Get Out of Denver (Denver Burning Book 1) (14 page)
Read Get Out of Denver (Denver Burning Book 1) Online
Authors: Algor X. Dennison
They spent the rest of the evening talking and planning together. Now that they were finally in their place, they needed to prepare to defend it, to kick the garden into full production mode, and establish a routine of work. McLean assigned DJ responsibility for communications and intelligence until their other experts arrived, and to try his best to get contact with someone on the radio.
He assigned Carrie charge of the house, the kitchen, and everything medical. Stephanie would feed the animals, take turns watching the road, and keep in touch with the Hendricksons. JD was going to get a proper corral up for the horses, then a covered stable, and then begin on an extension of the house. Jim and McLean had a lot of work to do to get the plumbing, irrigation, electrical, and other systems up and running as well as trying to get the tractor to start so they could make hay.
There was a lot to do to prepare for the arrival of the rest of their network and whatever else might be headed their way. Winter would be upon them in a matter of weeks, so there was food and fuel to put away before the early snows hit.
And once they got all of that handled, there was the specter of their nation’s downfall looming over everything. For all they knew, the whole world was in disarray, and sooner or later they needed to do something about it.
END of Part One of the Denver Burning series:
Get Out of Denver
Sneak peek at Part Two of the Denver Burning series:
Take Back Denver
“EMP’s don’t take out cars,” Jim said, arguing with DJ and JD after lunch. “Cars aren’t big enough to conduct the energy. Not unless they’re electrics that are plugged in to the power grid when it goes off.”
“Then what do you call that thing, whatever-it-was that took everything out?” JD countered. “What else could zap every car, every cell tower, every backup generator at once?”
Jim just shook his head.
“Seems like whoever it was that triggered it knew what they were doing,” DJ said. “Knew something the government didn’t about how to maximize an EMP’s impact on all targets.”
“We may never know,” Jim admitted.
DJ held up a finger. “Actually, I intend to find out. I may be a gimp at the moment, but there’s one thing I can still do just fine, and that’s gather intel. Somebody in this country knows what happened and who was behind it. Once you get the ham radio up and running, I’m going to start putting out feelers.”
Carrie walked by with a basket full of laundry. “All right, gentlemen, back to work. I’m not scrubbing all these clothes by hand just so you can sit around pontificating.”
“Slave driver!” Jim muttered teasingly. He dodged a wet sock that Carrie threw, then sauntered out the door to continue his efforts on the radio antenna.
“What’s pontificating?” JD asked. “Is it like… you know, what you do in the outhouse?”
“For some people, yeah,” Carrie replied, mouth splitting into a grin. “Now get going.”
JD left scratching his head, and went up to the pasture to see how McLean was getting along with the irrigation project.
They had been working hard for a week. Already they had doubled the garden in size, gotten a shelter built for the horses, and shifted the supplies in the basement around to make a few private sleeping nooks for those that didn’t fit in the upstairs bedrooms.
They had quickly settled into a working routine, and were mainly just happy to be off the road and have a roof over their heads. It was an adjustment for some of them to share living quarters with several other adults, but everyone was respectful and disciplined. McLean insisted they all get up at first light or before and work hard until after dark. Nobody complained, at least not seriously.
Stephanie came running up the road shortly after lunch, waving her arms to get the attention of anyone working outside. She held up two fingers and gestured down the road. McLean and JD grabbed their rifles, always close to hand when working away from the house. After giving a shout to those inside to get ready, they ran to meet the teenaged girl.
“Two people coming, about a mile from the Hendrickson’s place,” Stephanie said between gasps of breath. “A man and a woman. They look nice enough, but the man did have a handgun on his hip. They’re on foot, with backpacks.”
McLean nodded. “Good work. Can you describe them? Age, hair color, build?”
Stephanie patted the binoculars around her neck. “Sure. They both look Hispanic, dark hair and brown skin. The woman is pretty slim and has long hair. The man’s hair is graying. They look like they’re in their late forties.”
JD looked at McLean. “Sounds like the Barros’.”
McLean agreed. “Sure does. You’re confident there’s no one else behind them, Steph?”
“No one. I watched for another couple minutes to make sure, before I came back.”
They sent Stephanie to the house to let everyone else know, and walked down to the gate they’d installed across the road, to wait for the newcomers to arrive.
They could tell it was indeed their friends the moment they spotted the couple. Maria and Gordo Barros had joined the network late, but brought an immense skillset to the team. Maria was a doctor specializing in cardiology, and her husband was a radiologist. He had grown up on a farm and was integral to the group’s long-term agricultural aspiration.
Maria waved a hand in greeting. When they got close, McLean opened the gate for them. “Welcome! We’ve been waiting for you.”
“That was a very, very long walk,” Gordo said, breathing a long sigh and shaking hands with the men. “I didn’t think we were ever to get here.”
Maria nodded wearily. “Gordo made us bushwhack through the forest most of the way. My pants are nearly shredded from all the branches and rocks.”
“That was wise,” McLean told them. “We saw some terrible things on the roadways. You’d have needed an army to get through.”
They went up to the ranch house where the pair were welcomed by everyone. After they’d had a drink and a sandwich, they told the tale of their journey.
They had both stayed at their hospital for a few days, trying to ease the strain and do what they could for the flood of victims coming in. Without power, though, Gordo couldn’t do any x-rays and Maria’s hands were tied when it came to anything more serious than a flesh wound, for which there were already plenty of nurses. After the fourth day the number of patients dropped as people began to shelter in their homes and venture out less frequently. It seemed that society was beginning to realize they were on their own, and they’d have to start solving their own problems with what they had on hand.
Maria and Gordo returned home that night to find their house broken into and much of their equipment missing. They walked to the house of another family that were members of the group, the Baileys. On the way they were forced to hide in an abandoned building to avoid a firefight that broke out on the street between two groups of thugs. When they finally got to the Baileys’ house, they found the family already gone, and realized if they were going to get out, now was the time.
Ragged military forces had surrounded Denver on the west and weren’t letting anything out, but the Barros’ managed to slip through at night during a change in the guard patrols. Once they got into the hills they had smooth sailing until they hit the Breckenridge resort area and had some of the same troubles as McLean’s group with thieves and bullies that had taken over many of the cabins in the area. Gordo had to face down a guy who pulled a knife on them; his pistol sent the man running for his life without needing to fire a shot. The last two days of their journey had been uneventful, as they had stayed in the backcountry.
“Well, thank heaven you made it all right,” Jim said. “We need you here. But I wonder what happened to the Baileys?”
“No idea,” Maria said. “We found no indication at their home of where they were headed. We assumed they’d be here.”
“Maybe we should mount an expedition to find them,” DJ suggested.
“Let’s give it another day or two,” McLean replied. “See if we can at least figure out a starting point. Maybe somebody on the radio will have seen them.”
The others agreed, and spent several more minutes bringing Maria and Gordo up to speed and integrating them into their plans for the immediate future.
As a doctor, Maria would manage everyone’s health and medical issues while Gordo took on some of the agricultural workload. That left Carrie without as much to do, although she gladly accepted Maria’s invitation to be her nursing staff. No one expected Carrie to cook and clean all day, and she wasn’t a stellar cook anyway. But she was still determined to make herself useful.
The following evening McLean caught Carrie standing on the front porch, staring silently off into the distance. He went out to chat with her.
“You can’t see Denver from here,” he said, sidling up next to her. “Even with binoculars.”
Carrie sighed. “Right. I’m just thinking.”
“It’s okay,” McLean said. “You left a lot behind there. Grieve all you need to.”
“I’m not grieving,” Carrie retorted. “I didn’t lose anybody that was close to me. I just… I wonder what’s become of it all. And how we might have prevented it.” She sighed again and turned to face McLean. “I guess I’m just not ready to give up on the world.”
McLean tapped a toe against the wooden porch pillar, looking out over the pasture and up to the mountains beyond.
“Well, hold on to that,” he finally said, a note of resignation in his voice. “It may be important someday. I know it’s hard to shift your thinking so radically, and believe me, I didn’t ‘give up’ lightly. I had the optimism beaten out of me before I finally decided to prepare myself and let the ship sink as it wished. But I like to think that some day this old world will come around again, come to its senses. And if it does, I’ll be the first one to help it to its feet. Maybe you’re going to be a big part of that recovery.”
He swatted a horsefly away. “You should talk to DJ. Maybe the two of you can come up with a plan of action. Just see that it doesn’t interfere with our efforts here, or put us in harm’s way, okay? I owe it to the group we’ve formed not to let that happen.” Carrie nodded, and McLean drifted away to button up the stable and the front gate before turning in.
As the evening breezes settled into the valley from the pine-crested peaks above, Carrie remained on the porch, thinking. There was a light in her eyes now that hadn’t been there since before the walls came tumbling down.
Algor Dennison lives in Idaho, where everyone else is going to go when the world ends. If you enjoyed this novella, he welcomes criticism, witticism, and reviews at
Amazon.com
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. You may also enjoy:
Take Back Denver (Part Two of the Denver Burning series) – available soon
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A short trilogy of western horror.
Three short stories about werewolves.
