AFTER THE DUST SETTLED (Countdown to Armageddon Book 2)

by Darrell Maloney

  “Either that, or they’ve finally realized that people have no more food to give them.”

  “Is your water still flowing?”

  “Oh, yeah. The water plant got their second generator running, and their last pump has finally been repaired. The water is flowing fine. Too bad the food issue isn’t so easy.”

  “What’s everybody doing about food?”

  “Eating what they can. We’ve got the hospitals reporting cases of poisoning from people eating animal carcasses and poisonous plants. They’ve already looted all the food from the grocery shelves. What’s scary is they’ve looted all of the rat poison and insecticides too. I guess that’s the Plan B for people who don’t have guns, when they get desperate enough. FEMA’s continuing to do what they can, but it’s not enough.”

  “FEMA’s helping? How?”

  “They’ve got five tractor trailers they’ve got running. And they’re showing up every day and going to the various high schools to distribute food packets. One per person, first come first serve, but each one is supposed to have enough calories to keep someone going for three days. I don’t know where they’re getting them, and they won’t tell us. I guess I can’t blame them. If people knew where they were stored they’d probably be overrun. I know secrets are sometimes necessary to protect yourself.”

  “Hey, listen, John, about that. I told you the first time we talked that I was calling in from Dallas. I lied, and I feel bad about that. It’s just that I didn’t know who you were, and I wanted to protect my family.”

  “Oh, hell, Scott. I know that. I know you’re close to San Antonio. And I don’t care specifically where. And don’t worry about lying about it. We all do what we have to do to protect our families.”

  “You knew? But how?”

  “It’s a no brainer, really. Why would somebody in Dallas be so anxious to help out the San Antonio Police Department? Why wouldn’t you help out the Dallas police instead? And also, the more we talked, the more obvious it became that you were from here. I mean, you’re familiar with the roads and highways that go through here, you’ve asked about things in certain neighborhoods, and even mentioned certain schools.”

  “I’m sorry I lied.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal. But I’m glad you came clean. And I promise that I’ll never ask where you are. I’ll just assume that you’re somewhere close by that’s safe. And to be honest with you, my friend, it gives me some comfort that there are still safe places out there. I’m hoping we can make San Antonio safe again sooner than later.”

  “How are you holding up? Not the department. You, and your family?”

  “As well as can be expected. My wife shot at a prowler the other night. She was in hysterics when I came off shift, but I couldn’t find a blood trail so I think she missed the son of a bitch. She’s terrified that he’ll come back, but hopefully he got the message and will stay the hell away. My daughters have started calling her Wonder Woman.”

  “It’s nice that they can find a bit of humor in the situation. Do they have enough to eat?”

  “It’s getting thin, but we’ve been prepping since before the whole Mayan thing in December of 2012. Just like you won’t tell me where you are, and I really don’t want to know anyway by the way… I won’t tell you how much food we’ve got stashed. I will tell you this. My wife Hannah is really struggling with the morality of all this. We don’t have an abundance of food, but we’ve got enough to survive for a while. And she looks out her window and sees people walking down the street, heading out of the city. And they’re starving.

  “And the Christian part of her wants to take these people in and feed them. But the mother part of her says no. That every bite she gives to a stranger is a bite she’s taking out of the mouths of our daughters. So she lets the people walk on by. But it’s tearing her up inside.”

  “Wait a minute, John. Did you say people are leaving the city?”

  “Oh, yes. Droves of them. By foot. The rumors have spread that some of the smaller towns around San Antonio that don’t have as many people as San Antonio have food to spare. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I doubt it. But people by the thousands are hearing those rumors, and they’re desperate. Because they’re starving. So they’re packing backpacks full of bottles of water and what little food they have left. And they’re striking out on foot. And they’re collapsing on the highways and dying there. The city has four dump trucks running and that’s all they do now. Just drive around and pick up dead bodies, like last week’s garbage. And they take them to the nearest high school and throw them on the burn pile. They say we’ve lost a third of the population already, and they’re expecting no more than ten percent to survive this.”

  Scott had heard enough. He’d been using a headset lately when talking to John, so nobody else in the house could hear how bad it was on the outside. Now he didn’t want to hear it either.

  “I’m signing off now, John. I’ll check in again in a couple of days.”

  “Are you a praying man, Scott?”

  “Yes. Although to be honest I’ve lost a lot of my faith lately.”

  “Oh, God’s still out there. I look at this as just another means of cleansing God’s earth, much like the great flood. Most won’t survive this ordeal, but some will. And perhaps those that do can lead more righteous lives. Would you do me a favor, Scott, and say a prayer for us?”

  “Yes, John. I’ll do that. And to be honest, we’ve all

  been praying for you and your family every night. And for the whole city of San Antonio, after we found out how bad it was. So, yes. We’ll continue to pray for things to get better soon.”

  “Thank you, Scott. You stay safe and we will too. Signing off.”

  -17-

  There were some days when Scott really had a hard time living with himself, knowing what he knew about what was going on in the outside world. He purposely withheld many of the gory details from the others to spare them the same pain and self doubt he was having.

  On the one hand, he felt like the coldest son of a bitch on the planet. Like a guy who’d walk down the street in normal times and kick a hungry man in the teeth for asking for a handout.

  On the other hand he’d say no. This was what he signed up for. This was what he knew what was going to happen when he began preparing for the biggest disaster ever faced by modern man. That it was his duty, as a father and lover and friend, to protect the people in his group, for as long as he could.

  And he went back and forth each and every day. Sometimes several times a day. He’d alternate between self hatred and pride in himself that he’d provided for his family when most other men missed the opportunity. And he tried to convince himself that anyone could have made preparations as he did, and been spared the wrath of the solar storms.

  And then he wondered if he did wrong by keeping the old professor’s notes to himself. Maybe he should have stood upon a mountaintop and announced it to the world.

  Of course, then they’d have likely locked him up. Or at least his friends would have thought him crazy and abandoned him. Considered him an outcast. They’d have scoffed at his assertion and ignored him.

  And they’d have wound up in exactly the same situation they were in now.

  In the end he decided that, knowing what he knew and loving the people he loved, that he’d done the right thing. That someday he’d die and he might well wind up roasting in hell for all eternity.

  But at least his family and friends would survive. And so would his grandchildren, and their grandchildren. The name Harter would stretch into perpetuity, when a lot of other names wouldn’t.

  But that wouldn’t necessarily mean it was right.

  He did what his friend John asked, and continued to pray for John and his family. And he went one step farther and said a prayer every night for the city of San Antonio.

  It was, quite literally, the least he could do to sleep at night.

  -18-

  It was abou
t a month after Tom came to stay with them that he and Scott finally finished the old Faraday barn. They’d turned it into a respectable studio apartment, about the size of a two car garage, with a half bathroom and some of the furniture from Tom’s house.

  Scott had used the Bobcat to scrape dirt from the ground, and built a berm three feet high at the end of their road. They’d never seen any sign that the men who tried to steal Tom’s car had returned, but they wanted to make it apparent to them that they were not welcome down this particular road. Nor was anyone else.

  The makeshift sign they’d installed in the berm drove that point home. It said:

  NO TRESPASSING. ANYONE GOING PAST THIS POINT WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT

  NO WARNING SHOTS WILL BE GIVEN

  They still heard gunshots occasionally. But they were usually quite some distance away, and usually in the hours around dawn. That told Scott they were probably deer hunters.

  And he wasn’t keeping track of the number of shots, but it occurred to Scott that they were getting fewer and fewer as the weeks dragged by.

  Which would make sense if they were indeed deer hunters. As the population of available deer dwindled, Scott expected the gunshots would stop altogether.

  Linda had had a brief romance with Tom Haskins in the months before the EMPs struck, and they rekindled it. She waited until the kids went to bed at night and Joyce took her regular shift at the security console. Then she tiptoed out the back door and spent the night with Tom, getting up early enough to relieve Scott on security duty at dawn. Tom was pulling his own shift now, as well as his share of the chores, and everybody seemed to be getting along great.

  Linda’s big secret was no secret, of course. The kids knew. They just didn’t say anything. Linda had been abused emotionally and sometimes physically by a long line of boyfriends since her divorce from Scott. Her sons remembered the nights she cried herself to sleep, and the days when she tried to hide her bruises from them.

  Jordan and Zachary liked Tom. And they were glad she’d finally found someone who was good to her.

  And good for her.

  So they knew. But they didn’t let her know they knew.

  Perhaps it was because Linda was no longer sleeping in the house that another problem arose. Of course, the two didn’t necessarily have any direct correlation. But on the night when Jordan got up at 3 a.m. to get a drink of water, and then tiptoed down the hall on his way back to bed, things might have turned out differently if Linda had been there.

  Perhaps if she had, he’d have followed the rules when he heard Sara softly crying.

  And to give him his due credit, he tried to follow the rules. He crept quietly past Sara’s door and back to the room he shared with Zachary.

  Zach was sound asleep on his side of the room, snoring softly and dreaming whatever dreams teenaged boys dream.

  And Jordan lay in bed for awhile, trying to go back to sleep.

  And wondering what would be troubling Sara so much that she sobbed quietly in her bed instead of going to sleep herself.

  He struggled mightily with his dilemma. On the one hand, his more chauvinistic instincts told him he should swoop in and save the day, asking her what was wrong and fixing it, whatever it was.

  His other side, the side that always obeyed his parents, told him no. Whatever was bothering Sara was her business. That there were plenty of people willing to listen if she wanted to share her problems. And that perhaps tomorrow, in the light of day, he could take her aside and ask her if there was something she wanted to talk about.

  It might have been the fact that he cared for this girl, and truly felt he was in love with her. Or it may have been his raging teenage hormones subtly pushing him in that general direction.

  Or perhaps he just saw it as the kind of thing a gentleman would do, perhaps what his father would do, under similar circumstances.

  In the end, it didn’t matter what drove his decision. The result was the same.

  He tapped very lightly on Sara’s door. For a few moments there was utter silence. Then the door opened.

  He saw the tears on her cheeks. The redness in her eyes. And whatever resolve he’d had before was gone forever. He gently pushed open the door and wrapped his arms around her. He whispered, “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

  She whispered back, “I can’t tell you. I want to. But you’ll hate me.”

  “I could never hate you. I love you. Now tell me how I can help make things better.”

  “Would you… would you lay with me for a little while?”

  Jordan slowly pushed her bedroom door closed. And didn’t sneak back out again until just before daybreak.

  -19-

  “No. I will not let you do it.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. It’s not your decision to make.”

  “It’s not yours either. It’s God’s decision. If he wants Duchess to have a large litter of puppies, it is His will. Who the hell are you to say you have a right to second guess him?”

  Joyce was outraged.

  It wasn’t often that she and Scott argued, but this one, this one had the potential to be a real doozy. The mother of all spats.

  And she hadn’t even heard him out. All he did was mention that Duchess was about ready to deliver. And that they needed to keep the children away from the newborn pups until he had a chance to cull the litter. And get rid of the ones they didn’t need.

  She hadn’t let him get beyond that point, when she went into a rage.

  “Cull the litter? You mean kill the ones we don’t want? Like they’re nothing more than used Kleenex, and deserve no better than to be thrown out with the garbage? How dare you even think of such a thing?”

  Scott had tried to explain that their supply of dog food was finite. That it wouldn’t last forever. And that at some point they’d run out, since they couldn’t grow more. Moreover, with no way to spay or neuter their dogs once a new litter was born, they’d be overrun in just a few years. That dogs could multiply almost as quickly as rabbits if they weren’t controlled.

  And now that Blue was here, the supply of dog food would be depleted even that much faster.

  Joyce didn’t want to hear any of it.

  “Bullshit, Scott. You’re a better man than this. There has got to be another solution that doesn’t involve the killing of innocent creatures.”

  Linda and Sara walked into the room, and Linda asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Scott wants to save our next generation of dogs. One male and one female. And then he wants to murder the rest of the puppies.”

  Linda and Sara shot him daggers with their eyes. Linda said, “Scott! Seriously? You’ll kill puppies?”

  “Look. It’s something I’ll take no pleasure in doing. And it’ll be painless and quick. I’ll do it before they even open their eyes. They’ll never even see their mother. They’ll never even know what life is all about. And they’ll feel no pain, I promise.”

  Tears welled in Sara’s eyes.

  “But surely there’s another way.”

  “Honey, I’m sorry. We only have so much dog food stored. There’s no way to get more, and it’s something we cannot grow. If we have too many dogs it will run out that much faster. And if it runs out before the world is sane again, we’ll have to face the choice of feeding the dogs our own food or putting them all down so they don’t starve to death.”

  Zachary was on the security console. He listened in but didn’t add anything to the fray. Jordan, in the corner of the room, went to Sara and hugged her.

  Tom was outside feeding the livestock.

  Scott was certain that if Tom were in the house at the time, then he’d hate Scott too.

  Linda asked, “Have you asked Tom if maybe he could go to the feed store where he worked? Maybe he could load down his old car with bags of dog food. I’ll bet if he crammed that sucker full it would hold another two years worth of food”

  “I thought of that. It won’t work. You can’t get to Tom’s old feed store witho
ut driving through Junction. The people there have got to be armed and desperate. There’s no way they’re going to just let a man in a car drive right by them without trying to block his path and taking it from him. Or even worse, just shooting him as he drives past.

  Joyce finally put down her foot.

  “You will not put down any puppies. I forbid it. We will figure out a solution. We’ve been able to solve all of our other problems without killing innocent things. We’ll solve this one too. And I swear to God, Scott Harter. If you harm just one innocent puppy, I will never speak to you again!”

  In the end it was a moot point.

  And it was a huge burden off of Scott’s shoulders when Duchess finally gave birth two days later. To one healthy male, and one healthy female.

  They had their next generation of dogs. When Duke, Duchess and Blue passed on, there would be two puppies to carry on the cycle of life. And with any luck, by the time they had to make such a decision again, the world would be back to normal again.

  Now all they had to do was keep Duchess away from Duke and Blue when she went into heat again.

  -20-

  “Hey, John, you got your ears on?”

  “Hello, Scott. How are you doing, buddy?”

  “I’m good. I’ve tried to reach you three days in a row now. I was starting to worry.”

  “Yeah, well, sorry about that. My generator bit the dust. The engine started smoking real bad while I was on duty. Hannah, bless her heart. She’s a wonderful woman. But she doesn’t know beans about anything mechanical. She saw the smoke, and the only thing she could think of was to throw water on it. And all that did was make it spit and sputter a bit. But it kept on running until it burned away all the oil and seized up.