Run Like the Wind: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (The SHTF Series Book 3) Read online

  She curled her lips, feeling the nausea creep up her belly. “Be ready to help me hold the skin closed so I can sew it,” she murmured to her husband, her eyes on Puck’s stump of a finger.

  Olivia looked up at Grayson with panicked eyes, her hands shaking. “There’s not enough…skin,” she whispered, her voice almost frantic. “The bone is still sticking out the top.”

  Graysie, standing on his other side of Puck, and gently holding his good hand while holding back her tears, flipped her curly long red hair over her shoulder and stared at the wall with a quiet sob. Gabby, standing behind her, rubbed her back in small circles.

  Grayson walked to the door. “Jake, Elmer, Tarra, Tina… I need all of you in here.”

  Jake entered the room, followed by Elmer and the ladies, all with grim faces. They already knew what Grayson needed. He had briefed them all on the what-if.

  They gathered around the bed, the men standing at Puck’s shoulders, the women near his feet. They were ready to put their hands on him, to hold him down with their weight if he should fight it.

  Olivia stared at her husband with pleading eyes. “Wait! Can’t we just do the best we can and stitch around the bone?”

  “No. That’ll leave it wide open for infection. It’s either now or later, and now will hurt less.” Grayson looked around at the morose faces. “Y’all ready? I’ll try this, but if the bone splinters…well, I don’t know what we’ll do. If he wakes up you may have to hold him down. Olivia, when the bone is out of the way, be ready to go at it again—fast—with saline to irrigate it, then jump in with the tweezers if there’s any bone fragments, and then sew it up quick. Leave the end stitches open to allow drainage. We’ll bandage the tip with sanitized wet gauze. Everybody on three…”

  A shiver ran through Olivia and she stepped back to wait, her hands in the air to keep her gloves sterile. Tears rolled down her face. She could barely stand to look.

  Grayson picked up the bone saw and leaned in. Puck’s eyes popped open just as Grayson picked up his hand, folding the four intact fingers down and holding them there with a tight grip. The boy smiled. “GrayMan…” he said weakly.

  Grayson tried to hide the saw, lowering it and sliding it behind his back, but it was too late. Puck had seen it.

  His weak smile quickly slipped away. He moaned, his eyes filling with questions. “GrayMan? What—”

  “—Shhh… I won’t lie to you. This is gonna hurt worse than screwin’ that bees nest, kid. One. Two. Three…”

  The group all leaned over, laying a small army of tortured hands on Puck.

  13

  Tullymore

  Tucker and Katie stood outside Sarah’s door. After not showing up to the meeting the day before, and sending their son away, Katie was adamant she wanted to bring Sarah some food and check on her today.

  Tucker felt terrible he hadn’t made it over yesterday, but he’d been pulled in too many directions, both during and after the meeting, and had nearly crawled into bed, exhausted last night.

  Katie looked to her husband and sniffed, her face painted with disgust. She pulled the bandana tied around her neck up over her nose. Their son had been right. The smell was revolting.

  Tucker knocked on the door.

  There was no answer.

  “Sarah?” Katie called out.

  Tucker stood just behind Katie, waiting with his hands on his hips. He didn’t mean to be impatient, but he had work to do. It was soon to be after noon, and he’d spent the first half of the day splitting firewood. Through the grapevine, he’d been told the entire neighborhood was out of propane for their grills, and if anything was going to get cooked—for anyone—it would be over an open fire from now on, and that was going to take a lot of logs.

  The faster he could get Sarah squared away, and her and the baby out of that house, the faster he could get back to it.

  He also planned to try his hand at cooking rabbit stew in a haybox today. The minutes were flying by. Not enough time in the day to handle every crisis.

  Wow. That smell is almost overwhelming.

  He couldn’t understand why Sarah’s house had sewage back-up. His didn’t. And it was on even lower elevation, across the street. No one on this street had reported their toilets backing up, and he’d checked with each of them. But Sarah’s was ripe… if he could smell it through the door.

  Tucker rapped on the door again. “How long has it been since you talked to Sarah?”

  Katie shrugged. “A week? I don’t know. I see so many people come and go getting their water rations from the pool, or eating supper, that I can’t keep up with which days I see who anymore. She’s been over to eat when Sammi’s napping, usually, if she comes at all.” She turned back toward the door. “And I’m not out there all the time either. I’ve got plenty of other things that keep me busy.”

  “She’s got to be getting the rice-water for Sammi every day though,” he muttered, mostly to himself, trying to remember if he’d seen her at the house. “And water for herself, not to mention the extra water I told her she could have to wash Sammi’s cloth diapers.”

  He sighed and stepped past his wife, knocking louder than she had. They couldn’t leave Sarah and the baby in this stink. Her husband had been deployed before the grid went down, and Sarah was having a tough-go handling a newborn—Sammi—alone, especially with the power out and having run out of formula, and then the baby getting so sick.

  Neva’s suggestion of giving the baby rice water had seemed to be a last-minute miracle; Sammi had very nearly died of starvation and dehydration. The rice water was packed with nutrients, and that had worked to nourish the baby back to health, although no one had seen her since her recovery.

  Sarah was too afraid of germs getting to her and causing her to get sick again.

  But with this situation, she was going to have to risk the germs, and stay with him and Katie and the kids. If Neva and her niece came too, it was going to be a full house. “Sarah, wake up! You and Sammi can come stay with us until we figure out a way to clean up the mess.”

  Finally, they heard a rustling in the house. A moment later, Sarah cracked open the door. The smell hit them like a wall, and Katie backed up, nearly falling off the top step. He caught her and pulled her upright, then pulled up his dirty wet T-shirt to cover his own nose.

  Katie stared at them through bloodshot eyes buried in dark circles, seemingly unaffected by the smell. For a moment, Tucker wondered if the smell was her, she looked so bad. Her clothes appeared to have been worn and slept in for days, and her hair hung loose in ratted-up clumps. She was so thin, her clothes hung from her hunched-over bony shoulders.

  Even in a grid-down situation, the ladies were still brushing their hair, usually pulling it up to beat the heat, and attempting to look somewhat clean and put together, at least to start their day. By the end of the day, there weren’t many who didn’t look bedraggled.

  But Katie was far from put together.

  “You okay?” Tucker asked her.

  Sarah’s eyes were cloudy and droopy. “Yeah, fine. Why?”

  “You don’t look so good,” Tucker answered. “You look sick. Have you been getting drinking water from Curt’s pool? We haven’t seen you at the house much.”

  She didn’t respond. She just stood staring at Tucker. Katie stepped around him, holding her bandana over her nose. “Sarah, do you need some help with Sammi? If you’re sick, I can take her and let you get some time to yourself. You can clean-up or rest… actually, Tucker and I came over to tell you to come stay with us. If your house was hit with the sewage flood, you and Sammi can’t stay here,” she said in a muffled voice.

  Sarah was shutting the door even as she spoke. “No, we’re fine. We’re staying here—” The door firmly shut, and the deadbolt clicked in place.

  “—Sarah, you can’t stay in that stink,” Tucker said through the door, and ran his hands over his face. “It can’t be good for the baby! Open the door.”

  He and Katie exchanged look
s and Katie shrugged. “Let her be, Tucker. You can’t force her out. If she wants to stay, she can stay. It’s her home. She might just be too tired to make the move; she looks like we woke her up from a nap. We’ll let her rest and then I’ll come back and—”

  “—Tucker! The pool! It’s draining!” Kenny yelled from across the street, waving his skinny arms frantically. “How do I make it stop? We’re losing water!”

  Tucker froze with a look of panic, and then ran, as fast as he could in heavy boots, back to his own yard. He slid around the corner of the house, slipping in a smear of mud.

  Holy shit!

  Mud?

  It hadn’t rained since before the grid went down.

  He picked himself up and limped to the back yard as fast as he could.

  It only took a second to see the problem, even through the disorganized mess of chairs, tables, nets, and other things littering the patio. He stomped over to the corner of the pool, reached in, and pulled out the dirty green water hose that stuck out like a green thumb.

  “Who put this hose in here?” He looked around, furious. The two ladies at the laundry station nearby returned a look of bafflement.

  The children in the yard stopped playing and shrugged with wide-eyed innocence.

  Two men carrying a load of firewood to the cook pots shook their heads.

  No one saw anything?

  Someone had put it in there to siphon the water out. It didn’t fall in there all by itself.

  He followed the hose as it wove between their filter systems on the concrete around the pool—the whole filtering set-up pushed up closer to camouflage it—off the concrete and into the grass, where it drained going down a slight incline, making mud in a fifty-foot trail.

  Along the muddy trail were footprints of a man’s boots. Not a real large foot, maybe a size eight or nine. Possibly a teenager. The kids had been playing in the pool a few nights before, but the hose should’ve been noticed by now. Maybe they’d snuck in again last night? And why would they put a hose in there?

  No, it would’ve been drained by morning if they’d put it in last night. This had to have been done today.

  “How the hell does someone stick a hose in a pool without being seen?”

  More heads shook.

  He had everyone’s attention now. “You all just let it happen? Do you not realize how important this water is? Do you not understand this is all we have? That we’ll die without water? Are you awake yet? This is NOT A DRILL, PEOPLE. The lights are out for good! The water isn’t coming back on! No one is coming to help us. We needed every damn drop… and more!” he roared, not able to contain himself anymore. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  It was too much. He was over his head. He couldn’t be the person responsible for all these people. He had his own family to worry about. Why am I even doing this?

  He threw the end of the hose down, slamming it onto the ground as hard as he could, and precious water splashed back up at him. He turned, eyes full of fire and stared at the pool, now at least a few feet shallower than it was when he’d left that morning. He paced, his fingers weaved together on top of his head, and then whipped around, looking for a target for his anger.

  Kenny.

  “You didn’t see this hose, Kenny?”

  Kenny adjusted his thick glasses and fidgeted, looking at the ground. “No... I’m… sorry. I didn’t even look before coming to get you. I thought…I thought… maybe a valve was turned on or, or… something… I don’t know anything about pools, Tucker,” he stuttered.

  “Do you know anything about anything?!” Tucker yelled. “I can’t watch everything, plan everything, and do everything around here! What use are you? Grow some balls, Kenny!” He stomped off into the house to cool down just as Katie ran around the corner, seeing her husband in melt-down at Kenny.

  Kenny’s wife, Penny, was standing off to the side, hunched over with her arms crossed, glaring at Tucker with daggers in her eyes. Katie couldn’t blame her. No one liked to see their partner embarrassed.

  Katie hurried by and squeezed Kenny’s arm. “He didn’t mean it. He’s just overwhelmed. He told me just today he’s glad he has you, and you’ve been a huge help,” she lied, and then followed Tucker into the house.

  14

  Tullymore

  All day Katie had kept an eye out for Sarah, hoping to see her show up feeling better. She planned to extend the invitation to stay with her and Tucker again, and had hoped Sarah would come there, instead of Katie having to brave the smell once more.

  After leaving Sarah’s house, and dealing with the pool draining—losing half of the water they’d had—it’d taken hours to get that funky smell out of her nose. She’d finally resorted to washing up mid-day, feeling like the funk was on her, and sneaking while she scrubbed her face and neck and arms, as that’d be seen as wasting water.

  It was her and Tucker’s pool, after all, thus by all rights it was their water. But they didn’t want to pull that card and take more than they were allowing everyone else, especially now that the water level was even lower. That’s not the type of people they were. Instead, she’d just skip washing up this evening to make up for her mid-day scrub.

  Sarah hadn’t shown up, and Katie felt like she couldn’t just leave her there without supplies, and without offering the invitation one more time. She had to go back.

  She stepped through her yard and looked up into the evening sky. It was filled with twinkling stars. Beautiful. Either she hadn’t taken the time to really look lately, or they really were shining more than usual. Maybe with the power out and no exhaust fumes in the air, the sky was different, opening up to show them the wonders they’d been missing in their busy rat-race world.

  She drew in a huge breath of night air.

  And gagged, sputtering it back out again.

  The smell.

  It was now out as far as the road.

  It was as though Sarah cracking that door open had let out an invisible vapor monster. It swirled around her face and wound into her mouth, so thick it could almost be felt on her tongue.

  Katie’s hands were full, or she’d cover her nose. She was carrying two plastic milk-jugs, one under each arm. One filled with rice-water for Sammi, and one with clean, filtered water for Sarah. A gallon each. She didn’t know how many more days they’d be able to keep that up, but with a baby, Sarah would always be the first to get any that was available.

  In her hands, she held a covered bowl of stew, thick with beef, carrots, and other vegetables, from their now-dwindling pantry of food they’d managed to pressure-can out of their freezer when the grid went down. Not just their freezer, but many people’s in the neighborhood.

  The group had spent days—and much of their propane—cooking and canning all the defrosting meat on the grill, adding any fresh vegetables that they still had on hand.

  Much of that cooking marathon was donated to the group, kept by Katie and Tucker in the garage. It had seemed like so much at the time. Too much. People were giving it away willy-nilly, being good neighbors. Katie wondered if they’d known then, that the power would still be out now, would they still have been so generous?

  Probably not.

  Their garage now housed dozens of jars of stew, soup and vegetables of all variety, depending on who cooked it. But soon, it would all be gone. Feeding a crowd of this size, even if only once a day, was a huge undertaking.

  Katie nervously wondered what they’d do then.

  After one nearly-failed attempt to go into town to look for food, resulting in bloodshed, Tucker had decided the risk wasn’t worth it. Stores had been looted, gangs were everywhere, and she agreed they’d wait it out and see if the power came back, rather than risk their lives again.

  But if the grid didn’t come up soon, they’d have to send out someone to scavenge. They’d all starve if they just sat around waiting.

  The smell grew stronger the closer she got to Sarah’s door. No doubt about it now, Sarah would have
to bring Sammi, and come stay with them. No one could live with this smell.

  Arriving at Sarah’s door, Katie put down her load and knocked. She waited several long moments and then decided to walk around back. It wasn’t uncommon for neighbors to seek out some privacy in the evenings in their own backyards; many of them fenced in.

  She poked her head over the fence, barely able to see. “Sarah? You back there?” she said softly, not wanting to wake the baby if she was sleeping.

  The only answer was the sound of the crickets and cicadas.

  They must be in the house, sleeping. But Katie knew where her extra key was; she’d just take the stuff in and leave it on the counter. She returned to the front porch, gathered up the food and water, hurried back, unlatched the gate, and made her way to the back door, finding the key under the birdhouse sitting on the rail.

  “Hello?” Katie called through the kitchen, trying to breathe through her mouth. Plates, cups, and bowls overflowed from the sink. The counters were littered with trash. Chairs were pushed out from the table, all askew, as though someone got up in a hurry and ran out.

  The smell was overpowering.

  Katie pushed a stack of plates over and put the food on the counter, and the water on the floor, and then peeked into the den to find Sarah sitting in her rocking chair, rocking Sammi soundlessly, her back to the kitchen.

  “Oh, there you are. Didn’t you hear me calling you?” Katie whispered, relieved to see Sarah up. She stepped into the living room, on tiptoes so that she didn’t wake Sammi.

  Sarah slowly turned her head, seeing Katie standing beside her now. “No, I’m sorry,” she muttered. “Hold on, I’ll put Sammi down in her bed.”

  Katie wiped her hands on her shorts, and held them out. “Let me. I’d love to help. I brought you some supper. You go eat and I’ll tuck Sammi in.” She stepped in front of Sarah and reached for the baby, swaddled in mounds of blankets. She looked like a tiny burrito. Even her face was covered. “Sarah, isn’t it a bit hot in here to have the baby covered like this? How can she even breathe?” She forced a quiet laugh.