Hidden (Final Dawn) (12 page)

     “For those of you who didn’t know, I was able to purchase copies of every single Cowboys game ever played, dating back to their first game in 1960. Most of them were on reel to reel tape or on sixteen millimeter film, and transferring them to digital took a lot of time.

     “But now it’s done, so tomorrow we’re rolling out Channel 22, the Cowboy Channel.

     “Weekdays it’ll be everything cowboy. Old television shows like Gunsmoke and Rawhide during the day. Every evening there will be either a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movie. All day Saturday it’ll be shows from the old days. Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy and such.

     “And on Sundays,” he beamed, “we will broadcast every Dallas Cowboys game ever played, in order. Four games every Sunday, back to back, with a brief intermission between each game. You’ll get to see Tom Landry pacing the sidelines in his fedora. Roger Staubach, Bullet Bob Hayes, Dandy Don Meredith, and every other Cowboy who ever played the game.

     “And it’ll be that way every Sunday until we break out of here.”

     Every one of the men in the crowd smiled broadly. Except for David, who grew up a yankee. He’d take a lot of crap every time
Dallas played the Giants. But he’d take it in stride.

     “Okay, that’s all the old business, unless I forgot something and someone can refresh my memory.”

     Mark looked around the room. Nothing.

     “Good. Does anyone have any new business?”

     Again, silence.

     “Very well, then. I guess the meeting is adjourned. Thanks for staying behind and participating.”

     Mark went back to his table to find Hannah and Sarah watching intently as Sami and Brad left together.

     Sarah said to Hannah, “I’ll bet you a nickel she walks funny tomorrow and has a big smile on her face.”

     Mark was lost. He asked, “Who? Why?”

     Hannah giggled.

     “Never you mind.”

Chapter 18

     Joe Smith and Jesse Martinez knocked on Frank Woodard’s front door just before sunset. Frank welcomed them into his home, lifting up a heavy plastic tarp separating the entryway from the living room to let them through.

     Most of the other rooms, the ones not being used, had been sealed off. Frank and Eva pretty much lived in the living room now. That’s where their fireplace was, and it was the only warm room in the house.

     Frank had dragged a queen sized mattress in from the guest room months before. During the day, it was lifted up and leaned against the east wall of the room. At night, Frank moved the two recliners out of the way and laid it in the middle of the floor.

     The couple went to bed each night snuggling under six blankets and comforters, watching the fire crack and pop in the fireplace in front of them.

     Under other circumstances, such a cozy sleeping arrangement might be romantic. Here, though, in the midst of the great freeze, it was just a necessity for continued survival.

     “Hello, Eva. How have you been?”

     “I’ve been fine, Jesse. Joe. How are the families?”

     “Fine. Tired. Tired of being cold, tired of being hungry. You know how it is.”

     “Yes.”

     “Julie wants to get the wives together. She wants to see if anybody would be interested in moving in together. Putting everyone together in a couple of houses, and then knocking holes in the walls and building a plywood walkway between the houses. She wanted to see if the other wives thought it might help the weaker ones of the group.”

     Eva looked at Frank, and her eyebrows went up.

     “I never thought of doing that, but I’d be willing to consider it. Tell Julie to let me know when she wants to get together, and I’ll be there.”

     Frank changed the subject to the purpose for the night’s meeting.

     “Any activity over at Symco?”

     “No, Frank. None at all. We’ve been watching it day and night now for over a month. There are never any lights during the night time. Never any smoke during the day. No vehicle activity day or night.

     “The blanket of snow in the parking lots is undisturbed. Same for the snow on the access road. There hasn’t been any vehicle traffic there in months.”

     Frank scratched his head.

     “Okay. I’m convinced. If there was somebody there, we’d have had a sign by now. Now the only question is, do they have anything we can use?”

     Symco Food Service was a commercial food distribution center. When the earth was warm and active, it delivered wholesale foods of every type and brand to restaurants, gas stations and mom and pop grocers. It didn’t sell food by the case. It sold food by the pallet, or by the truckload. And by Frank’s reasoning, the big Symco warehouse, standing apparently unoccupied, probably still had food on its shelves. At least everyone assembled in this room, and their families, hoped so.

     Frank said, “I’ve got two old military duffle bags. They have straps on the back so they can be carried like a backpack. And they’ll hold a hell of a lot of stuff. I’ll carry one if one of you can carry the other.”

     Joe added, “I’ll carry it.”

     Jesse said, “I’ve got a black backpack I used to travel with, back in the days when I had a job and airplanes flew. It’s good sized. I’ll bring it.”

     “The hardest part of getting there is going to be clearing a path in that damn snow.”

     “Yes, but if we find food and supplies, we can go back several times. And the path we make will get a little easier to travel each time.”

     “When do you want to go?”

     “How about first thing in the morning,” Jesse suggested. “My boys know how to shoot, and they’ve got good heads on their shoulders. They’ll keep an eye on things while we’re gone.”

     “Joe, your house is closest to Symco. How about we meet up at your house at daybreak and leave out your back gate?”

     “Sounds like a plan. See you then.”

     Joe and Jesse said good night to Eva and walked toward the door. Eva called behind them, “Have Julie let me know when she gets the wives together. I’d like to be there.”

     Eva turned to Frank.

     “Do you really think there might be food in that building?”

     “I honestly don’t know, honey. There used to be. And a lot of it. Whether or not they emptied it out before the meteorite hit is anybody’s guess. But I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”

     “I’ll pray you find some food, Frank. We’re getting desperately low.”

     “I know, dear. You pray, and so will I. If this doesn’t work out, I have no plan B.”

     Frank awoke the next morning long before dawn. With no electricity, and with the muddy brown sky obliterating the stars, it was impossible to tell how many hours before the pitiful sun broke across the horizon. But the light of the fire, burning in the fireplace, provided enough light to enable him to watch his beloved Eva sleep.

     He felt bad for her. When they’d married so long ago he made her a promise. He’d said, “I’m not the richest man in the world, nor the most handsome. I cannot promise you everything. But I will promise you that I will love you until my last breath, and will provide for you and protect you the best I can.”

     He’d always kept that promise. And until the world froze over, he’d never had to worry about her. Now he did.

     If the men were ambushed the next day by others, who’d claimed Symco for themselves, there was a chance Frank might not return. He worried about what might happen to Eva. Would she be strong enough to survive without him?

     Then he shook his head. No. He mustn’t think of such things. He had to return. She needed him. He vowed to be careful. And to back off at the first sign of trouble. As much as he hated the thought of coming back from Symco empty handed, he owed it to Eva, and the other men owed it to their wives, to come back alive.

     He boiled a pot of coffee on the fire and poured himself a cup. He took the pot off the fire and placed it off to the side. Not directly in the heat, but close enough to keep the coffee hot. He knew that Eva would want a hot cup when she woke up.

     While drinking his coffee and listening to Eva breathe, Frank looked out the window to the east. In the distance, through the muddy sky, he saw a small yellow marble rise over the horizon. The sun. It was time to go.

     He picked up the two olive drab duffle bags he’d placed next to the door the night before. Then he took one last look at Eva, softly blew her a kiss she’d never see, and tromped out into the snow.

     At Joe’s house, the trio checked their weapons to make sure they were locked and loaded, and headed out into the white abyss. It was slow going through the heavy snow. They had to stop frequently to rest. Their feet began to freeze, and their bodies began to ache.

     Symco was no more than two hundred yards from Joe’s back door. Before the freeze, it was an easy four minute walk.

     But now, everything was different. They could tell by the time they got to the massive Symco building that it was almost noon. The little yellow marble that was the earth’s sun was high in the sky by then. All of them dreaded the trip back.

     There was no sign of movement at Symco. No signs of life.

     “Let’s walk around the building, and see if we can find any open doors.”

     They had brought a pair of bolt cutters and a crow bar in the event they had to break in. But with frozen fingers and a desire to get inside, and out of the damn snow, none of them wanted to spend another half hour outside if there was an unlocked door to allow them entry.

     But no. They traversed the entire outside of the building, to find that every single door was secured with a shiny new hasp, and a high security padlock.

     Every door was also marked with a sign.

     “WARNING! Armed guards inside. Intruders will be fired upon.”

     Now they knew why none of the doors had been broken into. It made the group pause and think.

     “That’s actually a good thing,” Frank said. “It means that whatever food that was in there when the world went cold is still there.”

     “But what about the armed guards inside protecting it?”

     “Oh, bullshit. There are no armed guards. If there were, there would be smoke coming from the building. With no electric power, they’d have to build a fire to keep warm. And there would be vehicle tracks from when they brought new guards in and out every day. The sign is just a bogus attempt to keep people away.”

     “Well, it looks to me like they did a pretty damn good job.”

     Joe tried the bolt cutters on the padlock, to no avail. The high security lock was double tempered steel. The bolt cutters were no match for it.

     Jesse jammed the crow bar behind the hasp and was able to break it free from the door.

     The door itself was more difficult. It was secured by a heavy duty deadbolt, locked into a solid steel frame. But by taking turns pushing the crowbar, and applying every bit of strength they had left, they were finally able to jimmy it open.

     They stepped inside a pitch black building.

     Going from a pure white environment to one of total darkness was their most vulnerable moment and they all knew it.

     “Stay close to the ground, and don’t go any farther until our eyes adjust,” Frank instructed in a whisper.

     While laying there waiting for his pupils to dilate, Frank sniffed the air.

     He said, “No cigarette smoke. No smell of burned wood. No exhaust fumes from generators or vehicles.”

     The others smelled clean but stale air and agreed with Frank’s assessment.

     The warehouse was unoccupied.

     Now, the only question was, what was in it?

     Gradually, the trio’s vision adjusted and they were able to see a bit. They pulled out the flashlights they’d brought with them and walked down a main aisle.

     What they saw startled them. Everywhere they looked were pallets and pallets of food and paper goods. Not just at floor level, but also stacked five rows high in storage bins.

     “Damn!” Joe said. “This is better than Christmas morning.”

     “Okay, now what? We probably need to do this methodically.”

     “The first thing I want to do is find batteries. This is my last set, and if these flashlights go dead we’ll have a hell of a time.”

     “Agreed. This is my last pair also, and they’re getting pretty dim.”

     “Let’s look around for a walk-in refrigerator. In my Army quartermaster days, that’s where we stored them. The cold temperatures extended their shelf life.”

     Jesse attempted a lame joke. “Well, if that’s the case, around here they’ll last frickin forever.”

     Before long they stumbled across a large metallic room with a sign on the outside: “Film and Battery Stockroom.”