by Jeff Ping
Chapter 9
Last week, I was talking to June about making the trip down to where my brother Ralph had his place. I just need to see if he and Karen made it out before the Zombies overran the Bay Area. She said that I shouldn't get my hopes up. But I told her we Mason boys are a tough lot, and if anyone could get out, old Ralph would have. I told her I needed to go and look. Just so I'd know for sure.
I borrowed Pete's APC with a dozen crates of apples, several dozen bottles of the local wine and a few jugs of cider. June, Jack, Beth, little Billy, and I set out for Ralphs place the first week of October.
It turned out that I had been in Appleton for five years and all that time I was only about 35 minutes from Ralphs place. I stopped the APC at the gate that blocked the road leading into Ralph's neighborhood. A guard stepped out of the little shack at the gate and asked my business here. I told him my name and that I was checking to see if my brother Ralph Mason had made it up here.
"Ralph? Ralph Mason? Everyone knows Ralph. He's a local hero in these parts. Ralph has moved over to his son-in-laws compound. I'll call and get you an escort over to see him. Rumor has it he just returned from Wasco last week, so he should be in Jennyville," said the guard as he stepped into the guard shack and cranked the handle on a phone. "Commander, this is Tim Gunderson. A guy here says he's Ralph's brother and that he needs to see him. Yes sir. I'll tell him you will be here to talk to him in a few minutes."
The guard stepped back outside the shack and said, "Commander Hanson will be here shortly. He will escort you to Jennyville. That's where Ralph is living now."
Forty five minutes later we followed Commander Hanson's vehicle up to the gates of what looked like a castle and stopped while he addressed the guard. Minutes later we drove inside the castles walls, and parked outside of a five story concrete building.
Ralph came walking out the front door and strode over to me and started to grab my hand. But, I grabbed him around the shoulders and just held onto him for an awkward minute. Finally, Ralph shrugged me loose and said, "Who is this little girl and what has she done with my brother?"
"Bite me!" I said and punched Ralph in the shoulder.
"There he is!" said Ralph as he laughed and grabbed me in a bear hug.
June had the kids unloaded when Rob, Jenny Kelly and their kids had walked out behind him. Introductions were then made.
Jenny said, "These are the twins, Ralphie and Robbie and this little one is Abby. She's our youngest. I named her after my mom.
Kelly said, "I'm little Bobby's mom. Jenny's brother, Bobby, was my boyfriend when he was killed. Little Bobby is named for him. I guess you can see that we didn't agonize too much over names.
Jenny told the group about Ralph finding her and her younger brother Bobby at their Grandfathers farm when they were kids. She explained that Ralph had taken them in and become a surrogate father. At that time they had all lived in Haven. She said Ralph treated both her and Bobby as his own and they had come to think of him as a father.
Beth looked over at June and smiled. "We all know how that can happen," said June reaching over and squeezing Beth's hand.
Jenny continued her story telling how on a return trip to Sacramento, Rob and Ralph had found Betty and her being held as prisoners. It seemed that a group of councilmen were trying to wrest control of Haven for themselves.
Their plan was to hold us as hostages in order to assure Ralph and Rob's compliance.
Unfortunately, for the councilmen, Rob and Ralph had another solution. Their plan involved killing or exiling the councilmen.
Jenny then said, "After that blowup, Rob decided to build Jennyville. Rob and I moved over here and he started constructing Jennyville. For six months at least, Rob and I lived in an APC while the original walls and buildings were constructed. And yes, I am the namesake of, 'Jennyville,' she laughed.
"Anyways, then Ralph and Betty fell in love and were going to get married."
Jenny told about how both Betty and her little brother Bobby had been killed by the Zombies a couple of years ago.
She continued to say that after the funerals, Ralph took off into the wilderness and wandered for two years killing Zombies and existing on his own until his grief abated.
Jenny continued, "He finally returned to Jennyville since that's where Rob and I still live. Then after a couple of days of being here he drives to Haven. Guess what he finds there? You tell them Ralph.
"Ok,Yeah, when I got into Haven, I learned that Bobby's girlfriend Kelly had bore my son Bobby's baby. After a confrontation with her stepfather over his treatment of Kelly and the baby, I took both Kelly and the baby back here to Jennyville. I've provided living quarters for her and the baby. I gave my house and all my stuff to Kelly's brother, Wally.
I had to warn the old man to keep away. I'm sure he will. He knows I don't make idle threats. Kelly's brother Wally was just as glad to see the last of their stepfather as she was. Wally only stayed there to protect her and the baby. Wally is a Guard Captain in our militia and now has a wife and two boys of his own and since he needed the house, I gave it to him.
Ralph, Rob and I sat around that evening and drank a few of Robs Wasco beers. Ralph told me that he was going to start gathering educated or highly skilled survivors in order to start a school for our young people to preserve as much vital knowledge and technology as possible.
Rob asked me about Appleton. I told him that we had yet to see any Zombie activity. And that we had been there almost five years.
"None?" asked Rob. "
None, I've heard about. The last Zombie that I saw was in a little town out by Pyramid Lake," I told him.
"We kill about 30 or 40 Zombies a month between here and Haven. The further south you go toward Sac the more Zombies you encounter. And Ralph says that around the Bay Area or L.A. packs or groups of hundreds are commonly encountered. And that it's unbelievable east of the Mississippi River. He says groups as large as a thousand or more are common. Ralph said they are so thick there they surround and trap wild life and cattle."
"Well, big brother always tended to exaggerate." I said.
"I don't think it's an exaggeration. I've seen groups as big as a couple hundred just in Sacramento. And twenty of the twenty two top population density states are east of the Mississippi. Hell, D.C. was like nine thousand people per square mile. How could there be any survivors there? They might not even know there is a Zombie problem in Alaska only having about 1.2 people per square mile," laughed Rob.
"Where did you get all that information? Is it real?" I asked.
"Yeah, while Ralph wandered for a couple of years after Betty and Bobby were killed he traveled a couple thousand miles and visited several large cities. He kept records on the Zombie populations. He even checked driver licenses on the Zombies that he killed in an effort to identify how far they traveled.
He told me about his trek into San Francisco, Los Angeles and the six months that he spent traveling as far east as Louisville before turning back. Ralph told me that everything east of the Mississippi River is a wasteland. He thinks the only way to re-establish the living as the dominant beings is to start over here in the west.
Ralph is intent on creating a school system and a university. He wants to train and prepare the next generation to survive and to give them the potential of flourishing. We've been using our chopper and Wasco's chopper to gather people here at Jennyville who were school teachers and professionals and to start a university to rebuild society.
Sometimes I eat lunch with the ones that have gathered here and we talk. So the information is a combination of Ralph's stories and the data the teachers and professors give me. I think your lack of Zombies in Appleton and mine here and in Sacramento coupled with what Ralph saw further east tend to prove that theory," said Rob.
"Well, I guess it's a lot safer in Appleton than we ever realized. We never thought about it much. Although those of us who have experience with the Zombies take precaution, there are p
eople there that have never even seen a Zombie. Maybe you need to start combing the mountain communities looking for survivors," I said.
"You need to suggest that to Ralph. I hadn't thought about looking there and I don't think Ralph has either. Ralph is scheduled to leave next week for Wasco in order to travel to some towns in the central valley in order to try and locate more people to recruit to our budding university," said Rob
"I was hoping to spend some time catching up with Ralph. I haven't seen or talked to him in eight or nine years." I said.
"You are welcome to join me little brother. Together, we might decide to wipe out the gangs that plague the central valley communities," Ralph laughed as he joined us.
"Maybe I'll do that. I'll talk to June about it tonight. Hell, when the Zombie thing first hit the west coast I was only about 30 miles from Wasco. But I decided to check out Edwards AFB. That's where I first met June, Jack, and Beth." I said.
"June and the kids can stay here in my apartment. June could get to know Jenny, Rob and Kelly. They have been my family for the last few years. And I haven't even got into the fact that there are three little ones running around here that call me Grandpa or Papa," said Ralph shaking his head. "Well, I'm happy to be Grandpa as far as they are concerned." Ralph laughed.
June and Beth were happy to spend some time getting to know Jenny and Kelly. Beth was thrilled at the prospect of combing through the clothing that Rob and others always made a point of gathering whenever they went on foraging trips.
The following week Ralph, Jack who even at fifteen was still hovered over by June, and I, raced down the runway beside Jennyville and started our flight south to Wasco.
"When the hell did you learn to fly an airplane big brother?" I asked.
"My friend Gus, you'll meet him in Wasco, he taught me to fly last year. In the last year I've probably flown to Wasco and back a couple dozen times.
Want to fly for a while Jack?" Ralph asked knowing the answer before Jack could believe what he was hearing.
"Sure, can I?" he asked. Jack abruptly grabbed the steering yoke in front of him and put us into a steep dive.
"Whoa! There big guy, gently," said Ralph wresting the plane back into level flight. After five minutes, Jack had the general idea and Ralph and I started catching up.
Ralph told me about Karen leaving him for a doctor at the hospital where she worked and about his first meeting of Rob and finding Jenny and Bobby. I told him about my wife Kim leaving.
"She spent the last couple years we were together just generally getting fed up with me and my always working. I have a much better relationship with June. Maybe because we became best friends first and then slowly fell in love. That plus the fact I'm never away from home working now," I told him.
"Yeah... I know what that's like," said Ralph. He then proceeded to tell me about Betty being killed by Zombies on the same day they were to announce their decision to get married and how his adopted son Bobby, had been killed trying to defend her.
Ralph told me that after that tragedy, he had wandered the Zombie infested country, killing Zombies until the ache of Betty and Bobby's loss dulled. Ralph said that he had wandered two years before finally coming to his senses and returning to Jennyville.
"When I finally got back home to Jennyville, I realized that I should have stayed and shared Jenny and Rob's life more. If anything had happened to Jenny or to Kelly or little Bobby who I didn't even know existed while I was out feeling sorry for myself, it would have killed me," Ralph said.
After a four hour flight Ralph took over the aircraft controls. Ralph circled the highway leading into a small valley town and landed the plane and taxied it to a stop off the highway near a roadblock.
