Jakarta Pandemic, The (49 page)

I don’t think he ever got a delivery of firewood this fall.

Alex envisioned the Mansons sawing apart Greg’s dining room furniture to toss into the fire. He slowly shook his head.

They’ll run out of furniture in a day or two, and then they’ll be on the prowl again.

He shut the shade and resolved to get some desperately needed sleep.

Alex felt Kate stir in the bed. She got up several seconds later, kissed him on the forehead, and replaced the covers. Bright sunlight poured into the bedroom from the transom windows, and Alex struggled to move, fighting the grogginess to check his watch.

Ten. Jesus.

He wasn’t surprised to see the time. He vaguely remembered glancing at his watch around three in the morning. He heard the toilet flush in the master bathroom, followed by water running in the sink, and Kate emerged from the bathroom. She walked over to the front windows and raised the shades.

“Hey, looks like the plow made a run down the street. It’s all clear. We got a lot of snow,” she said.

Alex rose up onto his elbow and squinted at her over the blankets. “Two feet, they thought. Is the street really cleared?”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna have to do something about the driveway. The plow made a wall at the end,” she said and turned toward the open bedroom door.

He knocked off the covers and sat on the side of the bed facing the door. “I never heard it come down the street. Usually sounds like a 747 crashing into the neighborhood.”

“None of us had a chance to hear it through your snoring. You were dead to the world this morning. The kids got up early and went back to their rooms it was so bad,” Kate said.

“Sorry. It’s been a long couple of nights,” he said apologetically.

“You should really crash out some more. You need the rest.”

“No, that’s okay, I need to get up and move around. If you get some coffee started, I’ll cook up some pancakes,” he promised.

“You read my mind. I’ll get everything going,” she said and disappeared through the door.

Alex stood at the side of the bed and raised his arms in the air, stretching his hands toward the ceiling. He leaned over and reached for the floor, coming nowhere remotely close to the carpet.

I need to start stretching again.

“Hey, hon?” he heard from somewhere down the hallway.

“Yes?” he responded, pushing the stretch further.

“Am I gonna get hurt trying to take this thing apart?” she asked.

He straightened his back and walked toward the door. Down the hallway, he saw Kate standing at the top of the stairs.

“No, just take the cans off, and step over the trip line. I’ll move the line in a minute,” he said.

“Okay, I just didn’t want to get hit in the head with a paint can or something,” she said, walking down the stairs cautiously.

“Very funny.”

She stopped a quarter of the way down. Alex could still see her head. “Any other new surprises down here?”

“No, but before you do anything down there, check all of the doors, and make sure nothing is disturbed.”

“All right,” she replied, and he detected a shift in her tone, from playful to cautious.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Alex stared out of the front great room window as the second snowstorm of the season tapered to a wispy indecisive powder. He sipped lukewarm coffee and tried to gauge the amount of fresh snowfall lying undisturbed on the street. He couldn’t imagine any circumstance that could bring one of the town’s few operating plows out to Durham Road again. He took another sip and looked in both directions down the street.

Nothing.

He walked toward the stairs in the foyer, steadying his coffee for the ascent. He reached the top just as Kate emerged from the master suite bathroom wearing a white knee-length cotton robe. Her black hair, still wet from a shower, draped over the robe and behind her shoulders. She nodded to him and met him at the bedroom door.

“Nice shower?” he asked and hoped that his tone hadn’t come across wrong.

They hadn’t seen more than a few hours of solid sunlight since the first storm, and Alex had watched the Power Cube battery status shrink at a predictable, yet slightly alarming rate. As of last night, the Power Cube’s LED showed the battery reserves at fifty-three percent, which was a marginally comfortable level for him, given six days of impenetrable cloud cover. With two or three clear days in the forecast, the system should regain most of the lost charge. Either way, he planned to make a few suggestions to stretch the battery life during long overcast stretches of time. Robbing Kate of a long, relaxing hot shower was not one of his immediate suggestions.

“Beyond excellent. It’s amazing how good a hot shower feels after going a few days without one,” she said.

“Yeah, we’re pretty lucky. There won’t be many hot showers in this neighborhood for quite a while,” he acknowledged and kissed her lips.

He pushed his binoculars over to the right and under his armpit as he moved in further to hug her.

“I’m not hugging your rifle,” she said, holding his shoulders and avoiding the AR-15 rifle slung barrel up behind his back.

“Don’t worry. She doesn’t like anyone handling her but me.” He kissed her again.

“I guess I have more in common with her than I thought. She still sleeps on the floor though,” Kate said.

“Fair enough. Besides, there’s no more room in our bed with the kids,” he said and walked toward the front window next to the office.

“No kidding. I keep expecting Ryan to crawl in next. How much snow did we get?” she asked.

Alex reached the window and stared down at the street. “Easily another foot. Foot and a half maybe? It’s hard to tell from the house.” He peered between the Sheppards’ and Bradys’ houses with the binoculars.

He could finally see the Murrays’ roofline, which had been obscured by the thick snowfall for most of the early morning hours. He zeroed in on the chimney visible to the far left of the roof.

Nothing. No smoke. Well, that doesn’t
mean anything. It’s still early.

“What are you staring at?” she asked, moving up next to him.

“Murrays’ house. See the other houses with chimneys? How most of them are puffing white smoke?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, there was smoke coming from their chimney yesterday afternoon, and now there’s nothing.”

“Please don’t harass me when I ask this, but so what?” she asked and winced.

“So what? So what?” he said mockingly. “Just kidding. I really don’t know actually. I’m so bored that this is the kind of shit I keep track of now. However, I do have a theory if you want to hear it.”

“Of course you do.”

“I think they’re out of wood, and if they’re out of wood, there’s going to be trouble. I saw the Coopers out yesterday with Max, and I’m pretty sure they were moving their wood indoors. I guarantee they’re not the only ones that have spent a little time over the past few days safeguarding their only source of heat, especially after the Mansons’ daylight wood gathering foray,” he said.

“We’re really going to be dealing with them for the rest of the winter, aren’t we?”

“Pretty much. I don’t see them going anywhere.”

“They’ve really changed things for us,” she stated flatly.

“Look on the positive side, maybe they’ve scared Todd and any of the remaining Fletcher haters out there. The loop has been pretty quiet.”

“Yeah, but I feel like more of a prisoner than I did before. It was bad enough when it was just the flu and Todd’s crew, but now we can’t go outside, or stand near our windows without worrying about being shot. It’s ridiculous.” She walked back toward the main hallway.

Alex followed her and wondered if they were both visible from the street. He doubted it, especially with the screens still in place. Kate stopped and turned around to face him.

“This doesn’t bother you? You spend most of the day and night dressed like a commando, spying out of our windows, and talking to all of our equally stressed friends. How long do you want to live like this?” she said with her hands on her hips.

“I don’t really see how I have a choice. Shooting them in cold blood on the streets isn’t the answer. It might solve the problem for now…”

“I think it would completely get rid of the problem,” she said.

Great.

“Temporarily it might, but we’d still have a house full of women and children over there. We can’t exactly walk them at gunpoint to the end of the block and tell them to beat it.”

“They can drive out of here.”

“Nice. At some point we’ll have to answer for it.”

“Answer to whom?” she asked.

“I just can’t justify it, Kate,” he whispered. “Deep down I want to do it, but I can’t get past the fact that it would be murder.”

“More like a preemptive strike. You said it yourself that it was only a matter of time before they kill or hurt someone around here. Nobody would hold it against any of you. Charlie…or Ed.”

“I wouldn’t involve Ed,” he said, “and I’m not sure about Charlie. I’m worried that he’s way more talk than action.”

“Hey, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want,” she said, cracking a smile.

“Thanks, Rummy. Right now, I’m gonna keep watching, and we’ll figure something out. I don’t want to keep doing this all winter either.” He adjusted the rifle sling on his shoulder.

“I just don’t think you should wait much longer. They have to be getting more and more desperate by the day, and it scares me to think that our house would be the ultimate prize for them, Alex.”

“For anyone. That’s why I don’t think it’ll matter. Even if we get rid of them somehow, we won’t be able to let our guard down,” he said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“You’ll be able to let it down several levels. Before they showed up, I think you were just keeping yourself busy, and having some fun with it. It’s completely different now.”

Alex grimaced. “Yeah, it’s very different,” he admitted.

“You should enjoy a hot bath or a nice hot shower and then take a long nap. You look terrible, hon. I don’t know how long you can keep this up, but it’s starting to take a visible toll. I’ll rub your back, too,” she said, concerned.

“I’m good for now with the shower. I still need to clear the snow. But I’ll take a little siesta after lunch.”

“Don’t worry about the battery, we have a few days of sun coming our way. Take the shower. You need it,” she said, and with a devilish smile, added, “plus, you’re turning a little ripe.”

“Nice. Always an ulterior motive.”

“I do what I can to survive around here,” she said and headed back into the bedroom.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Kate said to Alex as he opened the door to the basement.

Barley and bean stew again? Don’t wait for me.

“I’ll be right up,” he called and headed down the stairs.

The smell of baby powder hit his nose as he flipped on the light and headed straight to the bulkhead door. A paint can tied to a shoelace hung precariously from the end of the crude lock mechanism’s bolt. Even if an intruder managed to relock the door on the way out, there was no conceivable way for them to re-hang the paint can from the outside. Plus, the paint can’s lid was loosened and would likely open if the can was tipped, making a complete mess. The baby powder on the floor around the bulkhead door stairs served as the final, unavoidable telltale. A fine layer of powder extended in a roughly six-foot circumference around the base of the short abbreviated stairway.

Undisturbed.

Alex walked over and unlocked the bunker door, turning on the light as he stepped in. He glanced around quickly, noting that everything was the same as yesterday. He moved to the Power Cube and read the LED status indicator. Sixty-eight percent. Not as much as he had hoped. Three predominantly sunny days had given them about 15% of their charge back. Six days of constant cloud cover had drained nearly fifty percent of the charge, and he felt like they had been pretty conservative with their power use.

A few more weather cycles like this, and the system will hit bottom.

And every time it hits bottom, the batteries won’t hold as much charge during the next charge phase.

It’s all a luxury anyway.

He stepped away from the Power Cube and glanced at the oil tanks.

Plenty in those.

One more glance at the supply shelves, and he headed toward the door, locking both the door handle and the deadbolt before heading upstairs to dinner.

Once he hit the kitchen, he admitted to himself that the stew smelled pretty good. The bowls were already arranged on the table, along with Kate’s recently invented pancake-style biscuits. Alex saw what was now known as the obligatory canned vegetable side dish in a small sauce pan that was set on a mat in the middle of the table.

Dinner has come a long way.

He couldn’t imagine what their neighbors were eating, and he didn’t want to think about it for very long. He followed Kate to the table and sat down. The kids were already seated and looked eager to eat. Just two months ago, they would have had to hire a bounty hunter to get them down to eat barley stew. Now the kids milled around the kitchen and great room before dinner. The days of unlimited snacks, fruit and juice drinks were long gone. The kids were actually hungry at meals and ate without the constant prodding that had become a daily dinner ritual for Kate and Alex.

“Everything set downstairs?” Kate asked as she began ladling out the chunky brownish-tan stew.

“Yeah. Good to go. The batteries are almost back to seventy percent,” he said. “Smells great, hon.”

“Kinda looks gross, I know, but the lentils give off a brown brothy color. Not much I can do to dress it up. I threw in some carrots, but the orange chunks aren’t really helping.”