Nights were a lot darker than they had been before, yet the stars seemed to shine brighter than ever as Delores gazed into the sky from her balcony. The view always calmed her. A gentle breeze blew, bringing the tang of the ocean with it. On the edge of the balcony, a tin can jangled. The trip plate attached to the can warned her of company long before any visitor could reach her penthouse. She picked up her twenty-gauge shotgun and made sure it held three shells; one slug followed by two buckshot, her usual load. You never could tell what you might run into.
“You all stay in the henhouse. I’d hate to see anyone take you and run off.” Delores latched the henhouse door, then ambled over to the top of the stairwell to sit in her comfy padded chair, the one with the pretty floral pattern. The chair sat behind the steel armor plating she’d assembled as a barricade across the top of the staircase. It wouldn’t do to stand up every time she had to guard her home from intruders. She waited and listened, ready to shoot if it was those blasted thugs again.
“Hello?” It sounded more like a young girl than a thug. “Is anyone there?” Maybe a teenager.
“Go away.”
“I…I heard you had food up here.”
“Unless you have a power inverter to trade, I’ve got nothing for you. Go back where you came from.” Delores couldn’t go around taking in strays. The garden had allowed her to build up a little store of dried vegetables for a rainy day, but the rooftop garden and the chickens were hers. If she started sharing, a dozen beggars would appear before long, and she couldn’t support so many.
The girl’s voice echoed back up the stairwell. “I can’t stay where I came from. The canned food ran out. I don’t dare go to the settlement after I saw them out hunting. I saw how they treat people there.”
“Did they see you? Did they follow you?” Delores knew better than to care what happened to the girl, but she didn’t want trouble with the thugs from the settlement if she could avoid it.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good. Then go away, like I said.”
“What if I bring you something? You said you needed a power inverter. The red kind with metal fins?”
“Right. We can talk if you’re good at scrounging things. Run along and find me an inverter that will take a ganged set of twenty-four volt solar panels and put out a hundred and ten volts AC.” It never hurt to ask, and Delores could stay in her penthouse bunker for a long time with just her garden and her chickens if she had power.
After a few minutes, the can on the balcony clanked again, and Delores was alone once more. “Kids these days.”
She slept lightly that night on a couch near the alarm cans, tossing and turning as visions of a dozen hungry children plagued her, demanding her time and trampling her garden. The warning alarm remained silent through the night.
As the sun peeked out over the dead city, Delores measured her water supply. “Looks like I’ll need those dehumidifiers back online. It won’t do the garden any good if the barrels run dry.” Khan surveyed his domain nearby, so Delores knelt beside him for a moment until he sprinted away with a squawk. “Don’t you worry, Khan. I’ll always save enough water for you and the girls.”
The plants needed a lot more water than she and the chickens used. It was never a problem during the rainy part of the year with her rain barrel system, but the dry spell made things harder. If the garden died, she would die, too. When she first moved in, she’d scrounged all the equipment she needed out of the building’s basement where the centralized cooling systems sat. The maintenance crew had left manuals behind, which made it easier to figure out how to wire up the dehumidifiers and collect the stale water they put out.
Delores picked up volume T from her Encyclopedia Technologica for something to read over breakfast, picking up where she left off the day before. It was her fifth read-through of the set of books she found in what she now called the library. A tech guru who used to live in the building one floor down had a thing for books. “It ain’t the internet, but it’s given you birds and me a home with a few comforts. Look at this entry, Khan. It’s about an old guy named Tesla. Says he was as much a showman as a scientist, always arguing with Thomas Edison. Something about AC verses DC power, like the broken inverter. If we were near a fancy camper supply store, I’d raid it for DC appliances and ditch the inverter entirely.”
Then again, gallivanting around the countryside as a scavenger was too much work for an old lady like her. She only did what was required to survive and take care of Khan, Jabber, Wocky, and the chicks.
A few pages later, Delores checked the sun in the sky and put the book away. Reading time was over.
“I guess I can’t count on that girl to help me find a new inverter, can I, Khan? No telling how much trouble she would be, always coming around to trade for my food. I’ll be out hunting and scrounging for a bit.” She grabbed her shotgun, and Khan strutted back to his work defending the garden from pests. Delores made her careful way around the barricade and down the stairs. She armed the spring-loaded spike traps as she passed them, just in case someone came to visit while she was gone.
“Careful, Delores. Hospitals don’t treat broken hips no more. The doctors died, and the thugs already took the medicines away.”
Nearby buildings had a small black X sprayed on the concrete in front of each door. She’d visited and reclaimed everything useful from the closest buildings before marking them, so it was time to venture a little farther out this time. She crossed the adjacent grassy park and headed to the nearby row of businesses clumped around a common parking lot. Offices often had better tech than living spaces.
A rat scampered away and into a hole in the wall of a building. “I’m glad you’re down here. I’m not sure if the girls are tough enough to take you on, but you’re too small for me to bother.” She patted her shotgun. “I’ll stop in the park on the way home to see if I can scare up some extra protein.”
At the business complex, Delores waited at each corner for a moment to listen before proceeding. She’d been through two offices with no luck and painted a fresh black X on the ground in front of each. A peek through the window of the next building, an office with computers on the desks, showed promise. Delores rounded the corner and collided into another person, connecting with knees, elbows, and heads all at once. They both collapsed into a heap. Delores lost her grip on the shotgun as she fell, and it clattered to the ground out of reach.
As she scrambled to recover the gun, a familiar voice said, “Is this what you need?”
The girl from the night before sat on the ground holding a voltage inverter in front of her as if she could deflect a shotgun blast with it.
“Oh.” Delores picked up the gun and held it aimed at the ceiling. “Yes, that might do. You’re quite a clever girl. You picked that up in here?” She pointed at the building she had been about to enter.
“No, I hiked home overnight. Dad was a prepper and had lots of stuff stored away. You know, before.”
“Well, I guess a promise is a promise. I’ll trade food to you for the inverter if it still works. You get to walk in front.” It never hurt to be careful.
Back at the park, Delores spotted movement in the greenery and tugged on the girl’s arm and motioned for her to get down. Fear showed on the girls face as Delores made sure a slug was chambered in the shotgun instead of just the heavy buck shot, then took careful aim.
Delores fired the shotgun, then ran forward.
The girl called out, “What is it? Is it the men from the settlement?”
Stopping in the tall grass, Delores called back. “No, it’s venison, sweetie. With all the people gone, the deer sometimes come down from the mountains and hang out in the park. Between your converter and my hunting, we’ll have quite a meal this afternoon.”
The girl joined Delores beside the dead animal. “We always used to have dinner together, me with Mom and Dad. Then we watched TV afterward. But then, you know, things changed when everyone died.”
Delores field-dressed the s
mall deer and stored the entrails in a bag to share with the chickens. They would eat just about anything if she cut it up into bite-size chunks, and the cutting was usually optional. Then, she prepared to haul the carcass home where she could skin it and process the meat. “Lots of things changed, that’s for sure. Things change all the time, but it’s not always for the worse, even now. I don’t miss the politics and the news about wars, what movie star is getting married or divorced, and everyone hating each other and arguing constantly.”
The girl waved a hand around, taking in the dead city. “People still hate each other. That’s why I didn’t go to the settlement. That’s why I came to you. You’re…”
“Harmless? A hermit? A crazy old lady? Someone lied to you. I’ve heard all the names, and that’s with no neighbors for miles most of the time. You’re right about people still hating, but there’s a lot less of ‘em now, and it doesn’t do any good to hate people if you’ll never see them as long as you live. Are there still people in Europe? How about China? I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter anymore. Worrying over things far away won’t ever change anything, so I save my worry for what matters to me here, and for what makes a difference to me this week.”
Delores put the shotgun’s strap on her left shoulder and hefted the carcass onto her right for the short walk home. Even a small deer like this one felt heavier than in the past. Such was the curse of growing old. “Carry that bag, please.”
The girl scooped up the treats Delores had saved for the chickens.
As they approached the edge of the park near the apartment building, a voice rang out across the greenery. “Hunting our game again, Delores? You know the boss doesn’t like that.”
Delores recognized the voice from earlier encounters. “It ain’t your deer, Chump, but if you want it, then come out and get it.” Delores dropped the carcass and racked a shell into her shotgun. It was only heavy buckshot, but it worked wonders to scare people off, and it was plenty deadly up close. She scanned the area with a practiced eye to see where the voice came from as she tugged the girl back and guided her behind a large sycamore tree. “Stay there.”
“The name’s Chuck, but you know that. You put your little boom stick away and I’ll come and talk with you. We can be civil neighbors if we set a few ground rules and stick to them.”
“Right. Prove you’re man enough to come out here, and I’ll set it down instead of shooting you with my little boom stick, as you call it.”
Against every expectation, Chuck stepped out from some brush near the road with his hands out and empty. He wouldn’t do that if he was alone, so she searched for his buddies in nearby shadows. One partner tried to hide behind another bush, but that’s all she saw. Delores considered the loss of the deer as a good trade if they took it and left her alone, but she wouldn’t give up that much meat without a little negotiating. They couldn’t know she’d already decided to hand it over because that’s not how you played the game.
Delores set her shotgun on the ground butt first, holding onto the barrel like a walking stick. “Well, talk. Your buddies can’t hide all day, and I’ve got things to do.”
As Chuck made his way closer, Delores spotted beads of sweat on his forehead. The morning was cool, so something had him spooked to be soaked in sweat like that.
“Those two are my insurance policy.” Then Chuck added at just over a whisper, “They’ll kill us all if I don’t give them the girl. I saw her with you. They saw her, too.”
Two of them. So, Chuck wasn’t just being a jerk on his own, like usual. He’d been roped into something, and they were forcing him to be a jerk. There wasn’t a huge difference as far as Delores was concerned, but she rolled with it. Under her breath, she said, “Truce for a day. I can take the one behind the bush if you can shoot the other one. What do you say? You got your piece on you?”
Chuck nodded, then raised his voice loud enough for everyone to hear as he said, “Yeah, we can make a deal here. First, you hand over that venison, then we see where it goes from there.”
Where it goes. If he took the carcass to the second watcher, they might all make it through this without getting killed. First, no hotplate to cook her eggs, and now this, a western-worthy showdown in the street. The day was going downhill fast.
“Looks like I’m not in much of a position to argue if you’ve got backup. It’s all yours.” She stepped away from the dead animal and gave herself a better line of sight on the bush. She would have to make her two buckshot loads count and pray the girl stayed hidden behind the tree.
Chuck hefted the animal over a shoulder and turned his back on Delores, showing the pistol tucked into the back of his pants. She felt bad for him not owning a decent holster, though it would be hysterical if he shot himself in the butt cheek carrying it like that. He walked toward the corner of a nearby building. As he got there, he dropped the animal and reached for his pistol.
Delores hoisted her shotgun up, sighted in on the shadow in the bush, and fired before dodging to the side. The man behind the bush yelled in pain and moved, taking two wild pistol shots at Delores as he ran. Idiots, all of them. “That’s why you don’t shoot while running.” She drew a bead on her moving target, just like shooting skeet, and pulled the trigger. He went down, a pattern of red blossoming on his upper back and neck where the heavy shot hit.
No shots had come from Chuck or the man lurking behind the corner. She turned and saw why. Chuck stood in front of the other man who held a gun to his head. Chuck’s pistol rested on the ground at his feet. It was sloppy work on Chuck’s part, and now it had become her problem. Worse, she had no more shotgun shells with her.
The man holding Chuck said, “A double cross? Really? You assumed that would actually work? I’m shocked that you thought you could get away with it, but even more shocked at seeing the two of you working together. Who would have thought, Chuck and Delores being all chummy? You two hate each other.”
A shot rang out, and Delores flinched.
Chuck peed himself and screamed, then patted the back of his head, hunting for a wound. The man behind Chuck collapsed.
The girl stepped out from cover around the large sycamore and said to Chuck, “Give me a reason to shoot, and you’re next.” She aimed a small black semiautomatic pistol at him with a solid two-hand stance, feet spread apart.
Delores approved of her initiative, but it felt wrong to let the girl shoot him. She stepped forward to face Chuck as she spoke to the girl. “Sweetie, I promised him a truce. He’s a jerk, and he’s dumb as a bag of hammers, but he did more good than harm here today. It would be rude to shoot him until at least tomorrow. Save your bullets until the next time he comes over here to throw his weight around, and then plug him.” Delores tapped Chuck on the forehead twice with her index finger for emphasis. Glancing at the dead man at Chuck’s feet, she added, “You’ve definitely got your aim down, girl. One and done.”
Chuck shook his head. “You’re both crazy. I’m not coming back over here no matter what anyone says. Can I go now?” The smell of his urine grew as Delores stood before him. It was time to send him on his way.
Delores pointed toward the settlement and then made shooing movements with her hands. “The girl might change her mind and shoot you no matter what I say. How fast can you run, Chuck?”
As he ran out of sight around a building, the girl picked up the pistols left behind by Chuck and his friends, and grinned. “What about the bodies?”
“If the wild dogs don’t get rid of them, we can drag them off tomorrow to keep the stink down. That’s way too much work for today. I doubt Chuck will stray this way again any time soon.”
With the new inverter wired into place and tested, they shared the late afternoon by preparing a lovely dinner of pan-fried venison steaks and fried eggs. Delores sliced carrots and sweet peppers to add to the meal. The chickens got a special treat as they dined on raw bits of deer liver. Delores had never been a fan of liver and was happy to share it with them.
Delores flipped the steaks in the pan and stirred in some chopped onions. “If we’re going to be friends, we should know each other’s names. I’m Delores.”
“I’m Michelle, but Mom and Dad called me…by a pet name.”
It wouldn’t do to pressure the girl who obviously wanted to put at least some of her past behind her. “I wouldn’t ever intrude without your permission, so Michelle it is.”
Looking over their growing meal, Delores pulled out the good china and set out nice place settings with napkins and real sterling silverware, then offered Michelle a seat beside her at the small rooftop worktable.
“I think I might try growing a couple of apple trees up here to see if they will survive. You know, to add a little variety to the diet. What do you think?”
“That would be nice,” said the girl.
Delores wasn’t used to having someone answer when she talked to the chickens. It was nice to have a two-sided conversation, truth be told. The birds answered in their own way, but there was something about hearing another voice that Delores missed.
“After we’re done eating, I’ll show you how to dry and preserve the rest of the meat so it doesn’t go bad. It only took me a couple tries before I had some tasty venison jerky.” After more small talk about how preserve the meat on drying racks, Delores said, “You know, we made a great team down there in the park.”
“Yeah, we did, didn’t we?” Michelle wolfed down the rest of her meal, twice what Delores had served herself. With a round trip to home and back, Michelle probably hadn’t eaten in a day or two. Delores shoveled more vegetables onto the girl’s plate and watched as they disappeared.
“Where did you learn to use that cute little gun of yours?”
“Like I told you, Dad was a prepper. He took me to the gun range with Mom. It took me over a week to guess the combination to the gun safe. That was a bad week.”
Not wanting to pry, Delores sat in silence with Michelle, reveling in the feel of a full belly for a few minutes until the girl spoke up again. “Delores, down there in the park you said I could shoot Chuck if he came around again.”
CRACKED: An Anthology of Eggsellent Chicken Stories Page 12
