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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:33:26 GMT -7
60. Over the next month, Gladys taught Bonnie how to make flour from cattail roots and dry sassafras roots for a root beer-like tea. Hank and Bob went hunting and came back with a deer; the next night Bonnie and Gladys put a big venison roast on the table surrounded with boiled cattail sprouts. Most of the rest of the meat the women made into jerky, as the freezer couldn't contain it all. Summer was fading now, the days were getting shorter and the nights were colder. The men worked every day on the woodpile, chopping and stacking what they could against the winter cold to come. They all knew there was no guarantee that the electricity would last. Anything could happen. They had to be ready to be cut off completely, be totally independent, at any time. What Gladys and Hank called "beyond the sidewalks."
It was too late in the year to put in a garden, but the group still tended the plants, mostly Bob's, brought back from the apartments. They were reaping a modest harvest already, a few tomatoes here and there, some greens and beans. Just enough to brighten the evening meal. After all, when Bob had originally planted these things, he only had to plan on enough for himself. Now his familhy had grown to five and there wasn't enough to go around. Next season would be different, and plans were already being made for a garden just off the driveway, stockade fenced with strong logs so that even the most determined rabbit or deer would not be able to breach the defenses. It wouldn't be able to keep out squirrels, but marauding squirrels could be shot and added to the stewpot, so that was a consolation for the incredibly difficult task of cutting the logs for the fence
Now Bonnie went to bed each night exhausted from the work but utterly happy with her newfound abilities and talents. She could tell that Bob was proud of her, too. She was blossoming in ways she never expected, learning how to do things she never knew were important. It gave her a sense of freedom and a soaring joy that lifted her above the pain and tedium of the work. This is how it should be, she constantly marveled, this is what life should really be like. Not a life of getting up every day, leaving her child with someone else so she could spend her precious daylight hours inside an airless building pushing papers, but using her head to provide for her family, laboring with her hands to put up good food for the future, learning obscure lessons and new skills, actively working toward the goal of providing for her family. More and more her thoughts and emotions began to focus on Bob. In him, she was discovering things that she never knew before. She could always depend on him to be there if she needed a work of encouragement, a quick hug, a wink and a smile when she was hurrying to finish a task. He never failed her, never lashed out at her, never turned on her like Nick did so many times. She began to regain her trust in men. In Gladys and Hank's marriage, she could see how it was done right. When something went wrong, they talked it out quietly and found a solution, instead of wasting valuable time and breath making accusations and placing blame. Something's wrong, let's fix it. It all seemed so effortless, so simple. And the displays of modest afffection between the two of them bespoke a deep sense of caring and concern and committment to each other that needed no words. A hand on a tired shoulder, a quick peck on the cheek in passing...those said it all. She saw Bob noticing too, smiling to himself.
With the true flu season subsiding as it always did over summer, the deaths from the pandemic slowed. But Centerville still struggled; it had been hit with several waves of disease, including a particularly nasty episode of cholera from contaminated water, which was finally traced to a subdivision golf course water hazard and a group of refugees camping out on its shores. They had dug latrine pits too near the lake where they obtained their water. The pits were handy to the tents, but located on a grassy slope that led down to the professionally-landscaped lake. Most of them died, but not before they started an epidemic of cholera in town, claiming several hundred lives before it was stopped. Some of the victims would not have died if they had been younger, stronger, better nourished and not recovering from other diseases as well. These were the ancillary casualties. There would be more before the authorities discovered and sealed off escape routes from the quarantined town. By then, of course, it was too late to attempt to contain it, but no one could determine what the new boundary should be and which agency, local or state, should be in control of enforcement. So nothing was done. The chips would have to fall where they might.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:35:32 GMT -7
61.
Bob and Hank were sitting quietly in a homemade blind, waiting for wild turkeys to respond to the turkey call Hank had whittled from a piece of wood. It was an overcast, windy day with an edge of cold to it. Winter would be here soon and they wanted to bring home as much meat as they could for the women to freeze or dry, so they could make it through the icy winter to come. Bob was chuckling softly to himself over a joke Hank was whispering when the older man suddenly raised his hand for silence and cocked his head to listen. Bob couldn't hear anything over the sigh of wind and the clatter of branches in the pine trees overhead; he looked at Hank questioningly, lifting his eyebrows.
Hank pursed his lips, shhhhhh, and pointed the the east and held up two, then three fingers. Their blind was a good one, constructed of thickly interwoven pine boughs tucked between and behind two dense holly bushes that at this time of year were covered with clusters of red berries. Slightly behind them was a tall boulder cluster, seven feet tall at least, and they backed up to the big rocks, using two of them for seats. They blended right into the landscape from all sides, and because of their camo clothing, they could see out but were extremely difficult to spot outside the blind. Bob slowly settled himself into his shooting position. Two or three turkeys would be wonderful. The meat, would, if carefully portioned, provide at least six meals for the family. But something was wrong. Bob knew Hank well enough by now to realize that the man beside him was much more tense than normal. Bob turned and looked into Hanks' eyes and Hank looked back, alarm registering on his face. Then Bob heard it too. Human voices, not ordinary voices, but voices of men on the prowl, men who were also hunters, men with something to hide.
A twig snapped somewhere off to the right and Bob froze, his breathing shallow and soundless. He did a quick mental inventory of his ammo, and which pocket of his hunting vest held his knife. He tightened his grip on his gun, then automatically forced his fingers to loosen and relax and find their assigned places on the weapon. He was ready. Instinctively, he knew Hank was ready too.
Footsteps came close, maybe fifty feet away, then more quiet voices. There had to be three of them, and with all the trees and bushes in the area, they hadn't spotted the blind yet.
"So what's next?" one of the men said. There was a snick of metal on metal, a bolt being drawn back. So they were armed.
"We wait," another voice replied quietly, a hard voice, raspy from years of abuse from cigarettes and liquor. "When it's good and dark, we go."
"How many are there?" the third man asked. "Could you get a good look?"
"Two. I saw two," raspy voice replied. "I saw a kid too. No men. Easy pickins."
There was an ugly laugh, then a punching sound against solid flesh. "Ow! hey! Why'dja do that, you sonofabitch?"
"Shaddup," raspy snarled quietly. "I told ya before, just keep it quiet. You wanna blow this? Just shaddup!" There was the snap of a wooden match being struck, then the faint smell of cigarette smoke on the breeze.
"How long until good and dark?" the first man complained. "I think we should find a good spot and catch some shuteye. Never know how late we're gonna be up tonight, you know what I mean?"
Bob's hands started to hurt and he realized he had his rifle in a death grip, his knuckles solid white. He forced his hands to relax again. Beside him, there wasn't a sound from Hank, not even breathing.
"Okay, okay," raspy conceded, "we'll hunker down somewhere for a while. But you two better not snore, or I'll slit your damn throats, I swear!"
There was some muttering and the shuffle and crunch of boots on dry leaves, then silence. The smell of smoke from the cigarette faded and disappeared. After ten minutes or so, Bob felt a drop of sweat trickle down his backbone, then heard a long slow exhale of breath from the man crouched down beside him. Neither of them spoke a word. They stayed like that for another thirty minutes, then Hank grunted softly. He shifted slightly and extended one leg, kneading his thigh muscle with one hand while holding his rifle in the other.
"Cramp," he whispered, then he resumed his position.
Thirty minutes later Hank caught his eye and motioned with his hand that he was going to stand up and take a look. Bob nodded and kept his position. Hank rose slowly, looked around, then came back down. "I think they've moved off. Let's go find 'em." Bob nodded and eased himself upright, his legs screaming with relief. His upper arm muscles were shaking. They backed quietly out of their blind, moving a chopped-off holly bush aside next to the boulders. Slipping their boots toe-first into the dry leaves, walking like deer do in the fall, the two of them did a quick reconnoiter of the area. They found the spot where the three men had stood to talk, even found the burned spot of bark where one of them had ground out his cigarette before throwing it to the forest floor. Now they had to track down the men before darkness fell.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:37:11 GMT -7
62.
It was turning out to be a good day for Bonnie. She had done two loads of laundry and was hanging the freshly-washed sheets and pillowcases on a clothesline Bob had rigged between two trees in the yard. She didn't have any clothespins, but draping the linens over the narrow rope was working just as well. This was a valuable tool when the dryer was already doing one load and there were more to come. She liked the way the laundry smelled when it had been hung outside, liked the easy work of folding the things as they came off the line, stacking them in the plastic basket at her feet. Lucy was taking a nap and Gladys had gone around the lake to gather cattail leaves, so she could spend the evening experimenting with making a basket. If the experiment worked, they would both go back tomorrow and gather as many of the long, sword-like leaves as they could, to store before winter hit. The men were gone off on another hunting trip and if they came home with anything, then instead of gathering cattail leaves, she and Gladys would spend tomorrow processing the meat. Getting food stored for winter was of prime importance. Everything depended on that. They knew they would have enough water because they had the lake. The lake held plenty of fish, but would they be able to fish if the lake froze? Did it freeze? Even Bob didn't know for sure. His family had never spent much time up here when winter hit hard. If the lake froze, how would they know it was safe to go out onto the ice to fish? It was just too dangerous to do any experimenting. They wouldn't risk losing someone through a break in the ice. They had to prepare now. Any fish they managed to catch now they dressed and put up in the chest freezer, but that worried them too. What if they lost the electricity this winter? What if ice brought down power lines, would the utility company send out crews to restore them? They couldn't count on it. The way things were going, chances were good that outlying districts without power would stay that way until society stabilized, and that could be at best months away, so everything the little family did now was geared toward surviving a hard winter in the house without any outside support. Again, what Hank and Gladys called "living beyond the sidewalks." There would still be game, and that was a big factor in their favor. Hunting in the snow would be much easier, Hank said. Just follow the tracks. And dressing and preserving the meat would be easier in freezing temperatures too, although the women would still have to dry the bulk of the meat, whatever wouldn't fit into the freezer. They couldn't use a shed as a freezer, even if temperatures were stable enough and low enough, because the smell of fresh meat would bring predators to their door.
The little family would still try over winter to maintain the potted plants that grew in the light that came through the big family room windows. If they lost power, the fireplace there would provide enough warmth to keep the plants going, but whether there would be enough sun through the winter storms was another matter. They would see. It was all an experiment, and so far it had sort of paid off. They managed to harvest some things, such as radishes, squash, greens, tomatoes and green beans, but other things hadn't thrived under those conditions and had already died off and been replaced. If they didn't lose the power, they planned to rig an old sunlamp Bonnie discovered in a closet she was cleaning. The bulb was still good and there was a spare bulb tucked into the box as well. That could be a big boost for their plants. Luckily, Bob and Bonnie had brought a generous supply of seed packets with them. They had started a compost heap out back by the shed a few weeks ago, kitchen trimmings and a bag of steer manure from a plastic bag Bob found in the garage, but it hadn't been terribly successful without components like grass clippings, and as the weather cooled, decomposition action in the pile slowed and then stopped. Next year when the weather warmed up again it would be fine, but for now it was mainly useful for attracting squirrels to the vegetable trimmings and peelings. One of these days they would have to turn to squirrels as a food source, and Bonnie knew it. She dreaded that day as she enjoyed watching the little creatures' antics in the trees, but she dreaded starvation far more. She would deal with it. She had become pretty good at dealing with things now, much better than back when she was a single mother living in a cramped apartment, working in a stifling office job. Oddly enough, life was better now in this horrible crisis than it had ever been for her when the world was healthy and society hadn't turned on itself like a snake eating its own tail. She had much for which to be grateful.
She shook out the last sheet, tucked an edge under her chin to hold it, grabbed the corners in her hands and expertly flipped it over the clothesline so it hung even, then stood back to admire her work. It was perfect. The linens snapped quietly in the breeze. The scent from the pines would infuse the sheets and pillowcases and make the bedrooms smell fresh and clean. Life was good. She picked up the laundry basket to take it back into the house when behind her, she heard a branch crack as it broke underfoot. Had Gladys come back from her cattail expedition early? Bonnie turned her head, a smile on her face to greet her friend, and her mouth dropped open in surprise.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:39:23 GMT -7
63.
"Well where did YOU come from?" Bonnie exclaimed with a giggle, setting the laundry basket down at her feet. She squatted down next to the basket so she could reach out and pet the big golden dog's head as he bounded happily toward her; he danced around her and the basket, tongue lolling in a big doggy grin, tail wagging in huge circles. His coat was tangled and matted and his legs were dirty with crusted mud up to his elbows, as if he had waded across a muddy stream up to his belly, but she could easily see what a beauty he was underneath. He came up close to her to sniff her hair and as she stroked his neck, she could feel that he had no collar under the long fur, no dog tags for identification.
"Woof!" the dog said, "woof! Woof!" He was watching her face intently, clearly trying to tell her something.
Bonnie laughed, stood up and picked up the basket again. "Okay, okay, let's go inside and see what we can get for you to eat, whaddya say, big boy?"
Down by the lake, Gladys sat back on her heels and rested for a minute. She had a pile of leaves stacked beside her on the muddy bank and she clutched a short paring knife in her left hand. She was tired and ready to call it quits, but something bothered her. All of a sudden the lake seemed too quiet for her. Most of the summer birds were gone already but those that would spend the winter at the lake seemed unusually quiet this afternoon. There was something else too, something she couldn't put her finger on. It was an undefined feeling of creepiness, that back of the neck hackles feeling that someone was watching her. She had taken several rest stops as she worked and tried to look into the forest that ringed the lake, but this time of year and especially on an overcast day like today, the forest seemed to be made of shifting shadows and dark blotches that revealed nothing, no lurking forms spying on her. Maybe it was nothing after all. Then her scalp suddenly crawled and goosebumps ran down her arms and back. Had she heard a noise just then? Or was that a water bird moving around in the reeds? Even the lake water was dark and oily looking, ominous in its depth of color and sluggishness. It smelled like mud and was cold, and her hands were white and wrinkled form working in it up to her wrists, cutting the leaves. She tried to harest some dormant shoots as she worked, but the water was too cold to allow her to do it for more than just a few minutes at a time so she gave up. She could always come back armed with the thick, black rubberized elbow length electrician's gloves she had found in the toolshed. Those would help protect her from the cold when she came back. She would have to come back. They would need the food to help them get through the cold winter ahead.
In the kitchen, Bonnie found a handful of bread ends and pieces and a bone with some gristle and tough meat still on it, left from yesterday's venison roast. The dog gulped the bread in a few seconds and took the bone into the family room to gnaw while Bonnie filled a mixing bowl with water for him, and as she put the water down for the dog to find, she began to regret inviting him inside. Maybe if she hadn't fed him, he would have gone on, found somewhere else, someone who had plenty of food to spare. But even as she thought that, she knew that wouldn't have been the case. There just weren't any neighbors here. The dog, wherever he had come from, would ultimately have starved to death out in the forest in the dark and cold. This was a dog used to people, not a feral hunter who could kill small game for food. This was a family dog who couldn't make it on his won in the wild. There was nowhere else he could have gone, and he was lucky to have come here, where he at least had a chance. She knew she never could have turned him away in anyc ase. She was just too soft-hearted when it came right down to it. For good or bad, the dog was here to stay. She didn't know what would happen when Gladys and the men returned, but she was determined that no matter what, the dog had a home as long as she was in the house.
The dog got up from the floor and trotted over to her, bent his head to the bowl and drank long and hard. When he finished he sighed deeply, looked up at her, then returned to his bone and sank back to the floor to chew on it where it lay between his front paws. Bonnie tiptoes upstairs to look in on Lucy, who still slept sprawled across the double bed. Once back on the first floor, she looked toward the family room but only saw the partially-chewed bone. The dog wasn't where she had left him. She looked into the kitchen, but he wasn't at his water bowl either. Then she heard a faint noise and saw him standing stiff-legged between the black plastic plant pots ranged in front of the big window that faced the lake. He as standing facing out, looking out the window, the hair on his shoulders was raised in alarm, and he was growling softly, deep in his throat.
Now Bonnie was frightened. What was alarming the dog? Was there a gun where she could get her hands on it quickly? Yes...in the hall closet, just off the kitchen, on the top shelf under a hat. She took five quick steps to the closet door, yanked it open and grabbed the gun. Thank goodness Bob and Hank had insisted on giving her lessons in handling it! She checked to make sure it was loaded and held it in her right hand, down at her side, as she raced to the doors to lock them. She could cock the gun in a split second, her finger on the cool metal. The weapon felt heavy and solid in her hand. She went back to the base of the stairs, the central position on the ground floor, a place where she could watch the doors and the dog at the same time. If only Gladys and the men would come home! Gladys! Was she all right? Did the dog see Gladys approaching? Was that why he was growling? If she went to the kitchen window, she should be able to see if Gladys was coming through the trees along the banks of the lake. But if she moved, she would lose the advantage of this central spot. Was it worth it? Yes it was. She ran on her tiptoes int the kitchen and glanced out the window, and sure enough, Gladys appeared on the path, carrying an armload of cattail leaves against her chest. She looked tired and stumbled briefly over a small rock in the path as Bonnie walked. Bonnie opened a kitchen drawer and put the gun inside and pushed it shut, then ran to the back door, unlocked it and ran out onto the back deck, down the steps and across the yard to help Gladys.
"Thanks, honey," Gladys breathed gratefully as Bonnie took part of the bundle from her. "I'm just about done in. It was hard going today."
"I have a surprise for you in the house," Bonnie replied with a smile. "Just wait until you..." but they didn't have to wait, because at that moment the dog began barking through the window.
"What..? Is that a dog? Well don't that beat all..!" Gladys was so astonished she stopped dead in her tracks, looking at the dog jumping and barking on the other side of the big window. "Where did you..? I mean, how did she? Is it a she or a he? What a pretty dog!"
Bonnie laughed with excitement and ran ahead up the steps to the deck. "Come on up and meet him! Isn't he pretty though? He just showed up here, came right up to me out of the forest!"
Gladys huffed and puffed as she lugged her bundle up the steps and dumped the leaves in a heap on the deck. "Just leave it all here, we'll deal with this tomorrow, I expect. What are we gonna feed him? So it's a boy dog?"
"Yes! Yes! He's a boy. I fed him some bread and a bone already. Come in and meet him!" Bonnie held the door open for Gladys, and the dog met them both at the door, grinning and slobbering and wagging his whole butt, tail and all.
"Ooh, you're a pretty boy, aren'tcha? Come and see Gladys, come and give me a love. Whose good boy are you? Well you sure did get yerself into the mud today, didn't you, boy? We're gonna have to give you a good warm bath, aren't we? Oh yes, you're a good boy, give me a kiss, whose boy are you?"
The dog just absolutely loved every second of it, licking and wagging and dancing just for Gladys while Bonnie stood back and smiled to herself and watched. It was decided. The dog would stay, and right then nothing could have pleased her more. And of course, watching the dog bond with Gladys was so entertaining that locking the door she leaned against was the farthest thing from her mind.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:41:44 GMT -7
64.
Hank moved through the woods like smoke, quietly drifting past trees and bushes, his boots hardly making a sound on the dried pine needles that littered the ground. Bob was right beside him, indicating with a nod or a quick gesture which way to go. He knew the area better than Hank, but the two of them were well matched as hunting partners in experience and attitude. They tracked their prey over a small rise and down along a small stream, then after they moved away from the gurgling and splashing of the water, when they were deeper into the silence of the woods, Hank held up a hand and pointed ahead and to the right. Bob stopped and cocked his head. There was a brief snorting sound, then a low cough. The two men froze and listened. Just as the one man they'd heard earlier had predicted, someone was snoring. Not loud, but it was definitely snoring.
Bob made a down motion with one hand, indicating that Hank should wait there. Hank nodded and Bob crept forward to take a look. He was back in two minutes, waving Hank to move back. They retreated far enough back that they could communicate in whispers.
"How many?"
"Three of 'em, all asleep. One bolt-action rifle, one .22 handgun. One backpack. No other gear I could see. They look like townies, bums. Two of them young, maybe in their twenties, one older guy about our age."
"What now?"
Bob frowned. "We could kill 'em. Nobody would know. Bury 'em out here. It's martial law, isn't it? Every man for himself. We'd be justified. What they said about the house and women, and Lucy..." Bob gritted his teeth together and felt anger boil up inside him.
Hank looked into Bob's eyes. "But kill in cold blood? Could you really do that? I couldn't. I gotta live with myself. Maybe they're animals, yeah, but they're still human beings." He sighed and looked at his hand holding his rifle, then back up at Bob. "We could steal their stuff, take their backpack and guns. They wouldn't be a threat then, would they?"
"Yeah. I know what you mean. No, I couldn't. Not like that. If it came down to it in a firefight to protect the family then hell yes, but not in cold blood. Okay, how about this? We sneak in and take the guns and backpack. One of us does it while the other covers him. That way if someone wakes up, we have a rifle on him. Okay with you?"
"Sounds good to me," Hank breathed. "How we gonna do this?"
Fifteen minutes later, a long sturdy branch snaked out from behind a tree. Slowly, slowly it wavered in the air toward one of the shoulder loops of a cheap canvas backpack leaning against a pine tree four feet away. It skimmed past the loop, waggled unevenly once, then pulled back and tried again. This time it slid under the loop and lifted, and the webbing strap grew taut as the backpack shifted slightly on the dry brown pine needles under it. Bob held his breath as he put more pressure with one hand on the back end of the branch and slowly lifted the bundle off the ground and carried it past the tree trunk, backing quietly away, carrying the backpack five feet, six feet, seven feet back into the forest. Hank stood to one side, his rifle to his shoulder, sighting on the group of sleeping men.
Now Bob laid the big branch silently on the ground and picked up another one, just as long and strong but slender, with a long, strong hooked twig stub at the end. He stood beside his tree and extended this branch toward where the two weapons lay, next to where the backpack had been. He carefully maneuvered the twig stub until it hooked into the trigger guard of the handgun, then with a quick motion hoisted the gun into the air and swung it toward where Hank waited. Hank used one hand to grab the pistol off the branch and stick it into the waistband of his pants as Bob swung the branch back toward the rifle that lay all alone on the ground. In less than a minute, it was in the crook of Hank's arm and Bob was laying the branch on the ground.
Without a word, the two walked away with both weapons and the backpack and melted into the forest. One of the men napping on the ground muttered something in his sleep, scratched at his crotch, and went back to sleep.
As they approached the house, Bob and Hank were astonished to hear barking coming from inside. It was almost dusk, the time of day when light casts strange shadows and sounds can seem to come from odd directions. Maybe they were hearing something out in the forest...? But no, it was coming from the house. And when they climbed onto the Sunporch, stamping their feet to get the dirt off, the dog went crazy inside. Gladys' smiling face looked through the glass in the door window quickly before she unlocked the door, and there she was, with a big golden dog behind her throwing a fit, trying to get at them.
"What's going on here? Where'd the dog come from? Is he gonna bite us?" Bob asked, his voice raised over the ruckus the dog was causing.
"Hush, dog!" Gladys turned and held the dog by the scruff, looking into the animal's big brown eyes, "this is family! It's okay, boy! It's okay!" The dog seemed to understand what she was telling him, and he shut up long enough for the men to come inside and close the door behind themselves.
Hank and Bob put their weapons, and the ones they had confiscated, in the hall closet as the dog danced excitedly from one to the other of them, sniffing at their pant legs and boots, whining and yipping. Bob laid the backpack on the floor and leaned against the wall.
"Where'd he come from? He's sure a looker, ain't he?" Hank said, hunkering down and extending his hand for the dog to smell. The dog began to wag his tail, then decided he liked Hank and jumped up on Hank's knees so he could lick Hank's face. Bob stood back smiling and let the two get acquainted. When the dog had had enough of Hank, he turned his attention to Bob. The dog went up to Bob and sat down in front of him looking up at him, turning his head to one side as he studied the new man. Bob held out his hand for the dog to sniff, which the dog did, then he licked Bob's hand, sniffed it, and licked it again.
"I guess that means he likes me," Bob laughed. "So where'd you get him?" he said to Bonnie, who had just come downstairs with Lucy in her arms.
"Hi honey," Bonnie replied, setting Lucy down so the little girl could run into the family room. "I was outside getting the laundry off the line and he just came right up to me. He was all muddy, so we gave him a bath. He's a wonderful watchdog, Bob!"
"I saw that," Bob responded with a rueful grin, "I think he'd have taken Hank's leg off if Gladys hadn't told him we're part of the pack here!" Everybody laughed at that, but Bob had made an important observation and he knew it was time to explain things to the women.
"Let's go in and sit down. Hank and I have something to tell you both."
Hank nodded grimly in agreement and waved the group toward the family room.
Both women were frightened and angry after they heard what had happened. "Was it Nick?" Bonnie asked Bob, twisting her hands together in her lap.
"No, none of them were Nick. They were just scruffy-looking guys I've never seen before," Bob said.
"One of ‘em looked sort of familiar to me. I think maybe he was part of that group in the camp at the roadblock." Hank turned to Gladys, sitting beside him on the couch, and laid one hand on her knee. "Now don't you be afraid. We, me and Bob, got things here under control. You know how to handle a gun as good as any man too, don'tcha honeybunch?"
"That's true, baby. I do know that much. And if it comes right down to it, I won't hesitate either." Gladys looked toward Lucy, playing contentedly with the dog's ear as they both sat on the floor near the couch.
Bob stood up. "I think we ought to search that backpack, Hank. Let's get to doing that and let the women get dinner ready. My stomach thinks my throat's cut."
"You bet," Hank agreed, standing up and patting Gladys on the head as he moved toward the hall with Bob.
The dog watched the men walk back toward the door, then something outside caught his attention and he turned to look toward the huge windows into the darkening forest and the lake beyond. With the lights on inside and twilight falling fast, it was difficult to see anything outside, but he stared fixedly out the window, then growled softly deep in his throat.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:44:55 GMT -7
65. Because there was no practical way to curtain the big windows, they turned off the lights in the family room, and after they finished eating, Bob armed himself, went out the side door and sat on a chair in the darkness on the porch. He and Hank both worried that the men might still be armed, might have had a camp or vehicle somewhere with more guns. They hadn't discussed this, hadn't voiced their fears to the women or each other, but it was a good possibility and they both knew it. Better to be safe than sorry, so as the women cleaned the kitchen after dinner and while Hank took care of most of the downstairs lights, Bob loaded his rifle and slipped out the door. After his eyes adjusted he was surprised how well he could see, sitting out there in the deeper darkness tucked well back under the porch roof overhang. He could see the dark bulky shapes of the outbuildings behind the house, tucked in among the trees. He could see the familiar shapes of the few bushes near the porch, and could clearly see the length of it and the furniture it held. Instinctively he knew if they came at all, they would come from this direction. The front of the house faced a large clearing and was too exposed, too open. Even though there was only a piece of moon tonight and the clouds scudding across the sky obscured even that much light most of the time, it was psychological. They wouldn't want to cross a large open unprotected piece of ground right in front of their objective. They'd come from the back way, the lake way, if they came at all.
Inside the house dishes clinked quietly and Lucy laughed. A few minutes later Bob heard the click of the dog's toenails coming up to the door, then snuffling as the dog smelled the doorframe, probably trying to figure who was out there on the other side of the door. Then he heard Bonnie call out his name, "Bob? Where are you?" She said it again, a little louder this time as if calling up the stairs, then he could hear murmuring inside, Hank's voice. Hank telling Bonnie what was going on. Good man. The dog's toenails clicking back up to the door, then from the other side of the door a quick knock, just one. Hank checking on him. Bob reached his right hand back and gave the door one short knock in reply. Inside the house it grew quiet and more downstairs lights were turned off. Bob could hear the dog settling down on the floor on the other side of the door, the door shifting with a thud as the dog pushed up against it. It was going to be a long night.
Two hours later, Bob had to move. He stood up slowly and stretched and went back inside, pushing the door open against the dog's back, locking the door behind himself. He and the dog had a drink of water in the kitchen then went to the front door. Bob opened the door quietly and found Hank sitting in a kitchen chair directly in front of the door. Hank turned and raised one hand in greeting, and even in the darkness Bob could see his grin. Bob shoved the dog back inside with his leg and joined Hank out in the darkness.
"Got it here," Hank said softly. "Okay on your side?" Bob nodded and Hank continued, "I'm good here for two more hours, then Gladys is gonna spell me."
"Gladys?" Bob whispered, surprised.
"Don't worry. She can handle it, and it'll only be for an hour while I catch a quick nap on the couch."
Bob opened his mouth to reply, then something in the woods across the clearing caught his eye and he froze. Hank turned to see what Bob was staring at and his hands moved to bring up his rifle, in one movement, right to his shoulder, his head tucking neatly down to the eyesight. He stood without a sound, not even a creak from his chair.
"There they are," Hank said quietly. "I can see 'em clear as day through the sight. They haven't spotted us. They're standing all three together slightly to the left of that big pine where the laundry line ties off. They're talking. Now one of 'em is pointing toward the house and one of 'em is pointing off to the east. Looks like they got a difference of opinion going on."
Bob had his rifle up and he was trying to get them in the sights like Hank had done, but he was having trouble. A big group of clouds was passing between them and the moon and it was like someone had a rheostat on the moon, playing with the knob, up and down, up and down. Dark and then darker, dark and darker, hard to see and then impossible to see. His hands were sweating, too. This was no time to lose his cool! He wished he could hold the rifle up with one hand while he wiped the other on his pants, but there was no time and he couldn't, and he still couldn't get the bastards in his sights.
"They're coming," Hank growled out in a rough whisper, "they're coming, and they still haven't seen us."
Across the clearing the three men stumbled through the underbrush, inexpertly negotiating fallen branches and stumps in the darkness. There was a loud snap as a dead branch broke under the weight of a man's boot. One of the men slapped at another and pointed at the ground as if to say, Be quiet! He tried to deploy the other two men by gesturing first one way around the semicircle of the clearing and then the other, but the other two didn't want to take the long way to the house, and they both waved their hands in the air, No, and pointed directly across the clearing. Let's just go right across the driveway. The three of them argued with their hands like this for a minute or two, then the leader gave in and nodded. Okay, we'll just go across the clearing. He wasn't happy about it, but he wanted to get on with their mission, so what the hell, might as well. They reached the edge of the tree line and stepped out as one, three abreast, into the short dry grasses that marked the beginning of the clearing. One of them, the leader who had done the slapping, carried a pistol hanging from his right hand. He was the kind of man who liked to have the pistol with him always, tucked into the waistband of his jeans, and when he slept, as they had done earlier, he had slept with it held up close to his chest, cradled in both hands. Long experience among untrustworthy people had taught him that lesson. Now he had his pistol and a small box of ammo tucked into the back pocket of his pants, and he would use those to regain custody of the weapons they had lost earlier in the day while they napped. He was eager to get started. It was going to be a long night and he couldn't wait to begin.
The moon shadows shifting and blurring across the ground made it look almost like the millrace of a fast river, and now the wind closer to the ground picked up and the pine branches overhead started tossing and groaning, dead pine needles and oak leaves scattering across the ground with each gust. The wind was fresh and cold and smelled good, and the leader filled his lungs. He felt so alive! It was a wonderful night, but it would be even better to be inside where there was warmth and food and, of course, the other. It had been a long time. Long time running, trying to survive, long time away from anything resembling normal life. Long time.
He couldn't wait, and a grin stretched his mouth under his unshaven, dirt-stained skin. Long time. His right index finger slid into his pistol's trigger guard without volition, part of his brain feeling the cool slick metal of it, the dangerous edge of the trigger there, knowing the power it held. Life was good, and about to get even better. He felt a surge of hormones and exulted in the rush. Bring it on. It was time.
Then a bolt of lightning hit his right hand, destroying his index finger, dislocating his thumb and flinging the ruined pistol behind him into the brush, a piece of shattered trigger guard embedding itself in his right thigh, throwing him to the ground. He kicked out involuntarily with his injured leg, catching the man on his right in the knee and knocking him off balance and into the dirt as well. He heard screaming, horrible screaming like a woman, high-pitched and frantic and undulating. Another boom and his buddy on the left was off and running back the way they had come, through the forest, crashing and falling and yelling. The man on his right scrambled to his feet and grabbed him by the shirt, by his collar, and dragged him five feet or so until his collar ripped off in his hand and he fell back to the ground.
"Come on, come on!" his buddy was yelling at him, "Get up! Get up! Go!" and grabbed at his foot, pulling him back toward the trees, back into the cover of the forest. All the leader could think of was his hand, the pain of it, the shock of feeling the blow. Nothing in the world was as important as that pain. Nothing. So his friend ended up dragging him by one leg back far enough that he was sheltered by a fallen tree trunk, and he lay there gasping and screaming, holding the wrist of his ruined hand in the fist of his other. His thumb stuck out at an unnatural angle and blood was gushing from what was left of the first joint of his index finger.
The other buddy was nowhere to be seen. Now there was only the two of them there in the dark cold forest, just the two of them and the pain and blood and the shock.
"What happened? What happened?" He managed to gasp between screams as his friend tried to wrap the torn-off collar around the palm of his hand, to stop the bleeding. "NO! Don't touch my thumb!" He screamed in that woman's voice he was beginning to hate. "It hurts! Don't touch it! What happened?"
"Shut up for a minute so I can tell ya! There, I think that's got it, put your other finger there so I can tie it off." His buddy managed to get the ends of the collar in a square knot on the back of his hand and the bleeding slowed to a trickle. "They shot you. They shot you with our rifle! Maybe they shot Dick too, I don't know. I heard another shot and I don't know where he is now. We need to get the hell out of here! You gotta get to a hospital before you bleed to death!"
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:46:31 GMT -7
66.
The men's voices carried clearly across the empty space to the house, especially the screaming. It took a few seconds for their ears to stop ringing after firing their rifles but then Bob and Hank could hear and see almost everything. One man took off through the woods, running like his pants were on fire, after Bob fired into the tree next to his head. The other man was down, writhing in agony on the ground, and the third man was down, then up again and dragging the injured man back to cover on the edge of the forest. Hank had zeroed in on the gun and waited until he had a good flash of moonlight, then shot the gun out of the man's hand. Probably did some damage to the hand as well, but that's okay. They were going to attack the house and they had at least one pistol, so it was a good shooting, a righteous shooting. Totally justified. He could have killed the man, too, if he'd had to. Hank didn't want to think about that possibility too deeply.
Bob and Hank still stood there in the cold darkness of the porch, waiting under the overhang, rifles ready, bodies tense and expectant. The dog whined and scratched at the door behind them, wanting to get out and be part of the excitement. They knew the women were awake upstairs by now and Gladys was probably standing at the bedroom window with her gun, ready for anything. Bonnie would be with Lucy. The gunshots would have undoubtedly awakened them both, if Bonnie had even been able to get to sleep. Her job right now was to take care of Lucy, make sure she was safe come what may. Gladys would be part of that too, if it came to that. Hank had made sure Gladys had plenty of ammo upstairs if the women had to barricade themselves up there. But it wasn't going to come to that now. It was quiet now, the battle paused or stopped. For some reason, Bob's mind was chanting "we have met the enemy and he is us, we have met the enemy and he is us," a line from a newspaper comic strip from long ago. He shook his head and forced himself to concentrate on the situation at hand.
"We need to let 'em get away now," Hank was saying. "One of 'em is long gone, the skinny one on the right. Maybe he took part of that tree shot of yours. I got the middle one in the hand, and it looks like he's out of the game now. The end one won't make us any trouble. He has his hands full with his pal there on the ground. You agree with this?"
"You called it right, Hank. You had a better look at them than I did. I couldn't get them in my sights, so I just shot at the tree off the sight. That was a hell of a shot you got off, nailed his gun clean as a whistle. And in the dark, too. I'm impressed, my friend."
"Aw, it's nothing," Hank replied, but Bob could tell the older man was pleased by the compliment. "Can you see what they're doing now?"
"They're still down behind that tree trunk, I think. No, wait, look. They're moving back farther into the trees."
Bob was right. The two men were standing partly behind a tree, the uninjured one had the other's left arm draped over his shoulder and they were hobbling back slowly into the cover of the deeper trees. The one who had held the gun was favoring his right leg, so he had been hurt there too. He was holding his right hand up at chest height, probably to help stop the flow of blood. With one shot Hank had crippled the man in the hand and leg. Good shooting, Bob thought again. Before the two disappeared into the dark woods, the injured one looked back over his shoulder and glanced one more time at the house, then shook his head and turned away, then they were gone, swallowed up by the night.
Inside the dog began to bark and claw frantically at the door, so Bob opened it and let the animal run out. He bounded out and raced down the porch steps, running out to the middle of the clearing, sniffing and whining eagerly, then he howled and began barking loudly toward the forest, standing his ground fiercely, his legs planted apart, the hair around his neck and down his back bristling. Back on the porch, Hank snicked the bolt of the rifle back and reached for the box of ammo on the arm of his chair.
That whole night long they maintained their watch, Hank on the front porch, Bob on the back. No point in being careless just because they assumed the men were gone. The dog stayed outside with them, trotting back and forth between them as he pleased, doing perimeter checks from time to time, sniffing the air and growling and taking leaks against the trunks of the pines around the house. It was as if the dog knew and understood the danger and had decided he was going to be part of the team, and the men accepted him as a volunteer. It gave them each some company anyway during the long hours, as he alternated between them. Closer to dawn he finally flopped down on the wood porch floor beside Bob's chair and fell asleep with a long, shuddering sigh, his soft doggy snores coming at regular intervals as night faded into the dove gray of predawn in the forest. Birds began to awaken and twitter up in the pine branches and a slight breeze brought with it an edge of winter cold along with the crisp spice of pine resin.
Gladys relieved Hank as dawn colored the sky pink and gold. Hank came around to the back where Bob slumped tiredly in his chair, the dog sprawled comfortably across the painted wooden floor with his head resting on Bob's boot. Bob pointed at the dog and smiled ruefully at his friend, who nodded and grinned. The dog and Hank and Bob. They were a team, tried and true and bonded together over the long, dark, dangerous night.
They left Gladys and the dog to watch the outside of the house while both men went in and slept fitfully, Hank on the couch and Bob on a sleeping bag on the floor in front of the fireplace, their weapons ready on the coffee table next to them. One shout from Gladys, one bark from the dog and they'd be on their feet and out the door. Bonnie stayed upstairs with the sleeping Lucy. The house would be on constant alert from now on, or until they could devise some form of alarm system not only for the house itself, but for the forest approaches on all sides. What before was a vacation house on a lake in the woods was now to become a fortress, a survival camp, protected on all sides from any comers, from any human threat. Too much was at stake for it to be any other way.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:47:41 GMT -7
67.
Bob and Hank slept until nearly eleven o'clock that day. Gladys didn't wake Hank as she said she would, but stayed at her post on the porch watching. She knew he needed the rest. They both did. Who knew what the next night would bring? They would all have to be at the top of their game, as Hank liked to say. Bonnie kept Lucy entertained upstairs until breakfast, then she quickly slipped down to make bowls of oatmeal for the three of them; Gladys ate hers out on the front porch, her weapon on her lap and ready. Even the dog got a bowlful and he snuffled it up happily enough, then flung himself down at Gladys' feet and just laid there, watching the forest. As long as the dog was comfortable, Gladys relaxed. She knew his hearing was far superior to hers and he knew something was up. He was on duty as much as she was. It was safe to let the men sleep a while longer, to recharge their batteries for whatever might come.
Bonnie was busy upstairs, too. She rummaged through a storage closet and found a very large spool of some kind of strong string, and that got her to thinking. She found a few more useful items in the kitchen and another closet, and by eleven, when Bob woke up, she was ready with her proposal. By the time both men were up and fed, she had explained her idea to them and found they were both as enthusiastic as she had been, so the three of them implemented it immediately.
Gladys stayed behind to keep an eye on Lucy, and to begin the venison stew for dinner. Then, with Hank standing guard with his loaded rifle, Bob and Bonnie took a large garbage bag of supplies out to the forest immediately surrounding the house. They made a perimeter line about ankle high with the string, looping it around the trunks of trees just above the brush and grasses, where it would be least noticeable in dim light. Then they hung empty tin cans at intervals along the line and dropped a few pebbles into each can. This they dubbed their DEW line, distant early warning line. Anyone approaching the house would hit the line and make a racket, hopefully loud enough to be heard. Maybe the strong line would even trip them. It wasn't much but it was all they had right now, that and the dog and their weapons and wits.
"We should make deadfalls too," Bob mused, looking up into the pines. "We could rig heavy branches to fall if a line is tripped. If there were enough young flexible saplings we could make some spring traps out here, too..." He stopped and looked around, rubbing his chin.
"But Bob," Bonnie replied, "do we want to do that? Couldn't that be dangerous? What if one of us forgets and comes out here? After all, the clothesline is just over there..."
"You're right, honey. Not to worry, I'm just brainstorming. Trying to think of anything useful. You know I'd never do anything to put any of us in danger." He stopped again and looked at her. "Hey," he said softly, so softly that Hank, standing fifteen feet away in the center of the clearing, couldn't hear.
"Hey yourself," she smiled back, holding out the spool of string for him to take.
He took the spool, but laid it on the ground and took her hand in his. "Hey," he repeated, "I love you, Bonnie. You know that, don't you?"
She stopped what she was doing and looked into his eyes and smiled. "Of course I know that. And I love you too, Bob. I think I have for a long, long time now."
Bob swallowed hard. Behind him, he could hear Hank shuffling his feet in the gravel of the driveway. The day was quiet and lovely, crisp with pine resin and the smell of the lake. Birds twittered in the pine tree overhead. He squeezed her hand lightly, then said, "Will you marry me?"
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:49:51 GMT -7
68.
"I figured you two wasn't married, but it wasn't my place to say anything," Gladys chuckled when they broke the news to her and Hank over dinner that evening.
When Bonnie looked surprised, Gladys went on. "Well honey, for starters Bob slept in one bedroom and you and Lucy slept in another. And there seemed to be a gap between the two of you, not like us old married folks. But that's all neither here nor there. We got a wedding to plan, don't we? And where on earth are we gonna get a minister? We can't go into town. I think maybe what you see is what you get, right here. You have any other ideas?"
Nobody had a better idea. "Can't we just do it ourselves?" Bob asked as he tore off another hunk of bread so he could wipe up the stew juices on his plate.
"Mmmf," Hank said with his mouth full, then swallowed and looked from Bob to Bonnie and back again. "If you like, I can try. My Dad was a minister. I think I remember most of the words. Maybe I haven't been ordained, but I guess it's what's in the heart that counts most, right?" Everybody nodded, so it was agreed. But times were hard and they were all tired and hungry, so they kept eating as they discussed the preparations.
"Do you have a dress, honey?" Gladys asked Bonnie. "I know for sure nothing I have would fit you. You want to get all prettied up for it. Bob, is there a sewing machine here anywhere in the house? Maybe I could sew something?"
"No," Bob replied, "no sewing machine. But my mother was about Bonnie's size. There are a couple of boxes of her clothes in storage. Do you want to look through them, sweetheart?"
"About the best I brought with me from the apartment is a brown business suit I bought for a job interview a couple of years ago," Bonnie said with a sigh. She put some more stew in Lucy's bowl and wiped the little girl's face with a napkin. Lucy was growing so fast now. She smiled at her child and smoothed back the bangs that fell across her little forehead.
"Mama!" Lucy cried happily, waving her spoon in the air, "Mama!"
"Everything else I have is mostly jeans and tops, maybe a dress or two, but nothing good enough to be married in. Yes, Bob, if you wouldn't mind, I would like to look at those clothes. Your mother had excellent taste. Maybe I'll find something I can use. If not, I can always use the brown suit. Or maybe just have a hippie wedding and wear jeans!" She laughed at that, but her heart wasn't in it.
"Now I can do a cake, I'm pretty good at those, and I bet we can come up with some music, but what are we going to do for flowers?" Gladys drummed her fingers on the dining table as her eyes stared off into the distance. "H'mmmm. Lemme think. What have I just seen lately..?"
That night, Bob and Hank took their places on the front and rear porches, armed and ready, with the dog dividing his time as before between the two of them. Gladys found two thermoses in the storage shed, and each man had one filled with hot tea to warm him. Inside the house, up in the bedroom, Gladys and Bonnie went through the two cardboard boxes of clothing. Lucy was already asleep. Down near the bottom of the second box, just as Bonnie was about to give up hope, she found something white and gauzy, and when she lifted it up it unfolded into a white dress with long sleeves and a long gathered skirt. It was made of crinkled cotton with a scoop neck and white satiny embroidery on the bodice. The neckline had a white satin cord to tie in a bow in front. It looked like it would fit, so Bonnie jumped up from the floor, stripped down to her underthings and tried it on. It fit perfectly, and as she turned in front of the full-length mirror on the master bedroom closet door, the skirt floated in a graceful circle, then drifted back down to her ankles. It was perfect. Gladys, watching, felt the sting of tears behind her eyelids and her throat suddenly had a lump in it.
"Oh baby, it's just perfect," she breathed softly to Bonnie. "Just perfect."
Bonnie began to cry, and Gladys rose from the bed where she had been sitting and held her in a hug, and she almost cried along with Bonnie. Downstairs their men were guarding the house from intruders, the world was in chaos with disease killing off thousands every day, and yet they had this moment of beauty and happiness now, right here in this house out in the woods. Crying seemed the right thing, the only thing, to do.
Two days later at three o'clock in the afternoon Bob and Bonnie stood in front of the fireplace, where a small fire crackled and sputtered, and Hank conducted the wedding service. There were no flowers this time of year, so Bonnie carried a bouquet of silk roses and carnations, white and pink, that she and Gladys had created from a deconstructed flower arrangement they found tucked away on a shelf. When Hank asked Bob if he had a ring, Bonnie gave a startled gasp. She had completely forgotten about a ring. But Bob reached into his pocket and drew out a small gold circle and held her hand while he slipped it onto her finger. "It was in my mother's jewelry box. I hope you like it," he whispered. In the background a tape deck played softly, a Beethoven concerto, and Gladys cried into a handkerchief. Lucy sat down on the floor and grinned up at the adults as Hank pronounced the couple man and wife, then they all adjourned to the kitchen for the wedding cake Gladys had finished making only hours before.
Bonnie felt strange. This wasn't the wedding she had dreamed of since she was a little girl. Her wedding to Nick didn't even count. That one didn't even come close to a beautiful wedding anyway. But this wedding, as unusual as it was, as far off her dreams as possible, was in its own way perfect. She couldn't have asked for more. She stood back and watched Bob, watched him as he bantered with Hank, watched him as he ate cake, watched him as he picked Lucy up in his arms and fed her a piece of cake from his hand. There was no comparison between him and Nick. This was a real man, a man who was competent, loving, trustworthy and honest. Everything Nick had never been. This was the man she had just pledged the rest of her life to. This was the man who would help her raise Lucy, who would protect and provide for them, who was the center of her life. And at that moment Bob turned his head and their eyes locked and between them flowed a river of love, wide and deep and pure and strong. Bob handed Lucy to Gladys and came to her and scooped her up in his arms.
They had three hours upstairs alone while Hank and Gladys watched Lucy and the dog play outside in the clearing in front of the house, Hank armed and ready for anything. When darkness fell, Gladys brought Lucy inside and Bob came out with his rifle, and again the two men and the dog stood watch over the house and their wives and the child. This was, after all, not a time for honeymoons, but survival.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:51:46 GMT -7
69.
In the Northern Hemisphere, winter, which had always been flu season, brought with it more grim statistics as the Black Flu ravaged populations anew. Some small communities already hit hard by opportunistic diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever were decimated. Where there still existed a support system, where some semblance of social order remained, the dead were buried in cemeteries. When fuel ran out, the heavy machines that dug graves gave way to shovels and picks. Where the ground was too frozen for even that rudimentary work, the bodies were held in unheated warehouses in the hope that the low temperatures would stave off decomposition. For the most part, it did not. The situation became intolerable. Eventually those in charge had to resort to funeral pyres, and almost every town had a greasy black pall of smoke hovering over it. The smoke smell was everywhere, like the black dust the smoke carried, settling over everything, powdering neighborhoods with its human fallout. In a macabre twist, it enabled the dead to come back home again, but nobody appreciated the irony of the situation.
Nick surprised even himself with his job. He had gotten into the habit of getting up on time, getting ready, being at his desk right on the dot at the appointed time every morning. He was even beginning to enjoy the routine of it, the influence he felt he wielded over those who came to him. He fantastized himself into a position of greater importance than was the case, but by doing so he became even more committed to the work. He enjoyed dressing the part, loved the respect he was beginning to earn from Louella, his co-workers and his clients. He had never had all these things before and he loved it. All that ended when the office closed down. It happened when the first wave of cholera hit Centerville. Two men came to the office and taped a notice, a sheet of bright orange paper, on the glass front door. They taped it top and bottom and both sides, using a big metal taper with a handle, as if trying to prevent someone from ripping it off the door. Nick sat at his desk and watched them put it up. They came in without a word, turned to the back side of the glass and taped it on the shining glass, ignoring the inquiries from the secretary who sat a few feet away. She picked up her telephone and called her boss, Mr. Stewart, whose office opened off the rear of the long room, but by the time he picked up his phone and she told him what was happening the two men had left, leaving the paper behind. The employees had to step outside so they could read it; it was an edict from the county sheriff's office closing all public gathering places until further notice, effective immediately, due to the latest disease outbreak. Non-compliance would result in arrests for violators. The notice provided little information, not even a phone number to call for questions, but it did advise everyone to boil all drinking or cooking water for a minimum of fifteen minutes, or use special tablets or bleach in it. The last paragraph explained the stiff penalties for those who had dug latrines within so many feet of water mains or water sources or lakes, rivers, or other sources of water.
There was nothing to do but close down the office. Mr. Stewart wrote out checks to each of the employees, but three of them, Nick included, demanded their pay in cash. Who knew if the bank could cash a check, or if (after seeing the two men going door to door all along the street) the banks were still open? He emptied the petty cash drawer, then gave out vouchers for the others who demanded cash, saying he would personally go to the bank as soon as he left the office, and those who wanted cash could come back tomorrow to see him for it. Nick was one of the lucky ones paid out of petty cash. He stuck the money in his pocket, threw what personal items he had in his desk into a plastic garbage bag and walked out. He felt a ***** sense of emptiness and loss, not anger. It was like walking out of the dark and noise of an exciting action movie into the quiet afternoon sunshine, back into the real world, and he wanted nothing so much as to go back into the office and sit down at his desk and get busy on the paperwork that had occupied his life for the past several weeks. That was real. This world was not real, this outside place of death and disease and uncertainty. His desk was real. That's where he was a real man, not out here in the sunshine, cast out onto the sidewalk like a refugee with his plastic garbage bag clutched in his fist. Out here he was just aimless, jobless Nick again, and he hated it.
At the apartment complex where Bob and Bonnie had met and lived, where their relationship first bloomed, someone broke into one of the abandoned ground floor units in Bob's building. The previous tenants were gone, dead of the Black Flu and buried in a mass grave somewhere. Two bums broke a window and climbed in and made themselves at home. There was still plenty of food in the pantry, although the leftovers in the refrigerator had long ago gone bad, moldy or sour or dried and shriveled. The only problem was cooking. There was no gas to the stove, so the bums built a small campfire in the kitchen sink, using branches scrounged from the landscaping and the trees that bordered the complex. All went well until one night the fire flared out of control and one of the men's shirtsleeves caught fire. In his frantic slapping efforts to put it out he managed to spread it to the draperies next to the front door. Neither of the bums had any vested interest in the apartment so they simply fled on foot, leaving behind a blaze that spread to the whole building. Nobody bothered to call the fire department, which probably would not have been able to respond in any case. Luckily, because of the way the complex was laid out, the flames were confined to that one building. The dead, dried-out lawns and bushes surrounding the building also caught fire, but there was little there to fuel the fire and it died out when it hit the sidewalks. Three people died and Bob's apartment was left a gutted shell. Now, although at the time he didn't know it, there truly was no going back for Bob.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:53:17 GMT -7
70.
Being married to Bob was completely different than marriage to Nick. Bonnie knew a level of happiness and sense of being protected and cared-for that she had never known in her life before now. The only real problem that the couple encountered in the first days was getting Lucy to accept the swap to Bob's bedroom, with Bob moving into the master bedroom with her mother. She stood up in her crib and cried for an hour the first night of the new arrangement, but finally fell asleep clutching her teddy bear, her little behind up in the air. The second night was about the same, and Gladys had to stand in front of the door in front of Bonnie to dissuade her from giving in and going in to comfort the child.
"If you do now, she'll expect it from now on," Gladys explained gently in a whisper, holding Bonnie's shoulders in both hands, looking into the young woman's eyes. "Every baby comes to this, having to be on her own away from mama, and the biggest problem is always mama. I know it's hard, honey, but you gotta let her go through this by herself."
"I g-guess so," Bonnie whispered back, her voice breaking, "but it's so hard to just listen to her crying!"
"I know, honey, I know," Gladys murmured, gathering Bonnie into her arms. "I know. Now you come on downstairs with me and let's get cups of tea."
After the first week it was just fine and she accepted the new sleeping arrangements. Lucy seemed to grow up a little more each day, now saying more and more words and toddling all around the first floor. She still couldn't negotiate stairs except on hands and knees, and that slowly, her little face screwed into a mask of concentration; even then, she could only go upstairs. She was still too afraid to try to come down the stairs on her own.
They named the dog "Goggy," because that was Lucy's pronounciation of 'doggy,' and it cracked them all up to hear her say it. He was delighted with his new family. Anything anyone wanted to do was just fine with him. Whenever someone came home or entered the room, he greeted them with a happy tongue-flopping canine grin and a tail that wagged his whole hind end, but he seemed especially devoted to Lucy. He slept at Lucy's bedroom door until Bonnie relented and allowed him into the room, where he slept right beside her crib every night. The two of them were inseperable. She played with him all day long, pulling his ears, trying to grab his furiously wagging tail, shrieking with laughter when he licked her face or butted his head against hers. Once when he had an accident and left a pile in the hallway near the back door, Lucy found it and stood there, pointing at it with a look of distress on her face, saying "Uh-oh, uh-oh, Goggy bad, Goggy poo poo," and Gladys could barely restrain her guffaws as she cleaned it up.
Gladys and Lucy were developing a loving relationship, too. Lucy loved to be held by the older woman and would pat her face and play with her hair and chatter to her about everything in her almost-intelligible baby language. She began calling Gladys "Grammy" and Hank "PawPaw," but the most important change was one day when Bob was carrying her down the stairs and she hugged his neck and called him "Dada." Bob, overcome, stopped halfway down and looked at her, then hugged her and kissed her cheek. Maybe Gladys had made some reference to Bob as Dada or Daddy, maybe Bonnie had. Nobody could remember. But everyone was amazed and pleased, although nobody as much as Bob. Lucy sensed that she had created a stir so she made a point of saying Dada a lot that day and the next, some times just blurting it out as she played, then laughing as though she had said something funny.
Now Bob watched her in the evenings and Bonnie saw his loving smile, the look of tender devotion on his face. She had done well in marrying this man. He was everything she and her little girl needed. Her life was complete, and here out in the woods with her new family, she was happy in spite of what was going on in the rest of the world. If she tried hard enough, she could almost convince herself that the rest of the world was back to normal, everything was fine and there was no Black Flu or some other awful disease sweeping through the country, killing off droves of people left and right.
Maybe, in fact, things were better out there. Maybe the flu and cholera and whatever else was wrong had gone away and things were getting back to normal. She didn't know because they pointedly avoided any news of the outside world. They didn't turn on the television set, which barely worked anyway because of the remote location and lack of proper antenna, and they didn't use the battery powered radio because they wanted to save their batteries for use in flashlights, for emergencies. Knowing wouldn't help any anyway, would it? It would only further alarm them. If the news was good, they'd find out soon enough. No reason to make waves, no need to get all stirred up over what they couldn't control.
The little family was perfectly happy isolated out deep in the forest. Laissez-faire was the best policy for them now. If and when the time came that they would have to venture back into society, if--God forbid!--they had some sort of medical emergency they couldn't handle by themselves, they'd deal with it then. For now, they lived in a pretty little world unconcerned and unaffected by the things going on in the rest of the country and across the globe. It was best for them all.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:55:12 GMT -7
71.
The first snowfall was a hard and deep one, piling three or four feet of the stuff up against the house, reaching almost from the ground to the deck. They were prepared for it. Over the past few weeks Hank and Bob had worked feverishly to chop and stack wood on the deck, up against the sides of the house, to help further insulate the house and be handy to access. Now it was hard to see the outside log walls up to about five feet almost all around and they were down to only five gallons of gas left for the chain saw. That first morning of the big snow they woke up to an unnatural stillness in the forest, what few sounds there were muffled by the heavy snow everywhere. Goggy had to relieve himself right on the deck because he couldn't get down the stairs to the ground, but even so, there was no ground visible now.
They were ready for winter. The men hoped they had enough wood for the fireplace, and the women had been stocking the pantry as much as possible from the resources the forest offered. It would have to do. Now was the time to hunker down and wait it out. Their perimeter alarm system was useless now, covered under the snow, but any intruders would have to struggle through the deep snow to even approach the house, and would leave clear tracks if they tried. They were as safe as they were going to be. Now all they had to do was enjoy life and find ways to keep themselves occupied in the big house this winter.
The lake hadn't frozen over. It sparkled black against the mounds of snow that ringed it and the pines were beautiful, laden with snow on their branches. It looked like a Christmas card. If the need arose, Hank and Bob could still clear a path through the snow, not as deep under the thick pines between the lake and house, so they could go out and fish. Neither of them knew whether they could catch fish in such conditions, but they were willing to try.
When Thanksgiving was a few days away Bonnie and Gladys began to make plans for the big feast. While there were some wild turkeys in the forests surrounding the house, the men had never shot one. The main dish for Thanksgiving would have to be a venison roast. They had a chest freezer packed with meat, so that wouldn't be a problem. The main problem was figuring out how to make a pumpkin pie without eggs. The day before Thanksgiving Gladys finally found a recipe using a can of sweetened condensed milk, and it worked. The rest of the menu was rounded out with canned vegetables and a big pan of homemade biscuits. Considering everything the little group had been through over the past year, the blessing Hank offered after they all sat down was especially heartfelt.
That night, after the meal was finished and the dishes washed and put away, everyone gathered in the big room in front of the fireplace. It had begun snowing again, giant flakes drifting lazily down outside the windows. There was a crackling fire in the fireplace and the room was snug, safe and warm. Lucy sat on the rug in front of the fireplace playing with Goggy, Gladys and Hank had one end of the couch, and Bonnie sat in Bob's lap in one easy chair, one arm around his shoulder, playing with his hair. The adults talked quietly, the fire snapped and hummed to itself and snowflakes ticked against the windowpanes as occasional gusts threw them against the house.
"We sure do have a lot to be grateful for, here with you," Hank said to Bob and Bonnie. "We could have ended up anywhere, but just look at us."
"Amen to that," GLadys chimed in. "It was our lucky day when we took up with you and Bob." She smiled at Bonnie. Bonnie was looking more and more radiant lately, calm and happy. Gladys enjoyed watching Bonnie blossom in her new role as Bob's wife.
"Well, we're the lucky ones to have you two here. I don't think we could have made it without you." Bob raised his glass of water in salute to the couple. "Here's to you!"
Lucy stood up and toddled over to the big windows and leaned against the pane, craning her neck trying to see up in the night sky, trying to see where the snowflakes were coming from. "Look!" she said, turning to the adults and pointing at the window with its shifting patterns of swirling flakes, "Look! Pwetty!"
Bonnie smiled indulgently at her little girl and Bob reached up and wrapped his arm around his wife's waist, hugging her. She leaned down and whispered something in his ear and his eyes grew wide, and a smile spread across his face.
"Really?" he said. "Are you sure?"
Gladys chuckled and elbowed Hank, who had been watching Lucy. When Hank looked at her, she pointed toward Bonnie and Bob with her chin. They were staring into each other's eyes, oblivious of the other couple. Gladys began to grin.
"I knew it," she whispered into Hank's ear, "she's pregnant."
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:57:12 GMT -7
72.
Bonnie and Lucy sat at a small table in a patch of sunshine on the wooden deck. Lucy was practicing writing her alphabet with a pencil on a sheet of paper torn from the back of one of the books in the house. Next to them little Bobby sat on the deck, laughing to himself as he swatted at a butterfly that had flown close to investigate the humans.
It had been a hard two years since Bobby was born in the upstairs bedroom, Aunt Gladys and Daddy Bob in attendance. Luckily, the birth was without complications and the labor was short. Since this was a second child for Bonnie, she labored for only five hours, gripping loops of torn sheeting tied to the bedpost while Bob hovered anxiously nearby, wiping her forehead and dabbing her lips with a wet washcloth. For Gladys, this was the first time she had even seen a baby born, much less attended as the midwife, but she took it in stride like the survivalist she was. She had read about home births back before the world came apart, back in the old days, and now that knowledge was the rock she held onto. She knew enough to pad the bed with a plastic shower curtain, she remembered to give Bonnie the loops to hang onto so she could push better, and when the little head was crowning, when the greasy white shoulder started to emerge, she knew to rotate the baby so he was born face down. That was to help his little body clear the bones and slip out more easily. Everything happened so fast after that. He began to cry on his own, Bob tied the umbilical cord in two places with boiled shoestring and then cut it, then he took his baby from Gladys and wrapped him quickly in a piece of soft blanket and laid him on Bonnie's chest while Gladys massaged her uterus to make it contract again, to lessen bleeding.
Bob's training kicked in during the worst of it, making him focus on the task at hand so he wouldn't panic. It seemed like everything went so slow until the very end, what Gladys called Stage Three, then everything went too quickly, so quickly he didn't even have time to think about what could go wrong. Then he was holding his own son in his hands, a little squirming, squalling child that looked like he was covered with library paste. His head was oddly shaped too, more like a bullet than a normal head (what's up with THAT? Bob's brain yelled at him), and as he bawled his face screwed up and turned red. Neither Gladys or an exhausted Bonnie seemed to be concerned about the infant's color or head shape, so Bob concentrated on watching Bonnie gently stroke the baby's little face, peeking out from the blanket wrappings. A few minutes later Gladys said everything was finished, the placenta was out and complete. She said it was important that the placenta was all there, nothing left behind, and the bleeding was slowing considerably. Everything seemed to be just as it should be and Gladys, for her lack of experience, appeared to have it all under control, so Bob relaxed and just looked at his beautiful wife and new son.
All that was two years ago. Now the family had settled into a good solid routine. Bob and Hank were the providers, Gladys and Bonnie took care of the kids and house and did most of the gardening. Goggy the dog was content to help with security and squirrel chasing, with an occasional assist in standing guard on nights that it was required.
After the incident about three years ago, when the household had been threatened by hunters, there had been no more problems. In fact, on the two occasions when the men had ventured out for supplies, they had seen very few other people. Both expeditions had been for the most part unsuccessful. The little roadside store where Bob had gotten cloth diapers two years ago was gone, burned to the ground. When Bob and Hank approached the Centerville city limits, they saw only an abandoned checkpoint made from police tape, orange cones and sawhorses. The tape fluttered forlornly in the breeze and a decomposed unidentifiable body in some sort of uniform, maybe police, lay off to the side of the road. The whole scene had an ominous feeling. They turned back and came home without even trying to drive around the barricade.
They had taught themselves how to save seeds from their vegetables and plant again the following season. They'd had some failures because of hybridization, but they had had some spectacular successes. They made a garden with a stockade fence and water hauled from the lake in buckets, and grew enough the first year to dry the excess vegetables for the winter. It was long hard work but it was paying off nutritionally and they were almost well fed.
Now Bob and Hank were out fishing, Gladys was washing the laundry in a tub and Bonnie was teaching Lucy her letters while watching little Bobby. Life was organized and good. The rest of the world was going downhill, but for this family, life was good.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 21:59:40 GMT -7
73.
"There's no way around it. We have to go in."
Bob was speaking at the dinner table where the family was eating a meal of baked fish, cornmeal johnny cakes and boiled cattail tubers. The children were quiet, eating with deep concentration.
"We have no milk now, except for Bonnie nursing little Bobby. Lucy needs milk in her diet. She has to have the calcium. We've been out of toilet paper for months now, as you all know." The others nodded as they ate and listened.
"I don't see any other way. Hank and I will just have to chance a trip into the city. We'll go armed, and we know how to watch each other's backs. Bonnie, you've become a good shot and if something happens to us, you four will be okay back here at the house." He paused at the sight of Bonnie's stricken face staring at him. "Honey, nothing is gonna happen. Hank and I can take care of ourselves, you know that! But we have to look at all possibilities. We have to be adult about this."
Bonnie swallowed and nodded dumbly, still holding a piece of corn cake in one hand. Beside her little Bobby reached toward it and she handed it to him, then wiped his face with her napkin. "I know," she replied in a small voice. "I just don't know what I'd do without you, that's all."
"You and Gladys would soldier on, that's what," Bob said briskly. "You have the kids to think about. They are what's important here. They're the future. Nothing's gonna happen anyway."
Hank and Gladys exchanged a quick glance, then they both went back to eating. Hank finished his food, pushed his chair back and stood up. He had lost weight in the last two years, almost thirty pounds, and looked much younger and stronger now. His face was tanned and he had grown a beard, and he laughed less than he did before. Gladys had lost a lot of weight too but now had more gray in her hair, and new lines in her face. She leaned over and spooned the last boiled tuber out of the serving bowl and put it on Lucy's plate.
"You finish this and Aunt Gladys will give you a treat," she whispered in the little girl's ear. Lucy grinned up at the older woman, grabbed the vegetable in one hand and popped it into her mouth.
Bob stood up and dropped his napkin on the table beside his empty plate. "Let's get our gear together," he said to Hank. "I think we should leave first thing in the morning. Maybe we can be back by nightfall. I don't want the family to be alone here overnight if we can help it."
Bonnie began gathering the plates into a stack as Gladys wiped the table with one of the used napkins.
Later, out on the porch in the darkness with Goggy sprawled beside them, Bob and Hank discussed the proposed expedition. They would leave at daybreak and go as far into Centerville as they could without leaving the car. They were bringing a length of rubber hose so they could siphon gas from other cars if possible. They would be heavily armed, in case there was trouble. They had a list of essentials to bring back, among them dry milk, canning lids to go on the glass jars they already had, more canning jars if they could find them, fabric for sewing, garden seeds, clothespins, first aid supplies and any medicines they could lay their hands on. The family had run out of aspirin, rubbing alcohol and ordinary medicines long ago. They used torn sheets for bandages, and boiled and re-used them over and over again. Safety pins would be nice. Matches. Ammonia. Sugar. Coffee. Flour. Baking powder and baking soda. The list went on and on, and neither of them even dared to hope they would be able to bring back everything on it, but they had to try. Tomorrow was the day, come what may. Whatever happened in Centerville, whatever tomorrow would bring, they had to make the attempt.
The day dawned bright and clear, a beautiful early Fall morning. The two men were dressed, breakfasted and out in Hank's car (which used less gas than the SUV) by eight o'clock. The women and children stood on the deck and waved as the car drove around the circular driveway and disappeared into the forest. One hand appeared out the passenger side window, where Bob sat, waving in farewell, then they were gone.
Not much had changed at the checkpoint where they had turned back on the last trip. The body in the uniform had been broken up by scavengers and was more scattered than before. The yellow tape was hanging by one end, flapping in the wind. Bob got out and moved a sawhorse off to the side of the road and Hank drove on through, then Bob got back in and they proceeded on, slowly, to conserve gas.
When they got to the first buildings, Hank stopped the car in the road and they just sat there for a minute looking around. There was no sign of life. One of the cars parked on the side of the road had the driver side door hanging open, but there was nobody inside and there was a coating of dust and dirt on the windshield, spattered with circles where it had rained some time in the past. The silence was eerie. Not even a dog barking. No cars moving, no human or animal life anywhere.
"This is giving me the creeps," Hank remarked as he peered around. "What if everybody is dead?"
"What if? We aren't, are we? I wonder what's happened here..." Bob's voice trailed off as he strained to look into an auto parts store next to the road on his side of the car. The window was broken, the interior was dark. Nothing moved inside.
Hank started the engine and drove slowly forward, the rumbling of the motor the only sound. Bob rolled his window down so he could see better.
"Wait a sec, Hank, stop the car. There's a ... I see something. No, keep going. It was just a garbage bag blowing between buildings."
Two blocks later Hank pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store attached to a gas station. "Why don't you jump out and see if there's anything inside, and I'll try to pump some gas," he instructed Bob.
A couple of minutes later Bob climbed back into the car. "Nothing. The place looks like it's been stripped clean."
"Nothing coming out of the gas tank, either. The electricity is off so it won't pump. We should have thought of that. Let's see if this Camaro over here has anything in the tank."
The Camaro yielded a gallon, maybe a gallon and a half. Bob siphoned as Hank stood guard with a pistol in his waistband, turning his head so he could watch all directions.
"This is like a science fiction movie," Bob quipped as he held the rubber hose so the gas could flow into Hank's car. "Any minute now the zombies'll come around the corner looking to eat our brains."
Hank shuddered, grimaced and looked over his shoulder. "You might be closer to the truth than you realize," he replied grimly. The only sound was the gurgling of gas in the hose and debris blowing across the parking lot. There was a lot of trash everywhere, even in the streets where the normal flow of traffic would have forced it to the gutters.
Now Bob was beginning to feel uneasy. "Let's get the hell out of here and see if we can find a store of some kind," he said as he pulled the hose free, screwed the gas cap back on and opened the car door.
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Post by ColcordMama on May 17, 2012 22:01:47 GMT -7
74.
"Might as well go for the biggest first, eh?" Hank said as he slowly steered the car into the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Bob nodded absently as he scanned the lot. There were a few obviously abandoned cars scattered here and there, one of them with the hood up and jumper cables dangling uselessly over the radiator. They had seen no one on the streets, no one peering from houses, no sign of life during their short drive here.
"Pull up right in front," Bob pointed toward the middle set of double doors. Two carts stood beside the doors and one lay on its side next to the trash container, which was overflowing.
They sat there in the idling car for a minute, looking at the facade of the megastore. "No broken windows, doors still intact," Bob observed. The two men looked at each other and smiled.
"That means it wasn't looted," said Hank, "but are you up to breaking and entering?"
Bob scratched his chin. "Depends on civilization, I guess, doesn't it? If there has been a general collapse of society then it doesn't really matter much if we break a window and go in to take what we need. On the other hand, if everybody just happens to be gone to an away high school football game, and nobody's been sweeping up lately, then we're in deep crap, aren't we?"
"I like the way you narrowed it down to the essentials, Bob. You have a gift for that, you know," Hank observed wryly as he got out of the car and pulled the lever to pop the trunk. He reached inside the trunk and brought out a tire iron.
"Hold on with that, Hank. Let's check it out before we just go bustin' in."
Bob got out of the car, walked up to the big doors and leaned close, shading both sides of his face with his hands as he peered in through the glass.
"I can't see a **** thing!" he exclaimed in disgust. "It's just too dark in there! The place could be stacked to the rafters or cleaned out and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
"Here, wait a sec." Hank opened the back door on the driver's side and rummaged around on the floorboards for a few seconds, then brought up a flashlight and held it out to Bob.
Bob went back to the glass doors. He flipped on the light and held it up to the glass. "Now I can see. Well, it's not cleaned out. There are boxes sitting around in there but I can't see if there is anything on the shelves from this angle. Let's go in."
"Okay. We'll go in. But do we want to go in through the front doors, break the glass out so anyone who comes along after us can help himself too? Or would it be smarter to try to get in through the back, so we can come back and get more another time? It looks to me like nobody's been around in quite some time here, so maybe we don't need to worry about sharing with someone else. On the other hand, do we want to take that chance?"
Bob rubbed his face with his hands. He suddenly felt tired. Not enough to eat lately, and it would only get worse unless they did something. "Let's try to jimmy a back door. Let's be sensible about this."
Once inside, the store was silent and dark and smelled vaguely of something dead. The two of them grabbed carts and stayed together, sharing the flashlight, walking up and down the aisles on the grocery side of the store. Mold-covered loaves of bread were thrown haphazardly across one of the shelves in the bakery department. The rest of the bread shelves were empty. Hank found crackers on another shelf, rows of crackers of all descriptions and flavors, but when he tore open a box and smelled it, he threw it down with a grimace at the stale odor.
"I bet most grain products are going to be stale or contaminated," he commented. "That includes cereals and flour. The women are going to be disappointed." But in the flour aisle they found yeast in foil packets and baking powder in metal cans, and lots of salt. They loaded big boxes of pickling and ice cream salt into one of the carts, plus as many round cardboard cartons as they found on the shelf. "Salt is gold," Hank gloated. "We can salt meat and fish. Take it all."
They also took all the canned vegetables and fruits they found there, which amounted to about six cases, plus only three cases of canned soups. It looked like there had been a run on soups before the store closed for the last time. Soup cans were scattered on the floor along with a woman's shoe and several boxes of crackers. In the same aisle they found a few boxes of dry milk powder plus several cans of dried whole milk of some off brand with Spanish writing on the labels, and they took all of those.
"Baby formula!" Bob exclaimed, and they headed toward the infant department, where they found empty shelves where the formula had been. They took baby bottles and tubes of diaper rash salve, then paused in front of the disposable diaper shelves. Bob played the flashlight beam over the few boxes they found there, then sighed. "These would have been nice two years ago, but we almost don't need them now. Besides, we're doing all right with cloth diapers and there's no need for us to get spoiled only to have to go back to cloth again when these ran out. I'd rather save the space in the car for food. But look and see over there and try to find diaper pins or safety pins, ok?"
Over at the pharmacy, they found that the patent medicines had pretty much been cleaned out. There were some broken bottles on the floor and a patch of cough syrup that had dried to a sticky mess. It looked like there had been some sort of altercation here, maybe a fight over medicine. They found no aspirins, no antacids, no decongestants or sleep aids. They did find hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol and rolls of sterile gauze, which they took along with toothpaste and Listerine and dental floss and adhesive bandages with cartoon characters printed on them. They also found vitamins and herbal supplements and homeopathic medicines, and took all they felt they had room for. Next to the pharmacy, they came across the pet department, where they took several cases of canned dog food for Goggy. Bob threw in a few toys for the dog too. They didn't need a collar for him because he was wearing one made from one of Hank's old belts.
In the craft department, they loaded several bolts of fabric into a new cart, along with handfuls of spools of thread, packages of needles and buttons, and balls of yarn. Not knowing what was important or usable, they grabbed at random. Hank threw in crochet hooks and knitting needles and instruction booklets from an adjacent display. He took containers of colored beads and little craft kits geared for children, and paint-by-numbers sets. Those would be good for Christmas, he noted to himself. Bob had found another flashlight in sporting goods and was in the shoe Department, filling yet another cart. "Hey, what's your shoe size?" he shouted at Hank, "and what's Gladys' size?"
The most amazing thing was how much there still was in the store. They were constantly surprised with each new aisle they explored. It made sense, in a way. The goal of business is to do business, so even in a crisis, whatever crisis had ultimately left the town so deserted, the upper level management of Wal-Mart would have tried to the end to keep the store stocked as much as possible, would have tried to preserve the normal order of things so that whenever the crisis had passed, the store could open its doors and resume business.
That day, apparently, just never came. Until now. And Bob and Hank and their family would be the grateful beneficiaries of that sensible business decision. Thank you, Wal-Mart.
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