by David Rogers
“Good news is y’all found a lot of useful stuff just waiting for someone to come by and get.” Bobo continued as if everything was fine. “Bad news is no one found any rigs, either tanker or box trailer. We gonna have to table it for a couple of days while we work on these other things, but we still gonna need to keep looking. We ain’t gonna make out so well if we can’t keep ahold of gas.”
“What we gonna do with a bunch of construction shit?” Shooter asked.
“Build stuff.” Tank grinned.
“That ain’t what I was asking bro.”
“We get a power shovel in here, and we can put in a trench that’ll keep anyone from getting up on the fence.” Bobo answered as Tank just kept grinning. “Won’t take but a couple hours of work, tops. Zombie or human, on foot or riding wheels, ain’t no one getting past a six foot trench.”
“Doing it by hand would take days and wear us out.” Tank told Shooter. “Probably more like a week. Shoveling clay sucks.”
“Don’t ask.” Darryl said as Shooter’s face showed confusion. “We gonna have a moat. Just deal with it.”
Shooter transferred his look to Darryl, read his expression, then shrugged. “Okay, so we gonna dig us a moat.”
“For starters.” Bobo said. “I learned how to do a water filter setup back in the Army, and we can put one in off the lake that’ll make sure we ain’t got grit and shit floating around in any water we take out of it.”
“We got water.” Big Chief objected.
“For now.” EZ said without looking up from the maps. “Power out, all the pumps at the water plants dead now. Soon as the towers feeding the system all empty, taps go dry.”
“Fucking great.”
Bobo nodded. “We got the lake. Filter trench help a lot. Plus if we can’t get our hands on any damn box trailers, we can see about putting in some outside basements for more storage.”
“How that gonna keep anything we put out there?” Jody asked. “One rain and it all turn to mud.”
“Roof, especially one on the ground, ain’t hard to build. Take less material too. If it come to it, we can waterproof us some storage inside the fence that won’t be in the way.”
“Lot of work for one fucking backhoe.” Shooter observed. “How much gas that gonna cost us.”
“Probably twenty, maybe thirty gallons a day.” Tank answered. “Diesel. But that only if we end up running it all day. The kind of digging we talking about ain’t gonna be all that hard to finish. It’ll go quick.”
“Great.”
“We can swing that.” Darryl said. “Especially if it gonna help out with security.”
“Trenching around the fence won’t take but a few hours. We ain’t doing anything to the hole, like putting in pipes or anything, so it’ll go quick.” Tank repeated.
“Who gonna run the thing?” Big Chief asked. “Oh, I guess that you Tank?”
“I can manage it. Gimmie a few minutes to get settled and no sweat.”
“Great.”
“So here’s what need to happen before dark.” Bobo said. “Darryl, you and EZ, Tank, and three or four others gonna head out and lift one of them backhoes. Ought not to take but a couple of hours to get it and get back.”
“Where we parking it?” Darryl asked, thinking of how big the truck and trailer they’d need to carry the thing back here was. And the backhoe itself wasn’t small either.
“Get the damn thing back here and we can park the shovel in the field where the roof guys can keep an eye on it.” Bobo said, pointing vaguely out beyond the fence. “Truck can stay out on the road, out of the way.”
“Alright.”
“Before you go, pick out three more teams of four Dogz. They all get a truck or two each. Two go start kicking in doors on more empty houses and ransacking for whatever. Last group go with Chief, and see about getting more fuel. Start with diesel, at least sixty gallons, then gas.”
“If we turned up more than maybe thirty or so gallons worth of cans we ain’t filled yet I’ll be damned.” Big Chief said with a frown.
“I remember seeing garbage cans at that Home Depot.” Bobo said with a grin. “They can hold gas can’t they?”
“Shit.” Big Chief shook his head. “I guess, but they gonna be heavy as hell. And if one spill it gonna make a hell of a mess.”
“I thinking you can take a truck, one of the pickups, and wedge the bed full before you go to the station and fill up. They can stay in the truck for a few days while we wait on a better way to get it stored. Drive slow on the way back.”
“A second trip after they get back with the fuel, this time for empty cans, and we can dip the gas down to cans we put on the ground.” EZ said. “Because, yeah, moving a fifty-five gallon garbage can full of gas gonna be damn near impossible without spilling most of it. We only managed them barrels the other night because they metal with good caps.”
Darryl nodded, remembering how many Dogz it had taken to get the drums Bobo had turned up out of the trucks after they’d been filled with gas. Liquid got heavy real fast. They had ended up needing to use boards as ramps down from the truck to roll the barrels to the ground, and had still dented one of them.
“Smart motherfucker.” Big Chief said, sounding like he was less than pleased.
“That what my momma always said.”
“Guess she got one thing right.”
EZ finally glanced up from the map, giving Big Chief a look of scorn. “What’d your mom ever do?”
“I see her again, I’ll ask.”
“We got tarps and stuff, so whatever the house teams turn up we can cover for tonight, but tomorrow we really need to take a look around further out.” Bobo said, smoothly changing the subject as people around the table grimaced. Talking about loss was becoming something to be avoided, but people kept forgetting. There had already been a few scuffles over normally innocuous sniping getting too personal considering the zombie situation and how many the news was saying were dead.
“It ain’t no good that 78 fucked up over near Jacks Creek, and it even less good that Evil and Stick seen them zombies all over it toward Lawrenceville Highway neither.” Bobo went on. “Gonna make moving around on any long range trips tough. Bringing supplies back mean getting trucks through, not just bikes. That gonna be tough with all the roadblocks.”
“We could maybe clear the road. The wrecks I mean.” Big Chief pointed out. “Tow cables and stuff. Only need one lane if we want to get through.”
“Maybe someone else will clear it.” Shooter offered.
“Who?”
“Dunno. We can hope though, right?”
“We can hope, but we might have to work on it ourselves if it come to it.” Bobo sighed. “Big stores, ones worth loading up at, mostly down 78 unless we want to take some long trips. And the further we go, easier it’ll be if we can use the main highway.”
A blatting engine sounded from the front of the house. Darryl looked up, then frowned. He only heard one approaching. Glancing around, he was just starting to rise when he heard someone yelling. Then someone else yelled back.
“What in the fuck?” Tank asked.
“I don’t know.” Darryl said, heading for the barn.
He got there just in time to see Greasy rolling through the front gate as it was opened for him. The Dog saw him and came right to him. His face was twisted with stress and fear as he braked next to Darryl and reached for the strap on his pot helmet.
“DJ, Crown gone man.”
“How?” Darryl asked him over the rumbling idle of the motorcycle, feeling his heart sink. He’d known splitting everyone up on bikes was asking for trouble, and it sounded like some had found two of the Dogz.
“Zombies.” Greasy shut the bike down and stuck the little helmet on one of the mirrors. “We was poking around over near High Shoals, past that fucking golf course, and we stopped because we seen a mess of zombies on the road up ahead. We was turning around when some more came out of the woods on either side. Crown got too close, they
grabbed him. Pulled him down.”
Darryl opened his mouth, then changed what he’d been about to say just in time. Greasy didn’t seem casual or nonchalant about the news; he looked and sounded shocked and unhappy. Grilling the man over whether or not he could’ve done anything wouldn’t help.
“Good you got out of there then.” Darryl said instead. “Any of them fuckers touch you?”
“Naw, I good.”
“Okay, grab some lunch out of the kitchen and take it easy. Gimmie your map.”
“Crown had it.”
Darryl again suppressed his first reaction. Instead he nodded. “Then get with EZ and tell him whatever you remember. Make sure Crown didn’t buy it for nothing.”
Greasy nodded slowly and started walking his bike toward the line parked along the outside of the barn. Darryl looked around and sighed. Damnit.
* * * * *
Jessica
Jessica’s fingers moved briskly on the keyboard. The spreadsheet open on the monitor before her was filled with text all down the left side with numbers in most of the columns to the right of the labels. She hadn’t done any really fun spreadsheet work in years, not like this. At the office she used a financial program to maintain the office’s database of expenses and receipts, and an external accountant did all the actual number crunching to tabulate and double-check and forecast for Dennis’ ledger.
She wondered if Darshan, the accountant, had survived the apocalypse, he’d always been pretty nice when she talked to him on the phone.
Pushing the thought out of her head, she finished entering the last handwritten sheet of counts that had been dropped off for her, saved again, and sat back a little. Austin and Isaac had given her some general ideas about how the various kinds of consumables would be used, and the Eagle guards and personnel who made up the bulk of the people on-hand had done the running around and counting. She’d taken all that information and turned it into a sheet that calculated based on what they had and what they needed. And gave estimates for how fast it would all be used.
She’d never imagined she might find herself doing calculations into how many people five pounds of rice could feed, or how long twenty gallons of gas might power a generator, but her part really wasn’t that hard. She just took the figures and converted them to the formulas on the sheet, which then did all the hard work of tabulating. Her part was pretty easy. The trick would be finding all the supplies.
She glanced at the clock hanging on the wall, then stretched in her chair as best she could without over balancing and falling out. Her leg was propped up on a low coffee table that had been dragged over from the waiting area of the office, with a couple of boxes of printer paper serving to further adjust the height her leg rested at. It was necessary – she was entirely serious about being good so she could heal quickly – but it kept her from shifting around in her chair very much as she worked.
Her back was stiff from the hours at the computer, and she sighed in relief as she stretched back and raised her arms over her head. Blood began flowing strongly again, and her muscles started to loosen up from their constrained positions. Her moment of relief was interrupted when Austin spoke.
“Sorry to intrude.”
“Austin!” Candice said, scrambling upright. She had mostly taken over the executive office’s waiting area, laying on the couch watching cartoons streamed off the building’s media server on the waiting room television. Jessica had been rather surprised at how broad of a selection there was; clearly ESEP had been eager to ensure its clients’ families were well entertained while the actual clients were convinced to sign up for service.
“Hey there girlie-girl, you behaving?”
“Yes.”
Jessica straightened quickly, fighting the urge to blush. She was wearing two shirts, but that was because she lacked a bra. Trudy Morris had supplied over a week’s worth of clean outfits for her before they’d departed Johns Creek, but Trudy was considerably more ample than Jessica was. The one thing Jessica didn’t have were any more bras, and she still wasn’t used to how bare she felt going without one. She was wearing a tightly tucked in shirt under a looser blouse, but it still bothered her.
Especially when Austin walked in mid-stretch.
“You’re not interrupting.” Jessica assured him, still working to damp down her embarrassment. “I actually just finished up the last of the entry.”
“So you can tell us what we need?”
“I can tell you what you and Isaac say we need.” she corrected him. “I’m just the number cruncher.”
“You remember I told you I can’t type, right?”
“I remember.”
He grinned. “I’m even worse with a calculator.”
“You’re impossible.”
“But one of a kind.” he chuckled. “If you’re done, does that mean we can have a pow-wow to plan out the next couple of days?”
Jessica frowned slightly at him. “Who’s we?”
“Mr. Morris and myself. I know he wants to go over my strategy for the scavenging. And Isaac, he’s the expert on the generators and the building systems. And I suppose the doc and Vanessa too.”
“I need a few minutes to run some prints, but yes.” Jessica said, ignoring the way Austin’s voice went the tiniest bit flatter on Vanessa’s name.
“Okay, good. Let me make a pit stop in the restroom and I’ll be back.”
“No problem.”
He nodded, made a face at Candice that caused her to giggle, then went back into the hallway. Jessica grabbed the mouse and started clicking through the spreadsheet’s tabs. She’d already set up the graphs she’d known would be wanted for quick reference, but she wanted to make sure they were calculating correctly. Everything seemed in order, so she hit print and listened as the expensive color printer behind her fired up.
It was awkward reaching the printouts without taking her bad leg down off its props, but she managed to snag the papers without contorting her arm too badly. She paged through the printouts to confirm they were ready to go, then ran off another ten copies. It was always better to have too many handouts when heading into a meeting. She’d learned that one a long time ago.
While the printer was humming, she picked up the phone and hit the button that accessed the building’s intercom. She heard a pleasant tone from a speaker out in the hallway and cleared her throat before putting the phone into place next to her mouth. “Pass the word for Dr. Morris, Vanessa Morris, and Isaac Farring. Meeting on the third floor with Mr. Morris.” She repeated the announcement, then hung the phone up and glanced at the printer as it fell silent.
By the time she was finished counting and cross-stacking the papers so they’d be easy to hand out in sections, Austin had returned. She nodded to him and used her left hand to ease her leg down off its elevated perch.
“Why do you always wear gloves?” Candice asked.
“Who, me?” Austin asked, glancing at her.
“Yeah. Isn’t it too hot for gloves?”
“They are a little warm, but I’m used to them.”
“But why?”
“So I can make sure my hands don’t get banged up when I’m doing things.” he told her. “And so my hands don’t get sweaty.”
“But don’t they sweat inside the gloves?”
“They do, but outside the gloves they’re dry. That’s important when I’m busy.”
“Oh.”
Austin grinned at her, then looked back to Jessica, who had levered herself upright and had her cane firmly in place. “Can I help?”
“You can hold the door open.” she said, nodding at the office Tyler had claimed. Three of them opened off the waiting area and its well-appointed furniture and secretarial station. Jessica wasn’t exactly sure where Vanessa had taken herself off to, but Tyler was firmly established up here amid the trappings of authority.
“Can do.” he confirmed as she picked up the prints in her right hand and started limping that way.
She was past being impr
essed by how much money had gone into everything in the building, but it was still a very nice office. The desk alone looked like it might cost more than her car had. Tyler was sitting facing the flat panel display on his left as she entered, but he centered his chair and nodded briskly. “I guess everything went well in town or I would have heard something before now.”
“Yes sir, no problems.” Austin replied over Jessica’s head, patiently waiting for her to clear the doorway. “In and out. I believe the final total was three casts, four sprains, one bullet wound, seven major cuts or stabs, and quite a collection of scrapes and bruises.”
“So they’re all set then?”
“I think the doc wants to check in on them in a couple of days, but for now they should be okay.”
“Candice, sit over there by the plant.” Jessica whispered, pointing at a spot against the wall that was out of the way. Even if Candice had been willing, Jessica was still unwilling to let the girl stay anywhere alone. The most she was prepared to bend that rule was when either of them used the bathroom.
“Well, that’s done then.” Tyler was saying as Candice settled down in a cross-legged position next to the potted flowering vine. “They’re not going to give us any problems when we start moving in and out of town tomorrow?”
“Shouldn’t.” Austin agreed. “While the doc was working I had a chance to talk with their head people, and everyone who’s manning their checkpoints should know who we are and that we’re okay to come and go. They actually only have a couple of the roads covered anyway; just the main routes.”
“Excellent.” Tyler said, then looked up as Vanessa appeared in the doorway with Dennis right behind her. “Ah, I think we’re short a couple of chairs.”
“I’ll bring a few more in.” Austin said, and vanished back out into the waiting area.
“Dennis was just telling me he wants to go into town regularly to tend to the townies.” Vanessa said, her voice calm but with a hint of censure leaking in.
“There are a few ongoing issues that’ll need monitoring.” Dennis said with a shrug.
“You treated their immediate injuries.”
“And some of them are going to require follow-up.”
