Defending Against Affliction Read online

  Tom smiled. “In a few weeks, it should be ready.”

  Stone’s eyes widened. “You sure about that?”

  “I checked it out from top to bottom before we left. It’s almost livable.” He turned his gaze to the library. “We’re going to give this library back to the town. That’s where it belongs. Then we’re going to move to our brand-new house and live there for good.”

  Chapter Two

  Tom clasped his hand around Michael’s shoulder. Nadia strolled up to him. Tom couldn’t help but feel pride looking at the house. Well, it wasn’t quite a house yet, more like a half of one, with a massive wooden frame making up the second half. Originally, it had been a full home, but had fallen victim to the fires that had destroyed a number of other homes in the town. The roof had caved in, making it completely unlivable. So, Tom decided to have it gutted, with even the support beams taken out, and rebuilt piece by piece. Only the front wall and part of the east side had been salvageable.

  “So, this is where we’re going to live?” Michael asked.

  “You bet.” Tom tightened his hold on the child. “We got the frames of all the rooms done yesterday.”

  Nadia frowned. “It’s just one story? You’re really going to cram all the kids in here?”

  “We wanted to keep it simple. Besides, it just looks smaller from here.” After releasing Michael, he approached the front door. “I’ll give you a look inside.”

  Tom showed Nadia and Michael inside, ushering them into the living room. The floor was just a white concrete slab, the carpets having been ripped out because they were too damaged from weather exposure. It was just as well. Having new carpets on the floor would be an enormous hassle to clean with thirteen kids running through the house.

  “So, how are you getting help to build this place?” Nadia asked.

  “We have some surplus from our garden,” Tom said, “We always tried to make more than what we needed in case we had to trade. But helping us build is actually important. It’ll teach them how to build houses, too. If we keep getting new residents, we’re going to keep building new homes, not unless we want to name our town ‘Tent City.’”

  “Gotcha,” Nadia replied.

  Tom started down the house’s main hallway. Three bedrooms each lay on opposite sides, with only plastic curtains separating each room since the walls had not been put up yet. Tom pointed to each room as they passed.

  “Now, these are your bedrooms. Don’t mind the curtains, we are going to put up walls.”

  “You have thirteen kids, but there’s only six?” Nadia asked.

  “Yeah. We couldn’t build thirteen rooms, so we had to double up,” Tom replied, “It wasn’t too hard. A lot of the kids volunteered to have a roommate. Jackie and Kristin are getting one, Charlie and Dominick are bunking together…” He lost track of all the pairings. “And, oh yeah, Amir’s going to share space with Rinaldo and Michael. We had to triple up one of the rooms.”

  Nadia peeked into one of the rooms. “They’re not that big.”

  “Well…” Tom huffed.

  “When you don’t have shopping malls and online stores to send you tons of junk, space isn’t that big an issue.” As he finished his sentence, they had arrived at the end of the hall, inside the frame of a new, bigger room.

  “Ah, behold!” Tom chuckled. “This is the new man cave.”

  Nadia folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Man cave?”

  Tom cleared his throat. “Okay, it’s a workshop and a storage room, but you can just call it our den.” He motioned to the back wall, which held a series of shelves identical to the ones in Cheryl’s garage. “We’re going to store our supplies and rations here.”

  Tom then slowed his pace as he passed a table. “But what we’re really going to do is rebuild things. We’ve got tons of small machine parts, things that never got burned out from the EMP shock. We want to try rebuilding our technical stuff. Maybe someday we can have heaters or air conditioners again.”

  “But how’s that going to work without electricity? The power plants are fried to a crisp,” Nadia said.

  “Yeah, that’s true.” Tom then pulled aside the curtain that separated the room from the outside. “But we do have…” He pointed to the middle of the sky, at the burning orange orb that hung over their heads.

  “It may sound crazy, but I think it can work.” The man, late thirtyish, had a mustache and a head of black hair that was starting to thin. In front of him, papers and drawings lined the countertop. Tom listened to their friend’s words, along with Michael, Fred, Alice and Rinaldo.

  Fred scratched his arm. “But I thought all the electronic stuff got toasted.”

  “Turns out a lot of the solar panels actually made it through the EMP shock okay,” the man replied.

  Alice sat up on her stool. “Mister Warren, will everyone in town actually have power again?”

  Warren rubbed his forehead. He sported a small scar, a memento of a NATO trooper smacking him with his fist. Unlike many of the town’s men, he had not taken part in the insurrection and was instead found and dragged out of his home by the soldiers. He had laid low for a long time, but the loss of so many of the town’s leaders had forced him to step forward and take charge. He wasn’t the last.

  “If we don’t get enough batteries, it might not bridge too far.” Still, he smiled as he looked at all four of the kids.

  “We rig up all the solar panels we can find and connect them to a field of batteries…” He spread his arms.

  “The panels will charge up the batteries.” Warren then pushed his arm into the air. “Then we send all those volts through our new wires to all the houses and bam! There you go.”

  “I still think my first idea would have been cooler,” Rinaldo said.

  Tom shook his head. “Sorry, but I think we’re not going to find enough plutonium for your nuclear power plant.”

  “Mister Warren, what if the wires overload?” Michael asked, “Won’t the panels make too much power?”

  Warren chuckled. “I thought about that. You see we’re not going to use that much electricity like we did before the EMP, so the load capacity doesn’t have to be that big. We don’t have the computers and TVs and that stuff anymore—”

  “What about radios?” Rinaldo cut in.

  “We probably could rebuild some of those, but they won’t take that much power,” Warren finished.

  “We’re just worried about the important stuff.” Tom walked closer to the countertop. “Lights, air conditioners, freezers, medical equipment, things that are going to sustain our lives.”

  Before anyone could raise another issue, the soft rumble of an approaching automobile got everyone’s attention. Since most vehicles were disabled after the EMP, hearing any vehicle pull up was a big deal. Fortunately, Tom knew this one. It was an old red pickup truck, found in the parking lot of a small business. Since it had no electronic chips or other computer parts, it still worked.

  Tom hurried out the door. Cheryl came bursting out the driver’s side door, with Sarah Shelton following from the passenger side. “We hit the jackpot!” she cried as she raced over to Tom.

  “Now what’s got you all excited?” Tom asked.

  Cheryl grabbed his arm. “Come see.” She led him to the bed of the truck. Indeed, she couldn’t have been more right, for the bed was stacked with car batteries.

  “How the hell did you find all this?” Tom shook his head in disbelief.

  “You can thank Eric.” Sarah strolled in. “Remember the cars in the yard near the edge of town? Turned out he had all the batteries stripped out and locked away.”

  Tom gazed at the lode before him. He remembered how he first ventured into town after securing his family at the library. He had discovered a large empty lot where Eric Shelton and some of the town’s men were moving in vehicles as shelters for the elderly and infirm. But many of those cars, trucks and buses were destroyed by the NATO soldiers during the insurrection. Tom still could hear the explosions w
rought by the soldiers’ hand grenades. Toward the end, the occupying troops were gleefully flinging their grenades into buses and trucks as if it was a game.

  When Warren first proposed his plan, Tom’s heart sank, as he felt many of those batteries were lost, and a great opportunity may have been lost with it. But it seemed Eric may have saved their asses.

  Sarah laid a hand on the truck’s tailgate. “I don’t know what Eric was thinking. Maybe he thought he could use the batteries for something.” She sighed. “He did a lot of things and I’ll be damned if he knew what was going to happen next.”

  Cheryl took Sarah’s arm. It seemed nothing would go easy as it related to her dead husband. The batteries were just a reminder of what was lost.

  The next day, Tom examined the rows cut in the backyard of his new house. The last seeds had been planted just yesterday. It still would be a while before visible signs of new crops would break through the soil.

  “Don’t worry,” Charlie had told him when Tom voiced his worries. “Those cans you got from your trip should be enough.”

  “Yeah, but we’re still going to have to spread that around thirteen mouths, not including your mom and me.”

  The trade with Adelson had provided them with additional canned food that would sustain them during any transition period to their new home, but Tom wouldn’t feel confident until he saw the crops growing on their new property.

  “Oh, how’d your CPR session with Lauren go?” Tom asked.

  “Great. She said tomorrow she’ll show us the Heimlich maneuver.”

  “Perfect.” Tom hoped in time all of his kids would learn all the basics of first aid.

  For the past few months, the town had been developing a first aid curriculum that easily could be taught to adults, teenagers and older children. It first arose as a result of the occupation, but it soon spread to other skills. Now it was crystal clear that living would be an ongoing learning experience, particularly learning those skills that had been lost to automation and high technology.

  Before Tom could talk further about the crops, Alice came running up to him. “Dad!”

  “Hey! What’s wrong?” Tom replied.

  Alice came to a stop. “Dominick needs you.”

  Tom Criver’s shadow darkened the space around Dominick. He had tracked the boy down to this spot in the woods behind the library. “Hey, man. What’s going on?”

  Dominick didn’t look up at him. He didn’t seem to want to be cheered up. “Nothing.”

  Tom glanced at the large spot of leaves and branches in front of them. “Finished up loading all the supplies out of the duck blind?”

  “Yeah. We did all that. It’s empty now.”

  Tom stared at the spot, feeling a bit wistful. Digging that pit in this part of the forest was one of the first projects where he had spent time with the children. The duck blind was a hiding place that they could flee to when times got bad. They had used it during the town’s uprising against the NATO troops. But with their impending move, the duck blind would be much farther away.

  “We may need to dig a new hole after we move.” Tom sat down next to him. Dominick bristled. The boy didn’t seem to want company. “What do you think? Maybe we can stick a Jacuzzi in the next one.”

  Dominick didn’t seem to lighten up at the joke. “Maybe.”

  Tom decided he had to poke a little deeper. “I heard that you had some trouble yesterday.”

  Dominick curled his fingers tightly. “It’s no big deal.”

  Tom studied his boy. It amazed him how much he had changed. When he first laid eyes on Dominick, he found a slightly chubby boy with curly blond hair and lots of acne. He had been like a lot of boys in the pre-EMP world, a carefree kid with access to fast food joints, television, movies and texting. But the pulse had taken all that away from him. It was like the world cruelly was weeding out all the vestiges of the modern world from him.

  Deprived of those creature comforts, coupled with the constant work to survive and build their life, the boy had lost a lot of weight. Tom was stunned the more he looked at him. The roundness in his cheeks had vanished, replaced by flatter cheeks and a straighter jawline. His acne mostly had cleared up, perhaps due to the constant sweat pushing out the impurities. His clothes now hung off his body. That seemed to be the last straw, for yesterday his pants fell down in front of a lot of the boys. Dominick had not even mentioned he needed different clothes.

  “You look good. Really look like you’re growing up.” Dominick just swallowed. Tom continued. “I’m sure it’s been hard. The world changed in a blink of an eye. Whether we liked it or not, we had to change with it.”

  “It sucked,” Dominick muttered.

  “Yeah. No joke.” Tom looked at the grass. “I’m sure you’ve lost people you loved very much.”

  Dominick swallowed. “My stepdad. He was cool. My parents split up when I was five. My mom mostly got me, but she put me off on my stepdad.” He let out a soft but long breath.

  “When things went nuts, my folks went crazy. My mom went totally psycho, she thought everyone was out to get her. Stepdad kept dragging us to all these camps. He kept begging them to protect us.”

  “He was looking for a safe place.” Dominick nodded.

  “Never worked. Gangs always showed up and wanted us to do what they said.” His head sank.

  “Then one night my mom was gone. Stepdad wouldn’t say what the deal was. Kept saying I shouldn’t ask.” The boy shifted his legs around. “Then The Coach’s guys showed up and grabbed me. I just heard my stepdad screaming. Didn’t see…didn’t see what…happened.”

  “Hey, I think I’ve heard enough.” Tom scooted in very close. Most of the children’s stories remained untold, Dominick’s included. But now he got a good sense of what this boy’s life had been like—a broken home yet he still wanted for nothing.

  The two sat together for a short while. Tom sorted out his thoughts. He wished the EMP never had happened, if only to save the many lives that had been lost. But the reality of their broken world remained, and he’d have to deal with it, and possibly use the aftermath to carve out a better life than they may have experienced in the old world.

  He held up his hands. They were calloused in spots, with small cuts in other spots that were healing. Before the EMP had hit, he had gone entire years without getting so much as a scratch on his fingers. It actually shamed him now that he thought about it. Just what had Thomas Criver accomplished? Sure, he could defend himself against an intruder with a knife, but the act of growing food or building a house seemed so much more important and significant.

  He hadn’t needed that kind of life. Perhaps he had been robbed. Had he lived on a farm somewhere, he might have become a better person.

  Gazing at Dominick one more time, he realized although these kids had lost so much, they still could experience a rich and full life in this new world.

  Chapter Three

  Amir strolled down the book isles toward the library’s right wall. There, stretching from the corner down to the other end, lay several mats and blankets where several of the kids slept. Another group took up the opposite wall, with the rest taking up space between shelves. No one slept in the center isle that cut all the way to the back, for safety reasons. Tripping over someone lying on the floor would be a good way to give someone a bad night.

  Ordinarily, Amir would be outside. No one wanted to be inside if they could help it. There was just too much to do outdoors, plus it was more comfortable than being in the library. But today, Amir wanted to take a look around. He had good reason—he knew they wouldn’t be here much longer.

  It hadn’t seemed to dawn on many of the other kids. In fact, they were excited by their new home. Amir was, too. But in the past few days, the reality of having to leave this library, his first actual home in a long time, had shaken him.

  After he had lost his parents, he was pursued by The Coach’s men. The Coach was a warlord who aimed to find and imprison children. Amir had lived like
a prey animal until Tom Criver—his adopted father—found and rescued him.

  As he got to the end of the hall, he found he wasn’t alone. Michael was crouched over his mat in the corner. The boy was about his age, a little smaller in build. Michael had a special connection to their adopted father because he shared the same name of their father’s only biological child—Michael Christian Criver. Sadly, Michael Christian had died of SIDS a few months after he was born.

  This Michael, the adopted brother of Amir and everyone else, was quite different from their father. He was quiet, studious, and had little interest in sports and physical activity. Yet he didn’t cease to do his part in the garden and around the library. Was he in here right now for the same reason Amir was?

  Amir approached Michael slowly. “Hey,” Amir said.

  Then he noticed what Michael was really up to. He was drawing a picture of his mat. He already had sketched out the boundaries of the mat and the wall with a pencil, and now he was using markers to color it in. “Drawing?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said, “I can’t take a picture. So, I’m going to draw it, before we have to go.”

  Amir stepped around him, stopping next to the wooden border of a bookshelf. “It’s a cool idea,” he said. Michael nodded. Amir then said, “I’ll miss it here, too.”

  That at least got a “Yeah,” from Michael.

  Amir then asked, “Could you draw my mat, too?”

  Michael stopped coloring and looked over his shoulder. “But I still must do my share of the dishes and cleaning the bathroom. I won’t be able to do it today.”

  “I’ll do all that. I’ll tell Mom and Papa.”

  “You would?” Michael’s eyes widened a little.

  “Sure.”

  Michael turned back to his paper, but then he stopped. “Where are Mom and Dad? Uncle Obie’s looking after us today. So, where’d they go?”