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

by Zack Finley

  “Yeah, we’re on the same page about Major Thomas,” my dad said. “I am positive he heard something official that has him digging in. I wish he’d share information. It would make everything easier. We can’t count on help from Sheriff Lewis either. To put it mildly, I think he is freaking out. Our guys report the deputies haven’t left the jail in days. Not that there are any more businesses left to plunder.”

  “I think the Militia will hit the middle school,” I said. “The seniors will fight, but we face the prospect of watching them get slaughtered or offering them sanctuary.”

  “I know. I don’t want them slaughtered, and I don’t want to offer refuge,” my dad confided. “I’ll have your mom crunch the numbers and let you know what it does to us. We are already using more water than the spring produces at times during the day. Everything fills back up at night, so it isn’t critical, but I may have to put the newest building on stream water. Your mom wants to issue toilet paper by the week so people “don’t waste” it. What next? Will people start stealing from their neighbor’s toilet paper stash?”

  “I’ll learn what I can from the prisoners. It may take a full day to wear them down. They are pretty wet and cold now, so that should help them along,” I said.

  I talked to my guy monitoring the prisoners to see if either one said anything. One kept telling the other to keep his mouth shut. That made it easy to pick the softer target. I dragged the most vulnerable one into the shed and tied him to a chair. I then left him there to worry, while I went to eat supper.

  The food court was crowded. The population in the valley had doubled, so it wasn’t really a surprise. It drove home my dad’s concerns about resources. Leaner times were on us for the foreseeable future. With some luck, we’d do all right through the winter. Our food crops would have to do well, or by next winter a lot of our stored supplies would be used up. It was good we had some warning, or we’d be on even shorter rations. While we had more than a year’s supply of food set aside, that had to help us through future crop failures. The bright spot was our increased meat and egg production.

  I suspected my mom was already deciding what to do with emptying storage containers. I knew from pre-meltdown data most people ate between three and four pounds of food per day. I suspected we were now closer to two pounds per day, but that still meant at least 500 pounds of food per day. I doubted our new people brought 20 tons of food with them to last until the fall harvest. They would be pulling from the valley reserves. It was going to be a long time until we were producing the quantity of food being eaten. Unfortunately, we had to produce enough food to get us through next winter, and the future. Without reserves, an early or late frost, or a hailstorm, or an ice storm could be devastating. Farming was always at the whim of the weather. All we could do was plant diversified crops and plant enough to make up for future losses.

  That is if we weren’t in a shooting war.

  Those grim thoughts made it easier to conduct my interrogation. I brought a second chair and a bucket of stream water to the garden hut. I decided to leave the hood in place at first.

  “Hey buddy what is your name,” I asked, letting my mild Tennessee drawl slide back in place. “Are you from around here?” I asked.

  Neither question got an answer.

  “Buddy you got to give me something or my boss will just kill you,” I said. “He wasn’t real happy we took prisoners anyway.” I had traded my helmet for my stained and well-worn orange Vols ball cap.

  I removed the guy’s hood. He was soaking wet and shivering. His teeth were clenched.

  “Just give me your name,” I said. “Mine is Jeremy. Where were you when the lights went out?” I asked.

  “I’m trying to keep this friendly, but if you won’t even tell me your name, we aren’t going to go very far.” I paused to let him respond, but nothing. “Okay, I guess you need a bit more help being reasonable. I lifted up the bucket and held it over his head.

  “You gonna tell me your name?” I didn’t wait and dumped half the icy bucket on top of his head. I jerked the hood back over the man’s head.

  “I’m going to go have a hot cup of coffee. When I come back, you can either tell me your name or I’m going to put the other guy in here. My boss don’t want to feed any prisoners. He sure won’t care if I kill one of you.”

  I closed the door and went to meet my guy sitting in the truck cab watching the other prisoner. The rain was still coming down, and the wind was downright chilly. “Joe,” I said. “That guy is singing like a baby. I’m bringing him a cup of hot coffee. I don’t think we are going to need this other guy. Those jokers belong to a bunch called the Lloyd Mountain Militia. I already have directions to their headquarters. Just need to nail down a few more details. The boss is willing to let these guys go if they cooperate. I guess he might even offer one of them a place with us if they are real helpful. Of course, the boss promised me I could shoot one of them.”

  At the food court, they were cleaning up. I noticed a sign over the coffee urn proclaiming that the limit was two cups of coffee per day. Hot water was unlimited. I wondered when the coffee would run out.

  By the time I got back, the man in the shed had turned his chair over. I pushed him out of the way with my foot. I then sat in my chair and slurped my coffee. After a bit, he mumbled something into his hood. I took that as a positive sign and pulled the hood off, leaving the side of his face on the wet, filthy floor.

  “Did you say something?” I asked, slurping my coffee. I needed the coffee to last. As weak as the coffee was, its potent aroma still filled the small shed.

  “You might as well tell me your first name; what harm is that?” I asked. “Maybe you need another shower? Yeah, I bet you haven’t had many showers since the crash.”

  “Ccccoffee,” he said.

  “Sorry buddy, coffee is for me and people who cooperate. You help me, I might go get you some. Of course, you wait too long, and they will probably run out for today. There are a few shortages now,” I said. “What is your name.”

  “Fffrank,” he shivered.

  “So Frank, what did you do before the crash?” I asked.

  “Ggypsum plant,” Frank said.

  “When did you join the Militia?” I asked.

  “After the crash,” Frank answered. “They said we’d be fed if we followed orders.”

  “How did you find them after the crash?” I asked.

  “My fffriend is a member. He tried to get me to join when I first hired on at the plant, but I wasn’t that interested. He came by my apartment complex after the president’s announcement and recruited a lot of us for the Militia.”

  “How big is the Militia up on Lloyd Mountain?” I asked.

  “We got over 100 men and a handful of women. They only hand out guns when we go out on assignments. The guy I’m with is hard cccore. He joined them years ago. If he learns I talked he’ll kkkill me,” Frank said.

  “You won’t need to worry about that,” I assured Frank. “Why are you attacking us?”

  “Mister, I go where I’m told. I didn’t go on last night’s fiasco, so I had to go out today,” Frank said. “They don’t ask me what I want. If I do what I’m told, I eat. Not great, but I eat.”

  “What is your hard-core partner’s name?” I asked.

  “Everyone calls him Fffrosty. Nobody told me why and I sure to hell dddidn’t ask,” Frank said.

  “Did you hear anything about a special weapon to take out our Humvees?” I asked.

  “I know they aren’t worried about them, don’t know why—especially after yesterday’s mess,” said Frank.

  “Do they have shoulder-fired tube weapons? I asked.

  “I didn’t see any, but whatever they were counting on last night was in the second wave, they didn’t expect you to leave so early. So, they weren’t ready,” Frank said.

  “What is the commander like?” I asked.

  “Josh is a ggood gguy. He’s explained that the ggovernment will now be trying to take our gg
uns and food,” Frank said. “Ccan I have that coffee, now?”

  “I’ll be right back, think about what else I might like to know for my boss.”

  There wasn’t much coffee left, but I added hot water to it. I didn’t think Frank would mind.

  He drained his cup, and it seemed to bolster him.

  “Tell me more about Josh,” I said.

  “He really knows stuff. He even predicted this crash. You know it wasn’t caused by the sun, don’t you? He said that Wall Street billionaires did it. It’s part of the plan to take over America,” said Frank, no longer shivering quite as hard.

  “So, what does he plan for Mecklin County?” I asked.

  “He’s got lots bigger plans than Mecklin County. He’s working with the group up in Oneida to take over the Walmart. Once he has all that stuff, he intends to fire the sheriff and county mayor and take over. They are doing a terrible job and should probably be killed or made to work as slaves. Then he’s going to take back the grid from the billionaires. He says there are groups just like us all over the country ready to take our country back.”

  I heard enough, for now. Curious about the Militia’s involvement in the mess in Oneida. They apparently used the gypsum plant for their principal recruitment. Blaming Wall Street for the sun’s wrath was clever. It implied all we had to do to restore America was to take back the grid from a bunch of businessmen. I suspected the rank and file knew nothing about CME or transformers. So far, the only big surprise was they didn’t challenge the sheriff right away and capture the local food supplies. I was becoming more concerned about them attacking the middle school.

  I was still unsure what to do with these captives. Frosty might know a bit more, but probably not a whole lot. Letting him stew some more wouldn’t hurt.

  “Joe, I’m going to get Frank a hot meal. He has been real cooperative. Your guy’s name is Frosty,” I laughed. “So he probably doesn’t even feel the cold.”

  I went to share what I learned with my dad.

  “If we leave them in their wet clothes, they’ll probably die of hypothermia by morning,” I said. “I’m going to make a run at Frosty, but how much more he can offer is questionable. He may have been on some of the planning for ops, but I’d switch up the details if one of my planners went missing.”

  “Question Frosty, see what he can add. Then give them some dry clothes. Tie them back up and put one in the shed and one in an empty shipping container. Put Frosty in the garden shed, assuming it is colder and damper. We can put them together and listen to what they say if we need to. I’m not opposed to killing them. But it is hard to question dead men,” my dad said. “No need to waste food on them, unless you can use it to for leverage. I wanted to talk with you about something else. With the way things are going, we need you and Force Beta concentrating on our current threats. Let Roger and our old cronies worry about shaking out the security force, setting up training and guard rotations. Because it also involves bringing in a large group of mostly unvetted new people, Roger needs to be our intel chief, too.”

  I actually thought this was a good idea. Until a year ago Roger was in charge of the security force. I’d spent most of the past year recruiting and equipping Force Beta. “Are you sure Roger has the time?” I asked.

  “No,” my dad laughed. “He’ll just have to do the best we can just like the rest of us. But he now has a lot of his top hands relocated to the valley to help him. I want you and your meat eaters at the tip of the spear, not bogged down teaching gun safety to kids. All these new people who need vetting will require monitoring and follow up. Assigning Roger as the intel chief will help him do that quietly and effectively. I’ll tell him once we are done if the plan is okay with you?”

  “I’m good with that. If I’d had time to bring in more Rangers,” I started.

  My dad cut me off. “Don’t even start. None of us really thought this would happen. I’m just grateful you had a year to make the changes you did. You and Force Beta are the only trained fighting force we have, I don’t want you diluted doing things others should help with. I also know all warriors need a break from the tension of combat, so we will continue assigning your team to other duties. One of your assignments will be to work closely with Roger to blur the lines between the security force and Force Beta over time.”

  I took a deep breath and then nodded.

  “Good, go talk with Frosty and then turn them over to the good cops,” my dad said.

  We scrounged dirty pants and shirts for the two prisoners, assuming we might never want them back. I then sent Frank to be locked in the storage container. I told my guy to allow Frank to take off his wet clothes and put on dry things but to shoot him if he tried anything funny. After Frank changed clothes, he was to be tied up and locked in the container.

  After Frank was taken away, I dragged Frosty out of the pickup and over to the shed. I tied Frosty to the chair and left him there for 20 minutes.

  I sat down on the chair next to him and removed his hood. “Well Frosty, my boss tells me I have to offer you the same deal as Frank. You got anything to say?”

  “What dddeal was thattt?” Frosty asked.

  “Does it matter? If you know something that would interest us, you might want to say so, now. I’ve already spent a lot more time fucking with you than I wanted to. Everybody else is in a warm house by a cozy fire, and I’m stuck here with you,” I said. “You seem to enjoy the rain, but I don’t.”

  “What did Ffrank ttell you?” Frosty asked.

  “Why the hell should I tell you squat?” I asked. “I’m just going through the motions here. My boss wants to give you a chance to tell all for clemency. Me, I don’t really care. Tell me something Frank don’t know.”

  “We ggot anti-tank gguns,” said Frosty.

  “Hell, everyone knows that,” I said. “Those yahoos Jimbo and Charlie told us that this morning before I killed them. They wouldn’t answer all my questions, so I offed them. My boss says I was too hasty. I’m supposed to treat you better. I’m supposed to persuade one of you to join our team. You haven’t told me anything, new. Right now, Frank has my vote.”

  “Nnnot fair,” Frosty said.

  “Who said I gotta be fair. Tell me something I don’t already know,” I said. I only waited a few heartbeats. “Time’s up,” I said getting up and moving to the door.

  Wwwaitt,” Frosty said.

  “Tell me something,” I said pausing.

  “We got mortars,” Frosty said.

  “Everyone has mortars,” I said, dismissing his offering. “Sounds like you got nothing.”

  “Josh is ppplanning to attack your base,” Frosty said.

  “It sounds like you don’t have anything,” I said. “Have a cold night. If you are still alive in the morning, I’ll see if anyone is interested.”

  It seemed my dad claiming to be a pacifist might have been unwise. It was time to bring in a good cop for Frosty.

  I knew you could buy mortars online, I just hadn’t bothered ordering them. Most were left over from Vietnam, and the ammo was pretty suspect, not to say illegal. I doubted the group had a lot of mortars, but an unlucky shot could hurt the kids.

  I briefed my dad on the bad news about the Militia having both anti-tank and mortar gear. He agreed to take over Frosty’s interrogation for now. He was still reluctant to kill them until we knew more about the Militia.

  I left the dirty shirt and pants with my dad to give Frosty or not.

  I needed to rethink our defense and ponder our new opponent. We now had too many people in the valley for our non-combatants to be protected in our safe rooms. Without training, it wasn’t easy to accurately fire either mortars or anti-tank weapons. I hated to rely on my opponent's poor training to protect our valley.

  A mortar set up on the next hilltop could rain death into our valley. They didn’t need to be accurate to hurt us. I now wished we had killed a few more of their shooters.

  We’d learn a lot more about them if they attacked the mi
ddle school tonight.

  I went home to dry off, warm up, and visit with my girls.

  Everyone was on their best behavior at my house. Seeing the new people trying to move into the metal buildings seemed to help Jennifer accept our new normal. She still ignored Ellie, but she and Joe buried the hatchet, at least tonight. Jennifer and Joe played a cutthroat game of gin rummy, while Billy and Melissa played some kind of board game featuring pesky humans. Billy must have brought it because it wasn’t ours. Ellie just sat by her mom.