I stood on the porch drinking a cup of freshly brewed coffee. For whatever reason, the power still worked in this part of the country, and that made our lives much easier. I sipped the coffee and thought about my family back in West Virginia. I sent up a little prayer and frowned. I was not a practicing anything, but I was raised in a Christian home and knew God personally. We weren’t always on good terms, but that wasn’t his fault.
“So, what are you going to do?” Max had a bad habit of sneaking up behind me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Once we get everything squared away here, I’ll probably head east.”
Max lit a smoke and took a big drag. “Ya know, Meg still won’t let me smoke in the house. End of the fucking world and I still have to go outside to smoke.”
He laughed. I chuckled in return, “Probably still a good idea for the kids anyhow.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Max smiled and flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette. “Dad smoked like a freight train around us growing up and it didn’t affect us too badly,” he continued.
I laughed aloud. “Yeah, let’s see, out of seven kids, how many of us have smoked at one time or another?”
Max pretended to count on his fingers… “Six, and I’m not sure Barb didn’t sneak one in there at some point.”
I smiled at him and took the pack of smokes from his front shirt pocket. “I don’t blame Dad for my bad habits, but I do think that we should encourage the youngsters to abstain.” I lit my cigarette and took another drink of coffee.
“Yeah, it would be a bitch to keep all these people in smokes,” Max said sarcastically.
Meg stepped out on the porch and leaned on the railing. She seemed to have recovered well from the attack and looked no worse for wear, other than being a couple of digits short. She reached over and borrowed my cigarette, took a quick hit, then handed it back. Max shook his head and went back inside after depositing his butt in the ashcan.
“What’s his problem?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “How are we set for supplies?”
“With what you guys brought and what I have here, we should be good for a month or so, if we’re careful. The creek is a little low, but it looks like a storm is brewing in the mountains, and that usually brings the level up some.”
*****
Max and I worked on the barbed-wire fence all day and rigged a section across the opening out in front of the house.
“It should keep out any stragglers, but I doubt it would stop a determined assault,” Max said.
“Yeah, I think we should take the trucks, go find some chain-link fence down in town, and fortify this place,” I said.
Max put his hands on his hips and surveyed the surrounding countryside.
“Once we get that done, I think Lisa and I are going to head back over to see if anyone else made it to Whidbey.”
I nodded. “I think this area will be more secure than the coast, mostly because of the population density. You may want to stay here.”
“Ryan, I know you feel like you have to go back to West Virginia, but what do you think the chances are that you can make it? And there is no guarantee that they’ll be there.”
When he saw the look in my eyes, he held up his hands. “Bro, I’m just saying, it would be a suicide mission.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I knew he was just concerned for my safety, but it also pissed me off.
“Look, I have to; it isn’t a question, period.”
“Okay, okay, don’t get pissed. I’m just trying to keep you alive, is all.” We collected our tools and headed back down to the house.
Meg’s garden was not going to win any awards at the fair, but the fresh vegetables were delicious and won a blue ribbon from everyone at the table, even the kids.
“Man, that squash was good!” I said, as I finished the last bite.
“I’m partial to the green beans,” Jean said, and burped. The kids giggled and she said excuse me.
Lynn and Jean had agreed to be the designated cooks but pointed out that Max and I would be the designated dishwashers.
“I think you should put the kids to work on that. It will give them a purpose—besides, we are security,” I pointed out politely.
“Just like when we were growing up, you guys skated out of every chore given to you.” Rather than start an unwinnable argument, I slid out of my chair and motioned to Max that it was time for a smoke.
It was only four o’clock and nowhere near sundown, but the gathering storm clouds had blocked the sun for most of the afternoon, creating an early twilight. Lynn and Jean were cleaning up the kitchen. Sarah and the kids were watching
Frozen
for the fifth time in as many days.
Jean yelled out the door, “These dishes will be waiting for you boys!”
I shook my head and realized there was no point in fighting it. Max, Meg, Lisa, and I were on the porch going over plans to further fortify the property. As we talked, the wind picked up noticeably. I held down the butcher paper we were using to sketch out our plans in crayon and looked up at the ridgeline to the east, where I caught flashes of lightning.
“Let’s take this inside, you guys; it’s getting a bit breezy out here.” We retreated to the kitchen and continued our planning session there.
When the rain came, it was as if someone were spraying the windows with a fire hose.
“Holy moley! We better make plans for an ark instead of a fence,” Lisa said.
She no sooner said that than the power went out. Everyone groaned simultaneously. We heard the kids scream, and then the patter of feet as they ran down the hall.
“It’s just a storm guys. It’s okay, we’ll be fine,” Meg assured them.
As Meg had predicted, the storm passed and we awoke to a beautiful clear sky the next morning. Max and I took my truck and went to town to see if we could find some chain-link fence and a generator. We needed one now that the power had failed. On the short drive to town, we saw absolutely no one. We searched around the small town to no avail.
“There is a Home Depot and a Lowe’s down in Omak,” Max said. Omak was quite a bit bigger than Oroville, but it was forty minutes away.
“You think we should risk it?” I asked.
Max didn’t say anything, he just shrugged, so I added, “I tell you what, let’s go back to Meg’s and we’ll make the trip to Omak tomorrow. I would rather have the whole day, and besides, we told them we’d be back in a couple of hours.”
“Sounds good to me,” Max said.
We swung by the grocery store and looked it over. “We should get some meat; it’s going to go bad shortly and I could use a big fat steak tonight,” Max said, getting out of the truck. I followed, not sure it was a good idea but liking the sound of meat.
“Why do you think the power stayed on here longer than over on the coast?” I asked.
“Obviously the lines come from Spokane or a plant on this side of the Cascades that hadn’t failed yet,” Max said.
We loaded up and checked our weapons. We both chose tactical shotguns; they were unbeatable in close combat. We each slung a bandolier of shotgun shells over our shoulders and headed to the store. I double-checked my 1911, locked and cocked with one in the pipe. Max had taken to wearing the nickel-plated Judge that he picked up from Mel at Adventure Sports; it was now his daily carry sidearm.
We approached the store with care. Lynn had told us her story, and we expected to find some freaks inside.
“Okay, remember to keep your head on a swivel while we’re in here,” Max said.
“Got it.” We were wearing the radios, and turned on voice-activation mode. Max adjusted his throat mic.
“Radio check.”
“Copy,” I said, as we headed in.
The store was dark except for the very front where the sunlight shone on the checkout counter. We moved to the counter and stopped. Max flicked on his shotgun’s flashlight and I followed suit.
“Do you know where the meat department is?” he whispered over the radio.
“Yeah, I’ve been in here many times. Follow me and watch our backs.”
I grabbed a shopping basket and stayed low while we moved to the end of the aisle. When we stopped at the end cap, I heard the telltale panting. I motioned to Max, held up one finger, and pointed around the corner. He nodded. I stepped around the corner and shined the light down the aisle: nothing. Max grabbed my shoulder and pulled me down. I heard and felt the shotgun go off over my head as I ducked. I looked up just in time to see the freak knocked backward off the top of the shelf and into the next aisle. I’d little time to recover, however, because the sound of bare feet slapping the tile floor sounded to my right. I turned to see a freak in mid-flight as it dove at me from five feet away.
I pointed the shotgun in its general direction and pulled the trigger three times. The semi-auto shotgun responded by sending twenty-four double-aught pellets to meet it. It looked like Wile E. Coyote as it hovered in midair before dropping straight to the ground, splashing in a puddle of its own blood.
I heard Max’s voice in my ear, “Clear?”
I responded, looking quickly in both directions: “Clear.”
We quickly walked to the back of the store, both our flashlight beams dancing around the room, looking for any more freaks.
“Well, so much for the steaks,” I said, pointing to the meat counter.
The freaks had completely devoured all the meat. It looked like the Tasmanian Devil had been through.
“Fuck me dead,” Max said.
That pretty much summed up my thoughts, too. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
On the way back to the front of the store, we passed the wine rack. I somehow had managed to hold onto the hand basket and filled it with six bottles of red.
“Not an entirely wasted trip,” Max quipped.
We drove out of town without having seen a living normal person.
“You think everybody’s either dead or changed?” I asked.
“Hard to say, little brother; there have to be a few survivors.”
“You’d think they would’ve made themselves known to us,” I said.
“Yeah, two guys looting the grocery store with tactical shotguns, who wouldn’t?”
“Good point.”
We got back to Meg’s and found everyone waiting anxiously in the driveway… well, not everyone. They all talked at once as we got out of the truck.
“Hold on!” I held up my hands. “Meg, what is going on?”
“Jean is missing. She and Lynn were picking berries and Lynn came back to get another container. When she got back to where they were picking, Jean was gone.”
“Where is Lynn?”
“She refused to wait for you. She took off and went looking for her.”
“Shit!” Max said.
“Okay, everyone but Meg, back in the house. Lock the doors and don’t let anyone in. If someone tries to get in, Lisa, shoot them. Come on, Meg, show us where they were picking berries.” I grabbed my TP5.56 with the TrackingPoint sight and we headed off across the pasture.
We worked our way down the creek looking for the berry patch where Meg had sent Lynn and Jean. When we were close, we started checking the ground for any sign of tracks.
“What are we looking for?” Meg asked.
“Footprints or any kind of disturbance that will give us an idea of which way they went.”
There were several sets of footprints in the sandy soil, but with our lack of experience in tracking, we couldn’t make any sense of them.
“I wish I’d paid more attention to all the hunting shows I’ve watched where they explained this stuff,” I mumbled.
We covered the path leading down from Meg’s house and we couldn’t see any way out of the area except up and over a steep hillside that lead to a mesa.
“What’s up that way?” I pointed toward the hillside.
“There are a couple of ranches, but they are two miles away at least,” Meg said.
We crossed the creek and started searching. “Hey, look at this!” Max said.
He found the hoofprints of several horses along the base of the hillside. There was no sign of a struggle—but then again, we probably wouldn’t have known the difference.
“Okay, I think we should go back to the house, take my truck, and go check out these ranches Meg mentioned.”
We left Lisa with Sarah and the kids; Meg came with us. We headed down the main road for about a mile. Meg pointed out a dirt road that made a hard turn back toward the bluff. I turned in.
“Keep it slow, Ryan,” Max said. “We don’t want to advertise our approach with a big dust plume.”
I slowed the truck and looked back to make sure I wasn’t kicking up the dust too badly. I stopped the truck just short of the crest of the hill. We got out and walked up until we could see across the mesa. We scanned the area with the binoculars, looking for any movement. I thought I saw something and retraced back across the path I’d just scanned. In the Coast Guard, they taught us not to concentrate on one spot when searching an area, but to let your eyes pan. You are much more likely to see something with your peripheral vision than directly where you are looking. I saw it again. It was Lynn; she was headed away from us, but I recognized the funky yellow felt hat Meg had inherited from our Uncle Herb.