Home Coming (The Survivalist Book 10) by A. American (best business books of all time .TXT) 📗

this racket out here? I thought you guys were supposed to be working?” Jess said from the porch. She was leaning against a post and Fred was beside her. Aric looked up, “Hey, babe. You look better. Are you feeling better?”

Fred nodded, and Jess replied, “She’d feel better if she didn’t have to pee in a bucket.”

“She should he happy she has a bucket to pee in!” I shouted down from my perch on the roof.

“And having a window to throw it out!” Dalton added with a laugh.

Jess leaned out from the porch and looked up. “Who’s up there?”

“I’ll never tell!” I called back.

“Don’t make me come up there!”

“Ain’t nothing up here but work. I think I’m safe,” I shouted and leaned out where I could see her.

I had a big smile on my face and Jess rolled her eyes. “I should have known.”

“If you don’t mind,” I said, “we have work to do.”

“Then quit goofing off and get to it!”

“You talk like you’re the one that’s married now,” I said as I rubbed my chin. “When’s that going to happen anyway?”

Jess gave me the finger and disappeared. Aric looked up, “I think you pissed her off.”

“She’ll get over it. Now, hand me that bucket of blackjack.”

Dalton cut the plywood and the two-by-four for the platform. While he and Aric worked on that, Thad climbed up onto the roof. I was using a scrap piece of wood to spread the black tar on the shingles where we would screw the platform down. The drums would sit on the roof over the porch, but we still didn’t want any leaks. Dalton passed the platform up and Thad and I secured it to the roof once the tar was all in place. Eventually, we would pipe it into the house. For now, we used a garden hose and connected the drums to a hose bib on the side of the house.

“I’ll go get the water tank and we’ll get this thing filled,” Thad said. “It’s at Danny’s. I left it there with a hose running in it to fill it. Should be about full now.”

“While you do that, we’ll get the barrels secured,” I replied.

To give the barrels some support and to keep them from being blown off the roof if they got low and a wind kicked up, we used some additional two-by-fours to strap them down. I called down measurements to Dalton that he’d cut, and Aric would pass up. When I finished, there was a piece of lumber running up the outside of each barrel that was screwed into one running across the top. Just something to keep them from tipping off the roof.

When I finished, I took off my hat and wiped my forehead with a bandanna. It was hot, and it wasn’t even noon yet. “It’s hot as balls up here,” I called down.

“It ain’t just up there. It’s hot everywhere,” Dalton replied.

“And only going to get worse,” Aric added.

I looked up into the sky, then around the neighborhood. “You know, we should go swimming.”

“Smashing idea!” Dalton shouted back.

“Yeah!” Aric replied. “Let’s go to one of the springs or something.”

“Alexander isn’t that far away,” I said. “Last time we were there, there was only one person. And he’s not around anymore.”

“What happened to him?” Dalton asked. I looked down with raised eyebrows and he got the idea. “Ah,” he replied with a knowing nod.

Thad pulled up with the tanker in tow. As we were getting the hose up to the roof, we told him about the idea to go to the spring.

“When you want to do that?” He asked.

“Today!” I shouted.

Thad laughed. “You think them women are going to be ready to do something like that today? With no notice?” He laughed again and said, “You better rethink that idea.”

“He’s right,” Dalton said as he pulled the starter rope on the trash pump to push the water to the barrels.

As we were discussing how the ladies were sure to put the squash on our idea, Sarge pulled up in his Hummer. Getting out, he walked over to the porch and looked around. After a minute, he shouted, “Morgan! We need to go to town.”

“What for?”

“We need to talk to Sheffield. I have an idea to get rid of those commies once and for all.”

“What do you need me for?” I asked.

He looked up at me and shook his head. “Because I said so!” Then he looked around and asked, “Where’s your rifle?”

“At the house. I don’t need it here to put a water barrel on the roof.”

He looked around the other guys and asked, “Where the hell are your rifles?”

Dalton held up his AK. “Got mine, Top.”

Aric looked at the house and said, “Mine’s in there.”

Then he looked at Thad and asked, “What about you? You leave yours at home too?” Thad smiled and nodded slowly. The old man shook his head and started in on us. “What fucking good are they going to do you at home? When you need it, there ain’t no time to go get it! What the hell’s wrong with all of you? Is there some collective case of dumbass going on here all of a sudden?”

“Calm down,” I said. “What the hell’s wrong with you this morning? Someone piss in your coffee?”

“Calm down? You want me to calm down? Tell me this then, dickhole. What’s happened in the last couple of days to make things different? So that we don’t need to keep our rifles close?” He looked around, but no one said anything. “Did you forget what happened at the park?”

That pissed me off. “No. Some of us helped dig the grave.”

The old man pointed at me and shouted, “Did you enjoy it? Do you want to dig more?” When I didn’t answer, he continued. “If you don’t want to dig any more graves, then you assholes better get your shit wired tight! Now get your ass off that roof! We got to go to town.”

I climbed down and walked