An Undeclared War (Countdown to Armageddon Book 4) (20 page)

     “Oh, no. John’s been picking wildflowers and bringing them up here to the nurse’s station every Tuesday since he got released from the hospital. He says it’s the least he can do for the angels who saved his life. It’s a small gesture, but he’s a really sweet guy. Most of the staff just swoons over him.”

     “Including you?”

     The question caught her off guard.

     “No, not me. He… he’s not my type. But he’s a sweet loveable hunk anyway. Let’s talk ab
out you. How are you holding up?”

     “Well, I’ve got a very sore foot. So not that good.”

     “I can see your foot, silly. You should have come in immediately. Now it’s infected. But that’s not what I was talking about. I’m talking about you. Emotionally. You know, it’s one of those things that’s very important but that big tough guys don’t like to talk about.”

     “I’m okay. I have good day
s when I can just relive the great times Joyce and I had together. Then I have the bad days when I’m sullen and moody and just want to punch my fist through a wall. On those days I blame myself a lot. I tell myself I should have been there. That I could have saved her.”

     “Unless you’re Superman and have the capability of catching bullets in mid-air, that’s not the case. From what I heard your family was brutally attacked. Your being there wouldn’t have changed that.”

     “I know. But if I had been there maybe she wouldn’t have been in that particular window at that particular time.”

     “Scott, if she hadn’t been in that window, somebody else would have been. Which other one of your loved ones would you rather have lost instead of Joyce?”

     “I guess I never thought of it like that. I just feel sometimes that if I hadn’t brought medicine for John, I wouldn’t have gotten shot, and I’d have been there. Maybe I couldn’t have prevented Joyce from dying, but at least I’d have been there with her.”

     “Or… you could look at it another way. If you hadn’t brought John his meds he would have died. You likely would still lost Joyce in the gunfight because she still would have been in that window shooting. Only then you wouldn’t only have her death to deal with. You’d also be blaming yourself for John’s death. You’d be beating yourself
up for that, saying if only you’d brought him some medicine he’d still be alive.”

     Scott sat silently and looked at her.

     Becky took his hand and said, “Besides, Scott. If you hadn’t brought John his meds, you’d never have gotten shot yourself. And that means you never would have met me. And you may not know it yet, but I’m a great and loyal friend. I’m the kind of friend who will always watch out for you, even when you do stupid things like step on nails.”

     “Hey, I didn’t see it, okay? It could have happened to anybody.”

     She sighed.

     “You’re right. It could have. So let me rephrase that. Stepping on a nail was an accident. Waiting for four days to get it checked out, that’s what was stupid. Really stupid. Now, can we agree on that?”

     “Yes, I suppose we can agree on… OW!”

     She was poking and prodding on the swollen hole in the bottom of his foot.

     “Sorry. Just need to make sure there aren’t any bits of rust or other debris in the wound.”

     “So, tell me, Doc. How do we tre
at an infected hole in the foot?”

     “Well, the infection is pretty far advanced. I’m afraid that amputation is really the only option we have left.”

     “What?”

     She smiled, and he couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was when she did.

     “I’m kidding, silly. I’m going to give you two shots. One is for tetanus, the other is an antibiotic for the infection. We’ll dress it and get you a padded boot to wear for the next few days. We’re out of the black ones. The only ones we have left are light blue. But it’ll feel a lot better than trying to stuff that swollen foot inside your shoe.”

     She left to get the needles, and brought back the wrap
-around therapeutic boot with her.

     “Hey, that thing is way too ugly. I don’t want to wear that.”

     “Listen, hard head. I know you’re afraid you have this big macho image to maintain, and that John and Robbie and Randy will all make fun of you for stomping around with a Frankenstein foot. You just tell them that I’m not afraid of any of them. And that if they don’t back off I will personally come and kick their butts. That should shut them up.”

     Scott laughed.

     “You probably would, too, wouldn’t you?”

     “Yep. In a heartbeat.”

     She scrubbed the wound on his foot and he winced.

     “Come on, don’t be a baby. You didn’t even make those kind
s of faces after you were shot.”

     “It didn’t hurt this much when I got shot.”

     “Yeah, right. Are you going to cry like a little girl when I give you your injections?”

     She was smiling. Scott knew she
didn’t mean it as a mean remark.

     “No. Well, maybe.”

     She dressed the wound.

     “I’ll be right back. Don’t go away.”

     She came back a minute later with a latex glove she’d blown up like a balloon and then tied off.

     On each side of the thumb, she drew a large eye with a sharpie. On the bottom of the thumb she drew two nostrils, and a smiling mouth beneath it.

     “It looks like a bizarre little man with a Mohawk haircut,” he said.

     “This is Homer. We give one of these to all the
little kids when we give them shots. It helps take away their tears.”

     “How’d you know I don’t like shots?”

     “Hey, I cared for you for seven weeks while you were recovering from that gunshot wound. I know more about you than you realize.”

     “And I thought my fear of injections was my last great secret, the one nobody knew about.”

     She laughed.

     “Honey, you should never try to keep a secret from a woman who’s seen you naked. I used to bathe you, remember
? You have
no
secrets I don’t know about.”

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     By the time Scott picked Rhett up and carted him away, Rhett had picked up a lot of hints to take back with him to Baker Street.

     Lisa and Jason liked the man. They’d hit it off instantly. They invited him back anytime, to learn more about gardening and such. Or, just to visit and pass the time on a slow shift
.

     “And I’ve decided to be a cop full time,” he told Scarlett that evening. We’d always dreamed of buying our own home, but never could afford on
e. Now’s our chance. The house next door and the one next to it are owned by the city too. After we each work two years, we can own all three outright. We can tear two of them down for firewood, and have a heck of a back yard to raise our kids.”

     “Kids? I thought we were waiting on the kids.”

     “Oh, honey, we can’t wait forever. If we have the back yards of three houses combined, we can’t let all that space go to waste.”

     Scarlett laughed at his logic.

     “Well, that’s the best reason to have children I’ve ever heard.”

     He grinned sheepishly and said, “Yeah, I guess that does sound pretty silly, huh?”

     “Don’t get me wrong. I want to have kids. But I want to wait a couple of more years, when the world is more normal again. And John says his wife Hannah is the best midwife in Bexar County. I’d like to wait until she comes home so she can help me get through my first pregnancy. In the meantime, let’s just focus on our new jobs, okay?”

     “Okay.”

     There was a knock on the door. It was their friends Mike and Anne.  Andy and Gloria were just behind them, walking up the sidewalk.

     “Hey, you guys. Come on in.”

     Andy asked, “So, what’s this about you having all these great ideas for turning this block into a farm?”

     “Yeah. I spent the day with some great people out west of us a few miles. They don’t scavenge for food anymore. They grow everything they eat.”

     “Seriously?”

     “Yes. They don’t have to worry about what they’re going to do when all the trucks and supermarkets are emptied out of food.”

     “The supermarkets are already empty.”

     “Yes. And the abandoned trucks aren’t far behind. Most of them have been pretty well picked through by now. We’ve wondered for a long time what in the world we’d do when there was no more food in the trucks. This is our solution.”

     “Okay. But if we’re going to stay here and listen to your evil scheme, you’re going to have to cook us dinner.”

     Scarlett walked into t
he room just in time to hear Andy’s comment.

     “Sure, that’s no problem. In fact, I was planning on serving a wonderful meal. The appetizer is chicken flavored Ramen noodle soup. Our exquisite main course will be pork flavored Ramen noodle soup, drained and on a plate. And for dessert, we’ll have Ramen noodle pie. Topped with more Ramen noodles.”

     “Sounds delish. I can’t wait.”

     The four sat around the dining room table and tossed around ideas. Long after their bowls of oriental soup were gone, and into the night they sat there, illuminated by a single candle in the center of the table.

     They decided their first course of action was to block the end of the street with abandoned cars. It had become the unofficial warning set up by block leaders across the city. The message it sent to outsiders was clear:

    
This block is no longer open to looters. Go somewhere else.

    
Mike and Andy volunteered to work the project first thing in the morning. It so happened there were several older cars at the end of the block. They’d give them running starts and roll them over the curbs, so they could build a wall of cars that stretched from one corner house to the other.

     “Then we’ll start clearing trees.”

     “Okay. But how, exactly?”

     “I already talked to Scott. He said at the end of our shift tomorrow we’ll hit a couple of the abandoned Home Depots. He said the last time he was there, they had chainsaws and tillers with pull starts. The old fashioned kind. And also wheelbarrows and shovels. We’ll load up what we need and bring them here when he drops me off.”

     “Well, now it all makes sense.”

     The other eyes
turned to Anne.

     “I’ve seen the police cars driving around several times with big boxes and wheelbarrows strapped to the back of them.
I always wondered what that was all about.”

     “But what do we do with the trees once we cut them down?”

     “We lay them in the street and cut them up as we need them for firewood. I was out looking at them today, and there’s at least enough trees in the front yards to burn wood in all the fireplaces for a couple or three years. If we want to grow crops in the back yards as well, that’s two or three more years’ worth of firewood.

     “Just think of it. No more freezing our cans off in that cold apartment building. On the cold nights, we can just bring a
mattress downstairs and sleep in front of the fire.”

    
Gloria added, “Yeah, that’s fine, if you have a fireplace. What about those of us who don’t?”

     “I thought all the houses on the block had fireplaces.”

     “Ours doesn’t.”

     “Really? You might want to think about moving. I’ve heard it’ll be years before they repair enough equipment to get the city’s power restored. Fireplace heating is going to be with us for awhile. Think about moving into another of the vacant houses, one with a fireplace. When we run out of trees to burn in a few years, we can start dismantling the houses without fireplaces and burn them.”

     “You know it’s going to be a hell of a lot of work, cutting all those trees down and planting all those crops.”

     “Hey, you no longer have a television or the internet. What else do you have to do to occupy all your time?”

-39-