SURVIVING ABE: A Climate-Fiction Novel (25 page)

From the throat clearing and the movement next to her, Reb knew her husband was preparing to get out of bed, and she wanted to talk with him before he did.

"Well?"

"No power and a cold north wind is still blowing," Tye answered.

"Thanks for the weather report; we'll talk more on that later.  I think your daughter has her heart set on that man."

"Appeared to me you were fawning over Andy more than our daughter at supper.  Good thing, he's obviously trying to hide how attracted he is to Jen.  By talking to you, whenever his mouth isn't full, means he isn't staring all moon-eyed at her.  But quit shoving so much food in front of him, or he'll swell up like a sick pup."

"Love-sick pups, both of them.  I could tell the moment they walked in, couldn't you?"

"Reb, the first time I saw them together it was obvious to everyone but them.  Since then they've been in some serious situations and have come through for one another.  That little speech Andy gave last night put us on notice—he's here to steal our daughter's heart."

"Can't steal what's freely given.  Now we're all watching each other and getting used to the idea like we would a pair of new boots.  Got to break them in around the house a few days before a night out dancing."

"Humph, well I need to dance on out and see if there is any life left on the farm.  Are you going to let Jen take the lead in the kitchen, so she can show Andy how well we did as parents?"

"Maybe I will go along with you, and leave them to fix us breakfast.  Where are we going?"

"Not far, just to take a look at the cows and see what's frozen around the place; this is one heck of a cold front.  Bundle up good."

~~~

Andy awoke on the couch in the living room to a warm hand covering his mouth.  As soon as his eyes opened Jennifer smiled and whispered in his ear, "You getting enough to eat around here?"

"I'm hoping your mom will adopt me."

"Be careful, she considers you a blank canvas for her culinary arts."

"What are you doing up in the wee hours?"

"My folks are already up, I heard them earlier.  Before they come out I just wanted a moment alone to tell you how much you're appreciated."

"I like to be shown how much I'm appreciated."

"For now you'll have to take my word on it.  You've got about ten minutes before pots and pans are rattling in the kitchen."

~~~

"Ten minutes are up and there're no pots rattling.  Where are your parents?"

"Out somewhere.  They got up early and left without telling me," Jennifer said, walking back into the kitchen from checking on them.  "Dad goes out every
morning to check on the livestock, crops, or something, so that's not unusual; Mom going with him
is
."

"A mystery on the family homestead.  What would happen if I started cooking breakfast while it plays out?"

"We'd eat sooner?  I brought my emergency radio, I'll find out what the rest of the world is doing, and what the weather has in store for us, if the interference is gone."

Jennifer sat at the kitchen table turning the crank handle to build a charge for the radio, watching Andy all the while.  He busily gathered ingredients, then
he found cookware and utensils from various cupboards and drawers in her mother's kitchen.  He moved with confidence and an efficiency of motion that belied his actual size.  When he looked up and smiled at her she looked down and found the radio more than charged.  In fact, the handle used to wind it up had cracked.

~~~

On their way back to the house Reb grabbed Tye's arm, pulled him to a stop, and pointed, "Look."

Tye looked where his wife pointed and through the windows saw Jennifer sitting at the table
, with Andy at the old gas stove, then he turned to his wife saying, "How many times have I said she's too bossy?  Proves I was right about that."

"Watch him, he's washing as he goes.  You should take notes," Reb said.

"We've been married almost thirty years, it only took Jen knowing Andy a week to get him trained.  Maybe you should take notes," Tye answered and nudged Reb to start walking.

~~~

Jennifer looked around at the noise then back at Andy, "They're back, but I didn't get a weather report, I think the radio has had it.  How's breakfast coming along?  Can I help?"

"Maybe set the table?  Condiments?  Coffee is ready too," Andy said, busy at the stove.

Jennifer smiled at her parents as they walked in and asked, "Where've you two been so early?"

"Half way to Oklahoma and back, can't afford to sleep in like you youngsters," Tye answered.

While Tye bantered with his daughter, Reb eased into the kitchen with a watchful eye.  She noticed how few pieces of cookware Andy used and that he wiped the counters as he went along, constantly moving, washing, drying, or checking something.

Andy looked up to see Reb watching him and smiled, "The most important skill I learned while bike trekking is putting things back in the exact place I found them, so I think your kitchen is safe."

"You found everything okay?"

"If you could get a couple of serving dishes it would be a big help.  My timing is off and I'm overcooking some things," Andy said and then turned back to the stove.

At the table Jennifer and Tye sipped their coffee and watched Reb hover around Andy; they imagined her to be consciously restraining herself from elbowing her way to the stove.  Andy kept her busy helping him, even asking her opinion on if the dishes were spiced to the family members' tastes.  Soon it became evident that Reb and Andy were enjoying cooking together, which prompted a raised eyebrow from Jennifer as she looked at her dad and whispered, "We've created a monster."

"We?  This one's on you, Missy.  That's your boyfriend in there charming my wife, and making the men folk look bad."

"You think he's reached boyfriend status in a week?  Anyway, men look manly in the kitchen; a news flash to you Dad, I know.  Maybe they'll team up to do a cooking show and make us rich."

Reb and Andy came to the table each carrying a platter of steaming food, "What are you two over here snickering about?" Reb asked.

"How funny it is to have ice in East Texas," Tye answered.  "I won't ask what you two were laughing about while stirring the caldron in there; might ruin my appetite.  Smells good though."

As they ate the
ir conversation revolved around the cold front and the radio interference occurring at the same time.

"Is it a conspiracy or a coincidence?" Reb asked.

"Unless whatever 'it' is clears up soon, we may never know what exactly happened, only that it did," Jennifer answered for all of them.

"Someone's coming and it looks like a County Sheriff truck.  Any of you wanted criminals?" Reb asked.

"You are truly an eccentric woman to be out for a swim so early in the morning!" Eric greeted Tess.

Tess grabbed a handhold on the side of Eric’s kayak with a surge of relief, "Are you here to help or joke around?"  Tess somehow had a difficult time communicating with Eric, and she wondered why sending a barbed response to a would-be rescuer took precedence in her mind over being rescued.

"Just taking care of my tenants like any good landlord.  If you can haul yourself aboard, please do," Eric answered, deciding his earlier attempt at levity had fallen on deaf ears, or maybe it was just bad timing?  Whatever, now he just wanted to get this over with and back to his house.

"Thank you!"  Tess slowly started pulling herself onto the kayak as Eric shifted his position to counterbalance her weight.  When she was aboard and seated in front of him, facing forward, she faintly heard him over the chatter of her teeth.

"Well done," he
said, and without speaking another word he turned on the electric motor and steered toward where he thought Robin might be.  Again the FLIR found the sailboat by the temperature differential between the boat and the river's surface, once his memory got them close enough.  Eric pulled up to the stern of the sailboat, "Consider yourself rescued and safely delivered to your little boat."

"Duly noted.  I am in your debt."

"Consider the debt satisfied when the storm passes and your journey takes you elsewhere," Eric said, and he left Tess climbing aboard Robin in the dark.

The coldness in Eric's parting shot pushed Tess even closer to hypothermia.  S
tiff and unbalanced she struggled aboard Robin.  Once below deck she shed her wet clothing, dried off, and crawled under a warm, dry blanket.  She shivered herself to asleep without a thought of how well Robin's secondary anchor, tossed out of the dinghy just before she followed it into the water, would hold in a sudden blow.

~~~

After a hot shower on his return to the house, Eric frowned as he remembered the less than friendly parting when he had delivered Tess to her boat, his intentions of being friendlier to her had gone awry.  He was disappointed, but not surprised, with how their verbal exchange had gone.  In his experience antagonistic attitudes, once exhibited between two people, exist like a transmission's low gear.  When the going gets tough, shifting down often becomes damn near impossible to resist.

While e
ating breakfast in the wee hours of the new day, he went over his plans to survive the next week to ten days.  Like everyone else he wasn't able to get any news or weather updates, but unlike most he was privy to what was happening, and he was prepared to hunker down until the smoke cleared.  In the next few days a recovery could start, if there was going to be one; though he doubted it would happen.  The chances of stopping the upcoming human die-off declined with each day essential services were cutoff to them, and day three had just passed for many; people had grown desperate.  They were cold, hungry, but above all else—well armed.

~~~

Just after 7:00
A.M.,
to the west of Washington, D.C., near Dulles International Airport, a developing band of unusually strong storm cells approached from the west.

As the storm cells moved eastward at speeds near 30
mph, funnel clouds formed.  A tornado briefly touched down in Bowie, and another near Silver Springs, causing enough damage and debris to close streets and roads in the area.  Almost instantaneously, area-wide traffic jams developed around the swaths of tornado damage.  Police and emergency vehicles only added to the traffic chaos, their sirens considerably louder than the car horns of stationary vehicles surrounding them. Panic set in.  Tempers began to flair.

Associated with the fast-developing storm system, strong wind gusts and damaging hail assaulted a broad area of expensive real estate on the northern edge of Washington, D.C.  Hail came down thick enough to block traff
ic on area streets and highways and hard enough to damage vehicles and buildings.  Due to sodden soil from the previous days of rain, strong wind gusts knocked down trees and power lines in a wide band of destruction across northern Maryland and into southern New Jersey.

At 8:
57
A.M.
, a tornado touched down across the Severn River from Annapolis, MD.  It continued east crossing the Chesapeake Bay directly over and closely paralleling U.S. Highway 50 and the William Preston Lane Junior Memorial Bridge.  The winds sufficiently damaged the only bridge across the northern Chesapeake Bay, so that highway officials indefinitely closed it to all road traffic for repairs.

Massive
storm damage to the local electrical grid would keep the Salem Nuclear Power Plant off-line indefinitely.  Restoring power to the millions of households and businesses, from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., would take weeks.  Meanwhile, traffic gridlock expanded exponentially outward from storm ravaged Northern Maryland. Infrastructure damage from winter storm Abe, and associated cyber attack damages, now affected five densely populated states: Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, in addition to the District of Columbia.  Any resemblance to normalcy disappeared from the landscape around the devastated areas.  Columns of smoke and the sounds of sporadic gunfire rose in the air.

At 9:25
A.M
., the southernmost and strongest storm cell in the band developed a rotation.  The funnel, generated by the cell, touched down one mile west of Eric’s property, moving rapidly to the east.  A few seconds later a large horse barn exploded, giving the funnel a large debris cloud, appearing halo-like around the point of its destruction.

Still
, Tess, on Robin, and Eric, in his private enclave, slept peacefully unaware of the storm cells approaching from the west.

They both jumped up
from the table. Gus ran to the living room to grab the rifles, and Ela opened the door a crack to see out, since the windows on the front of the house were covered with tarp.

"What is it?" asked Gus, as he ran
back from the living room.

"It’s another one of those guys, wearing black, on a snowmobile."

"This is loaded with the safety on," Gus said, handing her one of the ARs.  "Stay inside the door, but take the safety off and shoot that son of a bitch if he even acts like he wants to do something.  Don’t shoot me, if at all possible."

Gus put the weapon to his shoulder and walke
d out the door to face the oncoming snowmobile.  Gus stopped with the rifle pointed directly at the driver, and then he jerked the rifle down and fired twice.  Two puffs of snow erupted in the path of the approaching snowmobile.  Gus jerked the rifle back up in an obvious move to let the rider know where the next round would go.

The rider
threw both hands in the air.  As soon as the machine coasted to a stop, about twenty yards in front of Gus, he shouted, "Keep your hands up and state your business."

"
We’ve had trouble at Unaweep Resort Ranch. I’m going to Gateway to try to get help," a scared male voice said.

"What kind of trouble?"
Gus asked, still looking at the man through the rifle’s sights.

"
When part of Highway 141 was washed out in a flashflood five days ago, the guests that were due to leave couldn’t, and they’ve been trapped there ever since.  They are all high rollers and pretty demanding with the staff that are trapped there with them.  Some of the staff started drinking and decided to rob them and then leave, to let them fend for themselves.  They locked those of us that wouldn't join up with them in the bunkhouse. I escaped, and I'm trying to get to Gateway to bring back help," the man said.

"
You know anything about two others from the ranch coming this way on snowmobiles?"

"
Yes, one of the ringleaders took his wife to Gateway.  He was supposed to bring back his friend, but they haven't come back.  I think that's how I got away; they're short-handed until he gets back. Can I put my hands down?"

"You can,
then get on out of here; and see if you can find help.  We have an injured woman inside who will die soon without medical attention." Gus lowered his rifle as the man sped away leaving a rooster tail of snow.

Once back inside Gus look
ed in on Beth and saw no change; she was still breathing, but unconscious.  So far, Gus had been in a reactionary mode since this whole thing started.  Playing catch-up ball in the game of life didn’t offer a bright future.  He wanted to get ahead of the curve and be ready for whatever came next.

He asked Ela
to sit down with him at the kitchen table, so they could figure out what would be a good next move on their part.

"You heard what he had to say?" h
e asked.

"I did.  Do you believe him?"

"Parts of it, I do.  Everyone in Colorado knows about flashfloods, so the part about the highway being washed out fits with why we haven’t seen or heard a snowplow.  Using this storm and power outage as cover, and as an excuse for a robbery, also fits. Which side he’s on beats me; if he shows up with help for Beth then I’ll believe him.  If he shows up with help to finish robbing this place, then I guess we fight, and maybe die," Gus replied, deciding not to sugarcoat anything.

What Ela
heard Gus say dovetailed with her own thinking; danger lurked in all directions.  "Welcome to the die-off," she said.

"What’s that suppose to mean?" he asked.

"The last news I heard over the radio, about the attacks going on, reminded me of a plan hatched by a group of hackers I know of.  These extreme storms are becoming more common, and this guy explained how they would attack during these storms to make the damage worse, and last longer.  If they are successful in doing that, civility will be strained to the breaking point.  Governments commandeer, civilians loot, and all of them start shooting at each other after three days without electricity.  That's what I think is happening."

"Maybe in the rest of the country, but back in this neck of the woods
, here’s how I see it.  We now know we have trouble brewing at the next place up the canyon from us. We also know at least some family, of one of the two dead bodies in the shed, lives somewhere down canyon from us.  We are not able to climb out of here until after the snow melts, I can assure you of that.  As I see it, we are in no man’s land," Gus said.

Ela
gave Gus a puzzled look, "What do you suggest we do?"

"A big
piece of that question is what to do for Beth?  You know she will die without getting medical help soon.  She isn’t eating or drinking anything, so she won’t last long; we need to face the facts."

"You
want to leave her and take the snowmobile to Gateway?  Is that what you are trying to say?" Ela’s voice rose with the building tension.

"
That’s not what I’m saying. What we do in the next twenty-four hours very well could be the difference between life and death, is what I’m trying to say.  I tried the radios in both vehicles, and neither picks up anything except static, so we have no word of what's happening in the rest of the country.  Until we get some news, we both need to worry about our little world inside this freaking canyon.  How do we survive if more assholes come?  There are three rounds left in Con’s pistol, Al's pistol is empty, and we have eighteen rounds between the two rifles; after that, we’ll be throwing snowballs to defend ourselves," Gus said, louder than he meant to.  He decided to go outside, check the area for movement, and regain composure.

~~~

"Can you open that safe in there?"  Ela asked when Gus entered the kitchen.

"
Yeah, if I had a cutting torch. I'll look around in the shop, but I didn't notice one.  Look, since it’s almost dark, I don’t think anyone from Gateway is going to show today.  Maybe, but it’s more likely it will happen tomorrow.  Tonight we can take turns doing watches here in the house.  Early tomorrow I suggest we move out to the shop, since they will expect us to be in the house caring for Beth.  We can check on her and keep the house warm, but we will need some element of surprise to win any battles, if more than one guy shows up."

"Okay,"
Ela said and got up and left the table.  The irritability between the two of them had grown during the afternoon of waiting to see if anyone would come, friend or foe.  She checked on Beth and found no change—
another death in the house soon
.  Ela wondered if her interactions with Gus were a microcosm of what was happening across the storm-affected areas, where the power had been off longer than the three days' worth of food most people have on hand.  Was everyone becoming irritable and angry, in addition to being hungry?  Were dead bodies piling up around the people who were still hanging on?

Ela
thought about Gus with his enormous physical strength and his get-it-done attitude.  When he saw something that needed to be done he figured out a way to do it, and did it.  She admired that part of him.  Yet, there was another part of her that associated him with everything bad that had happened, once he had entered her life.  She knew that blaming him was a coping measure, promising to make her path easier for the moment, but adding a burden to her future.

In her mind she again heard her mother asking her questions about choosing between a strong or weak partner
, while pressing her to pop out a couple of grandbabies.  It was as if somehow her mother had known that she would face such a decision under duress, and had tried to prepare her for it.  For the first time since her mother's death, Ela reconnected with her spiritually, and realized their relationship continued in a new realm, and that the healing process could begin.

~~~

Outside, a breeze from the southwest brought warmer, moist air to the region, almost identical to the one that had come through exactly one week ago.