THE TRASHMAN (7 page)

“Lord have mercy on us,” Lucy said.

“I hope so.” I wasn’t finished though. I had more things to say. “If one of us is on guard and someone tries to sneak up, no challenge, shoot to kill. If they’re sneaking, we have to assume they’re up to no good.”

“Who stands guard?” Sam asked.

Jerold spoke for the first time. “Include me and Jessica. You’ll need to show us how to shoot, but we have a stake in this. We’ve talked and were worried about there being no guards. We want to live and we want you all to live. You saved our lives and we’re ready to fight for ourselves and for you.”

“It was our lucky day when we found you two,” Sam said.

I had to nod my agreement. “We have plenty of weapons and ammo. How about tomorrow we familiarize you with which ever you choose. Tonight we four adults will take the shifts. I say we do it with two on at a time to help keep each other awake and to watch each other’s back.”

“How about us take the first shift tonight?” Sam asked of Lucy.

“It’s a date, big fellow,” she said, smiling at him. “Is there anything else, Ralph?”

“Lots, but let’s cover only a few other items tonight. You heard what Jessica thinks. We should do a survey of our immediate area and see how many of our neighbors are still alive. We should take a ride into Sparks for the same reason, and to check if there is any safe opportunity to resupply some of our immediate needs, food in particular.”

“Our shortages run deeper than food,” Lucy said. “We’re down to eight rolls of toilet paper, and mister, when we run out of toilet paper, we’ll be in hardship. Call me a sissy, but I’m not into using a rag.”

“You’ve got that right,” Becky said.

Sam asked, “How do you plan on exploring. I’m asking, because looking back, our trip to get the generators left our kids and women alone and unprotected. You know what I’m saying,” he said to an indignant look from Lucy. “I’m not saying I’m any better with shooting than you are. Ralph’s the only one with firearms training, but leaving women and children by themselves just seems stupid to me.”

“I plan to remedy the training deficit starting tomorrow. Like I told you, Sam, I’m not an expert rifleman, mainly because I never took firearms seriously. Starting tomorrow morning I’ll work with two of you at a time, mostly familiarizing you with the basics and some dry firing so we don’t waste ammo on the preliminaries. As far as exploring, I think either you or I should go solo checking the immediate area. The houses and farms on this stretch of the road are spread out. How close is your nearest neighbor?”

“That’d be the Pritchett farm, a half a mile south. The Pritchett’s don’t run it, though. A family named Nash lives in a double wide on the property. Josh Nash runs the place. He oversees the planting and harvesting. Soybeans usually, but last year they planted corn. The Pritchett farm runs two miles farther. Then there’s a feed processing plant and an ethanol production facility.”

“How about to the north?” I asked.

“A mile up, there’s a trailer park, a real run down place with eight singlewides on a gravel road, four to a side. After that, there’re several private homes in a group, almost like a subdivision but most are on one or two acre lots. Nice homes from what I can see from the road.”

“How does this sound. Tomorrow afternoon you hike over to the Pritchett farm and check on the Nash’s. The next day I’ll go scout the trailer park. Just get close enough to observe it without being seen. Watch it for a couple hours to see if any and how many people are there. If time allows, I’ll go further and check the houses you spoke of.”

“What about resupplying?” Jessica asked.

“Here’s my thought. If Sam and I observe no danger during our exploring, we check the homes. If we don’t find dead bodies inside, we’ll see what we can find of things we’re short on. Three days from now, we’ll make a run into Sparks for mass supplies.”

Jessica spoke again. “The reason I asked, we need to look for Kindles, Nooks and other tablets. A lot of people really load them with information. Maybe we can find information on survival. Does Sparks have a public library?”

Everyone looked at Sam.

“Don’t ask me, I’m not the reader. Lucy?”

“Nope, none in Sparks. The nearest is the Cook County Library down in Adel, two or three miles further south.”

“That would be the best place to get survival books, especially books about edible plants and old time medicine,” Jessica said.

Sam shook his head. “Adel’s a lot bigger than Sparks and it’s right on the freeway. There’s more of a chance we’ll run into survivors. After what happened to your parents, we need to regard all strangers as dangerous until shown different.”

Becky called my name, “Ralph, is there anything else we need to discuss? It’s getting close to Jen and Will’s bedtime and they need to shower.”

“Just this. Starting tomorrow, we need to watch our use of lights. With the municipal power supply down, lights are a big advertisement of our presence.”

*****

Immediately after breakfast, my first students were the Two J’s. I followed the same format with them that proved successful with Becky. I did vary the process to represent real world situations.

The session began with an intense statement from Jessica.

“Mister Ralph, Jerold and I appreciate what you and the others are doing for us. We want to learn how to shoot guns. All kinds of guns. I don’t know how our mother was able to do what she did, but she gave her life so we could get away. I know we’re not soldiers, but I have a gift of being able to close my eyes and if I concentrate, I can play back things that happen sort of like watching a video in my mind. If I replay it over and over, more and more pieces show up.

“I don’t like remembering the night my Mom and Dad were killed. What is odd is that my memory video about what happened is always in slow motion. I think it’s because it happened so fast. The point I want to make is if we’d known how to react like soldiers, if we’d moved and attacked at the same time Mom did, we may have been able to overpower all of the killers, but at the time, I was scared and Mom said ‘run’ and that’s what we did.” Her voice choked with emotion. “We ran away.”

“Jessica, you and your brother suffered a terrible trauma that night, but could haves are always easy in retrospect. You’re right, you’re not a trained soldier, but it’s a fact that training alone doesn’t guarantee success in an adversarial confrontation.

“Your mother was correct in saying that young people are the future of human survival. More than that, you were honor-bound to obey your mother. Running away was exactly the right thing to do.”

“We know that, Mister Ralph. The point Jessica wants to make is we want to learn to use all the weapons. We want to become experts at survival. If we are exposed to another life and death situation, we want to react differently.”

Jessica retook the conversation. “We’re all in shock and suffered trauma. Less than a month ago, the world was normal. We were celebrating Christmas and New Year’s. Now we’re worried about people killing us and about running out of toilet paper. We have to adapt to this new reality or else we’re going to die. You all, you, Sam, and the rest are good people, but you’re not being careful enough.”

“Tell me why you say that.” I wasn’t sure where she was going with her words, but she had my attention. I didn’t want her to stop talking.

“Like you said, it’s easy to see mistakes in retrospect. Here’s a few things to think about. Mother and Father were pacifists. Because of their beliefs, they were anti-gun activists. That was then and I respect them for their stance. This is now.

“Let me tell you their mistakes. When they realized things were going bad, they should have gotten weapons. When we stopped to take care of business, we should have done it on the road and never entered the rest area, especially not at night in the dark.

“I’ve been thinking hard about things you and Sam did after you found us. I hate those men who killed our parents and I’m glad they’re dead, but you shouldn’t have gone after them. You first obligation is to your family.

“I’m glad you were nice enough to offer us shelter, to bring us into your lives, but that was another mistake. Mister Ralph, you’re too trusting. We could have lied to you about not being around people. We didn’t, but I know some people will say whatever they think will save them. You took a bad chance bringing us near your family.”

“I think—.”

“You made other mistakes. You touched things the killers touched. Anyone of them could have been infected. Mom told me the virus can live on surfaces as long as eighteen days. You or Sam could be infected right now and not know it. If you are, in less than a month, we all could be dead.”

“Damn, you’re right. What else? What other mistakes have we made?”

“Staying here is a mistake. We’re too close to the road and way too close to the freeway. Survivors will use freeways, especially bad people. Using lights and running the noisy generators is a good way to get attention.”

She stopped speaking. I considered what she’d said.

“A month ago, I was in a suit and tie. This isn’t a business-suit world we have now. Jessica, how is it you are able to think like you do? I can tell you’re adapting faster than any of us.”

“My history teacher gave the class an assignment to write an essay about a current event. I’d read an article about people that were prepping for the end of the world. I picked that as my essay theme. I learned a lot about surviving an apocalyptic event.”

“What did you learn that could help us in the situation we’re in now?”

“I’ll highlight what I found on the internet. Online, in the survival forums, people who prepare for a disaster are called preppers. Prepping can be simply having enough of the necessities on hand to wait out a few days of storm related power outage, or to extremes, bomb proof, pathogen proof bunkers with supplies for ten years.

“What I found was preppers fall into four categories. At the bottom end are those prepared for short-term survival at their home with supplies to last a week, maybe as long as a month.

“Then there are the urban survivors. They fortify their homes, stockpile weapons, and ammo and have the necessities on hand to go for several months without having to supply.

“A more radical and costly path is an individual or group of like-minded people purchase a ‘bug-out’ location. A bug out is a piece of rural, very isolated property. The idea is to stock supplies, weapons and as much survival equipment as can be afforded. Mainly for long-term survival, these individuals or groups protect their space with lethal force if necessary.

“The extreme are those preppers who spend hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions preparing the bunker I mentioned. Their goal is to stay hidden and survive until the threat has passed.”

This prepping stuff was new to me. I knew FEMA, and other government agencies recommend having a week’s worth food and water on hand, but I was unaware there was a subculture along the lines Jessica was describing.

“Call me ignorant, but how many preppers do you think there are,” I asked.

“There were only a few preppers to begin with but it became a big thing in ‘08 when Obama was elected. I’d think there are tens of thousands.”

“Where do you think we fit in as far as prepping along the groups you outlined?”

“Nowhere. We’re as good as dead. Not this very moment, but sooner or later. Because of a lack of manpower, we can’t defend this place. It’s a given that eventually some crazy or group of crazies will stumble upon us. I’m not saying all people are crazy, but we won’t see the sane ones, because they’ll be hiding. Just like the ones who killed Mom and Dad, there are people who will hurt others for no other reason than enjoyment.”

“You sure don’t pull punches or paint pretty pictures. Have you always been this serious? You come off much more mature than your age suggests.”

“Our mother used to tell her that,” Jerold said. “Dad used to joke that he’d never have to give any of her dates a warning about how to treat her, because she’d never get her head out of a book long enough to notice a guy.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” Jessica said, “but I admit I wasn’t into the whole dating thing yet. Mister Ralph, we need to tell you what we’ve been thinking.

“When Jerold and I feel we’re competent enough with firearms, we’re considering leaving and going to live in one of the big national forests. That’s why I want to go to the library. We can learn to live off the land. Eat wild plants. Use traps and bows to get game. Live like the Native Americans did. That’s all we can do. I think you all should think about doing the same.”

“You want us to abandon the land here and live like primitives? I don’t see it, not with children to care for.”

“You will have to make your own decision, but Jerold and I are leaving soon as we can.”

“If you’ve made up your minds, that’s all there is to it. I think you’ll find it tougher going than you realize.

Jessica shook her head. “No sir, I think there’s a good chance we’ll make mistakes and die, but at least it’ll be our doing and not the whim of some lunatic murderer or rapist.”

All I could think was,
What’s the world come to
? I pointed to the pistols arranged on a crude lumber table supported on concrete blocks.

“Pick a weapon and let’s start. I’ll teach you everything I know and we’ll help you get your books and supplies together. Who knows, it may come to the point that I agree with you.”

*****

Now that the rope was down, our entire group took meals inside the main house. After lunch, the Two J’s cleared the table and washed the dishes. I also tasked them with watching after the children while Becky, already familiar with the use of a pistol, received the basics of the rifle. Lucy would start with rifle training in order not to split the session.

Sam left to recon the Nash home. He decided to take Bruce, his twelve-year-old son, with him. A good idea. Bruce was athletically inclined and big for his age.

At the end of the session with Becky and Lucy, I told them about the conversation with Jessica. Lucy, in particular, was aghast at the thought of abandoning the small corner of civilization we’d achieved.