Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation (38 page)

*
* *

The
following morning, Lizzy and Laura caught us up on all that had been happening.
The big event was the fire, and I am so very glad it did not spread. Images of
the fire in London or ancient Rome, even Chicago, had roared through my mind.
Our cabins were spread out, seeing how we had plenty of space in which to build,
and the wide streets helped prevent any flames from spreading. Still, it could
have been a major catastrophe.

Randall’s
new stone houses were a welcome surprise. There had been on and off talk of
constructing such things for quite some time, but other tasks had priority, so
these kept getting pushed back, over and over again. The burned cabins
presented the necessary excuse to finally get started.

As to
the trio of Canadians Renee brought back, along with one very large dog prone
to air sickness, they had already been passed on to Yellowstone. Thor was
sedated before making the journey. Getting an unconscious hundred and forty
pound dog into a Cessna is not a simple task. Randall was called over to help.
I swear, that man can lift just about anything.

Steph
came by next, and we gave her the detailed manifest of what we’d brought. The
instant she saw the complete list, the redhead let out the sort of happy squeal
I’d come to expect from Mary and rushed to the trucks to see for herself. The
pineapples, as predicted, were the number one draw with a thousand pounds of
pure cane sugar coming a close second. The fresh fish and crab, all of which
were packed in dry ice, would be served for dinner that evening. Who knows, the
treat might even take everyone’s mind off my adventures in paradise. How the
gossip flies.

A few
days later, on August 16, we held our election. The Black Hills Council was now
a reality with nine representatives selected by popular vote. Twenty eight
competed for the positions, and nearly every adult cast a ballot. The
campaigning, most of which I missed, was fierce. The form this took was almost
exclusively that of stump speeches, and some of these involved actual tree stumps.
Most, however, were on street corners or in front of taverns.

A few
restrictions had been placed on the campaigning. The first was that candidates could
not extol their virtues from atop the outer valley wall or next to the citadel.
There would be no hinting that the establishment or militia was providing
official support. Speaking in front of anyone’s home was likewise prohibited.
It was to be everyday public places only. Privacy and family life are sacred,
and this would not be challenged. Finally, a curfew was established, all
speeches and political rallies being limited from an hour following sunrise to
the hour before sunset. Baltis pretty much fell silent during the night. It
wouldn’t do to mess up everyone’s sleep.

An
interesting aspect of the election process was the rapid adoption of long,
substantive speeches. Sound bites are a thing of the past. We lack the
technology and infrastructure to catch isolated statements and rebroadcast them
over and over. Slogans were almost as scarce. People wanted answers and plans,
not meaningless drivel and certainly nothing that sounded like a campaign
promise waiting to be broken.

Accompanying
this resurgence was an entertaining reaction against any candidate who failed
to get right to the point. Let me be the first to say that the tradition of
hurling rotten fruit has been reborn. Now, I was startled when Laura told me about
this, more so when I learned there were seven separate peltings in a single
day. Really, seven candidates received the abuse within hours of one another.
However, with two of the attacks launched by the speakers’ own family, another
turning into a block party, and apparently no sore feelings to be found, I let
it go. If everyone was good with this sort of bizarre fun, who was I to
interfere.

Briana
was less understanding and issued an edict. To start with, she insisted any
such behavior be friendly in nature. If it turned mean, it would be treated as
assault under our legal code. Only soft, mushy tomatoes and the like could be
used. Small children, the elderly, and pregnant women were to be kept out of
the line of fire. Finally, those doing the throwing were also the ones who had
to clean up the mess.

Remember
a few paragraphs back when I suggested a spectacular meal might decrease the
rampant speculation concerning my behavior regarding the smiting of Senator
Mons? Barely a dent. Mary is right. We really do need to bring television back.
Something, anything to distract people would be welcome. I hate being the
center of attention.

*
* *

“I agree.”
I stepped close to the precipice and looked down. “We are getting close to
maxing out our border defenses.”

“We
could do more,” Lizzy admitted, tossing a rock over my head and watching it
plummet sixty feet to the ground below, “but other than the roads, which are
all gated now, there’s no way any zombie can get inside the Black Hills, not
anymore, not even if it was lucky.”

Calling
our system of natural obstructions, walls, ditches, and miscellaneous
barricades a border defense is somewhat deceptive. The Black Hills are not a
monolithic structure. While there are plenty of ridges and cliffs, we also have
wide sloping valleys and low lying hills, some of which extend well beyond the
core area. It is beyond our ability to control the entirety, so we settled on a
perimeter that gave us the largest living area possible while still making full
use of the difficult, treacherous terrain.

“True
enough. We could do more. You can always do more.”

“I don’t
want to do more. I think we need to focus on the comforts now. That’s what’s
missing.”

“Talk to
Randall and have any militia or volunteers who were doing this work sent his
way. Make sure you keep up the key watch stations and patrols though.”

“I’m
going to redo those, the patrols. I want to shift the youngest to that. The
odds of them running into a horde of zombies are pretty low, given the aerial
runs, and the practice will do them good, for the newbies anyway. The guys with
real experience are going to head farther out to take down the shamblers before
they even come close, at least until it starts snowing. Too fucking miserable in
the winter to be hiking around.”

“We
haven’t been focusing as much on the general region as we could,” I agreed. “I
have no objections, except regarding disposal. It’s time we stop leaving the
corpses to rot or for the scavengers to eat.”

“Hell,
no! I am not about to tell anyone they have to bury the things. You know how
long that takes? And don’t tell me it’s no fucking trouble to dig a few holes
now and then.”

“Calm yourself.”
I moved away from the edge and took a seat on a large boulder, patting the
stone beside me. “Sit down.”

Grumbling
and glowering, she did so.

“Burying
is too much trouble – we all agree on this – aside from real burials for real
people. What I was thinking was more along the lines of extending our existing burning
policy, where we burn those killed in the Black Hills, to basically all zombies.
You know, we really should have started sooner. Walking down the road and
coming across a corpse isn’t the best thing for your nerves, more so if a child
sees one.”

“Kids hardly
ever leave the main valley.” Lizzy ran both hands through her thick hair. “I
will admit, and don’t you dare share this with anyone, that I got sick to my
stomach more than once, going around a tree and seeing a skeleton or something
on its way to becoming one. Fucking nasty, and the stink was worse.”

“Same
here, but burning solves…”

“It’s
different outside,” she interrupted. “We don’t always have wide open rocky
areas to use, and if we stick the bodies in the middle of a highway, there’s a
good chance the fire will spread. Most are what, twenty feet wide? That happens
and our pretty little walls and trenches won’t stop the entire place from going
up.”

“Lizzy,
give me a chance here, please.”

“I…
Fine.”

“Of
course we can’t have individual squads burning them willy nilly, not on a
regular basis. We also can’t load them up on boats, tie rocks to em, and drop
them in the Pacific either, like they’ve been doing in Hawaii.”

“What
then?”

I
hesitated. “We are going to build a very large, very powerful crematorium.
Think Nazi death camp. I want nothing but ash left.”

Lizzy
gave me a level stare. “Nazis? You are using fucking Nazi fucks as a reference?
What, you hit your head?”

“It
might not be the best way to explain it,” I said, grimacing.

“How
about you say like in a funeral home but bigger? That might go over better.”
She bumped her shoulder into mine.

“Probably.”
I sighed. “Anyhow, we need something that can handle several bodies at a time.
I figure we’ll place it in Custer. Most of our trucks and patrols go in and out
from the south, so it would be on their way back. Even those going other
directions can get there quickly enough using existing roads.”

She
shrugged. “It is out of sight of Baltis and all the other spots where people
live. Best place, I guess, if you don’t want them seeing it. Fuck, this means
the patrols would have to drag the zombies they kill all the way back.”

“It
wouldn’t be until next year,” I clarified. “No way we can have this up and
running before then. And, once we do, we just send a pickup towing a flatbed
with the patrols. Now, moving to less icky topics, who gets the houses, the
nice stone ones?”

“Fuck. Make
them… Do a drawing or lottery. Anything else and people are going to bitch
about it not being fair.” Lizzy paused. “Leave me, Renee, and all the directors
out of it, same with the councilors. Might have someone thinking it was rigged,
if we got one early on.”

*
* *

“What’s
up, Melody?”

She was
inside her new lookout station, a strangely crafted building made of stone and
timber. It was fifteen feet long but only six wide, and the door was in the
rear near the trail, with all three windows on the opposite side facing south
toward the open plains. Inside was a single cot, a small table, folding chair,
and a short bookcase that held several canteens, some tins of food, extra
flashlights, and a radio.

“This
came out well,” I added.

The
woman gave me the slightest of nods. “I like it. Saw someone on a motorcycle.
Out there.” She pointed into the darkness.

Using my
night vision goggles, I took a look. Nothing.

“It was
at twilight, way off in the distance. I tried to take some pictures but
couldn’t get anything in focus. The zoom isn’t strong enough to see much even
if I had.”

“Definitely
a bike?”

“Yes,
Jacob. It was a dirt bike, had to be since it was in the grass.”

I
frowned. “Other than it being a motorcycle, was there anything you noticed?”

“It was
going east,” she offered. “I called for a plane to take a look, but they had
already landed for the night.”

The
breathing community generally went to ground when the sun descended. As a
result, we rarely sent anything aloft after dark. The zombies were out and
about – they kept moving regardless of the conditions outside – but that was
about it. There was little to see, and those inclined to take the risk
unerringly drove without lights, making them next to impossible to spot from
above. Add in the limited fuel supply and attendant risks, and our policy was
more than justified.

“Keep an
eye out,” I said, “and let me know if there’s a repeat. I’ll talk to the others
on watch, along with the pilots. Hopefully, it’s just some random traveler. If
not, well, maybe we can take a few precautions.”

Interlude – Lizzy’s Story

When I
was off in Hawaii suffering through near endless meetings, and the rest of my
family enjoyed the sun and surf – so unfair – and on the same day Renee
recovered the Canadians on the outskirts of Rapid City, Lizzy and Melody were lounging
about in Venusville with their new pinochle club. Remember, Melody is a
workaholic in the extreme sense of the word. Given the choice, she rarely takes
time off, but if cards are involved, Melody will consider leaving her lookout
station, at least for a few hours.

“Okay,”
stated Lizzy, glaring at each player in turn, including Melody who was her
partner for the night, “no cheating. Anyone who cheats gets to clean the
latrines, twice, and that will be after I use them.”

“We
don’t cheat,” protested Lawrence.

“Yeah,”
added Harvey. “As bad as you are, we don’t have to.”

Lizzy
shot both a dirty look as she began to shuffle the cards.

“We
still on the standard wager?” asked Melody.

“Works
for me,” agreed Lizzy. “I’m too tired to think of anything else. That good with
you guys?”

Harvey
nodded. “Let’s keep it straight.”

All club
games were played for money. Granted, money didn’t have any real value, not
nowadays, and it wasn’t something we used in the Black Hills, having a communal
system for the essentials and bartering for everything else. Even so, it was one
of those thing we regularly came across while looting. Paper money was usually
left to decompose, but the coins were collected. We know their composition, which
means we have a ready supply of specific metals small enough to allow for easy smelting.
This hasn’t actually been attempted, but you never know when it might be
necessary.

The coins
used in this case were Silver Eagles. For any who don’t know, these are one
ounce bullion coins produced by the federal government – I am referring to the
old one in Washington, not the newer incarnation in Hawaii. While we had found
a few here and there, the vast majority came from a single bank in Rapid City. Such
establishments are typically difficult to loot – I will be the first to say
that getting into a locked vault is not easy – but in this case we found the
combination written on a piece of paper in the manager’s desk, not the best
security practice. Inside, we discovered rolls and rolls of coins, just over
ten thousand to be exact. These were taken back to Venusville and deposited
inside the militia armory.

As you
will recall from my second narrative,
Conflict
, we had a large chest
filled with jewelry for the benefit of the children who liked to pretend it was
pirate treasure. Eventually the loot increased to a point where additional
chests were necessary. At present, we have nine, each handcrafted of oak and
bound with heavy brass straps. They are about four feet across, three wide, and
two and a half deep. All are currently sitting in the treasure chamber, a small
stone building inside the citadel that wasn’t needed for anything else. We
originally intended for it to be a storeroom or something. I forget.

Every so
often, the militia will put together a small bag or box and hide it inside the
valley. A map is drawn, and the children are set loose to search. Once
recovered, the kids get to add it to our ever growing pile.

“Winners
stash it for tomorrow’s hunt,” remarked Lizzy. “Jenny already has a place
picked out and the map made, so check with her.”

“Winners?”
asked Lawrence. “Since when did we do that?”

“It’s always
been losers hiding,” agreed Harvey. “Are you changing the rules because you’re
losing?”

“We are
not losing!”

“We are
down by forty points,” corrected Melody.

“Temporary
setback,” snarled Lizzy, “and I was just spouting off the top of my head.” She
considered the level gaze Harvey was giving her. “Fine. I’ll flip a coin, after
the game is over. Heads, the winners hide the loot. Tails, the losers do it.
From now on that’s policy.”

“I got
no problem,” said Lawrence.

Harvey
leaned back in his chair. “Me either. Just be sure to remember to do the toss
at the very end.” He smiled. “Wouldn’t want anyone to throw a game because she’s
too overweight to walk a few miles.”

Lizzy
flung her bowl of popcorn at him.

“Temper,
temper,” he chided.

“Don’t
fucking temper me,” she snapped back. “I know I have issues.”

“At
least you are willing to admit to it,” laughed Harvey. “That’s better than some
around here.”

“And,”
continued Lizzy, “I don’t give a shit. So, fuck all of you. Here’s your cards.”

She
began to deal, and Harvey’s smile grew even larger.

“You
better not have a run,” she warned.

Lawrence
passed on the bidding, as did Melody.

Harvey
paused, considering.

“No delays,”
said Lizzy. “Make a bid or leave me stuck with it.”

“While
letting you have it, knowing you won’t make it, would be fun, I think I’ll go ahead
and bid sixty.”

“Sixty!”
Melody was shocked. That never happened. “What do you have?”

“Hold
up,” he replied, turning to Lizzy. “Care to outbid me?”

The
woman slapped a meaty hand down on the table. “Fuck, no. Show us what you got.”

Harvey laid
out his meld. There was a run in diamonds: ace, ten, king, queen, jack. He also
had a second jack of diamonds and two queens of spades. The scoring we used was
simplified. A run is fifteen points, a single pinochle – jack of diamonds and
queen of spades – is four, a double pinochle thirty. Harvey had just set down
forty five points. He wasn’t done though. The man also dropped three more aces,
giving him one of each suit, another ten points.

“Let’s
see,” he began, “that looks like, oh, I think it’s fifty five points. Lawrence
has another eight in his meld giving us a total of sixty three. We made our
bid. Lizzy, my oh so cheerful superior officer, I don’t think you are going to
win this game.”

She
stared at the scorecard for a second. “Still a ways to go. We are not giving
up.”

The
games typically lasted until one of the teams broke five hundred points. The
loser’s score was then deducted from that of the winners. This determined the
number of Silver Eagles used in the pirate hunt.

“Giving
up isn’t something you do,” he agreed, with the faintest hint of approval in
his voice.

*
* *

“Fucking
three hundred and eight coins,” grunted Lizzy. “You have any idea how heavy
this is?”

“About
twenty one pounds,” answered Melody, seven seconds later.

“Really?
You know that, or did you just guess? You better not be fucking with me.”

The
other woman shrugged. “I did the math in the my head. It wasn’t that big of a
calculation.”

Lizzy
set the leather bag on the ground. It had once been part of a Black Hills cow.
She wasn’t certain which – there were hundreds of the things with several
butchered each week – but the animal was certain to have been delicious. Steph
and her cooks knew what they were doing.

“So,
sixteen in a pound… You can do all that math in your head? Damn. Wish I could.
I barely passed when I was in high school. Geometry was the worst.”

“Uh,
Lizzy, there aren’t sixteen troy ounces in a pound. You’re thinking regular
ounces. Troy ounces are heavier, almost ten percent heavier. I moved them to
normal ounces, and then to pounds.”

The sack
was retrieved and thrust into Melody’s arms.

“Your
turn to carry, and I hate you.” Lizzy wiped some sweat from her forehead.
“Would be a warm day. How much further do we have to go?”

“Jenny’s
sitting down over there. That’s probably the spot.”

The woman
was a few hundred yards off, relaxing atop a large rock. She gave them a
friendly wave.

“How
come she never carries this shit?”

“I think
it’s because she organizes the hunts,” replied Melody. “It would be unfair to
have her carry it too, after drawing those lovely maps the children like so
much, but maybe she’ll swap with you for a few weeks.”

“Fuck,
no! I do not want to be dealing with whiny brats every day. I get enough of
that shit with you all.”

Melody
smiled slightly.

“How
come you knew the conversion for silver ounces to real ones?”

“It’s
troy ounce. They use those for all the precious metals. There’s no such thing
as a silver ounce.”

“Whatever.”
Lizzy kicked a pinecone. It bounced off a tree trunk and vanished behind some
weeds. “Well?”

“I just
remembered them from school. I’m kind of good at formulas.”

“God. I
can’t even remember how many feet are in a mile.”

“Five
thousand, two hundred, and eighty.”

Lizzy
reached out to give her friend a shove, which sent the taller woman staggering.

“Smart
ass. Maybe we should have you teaching. Think you could put up with Laura.”

“Please
don’t,” stammered Melody.

Lizzy regarded
her carefully.

“I’m not
serious. Stop looking like I shoved a porcupine up your ass right after I shot
your dog and cooked your cat. You are too good in the militia for me to toss
out. Hell, girl, I would fight to keep you.”

Melody
relaxed and handed the heavy sack of coins back to Lizzy.

“What,
you getting tired already?”

“No,”
she replied, “you were mean so you get to carry them the rest of the way.”

That was
not the sort of statement Lizzy cared to receive, but it was definitely the
type she wanted to hear from Melody. She was steadily improving.

“I don’t
have a dog, or a cat.”

“A dog…
Fuck that shit. I was just making a reference to something that would be bad.
I’d never shoot a dog, well, maybe if it had rabies or was trying to kill me,
not a normal pet though.”

“And the
porcupine?” prompted the other woman.

Lizzy
smiled evilly. “If I found one in the forest, already dead…” She trailed off.

“That’s…
I don’t know how to say it.”

“Just
use lots of profanity. You’d be surprised how much fucked up logic people
overlook when you’re swearing. It’s how I get through life.”