Half Past Midnight (19 page)

The change will be very difficult:
City and province will gain by the change:
Heart high, prudent established, chased out one cunning,
Sea, land, people will change their state.

Nostradamus –
Century 4, Quatrain 21

Two years later, life had settled into a kind of routine. Amber, Ken, Cindy, Debra, Megan, Zach, and I had turned Amber’s little goat ranch into more of a fortress by hiding caches of supplies and weapons in various places around the property. We were actually beginning to adapt to our new lifestyle, and I sometimes wondered how I had ever coped with the frantic pace of pre-D life.

“Debra? We’re heading into town. Anything in particular I should look for?”

She came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a shabby dishtowel before draping it over her shoulder. “See if you can find a hydrometer. Cindy says she thinks a couple of the car batteries are going bad.” She paused, thinking a second. “Oh, and see if Sarah has any more cans of that condensed milk that she found. Maybe we can make some ice cream and get a little relief from this heat.”

I gaped for a moment. “Is the freezer working?”

“Yep. Cindy hooked the invertor into the circuit so we’d have enough power to run a couple of appliances. I thought we could celebrate with some ice cream.”

“Sounds amazing. I think I’m drooling a little.” I tried to remember what else we needed for homemade ice cream. “What about rock salt?”

“I’ll break up a piece of the salt lick.”

“All right. The kids’ll be tickled. Hell,
I’m
tickled.” I kissed her and started to pull away, but she grabbed my shirt and extended the kiss for several seconds longer.

“Come on, Dad!” Zach shouted impatiently from outside. “Let’s go already!”

I scowled as Debra giggled at me.

“How about we pick this back up later?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

I grinned. “Sounds like a date.”

“Daaaaddd!”

“How old are you, Zachary?” I yelled.

He hesitated. “Ten.”

“If you ever want to make it to eleven, you’d better quit yelling at your dad when he’s trying to smooch your mom!”

“Ewww!”

“Go on.” Debra pushed me back and turned me toward the open door. “I’ll see you when you get back.” As I stepped away, she popped me with the damp dishtowel.

“Hey!” I jumped and grabbed my hindquarters, rubbing briskly to take the sting out.

I turned to find her already turning away. “Hurry back,” she shot over her shoulder, “and I’ll be happy to take a look at that injury for you.”

I smiled at the implied promise and walked out the door.

Five minutes later, I had the cart hitched to the back of the motorcycle. I tossed a few bundles of trade goods in it, and Zach clambered aboard to sit in on top of them. Megan climbed on the motorcycle seat behind me and, as we pulled slowly down the street, she yelled in my ear, “You think she knows what we’re up to?”

I twitched my shoulder in a lazy shrug. “She probably knows something’s up, but there’s no way she could know exactly what.”

“Um, have you
met
Mom?”

“Yeah,” I conceded. “You’ve got a point.” But there was nothing I could do about what she might or might not know, so I didn’t worry too much about it.

Twenty minutes later, we were winding our way through the foot traffic at the edge of the market square. I parked the motorbike in front of an abandoned convenience store and killed the engine. Slinging one of the trade bundles over my shoulder, I tossed the second to Megan, took Zachary’s hand, and the three of us waded into the crowd.

The market had started as a simple enough thing. With little to no electricity to run internal lighting or air conditioning, shopkeepers had taken to setting tables outside their doors. The practice had grown, spawning more tables and stalls, quickly spilling out into the streets until the town council simply barricaded off a four-block area of town and allowed it to grow into what everyone now referred to as
the market
.

We wandered through the makeshift stalls, looking at some items, avoiding others, winding our way through the buzzing and shouting of the ever-present dickering. At the outskirts, we saw the normal handcrafted items: candles, soaps, woodcarvings, pottery. As we burrowed deeper into the crowd, we also came across plenty of scavenged goods such as canned foods, car parts, and some small electronics like CD players or flashlights still in the original plastic. We had found that many of the less complex, basic electronics that hadn’t been plugged in or connected to batteries on D-day still worked, and those still in the original packaging were almost guaranteed to work. The more intricate items that depended on delicate circuitry had a lesser chance of working. And of course, all of them still required some sort of power source.

But here in the market, that too was available. Generator kits were prevalent, based on everything from bicycle generators, to automobile parts and current inverters. They were fairly common at the moment, but I feared the day would soon come when we would no longer be able to find the parts necessary to make them. Windmill and waterwheel kits to turn the generators were also a valued commodity and, when I heard some of the haggling being done for them, I was thankful we already had ours.

I saw my goal ahead and shouldered my way through the crowd to Wayne Kelley’s booth. Wayne had been Rejas High School’s chemistry teacher, and had put his education to good use. He had everything from fuel preservatives to perfumes available at his booth. If you wanted something that required a knowledge of practical chemistry, Wayne was your man.

“Hey Wayne, how’s business?”

“Leeland!” He smiled. “Business is good. You here to make it better?”

“I hope so.” I gestured. “Hand Mr. Kelley that bundle, would you, Megan?”

She hefted the bundle off her shoulder and slung it to an empty spot on his table. Wayne untied the knot and unrolled half a dozen uncured goatskins. He thumbed through them, checking the thickness and quality of the skin. “Still no kids?”

“Nope. We still don’t have enough stock to warrant slaughtering any of the kids. We need to let them breed another year or so. Maybe then.”

Wayne sighed. “Well, Connie will be happy to get these. Same arrangement?”

I nodded. “You process them and keep half.”

Wayne stuck out his hand. “Deal. You want the skins from the last batch?”

“If they’re ready.”

“Just give me a second.” Wayne stepped back into his shop.

A moment later, his wife came out to greet us. “Hi, Leeland, Megan.” She turned a special smile to Zachary. “My goodness, Zachary, you get bigger every time I see you. What are you doing in town?”

Zach loved the attention. “We’re shoppin’ for Mom’s birthday.”

Connie turned to me. “It’s Deb’s birthday?”

“Day after tomorrow. But there’s no need waiting to the last minute.”

“Two days before her birthday isn’t last minute?”

I raised my hands. “This one’s just a matter of timing.”

Wayne came out and saved me from further explanation as he handed a smaller bundle back to Megan. “Here you go. Four skins of the eight you brought in last month. Want to examine them?”

“No need.” I leaned in close. “I know where you live.”

He and his wife both chuckled.

“Thanks Wayne, Connie. See you in class tomorrow?”

“We’ll be there.”

As we headed toward our next stop, Megan tugged my sleeve. “Dad, you mind if I stop by the library?”

“I don’t see why not. What are you after?”

“Nothing really. I just kinda wanted to look around.” Her voice trailed off as she looked away evasively.

“She wants ta go see An-drew!” Zach squealed. Megan flipped a quick kick at the seat of his pants. “Ow! Dad, Megan kicked—”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“But she—”

I pointed a finger in his face. “Not a word, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t pick fights, and you won’t get hurt.” I took the bundle from Megan and handed it to Zachary, while pretending not to notice the glare he shot at his older sister. “All right, Megan, meet us at Sarah’s shop in an hour.”

She bounced up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “Thanks Dad.” And she threaded her way into the crowd.

I watched her fade into the mass of market-goers for a moment before taking my son by the hand. “Okay Zach, now tell me about this Andrew kid.”

Zachary grinned conspiratorially. “He’s not a kid, Dad. He’s the same age as Megan.”

I smiled. “That old, huh?”

“Uh huh. He’s Mr. Eric’s son.”

“Eric Petry? From the morning classes?”

“Yes, sir. I think that’s where they met.” He leaned close to me. “I caught ‘em kissin’ in the woods last week.”

I was definitely surprised. Megan had never let on that she had a boyfriend. But I knew Eric and recalled meeting his son a few times. He had seemed a likeable enough young man. And Eric was a good friend. He was one of the town’s police officers, and a third-degree black belt in Shotokan karate. We had met him through the self-defense classes I had volunteered to Jim Kelland.

Most mornings, we taught a growing number of Bruce Lee wannabes in the clearing behind Amber’s house at sunrise. Lessons usually lasted two to three hours, depending on the number of people who attended and how difficult the day’s activities were.

When we had first begun the classes after the last of the burials, it had been just Megan and me teaching. Four of Kelland’s men had come by for training. We taught them exercises to stretch the tendons and ligaments in their arms and legs, and showed them the proper way to do some basic
katas
, or forms, to strengthen their legs and improve their balance.

Then, we showed them some of what they really wanted to learn: the actual self-defense aspect of the arts—the innumerable joint locks of small circle jujitsu, basic grappling techniques, and the first twelve variations of Kali’s angles of attack. They had been impressed enough to convince others to join.

Word of the Kindley Massacre—their name, not mine—had spread quickly after the article in the
Chronicle
and, as other attacks occurred, people began trickling in by twos and threes. Eric had shown up the second week to volunteer his skills, and we were soon teaching anywhere from fifteen to fifty people each day.

While I considered the local police officers to be the core of the classes, there were also housewives, grocers, shop owners, and mechanics—to use a common cliché, people from all walks of life. I wished my school in Houston had been so full.

And sometime during all that, Andrew had evidently gone from being one of the students to being my daughter’s boyfriend. It had happened under my very nose, and I’d been completely oblivious.

I sighed and rubbed Zach’s head affectionately. “Well, your sister’s growing up. You’ll be better off staying out of her business.”

He furrowed his brows and turned to look up at me. “Is she gonna get married and move away?”

“I’m sure she will, eventually. But probably not for a while yet.”

He grinned. “When she does, can I have her room?”

I laughed aloud. “We’ll see about that later.”

“When?”

“Later.”

“Later when?”

“When she moves out. For now, though, we have more shopping to do.”

We shouldered through the crowd and eventually made our way to a darkened shop with an open front door. Walking in, I heard the methodical sharp tinging of metal on metal from the back room, and I shouted, “Travis, you here?” The tinging stopped, and a shuffling took its place. Seconds later, a white-haired, bespectacled head peered around the doorframe.

“That you, Leeland?”

“Yep.”

“Gimme a sec, an’ I’ll get your order.”

I heard more shuffling, and Travis came limping out of the back carrying several items. He casually tossed me a pair of hand-tooled goatskin boots. They were loosely cut, and gusseted to adapt for wear under or over pants. I looked at the bottom and laughed aloud. “Tire treads? Really?”

Travis nodded. “Plenty of it around, and it’s made to last with two tons of metal ridin’ on it. Figured it’d last with yer ornery ass walkin’ on it for a while.”

I held one boot to the bottom of my foot to check the size. “Looks perfect.”

“Well, that ain’t no way to check it. Put th’ damn thangs on. I wanna see how they fit, too.”

I wasted no time skinning off my worn out tennis shoes. I was embarrassed by the condition of my socks, but didn’t let it stop me as I slid my legs into the calf-high leather boots. I wove the leather thong through the grommets on either side of the folded gusset and tied it over my pant legs. Standing tentatively, I took a few steps.

“Well? How do they fit?”

After walking around the room, I finally turned back to him. “They’re a little stiff, but they’ll wear in soon enough. I think they’ll do, Travis.”

He harrumphed at me. “’Course they’ll do. I don’t make crap. That’s why you come to me.”

“That’s true enough. You have the rest of it?”

He pointed to the bench, and I walked my new boots over to see the other items. Travis glanced over at Zachary. “Yer daddy made you a knife yet, son?”

Zachary mumbled something.

“Sorry, son, but ah couldn’t hear ya.”

“Yes sir, but I lost it.” He hung his head as he said it.

Travis looked at me, and I nodded.

“Well, mebbe this’ll help ya keep track better.” He tossed something to Zachary. The boy caught it and yelped in delight when he realized what he held. I had made him a pair of throwing knives that Travis had fitted with arm sheaths.

“Whoa!” He immediately began strapping the left sheath on his forearm.

“Zach, what do you say?”

The boy never even paused. “Thanks, Mr. Travis. This is wicked cool!”

Travis smiled. “Yer welcome. ’Course it was yer daddy what made them knives fer ya.”

Zach grinned at me. “Thanks, Dad.”

“You’re welcome. But I need you to listen to me a second.” He stopped and turned his attention to me. “You leave those blades in their sheaths while we’re at market. You only take them out when you’re completely alone and practicing, or if Megan or I are teaching you. You understand me?”