Do you know how long it took to type ths on a kindle? Be grateful. And forgive any ypos pls.
Chapter 19 Plague
"He did what?" Penny stared at Winkle as if daring her to repeat what she'd just told her.
"He left her to the coyotes and he thinks it makes him, I don't know, unfit to be around us, the normal people. I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone but this…this is something you have to know about. You have to hold on to him, ground him, somehow make him see that what he did wasn't…"
"Wasn't a horrible thing to do? Is that it? I'd have done the same thing, Les, to get her to talk. We need to know what we're up against. Some of those ears…weren't adult-sized. They were kids' ears! I would have sat back and watched them tear her apart!"
Sheldon sat in front of the radios listening to static as he slowly moved the frequency dial through the entire spectrum. Sometimes he thought he heard a word or a voice through the static but it was probably wishful thinking on the part of his subconscious.
He wanted other people to join their group, to add their skills and perspectives to the mix and to do that he needed to find them.
Bomber brought him up a sandwich and one of the last Mountain Dews that they had. No one else would touch them but the tall physicist was burning the candle at both ends and he needed the energy.
"Any luck?" he asked, sitting down beside him. He had an idea and wanted to run it by Sheldon to see what he thought.
"My mind is playing tricks on me. Sometimes I think I hear a word or just a human voice but they never answer my transmissions."
"Shel, got a suggestion for you. I think that the mountains are playing hell with our reception and transmissions. Denver isn't that far but I think the mountains are blocking our signal. We need to get to higher ground."
Sheldon thought about it but how could they haul all this equipment up a mountain and what about power?
"We need to get our antenna higher since we can't relocate this stuff easily," said Bomber, already seeing the lights go on in the back of the physicist's eyes.
Bomber and Leslie drove into Douglas in the fuel truck to pick up the stuff he'd seen in the pharmacy. Penny quickly vetoed any thoughts Sheldon might have about going using his hip injury as the excuse.
She didn't want him to see what was left of the raiders after the coyotes got through with them. It would drive him deeper into depression so she kept him with her.
"Sheldon, they'll be okay. I want to take out those stitches and take a look at your leg, sweetheart. This is the perfect opportunity for us to get 'comfortable'. They'll be gone at least two hours so…"
Penny snipped out the last knotted stitch and tossed the dressing and materials into a plastic bag they would eventually burn in the trash barrel behind the bar. The redness was gone around the cut and it looked healthy although it still bothered her to look at it.
"Okay, baby, everything looks pretty good. I think a nap is in order, don't you?" She pushed him onto his back and pulled off his boots and then his pants. The bruise looked painful but not as swollen as before. Her own clothes were added to the pile on the floor and she scurried to get into bed and covered up.
She wasn't tired but wanted Sheldon to sleep. Penny assumed her favorite sleep position, her head on his chest and his arms around her.
He was asleep in seconds and she yawned and thought about a future full of healthy people and children.
The pharmacy looked exactly like they'd left it. No one had messed with the broken padlock they'd used to 'chain' the rear door closed. It took a few seconds to clear the small building and find what he was looking for.
"Les, find all the balloons you can and then help me muscle this tank into the back of the truck." Winkle found a case of 120 mylar balloons with various imprints on them. It tickled her warped sense of humor to think of 'Over the Hill' and 'It's a boy!' and several companions hauling the antenna wire 200 feet into the air.
Bomber's idea had been simple – if they couldn't move the equipment to the mountain, raise the antenna. If his scheme worked, they could even use the balloons to carry the antenna high above the ground when they finally got back on the road. It was simple and elegant.
Winkle disappeared and Bomber went looking for her, knowing where she'd gone. Maybe it was morbid curiosity or something else, but he found her using a metal cane from the pharmacy to push and prod at the mauled corpses in the street.
"No more ears or if there were, the coyotes ate them as appetizers. Check out the other bikes and see if there's anything on them we can use. No point in adding more shotguns to the armory and the one automatic weapon isn't even a 9mm."
She shivered and pulled the bulky parka around her, imagining Sheldon's actions that night.
"Ready, babe?" Bomber hadn't snuck up behind her but she was still startled. What if there'd been more than four? What if Bomber had been killed and not just wounded? What if he hadn't waited for Sheldom?
"Yeah. Let's see if your crazy idea flies, Bomber. God, it's frikkin' cold! I'm gonna stand in that shower for an hour…"
"Want some company?" he smirked, wrapping his arms around a woman who wouldn't have given him the time of day a year ago.
"Definitely. Maybe while you and Cooper are trying to get this thing up, I might persuade Penny to - "
Winkle had a girly laugh when she was taken unawares and it filled the street (turned coyote buffet) into something less forbidding when Bomber started tickling her. Oh, yeah…a shower buddy…
Sheldon awoke with a start, the woman's screams and pleas still echoing in his ears. Penny wiped off his sweaty chest and face with a wet towel and then dried him off. She'd listened to the sound of his steady heartbeat and knew the instant he went into the dream. She'd dressed hurriedly and then sat there, debating whether to wake him or…
"Tell me about the dream, sweetheart. I know it's about Douglas and the woman you left behind. Winkle thought I had the 'need to know'. But before you say one word, I want you to listen to my heart speak…Sheldon Cooper, I love you and it's not something that just 'happened'. And I would have left that bitch to the coyotes myself but…I would have stayed to watch. Those ears, some of them were so tiny…"
The sob caught her mid-sentence and any anger or anguish he felt about Winkle's treachery dissipated and he held Penny, his future, as tightly as their strange positions would allow and let her cry. It was what she needed.
It was what he needed – absolution.
Bomber traced the antenna wire from the apartment above the office to where it had snapped either from the weight of ice or wind, he didn't know.
'Well, that explains that. Ten feet of antenna doesn't cut it.'
He found a huge spool of antenna wire in a cabinet below the radios. Obviously the user had antenna problems in the past and was prepared for it.
Bomber was going to just wire it up when Sheldon suggested that, given the height they were intending to achieve using the helium-filled mylar 'special occasion' balloons that it would be wise to use something thicker or –
"Why don't we let Penny and Leslie braid several strands so that the antenna is thicker and less likely to break in wind or because we handle it so often?" suggested Bomber.
The four gathered around the helium tank and filled up 4 balloons, mostly white or blue since Bomber was concerned about someone (meaning the Select) seeing them. During the day they'd use something 'sky colored' and at night, the 'over the hill' black balloons.
It was an elegant solution to something no one had even considered. Sheldon kicked his mental ass for not considering it first.
'I have got to get my head back into the survival game and concentrate on the here and now, not the past.'
Easier said than done.
Bomber made first contact. He found the military rescue frequency called 'Guard' and sent out a request for contact.
"This is Deseret Station. Who are you and where are you?" No 'Hi, how are ya?' just straight to the point.
"This is one of four that met with your intel officers regarding the fuel stores in Nevada. There is a force of more than 400 raiders heading for Salt Lake City. They call themselves the – "
"The Select. Yeah. They were here. Most of them still are. The survivors are headed back the way they came."
"How many? We're on their path and may have to relocate." Bomber knew that even a few raiders could prove dangerous to the little group. They could not easily defend this place.
" We figure – " The voice stopped mid-sentence and Bomber listed to static. The damned antenna wire had parted.
It took the remainder of the afternoon to braid 5 stands of wire for the new balloon antenna. Considering the time of day, Bomber inflated several of the black balloons and then after a quick meal, he launched the antenna into the cloudy night sky.
All four huddled around the radios and Bomber had begun transmitting to the Deseret station for more than a half hour before giving up.
"Either something happened or they're not monitoring the Guard channel."
Just then another voice broke into the static. "…is Offut Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, calling any station on Guard…"
Next: Debates and Decisions