by Mike Mullin
Charlotte shifted nervously from foot to foot, but her voice sounded solid enough when she agreed to take on the project.
“Wake me up at dinnertime with a report,” I told them. I picked my way through the wounded to my bunk, collapsed into it, and fell asleep almost instantly.
Dinner was three small pancakes and a kale leaf. As we ate, Anna gave her report. “If we drop to survival rations— eight hundred calories a day for the women and a thousand for the men, then we’ll run out of food in about fifty-seven days.”
“I expected it to be worse.”
“It depends on the survival rate,” Anna said. “Charlotte looked into that for me.”
“We’ve got the twelve original settlers,” Charlotte said, “forty-three uninjured newcomers, twenty-nine walking wounded, and thirty-three more seriously injured. One hundred seventeen total. Dr. McCarthy expects ten percent of the walking wounded to die, along with a third of the others, mostly from infections. So we’ll probably settle out at something like 103. I don’t have the detailed census done yet.”
“That’s okay—you’re doing great.” I privately congratulated myself on delegating these jobs to Anna and Charlotte—I had barely been able to stumble to my bunk, let alone count and do math.
“Ed and Alyssa are on cooking duty this week,”Anna said. “I already told them to cut back on the rations.”
“I noticed,” I stared mournfully at my empty plate. My stomach still rumbled with hunger. Get used to it, I told my body silently
“I can get you some more,” Anna offered.
“No,” I said firmly.
“How many greenhouses would it take to feed 103 people?”
“Oh, good question,” Anna said. “I didn’t figure that out.”
“You can tell me later.”
“No, no—I can get it now.” She was scribbling figures furiously in the margins of the clipboard. After a long pause, she said, “Well, assuming we can find enough bulbs to light them all, between seven and eight. Without artificial lighting, maybe eleven or twelve—assuming they’re equivalent to the ones we’ve already got in size and productivity.”
The problem, of course, was where would we get the glass, wire, and electric heating elements we needed for all those extra greenhouses? The glimmerings of an idea occurred to me, and I spent the rest of the evening talking to Uncle Paul, Darla, and Ben about it. As Ben was lecturing me on the finer points of military logistics, Dr. McCarthy walked up. “Can I talk to you?” he asked.
Ben actually quit talking—he seemed to be getting better at figuring out when to stop his nearly constant barrage of words. “Would you mind if we continued the discussion tomorrow?” I asked him.
“I would like that,” Ben said.
“Is there anywhere private we can talk?” Dr. McCarthy asked.
I led him into the base of the turbine tower. With the door closed, it was the most private indoor space we had. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Belinda and I have talked it over—we’re ready to move.”
I held out my hand. “Welcome to . . . whatever here is called. We really should think of a name for it.”
We shook hands. “Thanks. We’ll go back to Warren tomorrow, load up the Studebaker, and drive it out here.” “You sure Petty will let you go?” I asked. I was thrilled that Doc was moving; Mayor Petty would probably be exactly as furious as I was ecstatic.
“What Petty wants doesn’t figure high in my priorities right now. And he owes me—I did save his life.”
I nodded. “Be careful. Oh, and would you stop in and see Mom? Try to convince her to move? I’d really like her and Rebecca to join us.”
“Your mom seemed pretty set on staying.”
“I don’t get it. Why?”
“You know she’s seeing someone, right? I mean, I think she is. We’re not exactly close.”
“Really? Who?”
“Mayor Petty. They’re spending a lot of time together anyway.”
That was just freaking perfect. Why? It was unanswerable. And I certainly didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “I’ve gotta go.” As I reached for the door handle, I remembered the original point of the whole conversation. “Tell Belinda I’m really glad you’re moving here.”
“I will,” Dr. McCarthy replied as I left.
By the next morning, our population had fallen to 110. Seven people had died during the night. We had bandaged their wounds, carried them more than five miles to the homestead, and they had died anyway. I wanted nothing more than to get back into bed and sleep until the horror of it all passed.
I wasn’t the only one. Everywhere there were people sitting and staring into space. A woman wept quietly in a corner of the longhouse, her face turned toward the walls. A boy folded and refolded the blanket he had slept on. Every time he finished, he would look at the square of fabric, shake it out, and start again. I had to get them moving, get them doing something, anything but ruminating on the massacre.
I called all the original settlers together—ten of them, not counting me or Anna, who was in the sniper’s nest on watch. I assigned each of them a job and five or six newcomers to help. Four groups to scavenge lumber from nearby farmhouses. One group to assist Dr. McCarthy when he returned from Warren. A group to dig latrine pits, even though we didn’t need a new latrine pit yet. And so on.
“Alex,” Darla whispered to me. “You just assigned twenty-five people to scavenging lumber. We don’t have anything like twenty-five hammers, or pry bars, or anything.”
“We’ve got to get them doing something,” I whispered back. “They’re cracking up.” Then I raised my voice to address the whole group. “We don’t have enough tools for everyone. So your first job may be to make, find, or improvise what you need. A rock can serve as a hammer in a pinch, a pipe as a pry bar. The sooner we get these tasks done, the sooner we’ll be safe—with enough longhouses and greenhouses to sustain everyone.”
I expected to have arguments from some of the newcomers, but they went along, zombie-like, with everything I asked them to do. I stayed behind in the longhouse, trying to work out how we would get supplies to build the greenhouses we needed.
When Dr. McCarthy and Belinda got back with the Studebaker a couple of hours later, I had a pleasant sur-prise—Nylce Myers, the tiny woman who’d done such a capable job leading a squad during my attack on Stockton, had come with them. My mom and sister, however, had not.
After dinner that night, I addressed everyone in the longhouse. It was crowded in there, mostly because over half the floor space was taken up by Dr. McCarthy’s makeshift hospital. I wondered how many people could comfortably live in one longhouse this size. Maybe I’d ask Anna to figure it out.
I started with some of the bad news, figuring it was best to get that over with, like pulling off a bandage really fast. “We don’t have enough greenhouses to feed everyone.” A murmur of alarm raced through the room. “Now, we’ll be okay for a couple of months if we ration food carefully, but we’ve got to get more greenhouses producing wheat and kale as fast as we can.
“There is good news here. We’ve built four greenhouses already. We know how to do it. We’ve got sixty-seven wind turbines available for power. There’s no reason why, with all your help, we can’t construct a farm here that will sustain us through this winter, no matter how long it lasts.
“But there’s more bad news too. We don’t have enough wire, pipe, plastic, glass, heating elements, or caulk to finish the fifth greenhouse, let alone build more. We were getting supplies from Stockton, but that source is closed to us now.” I glanced self-consciously at my hook but left the explanation at that. If they wanted to know more, any of the original settlers could fill them in.
“I propose to mount an expedition toward Chicago. All the way to Chicago, if need be. It will be a difficult trip— 150 miles through unexplored territory. I want to take a group large enough that isolated gangs of flensers won’t dare mess with us, but small enough that we can flee if o
ur scouts warn us of serious opposition. Maybe about thirty able-bodied people. We’ll go on snowshoes and skis and try to scavenge bicycles, snowmobiles, or trucks along the way. If all goes well, we’ll bring back the supplies we need to build more greenhouses.
“We’ve also heard rumors that the government in D.C. has collapsed. By heading east, I hope we’ll be able to find out whether the rumors are true or not—whether any remnant of the old United States is left.
“The whole expedition will last about five weeks—a week to travel there, three weeks onsite scavenging, and a week for the return journey. I’m looking for volunteers—”
“I’ll go!” Max yelled.
“Particularly among our new residents. I’ll need most of the original settlers,” I fixed Max under my stare, “to stay here and get as much of the greenhouses done as possible before we return with the wiring. Please see
Charlotte—” I pointed her out, “right after this meeting to let her know if you’re willing to volunteer for the trip.”
There was a sudden murmur of conversation, and I waited a moment for it to die down.
“One more thing. We’ve always called this place the new farm or the homestead. But it’s not really just a homestead anymore. With a hundred people living here, it’s more of a village. And a village needs a name. Any suggestions?”
“You should call it Maxville!” Max yelled. A few people chuckled. I glared at him. What was with him tonight? Had he found a stash of alcohol or happy pills?
“I’ve got a suggestion,” Ed said, which surprised me. Ed rarely said anything, particularly not when a group of people was listening.
“Go on,” I said.
“It’s a word my Romanian grandmother taught me: Speranta. It means hope.”
Speranta. I rolled the word around my head and lips a couple of times. I liked it. We spent about fifteen minutes taking other suggestions, but in the end, Speranta won by acclamation, and I called an end to the meeting.
Later that night, I lay on my bedroll thinking. We’d become a village named Speranta, for hope. Could I deliver on the promise of that name?
Chapter 45
We left for Chicago two days later. Almost everyone who was healthy enough to walk volunteered, though oddly, not Reverend Evans. I chose twenty-seven of them plus Darla, Ed, and me. Max desperately wanted to go, but I dodged that issue by telling him he had to have his father’s permission. All the arguments Max could muster met the stone wall of Uncle Paul’s refusal. I could hardly blame him—he had seen how Darla and I had returned from our last trek away from the relative safety of the homestead.
At the village meeting to see us off after breakfast, I announced that Uncle Paul would be in charge of Speranta while I was gone. I sprang it on him in public so he couldn’t refuse. He knew exactly what was happening too, shooting me a look so dirty I felt a sudden need for a shower. Dr. McCarthy would have been an equally good choice for interim leader, but he had his hands full with the injured. Our population had fallen to 105, and I fully expected it to fall further while we were gone.
We moved cross-country on improvised skis and snow-shoes. They were the only reason it had taken us two days to leave—it took that long to make crude snowshoes for everyone. I put four pairs of scouts out on skis—one pair to our front, one to each flank, and one covering our back trail. I told them to range three or four miles out and rejoin us if they had anything to report, or at the end of the day I desperately wished for some handheld radios and added them to the list of things we hoped to scavenge in Chicago.
It seemed as though the sky were brighter than it had been. It was a hard thing to judge since it changed so little each day, but as we walked, I noticed that I could always tell where the sun was in the sky, despite the fact that I could never see it. The clouds of ash and sulfur dioxide that hid the sky were thinning.
We hit the town of Lena, seven or eight miles from Speranta, on the afternoon of the first day. We’d scouted it before, looking for a phonebook or well-drilling equipment. I already knew it was abandoned and thoroughly looted. We pushed on another three or four miles before spending the night in an abandoned farmhouse the forward scouts had found.
We covered about ten miles the next day, reaching the outskirts of Freeport just before dusk. I had never been there, but it looked much bigger than Warren or Stockton. The scouts hadn’t seen anyone all day. The silence and stillness of the landscape seemed ominous—where had all the people gone?
We trudged up to a restaurant at the edge of town: Family Affair Cafe, according to the signpost out front. The restaurant itself was covered in a snowdrift so massive, it nearly engulfed the building. At the lee side of the cafe, a window had been smashed. I set up a guard rotation, and we built a small fire right there in the middle of the restaurant. With the snow covering most of the building and all of us packed tightly together, it was warm enough, and I slept well.
In the morning I sent out four pairs of scouts with instructions to explore for an hour and then report back. The rest of us spent the hour resting and repairing snowshoes.
The team I sent along our back trail found nothing, which was expected but still a relief. It was good to know nobody was following us. Another pair found the library in downtown Freeport, but the maps, phone books, and the useful parts of the nonfiction section—everything on agriculture and engineering—were gone.
The pair I had sent south had followed road signs to Highland Community College, but when they got there, they found it ringed by a huge wall built of frozen dirt. Sentries atop the wall had shot at them, and they had hightailed it back to our base in the cafe.
The final pair of scouts—Nylce and Francine—had followed West Avenue to a commercial district on the south side of town. When they returned, they were grim and ashen-faced. I could hardly believe what they told me. Instead of talking about it longer—which I couldn’t bear to do—I asked them to take me there.
We went as a party of six—me, Nylce, Francine, Ed, Darla, and another survivor of the Warren massacre, Trig Boling. He was a lanky nineteen-year-old with a slightly misshapen face, like it had been frozen while he was scowling in a particularly energetic way. But despite his appearance, Trig was unfailingly friendly and cheerful—I liked having him around.
We only had three guns, but everyone was carrying at least one knife. We stalked through the city in silence, dreading our destination. After about ten minutes, we passed the Freeport City Cemetery—only a few of its tallest monuments protruded above the snow, lonely sentinels standing watch over a buried age.
Most of the buildings on West Avenue had burned. The first two shopping centers we passed had collapsed. As we approached the third, I noticed that Francine was caressing the handle of her knife, rubbing it as if it were a knotted muscle. Nylce’s head flicked constantly from side to side as if she were afraid someone would sneak up on her in the few seconds since her last sidelong glance.
As we approached the Meadowlands Shopping Center, I saw a glint of firelight through the glass storefront of a J. C. Penney. We slowed our approach, using the snow-covered mounds hiding parked cars as cover. When we got close enough to see inside the Penney’s, I realized that if anything, my scouts had understated the horror of the scene.
Three men dressed in ragged, bloodstained clothing crouched in front of a greasy fire. Around them were scattered thousands of burnt and cracked bones. Behind them, the grisly bone pile nearly reached the high ceiling. I could identify femurs, ribs, hip bones, and skulls—all of them fragmentary, roasted and cracked for their marrow.
All the bones were human.
Chapter 46
I dropped down behind the car/snow mound we were using as cover. What would Ben do? There were six of us and only three of them, but we had only three guns. Focus on the mission, Ben would probably say. The mission was acquiring supplies for the greenhouse.
“Move out,” I whispered. “Back to base.”
Darla nodded and started backtrackin
g, but Francine grabbed my arm. “You can’t just leave them here. They’ll keep killing people.”
“There are 105 people who’ll die if we don’t find supplies for building greenhouses,” I whispered.
“Killing a few flensers won’t help us find those supplies.” “Uh, Chief?” Ed said.
“What?” Obviously I needed to spend some more time working on turning this ragtag band of refugees into obedient soldiers.
“The flensers—they’re gone.”
I looked back at the J. C. Penney. The space in front of the fire was empty. Crap. Had they heard us? Better assume they had. “Where’d they go?”
“Two to our left, one to our right.”
“Getting help? Or going out the side doors of that store to circle around us?”
“Or maybe to follow us back to camp.”
That was a nasty thought. If they followed us, they could pick off our scouts two at a time as they came and went from the camp. I couldn’t allow that to happen.
Nylce had the bolt-action rifle—much better for sniping than the semi-automatics. “Get up on that hill behind us,” I told her. “Take Francine to spot for you.”
“On it.”
I handed the semi-automatic rifle I was carrying to Ed. “Take Trig. Set up an ambush over there at the edge of the parking lot. Darla and I will swing around and try to flush them out, push them toward you.”
“Yessir,” Ed replied.
Darla and I moved out to our right, hoping to intercept the singleton who had broken in that direction. We flitted from car to car, trying to stay under cover. I had no idea what kind of weapons these flensers might have.
We got around to the side door of the J. C. Penney without encountering anyone. There was no wide expanse of glass here, just a single glass door. Darla and I pressed ourselves against the brick wall to either side of the door and peered in.
The inside of the store was illuminated by the hellish flickers of the still-burning fire. I couldn’t see anyone inside, although anything could have been hiding behind the bone pile or in the dark corners of the room. I pointed at myself and the bone pile and then at Darla and her rifle.