“I didn’t vote for you,” Jackie mock-grumbled, smiling.
“We don’t have to do it that way, either,” I said with a shrug. “There are lots of ways we could deal with them, from exile to assimilation, or even disappearance.”
“It doesn’t feel right to just kill them,” Estelle said.
“Even after they tried to kill us?” Angie exclaimed.
“Just following orders,” I muttered.
“Exactly,” Jackie said, nodding. “I’m the first person to say that anyone deserves a chance, but even I’m not too happy about this.”
“How do we know they’ll behave if we turn them loose and adopt them into the clan?” Angie asked. “They could just say what we want to hear.”
“That’s a chance we have to take,” Jackie said firmly. “We have to be the good guys here.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “Let’s see what else we can learn about our guests, but for now, let’s be nice to them and let them stew. In a few days to a week, I’ll have conversations with them and then figure out how to present them to the rest of the clan.” My grin spread wide. “I like that, Angie. Clan. It has a nice ring to it.”
“Umm,” she said. “You’re welcome.”
“That’s pretty much it,” I said and slid a piece of paper across the table. “This is the guard roster for week one. There’s four of us, so we’ll be pulling six-hour shifts, with eighteen hours between. I’ll revise that if anyone else wants to play prison guard.”
Since Samuel had confirmed that this little expedition was sanctioned or ordered by the not-so-honorable Reverend Price, I had all I really needed to motivate me. I spent my time at the police station working on ideas for improving the homestead and fortifying it. The attack by Wilcox and his men showed all of us some serious weaknesses in our defenses. Although Penny’s array had given people that moment or two that they needed to prevent our side from taking serious casualties, they hadn’t been enough.
I turned her loose on improving it, with the only requirement being not to drain the power too much.
Bill stepped up to help improve our diets, focus our exercise, and generally take better care of ourselves, while Susan turned her attention to helping plan crops and gardens. Michelle focused on the kids. She even got Tommy to sit still for lessons, and, even more surprisingly, Virgil.
Virgil and Penny spent almost every waking moment in each other’s company, and she actually pushed him to use his head for something other than a hat rack.
Meanwhile, I took Estelle’s suggestion that I try to relax to heart and started making sure I took time every day to do something fun, sometimes with the kids, often with my wives. Estelle had started teaching them massage, so I got her to add me to the lessons. I wanted to return the favor.
Once we had cleanup taken care of around the house, including rescuing my Silverado and repairing the fence, a fine Friday afternoon found me, Tommy, Virgil, and Jackie all sitting along the edge of the Chattahoochee River, sharing sodas and drowning worms.
Tommy paid very little attention to his rod, mostly running around and getting into things on the riverbank. Virgil pretty much handled watching both fishing rods.
Jackie, meanwhile, took her fishing very seriously and had her chair well away from where the rest of us were chatting and just generally goofing off. Apparently, her plan worked, too. She had two good-sized catfish swimming in circles in her bucket, while I had a single bream, and Virgil had a rather sad-looking little catfish of his own.
Tommy, though, had caught a turtle twice, several branches, and my line, so for sheer volume, he probably was the most successful of all of us.
“I think I’m throwing this one back,” Virgil said, gazing down sadly into the bucket we shared.
“Might as well let my fish grow a while longer, too,” I said, shaking my head.
“Can we keep ‘em?” Tommy yelled. Somehow, he’d heard us talking quietly about the fish.
“No, Tommy,” I replied. “They need to stay in the river to live, and we can’t eat them.”
“Aww, I wanted to put them in a bowl and watch them swim around,” the kid protested.
“They’re better off in a big place, Tommy,” Virgil explained. “Like this here river.”
“Okay,” Tommy sighed and kicked at a rock, then almost fell down.
I stifled a laugh, and while Virgil had the boy distracted, dumped the two sad little fish back into the sluggish, brown water of the ‘Hooch.
Splashing down in Jackie’s direction got our attention, and we looked over to see her standing and fighting with another fish. She had a cute, determined look on her face as she reeled and pulled on her rod. Eventually, she got the fish close enough to shore and brought it in with her dip net. She had another catfish, and I think this one was as big as the other two combined.
“Leave some for the rest of us, Miss Jackie,” Virgil called.
“You boys need to fish better, then,” she retorted as she extracted her hook carefully from the catfish’s mouth and dropped him in her bucket.
“At least we aren’t fishing like Bruce,” I called back.
“Fishing with dynamite is not fishing,” she yelled.
“Ain’t you scaring the fish?” Virgil yelled.
“Shut up!”
I laughed and leaned back in my chair to watch Tommy throwing rocks into the river about fifty feet past Virgil. Hopefully, he wasn’t trying to hit the turtle that kept stealing his bait early on.
It was the little moments like this that really made everything worth it. We had started to move from surviving to thriving, and now, we were ready to do a bit more expanding. We’d have to if we wanted to pull in more survivors. That was if there were any in the area we could find.
I suspected there were. If not, then we could range out with the Blackhawk and also broadcast our own version of Price’s show, this one a bit less fire and brimstone and a lot more hope and acceptance. That was part of my plan, but I needed to find one of the bigger radio towers in Atlanta, and with Penny’s help, turn it into a massively amplified HAM broadcast. With Bruce lending his own know-how, we might be able to reach out to some of the preppers out there who made it through by the simple method of avoiding everyone.
To each their own.
Estelle and Gwen were up at Auburn University, performing their evaluation of equipment and needs to help convince the last holdouts at the CDC.
A week after the attack on the homestead by Price’s folks, and we were back almost to business as usual. We were a robust little bunch, probably because we needed to be.
Still, I couldn’t let that attack go unanswered. I hadn’t talked to the prisoners yet, either, beyond the usual small talk when it was my turn at watch. I suspect they were waiting for the hard questions, and were, perhaps, growing more nervous as the days went by and no questions came.
Price still broadcasted his shows, and I listened whenever I got the chance. We’d been lucky this first time, and now we had a military-geared humvee. They probably had more. There was a military base somewhere along I-20 in Alabama that probably had lots of interesting stuff.
Meanwhile, I was seriously considering breaking my vow and heading back to the National Guard base in Atlanta to work with Gene on acquiring another Blackhawk, this time one armed for bear instead of range extensions.
That was another day, though. Right now, life was good, and we had a plan.
Downstream from me, Jackie had hooked another fish, while Virgil baited Tommy’s hook and cast it since the younger kid couldn’t be bothered anymore.
It was just another day in Opelika.
39
Raymond Price
Two military bases within easy reach, armored vehicles, missiles, and experimental delivery systems were all within easy reach, but we had only a few people that could operate them.
“Strength,” I said slowly. “Is the way to bring other survivors into our fold. We have discipline. We have electricity. We have
equipment and trained persons. But we do not have numbers.”
“Our outreach has made contact with several individuals,” Baron Chandler reported. “Once Trent and Wilcox return from their missions--”
We stood on the steps of the small neighborhood church that I’d taken as my own in the immediate days following the pathetic failure of a judgment day that a handful of us had survived.
I shook my head.
“No, Baron,” I said. “If we are to turn hearts and minds to our vision of the new world, then I must go.”
“Are you sure you want to take that risk?” the greasy young man asked. “It could be dangerous.”
“Once we have our soldiers back,” I said with a smile. “Then we can approach the militias and cultists in relative safety. For now, though, I have… a mission for you.”
“Yes, sir?”
At least the former tech entrepreneur had given up on the tracksuits that he wore near the beginning of our enterprise. He had taken to mimicking my dress, however, a black suit and white shirt, with a bolo tie and cowboy boots. It was a survival mechanism, perhaps, but one that annoyed me more than flattered. I looked at him and smiled.
“I want,” I said slowly. “One of those combat drones. I want it operational, and I want it now. If we don’t have a pilot, we at least can get something in the air to compete with our…” My voice trailed off as I waved southwards.
“Wilcox might be dealing with that problem as we speak,” Baron reported.
“I know I gave him the suggestion to engage in a…” I paused. “What’s the term? Opportunistic strike.”
“Yes, sir,” Baron nodded. “Six men should be enough to put an end to that little group, and if we can capture the women…”
“Then we can start rebuilding the population,” I said, nodding as well. “One blessed birth at a time.”
“Indeed.”
I shot the young man a sidelong look and caught a momentary sour expression on his face. There were some things that my assistant found distasteful, but he kept quiet.
As far as I knew, we had the largest group in our portion of the world, having allied early on with an isolationist group of paramilitary individuals based not terribly far from the outskirts of Birmingham. The military men from Anniston and Redstone had been a definite boon as well.
All told, I had close to thirty people in my flock. Most of them were farmers and military men, with two technologists, Baron Chandler and Samuel Rosenthal. Chandler was the more productive of the two, able to handle our communications and power, while Rosenthal did useful things with devices that I’d once considered toys.
That was why he’d gone along with Jake Wilcox to stake out the little group in Opelika.
Fortunately, both Chandler and Rosenthal were eager to please, and despite my own misgivings about both Johnathan Trent and Jake Wilcox, I was more than willing to give them a few chances.
“Is there anything else, sir?” Baron asked, breaking the silence that had fallen while my thoughts wandered.
“No, Baron,” I said thoughtfully. “Carry on.”
He dipped his head respectfully and walked off. I wondered if I needed to institute some Catholic traditions like ring-kissing or genuflecting. Those likely wouldn’t sit well with some of my people, and I needed to keep them happy, for now.
A few other people were out and about, tending gardens or maintaining their houses. We’d laid in a significant stockpile of fuel and food in the early days, sweeping through Birmingham and the surrounding areas. It wasn’t until Baron joined us that we had much hope of maintaining power aside from generators. He even had a plan to check out some of the hydroelectric plants along the Coosa River. Regular power would provide us with even more leverage.
Still, I had no real idea of how many survivors there were in North America or worldwide. Over half of our group was taken from an isolated compound of folks who hadn’t even been exposed to the pestilence.
Outside of them, our doctor, Alan Marsh, determined that no primary survivor possessed any kind of chronic condition. Whether or not that persisted across areas or served as a general indicator, he had no idea.
I waved and smiled at Mark Lowell as he tended to his garden in the front yard of his home across the street. He waved back. “Morning, Reverend!”
After taking a deep breath of the cool morning air, I turned and re-entered my church, hands folded thoughtfully behind me.
“Morning, Rev,” someone said.
I started and raised my head to look at the large, muscular man sitting on a pew at the very front.
“Back already, Johnathan?” I asked. Johnathan Trent was the team leader for the group that had been monitoring the CDC.
“Yeah,” he replied. “We have a problem.”
“Of course,” I said darkly. “What is it now?”
“I have no team anymore,” he replied. “Barely got out, myself.”
“Really?” I asked, eyes going wide. “What the hell happened?”
“Language, Reverend,” he said, then chuckled thickly. “That damned survivalist nut is what happened.”
“The kook from Arizona that you observed? He took out your whole team?”
“There were only three of us,” Trent answered. “He left with three other people from the CDC, including a couple of their new folks and the guy from Alabama that Jake’s watching.”
A sigh escaped him, and he shook his head. “We figured we’d hit them. A .50 cal and a humvee against that stupid World War II relic of a truck? No contest, you’d think. Unfortunately, we miscalculated.”
“You… miscalculated,” I said flatly.
“Yeah. Crazy fucker had a goddamn Gatling gun in the back of that deuce, plus Donnie couldn’t shoot worth a shit,” Johnathan continued. “I don’t think any of us expected that old gun to be able to put a hurt on a humvee. Plus, he was scary accurate with the thing.”
“Donnie got blown off the top almost immediately, and Rich replaced him,” Trent kept on talking. “We moved up beside them and tried putting some shots into the tires and fuel tank, but they sideswiped us, and we hit the retaining wall. Game over.” He shook his head. “I had to walk to where I could steal a car that still worked, siphon gas into it, and drove back to report.”
“That,” I said slowly, “is very disappointing.”
“You can say that again, Rev,” he said. “I think it’s personal now. I’m going to solve the CDC problem, one way or another.”
“How?” I wanted to know. “You’ve got no team left, and Wilcox is out on a mission.”
A slow grin spread across his face.
“I need one man and a trip by Anniston,” he replied. “They’re down to three, maybe four people on the campus, with the nearest help about two-hours away.”
I pressed my hands together thoughtfully, tapping my lips with my index fingers. There really was no downside, although…
“Are there any women there, still?” I asked.
“No, sir,” the soldier replied. “They’ve all left.”
“Do what you will, then,” I said, smiling. “With my blessing.”
A Note from the Author
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After The Virus (Book 2): Homesteading Page 28