Darren noticed his gaze. “Even with the guards posted out in town, we still keep a full time watch shift on the roof, just in case.”
The guards on the roof stared down at them and Darren waved at them. Travis looked around and noticed that the others who were at the water trucks were giving them suspicious looks as well.
“Everything okay here?” Malcolm asked, picking up on the general feeling.
“You’re the first people we’ve let inside the walls since we were attacked,” Darren said. “Don’t take it personally, they’re just jumpy. Come on, I’ll give you the full tour.”
Travis remembered Malcolm mentioning that the group here had been betrayed by strangers they had taken in. He had to admire them for being willing to trust again. He knew he would have a hard time with it if he was in their shoes.
A teenage boy jogged up to them, the spitting image of Darren. “Hey Pop, Rose has rounded up the ones who want to meet with the doctor. They’re waiting at the clinic. Oh, and good to see everybody again.”
“It’s good to see you too, Jed,” Malcolm said with a smile as Trey and Jed slapped hands in greeting. “You’ve been keeping your old man out of trouble I see.”
“I do my best, sir,” Jed replied.
“He’s been taking charge of the water runs, doing a great job,” Darren said clapping him on the shoulder, “And you can help us carry in the stuff Malcolm and his people brought us.”
Darren led them to the main entrance, exchanging greetings with the people they passed at the water trucks. Darren pushed open one of the boarded doors and waved them inside.
Travis frowned. “You don’t keep the doors locked?”
Darren shook his head. “Not during the day, makes it easier for people to come and go for water. With the amount of open ground someone would have to cover to get to the doors, we’d spot them long before they got here.”
When he was inside Travis found himself blinking rapidly as his eyes tried to adjust to the dark interior. The hallway was lined with shops, their metal gates drawn shut. When the door closed behind them, the whole place was plunged into darkness.
He could make out a faint light ahead where the entrance hallway met the main corridor and the sound of voices drifted towards them.
“Come on,” Darren said. “We haven’t bothered converting any of the stores near the entrances, except for one near the loading dock. That’s our emergency exit if anything goes down and we’ve got our supplies stored back there.”
The main corridor was much brighter and Travis realized it was from the large skylights overhead. The mall looked like any other you would find in America. The corridor had stores with familiar logos and signs on either side, the second floor the exact same.
“We turned most of the stores into dormitories,” Darren told them. “Gives the families a chance to live together, try to be normal. We give out rations per dormitories so they can eat together when they want. We boil the drinking water on propane stoves in the food court and store the coolers there. The food court has sort of turned into a common area for everyone to hang out when they aren’t working or going to school.”
“School?” Kim asked.
“We’ve got a lot of kids here,” Darren said. “We decided to hold school in the book store each day. Something normal and routine for the little ones.”
The main corridor widened in a circle where a large fountain stood in the centre. The fountain was dry, turned into storage for large blue water bottles and Igloo coolers. Tables and chairs surrounded the fountain and the shops that lined the circle had the familiar logos of food court staples.
There were more people than he had expected in the food court. There were several propane stoves set up with large pots sitting on them, steam wafting up in the air.
Two women stood next to them chatting, thick oven mitts on their hands. There were also people in the food stands, bustling about behind the counters that had canned and boxed food sitting on top of it. More people were seated at the tables, chatting together, but they grew quiet when they spotted them.
An elderly woman who was sitting at one of the tables let out a squeal and pushed herself to her feet. “Doctor Alpert, it’s so wonderful to see you again.”
Quinton grinned and closed the distance between them, cutting off the elderly woman’s shuffling steps as he took her hand. “Mrs. Austin, the pleasure is all mine.”
“I told you, call me Gloria,” she said, smiling up at him as she patted his bicep.
“Oh Gloria, you are shameless with your flirting,” another elderly woman said.
“It’s good to see you too, Mrs. Frasier,” Quinton said to the woman and she managed a small smile for him.
“Gloria has been singing your praises to anyone who will listen,” Mrs. Fraser told him, “So I’m afraid you will be busy.”
“Darren mentioned that,” Quinton replied. “I’m always happy to help.”
“Just you wait until Samuel Marks makes you look at the boil on his ass and then you’ll change your tune,” she said. “He refused to let anyone but a doctor lance it. He’s a prickly old fool with enough hair on his ass to knit a scarf.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Quinton said.
“Come, sweetheart,” Gloria said, patting him on the arm to get his attention again. “I’ll take you to our clinic to meet our nurse, Emily.”
Quinton let the elderly woman lead him off, Mrs. Frasier watching the two of them with an amused smile. “She’s been counting the days until he came back. Not that the rest of us haven’t either. It’s good to see you again, Kim.”
“You too, Elsie,” Kim replied and hugged the woman. “Everybody else okay?”
“We are,” Elsie said. “Rose and Violet are out with the chickens right now, rounding up a couple for you. I can take you out there if you want.”
“Sure,” Kim said and the two women headed off.
“Rest of us might as well head over to the Builder’s Yard, see if we can find those parts you’re looking for,” Darren said.
They left the food court behind to head down the other end of the main corridor. They passed by the bookstore that Darren had mentioned and Travis was surprised to see lights on inside the store.
Shelves filled with books were in the back of the store but there was a wide open space at the front with several children sitting in a circle. Their eyes were on the young woman who was reading to them.
“You’ve got power here?” Javier asked, nodding at the lights.
“There’s a backup generator we use sparingly,” Darren replied. “Right now, we’ve got it rigged to run power to the bookstore and the food court. We’ve rigged up some car batteries to run portable power when we need it too. Unfortunately, we know it will all run out eventually.”
At the end of the corridor the large sign for the Builder’s Yard appeared and Darren pulled out his flashlight.
“Sorry, it’s really dark in there,” he said. “It’s why we haven’t gotten much done in the way of inventory in there.”
Travis understood as they entered the cavernous store, their footsteps echoing off the concrete floor and bouncing around the open rafters. It was pitch black inside and they all turned on their own flashlights, the beams barely cutting through the shadows.
“What we’re looking for will be in electrical,” Javier said, moving his beam over to the large shelves where the signs indicated what they held.
“Electrical is in the back left,” Darren said and the group set out through the building, winding their way back to the shelves where a sign reading ELECTRICAL hung.
They let Javier take the lead as they went through the high shelves, pulling off what he told them and loading it onto the wheeled carts.
“So you’ve got solar power over there, huh?” Darren said. “How is that working out for you?”
“It’s been good,” Malcolm said. “We’ve gotten so used to having power, we don’t really think about it.”
“Soun
ds nice,” Darren mused. “Weather has held out for now, looks like we’re gonna have a nice Indian summer but it won’t last forever. We aren’t sure how we’re going to heat this place when it gets cold. We’ve got some gas stoves but they won’t do much and open fires are going to be a problem inside.”
“You’ve got enough here to set up your own solar power,” Javier said. “It won’t be able to get full power to the whole building but you might be able to set it up to run the heating system in here.”
“You could do that?” Darren asked and Javier nodded.
“I should be able to set up the battery bank and the inverter today,” Javier said, “Then it’s just a matter of mounting the panels and wiring the place. I’d have to see the electrical room for the mall first before I made any promises.”
“We’d be grateful for just the attempt,” Darren said. “Jed can take you there. We’ll start loading up what we’ve got here. Trey, why don’t you do with them?”
When they were out of earshot, Darren turned to Malcolm, his expression concerned. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to talk to you without any of my people around.”
“What’s up?” Malcolm said, as he handed one of the boxes to Travis and then set his hands on his hips.
“I told you I took your advice about checking out distribution warehouses and sent out two groups,” Darren said. “Thing is, that’s not their first trip. There was a warehouse only an hour west of here. We went there but we found the place pretty much cleared out. And when I mean cleared out, I mean systematically cleared out. The only things left behind were useless things like dishwashing detergent and fabric softener.”
“Most places we saw on the way up here were like that,” Travis said, joining their conversation.
“Problem is this place was huge. Like a couple city blocks huge,” Darren replied. “It must have taken at least fifty men to get that place gutted and that’s giving them a few days to do it.”
“So you think there’s a large group somewhere near it,” Malcolm said and Darren nodded.
“We didn’t see anybody but we did find some dead infected who had lots of high calibre bullet wounds,” Darren said. “I swore the people with me to secrecy. I didn’t want it getting out and the rest of our people getting scared. They’re finally putting what happened before behind them. I just thought you should know.”
“I appreciate it,” Malcolm said. “We saw signs of people out on the other islands in the North Channel. We haven’t reached out to them yet and haven’t seen any signs of people patrolling by our island.”
“I don’t know if I should be relieved or scared that there are other big groups out there,” Darren commented.
“You’ve got a good setup here,” Travis said. “When I was travelling up here, I saw a lot of attempts at building a safe zone but they were all destroyed by the time we got there. The fact that you’ve made it this long means you’ve got a good chance of staying safe.”
“I appreciate the compliment,” Darren said, “But I’m not so sure. A big group like that, armed to the teeth and able to move with that kind of efficiency? It makes me doubt.”
“Well, way I figure it, there’s no reason for us to think they’re any danger,” Travis said. “None of us go out in the world without being armed. There’s a chance they’re just looking to keep their people fed and safe.”
“He’s right,” Malcolm said. “There’s no reason to think they’re a threat.”
“You think that way because you haven’t been attacked yet,” Darren said, his voice laced with pain and anger. “We thought the same. We let people in here and they turned on us.”
Well, that made his caution a lot more understandable. It was hard to argue when reality was put in your face like that.
Darren sighed, rubbing the back of his head. “I don’t know who these guys are but I just wanted you to know that they’re out there.”
“We do appreciate the warning,” Malcolm said and Darren nodded before grabbing the handles of one of the carts. They all wheeled their carts back towards the entrance.
“You know, we did see one group that had made it out there,” Travis said. “It was down in Kentucky, not too far from Cincinnati. It was a small town, the highway we were on went straight through the town. We were driving towards it when we spotted a tractor trailer parked across the road. We got a bit closer, thinking it was just an accident but then we spotted the others trailers. They had parked them to make a wall. We saw guards on top of the trailers so we turned around and tried to find another route around. We spotted more trailers, all the way around the town, blocking off roads and fields. They’d even put them across the railroad tracks that ran through town.”
“Smart idea,” Malcolm said.
“It was and that’s why they were still standing,” Travis said. “They saw us but they didn’t chase us. They let us go on our way. The people that are out there, they’re just looking to keep what they have safe. Whatever group rolled through that warehouse has a safe place. If they didn’t, they would have stayed at the warehouse instead of moving the goods out of there. If they’ve got a safe place, they’re going to put their energy into keeping it safe, not attacking other groups.”
“He’s got a point,” Malcolm said. “You’ve got more to worry about from the small groups that are out there looking for a home.”
Darren rubbed the back of his head again, lifting his baseball cap to run his fingers through his hair before yanking it back down. “I hope to God you’re right. When we got attacked, we didn’t just lose people in the attack. Some people got scared and left here after it happened. God knows what happened to them out there but I doubt it was good. I don’t want that to happen again.”
Travis didn’t envy the weight the man carried on his shoulders. He had to be concerned about the wellbeing of all the people here. It had been hard enough for Travis when he had led the Reyes family north to an island he wasn’t even sure was actually there.
But that had worked out for them. There was no reason it wouldn’t work out for the people here.
Subject File #744:
Administrator: How was the trip?
Subject: Great. Not just for the things we brought back. We have friends there. Real friends.
“Now, dear, tell me everything that has happened since I last saw you.”
Kim considered Elsie’s question as they walked down the main corridor and wondered where to start.
“Well, the best news would be Travis. He’s the younger man who came with us. He was with our group back in Virginia and we thought we lost him in an accident. Turns out he survived thanks to Javier and his family. Together they found us.”
“That is wonderful news,” Elsie said.
“We were glad to see him,” Kim told them. “His sister-in-law is still with our group and she’s pregnant. She lost her husband on the way here so having a familiar face around now is good.”
“How far along is she?”
“Eight months,” Kim replied.
“Lucky for her that she’s got a doctor with her.”
Kim nodded. “How about the pregnant girl here? Annie, right?”
Kim remembered the young woman visiting with Quinton on their last trip. She’d been wracked with awful morning sickness and had expressed her worry that it meant something was wrong with the baby.
“She is doing much better,” Elsie told her. “The morning sickness eased up about a week ago.”
“Do you have plans for how to handle it when she gives birth?” Kim asked. It took hours to get here. There was no way for Quinton to get here if she went into labor.
“One of the women here, Rose, she was a midwife. She delivered my oldest boy, Harold, so that tells you how long ago she retired,” Elsie joked.
“It’s better than nothing,” Kim said, trying to be reassuring but she couldn’t manage to make it convincing. She couldn’t imagine the kind of fear Annie would go through giving birth with only a geriatric midwife
to help, “But maybe we can figure out some way to have Quinton here when she gives birth.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Elsie said, patting her on the arm. “Rose is as sharp as a tack. Us grannies might be old but we’re not useless. We all try to contribute what we can. I teach the children history at the school. Makes me feel useful. The children were a bit resistant to school at first. They said it was summer and they shouldn’t have to go, but I think they are starting to enjoy it. I make the lessons fun.”
Kim smiled at that. It was good to hear that children could still act like normal children.
And it was a smart idea to have them going to school. They still needed to learn the basics and it helped them have a routine. It was something to consider for their own kids on the island. Veronica had been a teacher before, maybe it was something she would want to do again.
The women turned off the main corridor and headed to one of the emergency exits.
“We keep the chickens out back here,” Elsie told her. “The building gives them a good amount of shade during the day. We threw down a layer of dirt and wood chips over the pavement to give the girls something to scratch at.”
Sunlight streamed inside when Elsie opened the door and it took Kim a moment for her eyes to adjust to the outside. She heard the clucking of the chickens and then her eyes focused on a rooster. His plume of brown and red feathers was puffed up as he strutted among the white hens and yellow chicks that were scratching at the ground.
Two elderly women stood among them, a bucket of feed in hand that they were scattering on the ground. A chicken coop was against the wall of the building, two large plastic bins and a water trough next to it.
“Kim, this is Rose and Violet,” Elsie introduced her to the women who Kim noted were spitting images of each other right down to the dimples in their cheeks. “The chickens have been doing quite well under their guidance.”
“Our mother raised chickens in our backyard growing up,” Rose said, tossing out another handful of feed making the chickens cluck louder.
“They are good girls,” Violet added and then gave a glare at the rooster who was circling her feet. “He can be a bit of a problem though. Thinks he’s cock of the walk.”
The Complex (The Omega Protocol Chronicles Book 3) Page 16