by Zack Finley
Ben refused to sit at the table, he knew this was going to be a crowded meeting. I was a little surprised he wanted to attend, but I was glad he was here.
Roger, Carmine, Audrey, and Jim arrived then, and the place started to fill up. Ben was right, it was standing-room only. By the time Mandy entered it was too packed at our end of the table for her to join us. No chance now to hear her thoughts on our prisoners, before the official meeting. The growing noise in the room from the gathering group made it hard for me to concentrate on what was being said. It made the ringing in my ears worse, and I withdrew from the discourse.
I did not want a FOB in Oneida. We needed to scavenge there, I just didn’t want to be responsible for defending or protecting people or assets there.
I was still wary of FOB Justice as a concept. Especially since Justice was the only place, we held outside the Valley. I would feel much better when we had some kind of understanding with most of Huntsville. Right now, I’d settle for a truce or at least an acknowledgment that we wouldn’t shoot them unless they pointed a weapon at us. The corollary to that would be you shoot us, and we annihilate you.
I wanted to salvage all the spoilable materials from Mecklin County before spring planting. Saving things like bottles of bleach, nails, medical supplies, fuel, and the like would buy time. Time to learn how to make our own or to rediscover the benefits of trade between neighbors and regions. It made wasting time to salvage soccer balls seem foolish.
I also wanted to find out what was happening in critical spots around us and beyond. I was hoping we could find a pilot but wasn’t yet ready to teach myself how to fly and maintain an airplane from a manual.
Especially now that weather systems could sneak up on you with little or no warning.
I was brought back to the meeting when my dad, rapped his knuckles on the table. Silence spread quickly. He now had my full attention.
“In our planning up until now, Oneida has not been part of the Valley’s core,” my dad began. “While we entertained a desire to bolster local forces in Huntsville, we expected to withdraw from Oneida and let it develop without our direct aid. That changed only in part a few days ago when we learned the group in Oneida’s Walmart posed an indirect threat to FOB Justice.”
Roger took up the narrative, “In particular, we feared Allen could persuade the Oneida group to relocate to Justice. We did not want this. Based on our reconnaissance, the group occupying the Walmart was getting desperate. We believed if we offered them a way out, they would take it. Allen proved a wilier adversary than expected. He joined up with the Oneida group before we even knew he escaped. Within hours, he convinced most in the Oneida group that Justice was a great place for them. This was probably an easy sell if you’ve seen the inside of that Walmart.”
My dad added, “Once the Oneida group fired on our men without provocation, we responded in force. Despite the firepower employed, Force Beta took nearly everyone in the Walmart prisoner. This despite Allen convincing most of them they might as well fight to the death because we take no prisoners.”
Claire said, “We expended resources and blood to take this treasure, and we are removing a share. Tactical police gear, ammo and the like, of course. Practical items like motor oils, antifreeze, fan belts, oil and air filters, electrical parts, tools. A small quantity of medical supplies for Justice. I am also correcting an issue I failed to anticipate.”
The look of shock on some faces was nearly comical. Claire confessing there were things she hadn’t considered was almost unheard of.
Claire quieted the murmurs with a wave. “Some have asked why I’ve wasted Valley resources bringing in soccer balls and hand lotion. I actually cleaned out Walmart’s stock of health, household, and baby care items. I took not just soccer balls but toys, games and all the sports equipment I could find. At Jeremy’s request, I added coffee, teas, and popcorn. Not survival gear, but small luxuries that might make a big difference to our quality of life in the coming years.”
My dad added, “The executive team left all unspoiled food and important survival gear in the store. We brought in Oneida firefighters and asked if they were willing to distribute it. We are waiting for an answer from them.”
“Aaron, why should we leave food for them?” someone yelled. I was looking at my dad and didn’t see who asked the question. My ears weren’t working well enough yet to distinguish speakers. I suspected my dad or Roger asked someone to raise the issue if it didn’t come up naturally.
“We need the food and survival supplies less than the people in Oneida do, especially after this set of tyrants let so much of it spoil,” my dad said. “I don’t want the Valley to be seen as just another armed group of thugs. I want to stand for something better, whenever possible. Not saying we won’t stomp on them if they fire at us.”
Roger added, “I want word to get out that those who prey on their neighbors aren’t welcome in Mecklin County.”
“Why should we be the enforcers?” came from the crowd.
“Because it is where we live,” Carmine said.
That quieted the room. Carmine seldom spoke.
“There is another practical consideration,” Jim Smith said. He represented the Valley’s ranching interests since my uncle George refused to take part in these meetings. “People won’t grow food if they don’t think they will be able to eat it. Farming is hard back-breaking work. Farmers battle weather, insects, and crop blights. If they expect their neighbors will just steal what they produce, they might not bother. We need people around us to feel safe enough to put seeds in the ground and to harvest their crops, especially this upcoming growing season.”
“The greatest threat to the Valley comes from outside. Our families are safer when our neighbors can feed their own families,” my dad said. “I’m willing to lend any neighbor a helping hand. Most never farmed in their lives and will need our expertise. Most have no survival skills. We can help them learn.”
“Aaron, are you getting all mushy in your old age?”
“Roger won’t let me,” my dad said, to a round of laughter. “Seriously, we are redefining definitions of right and wrong. If the property is empty, I’m good with scavenging from it. But what if a group of people is living there? If that group is related to people, I know owned the place before. I think they have a legitimate right to the place. What if they killed the people who lived there before?”
“Then they have no legitimate claim, and we can do what we want.”
“Not necessarily true,” my dad said. “The people they killed might have attacked them or been cannibals or worse.”
“Worse than cannibals?”
“I think Allen was worse than a cannibal,” my dad said. “The point I’m trying to make, although I’m clearly failing to do so, is that issues of right and wrong cannot be defined in a few platitudes. Those of us in this room share a solid core of values. A strong sense of right and wrong. Of what constitutes justice. Most served our nation in a time of war. A fundamental basis of American justice requires a jury comprised of community-minded people to decide issues of guilt or innocence.”
“What Aaron is trying to say, is we need volunteers for a jury,” Roger said. “Those willing to serve, raise your hand.”
I wasn’t raising my hand, even if I physically could have. I was one of the few who didn’t.
My mom told Roger, “I count 32 volunteers, leaving Aaron, me, and Jeremy out of the mix.” She was already tearing small rectangles of paper off her note pad. My dad put an X in five of them as my mom tore and folded 32 strips of paper. Someone volunteered a hat and the papers were placed inside and stirred up.
One-by-one they came up and took a paper. Roger asked the five jurors come to the front.
“The people we took prisoner from Walmart are on a school bus under guard,” my dad said. “We need a recommendation on what to do with them. I have heard people tell me to shoot them all and others tell me to put them on the bus with basic survival tools and escort them to the
border. Some might be suitable to remain at FOB Justice. I need the five of you to come to a consensus on what to do with each person on that bus. If you can’t reach a consensus, I will be the tiebreaker. I wish I could give you as long as you need, but we still have a community to run. You have 24 hours, although if you all agree you need up to 12 hours more, I will allow it. You are free to interview anyone you want, including residents of Oneida, Force Beta, the prisoners, or fellow allies. The only penalty I will not entertain is incarceration or indentured servitude.”
Roger added, “He means shoot them, exile them, or allow them to stay. Mandy and Steve have the last say on who is allowed in Justice, so the jury needs to convince Mandy before making that recommendation.”
“Can we give them our input?”
“Sure,” Roger said. “Just remember they have a difficult job and don’t need you making it worse.”
On their way out, most everyone came by to pat me on the shoulder and hope I was on the mend. My mom asked me to hang out for a bit, and I stayed in my chair.
My dad and Roger followed the jurors out, likely to answer their questions but maybe to just give them input.
Ben tactfully left my mom and me alone in the dining room.
“Will this solution work for you?” she asked.
“Yes, in fact, it is a relief,” I said. “In battle, you shoot them if you think they are going to shoot at you. You don’t kill prisoners. Somebody else figures out their fate. I’m good with that.”
“Even if they are freed and allowed to do it again?” my mom asked.
“I don’t think any of our allies would make that choice. If they go free, it’s because they don’t consider them a risk to our families. While they might be wrong, I’m willing to take that risk,” I said.
“Good,” my mom said. “Aaron and I thought that was your viewpoint, but we didn’t get a chance to make sure. After all, you were the one wounded in the battle,” she said.
“My fault,” I said, “And, Allen’s, I guess. That group is guilty of wasting a lot of food that should have been distributed. After that, they weren’t a lot different than us raiding the lumberyard. We took it because we could. In a few years, I suspect people left in the Huntsville area will resent all the stuff we’re going to salvage. That’s why we need to share some of what we recover.”
“That is what Justice is for,” my mom reminded me. “I’ll find Ben so he can get you back home to be with your girls. Remember to let Esther change your dressing.”
“Where was Dr. Jerrod?” I asked, realizing for the first time she hadn’t attended the big meeting.
“I warned her we didn’t have the manpower to sustain a base in Oneida. She also knows the group won’t support it, they barely authorized Justice. If Amelie came, I doubt she would have stopped before demanding a vote. Much better to let the issue mature,” my mom said.
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The jury needed all 36 hours to reach a conclusion. There was consensus on all but five of the defendants. About half were offered positions at Justice. Five were to be executed for various acts since the crash. Eight were to be exiled without supplies, with a bounty on their heads. The recommendation was to split them up and dump them outside of Mecklin County.
The jury couldn’t reach consensus on whether to execute or exile the last five. Of those, three had either three or four votes for execution. My dad added them to the execution list. The others were ordered exiled.
◆◆◆
Chapter 6
Roger’s defense forces executed the eight men. Their bodies were burned in the field where we’d burned those killed in the siege. I think it was once a soccer field. The nine men and one woman slated for exile were photographed. They learned they could go anywhere they liked as long as it wasn’t Mecklin County. In Mecklin County there was now a bounty on their heads.
Each was asked where they would go. Only one had no clue.
Force Beta made quick night runs to the edge of the county to release them over the next week as part of an expanded reconnaissance effort.
My mom expanded the leaflet project after Roger gave our army a new name. We became the Mecklin Defenders.
Roger found nearly 50 cans of bright purple paint in Walmart. In the fabric aisle, they found two bolts of purple fabric in different intensities but close enough in color to the paint. The Mecklin Defenders now had a distinctive, although obnoxious, color. We had purple armbands and helmet patches. Our Humvees now had a purple splash of paint on the front grill and on one door on each side. Our ninjas and pickups were getting similar treatment.
The back side of the leaflet now had a warning about the Mecklin Defenders. “The Mecklin Defenders are local farmers and ranchers trying to keep our families alive and fed in this new world. We will not tolerate individuals or groups who attack our neighbors or harm women and children in our county. Mecklin Defender vehicles have purple paint markings on the front and sides. Mecklin Defenders on official business wear purple armbands.
“Anyone firing at a Mecklin Defender will be killed. We will hunt down anyone impersonating a Mecklin Defender.
“We are interested in forming mutual defense agreements and contacting local survivors. Wave down a Mecklin Defender, contact us via CB radio on channel 20 or come by the Mecklin County Justice Center. We want to hear from you.”
FOB Wally officially closed down about a week after the executions. The fire chief and a handful of volunteer firefighters agreed to make the food and supplies available for those nearby. Several from the American Legion Post decided to help.
The volunteers would distribute food and supplies each week around Oneida until they ran out. There was no way to do this equitably, but they were going to try. My dad wished them well.
My mom had our big rig pull the three Walmart trailers in the loading docks to the Valley. All three were full. Unloading them would be done when manpower was available, likely during the next stretch of bad weather. Once empty, we’d have three trailers to use for something down the road. I was hoping for an entire truckload of coffee.
Joel finally brought the railroad’s fuel truck to the valley. In addition to the fuel truck, we replaced all the fuel used for the entire Oneida operation, including dropping off the exiles. Those Northern Tool fuel transfer kits came in handy.
Walgreens was looted extensively early in the crash. Two months of being open to the weather were hard on its contents, but we retrieved a box truck full of useful items. Sadly, a lot of the sterile bandages and supplies were ruined, and a lot of pills were goo on the floor. Dr. Jerrod was sick about it. My mom felt very justified in bringing everything recovered to the Valley.
Uncle George went on the salvage operation to the Tractor Supply and the veterinary hospital. I was told both of those expeditions was a huge success.
While all this was going on, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere except the Valley and Justice. On trips to Justice, I was required to have Scott along for protection, per Zeke’s orders. People were finally moving into Justice. Some were on very short leashes, the deputies and women who holed up there before and the new group from Oneida. Others were trusted people relocating from the Valley.
While I recovered, getting water and toilets set up for Justice was my main job.
The 5,000-gallon poly tank from the Valley needed to be installed on the jail roof. I was still in no shape to climb a ladder. Buzzer and his crew removed a section of the solar panels and put in wooden blocking for the tank to sit on.
I had no idea how we were going to get the tank up on the roof. It weighed nearly 1,000 pounds, and the roof was 30 feet from the ground. I was confident I could build a Rube Goldberg lifting system using an A-frame, cables, and winches. I just wasn’t convinced I could do it from the ground. In that, I was a hands-on engineer.
The more I studied it, the more concerned I got. I was on the verge of sending out a scavenging expedition to look for a crane when I got an epiphany. There was a giant articulated excavator
at the scrap yard not far from Supply Hardware. I thought it might come in handy if we needed to put in a new catfish pond. That was why I hadn’t thought of it right away. It wasn’t a crane, but it should do what we needed.
I had Scott take me there in a Humvee to see if my memory was correct. The bright orange excavator was still sitting at the scrapyard.
We didn’t get out of our Humvee to check it out, deciding to leave that to the team. I was still too sore to drive it back to Justice. We needed to find someone less injured and more qualified for the task.
One of our allies arrived from the Valley less than half an hour after we sent out the request. He was an experienced excavator operator for a local contractor. From my description, he hadn’t used one quite this big, but he saw no reason he couldn’t make it work.
