Breckinridge Valley: Surviving the Black--Book 1 of a Post-Apocalyptical series

by Zack Finley

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 8

  It took three more days for the radio static to clear. Sally, our main HAM operator, scoured the different frequencies looking for any broadcast.

  Over the past week, we acquired both a national guard radio and a sheriff’s radio. Everyone confirmed the radios were working, we just didn’t have any news from outside our immediate area. Sheriff Lewis said no one was responding from Oneida.

  I was relieved to talk with our people in Huntsville, even cryptically via CB radio. Things stayed pretty calm after the shootings. The deputies were transferring more and more stuff into the jail. They were still dropping off most of the found food at the middle school. The middle school picked up another 10 refugees during the past week. Buzzer and Eric said the new folks were fitting in pretty well. Buzzer thought three of the new people could help defend the place.

  The residents voted to evict one of the refugees because he refused to help out. He scoffed at them until Eric offered to escort him down the road. Apparently, that was all it took, he was now doing more.

  We continued providing eggs and milk to them every three or four days. Last time we added some apples to the mix. Sheriff Lewis still sent a deputy to visit them almost every day. He gave them the weapons retrieved from the killers at Buzzer’s request. Buzzer was training members of the group how to defend themselves.

  With the return of radios, everyone was told to sit tight, we hoped to know more later today.

  The first confirmation this was a global event came from Australia. A HAM operator there was trying to find out if there was anyone left on the planet. Atmospherics were such Sally could hear him, but he couldn’t hear her. The other communication was from Northern California. He said the whole state was on fire. The electrical system collapse sparked so many fires the air was unbreathable. No one was fighting any of the fires, so he didn’t expect the flames to go out until the state burned up or it rained a lot. He was desperate to hear what was happening. Despite the desperation, he didn’t respond to her query.

  Two HAM operators weren’t much, but it was enough to know the situation wasn’t confined to just the local area. We were really counting on the national guard to tell us how bad it was in the rest of Tennessee. After nearly two weeks of nothing but static, it might take other radio operators some time to log back on.

  The regular radio was still down, FM and AM both. We were scanning it, just in case.

  Our HAM operator broadcasted to get someone’s attention about half the time and scanned for transmissions the rest. Sally was hoping to find someone in another part of the U.S., Canada or the U.K. but she’d love to contact anyone.

  HAM operators were quite resilient. All they needed was a car battery to operate. They were probably laying low and saving power waiting for the static to clear up.

  My dad took one of our new Humvees to visit Sheriff Lewis. He didn’t want to announce what we learned from Australia and California over the open radio. If we heard from other locations, he wanted us to radio him using code.

  I knew what my dad was thinking, it was time to transition from short-term survival to long-term. So far, Sheriff Lewis adjusted to the changing conditions reasonably well, but I wasn’t very hopeful this conversation would go well. The other reason my dad went to town was to put our teams on notice we were pulling out of Huntsville. He knew some of his old comrades expected to bring their neighbors into the valley. We were willing, but only if they agreed to certain conditions. He thought he needed to meet with them face-to-face to reinforce the seriousness of the situation.

  I knew everyone hoped the collapse was localized. Now that we knew it wasn’t, recovery would be measured in years and decades, not weeks. Our resurgence as a people would likely start in homesteads like ours in rural America. It took just over 100 years to go from a mainly agrarian life to the internet. Since we didn’t have to reinvent everything, we should be able to rebuild in my lifetime. As long as we didn’t get bogged down fighting each other. America mostly avoided feudal warfare, but some parts of the world never developed because of it.

  I hoped people of good will pulled together, helped each other, and built new communities. Overseas I saw so much of the other, I wasn’t naïve, just hopeful.

  I also wasn’t convinced I was willing to pay a lot of attention to a group of American leaders now hiding in bunkers. After all, they were the ones who failed to avert this crisis.

  They could help, or they could hurt. We’d have to judge by their actions. If they focused on getting oil flowing and electrical grids back, I could get behind that. If they tried to dictate how we ran our lives, not so much.

  Time would tell. I wasn’t a young kid anymore. Santa Claus was one myth. “I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help” was another one.

  I tried not to dwell on anything but today. Today we were finally starting the main defensive platform. It was a recycled forest service tower, designed to build with only people-power and hand tools. While the painted steel elements were original, the kit included all new galvanized bolts, nuts and washers.

  While we could have built the 30-foot high tower by hand, I cheated and brought out an air compressor, air hoses and a pair of impact wrenches. I didn’t want to spend a week on this project.

  The guys worked well together, assembling the pieces and hand tightening the bolts. This allowed those with impact wrenches to come behind them and snug up the connectors.

  I reserved the power and probably bumped someone’s laundry plans.

  We stripped off our armor and left our weapons on the ground level. It was too dangerous to work on high steel with either. The guys thought I was too careful when I made them use fall protection when we got above 20 feet. Nobody would have thought to use it if we were in Afghanistan, but no reason to risk serious injury either.

  We passed around the impact wrenches to give everyone’s arms a workout. Nobody fell off, and we finished the main structure in time for supper.

  We decided supper best described the main meal of the day. Some folks wanted to call it dunch, combining lunch and dinner, but they were overridden. Supper just seemed right.

  We’d put up the guard platform after supper. The kitchen struck the gong to summon the valley for meals. Nobody in the valley was a clock watcher. After too many people skipped supper, Dr. Jerrod threw a fit. That led to the gong.

  It felt good to be outside without armor and weapons on a beautiful fall day. I even left my knife on the deck. I suspected I wasn’t the only one thinking that as my team waited to make sure I was suiting up to go to supper before they moved.

  Supper was rabbit stew with polenta, salad, a persimmon and a cup of coffee. I spotted Jennifer and Melissa at what was now the “kid’s table.” They were jabbering away with their friends. Each child had a small glass of milk.

  My guys licked their bowls clean. I suspected they would soon have a stack of poker chips for extra food. They didn’t have any trouble with their persimmons. They even cracked open the seeds with their teeth.

  I remember my mom saying toasted persimmon seeds were used in the civil war as a coffee substitute.

  Two guys trotted off to relieve those on watch for supper. I went to check if we learned anything more from the radio. We arranged to meet back at the erector set in about a half hour to finish up.

  My dad was still in Huntsville. He provided no feedback over the radio about his talk with Sheriff Lewis. Sally intercepted a few more HAM radio messages. All trying to find someone still alive anywhere in the world. Sally thought one was from east Texas. The other was half in English and half something else. Still nothing on the public radio bands.

  I told her to get some supper and then get back to it.

  I decided we didn’t need power tools after supper, so we put away the air compressor, hoses, and pneumatic tools. We rigged up a pulley to haul the material up to the top of the tower. The platform was 7 foot by 7 foot with a hinged trap door and a few modi
fications the US Forest Service hadn’t considered.

  Anyone on the platform would get shot at. Keeping them alive meant building bullet resistance into the floor and walls. For this, we used steel, not the original wooden slats.

  We hauled the steel floor joists up and bolted them into place. Until now the construction sequence was pretty obvious. There were a few false starts, but the original 1938 US Forest Service construction drawings served as a good roadmap. The layers of paint built up over the years helped, too.

  That didn’t hold for the jigsaw puzzle of steel plates needed for the cabin. A local company fabricated its steel elements and assembled it in their shop. They then disassembled it and wrapped it in plastic. My dad put it into storage nearly 20 years ago.

  Putting it together on the ground would have been trivial, assembling it without a crane more than 30 feet up turned it into a challenge.

  My guys stopped questioning the need for fall protection when a joist shifted under Craig’s weight and knocked him off the structure. He was embarrassed but not injured. I noticed everyone became a lot more vigilant about securing their connection to the structure.

  I called it a day after the framework for the steel plate was in place. The light was fading, and we were all tired. We stacked the tools in our golf cart. One of the guys either won or lost the bet because he drove the cart back to the garage while the rest of us dispersed.

  I was only a little concerned that my dad was still in Huntsville. I checked in at the radio hut. Nothing new. Sally now had a cot in the shack and assured me she would hear any broadcast. There was still a lot of static throughout the day but nothing like the past weeks.

  The aurora wasn’t as bright, but it was still visible as I walked home. I hoped the girls were home but wouldn’t know until I got there. Shutters and light discipline made the whole valley look dark and uninhabited. If it wasn’t for the smoke coming from the chimneys one might think the place was abandoned.

  My girls were home, and they were not happy. I learned that starting tomorrow, they were being assigned to school part-time. From the level of reaction, I understood this was not to their liking. Apparently, they preferred mucking out stables.

  Jennifer entertained me with a fairly reasoned argument that school was worthless compared to eating. Melissa chimed in with her agreement.

  I told them they needed to keep learning, especially because of the current situation. They were both scheduled for an hour each of math and science in the morning and an hour of combined English and social studies in the afternoon.

  “Three hours a day doesn’t seem that bad,” I offered.

  “But daaaad, they said we would have to do homework,” Melissa said.

  “Since we have so much work to do around the valley every day, it seems reasonable for you to spend some time at home reading texts and doing math problems. Remember, we don’t have computers anymore to help figure stuff out,” I said, trying to help them understand. “We will be expecting the older kids to help teach the younger ones.”

  My girls weren’t ready for logic. I frequently wondered whether they ever would be.

  When Craig came in, they took their complaints to him. His response was a lot more sympathetic. He didn’t need to defend the principles of higher education.

  I looked at him in disgust, but he just grinned back. He solidified his position as their favorite uncle of the week.

  A runner knocked on the door and summoned me for a meeting at my dad’s.

  I caught Craig’s eye, and he acknowledged he’d stay at the house. I doubted the kids noticed the subtle communication.

  I left him describing his dive off the tower, making it sound like he did it on purpose. Part of me was jealous he got to spend this time with my girls. But mostly I was grateful that he was there. He was now part of their lives. I knew both he and the girls benefited from the interaction. He was in his 20s, and they treated him like an older brother, not a sub-parent.

  My dad called a full command meeting. Sally summarized her contacts, but the information was already old news. She was still hopeful others would return to the air.

  “Major Thomas says he is not communicating with anyone,” my dad said. I wasn’t the only one who noticed his odd phrasing. “The sheriff was badly shaken by the reports out of Australia and California this morning. He isn’t eager to share this “speculation” with anyone until it can be independently verified.”

  Clearly, the sheriff was not interested in discussing long-term support options.

  “The situation in Oneida is chaotic,” my dad continued. “Frankly, my reading of the situation is that the cops went nuts. They took over the Walmart and dug in. I’m told their families moved in with them and they are willing to shoot anyone who approaches. Sheriff Lewis makes excuses for them. He doesn’t have the resources to intervene, even if he was so inclined. I worry some of the sheriff’s deputies are starting to fall into the same mindset about the materials being moved to the jail.”

  This caused a low-level murmur around the table.

  “I’ve let our allies know we are pulling out of Huntsville. I want to do that before it turns into an Oneida or we start getting a lot of refugees from the cities,” dad said. “We need to put up the barracks units. I’ve agreed to provide refuge for nearly 100 people over and above our allies. It would have been another 40 more, except the folks at the middle school want to wait it out there. I’ve agreed to continue supplementing their food as we can. They realize we will have to stop if things get too rough. They intend to ask for seeds and garden tools for the spring.”

  “We are bringing Steve, Mandy, and all the remaining solar equipment in first. Since the 18-wheeler is already here and the trailer is still full, they will need both box trucks and a bunch of pickups to move everything. We are going to deliver the trucks tonight by night vision. From now on, we will travel between Huntsville and the valley in the dark as much as possible.”

  “We’ll plan to bring the solar store in tomorrow night. Then expect groups to arrive every night until we’ve consolidated everyone. Buzzer and Eric plan to be the last of our folks left in town,” my dad said.

  “The box trucks will need to be emptied during the day and made ready for the next night’s activity. It’s going to be a strain to build the dorms and manage so many off-site evacuations. But I know I can count on you.”

  “Do we have a list of who is coming and their skills,” my mom asked.

  “Here is what I have,” my dad said, handing over a handwritten list. “Much more will have to wait until they get here.”

  “Has anyone approached the veterinarian?” Roger asked.

  “No one has seen the vet since the power went out,” my dad said. “His truck is missing. The speculation is he went to find his family. I think his daughter lives near Chicago.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Roger said. “I always thought recruiting him was iffy. A veterinary assistant, welder, or mechanic would be useful. I’m sure Dr. Jerrod would really welcome an RN.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” my dad said. “Everyone we bring in will pull their weight, or they will be required to leave. We are going to have at least 100 people in our valley who haven’t been long term allies and who aren’t tied by blood. They will be on probation. We will need to keep some information from them. They are donating everything they have which might be useful to the valley as their price of entry. We have a lot more resources in storage than I want anyone outside the core group of long term allies to know about. All our newcomers need to know is that we think we can eke by until the gardens start producing in the spring. If you are on watch with them, you need to keep one eye on them.”

  There was an ugly murmur at that around the table.

  “They have all been vouched for by allies,” my dad said. “But we don’t know much about them. We need to add people. We always knew that. I just want us going into this with our eyes wide open. I will kill them myself before I allow anyone to hurt
our family.”

  That seemed to satisfy people for now.

  The discussions turned to all the work which needed to get done.

  Dad wanted to take one Ma Deuce with him, just in case but he planned to leave me with all of Force Beta.

  Uncle George was in charge of the farming operation while my dad was off-site. George reminded me that cows still needed to be fed and not everyone could be released to work on other projects.

  My mom patted him on the hand. They moved to a corner to discuss his issues. He was usually so quiet and easy-going I suspected all his new under-age help was starting to get to him.

  I left my mom and others to work out the assignment list. I expected to at least put up the floor plate for our defensive platform before shifting to building metal dorms. I reserved some power for the air compressor and several electric drills. I also booked the electric forklift and a diesel tractor with front end loader for the project. We’d do what we could with the forklift, but I suspected it would go faster with more lifting help.