Going Home (17 page)

I finally came around, surprised to be in an actual bed. Thad was sitting in a chair beside the bed I was in. Opening my left eye—the right one was still in the dark—I saw I was lying on a neat little bed in an equally sparse but neat room. The curtains were open on the windows, light filling the small room. Several framed documents were on the wall—couldn’t focus enough to tell what they were. My ears were still ringing, but there was a strange noise in the background, like someone talking, but it was obscured by static.

Thad’s face was covered with that big smile of his. “Hey, man, how you feelin’?”

In a hoarse voice, I replied, “Like shit; my fuckin’ head is pounding. Water, I need some water.”

Thad handed me a glass of cool water. I took a sip. “Take it easy. You been out for a couple of days.”

This statement made me cough on the water. “What, how long, what the hell happened? Last thing I really remember was your gun going off. What the hell happened?”

“They saw a footprint. They were gonna find us. So I fired and took both of them out. Then I heard the truck on the road, so I ran out to it. They tried to get out, but I had the drop on ’em and got ’em both,” Thad said.

“What happened to me? Did they hit me?” I put a hand up to my head.

“It was an accident. Jess has cried the entire time. I finally got her to go to bed earlier today. She sat up with you for two days, wouldn’t leave your side. She feels real bad.” He lowered his head. “When I fired, it scared her. She covered her head with her hands, but she had the pistol in it. When she did it went off and hit you.”

“Jess shot me in the damn head?” I was starting to put some of the pieces together.

“Man, she feels bad. It was an accident. You’re lucky, though. Linus said if it was a hollow point that hit you, you’d be dead, but it was one of the ball rounds I gave her. It went in behind you right ear and came out the back of your head. It just went under the skin, didn’t crack your skull or anything. Just two little holes, in an out.”

“I remember something burning. What was burning?” I was trying to remember.

“Your hair. The pistol wasn’t a foot from your head. It set your hair on fire from the muzzle blast. Jess slapped on your head to put it out.” He sat back in the chair and crossed his arms. Another man walked into the room. “How’s he doin’, Thad?” It was the man I saw earlier. Standing in front of me now, I saw that even his pants were pressed and his shirt was tucked in with a perfect military line. He was probably in his late fifties.

“He’s awake, but his head hurts. Morgan, this is Linus Mitchell. We’re at his place.” Thad nodded toward him.

“First Sergeant Mitchell. Hell, it oughtta hurt. He took a round point-blank. You’re lucky, son,” he offered as an introduction.

I spent the next day in bed. Sarge wouldn’t have it any other way, and he was one persuasive dude. While I was “confined,” as Sarge termed it, I got the rundown on how and why we were here. Thad, being a truck driver doing a rather long and boring route, would sometimes detour from I-75 over to Highway 19. Sarge was retired and spent his days on the ’net, monitoring his radios. He was a serious ham and CB ratchet jaw. It was how he spent his retirement, talking up folks from all around the world.

He and Thad had started talking on Thad’s frequent passes and developed a friendship. They finally met in person when Thad dropped by Linus’s place on a return trip from Tallahassee. Hitting it off right away, they became true friends. Thad had that kind of personality; he made friends with anybody, and I was truly thankful he and I did.

Thad came into the room, carrying a tray. “You hungry? I hope so ’cause Sarge said you gotta eat, an’ if you ain’t gonna, you gotta tell him so.” He set the tray down on the chair beside my bed. I looked over at it; there was a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a cut-up apple accompanied by what looked like a glass of tea.

“Is that tea?” I had my eyes locked on the glass.

“Yeah, why?” Thad looked a little confused.

“Sweet tea?”

“Is there another kind?” Linus walked into the room. “What, you one of them damn Yankees that don’t like sweet tea? You know what a damn Yankee is, don’t ya?”

“Yeah, one like you that came here and didn’t leave,” I replied. He was standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips; our eyes were locked, waiting to see who blinked first. Knowing he was retired army, there was no way I could stare him down. Instead, I stared at him for a minute and then started to make my right eye and the right side of mouth start to twitch. After I blinked, I shouted, “I didn’t blink; not my fault! It’s the head wound, dammit!” Then a big smile broke out across my face.

Linus held his stare a minute longer and then burst out laughing. “You’re right, Thad. He’s all right.”

Thad was still standing beside the bed, laughing as well. The only person I didn’t see around was Jess. I’d have to see how she was doing.

“And for your info, son, I’m no damn Yankee. I’m purebred Florida cracker,” Sarge replied.

“Well, Sarge, we have something in common then—so am I.” I picked up the tea and took a long drink. “Damn, that’s good. You don’t boil the bags, do you?”

“Hell, no. Who the hell does that?” Sarge barked back.

“Damn Yankees,” I replied as I took another sip. He and Thad both broke out into laughter again.

“You eat your lunch. I’m gonna go check on the radios.” Linus turned and started out the door.

“Radios, what radios? How the hell do you have radios, and who the hell are you talking to?” This shocked the shit out of me. How can he have radios?

“You get some rest, Morgan. There’s plenty of time for me to show you my setup.” He walked out.

“You know, I said you was weird. Sarge is one of them super survivalists.” Thad’s eyebrows were raised, which made him look surprised. “He’s got more shit stacked up around here than you would believe. And the radio thing, that’s just weird on a whole ’nuther level. He’s got a whole room of them, and the closet is full of batteries and stuff.” Thad reached over and turned on the lamp on the bedside table. “See, his whole house is wired up to it.”

“He must have a solar system. I wonder how he protected all of it. I have one at my house. It can’t run the whole place, but it runs a lot of it. If his are working, then mine might too.” I hoped mine was working. It would make Mel’s life so much easier.

“Hey, man, where’s Jess?” She had been on my mind. I’m sure she was pretty upset.

“She’s outside doing laundry. She is trying to clean up your clothes.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I lifted the covers on the bed and looked down and then back up at Thad. “Ah, who undressed me?”

That big smile spread across his face again. “I did, why?” I guess my face betrayed me and showed my embarrassment. “Don’t worry; you ain’t got nuthin’ I ain’t never seen before. Just smaller and paler.” With that he let out a bellowing laugh.

“Oh, thanks a lot. Kick a guy when he’s down, classy. Get your ass outta here.” I threw a pillow at him.

“Soon as you feel up to it, Sarge is gonna give you the grand tour. You’ll be impressed.” He turned to walk out of the room.

“Hey, where are we anyway?” I asked, catching him before he left.

“Outside of Old Town.”

“Ah, thanks. And thanks for getting my ass out of there. I mean it,” I nodded my head at him.

“Don’t worry about it. You’d a done it for me. Let’s just hope you don’t have to repay that debt.”

“Amen, my friend, amen.” Thad walked out, and I ate my lunch, finally enjoying the soft bed I was in.

Jess came in after Thad left. As soon as she saw me, she started to cry again. I have a wife and three daughters and see more than my fair share of crying.

“Oh, knock it off,” I said as she came in. She looked up with surprise. “I know what happened. It was an accident. Just learn from it ’cause if you ever shoot me again, I’m shootin’ back.” I gave her a little smile.

“I’m really sorry. I had no idea it would be like that. I’ve never seen anything like that before.” She sat on the edge of the bed.

“Like I told you several times already, it’s a different world now. You gotta meet the challenge or you’re going to die. Do you want to die?” She had her head down; she wouldn’t look at me.

“No. But I don’t want to kill someone by accident either.” She looked up at me and started to cry again.

“Look, I don’t blame you. I gave you the gun. It’s my fault really. I should have spent time training you to make sure you were comfortable. Don’t blame yourself anymore. It’s done and over.” She wiped her eyes.

“Okay.”

“One thing, though. You gotta do me a favor,” I was going to try to make her feel a little better.

“Sure, what?”

“Keep your finger off the trigger, okay?” I smiled at her, and she finally cracked a smile.

“I promise.” She gave me a hug and left my room.

My dinner was brought to me in bed. I still wasn’t allowed up yet. I was surprised by the fried fish, I mean like fresh filleted fish. There was also corn bread and pinto beans. It was like being back at James and Edith’s house. The fish was great and, of course, so was the sweet tea that came with it. After dinner, Sarge came in, and we talked a little about things—what had happened, and what may come. This seemed to be the number one conversation these days. I told him what I had done to get here, at least all I remembered.

“You haven’t heard any outside news?” Linus was sitting in the chair beside the bed, leaning back with his palms on his knees.

“No, nothing. I have a small shortwave. I tried it once but never heard anything; never tried it again.” I was sitting up in the bed.

“Well, I’ve heard lots of news. And from what I can gather, this wasn’t an accident”—he paused for a minute—“and may not be an outside event.”

“Huh, what do you mean?” I was perplexed. How could this be an inside job?

“Well, first, there hasn’t been the first hint of information coming out of the government, nothing. And when one side isn’t talking, they’re acting. They’re up to something. I’ve been in their employ long enough to know that.” He folded his arms.

“Well, then, what do you think happened?” The wheels were turning in my head, but they weren’t really grabbing any traction.

“I have a theory, but I’m gonna keep that to myself for a while. You get some sleep tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He got up and walked out. I turned out the lamp and tried to go to sleep, without much success.

The next day, I was approved for limited duty, according to the first sergeant. On the dresser across the room was a change off my clothes, freshly laundered and folded. I got up and got dressed. I felt a little stiff, and it hurt to turn my head. Thankfully my shirt was a Columbia PFG button-up fishing shirt, another part of my “uniform,” as Mel called it. My Merrell shoes were there, so I slipped into them; they seemed so light after wearing the boots for so long. I walked out of the room and down a small hallway that led into the living room. The entire length of the hall was lined with framed documents denoting various achievements during Sarge’s long military career. There were also several other documents. I wasn’t sure what they were. They were all different; some had what looked like old nose art from the World War II aircraft. All of them had what I assume was a call sign in bold print, along with a time and date designation.

Coming out into the living room, it was empty.
Wonder where everyone is?
I walked through into the kitchen; no one there. Off the kitchen was a door. There was the sound of people talking, some of whom were obviously over the radios. I also heard Thad’s husky voice coming through the door. I rapped my knuckles on the door and opened it. I could not believe what I saw.

This was Sarge’s “Comm Cave” as he called it. The walls were covered in more of the same documents I saw in the hallway, as well as more military documents in frames. There were also a number of framed photos that had been taken all around the world, from the look of the people in them. Common to all these photos was what had to be a younger First Sergeant Mitchell. In all of them, he was with a small band of various warriors, and also common to all of them was a radio antenna jutting up over his right shoulder.

“Watch your step,” Sarge called out over his shoulder before I entered the room. I looked down, and the room had a raised floor.

“What’s this?” I asked as I kicked the edge of the floor.

“Protective measures. You don’t think this stuff survived through sheer luck, do you?” He was removing his headphones as he spun in the office chair he was seated in.

“No, I figured you had some sort of faraday cage,” I answered in reply.

“I do; step into my faraday cage.” He cracked a smile.

“You mean the whole room?” My eyes were wide as I looked around.

“Yep, the whole damn thing; instead of trying to protect some of my gear, I decided to protect all of it. Inside the walls is a copper mesh. It’s also under this raised floor and in the ceiling. It ties into a 4/0 bare copper ground grid that circles the entire house. There are ground rods that I had driven thirty feet into the ground. That really confused the electrical contractor; he stopped asking me questions when I told him it stopped the radio waves from getting into my head.” He crossed his arms and rocked back in the chair, awaiting the forthcoming admiration.

“Damn!” I replied in a long exhale. “That’s impressive. I wish I had this setup.”

“You and everyone else right now. See, I left the army ’cause I didn’t like the smell coming from upstairs. As soon as I got out, I built this house and took, ah, how shall we say, the necessary precautions.” He stood up. “Let me show you around. This is the radio bank. This here is a Yaesu Ft-817ND. It’s little five-watt AM radio. This one is an FT-857D. It puts out a solid hundred watts. This is the one I use for DX, or long range.” He was pointing out the radios.

The radios were sitting on a table that had a shelf mounted to the wall over it. All sorts of power and signal strength gauges were mounted on it, as well as power supplies and other gadgets.

“How in the hell do you power all this, especially that hundred-watt monster?” I was pointing to the larger, only slightly, of the two radios.