Castroville: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 7 (25 page)

     “But we won’t have a local address. We have a safe home… a wonderful home, with livestock and crops and the most incredible people. But it’s in Kerrville.”

     Brad paused for a moment.

     “Well, we have placed children for people outside of Bexar County before, but only when a local official vouched for them. A mayor or member of the city council, a minister, the chief of police…”

     “How about the sheriff of Kerr County?”

     “Sure, if he or she has an official badge or ID, and is willing to sign an affidavit attesting that you’re willing and capable of providing a safe and loving home.”

     Stacey put her hand on Sara’s arm.

     “I’ll go relieve Tom on horse duty and send him in here.”

-53-

     Sara and Stacey sat together on a picnic table outside of Zavala Public Library.

     Directly across the table from them little Millicent rattled on and on about her life, both before and after the blackout.

     “They call me Millicent. Sometimes they try to call me Millie, but I don’t let them. My mom used to say that Millie is only half a name. That if they wanted me to be called Millie they would have named me so. Mom said that Millicent sounds much more regal, whatever that means. I think it has something to do with princesses and balls and dragons and knights and stuff.”

     She paused just long enough to catch her breath and then continued.

     “I’m eleven, but I don’t really know when my birthday is. It’s sometime just before school starts in the summer. I know because the other kids’ moms would send cookies or cupcakes to school on their birthdays, but my mom couldn’t. She said I was born just a little too early for that. I always felt sad when other kids could pass out cookies and I couldn’t.”

     “Do you miss your mom?”

     “Oh, yes. And my daddy too. I loved them a lot. I still love them a lot. All the people around here tell me I’ll see them again someday, but it won’t be here. It’ll be in heaven. But I’m not so sure about that. I mean, if God wanted me to be with them, then why would He take them away from me to begin with?”

     Sara held the child close.

     “Oh, honey… we don’t know why things happen the way they do. They just do. But we can’t lose hope, and we can’t stop believing, because that’s when life gets really miserable. You have to believe you’ll see your mommy and daddy again someday because that helps you keep going on.”

     “Yeah, I guess…”

     “Do you have any other relatives who survived? Any aunts or uncles or cousins or such?”

     “I don’t know. See, we moved down here just before the lights stopped working. My daddy was in the Air Force. He was stationed at Randolph Air Force Base here, but he didn’t come from Texas. All of my aunts and uncles and cousins were in Georgia when the lights stopped working. So I don’t know if they lived or died.”

     “So you don’t have anyone else? You’re all alone, you poor thing?”

     “Nope. I have Charles. He’s my best friend. He can be a real butthead sometimes, but he doesn’t let the other kids bully me. We kinda take care of each other, so he’s kinda like my brother.”

     “Honey, if we could take you away from here, to a place that’s so far away it takes ten days to get there on a horse, would you want to go?”

     She seemed to hesitate, so Sara sweetened the deal.

     “There are cows and pigs and chickens there, and lots of very nice people. And you could be a big sister for my son Chris. He’s only three, but he’d just love to have you for a big sister.”

     She bit her lip, but her eyes lit up at the prospect of seeing livestock again.

     She proceeded slowly, but with conviction.

     “Charles and me, we take care of each other. We agreed that it would always be that way. I couldn’t go unless Charles went too.”

     Sara locked eyes with Stacey. It was a slightly panicked look. A kind of
uh, oh… a fly just landed in the pudding
kind of look.

     She looked back at Millicent. The girl’s eyes were joyful and sad at the same time. Joyful because these were people… good people, she could tell. They wanted to give her a new home. An amazing home, from the way it was described.

     But sadness at the prospect of being told, once again, that they didn’t want Charles as well.

     Charles was a feisty little guy of twelve who took no guff from anyone. He was convinced he would rule the world one day, and didn’t take kindly to anyone telling him what he should or should not do.

     He’d been passed up for adoption three times before because of his attitude. And each time, Millicent had taken a pass too. They really were a team, and Millicent felt her loyalty lied with Charles. She wouldn’t break up the set under any circumstances.

     Sara wasn’t sure what to do. She’d prepared herself mentally for an additional child. But this, this might just be too much. She decided to find out more about Charles before she made any commitments to Millicent. The last thing she wanted to do was to break the young girl’s heart. She’d suffered through enough pain and sorrow already.

     She sent Millicent off to play and asked her mom to watch over her as she went back to the library to speak to Brad.

     “Charles is a good kid at heart,” he started. “But he’s got some issues. His mother and father were murdered right in front of him, and he was taken captive by some very bad men. He was made to go with them on looting runs and had to carry back much of what they looted. He was shot at a couple of times by angry citizens.

     “Twice he tried to get away, and was severely beaten for it. He still bears the scars on his face and scalp.

     “As a result of that, he has trouble sleeping. Two or three times a week he’ll have nightmares and wake up screaming. On the days that follow the nightmares, he’s extra tired and moody, but tries to stay awake so the nightmares won’t come back.

     “Don’t get me wrong. He can really be a sweet kid at times. And he’s a very hard worker when it comes to doing his chores and helping others. He’s one of the best kids we have at that. But he can be a handful.

     “Millicent is the only one who can calm him down sometimes. Even though he’s ten months older than her, she’s taken the role of a big sister. He runs to her when he’s frightened, and she’s generally the only one who can talk him out of his funk on his really bad days. We’ve had others express an interest in Millicent before, but no one was been willing to take on a twelve year old with a bad attitude. And until this point, she’s refused to go without him. Yet, we keep giving her the option. Our wish is that someday she’ll stop tying herself to him and go to a new family.”

     Stacey said, “Pardon me for asking, but if she does… go to a new home, that is. What will happen to Charles?”

     “In all likelihood Charles will just stay here with us until he decides to leave. We have no legal authority to hold him here against his will. He’s stayed this long primarily because of his bond with Millicent. Once she finds a home, I suspect he’ll just walk away sometime and live his life on his own.”

     “No!”

     Sara was adamant.

     She was not going to let that happen.

     “Charles will come with us too, if he’ll have us. Can we spend some time with Charles and Millicent together?”

     Brad smiled.

     “Of course. But you might be biting off more than you can chew.”

     “It’s not just the three of us. There are others at our compound. Others who have extra love to share. My husband Jordan pampers our son and loves him more than life. He’s a wonderful father. So is his father Scott. And Linda… well, she’s one of the best women I’ve ever known. They will help with his upbringing. We’ll work together to teach him some good habits and help him get past the horrors he’s had to face.”

     She turned to Stacey.

     “Am I wrong, mom? Am I wrong to want to help this little boy who’s given so much of himself to protect Millicent?”

     “No, dear. You’re absolutely right. My only concern is making such a decision without asking Jordan’s parents. They’ll be greatly affected, and they should have a voice in the decision.”

     “But they’re not here, mom. And we can’t contact them to ask them.”

     “What if we get there, to the compound, and they say they don’t want to take on a rebellious boy?”

     “Then we’ll leave, Jordan and Chris and I. We’ll leave the compound and move into Junction on our own. There are plenty of abandoned houses that are still available, and it’s not as dangerous there as it once was.”

     “But…”

     Stacey wasn’t able to get her argument out before a very curious thing happened.

     The generator outside the office window that had been humming along went silent. The lights flickered and went out.

     And everything suddenly grew deathly quiet.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed

COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON Book 7:

Castroville

Please enjoy this preview of the next installment in the series,

COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON Book 8:

Starting Over

     “I don’t know what you’re complainin’ about,” the old man yelled. “You can’t miss what you never had. The problem ain’t that everything stopped working again. The problem is that you got soft. You had machines when everybody else didn’t. You didn’t have to struggle when everybody else did. Now everybody else is strong and you’re weak. Because you haven’t had to scrape out a living with your own two hands like everybody else has.”

     Tom said, “Yeah, maybe. But we survived the first blackout by making some modifications and changes to our way of life. We’ll survive this one too.”

     “I hope so. I hope you do. But make no mistake about it. This one’s gonna be much worse than the last.”

     He sauntered off to continue gathering what he could from the blackberry bushes. Sara noticed his hands were cut and bleeding and offered to bandage them.

     “Ah hell, Missy. My hands is always like this. The only way I know for sure I’m still alive is by seein’ a little blood come out of my body now and then. You folks have safe travels. I hope you make it up there wherever you’re headed. If I was a bettin’ man, I’d have to place the odds against it. But stranger things have happened, I guess. Maybe you got God watchin’ over you or something. He gave up on an old wretch like me a long time ago.”

     “Are you sure you don’t want to go with us? You’re headed in the same direction, more or less.”

     “Nope. I’m headed nowhere and everywhere. I’m going north one day, south the next. Wherever I find food and a quiet place where people will leave me alone is where I’ll be.”

     “Can we at least leave you with some jerky or dried beans?”

     The old man laughed.

     “Oh hell, I only got two teeth left. How am I gonna eat jerky? And dried beans ain’t no good without boiling water. Every time I try to build a campfire the damn thing goes out. I’ll be okay, Little Missy. Thank you, but you don’t need to be worryin’ about me. I’ve lived to be seventy… something. I reckon I’ll live a few more years.

     “You’d best worry about your own selves, and them young ‘uns. Somethin’ happens to you big folks them kids ain’t got a chance. That’s where you need to place your concerns, not with a broken down old mess like me.

     “Now go on, git. Y’all best be gone out of here before that gang of hoodlums comes back.”

     Stacey looked to Tom for guidance.

     “How about it, Tom? Where do we go from here?”

     “We get off the highway. We head inland. It’ll be rougher going, through gullies and washes and ungroomed wasteland. And it’ll slow us down. But we won’t see quite as many dead bodies or marauders.”

COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON Book 8:

Starting Over

will be available on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in July, 2016.

“Ranger Randy”is getting his own series.

It’ll be called, appropriately enough,

RANGER

The first installment will be called

Book 1: The Beginning

and will be available on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in February, 2016.