The China Pandemic

by A. R. Shaw

  Tammy had the most knowledge of this, having worked in a nursery and even knew how to spot beneficial plants out in the wild that were either medicinal or edible if it came down to it.

  One of the first outdoor projects that Dalton and the other men got busy on, besides putting up the tents, was fencing in their immediate compound. They’d stored the metal fencing in a buried bunker complete with chain link pullers, posthole diggers, sledgehammers and bags of concrete. They worked quickly and efficiently. Since they’d spent so many weekends working together, they had already worked out the kinks of their relationships. Where Rick was bossy, Sam was contemplative, but they all figured out a way to work together and surprisingly, there were few arguments. They depended on one another and that was crucial in their situation. Above all, they respected Dalton’s final word on any debate. He’d gotten them this far and they all knew it was because of him.

  With the perimeter up, they were safer from wild animals and the occasional human who might stumble onto their camp, though that was unlikely these days. At first, after Graham’s camp established itself, exposure became their major concern. Now they realized they needed to keep an eye on his camp to keep them all out of danger.

  After the women had kicked Dalton out of the kitchen, he wandered over to check out Sam’s work on the deer hides. This man knew how to utilize every part of any catch. No one else had ever learned the art of tanning, but Sam had it down to a science. With the colder temperatures, there were fewer flies to contend with, even though he worked with a smoke fire nearby to keep the pests away.

  “How’s it going, Sam?” Dalton asked.

  “Good, and you?” Sam asked.

  While they talked, Dalton watched as Sam never broke the rhythm of rubbing the fat off the flesh side of the deer pelt during their conversation.

  After that, he knew Sam would layer plain salt over every inch of it flat out. He once explained that it drew the moisture out and helped keep the fur from falling out or decomposing. Because of the moisture in the air there, he often kept smoke fires nearby with pelts in progress and covered them loosely at night with tarps. After this procedure, Sam would soak the stiff pelts in cold water for a few hours, making them soft before the tanning process, which involved boiling a concoction. When cooled, he added volatile battery acid to it.

  Sam did not permit any observers nearby during this process, not because he wanted to hide a secret ingredient, but because of the danger it imposed. Submerging and soaking the skins in the solution became the next step. Then the extensive rinsing process and hanging to let the pelt drain. Finally, he would add oil to the skin inside with a sponge and put it on a frame stretcher.

  Sam always made a point to neutralize the barrel of tanning solution with baking soda, keeping everyone far away, including himself, due to the toxic gas it emitted. Afterward, he poured it over the gravel drive when it was no longer toxic, but kept some of the weeds down.

  Daily, he would check on the hides and when they were dry in the center, he’d take them down and rub them with a wire brush on the skin side, softening and fluffing it a bit so that it would be workable. Then, he’d dry it even more. So far, these tanned pelts occupied a small corner of the compound building in increasing quantities, waiting for their final use.

  Dalton knew Sam never had spent time in the military, but the experience would have been lost on the man. He said he’d learned everything he knew by being raised by his grandfather deep in the Montana forest. Dalton stipulated in the initial rules that all members must have spent some time with the discipline of the US military to join their group. After seeing what Sam could do, they made an exception.

  Tanning hides, hunting, tracking, snaring, fishing, knife fighting, bow making and beer brewing were only a few of the man’s many talents. Not only that, Dalton liked the man because he didn’t talk too much. They got along well and would often have a beer, sitting in lawn chairs at night saying little to nothing without pressure and Dalton liked it that way.

  Sam’s sinewy frame with deeply tanned skin and thick dark hair revealed him as a true woodsman. Dalton guessed his height to be about five eleven. He’d never seen a man tread through the forest as quietly as Sam did and he liked to go on hunts with him just to watch the way Sam manipulated various natural obstacles without a sound.

  Often the group would debate different decisions they needed to make since Dalton required everyone to have a voice. This became the only cultural difference in the group, as Sam would often just act on his own expertise without consulting the group. It was automatic for him. It always ended up being the right decision anyway, but Dalton explained to Sam that he needed to consult them first before acting on something that affected them all.

  Sam didn’t have a problem adjusting to this. He wanted to get along, so when the issue came up for building the outdoor bathroom facilities, Sam waited patiently for everyone in the committee to have their say, adding to the design.

  Then he said, “You could put it there and do it that way if you want to breathe in the aroma right around supper time as the cool evening breeze floats this way. But I’d suggest you move it down the natural slope of the land here.” He pointed his worn index finger to the corner at the back of the sketch up. “Dig two fifteen foot holes to put the outhouses over, keep plenty of ash and wood chips to spread after use. Also, I suggest each father teach their boys to piss out behind it through the fence into the brush to help keep the deer and their predators away. But that’s what I’d do. Otherwise, you’re going to have a line forming in the morning with this many people and we’ll have to fill in the shit popsicles holes in the middle of winter when the ground is too frozen to dig new ones.”

  After Sam’s rare monolog, he walked off to work. They were all silent, imagining what a year’s worth of a ‘shit Popsicle’ would look like. Rick broke the silence and started laughing and then said, “Sounds good to me, let’s do it his way.” The others emphatically agreed right away without further comment and walked away to get two outhouses built in the newly desired location.

  Sadly, when Sam came into camp, he revealed his wife had died three months before of breast cancer. Just he and his seven year old daughter, who stayed in quarantine together, neither ever showed any sign of the virus. It was tragic, as the two were in quarantine, to suffer such a personal loss as they were observed and tested. Dalton attributed much of Sam’s quietness to mourning, though they never talked about it.

  Anyone could see he’d once been a very happy man. His daughter Adelaide, Addy for short, greeted him each evening jumping into his strong outstretched arms, with her dark ponytail swinging as he carried her to bed. She often fell asleep sitting with him like that. He’d watch the man carry her to their quarters walking in that same soundless way of his.

  Dalton left Sam to his work and went back to what occupied most of his time, the planning and keeping of these people. Rick was where he’d left him watching The Days of Graham’s Camp, which is what it had become known as. “Anything up?” he asked.

  “Nope, nothing but watching mud dry here.” he said and leaned back in his office chair. “Something must have happened, though, to cause that dog to run off into the woods like that with Twin Two right behind him, her weapon at the ready,” Rick speculated. “What do you think about putting up a few more cameras out there?”

  “Is it integral to our safety, Rick?” Dalton asked, “or integral to our entertainment?”

  “I know we have to draw the line to what makes sense for us but let’s say something happened to one of them out there and we couldn’t see it and the person died as a result. Wouldn’t you want to know how it happened and if it could have been prevented?” Rick asked.

  “We’re not God, Rick. We can’t save them every time. I agree we should try to prevent any danger that comes to them that could also jeopardize us, like the men that came in the other night. However, if Graham gets taken down by some wild animal, the lady will just have to take over. She�
��s capable. We can’t step in for stuff like that,” Dalton said trying to convince himself in the process.

  Rick sat upright in his chair. “All right, look. If the little guy was running for his life from that cougar in our direction, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t throw on your FAV suit, grab your gun and go running if you knew Camp Graham wasn’t aware of it. We are involved now since that first night we let them live. If it weren’t for the virus, we would have already brought them in. They’re good people and mostly children.”

  “Deadly children and that’s why we monitor them. You were the first one to argue against picking up Mark when this all started and rightly so. It’s just because of boredom and you watching them that you’ve become so soft, Rick. If one of those kids comes wandering into our camp, no matter how innocent, we’ll all die. Are you willing to risk Bethany for that?”

  “No, of course not. I just think it can be managed,” Rick said.

  “They need to learn about us, so that doesn’t happen. These kids are going to grow up. Theirs and ours. They need to know about the dangers,” Rick pointed at the monitor. “We need to teach them how to live with us, apart and together, if that makes sense. We can help each other.”

  “Look, for now, I don’t see the real need to put cameras in their east side. We can debate the rest later with the council. Is the hunt group back yet?” Dalton asked changing the subject.

  “Naw, they’ll be checking in soon though,” Rick said and Dalton began looking over plans for the aquifer for the garden when he heard Rick say, “What the hell? Look, camera five!” he shouted.

  Dalton came up behind Rick’s chair and focused on display five as he watched the two previous men in the forest on the lake side hiding behind brush watching as Tala and the girls were hanging clean sheets up to dry on the outside line. “Go to camera three. Can you turn it along the shoreline? See there,” he pointed to brush lying over their canoe half concealing it. Going back to camera five, they watched as the men backtracked to their canoe. They quietly slipped away through the water without detection in the late afternoon.

  “Dammit, if someone had been on watch south of there, they would have shot the bastards,” Rick said. Then they saw Bang running from the forest line pell-mell as fast as his little legs would go up to Tala.

  There had been a witness after all.

  35 On Watch

  “So they were watching the girls? Then what happened?” Graham asked, trying to remain calm. He held Bang out in front of him. The panic-stricken boy was breathing hard and trying to catch his breath. Mark had found him first and took him to Graham right away.

  He looked at Graham and then looked up at Tala and shook his head, like he wasn’t going to say more with her standing there. Graham picked up on it and said, “Tala, can you leave us alone for a minute.”

  “Sure,” she said, leaving the men to decipher the issue at hand.

  “All right, go on,” Graham said.

  Bang made a confused face. He knew it was bad, but didn’t know why exactly what it meant and then said, “Those bad guys said, ‘They have too many women.’ Then the other one said that the younger two wouldn’t hold up, so it would be better to take the mom. They think Tala’s our mom?”

  Graham stood up and called, “Tala, where are the girls?”

  “They’re on watch,” she said.

  Both Graham and Mark raced out the door without saying a word. Each headed in the opposite direction to secure the girls as fast as possible, without having to mention who would go where. Graham came up on Macy’s back, startling her from behind.

  “What! Graham, you scared me,” she said alarmed.

  “Nothing, I just want you to come back to the cabin,” he said pointing and Macy noticed his finger shaking and then Graham, out of breath, rubbed the side of his bearded face and neck.

  “What’s wrong with you? You always do that when you’re nervous?” she asked but Graham couldn’t explain. He only pointed for her to get back to the cabin.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she nagged him as he walked with her marching in front of him.

  “No, Macy, you didn’t do anything wrong.” He stopped and hugged the girl into his side and looked behind him as he took her back to the cabin. Once they hit the clearing, he saw Mark dragging a disgruntled Marcy behind him.

  “I can’t believe this,” Marcy said outraged when she saw Graham.

  “What?” Macy demanded “What’s with you guys? Now there’s nobody on watch.”

  “Get in the cabin,” Graham nearly yelled at them. “We’ll talk about it in there,” he said in a slightly lower tone.

  Graham held the door open for all of them to enter.

  “Look, gang, we have a serious threat. I had hoped they’d given up after we took down one of them, but it looks like I was wrong. My first thought is that no females should do watch,” Graham said.

  “That’s crazy. You can’t keep watch with just you and the boys,” Marcy said.

  “I said it was my first thought, Marcy,” he said.

  “What exactly happened?” Macy emphasized ‘exactly’ with her hands out.

  Graham looked her in the eye and said, “Basically, Bang saw the two men that escaped from here the other night spying on you ladies putting the laundry up on the line. They said something indicating that they wanted to take one of you. So, that makes it a threat to you. Understand now?”

  She looked a little white because she understood exactly what he meant then.

  “I knew those jokers were up to no good the moment I spied them,” Ennis said.

  “Yes, you did,” Graham said.

  Tala spoke up, “Marcy’s right, though. You guys can’t do the watch work all on your own. What are we going to do?”

  “I think we should block the lake entrance,” Mark said.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Ennis said. “But how?”

  After a few seconds of silence, no one had an answer for the situation.

  “Ennis, what do you think?” Graham asked.

  “Well, we know they’re coming by canoe from the southeast, across the lake. We’ve only seen the three men, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have more at their base. And they want to take one of ours by force and they’re planning to do it soon,” Ennis said, his angry voice increasing in volume.

  “What we don’t know,” Ennis continued, “is when they will act on this threat. But they will act on it and we need to be ready for them.”

  “They’d have to drive a long way and we’d hear them coming if they came down the driveway. So don’t you think we can still keep watch there?” Tala asked.

  “I don’t want to chance it, Tala. They could just as easily go through the east forest, grab you or one of the girls and haul you back through to their canoe in the middle of the night and we’d never know it,” Graham said, shaking his head as the image of Campos carrying off Marcy popped into his head.

  “There are just not enough of us,” Mark said, putting his arm around Marcy’s shoulders. She dropped her gaze. She obviously was thinking about the same thing as Graham. Haven’t these kids all dealt with their fair share of bad guys? he thought. “I agree,” he said aloud. We’ll run ourselves ragged just on watch patrol and not get the things we need to get done daily,” Graham said.

  “So, let’s not watch. We only watch from the lakeside during the day with two on, and at night, we keep sentry up in here.” Graham nodded. They’d started doing that when it really became too cold to ask anyone to stay outside at night.

  “When any of the ladies goes outside, we always have them under guard,” Ennis said.

  “We could set up a trap for them,” Bang said.

  They all looked at him, not noticing him before because he was so quiet. Though they were listening to Ennis, it wasn’t a perfect plan by far with their numbers. It all made sense, then Bang came up with something brilliant.

  “Yeah, we could booby trap the shoreline entrance with those bear traps we f
ound. Too bad, we only have the two. Some hidden cameras would be nice,” Mark said.

  “That’s not a bad idea, boy,” Ennis agreed.

  “We have to be careful one of us doesn’t accidently fall into the traps though. That’s all we need—someone getting their leg clinched by a rusty bear trap,” Tala said.

  “No one goes near the shoreline then. We’ll set it up. The trail leading down is off limits for now,” Mark said, as if making up rules as they went along.

  Then Graham remembered his days from camp and how they pranked one another. Those were the good old days, but his mind was planning exactly how they could maintain their perimeter with a few well-placed traps. Perhaps they didn’t need more numbers after all and he got to work, taking the boys with him and confining the girls to the cabin for now, just to be safe.

  36 A Decision

  “Dammit, I wish we’d put cameras in the cabin now,” Dalton could hear Rick yell through to the mess tent.

  He smiled to himself as he stirred his coffee. “What the hell are we going to do without nondairy creamer?” he muttered absentmindedly. These odd things continually went through everyone’s minds. The ‘what happens when’ scenarios seemed like a game they played in the evenings now, right after The Days of Graham’s Camp spiel.

  As Dalton walked back into their tent, he knew his friend was running various scenarios through his well-trained military mind. He was the technology equipment expert and frankly, Dalton could count on his right hand how many times Rick had saved his life with that blessed orb of his. Dalton came through the opening, ducking his head under the frame, and could see Rick as he’d expected to find him, leaning back in his swivel chair, fingers intertwined over his balding scalp, thumping them. It was Rick’s thinking pose, the enigma that he was.

  “Stop it,” Dalton said.

  “What? I’m just thinking it through,” Rick said.