Burn District 1 Page 9

  “You’ll never guess what I found in your father’s crap pile.” I shook my head.

  “Not a clue.”

  “A commode. I’ll clean it up and bring it inside for Chris.” It was not funny because I knew my daughter would be the person having to empty it, but I smiled. I could hear the sound of a car in the driveway, and my dad stepped out to meet it before it got too close. I saw him talking to the driver, nodding his head. As the car backed up, he waved and waited to return to us until it was on the road again.

  “Evidently, the crops are fair game. I don’t care to go, but if you think we should, I will,” he said to me. But I shook my head; all they had across the street was lettuce, acre after acre. “We need canned goods, meat and stuff that will last, like flour and corn meal. Or root vegetables and potatoes.” My dad took me by my arm and lead me away from the others.

  “Later, you and Kelly and I will go into town and join the looters,” he said. “There’s a small grocery store going into Welton we can check out, too.

  ***

  Carol made dinner as I hoped. Ned and Mike Junior were exhausted from working; they’d both proved to be team players, choosing reclaimed fence boards to replace the rotten ones Steve tore out as they went along. Randy told me how proud he was of them, Ned functioning beyond his eight years, Junior leading him patiently. I hoped my son would find something he enjoyed doing that would help him become useful. I didn’t know what my future would be, but I knew it probably meant dying before Mike Junior. The thought of him being left behind frightened me, especially now that alternative care for him was non-existent. I knew my daughters would take care of him if I died, or Ned even, but I still worried.

  “I need a bath,” Mike Junior said, wrinkling his nose.

  “We all do, son,” my dad said, laughing.

  “Come on boys; let’s get ready for the evening. I have a special movie for us to watch,” Carol said, a copy of Back to the Future ready to entertain. I could hear their laughter as she herded Junior to the bathroom first, giving instructions as she led Ned to the bedroom to pick out his pajamas. The sound of water turned on in the bathroom was evidence my son was taking care of himself.

  Elise made Chris chicken noodle soup from a can and took it back into her room to feed him. Everyone watched her working quietly, impressed with her proficiency.

  “At least we know if anyone gets sick Elise will take care of us,” Carin said.

  I asked her if she’d keep an eye on things. It was important to me that Carin knew she was important to the family, too.

  “Grandpa Steve, Kelly and me are going scavenger hunting,” I told her. Daddy will be here, but I’ll feel safer if I know you’ll be listening out for the boys.

  “Of course,” Carin replied. “Will you look for a sewing machine?”

  “We brought one with us,” I said, frowning. It was one of the first things she’d put in the trailer.

  “I know, but you can’t be too cautious. I’d like a backup,” she said. “I really hope we can find a treadle machine.” I nodded. She was already thinking like a pioneer. This was the last thing I had ever expected my children would experience, and they were handling it better than the adults were. I started to think about Kelly again. What did she have to do to keep herself busy besides flirting with the men?

  While everyone was occupied, Steve came to me and whispered that it was time to go. He wanted to get there before we had to turn the headlights on.

  “Pull the shades,” he told everyone. “Keep lights at a minimum.”

  “I guess that means no campfire,” Mike stated.

  “Let’s build a roof over our fire area first. I don’t think we should have an exposed fire at night.” Mike nodded, understanding that it would be a bulls-eye target if our fears were real. They were real, but we were still in denial. We couldn’t even sit out around a fire now without worry.

  “I have rafters we can use as a pergola, and sheet metal to cover it with. We just need to find posts that are tall enough. It won’t seem that much different, you’ll see.” My father was trying to allay our disappointment. He was fighting for our lives and we were whining about a campfire.

  We left the trailer, excited but frightened at the same time. What would we find? My father had a shotgun leaning against the seat. Kelly was in front with him and I was in back.

  “I can still smell Chris,” I said, complaining.

  “Burning flesh is a cloying smell you don’t soon forget,” Steve said. “It works its way into your sinuses.” Kelly rummaged through her pockets and handed something over the seat to me.

  “Take a drop. It’s peppermint essential oil. You can put it on your collarbones. Don’t rub your eyes or pick your nose with it on your hands. It burns.”

  I did as she said and the peppermint oil helped. My dad wove the truck through the streets, avoiding abandoned cars here and there. Occasionally, we’d pass a living person or group of people and they’d look up at us with grim faces. Someone might wave, but we were usually ignored.

  “I might come back later and get a couple of these cars. We can surround our compound with cars.”

  “Dad, like a junk yard?”

  “You’d think after what we’ve been through today your snobbery would have diminished.” We laughed about it, but he’d hit a nerve. What did I have to be proud of? Stripped of anything we’d worked for besides our children and marriage and there was no one to flaunt that in front of….except Kelly.

  “Were you flirting with Mike today?” I blurted out. She turned to look at me, surprised.

  “Not that I remember. Mike isn’t easily flirted with. Don’t you remember Easter, two thousand twelve?” She snickered.

  “Well, I just thought I’d remind you,” I said. “Just in case boredom sets in.”

  “For your information, I’m trying to woo her,” my dad said.

  “Oh god,” I blurted out. “Do you mind, Dad?”

  Kelly started to laugh. “I always wanted to be part of your family,” she said. “Maybe your evil stepmother?”

  “I’ll pass,” I said. We drove for twenty minutes, through wilderness. The area was a national preserve, part of it Indian Reservation. As a child, I used to ride my bike down the deserted road, wild burros grazing on the scrub and cactus. It made me so sad.

  “Where are we going anyway?” I was sorry I said I’d go along now, sorry I’d invited Kelly in the first place.

  “We’ll start here,” Steve said, turning into a neighborhood with burned out shells of small adobe homes, some in worse condition than others. Two men were sorting through debris. My dad pulled his truck over to the side of the road.

  “Let me check around,” he said grabbing his shotgun. “You stay here.” Kelly nodded at him. Steve approached the closest house, stopping to talk to the men. We watched him as the men gestured, Steve shaking his head, whatever they were saying to him was upsetting him, clear from his body language. Soon, he returned to the truck.

  “This might be too much for you,” he said softly, looking at me in back. “Bodies are still recognizable, some burned to ash but you can still see that it was a human. Are you up for this?”

  It had just happened, so if there were freezers intact, we might be able to take the contents. I thought of our meager fresh food supplies. “I wish we could get a freezer,” I said, shocking myself. He’d said there were bodies and I was already over it, planning how I could take their freezer.

  “Let’s see what we can find.” Kelly and I got out of the truck and followed my dad to the group of men. He introduced us to Roger and Brian.

  “We have acreage over the California state line and we’re scavenging for stuff to take back with us,” Brian pointed to his truck with a trailer attached.

  “We should go back and get the trailer,” Kelly said, ears perking up hearing California. “My mother lives in San Diego. Have you heard anything about that area?”

  “Unless she lives north, in Pacific Beach or further, i
t’s not good from what we hear.”

  “She’s near La Jolla,” Kelly said, voice shaking.

  “She should be okay then,” Roger said, turning to leave. “Well, we better get moving. I hate hanging around these places, in case raiders come along.”

  “Wait!” Steve said. “What’s a raider?” Roger waved a bug away from his face.

  “They’re bands of looters,” Roger explained. “It’s pretty safe down here in the desert, but you can’t tell who will show up looking for loot. Resale of looted stuff is big business in the populated areas.” He looked at Kelly and me.

  “You know we’re at war, right?” Brian said, smirking.

  “What are you talking about?” Kelly asked.

  Steve took her arm. “I’ll tell you later,” he said gently.

  To Brian, he asked, “Isn’t it illegal to take other people’s stuff?”

  “Not if you don’t get caught. There’s no one around to care. Just a word of caution, we’ve heard of raiders finding victims alive.”

  “By the way, don’t go into Yuma unless you’re armed,” Roger said. Steve nodded his head, unconsciously pulling Kelly and me closer. The men walked to their truck and got inside, we watched them pull away saluting us.

  “Hurry up,” Steve said softly. “I’ll come back with Mike later. I don’t feel safe here.”

  “Let’s just check it out,” Kelly said. “We came this far, we should see what there is to see.” Reluctantly, Steve looked around.

  “I don’t want to find any living victims, please. One is enough for now.” I didn’t miss the look Steve gave Kelly, and she snickered.

  “Sorry, Steve. Get over it. What was I going to do? Leave him in the road?”

  “Yeah, Kelly, I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you brought it up, thanks for taking a detour with my girls in the car.” She swung around and looked at me, mouth gaping open.

  “You really aren’t going to go there now, are you?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I am. We invited you to come along with us to safety. Endangering my kids wasn’t in the plan.” She stopped in her tracks, and when Steve tried to pull her along, she shook him off.

  “That’s low,” Kelly said. “I didn’t do it intentionally.”

  “No, because you don’t have kids, you’re obviously clueless about how to protect them. Taking a side trip down a burned out road wasn’t the wisest thing you could have done.”

  “Well, I am sorry, Laura. It wasn’t something I planned. We saw it and I turned the car. I was thinking adventure, not recovery.”

  “You should have joined in the adventure of taking care of him, bathing him and dressing his wounds, instead of just assuming we would do it, cleaning up your mess.” Kelly looked at me, shocked. I hoped I’d struck a nerve.

  “Stop it you two or we’re going back,” Steve said. “If you want to look for food, shut up and look.” We trudged up the first driveway, littered with trash and debris from the house. A pot handle torn from a saucepan and dish clothes, still neatly folded, were on the ground before us.

  “Why is junk out here that was from indoors?” Kelly asked.

  “The wind that’s created by the blast must be incredible. If it’s loose, it will fly around.” We followed him to the side door of a garage that was mostly intact except for blown out windows.

  Steve pulled the door open with effort. “A car,” he said excitedly. He went around to the driver’s side. The door was unlocked and he pulled the visor down to see if the keys were there, but they were not. “I’m going to look inside the house,” he said. He pointed to a five-gallon gasoline can.

  “If it’s gas, we might need it,” Kelly said, picking it up.

  “We can use kerosene, too.” We followed Steve into the house. The roof was burned; we could see daylight through the rafters when we got inside. Turning to me, I could see his concern; what if there were bodies.

  “Do you want to wait here for me to check?” But I shook my head. I was on a mission for two things, food and a back up sewing machine for my daughter. The house was two stories and the first level was relatively undisturbed. The power off, it was still light outside, so we could see where we were walking. The kitchen was toward the front of the house. I opened the freezer and it was cold, the food frozen solid.

  “I’m taking their frozen food,” I said, pulling a plastic grocery bag out of my pocket. I loaded up first one bag, then the second, with frozen packages of meats and vegetables, some convenience foods, a half gallon of ice cream. “I can’t believe I’m getting ice cream.” I tried to keep the glee out of my voice.

  “Laura,” Kelly called. “Come back here.” I followed her voice to the wing of the house where there was an office and a bedroom. She was pointing to a table on which a newer model sewing machine stood.

  “No way,” I said. “I’m taking it.” She started opening drawers and closets.

  “What do we need?”

  “Sheets. Blankets. Toiletries and soap, unopened toothpaste.”

  “It doesn’t get that cold,” she said.

  “This isn’t the only house,” Steve said, coming to find us. “Grab what you want and let’s move on.” I gave him the bags of frozen food and looked for the case for the sewing machine. Carin would be so happy.

  I didn’t want to leave anything behind. What we got from this house meant less looting elsewhere and I told my dad. Their printer and computer, boxes of printer paper; it was all coming back with us.

  We took everything out of the house and piled it in the back of the truck. Steve looked up at the sky.

  “It’s getting late. I want to get you back to the camp before the sun goes down. Mike and I can come back with flashlights and the trailer. And I want that car, as well.” We nodded our heads and got back in the truck.

  “Try to find a freezer,” I said. A freezer or two would be key.

  “There was a bank of solar panels in one of the yards that looked untouched by the blast.” We made the trip home in silence. I didn’t know what the others were thinking, but I felt guilty benefiting from the misfortune of others. It would become a way of life in spite of my feelings.

  The men made a trip back and forth to the neighborhood several times, yielding trailers full of items including guns, ammunition and a gun safe, a camouflage parachute of netting we’d place over our camp, two chest freezers, enough solar panels to provide power for us when the electricity eventually went off, and several bicycles.

  Chris was doing much better; up to eat his meals with the rest of the family, resting during the day, taking short walks around the camp. Elise was his nurse, and she was like a hawk, making certain he was eating and drinking, that his wounds were healing. By handing over the responsibility for Chris to my daughter, the growing intimacy between them was obvious. This was a new world, and everyone would grow up fast.

  We had our different jurisdictions of responsibility. Of course, mine was my children. Ned was still a child and although he worked along side the men during the day, he needed time off to play and I scheduled playtime into the mix. Junior was thriving under the care of my father. He worked the boys all day organizing materials, making a game out of it, but getting the job done. The list of salvage printed by Junior’s obsessively neat hand was a record of what Steve had collected; lumber, old windows, nails, tools, fencing, machinery. He’d also looted wheelbarrows, enough for each person to have his own. It was a familiar sight, a boy pushing a wheelbarrow of materials.

  Steve and Junior made trips into the surrounding burned out areas, including the warehouses of the farms nearby, going into the burn district one morning to look for pumps and hose. There was an irrigation ditch across the road that he wanted to try to utilize rather than leaving the water to evaporate. It would mean a thousand feet of hose, but he was determined. When the truck returned, Mike pointed and yelled. “Someone’s following Steve.” I jumped off the deck to join Mike.

  “That’s Junior driving,” I said, shocked
. We’d never considered that he would drive. But it made perfect sense now. He didn’t need a license, and he was as careful about rules as anyone was. As they got closer, I saw smiles on both their faces. My dad stopped his truck and Junior pulled behind him, stopping with inches to spare. He got out of the car with a huge grin.

  “Grandpa taught me to drive!”

  “I see that,” Mike replied. We gathered around to hear the story of their adventure, another car for the fleet, and enough hose to pump water onto our land. That night in bed, Mike and I whispered about our new concerns, losing control of our kids, allowing others to influence them, relaxing the strident perimeters we kept in place when we lived our past life in an urban area. Certainly, it would be more dangerous here, forcing the children to grow up, to take on more responsibilities, and everyone letting go of selfish motives.

  Mealtime had taken on a routine. There were so many people to feed and no one wanted to be designated the full time chef. Carin, Carol and I cooked a load of food gleaned from the burn districts. We roasted chickens, beef roasts, massive pots of spaghetti sauce and meatballs, pans of macaroni and cheese. As long as the lunchmeats held out, we’d serve sandwiches for lunch everyday. It didn’t escape anyone that Kelly was never around until it was time to eat, the only female who didn’t participate in meal preparation.

  Steve and Randy rigged a refrigerated truck in the camp so I had a massive walk in freezer at my disposal. For the time being, food was not going to be an issue. One thing Kelly did do was plan a large garden using seeds Steve found.

  The sheds, trailers and running cars we were accumulating made our camp feel like a small city. A scavenged vintage trailer, parked on the other side of the fifth wheel became Carol and Randy’s private cottage.

  Unexpected guests occasionally showed up at camp. We’d discussed camouflaging the driveway, removing my dad’s unused mailbox from the entrance, but too late. A group of friends fleeing from the north pulled in after getting their second flat tire in the dead of night. We could hear the motor and the gravel flinging as they came down our driveway. Later, Randy would say he’d considered shooting them dead, but the tiny woman looked like a young girl from his window and he couldn’t kill a child.