William Forstchen - The Final Day

She gestured back to the room where the students were working. “They just might crack something, and it might mean the difference between our surviving or not. Your friend the general was giving you a warning. He is going to come down on us. He wants it to be without bloodshed, but regardless, he has his orders already. But what are the orders? Not just against us but long term. He didn’t say anything about what that poor dying fellow… what was his name?”

“Quentin.”

“What that poor man said about an EMP. And your friend didn’t reply. Why?”

“I think he isn’t sure himself,” John replied, hoping that was the real reason, and not because he was already aware of some plan and going along with it.

“Then let’s find out.”

John downed the rest of the drink Ernie had poured for him, and it did go to his head. It was a welcome relief. He realized Linda was right. Something was coming, and unlike the threat of the Posse, or even Fredericks who showed his hand, before he fully struck, this time he just was not sure what the hell was about to happen next.

“And something else is worrying me, John.”

“What is it?”

“You. The general was giving you a personal warning as well. I pray for you every day, and that prayer now includes that you take heed of his warning.”

John smiled but said nothing.

“Be careful, John, very careful.”

“Of course,” he said, trying not to sound dismissive. “And okay. You win. Put them to it, and while you do, you feed and house them. Is that all right with you two?”

Linda smiled. “You see, Ernie? I knew he’d see it our way.”

“Five extra mouths to feed.” Ernie sighed. “Sure we can’t draw some rations for them, John?”

“Five, I only saw three in that room.”

“There’s two more up on the roof installing another ten-foot-wide satellite dish we salvaged yesterday from a trailer down near Old Fort.”

As John had already conceded who fed and housed the students, there was no sense in arguing about two more and he let it go.

“Those things will be damn visible on your roof,” John ventured.

“Don’t worry, we already thought of that,” Linda replied. “They’re screened with some camouflage made from bedsheets to blend in with the snow covering our roof.”

John shook his head. If anything, he was feeling a twinge of guilt over the kids like Samantha. Until the realization that there were at least some computers capable of being restored, put back online, and then turned to a useful, perhaps crucial purpose, kids like her had languished, no longer fitting in. And without doubt, more than a few of them had died in this harsh new world. If they again had purpose—perhaps a crucial purpose—then he felt at this moment their society had at least taken yet another small step out of the darkness.

“I think you Franklins have more than enough rations to go around for five extra mouths, at least until the next harvest starts to come in.”

Ernie barely cracked a smile. “Be prepared, John. If all of us had thought that way, we wouldn’t be counting every bean or ear of corn and calculating if we should throw them to a pig or eat them ourselves. Yeah, we can feed them.”

“Point taken,” was all John could say.

“Fine, then. Now, I’ve got a stew ready to ladle out. You and Maury stay. Agreed?”

John felt no guilt with accepting. Too often, someone else would offer a meal of watery soup or a stew with some fragments of squirrel or raccoon mixed in with wild onions and greens, and he always politely refused such paltry fare, not because he wasn’t hungry but because it was one extra meal that whomever he was visiting could better use with their raggedy-clad children.

The entire extended family, Franklins and their newly adopted charges, gathered around their dining room table, Ernie standing to offer grace while all joined hands. The room was actually warm in spite of the cold wintry blast swirling outside their south-facing windows, the fireplace glowing hot with heavy crackling logs stacked in. John felt a wave of nostalgia with the gathering. He often lost track now of exactly what day of the week it was. In warm weather, going to church on Sunday had become a looked-forward-to weekly event in the college’s chapel, which was still under repair from the battle back in the spring.

But with the harsh weather of the last month and Makala’s advanced state of pregnancy, the walk from their home up to Gaither Hall had been set aside. It wasn’t just the gathering around a family table for a filling meal that hit hard; it was the way everyone held hands with heads lowered, offering a prayer of thanksgiving that filled him with emotion.

Perhaps Linda and Ernie were putting on a bit of show for their guest and new lodgers, but then again, he knew they were above that. It was a continuation of old Southern traditions, of family and friends gathered together for a Sunday afternoon of sharing and thanksgiving.

And that realization hit him now as well. When was Thanksgiving? Was it next week, or was it already past? Had they lost touch with that after but two and a half years?

As Ernie ladled out each bowl in turn and passed it on, John found he could not help but watch it hungrily. The meat did not strike him as fresh—it most likely came from a freeze-dried can of emergency rations—but it was still meat, mixed in with what appeared to be real potatoes and a sprinkling of greens. What truly set his mouth to watering was not just the stew but the scent of freshly baked bread as well. Part of the modern kitchen fixtures had been pulled out long ago, with an old-fashioned kitchen woodstove set in as a replacement, with Linda leaving the table for a moment to pull a large loaf of bread out of the oven and setting it down in front of Ernie to be cut into thick slices and then passed around as well.

Stew and bread set before him, he looked down at the feast and found it hard not to fill up with emotion, wishing that Makala was here as well. He felt guilty that such a meal was before him.

“John Matherson, don’t let that get cold!”

He looked up and saw Linda gazing at him not sternly but with a glint of affection, as if reading his thoughts. “There’s more than enough to go around, and I’ll have a bowl and a slice of fresh-baked bread for you to take home to your good wife.”

He could not find the voice to reply and simply nodded, not used to such maternal gestures, especially now that Jen was gone.

He ate in silence and barely listened to the family chatter, teasing of a brother to their daughter implying she might be expecting, the grandchildren announcing that they planned to go sledding down the driveway, Ernie admonishing that there was still the wood splitting and hauling detail to see to.

As for the students now living with them, Linda, without any overt show, just quietly walked behind them with a steaming ladle and put a bit of extra stew in each of their bowls. No one else at the table complained about this second helping, and John felt a flood of emotion as Samantha looked up at Linda, whispered a thank-you, and then struggled and failed to hold back tears of gratitude for a meal unlike any she had most likely seen in years. Linda leaned over to hug her, and the girl began to cry openly.

No one spoke, and then, to help cover the girl’s embarrassment with her emotional display, one of the grandchildren insisted she go sledding with them after the meal was done.

It was the most John could recall having eaten in weeks—or was it months? Perhaps the meal the evening after the battle that had taken out Fredericks when he and those who had fought that day were each handed to eat at one sitting, at John’s insistence, an entire MRE from the stockpile they had captured. Nearly four thousand calories of food all in one sitting.