by Chris Blake
Logan asks Vin if he thinks the resort group will be a problem, and Vintago tells him that they might be a little pissed off about losing three of their men. Logan figures that is a good point.
The next order of business is scouting missions. Vintago wants his guys running scouting missions to the camps to their south, and west. He wants the guys to check for survivors, food, supplies, and anything else of value, even vehicles. Vintago wants to fill the parking lot at the hatchery with good working vehicles. Having ten or fifteen maintained vehicles would be preferred, in case they need to leave in a hurry. He tells them to take priority on trucks, and anything with four wheel drive, thinking of the path leading out to their north.
Vintago also wants to head over to the resort group tomorrow to see how they are holding up. Additionally, he wants to speak with the seven fighters and see if any of them have made the decision to come over to his group.
After they complete their business, they decide to wind things down for the day and get some rest. Tomorrow, Vintago wants to start enacting the plans they just created, wasting no time at all.
The whole group turns in for dinner as the sun sets, and everyone is exhausted after a long day. Before long, everyone splits off and goes to their respective housing situations.
Chapter Nineteen
New Recruits
February, 2013
Dawn breaks over the compound, and already people are milling about performing their duties. Jessica is awake and preparing breakfast for their quickly growing group of people. She is getting better at preparing large meals and makes pretty decent food with the supplies she has.
The guys all scarf down some breakfast, and they head out of the crew quarters to get to work. Trevor and his guys load up in one of the pickup trucks. Logan, Robby, and Mitch are waiting for Vintago in the big Ford.
Before leaving, Vin pulls Greg aside and speaks with him for a minute.
“Greg, I need to start thinking about building some additional sleeping arrangements for any future people we bring onboard. Do you have any idea how to build a type of structure that will hold up?” Vin asks him.
“Well, I’m not going to say I’ll build you a four bedroom house with running water and plumbing, but I think I could throw up four walls and put a roof on it. How big are you thinking?” Greg replies.
“I want it to have at least ten small rooms, and I want to line those rooms with bunk beds on both sides. If it works out how I’m envisioning it, we should be able to sleep forty people.” Vin tells him.
Greg whistles, “That’s pretty damn big Vin. I don’t know about that. We don’t even have enough open land here to do that.”
“We would need to clear some of the trees out and expand our compound. I need you to think about that when you are building the fence. Leave some extra room over there.” Vintago says and points to a nice flat area of land across from the main hatchery compound.
“I’ll do it Vin, but where are we going to get the lumber to build a building that large, we can’t exactly build a log cabin.” Greg says.
“Actually,” Vin says, “that’s exactly what I was thinking.”
Vintago explains how he wants to use the logs they clear from around their compound to build the basic structure. The rest of the building supplies they will run to Home Depot in Payson to get. He tells Greg that they just do not have trucks large enough to haul enough lumber to build an entire building, and he does not want to make twenty trips into town.
“Any tools or building materials you need for the inside of the building we can get from the store. Plywood and two by fours I think we can get no problem.” Vin says.
Greg tells him “I’ll get to work on putting a plan together, and work with my guys to see what they think. We need to get this fence done first before we start another large project though.”
Vin agrees with him, and they shake hands and go their separate ways.
Vintago sprints over to the waiting Ford and hops in the passenger seat. Logan cranks up the engine and pulls out of the parking lot and heads down the hill. Vin sent Trevor and his men to the western neighborhood and camp to see what was over there. Vin and his men are going to check out the summer camp and cabins.
Logan heads down the road, only two miles or so and takes the turnoff for the summer camp. He heads back into the camp, and they park in front of the main building for the camp.
The guys get out of the vehicle and fan out, weapons at the ready. Vintago approaches the main building and walks up to the door and tries to open it while the others cover him. The door is locked and does not budge.
Vin looks over at Logan and shrugs his shoulders. He takes the butt of his rifle and smashes in the glass panes on the front of the double doors. Vin sticks his hand through the glass and unlocks the deadbolt holding the doors closed.
The swings the doors open, and what he sees causes him to bring his rifle up and start looking around. Logan, sensing his change in behavior, does the same and enters the building to Vin’s left.
Inside, there are clear signs that someone has been living here. There are supplies all over the place, sleeping bags in the middle of the room, clothing draped across chairs to dry, and the most obvious sign, the remnants of a fire burning in the fireplace.
Vintago calls out quietly to Mitch and Robby and has them come in as well to help scout out the building. The guys clear the building room by room, finding a large kitchen stocked with a decent amount of supplies, bathrooms, classrooms, and a small church chapel. What they do not find, however, is any people.
They leave the main building and start scouting the grounds of the camp, checking each cabin and outlying building. Most of the cabins have been picked clean, probably by whoever is living here.
After thirty minutes of searching, they return to the main building and decide to wait for a little while. Whoever is staying here will come back eventually. The guys move their truck to a more inconspicuous location and stake out the building.
They hunker down in one of the cabins directly across from the main building and wait. Another half hour goes by and soon they hear whistling and laughter. Approaching the main building is a group of seven people. There are two adults, one male and one female, and five children, probably in their early teen years.
Between the adult male and two of the bigger kids is a small deer hanging upside down on a large tree branch. The man has a large hunting rifle slung around his chest, and it is clear what happened, and how they have been surviving. The man appears to be a decent hunter.
Vintago and Logan watch out the front windows as the group approaches the main building. They see that the glass is broken on their front door, and the man calmly sets the deer down and raises his rifle. His eyes scan the surrounding area, and he spots their pickup truck.
Quickly losing the element of surprise, Vintago decides to step out of the cabin, rifle hanging in his sling.
The man sees Vintago, then his gun, and raises his own weapon, pointing it at Vin’s chest.
“Whoa, buddy. Don’t shoot!” Vintago says and puts his hands up.
“Who are you and what do you want.” the man says.
“We were just coming to see what we could find here, and stumbled across your camp.” Vin replies coolly.
“My name’s Vintago Hawkins and I operate a small group of survivors up near the hatchery. We are practically neighbors.” Vin says.
“Yeah, we hear you guys heading up and down the road, and shooting your guns. We have left you alone this long, why don’t you leave us alone now.” the man says.
“We don’t intend to cause you any harm. Hell, we kept to ourselves for the first month too, that’s why we didn’t even know you were here.” Vin tells him.
“Why don’t we just put the guns down and have a casual conversation? I would like to see if we can help you guys out. It looks like your supplies are getting pretty meager, and we could help you out.” Vin says.
The man reluctantly lowers his
rifle and extends his hand to Vintago.
“My name’s Pastor Luke Abrams and this is my wife Amanda Abrams.” the pastor says, “these kids were left at the camp when the outbreak hit, and we have unofficially adopted them.”
The pastor tells Vintago how he and his wife lived at the camp year round, doing maintenance and taking care of everything. He tells Vin that when the outbreak happened, they had a group of teenagers staying at the camp as part of a boy scout troop getting some winter training in. Most of the parents had come to collect their children in a hurry, but it would seem that some of them did not make it because these five got left behind. The pastor and his wife had been caring for them for the past month. They had been living off the land mostly, and rationing what supplies they did have stocked up.
Since the pastor was the only one with a gun, and not wanting to leave the children and his wife unprotected, he had not made any provision runs anywhere.
After hearing his story, Vintago gives them a brief summary of what they have going on at the compound and invites them to become part of his group. That’s when a stroke of genius hits Vintago. Why have them come sleep in tents at the compound when they could stay here in the comfort of these cabins? The cabins did not have running water or electricity, but they all had fireplaces and would be perfect quarters for anyone who needed a place to sleep.
“How many cabins do you guys have here, and how many people can they hold?” Vintago asks the pastor.
“We have twenty usable cabins, and some of them are full sized homes. We could probably sleep a hundred people if we packed them in.” Pastor Luke replies.
Logan sees where this is going, and the same idea pops into his head. He smiles at Vin, and realizes that by befriending this group, their people would have a new sleeping arrangement. It would also give them room to grow for any future members of their group.
Logan looks around and sees that the area is vast, and utterly impossible to fence in like their relatively small in comparison compound. This area would not serve well as a defensible position, but if the shit hit the fan, they could always fall back to the compound, being that it is less than three miles up the road.
Vintago explains his plan to the pastor about how he would like to use their cabins for housing his people in return for food, water, weapons and ammunition, and being able to use their facilities.
Pastor Luke takes a second to discuss it with his wife, and in the end they both agree. The prospect of a warm meal, hot shower, and arming themselves better is far too much to refuse. Plus the idea of having additional armed men staying in the cabins nearby, adding extra protection is hugely appealing to both the pastor and his wife.
Vintago shakes Pastor Luke’s hand and offers to have them ride up to the compound with them to get initiated, cleaned up, and armed. The pastor looks at his wife. She nods her head, and they decide to come along. The group walks to the truck with Vintago and his team, and they jump in the back for the short trip back to the hatchery.
Logan eases the truck out of the camp area and back onto the road towards the hatchery. As they get on the road, two vehicles full of people are straight ahead of them. Logan immediately goes into combat mode, revs the engine, and catches up with the vehicles. He cuts them off and jumps out of the truck aiming his rifle at the lead vehicle. Vintago, a second or two behind Logan does the same. The vehicles stop and everyone inside throws up their hands. The driver of the first vehicle gets out with his hands up.
“Hey guys, it’s just us.” says one of the fighters from the resort group.
Upon seeing the man, Logan and Vin both drop their barrels and relax. The camp group are all looking around in confusion, trying to figure out what’s going on.
“Four of us decided to pack up and come join you guys.” the man tells him.
Apparently, they liked the idea of having the creature comforts and organization that Vintago and his group offered. Along with the four fighters, they brought five family members also. Two of the fighters had wives, and one had three kids. The other two were single or widowed.
“We’re glad to have you and your families. We just recently acquired a whole new living arrangement thanks to this group of people here.” Vintago says and waves at the people in the back of his truck.
“Sounds good to us! Where do we sign up?” the man replies.
“Just follow us up the hill, we were about to get this group initiated as well.” Vin says.
Vintago and his team mount up again and start heading up the hill. The short two mile drive ends quickly, and everyone gets out of their vehicles. The resort group brought two of the pickups. They will be sorely missed by the rest of the resort group Vintago assumes.
As Vintago and his team get out of their vehicles, he notices that Trevor and his team are also back at the compound. Thinking that it was weird, he immediately heads up the hill towards the buildings.
Standing in the middle of the compound is a group of people seven strong that Vintago does not know.
Walking up to Trevor, Vin gives him a quizzical eyebrow.
“We found this group of survivors hiding out in one of the homes in the westerly camp we were checking out. They were almost out of food, had almost no water, and they had a few hunting rifles, two handguns and one shotgun between them.” Trevor explains.
Vintago looks at the group, four adults, two teenagers, and a small girl. He sizes them up and looks them up and down. They are all famished, dirty, and in sad shape.
Vintago does a quick mental tally of everyone that just walked into his life. This group of seven, plus the four fighters and their families, totaling nine, and the camp group of six. That’s a total of twenty two people, in one day that would bring their group total to almost fifty people. How the hell did this happen? They had only been actively looking for survivors for less than a week, and already his group had grown exponentially. Would this always be how it was when they ran scouting missions and reconnaissance? Vintago wasn’t sure he could keep up with these numbers. He did say he wanted to start an empire, and this was the way to do it, but growing too soon could cripple them just as easily.
“My name is Vintago Hawkins.” he says to the new group, “Welcome to our home. This of course can be your new home as well if you choose to stay.”
The entire group of people are all nodding their heads. The way most of these people have been living pales in comparison to how they live at the Hatchery Compound.
“Let’s get everyone initiated, cleaned up, fed, and armed.” Vintago says to his men.
Logan and the guys round up all the new members and they head over to towards the crew quarters. Since they cannot all fit inside the crew quarters anymore, Logan brings out a few chairs and asks everyone to make a line. Victoria comes out with them and helps build a new roster for all newcomers.
Firstly, they have the fighter group line up and go through them first, getting their skill sets, and their family members names. Next, they go through the camp members, even though they already know about them and their situation. Lastly, they get the information from the western camp group since they are largely unknown to Vintago and his fighters.
After all the information is collected, they bring everyone over to the armory and go through the motions. They ask who is comfortable with firearms and who is not. They tell the new members the rule about using M4s on missions, and they can keep their personal firearms or trade them in. At the end, all adults have either chosen to upgrade their firearms, or added on extra firearms like a handgun. All of the teenagers over fourteen have been giving a handgun and shown how to use them as well, which substantially satisfied Vintago. The more armed people in his camp the better he figures.
Once everyone that needs to be armed is ready. They start assigning people to their jobs.
Pastor Luke and his group will start preparing their camp to be hospitable to as many people as they can fit in there. Vintago wants them to clean up the lodge, and start preparing the outlying cabi
ns. He also wants them to make the lodge more defendable. The lodge will be used as a fallback position if the camp gets overrun and they need to be extracted by the hatchery team. It will serve as their stronghold so to speak. The munitions, food, and gear from the hatchery will be stored in the lodge, and everyone will meet there.
The pastor understands what Vintago wants and is fine with the jobs laid out for them.
The resort fighters and their families will be staying in the cabins nearest to the lodge. Vintago wants the women and children to make the cabins hospitable, and he wants the men in the group to work on securing the camp as well as possible. He wants them to work out patrol patterns and wants them to work on a fallback plan in case Charlie get into their camp.
Vintago tells the western camp group that he needs them to support the pastor with reinforcing their new home and also wants Cliff, Nelson, and Nelson’s son to be part of the fighting group. He wants Jerry to help the pastor work on securing the main building by putting his carpentry skills to use.
Vintago is going to provide radios, weapons, food, water, and supplies to get the church camp compound up and running. He dismisses all of the family members to go ahead and get themselves cleaned up and ready for dinner, which now is going to be one hell of an endeavor.
He asks that everyone that will be part of the fighting force to hold off before going inside.
“OK guys, since our fighting force has effectively doubled, I think it is time to add some structure to it.” Vintago begins, “Firstly, I want Colonel Bradley to be part of my command team. I am going to need your help to organize our fighting teams and can use your knowledge of battlefield tactics and military structure.”
“The next thing I want to do is divide everyone up into three teams. We are going to have the Command team which will consist of Logan, Colonel Bradley, Mitch, Robby, and I.” Vintago explains.
“Next, we will have Alpha team which will be led by Trevor Steele, and consist of Anthony, Jose, and Nathan.” Vin says.