Oil Apocalypse Collection

by Lou Cadle

  His mind went to the horrible scene he’d witnessed with Emily, and he wondered if Rudy’s mother might have suffered a fate like that. Dev tried to imagine his mother in that situation, and couldn’t. She’d fight to the death. Probably take at least a few of her attackers with her on her way out.

  He tuned in and out of their conversation, looking out the window most of the time, keeping Oliver in his peripheral vision. Unless Rudy was a great actor, he was no threat.

  An hour later, Rudy’s head was on his arms on the table, his eyes closed. Oliver was playing around with tipping his chair back and finding the balance point. Every time he lost balance, he either grabbed the table or let the chair hit the floor, and Rudy’s head jerked up. But then he lay it down again and closed his eyes.

  Dev heard his father calling his name. He went to the back door, opened it, and said, “In here.”

  Moments later, his father and Curt Henry walked through the door. Rudy sat up, and Oliver let his chair settle back. “These two are Rudy and Oliver,” he said. “This is Mr. Quinn and Mr. Henry.”

  “How many of you are there?” Oliver said. At the same time Rudy said, “Hi,” in a faint voice. He was staring at Curt, and it took Dev a second to remember that Curt was strange-looking.

  “Plenty of us,” said Dev’s father. “Now, the question is, how many of you are there?”

  “Two?” Oliver said, with a hint of sarcasm.

  “And you don’t have more friends somewhere nearby?”

  “No, sir,” Rudy said.

  “Can I have my gun back?” Oliver said.

  “We’ll see.”

  Dev’s father sat at the table and started quizzing the boys. Where had they grown up? Did they go to school? Church? Why hadn’t they stayed in Payson? What had they seen there? Had they raided any houses or broken in to any? Shot anyone?

  Dev wasn’t sure exactly what answers he was looking for. He didn’t know which he’d want to hear himself. You didn’t want someone nearby who’d been shooting people left and right in the hopes of getting a ham sandwich. That kind of person might shoot you in the back for yours.

  After twenty minutes, his father was finished with his questions. “Henry? You have anything to ask?”

  “I think you covered everything.”

  “Okay, boys,” Dev’s father said, “the three of us are going out to have a chat. Stay put.”

  As they walked out to the garden, Dev said, “There are probably kitchen knives and so on. I didn’t clear the place of weapons.”

  “Not necessary,” his father said. “Think of it as a test. They try to surprise us when we open the door, we have an answer. And a problem and clear solution, all at once.”

  “Right,” Dev said, feeling the weight of his rifle in his hands.

  They all stopped at the garden gate. The ropes they’d used to tie the boys were still on the ground. His father said, “So, Henry, what do you think?”

  “Nothing new beyond what we talked about at home. We run a risk in letting them stay free. We also have a potential benefit in having them here, like your wife said. Distant early warning system.”

  “Dev?”

  “Rudy is innocent, I think. Maybe a little slow, maybe not. He’s never shot a firearm.”

  His father waved that away.

  Dev said, “Oliver is belligerent.”

  “I picked that up.”

  “I figured you’d hate him.”

  “As long as his belligerence is directed at attackers, I couldn’t care less.”

  “But if you want to take them in,” Dev began. Then he couldn’t think of a good way of ending that sentence.

  His father said, “Not any time soon. Let’s do it this way. We’ll give them a chance to prove themselves while living here. We’ll bring them grain or beans once a week to augment what’s growing here. Curt brought a single trap. We’ll see how they do with that.”

  “They could sneak up at night and ambush us,” Dev said.

  Curt said, “I don’t think they have the skills. If they were exactly the people they are, but ten years older, I’d expect they were sandbagging us. But I think they’re genuine.”

  It doesn’t mean their lack of experience won’t bring us trouble,” Dev’s father said.

  “So what’s our plan?” Dev asked.

  His father said, “We’ll leave them here, teach them a little something, and see if that cell phone gadget works. Might not reach all the way to us.”

  “Might be difficult in this terrain,” Curt said. “I’ll assume it’s line of sight. A radio broadcast without much power behind it.” He knew more about radio than the rest of them did, though he had said he was no expert.

  And so the three of them returned to the kitchen. They weren’t ambushed. The kids weren’t shot. They were taken through a series of crash courses—on trapping, on cleaning the pistol, on how to watch for trouble, and what was expected of them in case of trouble.

  And they were told about what had been happening up here the past five or six weeks. “I want you to know what might be coming,” Curt said after he’d finished describing the battles they’d been in.

  Oliver said, “We can’t fight off a dozen people. Not with one gun.”

  “No, you can’t,” Dev’s father said. “In fact, you’ll probably not use the gun for anything but dispatching animals in the trap. You know how to clean a squirrel or rabbit?”

  “No,” Rudy said. Oliver shook his head. And so that required another crash course, given by Curt, on dressing small game.

  Finally, they had Rudy take them through how the cell phone gadget worked. Dev’s father had brought two phones, in case the kids didn’t have one, but Rudy had his. It was low on charge, so they plugged it in while the five of them walked the edges of the property, scoping out animal signs and the best place to put the traps. They stopped at the garden, and in a few sentences, Dev’s father reminded them of what they had to do. “You have three gardens here. Water them. Weed them. Keep them up, and they’ll feed you.” He’d brought a single loaf of bread and told them to make it last. “We won’t be back here for several days. You two are on your own until then.”

  Then they worked with the cell phones, figuring out how the things worked as walkie-talkies. They could actually speak when they were near to each other, but Rudy said that after a short distance, you could only text. “Otherwise, it’s all static. You can tell someone is talking, but not what they’re saying.”

  Dev’s father told them that they would test the cell phone device on their way home. “Every ten minutes, I’ll send a text.”

  “Why?” Rudy said.

  “Looking for the limit of its range.”

  The last thing they did was give Oliver back his gun. But not his bullets. “I brought you more rounds.”

  “How did you know what it needed?” Oliver asked.

  “My wife told me the model. Simple. Anyway, I’m going to leave those on the back porch of the first house. You wait five minutes after we leave, and then you can go get them.”

  “Why not hand them to me now?”

  “Because I don’t want you shooting me in the back, son,” his father said, with exaggerated patience.

  And that was it. The boys were left on their own.

  The three of them drove away, testing the cell phone system on the way up the hill. Just short of their road, it stopped working. They drove back down the hill a couple of miles for the next text and told Rudy to walk out just to the end of the road, then they drove up to the end of their road and tried again. This time, the text went through. The last text they sent was, “Text us from the road if something bad happens.”

  Chapter 12

  Sierra helped the men haul the car and battery over the log. They were getting pretty good at it, taking no more than five minutes to get it across with a combination of brute force lifting and a come-along. There was also plenty of yelling at each other to watch their fingers and toes, because dropping even the lightweigh
t electric car on your foot would do it considerable damage. They parked it in the Quinndriveway.

  Arch showed his phone screen to Joan. “Know these two kids?” He must have taken a picture of Rudy and Oliver when he was there.

  “This one looks familiar.” She tapped the phone. “The one on the right.”

  “Oliver. And Sierra, you knew his face too? So that part of their story checks out. At least we know they aren’t from Phoenix. That’s slightly reassuring.”

  The men split off to go home and Sierra hung back with Joan, who was on guard, and asked how things were going.

  “So far, it’s not much work. Guarding, I mean. The garden and hens are a little work, and Jasper is the most work of all.”

  “But don’t get complacent about being on guard, okay?”

  “I won’t.”

  “When trouble comes, it comes fast. Maybe when you’re asleep in bed. Maybe here.”

  “I understand. Run through those whistle signals for me again, would you? Just to make sure I have them.”

  Sierra did so and then taught her the alternative click signals they’d worked out when Sierra’s own fear had made it impossible for her to whistle. It wasn’t a problem for her any more, but it might be for Joan.

  “Okay, that’s great. I think I have them. Thanks for your help.”

  “Anything you need, I’m happy to do for you.”

  “There is one thing. You had a dog?”

  “Yeah, Bodhi. He was a great dog.” Sierra still felt choked up whenever she talked about him. In a way, it felt like a lifetime since his death, so much had happened since then. But in a bad moment, it felt like yesterday. She worked out the timing. Not two months yet.

  “I could use help with that. We’ve never had a dog, and Jasper is getting spoiled. Can you possibly teach Misha how to train her? Kelly said your dog was well trained.”

  “He was easy to train. You only had to explain something to him maybe twice, and he got it. Hardest thing for him to learn was not to panic when my father climbed one of the turbine towers. At first, he used to pace and whine under them until Pilar came down.”

  “I’ll do the part of the job where Misha has to be disciplined to discipline the dog. But if you could give her some pointers, I’d appreciate it.”

  “You all need to be on the same page when training a dog. You, Misha, Emily.” Sierra thought of how Bodhi had responded to her unconscious gestures so well that she had invented a few hand signals. That’d be a good idea with this dog—or not with this dog in particular, but in this circumstance, where you might want to keep quiet because of enemies being around. If Jasper was smart and trainable, what might she be taught to do? Take messages, maybe? Then the dog would have to know names or locations. “Take this to Kelly”—that sort of thing. Could a dog distinguish nine people? Hmm. She’d think on it.

  She dropped by her own barn to the basket where she’d put all of Bodhi’s things. She felt a stab of guilt and grief when she looked at them. There was a six-foot leather leash, coiled neatly. Jasper had a collar on, which unfortunately did not have a name on it anywhere, just a plain red woven collar with a buckle and a metal loop to attach a leash. She grabbed the leash, strung it through her belt loops, and walked to the Kershaw place to see what was happening. Misha was playing with the dog. “Hi, Misha. Where’s Emily?”

  “Inside.”

  “Let’s see if we can get her to come out.”

  “She doesn’t want to.”

  “She’ll have to one day,” Sierra said. “I know she’s upset, but there’s work to do. And sometimes work is the best thing for us when we’re upset.”

  “She’s scared.”

  Sierra nodded. “I know. She’s safe here. And so are you. The bad men are miles away.”

  “Okay,” Misha said, making for the house, but she packed a lot of skepticism into that one word.

  “What chores has your mom given you?” Sierra asked.

  “I help with picking things and cleaning.”

  “You collect the eggs?” Sierra had, starting at a young age.

  Misha shook her head. “The chickens peck.”

  “They won’t, once you gain confidence.”

  “They peck my mom too.”

  “Same thing with her. Once you feel like you know what you’re doing, they sense it, and they let you do your work. Unless a hen is broody. Then sometimes you have to trick her.”

  “What’s broody?”

  “That means she wants to brood. To sit on a nest of eggs and hatch chicks. That’s not so great if you want her eggs, but fine if you want her to have chicks.”

  “They do that?”

  “They do. In fact, when these pullets are a little bigger, I’ll help you fix it so that a couple of the hens do brood.” Mitch really only needed eggs for one, and he had plenty of money to buy meat. The Kershaws would need more laying hens, and the days of buying wrapped meat at the store were gone.

  “There will be cute little chicks?”

  “Yeah, they’re cute for a short time.” She glanced down at Jasper, who was trotting alongside. “You’ll have to train Jasper not to kill them though.”

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t know. Arch says she’s trained to hunt. So she might. And chicks are so small at first they fit in your hand, and they can’t defend themselves. You could even kill them if you aren’t super-careful. We’ll have to teach her that it’s wrong to bother the chickens.”

  When they came to the back door, Misha said, “C’mon, Jasper.”

  “No, you should get used to leaving her outside.”

  Misha’s face took on a rebellious look. “Why?”

  “So she can be a watchdog and tell us if anyone is coming.”

  “Someone bad you mean?” Now she looked worried.

  “Right.”

  “But if someone bad comes, they might hurt Jasper too.”

  “Dogs run pretty fast. Faster than you or me. And they can bite.”

  “People can bite. There was a kid in my school, Ryan, who bit people until second grade.”

  “Wow. That’s mean.”

  “It hurt too!” She rubbed her arm as if it had happened recently.

  “You’re in fourth grade?”

  “Fifth.”

  “Okay, so here’s what we say to Jasper. Jasper, stay here.” She used a serious tone and made eye contact with the dog. “Stay.” Then she opened the door a crack and motioned Misha through. When Jasper tried to follow, she blocked the dog with her leg and said, “No. Stay, Jasper.”

  “Don’t be mean to her.”

  “That’s not mean, honey. It’s for the dog’s own good. You want to have them obey you, and quickly, or they might get hurt.”

  “How?”

  “Like if they run out into a road and get hit by a car.”

  “Nobody can drive cars now.”

  “Good point. So if they run toward some other danger. Like if they go after a skunk or porcupine or are about to step in a trap. Curt has animal traps all around his property. You wouldn’t want Jasper to break her leg in one, right?”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Does he have animal traps?”

  “It’s how he gets food to eat. Meat, I mean. That’s what we eat here. Wild meat, vegetables from the gardens, eggs, and cockerels.”

  “What’s that, cockeralls?”

  “A cockerel is a young male chicken.”

  “You don’t eat the girl chickens?”

  “Not until they’re old or quit laying. Old ones you stew. The young cockerels are what you use to make fried chicken. You like chicken, right?”

  “Nuggets,” she said.

  “Your mom can learn to make nuggets from the stewing hens.”

  “How?” They had stopped in the kitchen. Jasper’s nose was pressed against the screen.

  “She’ll grind the meat to make it more tender, salt it, bread it with flour or corn flakes or something, and fry it i
n oil. Pilar did that for me when I was your age.” As long as the oil and flour and corn flakes lasted, Joan could do it for her kids.

  “You know a lot.”

  “I know about living out here, and a very little bit about cooking. And a lot about dogs,” she added, wanting to establish her authority on the matter. “Let’s see if Emily will come out.”

  Misha opened the door to the master bedroom, where the Morrows had both died. Sierra wondered if anyone had mentioned that to Joan yet. Probably not, though she did recall Dev or Arch mentioning the suicide. The girls were staying here. Joan must sleep on the sofa. A pair of stuffed animals sat on the made bed.

  “The bed is high,” Misha said, climbing onto it. “I was scared at first that I’d fall off.”

  “You might get a bad bump if you did,” Sierra said. She looked around. “Where’s Emily?”

  “In the closet probably.” She knocked on the closet softly. “Come on out. It’s me and Sierra. You know, the one who came and made us leave the house.”

  Odd that she thought of it that way, not as a rescue. Sierra felt a pang of resentment and then reminded herself Misha was just a kid and young for her age. Fifth grade though. Sierra thought that was about when she started having romantic thoughts about boys. Unformed and confused romantic thoughts, with no idea how to act on them, but the beginning of it nonetheless. Misha didn’t seem on the cusp of that at all.

  Emily didn’t answer.

  Misha said, “I’m going to open the door now,” and reached to the closet doorknob. It didn’t move. “Let go, Emily.” She sounded like she had some practice in this already. “It’s just me.”

  “And me,” Sierra said, trying to sound as non-threatening as she could. “I was thinking we could go outside and see what tricks Jasper might know.”

  There was no answer. Misha tried the knob again, then let go and sighed. “She won’t come out.”

  They left the room. “Is she eating with you?” Sierra was worried the child would sit in the closet until she starved herself to death.

  “She did at breakfast. Sometimes she eats in there. Mom said she’ll get better.” She sounded doubtful.

  “I’m sure she will. She needs to know she’s safe, I suppose. And she is. She’ll be safer still if we can get Jasper trained to protect all of you.”