by David Rogers
Darryl tried one of the biscuit sandwiches first, which turned out to be breakfast cheeseburgers. They were pretty good, though he would’ve liked some ketchup or something with them. He looked around the table and spotted an open bottle of hot sauce. Grabbing it, he added a few shakes to each of his biscuits and tried them again. Much better.
“There still some things we gonna need.” Jody said to Bobo as she filled a pot of water, a big pot, and transferred it to one of the stove’s back burners.
“I figure.” Bobo nodded.
“Naw, not just food.” Jody said as she lit the burner on the stove and covered the pot with a lid. “We way short on a stuff we gonna need if we gonna have a whole bunch of people living out of here.”
“Clothes.” Darryl said. He was wearing the same ones as yesterday, same as probably everyone would be.
“Yeah, and a lot of other stuff too.” Jody nodded. “Pots and pitchers and other stuff we need in the kitchen, like foil and plastic bags.”
“Make a list.” Bobo said. “Get everything we done already got inventoried and stacked and whatever. Write down whatever you think of we missing. Later today, after we done outside, we’ll do at least one run to try and fill it.”
“Alright.” Jody said. “I ain’t nagging, I just saying.”
“Make a list.” Bobo repeated, then drained his coffee and stood up. “I gonna start rousting folks up. Jody, you have any problems in here you can’t handle, come get me.”
She nodded. Darryl looked at Vivian for a few seconds, his eyes a little blank as he thought back to before he’d gone to sleep. “How Little Chief doing?” he ventured cautiously, wondering if anyone had checked on him.
“He still okay.” Vivian said without turning from what she was doing. “I looked in there a little while ago, he still laying on the bed.”
Darryl was quiet for a moment, and she glanced at him briefly. “He breathing, I checked.”
He nodded, trying to show with his expression he hadn’t been accusing her. The bullet had come out reluctantly, and the wounded biker’s skin had held a gray sheen beneath his normal dark tones by the time they’d finished. Darryl hadn’t liked it any more than he knew Chief had, but to Little Chief’s credit he hadn’t fought against the two holding him down while Jody probed in his torn flesh with the sterilized pliers.
Well, much anyway. Darryl hoped he didn’t have to go through anything like that again. It had not been fun.
Shoving the unpleasant thoughts from his mind, Darryl managed to finish eating just as the first wave of bleary eyed Dogz appeared in the doorway. He pushed through them to get out of the way, retreating to the front porch to have another smoke. Shortly a bunch of them joined him with plates and cups, a lot of them grumbling about having slept on the floor. More and more came out, until Darryl saw just about all of the men were outside.
“Okay.” Bobo finally said when most of the brothers had been given a chance to eat. “Here what happening first.” He pointed at Tank. “Me and Tank, we bossing the construction of a fence. Now, we got ourselves a lot of hands and some tools that’ll make this go pretty quick, but it gonna be work. I don’t wanna hear no fucking bitching about any of it.”
Bobo glared at everyone, his expression clearly challenging anyone to raise a protest. “Anyone who don’t believe me after some of the shit we saw and done last night, or who ain’t remember the news, you welcome to take ten minutes and go have another look at it. TV still working, there plenty of fucked up shit you can go look at on any of the channels. That’s why we doing this. If you don’t want to . . .” he turned and pointed at the road that stretched out around the lake and headed out through the trees.
“There the damn road. You can hit it whenever you want. But if you staying here, you gonna work. If everyone pitch in and don’t slack off, it ought to go nice and easy. Then we kick back for a bit, then do a little more looting, then we gonna just hunker down. But if we gonna make it to then, there some work that gotta happen first.”
Some of the Dogz shuffled their feet. Others, including Darryl, lit fresh cigarettes. A few muttered, but very quietly and not nearly loud enough to carry and be audible beyond maybe whoever was standing next to them. Bobo swept his eyes back and forth along the faces watching him, slowly evaluating and waiting, then finally nodded.
“Okay, so first up, that barn full of a bunch of stuff. Use the trucks to haul it all out to the perimeter where we gonna need it.”
“How we gonna know where that be?” Low asked.
“Bobo gonna mark it all off.” Tank said. “He know what he doing. And I’ll be keeping an eye on what needs loading and hauling.”
Bobo nodded. “There a big ole mess of work gloves in the barn, so anyone who wants some grab a pair and let’s get started.”
In the light of day, the piles of stuff looted out of the home improvement stores looked a lot bigger. Darryl claimed a pair gloves. They were cheap and thinner than the ones he used in the gym, but he knew better than to let his hands get all banged up. The leather would pad his skin out against rough handling, and he needed his hands to stay usable Especially now.
There were plenty of Dogz available, even allowing for those that were up on the clubhouse roof with guns keeping watch. Tank formed everyone into a long line that stretched out of the barn and split at the end to veer to each of the two Home Depot trucks. They handed things – bags of concrete, fence posts, long heavy boards – from one man to the next, feeding the piled materials out to the trucks where they were loaded.
When they had the trucks loaded, EZ and Low were assigned to drive them. When the Dogz came around to the front of the clubhouse again, they saw Bobo working across the grass about thirty or so feet out from the buildings. He had a can of spray paint in one hand, a little surveyor wheel that was brand new in the other, and a plastic bag that rattled with more cans jammed over one shoulder. He was marking big Xs on the ground at regular intervals.
The Dogz started unloading things next to each mark, a bag of concrete, a fence post, and some of the long boards. After Tank saw how the unloading was going, he grabbed off some of the Dogz who were milling a little aimlessly and took them with him back to the barn.
There were tools to be carried out, mostly hammers and shovels, along with boxes of nails. Tank told them to drop at least one of each next to the first ten marks, then keep going around putting nails down until they were out. There were also a pair of gas powered augers, still in their shipping boxes, that needed to be opened up, assembled, and gassed up to ready them for use.
“Okay, anyone run one of these before?” Tank asked as the augers were carried out to the first pair of marks. He had a can of spray paint in his hands.
When no one volunteered, Darryl shrugged and stepped forward. “I seen it on teevee.” he lied.
“Okay, I’ll take that.” Tank said. “You an Spider work one of them. Uh, Tiny an Evil, y’all grab the other one.”
Darryl had seen the picture on the boxes before the machines were taken out, and moved to one side of the nearest auger. Spider came with him, but hesitated, clearly not sure what to do until Darryl reached down and grasped the handles. Then Spider got the idea and lifted it with him.
Each was a digging tool that took two men to operate. The handles formed a big horizontal X, with the drill pointing down. With a man on each end of the machine, their job was to hold it steady as the big drill bit chewed a hole down into the ground.
Tank picked up one of the fence posts and held it next to the auger Darryl and Spider were balancing between them. He eyeballed the post and drill bit for a few seconds, then used the bright orange paint to mark a broad line of color about two thirds of the way up from the bottom of the bit.
“Fuck, you getting paint on me.” Spider complained, stepping back a bit as paint splattered onto his jeans.
“Shut up, it don’t matter.” Tank explained. “That how far you drilling down.” He pointed, and the two bikers moved over to the firs
t of the marked Xs on the ground. They set the bit into place on the X, then looked at Tank.
“Just so you know, this might want to kick against you as it digs.” Tank warned them.
“Wait, what’s that mean?” Spider asked.
Darryl had already guessed the meaning though. “He mean the drill turning, and if the ground too hard or there a rock or something, there gonna be resistance. It’ll try to move us instead of turning the drill.” He figured that was why Tank had been happy to have him and Tiny as half of each team; they were big guys who were not lacking in strength.
Tank grinned. “That right. If it hit a tough spot, you gotta hold on to the fucker, keep it from spinning you instead of the bit. If it get away from you it’ll probably mark you with a bruise you be feeling for the next couple of days. One way to keep it under control is to lift it up a little bit, then let it drop back down, when it starts slowing and chugging.”
“Great.” Spider said sourly, but he tightened his grip on the handles and set his feet wider apart as Tank reached for the pull starter. Darryl did likewise as Tank quickly primed the auger, then gave the cord’s handle an experimental yank. The engine turned over without catching the first couple of times Tank pulled on it, then on the fourth try it coughed and caught, rumbling to life.
Tank pointed at a squeeze bar on Darryl’s right side handle. Darryl shifted his grip over to put his hand next to it, then goosed the squeezer briefly. The engine revved higher and the bit turned briefly. He nodded at Tank, who stepped back a couple of feet as Darryl gave Spider a look before compressing the throttle again.
The auger revved up again, and the bit started turning. Its own weight did most of the work, but it definitely wanted to turn against the men’s hands. Darryl leaned into it as the drill’s tip began churning downward into the ground. It only took him a few seconds to figure out how to stand off-set to the side a little and lock his arms, which let him lean into the torque pushing against him. That let him use his body and his legs to provide most of the needed resistance.
After about half a foot the engine started to change pitch, straining as it tried to keep the bit moving. Tank shouted something Darryl couldn’t hear over the noise, but he saw Tank making an up and down gesture with his hands. Spider was watching Darryl, and lifted when Darryl jerked his chin up as a signal. As they lifted, loose dirt spilled out of the hole, spinning off the rotating drill. The engine reached its full power roar again after a moment, and they let the machine lower back into the hole.
Tank watched them go through this cycle one more time, then turned to Tiny and Evil to get them started as well. It didn’t take long to dig the hole out, though it was harder work than Darryl had figured it would be. The auger really wanted to move the men instead of the bit, and it was tough keeping the top section stable so the engine turned the bit.
When the painted section of the bit began to disappear into the ground, they lifted the auger out. Then they had to carry it around the next X, where Tiny and Evil were busy working, to the one beyond them. Carrying the machine was almost as hard as holding it while it dug was; it was heavy and they were a bit more tired than they had been from the effort of holding it steady. Darryl helped Spider position the bit in the center of the X, then made a wait motion with his hands.
He got a cigarette going, then gave it to Spider when he made a ‘give me one’ gesture. After Darryl lit a second for himself, he left the smoke in the corner of his mouth and made sure Spider was ready before he revved the engine up for the second dig. They hung on, holding the auger steady and occasionally heaving it up to spill out loose dirt that was starting to bind the bit. By the third hole they’d settled into a good rhythm.
It didn’t take very long to get the holes dug. Not nearly as long as Darryl would have guessed, even after he’d seen how fast the machine was compared to having to do it by hand would have been. Georgia clay was notorious for being tough ground, but the augers bore steadily through it without major incident.
By the time the two teams of drillers had worked their way around the entire perimeter, the front section of fence was almost entirely done. When they finished carrying the augers back into the barn, Tank called for a break, waving everyone over to the porch.
“Going good.” Tank said several times as Dogz got up under the porch so they were out of the sun. “Drink something, rest a few minutes.”
Several of the women had brought out a couple of pitchers of tea, again cool but not iced. Darryl would have liked some ice, but he didn’t complain. He remembered Jody having pointed out how tight cold storage was, and he assumed that meant any ice, and the freezer itself, was being used for keeping food.
Most of the Dogz had shed their shirts as the sun continued rising in the eastern sky. The day was hot and humid, a typical Georgia morning in late summer, but not as bad as it could have been. Darryl noted that Monique lingered over a couple of the guys to admire them, making some suggestive comments before she moved onto the next man waiting with an empty cup.
He sipped his tea and lit a fresh smoke, frowning mentally. A small handful of the women present at the clubhouse were steady girlfriends, but most were in the category of ‘baby mommas’ or ex-girlfriends. Bikers generally were pretty wild and free spirited, and the Dogz perhaps more than most. Oh they didn’t tend to get buried neck deep in a lot of illegal activity like most ‘civilians’ assumed any biker gang, or club, was; but they tended strongly toward independence.
Women were always around. Even Bones, the fat brother who was named for his ability to eat through an entire bucket of chicken until there was nothing but bones left, had his share of women who liked his confidence and attitude. But women tended to come and go, or circulate through the club like they were groupies following a tour of musicians around.
Most of the women at the clubhouse right now had been called in simply because the brothers had assumed it was going to be a big weekend party. Some were also present because they had children whose fathers were Dogz, but even there a lot of those women were still present because they were fun to have around when the tunes got loud and the beer was ice cold.
As Darryl watched Monique though, he wondered about her behavior. She’d had a fling with Big Chief that had ended about two years ago. And he knew there’d also been a story going around that she’d aborted a previous baby after spending a few months screwing Madman. Yet here she was, doing everything but flashing her tits at the brothers, talking up any guy who showed the slightest interest in her.
It didn’t make a lot of sense to him. He was one of the Dogz who kept women at a further arm’s length than most, but he wasn’t celibate or gay. He liked women as much as anyone; he just didn’t want to get tied down. And with shit disintegrating all over the damn country, hell the world, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him, what she was doing.
Who in the hell had time for screwing around with zombies out looking for someone to eat? When the government was well on its way to fully collapsing? But he kept his own counsel as Monique continued to linger even after her pitcher was empty. She didn’t leave off her chatting until Tank announced the break was over and chivvied the men back out to continue work on the fence. Darryl thrust the thoughts aside as he got back to it.
The fence was not complicated to put up and would win no awards for attractiveness. But it would slow down anyone trying to get in. At each hole a bag of concrete was dumped in, then a bucket of water was added. There were only six of the buckets, but some of the older kids were busily ferrying them back and forth from the hose on the back side of the house.
The fence post itself was used to mix the water and dry concrete together for a minute, until it turned from wet powder into a muddy sludge. Then the post was stood upright and held in place while a support was nailed in at forty-five degree angle to keep the post from moving around or sagging before the concrete had a chance to harden. Darryl wondered if those were going to be removed, but then decided it wouldn’t hurt to leave
them up. They might help brace the fence if it had to hold off a press.
Finally they nailed the cross-beams into place. Bobo had chosen, and looted, heavy two by twelve boards that needed two guys to lift and hold in position while two more nailed them to the posts. It wasn’t really a weight thing, but a matter of how many hands one had to manage the long board. They had plenty of hands, so they threw manpower at the problem. More men went behind these crews and nailed a vertical board over the back of the posts where the ends of the cross-beams met to reinforce the joins.
It wasn’t a pretty fence. The look was haphazard and rushed, but Darryl couldn’t see anything really wrong with it. Not structurally. A human could climb it, but the news didn’t show the zombies as really having any real coordination or physical prowess. The cross-beams were close enough together that only a child would be able to squeeze between them, and the bottommost cross-beam was purposefully placed too close to the ground for even a kid to crawl under.
Bobo and Tank had constructed a gate that was even uglier than the fence itself. Basically they built a fence section without attaching it to the posts, instead nailing together a rectangle of boards. To hang it they used a solid line of hinges, attaching them one after the other from top to bottom while a couple of guys held the gate in place. When they were done, they propped a couple of boards up under the non-hinge end of the gate to keep it from pulling the fence post over before the concrete had a chance to set.
Darryl heard the word ‘overbuilt’ being thrown around, but he agreed with what Bobo seemed to think. Who cared what it looked like, or how bad it was compared to a ‘real’ gate or a ‘real’ fence. Just as long as it kept zombies out. And, if armed men guarded it, there was a decent chance it would keep people out too.
When he crowded into the TV room with a couple of the other Dogz with his lunch, which was hamburgers and potato chips, what he saw on the news didn’t change his opinion about the fence one bit. Who gave a shit how it looked. Just so long as it worked.
