The Slow Road

by Jerry D. Young

  Lance had found a chair and was listening to his iPod with his eyes closed, apparently without a worry in his head.

  Jasper, worried about the extent of the fallout, was debating what he might have done without so he could have picked up a Civil Defense surplus radiation meter. At least he’d printed off the instructions and scales to use to make a Kearny Fallout Meter, and had the necessary parts to put one together.

  The can he needed, the aluminum foil, and the carefully dried and packaged gypsum board pieces, were in one of the supply cabinets. He went to a quiet corner of the shelter, where there was good light from the battery powered LED lights and began to work at putting one together, after pulling the plans from the fire resistant file cabinet that had been moved to the shelter, along with the old laptop and printer. Jasper had bought the kids a newer used laptop for school use during one of the times they had a little extra money.

  It took several tries, but Jasper finally had the thing assembled so he thought it would work. He quickly took it to the outer door of the shelter and set it down. He’d check it in an hour and see what kind of reading he got.

  With Alice and the girls quiet, taking naps in the sleeping bunks in the far corner of the shelter, Jasper got Alvin to go over the supplies he’d brought with him. As soon as Jasper took out the laptop from the filing cabinet, Lance came to life and came over to them.

  “You got high speed, man? I need to get on to check my e-mail. Tell the guys where I am. My cell phone ain’t working.”

  Jasper was astounded. He looked over at Alvin. Alvin, slowly and carefully explained once again to his son that there was a nuclear war going on and things like cell phones and the internet weren’t working.

  “Yeah, sure. But let me use the ‘puter when you’re done.” Lance walked off again, putting the ear buds of the iPod back into his ears.

  “I’m sorry,” Alvin said to Jasper, his head down.

  Jasper just shook his head and began to enter the items Alvin told him he’d brought into the supply spreadsheet that Jasper and Millie kept updated as their situation changed. It took some time, and Jasper was relatively impressed with the supplies Alvin said he had. At least for the probable duration of the shelter stay there wouldn’t be any problems with food supplies. If it was a longer shelter stay than Jasper thought it would be, there might be problems after they left the shelter in terms of long term supplies.

  Nobody really slept much that night, except for the children. Alice finally seemed to be managing her fear and asked to help Millie with anything she could do. “To keep her from going crazy,” she told Millie.

  Other things, like the lack of a proper fallout survey meter crossed Jasper’s mind that first night. Like what would he have done if he hadn’t enlarged the original shelter plans from the original eight foot by eight foot inside size of the plans to sixteen feet by twenty-four feet inside. Even with the extra support posts for the double width, there was still almost six times the space they would have had. There simply wouldn’t have been enough room for everyone now in the shelter. How would he have handled that?

  Jasper checked the Kearney meter every hour or so, logging the reading and resetting it every third reading or so. According to the meter, they were getting a fairly steady 100 R/hour during the night. The reading went up and down some, but was staying relatively steady at that level.

  But it began to fall late the next day and continued to fall as the days progressed. Jasper referenced his stored information and risked a little exposure to take the occasional look around. No one, not even their other neighbors, seemed to be around. He didn’t leave the property, but there were simply no signs of life.

  He also didn’t see the rabbits and chickens he’d turned loose. He could only hope some had survived somewhere close so they could begin meat and egg production again after they left the shelter. With the fish tanks in the ground inside the greenhouse, Jasper didn’t worry about them. He always kept some commercial feed available for all the animals and used a bit of the fish food to keep the fish going until they could get out and start harvesting them on a regular basis again.

  The days dragged on and Jasper thought he might actually have to put Lance out of the shelter, but each time the young man did something, Alvin would talk to him and Lance would be okay for a couple of days.

  Everyone was thankful that Jasper said they could start going outside for a few hours a day after twenty-one days in the shelter. The Kearny Meter was indicating radiation levels below 0.5 R/hour. Everyone had to sleep in the shelter, but they were able to go outside.

  To his surprise, Jasper found perhaps a half of his chickens and both bucks and five of the twelve rabbit does he’d turned loose. He looked up the LD-50 dosage for both animals and discovered that rabbits were at 800R, twice the resistance of humans. Chickens were two and a half times more resistant than humans, with an LD-50 dosage of 1,000R.

  He found the rabbits living in the hedges. Their natural instinct to burrow had helped them survive. The chickens had fended for themselves Jasper knew not where, but when he went looking for them around the property he’d find one here and there. Some looked the worse for wear, and one of them died after he penned them back up. Egg production was very slow at first, but the chickens that had survived did much better than Jasper ever dreamed they would. He let two of the hens set broods, to get the number of layers back up. They would need all the eggs and chickens they could grow in the future. The same with the rabbits. Jasper had incorporated enough genetic diversity to be able to keep cross breeding the animals successfully. As he’d done with the chickens, he kept a higher percentage of breeding does back than he had in the past, to maximize future meat production.

  The gardens were carefully uncovered, and everyone handling them washed thoroughly to get any remaining fallout they picked up from the tarps off their skin and out of their hair. As it was, everyone except the children suffered mild radiation sickness from the exposures they got shortly after their trips started out of the shelter.

  Jasper stayed pretty much right on the property. Greg and Alvin surveyed the neighborhood. Only one other family was still in the cul-de-sac neighborhood. Those on the through street that backed Jasper and his side neighbors were also all gone, except for three families close to Jasper and Millie’s property.

  Each had put together makeshift shelters and though they survived, all were weak with radiation sickness.

  Alvin went back to his place with Greg, using Jasper’s pick-up. Though his truck had made it to Jasper’s, Jasper couldn’t get it to start. It was going to need some new electronic ignition parts.

  Alvin couldn’t keep the devastated look off his face and both Shania and Christine started crying, as did Alice, when he and Greg got back. All the horses and the dogs were dead. Alvin let his family assume they’d died from the radiation, and some had. But there were signs that at least two of the horses had been butchered and probably eaten. One of the dogs had been shot.

  Alice let out a small scream and collapsed when Alvin had to tell her the house and barn had both burned to the ground. They had lost everything they owned, except what they’d brought with them to the shelter.

  Millie and Jasper exchanged quick glances and then Millie, with the girls, rather useless help, got Alice into the house and into one of the bedrooms so she could lie down, without being in the shelter to remind her of her loses.

  Greg was commiserating with Alvin when Jasper walked up to them after having restacked some of the boxes in the house to make the room for Alice. Alvin looked up at Jasper. “I know we can’t stay here,” he said. “But I don’t know what to do.”

  “It’s manageable,” Jasper said slowly, thinking as he spoke. “I suspect there will be vacant houses, with no one around to collect rent. We should be able to get you something really close. Close enough where we can be a help to each other. Actually,” Jasper added, looking at Greg. “You said the house south of me was abandoned.”

  “Uh… no
t abandoned, I think. I didn’t break in, but I looked in the windows. There were several dead people lying around. I think the family just stayed there and died of radiation sickness.”

  “Oh. Didn’t know that,” Jasper said, shivering a little at the thought of people just dying, without trying to help themselves in some way. There was the shelter in city hall. Jasper and Millie, despite all their problems in the early years had managed to make do. Why hadn’t people with real money. Like Alvin, though of course Jasper didn’t say that.

  Jasper put that out of his mind. “Well, I don’t know them that well, we didn’t socialize. They just bought some meat, eggs, and produce from us. But I did learn they didn’t have anyone else, except themselves. If they are dead, I don’t see any reason for you not to use the house, Alvin.”

  “We can’t tell them about the dead people,” Alvin quickly said. “Alice and the girls… They’d never live there if they knew.”

  “Okay,” Jasper said, looking over at Greg and getting a nod, “We’ll take care of the bodies over the next couple of days while you approach Alice about moving in there in a few days.”

  “Okay,” Alvin said. “I can do that.”

  “Let’s go check it out,” Jasper said. He caught Millie coming out of the house and told her where they would be.

  Jasper had to break a small pane of window glass in the back door to gain access to the house. He and Greg both gagged at the stench inside the house. They went to the shelter and got their county issued respirators before they continued. They brought several of the tarps back with them and rolled the bodies up in the tarps so they could handle the bloated bodies.

  Neither could keep the tears from their eyes when they carefully removed a dead baby from its dead mother’s arms and wrapped it lovingly in its blankets. It took most of that afternoon to move the bodies out beside the hedge north of the house. Jasper didn’t want the bodies buried next to his blackberries and wild roses. They left the windows wide open to air out the house when they went back to Jasper’s.

  The next day Greg and Jasper disappeared again, with only Millie knowing where they went. They took the rototiller and two shovels to dig the admittedly shallow graves for the three adults, two teens and baby they’d found in the house.

  That afternoon they took Alvin over to look at the house. “It’s going to have to be okay,” Alvin said. “Almost no smell left. And with the way Alice is going to insist on cleaning the place anyway, I don’t see a problem.”

  The three went back to Jasper’s house. Jasper found Millie in the kitchen in the house. Only he could tell how upset she was. She wouldn’t let it show with Greg and Alvin, and Alvin’s family there.

  “What is it, Sweetie?” Jasper asked, putting his hands on her shoulders.

  “Oh, nothing really that important,” she said softly. “I opened a can of dehydrated strawberries to use for snacks for the children and Lance ate almost the entire can.”

  Jasper felt himself frown. The sooner Alvin’s family was in the other house, the better. Apparently Millie felt the same way. She pitched in and helped move Alvin’s family’s stuff over to the other house and even helped Alice and the girls scrub it down to Alice’s satisfaction.

  Reluctantly, Alice and the girls went through the clothing they found in the house and decided that they would use what would fit, despite it being someone else’s clothing, and not that much to their taste.

  Jasper saw the relief in Millie when they had the house and property back to themselves. Except… Neither Greg, in his house, or Alvin and family in theirs, had a good way to cook. Both houses had been updated shortly after the new millennium and the old propane appliances replaced with electrical. They both had shelter over their heads, and clothing, and food, but that was about it.

  Jasper and Millie discussed the situation, the discussion being a short one. There wasn’t much they could do except allow them to use the outdoor kitchen to prepare food with, and the wood fired hot tub to take their baths in.

  Alice and the girls had no experience with cooking on a wood stove and Jasper had long ago made a cover for the propane burners to use the space for workspace. Jasper and Millie weren’t ready to just open up the propane and let Alvin’s family have at it. So Millie did most of the cooking. If it hadn’t been for Alvin putting his foot down with his family, she probably would have been doing the entire cleanup, too.

  Somewhat begrudgingly, Alice, Shania, and Christine did the dishes after the meals those first few days. Apparently they didn’t like it enough to get Alvin to search for some options. Jasper left Greg and Alvin to their own devices, glad to have the time with his family without what really were good friends. He actually mostly worked in the garden, clearing the growth that had come up that spring and died from the radiation and lack of care under the tarps for the three weeks Jasper was in the shelter.

  The plants in the greenhouse had suffered, but Jasper and Millie were able to save many of them, and had fresh salads to go with their fresh meat and stored vegetables. They were able to harvest much of the fruit from the trees and vines, but everything was carefully washed before it was processed and the wash water disposed of in a hole Jasper dug with the rototiller. The water drained away, leaving any fallout particles in the pit that would be covered up the next year after any possible radiation particle contamination was over.

  Jasper didn’t ask where Greg and Alvin came up with the bags of charcoal they had stacked in the back of Greg’s truck when they returned one afternoon. Both men were obviously shaken. It was only when Jasper began helping them unload the charcoal at the two houses that he saw the three bullet holes in the truck’s sheet metal.

  Greg finally told him he and Alvin had been loading up the charcoal out of one of the hardware stores the city had when someone came running up and started shooting at them. They dropped the bags they were carrying and jumped in the truck to drive away. Neither man had been hit by the gunfire.

  “So people are protecting the remaining resources,” Jasper said. Greg had to agree. “Any sign of city or county work crews cleaning up or anything?” Jasper asked Greg and Greg shook his head.

  Feeling a duty to the county that he’d been working for the last few years Jasper talked it over with Millie and they decided he should at least try to make contact with the county government and see if he could help out in some way.

  Jasper was just pulling away from the property when he saw Lance zip past him on his motorcycle. Alvin had agreed with Greg, Jasper, and Millie that the bike should be kept in reserve for scouting uses and quick transport when one of the heavier vehicles wasn’t needed. It was quite obvious that Lance wasn’t happy with that. They never saw Lance again or ever got word as to what might have happened to him.

  Alice was distraught for months, leaving Shania and Christine to do all the work to take care of themselves, Alvin, and her. Millie took pity on them and taught them the rudiments of cooking and housekeeping under harsh conditions.

  Jasper didn’t find any sort of government in operation anywhere in the area. He did run in to pockets of people that had survived, and were living the lives of scavengers. After the first attempt of one of them trying to get his truck away from him, and Jasper had to shoot one of the attackers with the Savage he’d taken to carrying with him everywhere, he started staying close to home again.

  The only exception to that was the small trading center that developed in the biggest of the city parks. He would go there each Saturday with what little surplus they had from fresh production of eggs, chicken, rabbit meat, and vegetables from the greenhouse. They never traded away any of their stored provisions, keeping them for their exclusive use.

  Jasper always went alone, and never let anyone get a chance to follow him back to the source of his wealth, the homestead. There were plenty of people that tried. Once Jasper stayed out two days before making it back home. He wasn’t that far away, and was able to talk to Millie on the pair of FRS radios that Alvin had given them, since
they had a few rechargeable AA batteries and Alvin didn’t, and continued to feel he owed Jasper a great deal for what he’d done for Alvin and his family.

  Greg furnished the materials from somewhere to build two outhouses after the city sewer finally filled up all the existing storage area in the system, including the access manhole in Jasper’s street. There was enough lumber for a conventional outhouse for Greg’s place, and one for Alvin’s. Jasper and family continued to use the chemical toilet. Jasper used the rototiller and a shovel, and with Greg’s help, slowly dug out the hole and trenches needed to install the septic tank components so they would have flush toilets again. They would be flushed with a bucket once each day, but they were flush toilets.

  It allowed the family to begin living in the house full time again. They just had to carry water from the hand pump on the well inside to have water. Jasper had plenty of buckets for the task, not even counting the several that Greg and Alvin used to haul water with from the pump.

  Alvin and the rest of his family opted out of the bible study sessions Millie put on for Jasper and their children each Sunday. Greg had asked to come and was happily included. All drew great comfort from the Good Book, in spite of their circumstances.

  Jasper continued to refuse to go on the salvaging trips Greg and Alvin occasionally took to find things they simply couldn’t live without. He refused any of the minor bounty they came back with, the idea of taking things that other people might need rather distasteful to him. The house Alvin had moved into wasn’t quite the same, as there were plenty of other houses available, since the death toll had been so high.

  But some of the other things… Jasper sighed as he thought about it. Greg and Alvin, and Alvin’s remaining family really didn’t have much. They were a needy bunch. Greg had always done very well for himself, even when he was drinking, and Alvin had been worth almost two million dollars at one time. Now Jasper was the rich one, with the ability to feed himself and his family, and have enough to barter for what they couldn’t produce.