Red: The Adventure Begins

by Darrell Maloney

  “How in hell do you know all this stuff?”

  “Everybody has to have a hobby or two.”

  “Well, let’s head up the stairs then.”

  “Wait. Occasionally people will hide valuables in a cookie jar. They think that burglars never look there, but we always do.”

  Savage looked at the large ceramic jar labeled COOKIES on the counter in front of him.

  He pulled it over to him and peered inside of it.

  “Empty,” he announced.

  Luna smiled. He already knew it would be.

  Chapter 43

  Savage and Luna worked through most of the night, methodically working room to room.

  Savage laid claim to most of the things they came across.

  “Ten cases of MREs! All right, I’ll take those.

  “Twenty seven cases of trail mix. I’ll take those.

  “Eighteen cases of beef jerky. Okay, I’ll take those too.”

  Luna could have reigned in Savage’s greed by reminding him that they’d agreed beforehand to split all the booty equally.

  But they were motivated by two different plans.

  Savage knew that at some point in the future, the Walmart trucks on the highway would start running out of the provisions the people of Blanco needed to stay alive.

  When that happened, he knew the things he collected here would command a premium price.

  He figured that within a year or so, he would own every piece of gold jewelry, every gold coin, and every silver fork in Blanco. Traded to him one by one by townspeople desperate for their next meal.

  Of course, he’d have some competition from Crazy Eddie Simms, who would also be vying for the same customers. But Savage figured he’d just undercut Simms’ prices enough to steal the business, and would still have enough provisions to sell to clean the town of all its precious metals.

  Luna, of course, had a different plan.

  He had little desire to stay in Blanco and be a black market grocer, even if it did have the potential to be a very lucrative business.

  Luna had his own business in the south plains of Texas, at a city called Lubbock. A ruthless cattleman there had grown tired of dealing with his competitors, and had placed a bounty of two hundred grand on each of their heads.

  Moreover, the man was a collector of gold coins, and had the means of paying a cool million dollars’ worth of the shiny stuff.

  Luna figured that after a couple of weeks in Lubbock, scouting his prey and forming a game plan, he could take out all five of the targets in a single day. Maybe two at the outside. All from long distance, with a sniper rifle.

  Then he’d collect his million and retire.

  Maybe he’d come back to Blanco and take up residence in the Cullen house.

  But then again, probably not. He’d always been fond of the beach, and would probably work his way south to Corpus Christi.

  All Luna really wanted from the Cullen house were the guns and ammunition they surely had stashed somewhere, and half of any precious metals or gems he’d overlooked two nights before.

  “What the hell are these?”

  The question caught Luna’s attention, and he looked to see what Savage was talking about.

  They looked a little bit like the metal ink cartridges that slipped inside fancy pens. But they had the word “DANGER” stamped on them in red ink.

  Luna instantly broke into a smile and he said, “Well I’ll be damned.”

  “What? What are they?”

  “They’re blasting caps. Keep your eye out for a detonation control. It’ll look something like a controller for an RC car or airplane.”

  Savage was stumped.

  “RC? Detonation control? What in hell are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. I’ll find it myself.”

  Luna continued to look through the house, and in a downstairs closet he found a box containing everything he needed to detonate sticks of dynamite with a radio ignitor from two hundred yards away.

  Everything except the dynamite. But he figured the Cullens wouldn’t have the gear unless they also had the explosives. He guessed it was in an outbuilding somewhere on the property far from the main house.

  He turned on the remote and a tiny red light came on. It worked. Whatever method they’d used to protect the pickup, they’d used it on the controller as well.

  By the time they’d finished searching the house, it was almost daybreak. Savage had found enough provisions to fill a moving van, and they didn’t have one.

  But they did have a pickup.

  Actually, Luna had a pickup. It was part of their agreement. But he was willing to loan it to Savage for a price.

  “How are you going to get all this crap to your place?”

  “I was going to ask you to sleep here today to keep the looters away from it. Then tonight I’ll use your truck to make several trips.”

  “Ten grand.”

  “Ten grand what?”

  “Ten grand to use my truck.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “How much do you expect to make when you start selling this stuff? Two hundred thousand? Maybe three? Ten grand for a truck rental is a bargain.”

  Luna had the fat man over a barrel and he knew it. They’d agreed that the truck would belong to Luna, and there was simply no other way to transport the goods.

  And it was much too valuable to leave behind for looters to pick through and cart away piecemeal.

  “Okay, okay. Will you at least help me load it?”

  Luna smiled a smile not unlike the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland.

  “Well sure. What are friends for?”

  Savage walked home just as the sun was rising, moving cautiously so he wasn’t spotted by anyone out for a morning stroll.

  Luna was in much better shape and didn’t tire as easily as the fat man. He was also used to being up all night. It was a frequent requirement in his line of work.

  He wasn’t tired, therefore, when the sun peeked over the trees in the eastern sky.

  Instead of calling it quits, he set out to explore all the outbuildings on the property. He still had dynamite to find and a pickup to check out.

  Chapter 44

  The good news was, Luna found two cases of dynamite sticks in a wooden storage shed in the far corner of the property.

  It was in good shape, with several months left on its shelf life, and had been kept cool and dry.

  There was no reason not to believe it wouldn’t fire.

  The bad news was the pickup.

  Luna found it in the four car garage behind the house. It was a late model F-150, maroon in color, and it had to be the pickup Cullen had told Savage was operable.

  Because it was the only one there.

  And because the key on Bill’s key ring fit the ignition.

  But it wouldn’t start.

  “Damn it!”

  Luna punched the steering wheel and cursed a blue streak.

  He looked beneath the dash board and the driver’s seat, then in the glove box, in case Cullen had installed a hidden kill switch.

  Nothing.

  He popped the hood and looked at the engine. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, exactly. Perhaps burn marks or melted wires or something to indicate the truck was destroyed by the EMP waves.

  It looked perfectly normal.

  He donned a leather glove he found lying on a work bench, then picked up a box wrench.

  Then he laid the box wrench across the top of the battery, so that it touched both posts at the same time.

  He was hoping to see sparks.

  But the battery was dead, and so were his chances of using the truck for a getaway vehicle when he left town.

  Or maybe not. The Cullens had told Savage they drove it to town on the night they brought their gold and silver to him.

  That was after the blackout.

  If it was running then, it should be running now.

  He raised the hoods on the other two vehicle
s in the garage, a Honda Accord and Hyundai Accent.

  Both of them still smelled of burned rubber.

  And on both of them, the cable leading from the battery to the starter solenoid was fried.

  That wasn’t the case with the pickup.

  “Damn it!”

  He’d already established that Bill Cullen was an idiot, in the way he spent so much money to stockpile provisions but paid nothing for a good security system.

  And how he left the sanctuary of his house to start his generator every night when he could have had it installed in his basement and vented, and started it from inside the house.

  And how he left the drapes completely open at night with the lights on. He might as well have worn a neon sign that said, “Shoot me, I’m too stupid for my own good.”

  Perhaps a man as dumb as Bill Cullen would have parked his pickup several nights before, after visiting John Savage and returning home, and forgotten to turn off his lights.

  Maybe the only thing wrong with the truck was a dead battery.

  And that was fixable.

  The one thing Bill Cullen did right was to buy a top-of-the-line generator.

  One equipped with terminals for jump starting a dead battery.

  Luna looked around the garage for jumper cables, and couldn’t find any.

  He said, “Damn it!” for the umpteenth time.

  Then he went to the fourth bay of the four car garage, which had a separate door and was divided from the first three bays by a wall.

  He rightly assumed it was a boat storage bay from the higher door.

  Only there wasn’t a boat in the bay.

  And it was the oddest place he’d seen in a while.

  Jesse Luna was a first rate hitman.

  And he was a damn good burglar.

  But he wasn’t a prepper, and he didn’t have a clue what a Faraday cage was or what it was used for.

  If he had, he’d have recognized it immediately. He’d have had an immediate answer to his question about how Bill and Joanie Cullen were able to save their pickup, and other electric items, from being destroyed.

  He looked around at the strange place he’d wandered into.

  The walls and ceiling were covered with sheet metal.

  So was the floor.

  There were tire tracks on the sheet metal floor that indicated the pickup truck once sat in the bay.

  The door had originally been made of sheet metal too. But it had been removed and was laid off to the side.

  Luna was standing in the middle of a huge metal box.

  Only he didn’t understand the implications.

  Had he been a prepper, or knew a little bit about electromagnetic pulses, the metal box might have made sense to him.

  Had he ever heard of a Faraday cage, he might have realized he’d wandered into one.

  But he had no clue that the Cullens had built a protective box of metal that they could park their pickup in.

  And they could pile electronics and electric items and batteries and other things into the bed of the truck.

  Things that would normally be destroyed by the EMPs bombarding the earth.

  And he had no clue that the pickup, and everything in its bed, would be protected from the EMPs, which would hit the big metal box and run around it until they dissipated.

  But that they would not, could not, enter the box itself.

  It was, in essence, a huge safe deposit box.

  But not for money.

  This one was for electronics and electrical items.

  Luna found a set of jumper cables, but it didn’t do any good.

  The battery in the pickup was fried. It couldn’t be jump started.

  The pickup was worthless without it.

  Bill Cullen was dumb as a rock in many ways.

  But he did one smart thing before he died.

  It didn’t save his life, or the life of his wife.

  But it did create a major problem for his killer.

  The day before he died, Bill Cullen took the good battery out of his Ford F-150 pickup and stashed it in a cardboard box marked “Corn Flakes” in the basement of his house.

  Then he put a worthless battery into the pickup’s engine compartment.

  As he told his wife, “Someone might have seen us driving to or from the bank to see Mr. Savage. If they did, and if they break into the garage to steal it while we’re sleeping, they won’t be able to hotwire it. Even if they punch out the ignition, they won’t be able to get it running. Not until I put the good battery back in it.”

  Joanie Cullen, it turned out, wasn’t much smarter than he was. She considered him a genius.

  “Oh honey,” she told him. “You’re so smart.”

  Luna’s plans to use the pickup truck for his getaway from Blanco were dashed.

  Savage’s plans to move his booty from the Cullen place to his own were as well.

  Luna would have to find another means of transportation to Lubbock.

  Savage would walk back and forth to the Cullen house over several nights and would carry back what he could. But it was such a long walk and he was so out of shape.

  He finally gave up, and other looters got the majority of his loot.

  And both men cursed Bill Cullen, who managed to get the last laugh after all.

  Chapter 45

  It was mid-April on the day of the explosion.

  April was a transition month for Blanco. Winter was over, except for its last vestiges.

  The days were generally warm enough for short sleeves. But one must take a light jacket if he or she planned to be out late. For the darkness brought forth very much cooler temperatures.

  On this particular night it was downright chilly.

  Virtually every house in town had a wood-burning fireplace. It was a common feature in the style of ranch houses prevalent in the area.

  For most homes, it had become, over the years, mostly for show. Residents would light up the logs for dinner parties or for romantic events like wedding anniversaries.

  But mostly, they’d become accustomed to the much easier and cheaper central heating as a means of heating their homes.

  All that changed when the blackout killed the power.

  Along with time honored traditions such as reading a good book by candlelight, going to bed at dark for lack of anything better to do, and consequently rising with the rooster’s crow, the fireplace was back into vogue.

  It was novel, at first. And for some people rather fun. Kids all over the little town were given new chores that included cutting wood, carting it into the house by the armload, and placing a fresh log on the fire occasionally.

  Most didn’t mind. It was only for a few hours between the time the temperatures started to drop and their bedtimes.

  At bedtime they had plenty of blankets and bedclothes to keep them warm.

  The log detail gave everyone another reason to hope that the crisis resolved itself soon.

  As if they didn’t have enough reasons already.

  Winters in Blanco were mild by northern standards. But they still got several inches of snow in a typical year, as well as a couple or three ice storms.

  And they averaged thirty seven days per winter below freezing. And thirty more below forty degrees.

  Winter would increase their firewood needs tenfold. And without the aid of modern machinery to cut down and haul trees from nearby forests, the residents would be forced to cull the trees from their own land.

  And saw each log by hand, or chop it with an axe.

  And no one, save Crazy Eddie Simms, wanted that.

  Crazy Eddie only wanted it because he was crazy.

  And because he saved twenty chain saws in the huge Faraday barn he built prior to the blackout.

  He’d bought them wholesale for eighty two dollars apiece.

  They were now for sale for three thousand each. Gold or silver only.

  He hadn’t sold any yet. He’d been cursed out a few times, though.

  But Ed
die wasn’t worried. The closer winter drew near, the more willing the residents of Blanco would be to pay his exorbitant prices.

  And he had all the time in the world.

  Or so he thought.

  On this particular evening in April, Red was home with Russell and Rusty.

  Earlier in the day, Russell and Rusty had watched as Butch and Red killed and then butchered a steer. They’d announced the day before at the daily gathering that they’d be doing so.

  And invited all their friends and neighbors to come by for a portion of the meat.

  Butch expertly cut off about two pounds of meat for every adult who stopped by, with specific instructions.

  “Be sure you wrap it in plastic to keep the flies off of it. During the daytime, keep it in a shaded area wrapped in aluminum foil.

  “At night, unwrap it so it can absorb some of the cold temperatures.

  “Eat it all by the end of the second day. If you can’t eat it by the second day, at least cook it. That’ll make it last a couple of days longer.”

  Each of the recipients was appreciative.

  But Butch wasn’t just being generous. He was also starting a tradition, of sorts, that would help sustain the survivors, and perhaps help keep many others from getting discouraged and giving up.

  What Butch was doing, in essence, was paying it forward. And he knew that in a week, maybe two, another neighbor with a head of beef he could spare would make a similar gesture.

  And hopefully if every rancher was willing to take his turn, the residents could count on getting fresh meat once or twice a month.

  Chapter 46

  Russell cooked their own steaks on the grill, along with canned corn and instant mashed potatoes from the Walmart truck.

  It was an odd combination, sure. But it was nourishment nonetheless.

  And it didn’t really matter what they were eating. They were with family.

  That was what really mattered.

  Butch packed it in just before dark and hoofed it back over to his own house.

  He’d decided several days before to rearrange the hardware store by taking everything out of the storage room and storing it in the front part of the store.