* * *
“Who’s ready for the very first drawing!” yelled Mary.
We originally planned on having Briana host the selection. Her all the time sickness, a constant when she was carrying Asher and remaining so with the new baby, nixed that. I wasn’t comfortable with the social aspects of my position – this is one of the reasons why Briana handles most of the day to day business – so I quickly demurred. Mary, our ultra extrovert in the extreme, jumped at the chance to take over. I had no objections, and my wife was too busy throwing up to give her opinion.
“Mary!” giggled Asher. He was on top of my shoulders so he could better see what was happening. “Mary! Mary!”
She threw him a smile and reached into the first bucket, eyes closed, and pulled out a golf ball. Each ball was numbered, and each number corresponded to an adult’s name. Because there were several different sizes, we had established guidelines on what could be sought based on the number within the household. There were single bedroom cottages, double bedroom homes, and three bedroom mansions, for lack of a better term. This first selection was for one of those.
“Okay, I have the ball. It is white. It is shiny. It has all these little bumps on it, no idea why. Could be golf chicken pox.” Mary laughed. “Let’s hope not. There is also a number. Does anyone want to know what it is?”
“Yes!” came the chorus.
“You’ll have to bribe me if you want to know.”
Silence fell on the crowd.
“Come on now. You all know I’m dishonest and corrupt.”
“I’ll give you two blueberries and one rock,” said Conrad.
“Hey! Doing my job is going to cost you way more than two blueberries and a rock.”
“You really are crooked,” observed Michael. “How about three blueberries and two rocks?”
Asher was laughing. I’m not certain if he understood what was happening or not, but he was definitely enjoying himself.
“Seven blueberries, two rocks, and one apple,” called someone else, “and nothing more.”
“Boo!” I couldn’t even begin to tell who was shouting. “A baker’s dozen of blueberries, and eight strawberries!”
“You should slap the brat,” hissed Lizzy. “This is getting out of hand.”
“Slapping is bad,” declared Asher.
“That’s right,” I agreed. “Shame on Aunt Lizzy. She’s being naughty.”
“What! Who are you to call me naughty?”
“Santa doesn’t like naughty,” said Asher, with complete seriousness. “He’ll give you coal.”
“Santa doesn’t like silly little boys either,” she snapped, before reaching up to tickle his ribs.
The toddler let out a squeal and almost lost his grip. Lizzy moved fast and plucked him from my shoulders. Placing him on the ground, she continued the merciless tickling.
“No abusing my brother!” shouted Mary. “Cut it out, or I’ll throw all the berries I’m going to get at you!”
“You really think this group is going to pay up?” she fired back.
Mary hesitated and began to glare at the audience. “You better not be thinking about cheating me. Only I get to break the rules. That’s cause I’m more special than anyone else.”
“For God’s sake, child,” declared Steph. “Enough with the fun. Tell us who the winner is or else you will be spending the next two nights scrubbing all the pots in the main dining hall by yourself.”
“Unfair! That’s Mary abuse, but since you are such a mean, violent person – I think it’s the red hair that does it – I suppose I can let you know.” She double checked the golf ball she was holding. “It is number nineteen, lucky nineteen. Okay, who is that?”
Randall, who was standing beside me and Lizzy, checked his clipboard. “Nineteen, for a three bedroom house, is Meredith Parker.”
“Meredith!” shrieked my daughter. “Come on down and see your prize!”
For an instant I wondered if she ever watched game shows, way back when.
“Meredith. Meredith! No lollygagging and looking all unbelieving. You really did win.”
One of her sons pulled on her sleeve. “Mom.”
“I… I’m sorry.” She hurried forward with her brood in tow. “I really did win?”
“You are the winner,” confirmed Mary. “Congrats. And this is your house.”
The structure in question was very similar to the one my family occupied. There was a large living room and an attached kitchen, essentially an alcove off the living room itself. Rounding out the downstairs was a small workroom and a washroom. The latter contained a bathtub suitable for proper bathing, if you wanted to haul buckets of water in one at a time and heat them on the stove, or for the more common sponge bath. There was also a built in seat with a spot below for the chamber pot. Squatting over one of those could be very uncomfortable. Sticking them beneath a specially made chair, complete with the requisite hole, was far better. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a lone hall closet. None of our structures have much in the way of storage space, but we’d all learned to use trunks and freestanding wardrobes long ago.
“It’s lovely,” said Meredith. A tear formed in her eye.
“Ah…” Mary was quiet for a moment, not that this lasted long. “I know you’ve seen the inside already…” There had been an open house of all the new homes the day before. “…so I won’t bother describing it in too much detail, other than to say I picked out a new rug for you. It has a big picture of a lion wearing a top hat on it.”
Silence again fell upon the crowd.
“I’m kidding.” Mary frowned. “Honestly. My taste is better than that.”
“Your taste is not,” countered Lizzy.
“You can’t eat Mary!” shrieked Asher.
“Eat?” Lizzy picked him up.
“You said ‘tastes’.” He poked Lizzy in the shoulder with one tiny finger. I think he got that bad habit from Briana, maybe Mary. It certainly did not come from me. I have no bad habits. “No eating Mary.”
I could not restrain my laughter. Neither could Randall.
“Then I’m going to eat you instead, and tickle you some more too!”
Giggling, he managed to squirm free and darted off with Lizzy in pursuit. We might not see it often, next to never in fact, but the woman does have a soft, nurturing side.
Chapter XIV
“What’s going on?”
It was a short walk to the radio room, located on the top floor of one of the citadel’s corner towers. We planned on relocating the bulk of the equipment to a specially constructed building in Baltis at some point, relegating this to a backup role. It really wasn’t the best spot. You couldn’t fit all that many inside, and the place tended to be quite chilly in the winter.
“A plane just landed in Wyoming. The Yellowstone folk are heading there now.”
“I didn’t know anything was due from Hawaii. It is from Hawaii, right?”
Harlan gave me a nod. “It was apparently unscheduled.”
“Damn. They really need to stop doing that. Wait and see, one day they’ll be coming in and all of us will be off fighting or doing something. Then the dead will show up, swarm the airstrip, and eat the pilots.”
“They do have soldiers with them. At least, that’s what they say whenever I get a call.”
“A handful, yeah, but I don’t think they’re scouting the area in advance with satellites. Well, they might be trying to, but there’s lots they want to see all over the planet. I don’t think they can divert to us each time a cargo flight arrives. Bad practice. I’ll tell Major Briggs to knock some sense into them.”
The major and the Yellowstone settlement in general were more closely linked with the civilian government in Hawaii. They sometimes provided us with information directly, but most was relayed through Briggs. I was fairly positive the man was filtering out the crap – hurray – so Briana and I only received what was relevant or important.
“There is a person who is supposed to m
ove here,” added Harlan. “They want you to pick her up.”
My brow furrowed. “A newbie? They give any details?”
“An x-ray tech, for the hospital. Yellowstone is getting one as well.”
“Then I guess I’ll head on over. Where did they land? Oh, tell the major that I’m on my way too.”
* * *
“We are going out first thing in the morning,” I announced. “This should be a fast run, and we are taking the Pave Hawk. Marcus will follow up later with a truck and Harvey’s squad for actual transport.”
Abigail, our new x-ray technician, was a treat. Not only did she know how to operate such equipment, but she could supposedly also take it apart, put it back together, and perform minor repairs all by herself. Unfortunately, Hawaii had been unable to ship us an actual x-ray taker thingee, having already sent their extras to the other American held islands and outposts. Even so, we are definitely in a position to find one and cart it back to the Black Hills. No shortage of hospitals in our general area.
“Who’s on the team?” asked Briana.
“Xavier will fly us out, with Ronnie scouting around in one of the smaller choppers. The team that searches the hospital will be myself…”
“Daddy!” interrupted Asher. He was sitting on the floor playing with some wood blocks.
“Yes, it will be your daddy who is in charge,” I confirmed. “Mary is going to come along – can’t trust her if left unsupervised.”
“Not true!” she protested.
“Hush,” ordered Briana. “Jacob, keep going, and Mary, don’t you dare get started with the editorials.”
“Michael gets to come too,” I continued.
Mary looked immensely pleased at this announcement. She had been bugging me for hours to include him.
“Tara and Dale of course. Lizzy can come, I suppose, to keep an eye on the children.”
“I am not…”
“Mary!” Briana was tired and irritable and in no mood for levity. “Be quiet or you will be staying here.”
The teenager knew better than to argue, and everyone knew I wasn’t going to go against my wife.
“Yvonne…” The skinny, dour woman was an excellent nurse who tended to remain level headed in the worst crisis. “…and Abigail too, since they know what we are looking for. So, a team of eight: me, Lizzy, Mary, Michael, the twins, Yvonne, and Abigail.”
“Is that enough?” asked Briana.
“Should be,” answered Lizzy. “We just have to find the thing and then sit put until Marcus comes to collect it. Not too different from the normal scavenging trips we’ve been on, and Rapid City is mostly clear.”
“You never checked out that hospital in detail,” pointed out Briana, “be careful.”
This was true. We hit the pharmacy and storerooms on the bottom floor for medicine, bandages, splints, bed pans, that sort of thing. The structure itself was largely left alone. More importantly, we hadn’t been back in nearly two years. It appeared to be intact, and the machinery inside would hopefully still be operational. If not, we would have to try for other facilities. There was bound to be an x-ray machine somewhere nearby that Abigail could get running again. And if we couldn’t find the new model she wanted, we could always downgrade to one of the older varieties. There was one of those sitting in Custer already.
“Lizzy’s right,” I said. “This should be a simple, straightforward run. Renee will be on standby if we need more people, and you have both Cobras and all the other planes and helicopters too. I don’t see anything bad happening.”
She snorted. “You just jinxed yourself.”
Mary rounded on me. “Bad, Daddy. Bad. Bad.”
“No good,” said Asher.
“Yes, good,” she corrected, dropping to her knees beside him and quickly making a stack of blocks that the three year old gleefully toppled. “And if you’re good, maybe I’ll bring you a present.”
His eyes lit up. “Presents!”
“That’s for later, young man,” said Briana. “Right now it’s past your bedtime. Mary, put him to bed.”
“Sure thing.”
“Nooooo!”
I miss the days when Asher simply curled up, closed his eyes, and fell asleep. Nowadays every night was a struggle. Based on my own childhood, I did not expect that to change anytime soon.
* * *
The flight out was standard. We gathered on the outskirts of Baltis with our gear. Xavier made certain everything was ready, grabbed a co-pilot and gunner, and made a short hop from the makeshift hanger to our location. It might be laziness on my part, but I didn’t feel like carting all the weapons and supplies to where the choppers were normally kept. We then loaded up and took off.
I did notice Tim Myers watching as we departed, and his gaze was most likely on Mary, or possibly Michael who was walking beside her. It was hard to tell. He was way in the back with his mother, one of the hundred or so who had stopped what they were doing to see us off. Nothing on his face seemed out of the ordinary. I think he was about done with all his former infatuation nonsense, not that this meant I wasn’t going to continue keeping an eye on the boy. I’m slightly obsessive compulsive to begin with and more so where my family is concerned.
“Since Yvonne and Abigail say the x-ray stuff is going to be on the ground floor, probably…” I nodded at the two who were seated in the rear of the chopper. “…we are going to land in the street, near the front entrance. Ronnie will fly in about five minutes ahead of us, hover a bit, and then slowly fly off so the shamblers follow him. We get inside fast and shoot any we encounter with silenced pistols. I don’t want a bunch to hear what we are doing and trail in after. Once it’s clear, we can secure the doors and begin our search. Night vision goggles only. I don’t want to be using flashlights in the rooms and hallways, not until we find what we are looking for.”
The twins double checked their weapons. For this trip, everything they were carrying was suppressed. While there were times when that was necessary, not to mention pleasant – the crack of bullets did hurt the ears, after all – the extra length on gun barrels, along with the additional weight, could prove awkward. I was equipped with only a single silenced pistol, the same as most of the others, with a standard rifle slung across my back in case additional firepower was required.
“Who wants to place wagers on how many zombies I kill?” asked Mary.
“I say the twins kill eight point seven times more than you.” I gestured at Tara and Dale.
“More than that,” said Lizzy. “I’ll give even odds that they beat her number tenfold.”
“They are the best shots we have,” agreed Michael.
Neither of the siblings’ expressions changed, but Mary’s face darkened.
“Are you implying that I’m not a good shot?”
“No,” he corrected, speaking so quickly that he almost cut her off. “You are totally awesome.” Michael gauged her reaction before continuing. “Honest, you are better than me, better than Lizzy. Better than your dad.”
“She isn’t,” said Tara.
“No,” agreed her brother.
“Jacob is better than Mary,” said Lizzy. “So am I for that matter.” She glared at Michael. “Don’t be getting creative with the facts just because you’re trying to get her in the sack.”
“Lizzy!”
I couldn’t tell who was blushing more, Mary or Michael. The lad was definitely ahead when it came to squirming uncomfortably.
“Let’s be civil,” I said, “and Mary is well above average, even by our standards.”
While we allowed pretty much anyone to enlist in the militia, a person had to pass our marksmanship tests if he or she wanted to graduate from training and become a full member. These were strict, far above what the United States Army or Marine Corps accepted. We were sticklers for accuracy, especially at long range. My daughter generally scored in the top third. Lizzy and I were consistently in the top ten. The twins were number one, being so evenly matched that it was a
tossup as to which might get that extra point or two on any given day. That being the case, we just lumped them together as if they were a single person, not that either cared.
“She could be better, however,” I finished. “Mary, you need to spend less time dancing and more time practicing. An extra hour on the range daily until it starts snowing.”
“An hour!”
“Darling…” I made an attempt to appear stern. “…sounding indignant will not help your cause.”
“Fucking straight,” agreed Lizzy. “An extra hour for you too, Michael, and your times will be scheduled separately.”
“Dad, tell Lizzy she can’t do that.”
“I’m fairly certain that Lizzy is a captain in the militia, meaning she is allowed to do that, but I’ll tell you what. If you can get within, say, twenty points of what either Tara or Dale do that same day, then you can stop the extra practice.”
“That’s not possible!”
Abigail leaned over to ask Yvonne something. The two began to speak quietly, likely about how spectacular the Zablocki twins truly were.
“It’s possible.”
“No, Dad, it is not.” Mary glared at me, then at Lizzy, then at Michael. “You started this. It’s your fault.”
Poor kid.
* * *
We landed a few minutes past nine. Tara and Dale, true to form, headed directly for the front entrance while Lizzy and I dropped the four shamblers approaching us. Once Dale gave the all clear, we hustled inside, keeping our two medical experts in the center of the group.
“Tara, I saw one more coming down the street. It was close enough to see us. Kill it real quick, will you? I don’t want the thing following us inside.”
Her brother held the door ajar while she leveled her rifle and nailed the monster in the head. This was followed by two more shots.
“We clear?” asked Lizzy.
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation Page 36
