Authors: Suzanne Jenkins
“Sit with me and watch.”
A haggard-looking couple walked onto the set. The woman came toward the camera and made some adjustments, looking down into the lens and back up at a monitor over her head. “How’s it look?” she called. The man, shuffling papers, looked up at the monitor.
“It’s good,” he answered. “Hurry up.” She walked behind the desk and sat on her stool. Albert wished they’d sit closer to the camera, it was the same complaint he had every morning.
“Good morning,” the man said. “This is may be the last broadcast so I want to be quick about it. This is what we know for sure; the station, in Montgomery County is surrounded by military vehicles.”
“It’s not
our
military, however,” the woman stated. A crash heard coming from out of view of the camera, the couple stood up, clinging to each other and moved away from a group of men approaching with assault rifles. One coming toward the camera, knocking it off its stand, wasn’t aware it was running.
“They’re broadcasting!” A man yelled in perfect English with a Midwest accent. “Hide your face.” Then static. Albert and Sharon looked at each other, horrified.
“That does it,” Albert said standing up. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
“Where will we go?” Sharon asked.
“If you have anything you want, pull it together,” he said, ignoring her. He was finally going to think for himself. Moving toward the storage area where a complete arsenal of weapons lived, she followed him along the corridor.
“I’ll get food,” she said, going for the kitchen. As she was loading boxes and bags with edibles, Private Smith found her, confused.
“What’s going on?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Where leaving,” Sharon said. “You can help me gather food and bottled water. I’m not sure what vehicle we’re taking or how big it will be but we need to take as much of this stuff as possible.”
“Where are we going?”
“How’d you like to go to Arizona?” Sharon asked, stopping for a moment. “We’ll try to get to your family.”
“Oh, thank you,” Private Smith cried out, grabbing a bag to load. Albert passed by the doorway, pushing a wheeled cart piled with guns and boxes of ammunition.
“I’ll find a car,” he shouted moving toward the exit. The next hour was chaotic; Albert found the keys to a standard issue, black SUV with government plates and neatly organized supplies the trio might need on a journey across country.
“Where are we going?” he finally thought to ask.
“Do you want to tell him?” Sharon asked, buckling Private Smith into her seat.
“Arizona,” Private Smith replied.
Chapter 1
In a junkyard neighborhood in Yuma, Arizona, former senator Victor Garrison sat on his bed in his trailer bedroom, back up against the headboard, two month growth of beard and shaggy neckline in contrast to his former, flawless grooming. A laptop on his lap, he was frowning as he typed fast, the ideas hitting the keys as they entered his brain.
Sporadic internet from satellite was available for those lucky enough to get hold of a receiver, satellite internet hardware desired and coveted on the black market. The newcomers were careful to take their box along when they left the trailer together. On the rare occasion that happened, they paid Tobacco a hefty sum so he wouldn’t break in or rent it to someone else. The internet provided unlimited news; the team had to sort through it and try to determine what was truth. In this way, Miranda Garrison’s Rumor forum started broadcasting again to a small group of listeners spread over the country.
Everything they put out online was included in the Rumor newsletter. Ed Baker had found a decent printer on a scavenger hunt. Boxes of ink cartridges and reams of paper stacked up in the corner. Back-up computers with Word installed piled in the opposite corner.
It was really Miranda’s baby, this paper. She’d invited her father to contribute and Victor pushed the limit with his current article. Editing his essays with a heavy hand, Miranda reminded her father when he sounded too much like the former politician he was. People didn’t want that any longer, she said. They wanted resolutions, not promises. Truth, not fantasy. Life was never going to be what it once was, not for a long, long time. Ed, Miranda and Alex, each armed with one hundred copies of the maiden edition, walked around the first burn district in Yuma, distributing the paper to whoever was interested. Since then communication by printed-paper was a growing trend as people in Yuma, starved for information, lined up outside of the junkyard gate for the next installment of the news. Soon, the need for the newsletter spread outside of the immediate area, and distributors came forward. Usually a weekly publication, if Miranda had anything urgent to say, they’d get out an extra edition and distributors would hand them out all over the city.
The Podcast audience was growing along with the expansion of the internet. Initially, Miranda invited her father to sit in with her, but quickly learned listeners didn’t want to hear from him. Ed and Alex on the other hand, were a hot commodity.
“If Paypal ever comes back, we’ve hit the jackpot,” Ed said. But for now, when town life was still new and bartering was just beginning as a way to acquire what was needed, they found a way to make some money, starting a classified ads section of the newsletter where ads were placed in exchange for goods.
To citizens numbed by the awfulness of their daily life, finding missing pets became a priority.
Grey male cat, lost near Randolph and Central. Contact Henry at the Prudential Building, suite 125.
Or
Older male German Shepherd, red collar, missing since bombing of Cleardon neighborhood. Leave information at 6
th
precinct police station.
The brokenhearted trying to replace beloved memorabilia of murdered loved ones, whether lost in the bombing, or looted before the family returned to the home took advantage of the classified.
World War II medals belonging to my great grandfather are missing from our partially damaged home on Wabash. Reward offered.
Flea markets popped up all over the city as looters tried to make a living, and it was an unspoken decree that if an owner found an item he sought, he would buy his own belongings back without making an issue of it. It wasn’t unheard of for the looter to hand over the item without taking payment, but it was rare.
***
In two months, changes on Steve Hayward’s camp outside of Tulip, Arizona kept life interesting. A routine built around daily chores and the gathering of supplies helped normalize life for everyone, in spite of the hardships.
Steve and Randy Davis set up a trailer they’d buried underground to be used as the nursing school classroom. Each morning from eight until ten, Grace Baker, Ed’s mother, taught basic anatomy and physiology to Randy’s wife Carol, her granddaughters Elise and Carin, and Senator Garrison’s daughter, Lexie. They had an enormous library of books to use that survived the burn of a nearby hospital. Steve and Junior, his grandson, discovered an untouched nursing lab at the local community college, and truckloads of hospital equipment including everything they needed to learn how to care for a patient transformed the bedrooms of the literally underground trailer into a state of the art classroom.
After a short break in the morning, the students entered the lab where they performed procedures on an unfortunate dummy. “In my day, we did this stuff to each other,” Grace said, distastefully. “It was pretty humiliating.”
After lunch, the class traveled to the figuratively
underground
clinic with Randy as their bodyguard, his gun ready at all times. Marybeth Crouse, the registered nurse in charge, was not only thrilled to have the students; she was humbled that Grace was taking the time to teach them. Clinic patients loved the extra attention the students gave them.
It was Randy’s idea to expand the clinic. With Grace and the students there everyday, they could see twice as many patients as before. Concerns against moving the clinic back to the former hospital arose when raiders, looking for drugs and syringes, ransacked the pharmacy. Fortunately, with Steve and Randy’s help, the contents had already been transferred to the underground clinic before the raid, locked in gun safes drilled to a concrete slab. The safes weren’t going anywhere.
When Randy wasn’t guarding the nurses, he dug gigantic holes, big enough to bury a trailer. Soon, they’d be living underground. He’d gone through two backhoes, getting through rocky soil.
The garden at the farm across the street from the camp was in place, tiny leaves emerging from the soil. Kelly spent every waking minute there, her former garden helpers now immersed in nursing school curriculum. When Laura was done with chores in the trailer, she and son, Ned would come over with their hoes and help Kelly weed.
An exciting development; the camp had taken on small flocks of sheep and goats for wool and milk respectively, and horses, the animals saved from starvation by Steve and Junior, who found them near death when they visited a farm on the outskirts of Gila, looking for equipment.
And Katherine Garrison, unable to tolerate more than one night in the Crash Test Junkyard, begged Ed to bring her back to camp. Within days, she took over the kitchen, to the delight of Carol and Laura. Three meals a day, served with panache, Katherine said she’d found her calling. In the morning, she’d make a list of items, handing it over to the scavengers, and they would try to locate what she needed.
And then the coup de grace; Steve pulled up with a new trailer, to be used as a canteen. Katherine had her own kitchen now. The dining room, created from the former living room, was as nice as any restaurant.
The scavengers; Mike, Steve, Chris and Junior spent their time searching for items needed to expand life on the camp, including pumps and solar panels, air conditioners, gasoline. Each morning, the camp dwellers would gather in the canteen dining room with lists of desired items. Randy was always asking for more ammunition and guns, and finding it was Junior’s jurisdiction.
They’d gone to Tucson to get a semi load of alfalfa bales when Junior saw it; a burned out state police headquarters across the road from the stockyard.
“That’s a new burn,” Steve said, frowning.
“I wonder if they have any guns inside,” Junior said, looking longingly out the truck window.
“Let’s go in and see,” Steve said. “Check around, boys. See any danger lurking?” But the coast looked clear, so he turned the big rig into the driveway. It was a brick building, the front wall caved in, the interior well ransacked. But when they got inside, the noticed that, in spite of its beaten up exterior, the gun safe was intact.
“They didn’t have much success getting this open,” Mike said looking it over.
“Not for lack of trying,” Steve replied. “It looks like they tried to blow the door off. Do you think the four of us can wrestle this thing in the truck?” It had to weight over a thousand pounds empty.
“I want to try,” Junior said. “We can’t leave it behind.” So with lots of grunting and complaining, they got it out of the office and through the burned out part of the building to the outside.
“We need a forklift,” Steve said, looking across the street.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, grandpa?” Junior asked. They used the forklift at the stockyard to load the huge bales of hay into the semi truck in the past.
“I am, son. Do you want to get it?”
“Yes, sir, I do.
“Well, go ahead then, we ain’t got all day here.”
“Ah, I’m not sure….” Mike said, watching Junior running toward the road, looking both ways even though they hadn’t seen a car in three hours, and crossing the parking lot to the stockyard.
“He’ll be fine,” Steve said, watching carefully. The last time they’d come for hay, they left the forklift at the entrance to the yard and it was still there. The men watched as Junior got up onto the seat of the lift and heard the engine start. Mike saw his son maneuver the big equipment as if it was his Big Wheel, the act brought on an audible sob. Looking over at his son-in-law, Steve put his hand on Mike’s shoulder as they watched Junior navigate the lift carefully through the gate and across the parking lot, stopping at the road again, and driving it across to the parking lot where his family waited with a safe full of guns.
Look for more Burn District, coming soon!
Also by Suzanne Jenkins
Burn District: The Series
Science Fiction, Political Thriller and Women’s Fiction,
Burn District
Is the story of survivors of the destruction of the United States as they build new lives and attempt to reconstruct the country.
Pam of Babylon Series
Subscribe to my email list at
SuzanneJenkins.net
and download FREE
First Sight,
the prequel to Pam of Babylon.
#1
Pam of Babylon
Long Island housewife Pam Smith is called to the hospital after her husband, Jack, suffers a heart attack on the train from Manhattan. It is the beginning of a journey of self-discovery and sadness, growth and regrets, as she realizes a wife and mother’s worst nightmare.
#2
Don’t You Forget About Me
The family begins to sift through the evidence of a life of deceit, putting together the pieces left behind by Jack.
#3
Dream Lover
A gritty, realistic portrait of the aftermath of deceit, more pieces of the puzzle come together as the women each attempt to go on living in the wake of despair. More characters are introduced, including Ashton.
#4
Prayers for the Dying
Jack Smith’s victims attempt to move forward while grappling with the pain and horror that he left behind. Pam makes startling revelations about herself, while Sandra hopes for a future with exciting expectations. Marie is in a most unlikely place, with the happiest news in the bleakest circumstances. Ashton’s story of a lifetime love affair with Jack is finally told, with his heartache revealed.