Danny came to, but Tia made him lay down in the bed they’d made for him.
Danny was pissed and used a lot of words the young kids shouldn’t have been hearing. Mrs. deJesus laid her hand on his arm, the good arm, and told him he needed to settle down because he was scaring the children and if he didn’t, she would change his dressing and pull off the superglue.
Tia, Tara and John took care of Kellie; Josh, Sara and Katie hovered over Randy and Mrs. deJesus, Marissa and Jamal were at Danny’s side. Nick and Sade moved the motorhomes from in front of the shelter and parked them where they’d be out of the way for now.
Most of the talk between everyone was how to break the news to Jerry. Some thought they should tell him as soon as he came within range, but Kellie voted everyone down. Her head hurt and her side hurt, but she was still nominally in charge of the house.
“Starting now, I want someone on the CB. Every 15 minutes call for Jerry. If he answers, I will talk to him. Even if I am asleep, wake me. I will tell him. No one else.” She looked at everyone, the tears in her eyes as plain as the pain in her face. They understood why she must be the one to tell him, so they didn’t argue. She and Jerry had become close.
She started making up a schedule for everyone, but Katie, the farm’s horticulturist, shushed her. “You just lay there, sweetie.” Katie was one of the people who had come to the farm with the deJesuses too. She had been wandering a highway when Josh and his daughter came across her. Josh, a butcher who spoke softly, allowed the former nursery manager to ride with them.
“We’ll take care of the radio. You have a big cut on your head and lost some blood. You need to sleep and drink your water. We’ll take care of everything else.”
Kellie laid back and closed her eyes. It had been a horrifying evening, the worst part hearing John say Randy was dead. She thanked God John was wrong.
Randy was hurt bad, but he was alive. She would have to find a way to tell Jerry that he’d been hurt, and the first thing she’d tell him would be that his son is alive.
She cried knowing Jerry had left her in charge of the farm and trusted her. Kellie knew she should have been more careful of that manipulating vigilante Cheryl.
Kellie saw how Cheryl had paraded her pretty young body in front of kind-hearted Randy. She’d seen women like Cheryl treat men that way before. She’d seen it in the schools where she’d taught and seen young men do stupid things for pretty girls. She kept asking herself how she was going to tell Jerry how her fear of pissing off his son kept her from telling him how dangerous Cheryl could be. She looked over at Randy. His eyes were turning black and blue and his upper lip swelled and there was still some dried blood in his hair. His head was on a pillow, slightly turned so the bump on his head could be iced.
She finally fell asleep wondering what words she’d use to tell Jerry of the injuries she’d allowed happen to his son.
Jamal, after being given the okay from Mrs. deJesus, went to his tent and got Danny his bottle of Jack Daniels. He poured his friend two shots, which was all Mrs. deJesus would allow. Danny said it helped his headache and the pain in his arm. He fell asleep thinking of how many ways he was going shoot the lady who shot him.
* * *
Cheryl left the shelter in the minivan and was determined to put as many miles as possible between her and her prison in the shortest amount of time. It had been a difficult month for her after being wounded during the ill-planned attack and her subsequent capture by the farm’s defenders. She hadn’t been hurt bad, but bad enough, and held prisoner in the barn, a dog collar around her neck at night and in leg irons during the day were added insults.
Her problem this time, she decided, was her choice of compatriots. Her brother had picked her up at the St. Clair Correctional Facility where she’d finished a 30-day stint for assault. They were living in a trailer park when the end of the world came. She was working at a small store chain as a cashier to make a little money while her brother worked odd jobs in construction. With death all around them, including everyone they knew, they thought they hit the jackpot. All their mistakes, brushes with the law and lies were behind them and they could build their lives over.
The one thing both wanted, after they stopped questioning why they’d been so fortunate to survive when most of the population hadn’t, was to be in charge, especially Cheryl. She wanted to control her life like she’d never been able to before. All her life she had been controlled by someone else.
Growing up, her mom and dad controlled her. They told her what to do, what classes to take in school, what sports to play and whom to date. Her younger brother was an afterthought to her parents and was freer to get in trouble, which he did.
After high school, Cheryl was told which college to go to, which degree to get and to whom she should get engaged.
The man her parents wanted her engaged to, Mark Kennedy, was wealthy, well-educated, well-connected and a thorough and complete prick. She dated him through college and put up with his attitude, but she never loved him. He was always making sure she felt indebted to him and seldom listened to her opinion. He controlled where they went, what they did and with whom they made friends.
Cheryl allowed him to do it because it was expected of her.
After two years of college, she was expected to marry Mark and have beautiful children and Cheryl might have done just that if she hadn’t met Devon.
Devon was a contractor who was remodeling the dream house Mark had picked out for them. Devon was tattooed and vulgar and everything Mark wasn’t. He was also in the house nearly every day for three months.
Where Mark was cultured and intelligent and chose every word he spoke carefully, Devon was brash and outspoken and cared more about having a good time than making more money.
Cheryl loved the looks of Devon’s hard sweaty body when he was working and hated Mark’s long, lean tennis body. It wasn’t an affair, because she was still just engaged to Mark, but she felt liberated when she flirted with the carpenter and later when they ripped each other’s clothes off in the dream house.
Mark slapped her when he found out. He then used his connections to ruin Devon’s business. His anger led him to make sure Cheryl got fired from any job in any position at any company anywhere in the area.
Everywhere she went, or any job she got lasted only long enough for Mark’s influence to get her fired.
Even her parents shunned her. They’d worked so hard to raise her right, put her through college and plan her future and she threw it all away to screw a broke carpenter. They cut her off from family money and seldom talked to her. She hadn’t lived up to their standards and they never let her forget it.
After being fired from her fourth job in as many months, she was walking back to her one-room apartment when she passed an Army recruiter’s office. She walked in, knowing Mark couldn’t mess with the Army.
Her parents were furious that she joined the Army, thinking it was below their social status. Cheryl didn’t care. She liked thought of her parents being pissed at her and she felt like a rogue for choosing to become a soldier.
Six months later she was a second lieutenant. She found the organization of the military, the level playing field where everyone was equally nothing, a good fit for her. Cheryl knew she was attractive compared with most of the other women and she used her looks to get the men to help her get by.
For the first time in her life, she felt like she had some control of her life. The male drill sergeants seemed to go easy on her because she was pretty, although the female drill sergeants treated her as equal cannon fodder. After basic training, she was transferred to Ft. Benning for officer candidate school. It wasn’t easy, but she graduated and was given 2nd Lieutenant bars.
She was made an officer.
She was assigned to a post in Germany as a supply officer. She’d stayed mostly out of trouble; at least enough so nothing was put in her official record. There were some problems but batting her eyes at the right man, or a flirtatious glance i
n the right direction, covered up her mistakes or errors in judgment. She finished her first tour and rotated stateside with a promotion.
* * *
Shep, still living in his own nightmare, didn’t talk much on the drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage. He rode in the passenger seat and looked out the window. Amanda was okay with it. Her dad had once told her that too many people spoke without thinking about what they were saying. That comment had stuck with her. She was always careful about what she said and didn’t push Shep to talk.
The drive was boring. There was no music in the HUMVEE and with the winter tires, it wasn’t a quiet vehicle. After two hours, she was happy to see the captain pull off the side of the road. It was still dark, but they could see the first rays of dawn.
After a good brisk walk and tending to personal business, they got back on the road. Shep had offered to drive, but Amanda said she was good for the next leg and pulled out to lead.
She wasn’t ready to trust Shep behind the wheel. If he was like she’d been when she first arrived, the snow-covered roads might be too much for him to handle right now.
The captain had suggested keeping her speed to about 50 miles per hour, which was good because every few miles they’d come across a vehicle on the highway. Twice they’d had to leave the road because a semi had wrecked, blocking the entire two-lane road.
Amanda kept the same speed and the captain fell in behind her. The sunrise was beautiful, nothing like the sunrises in Alabama, but still amazing and she might have appreciated the grandeur if the rest of the world hadn’t died.
As it was, she thought about her boyfriend and how he died in his bunk. She wondered if her dad and brother had gone the same way. She knew the two had planned on moving into that damned hole her dad had been digging for years in the hill behind the barn. Her last email from him had been telling her that she was always in his thoughts and prayers.
He was like that. He wasn’t a bible thumper, but he was a devout believer in God. It sometimes bothered her, but he never forced his faith on her or her brother, so it never became an issue. For her, the best thing about his faith was the Sundays with no work.
She thought a lot about her dad’s faith during the second leg of her drive. She had never really been a believer or given God much thought. She had other things to think about. She hoped if her dad had passed from this life into the next, that whatever God he believed in had taken him peacefully.
The convoy was just about to their second break when Amanda saw a little bit of civilization. A Chevron station was off to her left, but it had been set afire and was nothing but rubble and a burned out building.
Further along the highway a Tosoro Alaska gas station and eatery could be seen. They should be able to re-fuel their trucks and stretch.
She pulled in and turned off the truck. Amanda looked through the front windows of the building while Shep went to the back of the store. It was typical of many of these stations that were far from the cities -- pumps out front of the station and an attached restaurant, probably run by the same family as the gas station. This one also had a bait shop to one side.
There were six 4-by-4 trucks parked in the lot, a front loader off to one side and a bulldozer on the other. When the captain pulled into the parking lot and turned off his truck, the silence was so absolute she could hear the echoes of his truck for several seconds afterward.
They stretched and looked around the area. Jim showed them bear tracks in the dirt and suggested they not spend much time here. Amanda tried the diesel pump, but it didn’t work. Jim jumped up on the loader and found it had a full tank of fuel.
It took them 20 minutes to re-fill their HUMVEES. There was not much else to talk about. They weren’t even half way to Anchorage after four hours of tedious driving. Amanda said she was still good to drive but Jim said he could use a few hours of sleep if Shep could drive for him so the young black man took his turn behind the wheel.
Amanda pulled out first and took the lead again. For everything that was wrong in the world, the steady sound of her HUMVEE gave her comfort. With the sun now above the horizon she could see why so many people were in awe of the Alaskan countryside. She was a born and bred Daughter of Dixie, but Alabama had nothing like this for wilderness beauty. She saw two herds of elk and several other smaller species of wildlife, but no more people.
Amanda concentrated on the road in front and picked up speed on the two-lane highway. They hadn’t seen as many car or truck wrecks in the last few hours so she drove down the middle of the road. She picked up her speed to 60 miles per hour and kept it there. Shep fell back a couple hundred yards but he reported on the radio that he was fine with the speed. There was snow covering the highway, but the tires on the HUMVEEs handled it easily.
Two more hours came and went. Jim called her on the radio, asking if she needed to pull over. She told him she didn’t but would if they needed to. Jim said they were fine and to stop when she was ready.
She was ready when they came up to Willow Way, about 90 minutes out of Anchorage and near the intersection of Alaskan Highway 8. She hadn’t planned on stopping, but there was a truck parked in front of the little strip mall and a man in Army uniform was running from the store waving his arms.
That was how they picked up Spec. 4 Roy Johnson.
Johnson had come to the same conclusion as Amanda and the captain, but he’d left a day before them. He had lived off post in Fairbanks and when his friends had died and no one answered the phones on base, he figured he’d head to Anchorage where his fiancée was attending college. The large black specialist hadn’t heard from her and knew she was probably dead, but he had to know. He’d just finished a two-week leave with her to become engaged, and gotten back to Fairbanks the same day the president implemented martial law.
He hadn’t returned to the military base, just got back in his car and drove.
Roy’s car had broken down the previous day and he had to walk back several miles to find the truck he’d seen off the road. He’d pulled the dead body out and got this far before it too broke down. He’d pulled into this strip mall to get some sleep and the truck stalled and refused to restart. It was already dark so he broke into the thrift store for some blankets, the liquor store for something to drink and the food mart for something to eat.
He drank more than he should have, admittedly getting so drunk he passed out, and didn’t wake up until late in the morning. He decided to get something to eat and search for another vehicle before getting back on the road. Five minutes earlier or later and Roy would have missed them completely. He hadn’t found a vehicle, but he wasn’t feeling tired anymore so was glad to ride with them.
Jim suggested he take over driving from Amanda and Shep continue driving the second with Roy as his co-driver. Amanda was fine with it. She’d been behind the wheel for more than seven hours. Roy packed up what he had in the second truck and the four started on the last 80 miles to Anchorage.
Jim left Amanda to her own thoughts once they’d been on the road for 20 minutes. Amanda closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the truck. She’d slept the night before, but after the last stop, she’d had something to eat and a good rest break so she covered herself with her field jacket and a blanket, put a pillow against the window and closed her eyes to be alone with her thoughts. She felt the sun’s warmth on her eyelids.
By the time the sun had reached the horizon, they’d be in Anchorage. Each of them had a different reason for heading there and she hoped to find more people. She’d hate to think they were the last four on earth.
Amanda had drifted in and out of sleep and sat up when Jim stopped the truck. She looked around and it was getting dark. There were no lights except for a few fires in buildings far off the highway.
Anchorage was without power.
Jim had chosen to pull off the interstate near Midtown. He pulled into a gas station that had diesel tanks on pedestals. It would make it easier to refuel the trucks in the morning.
The f
our disembarked from the trucks. Bones cracked as they stretched in the cold weather. It was snowing and the wind was picking up.
“What do you guys think? Stay with the trucks tonight or do we try to find others by driving around and looking for lights?” the captain asked.
“I remember reading that Anchorage has almost 300,000 people living here. Fairbanks had 30,000. We should find some people tomorrow,” Amanda said.
Roy didn’t like her figures and pointed out that just because they didn’t find more people in Fairbanks, it didn’t mean all of them had died. When his friends and neighbors had died, he’d left the city. He hadn’t looked for other survivors.
There might be more people alive than any of them knew, but in all honesty, Roy told them he didn’t care about anyone else. Tomorrow he was going to go to the University of Alaska Anchorage and look for his fiancée.
He wasn’t asking. He was telling.
Jim said he wanted to continue on to Sterling in hopes of finding family in the morning.
Shep, the young private who hadn’t said much looked at them with the same look Amanda had seen on her dad’s dog when it had been caught digging in the garden. Her dad had hollered at the dog, something he seldom did, and the dog hung its head, put its tail between its legs and slunk up to the back porch of the farm house. The poor thing looked so sad and lost, just as Shep did now.
“I don’t know,” the young man said, his soft southern voice bringing a smile to Amanda’s face. “I guess I just want to find some more people.”
Amanda told the others she wanted to go home as well. Her mom lived east of Spokane and Amanda would start there. If her mom and her step dad couldn’t be found, she would continue on to Alabama to find out if her brother and dad were still alive.
Shep lifted his head enough to look at her. Alabama was close enough to Mississippi, so he said it. “I’ll hang with the sergeant for a while I guess.”
Hell happened (Book 2): Hell Revisited Page 4
