An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) (12 page)

     That’s when he noticed that one of the rabbits had gotten over on him and stolen the carrots from the cage while he was setting up the tables.

     He couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. He’d been schooled by a bunch of fluffy furballs.

     In the end, he got them all back home again, except for a few that were small enough to squeeze through a crack in the Castros’ fence. He peeked over the fence into an adjacent yard and saw one of the small rabbits looking at him.

     Taunting him, it seemed.

     “Good luck, little bunny. I hope you survive to old age and make lots and lots of babies. Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

     Before he went through the fence the last time he picked up the black bag of empty soda bottles he’d accidentally left there after the last trip to Frank’s house.

     Now he understood why he ran a few empty bottles short, even after he carefully inventoried them.

     The bag had been ripped open. He presumed the rabbits had done it, looking for food. Actually, it had been Mikey, looking for treasure.

     Something inside the torn bag caught his eye.

     One of the soda bottles had a note taped to it.

Dave,

Please knock on our door on your next trip. Eva and I have something important to discuss with you.

Frank

-23-

Hi, baby.

     The dead man’s name is Miguel. And he isn’t even a man. He’s a boy. A high school kid.

     I got tired of calling him Dude. So I went into his pockets to see if he had a name.

     The only thing he had on him was a house key and an ID card from John Jay High School.

     It said his given name is Miguel. Then below that it had “Mikey.” I guess that’s what he went by.

     I shot a damn kid, honey. How low does that make me?

     I’ve been talking a lot to Mikey the last couple of days. He doesn’t say much, and just stares off into space. Thinking, I guess. Or maybe he’s the strong silent type.

     I was hoping he had a driver’s license on him. Or something with his address on it. So I could at least leave a note on his house to tell his family what happened to him. And to tell them I’d give him a proper burial once I could dig a grave.

     But all he had was that stupid ID, and a house key that could fit most of the houses in the city.

     The ID had a metal clip attached. I clipped it to the collar of his windbreaker.

     I have to say it’s a good photo. He was smiling. Not a bad looking kid, really.

     I’ve been wondering a lot lately why he took your jewelry and silverware. I had three bags of dried vegetables, a bag of beef jerky, and a six pack of Vienna sausages laying on the counter and he never even touched them. There were two bottles of water on another counter in front of him, and he never touched them either.

     Why would he be taking valuables instead of food or water?

     The only thing I could think of was maybe there are people out there who have confiscated all the food. And they’re bartering it to people for gold and silver.

     Or maybe he saw the stuff and just hadn’t put it in his backpack yet.

     Or maybe he just never saw it in the darkness.

     In the end, it doesn’t matter, I guess. He’s dead and there’s nothing I can do about it. We’re going to be constant companions for the next four months. If he’d just open up more, maybe we could get to know each other.

     You’re going to think I’m crazy. Hell, you probably already think I am. But today I put a blanket over him. Even covered up his shoulders with it. Now only his head is sticking out, still staring at that one spot on the ceiling.

     It’s almost like he’s looking up into the heavens, as if his last act was talking to God Himself.

     Maybe trying to talk his way into heaven.

     I know, I know, the blanket didn’t do anything to make him feel better.

     But I didn’t do it for him. I did it for me. I felt somehow that I owed it to the kid to try to make him a little more comfortable.

     Yes, I’m psycho. Sorry about that.

     Yesterday I was passing the time by reading your old high school yearbooks.

     I sure wish I’d known you back then. You were one hot chick, let me tell you. Especially in that cheerleader uniform. Boy, I’d have had some fun groping you in the parking lot after the football games.

     Anyway, after I found all your pictures and pretty much read the yearbook from cover to cover, I went back and read some of the things your friends wrote to you.

     Who the heck was Jesse Simpson? You never mentioned him.

     And where in hell does he get off thanking you for letting him “be your first,” in your high school yearbook? Didn’t he realize that someday your children might see that? And why didn’t you scratch it out immediately? What are you going to tell Lindsey or Beth when you tell them to save themselves for marriage? What happens when they point out that you lost your virginity in high school and then let your boyfriend brag about it in your yearbook?

     If I was there, I don’t care if he was your boyfriend or not, I’d have pummeled him good. I mean, that’s about as low as a guy could go. He deserved a good beating for that.

     And you, honey, I’m disappointed in you. I know it was a long time ago and all, and maybe you didn’t understand the future ramifications and all, but geez…

     Anyway, I fixed the problem for you. I took a sharpie and blacked out his whole comment. I only hope that the girls haven’t already seen it.

     Oh, and by the way, I also looked up the guy’s class picture. He looks like a geek.

     I don’t know what you ever saw in him. Maybe back then you had pimples or something and were desperate. But you could have done much better than that clown, trust me.

-24-

     The next day was the coldest one on record in San Antonio. Dave stumbled out of bed and into the garage, where he shined a flashlight on a thermometer on the wall. It registered six below zero.

     He shouted out in frustration, “What the hell is happening to the world?”

     For months leading up to the blackout, he and Sarah had been monitoring the nightly news. The global warming thing was all over it. They said the polar ice caps were melting and polar bears were dying. That the oceans would be rising and coastal communities would be underwater. That droughts and wildfires would become more common, and that the entire state of Texas would become a desert within a hundred years.

     So how did that jive with the temperature in San Antonio being below zero, and it wasn’t even December yet?

     “Explain that, mister Harvard scientist! If the world is getting hotter, then why am I so frickin’ cold?”

     He took four Dasani bottles full of ice and tossed them inside his sleeping bag. He was thirsty now, but would have to wait until his body heat started to thaw the bottles, then would sip from each of them a little at a time as the ice melted.

     It was a hell of a way to satisfy one’s thirst, but he wouldn’t complain. He knew there were millions of others out there, desperately trying to keep their campfires burning when frigid air temperatures kept wanting to freeze them out. And anyone outdoors without a campfire was doomed.

     It was mid morning now. He couldn’t rebuild the fire he’d let burn out a few hours before. The smoke coming out of the chimney would have been visible from a mile away. Then he’d have more guys like Mikey coming around to see what goodies he might have stashed in the house.

     He’d have to be a little smarter from now on. Until the cold snap ended, he’d put some frozen water bottles near the fire each evening, so the fire would thaw them. Then he’d put them in his sleeping bag so they wouldn’t refreeze when the fire went out.

     An old adage came to his mind: Work smarter, not harder.

     He tossed four more packets of bread and some more Viennas into the sleeping bag too, along with a package of trail mix. He’d eat in the bag today, once the food was thawed. There was no real reason to get out, nothing to check on. He’d sleep when he could, and look at the ceiling when he couldn’t.

     Or maybe he’d do what he hadn’t done since he was a kid, and read a book by flashlight under the covers.

     When he was a kid, he did that just to defy his parents when they made him go to bed at nine p.m.

     Now, it would be a good way to pass the time if he couldn’t sleep, without leaving the only place in the house that was halfway comfortable.

     He had two extreme cold weather sleeping bags. The outer one was made for two people, the inner one was made for one.

     Or, in this case, one person and some bottles of frozen water and food.

     By putting one bag inside the other, he ensured that none of his body heat would escape to the outside. It would act as a heater, instead, to keep him warm and to thaw his provisions.

     Dave crawled inside his bags and zipped them up so only his head was exposed. Then he scooted down farther into the bag so his head was covered as well. The top of the bag was still open, to provide him fresh air. And the two watch caps sitting on top of his head would keep it warm.

     He slept fitfully. Warm, but a little bit cramped in the confined space of the sleeping bags. Once, he woke up wondering what the weather was like in Kansas City. Whether his wife and daughters were warm enough.

     For an hour he worried, thinking the worst- that they were slowly freezing to death while he was laying toasty in his bed.

     But then he reasoned that wouldn’t be the case. He and Sarah had worked through all their survival plans together. In fact, they had included the girls on much of them. It was actually Lindsey who had the idea of putting one sleeping bag inside another to increase its effectiveness.

     No, he didn’t have to worry about his family. They were troopers, all three of them. And if anyone could survive this harsh winter, it would be them.

     His mind once again at ease, he allowed himself to drift off to sleep again, only to roll over onto two icy cold bottles of water a couple of hours later.

     He was instantly awake.

     And the water bottles reminded him that he was incredibly thirsty.

     He sat up in the bags and felt around for the other bottles, which had worked their way down between his feet.

     Each of the bottles was partially thawed now, and he was able to get half a dozen sips from each of them. It was enough to sustain him until he awoke again, and would be able to get a bit more.

     The water brought another need to his attention. Even as thirsty as he was, he knew he wasn’t dehydrated. He could tell because his bladder was telling him he needed to get his lazy self out of the warm bags and go out into the cold to visit his outhouse.

     He could have held off. He wasn’t in pain yet. What he was feeling was just the pangs of discomfort. He could probably go back to sleep again if he just tried to relax and put it out of his mind.

     But Dave knew his body pretty well. If he ignored the need to urinate, if he allowed himself to go back to sleep, he’d merely wake up again in a couple of hours. And he’d be in pain, and have to run outdoors to relieve himself.

     He lay in bed for a time debating. It would be smart to go now, and be able to sleep through the rest of the day and into the hours of darkness.

     But leaving his warm sanctuary was such a hard thing to do. Especially since he knew very well the arctic blast that would greet him as soon as he stepped out of the bags.

     Between his Boy Scout days and his years with the U.S. Marine Corps, Dave had picked up a few tricks about cold weather camping.

     One was never to sleep in a winter bag with socks on. It sounded counter intuitive, sure. The average Joe would assume that the warmer the better, and would never remove his socks.