The padlock securing the door fell away as he slid the key in, and he pushed the trailer door open. Halfway open, the door jammed in place, likely because the truck and trailer rested at a sharp angle, leaning against the hill.
Jack stepped onto the rear bumper and pushed hard, forcing the door open with an ear-piercing screech of metal on metal.
Peering into the trailer, he surveyed the work to be done.
Wyatt's bike, a bright orange lightweight mountain bike, sat near the door, and Jack was surprised at how little it weighed as he lowered it down to the ground. The frame even looked to be about the right height for him. Next to where the bike sat, he found a canvas bag filled with spare tires, tubes, and bike chains, and tossed it out of the trailer.
Jack raised his eyebrows at the makeshift trailer. Obviously not intended to be a bicycle trailer in its first life, it was jury rigged and put together from spare parts. The trailer was about eight feet long and three feet wide, had an aluminum frame, with a thin sheet of plywood fastened to the frame for a bed. A pair of bike tires was attached on each side of the trailer, and a hitch extended out a few feet where it could be bolted on to the bike.
"What in the world is this? Are you serious? Is this thing going to stay together?" Jack asked.
Wyatt wore a mock expression of hurt on his face. "What? It isn't pretty enough for you Jack?"
Jack hefted the frame and lowered the trailer slowly to the ground, half expecting it to fall apart. There was no way this thing would withstand Wyatt's weight and all of the dog food. It looked like a hobo put it together during a whisky fueled arts and crafts festival at a junkyard.
"I'm not kidding Wyatt, do you think it's sturdy enough? It looks... home made." Jack said.
Wyatt stuck a cigarette in his mouth, a smirk on his face. "You know Jack, where I come from, we didn't have much money. When my daddy needed something, a tool, a piece, or a part, he'd figure out a way to work with what we had. We'd tinker around and put something together. It weren't always pretty, but it got the job done."
"OK. All right, no offense intended."
Wyatt moved the bike in front of the trailer and sat down with a toolbox, fastening the hitch to the bike, just below the seat.
"Where did you get the bike and trailer Wyatt? I thought you'd been here with your truck since the EMP? You didn't have this with you before it happened, did you?" Jack asked, pushing a few photocopiers that were part of the truck's load out of the end of the trailer. The copiers crashed to the ground, the cheap plastic casings shattering loudly, exposing circuit boards and wiring.
"Two days after the EMP, a young fellar came riding down the road on that bike. He was probably, oh seventeen or so. I stopped him and asked him what he'd take for it. We settled on a price and struck a deal. I picked his brain for a while, and it turns out his uncle owns a junkyard not far from here.
So I took a chance and hobbled over there, to the junkyard. It didn't take long to piece together what I needed. The trailer was six feet wide, so I had the uncle cut it in half, weld the hitch on, and sturdy it up a bit. He cut the axle down to size and fixed it for bike tires instead of the fat road tires it had on it before," Wyatt said.
"Where did you come up with the idea? What made you think of that?"
"I hadn't thought of it until that young man came riding by. I was going to try to buy a horse and ride home," he said.
"So I wasn't the only one who hadn't thought of using a bike. Huh. What made you change your mind about the horse?" Jack asked.
"I don't like horses Jack," he said.
"No? Why not?"
Wyatt patted his false leg, and silently resumed working on the trailer and bike, uncharacteristically quiet.
"How did--"
Jack started to ask another question, but stopped himself, deciding it was best to leave it alone. Wyatt was willing to talk about anything, and everything, and at great length. If he wasn't talking freely about it, he must have his reasons.
"Right, that's all of the copiers. I'll see if I can move enough of the other freight so I can get to that beef stew. This is hard work, I'm getting dog gone hungry," Jack said.
Wyatt snickered.
He had to admit. Once he got past the idea eating dog food, it didn't taste any different than a certain brand of beef stew he'd eaten plenty of times before. The consistency was the same, as were the ingredients - big chunks of beef, carrots, and potatoes.
It was dark in the middle of the trailer, and Jack had to squint to see what the contents of the pallets were. Pallets sat at odd angles, leaning against each other and thrown about when the tractor-trailer crashed into the hillside. He had to climb over and squeeze through tight spaces to get around them and access the deeper parts of the trailer.
The first two pallets he checked were bags of dry organic dog food. At least they had cans of wet dog food to work with. He couldn't picture convincing himself he was eating anything other than dog food if it was in the dry pellet form.
Jack slid his body into the tight space between two stacks of pallets. One of stack was piled three pallets high, and tilted at an angle. It hung half way off of the pallet below it. Jack pushed at it cautiously with a finger, testing it to see if it would stay where it was, or if it would topple over. It wiggled a bit, but didn't move much.
He peered into the darkness and saw the pallets of canned dog food stacked up on top of each other behind the precariously perched pallet. If he could just squeeze himself in there, he could pull all the cans out that they needed, instead of unloading the entire tractor trailer first. It would save a lot of time and effort. Time that would be better spent actually traveling, not messing around in a trailer.
Jack wedged himself between the stacks of pallets, trying to squeeze past, but the space was just too tight for him to fit through. Next he tried to push the pallets out of the way, but they were simply too heavy. If he rocked the pallet, he could probably work it over a few inches, just enough for him to get access to the canned dog food.
Jack braced himself, and pushed against the pallets repeatedly, causing it to sway. It started to creep across the floor as he pushed.
The pallet above his head shifted towards him suddenly, tipping over on its side, pinning Jack's hand between one heavy stack of pallets and the other.
Pain shot up his arm, his left hand crushed under the weight of the pallet. He pulled at his hand, but couldn't free it. His heart thumping loudly in his chest, panic set in. Jack screamed wildly.
He couldn't move his hand. Jack pulled and pulled, trying to free his trapped fingers, but the pallet wouldn't budge.
"Help! Wyatt," he screamed.
Wyatt was beside him in an instant. He pushed at the pallet with no luck.
"Hang on, I'll find something to use for leverage," he said.
Wyatt rummaged around the trailer, searching in the dark. He moved out of Jack's line of sight, and returned a few seconds later with a black steel crowbar in his hands. Wyatt inserted the crowbar between the two pallets and pried the pallet up a few inches.
Jack pulled his hand out, panicked at the sight of his hand.
The hand felt like it was on fire. Two fingers, his pinky and ring finger, were crushed flat, twice as wide as the others, and stuck out at an odd angle. He closed his hand into a fist, but only his two undamaged fingers and his thumb curled. The fleshy part along the side of his hand had been crushed as well, angry red where it had been compressed. The pain was so bad he couldn't think.
Cradling his injured hand, Jack climbed out of the trailer, pacing back and forth. The wounded fingers and palm were now swollen up like angry red sausages, ready to burst. Blood flowed freely from several places, dripping down his arm.
Through the pain Jack raged at his own stupidity. Why had he tried to take a shortcut and nudge the pallets over? Why hadn't he played it safe, and just unloaded the damn things like he should have?
He couldn't travel like this, now he was going to be even further behi
nd. Would this even heal? Would Wyatt rescind his deal, and wait for someone with both hands to come along?
Chapter 18
Amy watched through the sliding glass patio door, peering into growing darkness of the back yard for any sign of the boys. They were only a half an hour late, but she was worried out of her mind. The boys had made a persuasive argument that they could make the supplies last longer if they had fresh fish. She relented and let them start fishing in the bay a week ago, despite her misgivings. Now, half an hour later than they should have been home, it was getting dark outside. She kept a nervous watch, hoping they would appear.
The front door handle jiggled as someone outside of the house turned the knob to see if it was locked. A second later a solid thumping knock registered against the door.
"Anybody home," a deep male voice yelled through the door.
Amy left her watch by the back door and stormed down the hallway to the front door.
"Go away. This house is occupied," Amy yelled.
That was the second time today somebody had tried the door. The looters were getting bold. For every one of them that knocked or tried to get in, there were ten others that passed on by, respecting the large warning sign she spray painted across the front of the house: 'OCCUPIED, DO NOT ENTER'.
She went to the window and parted the curtain slightly to see if the man had moved on.
The scruffy looking man pushed his grocery cart, piled high with his things, down the cul-de-sac to another neighbor's house. Once there, he banged on the door, repeating his inquiry. When no one responded, he walked around to the side of the house, peering in windows.
Amy watched as the man broke a window and climbed inside. A moment later he opened the front door and pushed his shopping cart inside. He might be there a day or a couple of weeks, depending on how much food and supplies there were inside. She'd seen enough of these refugees come from the fire-damaged areas of the city to know their patterns by now.
Things were bad. No, she corrected herself, things were bad when the power went off six weeks ago and planes fell from the sky. Things were worse. Much worse.
As bad as things were, Amy was grateful that they still had a roof over their heads. The fires had burnt through most of the Baltimore suburbs in the first two days after the attack. Nothing was left behind but ash and the burnt out husks of homes. Nearly every home connected to the natural gas pipelines had burned to the ground after the EMP. Their street was never hooked up to the natural gas network. The neighborhood was built in a period of cheap oil, and each home had an oil furnace.
The survivors were homeless and starving, forced to scavenge for food and shelter wherever they could find it. They weren't alone though, even though she still had the house, nothing was the same.
Six weeks with no power had turned her family's life upside down. No lights. No running water. No television. No flushing toilets. No microwave. No electric stove. No telephone. No refrigerator. No washer and dryer. Those things seemed like a distant memory now, a fairy tale from someone else's life.
Each morning when she woke up, she flipped the light switch on, disappointed when the light didn't turn on. There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't try the switch, wishing everything would go back to the way it was.
She sat down at the kitchen table, head in her hands. Where could those boys be? She shouldn't have allowed them to leave, even for a couple of hours. There were too many desperate people on the streets now, and too much that could go wrong.
The garage door opened, rattling as it slid up the rails. What is the man that knocked on the door, coming back to cause trouble?
Amy cracked the garage door and stuck her head out into the garage, relieved to see Kenny and Danny pulling along a large ice chest in a wagon.
"Where have you boys been? I've been worried sick about you! You were supposed to come back before dark," she said.
Danny looked down at the floor, his cheeks burning red.
"Sorry mom, we had a problem with the crab pots today," Kenny said. He tilted his head toward his brother and rolled his eyes.
What that was about? She would have to ask Kenny later.
Judging by the grins on their faces, they must have caught something special today. "Well, what did you catch?"
"Oh, not much. Just some small fish and a few crabs," Kenny said.
Something large flopped inside the cooler, startling her.
"What is in there? It sounds a little bigger than a small fish. Can I see?" she asked.
Kenny popped open the lid of the cooler. Inside were a few small croaker fish the boys had been catching, along with a much larger fish, almost as long as the cooler. It's striped silver sides glistening as it flopped from side to side, attempting to escape. The boys beamed, they were proud of their catch.
"Oh my gosh! What kind of fish is this? How in the world did you catch this," she asked, genuinely shocked. Jack had taken the boys fishing many times, but had never come home with a fish this large.
"It's a striped bass. I'm not telling you how I caught it, that's my secret. And I'm not telling dad either when he gets back," Kenny said.
Amy smiled thinly at the mention of Jack's name, but said nothing. The boys were optimistic, but it was hard to keep her hopes up. Weeks had gone by, and she hadn't heard anything from him, although how he could get word through she had no idea. How was he going to get home with no car, no planes, no buses or trains? Missouri was over a thousand miles from Baltimore.
She lay awake at night, playing the problem out in a hundred different ways in her mind, and she couldn't find a solution. If things were as bad as they were here in the Midwest, Jack would be scavenging for food and shelter. She couldn't picture him doing anything but simply trying to stay alive. It was hard to see how he could make a journey home.
"Well, your father has never brought a fish home that big, so you're doing something right. OK, I'll cook it, but which one of you is going to clean this monster?"
"I caught it, and she's cooking it. That leaves you Danny," Kenny said.
"Fine," Danny said, rolling his eyes.
Danny took the big fish into the back yard and cleaned it at the far end of the yard, near the refuse pile. She'd burned their trash for the first week after the event, but since then the bright flames and black smoke from the fire seemed too likely to attract unwanted attention to their house. After that, she only made fires during the night and inside the fireplace where the flames wouldn't be seen.
"What was that about Kenny? Why were you boys so late?"
"Danny snuck off while we were fishing. He came back just before dark. He said he went to try to find dad," Kenny said.
"What? What was he thinking?"
"I don't know mom, I told him dad is in Missouri. He is convinced dad was at work at the office downtown when the EMP hit. He won't listen."
"I'll talk to him tonight. This has been a lot for him to process, and he misses-- we all miss your father."
Amy started a fire in the fireplace, and set a large pot of water on the grate to boil. Once the water was roiling, she tossed the crabs into the pot, their blue-green shells rapidly turning red as they cooked.
Danny returned with the cleaned fish, leaning to one side as he walked, burdened by the weight of the striped bass.
"Look at that thing! It must weight twenty pounds even after you cleaned it," she said, hoisting it up by the gill. Amy carried the fish to the kitchen and laid it onto a cutting board, carving the fish into two large filets. She seasoned them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, then wrapped the filets in aluminum foil and placed them on the grate.
After the fish was done she brought the filets to the dinner table on a platter, along with the crabs, and opened a can of collared greens. It was a feast compared to what they had been eating recently. Shelf stable food got old pretty quick.
Her eyes welled up with tears as she realized how selfish the thought was. Jack had stockpiled all of this food for them, but h
e wasn't able to benefit from it himself. At least she had food. She hoped that wherever he was, he wasn't going hungry.
The boys joined her at the table and waited for her to start the prayer and begin dinner.
"Lord, we give thanks for the fish you provided today. We also ask that you watch over Jack, and provide--"
The garage door opened, squeaking loudly on its rails.
Amy dropped her fork onto the table, heart pounding in her chest. The garage door into the house was locked. Should she confront whoever it was, or just let them take whatever they wanted out of the garage and hope they would leave?
EMP Aftermath Series (Book 1): The Journey Home Page 11
