by Beth Hersant
“Who?” Peg whispered.
“Josh and Doc Rhoads.”
The whole table gaped at her, but Louella ignored them. Here was another child — a kid not that much older than Josh and maybe she could save this one. When she spoke again, she was calmer, quieter. “And so let me recap my day for you. I watched a town full of people get ripped to shreds — literally torn apart. I killed my friends, threw up on my shoes and had a nervous breakdown in the barn. Are you up for a thousand miles of that shit?”
“But my parents…”
She looked at him pityingly. “Today I didn’t care if I died or got bit or muddied my own soul, I just wanted them to be ok,” she pointed to Sam and Mae. “I’m pretty sure your parents feel the same way about you. They’ll want you safe and this is the safest place for you right now. So no, I’m not giving you the supplies. I have enough blood on my hands for one day — why on earth would I help you kill yourself?” She signaled the end of the discussion by rising abruptly, scraping her leftovers into the dog’s bowl and starting to tidy up the kitchen.
Owen glowered at her back for a moment. The argument had been humiliating — it had made him feel stupid and inept and worst of all, she’d been right. But even if it was stupid, he wanted to go. Except for Niamh, these people were strangers and he wanted so desperately to be home. Problem was: he’d just barely mustered up the courage to go when he thought they would give him food and medicine and a gun and a map. Without their help, his courage failed. He rose, took his plate and slung it into the sink in front of Louella and then walked out of the room.
That first, long day ended late. Inventories were taken, plans were made, guards posted. Many decided to eschew the beds and cots that had been set up for them and instead curled up together by the fire in the living room. Later on they would probably be sick of the sight of each other, but that night no one wanted to sleep alone.
Fletch joined Louella on the couch. “You ok?” he asked.
She was just about to say no when Mae came over.
“Come on then,” she said, inviting the girl to climb up on her lap.
The child asked, “Can I have a song?”
Louella, as a mother and grandmother, knew lots of lullabies. But the melodies she favored were not the stereotypical ones. She liked to take her favorite songs, the songs from her youth, and sing them slow. And so she broke into a delicate, quiet rendition of Crazy Crazy Nights by Kiss and watched the little girl’s eyes close. Mae’s breathing settled into a gentle, steady rhythm. Louella looked at her — at the smoothness of her cheek, at the long eyelashes and wisps of hair that smelled of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. Despite all the chaos and hell of the day, she smiled, knowing intrinsically what Lao Tzu said over 2,000 years ago: “Being deeply loved gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
Chapter Eight
Brown Sugar and Cheddar Cheese
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Attributed to Charles Darwin
“We are going to be all right, because we constantly get to tell the whole world who we are. We constantly get to define ourselves — that journey never stops… We, who are a week into wondering what the hell just happened, will continue to move forward. We have to choose to do so. But we will move forward, because if we do not … what is to be said about us?”
Tom Hanks
The Boy Scout motto is “Be Prepared” and the people at the farm pursued that state with compulsive fervor. They had seen what comes of complacency, of resting on the assumption that everything will be ok. And so they stripped the Rhoads building site of, well, everything. It was like construction-obsessed locusts had descended and picked it clean.
If Stage 1 fortifications concentrated on the ground floor, Stage 2 saw them go up a level. They installed metal shutters on the upstairs windows and erected scaffolding inside the newly-built walls out back. It created a second story where they could post guards and fend off attackers. And that was just the beginning. They had plans to fence in a wider area around the main compound. This would protect the tractor shed, the parking area and Arnold’s pigs. When the ground softened they’d dig a trench around the perimeter and set traps that would hopefully snare the infected before they even got close to the house. Eventually they’d build guard towers and they wanted to bring in big, heavy obstacles to create a chicane along the road. If other survivors came barreling up Mad Max style, they wanted to slow them down so they couldn’t just plow into the fences.
All of that was good. Unfortunately, the denizens of the farm did not rise every morning and commence work with a merry “Hi-Ho!” like the dwarves in Snow White. After a night of disturbed slumber and hideous nightmares, they hauled their exhausted asses out of bed and went to toil outside in a Pennsylvania winter. While the fortress around them grew in strength, its occupants, in big and small ways, began to buckle. They were traumatized by what they’d seen, but there was no psychiatrist with a leather couch and prescription pad to mitigate the universal state of PTSD at the farm. They had all lost loved ones, but an apocalypse allows you no time to grieve. They were living on top of each other and so everybody knew everybody’s business. They all knew that Niamh and Owen were fighting and that he hated being here in this “podunk hell right out of Deliverance.” When Emma used the last of the hot water just before Sam could get a shower, well, you’d think she’d just kicked his sainted mother in the teeth based on the strength of his reaction.
At one point Bib realized that she didn’t have some ingredient she needed — brown sugar to make barbecue sauce. She made a mental note to pick some up at the … What? At the store? Yeah, like she’d just nip to the grocery store for her weekly shop. But there was no “just nipping to the store” anymore, was there? If they didn’t have it, couldn’t grow it or make it, or didn’t risk their lives to find it, then it was totally, irrevocably out of reach. The realization took her breath away.
When Louella came in, expecting to be greeted by the smell of Bib’s World-Class BBQ Chicken, she found her friend sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space.
“Bib?” No answer. She tried again and got the same response. Lou shook her gently by the shoulder. “Honey, what’s the matter?”
“I — I couldn’t make barbecue sauce.”
“Well, that’s ok.”
“No,” Bib shook her head and there were tears in her eyes. “It’s not. We don’t have brown sugar and we can’t just go and get some and it’s like we’re on some sort of island and…” She began to weep.
Louella held her until she quieted down. “If we can’t get anymore brown sugar, is there something else we could use?” she asked.
Bib thought for a minute. “Molasses. That would do the trick.”
Louella smiled at her. “And that is why you are the master chef here. Will you show me what to do?” Bib joined her at the counter and the two women made dinner.
It was funny how little things seemed to spark big realizations at the farm. A deficit of brown sugar or hot water highlighted just how much things had changed. And a debate between Louella and Peg over cheddar cheese centered around the biggest question of all.
It started because the cows were producing well and Lou had extra milk. She could, in the space of half an hour, make some mozzarella and be done with it. Although it would be nice to have, they’d need to use it up within the week and they had plenty to eat right now. What worried her were the lean months — periods of scarcity that would inevitably come. If she devoted the time now to making cheddar (which lasts ages) then they’d have it later on when perhaps food wouldn’t be as plentiful. Cheddar, however, is a time-consuming job: it takes hours to get it started and so she asked Peg for help.
Peg, who’d been washing dishes, didn’t look up. “Why don’t we just make egg cheese �
� It’ll be quicker and we’ll have it today.”
“We have enough food today, we might not have enough in six months time.”
“It’s a lot of work, mom.”
“I know.”
“And, likely, a huge waste of time.”
“Why?”
Peg glanced out the back window. Mae and Emma were playing tag in the enclosed garden — out of earshot. “Who exactly do you think is going to be around to eat it?”
“We will.”
Peg laughed bitterly and shook her head. “You saw what it’s like out there. The whole country, hell the world, is collapsing in on itself. And even if the infected don’t find us — which is pretty freakin’ unlikely — do you have any idea how much more precarious life is now? Wait until people start getting sick and dying of things that we used to be able to treat with a pill. Wait until we start losing people to accidents or they just decide to eat a bullet because the world has ended and no amount of bacon or cheddar cheese can fix that. I won’t say it to the others, but we are fucked. We just haven’t figured it out yet.”
Louella stared at her open-mouthed. “Margaret Florence Bernhard,” she said and Peg blanched. Her mother had used her full Christian (and maiden) name and that was never good. “You’ve got a kid, so you damn well plan for six months’ time and a years’ time and five years’ time because … well, you just have to. That cheese is stored calcium for next year. Even if we lose the cattle, she’ll still have a shot at healthy bones and teeth.”
Peg laughed, a hysterical laugh, and tears welled up in her eyes. “Healthy teeth! Why? All the better to eat you with, grandma!”
“What’s the alternative?”
“What do you mean?”
“If we don’t plan for the future — if there is no future — then what do we do? Sit here, get drunk and wait to die?”
“Mom…”
But Louella didn’t let her finish. “Because those are your two options, Peg. Give up and die or fight on. And if you’re going to choose death, why wait? Why not do it today — right now? Let’s just eat a bullet … oh wait, I guess we better shoot the kids first and then cap ourselves. Or maybe we should all hold hands, walk back into town and get bit.”
“Stop it.”
“No. You’ve got to hear this. Because you’re a mother and you don’t have the luxury of giving up. We’ve been given a real chance here, so you grab it with both hands!”
Gripping the edge of the counter, Peg stood sobbing.
“It’s gotten on top of you today,” Louella said.
Peg nodded. It took a moment before she could speak. “The last TV broadcast stopped.”
“When?”
“There was snow on every channel when I got up this morning. We really are alone, aren’t we?”
Louella thought for a moment. “In the time before — when you could just take it for granted that our world had billions of people in it, I still had moments when I felt entirely alone. There were times I felt that I couldn’t count on anyone to do anything for me and if I wanted to see something happen, then I’d have to do it myself. Did you ever feel like that?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
Peg shrugged. “Got down to work.”
“Good plan,” Louella nodded. “Oh look: here’s some work for us.” She held up a bottle of rennet and gave it a shake.
Peg laughed and wiped her eyes. “How is this not affecting you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re so damned positive about everything!”
“Honey, I take too much Aleve and cry into my pillow at night.”
“You do?”
“Hell yes. It’s the only indication that I’m still sane.”
Peg laughed weakly. “How does the saying go? ‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…’” and her mother recited the end with her: “‘it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.’”
Louella hugged her daughter tight. “I’m going to start on that cheddar. Will you help me?”
Louella had just added rennet to the milk and left Peg to stir it. She slipped on her boots and went to fetch the eggs in from the barn. She barely recognized the farmyard anymore. The walls and scaffolding made it look less like a rural paradise and more like a permanent construction site. Fletch, who’d been working beside Alec all morning, was using his coffee break to paint something on the front of the barn. It was a four-pointed star that connected up with words scrawled beneath it.
“Camp North Star?” Louella asked.
Fletch shrugged. “We need a name for this place.”
“Yeah, I guess. But why that one?”
“We have a lot of good people working hard and hence, this place has real potential. It could be a beacon, a light in the darkness, a shining example of how things can be.”
While Louella agreed with the sentiment, she looked at her friend suspiciously. He was a writer who hated hyperbole. His style was streamlined, direct and at times brutally sparse. So why was he laying it on so thick?
“Hang on a minute,” she said. “North Star. Wasn’t that the summer camp full of misfits in the movie Meatballs?”
He grinned at her. “Which is why the name is doubly fitting.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“But you love me.”
“Yep,” she said as she turned to go.
“I heard what you said to Peg just now.”
Louella stopped mid-step and turned back to face him. “Was I too hard on her?”
“No. She needed to hear it.” He downed the last of his coffee. “You’re doing a good job, Lou.”
She nodded her thanks. The chickens had clustered around her ankles hoping that she’d brought treats. Reaching into the pocket of her body warmer, she pulled out a little Tupperware container full of sunflower seeds. She scattered these around her and stood for a moment, watching the flock peck merrily at their snack. And Fletcher watched her. He had an idea that he meant to raise at dinner that night. It was necessary and it was right. And she was going to hate him for it.
Chapter Nine
Leaders
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, and become more, you are a leader.”
John Quincy Adams
“The world is looking for leaders to step up and serve in extreme conditions with unconditional love.”
William T. Chaney Jr.
The cheese was out of the press and stored in the cellar, away from the heat, where it could be left to mature. Louella taped a note over the kitchen sink to remind her to go down and turn it everyday. She’d cleaned out the chicken coop and mucked out the cattle stalls and, while she was at it, fed Arnold’s pigs (he was busy helping Alec to reinforce the upper level of the scaffolding while Bib was on guard duty). And then it was time to milk the cows and get dinner on. She seemed to have spent her whole day in either the kitchen or the barn. She sighed as she mixed together enough flour, sugar and Budweiser to make several loaves of beer bread. With that in the oven, she started on her homemade spaghetti sauce, dumping cans of Hunt’s diced tomatoes into a pot to simmer. As she added ingredients and the good smells of garlic, onion and oregano wafted from the kitchen, people started to trickle in, half-frozen and ravenously hungry.
“Get some hot food in you,” she said as she served it up.
“Ooh, what are we having?” Fletch called from the backdoor as he struggled out of his boots.
“Spaghetti and meatballs tonight. Where’d I get that idea from?”
It was quiet around the table — the silence of hungry people too tired for small talk. Conversation only returned when their bellies were full.
“So apparently we’re Camp North Star,” Alec said. “I guess that’s as good a name as any.”
&n
bsp; Louella dropped her head into her hands. All she could picture when she heard that name was Bill Murray wearing a ridiculous spaceman helmet with blue lightning bolts on the sides and spindly little antenna sticking out the top. She could hear him over the tannoy: “I’m Tripper Harrison, your head counselor. I’ll be coming at you every morning, about this time, hoping to make your summer camp experience the best available … in this price range.”
Interrupting these thoughts, Fletch said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about sorting us out as a group. The first order of business, surely, is to establish a leader. We haven’t talked about that.”
“Well, it’s Louella’s farm,” Bib said. “Shouldn’t she be in charge?”
“Oh no no no,” Louella answered. “I can tell you when the seed needs to go in the ground, but that does not qualify me to lead us through a friggin’ apocalypse.”
“Well, technically, no one here is qualified to do that,” Peg said.
“No,” Fletcher conceded. “And yet someone still has to. Lou, it should be you.”
“Fletch,” her tone was a warning.
“You’re the one who rallied us on that first night, divvied up the jobs and got us moving. You were the one who picked the team to go to the construction site.”
“I wondered about that. Why didn’t you send me?” Wyn wanted to know.
Louella shrugged. “As a cop, Patience had to go and keep the team safe. If I send one of Ginny’s children out there, then the other has to stay behind. If something went wrong and she lost you both… I don’t wanna think what that would do to her.”
“Which is why you insisted that I stay,” Peg nodded. “Alec needed to go and so …”
“You had to stay behind for Mae. Josie could go because Wyn would be here for Emma. Arnold could go, but Bib had to stay behind unless Niamh went too. If all three of you rolled the dice together, that’s your choice. But if two of you go out and don’t come home, what the hell would the third one do?”
