The Days After (The Tenth Year) Read online

  The Days After

  The Tenth Year

  J. Richardson

  COPYRIGHT

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2014 by J. Richardson

  The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Time for Change

  Chapter Two

  Alliance

  Chapter Three

  Now Showing

  Chapter Four

  Shadows

  Chapter Five

  The Bells Toll

  Chapter Six

  Three Funerals and a Wedding

  Chapter Seven

  A Road Trip

  Chapter Eight

  The Grand Tour

  Chapter Nine

  Home

  CHAPTER ONE

  Time for Change

  Chris reached for the flashlight on the small table next to her bed. A mesh strip ran between the boards that covered the top and bottom thirds of her bedroom window, a very faint light of dawn seeped through the checkered wire. The city allowed no electric lights during the daylight hours. A couple of appliances kept you in your ration boundary, most people chose a small refrigerator. Radios, small televisions were common and in the summer a fan. On occasion, she played an old DVD on the television. Only two stations actually broadcast, both news and weather stations. The government sponsored one of the two and the other claimed to be public, however, that was highly suspect. Electric meters, tightly monitored for usage, ratted out a household that used more than their allotment in a month. Until the percentage of overage was “paid” back the city locked off the power.

  The summer slowly seeped away, soon the challenge would be to stay warm. Sometimes, in this cold country, food kept for days in the outside below freezing temperatures. She lifted the mattress and took the .380 pistol, put it in a belted canvas case and snapped it on around her pajama clad waist. Her fuzzy house shoes padded down the hall towards the two doors at the end. An intermittent slash of light darted out from other windows with the same board and wire mesh treatment as the one in her room. She knocked and cracked open the first door, “Dad, are you awake? I'll get breakfast started.”

  “I'm awake, be in shortly,” said a deep voice. A flashlight shined on.

  At the second door, she pushed it open without a knock, flashed the annoying beam at the lump in the twin bed. She jerked back the blanket and a set of lanky teenage boy legs drew up, pulled the blanket back over his head, “Go away, you witch! Leave me alone.”

  Her laugh filled the small space, she grabbed an exposed bare toe and said, “Rise and shine, Sport. Breakfast in thirty minutes.”

  She moved across the living room into the open kitchen area, Chris liked the kitchen. She still missed the sight of her mother as she puttered around there, though five years had passed. Her mom's bad cold turned to pneumonia, she just got weaker and weaker. Chris, only sixteen when the illness took her mother and a piece of her heart, had been forced to grow up quickly. The tenth year after the catastrophic event fell on America and most of the world, conditions had somewhat improved. At the time her mother took ill, the needed medical drugs and care to save her parent wasn't available. Strength, intelligence, humor and love had been her mother's legacy to her, she used those gifts everyday.

  Her mother convinced her dad to hinge the security boards on the wide kitchen window above the sink. Since the window faced east it flooded the kitchen with light, Chris loved it uncovered. There was a door to the back yard, most of the time it stayed secure with a heavy bar that dropped down across it. Sometimes, in the warm season she opened that door, this morning wasn't that warm. She opened the window cover and the morning made a halo of light around the messy blonde curls, bobbed to right below her ears. Blue eyes squinted in the pretty face and she closed them for a minute and enjoyed the sun on her cheeks.

  “Morning,” said her father's voice behind her. A tall and lean man entered the kitchen, kissed her cheek. “Where's Brent? Still in the bed, I suppose.”

  “He'll be in,” she said. She reached down, unplugged the small refrigerator and plugged in an electric skillet. Damn power police, she thought. It was too cool to cook on the back patio this morning and not quite cool enough to build a fire in the living room fireplace. She took down a large bowl and put some pancake mix in, added some liquid from a five gallon dispenser that held purified water. She did not trust the safety of the water service. She stretched up a bit, pushed some spices aside and found a jar of bacon bits, sprinkled some in the mixture. Her brother and dad both stood around six foot in height. She inherited her mother's build, average height and even in these days of sparsity her figure quite curvy. In the electric skillet, pools of creamy mix began to puff into irregular circles, she flipped them over.

  Her dad slid a jug of syrup with just a bit of sugar granules formed onto the oval kitchen table. With a smile he said, “I managed to get a small hunk of butter when I went to Dan's farm the other day.” He reached into the small refrigerator and brought out the butter wrapped in waxed paper.

  She knew that her father had a friendship, an alliance of sorts with a man that he knew before the world went all crazy, ten years earlier. The man prepared for disaster for several years; had a family compound and several acres about three miles from the main part of the city, maybe two miles from the neighborhood that she, her dad and brother lived in. A mutual respect and trust of each other existed between the two men and her father often visited the farm.

  Chris's father, Wayne, had just retired from the military when the s—t hit the fan. He planned to return to his hometown and find a job for the next few years, until retirement age. When things went crazy, even though not exactly what you called prepared, he was not at a loss. He quickly recognized that the priority would be to keep his family secure and then everything else would have to be taken care of. He had the weapons, the training and the smarts to take care of his family's protection. From the very beginning, he insisted on strict safety rules.

  He carefully trained Chris, eleven at the time, Brent, only seven years old and her mom in the use of guns and self defense. They boarded up the windows, re-enforced the two metal exterior doors of their house with drop down bars. Booby traps dotted the back yard perimeter and barb wire coiled along the tall back privacy fence. Hidden behind a stand of open shelves in the kitchen was the entrance to their cellar. Wayne stocked the cellar the best he could with cots and basics. Over the next five years, the family spent many an hour in that cellar. More than just a couple of times, he drove intruders from the house and more than a couple of bodies lay buried beyond their back fence.

  A curse word and ouch! came from the living room. Brent scuffed into the kitchen and grumbled to himself. In reality, he was a strong and competent young man, in spite of the fact that he had a real knack for a trip, a toe to get stumped or his head to crack up against some hard object.

  Wayne loved his children but he was often stern. The burden of providing for their survival in a vastly changed world weighed heavy on him. He said, in an exasperated tone, “Son, do you ever watch where you are going?”

  As usual, Chris just joked, “Brother, what did you do this time, knock off your last toe or make a dent in that hard head? Going to be hard to walk without any toes, you know.”

  He plopped his jeans and T-shirt clad body down in one of the kitchen chairs. His thick blonde hair all pushed up on one side from sleep, his dark blue eyes narrowed at his sister. “Ain't you just the funniest lady in the neighborh
ood? Nearly as funny as that old fart across the street who likes to chunk rocks at anyone walking in front of his house.”

  As she stacked up pancakes on a plate, she laughed, though she did not feel happy. When she was just a little girl, Mr. Reed and his wife often invited her up on their porch, gave her cookies and told her how pretty she was. Really nice people. Mrs. Reed, gone longer than Chris's mother and Mr. Reed, had been absent from view for more than two weeks. She dreaded everyday the arrival of the wagon, the sight of the old man being carried from the house in a white body bag. Sometimes it took a long time for the deceased to be found and removed. This made the control of disease very inefficient.

  After breakfast, they secured the house and walked into town from the suburb where they lived. Her dad never allowed her or Brent to be out alone. Chris traded her pjs and house shoes for jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt, a loose shirt over that, most of her curls pushed up under a knit cap. Their boots clomped along the pavement where no cars whizzed by any longer. Some still lined the sides of the street and rusted away. A few years earlier, a rare ambitious effort to clear away some of the useless autos occurred. Many cars sat in vacant lots, the streets made somewhat easier to navigate. Her small pistol sat at her waist, Brent carried his big old .45 and her dad's AR rifle was slung over his shoulder. This was the world now, they didn't think anything of it and everyone else fully expected it. “Where are we headed, girl?” said her dad.

  “I think that we'll go to the market on the old square. I went down to the cellar and packed some bartering goods. I filled a little bottle with bourbon, got a few medical supplies and have about two dozen cigarettes,” said Chris.

  “Cigarettes?” said her dad, in a surprised tone, “Where did you get cigarettes?”

  She looked at Brent. He hesitated and then said, “I went in that house about three lots down, Dad. It's been deserted for a long time. I looked through all these books on the shelves in the den. When I pulled one out, a box hid behind the rows. Cigarettes and throw away lighters, some coins, a bottle of Tylenol, some small pieces of jewelry and a couple of pocket knives; it was their stash, I suppose.”

  “Brent, you know that I do not like for you to be out by yourself,” scolded Wayne.

  “Yes, I do know and I was careful. I brought the box home, we need stuff to trade,” he defended himself.

  They walked on in silence for a while, then Wayne said, “I know we need barter goods. You did good, son.” Lately, he tried to let go a bit of his daughter and son. He protected them and trained them to be self sufficient, at some point he needed to start to trust them. Like parents, even in the old normal times, you never knew when you would not be around. Thank god, they weren't small children any longer.

  Chris just gave her dad a pat on the arm. She knew him well, what he really wanted to do was lecture her brother about stealing. In these times, the rules had changed but not her father's long held values.

  Just as they moved out of the old subdivision a couple of men approached. When they reached them, Wayne and her brother exchanged a few brief words with the two. The pair moved on, back towards the neighborhood. Power Police, Chris recognized them. They looked for lights on in the daylight or made a note of houses with power being “stolen”. She knew they were just doing a job that needed to be done, the monitoring of the scarce power. Still, they were not the most popular folks around.

  Her father talked to her about the need for the rationing, “The thing is, honey, we Americans definitely were pretty spoiled. We had decades of free flowing and abundant electric power and then in an instant, a total lack of it. We are fortunate that the ingenuity of some of the city's citizens built back a limited supply.”

  “I know, Dad. I do remember when we hauled water from the river and there was no electricity for years. I am very glad for what we do have,” said Chris.

  Once a month, the city utility group expected each citizen to show up at the big town warehouse on the edge of town and pay for their power allotment with useable goods. On Open Day, once a week at the warehouse, people often came to buy back the very goods they gave as payment. Work at the power or water plant was another way to earn your allotment. Far from a perfect system, it moved the town somewhat forward in the restoration process.

  They arrived at the old town square and the trader's market. Chris said, “I am going to look for anything edible, as usual. Another blanket or two would be a good thing, every day now is colder. How about you two?”

  “I'll find what I find,” said her dad.

  Brent said, “Well, me too, got a few things I would like to find. I thought I might look for some books, though.”

  “You...read? That's a new one,” giggled Chris.

  “Hey, I read. Anyways, I brought a couple of books home from that house that I scavenged. They were pretty interesting. One of them was a fiction book about what if some catastrophe happened that changed the whole world. Hmph! Pretty funny, huh? That's history now,” said Brent. Truth was, he lacked a lot of vivid memories of the way the world used to be. He retained a few and he knew the world had been all lit up twenty four hours a day, the water was clean and abundant, the stores were full of food. Cars, all kinds of vehicles zoomed along the roads. When he was a little younger, he often asked Chris to tell him stories of the before.

  “Okay, you're pretty weird sometimes, Sport,” she slapped him on the back.

  The citizens group forbade anyone to live on the plaza all the time, by dark the market emptied. This made old store shopping carts the most popular way to bring your goods to the park and load them back up at the end of the day. You brought what you had to trade and bartered for what you needed. Money was useless; bartering, whether with goods or labor was the tender of exchange. Years ago, the acre square of land flourished green with flowers in the summer, fountains gurgled, squirrels and birds dashed around between carved wooden benches.

  All that beauty faded away now from lack of water and care. A small army of aging shopping carts clogged the view, blankets or tarps with offerings spread on them dotted the ground. An occasional faded canopy and table stood. Always the haves and have nots. If you had a cover and a table, you were a serious trader. If you could grow anything edible, you were ahead. The growing season was gone now, no fresh produce available. The goods displayed on the plaza or how many traders was unpredictable. Today, people of all ages and description milled around, checked out the various offerings.

  The three of them drifted towards items that caught their eye. Chris walked up to a blanket with a few cans of food, the labels faded and some bags of dried beans displayed. She checked out one of the cans of chili, not puffed up on the ends or dented or damaged. She found many canned foods still good if you checked for those flaws. “I'll give you five real filtered menthol cigarettes for the bag of beans and the can of chili,” she said to a raggedy man.

  “Let me see 'em,” said the man. She took out one cigarette and laid it in the palm of her hand. “Six,” he demanded. Chris pushed an escaping curl back under her cap and looked at the other cans to see if she could possibly bargain for just one more good one.

  Wayne and his son ambled around, never out of sight of his daughter. It was obvious that some of the traders, both men and women were willing to give a lot more that material goods in order to survive. A thin woman with bright red lipstick that made a startling slash in her pale face, moved a hand up under a breast, smiled and winked at them. They moved on, the two of them had discussed these offerings. Certainly, both of them were red blooded men; they agreed though, these women gave them the heebie-jeebies. They walked a wide path away from them.

  Always, rumors about the “out there” world telegraphed around. No doubt most of it true, knew Wayne. In his twenty years of military service he witnessed enough desperate people to know they might do anything to live. There were stories of slavers, marauders, gangs of the worst of humankind. Though, the citizens here somewhat turned their heads to the flesh peddlers at the market,
there was absolute prohibition of human trafficking, someone held against their will, in the city. If militia caught anyone, in any way exploiting a child, death was the penalty. Evil would not be left to spread. The likelihood of the existence of such evil was the precise reason that Chris hid her light under a blanket. When she roamed around in the city, loose clothes, her cap, a deliberate smudging of the pretty picture that she made was just a smart thing to do.

  She looked back over her shoulder and noticed her father scanned for her, his eyes located her. He raised his hand and she smiled. Her six cigarettes were spent, a can of green beans joined the chili and dried beans in her backpack. As she moved along, she smelled the smoke from several fires. It reminded her of when she was very little, she and a toddling brother, her father and mother had gone to a huge open flea market at the local fairgrounds. Unlike this drab scene today, it was bright and colorful. The people crowded and bustled around display after display of everything imaginable, music floated through the air and the smoke that drifted from cookers and fires was heavy with the aromas of all kinds of foods. These fires today held no promise of abundant food.

  She picked up a blanket that wasn't the cleanest, at least it wasn't torn or the wool moth eaten. Nice rich colored stripes made it more pleasing, a warm wool cover. Her hand ran over the surface, she was instantly aware that someone stood very near. A glance sideways showed booted feet, much larger than hers and camouflage patterned pants above them. She took one step sideways, her hand moved to her pistol and she raised her head. A man, at least a foot taller than her, sturdy built and dressed in more camo, smiled down at her. His brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, his cap was consistent in the spotty print. A rifle rested across his back.

  “Hello, I'm Clayton,” his smooth voice said. Chris barely took a breath and Brent was at her side.