Homecoming

by Thomas J. Wolfenden

  Tim did find a few cases of beer and took those, along with several bottles of booze he found untouched. At the service desk, he broke into a locked cabinet and took several intact cartons of cigarettes. The ones out on display had been chewed through and ruined my rodents long ago. Not much else was left in the store except for canned goods, and he remembered they had plenty of those back in the basement pantry at the house.

  “Now what?” Robyn asked and they piled their loot into the vehicle.

  “I thought maybe we’d have some lunch and continue to look around town after we eat.”

  “Dad, it’s giving me the creeps here.”

  “If you want, I can take you back to the house and you can play with your HAM stuff while I come back and search around some more.”

  “Yeah, alright,” she replied, “I don’t feel right being here.”

  They hopped back into the Hum-Vee and made their way back to the cabin. Tim pulled up and they both unloaded their swag, and soon Robyn was busy taking all the HAM radio equipment they’d taken from the house in Utah and transferring it from the camper to her new bedroom, telling Tim she was too busy to eat.

  Tim grabbed a quick meal, and right before he set out, found her in the upstairs room, piles of radio equipment piled up all over the place, sprawled out on the bed, her nose buried in a technical manual the size of a New York City telephone directory.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to find out how to make a expedient antenna. The one thing we didn’t grab from the house.”

  “I’m going. Are you going to be fine here for a while?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be cool. Lock up down stairs. I’ve got my carbine right here,” she said, patting her M4 carbine right beside her on the bed.

  “Alright. I’ll be home before dark.”

  “You’d better be, Sar’ Major!” she scolded and he walked over and kissed the top of her head.

  “Bye, Pumpkin,” he said and went down the steps and out the front door, locking it behind him.

  Tim drove around town, looking around, trying to get his bearings. On the outskirts, near where I-40 crossed over the main road as it headed north towards the Grand Canyon, he noticed a stalled train.

  Getting out and walking along side it, counting the huge black tank cars, noticing the hazardous materials placards read 1993.

  That’s diesel! He remembered from hazmat training on the police department. It looked like there were fifty cars in this train, and reading the data plate of the rail car, saw each tank car held 34,500 gallons of diesel…

  Robyn, we don’t have to worry about fuel for a long, long time! He thought.

  He’d have to figure out how to get the fuel out. I can do it later; at least I know it’s here and not going anywhere.

  Tim drove on and back into town and soon found a store combination that made him laugh.

  “There’s something you wouldn’t expect!” he said aloud, parking the Hum-Vee and getting out. He read the unlit neon sign: “Mitchell’s Drive-Thru Liquors and Firearms” And beneath neon sign was another sign with removable letters spelling: “Booze, Bows & Bullets!”

  He looked at the front of the store, and seeing huge, heavy steel gates shuttered and padlocked every window and the front door, and thought better of trying to pick the big heavy locks.

  He still didn’t want to destroy the gates of smash any windows like he’d done to the gun shop back in Philly, so he walked around to the back of the building and found a heavy steel door with two standard deadbolts.

  It took him a lot longer to pick both of these locks, and when he finally finished, he pulled off his patrol cap and wiped the sweat from his brow and exhaled loudly. Opening the door, he jumped back, startled.

  The mummified form of what had once been a very large dog was on the floor, right inside the threshold. Sighing, he dragged it out of the way, and despite it’s size, was unusually light. He tossed it into the ally where in landed with a thud a cardboard box would have made.

  Taking out his Maglight, he shone the light inside as he walked. He was in the back office, glanced around here and there, finally finding a set keys on a big ring hanging on a hook by a desk strewn with papers. He took this and tried each key in the locks of the back door, finally finding the correct ones.

  He’d lock up after he was done, and use those to regain access whenever he wanted, leaving the front alone. It would make the place look untouched by any passersby. He walked into the shop proper, and found one whole section was a wall of rifles and shotguns of all different types and calibers; stacks of ammo cans on the floor as displays.

  Then there were aisles of whiskeys, rums, bourbons, vodkas, and an impressive selection of wines from all over the world. There was even a humidor with imported cigars. He didn’t see any handguns in the empty display cases, and remembered there was a large safe in the office in the back, and figured that was where the owners had stored the pistols when the place was closed.

  In a stack in the middle of the floor were green metal ammo cans filled with 5.56mm ammunition. He started to take two cans at a time, ferrying them out to the Hum-Vee.

  He still had plenty of ammo for the big M2 Browning .50 in the mount on the Hum-Vee, and more 7.62mm stuff for an M60 he picked up at another National Guard armory back in Nebraska, but he thought one could never have enough ammo for the carbines, so he took everything the store had, so when he put the last two ammo cans in the back of the Hum-Vee, the heavy springs on the vehicle were at their maximum capacity.

  When he went to lock the door, sudden movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Before he could turn, a form was on him, knocking him to the ground.

  Trying unsuccessfully to knock it away, he realized it was a human, screaming incoherently, scratching at his face. He was able to shove the person off on him, and the figure fell a few feet away, only to spring back up on all fours, and he was finally able to get a good look at his assailant.

  It was a woman, skinny beyond words. Her clothes hung from her skeletal frame in tattered rags, her hair long was matted and filthy. She was covered in open sores all over her exposed skin, which had the deathly pallor of parchment under a heavy coating of filth.

  It had likely been since The Event this woman had last bathed and the thing that got to Tim in an instant were her eyes. Red rimmed and rheumy, they had no light of humanity left in them and all he saw in them was reduced to pure animal hatred. There would be no reasoning with this woman.

  Like a flash, she was on Tim again, screaming, “You have my daughter! You have my Adele! You give her back to me right now!”

  Tim put up a booted foot and caught her in the solar plexus, kicking her away.

  “Lady, I don’t have your daughter!”

  “Yes you do! I saw you with her earlier! I want her back!”

  “Lady, you’re fucking crazy,” Tim said, even as the woman launched herself on top of him. She was so close he could smell her fetid breath, and it made him want to gag.

  She was drooling, scratching at his face, and screaming like a banshee. Tim was able to push her off of him, and getting up to his knees, found his carbine lying on the ground where he’d dropped it when she first attacked.

  Holding the muzzle like a baseball bat, he swung wide and when she lunged again, caught her on the jaw with the collapsible buttstock. She went flying, blood spraying from her mouth, and fell in a heap a few feet away.

  Tim stood and regained his breath. He looked down on the crumpled mess lying at his feet, feeling sorry he’d hurt her.

  “Hey, lady, are you okay?” he asked, touching her tentatively with the toe of his boot.

  She moaned at first, and with the same wild eyes, looked up at him in abject fear and shot off down the alleyway like a rocket. Tim took off after her, hoping to stop her from doing anything more crazy.

  She reached the end of the alley and turned the corner, gaining distance on Tim. He never lost sight of her. Down on
e street then up the next they ran through overgrown yards until she ran into a cottage with weeds as high as Tim’s waist.

  Tim came to a stop at the edge of a walkway leading up to the door. Although it probably had been a nice little house at one time, the last two years since The Event had not been kind to it. Paint was peeling, rain gutters were broken and hanging off their brackets, grass was as high as a meadow, and a tree was growing out through the rotting floorboards on the tiny front porch.

  The crazy woman had run inside, lopsided creaky screen door slamming behind her.

  “Hey, lady. C’mon out!” Tim yelled. “I’m not going to hurt you! I only want to talk!”

  Nothing.

  “Lady, please. Honestly, I want to talk,” he called out.

  A few seconds later, the door exploded outward and the crazed woman was rushing at him, holding something in her right hand high above her head.

  Machete! Dan realized, almost too late. She swung down with the big blade, and he put up his left arm instinctively to parry the attack. The blade caught him on the forearm, taking a big chunk of flesh with the down stroke.

  He yelled out in pain as he pushed her away from him, and reaching behind his back to the pancake holster in the small of his back, pulled out his .45 auto and in one deft motion, thumbed off the safety, raised it, and squeezed the trigger.

  The handgun fired once, and Tim felt little recoil. The heavy .45 caliber bullet hit right where he expected, center mass, right in the middle of her chest. She stopped dead in her tracks, eyes wide as saucers and her mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ as she gaped at him for a second. She mumbled, “I want my Adele,” and fell backwards in a heap on the unkempt lawn.

  “Goddamnit, lady!” Tim yelled. He looked down at her and knew she was dead. Her empty eyes stared up at the heavens, glassing over even as he stood there. No sense in any first aid here.

  Then he thought about his arm, and glances down. She had taken a pretty good chunk, and he was bleeding. Stepping over the woman’s lifeless body, he went into the house to find something to bandage his arm with.

  As soon as he walked through the door, he was assaulted by the overpowering stench of human feces. He surveyed the room in the dim light. There were hardly any furnishings. Everything she had she must have been broken up for fuel in the winter. A single mattress lay along the far wall of what had once been a family living room, filthy and stained, with equally dirty and stained sheets and blankets, empty food wrappers and cans strewn around. Huge cockroaches were climbing out of one half-full can of dog food which now was rotted and rancid, making his stomach reel.

  He was saddened this poor woman had been reduced to living like an animal, and the scene reminded him of the tiny single-wide trailer in West Virginia he’d found Robyn living in.

  If he had not found Robyn when he did, would she have slowly gone mad the way this poor woman did? Grabbing the sheets, he found what appeared to be the cleanest part, and used his pocket knife to cut a swatch with it.

  Wrapping his wound up tightly to stop the blood flow, he glanced down at a framed photo of a very beautiful woman with an equally beautiful blonde girl who looked to be around 11 or 12 half buried in the detritus. They were both smiling widely at the photographer, and it was obviously a much happier time. He assumed it was Adele.

  Tim walked back out onto the street and regained his bearings. He limped off, his left knee hurting badly. He wondered why, because he didn’t recall doing anything to it.

  With the limp, it took him a while to get back to the Hum-Vee and he was winded when he got behind the wheel. Starting it up and putting it in gear, he slowly drove off towards the house, saddened he’d been forced to kill her.

  Still, she was determined in her rage she was going to scalp him, so he had no choice. Maybe tomorrow he’d go back and bury her. Right now he was way too damn tired.

  It was almost full dark when he pulled up in front of their new home, and it seemed odd to see the electric lights shining through the windows. The blinds moved in the front window upstairs, and before he could get to the set of three steps leading to the wrap-around porch, Robyn exploded out of the front door.

  “Dad! You’re not going to believe…” She gasped when she saw the state he was in. “What the hell happened to you?”

  He flopped down on the front step, looking out over the small meadow, and sighed. Robyn say down next to him and gave him the once over and saw the dirty, blood soaked rag bandaging his arm.

  “I hope the other guy looks worse.”

  Tim looked at her briefly, and in a monotone devoid of feeling, said, “She’s dead.”

  “She? What happened?” she asked. “Never mind. Let me go get the first aid kit and I’ll fix you up and you can tell me about it.”

  She was off like a shot, around the side of the house in the growing darkness. She came back with a kerosene lantern and the camper’s extensive first aid kit they had amassed by ravaging through hospitals and drug stores.

  She began to put antibiotic ointment on the deep scratches on his face, and he told her of the crazy lady who attacked him in town. When he finished he looked at the ground and didn’t say anything more.

  And tonight, Timmy boy, there’s going to be one more draftee into the ghost army of your nightmares…

  “Don’t feel bad, Dad. She’d have surely killed you with her machete if you hadn’t shot her. Remember what you always said; it’s either him or me, and you’d much rather be the one to go home.”

  “I know, Robyn. Still, it doesn’t stop me thinking how it could’ve gone better.”

  She unwrapped Tim’s makeshift bandage and frowned. “Oh wow, that’s nasty. Do you want me to sew it up for you?”

  “You might have to, though do it in some good light in the kitchen,” he said, and they both stood, Robyn steadying him with one hand, the medical kit in the other.

  She got him inside the house and into the kitchen, where the fluorescent lights were bright enough she could see properly to do her minor surgery. She took out a bottle of Lidocane and antiseptic and cleansed the wound out with the antiseptic, making Tim wince, but he didn’t say a word.

  After she cleaned the dirt and dried blood from the gash, Robyn liberally applied the Lidocane, numbing the whole area. She then got out a suturing kit and began to make perfect stitches in his wound, using hemostats and a pair of scissors. She did it expertly, as she did everything else. She’d learned to do it last year when Tim fell through the rotted floor of an empty house they were exploring for provisions, badly gashing his left calf. Using a medical manual for guidance, she did exactly what the photos and text said to do. Although it wouldn’t be pretty, it would work. Robyn was done in minutes.

  She snipped the last bit of thread off near the tiny knot she’d tied. “There, good as new. Keep it dry for at least a week, and put plastic wrap around it in the shower.”

  “It’ll add to the other scars.”

  “It adds character.”

  “Get me a beer,” he said gruffly, thought better of his tone with her, and said more softly, “Please.”

  “Can I have one?”

  “You never give up, do you?”

  “Nope. I guess the answer is no, huh?”

  “You guessed correctly.”

  Robyn hopped up and went to the refrigerator, pulled out a ice cold bottle of Miller High Life and a bottle of Coke. She opened the bottle for him and handed it over. “I took all of the stuff out of our fridge in the camper and put it in here, along with the beer we got today, and my Coke.”

  “Smart girl,” he said.

  Tim took a long pull off the bottle and looked at Robyn. “So, what was so important you said I wouldn’t believe when I came pulling up?”

  “Oh yeah! Follow me!” she said excitedly, jumping up from her chair and shooting up the stairs.

  Tim slogged up the steps feeling very tired all of a sudden. When he got to the front room, Robyn was standing next to a vast array of radios. There
was a desk chair and Robyn bade Tim to sit.

  “Here, put these on,” she said, handing him a set of high-end headphones that had to have cost over $1,000 before The Event.

  He put them on, thinking he was going to hear some Morse dots and dashes or something. As soon as he was seated comfortably and the headphone adjusted, he sat up straight and his eyes grew wide, looking at Robyn questioningly.

  “Do you hear music?” she asked.

  “What?” Tim said, pulling one of the earpieces free.

  “Do you hear music?”

  “Yeah. Jazz.”

  “Wait until the song is over,” she said solemnly.

  Tim put the headphones back, and could again hear the music. It was very faint, and drifted in and out, however it was clear and distinct, and even in stereo.

  “I was playing around with the sets earlier, after I made an expedient dipole antenna. I was dialing up and down the VHF band and found this.”

  “It’s something, alright, Pumpkin,” he told her.

  “It’s awfully faint, and I think the only reason we’re getting it at all because there’s no other transmitters out there to drown out the signal,” she said.

  “Where do you think it’s coming from?”

  “Wait until the music stops!” she added, growing excited again.

  As soon as she spoke he nodded and held up a hand, letting her know the song was almost over. As soon as it was, he sat up straight and his eyes shot to her.

  She was still smiling at him when he heard, “You’re listening to KTAO, 101.9 FM, Taos, New Mexico. Stay tuned for another hour of jazz, and now we’ve got to pay a few bills…” followed by a jingle for a local Taos Savings and Loan.

  ~To Be Continued

  About the Author

  Thomas Wolfenden was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is an honorably discharged veteran of the US Army. He’s worked in several different jobs throughout his life, spending fifteen years in law enforcement and the private security field. He has worked as an automotive detailer, ambulance driver, a nuclear medicine delivery courier, a dairy barn cleaner, and most recently has worked as a ballast regulator operator, a switchman, conductor and a locomotive engineer on the railroad. He has travelled throughout the United States and abroad, and lived in several states; Pennsylvania, Arizona, West Virginia, Kentucky, Idaho and Florida, and has travelled extensively overseas, especially in the South Pacific, living in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands. He has written several OP-ED pieces for various local newspapers, and had up until recently kept a political humor blog. He’s a American Patriot, Libertarian, Life/Endowment member of the National Rifle Association, and a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. This is his fifth published work. He’s also the author the dark humor novella Full Moon Fishtown and two full-length post-apocalyptic action adventure novels, One Man’s Island and One Man’s War. The action adventure novel, Coconut Republic, is soon to be released by Post Hill Press. He can be contacted at: lostinwv2005@gmail.com