Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey

by Brian Stewart

  So anyway, Walter and my uncle are in the basement getting a tarp to move the blond. Right now the plan is to take the body down to the marina and temporarily put it in a small storage building that Walter uses to work on boat motors. After that, we’ve set aside one hour to share ideas and come up with a plan, and then we’re off to the campground. We want to try and get there early enough to talk to Doc and Sally about, well, everything. Max ran all over creation this morning after I let him out. If he’s inside for too long he gets grumpy, but he’s never been one of those dogs that could only get exercise if you were there to help, like throwing a ball or a Frisbee. He’d much rather sprint after rabbits, squirrels and whatever else he thinks he can catch, and he usually catches it. I think this morning though, he came up empty. Bernice had saved the table scraps; a few spoonfuls of scrambled eggs, some oatmeal, and I think she even used the rest of the loaf of bread and remaining batter to cook more French toast for him. She plays tough but she’s a real softy at heart, at least for animals. Max scarfed down his breakfast in about three and a half seconds . . . I need to remember to get a few good meals in him today. I think I hear Michelle calling me, so I’ll try and update some more later. That reminds me, my laptop is in my truck, and I want to copy all of these voice files to my hard drive. Yep, just one of the many things that I have a feeling are going to take up my time today. Later.

  *click*

  OK, I’m in my truck waiting for Michelle; we decided to only take two vehicles, mine and Uncle Andy’s. Originally we were only going to take my uncle’s truck, but something about being anywhere with only one vehicle made us a little apprehensive. Max is riding in the front with me, although when Michelle gets here she’s going to have to sit in the middle, Max won’t give up shotgun for anybody. And so I guess that brings me to “the plan.” Let me see, where did I leave off at, oh yeah, the body. A couple of things were strange about that; not that having a mostly naked, red eyed, platinum blonde with half of her head and neck blown away lying on your deck isn’t strange enough. The strange thing, well things, are that in the daylight her color was way off, kind of a sickly putty gray. None of us noticed it last night, but that might have been because of the yellow bug lights that Walter and Bernice have around their deck. The second thing is that Max flattened his ears back and growled any time he saw her. Not a scared growl, I don’t think Max has ever made a frightened growl in his life, but more of a “I’m a member of the Alpha pack in this territory, and you’re an invasive predator” kind of growl. Speaking of Max, I’ve got to leave him locked inside Walter’s store when we go to the meeting, he doesn’t do good around large crowds of people, even if he was in my truck, and I don’t want to risk some kid coming over and losing an arm. So where was I . . . ah, the plan. A little before 9:00 AM we all sat down around the coffee table. The blond was in the shed and Max hadn’t peed on the floor or killed a chicken, so he and I were safe. Nobody said anything for a minute, and then Uncle Andy spoke.

  “I think we’ve all been giving this a little bit of thought, and I imagine we all have some good ideas to share. Walter and I were talking while we took care of the body, and there’s a few things that you need to know, or rather it would be helpful if you knew. However, right now we don’t have the time to go into great detail with some of the stuff, but during our planning a lot of it may come up anyhow,” he nodded toward Walter, who took over.

  “We are dealing with a lot of unknowns. We really don’t know exactly what is making people sick, or how far it’s spread—just a few states, half of the USA, the whole world? We just don’t know. We also don’t know how it’s spreading. We can draw some pretty likely conclusions, you know like getting bit and everything, but are there other ways? What if somebody who’s infected sneezes in your face? How about if you’re forced to shoot one of them and you get splattered with blood, or even moving the body—are we risking contamination . . . can whatever it is go through our gloves? Will bleach even kill whatever this is? There is just so much we’re clueless about. And so one of the priorities in our plan has to be information, as accurate as we can get it.”

  Michelle had her Ipad perched on her lap; she was seated cross-legged on the floor, typing as we went. “OK,” Michelle said, “priority one, information. And let’s not forget that a lot of what you were talking about with regards to this sickness has to do with medical issues, so I think medical should be number two.”

  “Yeah, information and medical, but can we agree that we’re coming up with a list right now, not necessarily putting the list in order of our actual priorities?” I said. Everybody nodded.

  “Let’s hear some more,” said Michelle.

  Uncle Andy said, “Security . . . we’re going to need to make sure that if more of those things show up we’ll be able to defend ourselves, preferably without coming in contact with them, at least until we know how it’s spread. And then we’ve got transportation. Between us we have a lot of running vehicles, mostly four wheel drive, as well as several utility vehicles, tractors, boats, and snow machines.”

  “Which brings us to a few topics that you’ll want to know,” Walter said. “Eric, you know that your uncle has a lot of fuel stored up at his cabin and . . .”

  “How much?” Michelle asked.

  I really wasn’t trying to withhold the information from her, but I paused as I was thinking, trying to add up all the fuel we just moved. Apparently I paused too long, because Michelle said, “Hey, if we’re coming up with a plan, we need to know what we’re dealing with, and quantities of resources should be a big part of the plan; now if you have a personal reason for keeping this information from me, well then maybe I shouldn’t be here,” her reply seemed to be a mixture of low anger and preparation for disappointment if she wasn’t “picked for the team.”

  “Whoa there, you little fireball,” said Uncle Andy, “don’t you think for a minute that you ain’t on our team. It’s just that my nephew, well, he’s a little slow when it comes to doing math in his head, or even on paper,” he winked at her and her face brightened.

  “Seriously,” I said, “we’re all glad you’re here Michelle.”

  Walter pointed at me and said, “Yeah, especially lipstick boy over there.”

  Even Bernice smiled at that one. The math done, I said, “This is ballpark OK, but at the cabin there should be a grand total of about 900 gallons of gasoline and 650 gallons of diesel. We had another hundred or so gallons of gas, but between filling up the state trooper, your Tahoe, and the hippie van, there’s not much left in the transfer tank.”

  “And now for a surprise,” Walter said. “There is a 2,400 gallon fuel tank buried in the back parking lot of the marina. It’s got a little over 2,100 gallons of fresh mid-grade gasoline in it.” My eyes widened with surprise. He continued, “Eric, you may remember that a few years back, the gas pumps were out back near the propane filling shed. When I decided to put in the new pumps out front, the EPA wouldn’t let me use the old tank, even though it was still in good shape. So I’ve kept it out there, and every September your uncle and I get it filled up with fresh gas, add a bunch of stabilizer, and save it for a rainy day. I’d say it’s pouring right now. Anyhow, we have a deal worked out with a small taxi company in Bismarck. Every year around August they buy the fuel that we have in that tank for a reduced price. They save money that way, we don’t lose very much, and in the process we end up getting another year’s supply of fresh gasoline. Heck, the way the gas prices have been jumping, we’ve actually made money the last two years”

  Michelle was in her business mode and asked, “What about diesel?”

  “Well, you know what Andy’s got at the cabin already, and my diesel tank has around 1,200 gallons left in it.”

  “You know,” I said, “I think we’re starting to get a little too deep, not that we don’t need to talk about this—we do—but we’ve also got to leave for the campground in just a short time, and I’m just throwing this out there, but maybe we’re going to want
other people in our little club as well, like maybe Doc Collins.”

  The nods were immediate—most of them had probably considered that prospect already.

  Michelle said, “What about food and water?”

  Walter and Uncle Andy looked at each other, then Walter said, “Food is either going to be no problem, or all kinds of problems.” We waited for him to explain. “The wildcard is how many. How many mouths are we gonna have to feed, and for how long.” He turned to look at Uncle Andy and asked, “Have you taken Eric to Australia yet?”

  My look of confusion made my uncle grin. He said, “It’s kind of a joke . . . Australia—as in down under. Something you haven’t seen yet. I was going to give you the grand tour sometime during your vacation, but as you know we’ve been a little sidetracked so far. The short version is that my new pole building/workshop has a concealed basement underneath it, and that basement has a lot of supplies in it.”

  To be honest, I wasn’t really surprised. My uncle has always been a pack rat with a be-prepared attitude.

  The queen of staying focused said, “What about water?”

  “Water shouldn’t be a problem. Probably some details we’d have to work out, again, based on how many people for how long; but overall, water shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “What about communication?” asked Michelle.

  “Actually,” I said, “right now the coms that you’ve provided are probably the best case scenario for us.”

  “And there are a half dozen more portables at my office. They all have rechargeable battery packs and chargers, although they’ll run fine on eight AA batteries. They’ll actually run on four, but eight will allow you to transmit at maximum power.”

  “Those would be awful handy,” said Walter.

  Bernice, who had been quietly watching the exchanges, spoke up. “I think we’re missing the big picture, the big decision if you will.”

  “Which is . . . ?” said Uncle Andy and Walter in stereo.

  “We’re all passing back and forth some preliminary ideas on how long food, water, gas, and other things are going to last, and it always goes back to the ‘how many for our long’ equation. You say there’s about 400 people at the campground, maybe another 50 to 100 pulled off in various spots along the road, and others driving by every hour. Well, I think that the first decision that needs to be made is where does our moral compass point to? Are we going to circle our wagons and try to block out society and all of its problems, or are we going to actively integrate ourselves no matter what the cost? Do we take the five of us, and maybe Doc and Sally too, and head up to Andy’s cabin until whatever this is goes away or straightens itself out, or do we direct our efforts and compassion to the 400 people at Ravenwood?” We silently considered her words. Finally my uncle spoke.

  “I can’t speak for the rest of you, although I think I have a pretty good idea of where you stand. As for myself, I think that there is a way to do both. We can keep our core group . . . maybe add to and expand it if we need, and we can do our best to keep that group safe and secure. Then we can use our group to help others. So really, what I’m saying is that we need to try and help the campers at a Ravenwood—and others as we can—all the while keeping our central group protected. Does that make sense? Anybody have a different philosophy?” Nobody did.

  “Do we vote on this or something?” Michelle asked.

  Bernice spoke again, “I’ve nothin’ against taken’ a vote, and there may well be times when we got to, but I think that for the most part, we should go with the open/shut system.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Walter answered, “It means that any time we’re talking about anything, trying to make decisions or come up with plans and ideas and you got something to say or add, then OPEN your mouth and say it, if you don’t have anything constructive to say, then SHUT your mouth and listen. Nobody in this room out-ranks anybody else, and I think that that should be an ironclad rule if we add anybody else to our group. They’re either in one hundred percent, or out one hundred percent.”

  We all nodded our heads in agreement.

  Michelle typed for a few seconds and then said, “So far we have, in no particular order, information, medical, security, transportation and fuel, food, water, communication . . . what about shelter, and ways to heat or cool the shelter?”

  Uncle Andy said, “Good points, young lady. Maybe some of your smarts will rub off on the boy here.”

  A thought had been building in my mind and that kind of triggered it. “Speaking of boys, just on first impressions, I think Doc Collins would make a good addition to a group. You and Bernice have known him a lot longer and might have a different opinion.”

  “We don’t; he’d make a fine addition to our team, especially considering the skills he has medically,” Walter said.

  “OK, if nobody has anything negative to say about it, then we’ll make the offer today. But that’s not really where I was going with this. What I started to say is that if we end up with Doc in our group, what do we do with Sally, Francis, and Marty? Are they by default automatically granted one hundred percent ‘in’ status if Doc accepts our offer?”

  Again, nobody said anything. It seems as if we had hit our first bump in the road. After a minute or so Michelle said, “Look, we’re really don’t know what’s going on, although I think the general consensus is that we’re only seeing the beginnings of our troubles right now. The facts are—like Andy and Walter already pointed out—we don’t know jack shit. I think our main focus should be our safety and security while we try and figure out exactly what is going on. I don’t expect somebody’s just going to drop a FedEx package on our doorstep filled with all the information we need; we’re gonna have to do it ourselves, however we can. In the meantime, during our transition from point A to point B, I recommend that we adopt some type of group . . . I don’t know . . . ‘policy’ that nobody goes anywhere alone, or unarmed.”

  “I think that’s a very wise decision young lady,” said Walter.

  I stood up, stretched a bit, and said, “All right, if I understand this so far, Michelle, Uncle Andy and I are going to head over to Ravenwood; Walter and Bernice will stay here at the house. At the campground the three of us will give Doc a rundown on what we’re thinking about and see if he wants to get involved. He may not, but we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it. While we’re there, we need to get some kind of semi-accurate count of how many people are actually at the campground, and I guess we need to see if anybody there is . . . sick.”

  “And if they are?” asked Bernice.