Tabernacle (Super Pulse Book 3)

by Dave Conifer

  That was too easy, Dewey told himself. They’re up to something. But there was no activity for at least ten minutes. Finally, when he heard a low murmur of voices, he readied himself again. He was reaching for another arrow when a dozen caterwauling men sprang from the trees fifty feet from where he’d last seen them, many carrying clubs and spears. Again, they ran directly at the rock. Dewey knew he didn’t have the arrows or the skill to do anything but run. It was the only sound choice, even if his leg wasn’t one hundred percent healed yet. So that’s what he did, while he still had a head start.

  Except for some half-hearted jogging trying to keep up with Sarah on their mission, it was the first time he’d tried to move at a faster clip than a walk since he’d been shot. It hurt. It hurt bad. But knowing what was behind him, there was no way he was stopping, no matter how bad it felt. As he approached a curve in the dirt road he could hear men in front of him. It had to be the Sec Forces. Good news, except he wondered if they’d shoot first and ask questions later when they saw him charging at them around the bend.

  It no longer mattered that the attackers were close behind. He angled to the side of the road and threw himself into the ditch, confident that nobody from either side had seen him do it. He heard the eruption of gunfire as he lay flat on his back in the mud, breathing hard. He didn’t need to poke his head out to know what had happened. Men with sticks and clubs were no match for the Sec Forces.

  ~~~

  Nick got some of the story from Dewey and the rest from Carlo. The attackers had surprised John Markle and his hunters, several of whom had been killed in fierce hand-to-hand combat that the hunters had no training in. The killing in the woods was quite brutal, actually, since the only weapons the attackers had were primitive. After the element of surprise had passed, Markle’s crew had fought back, taking out at least as many of the enemy as they’d lost, but some of the infiltrators managed to pass through. They were the ones that Dewey had slowed down long enough for the Sec Forces to decimate when they’d finally arrived on the scene. It was the second attack on Tabernacle in the space of a week.

  More than that, it was exactly what Nick and several others had fully expected. If he’d been in the shoes of those filthy men in the woods and had survived this long, with winter about to set in, he’d have done the same thing. It was either that or watch their own wives, children and friends die a slow, agonizing death. Now that there’d been another onslaught, he hoped more campers would see it his way and realize that the attacks were never going to stop.

  ~~~

  A typical New Jersey winter started the very next day. It wasn’t Arctic. It wasn’t scenic. There weren’t fluffy banks of new-fallen snow to be shoveled into neat piles along the roads and paths of Tabernacle. That would come, but not in November. Winter time rarely rolled out that way in the Garden State. Instead, there were two days of sleet and freezing rain that coated everything with ice and created seas of mud throughout the camp. For the first time since the power had gone out, simple acts like going to bathroom and getting something to eat for dinner now required difficult treks through horrible conditions.

  The mood in the camp soured during the storm, which happened to start on what would have been Thanksgiving Day in the old world. Even the toughest campers found something to complain about. Spats and arguments over trivial issues were frequent, and sometimes came to blows. Most such incidents ended only when they all reminded themselves of how lucky they were to be there. It was a difficult time. For people with fresh memories of more luxurious lives, it was sometimes hard to convince themselves that they were the lucky ones, no matter how many times they spelled out the cruel facts of their new lives to each other.

  It was on the third and final afternoon of the storm, when the gloomy skies were starting to give way to blue, that Mark Roman dropped by Nick and Dewey’s cabin. After some small talk, Mark got to the point of his visit. “The Committee meets tonight,” he said.

  “So?” Nick replied. “You meet all the time, and then you tell us little people what you decide. What’s it to me?” When he saw the look on Mark’s face, he wasn’t sure what it meant. “No offense,” he said quickly. “You know what I’m saying. You know I don’t mean anything by it.”

  “This time they want you to come,” Mark said. “The meeting’s tomorrow morning. I’ll meet you at the Bath House after breakfast, and we’ll go together.” It didn’t sound like a request.

  Nick couldn’t think of anything to say, at least not until Mark had turned and walked out the door as quickly as he’d come in.

  Eight

  “Guess where I’m going after this?” Nick said as quietly as he could to Matt at the breakfast table the next morning. He’d already told Dewey. Now here he was telling the next person he’d come across. Well, Mark hadn’t said it was supposed to be a secret. He probably thought he didn’t need to say it, Nick admitted to himself.

  “Firewood pile?” Matt said. “Outhouse roof?” He was scraping the last bits of oatmeal from the bottom of his bowl, quite aware of the recent scuttlebutt about how the current stores of oatmeal wouldn’t last the week. The running joke was about what the cooks could make for breakfast out of deer meat. Nobody actually thought the jokes were very funny anymore.

  Nick looked around before he answered. Everybody else was either daydreaming or too involved in their own conversations to overhear. “The Committee invited me to a meeting this morning. Can you believe it?”

  “You?” Matt exclaimed a little too loudly. “They hate you!”

  “Keep your voice down, will ya’?” Nick said. “I’m not sure anybody’s supposed to know.”

  “What do they want with you?” Matt asked. “It can’t be good, right?”

  “Probably not,” Nick allowed.

  “You’d think they’d tell you what it’s about, at least,” Matt said.

  “Well, I kind of know what it’s about,” Nick admitted.

  “Where’s the meeting?” Matt asked.

  Nick laughed. “You know, I don’t even have a clue,” he said. “I never thought about it. Why would I, right?”

  “Let’s hope this isn’t goodbye,” Tom said, smiling from across the table. Apparently he and Matt hadn’t been quiet enough. “Otherwise, it’s been good knowing you, Nick.”

  ~~~

  Mark was waiting for Nick at the Bath House, as planned. Since he had no idea where they were going, he followed Mark’s lead and was surprised when they ended up at the front gate of the camp. There was a van parked on the other side. “Wait, are we going somewhere?”

  “Well, yeah,” Mark said. “To the meeting.” When he saw Nick’s face, he explained further. “You know they still hold the meetings back at the school, right?”

  “No,” Nick said, surprised again. “Why don’t they do it down here?”

  “They will, soon,” Mark assured him. “They’re talking about building a meeting house first.”

  “Oh brother,” Nick said. “There’s plenty of places here they could meet. It’s like they’re determined to use up all our supplies as fast as they can. We can’t just run out and pick up more. Why don’t they understand that?”

  “It’s been brought up,” Mark said. “They know better than we do about getting building materials.”

  “Yeah, I guess they would,” Nick said. “I’m just surprised they don’t just move everything down here and be done with it.”

  “Carlo talked about that last time,” Mark said. “There’s a small garrison of Sec Forces based up there that he wants down here. And it’ll happen soon. It’s all coming to Tabernacle.”

  “I hope so,” Nick answered. “We’re short on army guys down here as it is, without spreading them so thin.”

  “Well, you didn’t hear this from me,” Mark said, after they were in the van. “But I have an idea that’s partly what they want to talk to you about.”

  “You mean you don’t know why I’m invited?” Nick asked.

  “I can’t be sure,
” Mark told him. “But there’s a lot of gossip around here. Everybody knows you have a lot of opinions about it.” He eyed Nick sharply. “On everything, I should say.”

  Nick shrugged. “When the wrong people have them, they’re opinions. When the right people have them, they’re ideas. Whatever.”

  “That’s over my head, Nick,” Mark replied. “But anyway, Carlo wants everybody on The Committee to hear what you have to say about recruiting. After what happened yesterday, he finally got his way.”

  ~~~

  “Well if isn’t my favorite roofer,” Nick heard from behind after walking into what must have been the Principal’s office of the middle school back in the day. Nick knew who it was even before he turned and saw Roethke staring him down. He nodded curtly without a reply.

  “We don’t normally meet this early in the day,” Roethke continued. “But when they told me you were coming, well, you know what Jimmy Buffet said. It’s always five o’clock somewhere.” He walked closer, a crooked smile spreading across his face. “And yet, I’ve heard you’re not always a morning person either, are you?”

  Nick hadn’t seen much of Roethke since moving to Tabernacle, and certainly never from this close. He looked good, Nick admitted to himself. Like everybody else, his hair was long and getting longer. The full beard, which had come in a lot whiter than his hair, was a better look for him than the scraggly goatee, even untrimmed. Roethke had always had an unkempt look about him anyway. It really wasn’t much of a change.

  “Welcome, Nick,” Grover said in his baritone voice from across the room. Although the table he sat behind was round, somehow the position he occupied looked like the head just by his being there. “Thank you for coming. We don’t have the entire Committee here, but we have a quorum.”

  “Not that it matters,” Roethke remarked. “This isn’t Congress.” Grover shot a look at him. Nick wondered if Roethke’s act might be wearing thin.

  He knew most of the faces around the table, including, of course, that of Mark, who’d already taken a seat. Penny’s boss, who headed Farming, was there, although Nick didn’t know her name. So were Crystal Monroe and Sue Stocker from Water Supply. Matt had told him he wasn’t sure who was in charge of that subcommittee. Apparently nobody else was either.

  Nick had never seen the man to Roethke’s left. He wore a standard camo military shirt, with “Quigley” stenciled above a pocket. It was hard to see from where Nick stood, but it appeared that below the waist he sported long shorts, bare ankles, and sandals. On closer look, the shorts look like they’d once been full-length pants, also in a camouflage pattern but one that differed from the shirt, before being hacked off at the knees. It was always odd seeing somebody for the first time anywhere in the camp, let alone at a meeting of The Committee.

  Also present was John Markle, who ran what was left of Food Production after Farming was split off. Whatever had happened in the woods the day before, John was the worse for it. One of his arms was in a sling, and the right side of his face was black and blue, with scabs dotting his forehead. It looked as though everything Dewey had told Nick the night before was accurate. The hunters had taken a beating. The rumors that four of them had been killed were probably true as well. No wonder Dewey was nervous about joining that subcommittee. Now Nick was reasonably sure that Mark had been right when he guessed what the meeting was going to be about.

  “I think we can get started,” Grover said after Roethke took the chair on his right. Carlo and one of his Sec Forces, both out of breath, scrambled through the doorway and quickly filled two of the remaining seats without a word of apology. Carlo nodded at Nick after catching his eye, more confirmation about why Nick was there and what was going to be discussed.

  “We’re going to dispense with the formalities,” Grover said. “We’re here only to talk about one issue. Now, I don’t think I need to tell any of you what happened yesterday. Is that correct?” Heads nodded around the table. Most cast uncomfortable glances at John.

  “It isn’t all too much different than what happened last time,” Grover said. “If you remember, we were attacked at the front gates of the camp. That attack was far more serious. We needed all the Sec Forces we have and most of the campers, too, to repel that one. But yesterday’s incident is more troubling in one way. It tells us that these attacks are not one-time events. I now believe, and I think many Committee members agree, that we can and should expect these attacks to continue.”

  “I’m afraid so, my friends,” Carlo said, now that he’d found his place at the table. “It only makes sense. The characters that John ran into yesterday are a dime a dozen out there, I think. Like we’re always saying, not everybody has it as good as we do. The closer we get to winter, the more visits we can expect. Anybody who gets within fifteen miles is going to catch a whiff of the venison in the Smokehouse, and come a-runnin’.”

  “Tell everybody else what you said to me about expanding the Sec Forces,” Grover said. “The why and the how of it.”

  “I tell you what Grover,” Carlo replied. “If you have no objection, I say we let Nick explain it, since he’s here. He’s the one who laid it on me in the first place. He’s been talking about it for longer than anybody else.” It seemed like a rehearsed setup to Nick. Maybe nobody wanted to be the one to invite him to speak, so Carlo got stuck with the task.

  “Please, no,” Roethke muttered just loud enough for everybody at the table to hear. Nick wondered if that had been part of the script.

  “You’re up, Nick,” Carlo said after Grover nodded silently. “Just tell them the same way you told me, every time I’ve run into you for the last month.”

  Nick chuckled nervously. He pushed back from the table and stood, because it didn’t feel right to stay parked in his chair for this. “It’s just like Carlo said,” he began. “Life is horrible and getting worse for most people out there. The kind of people who weren’t lucky enough to get into places like Tabernacle. They have nothing. They’re going to be facing death as soon as the weather turns cold. I mean, they’re literally going to start dying off. How many of them will just sit in the dark and watch their wives, husbands, whatever, their kids, freeze and starve to death? I know I wouldn’t. Even though I’d know it’s wrong, I’d probably come here with whatever weapons I could find, to try to get what I need for my family. It beats watching them die. And that’s what I think we’re facing.”

  “That’s for sure,” Carlo said. “We saw this yesterday.” Nick saw the man in the rumply camouflage nodding approvingly.

  “They’re not going away, Nick said. “And it’s not even winter yet.” He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “We got lucky the last two times, really,” he said. “They were small groups. What’s gonna’ happen when a few of those mobs team up? Even if they show up at the same time by accident, they’ll still outnumber us. And eventually we won’t be able to make up the difference with firepower,” Nick continued. “We’re gonna’ run out of guns and bullets. We can’t just hide in our camp and think we’ll have everything we need forever. When we run out of equipment, we need to know how to make new stuff, but right now we don’t know how to make anything we need. We’ll have to--“

  “Whoa, Nick,” Carlo said, cutting him off. “I know where you’re going with this. Let’s keep it real. Stick with the soldiers and bullets for now, brother.”

  “Okay, sorry,” Nick said. “But as far as that goes, we need way more fighters than we have. I mean, we need more members whose only job is to defend. These automatic rifles are great, but eventually we’ll run out of ammo. We need to be using simpler guns that we can make bullets for ourselves so we can always defend ourselves.” He shrugged. “Sorry, I know that last part’s for another day.”

  “Look, nobody wants to take it to these maniacs more than I do,” John said. “Especially after yesterday.” He touched his battered face. “But we can barely get all our work done as it is.” He shook his head, anger registering on his face. “Let’s think about what we
say before say it. We can’t all of a sudden start flippin’ people into the Sec Forces.”

  “Of course not,” Nick said. “What we—“

  “The best thing we can do is finish building the wall around the camp,” John yelled, jabbing a finger at Nick. “Then, after we’re done with that, the next thing we do is make it twice as tall. That’s how we keep our enemies out. That’s how we stay alive. That’s how we protect what we have here.”

  “It won’t work,” Nick said. “We can’t survive by ourselves, with nothing but the supplies we’ve hoarded. We have to grow. And that starts with the Sec Forces. But it doesn’t end with them. We’ll always need more people. Not just workers, but people who know how to do stuff, and make stuff. We don’t know everything.”

  “Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right,” Sue Stocker said. “Where do we start? Where do we find these people? How do we do it?”

  “You don’t think there are armies of miserable people out there who’d do anything, give anything, to be part of this?” Nick asked. “Because there are. People just like us. Maybe even the people who’ll be attacking us next time if we haven’t already taken them in.” He glared at John. “Let me ask you this. What would you be doing right now if you hadn’t been lucky enough to get picked by Grover? You and your wife, and your two sons?”

  John jumped out of his seat and charged at Nick, knocking him backwards into a wall with his good arm. “You leave my family out of this!” he bellowed. “And don’t tell me what I’d do!”

  Carlo was on him in a flash, restraining him easily from behind with an arm bar and a choke hold. “Settle down, and get back to your seat,” he said firmly. A moment later he released John and shoved him back in the direction he’d come from.

  “So how do we do it?” Sue asked again, as if nothing had happened.