Before the Strandline- Rules

  Before the Strandline:

  Rules

  Linda L. Zern

  LinWood House Publishing

  Copyright © 2019 by Linda L. Zern

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  LinWood House Publishing

  www.zippityzerns.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2019 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Before the Strandline: “Rules”/Linda L. Zern -- 1st ed.

  For those that walk the strandline looking for treasure among the trash.

  For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to battle?

  ―1 Corinthians 14:8

  Before the Strandline

  Rules

  B rittany Summerlin attacked the hunk of wood in her hand, reducing it to a pointy stake with a pearl-handled pocketknife, sharp enough to kill a vampire, the knife and the stake. Smiling, she held them up and admired them, then kicked at the pile of wood shavings at her feet. Would not do to leave evidence of illegal wood whittling this close to the Summerlin family tent. Against the rules like everything else around here.

  Against PFC rules, Palatka FEMA Camp rules. Guns, alcohol, knives of any kind, and sharp pointy vampire stakes were out. Brittany spit in the dirt. If she wanted to sharpen a stick into a spear, she was going to do it, rules or no rules.

  “Shitty Red Cross guards, them and their damned rules.” She’d almost said Cross-Cross guards like the little kids. God. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to start sounding like one of those chattering elementary school kids. “Shitty, damned rules.”

  Cussing. It felt good even if it would make Ella mad. Darby just got all frowny and sad when she heard her big sister swear, but it made Brittany feel just fine. She swiped at a drip of sweat rolling to the end of her nose. Since Mom and Dad had left the three of them behind in this FEMA pit, cussing was the least of it.

  And there were other things she’d started doing besides vampire stakes—like the games. She’d gotten pretty good at playing games. Oh, okay, Mom probably would call it gambling, but hadn’t she won this fabulous pocket knife from that idiot Curtis Strum? Cussing and gambling and illegal stick sharpening . . . She laughed, but it sounded more like a grunt.

  Brittany snapped the blade closed, wiped off the dirt smeared across the pearl inlay of the knife onto her pants, and slipped it into the key pocket of her exercise pants. The knife rested against her hipbone like a delightful secret. Thanks, Curtis Strum.

  Not to brag, but she was better than any of the other kids that roamed the camp when it came to chucking pennies over the nine-foot-high fence, into the seat of an abandoned baby stroller. It got tougher and tougher as the seat filled up with the useless coins. As games went, it was pretty simple. Flip change over the fence into the baby buggy seat without it bouncing out. Do it—you won.

  And hadn’t she beat him fair and square at Over-the-Fence? Damn right. Brittany curled her fingers around the pleasant length of spear in her hand. Damn right. Over-the-Fence wasn’t much of a game, but since they’d stopped the softball teams from playing because they needed the ball field for more refugees, it was about the only chance Brittany had to throw stuff at stuff. She was a fastpitch softball pitcher, for cripes’ sake.

  Walking next to the chain-link that ran the perimeter of the camp, she dragged the spear in her hand along the links. The bump, bump, bump rhythm made her hand vibrate and sent shivers into her shoulder. At least it was something to do.

  Maybe someone would have another game of Over-the-Fence going? She could use a nice tooled leather belt to hang her knife on. Maddie J. had one that would work just fine. She patted the knife hidden under her shirt.

  Sure. Maybe. She sped up to the game spot. Catching sight of the abandoned baby-stroller, tucked into a clump of palmetto scrub, Brittany’s heart skipped a beat. It was a good fifteen feet outside the fence line, but there was someone there, standing next to the mildewed green-and-blue-striped canvas stroller—someone on the outside of the wire. Had to be another starving refugee because no one inside the camp ever took the chance to be out there—beyond the safety of the fence.

  “Not another one.” Nobody answered Brittany, but her voice was enough to catch the attention of the person.

  Brittany grabbed at the links of the fence. “Hey, wait a minute. You’re no stranger. I know you. You’re Glenda. Glenda . . . ummm . . . something or other.” Brittany propped her spear against the links and pressed her face against the wire. “What are you doing out there?”

  Glenda held a fistful of pennies. Her pockets sagged. She was lowering the level of change in the baby stroller and making it easier to balance a penny on top of the heap.

  “Are you cheating? You are.”

  Glenda, her face a rash of pimples, started to shake her head. The camp had run out of soap two weeks ago. A sheen of sweat gleamed on Glenda’s oily cheeks.

  “Oh, no you don’t. Don’t you dare deny it. You were.” Brittany gripped the fence; a piece of chain-link pricked her palm. “The game’s just getting good. Why would you make it—?” And then it dawned on her. “Hey! How did you get out there in the first place?”

  With a sly half-smile, Glenda dropped her handful of copper pennies into her back pocket. “Don’t tell, and I’ll show you.”

  This was something new—a way out, through the fence.

  “You’d better,” Brittany said. Glenda pointed to a bump-out in the chain-link, where a generator had once sat. But that was gone too. Soap gone. Food iffy. Power out. Dogs long gone. Welcome to Camp Damn-It-All-to-Hell.

  Glenda disappeared into the scrub brush that had started to tower and topple and creep over the fire line outside the perimeter. Brittany caught glimpses of Glenda’s red T-shirt as she slipped through the overgrowth. The only time she stopped trailing the kid outside the fence was when she heard two Red Cross Guards arguing with another man about food—something about hoarding or hiding it—the worst crime of all.

  Abandoning the fence, Brittany snaked her way through the lines and lines of drying laundry tied from the tent corners to the wire of the fence. It was against the rules to hang wet clothes out like that, but everyone did it. Besides, it made for good cover when you had to get around without being noticed.

  At the bump-out Glenda walked straight up to the corner of the fence, peeled back the side of the wire, and wiggled through the gap.

  “How long’s that been there?” Brittany grabbed the younger girl by the elbow. Glenda shrugged and jerked free.

  “What are you going to do with all of that crap?” Brittany said, pointing to the girl’s pockets.

  “Sell them back to the kids who play that game. You want to buy in?”

  Ha. That was a laugh. There was still half a piggy-bank full of loose change back in their tent. “Nope. But I do like knowing about this way out of the wire. “Thanks.”

  Another shrug and the girl flushed a bright, blotchy red. “My brother figured it out. The Cross-Cross Guards hardly check the latrines anymore, and they sure don’t worry what us kids are up to. They’re all weirded out and upset and crap.”

  “Yeah, probably be glad if some of us wandered away and there were fewer mouths to feed.” Brittany ran her hand down the length of the steel pole. Someone had snipped the tie-wires at the corn
er. If a person wiggled hard, they’d be able to squish through. It was an out. Smart.

  People were going to need to be able to get to fuel or to hunt when the MREs were finally finished. Ella needed to know about this and Darby too. It might pay to have an escape hatch. No. Why wait? It might be time to go after Mom and Dad and find Ryan and be together again.

  “Stay put,” her father had said. “We’ve heard a rumor that Ryan’s Junior Militia unit is near, keeping our camp safe, fighting a gang of bikers for control of the area.” His mouth had gone all thin and grim when he talked about Ryan fighting, but Mom had a sparkle in her eyes for the first time in a long time.

  Army trucks rolled by the camp once in a while, shaking the ground, reminding the whole family of that first time when the army had come for Ryan and Ella and . . .

  Dad had petitioned the Red Cross to be able to leave to search for their missing brother. Mom too. But that had been three weeks ago . . . and nothing . . . no word . . . nothing.

  She knew what it was to be outside the fence, lost to her family, yanked out of her life. Hadn’t she and Ella been out there too? After they’d been taken by the Junior Militia, right off the street in front of their house, swept up into the mayhem. The rumbling trucks gave her a stomach ache.

  But Ella, El, she’d managed it, gotten them out of the unit that had sucked them all in. Mom and Dad had found them, starving on the side of the road near Bunnell. It was Dad. He’d known how to track them—once a Marine, always a Marine.

  Brittany could still remember the total and complete sweetness of hearing him say her name when they’d found her and Ella. Deep down in her gut, she’d known relief, sweet and complete relief that she and her sister had been found. Mom had cried and Darby too.

  But then . . . Dad had asked what they knew about Ryan, and relief had fled, her guts filling with the rotten worms of worry or something halfway between vomit and poison. Ryan, their younger brother, had been there helping them get out, get free, but he wouldn’t run away with them, something about covering their backs, so they could get away. And then he’d marched away into the fog of war, which was another way of saying “into nothing.”

  And now Mom and Dad had marched away . . . into the great nothing that the world had become beyond the barbed wire fence of their home away from home—PFC.

  Stupid FEMA camp and their rules.

  Brittany squatted and pushed through the loose wire. “Glenda, come back out here. I’ve got extra pockets. I’ll help.”

  The girl’s eyes narrowed as she thought over the offer of help. Brittany waited. It felt itchy being outside the wire, but that was in her head. She’d been out before . . . but those memories brought the worry worms back. She shook them off. Tipping her head back, Brittany caught the drift of an eagle overhead. How different does the world look now that the lights were off and stayed off? Did the eagle notice? Probably not.

  A mockingbird screamed at the bigger bird, protecting something, its babies probably, its nest. She’d seen it before. The eagles were so big, but the little birds could be fierce, so angry. Sometimes they won the day. Sometimes.

  “Well, help then.” Glenda pushed her way through the gap, her hand full of coins, jerked her head in the direction of the rest of the loot.

  Brittany joined Glenda at the side of the baby stroller. She filled her pockets with grimy pennies.

  In the swelter of their family tent, Ella’s frown deepened. Brittany ignored her big sister and kept right on stuffing pennies into one of her old softball socks.

  “Where’d you get all those?”

  “Glenda.”

  “Brittany,” Ella said, adding crossed arms to the frowny face, “that’s not an answer. Where did Glenda find all those pennies?”

  “Quarters too. Some nickels, but mostly pennies.” Brittany lifted the sock. It had a nice heft to it. She swung it at the edge of the camp cot. It thumped. “Glenda kept most of the big stuff, but she let me take a lot of the pennies.”

  “Brittany?!”

  “Okay, okay. You know that game the kids play? The one with the baby buggy thing outside the fence?”

  Ella nodded, the frown fading. Curiosity filled her pretty blue eyes. “The baby stroller? Outside the fence?” She snapped upright on her camp chair. “But how did you get the pennies out?”

  Brittany saw the truth dawn on her big sister.

  “You and Glenda were outside the fence.” She leaned forward. Her eyes flashed blue sparks.

  “Sure.” Brittany tried to shrug it off, made a show of fiddling with the blanket on the cot.

  Ella pushed to her feet. “Oh no, you don’t. You’re going to take me there, right now, and bring your penny sock.” Ella grabbed at Brittany’s shirt sleeve.

  “Owwww, you don’t have to pinch me.”

  “I’m not. I’m just steering you, so you don’t wander off somewhere before you can show me.”

  Darby blocked their way. Her thin body formed a silhouette of shadowed light in the tent opening. “What’s going on? Are you fighting again?”

  “Nope. Just finding out where in the world Brittany’s been to. Come on with us, kiddo.”

  Darby grinned at her sisters but shook her head. “No. I need to finish my paper for Mister Morris. I want a good grade.” She clutched the notebook in her arms to her chest like a precious gift.

  Brittany rolled her eyes and tried jerking away from Ella. “You don’t have to drag me. I can walk. Geez. Darby you should come with. You can be a witness when Ella ties me to a tree outside the wire.”

  “Outside the fence?” It was Darby’s turn to perk up with interest and curiosity.

  “Sure, I’ve got a secret way in and out.” She shook her sock of pennies at Darby. The pennies made a pleasant tink, tink, tink sound.

  Brittany reached out, pulled Darby’s notebook out of her hand, and said, “Come with. That way we won’t have to get you up to speed. I’ll help you with your paper. Okay? What’s the topic?” She tossed Darby’s homework on the closest cot and led the way out into the golden air of the late spring afternoon. Darby launched into an explanation of when she thought memories became history and why it was important to keep a journal of daily events even in uncertain times.

  An uneasy quiet greeted Brittany and her sisters outside their tent. Usually, the FEMA camp boiled with voices: people talking, arguing, complaining, spreading rumors. But today, this afternoon, a hushed undertone of worry dulled the air. Brittany could hear it, feel it. She glanced at Ella. Could she hear it too? Feel it?

  Darby didn’t hear it, she just babbled on about ideas for her pointless essay about her Best School Memory. What kind of topic was that? Digging around in their heads about the world before the Flare-Out, it was cruel and pointless, ghoulish. That’s the way Brittany saw it. Good grades for colleges that couldn’t turn on their lights—silly. That wasn’t fair, probably. It would all come back someday, maybe, sure. Why not?

  Poor Mister Morris, he tried to keep the kids on some kind of educational track, but it got harder and harder.

  Was Mister Morris noticing the change in the voices of the PFC, the weird stillness of the camp?

  At the bump-out corner, Ella paused, checked for Looky-Lous, and gave Brittany her eyebrow raised to the hairline, Show-Me-Now face.

  “Oh, it’s here.” Brittany pushed the wire out. The sound of her sisters’ gasps felt good. She squeezed through.

  “Darby, keep a look out.” Ella pushed through after Brittany.

  “Hey! No way, I want to come too,” Darby hissed. “Is that why you wanted me to come with you guys? To be your guard dog? I ditched homework for this.”

  Brittany stepped back to the fence. “Hush. We’ll be right back.” Brittany held up her penny-filled sock. “I found a treasure. I have to show Ella how I got it.”

  “I want to see treasure.”

  Brittany put her finger to her lips and hushed her up. “I’ll take you out next. Promise. Maybe, you can write about finding trea
sure.” With a wink and a skip, Brittany followed Ella into the overgrown line of scrub brush. Heat steamed up in silvery waves between the wire and the underbrush.

  Ella squatted low next to a thatch of scrub palmettos. “Did you notice?”

  “What? Yeah, Darby’s pretty serious about this school stuff.”

  “No. I mean the way the camp sounded different?” Ella asked. “It changed yesterday after the last meal hour. The main tent is closed up tight. I heard the FEMA wagons leave this morning. Didn’t you hear them?”

  “I ate a power bar. It was good enough. I didn’t go for breakfast.”

  Ella just waited for Brittany to make the connections. She was patient that way with her sisters.

  “Yeah, I heard something. Or didn’t hear it. It’s kind of quiet. That’s all. Why? What’s that mean?” Brittany pulled Ella farther into the woods.

  Ella shook her head, worry lines between her eyes deepening. “While we’re out here, let’s find out.”

  They circled the camp far enough from the fence so that they were out of sight. The crisp, green leaves and long blades of the palmettos perfumed the air around them. They wove their way through the clumps of scrub brush and vines, breathing in the woods and wild.

  “It stinks.” Brittany sucked in a lungful of fresh air. “I didn’t realize how much the camp smelled until I got out of it.”

  Ella put her finger to her lips but smiled and nodded at the observation. They skirted the camp, staying low, moving to the entrance.

  They froze when they saw the front gate. The gates should be shut and locked, and guarded, always. The gate was still locked up tight, but no one watched. No white hats, no Red Cross monitors. The padlock hung like an ugly charm on a razor-wire necklace, the chain double wrapped.

  “They’re gone. No one’s there. The Cross-Cross Guards are all gone.” Brittany didn’t bother to whisper. She took a step toward the abandoned gate. “No one.”