Charit Creek

by D A Carey

  “Hello?” she called out. “Hello in the cabin!”

  A door in the cabin opened a crack, and a man stepped out holding a small .22-caliber rifle probably used to hunt squirrels. He looked to be in his late thirties, was thin with a dark beard probably eight inches long, wearing sandals and a beaded necklace in addition to large hoops in his ears. “Who are you? Are you alone?” he asked suspiciously.

  Mary decided to play it straight and lay her cards on the table. “My name is Mary Cahill. I’m here with a few other women that are back up the trail a ways. We have two hurt men with us. One of them knew of these cabins and hoped we might rest here safely before moving on.”

  “You say there are other women with you? And the men are hurt?” The man scratched his beard.

  “Yes, we won’t be any trouble. A few of the cabins look empty. Could we use one of those, please?”

  “I guess so. I don’t have any food for you, and you have to stay away from me and Brook.”

  “Is Brook your wife?”

  “Kind of. That’s none of your business, though. We both came here to work as caretakers. I’m from California and Brook’s from Kansas. I guess you could say we own this place now.”

  “Okay,” Mary said, confused. She’d seen a haggard younger girl peek out of the window while she and the man talked. “What cabin should we use?”

  “Take the far one.” He pointed to a cabin about sixty yards down the valley on the banks of the creek. “It’s unlocked.”

  “Thank you.” Mary reached out to shake his hand.

  The man stepped back and ignored her gesture. “Don’t thank me yet. If you’re some of those warmongering conservatives that started this whole mess, you won’t be allowed to stay. And if you get into mine or Brook’s business, I’ll boot you. Hell, if you even annoy me, you’ll be out. Fair warning.” His sickly smile gave truth to his words.

  Taken aback, Mary responded meekly, “Thank you. I’ll go get my friends.”

  * * *

  Once inside the cabin, the primary focus was getting Vince and Junior on bunks and allowing Aditi to examine them. The cabin had six bunk beds, a small potbelly stove, and a picnic table as the only furniture. There were four windows, and the chinks between the logs were well caulked to keep it snug in cold weather. It had a front porch with two rocking chairs and a screened-in back porch with a bench.

  Aditi and Christy were engrossed in making sure the men were comfortable and none of their wounds had reopened. Mary and Liz discussed their situation and immediate needs. Anoop stood close by and volunteered to help.

  “Sheetal and I can go for water. Surely that man won’t see an old man and a little girl as a threat.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Mary said. “That man may have the same prejudices as the people in Memphis and Oneida. He has already seen me. I’ll go find a pale and pump water from the well.”

  “What can I do to help?” Anoop asked.

  “Nothing for now besides making sure Aditi and Christy have whatever they need to help Junior and Vince.”

  Later, when they were unpacked, both Junior and Vince had been tended to and were sleeping, the ladies settled in to talk.

  “What were the people in the main cabin like?” Christy asked.

  “It was hard to get a read on the guy. The girl never came out of the cabin. I did see her peeking through the window. She looked scared to death, although that’s normal these days.”

  “Tell us everything you noticed about him, even the thoughts you had as you spoke to him,” Liz said, switching back into her keen observation of people mode.

  “He is thin and bearded. I don’t think he’s hungry. It was more of the hipster kind of beard. I got the impression he’s one of the militant liberals that came out to the woods to live like a hippy. He said we wouldn’t be welcome if we were ‘warmongering conservatives.’”

  “Good to know. We need to keep him away from Vince and Junior,” Liz said.

  “Mary and I can be the go-between with him and our group,” Christy offered then snickered. “We may be able to calm him or put him off guard. Of course, the same could be said for you as a California actress.”

  “What else did you notice?” Liz pressed.

  “He has a small rifle. My father used to squirrel hunt with one like it that was a .22-caliber Ruger. It looked like he was hiding something. He definitely relaxed when I said we were a group of women with two injured men.”

  Christy and Liz exchanged glances, not liking that last part.

  “Anything else?” Liz asked.

  “Only that he told us to stay away from him and the main cabin. I got the feeling he is too curious about us to hold to that last part, though.”

  << Luke >>

  “I don’t want you working up there,” Luke said as passionately as he could while keeping his voice low so as not to wake the children.

  “It’s not your say, Luke. I love you, but we have hungry kids sleeping on pallets in a parking garage.”

  “They aren’t hungry. I’m getting them fed, and we now have a corner spot and two parking places. I’m working hard, and they trust me. We don’t need to move into the hotel. Those rooms come at a price we shouldn’t pay.”

  “I can get us there faster. The professor offered me work, and he appreciates my mind and skills.”

  “Cindy, you have no idea what’s going on in the hotel and what they are making those women do.”

  “I doubt they are forcing women to do anything they don’t want to. This is still America, after all, and those men are from the government. I asked the professor about those rooms. He told me they’re all volunteers. He agrees that while it’s distasteful, those women don’t have other skills, and the men have nowhere to go let off steam, so it’s a necessary evil.”

  “Cindy, they are forcing the women with the threat of worse food and living conditions. Those women don’t have anywhere else to go. Don’t you see that the government isn’t in any hurry to change things? It’s like each FEMA or DHS regional commander is intent on setting up their own kingdom.”

  “You’re being paranoid, and you’re beginning to sound a lot like your friend Vince. What’s he doing now? Is he living in a cabin in the woods ranting about the government?”

  “I don’t know. I had no idea you felt that way about Vince. I thought he was in Hollywood helping Liz Pendleton with a movie. If he is still out there, Sergeant Penders told me that the reports out of the west say that people are living like animals. Heck, he could be back in Carrollton for all I know. If he is in Kentucky, it’s not a lot better. From what I’m told, outside of the FEMA camps it’s a lawless jungle out there right now with the exception of a few planned communities.”

  “Luke, I know you like Vince and maybe even look up to him a little,” Cindy said in a placating way, “but you have to accept that people like Vince don’t build things; they tear them down. Vince is a destructive genius. It takes nations and governments to fund and plan things large enough to make a difference. It’s not uncommon for those governments to have some nefarious beginnings. What’s important to keep in mind is the greater good.”

  “Yes, but at what cost? I know for sure what’s going on upstairs. I’ve seen the results. You’re my wife, and I can’t stand the thought of you going through that.”

  “I’m also a mom, and even though I have no intention of doing what those women are, if that’s what I thought it took to feed and educate my kids, I could understand why a woman might.”

  Luke started to speak and then closed his mouth, realizing he was losing this argument. In truth, he lost most arguments with Cindy and actually didn’t have an interest in winning.

  “All the professor has asked me to do is help prepare quarters and plan a welcoming reception for some doctors that the leaders want to woo.”

  << Sam >>

  Sam was dead tired. The guards had resorted to electric cattle prods to keep them moving. When Sam came into the camp a couple
weeks ago, he was automatically on a list to be watched because of his political affiliations. He was former Army, a conservative, and an NRA member. With all the chaos currently going on, Sam was surprised the computers worked well enough to pull up all that information.

  He had only come to the camp because his fiancée had a drug problem. She’d been getting treatment to stay clean before everything went to hell. After the attacks, her withdrawals and need for the drugs came back hard, probably driven by the stress of surviving in this new world. Upon entering the camp, Stacey was taken upstairs to meet with the doctors. Early the next morning, she returned bathed, dressed scantily, and clearly high. When Sam barged his way upstairs, he was told that she was being given small doses of the drug as a way to help slowly wean her off of them. Stacey told a different story of parties and men, alcohol and drugs.

  The next time the guards came for Stacey and said she had an appointment with the doctors, Sam protested and said she would stay in the garage. Things almost came to blows before Sam relented and let her go. Later, she was escorted back to their parking spot in the wee hours of the morning smelling of perfume and alcohol, eyes glazed over and singing to herself. After the third time, Sam tried to sneak Stacey out of the camp and was caught.

  Since then, Stacey had moved into the hotel full time and Sam had been living on half rations and marching up to the top of a tall building every day with a sledgehammer in hand. When he didn’t move up the stairs fast enough or stopped swinging the hammer, he was shocked with a cattle prod. When he first went up the stairs, he scoffed at the idea that men with sledgehammers and torches could dismantle a building, yet to his dismay they’d made progress. It had begun by cutting and smashing everything on the roof and tossing it over the edge. Then they cut through the roof and hammered away at the walls. The huge I-beams took a long time for the men with acetylene torches to cut through. By doing it this way, they’d already leveled the roof and top floor of the tower and nearly completed a second one when Sam felt the floor tilt beneath him. As he began to slide over the side, he grabbed for anything he could to stop his fall. Everything he grabbed came loose and slid with him.

  When his body finally fell into space, he had a sardonic smile on his face. He’d lost Stacey, lost his freedom, the world had gone to hell, and he was tired.

  Sam’s body hit the ground twenty-eight stories below, landing among other debris. It didn’t cause much comment, and his body was merely picked up with the other debris and dumped in the Ohio River.

  << Dave >>

  Dave, Louis, and Levi huddled in the great room of Dave’s large cabin overlooking SOP-Town. They were worried about Vince and Liz. The longer things stayed dark in the west and they heard nothing, the more concerned they became. No one would assume the pair had died. That left two options: would they hunker down or leave? Knowing Vince, they assumed that while he might have hunkered initially, he wouldn’t do it long term, and especially not in southern California. That left a discussion of routes he might have taken. The group discussed whether there was any way to send a team along a likely route to offer aid.

  While he could have headed north before heading east, they discarded that idea, knowing Vince would want to get away from the crowds and chaos in California. That left a few options heading east and questions whether he would bypass major cities to the north or south. A lot depended on where Vince had been when things went dark and if he’d been close to his “go bag.” They’d given him a list of the chartertowns in all stages of construction and contacts for people running those sites. At the time the list was created, the Utah location was barely a blip on the map. Had that location been further along, Dave would have bet on Vince heading that way. As things stood, he kept coming back to the Texas location of Turk-Town.

  “Louis, have we heard anything more from Texas?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Do we have any options for getting linked up with them?”

  “It’s too far for a drone. We do have a couple of planes, including the Falcon, that were shielded from the EMP over at Leadville. We planned to be cautious about how we use them. We don’t know if the strikes are done or where we could land. We have a couple of older planes in the area that have been used for vintage air shows or crop dusting; however, they don’t have the range. We did contemplate sending a team down there by land. We decided the reward wasn’t worth the risk. We can do that any time you decide you want us to.”

  “How rough are things in between here and there?”

  “Very bad. You heard what Tim and his daughter went through in Denver. That’s similar to stories we’re hearing in all the major western cities. The country has some good spots as well as places where people are getting attacked and waylaid. The bad people are banding together faster than the good and controlling large swathes of territory. The theory is that only a few of the gangs will last due to food shortages and larger, meaner gangs. Until that happens, we’re sure we’d lose a few men getting down there and back.”

  “Thanks. You made the right call. We don’t know what route Vince and Liz took, if any at all. We honestly don’t know if they’re alive or not. I won’t get someone killed just to check on them. I could almost justify sending a team down to Texas to check on Turk-Town, though. They should have been up and running by the time this thing hit. We owe them our support, and they are a static location that we can get a team to, not running all over like Vince and Liz may be. However, without further proof that Turk-Town is in danger, I won’t risk lives to go check.”

  “Boss, I could go down on my own. No one has to get killed, and you know I can get there and back,” Levi offered.

  “I know you could, Levi. There is always a chance something could go wrong, though. I need you here with us. We could be needed in Utah, Kentucky, or Georgia. If we are, you’ll need to lead that team. We need to focus on the living. Or those we know for sure are alive.”

  << Jeff >>

  So far, things in Georgia had gone according to plan, except Jeff hadn’t intended to live there and lead. He’d been supervising the last stages of construction when all hell broke loose. Many of the residents had already moved in, and more came in like refugees. Andy, one of the heroes who helped get Liz and Vince’s family out of Chicago last year, had come down to head up security at this site.

  The location was well stocked. The walls were tall and strong. Jeff had directed the access road be covered with weeds and rendered hard to pass. Additionally, Andy’s security team and selected residents were fishing in the reservoir and hunting nearby to augment the food supply. Inside the walls, they had chicken coops and gardens. School continued, and church services were held. They also traded food in small quantities to residents of the nearby Crystal Falls subdivision to keep those people more stable and on their side.

  Once every other day, either Jeff or Andy spoke with Louis back at SOP-Town. Satellite calls were still problematic, just not as bad as last year. They assumed they were being listened to and practiced OPSEC even though none of what they were doing should have been considered much of a secret.

  Jeff insisted things were okay and he didn’t need any help. Andy agreed and said that if things got bad they would have to take care of themselves until relief could get to them from Kentucky or via a long plane trip from Colorado.

  One of the nights when the call signal was strong and Jeff and Louis had more time to talk, Jeff shared a story with Louis that the other man wouldn’t be able to shake for weeks. It was from a lady named Martha who lived in a retirement community in the Buckhead area north of Atlanta.

  “Louis, it was chaos in the last place you’d expect it.”

  “It’s close to a major metropolitan area. We’ve always known those areas would get hit the worst.”

  “Yes but this was a gorgeous retirement community. Not huge like The Villages in Florida, yet still great. It had golf courses and small houses, condos, and even a clinic and nursing home. It was the kind of place where one spo
use could live in a house and the other in a nursing home or both could live at home and have home health care.”

  “I get it. What happened?”

  “She said they were spared the terrorism but not the aftermath. They expected gangs or thieves. What they didn’t expect were all the young people, the Atlanta hipsters who moved in in droves. The lady I mentioned, Martha, was in her condo with her sister because her husband was in the nursing home a few blocks away. A few weeks ago, three twenty-something yuppies knocked on the door and only said, ‘We’re hungry.’ Before Martha could say anything, they shoved their way in and went through the cabinets as if she wasn’t even there.”

  “Wow.”

  “Those three made themselves at home and told Martha and her sister that they could get out of the way or out of the home; it was their choice. They got out of the way. Later, when they got into Martha’s prescription drugs and some of her husband’s scotch, things got worse. They began breaking things and shoving the two women around. One of the three was a woman. All she would say was, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t control those two,’ then giggle when they threw something or hit Martha or her sister. By the end, they were bleeding and bruised all over.”

  “I hope one of them had a gun.”

  “They didn’t. One of the two men took the girl upstairs ‘to rut,’ as Martha called it, and the other man fell asleep. Martha and her sister packed as much of their food and belongings as they could carry and made their way to the nursing home to check on her husband.”

  “They should have hit the sleeping bastard with a pipe before leaving.”

  “As good as that would have felt, it would have been dangerous. They were smart and got out. The nursing home was a disaster. All but a few of the staff left soon after the West Coast went dark. Sometime in the last few days, the gangs hit. While the yuppies may have chosen individual houses like Martha’s, the gangs went for the big loot. Nursing homes are full of food and drugs.”