The next morning, Lucille started washing the filthy clothing piled in a large stack in the bathroom.
As Nancy and Betty busied themselves in the kitchen whipping up pancakes for breakfast, Betty said, “It’s not much, but it’ll stick to the ribs awhile. It’s so nice to be almost living normal again, even if it’s only for a few hours.”
“You know, we could cook up cornbread to take on the road with us. Might help fill our bellies,” Eva mentioned. “Wrapping small loaf pans of the bread in foil will keep them fresh. These folks must have loved cornbread because there are several boxes of mix on a pantry shelf. Not much else there, though. These poor people would have starved to death before too long.”
“Good idea,” Betty said. “Cornbread and salmon. I found four cans in the cabinet.”
Lucille poured a large mug of black coffee. “Man, I’ve sure missed my caffeine fix.”
“Even cold goat meat would be good for a couple days if we wrapped it right,” Betty suggested as she glanced out the window at three goats running around the barn yard.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Nancy said, peeking outside. “I doubt any of us have eaten goat meat, but heck, if we cook it all night, it should be fine.”
The men carefully checked the bikes and trailers to be sure they weren’t in need of oil or had some part loosening up. With all the hard riding they had done, everything was holding up surprisingly well. The old farmer had a few gallons of gas in the large gas tank out near the barn, so all the bikes and gas cans were filled and ready to go.
“Well, looky here.” Joe sat down on a bale of hay to rest after gassing up the bikes. He smiled and held up a pouch of smoking tobacco. “The old cuss smoked out here away from mama. Here’s the rolling papers, too.”
The men laughed at one another, trying their hand at rolling a cigarette for the first time. Some were big and fat and looked like a short cigar. Others fell apart. Before long, they were puffing away and coughing their heads off.
“This tobacco has to be old, it’s so dried out.” Joe commented between fits of coughing, “Man, I think I’d rather smoke some of that old hay!”
“Wonder if he has a bottle hidden in here, too?” Eric said, and started looking around. The other men jumped up and spread out to cover the barn top to bottom.
“Hot damn, here it is.” Paul pulled a full bottle of Jack Daniels out of an old milk can and another bottle about a third full. “Way to go, Pops,” Paul commented.
After a good night’s sleep and a slim breakfast, they once more took to the highway at dawn. This time, they had roasted goat and corn bread in their saddlebags. The abandoned farm was once more a ghost farm – not even a chicken clucking around to remind anyone that human beings had recently occupied the place. Nancy had a small bag of hard rock candy in her backpack as a surprise on down the road. It was one less thing to go to dust and ruin in the old farmhouse.
~~~
Sean stood on the balcony watching the road in the valley through binoculars. He hoped Fred’s group would show and hadn’t met an untimely demise somewhere along their route. They were late, according to his estimate. After five days of watching the road a good part of the day and having someone else relieve him the rest of the day, Sean was just about resigned that they hadn’t made it. Finally, about two in the afternoon, Sean saw something moving in the far distance. He spoke almost in a whisper, “Looks like a bunch of piss ants crawling down the road.”
Sean squinted his eyes and adjusted the binoculars, trying to make out what it was, but the specks were barely within the sight ability of the high-powered binoculars. He rubbed his eyes and sat down to rest them for a bit. After some five or six minutes, he stood and peered again at the road. The piss ants were shaped like motorcycles!
Sean watched for several minutes. Finally, he picked up the radio, punched the send button, and said, “Leprechaun.”
The motorcycles slowed and stopped in the middle of the highway. “Johnny Apple Tree,” was the reply.
~ 23 ~
“Macaroon, you copy? Over.”
“Copy. Over.”
“Leprechaun. Toto coffee. Out”
Stephan breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Hey Cord, Fred made it to Sean’s camp and . . .”
Right then the earth jerked. Stephan and Cord steadied themselves and hurried off to check out the cave complex.
Ralph manned the control room. He hated earthquakes and being under a mountain during one gave him the heebie-jeebies.
“Dew Drop here, did the New Madrid just go? Over,” squawked from the radio.
Ralph’s heart did a flip.
The New Madrid was a fault line down the Mississippi near St. Louis, and if it went, it would not only kill a lot of people, but could literally cut the country in half, geographically.
Theories were, if a quake hit the New Madrid fault, it might allow the Gulf waters to come up into the central states. The elevations of places such as St. Louis were but some five hundred feet above sea level. It was estimated by scientists, who knew the fault quite well, the new sea created by the collapse of the many hollow limestone areas deep underground might be as much as four to five hundred miles wide. It would drown every living thing well past such places as Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Memphis, New Orleans, and God knows how much more. Millions upon millions would lose their lives.
The radio blared: “Rug Rats, here. Jesus Christ! We just got the shit shook out of us! Has to be the New Madrid. We’re in Nebraska, and it was one hell of a series of jolts. Over.”
“Macaroon, copy? Over,” an urgent voice shouted from the radio.
“Copy. Over,” Ralph answered.
“Road Rabbit, Dorothy’s Dog died. Over.”
“Macaroon here. Hold just a minute, Road Rabbit!” Ralph answered and yelled out the door, “Stephan! Need you in here, pronto!”
When Stephan ran into the control room . . . Ralph stated, “Road Rabbit sent a message . . . Dorothy’s Dog died.”
“Shit, that’s Brandon in Arkansas, and he needs help. Quake must have hit his camp.” Stephan grabbed the mike. “Macaroon Coffee 12. You copy? Over”
“Copy that. Over.”
Stephan threw his arms up. “Wonder what the fuck will be next. Dammit!”
The radio lit up with conversation again. “Jackrabbit’s, here in Oklahoma. Any of you people out there need help? I have room for a few. I’m near Tahlequah. To hell with secret locations at this point. Over.”
“Road Rabbit, you copy? Over,” Stephan spoke into the mic. “Road Rabbit! You copy that, Okie? Over.” Nothing. Brandon was off the air.
Brandon’s Cave in Arkansas:
The cave in Arkansas shook violently when the quake hit. People were knocked off their feet, with many trapped and others smashed under large slabs of limestone falling from the roof of the cave.
Brandon Davis and his friends had worked on this cave compound for several years and believed it completely safe. How was he to know the New Madrid would decide to let go?
When Brandon saw it was hopeless to uncover the trapped people, he made the frantic call to Stephan. Before he heard a response from Mac, he heard Jackrabbit in Oklahoma. Then the cave started to crumble around him. He scrambled out the exit when the entire tunnel to the compound collapsed, entombing everyone left inside. Of the twenty-eight residents of the compound, only five made it out alive.
Brandon fell to the ground and wept, along with Harold, David, Beverly, and Anita. Inside the cave lay their husbands, wives and children.
Brandon jumped to his feet. “We have to get away from here right now.” He wiped a hand across his eyes to rid them of the tears and continued in a commanding voice, “Let’s go!” He marched down the hill and never looked back–not even to see if the others followed.
They had walked several hours in silence, other than the weeping of the women, when Brandon stopped, looked around and stepped some twenty feet to the right to a pile of rocks. He knelt down
and started throwing the rocks to one side. Using a large survival knife, Brandon began digging away the dirt and leaves. Soon, he slid the knife under the lid of a fifty gallon drum and pried it upward. Brandon pulled six backpacks from the container and laid them to the side. Again, digging soil to the left of the first drum, he uncovered another. This drum held pup tent halves made of camouflage colored plastic, a dozen canteens, and camouflage sleeping bags. He unearthed the third and last drum. He pulled out six side arms with web belts and ammunition. He retrieved an M 16 assault rifles and one sniper rifle with scope in a protective case. The last items were four combat radios with an extra battery pack for each. As he distributed the items to his fellow travelers, Brandon slapped his forehead. He realized the one thing they had not buried for just this sort of emergency was rations. He sat for a moment and wondered why they hadn’t thought of rations! The small group would be shit out of luck if they couldn’t find food along the way.
Immediately the group checked the firearms and loaded them. They pulled the heavy packs on and started downhill once more. David finally asked, “Where we heading?”
“West.” The tone of Brandon’s answer was clipped and determined.
Brandon was in his forties, brown wavy hair with a touch of gray above the ears. He stood well over six feet tall and was large as a line backer. He’d lost his wife and three kids in the cave and wasn’t in any mood for small talk.
Beverly walked behind Brandon. She was thirty, a blonde fitness freak. She had lost her husband and year old daughter in the cave.
Anita followed Beverly. Anita barely cleared five feet and was a redheaded spitfire. She was small boned but could keep up with anyone when it came to doing hard work. Anita was teased about her petite size all her life, so she kept up out of sheer determination to “show them.” She, too, had lost her family in the cave . . . a husband and two small sons. As they walked, she was the first to quit crying, and her face was set and determined.
Harold was twenty-five and a nerd. No one liked him because he was a loner and never helped much or joined in any discussions. He’d arrived at the cave with his sister’s family.
David, an ex-Marine, brought up the rear. Harold had grabbed one of the automatic rifles, and it was making David nervous. Did he have enough sense to handle a weapon? Beverly should be carrying it. David lost his four children inside the cave. His thoughts drifted back to the fight he’d had with his ex-wife over taking the kids with him that day. Maybe she’d been right. They’d still be alive if they had stayed with her.
Aftershocks from the quake continued to rock the ground every few minutes, some strong enough to knock them off their feet. Each rumbling of the earth was a reminder of what they had survived that morning. And each time they fought to keep their footing, it reminded them of those left behind. The going was hard in the mountains. They had to detour around masses of felled trees and large rockslides.
Harold wasted little time in starting his whiny complaints about the hot temperature and weight of the pack. Soon he fell some distance behind the group, and no one saw him stop to sit on the ground next to a fallen tree.
Hearing his bloodcurdling scream, David ran back and saw Harold thrashing around with blood on his neck. A four-foot timber rattlesnake crawled under the tree beside Harold. David aimed his pistol at the snake and shot the reptile into pieces.
“I bet he sat next to that rattler to piss it off, or it wouldn’t have struck like that.” Brandon commented.
The group pulled the screaming Harold to a clear spot and removed his pack.
Harold began trembling uncontrollably, and his eyes rolled back in his head. Grabbing at his chest . . . his face contorted with fear . . . he thrashed for a moment more, and then he was still.
Brandon placed his ear to Harold’s chest for a full half minute, then stood and said, “Shit, he ain’t gonna make it, but we can’t just walk away and leave him to die alone.”
“Hell of a way to die. I’ve heard it’s really a painful death,” Anita spoke softly.
“Yep,” Beverly replied and picked up Harold’s rifle. She pointed it directly at his heart and pulled the trigger.
Ten minutes later, their group was one person less, and Harold was buried beneath a pile of Ozark Mountain rubble. They turned and continued their journey.
~~~
The dark cloudy sky turned black with the oncoming night. Brandon’s group came upon a log house situated on the side of a hill. Brandon signaled to halt and be quiet. The men pulled night vision goggles off their belts and put them on.
As everyone knelt down in the brush out of view, Brandon and David silently scouted around the area but found no one. The place seemed abandoned, probably due to the quake. The men combed the outlying area around the barn and smoke house before letting the women come near.
By the smoke house, Brandon stumbled on something and drew his foot back . . . fast! He’d discovered the bodies of an elderly man and woman. Their throats were slashed and not too long ago by the looks of it. He gave a bird whistle, and David scampered over to Brandon’s location.
“Shit,” David whispered at the sight of the old people. He turned to look around the area as he squatted. “You think whoever did this has moved on?”
Brandon knelt down beside him and scanned the surrounding brush carefully as he whispered, “Hard to say. I don’t think they’ve had time to get too damned far away. We’d better have another look around a bit farther out. For Christ sake, be careful. With the cover here, they could still be close by and hiding almost anywhere.”
“Did you notice there is no vehicle around here? Maybe the killers drove it off.” David commented.
“We can hope. Let’s fan out and check the area. I’ll take the left.” They split up and cautiously moved in a crouch in opposite directions.
After making another complete circle some twenty to thirty yards out from the cabin, the two soldiers felt confident the killers were no longer in the area. When the men moved back to where the women waited, Brandon spoke in a quiet voice.
“We couldn’t find signs of anyone. We’ll go on in, but stay alert. Whoever killed the couple hasn’t been gone too long.”
“You found the owners? They’re not inside, are they?” Anita asked.
“No. Just don’t stray from the cabin once we’re inside. David and I will bury them. I’ve also found a root cellar, and it’s full of jars of home canned food, but it’s caved in and most of the jars are broken. We can probably salvage something, though. But be damned careful of snakes around here. This goddamned country is loaded with timber rattlers like the one that got Harold.”
Brandon led them to the cellar, and he and David kept an eye out for snakes, both reptile and human, while the ladies searched the cellar for usable foodstuffs. They did find a few unbroken jars of fruits and vegetables that they could reach within the debris of the destroyed root cellar.
“There are more good jars farther back, but you guys will have to get those. We can stay here long enough to have a hot supper, can’t we?” Beverly asked as they emerged from the entrance of the cellar.
“We’ll have to make sure the cabin isn’t going to fall in if another tremor hits. Then we can go in and try to cook a meal. In fact, we’ll spend the night and get a good rest.” Brandon spoke with a lump in his throat, remembering the great times they had back at their destroyed compound at mealtime.
No one spoke as they entered the kitchen door and shined flashlights around inside. What hadn’t been tossed from the cabinets by the quake had been thrown on the floor by previous visitors. Brandon was surprised to discover an oil lamp hanging from a nail, still intact. He raised the glass globe and used a cigarette lighter to set the wick ablaze.
All of their luck wasn’t bad. The old couple at least had a propane cook stove, and it seemed the lines to it were still intact. In minutes, the girls had heated up corn, black-eyed peas, cabbage, and a jar of apples. Beverly found ingredients to make a batch of biscuits
. They hadn’t eaten since leaving their destroyed compound. With all the hiking up and downhill, they were hungry enough to eat just about anything, so the hot food seemed a real banquet. No telling how long it might be before they would have another good meal.
“Maybe in the daylight we can find food to take with us,” Anita said. “But right now, I’m going to go find a bed and get some sleep.” There was sadness in her voice.
“Me, too.” Beverly answered.
They left the kitchen with flashlights in hand and walked into the other room of the cabin, hoping it contained more than one bed. There was a regular sized bed and a set of bunk beds across the room.
Anita told Beverly, “You can have the bed. I’ll take a bunk.”
“I won’t argue with you. I’m so damned tired I could sleep on a bed of nails. I wonder if the bunk . . .” She started to say she wondered if the bunk beds were for the old couples’ grandchildren when they visited. But a pain as sharp as if it were real hit her when she thought about the children buried in the cave. She leaned forward, her hands covering her face, and sobbed. It was the first time since they had dashed out of the cave and began their escape she had really had the time to think about it.
Anita moved from the bunk, sat beside her on the bed, and put her arm around her shoulders. “Life sure isn’t fair, is it?” They sat that way for sometime before lying back on the bed, both quickly falling asleep, both comforting one another with their presence.
~~~
Brandon and David took turns on watch during the night. By sunup, they were out scouting to see what they could use. In the hen house, David discovered a couple dozen eggs and took them to the kitchen in a basket.
“What we don’t eat for breakfast, we can hard boil to take with us,” he told Anita. “Oh yeah, you girls know how to kill a chicken and pluck it? We can fry those chickens out there to carry with us, too. There’s about three-dozen nice plump hens out in the chicken yard. How about we sacrifice six of them?”
Patriots Awakening Page 26
