The Borrowed World: A Novel of Post-Apocalyptic Collapse (14 page)

Randi shook her head. 

“Leave your trash if you want to, but I’m burning mine tonight,” I said.  “I can’t make myself do it when I have a choice.  I’ve spent too many years cussing other people when I found their trash in otherwise pretty spots.”

Gary laughed to himself.

“What’s with you?” Randi asked him.

“It’s funny, but it’s also not funny at all,” Gary said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That you can kill a man and rob a vending machine, but you can’t litter,” he said, no longer laughing.

“That is pretty funny, now that you put it that way,” I said.  “I guess a man has to draw the line somewhere.  The wrapper stays in my pocket.”

The engine noise was getting louder.  The road we were walking on was a rural two-lane that passed through fields broken only by the occasional distant farmhouse.  Some dogs had barked at us as we walked by, but none had come close.  I was sure that people were watching from the houses, though no one came out.  The engine noise approaching us had defined itself, and was clearly a tractor.

“You hear that?” Gary asked.  “Should we hide out?”

“Let’s stay put here on the ground,” I said.  “We look less threatening sitting here eating.”

It was only a moment before an old blue Ford tractor rattled into sight, a hay mowing blade extending from the left side.  The tractor carried the blade in a raised position that allowed it to travel down the road without taking out mailboxes.    The man noticed us as soon as we saw him, detectable only by a slight swerve in his steering.  Other than that swerve, nothing changed until he was directly alongside us.  Then he braked, stared at us without expression for a moment and killed the tractor engine.

He continued to stare, saying nothing.  He wore green pants and a matching green shirt, like a mechanic’s uniform, with a white t-shirt underneath.  The pants were tucked into dirty rubber boots.  The man looked to be in his sixties but it was hard to tell with farmers, they weathered early.

“Morning,” I said, nodding in his direction.

He nodded back, then spat tobacco juice onto the road.  “You folks lost?”

“Depends on what you mean by lost,” I said.  “We’re a long way from home without a ride, but we do have a plan for getting home.”

He thought about this for a moment.  “Guess you ain’t lost then,” he said.  “More like you’re stuck.”

“That’s about the size of it.  We were on our way back home and got caught up in all this mess going on.  We were stuck at the exit back there and things were getting ugly.  Today they’re making everyone who stayed there go to a FEMA shelter so we made a break for it.”

The man’s eyes got wide.  “FEMA?  They’re putting people in camps?”

“They call them shelters,” Gary said.  “But we didn’t trust them so we started walking.”

“Where’s home?” the man asked.

“Tazewell and Russell Counties,” I said.

The man whistled.  “That’s a damn far piece.”

“That’s a fact,” I stated.

“Ain’t you going in the wrong direction?” he asked, calculating our route in his head.  “You need to be going southwest.  You’re going south.”

“We’re heading for the Appalachian Trail.  It will take us home without having to pass through a lot of towns.”

He considered this.  “That ain’t a bad idea,” he said.  “Hard walking but safer than staying on the roads.”

“Have you heard any news lately?” Gary asked.  “What’s going on out there?”

The man spat again, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  “The White House has gone silent is what I’m hearing on the radio.  We ain’t got power so I don’t know if television news is working or not.  They say the president is holed up in a bunker somewhere until they figure out if there’s going to be more attacks.  All the major cities are declaring martial law.  They talked about doing martial law nationwide but a reporter interviewed some retired general and he said they don’t have enough troops.  Half of what they do have ain’t showing up for work.  Gone AWOL to take care of their families, I guess.”

The man twisted around in his seat to face us better.  “One of my neighbors has shortwave and he says the word is that they destroyed most of the big oil refineries and they’ll take years to repair.  They also destroyed so many power stations that there aren’t enough transformers to fix them and they can’t make more because they don’t have any power at the factories that make them.  Now ain’t that a pickle?  He also said that Nashville was pretty much wiped off the face of the Earth by floodwaters from a busted dam.”

We all shook our heads in disbelief.  Much of this news matched the bits and pieces we’d heard yesterday but it was still hard to digest.  Despite our problems, and they were significant, at least we were still alive and healthy for the moment.

“I’m thinking we’re about four miles from the trail,” I said.  “Do you know if that’s right or not?  The map shows there’s a parking lot near the end of this road that connects with the trail.”

“Four miles?” the man said, thinking.  “That would be about right.”

“Guess we should get going then,” Gary said.  “We’ve got a long way to go.”

“It’s only about one mile if you cut across my farm,” the farmer said.

“I noticed on the map that the trail was up on that ridge,” I said.  “But without an access trail it looked like it would mean climbing straight up a hillside through rhododendron thickets.  They can be damn near impossible to get through without a trail.”

“You remember that big forest fire last year?” the farmer asked.

I nodded.  It had made the news statewide.

“Forest Service had to cut a fire road right through my property to get to it,” he said.  “It joins right up with that trail you’re talking about.”

“That’s good news,” I said.  “You don’t mind us crossing your property?”

The man shook his head.  “You folks look like you could use a boost,” he said.  “You got enough hard times ahead of you already.”

We all agreed to that.

“About a hundred yards up the road is a gate on the right,” he said.  “Go through that gate and lock it back so the cows don’t get out.  Follow the gravel road that goes straight up into the woods.  It will lead you right to where you’re going and save you about eight miles of walking.”

I walked over to the tractor and stuck out my hand.  “We appreciate this,” I said.

The man took my hand and shook.  “No problem,” he said.  “You all be careful and remember to close the gate.”

I promised him that we would and picked up my pack.  He started his tractor and pulled off down the road.  Gary and Randi stood and gathered their gear.

Randi stretched.  “I’m all for saving miles.”

“Then let’s get going,” I said, heading down the road for the gate.

When Ellen awoke, she did not initially recall that she was in the middle of a crisis.  The children were in the bed with her, which was not completely different than any other summer day where Jim would get up early and go to work while she and the kids slept late.  As a teacher, Ellen enjoyed having her summers off as much as the children did.  Their days began slowly and she loved that.

She rose from the bed to go to the bathroom, then remembered that the power was out.  It was a dark cloud descending on her, remembering that her husband wasn’t at work but trying to walk home hundreds of miles from a business trip gone awry.  She could still use the bathroom but couldn’t flush right now since the generator wasn’t running and there’d be limited water pressure.  As she walked by the bedroom window she stopped in her tracks.  She walked over to the window and stood in front of it in shock.  About two dozen cows were grazing on her lawn.

Shit
, she thought.  Then remembering her garden, which she could not see from this window, she said it aloud.  “Shit!”

She had slept in one of Jim’s t-shirts but their yard was private and there would be no one out there to see her running around dressed as she was.  Their house was set back off the road and fairly private.  Besides, this was an emergency.  She stepped into a pair of flip-flops and went to the kitchen.  From the kitchen door she could see more cows strolling through the garden trampling plants and helping themselves to anything that looked tasty. 

She was furious and nearly blind with anger.  Now, more than ever, they might need that food.  She snatched up a broom and flew out the door.  From the back porch, she could immediately see the problem.  Without power, the two strands of electric fence that usually held the cows at bay in the pasture next door were now of little consequence to the large animals.  The cows had pushed the two strands of wire down and walked across them to the greener pastures of Ellen’s backyard and garden.

She waded into the cows, trying to urge them out of her garden without doing any more damage.  They chewed and paid little attention to her, used to people as they were.  That was, until she started swinging the broom.  Like a domestic ninja, she wielded the broom with martial precision, swatting cows and driving them from her garden.  They bolted and lunged, taking flight urgently now that they were under attack.  Running back and forth, she herded them to the front yard and then kept them moving down the driveway. 

When she reached the gate at the end of the driveway, she ran ahead of the cows and opened it.  This action startled some of the cows into retreating and turning back toward the house.  Ellen cursed loudly, running along the fence line to get back between the cows and the house and turn them in the right direction.   Swinging the broom and yelling she was able to bring them to a stop and get them moving back toward the gate, where she drove them through it and onto the gravel road in front of the house. 

Typically, she and Jim would have driven them back across the fence, back into their own pasture, but that would have been pointless because they would have just come back across into her yard.  She didn’t like that particular neighbor very much and had no way to call him and let him know his cows were out.  He would just have to find out on his own.  The cows would probably stay in the road in front of her house anyway, eating tall grass from the shoulder of the road, and their owner could deal with them later.

Driving the last black beast through the gate, she stopped and leaned against the gate, sweating and catching her breath.  It was only then that she realized she had an audience.  Two men she did not recognize stood across the road from her, rifles resting on their shoulders.  Their grins revealed that they had apparently enjoyed the show, seeing her running around driving the cattle in the t-shirt that barely covered her panties.  She gripped the broom tightly and a cold fist closed around her heart.  She was not only half-dressed, she was unarmed and vulnerable.  This could be where it all ended.  She immediately thought of her children – her carelessness could mean the end for all of them.

One man was bearded and wore the reflective work clothes of someone who worked in the coal mines or natural gas business.  She did not know the man, nor did she recall seeing him in the vehicles that came and went from the trailer park up the road, which was where she assumed he came from.  She knew nearly everyone on this road, with the exception of the more transient population that moved in and out of that trailer park.

The other man was also bearded and wore hunting camouflage and a John Deere hat.  Ellen did not recall him either.  He had a single rabbit hanging dead from his belt.

They’re just hunting,
she told herself. 
Be cool and get back to the house. Act with authority –or at least as much authority as a woman with her ass hanging out can act with.

“Them your cows?” the man with the rabbit asked.

“No,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.  “They came through the fence.”

The men continued to look her over, leaving her feeling very uncomfortable.  One averted his eyes and looked toward her house.

“Where’s your husband?” he asked.  “Why’s he got you out here playing cowgirl?”

Ellen stared at the man, knowing full well that it had dawned on him that there must not be any man at her house or she would not be out chasing cows dressed as she was. 

Cut it off now
, she told herself. 
Get back to the house.  Now.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do,” she said. 

She turned and walked back through the gate, feeling the men’s eyes on her backside.  She swung the gate shut and latched it.  She would have to remember to put a padlock on it today.  She turned from the gate and began walking back up to the house, the men silent, watching.

She worried that the men’s awareness of Jim’s absence may be the beginning of a problem, though she was not sure what she could do about it.  They would just have to be careful, vigilant, and stay armed at all times.  Not having her gun with her could have cost her dearly.  She could have been raped, robbed, or killed.  Her children could have been killed.  She would have to focus on not reacting so quickly.  When anything happened from this point on, she would have to examine it from all angles before taking any action.  She would have to make their safety the first priority.

In her fear and rush of paranoia it hit her that this would have been a perfect ruse to draw her out of the safety of her house.  Someone could have let those cows out to make her come outside.  She didn’t feel like that was what had taken place this time, but it could be next time.  She could not leave the house without making sure that things were safe, and decided never to leave the house unarmed again.  She would need to return to Jim’s binder; there was information in there about securing the house, and she needed to read it
today
.

She was not able to relax enough to draw a full breath until she reached the steps of her house.  Up until that point, she had listened carefully for the clank of the gate latch or the sound of footsteps running up on her from behind.  She didn’t know what she would do if they came after her.  She supposed she would have run, maybe even fight for her life.  Would she have screamed for the children to help her?  To bring a gun? What would she do?

When she climbed the steps and reached the front door, safety just feet away, she found it locked.  It was then that she remembered she had come out the back door.  Another painful mistake, another reminder of how she needed to be doing a better job of this.  She turned and went back down the steps.  When she took a glance at the road, she found the men were still there, still watching her.  When she got to the corner of the house, she lost all composure and ran to the back door as fast as she could, climbing the steps two at a time and hurtling herself through the door.

Once inside, she threw the latches and locked the door.  Only then did the tears come.  She shook and sobbed, sliding down the door onto the floor and curling herself into a ball at the base of the door.  She would have to think differently to survive.  She could not fail so miserably again.  Her life – and the lives of her children – depended on it.

By the time Pete and Ariel woke up, Ellen had regained her composure.  She had changed clothes and made coffee on the camp stove out back.  She had also dug a thick belt from her closet and now wore the S&W Shield on her belt in a kydex holster.  On the opposite side of her belt was a nylon pouch with a Velcro closure that held two spare mags.  The faithful Ruger LCP was in her back pocket.  She would not be caught unarmed again. 

While she drank her coffee, Ellen made breakfast on the gas camping stove.  She cooked refrigerated food that needed to be eaten soon.  There were eggs, bacon, and biscuits.  With them, she served slightly soft butter and homemade peach preserves.  The softening butter reminded her that it was time to run the generator.  She was able to start it with less trouble this time.  The noise of the engine was better than an alarm clock and had both children roused in no time.  They found their way to the kitchen and were eating groggily when she sat with them and sipped her coffee.

“You guys okay this morning?” she asked.

They nodded but said nothing, nibbling sleepily at their food.

“What would you think about your grandparents coming out and staying with us for a while?”

“That would be fine,” Ariel said.

They were silent for a while then Pete furrowed his brow.  “Why do you want them to come out here and stay with us?”

“Two reasons,” Ellen said.  “I’m worried about them being out there alone.  I’m not sure they have as much camping and survival stuff as we do.”

“They don’t,” Ariel said.  “They think Daddy is silly buying all this stuff.”

Ellen wondered if they still thought he was silly under present circumstances.  She doubted it.

“Why else?” Pete asked.

Ellen carefully considered her words.  “Because I think we need some extra help,” she said.  “I think it would be safer to have everyone together.  We would have more people to keep an eye on things.”

What Ellen left unsaid was that Jim’s dad could handle a gun if needed and Jim’s mom could help keep Ariel entertained while the rest of them kept an eye on things.  She had already tried to send them a text this morning, having been unable to reach them with a call.  They only used their cell phones sporadically so it was hard to know if they even had them turned on or not.  She would have to go out there and speak to them in person. 

Had it not been for the incident at the gate this morning, she would have been fine with leaving Pete home, locked in the house and keeping an eye on things.  He was at the age where he could stay home for short periods of time by himself, albeit under less concerning circumstances.  Now that she was sure that they had drawn some unwanted attention, she couldn’t take a chance on Pete being home if something happened.  She would have to load the children into her vehicle and they would have to make a quick trip to Jim’s parents’ house, hoping that their home was safe when they returned.

*

Jim’s dad was in the yard walking their dog when Ellen and the kids pulled up.  Their trip had been relatively uneventful.  Ellen had not wanted to leave their home using the main road because she was concerned about people seeing her leaving the house vulnerable.  She’d cut through a neighbor’s field and used a farm road to cross his property, exiting at a gate that was closer to town and on a different road than the one they lived on.  Ellen had never driven the road before but had heard about it from Jim who often cut firewood on the neighbor’s property.  She made a mental note to return this way, too.

The kids jumped out of the car immediately and ran to Pops – Pete to hug Pops, Ariel to hug the dog.  Ellen climbed out, then reached back inside and removed the Remington 870.  She hung it over her shoulder and joined the kids.

“What’s with the firepower?” Pops asked, smiling.

“Things must be calm here,” Ellen said.  “I’m a little concerned about where things are going, though.”

“You could always come join us here,” Pops said, coming over and giving Ellen a squeeze.

Ellen hugged him back.  “That’s not why we’re here.  Besides checking up on you guys, I was interested in seeing if you wanted to come stay with us.”

Pops scratched his chin.  He handed the leash to Ariel, who wanted to lead the dog around the yard.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “Things have been really quiet here.”

“That’s because you’re close to the Emergency Services office and the State Police substation.  I think we’re better prepared than you are at our place, though.”

“We have some emergency preparations,” Pops said. 

“What I’m hearing is that this could last a year,” Ellen said, her voice low to keep Pete from hearing.  He was wandering off to see his grandmother.

“Why a year?”

“Jim has read a lot about this,” Ellen said.  “There’s no manufacturing capacity to repair all the electrical components that have been damaged.  There’s no refinery capacity to provide enough fuel to keep commerce moving.  Food will be running out.  Fuel is already restricted.  Without power, people will start dying off.”

Pops’ expression had gone from the joy of seeing them to one of grave concern.  “I’ll have to talk to Nana and see what she thinks.”