Rise From The Ashes: The Rebirth of San Antonio (Countdown to Armageddon Book 3) (17 page)

     “
Very
appreciative.”    

     “
Okay, I catch your drift. I go to Toys ‘R’ Us all the time with my grandsons. At least I used to, before all this crap happened. Do you even know where it’s at?”

     “No, but one of the guys will know.”

     “Let me save you the trouble. It’s in Potranco Mall. Right next to
Costume City
.”

     The mayor placed
emphasis on the words “Costume City.”

     Chief
Martinez got the hint.

     “So, you think
Costume City would have ninety four Santa Suits in stock, even though the lights went out last spring?”

     “From what I know of places like that, they have huge warehouses in the back. After Christmas season is over, they take everything left over and just shove it into their warehouse until the following season. It’s not like Santa costumes go bad or anything.”

     “Okay. We’ll give it a shot.”

     “Good. While my secretary is banging away on that old manual typewriter and cur
sing up a blue streak, I’ll have her type a third letter for Costume City. Just in case I’m right, which I almost always am.”

     “Oh, brother.”

     Chief Martinez turned to leave.

     “Hey, Chief?”

     “When the survivors start telling your officers how grateful they are for the gifts, have your officers tell them it was all the mayor’s idea.”

    
Martinez chuckled.

     “Sure. You can count on that.
Trust me
.”

-31-

     And so it was that at 10:35 a.m. on Christmas morning, SAPD unit Twelve Charlie Four turned onto Bane Street SW, parked halfway down the block, and let out four loud blasts from its siren.

     The
houses all emptied so the residents could see what the commotion was all about.

     It was a s
pectacle for them to see Scott Harter and Randy Rhodes, in full Santa Claus regalia, step out of the police car and open the trunk. They passed toys and new coats to each of the children, then coats, sweaters and blankets to each of the adults.

     Just as Chief
Martinez had predicted, some of the children smiled for the first time in months.

     Most of the women hugged the pair. Most of the men shook their hands. A few of each gender cried.

     For the first time in a long time, Scott felt a bit of hope in the air. Hope that someday the world would be normal again. Someday people would be happy again. All of the bodies would be burned, the bones disposed of, and the survivors would press on.

     And he hoped that one of the first things mankind would do in the new world was work to find a way to protect the planet’s peoples from similar events in the future. Because he darn sure didn’t want to go through this again.

     Talking Randy Rhodes into participating had been a monumental task in itself. At first he flat refused to even go along.

     “You can make a fool out of yourself without my help. I have to sit in a car with you, but that doesn’t mean  I have to look stupid in an ugly red suit.”

     In the end, though, he relented, after two hours of negotiation.

     It cost Scott two
MREs per week for three months, his agreeing to stop wearing Aqua Velva Blue, and Scott’s personal appeal to the other members of Charlie Squad to stop super gluing Randy’s locker shut.

     “And I refuse to wish anyone a Merry Christmas, under any circumstances.”

     He was adamant about the last part, but he did anyway. Wish people Merry Christmas, that is. Even a Grinch like Randy Rhodes gets caught up in the Christmas spirit after awhile.

     When a little girl of five hugged Randy’s leg and said “I love you, Santa
,” Scott even thought he saw the hint of a tear in Randy’s eye.

     He decided to keep that little gem to himself. Nobody would have believed him anyway.

     At the end of the day, after all the hugs had been given and the presents passed out, Scott drove Randy to his apartment to drop him off.

     “Thanks for talking me into this, Scott. It was actually kind of fun.”

     “I’m glad you enjoyed it. I was hoping you would. And you’re welcome.”

     Randy started to say something else, then seemed to think better of it. He opened the car door.

     “Hey, Randy…”

     “Yes?”

     “A couple of the guys are getting together tonight to play poker and do a little drinking. Would you like to join us?”

     “I don’t know how to play poker.”

     Scott suddenly felt a tinge of sadness for Randy. It occurred to him for the first time that Randy’s attitude and laziness had surely driven away others for a very long time. And that perhaps Randy had no close friends or social contact outside the job.

     “Oh, it’s easy. Even Robbie knows how to play, and he’s an idiot. I’ll tell you what. I’ll sit out for a few hands and sit behind you to coach you until you get the hang of it.”

     “Are you sure you don’t just want me to come so you can beat me out of my money?”

     “What money? We play for pennies and nickels, just to keep it interesting. And money has no value anymore anyway, so we might as well be playing for nails and toothpicks.”

     Randy put one foot outside the door, then hesitated. He seemed to be struggling with a mighty decision.

     Scott was patient, never saying a word. After a full minute, Randy put his foot back into the car and closed the door.

     Of all the gifts Scott passed out that day, the one that seemed to matter the most was when he gave Randy Rhodes back his dignity.

-32-

     On the first Tuesday after Christmas, San Antonio had a major windstorm. In previous years it would have created chaos by blowing trees over onto power lines and shorting them out. It would have left thousands without power.

     In a city already without power, the storm damage wasn’t as deeply felt.

     But to some neighborhoods, which hasn’t yet finished bringing in their crops of wheat and corn, it created a different kind of problem.

     Scott turned onto
Misty Plain Drive, the street which recently lost all of its men to the ravages of the plague.

     He’d been coming by here a lot lately, a few hours here and a few hours there, to help the women and little Billy wander up and down their rows of wheat, harvesting it a little at a time.

     It had been a slow and disheartening process, made harder by the fact that the women were elderly and had to stop for frequent breaks. And that little Billy was easily bored and frequently ran off in search of other pursuits.

    
What caught Scott’s eye and broke his heart as he turned the corner onto the street was the sight of both of the women, standing at the curb and forlornly looking at what was left of their wheat crop.

     The wind had taken its toll. The wheat had ripened long before, and the stalks laid limp and dried out. It didn’t take much wind to shake the stalks and free the wheat kernels to fall to the ground.

     Their efforts to that point, all the hours they’d spent harvesting, had cleared only a third of their crop.

     From the looks of it, the wind had destroyed another third.

     Scott parked the cruiser and tried his best to console them.

     “Look, with the men in the hospital for the next few weeks, you won’t need as much. You should still have plenty to get you through until the next crop comes in. But if you run short, I will make you a solemn promise, with God as my witness, that I will not let you go hungry. Okay?”

     The women looked at him. One of them said, “God bless you, sir. But you’ve done so much for us already, with your hard work, and the coat and toys for Billy…”

     “Nonsense. The way to survive this ordeal is to all work together. And we’ve still got a lot more to do. Let’s see if we can get the rest of the crop in before the weather turns bad again.”

     Scott grabbed the cardboard box he’d been using off and on over the previous few weeks, and started work.

     Randy, as usual, turned and went to the car to take a nap and ignore the work that was going on outside.

     But then the most curious thing happened.

     Scott heard Randy start the engine of the squad car. He wasn’t too surprised, though. It was a chilly day, after all, and Randy liked to be warm when he napped. He didn’t mind wasting gas to run the heater to make him
self that way.

     What did surprise Scott was when Randy put the car into gear and drove away, without telling Scott or anyone else where he was going and why.

     Scott was left without a radio and a vehicle, and only hoped that wherever Randy went, he came back before they got their next call.

     Then he wondered if he could legally arrest a paramedic for stealing a police car.

     He needn’t have worried. Randy was back within twenty minutes, with two twenty-something men from a couple of blocks over.

     The two stepped out of the back of the squad car, picked up empty cardboard boxes, and each took a row of wheat. As Scott had shown them weeks before, they plucked off a handful of stalks, then beat them against the inside of the box until the wheat kernels fell out into the box. Then they discarded the empty husks and repeated the process.

     Scott asked no questions, but he appreciated the help the men were offering.

     He got a much bigger surprise when he saw Randy pick up his own box and start down his own aisle. Scott was floored, thought for a moment he was hallucinating, but again said nothing.

-33
-

     After an hour the crew took a break and the women went into the house to boil some water and make them some tea.

     Randy walked over to the squad car to retrieve his cigarettes, and one of the men asked Scott if Randy could be trusted to keep his word.

     “I believe so. He’s not the nicest guy in the world, but as far as I know he’s never lied to me. What did he promise you?”

     “He said if we helped bring in the crop for these women, he’d bring us each an MRE every week for three months.

     “That ain’t much work, and to be honest it’s kind of boring over at our place. We’ve already brought in our own crops, and with the weather turning cold there’s not much to do. Shoot, I’d have come over and worked for free just to have something to do if he’d asked. But the MREs are a nice incentive.”

     Then it all made sense. Randy Rhodes had a heart after all. It probably wasn’t a very big one, since it obviously rarely got any exercise. But it was there.

     The taller of the men reached over to shake Scott’s hand.

     “I’m John Kolinec
. This is my brother David. The women were telling us they’ve lost their men to the plague.”

     “Yes. They’re still alive, and at
St. Mary’s in quarantine. Hopefully they’ll survive.”

     “I wish we’d known. We’d have come over on our own to help. Now that we’re aware of their situation, I’ll have our wives come over every couple of days to check up on them. We were lucky in that we got a great crop of corn as well as wheat. We’ll share what we have with them if they run short.”