Homecoming Read online

  One Man’s Island

  The Arizona Chronicles

  Volume 1 Issue 1

  Homecoming

  A Serial series by

  Thomas J Wolfenden

  Copyright © 2016 Thomas J Wolfenden

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities of peoples, places and events are purely coincidental.

  Other books by Thomas J Wolfenden

  One Man’s Island

  One Man’s War

  Full Moon Fishtown

  Coconut Republic

  Forward

  Dear Reader,

  When I first sat down to write One Man’s Island, I had no idea how adored some of the characters would become. From Tim to Robyn, who I originally wrote as a boy, to Ensign Johnson and Petty Officer Suplee, who began as nameless fillers and by the time I was finished writing the first draft, I’d fallen in love with both, and they were a lot of fun to write.

  This being said, and after several positive fan emails, I decided to revisit all of them in a unique way. In my novel One Man’s Island, the book is split into two parts, Part 1 & Part 2, and there is a five-year gap between these parts.

  This monthly serial series, The Arizona Chronicles, will fill in that gap, and revisit all of your old favorite characters, and also introduce some new ones.

  So, dear Readers, sit back in your favorite reading space with your favorite beverage, relax, hold on and enjoy the ride!

  ~Thomas J Wolfenden

  I

  The dust hadn’t quite settled yet and already Robyn was out of the Hum-Vee and bounding up the short flight of steps to the wide porch of the massive log cabin.

  “Goddamnit! I said wait!” Tim growled. He took his carbine, shut off the ignition to the Hum-Vee and got out, and followed Robyn, who had already tried the front door, found it locked, and was venturing down the wide covered porch, peering into every window.

  Tim scanned the place and realized this must be the sample model for the development, which was hidden from everything. It was far enough off the main road to be hidden completely behind a stand of Ponderosa Pines which was several hundred yards deep, and was only open up to a modest meadow right in front of this house. A gravel road ran up one side of the house and disappeared into the trees again. Most probably where the rest of the development was; up the road and deeper into the woods.

  Tim looked down at the heavy rubber doormat and kicked it aside, exposing a single key. Picking it up, he tried it in the deadbolt on the front door. The tumbler turned immediately, and the door swung open on squeaky hinges.

  Although Robyn had vanished around the side of the house, he could still hear her footsteps on the wooden porch, so he ventured in by himself. Out of habit, he sniffed the air, and for once in a great while, he wasn’t rewarded by the musty smell of decomposition indicating anyone had died in the house.

  Another thing he did out of habit was hit the nearest light switches. However, unlike the past few years after The Event, the lights actually came on, and it made him jump. He chided himself, remembering the brochure telling him the place was completely off the grid, total solar and wind power throughout the development.

  Walking through a huge living room and a formal dining room, he found a large kitchen and began to go through the cabinets and drawers, finding the place completely furnished with every single kitchen utensil and gadget one could think of. He opened the fridge and was rewarded by a blast of cool air, but no food at all. At least there weren’t any science projects to clean up

  “Oh, that’s where you are!” Robyn said, her voice echoing through the house. “How’d you get in?”

  Tim held up the gold colored key and pocketed it.

  “Can I go check out upstairs?” Robyn asked.

  “Yeah, I don’t think there are any dead guys.”

  “Cool!” she shouted and was gone in a flash. Tim tried a door at the side of the kitchen, and found a dark stairwell leading down to a basement. Again, trying a light switch, he flipped it, and was rewarded by cool artificial light.

  Walking down the steps, he found a large room, shelves lining the walls, and filled to the brim with copious amounts of dried and canned food, plastic tubs hermetically sealed with labels reading off different flours and grains, rice, wheat, rye, barley. Soups, stews, every condiment you could think of, salts, and other spices.

  It was loaded up with everything save for fresh meat. And there was so much of it, it would take him and Robyn years to go through everything. He laughed when he found a big section in the subterranean warehouse devoted entirely to toilet paper.

  He found another door, a heavy steel one, a big safe dial right in the middle. It was ajar, so he pushed opened the big safe-like door, and found it was an arms room, with rifle racks along two walls. A dehumidifier was suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room, capping off a perfect place to store arms and ammunition. Turning around to leave, he found the combination to the gun safe handwritten on a Post-It note stuck to the back of the door.

  Pocketing the Post-It, he retreated from the empty arms room, turned off the lights, and headed up the stairs and back through the kitchen, dining room, and living room, where he last noticed a huge flat screen TV and DVD player. He turned the TV on with the remote conveniently left next to the TV, and was rewarded by a continuous loop commercial about the survivalist development.

  “I’ll have to find someplace in town to get a bunch of DVDs” Tim said aloud. Shutting off the TV, he walked back outside and down the steps to the Hum-Vee, grabbed his cigarettes and a canteen of water, and sat back on the top porch step, lit a smoke, took a long sip of water, and waited for Robyn to come down from her exploration.

  The sun was falling in the west, so the decision was made they would stay here for the night, and make up their minds to either stay here or not in the morning, even though that was a given. This place was too good not to move into.

  Besides, it was Mid-August, and at this elevation, 6,700’ above sea level by what the IVIS indicated, winter wouldn’t be too far off. Tim could already feel the crispness in the air as the sun went below the trees.

  As he finished his Winston, Robyn bounded out of the house and plopped down next to Tim, grabbed his left arm, and put her head on his shoulder.

  “So what do you think, Pumpkin’?”

  “I love it, Daddy! I’ve never seen a place so big!”

  “I like the log construction.”

  “I’ve found my room!”

  “Oh you did, did you?” Tim teased.

  “Yeah, c’mon, I’ll show you!” Robyn stood and grabbed his hand, dragging him towards the house.

  “Hold your horses, little lady, I’m not as flexible as you anymore.”

  Robyn sighed and waited for him to stand and grabbed his hand again, pulling him through the front door, across the living room to a rough timber staircase. Never stopping, she leapt up the stairs, down a long corridor towards the front of the house, the part overhanging the porch.

  She exploded into the room at the end of the corridor, and once in the middle of the room, spread her arms out and twirled a few times.

  “What do you think of it?”

  He had to agree, the room was perfect for her. A simple double bed sat opposite a dormer window and a desk with a desktop computer set up on it, two dressers along the walls, a large bookshelf, and its own bathroom.

  “It’s set up like a student’s room,” Tim said.

  “I can set up my HAM stuff right on this desk, and if I need more room for it, I can put a folding card table next to it.”

  Much to Tim’s chagrin, they had stripped a suburban house in Utah clean of all amateur radio gear when Robyn asked about the huge array of antennas a
t the house. She’d insisted they stop, and when they found the equipment was old, homebuilt, tube-fired stuff, they cleaned the house out of every last vacuum tube, resistor, and diode.

  “All the manuals and books on the radios can go in the bookcase,” Tim added. He liked that she was so keen on learning and doubted she’d ever find anyone, but somehow he knew with this girl, nothing was impossible.

  He went to the bed and pulled aside the comforter, finding what he suspected. There were no sheets or pillow cases; it purely was a show house.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said. “It’s getting late. We’ll have supper in the camper, and test out the couch in the living room tonight. Tomorrow we’ll move in. We’ll have to find a place in town to get sheets and stuff for the beds too.”

  After supper, Robyn was ecstatic to find out the giant TV in the living room actually worked, and begged Tim to head back into Williams to find a few DVDs and some popcorn.

  “No, it’s too late. It’s already dark, and I’ve lit a fire. Let’s relax tonight and we’ll go shopping tomorrow. We’re going to have to go back into town for a bunch of stuff anyway.”

  “Oh, alright,” Robyn responded sadly, placing her M4 carbine on the end table where she’d put her pillows and blankets for the night. The couch was huge. It was “L” shaped, and filled up most of the living room in front of the massive fireplace and equally large TV, and was more than big enough for both of them to stretch out.

  Tim was stunned to see a real Remington sculpture sitting on the mantel, and figured whoever the developers for this survivalist’s Mecca was, they had money.

  “Tomorrow we’ll hit up all the stores on the main strip, get some new sheets, pillow cases, toiletry stuff, and move in. I’ve got to check out the electrical system in the compound too.”

  “Alright, Daddy.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “It means, Sar’ Major, we’ve got a busy day tomorrow, so no dicking around tonight,” Robyn stated trying not to smile.

  “So quit dicking around and get some sleep!”

  Tim placed the M3 on the floor at the foot of the couch, turned off the one lamp, and stretched out on the long, comfy couch. Robyn had already fallen asleep, and Tim chuckled a little as he settled into a comfortable position and stared at the fire he’d built.

  Winter was definitely not far away. Tim’s breath hovered in the evening air tonight while he was securing the camper, and by the looks of the way things were set up around Williams, snows got nasty. The fire hydrants had fiberglass rods five feet tall with orange flags on them, presumably to let the firefighters know where the hydrants were in deep snow. To do this all over town had to cost a fair few dollars back before The Event, and doing it meant deep snow was a common occurrence.

  Which meant they’d have to be as set as a tree squirrel by first snowfall. And that meant no dicking around, not tonight, nor tomorrow, or until the job was done.

  Tim was soon asleep, but was awakened by Robyn, whose face was inches from his in the dim light of the dying fire.

  “Dad!” she whispered. “Wake up!”

  “What?” he said, just as quiet.

  “I’m hearing a strange noise.”

  “What kind of noise?”

  “A humming whirr kinda, sorta.”

  “A what?”

  “There!” she said excitedly and Tim started to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Baby girl, that is the compressor on the refrigerator kicking on. Welcome back to the way it used to be.”

  “Oh, wow,” she said and made her way back to her part of the couch where she flopped down again. “I’ll be dipped in dogshit.”

  “There’s a lot we’re going to have to get reacquainted with, Robyn. Electricity, for one thing.”

  “I feel so stupid.”

  “Don’t. It’s an honest mistake. Neither of us has heard a running refrigerator with the exception of the tiny one in the camper, in a long, long time.”

  “The one in the camper doesn’t make any noise at all.”

  “Because it’s running on propane, quiet as a church mouse.”

  “G’nite, Dad.”

  “G’night, pumpkin,” Tim replied and was soon sound asleep again.

  ***

  Tim woke early, went to the camper and made a cup of coffee, and took another walk around the house. He was delighted to see a two car semi-attached garage, with only a breezeway roof connecting the buildings and had ten cords of cut, dried, and stacked shaggy bark juniper, exactly like the stuff set up in the fireplace last night.

  There was also a 40’ by 60’ barn behind the garage and looking inside, he found it was empty, although it had stalls for horses.

  He made his way back to the front of the house and sat back down with his coffee. The sun was up, and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful, cloudless day, but on this side of the house, facing west, it was still in shadow, and Tim could still see the thick white frost everywhere the dew had settled, and knew they’d not have much time, a month maybe, before winter settled into the high ponderosa pine forest.

  Tim took a sip of his tepid coffee, watching two chipmunks scurrying around the base of a cottonwood tree, and was amused by their playful antics.

  As he finished his coffee, a sleepy-eyed Robyn came out onto the porch and shivered.

  “Man, its cold here!”

  “All elevation, sweetheart, it’s all elevation.”

  “What? Eh, never mind. I need coffee.”

  “Coffee’s brewed in the camper,” Tim said, and as she passed, handed her his cup to be refilled.

  She came back out of the camper moments later, screen door slamming loudly behind her. She handed Tim his steaming cup, and sat down next to him. Her eyes were still hazy, and she sipped her cup, pulling her knees to her chin and shivering.

  “Does it ever warm up here?” she asked after a drawn out silence.

  “I do believe you’ve forgotten what the winters in West Virginia are like. This is brisk, young lady.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “I do believe the winters here will be bitterly cold at night, and warm up to almost tolerable during the day.”

  “What’s summer like?”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure, I’m betting on warm, not hot during the day, and cool at night. Mostly.”

  “Mostly, eh?”

  “Eh? What, you go Canadian on me?”

  “No! I didn’t go Canadian!”

  “Good, because you’re not that fucking polite,” he said jokingly.

  “So what’s the plan today, Sar’ Major?”

  “Mundane shit. Find some sheets, pillow cases, comforters, blankets, that kind of stuff.”

  “Is this home?”

  “Yeah, I think we’ll stay here for a spell.”

  “Good. I like it.”

  After they finished their coffee, Tim drove the camper around to the side of the house and parked it, unhitching the Hum-Vee. They took their rifles, got into the Hum-Vee, and headed into the town of Williams.

  Driving through town, they saw everything was covered in a layer of dust and seemed completely undisturbed. Weeds were sprouting from every crack and crevice of the roads and sidewalks, and wind had blown piles of debris up into every nook and cranny of town.

  The street was lined with dust covered cars sitting on dry-rotted and deflating tires. Tim double parked in front of a storefront with a sign reading “Linens and Thangs.”

  Not surprisingly, the glass door was locked when he tried it.

  “Are you gonna break the glass? Robyn asked.

  “No, we’ve done too much of it in the past. If this is going to be home, we’ll be a little bit more tidy.”

  Going back to the Hum-Vee, he rummaged around in a rucksack filled with tools and things they’d gathered along the way. He fished out a black leather case looking about the size of a smartphone and went back to the store’s front door.

  Openin
g it up while squatting down in front of the deadbolt lock, he selected a few small tools and fitted them into the narrow keyhole.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a lock-pick set.”

  In less than two minutes, they both heard the satisfying click of the deadbolt opening. Standing and putting away the tiny kit in his back pocket, Tim grinned. “There, easy enough,” he said, offering the door to Robyn.

  “Some cop you were. Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “None of your business, little lady. Go on, let’s get ourselves some nice sheets.”

  Robyn pulled open the door, and it swung wide silently. When they stepped into the store, they both could smell a dry mustiness in the thick, dusty air, cobwebs covering everything and hanging from the shelves and ceiling.

  Even though it was daylight, as they delved deeper into the store, it got darker. Tim pulled out a flashlight and started going from aisle to aisle until they found the sheets. He wasn’t sure about the sizes of the beds at the house, so got several sets of all sizes, making sure to get the exceptionally nice, 1,000 count Egyptian cotton ones.

  Robyn had found the towels, and grabbed a bunch of those also, and soon they were out of the store and stowing their loot in the back of the Hum-Vee. As they were getting into the vehicle, Robyn readied her M4, and spun around, looking back up the street.

  “What is it?” Tim asked, readying his carbine also.

  “I dunno. I swear I feel like someone is watching us,” she whispered.

  “It’s a ghost town. I feel exactly the same everywhere we go.”

  “It’s like the ghosts of all those people who died that night…”

  “Are watching us, yeah, I know,” Tim said, finishing her statement for her, “C’mon, let’s see what else we can find.”

  They drove on, and soon found a Safeway grocery store near the end of town. The automatic doors were stuck open, and they both could smell all sorts of different animal smells as they entered the deserted shop.

  Soon they discovered feral animals had pretty much taken over the place, with every aisle they went down, packages and bags of chips, rice, pastas, anything in a soft container was long gone, consumed by rats, mice, raccoons, possums, and other wild animals. Something had even nested in an open till of a cash register.