Forsaking Home (The Survivalist Series) (29 page)

D
ammit, Doc! I ain’t asking you if I’m fit to leave, I’m telling you that I’m leaving,” Sarge barked.

Doc shot Ted a look, then looked back at Sarge. “I really think you should wait another day.”

“I can lie around there just as good as I can here, better actually.”

“I’ll go get the captain,” Mike said as he headed for the door.

Doc walked over to Kay. “See if you can talk any sense into him.”

Since his injury, Kay had stayed close by Sarge. Knowing that he was a friend of Jess’s had made her open up to him, and over the past few days, she and Sarge had talked a lot. She enjoyed his company, and liked that he was a bit rough around the edges. And he loved that she doted on him, bringing him food from the kitchen. It was the beginning of what seemed like a great friendship.

“I think you know better than I that there is no talking to him about this,” Kay replied.

Doc shook his head and walked off. “Hardheaded sumbitch.”

Ted smiled as a frustrated Doc walked away, shaking his head. In short order, Mike returned with Captain Sheffield and Lieutenant Livingston.

Sheffield crossed his arms over his chest as he looked down at the old soldier. “Just can’t wait to get out of here, can you?”

“My job here is done! These boys need a break.”

Sheffield looked at Ted with a smile. “They need a break, huh, not you?”

Sarge jerked his head around. “With all due respect, Captain, kiss my ass.”

Livingston doubled over in laughter. Even Sheffield laughed at Sarge’s response.

“Your respect is duly noted,” Sheffield said, trying to get serious. “Are we going to be seeing you boys again? We’re working on things, but I’m used to having support.”

“And you’ll have it. It’s not like I’m dropping off the face of the earth. You’ll be able to reach me by radio, and we’ll be around if you need us,” Sarge said.

Sheffield let out a sigh. “All right, thanks. Go ahead and take some time, just keep your radio on.”

“Why, thank you, Captain, but for the record, I wasn’t asking for your permission.”

Sheffield smiled as he shook his head. “First Sergeant, I can only imagine the string of wrecked officers lying in the wake of your career.”

Sarge grinned. “Some mustangs just can’t be tamed, Captain.”

Once the two officers left, he called Ted over with a whistle and a jerk of his head.

“Time to get your scrounge on, Teddy. Go find that knuckle dragger and get what we need to set up camp.”

Ted shook his head and made for the door. He tapped Kay on the shoulder. “Would you mind giving me a hand real quick?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she replied as she got up.

They went outside together when Mike pulled up in a Hummer, blaring the horn. As Ted got in the passenger seat, Mike asked, “Time to go shopping?”

“Saw that coming, huh?”

“Of course. You know how he is.”

Together the three proceeded to grab supplies from the stores of the DHS. Since Kay had intimate knowledge of not only what was on-site, but where it was located, the looting of the food stores didn’t take long. Their booty consisted of everything from food to cots and blankets. They weren’t selfish in their gathering, just getting enough for their needs. The one thing they did take in excess was coffee. When Mike and Ted saw the freeze-dried bags of coffee, they couldn’t help themselves.

“Can you guys think of anything else?” Kay asked.

Mike and Ted thought about it, then shook their heads. “No, I think we’ve about covered it.”

“I know of one more thing. Pull up in front of that second connex on the right up there.”

Ted pulled the Hummer to a stop in front of the container. “What’s in here?” Mike asked.

“You’ll see,” Kay said as she got out. “Follow me.”

Mike stood at the door, when a large cardboard box shot out, almost hitting him in the face. “What is this?” he asked as he turned the box around. “Ah, yes, Kay, we need this too.” He tossed the big box of toilet paper into the back of the Hummer.

Ted looked back and started to laugh. “Thanks, Kay!” he yelled out the open door.

Kay came out with another box and tossed it into the back of the truck as well. “You’re welcome,” she said as she shut the door. “But one of those is for the girls.”

“You mean Jess and Fred?” Mike asked.

“Yep, I think they’ll appreciate it,” she replied.

They rode back over to the infirmary. Sarge was up and sitting on his stretcher when they came back in. A crutch rested beside him.

“Took y’all long enough,” he said as they walked in.

“Yeah, yeah, you ready to go?” Ted asked. Sarge stood up, resting his weight on the crutch, and walked toward the door.

“Hey, Doc, you coming?” Ted asked.

“No, I’ll have to wait a day or two for that one to heal up,” he said, pointing toward Aric.

“Where’s Fred?” Aric asked, sitting up. His BDU top was gone, replaced with gauze and bandages.

“She’s out helping some friends. She’ll be back around,” Ted said.

“Oh, okay. Am I going to be able to leave here once I heal up?”

Sarge was still making his way to the door. “I don’t see why not.” He stopped and turned to face him. “Just remember whose side you’re on. And if you ever make the mistake of pointing a gun at me—”

Aric waved him off. “Don’t worry, I promise that’ll never happen again.”

S
leeping inside an actual house was a nice change of pace. It was the first time in a long time that I felt like I could relax. Knowing the DHS was no longer a threat removed a huge weight off my chest. Mel and I took our time getting up the next morning, just talking and laughing like good old times.

However, even after our relaxing morning, we couldn’t lie around all day. There was a lot that needed done—we had to turn this place from a house into
our
house. I needed to get the solar stuff set up and connected to the house and see if the well pump still worked. Running water would truly be a luxury, and I kept my fingers crossed that it would work. Mel woke the girls up and put them to the task of sorting out the living room. Naturally, they were a little grumpy, but Mel got them into gear pretty quick.

I went out and started working on the power plant. I decided to use a method for connecting generators that I had used in the past. Pulling the wires off the bottom of the AC breaker mounted on the side of the house, I connected the leads from the inverter, then connected the neutral. With the connections made, I went around the house and shut off the main breaker at the meter before going inside the panel.

At the panel I shut off all the breakers, then went back out to the trailer, which we had parked close to the house the night before. After another quick check of the connections, I turned on the inverter and grabbed my multimeter. After verifying the power there, I headed back inside and flipped the AC breaker on, which energized the entire panel. This process is known as backfeeding, and while it’s not legal—not that there was anyone to complain—it is totally functional. Checking the panel schedule, I turned on the breakers for lights and receptacles. Shouts of joy coming from throughout the house told me that the lights had come on. Sadly, the only breaker I couldn’t turn on was the hot water heater.

Once all the breakers I thought we would need were on, I went around and checked all the lights. Two rooms needed bulbs, but other than that they all worked. Fortunately, the trees on the property covered the front of the house for the most part, allowing me to set the panels up off the end of the house beside the trailer. As I was wrapping up the panels, Danny walked over.

“How was it last night?” he asked.

“Best accommodations. Four stars. How about you guys? How was it in the house?” I asked.

“It’s kind of tough to see everything you own destroyed as it is. Bobbie seems to be taking it better than me. She was up half the night cleaning things up.”

“You know how she is, she’s got to clean,” I said with a laugh.

“Yeah, you got that right. You try the well yet?” Danny asked.

“Nope, was just about to.”

We walked over to the well house. After opening the spigot on the bypass, I looked at Danny, said, “Cross your fingers,” and flipped the breaker on. The contacts snapped shut, and I could feel the pipe vibrating.

“Is it running?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. I think it’s bound up,” I said as I flipped the breaker off.

“Think it sat too long?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to try bumping it.” I started to flip the breaker on for a second, then off, then on, then off. After doing this several times, a loud gurgle came out of the spigot. I smiled. “That sounds good.” Brown water started to flow out the spigot, a trickle that quickly built up in volume and pressure.

“Close the valve. Let’s see if the pressure switch and tank are any good.”

Danny and I both watched the pressure gauge as the needle started to move, slowly working its way up from zero toward thirty pounds. The needle passed the thirty mark and kept climbing. At forty-two pounds, the pump shut off.

“At least all that works,” Danny said.

“Yeah, I’ll just have to keep an eye on the tank for a while, make sure it’s not leaking.”

Danny stuck his head in the small shack. “Looks pretty new, it should be all right.”

“Let’s go in and get some running water,” I said as I extricated myself from the small building.

As we came in the back door, Mel looked over. “The toilets are making noise.”

“That’s a good thing. Let’s see if they work,” I said, right before the sound of a toilet flushing drifted from the hall bathroom.

Little Bit came out hitching her pants up. “The bathroom works,” she said with a smile.

“Guess that answers that question,” Danny said.

“Let’s go see if we can get power back on over at your place,” I said.

“That’d be nice. It would make cleaning a lot easier.”

When we got back to Danny’s place, Jeff, Thad, Jess, and Fred were standing on the porch with Bobbie.

“Hey, Danny, thought you could use some help today,” Thad said.

“That would be great, thanks, guys.”

“We’re going to see if we can get some power back on over here,” I said.

“Power? How are you getting power?” Fred asked.

“I’ve got a small solar system. It won’t run much, but it’s something.”

“You two go on ahead and do that. We’ll help Bobbie get some of this stuff out of here,” Thad said.

While they all headed in for the cleaning detail, we went back to where we had set his system up before. Being as his house was already set up for it, it didn’t take long to get it hooked up again. The hardest part was getting the panels back on the roof. Unlike at my house, his pump started right away, and there was soon running water in his house as well.

When we got inside, Bobbie and Jess were doubled over laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Danny asked.

Bobbie pointed at the spray nozzle at the kitchen sink, she was laughing too hard to say anything. Fred was laughing but managed to calm down enough to tell us. She held up a rubber band. “They wrapped this around the sprayer,” she managed to get out.

“You mean, with all this other shit they did, one of them actually wrapped that thing so it would spray?” Danny asked.

Bobbie looked up with tears in her eyes. “Yes, it’s just so funny that they would think of this. I mean, how long did they think it would be before it would even be possible? No one has running water.”

“That is kinda funny,” Danny said.

“Yeah, there’s someone like you working for them,” Thad said, pointing at me.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked with a laugh.

“You know exactly what that’s supposed to mean. Always the jokester,” Thad replied with a laugh.

“I guess you got me there.”

Everyone pitched in to help clean their house. Bobbie and Danny went through everything as it was brought out, deciding what to keep and what to throw on the pile to burn. Once all the broken or thoroughly nasty stuff was brought out, the ladies set to work on the scrubbing while we turned our attention to another unpleasant task.

“Man, that is nasty,” Jeff said as he stared down into the toilet bowl in the small bathroom.

“Yeah, Danny, I don’t think there’s any saving that thing,” Thad added.

“That’s what I was thinking. I think I’m just going to pull it out.”

“That’s probably the best idea, but I ain’t going to do it for you,” I said with a chuckle.

Danny pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves and started to unbolt the toilet, using his Leatherman tool. I ended up breaking down and helped get it out of the house, carrying it out back into the woods.

“We’ll find you another one somewhere,” Thad said as we set it down.

“I’ve got one in the barn over there. I’ll get it put in later. I’m not too worried about that right now,” Danny said.

“Good, ’cause Thad knows about friends and plumbing,” I said.

“You guys want to help me with the doors, see what we can come up with?” Danny asked.

“Sure thing,” I said as Danny headed for the barn.

Danny found a tape measure in the shop and we headed for the front door. It was a standard 3-0 door, not that that did us any good at the moment, as there weren’t any replacements around. We spent most of the afternoon constructing a makeshift front door out of lumber Danny had in a rack. There wasn’t enough plywood to sheath it with, so we cut one of the one-by-fours in its place. Getting it into the frame was going to be a challenge, but we were up for it.

In the end, we used a couple of strap hinges Danny had in his never-ending bins of stuff. While Frankendoor wouldn’t close into the jamb, it did close flush to it. A hasp and bolt on the inside kept it secure. The two French doors were going to be another issue. One set came off the downstairs bedroom. Danny decided to just close that one off entirely. Thad and Jeff said they would handle that while Danny and I worked on the other.

A set of French doors wasn’t a possibility, so we framed in one side of the opening and made a door like the first one. Danny ran a screw in on one of the one-by-fours then held the cordless drill up and looked at it. “Man, could you imagine doing this without these tools?” He laid the drill in the bag with the rest of the tools. In the bag were a reciprocating saw, circular saw, and impact drill.

“Yeah, cutting all this with a handsaw, not to mention turning screws in by hand—that would suck,” I said as I flipped the door over to do the other side. “Where in the hell did you get all this lumber?”

“Remember when I worked for that builder?”

“Yeah, what were you doing, stealing from him?” I asked with a laugh.

“No, I just went through the trash piles on the jobs. Soon as a house was framed I was there. They left a lot of stuff behind. No sense in hauling it to the dump.”

“Guess not. Your pack-ratting really paid off here.”

“It does have its benefits.”

Once the doors were taken care of, we took a break. No one had eaten anything all day, and all of this work had built up our appetites.

“Hey, I’m going to go over and get Mel and the girls. I think it’s time for some lunch, or breakfast,” I said.

“Cool, we’ll get some MREs out,” Thad said.

I left to go get the girls, surprised at the amount of work they had done while I was gone.

“Wow, you guys have been busy,” I said, coming in the back door.

“We want to get things settled, try and make it feel like home,” Mel said as she wiped the kitchen counter.

“I can’t believe no one broke in here. It’s so nice inside.”

“Well, from the outside, it doesn’t look like much. Speaking of which, that’ll need to change.”

I started to laugh at the thought of a honey-do list. “Sure thing, babe. But for now, let’s go over to Danny’s for lunch.”

“Yeah, lunch!” Little Bit shouted and ran for the door.

We all walked together over to Danny’s. Everyone was on the back porch. A couple of open cases of MREs sat on the table.

“You girls pick out the ones you want,” I said.

“I like these things. They’re cool,” Taylor said.

“Me too, they’re fun!” Little Bit said.

I went through the boxes after everyone had theirs and picked one out for myself. While I knew these weren’t the greatest things in the world, today, they tasted wonderful. After so long of eating what we could find and catch, the variety of flavors in each spoonful was impressive.

After lunch, Jeff threw all the wrappers on the burn pile. “Danny!” he called out. “You want me to burn all this for you?”

“Sure, thanks.”

“You two go round them up. Me and Jeff will take care of the trash.”

“You guys going to get that couple from the campground?” Bobbie asked.

“My friend is moving here?!” Little Bit exclaimed.

“Yep, they’re going to live here.”

“Where are they going to stay?” Mel asked.

“I was thinking Mark’s house. We know he isn’t coming back.”

“That’s good, they’ll be right across the street from you,” Danny said.

“You ready to go?”

“Yep, let’s go.”

I looked at Mel. “We’ll be back in a little bit.”

She smiled a sweet smile. “Hurry back.”

“I ain’t starting on your honey-do list today, or even this week.”

“Sure, okay,” she said with a wink.

Danny disconnected the trailer and we loaded up and headed out. We didn’t talk on the ride, just enjoying the scenery and the beautiful weather. For a moment I was able to ignore the reality of our current life and drift back in time, back to when it was such a normal, not-even-worth-thinking-about event to be driving down the road. Only the litter on the road prevented the scene from being exact.

Brandy was alone by the fire when we pulled up. As I got out, she ran up, looking relieved. “I’m so glad you guys are here!”

“Why, what’s up? And where’s Tyler?” I asked, looking around.

“He’s off in the woods,” she said, pointing off into the bush.

“Why’s he out there?” Danny asked.

“These guys came through earlier, three of them. They seemed creepy, the way they looked at me.”

Tyler was carrying his rifle as he walked up. “Hey, guys, did y’all see anyone when you came in?”

“No, there’s no one back that way,” I said.

“What’d those guys do?” Danny asked.

“Nothing really. They didn’t say much, it was just the way they were looking at Brandy—they wouldn’t stop looking at her.”

“Well, I guess we’re just in time, then. Let’s get you guys loaded up,” I said.

A big smile spread across his face. “Awesome, let’s do this.”

“Hey, Danny, why don’t you keep watch while I help them load up?”

“Sure.”

I followed Tyler up to the camp, where Brandy was already packing their things. I was surprised at how neat and tidy the inside of their tent was. Save some sand on the floor, it was clean. Being as everything at the camp had gotten there on two bikes, it didn’t take long for it to be loaded. In less than an hour, we were headed back.

“This is so exciting! I didn’t even dare think about living in a house again,” Brandy said.

“I’m glad we came across you guys. It’ll be good to have some friends around for Little Bit,” I replied.

“I can’t tell you guys how much we appreciate this, guys, really,” Tyler said.

“No problem, we can use some help and you guys surely can as well,” Danny said.

“Are we going to be living near you guys?”