Read Wormwood Dawn (Episode VI) Online

Authors: Edward Crae

Tags: #Post-Apocalyptic | Horror

Wormwood Dawn (Episode VI) (4 page)

“There’s a house,” Toni said, slowing down. “We should stop for the night. Nashville is a long walk.”

The moonlight illuminated a small cabin-style house about twenty yards from the road. It looked fairly clean from what he could see, and was definitely cozy-looking. His feet were aching on top of the thirst.

“Looks good,” he said. “Let’s check it out.”

Toni drew her revolvers and crept into the yard. Jake followed with his shotgun, doing his best to stay quiet, which he suddenly realized was not the best idea.

“You know,” he said. “We should make noise when go into a house.”

“Why?”

“That was if there’s anything inside, we’ll know it right away.”

Toni grunted, making that “okay, yeah” kind of face. She lowered her revolvers and they casually walked on to the covered deck. Jake shined the flashlight around, seeing nothing but trash, and then pointed it at the front door. The screen door was closed, but the inner door was open. A quick look inside revealed nothing but furniture.

Toni reached out and banged on the screen door.

“Avon,” Jake said in a falsetto voice.

They waited a few minutes, both of them as silent as church mice. When nothing answered the door, Toni winked and opened it.

“After you,” she said, sweeping her arm out in a polite gesture.

“Why, thank you, nice lady,” Jake said, stepping in.

The house felt warm on the inside; much warmer than the cold night air. There was no rancid smell of rotting flesh or food, which was a good thing—or maybe a bad thing. Maybe the owners had fled, but then had taken every scrap of food with them.

The floor plan was a somewhat open concept. There was a fireplace along the right wall, with two couches arranged with one toward the front wall, and the other facing the fireplace. A kitchen counter was behind the first couch, and a single step led upward into it. On the left side was what looked like an office space with a nice computer sitting on top of a rustic log computer desk.

“That’s cute,” Jake remarked, lowering his shotgun and heading toward the kitchen.

Next to the step up was a staircase that led to a loft, presumably the master bedroom. He ignored it, shining his light around the kitchen. Much to his surprise there was a half a case of bottled water sitting next to the fridge. He took a few bottles, handing one to Toni, and cracking open the other. It was cool and refreshing; bringing a surge of pleasure to him that was long needed.

“I’ll check the medicine cabinet,” Toni said. “Get some rest.”

That sounded like a good idea. Jake entered the cozy living room area, plopping down on the couch facing the TV. He looked over to the fireplace. There were a few logs on it, and a tall, cardboard can of matches next to it. He went over and opened the match can, there were four matches left, and a small square of fire starting material. He set it underneath the logs and struck a match.

Dud.

The second match broke, but he managed to light the stump of it, and held it next to the fire starter. It went up gently, and would likely burn long enough to get the logs going. Soon, they would have some warmth. He went back to the couch and relaxed.

“There must be a lot of diabetics around here,” Toni said when she returned. “There’s a meter, some strips, and a Lantus pen.

“Nice,” Jake said, sitting up.

As Toni relaxed on the other couch, he checked his blood sugar. The meter read 210. Not too bad, but not great, either. Maybe a couple units of insulin would do the trick.

“The fire will be nice,” Toni said, lying back with an arm behind her head. “I hope the flue isn’t blocked.”

“Well,” Jake said. “If we wake up dead, we’ll know.”

Toni snickered, then yawned. Jake figured she was tired; probably even more so than him. But, he saw that her eyes were still turned up to the ceiling, staring off into space.

“So,” he said. “Did you have any kids before all this?”

“Not really,” Toni replied. “Kind of.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was taking care of my niece—my sister’s daughter.”

“What happened to her?” Jake asked.

Toni’s silence told him the answer. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It was probably for the best,” she said. “She was a good kid. Got good grades, was already looking into colleges; good ones, not this university bullshit. She wanted to have an actual career. She never would have survived… this.”

“She would have survived if she had you looking after her,” Jake said. “Hell, I’m not sure I would have survived if you hadn’t have found me.”

She looked at him from the corner of her eye, smiling. “You would have survived,” she assured him. “Maybe I wouldn’t have.”

“Sure you would,” he said. “It just makes me wonder if you would have even bothered helping me if you knew that I was so vulnerable.”

She laughed out loud then, drawing a snicker from Jake.

“Either way,” she said. “I helped you up for a reason. When I realized what had probably happened there, that you had tried to save some friends, I knew you had to be a good guy. One that cared about people.”

Jake grunted. “I don’t care about people.”

Toni let out a smirking grunt. “I don’t believe that,” she said, skeptically. “I know you care about those two other guys.”

Jake nodded silently. He supposed that was true. Though he hadn’t known Dan and Drew for very long, they seemed to bond well. They both had personalities that he could deal with. They weren’t pussies, crybabies, or over-sensitive whiners. They took whatever life threw at them, and seemed to like the current world better than real life; even someone as social as Drew.

“I hope we can find them,” Jake said.

Toni looked over at him again. The smile on her face was comforting, and gave Jake a warm, hopeful feeling.

“We will, baby,” she said. “We will.”

Chapter Four

“Son of a bitch!”
Max cursed, throwing down his screwdriver.

Drew was startled a little, but chuckled at Max’s tantrum. “Take it easy, sailor,” he joked. “What’s the problem?”

Max smacked his hands onto his face, and then rubbed his eyes in frustration. “This regulator is non-functional,” he said. “It’s junk—FUBAR.”

Drew dropped the coil of 10/2 wire he held in his hand. “Can it be fixed?” he asked.

Max shook his head, plopping down on his ass, defeated. “Negative,” he said. “No pun intended. I’m not getting any readings across the leads. There should be a definite reading there, but I’m getting zero, zilch, zip.”

“Is it the meter, maybe?”

Max touched the meter’s leads together. The needle went all the way up the scale, showing that it was fully working. Drew pursed his lips, looking at Max curiously.

“So…?” he said.

“We will need to get another one,” Max said finally. “Otherwise the system won’t work. I knew Melanie wasn’t taking care of the equipment like she said she was.”

“Why was it in her ‘care’ to begin with?” Drew made air quotes as he asked.

“As you remember, she was a bit controlling. Everything we wanted to do had to be approved by her. She wanted me to draw out a complete schematic of the battery bank and the related circuitry before she would ‘authorize’ any work.” He made air quotes, too.

“Did she know anything about electrical circuits?”

Max shook his head. “Not a damn thing,” he said. “She didn’t even know the difference between AC and DC current.”

“Shit,” Drew laughed. “Even I know that.”

“She had no idea what an inverter was for,” Max continued, “Or why a regulator is necessary.”

“Well,” Drew said. “We already talked about going on a run. Where can we get another regulator?”

Max pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t think any of the places in Columbus or the surrounding small towns would have any.”

“Surely there are electrical supply stores in Columbus,” Drew offered.

“Of course there are,” Max agreed. “But we would have to go into town to find them.
Deep
into enemy territory.”

“Maybe Dan would know of a better place.”

“If you think so,” Max said, “then ask him. Meanwhile, I have to defecate. Excuse me.”

 

Dan watched Eric skillfully work the tractor to put the last of the sheds in place. The two of them had arranged the others in a semi-circle around the back area of the office building, leaving only Travis’ shed. Eric carefully scooted it into place right at the arc of the arrangement, leaving about three feet on either side of it.

There, in the center of the semi-circle, they would build a fire pit, and the radiant heat should keep everyone nice and warm in their own sheds. If it didn’t work, then Dan supposed they could just modify the interior of the office building to accommodate all of them.

“That looks good,” Travis said. He stood in the future fire pit area, eyeing the gap on either side of his shed.

Dan heard his signal, and waved to Eric. The big man lowered the tractor’s bucket, and stepped off to examine his work. Travis stepped into his shed with the level and placed it on the floor. He turned it this way and that, nodded here and there, and gave a thumbs up.

“Close enough,” he said.

“Nice job,” Dan said to Eric. “Now, let’s see if we can get this fire pit built.

“Let Dad do that,” Eric said. “He’s good at that kind of thing. We should find Cliff and finish moving those junk cars out to the perimeter.”

Dan nodded. That was a good idea. Earlier, they had discovered that a large portion of the old junkyard had been fenced off into a football field sized area. Though the fencing was old, it was tall and sturdy. It had just been overgrown with vines and weeds and was nearly undetectable. If they could move all of the cars to the outside, against the fence, they would have a huge area to grow crops or use as a shooting range.

“You guys did a great job on the gate, by the way,” Dan said, admiring the handiwork.

Cliff and Eric had found an old, half-sized shipping container half-buried in the weeds, and had fashioned a crude tunnel-like gate with it. They had placed it in the gap where the old gate had been, and piled up a few cars on either side of it. The container’s own doors were just wide enough to allow a large pickup to pass through.

Perfect.

“We should still fill in the smaller gaps, though,” Eric said. “Just in case.”

Dan nodded again. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll go check on Lena and Toby. They should be done with the kitchen by now.”

“Dan!” he heard Drew shout.

“What’s up?”

“Max says the voltage regulator is shot,” Drew said. “We’ll need to go get another one, but he doesn’t think going into Columbus is a good idea. I agree.”

“Great,” Dan said, disappointed. “Where the hell else are we gonna get shit like that?”

“Houses,” Eric said. “You could take a ride out in the country and look for houses that have solar panels. They’d have one or two. Most of them, anyway.”

“Right,” Dan said. “We need to go out anyway. Lena says we’re getting too low on food. We don’t have much water, either. Not with the well pump out of commission.”

“That propane tank won’t last much longer, either,” Drew added. “But we already know how to fill them up.”

Dan thought for a moment. There
was
a propane company near Nashville, as he remembered. Plus, being a small, rural town, there would likely be a plethora of small tanks at any of the exchanges around the area. Then, he remembered his last visit, a few years ago before his dad died.

“There was a hardware store there,” he said. “I can’t remember what it was called, but they had everything from cast iron skillets to ammo. Maybe they’ll have small electrical shit.”

Drew grinned. “Alright, chief,” he said. “Who’s going?”

Eric held his hands out, backing away with a grin. “I’m no good in a gun fight,” he said. “I can be of more use staying here and getting things done.”

“He’s right,” Drew said. “We should go, and take Max with us. He’s the one who knows what we’re looking for. Plus, he needs to get his feet wet.”

“How’s that truck coming along?” Dan asked Eric.

“Cliff’s got it running with the parts we took off the others,” Eric said. “It’s a Frankenstein in his words, but it works.”

“Alright, then,” Dan said. “Let me check on Lena and Toby. Grab Max and meet me at the truck.”

“I think I’ll wait,” Drew said. “He’s taking a shit at the moment.”

 

Lena placed the last of the canned food on the makeshift shelf, stepping back to admire her handiwork. She had bolted some supports to the plank wall, and used scrap pieces of wood to fashion a three-shelf unit above the parts counter. The counter itself had been scooted over into the alcove that now served as the kitchen. There was room left for a small refrigerator, if they could find one. For now, it was nothing more than a pantry.

“We’re running low,” Toby said, handing Lena a bag of dried egg noodles. “And where are we gonna get a stove?”

“Well,” Lena said. “Maybe the guys can find a small propane stovetop. As for an oven, Travis can build one of those outside near the fire pit.”

Toby smiled. Lena mussed up his hair with a wink. Though she appeared happy on the outside, her thoughts about Toby were dark and worrisome. He had killed a man a few days earlier, and she was concerned how it was affecting him. She didn’t know what would be worse; him not being affected at all, or him feeling traumatized by it.

So far, from what she could tell, it didn’t seem real to him. Maybe he had played too many video games, or maybe he was just mature enough to know that he did the right thing in killing “the bad guy”. For the moment, she decided to let it go.

Dan came in from the cold, rubbing his hands together in the slightly warmer interior. He had on his “run gear”; gray khakis, tall combat boots, and a black field jacket—probably stolen from one of the many mercs he had killed.

She smiled as he patted Toby on the head.

“How are things?” he asked.

“Like I said before,” she replied. “We need more canned food. A propane range top would be helpful, if you could find one. Other than that, we’ll be alright. You might pick up some parts to install a sink or wash basin, maybe. Whatever you can find.”

Dan nodded. “Alright. Drew and I are taking Max with us. He’s the only one who knows what we need for the solar array.”

“Where are you going?” Toby asked.

“Out in the country at first,” Dan said. “Then maybe to Nashville. It’s pretty close.”

“There is a clinic there,” Lena said. “A few of them actually. If you can, get into one and grab medical supplies. I’m sure Max would know what Travis would need.”

Dan nodded. “Anything else?”

“Take care of Max,” Lena said, genuinely worried for the young man. “He’s not much of a fighter, but he’s a good guy, and we need him.”

“I will,” Dan said. “Don’t worry.”

“Hey Dan,” Toby said. “Can you find me a gun?”

“A gun?” Dan repeated, looking up at Lena.

She shrugged. Maybe he wasn’t as affected as she had thought. Perhaps finding him a smaller gun would be alright. He would need to learn to use one safely, after all. In these times, being unarmed and clueless was likely to get you killed. She couldn’t have that.

“Whatever you can find for him, I suppose,” she said, finally.

“Alright then,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He started to turn to leave. Lena stopped him with a hand to the shoulder.

“Be careful,” she said. “All of you.”

Dan half-smiled, averting his gaze as he left. She looked after him, truly concerned over his safety. He was a nice guy, she thought. A little on the nutty and unstable side, but good nonetheless. He was a strong person and a good role model for Toby. After all the piece of shit men she had dated throughout her life, none of them had even come close to being good enough for her son. Now, she was surrounded by a whole group of good men.

Good men who would probably never give her a second look. Well, maybe Travis.

She chuckled at the thought.

 

Drew and Max were waiting in the truck when Dan arrived. Cliff was leaning into the passenger side window, presumably making some item requests. Dan clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Oh goody,” he said, turning the key. “I miss driving.”

Max was in the back of the extended cab, looking stiff and horrified at the thought of going out. He sat with his MP5 across his lap, staring straight ahead with his eyes wide.

“Don’t worry, Max,” Dan said. “You’ll be fine.”

Max glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “I still maintain that I not needed on this little adventure.”

Dan chuckled, looking over to Cliff. “Keep an eye out, buddy,” he said.

“I will. If you do make it to that hardware store, Lena says they keep the ammo above the cash registers. Grab anything you can.”

“Anything else?”

“All the propane you can carry, I guess,” Cliff said. “And a few small camp heaters.”

Dan nodded, looking at Drew. “We got a fucking shopping list going on.”

“I want some gin,” Drew said with a grin.

Cliff chuckled and backed away as Dan threw the truck in gear.

 

“So Max here took out one of the baddies,” Drew said as they cruised down the country road. “Did I tell you that?”

“Nope,” Dan said. He looked in the rear-view at Max, who was staring off into space. “How did it feel?”

“I didn’t feel like anything,” Max said. “I just didn’t mean to kill him. I meant to disable him with a shot to the leg, but this MP5 was on full auto. The recoil was a lot more than what I had expected.”

“So your shots pretty much walked up his body, then?” Dan asked, still smiling.

“I suppose that would be an accurate description of what occurred.”

Drew snickered and turned around in his seat. “It was still a good kill, man,” he assured Max. “Even if your eyes were closed.”

Max gave him a neutral glance, as usual. “My eyes were not closed,” he said. “I’m sure of it.”

Dan chuckled and reached into his jacket for a cigarette. After lighting it, he switched on the radio. He fumbled with the knob, looking at Drew every time it sounded like a signal was coming through. There was nothing to find, however, and he switched it off in frustration.

Max cleared his throat and leaned up. “I imagine someone out there is broadcasting something,” he said. “The problem is that with the power out, any transmitter would have to be run off of solar or a generator. Neither one of those choices would offer much in the way of wattage. Their range would be limited.”

“What about shortwave?” Dan asked.

Max stuck out his lip and nodded crookedly. “I suppose there are still some hobbyists out there that have converted their interest to a somewhat more useful activity.”

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