When A Plan Comes Together (6 page)

It took only a minute to read the labels and figure out what needed to be turned on. “I’ll go check to make sure it’s working,” Kathy said.

“But Mom…”

“Stay here!” Kathy went back up the stairs. She was back in less than a minute. “They’re working. Hopefully the batteries will last long enough to prevent the house from catching fire if the fire spreads from the one burning now.”

The two went back into the shelter. Rex was standing by the door and closed it as soon as the two were inside. “We’re okay,” Roxie said. “The Hamilton house is burning, but we turned on the house sprinklers along with the yard sprinklers.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about those,” Rex said. “Good thinking, you guys.”

“You should be off your feet, Rex,” Kathy said, going into Mom mode automatically, despite the events unfolding.

“Okay, Mom,” Rex said, knowing there wasn’t any choice but to do it. He went to one of the four bunks and laid down on one of the lower bunks. Kathy pulled the pillows from two others and propped his foot up on it.

Roxie was going through the huge medical bag that was part of the shelter supplies. “We’ve got cold packs, Mom,” she said. “But should we save them and go out and get ice from the freezer in the basement?”

Rex said, “The ice in the freezer.”

His mother countermanded him. “No. We’re safe in here. We’re staying in here until we know it’s safe outside. If we start going out for every little thing it will become a habit. Jay’s plan calls for only going outside if the shelter is compromised. And then we will use the emergency exit. Speaking of which, where is it? Do either of you know?”

Rex started to get up, but his mother shot him a warning look and he eased back down. “I do, Mom,” Roxie said. She handed Kathy one of the ice packs from the first-aid kit and went over to where the air filter system was installed.

She pointed to a panel beside the large pipe that fed fresh air to the shelter. There were two ladder steps below it, and a handrail from waist height to the panel.

“Just remove this and crawl along the culvert. There’s a chamber at the far end you can stand up in and work to drop the top cover and then push through the grass to get out. We never used it because Dad wanted it left completely undisturbed so it would be secret.”

“I went down it once just to check it out,” Rex said. “It’s easy. Hard on the knees, though.”

“Hopefully we won’t have to use it,” Kathy said.

“With the shutters closed and the external house sprinklers going, there shouldn’t be much danger,” Rex said.

Kathy had reached for one of the binders and was reading quickly while Rex spoke. “I think… Yes, we should start checking the radiation, and log in the peak reading so we can calculate the time we need to stay in the shelter.”

“On the communications desk, Mom,” Rex said.

Roxie joined her mother and the two studied the CD V-717 radiation survey meter. The pickup probe was outside the house. “We need to put a battery in, according to the plan,” Kathy said.

“In the drawer,” Rex instructed.

A few moments later and the remote reading CD V-717 was ready for use. Kathy put it on the lowest setting. There was no reading. “I’ll log it,” Roxie said, picking up the clipboard that held a simple form to record the radiation data.

“When we know that the fallout is beginning to fade, we’ll plug the numbers into a program on the laptop that’s here in the shelter. The program will give the time we have to stay in here,” Kathy said. “Your father makes very good plans.”

“Yeah,” Rex said softly, wishing the same thing as his sister and mother. That Jay was here with them.

CHAPTER FIVE

Jay’s plan included things in the shelter to keep the family occupied-books to read, games to play, videos to watch. The three exercised every day. Rex gingerly got his ankle back into shape. At the end of the six-week stay in the shelter and basement, it was a bit tender, but he kept his hiking boots laced tight and all was fine.

One of the things accomplished in the six weeks before the family ventured out was Kathy’s introduction to firearms. Of course, there was no live fire practice, but Roxie and Rex coached her through hour after hour of handling and dry-firing all the weapons in the small armory Jay had locked away in a gun safe in the shelter.

Rex had ventured to the basement and then garage after two weeks in the shelter to turn off the sprinklers and reconnect the solar panels to the controller and battery bank.

The irrigation pump running to use the sprinklers had drained the batteries to the point the controller disconnected them. Though it was still quite dark outside, even during the day, Rex and Kathy decided that any battery charging the panels could do, would be worth it in the next few weeks. The separate battery bank in the shelter was getting low by the time they went outside.

After five weeks in the shelter, they began spending some time in the basement. All checked their dosimeters they constantly wore, but the shielding in the basement was adequate to keep the doses down with the radiation at the level it was after the five weeks.

All three were armed with handguns, and Rex had a slung rifle when they left the basement to take a look around at the end of the six weeks. Roxie carried a CD V-715 survey meter to check the radiation levels inside the house.

The reading inside was barely registering. Venturing outside cautiously, Roxie confirmed the reading they’d been getting on the CD V-717 remote reading meter. It was the same. The radiation had dropped faster than the computer program had estimated, and they found out why when Roxie ventured toward the street. The survey meter began clicking. Roxie hurriedly backed up and the reading dropped again.

She called Rex and Kathy over and showed them the readings. Working carefully the three went around the edges of the property. Everywhere there was indication that the water flow from the sprinklers had been heavy, the radiation level was low.

Not only had the sprinkler systems protected them from fire, it had gradually washed away the fallout contamination almost as quickly as it had fallen on and around the house. They were in an island of low, relatively safe, radiation level.

“Dad sure knew what he was doing, didn’t he?” Roxie said.

“Yeah. But I don’t think we should stay outside much anyway, for a while,” Rex said, looking up at the sky. It was blue, but very pale. The fine fallout the nukes had produced was still high in the atmosphere, and would be for months, if not years. But they were getting enough sunlight for the PV panels to keep the batteries charged, despite using those items connected to the circuits the system powered.

The decision was made to stay inside, but all felt the need for some outside presence, so the window shutters in the living room and kitchen were opened during the day to get some natural light.

It turned out to be a dangerous move. The third day they had them open, they had visitors. There was banging on the front door shutter during the noon meal. It startled them. All scrambled to get their weapons, and then Kathy went to the door.

“Who is it? What do you want?”

“We’re other survivors! Let us in. We need food and water.”

“How many of you are there?” Kathy asked.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rex saw something at the living room window. It was a man, rather bedraggled looking, peering inside. The barrel of a shotgun was visible over his shoulder.

“Doesn’t matter. Let us in. We want food. If you don’t let us in and share, we’ll come in and take it!”

“Mom!” Rex yelled. The man at the window was pointing the shotgun at him through the window. Rex dove for the shutter switch and activated it. The shotgun boomed and the living room window shook with the blast. A few individual pellets made it through the thick Lexan of the window, and there were serious cracks running here and there from each of the holes, but the Lexan didn’t shatter and fall out.

Rex didn’t consciously think to draw his weapon, but it was in his hand when he came up from the roll he’d done after hitting the shutter switch. The man with the shotgun was slow in wracking the slide of the shotgun and didn’t get off another shot before the shutters snapped closed.

Rex ran for the kitchen to close that shutter. Roxie and Kathy, now with pistols in their hands, backed away and moved sideways as bullets and shot hit the front door shutter. Shots hammered the other shutters, and then, when there was no effect, the group began to fire at the walls in essentially random fashion.

Kathy, Rex, and Roxie stood silently in the living room as the sound of the shots and their impacts nearly deafened them. “What do we do?” Roxie asked.

“Wait it out. Down in the basement. In the shelter. They can’t get to us there.” Kathy said. She gripped the Glock 17 tightly in her right hand. “They can’t get in, and we’re not going out.”

“Mom, we need to do something to dissuade them,” Rex said. “No telling how long they might keep this up. If they find the gasoline in the yard shed…”

“He’s right, Mom,” Roxie said. “I’m scared. There’s no telling what they’ll do to us if they get in.”

“The shelter is safe. You both said so!”

“They know we’re here. They will just keep it up. Get tools… They would get in eventually.”

“Okay, but what?” Kathy was thinking furiously.

“I’ve got an idea,” Rex said suddenly said. He ran for the basement and Roxie and Kathy followed him. “You two get in the shelter and lock the door. Don’t open it unless I say… Santa Barbara.”

“Santa Barbara?” Roxie asked.

“Yes. Santa Barbara.”

“No, Rex. If you’re going to do something I’m going to help.”

“Mom,” Rex said quietly, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to hurt those people. Maybe kill them. I don’t think you want to be part of that.”

Kathy turned pale. “But Rex…”

“Go on, Mom. Let me handle this.”

“Come on, Mom,” Roxie said, tugging on Kathy’s arm. “Let Rex do whatever it is. I’m really scared.”

“Be careful, son,” Kathy said, and then turned to follow Roxie.

“He’ll be okay, Mom,” Roxie tried to reassure Kathy after she closed the shelter door.

Kathy stood by the door, ready to open it as soon as she heard Rex say ‘Santa Barbara’ over the door intercom.

Rex holstered his pistol and ran to the sprinkler control panel. Something his dad had told him one time had come to him during the crisis. He checked the sprinkler control system and traced out the piping. Sure enough, one pipe led from a tee fitting in the propane gas line to a tee in the sprinkler line.

Saying a prayer, to ask forgiveness for what he was about to do, Rex turned the valve on the gas line and the one on the sprinkler water feed. He activated the yard sprinkler valves and waited, hoping he’d understood what his father had been musing about that day. He turned the valve on the sprinklers on the house, putting water to them.

It took longer than Rex expected, and he was reaching to turn off the valve when he felt, more than heard, the explosion outside the house. He continued the motion he was making and turned off the valves.

Running upstairs, he stopped and listened for a moment. There were no more sounds of shooting. Very carefully Rex went to the front door and opened it. He slid open the view port and looked out. What he saw made him more than a little ill. There were burned and twisted bodies lying on the ground. The grass was burned to ash around the sprinkler heads. He checked each side of the house, though the view ports in the shutters. He didn’t see anyone alive.

Hesitating for a moment, Rex almost went to get his mother and sister to back him up in checking out the outside of the house. “No,” he whispered, “They stay safe. I can handle this.”

He went out the back door, checking carefully both directions as he eased his way outside, the Glock 17 firm in his hand. The smell was almost overwhelming. Burned flesh smelled worse than he’d read about. And there was a lot of it. Thirteen men and five women. All had firearms laying beside their bodies.

Only four of the corpses weren’t burned. Rex decided they’d noticed the propane cloud forming on the ground and tried to run to safety. They hadn’t gone far enough. The concussion of the explosion had scrambled their insides, just as it had those that also were burned.

Once sure of the defeat of the attackers, Rex turned his attention to the outside of the house. It showed scorch marks here and there, but the water from the house sprinklers had minimized the damage and prevented any fires starting on the very fire resistant building, anyway.

The yard shed was a bit the worse for wear, but it, too, had survived the explosion. That had been Rex’s biggest fear. That the explosion would detonate the gasoline stored in the shed. But it hadn’t.

The other thing Rex had feared didn’t come to pass, either. The need for performing the coup de grâce on anyone that might have survived the explosion. He knew his mother would be frantic until his return, so he quickly made his way to the basement and to the door of the shelter.

“Santa Barbara, Mom. Santa Barbara!”

The door opened a moment later and Kathy had Rex in a bear hug.

“Should I close the door?” Roxie asked her hand already on it to push it closed.

“No,” Rex said, stepping back from his mother’s embrace. “They’re dead. All of them.”

Roxie and Kathy both looked much like Rex felt. Sick. “I’ll do something with the bodies…” Rex said.

“I’ll help,” Kathy said. “You can’t do it all alone.”

“But Mom… It’s not a very pleasant sight or smell.”

“What has to be done has to be done.”

Roxie swallowed the bile trying to rise in her throat, but managed to get out, “I’ll help, too.”

Both Rex and Kathy objected.

“Look, it’s a different world now. We’re all going to have to do things we would rather not. We might as well get used to it.”

That seemed to settle it. It was Roxie that remembered the respirators Jay had stocked for them. Though meant to protect against biological and chemical attacks, they would also filter out the terrible smells they were exposed to while handling the bodies.

It was a disgusting, arduous task that took the three of them two hard days to finish. It was made somewhat easier by the use of the garden rototiller to pulverize the earth in the long trench they made in the side yard of the house next to them. It had been vacant for some months and they had no compunction about digging the grave on that property instead of their own.

Thinking of the future, the family gathered up everything that might prove useful or have value in the future that the group had. It was stored in the garage.

During that time, they saw no one else, but continued to keep themselves armed. Along with the pistol each wore, there was a long arm handy for use. There were two 5.56mm carbines and a 20-gauge semi-auto shotgun.

They continued to keep the house locked up at night, though they slept in their own bedrooms, since the radiation was low enough in and around the house. The level was dropping a little every day outside their property, but they stayed close to home, anyway.

The day finally came that they decided to go exploring. Just on their street, but exploring, none the less. The first day they just checked the house on the other side of them from the one with the new grave.