THE TRASHMAN

by Terry McDonald

  I called Becky from the house.

  “Bring the food back out. We’ll fix our own. Lucy was in town a few days ago and who knows, we could be in as much danger from them as they are from us.”

  Becky shook her head. “We’ve already hung blankets from their house and spread the bedding mats. If they’ve got it, we’re already exposed.” She gathered the rest of the containers and carried them in.

  Sam still hadn’t collected his wits. “We’re about out of propane for the furnace and stove. We may need to order some. I’ll pay on the phone with a debit and won’t have to go near the delivery truck.”

  “Try calling them. Ten to one they don’t answer or they refuse.”

  Sam pulled his phone from his pocket. Obviously, he had the propane company in his contacts because he hit a couple of buttons and put the phone to his ear. He listened for a while and then returned it to his pocket.

  “It went to voice mail. I’ll try again later.”

  “Dial 911,” I demanded.

  “And say what if they answer?”

  “Ask them if it’s okay to shoot trespassers if they won’t keep their distance.”

  He pulled his phone out again and pressed the numbers. To my surprise, he was answered.

  “Uh, er, I’m calling to see if it’s lawful to shoot trespassers that might be carrying the plague. Uh huh. Uh huh. I see. Maybe you should just go home.”

  When Sam returned the phone to his pocket, his hand was shaking.

  “The lady… I know her. She goes to our church. She works the switchboard. She told me she’s the only one who reported in today, and that none of the first responders showed up for their shift, police, firemen, nobody. She’s the only person in the building except for the janitor who let her in. She said even the State Governor’s office isn’t answering their phones. None of the government offices are answering. All she gets is voicemail.”

  “What did she say about shooting people?”

  “She said it wasn’t the Christian thing to do, but to use my best judgment.”

  I nodded. “Given the kill rate of this plague it won’t take long for it to run through hosts. The only people left behind will be the ones who are naturally immune or get it and fight it off. I imagine there are people in isolated places who won’t get it. In a few months, it’ll run out of people to infect and cause its own extinction. All we have to do is avoid any contact with people until it does. I want that shotgun, Sam. I want it today.”

  “I’ll leave it beside the rope. You want a.22 target pistol, too?”

  “Will you have enough weapons for you and Lucy?”

  “Yeah. Lucy can use the .410 loaded with birdshot. I’ve got my hunting rifle and a Beretta 9.”

  “Becky can carry the pistol. The women aren’t going to like it, but we have to convince them. Warn people off first. If they don’t leave, fire a warning shot. If they still won’t leave, if they try to come close, we shoot to kill.”

  Sam shuddered. “Convince the girls? I need to convince myself.”

  Inside, Becky had a plate for me. I took it from the table where the kids were sitting using the only two chairs. They weren’t chatting and bickering like they normally do. I ate standing beside a workbench. Becky joined me.

  “I think we have enough food to last three weeks. I packed the multi-vitamins we had on hand.”

  I didn’t respond to her statement.

  “Sam’s bringing us a TV. He’ll run a cable over so we can keep up with the news.”

  “I have connection to the web on my phone but it’s pretty much useless. When I try to navigate to a site, it times out.”

  “Have you tried calling Neal and Maggie?

  I didn’t have anyone to call. Sam and I were orphaned in our teens after dad, coming home drunk from a party, hit a telephone pole. He and Mom died right there. None of our relatives from either side of the tree stepped up to the plate, so we wrote them off.

  “I don’t have Neal’s number. My sister’s goes straight to voice mail. Dad’s phone, too. It’s cold in Pittsburg. Maybe the virus won’t spread so fast there.” Becky’s mother died three years ago from breast cancer. Her father lives alone in the home she grew up in.

  I didn’t want to say anything to destroy her hope. I couldn’t remember any such news from the broadcasts. As far as I knew, the plague was spreading just as fast up north.

  “That could be. I know germs spread faster in warmer climates.”

  I told her about my conversation with Sam, and that he’d bring the weapons over. I have to say she’d held up well so far, but the bit concerning the weapons was too much. She put her fork down and started crying. I mean downright sobbing, tears running down her face like a waterfall. She sagged and I dropped my fork to grab her so she didn’t fall to the concrete floor.

  She latched onto me and buried her face in my chest. I held her until she finally stopped gasping for breath. The kids, frightened by their mom breaking down, began crying too. At least they weren’t wailing.

  Becky tightened her arms around me.

  “Oh please God help us.” She held on a bit longer and then let go. “Guns! You want us to shoot people?”

  Sam picked that moment to shout for me.

  “We’ll talk later. The kids need you.”

  Sam was at the rope. He had the shotgun, a 12 gauge, and the .22 long-barrel pistol. He also carried a small portable radio.

  “Damned cable went out while I was getting this stuff. All we have is a square saying ‘No signal’. Some radio stations are still broadcasting.

  “The news ain’t good. The President’s in the hospital. Given her age, she’s not expected to pull through. The Vice President’s already dead, so is Speaker of the House. Right now I don’t know who the president is, or even if we need one. I guess you were right. FEMA’s great announcement is to avoid contact with other people.”

  While he spoke, I examined the shotgun he set near the rope. A Mossberg 4+1. I opened it and saw a chambered round. A cloth bag he set on the ground beside it held more 12-gauge shells and a box of .22 long rifle bullets.

  “The pistol’s loaded, too, with a round in the chamber. The magazine holds ten.” He fished in his pocket. “Damn. Back away from the rope. I forgot to put the extra magazine in the bag.”

  I carried the weapons and radio into the workshop. The children sat at the table playing a card game. I went to a bench near an electrical receptacle to plug in the radio. Becky came to me and reached for the pistol. The whites of her eyes were red, but she’d calmed down. I leaned the rifle into the corner where the bench met the wall and checked to make sure the safety was on before handing her the .22.

  “You’ll need to show me how to use this.”

  I nodded agreement. “Let’s finish breakfast first. World coming apart or not, I’m starving.” I held off telling her the world had unraveled and that we probably didn’t have a Federal Government.

  We ate and then washed the containers the food came in. Although I was familiar with weapons from growing up in rural Georgia and from a short time in the army—they booted me out due to a bad knee—Becky and I didn’t own weapons.

  So we wouldn’t frighten the children, we told Jen and Will to stay inside and not to worry if they heard loud noises, that we’d be shooting at targets and it would sound like shooting on TV.

  The temperature had climbed some since morning and all we needed were lightweight jackets. Sam was on his front porch. I shouted to let him know we would be firing the pistol. He shouted back to plug away at a massive oak tree twenty yards from the rope at the front of the shop.

  I showed Becky where the safety was located on the .22 and then demonstrated firing it, talking her through the steps.

  “Honey, real life shooting isn’t like the movies where someone draws a pistol and starts blazing away. The object is to hit what you’re shooting at, and unless you’re a well-practiced sharpshooter, hitting a target, be it paper or a person, is harder than you’d
think.

  “The first thing is to get comfortable on your feet. You want to face your target with one foot slightly in front of the other.”

  She glanced at my feet. “Does it matter which foot?”

  “I don’t know. Whichever feels best. Do you see the knot, looks like a big wart a couple of feet below the first limb? That’ll be the target.” I raised the pistol to point at the tree.

  “Now look at my hands. See how my free hand supports my gun hand. Notice both arms fully extended. Once your hands are set, undo the safety, take time to aim—lining up the sights onto the target—and slowly squeeze the trigger.”

  I lowered my arms, ejected the magazine so it wouldn’t auto-reload, and demonstrated the firing position again, this time actually letting off a shot at the knot. I hit the tree five inches down from it and three inches to the left.

  “You missed,” Becky said.

  I had to chuckle. “At this distance that was a fine shot with a pistol. Actually, I was close enough to the knot that if it were centered on a man’s chest he’d be in a world of hurt.”

  I showed her how to work the action to make sure there wasn’t a round in the chamber and then had her dry-fire the .22 a number of times. I explained about keeping her eyes open and letting her breath out as she aimed and why it was important to not jerk the trigger. That the point was to be surprised when the firing pin hit the bullet.

  I returned the magazine to the receiver and had her fire a round. She hit the tree in line with the knot, but a foot low.

  “Put the safety on and relax,” I instructed her.

  “I missed by a lot.”

  “Not really,” I told her. “I want you to shake your arms to loosen them and fire another round. Do everything the same as before, except aim a foot above the knot.”

  Her second shot was an inch to the left, but still low by four.

  “Hey, I got as close as you did,” she said, smirking a little. I think she’d momentarily forgotten why we were out there.

  “You sure did, but we can’t have you aiming high with every shot.”

  I went into the shop to fetch a screwdriver. The rear sight took a flathead to make adjustments. I adjusted the elevation and had her fire again. The knot was probably eight inches in diameter. The bullet knocked a chunk from the left side. Becky was ecstatic.

  “I hit it! I hit the target!”

  “You sure did. You’re amazingly good at repeating your stance and grip. Let me make one more adjustment.”

  I moved the windage screw a tad. This time she was an inch low and in line with the knot. A round of applause greeted her success. Unknown to us, Sam, Lucy and their two boys were on their front porch watching the shooting exhibition.

  “I’ll be dog-gone girl, you’re a natural,” I said, adding my praise to her achievement.

  Becky turned to give a small bow to the family and said to me, “I’ll bet I can hit it again next shot.”

  “I think you could, too, but Sam only brought us two loaded magazines and a box of fifty more rounds. I don’t know if he has more. We’d better save what we have until we can resupply.”

  I could tell she was disappointed. I led her back to the shop. As we approached the building, I saw two little heads looking out the single front window. I noticed two folding chairs leaning against a fence post.

  “Hon, take the chairs to the porch and give the kids some sort of snack to keep them occupied. I’ll run an extension cord out so we can listen to the radio. I need to relay some info Sam gave me earlier, too.”

  She took care of the children, giving them granola bars and orange juice from a can. By the time I located an extension cord and untangled it, she was outside waiting for me. I plugged in the radio and settled into the chair beside hers.

  “Sam gave you some bad news, didn’t he?”

  “Hon… Yes he did. Let me tell you in a minute. Right now, I want you to look around you and see this beautiful morning. Can you hear the birds talking to each other?”

  “Damn it, Ralph!”

  I shook my head. “I’m not kidding. Take a minute to relax and realize that we are alive and healthy. Think about how lucky we are. We have food and a roof over our heads. Most of all, your sister came in time to warn us. Thank God, we’re out of the city.”

  We sat in silence. During that time, I did thank God for our blessings. Becky broke the quiet moment.

  “You’re right. We do have a lot to be thankful for.”

  I told her what Sam said about Madame President, and that the Vice President and Speaker of the House were dead.

  “We’re doomed aren’t we?” she said, more a statement than a question. “I mean the human race, not us personally.”

  I disagreed. “No, not doomed, but it’s certainly a thinning. When the plague showed up and began spreading, there was conspiracy talk about it being made in a lab and released on purpose. I don’t buy into that; I think the population became so dense it was only a matter of time before something cropped up. Nature has a tendency to balance things.”

  “Well at least there’s a twenty percent survival rate. There should be enough survivors to get things running right.”

  I disagreed again. “Honey, the twenty percent rate is for healthy young adults, and even then, that’s in a hospital setting pumping them full of antibiotics and using extreme measures to keep them alive.”

  “Jesus, Ralph. Give me something to cling to.”

  “I did. Right now, we are alive and healthy. All we need to do is avoid people until the plague runs its course and we can stay that way.”

  “And afterwards? What will we have? What will we have to look forward to? Society will be broken. No government, no law except survival of the fittest. Rule of the gun. Take the proper stance, raise your arms, aim, and pull the trigger and another human dies.” She was beginning to hyperventilate.

  “Becky, slow down and catch your breath. I’m just as frightened as you are concerning our future, but we have to stay resolute, and determined to live through this to even have a future. It’s up to us to survive and protect our children.”

  She took my advice, lowering her head and taking deep breaths. “I don’t want to kill anyone,” she said as she returned to a sitting position.

  “Neither do I, but I will to protect our family.”

  She tried to smile. “At least if I do shoot, I can hit what I aim at. Turn on the radio and let’s see how bad things are.”

  Most of the dial, especially the FM band was static. The stations with a signal all had the same message: Please stay tuned for further announcements. On the AM frequency, I let the radio scan past two religious stations and then stopped it where I heard a radio jock broadcasting.

  “…. as of now. Let me repeat. A little over an hour ago, FEMA announced that the president has died. There has been no follow up to let us, the citizens, know who is stepping into the office. What boils my blood is that we are getting very little from FEMA and nothing at all from the other branches of the government.

  “What about the military, the National Guard? Are troops deploying to disburse medical aid and supplies? Is there any attempt at all to bring security to our nation’s people? Bodies are piling up in the streets. The dead litter the highways. Our cities are burning and there’s no one putting out the flames. This is the end of the world.

  “Hold on a minute. As you know, if you’ve been tuned into my broadcast, except for Vern, our electronics technician, I’m alone in the station. Vern managed to activate an old ham radio here in the building. He just put this on my desk. I’m going to read it to you verbatim. Let me remind you, Vern writes using the same vocabulary he uses when he speaks. He’s received several more messages from operators across the nation and around the globe.”

  The jock began to read.

  “From John in DC: There ain’t no fucking government. A mass of people converged on the White House grounds and now smoke is pouring from several windows.

  “From Sissy in
Soddy Daisy, Tennessee: I’m across the lake from the Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant. Sirens are sounding and there’s more steam coming out of the stacks than I’ve ever seen. No more from me. I’m out of here. I think it’s headed for meltdown. A lot of my neighbors work at the plant and most of them are dead from the plague. There may not be anybody alive that knows how to shut it down.

  “From Sang in Thailand: Sorry folks, just a bunch of scribbles, Vern’s messed up sense of humor showing.

  “From Poppa in Vermont: My wife died last night. I buried her at first light this morning. I have the plague too. I started showing symptoms yesterday. I’m not feeling too bad yet, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend my last days hacking my lungs out and gasping for breath. Betty was blowing bloody foam in her last few minutes. I’m going to cook a fine meal to eat and then I’m going to blow my brains out with my shotgun.

  “From Cecilia in Tallahassee, Florida: “I’m hiding in my basement. Gangs are roaming the streets, shooting people, and raping women. I think I’m immune to the disease because I took care of my mom while she was sick and I didn’t catch it. I’m using Dad’s old radio. Can anyone hear me? I need help.”

  There was a long pause and then the jock began talking again.

  “Folks, I scanned through the rest of the messages and there’s nothing important enough to read.

  “This is Fish Head Bob, broadcasting from WKLM 240 in Valdosta, Georgia. Vern and I have barricaded the doors to the building and will continue to broadcast as long as we have power and I still control the microphone. We had to block the doors to stop a religious group who want to use our facility to broadcast their doomsday message. They’re trying to break in even as I speak. It won’t be long until they succeed.

  “Let me recap what I know. The president is dead. The cities are on fire, and people—what few are still alive and healthy—are running amok, looting, and killing and setting more fires. There have been no FEMA updates for the past several hours.

  “The Sequoyah nuclear plant may be in a meltdown situation. What about the rest of the nuclear power plants? With people dying in such great numbers, is there anyone to put them in safe mode?