by Harley Tate
Tracy gave her a quick pat on the shoulder. “If you ever need to talk, I’m here, okay?”
Brianna nodded.
“I’ll leave you two to figure out breakfast. Pick something that won’t keep long. Anything we won’t want to pack in a vehicle.” Tracy turned to leave when her daughter caught her arm.
Madison mouthed the words “thank you,” and Tracy smiled before leaving the little room. The more time she spent with Madison’s friends, the more they became family. She couldn’t bear the thought of Brianna hurting on her own.
Tracy walked through the kitchen and on into the backyard of the little house. There wasn’t more than a scrap of brown grass in the back between the fence line and the little one-car drive, but Tucker sat out in the middle of it with a hunk of electronics in his lap.
“What are you doing now?”
He glanced up, squinting to avoid the morning sun. “Charging solar panels, stripping some electrical wire, and seeing if I can’t convert this radio to run on my little backup battery. It sure would be easier than lugging a car battery around.”
“Any more news?”
Tucker shook his head. “The reception dropped way down as soon as the sun came out. I haven’t picked up a single signal this morning.”
Tracy watched him work in silence, thinking over all the testimonies they heard the night before. So many people trapped in their own little worlds, speaking into the giant void of what used to be 24/7 noise.
“Have you noticed how much more sound there is now?”
Tucker paused and looked back up. “Don’t you mean less?”
“No. I mean more. I’ve never heard so many birds or crickets or other little bugs and critters. I was standing out here this morning and the sound of a squirrel climbing up the tree caught my ear. I would never have heard his claws digging into the bark above the street noise before.”
She stepped closer to Tucker and bent down into a crouch beside his gear. “The world is noisy and busy and going on just fine without us.”
He glanced her way. “Do you think we’ll make it?”
Tracy tilted her head. “Society as a whole will have to change. I’m sure millions will die if they haven’t already. I can’t imagine cities being sustainable now. But the people who know how to farm and can protect their own little plots of land will make it. They might even thrive.”
Tucker bent his head and focused on the wire in his hands. “I know most people will die. I’ve come to accept that. What I meant was, will we make it? Do you really think we can get to Brianna’s place in Truckee? And once we’re there, can we survive?”
He glanced back up, his eyes so hopeful and bright in the morning light. Tracy wanted more than ever to lie, but she couldn’t. Not anymore. So she told the truth. “Honestly, Tucker, I have no idea. But we have to try.”
DAY ELEVEN
Chapter Fifteen
TRACY
Agriculture Department, CSU Chico
7:30 a.m.
Tracy, Walter, Madison, and her friends spent the entire previous day inventorying their supplies. Brianna and Tucker unpacked both cars while Tracy and Madison took the house apart and collected everything useful. Walter laid out all the first-aid supplies and medicine.
By the time the five of them finished, it was evening and everyone was spent. But it confirmed their worst fears. Without finding a way to grow and harvest their own food, survival would grow increasingly difficult. They might be able to make it through the first winter and even survive after most everyone around them perished, but after that?
At some point they would run out of places to forage. Without a garden and a farm, they would never make it a year.
“Are you sure this is the only way in?”
Walter nodded. “The greenhouse is our best bet. It’s got good natural light, easy sightlines around the tables, and it leads directly into the main building.”
“From here it looks like most of the plants are still alive.” Brianna handed her binoculars to Tracy.
As she brought them into focus, dark green splotches of leaves appeared behind the frosted greenhouse glass. She couldn’t believe it. “Someone must be there. They wouldn’t survive this long without water.”
Walter nodded. “That’s why we’re going in hot. I don’t want a repeat of the Comm building.”
Tracy lowered the binoculars and frowned at her husband. “Whoever is in there could be an ally. You seriously want to shoot first and not even stop to assess the situation?”
“Madison almost died because we didn’t.”
Brianna spoke up. “Madison isn’t here and I agree with Tracy. We shouldn’t engage unless whoever is inside is an actual threat.”
Walter rubbed a hand down his face. The man was beginning to look like a lumberjack with his inch-long beard and uncut hair. “It’s too risky. I won’t allow it.”
“You don’t get to make that call. This is a group effort, honey. At some point you’re going to have to accept that.”
He frowned. “Not today.”
Tracy rolled her eyes. “I’m not giving up, just so you know.”
“I’m not either.”
“You two argue like an old married couple.” Brianna unholstered a handgun and checked to make sure it was loaded. “Let’s get this over with.”
Tracy followed Brianna out from behind a grove of small trees. She turned back to her husband with a smile. “Coming?”
“Right behind you.”
It didn’t take more than five minutes to enter the greenhouse. The second the door opened, the smells of fertilizer and rich earth and growing plants hit Tracy’s nose. The humidity stuck to her skin and thickened the air. As Walter let the door shut behind him, Tracy fought the urge to leave.
Walter pointed with the tip of his rifle. “Each of you take an aisle. We can clear the greenhouse faster.”
Tracy eased over to the right, Brianna to the left, and Walter stayed in the wider middle. With her gun drawn and pointing down toward the floor, Tracy advanced. Every breath into her lungs felt a bit more like drowning. Suffocation from countless water droplets suspended in the air.
She wrapped her free hand around the base of the pistol and raised it a few degrees, willing the claustrophobia to subside. The greenhouse reminded her of her past, not because of the richness of the smell or the vibrant colors of the plants, but the closeness.
The oppressive heat and stifling fear.
Pushing the thoughts aside, she focused on the present. Nothing good ever came from her childhood memories.
“There’s got to be hundreds of plants in here. We need Madison to come and tell us which ones to pick. With all this, I’m sure we could set up a mini-farm.” Brianna slung her shotgun over her shoulder and began rooting through the plants, checking the names and pulling out ones for Madison to look over.
“We should clear the building first.”
She shook her head. “There’s no one here. And even if there is, I can’t imagine an Agriculture student shooting us over a few tomatoes.”
“Brianna.” Walter’s tone hit like a slap, sharp and insistent. “Clear the building.”
She opened her mouth to retort when Tracy stepped in. “How about Brianna stays here and works on the plants while we clear the rest of the building? By the time we’re done, she’ll be done, too. It’ll save time.”
Walter’s brows knit together, but he nodded. “Fine. I’ll lead.”
Tracy stayed a few steps back in her aisle while Walter approached the door to the rest of the Agricultural building. He reached for the handle as it swung open and almost hit him in the face.
A man carrying a six-pack of seedlings practically shrieked and almost lost the tray, bobbling it up and down and spilling dirt before he backed up.
“Hands up!” Walter trained the rifle on the man, waiting.
The man looked down at the plants in his hands and then back at Walter, hesitating.
“I said, hands up!”
“Hon, he’s not a threat.”
Walter didn’t lower the rifle. Tracy stepped closer, reaching out to touch her husband’s arm. He flinched as her fingers found skin and the rifle bobbed.
The man with his hands up let out a little yelp and the plants jiggled harder. Tracy tried again.
“Honey, he’s wearing a shirt that says This is How I Roll with a picture of a tractor on it. He’s not looking to hurt us.”
“Sh-she’s right. I-I just like plants.”
Walter leaned over and lined up the sight. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
The plant man yelped again.
“Mr. Sloane, come on, man. He’s a graduate student or something. If it weren’t for him, none of these plants would still be alive.”
“Is that true?”
The man nodded. “Y-Yes. I’m all but dissertation. I just…I need to finish this data set or I can’t write it. If I lose the plants, then my whole year is wasted. I’ll have to start all over and I’ll lose funding and then I’ll have to take a leave of absence and go work for my cousin Larry in Waukegan and—”
“That’s enough.” Walter lifted his head and lowered the tip of the rifle about a foot. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
The man looked down at his chest. “I’ve got my ID right here.” He pointed his chin at the pouch hanging around his neck.
Tracy reached out and flipped it over. “Steve Larcen, Graduate Student, Agriculture Department.” She let it fall and stepped back.
“Do you have any weapons, Steve?”
He shook his head. “N-No, sir. Well, if you count the pruning shears, then maybe?”
“Guns, Steve. Do you have any guns?”
Steve shook his head back and forth fast enough to have whiplash. “No. No guns. They kind of scare me.”
At last, Walter lowered his weapon and Tracy exhaled in relief.
“You can lower your arms.”
“Thank you. The lactic acid was beginning to set in up there.”
Tracy shook her head. “What are you doing here?”
Steve’s brows tucked in. “Just what I said. Finishing up my dissertation research. I’ve got about a month left and then I can write it.”
“But the power’s out.”
“I know. It’s crazy, right? I’ve had it take a long time, but never like this.”
Tracy glanced at Brianna, whose expression mirrored her own. “You know it’s never coming back on, right?”
Steve shifted the plants to one hand and scratched at his head. “Chrissy said something like that when she left last week, but to be honest, I haven’t been focused on anything but this building right here for a few weeks. This next phase of growth is critical for my theory.”
“Which is?”
“That select cover crops work as well or better than fallow fields and herbicides to improve soil quality and reduce weeds. It’s been a three-year labor of love, but this is the final test. If the plants that I’ve grown in soil where my cover crop grew are healthier and less weed-plagued than my control plants, then my theory is correct. It could revolutionize organic farming.”
Brianna began asking Steve about his research and he spouted off a bunch of words that sounded more foreign language than agricultural. Tracy turned to her husband. “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on them. You clear the rest of the building.”
“I don’t like leaving you alone with him.”
“With the tractor-humor graduate student? Walt, he’s fine and so am I. Check the rest of the building and come back. Maybe by then those two will have run out of things to say to each other.”
Walter frowned. “All right. But stay vigilant.”
Tracy nodded. “I will.” She watched her husband leave through the door before turning back to Brianna and Steve. He might seem more teddy than grizzly at the moment, but Tracy knew looks could be deceiving. While her husband cleared the rest of the building, she would honor her word and keep a steady watch.
Chapter Sixteen
MADISON
Agriculture Department, CSU, Chico
10:00 a.m.
“I told you I should have come with you from the start.” Madison leaned over a row of bright green plants, foraging among the leaves to find the plastic signs with the variety names written in neat print. “Then all of this would already be done.”
Brianna lifted a pole bean plant from Madison’s hands and placed it on the table of things to take. “You’re lucky your dad even let you trade places with your mom. The way he stared down poor Steve, I thought he was going to shoot him.”
Madison glanced up at her father as he leaned against the far wall of the greenhouse. “The graduate student? One look at him and it’s obvious he’s not dangerous.”
“After the communications building, your dad seems to think everyone’s a threat.”
Madison puffed up her cheeks and blew out a stream of air. When her mom came back from the greenhouse and told her to go pick plants, she didn’t mention anything about her father being this…intense. “He’s really that shaken up?”
Brianna nodded.
Crap. Madison knew the incident in the radio building shook her father. He could barely look at her without emotion lining his face and pinching his brow. But he couldn’t take what might have happened and turn it into something more. She survived.
If anything, her father should see how capable she had become. Instead, he wanted to wrap her in bubble wrap and hide her away. It would never work. Not now.
“Finding what you need?” Steve, the graduate student, entered the greenhouse with Madison’s father close on his heels. Although he traded the rifle for a handgun, her dad still kept a weapon trained on the poor guy. At least Steve stopped shaking.
Madison smiled. “Are you sure you don’t mind us taking a few?”
“Not at all. Like I said, none of the plants in that section are part of my thesis. I was watering mine, so I figured why not water them all, you know?”
“I found heirloom pole beans and peppers. Do you know if there are any tomatoes?”
“Heirloom only?” Steve scrunched up his face in thought. “I think so. Harriet was working on a research project with tomatoes and squash. Those would be over on the far row.”
Madison made her way there and rummaged through the plants until she found the ones Steve mentioned. She pulled out three tomatoes and three squash.
As she handed the plants over to Brianna, her roommate raised an eyebrow. “Why heirloom? They don’t look as big and healthy as the plants in the middle.”
Steve spoke up. “All of my research plants are grocery-store varieties. They’re hybrid plants whose parents were pollinated by hand. The tomatoes will be big and red and just what you expect in the grocery store. But if you save the seeds and try to grow them on your own next year, they probably won’t turn out.”
“Seriously?” Brianna glanced around at all the plants in the greenhouse. “Why would anyone grow plants with worthless seeds?”
“Because they produce the most attractive fruit. That’s all that stores and consumers care about these days. Biggest, most colorful, best-looking.” Madison ran her hands over the leaves of the closest plant as she talked. “Have you ever gone to the store and bought a big, red tomato only to cut into it at home and have it taste like nothing?”
Brianna nodded. “All the time.”
“That’s because those plants have been engineered to grow a ton of massive fruits all at once so the harvest is bigger.”
Steve chimed in. “But when you load up a single tomato plant with that much fruit, it diverts all its energy into ripening the fruit, not imparting flavor.”
Brianna stared at the two of them with wide eyes. “So you’re telling me all the plants corporate farms grow these days are en
gineered to look good? Like a massive beauty pageant for crops where they look pretty on the outside but what’s underneath doesn’t matter?”
Madison and Steve nodded.
“Unbelievable.”
Madison agreed. “It’s actually worse than that. A lot of the plants we buy to be backyard gardeners are the same. They’re just like Steve’s research plants. Many tomato plants sold at home improvement stores are grown to produce one year of beautiful fruit, but nothing more.”
“Why would anyone buy those?”
“Because people don’t take the time to dry seeds and plant from them the next year when they can just go to a big box store and buy an already started six-pack of plants for a few dollars.”
Brianna looked around at all the plants in amazement. “So all of those tomatoes you slaved over and babied at school, those were one-time only plants?”
Madison nodded.
“Unbelievable.”
“Tell me about it.” Steve walked over and picked up a small plant. “This is one of the best tomatoes for Northern California right here. It’s an Amish Paste tomato, sort of like a Roma, but it’s hardy inland and is one of the last to harvest.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“No reason you would when Romas are everywhere and grown in a massive scale.”
Madison could tell from the way Brianna’s eyes wandered to take in all the plants, that she was a bit overwhelmed. Even people as prepared as Brianna didn’t understand the nuances to gardening. Selecting varieties of seeds to grow was as important as picking the right soil and location.
Too much sun and irregular watering and tomatoes would crack in concentric circles around the top. When exposed to too-bright light and wet soil, the leaves would roll up from the bottom. The tomato fruit would lose the shade necessary to ripen and not sunburn.
And those were just tomatoes. With California producing over ninety-five percent of the tomatoes in the United States, it was the fruit all agriculture students in the state knew the most about, but it wasn’t the only one their little party needed. They would need a whole variety of plants to survive on their own.
