THE TRASHMAN

by Terry McDonald

  “How about we check to see if that thing’s full?” I pointed to a large propane tank mounted on a trailer parked in a line with other equipment at the back edge of the parking lot. “If the hitch has a ball receiver we can take it with us.”

  “Mister Ralph, we weren’t going to ask you, but we sure are thanking you. Jerold and I were worried you wouldn’t want to be bothered with us.”

  “Honey, the day two kids in trouble is too much to bother with is the day I’m dead. Let’s get to work and get you home so you can have a real meal.”

  While the others went for another generator, I checked the propane trailer. It was fitted for a ball hitch, but the trailer was secured with a chain to a loop of steel rebar imbedded in concrete.

  While searching the store for other items, we kept an eye out for something to cut the chain. I found a shelf with several round heaters that would attach directly to the valve of a twenty-pound bottle. I took them to the dock and as I was returning, Sam called out he’d found a pair of bolt cutters.

  By the time I pulled the Durango over to the propane trailer, the cargo space was packed so heavy that I was afraid the tires would scrub the inside of the wheel wells if we hit a bump. If the trailer had been front heavy, we would’ve had to return for it. Lucky for us, it wasn’t.

  Before he climbed into the cab of his wrecker, I remarked to Sam how odd it was that there was no traffic on the highway. Since we’d left this morning, I’d seen one pickup truck on the opposite side of the freeway and we’d been passed by two SUVs moving so fast we weren’t able to see who was inside them.

  Entering his driveway, I saw a sight that almost brought tears to my eyes. Becky, Jen, and Will had brought chairs outside the door of the shop and were watching for our arrival. I was so glad to see them; even the sight of the .410 grasped in my wife’s hands did not diminish my joy.

  I pulled close to them and slid from the driver’s seat as they rushed over, ducked under the rope and buried me in hugs. On the other side of the Durango, Sam’s family was subjecting him to the same treatment.

  Becky released me. Her eyes went to Jerold and Jessica standing together near the rear of the vehicle.

  “Hello. I’m sorry. We don’t mean to leave you out. I’m Becky.”

  I left her side and went to gather the youngsters.

  Becky, Lucy, everyone, this is Jerold and Jessica. They’ll be staying with us. Hon,” I said, turning to Becky, “All they’ve had to eat since yesterday is the Vienna sausages and crackers you sent with me.”

  She looked at me, trying to mask her concern. “Are they infectious?”

  “They’ve had no contact with other people for over two weeks. I think they’re safe.”

  “I’ll make sure they eat, but I hope part of that mess in the back of your Dodge is a generator. We need water. Jen and Will drank the last two bottles we brought. Lucy says they are almost out, too.” She went to Jessica and took her hand. “You two come with me. Are you tired? You look exhausted.”

  Sam and I removed the smaller items from the vehicle, setting them to the side to deal with later. I drove close to Sam’s back door and we wrestled one of the genny’s from the rear hatch.

  We’d brought a few ten-gauge extension cords with end connections for two-twenty from the farm supply store. I asked Sam to read the instructions attached to the machine. While he did that, I went inside his house to prepare their electrical service to receive power. The first thing I did was shut off his main breaker. I didn’t think there was a chance in hell the power would come back on, but it would be a mess if it did while the generator was attached.

  Because the furnace and the kitchen stove, as well as the clothes dryer and water heater used propane, the electrical load wasn’t huge and five thousand watts would be plenty as long as they managed how much of a load they put on it.

  I cut off the receiving end of the extension cord and stripped a length of the cover to expose the three wires. I then removed the cover from his breaker box. The breaker for the air conditioner was rated for fifty amps. I removed the wires from it. After connecting the green wire from the cord to the grounding post in the box, I inserted the remaining two wires into the terminals of the breaker and flipped it to the ON position. Now all we needed to do was crank the generator, plug the other end of the extension cord into the two-twenty outlet, and Sam’s house would have power.

  I rejoined him by the generator. “All set inside?” he asked.

  “I am if you are.”

  Sam pressed the start button and it started with a roar and then settled to a noise level much lower than I expected. I waited a minute or so for the engine to warm up and then plugged in the business end of the cord. The engine slowed as it took the load.

  Sam’s face broke into a smile. “No sparks. I reckon you do good work, brother.”

  “Will the water pump work now?” I asked.

  “Not yet. The power for it comes from the shop.”

  Installing the second generator to power the shop went as smoothly as the first. The breaker box was in view of the workbenches we utilized as a dining table. Jessica and Jerold were scarfing stew from the bowls Becky served them.

  After I made the connections, I went outside to rejoin Sam. He wasn’t at the generator. I found him at the back of the shop undoing the rope he’d strung to isolate us from his family. He stopped what he was doing and came over to me.

  “What’s up?” I asked

  “Lucy came out while you were inside the shop. She told me none of you seemed sick and she was tired of the rope. She told me I was treating family like you were strangers and that we’d all take our chances together.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “I feel the same. Heck, if you’re infected, riding inside the Durango with you, mask or not, I figure I’m already infected.”

  I nodded. “You’re probably right, but just remember, we didn’t argue with you about the isolation. Taking down the rope is your idea.”

  “I know it is, but Lucy’s right. You’re my brother.”

  He moved closer and pulled me into a hug. “I’ve wanted to do that ever since you arrived,” he said as he released me. “Let’s get the generator cranked so we can have water. Hot baths for everyone.”

  Before going inside to tell my family the good news, I took a moment to explain to Sam that they would need to manage their power usage and not have too many things on at one time. I also reminded him we had a limited amount of diesel fuel and we needed a plan to get more.

  *****

  Things went smoothly for the next three days. There was enough diesel fuel on hand to run the generators during the day. They were modern units and fuel use was very frugal. Sam still had a lot of frozen food in his freezer. By experimenting, we found that eight hours without power wasn’t long enough for the meats and vegetables to thaw.

  I’ve always been something of a worrywart, and besides the fuel, there were other things about our situation bothering me. My concerns prompted me to ask Sam to schedule a meeting in his home. The women, Jessica included, decided a meeting was a good excuse to go all out with a cooking spree. I didn’t have the heart to tell them the subjects I’d be bringing up would be no cause for celebration.

  Despite my reservations, the dinner they prepared was without doubt one of the best I’ve ever eaten. Roast beef, mac and cheese, steamed veggies, homemade biscuits with au jus sauce for dipping, and gallons of iced tea. Desert was two blueberry pies. I felt so full and satisfied I suggested having the meeting the next morning.

  Becky disagreed. “I can tell by your expression you want to touch on things that won’t be pleasant, but we do need to take a new look at our situation.”

  Sam agreed. “We’re getting close to a crisis situation. Food will be short in a week or so and I know we’re going to need more diesel fuel soon. I’ll tell you what. Let’s set the young ones up in the living room with their Nintendo system. We can take the coffee maker into the den and have
our meeting there.”

  Thirty minutes later, we were in their den, ensconced on the several soft chairs circling the largest game table I’d ever seen. I took a seat and pointed at the table, giving Sam a quizzical look.

  “Aw man, don’t ask. I really got into the whole Texas Hold’em thing. I had this dream of playing in Vegas for millions. Only thing is, I’m the worst poker player in the world. Me and a bunch of guys did have some good times in here, though.”

  Lucy spoke from the wet bar where she and Becky were preparing coffee. “Yeah, their poker nights turned into ESPN nights with buckets of hot wings and beer to comfort them. God, they could get loud. They were a decent bunch, though, always cleaned up in here before they left.”

  “Jerold, do you and Jessica drink coffee?” Becky asked as she set a serving tray holding cups, creamer, and sugar onto the table.

  “Jerold does. I brought my tea with me.”

  The Two J’s fit in nice with our bunch and it was hard to imagine them not being with us. Becky spent more time with them than any of us. She’d cornered us, me, Sam and Lucy, and let us know that Jessica didn’t want to talk about her parents and to leave that subject alone.

  Lucy brought the coffee decanter to the table. I poured a cup, black, and waited for the others to serve themselves before speaking.

  “Sam, you mentioned fuel and food. Those are vital subjects that need to be addressed, but there’s something worse that’s bugging me. Security. I don’t know why, but somehow we’ve been very lucky no one has even come near your place. I don’t even know why we haven’t seen any of your neighbors, walking or driving. It’s like we’re in a dead zone.”

  Becky added to my statement. “I don’t even hear cars over on the freeway anymore. I used to be able to hear them at night especially.”

  I nodded. “Exactly what I’m saying. There aren’t enough people. Hell, the I-75 is a main corridor. Even when we went to pick up the generators, I only saw three vehicles on the road.

  “Most everybody’s dead,” Jessica said

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “Mama was a nurse. She was studying to be a doctor before…” A sad expression crossed the young girls face and she paused before continuing to speak. “She worked at the big trauma center in downtown Atlanta. She said this was the strongest virus she ever heard of, that it was a real killer and that the government lied about how bad it was.”

  Lucy spoke, shock apparent in her tone. “How could it be worse? What they reported was enough to have the news outlets claiming the plague could be close to an extinction event for humans.”

  “Mama said the Mers virus that people are getting isn’t a natural variant. One of the virologists at the hospital thought it was an engineered pathogen. He said was it was a modified crossover virus from another host and that it doesn’t have control over wiping us out, its new hosts.”

  “He also said it’s more virulent and robust than the government reported, that it only takes a few to completely overwhelm the body’s defense system and multiply. What bothered him most was how long it could live on surfaces outside of a host.”

  “God, you sound so smart. What exactly does that mean for us, for our situation?”

  Jessica replied to Lucy’s question. “The virus doesn’t care about its own survival. Its only job is to kill. When we ran out of food and Dad decided we needed to leave the city we only saw a few people the whole time it took to drive through the streets and get to the highway. Live people. We saw plenty of dead people. The smell was awful.

  “But what I’m saying is if we only saw a few people in a city that once had millions, I’m not surprised we don’t see anyone out here. I’d say all your neighbors are probably dead. The only reason we’re still alive is that we’ve avoided contact with other people, mostly we’re just lucky.”

  Her words threw a somber moment on us as we digested her comments.

  I used the quiet moment to bring us back on subject. “That’s exactly why this meeting is so important. We need to ensure that we continue to have no contact with anyone. We have to assume any human we see is a carrier of the plague. To do this, we need to set up a guard system where someone is always awake and watching.”

  “Yeah,” Sam exclaimed. “We need to start doing that today.”

  “Yes we do,” I agreed. We also need to work out exactly what procedure we use for confronting strangers. I mean, we can’t simply open fire on everyone we see.”

  “Have you thought about that?” Becky asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I have. I said this part before. If a person wanders onto the property openly, we challenge them. Ask them to keep their distance and warn them off. If they don’t listen, we fire a warning shot. If they keep coming closer, we shoot to kill. Not wound, because for damn sure none of us are going to their aid. Anything other than a killing shot would be wrong.”

  “Lord have mercy on us,” Lucy said.

  “I hope so.” I wasn’t finished though. I had more things to say. “If one of us is on guard and someone tries to sneak up, no challenge, shoot to kill. If they’re sneaking, we have to assume they’re up to no good.”

  “Who stands guard?” Sam asked.

  Jerold spoke for the first time. “Include me and Jessica. You’ll need to show us how to shoot, but we have a stake in this. We’ve talked and were worried about there being no guards. We want to live and we want you all to live. You saved our lives and we’re ready to fight for ourselves and for you.”

  “It was our lucky day when we found you two,” Sam said.

  I had to nod my agreement. “We have plenty of weapons and ammo. How about tomorrow we familiarize you with which ever you choose. Tonight we four adults will take the shifts. I say we do it with two on at a time to help keep each other awake and to watch each other’s back.”

  “How about us take the first shift tonight?” Sam asked of Lucy.

  “It’s a date, big fellow,” she said, smiling at him. “Is there anything else, Ralph?”

  “Lots, but let’s cover only a few other items tonight. You heard what Jessica thinks. We should do a survey of our immediate area and see how many of our neighbors are still alive. We should take a ride into Sparks for the same reason, and to check if there is any safe opportunity to resupply some of our immediate needs, food in particular.”

  “Our shortages run deeper than food,” Lucy said. “We’re down to eight rolls of toilet paper, and mister, when we run out of toilet paper, we’ll be in hardship. Call me a sissy, but I’m not into using a rag.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Becky said.

  Sam asked, “How do you plan on exploring. I’m asking, because looking back, our trip to get the generators left our kids and women alone and unprotected. You know what I’m saying,” he said to an indignant look from Lucy. “I’m not saying I’m any better with shooting than you are. Ralph’s the only one with firearms training, but leaving women and children by themselves just seems stupid to me.”

  “I plan to remedy the training deficit starting tomorrow. Like I told you, Sam, I’m not an expert rifleman, mainly because I never took firearms seriously. Starting tomorrow morning I’ll work with two of you at a time, mostly familiarizing you with the basics and some dry firing so we don’t waste ammo on the preliminaries. As far as exploring, I think either you or I should go solo checking the immediate area. The houses and farms on this stretch of the road are spread out. How close is your nearest neighbor?”

  “That’d be the Pritchett farm, a half a mile south. The Pritchett’s don’t run it, though. A family named Nash lives in a double wide on the property. Josh Nash runs the place. He oversees the planting and harvesting. Soybeans usually, but last year they planted corn. The Pritchett farm runs two miles farther. Then there’s a feed processing plant and an ethanol production facility.”

  “How about to the north?” I asked.

  “A mile up, there’s a trailer park, a real run down place with eight singlewi
des on a gravel road, four to a side. After that, there’re several private homes in a group, almost like a subdivision but most are on one or two acre lots. Nice homes from what I can see from the road.”

  “How does this sound. Tomorrow afternoon you hike over to the Pritchett farm and check on the Nash’s. The next day I’ll go scout the trailer park. Just get close enough to observe it without being seen. Watch it for a couple hours to see if any and how many people are there. If time allows, I’ll go further and check the houses you spoke of.”

  “What about resupplying?” Jessica asked.

  “Here’s my thought. If Sam and I observe no danger during our exploring, we check the homes. If we don’t find dead bodies inside, we’ll see what we can find of things we’re short on. Three days from now, we’ll make a run into Sparks for mass supplies.”

  Jessica spoke again. “The reason I asked, we need to look for Kindles, Nooks and other tablets. A lot of people really load them with information. Maybe we can find information on survival. Does Sparks have a public library?”

  Everyone looked at Sam.

  “Don’t ask me, I’m not the reader. Lucy?”

  “Nope, none in Sparks. The nearest is the Cook County Library down in Adel, two or three miles further south.”

  “That would be the best place to get survival books, especially books about edible plants and old time medicine,” Jessica said.

  Sam shook his head. “Adel’s a lot bigger than Sparks and it’s right on the freeway. There’s more of a chance we’ll run into survivors. After what happened to your parents, we need to regard all strangers as dangerous until shown different.”

  Becky called my name, “Ralph, is there anything else we need to discuss? It’s getting close to Jen and Will’s bedtime and they need to shower.”

  “Just this. Starting tomorrow, we need to watch our use of lights. With the municipal power supply down, lights are a big advertisement of our presence.”

  *****

  Immediately after breakfast, my first students were the Two J’s. I followed the same format with them that proved successful with Becky. I did vary the process to represent real world situations.