Dreams of Shadows, Patrick Sean Lee [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

lightened up on his penchant for cussing. Thank you, Cynthia.

Charles welcomed Denise’s help, convivially, but always at arms’ length. Deep down inside me, I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—accept his feigned indifference. It simply defied logic. It was out of my hands, at any rate, so I had to let it be.

Lashawna regressed, even though by all appearances she’d made it through her first rejection without suffering a mortal wound. She worked beside me, or Peter, or Charles in the garden or orchard happily, trading asides and laughter, but inevitably the night would find her alone in her room, or mothering Jerrick, often to his consternation.

I should have learned, but I hadn’t. I plotted another trip, perhaps north this time. Someone was waiting out there for her. Throughout the spring and early summer, the idea became a grain of sand in my stomach, scratching and growing and demanding. I’d leave again with Peter before Fall. This time I’d bring back a mate for her.

 

August came, and with it the beginning of hot days and nights that required use of the house air conditioning circuit, which created a heavier load, which—that was all Greek to me. The generator that had supplied our power finally gave up the ghost. I should say generators. We’d had to replace it three times with ever-heavier models because it ran constantly. Someone—I think it was Jerrick—suggested in late Spring that we gather up the necessary components in town, and then install solar, but for the time being it was far simpler to just throw the old generator away, raid Home Depot, and hook up a brand new one. Munster’s, Peter’s, and Jerrick’s province of learned-expertise.

The questions arose over the months about supplies; gasoline—for how many months or years would it remain usable (Jerrick’s concern)? The question, the probability that in time the stuff from the filling station tanks might become useless, horrified Munster, and so the men dragged ten empty one thousand gallon tanks that could be sealed, back to the farm. They used a portable generator set up in turn at several filling stations to activate a pump, that in turn filled an endless number of cans which were laboriously dumped into each tank back at the farm, and then sealed until—sometime far in the future—the life-extending fuel would be needed.

The shelf life of canned goods. As long as the cans remained sealed, we were good for decades. Charles’ projection.

Medical supplies. For the short term, they weren’t a problem. We stocked up on a variety of items we knew we’d need. The problem was someone qualified to actually cure, and the equipment any hospital once had to help effect the cure. We desperately needed a doctor in our family. At least that. No one could be certain if a real doctor still lived, and if he or she did, where might we find that person? Would he or she even agree to join us? One of us would eventually fall ill, and then what would we do? Pray to the aliens?

Such were only a few of the issues we faced, the solutions to many impacting our very survival. Working on the answers consumed us, more so with every week that raced by.

I put it to our family that first week of August. I intended to leave with Peter soon, once again, this time with enough supplies to last a month. The reason was ostensibly to search out a physician, if one existed somewhere in the state. More truthfully, I felt the odds were good that a young man close to Shawna’s age was out there, and if he was, we’d find him. And maybe if we were lucky, a real doctor.

“Suppose you run across a Mad Max gang, and suppose they cripple the truck. What then?” Charles asked that evening.

“That scenario is Hollywood,” I said.

“But you found such a group in San Diego!”

“We’ll have to risk it. We’ll take heavier arms,” Peter answered.

“I’m going with you,” Munster said.

“Not enough room, and besides, you’re needed here to help keep the farm running, not to mention helping to protect it.”

Charles argued against us going, citing a laundry list of reasons why we shouldn’t. But he knew—everyone did—that eventually another trip into dangerous waters would become necessary. He finally relented, and so we drew up a detailed plan.

It was odd, those last few days when we immersed ourselves in packing the bed of the truck with every conceivable item we might need, that Jerrick wandered off to sit beneath the cold, black cylinder cross-legged, daily. It was almost as though he was trying to communicate with whatever lay inside. I could see his hands draw close to the deadly surface. I could see that he wanted to touch it…but he’d always draw back.

Don’t mess with it, Jerrick. Wait like the rest of us. Remember Mari’s command.

 

August 6th. We said our goodbyes. Cynthia cried. Lashawna hugged me and said, “Good luck. Stay safe.” Munster uttered, “Shit.”

 

“Godspeed,” Charles invoked his blessing, and we were off.

 

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Publication Date: 12-26-2013

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