White Wasteland by Jeff Kirkham (best color ebook reader .txt) 📕

parade of horrors. America, here’s what you get for Christmas: the super flu!

That’s right, on the thirteenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, one, seriously cocked-up virus. As a consolation, you still get two turtle doves, a partridge and the rest of that shit.

A note from our medical professionals: keep your hands to yourself, stay indoors and don’t touch your face, though that’s almost impossible once you start drinking.”

Ross Homestead

Oakwood, Utah

First thing in the morning, Jacquelyn headed toward the Homestead office, with a pit in her stomach that her mint chamomile tea had done nothing to alleviate. The night before, Jordan informed her that Jeff Kirkham wanted to see her in the morning.

In the frank light of day, her stomach churned on how foolish they’d been to imagine they could keep the orphanage a secret. After only three weeks, the Schaffer house had become a full-blown institution, not just a quiet corner with one or two babies, but something else entirely.

Eight children had been smuggled into the abandoned home and at least ten women knew about it. Young Emily Ross had styled herself into a post-apocalyptic Harriet Tubman, and had developed a system for finding orphaned babies in the refugee camps then slipping them through the roadblocks and into the outer Homestead neighborhood, where they were fed, clothed and loved by a secret society of women. Every one of them risked expulsion, and Jacquelyn’s name topped the list.

Now Jeff Kirkham, the hard-ass head honcho, second only to Jason Ross, wanted to see her. It couldn’t be good.

“Good morning, Mister Jeff.” Jacqueline flashed her best don’t hate me smile. She’d heard Wali, one of Jeff’s former Afghan soldiers, call him “Mister Jeff.” She liked it. Plus, weren’t they all refugees now, just like Wali and the Afghans?

“Good morning, Miss Jackie,” Jeff replied, sipping his ever-present mug of coffee.

She took it as a good sign that he used her nickname even though she hated it. “Jordan said you wanted to see me. How can I help?” To her ears, she sounded guilty as hell.

Jeff took a long time to answer, apparently composing his words carefully. “As a psychologist, what do you know about dreams?”

It was not what she expected him to ask, but it was far better than the alternative. She exhaled, releasing the half-lungful of air she’d been holding for an hour.

“Freud thought dreams were the ‘royal road to the unconscious.’ He believed that repressed thought emerges in dreams. The ego defense is lowered during dream state and the real stuff sometimes comes out.”

“In other words,” Jeff reframed her words. She expected him to modify her original statement to something easier on his ego. He did not disappoint. “Dreams can tell you your gut instinct sometimes when your conscious mind can’t.”

Jacquelyn smiled. “Sure. Close enough. Others say God talks to people through their imagination. So who knows?” They both laughed, uncomfortable with the thought, each for their own reason.

“So they tell me you’re a bit of a pastor around here,” Jeff changed the subject.

Jacquelyn laughed. “I don’t know who told you that, but I’m no pastor.”

“That’s not what I hear. They tell me you’ve been counseling people out of the Bible. I didn’t peg you for a church person.” She knew that Jeff’s wife, Tara, was Jewish, but Jacquelyn didn’t know where Jeff and Tara stood on religion.

“I like most of what Jesus says,” Jacquelyn equivocated. “It’s good therapy. People need something to believe in right now with so much grief and sorrow in the world. They need a bigger picture. I’m helping them with what they need and sometimes that’s the Bible.”

“Hmm.” Jeff looked her in the eyes with a squint and an inscrutable expression. “I believe you are being disingenuous, Miss Jackie.” He sipped his coffee.

Jacqueline felt her eyebrows shoot up before she could stop them, caught emotionally flat-footed. “What do you mean by that, Mister Jeff?”

“Just what I said. I think you’re being disingenuous.”

Nobody had ever said that to her before. She wanted to drill down, to gather more data, to analyze the accuracy of his feedback. But somehow, she knew it would be a dry hole. Jeff had probably said everything he was going to say on the matter.

“For what it’s worth, I think we need a pastor like you around here,” Jeff moved on, as though the two thoughts were somehow connected: that they needed a pastor and that she was being disingenuous. “Pastors and priests were society’s therapists long before Doctor Freud.”

“Why would anyone need a disingenuous pastor?” She rallied.

Jeff laughed. “Oh, you’d be one of the least-disingenuous pastors in history. As much as you’re probably full of shit about a thing or two, you still have a good point; people need faith and meaning. People need a pastor. I hope you surrender to your role around here by the time we need it most.” Jeff took another sip. “And, by ‘we,’ I mean all of us.”

Jason Ross watched Jacquelyn Reynolds step out of the office and he worried about what she’d talked about with Jeff.

Had one of the guys at the grocery store shooting whined to Jacquelyn? Had she then reported it to Jeff?

The killing at Beesley Grocery had only been yesterday, but anything was possible. Gossip flew around the Homestead like nails in a tornado. Luckily, Jeff wasn’t much of a gossiper. Not really much of a talker, either.

“Hey Jeff.”

“Jason.” Jeff replied.

“Hey, I got that county thing handled,” Jason tested the waters.

“Oh, yeah.” Jeff said. “How did it go?”

“It got messy. I ended up offering them cash.”

“So can I pull my QRFs back from the roadblocks?” Jeff asked, looking over his coffee mug.

Jason didn’t know if it was a test or a real question. “Sure. We’re good.”

Jeff looked at him for a long time, silently nursing his coffee.

“What’s the news on the flu?” Jeff finally asked.

“Same scary story. More and more zombies are showing up at the hospital and we’re turning them away. There’s nothing we