by Kurt Gepner
Hank tugged at his beard and said, "Most plants will start to bear out in sixty to seventy days, but in the mountains, where it’s colder and gets fewer hours of sun, it might take longer."
Brody’s voice was rising in pitch as panic tickled at his nerves. "Well, what do we eat for fifty or sixty days while we’re waiting for things to grow?"
Hank was silent for a moment as he regarded Brody. Then in a grave, hollow voice, he said, "Each other." Brody’s eyes grew large and his jaw dropped open. Hank continued, deepening his voice and drawing out his words. "We’ll start with the youngest, roasting them over an open fire. Then, when we’ve eaten all the children, we’ll draw straws."
Brody was horrified and had begun shaking his head. "You can’t do that!" He righteously demanded.
Hank couldn’t keep his face straight any longer as he let loose a roar of laughter. Everybody around the fire barrel joined in. Brody’s mouth curled into a mischievous grin as he realized the joke. Rocking his head back and forth, he pointed at Hank and said, "You’re an evil bastard! You were totally fucking with me!"
The men fell into a riot of laughter. Even Brody momentarily forgot his angst and laughed at how easily he had been duped. Finally, Evie came out and scolded them for being noisy, because the children were trying to sleep.
As the laughter faded away, Brody faced Hank and asked, "Seriously, what are we going to eat while the crops are growing?"
Hank cleared his throat and wiped away his grin. "Okay. I’ll try to keep it real," Hank said. "So what we’ll have to do is scrounge for food as much as possible along the way. Once we get up there, we’ll have to hunt and forage like crazy while we’re working our asses off doing everything I already said. We’ll have to ration our food and use fresh stuff to supplement our stores, as much as possible. This was our last feast for a good long while."
Silas used both hands to pat his prodigious torso and said, "I’m sure glad I’ve got this here reserve, but I’m not going to be sad to see it go."
Dale patted his own belly and said, "You’re not kidding."
Hank rubbed his hand over his gut. "I’m going to miss ol’ Hank Jr."
Tom’s dark eyes skipped around the men. "Speak for yourselves! I’ve been trying to put on a few extra pounds for about thirty years. I have no ass to spare."
Hank nodded over to the lanky man with a grin. "I never said you wouldn’t be hungry. I’m just saying you aren’t going to starve."
"Not going to starve?" Tom spoke incredulously. "We just finished dinner and I’m already hungry for a snack! You have no clue what it’s like to have the metabolism of a humming bird."
"You got me there," Hank threw up his hands in surrender. "We’ll give you an extra scoop of mush for breakfast."
Tom laughed. "Gee, thanks. So how much more do we have to do before we can get on the road?"
The atmosphere turned suddenly serious. Hank gnawed at his bottom lip for a moment before answering. "The more able we are to fabricate tools and other needs, the better we’ll fare. I want to load the pick-up with all of the shop tools that haven't fried. I’ve got an old generator set up for a belt drive, and an old, five-horse belt-drive rototiller. That's a no-brainer that'll give us three kilowatts of power. I’ve got a small forge and some blacksmithing tools, as well as a full woodworking shop and a lot of mechanics tools. The more we can load down that truck, the better traction it’ll have for pulling."
Tom spoke up, skeptically. "You’re talking about a couple tons of equipment. Last time I checked, an F250 is a three-quarter ton truck."
Hank nodded. "Normally, yes. But, before I got my hands on it, somebody dumped a lot of money into that pick-up. The suspension is really beefed up. I’ve weighed her out at the dump with a thirty-six hundred pound load and she didn’t even bog down. It may be the limit, but I’m sure it can carry two tons."
Silas shook his head and whistled appreciatively. "You know I shouldn’t say so, but it sure seems like you were planning for the apocalypse. What’s your deal? Were you one of those suckers who thought the world was going to end on December twenty-first of two-thousand and twelve?"
"No," Hank said with a chuckle. "I’m a little more old school. I grew up on a farm, with my grandparents. They ran their farm as a replica of a pioneer homestead and had tours and school kids visiting all the time. Everything we did was by hand, so I learned a few things.
"But like a lot of people who grow up on the outskirts, all I wanted to do was get away. As soon as I could, I joined the Army. Being a mechanic seemed like it would be a good career, when I got out. But I hated being in the Army and stinking of diesel and barking my knuckles and pretty much everything to do with being a mechanic.
"After I got out, I lucked into a high-tech job, and learned all about computers. It wasn’t long before I was building my own high-powered systems and running a business building them for others. But the thing about running your own business is that you’ve got to be ready for lulls. I wasn’t. And so I went to work for a big-box retailer, selling their computers instead of my own. I was pretty good at that and brought in some good money, but the corporate backstabbing finally did me in.
"At that point Evie and I had a little bit of a savings, so I decided to take a big risk. I sold our car, took out a loan and sunk every one of our pennies into a bee-keeping business. It took off in a big way. We paid off the loan in the second year and by year three we were just about rolling in the dough. We helped all three kids with college and I even took some classes, myself."
"But then the bees died out," Silas morosely injected.
Hank nodded just as glumly. "Yep. I was a casualty of the Colony Collapse Disorder. But before my business crashed, Evie started training dogs, full time. She and Reggie were winning dog shows and then she started her canine daycare and kenneling business. It was doing well enough that I was able to learn some blacksmithing at Fort Vancouver. You see, it was all coming full circle. Recently we started looking for some land, out in the country, where we could start a farm, just like my grandparents."
"That doesn’t really explain your stock-pile of food, or that fancy shotgun pistol you got," Silas said. "Those are things I would expect a crazy survivalist to have."
Hank gave the older man a half smile. "Let’s just say that there’s a little survivalist in me. And," he said with a wag of his finger, "I never saw any harm in being prepared for a disaster."
"Well," Tom said with a raise of his hand, "I, for one, am mighty glad that you were. And I would like to formally thank you for letting my family under your roof." Tom’s gratitude initiated a round of similar sentiment from the other men.
Hank absorbed the appreciation by staring into the fire. When they had all fallen silent again, and the crackle of flames dominated their conversation, Hank cleared his throat. As he spoke he looked up at Tom. "Well, I’m just glad that we’re in a position to help out a few of our neighbors. But just so you know, you’re welcome. And I think," Hank’s mouth curled into a devilish grin as he spoke, "if you don’t mind, I’ll let you show your gratitude by taking first watch, Tom."
"I’ll take a watch," Brody volunteered, and was quickly seconded by Jeremy.
Dale turned to his son. "No you won’t." Jeremy’s enthusiastic grin squashed into a frown and he turned away from the fire.
Hank addressed Brody with a little more diplomacy. "Brody, I hope you understand that this is nothing more than a cold, calculated decision. I’m not going to have you take watch until I am confident that you will not only stay awake through your shift," Hank held up a finger to make his point. "But also," he held up another finger, "have the judgment to make hard decisions that are in the interest of everyone under your protection."
Lowering his voice so that he would not be heard beyond the circle of men, Hank addressed them all. "Don’t any one of you think that I am not glad that Salvador rescued that little girl last night. It was a noble thing that he did and he proved that he is a real hero. But when he r
an off in the middle of the night, he put everyone under this roof in jeopardy. At the very least, he should have got a group of us together so we could look out for each other."
With deliberate grimness, Hank peered into each pair of eyes that encircled the fire before going on. "Now… because Salvador used bad judgment, we are not just a man down but he has made himself into a liability."
Hank looked Brody in the eyes and said, "You show me, Brody, that you can exercise good judgment and self control, then we’ll talk about which shift of watch you’ll take."
Brody was not willing to let the subject rest. "How is it that you trust these guys over me? You’ve never met them before today. And he," Brody pointed at Tom, "lives in the Rosebud neighborhood." He threw his hands out and his voice rose in pitch. "I mean, come on, you can knock on almost any door over there and buy drugs. Why would you trust him over me?"
Hank chuckled humorlessly and shook his head in disbelief. "You know, I would hate to see you go out of your way to insult someone. You’d probably be the next Don Rickles."
Brody blinked and shook his head. "Who?"
"Never mind," Hank answered. "Listen, I’ve been wrong about people, now and then. But that has always been when I second guessed my instincts. I’m not making that mistake right now." Then Hank jabbed his finger directly at Brody and lowered his voice to a growl. "And something you need to learn real quick is that you can’t judge a person by where they come from, who their parents were, or what they look like." Hank relaxed his stance and his voice. "The hard and razor sharp fact is, Brody, with as much potential I see in you and as much as I care for you, I still trust these men more than I trust you."
Brody stared at Hank with a tight-lipped expression. Hank held his stare, returning a stern, but compassionate gaze of his own. Finally, when his eyes got moist and tears began to collect along their rims, Brody turned away and said, "Fine. Where do I get to sleep?"
Hank nodded. "That’s a good plan. Why don’t you two boys head in and talk to Evie? She’s handling the sleeping arrangements."
After the two boys left the circle, the men discussed their own arrangements for watch. Hank declared that he trusted himself to pull a shift even less than Brody. The hour of sleep that he had managed during the previous night, coupled with a week of anxiety over the arrival of his daughter and her family, had left him utterly exhausted. He excused himself from the particulars of planning and followed the boys into the house.
Silas volunteered his Rolex for tracking shifts. It was a wind-up and he had already set it against the wind-up clock on the fireplace mantle. Tom took the timepiece as he agreed to take first watch, followed by Dale, Silas and then Camille. Camille always woke up early so, he posited, he may as well take the last shift.
After the details were solidified, Tom found his way to the roof while the rest of the men headed into the house to find some sleep. Hank was nearly delirious with fatigue, but he found his notebook and pen and forced himself to write.
Day 1, ~10:30pm
I am so tired that I can hardly stay awake to write an entry. We’re going to the mountain meadow. How many people can I save? When do I say "no?" Every moment I question myself, but I don’t let them know. Not even Evie. She is why they listen. She has to believe that I know what I am doing. All I know for certain is that my body aches and I am tired. A person once told me: Those who know "why" will always lead those who know "how." What happens when you are one and the same?
*Mandated defecation on main floor bathroom only and urination in buckets to use as flush water. Rationed toilet paper today. Some complained. Can’t wait until they have none. Children refusing to eat what is served. Yelled at Evie to stop making special meals for them. Had to turn away dozens begging to feed their children. Brody sneaked many of them food. He is human after all. I said nothing. I’m a hypocrite.
Hank tucked his notebook into his pocket and crawled under the blanket next to his wife. She snuggled into him. He knew she was awake, but they didn’t need to talk. Their closeness was all the comfort and reassurance that either needed. Hank was asleep in less than two dozen heartbeats. Evie remained awake for a long time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fending off a chill with the lap blanket that Evie had given her, Bertel didn’t bother trying for sleep. In her sixty-three years of life, the aging woman had learned that somnolence was not a certain prelude to slumber. Too much weighed on her mind and as she rested in the over-sized recliner, with her wards tucked under towels, for blankets, at her feet, she let her worries march to and fro behind her closed eyes.
Her earliest memories were of rebuilding. Born in Germany shortly after the Second World War, she grew up in a ravaged land surrounded by ruins. Now, in hardly more than a heartbeat, her home had been destroyed - utterly burned to the ground - and her world lay in ruins, once again. It didn’t matter how it happened. She didn’t know and wasted little energy wondering. The facts were that she had nothing, her neighbors had taken her in and she had four children in her care.
Of course, all of her decisions were being shaped by her responsibility for the children. Their wellbeing was her paramount concern. And now she had come to a cross-roads in providing that wellbeing.
On one hand there was Hank: A very nice man whom she was not certain was entirely sane. He, along with his family and an odd assortment of followers, was about to leave his rather nice home to live in a field in the mountains. Supposedly, he was knowledgeable about such things, or so she had been assured by the people who were most close to him.
In the time that she had known him, he had robbed a pharmacy, convinced a lot of people to give up their security for an uncertain future and lied to the authorities. Even though he seemed quite decent and rational when speaking with him, she couldn’t view his actions in the same light.
Then there was the other hand…. There was nothing in the other hand. Certainly Jimmy had been reunited with his family, which suggested that her other wards might also be thus blessed. But all of the other parents worked in Oregon. And all worked more than twenty miles away. In fact, all four of the children remaining in her care were being raised by single mothers with varying disabilities. Two were obese, one was bi-polar and one of the mothers was chronically ill with Leukemia.
Sadly, the only mother who Bertel accredited with the ability to return to Vancouver was Jillian Tanner, Cassie’s mother. Jillian had terrible asthma, but Bertel thought the woman could, in desperation, hike the twenty miles that separated her from her daughter despite her obesity. As for little Leslie, Kimberly and Gregory… Bertel feared that it would be a long while before they would experience a reunion.
That was what she had left: One child of four whose mother could likely arrive. If she stayed for that, she and the children would be ousted by the doctors. It was probable that some sort of shelter for children would be nearby and Bertel knew that she could take care of herself, but the city was definitely becoming dangerous. Still, it was familiar and tangible. Hank offered only his word. He didn’t even have a photograph of his promised land.
Bertel drifted, mercifully, into a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER NINE
All was quiet near the Shumway house. In the distance, however, Tom heard shouts, screams and the occasional gunshot. He was unmoved by those sounds. They were not 'here' so they didn’t matter. As an avid lifelong reader of the newspaper, one thing that he had learned was that you could find suffering everywhere if you looked for it. In some places you didn’t have to look very hard, but it was everywhere. His only influence over the suffering was in how he and his family would avoid it. Stumbling across the Shumway's was a stroke of good luck..., so far as he was concerned. Tom could tell that Hank was one of those rare fellows who never got caught up in the monotony of modern life. As a result, when modern life disappeared, he was one of the few who had the clarity of vision to see what was left.
While watching the occasional passage of the dogs down below, Tom reminisced abo
ut his family, especially his cousin Caleb. Caleb had been a drug addict from the day he turned fourteen. It was only happenstance that kept Tom off that path. At age two, Tom had been taken from his mother and stepfather and placed in the care of his Aunt Lindsey. Her son, Caleb, was only a month his senior and they quickly bonded, like brothers. When he was six the state said that Tom’s parents had cleaned up and he could live with them again. Only a few, albeit vivid, fragments of memory survived that time of his life.
One memory that played across his mind was when he had squeezed a whole bottle of Elmer’s Glue into one of his stepfather’s work boots. Not for any reason he could recall, but in retrospect, he was glad he’d done it. And Hector, his stepfather, beat the crap out of him for doing that. In fact, over the course of that year Tom had no memories of Hector that did not involve having the crap beat out of him.
Tom ended up back with Aunt Lindsey one year to the day after he’d been taken away from her. Ironically, it wasn’t anyone’s notice or concern about how Hector was beating him that lead to his rescue. One day, while his mother was passed out on her afternoon Jack-n-Coke, he had climbed a tree in their apartment courtyard and then fallen out. A neighbor saw Tom fall and after failing to rouse the boy’s mother, took him to the hospital without her. A broken wrist was the only damage, but the doctors noticed bruises all over Tom’s body and got the authorities involved. After that, Aunt Lindsey got permanent custody of him and raised him and Caleb on her own.
The two boys did everything together. On Caleb’s fourteenth birthday, which happened to fall on a Saturday, they decided to celebrate by getting high for the first time. They had a friend in school who could get them some pot, so they arranged to meet at his house and party. What they didn’t count on was that the kid who got them the marijuana had a special present for Caleb. Crystal Meth was not common where Tom had grown up. So they didn’t know anything about the drug, other than the kid said it was a 'gnarly high' and it had a cool name. When they tried it, for whatever reason, Tom got sick. Caleb, however, was hooked. He loved the feeling. From then on, it was all he could think about.
