AFTER THE DUST SETTLED (Countdown to Armageddon Book 2) (7 page)

     “But how can you look such a cute little bunny in the face and then kill him?”

     He bit his lip to conceal a smile.

     “Honey, I’m sorry, but this is the new reality. We can’t go to the s
upermarket to buy groceries anymore. We have to grow our own food to survive. And rabbits are going to be part of that food.”

     “Why not just eat the cows and pigs? They’re stinky and dirty. And they’re ugly. They’re nowhere as cute as the bunnies.”

     “Oh, trust me. We’ll eat them too, eventually. I’ll tell you what. I still have the two wire cages that we used to separate the males from the females before we moved up here. The females are all pregnant now. If you want, you can pick a couple of the babies after they’re weaned and make them your pets. You can fix up one of the cages real nice and feed them every day and take care of them. You can even name them. And I’ll promise you that we won’t eat your pets. Would that make you feel better?”

     “Yes, and thank you.”

     “You’re certainly welcome, sweetie.”

     “I want to pick a boy and a girl. Would you help me tell them apart?”

     “Um… you might be better off selecting two boys or two girls.”

     “Oh. Yes, I guess that might be a better idea.”

     And so it was that two rabbits named Monica and Chelsea would become a permanent fixture, in a shaded cage next to the tool shed. And they would spoiled rotten by a teenaged girl who had so much love in her heart she couldn’t bear to see them put down.

     The rabbits weren’t the only ones who were pregnant. Duchess began gaining weight, and her nipples became more prominent. Joyce was the first to notice, and made the announcement one evening at the dinner table.

     “We’re going to have puppies!”

-11-

     Outside the compound all appeared to be quiet. They could occasionally hear gunshots in the distance, but they were always single shots spaced several minutes to an hour apart. Hunters, probably.

     The only activity they’d seen on the tower-mounted cameras was a
lone rider on horseback, a deer carcass tied across the horse behind the saddle, riding slowly back toward San Antonio. A hunter gathering food for his family. The camera was sharp enough to show that he carried no sidearm, and the only rifle he had was his hunting rifle, sheathed and on the side of the saddle.

     Scott didn’t consider him a threat, especially when he rode past the tower without taking any interest in the surroundings.

     Scott had moved his ham radio from the den to the security console. It made more sense there, since the security console was manned twenty four hours a day.

     Three or four times a day, the radio came to life, and each time whoever was on security detail would call Scott to come running.

     Word was spreading around the world to first responders and others. Many mechanics had already discovered the same thing Tom had. But those who didn’t would call to ask questions about the process. Or just to say thanks.

     Many police departments were getting as many cars running as they could find dry batteries for. And they were putting people to work rebuilding their starter solenoids using the copper from electrical cords.

     They were in touch with the Dayton, Ohio police department as well. The Dayton police convinced a Dayton battery factory to start removing the tops of thousands of maintenance free batteries, saving the acid and taking out the shorted out cells, and then rebuilding them. The company still had no lights, so they moved their operations into the plant’s parking lot and only worked during the daytime.

     The problem was one of logistics. The country was slowly getting some of its vehicles running again. But only to the degree that old fashioned automotive parts and dry batteries were available. The San Antonio Police Department, after scouring every conceivable place to look in and around the
Alamo city, only found enough parts to get eighty of their cars running. Eighty cars out of a six hundred vehicle fleet.

     The police still had most of their officers dispersed on foot or bicycle. The cars were used mostly for emergencies, mainly to back up the foot patrol cops when they were under fire or outnumbered.

     And in the front seat of the patrol cars, they carried paramedics. Many of the calls they went on were now ambulance calls, since they were only able to restore five ambulances for the entire city.

     But at least it was something. It was a start, a foot in the door, and it gave the city something to hope for, that there might actually be brighter days ahead.

     On the third day of the crisis, engineers at San Antonio’s main water plant had managed to rebuild one of their generators and two of their eight pumps. The faucets around the city got little more than a trickle, but it was enough to keep people from dying of thirst.

     But mostly it was still chaos. Most of the residents of the city were holed up in their homes, trying to conserve what was left of their food, and to defend it from thieves.

     Texas had always been a big second amendment state, and most of its residents had some type of firearm. Many had their own private arsenals.

     That was a good thing for
San Antonio residents. And a very bad thing for those who went from house to house trying to steal food.

     The streets were littered with the bodies of thugs who’d been shot while breaking into homes. There was no way to call the police, or even an ambulance, when such incidents occurred. And the residents surely didn’t want the carcasses to stink up their homes. So they typically just dragged them to the curb outside their homes, hoping the city would figure out a way to come and collect them.

     And in the meantime, the bodies served as a big red flag that sent a very strong message to other potential thieves. Better stay away from this house. These people don’t play.

-12-

     Tom was tired of lugging supplies from the Walmart truck. It was only six miles down the highway from his place, so the drive there wasn’t the problem. It was the process that was getting monotonous.

     Once at the truck, he had to break down each pallet of mixed boxes to see what he could use and what he could set aside. Then he had to load as much as he could into his old Ford. And once back to his modest ranch, he had to find hiding places to put everything in case marauders ever tried to rob him. He’d made two such trips a day for two straight weeks, and it was getting old.

     But at least he could see the back wall of the trailer now. To him that meant the light at the end of the tunnel.

     And the bright spot was that he had more than enough canned goods, pasta, and Ramen noodles to keep him fed for two or three years. And a lot of other foods thrown in to boot.

     He’d been single long enough to know that there were certain shortcuts a man could take to prepare his food. One night several months before he had a hankering for Kraft macaroni and cheese. It was only after he boiled the noodles that he realized he was out of milk.

     So he did what single men have done for many generations. He improvised.

     Tom cooked the macaroni and drained it, just like the box said. But instead of adding a quarter cup of milk and a quarter cup of margarine, he added three eighths of a cup of Wesson oil. And he found out that it looked exactly the same. It was just a tad bit oily, and a tad bit less creamy, but it was darn good eating. In fact, by the time he finished his meal he decided he liked his version better, and made a habit of cooking it that way every time.

     He was happy to see not only six cases of macaroni and cheese on the truck, but a case of Wesson oil as well.

     He also took things he knew he’d never use, like women’s products, and perfume, and foo-foo smelling soaps and such. He figured that maybe, just maybe, he could do something else single men had been doing for generations. Bartering stuff they didn’t need for things they could use.

     In this case, he was hoping to keep Linda, Joyce and Sara in perform and soap, in exchange for a couple of loaves of fresh baked bread occasionally.

     At least that was his plan.

     Tom had power running to his house again. He’d overhauled the diesel generator he had in his shed, and gotten it working again. His house didn’t have a breaker box. It had an old fashioned fuse box which used glass tubes of different wattage.

     The EMPs blew every one of his fuses, but he had spares. And since the spares were in boxes instead of being screwed into the fuse box, they were spared the damage.

     As it turned out, he was lucky. His well pump survived intact and the majority of his ceiling lights still worked. The television came on, but it just hummed and the picture stayed black. But that was okay because he knew the TV stations were out of commission anyway.

     And also because he could count on one hand the number of times he’d watched the damn thing in the previous two years.

     What Tom really missed was his stereo. He used to pop CDs into it and crank it up loud, so he could sing Folsom Prison Blues with Johnny Cash,
Whiskey River with Willie Nelson, and Cool Water with the Sons of the Pioneers.

     He still had the CDs. Maybe he’d see if Scott had a spare player he’d barter for a case of M&Ms or something.

     He finished loading up the car and was getting ready to head back, when he remembered the three gallon diesel can on his front passenger seat.

     He only ran his generator in the daytime. He was afraid that lights on in his house would attract the wrong kind of company. So as twilight approached each evening, he killed the generator and read a book by a single candle’s light in his back bedroom.

     But even running his generator only during the daytime required diesel fuel. And his plan was to stock up so he had enough to last awhile.

     He had four old 55-gallon drums on his property. They’d been there for so long he couldn’t even remember where they came from. They were empty and smelled of herbicide, although any markings they once had on them had rusted away.

     The inside of the drums, though, weren’t rusted at all. So they’d make good containers for storing diesel fuel.

     The tractor which hauled the 53-foot trailer from one Walmart to another was equipped with twin hundred gallon saddle tanks, one tucked beneath the running board on each side of the cab. It appeared the truck driver topped off his tanks in the city of Junction, on Interstate 10, about twelve miles away.

     That was good news for Tom, because they were both almost full. And two hundred gallons of diesel fuel would power his generator for a very long time.

     His Ford was another matter entirely. It needed gasoline. But it was surprisingly good on gas, and he never took it anywhere except to and from the truck. So the gas in his tank would last him awhile. When he did run low, there were several stalled vehicles on the same highway as the Walmart truck he could siphon some from.

     He knew he’d feel a little bit guilty about doing that, when and if the time came. It would almost be like he was stealing it. But then again, chances were that none of the vehicles would ever be used again. And if he didn’t make use of the gas, it would just go to waste.

     So he didn’t figure the little bit of guilt he’d feel for taking the gas would prevent him from doing it.

     He took the three gallon diesel can out of the front seat and used a section of garden hose to siphon enough fuel from the truck’s driver’s side tank to fill it.

     It was a slow process, transferring the diesel fuel from the truck to his drums, using a three gallon can. But it was the only can he had, and he fully expected to make at least forty trips to the trailer to get everything he could use from it. He never realized how much merchandize a full sized trailer could hold until he started sorting through it all.

     So if he didn’t get all of the diesel, three gallons at a time, he’d darn sure get most of it.

     He put the full can in the front floorboard and headed back home. Six miles up the highway, he turned onto the nondescript county road that fronted his house, and then Scott’s house a little farther on.

     It was getting late in the day as he made his turn, and the sun was low enough in the sky to make it hard for Tom to see in front of him.