Chapter 26 Plague
Sheldon sat looking at his laptop map program but not really seeing it. He should have downloaded agronomy and agriculture programs before the World Wide Web disappeared. Maybe…
"Penny, you come from a small town outside a much larger one. Did your town have a library?"
"Um…yeah but it was serviced by a bookmobile. Why?" It was not a question she'd ever expected him to ask.
"We've probably driven by 90% of the information we'll need to begin rebuilding our society, growing food and servicing power and mechanical systems we might find when we select our new starting point. I – I am such an idiot thinking that this," he pointed to the closed laptop on the seat between them, "would be all we'd need."
Sensing a colossal Cooper-Funk just over the horizon, she slowed and then stopped the army fuel truck, left it in gear and turned it off and got out, motioning impatiently for Sheldon to follow her.
She keyed the CB radio that each of them now carried (thanks to Bomber's pilfering of a CB display at the truckstop) and announced "Meeting in the bus. We have a problem and an opportunity."
She realized that she and Sheldon were halves of the same whole. He did the thinking and she explained what he meant in terms that everyone could understand – once she understood herself.
But this – startling realization – made her appreciate her future husband and father to their children even more. None of them were really thinking past the next day, the next meal, the next 'wide spot in the road' town where they might find additional food, weapons and fuel.
But he was.
They secretly called the two scientists from CalTech the 'brain trust' because they often came in from their outdoor early morning coffee sessions with new ideas or worries.
With 8 of them piled into the coach it seemed crowded but intimate. Penny stood at the front of the salon and 'introduced' the subject.
"We've been really stupid. We've been too concerned about day to day survival that we've lost sight of the purpose of all this…to reestablish our lives and some sort of society when we reach safety."
She had their attention because each of them knew that while she was speaking, they were his words, rephrased into English, they were hearing.
"From now on, we stop at every town that's large enough to have," and she hesitated, worried that they'd laugh at her, at him really, but continued on, "a library."
Winkle got it first. Or thought she did. Of course, so much of civilization's literature and history would end up in rotting piles of collapsed buildings given enough time.
Penny watched their faces as first Winkle and then, surprisingly, Tasha Myers, seemed to be lost in thought, not the glazed-over look she herself got when the boys had gone all science-y on her…
Penny's dad, the practical farmer, spoke up, almost embarrassed to do so.
"There's a lot of stuff we know we don't know about and we can find a lot of what we'll need to rebuild and maintain what we need, but what about all the stuff we don't know we don't know? We'll need to add a big trailer to our convoy to store books and tapes and CDs for the future."
"Madison. We should head up to Madison, Wisconsin. There's a creditable university there and it'll have a good library but we need to start thinking beyond food and shelter and fuel," said Sheldon.
"We need books on dentistry, medicine, basic electricity and water and sewage and – there's so much we'll need and," here he paused and looked down at his feet, "we'll need more people to add to our group if for no other reason than adding their day to day skills – like driving."
They laughed at the look of sad embarrassment on his face. He couldn't drive.
"CLUTCH, Sheldon…use the damned clutch before you shift. I swear to God that you got a 'I can't drive' gene. Look, sweetheart, it's simple, add gas, let the clutch out s-l-o-w-l-y until you feel the 'chatter' on the pedal and then let the clutch out fully and get ready to shift again when the RPMs are in the right zone."
Sheldon was becoming frustrated and angry (with himself) at his inability to master such a simple task and Penny's loud prodding and exclamations were making him nervous and unable to coordinate his feet, hand on the shifting lever, eyes on the tachometer and the road.
"Forget it. This is beyond me. I can handle one of the vehicles with an automatic transmission but this…this is beyond me." He turned off the engine (which had stalled anyway) opened the fuel truck door and slid down onto the road and promptly fell on his ass.
The convoy was queued up on the road and Winkle was driving the bus and was rather enjoying herself. She smiled when the tarp-covered truck lurched forward and stopped and seemed to repeat itself over and over until she saw Sheldon hop out of the cab and end up on his ass in the snow.
It was the funniest thing she'd seen since the Choker.
"Uh oh, that doesn't look good." Bomber had limped up behind her and watched Sheldon's fall. His feet were swollen and he was trying to cut back on his insulin, using the pills and morning tablespoon of cinnamon as substitutes but it wasn't as effective and he was showing classic signs of diabetes.
"Poor Penny. Cooper isn't pleasant when frustrated and this must be driving him right up the wall. They'll end up arguing about it and then 'look out', he'll be impossible to be around."
They watched as Penny walked around the back of the truck and threw Leslie the finger and then went to help her boyfriend get back up on his feet and back 'on the horse'.
"Uh oh," said Winkle. Sheldon had batted Penny's hand away as she offered to help him get back on his feet. He got himself up, dusted snow off his butt and then stomped back towards the coach, a dark look on his face.
Sheldon pounded on the coach door and Winkle pulled the lever to open it and he stomped snow off his boots and climbed up into it.
"You go sit with Penny and let's get this show on the road. We're wasting valuable time on a lost cause. I'll drive the coach. Penny probably needs someone to rant at and Leslie, you just got volunteered."
Sheldon cautiously drove the coach on the snowy highway and kept 4 'coach lengths' distance between the army fuel truck and the big bus. Bomber was tired and crawled back into bed and Tasha sat up front beside Sheldon and kept him company.
His hands were aching and cramping because he had a nervous death grip on the steering wheel and his answers to Tasha's polite questions were short and terse. He really didn't want any distractions but he didn't want to be rude either.
"Dr. Cooper, do you have any idea of our ultimate destination yet? I hope it's safe for Penny. She's been so good on this trip. She normally hates being cooped up and when Mark and I would go on vacation, she fussed at being in the car so long."
"Mark?" Sheldon's curiosity was piqued. The man in the picture at the church hadn't seemed like the religious zealot type and he wanted to know more about her family and what they did.
He was quite adept at multitasking and her voice was pleasant and he listened intently, relaxing a bit from his rigid pose and grip on the wheel. He was getting in the 'zone' and almost comfortable with driving the luxurious RV.
He went on 'full alert' when he saw the brake lights on the army truck begin to flash as Penny slowed the big truck to a halt.
"Sheldon? The highway's blocked and I don't want to go off-road to change lanes." Her voice over the CB radio sounded stressed and he felt guilty knowing that somehow he was to blame for it.
"Tasha, please remain in the vehicle with Blossom and Bomber. He's not feeling well and I don't want him out in this weather, okay? Perhaps you could heat up some soup for Penny and Winkle? And for yourself and Blossom, of course."
An 18-wheeler had jackknifed on the road and from the looks of the 10 or so cars haphazardly abandoned, passage around the wreck by driving onto the verge or median must have been impossible.
Wyatt walked back after checking out the situation.
"The driver left the engine running so the tanks are dry. The battery's still good but…I think if we can get it started, we can get it out of there. The winch on the fuel truck's too small to be much use. Let's pour a few gallons of diesel into the tanks and see if we can gentle it out of there."
It took 3 hours and it was nearly dark by the time they'd moved the big 18-wheeler a hundred yards down the interstate. It was simple to use the army fuel truck to push the abandoned cars out of the way after they'd searched them and removed anything of value to the group.
He watched as Penny went through one car in particular, spending a great deal of time in it. She was sitting in the backseat fiddling around with something and someone called his name and he lost track of her. She'd been avoiding him since he quit trying to drive the fuel truck.
There were children's books in one car and Sheldon gave them to Blossom when they all got together in the coach.
"Can you say 'thank you, Sheldon' for me, Penny Blossom? I'd really like to hear your voice. I'll bet it's soft and sweet…not like Leslie's or Penny's."
"Th – th…" She hugged him around the waist and then scooped up her new books and sat at the galley table. It was progress and Sheldon was feeling quite pleased with himself until Penny arrived.
"Moon Pie – we need to talk."
"After we eat and clean up, okay? Unless it's that important. If you want, we can go sit in your folks RV while they eat here."
"No. It can wait. It's not like I have a choice in anything, right?" She turned from him but he grabbed her by the wrist and almost dragged her back to their bedroom. If he could have, he'd have slammed the folding fabric door hard.
Winkle looked over at Tasha and said, "Let's go ahead and eat. I don't those two will have much of an appetite. Poor Sheldon. He's such a dumbass where women are concerned."
"Oh, I think he's sweet. He's good with Penny – my Penny, I mean," said Tasha with a slight smile.
"He's also taken. Don't get any ideas, Tasha. This is just a bump in the road for them. She's pissed that they argued about his driving and walked away in the middle of it. He does that. He hates confrontation of any kind and if there are raised voices – he bolts."
"He doesn't seem to be the kind of guy who'd be with a girl like Penny. I mean – "
"Well, he is and it's real for both of them. They were close before this shit storm, really good friends but he was so wrapped up in his research and she was with someone else. They fit together perfectly despite being pieces from different puzzles."
Thirty seconds later, Sheldon threw the divider back and stormed up the aisle to the front of the coach, grabbing his parka and shotgun as he went. He kicked open the coach door, got out and then slammed it shut.
"Okay, so maybe the pieces still need a little sanding off the rough places but – "
Penny came storming up the aisle, her eyes red and puffy, and she grabbed her cold weather gear, her MP-5 and Sheldon's gloves and CB radio.
"The idiot forgot his gloves and radio, Les. I'll be right back. Keep an eye on things, will ya?" She levered the door open and then hopped out, closing the door like a 'normal' person would.
The people still alive in China could have heard her once she got outside.
"Goddamn you, Sheldon Cooper! You can run but you can't hide. You stupid idiot! Where are you? What about your precious Rule #1, huh?"
Sheldon made a beeline for 18-wheeler cab. He checked the area around him but with the flurries he really couldn't see more than a few feet in any direction. He opened the door and slipped into the seat and took out a flashlight and shined it around and then sat back to sulk.
She'd yelled at him. Called him stupid, dense and a whole plethora of things that were hardly new to him. He'd heard them from his schoolmates, his brother and his father even when he was sober.
He didn't need to hear it from her.
Sheldon rolled the window partway down. It smelled in the cab. The previous owner had smoked cigars and apparently little concern for cleanliness judging by the fast food wrappers that littered the floor of the passenger side.
He heard the whine of the engines before he saw the glow from the headlamps.
Snowmobiles!
Penny radioed the alert to the others, hoping they hadn't turned off their radios to conserve the batteries. She froze, unable to decide whether to find her boyfriend or run back to the coach and get ready for guests.
"Oh, Sheldon…" She spun around and ran back to the coach. They had little time to prepare for an attack.