Z-Day Series: Book 1 First Burnz
Page 17
Chapter 14
“What the heck did your dog just do?!?” One of the men, who seemed to be the leader, yelled.
He then erupted into a stream of curses too foul for words, even in this book, as the Library manager tried to calm him down. He even tried to tell us to get a muzzle on Buddy, but that idea was forgotten very quickly, as Courtney landed a punch to his jaw and a strong kick to his shin.
I pulled Courtney back, grabbing Buddy in the same motion and securing them both. The group was, very quickly, told to leave, as I finally let go of both Courtney and her very excited dog. Buddy leapt forwards, slamming his head into the (Thankfully) shut door, Courtney just walking off to the underground tunnels, not talking to anybody.
So, as I said, that was about the worst group that ever came into the Library. There were some that came close, but none were quite as bad as them. Their accent I couldn’t quite pin point, but I could tell that, before all of this, they were rich, so probably lived in a posh (For want of a better word) estate.
Of course, money was nothing. There was nothing to spend it on, you took what you wanted and there was no one to stop you. Well, until… I mean, nothing. We did what we liked, and nobody could stop us. Ok, maybe the Zombies spoiled a little of our fun, but at least they were also the source of most of it. True, they could wreck your life and infect your friends, but they could also be company, shot down almost effortlessly from a distance, and remind you that you’re never alone (In a good way or a bad one, that’s for you to decide).
I followed Courtney quickly, after the tense atmosphere evaporated, and found her hauling crates with a look like thunder on her face. Trying to talk to her, I had to dodge a few punches, but I soon got to slapping stage, before she calmed down completely and let me talk to her.
Over hauling crates and climbing into trucks to get said crates, I comforted her and calmed her down, listened to her relentless swearing against this obnoxious group, and, eventually, listened as she slipped into a subdued silence. We stayed like this until a faint calling alerted us to dinner, and we both hurried up the steps to a steaming hot curry meal. We didn’t know how they did it, but we were glad that they did.
Over dinner, the conversation turned to food, and then farms. Courtney was asking so many questions, the Library staff answering where they could and as best they could, but I knew Courtney. When she asked questions, she wanted answers, but why? Who knew? Courtney was a bundle of mysteries, and I betted (To myself, of course) that she didn’t even know half of them herself.
But when the questions turned to ‘How’s and ‘Where’s, even the dumbest person in the world would understand what Courtney wanted. She wanted to move, we all knew that. She wasn’t built for staying in one place, she was made to move, to travel. To change location in an instant, to never get quite too cosy in one place. And now she wanted to go to a farm.
Well, I have to admit, it made a little sense. Food supply was getting lower, and there just weren’t enough farms to keep us running. Factory-made food was coming in more and more demand, but they needed farmers to supply them with the materials they needed to make the food that we needed. Basically, a lot of people needed a lot of things, but, when one thing in the chain went missing, it might have been better off not existing.
I still wasn’t sure about what Courtney was implying, however. Running a farm in normal circumstances was hard enough, but on a Z-Day? We had dogs, but what we needed was livestock. Cows, sheep, pigs as well. And we’d have to defend it, at all times. Dogs wouldn’t be enough, we’d need around the clock fire power.
After dinner, we got back to work. Food supplies came in, and we had a job pulling them up the stairs! By the way, if you want to know how we pulled these heavy crates, I’ll tell you.
Each crate had two holes drilled into it at the factory, and rope went through them in a sort of loop. The two ends of rope were then tied together, and a person had to pull it to the main room. Usually, there was two people to one crate; one pulled, the other pushed.
When Courtney and I were working together, she pulled and I pushed, but pairs often swapped to share the work load evenly, and we weren’t an exception. The rope could rub your shoulder raw, so we had to take many breaks, but, altogether, it was a clever work plan.
About five hours into our shift, dinner would be announced, and it ranged from curry to roast chicken, with drinks of water, dilute orange/blackcurrant or milk. Sometimes, the adults had wine, but we never shared this luxury, not after what had happened to Sophie.
After dinner, which was served at around twelve o’ clock, it was another six hours work, with water and small food breaks each hour, before tea, which was the biggest meal of the day and usually the most important. Any announcements or issues were addressed then, and it was also the time when somebody read out the Zombie Newspaper, and we listened to the Six O’ Clock News on Survivor FM.
Anyway, enough of the daily routine, you might want to know what happened to Courtney’s ideas of living on a farm and providing food for people. Well, all I can say is, she went through with them. All of them.
She first told us at dinner, explaining her plans. I was not surprised, but, there again, it came as a little bit of shock, since I knew that she was thinking about it, just not when she planned to tell us. Daniella took to the idea at once, dreaming of horses and sheep, but Teegan was a little more sceptical.
“How are we meant to keep a whole farm running?” Teegan asked, worrying as usual. I, personally, didn’t blame her, as I too had my doubts, but I would follow Courtney to the ends of the world, and back, so it was no wonder that I didn’t hesitate to follow her to the country.
“Easy.” Courtney replied, before lapsing into a very detailed explanation of her plans for a post Z-Day farm.
Let me give you the simplified version, for mine and your own sakes. The animals would all be penned in with solid iron fences, and let out into a large, secured, field every day, then back into their enclosures in the evenings and nights. Well, except for the sheep. I had volunteered to be the shepherd, to watch over the sheep with the dogs as they slept in the fields, and move them from place to place as they ate up the grass.
This, at first, sounded totally and utterly crazy to almost everyone, and even I was a little unsure. But, as I mapped out the facts and methods, working out amounts, percentages and what-not while I did, I discovered that it was actually possible, with a hell of a lot of planning. And there was no time like the present.
I was typing away furiously at my laptop, printing out the results and showing them to Courtney, who pitched them to the rest of the group, and anybody else who would listen. Daniella started drawing out plans for the animal enclosures and fields, as well as rows of crops, but Teegan was doing something a little different; a list of everything that could go wrong.
Of course, there was the usual: Get overrun by Zombies, run out of supplies, not know how to do anything, animals get sick and die, crops all fail, etc. But there was also some less common ones, such as: The group splits up, somebody doesn’t want to come, we don’t like it there, things like that. I suppose they were more to do with our group mentally, as opposed to physically.
As I looked over Teegan’s shoulder, she showed me her various concerns, and explained them all. I then wrote out a list of counter arguments, and showed them to her, silencing her slight complaints and worries.
The planning for this excursion to the country took about a week, but it was worth it, and, by that Friday, we were ready to go.