It was the younger brother, Andrew, who answered. “If you would. It’s coming up on winter and I don’t think anyone else could handle it. You’re used to the travel.”
“Of course I’ll go. Any clues as to where I might find one or the other?”
“We got the ones we have from a supplier in the city. We’re hoping there will still be some bulbs there. We just don’t know if the place survived the attack.”
“Only one way to find out,” Jimmy said. “That’s to go and look. I’ll head out day after tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Sheila said. “We hated to bring this to you. It was our mistake.”
“You’re right to come to me. I’m much more expendable than any of you. Not to mention more capable at this kind of thing. Don’t worry. I’ll come up with something.”
“I don’t know if you can find someone to go with you,” Andrew said. “With families to care for and winter coming on…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jimmy replied. “I’m used to working on my own.”
Jimmy began to get things ready the next morning, servicing the Suburban and the trailer, cleaning his weapons and loading up magazines with rounds. He also went through his winter clothing, his thoughts suddenly going to Lucy. He hadn’t seen her for several days.
“No,” he thought, “We may have to go through some heavy residual radiation.”
But Lucy more or less took the decision out of his hands. She showed up mid-morning, while Jimmy was preparing. “So. I hear we’re going grow light hunting.”
Jimmy felt his spirits lift. He decided not to fight it. “I guess so. You’ll need cold weather gear.”
Lucy nodded.
“What else. Your weapons, of course. And…” Jimmy colored slightly.
Lucy noticed and smiled and said, “I have the female things I need.”
“A urine diverter?”
“What’s that?” Lucy asked.
“A device so women can urinate without having to disrobe so much. Maybe you can borrow one from one of the other women.”
“Like any of them are likely to have one,” replied Lucy. She looked at Jimmy for a long minute. “You’re prepared for most things. I bet you have one I can use. It sounds like a very good idea. I don’t relish dropping my pants every time I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Actually,” Jimmy said, “I do have a couple.” He went to get one of the bags in the second bedroom of the motorhome and carried one back to the living room area. “There’re several things you might need that are suitable for winter camping for women. And you can use this pack. It’ll be better than your duffle bag. It’s like mine, as you can see, but smaller. It’s a Kifaru Navigator with the extended top.”
“Okay,” Lucy said. “I’ll just take you up on this. If we can find it, I’ll replace everything I use.”
“Doubtful, but we might as well scavenge everything we can after we find what we need for the farm. And it won’t be quite so bad going to the bathroom. We’ll be carrying a chemical toilet. I just don’t normally use it for urination.”
“I’ll manage,” Lucy said. “I did before.” She paused for a long time. “Jimmy, I’m not going to have children, as I told you before. But what about you? Are you sure you want to do this. We could get a pretty good dose of radiation, depending on circumstances.”
“I think you should reconsider your options, Lucy. I’m not worried about myself. I am about you.”
“Don’t be. I’ve made up my mind,” she replied. Jimmy let it drop. Lucy helped him the rest of the day, getting things ready, and he gave her a bit more advice on her own preps for the trip.
CHAPTER FOUR
It started to snow as they pulled away from the Farm the next morning. Jimmy made steady progress, taking the most direct route. At least where the road was good. More than once they had to leave the road to go around blockages from the time of the war, and bad sections of the road due to the weather the past two winters.
As they had the last trip, supper was prepared at one site, and the night was spent at another, more secure site for security reasons. In the pack that Jimmy had given Lucy were two sets of silk long johns that fit her well enough to wear on the trip. It was what she slept in. And since she was covered, Lucy didn’t bother to wait for, or ask Jimmy to leave the tent when she undressed down to the silks and crawled into her sleeping bag.
Jimmy knew Lucy had no idea how provocative the sight of her in the silk long johns was to him. He said nothing, but made sure he was turned away from her when he stripped down to his own silk underwear.
As soon as they hit the edge of the city on the morning of their third day out, Jimmy began stopping every so often until they found an intact city yellow pages. So far the radiation was under 0.1R/hr and Jimmy wasn’t worried about it. They found a phone book and looked up the physical address of the supplier for the original grow lamps for the greenhouse.
It was in an industrial section of the city, and many of the narrow streets were blocked. Jimmy put Lucy behind the wheel of the Suburban, and handled the cable for the winch. Jimmy would direct Lucy where to stop, and then hook up the winch cable. Using the remote control, Jimmy would pull the vehicle clear enough for the Suburban and trailer to get through.
It was just too awkward to back up the Suburban with the trailer attached to move the vehicles. The hydraulic winch handled the repeated use without problems. They finally made it to the electrical supply house. There were no signs of it having been disturbed since the war. Using the railroad bar from a tool box in the back of the Suburban, Jimmy broke into the building, trying to do as little damage as possible.
Lucy stood guard outside as Jimmy took his Streamlight Litebox ESL from its charger and turned the hand held spotlight on before he went into the building. Jimmy and Lucy both had Motorola FRS/GMRS walkie-talkies. When Jimmy hadn’t returned or called her after some time, she keyed her radio and called him.
“Jimmy. Check in.”
“Yeah. Things are fine. I’m just having a hard time finding what I’m looking for.”
“Okay. Just checking. Be careful.”
Jimmy went back to his search. He finally found what he was looking for, made a note of where it was in the large warehouse, and kept looking. He was smiling when he cranked open one of the loading dock doors, startling Lucy.
She whirled around, the AUG coming up to the ready. She lowered it when she saw Jimmy standing in the opening. “Found the mother lode,” he said, jumping down. “Replacement bulbs and change out parts for the style they all ready have. Pull the trailer over here and we’ll start loading.”
Lucy moved the Suburban and she stood by the lift gate of the trailer. Jimmy began to carry box after box out to her to load into the trailer. She was exhausted by the time Jimmy said the box she had was the last one. “Of this stuff. I want to get some solar panels and controllers, too.” Lucy groaned.
But she had a chance to rest as Jimmy brought the panels over and stacked them in the doorway. He wanted to help her load them, as they would be a bit awkward for her to handle alone. Finally Jimmy quit moving panels and moved some smaller boxes to the door.
Both the trailer and the back of the Suburban were nearly full when they finished loading. “There are more left. We’ll come back and get them on another trip,” Jimmy said. He climbed back up onto the loading dock and closed the overhead door. He wedged the man door closed as well as he could and got into the Suburban next to Lucy.
“Tough day,” he said. “But rewarding.”
“Definitely tough,” Lucy said, rolling her shoulders.
Jimmy took them to the edge of the city and stopped at a mall they’d seen on the way in. The snow was really coming down. “Want to do a little shopping?” Jimmy asked with a smile.
“I doubt anything is left. Look at the windows and doors. Everything is busted out.”
“Well, if you’ll keep an eye on things, I’m going to look around.”
Lucy shrugged. �
�Sure.”
Jimmy took his time. Lucy was basically right. There were actually huge amounts of things left, just nothing that Jimmy considered useful. Until he got to the book store. The place had definitely been scavenged, but Jimmy found title after title that he considered useful. He found a cart in another shop and began to load it up with books. He trundled the heavily loaded cart to the front entrance.
Lucy saw him and came to help him carry the books to the trailer. “I want to look around a bit more,” Jimmy said, headed back inside. He picked up the occasional item, here and there. The jewelry stores had been virtually stripped, as had the small coin shop in the mall. But Sears still had quite a few hand tools left. He loaded up the cart again and went back outside.
“No diamonds and gold?” Lucy asked him with a laugh as he stacked the filled tool boxes into the trailer.
Jimmy smiled back. “Haven’t checked the upper level, yet.”
“You’re a pack rat, you know,” Lucy said as Jimmy headed back inside the mall. When his head cleared the upper floor level as he climbed the stilled escalator, something caught his eye and he quickly squatted down, bringing the PTR-91 around from its shoulder slung position.
“Lucy,” he called on the radio, his voice low, “take up a secure position. I just found expended brass. I’m going to check it out.”
“Roger.”
Cautiously, Jimmy took the last few steps of the escalator and moved quickly to a heavy planter box where he could get a better look around. There was brass and expended plastic shot shell cases here and there all over the floor. Jimmy began to follow the trail of spent shells. They led him to the only closed business entrance he’d seen in the mall.
The floor was covered with spent shells in front of the metal mesh security grate. Crouched down, Jimmy surveyed the area, both outside and inside the business. A close look showed that the lock near the floor of the security grate had been shot loose. He carefully tried to lift the gate.
He could lift it a foot or two, but no more. It was too heavy. He debated for a few moments and then lifted the gate and rolled under it. Jimmy quickly moved out of sight of the mall walkway, and looked over the store. It was a small specialty shop for sunglasses. Jimmy moved enough to see around behind the sales counter.
What he saw brought him up short. A man and woman lay dead on the floor. Long dead. They looked leathery. Both were in jeans, tee-shirts, and black leather jackets, with Nike running shoes on their feet. Jimmy decided they were probably both in their twenties.
He went over and gathered up the weapons lying beside, on, and under the bodies. There were two Colt 1911 pattern .45 ACP’s, a twelve gauge double barrel whippet shotgun, a Bushmaster AR-15 collapsible stock carbine, a Micro-Uzi 9mm pistol, and an old Smith & Wesson Model 59 9mm pistol.
There were several empty magazines laying around for everything except the whippet. The male body had a leather bandoleer of shotgun shells on under the leather jacket. Jimmy checked further and found shoulder holsters on both bodies, the one on the man with an offside suspension system for the whippet.
Both also had on cheap day packs. The jackets were riddled with bullet holes, so he discarded them when he stripped the bodies of the packs and harnesses. He opened one of the back packs and whistled. Jimmy checked the other. It had similar contents.
His theory, from the evidence, was that the pair had robbed the jewelry stores and coin shop and run into armed resistance. They were trying to escape and managed to get into the sunglass store and drop the gate. They held off those trying to either recover or steal from them their booty, but eventually died from their wounds after everyone headed for shelter from the fallout.
Jimmy moved everything he wanted over to the grate, slid under it and pulled the items to him. He found another cart and loaded up, making a quick turn around the rest of the upper floor of the mall, adding items from first one shop, and then another. The upper level just didn’t seem to have been as heavily scavenged. He found a second cart and loaded it, too. He stood in front of one shop for several long moments, and then went inside, coming out a few minutes later to add a garment bag to the pile in the second cart.
He headed back to the Suburban, taking his time going down the stopped escalator with the carts.
“I’m coming out,” he said on the radio. “Everything is okay.”
“Took you long enough,” Lucy was saying as he pushed one cart and pulled the other one through the entrance of the mall. “And I can see why,” she added when she saw him.
“I’d go take a good look around the upper level. You might find something you can use or get for trading purposes. Don’t bother with the sunglass store, I cleaned it out.”
Lucy shook her head and started to decline the offer. “Oh, why not,” she said.
Jimmy transferred his haul to the Suburban while Lucy went inside. The snow was getting deeper and heavier.
She took a cursory look around, and then wandered the lower level of the mall, despite Jimmy’s advice. After a quick look over her shoulder to make sure Jimmy wasn’t anywhere around, she went into the shop she had spotted. She came out several minutes later with a pair of large bags in her hands.
Lucy immediately went into a store next door and put the bags from the first store into that store’s bags, and then she began looking at more stores. Like Jimmy, she hunted up a couple of carts to carry her finds. Suddenly, while she was on the second level, Lucy noticed that it was getting dark. She hurriedly checked the last couple of shops on the second level and headed back toward the entrance.
Jimmy stopped what he was doing, clearing snow off the Suburban and trailer, and went to help Lucy with her acquisitions. “Seems you changed your mind.”
Lucy blushed a little and nodded. “Some things for me, but a lot for some of the people at the Farm. Probably Christmas gifts. Try to pay back some of the kindness people have shown me since I lost Jack, and then the baby.”
“I definitely intend to keep some of the stuff I found, but I think I’ll just give you the rest to parcel out the way you think best. Other than there at first, we’re the only ones that have had the chance to do much scavenging.”
“You should give it to whomever you chose, for your own reasons.”
“Easier if you do it,” Jimmy said, setting the last bag into the Suburban.
“You just don’t want to be fussed over by grateful people. Well, I don’t either. I say we just give what we aren’t keeping to the Farm and let the leadership distribute it.”
“No reason for you not to give the stuff you want as presents. You can’t go by me. I’m a Scrooge. Bah. Humbug.”
Lucy laughed and Jimmy found it a very pleasant sound. “I’ll think it over,” she said. “Boy,” she added, looking around, “It’s really been coming down!”
“Yeah. We’d better find a place quick, or we may just have to stop when we can’t go any further.”
They got into the Suburban and Jimmy turned it toward the Farm. At the first place with some trees, he pulled over. “I don’t think we have to worry about a dry night camp. We’ll just set up here for the night.”
When he got out of the Suburban, Jimmy fished out the Brunton weather instrument and held it up in the freshening breeze. He noted the readings and put it aside to help Lucy set up the tent. They were an experienced team now and the snow did little to slow them down. When Lucy reached for the privacy enclosure Jimmy said, “Hang on a minute.” He took out the Brunton weather instrument again and took a look.
“Don’t bother,” Jimmy said, putting the weather instrument away. “It’s going to get bad tonight. We’ll just put chemical toilet in the rear vestibule and call it good. Is that okay? I can always step outside when you need to use it.”
Lucy shrugged. “It should be okay. I trust you.” She looked up at the sky. “This is the first heavy snow of the year. It shouldn’t be too bad, should it?”
“I don’t know, Lucy. The barometric pressure is dropping, the snow has be
en getting heavier, and the wind is picking up. We may be here a day or two.”
“Oh,” was all Lucy said.
They took their back packs into the tent, and the provisions bag and water bladders. Jimmy also brought in the Yaesu FT-817ND Amateur radio, a couple of extra blankets, and a bag that Lucy didn’t recognize. They spread one of the blankets out on the floor of the tent for insulation.
Both pulled off their winter boots when they entered the tent for the last time. Jimmy took a pair of shearling moccasins out of his pack and put them on. Lucy put on an extra pair of socks. They were set for the duration.
Though the Farm kept a radio watch around the clock, Jimmy seldom checked in. However, under the circumstances, he had decided he should, to let those at the Farm know he’d found the bulbs and they were settled in for the storm.
Jimmy attached the Miracle Whip tunable portable whip to the Yaesu, punched in one of the frequencies the Farm monitored and filled them in on the situation while Lucy set up the MSR Whisperlight Internationale single burner stove in the front vestibule of the tent and began to heat water to prepare a freeze dried meal, and for hot tea and coffee.
After he’d finished the radio contact, Jimmy checked the weather instrument again. The barometric pressure was still falling. Looking out of the vestibule window of the tent, Lucy said she could barely see the Suburban and there were already several inches of accumulation since they’d stopped. Both could tell the wind had really picked up, the way the tent was shaking occasionally, despite having set up the tent on the downwind side of the Suburban.
“This could turn into a real blizzard,” Jimmy said. “Boy, I miss the Weather Channel.” As they began to eat they discussed a few of the things they missed with the way civilization was now. They also discussed some of the positives. Though it was still fairly early they turned out the tent lamp and went to bed.
Sometime during the night Jimmy heard Lucy stir and get the second blanket with which to cover her sleeping bag. By his luminescent watch it was a little after 2:00 AM when Lucy stirred again and softly called over to him.
Scavenger Page 7
