Rise From The Ashes: The Rebirth of San Antonio (Countdown to Armageddon Book 3) (15 page)

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     The next morning as Scott shaved, he wondered whether he was the butt of some evil prank being perpetrated by John and Robbie. They were all good friends now and got along great. But Scott knew they were pranksters of the highest order, and therefore didn’t trust them. Not completely.

     He’d poured some of the Aqua Velva into his hands and then rubbed it in, to see if it stained his hands. His thinking was that they’d mixed a permanent blue dye into it that would color his face blue.

     But that wasn’t it.

     He examined the liquid closely, thinking maybe it was blue tinted horse urine or something equally disgusting that they were trying to get him to slosh all over his cheeks.

     But he was convinced it was the real deal.

     So, although he didn’t understand the whole purpose of the exercise, he took their advice and dabbed a little on his cheeks after he finished shaving.

     By the time the three of them drove to the District 2 substation and he got into his own squad car with Randy, he’d forgotten all about it.

     Then Randy sneezed.

     “God bless you.”

     “Thank you.”

     Then he sneezed three more times in rapid succession.

     And Scott finally got the joke.

     “Are you coming down with something, Randy?”

     “No,” Randy muttered, sniffling through a now runny nose. “I’m just allergic to so many things I can’t keep track of them all.”

     But John and Robbie obviously could.

     Scott smiled.

     “Why don’t you roll down the window? Maybe some fresh air will help.”

     “No, that’ll make it worse. Then the pollen, or whatever is making me sneeze, will get in the car and make me sneeze worse.”

     “Oh. Right. I wasn’t thinking.”

     And so it was that the pair went through their normal routine of patrolling the streets of
San Antonio, Randy held captive in a self-imposed prison, trapped with a vague scent that made him sneeze uncontrollably every few minutes.

     And he didn’t have a clue.

     Scott found other ways to get under Randy’s skin as well.

     Randy continued to refuse to help Scott when it came to gathering and burning bodies.

     “That’s an SAPD thing. I’m a medic. I heal people. I don’t incinerate them.”

     Randy’s conviction didn’t bother Scott that much, really. He was lazy and slow and wouldn’t have been that much help anyway.

     No, what bothered Scott the most was how Randy seemed to shove it in Scott’s face. That body burning was a part of Scott’s job, but not his. On cool or damp days, Randy would nap in the squad car while Scott went about the gruesome business.

     And on nice days, when the temperatures were moderate and the sun was shining, he’d take a bed pillow f
rom the trunk of the squad car and actually nap under a nearby tree.

     Scott let him get away with it the first few times. Then one day he got a great idea. He scouted the first few houses on the block he was checking, just to see where the bodies were located. But he didn’t pull any of them out.

     Not until Randy got settled in and comfortable at the base of a huge shady oak tree.

     Then Scott determined the wind’s direction and piled the bodies so that the smoke would drift over in the direction of the old oak.

     Randy woke up coughing, his nose full of ash and the sickening smell of burning flesh.

     “Oh, sorry,” Scott called out. “I guess the wind changed direction on me.”

     The next day, as they cruised through one of the adjacent neighborhoods, they came upon a couple of old women harvesting their wheat crop.

    
Scott was perturbed at the sight of the women, in their seventies at least, doing such backbreaking work.

     So he stopped to ask where the men were.

     “They took them away yesterday. They both had the fever. They’re at the hospital now, in quarantine.”

     “And there’s no one else here to help you do the harvest?”

     “Only Billy, my great grandson.”

     The woman nodded to a boy about seven, who was struggling trying to separate the wheat kernels from the
chaff.

     “Here, let me help you.”

     Scott grabbed a cardboard box and started down the nearest row of wheat.

     He paused long enough to yell at his partner.

     “Hey, Randy, we sure could use some help out here.”

     Randy ignored him, reclined his seat, and closed his eyes to nap.

     Scott resisted the urge to utter a few choice phrases in randy’s direction, since there were women and small children present.

     Instead, he had another idea.

     “Hey, Billy, do you know how to tell time?”

     “Sure.”

     Scott pulled the gold wind-up watch off of his wrist and said to Billy, “Now, I’m just loaning this to you. I need it, so you have to give it back when I leave, okay?”

     Billy gave him a puzzled look and said, “Okay.”

     “Now, then. I’ll help your great grandmother here if you’ll do something for me, okay?”

     “Okay. What?”

     “I want you to keep an eye on that watch, and every ten minutes I want you to go over to that police car. Knock on the window very loud and say, ‘Hey mister’ over and over again until that other man answers you and asks what you want.”

     “Okay.”

     “And then I want you to ask him what time it is. Okay?”

     “And every ten minutes
after that, I want you to do exactly the same thing again, okay?”

     Billy grinned.

     “Okay!”

     He gave Scott his best military salute and marched off to complete his assignment.

     The two women weren’t very talkative, so Scott had a lot of time over the next two hours to reflect on the whole Randy Rhodes situation.

     A small part of him felt guilty for giving Randy such grief. But every ten minutes, when he heard Billy rapping noisily on the squad car’s window and heard the muted curses of Randy coming from inside the car, he laughed. What little guilt he had dissolved and he decided that Randy deserved what he got.

     And he remembered what John and Robbie had said about police officers using practical jokes and humor as a way of dealing with a very stressful job.

     Over the weeks that followed, Scott found other ways to get under Randy’s skin. Nothing too serious, and never anything that would put Randy in danger. But rather enough to give Scott something funny to chuckle about, and another story to tell the other officers at the end of their shift.

     As for Randy, he never complained at all. He had to have figured out at some point that he’d become Scott’s patsy. But he never said anything about it.

     Scott wasn’t sure why. Perhaps Randy was a better man than anyone gave him credit for.

     Or maybe Randy accepted the abuse because of Scott’s easygoing nature. Scott never cursed Randy out or threatened him with bodily harm as some of his previous partners had done. Maybe Randy figured that despite the pranks, staying with Scott was a good move for him, instead of requesting reassignment to another officer.

     After a couple of additional rookie officers joined the force, Lieutenant
Thomas told Scott he was no longer low man on the totem pole.

     “You can pass
Rhodes on to one of the new snotty-nosed rooks if you want. Get you a new partner that will help instead of hinder you.”

     “T
hat’s okay, lieutenant. Randy’s kind of grown on me. Besides, if I didn’t ride with him every day, what would I do for entertainment?”

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     Back at the compound, winter had blown in with a vengeance. It was almost a full mile higher in elevation than the city of San Antonio to its south, and that mile made a world of difference.

     Temperatures a
veraged ten degrees colder on the mountain than in San Antonio. It was nice during the summer months, but winters could be brutal.

     It was two
days before Christmas. Tom had left the compound a couple of days before, just long enough to find a six foot tall fir tree and bring it home.

     They had no Christmas lights. It hadn’t occurred to anyone to include any in the supplies they’d stocked
in the compound.

     So they decorated the tree the old fashioned way. Linda cut strips of colored construction paper and Hannah’s girls fashioned the strips into interlocking loops. The result was a paper
chain garland that wrapped several times around the tree.  

     Linda popped two bags of microwave popcorn and showed
Jordan and Sara how to use needle and thread to make more garland out of popcorn. Zachary used spray paint to paint one such garland silver, another one gold.

     Joyce made lightweight balls from paper mache and painted them with water colors. She also fashioned an angel for the top of the tree. It leaned just a bit to the left, but no one mentioned it.

     After the tree was decorated, each of the compound’s residents, one at a time, went to the feed barn where they’d stashed the luxury items from the Walmart trailer a few months before. It was an odd way to do Christmas shopping, to be sure, but it ensured that everyone, including Scott, had gifts from loved ones under the Christmas tree.

     After they’d finished, they all gathered around the tree to admire their work.

     Old Tom had a tear in his eye.

     “This reminds me of the Christmases of my youth. They were so much more pleasant back then.”

     Joyce said, “I want to leave this up until Scott comes back, if no one minds. I want him to be able to enjoy it too, even if it’s late for him.”

     Tom laughed.

     “Well, he’d better hurry. The needles will start falling off soon, and it’ll be downright naked in a few weeks.”

     “Oh, he won’t mind, Tom. He’ll still say it’s the best tree he’s ever seen. It’s the love that makes it beautiful.”

     The group said a prayer, thanking God that they were all going into the Christmas season healthy and happy. Scott was still not with them, but he’d survived a terrible ordeal and was still kicking. They all knew it could have been much worse.

     Linda looked around the room and noticed that young Sara had a bead of sweat rolling slowly down her forehead. She was slightly stooped and holding her midsection.

     She rushed to Sara’s side and asked, “Honey, are you okay?”

     “Yes. I’m just cramping again.”

     “Cramping? Again? Has this happened before?”

     Sara managed a smile.

     “Oh, yes. About every hour or so, for the past few hours.”

     “Why didn’t you say anything, honey?”

     “I wanted to wait until the tree was done. Everybody was having such a great time, I just didn’t want it to stop until we were finished.”

     Hannah said, “It may be false labor, but let’s get you on your back where we can regulate your breathing and body temperature. You’ll be a lot more comfortable until we find out whether it’s time or just a tease.”

     Sara missed dinner that night, but she wasn’t alone. Hannah never left her side, not even once. Neither did Jordan, who dabbed her face for hours to help keep her cool. He also offered his hand for the rough parts, and she squeezed it until it turned purple. But he never complained, because he understood his role was the easy one.

     At 4:5
5 a.m., on that cold Christmas Eve, the newest member of their family came out to say hello. The birth went smoothly and neither mother nor child was ever in any danger.

     They got the boy they’d been hoping for, and in honor of the Christmas season, they bequeathed upon him the name Chris Wayne Harter.

     And all was right with the world.