The Bad Flu
by Richard Allen Stotts

I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza
I opened the window,
And in-flu-enza.
A children's rhyme for skip rope, circa 1918

A little history...all of it true.

When you call to mind the great plagues of history you will probably think of the Black Death, the Bubonic Plague that reigned supreme from 1347 until 1351. It must have surely have been the most deadly epidemic that mankind has ever endured.

Of course you would be wrong.

The great Influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people in one year than did the Black Death in the entire four years of its longest outbreak. Between 20 and 40 million people around the entire planet succumbed to what was known as the "Spanish Flu."

The flu virus struck the hardest at those who would normally be able to survive best such an illness, people between the ages of twenty and forty. The virus could act very fast, people were sometimes literally struck down in the street and could be dead in as little as one day, their lungs filling with thick, viscous fluids that would finally suffocated them.

Of all of the deaths to American fighting men during World War One, about half were due to the flu. At home in America the death toll was estimated at 675,000.

Even so, the mortality rate among those contracting the virus was only about two and one-half percent. A 'normal' flu virus will kill about 0.1 percent or less of its victims.

Flu viruses tend to mutate quickly, changing from year to year. Suppose the next variation of the virus is not survivable by anyone? Give some brief thought to this the next time you feel like you might be coming down with "something."

Chapter One

The Worst of Times

Terrance Allen Winters was finally going home from the hospital after a two-week long struggle to just keep on breathing. The contaminated batch of flu vaccine that had sent him into intensive care had also put over one thousand children in the Santa Cruz School District into various hospitals. The defective vaccine had also put eighty-six of those children into their early graves. Hundreds of lawsuits were being filed; lawyers were arriving from all points to offer their generous services. It was a scandal of national proportions and needless to say people everywhere stopped getting flu shots of any sort, not that it would matter at all in the months to come.

The Center for Disease Control had earlier in the year issued a warning that the coming flu season promised to be especially harsh and had urged people of all ages to get their shots early. In truth the CDC had no hint about what was truly ahead for the world; the bad batch of vaccine in California was just an unfortunate aberration in a needed inoculation program. The program to immunize the U.S. population against the anticipated strain of flu would be a total waste of time. The new strain that was to actually appear would be something else entirely.

----------

"I can walk, for Pete's sakes!" Terry was still weak and had lost weight but he still didn't care too much for the way his mom and dad were constantly fussing over him. Now his father even wanted to carry him into the house from the family's SUV.

"Are you sure, son?" Frank Winters had almost lost his son and did not want anything else to befall the boy, his only boy.

"Yeah, dad. I'm okay!" Terry was ten-going-on-eleven and was at that stage where a guy wanted more adult treatment from his parents. Even his fourteen-year-old sister Marsha (referred to by Terry as the "Martian") was being civil towards him and had even kissed him as they had left the hospital! It was embarrassing!

Apparently the high school that Marsha attended had received a different batch of flu vaccine; the girl had escaped the fate that her pesky brother had not. Terry's mother Ellen had been through her own section of hell these last two weeks trying to keep a household together and at the same time spending most of her time sitting beside her son's bed at the hospital. Many other parents had went through the same thing with her; an informal support group had formed that kept them all mostly sane as they watched their children either get well or die.

To Terry's utter horror their small mountain neighborhood had put together a welcoming home party for him. As he walked in the front door beside his mother horns tooted and cheers of "Welcome home!" assaulted his senses. Confetti was even thrown.

"Oh man!" Terry felt like heading back to the hospital.

"Terry my man! You look like crap!" This from Eddie Briscoll, Terry's partner in crime and long time friend. Eddie had been sickened by the vaccine also but had only spent three days in the hospital and was already back to his live wire self again.

"Thanks. So do you."

"I always look this way," Eddie replied with a grin. In truth Eddie was indeed remarkably homely and was equipped with ears more suitable for some other species. Add a zillion freckles and red hair to the picture. But there are other qualities you look for in choosing a best friend, good looks is way down on that list if you have any smarts at all.

After the endless kisses and head rubs and some of the cake and ice cream, Terry's mother hustled the boy upstairs and into his bed for a nap. Terry didn't protest too much, he was indeed pretty tired from the day's events. His strength would return in time but for now it pretty much just wasn't there.

----------

Hong Kong

The virus was hidden for just now as it was undergoing yet another of it's seemingly endless yearly mutations. It was becoming a killer this time. In the term used by astronomers, paleontologists, and Hollywood filmmakers, the virus was going to be the biological equivalent of an "Ellie," or E.L.E.

Extinction Level Event.

----------

Two weeks had passed since Terry was discharged from the hospital. There had been a stack of schoolwork waiting for him when he got home and he had managed to plod through the most of it. Terry was a practical and methodical sort of person, bright enough to get mostly A's in school but not an actual genius. At almost eleven he had his father's black hair and his mother's blue eyes. He was of average build for his age and had regular features, rather handsome actually but don't ever tell him that. Home cooking and a returning appetite were now filling in the bony places on the boy, there was good color back in his cheeks.

It was after Thanksgiving now and time to go back to school, or rather what was left of it. The flu shot debacle had decimated his small elementary school and only now were students starting to trickle back to its hallowed halls of learning and liberal indoctrination. You have to remember that this was Santa Cruz County, an area with far more than the average population of shiny-faced 'progressive' thinkers and genuinely certifiable nut buckets.

"I already have on every piece of clothes in the house!" Terry was suffering not too gently his mother's efforts to bundle him up for the cool fall day.

"I don't want you catching anything else, not after what you've been though." Ellen had her protesting son outfitted for crossing the Antarctic on foot.

"I'll catch heat stroke first! Lighten up, Mom!"

Eventually a compromise was reached just as the school bus beeped its horn. No gloves, no knitted ski cap.

"Gotta run! Bye, Mom!"

Kiss. Hug. Out the door.

"Stay safe." Ellen whispered as she watched her son dash for the yellow bus. A chill passed over her every time she thought about how they had almost lost him. The awful gasping sounds he had made trying to breathe, the wild fevers that came and went so many times. He had even been given the last rites one very dark night. But now he was back and seemingly well.

"Thank you, God."

----------

Hong Kong

A respected vendor of both real and fake Rolex's had almost decided to stay home for the day, he was coming down with something and didn't feel at all well. But money is money and the tourists still flocked to this exotic city. The watch merchant sold seven of the overpriced timepieces that day and with each customer he concluded the deal with a handshake and a death sentence. Melvin Dayton from Kansas City shook that hand; he would be the first of many to bring the Reaper home to America.

----------

"Mom! I'm out of clean underwear!" If the volume from upstairs was any indication of his health his mother decided that her son must now be fully recovered.

"In the new dresser, I moved them!" Ellen was having a hard time getting upset with her boy these days; his noisy presence was a reassuring sound to the woman. Her smile left her as she focused in on what the hourly news on the radio was saying.

".... over three hundred confirmed cases of the flu in and around the Kansas City area. There is an unconfirmed report that now a total of eleven people have succumbed to the effects of this apparently new and virulent strain of the disease. Officials at the CDC say that there is no need for any panic but prudent steps should be taken by the general population. In other news related to the flu, the massive outbreaks in Hong Kong and Taiwan are believed to be the source of the new virus...."

"Wonderful," muttered Ellen, "just what we all need."

"What's wonderful?" Terry was downstairs by now, dressed from his shower and nosing around the stove to check on dinner's progress.

"Some sort of bad flu outbreak in Kansas City."

This got all of Terry's attention.

"Like what I had?"

"No. Not from a bad vaccine. Something from Hong Kong they think."

"Oh. Bummer."

"Indeed, bummer."

Terry changed the subject.

"Mister Weems said he would teach me how to drive his tractor this Saturday, if it's all right with you and Dad."

"I don't know, those things are...."

"Very safe," Terry interrupted, "it's hardly any bigger than Dad's riding mower." The boy had this argument all plotted and planned.

"Well... ask your father. If he says it's okay then it's okay."

"Thanks, Mom." A hug and kiss were in order and Terry did just that to his mother.

Of course it was all right with Terry's father. After all it was a manly sort of thing to learn, guy stuff. Besides, Frank Winters had been secretly planning to buy one of the motorized man-toys for himself.

Saturday "It has sort of an automatic transmission thing," Weems was explaining it all to Terry as the boy sat nervously on the small earth gouger. Eddie Briscoll and Terry's father were the rapt audience. "Just make sure the brake is set and then switch on the ignition." Weems was loving this lesson also, he was a retired widower and his own three boys were long grown and dispersed to their separate lives. He had always been sort of the neighborhood 'grandfather' to the two boys and any other kid who needed a bike fixed or some willing ears to just listen to their problems.

The tractor rattled to life and settled into a very smooth purr of an idle. Terry was in danger of injuring the muscles in his face that controlled his grin.

"Now raise the loader and tilt the bucket up like I showed you." Weems was grinning too, everyone was.

Terry did as instructed. It was easy, one lever raised the loader, and the other controlled the angle of the scoop.

"Good. Now keep your foot on the brake and put it in low range."

The moment of truth had arrived. Actual motion was next.

"Okay, now let off the brake and give it just a little gas." Weems was hoping that his shed and fences would survive this next step. Not to worry.

"Cool!" Terry did exactly as he was supposed to and soon had the machine slowly cruising around the three back acres of Mister Weems' land. In truth the diminutive tractor was remarkably easy to control and operate. Terry even progressed to digging a small trench and then re-covering the rather untidy hole he had produced. His father was not quite green with envy when Weems let Eddie have a turn also; the man was too old to jump up and down and shout "Me too!" Frank Winters was used to driving 767's around the sky for a living but this seemed like a lot more fun.

It was a very good day. That evening was not so good; it was the beginning of the Bad Times and the end of all fun for a long time.

----------

A nation halted that night and paid attention to their televisions, their radios, the Internet. All of hell was coming for a long stay.

".... there are confirmed outbreaks in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and now in New York City. Apparently symptoms do not appear for at least ten days and during that time the victim is apparently very contagious, spreading the virus without even knowing it. The death toll so far is over nine thousand and growing. I must be honest and tell you that so far no one who has contracted this 'super-flu' has recovered, death has ensued in as little as two days after symptoms appear." The Surgeon General was holding a news conference, even Terry hadn't objected when the network had broken into the middle of the latest car chase documentary. The Surgeon General wasn't just concerned, the man was terrified, and so was the entire nation. There was simply no way to stop this thing and there was certainly no cure for it.

"Dad?" Terry's unformed question was hushed up as the uniformed man on the TV continued.

"We are urging all persons not engaged in matters of public safety to simply stay at home. Do not travel or go shopping if at all possible. This cannot be passed off as anything but a grave situation but our nation can and will survive this latest challenge."

The President came on immediately after the news conference, speaking from the Oval Office. Marshal law was declared; the constitution was pushed to the back burner.

"We'll be safe here." Ellen Winters prayed that their more than average isolation in the Santa Cruz Mountains would give them a safety barrier. They would simply stay put until this horrid thing was under control.

But things would not be brought under control. The airlines were the main reason for the rapid spread around the globe of this deadly virus. Frank Winters was a pilot for United and had been infected eight days ago. He would start to sneeze in another two days. Every person he had met or talked to in that time was also now infected. Every neighbor for a good half mile up and down the narrow mountain road was infected. Frank was a very friendly sort and never passed up the opportunity to stop and chew the fat Now they were all going to die.

Save for two.

Chapter Two

Practical Matters

"It's just a cold or something, don't worry." Frank Winters knew better but could not bring himself to say "just the flu or something."

"You're burning up!" Ellen wasn't fooled at all; the thermometer read one hundred and three. In truth her husband felt like a truck had run over him, everything that could ache did. He was starting to cough and there was a tightness in his chest. A deep breath was becoming painful.

Ellen's first reaction was to get her husband to the nearest emergency room but that was no longer an option. Hospitals were no longer accepting patients of any sort. Half of the medical community was already sick or dying, many of the rest simply opted out of a hopeless situation and were staying home to look after their own families. In any event there were no magic bullets to slay the virus; a trip to the hospital was a waste of time. If you had it you were probably as good as dead, in fact you were certainly as good as dead.

There had already been scattered riots at the few open supermarkets and drugstores. Other stores with practical wares had been broken into and stripped bare by an increasingly desperate populace. People were carrying guns and more than a few of them were quick to use them. The telephones and power still functioned with skeleton staffs (if you will pardon the expression) managing the largely automated utilities. Preparations were in place to bring the state's two nuclear power plants to cold shutdowns if their operators continued to dwindle in numbers. Everything seemed to be happening with appalling speed; it was all just starting to fall apart.

"Dad's really sick. I think it's the flu." Terry was talking to his friend Eddie on the phone. The boy was scared silly and it was apparent in his voice.

"My mom doesn't feel good either, she says it's just her allergies acting up but I don't believe her." Eddie sounded on the verge of tears himself.

"Jesus, Eddie! What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know. The radio is really scary. They say that people are dying everywhere. They say that China has gone totally silent."

"Jesus." Terry knew that things were going from bad to worse in a hurry. Some of the local television stations were just carrying the network feeds; none of the usual talking heads were to be seen.

"Are you okay?" Eddie asked, almost afraid to.

"Yeah, I feel all right. You?"

"I'm okay too. Just scared. I have to go now, Mom wants me to fix some lunch for Samantha." Samantha was Eddie's four-year old sister.

"Okay. Call me."

"Yeah."

Ellen Winters did what all good parents would try to do and carried on until she literally collapsed. Terry was by now the only able body left in the house. His father was in a really bad way, his sister had taken to her bed and now his mother was lying on the kitchen floor.

"Mom!" Terry was shaking his mother trying to wake her. He then felt her forehead; it was like touching a hot stove. Some paper towels soaked in cold water finally roused the woman. She blinked her eyes and finally focused on her son.

"Terry? Have you finished your math homework yet?"

She was delirious, even Terry could diagnose that much. His father had been that way for the last day now.

How the boy managed to get the woman up to the spare bedroom is a testament to his grit and desperation. It didn't seem right somehow to put her next to his father, as sick as they both were. Frank Winters had already lost control of his bodily functions, something that Terry could just not bring himself to cope with yet; he wasn't even sure how to cope with it.

Terry did his very best; he tried everything in his very limited knowledge of medicine and nursing.

"Chicken soup!" That was supposed to be good for sick people! Only his sister could manage to swallow a little of the Campbells Chicken and Noodles. He couldn't even get his parents to drink a little Seven-Up or even just some water. They were all dying and in the back of his mind he knew it.

The boy literally ran from room to room trying to do what he could, trying to save his family. It did not even occur to him to wonder why he wasn't anything more than just bone tired. He didn't have the flu at all. An exhausted evening nap on the living room couch was cut short with the startling sound of the phone ringing. It was Eddie.

"Hello?"

"Hi Terr."

"Eddie! How are your...?"

"They're all dead, Terr." Eddie seemed very detached and just as exhausted as his friend was.

"Oh shit." Terry's voice was just a whisper.

"What should I...what do I do now?"

"I don't know. My folks are in a bad way." In fact Terry's mother and father were already dead. His sister would join them in the late hours of this night.

"Stay put for right now, we'll figure out what to do in the morning." Terry was numb with anguish and fear. What could they possibly figure out in the morning?

"Okay. Catch you later." Eddie's voice seemed very small and far away. Too small and too far away.

Terry knew the truth even before he entered his father's and then his mother's room. There were no more sounds of labored breathing, no gasp for air that was not to be had, none of the disgusting sounds they made when coughing up that awful stuff in their lungs. A wet washcloth gently cleaned the mess off of their faces. He didn't cry when he covered them with the blankets. He didn't cry as he sat next to his total pain in the ass sister while holding her hand as she finally became silent and still. Cold.

The crying would have to wait for later.

----------

Eddie was sitting on the front steps of his home when his friend came over the next morning. It was very chilly and damp with wisps of a light fog still clinging to the treetops.

"Hi." Terry didn't know what else to say as he sat beside his best friend. Both of them were in the sort of shock that you might imagine. After a time Eddie ventured to reply.

"I called 911. All I got was a recording."

"What did it say?"

"Basically it said we're on our own and to bury or burn any bodies immediately."

"God."

"Yeah."

For a while longer they just sat huddled close to one another.

"Why aren't we sick?" Terry finally asked.

"I dunno. I kept taking my temperature last night. It was always normal."

"Maybe it was that shitty vaccine we had that made us so sick before all of this?" Terry could think of nothing else to explain their being alive.

"Yeah. Maybe so."

"We should go and check on Mister Weems, maybe...."

"I already did," Eddie interrupted gently, "he's dead too."

"Oh crap!"

Then they both found the tears that had been waiting for them, they both held onto one another for a very long time.

----------

"We have to take care of...we have to bury our folks." Terry knew this had to be done. It was nearly noon by now, the tears had dried up but the empty feeling would not leave them.

"Oh Christ! How are we gonna do that?" Eddie sounded desperate and didn't even want to go back into his house again.

"Mister Weems' tractor. We gotta do this for them, Eddie."

Eddie only nodded his head. They did indeed have to do this one thing that made them human beings. They had to do what was right and what was practical. Instant adulthood had been thrust upon them; childish things must be put aside for now and perhaps forever.

They decided on the small open space behind Eddie's house for the burial site. It was far enough from the small stream that was their second home in the warm months and the soil there wasn't as hard and rocky as the surrounding area. Terry was as ever the practical and methodical one, choosing this place was the logical thing to do.

There were no smiles this time as Weems' small tractor was once more started up and driven carefully down the empty road to Eddie's house. Lack of experience prolonged Terry's excavations until almost dark but a sloping trench that was a good five feet deep and almost twenty feet long was finally achieved. Eddie had helped with a shovel as best he could. They were only young boys and didn't have the muscles that were really needed for the job.

"We'll do it in the morning. We need to rest for now." Terry's words made sense as usual. It had been a very long day.

A simple meal of canned soup and bologna sandwiches in the Winters' kitchen sufficed for dinner. Neither boy liked to think about what was in the upstairs bedrooms of both houses and what they had to do in the morning. Bed and sleep would be sharing the big couch in the living room. There was nothing but static on the local television stations, the DirectTV satellite system had only taped programs seemingly about random subjects. There were no commercials.

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There could be no thought of building proper caskets; they had neither the skills nor the time needed. The boys had to make do with sleeping bags, blankets, and some duct tape. It was a horrible thing to have to do, especially for just young boys, for anyone. They helped one another as best they could, handling a dead body requires some strength as well some respect and care. Eddie lost it completely when it was time to prepare his little sister. Terry took over and spared his friend the awful task. The little girl didn't really look dead at all and seemed to be just sleeping.

Wrapping the bodies of their parents and siblings had been ghastly enough, now they had to somehow transport them to the gravesite.

"We'll use the Navigator." Terry finally decided.

"Can you drive it?" The enormous SUV could have been mistaken for some sort of military assault vehicle save for it's metallic blue paint job.

"I think so. It has an automatic and we can go real slow."

It was a good plan but they simply could not lift Terry's large father into the back of the four-wheeled beast. They had managed to drag the wrapped bodies out to the driveway, but that was all. They would have to use the tractor again, as unfitting as it seemed. The skip loader would supply the muscles the boys lacked but it just didn't seem at all right.

It was late afternoon when the exhausted boys finally had all of their families and Mister Weems laid as neatly in the ragged trench as they could manage. They had by mutual agreement decided that Weems was at this one moment a part of their family and also needed to be properly buried.

Eddie said a prayer he mostly remembered from one of his infrequent visits to church.

Then Terry had to use the tractor to push the cold damp dirt over everyone that they both loved and cared for.

"Now what?" Eddie was as drained and tired as his friend was. What indeed was next?

"Let's go get cleaned up and get some rest. Tomorrow is another day." Terry remembered that last part from an old movie he had once seen on TV. It seemed to fit the occasion.

They would return to this place often, each time gathering and piling a few more rocks on the site.

----------

The power went off at exactly ten the next morning. It was cold and raining outside Terry's house and now it was dim and quite inside. Soon it would also be cold inside. The forced air heating was fueled with propane from a large tank behind the home; the furnace still needed electricity to drive the blower.

"Shit!" Terry was composed enough by this time to get really mad about the hopeless mess they were both in.

"It won't be coming back on, you know." Eddie was no dullard either. He knew that electricity was no longer something to just take for granted.

"I'll get the wind-up radio."

"The what?" Eddie had never heard of such nonsense.

"You wind it up and it plays for about a half hour," Terry explained, "my dad was sort of a gadget freak." Indeed so was Terry.

"But how...?"

"The spring in it drives a sort of generator thing."

"Oh." Eddie was skeptical until his friend fetched the oddly shaped radio/flashlight gizmo and proceeded to indeed wind it up. There were only a few stations still on the air playing taped public service bulletins and emergency information. They never did hear a real, live announcer.

"Waste of time." Eddie concluded after about twenty minutes of the same useless messages.

"I guess so." Terry was starting to wonder about the future, about the truly awful fix they were both in. Then he looked at the refrigerator, and what about the freezer out in the garage? There was not a lot of food in the house that would last without being kept very cold. The stove would work for as long as the propane held out, its burners would keep the kitchen warm but what would they cook on it? Forget about the microwave popcorn and the toaster oven.

----------

It had been a week since the burials. A week of trying to stay sane and plan for a very uncertain future. A week of trying to figure out how to stay warm. Even the water was not coming out of the taps as fast as it used to. They still had hot showers to keep clean but even that would not last. Keeping clean was not normally something that was on your average boy's Big List of Important Things but now it somehow seemed an important link to a better time.

The two boys were eating very well for the time being, it takes some considerable time for steaks and frozen pizza to thaw and spoil in cool weather and inside well-insulated freezers. They were learning cooking on the fly and usually it was edible.

"The meter gizmo on the propane tank says we're going to be very up shit creek very soon." Eddie's brief expedition out to the tank had confirmed his worst fears.

"We can move over to your..."

"No!" Eddie could not abide with returning to the memories of his home. Terry decided not to press the point, ever.

"What about Mister Weems' place?"

"Maybe." Eddie liked the old man a lot and it would not be like living with the ghosts that were now in his own house. The ghost of noisy little Samantha.

"Then let's go scope it out."

----------

They decided to check on the other families that lived close by. At every door their noses told them not to go in. It was a smell that they would soon grow used to.

"Maybe we ought to just burn their houses," Terry said, "we can't bury all of those people, not now...not the way they are."

"Can we do that? Won't we get in trouble?" Eddie perhaps still hadn't fully grasped this new reality.

"In trouble with who?"

"But..."

"It is all we can do for them, the radio said to burn bodies or bury them. We should do it while the weather is still wet so we don't start a forest fire or something."

Eddie blinked a few times as if trying to see things more clearly and finally he did.

"Yeah. I guess you're right."

"We'll do it tomorrow. Right now let's check out Mister Weems' place."

"Okay." Eddie reply was soft and unsure, but he would go along with what seemed the only thing they could do.

They had visited with Weems many times in the past but had never really seen all of the rooms in his small house or what was in the large and always locked metal building out back. A slow walk through the old but tidy home revealed only a mysterious vault-like door to one room; it even had a safe's dial on it. They peered into the man's 'radio room' and moved on. Weems was an avid ham radio sort of person and had once tried to get the boys interested in the useful hobby. Terry and Eddie had been polite and attentive but it was obvious to Weems that they were being bored stupid by his lecture on radio waves and the arcane craft of Morse code.

The water was at full pressure in the house, there was even hot water!

"I remember now! He's not on the county water pipe. Dad said he had a spring fed tank up the hill a ways."

"We've been there! You know, that big green tank up by the tall rocks," Eddie agreed.

"Cool." The water in Terry's home was down to almost a trickle by now.

The boys almost bypassed the old man's bedroom, intending to just shut the door and lock in any ghost who might be lurking in there. A scrap of paper on the carpet beside the bed caught Terry's eye and he entered quickly to pick it up, then he left just as fast and slammed the door shut.

"What is it?" Eddie was trying to read over his friend's shoulder.

"Some stuff he wrote down, he must have been sick when he did it, it's all pretty shaky"

"Well?"

"There's some numbers, 12 L, 19 R, 33 L, 42 R."

"What's that?"

"That door! The one with the dial! It's some sort of safe or something! This must be the combination."

"Is that all it says?"

"No. He says... he wrote "take what you need," there's some other stuff that's all too scribbly to read."

"So let's try to open it!" Eddie came close to a grin for the first time in so many days.

The door opened on the second try. It was a vault door that was a good three inches of hardened steel. As the massive door swung open a small click signaled that a battery powered emergency light had just come on. Both boys just stood in open-mouthed awe at what they were looking at.

"Jesus Horatio Christ." Terry finally whispered.

There must have been one of every military firearm ever manufactured lining the walls. Handguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, machine guns. All sparkling clean and oiled, all in perfect working order. There were sturdy wooden crates full of all sorts of ammunition. There was even a stubby looking 40mm grenade launcher and a large supply of the fat looking shells it fired.

"What is this?" Both boys hunkered down to look at the massive weapon resting on the floor. A bipod supported its heavy barrel, the telescopic sight looked to be capable of zeroing in on obscure spots on the moon.

"It must shoot these." Terry was holding a 'bullet' that seemed to be the size of a wiener. The weapon was a fifty-caliber Barrett semi-automatic, long-range sniper rifle/cannon.

There was one shelf with nothing but manuals for each of the varied weapons.

"Don't touch that!" Eddie had been well drilled on the evils of guns. Now he would have been better served by being taught how to safely handle them and how to hit what he fired at.

"Why not?" Terry went ahead and lifted one of the compact HK MP-5 submachine guns off of its pegs. It felt surprisingly heavy.

"You know we're not supposed to touch guns!"

"That was then, Eddie. This is now."

"But..."

"But nothing. We need to be able to protect ourselves, there's no one else to do it."

"But...." Eddie's record seemed to be stuck.

"What if some creep kicks in our door some night? What about animals? Are you gonna call 911 or stay alive?"

"You don't have to make fun of me!" Eddie was getting a little steamed by now.

"I'm not making fun of you, Eddie. I'm no great brain but I do know that the world has changed. There are no cops to call. The phones don't work anyway. We have to be sensible now and do things that seemed wrong before...before the bad flu hit. We have to take care of ourselves from now on."

Eddie seemed to come more into focus after Terry's words. They were indeed on their own and defenseless and they couldn't afford to be defenseless.

"I guess you're right. But we gotta be really careful with these things!"

"We will be, those books tell all about how all of these guns work. We'll go slow and learn how to shoot them the right way, the safe way."

"Okay." Eddie was undergoing a radical attitude adjustment. "How did he buy all of this stuff, anyway? Is it legal?"

"I don't know, Eddie, but I'm glad he did buy it all."

Two 9mm Berretta pistols and some ammo, along with the weapon's manuals would be a good starting place. As they prepared to leave Gun Nut Heaven with their loot stuffed in waistbands and pockets Terry noticed some keys hanging by the vault door. They were neatly labeled with a tag that read "storehouse."

"The metal building out back! I wonder what he keeps in there?" Terry wondered aloud. He had asked his father once and even he hadn't known what the old man kept out there.

"Probably a tank or maybe some nukes." Eddie wouldn't have been surprised.

Mister Weems was apparently somewhat more than just the nice old guy they had known and liked so much.

Like most of the mountain residents, Mister Weems' home was heated with propane. Weems had opted for vented radiant heaters that didn't require any electricity to operate them. On the walk back to the isolated metal building the boys stopped by the man's enormous double propane storage tanks.

"They're almost full!" Eddie did grin at this piece of good luck.

"Geez! This will last all winter if we don't waste it!" Terry knew by now that they had found another place to live. A place without ghosts and a place without rooms that you didn't want to go into. Well, maybe just that one bedroom.

----------

If the gun vault was a revelation the "storehouse" was mind bending. It would seem that Mister Weems harbored a deep paranoia about the future of just about everything and he had prepared well for those uncertain futures.

"Yikes!" Eddie squeaked as still more emergency lights blinked on.

"Double yikes," agreed Terry.

They were looking at their salvation. There must have been enough preserved food to last for years. Indeed there was. Freeze-dried, dehydrated, nitrogen packed and just plain canned food. Vitamins, food supplements, bulk flour and cereals. It was a survivalist's supermarket.

There were racks of lanterns, camp stoves, and enough canned fuel for them to last for, well, a very long time. There were three different gasoline powered generators. One was small enough for the two boys to lift if they had wanted to, the largest looked capable of powering a medium size city and had it's own wheels and a trailer hitch. Water purifiers, medical supplies. A lot of medical supplies, including items that probably needed a doctor's prescription to buy. There were all sorts of books neatly arranged in what was almost a small library against one wall.

"Urban Survival Tactics." Terry had read aloud the title of the first book he had pulled off the shelf. The rest of the volumes were of a similar theme. The boys would have plenty to read during the long winter nights that were to follow. Homework.

"Merry Christmas." Terry said after a while.

"What?"

"Tomorrow is Christmas and we've just been given a very big present from Mister Weems."

"I always did like him," Eddie replied.

"Yeah, me too. I think he might be glad that we can use his stuff."

He was.

----------

Christmas Day or not they had a hard task to complete. There were houses to burn.

"This just doesn't seem right." Eddie had said that at least five times as they splashed the stove fuel on the small cottage belonging to Mildred Spence. She had been a really nasty old crab but burning down her house with her body inside was still a hard thing to do or even to think about.

"I know Eddie, but it's this or just leave her there for the bugs and worms. Besides, it's not healthy to have all of these dead people around, the radio said that back when they were still making sense. Now stand back."

Terry managed to light and toss one of the road flares they had brought along onto the cottage's porch. There was no dramatic swoosh or fireball, the house just started burning. Rather slowly at first because of the wet weather, then the boys had to retreat back to the road as the heat became truly intense.

"God!" Terry had never seen a house burn before, it can be a hard thing to watch. It became a little easier with practice as they set fire to six homes that day and four more the next morning.

At least now the wind would not bring the awful smell of death to them.

Their nightmares would persist for another two months after the fires. Perhaps they would for a lifetime.

What the boys had experienced had occurred on a vast scale around the planet. No country, no island however remote escaped the virus. The nine people aboard the International Space Station were healthy and had a grand view of it all, they also knew that returning to Earth might be a death sentence.

"Look at that!" Air Force Brigadier General Clifford Hartz like everyone else spent most of his time at the observation ports. This mission was to have been the officer's last venture into space, he was at the age of fifty-eight considered to be too long in the tooth for operational assignments.

"That's California, isn't it?" Doctor Margaret Long asked as she looked past the man's shoulder.

"Yes. Los Angeles is burning. The smoke is moving offshore, probably those desert winds they sometimes get in the winter."

The ISS crew was as follows: Brigadier General Clifford Hartz, USAF - Station Commander, shuttle pilot qualified.

Lt. Commander Michael Jenkins. USN - shuttle qualified pilot, rescue craft pilot. Station systems specialist.

Colonel Alexi Andropov, Russian Air Force - Soyuz pilot, solar power management specialist.

Major Sergi Nabokov, Russian Air Force - Soyuz qualified pilot, EVA construction specialist.

Diego Cruz, PhD - Spain - Meteorology and Earth Sciences Specialist. Civilian.

Ian Graves, PhD - Ireland - Physicist in charge of current gravity wave detection project. Civilian.

Margaret Long, MD - Station medical research specialist, also in charge of crew health and treatment. Civilian.

Sara Bancroft, PhD - Botanist, in charge of the long-term greenhouse experiment. Civilian.

Andre LeClerc, PhD - France - Specializing in zero gravity manufacturing research. Civilian.

They had all lost their families and loved ones and more than one of them was contemplating a quick way out of this nightmare.

They had the Soyuz re-entry module that could hold three people and the new 'mini-shuttle' escape craft that could carry the rest down to the surface. It was called the 'taxi." They could hold out for as long as the air and supplies permitted, perhaps as much as another six months. Then they would have to come to Earth. So far the taped radio message they had been sending out had been useless, perhaps there were no longer any people alive to hear it.

Los Angeles was indeed burning from the San Gabriel Mountains all the way to the sea. Many of the planet's large cities had already burned or had at least been partially destroyed by fires. Unchecked even the tiniest spark can bring down the grandest achievements of mankind.

There were no hands to open the spill gates at the great dams, many would overflow and weaken with the spring thaw and the subsequent runoff. The Mississippi would in time find it's own way to the sea as the myriad of levees holding it in check weakened and collapsed. It would take time but the works of man would all fall and crumble.

Chapter Three

Amanda

"You go first!" Eddie had no desire to take the first shot.

"Chicken." Terry had carefully loaded the big automatic, following all of the rules they had read about in the safety booklet. It was still a damned big gun for a boy's hand, Mister Weems didn't seem to have much respect for small and compact. "Okay, put your earplugs in."

The booklet said that it was bad for your hearing not to wear the squishy yellow things.

"Shit!" Terry had jumped almost as much as the Beretta had. More. He was ashamed to see that the pistol was shaking and that the tin can sitting on the cardboard box in the back yard was totally unscathed.

"Try again!" Eddie seemed to be starting to like this.

"Easy for you to say."

Terry managed to empty the clip, becoming more at ease with the noise and recoil with each carefully aimed shot. But he never did hit the stupid can and it was only about twenty feet away.

"Okay, smart ass. Your turn!"

Eddie carefully and correctly reloaded the clip and then shoved it into the pistol.

"Finger!" Terry warned.

"Sorry!" Eddie had his finger inside the trigger guard, a serious no-no when loading a weapon, according to the manual.

"Won't happen again."

"Cool."

Eddie pulled back the slide and let it snap forward. Now he could put his finger on the trigger as he aimed.

Eddie sent the can flying with his first shot.

"Geez!" Was all that Terry could come up with.

"Cool." Eddie had found his true calling. His mother would have been horrified and then driven out of the PTA if they had ever found out about such a thing.

They would practice some almost every day, it was Eddie's favorite 'task' and a source of constant embarrassment for Terry who would always be better off just throwing a rock or anything else close at hand.

------------------------- They made a home for themselves in Mister Weems' house. Terry had to go into Eddie's house to collect some clothes and things from his friend's room. Eddie just could not re-enter his parent's home, no matter what. Terry also brought out some of the family pictures from the living room for his friend to keep.

"Thanks. I'm sorry I...."

"Shuddup. It's cool." Terry resisted the urge to grab his dopey friend and hug him. Guys just didn't do that sort of thing.

----------

"We need to wash our clothes and stuff, they're getting really gross." Eddie was stating the obvious. It was a task that had always been pushed to the bottom of the list. Washing dishes even had more precedence. Now they were completely out clean clothes and had been fishing through the 'laundry' pile for stuff that didn't totally reek.

"Generator." Terry replied.

"Huh?"

"We hook one up to the washing machine. Easy."

"What about the dryer? That takes a lot of time and juice."

"Clothes line. That's how they did it before dryers and modern crap."

"If you say so." Eddie had come to respect his friend more and more for the simple and practical solutions he always seemed to come up with. He had even stopped razzing him about his perfectly awful marksmanship.

Terry's plan worked very well indeed. The clothes were not as soft as a dryer made them but they smelled fresher from drying in the open air. A few days without rain had been a great help.

Running the generator had presented them with another problem, gasoline. A lot of days spent reading with no television or video games to intrude supplied a possible solution.

"It says here in "Urban Survival" that filling stations usually have a connection for emergency power. It's some sort of regulation or something." Terry knew that plenty of gasoline must still be in the big underground tanks.

"And...?" Eddie could already see where this was all heading.

"So we hook up a generator to a station's power thingy and pump our own gas."

"What do we put it in?"

"Well, gas cans, dork!"

"Oh. How do we get there?"

Terry had to pause for a moment. They would have to drive.

"We take my folks' Navigator."

"You can drive."

----------

"Will it still start?"

"I dunno, it's just been sitting here in the driveway all of this time." Terry slid behind the wheel and put the key in the ignition. The vehicle was covered with leaves and was just plain filthy, the windshield would need a lot of cleaning. First they had to see if it would even run.

"Here goes."

The big V-8 had been asleep for a long time. The battery had lost a lot of its charge and the gas had to be pumped back into the carburetor. But after a lot of yelling and screaming from the two boys the engine finally caught and rumbled into life. In moments it was purring and warming up, the battery was charging again. The gauge on the dash said they had three-quarters of a full tank of gas. Terry's dad had always liked to keep it at least half full.

"Yesssss!" Terry was mostly just a toothy grin by this point in time.

There were still problems to be worked out. The SUV's brake and accelerator were too far away, even with the seat all of the way forward. It was hard to see over the wheel.

This time Eddie had the solution. It wasn't very elegant but it worked.

Duct tape and some wooden blocks cut from 2x4 lumber put the pedals within easy reach of Terry's feet. Some cushions from the lawn furniture raised him to a level where the road would be mostly in sight. A lot of grunting and shoving had the mid-size generator up a makeshift ramp and into the ample cargo area of the Navigator. They could have used the small tractor for this job but they didn't think of it until the damned generator was mostly into the SUV.

That evening there were final plans to be made.

"We take the pistols, the HK .308, the MP-5, and the bloop gun."

"Cool." Terry knew by now to leave matters concerning firearms to his now deadly friend; they would be a rolling arsenal in the morning. By the way, the "bloop gun" was the grenade launcher, it got that name from the odd report it made when firing. Eddie was by now very competent with it, numerous shredded spots in the surrounding forest proved that. Deer had prudently left the vicinity entirely.

"What if we find some other people?" Terry didn't know what they should do if that happened.

"I think we be really careful," Eddie replied, "things have been nuts for a long time."

"True. Think about it though, we didn't get the flu and we both had those bad shots. A lot of kids had those shots. There might be some other kids we know still alive. Kids we don't know."

"Then we still be careful and try to make friends."

Eddie might have been as handsome as a pig's rear end but he wasn't at all stupid.

----------

The First Expedition

"Do we have everything?" Terry asked for the third time.

"Yes we do. Except for gas cans."

They would have to find some of those.

"Okay then, here goes. Safety belts."

If you put your average eleven-year-old behind the wheel of a large SUV and say, "go for it" he or she will probably just freeze up and properly refuse to budge. Terry didn't have that option.

"Watch the mailbox!" Eddie was already a back seat driver and they weren't even out onto the road yet.

"I see it!"

Driving wasn't nearly as easy as it had seemed to be when riding with Mom or Dad. Ten miles per hour simply would not do.

"You drive like an old lady, we'll be in Santa Cruz in about twenty years at this rate!"

"Would you like to drive?" Terry would have gladly belted his friend if he could have pried his own death-grip hands off of the steering wheel.

"No thanks. Just try to go a little faster. Sorry." Eddie cooled it with the too-easy criticisms.

"Man!"

After what seemed to be endless miles (five) Terry started to come to grips with piloting the great beast of a vehicle, his speed was now up to a blazing twenty-five. So far they had not seen a single sign of life. Except for the dogs. There seemed to be a lot of dogs running around.

What had they all been eating to stay alive?

----------

"Stop!" Eddie hadn't quite screamed, just almost.

"What?" The SUV's tires chirped to an abrupt halt as Terry stood on the brakes.

"Over there! What's that?"

It was a body. Or rather what was left of a body. It was lying in the parking lot of the Fosters Freeze drive in. The small town of Felton had also not been spared from the bad flu. No place had.

"Gross! Terry could see that some large parts of the man/woman were no longer present and attached.

"Keep going." Eddie had also seen more than he wanted to.

"Stop!" Eddie yelled after another two miles.

"Now what?"

"Gas can! On the back of that Jeep! I'll get it!"

"Shit! Be careful!"

Terry switched off the ignition and got out with his friend. He had his pistol drawn as Eddie dashed over to the abandoned Jeep and tried to retrieve the large red can latched to the rear of the vehicle, it was of course padlocked to the vehicle. They were being watched while this occurred but these dogs were not at all sure about moving in on live humans, not just yet anyway.

Both boys presented an image that would have put your average pre-flu, liberal-minded anti-gun activist into deep shock. Terry had opted for a simple four-clip harness and an attached black nylon cross-chest holster for his big Berretta.

Eddie looked like a pint-sized Terminator and tended to make metallic sounds when he walked.

"Shit! Let's go!"

Terry didn't have to be told twice as Eddie climbed back into the SUV. It was truly spooky around here.

It was spooky everywhere.

There were actually very few bodies out in the open. People mostly want to be indoors and warm when they felt bad and indoors were where most of humanity had curled up and died. The big SUV finally purred into downtown Santa Cruz with only the occasional trash and debris from the sporadic looting to steer carefully around. It was early March, still mostly cool, wet weather but the sun was out today and it was almost warm.

"Let's go down to the beach." Eddie and his friend had spent many happy days on the coast's numerous public beaches.

"We gotta do what we came for!" Terry wanted to just do what they had planned on and then split for home.

"Just for a little while."

"Crap! Okay!"

What they found down by the municipal pier and boardwalk had them both speechless for a time.

"Look at that." Eddie finally whispered.

"Yeah. Geez."

An enormous cargo container ship had apparently plowed at full speed into the sand between the municipal pier and the old ballroom. The bow of the huge vessel had driven almost as far as the street, the buckled hull plates testified to the violence of the impact. On its deck many of the shackled cargo containers had broke loose and crashed forward, several were smashed open on the beach.

"Let's take a closer look," Eddie said.

"Okay." Terry was also very curious by now. Who would not be?

From the street they could already see something yellow scattered on the sand and even bobbing in the low surf. Both boys broke into laughter when they got close enough to identify the small objects.

"Rubber ducks! There's gotta be a zillion of them here!"

"Made in China." Terry was reading the printing on one of the soggy cardboard boxes. "Let's check out the other side."

It was like walking next to a steel cliff. The vessel seemed to tower over them as they rounded the bow of the vessel. Another container was busted open on this side too.

"Microwave ovens!" Terry exclaimed.

"More Chinese crap." Eddie's father had been a 'Buy American' sort of union person.

"Doesn't matter, they're all full of sand and seawater anyway."

Both boys wondered what else might be on the vast ship but there was no way to get onboard to see. No boarding ramps had been dropped and there was no way to scale the vertical steel hull. The crew had been either dead or too sick to manage anything when the vessel beached.

Maybe someday they could figure a way to climb the hull.

"Come on. Let's try the Home Depot. They have lots of hardware crap and stuff." Terry had been there many times with his father; it was their last resort before calling someone who actually knew how to properly fix a bathtub faucet or a garbage disposal. It was a macho, guy sort of place.

The enormous hardware store was untouched. Perhaps it had been the shotgun-armed manager who had from the store's roof discouraged any looting. There were three untidy 'lumps' lying in the parking lot that had once desired whatever they could carry away from the store.

Number four buckshot is a nasty invention at best.

"Gross!" Terry almost felt nauseous at the sight.

"You keep saying that!" Eddie was by now not as squeamish as he had been about the few bodies that littered the landscape, it was still gross.

"Come on. They should have gas cans. Let's be careful."

"Yes, dear." Eddie had to grin back at his one and only friend. They did tend to caution each other a lot these days.

"It's all locked!" Terry had tried all of the heavy glass doors, to no avail.

"Stand back."

Terry didn't need to be asked again. Eddie was pointing his trusty Berretta at the middle door.

The glass exploded into a million little safety bits, birds fled upwards from the neglected open-air nursery department at the side of the building.

"After you." Eddie gestured toward the vacant doorframe.

"Geez!"

Terry knew better than to remind his friend about engaging the safety on his pistol.

Eddie knew that, by now it was as natural as farting.

It was very dim and sort of scary in the huge store but there were indeed gas cans, five kinds in fact. The boys made four trips to the SUV cramming the largest of the empty red containers into every spare corner of the Navigator. Perhaps not enough thought had been given to the safety aspects of riding around in a vehicle crammed with gasoline.

"Now what?" Terry didn't quite know where to head for next.

"I dunno. Find a gas station I guess."

"Okay."

The Shell station on Ocean Street seemed a good choice. There were no bodies lying around. It had the lowest prices of the last three stations they had passed.

"Park over there, by the electric wires...."

"Yeah, I see it." Terry carefully guided the Navigator over to where the power lines from the poles fed led into the main building. Where they fixed flat tires and did tune-ups.

The fuse box was of course padlocked.

"Stand back." Eddie was preparing to remove the padlock.

"Wait a minute, you'll mess up the electrical stuff inside!"

Ten minutes with a hacksaw retrieved from inside the looted service area removed the cheap padlock.

"There. Plug it in."

"Wait a sec."

The power panel had some painted over lettering stamped into the metal. "Emergency 110/120 Input. Disengage outside line first." There was a very large and imposing handle, Terry tugged it all of the way down. Then he plugged it in.

"So start it up, I guess?" Terry could see nothing else left to do and did just that. The Honda generator in the back of the SUV started as quickly as advertised. No sparks or zapping sounds resulted. No great fireballs of exploding gasoline. Of course the cashier's booth was locked and the pumps were all switched off.

Eddie took care of all of that with the MP-5. Besides, it was getting late.

"Fill 'er up!" Eddie was beginning to be a complete menace. Still, he was very useful when it came to opening places that were closed and locked.

Twenty minutes later all of the cans were filled with the overpriced premium octane, so was the SUV.

"Let's go home."

"Cool." Eddie had also had enough for one day. Like his friend he was also starting to have visions of freeze-dried spaghetti and meatballs or whatever else might be on tonight's simple menu.

"Stop!"

"What now?" Terry once more shuddered the big SUV to a jolting halt.

"Over there!"

A pack of dogs ranging from a German Shepard to a skinny looking pit bull were milling around and yapping at one of the bushy decorative trees that lined what had served as a downtown mall for the old seaside community. A small pair of Nikes up in the tree were just out of range of the dog's lunging jaws.

Both boys knew what had to be done.

There was another actual live human being in that tree! Another person!

"Eddie. Use the rifle."

Eddie was already scrambling into the back seat where the .308 HK scoped rifle was resting. Say what you will about the German people's choice of leaders and of what wars to start, they really knew how to build a proper weapon.

"Roll down the window." Eddie was uncapping the huge day/night scope that dominated the heavy sniper rifle. Somewhere in Eddie's genes there had to be Marines and any other sort of hard cases that come to mind. Maybe even a couple of Vikings.

Terry pushed the correct button in front of his door's armrest and the passenger-side window disappeared with a low whirring sound.

"Don't miss."

"Shuddup."

Terry wasn't at all offended by his friend's quiet rebuke. He shut up.

BOOM!

Even with his hands over his ears Terry could feel the power of the weapon that Eddie was wielding. The stupid dogs didn't catch on until the third shot and by then there were only two of them still moving. Eddie killed the last one with a round up the butt as it skittered up the street past it's very dead companions.

"Eddie?"

"Yeah?"

"Please don't ever get really pissed off at me."

"Never happen. There's still someone in that tree."

Terry had edged the SUV up very close to the tree. Both boys were all eyes and swivel heads as they got out and then peered up into the branches. Dead dogs and splattered canine stuff made them step carefully.

"Hello?" Terry didn't know what else to say.

Only the pair of Nikes showed any reaction as they jerked upwards a little.

It was also starting to get dark.

"Are you okay? We won't hurt you!"

After a long time a face briefly replaced the Nikes and then disappeared again into the thick leaves. It was a dirty face and it had been streaked with tears.

"Geez." Eddie whispered. Terry was at a total loss.

It had almost looked like it was a girl.

"I have a knife! Go away!" The face and the Nike's also had a voice.

"The dogs are all dead. We won't hurt you." Terry was trying really hard to place that familiar voice.

"I'm not gonna be in your dumb ass gang. Beat it!"

"What gang? There's just me and Eddie."

Terry and Eddie just stared at one another. What the hell was she talking about? Gang?

"I know who that is," Terry finally whispered, "so do you."

It was Amanda Brooks, from school.

She had sat two seats in front of Terry and across from Eddie in weird old Miss Dankins' class.

The light was fading fast. They really had to get home.

"Amanda! It's me, Terry Winters! From school! Eddie's here too! We've gotta get out of here. Please come on down!"

"What?" The voice up in the tree sounded very small and very confused.

"Come on, more dogs might come back." Terry had lowered his voice. Yelling would only make things worse. The dogs might hear. Amanda was scared enough already.

The girl began to slowly clamber down but lost her grip and landed with a thump at Terry's feet.

"Owww!"

Both boys moved to try and help the girl stand but then jumped back as a medium sized carving knife was shoved in their faces.

"Amanda!" Terry didn't know whether run or what. Neither did Eddie.

"Terry?" The girl was finally realizing that these two mini-Rambo's had been her schoolmates. Just two dorky boys in her class. Except Terry wasn't so dorky, she had always thought he was sort of nice and looked a little like Harry Potter from that stupid movie. Except he didn't wear glasses.

"Yes! Geez, don't stab us!"

"Oh gosh." Amanda lowered her knife/machete. These two weren't the gang jerks. These were good kids, she knew them!

"How did you get here?" Eddie asked. It was miles from where they knew she lived. They had both been to her totally lame Halloween party last year.

"My aunt.... I thought I should go there on my bike...after my parents..." After her parents died. After her whole world had died.

"We have a good place to stay near my folks place. Its safe there, come with us!" Terry very much wanted to just get moving.

"I can't"

"Why?"

"Benny and Keesha!"

"Who?"

"Benny and Keesha. They're all alone where I left them, they're just little kids! I had to go out to find some more food for us."

Terry and Eddie exchanged confused looks at each other. Now what?

"Then get in the tank," Terry decided, "we'll go get them."

"But the gang's close to where they are now!"

"What gang?" Terry was about ready to start screaming for the girl to make some real sense for a change.

"A bunch of stupid kids, mostly boys. They're bad news. They drive around playing demolition derby all day like in some stupid Mad Max movie or something. I saw them beat up some kids too."

Eddie was checking the safety on his MP-5 as they finally got the girl into the SUV.

Eddie could also be sort of bad news. Terry and his chest full of pistol clips looked like he was bad news too, but he really wasn't.

----------

"Maybe if you turned on the headlights?" Eddie was also straining to see into the near darkness.

"No! They'll see us!" Amanda still had her over-sized blade and the boys saw no reason to press the issue with her. "It's just up there, that big white house!"

The house had been empty of bodies so the girl had made it her temporary home.

Terry stopped and put the SUV/tank in park. It didn't seem prudent to turn off the ignition.

"Where are they?" Eddie whispered, as if someone might hear them even inside the vehicle.

"Stay here, I'll go get them." Amanda was out of the vehicle and running for the house's front door before either boy could think to argue with her.

"This is not cool." Eddie was all eyes and rotating head.

"No shit."

Headlights in the rear view mirrors.

Three sets of them about two blocks down the residential street from the house where the two sweaty-palmed boys sat waiting.

"Eddie!"

"Blow the horn." Eddie seemed altogether too calm and composed.

Terry did just that as the boy who was once afraid of guns scrambled over the gas cans and into the back cargo area. Eddie then lowered the rear window and chambered a round into the MP-5. Four of the full gas cans had been shoved out onto the pavement by the time Amanda and the two small waifs in her charge bolted into the open passenger side door.

"Go very fast!" Eddie's urgent advice was closely followed as Terry turned on the headlights and for the first time ever totally floored the accelerator.

Eddie was also loading the bloop gun from the absurdly outsized bandolier he wore.

The pursuing would-be gangsters arrived at the four gas cans at about the same time as Eddie fired the bloop gun. None of the mini-hoods died in the ensuing fireball but several of them would need to grow some of their hair back. They had in a quick moment learned that playing at being tough was entirely different from actually being tough. Most of them just ran off in different directions crying for mothers they no longer had. Frankie Delgado had instantly lost control of his gang and now just stood glaring at the big SUV that was fast disappearing down the dark street.

"I'll find those basturds!" He swore under his breath. One day he would too.

"You can slow down now!" Eddie had raised the rear window, he was now more concerned that they must be doing about ninety in a residential area. There were still six of the full gas cans in the back of SUV. "Cool It!"

Terry finally eased off on the gas. Then he stopped entirely in the dark and deserted intersection of Highway Seventeen and Highway Nine.

Amanda and her terrified two little ones just sat clutching one another while staring wide-eyed at their insane driver and his crazy tail gunner.

"Is everyone okay?" Terry croaked.

"I think so." Amanda finally squeaked out.

"I'm cool. Let's get on home." Eddie still sounded altogether too calm.

"Okay. Wait just a minute."

Terry very deliberately unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the SUV. The sound of the boy's dry retching at the side of the vehicle told everyone that not all people are cut out for high speed car chases and blinding explosions. But Terry had been there when it counted and that was all that mattered.

"All right. Then let's go home." Terry was once more behind the wheel. No one saw any need to object to the sedate speed as the SUV purred carefully up the inky mountain roads to the safe place amid the green trees. The high beams plus the fog lamps pushed the ghosts and goblins back out of sight and into the woods.

Barely.

Chapter Four

Family Life and Spacemen

"Oh God! You have hot water!" Amanda was more than a mess. Terry and Eddie had been gentlemen enough not to comment on her definite...aroma. Not to mention the grubby state of the two kindergarten attendees that she had struggled to keep fed and alive. She had had no storehouse full of supplies to draw from, just her wits and some luck, "You and Keesha get clean first, then we'll hose off Benny and ourselves. Your clothes will have to wait till tomorrow for the laundry, you can put on some of Eddie's stuff and mine. They're mostly clean but they may not fit. Then we can eat."

"Bless you." Amanda then planted the first real kiss Terry had ever got on his actual lips from an actual girl. Gosh!

Eddie barely managed to not lapse into helpless laughter as he witnessed this most unlikely of events.

Amanda could have spent the next three weeks alone under the hot spray but the tiny black girl in her care also needed an industrial scrubbing. When they both finally emerged from the fog of the warm shower it was like a new life had begun for them both. Out of habit she toweled the both of them off and started to pick up the electric hair dryer, then she felt really foolish. Extra work with the towel and a hairbrush would have to suffice for the girl's hair. At any rate they smelled clean again rather than just smelling.

"Maybe we should knock or something?" The small house had only the one bathroom and Terry and Eddie had forgotten how females seemed to spend most of their life in them.

"You knock." Terry still remembered the big knife the girl had wielded, that sort of memory tends to stay with a person.

They didn't have to knock, the door opened as if on cue. The towel-wrapped Amanda just smiled and daintily stepped passed the two, now three boys. Keesha was less concerned with modesty and just dashed bare past the grinning boys like a small chocolate doll.

"Keesha!" Amanda seemed exasperated by the little girl's behavior. The girl had become sort of an instant mother and was learning some of what all mothers experience.

"Come on, Benny. It's soap time!"

Benny hadn't uttered a single word since they had first met him. The boy's decided to make it a communal shower bath; it seemed the most practical way to get the little boy clean. Eddie held Benny mostly in one place while Terry washed and scrubbed the parts that came to hand from time to time. The child was blonde to the point of being close to albino. Keesha was black to the point of being, well, very black. She hadn't said anything either.

Perhaps both of the very young humans had seen and heard more than they could be expected to process. Maybe some time in a safe place would help. They must have talked to Amanda though; she knew their names and all. Benny repeated Keesha's nude escape and had to be chased down the hall by the towel clad Terry and Eddie for a quick dressing session. In time the sight of anyone's skin would not be much cause for comment or embarrassment, it didn't really matter now and they were all making a start at being like just family, albeit a very young and newly formed family.

Amanda had found the Benny and Keesha in the apartment building where her aunt had lived. The two small children were not related in any way and seemed to have simply found one another as they wandered through the building full of dead people. Even Amanda had not yet been able to find out what their last names were. The two six-year-olds tended to behave like children even younger than they actually were; perhaps it was some sort of reversion thing, or something.

Terry and Eddie's first houseguests were rather oddly dressed for dinner. Benny and Keesha had on sweatshirts beneath old and ratty football jerseys that almost reached to their ankles. Amanda had on a pair of Eddie's jeans and one of Terry's sweatshirts. Never mind about what the girl had to settle on for some clean underwear. At least the house was warm and comfortable. Tomorrow would be a General Laundry Day.

Terry had also forgotten what pretty auburn hair and brown eyes that Amanda had.

"Turkey and noodles. Canned green beans. Dog biscuit crackers. Canned peaches. Grape Cool Aid or powdered milk that really sucks rocks."

Terry was explaining the evening menu. Two hissing lanterns provided a bright and cheery light for the table.

"Dog biscuit crackers?" Amanda politely inquired.

"We sort of call them that. There's a ton of them in vacuum cans in the storehouse. They're not too bad after you get past their lack of any actual flavor."

"Oh. Then I guess they must be better than actual dog biscuits?"

"Huh?"

Amanda knew from hard experience what actual dog biscuits tasted like. Not as bad as you might imagine. Sort of like compressed sawdust flavored with Spam. Better than nothing.

Towards the end of the meal there were tears on the girl's cheeks. She seemed to be crying. Terry and Eddie looked at one another in confusion. Had they done something wrong? Girls were another species altogether in their minds.

"Amanda?" Terry began.

"What?" (Sniff) "Did we say something...what's wrong?"

"I'm just so happy about finding you both, being with nice people for a change. I'm happy about being in a safe place."

"Oh. Well, we're happy to have you here. We were both getting really tired of just having each other to cuss at. Stop crying."

This only increased the flow of tears and the boys were more confused than ever. If she got any happier she might fall out of her chair and curl up in a ball on the floor.

Eventually calm prevailed.

Eddie again lost the nightly coin toss and had to wash the dishes for the third time in a row.

----------

Amanda and the little ones got the grand tour the next morning after breakfast. The girl's night had been spent on the fold-out bed that was inside Weems' living room sofa; camping cots fetched from the Never Ending Storehouse sufficed for Benny and Keesha. Terry and Eddie had the spare bedroom as usual; the bunk bed brought over from Terry's old room had been their sleeping arrangement from day one. There was no thought about using Weems' bedroom; he had died in that bed. Maybe later they could get rid of the bed and clean out the room entirely, then Amanda could have her own room.

Maybe they could get rid of the ghost in there.

The girl was by no means your average mall-rat bubblehead. She had intended to follow in her father's footsteps and become an electronics engineer. She would have too; she had the brains and aptitude for it. A female nerd, if you will. Amanda was happier in an electronics emporium than in a designer clothing store.

Weems' small radio room drew her in like a moth to a flame.

"Neat! Have you picked up anyone yet?"

"Huh?" Terry found himself saying that a lot when he talked with Amanda.

"The transceiver. Have you heard anyone on it?"

"Well...there's no electricity unless we run a generator."

"You mean you haven't even tried it?"

"No, not actually." In fact they didn't even really know how to properly turn on the button and dial-ridden contraption. Terry felt like an idiot. So did Eddie.

Amanda pointed to the two large RV batteries and the inverter that were set back under the table the radio equipment was resting on. Apparently there was little that Weems hadn't prepared for. The batteries still retained about half of their full charge. She flipped one switch on the inverter and another on the radio, and then everything lit up. There was a faint hiss of static coming from the speaker.

"Geez!" Terry felt like even more of an idiot.

Amanda sat down at the table and studied the elaborate and very expensive radio and it's various attachments. It had an auto-scan mode that the girl activated.

"What's it doing?" Eddie was staring at the rapidly blinking numbers on the digital readout, they were changing so fast it was just a blur.

"Looking for a signal."

"Oh."

For a long time nothing but faint static issued from the speaker. Amanda was reaching over to turn off the radio when the frequency readout froze at exactly two hundred megahertz. Then everyone almost jumped straight up.

".... hearing this transmission is requested to respond on this frequency or on one-hundred, three-hundred, or four-hundred megahertz. This is the International Space Station requesting any response."

It kept repeating over and over until the signal faded away completely.

"Jesus!" Terry finally shouted. "Get it back!"

Instead the girl turned off the radio entirely.

"Why did you do that?"

"To save the batteries. We'll have to wait."

"For what?" Terry was about ready to pull his hair out.

"Two-hundred megahertz is pretty much just a line of sight sort of thing."

"Okay! So?"

"The space station is in orbit, dummy."

I told you she was a nerd.

"But..."

"We have to wait for it to come back around the Earth again, maybe an hour or so."

"Oh. Sorry I yelled at you."

"That's okay. What do we say to them?"

"We can talk to them?" Eddie asked in surprise.

"See this," Amanda pointed to the microphone and then to the transmit button on it's side, "we can talk to them if they can hear us."

The next hour lasted about nine years.

----------

Doctor Margaret Long was studying the medical reference CD's listings on flu viruses for the hundredth time as she took her turn monitoring the always-silent communications console.

"...Hello the space station. Calling the space station. Can you hear us?"

It is almost impossible to faint in zero gravity but the female astronaut came very close. Then she piped the incoming transmission into every part of the orbiting space station. Several more people almost fainted and then it became very crowded in the small communications module.

----------

"Maybe they're all dead too?" Eddie was losing hope as Amanda alternated between transmitting and listening.

"Hush!" Amanda didn't quite growl, just almost.

The needle on the signal strength meter was starting to twitch.

"This is ISS, we read you! Please identify!" It was weak but it was really there. It was a woman's voice.

"HOLY SHIT!" Exactly who shouted that was debatable, maybe they all did.

"Talk to them! Terry demanded.

"What do I say?" For this one time the girl had no intelligent comeback.

"Gimme that!" Terry took the microphone from the unresisting girl. Terry didn't really know what to say either but that didn't stop him.

"Hello... This is Terry Winters, Eddie Briscoll...and Amanda Brooks. We're in California, near Santa Cruz. There are no grown-ups here. Just us." It wasn't a very well thought out response but it was heard.

----------

"Children?" General Hartz was as stunned as the rest of the crew.

"Apparently." Doctor Long had almost gone into pediatrics before deciding on her rather esoteric space medicine career. She knew how to talk to kids but they never really seemed to like her very much.

----------

"Hello Terry. My name is Doctor Margaret Long. There are nine people up here who are so very glad to hear your voice. Can you tell us all about yourselves?"

Terry almost froze up entirely but finally just started blurting out things. Amanda had to remind him to press the button on the microphone.

"Hello...there aren't any grown-ups left anywhere that we know of. Everyone here who is alive had some flu shots at school that had something wrong with them. We were all really sick, some kids even died from the shots. I almost died."

"Are you all well now?"

"Yeah. We're fine. None of us caught the bad flu. Our folks did...they all died."

"Then you have been...on your own? Taking care of yourselves?"

"Yes. Things have been pretty bad but we've started to sort of get organized now. They're some bad kids in town, sort of a gang or something. We live up in the mountains here, away from them."

Eddie and Amanda were having trouble remembering to breathe while Terry spoke to honest-to-God astronauts. Actual adults.

Benny and Keesha were all eyes but remained as silent as ever.

________________ "The Berkin Labs vaccine!" General Hartz and the rest of the crew knew very well about the inoculations that "had something wrong with them," it had been all that was on the news for weeks when it had occurred. Whatever had been wrong with the vaccine had in fact probably saved what was left of the human race.

------------------------- Both the children and the astronauts were too shocked by their mutual discovery to conduct a very coherent conversation. Before the space station moved out of range again a quick explanation of orbital mechanics told the children that talking to the station would be only a sometime proposition. The station's orbital path did not constantly pass over the same points below but shifted with each orbit. Some sort of schedule was promised from the astronauts but until that was worked out it would be a wait and listen situation. Every evening between six and nine was decided upon for the time being.

"We need to charge these batteries." Amanda said as she again turned off the radio. They needed to do a thousand things.

----------

ISS, over Barcelona, Spain "Do we go for an immediate departure or do we wait?" Ian Graves was Ireland's first astronaut and like the rest he had now been given an actual reason to go on living. But would they go on living if they returned to the flu-decimated Earth?

"All of the literature that I have available on flu viruses tends to indicate that the virus may simply cease to exist after a time. Unless there are other species that it can survive in, that is." Doctor Long had voiced this opinion before.

"Such as?" Asked Diego Cruz over whose homeland they were now passing.

"Swine have been known to harbor the viruses, even chickens and other poultry."

"Then we might still catch it if we return?"

"Yes. Personally I would like to take my chances on Earth. In the end we will have no other choice but to return."

They all knew that, they had only just so much reserve air and food left. Besides, there were children down below who were trying to survive and cope in a world without any adults to teach them and watch over them.

There were also a thousand things for the astronauts to decide and to do.

----------

"Well shit!" Terry said what they were all thinking. After the boys had nearly killed themselves racing around getting the smallest generator in place outside and then running in an extension to the battery charger the space station's last message had been very short and very weak. The orbiting outpost was drifting too far south in its basket weave path around the Earth "Take care of one another. Be care...." Was the last that they could make out from Doctor Long.

Amanda had some practical suggestions, there was little else they could do for the time being, it might be a couple of days before the station was close enough again for good communications. They all needed some time to come to mental grips with a world that now had some adults in it, or at least over it.

"Benny and Keesha need some clothes, that and some toys to play with to keep them occupied. They're just little kids, you know! I need clothes too. We should grab some laptop computers somewhere also. Maybe a stop at a Fry's if they haven't all been cleaned out."

"Okay," Terry agreed. "Why the computers though, there's no more internet or anything?"

"Laptops can be very useful for encyclopedia software, map software, that sort of stuff. They don't need much electricity and they can play movies and games too."

This last part again made the boys feel like idiots. They could have had some entertainment these long dark nights. DVD's! Neither of the boys were big computer geeks, mostly they had only used the exasperating things for homework and trying to get into adult sites that might get past the filter software their parents had installed on their full-size desktop machines. They had not really had much success with the latter endeavor.

"So where do we go shopping?" Eddie asked. Santa Cruz didn't seem too appealing after their last visit there.

"Over the hill," Amanda replied, "it's a four-lane road, and even Terry can stay in the middle of that."

Terry wanted to sock her but you just didn't do that to a girl. He had done the best he could driving the SUV!

"That's sort of a long ways," Eddie argued.

"Over the hill" meant Highway Seventeen and then San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale.

Silicon Valley.

Nerd land.

There were also some very large and expensive malls there. Most of the looting had been at the more practical places. Hardware stores, sporting goods and gun shops, supermarkets, drugstores.

"Listen you two ninnies. All of that bad vaccine was here in the Santa Cruz schools! It should be pretty safe over there. No bad kids, no anyone." Amanda was so very hard to argue with.

No gangs, probably. Terry and Eddie just looked at one another and shrugged.

"Okay. Tomorrow morning we go." Terry decided the issue. Eddie saw no real reason to object either and went off to clean his bloop gun, again.

Keesha picked this particular moment to giggle. Perhaps she was once more starting to feel safe. Benny only grinned a little.

Terry had once asked Amanda about her parents. Did she want himself and Eddie to 'take care' of them for her, properly?

"No. I set fire to the house when I left. Like the radio said."

"Oh. Sorry." Terry knew all about that sort of thing and except to tell Eddie he never mentioned the subject again. Why open up old wounds?

----------

"You get to drive today." Terry smiled and handed the keys to the open mouthed girl. It was payback time for her past comments on his driving skills.

"I can't drive!" She squeaked.

"Neither could I before yesterday. Besides, we should all learn how to drive. Eddie's turn will be on the trip home."

Now it was Eddie's turn to protest.

"No way, man! Forget it!"

"Are you going to start clucking too?"

No boy worthy of the title will ever take being seriously called a chicken.

"Okay then, it's your necks."

Amanda was as terrified as Terry had been but she did manage to get the big SUV out onto the road. She almost missed the mailbox, but not quite.

"You scratched the paint!" Terry was leaning out the window examining the damage. "My dad's gonna kill..."

Terry felt embarrassed about what he had started to say. His dad wasn't going to kill anyone. "Sorry. Let's get moving," he muttered as he leaned back in.

Neither Eddie nor the girl commented on what Terry had said, they too still could not really accept that they no longer had any parents to yell at them when they messed up bad.

"I'm sorry about the mailbox and the paint." Amanda had the same death-grip on the wheel that Terry had had. They were going about five miles per hour.

"It's not important. We probably won't be seeing the mailman again anyway. Try going a little faster, sundown is only ten hours away."

Amanda sped up to a blazing twenty-five and then managed to free one hand to punch Terry in the arm.

"Oww! Crap!"

Having a totally empty road to learn to drive on was a big help. Stop signs still made one tend to slow down at first and look both ways. Amanda was gaining confidence and speed by the time that had made it through the small town of Scotts Valley and onto the four lanes of Highway 17. Terry and Eddie had done an admirable job of biting their tongues and only yelling when disaster seemed absolutely imminent.

Small mudslides (and on occasion large ones) were the winter norm for the mountain commute highway from the coast to Silicon Valley. This winter had been no exception and there were no road crews left alive to clean up the mess.

"Stop" Terry/Eddie yelled. Even Keesha managed a proper squeal.

"I see it, criminy!"

A sloping flow of rocks, dirt and brush was across both of the northbound lanes. The cement safety barrier that divided the north and southbound lanes had stopped the flow and now prevented the SUV from using those lanes.

"Let's get out and take a look," Terry said as he opened his door. "Put it in park and use the handbrake thing."

Amanda managed to do all of that and then shut off the ignition.

The slide was perhaps only two feet deep near the cement safety barrier.

"I think we can just drive over it." Terry decided, trying to sound more confident than he really was.

"What if we get stuck?" Amanda's question was very much in order. By now Terry was walking across the slide area, testing the footing.

"It's mostly rocks and gravel, it's dried out enough not to go all squishy!"

"Then you do it!" Amanda handed the keys to him when he returned from his scouting trip. Eddie had designated himself as lookout and guard during the stop, he seemed to be looking around for something to bloop.

"Okay. Wait here till I get it across and then follow me."

Terry climbed into the SUV/tank and sat for a moment collecting his thoughts. Was this the right thing to try and do? With a shrug of his shoulders he decided it might be. Maybe.

"Let's see. Four-wheel drive?"

It was a first for the boy and the SUV. Like many of the urban assault vehicles the Navigator had never actually been in a situation needing four-wheel drive. Even the winter trips to the ski country had never required more than normal traction. Eventually Terry was rewarded with a small 'thunk' as he figured out how to engage all of the wheels. The transmission even went into some sort of wall-climbing extra-low gear and then the big vehicle proceeded to slowly crawl forward.

It was very much an anti-climax. It would all have made an excellent TV commercial for the Lincoln Division of Ford; even a child could do it! No tire slipped or bogged down, Terry hardly even had to use the accelerator.

"Cool!" Terry said out loud after he was once more breathing and on solid asphalt again. He seemed entirely too smug to Amanda as he handed the keys back to her when they had all caught up to the vehicle.

There were very few cars left sitting on the roads, no gigantic pileups or masses of abandoned vehicles. People wanted to be at home when they felt bad and that was were they went before they died. Amanda had the SUV up to almost fifty-five when they finally made it to their first planned stop.

"Hamilton!" Terry pointed to the leaf-littered turnoff ramp.

"I see it, I'm not blind you know."

"Sorry."

The parking lot was totally empty; the glass doors at the top of the motionless outdoor escalator were intact. The store hadn't been looted. Fry's Electronics had been Amanda and her father's second home. Electronics was sort of an understatement; you could find enough to build your own computer from scratch, you could buy a lava lamp or perhaps just grab a jumbo bag of beef jerky. Take your pick.

"Crap! How are we going to get in?" Amanda hadn't been around Eddie long enough to know any better than to ask that silly question.

"Come with me." Terry herded the girl and the two little ones partway back down the escalator, then he told Keesha and Benny to cover their ears. By now Amanda knew how they would get into the store. The girl didn't like guns at all but had learned the hard way that they did give one a certain feeling of security in a world with dogs and no police.

BLAM!

It only took Eddie just the one shot, safety glass being what it is and all.

They would need flashlights or something; the only light in the place came from the front doors. Of course Amanda knew where the flashlights and batteries were displayed, not too far from the entrance. She knew where everything was.

There were even shopping carts, It was dark and spooky but the boys were getting used to that.

Amanda preferred Apple laptops; the boys were only familiar with Windows stuff. So they got both type of laptops; the price was the same. There must have been fifty yards of DVDs and Amanda made sure that a lot of them were sappy Disney-type stuff for Benny and Keesha to watch.

"Check this out!" Eddie was in mild shock the same as Terry was. They had an unlimited credit limit with no payment due date and that was very hard to cope with. No more saving up allowances and odd job money, no more whining and wheedling parents for extra cash.

"What?" Terry and the rest congregated around the display were Eddie was salivating.

"Look! Little DVD player things!"

It was true. Half the size of a laptop computer and almost as expensive. Like the laptops they had twelve-volt adaptors.

"Now why didn't I remember these?" Amanda asked out loud.

"Get that one," Terry pointed to the most expensive Sony unit with the biggest screen. Eddie got three of them.

It came as no surprise that Amanda even knew where all of the boxed merchandise in the stock rooms was stored. The clerks had all known her and her father; there had even been discussions of a reserved parking space for them.

It was almost noon and the back of the SUV was half filled with batteries of all sorts, computers, and computer software, sixty-seven DVD's. They had all of the store's largest solar panels for recharging car batteries. There were some very pricey portable communications scanners and walkie-talkies. There was also a very, very pricey Grundig radio that could tune in everything but smoke signals. Ten bags of beef jerky. No Lava lamps.

They would have to come back to this place again, a lot. Amanda knew where there were two more of these chain stores located and both of them were even bigger than this one was.

Clothes were next. The vast covered mall they had decided on had been partially looted but children's clothing had not been too high on the looters shopping lists. In a way it was the most eerie of places that they had yet visited; dim and silent, yet filled with bright colors and manikins dressed in the latest vogue. The doors to the mall had been wide open, left unlocked and pushed back to their stops. Only a gray house cat was to be seen inside, that and few sparrows who didn't seem bright enough to find their way back outside again.

Keesha and Benny needed everything, so did Amanda. Terry and Eddie assumed the pained expressions common to all males who aren't clever enough to avoid shopping with females. Underwear, socks, jeans, shirts of all sorts. More underwear. Jackets. More socks. Shoes!

The mall also had a toy store, a big one. Benny said the first word that Terry and Eddie had heard him utter (shout).

"Barney!"

The enormous stuffed purple 'thing' wound up tied to the roof rack of the SUV; there was no more room inside. More groans from Terry and Eddie; Barney had to be a good five feet tall and seemed to weigh about nine hundred pounds. But it had made Benny speak and that had decided the matter for them.

"I still need some lip gloss and...." Amanda was rather rudely cut off.

"Later. We're going home!" Terry's tone offered no appeal so Amanda didn't push it. She knew that the boys had been amazingly patient, not that she would ever say that to them.

Now it was Eddie's turn to drive and the sun was getting low on the horizon.

"Slow down!" Terry demanded for the fourth time.

"Why?" Eddie was only doing about seventy; there certainly wasn't any traffic to impede him. Barney on the roof was in no danger of flying off, yet.

"We're getting close to the mountains, dork! This isn't a sports car!"

Eddie had been driving for all of twenty minutes and was wondering just what his companions had found so difficult about in controlling a vehicle. If Terry was the practical one and Amanda the brainy one, then Eddie was the one who belonged in an F-18 or an M1A1 main battle tank. Or perhaps a Formula-1 racecar.

"Just cool it, please! Think of Keesha and Benny!"

Terry's words had finally made an impression. Eddie winced at the thought of causing any harm to the little ones, or to his best and only friend. And to Amanda.

He cooled it.

"We should get another car maybe, as sort of a backup." Eddie suggested this as he smoothly turned onto the dark and narrow two-lane road that led to home.

"What kind of car?" Terry by now felt very safe with Eddie driving, so did Amanda. Keesha and Benny were mercifully asleep. Barney on the roof was only a little wind-frayed.

"A Corvette. Or maybe something really fast."

Terry and Amanda could only exchange glances of total despair.

----------

"I don't like guns!" Amanda saw no reason to learn how to shoot; she had two pint-sized Rambo's to protect her.

"You don't have to like them. You do have to learn how to use them. Remember the dogs." Terry was leaving no room for an argument.

She did remember the dogs, and that stupid gang of kids.

"Crap! Okay, but..."

"No buts, you have to be able to protect yourself. We have just the right gun for you."

The boys had found the high-tech version of the venerable .38 revolver in Weems' writing desk. It's small frame made from titanium and other light alloys reduced its weight to almost nothing, only the barrel liner was made of steel.

"See! It's really light and the grip is small. Five shots." Eddie had taken over the shooting lesson, which was fine with Terry.

"Oh! It's sort of pretty."

It was sort of pretty; light-metallic blue and two shades of gray. Walnut inserts in the black, rubber-like grip.

"Is it loaded?" Amanda accepted the weapon as if being handed a lit stick of dynamite.

"Rule number one. Always assume that a gun is loaded."

That was what the manuals said and Eddie had them all memorized. "Also, you've just broke rule two and rule three."

"What? I haven't done anything yet!"

"Your finger is on the trigger and look at where the muzzle is pointed."

The unloaded .38 was aimed without thought in the general direction of where Terry sat with Benny and Keesha on the overgrown backyard lawn. Barney was over there too.

"Oh shit!" Amanda whispered. After this the lessons went very well indeed. The girl would eventually be a much better shot than Terry was (no real accomplishment) but never even close to as good as Eddie was.

----------

Contact with the ISS was finally re-established the next evening. The astronauts had made decisions and plans for a return.

"We have decided to wait for as long as we can before returning to Earth," Doctor Long explained, "I feel that the longer we wait the less chance there will be that any of the virus will remain viable."

That made sense to Terry but he wanted to know how long it would be.

"We think perhaps another three months before we have to return. We all very much want to be with you and to help you as much as we can, but we also want to stay alive. Do you think that you will be all right for that length of time?"

"We should be fine. The bad part is mostly behind us and things are getting better now. Amanda has been a really big help in making things more civilized around here." This got a big grin from the girl; she had been working pretty hard to whip the boys into a semblance of civilized behavior. No belching or farting at the dinner table and that sort of thing. More attention to keeping things picked up, even actual housecleaning, sort of. The girl would make an insanely good mother one day; she already was in many ways.

"We have to discuss a landing area for the Soyuz and the Taxi. Without ground tracking data we're going to need a big flat area. Both vehicles use parachutes in the final descent."

"Where would you land if that stuff was all working?"

"We would try for Edwards down south in the desert from you, the Soyuz normally lands in central Russia."

"Edwards is sort of a long ways from here." Terry had some half formed plans to be on the ground waiting for them when they landed. "I read where astronauts are sort of weak and wobbly when they return from a long time in space."

"That's true. We may have some real problems with that."

"Can't you land closer, that way we could be there to help you? What about some sort of flat farmland kind of place?"

"We've been discussing that too. Anywhere on the coast is out, our re-entry may not be very exact, we could wind up in the ocean. The Sacramento Valley might be a good place to try for."

Terry exchanged looks with the others, it did seem like the best idea.

"Okay. That's not too awfully far, we can drive there pretty easy."

"You kids have been driving?"

"Well, sure. We have to. We've even figured out how to power the gas pumps at the stations too." He felt very proud about that.

"That's amazing! Perhaps we've been underestimating you kids. My apologies to you all and do be careful."

"That's okay. We've been trying to talk Eddie out of getting a Corvette, maybe you can help."

"A Corvette! Eddie, you listen to your doctor! No corvette or I'll tan your butt when I get there!"

Terry grinned and handed the microphone to the irked Eddie.

"Yes, Ma'am. No Corvette."

The doctor hadn't said anything about a Porsche or maybe a Lamborghini or two.

----------

"Three months!" Terry said with some disappointment.

"It'll be summer by then." Amanda added.

"So we have plenty of time to get ready." Eddie seemed the least worried of the three. "We're gonna need something big for the trip, for all of those feeblenauts to ride in when we find them."

"What? A bus?" Terry asked. The SUV was as big of a bus as he wanted to pilot.

"Motor home," Eddie replied casually, "one of those really big mothers."

"You get to drive it, then!"

"No problem. My uncle had one the size of the Enterprise. Automatic transmission, automatic everything. Just bigger."

"Oh." Maybe they could do it after all, Terry decided. Maybe.

First they would have to find one in operating condition.

"We get a new one from a dealer, the biggest and the best they have." Amanda added.

"Geez." Terry had been over-ruled by the vote count.

----------

Terry and Company were faring better than the vast majority of the children left adrift by the virus. The more sensible of the survivors took proper stock of their position and worked as best they could to make their lives more bearable and safe. Small groups gathered together for support and safety, and for just the mere presence of other humans. Safety was in numbers. A few of the groups developed into little more than gangs ruled by the strongest but most of the children had more common sense than to follow that dead end path.

Some of the orphaned children had just seen too much to remain sane and became feral loners, moving from place to place, shunning other young humans, and eating what came to hand. Sometimes they died a lonely death either from broken hearts and neglected bodies or from the roving dog packs. A few of the lost souls simply fled into the wilderness areas away from the cities and towns, away from the smell of the bodies. They would become the truly wild children, those few who survived.

----------

Tomorrow they would go on another 'shopping' expedition, this time for four-wheeled merchandise. As was their habit Terry and Eddie talked quietly in their bunk bed before sleep took them for the night. Eddie preferred the top bunk, he always had.

"I was thinking another SUV of some sort to start with, then maybe we can look for a motor home dealer someplace," Terry began.

"No Corvette, huh?" Eddie's voice had a little bit of an edge in it tonight.

"Ed-Dee. We need something that can drive over stuff like last week, something with four-wheel drive."

"So you're telling me I can't get something I would like, something to have a little fun with for a change?"

Terry could see that his friend was more than a little put out.

"No. I'm not your boss. Me and Amanda just want to do what's..."

"You and Amanda? Not me?"

"Huh?"

"It just seems like sometimes the both of you think you are in charge of me. I sort of don't like that."

Terry was quiet for a moment; maybe they had been taking Eddie too much for granted.

"Have we been doing that?"

"Pretty much."

"Then I apologize, really. It's just that we've been trying to do so much. Maybe we've been trying to do too much in too little time. You're my best friend, I want to keep it that way."

"Cool." Eddie seemed mollified by Terry's words and was silent for a time. "So what do you think, a Porsche or maybe a Lamborghini?"

"Go for the Porsche. Dad says...he said that those Italian jobs are too finicky and hard to keep running good."

"Cool." Eddie was smiling again, so was Terry.

"You know of course that most sports cars have manual transmissions."

"Really?"

"I think Corvettes have automatics in some of them."

"Doctor Long said...."

"Eddie, she's in orbit. Get the Corvette!"

"Cool. A red one."

"Plus another SUV for Amanda to drive, maybe a Jeep." Terry added.

"Cool."

All was well again, or at least until they had to tell Amanda.

-------------------------- "Most of these car places are on either Stevens Creek or Capitol." Terry said as he poured over the Nerd land Yellow Pages while munching his breakfast cornflakes.

"I like white cars," Amanda offered as she helped Keesha pour the "sucks rocks" milk on her oatmeal.

"She'll probably stick cute little bunny decals all over the poor thing." Eddie snickered.

"Maybe I will!" Amanda stuck her tongue out at her tormentor.

"There's a big Chevy place on Stevens Creek." Terry continued, easing his way into dangerous territory.

"I thought you said a Jeep SUV would be good choice?"

"Oh, sure. They have some other stuff at the Chevy place."

"Like.... what?" The girl was no dullard by light years and she smelled a rat. Two young male rats to be precise.

"'Vettes." Eddie took the plunge.

"No way! We decided, so did Doctor Long!" Amanda's eyes were narrowed in a way that the boys hadn't seen before.

"Remain calm," Terry said gently.

"Calm! We need to be sensible...."

"Eddie needs a Corvette. He saved you from those dogs you know! Maybe he saved all of our skins when that stupid gang was after us. Cut him some slack."

"But...Doctor Long said..."

"Doctor Long is in orbit, not here. If Eddie wants a Corvette then he gets a Corvette."

Amanda gave up and shut up. She could see that she was defeated on this issue, however the rest of the simple breakfast meal was decidedly frosty.

"Barney comes too!" Benny had put together three words in a row, the most that the boys had yet to hear from him.

Terry just groaned as Eddie trudged back into the house and carted out the stuffed purple beast that was as large as he was. If Barney could get Benny to talk then Barney could hitch a ride too.

Terry had just started up the Navigator when Eddie yelled at him to stop.

"What now?"

"Wooden blocks and duct tape. For the pedals."

"Oh. Crap!" Despite the hours of planning they had almost forgotten that very important detail.

Thirty minutes later they were finally moving toward their destination. Amanda was still frosty and wasn't saying very much, it was sort of like being married to her or something. Both boys knew the routine when their mom's had been pissed off at their dads; if a hug and kiss didn't fix things then a rather pricey gift/peace offering was in order. Flowers and dinner out were also a good bet.

Amanda didn't seem too approachable that morning so a hug and kiss seemed out of the question, Terry and Eddie wouldn't have quite known how to pull that off anyway.

----------

Amanda's gift/peace offering was sitting in pristine condition in the dealer's locked showroom.

"Oh my!" Amanda was starting to thaw as she peered through the dirty glass of the showroom.

"Shall we go in?" Eddie had his trusty 9mm out and pointed safely skyward. They were all armed this trip (save for the little ones) but as always they let Eddie take care of the noisy work.

"Aim high," Terry cautioned, he didn't want a hole in Amanda's new wheels.

"Well, duh!" Eddie knew perfectly well to do that.

The fully loaded mother of pearl-silver-metallic-white Jeep SUV had a sticker price that in times past would have made a tidy inheritance from a well off uncle.

"It's beautiful." Amanda had ventured to open the driver-side door and to poke her head inside, she was also smiling again. Even after these months of neglect and with a light coating of dust the vehicle still had that patented new car aroma.

"Geez! It ought to be beautiful!" Terry was staring at the list of extras and the tab for those goodies that was stuck to the passenger door window.

It took almost an hour and some more loud noises from Eddie's arsenal to find the keys to their lady's new chariot.

It wouldn't start, of course.

There was only enough power left in the battery to power the dashboard instruments and to make a weak clicking noise from the starter solenoid.

They were prepared for this eventuality and an hour of running the generator in the back of the Navigator had the Jeep's battery charged enough to do it's duty.

Duct tape. Wooden blocks. Adjust the powered driver's seat.

Check the oil and stuff under the hood. Put the charged battery back in. Both boys knew enough about cars to accomplish that. Guy stuff.

Clean the dust off the windshield.

"How do we get it out of here?" Eddie was looking at the showroom's extra wide double doors. They were locked and despite one of them having no glass they were still a barrier for the Jeep SUV. The doors had been the entrance that the vehicles on display had been moved through to get into the showroom.

"Keys?" Terry dreaded another prolonged search; they had already spent most of the morning here. Keesha and Benny were starting to get really antsy by now.

"We could just floor it and...." Eddie started to say.

"No! Not with my new car!" Amanda would not stand for a bashed front end on her new 'gift.' Not even a scratch!

There were also some other pricey Chrysler products on the showroom floor. Terry and Eddie looked at one another as they reached the same solution. The solution even had enough battery charge left to just barely turn over and then to come to life. A forty thousand dollar battering ram.

"Let's all wait over there behind that desk." Terry herded the wide-eyed Amanda and her two charges out of harm's way as Eddie started to rev the sedan's big V-8.

"Be care..." Amanda didn't get to finish her shouted caution to Eddie as he laid down rubber across the width of the showroom's tiled floor to then remove the entire doorframe and it's attached paneling and trim. Eddie couldn't see too well where he was going since no wooden blocks had been duct-taped to the car's pedals. A rather nasty crunching noise then drifted in through the gap in the showroom, Eddie had finally come to a halt.

After a time Eddie wobbled in looking just a little silly and bleeding a bit from a small cut on his forehead.

"Eddie!" Amanda switched over to mother/female/nurse mode and ran to hug her new hero. Eddie just grinned and looked even sillier as the girl hugged him and then kissed him square on his grin.

Now he was even with Terry on the kiss scoreboard.

----------

The Chevrolet dealer wasn't as difficult. Eddie's brand new dream/lust was also sitting in the showroom. This time there was another entrance that led out through the padlocked service bays. By now the boy's had also discovered the usefulness of very large bolt cutters, courtesy of their last trip to Home Depot.

"The speedometer goes up to warp nine." Terry had his head inside the very red Corvette convertible as Eddie sat in the road-missile trying to slow his heartbeat. Actually the speedometer went past 160 and it wasn't being overly optimistic.

"Yeah." It was about all that Eddie seemed capable of saying by now.

"Be real careful, Eddie. We sort of like you and want you to stay in mostly one piece."

"Yeah. I'm cool."

"Then go have some fun."

"Yeah."

Eddie didn't lose his control at all. All of his car magazine drooling had told him that a new vehicle should be broken in gently, not pushed to its limits. He never pushed the Corvette past ninety as he gently cruised up and down the auto dealership-lined boulevard. There was plenty of time and plenty of empty roads to get up to warp speed.

----------

"Good God!" Terry whispered as the five of them stood gazing up at the motor home. The monster was worthy of a maritime designation. USS Excess or perhaps RMS Titanic.

"Can you drive that thing?" Amanda asked Eddie.

"What do you mean, can I drive it?" I have a car. You guys can drive it."

"But..."

"It drives just like your new sissy wheels, it's just a little bigger."

"A little bigger! It's the size of a house!"

The motor home was in fact more than they could cope with for this one day. They did manage to track down the keys and the manual(s) that belonged to the 'vessel.' They also spent two hours opening access doors and wandering around inside the plush, rolling tribute to wretched excess.

"Look at that!" Eddie had said that three times already; they were all looking at the bathtub in the luxury motor home. It was big enough for a short swim. The living room slid outwards and doubled its size at the push of a button, or at least it would when the batteries were up to snuff.

The driver/pilot/helmsman's seat looked out through enough glass to cover a respectable greenhouse. The dash appeared to have been salvaged from the cockpit of a 747 jumbo jet.

"Oh Man!" Terry was sure by now that this was all a really silly idea. Eddie wasn't as impressed.

"Look. Gear selector, gas gauge (diesel actually), speedometer. All of the regular stuff."

"What's that?" Terry pointed to a TV-like screen.

"Rear view camera, I think." Amanda explained.

"Oh. And that?" There were a lot of extra things to point at.

"GPS navigation."

"Sure. Why not? Let's take the manuals home and come back in a few days. This is going to take some time to get all figured out."

"Cool." Eddie agreed. He just wanted to get back into his red rocket sled that was waiting out in the parking area.

The three car, three driver, caravan made it home just before dark. Eddie kept zooming ahead and once even passed Terry and Amanda going in the opposite direction in the opposing northbound lanes. The need for some sort of communications between the vehicles became immediately apparent to everyone. The walkie-talkies should have been brought along, or perhaps even some CB radios would be on their next shopping list. CB's weren't a fad any longer, people who used them now tended to have an actual need for them. Or rather they did.

----------

Most children between the ages of ten and twelve will tend to find the easy way through life's trials and chores. Amanda, Eddie, and Terry had been severed from the petty concerns of childhood; they had to now survive by their own wits and sweat. Goof off and there's no food on the table.

Not to say that they were now totally above and beyond some fun and mindless play.

"Go fish!" Terry loved this nitwit card game, so did Eddie and Amanda. It was better than some artificial video game. For some time now they had been indulging in this pre-bed ritual contest that brought them closer together and shut away hard memories and thoughts about the next day's challenges.

"Ha! I got what I needed!" Eddie had drawn the six that he needed. "Read 'em and weep!" Eddie had his four sixes.

Amanda then had the nerve to speak of something else besides the card game.

"We should plant a big garden, for some fresh vegetables and stuff. Spring is mostly here,"

"What?" Terry looked at Eddie as if a large and very smelly fish had been dropped into the middle of the trio. Benny and Keesha were by now in their beds and sound asleep, they would have cared less anyway.

"The food in the storehouse won't last forever. Sooner or later we'll have to grow our own food. Maybe raise our own cows or pigs. Or at least learn to hunt deer or something."

This was all a cold slap in the face for Terry and Eddie. One day they would indeed be really on their own, even the astronauts wouldn't be able to provide everything for them.

Assuming the astronauts even made it home and didn't get the flu.

"I once grew an avocado plant, in a jar of water." Terry's agricultural experience was to say the least, limited.

"And you?" Amanda looked pointedly at Eddie.

"Just some mildew, in the shower."

"Wonderful. We need to read up on growing stuff." Amanda could see that this was going to be more than just another quick trip to the hardware store "Seeds."

"What?" Terry could at times be a little slow about things.

"We need to get a lot of seeds when we go get the motor home," Amanda explained, "there's some books in the storehouse about gardening."

"So where do we 'garden'?" Eddie asked.

"Out back, where it's flat. We already have a tractor with all of those attachment gizmos we need to get the ground...plowed?"

Eddie and Terry had visions of bib overalls and straw hats. It would be hard work in any case.

-------------------------- They knew it would be a General Big Deal to get the motor home up and running, much less piloting the road-blimp back to their mountain lair. Provisions were packed, they could stay the night at the RV dealer's lot if need be. Before the return trip to the dealer an entire day had been spent trying to digest all of the manuals that came with the $656,388.37 rolling mansion. Plus dealer prep, tax and license.

"Okay. Try it now." Eddie had finally disconnected the battery charger from the massive dual batteries that were the supercharged diesel's electrical heart. The boys were communicating with the cheap walkie-talkies that had been 'purchased' at Fry's on their first visit there.

Terry had the cold-start procedures memorized by now. Still, it was a hold-your-breath-and-pray moment.

At first it sounded like a cement mixer full of golf balls as the big diesel cleared it's throat and rumbled into life. There was some considerable white smoke before things settled into a noisy idle.

"Allll Riiight!" Terry was pounding on the steering wheel; he had actually started the monstrous thing!

"Back out straight! Go slow!" Eddie was outside giving needed advice to the perspiring Terry. The wide angle, rear-view television camera was a big help but having someone outside to yell at you on the radio was even better. At least the great pleasure barge had an automatic transmission and not the six-dozen manual gears of a big rig truck.

In truth it wasn't very much harder to operate than your average auto. It was just so very much bigger and intimidating.

Terry felt more at ease taking the entire middle of the freeway rather than trying to keep it in just the one skinny lane. Amanda followed in her Jeep SUV. Benny and Keesha were watching a Rug Rats video on the wide-screen television in the back master bedroom.

Eddie was as usual way out ahead and using his walkie-talkie.

"Iceberg! Right ahead!"

"Very funny, Eddie." Terry had been expecting something like that.

"Sorry. Couldn't help myself."

"This is sort of cool." Terry said as he turned onto the Highway Seventeen ramp, he even used the turn signal.

"We could live in that thing!" Amanda still could not come to terms with all of the things that were now free and open to them, with no adults to stop them.

"That's the idea. It may take several days to meet up with the astronauts, if we can."

Indeed if they could even find them.

----------

For the next two months time would be divided between learning how to live without adults and preparing for the return of adults. The garden turned out to be a bigger project than any of the children had anticipated.

Chapter Five

Bambi, Raccoons, and The Beach

"We need a fence or something!" Terry was looking at the gnawed off lettuce plants, the tiny plants had almost started to show some promise of developing into actual heads of lettuce. Their garden was small and rather experimental at this point; they had prudently decided that for this year they wouldn't go all out and plant a lot of what they really didn't know how to raise just yet.

"Rabbits?" Eddie would have 'blooped' them if he could.

"I dunno. Maybe deer. Who knows?"

"I do," Eddie was now on all fours looking at the soft soil around the ex-lettuce, "Bambi was here, there's deer feet prints."

"Hoof prints. So what's next?"

"I'll stay up tonight and study up on that book about how to field dress game."

"Huh?"

"Fresh meat. Deer steaks." Eddie tried to sound like he knew what to do with a dead deer, maybe he could fake it.

"Eat Bambi?" Terry wasn't so sure about this latest development.

"Did you think that the hamburger at MacDonalds came from cow suicides or something?"

"Well, no."

The deer didn't return that night, or the next. Perhaps they had Eddie under close observation and had traded intelligence information about him. On the third night Eddie said to hell with it and didn't stand guard at all. It was very hard to stay awake after a day filled with everything else that seemed to come up.

Of course the deer came back that night and had the remaining lettuce mini-plants for their midnight snacks.

"We need a fence, a tall one." Terry proclaimed the obvious, as usual.

"What do we...?" Eddie started to ask.

"Chicken wire. Lots of chicken wire." Amanda interrupted.

"Then let's take the RV, it can carry the most crap."

Building a fence, even a chicken wire fence, can be hard work for eleven-year-old farmers. Digging the postholes was the sweaty part. While Terry and Eddie handled the manly job of fence building, Amanda busied herself with replanting and improving the garden. It was a very warm April afternoon and like all construction workers are required by law to do the boys took off their shirts to keep cool as they struggled with the postholes. No knowledge of rental gas powered posthole diggers was in any of their young brains.

Amanda was very warm also and on a sort of an impulse took off her T-shirt also, something she had always been able to do at the beach that her folks took her. Why should just dumb old boys get to stay cool? There were no more parents to say that no, this wasn't the proper place, and what did it even matter anymore? At first the boys didn't notice and then eventually they did.

"Uh, Terr." Eddie whispered.

"What?"

"Amanda's not wearing her shirt anymore."

"Huh?" Terry turned to where Eddie was staring. It was all very true. "Gee!"

Posthole digging sort of ceased for the moment.

"So what are you two staring at? If this was a flat chest contest I'd be the winner!" Amanda didn't see what the big deal was, anyway. She had kept her jeans on, after all. She was tempted to take those off too just to totally shock the two silly boys.

"Uh, nothing." Terry grinned and then grinned some more.

"Yeah," Eddie added, "there's nothing much to really look at anyway."

Eddie did manage to dodge the dirt clod that the girl sailed by his head. Boys!

Benny and Keesha thought staying cool was a grand idea also and quickly abandoned everything they had on.

"Now look at what you've started!" Terry was laughing and pointing behind the girl at the two little ones who by now were well into creative mud smearing.

Amanda just shook her head and then joined in the laughter.

"You two get to clean them up for dinner tonight!"

Terry and Eddie had a solution for that problem; they would just use the garden hose.

----------

"We've finished the fence for the garden." Amanda was once more in contact with the space station.

"Outstanding! By the way, what are you using for fertilizer?" All of the astronauts had taken turns speaking with their only ties to mankind but Doctor Long was the one who by mutual consent did the most of the communicating.

"Some bags of chicken sh...manure we found at the hardware store's nursery. The gardening books says that its pretty good stuff. Sort of smelly, though."

"Have you thought about raising your own meat? Things like rabbits or chickens?"

"Sort of. There seem to be a lot of deer around here. Eddie could shoot one probably, if we could all work up the nerve to, you know, cut it up into...meat."

"You have guns?" This was the first time that it had actually been mentioned by the children. Doctor Long's rather politically correct alarm bells were going off.

"Well, sure. Eddy and Terry first found me up in a tree! There was a pack of dogs trying to eat me! Eddie shot them all."

"My God. Dogs?"

"Yes. We always have to be careful about them when we go anywhere. So far there haven't been any around here."

"Put Eddie on, Amanda." A male voice had replaced the doctor's.

Eddie took the microphone with a puzzled look on his face. On the space station General Hartz had also been handed the microphone.

"Hello, this is Eddie."

"Eddie. Is it Edward, by the way?" Hartz began, trying to establish a friendly link with the boy.

"Yes sir. Is this General Hartz?"

"Yes it is, son. What sort of firearms do you have?" Hartz was fascinated by this latest revelation.

"Well, all sorts actually. Mister Weems had a pretty big collection."

"The man who lived in the house where you all are now?"

"Yes, sir."

"What did you shoot the dogs with, the one's who were after Amanda?"

"Oh. I just used the .308 HK sniper. It's only a bolt action but you can blow the balls off a gnat with it."

"Indeed?" Hartz suddenly realized that this boy and these children might be a little more than the shallow sort of young people he had left behind on his last lift-off. "What sort of other...weapons do you have?"

Eddie told them, the space station was almost out of range by the time he finished.

Doctor Long was appalled.

With a capital A.

----------

"Oh no!" Amanda and her small family were looking at the devastation in what was left of their garden. The garden they had all worked so very hard to make even a modest success.

What Terry and Eddie said is best left to the imagination.

"Look! Raccoons!" Eddie could see the distinctive little handprints in the damp earth. The fence had been burrowed under and pushed up. "There must have been a whole herd of them!"

"Shit!" Little Benny said that. Perhaps it was from being around such poor role models.

There was very little left that might in time have been canned or served fresh. Amanda had been reading about canning produce, a waste of time for now.

"We need an electric fence!" Eddie was visualizing something that could vaporize an escaped convict or a moose.

"We need a vacation," Terry said quietly.

They did indeed need a vacation. All work and no play can really grind you down. It was two weeks until the astronauts were due to return to earth. The children had worked long days to get Terry's house ready for the astronauts. New beds, new linen, new everything. Many trips 'over the hill' to gather whatever the children thought that the astronauts might need. Getting the massive RV ready for the long drive. Terry's family belongings packed and then stored over at Eddie's place (no, he still couldn't go inside).

And now their garden was lost, mostly.

"Screw it. Let's go to the beach or something."

"The gang's..." Amanda began.

"There's other beaches, not just Santa Cruz. Highway One, up the coast." Terry didn't have to say very much more. They all wanted a respite from the endless work and now this damned mess.

------------------------- By now Amanda's nerd powers had equipped the RV with an antenna for another radio like Weems' ham setup. The built-in generator in the back of the huge vehicle provided the power. They would be able to communicate with the space station directly from the RV.

"So which beach?" Terry was carefully guiding the RV to the north of Santa Cruz, skirting the city entirely. Eddie was in radio contact in Amanda's Jeep out ahead of them, armed to the teeth as usual. Late summer or fall is best for this part of the coast but the weather gods had blessed this day with warm weather and no fog or sand blasting winds.

"Red White and Blue." Amanda replied, as if it were common knowledge.

"Never been there."

"Red White and Blue Beach. Up north a ways, toward Davenport."

"Never heard of it."

"It is...was a private beach. A nude beach. For families."

"A what?" Terry had heard the girl but had to ask again anyway.

"A private beach."

"You said nude."

"Well, yes. You didn't have to bother with swimsuits if you didn't want to."

"Oh." Terry was silent for a time trying to digest this radical concept. "Did you...bother with...?"

"Of course not. Who wants to spend the day in a soggy bathing suit full of gritty sand?"

"Oh."

"Wreck ahead around the curve, slow down!" Eddie was on the radio. God bless Eddie.

"What is it?" Amanda was handling the RV's communications with Eddie.

"A couple of cars, head on. Try not to look too close."

Amanda unbuckled and made sure that Keesha and Benny were occupied elsewhere as Terry slowed and eased around the awful mess in the middle of the highway.

The mess had once been two families. Mothers and fathers, children, all strewn about like so much trash. Hopefully it had been quick for them, unlike for most of humanity.

"Turn in there!" Amanda pointed to the obscure road that had no sign or indication as to where it led. "Eddie! You passed it! Turn around and come back."

After a few moments the red Corvette seemed to just materialize beside the RV. Eddie had long since ceased to obey any speed laws or even some of the laws of physics.

------------------------ The unpaved parking area was totally empty, apparently sick and dying humans had no real desire to be at the beach in their final hours.

"Shit!" Terry had grazed the ticket booth at the entrance to the private beach, just a little bit actually.

"There's a good place!" Amanda was pointing to a wide, flat area that would normally park about ten cars.

"Cool." Terry came to a stop squarely in the center of the parking area and then turned off the ignition. Eddie then pulled in next to the RV and powered down his road rocket.

They were at the beach.

Finally.

----------

"It's freezing!" Terry had ventured to take his shoes and socks off to test the water hissing up the sand from the breaking surf.

"Sissy!" Amanda knew that even in the hottest months of summer the water would take your breath away when you first came in contact with it, something that was never mentioned in the tourist pamphlets.

"Last one in does the dishes!" Amanda was totally bare and dashing towards the sea before Terry or Eddie could do more than just gape and look silly. Benny and Keesha weren't so slow to shed their clothing and soon were squealing and dashing to and fro at the edge of the surf.

Terry looked at Eddie in panic.

Eddie looked at Terry.

"You first!"

"No, you first!"

What the hell!

It was actually not a very big deal. After a while cold and soggy swimsuits and trunks seemed like a perfectly silly invention. Amanda retaliated for the day in the garden with "Nothing much to look at anyway!"

The water was cold but the sun and sand were warm. They were still the same young people who cared so much for one another. Clothing or no clothing made no difference in that. It was all so simple and natural. Sexual matters were still mostly an abstract concept to the small group. The physical differences between them were nothing new to the boys and their awkwardness lasted for only a limited amount of time. Unlike Keesha, Amanda had the experience and good manners not to point and giggle when the boys emerged somewhat 'reduced' from the icy surf. She just yelled "Even less to look at now!"

"What's for lunch?" It was past one by now and Terry's stomach was signaling that fuel was required.

"Peanut butter and grape jelly on dog biscuit crackers or peanut butter and jelly on nothing." Amanda was peering into the lunch cooler she had hastily prepared the night before. Dinner would be better.

"And?"

"Sucks rocks milk or sodas."

"Cool." Terry was ready to eat a raw squid sandwich by now.

----------

They managed to collect more than enough driftwood for a fire on the beach that night. There was enough for a real bonfire with no other humans to salvage the ocean borne wood that the winter storms always littered the beach with. Warm clothes had prudently replaced warm skin as the sun disappeared and the fog returned to its rightful place with a vengeance. Keesha and Benny were dead to the world in the RV after a very full day of mindless fun and a mild sunburn for the little boy. Amanda had been very pushy about using the sun block on the very blonde boy's fair skin. Terry and Eddie had paid less attention and now had somewhat tender behinds and other odd places.

"What happens after they land?" Amanda was voicing what they had all wondered about. What would happen to their small family?

"We stay together," Eddie replied. How could they not?

"Well, sure. Why not?"

"They're grownups, maybe they'll want us all to..." Amanda cut Terry's words short.

"We have a home now! We'll help them all we can and be nice but we stay together. In our own home!"

"Cool." Eddie.

"Cool." Terry.

Whatever their future held it would not seem to include any long range plans conceived of by orbiting adults.

Chapter Six

Re-entry

"That's everything on our list," Amanda had checked off the last item to be loaded into the big RV, "so I guess we're ready."

"Okay, then all we have left is to hook up the fuel trailer to the Titanic." Terry was as tired as the rest of them were but now they were almost done. Tomorrow they would leave for the central valley to hopefully be on hand when and if the astronauts landed.

Terry had hit on the idea of bringing along a rental trailer full of ten-gallon gas (and diesel) cans in case they weren't able to obtain what they needed during the long trip. It was safer to pull the dangerous cargo behind the RV, storing it all inside the cavernous storage bins along the sides of the RV would have turned it into a rolling bomb. Even a kid would finally realize that.

Eddie would be driving his road-rocket; it was very fast and maneuverable. He would be the advance scout for the lumbering RV. Amanda would bring up the rear in her Jeep SUV; they might need its four-wheel drive if they had to traverse any rough spots to get to the astronauts. Benny and Keesha would have the run of the RV during the trip and would not have to sit in one spot to fidget and fuss for the long drive.

There was one last conversation with the space station that evening, final plans were discussed. General Hartz was explaining.

"We're going for side by side re-entry burns, we'll be separated by about five miles for safety. Otherwise it would be almost impossible for both craft to land anywhere close together if we re-entered on different orbits."

"So you'll be that far apart when you land, sir?" Terry asked.

"We don't really know how far apart we'll be. The Soyuz and the Taxi have different aerodynamic qualities once they enter the atmosphere, we could land close together or hundreds of miles apart." The Taxi can be steered like a space shuttle and steered to a large degree even after the parasail has deployed. The Soyuz pretty much has to land wherever it's trajectory takes it and where the wind takes it's 'chutes. If we can get a bearing on the Soyuz we'll try to land close by, but that's sort of an iffy thing at best. As you know the GPS satellite system is still functioning so if we can we'll relay our coordinates to you just before we touch down."

"Yes, sir. The RV and the other two cars all have GPS navigators, thanks to Amanda. Is the landing time still going to be nine-thirty-four in the morning, our time?"

"Yes, we're committed to that. We're still aiming for the Interstate Five landing area west of Castle Air Force base."

It was very flat and open there, no mountains or forests to plow into.

"We're leaving here first thing in the morning, sir. Everything is packed that we can think of. We found new clothes and shoes in all of the sizes that you gave us and my folk's house is all ready with new stuff for you." It had been a LOT of work for the children.

"We really appreciate all of the work and effort you've put into this, we might have been in a real jam landing on our own."

"Eddie calls you all "feeblenauts."

Eddie's ears reddened some as his friend said that, and he had some considerable ears to redden.

"Then he's about right. It takes some time to get your land legs back after so long up here."

"We'll have some cold beer waiting for you in the RV."

"You kids drink beer?"

"Oh, no sir. We tasted some and we all thought it was gross! We thought that you grownups might like a cold one though."

"God bless you, Terry. I have had dreams about a cold beer lately."

"Cool."

"Your signal is fading so we'll see you on the ground in two days. Be careful and stay safe."

"Yes sir, 'bye for now."

The astronauts were silent for a time, just looking at one another and wondering if all of this was going to work. On the ground the children were doing pretty much the same thing.

----------

Road Trip

"I have to pee!" Benny piped up as they were closing up the house for the big trip.

"Then use the toilet in the RV!" Terry's voice had a slight bite in it; it had been a hectic morning. "We need to get moving!"

Amanda gave each of her family a kiss and a hug before they all got into their respective vehicles. The girl had also installed a CB radio in each vehicle so they would be in constant contact with one another. They were as always, armed. Eddie's Corvette held enough firepower to start and finish a small war. He had wanted to bring the massive Barrett .50 caliber but it was just to damned big and heavy, besides they probably wouldn't need to shoot at any dinosaurs along the way.

The plan was for the RV and the Jeep SUV to stay close together with Eddie ranging to and fro acting as scout and traffic reporter. The trip would be about two hundred and fifty miles and that sort of travel was a little scary to Terry and Amanda. Eddie was sort of concerned too but would never say so unless actual torture was used on him.

Each vehicle had a folder of route maps that Amanda had printed up on her computer. All of the proper turnoffs were highlighted and memorized. It was not possible for them to get lost with the GPS units as backup.

Terry spoke into the CB's microphone; the big supercharged diesel was finally up to its proper operating temperature.

"Let's roll."

They knew very well by now to use the southbound lanes of Highway Seventeen to avoid the slide area. The RV and Eddie's Corvette would have serious problems on rough ground.

"Slow down!" Eddie's voice held some urgency as the CB came to life near the summit of the mountain commute highway.

"What is it?" Terry asked, alarmed at the sound of his friend's voice. The red Corvette was out of sight around the far bend in the road.

"You'll see. Just slow way down."

Terry eased the big RV up next to Eddie's parked rocket and Amanda nosed in next to him. They were all staring open mouthed at what was lying calmly in the middle of the road as if it were just enjoying the warm morning sun.

"Look at that!" Amanda whispered over the radio.

"Yeah. Geez." Terry didn't know what to think. Keesha and Benny had on their widest eyes as they too peered through the huge front windshield of the RV.

Almost eight hundred pounds of male Siberian tiger calmly appraised the vehicles and the humans he could see inside of them. The big cat looked quite well nourished, sleek and so very, very beautiful. It had never lost its hunting instincts despite being in a zoo enclosure for most of its life and now there was nothing that it feared. There were enough horses, goats, llamas, and dirt-stupid domestic cattle about to keep it well fed. It's first meal had been it's hated keeper at the San Francisco Zoo who had thought it would be a kind thing to do when she unlocked every cage and enclosure in the zoo. It was an event that had occurred at many zoos around the planet. One more thing for the surviving humans to confront, there were now large and dangerous animals wandering around and those of them who survived would start to breed.

"Eddie?" Terry didn't really know what to do next.

"Just keep your windows shut and follow me. I really don't want to kill it. I'll make some noise first and try to scare it off."

"Okay. Be careful."

"Yes, dear."

Bloop!

Boom!

Eddie had aimed for the embankment high above the tiger. The shattering explosion of the grenade round and the flying bits of rock and dirt totally un-nerved the big cat. Their last image was of a very long and very plush tail disappearing into the woods beside the road.

"Let's get going." Eddie for once sounded like the young boy that he really was.

----------

It was tiring for the kids to drive such distances. Young people have a limited tolerance for anything long and tedious. A rest stop was called for at the top of the Altamont Pass. A few of the windmills were still spinning there, producing environmentally friendly electricity that went nowhere. They had wanted to pause earlier but there was still a lingering smell over the more densely populated parts of the east bay.

"Could we set up something like those?" Terry asked Amanda as they paused from chasing Benny and Keesha in a mindless game of tag on the windy highway turnout.

"I don't think so, not where we're at. There isn't enough steady wind. Solar panels would be our best bet. At least in the sunny months. Winter is our problem as far as electricity goes. Besides, you need a really tall tower that we could never build."

"Yeah. What about some sort of water-powered thingy. You know, maybe a small dam on the creek or something."

"Maybe. Something fairly small, maybe a few car alternators hooked up to a paddle wheel."

"Things are only going to get harder, aren't they?"

Amanda nodded in agreement. One day they might be living a very medieval existence.

"Come on, let's get going. This wind sucks."

No one had to be persuaded to get back into the vehicles. From here it was all downhill and into the Sacramento Valley.

----------

The turnoff sign read "Castle Air Force Base - ten miles." They had finally arrived at the rendezvous coordinates on Interstate Five. There was no need to pull off of the wide concrete highway so they simply stopped and parked in the middle of it. There was even an hour of sunlight left.

Terry felt like a "feeblenaut" himself after piloting the road barge so far in only one day. Keesha and Benny had been clamoring for dinner for the last fifty boring miles.

Eddie did his self-assigned duty and scouted ahead another five miles before returning at just under one hundred twenty mph. The Corvette was finally parked and allowed to cool for the night, Eddie actually patted the red fiberglass citation magnet as he got out and wobbled into the big RV. Amanda and Terry were already making motions towards preparing dinner.

"Anything out there?" Terry asked.

"Just some stupid jackrabbits and three mutts that were looking for dinner."

"Dogs?" Amanda asked with all of her attention suddenly focused on Eddie.

"Ex-dogs."

"Oh. Thanks, Eddie."

"No problem. What's to eat? I could go back for the dog meat."

"Never mind that! We have freeze-dried pork chops, barbecue beans, and of course dog biscuit crackers. Plus assorted dessert stuff and a vitamin pill."

"Beans again, huh? Another musical night is in store for one and all."

"Edward Briscoll, you are a gross and disgusting person!"

"Thank you. I do try!"

Terry started the RV's powerful generator and suddenly there was as small island of light and advanced technology in a darkening wilderness filled with human bones, wild dogs, and Siberian tigers. Microwave popcorn was even available.

Benny and Keesha were over-ruled in the 'pick the DVD for tonight' debate.

The Rolling Stones' last tour wafted out over the dry and empty fields, only the field mice and night flyers stopped to wonder over "Honkey Tonk Woman." Mick and Company might have been senior citizens in the minds of the children but even these young ones knew that the Stones were still the best rock and roll band, ever.

There was dancing in the aisle.

Terry was actually pretty good, in a sort of awkward and goofy way. Eddie was hopeless. Keesha showed some real promise and talent. So did Amanda.

Benny just went to sleep.

----------

It was time. It was time and so far the radio had only sputtered out the occasional spurts of static. Amanda was manning the radio, putting out a call every thirty seconds or so. Everyone else was outside squinting up at the sky. They had powerful binoculars but the naked eye was better for scanning large areas of the sky.

Boom---Ka- Boom!

"What the shit was that?" Eddie yelled. It had made the ground seem to bounce, the sides of the RV even vibrated.

"Double sonic boom! Like the space shuttle does!" Amanda shouted from inside the RV. "It's them!"

"Where?" Terry couldn't spot a thing, no one could.

It was Benny who saw them first.

"What's that thing?" He was pointing at a small white speck off to the west, very high and moving fast in the morning light.

"...under controlled descent. Do you read us?"

"Yes!" Amanda almost didn't need the radio. "We hear you! Are you all right?"

"Hello Amanda! We are all a-okay. Have you heard from Soyuz yet?"

"No. Nothing so far."

"Keep listening for them. We think that they may be further east from us. We're know that they made a successful re-entry. We were in radio contact with them until they touched down, then nothing since then."

That didn't sound too good.

"What should we do first?"

"Can you see us yet?"

"Yes! Off to our west! Everyone outside is yelling and screaming."

"Then come and fetch us as soon as you can. Be careful though and take your time, we won't be going anywhere."

The Taxi had no landing gear as such, just an enormous parasail that had deployed with a gut-wrenching jolt. The parasail allowed a limited amount of directional control; they could aim for the best flat spots within a certain range. It was all very flat around here.

"Try to set us down close to that road." Hartz was pointing at one of the myriad of two lane farm roads that crisscrossed the valley's floor. Jenkins had just finished purposely depleting all of the remaining maneuvering thruster fuel; it was very toxic and they didn't want to poison their young rescuers or themselves.

"Hold onto your balls, here we go!" Navy Commander Jenkins was the Taxi's pilot. "You too, Doctor Long!"

"Asshole!" Doctor Long muttered under her breath. She never had liked that macho Navy fighter jock and the two of them had grated on each other's nerves for the entire mission. There was perhaps a slip up in the psychological compatibility testing prior to the mission Whuummpphhh!

No one had ever said that a landing without the benefit of landing gear would be all soft and comfy. On top of that they all felt like an elephant was now parking its very ample behind on their chests.

"Blowing the lid!" Jenkins' words were punctuated with a very loud and nasty bang and then with a lot of bright sunlight and fresh air along with some of the dust from the landing.

Hartz was the first to rally sufficiently to raise himself enough to peer over the edge of the emergency hatch. His first image was of a red Corvette convertible closing on the Taxi at about mach three. Then he fainted, not unexpected in returning (over the hill) astronauts.

----------

"Jesus!" Eddie was out of the car and edging toward the honest-to-God spacecraft. In the far distance the RV and Jeep could be seen making their best speed up the road. One 'wing' of the lifting-body fuselage was low enough for Eddie to gingerly climb up on it; apparently the heat resistant tiles had cooled during the flight through the lower atmosphere and during the parasail descent. The white parasail itself was draped gracefully over the aft third of the Taxi and on a barbed wire fence that was set back from the roadside-landing site.

Out of habit Eddie scanned around for dogs or maybe even tigers as he carefully made his way to the open hatch on the top of the craft. Finally he was peering down into the cramped interior at people in actual spacesuits. Most of them seemed content to just lie back in their reclined seats for the time being.

"Uh, hi!" Eddie caught the attention of everyone, as always he was armed all the way up to his flaming red hair.

"Hi kid. You must be Eddie!" Jenkins couldn't help but grin at this decidedly unique appearing boy/animated firearms cache.

"Yes, sir. Are you all okay?"

"Everyone's alive and breathing but that's about it. You weren't planning on shooting anyone right away, were you?"

Eddie blushed as he replied, "No sir. There are still lots of dog packs running around, we even saw a tiger during the trip here."

"Are you shitting me, kid?"

"No, sir. We think it must have been from a zoo or something. It was up in the Santa Cruz Mountains, not around here."

Eddie looked back toward the road; the rest of the small expedition was pulling up now.

"Uh, do any of you folks feel like getting up now? It's going to get pretty hot today and those suits don't look very cool. The RV is here now, we have some other clothes for you all."

"I think we can mostly manage that with your help," Doctor Long spoke this time, "we'll just need to move slowly."

"Sure. There's no big rush, it seems pretty safe around here. We still need to find the Soyuz though."

Four more faces were soon gazing down at the astronauts, the two older ones were also armed but to a much lesser degree than Eddie.

"Hi. I'm Terry and this is Amanda. The two runts are Benny and Keesha."

"Hello Terry, Amanda. And hello to you Benny and Keesha." Doctor Long had thought that the older children would be, well, older somehow. And all of those big guns they were wearing! Even the older girl had a revolver at her waist!

Commander Jenkins was the first to make it to solid ground. Terry and Eddie helped to steady him on the short walk to the RV. Amanda and the little ones took up station inside the air-conditioned RV and would help their guests to take off their pressure suits once they made it inside. It all went fairly smoothly and within thirty minutes the six astronauts were all sitting around in their high-tech long johns having a cold beer.

Except for Doctor Long, she was having a bottle of mineral water. Terry had the initial impression that the woman was probably a pain in the ass, something that had only been hinted at in their radio conversations.

The astronauts each had a very small bag of personal belongings that Terry and Eddie fetched from the Taxi. Neither boy could resist the urge to sit for a few moments in the spacecraft's command seat and to just imagine. Imagine a life that was no more. No more space flights, ever.

"We should see if we can put that hatch thing back in place, it seems a shame to just leave it all open to everything like this."

Eddie agreed with Terry so they did just that. The hatch was surprisingly light, being mostly constructed of composites and titanium, the attached heat tiles weighed next to nothing. The boys managed to easily lift it and then to fit it mostly into place.

Now it was time to search for the Soyuz!

----------

The astronauts all exchanged anxious glances as the young boy got into the RV's drivers seat and brought the big diesel to life. Terry felt some real pride while doing this; in fact he had become a fairly competent riverboat-pilot by now.

Amanda had left Weems' radio on in case there was any signal from the Russian craft. Commander Jenkins stationed himself next to the radio and then changed the frequency. A steady beeping told him that at least the emergency beacon on the Soyuz was working but he had no way to direction-find with only the equipment at hand.

"Just head east, Terry. This looks like it's going to be pretty much of an eyeball type of search."

"Yes, sir." Terry used the CB to tell Eddie and Amanda to start out and for Eddie to keep moving to the east, toward the distant Sierras.

----------

The Soyuz was intact but had rolled for several hundred yards down a gently sloping hill, destroying the small antennas at the top of the spherical re-entry craft. Only the emergency beacon continued to function. The Russian astronauts (cosmonauts) were shaken up but uninjured from their roll down the hill. Now they had a bigger problem.

"There are a hundred fucking dogs out there!" Major Andropov was exaggerating a little, there were only about twenty of the wild canines. He had quickly closed the hatch after his brief look around.

"Dogs?" Andre LeClerc was a French scientist whose specialty was zero gravity crystal growth.

"The survival module has a pistol in it!" Sergi Nabokov suggested. In theory no firearms were ever supposed to be on or near the ISS. The Russians often choose common sense over international agreements.

"Yes but the module deploys from the outside of this damned cook pot! Do you want to go outside and bring it in?"

"Then we wait. Perhaps the others will find us."

It was warm and stuffy inside the Soyuz so with some great effort the three managed to remove their heavy suits and cracked the hatch enough to let in some air. The only sounds from outside were the yips and barks of the hungry dogs.

----------

It was almost sundown when "the others" finally spotted the giant, bright orange parachute. It was no longer attached to anything except an oak tree. The terrain here was no longer flat; they were at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

"They always jettison the 'chute right after landing, they have to be close by!" General Hartz was doing better physically by now, trying to take charge as usual.

Terry held a brief radio meeting with Amanda and Eddie.

"We need to go off road to look for them. Me and Eddie will take the Jeep and leave the RV and the 'Vette here on the road."

"Okay. Amanda agreed.

"Cool." Eddie also readily agreed, his Corvette had the ground clearance of a snake and would be useless off of a paved road.

"We're coming too, young man!" General Hartz and Commander Jenkins had followed Terry out of the RV, both of them feeling weak from the effort.

"No, sir. Me and Eddie know what we're doing and you two look like you're about to keel over."

As if to demonstrate Terry's logic Hartz had to sit down on the ground rather than too just faint once again.

"We'll stay in touch with the CB, don't worry."

With that Eddie climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep and Terry piled into the passenger side.

"Let's head for the parachute first, maybe we can see something from there," Terry suggested.

"Cool." Eddie was a person of few words sometimes, well, most of the time.

The front end of Amanda's Jeep got some nasty scratches on it as Eddie simply drove through the ever-present barbed wire fence that bordered the road. They were at the parachute in less than five minutes. Eddie cut the ignition and rolled down his window.

"Listen."

"What is it?" Terry lowered his window too.

"Dogs."

"Shit!" Terry never had been a 'dog person' and now he really hated the damned fleabags. His family had a cat up until last year when a tourist flattened the gentle and elderly feline on the road in front of their house. Terry preferred cats, you hardly ever hear of marauding bands of house cats anywhere.

Eddie radioed the dog news to Amanda back at the RV.

"Come on, it sounds like they're over that way. Check your MP-5."

The Soyuz was setting almost upright at the base of the slope and had been shaded from the sun by large pine trees. Why the astronauts were still inside was all too apparent.

"I've never seen a pack that big," Terry whispered.

"Let's drive down part ways and then I bloop them while you hose them down with the MP-5."

"Sounds like a plan. Don't hit the spacecraft."

Eddie just gave his dear friend a slightly disgusted look. He never hit anything he wasn't aiming at, whereas Terry was more from the 'spray and pray' school of marksmanship.

After Eddie halted the Jeep both boys got out and stood close to the open doors, the dogs had taken notice of them by now and seemed confused about what to try and eat next. Then it sounded like general warfare had commenced. Eddie was blooping while Terry was spraying the entire area with 9mm mayhem. A couple of Terry's rounds pinged off of the Soyuz but didn't seem to do much harm. Inside the Soyuz the dozing astronauts/cosmonauts were suddenly very awake and alert.

"What the hell is that?" Andropov shouted. He had to shout to make himself heard over the artillery barrage outside the spacecraft.

Similar words were being shouted back at the RV as the sounds of battle reached it.

"What the hell is going on?" Hartz demanded.

"I guess the dogs didn't want to leave, sir." Amanda smiled sweetly at the officer; her very best and sweetest smile. Her 'men' were taking care of business and she felt very proud at that moment.

"Geez, Eddie!" Both boys were trying to avoid stepping on the dog fragments that littered the ground around the Soyuz.

"Sorry, I got a little worked up when they started to run for it."

"Well, stay calm. There probably aren't any more mutts for twenty miles by now. Let's see if the Russian guys are okay."

"Cool." They had already radioed Amanda on the CB to tell her that all of the dogs had "left the building."

Terry even knocked politely on the partially open hatch.

"Hello in there, are you okay?"

Andropov's rather frazzled blonde head popped out after the round hatch had swung completely open.

"You are Terry and Edward?" Andropov then broke into a wide grin.

"Yes, sir. Sorry about the mess out here and all of the noise. The other astronauts are just up the hill a ways in the RV."

"RV?" Andropov asked with some confusion; his command of English was not his greatest talent.

"Recreational Vehicle. Like a big fancy bus."

"Ah! Then let us all go to this 'RV.'

The two Russians really liked Amanda's Jeep and during the short drive even asked what one might cost. The Frenchman was polite but also properly disdainful of the flashy American vehicle.

"They're sort of free now, sir. We'll help you get one or two if you want some."

"This is permitted?" Nabokov asked.

"Everything is permitted now, sir."

"I see. Of course."

It was sort of a limp reunion party but everyone was very happy to see one another safe and all in one piece. Amanda produced an ice-cold bottle of high-octane Russian vodka from the RV's big refrigerator and presented it to the two cosmonauts. Even the children knew that vodka was what Russians drank instead of beer. This of course further put Doctor Long's nose out of joint, especially when the Russians poured everyone a small glass of the ersatz rocket fuel, including some for their two very underage rescuers. The Russians even toasted the boys for their bravery and expected them to drink it down.

"Gossssshh!" Terry's breath had left him entirely.

"Co..Cool (cough)!" Eddie agreed as his eyes watered up.

The boys had enough sense (barely) to take just the one swallow of the awful stuff; even so they almost immediately felt all warm and friendly towards everyone.

By now darkness had descended and it was decided to just spend the night where they were and to leave at first light. Amanda, with Terry and Eddie's help, managed to prepare a pretty decent evening meal for their guests. Spaghetti and freeze-dried meatballs; it was their safest culinary creation. There was even wine for the adults that Amanda had picked out when they had raided that intact liquor store for the beer and vodka. She reasoned that if it costs seventy-five bucks a bottle it should taste mostly okay; it was red and had a fancy label too.

The big RV now seemed very crowded with a total of fourteen people in it. There weren't enough beds but some cots for Amanda and the little ones plus Terry and Eddie sleeping out in the back of the Jeep on air mattresses gave everyone a soft place for the night.

The local coyote population tuned up later that night and spread the word that there was dog food for the taking over by the Soyuz. The coyotes despised the intruding dogs and the feeling was mutual.

"Man, they give me the willies!" Terry said as he tried for sleep next to Eddie. Eddie didn't have to try, he was already unconscious for the night and wouldn't have heard a coyote if it had crawled into the sleeping bag with him.

----------

They could see the smoke for fifty miles before they determined its source. Oakland and much of the east bay was burning; what might have started the fire was a mystery. Perhaps unstable chemicals in a lab somewhere or perhaps some sort of spontaneous combustion. Berkeley's famed and infamous university was no more. One hundred thousand homes and businesses were being scoured from the landscape. The RV's route took it to the south of the great conflagration, still, wet cloths had to be tied over everyone's face to make breathing more bearable. The smoke had a dirty smell to it, not like a clean wood fire at a campground. Terry and the others even had to turn on their headlights for a time so they could see each other. They finally broke into clear air near San Jose's northern limits.

"Do you think it will get down here, to Nerd land?" Terry asked Commander Jenkins who was sitting in the passenger seat of the RV.

"I don't think so, the winds are blowing more to the east now."

It was a sobering thought. Fire could deprive them of their vast supply sources. What if there was a fire up in the woods where they lived? It was all very chilling to think about.

The remainder of the trip was uneventful and although the three young drivers were very tired they at last pulled up to "their home." It was all as they had left it but now it was all going to be so very different. There were again adults to contend with. Who would be giving them orders now? And did they have to obey these strangers?

Chapter Seven

A Small Revolution

"This place simply cannot sustain a large number of people. If we have any hope of bringing together all of those other children who have survived then it must be in a location where they can work the land to support themselves and eventually raise their own families." Doctor Long's arguments made sense if pure logic was your guide. But what about these children here who had probably saved all of their lives?

"UC Davis." Jenkins suggested.

"What's that?" Hartz asked.

"UC Davis. Lot's of dorms, classrooms, its the state's major agricultural school. Lots of flat farmland nearby too. Moderate climate. It might be a good place for a lot of stray kids to live and work together. All sorts of facilities there."

"That's the most intelligent thing I've every heard you say," Doctor Long even smiled at the man.

"Why thank you, Nurse. Wanna go out for a beer later."

"Asshole!" She only thought that, she didn't actually say it.

It had been ten days since the astronauts had moved into Terry's old home; their bodies were beginning to regain strength by now. They had been impressed and truly touched by the amount of labor and thought that had been put into making them all feel comfortable and welcome. The children had even managed to supply the house with water via a half-dozen garden hoses run from the Weems place. A trip to Scotts Valley located the propane distributor where Jenkins and Cruz managed to sort out the refueling procedures for domestic tanks. One trip with the big tanker truck soon had both house's tanks full once again. But now decisions about the future needed to be made, about the future of what remained of mankind.

So far none of the astronauts had shown any of the symptoms of the bad flu.

"Then we need to scout out the best area to take all of those kids from Santa Cruz to and to determine what sort of living arrangements will be needed. I think that Jenkins' suggestion of UC Davis is a good one and it should be the first place we look at." General Hartz had given no real thought as to whether or not their young hosts would agree to moving from this place. He really didn't see that children should do anything else than what they were told to do. Even before now the children had felt that they had re-classified from being the independent and resourceful young people who had rescued the astronauts to just 'kids' who were smiled at and then pretty well ignored.

"They won't go." Andropov had come to know Eddie and Terry perhaps better than the rest. He and Nabokov owed them their lives and were by now good friends with them. LeClerc also seemed to hold some real affection for the children.

"What's that?" Hartz seemed irritated by this sudden side tracking of the meeting. Terry and the rest were absent and working on their garden fence again, leaving the adults to their endless planning sessions.

"The young people at this place have made a good home for themselves, they have become...family. They will not leave it."

"They're just children, they will do as they are told!"

"By who?" Andropov's eyes narrowed as he said this, he had finally had enough of this pompous prick of a man for one day.

"By me. By the rest of us!"

"Not by me!"

"You are still under my command, you...."

"Oh do shut up, you great horse's bottom! You are not in command of me or anyone else! All of that is in the past!"

"Listen you sorry commie bas...."

"Hell with you, dear General! Go command some other poor fools, if they will listen to you. Nabokov and myself are going tomorrow to obtain Jeeps with Edward and Terry. Do not attempt to stop us! Also, once more, fuck you!"

With that the two Russians got up from the meeting at the dinner table and walked out, so did the Frenchman, LeClerc.

"Go to where, sir?" Terry and the rest of his small family were sitting with Andropov and the other two men in the living room of their home. The home that had once belonged to Mister Weems.

"I do not think that even they know that yet."

"But why?"

"They are saying that the best chance for the most children to survive these...bad times is for them all to gather in one place, to be working together."

"We're not leaving here! We've all worked really hard to make this a good place! We busted our butts to help all of you, all of the astronauts! Our folks are buried here!" Terry was mad to the point of tears. Eddie said nothing and just sat cleaning the disassembled pieces of his already spotless 9mm.

"Dear Terry. I know that, we know that. The three of us will have no part in Hartz' plans for you. We will stand with you in this matter."

"Thank...thank you."

"Now compose yourself, Terry. We will all go to obtain Jeeps tomorrow, if that is acceptable to you?"

"Yes, sir. Jeeps for all of you!"

"I would prefer a Mercedes, if that is possible?" LeClerc always had been the odd one in the trio.

"Yes, Mister LeClerc. A very fast and very expensive Mercedes." Terry and his family smiled for the first time that evening.

Screw the astronauts and their grand plans. At least that was the feeling of the moment.

----------

Eddie handed out side arms to the three men the next morning, along with extra clips and a box of ammo for each of them.

"Let's lock it up." Terry nodded toward the vault door. It would be just like Doctor Long to toss all of their guns into the creek or something. They would be leaving the rest of the astronauts alone here for the entire day with just Amanda and the two little ones. Whatever the astronauts final plans were the boys knew that they certainly intended no harm to any of them and indeed had only the best intentions. The astronauts just seemed to assume that they knew what was best for these children and expected them to eventually comply with their wishes.

Nabokov won the coin toss to get to ride with Eddie in his fast American car. The other two would have to make do with riding in Terry's big SUV. Perhaps the other two actually won the toss and didn't know it, riding with Eddie was often a pulse raising experience. Even so, all three of the men had enough respect for the boys to ride as their passengers, to let them do the driving.

----------

Five vehicles returned that evening. Instead of Jeeps the two Russians had spotted the Lexus dealer's SUV offerings.

"These seem very much.... better," Andropov had said.

"They are. Look at the price stickers." Terry and Eddie managed not to laugh as the two cosmonauts did so and then began rapidly conversing in their native language. LeClerc just had on his usual pained expression; just about everything seemed to bore the Frenchman.

LeClerc finally showed some real emotion when the monster V-12 in his choice of Mercedes' finally caught and came to life. He even embraced and kissed both of the boys on both of their cheeks. It was by far the most expensive auto that the boys had ever 'bought.' Six figures worth of German precision engineering that the dealer didn't normally even keep in his inventory.

"Wanna race home?" Eddie had asked, only partly in jest.

"Perhaps not, dear Edward. One simply does not 'race' in such a fine automobile as this." LeClerc had tactfully found a way to avoid such a dangerous thing for the boy.

"Oh. Bummer."

Just as well for Eddie. LeClerc's hobby had been racing in long distance rallies. Also the big Mercedes was almost as fast as the inexperienced boy's Corvette.

----------

A final decision had finally been arrived at during the boy's and the cosmonaut's shopping trip. As usual no one had thought that it was necessary to consult the children.

Dinner was by now something that occurred in two different houses, tensions were just too high between the two groups. Terry and his family ate in their home with the cosmonauts (and LeClerc), the other astronauts dined in Terry's old house. Tonight Doctor Long had come over to make the peace and to request that they all have dinner together; there were things to discuss. She had pointedly made no comment about the new car dealership that she had had to walk past to deliver the 'invitation.'

"Ice queen!" LeClerc muttered after she had left.

"Sir?" Terry had no idea what he meant.

"No matter, Terry. Let us all gather ourselves and proceed to this grand feast."

"Uh, okay," Terry agreed. It had to be at least as good as what was on their own menu. Despite the French reputation for grand cuisine LeClerc was totally hopeless in the freeze-dried kitchen.

----------

"One group will take the motor home and one of the SUV's and proceed to UC Davis to determine the conditions there and what work will be needed. The second group will begin to make contact with the surviving children in the Santa Cruz area." Hartz may as well have been planning the invasion of Normandy. There were nine adults and five kids, what did the General think he was commanding? For a moment there was only silence at the table with everyone looking at the unsmiling Russians and the children for some sort of reaction. Finally Amanda raised her hand, as if in class or something.

"How do we...how do we get the rest of the kids to...do anything?"

"What do you mean, Amanda?" Hartz asked impatiently.

"Well, things have been really bad for a long time. Just because some adults show up and say "come with us" doesn't mean that it will happen. I almost stabbed Terry and Eddie when they found me, I thought they were in one of the gangs."

"We intend to cover a wide area using loudspeakers and to distribute leaflets to explain things. A central meeting place will be designated for those wishing to join our efforts. The sensible ones will see the logic in it all, the need for some adult guidance in their lives again. A place to be safe again."

Amanda had no response to that, it sounded good but it all just seemed very unlikely.

LeClerc, somewhat out of character, had some very pointed questions.

"Assuming that even half of the over one-thousand children who received the faulty vaccine hear and then respond to your message, how will we feed them and care for them until some sort of self sustaining community is formed?"

It was a very big question.

"The distribution warehouses of the major supermarket chains."

"I do beg your pardon?"

"The warehouses will still contain vast amounts of canned and dry food products. They won't have been looted, the average person would not even consider them in a time of unrest."

It sounded logical. Who in the general population would even know where such places were located?

"If they haven't all burned to the ground," LeClerc added.

"True. All the more reason to go ahead with all speed."

LeClerc just raised his eyebrows and said nothing more. Terry and his small family just looked at one another in total confusion.

----------

One final shopping trip with Amanda helping the astronauts locate the best spots netted two laser printers and boxes of paper to print up the leaflets on. The fuel trailer was topped up once more, as was the RV for the trip to Davis. A powerful car stereo system modified so that the speakers were on the roof of the Navigator would provide the public address system to attract the attention of the children in Santa Cruz. No one had bothered to ask permission of Terry and the others for the use of their vehicles, it was just taken for granted.

Terry and Eddie were 'assigned' to the contact program in Santa Cruz. Amanda would remain at home during the day to care for Keesha and Benny and print more flyers, also to monitor the CB radio base station and the short wave radio in case the Davis team called. This was something that had not gone down at all well with the boys.

"They shouldn't be left alone here!" Terry was rather forceful as he confronted Hartz.

"We're very short of people to accomplish all of this. They will be perfectly safe here; they can stay indoors for the time that the contact party is in Santa Cruz during the daylight hours. That group will be returning here every evening."

"We should all stay together, sir. There are wild animals running around in these woods, dog packs, even a tiger!"

"A tiger indeed! You all probably saw a wildcat or something. Now run along and help with the leaflets."

Terry just turned and left, defying such an imposing person was something a young person found hard to do. Very hard.

"Screw him," Eddie was none too pleased either, "we're staying with Amanda or she's coming with us, her and the little ones!"

"Agreed!" Terry looked at Amanda as if to ask her opinion.

"Fine with me. So who tells El Supremo?"

"We all do," Terry said, "when the time comes."

----------

The time did come the next day. Commander Jenkins, the two Russians, Ian Graves and Sarah Bancroft would take the RV to Davis for two days of exploration and assessment of the location. General Hartz and the rest would undertake to contact as many children as possible.

"Where are those two boys?" Hartz was fuming, the RV had already left and they were still sitting in the driveway. "Never mind! I'll go get them!" Hartz got out of the Navigator and stomped off towards the Weems house.

"They do not wish to leave Amanda alone. They told him that," LeClerc said to no one in particular.

"Then the General should just grab them by their ears and march them out here!" Doctor Long was forgetting an important detail.

"Speaking for myself, I would be very careful about grabbing Edward and Terry by anything at all," LeClerc added with a faint smile.

Terry and the rest were trying to decide on just staying put in the radio room or hiding out in the woods until the adults all just gave up and left. Hartz barged in before any decision could be reached.

"Why are you two still here? We've been ready to go for fifteen minutes!"

"It's like I said, sir. We aren't going to leave Amanda..." Terry was cut off when Hartz grabbed his shoulder as if to pull him along. Then the General stopped and held very still as he heard the sounds of two pistols being cocked. Eddie has his Berretta pointed at the man's right ear while Amanda had her .38 aimed in the approximate vicinity of his spleen. He carefully let go of Terry and stepped back.

"What - do - you - think - you - are - doing?" Hartz was almost hissing by now.

"You need to go now, sir. We'll help Amanda here and monitor the radios," Terry was almost shaking but he managed to sound fairly calm.

"You haven't heard the last of this, young man! Who do you think I am, anyway?"

"Well, sir. We're all sort of the opinion that you're a big jerk. Now please leave before Eddie gets all nervous."

Hartz did indeed leave. He started cussing along the way and didn't stop until he was back in the SUV and had slammed the door.

"Problems, mon General?" LeClerc asked pleasantly, too pleasantly.

"Those little shits pulled their guns on me! They even cocked them!"

"Indeed? How very rude of them." "LeClerc was well into grinning by now, something he almost never did. Doctor Long was for this one time left totally speechless.

"Just wait till we get back!"

LeClerc had the good judgment to say nothing further. It would indeed be interesting to be on hand for the next meeting between the children and Hartz.

----------

It was almost three in the afternoon when the CB radio Amanda had been monitoring from time to time crackled to life. The signal was faint but there was no mistaking the voice of Doctor Long. The astronauts in Santa Cruz were in big trouble.

"Amanda! Anyone! Can you hear us?"

It had all gone fairly well in Santa Cruz until Frankie Delgado's reconstituted gang had rammed an empty beer truck into the parked SUV, pinning it in place in front of the old boardwalk's merry-go-round building. It was the meeting place where they had been asking any children who could hear their message to assemble at.

Then Frankie's underage hoods started shooting at them.

"I can here you, just barely! What's wrong?"

"A gang...they've hit us with a truck! Now...now they're shooting at us.... General Hartz has been hit in the arm! We're going to make a dash for the merry-go-round building. Tell Eddie...ask him if he can help us, him and Terry!"

"Hold on, I'll go get them!"

"No time! We have to move now...we'll have to leave the radio..."

And with that the signal vanished, Amanda couldn't raise them again "Oh shit, oh shit!" Amanda kept whispering as she dashed out into the back yard. Terry and Eddie were up on the roof trying to fasten and wire up the last of the solar cells from the sketches that Colonel Andropov had drawn for them.

"The gang's are after them! They need help!" Amanda's shouted words caused Terry and Eddie to just look at one another for a moment in disbelief. The gangs were attacking actual adults?

"What's happened?" Terry asked as they started to scramble down the roof to the ladder.

"Doctor Long said they hit them with a truck and now they're shooting at them! General Hartz has been shot in the arm!"

"Where are they?" Eddie asked, once more on the ground.

"By the merry-go-round. They were going to run from the car to the merry-go-round building!"

"Shit! Aren't they shooting back or anything?" Terry demanded.

"I don't know, they had to leave the CB, that's all they said."

"What do we do?" Terry looked at Eddie and Amanda in panic. What could they do?

"Get Mister LeClerc's car ready so we can drive it, it's big and fast. I'll round up some firepower." Eddie knew what to do, all that they could do. They couldn't simply ignore the plea for help, no matter what they thought of the astronaut's high-handed treatment of them. Except for LeClerc and the Russians, they were okay.

"I'm coming too!" Amanda demanded.

Terry took her by both shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

"And what about Benny and Keesha? This might be nasty and dangerous. Are we going to leave them here alone?"

"Crap! You're just two boys, you'll need all...."

"We'll need to be able to move fast without worrying about the little ones. If it goes all sour then they will need someone here to take care of them."

"But...."

"There's no time to stand here blabbing. We have to get going!"

They had indeed become instant adults. Now they had to go to war.

----------

It wasn't a very good tactical position for the astronauts but the area inside the merry-go-round offered pretty good cover from the occasional rounds that came pinging in through the glass that surrounded the old building. Doctor Long had wanted to put forth a peaceful appearance to any of the children they might meet and had insisted that they all be unarmed for this trip. Only LeClerc had the good sense to pack his 9 mm under his jacket; so far his pistol was all that was keeping the gang at bay.

"Those are just children out there!" Doctor Long yelled.

LeClerc's last carefully aimed shot had found its target, a target that did some considerable soprano screaming as it retreated back across the street.

"You silly bitch," LeClerc calmly replied, "those dear children are trying to kill us all. Attend to the General and do shut up!"

----------

"Almost done!" Terry was winding the duct tape around the wooden block on the brake pedal. Eddie was piling weapons into the car; the back seat held the Barrett fifty-caliber monster that was almost too heavy for the boy to manage, but he did. He also included the small sandbag that they had used when learning to fire the great beast of a rifle. The bag saved their too-small shoulders from the fierce recoil; it had saved Weems' shoulder too.

Amanda ran out with a portable CB radio and a first aid kit, there were tears on her face.

"Be careful!" She had been saying that almost constantly for the last fifteen minutes. Both boys took the initiative and hugged and kissed the girl on her cheek, and Benny and Keesha.

"We have to go, now!" Eddie urged.

"Okay. You drive." Eddie was by far the best driver, and the fastest. So very much depended on Eddie.

"Come back here in one piece, dammit!" Amanda was holding onto Benny and Keesha as the boys waved and Eddie floored the big Mercedes. They were out of sight in mere seconds.

Amanda sat down on the porch and held the little ones close to her for a little while, then with some resignation she went in to monitor the CB.

----------

The Battle of Santa Cruz

Neither boy said anything for the first mile or so. Both of them were trying to sort out in their minds just what to do, if they could even do anything at all.

"How do you think we should...?" Terry began "We can't just charge in their like Clint Eastwood or something," Eddie reasoned, "first we should pound on them from a long ways off with the Barrett for a while."

"And then?"

"I dunno, maybe get in close enough to start blooping them, make them run and scatter. Then maybe zoom in and grab the astronauts."

"If they're still alive."

"Yeah."

Terry nodded and was quiet for a moment, and then an idea occurred to him.

"If they're at the merry-go-round place we might be able to shoot from down the street, you know, at the top of that little hill that you go up to drive out to the lighthouse."

It was about a quarter-mile away, easy range for the Barrett.

"Yeah, that might work good. It's going to be dark by the time we get there, we should turn off our lights before we get close and not use the brakes so the tail lights won't come on."

"How're we gonna stop?"

"Handbrake."

"Oh." Something else occurred to Terry and he reached up to turn the dome light switch to the position where it wouldn't come on when they opened the door.

"Good thinking, Terr." Eddie smiled.

"It happens now and then."

"Get in the back seat and load the Barrett clips. There's some of that tracer ammo too, load one clip with those. I read where it has a bad effect on gas tanks."

Terry was all too happy to obey his friend; any activity at all was better than just sitting there in a cold sweat.

Eddie slowed when they reached the seaside community, taking a roundabout route to come in from the north of the boardwalk area. There was a high fog and no moon and that made for a very black night. The Mercedes was also black and very quiet when being driven slow. Finally they arrived at the top of the hill overlooking the wharf and boardwalk.

"We're here." Terry said into the CB's microphone. They had been giving constant updates to the tied in knots Amanda.

"Be careful!" She repeated that every time they spoke.

As Terry and Eddie silently got out of the car they heard a single 'pop' from down the street. There were brief moments of light when members of the gang would use a flashlight or something.

"That sounded like a pussy .22 or something. Let's set up the Barrett, it's night-scope will let us see better," Eddie whispered.

"Okay. I'll pop the trunk too, we can just shove it in there when we move."

"Cool."

With the two of them working together it made handling the heavy rifle much easier. In moments Eddie was lying on the pavement fiddling with the fat telescopic sight. Both boys still had the presence of mind to stuff in some earplugs; when fired the Barrett's muzzle blast was simply amazing.

"Whaddya see?"

"The punks are all hunkered down behind some cars across the street from the merry-go-round. That must mean that the astronauts are still alive." The greatly magnified green image that the night-scope produced was like shining a bright spotlight on the entire area. A spotlight with crosshairs in the middle.

"Now what?"

"Well, let's get the bloop gun and the MP-5's ready. Then we start pounding them."

"Kids." Terry said quietly.

"Huh?"

"They're just kids."

"Yeah and they're trying to kill people. Wanna go reason with them?"

"No. We pound them. Hard."

"Cool."

It didn't take long to get ready. When they moved in Terry would drive so Eddie would be free to bloop.

"All set?" Eddie asked as he wrapped his finger around the trigger. He was going to start with the tracer rounds on the cars.

"No, but go ahead anyway."

Enormous flash and noise. "Boom" or "Blam" does not suffice. Then there was a very spectacular fireball down the street as one of the car's half empty fuel tanks exploded. A completely full tank is hard to detonate; a partially empty one has lots of nice, explosive fumes in it.

"Jesus!" Even with the earplugs Terry's ears were ringing.

Eddie started firing in earnest then, the Barrett was a semiautomatic and you can squeeze off rounds as fast as you could pull the trigger. Or as fast as you could get back on target after being shoved backwards about a foot, sandbag or not.

Two more fireballs lit up the street, small figures could be seen running for safety, some of them on fire.

"Clip!" Eddie shouted.

Terry tore his eyes away from the fiery scene and handed his friend another of the giant ammo clips. Just regular FMJ rounds this time.

----------

"What the hell is happening out there?" Hartz wasn't so badly wounded that couldn't still be loud and demanding.

"I believe that Edward and Terry have arrived," LeClerc replied with a grin, "let us prepare to leave this place."

----------

It takes quite a lot to stop a M-2 fifty-caliber round. Car bodies, store fronts, even bricks do a poor job of it. The heavy rounds scarcely slow at all when passing through a human being. Most of the gang had fled by now, those who remained were afraid to move anywhere, the rest were so very dead. Kids.

"Come on, time to go!"

Terry helped Eddie shove the heavy (and hot) weapon into the large trunk of the Mercedes and then got behind the wheel. With the lights still off Terry floored the big car's accelerator and they roared down the short but steep hill.

Eddie leaned out the window and started blooping about halfway to the merry-go-round.

"When we stop, blow the horn and open up with the MP-5! Just start spraying everything!" Eddie was shouting over the wind noise. Terry nodded in understanding, he was good at spraying.

----------

Inside the merry-go-round building it sounded like D-Day, Part Two. Grenade fragments shattered three of the windows and went zinging over the heads of the astronauts. Then a car horn blew insistently followed by sustained light machine gun fire.

"That is my horn!" LeClerc announced indignantly. "Let us leave this place, now!"

----------

There didn't seem to be anyone left to shoot back at them but Terry and Eddie kept emptying clip after clip into the surrounding darkness. The sight of all four of the astronauts dashing towards them was as wonderful as you might imagine.

"Get in!" Eddie's words were totally unneeded.

LeClerc got behind the wheel; after all it was his car. Hartz, Long, and Cruz piled into the rear seat. All the while their two rescuers kept up the rattling fire from the MP-5's. From far up one of the side streets Frankie Delgado turned and emptied his small .22 automatic in the general direction of the merry-go-round. All of the rounds missed, except of course for the one that hit Terry.

"Get in boys! Let us depart this accursed place!" LeClerc didn't have to repeat himself as the two boys ran around and jumped into the passenger side seat and slammed the door. The big Mercedes then did a tire smoking u-turn and sped north up Beach Street. LeClerc seemed to be very good at this sort of thing. After a few moments it was time to resume breathing and take stock.

"Are you two boys all right?" Doctor Long finally managed to ask.

"Yeah." Eddie replied.

"Uh...no." Terry answered while pulling up his sweatshirt to find the source of the stinging on his left side.

"What's wrong?"

"I think I've been sort of shot or something."

"Pull over!" Long demanded.

"Not here," LeClerc said, "later." They were still in 'hostile territory.

Among the hardware clipped to Eddie's tactical 'vest' was a small penlight; he used it to inspect his friend in the darkened car.

"It's cool, I think. Just sort of a deep gouge thing on his side below his ribs, I don't think the bullet went inside him or anything."

By now Doctor Long was leaning over the front seat to do her own assessment.

"I think you're right, Eddie. It just needs cleaning out and a few stitches." Long had once served a sentence in an ER unit.

"Stitches?" Terry asked doubtfully.

"Yes. Perhaps four or five."

"Oh. Wonderful."

"You and the General are very lucky. The bullet that hit him went cleanly through his arm." Eddie produced the first aid kit from the passenger side floor, and then the doctor proceeded to slap a temporary bandage on Terry's side.

"Amanda!" Terry grabbed the CB microphone. He had forgotten about telling her they were okay!

"Terry?" The signal was weak but it was Amanda.

"Yes. We're on our way back, everyone is alive and safe!"

For a moment there was only a high-pitched squeal to be heard, apparently Amanda was pleased.

General Hartz had until now been silent. He had intended to take away the children's guns and give them all a butt paddling when he returned from Santa Cruz today. Now these two boys had saved all of their lives, very much risking their own lives in the process.

"I must apologize to the both of you."

"Sir?" Terry turned to look at the man in the darkness. By now LeClerc was using the headlights and was barreling out of town at about eighty. The Paris to Dakar rally had been good training.

"I have been underestimating you all and what you have accomplished. We have all been ignoring too much of what you have been telling us."

Terry just nodded his head and said nothing for a minute. Then he turned carefully (his side was really starting to sting by now) and extended his hand to the General.

"Peace, sir?"

"Peace, son. And thank you again."

"Cool." Eddie added.

----------

"You're hurt!" Amanda had started to hug one of her hero's as everyone got out of the Mercedes. Terry's grunt and pained expression gave it all away.

"Not much. Stay cool."

"Where?"

"Oh, just here." Terry lifted up his sweatshirt. There was a large white dressing stuck to his side that had some actual red blood in the middle of it.

"Aaaahh! Get inside!"

"Go ahead, Terry. I need to see to the general first, his wound is much more serious, then I'll come over and stitch you up." Doctor Long's words calmed Amanda some but did nothing for Terry. Stitches!

"Come on, wimp." Eddie urged his friend along to their house where Benny promptly launched himself at Terry and grabbed him around his injured waist.

"Geeeeezzzz!"

LeClerc elected to trail along with the boys; he had had enough of Hartz and Long for this day and wanted to be sure that Terry was being properly cared for.

LeClerc needn't have worried because Amanda had gone into full mother-mode.

"Maybe something to eat...?" Terry suggested. He was sitting on the edge of the bunk bed and had taken off his sweatshirt; it had two small holes in it, entry and exit.

"Oh! Sure! What would you like?" Amanda had been racing around gathering up all of the first aid stuff in the house, perhaps with more urgency than logic.

"Anything without beans. Maybe some soup or a cow?"

"Right! Don't go 'way." Amanda zoomed off to the kitchen intent on fixing...everything.

"I'll go sit on her till she calms down." Eddie grinned and left their bedroom.

LeClerc had settled in the desk chair across from the bunks and was looking at Terry.

"That was a very brave thing the two of you did this day."

"Not very brave. I was scared spitless the whole time."

"That is what bravery often is. Managing to do what is difficult and dangerous while being very afraid."

"They were just stupid kids, like me." Terry whispered.

"Yes. I too had no choice but to fire upon them, to preserve our lives. It is a hard thing."

"Yes, sir."

LeClerc and the boy were silent for a time, and then Doctor Long arrived at the front door.

"Uh oh." Terry knew what was next.

"Bravery, Terry!" LeClerc grinned.

"Yeah, right."

Doctor Long took one quick look around the boys small bedroom, it would not do.

"Come along to the kitchen, there's more light and room to work."

The "work" part was what worried Terry.

"I gotta go pee first!" That would buy a few minutes.

"Then go pee. Then come to the kitchen."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And wash your hands."

"Yes, ma'am."

By the time that Terry finally edged into the kitchen it looked like a damned operating room. There was a clean white sheet covering the dining table, most of the lanterns in the house were hissing merrily away to brightly illuminate the place.

"Hop up here and lay down on your right side." Doctor Long seemed entirely too cheerful, especially after this awful day.

"Okay," Terry did as he was told, "how's General Hartz doing?"

"He should be fine. Just some muscle tissue damage that will heal."

"Oh. Good."

Terry gritted his teeth as the doctor quickly stripped off the dressing and began to rather vigorously scrub his messy wound with some sort of orange soapy stuff.

"I'm afraid that we have no local anesthetics at the moment, no Novocain. That's something we need to be looking for."

"Oh?" This was not good. The dentist used that stuff to keep you from screaming and yelling.

"I'll be quick. Bite on this and think awful things about me."

Doctor Long had Terry bite down on a folded washcloth and then proceeded with her darning.

Benny and Keesha stood back in the shadows holding onto one another as Terry whimpered softly and tried to hold still for the doctor.

Amanda seemed on the verge of tears and was holding her hands to her head.

LeClerc barely managed to catch Eddie as the boy fainted dead away. Dear brave Eddie.

----------

"And you called me a wimp!" Terry was spooning down some vegetable beef soup and taking the occasional bite off of a dog cracker. Doctor Long had left Amanda a very large pill broken into two pieces with instructions to feed one piece of it to Terry after they ate, the other half later on if needed.

"My stomach was empty, or something. Lack of food made me weak." Eddie was still blushing over having passed out while watching his friend getting repaired.

"Wimp!" Terry couldn't resist a final dig.

"So okay, I don't like needles!"

The fat pill was a painkiller and half of it was enough to do in Terry shortly after dinner.

----------

Being the wounded hero was sort of nice. Amanda was waiting on him hand and foot. If he had asked for peeled grapes and sautÈed eel eyes she would done her very best.

Eddie could see that Terry was totally milking the situation.

"Get up and get dressed!"

"I'm badly wounded."

"You have five crummy stitches! I need a favor from you."

With that Terry did sit up and put his feet on the floor. Eddie hardly ever asked for favors.

"What?"

"I need you to go get something from my room...in my house."

"Oh. Okay. What is it?"

"It's a binder, sort of a scrapbook of car pictures and stuff I collected. It's sort of silly I guess but there's something in there that I remember. Something that could help keep us all safe."

For Eddie this was practically a State of The Union speech.

"What?"

"It's a red plastic binder, can you just go get it? Please?"

This must be serious. Eddie never said "please."

"Sure, Eddie. Just go get my wheelchair and shawl."

Eddie held off on punching him, Terry's side was still pretty sore, he claimed.

It was a newspaper clipping from just before when the bad flu had hit.

"See. Rolling safety." Eddie beamed as he held out the article to Terry; there was even a picture of the ugly thing.

"It's got eight wheels and a cannon."

"That's a 25mm chain gun."

"A wha...?

Eddie started rattling off specifications that he knew by heart. Terry finally had to put his hand over his friend's mouth to get him to shut up.

"The Chevy dealer doesn't carry these, Eddie."

"No, but the National Guard place in San Jose does. It says here that they just received six of them. They were even going to hold an open house so people could come and see them."

"An LAV III? What does the LAV....?"

"Light Armored Vehicle. They make 'em in Canada. GM does."

"But..."

"No stupid gang will ever bother us again. Besides, it is just too, too cool."

Terry also had sort of a stupid grin by now. It was pretty cool. Way cool, actually. Besides, the Navigator was trashed now; they needed a 'replacement.' Terry stopped grinning when he thought of his dad's pride and joy and the wreck that it was now.

Strangely enough Amanda would have no objections to the new rolling fortress. They would just have to agree to let her drive it once in a while.

There was still the problem of the astronauts.

LeClerc was the obvious choice to approach about the new 'SUV.'

----------

The Davis group had finally made short wave contact; the university was indeed a good choice but they needed a few more days to properly scout the area. They had one good piece of luck, the school had been mostly evacuated by the time everything fell apart, and there were few bodies to contend with. Some of the dormitories seemed to be totally clear of bodies and there was more than enough space for all of the Santa Cruz children.

Now all they needed was the children.

"Uh, Mister LeClerc?"

"Yes, Terry?"

"We need to go over the hill for a few things tomorrow, could you... would you like to come too?"

"What is it you need?" LeClerc was as always polite toward Terry and the other young people; they had more than earned that much from him.

"This." Terry handed the newspaper clipping about the LAV to the man.

"This?" It took quite a bit to rattle the Frenchman and Terry had succeeded.

"Yes, sir. They're in San Jose. It would keep us all safe, here and especially in Santa Cruz, while we look for the kids there."

"You surely do not intend to fire this 'weapon' at those little gangst...."

"Oh no, sir! Eddie says that they can shoot at us all they want to if we have one of these. Even the tires have some sort of thing in them to keep them from going flat."

LeClerc considered the boy's proposal; there was some wisdom in this idea. Finally he nodded his head in agreement.

"Maybe we shouldn't tell the others," Terry added.

"Agreed."

----------

As usual Eddie was ranging out ahead of Amanda's Jeep. Terry and LeClerc were content to let the girl drive and were engaged in a game of Go Fish in the middle seat. Benny and Keesha were in the rear fold down seat watching another mindless Disney DVD.

"Slow down! He's back!" Eddie's voice crackled over the CB.

"Who's back?" Amanda did indeed slow way down as she held the microphone."

"Tigger's back!"

It was true. At the very same sunny spot on the highway.

A Siberian tiger. They had named it Tigger but it was in no way the gentle beast in the child's story.

"Then it is so?" LeClerc had seen many things in this past year and this was perhaps the strangest.

"Yes, sir. Isn't it beautiful?" Terry asked in a whisper.

"Indeed. It is so very beautiful. And deadly."

"Yes, sir."

Eddie charged his Corvette forward and blew the horn. It no longer seemed right to fire the bloop gun to frighten so magnificent an animal. As the Corvette smoked to a halt the tiger just held its ground and roared its defiance. There is nothing else on this planet capable of such a sound. Eddie almost put it in reverse before the cat finally turned and bounded off the highway, a blur of black and yellow.

"Shit!" Eddie's voice held none of its usual bravado.

"Two shits. Let's just keep going." Amanda replied.

"Cool."

----------

"Six speeds forward, one reverse. Two speed transfer case. What's a transfer case?" Terry asked as he leafed through one of the very thick manuals, the thing had several of them.

"Don't sweat it. It's an automatic." Eddie replied as he pulled the dusty canvas cover off of the 25mm cannon.

Terry kept ticking off the long list of 'standard equipment.'

"25mm stabilized chain gun 7.62mm coaxial machine gun 5.56mm top turret mounted machine gun 76mm smoke or fragmentation grenade launchers Optical, thermal, Generation III Image intensification sighting systems Central tire inflation system, ABS brakes Four or eight-wheel drive on demand 350 hp Caterpillar diesel."

It was even air-conditioned and the driver's seat was electrically adjustable. So were the fuel and brake pedals. There was seating for eight in the troop compartment.

And it had eight very big wheels. The front four wheels were steered in unison and all eight of them were connected to the transmission.

It weighed 32,000 pounds, more or less.

There was no chrome, just flat, desert tan paint.

LeClerc sat off to one side and just shook his head.

----------

"Try it now!" The armored beast had two batteries and the charger had been running for that many hours by now. LeClerc pulled the clamps off the terminals; it was now or go home and try again another day.

"Okay. Here goes!" Eddie was in the driver's seat with Terry at his side for moral support. Amanda and the small ones were off to one side in the hanger-like building holding their breath. Jab the button.

The big diesel seemed to protest at first but then belched black smoke and rumbled slowly to life. It didn't sound like the RV had; it had an ominous and throaty sound. Military.

"Allll rriiiight!" Terry and Eddie both yelled that.

Even LeClerc managed some subdued shouts and gyrations.

"But do we really need the ammunition for the cannon?" LeClerc asked as the boys lugged and pushed the heavy metal cans into the rear hatch. Very large bolt cutters open a lot of doors.

"Probably not sir," Terry replied, "but it will be fun for the Fourth of July."

"Or Bastille Day."

"Sir?"

"Never mind. It is getting late. We must go now."

"Yes, sir."

Eddie was a boy torn; should he drive this new toy and entrust his Corvette to a mere mortal or not? In the end he drove the 'Vette."

----------

"What the hell is that?" Hartz was almost back in top form by now, as demanding as ever.

There was something rumbling into the driveway, the house seemed to almost vibrate. It was late afternoon by now as the three astronauts dashed outside.

"Jee-zuzz!" Hartz was staring at a softly whirring gun turret that was swinging to point at him. Then a hatch opened and Terry's head popped out.

"Hi, sir!"

The General seemed incapable of speech for the moment, even as Amanda's Jeep and Eddie's Corvette pulled in to one side of the massive armored vehicle. Then another hatch opened and LeClerc's head appeared.

"Mon General! Our new transportation has arrived!"

----------

A more conservative and methodical plan had been devised for the next foray into Santa Cruz. The RV was back by now and Doctor Long was working to set up a small medical clinic inside of it. They would slowly cruise the streets using loudspeakers to announce that medical care was now available to one and all, no strings attached. Those children taking up the offer would be given flyers and a short lecture on the plans to set up a community at Davis. One of the food distribution warehouses had been located and they would also be handing out vitamins along with canned and dry foods that were unspoiled. The LAV III would be providing security with Terry and Eddie piloting. Unlike the last time all of the astronauts would also be armed, the General had told even Doctor Long flatly that she wasn't coming if she wasn't packing heat.

Jenkins and Andropov were standing off to the side of the LAV speaking with Terry. Eddie was inside the beast coming to terms with the fire control system.

"And this was all Eddie's idea?" Jenkins asked.

"Yes sir, after that mess in Santa Cruz. Mister LeClerc helped in getting it running and everything."

"By the way, how is your side now?"

"Oh, it's okay. No more stitches."

"That was a very gutsy thing to do, what you and Eddie did."

"I almost wet my pants. Eddie did the hard parts."

"He is an amazing young man."

"You have no idea, sir. No idea at all."

There was a silence for a time before Terry spoke again.

"Hear sirs, use these." Terry handed two pair of the disposable earplugs to the two men as the turret on the LAV slowly tracked around to face a large rock outcropping across and down the road a ways.

"What is he...?"

Eddie squeezed off five of the non-explosive, blue tipped practice rounds from the cannon. Four hundred yards away the sandstone formation became, well, less of a formation. It was all very noisy.

"Will you tell that sawed-off lunatic to stop that!" Doctor Long yelled from the door of the RV. She appeared ready to strangle someone.

"Better cool it, Eddie!" Terry said into the small radio he held.

"Why? I'm just getting the hang of this thing!"

"Doctor Long is starting to go ballistic again, it's really noisy out here."

"Oh. Shit, okay."

"Maybe we should take it down to the old sand quarry in Felton. It's probably scaring Benny and Keesha too."

"Yeah. Sounds good," Eddie agreed. Anyplace away from Doctor Death.

To his credit Eddie resisted the urge to swing the turret around to face the RV and instead just powered down the weapon and unloaded the round in the chamber.

"Come on and get in." Eddie opened the rear hatch for Terry; it was easier than clambering up to the topside hatches. Terry waved to the two astronauts as he disappeared into the beast.

"Have fun!" Jenkins could only marvel at what he had just said. He had just told two young boys to go off and have fun with something that had eight wheels and a cannon (actually it was called a chain gun). But all of life had changed, so many of society's rules had no real meaning any longer.

----------

"Where are you two dorks going?" Amanda was on the LAV's radio, she had heard them depart.

"Just down the road to the sand quarry, so we won't disturb the peace."

"Oh. Well, don't be late for dinner."

"What are we having?" Food is always an interesting topic to young boys.

"How should I know? It's your turn to cook!"

"We're not coming back!"

But of course they would, but not alone.

----------

Terry was going to drive on the trip back; Eddie didn't get to have all of the fun. They had put about fifty rounds of the high explosive rounds into the sand cliff face, producing a very cool landslide after only nine of the rounds. The sights seemed to have been pretty well zeroed in by whomever had last trained in the LAV. In any event Eddie hadn't quite figured out how to adjust the sights anyway.

Their very noisy fun had attracted an audience, three pairs of eyes hid in the brush at the edge of the quarry trying to decide what to do next.

"They're jus' kids. Like us! You saw them!" Michael whispered, as if the boys in the big army thing could hear him. Michael was nine and the oldest of the three Hughes kids.

"But.... what if..." Mary Hughes was eight and had seen too much of "what if" in the bad times.

"Maybe they have something to eat?" Sarah was only six and was as thin and hungry as the rest were.

"Come on! Those dogs might come back!" Michael had decided that it was time to do something, anything. They were going to die if they didn't find a good place to stay!

Eddie bashed his head on the unyielding steel of the overhead as Terry stood on the brakes, all eight of them.

"Ahhhgg! What are you doing?" Eddie was seeing genuine stars.

"Kids!" The view out of the periscope-like drivers window was limited but the three small children standing in the middle of the quarry access road were no illusion.

"What?" Eddie's stars were starting to fade by now.

"Three kids. In front of us!"

Eddie shook his head and climbed up into the gun turret and opened the heavy hatch. "You're right. They're just standing there." For some reason Eddie was whispering now.

"So say something to them."

Eddie did. As usual it wasn't very original.

"Hi." He waved too. Then he opened up with the 7.62 turret machine gun.

The dogs had come back, briefly.

----------

"Sorry! Eddie yelled from the turret hatch, the three kids were just holding on to one another, shaking. "I was shooting at the dogs!"

Michael managed to look around; there were three very dead mutts about fifty yards down the road behind them. By now Terry had opened the rear hatch and was coming around into view with his MP-5, ready to spray.

"Are you all okay?" Up close Terry didn't seem very scary at all to the kids.

"Ye...yes," Michael stammered, "we need... can you help us?"

"Sure, kid. You're safe now." Terry put his hand on the smaller boy's shoulder; it felt thin and bony. "Let's all go home now and have some dinner."

If a large UFO had landed and scooped them up the three Hughes children could have not been more overwhelmed. Sitting inside the dimly lit and noisy LAV as Eddie offered them some sweet granola bars and cold Pepsi's was indeed like being wafted off to some distant star.

----------

Terry pulled the rumbling LAV directly into his old drive way; Doctor Long needed to see these kids first. She was a pretty good doctor even if she was a total pain in the butt.

The LAV did indeed have a horn, a damned loud one.

As if sensing something was badly amiss, Doctor Long was the first to peer into the open rear hatch. Terry was there to explain things.

"They were down by the quarry, I guess some dogs had been after them. Eddie shot the dogs. They look pretty skinny and hungry."

Filthy too.

"Hello there." Doctor Long put out her hand to the boy who still sat huddled in the middle of the small trio on the troop seats.

"Hi." Michael was looking at a real grownup, a lady. Like mommy. He took her hand.

"Let's all go inside now."

"Okay."

----------

Doctor Long started the first course of treatment, some soup and dog biscuit crackers. Too much too soon for stomachs long deprived of proper food could result in a mess all over the floor. Everyone had gathered in Terry's old house to watch these new additions; the Hughes children felt self-conscious but that didn't stop them from wolfing down the small meal.

Baths were next as Amanda helped Doctor Long scrub the three orphans together in one tub of hot water. Two tubs actually, the first session resulted in almost muddy water and had to be drained and refilled. Michael didn't seem to care about being bathed with his sisters, the hot water and soap just felt too good. Their clothes/rags went out behind the house and into the makeshift steel barrel incinerator.

The youngest girl had poorly healed scars on her right leg above the ankle.

"Some dogs bit her." Michael explained, not mentioning how he had to fight off the curs with a Little League baseball bat.

Beyond that the three children didn't seem to be suffering from much more than simple malnutrition, if you didn't count the lice and bad dreams.

Chapter Eight

The Gathering

"There's a big bunch of kids living over at the boat harbor." Daniel Radcliff was having the abscess in his right buttock cleaned and drained by Doctor Long. It had started with a big splinter that he couldn't see to pull out; by now the good doctor had located a large supply of Novocain that explained the ten-year-old boy's composure. Daniel was one of almost two hundred kids so far who had ventured out to contact the people in the big RV and the army thing.

"Why haven't you gone to stay with them?"

"They have too many rules. They're too bossy!"

"Do the gangs bother them?"

"No. They have the streets blocked with old cars and they have some guns. They have guards too."

"Did they shoot at you?"

"No, they aren't like the gang creeps. But they won't let you in though unless you sign a book they have and swear to follow all of their rules."

A conference was called for. How to approach this 'community' of orphans?

"Everyone will stay back for a time with the vehicles while I walk forward to make contact." Hartz' plan seemed prudent and reasonable.

"Uh, what if they won't let us in, sir?" Terry asked with his hand up.

"Then I signal you to move the LAV into sight, then move it up to the barricade."

"To sort of scare them?"

"Yes, to impress them. But under no circumstances are you to fire anything at anyone. Not even if they shoot me dead."

"Yes, sir."

Two weeks had passed since the Hughes children had been found. Things were actually starting to come together now; in another week the first group of children was scheduled to be collected for the move to Davis by bus. Many of the children who had been contacted had not committed to such a radical move, to go to someplace they didn't know. No matter that adults would be in charge and they might be safe there.

"Who...who are you?" Freddie Ky and his fellow guard were doing their best to follow the rules and to look serious and official. No one gets in unless they sign the book and get searched for guns and stuff. Freddie was holding a .45 that was way too big for his hands, the other boy had what appeared to be a bolt action deer rifle with a scope and he looked like he knew how to use it.

"My name is Brigadier General Clifford Hartz, United States Air Force. And who are you?" Hartz towered over the boy and had on his blue astronaut's jump suit and beret (for effect).

United States Air Force? From before!

"Freddie Ky."

"Well Mister Ky, I need to speak with the person in charge here."

"Wa...wait just a minute. Please. I gotta call the mayor!"

"Certainly."

This small island of humanity was by far the most organized of any that they had contacted so far. Freddie even had a hand-held radio to call the 'mayor' on. The mayor arrived on a small gas powered scooter.

"We have rules here. No one gets in without..."

Mayor Helen Simmons was almost twelve and was very much in love with her new position in life. Hartz was losing patience by now and gave the signal to Terry and Eddie; a finger pointed skyward and twirled in a circle.

"Here we go. Don't shoot anyone." Terry was driving; Eddie was up in the turret, where the triggers were.

"No sweat. Try to stay mostly on the road."

"I'll do my best."

The thing that was crossing the harbor bridge was no gang car full of stupid punks. It was big and army-colored and had eight wheels. And it had a very big gun.

The 'mayor' didn't say anything until the LAV rumbled to a halt and its turret whined back and forth as if seeking a target.

"Wel...welcome, sir. Welcome to Our Place." Like all true politicians the girl had an excellent sense of self-preservation.

"Thank you, Madame Mayor. We have medical help if any of your people need it."

"Yes, sir. We think Jamie Watts has a busted arm, one of the little kids is sick with something but we don't know what it is."

"Then let's go see to them."

There was the matter of the two wheel-less cars blocking the bridge. Hartz just raised his hand and pointed at them.

Terry got the message and simply shoved them aside with the LAV. Eddie had wanted to blast them to bits but reason had prevailed, they were supposed to avoid gunfire.

The small community of children was remarkably well organized, perhaps to the point of it being oppressive in some ways. There were almost one hundred and seventy-five children living and working in the place they had simply named "Our Place." Each child had assigned duties that ranged from food scavenging, guard details, cooking, and laundry duty. They even had a small fishing boat that ventured a short ways into Monterey Bay to bait fish when the seas seemed calm enough. The boat soon would not be able to pass through the channel entrance; the ever-present silting problem was slowly choking off the only access to the sea. Their attempts at gardening had met with limited success. Deer wandering down from the mountains and other nighttime raiders had been the main problem.

To say that the arrival of the big RV and the army vehicle caused a sensation in Our Place would be an understatement. And there were grownups! Literally everyone turned out.

"Cripes! Look at all of them!" Eddie had opened the turret hatch and stuck his head out, all the while talking to Terry on the LAV's communications headsets they both wore while driving the noisy beast.

"Let's stay put until we see how things are going." Terry thought that they all looked friendly but the General had said to stay inside until he gave the word. He kept the engine running too.

"Cool." Eddie slowly swung the turret in a circle so that he could look all around the area; this seemed to make the crowd a little nervous.

"You're spooking 'em, Eddie."

"Sorry." Eddie cooled it with the turret and then waved to the assembled 'residents.' A lot of them waved back so it must have helped.

Except for the guards there didn't seem to be any guns in sight and the children didn't seem threatening, just excited and curious. As the astronauts left the RV and began to talk and shake hands and mingle, things loosened up even more. Hartz radioed to Terry and Eddie to shut down the LAV's engine and to come on out.

"I'll stay here and keep them out of the LAV." Eddie was standing at the rear personnel hatch and anyone silly enough to think about getting past him was indeed silly.

"Okay, I'm gonna go with Amanda and the medical team for now. "I'll keep the radio on."

"Cool. Stay awake."

"Sure. You too."

Like Eddie, Terry had an MP-5 and his Berretta. Ordinarily he was only as intimidating as the young boy he was, but armed as he was the children of Our Place gave way to him and held back.

Amanda was by sort of default Doctor Long's nurse-in-training. Despite her technical prowess and general gear head knowledge she had a lot of inborn maternal instinct and empathy for those in need. Keesha, Benny, and the Hughes kids were for this day back at their home in the mountains, along with two of the astronauts. The RV had only a limited amount of room and besides, there were other tasks besides making contact. A large commercial bus was being made ready to transport the children in groups of forty, that bus needed some very careful maintenance and preparation for it's precious cargo.

Jamie Watts did indeed have a "busted arm' and it needed proper resetting. Doctor Long could tell without x-rays that the bones in the boy's forearm were not properly aligned. Amanda watched everything very carefully as the doctor administered a moderate Valium injection to relax the boy. A general anesthetic was possible but carried the usual risks.

"Bite on this." A washcloth like Terry had bit on was used. Terry was off to the edge of this small drama and tried not to watch as the doctor pulled hard on the boy's arm and moved the bones into proper alignment.

"Owwww! Shitshitshit!" Jamie Watts would be fine in a couple of months. For now he just wished that he could be somewhere else.

Rebecca Wilkins was seven and had a bad appendix; time was short. At least that was Doctor Long's opinion.

"Move her into the RV! We have to get that thing out of her."

The rear master bedroom of the RV had been converted into a makeshift operating/treatment room. Doctor Long would be the surgeon; Sarah Bancroft (the NASA botanist) would assist.

Amanda would assist where she could, she needed to watch and learn, and she was part of the future.

She was the future.

----------

"How is her pulse?" Doctor Long kept asking that every few minutes; Amanda knew how to answer, she had been taught very well, even if her teacher was a crab most of the time.

"No change, about eighty-five."

"Good. Go get the dressing tray over there by the oxygen tank."

"Yes, ma'am." Amanda didn't faint like Eddie had. Still, the sight of someone's abdomen being opened made her about two shades paler than normal.

Like Jamie, Rebecca was going to be fine too but she would be taken back to the mountains to recover for a few days.

Outside of the RV most of the small community had gathered to quietly watch and wait for the outcome of the operation. They had lost others before, others that they had not known how to care for. Now there were grownups here and grownups knew how to make you all better.

----------

The large seafront restaurant at the harbor entrance served as the 'town hall' for the little community. Meetings were usually held in the evenings but today a mid-afternoon session was called. 'Mayor' Simmons did not want to give up her small fiefdom. Power, even just this small amount, is a heady drug.

"Then can we have a show of hands?" Hartz had just given his well-rehearsed recruitment speech.

"We have a very nice little community right here!" The Mayor stood and interrupted before a count could be taken.

"Nice for you!" Someone shouted from the back of the restaurant.

"I know that was you, Freddy! Just you wait!"

"So whaddaya gonna do? Give me extra guard duty? I'm going with the grownups!"

Judging from the other kids shouts, Our Place was not too pleasant of a place to live in. Like many who trade freedom for safety they had learned that the deal was usually a bad one.

"You be quite, we..."

"Are going to have a show of hands," Hartz put his hand firmly on the girl's shoulder and made her sit down.

It wasn't even close, all but six of the mayor's toadies voted to move to Davis. In the end they would all make the move. Helen Simmons reasoned that perhaps the new place would need a mayor or perhaps some sort of 'monitor' to see that everyone did their share of the work. Of course she would have to mend some fences and get to know the new kids at Davis. Once a politician...
----------

Back in the mountains that evening the final plans were made for the pickup and transportation of the first group of children. Terry and Eddie would provide a security escort into and out of Santa Cruz for the large tour bus that had been prepared. The LAV would escort them until they were onto Highway 17 and safely on their way to Davis. Hartz and the others were still trying to persuade Terry and his group to eventually join them in Davis.

"We can be useful here too," Terry argued, "there will still be kids left behind after all of your work is done here. We can keep an eye out for those kids and help them if they want it, help them to get to Davis maybe."

"And those punks in the gangs?" Hartz asked.

"I think they'll get tired of it all after a while. There's no future for them and most of the kids in town will have left anyway."

"It will be so much safer for you all in Davis, think of Benny and Keesha and the Hughes children."

"If we have bad problems here then we'll come. We're not crazy... we just don't want to leave our home. Not now."

Hartz only nodded in understanding. He didn't like it at all but these kids had earned a good measure of respect from him and were entitled to make their own decisions.

"Very well, but keep in radio contact with us. Every day!"

"Yes, sir."

Chapter Nine

Home Life and The Wild Child

It was July by now and the astronauts had been gone for almost a month. LeClerc had stayed on the longest making sure that Terry and the others were well organized and secure but now he had also left. There was a massive amount of work to be done at Davis and all of the adults were badly needed there.

Mister Weems' bedroom was finally cleaned out, even the carpet went. New paint, new carpet (not too expertly installed) and new beds for the girls. Another bunk bed was installed in Terry and Eddie's bedroom for Benny and Michael. The Hughes children had very much wanted to remain with their rescuers and had been made a part of the family by now.

A little more relaxed pace was now the order of the day. The weather was very warm most days and the hottest hours of the day were usually spent down by the creek staying cool in the water and shade there. Work on a small dam proceeded at a leisurely pace; there was now a small pool deep enough for short swims. The swimming and hot weather made for few if any clothes worn during the heat of the day, it was no longer some sort of slightly daring novelty to Terry and Eddie or any of the others, it was just normal and comfortable, nothing more.

Summer haircuts were very much in order for the boys. Their hair was becoming way too long anyway, to the point of getting in the way. Amanda did the honors with an electric hair trimmer that had an attachment to prevent actual scalping. Still, all of the males were now sporting military regulation buzz cuts.

Twice a week they would take the LAV and an SUV into and around Santa Cruz broadcasting the taped message about a better place and a better way to live at Davis. The gangs avoided the LAV like it was the Grim Reaper, even though it had never fired a single shot at them. By now there seemed to be only two gangs left, each trying to mindlessly dominate the other. From time to time children in one's or two's would make contact but it was difficult to get any of them to commit to making the change. Those who decided to make the move were told that they could stay for the time being where the astronauts had in Terry's old house, or they could wait for the once a month bus from Davis. They all decided to wait for the bus; perhaps it was the LAV and the guns that put them off.

And then there were the 'wild children' that were spotted from time to time. Usually just a quick glimpse and then they dashed back into the woods or wherever they hid from their private demons. There was one that seemed to be living in the mountain area around Terry's place. Seen only at a distance the child could have been of either sex, its long matted hair was its only clothing save for the filthy sneakers it wore. Amanda began setting out some food in the back yard for the wild one; most mornings would find it gone. The soft, smoothed dirt around the tree stump would show that it was a human shoeprint and not some animal that had taken the food.

"Maybe we should try to catch him.... or her?" Terry asked.

"How? Set bear traps?" Eddie suggested in jest.

"No. I guess I don't know, really. It just seems a shame."

"Even if we could grab him, then what do we do?"

"I dunno about that either. Maybe take him... or her to Doctor Long?"

In the end the wild child came to them, down by the creek one hot afternoon.

Perhaps it was the laughter that finally drew in the forest creature that had once been ten-year-old Susan Marsden. The sounds of other children having mindless fun splashing in the cool stream were a powerful magnet. As usual it was the always-watchful Eddie who first spotted something different.

"Terr." Eddie whispered. Terry was lying on his stomach on the flat boulder next to his friend, warming up after his swim in the cool stream.

"What?" Terry sat up; he knew that something was wrong from the sound of his friend's voice. Their guns were as always close at hand.

"Over behind where Michael is, back in the woods."

"I see him." Terry had spotted the dirty face almost immediately. On an impulse he waved gently to the girl, beckoning her to come forward.

"Let's stay put for now," Terry said, "don't scare him."

By now Amanda had also caught on to what was happening and turned to look at their visitor.

"Hi!" Amanda smiled and waved at the girl, at least it might be a girl. She held out a Mars bar as she sat on her towel, perhaps that might do the trick. Michael and the younger ones stopped their splashing and just quietly stared at the strange apparition in the woods.

Terry and Eddie had thought that their visitor was a boy but as the dirty and timid creature slowly emerged from the undergrowth and into the dappled sunlight they were proved wrong.

"It's a girl!" Terry whispered.

"No shit, Sherlock." Eddie replied softly.

Even the coating of dirt and the scars could not hide that obvious fact. All she was wearing were some incredibly ratty looking sneakers that appeared to be on the verge of disintegrating. Her body was thin but not emaciated; she had been finding food somewhere. Where had she been living?

"Here," Amanda beckoned with the candy bar, "it's all right, no one will hurt you. We're just kids like you."

But Amanda and the others weren't like her; they all still had their sanity, for the most part anyway.

Whether or not the girl understood the words any longer she did sense the feelings behind them. She slowly moved forward to take the candy bar, then she darted back a ways to tear off the wrapper and wolf down the gooey confection. All the while the girl's eyes flashed to and fro as if expecting some sort of attack.

Amanda then slowly stood and held out one hand to the girl; maybe touching another human might help her. The forest girl almost bolted back into the woods but hesitated for a moment, again looking from face to face for any sign of a threat here. But there was no threat. Just some kids playing in the water, kids like she had once been.

"It's okay. Let us help you."

Again, very slowly the girl moved forward to Amanda. This time their outstretched hands met and touched, then lightly clasped.

"My name's Amanda. What's yours?"

The other girl said nothing but tears were starting to roll down her dirty cheeks. Amanda held out her other arm to gently embrace the wild child and that embrace was not resisted. Amanda held the weeping girl close to her and in a moment the wild girl laid her head on Amanda's bare shoulder, as a smaller child might do in her mother's arms.

Amanda turned her head to look silently at the others, a question on her face. Now what do I do?

Terry and Eddie took the next step.

"Come on. Wrap a towel around yourself and follow me. Slowly." Terry stood and quickly made himself modest while Eddie did the same. You don't greet strangers in just your birthday suits. The crying girl in Amanda's arms did not even seem to notice when the two boys moved to stand close to her.

"This is Terry and Eddie. They're hardly ever bite and are mostly house broken," Amanda said quietly to the girl.

"Hi," Terry said, so did Eddie.

The girl looked carefully at them both but said nothing; she seemed to be calmer now, not as frightened. Little Keesha had also moved close to the new girl and timidly reached up to touch her arm.

"My name's Keesha Williams. What's your name?"

Keesha Williams. The little black girl did have a last name and Amanda was amazed and delighted.

The wild child did manage a smile for the little girl, perhaps her first smile since the bad times started.

----------

"She came to us today, down by the creek." Terry was manning the radio for the evening contact with Davis. Amanda and the other girls were still trying to bathe her and untangle the wild child's matted hair. It had been a slow and delicate process getting the girl into the house and then into a bath but patience had finally prevailed. Everyone sensed that trying to force the girl to do anything would be a mistake at this point.

"Do you know her name or anything?" Doctor Long asked.

"No. She hasn't said anything and won't answer any questions. She seems about Amanda's age, or maybe just a little younger. She has black hair and brown eyes. She was really dirty and has a lot of little cuts and scars, I guess from being in the woods and everything."

"What was she wearing? Maybe there's something in one of her pockets that might identify her."

"Uh, she just had on some worn out sneakers."

"She's been living in the woods naked?"

"I suppose so, she seemed pretty tanned under all of the dirt and crud. We've caught glimpses of her before and left food out for her to find."

"Good Lord. You should have told us!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Where is she now?"

"Amanda and the others are giving her a bath and stuff. Then we'll all have some dinner together, she's calmed down quite a lot. How are things going with you?"

Doctor Long was silent for a moment trying to take in this last development before she answered.

"Pretty good, actually. We're getting the dorms all sorted out, one for the boys and one for the girls. The food from the Sacramento Safeway warehouse has arrived, tons of it."

"Neat. That reminds me, I'm the cook for tonight so I better sign off for now."

"Okay, Terry. Go slow with this new girl, she probably has some serious mental trauma."

"Yes, ma'am. We've all been trying to be nice and we don't force her do stuff."

"That's good. Tell Amanda to give her one spoonful out of the bottle that I marked 'number seven' if she has a hard time sleeping tonight."

"Okay. Bottle number seven. Bye for now."

"Goodbye, Terry. God bless you all."

Terry switched off the radio wondering if the lady doctor had stripped a few gear teeth. "God bless you all?"

"Maybe she's sort of human after all," Terry mumbled to himself on the way to the kitchen.

-------------------------- Terry was stirring the stew as Eddie talked quietly with him. "She's kinda pretty once you can see her actual skin."

Eddie was a little taken with their exotic guest. Indeed the girl was quite pretty now that she was clean and her hair was untangled and combed. At the moment she had on one of Amanda's silly Tweety Bird nightshirts and was standing timidly off to one side in the noisy kitchen, her darting eyes missing nothing. Fixing dinner was always a barely controlled riot in this odd household.

"Yeah, she is sort of cute," Terry agreed, "she still seems pretty scared though."

"Maybe with good reason."

"Yeah. Give her some time"

"Sure."

Perhaps a lot of time.

----------

With the addition of yet another person, Mister Weems' small house was starting to get very crowded. They needed another bedroom at least. Another bathroom would be very nice too. This was the topic of the morning's conversation at breakfast.

"How about me and Eddie convert part of the storehouse into a room for the both of us?" Terry didn't want to move back into his old house, moving into Eddie's place was even more out of the question.

Amanda didn't care much for the idea. "It gets too hot and stuffy in there, there's no windows!"

"What about another RV? We could park it right behind the house and hook up the water and stuff to it." Eddie's idea made a lot of sense; the two boys would have the best quarters of all in one of those rolling mansions. It would solve a lot of problems.

"Then let's do that," Terry decided. "Maybe we can even connect the bathroom in it to the septic tank thing."

The RV the astronauts appropriated had a wide screen TV and carpet deep enough to lose change in.

They should have thought of this earlier, a lot earlier.

Susan Marsden had just sat mute as always during this discussion. She did remember to use the spoon for her cereal and had tried not to eat too fast, like the others did. She had on some of Amanda's underwear, jeans and a T-shirt; the clothes felt too warm and confining but she had put them on without protest. Above all she didn't feel afraid here, at least not very much.

The boys would ride in the LAV; it was a male sort of vehicle, noisy, loud and ugly. The girls had more sense and opted for Amanda's Jeep and it's nice CD player. In any event they would be well protected for this 'shopping' expedition. Susan had no idea about what to ride in and just went meekly along with the rest of the girls. Eddie had to leave his beloved Corvette behind for this trip; he consoled himself by riding in the LAV's gun turret.

They knew the drill by now for operating oversized RV's. They knew the drill for bringing one of them back to life after it had sat neglected for too long on the dealer's lot. The one they picked was almost a twin of the one they had 'selected' before; only the color scheme was different.

"What a putrid green!" Eddie was no real judge of art or design but he was right about this abomination.

"So close your eyes. It's this one or take one of those smaller ones." Terry thought the colors sucked too, but what did the color really matter?

"It's cool. Let's get it going." Eddie also had visions of wide screen television and a bathtub big enough to actually float in.

They were almost ready to leave when the ground started to move. Not too violent, just enough to remind them all that they still lived in California.

"Earthquake!" Terry had yelled before he had any time to think about what to do. The ground stopped moving before anyone else could decide which way to run. Susan had just stood very still during all of this excitement, the earth moving was not something that could hurt you and make you do nasty things.

To the north and east the quake was more severe. At UC Davis there had been some very minor damage to a few of the buildings but none of the children or astronauts were hurt or even more than just frightened. Further north and east the great earthen dam at Oroville had also been affected. The damage didn't show on the broad face of the dam, but deep inside there was now a flaw, a weak place that the water would penetrate when the pressure was high enough.

The dam might not fail this year but in time it would.

----------

"It's tilted, to the right!"

"No shit." Eddie could see that, everyone could. "So we use the leveling things!"

"Huh?" Terry had read all of the manuals too but that item had escaped his memory. The RV sat where they had parked it the evening before. The back yard had a downward slope to it for about fifty yards from the house.

"The self-leveling system. We need to put some big boards or something flat under the jacks!"

"Oh. Okay." Terry agreed but had no real idea about what to do. Fortunately Eddie did.

Some of the big round walkway stones carted home from Mildred Spence's destroyed cottage with the tractor provided the solution. They only needed the four of them and Mildred didn't object.

"Okay! Hit it!" Eddie stood back and waited for Terry's finger to descend.

It was close to being magical. Four pillars of steel seemed to descend from the belly of the RV to center on the round stones. In moments the land yacht's tilt was automatically corrected, the wheels on the one side were almost free of the ground.

"Cool!" Eddie decided.

Hooking up the water and sewer crap was fairly (almost) easy too. The RV already had it's own generator.

"Move over!" Terry had almost given up on any peace and quiet during this grand opening DVD. Benny was practically sitting on his stomach.

Nine young people were in the RV's master bedroom trying to watch the Empire fight off the Rebel Alliance. Even the mysterious wild girl was perched on the edge of the bed trying to follow the total nonsense on the screen.

"We need to get a really big TV for the house," Eddie whispered as he leaned over close to Terry's ear.

"No shit. Next trip. Maybe one of those video projection things, they don't weigh very much."

"Cool."

----------

"The cantaloupes and squash are doing great!" Amanda in another life might have been a produce farmer.

"You can have the squash," Eddie replied. He was more of meat and potatoes sort of person except they only had instant mashed potatoes and freeze-dried mystery meat. "At least the fence is keeping out the fuc... the darned deer."

Amanda didn't approve of bad language. It was like being married.

The "fence" was ten feet high and was charged with fifty thousand volts worth of critter discouragement. The amperage was very low; it wouldn't kill anything bigger than a mouse. It did hurt like hell though, Terry could testify to that much having backed butt first into the bare wires while they were getting it all connected to the modified stun guns, following Amanda's directions. Terry still firmly believed that the girl managed that 'accident' on purpose. Even through his jeans it had left a red mark on both buns.

Susan seemed to very much enjoy working in the garden. It was obvious that she fully understood Amanda's directions, she wasn't slow-witted by any means, it just seemed that some part of her mind had been taken away, or perhaps just sealed shut for now. Eddie was still fascinated by the wild child, perhaps it was a budding interest in the opposite sex or maybe he saw a part of the ghost of his little sister in the troubled girl. In any event Eddie always seemed to manage to sit next to her at meals and was so very patient with her when she always failed to respond to his awkward words. It was another side of Eddie seldom seen; he wasn't all fast cars and loud noises.

----------

They smelled the fire before any real smoke was to be seen. It was just after breakfast, a time for chores and odd jobs before the summer heat drove them all to the stream to stay cool. The forest was burning, but where?

"Eddie, get in your 'Vette and head up the hill! Check it out!" Terry's shouted command gave no offense to Eddie because it was the logical thing to do.

"On my way! Be ready to get everyone into the LAV and haul ass out of here!" Eddie's command also made a lot of sense. Calling the Forest Service or 911 was something from another life. The LAV could be buttoned up and driven through nerve gas and fallout if need be.

"Okay! Use the CB!" Terry shouted as his friend ran for the red road missile parked out front.

Terry had the LAV warmed up and ready to go. Everyone stood close together waiting for Eddie to report in, it seemed like an eternity but he finally did.

"I'm all the way up on Summit Road. The fire is moving across the road to the north of me. There's a big fog bank offshore, maybe that will help if it moves in."

"How big is the fire?" Terry asked.

"I dunno. It's pretty smoky up here but I think it's mostly to the north."

"Don't get any closer to it!" Amanda had grabbed the mike from Terry.

"I'm cool. I can go south on Summit or back down Zayante Road to you guys."

"Okay, but be careful!"

"Yes, mother."

"Jerk!" Amanda didn't really mean that last remark and Eddie knew it.

The summer fog is also something that the tourist pamphlets fail to mention, it's very capricious and variable. This day its moisture and prevailing winds spared the small island of humanity from having to flee a burning forest that could consume their home. How or why the fire started would remain a mystery. It was still a very unsettling day; they all felt less secure for a time realizing that their safety would always be a tenuous thing anywhere.

----------

One week after the fire, true and total disaster struck.

"God! Now what do we do?" Terry was at his wits end.

"I dunno. Move?" Eddie wasn't being much help.

"No! We can handle this!"

They had better handle it, the females had them outnumbered and did not appreciate the 'dig a hole in the woods' plumbing routine. They could still use the sinks and showers, those drained into a branching system of pipes and gravel under the garden area. Toilets were for now only a fond memory.

Mister Weems' modest septic tank had finally had enough, as it were.

"It's gotta be pumped out! Ours did once that I remember. There was a big tank truck with a fat hose and pump thing on the back." Terry knew what had to be done, but how could they pull this off?

"So you're saying that we've gotta find one of these poop pump trucks, get it running, learn how to use it, and then get it up here?"

"Yeah, Eddie. That's what we have to do."

"I'm moving to Davis."

"Very funny. Let's start with the phone book and find out where to go."

"What do we look under, 'dump' trucks?" Eddie thought his quip was hysterically funny. Terry managed not to bop him.

There was a septic tank service company just down the road in Felton. Terry and Eddie had it all worked out except for the one detail.

"This thing has a manual transmission." Eddie was sitting in the dust-covered cab of the truck staring down at the extra pedal on the floor and at a very large gearshift lever.

"Oh. Well, then you can drive it," Terry replied.

"Thank you so very much."

Despite his driving abilities, Eddie had never used a clutch in his entire life.

Michael had come along on this errand and offered his best advice. "It's pretty old, you'll probably need to double-clutch it."

"Say what?" Terry asked as both of them stared at the younger boy.

"To get the gears to sync. You work the clutch as you pass through neutral."

"O-kay. How do you...?" Eddie started to ask.

"Daddy's a...he was a long haul trucker. I rode with him sometimes and he taught me stuff."

"Oh. Well good! You can ride with me and teach me some stuff."

"Sure!"

Eddie stalled the elderly truck three times just getting it out of the parking area. The gearbox must have been made of stern stuff considering the noise it made when Eddie attempted anything rash; the clutch pedal seemed to need about six hundred pounds of pressure to depress it. By the time they all finally made it up to their home Eddie was pretty well soaked in sweat. He did manage to get the lumbering tanker backed up close enough to the septic tank cover.

"Now you can take over!" Eddie seemed to be walking with a list to port, favoring his clutch leg.

Terry had to operate the poop pump.

"Ewwwww!" Amanda had just handed Terry some rubber gloves and had caught a good whiff of what was in the septic tank, or rather what was oozing out of its access pipe. Then she prudently retreated back into the house. Terry was trying not to breath at all as he wrestled the heavy hose into place. He planned on burning his clothes when he was finished and he did.

Mercifully the gasoline-powered engine that drove the poop pump started; it still seemed to take days before the septic tank was emptied.

"So now what do we do with the 'dump' truck?" Eddie asked.

"You drive it back to the place where we got it. Or maybe off the end of the wharf in Santa Cruz."

"Shit!"

"You're telling me. I need a bath, maybe two or three."

The girls had the very good sense to be occupied elsewhere while this odious task was being performed; it was obviously something that males were specially created for.

----------

U.C. Davis

The astronauts had decided that a system resembling a military academy would be the most workable for at least the beginnings of the Davis colony. There were simply too few adults to properly supervise the almost five hundred children who had by now occupied the four dorms. Every ten children would elect a corporal as their team leader; the astronauts then selected a sergeant for every four corporals. The highest 'student' rank was captain. You may have surmised by now that Helen Simmons managed to wheedle her way into obtaining that highest of ranks; she had experience as a mayor after all.

A system of rewards for good work and honest effort and punishments for bad behavior and goofing off was being established. There was simply no time to wasted on kind words and gentle persuasion. Work hard and follow orders and you would do well, mouth off and shirk your duty and you would find yourself hungry and sleeping outside on the hard concrete. The astronauts allowed no cruelty in the punishments; neither did they have any patience with slackers and troublemakers.

Sarah Bancroft, the NASA botanist, had laid out plans for seeding corn and wheat, along with smaller areas planted with seasonal vegetables. Rangeland for cattle and sheep had been scouted and plans were made to raise small numbers of the animals at first; larger numbers could wait until the children had learned the skills needed to care for them.

There were plans for some pens for swine and enclosures for chickens.

Of course it would be the pigs that would kill all of the astronauts, the animals were still a reservoir for the flu virus, it was just a runny 'snout' for them.

Chapter Ten

Ends and Beginnings

September

"We have to try this eventually," Terry whispered.

"Yeah. Just don't expect me to do all of the...."

"No Eddie, we'll learn how together, like we always have."

"Cool."

Then Eddie pulled the trigger on the .308 sniper rifle. The deer staggered a few steps and was dead in seconds.

"God!"

"Yeah," Eddie agreed. They now had to turn the beautiful animal into useful meat for their odd family. They had to deal with the blood and the guts. Both of them had read and re-read the book on dressing out game but the real thing was another matter altogether.

A small pocket-sized block and tackle device attached to a tree limb provided the leverage to pull the small coastal buck up by its rear legs. Now they had to first use the very sharp knife to drain the blood. Both boys looked at one another for a moment, who would do it? Finally Terry gritted his teeth and did the deed.

"Oh Lord!" Terry jumped back. There was so very much blood. Later there would be a heap of skin and wet internal organs on the ground. Also some vomit contributed by both boys.

They didn't do a very expert job of it; actually it was quite a mess. But they did manage to load almost one hundred pounds of usable meat onto the Honda ATV. Now it would be up to the others to properly cook or smoke the meat, they had done their part and their best. It surprised both boys that they had any appetite at all that evening but they did. Fresh meat!

----------

One of the last busloads of children was assembling when the final remaining gang decided to put a stop to the decline in people to terrorize. Frankie Delgado must have by now been over the edge, consumed by his own unreasoned hatred for the 'others.' The gang killed two of the patiently waiting children instantly as it opened up with rifles from down the street. Doctor Long was hit in her right thigh and would later have to supervise her own surgery. It had been a ghastly moment that seemed to move in slow motion.

"Eddie!" Terry was driving the escorting LAV as usual; Eddie was as always manning the gun turret.

"I see them!"

Eddie opened up with the 25mm chain gun and held the trigger down until the last empty shell casing clattered onto the pavement around the armored vehicle. Then he emptied the five hundred rounds in the 7.62 as Terry bore down on the gang's hiding places. All forty of the 76mm fragmentation grenades from the LAV's launcher ended the slaughter. It was the last of the gangs and the last of Frankie Delgado.

----------

Santa Cruz was safe once more but there was little there to attract Terry and the others, other than the beaches. There were still a very few children left in the town, mostly loners or small groups of two or three. Contact was maintained on an irregular basis in case any of them needed help or if they decided to move to Davis, but it was only an occasional thing to meet any of them.

It was the best time of year for the beaches so a short vacation was in order. Terry and Eddie's RV was disconnected and made ready for a few days at the beach; the LAV would come along for moral support. Red, White and Blue was chosen again for the vacation; it was sheltered from the wind in places and had a nice long beach (at least when the tides were out). The water would be marginally bearable this time of year so surf mats were brought along.

By now everyone had pretty good tans so only Benny and Eddie had to use lots of the sun block.

"Spray the towers again," Amanda directed Terry to spritz some more water from the plastic pump bottle onto the higher parts of the huge sand castle. Amanda was the resident expert on sand castle construction; keeping the sand moist was a must.

"You know the tide is just going to wipe this out," Terry said.

"That's half the fun, watching it all dissolve."

On this second visit to the beach the lack of swimming attire was no longer any sort of thing to comment upon. Some of the more superficial trappings of civilization had passed away along with most of humanity. Clothing at the beach was for cool mornings and nights around the campfire.

Eddie had paired off with Susan, the wild girl, for the day. They were together most of the time and the girl seemed to be slowly emerging from her walled off, private hell. Terry and Amanda also seemed to be a pair now; they both just seemed to feel good when they were close. New feelings were beginning to stir in them, as it does sooner or later in all people. A walk down the beach away from the others brought those feelings to the surface.

Terry was giving a hand up to Amanda as they climbed over some rocks, as she made it up to his level they were suddenly very close together, their bodies touching.

"Sorry." Terry stood back a little. They had always observed some sort of unspoken rule that you weren't supposed to touch like that with nothing on. Amada just smiled at his small embarrassment and then reached out to once more pull him close.

"Ninny. Just hold me for a little while, please." Amanda said gently.

"Oh. Well...this does feel really nice." He had never held a girl like this, especially like this. She felt soft and warm against him. Terry was trying to think of else to say when the girl kissed him on his lips.

"You taste like strawberries!" Terry grinned.

"It's my lip gloss." Amanda pressed very close against the boy, her hands around his lower back. This felt even better and produced a very predictable change in the boy's anatomy.

"Oh God! I'm sorry!" Terry was sure that he had done something perfectly awful, especially when Amanda stood back and looked down at his transformation. Her giggle didn't help any either. Still saying that he was sorry, Terry turned and dashed into the cold surf, a sure cure for his 'condition.'

"Nitwit! Come on out before you freeze to death!" Amanda at this moment was sure that she loved this awkward and gentle young boy. "You didn't do anything bad!"

Finally the shivering boy did emerge from the surf, once more restored to normal proportions (and less) by the cold water. More apologies were forthcoming before Amanda interrupted him.

"Be quiet! You don't need to keep saying you're sorry just because you got hard. It just means you're a normal boy, dodo!"

"Well...I..."

"Well nothing. Stop being silly. It was me who grabbed you, remember?"

"True."

"So let's get back to the others, it's lunch time."

"Okay."

Terry would from now on at look at Amanda in a different sort of light. It had felt really nice. She seemed to have liked it too and wasn't at all mad at him for what happened.

----------

Terry, Eddie and Michael had cots in the LAV's troop section for sleeping; the girls and Benny had the beds in the RV. That night after Terry was sure Michael was asleep he spoke with Eddie about what had happened that day.

"Eddie, you still awake?"

"Yeah." Eddie had a lot to talk about too.

"Me and Amanda...we sort of went for a walk down the beach today."

"So?"

"I was helping her over some rocks and we, well we sort of wound up hugging each other, really close. She kissed me too."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it was nice."

"And?"

"Well, she was holding me pretty tight and I sort of got a stiffie. Actually I completely got a stiffie. It just sort of happened! It was totally embarrassing!"

Eddie had to stifle his laughter with his hands so as not to wake Michael.

"It's not that funny!" Terry hissed.

"So did she break your ugly nose or just die laughing?"

"No. I felt really stupid though. She just giggled a little and told me not to feel bad about it, that it was just sort of a normal thing and everything."

"She likes you a lot, you know. Even I can tell that much."

"I guess I like her a lot too. It was all so really weird, but nice too."

"I like Susan a lot," Eddie finally confessed.

"Who?"

"Susan. The new girl, from the woods."

"How do you know her name?"

"She told me today. Susan Marsden is her name."

"No shit? She talked to you?"

"Yeah. Not a lot, but she's starting to sort of...remember stuff and she seems more...tame. I guess that's the right word."

"My gosh. Does she...you know...does she like you too?"

"I think so. She touched my face today and sort of smiled at me. I never make her do anything, you know that."

"Sure. I'm glad for both of you. I was sort of afraid that you might feel bad that Amanda and me like each..."

"Naw. I like Amanda a whole lot too, but not the same way as Susan. Don't worry, it's cool."

"Kissy, kissy!" Michael had heard the whole sappy conversation; he hadn't been asleep after all. Dire threats and a headlock made him promise not to say anything but didn't stop him from saying "Kissy, kissy" at every opportunity in the days to come.

----------

U.C. Davis

Andropov's grandfather had raised pigs in the Ukraine, the astronaut had by default been the one to locate and transport the protesting oinkers to the new pens. The animals seemed healthy, if a bit thin for commercial purposes. Andropov thought that they should make a good start on a new brood/herd/pig flock for the colony.

Eight days later the Russian astronaut would be the first to show flu symptoms.

----------

"I was thinking of some sort of paddle wheel thing on the back of a small rowboat. We could use ropes to anchor it in the middle of the stream." Amanda was explaining her plans for a small electrical generator. "It can just float up and down as the stream level changes during the winter rains."

"How do we build the paddle wheel, so it will be really strong?" Terry was looking at the girl's sketch with some doubts in his mind.

"These blade things can be wood, but we'll need to make the rest out of metal. Do either of you know how to weld stuff?"

Eddie and Terry just looked blankly at one another and then back at the girl.

"I guess not. Neither do I," Amanda said with disgust.

"Can't we just use screws and bolts?" Terry asked.

The project never got beyond this initial stage for right now, so much more was descending upon them.

"Hello Davis, Amanda here. Do you copy?"

This was odd, usually the astronauts called them at exactly seven in the evening. Tonight they had not.

Finally there was an answer.

"Hello, Amanda. This is Andre."

"Hello Mister LeClerc. Is everything all right there?"

By now everyone was gathered around the radio wondering what was going on.

"My dear Amanda, and Terry...Eddie. There is very bad news, the flu is here."

A knife in the heart would have been kinder for the young people.

"But...who has it?" Amanda sounded as stricken as she was; the others around her were struck dumb with shock.

"Alexi seems very ill, the General and Doctor Long are running fevers. None of the children have shown any signs of it."

"But...how?"

"Possibly the swine or the chickens held the virus, that is Doctor Long's opinion."

"Is there anything...can we help at all?"

"I fear not, dear child. Pray for us, and for yourselves. Stay safe and care for each other."

LeClerc kept contact off and on for three days, and then the flu took him too.

----------

Helen Simmons (Captain) made the next contact. Was there ever any doubt that she would be the one to do so?

"Mister Cruz died last night, he was the last."

"Are any of the kids sick?" Amanda still was the one in charge of the radio, she always would be.

"No. Just the usual colds and stuff. No one's sick with the flu."

"What are you all going to do now?"

"There will be a funeral tomorrow, for all of the astronauts. Then we'll have to eventually start harvesting the corn and stuff. There are still a lot of things we have to do before winter."

"Can we do anything to help?"

"Not really, unless you want to move here and join us."

Terry and Eddie shook their heads no as Amanda looked at them, that was the last thing they all wanted to do.

They couldn't even get there in time for the funerals.

----------

U.C. Davis

The organization along military lines was working surprisingly well. Everyone knew their jobs and what was expected of them and now that the adults were gone it was even more important to work together. But as the age-old morsel of wisdom tells us, power corrupts. At least it does eventually.

In the military there are no show of hands to decide which hill to take or what machine gun nest to attack. You do not vote for your officers. You follow orders.

This was all just fine with 'Captain' Helen Simmons. She was at the top of the pyramid and intended to stay there.

Helen was by no means a dullard; she had learned some lesson from her time as the mayor of the small community of children in Santa Cruz. A heavy hand caused too much dissent, kind words and public praise would often work better. But in even the best run of military units there is always some undercurrent of resentment among the lower ranks, it is human nature to dislike being told what to do and when to do it and with no voice in the matter.

In time human nature would start to fray the delicate fabric of the colony at Davis and those in charge would react predictably, making matters even worse.

----------

Little was accomplished by the mountain children for the next few days, everyone was still too upset about the loss of the adults to get very much done. They were now truly children alone in a world without adults, it was a frightening thing to dwell upon.

Work finally resumed on the water-powered generator project. The front wheels off of two motorcycles would provide the bearings and round framework for the paddle assembly. A good supply of angle iron would make up the rest of the framing. A small fiberglass dinghy seemed about the right size to hold the heavy and awkward looking thing. At least the generators supplied them with power tools to work with; the hacksaws were the only real blister-makers.

Figuring out the right combination of fan belts and pulleys was the hardest part. They had to spin the two alternators at a good speed without too much drag on the paddle wheel. Finally it was done after a week of skinned knuckles and some language that Amanda had the good sense to ignore.

At least they thought it was done until Eddie asked a very awkward question.

"So when it rains how do we keep it from filling up with water and sinking?"

Crap!

"We build a lightweight cover for it," Terry said with some resignation.

"A bilge pump too!" Michael added.

"A what?" Terry asked.

"My daddy's fishing boat had one. If water got in the bottom of the boat it turned on by itself until the water was all gone."

A trip to the boat harbor would be in order. In any event the device could not be properly tested until the rains began in earnest, the flow in the creek during the summer months was simply too slow and shallow.

----------

Two more orphans of the storm were collected during the boat harbor excursion. They were nine-year-old twins, a brother and his sister. Jacob and Esther Abrams had been living in one of the larger motor yachts anchored in the crowded harbor. They seemed to have been doing reasonably well; they had kept themselves fairly clean and didn't look undernourished. Both of them had shiny black hair and large brown eyes that seemed to look right through you. They were just so very tired of being lonely and had asked if they could "go home with you all." And of course they could, along with several types of bilge pumps and some hose.

Eddie approved of the two new additions to their small tribe; along with the small bundle of possessions they brought along were a small, sawed off .410 pump shotgun and a .38 revolver.

"The dogs kept bothering us." Esther explained.

"After a while they stopped coming around," Jacob added.

"Cool." Eddie did indeed like these two surprisingly tough little cookies.

----------

Mid-October

The weather was beginning to cool; soon the winter rainy season would be upon them. There was time for just one more 'vacation' at the beach; the fall is often the best time for the coast with less fog and wind. Communications with Davis became sporadic; apparently the Captain didn't have as much interest in the mountain community as the astronauts had.

"Screw 'em! Let's go to the beach." Eddie said what they were all thinking. Maybe relations would improve later, maybe not.

Their parking spot was as they had left it and the beach was at it's widest this time of year. The winter storms would as always erode the sands and rearrange them, but for now conditions were ideal. There was always a sense of carefree freedom at the beach. No chores or difficult problems to cope with.

The Abrams twins were fitting in well with the rest, smiling and happy to be with other good kids for a change. The lack of much if any attire at the beach wasn't too big of an adjustment for them at all, being brother and sister there wasn't any portion of the human anatomy in sight that they couldn't identify.

Benny almost drowned the first hour that everyone ventured into the low surf. The small boy had been playing with a surf mat when he was pulled further out than was safe for him. A wave dumped him from the mat and he immediately vanished from sight. No one even had to yell, Terry and Eddie had seen it all and dove in and headed for his location. Terry was the best swimmer of the two and reached the submerged Bennie first. Between the two of them Terry and Eddie had the coughing and gasping child up on the beach in less than a minute.

After a lot of coughing and throwing up a little sea water Bennie was just more frightened than anything. Some time with Amanda sitting and holding him close to her seemed to settle the small boy. It was a reminder to everyone about how even in the midst of innocent fun death could be just off at the edge of things, ready to pounce.

Susan was emerging further from her shell with every day. Perhaps she would never be completely 'normal,' but then who of those that had survived these times could be? Eddie was very happy just to be with her, with a girl who liked him and didn't make fun of his less than handsome appearance. In school Eddie had always been the butt of whispered comments and giggles from the girls; it had hurt him far more than he had ever let on.

Terry and Amanda managed to go off by themselves several times. It was mostly just holding one another and a little practice at kissing. There was some other touching and exploration but Terry didn't run off into the surf this time, neither did Amanda. But that was all, they seemed to know that neither one was really ready for anything more. They were still kids and they knew that that was all they were.

By unspoken agreement Terry and Eddie didn't exchange bedtime notes on the day's encounters with the opposite sex, much to Michael's disappointment.

----------

December

Christmas was mostly a very happy time, there were some moments when a mother and father would have been the best of gifts but that was not possible. Wrapped presents were exchanged after being piled under the big tree they had cut down and dragged in from the woods. A lot of 'shopping' had gone on in the previous month since price was no object. Hand-held electronic games were as always a big hit with males, no matter what their age. Jewelry and clothing were as always a good choice for the males to buy for the females. Terry also got Amanda two of the best digital cameras made; he knew that she would like this sort of nerd thing over 'girl stuff.' There was no film to develop and for as long as computer printing supplies and usable batteries were available they would have a visual record of their lives.

Christmas Eve Amanda made everyone who could, read something from the Bible. Susan surprised everyone by taking her turn and doing a good job of it; Eddie had to blow his nose and wipe his face with his sleeve when she did this.

Then they all watched "It's a Wonderful Life" on the generator powered big screen TV projector (with surround-sound).

----------

February

El Nino had made its periodic return, deluging California with far more rain than normally fell. Amanda's floating generator actually worked very well for a time, then one night of torrential downpour turned the swift flowing creek into a raging torrent that flooded its banks. The dingy and its laboriously cobbled together electrical generator were never seen again.

To the north and east the dam at Oroville was rapidly filling to its overflow spillway. The flaw deep inside the earthen dam was slowly providing the massive lake behind it with a short cut; there was already seepage at the lower face of the huge structure.

At the U.C. Davis colony, things were beginning to fray around the edges. Thirty-seven 'malcontents' had quietly driven off one night in six of the fleet of SUV's that sat parked in the motor pool area. There had been sentries of course, but that night the sentries were also in league with the malcontents. They were almost back in Santa Cruz before the sun came up and they were finally missed. All of them had once been citizens of Our Place and had finally had enough of being 'privates' in Helen Simmons' latest community.

Captain Simmons was not amused and her new rules and regulations would only increase the outflow of fed up 'troops.'

----------

"Scotts Valley has some nice places," Terry suggested to David Witherspoon. David had been in the first group to go AWOL from Davis.

"We all want to stay here in Santa Cruz, we know this place."

Terry could understand that. Home was home; you liked to be there when times were uncertain.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Can we help you all any?"

Terry, along with Eddie and Michael had been in the LAV on a scrounging expedition for something to fix the leak in the roof over the kitchen. They had met up with David and his fellow scroungers at the Home Depot store. David and his three companions had almost bolted at the sight of the LAV, then Eddie had popped his goofy head out of the gun turret and waved at them.

"We're trying to get some places fixed up down by the little museum, you know, where the big whale is."

"Sure. Just north of the boat harbor."

David nodded, "Yes, we know about fishing and there's some good places for gardens and stuff."

Terry smiled; these were his kind of kids. "We'll come by in a couple of days and bring a radio and some stuff so you can talk to us. We've raised some things in our garden, maybe we can show you..."

David had clouded up some at Terry's suggestions. "We sort of don't want to be told what to do anymore."

"I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to tell you what to do. I just thought it would be good if we could stay in touch, you know, if we needed help from each other. It's your business how you live."

David looked at the LAV and its cannon for a moment. As usual Terry and Eddie wore enough firepower to start a gun store.

"Then you wouldn't use that thing to make us...?"

"God, no!" Terry was aghast at the very idea. "We just sort of like to drive around in it! Now that the gangs are gone it's sort of just a fun way to travel."

"It's still very scary seeing it come down the street at you."

"Wanna drive it?" Eddie asked. It was all that was needed to thaw the ice between them. What boy would not want to drive such a thing?

It was a pattern that would repeat in times to come. A central community and authority for the surviving children simply did not seem to work in the long run. A loosely connected society of small independent 'villages' might be the best solution. You do not put all of your eggs in just the one basket and you do not tell those 'eggs' how to live.

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March 12th, 2004
12:34 AM

The great dam had been mortally wounded, now it was dying. The seepage finally erupted into a small fountain of muddy water, shooting out perhaps just twenty feet or so. Engineers will tell you that once an earthen dam is breached you may as well just head off to higher ground and watch the show; there is no repairing such a breach or stopping the inevitable.

What had started as a literal drip was in the space of twenty minutes a wall of water one hundred feet high. The great dam had washed away like a sand castle on a stormy beach. But even the millions of acre -feet of water behind the dam could not sustain such a flow over great distances; by the time that the wall of water reached U.C. Davis it was only four feet high.

Four feet high was plenty. The modest croplands were scoured clean of fertile soil. Equipment and long days of the children's hard work were swept away in moments. Mercifully the dam had broken in the late hours of the night; most of the Davis children were in the dorms and asleep. A hasty retreat to the second floor of the living quarters saved almost all of them from the swift waters. Only the sentries were lost, swept away to unknown graves of mud and eternal loneliness.

It was the end of the Davis colony.

Chapter Eleven

A New Start

"...flood has ruined everything. Can you hear us?"

The Davis signal was not as strong as it used to be, but it was there this evening. Amanda had only switched on the radio on a whim of the moment before going to bed. She had already talked to the other kids in Santa Cruz earlier that evening.

"I can hear you. Repeat your message!"

"Oh God! You can hear us! There's been a big flood... everything has been ruined. Some of the kids are missing, we don't have much water to drink!"

"Who is this?"

"Helen Simmons. We need help here!"

"Stand by a minute!"

Amanda suppressed her opinions of Helen Simmons and went to tell Susan to run out back and get Terry and Eddie. Other people needed to hear this.

"Shut up and get a grip!" Terry had little patience where 'Captain' Simmons was concerned. "Were there any sodas or bottled water in the food warehouse? What about the water in the toilet tanks and water heaters?"

"There are some sodas. We only passed out the sodas as rewards for good service."

"Get your kids to dig through the place, ration out the sodas and stuff until we can get something organized down here."

"It's all muddy there, everything is covered with mud!"

"I said dig for the sodas! Unless you have a better idea?"

"O...Okay. When can you get here?"

"I don't know. There's only a few of us here you know, try to get everyone organized and ready to leave."

Terry and Eddie had arrived in their winter sleepwear, Raiders sweatshirts size extra huge that came down to their knees. In moments everyone else was also crowding into the small radio room.

"Do you have any cars or trucks that you can use?"

Terry's question was as always, practical.

"No. The mud has ruined everything."

"Okay. Now listen. We'll have to get some sort of buses or something ready to come and get you. We might have to do this in some sort of relay thing, just part of you at a time. We can bring some food and water along to you to help out. How deep is the mud on the main roads there?"

"It's not really deep anywhere, it's just coated all over everything, and in everything!"

"Okay. Pass the word along to everyone that we'll be there as soon as we can. Tell them to be patient and to stay cool, we'll do our best."

"Okay. Thank you."

"One more thing."

"Yes?"

"When this is over you're not in charge of anyone, no one is. Not ever again."

Helen Simmons had no reply to that; perhaps she could see the future as well as Terry.

----------

The best they could do in the short time were two huge semi's pulling enclosed trailers. Michael mostly knew how they worked, his daddy had taught him very well. It was still an enormous undertaking for a bunch of young kids. With each passing day it was becoming harder to get vehicles running. Gummy deposits formed in the engines and fuel systems, batteries would fail to take charges and would need replacing with new ones. Tires were starting to sag and go flat. Most of what they needed was already at the truck repair business but it was a very daunting job; everything was so big and heavy.

The small village at Santa Cruz pitched in too, the older boys working alongside Terry and Eddie, one of them knew almost as much about big trucks as Michael did and would be driving one of them. No long haul semi has an automatic transmission; it would be a very interesting trip.

It was decided to have the LAV lead the small convoy, if the mud was really bad the eight-wheel drive vehicle would be the one to get through it all and maybe transport the kids in relays to the waiting trucks. A stop at a local bottling company was also planned to pick up whatever canned drinks they could find.

Of course Amanda had wanted to come along, Terry argued against it.

"We need you here, to work the radio and to..."

"Watch the little ones?" Amanda was not at all happy about this.

"Well...what should we do? Eddie and me are tired to the point of being stupid! In the morning we have to get those dumb ass trucks halfway across the damn state and then drive them back the next day!" Terry seemed close to tears, he was indeed bone tired, he had even used the F-word with his dear Amanda.

Amanda instantly felt like the worst sort of...thing. Almost in tears herself she moved to hug her 'man' close to her.

"I'm sorry. Come to bed and get some rest, it's a long day tomorrow."

Amanda guided the boy to the large bed in her room, the one she now shared with Susan. Eddie was there also, asleep and dead to the world with Susan snuggled up to his warm back. There was room for the four of them, they weren't full sized you know. All that could possibly occur was much needed rest.

Tomorrow would indeed be a long day.

----------

"When we start downhill you have to use the lower gears to keep our speed down," Michael explained to Eddie, "if you use the brakes too much they'll burn out. Don't let your speed build up going down hill either."

"Get on the CB and tell David, he may not know that." Eddie thought he had done really well just to get the semi out onto the street and moving. It was taking some readjusting to get used to the extra wide turns needed to just round a corner. It seemed to take about five gear changes just to get up to twenty-five or so.

Terry was out ahead in the LAV along with two boys from the Santa Cruz bunch. The stop at the bottling company had been fairly easy, there had been wooden pallets piled with pricey bottled water. Eddie even managed to get the propane powered forklift running and then figured out how to operate it; it was actually a very easy sort of contraption to master.

Even with hardly any cargo load the big trucks were almost too much for the boys to handle going over the Highway 17 grades. Eddie did as he was advised and just let the big diesel engine do the braking. An experienced trucker could have managed a lot better than the twenty-five miles per hour going downhill that they boys settled on, but slow is better than dead. When they finally made it to the flatlands and the freeways it was much easier; no constant gear changes, sixty miles per hour and no sweaty palms. Not surprisingly both Eddie and David had to call for a brief stop on the freeway to pee; nerves and panic has that sort of effect on you.

----------

"Slow down, the road is all muddy up ahead." Terry was on the radio; they had finally made it to the flood area. It was still another twenty miles to the Davis campus. In most places the coating of mud and debris was only a few inches thick and was already dry, other areas might have been impassable to passenger cars but the LAV and the big trucks just bulled their way through it. By now the boys were very tired and had no patience for timid driving, they just floored it past the bad spots. Most of the flood had receded or drained away by now, only low-lying areas off to the side of the raised highway were still under water.

The campus was a mess. All of the buildings had a brown coating up to about the four to six foot level. All manner of debris and junk littered the muddy landscaping. Using Amanda's map of the place, Terry led the rumbling convoy directly to the colony's 'headquarters' building.

Of course 'Captain' Simmons attempted to take control of the situation. She was surrounded with about eight of her 'sergeants.' Terry and Eddie had briefly discussed this eventuality before the trip had even started. Eddie had quietly entered the LAV as Terry got out to meet with the girl and the gathering crowd of dirty and muddy children.

"We need you to unload over by..." Helen never got past those opening words.

"Shut up. We're staying the night to rest and then the first group leaves with us in the morning. All of the youngest kids and anyone else who is sick or hurt." Terry was very tired and in no mood to listen to this little martinet.

"Now just hold it! I'm in charge of things here and..."

"No you aren't. Not anymore. That's all done with."

"I can have you put in the detention room, all of you!"

Terry didn't say anything further but instead just raised one finger in the air and twirled it, like General Hartz had once done. Then he covered his ears.

Eddie pumped five of the 25mm cannon shells into a muddy SUV that was parked off away from the crowd.

The 'Captain' was as stunned and frightened as everyone else was by the thunderous noise. Terry then walked over to the crowd of 'privates' and started picking out the largest of the boys and girls. When he had about twenty of them assembled he pointed at Helen Simmons and gave his one and only order to them.

"Take those idiots and lock them up somewhere! You all need to be able to go home now and live your own lives the way you want, not play soldier for her anymore." Terry said it loud enough for everyone to hear and it was all they needed.

The cheering lasted until the 'Captain' and her bullies were roughly shoved into the detention room.

----------

The last thing Terry and Eddie did before the morning return trip was to visit the gravesites of the astronauts. They had at least been properly buried, their graves covered with heavy stones and marked with sturdy wooden crosses that had not washed away in the flood. Both boys had tears running down their cheeks as they stood reading the names carved into the wood.

"I wonder where Mister LeClerc's Mercedes is?" Eddie finally managed to ask.

"I dunno, but I'm going to get one just like it." Terry thought that the man from France would like that.

----------

It was a full week before the last inhabitants at U.C. Davis were evacuated. Of course Helen Simmons and her clique were in the last batch and by now they weren't anything but grateful to be alive and free again. Terry had some final words with the girl before he and Eddie returned to the mountains.

"Find someplace nice to live and be happy. Stop trying to run other people's lives."

"But they need someone to lead them, to help them get..."

"Then let me put it this way," Terry gently interrupted. "If I hear that you are up to your old crap again, me and Eddie will personally hunt you down and feed you to the nearest pack of dogs."

His words finally seemed to have made an impression. The last thing any of these poor kids needed was a damned politician.

----------

"More hot water, woman!" Terry commanded as Eddie lolled beside him sipping a Coke. Both were soaking in the RV's huge bathtub. Expensive bath oils and bubble stuff in the water soothed their tired muscles; tasty snacks were close at hand. Two pretty serving wenches awaited their every command. Amanda did reach down and turn the hot water tap on for Terry; then she dumped some ice-cold water from a pitcher on his head.

So much for the returning hero crap.

Everyone said a small and private prayer of thanks before sleep took them for the night, and yes, they all slept in their proper beds.

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April

The returning Davis children were at least for the time being settled in ten small enclaves scattered around the Santa Cruz area. In time they would all decide where they wanted to live and with whom. Conditions were less than ideal to begin with but Amanda had supplied all of the groups with a CB radio and a solar panel to keep its car battery charged. They could all stay in touch and if the need arose, come to one another's aid. The 'chat' hour was every evening at seven; for some reason the girls seemed to dominate the conversations.

All of the groups were helped to get at least one vehicle in proper running condition so they could do their own scavenging and 'shopping.' As to the leadership of each group, that was up to them. They had to work out their own pecking orders.

Terry and Eddie organized a sort of informal trucking company. They brought in non-perishable food from a supermarket distribution warehouse that they had tracked down in Fremont, just north of San Jose. Canned foods are not as desirable as fresh but they will fill an empty stomach and are easy to prepare. Every group was allotted an equal share but they had to come and pick it up themselves every Friday and they had to supply someone every week to help with the loading and unloading of the two trucks. It was not to be a permanent sort of thing, just until the repatriated kids could get themselves established and organized as they saw fit. Terry for one would be very happy to stop playing relief worker.

It was all the beginnings of a new society. It wasn't very structured or organized; no one was really in charge of the whole thing.

Perhaps that was why it was working.

Chapter Twelve

Footprints

July, Independence Day A community holiday picnic had been organized (loosely) among the small 'villages' that were finally becoming self-sufficient. The beach in front of the old boardwalk and amusement area was the logical place for the celebration. Eddie would be in charge of the fireworks this night and had made at least two trips to the National Guard armory in San Jose.

"Where the hell is Benny?" Terry was about ready to put a leash on the pesky little kid who seemed to be all over the beach at once. Terry had been very protective of him ever since the small boy had nearly drowned.

"Sack race, for the little kids." Eddie pointed towards the beached cargo ship between gulps of lemonade. It was a very hot day.

"Oh." Terry wished that they were all just back on 'their' beach; his swim trunks were soggy and full of sand. He wondered if any of the other kids here today had similar thoughts about their stupid swimwear.

Apparently there had been some preparations for the holiday that Terry hadn't been informed about. He was somewhat taken off guard (panicked) when about ten of the largest boys surrounded him and the carried him bodily off to the small bandstand that overlooked the beach. Eddie must have been in on the kidnapping, he just grinned and waved goodbye. So did Amanda.

Someone blew a hand-held air horn as Terry was hustled up onto the stage and everyone on the beach gathered around to listen. David Witherspoon was doing the honors, Helen Simmons was nowhere in sight, for once. The battery-powered boom box had a microphone jack; everyone would be able to hear what was being said.

"Quiet down! David began. "I guess you all know who is standing here beside me, he's helped just about all of us at one time or another."

The crowd cheered. Terry groaned and had thoughts of bolting.

"I would like to present to you, Terry Winters. By popular acclamation, the new Mayor of Santa Cruz!"

A lot more cheering.

Terry wasn't smiling as they draped a hand made brass medallion on a purple ribbon around his neck. Stamped in the middle of the gaudy thing was the word "Mayor."

No!

Terry was silent for a moment and then very deliberately lifted the ribbon and medal over his head and then held it in one hand. By now the crowd was deathly quite, just a few whispered words of confusion. What was he doing?

Terry then gently took the microphone from David.

"What is the matter with you kids?" It was almost a shout.

Terry held up the medal as he continued.

"This means more to me than you can ever know, but you do not need a mayor...we do not need a mayor. We do need to work together and help one another when it is the right thing to do. We don't...I don't need someone telling me what to do!"

Terry was a pretty good public speaker when he really got some steam up. A few of the kids were already applauding his last words.

"I never liked history very much in school, but it did seem like that just about all of the trouble in the world was started by the people in charge of things. Not by the average person just trying to get by and live in peace, but by the people that they let lead them!"

"He's sort of worked up, isn't he?" Eddie asked Amanda.

"Yes. Isn't he wonderful!" The girl was almost floating off the sand.

"Forget about mayors and captains for now, at least until everyone is old enough to decide better what to do! Help each other when it's needed, kick some ass when that is needed to protect your selves! Live your lives and be as happy as you can be, screw all of the silly laws and rules that only keep the 'mayors' in power!"

It wasn't the Gettysburg Address but everyone who could spell their own name got the message. Even Helen Simmons gave up on any further political ambitions; lately she had developed an interest in surf fishing and gardening that would serve her far better in the times to come.

Eddie's fireworks were a big success that evening when darkness had fell. How he had figured out the mortar fired flares and star shells is something you would have to ask him. A thunderous burst of tracers from the LAV then arced out over the harbor and brought an end to this first good holiday since the bad flu came.

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The next morning the beach was a confusion of litter and small footprints in the sand. The sea would quickly erase many of the footprints and in time the wind would take the rest.

As Terry and the lady in the old move had said, tomorrow would indeed be another day.

-- Richard Allen Stotts

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