Slowly, the Suburban moved forward while pulling the heavy trailer. Pulling outside, Arthur turned toward the road and stopped, leaving enough room for Shawn to pull out.
Climbing out, Arthur let the dogs jump in the back and then ran past Shawn into the open bay door and grabbed the chains. Pulling the door closed, Arthur pulled Nicole up to his neck as he walked out the small pedestrian door. “It’s okay now,” he said softly over and over.
By the time he climbed back in the Suburban, Nicole had stopped crying and was looking up at him. “Let me have her, so I can put her back in the seat,” Vicki said.
“Nah,” Arthur replied, putting the transmission into drive. Pulling out slowly, Arthur took a different route home. Glancing back, he saw Vicki’s hair was plastered to her head. “You guys are doing an excellent job,” Arthur said, looking around the truck.
“I want our house safe,” Vicki said, holding a bottle for Lucas. “Can I hold Lucas? He doesn’t like drinking in his seat.”
“Sure, we aren’t going fast and we don’t really have to worry about cops,” Arthur said, cradling Nicole to his chest. “I know it’s for their safety, but we need quiet.”
Glancing in the rearview mirror, Arthur saw a naked Robin standing in the cargo area with the dogs. Not in the mood, Arthur just headed home.
Stopping at Jack’s, Arthur pulled near the barn and turned the Suburban off. Looking down and seeing Nicole sound asleep, Arthur climbed out to see Pat and Kirk moving to the track steer and rough ground forklift. Letting Pat take the forklift, Kirk climbed up on the track steer that had forklift bars over the bucket.
The others moved over as Arthur let the dogs out. When he turned back around, Arthur chuckled to see Shawn carry over the cooler. “Guess it’s time for some sandwiches,” Arthur laughed.
“Nah, I know how to make sandwiches,” Shawn grinned as the track steer and forklift fired up.
After unstrapping the loads, everyone gathered around as Shawn made sandwiches. Standing in the shade of the barn, Arthur watched Kirk unload the pallets of cement and drive them into the barn. It seemed Kirk was much surer of his abilities with the track steer and its ability to pivot on the spot.
Both trailers were unloaded before anyone ate a second sandwich. When Pat and Kirk walked up, they both smiled as sandwiches were held out for them. “Why aren’t we heading back today to load up the pallets we left?” Shawn asked as he made another sandwich.
“You think we made noise others could hear?” Arthur asked and then shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth.
The older kids nodded as Shawn spoke. “Hell yeah, those roll up doors alone were loud.”
“Think of it like this,” Arthur explained, pulling off his gloves and grabbing a bottle for Nicole as she started to squirm in the baby sling. Arthur would feed himself with gloves on, but never Nicole. “If someone comes, they will see stuff loaded. If they are bad they will wait around, but we won’t show back up. They can’t stay there long because there isn’t much food there and they will know others may have heard, so they will leave.”
The older kids thought about that as Shawn looked at Arthur in awe. “How long would you stay there?” he asked.
“Oh, I wouldn’t,” Arthur replied, looking down at Nicole as she drank the bottle. “I would find supplies somewhere else.”
“No, if you were bad,” Shawn blurted out and then looked at Arthur in shock. “Not that you are,” he said quickly.
Laughing, Arthur looked over at Shawn. “I know what you meant,” Arthur winked and Shawn relaxed. “I wouldn’t wait around more than a day. That building is too big to secure with only a few people. To hole up, you need someplace that’s easy to defend and that building isn’t it. Anyone with a brain knows there are bad people out there. Hell, even other bad people know there are others meaner than them and will move off.”
“What if someone is there?” Kirk asked, finishing off his sandwich and then gulping down a bottle of water.
“We kill them,” Arthur said with a shrug. “If they are there, then that means they are waiting. Now, if we see someone loading up, we move on. There’s more stuff we can gather elsewhere.”
None of the kids showed any surprise when Arthur said ‘kill’. They were adapting to this new world very fast.
Chapter Twenty One
Survival is easy compared to taking care of kids
After eating, everyone loaded up and Arthur led them to another store. This one was a smaller hardware store and they had to park along the back. Since there was only one forklift, Kirk started loading as the others pulled stuff over to empty pallets.
With those in the Suburban keeping watch, Arthur left it running since it was rather warm.
The hardware store only had half as much cement and fencing, so Kirk was done loading that rather fast. Then he started on the pallets the others were loading. No sooner than one was loaded than Kirk would scoop it up and run it to the trailers.
Feeling cocky and thinking he had the hang of this driving down, it was then that Kirk knocked over a small shelf. Thankfully, it was small and only blocked off one aisle. After that, Kirk slowed back down and had no other mishaps.
After an hour of loading, the trailers were full. Never taking the sling holding Nicole off, Arthur helped strap the loads down. When they were finished, Arthur turned to Shawn. “This time, you lead us home,” Arthur said and the color drained from Shawn’s face. “Shawn, you have to
