A Distant Eden (12 page)

“We have plenty of game animals to harvest,” Alfred said. “We can eat well as long as we are careful not to eat
too
well and get into the breeding stock. But we’re going to have to trim the herd; we have the high fences to keep them in, but to keep the numbers this high I have to supplement feed them. On its own, this land won’t support those numbers. I’m not sure how much it will support, so we have to watch carefully. When it looks like they’re about to overgraze then we need to kill off whatever number we think we have to. We have to keep a balance.

“Ultimately, what’s worrying me is that the land might not support enough animals perpetually to keep six of us fed. Either we’ll need more range to hunt, or we’ll have to find other food sources. There are prickly pear cactus and mesquite beans that we can eat, but nothing else other than deer and small game. We should eat the exotics first. The deer are better adapted to the habitat and should be left for last.”

“Makes sense,” Matt said while slowly nodding his head. “I think we have about a year of steady eating before we get to any thin spots though. How well do you know your neighbors? What would happen if we hunted outside your land?”

“All privately owned land and the owners are all local and living out here. If we hunted on their land it would be taking food off their table. We just can’t do it. Our thousand acres will have to do.”

Matt grinned and said, “You bet it will, and God willing without too much trouble.” It was at that moment that they heard the sound of a distant rifle shot.

Alfred looked startled. “if you can hear a rifle shot in this house, it was shot on our land and there isn’t anyone but us that has the right to hunt here. Someone’s on our land. We have a poacher.”

Adrian was relieved to hear a gang was approaching. It was easier to handle armed thugs than it was to tell these ladies they would be left behind. At least he could postpone that bad news for awhile. Relief barely concealed, he asked, “How many did you see?”

“I counted eleven,” John replied. “Armed with rifles, shotguns and pistols. Common gang bangers from what I could see. They’re heading for the front entry.”

“We have two choices,” Adrian said. “Kill them, or stay out of sight and wait for them to leave. I say we wait for them to leave. No sense wasting ammo. So, we wait. If they don’t go in a few hours, we’ll see about rounding them up and locking them in one of the rooms while we leave. Actually, if they have useful ammo we might just do that anyway.”

Alice was shocked. “They’re armed to the teeth and have you outnumbered, and you act like they are little kids you can handle without raising a sweat! What kind of men are you?”

Adrian smiled at her. “Ex-army as of yesterday, with a little bit of experience in dealing with armed men. OK, guys, two of you in each of the adjoining rooms; the rest stay here. John, take lookout on the roof again. We’ll give them three hours to leave. If they haven’t then come back here and we’ll take them to school.”

To the women, Adrian said, “Ladies,
silent running
is a slang term from submarine crews. It means to maintain absolute silence. No talking, no whispering, no moving around—no doing anything that could conceivably make any kind of noise at all. Don’t pick anything up; just don’t move and don’t talk. Don’t even blink if your eyes are dry. So pick a spot and get as comfortable as you can right now, because you have three hours of playing statue coming up. Any questions?”

After everyone was settled in, Alice whispered, “Adrian, about—” But Adrian shushed her and made it clear there would be no noise. Waiting silently for three hours was a total piece of cake for Adrian and his men. For them the time went quickly and smoothly. For the women it was torture.

Briefly, they heard voices and sounds of men moving around on the top floor, but they didn’t come close enough to be a concern. At the end of the three hours, the men returned to the room. John said, “They didn’t leave. They’re still inside.”

“Probably the cafeteria.” Alice said, “That seems to be where most of them congregate for some reason. First the pharmacy, then the kitchen. Then they sit around the cafeteria, talking about what they’re going to do next. Sometimes they leave quickly; sometimes they stay the night. One group stayed two days.”

Adrian got out a pencil and piece of paper from his pack. “Alice, draw us a map of the layout of the cafeteria and the adjoining rooms and doors. We need to know how to surround them before they know we’re there.”

Looking over the sketch, Adrian said, “OK, here’s the drill. You ladies stay right here in this room with the door locked. Don’t open it except for us. The password is Brazos.” Then he instructed his squad, “We’re going to sweep the hospital floors as we go down to make sure we don’t leave anyone behind us.”

They quickly reached the second floor, finding no one on the way. Adrian chose to hit the cafeteria at exactly 2:20pm. Watches were synchronized. Adrian said, “I’m going to step into the cafeteria and fire a short burst over their heads. When you hear that, the rest of you step in with guns leveled. We’ll split and take the two end stairways to the ground floor. Each group will work towards the middle until we get to the cafeteria. I wouldn’t be surprised to find some sentries on the first floor.”

Half went with Adrian. They went to the west stairwell and descended quietly. Peeking out from the door, they saw no one and worked their way east along the corridor, checking side rooms and closets as they went. Close to the cafeteria they found one sentry in an alcove off the hall, half-asleep. He was quickly subdued and left unconscious on the floor, bound and gagged.

Adrian and his team reached their objective with two minutes to spare, so they waited and listened. They could hear the gang leader talking.

“We might just as well sleep here tonight. Plenty of beds and a roof. We can head out early in the morning; I want to check the warehouse district to see if anything was missed. On the way, we can hit houses too. This place has been too picked over.”

Another voice said, “It was too much to hope to find some nurses here like we did at that other hospital. Man, they were fun while they lasted. I could use more of that action.” Several men laughed roughly at that.

Adrian had pondered throwing the men a bone, giving them some opportunity at escape—but at the comments and laughter, he changed his mind. They would be locked up and if they didn’t get out, too bad. Checking the second hand on his watch, he walked into the cafeteria at exactly 2:20 and fired two rounds, blowing big holes, up into the ceiling over the table where the gang leader was sitting, causing white powder and ceiling pieces to rain down.

Adrian yelled, “Freeze! Anyone moves dies!” As he shouted, his men entered the room, surrounding the gang. The gang members were too shocked to move. “Hands up, NOW!” Adrian yelled. Hands jerked up into the air.

Adrian made them stand up one at a time and walk over to the wall and lean against it with their palms, legs back and feet spread. They were then searched and their weapons removed.

Once they were disarmed, Adrian asked, “John, we left a guard back behind us. Did you?”

John said, “Just one. Want both of them in here?”

“No, we’ll take them to the lockup directly. Did you find the pharmacy vault room that Alice told us about?”

“I did, and it can be locked.”

The gang members were marched single file into the pharmacy vault. They dragged the two sentries into the room and tossed them in. Adrian slammed the vault door, cutting off the gang leader’s voice: “Hey wait a minute! You can’t—”

Adrian turned the bolt. “That went smooth. Anyone have a concern about leaving these gentlemen in this locked room?” There was no reply. “OK, let’s get back to the ladies and start loading up supplies.”

Adrian’s relief at not having to answer Alice’s question disappeared. The quick action against the gang had been a pleasant diversion. But now he had to face it, and he knew there was no way out of it. They reached the room and Adrian yelled “Brazos” then knocked. Seconds later the door was opened by an obviously relieved Alice. She asked, “Did anyone get hurt? Are they gone?”

“No injuries and they’re out of your hair as long as you don’t unlock the pharmacy vault. You won’t be seeing them again. OK, ladies, we need to hit the trail; it’s getting late. How about helping us pick out those instruments now?”

Alice put her hands on her hips and looked into Adrian’s eyes. “OK, but you didn’t answer my questions—where are you going and will you take us?”

“Damn!” Thought Adrian, “Right into it isn’t she?” Adrian cleared his throat. “Here’s the deal Alice. We’re going to my uncle’s house. He lives two days’ hard march from here, across open country. When we get there, we’re going to see if he’s going to accept any of my men or not. I believe he will because trained fighting men are valuable: these men are self-sufficient, they find their own food, they don’t put any strain on anyone; they more than pay their way.

“But you ladies, that’s different. You can’t supply your own food, you can’t fight off attackers. You will require that someone provide for you, and that means fewer rations for everyone else. I know you can do regular chores, but that kind of work doesn’t help the group to survive. What on earth could I tell Roman that would make him see you as anything other than an unacceptable burden? I hate to be rough, but there it is.”

Alice jumped to her feet and stalked up to Adrian, putting her face just inches from his. She was shaking with anger. “Rough? You don’t understand rough. You live in a world that you rule and control. You can survive anywhere under any circumstances. You won’t go hungry or get raped. We’re at the other end of the spectrum. Without help we’ll starve, unless we’re raped and murdered first. If we stay here we die; if we leave here we die. Our one and only chance of survival is to go with you to get away from here.”

She leaned closer into his face. “What you tell Uncle Roman is that here are seven medically trained professionals. Two doctors—that’s right, don’t look surprised. I’m a Trauma Specialist; I work ER. Jennifer is a Pediatrician. There are two ER nurses, one pediatrics nurse and two internal medicine nurses. Registered nurses with years of experience. You want to survive? We can help you survive. We can set up a field hospital that will knock your socks off. What do you think will be the greatest need that people have? They’ll travel for hundreds of miles to get medical treatment at Roman’s place, and trade whatever they have for it. It will become the place where everyone goes to meet. We can create that center of the universe wherever we are. That is what you tell your uncle Roman, and if he is half as smart as a chimpanzee he will welcome us with open arms by God!”

Adrian stared at her for a couple of seconds with a deadpan expression. He was really seeing her for the first time, and liking what he saw. “This is one hell of a woman,” he thought to himself. , “Saddle up, ladies—we’re taking you for a walk!”

Roman and Sarah had returned to living in their house, temporarily. Each evening they contacted their children and grandchildren to check on their health and welfare. Roman told about his experience with the protection racket and his kids told him about their shopping trip.

“I see this working out in phases,” Roman said. “Each phase is going to require different survival skills and techniques. The phases won’t be in precise transition, more of a blending, but distinct nevertheless.

“They’ll also vary by location. For instance, here we have begun the next phase already: the starving walker phase. I didn’t foresee the small towns spewing out starving people who would walk and look for food the way the big cities will. My failure to see the obvious. This phase is going to be the heartbreaking one. When you think about it, it is inevitable what will happen.

‘‘Your neighbors will have stayed in their homes as long as their water and food lasted. Then they’ll start looking around and realize there isn’t anything to eat. Worse yet, there won’t be anything to eat, ever. Staying there means death. So they pack a few things and head out in one direction or another. They’ll follow the roads, starting with the interstates probably, to get out of town. Then they’ll take off on the smaller roads. They’ll try going cross-country and hunting for food as they go, but will soon give that up.

“It takes a lot of energy to walk cross-country. You have to walk through deep brush and thickets, swampy places, and you have to cross creeks. There’re barbed-wire fences about every hundred yards. All those fences make riding a horse impossible cross-country. With a horse, you have to stay on the roads. Horses make noise when you don’t need them to, and leave easy to follow tracks. Besides, starving people see horses as food, not transportation. You no more than cross one fence than you have to cross another and another, and they don’t end. It takes a lot of energy to cross fences, either climbing over them or working your way between the strands. All that adds up, especially to the starving. In winter it takes even more energy because your body is fighting to keep warm.” Bulky winter clothing makes walking cross-country that much harder.

Roman adjusted the microphone. “Pretty soon, they also realize that they don’t know what kind of plants they can eat and which ones are poisonous. Even if they do know, there are no calories in plants, plants won’t keep anyone alive. They also fail to catch small game, much less deer. The small game hear them coming miles away, leaving the area before the walkers arrive. Many of the city people will not have brought fire-starting kits and some of them will not have thought to bring knives. Some will have knives and a few will have guns. The ones with the guns might kill a squirrel or rabbit. But those will be few and far between, not enough to provide the kind of calories they’ll be burning.

“So most of them return to walking the roads, just walking further and further away from the city and everyone else. They’ll leave in the millions and it will take a while to get far enough out from town that they aren’t walking in sight of a lot of other people. They’ll be walking, starving, drinking contaminated water, and getting sick and weak and they will have no hope at all. Then they see a farmhouse.”