An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) (27 page)

     And hey, he was planning on breaking into the NAPA store anyway, so he figured it wasn’t much worse to steal from an ordinary citizen.

     He rationalized that whoever he was going to steal from was probably dead now anyway. And if he wasn’t dead, he sure wouldn’t be needing his vehicle anytime soon.

     And that he’d already killed a man. And stealing, in God’s eyes, couldn’t be any worse than that, the ultimate sin.

     So he figured that in this case, it was okay to steal a wheel from the white Explorer in the street four blocks up and three blocks over from his house.

     He’d remembered placing a packet of seeds on the hood of the vehicle a few months before, when he felt guilty about the Nance family committing suicide next door. He’d resolved after that happened to do more to share what he had with others, to try to save more desperate people from doing the same thing.

     The white Explorer had burned a place in his memory because it was the same model as his, but was white in color.

     He’d always hated white vehicles. Despised them, in fact, and wondered why anyone would buy a car that showed dirt so easily and had to be washed constantly.

     Then, of course, he’d purchased his own black Explorer and discovered that it showed dirt almost as badly.

     He still thought his looked better, though.

     In his backpack were the scissor jack from his own vehicle, a lug wrench, a jack stand, a pack of seeds and a note.

     The note said:

    
Sorry. Needed your wheel, and figured it was of no use to you. Please accept these seeds as payment.

     Of course, it was highly unlikely that the owner of the Explorer would wind up with the seeds. He was probably just some poor schmuck who was driving through the neighborhood when the EMP hit the earth. He probably walked to his home a mile or two away and would never see his vehicle again.

     Most likely, a looter walking through the neighborhood the next day or two would see the note and take the seeds.

     And, if it was a stupid looter, he’d probably chow down on the seeds and make a single meal of them instead of planting them.

     But still, leaving them made Dave feel much better about what he was planning to do.

     And maybe, just maybe, one of the neighbors would look out his window the next day and notice that a wheel had disappeared from one of the abandoned vehicles in the street in front of his house.

     And maybe, just maybe, that neighbor would examine the vehicle further. And would see the note and the packet of seeds.

     Perhaps he’d even be bold enough to walk out into the street to retrieve them, and would plant them in the spring.

     And perhaps the wheat and corn that grew from the seeds would save someone else from starving to death.

     Hey, it was a long shot, sure. But it was a possibility. And that was enough to help Dave feel better about what he was doing.

     He knew that the wheels were interchangeable and that this wheel and tire would fit on his own vehicle.

   He’d replaced his tires the year before, so the tread patterns almost certainly wouldn’t match.

     But he wouldn’t be driving highway speeds. Not at night on a highway littered with abandoned cars and trucks. And he didn’t much give a darn if using two tread patterns on his front tires messed up his alignment a bit.

     This tire would get him where he wanted to go and back again, God willing. And that was the only thing that concerned him.

     When he arrived at the white Explorer he looked around to make sure no one was about, and placed the note on the hood, with the seeds on top of it.

     Then he set about removing the left rear wheel, cursing under his breath because the jack squeaked with every turn of its crank.

     He’d never make it on an Indy pit crew, but he made respectable time. Especially since his hands were freezing and it was dark outside.

     Ten minutes later he was rolling the tire back toward his house, satisfied with his haul and hoping he could get it back home without being spotted.

     For a brief moment he wondered if he had enough time to deposit this wheel in the Castros’ living room and go back after a second one, to place on top of his luggage rack for the long trip to Kansas City.

     Just as added insurance in case he had a flat along the way.

     Then he decided not to. If someone had seen him and had gone out to check out the vehicle he’d just stolen the wheel from, it might be too risky to go back.

     And he’d likely pass plenty of other Explorers on the highway to Kansas City anyway. He’d just pull over and take a backup tire from one of them. If need be, his emergency spare would work until he was able to do that.

     By the time he’d rolled the heavy tire up the slight hill, through the Castros’ house and into their back yard, he was winded. He was once again reminded that he was in dreadful shape. If his vehicle broke down or was taken by bandits on the way to Kansas City, how much ground could he cover by foot each night? Especially with a fifty pound pack on his back?

     He had to figure out a way to get back into shape. Without going jogging, without a working treadmill or a gym to go to.

     But that was a problem for later. For now, he just wanted to get this tire into his own garage, wash up, and start a nice warm fire.

     He rolled the tire through the passageway between the two yards, and slid open the sliding glass door leading into his house.

     Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of brown and was startled. In less than a heartbeat, a rabbit had bolted past him, into the house, and up the stairs.

     “Damn it!”

     He was much too tired to chase a stupid rabbit around his house. And he suspected it would be hard to catch. There were a lot of beds it could hide under, or furniture it could hide behind.

     He’d just let it hang out until daylight. Then it would be a lot easier to chase it back outside again.

     By the time his fire was going strong, Dave was exhausted. He put a movie in and laid back to watch it.

     The cold woke him up hours later, after the fire had burned itself out and the sun was high in the sky.

-52-

     Dave called out as he climbed the stairs.

     “Okay, you stupid little furball. I’m coming to get you. I hope you didn’t leave those little rabbit turds all over my house.”

     He went first to his own room and peeked under the bed. Then he looked behind the dresser and through the open closet.

     Nothing.

     He closed the bedroom door behind him to keep his quarry from doubling back behind him.

     One room down, four to go.

     “Okay, you wascally wabbit. Here’s the deal. If you make this easy on me and don’t run, I’ll let you loose again back in the yard. If I have to chase you all over the house to catch you, then you’ll be in my stew pot before the sun goes down today. The choice is yours.”

     In little Beth’s room, he paused long enough to pick up her bed pillow and sniff it. It still smelled of Johnson’s baby shampoo. She wasn’t a baby any more, of course, but it was still her shampoo of choice. She had a bad habit of getting shampoo in her eyes.

     “All the others burn,” she’d said. “I like this one ‘cause it doesn’t.”

     He almost teared up, but caught himself, put the pillow down, and searched Beth’s room just as he’d done his own.

     Before he left, he lifted up the bottom of a Care Bears poster and reached his arm into the hole in the wall behind it.

     He pulled out a zip lock bag with about a pound of dried vegetables and seasonings.

     “My rabbit stew sure is gonna be yummy,” he called out. “I can either use some dried rabbit, or I can use you. Your choice, Mister Bunny.”

     He closed Beth’s bedroom door and walked into Lindsey’s room.

     And he felt as though the world dropped from beneath his feet.

     In the center of Lindsey’s bed, looking at him, was the rabbit he’d come to call Lindsey.

     Dave didn’t even know rabbits could jump that high.

     “There you are, you little troublemaker. I didn’t know it was you. Where’s your partner in crime? I thought the two of you went everywhere together.”

     He very slowly closed the door behind him, so the rabbit didn’t bolt and lead him on a wild chase through the house.

     Then he looked around the room for a laundry basket, a box, a trash can… anything suitable to carry a captive rabbit back outside.

     But Lindsey the daughter was a great housekeeper. Always had been. The tiny trash can was way too small, and there was nothing else that would work.

     Lindsey the bunny never left her spot on the bed, but followed Dave with her eyes as he walked around the room.

     “Well, this is great. I guess you know that I’m not going to cook you. Lindsey asked me in a dream not to. So you’re off the hook. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you just come in and out of here as you please.”

     The bunny didn’t say anything.

     Dave was unsure what approach to take next. He’d tried on several occasions in the past to make friends with the rabbit and its BFF, Beth.

     But both of them had always resisted his advances. They’d let him get close enough to touch them, and then bolt.

     Maybe he’d get lucky and would be able to catch it when it jumped. Maybe he’d get a handful of ears or something. In any event, just the two of them were confined in this small room. There weren’t a lot of places for the rabbit to run. 

     He reached out very slowly to pet the rabbit in the hopes of calming her. At the same time he braced himself, waiting for her to jump and hoping to catch her in mid-air.

     He was surprised when the rabbit didn’t bolt. Instead, it calmly looked at him and allowed him to pet it.

     He was mesmerized by the big eyes. They were moist, almost as if it were crying. He’d never taken the time to notice, but he wondered if rabbits’ eyes were always like that.

     She looked incredibly sad.

     He stroked her for several minutes, all the while chastising her.

     “You see, little troublemaker, here’s the way it’s supposed to work. Rabbits live outside because they’re… well, they’re more equipped to handle it than we are. You’ve got all this thick fur to help keep you warm that we don’t have.

     “That’s why you live outside and I live inside. That’s just the way it works. And it works much better if you don’t invade my territory and I don’t invade yours. Capiche?

     “After all, you wouldn’t like it if I went outside and wiggled my great big ass down into your little rabbit tunnel and made myself a sandwich, would you? No, you wouldn’t like that at all. You’d tell me to get the hell off of your couch and get out of your place and never come back.

     “You see, we’re kinda like oil and water. We can co-exist, but we’re not supposed to mix together, okay?”

     The bunny continued to look at him but still said nary a word.

     “So, here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re being real good and reasonable so far. I don’t have anything to put you in, so I’m gonna slowly pick you up, and you’re gonna behave yourself while I take you back downstairs, okay?

     “I don’t want any problems. If you jump when I pick you up, we’re gonna have trouble. I’ll have to call my pal Tony Baloney. He’s a hit man for the mob, and he’ll have to do a number on you. And I’d hate for that to happen. So just behave, and we won’t have any trouble, okay?”

     As he spoke, he slowly worked his right hand beneath the bunny and used his left to wrap around her. He picked her up and pulled her close to his chest.

     He expected her to jump free from his grasp, but she lay perfectly still and seemed content to be in his arms.

     He very slowly descended the stairs, stroking her and humming 
Lullaby and Good Night
every step of the way. He wasn’t sure why he hummed the tune, exactly. It was the tune he always hummed to Lindsey the daughter when she was a baby and he rocked her to sleep at night. It seemed to calm Lindsey the bunny as well.

     As he neared the back door, Dave’s curiosity got the best of him. He still hadn’t been able to tell whether this rabbit was a boy or a girl, although Lindsey had told him in her dream it was female. Dave knew in his heart that was the case, but he used his left hand to check anyway.

     Lindsey was right, as he somehow knew she would be.