Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation (32 page)

“Mary,
darling, you hang out more than a lot. Given the chance, you would spend every
waking hour with him, with only a teeny, tiny, super miniscule amount of time
left for me and Asher and Briana.”

“It’s
not that bad.”

“Close
enough.” I pulled the intestines free. She backed away. “But, I suppose I have
no objections.”

In all
truth, I was ecstatic that she thought to ask my permission in the first place.

“I have
to impose the condition that you not make this official or announce he’s your
boyfriend or anything of the sort until we get back from Hawaii.”

“Why
not?” she demanded.

“Mary,
we are leaving tomorrow at the crack of dawn. Tonight will be spent getting
stuff together. He’s coming over for dinner, I know, but that’s all you’ll be
seeing of him until we return from the trip. Let it wait. Be good, and maybe
I’ll allow the two of you in the cave again.”

She
shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll go. Michael’s a tiny bit claustrophobic.
It didn’t bother him at first, not until we went deep, down by the pools of
water. He started shaking, and that’s when he fell in.”

“The
pictures you took were pretty amusing.”

“I would
not have taken those if I knew how scared he really was.” She shivered
slightly. “That water is super cold too. I didn’t even know until I helped him
climb out.”

Additional
organs, those we wouldn’t eat, followed the intestines.

“The boy
did look pretty miserable when you came stumbling outside. No cave then, but it
still waits.”

She
sighed. “Fine. After Hawaii.”

My
reasoning was primarily due to Tim Meyers. The boy was behaving admirably and
was through with all the shit work I had assigned as punishment. Everything
pointed at him giving up on Mary, and I doubted if there would be any
reoccurrence. Still, I am a father, and I am more than a little protective when
it comes to my daughter. The last thing I needed was Michael and Mary telling
everyone of their romance and getting all gushy in public. That might just set
Tim off, especially if Mary and I weren’t around to mitigate his behavior. If he
and Michael were alone, a conflict might arise, possibly a fight.

I could
not share my reasoning with Mary. If she knew, the odds of her going ahead and
making an announcement, one absolutely certain to reach Tim’s ears, was all but
guaranteed. She was stubborn and would never, ever back down because of what
some boy, whom she didn’t even like, thought. I blame that personality trait on
Lizzy’s influence. It’s a shame Mary wasn’t more level headed and grounded like
me or Briana.

Interlude – Bruce’s Story

Bruce, a
former mailman – I just seem to feel the need to restate this fact whenever the
opportunity arises – and once upon a time member of the free roaming security
in Martin, South Dakota, had long been in charge of our material supplies. He
dealt with clothing, furniture, blankets, tents, pots and pans, toys for the
little ones, and pretty much every other non-edible thing we had. The man was
detail oriented and quite good at managing inventory. Bruce was no slouch when
it came to paperwork and record keeping either.

The
purpose of this particular interlude is to provide details concerning a
disaster that occurred shortly after Briana and I left for Hawaii. It was late
at night. Most had turned in and gone to bed, but a few were still out and
about. This godsend allowed for a speedy reaction, and Bruce was among the
first to arrive on the scene.

“What’s
that?” asked Valerie.

Bruce
had offered to help the woman carry her trash out. The valley deals with
garbage in a very simple, straightforward manner. All organic waste is sent to
the compost heaps. Everything else is placed in large trashcans. These are
collected twice daily and emptied into a modified pickup truck capable of
getting in and out of the valley under its own power. Only four wheel drive vehicles
can navigate the steep slope leading from the outer wall to the roads several
miles distant. This bottleneck is the primary reason for the frequency of
collections.

The
truck has a sister which does a circuit of the farming and livestock valleys, and
both transfer their waste to more traditional garbage trucks. Those then haul
it out of the Black Hills to a landfill forty miles away. The route is winding
and takes one down some tiny back roads that are generally clear of the dead,
although there have been times when the drivers and their guards had to stop
and do some killing.

Originally,
we placed all our trash in the small landfill over by Custer, the only town of
note within the Black Hills, and if a crisis makes leaving too risky, we will
resume the practice. However, most everyone prefers taking it elsewhere – it’s
always better to send your waste elsewhere, you know – even if the Custer
landfill is walled off and fairly clean.

“Looks
like lights of some sort,” he replied. “Wait… Those are flames! Valerie, sound
the alarm. Get people up!”

Bruce
left her and darted down the shadowy street, screaming at the top of his lungs
that there was a fire. Stumbling on one of the paving stones, he nearly lost
his balance and went sprawling but managed to stay upright. Bruce then turned
the corner and got a good look at the actual disaster.

“Fire!”

People
were beginning to appear in doorways, most taking up the same cry, and Bruce
shifted his focus, hurrying to help a man who staggered from his burning home.
Fortunately, he did not appear to be injured.

“Is
there anyone else inside?”

The
fellow shook his head. He appeared somewhat confused, so Bruce took a quick
look anyway. The interior was empty, and he rushed back out before the roof,
which was fully aflame, collapsed.

“Form a
line,” shouted someone else.

As
practiced during the monthly town fire drill, the residents of Baltis arranged
themselves in a double row between the nearest water tower and the
conflagration. Buckets began to be passed back and forth with the individuals
at the end tossing the contents on the flames. It was slow and far from
efficient, but while we had enough hoses, maybe, the water pressure was questionable.

Bruce
did not move to join the line. Instead, he and a few others checked all the
structures that were alight or in immediate danger, striving to clear them of
people. This went smoothly enough, in spite of the chaos and terror, but they
were unable to gain entrance to a barn.

“That’s
for dairy cows, right?” asked Bruce.

Someone
nearby shouted an affirmative.

“Shouldn’t
be anyone inside then,” he whispered to himself. Bruce could think of no way to
make a confirmation and no way to help anyone should a cry for assistance come.

“Fire
engine is on its way!”

Bruce
turned and saw the lumbering, cherry red vehicle slowly rolling up the street.
This is the second part of our disaster reaction plan. With hundreds of small
log cabins in close proximity to one another, the danger of a fire starting and
spreading was very real. Therefore, the people have to take matters into their
own hands and try to contain the flames until the fire engine with its large
water tank can arrive. If what the truck carried is insufficient, it can be
refilled using one or even all of the towers. Equipped with powerful pumps, the
problems of spraying water out over the fire is not a concern.

It had
taken four days to get that fire engine into the valley. Massive pulleys had to
be constructed, and cables were run through these with the far ends secured to
the hitches of tractor trailers. In coordination, and moving incredibly slowly,
the large trucks dragged the fire engine up, to the area where the slope
leveled out. It could then drive through the gate and on to the town under its
own power.

“Thank
God,” muttered Bruce.

He
watched as the spray began, shooting high over the heads of those still manning
the buckets. Hissing, along with a great deal of smoke and steam, filled the
air, and the fire began to diminish.

*
* *

“No
one’s dead,” said Laura. “That’s good.”

“Just
some cows and lots of fucking chickens,” agreed Lizzy, with a shake of her
head.

The two
of them, along with Bruce and Randall, the newly minted Director of
Construction, were at the site inspecting the wreckage. We lost seven
residences, two storehouses, both of which were small and contained nothing
that could not be replaced, and the aforementioned barn. Injuries were slight
with three men suffering minor burns and thirteen people being affected by
smoke inhalation.

“You two
get to fix it all,” continued Lizzy. “Randall can rebuild stuff, and Bruce, you
get to make sure the people who lost their cabins get clothes and whatever else
they might need out of the valley stores. Let me know if there’s anything
special we have to go looting for.” She glared at Randall. “Don’t even think of
bitching about my language.”

The
towering mountain of a man took a step forward.

“Lizzy
will mind her manners,” said Laura, stepping between the two. “No getting into
a screaming match either. There are too many watching.”

Randall hates
obscene language and will not tolerate it in his presence. This is rarely an
issue due to the image he portrays. He is among the tallest in the settlement
and without a doubt the strongest. While there are no accounts of Randall
becoming physically violent, he has been known to get disgusted and outright
refuse to work with those who do not meet his standards of behavior.

“Yeah,”
said Lizzy, “good point that. How long to get them rebuilt?”

“We
won’t be building them again,” replied the man, after he gave the area another
once over with his eyes.

“Why
not?” asked Bruce. “I know we have plenty of empty cabins.” That was the result
of an earlier building spree. “You thinking of turning it into a park instead?”

“We have
more than enough of those,” grumbled Randall. “We will replace them with stone
houses instead of log cabins. We have a few such structures already, and the
earlier problems have been sorted out. I see no reason to keep using lumber.”

“Sounds
good to me,” commented Laura. “How long will it take?”

“We can
have seven stone houses with the same dimensions built before winter. The
storehouses too. Do you want the barn rebuilt?”

“Nah,”
said Lizzy, “put in extra houses instead. You can probably get nine of them
with the barn scrapped. The people on this street can get their milk and eggs
from one of the other zillion of the things we have.”

“What do
you need from me to get started?” asked Bruce.

“Ceramic
tiles, cement, certain tools. We may have to go outside the hills to find it
all. I’ll give you a list later.” Randall looked back at Laura. “Labor will be
needed too. Lots of rocks need to be gathered.”

She
grimaced. There weren’t that many left in the valley. Most of what had been
accumulated when clearing land for the farms went into the citadel, along with
the structures it contained, or for fencing around the actual farms.

“We can
get plenty from the next valley down,” suggested Bruce. “While we’re at it,
maybe we can create a road with switchbacks or at least make the route easier.
Having it so hard to reach us made sense when we first moved here, but I don’t
think the defense aspects are all that important anymore.”

“Right
on that one,” said Lizzy. “We have too much to do to get to it any time soon
though. Work’s still going on with the outer defense. The houses will take
dozens of people if we want them fast. Who knows what else Jacob and Briana
will have when they get back.”

“I can
give you the kids from school for the rock part,” offered Laura. “A week off to
gather them together and load the stones into pickups so they can be brought in
won’t hurt their education any.”

Randall
nodded. “We will set up some areas near the wall, side opposite the lookout,
where we can place them, sorted roughly by size. That way we have them for
future projects.”

A quick
comment about the school system in the Black Hills. It is far removed from the
way education used to be dealt with. For starters, the years are based on the
calendar year, not the old September to May system. There is a long break for
planting and a second one during harvest time with plenty of little ones mixed
in. The grades are different as well. We have kindergarten, which a child will
enter if he or she turns five at some point that year. That means a teenager
would normally graduate at seventeen instead of eighteen. However, we don’t
have a grade twelve, or high school for that matter.

The span
is kindergarten through eighth grade. Assuming a child does not get held back,
he will finish his primary education at age thirteen. This appears troublesome
at first glance, but we decided to eliminate the old rush to the bottom and
self-esteem is everything system of school management. The early years focus
heavily on reading and mathematics. History and science are added in grade
three and learning to read is altered to grammar and literature. There is no
music. There is no physical education. There is no art or orchestra or band.
There are no sports either. School is for education and education only. Our
system is designed to have an eighth grader knowing more than typical senior
did pre-apocalypse. In short, we took modern schooling and reverted to the way
it was in the 1800’s before feel good, babysitting nonsense got in the way.

As to
higher education, there is none, but we do possess a detailed and elaborate
system of apprenticeships. Medical and the traditional craft skills like
carpentry were the primary ones. Hawaii has a small college up and running,
however, and that might be a possibility for our children later.

“Kids
are going to love getting out of class for that,” quipped Bruce.

“They
will,” assured Laura, “really.”

“For the
first day,” concluded Lizzy.