An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) (13 page)

     Dave knew better. If the feet were too warm they’d sweat. And over the course of several nights, they’d develop into something akin to trench foot. Not to mention the socks would be damp when the average Joe got out of the bags. And damp socks would make the feet even colder in the temperatures outside the bag.

     Dave knew the smart way to go was to remove his socks once he got into the bag. That way his feet didn’t get too hot, and didn’t sweat. And they had the chance to breathe for a bit after being in socks all day long.

     Another thing he’d learned, going back to his winter camping days with the scouts, was to keep a change of clothes inside the sleeping bag with him. It was common practice for his scout troop, winter camping in south Texas, to toss a full change of clothes into the bag with them at night.

     Sure, they were all wrinkled by the next morning. But nobody cared. They were camping, not putting on a fashion show.

     But along with the wrinkles came something else. Something good. By morning, when the scouts woke up, their change of clothes was close to body temperature. They could change inside their bags instead of coming out in the cold air to do it.

     Dave had gotten quite good, back in those days, at changing in his bag. He could still do it in about the same amount of time he could change outside the bag.

     He chuckled, remembering the first time Sarah and the girls tried it.

     It took them forever. Especially Sarah.

     He’d laughed at her and she’d fumed.

     “Oh, shut up,” she’d said. “You try to untangle a bra and put it on in a sleeping bag. You men don’t know how easy you have it.”

     Little Beth had piped in.

     “Yeah, you tell him, Mom!”

     His smile melted away, his jovial mood turned to sorrow. He wondered if he’d ever hear those voices again.

     He felt around in the bag for his socks and put them on his feet. Three pairs. Half of them were probably inside out, but he didn’t care.

     He slipped out of the bag and put his socked feet into the oversized slippers Sarah had bought him. They were corduroy on the outside, lined with fake fur on the inside, and a full size larger than his size ten foot.

     “Why so big?” he’d asked.

     “So you can put them on your feet with three pairs of socks on, silly. You certainly won’t be able to get your shoes on.”

     As usual, her logic had been sound. Between the socks and the slippers, his feet were just as warm as they’d been in the bag.

     He shivered from the cold as he put his heavy parka on, then shuffled outside.

     For a brief moment, he panicked. He thought all the rabbits had gotten out. They were nowhere in sight.

     But first things first. The blast of frigid air seemed to have loosened his bladder even more, and he really needed to go.

     He went over to the outhouse he’d built the spring before, not even bothering to close the door behind him. There was no one to watch. Not even, apparently, the rabbits.

     He noted a dark yellow tint to his urine, which didn’t surprise him. He already knew he needed more water. He’d remedy that once darkness came a few hours later and he could build a fire.

     Once his bladder was empty, be walked around the yard, trying to find the hole where the rabbits had escaped.

     But there wasn’t one.

     He stood next to the fence, scratching his head, and remembered the burrows and tunnels the rabbits had dug in the center of the yard, before the weather got cold. He’d assumed they were shallow and short, and made merely to play in and hide from the hot sun.

     Was it possible they were much deeper than he imagined?

     And large enough to allow twenty something rabbits to just disappear without a trace?

     Or was it possible they’d tunneled through to one of the other yards, and were now happily hopping all over the neighborhood? Maybe laughing at Dave for his futile attempts to hold them, and celebrating their prison break?

     He retrieved a wooden folding ladder from the garage and placed it against the fence separating his house from the Castros’ house.

     Then he climbed the ladder to peer over the fence, expecting to see an exit hole in the yard next door and the rabbits all over the place again.

     Instead, he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

     He moved the ladder to the other two fences, and checked out the other yards that connected with his own.

     Still nothing.

     Now he was very puzzled.

     As he was folding the ladder and getting ready to return it to the garage, he finally got his answer.

     The rabbit he called Lindsey emerged from one of the holes that pockmarked the center of his yard.

     The rabbit looked at Dave, as though blaming him for the wretched cold. Then it hopped over to the pile of corn stalks Dave had placed in the corner of the yard two months before.

     He, or she… Dave still wasn’t sure, munched on a corn stalk for a couple of minutes and licked the frozen water that used to be their water trough. Now it looked more like a miniature ice skating rink.

     The rabbit looked at Dave once again and then quickly disappeared back into the hole.

     Dave stood there, wondering if rabbits hibernated. He should know. But he didn’t. He’d try to find out.

     And as a bone chilling breeze blasted him in the face, he also resolved to find a way to avoid coming outside to pee twice a day. There had to be a better way.

-25-

     When Dave reentered his safe room he looked over at his alarm clock to check out the time, and was disheartened to see that the batteries had gone dead.

     He muttered, “Crap!”

     But he wasn’t so concerned that he’d deal with it now.

     Crawling back into his nice warm sleeping bag seemed like a much better option.

     Later, when it was dark enough outside to allow him to build a fire in his fireplace, he’d replace the batteries in his clock.

     He had others in the garage that were fully charged.

     Once of the things he’d placed in his Faraday cage the year before was a battery charger and a dozen or so rechargeable batteries of every size. The charger was now permanently plugged into the power strip in the garage, which was connected to his generator. Every night, he ran his generator for two or three hours, and the batteries in the charger charged during that time.

     Once it was dark, he’d build his fire. Then he’d crank up his generator and swap out the dead batteries for good ones. And as his room warmed up from the fire, he’d sit back and watch a movie or two on TV, or read a book.

     But that was all later.

     Right now he was too cozy in his sleeping bags to do anything.

     Except sleep.

    
“Mommy, I don’t like it here anymore.”

     Sarah went to little Beth and wrapped her arms around her.

     “Oh, honey. I know you miss your Daddy and your friends. And I know this isn’t your home. But your Aunt Susan and Uncle Tommy have been so nice to us. They found us at the airport and walked with us all the way here, to keep us safe. And they’ve given us lots of food to eat and clothes to wear, and the other kids have shared their things with us.”

     “I know, Mommy. But I miss Daddy. I miss him a lot. And I worry about him too. I worry that maybe he isn’t okay without us being there with him. He always told me that he needed three things to live… food, air and my hugs. What if he dies because I’m not there to give him my hugs?”

     “Oh, honey, Daddy’s not going to die without your hugs.”

     “But he said…”

     “I know he said that, honey. But you left your bear there, remember? Mr. Bennett will give your Daddy lots of hugs until he gets here. I just know he will. They won’t be as special as yours, and Daddy will still miss your hugs. But it’ll be enough to get him by.”

     “But Mr. Bennett’s just a bear. The hugs aren’t the same. And he’s in my room. Daddy won’t know where he is.”

     “Honey, don’t you remember, when Grandma gave you Mr. Bennett, she told you he was a magical bear?”

     Beth was close to tears now.

     She blubbered, “Yes…”

     “Well, honey, the way magical bears work is, they look just like regular bears until someone really really needs them. Then they come to life and go to help. And when they’re finished helping whoever it is that really really needs them, they go back to being regular bears again.”

     “For the reals?”

     “Yes, honey. For the reals.”

     “So whenever Daddy is sad and lonely, Mr. Bennett will come to life and go find Daddy and give him hugs and tell him it’s going to be okay?”

     “That’s right, Punkin. That’s exactly what will happen.”

     Lindsey, a little bit older and a little more attuned to the reality of their situation, said, “Mom, I miss Dad too. Do you think we’ll ever see him again?”

     Sarah looked at Lindsey and said, “Of course we will. It’s just a matter of time before he comes to get us.”

     “But how do you know for sure? I mean, Uncle Tommy says we’re almost a thousand miles away now. And that none of the cars work anymore. And that even if he could come for us, he’d have to deal with robbers and bad people who would try to steal his food and water and they might even kill him. Is that true, Mom?”

     Sarah made a mental note to punch Uncle Tommy in the nose. Or at least to ask him to stop being so blunt with her daughters. But even she had to admit that what Tommy said was true.

     “Honey, you just have to believe in your father. He’s always been my hero. He’s never let me down, and he’s been through a lot. He survived the war and came home to us, even after we worried about him and prayed for him every night, remember?

     “Your Dad will come for us. He knows where we are, and he’ll figure out a way. I don’t know when and I don’t know how. But in my heart I know he’ll come. I believe in him, and you should too.”

     Little Beth had a great idea.

     “Mommy, since Mr. Bennett is a magical bear, doesn’t that mean that when Daddy is hugging him, he can just turn into magical dust and fly here on the wind, and bring Daddy with him? That would be a good way to get Daddy here with us.”

     Sarah looked to Lindsey for help.

     Lindsey just shrugged her shoulders and gave her mother a look that said, essentially, “You stepped in it. You figure a way out of it.”

     “No, honey. I’m afraid that Mr. Bennett isn’t that kind of magical bear. He’s the kind of magical bear who can come to life and comfort people when they’re sad, and cheer them up. But he can’t turn himself into magical dust and fly on the wind.”

     Lindsey whispered to her mother, “Nice save.”

     “Okay, Mommy. Is there another kind of magical bear that can do that? That we can mail to Daddy?”

     “Well, honey, I’m afraid that those kind of magical bears live in a land far, far away. And even if we had one to mail to Daddy, the mailman can’t deliver any packages anymore, remember?”

     Beth suddenly remembered the heart to heart talk she’d had with her mom a couple of months before. It was Beth’s birthday, and she was heartbroken that her father hadn’t sent her a big gift. Sarah had to explain to her that he’d wanted to, but that the post office didn’t deliver anymore.

     “Oh. I forgot.”

     “But don’t you worry, honey…” Sarah looked at Lindsey. “Neither one of you worry. Your Dad will find a way to get here to us, somehow.”

     “But Mommy, how do you know?”

     “Because heroes always find a way.”

     Dave woke up, conflicted.

     In a way, it was a nice dream. He didn’t dream often, but when he did his dreams were vivid and colorful, and real in the sense that he felt he was really there.

     On the other hand, he was afraid of falling victim to a false hope that might destroy him later on.

     He’d been debating in his own mind for months what their chance was of making it to Kansas City. Their plane was due to land at almost the exact minute the EMP struck the earth and the power went out. He knew that if they touched down and were on the ground when the world went black, they were safe and at his brother-in-law’s farm outside of Kansas City.

     On the other hand, there was an even chance their plane had been in the air when the EMP struck the earth. That was the option he didn’t want to think about, but forced himself to consider.

     Common sense would dictate that all of the airplane’s electronics would have shorted out with everything else, and the plane would have come crashing to the ground.