The Liddy Scenario (6 page)

They settled in early after their supper, tired from the day anyway, but exhausted from the hard ride away from danger they had taken.

The next morning, as he changed the dressing on Ranger’s arm, Brody saw Julie Anne acting hesitantly as they got ready to leave. “You want me to go with you to the EOC this morning?”

Eagerly she asked, “Would you?”

“Sure.” Brody looked over at Ranger. “You in?”

Ranger nodded. “Just a scratch. I’m good to go. Strength in numbers.” He looked at Julie Anne. “I don’t suppose you’d want to carry a piece, just in case?”

“A piece?” she asked quizzically, and then, when it dawned on her what he meant, she shook her head. “No. Positively not. Handguns are against the law in this city. I’m certainly not going to turn you in, but I don’t want any part of it.”

Ranger nodded and didn’t press the matter, which surprised Brody. “Well, if everyone has everything they need, I guess we should be off, if we’re going to do this.”

Julie Anne let the two men go first to check the area around the apartment building entrance. No, she didn’t want a gun, but she did admit to herself that there was more than a little comfort in knowing that someone had one, and was on her side.

Brody motioned to her and she joined them on the street. As they rode at an easy, steady pace toward the EOC in City Hall, all three began to feel a bit eerie. There was almost no activity or noise to be seen or heard. They saw two dead bodies on the way, but didn’t approach them. Brody made a note of where they were so they could be picked up and dealt with.

Brody and Ranger waited outside the building, talking quietly about future plans, while Julie Anne went inside. She wasn’t there very long. It wasn’t a particularly happy smile, but she was smiling slightly. “They agreed to keep taking bodies to the cemetery and burying them in the trenches. Dr. Crane, the coroner, said without a huge amount of diesel we’d never be able to burn the bodies. It is harder to do than I knew.”

Her smile faded. “But they won’t allocate any more manpower or equipment.”

“Well, that’s just great!” Ranger said, his anger obvious. “What do they expect? For the dead to get up and walk there on their own?”

Julie Anne kept her composures at Ranger’s outburst. “No. No. I got them to agree to fill the cemetery diesel tank, and offered the use of Brody’s truck and you two to take the reports that come in to the EOC. We’d get the bodies ourselves.”

“We?” asked Ranger, a bit more calmly.

“I thought… I can’t handle the bodies… But I can drive.” Julie Anne’s response was soft, and both men could tell it was costing her. “I should do more than just sit around.”

“You’ll still need to wear PPE,” Brody said.

Julie Anne held up the bag she’d carried out of the building. “I have what I need. We can get another box of filters, but that’s about it.”

“Ranger,” Brody said, “It’s up to you. I’m willing. But this is far more than I asked you to do.”

“What the hey?” Ranger said after a few seconds. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

“Thank you,” Julie Anne said. “Both of you.”

“Let’s get this dog and pony show on the road,” Ranger said, straddling his bike. Brody took the bag from Julie Anne and put it on the rack on the rear of his bike and strapped it down. The three started pedaling to-ward the cemetery.

The fuel truck was already there, filling the fuel tank. All three noted the pistol belt around the driver’s waist and the grip of the pistol in the hol-ster. Julie Anne stared at it for a moment, but said nothing.

“Sign off on this,” the fuel truck driver said as soon as the tank was full. “I want out of here. Crimeny. A delivery in a cemetery. Don’t seem right. It is spooky.”

Julie Anne signed the delivery receipt and handed the clipboard back to the driver. He tore out the yellow copy of the form and handed it to Julie Anne. “Good-bye and good luck. I am so out of here!”

Placing the receipt in her hip pocket, Julie Anne took out a relatively short list. “These are the reports the EOC got in during the night. The two bodies we found were already on it.”

“I’ll get the truck out, Brody said. Ranger and Julie Anne stood silently as Brody went into the garage and opened the garage door, and then drove the truck outside. Ranger went in and closed the door as Brody stopped the truck and got out.

All three put on their PPE, leaving off the respirators. “How do you stand this, in this heat?” Julie Anne asked, beads of sweat popping out on her forehead as soon as she zipped up the Tyvek coverall.

“Goes with the territory. Expect to lose weight,” Ranger said.

“At least something good will come of it,” Julie Anne said.

“You don’t need to lose any, and there is a lot of other good coming out of this,” Ranger said gruffly and moved over to the truck. He got in the cab and slid over to the middle of the seat.

Julie Anne’s eyes widened in surprise and she looked over at Brody. “He’s a surprise a minute,” Brody said.

“I guess,” Julie Anne said, walking over to the truck, trying to get adjusted to the over boots she was wearing over her athletic shoes she been using since she got the bike.

Neither man said anything at the initial awkward moments as she drove the truck away from the garage in spits and spurts. She turned red and kept her eyes straight ahead until she managed to get the feel of the boots and driving the truck in them.

It was a horrendous day for the three. Their first stop was to pick up charred bodies that others had tried to burn with some of the diesel and failed. After almost throwing up into her respirator at the first body, Brody and Ranger insisted she stay in the truck while they handled the bodies. They appreciated her effort, but they needed her in condition to drive.

All the past efforts had been to handle the bodies as respectfully as possible, never putting one on top of another, but that went by the wayside. Brody and Ranger had to stack the bodies like cordwood in the bed of the pickup, and then again in the slit trench to minimize the amount of dirt work they would have to do with the equipment.

Julie Anne had brought, along with her PPE, ID tags and personal effects bags with her. Brody and Ranger quit trying to check the bodies where they found them. The few people that were about nearly went ballistic when they saw Brody and Ranger going through the clothes of the bodies, looking for ID.

Brody had Julie Anne write down the description he gave her of each body and the location found. The bodies were searched at the cemetery, and ID’s found, where they existed, and personal effects were bagged and tagged before the bodies were put in the trench.

Many of the bodies had already been disturbed, some with indications they’d been searched and valuables taken. Some had suffered depredation from the many feral animals that were roaming the streets of the city. Some were in their homes or apartments. Many, like the two the team had seen that morning, lay abandoned on the street, placed there by people fearful of disease.

None of the three could stomach a lunch, though they went through the rest of the bottled water Julie Anne had provided. They finished picking up each body on the list that Julie Anne had been given, but it was al-ready late in the day and none of the three were up to going back to the EOC and to get another list. The bodies they’d recovered were covered, filling the trench they’d been using. Brody drove Julie Anne and Ranger back to the apartment.

Brody insisted they all eat something, though, like the other two, he didn’t eat much. But they consumed several bottles of water between them.

“Time to get more water,” Brody said, surveying his remaining supply. “Before we go traipsing out at night, let’s try the boiler and hot water heater in the basement.”

“Is that water safe?” Julie Anne asked. She’d started to protest on other grounds, but decided they really did have to find some water.

“Should be, anyway, but we’ll filter it all, just in case,” Ranger said. He pointed at the stainless steel appliance on Brody’s kitchen counter. “That’s a Crown Berkey purifier. We just pour the water we recover into the top, and draw off the filtered water at the bottom.”

“Nice,” Julie Anne said. “I use a Brita pitcher to get the bad taste out of the water. I guess that’s just a big version.”

“Little more process than a Brita,” Brody said, “but yes, essentially the same thing. A Brita would probably work for the water we’re going after tonight, but I’d be leery of it for water from the lakes, ponds, and the river. We may have to resort to that pretty soon.”

As they made their way down to the basement, carrying several of Bro-dy’s now empty water containers, Julie Anne asked, “What about the other tenants. Won’t they need some of this water?”

“First come, first served,” Ranger said. “If there were babies… or pregnant women… I might try to see that they get some. But people are responsible for themselves. It’s not up to me to provide for all their needs because of their shortsightedness.”

“I see,” was all Julie Anne said, and let the subject drop.

Brody set down the two five-gallon containers he was carrying and pulled out his keys when they got to the basement access door.

“You have keys for the basement in your apartment building?” Julie Anne asked.

“Uh… Unofficially,” Brody said. “This basement will provide good shelter space in case of a nuclear attack. I want to be able to get into it easily. I kind of borrowed the super’s keys once and had a key made for me.”

“Oh, Brody!” Julie Anne said. “How do you two manage to stay out of jail?”

“Practice,” Ranger said, grinning.

“A lot of it, I bet,” Julie Anne replied, a small smile curving her lips.

“Okay,” Brody said when he had the door open. “Over this way.”

Brody knew his way around the basement, and all three of them had brought flashlights, so it didn’t take long to fill the containers. Julie Anne couldn’t quite handle one of them full, so she held the flashlight as Brody and Ranger carried theirs upstairs and then for Ranger when he went down for the other two. Brody was pouring water from one of the containers into the top of the Crown Berkey when they returned.

With clean drinking water, and plenty of water to bathe with, Julie Anne didn’t object when Brody offered her a hot shower instead of a sponge bath. He heated water on the camp stove and filled a sun shower bag with the water and showed her how to use it in the tub in the bathroom.

All three took advantage of the sun shower and then Brody and Ranger went back to the basement to refill the containers while Julie Anne pre-pared a simple meal for them all.

They listened to Brody’s battery radio that evening before they went to bed. The news wasn’t good. Even in the Midwest, where there had been few attacks, things were getting very bad. Julie Anne, Brody, and Ranger could attest to that.

There was tremendous loss of life, again for the same reasons the three were seeing in their city. The heat and resulting dehydration due to lack of water, lack of medical care and sanitation, even starvation as the situation continued. Violence was rampant as those most desperate made every effort they could to provide for their families, on top of the ordi-nary crime that was a part of life in modern society.

Julie Anne went to bed, a very thoughtful look on her face.

The next five days went much as that first one. The heat wave still had not broken and even young, normally healthy individuals were succumbing to it, lacking adequate water. When they stopped at the City Hall on that sixth day, Julie was about to enter the building when shots rang out inside.

Startled, Julie Anne just stood there until Brody ran up the stairs and grabbed her. “Come on! Let’s get out of here!”

“But…” Julie Anne tried to protest, but one of the front windows was smashed from a bullet coming from inside the building. It had been aimed at her. She joined Brody and Ranger in the truck and Brody sped away.

“What is going on?” Julie Anne asked.

“I don’t know, but I think the city government is no more,” Ranger said. “Anarchy reigns for the moment. Brody! Look out!”

Two men, armed with rifles or shotguns, stepped out into the street from behind vehicles. Brody, with nowhere to go, floored the accelerator. One of the men got off a wild shot before the right front fender knocked him flying. The other man had jumped back in time and began firing at them as Brody made the first turn he could.

All three of them on alert, Brody took a roundabout route back to the apartment building. When they were all in the apartment, Brody turned to look at Julie Anne and said, “Okay. Things are out of hand. I’m not risking my life or Ranger’s out in that anarchy. It’s time to bug-out. We have a place to go. You’re welcome to go with us.”

Julie Anne’s habit of biting her lip when in difficult thought showed it-self again. “I… I… I so want to help in the city…” She took a deep breath, released it, and then continued. “But I think you are right. Until authority is reestablished in the city, it’s not going to be safe on the streets. Is there any way we can stay and try to help in the recovery, when it happens?”

Ranger was shaking his head. “Not during this phase of the collapse. A lot of people are going to have to kill each other off before a recovery can take place. Until then it’s better to crawl in a hole with supplies, and pull the entrance in behind you.”