Next, Luke and Amanda Abrams from the church camp went through the process with their orphan children to get their information entered on the roster.
Lastly, the newcomers Trevor had discovered stepped forward.
The oldest man in the group stepped forward and announced himself as Cliff Bradley. He told the group how he was a retired Army colonel who had served in Vietnam, and later in the Gulf War. He had stayed on as career military until retirement. He owned a cabin in the western group of homes that he used for hunting and fishing. When the shit had hit the fan he had grabbed what gear he could and fled to his cabin. Then after things had really bottomed out he had joined up with a few of his neighbors who also survived the initial outbreak. They had survived for the last few weeks on whatever rations they had stocked in their homes, and whatever game they could come by.
Nelson Brooks stepped forward after this to introduce himself, his wife Catherine, his nineteen-year-old daughter Jessie, sixteen-year-old son Cody, and their youngest Claire, nine years old. Nelson explained to everyone that he had been a US Forest Service Ranger who had been stationed on the Mogollon Rim for quite some time. He lived with his family south of the hatchery and they had been quite prepared for the Outbreak. They had more than enough food and water for themselves, but when they had taken in some of their neighbors, they had burned through their stores far too quickly. Nelson was a kind man though, and couldn’t turn down his neighbors when they had needed his help.
The last person in the group was Jerry Cambridge. He had been most in need of Nelson and Cliff’s help after the Outbreak. Jerry had worked at Home Depot, and had lived a very meager lifestyle. He was a very skilled carpenter, plumber, electrician, and overall handyman however, and had made himself useful by building defenses around their homes.
After all the introductions were made and the information was collected, they brought everyone over to the armory and went through the motions. Bryce asked who was comfortable with firearms and who was not. They told the new members that they could keep their personal firearms or trade them in and explained the rule about using M4s on missions. At the end, all of the adults had either chosen to upgrade their firearms, or added on extra firearms like a handgun. All of the teenagers were given firearms with their parents’ consent and shown how to operate them, as well, which substantially satisfied Bryce. The more armed people in the compound the better, he figured.
Once everyone who needed to be armed was ready to go, they started to assign people to their jobs.
Pastor Luke and his group would start to prepare their camp to be hospitable to as many people as they could fit down there. Bryce wanted them to clean up the lodge, and start to prepare the outlying cabins. He also wanted them to make the lodge more defensible, because they would use it as a fallback position if the camp ever was to ever get overrun. From there, they would have to wait until the hatchery team could extract them. Some of the munitions, food, and gear from the hatchery would be stored in the lodge, and everyone would meet there.
The pastor understood what Bryce wanted and was fine with the job laid out for them.
The resort fighters and their families would stay in the cabins nearest to the lodge. Bryce wanted them to help make the cabins hospitable. It was a given that Quinton, Jade and Joey Allen, Nick Bark, and Evan Spader would be on the combat teams. Bryce also wanted them to work toward making the camp as secure as possible. He wanted them to work out patrol patterns and a fallback plan in case infected got into their camp.
Bryce told Nelson and his group that he needed them to support the pastor with reinforcing their new home and also wanted Cliff, Nelson, and Nelson’s son to be part of the combat group.
Cliff was perfectly fine with this idea, but was quick to admit that he was far too old to be of much use. Bryce, however, assured him that his combat knowledge would be invaluable, and that was the role he looked for from him.
Nelson on the other hand, looked to his wife, partially concerned for their boy. For his part, Cody was more than happy to step forward with his brand new rifle. Nelson had received combat training from his Ranger career, but his son had been in high school only a month before. Nelson shared a last look with his wife, but then ultimately consented.
Bryce wanted Jerry to help Pastor Abrams work on the security of the main building by utilizing his carpentry skills. He also wanted Jerry to lead their “maintenance team” so that they had someone experienced building and repairing the things that they needed around the compounds.
Bryce would provide radios, weapons, food, water, and supplies to get the church compound onboard. With everyone’s roles established, he dismissed all of the non-combat members to go ahead and get themselves cleaned up and ready for dinner, which now was going to be one hell of an endeavor.
Before the two groups separated, Bryce added one more thing. From now on they would refer to the hatchery as the Hatchery Compound and the church camp as the Church Compound, simply as a naming convention to keep details straight.
He asked everyone who would be part of the combat teams to hold off before going inside.
“Okay, guys, since our combat force has effectively doubled, I think it is time to add some structure,” Bryce spoke to the entire group, “I want Colonel Bradley to be part of my command team like we briefly discussed in front of the others. I am going to need Cliff’s help to organize our combat teams and we can certainly use his knowledge of battlefield tactics and military structure.”
“The next thing I want to do is divide everyone up into three teams. We are going to have the Command team which will consist of Logan, Robby, Jessica, Mitch, Gloria, Colonel Bradley, and myself,” Bryce explained.
“Next, we will have Alpha team which will be led by Trevor, and consist of Anthony, Jose, and Nathan. Lastly, we will have Bravo team, which will be led by Quinton, and will consist of Joey, Jade, Nick, Evan, Nelson, Cody, and Freddie.
“The last thing I want to do is take a page from our some of our military and police backgrounds, and create a ranking structure for chain of command purposes.”
Bryce handed the group members a copy of the roster they just created, and it showed clearly what job assignments everyone had been assigned to, what ranks they would be, and who was in charge of each team.
After everyone took a look at it, Bryce asked, “Any problems with that setup? I know I wasn’t an officer, but we all should know, Logan, has more combat experience than most of us, and both he and Colonel Bradley will be my personal advisors when it comes to command and control decisions.”
The fighters looked at the list, and Trevor specifically had some reluctance toward being in a rank structure with Bryce at the top. Everyone in Bravo team was perfectly fine with letting Quinton; the only military man in their group lead them. Bryce kept Alpha team comprised of only the four original squad members because they were practically brothers, and to separate them would have been a huge mistake.
After a few moments, everyone told Bryce that they were okay with the new arrangements and wanted to know what was next.
Bryce told them that he wanted Alpha team to continue to scout the area farther out, and try to find more survivors, supplies or vehicles. He wanted to have Bravo team get the Church Compound in order. They would need supplies, and constant protection. Bravo team was going to provide security, and they would be in charge of the twenty-something people to ensure their safety.
Bryce also told the group that tomorrow he wanted everyone up at the Hatchery Compound for drills and training. Bryce used the new title of Commander when he referred to Logan, and how he was going to teach the new guys how to function as a team and how to perform tactical maneuvers. He also wanted to allow them some range time with their new M4A3 rifles, to gauge how well they could shoot.
After the plan was thoroughly discussed, Bryce dismissed everyone and told the new members to get cleaned up for dinner.
A short while later, the whole group filed into the crew quarters’ kitc
hen in a long line to be served buffet style by the group of cooks. They couldn’t all fit inside the crew quarters, and with a rainstorm on the horizon, Bryce and some of the combat team members elected to eat their meal in the warehouse.
While they were inside the warehouse, Bryce brought up the progress of some of the projects that were underway at the Hatchery Compound. He noted that the fence was near completion and would be done within the week, which everyone was happy to hear.
Then, he brought up the progress with the agricultural crew. They had constructed a greenhouse, tilled the soil and sown their first seeds in the gardens near the creek. Cindy had performed amazingly in the role that Bryce had selected for her. He knew that she was happy in the role and it gave her a sense of purpose, so they both lucked out.
Lastly, Trevor chimed in with a report of the progress that his team had made on the western group of homes before they had found Nelson and the others. Trevor said that they had not had time to check all of the houses, but that Nelson had informed him that all of the houses were picked through. Apparently, Nelson and the others had done that themselves in a search for supplies.
With dinner coming to an end and the conversations diminished, Bryce decided to go check on his father. He walked across the compound, through a light rain and into the crew quarters to the bedroom where Benjamin slept and sat down next to the bed.
He squeezed his father’s hand gently, and upon his touch Benjamin lifted his head and looked at his son as he tried to blink himself back into consciousness. When Benjamin finally came back around, his face held a look of horror.
“I had a terrible dream about you, Bryce, I dreamt that you were falling and falling. Something horrible happened to you, and you were falling.”
Bryce was taken aback by this random cryptic message from his father. Most people had dreams about themselves falling, not other people. It was probably just the drugs, or so Bryce hoped. His father had a strange habit of premonition-like dreams about things before they happened; and it had been one of those strange phenomena since Bryce was a child. Christine had given Benjamin some narcotics that they had recovered to help him with his pain though, so hopefully he was just a little high, but after a few long drug-induced naps, it was more than a little weird.
“It’s probably just the drugs, dad. I’ll be fine, and I’ll stay away from anything tall, all right?” Bryce told his father.
“Yes, that’s good. Stay on the ground, son,” Benjamin told him.
Not knowing what else to say, Bryce squeezed his father’s hand again and walked out of the room. He ran into Christine in the hallway and stopped to her for a minute.
“You need to take it easy on the pills for that guy, he’s talking all kinds of crazy shit,” Bryce told her.
“Well he’s perfectly fine, I can’t control what he dreams about,” she told him.
She said that the amount of painkillers he was on right now was definitely the cause of the dreams. Christine also told Bryce to calm down, and that his dad would probably be fully healed in a few weeks and be back to himself in a matter of a week or two at most.
Bryce took a quick walk around the crew quarters and made sure everyone was wound down for the night. He liked to know that everyone went to bed around the same time, mainly so that he knew where they all were. He was a control freak in this regard, but he also needed to know for his own conscience. It bothered him to know that people might lurk around the compound unattended. Logan and Bryce had implemented sentry duty for this reason, though, and he was one hundred percent in trust of Logan’s duty to protect the compound.
After Bryce took a look around for his own peace of mind, he got ready for bed himself. He took a quick shower, brushed his teeth and changed into a clean set of clothes. Bryce and the others had learned to take for granted the simple luxury of a shower before bed, but for so many of their new members, it was almost foreign to them since the Outbreak.
Bryce walked down the hallway to his bedroom and slowly opened the door so that he didn’t wake up his son.
When Bryce opened the door, the room was nearly dark, but on the edge of their bed, he could see that his wife laid in wait for him. Victoria waved Bryce over with a sexy look on her face that encouraged him to hurry.
He walked over to the bed and she lifted the covers off, which exposed her naked slender waist, long voluptuous legs, and firm small breasts. Bryce took a step back to admire her nude form; it had been a long time since he had the privilege of this magnitude. Then after he had taken her all in, he stripped naked himself and joined his wife in bed for what he was sure would be an amazing ending to a long day.
Victoria confirmed his suspicions within a few moments, and soon the two of them had to bite their tongues to hold back the sounds of their lovemaking so as not to wake up the rest of the Hatchery Compound.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Hatchery Compound, Mogollon Rim, Arizona
In the morning, all was quiet, and nobody stirred. The new groups of people had been able to grab a decent amount of supplies and load them into one of the trucks before it had gotten too dark. Some of Bryce’s people had helped them ferry over and set up at the Church Compound. They had spent most of the night unpacking their gear and they had cleaned up some of the cabins to make them hospitable enough to sleep in one night. By the time everyone in the Church Compound had finally called it a night it had been quite late and this caused just about everyone to sleep in.
At the Hatchery, Bryce finally decided it was time to get up and he untangled himself from his wife. He slipped on some clothes, crept out of their bedroom, entered the kitchen, and then he started a pot of coffee. A few minutes into the roast, the smell brought out some of the other group members. Logan came out first, as he rounded the corner he walked with a shuffle, grunted, and mimicked a Romero-style zombie.
“Careful, I might think you’re infected and pop you in the head,” Bryce chuckled.
“Don’t shoot!” Logan said with a smile and threw up his arms in surrender.
Bryce handed Logan a mug of freshly brewed coffee, and he sniffed at it like was a freshly bloomed flower.
“What’s on the agenda today, boss?” Logan asked and then chuckled, “Or should I say, Commander?”
Bryce wasn’t sure what to say about the comment, so he asked, “Do you not agree with the idea that we need a rank structure?”
Logan took a second to think about it and then responded, “I think that people need to know who is going to lead, and who is going to follow. It gives the leaders something to commit to, and it gives the others a person to look to for advice and confidence.”
“Fair enough. Do you think we have the right people in those leadership roles?” Bryce asked.
“Well you may not have been an officer, but you had more than enough military experience, and you have proven yourself more than once. I think you will just have to keep proving it to the newcomers, but everyone here already respects you. Quinton and the others didn’t leave their home for no reason. As for the others we have in leadership positions, everyone has military or police training,” Logan told Bryce.
“Well everyone except for Jessica and your son,” Bryce laughed.
“Not true, Robby was in ROTC,” Logan quipped.
Bryce just rolled his eyes and responded, “Anyway, I think we should get everyone together, run some drills, and do some exercises like we said yesterday. That western camp group especially; they haven’t seen much action by the sounds of it.”
“Sounds good, I’ll get everyone up and get them moving,” Logan told Bryce.
Before Logan headed out of the crew quarters building he stopped and woke up his son. Robby moaned and groaned, but got up when his father told him to.
Next, Logan peeked in on Benjamin and Jessica and quietly whistled to wake her up. She woke up at a start and sat straight up in bed.
Logan didn’t retreated toward the front door, with his cup of coffee in hand.
Then, h
e headed over to the office building to wake up the rest of the guys. He stepped quietly into the building to avoid waking up the Steeple family and roused Trevor.
“Wake up, lieutenant,” Logan said.
“Ugh, what is this, boot camp?” Trevor responded, one eye open.
“Today it is! Time for morning PT.” Logan said, which meant physical training.
Logan turned around and left the building, with the expectation that Trevor would get his men together. Logan then walked back over to the crew quarters and when he got inside, Bryce told him that he had radioed Quinton and asked him to round up his men and head up the hill for training day. Quinton had told Bryce that they would be up in twenty minutes.
Exactly nineteen minutes after the radio call, Quinton and his boys arrived in two vehicles. Shortly after they piled out, Trevor and his guys came out of the office building.
“How is it that Quinton can get his group all out of bed, dressed, and driven up the hill before Trevor can step outside the damn building?” Bryce said quietly to Logan.
“They’re like a bunch of women, waiting on each other to take turns putting on their makeup in the bathroom.” Logan laughed.
“Yeah, even Jessica was done faster than them,” Bryce laughed.
Everyone gathered around Bryce and Logan and waited for Bryce to say something. He missed the signal for a second, and then he realized that they all waited for him.
“How’s everyone doing this morning?” Bryce asked.
He got a mix of grunts, a couple “greats” and some “fines” in response.
“Today, we are going to do some training. We thought it would be fantastic if everyone got to know their team members, and for everyone to learn some basic skills. It will also give us an idea of what skills you already have,” Bryce told the group.
Bryce waved Logan forward since this was all going to be his baby, and Bryce wanted him to handle it however he deemed necessary.
The Extinction Pandemic: A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Hatchery Compound Book 1) Page 27
