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“Okay, I understand. Let me try again.” Sheriff Patton Nobb had been an American MP in Germany when the die-off hit. The army flew him back to the US to fill in gaps in law enforcement, and Marie gratefully handed the reins over to him. Now he literally held the reins to two massive but gentle Clydesdales, Carol and Calen. “Walk on!”

In some ways, the challenges from the EMP event were more serious than those of the die-off. For law enforcement, the big two problems were communication and transportation. Because of a lack of communication, two major grocery stores were thoroughly looted before law enforcement even knew what was happening.

To counter the transportation issue, Marie had commandeered the buckboard and horse team that had been used to give hayrides at the Happy Earth tourist farm. The buckboard was essentially a big version of a little red wagon, with truck tires and a seat on springs. Marie had driven horses as a child on her farm and was now passing this old-timey skill on to the new sheriff.

“You’re doing fine, Patton, and you’re about ready to fly solo.”

One their way to the Blue Horizon nursing home, they came over a rise next to a picturesque New England field. The picture was spoiled by the two dead cows close to the fence. One was covered with flies, its eyes picked out by birds. It had been partially butchered. The other was newly killed. A small man wearing a watch cap bent over it with a knife. He rubbed his bloody hands down his pant legs and glanced behind him, across the field.

They stopped the team. Nobb climbed over the fence and unbuttoned his holster.

Marie put the brake on, climbed through the fence, and walked over to the scene of the slaughter. She stood to one side and held Nobb’s government issue M4 pointed down.

“How you doing, sir?” Nobb’s muscles resembled those of the Clydesdales behind him, and his shaved head was as shiny and black as an eight ball. “These your cattle?

“Yes, sir, they are.”

The sheriff looked over to Marie. She shook her head.

“Drop your knife and put you hands up,” he said.

Excellent command voice.
Marie switched off the safety on her weapon. These were desperate times.

The man dropped the knife but kept his hands down—one in his pocket.

“Officer, my wife needs the meat. We are totally out of food, and she is pregnant.” The man spoke in a shaky voice and kept glancing down behind the cow and over his shoulder. His hand moved around in his pocket.

“Sir, take your hand out of you pocket and put both hands up.” Nobb reached to the empty place on his belt that had held a taser and then moved closer. His arms were relaxed by his side. “Sir, take your hand—” He sprang forward and his right hand smashed into the man’s neck, gripping it just under the jaw. His left hand fastened onto the man’s right wrist. His momentum carried them both to the ground, where Nobb made sure all of the weight of his six-foot-three frame landed on the man’s chest.

Nobb pulled the man’s hand out of his pocket and flipped him onto his back in one smooth motion. Once the cuffs were on, he checked the pocket and pulled out a small handgun. He looked up at Marie, who flipped her rifle’s safety back on and gave Nobb a thumbs up.

She walked around the back of the cow. A rifle leaned up against the carcass. Nobb searched the amateur butcher and sat him up near the cow’s body.

Marie came over to him and squatted down. “Aren’t you Nell Roman’s son?”

The man just looked down.

“Mr. Roman, do you realize what you’ve done? This cow has five hundred pounds of beef on it. That could feed the entire town. You cut off a few pounds and were going to leave the rest to rot.”

Getting no answer, Marie and Nobb stepped away to have a conference. “We’ve got nowhere to put him. The jail is full, and if we bring him in, we’ll have to watch him and feed him,” Marie said.

“Do you think his wife is—”

They both looked over at the noise coming from the buckboard. A man and woman had jumped on and were yelling and whipping the reins to get the horses going. The wheels skidded for a second until the couple figured out how to release the brakes. The police needed that wagon. Nobb yelled for them to stop, grabbed the M4, and sprinted to the road. He steadied the M4 on a fence post, aimed low, and put a warning shot into the driver’s leg. A lucky shot. The driver fell back into the hay and then dropped off the wagon. He hobbled off into the woods. The woman followed.

The horses took off at a gallop. Nobb leaned the rifle against the fence and jogged after them.

Marie looked back from the excitement. Roman was halfway across the field, running with handcuffs on.
Thank you, Mr. Roman, for solving our problem.
She turned back to the cow.

First, she used Roman’s knife to cut off a large sheet of hide and laid it on the ground, furry side down. Next she set to work butchering the cow, starting with the easiest and best cuts. After forty minutes, Nobb returned, leading the Clydesdales by the harness. Good man.

She waved him over, and they carried the sheet of hide, now filled with beef, over to the wagon and made space for it by removing a bale of hay. Marie brought over another sheet of hide and used it to cover the meat.

Marie said, “We’ll get this grilled down at the commons and feed as many as we can.”

The four remaining cows in the field had watched her do the butchering and were now interested in the hay on the wagon. Marie removed the rails from a section of the fence, grabbed a few handfuls of hay, and enticed the cows to the wagon. Marie and Nobb stepped up into the bench and started the procession back toward town. The four cows followed.

“We’ll keep these cows safe from poachers on the town common, slaughter them in turn, get them butchered properly, and have a town barbecue every few days.” Marie looked back to make sure they were still following.

“What about the nursing home?” asked Nobb.

“That will have to wait until tomorrow.”

* * *

The next day, when Marie and Nobb were a half-mile from the nursing home, they came upon someone in the road. Nobb pointed him out, and Marie looked at him with the binoculars.
Uh-oh.

Nobb halted the wagon, and the man approached them. He looked to be in his mid-seventies and wore only a T-shirt. No pants. He pulled a floor lamp behind him, the electrical plug grasped in his hand. His body leaned forward, and his shuffling steps barely kept him from falling onto his face. His jaw hung down, and his eyes stared ahead.

Marie stepped down from the wagon and took the man by his shoulders. He didn’t acknowledge her in any way. She pulled the cord from his hand. “Sir, would you like to ride with us?”

He didn’t respond but let her lead him over to the wagon. Nobb wrapped him in a foil emergency blanket, picked him up, and positioned him in between some bails of hay.

They climbed back into the driver bench, and Marie looked at their patient.
I sure wish we could call for backup. I know what we’re going to find at the home.

When they pulled into the parking area at the Blue Horizon facility, two more patients were on the lawn. One was knitting happily, and the other was searching desperately for something on the ground. The leaves of the trees had started turning, and a pair of squirrels chased each around the trunk of a large maple.

They walked up the steps, and Marie clenched her teeth and opened the doors. They both gasped and stepped back, letting the doors hiss back into place. The combined smell of urine, feces, vomit, and death were beyond anything Marie had imagined.

“We’ve got to do this, Patton. Are you ready?”

When he nodded they held fabric against their noses and opened the doors, latching them open so that fresh air could flow in.

The nurse at the reception area had her head on the desk, as if taking a nap. Marie examined the blood matted in her hair then tilted her head up. A bullet entry hole graced her cheek.

Marie looked over at Nobb and raised her eyebrows.

“Drugs,” he said through the cloth.

Marie nodded. Someone had come to raid the home’s supply of narcotics.

They located the small pharmacy room. The body of an orderly lay on the floor. The drug cabinet was open, with some of the shelves empty.

“I guess they knew what they were looking for,” Marie said.

Nobb nodded. “I have to get outside. I can’t think with this stench.”

“Help me!” The cry came from a nearby room, and Marie and Nobb found it quickly. Inside was a portly woman propped up in her own filth in a hospital bed.

“Water!”

Marie pulled two large paper cups out of a cabinet and filled them in the men’s bathroom. The water pressure was low but sufficient. When she got back, Nobb had already gotten the woman out of the bed and removed her soiled nightgown. They covered her in a clean blanket, put her in a wheelchair, and wheeled her out into the sunshine.

“What’s your name, ma’am?” Marie asked.

“I’m Miss Maples, and don’t worry, I’m completely in my right mind. These last five days, though, I thought I’d be sure to head ‘round the bend.” She’d gulped the first cup of water down and was now nursing the second. She was obese and her neck bulged out below her chin.

Nobb headed back into the facility.

Marie sat on a bench next to Miss Maples. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Well, when the power went out, we had one nurse and two orderlies on duty, you know. They sent one of them into town, on foot, you know, ‘cause the cars was busted.” She sipped some more water and sat quietly.

“Then what happened?”

“Well, he never come back—the one they sent for help. But they managed okay, and then two days ago I hear godawful yelling and gunshots. Two maybe three. And that was it. I can’t get out of bed, so I’ve just sat here, calling for help.”

“How many residents are here?” Marie asked.

“After the die-off we had thirteen.”

“Including you?”

Miss Maples nodded.

Nobb came back out of the building and sucked in a lungful of air, as if he’d been holding his breath. He waved Marie over.

“Excuse me Miss Maples, I’ll be right back.”

Nobb stared out into the trees. “Got two outside, four dead in their rooms, one unconscious but breathing, one rocking in a fetal position in the corner of the game room, and one man watching TV.”

“Watching TV?”

“It’s not on, of course.”

“So, if she’s right, then we have—”

Miss Maples yelled out, “I am right.”

“—then we have seven people we could transport back to town. There are four unaccounted for. We’ll send someone back to search for them.”

Nobb looked over at the wagon. “Can we fit that many in the buckboard?”

“If we take the hay out,” Marie said. “I’ll check the others, you take the hay out then find all the clean blankets and pillows you can and try to make the wagon comfortable. Sound good?”

“That should work.”

Marie made a quick circuit, checking the residents. The unconscious man was too far gone. The man in front of the TV was surprisingly rational, apart from watching a blank screen.

They got everyone cleaned and loaded up, including an additional resident who wandered in from the woods. They clip-clopped toward town, looking more like sleepy revelers on a Christmas sleigh ride than alien-attack survivors.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

September 28, 2018

Doc Swanson stuck his head into the Lipton Town Hall office and shouted, “Airplane coming.”

Marie jumped up so fast that her chair fell backwards.
Another airplane!
Only a few months ago people rarely noticed the passage of a plane. Not any longer. With a mad scramble, everyone got outside in time to see a large military cargo plane coming in low.

“What’s this one, Doc?” Marie asked without taking her eyes off the plane.

“That’s another Globemaster—maybe the same one.”

It passed directly over the town hall, and three parachutes bloomed in the sky behind it. The four kids playing croquet on the lawn dropped their mallets and sprinted toward the chutes.

Marie called after them. “Don’t try to catch it, Stevie.”

“Good luck with that,” said Doc.

Of course the kids did try to catch the packages before they hit the ground, and one succeeded. They seemed so eager to rush them up to town hall. One younger child got tangled in a parachute, prompting wild laughter from the other kids. Marie smiled and looked at Doc. “Welcome to the 1960s. No video games, no cell phones, kids playing outside.”

When they got the boxes inside, one of the younger council members said, “This is better than drunken Amazon shopping.”

Marie squinted and cocked her head. “What’s that?”

“You know. You buy something on Amazon when you’re drunk and then when it arrives, it’s like Christmas. You have no idea what’s going to be in the box.”

Marie smiled and they opened the packages. The first was a Styrofoam cooler filled with insulin vials. She handed that to Doc.