(These chapters had no editing. Sorry,
but they were deleted.)
“You don’t know who to call even if you
fix it. “Johnathan Harmon, M.D. flinched at the sound of his wife’s voice
echoing loudly across the dim, carpet-less living room and he put a hand to his
chest, trying to get his breath back.
“Sorry.“ Sounding anything but. He smiled
at her, thinking she’d finally gained a little weight in the month they’d spent
hiding in their home together, was probably half his 240, with hair still
mostly brown instead of his salt and pepper. She looked good for 58. He hadn’t
been as lucky, looked rough for being the same age.
“You did that a’purpose. “ He accused with a grin in his
voice, and Anne nodded, brown eyes twinkling above fine age lines as she set
the large blue quilt she was knitting on the recliner’s matching brown end
table.
“Had to. You look so sad. “John nodded,
turning back to the only window in their large, two story farmhouse that wasn’t
covered in layers of thick plastic and he took off his glasses and laid them on
the cord he really didn’t know how to repair, aged blue eyes frowning at the
discovery channel special going on in their muddy front yard.
Their neighbor’s dog had collapsed and died near the barn yesterday, the
Collie’s beautiful coat bloody from what was probably a gunshot, and the
carcass was now a carpet of swarming, mutated ants, their bloated bodies
twitching with effort and obvious communication as they struggled to move the
rotting food.
Backdropped by a view of the rocky mountains that was now hazy from the
layer of grit in the darkening sky, the foraging ants were the size of a
quarter, the biggest he had seen around here, their bodies constantly changing
from all the radiation and chemicals they were getting from the carrion. All
nests were getting regular doses of contaminated miracle-grow and he hated to
see what it was doing to the snakes and spiders. Once nature finished cleaning
up, leaving only bones, these predator’s would move onto other food sources,
like people, and though only time would tell, he was sure their bites would be
poison. Radiation sickness would just be the next in a long line of dangerous
viruses to mutate but it would make tuberculosis and bird flu seem harmless.
His eyes went over rangeland covered in prairie grass that was
permanently bent from the winds onslaught, fields ready for a planting season
that would never come, sickly looking choke berry bushes. Everything had
changed. It had been 38 years since they were in the army, medic’s at the same
mash unit in vietnam, and now he had to remember what had kept him alive then
so they could use it now.
“We need to pack up and go, dear heart.
The weather’s not as bad now that almost two months have passed. We’ve cleaned
out the reserves we had.“ He set his glasses on the broken radio, not looking
at her but sure he’d caught her off guard. He didn’t know yet where they would
end up, or if they would even be able to make the trip. It definitely wouldn’t
be a blow off. He only knew their hometown of Rawlins, the place they had both
been born, was no longer safe, and even if it was, the temperatures were still
falling, were below freezing right now. They couldn’t stay here much longer or
they’d stay forever.
The lonely echo of his wife’s shoes on the bare wood floor as she moved
toward him had John wondering what it sounded like as it floated down to the
dark, flooded tunnels of their barricaded basement. Was it a dinner bell to
those open Darkways and everything that might now be calling that nasty area
home? They heard noises sometimes, never sure if it was the moment they would
have to defend themselves. They never went down there, didn’t take down the
boards he’d sealed it up with, only hammered the nails back in regularly, but
they did occasionally tense and look that way, and he was glad she knew how to
use both the shotgun and the rifle he kept by her chair. Not that firearms
would be very effective against sewer rats.
“But why, John? We get along here.”
“Because we’ve seen no signs of anyone
coming to save us. We have to do for ourselves. And, because of the basement.”
“Scratch..sniff. Sniff.” As if to prove
his point, they heard the curious, hungry rodents clearly. The grates at the
other end of their treeless grazing land kept out the bigger problems but the
rat populations had come in by the hundreds after the war and they’d sealed off
the unused parts of their one story, 2 bedroom farmhouse. The rodents were big,
much too wide to get under the floors but their pups wouldn’t be and John
expected to start seeing them in big numbers soon, considering they could have
a litter a month.
“Where would we go? Other than those men
with the guns, we ain’t seen a healthy person in nigh on two weeks.” John
forced his hand away from his aching stomach, sad blue eyes still on the yard,
vaguely wishing the dusk sun would finish setting and hide the view so she
didn’t see it and get upset.
“Johnnie?” The thought of leaving their
home had not occurred to her, was scary, and though he felt it too, it wasn’t
strong enough to get him to change his mind. She had to see things his way this
time. Her life depended on it.
“To NORAD, for starters. We’ll surrender
to the Draft.” The graying sawbones said firmly, almost sure they’d find little
at the Colorado complex. That world had moved on.
“What if it’s all like here, or worse?
“She asked, referring to the dead pets, dead police, dead crops, and of course,
dead friends and neighbors they had known all their lives. The horrors were
still fresh for her, especially the memory of passing the neighbor's wrecked
truck on the two lane, dirt road to their farm, both doors open, bullet holes
in the windshield as they flew passed, returning from their burning office to
avoid the panic gripping their town, their country. She’d wanted to stop but
there hadn’t been a reason to. The elderly couple was dead, their brains
leaking onto the road.
“We’ll have to do some searching. Other
healthy survivors are out there. I know it doesn’t seem that way when you look
out the window but there are. We just have to find them. “
“But, we’re old, they won’t want us.
Shouldn’t we just stay here?“ It broke his heart to tell her no but he did. Had
to.
“That, my dear Anne, is exactly what most
people will do, and they’ll die. What the weather and disease don’t take, the
gangs and starvation will. All these threats are lessened when humanity comes
together. Despite its flaws, humankind is not better off without society.” He
looked into her frightened brown eyes and when she leaned toward him, tan
slacks rustling, he gently surrounded her with his strong arms, hoping she
wouldn’t notice his racing pulse.
“You’re a Nurse, I’m a Doctor. It’s wrong
of us to hide and deny them our help. They need us more now than ever. “ He
kissed her wrinkled forehead, smile at her. “Our age won’t matter, except to
make us more valuable because of all our experience. “ He played his trump card
without guilt, knowing her inability to catch pregnant,(which he believed to be
his fault) would keep her from arguing more. Suddenly sorry he’d never talked
to her about adopting, John ignored the pain in his gut, looked at her with
doubtless blue eyes.
“There’s a lot of kids out there too,
Anna, kids that are alone and hurting. They need us. Trust me, my Anna, I do
this for you.“
“I do, Johnnie. You know that. I always
have. “ He nodded, gritting his teeth against a wave of pain deep in his guts.
“Good. We’ll leave this week.” She pulled herself together, turning her
head, and John tensed, expecting a bad reaction as her eyes lingered on the
cloudy, gruesome scene outside. She shuddered and he opened his mouth to
comfort her.
“I never did like that damn dog. Barked
too much. “ Anna went back to her knitting, leaving him with a shocked look on
his lightly bearded face and a smile in his heart. Even after all these years,
she was still capable of surprising him, and he was happier than he could say
that they had survived the actual war together. There was no one he’d rather be
with.
A while later, John was still at the window, big ants,(and their dinner)
gone, the freezing rain returning for yet another round. His mind was still on
his wife of 37 years, on the half truths he had told her. He never lied but
often left things out and this time it was something huge. He would tell her
soon, though. She had a right to know that this next year together would
probably be the last. John sighed. He had to get her to some kind of safety and
he had to do it now, knew she would refuse to go if he told her why they were
really leaving.
Movement in the dimness caught his eye, mostly because they saw so
little of it now, and he froze, watching a shadow slip across their driveway,
staying to the long line of dying bushes around the edge of the long porch.
They had seen a lot of radiation victims after the War, most in the early
stages where travel was still possible, and he tensed, expecting one of the
walking dead, but it was a young girl, tall and thin with dirty black curls
under goggles and a long muddy coat that came to her black boots. Should he
call to her? She looked healthy, normal.
Before he could decide, the girl turned toward the window, saw him. Her
eyes widened in fear, panicked feet slipping on muddy debris, and then she was
gone, disappearing into the hazy darkness. John started to go to the door
anyway and had to sit back down in the hard chair, grimacing at another sharp
lance of burning pain. He rubbed his swollen stomach, wishing the pills would
hurry. He needed a lab that still had power so he could run some basic tests.
It would be easier to plan his wife’s future if he knew how long he had before
the cancer took him.
John sighed again. He would insist, something he didn’t usually do, and
they would leave shortly, in the next day or two. He wouldn’t stop until he
found someone to look after his sweet, gentle mate. She would never last out in
this hard, new World alone.
Looking away from a missed ornament of a gaudy, grinning reindeer laying
under the couch, Anne tied the last knot of string on the dark brown blanket,
trying not to frown as she began to put away the supplies. She didn’t look at
her husband, didn’t need to see it to know he was in pain and gunny sacking to
keep her from knowing. Again. He could try to distract her with talk of kids
all he wanted and she did feel a bit of regret that she’d never been able to
bare him a son, hadn’t wanted to take in one that wasn’t theirs, but it didn’t
keep her sharp eyes from noticing things. Something was wrong.
His eating and sleeping habits had
changed drastically and she had seen the empty pill bottles in the trash. He
was protecting her from it, like he always did with the bad stuff, and while
she would do what he wanted and pretend she had no clue, she knew what she
knew. He was sick and looking for a place to leave her. He wanted to be alone
when he died, had said it many times, claiming it would hurt too much to say
goodbye, and while she would do anything for him, she simply couldn't do that.
Leaving him alone to die would be a betrayal of their life together and now,
after all that had happened, any betrayal of life was wrong. When they went, it
would be together.
Check out this book on Amazon.
See it on Barnes & Nobble
How about iTunes?
PDF? Use the page at the top and don't forget to check out the sample in the sidebar to your left! Have a great week!
Angie
See it on Barnes & Nobble
How about iTunes?
PDF? Use the page at the top and don't forget to check out the sample in the sidebar to your left! Have a great week!
Angie
2 comments:
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Acheter vimax en France.2011AVEF
Hi and thanks! I love my blog. I have a wordpress site but I'm not using it at the moment. Glad you stopped by!
Angie
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