Dystopia: The Beginning of the End (10 page)

Chapter 13

“Visitors”

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.  Let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”

-Abraham Lincoln

Rebecca was doing well and had shown decent knowledge in herbal medicine; her and Charleigh hit it off immediately and already had a nice herb garden going on the porch.  The weather was getting cooler and they wanted to find a way to keep some things growing as Tawny and Sam had done with cold frames over the garden. They were discussing it when Matt and the others came in from their meeting and asked the guys if they had any ideas. 

Matt said, “We have a huge roll of heavy plastic sheeting, let me see about getting the porch enclosed like a solarium.”

He thought about this prior to the current issues and thought it would also provide a barrier to help the house stay warm as well.  The girls were excited about the idea and thanked them asking if they could do it tomorrow.  The guys agreed to put it at the top of the project list for tomorrow. 

Tawny came in to see how the meeting went and hearing that project list for tomorrow was being discussed came over and said,

“You know decent showering would be nice.” 

They all looked at her like some epiphany had struck.  They asked, “What did you have in mind?” 

She started by explaining that both houses had electric hot water heaters. 

Dez said, “Yea, we know, and the cold showers really suck.” 

Herb spoke up saying, “Well, since we know now that there will be no power for a while.  I think we can use some of the same ideas that we had for solar heat only adapting the same principle and applying it to the hot water heater tanks.”

Jeremy immediately picked up on this and excitedly said, “You know, that might just work. We can pull the tank itself out of each of them and mount them on the roof using the sun to heat them. I am sure we can somehow rig this up.” 

He began to pace the room thinking and saying to no one, “It will have to be gravity fed but I think it can be done.  I will see what I can come up with for some nice hot showers and get to work on it in the morning.”

He looked at Herb saying, “first thing?” 

Herb agreed, nodding yes and said “first thing.”

While they continued planning for tomorrows activities Connor came in from watch and told them a group of 5 people were walking up the road.  He wanted Matt or Dez to come check them out.  Dez said she would go, and headed out with Connor.  When they got to the blind at the corner of the yard Toni handed Dez the binoculars. 

She looked through them and after a moment, smiled and said “I know a couple of them.” 

Connor started to rise and Dez grabbed his arm, saying, “Wait, something is wrong.  Stay down and radio up to base, get Matt on the radio I need to have him look at this.” 

Connor did as she asked and handed her the milk, she asked Matt if he could see the group from the house and he said he could.

He said, “I agree something is wrong.  Gary and Kimber know not to approach like this.” 

They were friends of Matt and Dez from Danville and had been in discussions with them about coming there if stuff went bad.  They knew that if they came and all was good that there would be a yellow ribbon on the tree and they would wear a yellow bandana, if things were not ok they agreed on red.  It is where they got the idea to use the signal at the cul-de-sac. 

Gary had a red bandana on his head and this told Matt and Dez something was wrong.  They leapt into action getting the group into defensive positions, most of them out of sight. While some would still look like they were doing their normal activities. 

Dez instructed Toni and Connor to remain in place and let them pass up to the house while she crept back to Matt.  As they approached, they could see that it was two guys and a girl walking with them. None looked particularly threatening and they looked like teenagers. 

Dez said, “They don’t look so imposing.”

Matt looked at her, and they both said, “Looks can be deceiving. 

Matt went out of the house to greet their friends and said, “Hey guys, bet ya ran out of gas.  I kept telling you to put some away for a rainy day.” 

He smiled at the others with them, giving Gary a sort of knuckle rub to the head; this should indicate to Gary that they understood the bandana.

They shared a look and with that Matt did not figure these kids to be any real threat. He thought maybe they were just desperate, either way they would feel out the situation and try and diffuse it first. 

Matt hollered out, “Hey Dez, Gary and Kimber are here.”

Then looked to the others and said, “I’m sorry I don’t know your names.” 

The guy standing next to Gary began to stammer and Matt said with his joking Boston accent, “No worries there guy, any friend of Gary and Kimber’s are friends of ours.”

Motioning for them to follow, “Let’s head over to the gazebo, no one wants to be in there right now, the girls are cooking up some concoction that smells about like death itself, had me gagging earlier” with that Matt began to laugh. 

The visitors looked uncomfortable, but not overly cautious.  Possibly thinking that they had found an easy mark and this was precisely what Matt was trying to get them to think, he wanted to get their guard down. 

They all sat around the fire pit while Matt asked, “So Gary what made you leave Danville?”

Gary falling into line said, “Well theah guy, there weren’t any more hookahs and beeahs left at the Walmaht, so we thought we may as well come see owah good buddies out heah in this areah.”

Trying his best to pull off the whole Boston thing.  Matt laughed loudly and said, “You ahhh learnin theah guy.” 

As Matt was entertaining their guests the others were getting into position, noticing this, Matt looked at Kimber and asked her what was wrong, that she was looking a little uptight.

Kimber winced saying that she needed to use the bathroom, Matt waved his hand, motioning toward the house and told her she knew where it was and to go fetch Dez while she was in there.

“That is, if you can stand the smell.”

Laughing, he then said, “I swear, that woman can be slow as molasses in January.”

The girl that was with them said “I need to go too, can I go with you?”

Kimber motioned for her to follow up to the house.   It was obvious to Matt the girl did not want Kimber giving them away. 

Smiling Matt thought, “little does she know what awaits her inside.” 

Matt thought quickly, one down, two to go. Now, how to go about splitting these other two. 

He asked no one in particular, “Hey, y’all hungry?”

They all nodded that they were.

Matt said to Gary, “Well then Gary how bout if you head up to the barn to see if Janice has finished dinner.”

Looking toward the barn, he continued, “Y’all got here just in time for dinner, we would love for you to stay and join us.” 

He went on to say that he would wait for the ladies and as before one of the kids went with Gary, the other obviously wanting to cover Matt. 

After Gary and the kid left, Matt looked right into the eyes of the kid left sitting there and stated, “So guy, looks like it is just you and me.” 

The kid began to look around and nervously asked, “What could be taking the girls so long.” 

To which Matt laughed out loudly and said, “Did you honestly think you would just waltz in here and do… What?  Like really guy, what was your plan?” 

The kid went to reach for his gun when Matt put up his finger shaking it side to side, nodding no, no, no and then pointed to the four red dots on his body.  The kid put his hands down and in a valiant attempt at intimidation said, “The others will be back shortly.” 

To which Matt replied with almost a chuckle, “The others never had a chance.”

He smiled at him while shaking his head, he motioned for him to get up and go to the mess hall. 

They were all in the mess hall talking when Janice brought each of their invaders a plate of food.  They looked at her in disbelief and after looking at each other began eating hungrily.  

During that time, Matt and the others got the story from Gary and Kimber.  It seemed they were ambushed at the end of the road by these three, demanding any food they had.

Kimber spoke up saying, “Listen, while I know it is wrong how they went about it, I don’t think they are really bad.  They’re just kids, I think they were just hungry.” 

Dez decided maybe a woman’s touch was needed and approached the table where they were eating. 

She sat down in front of them and asked in a kind voice, “Why did you ambush our friends?”

It was a little blunt, but got the point across, they all looked sheepish and had their heads down as she continued, “Do you live around here?”

None would answer so Dez tried a different approach, and said to them, “Did you know we are working with the sheriff to keep this kind of thing out of our area?  I guess if you can’t help us understand why you ambushed our friends, we are going to have to call him.  We will have him bring an extra car when he comes tomorrow so they can take you in and he can ask you questions at the police station instead.”

She paused, waiting for a response, the kids still said nothing. 

Getting up from the table, she said, “Enjoy your meal and let me know if you would care for more, y’all kinda look like you could use some seconds.” 

At that the girl said, “Wait, please, why do you feed us after what we tried to do?” 

Dez smiled and said, “Cause y’all looked hungry and if you were hungry enough to try that stunt then you NEED some help.”

With a small grin she shook her head and said, “Let me know if ya wanna talk about it.”  

Dez walked over to the rest of them and told them just give it a few.  Making bets that they would be spilling their guts in five minutes or less.  She then went over to Janice and asked if she could get a pot of coffee going. 

Janice smiled and said, “Already did, care for a cup?”

Dez nodded, saying, “You are definitely the queen of the mess hall.” 

They laughed a bit, joking around over different things.  Janice told her they looked like kids and to not be too hard on them.  Dez told her that she knew that and was giving them a moment to stew on things.  

Janice liked Dez; she always thought both her and Matt were kind folks.  A little scary at times because they always seemed to know and be ready for stuff, but not like the crazy guys with George’s group.

After a few minutes the girl approached Dez and said she wanted to talk. Dez motioned her to a corner of the barn where they sat to talk.  The young girl explained that they were supposed to be hunting, but had not been able to get anything, hanging her head saying,

“We’re lousy hunters.” 

She went on to say, “My father has done all the hunting, but he fell from his tree stand last week.  He really isn’t looking too good.” 

She told her that the two boys were her cousins and that their family had come to stay with them a few weeks ago. 

Dez asked her, “What’s wrong with your father?” 

She replied, “My mom thinks he had a broken ankle and he got a big gash on his side.” 

She continued saying, “Mother tried to patch him up, but that we only had a few Band-Aids and it is oozing something awful and smells real bad.” 

As she continued her story Dez found out that they had run out of food a few days back and were trying to find something to eat for the family.  By this time the girl was crying almost hysterically and Dez patted her on the back and told her not to worry.  She handed her some sodas and said they were for her and the two boys.  She sent her to sit with her cousins while she talked to the others. 

Dez went to Janice and asked her if she could whip up a large pot of stew and pack it for travel and then went to Matt to explain the situation.  Gary said he thought it might be something like that and that they felt bad for them. 

Looking a little sheepish he said, “We were complacent, it was a quiet trip and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  We were stupid for just walking up the road the way we did.” 

They got ready to take the pot of stew to the family and bring Rebecca with some medical supplies and also to take the kids with the food back to their home. 

Dez went to Rebecca and told her about the father’s injuries and they both agreed it sounded like his wound was badly infected. 

Rebecca gathered some things for the wound as well as some antibiotics. Dez and the others prepared some boxes of food.  In it, they added dried beans, some deer meat along with some of the canned vegetables and some fresh from the garden.  They grabbed a 12 pack of soda; chips and some chocolate because they knew some goodies would lift the family’s spirits. 

Dez and Rebecca took one vehicle with the supplies and the girl while Sam and Jeremy carried the boys in their truck.  They headed out to take the kids to their home and see if they could help the father.