Nuclear War Club: Seven high school students are in detention when Nuclear War explodes.Game on, they are on their own. (22 page)

“Mom and Dad would read me the Bible stories and put them on that,” Samuel said. Karen picked up the DVD by the edges, put it in a case, and placed it in the top of her backpack.

“Me and K-Bar would watch the Bible stories on TV,” Samuel said, pointing to the DVD disc.

“Who is K-Bar?” Karen asked.

“That’s my Dad’s police dog,” Samuel explained.

“Do you know where K-Bar is?” Karen asked.

“He has two dog houses, one on the back of Dad’s truck, and one in the barn,” Samuel explained.

Karen didn’t say anything else about K-Bar to Samuel. They walked back to the truck, and Karen asked Ashley to watch Samuel.

Karen motioned for David and Doron to come to the other side of the truck.

“The family has a police dog named K-Bar. Samuel says the dog is either in the barn or in a cage on the back of his Dad’s truck,” Karen said.

“This could be extremely dangerous,” Doron said. “The dog’s master is dead. We could be seen as a threat to Samuel, and K-Bar is a trained police dog.”

“We could really use a dog, though,” David said. “And who would even dream we could get a police dog?”

“Be ready to kill K-Bar if he attacks, but I think he will be okay,” Karen said.

K-Bar growled savagely as they approached the pickup truck. Samuel’s Father had left in a hurry, the front truck door was open, and the keys were still in the ignition. The aluminum covered cage dripped blood where K-Bar had thrown himself against the bars, trying to attack the killers.

“Let’s just shoot K-Bar and put him out of his misery,” said Doron, looking at the bloody mess.

“No,” said Karen. “I have an idea, wait here.”

Karen left and returned holding Samuel’s hand.

“Is that K-Bar,” asked Karen, close enough so K-Bar began wagging his tail.

“Oh yes! K-Bar!” the boy called. K-Bar turned his head and wagged his tail excitedly.

“Samuel I need you to reach out and take my hand, then I am going to pick you up, okay?” Karen asked. Samuel touched her hand, then grabbed it, and Karen picked him up. Karen then told Ashley to take Samuel back to Doron’s truck.

“I am going to let K-Bar sniff my hand. Then I will let him out of the cage, and I will step away and use a stick to open the cage,” Karen said

“Be sure both of you are ready to kill K-Bar instantly if he attacks me,” Karen said softly to Doron and David. Both nodded.

Karen approached the cage and let K-Bar smell Samuel’s scent on her. Then Karen backed away and used a long stick to open K-Bars’s cage. K-Bar sniffed towards Karen, paused, then ran away from them.

“Let K-Bar go,” Karen said, turning away. “I think he will join us later.”

49.

They headed east and camped about four miles away on a flat hilltop, trying to conceal their tracks. Karen noticed Samuel seemed puzzled there was no car seat for him in the truck. She should have looked in his parents’ vehicles and retrieved a car seat, she thought. Cowboy up, pay attention, and get with the program, she told herself.

She looked through the binoculars and noticed a trail led down to an abandoned mine shaft bored into the side of the hill. The entrance was covered by scattered rocks, and was ideal for concealing the campfire used to cook.

Karen had been surprised just how psychologically important meals were. They thought about food all the time. Jorge became chef by universal acclamation, he had a unique gift with food. In exchange, he was excused from the guard duty roster, and from dishwashing.

Karen was impressed that Jorge always inspected the pots and pans before cooking, and was extremely careful with sanitation. Doron had noted they would most likely get sick from food poisoning or water contamination. No one ever got sick from either cause, Jorge checked the water every day.

Jorge was quiet, he talked even less than Liu. He did like to practice shooting the M16 and the AK47 with Karen, and Ranger book tactics with Zeke. Every night Jorge briefed David on the food and water status. Jorge was also trustworthy. He did not eat the food he guarded—he had lost weight just like everyone else.

“Samuel is going to need calcium, either dried milk or canned condensed milk,” Karen explained while they waited for dinner.

“Okay, we will look for some,” Doron replied.

“Karen, we need to check with Doron and make sure
we know the dose for Samuel to get Potassium Iodide to protect his thyroid, and for the baking soda to drink to bind and flush out any uranium he may have ingested. If we don’t have enough he can take some of mine,” Jorge said.

Karen nodded, but said she would give Samuel some of hers, as she looked for Samuel.

“It’s K-Bar!” Samuel cried, pointing down the hill-Bar was slowly limping up the trail to the camp.

“Jorge, do we have anything we can feed the dog?” David asked.

“Canned salmon, beef soup, or canned chicken soup,” Jorge replied, pointing. David took a plastic gallon water jug and cut it in half to make K-Bar a water bowl. Then he filled it up with water and sat it on the trail about fifty yards away. He opened two cans of beef soup and scraped the soup onto a piece of cardboard, then set the soup next to the water.

K-Bar climbed the trail and lapped up half the water. Then K-Bar ate all the chunky beef soup in four gulps. Then he lay on the trail, but did not approach the camp.

“Why doesn’t K-Bar come?” Samuel asked Karen.

“Sometimes we need time alone,” Karen said.

Samuel seemed satisfied with that, and turned to watch Jorge cook the rice. Everyone sat around the fire, except David, who always patrolled during meals.

“Prime,” Zeke said, as he used his Leatherman tool pliers to pick up his open can of Campbell’s Chunky Beef soup that had been warming by the fire, and dumped it on top of the bowl of rice.

Karen realized Jorge’s idea of letting each person choose what to add to their rice, or pasta, was brilliant. Letting each person have some meal control was important. It even lifted Ashley’s spirits as she thought about what to choose. Trades were common for the canned soup each night, and they spent a lot of time talking, planning, and thinking about their food draft picks each day. It was
the
topic of conversation. Campbell’s Chunky Beef, and Chunky Chicken were always
first round draft picks for the men. Canned Dole pineapple chunks, and Campbell’s cream of chicken were popular with the women.

“Excellent,” Doron agreed.

“You know, I have started dreaming about food,” Karen said. Doron and Zeke smiled, knowingly. Karen realized she wasn’t the only one.

“I was in the mall, at the food court by the movie theater. First I grabbed a Burger King Whopper with cheese. It was fat and juicy. And a couple of Dorito tacos from Taco Bell. Then I got some McDonalds fries and some Chick- fill-a ice cream,” she said.

Zeke laughed, “I stopped by Krispy Kreme and got a dozen mixed doughnuts to start, then got 50 extra spicy wings from Popeyes, and that dirty rice they have.”

“I was more responsible than you reprobates,” Doron said. “I got a fresh baked loaf of whole wheat bread from the bakery, and ate slice after slice, some with butter, some with honey, and some with peanut butter. And I drank a gallon of ice cold milk with it.”

Ashley and Liu both smiled. Ashley told them she dreamed of a special Tiramisu cake. Zeke had never heard of Tiramisu, so she described its ingredients in excruciating detail as their mouths watered.

Liu said she had a recurring dream where she just went up and down the aisles of a fully stocked grocery store filling up her cart, mainly with fresh onions, garlic, broccoli, tomatoes, bell peppers, and other vegetables. She said she absolutely craved them, sometimes when she woke up in her dreams, she was eating them. In her dreams she prepared stir fry, and ate everything, bowl after bowl with Kikkoman’s soy sauce.

Samuel brought his red Bible to Karen, and picked out a story. Everyone listened while they ate. It seemed to Karen that Zeke really liked Samuel’s stories, they were very short, two or three sentences, and had nice illustrations. None of the
stories assumed you knew anything about the Bible. You could read one in less than a minute. Zeke told Karen he wished he had known about this kid’s Bible and read it to LeShawn and Monique.

Zeke told them sometimes he felt the darkness return. He remembered his brother and sister, and saw the destroyed monkey bars. He stared into the fire, and said he saw them laughing on the school bus, splattering their wet hands on the window.

Waving goodbye.

50.

“Doron, were you able to hook up the DVD player?” Karen asked.

“Yes, you just plug the inverter into the cigarette lighter outlet in the truck, then plug in the DVD player,” Doron demonstrated. Karen opened the driver door, ran the cord through, and set the DVD player down on the ground.

The camera image shook when the record button was pressed, and Samuel’s Father explained, off camera, that each family member would read Samuel a story from his new Bible. The camera focused in on the first story “God made the whole world.” The camera swung back and forth between the illustrations, the text, Samuel and the reader.

Each story took less than a minute. Samuel’s Mother read about two thirds of the stories, Samuel’s Father read about ten, and his Uncle, a Preacher, and his Aunt picked seven to read. The Preacher Uncle explained that Samuel’s Bible was a great book, but it wasn’t
the
Bible. He explained the references at the bottom of each page were to the
real
Bible, as he thumped his Bible.

Samuel’s Father was a large man, over six foot five inches, about two hundred forty pounds with no fat whatsoever. He looked like he lifted weights, and was very intimidating in his Police uniform. He had a very deep voice. Samuel should be tall, Karen thought.

Samuel’s Father finished the last story about Revelation, and the camera optic said “The End” and the screen turned blue.

Karen was stunned. The stories were intriguing, but seeing them read by parents speaking from the grave was breathtaking.

Karen got up to disconnect the DVD player, but she stopped when the screen unexpectedly faded to Samuel’s
Mother singing in the rocking chair. Samuel was in her lap, she was in the pink housecoat they had buried her in today. Samuel was getting ready for bed.

A beautiful, clear voice rang out in midsentence,
Yes Jesus Loves Me
. Suddenly, Samuel’s Mom stops, gently puts Samuel in bed, and moves towards the camera. The camera turns sideways, filming the wall, but the audio still recorded.

“Don’t record that…” Samuels Mom said as the camera stopped. Karen fast forwarded it till the end. There was nothing else.

Karen heard movement to her right, down the trail. She quickly grabbed her M16.

“It’s Zeke!” he said, hoping Karen had not already fired.

“Don’t move!” Karen commanded.

It
was
Zeke.

“I just wanted to be alone,” Zeke said.

“Just be sure to tell us when you leave camp,” Karen said, her voice trembling. She had almost shot him in the head, her finger was on the trigger.

Karen could now see Zeke had been crying, but she didn’t say anything. They had already learned there was a lot of wisdom in acting like you didn’t see things when there was no privacy.

“Was that Samuel’s Mom?” Zeke asked.

“Yes, what a great Mother,” Karen said. “Realize she taught Samuel to sing the song that he sang for her own funeral.”

“You know, sometimes the dark comes when I think about LeShawn and Monique. It came tonight. The dark fled when I heard her sing,” said Zeke.

Diary of Liu Nguyen

We rescued Samuel, and everything has changed. We all feel responsible for him. Having a child somehow forces everyone act more like an adult
.

The men have cleaned up their language and stories around Samuel in mortal fear of Karen
.

But Karen doesn’t attack anyone in front of Samuel, she calls them aside where he can’t hear
.

We all read Samuel stories from his little red Bible
.

Even Doron
.

51.

When Karen came to the top of the hill just before two am to relieve Liu, K-Bar approached, slowly, head lowered. Liu raised her gun, but K-Bar laid at Karen’s feet with his head down. Karen motioned Liu to lower her shotgun. She reached out, and rubbed his head with both hands.

“K-Bar, you and me, we have both lost our family,” Karen said. “So, now, we are all we have.”

52.

“We have improved a lot on our scouting and travelling as a convoy,” Doron told Ashley. He was pleased that the trek east was beginning to assume a comforting routine. David, Zeke, Liu, and Jorge would scout for the truck on their motorcycles scanning for ambush sites and semi-trailers for supplies. He had explained that it was the same concept as navy escort ships protecting an aircraft carrier.

They were getting very good at signaling each other with mirrors, headlights, and hand signals. Once they passed within two hundred of meters of another armed group, undetected, by shutting off the truck engine and pulling it with a long tow cable until out of earshot. Zeke said they were getting to anticipate what each one would do, like a good football offensive line.

Doron was alarmed they did not have radiation sensing devices. He told them to keep a sharp eye out for military grade detectors.

“Why? We can’t do anything about the amount of radiation anyway. So why worry, Doron? Chill,” Zeke said.

But every morning Doron warned them to stay away from dust. He did note fallout dust patterns and carefully observed dead animals for radiation signs. He was finally able to construct an ingenious Kearney Fall Out Meter from the paperback copy he found of
Life After Doomsday
by Bruce Clayton, Ph.D.

Karen, Ashley, and Samuel would ride in the pickup truck while Doron drove. Karen preferred to stand in the truck bed with K-Bar where she could scan with her binoculars and aim her M-16 without any obstructions. But Karen and Ashley would alternate sitting with Samuel in the cab.

They began to kiddingly call her “Mother Karen” due to her unending demands for Samuel. They were surprised Karen didn’t mind at all, although she told Samuel to only call
her “Aunt Karen”, when he inadvertently called her “Mom” one day. They joked that they had to keep a written list of everything that Mother Karen wanted for Samuel. Dried milk, a car seat for the truck, vitamins, a wool sweater, a waterproof winter coat, an extra pair of running shoes, a rain poncho, and children’s books.