by L. L. Akers
Tina jerked her head and stepped out from the trees.
Tarra stayed in a squat nearly hidden from sight, her gun covering Tina as she hurried, heel to toe, along the tree-line until she reached the clearing. Quick as a cat, Tina darted to the side of the house and then covered Tarra until she joined her a few seconds later.
They listened again.
Nothing.
A loud, honking noise from behind the house startled the women.
They crept around the corner and peered out, seeing a donkey tied outside the barn.
Behind them, they heard retching. Someone getting sick.
Twisting back toward the house, they watched Jake stagger out the screen door carrying a shovel, with Ozzie following behind. The contents of the shovel were as far away from him as the handle allowed, with his cheeks puffed out and his body jerking in rejection.
“Ewww,” Tina said, as Ozzie scampered to greet her.
“Yeah. Disgusting…” Tarra agreed.
Tina slid her pistol into the holster, and bent down to run her hands through Ozzie’s hair. “What’s up, Jake?”
Jake tossed the poop as far as he could and leaned the shovel up against the wall. “Cleaning house. You ladies got here just in time to help us finish up. Puck’s been keeping a donkey in his mama’s bedroom. It crapped all over the place.”
Tina and Tarra shook their heads in tandem.
“Not us,” said Tarra. “We’re just here to check on you. Olivia was concerned about you guys being gone too long. We offered to come so she didn’t worry her pretty little head off.” She finished with a tight smile.
Jake gave her a sidelong look. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s fine,” Tarra answered, and threw on a stiff smile again.
Jake looked to Tina who also attempted a smile that didn’t reach her eyes either. “Great day. What is it?”
Tina shook her head, her mouth firmly closed.
“Look ladies, I’ve been married long enough to know when a woman answers ‘what’s wrong’ with ‘it’s fine,’ that means it’s definitely not fine. Spill it.”
Tina shrugged her shoulders. “Okay. Your sister-in-law is a bitch. I thought twins were supposed to be the same. Gabby’s cool.”
Jake laughed. “Gabby and Olivia are only alike in looks, really. But Olivia’s not that bad. What’d she do?”
Tarra spoke up. “Nothing, really. It’s just obvious we’re not wanted there.”
“Gabby wants you there. Me and Grayson want you. Where else you gonna go?” he asked.
Tina shrugged her shoulders. “Anywhere but here. We’ll make camp in the woods again. We’re fine.”
Jake looked to Tarra, who answered, “Camping’s fine with me. We’re not staying where we’re not welcome—by everyone.”
Jake shook his head. “How ‘bout this. Y’all come in and help us right the house—all the crap is out now—just in case Puck’s mama comes home, and we’ll talk about a solution. I don’t want you running off into the woods again. And I know Gabby doesn’t. Besides that, we need you.”
Tarra narrowed her eyes at him. “Need us for what?”
He hung his head and kicked a rock, leaving a long pause in the conversation. Finally, he said, “Okay, it’s me that needs you. If I don’t learn to handle a gun better, Grayson’s gonna kick my ass. You said you’re both instructors. Can you teach me? The first time didn’t take, I guess. Just teach me to handle a gun right, and shoot at least as good as y’all do.”
Tina and Tarra shared a knowing look and finally, a real smile. In unison they answered, “Teach you to shoot like a girl?”
Jake laughed. “Yeah, just don’t say that to Grayson. He doesn’t like to think a woman can shoot better than a man. Gabby holds back when he’s looking, just so she won’t hurt his feelings.”
Tina and Tarra both scoffed, and took note. They were of like-minds, and if the opportunity presented itself, they couldn’t wait to use that line on Grayson.
8
Tullymore
Tucker watched as Katie stirred the huge cauldron of rice over the fire with a kayak paddle. Her face, neck and chest were covered in a sheen of sweat. Her T-shirt was wet with exertion.
Katie hated not being able to fix herself up like she used to do up until this point in her life. This was a new lifestyle for her and she kept swatting him away, telling him to stop looking at her. But he liked her new rough and tumble look. It was hard for him to concentrate on anything else with her walking around in wet T-shirts and dirty cut-off shorts.
He pulled his eyes away from Katie to the next set-up. Not fifty feet away, another fire burned beneath another pot of food. This one was manned by Kenny, his weird neighbor that had suddenly grown into Tucker’s sidekick. He was surprised Kenny took a turn at the pots, but he couldn’t help but notice Kenny keeping an eye on him, too. It was as though he was going to slip away and do something for fun without him.
Tucker didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but Kenny was about as useful as tits on a bull when it came to anything other than helping the women. He had two thumbs, not much strength to him, and didn’t know an axe from a rake.
Luckily, this neighborhood was big on Halloween. The cauldrons had previously been used as props. After a good clean-out, they were perfect for cooking meals for their big group.
For days, his group had taken turns stirring large pots of food while sweating over hot fires for hours without end. They were wasting time, energy, and firewood—so much firewood.
In addition to the cook-fires, they had their water-fires. Two more hot, smoky fires constantly boiled water for cooking, drinking, and baths for the kids and some of the women.
But not his Katie.
If he wouldn’t have a hot bath or shower, neither would she.
She endured the cold water right alongside him, and they usually managed to warm up pretty quickly afterward. He smiled at that thought.
On the ground near Katie, no less than seven dogs sat at attention, saliva dripping from their chops, hoping to be thrown a scrap. There were more than the seven, too. He’d counted a dozen earlier in the day running around. Now that no one was leaving for work, the dogs were all running free most of the time, usually beside their owners, so that wasn’t a problem. The problem was that less than a week into the event, some people had run out of dog food. When they lined up for evening meals, some juggled more than one plate and fully expected the group to feed their canine companions.
Normally, Tucker was all about dogs. He fed his own two American Bulldogs off the table—when Katie wasn’t looking. His dogs were part of his family, more like fur-covered children, as everyone else in this neighborhood seemed to agree with. But if the power didn’t come back on soon, he’d have to put an end to feeding the animals the food that his family and group would be depending on for their long-term survival. He hoped he’d win the vote on that.
For now, he held his tongue.
This particular morning he’d assigned the teenager crew, including his own four kids, to go out to the woods and drag in dead downed trees. They’d each brought back one. He’d have to give them a bit of a pep talk. The men, and a few women, took turns chopping and splitting. A small group had set up a mop bucket with an attached wringer to hand-wash clothes—mostly underwear and children’s clothes—and hung them to dry.
There was so much work to be done all the time when there was no power. Everyone was busy dawn to dusk, and sometimes longer. At least with this lifestyle, he didn’t have to worry about squeezing in a work-out every day. He was working out all day long, and his muscles were screaming.
He dragged another dead tree away from the pile and began to chop it up, and throw it in the to-be-split pile, when his eye caught Neva, the neighborhood witch—as the kids called her—and her niece, IdaBelle, approach the cooking fires. It was the first time he’d seen them outside their house.
Neva was short and heavyset with long, frizzy unkempt black hair. She had
a rough voice that startled most people, so she rarely spoke at all. She wore baggy shirts and long skirts, gypsy-style.
In contrast, IdaBelle was a tall beauty. At twenty-five years old, she was thin but curvy at the same time with long, silky black hair and very-red full lips. She was the object of many a teenage boy’s desires. She was much friendlier in general, but very loyal to her aunt. They had always lived together, and from what anyone could tell, IdaBelle had been raised by Neva.
Neva and IdaBelle had been standoffish since the grid went down, not joining with either his group, or Curt’s group, which were severely divided. Curt, the HOA President, hadn’t been willing to agree to Tucker’s leadership when, against Tucker’s dismay, he’d been voted in as leader.
With hurt pride and anger, Curt had splintered off and took a big chunk of the people with him. Actually, close to half, once word got around to those who weren’t at the vote. Tucker’s group had forty-three people, and Curt’s group had forty. Many of the neighbors hadn’t been home when the grid went down and hadn’t made their way back yet.
IdaBelle carried a very large colorful cloth bag, tied closed at the top. At her aunt’s direction, she struggled to sit it down on the ground. She untied it, revealing a black cast-iron pot inside. She lifted the lid of the pot and even from the distance were Tucker was standing, he could smell the delicious aroma of a rich, meaty beef stew.
He dropped his axe and walked over.
“What’s this?” he asked Neva.
Neva cut her eyes at him, and then nodded to IdaBelle.
“It’s food. We want to contribute to your group,” IdaBelle explained.
Katie stepped forward, wiping her hands on her T-shirt, and gave them a warm smile. “Thank you so much. It’ll go great over this rice I’m cooking now.”
IdaBelle turned red at Katie’s graciousness. “Aunt Neva made it. She wanted me to ask you…she’s smelled rice cooking for a few days now. What are you doing with the used rice water when you’re finished boiling the rice?”
Tucker and Katie looked at each other, and then back to Neva and IdaBelle. Katie answered, “We dump it. Why?”
“Aunt Neva says to save it for the children. Make them drink a glass a day if you have it. It’s very healthy. Full of nutrients. It will provide energy, too. You can even give it to babies if they’re sick and you don’t have medicine. Sometimes it helps. It’s good for everyone.”
Katie’s eyes lit up in surprise. “Really? Thank you. We had no idea.”
Using the silicone hot pads, IdaBelle handed the hot pot to Katie, then gathered the top of the bag closed and picked it up. “Just return our pot and pads when you’re finished, and if it doesn’t all get eaten right away and it cools, bring it back to boiling before serving it again—that’ll kill any bacteria.”
“Please stay and eat with us,” Katie said, looking from IdaBelle to Neva.
“No. We have plenty,” she said with a smile, and they turned to go. “But if someone gets sick or hurt, Aunt Neva can sometimes help.”
Tucker caught the look that passed from Neva to IdaBelle. IdaBelle was offering Neva’s help—not Neva. And they just might need it. But what kind of help? She was no doctor, and not even a nurse.
After the brawl at Tucker’s they’d found out the neighborhood doctor wasn’t home. Everyday they’d hoped to see him come driving—or walking—up. But as of yet, he and his family hadn’t arrived.
Apparently Neva and IdaBelle knew that too. Her offer gave new meaning to her nickname of witch. Tucker doubted anyone would trust any sort of voodoo she could do…but that bag…
Tucker eyeballed the bag as they walked away. “Wait. What is that?”
Neva waved IdaBelle away, as though to tell her she’d go on without her, and she walked off on her own.
IdaBelle returned and showed Tucker the oversized, bulky bag. “It’s a Wonder Bag. You boil your food, put the pot in the bag, close it up tight, and hours later, it’s done. No need to cook over a fire all day.”
“Wait. What?” Katie asked, full of interest. She’d do just about anything to not have to spend her days tending food over a fire.
Tucker squinted his eyes and tilted his head. “That some kind of magic thing?”
IdaBelle laughed. “No. It’s a science thing. We bought it online from Amazon. The pot itself is just a regular pot. Most people have one like this or even a Dutch oven pot. We filled it with food and water, and brought it to a boil for a few minutes. We put the lid on it, and then put the whole pot into the bag. We closed up the bag, and then went about our day. It traps the heat inside. Basically, it’s thermal cooking.”
Tucker’s eyebrow went up. “How long does it stay hot?”
“Twelve hours or so. Or it can stay cold. It doubles as a cooler bag to keep food and drinks cold. We used it for camping. Some people use them for tailgating. It’s portable and compact, and stows away easily. Aunt Neva’s grandmother—my great-grandma—used to cook in a haybox. She didn’t have air conditioning in the house and didn’t want to heat up her kitchen. It was a wooden crate stuffed with hay or straw. You bring your food to a boil, then cover it with a lid and a cushion of some sort, and stick it in the box. Then you put the box lid on to seal it up tight. They were also used in World War II as a way of conserving rationed cooking fuel.”
Tucker nodded his head, impressed. “Hmm. Saving firewood would be a huge benefit, not to mention saving time and energy. We’d still have to use the fires for boiling water, but we could cut that down to two fires, instead of four. Thank you! We’re going to get right on it and build some hay boxes.”
IdaBelle smiled. “Sure. It’s the least we can do.”
He walked away, somewhat distracted, back to his job of chopping what wood they did have for now. None of the houses had real fireplaces. They all had gas logs. No one kept much firewood, other than a small amount for burning in outdoor fire pits. They didn’t have many trees in Tullymore, and the ones they did have were small and well trimmed. They needed dead wood. After wasting most of what they did have the first few days cooking, they had already been forced to send a team out to drag in dead trees. They’d have to do more of that, and they’d soon have to go further and further out, which wasn’t safe at all.
Right now, they still had working chainsaws to cut down live trees to be seasoned for winter, which was a long time away, but soon, fuel for those would run out, too. Tucker was trying to think ahead—just in case.
The hayboxes were a great plan to help them not burn so much wood, fuel, and energy now—no pun intended.
Tucker felt sure he had some lumber stacked up in his shop that he intended to use for projects one day. If he did, probably lots of the other guys did, too. He’d call a meeting to appropriate it and get help building the boxes first thing in the morning.
Meanwhile, he’d still have the kids drag what deadwood they could find in the area. What they didn’t use for boiling water, they’d stack up for winter, when they’d have no heat…if the power wasn’t back on by then.
Unfortunately, winter would bring a need for much more than heat, and it wasn’t anything Tucker could be prepared for.
9
Grayson’s Group
Puck’s face lit up and he held his hands out.
“Here’s your crayons, kid.”
“Thanks, GrayMan.”
Eagerly, he dumped them out in a pile beside him in the bed, and opened his sketch book to a blank white sheet. “How’s Jenny? Is she still mad?”
Grayson sat down heavily in the chair beside him. “Puck, why didn’t you tell me Jenny was a donkey?”
Puck looked at him in confusion. “You didn’t ask if she was a donkey.”
“But, you talked like she was a woman—er… a girl. If I’d known she was an animal, I’d not have told you to have her sleep in the house. She made a mess in there. Don’t you understand you can’t have animals in the house like that?”
Puck’s gaze slid to Ozzie, who had once a
gain made himself at home at the end of the bed.
Seeing where this was going, Grayson said, “No, Ozzie is a dog. It’s okay for dogs to be in the house. They’re smarter than donkeys.”
A defensive look came over Puck. “Jenny is very smart, Mr. GrayMan.”
Grayson gave him a stern look. “She shit on the floor, Puck. Do you see Ozzie shitting on the floor?”
“But you said…”
“—I know what I said…but I thought she was a girl when I said she should sleep in the house,” Grayson interrupted loudly. “A human girl. That house was in shambles. She broke a lot of stuff. Your mama is going to be very upset when she gets home.”
Puck’s lip quivered. His eyes filled with tears.
Grayson quickly reached over and awkwardly patted his shoulder, and then jerked his hand back. “Look, kid. I told you I’d take the blame if Mama Dee got mad, and I will. Don’t worry. Jake and I fixed things up a lot. Just don’t do it again. Only dogs. Dogs can come in. And only if they’re potty-trained.” He looked at Ozzie as though to punctuate his point.
“Our potty is full anyway,” Puck answered.
“Yeah, I saw that.” Grayson said with disgust. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a roll of paper. “Look, I want to talk to you about something.” He unrolled the pictures that’d he’d removed from Puck’s wall and sat them on the bed beside the boy. “Can you tell me about these?”
Puck picked them up and glanced through them. He handed one to Grayson. “This one is a tractor with a wagon.”
“Yeah, I see that. Is there some reason you drew a picture of a tractor with a wagon?”
“No. I just felt like it.”
“When did you draw—nevermind.” It was obvious the picture had been drawn before the girls arrived, as Puck had been with them since the wagon had brought the women home.
He pointed at the picture of the well bucket and hole in the ground. “What about this one? Is this me and you?”
Puck shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not anybody. Just a picture I drew, GrayMan.”
