by Gary Chesla
When he found the instructions that had been prepared for the people that were to have been sent to the facility, the reason for what Doc found and what he didn’t find, was made clear.
Apparently, the original plans called for only about one hundred people to be sent to Granite Mountain in the event of a pending apocalypse.
The instructions stated that the government hoped to send more, but in the event that the government had to act quickly, they had done a study to find the ideal number of preselected handpicked people that would be needed for mankind to have a chance to survive and repopulate the country.
The result of the study, taking into account the expected duration of the stay at Granite Mountain, the living space available, the amount of food needed versus the amount that could be stored here and numerous other technical factors, had determined the ideal number of people that could survive in the environment created was one hundred, fifty men and fifty women.
Doc reviewed the list of handpicked potential survivors he found with the instruction packet.
According to the birth dates on the form, most of the people whose names were on the list would have been dead for almost ten years now.
Doc just shook his head in frustration as he reviewed the list, it was just like how the government operated.
Maybe the program was not kept up to date because those in power were in no hurry to devote all the manpower required to be prepared for something many believed would never happen, or the program floundered due to the enormous cost of maintaining such a venture.
In either case, it was obvious the Z virus caught the government unprepared.
Even if the government had known about the virus a week in advance of the accident in space, it was doubtful that anyone would have been sent to Granite Mountain, except of course for the president and some members of congress.
But of all the things at Granite Mountain that Doc was searching for, the most important thing he wanted to know, was how much usable food was at the facility.
If Doc was going to have any chance to save any potential survivors, the first thing he would need was what any one still alive needed, and that was food.
Doc wanted to save every person that had managed to survive the virus, but he had to be realistic, saving everyone was never going to happen.
He had known deep down that was never going to be a realistic goal, but he had hoped to be able to do more than what his calculations were telling him now.
After finding the answer to the one big question that all the men at the facility had which was, “How many people survived the virus,” it was Doc’s goal to determine how many of those could be saved.
He knew he could only save those he would be able to feed.
After finding the instruction packet and how many people the facility planned to have supported, then after studying the inventory printouts, Doc knew he would have to drastically change what he hoped to accomplish.
What he found was disturbing, at least for what he had hoped to do.
The original plans called for a hundred people to be sent to the facility and the plans projected that under the worst-case scenario, an all-out nuclear war, that a nuclear winter would make the earth uninhabitable for up to ten years after such an event.
Based on the original plans, there was to be enough ready to eat food stored at Granite Mountain to feed one hundred people, plus the expected additions that would be born at the facility, for ten years.
There were enough seeds at the facility, once planted, that eventually could feed many thousands of people.
That number would grow year over year as more seeds were harvested and replanted.
That was nice, but it wasn’t something that would help anyone now.
But Doc wasn’t worried about planting food, he was more concerned about getting through the first stages before they would be able to think about planting anything.
The more immediate problem was that if there were any other survivors, what could he do to help them now.
The survivors would need food now, and wouldn’t be interested in planting seeds.
If Doc gave survivors seeds now, they would probably just eat the seeds.
Any one that had survived would have survived by living for today, one day at a time, because chances were, they would not be alive tomorrow.
Doc felt that the first people he would have to deal with would have little interest in planning for tomorrow.
Doc did the rough calculations.
If his calculations were correct, there was enough usable food to feed one hundred people for ten years, a thousand people for a year, or maybe two thousand people for six months.
Any way Doc looked at the numbers, it fell far short of feeding an entire country’s survivors.
This problem was also compounded by the fact that the facilities most flexible means of transportation, the two small helicopters in bay #47, only had a range of a few hundred miles.
Apparently, the government didn’t intend for the people sent to Granite Mountain to go very far from the facility when they finally were able to go back outside.
It appeared that the doctor would have to do something he didn’t want to do, make a choice of who would survive and who would be left to their own resources.
That is, unless conditions on the outside were as dire as Petty Officer Chervanak thought they were.
If Chervy’s observations were accurate, there may not be any decision to be made.
If anyone else had survived, they were doing one hell of a job staying undetected.
Doc closed the folder he had been looking at and got up from his desk.
He smiled to himself as he thought about one of his favorite shows, Star Trek, and how he now sympathized with one of the characters on the show.
In just about every episode, the ships doctor, Leonard McCoy, would blurt out to James Kirk, the ship’s captain, “Damn it Jim, I’m a doctor, not a miracle worker!” (or a bricklayer, or a mechanic, and so on depending on the situation McCoy found himself in.)
Doc knew if he was going to be able to save anyone, it would take a miracle, and he was far from being a miracle worker.
Being a military doctor, Doc had lost his share of patients and saw more than his share of death.
It was just part of being a doctor.
As much as being a doctor made some people feel like they were playing God, Doc learned very early on that being a doctor didn’t get him any closer to being God than the mechanic that worked on his car.
It was an important job that sometimes let you share in people’s joy when everything worked out, but in reality, there was only so much you could do with what you had to work with.
That and no more.
When he set out to be a doctor, he wanted to save the world.
It was much like how he felt when he discovered the survival vault at Granite Mountain.
Doc knew what he wanted to do, but what he was going to be able to do, just like when he became a doctor, was going to be two entirely different things.
All he could hope to accomplish was to do the best he could do with what he had to work with.
Doc now knew what he had to work with at the facility, now he had to wait and see what there was to work with as far as survivors.
There was no reason to get upset, no reason to panic.
When all the facts were clear, he would do what was possible and forget about what was impossible.
The state of mankind was long past the point of playing what if.
Thinking about what could have been or what will be, wouldn’t help anyone now.
It was what it was, and he had to live with it whether he liked it or not.
It wasn’t the first time he had faced similar dilemmas, and if he was lucky, it wouldn’t be the last time.
If mankind was going to survive, Doc would do his best to give it a little help in whatever way he could.
Hopefully it would be enough.
Doc t
urned when the sound of foots steps interrupted his thoughts.
Petty Officer Chervanak appeared at the door.
“Hey Doc,” Chervy said. “I came to find out what was keeping you, Reynolds and Connor are setting out dinner and you don’t want to be late today. Our two chefs made the best-looking lasagna dinner I have seen in a long time.
Rogers and Davis are up there chomping at the bit, so if you’re hungry, you better get up there before those two eat everything.
You know Doc, putting Reynolds and Connor in charge of food was a stroke of genius.
How did you know Reynolds could cook?”
Doc grinned, “Back at the base I had to put him on a diet two different times because he ate so damn much.
I figured anyone that ate like him would know how to cook.”
Chervy chuckled.
“Speaking of putting on weight,” Doc added.
“I know,” Chervy replied. “I’ve gained a couple pounds since we arrived here. Between the food, which is a hell of a lot better than we had back at the base, and just sitting on my ass in front of the computer, it kind of snuck up on me,”
“Talking about the computer,” Doc said. “Did you see anything interesting after I left you this morning?”
“Nah, it was just more of the same,” Chervy replied. “Well, maybe I did see something, or maybe I should say it was what I didn’t see. The hordes of infected crossing the desert the last few days weren’t there today. I zoomed in on the desert looking for them, but they seemed to have vanished.”
“That’s interesting.” Doc said.
“I scanned the area for a while, but then I just moved on to check out a few other places,” Chervy replied. “It had been a long day and I was ready to call it quits by then. I’ll check and see if I can find where they went tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow I want you to make a thorough search around Granite Mountain,” Doc said. “Don’t search any further out than maybe a hundred miles. When we start trying to reach out to any survivors, we need to start out small. Besides, by securing the area around the mountain, hopefully it will make it easier to take the next step.”
“OK,” Chervy replied. “But what about the rest of the country?”
“After you finish looking around here,” Doc replied. “You can scan around the country to see if anything is changing out there, but I think our priority needs to be what is around Granite Mountain.”
Chervy nodded.
“Is it possible to change the strength of our broadcast signal so that my fireside chat tonight will only be heard locally instead of going across the entire country?” Doc asked.
“Yeah, I can do that. We’ve been broadcasting by bouncing our signal off a half-dozen different satellites so we could reach the whole country,” Chervy replied. “I can just bounce the signal off the closest satellite, that should do it.
But why are we doing that? What about anyone in the rest of the country? Are we giving up on them already?”
“I’d prefer to look at it as we are focusing on those that we can help first,” Doc replied. “When we are in a position to do more, we’ll see.”
“Did I miss something Doc?” Chervy asked. “What’s changed?”
“As you know, Granite Mountain was never meant to save more than the people that were to be sent here in case of a major catastrophic event,” Doc sighed. “I just finished my inventory and projections, and unfortunately, there isn’t as much food here as we anticipated. I’m afraid that if we are going to save the world, we’ll have to do it in small steps.”
“How many people could we save with the food that’s here?” Chervy asked.
“Not very many,” Doc replied then smiled. “Let’s go get some of that lasagna before it is gone. I’ll explain what I found to everyone over dinner.”
“But this place is so damn big, I’ve seen bay after bay of food packed from floor to ceiling,” Chervy said.
“Most of what you’ve seen is for planting, not for eating. Once the seeds are planted, the amount of food that can be eaten will increase,” Doc replied. “What actual food that is here now is not capable of feeding more than the planned original inhabitants. Most of the bays are filled with the resources needed to provide for future generations, to enable them to survive and multiply.”
“So, what do we do?” Chervy asked.
“Let’s go eat,” Doc smiled, “Maybe together we can come up with some ideas. Besides, I’d hate to have to put Rogers on a diet.”
Chapter 5
June 29th, The summit above Johnstown, PA.
Mike and Tony sat on the couch, slowly drinking their morning coffee and watching Rocky and Fred darting around the back yard outside the living room window.
“Mike,” Tony asked, “Do you know how to tell a boy squirrel from a girl squirrel?”
“I guess the usual way,” Mike replied, then he started to laugh, “why do you want to know that?”
“I was just wondering if Fred was a boy or a girl,” Tony said. “It’s not important. I was just curious. We keep calling him Fred, but something tells me he is a girl. I was thinking maybe we should give Fred a new name.”
Mike laughed, “I’m sure Rocky knows if Fred is a girl or not, and I’m fairly certain he doesn’t give a shit what we call him or her. Myself, I haven’t given it much thought. If Rocky is happy, that’s good enough for me.”
Tony laughed, then took another sip of his coffee.
“You know, I was up half the damn night thinking about why there was no broadcast on the radio last night,” Tony said.
“I wouldn’t get too concerned, I’m sure it was nothing. Maybe the Navy doctor’s broadcast was earlier last night and we just missed it,” Mike replied.
“I don’t know,” Tony said. “We’ve managed to catch all the other reports over the last month. We always get the radio ready early and wait until he comes on the air. I’m certain we turned the radio on in plenty of time.”
“Maybe there is something wrong with the radio,” Mike replied as he took another sip of his coffee.
“It could be, since there isn’t anything else on the radio, I guess I would never know,” Tony replied. “Since we don’t have anything else to tell us that the radio is working, I guess it could be a possibility.”
“Maybe he didn’t do a broadcast last night. Maybe there was a technical problem of some kind,” Mike added. “Maybe tonight he’ll let us know what happened.”
“Unless there isn’t a broadcast tonight either,” Tony replied.
“Then it would have to be the radio,” Mike said. “I’m sure there is a logical reason. Since we are going to go back down to Outdoor World today, maybe you should try to find another of those hand cranked powered radios. That way you’ll know if the problem is your radio. That thing you have doesn’t look very sturdy. The way you have to keep cranking that damn thing, maybe it just wore out.”
“Maybe,” Tony replied.
After a few moments, Mike spoke again.
“What do you think we will find down at Outdoor World?” Mike asked. “It’s been almost a month since we were there.
Do you think those two creeps had friends that came looking for them when they didn’t go back home?
If their friends came looking for them, I wonder if they found where we ditched the truck and the bodies?
Do you think there will be anything left at the store?
Maybe their friends came back and cleaned out the place.”
“We’ve definitely had our heads buried in the sand for too long,” Tony grinned. “I don’t have an answer to any of those questions. If we had been doing our jobs instead of just sitting here for the last month, I’m sure we would have a better idea what we were going to find.”
“I agree we should have been doing more than just sitting on our asses for the past few weeks, but hey, it’s been quiet and peaceful, life could have been a lot worse,” Mike replied.
“Maybe we’ve just been lucky,” Tony said.
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out today. But it’s always a good idea to know what’s going on around you.”
“You’re right,” Mike replied. “Especially when there are zombies running around, showing up when you least expect them. It’s just when we heard that broadcast telling us that the nightmare would soon be over, I just felt so relieved. As quiet as it’s been up here, I just felt like the nightmare was finally over. Until yesterday, I almost stopped worrying about zombies.”
“You and me both,” Tony added. “But like we’ve always heard, it’s not over until the fat lady sings.”
Both men turned when Linda came down the stairs, walked into the living room, moved in behind Mike and began to massage his shoulders.
Mike held up his coffee cup.
Linda took the cup from Mike and took a sip.
“I wanted to come down for a few minutes before you left,” Linda said.
Tony looked confused.
“You’re not coming with us?” Tony asked looking surprised.
“Not this time,” Linda replied. “I think it would be safer for Jamie if she and I stayed here this time. It’s been quiet around here, the house is secure and those two creeps we ran into last time still give me nightmares.”
“Linda and I talked things over last night and she feels it would be better for Jamie, and you and I can work a lot faster without having to worry about her and Jamie,” Mike added.
“But the two of you have to promise that you will both come home,” Linda smiled nervously.
“I think that is a good decision,” Tony said. “Just keep everything boarded up until we get back and you should be fine.”
“Is there anything you want us to bring back for you?” Mike asked.
“I liked those dry powdered packages that taste like cherry pies,” Linda replied.
“Cherry pie MREs,” Tony laughed. “If I had never met you before, that would tell me you were never in the military.”
