After making it to safety to Sissy's ranch, Karen Shaw, Sissy, and Hicks come up with a plan to find Karen's friend Alice and ascertain her fate in all of the post pandemic chaos and fear.
Chapter 6
Do you remember that movie called Flight of the Phoenix, starring Jimmy Stewart? And do you remember the last scene when they make it back to the oasis and start splashing around in the water like kids on the first day of summer vacation? Well, that’s about how I felt when I first immersed my sore, sunburned, and shriveled body into the cool depths of the water in Sissy’s antique-type bath tub.
“Ahhh! Oh my holy God that feels wonderful!” I quietly exclaimed.
Knock. Knock
“Yes?” I replied.
“Is there anything else you need, like some more antihistamine?” wondered Sissy.
“Thanks Sissy, but I’m good at the moment,” I said softly.
“Okay,” she said. “But don’t take too long,” she advised. “Hicks wants to rinse off soon.”
“Mmm hmm,” I said lazily. I chuckled to myself when a fun little idea popped into my mind. “Well, tell Hicks if he’s anxious to cool off, he can always hop in the tub with me!”
“He was right,” conceded Sissy. “You are a little spark plug.”
I shrugged my shoulders as if she were in the bathroom with me.
It was difficult abandoning the cool relief of the bathtub after all of the soreness in my body had just faded away like most of the itching of my irritated body.
I patted myself dry and stood in front of the full length mirror on the door. Aside from the towel wrapped around my now silky and manageable hair, I was naked. Strangely enough, I didn’t even wince at all of the red patches of itchy skin. I felt totally accepting of my womanly body despite the temporary blemishing imperfection. In fact, in that moment, I wasn’t aware of any physical itching, but I was keenly aware of a deeply burning emotional itching within me. Turning sideways, I puffed out my belly and slowly traced out the smooth curvature with my palm, imaging I was pregnant. Despite the state of affairs out there and the chaos I could only begin to imagine in my mind, I desperately wanted to have a baby. Now that I was no longer in survival mode, I felt this pang within me. And I realized my desire to give birth wasn’t entirely out of some obligation to ensure the continuity of the human race; instead, it was instinctual. I needed to bring a life into this world to feel complete, to ensure a part of me lived on after I passed on. And it amazed me how powerful this desire was.
However, this perfectly natural moment ended with another round of knocking on the solid wood door. But this time, before anyone could annoy me with another insistent “how much longer?” question, I interjected.
“Hold your horses! I’ll be out in just a few moments.”
I glanced at the white terry cloth bathrobe setting on the small wooden chair in the corner and started to itch when I thought about putting it on. Then, a devilish smile lifted my spirits as an alternative occurred to me.
I slowly opened the door to the sight of Hicks impatient face. However, he wore that expression for not even two seconds after I opened the door. Now he was dumbfounded.
“I hope it doesn’t bother you the way I’m dressed right now,” I said innocently. Still wearing that dumbfounded look on his face, I continued on. “Since it’s just us I figured I’d give my skin a chance to breathe for a while.”
“Yeah,” said Hicks, trying his best not to look me up and down. “It’ll probably help it dry up faster.”
“I’ll have to thank Sissy for washing my underwear; otherwise, I’d be walking around sans bra and panties…Alright, I’m going to take another Benadryl and lie down and rest for a bit. See you later.”
“Uh…yeah,” stammered Hicks.
I didn’t even take more than a few steps toward the hallway before I glanced back at him wearing a wry smile as fresh as the bottle of water in Hicks’ hand.
“I’ll have to thank Sissy for being so prompt about washing my undies,” I teased.
After teasing Hicks a little more, I proceeded down the darkened hallway. And barely halfway down the cool concrete floor there was hardly any dampness left on my skin to be evaporated in the warm and very dry air flowing past me. I made haste toward the end of the hall and opened an even heavier wooden door. I creaked my way down the desiccated steps and knocked on the steel reinforced door. The door opened to the sight of Sissy in a tank top and army fatigue-style cargo pants.
“Pizza delivery,” I lamely teased.
Sissy forced a raspy laugh before motioning for me to come inside.
I loitered for a few seconds, savoring the air-conditioned air caressing my skin, giving me goosebumps.
“Well hurry up now,” she advised. “Don’t let all of the cool air rush out.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Wow!” I said. “What a difference just twelve or so feet underground makes. If it had been this cool upstairs, I think I’d still be in the bathtub.”
“Barely have enough solar panels to muster up enough juice to keep the a/c running down here all day…along with other things.”
“It’s amazing that you’re completely off the grid yet you still have electricity.”
“Not as much as I’d like. We’re short a couple of panels. And a couple of the remaining ones are a little temperamental. Their motors are out of alignment and they don’t track the sun as well as they used to. So the boys are out manually aligning them so they make the most of the waning late afternoon light.”
No sooner had Sissy mentioned the unenviable task of aligning the solar panels under an unforgiving dessert sun that I could have sworn the LED lights brightened a little.
“Ahhh…” remarked Sissy. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
She walked over to the thermostat and pressed the down arrow a couple of times.
“That outta do it,” she said, strolling back over to me. “Now we can cool it down proper for the boys when they get back.”
Now the lights dimmed for a second as the a/c kicked back on. I savored the rush of clean, cool, and stale air while I surveyed this partitioned off basement.
“So,” I began. “How long have you lived here?”
“Goin’ on eight years now. Lived here ever since I retired.”
The air quotes she used for the word “retired” and the accompanying wry smile on her face had me leaning in to inquire further.
“Retired?” I wondered.
“Yep,” she said casually. “I chose the early retirement option. It was much better than the alternative that the government had in store for me.”
“What did you do?”
“I was an aerospace engineer for many years. You see, I’ve always been good at fixing things, at taking things apart and figuring out what makes them tick. You see, it just comes naturally to me. It’s what I was meant to do. I’ve been described throughout my life as exceptionally bright and gifted and other labels of course. And I’m not gonna lie to ya, I let it go to my head sometimes. But what the military gave my team and I to work on…to figure out, made me feel like an idiot child. It was truly an amazing, life changing, baffling and humbling experience, because whoever engineered the radically advanced technology was far smarter than me, my team, or anyone else on this Earth for that matter.”
“Ohhh…You mean to say…”
Sissy simply nodded her head.
“That’s right,” she said in a soft monotone. “Extraterrestrial.”
I stifled a laugh but her dead serious expression didn’t soften one bit.
“You’re serious?” I said. “You’re seriously not pulling my leg?” I said.
That wry smile lit up her face once more.
“Let me show you something,” she said. “Something you might find very interesting.”
She slid open the drawer of the end table which was next to the beat up sofa she was sitting on.
“I’m sorry,” I began, “But that smartphone doesn’t look very extraterrestrial to me.”
Sissy said, “It’s what’s inside it which is quite unusual and unique.”
She slid off the battery cover and pulled out a thin rectangular object. Aside from its sleek and shiny exterior, it looked rather unremarkable.
“So it’s some kind of battery?”
“Not just any kind of battery,” corrected Sissy. “It’s the holy grail of battery technology. It’s a high density direct storage battery.”
“Direct storage?” I wondered.
“It means the current isn’t generated by a chemical reaction like in most batteries. The battery is like a sponge which soaks up electrons when it’s being charged. And once fully charged, it releases those electrons at a steady rate, as needed by the device it’s adapted to.”
“How long will a charge last?” I asked.
“I was waiting for you to ask me that,” said Sissy. “You’re probably not going to believe this, but the battery in this smartphone, this relic from another life, has been powering it continuously on only one charge for…for…well, how long do you think? Go ahead. Take a guess.”
“I don’t know,” I began. “Umm…A month?”
Sissy’s chuckling told me I wasn’t even in the vicinity.
“Try over two years and counting,” said Sissy, with a measure of pride in her voice.
“Seriously? That long?” I replied.
“Yep. At this rate, it’ll outlast me. You see, it’s made of this nano-matrix of a room temperature superconductor. Think of it as consisting of layer upon layer of hundreds of thousands of tiny current loops. And as long as it’s kept at a temperature at or below seventy degrees, zero, and I mean zero charge leaks out. In fact, if you buried it fully charged in a cool place and came back in a thousand years, it would still be fully charged.”
“Wish I had some of those batteries. Then I never would have been late because my car didn’t start.”
“With a battery of this type the size of a car battery, hell, if there were enough bridges, you could drive around the world a few times…Not that the big oil execs would ever let that happen.”
“I guess not,” I automatically agreed.
An awkward silence ensued while I idly scanned the shelter, making note of shelf upon shelf full of canned food, MREs and jug, upon jug of water. Meanwhile, Sissy hummed an unfamiliar tune while tinkering with a HAM radio.
“What’s kind of range does that thing have?” I wondered.
“Plannin’ on callin’ someone?” teased Sissy.
I chuckled before saying, “I’m what you’d consider a modern girl…a bit of facebook and texting junky.”
Sissy shook her head and replied with a raspy chuckle of her own.
“What did I say?” I wondered.
“Nothin,’” replied Sissy.
“C’mon, you were going to say something. What was it?”
“I never much cared for relyin’ on big business to provide a service I don’t need.” Patting her HAM radio, she continued on. “The internet and cellphone networks can go down. Satellites can go offline. Hackers can steal your personal information (along with the NSA). But the ionosphere never goes down. The nano-battery that powers this baby puts lithium-ions to shame. And best of all, HAM radios are too low tech for hackers to get excited about.”
After fiddling with the radio for a few more minutes, she announced, “There! She’s good to go.”
“What were you doing?”
“Oh, just tryin’ to clean up the reception a bit…you know, minimize the background noise.”
“Aren’t you going to try it out?”
“Not yet,” said Sissy. “Later on tonight when the reception’s better. Besides, there’s no point being in a rush to hear about more terrible news.”
“Yeah,” I conceded. “I guess you’re right…Umm…How bad is it if you don’t mind me askin?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to get some shut eye. You look like you could use some.”
“Please,” I quietly implored. “I need to know how bad it is.”
Sissy sighed deeply and slumped into the plush sofa before reluctantly replying.
“It’s bad enough that a few of my HAM radio buddies have gone off the air. Now, I know a lot of people from a lot of different places across this country of ours, and every single one of them has informed me that the virus has spread to their neck of the woods. Now I can’t say for certain whether or not it’s spread to every sizeable city and town in the U.S., but if I were to bet, then…well, anyway it would certainly be one bet I wouldn’t be happy to win.”
As Sissy got up to begin inventorying the more than sufficient supplies, I asked the burning question on my mind, the one I already knew the answer to.
“What about Baltimore? Have you heard anything? I have a friend who lives there…a young woman named Alice.”
Sissy bowed her head, nodding ever so slightly.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I’m sorry…But maybe your friend got out before FEMA ordered a military quarantine.”
“She does have family who live in the countryside,” I mused. “Yeah, maybe she did get out…But if she didn’t…and she’s holed up somewhere…is there any way to get her out?”
“Karen,” began Sissy. “Maybe. But it would be about as hard as sneaking a healthy woman of childbearing age such as yourself through the main security checkpoint. You may not want to hear this right now and I know this is going to sound harsh, but you’re going to have to let her go. You escaped capture from the military once but you might not get away a second time. My advice? Don’t tempt fate.”
“To hell with fate!” I declared. “I didn’t come this far and endure so much terrible shit just to plop my ass down in this chair, put my feet up, and forget about someone who needs me, someone who’s probably scared as hell right now and feeling completely alone. To be honest, I don’t give a damn if I die trying. If I can save her, it would be worth it. Now I know you’ve gone way above and beyond by helping me…by helping us get to safety. But all I’m asking for is just a little more help. Please. That’s all I’m asking.”
Sissy sighed once more. Then she crossed her arms, leaned against a shelf, and mulled it over in her mind.
She said, “Why don’t you get some rest while I think about it. When Hicks comes down, we’ll see if we can’t come up with a couple of options…But don’t get your hopes up.”
I walked down the short hallway and collapsed onto a surprisingly comfortable cot in a room about the size of a closet.
The combination of cumulative dehydration, falling ill, and adjusting to a regular sleep schedule eliminated all protests from my guilty conscience. I was just too tired to worry any more. I fell into a deep sleep.
When I awoke what seemed like minutes later, I heard heated murmuring coming from down the hall, from what qualified as the living room.
Like a stealthy child wandering into a parents’ argument that had spilled over into a sleepy realm, the exchange between Sissy and Hicks ended abruptly when they caught sight of my bleary eyes.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“A few minutes past 1:00am,” said Hicks in a weary monotone.
“If you’re still arguing,” I began, “I can just grab a drink of water and head back to bed until you figure something out.”
“We’re not arguing,” said Hicks.
“We’re exploring options,” added Sissy.
“And?” I inquired.
“And…nothing so far,” said Hicks. “I’m sorry to say, but at this point, I just don’t see how we can make it in and out of the city right under the military’s nose. It borders on mission impossible…on mission suicide.”
“What about using the sewers or something?” I wondered.
Hicks shook his head.
“If there’s one thing the military is good at, it’s containment. They have much better maps of all of the sewers and tunnels and every imaginable subterranean entrance. And besides, I know the commander in charge of the Baltimore quarantine. He’s very, very thorough. Even if he did miss something, it would be because it wasn’t properly mapped in some database. If he missed it, we’d miss it too…Sorry. I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear right now.”
“Well, then there’s gotta be some way to get in touch with her, to find out what’s happened,” I insisted.
Then Hicks said, “Well, there is one option: it’s a compromise, but it may offer some closure.”
“What kind of compromise?” I asked.
“The aerial surveillance reconnaissance option,” added Sissy.
“What,” I began, with crinkled brow, “you mean like the drones the military uses?”
“And just as stealthy,” mentioned Sissy.
She motioned with her head to a curious object setting on top of her tool chest.
“The toy helicopter?” I said in an incredulous manner.
“Made it myself,” said Sissy. “Well, more accurately, I put it together myself…but with a few modifications of course.”
“Wait a minute,” I began, “Aren’t those things really noisy, just buzzing around overhead?”
“The operative word is modified,” said Sissy, with that measure of pride returning to her voice. “The same type of battery that powers that cellphone of mine is at the heart of the copter. It’s just as quiet as some of the drones the U.S. government uses to spy on its own citizens. Only difference is I use it for security, to patrol the perimeter to ensure that the only thing that sets foot on my land is the occasional scorpion.”
“So what do we do? Just fly it over the city to Alice’s apartment and hope that the blinds aren’t closed since we can’t knock? What if it gets hit by a bird or runs into a powerline or something like that?”
Sissy simply smiled and walked on over to the tool chest and gently picked up the helicopter. Handing it to me, she said, “You see that? It’s a camera. It sees things in the visible, near infrared, and infrared.”
“What’s that just behind it?” I wondered, like I was looking under the hood of a car.
“That’s the wireless transmitter. It streams the images live to a smartphone, a laptop, a tablet, or whatever you have,” said Sissy. “The images can get a little grainy at times, but it’s got a proven track record.”
“What about in a city? How will it perform there?” I asked.
“Umm…Even though I’ve never tested it in a high density urban area before, I’m sure it’ll do fine. The transmitter is pretty powerful.”
“It’s too bad this helicopter isn’t bigger,” I said. “That would certainly solve the transportation problem…Which brings me to the next problem. Other than traveling by camel, how are we supposed to get there? Is it even doable?”
“I know a pilot that may be able to get you close,” said Sissy.
“Aren’t all of the airports closed?” I observed.
Hicks and Sissy both nodded.
“And there are no-fly zones around all of them which complicates matters,” added Hicks. “And that’s where it gets tricky.”
“Define tricky,” I said, crossing my arms. “What are we going to do, land on the interstate?”
“Who said anything about landing,” said Sissy, in a dead serious tone.
“I know this a shot in the dark,” said Hicks. “But have you ever gone sky-diving before?”
“Whoa! Wait a minute,” I protested. “There’s got to be another option. Can’t we just land in a field or something?”
“Sure,” replied Hicks, a wry smile on his face. “On your legs, with a deployed parachute behind you.”
“That’s the operative word,” I whined. “Deployed. What if it doesn’t deploy? After all, it’s not the fall I’m afraid of, it’s the sudden split second deceleration.”
“Look,” said Hicks, “I’ve executed dozens upon dozens of jumps during my career. And I’ve trained others. And during that time there were never any incidents.”
“Well, you may be a master jumper, but I’m certainly not. I’m not even ready for that sort of thing and it would take too much time to train me. Great! Now what are we going to do?”
“You wouldn’t be jumping alone,” reassured Hicks. “You’d be jumping with me, executing what’s called a tandem jump.”
“What all would I have to do?” I asked.
“Other than strap yourself to me and come along for the ride, not much else,” said Hicks, half-jokingly. “You can do it. Trust me.”
I said, “I do trust you Hicks. I trust you more than any person I’ve ever known…Let’s do it. Let’s do it A.S.A.P.”
“Then it’s decided,” said Sissy. “I’ll go ahead and contact my friend.”
“Before you do,” said Hicks, “I just need the radio for a little while…to get in touch with someone.”
The way his eyes were glistening, I knew he was talking about his fiancée. Sissy and I both glanced at each other with mutual understanding before making ourselves scarce. I grabbed a cup of water and headed back to my humble accommodations while Sissy found something upstairs to keep herself busy.
When I awoke later that morning, instead of quenched thirst thanks to the cup of water from the cooler, my mouth was parched. Instead of loud whispering emanating from down the hall, there was only the hum of the a/c. And then there was deafening silence when it cut off for a much needed rest.
I put on my clothes which had been placed on the chair in the corner while I was dead to the world and then padded my way down the hall in my socks.
“Morning,” said Sissy, sipping on a drink with her feet up on the coffee table.
“Morning,” I replied. “Whatcha got there?”
“Coffee,” said Sissy.
“Is it regular or decaf?” I asked.
Sissy smiled before saying, “Regular’s the only kind we got around here. Coffee without caffeine is like a cellphone without any service…useless…Pour yourself a cup if you’d like.”
After getting a small cup I returned to the chair and collapsed into it.
“Where’s Hicks?” I wondered, scanning the room.
Sissy motioned with her head toward the stairs. “If you want to get some fresh air and stretch your legs, you best do so now before it gets too oppressive out there.”
I grabbed my cup and headed upstairs. When I stepped across the threshold onto the porch, I saw him sitting on the steps. Sitting down next to him, I offered him a cup.
“I probably shouldn’t,” said Hicks. “It’ll dehydrate you faster. Then again, Sissy shouldn’t smoke either.”
After taking a few sips, he handed it back to me.
“Thanks,” he said weakly.
“Did you manage any sleep?” I asked.
Hicks shook his head, continuing to stare at some unremarkable patch of brownness off in the distance.
“Are you gonna be alright?” I inquired.
“I don’t think alright is in my vocabulary anymore,” he said in a monotone as dead as some of the hues off in the distance. “What do you see when you look off into the distance Karen?”
“What do you see Hicks?”
Pointing straight ahead, he said, “I see nothing. That’s all I see now.” Then he stood up and made a sweeping motion with his arm. “It doesn’t matter where I look. Nothin’ but a whole lot of nothing, nothing, nothing, and more nothing. That’s all I have to look forward to now Karen: nothing. Without her I’m nothing. Jesus! What am I going to do now?”
Hicks cradled his head in his hands and wept.
“Oh God Hicks, I am so sorry for your loss,” I said softly. Rubbing his shoulder I said, I think I better head back inside. I’m sure you want to be alone.
“No. Please don’t go Karen. I think you’re the only one around here who understands what it’s like to care for someone more than you care about yourself, the only person who has an idea of the hell I’m going through right now.”
“I suppose. I do care more about Alice than I do myself.”
“I wasn’t just talking about Alice. I was talking about your husband-to-be.”
“Yeah,” I said weakly. “I can only imagine what he’s going through right now. He probably gave me up for dead a while ago.”
“I don’t think so. I think right now he’s torn apart inside from the agony of not knowing, and still hoping against hope that you’ll show up at his door with a smile on your face. I know I hoped against hope just like he did even though something inside was whispering that she was gone, that I needed to face reality. But I couldn’t. I put it off as long as I could. This is going to sound strange, but now I envy you, not knowing and still hoping against hope.” Wiping tears from his eyes, he continued on. “If I can’t get the love of my life back, at least I can help you get back Alice…and then track down your fiancé. Maybe one of us will have a happy ending.”
“Yeah, I hope so.”
“Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough,” added Hicks. “Sissy got in touch with the pilot. We leave sunup tomorrow.”
“Good,” I said. I patted him on the shoulder before stretching my back. “I’ll see you inside.”
To Be Continued...
