Chapter 13Plague
Interstate breakdown lane
Just south of Provo, UT
Sheldon stepped out of the coach and walked around to the front and sat on the bumper and sipped his morning coffee. The sounds of multiple metallic clanks and clicks brought his mind to the present.
A group of men and women in US Army battle dress stood arrayed around the front of the coach. "I don't have enough coffee for all of you." It was the first thought he had and it seemed to reduce the tension in those pointing rifles at him.
"That's fine, sir, because Mormons do not drink coffee."
"Either did I until I found it comforting to begin my day planning our actions while drinking a hot beverage." He sighed and cursed himself for not listening to Leslie about setting a watch in shifts. His stubbornness was going to get them all killed or worse.
"I am Dr. Sheldon Cooper and if you are here to confiscate our property and leave us along the side of the road to freeze or starve, I would much appreciate it if you just murdered us and went on about your business."
A uniformed woman walked up from behind the coach and reported that there was a Nevada National Guard truck loaded with fuel drums and a horse trailer that was locked but didn't seem to contain horses.
Leslie chose that moment to kick open the coach door and step out and slam the door with her hip. She carefully balanced her coffee cup and walked around the front of the coach. She was wearing a pink oven mitten just to break the monotony.
"Morning, Sheldon. I still say it's too cold for this damned ritual of ours." It was a ritual. They drank their morning coffee together and talked quietly about issues that confronted them and what to do about them. Leslie actually looked forward to these mornings.
Sheldon set his coffee on the bumper of the coach and chided Winkle. "Leslie, you're going to catch your death of cold if you don't start zipping up before you come out. Hold still."
There was an impatient tone in his voice as he fumbled with her zipper, reached inside her jacket and pulled out her 9mm pistol. The eight or nine grouped around them seemed to have relaxed so when Sheldon pushed Winkle behind him and pointed the pistol at the leader standing just feet away, there were cries of 'Pistol!' and he knew he was going to die.
"Now, unless you brigands wish to have an immediate change in your leadership structure, I would suggest you walk away. I will release your leader unharmed when I see the last of you walking up the road."
Penny and Bomber were watching from inside and Bomber slipped out the back with one of the SAWs and ambled up beside the coach until he was flanking the group that Sheldon was confronting.
'Nine to two…not bad odds. Winkle's a liability though. Sheldon will shield her with his body and…'
Leslie reached into her jacket and pulled an electronic device and smiled innocently up at Sheldon's back and said, quite loudly, "Now can I use my claymores, sweetie? Stupid grunts are standing right in the kill zone."
Bomber's sudden appearance rattled him more than Leslie's casual request. The patrol leader blanched and then thought, 'Who the hell are these people and what have I stumbled into?'
"I'm Captain Jacob Smith of the Army of the Republic of Deseret and I assure you that we mean you no harm. If we did, your bus would be in flames and we'd be inventorying your fuel and whatever is in your horse trailer."
"Stand down Bomber, Leslie. Les, go wake up Penny and tell her we have visitors." The claymores were a bluff. She was holding the remote control for the coach's entertainment center for some ungodly reason know only to her. Bomber's SAW was very real. Sheldon stuck the pistol in his field jacket pocket and leaned back on the bumper and calmly drank the rest of his cooling coffee. His legs were trembling and he felt faint. It had been a very close call.
The patrol leader rode with them to the 'Welcome Center' just south of Salt Lake City proper. He talked about the plague and how it had mutated, turning people into 'vessels of murderous rage'. "We lost tens of thousands to it before the cold set in. Only the Lord knows what the spring will bring."
The 'Welcome Center' was just that. They were met by a group of doctors and nurses who insisted on examining them for 'disease or infestation'. Penny objected when she and Winkle were separated from Sheldon and Bomber.
"No! We stay together or you can shove your welcome. We've been through too much together to be split up now."
Sheldon sat on a gurney while a nurse drew blood and then carefully examined him for lice or other infestations. "I assure you, madam, that my party has the highest standards of personal cleanliness."
"What's this?" A nurse untied Sheldon's field dressing and then paled when the wound was exposed. "How did you get this, Dr. Cooper?" she asked quietly.
"A crazy man tried to kill me with a scalpel. Dr. Winkle sewed me up as best she could. She's not good with blood but she did a good job, didn't she?"
Penny sat behind Sheldon on a gurney with her back to him, listening carefully to everything the nurse said. She'd heard the question and remembered that they'd never gotten around to redressing Sheldon's wound.
"I'll have one of our doctors take a look at this. It's – well, I'll get a doctor." She walked out of the draped area to find a physician and Penny hopped of her gurney and walked around, facing him, and looking at his wound.
"Oh, Shelley, it's infected!" Just then an old man in his 70s came in and pushed Penny gently aside. "Let's see what you've done to yourself, young man. My grandson says you're a doctor?"
"Who?" The old man chuckled. "He was the leader of the patrol that found you. Scared the bejesus out of him. Good lesson though. Can't take anything at face value anymore."
"Does that include a 'Welcome Center'?" Sheldon's tone was curt and demanding and brought another chuckle from the old doctor.
"If you're Mormons, we'll invite you to stay and become part of our community. If not, we'll feed you a hot meal, tend to your wounds and hurts, and then offer you a shower and send you on your way in the morning. It's the way things are now."
The four met with the Republic's 'intelligence section' and discussed what the group had found on their journey. The Republic's patrols never strayed further south than Provo.
"Do you have a map that includes Nevada?" Sheldon asked and an aide hurried away to bring her commander the requested map.
Sheldon pointed to Sibleysburg and told the intelligence officer about the cache of diesel fuel, gasoline, ammunition and trucks. "You'll find about, oh…" Sheldon staggered for a moment and then sat down, gesturing for Bomber to continue for him. The shot the doctor had given him made him sick to his stomach and dizzy.
" - Approproximately 8,000 gallons of diesel and 5,000 of gasoline. There's a connex buried near the western fence line in the motor pool. We took loose 9mm and 5.56mm rounds and, of course, the claymores that Captain Smith already knows about."
The young captain couldn't be more than 22 and he blushed when the intel officer laughed. "We heard about the ambush. Well played, Dr. Cooper."
"It was all Leslie's doing. She just can't wait to blow something up since she lost the use of her lasers." Winkle just smiled demurely at the intel officer but behind her smile was a murderous intent. No one fucked with her friends.
The intel officer was frank about their route through to Omaha. No one knew anything about what was happening to the northwest west of Green River. No refugees had come south to Salt Lake City since before Christmas.
"It's pretty barren up there. I'd suggest you laager up in Casper or a small town nearby and wait for the spring. You don't want to get caught in Nebraska in the winter. There's no one left to plow the roads and the winter storms and winds…well, you don't want to go there." He'd been an over the road truck driver as well as a national guardsman before the plague. He knew the road and weather conditions well.
Bomber noticed how none of the Mormons seemed to know about the dirty bombs that devastated so many cities like Omaha but didn't mention it. If asked, he'd offer but otherwise he'd keep his own counsel.
As they were preparing to leave, the old doctor pressed a Ziploc baggie into Penny's hands and said, "Start giving your husband one a day beginning tomorrow morning. Also," and he looked around quickly, "have your friend the diabetic take one of these instead of insulin every 3 days or so. It's a supplement but will stretch out his supply until you can find more." There were more than 100 pills of supplement in the other baggie.
They had their freshwater tank topped off and were 'escorted' out to I80. Their plans had changed somewhat based on what the intel officer had told them. It looked like they'd need to hole up someplace until the snow season passed. It wasn't Wyoming they were worried about. Once they hit the high plains, there would be little snow. It was Nebraska that frightened them.
Even with the heater on full blast, it was bitter cold in the fuel truck and they decided to pull off the interstate in Rock Springs and spend the night. Penny absolutely forbade Sheldon to take a turn in the fuel truck.
"Baby, you're sick and the medication needs time to work its magic. Freezing your ass off in some macho display is not going to help you get better. No debate, Shel. We've decided it's the way it's going to be."
Winkle, Penny and Boomer had also decided that a roving guard would start when they stopped for the night. Once the sun set, they took turns walking around the area and then finishing their shift inside the coach using the NVGs to monitor the road.
Penny had the middle shift, the 'mid-watch' and she crawled back into bed and molded herself against Sheldon's skinny frame. "Jesus, Shel, it frikkin' cold out there and it's snowing a little. So much for being in an arid and desert climate."
He whispered that if she wore clothes to bed, she wouldn't be so chilled and she whispered back that he wouldn't be able to touch her bare skin and make her happy in so many ways.
"But I know, sweetie, not tonight. Now if for some reason you wake up and can't sleep, wake me, okay. We never really talk anymore."
There was silence in the stateroom before he whispered, "Is there a problem between us, Penelope? I can't think of anything I've done – "
"No! No, ya big dork. I just miss the nights when we used to cuddle on the couch and talk about things. I miss how close we were, that's all."
"What would you like to talk about? I'm really not tired since I've done nothing at all but sit or lie around."
"Well…babies, Sheldon Cooper, babies."