AFTER THE DUST SETTLED (Countdown to Armageddon Book 2)

by Darrell Maloney

  “You’re young, Zach. There’s plenty of time for you to find a special girl. I’m hoping with all my heart that the world calms down enough someday to allow us to venture out. There will be other survivors, and some of them will be girls about your age. And I’m sure some of them would love to spend time with a boy like you.”

  Jordan couldn’t help himself.

  “You mean a brainless freak?”

  “You must be looking in the mirror, shithead.”

  “All right, you two. Be nice before you scare the fish.”

  “What fish?”

  The fish must have heard Jordan’s words. For it was at that exact moment that Scott had his first nibble.

  They’d finally decided they were hungry after all, and within another hour the three were on their way back to the house with a stringer full of catfish.

  “Dad,” Zachary asked as they walked along. “Do you think Amy is okay?”

  Amy was the love of Zachary’s life, his one big crush, and the girl he reluctantly left on the outside when they left San Antonio.

  I think so, Zach. I’m sure she has a mom and a dad who care just as much for her as we care for you. And I’m sure they’re doing all they can to keep her safe.

  “If we can go back to the city sometime, I want to find her again. I think she’s the one I want to marry.”

  As promised, the boys cleaned the catch while the girls relaxed. Well, most of the girls. Sara had security duty, so she sat at the console watching the monitors and occasionally stole a glance into the den. When Hope Floats was finished, Linda put in Pretty Woman. Joyce switched places with Sara, since Sara had never seen the movie and Joyce had watched it a thousand times.

  In the kitchen, Scott had cornbread in the oven, battered catfish fillets in the deep fryer, and ranch style beans on the stove. Jordan and Zach were teaming up to make Cole slaw with cabbage and carrots they’d picked fresh from the garden out back.

  For some reason, out of the blue, Scott thought of his friend and neighbor Tom Haskins. He didn’t know whether Tom even liked fish, but he wished he’d invited him over for dinner. It was probably too late now. Tom had told him before that he liked to eat early, so he could turn in as soon as the sun went down and he turned his generator off.

  He decided that he’d take the leftovers to Tom the next day, find out if he liked fish, and invite him to come along the next time they went fishing. Tom was a good man. God fearing, honest and tough. Scott had liked him the first time they’d met two years before when Scott walked into the feed store where Tom had worked, and they’d become good friends since.

  -14-

  Just after midnight, the group was awakened by a flurry of gunshots. Scott, Linda and Joyce went running downstairs to the security console, but there was nothing to see. All of the cameras were operating properly, but showed no prowlers, no sign of movement at all.

  “Which direction did they come from?”

  “I’m not sure. I think from the woods on the other side of the power lines. But it was hard to tell.”

  “No. I think it was more in the direction of Tom’s place. I hope he’s okay.”

  Scott picked up the walkie talkie. “Tom, this is Scott, can you read me? Just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  Nothing.

  Scott wasn’t surprised. Tom had said he only turned the walkie on when he was going to call them. He said he wanted to conserve the batteries. It had sounded like a good idea at the time. Now it sounded like the worst idea in the world. It hadn’t occurred to anyone that there might be times when the group might want to call Tom.

  Scott made a mental note to give Tom more of the rechargeable batteries, and to tell him to leave the walkie on all the time.

  He tried again.

  “Tom, this is Scott. If you can read me, come in. If you’re under duress, key the mike twice.”

  Still nothing.

  “I’m going over there to check on him.”

  But the women didn’t think it was such a good idea. And they ganged up on him.

  Joyce said, “No you’re not, Scott. If he’s under fire, he’s capable of defending himself. And if he needed your help, he’d have called us by now.”

  Linda added, “She’s right, Scott. If you go out there and there are bandits at Tom’s place, you’re likely to get shot yourself. And what good is that going to do to help the situation?”

  “I can’t just leave him over there by himself. He may be outgunned.”

  “Scott, stop and think about this. He is a strong man. He’s old school. He’s an experienced cowboy. He can defend himself. He said as much when we tried to talk him into coming in here with us, remember? He said not to worry about him, to worry about whoever tried to come after him instead. He said it with a laugh, but he was confident he could defend himself and his property.”

  Linda added, “And we’re not even sure where the shots came from. They may not have been anywhere near his place. But here’s what we do know for sure. He’s got a walkie talkie and he knows how to use it. And he knows we monitor channel five twenty four hours a day. If he needed your help, all he had to do was turn on the walkie and say so. And he didn’t. So that means either he’s got things under control, or the shots didn’t come from his property, or he’s still sleeping soundly and never even heard them.”

  “Linda’s right, Scott. If he needed help he would have called by now. If you go over there in the dead of night and start poking around, he may think you’re a prowler and you may get shot yourself. And that’s a tragedy none of us are willing to risk. In the morning, if Tom hasn’t called in, you can go over there and check on him. But you’re not going anywhere until morning light.”

  The kids were all up and watching the debate. Scott looked at Jordan for support but could tell by the look on Jordan’s face that he agreed with the women. The kids liked Tom Haskins just as much as the adults did. He was kind to them and funny in an easy going way.

  But none of them thought it wise for Scott to risk his life to help a man who didn’t ask for help and in all likelihood didn’t need it.

  Scott was all alone. So he finally surrendered. Joyce made hot chocolate for everyone, since they were up anyway. Scott monitored the security console, and picked up the walkie at least five times to make sure it was on and the volume was up. His sons raided the refrigerator and heated up leftover fish and cornbread in the microwave.

  Joyce and Linda stood in the kitchen, watching Sara watch Jordan eat. They sat at the dining room table together, holding hands and staring dreamily into each other’s eyes.

  None of the romance movies they’d watched the previous evening had anything on these two. They were watching true love blossom before their very eyes.

  Joyce eventually relieved Scott at the security station and he went to bed. He slept fitfully, still worried about his friend and might have happened at his place during the night.

  -15-

  Scott was up well before dawn and had already formulated his game plan. Just in case Tom’s place had been overrun during the night and was occupied by marauders, he decided not to show up in a vehicle. They’d be able to hear it coming, and would likely shoot him off of it as soon as he came into view.

  He also thought it was a bad idea to enter from the front of the yard. If marauders were expecting the cavalry to come, that’s where they’d be watching.

  No, Scott had a better idea. His property and Tom’s shared a common fence line, on the north side of Scott’s property. It was barricaded by toppled mesquite trees now to prevent intruders from sneaking up on the group, but that wasn’t a problem.

  Just before sunrise, Scott put his side arm on, threw his AR-15 over his shoulder, and kissed Joyce goodbye.

  “Please be careful,” was all she said.

  Scott walked out the front door and north of the compound. He climbed aboard the Bobcat and drove it to the fence line, where he tied a chain to the trunk of one of the mesquite trees and dragged it out of the w
ay.

  Then he very carefully climbed over the barbed wire fence and made his way slowly toward Tom’s ranch house two hundred yards away.

  As he neared the house, he wasn’t sure what he’d find. The handgun he carried on his side was already charged and ready to fire. He carried the AR-15 at the ready, just in case.

  And he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw no marauders in Tom’s yard. Instead, he saw Tom himself, working underneath the dashboard of his old Ford Galaxy 500.

  The hood was raised, and Scott assumed he was having trouble getting it started.

  “Good morning, Tom.”

  Tom crawled out of the car and offered his hand.

  “Well, good morning, good neighbor. Where in hell did you come from?”

  Scott laughed.

  “I took the scenic route, through the back door, so to speak.”

  He pointed in the direction he’d come from.

  “We heard some shooting last night, and we were afraid it may have come from here. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  As he spoke, he cleared the rifle and put it back on safe. Then he leaned it up against the rear fender of the old Ford.

  “Well, there was a bit of trouble, Scott, but it’s all over now.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was sleeping all peaceful, and I was woke up by voices. I sleep fairly light, you see. Anyway, the voices were coming from the front yard. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I had a suspicion they were up to no good.

  “So I took my 30.06 out the back door and went around the corner of the house to get a good look at them. They had the hood of my car up, and were trying to figure out how to hotwire the son of a bitch.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “I fired a shot over their heads and told ‘em to get the hell off of my property. Well, they took off lickity split thinking the next round was gonna get one of ‘em in the head. One of ‘em turned around and fired three or four shots on his way out, but he didn’t hit anything.”

  “Do you think they’re still around?”

  “Nope. Me and old Blue followed their scent up to the highway. They headed east from there but were nowhere in sight.”

  “You went after them in the darkness? Don’t you think that was kind of foolish?”

  “Probably, but nobody ever accused me of having any common sense. Anyway, I had the odds on my side. I had a dog and they didn’t. But they were long gone, so nothing else came of it.”

  “You know they’ll come back. Probably with reinforcements. Your car is worth more than gold to them. They won’t give up until they have it.”

  “I know.”

  “Did they do any damage?”

  Tom laughed uproariously, catching Scott totally off guard.

  “They were rank amateurs. Probably couldn’t touch their ass with both hands if you gave ‘em three chances. They tried to hotwire the damn thing, probably going by what they saw some actor do in a movie. They crawled up under the dash and snipped the first two wires they found. Then tried to cross connect ‘em to start the car.”

  “And I’m guessing it didn’t work?”

  Tom laughed again.

  “Hell no. The idiots snipped the wires to my radio and to my turn signals.”

  Now it was Scott’s turn to laugh.

  “How much damage did they do?”

  “Next to none. I don’t ever expect to use the radio or the turn signals again, so I just taped over the cut wires and that was the end of it.”

  “Okay, so that fixed the small problem. The bigger problem is that they’re coming back, and you know it. Only this time they’ll have to shoot you so they can get the keys. And once you’re dead, they’ll not only take your car, but they’ll take Bonnie and Blue too. So what’s your plan to deal with that problem?”

  “Well, my friend, that’s pretty much up to you and the girls.”

  “Meaning what? Are you saying you’re finally going to do what you should have done in the first place and join us?”

  “Well, when you put it that way it makes me sound like I’m a might stubborn.”

  “Only because you are.”

  “I suppose if I argued, it would just prove your point.”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, then. I give up. I honestly didn’t think the violence would make it this far.”

  “Maybe it was an isolated case. Maybe they won’t be back. But they know you have this car and they know it runs. So my guess is, they’ll keep coming back until they get it. And if they fired back at you, then they don’t mind using force to take it.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. You sure you don’t mind me moving in over there?”

  “Nope. We don’t mind at all. We’ve got a partially finished basement. We can put you in there until the winter time. You’ll have it all to yourself, so when the kids get on your nerves you’ll have someplace quiet to hang out. The only thing is, it gets cold down there in the winter time. So before the weather gets cold, we’ll convert the old Faraday barn into a bachelor pad.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to put you through any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. You see, we’ve already bought all the materials. The toilet, sink and shower, all the pvc pipe to connect it to the plumbing system. All the conduit, outlets and wiring we need to power it. Even insulation and sheetrock. It’s all sitting in a big pile in one of the other Butler buildings.”

  Tom gave him a puzzled look.

  “We told Jordan we would use all the materials to make the place for him. So he could feel more like a grownup by having his own place, of sorts. The problem is, when we evacuated, he brought Sara along. And that’s not a problem. We’re all getting to know Sara, and she’s quickly becoming part of the family.

  “The problem is that Jordan doesn’t see her as a sister. He sees her as a hot chick. And he’s a teenager with raging hormones. So is she, by the way…”

  “Okay, I get the picture. You’re afraid if Jordan has his own place, that she’ll sneak out at night and they’ll do some things they have no business doing.”

  “Exactly. If they’re in the same house as us, it’ll be easier to keep track of them.”

  “And you’re sure that Joyce and Linda are okay with me crashing their party?”

  “Shoot. They told me if I didn’t talk you into it they were going to hang me by my ankles and castrate me. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  Tom winced.

  “No. Wouldn’t wish that on any man. Especially a friend.”

  “Okay, it’s settled. How soon can you move over?”

  “Well, by the end of the day I suppose. I’ll have to make several trips with the Ford to take all of my Walmart stuff over there, and a few furniture items and clothes and such. But what if those bandits come back while I’m moving?”

  “I’ll sit at the end of the road, where it connects with the highway. If I see them crest the hill half a mile away, I’ll call you on the walkie talkie. You’ll have plenty of time to get there to back me up. And I’ll have the boys help you. They can drive two of the Gators and it’ll go a lot faster.”

  “Thank you, Scott.”

  “Don’t mention it, partner. That’s what neighbors and friends do for each other. Now why don’t you start loading up. I’ll head down the road to keep watch. And I’ll get the boys out here to help.

  “Have you gotten everything you need from the Walmart trailer?”

  “Yep. Done cleaned her out. At least of the stuff I can use.”

  “Good. Maybe after we get you moved in and settled we can figure out a way to barricade the end of the road. Maybe put a big sign that says trespassers will be shot. Maybe it’ll discourage your friends and others from coming to call.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

  Once he made sure the highway was clear, Scott called in on the walkie.

  “Joyce or Linda, come in.”

  “Go ahead, honey. How is he?”


  “He’s fine. But I need the boys. Can you put them on two Gators and send them over? I’m going to the end of the county road. I’ll keep watch while they’re over here, but they’ll need to have walkie talkies in case they need to get back to the compound in a hurry.

  “And can you open up the back Butler building and do some rearranging in it? See if you can make some extra space?”

  “Sure. But what are the boys going to do?”

  “They’re going to help move boxes. Tom’s moving in.”

  Both women smiled.

  But Linda was most happy, and it didn’t escape Joyce’s notice. Linda had taken a shine for Tom Haskins since the day they’d met. And she wanted to spend more time with him.

  Joyce winked and said, “Well congratulations, sweetie. Looks like Santa’s bringing you an early Christmas gift.”

  -16-

  Scott called John Castro on the ham radio every few days now, just to stay abreast of the situation. John was the San Antonio police officer he’d talked to about the process for getting some of SAPD’s patrol cars working again.

  That was two months before. They’d become friends of sorts, although they’d never met in person. There weren’t a lot of people John could talk to away from the job, and to him Scott was a reminder that there were still places in the world where people were relatively safe, the environment more or less serene.

  “John, this is Scott, are you on?”

  They’d stopped using the required FCC call signs weeks before, deciding that they were an unnecessary burden.

  “Go ahead, Scott. How are things in Dallas?”

  Scott winced. He’d told John the first time they’d talked that he was calling from Dallas because he didn’t want to disclose his true location. Now every time John mentioned it, he felt he was living a lie.

  “Things are okay here, my friend. Are they getting any better in San Antonio?”

  “Well, I don’t know about better. But they appear to have stabilized. We’ve got enough vehicles running now to collect the bodies. They’re burning them in several of the high school parking lots, because people are dying faster than they can be buried. Suicides, mostly. But the crime spree has pretty much stabilized. The bandits have either all been shot by homeowners, or they’ve finally come to the realization that knocking on doors without an invitation is tantamount to a death wish.