Breakout (Final Dawn) (8 page)

     As for the water in the barrels that caught the runoff from the roofs, the plan was to replace the lids after each rainstorm to keep it from evaporating, and then to use it to irrigate their crops.

Chapter 15

     When Marty Haskins told Tina and Joe Koslowski he’d stay behind to help run the truck stop, he’d admitted he was no grocer. Neither was Lenny.

     And it was readily apparent to the few brave souls who ventured out after the thaw and stumbled into the truck stop looking for food or provisions.

     When they
stocked the shelves, they placed each item as it came off the back of the Walmart truck, without any thought of storing similar items together. So when they finally finished, they had Hamburger Helper next to ladies socks, next to motor oil.

     Marty looked closely at the outcome and said, “Maybe we should have put a little more thought into this.”

     Lenny just laughed.

     “Ah, hell. What do you expect? We’re just a couple of rookies
. We’ll learn as we go.

     The first visitors came on the third day after Marty and Lenny opened their doors.

     It was a family of four who’d held out in a high school in Kerrville.

     “We were trying to make it to the border with
Mexico. But when we were still two hundred miles away we heard on the radio that Mexico had closed the border. That people were stuck in a traffic jam that stretched for a hundred miles. They couldn’t go forward and they couldn’t go back. They were trapped in their cars.

     “So we turned around and started heading back home to
Biloxi. Then the car broke down. It was late at night and we had no place to go. We were desperate and broke into this school building, just to have a place to stay.”

     “What did you survive on? What did you eat?”

     “We went to the storage rooms for the school cafeteria. They looked like they’d just gotten a delivery of food. There were dozens and dozens of cases of things, from canned goods to pasta, to oatmeal and powdered potatoes. And a whole freezer full of meats. Enough to feed an army. Or at least, several hundred hungry teenagers.

     “We were the first ones there, but we knew there would be others. So just before the meteorite hit, we took all of the boxed goods and hid them in the locker room in the gymnasium. In the girls showers. We figured that would be the last place anybody would look.”

     “What about the frozen stuff?”

     “We knew it would get very cold once the meteorite hit and it went dark. So as soon as the sky went black, even before the power went out, we moved all of the frozen food and hid it too. The temperatures dropped so fast once the sky went dark, it never really had a chance to thaw out.

     “For about three weeks, people kept coming. Sometimes single people, looking for food, sometimes whole families. We pretended we did the same thing they did. Just stopped by for food, and found there wasn’t any. We even showed them where the cafeteria was so they could check for themselves.

     “We purposely ate only what we needed to survive, and I think that helped convince them. We looked just as hungry as they did. A couple of them invited us to go along with them. We told them no, we were just staying long enough to fix our car, and then we were headed back east.

     “The reality was, we knew we had a safe place to stay, and food to eat, at least for awhile. And the school had a swimming pool. We knew we had plenty of water to drink too. We knew we could survive there, and we weren’t sure what was available out in the world. So we chose to stay.

     “I’ll tell you what, though. My wife and I are pretty sure we’re going to burn in hell for what we did. We send hungry people on their way to starve to death when we had food. Children and babies included. There’s no way we’ll escape God’s vengeance for doing that.”

     Marty had a different belief.

     “Look, there have been many times over the last six years when I’ve wondered if there even was a God. I still wonder sometimes. But if there is, I doubt He’d hold it against you for making sure you
r own children survived. And they did. So just dwell on that for now.”

     “I suppose you’re right
. I only have dollars in my wallet. We came across another man selling food off the back of a truck, but he only accepted silver or gold. I’m sorry, we don’t have silver of gold, but if you don’t accept dollars for food we’ll be glad to work it off. Pump gas or sweep floors or something.”

     Marty waved the man’s money away.

     “We’re not here to make a profit. We’re here because we’re all alone in the world and there’s nowhere else to go. We’re just running the place because there’s nothing else to do with our time, so maybe we can help others out. Just take whatever you need, and I’m a pretty good mechanic. I’ll take a look at your car and make sure it’ll make it to wherever you’re going.”

     The man smiled for the first time.

     “Oh, don’t bother. I stole a brand new car off an abandoned Chevy dealer’s lot in Kerrville. I figured they were just sitting there gathering dust, and like I said I expect to burn in hell anyway.”

     Marty laughed.

     “Well, we’ve got the pumps up and running, and filled the underground tanks with the gasoline from a tanker left on the highway. The sign out front says Fina, and the truck said Exxon, but it works just the same.”

     Within another week or so, they were averaging twenty people a day. Each had their own story to tell, of heartache and suffering. And nearly all of them had lost loved ones. Marty thought back to that first family who’d come in. The ones who’d lived in a school for six and a
half years. And he wondered if they realized how truly lucky they were to have all survived.

     They’d heard the same stories over and over of men commandeering abandoned trucks along the highway and trading the goods for silver or gold. It sickened them to know that there were those who continued to prey on people who’d been through so much already.

     They rationalized that, although what they were doing wasn’t all that different, at least they were doing it to help others, instead of getting rich.

     And they helped in other ways, too, besides providing food and clothing. Marty was able to get the truck stop’s boilers working, as well as its well pumps. Travelers had a chance to get a hot shower and a new set of clothing after they’d filled their bellies.

     And over and over again, they’d tell Marty and Lenny that it was the simple things in life they’d missed the most. The simple pleasure of being clean, with a full belly. For many, it was the first time they’d felt human in years.

Chapter 16

     Hannah was fascinated. She’d never used a ham radio before. She
was getting ready to pull her first shift at the console since they’d started monitoring broadcasts from around the world.

     John was briefing her on how to use it.

     “Is it safe to talk on it?”

     “No.
We’re not ready to risk that. Not just yet.

     “
Stay off the microphone and just listen. And log in anything you think might help shed some light on what’s going on in the outside world.”

     “Pardon me for saying so, but you sound just a little bit paranoid. Do you think there are people out there who would do us harm?”

     “The short answer is ‘yes.’ If you want the long answer, here it is. We have things that most people don’t have. Farm animals we can eat. Seeds we can grow crops with. Equipment we can harvest our crops with. People have gotten used to just taking what they need to survive, even if they have to take it at gunpoint. And if word gets out that we have these things, it’ll spell trouble. I think people will come from near and far to take them from us.

     “I’m also concerned about the government coming. You know that old joke about people just showing up at your doorstep and saying they’re from the government and they’re here to help you?

     “Well, I also think there’s a possibility of that happening. That the government will try to come in and take our livestock and say it’s for the good of the people. Just so they can take it and kill it and feed their own families and cronies.

     “You asked a five cent question and I gave you a twenty five dollar answer. And yes, I might be a little bit paranoid, but that’s what I’m afraid of.

     “The government has the technology to zero in a transmission real time via their satellites. But they don’t share that capability with just anybody, because then others could use it against them.”

     “Interesting. So how do we protect ourselves?”

     “Oh, that’s easy. Stay off the
microphone. Nobody can track us if all we’re doing is listening.”

    
The radio suddenly came to life. The scan function was on, and it was picking up a survivor in Australia talking to someone in England.

     “
Sydney is decimated. Probably fifty thousand survivors at best. The city government is trying to get up and running again, but they have no money to hire employees. The central bank has collapsed, and our old Australian dollar is now worthless. The mayor is trying to develop a policy by which they commandeer the land and houses of people who didn’t survive the freeze, and then award a house and property to a city employee in exchange for a year’s work.”

     “Well, that sounds like it might work. Here in
Birmingham our main problem is the bodies. We’ve got plenty of volunteers to help gather them and burn them. But there are just so many. A thousand bodies for every volunteer. And the doctors are warning of a plague if we don’t get them all gathered and burned. It’s dreadful. Simply dreadful.”

     As they listened, John took
out a fresh new logbook. He entered the date and the radio frequency, and a few cryptic notes:

Sydney, Australia: 50,000 left alive.

Birmingham
, England: Unknown number of survivors.

     “After a few weeks of listening in, I hope to have a pretty good idea how many survivors are out there. Of course, we’ll focus mostly on two things: who is still alive here in our area, and whether or not they’re friendlies. And little pieces of information that can help us. Like, for example, if a plague really does generate from all this, we can keep an eye on it, or at least an ear on it. We’ll be able to tell from radio broadcasts where it’s at and whether it’s made its way into our area.”

    
Mark walked up and caught the last part of the conversation. But he wanted to talk about something else besides death and plagues.

     “John, can I ask you your opinion, as a lawman?”

     “Sure, Mark. About what?”

     “The other day, when Bryan and Brad and I went to pick up the seed planter… we passed a truck stop along the way, on Highway 83. There
were dozens and dozens of trailers, parked along both shoulders of the highway. So many they couldn’t fit in the truck stop any more. We think the truck drivers just abandoned their loads there so they could go home to their families.”

     “Ye
s. Just before CNN blacked out they did a story on that. Said it was happening all over the country.”

     “Bryan and I have been struggling with the idea of grabbing some of those trailers and bringing them into the yard.
On the one hand, it would be stealing. I mean, the goods in those trailers obviously don’t belong to us. But the stuff in them… the food, the clothing, the supplies, could certainly help us to survive in the years ahead.

     “But beyond the morality of it all, whether it’s right or wrong, there’s the legal aspect. If we do bring some of them into the yard, does that make us criminals?”

     “And you want my opinion on the matter, as a former cop.”

     “Yes.”

     “Well, you can’t be a criminal until you’ve been formally tried and convicted of a crime. Whether or not it’s a crime to use something that once belonged to a company that’s surely no longer in business and likely never will be again? Technically, I doubt it.

     “You have to remember that our legal framework has been destroyed. It just doesn’t exist anymore. And if it did, or rather when it reforms again at some point in the future, I don’t think they’re going to prosecute anybody for doing things they had to do to survive. Shot, they’d have to prosecute everybody, probably. Including maybe themselves.

     “So no, I don’t think you have a legal dilemma at all. If you don’t take it somebody else will. But it’s a damn safe bet that the corporations that once owned it aren’t getting it back again.