The Approach at the 7thGreen

It was long past the hour when it was safe to be on the streets, but they had no choice. Joanna’s father held the key to ending the nightmare. They had to find him, so getting to Joanna’s home was their mission.

Those out in the darkness scurried along once they noticed the six of them. Not that a group of armed people out at night was unusual, but they moved with purpose, and that made people nervous. These days, unless you were militia or a gang, days were filled with milling about, just trying to survive. It was the military training Major Styles, Petty Officer Phan, and Lieutenant Brice had that made casual movement difficult. Even CJ, Joanna, and Chase had been in enough fights now to have an obvious alertness and wariness about them.

Behind them - gunshots. Turning, they saw people running through the street two blocks away, flashes of light crisscrossing the intersection.

“We need to get off the street.” Styles said.

They were surrounded by a cluster of shops. Display windows were broken out, and inside overturned display cases and garbage littering the floors.

“Too easy to spot inside,” Lt. Brice said.

Across the street was a door to a second-floor motel above a tux shop. “Over there?” Phan suggested.

“Go,” said CJ.

Chief Phan sprinted over. The door jamb had already been kicked in, so the door swung easily with a light shove from the muzzle of his rifle. As the moonlight entered the building from the opening door, it illuminated a sofa that had been stripped of any burnable wood, a metal coffee table, stairs to the second floor, and a check-in counter.

“Clear,” he said, fully opening the door to allow the others to enter.

As they did, they positioned themselves around the small lobby.

Major Styles stood in the doorway, looking down the street. A truck rounded the corner with two men, armed, in the back. A spotlight flashed ahead of the truck, making him duck back quickly as it shot past the doorway. Glancing out again, he saw four men on each side of the street. They were shining flashlights into each building as they passed and opening the doors of the buildings that had no windows.

“About a dozen.” Styles told the others, “Checking buildings.”

“Up?” Chase asked, and they all looked at the stairway.

“Some of those people up there will turn you in,” a voice came from under the stairs.

Quickly spinning their weapons around, CJ cautiously leaned to glance under the stairs. Sitting against the wall was a mom. Two small children were on her lap, sleeping.

“They will open the door and shine a light in here,” she continued, “but if you go upstairs, people will turn you in if they see you. You need to get in the supply closet.” She pointed at the door next to the check-in counter.

“And--” Styles asked, “you won't turn us in when they open the door?”

“I don't talk to them; they don't talk to me.”

Styles walked back to the door, cracked it open and looked outside. “They're half-block away. We’re out of options.”

The six of them squeezed into the small closet, held their breath, and waited. In moments they heard the noise of the door swinging open and saw a flash of light sweep under their door, then a shuffle of feet, the door swinging closed again, then silence.

In the darkness, Lt. Brice eased the door open. Still sitting with her sleeping children, the mom looked up at him with blank eyes. Exiting the closet, Joanna walked over and sat on the floor. Major Styles went back to the entrance and cracked it open. The patrol was gone, so he opened it further and stepped out. Further down the block, the patrol was passing through the next intersection.

“They're moving on,” he reported.

“Thank you,” Joanna told the mom.

“The fuss would have woken up my boys and they need their sleep,” she said.

CJ joined his wife on the floor. “I take it that happens every night?”

“Every night, and every night that bastard sees me sitting here and never offers me anything, and I know he's getting fed.” She looked down and stroked the hair on one of her sons.

Joanna spun her pack around and pulled out a silver pouch containing two strawberry pop-tarts and handed it to the mom. “It's not much.”

The woman grabbed it with one hand and Joanna’s hand with her other. For just a moment, they stared into each other's eyes. “Oh, my goodness, my boys will be thrilled. Thank you!”

CJ asked, “Why didn't you just turn us in for some food?”

The woman looked at him and tilted her head. “Frankly, that didn't occur to me.” Laughing a bit as one of her sons stirred slightly.

Then with a serious look, “Those people drafted my husband,” she said, making air-quotes with her hands for the word 'drafted', “They promised food for families that provided soldiers to the militia.” She paused and glanced down at her sons. “It never came.”

“So, your husband is with the militia?” Joanna asked.

“I don't know,” she replied, “I haven't seen Jim since he walked off with them.”

“Why are you still here?” Styles asked as he walked up to them.

She looked up. “Now, just where am I going to go? You saw what it's like out there. I got my boys, we're better off here, digging through the garbage, than we would be taking off for who-knows-where. I'd likely get raped and killed. Then my boys would be given the training center. I know the people in the area. They mostly leave me alone, and sometimes I get a little food from them.”

“What's a training center?” Jonna asked.

“Over at the college.” The mom said, “Kids that lost their parents. They're being trained to fight for the militia. Sometimes you'll see them out with the soldiers. They send them onto houses to search for food and contraband while the militia holds the people at gunpoint.” She paused and shook her head, “I don't want my boys doing that to people.”

Lt. Brice called out from the doorway, “Clear outside, Major.”

Styles tapped CJ on the shoulder, “We need to be moving.”

Joanna pulled out three mini-Milky-way squares, “Tell your boys, when they wake up, Santa Claus dropped by with gifts,” she gave the candy to the mom and held her hand for a moment, then filed out of the building and headed for the golf course.

* * * * *

To the south of the Country Club, there was a farm. Joanna remembered it as being owned by a nice elderly couple. At harvest, they would bring vegetables to the north fence and sell it to families living in Joanna’s neighborhood. Before the EMP, her dad had been data architect at an IT company and mom had been a loan officer at a bank. Compared to the families in the neighborhood, they were the middle class. Other homes were palatial, with housekeepers and gardeners. Not Joanna's family. While her house was large, it was practical, and Mom made it attractive and homey, even with her busy charity schedule. She passed on that ethic to Joanna, no pretense of what she was not. She was grounded.

The group climbed over the fence surrounding the farm and began walking through a field that had, last year, yielded a corn crop but now grew chest high weeds. The sun rising and the breeze blowing made a constantly changing landscape before them.

“I hope the old farmer and his wife made it,” Joanna said as they passed by the farmhouse.

Joanna led them through a field that exited next to the 7th green. They hacked through a hedgerow and into the backyard of a two-story colonial with a putrid green, algae filled pool and a cabana with all the windows broken out.

“Oh, my, the Stemples should fire their pool-boy.” Joanna said, trying too hard to cover the nervousness she had about what they might find at her house.

“My place was directly across the street.” She said as she walked between two houses.

CJ grabbed her pack and stopped her. “Let's go through the Stemples house first so we can take a peak across the street before we head over. Make sure it’s safe,” He suggested.

CJ didn’t want his wife entering her old home unprepared for what she might find. Going through the Stemples’ house first, seeing the condition there would be better. If the Mister and Misses were rotting corpses at the dining room table, better she sees them than her own parents.

“Good idea,” Styles said, picking up on CJ’s plan. “Best be cautious.”

The Stemples residence was trashed, completely. Every drawer and cabinet had been gone through. Every morsel of anything edible was gone. There was not a kitchen knife to be seen, beds stripped, closets bare.

“I guess the town's folk figured the good stuff was in the suburbs.” Chase said, putting an empty foil box back into a drawer and sliding it shut.

“Mrs. Stemple always did shop at the finest places.” Joanna replied, still being glib to mask her nervousness.

From the living room, they could see the Joanna's house. It was a modest, one story brick house with a driveway along the south side that led to a two-car garage. The garage door was open, and the contents scattered across the driveway. The yard, Joanna remembered as always being well manicured, was now a wild, overgrown mess of dandelions.

They all stood in silence, looking out the Stemples' broken living room window.

Joanna sighed, “Ok, let's go,” and headed toward the door with resolve.

First, they walked to the open garage door. Inside was an Acura, two of its doors wide open. Next to it was an empty spot.

“Mom's Fiat is gone.” Joanna said, as she turned and slapped her open palms on CJ's chest, “The '72 Fiat Spider Dad bought Mom for their thirtieth anniversary is gone.”

“That would still run, right?” Chase asked.

“Yeah, probably,” Lt. Brice said.

“They got out. I'm sure of it,” Joanna exclaimed as she headed into the house.

Like the Stemples, Joanna's home had been thoroughly trashed. Nothing of value remained. Joanna wandered from room to room, the rest of the team following but not really knowing what to do or say. She would pick something up from the floor, dust it off, then place it back in its proper position.

In the den, CJ found her picking small shards of glass from a family picture. He looked at the photo; it was a twelve-year-old Joanna standing between her parents. Around her neck she was wearing the same heart-shaped necklace she currently had on. Someone had drawn a circle around it. Joanna placed the picture on the bookshelf and then picked up another. This was a picture of Joanna and her mom, back-to-back, wearing floppy hats and mugging for the camera. Again, her locket had circles drawn around it. Joanna cleaned the picture and placed it on the bookshelf next to the others. She took a step back and leaned her head on CJ’s shoulder.

The others had joined them looking at the pictures on the bookshelf. All of Joanna starting at age six, with the last picture of her at eighteen, each with a circle drawn around the locket.

“My dad gave me this on my sixth birthday at our cabin,” she said, lifting it from her chest, “He built a bunker there so he could continue to do his work if,” she held out her hands and spun around, “well, if this happened.”

She picked up the picture of her at age six and pointed at the cabin in the background, “We’re going to the Ozarks, boys.”