“You mean they burned ‘em alive?” Trey asked.
“I don’t know,” Kramer replied. “We never went inside the fence, but I didn’t hear any gunshots.”
“I don’t imagine any of the residents from the nursing home could have put up a fight,” Jacobson said. “And cutting a man’s throat is a lot harder than you’d think.”
“So is pushing a man into a furnace,” Ed had said. “Who knows how they did it. They did it somehow. Let’s just all get back to our jobs here, and we can talk about it some more at dinner tonight.”
That was several weeks ago, but the memories haunted her. Barb slowly released her grasp on her husband’s hand, realizing that Gerry was likely off in his own world as well since he had failed to complain about the death grip she had just released.
She draped her arm over him and began to caress his bare chest. Getting an approving grunt from her husband, Barb Kramer decided that both of them could use a release. She straddled him and kissed him deeply.
“I love you, Gerry Kramer. And nothing will ever change that.”
“I love you too,” he replied as he fumbled with the buttons on her silk nightgown.
As the garment slid down her back and the fragrant breeze danced in her hair, she gave herself up to him, grateful that neither of them would be thinking about the world. At least for the next hour or two, reality could be pushed back and they would find some peace with each other. While her husband explored her body, massaging her sore muscles and caressing her bare skin, the rest of the world could crash and burn. Because in this room, with the love of her life at her side, her world was just fine.
The next morning, Barb’s eyes struggled to open. Her body had melted into the sheets. Reaching blindly to her left, she felt around for her husband, but found only a rumpled bedspread and a stray pillow. She sighed, hearing her husband’s muffled conversation with Mr. Jacobson in the kitchen. She was suddenly sure their voices—and the other sounds they made—had found the ears of their guest last night. Then the thought of her daughter hearing the two of them in bed was enough to drive away any idea of further sleep, and she was up and dressed in record time.
Barb entered the kitchen to find the two men eating cereal and reconstituted milk. A cup of instant coffee with condensed cream and sugar rounded off their breakfast.
“So what are you two talking about?” Barb said as she rushed into the kitchen and began pouring hot water over her own cup of coffee crystals.
“What else?” Mr. Jacobson replied. “What do we do about that power plant.”
Kramer nodded. “We’re going over to Ed’s later this afternoon and see if he’ll drive us to Vernon Bragg’s place. We need to find out if this is happening anywhere else. He’s been in touch with the rest of the world on that HAM rig of his, and he’ll know if others have reported this and if there are any other people planning to stop this massacre.”
“Stop the massacre? Just what do you think you can do? You’re just an old man with a medical degree,” Barb scolded. “And you have a family to take care of.”
“I just want to talk with him,” Kramer replied. “I know my place.”
“No you don’t, Gerry Kramer!” Barbara shot back. “You’ve got a martyr complex, and I don’t want that getting you killed.”
“Barb, please! I’m not going to do anything stupid, but this cannot stand. I will not sit by and watch another Holocaust sweep over my people.”
“It’s not just ‘our people.’ It doesn’t matter what your religion is. You can’t take this so personally.”
“And why not?” Kramer demanded. “If not me, then who?”
“Now wait a minute, you two!” Jacobson interjected. “Let’s stop this right now. Just remember who the enemy is.”
“I do know who they are.” Barb said. “They are a big, powerful army that has guns and tanks. And what do we have? Some rifles and a few vehicles that actually work. Just how are you going to overcome that?”
The argument continued between the couple while Jacobson sat quietly, allowing both of them to vent their frustrations. It was a heck of a thing they were trying to come to grips with. Jacobson knew that their anger wasn’t really with each other, but with the new life they were thrown into. With a daughter almost seven hundred miles away and nothing but death and uncertainty just beyond their front gate, there was no one to vent to other than each other.
“You’re crazy!” Barb yelled at her husband. “You couldn’t give a rat’s ass about me and our daughters. Why else would you go out there and stir up trouble!”
Jacobson slammed his hand down onto the wooden kitchen table, sending a salt shaker tumbling onto the floor. Momentarily jolted out of their fight, Gerry and Barb turned to see the old man staring back at them.
“I never thought I’d see the two of you fighting like little kids,” he said. “Now both of you just sit your butts down and stop this.”
The couple meekly settled into their chairs, both embarrassed at their behavior.
“Now I understand why you’re afraid.” Jacobson said as he faced his friend’s wife. “The two of us are too old to go out and pick up a rifle. But there are thousands of people being killed because they can’t help themselves. Shame on you, Barbara, for being so selfish.”
“But—” she began to protest.
“And you, Gerry! Shame on you for not understanding your wife’s side of this. I haven’t heard a single word come out of your mouth that would let her know that you heard what she was saying. She has every right to express herself, and frankly, you’re being too pigheaded to listen. Now both of you just shut your mouths for a minute and catch your breath.”
“I would,” Barbara said, “but my husband can be so hard to communicate with. Sometimes…”
“You two were communicating just fine last night!” The old man replied.
Barbara’s face turned turn beet red.
“Oh my God!” Gerry said, a huge grin on his face. “You were listening?”
“Heck, I wish I hadn’t. But with the windows open and it being so quiet and all outside, I didn’t have much of a choice.”
Gerry’s grin began to spread, especially as he saw his wife’s face turning a darker shade of red. She was literally at a loss for words, as Jacobson’s face finally began to crack into a wrinkly smiled.
“All that heavy racket made me miss my own wife,” he said. “I remember a time when the two of us were down by our lake, and the moon was coming up over the water. She got this devilish look in her eyes and the next thing I know…”
“No!” Barbara wailed. “Too much information.”
Jacobson tried to keep a straight face, but a flustered and embarrassed Barbara was just too fun to watch. He began to laugh, his old cheeks and craggy nose scrunching into a Jimmy Durante face that made Barb smile as well. And just like that, the fighting was done.
“What about Caroline?” Barb said, her laughter dying away. “She had to have heard us last night.”
“I think the dead heard you two. But you never know. I haven’t slept well since the horrors back at the power plant, so maybe it was just me being awake already.” Jacobson said.
Barb was mortified at the thought of her youngest daughter exposed to her parent’s bedroom behavior.
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Jacobson said. “I can’t think of anything more important that a child knowing that their parents still love each other.”
Barb took some comfort in those words, at least until her husband got his last dig in.
“You know,” Gerry deadpanned, “there are numerous studies about psychologically damaged children blaming their problems on some Freudian adult behavior they witnessed. Now, I don’t know if hearing things is as bad seeing things, but…”
“I wouldn’t push that line of thought too much,” Jacobson interrupted, seeing Barbara’s face begin to darken. The last thing he wanted was another fight.
Kramer grinned, knowing that his friend was c
orrect to stop the joke then and there. Barbara got it too, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
Kramer faced his wife and took her hands in his and said, “I’m sorry, babe, I get it. I promise to be careful. But please, you have to understand that we may be the only people outside of the government that have any idea what’s going on out there. At the very least, I can warn others.”
“I get it,” Barb reluctantly replied. “I just don’t have to like it.”
“You alright?” Gerry asked.
“Yeah, as alright as I can be.”
Gerry got up from his chair and moved behind his wife, hugging her shoulders as she sat in the wooden kitchen chair.
Barb began to feel better about it all—until Caroline strode from her bedroom and saw her parents embracing at the table.
“Seriously!” the teenager cried as she stormed out of the front door. “Do you two never take a break?”
“Oh my God!” Barb said, covering her face with both hands.
Gerry smirked. “I guess that answers that question.”
Jacobson quietly excused himself from the table and ambled back to his bedroom, where he plopped down in the room’s only chair. His faithful dog lay next to him on the wooden floor, the canine’s tail flopping up and down as the old man rubbed his snout and ears. Then the octogenarian closed his tired eyes, leaned into the heavy cushions, and reminisced about the nights he and his wife had shared down by the lake. As the minutes passed by, his smile returned and he drifted off into a peaceful and much-needed slumber.
***
Later that afternoon, Kramer and Ed Grafton drove the old stovebolt pickup truck to Bragg’s place, leaving old Mr. Jacobson in his room to rest. As they travelled down the winding dirt road that passed for a driveway to Bragg’s military surplus Quonset hut, they could hear the sound of heavy equipment coming from the clearing ahead. Already half-buried in the Florida sand, the elongated semi-circular building was being reinforced with strategically placed sandbags. A new Hesco barrier now stood in front of the structure’s front door, and the old NCO was using a small backhoe to fill the rectangular gabion with sand. As the pickup pulled up to the front of the structure, Bragg shut the Caterpillar down and hopped out of the machine’s open cab.
“Well, if it ain’t ol’ doc and Fast Eddie,” Bragg croaked, referring to Ed Grafton’s former career as a local racing legend. “What can old Vernon do for ya?”
Kramer looked at Grafton and nodded. “Hiya, Mr. Bragg. We wanted to pick your brain.”
“Well,” Bragg replied. “Them’s slim pickins.”
“Can we speak inside?” Grafton asked. “It may take a few minutes.”
Kramer held up a basket of food Barbara had prepared. Ever since the old guy had connected her with their daughter over his HAM radio, Vernon Bragg could do no wrong.
“Watcha got fer ole’ Vernon?” He asked with a smile.
“Barbara wanted you to know she’s still thankful,” Kramer said, offering the basket.
“Well, don’t go tellin’ yer wife I woulda helped anyways. But I surely appreciate it.”
The three men moved around the partially constructed Hesco barrier and into the cavernous corrugated building.
Being partially buried under the sand gave the building some natural insulation from the cold and heat. Both Kramer and Grafton once again marveled at the moderate temperature that hit them as they went inside.
The three sat down at a cluttered table. Bragg opened the picnic basket and let out a low whistle.
“Yer a lucky fella,” Bragg said absently as he pulled out dried meat and some fresh-baked bread. A Ziploc bag of oatmeal cookies and a couple of beers rounded off the booty.
“How are ya keeping things cold?” Bragg asked as he twisted the cap off the beer bottle and took a long gulp.
“We each have enough solar power to run a refrigerator,” Grafton replied.
“Both of ya?”
“Yes,” Kramer answered. “It eats about a hundred and eighty watts a day so it’s no problem, especially since we got those extra batteries you told us about from the cell tower. Thank you for that.”
Bragg downed more of the cold brew and let out a burp. “Twernt’ nothin’.”
Bragg downed more of the cold brew and let out a burp.
“Now, what kin’ ole’ Vernon do fer ya?”
Kramer told Bragg about their trip to the Coventry Incinerator and its apparent use to eliminate those that the government deemed unfit or too difficult to manage. Kramer described the busloads of people going into the plant and the empty buses leaving. Finally, he pulled out the partially burnt Brightside nursing home nametag he found in the field outside the plant’s fence.
Bragg, for his part, sat silently and showed little emotion as the horrific story unfolded. When Kramer finished, Bragg simply stood up and walked over to his HAM radio workbench. He retrieved a notebook and brought it back to the table where Kramer and Grafton sat. Throwing the binder down, he spat out a curse and sat.
“I been hearing things out there,” he said. “Folks is coming up missing.”
He flipped through several pages, listing off the HAM operator’s handle and location along with the estimated number of people missing. After totaling his rough count, the three men sat in silence, trying to wrap their heads around the magnitude of the situation. Including the busloads of people that Kramer and Jacobson had seen, there were tens of thousands missing without a trace.
“Now we can’t be sure of these numbers,” Kramer said, his voice shaking. “This is second – and third-hand information.”
“You’re right,” Bragg replied. “But it ain’t no coincidence that you seen some real nasty shit. Most of them reports is of big groups of folks that was there one day and gone the next.”
Bragg wrote down some notes in his binder as he questioned Kramer for several minutes, asking about the type of buses, uniform colors and unit patches on the DHS agents, as well as whether the vehicles had antennas or mounted weapons. Kramer was impressed with the debriefing. When they finished, Bragg had a pretty good start on cataloguing the armament, communication equipment, and number of DHS agents that had accompanied the doomed prisoners.
“I’ll get this intel to everyone I can. We’ll just see what our high ‘n mighty government is doing out there.”
“Will you please let my daughter know?” Kramer asked. “If she’s at the hospital in Nashville, she’s probably seen something. I don’t want her getting caught up in this.”
“Claire has a serious problem,” Grafton added. “She’s got her dad’s moral compass, but she’s not old enough to know when to shut it off. She just might say something that would make her disappear, too.”
“That’ll be my first call,” Bragg said. “Now you leave this up to ol’ Vernon.”
“How long before we know if you got the message to her?” Kramer asked.
“A day or two. Now don’t you worry none. I’ll be in touch.”
With that, Bragg stood and went to an old metal locker set against one of the walls. He reached behind it, into the space between the curved wall and the straight locker, and pulled out a duffle bag.
“Here,” Bragg said as he handed Grafton what looked like a walkie talkie. “Take this Hytera. Gotta chip inside that works on a frequency that ain’t used by no one else. Just turn it on like this,” he said as he rotated a knob that brought the portable HAM radio to life.
“How’d these survive the EMP?” Grafton asked.
The old man jerked his thumb back to the wall, pointing out several galvanized steel garbage cans.
“Them cans. Picked ‘em up at the hardware store for next ta nothin’. Line the opening with steel wool and snap the lid shut. Best Faraday cages you can get.”
Kramer was impressed. Vernon Bragg might look and sound like a hillbilly, but he was a sharp and capable man.
“I’ve set ‘em to a bunch a repeaters in this area that’s still workin’, but if ya turn it
to the one marked ‘PRIVATE,’ then only you an me can talk. But be careful. Them DHS agents can triangulate the signal even if they can’t understand what we’re sayin’.’”
“Then we better plan on talking at a certain time,” Grafton suggested.
“Yar’ a far sight smarter then ya look,” Bragg joked.
“Well, that’s not too hard.” Kramer said. “If he was as dumb as he was ugly, he’d have trouble breathing and walking at the same time.”
Bragg roared a deep, raspy laugh, then began hacking and coughing as his cigarette-scarred lungs seized up. After nearly almost thirty seconds of coughing and gasping for air, the old retired sergeant wiped his spittle-coated lips on his tattered military blouse and pulled another Camel out of its pack. Lighting it with his military issued Zippo, he took a deep drag and blew the blueish grey smoke up toward the rounded roof of his Quonset building.
He sighed. “Lil’ hair of the dog.”
“Let’s monitor the private channel at ten each night,” Kramer suggested, ignoring the stupidity of Bragg’s last statement. “Then listen in every two hours until two a.m.”
“Naw,” Bragg replied. “Every snot-nosed rookie monitorin’ the HAM frequencies knows that’s when to listen in. Everyone calls at the zeros and 30s.”
Bragg reached into his duffle bag and pulled out a digital watch that matched the one on his own wrist. “This one’s fixed to the same time as the one on my wrist. Y’all can take it.”
“Keep those in the garbage can too?” Grafton asked.
“Nah, keep a few of these in a faraday bag I got from a company called SurviveTek,” Bragg said. “Don’t like moving electronics around without protecting ‘em.”
Bragg made sure the watches were synchronized and demonstrated how to reset the seconds to .00 and where the time adjustment button was.
“Now,” Bragg continued, “we’re gonna listen in at thirty-seven minutes after each even hour, startin’ at 1837 and stoppin’ at 0237. And we ain’t listenin’ for more than two minutes.”
“Okay,” Grafton said.
“If we talk, then the next time we listen is thirty-seven minutes after each even hour plus add the hour we spoke to the end.”
Charlie's Requiem: Resistance Page 7
