Forsaken World:Coming of Age (6 page)

“How many?”

“Half, all the piglets,” Lance said, walking out. He saw all the pigs burying their faces in the water trough. Turning off the faucet, he moaned, “Let’s get home and figure out what we want to do.”

They drove back across the road and back up the draw behind Donald’s with Dino leading them like he knew they were heading home. “Done and on the way,” Lance called over the radio.

“About time, copy,” Jennifer snapped.

“Your girlfriend seems mad,” Lance said, holding on as Ian weaved between the trees.

Ian chuckled. “Show me a girl that’s not.”

“Stop at the draw where the pile is at,” Lance said, looking back at the cans of fuel. “You couldn’t find a five-gallon gas can instead of a bunch of little ones?”

“No, they only had five one-gallon cans of diesel. That two-gallon can is the biggest can of gas I found, and it’s mixed for a chainsaw,” Ian said.

When they reached the spot, Lance looked down into the valley. “I’m thinking walk down and sneak up on their ass and cap them then burn the pile.”

Shaking his head, Ian looked down the draw. “You realize that means walking back up this steep bitch.”

“We can carry the gas down with us and just come back up and leave,” Lance said.

“Fine,” Ian groaned. “How close you want to get?”

“Close enough to see if this hot shit is worth wearing.”

“Amen to that,” Ian said and got out. “This is the hottest March I can remember.”

Making sure Dino stayed close, they crept down the draw, and when they were a hundred yards away, their eyes started burning. “Fuck, that’s nasty,” Lance groaned, setting his cans down.

Trying not to cough as the smell hurt his lungs, Ian looked at Lance. “This is wrong on so many scales; I can’t even start to formulate my bitching.”

Dino let out a loud snort. “Dino, we’re trying to be sneaky, and that’s not it,” Lance said, holding in a cough. “Aw, piss on this shit. Ian, take left. I’m on the right; let’s just walk out, and if they haven’t noticed us at twenty feet, let’s just cap them.”

Ian nodded, pulling out his Ruger as Lance walked calmly down the draw. The closer they got, the worse the smell became. It felt like their lungs were burning. When they walked out of the tree line, the stinkers were thirty yards away, and all of them turned to the two bushes that walked out of the tree line with a big ass dog. None of them moved toward them, and many looked away.

When Lance was fifteen yards from the first one—a short, fat, naked woman—he raised his pistol. “Stinky fat ass bitch,” he said, holding his breath and pulling the trigger of the Ruger, which made a cough that split the quiet. As soon as Lance spoke, all of them started moving to them.

“You need to wipe your ass,” Ian said, shooting a young girl.

Trying not to cough as his lungs burned, Lance moved from target to target as his eyes watered. When he didn’t see any more, he said, “Ian, back up the draw,” still trying to hold his breath.

They took off running and passed the gas cans, moving further up the draw. “Fuck me, that’s nasty,” Ian coughed. “They are going to conquer the world with stink alone.”

“I think I coughed my nuts up,” Lance said and dropped to his knees, puking.

“Why’d you have to do that?” Ian groaned and dropped down, gagging.

Lance laid back, still not breathing deep because he could still smell them, but it didn’t burn his nose and lungs. “We have to move those bodies close to the pile and light it.”

“Fuck that. I’ll pour gas on them,” Ian said, looking down the draw. “Only one is not touching the pile.”

“Let’s get this done so we can leave,” Lance said, standing up.

“We are playing rock, paper, scissors to see who has to light it,” Ian said, struggling to get up.

With his eyes watering, Lance shook his head. “I’ll light the motherfucker. Come on,” he said as he grabbed the can of gas and took a deep breath then ran down the draw. When he had to take another breath, it actually hurt his lungs as he ran around the pile, pouring gas. He pulled out his knife and stabbed the can several times then tossed it on the pile and ran back up the draw.

After stabbing the can of diesel, Ian took off after him. When they were up the draw, they dropped down, gasping. “You think you can run back to light it?” Ian huffed, not wanting to breathe deep.

“Shit on that,” Lance said and reached around to the bottom of his small backpack and unzipped a pocket. He pulled out a road flare. “I’m throwing from here.”

“You’re still carrying road flares after almost getting us kicked out of the jamboree last year?”

“Hey,” Lance said, standing up, “the guide said we had fifteen minutes to get a fire going. Not my fault I’m smart and used a flare.”

“He was a punk,” Ian said, straightening up. “You think you can hit it from here?”

“We may have run over a hundred yards to get there, but that pile is sixty feet below us, and I have half a dozen chances,” Lance said, taking the cap off.

“You hit it, and I’ll buy you a teddy bear just to keep from going back down there,” Ian said as Lance pulled the tab, lighting the flare.

Rearing his arm back, Lance threw the flare in a high arc as hard as he could. “Doesn’t look like you’re going to miss it by much,” Ian said, watching the flare fall. When it was twenty feet over the pile,
ka boom!
sounded, knocking them down, followed by
whoosh
as a fireball lit up the area, sucking the oxygen out of the air.

“What kind of gas was that?” Lance said, shaking his head.

“If that’s super unleaded, that’s all I’m getting from now on,” Ian said, sitting up, and his mouth fell open. A pure blue flame covered the pile of bodies below them, and no smoke was coming from the fire. “Holy shit,” he mumbled.

Looking at Ian, Lance whipped his head and gawked, looking at the blue flame, and could see it rippling around the pile almost to the road. “Ah,” Lance stuttered, standing up and slowly looked at Ian, who was getting up and looking at him.

“We are so fucking stupid!” they yelled.

Chapter Five

“Hydrogen sulfide?” Jennifer said, looking at them sprawled out on the sectional.

“Yeah, sulfur doesn’t have a smell. The rotten egg smell comes from hydrogen sulfide, which is highly flammable,” Ian said.

“And toxic to breathe,” Lance said, trying to undo the laces of his boots, but finally gave up and flopped back on the couch.

Jennifer looked at them as they sat panting on the couch. “You two stay here. We’ll put the chickens up,” she said, but Allie and Carrie moved over to Lance, untying his boots.

“I don’t give a shit if we just cook the damn chickens right now,” Lance moaned, grabbing his chest. “My lungs feel like someone sucked them out my ass, washed them in bleach, then put them back.”

“Have one hot-ass fire in the valley to have a cookout. Just need barbeque sauce,” Ian said, pulling off his chest rig.

Seeing the girls struggle to take Lance’s boots off, Jennifer moved over and helped; then, they took off Ian’s. Standing up, Jennifer studied the two holding their chests and breathing hard. “You two will not do anything else today,” she said, shaking her head. “Allie, Carrie, let’s go get the chickens out.”

Lance watched them leave and rolled his head until he could see Ian. “That was really stupid on our part.”

Giving a snort, Ian chuckled. “Yeah, most people would run away when they can’t breathe, but we screwed around the area.” Getting up, Lance walked to their bedroom. “Dude, you’re going to piss her off,” Ian warned.

“Just getting my laptop. I want to make sure we didn’t damage our lungs,” Lance said, walking in the bedroom and not really caring if Jennifer was pissed.

When the girls came back, Jennifer saw Ian and Lance looking at laptops. “Well, seems they don’t understand ‘do nothing,’” she mumbled, walking over.

When Jennifer stopped at the sectional looking down at them, Lance raised his hand. “Don’t start. I needed to know if we damaged our lungs,” he said, not looking up at her.

Fear spread over Jennifer’s face. “Oh my God, did you?”

“No, but we were close to passing out, and that would’ve caused damage,” Ian said, staring at his laptop.

“We’ll get some respirators out of the bunker so we don’t make that mistake again,” Lance said, finally looking up at Jennifer. “I hate to ask, but can you get us something to eat?”

Jennifer’s jaw hit her chest. “What part of ‘I’m part of this’ don’t you understand?” Lance and Ian looked at each other and then at her. She crossed her arms over her chest. “So you two think me and the girls don’t think we should pull our weight like do stuff you can’t or take care of our group when others are hurt?”

“Er, no, we just didn’t want you guys to think we were imposing,” Ian said hesitantly.

“Good,” Jennifer said, spinning around. “Carrie, Allie, let’s get food ready.”

When the girls left, Ian leaned over to Lance. “You notice girls are high strung.”

“High strung,” Lance snorted. “Shit, I’m starting to get scared to try talking to her, afraid I’ll set her ass off.”

Ian turned back to his laptop. “Yeah, but she’s still great.”

“If she’s not biting our heads off,” Lance said, grinning at Ian. “Just wait till you marry her; she’ll beat you down with words and looks like  our moms do to our dads.”

Ian shrugged as he studied the laptop. “Don’t care,” he said with a smirk. “What a woman.”

“I’m going to get my notebook and printouts,” Lance said, getting up. As he walked through the kitchen to the basement, Jennifer spun around.

“Where are you going?”

“To get my notebook,” Lance said, stopping when he saw Jennifer’s hands go to her hips, and her eyes narrowed. “Ah, Allie, would you go and get my notebook and bring it to me?”

Turning around with a smile, Allie jumped off the stool she was standing on so she could work on the counter. “Yes,” she said, running past him. With a nervous smile, Lance headed back to the sectional and dropped down beside Ian.

“You asked for that, bro,” Ian said, chuckling quietly.

Picking up his laptop, Lance mumbled, “I feel cowed down like a bitch.”

“Lance,” Ian said, looking over at him. “She wants us to see her like we see each other.”

“Dude, if you would’ve done that to me, we would be in the yard.”

“You’re right,” Ian laughed. “If you had been hurt, I would just get shit for you like you would for me.”

“Point taken,” Lance said as Allie ran over and handed him his notebook. He gave her a hug and took the notebook, and she took off to the kitchen. “Now I just have to find the file I had the chat boards downloaded to.”

When the food was ready, Jennifer gave both looks as they walked to the table. She could tell they were moving better, and neither was holding their chest as they breathed, so she let it go. “I can’t wait for real eggs. Powdered sucks,” she said, pouring glasses of tea.

“If I have to eat powdered eggs much more, I’m just going to snort the damn things,” Lance said, sitting down.

“I’m leaning more to smoking mine,” Ian laughed. “Find anyone else that almost passed out from stinkers?”

Lance opened his notebook and nodded. “Yes, on the last day of downloads, several on the survival site said you had to get rid of dead stinkers fast because they really put off bad smells, making it hard to breathe. Later down in the blog, someone tells them it’s hydrogen sulfide. When you kill a stinker, it starts to really put out hydrogen sulfide for twenty-four hours. One person said they saw a group die inside an RV after they killed a bunch of stinkers around them. Seems they were trapped, and others showed up, and they couldn’t leave.”

Helping Allie and Carrie into their chairs, Jennifer looked up. “Any word on stinkers following other stinkers by smell?”

“Oh yeah,” Lance said, turning pages. “If one shows up, others will follow eventually; but they really show up after you kill one and don’t get rid of the body. More than one person on the boards compared it to the way insects leave scent trails.”

“How much did you download from the boards?” Jennifer asked, spooning food onto plates.

He looked up from his notebook. “Shit if I know, but it’s around a gigabyte,” he said with a shrug.

Her eyes got wide as she passed Lance his plate. “That’s over a hundred and thirty thousand pages,” she gasped.

Lance almost dropped the plate she was handing him as his jaw dropped in shock. “How in the hell did you know that?”

“I’m taking computers, Lance,” she said with a grin and handed Ian a plate of food. Taking it, Ian smirked as Lance shook his head to clear the shock off his face. “Learn anything new?”

He looked down at the last entries he had written. “One of the last blogs said someone in Oregon reported stinkers eating a cow,” Lance said. “Everyone started blasting them, saying they were wrong, but that’s when I turned off the internet.”

“Hell, we’ve seen them walk past dead animals,” Ian said.

“I’ve seen them kill animals and walk away,” Lance said. Everyone clasped hands and said grace.

When grace was done, Jennifer grabbed the salt. “What do you think of that?”

“Don’t really know,” Lance said, grabbing a fork.

As everyone ate and thought, Ian grabbed his glass of tea. “When do you want to head down to the valley?”

“Few days at least,” Lance said and looked over at Jennifer. “You and Jennifer are going to have to drive, so we need to practice that tomorrow.”

“I can drive the buggy down,” Ian offered.

“Nope,” Lance said, shaking his head. “Need to take the Hummer with the trailer. Need to hook up that truck and trailer for the pigs and goats, and I’ll be driving that truck back with the equipment.”

“Hold it,” Jennifer said, holding out her hands. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

Lance quickly laid out the plan he and Ian had concocted to get the stuff from the two farms they had visited. “You’re going to have to drive the Hummer for us to do it,” he finished.

“Okay.” Jennifer smiled, glad they had included her from the beginning without even asking. “What about Allie and Carrie?”

“Oh, they have to come with us,” Lance said, filling his mouth with food, and the smile fell off Jennifer’s face. When he emptied his mouth, Lance said, “What, we need someone keeping an eye out, and they can do that from inside the Hummer.”

Knowing they needed the girls and accepting it were two different things. “Can we think of a way to do it where we leave them here?” Jennifer asked hesitantly, and Allie and Carrie both started shouting.

“Hey!” Ian yelled, making the two quiet down. He looked at the girls with a scowl then turned to Jennifer. “We could, but it would take more than one trip, and that’s what we want to avoid at all cost.”

“We can help!” Carrie snapped, giving her sister a dirty look.

“Carrie,” Ian snapped. “We know that, and that’s why we said we needed you, so quit giving Jennifer ugly looks.” Carrie looked over at him, trying to give him a sad face. “Hey, I’m not Lance. That doesn’t work on me.”

Jennifer reached over, patting Carrie’s hand. “Sorry, but I’m just worried about you two out there.”

“We can be tough,” Allie said, lifting her chin.

Shaking his head at Ian, Lance was amazed that he could remain strong against those pouty eyes. “Yes, you can, but out of everyone, Allie, Carrie, you will have the most important job,” Lance said, turning away from Ian. “You’re the ones watching for anything coming for us. If it gets by you, then one of us could die.”

The cheer on the girls’ faces fell off and was replaced by sheer horror. “He’s right,” Ian said, finishing his plate. “Where are we putting the pigs?” Ian asked, glancing at Lance.

After thinking about it for a minute, Lance said, “Southwest corner. It’s the furthest I can get them away from the cabin and still be downhill.”

“We can use some of the barbwire and make a pen,” Ian said, refilling his plate.

“Hmph,” Lance scoffed. “You know as well as I do that would hold those damn things about ten minutes. At the Ferguson farm, they had cattle fence panels; we’ll use that.”

“What about the goats?” Allie asked with a pale face, still not liking being responsible for everyone’s safety.

Grabbing a napkin and wiping his mouth, Lance shook his head. “If the fences we are building don’t hold their asses, then they can roam free. They are coming to keep the grass down, and we can have fresh milk.”

“I like goats’ milk,” Allie said, looking down at her plate without a smile.

Finishing his second plate, Ian laughed. “Yeah, anytime some got brought home, Allie had no trouble finishing it off.”

When Lance finished, he looked over at Ian. “Show Jennifer that video so she can make out a plan on packing. I’m going to take a shower.”

After they put up their plates, Ian led Jennifer over to his laptop and showed her the video as Allie and Carrie cleaned up the kitchen. “What if we mess up?” Carrie whispered, helping Allie load the dishwasher.

“We can’t,” Allie said, trying not to cry. “We can do it just like we do watching on the TVs that show the outside.”

“I’m scared,” Carrie said, looking around to make sure no one was close.

Allie reached over, grabbing her hand. “Me too, but we have to help.”

Lance came out of the bathroom to see Allie and Carrie walking over to the living area. “Okay, everyone,” he said, going to the couch. “Everyone take a shower, and meet at the table in fifteen minutes.”

Looking up from the notes she was making, Jennifer rolled her head back until she was looking at Lance. “I’m just starting my list here.”

“You can work on it between driving practice tomorrow,” Lance said. “I have something I want to show all of you. Fifteen minutes or I’m getting pissed off.”

Ian laughed, jumping up. “Oh, can’t wait,” he said, running over the back of the couch.

Letting out a huff, Jennifer blew her bangs off her forehead and moved the laptop over. “It better be good,” she said with a grin and ran over the couch like Ian did.

Allie and Carrie walked past him, holding hands with scared faces. Lance reached over and hugged both of them. “If I didn’t know you two could keep a lookout, I wouldn’t have told Ian you could,” he said, leaning back to look down at them. “You can do it, and we need you to do it. Don’t worry; just do your best like you have been, and you’ll do a great job.”

“What if someone gets hurt because we didn’t see something?” Allie asked in a small voice.

Rubbing her head, Lance grinned. “Then it will come from somewhere you can’t watch. You two watch the monitors better than Jennifer—hell, anyone for that matter.”

“Really?” Carrie looked up with a hopeful smile.

“You two are the only ones that call out when a rabbit or squirrel runs around, so I have little doubt a person or stinky can get by you.”

Feeling much better, they hugged Lance and took off to the bedroom. Lance gave a sigh, hoping they wouldn’t get hurt. Then he realized the only way those two would get hurt was if Jennifer, Ian, and himself were dead. Shaking that thought out of his head, Lance ran down to the bunker.