George shook his head. “A newscaster came on to say that they were not going to report anything because the enemy could intercept. So we are here, just buckled down.”
“The second wave came this morning,” Harry said. “I heard and saw it.”
“No, Harry. That was the third wave. That was the biggest yet.”
“Jesus.” Harry’s hand reached down and stroked Tyler’s head. Tyler had fallen asleep on his lap and he was glad for that. The boy didn’t need to hear anything he didn’t understand. Harry would explain it to him later. “So you’re in the dark now.”
“Not completely,” George said. “We pick up news from Ham operators. They send updates that are coded. We haven’t broken the code completely, but we’re getting the gist of it all. Before the major new hubs went off the air, the general consensus was that this wasn’t a terror hit, but rather a joint attack and invasion by a few small countries.”
“How did they have the resources?”
“Well, think about it,” George said. “Two nukes, pre-planted. Flying bombs, the most sophisticated they used were the bio weapons. We think they blew their wad on those. If they hadn’t, they would have dropped more and not had to resort to firing on anything that moved.”
“So you guys are just hunkered down?” Harry asked.
George nodded. “We survived three airstrikes, not one hit here, by boarding up and staying in the dark. They flew right over. We’re so close to Connecticut, they probably think we were hit with the bio weapons. We have men on roof tops.. They’ll sound alarms in case an attack is coming and we’ll all get below. That’s all we can do for now.”
Harry nodded his understanding. “Because you can’t pack up and move a town.”
“One town?” George asked. “Try three. We have refugees left and right; people are coming here because word got out we’re safe.”
“For how long?”
“Don’t know.”
“Any word whatsoever on what we are doing?’
“What do you mean?” George asked. “We, as in Agabarn?”
“No, we as in the United States. Have we started retaliating? Fighting back?”
“Nothing yet. Not that we heard but only we get bits and pieces,” George said. “But I’ll tell ya, Harry, if I don’t hear anything soon, I’m gonna have to assume, that we, The United States of America… laid down our weapons and quit.”
They made it to a house one block up and two streets over. It seemed pretty safe, at least to Foster. The blinds were old and wooden and he was able to draw them closed.
There were two things that Foster didn’t tell Judith.
One was that there were the bodies of a man and woman in the house, although he was pretty certain that she could smell them. And the other thing was that he had seen Abby lying dead in the street.
Judith, led by Foster, sensed something was up and conveyed as much.
Foster stopped when he saw Abby. She was lying on the sidewalk and had been shot in the head. A pool of her own blood surrounded her head. She actually looked peaceful to Foster. He didn’t stay long to look at her. He did pause long enough to say to himself, ‘May God have mercy on your soul. You are at rest,’ before he moved on.
Judith had asked if something was wrong. Foster had said no.
He did think about Abby and what went through her mind, aside from the bullet. Abby, when last Foster had talked to her, didn’t want to live.
Foster figured that Abby finally took advantage of an opportunity to die and stayed in the street until a soldier shot her.
He’d always remember Abby. He felt bad that she had died, but a part of him was happy for her because she was reunited with the family she had lost.
The house he found had been converted into apartments and Foster took Judith to the second floor to be safe. He dragged the bodies out and down the hall. He found clothing in the other apartments for him and for Judith.
What he found for her was a house dress. It was probably something someone much older than Judith would wear, but it was better than her blood stained clothes. That and a pair of cotton stretch pants, the type his second foster mother wore all the time to Bingo. He forewarned Judith that she was not going to be a fashion statement. To which she replied, “At least I don’t have to see what I look like.”
For himself he found a pair of jogging pants and shirt.
They both had started to smell sour and he knew it. He ran a bath in the second floor apartment for her. The water was cool, but not ice cold. He was able to use the gas line and a match to boil some water. He added that to the bath.
“Towel.” He placed it in her hand and then brought her hand to the toilet next to the tub. “Soap is to your left with the shampoo. Just reach out. Call me and I can help you if you want. I promise not to look.”
“Jimmy,” she said as she grabbed his hand. “You are very kind. For this God is going to reward you.”
“Let’s just hope his reward is getting us to somewhere safe.”
“Let’s hope.”
“I’ll let you be,” Foster said. “I’m going to head right next door and take a quick shower. I won’t be long, I promise. You soak. If you need anything, call.”
Judith nodded.
