Breakout (Final Dawn) Read online

  “Can I have everyone’s attention, just for a couple of minutes? I know everybody is anxious to finish unpacking and getting settled in. I’ll keep it short. But I understand that some of you who no longer have chores are looking forward to getting some.”

  “I’m going to make some notes on the whiteboard behind you. Basically, we’re looking for two people to help Karen in the greenhouses. As you know, there are two of them and they’re pretty good sized. Karen used to grow just enough plants in her tiny greenhouse to keep her seeds fresh from year to year. She was able to do that by working only a couple of hours a day. Now she’s going to be growing a good portion of our food supply, and she’s going to need two full time helpers. I’ll make a request for two greenhouse workers on the white board. Please think it over, and if it’s something you’d like to do, please write your name down.”

  “We’re also going to need farm hands. In the back of the feed barn, before the meteorite hit, we stashed two fifty pounds sacks of corn, one fifty pound sack of raw sorghum, and one fifty pound sack of wheat kernels. We don’t know if the seeds are any good after all this time, but since they were in the shade even when the temperatures went above freezing, we’re hoping the cold helped them survive.

  “In any event, we’re going to plant them once we hit twenty straight days above fifty degrees and hope for the best.

  “If they don’t grow, all is not lost. We’ll still plant the seeds that Karen produced in her greenhouse last year. But if Karen’s seeds are the only ones that grow, we’ll have to save her entire yield so we can plant a much larger crop next year. Either way, there will be a lot of work to do in the fields the next few months. So we’ll need three bodies for that. Again, I’ll make a note on the white board that we’re looking for three farm hands. If you’re interested, please write your name up there.

  “The only other thing I have for you is a request. We’re pretty sure that Brad and Bryan made all the repairs to the apartments over the past couple of weeks. But in case they missed anything, please let us know so we can make repairs quickly. We want to stay on top of things like leaky faucets and electrical issues so that little problems don’t turn into bigger ones.

  “Does anyone else have anything to share with the group?”

  No one did.

  “Okay. Thanks for your attention. Have a great day.”

  Chapter 4

  Mark had breakfast and then walked back over to the security station to talk to John again.

  John was still watching the monitors, while at the same time setting up a new ham radio.

  “I’m going to start scanning the airwaves while I’m sitting here. See how many people are left alive out there. I might be able to get a reading on what life is like in San Antonio and San Angelo. Find out if the survivors are friendly or hostile.”

  “It seems I read somewhere that it’s possible to determine somebody’s location by listening to their radio waves. Is that true?”

  “Triangulation. It’s a lost art. Back during World War Two that’s how they got a fix on enemy ships and troop concentrations. But it’s not that easy. It requires three radios, working in concert with each other. Each radio determines which direction a transmission is coming from and the approximate distance, based on the signal’s strength. All three of them do that, and the point at which the three estimations line up, that’s the general area where the transmission is coming from.”

  “How accurate is it?”

  “Oh, it’ll get you in the ballpark, but you still have to do some searching to find the exact spot. And in any event, that’s not something we should have to worry about.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, for one thing, we won’t be transmitting. At least not often. For someone to track us, we’d have to be putting out a prolonged signal. We’ll be listening ninety nine percent of the time, just monitoring the transmissions of others to try to get a feel for what’s going on out there. At least until we’re sure it’s friendly.

  “If we do talk, it’ll be in occasional short bursts, just to ask a question or make a brief comment. But we won’t be on long enough for anybody to get a fix on us.

  “And besides, nobody will have any reason to think we’ve got anything they want. We’ll never mention that we have livestock, or crops, or anything else that might attract the wrong kind of attention. As far as anyone else is concerned, we’ll be just another Joe Schmo with a ham radio in his garage, trying to make new friends. Even if they did have the capability to track us, they’d have no reason to.

  “We’re going to log all the intel we get from the ham radio into a special log book. It’ll be here on the desk any time you guys, or anybody else, want to take a look at it. Over the course of a few weeks, or months, it should give us a pretty good idea of what it’s like out there, both locally and around the rest of the world too.

  “It should make for some interesting reading. What’s on your agenda for today?”

  “That’s why I came to talk to you, John. Bryan and I want to go outside the compound. I want to know how big of a problem that’s going to be, security wise.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be too big a problem. I still haven’t seen any signs of life out there. Why are you going out?”

  Mark pointed to one of the monitors, on the outside corner of the compound.

  “See how the perimeter fence is surrounded by two hundred feet of white gravel?”

  “Yes, I noticed that. It reminds me of a prison.”

  “Well, it’s sort of the same concept, in reverse. At a prison they make it that way so they can easily see people sneaking out. Here, we want to easily see people trying to sneak in. But it’s the same idea, really.

  “The problem is, see how weeds and shrubs have sprung up in the area over the time we were in the mine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, they’re not bad yet, because there haven’t been that many warm days for them to grow over the last couple of years. But we want to get a handle on it before it gets out of hand. We stocked some herbicide in barn number two, mostly for the crops. But we’re going to spray all the weeds before they grow even larger. We don’t want them to get so big that a man can hide behind them.”

  “How long do you figure it’ll take?”

  “I don’t know. A couple of hours, I’m guessing. And we’ll probably have to do it two or three times a season, from now on.”

  “No problem. Brad’s a good shot. We’ll position him in the hunting blinds on the roof. He’ll be able to provide cover for you no matter which side of the compound you’re on. Put fresh batteries in your radios and keep them on channel five. We’ll keep a close watch on the monitors, and if we see anything worrisome you can scramble back in. I’ll find another volunteer to man the gate, so they can let you in quickly. What time are you going out?”

  “As soon as you can get everything set up.”

  “Okay. Give me an hour.”

  “Good morning, you sexy man, you.”

  The men turned around to see Hannah standing there, with Markie by her side.

  John couldn’t resist the temptation. He said, “Well, thank you for the compliment, Sweetheart. You’re not so bad yourself.”

  He winked at her and she laughed.

  She looked at Mark and asked if he had breakfast yet.

  “Yep. Now I’m off to the races. Got lots to do today.”

  “Well, can I at least have a kiss first?”

  He took her aside and gave her one.

  “More of those later if you want. Right now I hear weeds calling my name. Enjoy your breakfast. I love you.”

  She knew him well enough not to ask about the weeds. “I love you too, honey.”

  He tussled little Markie’s hair and said “Take good care of your mommy, son, and keep her away from that big bad wolf.”

  He pointed a thumb at John. Markie didn’t have a clue what his dad meant. But Hannah and John both laughed so Markie did too.

  And wit
h that, Mark was off for the first of several projects on his “to do” list for the day.

  Chapter 5

  “Nope. This one’s dead too. Damnit!”

  Frank Woodard and Jesse Martinez had crawled into every car and truck on Buena Vista Drive in north San Antonio, trying to find one that would start after six and a half long years. But they were out of luck. Time had taken its toll on the batteries, and every single one of them was shot.

  They were hoping to find just one that still worked. If they’d found one, they could have used it to jump start the others, so they could determine which batteries could be tossed and which ones could still be used.

  But there was another way.

  Frank said, “My generator has battery terminals built into the side. We’ll have to lug it out here, but it should do the trick.”

  “Won’t Eva miss it while it’s gone?”

  “Hell, you know Eva. She’s a trooper, not a complainer. She volunteered to come out here and help us, remember?”

  “I know, Frank. Don’t be so damn touchy. I was just teasin’.”

  “Sorry. I expected to get several of these cars running by now. I’m just irritated, that’s all.

  “Oh, I forgot, have you checked on Joe yet today?”

  “Yeah, I was over there a little bit ago. He also wanted to come and help, but I told him to give that back of his another day or two. He’s no good to us with a bad back. Besides, he’s in so much pain it hurt me just to look at him.”

  “Well, it hurts me to look at you but I still do it.”

  “Ha, ha. Let’s go get your generator and get this done.”

  Jesse had two sons, eighteen and nineteen years old. Both of them were athletes before the meteorite hit the earth and turned the world cold for six and a half years. They weren’t in the best shape any more, though. None of them were, after having to minimize their food intake for all those years.

  But the sons were still the strongest men on the block, because of their youth.

  Normally, Jesse would have asked Bobby and Mike to lug the heavy generator out of Frank’s garage. But what they were doing was equally important. Maybe more so. So Jesse let them be, even as he and Frank struggled getting the generator from the garage to the street.

  “Damn, Frank. You should have bought a generator with wheels.”

  “Yeah. Well, I’ll try to remember that the next time I stroll into Walmart to order one. Let me know if you need to stop and rest, you big sissy, and we’ll put it down for a minute.”

  Jesse laughed. He couldn’t think of a suitable comeback, so he just let it go.

  Jesse and Frank were just casual friends when the disaster hit. But they’d been through a lot together in recent years. Gathering food, burying bodies, protecting the houses on their block from predators. They’d discovered a food distribution warehouse not far from the block that was somehow left unscathed when the rioting and pillaging took place, and made hundreds of trips there and back, lugging a few cases of food at a time to keep the families fed.

  Counting the two of them, there were only fourteen people alive on the block now. One couple came over to join them from the adjacent block. They were the only survivors, and were scared and vulnerable. So they were invited to move into one of the houses left vacant when many of the others evacuated the city. Evacuated the city headed for warmer climates and never were heard from again.

  Frank hoped that some of them made it, although he doubted so.

  News reports just before and after the meteorite hit told of traffic jams two hundred miles long on every highway headed out of the country. Mexico had closed its borders, because it couldn’t deal with its own people. Much less millions of refugees. Most of the refugees lived their last days in their cars because they had no place else to go.

  First they ran out of food and water. Then hope. Most ended their own lives, and would be entombed in their cars forever.

  Frank and Jesse’s plan was to remove most of the cars and park them on the adjacent block, where there were no survivors. Mainly just to get them out of the way. They’d keep a couple of them, though. They could use Jesse’s pickup, and another F-150 down the street, to make food runs at the Symco warehouse half a mile away. And the ones blocking the open end of their dead end street would remain in place, to let marauders know they weren’t welcome.

  But most of the cars were just taking up space. And they’d have to go.

  They got the generator to Frank’s Chevy Malibu, parked in front of his house. He remembered loving that car so much he’d spend hours polishing it on the weekends. Now it was just another piece of junk.

  They cranked the generator back up and used the jumper cables to connect it to the battery.

  “Let’s let it run for a few minutes and go check on the boys.”

  The pair walked three houses down, where Bobby and Mike were digging around the stump of a huge oak tree.

  The tree itself was laying in the street, having been felled with Tony Pena’s chain saw. As Jesse’s boys dug out the stump, Tony was busy cutting the tree into small pieces that could be used as fireplace logs. His wife Sally and son Mike were gathering the wood in two wheelbarrows, then stacking it on the front porches of every occupied house on the block. Since the power company had gone down, firewood was the only source of fuel for heating and cooking.

  Jesse asked, “How are you guys coming?”

  “Well, put it this way. I’m glad we started with the biggest tree first. After we finally get this sucker out of the ground, the rest should be a piece of cake.”

  “What’s your game plan?”

  “Well, it’s funny you should ask that, because we needed to talk to you about it anyway. We took a count, and there are three vehicles on the block that have trailer hitches. That red F-150, your truck, and an Explorer. We’d like for you to leave those three behind until last. Until we get all the trees off the block. We’re going to tie ropes from the stump to all three of the trailer hitches and pull them, all at the same time. We’re hoping that’s enough power to pull the stumps out of the ground and into the street.

  “Once we have all the stumps in the street, we’ll push them up against the curbs, so they’re more or less out of the way. And we’ll just leave them there for a few months, until we’ve had enough rainstorms to wash most of the dirt off the root systems. That way Tony can come back with his chain saw and cut them into pieces without the dirt gumming up his blade.

  “How’s the vehicle moving project coming?”

  “Well, not worth a damn, yet. But we’re getting ready to jump start the first one, and then the rest should be a piece of cake. We’ll have them all out of here by late this afternoon, except for the three you want to use.”

  “Are y’all still planning on making a supply run?”

  “Yes, but we’ll hold off until tomorrow. We weren’t expecting the cars to give us this much trouble, and we don’t want to head out so late that we’ll be caught after dark. Just because we haven’t heard any gunshots lately doesn’t mean there aren’t still marauders out there.”

  Tony took a break from cutting up the tree and walked up behind them.

  “Hey, Tony, how you doin’?”

  “Fine, Frank. You guys still going to Home Depot?”

  “Yes. We were just saying we’re heading that way in the morning, to stock up on rain gutters and garbage cans. And to see if they have any seeds, just in case the ones we got from Walmart don’t work. What do you need?”

  “A second chain saw. Mine’s still working fine, but Sally could run one too if we had a second one. And with twenty four trees to cut down and then cut into pieces, we’re likely to wear at least one of them out.”

  Bobby’s jaw dropped.

  “Twenty four trees? Hell, we haven’t even got the first one finished yet. Are you sure?”

  “Yep. I counted them this morning. Of course, that includes the ones in the back yards too. But I figure we might as well make use of the growing
space. Plant corn in the front yards, and wheat and other stuff in the back yards. The marauders are more likely to steal tomatoes and melons, I’m guessing, than they are to steal ears of corn. And if that stuff is in the back yards, it’ll be out of sight and easier to protect.

  “And speaking of wheat, Walmart didn’t have any wheat seeds, remember. But Home Depot carries it. Or at least they used to. Sally used to be on a kick where she grew her own grains, before the world went to shit. Would you look for wheat seeds specifically? It’ll make a great second subsistence crop.”

  “Sure, Tony. And by the way, whenever you guys get tired of digging and cutting up trees, say the word. We’ll swap off with you for awhile.”

  “Forget it, Frank. We don’t want you two old timers to have heart attacks on us. Just finish your own projects, and then you can sit in your rocking chairs and watch us young guys do the hard stuff.”

  Jesse laughed.

  “Well, hell, a rocking chair don’t do any good unless you have a shade tree to sit under. How about leaving us one tree to sit under while we watch you young bucks wear yourselves out? That way we can make fun of you when you fall to the ground with your tongues hanging out because it’s more work than you’re used to.”

  He turned to Frank and offered a high five.

  Frank took it and added, “Then us old timers can step in and finish the job for you and you can all say ‘Day-um! Those old guys got game!’”

  “Yeah, right, vato. We’ll see about that.”

  Jesse and Frank went back to the Malibu. Frank gave it some gas, crossed his fingers and turned the ignition. It fired right up, sputtered a bit, and then ran. A little rough, but not too bad after a six and a half year nap.

  “All right! Now we’re in business!”

  Chapter 6

  Marty Hankins and the others were sitting around a campfire in a field adjacent to the Trucker’s Paradise truck stop on I-10 in Junction. For several years they’d huddled together in an encampment made by a bunch of abandoned trailers backed together to form a protective barrier around them. The trailers had been full of food and supplies. Their camaraderie and mutual support had helped them through the hard times, and the hope of better things to come had kept them going.