The hammer of my pistol dropped again.
Blondie’s face went pale and I watched her pupils grow so large they swallowed my soul.
Chapter Two
My headache drilled holes in my skull and melted brain matter with boiling lava.
It came on about midnight, long after I set up Blondie on her date with the Grim Reaper. I’d been asleep for over fourteen hours and truth be told, would have been glad to stay in my cocoon-of-safety for another twenty.
My above garage apartment was sanctuary. It’s strange how familiar surrounding can calm the soul during a cataclysmic event. My shoulders were still shaking and I could feel the stress from the previous day burning from my muscles, but at least I’d rested.
I replayed the day’s adventure and tried to build a picture of what really happened.
After dispatching Blondie, I passed by the security office and found it was a pile of rubble. I didn’t have the stomach to dig through the mess. I walked the five blocks home. It was a lonely walk where every wet chaffing step reminded me of the horror. Thousands were dead. Was it a bomb or was it an earthquake? No matter what it was, I was shuffling along in a numb trance.
Not many people were on the streets and everywhere I looked I saw scorch marks. It was like a giant branding iron drug its cherry-red hotness to every power pole, automobile, and structure. Power lines hung melted to the ground and smoldering ruins scented the air with burnt plastic. I passed close to a couple of houses and could see steel or copper pipes protruding from walls and melted into contorted shapes.
I got to thinking about bike girl and the bombs. Something didn’t jibe. Yeah, the electrical system being knocked out followed the Electro Magnetic Pulse playbook, but where was the percussion, the bright light? True, the pipes in the basement of the library were rattling crazy like, but no ka-boom. Or was there? Did I mistake the noise of the collapsing building for the bomb? I had doubts.
These worries kept nagging, and after a while I crawled out of bed, moved to a chair, and stared out the window. It was dark. No streetlights were burning. The only thing I could see was my pale reflection in the cold night glass. Sitting lets a man think. My little voice kicked in again and we talked for a bit. It was a serious talk and I did most of the listening. It was as bad as when my mother told me dad died.
‘Rye,’ the little voice said. ‘You’re in a load of trouble. Yea, you’ve got food and weapons stashed away, but you’re new to this town. No friends and no family. Wise up and get your head back in the game. It’s time to leave.’
I didn’t agree. My scaredy-cat voice was talking. First I needed to deal the death. Later I would consider tucking tail and running.
Little voice started up again but I pushed it down. I was going to do this my way. I couldn’t abandon my new home, yet.
For a long time I sat in silence rubbing my temples and tried to digest this new life. Lots of people died, thousands. What happened? Why did someone shoot at me?
Eventually someone started banging on my door
“What do you want?” I asked as I climbed out of the recliner and moved toward the door.
An older woman’s voice replied. “Mr. Ironstone?”
I palmed Betsy. “Maybe. Who wants to know?”
“Professor Gale, a neighbor. Your light was on.”
“What?” I rubbed my puffy eyes and looked around my meager apartment. Sure enough, a flickering candle sat on the small table in front of a mirror.
“I thought you might be up by now. Got anything to eat?”
“What about your place,” I replied. “You don’t have food of your own?”
“House fell down.”
I scratched my head and gave her answer some consideration. “Oh, that’s—I don’t know what that is.”
“It means you’re feeding me today. Okay? Water too.”
“Today?”
“It’s almost dawn.”
The grogginess gave way to clarity, maybe her house collapsed. My little voice sat idle. I took a chance. “Why me? Lots of other places in the area.”
“Mr. Ironstone, let’s not be coy. We both know you have the means to feed a sweet old lady.”
It took three heartbeats for me to decide. “Okay. Give me a moment.” I took the blanket off my shoulders, slipped on a multicolored sweater, and checked the string on my sweatpants. All was in order. The great Rye Ironstone was about to open the door and well, I don’t know what I expected.
Did I ever tell you my little voice has a sarcastic streak?
There was no light on the stoop, and my attempt to look out the peephole yielded no clues. What’s the old saying, ‘in for a penny in for a pound?’ I feared the pound was going to be a pound of my flesh. Nevertheless, I eased the door open and held the candle out to illuminate my predawn visitor.
She was small, like a sprite, with tiny round ears and deep amber pools for eyes. Thirty years ago she could have been a model. Her hands were outstretched in front of her, palms up. I watched her slowly turn around and open her jacket for inspection. My security training forced my eyes to watch with intent scrutiny. If she carried a weapon it was concealed pretty deep, or in a pocket. I let it pass.
I nodded “Ma’am,” and stepped off the threshold motioning her to enter.
She moved like a cat. I noticed the cat thing right away. It scared the beejeebies out of me. Every motion was graceful flow and rippled coordination.
She extended her hand and looked me straight in the eye. “I’m your neighbor, Doctor Gale.”
“Rye,” I said as we shook hands.
We stood there. I think she was waiting for me to say more.
“Um, you hungry?” I asked.
Her smile was warm and reminded me of grandma. A simple tan canvas jacket wrapped her slim frame. Conservative brown chinos covered her legs and lace-up boots shod her feet. “Yes please. I didn’t get lunch or dinner.”
I closed the door and walked into the living room which also doubled as the kitchenette. “Soup would be easy.”
“I’ll cook if you want,” she said. “Power won’t be coming back on. Let’s eat what will spoil first.
I put the soup can back in the cupboard and closed the silverware drawer with my hip. The rattling spoons and forks added strangeness to the quiet building. “Okay, help yourself. I’ll get a couple more candles lit.”
Doc Gale pulled the shiny fridge handle with little effort. “Go close the curtains while you’re at it.”
I shrugged my shoulders, did as told, and lit two more of those long burning Saints Candles.
It’s strange when the power’s out. We accept refrigerators hum, heaters click, and all sorts of electrical equipment add colorful sounds to our lives. But silence is unnerving. It was just me and the old lady sharing the most meager words necessary to get our points across. I started to question the oldwives’ tale, silence is golden.
I plopped down in my still-warm chair and shuffled my feet rotating the recliner till it pointed toward the small sink and counter. “What are we having?”
She pulled two-day-old-pizza, along with a couple of tomatoes, and what may have passed as a cucumber from the warming fridge. “Nothing till you go get your camp stove.”
The stove was downstairs in the garage. I stashed it there when I moved in a couple months back. How did she know? I studied the feline gal and tightened my thinking cap a couple of notches. Obvious answer would be all single guys like me owned a camp stove. I decided to let this one go and banged my way down the outside stairs.
I unlocked the wooden carriage door and closed it behind me. I flicked the light switch a couple of times and was rewarded with the same stupid feeling you get after asking out the cutest girl in school. The small candle in my hand attacked the darkness and lost. Like a fool, I’d left my flashlight upstairs. Luckily I knew my way around pretty well. Most of the space was taken up by buckets and boxes of dried food with a cleared path down the middle. The stove was right where I’d left it
, top shelf back corner over the workbench. I grabbed it, a jug of drinking water, locked the garage door, and headed back up the outside stairs.
Dinner was about as good as possible when the only ingredients consisted of what a bachelor keeps in the refrigerator.
Not much conversation passed between the two of us and to my surprise she grabbed a blanket, lay back on the couch, and started to snore. I fought the urge for a while but in the end dozed off in my recliner.
I woke an hour or two later. She was curled up on the couch, her shallow breathing the only indication of life. The curtain was still drawn, and slivers of light pushed back the stillness of my small above garage abode.
“I’m going to make coffee, do you want some?” I asked, as I walked across the hooked rug.
One of her eyelids slipped open. “Please, black.”
I made my way over to the sink and filled a pot with water. The stove was still set up from earlier, and all it took was a couple of strokes of the plunger and a fresh match to get the blue flame burning.
“Dr. Gale. First or last name?”
She stretched out on the couch and bent forward till her chin touched her knees. “Both. Gael Gale actually.”
I raised my eyebrow in my best intergalactic Vulcan imitation and concentrated on watching the pot boil. “Are you one of the professors at the college?”
“Yes, taught history, anthropology was my specialty.”
She moved to the floor to continue here stretching and was in some strange position. Her hips turned one way and shoulders the other.
I kept expecting her to twist all the way around. The pop never happened, and I felt a little letdown.
“How’d you get the name Rye?”
The pot lost my interest. “Folks named me Raymond after my granddad. I never felt like a Raymond. Picked a new name. Rye seemed good.”
The water was boiling. I topped off the mugs and handed her one.
Careful not to spill the black gold, I started toward the door. “I’m going to go sit under the tree.”
“I’ll come too, okay?”
“Sure.”
I took my customary place in one of the Adirondack chairs under the tree canopy.
The java tasted like freeze-dried java. I kicked my feet forward and watched the fall colors shimmer in the light breeze. My Appalachian mountain town was beautiful. Lots of bumpy ground. It was nothing like my home in Oklahoma. The taint of burned civilization settled upon the land. Dozens of houses were collapsed. Destruction leveled much of the area and charred ruins littered the landscape, yet I no longer felt a compulsion to tuck tail and run. If someone did drop the bomb, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Sitting here and enjoying the sunrise seemed the proper thing to do. Was I concerned about fallout? Not really. We were tucked on the backside of a mountain, and besides, Bike-girl’s story felt a little weak.
I brought my gaze back to Dr. Gale. “Which house was yours?”
Her eyes lost their faraway look as her attention shifted across the street. “The one with all the red brick.”
A jumble of rubble stood heaped between two collapsed chimneys. I tried to put a bit of sympathy in my words. “Tough break.”
“I liked the place. I’ll miss it. Lots of memories.”
We sat a bit longer. Dry was what I would call the conversation. Gael was tight-lipped. I let her be. I was still contemplating my own encounter from yesterday. I could tell something was troubling her, but as with so many of the Great War generation, she never talked about it. She eventually slipped into a quiet place and pulled her legs and arms in tight. I heard her breathing change, and I guessed she found solace in the deep corners of her mind.
The silent company was nice. We’d found a way to talk without actually speaking.
A few neighbors poked their heads out of windows and doors or scooted across the street from one house to another. Not much was happening in the neighborhood. I wasn’t surprised. People tend to hunker down right after a crisis and with all the talk of nuclear war the past few decades, I could understand why. It would probably be a day or two before anyone was active. But when they were, it would be a scared hungry mob roaming the streets.
Information was going to be like gold to these people. I needed a plan and set the back of my mind working on the details.
My stupor was disturbed by a big truck coming down the street. A speaker mounted on top was blaring some disjointed narrative. Lots of boxes were stacked on the flatbed. My little voice kicked in big time and screamed, ‘danger, Rye, danger.’
Betsy started to sing her soothing call.
I leapt from my chair and scooted behind the tree. Gael was a step behind me, a small chrome pistol in the palm of her hand.
Two burly-men tossed a brown paper bag at the end of the driveways where houses were still standing as they drove slowly by.
“God has provided bread, manna from heaven. Rejoice,” reverberated against the standing houses.
All my attention was on the truck. The lettering on the door clinched it. The lettering matched the truck Blondie had been riding in. ‘Patriot’s Liberty Baptist Church’
My danger sense was screaming, and bad memories from yesterday made my hands shake. I continued to shift my position around the tree, hoping to disappear.
“Friends of yours?” Gael’s voice floated over my shoulder. She’d kept position with me and seemed to be following my lead.
I let out a long held breath. “I had a run-in with them yesterday. It didn’t end well.”
Gael placed her hand on my elbow. “They’re gone. I’m going to go get a bag.”
“Okay.” I felt a bit calmer. Maybe she was just the company I needed.
She stepped past me, retrieved the bundle, and walked back to where I stood. We looked at each other as she pulled a couple of loaves of bread and a New Testament Bible from the bag. They were wrapped in mimeographed paper.
Big church breakfast tomorrow morning
All are welcome
God will provide
**
I’d been feeling pretty good, but the church truck and message spooked me.
“I’m going back in,” I said.
My brain developed a kind of tunnel vision which was proving hard to shake. I wanted to check the radiation level. I stopped by the garage and retrieved my decommissioned Civil Defense Geiger counter and a couple of batteries out of the metal trashcan I used for storage. I should have done it as soon as I got home but hey, I’m human. As Gael and I climbed the stairs, I scanned the flat surfaces for fallout. I locked the door behind me.
My mind was racing. The needle on the meter was rock steady at normal background levels. I chewed on the problem. Big mistake. Bike Girl’s comment about the bombs swept over me again along with did Blondie’s magnificence.
I shot a church girl? My mom was not going to be happy. You don’t go around town shooting church girls. Visions of pigtailed sweeties skipping in the summer sun with gun wielding bad men in pursuit plagued my thoughts.
I took a seat in the recliner and kicked the footrest out. Betsy was digging in my hip. I dropped the magazine, removed the chambered cartridge, and laid the blued steel beast in my lap.
Gael folded her legs and took her place across from me. “Maybe you should tell me what happened.”
The words tumbled out fast. “I shot a girl.” My hands began to shake, and my calm detachment bled away. I closed my eyes and relived the moment. I swear I was in the right, but still, the anguish churned my gut. Big bad Raymond put a bullet in Blondie.
Not a chance, I snapped at myself. No way was I going to turn into a patsy and feel pathetic for doing what needed to be done.
I looked up and met Gael’s gaze. “When the building fell down, I was in the library basement.” I clenched my fist trying to push the nausea down deep. “I crawled out shortly after dawn and was taking fire from some woman on the upper floor of the cafeteria. She almost took my head off.”
Gael s
at quiet in her lotus position. Her face was calm, yet I sensed a deep well was sucking down my words.
“It was her or me,” I continued. “She was shooting people in the quad, maybe twenty dead by the time I showed up. She shot at me several times.”
I felt better. The simple act of confessing cleansed my soul. Maybe mother was right. I did need a little church in my life. I continued to study the ceiling paint and felt the nausea slowly abate.
Gael took an oversized soda straw from the inside pocket of her jacket and held it up to the light, her eye held close to one end.
“What’s that?” I asked, intrigued and relieved by the change in topic.
Her face pinched a little accentuating the small lines at the corner of her eyes as she rotated the tube to allow her to look through its length. She slipped it back in her pocket. “A dosimeter, it measures radiation exposure.”
I picked up my Geiger counter. “I’m reading nothing.”
“Me too,” she said. “Zero rads.”
My house guest stood up and opened the curtain and window allowing the cool autumn breeze to clean out the stale apartment air. “I don’t think whatever happened was nuclear.”
The pieces started to fall into place. I’d let Bike-girl sway my decision because of the stress, and Blondie added to the problem. I went to stand beside Gael and breathed in the fresh air. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking the same thing. Now what?” I asked.
Gael’s voice sounded like a teacher’s. “When all this happened, did you feel the air vibrate?”
“Yeah, the pipes in the library basement were going to town.”
We both turned at look at each other. We were sharing the same questioning expression.
If Sherlock was in the room, he would have said, ‘the game is afoot.’ I’d always wanted to say those words. “The game is afoot.”
“The best you can do is Quote Henry the Fifth? Gee, Rye, I picked you because you seemed like a level-headed go solve a problem kind of guy. Now you’re quoting archaic literature. I’m not sure if this helps or hurts my opinion of you.”
“Henry the Fifth? You mean Sherlock Holmes.”
Rye Ironstone: Mother Tesla's Death Ray Page 2
