“Then what’s…?”
“How many outsiders are in town now?” Shane asked, not letting him finish the question.
Frank frowned. “Including the McDonald family?” he asked, a sharp edge to his voice. “I seem to recall they weren’t local before all of this happened. Drove into town from…where was it? Resaca, I believe? Why that’s halfway between Atlanta and Chattanooga.”
“Fair enough,” Shane replied, “but how many people have come since the event? You’ve got a whole tent camp in the park. How many are living there, and what are they contributing to the community? With you being so worried about food, it wouldn’t make sense to bring in a whole bunch of new mouths to feed, would it?”
With deliberate slowness, Frank folded the big city map and slid it to one side. Then he steepled his hands on the tabletop. “I don’t know who’s spreading rumors, but there aren’t as many new people in town as you think. I haven’t inventoried every single one of them, but I have a general idea of how many there are.”
“Don’t you think it would be smart to get your committee to take a census of the tent camp?” Shane said. “Even an informal count would give you an idea of what we’re dealing with. Plus, you might find that there are some newcomers with skills we can use. People with trade skills or experience in labor and construction could help with some of the building projects as a way to pay back the community that has taken them in.”
“It’s worth thinking about,” Frank said. “Is that all you wanted to talk about?”
“How hard would it be to go the tent camp and talk to people?” Shane said. “Take an informal census right now.”
“I’ve been there.”
“And?”
Frank grabbed his pencil, tapped it on the table, and grabbed his map again. “I don’t think you have a good sense of how busy I am these days. I’ll mention your idea to the committee and see what they want to do. That’ll just have to be good enough. If you’re upset I’m not doing more, get in line. Half the town expects me to add a thousand new tasks to my plate.”
Shane could see he wasn’t getting anywhere, so he pushed his chair back and stood up. “Well, thanks for your time. Have a nice day.”
“Right,” Frank muttered, as he went back to scribbling on his map.
At this point, Shane was pretty sure the mayor was writing on the map just to write on it, so he turned and walked away. When he stepped outside, he thought he might spot Jodi and Kaylee walking in the distance, but he’d apparently wasted a little more time in the mayor’s office than he realized. They were already out of sight.
Grabbing a fold of his shirt, he pulled it away from his chest, hating the constant dampness that the inescapable heat produced. It actually felt better outside than in the mayor’s office, though he figured it was somewhere in the mid-90s. He considered the relatively short walk home. It wasn’t that far to the high school and city park, another half a mile at most.
He turned north and headed off in the direction of the park. He didn’t mind the walk. Actually, it felt good to be out and about, but still, he reached down and let his fingers brush the holster clipped to his belt. He didn’t leave the house for any reason without a gun at his side. Most of the city seemed quiet. Occasional noises came to him—barking dogs, distant voices—but the lack of traffic was still disconcerting. As he drew near the tent camp, he smelled it before he saw it. People had been cooking on charcoal grills, and the smell of smoke and charred food lingered in the air.
Finally, he rounded a corner just beyond the high school and saw at least a dozen tents set up in no particular order around the play area at the park. Most of them were large tents, and they seemed to be housing multiple families. At least twenty people were out in the open, most just sitting or lying about, others doing menial tasks as children dashed here and there. They had apparently been using the park’s own picnic grills, and Shane saw tendrils of gray smoke still rising.
The tent camp wasn’t nearly as big as he’d feared, but it still took up quite of a bit of space. There wasn’t an acre of available land for a garden. Since their whole community east of Macon had over three hundred people, a sliver of park land wouldn’t cut it. In fact, Shane estimated that if they wanted the community garden to make a dent in the town’s food needs, it would require most of the park. That, in turn, would require moving all of these people, and as he approached the tent city, Shane began to formulate a plan. He remembered something Corbin had once said when trying to get Shane to take solar panels off a seemingly abandoned house.
A lot of people got stranded across the country with no way to get home. You saw them. We all did. People living in tents or sleeping in their cars. They might never come back.
Shane had brushed off his comment at the time, but he knew that there was truth in it. Many of the houses in town were empty now, and the homeowners would never return. Surely there were enough of them to house all of the people in the park, and wouldn’t they prefer living in homes to living in tents?
Shane wondered if he could convince the mayor to confirm which houses had been abandoned as part of an overall census of the community. It would take a little more work, but it would also solve a major problem. Newcomers could take up residence in the houses, which would prevent them from falling into squalor. It would also eliminate the need for unsightly and unhealthy tent camps. People could scavenge for supplies in the abandoned homes, further supplementing the growing need.
There was always the risk that homeowners would return, even though weeks had passed, and there was still the hope that somehow, someday, the power grid would be restored and power returned. Still, they could cross either of those bridges when necessary. In the meantime, Shane was far more concerned with finding a way to keep the community fed so they didn’t put any heat on Beth for her secret storehouse.
As he approached the tents, a young man sitting on a camp stool along the outer perimeter doffed a yellow baseball cap at him and said, “Welcome, sir. Welcome.”
“How are things going here?” Shane asked.
“Are you some kind of city official or something?” the young man asked.
“No, just an interested local.”
The young man put his cap back on and twisted it around so the brim was in the back. “Things are going as you might expect. Everyone’s hungry, hot, and tired, but they’re still alive, and that’s an accomplishment these days.”
“I suppose it is,” Shane said. “What’s your name, young man? Where did you come from?”
“Brian,” he said. “I was stranded about seventy miles north of here, and once I started walking, I kept walking until I couldn’t walk no more. I had my pup tent on my back, and since this seemed like a safe enough place, I put down my shallow roots.”
“What were you doing when the power went out?” Shane asked.
“Working at a truck stop between Bolingbroke and Forsyth,” he said, “and with no ride home, I got stuck there for a few days. It didn’t take long for people to go nuts and start looting the place. I borrowed a few things myself, including the tent and a canteen. Since my boss left in his old truck without giving me a ride home, I figure it’s a fair trade.”
“I see,” Shane said. “Thanks for sharing your story, Brian.”
“It’s about all I’ve got to share,” he said.
Shane stepped past the kid and entered the cluster of tents. Once he was among the tents, he saw that conditions were already fairly squalid. Trash, dirty clothes, various discarded items, and muddy puddles everywhere, a lingering bad odor beneath the pall of charcoal and burned food. Shane saw two young girls swinging by their legs from the crossbeam of a swing set, a disinterested woman standing nearby but not watching them. Most of the people languished, sitting or lying on the ground, heads and feet poking out of tents.
A young couple were sitting together on a felt blanket nearby, and they both waved at him.
“Good morning,” the boy said.
“Hey there
,” Shane said. “What’s your story?”
“Stranded,” the boy said. “Like everyone else here. I’m Clint.”
“Where were you headed, Clint?”
The girl answered. “I’m Amy. We’re in college, but the semester had just ended, so we were on our way to visit my family. Then our car died a few miles to the south. I called home, but nobody answered, so after a while, we wound up here. Seemed like a friendly town, and we can’t just keep walking. My family is all the way in Atlanta, and I was never able to get hold of them before our phones died.”
“Amy thinks it’s safer here than staying on the road,” Clint said.
“Highways are dangerous now,” Amy said.
“I think you’re right about that,” Shane said.
“Plus, what have we got to return home to? With no power, we can’t go back to school for the summer semester. We might as well relax until somebody somewhere figures out how to fix the world.”
“That’ll take a long time,” Shane said.
“Exactly,” Amy replied.
He kept moving past the young couple. He felt compassion for them—for all of these poor people. Stranded, far from home, unable to contact loved ones. Still, he couldn’t help thinking about the strain they put on already limited resources. It was something he would have to bring up at the next town meeting, though he dreaded it.
He walked a circle through the tent camp, intending to head back home. He’d seen enough to get a sense of what needed to be done. As he rounded the swing set, he approached two young guys sitting on a park bench with backpacks at their feet. They were in their mid-twenties, one African-American and the other Latino, both dressed in denim work shirts and jeans, with steel-toed boots. He could tell they had worked hard labor. They had strong forearms, weather-beaten faces, and strong postures.
“Hey there, guys,” Shane said. “How’s it going?”
“How’s it look like it’s going, man?” the young African-American guy said. For one so young, he had tired eyes. “We sitting here with nothing to do, nothing to eat, nowhere to go. How you doing?”
“I’ve done better.” Wanting to test them, he stopped and extended his hand. “The name’s Shane.”
“Darien,” the young guy said, giving him a firm handshake with a callused hand. “This is Ignacio. You living here in the park, too?”
“No, no,” Shane. He shook Ignacio’s hand. “I’m a local. I just wanted to see how things are going here in the park. We’re trying to figure out some ways to improve conditions.”
“Put us to work, man,” Darien said. “Let us earn food and stuff. I told that mayor, but he said he’s too busy, so we’re just sitting here with nothing to do.”
“How can we survive just sitting around?” Ignacio said.
“We worked on a crew painting highway 75,” Darien said. “We were on the job when the EMP hit. Cars smashing into each other, people shouting and cussing each other. My truck still worked, so me and Ignacio drove the hell out of there. We got no families in Macon, so we were headed to Florida.”
“My abuelo owns a boat,” Ignacio said. “He’s going to fish and live off the land.”
“Yeah, but we couldn’t get enough gas,” Darien said. “We ran out sitting in that stupid line at the Sunoco and had to push the truck into the parking lot.”
“So you’re stuck here for the foreseeable future?” Shane said.
Darien shrugged. “I don’t know, man. People are friendly here, and most of the ones living at the park understand what we going through. Most of them stalled out like us and got stranded.”
“We talk a lot about moving on,” Ignacio said. “Maybe we will. Maybe we won’t. Hard to say.”
“I understand,” Shane said. “Well, good luck, gentlemen.”
Darien tipped him a salute as Shane moved away. He’d seen and heard enough. By and large, the people in the tent camp seemed languid, tired, trying to hold on to hope that maybe things would get better. He didn’t know how long that hope would last, as weeks turned to months. They needed to act on Violet’s plan soon. Just the sight of growing food would make people feel better about the future, and that would be vital for the long-term survival of the community.
More determined than ever, Shane headed home.
9
Beth had lost all enthusiasm for the town meetings. She no longer trusted the people of this community to make reasonable decisions, though she’d known some of them for decades. She was tempted to find an excuse to skip the meeting. It felt a little bit like waiting for a root canal. But she was even more nervous about missing it. Who knew what dumb decisions they might come up with if she wasn’t there to temper their thinking?
What felt so unjust about the whole situation was that any one of them could have taken the time to prepare for the future, as Beth had done. Any of them could have stockpiled some food and supplies. Instead, they’d chosen to live in willful ignorance, and now they were suffering for it. But did they acknowledge and regret their lack of planning? Of course not.
“Do we have to do this?” Beth muttered, sitting in the front seat of the LTD—her son Mike affectionately referred to it as the pimp-mobile—and staring at the front doors of the high school. Locals were streaming into the building, and she saw James standing just outside the doors, waiting for her. That, at least, made her feel marginally better about the whole awful affair.
“Sorry, Mother, we need to be here,” Jodi said from the back seat. “The community needs our input.”
“We’d better go,” Shane said, killing the engine. “Beth, do you really want to skip this meeting?”
“Of course,” she said, opening her door, “but I can’t. I know that.”
They’d left Corbin and Mike in charge of the house. Beth didn’t want any of the younger kids at the meeting in case things got out of hand. She no longer trusted Frank to maintain order, and she didn’t want the young ones to overhear any awful things that were said. Violet had tried to talk them into bringing her so she could present her park garden plans. She hadn’t appreciated being left behind. As far as Beth knew, she was still moping in the back bedroom.
James hurried to meet them as they approached. The poor sweet man looked absolutely worn out. He was wearing his sheriff’s uniform, the brown button-up shirt with the shiny badge on the pocket, and his beloved broad-brimmed hat. James went for a handshake, but Beth dodged his hand and gave him a hug instead. He looked like he needed it.
“Standing room crowd in there,” he said. “We might have the whole community this time.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“That remains to be seen.”
James started back toward the building. Shane, Jodi, and Owen moved up beside Beth. It seemed better for them to put on a united front, in case the issue of redistributing food came up again. James held the door for them. Inside the lobby of the high school, there was a traffic jam around the auditorium doors. The whole building reeked of body odor.
If James hadn’t forced his way through the crowd, they might not have found a place to sit. As it was, they wound up about halfway back, in seats next to the aisle. Beth didn’t like it. She felt surrounded. Once she took the aisle seat, Jodi sat beside her, then Shane and Owen. It didn’t take long to spot Ryan, their resident socialist, taking a prominent spot in the center of the front row. Nosy neighbor Nora wasn’t far away, folded up in a seat just behind him.
Let’s get this over with, Beth thought.
James climbed the steps to the stage, where Mayor Frank Zion was seated on a plastic chair, the megaphone on his lap. This time, he’d brought a big clear-plastic podium on stage, placing it front and center. They shook hands before the sheriff sat down beside him. The crowd was restless. There weren’t enough seats for everyone, so a bunch of people wound up crammed together at the back of the room or sitting on the floor in the aisles.
After a moment, the mayor rose, raised his megaphone, and addressed the crowd.
/> “I want to thank you folks for coming today,” he said. “Looks like we got just about everyone this time. That’s good. It’s better if I can speak to you directly rather than letting second-hand information filter throughout the community.”
He grabbed what Beth realized was a judge’s gavel from off the podium. He tucked the end of the gavel into his vest pocket, then pulled out a folded piece of paper, which he unfolded and set on the podium.
“Okay, it’s probably good to begin by recapping the current problems we’re dealing with,” the mayor said. “That way we don’t end up repeating ourselves all evening. The sheriff has been keeping track of complaints, and, of course, I’ve got my own share here. First, yes, we’re still dealing with a lot of property damage and petty theft.” He looked at the audience, holding up his free hand in a gesture of pleading. “Folks, I’m begging you, please stop the vandalism. I don’t know if you’re just bored or what, but please stop it. Also, the stealing, stop taking things from your neighbors. We’re getting multiple reports of theft every day.” He slapped the paper again and pressed it against the podium to flatten it. “Then, of course, there’s the problem of food. We’ll talk about that in a minute. What have I overlooked?”
Beth sat low in her seat, her hands clamped to her thighs. She felt the soft cotton of her summer dress against her fingers. Suddenly, in the middle of Frank talking about the community food pantry, Shane raised his hand. When Frank didn’t immediately respond, Shane began waving his hand back and forth. Beth knew what he was doing. They’d talked about it. Shane called it, “Controlling the conversation.”
“Shane McDonald,” Mayor Frank said. “Did you want to say something?”
“Speaking of food problems, I visited the tent camp at Memorial Park,” he said.
“Can we talk about that later?” the mayor said.
“I met a lot of people,” Shane continued, speaking right over him. “Decent folks, as far as I could tell, but if we keep accumulating outsiders, we’re liable to run into trouble. If we’re really so worried about meeting basic needs, I think we need to set up a merit-based system to determine who gets to stay in the community. It’ll be good if they have some meaningful way to contribute.”
Surviving The End (Book 3): New World Page 9