Forsaken World:Coming of Age (3 page)

As one, all three ran for the cabinet under the sink. Fighting each other, they opened the doors and grabbed a big bottle of bleach. “God damn it, I’m the first one that did this. Move!” Jennifer yelled, making them jump back.

Lance looked up at Ian. “How much bleach do we have here?”

Ian darted down to the basement, mumbling, “Oh shit.”

“Let’s go,” Jennifer said, running for the front door with a spray bottle.

“Hold on,” Lance said, grabbing her arm and looking at the monitors. When he didn’t see anything, he said, “Okay.”

They ran out as Allie and Carrie started singing. The eastern sky was getting bright as Lance yanked the gate open, and Jennifer ran around, spraying the ground like crazy where their attackers died. Even almost a week after the ones they killed at the gate got up and walked away, Lance could still catch the faint odor of them turning into stinkers. After covering the area, Jennifer went back over it until the bottle was empty.

When she was done, Lance walked around but could only smell bleach. “That’s good,” he said, pulling her back inside the fence and closing the gate. As Lance locked the gate, Jennifer looked down at herself still in her sleep clothes then at Lance and gave a sigh, seeing a pistol on his hip.

“Thank God one of us is armed,” she said, and Lance patted his chest then his hip.

“I’m so fucking stupid,” Lance huffed, spinning around and grabbing Jennifer’s arm. He pulled her to the cabin in a run.

Feeling like Lance was about to pull her arm off, Jennifer cried out, “Lance, you have a gun,” as he yanked his key out from under his shirt.

“I don’t have any extra clips,” Lance hissed, shoving his key in the door. “After I empty my gun, I can only use harsh language, and that doesn’t work.”

“At least you have a gun. All I have is an empty fucking spray bottle.”

Yanking the door open, Lance almost threw her inside. As he shut the door, Ian came running up. “We have thirty one-gallon bottles of bleach in storage,” Ian panted. “I don’t see any stinkers in the field below.”

Jennifer looked at both of them. “We can’t let one get up here.”

“Yeah, kind of figured that out,” Lance said, heading to the kitchen.

“I’m just saying we will have to go out and kill them before they get here,” she said, following him.

Ian trotted beside her and grabbed her arm. “We know,” he said with a forced smile. “That means when we see one on the cameras, we will have to go out and kill it.”

Dropping down in his chair, Lance looked at them as they sat down. “There has to be another way to get rid of the smell or cover it up without bleach. We only have so much.”

They looked at each other, and Ian threw his head back, laughing, and they looked over at him. “We already have the answer,” he chuckled, returning their stares. “It was here when we got here.”

Lance’s jaw dropped open. “Burn them.”

“Holy shit, does that stink to high Hell,” Jennifer said with a shiver.

“We don’t have that much fuel to use to burn them, and we really need to conserve what we have. And be damned if I run an extension cord down to the valley to fry them,” Lance said.

“I’m just saying that’s an option,” Ian said.

“So if you’re going to get chickens tomorrow; what are we going to do today?” Jennifer asked.

“I say let’s take it easy today,” Lance said, shocking both of them. “Ian and I can make our gear and weapons camouflaged then work on one of the buggies. If it works, we’ll make outfits for you and the girls.”

“So what can I do?” Jennifer asked with a sigh, having no idea what Lance was talking about.

“You know how to use a hot glue gun?” Lance asked with a straight face.

“Lance,” Jennifer scoffed. “I’m a cheerleader that wears sparkly outfits in competitions; yes, I can use a hot glue gun.”

“Then you will be doing a lot to help,” he said, getting up. Not saying anything else, Lance turned and headed for the stairs to the loft.

Jennifer turned to Ian, who was getting up to follow. “Shit, that’s what I mean; you two don’t even have to talk to each other,” she mumbled, getting up. “You know what the other is thinking. I’m beginning to think you two are psychically linked.”

She followed them to the loft and stopped at the head of the stairs. This was only the second time she had even been up there. Hard plastic bins lined the two side walls stacked four high. Each one had a person’s name on the outside, she noticed when Ian and Lance started pulling down bins.

The loft was just an open floor with four bunk beds spaced evenly at the back with wall lockers between them. Between each bed were several bow racks, each one holding four bows. Jennifer noticed shoes and boots lined up neatly along two of the beds that were next to each other and little shoes and boots under one bunk bed at the far end.

“Allie has that many pairs of hunting and hiking boots?” Jennifer asked, pointing.

Ian looked at Jennifer then turned to see where she was pointing. “No, the ones on the other side of the bed are Carrie’s when she comes up, which is every time Allie does,” he said, pulling down another bin with his name.

“I know Carrie said she went hunting with y’all, but come on, those things are expensive,” Jennifer said, walking over.

“Talk to Uncle Doug,” he said, moving to one of the wall closets and pulling out stuff. “He said the ladybugs had to have the best. Allie and Carrie came up here almost as much as we did, Jennifer. They love playing in the stream.”

“I feel so cheated,” Jennifer mumbled, looking at the rows of bins on this side of the room. She shook her head, seeing several with Carrie’s name. “She got spoiled more here than at home.”

“That far rack is Allie’s and Carrie’s bows,” Ian said, carrying an armload downstairs.

Turning to the last bow rack that held four little bows, two compound and two recurve, Jennifer shook her head. “My eight-year-old sister is further ahead of the power curve than I am for the end of the world.”

“Will you grab that last bin?” Lance called out, breaking her trance. She turned to see him looking at a black plastic bin on the floor. Trotting over, she grabbed it and had to grunt to pick it up. By the time she stood, Lance was already downstairs.

“I’m going to have to start reading their minds,” she declared and headed downstairs.

When she reached the bottom, the boys had unloaded their stuff on the kitchen table and were heading to their bedroom. Jennifer carried her bin over by the table and set it down. She looked up to see the boys laying down their chest rigs with the drop holsters on the table. They both pulled out t-shirts with a very meticulous camouflaged pattern. Lance pointed at the tan, hard plastic magazine holders and the hard plastic drop holster. “Jennifer, we need you to cut strips out of the shirts and glue them over the magazine holders and holster.”

She pointed at the tan cloth that made up the rest of the chest rig. “Don’t we need to do something about that?”

“I’m working on it,” Lance said, pulling magazines out of it.

“I’ll fix it,” she said, unfolding some of the shirts. “Where are the scissors and glue gun?”

Ian ran downstairs to the basement and came back with a huge tackle box. “Here,” he said, putting it on the table.

Opening it up, Jennifer found sewing supplies neatly organized in each tray. “Thought we were going fishing for a second,” she said, pulling a glue gun and a pack of glue rods from the bottom.

“I like to keep my sewing stuff organized,” Ian said, laying out some shirts like Lance’s.

Dropping in her chair, Jennifer looked up at him. “You mean to tell me this is yours?”

“Yeah, if I don’t keep it together and organized, how am I supposed to find it?” Ian asked as he pulled magazines out of his rig.

Turning her head and almost glaring at Lance, she almost snapped, “I suppose you have one as well?”

“Yeah, it’s downstairs—bottom shelf in the southwest corner where Ian got his from,” Lance said in a distracted voice as he worked.

“It’s not natural,” Jennifer huffed, getting up. “Where’s an extension cord?” she asked, feeling like a slob.

“Kitchen, first set of drawers in front of the pantry, bottom drawer, back right corner,” they said in unison.

Groaning, Jennifer walked over past the pantry that sat under the stairs to the loft. She yanked open the bottom drawer and saw a stack of extension cords in the back right corner. “I have trouble keeping up with my shoes, and they can spit out where shit is when they don’t even live here,” she grumbled, snatching an extension cord. 

As she walked over, they were both staring at her. “You need help with this?” Lance asked.

“No, if I need something, I’ll call you,” she said, sitting down. They nodded and went to their room then came back carrying their M4s and pistols. They set them on the table and ran downstairs. When they came back, they each had another M4 with a suppressor over their shoulder and a clip-on holster on their hips with another XDM. Around their waists were clip-on magazine holsters for the M4 and pistol.

“We’ll be outside; keep an eye on the monitors,” Ian said, gathering his weapons.

“Hey,” Jennifer said, looking up. “The master computer was loading a program this morning. What is it?”

“It’s still loading,” Lance said, picking up his weapons. “It’s a video motion detection API/SDK program I downloaded the first day we were here. Analog-based. The program is multi-format intelligent, using relay algorithms to filter out motion in a high data video field. It should be done soon, and I’ll set it up this afternoon.”

Having heard every word but understanding none of them, Jennifer said, “Huh?” with a blank look.

“Lance, don’t start,” Ian said, heading for the back door. “Use guy talk—like you do me with computers.”

Lance looked at Jennifer. “The computer will call us if something moves in front of a camera and not just the motion detectors.” He spun around for the back door. “Ian, you got some of those electronic merit badges; you should know that. You know computers, Ian.”

Struggling to open the door, Ian said, “They didn’t get that detailed, and computers don’t interest me that much.”

“Bitch, you better remember that when you’re talking to me about engines,” Lance said, following him out. “I may have taken shop, but you start talking—” The door closed.

Sitting up straight and smiling, Jennifer pulled over the stack of shirts. “They both don’t know everything. I feel so much better,” she said with a perky voice.

Chapter Three

Examining her work, Jennifer smiled and looked over at Carrie and Allie, putting the last pieces of cloth on the chest rigs. “I’m going to fix lunch,” she said, getting up.

“We’re almost done,” Carrie said, sewing a piece of cloth on one of the chest rigs. “We’ll help.”

Smiling at the concentration on their faces, Jennifer made some lunch and grabbed the radio. “Lance, Ian, food’s ready.”

When they came in, Jennifer looked in their arms and shook her head as they laid their weapons on the table. “How do they look?” Ian asked with a grin.

“How in the hell did you camouflage black guns?” she asked, stepping over. All the weapons had a dark brown base and intricate patterns of different greens and browns. Even the sights and suppressors were the same pattern and blended in with the rest.

“Painted them,” Lance said, holding up his Ruger 22/45 with a suppressor. “Uncle Doug taught us how on our turkey guns last year. He said buying a camouflaged shotgun was ridiculous when you could do it yourself and use the money on other stuff.”

Feeling left out, Jennifer looked up with a sad face. “When can I do mine?”

“If this works, we will each have different weapons for different times of the year,” Ian said, sitting down.

“Can we watch snowman?” Allie asked, grabbing her plate.

Lance nodded with a sigh. “Just not loud,” he said with a forced smile. Carrie and Allie took off with their lunch, cheering. “If they don’t build a snowman this year, I’m breaking that damn thing.”

Ian picked up one of the rigs, nodding with a grin. “Damn, these look good,” he said, looking at the rig. Every part was covered with camo cloth from the shirts. “You have to love Mossy Oak,” Ian grinned.

Looking up, Lance nodded. “Jennifer, that looks great,” he said, getting up and grabbing the other one. “You sewed the cloth on,” he said, looking at the rig.

“Yeah, I taught the girls how to tack it on, and I sewed it,” she said, grinning and feeling very proud of herself.

They put the rigs down and pulled over plates. “Guys,” Jennifer said, glancing up. “I’ve noticed there are more beds here than what’s in your families. The bedrooms are for the parents, and I figured Doug would sleep upstairs. Were they bringing others here?”

“Our parents were going to stay in the RVs,” Lance said, looking at his food. “That’s what those awnings are out there for. The awning on the east was for my parents’ RV and the west for Ian’s. But you’re right; Ms. Penny and her daughter were going to be asked to come if something happened. She grew up on a farm, and they wanted her here to help, but she didn’t know what this place really was.”

Hearing the low tone of Lance’s voice, Jennifer was sorry she asked as Ian spoke up. “Doug and Jason were going to sleep in the room we are in. Ms. Penny and her daughter were sleeping in the room you and the girls are in. All the kids were sleeping in the bunk beds upstairs in the loft.”

Trying to think of something to snap them out of it, Jennifer looked at them. “Weren’t you two out here when they built this cabin? How did they get all those extra areas without you knowing?”

They both looked up, laughing, which made her feel better. “We weren’t out here when anything but those awnings and the ATV shed were built,” Ian said, laughing. “This cabin was built in three weeks, when we came back out, it was up the next time we came out the shop and the rec room was here.”

Grabbing his glass as he chuckled, Lance said, “Yeah, we noticed a lot of the area around where the cabin, the hill, the shop, and rec room are built was torn up by heavy equipment but didn’t think anything about it. I mean, who would?” He drained his glass, shaking his head.

“Thank you two for bringing us,” Jennifer said, smiling at both of them.

“Well, you and Carrie are part of this group,” Lance said, and Ian nodded.

“I wish my parents would’ve been in on this or had something like this set up,” she mumbled. “If everything would’ve gone according to plan, we would be dead, and all of you would be safe.”

“You don’t know that,” Ian said. “Hindsight is 20/20. You just do what you can.”

Lance jumped up. “I’m about to make all of us start counting out bullets,” he snapped, making both of them jump. “I’m going to set the computer up. Jennifer, you need to get dressed to help us on the buggy. We’ll deck out the hybrid since it has the greatest range.”

When Lance left, Ian gathered their guns and carried them to the bedroom. Looking down at her night clothes, Jennifer said, “Yeah, sleep shorts and tank top don’t make ideal work clothes.” She got up as Ian came back for the chest rigs. “I’m going to shower real fast, Ian, okay?”

“Sure,” he grinned, grabbing the rigs. “Lance will be in hog heaven for a little while, so take your time.”

When she was dressed, Jennifer walked out of the bathroom and looked at Allie and Carrie singing and bouncing on the sectional. Not able to help it, Jennifer smiled then looked at the kitchen, and the smile fell off. All the stuff was gone—all the bins, scraps of cloth, and sewing kits. The table was cleared, and the things she used to make lunch weren’t in the sink. “Girls, did you clean the kitchen?” she asked.

Allie paused the video. “Yeah, we helped Ian,” she said then resumed the movie.

“I don’t know if I should be mad,” Jennifer said, narrowing her eyes and pinching her bottom lip, thinking.

“Hey, we’re downstairs,” Ian said, coming out of the basement stairwell and heading to the fridge. Pouring two glasses of tea, he saw Jennifer pinching her bottom lip in deep thought. “Wonder if that’s good or bad,” he mumbled, putting the tea away.

As Ian left, Jennifer looked up, shaking her head. “I have to learn to move faster,” she concluded and followed Ian downstairs.

They found Lance typing and clicking on the mouse as they walked in. “How’s it coming?” Ian asked, sitting down beside him.

“Have to say the program was written very well; I’m just tweaking it a bit,” Lance said, staring at the screen as he worked. Jennifer’s jaw dropped at all the boxes opening up on the screen. Lance would type in them then close them, and another would open, and he would move to it. Lance would type so fast she never saw what he typed before closing the box.

Ian watched, nodding. “Dude, as much as the program cost, it should be perfect.”

“You put it on Doug’s card?” Jennifer asked, trying to follow Lance’s work.

“Yep, the American Express, and couldn’t use it again,” Ian said as Lance paused then started closing all the boxes.

“You maxed it out?” Jennifer cried out as Lance restarted the program. “How much did it cost?”

“Almost seven grand,” Ian huffed.

Waiting on the program to load, Lance turned to Ian. “It was the best one out there,” he snapped. “Sure, I could’ve bought one of the cheap ones, but I would’ve had to rewrite most of it, and that takes a lot of time we don’t have.”

“I’m not complaining,” Ian said, raising his hands. “You left four of Doug’s cards for us to use even though we couldn’t use them long.”

“If it’s so good, why didn’t your parents or Doug buy one or one like it?” Jennifer asked, moving over and hitting Ian with her hips until he scooted over in the chair to let her sit down with him.

“If they would’ve brought everyone they planned on, then someone would always be able to watch the monitors, but we don’t have the manpower,” Lance said as the program opened up, and he closed the video feed, making the screens go blank. Ian and Jennifer glanced at the dark screens with some apprehension.

Closing her eyes, Jennifer silently prayed,
Please don’t break it, Lance. I really like seeing around us
. Opening her eyes, she gave a sigh, seeing the monitors blinking on as Lance started clicking away. “Ian, click the phones to accept,” Lance said.

Startled by Lance’s voice, Jennifer watched Ian lean over, looking at three smart phones on the desk that were lit up. She leaned over and saw “Accept wireless host connection” on the screens. “Are those your phones?” she asked.

“Yes and Allie’s,” Ian said, tapping the screens. “Lance asked her if you could keep it to stay in touch with the computer, and she said yes.”

“Allie would do anything for Lance,” Jennifer giggled.

“Leave Allie alone,” Lance said, shaking his head but never looking away from the screen.

“Yeah, she told Mom she was going to marry Lance,” Ian chuckled, handing Jennifer her phone.

“Who hasn’t she told that?” Jennifer snickered.

“I’m not kidding; leave Allie alone. She’s super sweet,” Lance said, tapping the keyboard, then pushed back. “Done, baby, we are live now.” They looked at the monitors as all the camera angles came on. “Watch,” Lance said, getting up and running upstairs.

Hearing the front door open, they looked up at the monitors as the computer beeped. One of the thirty-inch monitors showed the camera view and location over the front door at the top of the screen with a white box outlining Lance as he walked off the porch. They both looked down at their phones as they buzzed, showing them what was on the monitor.

The box kept him outlined on the screen as Lance moved around and off the porch. When he left the field of view, the box left, and the monitor went dark—as did their phones. “He was that sure it would work?” Jennifer asked as her phone and the computer beeped and showed Lance walking toward the front gate from another camera.

“If it wouldn’t have, we would’ve locked his ass in here because when a computer doesn’t do what he wants, he becomes a major asshole,” Ian said, tapping his phone.

Lance came back and showed them how to work the program. As Jennifer was going through it, the computer beeped, and one of the four screens at the very top that showed the status of the cabin and powerhouse beeped. “I didn’t do it,” Jennifer said, looking up. “Overflow alarm? What the hell is that from?”

“The pump house even though there isn’t a pump; water is by gravity feed,” Ian said, standing up as Lance moved Jennifer’s hand away and clicked open a program.

“System says we need to open the overflow pipe,” Lance said, getting up.

Jennifer got up too. “Why isn’t the overflow pipe just open?”

“So rats and bugs can’t crawl up it and contaminate the well in the pump house,” Ian said, following Lance up the stairs.

Taking off after them, she asked, “Just where the hell is the pump house?” as they grabbed the M4s they had when they were painting the others.

“Back, northwest corner, just inside the fence,” Lance said, press checking his rifle. “Coming?”

“Hell yeah,” Jennifer said, running to her room. She came back with her M4. “What the hell? You didn’t tell me about that.”

“It’s a pump house,” Ian said and shrugged, following Lance out. Dino almost knocked them down as he ran out the door. “That dog can hurt you not even trying.”

Walking around the ATV shed, Jennifer saw a small, ten-by-ten building. “Is that the pump house?”

“No, that’s a cold storage butcher room,” Ian said, walking past it. She followed them up the rise toward the ridge behind the house. The northwest corner was the highest and much steeper than the rest of the area inside the fence. Panting as she walked up the steep grade, Jennifer saw the fence ahead through the small trees. She turned to see the cabin below her several hundred yards away.

“How far down did they have to dig to get water?” she asked, thinking digging closer to the house would’ve been smarter.

“Water was coming out of the ground where they put the well,” Ian said as she turned around, and she saw him waiting on her. “When we first came here, water was just running out of the ground into the draw beside us,” he said, pointing at the draw on the west side of the house. “It was really rocky here then too.”

When Ian turned to leave, she saw Lance standing just inside the corner of the fence and looking at a door raised above the ground that looked like it led to an underground tornado shelter. “I’m so lost,” she mumbled, walking over with Ian.

Opening the door, Lance propped it open and walked down some stairs. “Is this room electrified?” Jennifer asked before stepping inside.

Halfway in the door, Ian turned to her. “Why? It’s the pump house,” he asked with a shrug then walked down.

“Duh, it’s our water,” she said, scampering down the stairs after him into a room made of cinderblocks. In the middle was a large, cement circle that came to her chest. “Even I know without water, you don’t survive shit.”

Lance looked up at Ian. “Never thought of it like that,” Lance said with a nod.

Ian pointed at the cement circle. “Those are cement culverts,” he said. “Fifteen feet around and they go down like forty feet. The water supplies for the cabin and powerhouse are at the very bottom of the well. From here to the house is a sixty-foot drop, and with this much volume, we get great pressure.”

Moving over, Jennifer saw the top was covered in metal, and the room suddenly lit up as Ian turned on a light. Jumping back, Jennifer watched Lance walk over and lift a hatch on the top. “Whoa,” he said, jumping back. “Ian, it’s never been this high.”

She walked over with Ian and saw the water just a few inches below the lip. “It hasn’t rained that much,” Ian said, moving to the side near a six-inch metal pipe that ran into the culvert at the floor.