“Good job Hitch,” Zeb remarked to the pleasure of the younger private.
“Couldn't have done it faster myself.”
The lead medic came to Zeb and asked him several questions about Dave’s illness and it's symptoms. He then conversed with the two who had been examining Dave. The other two medics ran back to the helicopter to get some more gear.
“Check out Sue as well, if you have a minute,” Zeb stated, pointing to the cot she was sleeping in.
“She ran herself ragged taking care of the rest of us. She has lost a lot of weight though, and she was skinny to begin with.”
“That gal saved all your lives,” the head medic stated to Zeb after checking her vitals.
“With only one dead and one case of pneumonia, you guys are lucky. It was a weaponized flu bug with a fifty percent kill rate.”
“She’ll be fine with rest, plenty of liquids, and a good diet,” the medic stated while inserting an IV into her arm.
“I’ll give her a nutrient pack with some glucose which will replace some of what she lost. Should fix her right up.”
“Her name is Sue. ‘That gal' as you called her is Sue, and we know she saved our lives,” Zeb replied softly.
“Sue did one heck of a job here. When she gets better, let her know we need nurses at the base if she is interested.”
The medics returned and put a ribbed plastic tube down Dave's throat, taping it in place and started him on oxygen. They placed a clip lead on his finger with a wire running to an oxygen monitor. Afterwards, they put in an IV with antibiotics. Zeb was interested in the next device they unloaded and assembled.
“What is that thing?” Zeb asked.
“Bronchoscope,” The medic replied.
They performed an emergency bronchoscopy, guiding the scope down the tube in Dave's throat meanwhile watching an attached portable television monitor. They used the attached suction device to clear any infection out that they encountered. After they had the main bronchial passages cleared in Dave's lungs, they removed the scope, and then the tube.
Dave’s chest rose and fell without the horrible rattling sound that it had earlier.
“This has worked on the worst cases we have had at base,” the medic replied digging in his bag then handing Zeb a pill bottle upon which the medic wrote some instructions.
“The flu has already run its course, but he is fighting a secondary bacterial infection. Give him these, one pill three times a day.”
“He's going to have one heck of a sore throat from the intubation, but pain meds may make the situation worse. He will have to deal with it. I would like to have him at the base, but we simply don't have the beds. Sorry,” the medic stated, packing up his gear.
“Make sure he finishes the medication, and he should be fine. We have another emergency call, and we need to get there ASAP,” the medic stated not wasting any words, and left with his bags.
“Didn't you leave your ride on base?” another medic asked Hitch, hinting that Hitch was about to donate one Humvee to the cause.
“Go with them and bring back the Hummer. Preferably in one piece,” Zeb commanded.
Hitch followed the first medic and grabbed a seat in the chopper. The other two medics checked everyone out, especially Joe who was still fairly sick, and gave Zeb a bottle of medication for Joe as well. When they got around to Sue the lead medic removed the IV and bandaged the entry point. Zeb shook the medics hand and he left.
The other medics then packed all their gear, and left as well. A minute later, they heard the engines on the chopper rev up, and then the bird was airborne and headed back to base.
Two hours later Joe was up, though still coughing. Zeb had decided to go outside to be alone, and he was gravely looking at the sky.
Joe joined him ten minutes later and looked up to see what his friend's concern was. Winter was officially here.
“Shoot. Just what we need right now,” Joe simply stated, looking at the thin but low lying dark gray clouds rolling in.
“Yep.... Figures,” Zeb sighed, shivering a little in the cold wind even though wearing a coat.
“Too much to do, and out of time. Looks like snow coming.”
“Yep,” Joe agreed with a sigh of resignation.
“No sense worrying about what we cannot control,” he said, then went back inside.
Zeb thought about what they still needed to do. The air was getting colder as the front moved in, and he could see his breath.
They needed the concrete roof poured, and more wood cut. They were almost out of meat, both fresh and cured so someone needed to go hunting. They still had the training they had promised to give the National Guards boys. They still had to install the wood-burning stove as they didn't have heat in the basement yet. With all of the hard work to do not one person on the farm was up to par, and they were down two sets of hands.
“This is going to be a long week,” Zeb said to himself.
“And here I am still sore and tired. I'll have plenty of time to rest when I'm dead I guess.”
Zeb glanced at the sky estimated that they only had a couple of days before snow hit, went back inside and joined Joe. The two worked out and subsequently scrapped five different possible schedules. Nothing they could come up with could accomplish what was needed in the time frame they had to work with. Whether it would work or not, they finally settled on a plan of action despite its flaws. Any plan was better than none at all.
“Dang it Joe! It just isn't going to cut it. No matter how I look at this we are still three full days short,” Zeb argued.
“Don't you think I know that Zeb? I can't control the weather. We just have to do something, anything. Nothing we do is going to turn back the clock and we already had a tight schedule before everyone got sick,” Joe countered.
“Well, no one ever said I would have to like it,” Zeb grumbled.
“Can we just agree to get the wood-burner in, and then worry about food?” Joe asked.
“The concrete won't even be available before next week.”
“We'll see about that,” Zeb stated, a grin creeping across his lined face.
Normally, Zeb was clean shaven man excepting the massive gray mustache he sported. The corners of his mustache were now tugging upward, and he was had grown a full rough beard. He looked like a military mountain man with his flattop haircut.
Joe was clean shaven as usual, excepting what he thought of as a sporty mustache which looked more like a graying dead mouse on his upper lip. The only one besides Dave gutsy enough to use a straight razor they had found, Joe looked his usual self. Zeb thought Joe would not even need to shave in the near future if he kept removing the skin instead of hair.
They didn't have time to be sick, but Joe could not do anything about the situation. He was weak as a kitten but would not admit it, and could barely wield power tools. Joe marked out the holes that needed cut in the basement ceiling for the stove pipe. He needed two holes, one for exhaust and another for the fresh air intake for the stove.
He let the others cut the holes, pretending instead to lean upon a shovel 'inspecting their work' like any good foreman. Zeb thought Joe's act was as funny as the day is long, but the others looked at Joe and grumbled thinking he was just being lazy.
“Joe can barely stand, and shouldn't be doing anything at all,” Zeb growled.
“Besides that, remember that he is a Colonel, and you boys are grunts. He never had to do any of the work he already has!”
“Any of you whiners show me one other officer who carries his weight like Joe. Then you can gripe.”
The men quit griping and cut the remaining holes and ran the pipes. Finally, they installed the wood burning stove and then insulated the piping area between the floor joists. Everything was going quite well as they finished the job and flashed everything over with thin galvanized sheet steel.
With cinder-block walls and a concrete floor, the wood floor ceiling was the only fire hazard. Joe designed a heat shield and firebreak for
the pipe where it went through the flooring to keep the heat isolated from the wood.
In the ruined house above they had tied the exhaust pipe into the original fireplace's flue using a break away design. In case the remaining house came down, the pipe would still be somewhat protected allowing the stove to flue properly. A probability existed that such a happenstance would ignite the wrecked house above.
The pipe system also was designed so that in case of a fire, the top pipe would have a cap close enough to the ground to be hidden by the rubble. Any smoke would give the illusion that the house was still burning. If the house burnt, the charred ashes would still look to be smoking.... all winter long.
After the concrete was poured and cured, they really didn't care if the ruined house burned. They had considered burning it anyway.
A Loud honking could be heard coming up the dirt road to the house, and Zeb grinned hugely. Hitch had come through.
“Joe, get on your concrete boots and let’s get Dave and Sue bundled up and in the shed. It’s going to be wet in the basement tonight,” Zeb remarked
A smile spread across his Joe’s face.
“You jerk.”
“You old fart. You knew that we didn't have a problem!,” Joe exclaimed.
“No I didn’t. I just hoped that Hitch would be able to talk our friend the Captain of the Guard into this,” Zeb replied with a lopsided grin, using his and Joe's nickname for the National Guard Captain they had met in Hoisington.
“I had to give your word we would fulfill our part of the bargain,” Zeb stated, standing braced as if for a hurricane, knowing what was coming next.
“As well as an extra week of training.”
Joe erupted like Vesuvius, veritably losing his top like mount Saint Helens in a massive heat-filled blast of invectives. After calming down, he looked thoughtfully at Zeb.
“If you ever give my word for anything.....ever. We will go hunting,” Joe yelled.
“I”
“Will”
“Come”
“Back”
“Alone!”
Joe ended the tirade after hammering out each word with a look of pure rage in his eyes.
“Where the heck am I going to come up with time for an extra week?”
Joe believed a man’s oath was his word. If he said something would be done, he kept his word no matter what, even if he had to suffer for it. He considered that a man that breaks his word is the worst sort of liar. Therefore, Joe rarely would make a promise, and those he made he faithfully kept.
A massive red and white concrete truck entered the driveway with Hitch driving. Joe along with everyone besides Dave and Sue put on chest waders and grabbed shovels. The waders had been acquired specifically for the purpose at Wally-world in Great Bend. Zeb guided the truck to where the chute went through the first shattered window, with Joe guiding the chute itself and controlling the flow of concrete.
With a little practice at the hydraulic control system, Joe had a steady but manageable flow of concrete entering the house. The military men along with the two boys were inside the house working. With Hewitt as acting foreman, the men used their shovels to rake the concrete out as necessary to evenly cover the floor.
First they filled the living room floor section, then the bathroom, and then filled the kitchen slash dining room floor section last. The slab didn't have to be pretty, it just had to be effective and at least six inches deep at all points including the edges, but thicker in the center.
Domed slightly from the center to the edges, the grade in the concrete allowed for moisture to run away, not collecting in a lake. They had built a special form for around the pipes they had just installed earlier, and filled it as well. These forms did not allow concrete to fill the firebreak section, as this would conduct the heat to the wood which it was meant to radiate the heat away from.
Joe went downstairs, to make sure the reinforcement pillars of two inch oil pipe they had installed earlier in the week were holding properly.
“Good job guys. Except for a few drips and one small puddle of concrete, we could probably move back downstairs later today.”
Before they went back downstairs for the night, he intended to fire up the wood-burning stove and test the whole jury-rigged mess for safety.
Joe intentionally over-loaded the wood-burning stove using creosote treated railroad timbers and fired it up. This was the worst case scenario he could think of which someone might well accidentally do in the middle of a cold night.
“If it holds up to this, it will hold up... period,” Joe thought to himself, as the fire started to roar in the stove.
Joe left the cellar to join the others in the yard. He didn’t want anyone downstairs during the test. If the house caught fire with the concrete still in the green stage, the heat would destroy the concrete and the fire would then burn through into the basement.
He turned around when he reached the others and searched the house visually. He was half expecting to see telltale smoke come pouring out of the house or the basement entrance, or both. Any smoke not issuing from the exhaust pipe would denote a failed and unsafe system.
Joe didn't believe in 'human testing'.
29. (No Lack, No Excess)
Five thousand people was a large number.
Five thousand residents were still alive after everything that had ensued in Great Bend. Approximately one-third of the population had survived the intended massacre. The survivors had either fled early before the fighting had started, or had made an effective retreat.
Their retreat was not from the smashed remnants of the attacking local military, but from the wild beasts loosed from the zoo during the fighting. The zoo creatures had turned out to be more dangerous to the locals than the government.
About half of the population had actively resisted the military. It had become clear even to the most cynical that the people being arrested were not actually any kind of terrorist.
Thousands of innocents had voluntarily entered the relocation transports and had been carted off to the camps before word had leaked. The rest said no in a manner louder than words. They had acted, and their action was now evident as a veritable forest of tents at Hoisington. Two people to a tent meant twenty five hundred tents; a number of tents which covers a huge amount of ground.
Most of said residents were armed. The tent city itself was a large army in its own right.
After the resistance started, five hundred soldiers along with three Abrams tanks and two modified world war two Sherman tanks had rolled into Great Bend with two Blackhawks providing cover. It was not quite enough.
The hardware and soldiers had been deployed supposedly as an emergency action necessary of the safety and wellbeing of the community. After a small time. soldiers had started to disappear by ones and twos. Some were deserting. Others joined the growing resistance. The rest were either in unmarked graves or just dumped in ravines.
The military nationwide had been ordered to take off the kid gloves.
One quarter of the remaining military personnel had refused and were shot openly as an example. An open kill order had proceeded from above and people had been slain in their own homes. Many of the houses had been burnt to the ground by modified tanks with flamethrowers for ordinance.
In their homes, shops, stores, and at the end just openly in the streets people had been slaughtered, their pleas ignored by the killers. The citizens remaining in the city had joined together at last, and a few entrepreneurial spirits had combined with those handy at invention to make their own force multipliers to combat the superior military ordnance.
What can only be described as a royal war had ensued, ending with the remaining soldiers killed. Every single one of them. They had given no quarter to the people, and in return had received no quarter. Ex-military veterans had taken command and had given training to those who would otherwise have died heroically without any positive effect.
Instead they became quite effective.
Th
e resistors that remained had fled to Hoisington after the animal problem made it clear they could not stay in their own homes. Out of around seven thousand who had originally left Great Bend, only five thousand lived through the flu. The cemetery at Hoisington was full, and a field was annexed by the city as an add-on.
The tent army was effective, though they still needed training to be real troops. Zeb trained them on the military basics, and made them all more effective. It was now Joe's turn and he intended to make them both fearless and efficient.
He had a deadline he had to keep. In three weeks, the city of Hoisington would be unable to support the massive influx of people still trickling in. Every citizen had contributed their food willingly into a central storehouse, and both the Guard and the Army had contributed what they could.
Surviving in America: Under Siege 2nd Edition Page 18
