preserve is easier than to acquire.’”

  “What’s that from?”

  “The book I loaned you. Didn’t you read it?”

  She was ashamed to admit she hadn’t. “It’s slow going. I guess I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”

  “Basic principles. But a hundred armed people might be impossible to fight off.”

  It made her sick to think of it. She looked at Dev and thought how just a few months back, he’d seemed like a kid and she’d felt like she was almost an adult. Somehow, their roles had been reversed. Now she felt like a kid, and he was another adult who knew about guns and warfare and had a more pessimistic view of human nature. The right view, as it was turning out.

  He said, “Anyway, I’ve got it. You can go now.”

  “I know you guys have been covering the nights.” Her heart was in her throat as she said it. “I haven’t taken my turn. I can. I’m ready.” If they were going to lie to her, she’d lie to them too.

  “I’ll tell my dad you say so. We’ll see what he says about the schedule.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Sierra.”

  She turned back.

  “I’m really sorry about what happened to you.”

  “It’s okay. I’m alive. He’s not. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

  “No.” He sounded certain of it. “It’s not all that matters. If you ever need to talk, I’m around, okay?”

  “Okay, thanks.” The last thing she wanted to do was talk about it in the light of day. Nightmares, even the waking ones, belonged in their place—in the dark.

  She knew she was being weak. Arch had shot four men now, and he didn’t fuss about it or probably stay up nights worrying or reliving the moment.

  Sierra gave herself a stern lecture on the way back home. You’re going to have to toughen up, girl, or you’re not going to survive this.

  And what if next time her weakness got her father killed too? Not just her dog, but her dad dying because she wasn’t tough enough.

  No. She couldn’t let that happen.

  She wasn’t sure what made her do it, but she detoured back through the properties to the Quinns’ place, whistling the all-clear/friend signal as she crossed the boundary, and whistling it again as she drew near to their house.

  Kelly was out with their rabbits, cleaning the hutches.

  “Hey,” Sierra said. “It’s me.”

  “I heard you coming.”

  “Can I help with that?”

  “Nearly done. But I wouldn’t mind some help with harvesting if you really have the time.”

  “I came to talk. But I can work and talk at the same time.”

  “Let me haul this over to the compost heap first.” Kelly carried a basket of used rabbit bedding.

  Sierra met her halfway back. “Rabbit droppings make good compost?”

  “They do. Full of nutrients, and they break down in no time.” She opened the gate to their garden. “Broccoli and cauliflower and cabbage are coming in, all at once, of course.”

  “First of the squash is coming too,” Sierra said, spying a row of yellow crooknecks.

  “I think I’ll wait on picking that until the end of the week,” Kelly said. “May as well let ‘em get a touch bigger.” She led Sierra to a row of broccoli and said, “You have a knife on you?”

  “No.”

  “Here, take mine. Easier to cut them than to try to snap them off.”

  Sierra took the red folding knife and cut through the first green stem. “You leave the plants after you harvest?”

  “Yeah, this year in particular. We’ll need all the food we can get, so I let those secondary stems develop. You don’t get much of a head, but it’s something.”

  “Okay,” Sierra said.

  For a time, she worked in silence. Kelly was moving down another row, and not until they had moved close to each other again did Sierra s
ay, “I’m worried.”

  “About?”

  “Myself,” Sierra said. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Pick broccoli?”

  “No,” she said, knowing Kelly knew full well that’s not what she meant. “Survive. Live in a world where people can attack you at any moment. Where you have to shoot people to defend your home. Where this—” and she waved a fat head of broccoli in the air “—is worth killing over. Or dying over.”

  “You’d die without it,” Kelly said, her voice calm, gentle. She wasn’t lecturing or trying to shame Sierra. “It’s a good thing to want to keep on living.”

  “Is it?” She could barely get the next words out. “I’m not sure I do.”

  Kelly stood, came over to her and kneeled down in front of her. Without touching her, she said softly, “You’ve had a hard week. I know losing your dog just about broke your heart. And a man attacked you.”

  “I flirted with him. In town once. Do you think that’s why—?”

  “No, no. That’s not why. You didn’t bring any of this on yourself. None of us did, unless you count working hard to build up our land. And I don’t count that. That’s not an invitation to attack. It’s a good model for sensible people to follow. If they didn’t follow it, that’s on them. Not on you. Not on Pilar. Not on me.”

  “It’s not that I don’t agree with you,” Sierra said. “I just feel so scared. I’m afraid I’ll let everyone down.”

  “You won’t.”

  She half-laughed, a strangled noise that was partway to crying. But she wouldn’t cry, not in public like this, humiliating herself even more. “Curt said something like that.”

  “Did he, now?”

  “He said I was stronger than I knew.”

  “He’s got some insight, then.”

  “I don’t know him at all,” Sierra said. “He doesn’t know me, either.”

  “He was there with you in the barn, wasn’t he? I imagine he saw you fighting and based his judgment partly on that. Don’t you think?”

  Sierra hadn’t considered that. “I thought he was just being nice.”