It took a few bites for her to come fully cognizant of what was going on. She tugged her hands gently from Brody’s. “I’m okay, now. Thank you.”
“Why haven’t you been eating?” Brody asked.
Julie Anne gave a slight shrug. “Sometimes I forget, and there just isn’t much around. And I can’t get any money out of the bank for what is available.”
Brody looked around at Ranger. “You bring the rest of the MRE?”
“Right here,” he said, handing the package to Brody.
Against Julie Anne’s rather feeble attempts to prevent it, Brody made sure she ate everything in the meal package, over the next hour. Ranger had gone on and fired up the equipment, getting ready for the expected deluge of corpses.
“Please stop fussing over me,” Julie Anne managed to say with a show of her old self. And you should have Ranger stop what he’s doing. I don’t have any more money to pay you.”
“Don’t worry about that right now. Why’d you come out here, anyway? Things are working fine.”
“I can’t let you work for no pay. I can’t even get you any more food or water. And the fuel must be about gone in the cemetery tank. I can’t find any to refill it. We’ll have to stop pretty soon, anyway.”
“Well, for the moment you just sit here and relax. Let Ranger and me worry about whether or not we get paid. The fuel could be a problem, but I have an idea about that.” Brody moved off, got on his bicycle and headed off to talk to Ranger.
When Ranger saw Brody coming, he stopped the Case. They were stop-ping it every time now, to save fuel.
“She’s doing okay, now,” Brody told Ranger. “Look, she’s admitted she can’t pay up anymore. No more food or water. And the diesel is about gone…”
“You want to keep going, somehow,” Ranger said. He knew his buddy pretty well.
Brody nodded.
“I’m okay with it, since we have food and water to eat. Need to be doing something, even if we don’t get paid. But I don’t know about the fuel. No way to dig all these graves by hand.”
“Yeah. About that. You’re right. But… You know… We could actually fill them by hand. Just dig them with the backhoe and Bobcat until the fuel runs out. Maybe hold onto a reserve for some kind of emergency.
“And this isn’t an emergency?” Ranger asked dryly.
“You know what I mean,” Brody said with a short laugh. “You in?”
Ranger nodded. “I’m in.”
“Okay. I’ll tell her. It should make her feel better.”
Ranger waved in acknowledgement and Brody rode back to the parking lot. Julie Anne was sitting in the back seat, her legs inside now, with her head back on the seat. Brody hated to bother her, but decided she would rather know as soon as possible.
“Ms. Baumgartner…” At Brody’s words Julie Anne came awake abruptly. She looked around frantically for a moment and then relaxed when she saw Brody.
“I’m sorry to wake you.” Brody looked at her quizzically. “You not only haven’t eaten, you haven’t slept much the last few days, either, have you?”
She shook her head, too tired to put up a front.
“Well,” Brody said, hoping the news would cheer her as much as he was hoping it would, “Ranger and I came up with a plan. We’re going to keep working. The pay, if any, can be straightened out later. We have enough food and water to get us through for a while. To conserve fuel, we just going to dig the trenches with the backhoe and Bobcat. We’ll fill them by hand as we get more… deliveries.”
To Brody’s astonishment, Julie Anne began to cry. “I thought you’d be pleased!” he hurriedly said, having no idea how to handle a crying wom-an.
“I… I… I… am. It’s just such a relief… and I don’t know how to thank you… or pay you… or even if this is legal.” Julie Anne swayed on the seat and then fainted, leaning over to one side.
It looked uncomfortable and Brody reached into the car and straightened her up. She was breathing fine, and Brody decided she was just too tired and worn down. She’d be okay if she got some sleep. Working as gently as he could, Brody shifted her again, this time to a prone position on the back seat. He closed the doors all around, after rolling down all the win-dows. He’d check on her occasionally, but a semi was coming in and he needed to get back to work.
Grabbing his PPE, he climbed on the bicycle and headed for the semi. He gave the driver a ‘come with me’ sign and pedaled toward the slit trench now in use. Ranger saw them coming and met them there. Brody and Ranger suited up as the driver opened up the trailer.
After the bodies were laid out in the bottom of the trench, Brody rode back to check on Julie Anne, and got a shovel from the garage before he went back to the trench. Ranger was waiting. “Where’s my shovel?” he asked.
“Well, since this was my idea, I figured I’d do most of the shoveling, and let you do most of the digging.” Brody saw Ranger start to protest. “Don’t worry. There is going to be plenty of shovel work to go around, after we run out of diesel.”
“Okay… I guess,” Ranger said, rather reluctantly. He headed back to the trench he was working on.
It was hard, grueling labor in the heat, shoveling the dirt back into the trench. And it was worse when he had to put his PPE back on to continue. Some of the bodies had been well into decomposition when found, and now, as they began to thaw in the heat, since it was taking so long to cover them, the smell was terrible.
But with the respirator in place, and acting quickly to get at least an inch or so of dirt over the bodies, Brody was able to take off the respirator again, and shove the coveralls down to his waist, tying the arms. to keep them from falling down to his boots.
He had to take a break or pass out himself, so he got on the bicycle and went to check on Julie Anne. She was still asleep. Brody got a bottle of water out of the garage and downed it. He took another down to Julie Anne’s car and put it where she would find it if she woke up before he returned.
Brody watched her sleep for a few minutes, as he rested, and then forced himself to go back to work. It was noon the next time he checked on Julie Anne. Ranger rode up on his bicycle and asked, “How’s she doing?”
“Okay, I think. She fainted and then fell asleep. I’m beginning to get…” Brody’s words faded when Julie Anne groaned and sat up, her face bathed in sweat.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. Seeing the water she reached for the bottle eagerly and drank half of it in a very unladylike manner.
“Oh, that is so good!” she said, between sips now. “How long have I been out?”
“It’s a little after noon, now,” Brody replied.
“Oh, my Lord! I should have been at the office hours ago!” She scrambled out of the back of the car.
“Wait a minute,” Brody said, laying a hand on her arm as she swayed slightly. “You’re going to eat something first, and drink some more water.”
“I can’t. I need…”
“You need to stay hydrated and nourished,” Brody insisted. “Come on. You can eat lunch with us.”
Brody didn’t exactly drag Julie Anne with him, but she would have had to struggle to break his firm grip.
“But this is your food and water!” she protested when Ranger tossed her one of the MRE’s.
“We’re in this together, now,” Brody said.
It seemed to satisfy her, for Julie Anne quit protesting and let Ranger and Brody help her get the meal pack open and the entrée in the included heater. She finished the first bottle of water, and after only a moment’s hesitation reached for another in the half empty case. There were two cases under it.
“It is so hot,” she said a few minutes later. “I really don’t want any more of this.”
Brody decided he’d pushed all he could. “Okay. At least you ate some-thing. And don’t worry about it going to waste,” he said with a grin. “Ranger and I will finish it up.”
Julie Anne managed a small smile. “That’s good. Waste not, want not. Right?”
“But…”
“Take it,” Ranger said. “Brody and I can fend for ourselves pretty good.”
“Well, then, thank you both. I do have to get back to the office. I just hope I have enough fuel.”
“Maybe you’d better take my truck,” Brody said, drawing a startled look from Ranger, though he didn’t say anything.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that!” Julie Anne protested.
“It’s got city diesel in it,” Brody said. “So, why not?”
“I really don’t think I have enough fuel… The warning light came on last night.” She was hesitating, but Brody decided his silence was better than more encouragement. It was.
“Well, since it is city fuel, I will take it. But you’ll be compensated in some way in the future for its use, and the work you’re doing now,” she said firmly.
Brody took the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Julie Anne. “Uh… It’s bigger than your car, by quite a bit. Be a little cautious about getting into small spaces with it.”
Ranger chuckled.
Very seriously Julie Anne said, “I will. Thank you for this.”
Brody watched anxiously as Julie Anne got into his pride and joy and started up the truck. She backed it up just fine, but when she put it into drive, she chirped the tires when she pressed the accelerator. It had a lot more ‘go’ to it than her little hybrid.
“I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it,” Ranger said as Brody watched his truck disappear, driven by what amounted to a total stranger.
“Yeah,” Brody said, turning back to his bicycle with a sigh. “Me either.”
Brody breathed a little sigh of relief when he and Ranger biked up to the garage and saw Julie Anne pulling into the cemetery just before seven that evening. Brody thought she looked as bad as she had that morning when she climbed down out of the truck.
“How’d it go?” he asked as she walked wearily up to the two men.
Julie Anne sighed. “No end in sight,” she said and sighed. “I can’t thank you enough for doing this.”
“Yeah, well, what about you?” Brody asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get paid next month. Maybe there will be some food deliveries. And fuel. And the electricity will come back on. And the water will come back on. And…” She was starting to get tears in her eyes again and obviously hated the fact. She wiped them away angrily.
“I’ll be fine,” she said after a pause.
“Do you have enough fuel to get home?” Brody asked.
“I don’t know… Even if I get there, how do I get back? The Mayor is expecting all of us to do our jobs, despite everything.”
“Well, if it were me, I’d tell the Mayor where to get off,” Ranger said. “Either get me the tools I need, or the job doesn’t get done.”
“Ranger isn’t too fond of the Mayor,” Brody explained when Julie Anne looked shocked.
“But I have to do the best that I can with what I have available,” Julie Anne insisted. “It’s part of my job. And besides, you are doing the same as I am.”
“Yeah… Well… I’m doing it for Brody. Not the Mayor. And… well… for you, too. You’re showing gumption that… Never mind,” Ranger said. “We just need to figure out how to keep going. If these bodies aren’t buried or burned, there is going to be an epidemic, for sure. The city doesn’t need that. We don’t need that. I don’t need that.”
“Burned! We couldn’t possibly…” Julie Anne looked horror struck. “Even the mass graves…”
“There is the problem of fuel to burn them, anyway,” Ranger said. “Bodies don’t burn well on their own.”
“That’s enough, Ranger,” Brody said softly. “Look, Ms.. Baumgartner, we will continue to do what we can, but there is a limit.”
Julie Anne sighed. “I know. And I’m almost at mine. I honestly don’t know what to do. I may not even be able to get home.”
“You should stay with us until things get better,” Ranger suddenly said.
“What? That’s preposterous!” Julie Anne said, rather outraged at the suggestion.
Brody quickly entered the conversation. “Wait,” he said. “Ranger does have a point. You obviously don’t have any food at your place, no electricity, no water, out of fuel to get around... We need to conserve re-sources, not only for this job, but for our own well-being.”
“You’ve helped us out above and beyond the call, at your own detriment. Sure, we’ve been working, but we’d probably be helping out in some way, anyway…” Ranger harrumphed.
Brody looked at him, but looked back at Julie Anne. “Ranger and I are…” he looked over at Ranger again and Ranger gave a slight nod, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Well,” Brody continued, “Ranger and I are preppers. We have equipment and supplies stored for emergencies.”
Julie Anne looked shocked. Her anger was obvious when she started to respond. “You’re survivalists! You mean to tell me…”
But Brody cut her off. “We are not survivalists the way the media de-scribes them. Yes, we have food and water. But without the additional supplies you provided, the work that has been done, wouldn’t have been done. Ranger and I are helping. You can’t deny that. If we let ourselves go the way you have, what good would we be?”
Julie Anne was frowning, trying to understand. “Okay. Yes, if you hadn’t agreed to help I don’t know what I would have done. But hoarding… at a time like this.”
Ranger stiffened and Brody saw it.
“Is it hoarding to have made preparations beforehand for something like this? We took only enough from you to get by while doing the job. You know good and well all the city departments that had the means were doing the same thing you were doing to get the job done. Providing needed supplies to those doing critical work. That food wouldn’t have been distributed to the masses. It was for internal use from the first. So it isn’t hoarding in any way, shape, form, or fashion.”
“Well…” Julie Anne was thinking about it, Brody could see. “I suppose there were several of us using in house supplies to help maintain a work-ing group. Perhaps I was a bit harsh in my judgment.”
Ranger began to relax.
“But that doesn’t mean…” Julie Anne suddenly continued. “What would people say, my staying with my employees?” She blushed.
“Who’s to know?” asked Ranger. “I’d bet you a mint people are grouping up and helping each other wherever they can.” He suddenly smiled. “Of course there are those that are holed up, waiting this out. That’s what I would be doing, except for Brody. And you.”
Brody could see she was wavering. “But I’d still need to get some things from my apartment…” She said.
“We can take care of that,” Ranger said, much to Brody’s surprise. “We leave your rig here until we can find fuel for it. Same with mine. Take Brody’s rig to your place, and then mine, to get what’s needed, then find you a bicycle so you can still get around. We fill up Brody’s truck and the equipment one last time, and then what fuel is left in the cemetery tank is for life and death emergencies.”
Julie Anne looked like she was trying to find fault with the plan, but couldn’t. She closed her mouth and nodded.
“Brody?” Ranger asked.
“Best plan I’ve heard all day,” Brody replied with a smile. “Let’s do it.”
Resigned to the plan, Julie Anne locked up her vehicle and joined Brody and Ranger in Brody’s truck. “Where do you live?” Brody asked her.
When she told him, Brody said, “We’ll go there first. Ranger is further out.”
They were all silent as Brody drove. Once they were stopped by a city police officer on horseback. He was going to commandeer the vehicle until Julie Anne showed her ID and said it already was commandeered.
“Pay’s to have friends in high pla
ces,” Ranger said with a grin when Brody started up the truck again and they continued on their way.
The two men waited outside while Julie Anne went into her apartment to pack some things. She came out carrying one large suitcase, and one small one. Brody and Ranger put them in the back of the truck.
Then they headed for Ranger’s house on the outskirts of town. Brody had to do quite a bit of weaving around, avoiding cars whose owners had simply run them until the fuel tanks were empty, rather than parking them with a useable amount of fuel. For emergencies.
Ranger had Brody stop at a house near his in the darkness. All of the block was dark, except for the house where they stopped. “Better let me go up alone. Harvey is a bit touchy,” Ranger said.
Rather cautiously, Julie Anne thought, Ranger started up the walkway to the front door of the house. He didn’t get far before several bright lights came on and illuminated the entire front yard.
Through the open window of the truck Julie Anne and Brody heard the challenge come from the house. “State your business. I am armed and will shoot to kill if you make any aggressive moves.”
“It’s Ranger. Code word ‘memorabilia’.”
“Okay, Ranger. Come ahead. I see others. They staying put or coming in?”
“Staying put,” Ranger replied and entered the house when the front door opened and the outdoor lights went out.
Ten minutes later the garage door opened and Ranger pushed a bicycle toward the truck. The garage door closed, there never having been any light shown while it was open. Ranger put the bike in the back of the truck and climbed back into the cab beside Julie Anne.
“Got you a bike,” Ranger said with a smile. “You owe me ten bucks face value junk silver coin. When you can come up with it.”
“Okay,” Julie Anne said, “Thank you.” Ranger just shrugged and looked out the open window, a slight smile on his lips.
When they arrived at Ranger’s, all three went in after Brody parked the truck, bed toward the garage door. Ranger turned on a battery lamp in the living room when they entered. “Be just a few of minutes,” he said, heading for the bedroom. “You guys can start moving stuff from the garage. Brody, you’ll know what to take. The containers are marked.”
The Liddy Scenario Page 3
