The Broken and the Dead

Sometimes people break; they can’t go on to face another day. The walls close in around them; the air grows thick and unbreathable. The very voices that they need to hear the most merely swirl around them; a mad song of mumble words that hammers at their temples; makes them dizzy and they vomit; bile and despair sour on their tongues. That is what happened to me and I had no reason to believe that anything would ever be different.

While I lay nearly comatose the others listened to OMT’s tale. He told them everything he could remember while they unloaded the cab of the Freightliner. They took the rifles, shotguns and handguns from the bags and sorted the weapons and counted the ammunition. There was a reading room on the first floor and it was converted to an armory, each and every weapon was checked and checked again. He explained to them how the Zs were changing, becoming not only faster and harder to kill but smarter too, showing tactics and strategies. They tried to absorb the new information, process it in an intelligent manner but there was no simple way to do this except to just accept it. They were the enemy and there was no room for compassion, hesitation or mercy anymore. If humanity was to survive they would need to be just as brutal as the monsters we were to fight.

Mrs. Driscol with Lucy at her side kept watch over me while Mrs. Franks kept watch over her husband who did very little except sleep. Elaine and the others had finally opened the trailer attached to the back of the big rig. There were no firearms in the trailer at all, which was a great disappointment to OMT but there were two 5000 round cases of .22 long rifle but that was all as far as ammunition was concerned. In a bizarre twist there were several dozen pairs of hunting boots in assorted sizes. One cardboard box held hunting knives. There were sleeping bags and several Coleman stoves as well as an entire case of Maglite flashlights, they were the new L.E.D. types and took 4 D cells each. There were also four complete soft sided hunting blinds and one that had legs and sat 5 feet in the air. That one had rather rigid sides made of plastic, windows and even a door.

I wished for an end to it all but they made plans. Janey, Elaine, Kyle and Karen showed OMT the way they had hidden the entrance. They had used layers of cut brush rather than a single wall; they had set them at odd angles like a bizarre game of pick-up sticks. Then they showed him the hair pin path required to drive through their obstacle. They had even dug a few ditches and while they would not stop a Humvee or even a four wheel drive they would certainly give grief to any passenger vehicle trying to come up the drive way without knowing the path.

Then it was Kyle and Karen to show off; it seemed that the Frank’s lodge had a shop about 100 yards from the house itself. It was out of sight and they used it to store a tractor and its attachments; a front end loader and a brush hog that was mounted off the back. Best of all they had an air compressor and just about every air tool imaginable. Most important to them was a roofing nail gun; they had found a stack of replacement privacy fence panels on the side of the shop. They took the 6” wide boards from them and using the framing nailer drove dozens of 10 penny nails in a two inch square pattern. They laid them under leaves and brush all along the forest edge. There was a decent chance anyone or anything coming through there would end up driving those nails through their feet. OMT was impressed and he said so; he asked them how they thought of that and Kyle said he saw a documentary about the Viet Nam war once and how they had used ‘poop sticks’.

“Poop sticks?” OMT asked curiously, then he smiled, “You know, I guess that works, the VC often smeared human feces, poison plant oils or even the guts of certain poison frogs on sharpened punji sticks.”

So from then on, Kyle was in charge of PSM&P; poop stick manufacture and placement.

They set up the elevated blind off to one side of the circle drive so that the front of the house was in its field of fire but from the road it was invisible and from the circle drive it was behind any aggressors; they set it up with a scoped .308, food, water, binoculars, and even some hand warmers. OMT proceeded to move all the vehicles behind the house and backed them into the tree line effectively obscuring them from casual view. What no one noticed was just how far back he hid the cars that had belonged to Janae Livingston and those she had died with, to see those cars one would have to be looking for them.

Sometime in the afternoon I was visited by Old Man Tucker, he had a plate of food for me and a glass of water. He sat them by me on a little table but didn’t try to force feed me, one thing I was grateful for I suppose. He told me what they had done since day break; he talked about Lucy and Karen. He told me about the poop sticks and the hunting blind. He didn’t seem upset or sad or even overly happy. He just was. After about three quarters of an hour he rose and he stopped at the door he said

“I could use your help John, I really can.”

I slept again but when I woke I sat up. I found the food on the plate didn’t really look that good anymore, the mac-n-cheese had a shiny skin on it and I never did like succotash much less room temperature succotash. But I did pick up and eat the small stack of saltines and then I drank the water. I got out of bed and felt the room swim a little as I did, I stepped over to the window and looked outside. I saw OMT and Elaine they had the hood of the Humvee up and were talking about something. I saw Lucy and Karen Morena, they were in the back of the military vehicle and were playing some game or another. The game they were playing apparently involved peeking at each other over the back of the driver’s seat. I laughed in spite of myself when I saw that Robert Bear had entered the game on Lucy’s side.

Suddenly the door opened to my room and Mrs. Driscol came in, “Johnny.” she said in a whispered voice and rushed to me. She held me in her arms and pressed my face to her bosom, for the life of me I didn’t know if I was more thrilled or upset by the event. I gave up trying to understand and let her hug me, maybe it wasn’t as bad as all that.

“Johnny, I was so worried about you”

She ran her fingers through my hair.

“And not just me Johnny, all of us.”

After a few moments I realized she was waiting for me to say something but I didn’t have anything to say.

“Johnny, do you want to tell me about what happened?”

I looked at her and wondered how I could ever tell anyone about what was going through my mind, so I just shook my head ‘no’. She looked at me then said

“Well, we don’t have to talk about it, let’s go downstairs okay? We are going to have an early dinner and Mr. Tucker wants to talk to everyone.”

Goody.

I went with Mrs. Driscol down the hall towards the staircase. She very deftly changed the subject,

“Johnny, I was wondering, do you happen to know Mr. Tucker’s first name?”

I looked at her and said

“I don’t think he has one.”

She laughed at me, pinched my nose, and said “Of course he does.”

What I didn’t tell her was that OMT wasn’t like most people; Old Man Tucker killed people and monsters alike, without hesitation, without mercy. Not that I really minded anymore, he was the poster boy for the end of days.

They had moved the tables in the dining area into a circle more or less. There was food laid out and pitchers of tea and water. Elaine and Lucy came running to me and hugged me fiercely, Elaine kissing my head and Lucy kicking my shin. There were other greetings then we all sat at the tables, the only ones missing were Mr. Franks and Kyle. Mr. Franks was sleeping and Kyle was on the roof on guard duty.

Once we started to eat OMT spoke up;

“I’m not trying to run things here, I just want to start off the conversation.” Several of them nodded with that ’sure, sure’ expression that meant that they didn’t believe a word of it.

“We need food supplies” he said, “and we need to make provisions for the future.”

I ate and watched them, I listened to the conversation, they talked about gardens and canning supplies, this led to a discussion about raiding nearby towns and a short list was drawn up. I put some jam on a piece of bread and they talked about clearing a field. OMT said that it had to be close enough that it would not pose a danger to anyone going to work in it but far enough away and well hidden enough that it did not draw attention to us at the lodge. He said we could ‘ring’ the trees, cut deeply into the bark all the way around so that the leaves would die and not grow back in the spring. We could use the tractor to plow around the existing trees and plant right among them. Maybe not the most efficient and it would not have the highest yield but we could even get some fall crops in, lettuces, cabbages, things like that.

It sounded like an awful lot of work but I didn’t mind, I was drinking tea by then. That was when he said that he intended to scout the three little towns on our short list and map out what he could but first he wanted to take the afternoon and go over our new weapons. Everyone needed to know how to load, clean, and fire them; everyone. Needless to say Lucy was quite excited, Mrs. Driscol was apprehensive and Elaine was bored with the prospect.

Once lunch was over we gathered in the armory and OMT began going over the weapons, everything he had now was more powerful, more deadly than what we had before. At least he hoped that was the case. Someone, Mrs. Franks perhaps, had made labels and very neatly organized our weapons. From now on, if a weapon used a magazine, then every magazine for that weapon would be fully loaded and set next to the firearm itself, ready for use. If a weapon did not, for example the shotguns and the revolvers then those weapons would be stored loaded, but if possible, open so that the users would see that they were indeed ready for action. This left only the pump and semi-automatic shotguns, they would be left loaded but with the actions open. He begged everyone to be careful and to respect them. He had made drawings for his ’sight alignment-sight picture’ lecture. He talked about breath control and squeezing the trigger. Thus our gunfighter’s mini-lessons were finally complete and we spread out for our agreed to tasks. Funny how for a man who wasn’t in charge, things pretty much went the way he wanted them to. Asshole.

That night we played cards, well some of us did, Mrs. Franks watched her husband, OMT walked guard duty and I watched the others play cards while I looked at the yellow note pad with our agreed to ‘shopping list’. Everything was itemized; instead of tools he had written:

Gardening: 6 shovels, 2 pickaxes, 6 garden rakes, 3 hoes, 3 leaf rakes, 2 sledge hammers, 1 maul, 6 splitting wedges, 3 pry bars, 3 axes, gas powered chain saw and at least one bow saw.

Construction: 6 hammers, full set flat and Phillips head screw drivers, hand saws with various cuts, cold chisels, wood chisels, 2 levels, mason’s twine, rebar and wire, metric and SAE socket sets, 10d nails, treated 2x4s, 2x6s, and plywood. Tarps, deck screws of various lengths and a .22 caliber nail gun.

What on Earth was a .22 caliber nail gun? Anyway, he went into similar details about seeds and fertilizer, I noticed that the lists for clothing, shoes, coats, etc. and the list dealing with pharmaceuticals was done in a different handwriting. Elaine? I doubted it. Mrs. Franks? No way. It had to be Janey or Mrs. Driscol. Suddenly the thought of either one of them wanting to do anything to help him upset me and I slammed the notebook to the table getting shocked stares from every else. I still wasn’t ready for him to be, well, anything, so I stomped up the stairs to my room and went to bed. I pretended to be asleep when Elaine and Lucy came into the room.

Elaine asked if I was asleep but I kept my eyes shut and didn’t answer her. My sisters climbed into their bed and started to talk about who knows what but when I heard Lucy mentioned Mr. Tucker and my ears perked up.

“I miss mommy” Lucy said.

“I know honey, I do too, every day but you know what? I think mommy is up in heaven right now and she is watching over us.”

Lucy said “hmmm…”

She whispered to Mr. Ronald Bear and then proclaimed the verdict.

“Ronald Bear thinks you are right and that she has a TV that she watches us on.”

Elaine had that voice that said she was about ready to laugh but she was able to say

“Is that right? Is it color?”

“Yep, color AND black and white too. And it has 50 million inches and cable.” Lucy proclaimed. “And it has steromophic sound.”

“Ah, of course it does” Elaine added.

There was quiet for a while then Elaine asked

“Is there something wrong Lucy? You can tell me.”

There was a long silence then Lucy whispered

“Sometimes I want Mrs. Driscol to be our new mommy and Mr. Tucker to be our new daddy.”

I was furious, how dare her, she was only a little kid but this was betrayal I could not even begin to understand. My mother only gone less than a week and we don’t even know if Dad was even dead or not. I hated her, I felt tears on my cheeks but I didn’t move and I stifled my sobs. Elaine petted her, and ran her fingers through Lucy’s curls.

“I think you just need to feel safe and I think mom would understand. I bet that Mrs. Driscol wouldn’t mind either. What would you call her? Mom? Mother Driscol?”

I heard Lucy say

“Hmmmm...I think I will call her Mrs. Driscol and Mr. Tucker I will call Mr. Tucker.”

“I think they would like that.” Elaine said.

“Ronald Bear says he will call them Mr. and Mrs. Ducker so he only has to remember one name.”

“Maybe we should we should warn them just in case Ronald says something to them?” Elaine asked.

Lucy then said “Don’t be silly they don’t speak bear.”

Well, maybe I didn’t actually hate Lucy but it still didn’t make me very happy that Lucy was even thinking about things like this. My Mom was my mom and Dad is my dad until I learn otherwise. Elaine and Lucy talked for a long time about how Lucy thought that Mrs. Driscol actually liked Mr. Tucker that they made a cute couple after which Elaine laughed and said

“I guess so, but don’t you think he is a little old?”

Lucy said that both of them were old and she estimated their age at 19 at least. After that I didn’t really want to hear any more of those conversations.