The Homecoming: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 5 (23 page)

     “Wow. I had no idea. And you say all the camps are like this one?”

     “This is one of the better run camps. But yes, they’re all like this. Oh, some of them are sponsored by churches, and have some limited adult supervision, but the male to female ratio is pretty consistent.

     “I wanted to bring you here to show you two things. First of all, that it’s not the paradise of free will and no rules that you might think it is. One of the first things a new arrival has to do is prove his worth, to become part of the group. The way to do that is to work hard and not make any waves or break any of the rules. Everybody is expected to pull his fair share, and that involves some very long workdays. No one gets a free ride. So even if you found a girl and she chose you over the other fourteen boys competing for her, you still wouldn’t have much time for romance.”

     “Maybe running away and coming here wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

     “Ain’t no ‘maybe’ about it.”

     “Then how do I meet girls and fall in love? I mean, everybody has somebody except me, and little Misty.”

     “Well, there’s a thought. You’re only five years older than little Misty. I don’t think her parents will let her date you until she’s eighteen. But you’ll only be twenty three. That’s not too old to start a family.”

     “Very funny, Dad. Dating Misty would be like dating my sister. And I’m
not
waiting until I’m twenty three.”

     “Sorry. Actually, I’ve given it some thought and talked about this the last couple of nights with your mother. Becky and I are taking you back to the compound with us, but once you’re there we’re going to loosen your reins a little bit.”

     “Meaning what, exactly?”

     “We’re going to start giving you more freedom. You won’t be able to go crazy, but you’ll be able to get around more on your own.

     “You see, Kerrville and Junction and the surrounding area is much safer now than it once was. Certainly much safer than San Antonio. It’s safe enough up there to the degree that your mom and I feel comfortable with you getting out by yourself, with certain limitations.”

     Zach was intrigued.

     “Go on…”

     “We’re going to give you one of the Gators. I mean, we’ve got three of them, and they’re so dependable they almost never break down. We certainly don’t need three, so we’ll make one of them yours. You can paint racing stripes on it, or soup it up with Holley headers, or whatever you want to do with it.

     “With your new wheels, you can drive all over the county. Tom knows everyone, and he can introduce you to all the families that have teenaged girls, and he’ll even vouch for you by lying and saying you’re a good kid.”

     “Very funny.”

     “Seriously. He’ll give the families his personal word that you will respect their daughters if they’ll let you date them. Just don’t let him down by proving him wrong.”

     “You know I’d never do that.”

     “Then, once the introductions are made, you can visit the girls whenever you want, subject to the stipulations that your mother and I, and the girls’ parents, lay down.”

     “Such as what, for example?”

     “For example, no overnighters. You must be back by sundown or you’re grounded. Also, you must tell us
exactly
where you’re going, and you’ll have to understand we might check up on you. And that the girls’ families will have their own rules, and you must abide by those rules as well.”

     “What about horses? If I meet a girl who likes to ride, can I take her horseback riding?”

     “Yes. And we have enough stock now so you can even let her have her own horse. But not until you get serious. I don’t want to give away a horse a month if you change girlfriends that often. Let’s say, you can let her ride any of the stock, and when you’ve been going steady for a year, you can let her pick her favorite horse as an anniversary present.”

     “Okay, let’s stop now, before you make up any more rules.”

     “Okay. So it’s a deal?”

     “Yes, sir. It’s a deal.”

     It wasn’t until they were back in front of the Emily Morgan Hotel, climbing back into the police cruiser, that Zachary thought to add, “Thanks, Dad. You’re the best.”

              -45-

     Departure day was an adventure unto itself. The goodbyes had all been said, the packing had been done, and now the only thing left was the getting there.

     “How much space are you going to need in the trunk?” Scott asked his bride.

     Becky looked at the car and pondered the question for only a second before taking on the look of a girl with a problem.

     “A better question might be, “How many more trunks do you have?”

     Scott took everything out of the trunk. The shovels and body bags, the fingerprint kit he’d never used, the spare tire and jack…
everything.

     “What if we have a flat tire?” John asked.

     “We’ll be on I-10. There are thousands of abandoned vehicles. We’ll just find another full sided Ford and raid its trunk.”

     “Is that legal?”

     “We’re cops. Everything’s legal.”

     “Good point.”

     The pair managed to stuff half of Becky’s belongings into the trunk of the Crown Victoria, and gave up on the rest.

     John said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll bet you a million dollars that Hannah and the girls have at least as much stuff and more. This weekend I’ll make a second trip up, bring the rest of Becky’s stuff, and pick up the rest of Hannah’s. Fair enough?”

     Problem solved.

     Now the people had to be loaded.

     The cruiser was so chock full of computers in the front seat, and a heavy steel and Plexiglas cage encroaching into the back seat, that there was scant room to sit comfortably anywhere.

     In fact, there was only about six inches between the back of the front seat and the front edge of the back one.

    This had never been much of a problem before. The thinking was that anybody bad enough to be stuffed into the back seat probably didn’t deserve to be comfortable. They were just told to turn sideways as best they could and deal with it.

     Scott even had a routine answer to answer any complaints he got: “Suck it up, Buttercup. You’re going to jail. There ain’t nothing comfortable about jail.”

     But this was different. For the first time, he’d have to put people he loved back there.

     Becky, bless her heart, gave up the front passenger seat to John and his long legs. John put up a half-hearted fight, but she insisted.

     And she never told anyone how uncomfortable she was for the ninety minute drive to the compound.

     Zachary, also in the back seat and almost the exact size as Becky, knew. The two spent much of the trip wincing and making silent faces at each other.

     Meanwhile, the men in front made comments like, “Hey, this isn’t so bad after all. It’s actually a pretty nice trip.”

     John didn’t know that immediately after making the comment, Becky pointed her middle finger at the back of his head. Zachary immediately broke up in laughter, gave her a high five, and the two had a moment they could both recall later as a bonding experience.

     Starting about a mile from the compound, the group began noticing helium filled balloons tied periodically to the shrubbery alongside the highway.

     As they left Interstate 10 and turned onto Highway 83 at the Junction exit, the balloons became closer and closer together.

     By the time they reached the compound, they were spaced every ten feet.

     Scott’s first question, as he stepped from the vehicle to find everyone at the compound in their front yard with open arms, was “What’s with all the balloons?”

     Linda answered for the group.

     “That’s your welcome home. We’d been looking for a use for that case of balloons we got off the Walmart truck a year ago. Then Tom found a tank of helium at an abandoned warehouse in Kerrville.”

     “It must have taken some time to blow up and hang them all. There must have been a hundred of them.”

     “Almost two hundred. But it kept us from just sitting around and watching the clock while we were waiting for you. Now, let’s get everything unloaded and get inside. We’ve got a feast waiting.”

     By the time John, Hannah, Rachel and Misty got back on the road and headed toward San Antonio, it was nearing darkness.

     By the time they rolled up into their driveway an hour and a half later, the girls were sound asleep.

     Randy and Robbie, who’d been John’s roommates since Hannah’s departure almost a year before, had moved out during the day and taken up new residence in an abandoned Tudor three streets away.

     Hannah, expecting to walk into a house smelling something akin to a men’s locker room, was pleasantly surprised.

     “I was expecting to find smelly socks and dirty underwear all over the place. This isn’t half bad.”

     “Don’t kid yourself. Two days ago it was
all
smelly socks and dirty underwear. It took a lot of scrubbing and Pine-Sol to get it to this point.”

     “Be careful carrying the girls to their room. I don’t want you to wake them.”

     John did what he was told, carrying his delicate cargo slowly and deliberately. He laid each of them into their turned down beds, tucked them in, and tenderly kissed each of them on their foreheads.

     “Let everything else stay in the car until morning,” Hannah directed.

     John didn’t need to be told twice. He’d been missing his wife in many ways, and had been looking forward to showing her how much.

     For her part, Hannah was as ravished as John was. They showered together and retired to the bedroom to become intimate.

     In the heat of passion, they could be forgiven in not noticing their squeaking bed.

     The girls heard it, though. It was a noise they hadn’t heard in a very long time, and it had become alien to them.

     Rachel, a teenager now and therefore knowing everything there was to know, simply smiled as she turned over and went back to sleep.

     Little Misty said, “Ewwww!” and covered her head with her pillow.

              -46-

     It took a monumental effort on his part, but Robbie Benton waited a full three weeks to put his evil plan in motion.

     At least every other day during those three weeks, he made a point to visit the Castro house, and to try to work his way back into the hearts of Hannah and the girls. He brought candy and flowers, to welcome them back.

     He brought games and teen magazines, pilfered from local businesses, to give to the girls.

     He even brought a puppy he said he found wandering along the side of the road. He’d actually stolen the animal at gunpoint from a family of drifters.

     Robbie Benton was a bad man.

     He hadn’t always been that way, though. In the days before the blackout, he was a man of morals and a man with a good heart. Sure, he coveted another man’s wife, but like nearly all men in similar circumstances he never expected to act on it.

     The blackout and its aftermath, though, devastated people in a lot of different ways.

     It drove some to desperation. Some turned to stealing to get by. Some became dangerous, either to themselves or others.

     Some simply gave up and took their own lives.

     And some went insane.

     It didn’t help that Robbie, as a policeman, saw the absolute worst that humanity had to offer.

     The stress of the blackout, added to the additional pressure of having to pick up and burn human bodies each and every day, combined to take a toll on Robbie’s fragile mind.

     First, he saw the frailty of man. He saw how quickly a human being could deteriorate into an animal, and then to nothing at all.

     It caused him to devalue mankind in general, to consider people not as human beings, but as little more than livestock.

     And once he crossed that threshold, it became easier for him to kill.