Alone: Book 1: Facing Armageddon (8 page)

     I’ve been hesitant to go
into Lindsey and Beth’s bedrooms. I’ve been afraid of how I’ll feel when I go in there and smell their scents, and see their stuffed animals and other things. I know I need to do it. But I’m so afraid I’ll break down and cry like a baby.

     I’m determined to do that tomorrow, though. It’s been six days since the blackout now, and I haven’t taken a single step towards hiding our food.

     I did pull out the old posters we’ve been collecting. I even laughed, remembering when Lindsey insisted that she wanted to throw away all of her Justin Bieber posters. I remember when you told her, “But just a few months ago you were madly in love with him.” She said, “Mommmm, that was before I grew up. I’m so over him now.” And you turned to me and said, “I must have missed the memo. Since when is eleven grown up?”

     I counted them. All total, including the ones currently on their walls, we have twenty two of them. I can stash quite a bit of stuff behind twenty two posters.

     That’s my project for the next two or three days. Actually, it may take longer than that. But that’s okay. Time and loneliness are the two things I have the most of.

     I saw the
Castros leave yesterday. For  several nights I was been able to peek out of our west window and see candles burning in their living room. It gave me some comfort, knowing they were okay. But I guess they figured they were better off moving elsewhere. I don’t know where they went, or if they’re coming back. I just saw them… all five of them, heading off down the street about nine yesterday morning.

     They were heavily loaded with backpacks, and Julie pulled her wagon, which was loaded down with bottled water and boxes of foodstuffs.

     They weren’t armed. Wherever they’re going, I hope they make it safely without being robbed. I know we didn’t know them well, but they were quiet and never caused us any problems. All in all, they were good neighbors.

     I’ll keep an eye on their living room window to see if the candles start burning again. If they don’t return, I’ll go over there and see if there’s anything I can use. I figure I can get enough firewood from the Hansen house to last at least two years, maybe three. If they’re not back by then, I’ll assume they’re not coming back, and I’ll start mining wood from their house as well.

     I installed the outhouse a few days ago. It works great. I even put some Sports Illustrated magazines in there, in a waterproof container.

     I know it doesn’t sound very romantic, but every time I sit on that padded seat I think of you and smile. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that part.

     I love you, honey. If anything ever happens to me, I hope you guys make it back and find this. At least you’ll know that I never forgot you, and never stopped loving you.

     Wherever you are and whatever you’re
doing, be safe. And kiss the girls for me. I love you all.

-17
-

     Dave had changed his sleeping habits because he was tired of waking up late in the morning and pissing away all of the sunshine. After that happened the third day in a row, he figured out that he just needed to go to bed earlier, right after it got dark, instead of stumbling around in the darkness trying to do things without the aid of light.

     And it made sense for another reason. He was afraid to use flashlights after dark, for fear someone would see the light while walking past and know that the house was occupied. Whatever project he was working on in near total darkness, with only
the moonlight and starlight coming in windows to aid him, it took several times longer than doing the same project in the daytime. So while he thought he was getting things done, he was really just spinning his wheels.

     And his new sleep schedule was a resounding
success. By going to bed at sundown, he was wide awake before dawn. He had time to brew himself some coffee on his campfire stove on the back deck, and watch the rabbits hopping around, eating the grass, while he planned his day. Then, as soon as the house was light enough to start work, he put his plans in motion. It worked much better than his old method of sleeping until ten or eleven, then scrambling to beat the sunset, and feeling around in the dark trying to make up for lost time.

     He was awakened
three different times the previous night by gunfire. The third time he saw what he thought were headlights shining into the front windows, and he got up to investigate.

     Through the window he could see a house, fully engulfed in flames,
two blocks away.

     He looked at the treetops.
Thankfully they were still.

It occurred to him then that he had no back up plan if anyone ever set
his
house on fire. With no water to put it out, he’d have to evacuate and let the house burn to the ground, with all his provisions. It was a troubling thought.

     He stood at the window and watched for a time, until he was confident the fire wouldn’t spread to his own street. The flames seemed to be dying down now, and neither of the houses on each side of the burning house had caught fire.

     Still, it worried him enough to prevent him from falling back to sleep again.

     He checked his watch. It was still an hour before sunrise.

     He heard automatic gunfire coming from a few streets away, in the opposite direction from the burning house.

     Most of the gunfire occurred at night. It was only
sporadic during the daylight hours, but had become quite frequent in darkness.

     He assumed that’s because the looters thought it safer to break into homes under cover of darkness.

     He also assumed that since the looters didn’t know which homeowners were armed, they sometimes got surprised by homeowners wanting to protect their property.

     He hoped the homeowners won such battles. And he hoped that they showed the looters no mercy.

     He walked to the back door and out onto the deck. It was still too early to fire up the camping stove to make coffee. It was nothing more than a small burner that perched atop a disposable bottle of propane. But it still put out a small circle of blue flame that had enough light to be seen some distance away. No sense sending out a beacon to others who might be anxious to get such a fuel source.

     It was much smart
er to wait an hour and brew his coffee in the daylight.

     Dave sat on a folding chair on the deck and contemplated his future. It was becoming easier now to consider the possibility that his wife and daughters may have died. If their plane was still in the air when the blackout hit, it would have lost all power and would have dropped like a rock.

     He hated to think about it, but he had no choice. It was a real possibility. At least if they died that way, it would have been over rather quickly. They’d have screamed together and hugged each other and prayed. But then after the crash, they’d be at peace. They wouldn’t have to worry about dying of thirst, or starving to death, or being murdered by bands of marauders taking what they wanted at gunpoint.

     Then he began to wonder.

     He was assuming that the airplanes would fall from the sky after the EMP. But what if that wasn’t the case?

     He’d been in airplanes flying through thunderstorms. He’d even looked out a window and seen a bolt of lightning hit one of the wings once.

     And nothing happened.

    
And that made him think.

     The airplane he was on didn’t blow up or crash because it wasn’t grounded. It was in essence a flying Faraday cage. The lightning bolt hit the plane, and the electricity encircled the outer skin and then
dissipated, without harming the people inside.

     He wondered… wouldn’t the airplane react the same way when the EMP hit it?

     Perhaps the safest place in the world to be when the EMP hit was aboard an airplane.

     But then what? Even if the airplane survived, how could it land without its
glide slope beacon telling it when and where to approach the airfield? How could it find its way when air traffic controllers couldn’t communicate with it, and give the pilots landing instructions?

     How would the pilots know whether or not it was safe to land on a particular runway, even if they could find the airport? Without the tower giving them clearance to land, they’d have no idea who or what might be sitting on the runway, or the taxiways, and in their way.

     But somewhere in the recesses of his memory, Dave found a straw to grasp at. It seemed that months before, he’d watched a program on the Discovery Channel about emergency landings. And they’d talked about training for such instances. They’d talked about the FAA requiring pilots to train for landings when they lost contact with air traffic control.

     They even showed commercial airline pilots, in a flight simulator, approaching a blacked out airport. And it showed as they overflew the airport, to make sure the runway was clear. Then it showed them as they circled back around, and without the aid of a
glide slope beacon landed the plane the old fashioned way. By watching their instruments and looking out the windows.

     On the program, the pilots were able to land safely in the simulator.

     It gave Dave renewed hope that Sarah, Lindsey and Beth may have survived even if they were still in the air when the EMP hit.

     By the time the sun finally rose that morning, Dave had pretty much convinced himself that his family was still intact. And even if he was dead wrong, he’d continue to believe it.

     He had to. Otherwise he might as well just give up. For without the belief that he’d someday reconcile with his wife and daughters, he’d eventually go insane.

     And then he’d realize there was no reason to go on. He’d blow his brains out, like he knew many others around him were doing each and every day.

     He opened the valve on the small bottle of propane and struck a match to the gas. Then he filled his campfire coffee pot with water and a small amount of coffee grounds and put it atop the tiny stove to simmer.

     He tried to remember how far Sarah’s brother and sister in law lived from the airport in
Kansas City. He’d only been to their place once, but was impressed by all of the things Tommy had showed him. They’d been prepping too now, for quite some time. Their food stores and supplies at least equaled those that Dave and Sarah had been able to gather.

     By Dave’s best estimate, the
ir house was no more than twenty miles from the airport. It was certainly within two days walking distance.

     If his family was able to land safely, and then was able to meet up with Tommy and Susan, there was no reason to believe that they wouldn’t have been able to make it back to Tommy and
Susan’s house. And once there, they’d have the water, food and security they needed to survive.

     Dave had a lot to do after he finished his coffee. And he’d do it with a renewed sense of purpose, and a renewed optimism.

     His family was alive.

     They had to be.

-18-

       Having convinced himself beyond any doubt that his daughters were still alive made it easier to enter their bedrooms. He’d been dreading it, knowing the memories the rooms would bring back. But now, it didn’t seem to sadden him as much.

     He started in Lindsey’s room first. She was his oldest. He could still vividly remember holding her in the palms of his hands on the day she was born. It was the first time he’d allowed himself to cry in Sarah’s presence. He considered it unmanly. Sarah thought it was sweet.

     He felt his eyes moisten now, but he’d hold the tears back. He had work to do.

     He entered the room and closed the door behind him. Then he took out his frustratio
n by punching a hole in the wall.

     It felt good. He chuckled, thinking it was just what he’d needed.

     But his mission wasn’t to destroy the house.

     Once the wall had a hole punched in it, he took a sheetrock saw he’d brought up from the garage. Using the hole he punched as a starting point, he cut a rectangular hole about a foot square between the studs.

     Then he went back to the garage with a laundry basket from Lindsey’s bedroom. He’d dumped her dirty laundry on the floor, but she wasn’t there to call him on it. So he figured it was okay.