by Lee Thomas
With the construction of the wall, most people tried to get back to some sort of life, trying to find something to do to help themselves forget about what was outside the walls. We had people keeping the animals safe, and others growing the food. Once we had managed to find and install some solar power panels, plus hook up the nuclear-powered ship to the power grid on the base, we needed people to keep the power lines intact, make sure things like our water pumps kept going as well as some always staying on the wall to keep watch. The world was so different now, peoples’ priorities weren’t the same anymore; now it was survival, but the human mind can only handle so much stress, and some handled it better than others. We had several cases early on of people freaking out and running out away from the group, both before we got here and after, and even a couple of incidents where some men had taken their guns and started shooting others, and finally themselves, to ‘free’ us from living with the infected and mutants.
Stress was always a factor of life, even more so now that we were essentially living a horror story. Most people couldn’t process the fact of what had happened, and even now, with the wall, we occasionally found an empty house, or abandoned work station and never found the people they belonged to. Our hunting teams reported people missing every now and then too, and I wasn’t at all positive it was because of the occasional infected attack. As much as it pained me to admit it, I couldn’t save everyone. I kept myself sane by remembering that I did save my family, my close friends, and many others who decided to join us. Every person saved was a victory, or so I thought, and even though I didn’t know every single person here, I still felt responsible when something happened to one of them.
“Here we are, home sweet home.” I said as we pulled up to Michelle’s new house. It was nice house on the base proper, two story, with a chain link fence around the front yard, and a privacy fence surrounding the back. Some shrubbery and flowers along the front gave it a nice, homey look. The plants had all started to grow a little wild before we arrived and got the wall built, but several people had taken it upon themselves to go around the entire secured area and start taking care of the landscaping as best they could. More and more people helped them as we figured out who could do what, and what was needed to be done, and as all the necessary, important roles were taken care of, those left over decided to help make things look better.
“You want to stay for a bit, help me unpack some?” Michelle asked. I could see her bags had been dropped off and were sitting on the porch already, and it appeared the girls bags were there as well.
“Yeah, for a little bit. I have almost everything ready on the ship to leave on Sunday, so I’m not needed there tonight. Let’s get your stuff inside at least.” I answered. The girls had already got out of the cart and headed up to the porch to get their bags.
“Girls, hold up, I have a surprise for you.” I said as they were picking out their bags from the pile.
“What is it?” Angie asked, turning towards me and her mom.
“See this house next door? It’s very similar to this one, has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living rooms, and it’s empty. Unless you girls want it for your own, have some privacy.” I told them, pointing to the house next door. I was so sure they would want their own house that I had a gate installed between the front yards since they both had chain link fence surrounding the yard. I planned on bringing them Max and Maya as well since the girls loved the dogs too, and it would ease my mind to have the dogs here with them, that way I would know they were safe and taken care of, as well as give the girls something fun to do as they still liked playing with the dogs.
“I call first dibs on a room.” Angie yelled, shoving Cassie out of the way and heading for the gate. Cassie yelled at her, then grabbed her bag and followed her, being closely followed by Desi. I knew it would probably be a fight over who got what room, but since they were all roughly the same size, hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad. That would give the girls some privacy from parents, as well as give Michelle some space all to her own to relax and get away from everything going on outside, but still allow them all to see each other easily. Michelle and I laughed as they headed for the door, and then turned and walked up to her door and took her bags inside. She had me drop them off in the bedroom and then I rejoined her in the kitchen. She had been staying here off and on for a while now, so the house was partly set up already; this would simply get all her stuff here and let her live here full time if she wanted.
“How do you like the house? I know you like being off the ship at last.” I asked her, accepting the glass of water she handed me. Neither of us liked tap water before, but since there was a water processing plant on the base that we got running, the few engineers we had found had made a couple of small adjustments and filtered the water well. As such, the tap water wasn’t too bad to drink, especially when you put a jug of it in the fridge to get cold first.
“I love it. It’s quiet here, so I can blare my music if I want, and it’s far enough away from the wall that I don’t have to worry about being heard out there either. Plus, I love the privacy and the space, my own bathroom, and the smell is much better. How did you live on that thing for all that time? I constantly had to go outside for some fresh air.” She replied. The smell she was referring to was the almost constant mix of salt, steel, and JP5, which was the jet fuel. The berths, or cabins as we had taken to calling them, used to also include the rank smell of too many people crammed into one room. Shipboard life was never easy, but the men and women of the US Navy were a tough lot, and we put up with a lot to serve our country and do what was needed of us.
“You get used to it, eventually. At least the taste wasn’t in the water anymore. That was just part of life on ship, the water and air scrubbers only did so much. At least you have the house, and since you gave Mrs. Grayson most of the galley responsibilities you don’t have anything you must do every day anymore. Find a hobby, keep yourself occupied. Once the northern area is secure, and we move, we can all relax and just start living.” I told her. I knew that wouldn’t do much to ease her mind, but I had to try at least. We chatted for a little bit longer, and then I said goodbye and headed back towards the ship. I was tired and wanted to get a little bit of sleep before making the last rounds of saying goodbye and making sure everything was set here before heading north.
Sept. 16th, 2020
I woke the next day around nine in the morning, and after my morning routine of bathroom then coffee, I decided that today I was going to go down to the practice ring and get a little sparring practice in. It had been several weeks since I had been down there, and if I didn’t soon I was going to start getting rusty again. I got into my flight deck boots, which were surprisingly comfortable, and offered good ankle support, along with jeans and a t-shirt. I went up to the bridge first to see if anything had happened overnight I needed to know about, but with everything listed as good, I headed down to the practice mat.
Stepping into the hangar bay, the morning sun filled the bays and made it quite bright. I could hear sounds of people swimming already this morning, which I would probably do later myself. Walking up to the practice area, which was set up in hangar bay 3, the most aft, or back, bay, I could see four or five others there talking. The first one to spot me nodded his head up to indicate me, and the others turned to greet me.
“Here for some practice, sir?” one of them asked me. The ‘sir’ told me he was one of the military folks that still saw me in charge, and one of the few I hadn’t broken of that habit yet.
“Yes, I am. It’s been a few weeks since I have, and I figured it was about time. Please, though, drop the ‘sir’ stuff, my name is Sheldon.” I replied, trying yet again to lessen the military mind-set of the troops.
“Yes, sir, er, Sheldon, I’ll try to remember that.” He answered.
“Good. Now, toss me a couple of those practice blades, would you?” I asked. Catching the two tossed to me, I gave them a few test swings and found them to be well balanced an
d weighted, thinking they would do fine. I ran myself through a couple of quick drills, quickly going through blocks and parries and attacks. The others had broken off into pairs and started sparring with each other, quick attacks, all seemingly aimed at kill shots aimed at the head. While that was good to know against the infected, I decided to throw them for a loop and dart in with an unexpected attack from behind. The one facing me saw it coming and yelled at the guy he was sparring with, but he took it as an opportunity to strike and scored a hit against his opponent. Unfortunately, that left him completely open to my attack, which caught him square in the side of the neck. He turned around then and saw my sword still pointed at his face. His surprise told me he hadn’t been out in the field much, and that was the type of person who got killed or got others killed.
“Always watch your back. The infected won’t play nice and don’t care about rules, and neither will any rogue groups you come across. I don’t want any of my people to die because they were stupid or inattentive, or risk anyone else’s life because of it.” I told him, lowering my sword. A quick lesson here could save his, or someone else’s, life later on.
“Yes, sir.” He replied. The others had stopped to listen and I could see that they all took the lesson to heart, which was good. I squared off with one the men this time and we all resumed sparring with one another. After a few minutes, my opponent’s eyes darted behind me, which told me that someone was trying my trick. Spinning around, I swung low as I ducked, catching the one I surprised earlier with a blow to the knees, taking his legs out from under him as his swing went harmlessly above my head. He hit the mat flat on his back as my second sword came down on his chest. After a few seconds, the others started laughing and cheering, poking fun at him. Standing, I reached my hand out to help him up, telling him it was a good try, but his friend gave it away with his eyes.
“It really was a good try, I will give you that, and if he hadn’t had moved his eyes, you would’ve got me. How about a group session, say me and you against those four?” I offered, seeing as how I had apparently embarrassed him in front of his friends. They all agreed, and the other four grouped up, probably trying to come up with a strategy to outflank us and simply use the numbers against us, which would be effective, but Roger and I always trained together with uneven odds, so we were used to it. I would simply have to get Henry here up to speed on how to use their numbers to our advantage.
“Ok, listen up, they are going to try to outflank us and surround us. What I want us to do is stay back to back as they do, feint a few times to keep their attention, but when they try a group attack, I want you to roll in between the two to your right, and I’m going to do the same. If we do it right, that will put all four of them in between us with not a lot of maneuvering room, got it? Once there, just use your skills and keep them occupied. Do your best to not get hit, and I will come help as soon as possible.” I said, explaining our game plan. Henry nodded his understanding and grinned, ready to test himself it seemed. I made a note to ask Tony if this group had ever been out yet with us, and if not to get them some more thorough training. We set ourselves and waited for the others.
The rules of sparring were simple. We used melee rules, which was a medieval combat role-play I used to do. A hit to an arm or a leg disabled that limb, and three limb hits counted as death. Head shots were an instant kill, as well as chest or upper back hits. Stomach blows slowed you down, but killed you in five minutes whether you got hit again or not. We usually had judges watching to keep track of everything so everyone could just fight, but today we didn’t.
Spreading out, the other four started their smack talk, trying to goad us into a mistake, but I nodded at Henry and we simply got into a stance. The other four did exactly what I thought they would do and used their numbers to surround us, two of them staying near me and the other two quickly moving around Henry. We waited and watched, each of us throwing some quick fake swings at them to keep them on their toes, and as soon as they yelled and started a group attack, Henry and I both rolled, moving under their attacks and out of the middle of the pile. I quickly stood and swung at the closest one to me, taking out his sword arm, which forced him to drop the weapon and have to pick it up with his non-dominant arm. The other guy on my side blocked my swing as he had a few more seconds to respond, but I managed a cross swing that took the sword out of his hand. I then parried the attack from the first guy and then disabled one of his legs, turning him into what we called in melee a landmine; someone who couldn’t move but could still attack you.
I saw Henry was having trouble keeping both of his two off him, so I maneuvered around the still mobile opponent I had, and did a rolling leg swipe to both of Henry’s attackers, catching them both in the back of the knees. They both became landmines then, leaving only one opponent still mobile, but all of them could still attack so we had to still be careful. Henry and I moved around to give us more room on the mat to stay away from the ones who were down. The one still mobile followed us, but was smart enough to stay close to his buddies to use them. Henry and I separated to provide a less accessible target while keeping an eye on our landmines. The mobile one, Kyle I think was his name, moved off to the side to go after Henry, leaving Travis, one of the landmines, exposed by himself. With only one sword to my two, and not being able to move, he was an easy target, so I blocked his thrust, knocked his sword to the side and then used a straight thrust to the chest to finish him off.
Frank, another landmine, used the opportunity to make a wild swing at my leg, but thankfully I was just a few inches too far away, and it allowed me to knock the sword even further along the arc it was following and then take out his other arm. With both arms disabled now, that was three limbs, so he was no longer a threat; I then turned my attention to Kyle and the remaining landmine, Larry.
“Two down, two to go.” I said to Henry in encouragement. I could tell he was starting to get winded, so I figured he would make a mistake soon. I tried to get Larry and Kyle’s attention by going on the attack, but I still had to watch myself to make sure I didn’t make a mistake. Larry took a swipe at my legs, which I hopped back from, and Kyle came at me while I was off balance, causing me to trip and roll backwards. As I came back upright into a defensive stance, Kyle was already on me and I barely parried his attack but was unable to get my own blade up to hit him. He crashed into me, knocking me backwards, and I brought my hand up to shove him off me when the thunk on the top of his head stopped him cold. It was Henry who had come up behind him as I went down and took him out. Kyle acknowledged the kill with a sigh and got up to go the side of the mat and wait for us to finish of Larry. Henry helped me up and then we both turned our attention to Larry.
“C’mon, let’s go, let’s get this over with.” Larry said, scooting another sword over that Frank dropped. With only his legs disabled he could wield both swords, and the way he did showed that he practiced with two quite a bit. That would make it slightly more challenging, but with the two of us still mobile, Larry would have to be exceptionally good to win this.
I motioned to Henry to move to the other side of Larry so he would be forced to split his attention between us. Larry continuously twisted his head back and forth between us, waiting to see who would make the move first. We both tensed and Frank waved his blades around, trying to make it more difficult for us to get to him. Henry feinted towards him and then jumped back, which caused Larry to swing defensively and then immediately swing around at me, blocking my fake attack, which allowed Henry to jump inside his guard and land a neck shot, ending the round. Applause immediately rang out from those who had gathered to watch, which wasn’t many at this hour of the morning, but a small crowd nonetheless. I raised my sword in a salute to the guys we just fought, who acknowledged it gracefully, and were already talking amongst themselves, probably to figure out how to do what I just did. I was trying not to show how much that winded me, and I realized then how out of shape I was getting again.
Placing the practice swords bac
k in the bin, and politely declining the offers of a match right now, I headed back up towards my cabin to take a quick shower and change into some clean clothes. I wanted to stroll around the ship today and see how everything and everyone was doing. It had been a while since I just walked around talking to people, and it would be good to touch base with them again. Fewer and fewer people were staying on the ship, and most of the ones left were taking care of the hydroponics onboard, the few medical people we had left, and only the minimum required to keep the engines and various mechanical parts maintained. All together I would guess there was only about three to four hundred people left living on the ship, the rest had claimed homes on base or in the city section.
After a quick shower and getting redressed, I headed out of my cabin and headed down towards the galley for a quick bite to eat. I saw several people I knew in there, most of them ones we had found along the way or brought with us from Oklahoma, but none of my inner circle of friends. That was probably because I had made sure that most of them were off-ship for this project. Tony was an exception, as well as Roger, but I trusted both of them and I knew they would be able to watch themselves. It also meant that Val and Dave were here to help keep an eye on things, make sure people weren’t getting cooped up feeling or anything like that. Dave did a pretty good job of organizing fun things to do to get people’s mind off things for a short time, and with the finding of pool tables and various other recreational games, people could take breaks from reality for a bit and unwind.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this starting to turn into more of a medieval town than a modern city. Sure, we had things like limited power, the radios, and even running water for the most part, but our food supply was always in dangerously low supply, and weapons and tools could no longer be easily obtained. We lived behind walls, fought every day for survival, and basic medicine was almost out of reach as well. I knew I was getting bored, which was leading to more and more outrageous thoughts, but in a few days when we started the ship moving and began clearing the peninsula, everything would be in hyper focus for a while, making sure everyone was safe, grids were laid out, every possible nook, cranny, and hiding hole were searched and made safe. It was a daunting task to be sure, I only hoped it was the last one, and then we could move people and begin the process of setting up farms, schools, markets, and various other needs for survival.