by Lee Thomas
“We’re keeping an eye on it, no worries.” One of the guards behind me said. I turned and saw Jared, one of the ones I was more familiar with. He had started taking over more and more of Dustin’s duties as Dustin was wanting to spend more time with his family.
“I know, but I just had to see it for myself. What are our thoughts so far?” I replied.
“Adam thought about using the main water supply since there is a hydrant nearby and soaking the near side to us to prevent it from getting too close. Another idea was just soak the wood on the wall to prevent it from going up, or even removing it, but the removal idea was squashed as too time consuming. Right now, we are just watching to see what will happen, and we will decide when the actual flames get a little closer.” Jared answered.
“Most of the block on the far side is already destroyed, from street to street, but it hasn’t seemed to jump across the street at this point. This half of the block will be what we have to watch to make sure that nothing on this side catches.” Alex said, walking up beside Jared.
“Let’s keep an eye on it, because we absolutely cannot afford a fire right now. Let me know if anything changes or happens.” I told him, clapping Jared on the shoulder. He had a good instinct about where to put his people for maximum coverage and benefit, so I was sure the problem would be well controlled. I took my leave then, wanting to head all the way to the western end to check in with the guard there. I knew Tony was keeping his team near there, but also slightly north to help watch the water, but still being close enough to respond quickly to the wall.
Pulling up to the guard house near this small western gate, I could see two people up in the tower watching, which gave them a good view of the water behind them, as well as a decent view of the surrounding residential area across the river. I waved up to them as one of them turned to look, then turned and headed for the guard house, which was nothing more than a large RV that had been parked in the grass near the gate. It was closer than any of the houses were, and it still allowed the guards a place to go to get out of the weather and get some sleep as they rotated shifts. Electrical lines had been strung from a nearby house, and fire hoses had been run to provide water as well, so the facilities worked on it too. I reached up and opened the door, stepping into RV.
“Sheldon, how’s it going?” asked Heath, one of the guard captains.
“Could be better, that’s for sure. How’s things here? Any sign of any infected or raiders?” I replied.
“No infected for quite some time, and Tony filled me in on the raider situation, a little. I’ve informed John and Carey up there in the tower to keep watch for them as well, but they usually report anything that moves anyways, even if it’s just an animal. I’m confident that if they come within eyesight of here, we’ll spot them.” He answered me, offering me a water bottle from his fridge. I accepted it with a nod and a smile, twisting the cap off and taking a swig. We talked about the guard rotation, how few people were left to watch the wall now, and what we would like to do once the north was safe. After chatting for a few minutes, I said my goodbyes and headed out, wanting to check in with Tony and that group for a moment before I headed back to the airfield. I planned on going back north to help with that process as everything down here seemed to be handled.
Rolling through the silent streets, it didn’t take too long to reach where Tony and his team had set up their watch station at. It was the backyard of a house that gave an almost straight shot down both arms of the Lafayette river, west to the destroyed bridge, and south towards the bend that led around to the western gate. It allowed them a good view of most of the river separating the secure area from the outside. There was another manned tower at the end of broken bridge that let them see all the way to the bay, so anything coming across by water would be almost guaranteed to be seen. It was an excellent vantage point, but up until now we had never had a reason to set up a watch station here as the infected avoided water.
The houses through here appeared to be upper middle class houses, decent sized and obviously well-maintained before, the intervening years had ruined what landscaping had been done, leaving overgrown yards, out-of-control hedges, and wind-blown debris piled up all over the place. We had done our best to keep certain areas under control, partly for fire prevention, but this was a neighborhood we hadn’t needed to be in before, so it was rough. There were still abandoned cars in driveways and on the streets, and some of the windows had been blown out during storms, so I knew that the inside of some of these houses were not going to be pretty anymore. Maybe setting up a yard detail to start working on some of these outlying neighborhoods was something that needed to be done.
Pulling up to the house that had been designated for the watch station, I could see that Tony’s team had been working on the yard here at least, probably just so they could to and from the house without wading through a jungle. Ticks, snakes, and other creepy crawlies would love to hang out in the tall grass, so it was a health issue as well. Without the use of an actual lawn mower, it looked like the team had used their swords and machetes to cut it down like they were hacking through a rain forest, which as thick and tall as it was, was probably an apt description. The teams’ vehicles were parked both in the driveway as well as on the street, so I parked the cart in the street on the other side of the driveway and walked up to the door. As expected, the door wasn’t locked.
“Hello?” I called, closing the door behind me. It didn’t appear that power had been supplied to this neighborhood since none of the lights were on and the windows were open to allow air to flow through. It was warm in the house, which told me there was no a/c, which made sense with no power. I didn’t get an answer as I walked through the house, and I when I made it to the kitchen and looked through the back yard, I saw why. The entire team was out there, some setting up what appeared to be a sun awning near the water’s edge, probably intended to be there vantage point, but able to keep the sun from getting the best of them. Others were clearing some of the tall grass away still, and two were setting up what appeared to be a fire pit, probably to burn away all this excess grass. I stepped outside and walked to the edge of the patio, just watching for a minute as the team finished setting things up. A couple of the men saw me and waved, then turned to complete their work.
“Schmuck, I thought you were going back to the Nimitz already?” Tony asked, walking over to meet me.
“I am, I just wanted to do a quick rundown of the wall, check on things first. So far the raiders haven’t been seen, but the fire has shifted and is now getting close to the wall, so that’s a little worrisome, but hopefully we will be alright. Alex has a fire crew standing by just in case, so I will probably be heading back up in a few hours. Looks like you guys are getting set up here pretty well.” I answered, looking around at the backyard.
“Well, we needed something, but not necessarily to build a tower, as we don’t know how permanent this will be, so since these people had this sun shade in the garage, we figured we would use it. The neighbors had a bunch of the walkway stones stacked up, apparently in the middle of some renovations when it all went down, so we are using those to build a fire pit.” He informed me as we watched them men work. It didn’t take long for them to finish the sunshade, and then those men went to help the ones clearing the tall grass out. I noticed they were leaving some of the tall stuff near the water, with a walkway into the sun shade tromped or cut down.
“Leaving the grass on the edge?” I asked Tony, pointing it out.
“Yes. Once we move some of this lawn furniture under the sun shade, it will be the perfect height for us to watch over it and see the water, but keep us mostly hidden from sight. We couldn’t have planned it much better. The fire we will only have lit during the day, and burn the grass slowly to limit the smoke coming off it. I sent Adam back to the Jefferson to get a mobile radio set up with a solar charger, so we will have radio access other than our handhelds.” Tony explained.
“Good plan, I don’t think I woul
d have thought of that. Do you have any night vision binoculars, or just regular ones?” I asked him.
“Regular, but that’s another item on Adam’s list to bring back, if there are any left. Food, extra ammo, those kinds of things, a basic supply run. He should be back before dark, and we’ll start our rotations then.” He informed me.
“Do you think they will actually try to come across the water?” I asked him. If the situation was reversed, and we were the raiders, I don’t know if crossing the water would occur to us, especially not knowing the layout of the land behind the wall.
“I don’t know, but if they have seen the entirety of the wall, they may figure there is no way they are getting through it, or over it, without us seeing them. Any sewer or storm drainage pipe big enough for a person has also either been sealed or mined just outside of the wall, so going under it isn’t an option either, unless they dig a new tunnel; and I don’t see that happening for a long time, or even undetected.” He replied.
“Well, if they do try to come across the water, I’m glad you’re here to watch for them. I’ll have a radio with me at all times, keep me in touch, and I’ll let you go do your thing.” I replied, clapping him on the shoulder before turning to leave. I felt safe in the knowledge that Tony was here keeping an eye on things on the water, as there were precious few people I trusted to watch my back, but he was one of them.
Back out front, I sat in the cart and just listened before turning the engine on, and I could hear the men in the back talking, barely, the low splash of the river, and the occasional bird call. Every time I thought about it, and sat and listened like this, it struck me at how eerie it was to not hear cars, planes, and the general noise of civilization all around us anymore. It could almost be peaceful, if you could forget about the infected, the wall, and the general danger we all lived in daily now. I finally started the motor and pulled away.
I had to circle around the arm of the river to head back towards the ship, and I could see how little effort we had paid to this portion of the safe zone was starting to deteriorate the buildings. Grass and shrubbery was growing unchecked, vines covering windows and walls, and storm damage and debris littering the roads. Some of the houses had doors standing open, and I assumed they would probably being used as dens for some of the wild animals that we still saw around the base. Small animals, mostly stray dogs and cats, but a few foxes had been seen, and I was sure that given their cleverness that we could find a family or two of racoons if we searched hard enough. They didn’t bother us, so we didn’t bother clearing them out, or try to tame them, we just let them be, let them live like we were trying to do. The predators that had escaped zoos, however, like the lions, tigers and other big cats, as well as bears and wolves, those we watched when we saw them outside the wall, and took down when possible. We used them as a meat source, plus their hides made good blankets and such, and it made it just a little safer outside.
I drove through the streets in silence, winding my way back towards the original gate of the base. We still had abandoned cars pushed to the sides to act as a gate like we did before the wall was built, but they only a redundancy at this point, to be used only if the wall was ever breached. I passed through the gate and made my way back to the ship and parked the cart near the storage garage to get the battery charged back up and started walking towards the ship. I walked slowly, looking at the few remaining ships at port we weren’t using, and it was kind of sad that these massive, beautiful ships were just basically being left to rust and die. Without the population or knowledge to keep them maintained, we had simply stripped them of everything we could that was useful over the years, from the food and weapons when we first arrived, to the bunks, light bulbs, wiring, anything we could remove and use either on the carriers or the base itself. We had only kept the two small boys, the Port Royal and the Leyte Gulf, operational, as they could be manned with a skeleton crew if needed. Now that I thought about it a little, that gave us a naval force of five ships with the two cruisers, the two carriers, and the LST that was used to get Nicole and the survivors from Florida. Five ships, that was impressive for this small of a group, or any group at this point, really.
Shaking my head to get back to what I was doing, I made my way down the pier, inspecting the lines holding the Jefferson in place as I went. They seemed intact still, but I noticed two of them were starting to show signs of wear and they would have to be looked at closely and replaced if needed. As lax as we were on security this far into the base now, I saw that there was still a guard booth set up just inside the hangar bay door, but it wasn’t manned today. I made my way up the stairs towards the bridge, looking Jeff, to see how things were running. Not surprisingly, he was not on the bridge, but the lone person on duty said he was in his cabin. I turned and headed back down a couple of flights to where the captain’s cabin was, knocked, but opened the door without waiting on a response. Jeff and I hadn’t knocked on each other’s doors in decades now, so it seemed stupid to start doing it now.
“Jeff, it’s me, where you at, dumbass?” I called out, seeing the kitchen and living areas empty.
“Back here, getting dressed, I just got out of the shower.” He called out from the direction of the bedroom. I stepped to the door to see him pulling jeans and socks out of his drawer and tossing them on the bed.
“I was just stopping by to see if you needed anything before I headed back to the Nimitz.” I said, waiting for him to get dressed. He slipped his socks on, then his pants, forgoing his shirt and boots just yet and I followed him out into the living area.
“I think we’re good here, with so few people left down here, there really isn’t much to do. The animals are doing well, Nicole says the growing rooms are doing ok, and the guards on the wall say everything looks good there too.” He told me. The stack of papers on the counter told me he was still getting reports from the section leaders telling him how things were running. I got them as well, but since I had key people in place to run different areas, I knew that if there was a problem they would call me, or come to me directly, so I rarely looked at them. It was only a way to keep some form of order and stability in place, and give the military people a sense of chain of command.
“I see you don’t really look at your reports either, huh?” I said, motioning to the stack on the counter.
“No, if anything really needs attention, they call me, or the bridge, directly. That’s just to keep ones with OCD busy, and give the ones who don’t have skills with the animals or food growing something to do, help them feel useful.” He replied. he handed me a bottle of water from his fridge, then we sat in the living area and made small talk for a while, just hanging out, trying to forget the craziness for a bit. After a few hours, I decided to head on back north to the Nimitz as it was getting late in the day. Tomorrow I intended to start hard on the inspection of the land again, and wanted it to be done in the next couple of months. If we could celebrate New Year’s Eve with the knowledge that the area was totally safe, I would be ecstatic.
As I stepped outside, I decided to take my skiff back to the ship since the wind was blowing well, and in the right direction, plus it would save the fuel for the chopper. I turned then for the marina instead of the airfield, grabbing the keys from the office in case I needed the engines, and then loaded my gear onto the boat. I had a few bottles of water in the fridge, and some canned stuff in the galley I could warm up if needed, but I would be back onboard the ship before I got hungry.
Slipping the lines, I jumped onboard after giving a small shove off the pier. Lowering the sails, they puffed out, catching the wind, and she started moving away from the marina, into the outlet. Once I got into the bay itself, and more open water, I lowered all the sails and started to pick up some speed. It was difficult manning the sails all by myself, but it could be done, and I was just glad I had learned it before all this happened. The skiff slipped through the water easily, and with both the wind and the lowering sun to my back, it was a pleasant experience.
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Once I made it out of the bay proper and into the open ocean, I kept a small distance from the shore to avoid surprise sandbars, but close enough I could still it. since I was parallel to the waves coming in off the sea, I rocked back and forth as they hit me, a small spray floating over the boat and getting myself and the deck wet. I was glad I had on non-slip boots, but even so I would have to be careful. The shore kept slipping by, the occasional cry of a seagull breaking the silence, but as I looked at the shore, I still couldn’t see any sign of human occupation. The hope was that by next summer it would be unmistakable that there were humans alive and thriving here, even from the sea. Of course, that meant we would have to be watchful for pirates and raiders, but with this much land, I was sure that any survivors that came around we could convince to simply join us and live in peace.
