STEADFAST Book One: America's Last Days (The Steadfast Series 1) Read online

  "You are encouraged to use sanitation services sparingly. As you accumulate trash, do not place it in front of your home. The piling up of trash will hinder emergency personnel in the cleanup effort. It's advised that community volunteers coordinate neighborhood burn factories, to eliminate trash. Burn factories and related furnaces should have a chimney that extends a minimum of thirty feet above the ground or street level to disperse toxic particles safely.

  "In the event of the death of family members or neighbors, a quick private burial is necessary, unless an immediate cremation is possible. If cremation is not feasible, a grave in the ground should be dug at least five feet deep. Do not wrap the body in any material so that it may decompose quickly. If you need assistance in urban centers with body disposal or contaminated waste removal, hang a black flag or large dark-colored cloth outside your front door. Sanitation volunteers are asked to proceed with caution, with bio-hazard suits whenever available.

  "Water shortage requires careful rationing. Fill sealable containers only, and never drink dirty or discolored water. Boil any water you collect from a source outside of your tap water if your tap water ceases to work. During rain storms, place water containers outside to collect rain water, but only five minutes after the rain begins. The first few minutes of rain may be contaminated or toxic, depending on your locality to a neighborhood burn zone.

  "Food shortage also requires careful rationing. In rural areas, garden produce grown under the soil is recommended and safe for consumption. In urban areas, roofs and windowsills may be utilized for gardening space. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, and radishes are advised. Do not eat meat without cooking it well.

  "In cold months, or for cooking purposes, you may require a private source of heat, especially if electrical power restoration is delayed. All burning restrictions have been lifted in all counties. However, it is advisable that you burn wood and wood products only inside your private residence. Wood that is painted should not be burned unless the paint is first removed. The interior framing of your house, inside the walls, may contain wood that you can burn safely. If you do not have a stove, a fire below a window is acceptable, but it is not advisable to light fires near or inside ventilation systems. When not cooking, the fire should be extinguished to preserve fuel and decrease possible fire hazard.

  "As specialists and government agencies restore utilities and management, it is advisable that you find pastimes that do not require physical contact. Reading books aloud with a mask is acceptable in the vicinity of family members. Board and card games are discouraged, due to accidental virus transmission. Exercising indoors is encouraged.

  "Due to the threat of accidental transmission and virus carrier potentials, all family pets should be put down and buried immediately. The limiting of animals within residences will extend the availability of water and food resources, as well as diminish the threat of disease transmission.

  "Patience and understanding are necessary through this difficult time. Depending on access to your community, utilities and services should be restored within weeks rather than months. In the meantime, under all circumstances, do not make physical contact with anyone until the contagion is better identified and a vaccine can be implemented nationwide.

  "The following announcement is a pre-recorded statement in coordination with the Public Broadcasting System, in case of emergency . . ."

  *~*

  Chapter 2

  There was a rumor that the virus was gone. But Eric Radner hadn't stayed alive for the last five years by listening to rumors. His gut told him there was still danger in Adderthorn, Wyoming, whether the contagion had passed or not.

  His boots crunched on twigs and wind-blown dirt that now covered the highway pavement. He came to a stop at the end of Main Street. No vehicle had rolled on that road for five years, not since the fuel had run out.

  Looking at what was left of the town of five hundred, Eric prayed for safety. God had kept him conflict-free during every supply run so far, but trouble in those days was always near.

  The wind gusted and a door flapped on its rusty hinges. Farther up the street, two men were leaning on the porch of Adderthorn Deluxe Hotel. They looked familiar to Eric from his last run, as did the semi-automatic sidearms holstered on their belts. Maybe they noticed his own weapons—a revolver on his hip and a bolt-action hunting rifle in his hands. The difference between their pistols was that the two men probably had bullets for theirs, and Eric's was purely for show. He only had cartridges for his .223 deer rifle, taken from the ranger station years earlier.

  Walking to the opposite side of the street, he approached the General Store with his head down, but his eyes were darting. Two hound dogs chased a stray cat up the sidewalk. A child of about ten years old pedaled his bike up the middle of the street. Then, at the sight of Eric, he skidded to a stop. No doubt, everyone was trained to avoid strangers passing through. Strangers might be carrying the virus. The virus meant death, therefore, strangers meant death. The child turned his back and pedaled quickly away.

  Eric pushed open the front door of the General Store, all the while eyeing the two men on the porch across the street. Their clothes showed wear, like his own jeans and flannel shirt, but their faces were clean-shaven while Eric had grown a beard.

  "Eric Radner!" Gordon Irwin slapped his hand on the counter next to an open bow hunting magazine. It looked worn, probably from being read a hundred times. The man rubbed his bald head. "I was never a doubter, but I did wonder if you'd survived the winter."

  "I was snowed in for a couple months." They didn't shake hands. No one shook hands anymore. Touching was too dangerous, since the virus was transmitted by bodily fluids, including sweat. "You take care of the list I left with you?"

  "Sure! Right here." Gordon rummaged through a shoebox held together by duct tape. "Yep. I was never one to throw away a faithful customer's paperwork, even if I ain't seen you since last fall. Let's see here . . . Blanket? I got half of a woolly. Best I could do. Matches? Nope. Got flint, though. You want flint? The neighbor kids found a deposit last spring."

  "Sure. Give me a bullet's worth," Eric said.

  "Okay. Also got one axe head, one shovel handle . . ."

  As the man compiled the shopping list items, Eric faced the rest of the store. The shelves were empty and dusty. All that Gordon owned remained behind his counter, and it wasn't too organized, as if he removed it every night for safekeeping and reassembled it every morning for trade. Since the collapse of America five years earlier, everyone lived by the barter system.

  "You hear the latest?" Gordon pushed the merchandise toward his customer, but kept a hand on the supplies until he was paid. "Sheriff Leo shot four blacks walking into town three days ago. Infected, all of them."

  "How were they walking if they were infected?" Eric swung off his backpack and unzipped a front pouch to count cartridges. "How much?"

  "The tarp cost me, Eric. I've got to say twelve rounds for everything."

  "How am I supposed to hunt deer if you take all my bullets, Gordon?" Eric shook his head, but his frustration was only feigned. Eric's stash of .223 bullets was about the only thing he had a decent quantity of at his cabin. "And when did you guys get a sheriff?"

  "Around Christmas. Mastover's had some violence, and Cheyenne had a raid last month, a trader said."

  "So, what about these four people your sheriff shot?" Eric loaded his supplies into his pack.

  "He said they had bad skin, black skin, or something. Maybe patches of black? You know, the infected get those blotches on the skin."

  "Didn't you say they were African-American?" Eric clenched his jaw. Wyoming had a history of prejudice. "Gordon, how'd four infected people walk all the way from the next town, if they had Meridia Virus symptoms bad enough to show on their skin?"

  "Well, I never thought about it like that." He picked at a stray hair on his ear. "The sheriff's right out there—Sheriff Leo Pickford. His brother Milton, too. You can ask them. They shot them
. There's a fifth infected in the jail, still alive, they say."

  Eric contemplated criticizing Gordon's attitude, but Adderthorn wasn't his town. The town would have to live with its own shame if they were killing innocent travelers passing through. His business in town was finished. If he started back now, he could reach his mountain cabin by dark. He'd survived this long by avoiding everyone. Since the first day, hiding had been the safest response to the chaos.

  After leaving Gordon a list for his next visit, Eric exited the store and tightened the chest strap on his pack for a fast pace through the forest. Every time he ventured to the east side of the Sharrock Mountains, he chose a different route. There were no trails to his cabin, and he meant to keep it that way.

  "Hey!" one of the two men from the hotel yelled at him. Now that Eric knew to look for it, he noticed a star on the shorter brother's breast pocket. "You been here before?"

  The taller brother's hand was on the butt of his sidearm. Eric now knew that was Milton Pickford. His cheeks were pockmarked and he held a piece of wood between his teeth like a toothpick.

  "I come in every few months for supplies. Gordon knows me." Eric kept his rifle muzzle aimed at the dirt. "I live alone and I don't touch people when I see them. I'm clean."

  "You're that crazy guy that lives down Cheyenne way." Sheriff Leo Pickford wagged his finger. He had a smirk on his face, or maybe it was a scar beside his nose. "Yeah, they say you eat raw bear meat, still warm. No fire. Live like a caveman, too. You're a wild man, huh?"

  "I may or may not have eaten raw meat before." Consistent with rumors Eric had started himself in the early years, he picked at his teeth as if his gums were diseased. "Can I borrow your toothpick?"

  "You're insane!" Milton recoiled, clutching his piece of wood.

  "He's playing with you, Milt!" Leo punched his brother's shoulder, then addressed Eric. "You live however you want up in those mountains. You bring business here, that's fine. But in this town, you follow the law, understand?"

  "What's the law?" Eric wiped his finger on his jeans. The sheriff wasn't buying the act, even if it had kept some hunters from straying to the back side of the mountain.

  "No stealing. No killing. No judge. No jury. Just a sheriff."

  "You'll hear no arguments from me." Eric took a step toward the street.

  "You leaving already?" Leo asked.

  "This town's too civilized for me, Sheriff. I wouldn't want to corrupt it with my wild ways."

  "Go on, then." Leo waved him on. "One more thing. No Bibles allowed in Adderthorn, either. We don't want what happened in Mastover to happen here."

  "What happened in Mastover?"

  "Some Bible-thumpers tried to reestablish order. The locals wouldn't stand for it. They had enough of that before Pan-Day. Rounded up the Christians and killed them all." Leo was speaking, but Milton felt it necessary to draw his thumb across his throat. "Yep, didn't even waste a bullet on them. Something like twenty men and women. Burned their Bibles, too. Then they went over to Hilltower and Weighmouth, and did the same. They don't want anyone getting any more of those crazy ideas from the past."

  "Help me understand," Eric said, taking a chance that his question would betray that he was also a Christian. He was carrying a pocket Bible that very moment, bought from Gordon in the early years. "A mob killed a bunch of Christians and burned their Bibles, and you're siding with the mob?"

  "We just don't want any problems, got it? As soon as we heard about what happened in Mastover, we sent word up there so they know we'll keep the peace between us by policing ourselves. It's simple—no Bibles in Adderthorn."

  "I understand your position," Eric said, but he couldn't accept their logic. "So, did the four African-Americans have Bibles? Is that the real reason they were killed three days ago?"

  "No, they were killed because they were infected and had blotches on their skin. We did them a favor."

  "That's what Gordon said. But blotches only appear from dehydration the last few days of infection. Being that advanced, they couldn't have stood upright, let alone travel. The four of them—maybe they were just thirsty, parched. The skin can get dry-looking."

  "I said they were infected!" Sheriff Leo's smirk grew. "What are you, a doctor? The fifth one's up in the jail dying right now. I'm no murderer. I know infected when I see it!"

  Taking a deep breath, Eric looked up the street by which he yearned to retreat. His cabin was waiting for him. He had meat to smoke and a water system to perfect. The gear he'd come for was already in his pack. Adderthorn was the only town within a day's walk that could supply him occasionally. Burning bridges in the town wasn't only careless, it would be stupid.

  "Show me." Eric could tell they sensed his challenge to their authority by their stiffened posture. "Show me the infected one. Hysteria killed more people than the virus did the first year. If we have the infected still roaming around, I want to see it for myself. Look at it this way: the sooner I see the infected, the sooner I leave. You don't want a mad man walking around your town any longer than you have to, right?"

  Eric started walking towards the sheriff's building. They could've shot him in the back, and probably no one in Adderthorn would've raised an eyebrow. After all, he was the crazy man who lived off raw meat up in the mountains. But a moment later, they joined him on the sidewalk. Leo led him into his office.

  "She's back here." He shoved a chair aside and they walked past three dusty desks and an empty gun case on their way to another open door. "I checked on her last night. She was still alive."

  "It's a woman?"

  They entered a corridor with three holding cells that faced a cinder block wall. The sheriff stopped at the third cell. The steel door had a narrow window.

  Cautiously, Eric peered through the pane. Sunlight from a high window on the outer wall illuminated a motionless heap of something on the slab of cement that accounted for a bunk. Unsure of what he'd discover, Eric knocked on the door. The body inside stirred. A dark face looked up at him from under what seemed to be a winter coat.

  "Can you hear me?" Eric called. She didn't respond. "Stand up. Let me see you. Are you infected?"

  She rolled off the bunk and drew her coat around her. When she stood, he saw she was barely five feet tall. Was this a child? As she shuffled toward the door, he prepared himself for the worst. Five years earlier, he'd driven into the mountains to hide the first day multiple cities went on quarantine, so he'd never actually seen an infected person. He may have been the only person in America not to have seen one.

  Leo and Milton drew back as her face stopped a breath away from the glass. Eric wasn't all that tall himself, so he didn't need to crouch much to look into her eyes, to examine the skin of her face. Her skin was clear.

  The woman wasn't infected. Eric had to consider at that moment how he would respond. He wasn't alive because he'd been courageous during the pandemic. Instead, he'd run and hid, abandoning everyone he knew in another state to lay low in Wyoming. Now, he could be safe and walk away, or be bold and risk his own life at the hands of the irrational law enforcement. His conscience won out, and he drew his empty revolver as he turned toward the two men.

  "I may or may not shoot the two of you right now." Eric stepped away from the door. "All that depends on how quickly you open this cell door."

  Before they rallied the nerve to fight back, he jerked their sidearms from their holsters. Disarmed, Leo conceded and unlocked the woman's cell door.

  "It's your death, Mad Man."

  "I'd rather be a mad man than a murderer. I bet if we examined this woman's travel companions, we wouldn't find the virus on them, either. She's not infected; she's just old!"

  Leo opened the door and leaped back as the woman walked out, clutching her coat and a homemade pack complete with shoulder straps. She appeared to be about eighty or more. No doubt, she'd stayed alive for three days in the cell by rationing whatever she'd had in her pack.

  "Drop your keys on the floor, Leo. Both of you—into
the cell. Now!"

  But neither of them moved.

  "No way," Milton said around his toothpick, shaking his pockmarked head. "I'm not dying of the Meridia Virus in there!"

  It took thirty seconds more for Eric to open the next cell and force the two men inside.

  "I'll tell Gordon to unlock you later," Eric said to Leo through the cell door window. The sheriff's smirk had turned into a snarl. Eric set their guns on the corridor floor with the keys. "Killing healthy, innocent travelers coming through town? That's what you should really be concerned about, Leo. If Mastover's travelers keep coming up dead by your hand, that mob will come for you next."

  Eric holstered his empty revolver and took the old lady by the arm to lead her into the office area. Her legs faltered and he caught her to set her on a dusty chair.

  "How're you doing?" He knelt in front of the woman, his hand clutching hers. It was the first human contact he'd had in years. "You gonna make it?"

  "I'm a little weak." Her voice was scratchy and she had no teeth. "Hearing you talk to them, I guess you already know what those two did to my family."

  "I do, and I think they know it, too. They did it because they were scared and now they feel they have to cover it up." Reaching into his shirt pocket, Eric produced a piece of meat that looked like a gnarled stick. "Start on that. It's smoked deer." She immediately began to gum the stick. "Well, you can't stay in town. Everyone's convinced you're infected."

  "I'm not infected. I know the rules. Last year, we left Seattle since there was a fresh outbreak. We wintered in Cody, and we've been on the road for three weeks, until here."

  "Where were you headed?"

  "Somewhere south. Anywhere."

  "I see." Looking away, Eric sought God's guidance. He hadn't been a praying man for long, but God had impressed upon him a million little things over the past few years in his solitude. Why couldn't he expect God's guidance on something this big? "I'm not too interested in traveling farther south, and no offense, but you're in no condition to travel alone. I live in a cabin surrounded by trees up in the mountains. Once you get your strength back, we can go down to the highway and find safe travelers who can take you on your—"