Home Coming (The Survivalist Book 10) A. American (read after .txt) 📖

on,” he said, “we turned the mains off on all of the houses.”

“You have the power on all the way out here?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yep. Since we had to disconnect Eustis, we focused on running it out here. The Kangaroo in Umatilla has power now too, and the lights are on there as well. Come on, let’s go turn your power back on.”

Dad got up and the three of us walked over to the house. The big cable I’d connected the solar system to the house with was still plugged in, but the breaker for it was off. Scott nodded at the panel as he held a flashlight, “Go ahead, turn it on.”

I flipped the main and nothing happened. The house was still dark. But then, we didn’t leave lights on like we used to. After a moment, the AC hummed to life. “Well I’ll be damned,” I said as we walked around to the front of the house. I went inside and flipped the switch for the porch light, it came on and I walked over to the thermostat. It read eighty-six degrees. The LED screen worked. I checked it and adjusted it down to seventy.

Turning around, I grabbed Scott in a hug, “Holy shit, man, this is awesome!”

“Baker is on her way down. We’re going to make sure that all the houses in use are good to go. You guys will be able to sleep in AC tonight.”

Already there were trucks and ATVs zipping around the neighborhood. Mel and Mom showed up at the front door and came in. “Is the electricity really on?” Mel asked.

I nodded. “Yep and the air’s running too.”

With tears in her eyes, she wrapped her arms around Scott, “Thank you, thank you, so much. Thank you.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Mel. We’ve been working on it for a while now,” he replied.

She turned to me suddenly and said, “This means we won’t sweat at night anymore!”

“Yeah, I cranked it down to seventy,” I said with a huge smile.

“Is that as low as it will go? Turn it all the way down!”

“It won’t do any good. The AC has to pull all the moisture out of the house and that’s going to take a while. We won’t feel any real difference until tomorrow probably.”

“I’ll take anything I can get. We need to go back over to Danny’s. We have a surprise for dessert tonight.”

As we walked back over to Danny’s, a large bucket truck rumbled down the road. It pulled up in front of Danny’s house and then Baker, Terry and Eric got out. Baker was smiling from ear to ear and asked, “Well, what do you think?”

Kay was on the porch and practically ran out to her. “You are a sweetheart!” She shouted as she wrapped her arms around Baker.

“We were trying to get it here sooner. It really all came together today,” she replied. “We got power on in a couple of places in town as well. There’s still people at the Kangaroo in Altoona. They’re all standing around under the lights of the gas island like cavemen looking at a fire. Pretty funny.”

Sarge came down off the porch as well and held his hand out. “Hell of a job. Hell of a job.” He shook Baker and Terry’s hands. Having been harassed by Sarge way too many times, Eric wouldn’t get close enough to him to shake his hand.

“You all come up and get some supper. Then we’ll all have dessert,” Kay said.

“That sounds wonderful to me!” Terry called out.

The engineers came up onto the porch and were all served heaping bowls of stew. As they ate, people slowly started making it back to the house. All were excited that the power was now on and in all but one case, Thad’s house, the AC was working.

“We can look at it tomorrow,” Terry told Thad as he pushed a biscuit in his mouth.

“Ain’t no rush. We’re used to it. Just nice to have the well running and be able to take a hot shower,” Thad replied.

“Holy shit,” I said. “I hadn’t even thought of that! A hot shower!”

It got a laugh from several of those gathered. Mike and Ted arrived back at the house to say their house was up and running as well. Then Mike asked Baker, “You think we could get power out to their ranch?” He pointed at Janet.

Baker looked at Terry and he asked, “Where are they?”

“Off forty-two, past the farm a ways.”

Terry nodded, “It’ll take a couple of days. We’d have to go out and clear all the lines. But I don’t see why not.”

“That would be amazing,” Janet said.

“Yes, it would,” Crystal added. “I’d like a hot shower too.”

“We’ll need to start making a list of people and the houses they live in. See how many houses we can restore power to. It would make a huge difference,” I said.

“We already have power to the gym in Eustis,” Terry said.

“That’s good,” Sarge replied. “The injured folks there have really been suffering, and this will help ease their pain a bit as they recover.”

“Alright, enough of this,” Kay said. “There’s plenty of time tomorrow to discuss all this. It’s time for dessert. Who wants some ice cream?”

There was a near universal shout in reply, “Ice Cream?”

“With grape syrup too,” Mel added.

Mel and Kay went to the kitchen and began scooping out bowls and cups of ice cream. Nearly every container that could hold it was used. You’d take your bowl and drizzle some of the deep purple syrup made from the grape juice on top. It was heavenly. I got mine and sat down beside Mom and Dad.

Dad was eagerly eating the intensely sweet treat. “Not bad, huh?” I asked.

“This is amazing,” Mom said.

Mel came up and sat with us after getting the kids a bowl. It was funny to watch Jace and Edie. I wasn’t sure if they’d ever had it before. But they sure knew what to do with it and the kids sat giggling