When Lizzy made her inquiry, she hadn’t actually expected a response, or if one was given it should have been the usual I need better rations or fancier binoculars sort of thing. This was a biggie, and Lizzy wasn’t all that excited about constructing anything. It had never been necessary before, but most of their scouting was done via aircraft or with patrols. There were only a few stationary watches. Then again, with so few of them, why not take the time to provide those on duty with a few basic comforts.
“I can do that,” she said, after a moment or two. “I’ll even have it up before it gets cold. Maybe we can put in an electric heater or something.”
Melody brightened. “That would be wonderful.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that you will be doing something other than staring at nothing for eighteen hours a day, sleeping a little while, and fucking repeating the entire shitty process. Too much alone time rots the brain.”
The negative look returned in full.
“What do you like to do, other than this?”
Melody shifted uncomfortably.
“Come on. There has to be something. Do you read for fun?”
“Not really.”
“Movies, television?”
“I used to watch some nature shows on the Discovery Channel, but not very often.”
Lizzy began to grumble to herself.
“How about horseback riding? We have lots of horses. You like horses?”
“No,” said Melody, eyes downcast.
“How can you not like horses, aside from them biting, kicking, and throwing you off every chance they get? Scrap that. I don’t like the fucking animals all that much myself. What then? You have to like something. Gambling? Want me to round up a slot machine from one of the Indian casinos? We could hit a bank and get you a few thousand quarters.”
“I like cards,” she admitted, “not poker or what they play in those places, but card games in general.”
“Okay, that’s something. Now, what do you play, and if you say solitaire, I’ll shoot every last toe off your left foot.”
Melody drew back, uncertain how serious Lizzy was. “Pinochle was my favorite, but I haven’t played since my family… since this started.”
“Pinochle, I actually know how to play that one. Haven’t done so myself much, not recently, but I do know how. Okay, that’s a starting point. We would need more people though. Can’t play with only two.”
“There used to be a club in my old town. A bunch of us got together on Thursdays.”
“A club… That would be nice.” All traces of annoyance were gone. Lizzy had found something to both help Melody return to the world and to distract herself from a myriad of troubles and worries. “We are going to set up a pinochle club. It’ll be soon too. I’ll get right on that, and I’m sure we can find others. We can do the games over in Venusville – I fucking hate that name – in one of the militia supply cabins. We can even play for money.”
“Money isn’t worth much,” pointed out Melody. She wasn’t certain if this would be good or not. The woman had never been the social sort, and she truly did prefer to be alone most of the time. Still, some interaction, in a very safe, informal setting, might help with the sense of despair that had been growing within her. “Cookies might be better.”
“Cookies? Fuck it. We can figure that out later.”
This was the start of a new friendship, something that I, overlord of the Black Hills and future master of the world, approve of.
* * *
Following two and a half days of inspections and examinations, Lizzy turned her attention to the stack of performance reviews and reports Renee had compiled during our war with the raiders. Those proved to be minimal. Renee might not hate paperwork the way Lizzy did, but she was concise and to the point.
The evaluations didn’t offer anything new. Lizzy made certain she knew everyone in the militia and kept abreast of problems. She wasn’t about to let some issue grow and fester. Lizzy was also quick to put an end to burgeoning interpersonal conflicts. Getting into fights, real fights, or messing around with another’s significant other was a serious no no. People did not have to like one another, but they were required to work together in a productive, civilized manner.
The reports were more interesting, and Lizzy found herself engrossed with Renee’s description of what happened when she took out the small band of raiders. The speed and skill with which the team subdued the enemy was worthy of praise. However, the torture that followed was distasteful, even if Lizzy personally did not give a damn how much they suffered. Still, that didn’t mean she wanted details of what happened floating around. Lizzy burned the relevant section and tacked on an addendum which stated extreme interrogation measures were taken to ensure no imminent attacks were being prepared and that no innocent lives were in danger. That sounded better.
On one of my seemingly endless personal notes, I am going to state that while our records have been shortened, but in no way falsified, I have not done the same with this composition. My memoirs are mine to do with as I please.
Chapter X
“What did you bring us?” asked Briana.
“No asking how it went first? You’re just going straight to what I might have gotten for you?”
“Yeah,” added Mary, “what’s up with that? Shame on you. Greedy, greedy, greedy.”
“I want presents,” said Asher. “Mommy said presents.”
Mary picked him up. “We do. I have a sparkly, shiny piece of quartz for you. That’s a super special rock.”
“Rocks!” He clapped his hands with glee.
You never know what’s going to make a little boy happy. Sometimes it’s toys. Other days it’s frogs. Hopefully he wouldn’t bang the thing against the table.
Briana smiled at the pair briefly before glaring at me. “I already know how the fighting went. Ronnie told me when he dropped off the injured – I am so glad no one got killed this time – and I got summaries from them too. They’re all doing well by the way. The doctors and nurses say full recovery all around.”
“That’s good to know.” I handed her the manifest. “Here’s what we got. You can have Bruce and Steph work on getting it sorted later. Most are regular supplies, but we do have some foodstuffs mixed in.”
“Stop pulling my hair.” Mary pried his fingers away. “I mean it. That is not nice.”
“Asher,” said Briana sternly, “you’ve been told not to do that. Do I need to start counting?”
The boy ignored his mother completely and grabbed Mary’s long blonde hair a second time. In response, she swung him upside down and gave his bottom a good, solid whack.
“Asher!” exclaimed Briana. “You are being naughty. We never pull hair.” She took him from his sister and headed for the bedroom. “That’s it for you. Straight to bed.”
“No!” he wailed. “Not sleepy time! Wake up time!”
His regular bedtime was only an hour off, so I didn’t think that argument was going to work.
“Jacob! Get some buckets so I can give him a bath.”
How I wished we had proper plumbing. That was on the list of things to do, but, while we did have ample electricity, the placement of our town and lack of a water treatment facility kept it on the backburner. The best we had were cisterns, wells, and a few small water towers.
“Mary, want to help?”
“Well, I was going to go see Michael.”
“How about we fill the tub for Briana first? Then you can go have all the fun you want. You will be back before midnight though. “
“Midnight!”
“Yes, midnight.”
* * *
“Where’s Mary?”
Asher, following a solid twenty minutes of crying, had finally dozed off. Briana, still a little damp from his splashing, which was directly related to his temper tantrum, had checked on him one final time before plopping herself on the sofa.
“She’s off with Michael, probably dancing.”
That seem
ed to be her favorite activity of late. I never danced myself, both hating it and lacking the coordination and grace to avoid looking like a complete fool.
“How’s your stomach?” I continued.
She grimaced. “Not as bad today. I’ve been eating a lot of mild, tasteless soup. That seems to help.”
“That’s good. I don’t want you puking when we go to Hawaii.”
“Hawaii? I am not moving to Hawaii.” She did not look pleased.
“No,” I said, rather quickly. “I didn’t mean move there. We aren’t going to abandon this place, not after all the work that went into it.” I was in full agreement. The Black Hills was our home. “This will be a short vacation with work mixed in, probably mostly work. The new president and senators want to meet us. Major Briggs – he’s getting promoted – will be going too, along with some of leadership over in Yellowstone.”
“Oh, that’s different. I’ve never been there myself, but everyone I know who has says it’s nice. Won’t be as good as before the dead, but the government swears they’ve been cleaning it up fast. I guess we’ll be able to see if they’re telling the truth or not. Who all is going and when?”
“We leave on the thirtieth from one of the big Montana runways. Ronnie will fly us over so we can meet the plane that’s coming in. It will be me and you and Asher and Mary, a family trip.”
“And Tara and Dale,” added Briana.
“Sweetie, I can’t be dragging those two all over creation. It’s not fair to them.”
She snorted. “They absolutely adore you, and they love being bodyguards. If you leave them behind, that will hurt their feeling, big time. They are coming. I want them around to keep an eye on us. They’re bringing their guns too. We all are. I’ll give Asher a water pistol so he doesn’t feel left out.”
Briana’s level of paranoia, or possibly preparation depending on one’s viewpoint, seemed unusually high lately. It might be connected to her hormones, so I decided to give in to her demands. Briana had periods of nuttiness during the pregnancy with Asher and the months immediately following his birth, so this was very possible. And, if so, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
“I’ll tell Major Briggs that the twins will be accompanying us as security and that we are going to be armed. You know, we didn’t talk about taking our guns.”
“Why would you? Really, Jacob, you spend so much time fighting that you are never without at least a pistol. Pretty much everyone else here is carrying all the time too. But they have cleared the islands of zombies and haven’t been fighting any wars, so they probably aren’t as careful as we are. It better not be an issue.”
There was a tiny fraction of a second when I considered saying that since they had no zombies and no enemies, there was no reason for us to be armed, but Briana was correct about the way we lived. Having weapons at hand was an integral part of day to day life. I likely would have gone right to the plane carrying as usual without a second thought. It would be best to get things sorted out in advance, in case they were sticklers for meaningless, insane restrictions.
“I’ll talk to Briggs on the radio tomorrow.”
“Good, but why couldn’t this have been months ago?” She turned dour. “I won’t even be able to go to the beach.”
“You can go. It’s summertime. I’m assuming it’ll be warm and sunny.”
“Yeah, I can go wearing my fat maternity clothes.”
Briana was anything but fat, and being pregnant was not the same thing. I constantly told her how beautiful she was, but… I shouldn’t even go there.
* * *
Mary returned around ten o’clock, looking thoroughly disgusted.
“What’s wrong?” asked Briana, gesturing to a chair.
The seventeen year old joined us and kicked off her shoes.
“Weren’t you supposed to be out with Michael?” I asked. “This is early for you.”
“Turns out he is on patrol duty. I had to go all the way over to Venusville, where I had to wait for Lizzy who was busy yelling at some poor guy for leaving the seat up in the latrine, before I even found out.”
“That still shouldn’t have taken nearly this long.”
She began to pout. “Lizzy made me stay. They were going to kill a goat.”
“A goat?” asked Briana.
Mary nodded. “They were doing barbecue. I told her I was going to eat back at home, but Lizzy got mad and said no, I was going to eat with her like old times and that if I didn’t she would become angry.”
“Lizzy said she would become angry?” Briana was justifiably skeptical. “Those were her words.”
“I’m paraphrasing so my tongue doesn’t burn up.”
I chuckled. “Poor Lizzy is probably feeling left out. We don’t see her nearly as much as we used to.”
“I know.” Mary’s head dropped. “That’s why I hung around, even if she was being bitchy. It wasn’t all bad though, not really. The goat tasted good.”
“Then why so upset?”
“Briana! It’s a three mile walk back, in the dark. Lizzy told me I was out of shape and to hoof it. She wouldn’t give me a ride or even let me take a horse. That was completely unfair and mean.”
I stifled a laugh. “Yes, that was mean, but you can run it in under twenty minutes if you want to. I’ve seen you do it.”
“Not right after I eat!”
“Jacob was telling me about Hawaii,” said Briana, shifting topics.
“That’s going to be so much fun.” Mary brightened immediately. “Can Michael come with us?”
Briana shot me a look.
“Not on this trip,” I said. “It’s just the family and the twins – they’re going as security. Michael can join us tomorrow for a picnic, however, if he isn’t on duty. Even if he is, I’m sure we can rearrange the schedule to clear a few hours.”
“A picnic will be nice,” admitted Mary, “but why can’t he go? We never get to do anything together.”
“Don’t start with that nonsense, young lady,” said Briana. “It’s not true.”
“Yes, it is!”
“And calm down. Asher was crying for practically forever before going to bed. If you wake him, you get to sit in his room telling him stories until he falls asleep again. I mean it.”
“Was he that upset? I probably shouldn’t have spanked him like that.” Mary grew quiet. She was a jumble of emotions tonight. “I felt bad afterwards.”
“He pulled your hair, after being told not to,” I remarked. “Asher can’t go around hurting people. If it takes a whack on the bottom to get that across, then he gets spanked. It’s not like you were beating him.”
“Still and all…”
“Besides, as far as Asher is concerned, the early bath and bedtime were the real abuse.”
“Don’t you dare question my parenting,” snapped Briana.
“I wasn’t.”
Both women were on a roll.
“Don’t worry, we can take Michael on the picnic. I figure the two of you can go into the cave and check for more petroglyphs. I don’t think anyone’s been in there since we went with Rudy right after moving to the valley. See if you can find more, and take lots of pictures. We’ll print them out and drop them off at Hawaii. They might be interested.”
“And when you’re in there, you keep the hanky panky to a minimum.”
“Briana!”
“I mean it, Mary.” My wife rose and headed toward our bedroom. “No more than two kisses for every three new discoveries. Those are the rules. It’s important to have rules.”
“There might not be three more spots with the carvings,” I said. “We only saw the one place the last time.”
Briana smirked. “Then I guess no kisses for Mary.”
“Please, please don’t say any of this to Michael,” she pleaded.
“I can’t make any guarantees.”
“Briana…” Mary was begging.
“Okay, I won’t tease either of you that way,” she conceded, “but
it means the two of you will be washing the dishes afterwards.”
“No problem,” said Mary, relieved.
“She teases worse than me,” I commented, after Briana closed the bedroom door.
“No one teases worse than you, but Lizzy comes close.”
“Or,” I continued, “Briana might have just set you up so you would happily agree to do the cleaning.”
“She… That’s not fair!”
* * *
A closed door meeting was held a few days later. This was conducted in one of the small halls contained within the citadel’s walls, instead of our home as was more common. The number of people involved was the primary reason. Mary having burned some popcorn in the kitchen was another. Have you ever smelled burnt popcorn? Dreadful, and it takes forever for the room to air out.
Due to the fact there were so many participating I will not be including the dialogue. For one, I can’t come close to remembering what was said. Secondly, the discussions were detail oriented and became rather confusing at times. Therefore, I will be providing a concise summary of what was decided. The topic was how the governance of the Black Hills should be altered. We were operating under the same system and with the same people put into place when we first relocated. Some tinkering was in order.
Our original positions were as follows:
Jacob Consul
Briana Consul
Lizzy Head of Security
Steph Head of Food Stores / Dining Hall
Marcus Head of Motor Pool
Bruce Head of Material Stores / Armories
Laura School Mistress
Harlan Radio Controller
Steven Librarian / Curator
Jenny Valley Historian / Census
Alan Head of Farming & Livestock
Many of these were not leadership posts per se, instead being areas of responsibility. While the primary needs of the settlement were identified and met with the old system, it did result in some confusion and a few problems.
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation Page 27
