Tabernacle (Super Pulse Book 3)

by Dave Conifer

  “So how do you really know Bart Moon?” Elise asked. “I don’t believe your story about meeting him out on some highway any more than John did back there.” She turned to look at him. “Did you work with him or something? How do you know him?”

  Nick made a snap decision. He needed to unload this emotional burden he’d been carrying. The pain of wondering whether he’d done wrong was becoming too much to bear. He needed either condemnation or forgiveness, and he was now in the presence of somebody who could deliver one or the other. As they walked through the barren, desolate streets of Lockworth, he told her everything about what had happened in the woods near Tabernacle that day. And it felt good to do it. He had no regrets about it.

  Eighteen

  Tom Hellikson was wrapping a quilt around his shoulders in the outer room of the Medical Center when Sarah pushed the door open and stepped inside. They’d made small talk at breakfast an hour earlier, but neither had mentioned their schedules, so they were surprised to see each other there. “I got cleared to go back to work just now,” Tom said. He patted his own shoulder. “It’ll probably always be stiff, they said, but I guess I’m ready. It’ll be like a vacation when I get out of working at Day Care.”

  “Congrats,” Sarah said. “I’m getting pretty close to the end of my treatment, too. My knife wound cleaned up pretty nicely, they’ve been saying. What’s a few scars?” She tugged gently on the quilt. “That’s a good look for you.”

  “Thanks,” Tom said, smiling. “I couldn’t find a coat that was sharp enough for me to be seen in. But seriously, I actually prefer this, now that I’m used to it. It’s warm, and goes on and off real easy for a guy with a sore shoulder.”

  Both were startled when a door from a makeshift office opened and Roethke appeared. “Oh, good,” he said, looking at Tom. “I’m glad you’re still here. That saves me a hike through the mud.” He looked at Sarah. “I wanted to catch you, too,” he said. “We have something to talk about. Let’s all go back in, if you have the time.” He looked Tom up and down. “As you usually seem to.” He turned and reentered the room he’d just come from. Tom and Sarah looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him in.

  “I understand that you’ve just passed inspection,” he said to Tom. “Time to get back to work. And you, Sarah, are about to get the same news.”

  “Oh?” Sarah asked. “How do you know that?”

  “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy,” Roethke said. “The doctor told me. Yeah yeah, doctor patient relationship, privacy, whatever. Those days are gone.”

  “Apparently so,” Sarah said.

  “I don’t have good news for you,” he told Tom. “You’ve been assigned to Sanitation.” He sneered. “Now that’s what I call going from the frying pan into the fire. But it’s a living.”

  “At least you’ll get to work with Ellie,” Sarah said.

  “I’m good with that,” Tom said. “I’ll go wherever I’m needed.”

  “How about you, Sarah?” Roethke asked. “Do you have a preference? Because the military guys all want you. Carlo wants to set up a small team of snipers, and he asked about you by name. Are you up for that?”

  “A sniper? Not if I have a choice about it,” Sarah said. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”

  “But it’s the first thing we need you to do,” Roethke countered. “You’re good at it.”

  “I’ve never done that,” Sarah countered. “Sniping and shooting are two different things.”

  “Spare me,” Roethke said, holding up his hand. “Both involve shooting a gun, right? Anyway, they’re asking for you. That’s all I know. And the Sec Forces are a bit thin in the ranks right now, as we saw yesterday down at the Garage.”

  “We just sent three or four of them on that road trip with Nick,” Sarah argued. “How thin in the ranks could they really be if we can do that?”

  “Well, to be exact, we sent zero Sec Forces on that road trip,” Roethke said. “Last minute decision. We couldn’t spare them.”

  Sarah stared at him, her mouth falling open. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you sent him out there without any backup? Tell me you didn’t do that.”

  “Relax,” Roethke said. “For one thing, it was his mission. He was making that trip even if he had nobody at all on board with him. He’d been prattling on and on about it for quite some time. They’ll be fine. And he’s not alone. There are five heavily-armed teammates out there with him.” His face took on a pained look. “Of course, one of them is that slacker.”

  “That’s not enough,” Sarah said. “I’ve been out there. You haven’t. It’s not safe out there. If you couldn’t do this mission right, you shouldn’t have let him go.”

  “Him, him, him,” Roethke said. “What a strange reaction on your part. There were five others besides your roofer. But what’s done is done. No use railing about it now.”

  “I ran into him the morning he left,” Tom said. “He was waiting for Dewey when I hit the Outhouse. He said three Sec Forces were going along.”

  “You did hear me use the phrase ‘last minute,’ didn’t you?” Roethke replied icily. “As I said, what’s done is done. With any luck, they’ll all be back soon. And God knows who they’ll be bringing back with them. And God knows what. It’s what he wanted. The guy never shut up about it.”

  “What if they’re not back soon?” Sarah challenged.

  “That’s above my pay grade,” Roethke said. “Anyway, let’s get back on topic, shall we? What about the sniper team? You’re going back to work one way or another. Are you giving me a thumbs-down on that?”

  “Let me think about it,” Sarah said. “I don’t like shooting people.”

  “Even if they’re shooting at you?” Roethke asked. “That’s not how I remember it back on bug-out day. Anyway, it beats latrine duty.”

  “Is that a threat?” Sarah asked.

  Roethke let that hang in the air before speaking again. “In the mean time, while you’re deciding, I have something I need you on, starting after your medical appointment this morning. I guess you know we’re shorthanded down at the Garage.”

  “What Garage?” Sarah asked. “It burned to the ground.”

  “Poor Hal,” Tom said. “He was one of the good ones.”

  “We’d never have sent Carly out on that wild goose chase had we known this kind of bad luck was coming our way,” Roethke said. “We’re facing several days without a mechanic now.”

  “You’re so compassionate,” Sarah said sarcastically.

  “In the end,” Roethke continued, ignoring her comment, “We lost two vans and one mechanic. And our other mechanic is who knows where.”

  “I never thought of that,” Tom said. “They were a two-person subcommittee.”

  “One, now,” Roethke said.

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Sarah told Roethke, “I don’t know anything about engines and cars.”

  “We’ve got that covered,” Roethke assured her. “They’ve got four vans running already, and the big trucks weren’t even shut down yet in the first place, even though it was on the schedule. Two more vans are about ready to go, at last report.”

  “How can they do this if the Garage is completely gone?” Sarah asked.

  “They’ve set up shop in the field,” Roethke said. “We sent crews through the rubble. Metal doesn’t burn, so they were able to recover a lot of tools. Some of our amateur grease monkeys have been filling in.”

  “That’s a relief,” Tom said quietly.

  “But we need to re-arm the vans. The military genius, Carlo or whatever his name is, wanted you involved in setting up the weapons. Apparently he doesn’t have much confidence in his own boys. What do you say?”

  “Why not, Sarah?” Tom asked when she turned to him. “Help a brother out.”

  Sarah scowled as she shook her head before turning back to Roethke. “Let’s wait to hear what the doctor says.”

  “I already told you what she’s going to say,” Roethke re
minded her. “You can count on that.”

  “Yeah, you did mention it,” Sarah said. “Well if it works out that way, I’ll go down to the Garage this afternoon. Who do I report to?”

  “Nobody,” Roethke said. “Just find the stack of guns and distribute them among the vans. They know you’re coming.”

  Sarah’s eyebrows rose. “Even though you just asked me, and even though I’m not medically cleared yet, they know I’m coming?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “Load each van as soon as it’s running. Ammo, too, and all that,” he added, waving at the air. “Grover wants it done as fast as possible. Got to get our defenses back up.”

  Nineteen

  “Who’s this?” Jim Crowley asked when Elise walked onto the porch with Nick trailing behind. He struggled to get to his feet but fell back into his chair almost immediately. This wasn’t the energetic, dynamic leader that Nick had been hoping for. He stopped at the doorway and met eyes with an old man who looked as though he’d recently suffered a stroke. He spoke with an odd, whistling lisp, but on closer inspection Nick realized that this was partly because he had very few teeth left in his mouth. Only then did Nick remember what he’d been told about how Jim hadn’t even been expected to live after being beaten up during one of the invasions. This man was a survivor.

  “Jim, it’s okay,” Elise said. “These people came to check on us, I guess they’d call it. They already fed some of our kids. They’re here to see if we want to go back to their settlement. Permanently.”

  “Oh yeah? What kind of settlement are we talking about?” Jim asked. “Where is it?”

  Once again, Nick spent a few minutes describing Tabernacle, its residents, and how it was run. I’m getting good at this sales pitch, he observed to himself when he was done. Like an infomercial.

  “Why would you want us?” Jim asked.

  “We need more manpower, if we want to build everything we have planned.” He glanced at Elise. “I mean, people power. We’ve been attacked just like you have. We need more people to help defend the place, and more people inside the walls to build up what we’ve started. It’s a war out there. I don’t have to tell you that. We need you. And honestly, you need us, from what I hear. I don’t think you can say no to this.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Jim said. “Where exactly is your settlement?”

  Nick described the location, and told Jim that it would be a thirty-minute ride by truck, if uninterrupted by attackers or mechanical mishap. But of course, it likely would be interrupted by at least one of those things, he added.

  “You have a car?” Jim asked.

  “We have lots of cars and trucks,” Nick said. “We came here in one. Elise has seen it.”

  “And if we agree, you can get us there?” Jim asked.

  “Yup,” Nick said. “We’d have to arrange it, of course. We’ll have to get some trucks up here. But we can do it. That’s why we came.”

  He asked Nick to step outside so he and Elise could talk privately, which he did. A few minutes later Elise joined him out front, where Nick was laying flat on his back watching the clouds. “Jim wants to accept your offer,” Elise said as Nick pulled himself to a sitting position. “In fact, he says he’s coming whether the rest of us agree to it or not, if you’ll have him,” she added with a pained smile. “He’s tired and hungry, and he’s hurting.”

  “John’s gonna’ want to see everybody before this happens,” Nick told her. “For one thing, he wants a head count, how many kids, how many grown ups, men, women, all that kind of stuff. I think he wants everybody’s buy-in, not just the bosses. He’ll probably talk a little and then put it to a voice vote. How soon can we do that?”

  “He’s sending out word right now about the offer,” Elise said. “We can get everybody together after that.”

  “He’s sending word out?” Nick asked, puzzled. “How exactly does he do that?”

  Elise shrugged. “Nothing fancy. There are some kids upstairs. He’ll send for them and give them a message to deliver to every house on the block. I’m sure this meeting can happen this afternoon. It’s not like anybody has anything else to do.”

  “Great,” Nick said. He looked up the street when he heard the white van approaching. “Hey, before everybody gets here, I have something private I need to ask you about. Can you introduce me to somebody?”

  ~~~

  “You have two daughters, right?” Nick asked Christie Moon an hour later. “What are their names? I have a daughter, too.”

  “Donna and Gina,” Christie asked. “How’d you know that? I don’t even know who you are.”

  “My name’s Nick Mercator,” Nick said, before launching into a spiel that he’d rehearsed countless times. Designed not to give her much hard information while allowing him to honor the pledge he’d made to her husband, it didn’t sound nearly as convincing and reassuring now as it had when he’d practiced the words in his mind.

  “I’m not following this,” Christie Moon said after Nick had rambled for several minutes. “You’re saying you knew my husband, right?” They were sitting in lawn chairs behind one of the houses on Savoy Street. “You met him out on some road? But you knew him well enough to know we had two daughters?”

  “Um, no,” Nick answered. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “And somehow you know he died later?” she asked.

  This meeting, one which he’d planned and scripted so long ago, wasn’t starting out well. Christie Moon wasn’t getting it, and for good reason. She needed more information. Well, that was a problem for him, because he’d long ago decided not to spell out every detail of the truth for her. He didn’t see the point, and thought he could get away with leaving out the ugly parts. There was enough guilt and pain in his heart without having to tell Christie point blank what he’d done. On top of that, he didn’t want an angry woman vowing to take her vengeance, if it came to that.

  On the other hand, he had to fulfill his promise. Christie Moon wasn’t making it easy to explain how that promise had been delivered. He couldn’t blame her. Drawing a deep breath, he realized he’d have to tell her more.

  “You see,” he said, starting over. “He came to our camp. With a band of men. And, well, there was a fight.”

  Her face turned downward. “This was one of the times they were out looking for food,” she said flatly.

  “Yes,” Nick said.

  “The last time they went, Bart never came back,” Christie said. “The same was true for so many of them that time. That’s why we made them stop doing it. The guys who survived said it was like a slaughter.”

  “Yes, it sounds like the last time must have been when they came to our place,” Nick told her.

  “How would you know that?” she asked.

  “After the fight was over, I came across him in the woods,” Nick explained. “He’d been shot.”

  Christie started to cry. “Don’t tell me anymore,” she said softly.

  “I have to,” Nick said. “I told him I would. His last thoughts were of you and your daughters. Before he died, he made me promise to look after you.” He looked past her and gathered his thoughts. “So really, that’s the whole reason we came here, but I’m the only one who knows that. Except for you, now.”

  “You saw him die?” she asked, wiping at her eyes.

  “Yes,” Nick said.

  She wiped at her nose and cleared her throat. “Did he suffer?”

  “I don’t think so,” Nick answered, truthfully. “He was talking right up until the end. And you can be proud that he went down fighting. You can—“

  “My husband died like a dog out in the woods, and you think I’m proud of that?” she asked.

  “I’m just—“

  “Did he get any kind of a decent burial?” she asked. “Or any burial at all?”

  Nick paused, trying to remember. When he did, he knew it wasn’t something he wanted to share with her.

  “Please. Please, tell me you didn�
��t leave him out in the woods,” she said, sobbing. “Please don’t say that.”

  “No, of course not,” Nick said, now openly lying. There was no point in tormenting her. “I mean, I didn’t personally bury him. Somebody else handled that. They all got buried.”

  He touched her hand, but she pulled away. She stood and walked toward the house, turning back toward him just before going inside. “What did you say your name was?” she asked.

  “Nick. Nick Mercator.”

  “Well, Nick Mercator, I don’t know if anybody’s ever told you this, but you’re not a very good liar,” she said. There was no animosity or anger behind it. Just sadness. Surprisingly, it looked to Nick like she’d rather know less than more about how and where her husband died. He wished he’d known that sooner. It would have been easier for him, too. He hoped Barton Moon wasn’t looking down on them, because it didn’t appear that his wife had taken any comfort from what Nick had said to her.

  ~~~

  It turned out to be too late in the day to arrange for everybody on Savoy Street to get together, mostly because of the low-tech communication methods. The meeting was scheduled for noon the next afternoon. Among other things, that meant that Nick and the rest of the crew would be spending at least one night in Lockworth. They spent a few hours distributing food that evening, and then bunked down together in the basement of one of the houses on Savoy.

  ~~~

  “I’ve never seen such a sorry-looking bunch,” Linda said to Nick when the entire population of Savoy Street was assembled. “Hard to imagine they’ll be much help, even if we can figure out a way to get them back to Tabernacle.” Too big a group to meet inside, they were sitting on the front lawns of three adjacent houses. Nick estimated that there were about seventy people, including a sizable contingent of kids. It was a sea of dirty, skeletal faces, ragged clothing and ratty, matted hair and beards. More than that, it was a quiet mob of human beings who had lost hope and were living with hunger, sickness and fear.