“They ransacked your farm a few weeks ago, Vern. There’s no going back home.”
“No, girl,” he said, then coughed and held his right arm awkwardly against his chest. “I meant home to Heaven, to be with my Sarah.”
“Not yet, you crazy old coot,” Sidney reproached. “There’s still a lot of work to do here on Earth.”
“What happened?” Vern asked.
“We think you had a heart attack, Grandpa,” Katie said. “You got that trapdoor open and then collapsed.” Her hand covered her mouth and then slid upward to cover her eyes as she slid her fingers into her hair. “You were so pale…”
Vern reached out weakly for his granddaughter. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.” He searched the room quickly. “Where’s Sally?”
“She’s safe,” Sidney assured him. “We’re all safe, for now.”
“What about them Iranians? They know we’re here.” Vern gestured toward the windows. “What’s to stop them from just coming back?”
“We loaded up the bodies into their trucks and then Sally and I drove them about six or seven miles away. We even dropped the grenades on the engines like you taught us, so they can’t reuse the vehicles.”
“Good job. That might buy us a couple of days—how long’s it been?”
“It was yesterday,” Katie replied, grasping the old man’s hand in her own. “You’ve been asleep since yesterday.”
He started to sit up. “Gah!” Vern gasped. “What the hell?” He lifted the covers to peer down at his stomach.
“Carmen put in a catheter,” Sidney stated. “She said it was better than you pissing all over the bed.”
“Good Lord! That woman’s seen me naked?”
“Relax, Vern. She’s a nurse,” Sidney said, crossing her arms across her chest. “You don’t have anything she hasn’t seen a thousand times. We’re just lucky that her little medical bag she’s been assembling for the last year or so had the supplies.”
“Yeah, well she ain’t seen mine before,” he protested. “Don’t you tell me to relax.”
Sidney winked at him. “I already have to change Lincoln’s diapers. I don’t want to start changing yours too.”
That seemed to shut him up about the catheter for the time being. “You know we need to move again, right?”
She nodded. “Katie, can you go fetch Carmen, tell her that Vern’s awake?” The girl nodded and darted off after a quick peck on her grandfather’s cheek.
“I can’t believe that I just used the word ‘fetch’ in a sentence,” Sidney groaned. “You’re rubbing off on me, Old Man.”
Vern snorted. “Well, maybe one day, you’ll stop running your filthy mouth too.”
“I doubt it. There are some situations that only a curse word can help with.”
He frowned but didn’t push the matter. “Okay, so you sent Katie off in a hurry once I asked about moving. What gives?”
“Well, the heart attack and fall didn’t dull your wits.”
He tapped the side of his head. “Sharp as a tack.”
“Carmen thinks you may have a dislocated hip.”
He grunted. “Dislocated, but not broken?”
Sidney shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been about two hours, but she forced three aspirin down your throat, so—”
“That’s what that terrible taste in my mouth is.”
“Probably. You’ve got pain meds in you right now, but once those wear off, you’re gonna be in a lot of pain.”
His face remained impassive as he asked, “So, I fell from the ladder, huh?”
She nodded. “Yeah. You’re lucky that’s all that’s wrong with you.”
“Lucky? Girl, we have these crazies—the infected like those Army boys called ’em—running all over the place and a bunch of Iranians who’re really mad that we’ve been killin’ ’em. Now you’re telling me that I can’t walk, and I’m lucky?”
“Don’t you start getting all negative on me, Vern. You’re damned lucky to be alive. Hell, we didn’t even know if you were going to have brain damage or not from the heart attack. We can’t move you for a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?” he sputtered. “That’s a death sentence on all of y’all, and you know it.”
Sidney splayed her fingers on the blanket. “There’s nothing we can do, Vern. If we had another fallback location already set up, then maybe, but we’ve already moved almost twenty miles from your farm. We end up losing more supplies and more food each time we move to a new hideout. It’s only a matter of time before this running gets us all killed.”
His eyes narrowed. “Sounds like you’ve been thinking about doing something stupid.”
“Not stupid,” she countered. “A measured response—a preemptive strike to get them off our backs for a while.”
“You’re getting’ too big for your britches, girl. You’re letting that Redskins war axe stuff that you’ve been painting everywhere get into your head. You’re just a scared woman, alone against an army of evil foreigners. The only thing you can do is slow down the inevitable.”
“That’s all we need. You need time to heal. I’ll throw them off the scent for a while.”
“You mean a diversion, like somewhere to the east of town?”
She nodded noncommittally. “Yeah, something like that.”
He frowned, mimicking her earlier movements by crossing his arms. “I don’t like it.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I can, and I will!”
“No, you can’t. I’ve already got my pack ready to go. Mark wanted to go with me, but he needs to stay here to help defend you guys.”
“Don’t take my granddaughters,” Vern pleaded, suddenly losing the fire he’d shown only a few moments ago.
Sidney shook her head, wisps of hair flying wildly. “I’m not. I’m going to go alone.”
“That’s not smart at all, and you know it, girl.”
“This attack just proves how precarious our situation is here, Vern. We’ve put a hurting on the invaders, I mean, we’ve probably killed over a hundred of them, but until we really stick it
