Chapter 5

Seamus was rather surprised to find that Julio had not been killed by Rocky, when he arrived back at the place where he had left Rachel and his mother. Rachel was quietly taunting the thug by commenting that Rocky had literally scared the shit out of him. He wasn't sure how she had gotten back down the hill but when she put the flip-flops on and started to walk, Rocky snarled at Julio and, between the dog and his mother, they frog marched him back to the cabin.

It would have been easier, Seamus realized later, if Rocky had killed Julio. He would not have been aware of the soundproof room that existed in the same mine where they had stabled the animals his father had brought. Nor would he have learned that his mother was as hard as steel and willing to do things that made him sick before she decided that she knew everything that Julio could tell them and then let Rachel loose on him since he had taken most of the night resisting giving any information.

Seamus knew he would not be letting Rachel anywhere near himself after watching her mutilate Julio for at least an hour before he died. He could in some ways understand the anger that both his mother and Rachel displayed as he heard the threats of slow murder that Julio made backed up by his earlier bragging in grisly detail about the number of men and women he had raped and tortured to death.

When Julio was dead, Seamus slipped off to bed only taking time to shower briefly. Suddenly he felt as if he was all alone in a world gone mad. Even Rocky seemed to have abandoned him as she was not waiting on his bed as had been her habit until yesterday.

Seamus understood that for whatever reason Rocky had appointed herself to guard the trail where Rachel and Julio had approached the cabin where his family lived. It was still hard for him not to feel sorry for himself. Until he had seen Rachel's rage played out in her torture of Julio he had been hoping that a few days or weeks of living near her would bring her to see him as an alternative to being alone. Now all he hoped for was that she did not hold her experience with Julio against all men.

It was afternoon when Seamus finally decided that he could not sleep and sought out the other people living in the cabin. His father was seated at the table when he went to the kitchen and he said, "Son, I'm glad the women are out and about for a bit, as I wanted to talk to you about the reason why your mother decided to let Rachel torture Julio.

"You may think that there is no radio or TV available here; and there is very little commercial coverage but your mother and I spend an hour every night monitoring a shortwave set. In some ways shortwave radio is a more immediate and informative window onto the world than commercial broadcasts.

"To put it mildly more and more shortwave operators have been dropping out. That alone would be only indicative of shifts in activities, but there are other things such as the NWS which is a government operation which has stopped.

"You don't seem to be aware of what the freeway should sound like from here but we are near enough to a downgrade that we should be able to hear trucks using engine brakes. Also we are near or in a major fly-way. That means that we should see several jet planes every day.

"One or more of these things stopping might mean a national disaster. The fact that they have all stopped and not for a few hours, but for days and weeks for some of them, means that we feel fairly certain that civilization has collapsed.

"It may have been a mistake to let Rachel torture Julio but at this time we have no reason to believe there is any authority outside of ourselves. Hopefully Rachel will see that torturing Julio was a pointless activity, especially after we had the information that we needed about the group he was part of. His death was necessary, torture only so far as he refused to give the information we sought.

"With what we found out we can rest somewhat more easily. After all we know that they are not yet systematically searching for people like us. We also believe that it is reasonable that some of the people who we were working with in the city may yet be able to make it here, which will make this more of a community where we may hope for the future and less of a final futile stand."