Scavenger

by Jerry D. Young

Jimmy decided to wait until summer before he went into the city to check on the storage room caches. On the way back to the farm, he still had plenty of fuel, but he ran across a diesel tanker that still had fuel. He filled his tanks and continued, making a note of the location of the truck. He’d get someone from the farm to bring him to it so he could take it in.

  He made it back to the farm without further incident. He’d kept the shortwave receiver in the Suburban on most of the time. He’d heard nothing about any government activity the entire time he was gone, though there were Amateur Radio Operators on the air. Quite a few of them.

  Those on the farm had not been idle while Jimmy was gone. The farm boasted a couple of additional tractors, several more head of stock, five more running vehicles, and an even dozen semi-trailers of supplies they’d found on the roads and accumulated from abandoned farms and businesses in the area. There was even a large generator equipped Class-A motorhome that had been recovered, specifically for Jimmy’s use when he was on the farm.

  Jimmy settled in at the farm and waited until summer. It was a long time coming. It was a mild one, but the snow did melt away in the area by June. What field crops that could be, were planted. But the farm boasted two green houses, again part of the updating of the farm that Jimmy had financed. They were providing fresh garden produce year round, under grow lights powered by generators fueled with the biodiesel produced on the farm.

  Many acres of oil crops were planted on adjacent, abandoned land. The yields were going to be low, due to the weather, so they needed as much production as they could get. Jimmy helped with the spring planting and birthing then got the itch to travel again.

  He wanted to check the two quadraplexes and storage rooms he had not been able to on his first run. He hit the first town and, without the snow, was able to get to the quadraplex with no problems. It was trashed. And the residents had found the basement. When the sewer line quit working, instead of building an outhouse, or using chemical toilets, the people living there had just knocked the drain pipe loose and let the waste run into the basement. The people apparently left when the conditions got too bad.

  Jimmy almost left the cache behind. Instead, he made a run into the city, checked two of the caches and recovered the contents. Then he found a dive shop. With dry suit diving gear, Jimmy went back to the quadraplex. Donning the dry suit, strapping on one of the tanks of air, and putting on the dive mask, he went into the basement and began to recover the cache. It took a while. He had to be careful to keep everything out of the foot and a half of waste in the basement. But finally the job was done.

  He’d set out several five-gallon buckets of water and washed off the dry suit enough to get it off without contaminating himself in the process. The suit he threw away. He had three more. The tanks and other gear he kept. There was a small dive compressor in the trailer he’d got at the dive shop.

  He went back to the farm. They were accustomed to him taking the utility tractor with backhoe and disappearing into the woods surrounding the farm when he came back from his jaunts. They knew he was caching things, but made no effort to get into them. The members of the extended farm family considered him their savior. All were sure they would not have survived the war and its aftermath without his involvement in the farm.

  Some of the unattached women at the farm tried to get him to settle down with one of them, but Jimmy maintained his solo lifestyle.

  The winter of 2018/2019 came early, as had the last one. And it was fierce. The planet continued to cool, and the high northern latitudes, as well as the southern tips of Africa and South America began to glaciate.

  With already three feet on snow on the ground in November, three of the families to which the farm had been supplying food, showed up, lock stock and barrel, asking to stay for the winter, knowing they didn’t have enough supplies to make it on their own.

  There were family relationships with all three families with the extended farm family. The fourteen people and their belongings were merged with those already at the farm. It was too late to try to get any additional housing set up. The overflow went into the barn, which was near full anyway, with the additional livestock the families had brought with them.

  Jimmy kept to his motorhome, mostly because he wanted to, but partly because snow accumulation was on the order of eight feet. It was too much work for Jimmy to do more than just clear space around the motorhome. Three hundred feet of near tunnel from the motorhome to the barn was too hard to keep open.

  The farmers were kept busy keeping the greenhouses clear of snow. Jimmy had run an intercom cable on the ground from the motorhome to the barn, in anticipation of the heavy snow. He was able to communicate with people when he wanted to do so, which wasn’t often. He didn’t mention the set of snowshoes he had.

  The women of the farm insisted that the path be opened the day before Christmas so Jimmy could join the celebration. Fearing it could cause a rift between him and families, or at least cause some very hurt feelings Jimmy acquiesced and began digging from his end.

  He spent Christmas day with the farm families, accepting the small gifts that several people had made for him. The fact that he had nothing in return to give seemed not to make any difference at all. If anything, it enhanced the charitable feelings people felt for him. He stayed late, but insisted on going back to the motorhome after the huge evening meal.

  Feeling more contented than he had in years, Jimmy fell asleep on the sofa in the living room area of the motorhome, the image of the very pregnant Lucy MacAtee sitting alone in front of the fireplace in the ranch house flashing across his memory. She was one of those from the new families.

  Where Thanksgiving and Christmas had been joyful events, considering the circumstances, New Year’s Day of 2019 was somber. Lucy MacAtee lost her baby on New Year’s Eve. Rumors spread quickly that the baby had been badly malformed, a mutation. People had quit worrying about it much earlier, as several babies were born quite normal after the war.

  Lucy was kept isolated for several days, but she was insisting she was all right. As soon as the guard of those tending her was dropped, she bolted, going out into dark, freezing weather, during another snow storm.

  As soon as he was informed, Jimmy joined the search for her. The snow had crusted over and would support very light people, which Lucy was. Not so most of the searchers. Jimmy strapped on his snowshoes and went out. As the others hunted in other directions, Jimmy had a hunch and headed for the farm’s small graveyard.

  He found Lucy kneeling down on the snow, above where the cemetery was. The hood of her heavy winter cape hid her face for a few moments, but then she looked up when the path of light from Jimmy’s flashlight crossed her vision.

  “I don’t want to go back,” she said. “I just want to die.”

  “It’s not my call,” Jimmy said just as quietly. “The families want you alive. I have a responsibility to them. I won’t let you die out here.”

  Lucy didn’t question how he would prevent it, but she seemed to accept it. She stood up. “I don’t want to go back to the house now.”

  “Not a problem. I prefer the barn myself.”

  “Not the barn. I want to be alone for a while.”

  “But there’s only…” Lucy sagged against him.

  Half carrying her, half helping her walk, Jimmy got her back to the motorhome and inside. He keyed his radio and told the other searchers he had her, safe, at the motorhome. Several people offered to come take her to the house.

  “She refuses,” Jimmy said.

  A couple of women fought their way across the remains of the Christmas path to the motor home to tend to Lucy. Jimmy made himself scarce, to allow the women a chance to get Lucy to go back to the house, or at least, the barn. One of them came to him and said, “She just refuses to go. We’ll have to get a couple of men to come carry her back.”

  Lucy’s voice wasn’t too strong, but Jimmy heard her when she called to him, “You know what it is to want to be alone. That’s all I
want.”

  Jimmy sighed. “Let her stay here. I don’t use the back bedroom, except for storage. Give me a minute and I’ll get it ready.”

  “I don’t know,” the woman said. “It is such an imposition on you. We all know you like your privacy.”

  “Maybe that’s what she needs,” Jimmy said his voice low. “One of you can stay here and keep an eye on her. Help her if she has problems.”

  “That’s just more intrusion…”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Jimmy grinned. “Maybe the dishes will get done.”

  “Well, let me talk it over with Martha.”

  Jimmy went past the two women and rearranged the rear bedroom while they talked. Lucy was still wearing her winter cape, her eyes on her feet as she sat on the sofa.

  Jimmy let the women know the room was ready. They seemed to still be discussing it, but Lucy got up and walked past them in the narrow hallway, and entered the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  Martha and Joan shook their heads.

  “I think the decision had been made,” Jimmy said. He went into the side bedroom and closed the door.

  When he got up during the night to go to the bathroom, he saw Martha napping on the sofa, the lights down low. He looked over at the other bedroom door. It was still closed. When he got up the next morning Martha was fixing breakfast. And the dishes from the previous meal were, in fact, done.

  Lucy came out of the bedroom, dressed, but without the cape. “Thank you, Martha,” Lucy said. She turned sad eyes on Jimmy. “And thank you. Staying here helped.”

  Jimmy nodded and sat down at the small dining table. Lucy helped Martha for a few minutes, and then sat down herself, across from Jimmy.

  Martha served them fresh scrambled eggs, toast, hash browns, and reconstituted orange drink. There was homemade strawberry preserves and coffee. Jimmy declined the coffee and said, “I’ll have a cup of tea in a while. Just the juice and water for breakfast.” The two ate silently, while Martha sat nearby and sipped a cup of the coffee.

  Jimmy went outside to clear the accumulation of last night’s snow from around the motorhome while Lucy and Martha cleaned up after breakfast. Jimmy was just about to go in when Martha and Lucy both came out of the motorhome, dressed for the weather. Lucy glanced at Jimmy, but said nothing and followed Martha up the path to the barn, struggling in the additional snow on the path.

  Jimmy thought about Lucy from time to time, wondering about her, but asked no questions. He put in his time in the greenhouses and the barn, but there were more than enough people to keep things running, so he stayed mostly in the motorhome. He began a journal to occupy his time. He went back to his teen years at the commune and began to record the events of history as he knew and remembered them.

  It was again June before the last of the snow had soaked into the earth or run off. Even Jimmy was feeling a bit of cabin fever and joined in enthusiastically in the outdoor work of the farm. But when the planting was done, he felt the wanderlust again and began preparing the Suburban and trailer for travel.

  It had been almost two years since the attack and he wanted to recover the caches from the rental rooms in the city, as well as begin his pickup of the rent, assuming some of those occupying them were still occupying them.

  From Amateur Radio Broadcasts they’d heard during the winter, the US population had shrunk another ten percent during the winter, after having lost seventy-five percent from the direct effects of the war, and another fifteen percent of those left during the first winter. There was now less than twenty percent of the pre-war population still living, mostly in the southern tier of states where the winters weren’t quite as bad.

  Jimmy also intended to deal with the group at the sixth quadraplex, which had run him off by force of arms.

  On the announced day of his departure from the farm, a small group came to the motorhome to see him off in the Suburban. Jimmy found himself looking to see if Lucy was in the group. She wasn’t.

  The good-byes said, Jimmy headed down the access road of the farm. Just out of sight of the farm someone stepped out into the road from the trees. It was Lucy MacAtee and she was carrying a duffle bag strapped to her back, and a Steyr AUG slung over one shoulder. Around her waist was a pistol belt with full flap holster and various pouches. Suspended from the other shoulder was a musette bag. Jimmy assumed it contained magazines for the AUG.

  Jimmy couldn’t figure out why she had the duffle bag, on security patrol. And for that matter, they didn’t patrol alone, anyway. Curious, he pulled up and stopped, downing the right side window of the Suburban.

  “You want me to take you back up to the farm? You’re awfully far out to be on your own.”

  Lucy looked at Jimmy with at least something of a sparkle in her eyes, Jimmy noted. “No. I’m going with you.”

  It totally floored Jimmy. He didn’t know what he had expected to hear, but it sure wasn’t that, even with the evidence staring him in the face.

  “In no uncertain terms,” Jimmy said, finally getting his composure back, “you are not!”

  She was opening the front passenger door. Jimmy tried to hit the lock button, but she had the door open. Leaving it opened she stepped down the side of the Suburban, opened the rear passenger door and slung the duffle bag off her shoulder and put it in the passenger seat. Jimmy couldn’t seem to move as she closed the second passenger door, climbed into the front passenger seat, closing the door after her.

  “No. You are not going with me. I’m taking you back to the farm as soon as I can turn around.”

  Jimmy was staring at her and saw the tears form in her eyes. “Please,” she said softly, seeming to shrink into herself. “I have to get away from there. At least for a while. There are too many bad memories for me there, right now.”

  “But…” Jimmy said, and then tried to think of something else to say. Finally, he added, “You can’t just take off. You have responsibilities.”

  Lucy barked a short laugh. “The women are fawning all over me, trying to get me to forget about the baby. That’s what I want to do, but they just keep reminding me with their well wishes.”

  And then, again, came something out of Lucy’s mouth that Jimmy was in no way expecting. “My husband said I am very compliant, and very good in bed. You can sleep with me any time you want to, on the trip. The doctor said not to get pregnant, but I have protection. Internal protection.” She was looking at Jimmy, eyes open, vulnerable, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks.

  “Lucy, no!” Jimmy groaned. “You don’t mean that!”

  A determined look came over her face. “I do mean it. I’m not saying you have to, if you don’t find me attractive, but the option is available whenever you want to exercise it, if you let me go with you.”

  “Lucy, I…” Jimmy simply didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to tell her she wasn’t attractive, for she was. But he didn’t want to get into the kind of relationship she was offering.

  “I’m also a good cook, and better than average shot. And I’m a light sleeper. And an early riser. And…”

  “Stop, Lucy, stop. I know you must have very admirable traits for traveling. It’s just I’m a solo operation. I’d drive you crazy.”

  “I’m already crazy,” she said, her voice falling, her head going down. “Crazy from grief. Crazy from guilt that it was my fault. Crazy from fear that it will happen again. Crazy… Just Crazy.” She fell silent.

  Instinctively Jimmy knew what he said next could very well destroy the woman’s will completely. “Okay,” he said after long moments of thought, “You can go with me and we’ll just play it by ear.”

  Jimmy put the Suburban back in gear and continued down the road without looking at Lucy. He could tell she was wiping her eyes, and straightening up. He heard her blow her nose. Then she turned in the seat slightly and set the AUG beside her duffle bag.

  After a few minutes Jimmy looked over at Lucy. “Any time you want to go back, I’ll take you. Things can be rough out in th
e world. Are you sure you have everything you need? You know. Women’s things?”

  Lucy smiled slightly. “Yes. I have what I need. Unless we stay a lot longer than you usually stay out.”

  “I doubt we will.” Boy, did he doubt it. The very first excuse and Lucy was back at the farm. “Uh… you brought a sleeping bag, didn’t you?”

  “I brought a sleeping bag,” Lucy replied.

  “Tent?”

  “No. No tent. I heard yours was a big one.”

  “Oh. Well… Big for one.” Jimmy fell silent, and began to concentrate on his driving. The severe winters and lack of maintenance was beginning to show up in deteriorating roads, even the Interstates.

  Lucy was companionably silent, lost in her own thoughts.

  Jimmy pulled into the forest at the same spot he’d used on his earlier trips.

  “We’re stopping already?” Lucy asked. It was still some time before dark.

  “I usually eat early, and then go somewhere else to spend the night.”

  “Oh. Okay. It’s safer that way?”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy replied, pulling around the head the Suburban back the way he’d come in.

  They got out of the Suburban, carrying their long arms. At her insistence, Jimmy let her fix supper for the two of them, using his camping gear. He showed her where everything was and let her do as she wanted while he cut wood for a fire. Using a fire ring already there, Jimmy built a small fire.

  She was efficient as he was. Jimmy had to give her that. She had their simple supper ready in no time. There was also already there a long log suitable as a seat. They sat side by side to eat. Lucy had brought her own eating utensils, though nothing with which to cook, knowing Jimmy would have cooking utensils.

  After the meal, and while Jimmy was putting the few things away, Lucy asked, “Do you have a small shovel? I need to go to the bathroom.”

  Wordlessly, Jimmy pulled Cold Steel entrenching tool from the trailer and handed it to her. Lucy went to the Suburban and got into her duffle bag again, and headed for the edge of the forest, toilet paper in her jacket pocket, AUG in one hand and the shovel in the other.