In late afternoon, when Hannah’s exhaustion caught up with her, Mark rocked the baby while she slept, amazed at how lucky he was to have the two of them. The world had changed dramatically in the previous few months. The next years would bring even more drastic changes. But the one constant, the one thing that would help them survive, was the bond they had between the three of them. They had gone from being a couple to being a family. And despite all the chaos that was going on in the world, Mark considered himself the luckiest man on earth.
Chapter 9
On Buena Vista Drive, the snow was accumulating quickly. The drifts were over three feet high now. Frank was on the roof of his house, shoveling off the excess snow. He knew that snow was incredibly heavy, and he couldn’t afford to let it collect more than a few inches high. The roofs had already collapsed on a couple of the vacant houses on the block, but that was okay. Those were the houses that Frank would slowly knock into pieces over the next few years anyway. A collapsed roof would just lesson the chances of it falling on him while he was gathering firewood.
The accumulating snow was both a blessing and a curse. It made movement more difficult, and Frank saw fewer and fewer strangers’ footsteps in the snow when he made his daily surveillance walks.
But it also made getting out more difficult for him. And getting out was essential for survival.
Frank was lucky in that his wife Eva was way more brilliant than he’d ever be. Three years before, people around the world were going crazy convincing themselves that the Mayans’ doomsday prediction would mean the end of the world would occur on December 21, 2012. Eva had taken notice. For several months prior to that date, she had very quietly stocked up on non-perishable dry goods. In the back bedroom of their home were stacks of spaghetti and egg noodles, bags of rice, beans and dry soup, as well as two hundred boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and cases of Cup O’ Soup and Ramen noodles. There were also forty cases of drinking water. They were frozen solid now, of course. But the bottles were made to expand without breaking, so most of them were intact. Would it be enough for the two of them for seven years? No. But it would keep them for awhile. When they ran low Frank would start scavenging for food at the abandoned homes, and in a pinch he’d bring home meat from the dog, cat and squirrel carcasses lying frozen around the neighborhood. But that would be a last resort.
As for the water, that wouldn’t be a problem as long as it was snowing. Frank gathered enough lumber to keep the fireplace burning twenty four hours a day. Perched on a pot hanger above the fire was an old stew pot. Twice a day, Frank took the pot out into the yard and heaped it full of snow, then returned it to the fire.
The snow only took a couple of minutes to melt, but they boiled it for ten additional minutes, just to kill any parasites. Then they filtered the water through a cotton sock to catch any dirt particles or debris that might be in it, and poured it into empty drinking water bottles.
On the days when they just didn’t feel like boiling water, they fell back on the bottled water from their spare bedroom. Leaned up against the brick wall of their fireplace, the heat from the burning wood would thaw out the frozen water bottles within twenty minutes or so.
For entertainment, Frank would pour one cup of gasoline into the small gas generator they kept in the garage. It only put out two thousand watts, but it was enough to run three appliances: an old twenty inch television, a DVD player, and a microwave.
Frank and Eva had developed a habit of cranking up the generator each day at lunchtime. While their Ramen noodles were cooking in the microwave, they would watch movies as a brief respite from the chaos and misery that their world had become.
So for the two hours or so each day that the generator would run before running out of fuel, the Woodards would have a hot meal and relax while watching actors who were more than likely dead, and pretending that the world was sane again.
The irony of it was, they weren’t big movie watchers before Saris 7 hit. They had a handful of videos, mostly old John Wayne westerns. But the Castro house, because they had children, had literally hundreds of DVDs.
Frank made a deal with Julio Castro the day Julio and his wife decided to kill themselves and their children. They were a good catholic family and followed the path that God set out for them. But Julio and Nancy couldn’t bear to think of the life their children would have to endure without their parents if they didn’t survive. They figured death with dignity was better than a life of suffering.
So two days after Saris 7 hit, when civility had broken down and chaos ruled, Julio and Nancy had put their three children to bed and then paid Frank and Eva a visit. They offered the Woodards a deal. They said the Woodards were welcome to everything they had, including their home and what little food it held. If only Frank would give them a proper burial and say a prayer over their graves.
The Castro children weren’t aware of the deal, of course. Eva tried to convince the Castros that they should tell the children, but they refused to. Let them enjoy their last days on earth, they said, free from the stress of knowing their end was near. Julio and Frank spent two days digging five graves in Frank and Eva’s back yard, trying to get them done before the ground grew too hard.
And once the graves were dug, the Castros took their children aside and told them what they had planned.
The children took it well. The youngest, a boy of ten, merely asked if it would hurt.
Julio assured him it wouldn’t. Julio had gone to pick up five of the suicide kits the city government had been offering just prior to Saris 7 hitting the earth. They explained to the children that they would be given a powerful sedative that would put them to sleep.
“It will be just like every other time you’ve fallen asleep,” he said. “Only this time your mommy and I will be holding your hands. And once you’re asleep we will give you another shot that you won’t be able to feel. And that shot will take you up to heaven. And we will meet you there.”
As planned, Frank had gone into the Castro home the following day. He found the bodies, the children lying side by side on the living room floor face up, their parents face down and draped over them, as though they were protecting them from evil.
The bodies were frozen by the time Frank got to them. But he held up his end of the bargain. He carried the children one by one to his back yard, gently placed them into their graves and covered them up.
Neither Julio or Nancy were small people, though. Frank couldn’t carry them, and he refused Eva’s offer to help him, with her bad back and all. Since Julio and Nancy were frozen solid, Frank merely strapped their bodies to a refrigerator dolly one at a time and wheeled them into his back yard for burial.
It wasn’t a very dignified way to be moved, granted. But the Castros were way past caring. And Frank made sure their burials were proper. He said a prayer over each of the five graves and wished his friends bon voyage. Eva sang a couple of hymns and asked God to watch over them.
Frank had used a Phillips screwdriver to punch a hole into the gasoline tank of the Castro’s SUV. He used a three gallon gas can to catch the gasoline which flowed from it, and when the gas can was full he plugged up the hole with chewing gum. This was the gas he and Eva used to power their generator each afternoon, and the DVDs from the Castro’s collection were the ones they used to escape from reality for two hours a day.
Now, several weeks after the collision, the Castro’s roof had already collapsed from the weight of the snow. It was a two story house, though, and the ground floor was still intact. So Frank had a habit of going into the Castro home every couple of days, carefully making his way up the staircase, and using a hand saw to cut the broken and twisted two by fours and rafters that were strewn about the upstairs part of the house. Once he had salvaged all the wood he could from the collapsed roof, he’d use a sledge hammer to break all the interior upstairs walls and use the studs inside of them.
Lastly, in a year or two, he’d dismantle the first floor in the same manner, leaving piles of bu
sted bricks and sheetrock behind, and pulling out all the wood to burn a little at a time in his fireplace.
Frank figured that the wood in the Castro house would provide heat for himself and Eva for at least a year, maybe two. And once the Castro house was gone, there were several other abandoned houses on the block as well.
Frank finished knocking the snow off his roof, but left the ladder in place. He knew he’d be up there again in a couple of weeks. As for the snow he knocked off, it was doing a pretty good job of piling up around the house. It was halfway up the windows now, and would provide great insulation to help the fireplace keep the house warm.
Frank grabbed his sledgehammer and hand saw and trudged over to the Castro house. Half an hour later he came back with an armful of two by fours and a pocketful of rechargeable AA batteries. The batteries in the walkie talkie he carried anytime he was away from the house were getting weak now. He could recharge the new batteries during their daily generator time and use them as backup whenever the ones in his walkie talkie went dead.
He dragged the new batch of lumber into the living room and kissed Eva.
“Are you hungry, Frank? Ready for lunch?”
“Yes, thank you, I’m starved. While you’re doing that I’m going to stoke the fire and get it going nice and hot again. And Titanic is nearly over. What’s up next at the Woodard Movie Theater?”
“I need something lighter,” Eva replied. “How about Office Space?”
Frank smiled. It was one of his favorites.
Chapter 10
A bitter wind came through, blowing the accumulated snow off the top of the tarp covering the compound. Marty Hankins looked up and commented, “Well, I was wondering how we were gonna get that snow off before it tore through the canvas and buried us. Looks like Mother Nature’s gonna do it for us.”
His friend and fellow trucker Joe Koslowski nodded in agreement and said, “Good. I didn’t much want to deal with three feet of snow on the ground in here.”
Their compound was working like a charm thus far. In the center of it, between the trucks, they’d kept a large campfire going, burning the lumber they’d pilfered from a flatbed trailer the day they built their compound. Once it was gone, they started burning anything they found inside the trailers that they didn’t need or want. Furniture, mattresses, children’s clothing. In one of the Walmart trailers they even found four pallets of charcoal briquettes, which would be great for providing heat during the coldest days.
They’d been worried that the campfire would cause problems with carbon monoxide, but found that the one inch gap between each trailer provided an ample supply of fresh air, but not so much that it chilled the camp.
Joe took a cast iron skillet and dumped several pieces of frozen chicken and some water into it. Then he put it on the campfire to thaw out and cook. Once it was almost done he’d throw a bag of frozen vegetables and some seasoning into the skillet and end up with an edible stew.
Marty said, “While you’re doing that I’m gonna go dig in a couple of the trailers and see if I can find some coffee. We’re running pretty low.”
As he walked past Scott Burley’s truck, he chuckled and slapped his hand against the fiberglass sleeper cab three times. Scott had stood guard the previous night, and was probably sound asleep. The two of them went back several years, and always enjoyed messing with each other. It was all good natured, of course, but he just couldn’t help needling his friend every chance he got.
Marty saw Tina come out of a trailer on the north end of the compound and enter one on the south end. They had spent a whole day a few days before restacking the cargo in some of the trailers so they had a path to each trailer’s front panel. Then they drilled peep holes so that whoever was on watch could move to one trailer on each side of the compound every few minutes and get a clear view of anyone who might be lurking about. Tina had the current watch.
Marty looked behind him to make sure Joe wasn’t watching, then entered the same trailer as Tina.
As Marty stepped into the trailer, his eyes met Tina’s and she asked, “Where’s Joe?”
There was no mistaking the look in her eye or what she meant by the question.
“Oh, he’s back at the campfire, cooking chicken.”
She said, “Good. Keep an eye on him.”
Tina went down to her knees in front of Marty and unzipped his jeans. He leaned back against the side of the trailer and enjoyed Tina’s talents, while peering outside the door where he could barely see Joe a mere fifty feet away.
When she finished, she put him back together again, rezipped his zipper, and stood up to face him.
“I’ve been hankering to do that all morning long. Why did it take you so long to get here?”
“Well, if I knew that’s what you had in mind, I’d have been here sooner.”
“Tomorrow morning, come sooner.”
Marty smiled and said, “I can’t wait.”
Tina stood at the front of the trailer, peering out the peephole, while Marty dug through several of the boxes looking for coffee.
When he came across things they’d never use, like baby clothes or diapers, he threw them out the back door of the trailer into a pile. They’d make good fuel for the campfire.
He said, “What do you think Joe will do if he ever finds out?”
Tina laughed. “He’ll do the same thing he’s always done. Absolutely nothing.”
“You mean he’s caught you before?”
Tina went to him and kissed him deeply. Then she laughed again and went back to the peep hole.
“Let me tell you something about Joe. Joe is the sweetest man in the world, and I love him dearly. But Joe has never been able to satisfy me in that way. Not even close. And he knows it. So bless his heart, he’s never raised a fuss when I’ve gone elsewhere.”
“So why hide it?”
“I prefer to hide it, because then there’s no drama. And I don’t feel as guilty. But there have been times in our marriage when he’s come home early and caught me right in the middle of something, and he just turned and closed the door. Never even mentioned it to me. Truth is, I could jump on you right in front of him and he’d just walk away and let it happen. But I’d rather keep it at a lower profile.”
“Wow. That’s amazing.”
“It is what it is. It doesn’t mean Joe and I don’t love each other. We really do. It just means that he accepts that he can’t handle me. So he lets me make other arrangements.”
“Aha!”
Marty found a case full of Hills Brothers coffee. He held up a three pound block in triumph.
Tina giggled and said, “Hooray! You’re my hero! Be sure you bring me a cup.”
Marty said, “No problem. I’ll be back in a bit,” as he jumped down off the back of the trailer and went to get the camp coffee pot.
Chapter 11
Hannah squealed, “Mark, come quick! He’s doing it!”
Mark was underneath the RV, replacing a rubber washer on the shower drain line.
Hannah and the baby were in the common area between the RVs in Bay 3, on a patch of green artificial grass they’d installed on the mine’s floor to simulate a better place.
And little Markie, just over a year old, was taking his first wobbly steps. Only one or two at a time, before plopping down on his diaper-covered bottom. But it still counted as walking, and Hannah was squealing in delight every time he did it.
Markie, for his part, was also laughing, glad that his mommy was pleased with what he was doing. And maybe because he was proud that he was learning something new.
He was saying four words now too. Mama and Dah, and yes and no. He especially liked to say “no.” Because the way he said it, accompanied by a very firm shake of his head, it never failed to make the big people in his life laugh at him. Hannah said he was shaping up to be a ham, just like his father.
They were proud parents, enjoying every day, as their little guy grew and learned to do new things. He was healthy and happy,
and totally unaware of their predicament. At some time, of course, when he was a bit older, they’d have to tell him of the great big world on the outside he was missing. But even in the confines of the mine, he wouldn’t lack for any of the important stuff… the love and mommy hugs and attention.
“Wow, look at that big boy!” Mark said as he sat down four feet away from Hannah. “Can you come and see Daddy?”
Markie laughed out loud. He loved attention. Hannah stood him up, aimed him toward Mark, and held both of his tiny hands. Markie looked at his daddy, got his courage up, and let go of Hannah’s fingers. He took three steps forward, collapsing in Mark’s hands.
Mark held him up in the air, making a silly face and saying, “Wow, what a big guy you are!”
Then he stood up with his son and helped Hannah to her feet. Come on, We’ve got to go show you off to your Grandma.”
They walked over to the kitchen in the back of Bay 9, expecting to find Mark’s mom Phyllis in the kitchen, where she usually was at mid afternoon.
“Hi, Helen. Is Mom in the back?”
Helen Kenney replied, “Hi Mark. Hi Hannah.” She reached out and stole Markie from his father’s arms. “Hello, you big handsome boy, you. You are just the most precious guy I’ve seen in a very long time!” She nuzzled his tummy with her face and made him giggle.
Helen turned back to Mark.
“No, I’m afraid she wasn’t feeling well, so we sent her to her RV to rest. Tell her if she needs some chicken soup or something to make her feel better to say the word and I’ll bring it right over.”
Mark and Hannah went to Bay 4 to the RV his mother occupied. They didn’t bother knocking. They never did. It was a second home to them. To the extent that one can call an RV a home, that is.
They found her in bed watching an old Humphrey Bogart movie.
“Mom, what’s the matter? Helen said you weren’t feeling well.”
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