Legion of Despair: Book Three in The Borrowed World Series

by Horton, Franklin

  “So you’re going to take it?” Alice said. There was something in her tone again, something wanting him to clarify that he was borrowing and not stealing.

  “Yes, I’m taking it,” Gary said. “I’ll bring it back after this is all over. I promise.”

  “And the gas?”

  “I’ll refill the cans and bring them back,” Gary said. “Happy?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I can help you borrow but I won’t help you steal.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They looked for another fifteen minutes and couldn’t find the booster box.

  “It could be on one of the maintenance trucks or they could have lent it to someone,” Gary said. “It could be anywhere.”

  “If you’ve got the generator to provide electrical power, can you use the other one? The one I found earlier?” Alice asked.

  Gary mulled it over. “I think so,” he said. “That’s a good idea.”

  “This place is making me a little nervous,” she said. “What do we need to do to get out of here?”

  “I need to get that big truck started first, then we can see about getting things loaded,” Gary said. “I’m not sure I can roll that generator across gravel, but if I can get it close to the back door of this building we can run extension cords to that charger unit and boost the battery.”

  “Then let’s do it and get out of here,” Alice urged.

  They got everything in place first, with the charger outside and connected to the battery, then located a one hundred foot extension cord on a wall hook and ran it out to the charger. Last, because of fear of the noise drawing attention, they started the generator. As soon as it was running, Gary jumped in the truck and turned the key. The engine turned with more power, but it still didn’t crank.

  “Darn it,” he mumbled. “What’s wrong with this truck?”

  “Is it diesel?” Alice asked.

  “I have no idea,” Gary said. “How do I tell?”

  “Some of them say DIESEL ONLY on the dash,” Alice said. “Or they say it by the fuel cap.”

  Gary stared at the dash and, sure enough, there were small white letters by the fuel gauge that said DIESEL ONLY. “It is diesel!” he yelled out.

  “You may have to use starting fluid,” Alice called back. “My dad was a farmer. On the old diesel tractors my dad had to use starting fluid.”

  Gary threw his hands up in frustration. He didn’t have any idea where to start looking for starter fluid and he was getting nervous about the sound of the generator. “Where did your dad keep his?”

  Alice came to the door of the tall truck and pointed behind the seat. “Back there,” she said. “That’s where he would have kept his.”

  Gary stepped out onto the running board and flipped the seat forward. He grabbed a yellow spray can and read the label. “I’ll be darned,” he said. “This is it.”

  Gary jumped out of the door and ran back to the fuel filler tube to remove the cap.

  “What are you doing?” Alice asked.

  Gary stopped. “You don’t add it to the tank?”

  “Give me that,” she said, extending her hand. “And you get in the truck.”

  Alice took the can and went around the front of the truck. She found the hood release and popped it. Due to her height, she had some trouble climbing onto the bumper of the truck, and then some trouble staying there once she got up there. She leaned forward and unscrewed the breather cover.

  “I’m going to spray this into the engine!” she yelled. “When I tell you to start cranking, you turn the key and don’t let up until it catches. Got it?”

  “Got it!” Alice shook the can, crossed her fingers, and sprayed a long burst of the ether spray into the intake. “Crank it!”

  Gary turned the key. The engine turned, then surged, but didn’t catch. Alice sprayed another burst. The engine almost caught that time. Again, she hit it with the spray. Finally, the engine hit, surging loudly and pouring a burst of blue smoke from the exhaust. Alice replaced the air filter cover and slid down from the bumper.

  They worked furiously to disconnect their cords and the charger. Gary threw it all into the back of the truck. They locked the back door to the shop and Alice walked through to the front while Gary drove the truck around to the front door. As he drove, he scanned the parking lots and roads of the property for any indication that their activities were being watched but he saw nothing.

  When he whipped around the front of the building, he backed up as close to the shop door as he could, then locked the brake. He decided to let the engine run rather than take a chance on it not starting again. He jumped out of the truck and walked to the back to begin loading fuel cans into the truck. That’s when it hit him how high the box bed of the truck was off the ground.

  “I’m not sure how I’m going to get that generator in there,” Gary said. “Does this truck have a ramp?” He looked above the rear bumper and saw no sign of a ramp.

  “There’s a forklift,” Alice said. “Can you drive it?”

  Gary looked frustrated. “No,” he said. “Not sure that I can. Never tried.”

  “Let me take a look at it while you load the gas,” Alice said. She disappeared back into the dark shop.

  The forklift was in a dark corner close to a wall-mounted charger. It was a battery-powered forklift and she hoped they’d left it charged. She wasn’t sure how they worked, but she’d run a tractor on her dad’s farm and it might be close to that.

  She found a key in the ignition and turned it. There was beeping and a series of diagnostic lights flashed on the dashboard. She found that forward and reverse were controlled by a shuttle lever on the steering column, just like her dad’s tractor. A series of three levers controlled the fork operation and all were clearly marked. She pulled one and it tipped the forks forward. She tried another and it raised the forks.

  “Simple enough,” she said. She flipped the lever into reverse and hit the throttle.

  Nothing happened.

  She stared at the dash and saw a brake light illuminated. She examined the control panel and found a lever that could be the brake, although the markings were worn off. She flipped the lever down and the light on the dash went off. Then she hit the throttle again. This time the forklift shot backward uncontrollably and smashed into a refrigerator before she could get her foot on the brake.

  “Shit!”

  Gary came flying through the door. “You okay?”

  Refrigerant gas hissed from the wall of the crushed refrigerator and she could hear crushed soft drinks spewing from around the mangled door. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just getting the hang of it.”

  Gary nodded suspiciously and gave her a wide berth.

  “See if you can get that garage door open and we’ll get out of here,” she said.

  With no power, Gary had to use the emergency door release and muscle the door up. At ten feet tall, the door was heavy and that took some effort. Once he had it up, he wheeled the generator onto the forks of the forklift and Alice placed it in the truck with surprising deftness.

  “Got the hang of that, I see,” he said.

  “There’s a steep learning curve,” Alice said, glancing at the destroyed refrigerator. “Good thing you were outside.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Do we have everything?”

  Gary went over the list in his head. They had the battery charger, the cord, the generator, and all of the cans of fuel. “That’s it.”

  “Then let’s lock this building back up and get out of here,” she said. “I’m getting paranoid.”

  When they locked up the building, Gary dug the keys to the Nissan from his pocket and tossed them to Alice.

  “What?” she asked. “I’m not riding with you?”

  “Let’s take the car,” he said. “We’ll gas it up at the house and you can use it to get home after we get to Jim’s.”

  Alice nodded. “Okay. I’ll follow you.”

  “We don’t stop for anything,” he
said. “If people wave, if they get in the road, if they point guns, whatever, we keep going. You got it?”

  “Understood,” Alice said.

  Chapter 12

  The Valley

  Jim’s House

  Although far from having returned to normal, life at Jim’s house was at least peaceful at the moment. Having dealt with the criminal Charlie Rakes and his family, Jim had moved everyone back into the family’s home and out of the cave. The cave had served exactly the purpose he’d built it for, providing his family with a secure, fortified location in which to hide out during an emergency. The only downside had been that his mother had contracted a respiratory infection from the damp conditions. Fortunately, with Randi’s nursing assistance, she was on the mend and improving daily.

  Jim was utterly impressed with how well his family had done in his absence. He couldn’t have been more proud of them. His wife had followed his instructions to the letter. Not only that, but his son Pete had developed a mature survival mindset in his father’s absence that allowed him to go beyond Jim’s instructions. He’d set up an observation post based on a discussion that he and Jim had once had.

  Jim had simply mentioned off-hand that a particular rise would be a good place to install a lookout. Pete recalled that and practically built his own sniper hide on top of a hill on their property so he could keep an eye out for anything that might threaten their family. While his daughter Ariel seemed to be the same playful, fun child he’d left, Pete had become a serious young man.

  Jim still found that there was lots of work to be done. Despite having left his family with a notebook of instructions, there were a ton of projects he’d always wanted to do but never started. There were also supplies he’d purchased that had never made it to the notebooks. He knew he had a mountain of work ahead of him and that it would take a lot to get his place to where he wanted it. He had no idea how long this disaster would continue, and wanted to have options. He’d prepared for this. He did not want his family to suffer any more than they had to. They had food, water, and heat. If they could maintain security, this could be a situation with long-term sustainability.

  In his last radio communication with Gary and Randi, Gary had indicated that he was having some trouble at his place. Jim was not surprised. Although Gary had a basic level of privacy at his home, he was still way too close to town. It was not a defensible or sustainable location. If Gary had previously developed a decent-sized survival group with a plan to hole-up at Gary’s house if the shit hit the fan, they might have had half a chance. He would have at least had enough people to maintain perimeter security. Without a group, it was just one large family trying to fight off hundreds of hungry families. It was a family that would eventually be brought down by the coyotes nipping at their heels. It was inevitable.

  Although Jim did not have a group, his location was more secure than Gary’s. They were physically distant from the local population centers. That was a huge matter when people were reduced to walking as their primary means of transportation. What people were living back there tended to be producers of food rather than just consumers. That significantly affected the stability of a community.

  If it hadn’t been for the rogues in the trailer park and that Charlie Rakes character, their location would have been ideal. Jim assumed there was no perfect location, at least within the reach of normal people with normal financial means. However, he had always been such a hermit that the idea of a mutual support network had been irritating to him. He didn’t want to need people. He didn’t want to be bothered by people. At least that was the way he’d always thought before. He understood now that he would benefit from having a network of people close by. People he could depend on.

  That was why he’d quickly told Gary that there might be some options nearby in the valley if Gary wanted to move his family. Jim knew it would be a difficult move. He couldn’t imagine having to pick up everything and move, but these were difficult times that sometimes required desperate measures. If you had to move to keep your family safe, then you did it. No question. The family was the first priority. A house could be rebuilt. A family could not.

  Based on what he’d seen, and what his wife Ellen had told him, Jim knew there were several empty houses near them. A lot of them had been burned down since the lowlife Charlie Rakes apparently had a thing for pyromania and couldn’t resist burning down nearly every house he stepped inside. Some of those had dead bodies in them that would have to be dealt with. A house that sat for weeks in the summer with a dead body in it may never be habitable again. He wasn’t sure what would be done with those. They’d probably have to be burned down anyway, giving the late Charlie Rakes the last laugh.

  There were some families left but Jim didn’t know how many yet. He’d seen activity at the Wimmer house up the road and knew that the old man’s extended family had probably come home to look after him. They were a tight group and there were a lot of them. They would be a good asset for keeping the community safe. There was also Buddy Baisden up the road, but no one had seen much of him since this whole mess started. Jim didn’t know him well but he seemed to be a decent guy. Ellen said that his daughter had died a day or two before this whole mess started.

  While Jim wanted to visit those families and see how they were doing, he needed to go into town first. The best house for Gary’s family would be that of his old friend Henry. This was also the house that Charlie Rakes had taken as his own. Charlie had killed Henry, his wife, and their son David before Jim put a bullet in his head. He needed to check with David’s wife and make sure she knew her husband and his parents were dead. Jim had buried them on their farm the day after he got back. He needed to see if David’s wife needed anything from the house or if she had any objection to Gary moving his family in on a temporary basis.

  Tomorrow he planned to ride his mountain bike into town to visit David’s wife, if he could find her. He knew where she lived, but there was no guarantee that she was still there. She may have gone to live with another family or relative when David didn’t come back. It was less than five miles and he was determined to save fuel for emergencies. He had a 500 gallon tank in the barn with off-road diesel in it for the tractors and excavator. It wasn’t full but there was enough to refill his truck several times over; however, he didn’t want to waste it on a five mile trip into town. He’d ridden his bike a lot farther when he was in a lot worse shape. After walking from Richmond, a bike ride into town would be a breeze.

  For today, there were projects that needed done. Jim had spent most of the day with Pete and Pops fine-tuning the perimeter alarms they had attempted to install in Jim’s absence. Home improvement stores often sold what they referred to as “driveway alarms.” They detected cars coming up the driveway and signaled an alarm in the house, usually a strobe or a chime. There was a home improvement store near Jim’s office and they frequently changed what brand of driveway alarm they were selling. Every time they changed brands, they put the old brand on clearance. When they did, Jim stocked up.

  He always purchased them with the same use in mind. He would install them as perimeter alarms in an emergency. He’d left instructions in the notebook and Pete and Pops had tried to install them, but Jim wanted to revamp their installation. He installed several on the driveway at different intervals. He also installed them at choke points around the house, such as between outbuildings, between his shop building and the barn, between the dairy and the tractor shed. The only ones he’d leave on during the day were on the driveway. At night, he’d turn them all on, with the sensitivity adjusted so they’d pick up a person but not an animal.

  That was another thing he intended to fix as soon as possible. His parents had brought their Schnauzer with them but she was far from being a guard dog, unless you were needing your lap guarded. His family had lost both of their dogs the previous winter due to old age and it had been hard for them. They’d been reluctant to replace them, as if it were disrespectful to the memory of their faithful pets.
Now they absolutely had to. Dogs were the best security a homestead could have and they needed dogs in place as soon as possible. He hoped he could find a neighbor or someone in town with dogs that they couldn’t feed or care for. He’d offer to take them off their hands.

  Jim had also bought a lot of solar motion lights over the years. He hated having to run electricity to all of the places where he felt needed security lights. He’d been overjoyed when the solar versions of these lights came onto the market. As the price came down, he bought more and more of them. The units he preferred required nothing but a solid place to mount them. They were very simple. They had a solar cell that charged an internal battery. There were a few switches to adjust the sensitivity and the length of time that the light stayed on. That was it. On his property, they were not only mounted on buildings but in conveniently-located trees.

  The family did not have a huge garden but they did raise a lot of foods they liked to eat. They usually had corn, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, carrots, and squash. The garden had been neglected in Jim’s absence but he couldn’t hold that against his family. It wasn’t like they didn’t have other things to do. Jim’s father had taken a recent interest in the garden and was trying to get it back in order during the cooler parts of the day. Jim had broken into his stock of vacuum-sealed emergency seeds. They were all heirloom varieties which would produce viable seeds that could be dried and planted the next year.

  He had seeds for cold weather crops that could be grown in the fall that would supplement their food stores. They didn’t grow those particular crops on a regular basis but with no grocery stores available, the food would be useful for their own diets or as a trade item. It wasn’t about having what you preferred to eat, it was about having anything at all to eat.

  Jim, Pops, and Pete had taken a water break from their perimeter alarm project and were sitting on the front steps when they heard a loud vehicle exhaust. Times being what they were, everyone on the steps paid attention as a distant vehicle became visible on the road. When it stopped at Jim’s gate, the people on the porch went into high alert.