Sean’s pointed question stung. Cole had been second guessing himself since the helicopter took off. “I offered to give a blood sample—which is really all he needed. I don’t trust him. I know I’m not indispensable, I do think we are all make valuable contributions and we can’t afford to lose anyone—not just me.”
Cole held Sean’s gaze until his brother shifted and took a sip from his steaming mug. Clearing his throat, more to clear his mind than his vocal cords, Cole resumed speaking. “And moving on, I fear that usable supplies left in homes and stores in this area are going to be exhausted soon. As few people as there are, we know we aren’t the only survivors. Between them, the rodents and other scavengers, we’re going to be hurting in, at most, a year or so.”
Joe hadn’t said anything, but he raised his chin in agreement when their eyes met. Cole was glad to have the older man’s backing. He was almost certain Joe could have left the group and survived just fine on his own. He was resourceful and competent. The only thing he gained by sticking with Cole’s group was companionship and Cole worried that too much strife in the group would drive him away.
“Right now, we can get a few generators running and find gasoline at gas stations. We just need the generators to get the pump running. It was easier before to just siphon what we needed, but fuel left in car tanks is degrading—if we’re going to use cars to travel, we need to do it soon. We’ll have to tap into what’s stored underground at gas stations.”
Sean nodded at that, and Cole was relieved that at least his brother agreed on that point. “Right now, we have a brief opportunity—a golden hour, so to speak—to scavenge enough on our way to wherever we decide to go. We need to collect as much food and other supplies to last us several years. It’s going to take at least that long to get some semblance of what we had before. We need to go to where the most people lived to find the most supplies. It’s also the most dangerous way to go, but we really don’t have much choice. Not if we want to do more than just survive. If we want to rebuild society, we’ll have to make hard choices and take chances.”
There. He was done with the lecture. Cole moved to the stove and poured cup of hot water from the kettle, grabbing one of the remaining tea bags from an empty coffee can. The bag was already heavily used, but he dropped it in the cup anyway. It would give at little flavor to the hot water. Keeping his back to the group, he sprinkled in some dried wild mint leaves Jenna had found in the fall. She had planted some in small pots that were scattered throughout the house. He thought about plucking a few fresh leaves to add but didn’t want to leave the kitchen. The dried leaves gave the tea a good flavor and an even better aroma. He returned to the table and took a sip of the steaming brew as they digested what he’d said.
Hunter caught Cole’s eye and looked as if he had something to say. Cole gestured to him as if giving him the floor.
“When I traveled back here, I saw a lot of death even though I did my best to avoid roads and highways. My dad is right. Within days of the virus, stores and gas stations along the highways were trashed. People had been desperate and had cleaned the places out of most of the food. When we went to the supercenter in the fall, most of the food from there was gone too. You all saw what we brought back. That was it. We might find some of it in homes, but we might not ever find where people hid their stash before it spoils. So, I just think the sooner we start scavenging, and I mean, seriously scavenging, the better off we’ll be. We need time to get tractors running—time to learn how to operate them at all. Has anyone here ever driven a tractor?”
Nobody replied, and Sean looked down, rubbing the back of his neck. Cole felt a spark of pride for Hunter. He was spotting problems and trying to find solutions. “He’s right. That’s just one thing we’ll need to learn. So far we’ve lived off what we’ve scavenged, fished, and hunted. We’ve done okay but we’ve never had a big reserve and we all learned how devastating one disaster can be. If the fire that destroyed the food shed hadn’t been discovered soon enough for us to get at least some of the food out, we would be hurting a lot more right now.”
There were nods and murmurs of agreement.
Piper cleared her throat, sending a quick glance at her dad before looking away as she said, “We need more flour and I’m not sure where we’ll get it. We need to learn how to grind wheat, I guess. And soon. I’m worried that what we find this year will be spoiled by bugs. I’ve already had to throw some of it away. I can’t imagine flour still sitting on shelves in pantries or stores are going to be bug free.”
“Right, so we’re going to have to learn not just how to grow wheat, but how to get it from the field and transformed into loaves of bread.” Cole gave Piper a brief nod and smile for her contribution. “Most of the advancements in the last century have come with a price—knowledge that was commonly known has been lost. We have had to re-learn basic survival skills, but it would be better if we didn’t have to go all the way back to the middle-ages, and instead, could skip ahead a few hundred years.”
“Okay, fine—I get that we’ll need to start creating stuff from scratch, but why can’t we do it right here? I got the windmill going, and I bet we could devise some kind of grindstone using power generated from it.”
“That’s a good idea, Sean. But one of the things we need to fix as soon as we can is our knowledge deficit.”
“What? Are we too stupid?” Sean’s reasonable tone had given way to belligerence again.
Cole tried to diffuse it with laughter. “No—everyone here is very intelligent. We have that going for us. I’m talking about knowledge about how to rebuild a civilization. What I hope is that we’ll be able to recreate some semblance of what we’ve lost—not just scratch out a living, barely subsisting on what we can grow on our own. One of my reasons for wanting to travel south is that I think it’s where others will go too, and more people means more knowledge and experience we can draw upon. That’s what I meant by knowledge deficit. We’re all smart, but none of us possess the all the knowledge needed to re-create our old world.” He hated to say it, but someone had to put the mark of finality on what life had been like before the virus versus what it was going to be afterword. “We will never get back to what we had—not in our lifetimes—but if we start right now, it’s possible our grandchildren or great-grandchildren might have it even better.”
Sean grunted, then after a long pause, nodded and said, “Yeah. I guess you can count us in.”
Jenna threw him a look. “Thanks, but I was already counted in.”
His eyes wide, Sean looked at Jenna. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She started to reply, but then clammed up. “We’ll discuss it later.”
Should he say something? Cole didn’t want to get into the middle of a couples argument, so he changed the subject. “Okay, so…the next thing on the agenda—how do you all feel about Mike and Steve accompanying us? Mike’s hand is almost healed, he has a bit of tape on it, but he should be good as new, right?” He raised an eyebrow at Jenna, who confirmed his statement with a nod—“and so they’ll either be on their way, or stay with us to head out as soon as the weather turns.”
Everyone turned to look at Sean, who spread his arms. “What?”
“I guess you’ve become the devil’s advocate in the group,” Elly answered Sean’s question. “And that’s not a bad thing at all, Sean. It’s important to look at all sides.”
“They seem okay to me. Mike’s a machinist. If he’d been here when I was getting the windmill together, I’m sure it would have gone a lot faster. Guys like that are good to have around.”
Cole reached beneath the table and found Elly’s knee, giving it a squeeze in thanks for her diplomatic response that elicited a well-reasoned reply from his brother. “Good point, Sean. Does anyone else have an opinion?”
Hunter said, “I like Mike. I trust him and I think he should go. I don’t know Steve very well.”
After draining the last bit of tea from his cup, Cole pushed it away. “Well,
no pressure, but Steve told me yesterday that their group got tired of waiting and were leaving this morning. They told Steve that he and Mike could catch up when they were done here. Obviously, they aren’t thrilled about being left behind to make their way on their own. They worry about missing the group and never catching up.”
“I just want to say that I had nowhere to go until I met up with Elly and if it hadn’t been for all of you, I’d probably be dead right now.” Jake sent a glance around the room, but his gaze held on Cole’s. “I don’t really get a say in this, I know, being a tag along, but I just wanted all of you know that I’m so glad you let me stay.”
Before Cole could even reply, everyone started speaking at once, letting Jake know that he was very much part of the group and that he had a say in the decision. Cole raised his hand for quiet, holding it up until the comments dwindled. “Clearly, we have consensus here.” He grinned then leaned forward, his voice serious as he said, “Make no mistake about it, Jake, you are just as much a part of this group as I am, or Jenna, or Hunter, Piper—in short, all of us.” He turned to Sophie. “And you, too. And I’d say that even if you and Hunter weren’t about to have my grandchild.” His last comment lightened the mood and everyone chuckled.
Jake laughed. “She has an advantage over me.” He batted his eyelashes at Hunter in mock adoration.
Hunter shook his head, grinning as he tossed a dishtowel at Jake.
“Okay, so, back to the question. Steve and Mike have some skills we could use, not to mention they are fairly young and healthy. We need people like them to help rebuild. My vote is for them to come along. All in favor, raise your hands.” Everyone but Sean raised their hand.
Sean looked around, then slowly put his hand up as a smile spread across his face. “I just like making you all sweat.”
Everyone laughed, but then Sean added, “I’m still going to keep my eye on them.”
Chapter Twelve
Cole looked over the supplies stacked beside the truck and jotted down the contents of the boxes, baskets, and bags on the clipboard. Every day, he wondered if this would be the day that Holland returned. It had been a week and every second they remained where they were, was another second Holland could be getting closer.
Each vehicle would have an inventory so they would know exactly where everything was. Items they would use while traveling needed to be packed last so they would be within easy reach. Everyone had their own pack with survival gear in it. If they had to leave sight of the vehicles for any reason, they were to take their packs with them.
Each bag had a supply of food, matches, a lighter, a small fishing kit, a hatchet and a knife, as well as a small tarp and sleeping bag as well as a change of dry clothes, with extra socks. The tarp could be used to make a lean-to shelter. Each bag also had a handgun, and ammunition. All of it was packed already, and he’d double checked to make sure each car had the right packs for who was assigned. It wouldn’t do Jake much good if he mixed his pack up with Sophie’s and had her size clothes in it. He chuckled at the image of the strapping young man trying to squeeze into a women’s small sweatshirt.
As he calculated the logistics of packing the growing stack, Hunter set yet another box on ground, starting a new stack. Cole scratched his cheek. Damn. They had acquired a lot stuff over the last week in addition to what they’d already had. He hoped there was enough room for everything. In addition to making space for what they were taking, they had to leave space for items they might find on the journey. While vehicles were easy to find, many didn’t have keys in them or had decomposed bodies inside. They were lucky they had a good sized moving truck from when they first fled to the island. He still felt a nagging guilt that he had never returned it, but knew it was ridiculous to feel guilt. The feeling was a remnant from when they had the luxury of not having to make life and death decisions. Besides, even if he had tried to return the truck to the rental franchise the chances of anyone even being there to receive the truck was infinitesimal.
It had been luck that the truck had been available, but also foresight to attempt to obtain a truck in the first place. It had enabled them to bring enough supplies, and later, gather enough, to keep them alive for almost a year.
In the time since making the decision to head west—and in the days since the ice finally melted—they had ventured into almost every home and business within a five miles of the shore. Instead of hauling recovered goods back to the island, they stored it in a few garages nearest the truck. With Steve and Mike already on the mainland taking care of the horses, they had ranged even further away. They had stripped the library of books that had to do with science, medical, farming, survival skills, Nevada, maps, as well as a good selection of fiction. Sean and Steve hadn’t seen the point of bringing boxes of novels, but Cole and Elly had insisted. If he’d had more room, he’d have brought even more books. Jenna had a few of her own nursing books, and Cole had packed a couple of periodicals about epidemiology—mostly in hopes of coming across something about Sympatico Syndrome—but there had been no information on it. It wasn’t a total waste though as there had been several other good articles.
Steve and Mike had collected tools of every kind, spare tires and parts for the truck, along with boxes of nails, screws, washers, bolts and assorted fasteners. Who knew people had kept so much crap in their garages, basements, and closets? An apparent prepper had left a basement stuffed to the gills with canned goods, powdered milk, and several cases of MREs. Best of all, were buckets of wheat, rice, and rolled oats. Enough to get them through the summer and, hopefully, to a successful harvest. They had spread the food out over three vehicles and packed it in first. Cole didn’t want to have to use any of it on the trip. It was their food supply when they got to their destination.
Sean had grudgingly conceded that maybe Mike and Steve weren’t so bad—after all, the men could have taken their find and been long gone before the ice melted. Instead, they were sharing with Cole’s group—now their group, too.
Standing flat against the side of the truck were sheets of plywood. Cole didn’t know what they’d use it for and had almost left it, thinking if they needed wood, they could always get some from buildings along the way, but Joe had convinced him having a few sheets on hand might be a good idea. These sheets had been stored indoors and weren’t warped or damaged.
A second moving truck was on the agenda and they were on the lookout for a rental like the one they already had. Not to rent, of course, but for simplicity. They were big trucks but didn’t require knowledge of how to drive a big semi-truck.
Cole had raided a car dealership and taken a couple of high-end SUVs from the showrooms. If he put out of his mind the circumstances, he could admit that it had been kind of fun having his pick of vehicles. Was this how he was going to be from now on? Gleefully taking whatever he could find? He knew it wasn’t stealing exactly but it helped tamp down any traces of guilt when he focused on improving the survival odds of his family.
The practicality of choosing the SUVs also played a factor in taking them. Despite their size, they got relatively good gas mileage, according the stickers in the window. Cole hoped it hadn’t been false advertising. They’d had to jumpstart both vehicles since they had been sitting for so long, but once running for a while, the batteries charged right up.
The car lot had been a great place to find gasoline as well. And, as a bonus, it had been cleaner than most that they’d found in the wild, so to speak, since the vehicles had been brand new and barely driven.
“Cole, what about these?” Jake pulled a child’s wagon laden with three car batteries.
“Ah, great idea. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.” He added the batteries on his clipboard. “Just leave them in the wagon. We’ll load it up just like it is.”
Jake dropped the handle and stretched. “I topped up all of the gas cans earlier. In all, we have about 40 gallons in addition to what we have in the tanks.”
Cole’s jaw tensed. That wasn’t going
to come close to getting them to Nevada. “Thanks, Jake.” His main worry was fuel, but Steve thought that further out, they might come across a gas station that still had gasoline that they could pump using a generator. He said plenty of stations had generators as back–up when power went out—you just had to know about them. But, for now, they had to make do with what they found and extra they could carry with them.
“Where are we going to store them?”
“Good question.” The idea of transporting flammable liquid in the vehicles made him nervous. “Hey, have you seen any of those carts landscapers tow behind their trucks?” If they could find one, it would be perfect. Light enough not to cause much of a change in their gas mileage, but large enough for extra gas and other items like rakes, shovels and other implements that didn’t need protection from the elements.
Jake bit his lip as he gazed down the street. “You know, I think there might be one a few blocks over.”
“If you need help getting it, let Hunter know. He should be back soon with another load from the island.”
“Will do. I’ll go see if I can find the house where I saw it.” He trotted down the street, his gait easy and relaxed even though he’d been working all morning.
Jake had grown probably another two inches since he’d arrived at the island with Elly, but it was more than his physical appearance that had changed—he still had a fun-loving streak—but now it was tempered by a serious side. In short, Jake had grown up. Cole wondered how well they would have fared without the young man.
Hunter, Piper, and Sophie had all grown up more quickly than they would have in the absence of the global catastrophe. They’d had to. Cole knew he had also grown, in a way. While no stranger to taking command of a situation—his career had trained him in that regard—there had always been a chain of command. There was always someone higher up the chain than he’d been. Now, he had somehow become the de facto leader. He hadn’t asked for the position or even wanted it, but he felt everyone’s eyes on him when decisions had to be made. Like this one. Leaving the island. He drew a deep breath. He hoped like hell he wasn’t leading them from the frying pan into the fire.
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