by Pike, JJ
F
25?
Food/hunt
Fast/fit
N
S. Dower
M
~20
Food/hunt
Fast/fit
N
Bob Devlin
M
19
Food/hunt
Fast/fit
N
Sandrino
M
22?
Front guard
Fast/fit
N
Felix X
M
~20
Front guard
Obese
N
14
FF
Richardson
M
~20
Rear guard
Slow
?
Wallace
M
35+
Rear guard
Slow
?
Klyon
F
25
Water
Fast/fit
N
Jeffries
F
23
Water
Fast/fit
N
Keppler
M
19
Water
Fast/fit
N
Loma
M
19
Water
So-so/med
N
Kazaowski (sp?)
M
~20
Fire/wood
Fast/fit
?
Doore
M
25+
Fire/wood
Fast/fit
N
Silverstein
F
~20
Fire/wood
Fast/fit
Y
Libbie
F
25+
Cook
Med
N
Andrews
M
30+
Cook
Fast/fit
N
Choco
M
30+
Cook
Slow
N
Bubs
M
38
Cook
Slow
N
Mikey
M
~20
Build/strike
Fast/fit
N
Stew
M
25+
Build/strike
Fast/fit
?
Powers
M
25+
Build/strike
Fast/fit
?
Larson
F
28
Doc (ex. nurse)
Fit
N
Mac
M
30+
Nurse (medic)
Fit
N
Godeao
F
35+
Nurse (medic)
Fit
N
Mitzy
F
22
No clue
Lazy
?
Jubjub
M
35+
No clue
?
?
I had to make guesses on most of the ages. Most of the Army kids look like they’re 13-17 to me (which means I’m getting old).
We have 250 miles to cover. It’s going to take years at this rate.
Ugh.
DAY FOURTEEN:
FACT: The military could have airlifted us closer to Indian Point. I get that they can’t afford to lose more aircraft, but…we’re moving s l o w l y. We’re not even CLOSE to making our 3-miles-a-day target. The terrain doesn’t help. It’s mountainous. We’re going to need to switch to the roads if we’re going to make it in time to do any good (at Indian Point).
FACT: General Hoyt is slowing us down.
FACT: I think MELT might be impacting his judgement (as in: not in a good way). Okay, that’s an opinion rather than a fact.
FACT: We’ve only been walking for three days and we’re already ragingly angry (yes, all of us).
FACT: Hunting is a freaking blessing. Being with people is a PITA.
FACT: Michael Rayton is the biggest PITA of them all.
FACT: The orders Hoyt is relaying are scant (at best). He and Christine have taken to taking all their calls in secret. It’s nuts. They should be involving me (if not Michael). We need to know more about what’s going on in the outside world. For example: How far has MELT spread? Is there an antidote yet? What am I looking for out here? Does MELT-infection show up in trees? I mean…I have a million questions and no guidance.
Best draw up a mandate for myself.
My most urgent task: Secure food.
Thirty people. That’s a lot of mouths to feed. Seamus (aka: Dower) and Bob (Devlin) said they knew how to set traps, but I had to train Seamus from scratch and re-train Bob (who must have been trapping on private property; he doesn’t know how to read the land).
We found a travel route that deer use about six miles south of the main convoy. (We come and go while everyone else walks in formation.) Had to show Seamus how to remain in the trail so we didn’t alert the animals to our presence. There are coyotes following the deer, as always, but people are still too used to supermarket meat for me to sell them on the idea of eating coyote. We’re going to have to stay close to the traps so we can catch and release anything we’re not going to eat.
PREDICTION: They’re going to be begging me for muskrat and skunk and coyote the same way they’re hankering after deer within the week.
NOTE TO SELF: Be sure to record that. How/when do people lose their culturally coded food biases? Meh: I guess that’s more a question for my own idle curiosity. It doesn’t help us beat MELT, so scratch that. [DAY EIGHTEEN, ADDED NOTE: Rethinking this data point. We don’t know WHAT helps our immune system and/or what might contain MELT, so I AM going to keep a note of what we’re eating. I tried to talk to Baxter about what I ought to record, but she was vague and unhelpful; said we needed blood samples; said it would all come together soon. She’s losing it. Aren’t we all?]
I told Hoyt we had to make camp until we have a couple of kills under our belt. The Army air drops are going to tail off (if my predictions are right; if they don’t want to get too close to aerosolized MELT/Indian Point which could also eat a metal bird filled with plastic wiring out of the sky). He resisted. He wants to cover more ground. He’s over-compensating because he knows he’s the cause of the greatest lag. I told him, “An Army marches on its stomach. If we eat the MREs now we might be out by the end of the week.”
His response: Catch up with us when you can.
He’s going to regret that.
The other HUGE time-sink is collecting and purifying water. We can’t use LifeStraws out here (they’re plastic). No one knows if purifying tabs work against MELT. Even Baxter’s insistence that we boil water for half an hour to kill all pathogens (MELT included) is just an educated guess. We could be slurping it down and not know.
The more I think about it, the worse this mission gets. How are we going to feed THIS MANY people? How am I?
I sent Seamus back to the convoy. He’s useless.
Bob Devlin and I are taking turns keeping watch. I don’t want to kill an animal we’re not going to eat. That’s wasteful. Hoyt says no bullets. They’re for defense, not hunting. It’s going to be messy.
Devlin says he can make a bow. And arrows. Whatever. I told him to keep his eye on the prize. We have fresh deer poop up and down this run. We’ll find something soon.
Once we had it snared and it was fighting and crying out, Devlin couldn’t kill the deer. Left that to me. I made it as swift as I could. Food for all. You’re welcome.
One deer, thirty people, not enough for
our appetites. Still, they were grateful to have roasted meat and the general crabbiness lifted for a few hours.
Except for Michael. He’s sticking to MREs. No matter. More food for me, putz. Even so, we’re going to need more people to hunt if we’re going to stay fed.
Took Hoyt (and Baxter, she’s always there) out away from prying ears and explained how we were going to need to do some switching-around of duties. We need everyone who isn’t looking for water (or lugging this equipment around) to be out hunting.
He agreed, finally, that I could start training everyone.
I am even supposed to attempt to train Michael “I am special” Rayton. Really, WHY did we bring him along? WHAT does he do? I’ve never heard anyone complain as much in my whole life. His contention is that the “wild” food could be contaminated, but the food that’s being dropped in by the military “is barely even food, which means it’s safer to eat.”
Whatever.
Not sure who shot first, but Felix is dead. I didn’t know the kid, but it’s still a bummer to lose someone to friendly fire (FF).
Keppler (I don’t know his first name; he thinks he’s some big shot, wears a class ring that he likes to flash in people’s faces; like anyone CARES where you went to school anymore). Sorry. Got off track. Keppler said he saw someone in the trees, tracked them for a mile, decided they were following us, and took a shot when he had the chance. The medic “Mac” (don’t know his family name; he’s a civilian and uses his Christian name) backs him up, says it was justifiable, claims Felix was a “creeper” who was “hiding behind trees and doing weird shit and took a shot at us.”
Felix was never going to be able to keep up, but he’d have lost the weight soon enough (esp. if I can’t get Hoyt to slow down and let us hunt properly). It’s too bad he was killed for falling behind. Not his fault. Christine argued that we shouldn’t dig (we don’t know if MELT is underground/in the soil), so we made a small mound of leaves and buried him that way.
After the service (one of Felix’s buddies said prayers over his body and a couple of them sang a hymn I’ve never heard; it was the least-impressive, most pathetic memorial I have ever attended). Hoyt threatened to confiscate all weapons, but Baxter talked him down. (I’m going to record all instances of him making bad calls. There may come a time when we have to replace him as our leader.) We don’t want our people out there without a means to protect themselves.
Morale is low.
DAY SIXTEEN
Teaching in groups of ten. First up: making rope from bark, grass, or rawhide.
If it wasn’t so important, it’d be funny. These kids don’t know a birch from an elm. Not one of them thought to use the deer carcass (sinews? anyone?). They’d be dead in a month if they were left out here on their own.
Libbie, who was a short-order cook in a greasy spoon in the Lower East Side before MELT, learned fastest. She doesn’t mind taking directions. Turns out that’s almost as important as aptitude. She cranked out ten snares in three hours, which is excellent (even for someone who knows what they’re doing).
Keppler and Mac are joined at the hip and each as useless as the other. If I could fire people from my class, I’d fire these two for being grossly incompetent. They talked more than they worked, made fun of their colleagues’ efforts, and told dirty jokes that made some of the women (myself included) uncomfortable. If it wasn’t for the fact that we’ll need all hands on deck when we get to Indian Point (who else will be the “human robots” to quote the mini-series Chernobyl), I’d send them home.
Jubjub, who refuses to tell anyone his real name, was the slowest. I can’t tell if it’s because he has a processing disorder or he’s obstinate. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt for now, but if this keeps up I’ll have to ask Bobbie Wallace to assign him to any troop but mine.
Wallace, who I originally thought was a plodding kind of fellow, turns out to be a master when it comes to logistics. Could be his easy-going manner or the fact that he’s a little older than most of these kids (but not so old they can discount him the way they do Hoyt), but he’s a useful ally.
Not sure if it’s important, but I think Loma (Ian) and Godeao (Emily) are having a fling. It isn’t out in the open so I’m guessing there’s a rank component that I’m not seeing now that we’re all wearing the same clothing (no insignia, etc.), but they’re not subtle. Lots of “handing things off to each other” with “fingers trailing” etc. I’d tell them not to (esp. as MELT can be transmitted by touch), but there’s no point. They’re young enough and stupid enough that they’re going to sneak away and have sex in the woods if they want to.
SIDE NOTE: Emily Godeao is a medic. They’re going to be high on the list of people who’ll contract the disease given that they’re exposed to the entire camp every day. (Hoyt still insists that everyone is inspected, head to toe, no exceptions.) Perhaps I should say something. We only have three medics: Her, useless Mac (Keppler’s buddy), and Larson. We can’t afford to lose her.
DILEMMA: It’s the end of the world as you know it and there are a couple of twenty-somethings who want to get it on. Do you let them, even if it means they might die, or do you step in and stop them? If they were my kids (my kids would never be this stupid) I’d have words, but they’re grown adults. Maybe what I’ll do is have a “general” discussion about hygiene, contagion, and transmission and let them decide for themselves?
DAY 20
Most of the snares my trainees made are useless. Weak bonds. Easy for even the smallest animals to escape. There must be rabbits, muskrats and beavers the length and breadth of the state laughing at us. I told Mac, Keppler, and Andrews that I was going to halve their rations until they stepped up and made something half-way useful. (I didn’t reprimand Jubjub. He’s got some neural deficits. Not his fault.) They thought I was joking. I’m not.
DAY 21
Stomach cramps. Vomiting. Diarrhea. Guessing someone’s pissed at me because no one else is sick. Going to have to watch my food prep much more closely. Andrews is still on kitchen rotation. Bet it was him. Woe betide any woman telling him his business.
DAY 22
Ditto.
DAY 23
The vomiting has passed (along with everything else). Mostly because I haven’t eaten anything. Christine tells me I called out in my delirium. In Spanish. I can see who speaks it and who doesn’t. (Mac definitely does. He’s been looking at me sideways ever since I crawled back to civilization. There are a couple of others who seem weirded out, but he’s the weirdest.)
I grilled Christine, but all she would tell me was that I named one person. No prizes for guessing who that was; no, I don’t want to write his name; I’m done with that [words are scored out so hard there’s yet another hole in the page]. And worse, I talked about the silver. WTF? Why would I do that? In my sleep? I’ve been so careful. That’s personal. No need to dwell. Back to the data.
We made camp while I was ill.
My crew brought in fourteen rabbits, one deer, and three squirrels while I was out. Not too shabby. Had to send them out to reclaim the pelts and bones, but other than that, yeah, not too shabby.
Baxter lectured the assembly on the need to “work together,” promising “harsh penalties” for anyone found tampering with the food supply. Guess she agrees with me. I was poisoned deliberately. I don’t remember telling her that, but there was a stretch of time when I wasn’t quite with it. Ate a small bowl of squirrel stew. Someone has found wild garlic. I’m inordinately proud of them. They were listening.
DAY 24
Struck camp and headed back out. Progress is slow. Hoyt insists we stay off the roads, but we’re in dense, wooded country here. I keep telling him we need to AT LEAST track the closest water source so 1) we have access to water and 2) aren’t fighting the terrain. Baxter’s worried that the water carries more disease than anything else. If there are as many dead bodies as we fear, she’s probably right. Still…
The leaves are starting to thin. MELT or fa
llout or both? Actually, now that I write that, I have to factor that in, too. What does fallout do to leaves? Don’t want to touch anything I don’t have to (I assume everything is coated in MELT from the rain/hurricane), but I need to start collecting samples. I’ve let too much time go by.
Talked to Christine about giving the forward guard more protection against MELT. We agree that we don’t know what that looks like. She called it a virus. Flat out. Not sure if it was a slip or if she and Hoyt have learned something from their daily briefing that they haven’t shared. She’s been careful to hedge (her language, what she called it, how she defined MELT; and we know she’s all about “classification” and “taxonomy”). So, the slip means something (or might; or not; shoot, I need more sleep).
No, you know what I need? I need to get inside that two-person briefing-bubble. He’s a good man, Hoyt, but MELT has gone to his head. (Okay. I’ve slipped way, way, way away from data. I blame the food poisoning.)
DAY 25
I may kill Michael Rayton. (Not that anyone else is going to read this, but for the avoidance of doubt, that’s rhetorical/hyperbole.) The man insisted we go to the mall. THE FRIGGIN’ MALL. I get it. It’s a miracle that anything is left standing and there’s an argument to be made for scavenging whatever we can, but THE MALL. Really?
The only way I can cope with this stupidity is to treat it as a science project (AS HE SHOULD).
NOTES: There are bodies everywhere. In cars. In the parking lot. In the entrance to the mall (stacked waist-high where the shopping trolleys used to be). The stench of decay made my eyes water. We have our mouths and noses covered, but that doesn’t help. They don’t show signs of MELT-decay. This alone makes the trip worth it.