An Undeclared War (Countdown to Armageddon Book 4) (10 page)

-18-

     It wasn’t the best of situations, but as Robbie said, it was better than nothing.

     Each morning, Linda or Hannah would call the pair when breakfast was ready. They would secure the ranch house and walk over to the compound, where they’d find a hearty meal laid out for them on their picnic table.

     While they ate, Scott’s boys and Sara, and sometimes the others, would sit at their own table a short distance away. Communicating across the divide was becoming second nature to them now, and they were able to carry out regular conversations just by speaking in loud voices.

     It wasn’t ideal, but they made the best of it.

     The process was repeated at lunch and dinnertime. It was the best food the two had eaten in many months, and they found themselves putting on weight. Robbie mentioned after a week or so that he’d better slow down, or he wouldn’t be able to fit into his police uniform when he got back to San Antonio.

     When
they weren’t in the compound gorging themselves, Scott and Robbie spent their time outside the compound’s walls, doing odd jobs.

     They’d pulled the Bobcat out of the ditch and tuned it up. They pulled the punji sticks out
of the trench that Tom had dug, in case one of the dogs accidentally fell in.

     With the dogs in mind, they decided on a new, less lethal booby trap.

     The original pit was only about four and a half feet deep. It was the maximum depth they could manage with the Bobcat’s bucket attachment.

     But with good old fashioned shovels, they could dig a deep as they wanted.

     Falling into the hole would be painful, without doubt. But it would no longer be one hundred percent fatal.

     What it would be was a very effective way of trapping someone. Assuming that someone wouldn’t be able to crawl out of a seven and a half foot hole without the aid of a ladder.

     Once done, they removed the mound of dirt that had lined the original trench since the day it was dug. Even in the moonlight, the mound was a hint that there was a trench in front of it.

    
They were afraid that intruders might see the mound and go around it instead of over it. And if they did that, they’d go around the trench at the same time.

     Their logic was sound. Remove the mound of dirt
, and there was nothing to warn intruders of the danger ahead. And in the darkness of night, the trench in the ground was damn near impossible to see.

     Of course, the good guys already knew it was there and could skirt around it.

     And the bad guys?

     Hopefully they’d land on their heads and break their necks. But if they were lucky and landed uninjured, Scott and Robbie were pretty confident the trench would make a good holding cell while the group decided their fate.

     Two years before, when Scott and Joyce were setting up the compound and planning for the blackout, they knew they had to plan for the long term. They also knew that anything made of electronics eventually went out. Nothing lasted forever.

     So when they modified one of the storage barns and turned it into a huge Faraday cage by lining the interior with wire mesh, they packed as many electronic items into
it as they could.

     Including extra surveillance cameras and monitors.

     On the huge electrical towers which ran past the eastern edge of the property and carried electricity from San Antonio into the small towns to the north, Scott and Jordan had installed two wireless cameras.

     They were small, discrete, and solar powered. Each one had a solar panel which charged a small battery pack during daylight use. The battery had sufficient power to operate the camera during nighttime hours.

     In the two years since they installed the two cameras on the electric towers they only had one issue with them. One of the batteries wore out and had to be replaced.

     It was a very effective system.

     And it just so happened they had four more of them, still boxed up and brand new, gathering dust in the back of the Faraday barn.

     On the next to last day before John was scheduled to come back and pick them up, Scott and Robbie installed one of the cameras on the roof of Tom’s ranch house.

     When he was ready for the initial system test, Scott called over the radio to see who was manning the security console.

     Tom answered, “It’s me, little buddy. You ready to run the test?”

     “Yes.”

     Scott needed to make sure the camera’s autofocus was operational.

     He stood three feet away from it and asked, “How’s the picture, Tom?”

     “Crystal clear.”

     Scott moved to a point about ten feet away.

     “How’s the picture now?”

     “Still crystal clear.”

     Scott moved to a point about twenty five feet away. Then, on a whim, he asked Tom, “Hey, Tom, is there anyone there with you?”

     “Nope. Just little ole me.”

     Hannah had been in the kitchen, getting herself a glass of iced tea. She got one for Tom as well, and walked up behind him just in time to see Scott drop his pants and moon Tom on the monitor.

     Tom was getting ready to say something, until Hannah put her finger to her lips to shush him.

     She got on the radio and said, “Nice, Scott. Real nice. What grade are you in, again?”

     Scott muttered, “Oh, crap,” and turned beet red. Robbie enjoyed a good belly laugh, and Tom and Hannah cracked up as well.

     It was the first time any of them had laughed out loud
in two weeks.

     And it felt good.

-19
-

     Scott had mixed feelings about going back to San Antonio. On the one hand, it broke his heart to think of leaving his family and friends behind again.

     But seeing them had been bittersweet. Seeing those you loved most in the world, but having to stay away from them, was its own brand of torture.

     And everywhere he went in the compound, he saw flashbacks of Joyce. He fully expected her to come around the corner at any moment. He dreamed about her at night. He daydreamed about her in daylight. He thought he heard her voice blowing softly in the breeze.

     He knew that the best thing for him at the moment was to get away for awhile. To get back to work in
San Antonio. To stay busy and try his best to forget.

     John called when he was ten minutes away. He’d already told Hannah and the girls he wouldn’t be getting out of the car this time. Saying goodbye to them
two weeks before was very hard on all four of them. None of them wanted to have to do it again.

     At John’s heads-up call, Scott and Robbie said their goo
dbyes across a ten foot chasm that seemed ten miles wide.

     The pair double-timed it back to Tom’s place, followed closely by Tom and Jordan on the tractor and the Gator.

     Once the guys were off the property, Tom and Jordan would move dead mesquite trees back into the open gap that separated the two pieces of land, then stake them to the ground again so they couldn’t easily be moved.

     John pulled off of Interstate 10 and onto Highway 83. Four miles up, and to the south, just past a wide curve, was the turnoff to Tom’s ranch house.

     He could have closed his eyes and found it by sense of smell alone. The bodies of the outlaws, laid out across the berm, had been rotting for two weeks.

     Many of the
ir limbs were gone now, chewed off and carried away by coyotes or wild dogs. Much of the rancid flesh had been picked off by buzzards, and they’d soon be nothing but bones.

     In the meantime, though, they stunk to high heaven.

     John had to turn off the air conditioner because it was drawing in the outside air, and the smell of the decomposing bodies along with it.

     It was a warm day, and a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as he silently cursed his friends and wished they’d hurry up.

     Finally, Scott and Robbie burst through the brush along the side of the road, both holding their breath as best they could, and breathing through their mouths when they had to inhale.

     Robbie jumped into the front seat, Scott dove into the back, and John burned rubber in an effort to get away from the smell.

     It didn’t work, though. The smell had already permeated the car’s interior, and they had to put up with it the entire way back to San Antonio.

     One of the things
they had to do as part of their police duties was search for bodies in abandoned houses and businesses, and to help drag them to the street for burning. They’d smelled decomposing bodies before. But on the job in San Antonio, they had a habit of spreading a dollop of Vick’s Vapor Rub on their upper lips, beneath their noses. That wasn’t what it was designed for, but it did an excellent job of masking the smell.

     But they didn’t have any in the compound.

     The bodies in San Antonio would eventually all be collected and burned. Six months later, maybe a year, the smell of decomposing human flesh would be a thing of the past. But that didn’t mean they’d ever forget what it smelled like. Each of them knew it would be with them until their dying days.

     As they got back on I-10, Scott called on the radio.

     “Hey, Tom, did you get those items we left for you at the back of your shed?”

     Tom
was on his tractor, dragging a dead mesquite tree back into place, and cursed out loud.

     “Dammit,
I forgot!”

    
Jordan said, “Don’t worry. Sit tight. I’ll get it.

    
Jordan jumped on the Gator and fairly flew through the hole in the fence toward Tom’s ranch house.

     Tom admired him as he went. He liked the way
Jordan was always the first to volunteer, and how he always carried more than his share of the load.

     “You know, Scott, tha
t’s a fine boy you’ve got there.”

     “I know, Tom. But I wouldn’t call him a boy to his face. He’s a man now, just as much as you and me.”

     “Yep. You’re right. And a damn good one.”

     “I’ve already decided that when I get out of
San Antonio for good and get back here, I’m going to pass the alpha male hat to him. I think he’s ready now, don’t you?”

     “Yep. He’ll wear it well, too. Does that mean you and I get to retire and start enjoying life?”

     “Yep. With Jordan in charge we can just sit back and spend our days whittlin’ and spittin’.”

     “Damn right.”

     Jordan, his radio at his side, listened to the chatter as he drove to Tom’s wood shed. It made him feel good that his father, and the man he considered a grandfather, both thought him capable of taking charge of the compound.

     He didn’t say a word. But he grinned from ear to ear.

     Inside the house, others were listening too. Linda, working the security desk, beamed with pride. She’d always known what Jordan was capable of. Even as a boy he’d always been mature for his age. She found herself a little bit choked up.

     Sara, standing behind her, put a hand on her shoulder.

     “I know you’re proud of him, Mom Linda. I am too. I’m lucky to be here with him. If he hadn’t rescued me that day the world went dark, I’d be dead. And since I’ve been here, I’ve been able to live for the first time in my life. And it’s all because he wouldn’t allow himself to do the easy thing and leave me behind.”

     Linda reached up and placed her own hand atop Sara’s.

     “He never would have left you behind, honey. He’s just not that way.”

    
Jordan went to Tom’s wood shed and removed two weapons and two boxes, and put them in the back of the Gator. The weapons were fully automatic military issue M-16 rifles. One box contained military grade .556 ball cartridges. The other contained hand grenades.

     The little boy in him wanted to go out later and throw a grenade and fire the weapons.

     But the mature side of him told him no. The grenades and ammo might well save their lives again someday. It was not to be wasted.