Security
She had no idea this day would come with so many distractions. She found herself continuously looking toward Nicole’s house, hoping to get a reassuring glimpse of the girl.
After pulling the still submerged rifle out of the tub of water, she began drying it as well as possible. She had done the same with the pistol, which she had identified as a Colt 1911 by the engraving on the slide. Then she dumped the plastic tray of rounds onto the dry towel for Mae, whose job it was to dry each one thoroughly. Wren watched for movement again while Sloane worked.
“Hand me those cotton swabs, Mae,” Sloane said.
“Do we have to get it all?” Mae asked, frustrated with the task.
“Yes, or they’ll rust and then be useless to us. After this, we’ll have to oil them down with my cleaning kit.” Never in her life did she think she would be sitting on the bathroom floor, pulling apart and drying an AR-10 as if her and her daughters’ lives depended on it. No, her dreams began a lifetime ago, when she studied in Paris and wanted nothing more than to live there. Instead, she ended up meeting Finn, falling in love, having two beautiful daughters, and teaching French at the local high school. Though she’d never change those parts of her life, she would certainly have changed Finn’s death during the pandemic. So many of her dreams were now shattered and, regretfully, never to be.
“Mom, I’m hungry,” Mae said.
Sloane was too; though she’d stored enough food for them for three months, she was concerned about using the surplus too quickly. I’ll have to keep an eye on that. They were using so much more energy than they would in a normal day, she could see why the girls might be hungrier.
“We’ll get something in a few minutes. Let’s put these on my bed; the opened window will dry them a little more,” she said. Sloane then turned to her other daughter to question, “Anything new, Wren?”
“No Mom,” she answered.
Sloane decided they should use up some of the plastic encased crackers and peanut butter they’d rescued from the rising floodwaters the day before. She pulled out a few paper plates and smeared a few spoonfuls onto the little squares. This will have to do for now.
She glanced at her own blown out sliding glass door on the first floor. That’s got to be next. I can’t sleep without securing the door.
She brought the snacks, aboard paper plates, to both girls. Wren stood near the master bedroom window and glanced briefly at her as she placed the plate on the nightstand. Sloane again glanced toward Doug’s house. “Nothing?”
“No. It’s so hot, Mom. I wish we at least had a fan,” Wren complained.
“Yeah, that’s a problem but not a priority right now. I’ll have Mae relieve you after you eat and then you and I can cover our own door,” Sloane said.
“Okay, thanks, Mom,” Wren said.
Sloane skipped her own lunch only because she had too much to do. She raced downstairs to the garage and retrieved the extra battery for her electric drill. She knew once the charge was out, that was it. Without electricity, they were worthless. Maybe Larry or Brian has one, too. It was imperative she get her own house secure for tonight. She also knew she might be using a hammer and nails to secure the Baker and Miller homes, but that would have to do.
She looked around her own garage. What do I use to secure my own door? Before Finn’s death, he’d intended to build another shed in the backyard. For four years, unused sheets of plywood and two-by-fours lay against one end of the garage. At some point, she ceased to see the pile; it remained there, seen only by her subconscious. The flooding waters jostled the items around, and now the wood was damp but still usable for this purpose. She worked her way past her inoperative minivan and the plastic totes full of items too young for the girls but too memorable to part with. After creating a path through what seemed like her life, she located the damp wood. This will have to do.
With all her might, she hauled the first soaked wooden sheet up and over the wreckage that was now worthless to them. Once free, she tilted it on its side and went back for another. It would take two sheets to cover the doorway if she overlapped them a bit. Lord knew she didn’t have any nifty inspirational signs to use in her house; if she did, they’d be in French, with an intentional slight to Brady. Les hommes pensent moins, plus ils parlent. Should have done more thinking and less talking, Brady.
Through the opened garage door, she said, “Mae, go ahead and take over watch for your sister. Wren, come down and give me a hand.”
Over the next half hour, she and her daughter drilled screws into the perimeter of her own missing sliding glass doorway. Once done, she felt a wave of relief pass over her. Now she could lock up the house securely at night. Barring a broken window, which she would hear, their home would be safeguarded.
Back to the weapons in the sweltering heat upstairs, she liberally applied the solvent that Trent previously informed her worked best. She added more to the pistol using a clean dry sock and let it soak in while she checked on the girls, who were both watching the neighborhood with bored anticipation.
“Anything new?”
“No Mom, nothing—absolutely nothing,” Wren said flatly.
“That’s good news, my dear. That’s how we want it. We aren’t prepared yet and we’re racing to get prepared. Before long, there will be trouble and we need to be ready.”
She wiped the solvent off after she thought the job was done, and with another clean sports sock, she rubbed until the sock came away clean instead of black. She had a whole pile of blackened sports socks but had no idea if she should burn them or wash them. She supposed she’d deal with that later.
Luckily, when Trent recommended the cleaning kit, he made sure she got the one with several bore brushes of varying sizes and a set of cleaning rods. He’d told her she never knew when she might need to clean a larger gun, and as it turned out, he was right; here she was cleaning an AR-10. She stuffed the largest bore brush she had in her kit—.30 caliber—down the bore of the rifle and pulled it out. She repeated the process over and over again and then ran a clean patch down the barrel several times to ensure it was clean and unobstructed.
Without really knowing how to lightly oil this particular rifle, she relied on what Trent had taught her: to oil all the moving parts, like the bolt and trigger assembly. She looked for areas of wear and made sure to oil those well but avoided the firing pin because he said the oil would only guarantee collection of debris in that area and cause gunk to form.
She repeated the process for the pistol and cleaned up afterwards. She made sure the rounds were fully dry and then loaded both magazines with their respective ammo. Luckily, the .308 from the ammo can was for the AR-10 and the .45ACP from the soaked cardboard box belonged to the pistol. She wanted to test them out, but that would attract attention. It would have to wait.
As the day lengthened, she still had to begin the process of draining the basements and she also had to take care of one more task before she could sleep. She dreaded the act and mentally tried to focus on the best method of performing it. Once the girls were asleep that night, she intended to sneak out, remove Brady’s body from the back of Larry’s house, and haul him off into the woods to rot there—out of sight and out of mind.