by Lori Whitwam
“Huh.” Bethany dropped into a lawn chair, still studying the brown and white goat, which was contentedly chewing on a loose shingle. “Well, I’m guessing knocking him off the roof with a stick isn’t the way to go.”
“Probably not.” Too bad. I had a lot to do, and I resented his interference in my plans.
Bethany leaned back and folded her arms. “Maybe we could…”
We were saved from whatever convoluted idea we would have devised when Melissa came out the door with a bucket.
“Hey, guys, whatcha doing?” She looked at us, confused, shifting the bucket to her other hand. “You look sort of annoyed.”
Bethany pointed. The goat raised his head, saw Melissa, and spit out the shingle.
“Wilhelm,” Melissa scolded, “get down from there!”
She stood, one fist on her hip, the bucket still clutched in the other, and I had to ask. “Wilhelm?”
Melissa’s expression said I was totally missing the point. I probably was. “Yes, Wilhelm. People always call billy goats Billy, which is stupid. Anyway, I think he sounds German, so I named him Wilhelm.”
Bethany squinted one eye as she tried to follow the logic. “The goat, Wilhelm…is German?”
“Me-e-e-e-h.” Wilhelm apparently recognized his name. I detected no hint of a Teutonic accent, but what did I know?
Melissa giggled. “What he is right now is hungry. He needs to come down from there.”
“Um, yeah,” I said. “And how do we accomplish this?”
Melissa just shook her head and started across the yard, rapping on the side of the bucket with the knuckles of her other hand. The nannies began dancing around, bleating about the glories of feeding time. The billy turned and trotted to the back of the roof, where he disappeared. There was the clattering of hooves and the sound of some logs bouncing off the wood pile, then he appeared around the side of the coop, shouldering the nannies out of the way in order to reach the bucket first. Melissa gently pushed him aside and poured the contents of the bucket into several metal pans under a stunted apple tree. The goats dug in, and Melissa sat on the edge of the patio, watching them.
I gathered the eggs and went back inside to make lunch. Bethany sat at the table, stitching up a tear in the sleeve of a poplin jacket. I kept out the eggs I planned to use for our lunch and placed the rest in the mini refrigerator we were now able to operate.
My favorite cast iron skillet clattered as I placed it on the propane camp stove, but before I could light the burner, I heard a voice calling in the street.
Bethany and I hurried to the front door, just as Melissa came zipping around from the side yard. We saw eight-year-old Dustin Fowler pedaling down the middle of the road on his bicycle. “Meeting, meeting,” he shouted as he rode. “Everyone be in the pavilion in a half hour!”
You didn’t really need phones or text messaging when you had a bunch of little boys on bicycles. They were pretty efficient. Dustin continued down the street and around the corner, still calling out his news.
I felt as if my stomach filled with something hot and caustic. We’d been so busy bringing in early crops from the fields and greenhouses, shifting stockpiles, and moving the livestock, there hadn’t been a lot of time to worry about the council and what plans they might devise to thwart the hostile intentions of the marauder colony.
I was worried now. One glance at Bethany and Melissa told me they felt the same. We turned and went back inside, where I put our almost-lunch into the refrigerator and poured us each a glass of weak iced tea. With limited supplies, we used tea bags until they barely discolored the water.
My beagle, Skip, had been roused from a midday nap by the commotion, and he settled at my feet as we all sat at the table, unaware of the change in the lunch schedule. I rubbed his ears absently. “Any guesses, ladies?”
Bethany shrugged. “How many choices are there? Run, stay, or some combination of the two. We can’t go out and meet them head-on.”
Melissa didn’t say anything. Her mouth was set in a thin, angry line, and her shoulders were rigid.
I was about to say something soothing to Melissa—though I had no idea what—when Rebecca entered through the front door, her well-worn, calf-high army boots making an exclamation point of every step as she advanced on the kitchen.
“What are you doing sitting around? It’s time to move!” Rebecca was definitely a woman of action. She looked like she might be considering drawing her thin-bladed sword from the sheath on her back, so we moved. I gave Skip a couple of pieces of venison jerky to tide him over, and we headed out the door and toward the pavilion.
“I hope they came up with a good plan,” Rebecca said several minutes later as we took up positions near the pavilion. “I need something to fight.”
I nodded, but the truth was I wasn’t sure. I’d become an accomplished fighter in the time since I lost Quinn, but I’d only killed the technically-already-dead. I wondered how I’d do against a living opponent, one capable of fighting back with more than gnashing teeth and jagged, bony fingertips. I pushed the thought away.
Before long, Rich appeared in the pavilion. His teenage son was moving around, setting a small speaker on the step at the front of the structure and tapping a hand-held microphone. I suspected Rich must have a lot to say.
The neighborhood captain accepted the microphone from his son. “I’ve got a bit more to talk about today, and didn’t want to pop a vocal cord yelling.” He gave a sheepish smile, and the chuckles from the crowd were obligatory and stiff. So much for lightening the mood. Resigned, he cleared his throat. “You all know the threat we’re facing. We pulled in our patrols, and the last team arrived late last night. They report the usual activity from the enemy, but an increased number of clusters of zombies between here and there.”
This was disturbing news. We’d worked hard since the Compound was established, especially over the past year, and the numbers of zombies in our immediate area, while still dangerous, had been steadily declining. I was willing to bet the marauders were sending out teams to lead them in our direction, before losing them and doubling back to their camp. Zombies tended to keep moving in whatever direction they were going, unless something blocked their way—like a river or ravine—or something else caught their attention.
Rich gave us credit for being able to make that deduction on our own. “Clearly, they hope to keep us busy and distracted dealing with deadlies, and if our numbers happen to get thinned in the process, so much the better.”
“Let’s just turn ’em back in their direction, then,” declared a bearded man, nudging his nearby friends for confirmation.
“I hear you, Clint.” Rich raised his hand in a ‘hold off’ gesture. “But listen up a bit, and you’ll see why we don’t think that’s our best move.” Clint gave a terse nod, and Rich continued. “It’s still a good distance away, because other than what we figure are their spy teams, their patrols aren’t moving too far from their base. They get the zombies moving, but there are a lot of things that could turn them away before they get anywhere near us. The council believes, and I agree, this is actually good news.”
Some disbelieving murmurs broke out, but Rich settled them down. “Think about it, everybody. It’s a very preliminary step. It’s not a serious threat. It takes little effort and carries little risk for them, so they go ahead and try to send a few deadlies our way. But what it means is our intelligence was correct, and they’re not ready to move on us soon, which means we have time to prepare. And that’s why you’re all here this afternoon.”
I stepped closer to Melissa, our shoulders lightly brushing. Whatever we were going to hear, I wanted her to know she wasn’t in it alone or without support.
Rich stepped closer to the speaker and cringed as a squeal of feedback pierced the air. He moved back, wiggling one finger in his ear. “The council has been planning for situations such as this since the beginning. Depending on how it came about, they had some preliminary ideas for how to deal with it. After me
eting with the patrol leaders and neighborhood captains last night, this is what they want to do.”
Rebecca’s hand twitched in the direction of the knife at her hip, a conditioned response. Bethany just looked pale and perhaps a bit nauseated.
“The fact we’re so established here is both a blessing and a curse,” Rich said, somehow simultaneously conveying pride and regret. I wondered if he’d been a trial lawyer, or maybe a motivational speaker in his former life. “It means we have a good life, but it makes us a target, and a large enough force coming against us could take the Compound. There’s been a plan in the works for some time, though it’s still in its early stages, to establish some fallback locations. These would be places within a few days’ travel from here. Places we’d stock with supplies, fortify, and settle a small group there to maintain it in case of need.” My ears pricked up at this. The idea sounded interesting. “There are to be four locations, and only the council knows the locations of all four. Scouts have been seeking out suitable places for the past year, places we can secure to an acceptable degree, house the people we want on site, and provide short-term residence for groups of people if we have to evacuate.”
An older woman standing on a picnic table didn’t care for this idea. “What, we’re all just gonna split up? Run? We got a good community here, friends, and family. We can’t scatter off all over the place.”
“You’re right, Deena, and that’s not the plan. A site has been chosen for a new permanent settlement, should something happen and we have to abandon this place. The fallback locations are kind of like waystations. Everyone in the Compound will be assigned to one of these places, in the event of an emergency, with several sergeants leading each group. If things go balls-up…” He paused and seemed to blush a bit at his lapse from the formal tone he’d been employing. “If things go badly, groups move to their fallback point. The folks there will have stocks of supplies—because we’d have to leave a lot behind—and places for you to rest, for the injured to be treated, before moving on to the new settlement.”
Despite the dire nature of such a plan, I found myself becoming excited. I’d been meek and passive my whole life, until Quinn died and I saw the price such passivity could demand. Now I looked toward action. What could I do? How could I help? How could I be stronger and make things better? And how did I go about being chosen to be on one of those fallback teams?
Then I looked at Melissa. She’d come a long way since our rescue, but was she up to such a risk? The tight line of her lips hadn’t eased, but her gray eyes were narrowed in thought. I could practically hear the wheels turning.
The crowd had begun commenting among themselves, and Rich called for their attention. “The first priority is and always will be to secure this community. But we’d be foolish if we didn’t have a plan in place for if we’re not successful.” He squared his shoulders and swept his gaze across the gathering. “Nobody will be forced to leave now, to be sent to a fallback location. Nobody,” he emphasized. “We ask you all to think about this tonight, talk to your friends and family. Anybody who would like to volunteer should sign up tomorrow morning, nine o’clock, at the council chamber. List the jobs you’ve done here, and the skills you’ve been trained in. The council will go through the information and assign teams with the right balance of abilities and skills for each location.”
“What about our families?” someone asked.
“Yeah, good question, Mitch. Every person on a team has to contribute. Three of the locations are to be manned by groups of twenty or less. One is a good bit bigger, intended to be our primary medical waystation, and it will have maybe forty people and room for a lot more. So no more than a hundred people, about ten percent of our population, will be going.” One hand fluttered over his thinning brown hair, as if uncertain of how his next words would be received. “Now, as for families…nobody under sixteen will be considered for the fallbacks. No exceptions. If you have kids and aren’t prepared to leave them here with their other parent or another trusted adult, you aren’t going, and that’s that.”
This did cause some rumblings among the assembly. A few of the scouts and scavengers, clearly intrigued by the idea of traveling and establishing a new settlement, however small, had families and were not pleased they couldn’t go unless they were willing to leave their families behind. But I thought the rule made perfect sense. If you were only taking twenty people, every one of them had to be able to carry their share of the workload, and to defend themselves when necessary.
“Those who remain will go on as before, with a few changes. We’ll be increasing fortification and deterrents.” He meant traps. For both the living and the dead. “We’ll be concentrating on stockpiling weapons and supplies, some of which will be delivered by special courier teams to the fallbacks.”
He went on for several more minutes, discussing additional scavenge missions to locate canned or other shelf-stable food to supplement what would be lost by not planting our fields outside the walls, which vehicles would be used for the fallback mission and possible future evacuation, and the criteria for selecting from among the volunteers. There were a few questions, which he answered patiently, then we were sent on our ways to consider all we’d been told.
We were quiet as we walked the four blocks back to our house, each lost in our own thoughts. Foremost in my mind was I wanted to go. I wanted the new challenge, but I’d only go if Melissa agreed. I’d promised her I’d never leave her, and I meant it.
I was extremely glad she was over sixteen.
CHAPTER THREE
We prepared our interrupted lunch, though it was now more of an early dinner. There was a silent agreement not to discuss the fallback plan until we were finished. I gave Skip the chicken liver and gizzards I’d saved when making last night’s dinner, then put him out in the back yard, where he made a show of ignoring the goats. Wilhelm had tried to butt him immediately upon his arrival the previous day, and Skip held a grudge.
Once the kitchen was cleaned, we adjourned to the living room, looking at each other and wondering where to start.
Rebecca kicked off her boots and propped her feet on the coffee table, eying us one by one before speaking. “Fine. I’ll start. No, it’s not an ideal plan, but I think it’s the best approach, given the situation.”
“I don’t know,” Bethany said, reaching for her sewing basket and retrieving a half-finished mending project. “Is it really a good idea to divide our forces?”
“Don’t look at it as dividing,” Rebecca responded, pulling her braid over her shoulder and beginning to unwrap the elastic band at its tip. “Look at it as not putting all our eggs in one basket.”
I agreed. “What else can we do? We can’t launch an attack ourselves, so this fallback thing is a done deal.”
Bethany pulled a stitch tight and knotted the thread. “I know, Ellen. I just can’t stand this, any of this. I thought we were safe.”
We were all quiet for a moment, pondering the notion of safety.
Then Melissa spoke up. “We’re not safe,” she said, her voice soft even in the still room. “We never were. Not before everything died, not when we were running or hiding, and not now. The only difference is now we know it.”
Her words tore at my heart. I knew safety was an illusion; I just wished Melissa didn’t have to live with that knowledge.
I decided to be practical. “Okay, then. We know we’re always in danger, but that threat is growing every day the marauders have to prepare. So we have to prepare, and that means fallback settlements. It’s happening. Now we have to decide how we can help, how we can make the situation safer, for ourselves and for the community.” Everyone would have a part to play, whether it was staying here and helping with the fortification and defense, or heading to one of the outposts to provide a safe gathering point should the worst happen.
Rebecca paused in unraveling her braid. “I’m volunteering.” Her voice rang with absolute certainty. I knew she’d be selected. In addition to her a
lmost superhuman skill with any bladed weapon, she was an outstanding marksman and could take down fast-moving game with an arrow. Any expedition needed someone with her abilities.
Bethany shifted in the armchair, dropping her gaze to the partially mended shirt in her hands. “I knew you would. I…I can’t. It might not be totally safe here, but it’s safer than out there.” Her voice began to tremble. “When the outbreak started, and we were all running, watching our families die, I can’t go back to that. Not unless I don’t have another choice.”
I rose from the couch and went to sit on the ottoman by her chair. Touching her arm, I said, “Nobody is judging you, Beth. You know better than that. We all have to make our decisions, figure out what we need to do.”
She raised her head and met my eyes. “What are you going to do, Ellen?”
I withdrew my hand and looked around the room, finally focusing on Melissa. She sat at her piano bench, watching me closely. “Well, Melissa and I are a team, so I guess we need to talk it over.”
Melissa scooted off the bench, nodded in the direction of the back door, and left the room. I followed, meeting her on the patio. Skip ran over, glad for company of a non-caprine nature. I settled uneasily in a lawn chair, while Melissa sat cross-legged on the patio, Skip sprawling across her lap.
“I know what you want to do,” she said, rubbing under Skip’s chin.
“What I want to do and what I will do might not be the same thing.” I rummaged around in my vocabulary for the words to explain what I meant. “There are only two choices. We both go, or we both stay, because there is absolutely no scenario where I go anywhere without you.” I slid out of the chair and sat beside her, one hand automatically drifting over to stroke Skip’s fur. “And I will not make that decision for you.” I couldn’t. She’d fought so hard to recover from everything she’d endured, and I would never intentionally do anything to upset the equilibrium she’d found.