When A Plan Comes Together Read online

  “But he’s only fourteen!” lamented Kathy.

  “Almost fifteen, Mom,” Rex said.

  “Still… Why can’t we just wait for more information and for the police to come around? They always drive by here once or twice a day.”

  “They’re going to have their hands full, Mom. This kind of thing is probably going on all over the city.”

  “Oh, don’t say that, Rex!” Kathy said softly. “Surely this was an isolated situation.”

  “Mom, what happened occurred in the heart of middle class suburbia,” Rex said. “If it happened here, it’s happening everywhere.”

  “All the more reason for you not to go,” Kathy replied quickly.

  Rex had his reply ready. “But it’s going to get worse. Better to get done what needs to be done now, before it does get worse.”

  Roxie and Rex could tell Kathy was wavering. “I’ll take one of Dad’s radios and check in regularly so you won’t worry.”

  “You should take a gun, too,” Roxie said.

  “No!” Kathy said again, forcefully. “You don’t know anything about guns! You’d be more likely to shoot yourself than protect yourself with one.”

  Rex sounded hurt when he responded. “Give me some credit, Mom. I wouldn’t take something I didn’t know how to use. Dad trained me on his guns. I know how to use them safely…and effectively.”

  Kathy knew Jay had taken the children target shooting occasionally over the past few years. She’d been asked to go along, but had always declined. She didn’t even know how many or what kind of guns Jay had.

  She felt bad about just leaving Mrs. MacGrady and Mr. Humphrey where they were, and letting the two men with shotguns get away. Very reluctantly she nodded. “Okay, Rex. You can go. But you have to promise me you’ll be extra careful and come back immediately if you run into trouble.”

  “I will, Mom. I promise.”

  “Go get the radios and the gun you plan on taking, before I change my mind.”

  Rex hopped up and ran for the basement steps. He was back a few minutes later. And, in truth, Kathy was about to change her mind. But when she saw Rex and the determination on his face, she decided she needed to let him do this. He was feeling the pressure to be the man of the house and, like her, needed to be doing something.

  He certainly looked capable of carrying out the mission he’d set for himself. He had a small backpack, his bike helmet, and there, around his waist, a belt hung with a holstered gun, and several pouches containing what, she had no idea.

  He handed his mother one of the radios. Rex didn’t deny Kathy the motherly hug she gave him before he went to the garage to get his bike out.

  Roxie hugged him too and whispered, “Be careful, huh? I don’t want to lose you.”

  “I will, Sis,” Rex whispered back. “And thanks for helping.”

  “Sure. Don’t expect it again.”

  Rex smiled and went into the garage. He checked his bike in the light from the crank-up flashlight and then opened the security shutter over the personnel door outside and took the bike through. He closed the door. The shutter door was already closing. Either Kathy, or more likely, Roxie, was closing it from inside.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After surveying the street for dangers, Rex got on the bike and pedaled away. He swerved toward the dogs sniffing around Mr. Humphrey and chased them off. He did the same for the animals around Mrs. MacGrady, swallowing the bile that tried to rise in his throat at the sight of all the blood.

  He rode past the two abandoned vehicles, with their doors open and boxes and bundles strewn about that hadn’t fit into the minivan and trailer. Rex noted the splatters of blood here and there. “Good for you, Mr. Humphrey,” Rex said softly. Apparently he had managed to hit one of the shotgun wielders with a shot from his pistol.

  There were people out and about, here and there, as Rex made his way in the most direct path to the police station. It was a good twenty minute ride normally. With trying to keep his head on a swivel, and avoiding anything that looked the least bit dangerous, it took Rex a full thirty minutes to get to the station.

  He’d been right. The incident on his street wasn’t the only one. He saw other signs of battles. He’d talked to his mother twice, checking in with her every ten minutes or so. Seeing the looks of some of the people standing around the entrance to the police station, Rex carefully locked up his bike before he went inside.

  “Hey! You can’t bring a gun in here!” said someone from behind him.

  “You gonna stop him, Sport?” came another voice. “Everybody and his brother with a gun is carrying it now.”

  “I need to report a gun battle on Silver Street,” Rex said, ignoring the conversation going on behind him.

  “How old are you, boy?” asked the Sergeant behind the information desk. “Is that gun registered? Where you involved in the gun battle?”

  “No. I’m a witness. It’s my Dad’s gun. He’s out of town and I’m trying to protect my mother and my sister. I’ve had handgun training. At the range.”

  “If you weren’t involved in the gunfight, what are you doing here?” There was an altercation down the hall, further inside the station.

  “There are two dead people. Both shot by two guys that jacked the minivan from the woman. The names are…”

  “Don’t know, don’t care, at the moment,” the Sergeant said. “I’ve got problems with the living.”

  “But we can’t just leave the bodies out on the street,” Rex protested.

  “Put them in a car. It won’t be going anywhere. “Or back in their house. Do whatever you want. Just don’t cause any problems.”

  The altercation got louder and there was a gunshot from deep in the station. The Sergeant stood and ran that way. Rex shook his head and went outside. “Hey!” he yelled when he saw someone trying to get the lock off his bike. “That’s my bike!”

  “Oh, yeah! Not if I can get it loose, it ain’t.” Suddenly there was a knife in the man’s hand and he continued. “So you just give me the combination to this lock and I’ll be on my way.”

  Without thinking about it, Rex’s right hand was on the grips of the pistol in his holster. “I don’t think so.”

  The man finally saw the gun, still holstered, and backed away, hands up at chest height, the knife still in one. “No problem here. It’s all yours. He finally turned and ran off.

  “Why didn’t one of you try to stop him?” Rex asked, barely keeping his anger in check. There were fully fifteen or more people standing around.

  “He’s a mean one. He’d of cut you with that knife of his if you didn’t have a gun,” someone said.

  Another added, “Ain’t none of my business. Things have changed. It’s every man for himself now. No rules.”

  “Just the rule of the gun,” said another. “You any good with that gun of yours?”

  “Good enough,” Rex said carefully as he unlocked the bike from the post it was locked to. “Does anyone know anything about what’s going on?” he asked when he was astride the bike, prepared to take off if the slowly encroaching group made a move for him. “We saw the announcement about the Commies threatening to use an EMP device and then the lights and TV went dead. Anyone know anything else?”

  “That’s why I’m here. Cops aren’t talking.” This came from a man standing off a ways from the others. “Don’t know if they don’t know, or just aren’t telling. You’d better go, buddy, before this group becomes a mob.”

  “Thanks,” Rex said and stepped down hard on the left pedal of the bike. As he rode away the group shifted to where he’d been, almost as if they were filling up the vacuum his departure created.

  Keying the mike on the radio held up to his lips, Rex told his mother he was on the way back and the information he’d picked up. Essentially none, except people were already acting like there was no law any more.

  “Be careful, Rex. Just get back here in one piece. I love you, son.”

  “I love you, too, Mom.” Rex was
keeping his speed up, wanting to get home before something else happened. Twice he was chased by people apparently wanting his bike, and probably the gun, too.

  Rex was enveloped in a hug from his mother, and then one from Roxie, when he got home and had the bike in the garage.

  “Sorry I didn’t find out any more. I think the safest course is to just keep trying the radio. Eventually someone will have some information.” He looked over at his mother. “What should we do about the bodies?”

  “The police really told you to just stash the bodies?” Roxie asked.

  “Yeah. There was a shooting inside the police station while I was there. I think they have their hands full with things right there at the station. There was a group out front, slowly turning into a mob, I think.”

  Kathy paled. “But you’re all right? Didn’t have any problems?”

  Rex knew better than to try to lie to his mother. She could read him like a book. “Well,” he said slowly, “I had to put my hand on my pistol once, when someone was trying to get the bike unlocked. And I got chased a couple of times by people wanting the bike.”

  “Oh, Rex!” exclaimed Kathy.

  “If I hadn’t had the gun, the guy with the knife would have made me unlock the bike for him and I would have lost it.”

  “A knife? He had a knife? You didn’t say he had a knife!”

  “Nothing came of it, Mom, really. No problem. About the bodies, Mom? We have to do something. The dogs and cats are already sniffing around them.”

  Kathy and Roxie both looked a bit green around the gills. “I guess… he said put them in a car or their house?” Kathy asked.

  Rex nodded. With a sigh, Kathy said, “I guess we should do that, then, out of respect.”

  Reluctantly, Kathy and Roxie followed Rex outside. Rex still wore the gun belt. Kathy started to ask him to take it off, but saw people out in their yards. Several were armed, too. She decided to let Rex keep the gun handy until they were back inside. If Jay taught him how to use it, she could trust Rex to use it appropriately.

  It took all three of them to maneuver Mrs. MacGrady’s body into one of the abandoned cars that still stood with the doors open. They closed the doors after they had her on the back seat and went to get Mr. Humphrey.

  They decided to take Mr. Humphrey into his house. They didn’t want to put him in the truck, since the shotgun blasts that had killed him had also taken out a side window. All three were covered in blood by the time they got Mr. Humphrey on the sofa in the living room, and looked ill.

  “I think we can risk the PV system to get cleaned up,” Rex said, seeing the expressions on his mother’s and his sister’s faces as they looked at one another. “I’ll get it ready.”

  “Thank you, Rex,” Kathy said.

  “Yeah. Thanks, Brother.”

  With the PV system online in the bright sunlight, there was enough power to run the water pump, even with the batteries still uncharged. Rex went ahead and turned on the propane and lit the water heater, too, so the showers would be with warm water, rather than the cold water directly from the well. The solar preheater would have provided a couple of really short showers, but all three wanted long, hot showers to get the blood off.

  They kept the power on long enough to do a load of laundry. The bloody clothes were laundered, and then Rex, with Roxie’s help, set up the clothes line they kept stored in the yard shed and normally put up just for spring cleaning.

  Bathed, with the laundry flapping in the slight breeze, the three went back inside the house. Picking up one of the windup radio flashlight combos, Rex said, “I’ll leave the electrical system on to go ahead and charge the batteries so we’ll have some electricity for tonight. I’m going to sit outside and listen on the radio for more information. Don’t get good reception in here, especially with the shutters closed.”

  “Be careful and keep an eye out,” Kathy told him. “Call us if you get something.”

  “Okay, Mom.”

  Kathy started to say something when Rex picked up and put on the gun belt he’d hung up in the entry closet when he went to take his shower. Remembering what had happened that she’d seen and what Rex had told her, she stayed silent. He seemed comfortable with having the gun.

  Roxie was still in her room. Kathy sat down at the kitchen table with the binders before her. The light over the table was one of those on the emergency circuits, so she had light to read by. Opening the first binder, Kathy began to read through it slowly and thoroughly. She didn’t hear Roxie come from her bedroom, still brushing dry her long red hair, and into the kitchen. Seeing the various emotions flashing across her mother’s face, Roxie put down the hair brush and put on a tea kettle of water for her mother’s favorite tea.

  When the water was ready, Roxie added a tea bag to the tea pot, and carried it and a cup to the kitchen.

  “Oh! Thank you!” Kathy said when Roxie set the two items down on the table.

  “Mom… Do you think Dad is okay?”

  “I don’t know, honey. Where he is… As far as we know there was no attack there. He should be fine. I expect he’s on his way home right this minute.”

  “I hope so,” Roxie replied. She went back to the kitchen and fixed herself a hot chocolate. She carried it outside to sit beside Rex on the front porch steps. “You want a sip?” she asked.

  “No, thanks, Sis.”

  Roxie nodded and took a sip herself and then asked, “Any luck?”

  “There are a few stations on, but none locally. Of course this windup radio isn’t the best. But if there are any local stations, I should be able to get them with it. I’m tempted to get one of the Amateur radios out of the shelter, but I’m afraid of more EMP. It’s almost on the hour. I’m going to try the Weather Radio Channel for this area. They’re supposed to disseminate the official word, if there is one, in national emergencies.”

  Rex fiddled with the radio for a moment, and finally got a buzz. A bit more tuning and he was locked on the Weather Radio frequency active in the area. Sure enough, right on the hour the voice of the announcer came out of the speaker.

  This is an official US Government announcement. All military and reserves are to report to the military base nearest their current location whether it is the same branch of service or not. Use any form of transportation you can arrange.

  All those listening to this broadcast please inform anyone within your sphere of influence that doesn’t have a radio capable of picking these transmissions up of this announcement and that subsequent announcements will come on the hour.

  Other than military personnel, everyone should remain where they are until further announcement. Cooperate with one another and help those that can’t help themselves. Follow your local authorities’ instructions.

  There will be a repeat of this announcement in fifty-five minutes.

  He continued with a brief forecast of the weather and then the signal went dead. “Let’s tell Mom. She’ll want to listen to the next one herself, I’m sure,” Rex said.

  Kathy was a bit put out they hadn’t called her outside for the broadcast, but understood that it was short, and over before either thought of it.

  All three listened to the next several broadcasts. There was no real news. Just the reiterated requests for people to stay home, help others, and follow orders of local authorities.

  As the sun started to go down, Rex shut down the PV system and isolated the panels from the controllers and battery banks. They’d still have power, but it would be drawing down the batteries.

  When asked by his mother, Rex checked all the blackout curtains again. She’d just read that Jay considered keeping their preps a closely held secret, and that included not letting anyone know they had power by seeing unexpected light from a window.

  “Roxie, get some of the candles out and have them ready… You know… Just in case…”

  “Okay, Mom,” replied Roxie, and went out to the garage to look for the tote that held backup lighting supplies. She grabbed several candles
and holders, and a couple of small boxes of strike anywhere matches.

  It was rather eerie as the light faded while the family sat outside to listen to yet another word for word announcement. Normally the area street lights would be on, and there would be light pouring from just about every window in the houses along the quiet residential street.

  Now, only the occasional window showed light, and several of those had the flickering effect of candle light. Rex, upon thinking about it, decided that the bright, steady light was probably from camp lanterns, and the steady, softer light was produced by flashlights.