by Hamill, Ike
Robby saw Carrie standing alone.
“Come on,” Robby said. “Let’s get you a seat.”
Her pants were torn and stained with dried blood. She still held a hand protectively on her belly. When she saw him notice, she moved it away.
Carrie looked down at Gordie with a thin smile. The dog roamed around, milling between legs and checking out different people, but he always returned to Robby’s side. She sighed.
“It all just keeps going,” she said.
“If we’re lucky,” Robby said.
She studied him for a second. A yellow light began to flash as someone triggered the turn signal on one of the buses. Carrie nodded and led the way to the closest bus. Robby pointed to the stairs and told Gordie to get up inside.
He paused one more time to look at the woods and listen for the sound of anything out there. The bus in front of theirs rumbled off and Robby climbed inside.
CHAPTER 64: FARMHOUSE
“YOU’RE NOT LISTENING,” BRAD said. He slammed his hands on the table and then pushed himself up. He paced along the wall with windows. Robby saw someone outside pause as they walked by. They had seen Brad’s outburst. This was how rumors started.
Carrie propped her elbows up on the table and folded her fingers together.
“Let’s get your objections recorded then,” she said. “List them for us.”
“This whole area is fucked,” Brad said, ticking the point off with his index finger. “This is where bad shit comes from. Time and again, when people die, it’s right the fuck here.”
“Got it—those are all the same point,” Carrie said. She wrote it down.
“Fine. Point two—We just saw what happens when we all cluster. We’re all from different worlds. Clustering is bad.”
“Noted,” Carrie said.
“Debatable,” Tim said.
“And we will continue to debate all the objections. What else do you have, Brad?”
Brad exhaled with a gust of air before he answered her. “It might be wrong to say, but I just don’t like living in such close proximity to you people. I’m not one of the virus-panic crowd, but I need space. We moved three-hundred miles away and you people took up residence two towns over. How strong does the message have to be?”
“You need to be a little clearer when you say, ‘you people,’” Carrie said. “Do you have anyone specific in mind?”
Her tone stopped Brad’s pacing.
“I don’t mean anything by it,” he said, softer. “Let me make myself clear—I don’t have anything against anyone specifically. It’s just that I developed a deep trust with Romie, Lisa, and Robby. We went through hell together a few different times. We sacrificed ourselves and lost some very close friends and then…”
“We’ve all lost people,” Robby said. He directed his comment at Carrie, like he was trying to help Brad explain, but his message was really for Brad.
Brad seemed to understand. He returned to his seat.
“There aren’t many of us left, you know? That makes this a great big world. There’s room enough that we don’t need to be tripping over each other all the time,” Brad said.
“And I think I speak for the group when I say that nobody wants to force you to,” Carrie said. She glanced around the room. Eleven people were seated, now that Brad had taken his chair again. They were mostly the elected representatives of several factions, with the exception of Dr. Matthew. He and Robby were both at the table by general consensus.
“It sounds like that’s exactly what you’re trying to do,” Brad said. “You talk about these mandatory settlements and check-ins. How else am I supposed to interpret that?”
“He has a point,” Tim said, folding his arms across his chest. “Even if that’s what we intend, we can’t phrase it this way.”
“I’m not going to lie to people,” Cirie said. She had been quiet for most of the meeting.
“No,” Carrie said. “Nobody is going to lie. As I said at the beginning, the reason we’re having the meeting in this room is so it can be recorded and viewed by anyone. There will be no secrets. Tim’s point is still valid though. Our objective may be to keep track of the citizens and we’ll have some sort of census to accomplish that goal. But calling a settlement mandatory is a poor way of describing it. Of course we want people to be free to come and go. But if we all share the goal to keep our species alive, we may have to make some individual sacrifices to our sovereignty in order to accomplish that.”
She glanced around as people nodded. It wasn’t a controversial opinion—a statement like that was what had brought everyone to the room.
After the churn, they had all retreated to the farm. People had slept on floors, in the buses, and even out in the barns. They all felt safer together. The stockpile at the farm wouldn’t last forever though. They needed farming, hunting, and gathering in order to prepare for the winter. Now that the immediate crisis was over, there was no time to waste.
Before they would return to their lives, people wanted to know what they should do to ensure their safety. The committee was inspired by those conversations. Robby glanced around at the members. They had sat down with the same clear optimism written on their faces. They were a group of optimists, ready to certify that the problems were in the past. Once they began talking about how to move forward, their fundamental differences in opinion had surfaced.
“Can I ask a question?” Corinna asked, raising her hand.
Carrie gestured and then said, “Of course.”
It was the first time that the young woman had spoken aside from introducing herself awkwardly at the top of the meeting.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to have three communities, if that’s what you’re going to do? Two points only form a line. Three points form a plane, right?”
Brad nodded and chimed in. “Yes. Why not take Northam and relocate to better land for farming?”
“It’s easier to fish than farm,” Mike said.
“Not in the winter,” Brad said. “Besides, you guys could find a lake to relocate to.”
“It’s much easier to relocate four people than a hundred.”
“You don’t have a hundred people anymore.”
“And you don’t have houses, the last I remember.”
Brad started to stand again. Robby put a hand on his arm and Brad relaxed into his chair.
“I was thinking of the city,” Corinna said. “There are still tons of supplies down there and a billion places to live. Liam is more comfortable down there and so am I.”
“He has been getting much better,” Robby said. “He’s not afraid of the sky anymore.”
“That’s not the point,” she said. Anger sprang to her face so quickly that Robby was startled by it.
“Okay,” Carrie said, putting up her hands. “I think we’ve been here too long today. We’re all getting a little entrenched. Let’s adjourn until tomorrow. Same time?”
She waited until everyone had agreed and then she stood to dismiss them.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Robby took his plate and scanned the tables until he saw where Lisa had gone. She was downwind of the grill. It was smoky, but at least the smoke kept bugs away. Gordie wormed his way under the bench when Robby sat down.
“Hey,” Romie said. She took a bite off her corn. “We should see what variety they’re growing here. This is a thousand times better than ours.”
“I think it’s the soil more than the variety,” Lisa said.
Robby saw Corinna and Liam. He waved them over.
“How’s the brain trust going?” Romie asked.
Brad grunted in between bites of salad.
“Not great,” Robby said. “Some people want to consolidate everyone into tight communities, so we can count on each other and stay connected. Other people want to spread out and live more independently.”
He glanced at Brad to see if he would contradict his statement.
“We should have sent you,” Brad said, wiping his mouth
and pointing at Romie.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Romie said. “I’m only good at saying no.”
Lisa laughed.
Corinna and Liam sat down. Prince stuck his nose under the table, but his back half didn’t fit. The dog sat down with a grunt as Liam climbed onto the bench.
“Didn’t you guys get any of the grilled food?” Lisa asked Corinna.
The young woman shook her head. “We don’t eat that.”
“It’s not meat,” Lisa said. “It’s just grilled vegetables. They only break out the meat for special occasions.”
“I eat meat,” Liam said.
Corinna shrugged.
Robby pushed his plate closer to her and held up a grilled mushroom. She took it between careful fingers and sniffed it before she took a bite. She passed it to Liam to try. He put the whole thing in his mouth and chewed it with a big smile.
“The food is for everyone,” Romie said. “We’ll pay them back with work as soon as everything gets back to normal.”
Brad put down his fork.
“Would you guys move here, if that’s what it took?” he asked.
They all looked to Romie. They had elected Brad to represent them, but they still deferred the decision to her.
“I would,” Romie said. “If that’s what you all want to do. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but I would. Frankly, if I had to guess, I would say that Charlie guy isn’t coming back. Carrie got rid of him, and we all owe her a debt for that.”
Lisa nodded and looked down at the table.
Brad wore a sour expression.
“What about you?” Romie asked him. She pointed her fork at Brad.
After a second, he replied. “It irks me.”
Lisa snorted a quick laugh and covered her mouth.
“What?” Brad asked. He sounded mad, but the corner of his mouth was already turned up. Her laughter was always contagious.
“It’s just you said it in that same way as that guy from the movie that Robby likes. What’s the title of that movie?”
“Nevercome,” Robby said.
“That’s the one,” Lisa said. “It irks me,” she said, sounding just like him.
Brad laughed at her impression.
“Wait, though,” Romie said. “Which part irks you? Are you just mad that you have to live near other people?”
“No,” Brad said. He shook his head and looked up for a second, finding his words. “I guess it irks me because it seems like we haven’t learned anything from all this. We went through this whole ordeal that came up from nowhere and now we’re going to pack back into the same communities and return to life just the way it was before? Where’s the adjustment to make sure it doesn’t happen again?”
The table was silent for a moment.
“It won’t,” Corinna said.
They turned to her. Even Liam stared at her, waiting for more of an explanation.
“It won’t because we all figured it out, right? Each one of us was thinking the same thing—if we just held on, maybe things would get back to normal. Liam was afraid to go outside and I wasn’t making him because I kept thinking that the world would come back. But it’s not coming back and we all know that now.”
Brad took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. He finally nodded.
“You’re right.”
Romie put her hands flat on the table.
“We’ve been using up the old world instead of making a new one. That has to change,” she said. She looked around. Her eyes landed on Robby last. “I know that big brain of yours has cooked up something. I can see it on you. What is it?”
Robby shook his head.
“I haven’t cooked up anything,” Robby said. “There are some communication ideas I have—we can make a network that will allow us to pass messages but quarantine them in case they contain harmful information.”
Brad nodded at the idea.
“But, in general, I think that Corinna is right. We’ve all learned that it’s time to really move on. That’s a profound change, and that alone might be good enough to prevent anything like this ever happening again. Besides, I do believe that Charlie was at the center of some weird collision of different realities. He is gone and it looks like he took the ghosts and the churn with him. He was likely one of a kind.”
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Carrie sat down last. She started her audio recorder.
“Shall we pick up where we left off?” she asked.
Brad put up his hand and spoke when she pointed to him. “I’m willing to drop my objections. After taking time to think them through, I’m not convinced that we could accurately predict the next threat. We’re stronger as a group than we are individually.”
Several people at the table nodded and mumbled their agreement.
“I do think we should make a communication network. Robby has a plan. We can’t have rumors and whispers be the only thing linking our communities, however many there are,” Brad said.
“Okay. We’ll remove Brad’s objections from the list and create a subcommittee to draft the communication strategy. Mike, can you lead that committee with Robby as the technical advisor?
Mike nodded. “I can try.”
“Let’s move onto other objections,” Carrie said. She flipped her pad of paper to a new sheet.
CHAPTER 65: DEPARTURE
“WE’LL BE MOVING AROUND for a while, but just keep an eye on the map in the post office,” Robby said.
Corinna glanced up the street.
“You haven’t seen it? Come on—I’ll show it to you.”
They walked together. Gordie looked up for a second before his attention returned to Liam. The boy was about to throw the ball again down the lawn. Liam was having one of his cautious days—staying near the doorway of the house that he and Corinna had chosen. When one of the dogs left the ball at the bottom of the porch stairs, Liam would scurry down, pick it up, and then hurry back to the doorway.
The post office was just up the street. Robby pushed open the door and held it while Corinna ducked under a cable that was strung across the entry.
“They’re going to mount that somewhere,” Robby said. “It runs down from the solar panel.”
He moved to a TV mounted on the wall and hit the button underneath.
“As we move around, setting up the stations, we’re going to be marked with this green star. Then, when we get home, our star will stay at our post office. You can send a message to us by clicking on the star and then typing it down here.”
Robby demonstrated.
“Right now, the message just goes to the computer in the SUV, but I’ll hook up a terminal in my house when I get set up.”
Corinna nodded. “We’re going to be fine here,” she said. “These are nice people.”
“I know,” Robby said. “I just…” He didn’t know how to finish the thought. Sometimes, she seemed so familiar to him, like he thoroughly understood every thought she had without her ever saying them aloud. Other times, he had no idea what she was going to do next. Robby had completely believed that she would choose to come with them to Northam. When she said that she and Liam were going to stay in Donnelly, Robby had almost reconsidered his move.
“And if we don’t like it, we’ll move,” she said.
Robby smiled.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Brad turned the ratchet while Robby held the cable.
The door swung in and a flashlight found them.
“We’re going to scout a place to stay,” Lisa said.
“I thought we were going to get back on the road,” Brad said.
“You know you’re not going to be happy unless you’re here in daylight to make sure that all your toys work,” Lisa said. “We’re not coming back tomorrow when you realize that you’ve forgotten something.”
She didn’t wait for an objection. She backed out of the post office and let the door swing shut again.
“She’s a smart person,” Brad said.
Robby s
miled. When Brad was in a good mood, Lisa and Romie were smart. When he was frustrated or tired, he accused them of being pessimistic.
“If we put in a bunch more batteries,” Robby said, “we could be gearing up for the shift.”
“No. No. No,” Brad said with a laugh. “You have no idea how many batteries it takes to charge one of those vehicles. We’re not switching to electric any time soon when we have all this diesel sitting around. Besides, once the diesel is done, we can shift to other oils with even longer shelf lives. I bet vegetable oil will store for years and years. Then we just mix it up… There.”
He finished tightening the bolts and popped the socket off of his wrench.
“Now we just have to wait until dawn to make sure everything works,” Brad said.
“We’re going to have to go back soon,” Robby said.
Brad sighed and shook his head.
“I know, but we do. Lisa is worried about the gardens. We don’t even know how many houses in Gladstone are still intact,” Robby said.
“That’s one thing I learned about myself a long time ago,” Brad said. “I like to do projects, but I hate redoing them. All that work to set up everything and we’re going to have to do it all again.”
Robby nodded. “We can do it all better this time. We’ll make everything more scalable and we’ll be working with Northam. Good ideas will come from the collaboration with Mike. He’s smart.”
“I know,” Brad said. “Corinna was right—I need to change my mindset. I need to be working towards permanence.”
“This will help,” Robby said, gesturing towards the machine they had just installed. It would be a very slow network for anything but simple messages, but it was wireless. Hooked up to the solar panels and batteries, it would at least connect the communities. Ideas would be shared. Solutions would be coordinated.
“You’re right,” Brad said. He picked up the toolbox and headed for the door as he said it.
