by David Rogers
“Let’s not go into that just now.” Tyler said as Austin reappeared with a couple of chairs. Jessica blinked as she saw he’d stacked three together and was carrying them before himself. They weren’t living room recliners, but even so, three of them weren’t light. “I’d like to focus on more pressing matters.”
“Fine.” Vanessa said, taking one of the chairs already positioned before Tyler’s desk.
“Jessica, sit.” Dennis said, pointing at the other one.
“I’ve been sitting.” she said, but obediently limped over and eased herself down. Austin distributed the rest of the chairs across the carpet to create a curved partial ring of them that wrapped around the sides of the desk.
“Sorry, I was up on the roof working on the generators.” Isaac said from the doorway.
“We’re only just about to get started.” Tyler smiled, indicating one of the chairs. “Please.” Isaac slipped into one and pulled a rag out of one of the pockets on his jumpsuit. It was a standard Eagle uniform, but lacked all the gear and weapons Jessica had grown accustomed to seeing everyone else in the black outfits carrying around. He started wiping his hands off with the rag as he looked around cautiously.
“So, I understand we’ve finished a full inventory of what we’ve got on hand.” Tyler said as Austin seated himself last, taking the chair on the far right side of the desk.
Jessica nodded and held up the printouts. “I’ve got the numbers here.” She handed some off in either direction and deposited the rest on Tyler’s desk. “Aus—Mr. Carter, and Mr. Farring gave me some figures to use for consumables.” she began confidently. “With what’s on hand right now, we can keep everyone fed for six days, maybe ten if we cut back to two meals a day.”
“What about shelf stable food?” Tyler asked as he spread the papers out on his desk.
“Three, maybe four days, but the diet will be pretty bland. Rice and pasta mostly.” There wasn’t much in the way of canned vegetables in the kitchen pantry; it was mostly all fresh or flash-frozen.
“That’s not very long.” Vanessa worried.
Jessica shrugged slightly. “Most of what’s stocked in the kitchen right now is perishable, or semi-perishable. If the power holds out we’ll have time to use it all up, but I think the thinking is we’re planning on losing power at some point.” She shrugged again.
Tyler glanced at her, then switched his gaze to Isaac. “Probably soon.” Isaac said when he realized his input was expected. “I’m not a power plant expert, but everything has gone to hell, so I seriously doubt anyone’s still tending the plants that feed the grid in the region. They’ll start dropping off if they’re not maintained or kept supplied.”
“Can we keep the kitchen running off the generators?” Vanessa asked.
“Yes, but it’ll be tight. Those are commercial grade fridges and freezers in there, and they have a lot of draw.”
“I think we need to focus on non-perishable foods for the time being.” Tyler said as he went back to looking over the prints. “If it’s a choice between coming back with open space or loading something that needs refrigeration, bring the fresh food, but otherwise focus accordingly please Mr. Carter.”
Austin nodded. Jessica waited a few seconds to be sure attention was moving back to her, then glanced down at her copy of the report. “These numbers are a little soft because it’s hard to know for sure what they’ll find, but as a rough rule of thumb, each supply run that comes back fully loaded should bring in about three weeks of food.”
“That doesn’t sound like as much as I’d thought.” Vanessa said.
Jessica kept her voice even. “The calculations are there, and could fluctuate, but six vehicles each carrying a few hundred pounds back, and that’s what we’re looking at.”
“I’m more concerned with maintaining our water supply.” Austin spoke up. He gestured broadly as eyes came to him. “All the reasons the power isn’t reliable apply to the water plants. And even if the pipes keep supplying us, we’re going to have to worry about the potability of what’s coming out.”
“That is a concern.” Tyler admitted. “It’s been in the back of my mind. It’s going to be hard to keep any large amount on hand unless we devote significant effort to securing and managing containers for it all.”
“Not just containers sir, but also treatment as well.” Austin said. “And water is pretty heavy to move around.”
“How are we supposed to treat water?” Vanessa asked.
“Chlorine.” Dennis answered, looking at her.
“What?”
He grinned. “Trust me, it’s in all the water you’ve been drinking anyway.”
“I usually—never mind.”
Jessica resisted the impulse to roll her eyes. Vanessa was almost certainly a bottled water type. Dennis just kept grinning at her.
“How hard is it going to be to sort out supplies for treatment?” Tyler asked calmly.
“Shouldn’t be hard at all. We’re talking about standard household chlorine bleach; straight bleach, not the kinds that have other things added to them. We put a few drops into each gallon we store and we’re golden.”
“My feeling is not everyone will be as well informed.” Tyler said after a moment. “So for tomorrow at least, let’s keep the focus on food. But water containers and chlorine are a close second on the prioritization. We can look into more involved methods for the water situation next week or the week after.” Austin nodded again, and Tyler shifted his gaze back to Isaac. “Let’s return to the generators if we could. What do you think?”
“Those are big units.” Isaac said, scratching the back of his head as he considered. “But there’s a limit. There’s no way we can run the entire building on them, even with both tied in.”
“How short are we?”
“Well cutting out the HVAC reduces the load considerably. In fact, I’d have to make some serious modifications to the building’s compressors and fans to run just them with everything else unplugged.”
“We’ll proceed on the assumption the air will be left off once we lose power from the grid.”
Isaac bobbed his head. “I haven’t run any formal numbers, but the same’s going to go for most of the electronics as well. All the TVs, the computers—”
Tyler broke in. “The surveillance system has priority after a minimum level of lighting.”
“We need the satellite and computers to try to stay in touch with what’s happening with the big picture.” Vanessa protested. “The outside phone lines are already out.”
“We’ll come back to that in a minute.” Tyler told her, then looked back to Isaac. “Can we keep the cameras and other security sensors operational?”
“That won’t be a problem, those systems aren’t really high draw.” the maintenance man said. “Same goes for the lights, especially if we pull most of the bulbs. We should be able to keep them up with just one generator operating.”
“I see from Mrs. Talbot’s calculations that we’re looking at quite a bit of fuel to run both generators at max each day.” Tyler said, touching one of the papers on his desk.
“We can reduce that if we keep the load down.” Isaac nodded. “But they’re either on or they’re off, which means they’re burning fuel even if we reduce the load and run them easier. If you want the security system active we’re looking at twenty-four seven use.”
“Can we rig up some sort of battery system?”
Isaac sighed, looking unhappy. “It’s possible, but I only know the basics about how to wire something like that up. And you’re talking a lot of batteries.”
“There are cars everywhere.” Austin pointed out. “Probably thousands and thousands just within an hour of here.”
“Yeah, but batteries are heavy, and it’ll probably take a minute or two to pull one from a car. We do that and we’re talking about a major project that’ll consume weeks of effort to find and fetch back enough.”
“How many would we need?” Tyler asked.
“
I’d have to do some figuring, but I’m not really brushed up on that sort of thing. Hundreds, at least. And they’d have to go inside, because it’s going to rain sooner or later. And it won’t just be batteries; we’ll need cabling and I’m not sure I’ve got all the tools I’d need to set something like that up. And it has to be done right or there’s a risk of fire or a short circuit that could damage the equipment, or the building.”
“We’ll table that as a future option.” Tyler decided. “But regarding the fuel situation, we’ve only got two days’ worth on hand at the moment, is that correct?” Jessica knew that was the low figure, the one that assumed they only ran a single generator. She kept her peace; she didn’t mind eating out of a can, and the dark didn’t bother her too much so long as she and Candice were behind good walls and a locked door.
Isaac shuffled through the papers until he found the graph that showed the fuel consumption figures. He looked at it for several seconds, then nodded slowly. “Yes sir, Mr. Morris.”
“Then we’ll put the fuel problem off until at least Thursday, unless the power fails sometime in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Dennis, same goes for medical resupply. We can let that slide at least a few days.”
“As long as no one gets into any serious trouble, I agree.” Dennis confirmed. “But remember that until we get some real supplies in from a clinic or a pharmacy somewhere there’s only so much I can do if someone comes down with a major trauma.”
“A couple of days, and we’ll move it up on the list.” Tyler said. He switched his focus to his wife. “Now, what can you tell us about the broader picture dear?”
Vanessa cleared her throat. “As I said, we don’t have any phones, but I’ve done what I can through the satellite dish. We’ve still got internet access on it, but a lot of sites are down. I’ve been concentrating on trying to get in touch with people I know in federal agencies and major federal contractors on the theory they’re most likely to know something useful.”
“That seems reasonable.” Tyler nodded.
“It’s been difficult. Some of the big news organizations are still operating, but from what I can tell most of their reports are somewhere between rumor and unconfirmed.” she sighed. “All the social networks are down. Email is spotty, a lot of my messages are bouncing, but I have gotten some replies and have been able to open a few dialogues.”
“How bad is it?” Dennis asked.
She paused, then shrugged. “Pretty bad. As far as I know, there isn’t a single major city anywhere in the country that’s intact.”
Jessica flinched, as did Isaac and Dennis. Only Austin and Tyler seemed to take the comment in stride. Jessica couldn’t help herself. “All of them?”
“All of them.” Vanessa confirmed. “The population concentrations seriously exacerbated the outbreaks, making them self-sustaining for the strength of the problem. The bigger the city, the faster it fell.”
“What about military assets, federal resources, anything like that?” Tyler asked.
“Just as bad. We already knew two of the strongest vectors for this thing were schools and uniformed military, and what I’m hearing says that wave of bombings they did earlier today was just about the last gasp. At best there are scattered units left, patchwork collections of volunteers and reservists. What the zombies weren’t already working on, the bombs and the crashes that happened before all the planes could land safely finished off what was left.”
Jessica took a slow, long breath. She hadn’t really been holding out much hope, but now she knew it was over. Really over. They were on their own. She felt a shiver ripple across her skin as she tried to stay calm.
“As far as the government goes, a few state governments are holding together, and there are some repeated rumors that what’s left of the federal structure is trying to reassemble in South Dakota, but I’m not sure how reliable those reports are.”
“Why South Dakota?” Dennis asked. “I thought Denver was the primary fallback after Washington. Something about Denver being in the center of the country, which is why there’s so many government installations there.”
“They weren’t hit as hard.” Vanessa shrugged. “Or so the rumor goes. Both Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana; they got off pretty light, relatively speaking. Apparently something to do with their population density.”
“Not enough people to fuel the chaos.” Austin said quietly.
“That’s what I’m getting.” she sighed.
“Who’s in charge then?” Tyler inquired.
“Depending on who we want to believe, it’s either the Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Labor, or Secretary of Energy. And that’s apparently as good as it gets. The best number on Congress is less than ten percent of them are confirmed to be alive and in contact.”
“You said some of the state governments were still more or less intact.”
Vanessa nodded. “The ones I already mentioned, plus maybe Iowa and Nevada. But even if we can assume they are, they’re going to be weeks – probably months – reassembling themselves into something that might pass for a coherent structure that can exercise meaningful control.”
“Those are too far for us to consider heading to on unconfirmed information.” Austin said to Tyler. “Not without making some more preparations, and taking some time to train our people up some.” Jessica drew a breath that she only just managed to keep from being audible. The thought of going all the way to South Dakota through the middle of a zombie apocalypse was . . . terrifying.
Tyler was silent for several seconds. He started swiveling his chair back and forth slightly as he tapped the fingers of one hand on the desk slowly, then sighed. “I agree. If we’re going anywhere, we need to plan it carefully.”
“Why do we need to go anywhere?” Vanessa asked. Jessica couldn’t help darting her gaze at the woman, but she did manage to keep her expression blank. That insistent tone was back in Vanessa’s voice.
“We’re in good shape here.” Vanessa continued, her eyes fixed on her husband. “If we take a week or two to shore up the grounds and lay in supplies, we’ll be ready to ride this thing out.”
“We are fairly close to Macon.” Tyler said slowly. “I know my original thinking was that would be useful for the supply situation, but if the zombies keep spreading, we could be looking at some problematic harassment along the fence.”
Vanessa snorted, but Austin spoke up. “It’s only about twenty miles before you’re on the outskirts of Macon. A person could walk that in a day if they were in reasonable shape.”
“We’re not talking about people.” Vanessa said a bit snappishly.
“True, but there were still a couple hundred thousand people there before the outbreaks started. If even half of them are dangerous now, that could conceivably leave us dealing with thousands, at a minimum, who find their way out here.”
Vanessa drew a breath, but Tyler rapped his knuckles on his desk twice. “For the time being, let’s work on our supplies.” he said mildly. “I think it is a bit of a risk, but a small one, that we might face a big horde here at the building. But we can’t do anything if we’re not eating, and we’re well armed. Tomorrow I want the scavenging team to bring in as much food as they can Mr. Carter.”
“Yes sir.” Austin nodded.
“Wednesday we’ll work on food and water purification like the bleach Dennis mentioned. Then Wednesday night we’ll reevaluate, but my feeling is unless you run into any problems we’ll probably be in a good position to look to medical supplies and construction materials we can use to strengthen the building and grounds. If our luck holds, by the weekend we could easily be in very good shape to then start working on fuel, volume for water storage, and some of the optional projects we come up with that might bear fruit.”
“Yes sir.” Austin repeated.
“In the meantime, Vanessa you stay on the lines of communication you have available, and keep trying to build a picture of what’s happening elsewhere. If you turn up anything promisi
ng, we’ll look at it.”
She nodded, but her body language was a little tense. Jessica held her tongue. The woman was clearly . . . well Jessica wasn’t sure what the best description was. Whatever it was, Vanessa wasn’t handling the situation as well as her husband was.
“Mr. Farring, I want you to do what you can to come up with any arrangements that might help with fortifications and contingencies for the building systems when we lose power and water access. If you have time, do a little thinking about the battery idea. Mrs. Talbot, if you could, please keep working on projections and inventory, so we have good information we can use to make decisions. Your report so far is quite well put together.”
Jessica, feeling a little pleased despite her lingering uncertainty over the meeting’s fruits, nodded along with Isaac, and Tyler smiled thinly. “Very well, thank you everyone. Mr. Carter, I believe you wanted to do a perimeter check with most of the guard force. I think we’re done here, so you’ve got a couple of hours of sunlight left to you for that task.”
* * * * *
Peter
“There they go.” Whitley murmured.
Peter glanced at her briefly. “Less to worry about.”
“Who’s worried?”
“You’re not in charge.”
She chuckled darkly. “Nope, all you Gunny.”
“Thanks a lot.” Peter said before turning away from the two carloads of departing people. The Cartersville survivors had fragmented into factions throughout the day, though thankfully mostly peacefully. The worst friction had been a little bit of back and forth over which groups’ decision was right; but only a little, and no one had even come to the point of yelling.
Ten, mostly the more able bodied survivors plus a couple less able ones who had managed to attach themselves, had decided to strike out for greener pastures elsewhere. There had been some mention of finding a small town somewhere in the area and setting up shop, but Peter hadn’t really listened – or contributed much – to their plans. It was their problem.
Of the others, eleven wanted to stay on at the motel. They liked the location and the building, which was concrete over wood framing; plus they’d decided the elevation the second story with its walkway afforded was pretty secure. Peter couldn’t really fault their logic, even if they were only piggybacking off what he and the unit had already set up for them. The close proximity to I-75 also gave them a chance to keep an eye out for a better option.
