“Okay, so we have dogs, guns, and we live someplace way off the usual path of travel.” Jackie looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. “We make sure we lock up at night, and maybe set some traps around, maybe, something to make noise.”
“Animals could set them off,” I protested. “I can’t imagine that such a thing would be that useful, unless…” my voice trailed off. “Actually, yeah, nevermind. We could set traps and, hell, motion sensors are battery-powered. So long as we have a little power for keeping the batteries charged, that would work.”
“See,” she said smugly. “I have good ideas on occasion.”
“You have good ideas more often than that,” I scoffed.
“You’re just trying to get in my pants,” Jackie said with a laugh and stuck her tongue out at me.
“Too late,” I replied, and she started giggling.
Off in the distance, smoke smudged the horizon, rising lazily into the sky from several points.
“That doesn’t look good,” I said softly.
“Is that Montgomery?” she asked.
“Pretty sure,” I replied. “At least the fires seem to be spaced out.”
“Natural accidents, hopefully,” Jackie sobered up from her giggle fit pretty quick.
“Hopefully. There are lots of things that can start fires when people aren’t around to look after them. Keep your fingers crossed that none of those are the solar supply shop.”
17
“What are we doing here?” Jackie asked as I pulled the Dodge into the parking lot of the Montgomery Public Library and stopped at the main entrance. We were downtown, and aside from the smoke rising from various locations that we’d seen from the interstate, there was no sign of damage here, and everything was quiet. Luck was on our side so far.
“Research,” I said. “Map and phone book, maybe some tech manuals. I ain’t sure they’ll have everything we need in that regard, but I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to check.”
“I’m not complaining,” she said as she got out of the truck.
I grabbed my crowbar from behind the seat and followed her up to the main entrance. Just to be sure, we checked.
“If I have to break open a door, I’d rather do it to one of the sides,” I said. “The books will last a lot longer, even without power, if we minimize the intrusion from outside.”
Jackie nodded. “I have to get used to the fact that we just don’t have the room for all the books.” She sighed wistfully and followed as I walked a slow circle of the building.
We did, indeed, find a side entrance that was locked, of course, but the suitable application of the crowbar remedied that particular problem relatively easily. Once again, we stepped into a dark interior with our headlamps the only light aside from the door behind us.
The main section of the library, though, possessed lots of windows, positioned so as to admit the maximum amount possible of natural light. Jackie turned a slow circle as she looked around with a broad smile on her face.
“I made it here a few times,” she said, an almost reverent tone to her voice. “Never as much as I’d have liked, though.”
“Nerd,” I teased.
“Says the engineer,” she struck back. “How long do we have?”
“Let’s see what we can do in about a half-hour,” I said. “Stick to reference books, I’d say.”
“Gotcha,” Jackie said with a grin. She bounced excitedly on her toes. “I’ll scream if I run into any problems.”
With that, she was gone. I chuckled and shook my head before I went off in search of that phone book and map that I’d come for. Hopefully, she wouldn’t fill the whole truck bed with books, but I couldn’t really be sure. Thus armed, I settled down near the front doors to see if luck was with me.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t. There was one place in the whole of Montgomery that listed solar install in their list of services, so I wanted to check there, but I didn’t have high hopes. Some hardware stores carried basic panels and installation kits, though, so I wanted to check all the Lowes, Home Depots, and Harbor Freights that I could find. I wasn’t sure how much power we’d need for the house, but five kilowatts was probably a good start, and I had no idea how many panels that would be, or if I could even find enough of them.
“Damn,” I muttered to myself. “Wish I’d gone electrical engineering, now.”
“What?” Jackie asked.
I started and swore again. Somehow, she’d managed to sneak up on me while I was lost in my thoughts. An innocent smile decorated her face as she stood there with only a single armload of books.
“That’s all?” I asked.
“You sort of implied only what I could carry,” she replied before she dropped the books on a nearby table and sat down beside me. “Any luck?”
“Not really,” I growled and leaned back in my chair. “There’s maybe one installation service, and no suppliers. I want to check, anyway, but I don’t have high hopes. Looks like our best bet will be the big box hardware stores, and they might not even have stocked the panels.”
“Fucking Alabama,” she said, letting out a low whistle.
“You’d think there’d be more off-grid folks wanting to outfit themselves,” I said, “But then, there’s probably more than a few that believe solar power actually drains the sun.”
Jackie laughed and shook her head, then studied me seriously. “As early as we are in this whole… weird apocalypse… should we maybe consider moving someplace else?”
“I thought about that,” I answered, drumming my fingers on the reading table in a slow, arrhythmic pattern. “Thing is, we’re not in a bad place, overall. We’ll have easy access to fishing and game, plus there’s plenty of livestock and farmland. So long as we can figure out how to handle such luxuries as power, we should be okay.”
“Could be worse,” she said with a smile.
“Probably, yeah.”
Jackie went silent for a bit and turned her head to look out the windows. “Isn’t it about time to go?” she asked at last.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “What do you think? Should we check out this place, or just go for the hardware store.”
“Honestly,” she answered. “I think the hardware store. At least we can browse hand tools and fasteners if they don’t have solar panels.”
“True,” I laughed and pushed myself to my feet. “Ready?”
“Born ready,” she grinned, picked up her books, and followed me out to the Dodge. She tucked her load behind the seats, and soon we were back on the road.
As we headed back for the interstate, I noticed the first thing out of place that I’d seen. A nice car, a Mercedes, I thought, parked in the front lot of a small medical center with a cable running from its open hood to a small Honda generator that sat grumbling away in front of the center doors. More cables ran from the generator into the building, although it looked like the doors had been partially barricaded.
“Hold up a second,” I said as I braked hard and pointed. “Jackie, do you see that?”
She turned and stared off in the direction I pointed. After a moment, she said, “Holy crap.”
“So you do see it,” I teased and swung the Dodge over, crossed the median, and pulled into the parking lot of the center. I stopped a safe distance from the building, turned the truck off, and slipped out. The little generator chugged away, completely ignorant of our presence. Several steel jerry cans and other fuel cans were lined up neatly along the building’s wall.
“How do we play this?” Jackie asked, joining me. We were only about twenty or thirty yards from the door. It wasn’t a large practice, and the parking lot could handle at most twenty cars.
“Like this,” I replied, and yelled, “Hello!” with my hands cupped to my mouth.
“Hi!” Jackie joined me. “We mean you no harm!”
“That’s what I’d say if I was trying to lure them out and eat them,” I muttered.
“What else should I say, then?” she demanded, elbowing me in t
he side.
“We just want to talk!” I called out after wincing. The girl had the sharpest elbows I’d ever experienced.
Something moved in one of the front-facing windows, and I focused my gaze on it for a moment. A child’s wide-eyed face gazed back at me.
“Shit,” I muttered aside to Jackie. “There’s a kid.”
“God,” she said softly, then waved and smiled. “Hi! I’m Jackie, and this is Henry! We’re survivors, too!”
Another person appeared in the door, shifted some of the barricade of chairs and stuff while we waited, keeping our distance. It wasn’t long before a woman, dark-skinned and dark-eyed, with short-cut jet black hair, made an appearance. She wore green scrubs and tennis shoes under a white lab coat and held a large can of mace at the ready.
“Alright, Jackie and Henry,” she said firmly. “What the hell do you want?”
“Is there anything you need?” I asked in return. “We can get you food or gas or whatever.”
“We can give you a safe place to stay,” Jackie interjected. “Out around Opelika.”
“Have you seen anyone else?” the woman asked, her eyes darting back and forth between the two of us.
“Not really,” I replied. Both Jackie and I had our hands up. Hopefully, this person wouldn’t fixate on my pistol, but it couldn’t be helped if she did. “Everyone’s dead.”
She sighed and lowered the can of mace, her shoulders slumped. “We need help, and I really don’t have much choice but to trust you.”
“You won’t be disappointed,” Jackie said brightly and started forward, holding out a hand. “What’s your name?”
“Doctor Estelle White,” the woman replied, blinking as she took and shook Jackie’s hand. “I was sent over by the CDC to check out a sudden influx of patients with sinus and respiratory symptoms.” She turned and motioned for us to follow. “A few nights ago, people started to fall unconscious, bleed internally, and expire. I had managed to catch the bug, too, despite precautions, and passed out as well sometime after witnessing the passing of the first few individuals.”
The inside of the small clinic was lit and comfortable, thanks to an oil heater. A skinny boy sat drawn up in one of the many chairs, while a baby slept in a crib nearby. The boy watched us with wide eyes as Estelle escorted us in.
“Hey,” I said with a smile.
He raised a hand and waved shyly.
“Tommy,” the doctor said. “This is Mister Henry and Miss Jackie. They said they’d help us.”
Tommy nodded, then sniffled, coughed into a thin hand, and nestled back into the chair, pulling a blanket around him.
“Hi,” he wheezed with a weak smile.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jackie whispered to Estelle as she watched the boy close his eyes.
“I’m not sure,” the doctor replied. “From the symptoms, he’s still got whatever it was that killed everyone else. I’ve run a few tests and attempted what antivirals I have access to, as well as broad-spectrum antibiotics, but they haven’t done much.”
With the infant asleep and Tommy dozing back off, Estelle motioned for us to follow her, and we moved out of the waiting rooms and into one of the offices. Out of habit, the doctor settled in behind the desk, and Jackie and I sat down across from her.
“What can we do?” I asked before anyone said anything else.
“I was going to ask the same thing,” Jackie chimed in.
The doctor closed her eyes and reached up to rub her temples. “You said you had a safe place?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered. “We live on a farm out near Opelika. It’s got well-water, a septic system, propane, and generators. I mean to add a solar array, and that’s what brought us to Montgomery.”
“I’m in a situation right now where I’ve got a baby, Irene James, by the way, and a very sick little boy in my care. This was the best I could do since the hospital is really a mess of corpses.” She hadn’t opened her eyes. “You’re the first people I’ve seen alive since before…”
“Y’all are the first we’ve seen, too,” Jackie said. She had her hands pressed together between her knees and was slowly rocking in her chair.
“I’m thinking we put off everything else we’d planned for this trip,” I said to Jackie, “and get these three out to the farm.”
“How much space is in the cottage?” she asked.
“It’s just a one-bedroom,” I replied. “Might be better for us, if you’re good with that.”
She nodded and looked back at Estelle, who’d raised her head and was looking between the two of us. “We can put you three in the main house, I think, is what Henry’s getting at.”
“That’s a generous offer,” Estelle said slowly, a thoughtful look on her face. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but what do you two get out of it?”
“A doctor on call,” I replied with a smile. “I’m an engineer and a mechanic, Jackie’s an animal whisperer--”
“Wildlife ecology and management,” the young woman explained with a sigh. “I grew up in the outdoors, and I’m really good at handling animals, plus I know a bit about agriculture.”
The doctor nodded slowly and looked down for a long moment before raising her head to meet my eyes, and then Jackie’s.
“Seems like the best bet we’ve got,” she said. “We’ve been sleeping on couches and exam tables. A bed would be great.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “You won’t regret it.”
A smile touched her full lips and reached all the way to her eyes. Hope seemed to swell behind them. “I think I made the right choice. Now let’s pack up the children and see if my old Benz will start.”
“If it doesn’t, I can probably fix it,” I told her with a smile as I rose to my feet and offered my hand. “Henry Forrest’s my full name, but I answer to lots of different things.”
“Nice to meet you, Henry,” she said, shaking my hand. Her touch was warm and dry. “And you, Jackie,” she said, turning to the young woman in question. “Thank you both.”
“Jackie Purcell,” Jackie said with a smile of her own. “And you are most welcome.”
18
Estelle handed me her keys so I could go check the Mercedes while she and Jackie started packing up everything for the kids. Our little family was growing, and maybe a bit faster than I’d expected. Thing is, we’d have done our best to collect any survivors we found, no matter who or how old.
Finding a doctor, even a research doctor, which was what I suspected Estelle was, was a stroke of luck that we’d likely not see repeated. Still, I had a spring in my step as I went out to the car. Birds fluttered in the branches of the nearby trees. At least wildlife hadn’t been affected by this crazy disease.
I wondered how hard it would be to raise the kids, especially the baby. We’d want to look for milk cows or see about wrangling up a bull. I snorted at that thought. Probably needed to do that, anyway.
We hadn’t gotten much of a look at baby Irene the times we’d passed through where she was sleeping, for obvious reasons, but Jackie’s eyes lit up whenever she turned towards the little bassinet. Some part of me suspected that I was in trouble, but I just shoved that to the back of my mind and went about the business at hand, fixing the doctor’s car.
Estelle had a battery charger hooked up to the Benz’s battery, and I checked the voltage. Everything looked good. If the only problem was a discharged battery, we were certainly in business. I unhooked it and went around to the driver’s side to start the car.
It turned over a couple of times, then started and settled into a good, solid idle. Gas was near full, and voltage and oil pressure were good. There was only one question that remained.
Was the alternator good?
I left the car running while I went over to rummage through my truck boxes. At least some of my tools were tucked away in the shiny, metal, waterproof boxes. I opened them up and rummaged around, eventually found what I was looking for: my multimeter. After checking to see if it
still had a good battery by turning it on, I wandered back to the Benz.
“How much longer?” Jackie yelled from the doorway. “We don’t want to shut off the generator and the heat until you’re done.”
“No more than ten minutes if everything checks out,” I replied. “If it doesn’t, we go car shopping.”
“Got it,” she replied, making a sour face. “I’ll let Estelle know.”
I nodded and turned my attention back to the car. It was still idling smoothly, so that was a good sign. Once again, I checked the multimeter, then looked around under the hood for the alternator. When I found it, I checked the leads and found out it was putting out a strong current and voltage, more than enough to charge the battery.
Maybe the good doctor had left the lights on or something. I’d give the battery a check once we were back in Opelika, and I had access to all my tools and gadgets, but for now, I was pretty sure the car would make the trip.
I shut the hood and went back to the office, stuck my head in, and called out, “Good to go.”
“Yay,” Jackie said. “I’ll tell everyone and help load up. Between the two of us, can we get the generator into the truck?”
“Should be able to. I’ll go put the gate down,” I replied.
“I’ll be along, then.”
I nodded as she moved off to the back of the office, turned, and headed back to my truck, started it, and backed it up as close to the front door and the little honda as I could. Then I stopped the Dodge and got out to let down the gate. As the folks inside shut things down, the engine slowed from the reduced load. Shortly after, Jackie came out with the drop cables Estelle had been using and shut down the generator.
Estelle came out with the kids and tucked them away into the Mercedes while Jackie and I manhandled the generated into the bed of the truck and loaded up the cans of gas. After that, I went over to the car and peeked in.
“Everything seems to be in working order, doctor,” I said.
She nodded. “Good. I should follow you, right?”
After The Virus (Book 1): After The Virus Page 12
