2nd Earth: Shortfall (8 page)

This is definitely one of the best meals we have had as a family. To top it all off after the ice cream is gone, and we have all gone to our separate homes for the night, Tim sends his shadow to get me. We shouldn’t call the young man Tim’s shadow, but he is a twelve year old that simply worships Tim. He is the son of one of the ladies that lives in the house with Tim and Charity and is never more than a few yards away. Tonight he comes running yelling for Billy and me to come up to the radio room. He is too excited to say anything more, so Billy and I along with Dayna and Billy’s wife Ramona run up to see what is so important. We get there in time to hear Tim talking to someone on the short wave radio. The voice definitely sounds southern like Texas maybe. The voice is saying that there are a few scattered groups of people where he is, but that is it. He says he is in his forties and remembers when everything changed much the same as Dayna’s father does. He says he has been in contact with people from California, Arizona, Mexico, and even as far away as England a couple of times. What he has heard is that so far everywhere he has talked to people they have the same kind of desolation we have found.

He verifies that he is in Texas, just outside Dallas. He has a group of thirty-five that all live on a ranch there and farm to survive. He says that in the big cities there were gangs of predators that preyed on the others. That’s why they moved to the country, that and the fact that eventually the food supplies in the city won’t last forever, so they decided to try growing what they need. So far it is working well for them, but they have been luckier than they have any reason to expect to be. One thing he tells us, before we lose the signal, is that we should beware of traveling gangs that have vehicles, and they go looking for those groups doing what we are. Just to be safe, we tell him that we are in South Carolina, in case someone is listening in. He tells us that he gets on a couple times a week so if we want to talk we can give him a ring. We all laugh and then his voice is gone, replaced by static.

At least we verified that we are not the only ones, or that the East Coast isn’t the only geographic area hit by whatever hit the world. We all talk for quite a while about what we heard. Since the winter wheat is in the ground, and most of the repair work that is totally necessary is coming along fine, we decide that we should pay a visit to the town or small city that the map says is about fifteen miles from here. We decide, or should I say Dayna and Ramona insist on going with Billy and I, and three of the other men in the family. We are taking two trucks with us just in case there is something we can use there. When we finally get to bed, I have trouble falling asleep, because I have no idea how scattered groups like we are can bring the world or even the United States back to a nation. Dayna, who has been reading a lot of history books, tells me that we are not much different than the early pioneers. I remind her that there were people in other countries eager to come to the new world to make their fortunes in gold or by the sweat of their brow.

She asks me if I believe the Bible, I tell her I think I do. She reminds me that Adam and Eve started mankind and then Noah had to start over with his family and two of each animal. We are already ahead of him because we have more people and more animals. If he did it, why can’t we? I have to admit she has a point. I finally go to sleep, resigned to the fact that I can’t solve the problems of the world anymore now than I could when I was back in the present, or is that the future. See, I don’t even know where I am or how I got to be here. I do realize that all we can do is our best every day and let the world do what it is going to. Right here and now is the only thing we can control, to at least some degree. For some reason I dream about a greenhouse all night. That would definitely solve a lot of our problems, being able to grow vegetables all year round, but where would we get one. I wake up asking myself that same question.

In the morning we do some chores around the house that need done, then get ready to go to town. There is a gas tank on the farm that we have been getting fuel for the tractors out of, so we fill the trucks with it before we leave. Billy is driving the 1 ½ ton truck in case we find something big that we want to bring home. Besides, it has a bigger cab, and Billy is just a little too big to fit in a standard pickup cab comfortably. The weather isn’t bad, so the other men and boys that are going with us decide to ride in the back of the pickup. With map in hand, we set out on an adventure. We figure we will probably find more groups of people in the town. We will have to decide at the time if we want them to join our family. I know that sounds cold, but we have to be careful that everyone that joins our family is willing to do their own share of the work. We have been very lucky up to this point, but we all know how fast that can change.

8

We are not in any great hurry to get to the town, we see what there is to see on the way and make notes of other houses and farms along the way. So far everything we pass looks totally deserted. I’m not sure if that is a relief or cause for concern, it is what it is, and there is nothing we can do about it right now. We see a lot more cattle and wild game along the way and with all the woods between our homes and town, we should never run out of firewood. On the outskirts of town there is a farm equipment store with a bunch of equipment still in the front and from the looks of it around back as well. When we figure out what we need, we can always come back and get some of it. One item that catches my eye is a small garden type tractor, and the attachments that go with it, right out in front of the store. That could come in real handy for the vegetable gardens we want to plant. It would be a lot easier than trying to maneuver the big tractor in smaller areas.

The town looks like it was a great place to live, when there were people here. It looks as desolate as the farms we passed on the way here. We see no signs of life whatsoever as we drive down the main street. The buildings are not in as bad shape as I was expecting. But then, even the buildings in the city and the farm buildings were not as badly run down as I would have thought they would be for being empty for as long as they have been. Tim and I have talked about it some, and the only thing we can figure is that the radioactivity or the neutron bombs that destroyed the human inhabitants somehow preserved the building materials so that they don’t age like they normally would. Of course that is all speculation. However, based on some of the articles I have read, it doesn’t seem totally out of the realm of possibility.

We stop at about the center of the town in front of the only supermarket that we have seen so far. When we go in, it doesn’t appear that anyone has even been in the store in several years. There are skeletons in the aisles as there were up in the city and there is a thick layer of dust on everything. This store still has a very large number of fruits and vegetables in glass jars as well as in metal cans. We go into the stock room first and find hundreds of cases of food. We load the pickup to capacity and still haven’t put a dent in the amount of food here. We will definitely be back for more soon. There is no reason to let it go to waste. When we leave the grocery store we go to a sporting goods store right next to it. We find several very nice bows and arrows to go with them. I find the stash of good guns and ammunition that is kept in the basement.

There is a very nice supply of shotguns, as well as other rifles, and even some military surplus guns. We load as much as we dare take room for, since we have only begun searching and lock the other guns up for when we come back. We visit the other stores in town and they all look like no one has been in them in years. Both trucks are totally loaded when we start to head back to the farm with a lot of treasures that will help the family live better. On the way out of town we stop at the farm supply store, and this is a treasure all to itself. I am looking around the front of the store, trying to figure out how to get most of the equipment back to the farm, when Dayna calls me to the back of the store.

When I get there, she shows me the largest greenhouse I have ever seen. It covers almost the entire back of the store and is complete with tables for growing on and the heaters to keep it warm in cold weather. We men decide we can disassemble it without too much difficulty and move it to the farm. We find room on the truck for several bags of seed, when I say bags I mean like burlap bags full of seed, but these are plastic bags that size. There is lots of hard candy, in sealed metal cans, so we get as much as we can hold in the trucks and head for home with our treasures. We get back before noon and spend the rest of the day putting away the things we brought back. The guys ask if they can keep some of the guns in the different houses for protection. We all think that is a very good idea especially since we have been teaching the men how to shoot. We feel the bows and arrows will be a great help for hunting, because they don’t frighten the rest of the game away.

The candy is a special treat that only some of the family has had before. We divide it up evenly between all the houses and there is plenty to go around. We decide to go back tomorrow, this time I will let Tim go while I stay home and work around the farm. They will begin taking the greenhouse apart so we can bring it back here and set it up to use all winter. We spend the rest of the afternoon going over where we think the best place for the greenhouse will be. We are walking all over the grounds trying to figure it out when one of the new mothers, Heidi, tells us she has been sitting on the porch a lot lately, and it appears to her that the sun is shining all day on the back side of one of the barns. It doesn’t take long to see what she is saying, so we have a pretty good idea where we will put the greenhouse. As luck would have it, we spend most of the evening and night delivering two more new members into the family. One is a very healthy little boy that was named Luke and the other is a beautiful little girl. Julie, the mother, named her Ruth.

In the morning we help the others get ready to go to town. Billy is going with Tim and some others so he can show them where everything we would like to get is. They leave somewhere around mid-morning and the rest of us get busy doing chores around the farm. Dayna and I were talking about the large garden patch the family who lived before us had and how we remembered that there was still vegetables growing in it, even though no one has tended it in years. We spend a couple of hours digging through the weeds, finding squashes, green and yellow string beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, bell peppers, and potatoes. The more we pick the hungrier I get thinking how great these are going to taste. Dayna has never had fresh vegetables. She and Robin keep sampling what we pick if they find a small one. So far they love tomatoes and both kinds of beans. They will wait until later to try the others, mainly because they are too large to just pop in their mouths.

The garden is quite large, and we get several pecks of vegetables. The cows have been milked today, and one of the young ladies in Tim and Charity’s house is churning butter this afternoon. Dayna and Robin feel like baking bread again, so I head over to the barn that is across from our house to check out the equipment, and see if I can figure out what it is used for. I am actually getting pretty good at guessing what most of it is. Sometimes I get lucky and there is a picture on the side of what it is used on. I am working on straightening and cleaning the loft in the barn when I could swear I hear motorcycles coming down the road. It only lasts for a few seconds then it is gone so I figure it must be my imagination and go back to work. In a few minutes it sounds like we are under attack out in the yard. I am in the loft so I run to the door facing the house and look out into the yard.

I am surprised to see several really rough looking men chasing the women around the yard with them screaming. I start to head out of the barn when I see someone come out of our house dragging Dayna and another rough looking man has Robin by the arm. They are laughing and sneering watching what is going on. Some of the men have caught girls or women and are treating them pretty rough. I decide I don’t have time to get down there so I grab the .307 I have in the loft just in case something like this should happen and sight on the one holding Dayna. In the mean time, several of our men have come out of the houses with shotguns or rifles, and they are telling the men to let the women go. The one holding Dayna tells them to throw down their guns and they won’t kill them, then he laughs and says, yet.

I have to give our men credit, they stand their ground and do what Tim and I taught them. Tom, Dayna’s father, is acting as the leader. He asks the others who they are shooting on his signal. The guy on the porch has a gun in his hand and is bringing it to bear on Tom, Dayna is looking at me in the doorway of the loft, but no one else seems to notice. I motion for her to move her head to the left, she does it and I fire taking the guy holding her right over his left eye. That concerns me because I was aiming right between his eyes. Anyway, that is a signal for the others. We have discussed this type of situation and what to do in case it ever came up. The girls do exactly what we taught them, they drop as soon as they hear the report of my gun and the men fire instantly at the would-be attackers. I shift my gun a few inches and take the one holding Robin. He sure had a surprised look on his face when he died.

I know this may sound very cold blooded to some of you, and you are probably thinking we should have tried to talk it over and come to an agreement. If there was some form of organized law, and if we could count on that law to protect us, I may agree with you. Having spent my life in the military since I was eighteen, I have seen many examples of mans inhumanity toward man. I have seen trained soldiers die because they hesitated to pull the trigger, because killing is not an easy thing to do, and they couldn’t believe that it was the only solution. In our case, the men that attacked our family had only their own lust and greed in mind and would have killed us off hand if they would have gotten the chance. What they would have done to the women is not something I like to think about. I am sure they would have killed them when they were through with them as well. The only thing that really bothers me about the violence that just took place, is that now I have to stop what I was doing, and get the backhoe started so I can dig some graves.

I hurry down to make sure everybody is okay now. When I get to the yard I can see that all of the attackers are clearly dead. We were very lucky this time. The only injuries are minor cuts and bruises to the women and girls that were treated roughly by the attackers. I tell the men to stand by with their guns just in case they have friends following them. Dayna and Robin run to me and give me a big hug. They both say that they were only scared until the men dragged them outside, then they knew I would take care of the situation. I look toward the road leading to our homes and I can see motorcycles parked at the end of that road. That explains hearing them. I was beginning to think it was my imagination. I ask the girls what happened just so I can understand the attack better. Dayna recounts the events as she saw them.

“Robin and I were in the kitchen grinding wheat to make some bread for dinner tonight. We thought we heard loud motor noises, but they stopped so abruptly that we figured it was probably our imagination. We continued working when suddenly those two very dirty men rushed in and caught us totally by surprise. We had no doubts what they wanted, they told us what they were going to do to us, and said if we are nice to them they may not kill us right off. I have to admit I was pretty scared until they dragged us out on the porch and we saw the others chasing the other girls in the yard. I saw you looking out the doorway to the loft and knew everything would be okay, and when the other men came out in the yard armed with guns, there was no doubt in my mind.”

Robin agrees with everything Dayna says, she says she was so afraid she couldn’t think straight, but like Dayna, when they were taken outside she knew everything would be okay. The men in the yard tell me that one of the young girls came running into Tom’s house and told them what was happening, so they sent someone out the back door to get the others and they all grabbed guns and came out. The rest I witnessed and participated in. Tom says that he is glad I fired first, because he wasn’t sure whether or not they should fire or try to work it out.

“We all remembered that you taught us that if we are attacked to shoot first and ask questions afterward. We did exactly what you and Tim taught us, we each picked a target and when you shot the one holding Dayna, we figured it was time to fire.”

I tell them they did a great job and that I understand how difficult it can be, realizing that you have to do something that drastic just to survive. They all tell me they have no doubt that if they hadn’t done what they did, then they would be the ones laying in the dirt now, and our women would be left for them to sexually assault at will. Not only that, but they probably would have killed the others when they return from town. No, the only regrets they have, is that there are men out there that only understand that kind of law. We get the backhoe started and dig a large grave for the bodies. We go through their pockets looking for some kind of identification, but there is nothing, so we put seven unknown men buried in this spot and the date. Some of the guys ask if they can have the motorcycles, so I tell them I can’t see why not, I doubt if anyone else is going to claim them.

When everything is cleaned up we all go back to what we were doing before the violence. That’s the thing about violence. It usually happens very quickly and without warning and is usually over almost just as quickly, if you are lucky. Sometimes it gets dragged out in the form of torture or serious injury, but when it is over, life goes on whether with us or without us. I think that’s what bothers a lot people the most. It is hard to believe that everyone doesn’t feel the way they do.

I go back to cleaning the loft and getting it better organized. I find all kinds of useful tools and even some old magazines, the kind Ma Horton tanned my hide for looking at when I was a kid. It seems like I am just getting started when I hear the sound of vehicles in the yard. I look out again only this time I am relieved to see that it is our family members returning. The girls are telling them what happened earlier. Tim and Billy look at me expecting me to say they are kidding, but I tell them exactly what happened. They are sorry they were away, but I assure them our family handled it as well as any SEAL team I ever worked with. This praise makes them feel good. They are in a hurry to show them the motorcycles. They check them out, and then we unload the trucks while they recount their day for us.