Breakout (Final Dawn) (9 page)

     “In my opinion, the only dilemma you have is a moral one. Do you think God would approve?
I think that God enabled us to survive to help repopulate and rebuild His earth. And I think He would want us to use whatever was at our disposal to do that. So if it was up to me to make that decision, or if I get a vote, I say go for it. Pick the best trailers and bring them back here, before other survivors beat you to it.”

     “Thank you, John. What are you going to do with the radio logbook?”

     “We’ll leave it right here on the counter, next to the activity log. Anybody who’s curious can pick it up and read it anytime. And if we happen to hear anything important, we can discuss it at our weekly get togethers.”

     “Thank you, John. You’ve been a big help.”

     Mark took Hannah’s hand and they walked to room 112, which had been designated as the grade school for the younger children. At the present time, there were only four children in the grade school. Little Markie was the youngest, but according to Karen, the teacher, he was also the most inquisitive and the one most eager to learn.

     It was almost three p.m., and time to get out for the day.

     They’d promised him that if he behaved in school, they’d let him help feed the pigs and chickens before dinner.

     Markie loved feeding the pigs and chickens. Because he made them earn their food by letting him chase them around their pens first.

     And Hannah liked watching him. There had been so few things in Markie’s young life that allowed him to just be a boy, and have fun. This was one of them, and it brought Hannah at least as much joy as it did for Markie.

Chapter 17

     During the years they’
d been in the mine, the group had done a great job taking care of their vehicles. One of the bays in the back of the mine had been designated the group’s motor pool. That was where all of the vehicles were stored and closely cared for by two volunteers.

     The vehicles were started twice a week and allowed to run for several minutes to keep the engines lubricated and the batteries charged. They were even driven short distances periodically to keep the wheel bearing grease from settling.

     As a result, all of the vehicles were in good running condition when they were relocated from the mine to the compound next door.

     Including the two Kenworth trucks.

     Bryan was much more experienced as a driver. During the preparations to the mine in the months before Saris 7 struck the earth, he’d gone to a commercial driving school. He’d gotten his trucker’s license, and had been certified to drive a fuel tanker. And then he’d leased a tanker and driven it to and from Corpus Christi to purchase diesel fuel in bulk.

     That’s where the diesel that had powered the mine’s generators had come from.

     So even though it had been many years since he’d driven a tractor trailer, Bryan was fairly experienced in doing so.

     And he found it was a lot like riding a bicycle. Once you did it, you never really forgot how.

     Brad knew how to drive a rig from his Army days in Kaiserslautern, Germany. His job was driving big rigs with tanks on the back, to and from maintenance depots.

     The three of them went together again: Mark, Bryan and Brad. Ju
st like when they went to pick up the seed planting rig.

     Actually, they could have gone without Mark. But it was nice to have a backup with a weapon in case they came across someone who wasn’t friendly.

     Their game plan was simple. They’d inspect the dropped trailers on the eastbound shoulder of highway 83. Those could be picked up and driven directly back to the compound, without having to drive farther west for a place to turn around.

     And there were plenty to choose from.

     Just as they had during their earlier mission, the three gathered at the gate to say goodbye to their girls. Mark held Hannah and kissed her, and told her he loved her. She told him he’d better be careful, or she was going to kick his ass when he returned.

     “And if you see any hot chicks hitch hiking along the road, don’t even think about picking them up.”

     Bryan faked disappointment.

     “Oh, man! That’s the only reason we were going, was to pick up the hot chicks!”

     Sarah punched him in the arm. Then she said, “I love you, baby. Be careful out there.”

     “I will. I promise.”

     Sami merely kissed Brad and looked at him longingly. She was the most worried. She was nervous by nature, and convinced herself ahead of time that Brad would never return alive. Of course, she’d done the same thing before the three went after the planter and they’d all returned safely. She hoped she was wrong again, and that Brad would come back to her again.

     In any event, they’d talked it all out before breakfast. There wasn’t much more to say.

     Tony opened the gate and the two rigs bobtailed it out into the world. Bryan’s tractor was in the lead, with Mark riding shotgun. Brad kept the two vehicles tight, only an eighth of a mile between them as they rumbled down the road toward Eden.

     They passed all the abandoned trailers, but had to go another quarter mile to find a place to turn around. The narrow two lane state highway just wasn’t wide enough, without using both shoulders to give them some extra turning room.

     On the way back, they stopped in the roadway and put on their emergency flashers. John had been monitoring the traffic on Highway 83 from a camera mounted on top of the wind turbine. He couldn’t see as far as the trailers were dropped, but he had a pretty good indication of traffic on the highway heading toward or from Junction.

     “We’ve averaged only four cars per day for the last several days.
Probably people living in one of the small towns around here going to and from the trucks to gather their own food. You probably won’t meet any other people, but be wary if you do.”

    
Just in case they did meet someone, Mark stood in the roadway, his AR-15 rifle charged and at the ready, while Bryan and Brad went from trailer to trailer and broke the metal seals on the back of each one. Some had padlocks and some didn’t, but the padlocks were no match for the bolt cutters that Brad carried with them.

     Opening up each trailer, they crawled inside and
looked around to see if there was anything they could use.

     The first trailer they found that they wanted to keep was bound for a home improvement center. The big orange trailer was full of tools, hardware and household goods, as well as gardening supplies. Three pallets were potting soil, and another two pallets were plant food. They thought Karen might be able to use many of the items in her greenhouse operations.

     Three trailers farther was a trailer bound for the K-Mart store in nearby Junction. It was full of a little bit of everything, but mostly clothing, shoes and small appliances. Things they were certain to need, either now or at some point in the future.

     As they progressed down the line of trucks,
Bryan took a black grease pencil and wrote a large “X” on the front panel of each trailer they’d take with them.

     After three hours, the
y’d identified nineteen trailers they wanted, and hooked their tractors up to the first two.

     Another half hour later, John finally got the word he’d been hoping for.

     “Okay, John, we’re pulling off of the highway now. No problems at all. Never even saw another vehicle.”

     “Ten-four. Tony, did you copy?”

     “I copied. Opening the gate.”

     Bryan and Brad parked the first two trailers next to the frozen food trucks they’d brought out of the mine. Then they went back for more.

     By the end of the next day, they’d brought the last two into the yard. Nineteen full trailers and one empty one.

     The girls met them
as they lined up the last two and stepped out of the trucks.

     Hannah said to Mark,
“Tell me again why you brought an empty one back.”

     “Well, the empty one is going on the end. Right now we don’t have much idea what’s inside of them, except for what we can see from the end of the truck. So we’re going to go through them, one at a time, and catalog and restack them, so that we’ll not only know what’s in them, but also have a rough idea on where everything is when we need it.”

     “Oh? How so?”

     “Well, like I said, the empty truck will be on the end. We’ll take
everything off the second trailer and log it on an inventory sheet. Then we’ll stack it in the empty trailer. Only we’ll stack the items without the wooden pallets underneath them. That way we can stack the goods higher. All the way up to the ceiling if we need to. And by stacking it higher, we can leave a walkway down the center of the trailer, so we can walk all the way to the back if we need to. We’ll also leave an occasional break to put boxes when we have to dig something out. By getting rid of the pallets and stacking things higher, we should have room for the pathway and the breaks and still have room to get everything from the second trailer into the empty one.

     “Then once the second trailer is empty, we’ll put the stuff from the third trailer into it, in the same manner. And we’ll do that all the way down the line.

     “When we’re finished, we’ll have an inventory list for each trailer. It’ll tell us roughly where each item is located, on the right or left side of the trailer, and approximately how far back. It’ll make it much easier to find a particular item when we need it.”

     “That sounds like quite a project.”

     “Oh, it will be. That’s why we’ve each committed to spending every Saturday for the foreseeable future to getting it done. You girls can help us if you want.”

     Sami laughed.

     “Sorry, Saturdays are the days when we go get our hair done, and manis and pedis.”

     Sarah added, “Yes. And don’t forget shopping at the mall.”

     Hannah said, “Don’t listen to these two fruitcakes. I for one would be happy to help. How long do you think it’ll take?”

     “We’re figuring the better part of a year. Maybe even longer.”

     “Well, it’s a good thing we’ve got lots of time, huh?”

Chapter 18

     They had worked out a great system on Buena Vista Drive.

     They had a rough go of it at first, when they planted their first batch of wheat seeds from the Home Depot. They watered the crop religiously and watched in hopeful anticipation from day to day, but the plants just never came out of the ground.

     The corn crop, on the other side of the street, was planted after the wheat. Those plants were more than a foot high when the group finally gave up on the wheat.

     They got a second batch of seeds, this time a different brand and a different strain.

     And they repeated the back breaking job of planting the seeds, by hand, row by row, yard by yard, crawling around on their hands and knees.

     But this time it paid off, and eight days after being planted
the plants started breaking free from the ground and growing.

     And so now, several weeks later, they had a system.
Every fourth day without rain two of them would spend the day watering, using a small gas powered pump to pump water from the rain barrels through a water hose. They’d go row by row, yard by yard, to give each plant a much needed drink. And they’d look to the sky and pray for rain to refill their rain barrels before they all ran dry.

     But just in case the rain didn’t come, on the watering days, four othe
rs took two pickups to the playa lake a few blocks away. In the back of each truck were dozens of old milk containers they’d gathered at the recycling center. And two by two, they carried the empty containers to the water’s edge and held them beneath the water to fill them.

     Then they carried them back to the pickup and swapped them out for two more empties.

     After they filled the containers and headed back home, they poured them all into the rain barrels. It was an effort to keep from running out, in case their irrigation needs exceeded their rainfall.

     The crops were growing quite well now. It turned out that Widow Spencer and
Frank’s wife Eva had very green thumbs. They issued the instructions, on when to water and how much water to apply, and when to apply fertilizer and insecticide. The men, as a rule, didn’t know much about how to care for plants, but were ready volunteers to follow the women’s instructions.