by Jack J. Lee
The last and the hardest to fake is to be vulnerable, to act like the women has power over you. Even fake love has to be a two-way street. A man who loves a woman is by definition a man who can be hurt by that woman. Men in good marriages fear their wives. I had to act like I feared mine.
It took me months to recover from October 10th and I don’t mean the vampire I killed that night. Janelle raved about the date we had from lunch time into the night. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I had to take the other wives on dates. Thank God, six months out, I didn’t have to work so hard. I tried as much as possible to treat them all equally which tended to irritate them all equally. Even though they all denied it, they all wanted to be my favorite wife. Having all of them slightly irritated at me for being fair was better than the alternative--one happy wife and four seriously pissed off ones.
It was Catrina’s turn tonight. A couple months back, I called her Miriam by accident. I had paid for that mistake for weeks.
I was trying to not piss off one wife while reading a transcript of audio surveillance I had on another. Rachel had captured some Salt Lake Troopers and was questioning them. ‘Holy shit, she had captured some men from Salt Lake City!’
A couple months back in February, a plane had flown over us and dropped a care package and a letter. It said that they had established a zombie and vampire free zone in Salt Lake City and that they had more than enough room for newcomers.
Rachel questioned the SaLTs. It was obvious by their responses that they were well trained. I could tell from the transcripts that Rachel was getting frustrated. The SaLTs weren’t resisting. They answered all of her questions and their responses were consistent. They weren’t giving her a good excuse to get rough. She hadn’t yet questioned the highest ranked SaLT, a Sergeant Hiram Rockwell. Rachel didn’t respond well to frustration; he was likely to be in for a hard time. Eventually, whether or not the SaLTs gave her an excuse, she wouldn’t be able to resist her baser urges.
I generally didn’t bother listening to the actual audio but in this case I made an exception. All the SaLTs were convinced that their Director was going to kick some serious FLDS ass. I had always known that the Colorado FLDS would eventually come up against a group that could destroy them. Unless Rachel was wise enough to let the SaLTs go free, it looked like a shit storm was coming our way. Rachel was a lot of things but she wasn’t wise.
Rachel was too interested in having fun to be a good interrogator. Her focus was having power over others, not getting information. If I had been questioning the SaLTs, I would have gotten more intel on Director Mark Jones. It didn’t make sense that a minor federal bureaucrat could accomplish so much after an apocalypse. According to the SaLTs, his favorite weapon was a samurai sword. I couldn’t see a guy like that choosing to join any kind of bureaucracy.
I got to bed on time but I was distracted. Finally Catrina asked me what was wrong. The best way to lie is to tell the truth. I had months to work on my non-psychotic wives; I gambled that Catrina and her sister wives loved me.
I told her what Rachel had done. I didn’t tell Catrina how I knew what Rachel was doing. Catrina assumed that I had a revelation.
I told her that the Colorado City FLDS were on the verge of starting a war with a community that had working planes and armored vehicles. Salt Lake City had a well trained, full time military. The chances were high that the Salt Lake City forces would roll over ours as easily as the Colorado City FLDS have been rolling over the gentiles in Hurricane and La Verkin.
She asked what I was going to do. I told her that I had to meet with the SaLT leader, Mark Jones. I had to tell him that New Zion was not responsible for what happened to his men.
I gazed deeply into her eyes as I talked about my plans. Except for maybe Alice, Catrina was the most politically savvy of my wives in New Zion. She understood the ramifications of what I was saying. If it got out that I was planning on meeting and negotiating with gentiles against other FLDS, it could be explosive. I could see her pupils dilate in shock when she understood what I was telling her. She had been married twice before. Rulon and Darren had never depended on her; they had never trusted her.
Her face softened with concern. Inside I smiled. From now on, Catrina would never believe that I kept anything from her. She was certain that she knew all my secrets. She asked me if she should keep the news from the other wives. This was a trap that I knew enough to avoid. I saw disappointment in her eyes when I told her that I trusted her four sister wives. None of my wives in New Zion called Rachel a sister.
My mind was racing. I have difficulty sleeping when I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I needed a plan. I was too distracted for sex or sleep.
Catrina got out of bed and told me that she was going to get something. I barely noticed her absence. Director Jones was probably going to be in Cedar City by tomorrow evening. All of the SaLTs had told Rachel that they had left an Armored Personal Carrier in Cedar City in a fortified ward with about 500 survivors. They also said that protocol mandated that their camp be moved if any SaLT got captured. I closely examined a map of Cedar City before I came to bed.
When I was a stage magician, I used to read minds as part of my act. Magicians can read minds because people aren’t that different. In similar situations, people tend to think similarly. Human beings aren’t random. There are always choices that are more popular than others.
I pictured Cedar City in my mind. If I wanted to hole up with 500 people, where would I go? They couldn’t all fit into one APC and they wouldn’t want to make 10 or more trips. It would likely be within walking distance from their original camp. It would have to have a large enough parking lot to hold a bus-sized APC and it would have to a building that could easily hold 500 people. I had it. They were at the Cedar Ridge Golf Course clubhouse. At first light I was going to take my off road motorcycle and ride to Cedar City.
My bedroom door opened. I don’t know how long I had been alone but it must have been awhile. Catrina walked into the room. She was accompanied by Miriam and Janelle.
Catrina smiled, “Ari, you really need to get to sleep. It sounds like you have a big day in front of you. I went up to talk to the other wives and we’ve decided that the best thing for you is to get so exhausted that you fall asleep. We think that the three of us will be able to get you to sleep.”
I felt like I was clubbed in the head; I haven’t yet had the guts to suggest a twosome much less three. “Err, ok. Why did you guys decide on three—why Janelle and Miriam?”
Catrina replied, “We’ve all been with you for a half year. We decided that it would take three of us to tire you out. It’s my night tonight so I was automatically in. The rest of the wives drew straws and Miriam and Janelle won.”
They were right. I don’t remember falling asleep. It’s good to be the prophet.
Chapter 27: Ari Levin, April 12th, Year 1
I woke up at 6 am. Catrina, Miriam, and Janelle were still asleep when I got out of bed. It’s the sad reality but sometimes women fake orgasms. Last night my wives made me feel like a great lover who had more than satisfied three women; I decided to accept this as truth. It’s the better option sometimes to not look behind the curtain. It’s great to start a mission with a smile on your face.
I took a long shower. By the time I got dressed all five of my wives were up and waiting for me in the kitchen with breakfast. I was still getting used to having people who cared what happened to me. I hadn’t expected it to feel this good.
I had never been in a serious relationship before and now I was in one with five different women. I had 17 stepchildren. Most of them couldn’t remember their biological father. If they did, the memories were bad. My stepchildren treated me like their real father. It was pleasant to be loved. It was worth the effort it had taken to make it happen. Two of my wives were pregnant. Esther was in her 2nd trimester and showing. Janelle was two months late and ecstatic. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about becoming a father.
I left Zion with Graydon and fifty other men. We brought all of our trucks. My off road motorcycle was loaded on one of my trucks. While I was up in Cedar City, the rest of my men would gather supplies from St. George. We exited 3 different gates on our way out of New Zion. We were still in the process of adding to our fortifications.
It took about 20 minutes to get to Colorado City. We parked outside of Rachel’s house. I left my men and knocked on her door. One of her bodyguards opened it. I entered. She had five of her men in the house. They were armed and I could feel their tension. In the first few months after the zombie outbreak there had been quite a bit of traveling back and forth from Colorado City and New Zion, over the last couple months that had stopped almost completely.
Colorado City and New Zion had developed into two very different cultures and these cultures were becoming more incompatible over time. A third of the people living in New Zion weren’t FLDS. We had Paiutes from the reservation and survivors from Kanab and Fredonia. None of the Colorado City FLDS had really believed in me. They were now starting to see me as an enemy.
I called out, “Rachel, I want to speak to you.”
She sauntered into the room with a smile, “Ari, I hadn’t expected you.”
I walked over to her and slapped her hard enough with my open hand to knock her to the ground. Her bodyguards bristled and one actually pointed a gun at me. I ignored her guards.
“I expect you to keep me informed. You didn’t send word to me about the SaLTs.”
I saw murder in her eyes. By the time she got on her feet, Rachel had control of her emotions; she apologized. She said she had gotten so distracted that she had forgotten to send word. From my surveillance I knew that she thought that there was a spy in Colorado City. She had been trying to figure out who it was for months.
I told her to get the audio tapes of her interrogations of the SaLTs. She sent one of her men to get them. I had her show me the captured APC. The vehicle was impressive. Nothing about it was jury-rigged. Every weld was perfect. It looked like it had been manufactured by a multibillion dollar corporation for the military before the outbreak. Any culture that could manufacture this after the EMP could destroy us. The APC proved that the Salt Lake City folk had a functioning industrial military complex which was a hell of a lot more than anyone else had. Modern warfare is 80% gear and 20% training. From what I could tell, Salt Lake City had better gear and better training. If I didn’t come to some sort of agreement with Director Jones, we were fucked.
I told Rachel to show me the rest of the gear she had taken from the SaLTs. They had interesting uniforms. Instead of the typical military camo, they wore black leather motorcycle jackets and jeans. It made sense; camo was useless against zombies and vampires. Now that they were back to fighting humans, they’d probably go back to camo. The SaLTs used suppressed rifles and had metal collapsible batons that could be turned into short spears. I took a baton. I told Rachel that my men and I were going into St. George for some supplies. I wasn’t planning on stopping when we came back through Colorado City later today. I expected her to send me new audiotapes ASAP after she questioned the SaLTs.
When we got to I-15, I split off from my men. Graydon wasn’t happy about letting me go off on my own. My men had been raiding St. George for supplies for half a year. I knew that they would be fine without me for a couple of days. When they returned, I told him to drive straight through Hildale and Colorado City without stopping. I didn’t want any of the Colorado City FLDS to know I wasn’t with them.
I took off on my dirt bike, with my backpack of supplies. The gas tank was full and I had two extra gas cans. I got off the highway and rode into the desert. Zombies usually don’t travel much. They stay where they died or where they used to live before they were infected. If you got a mile or two out from the highway into the desert, there were no zombies. It was easier and safer to ride off road. I averaged 15 mph and it took about three-and-a-hours to get to Cedar City.
The SaLTs had done a good job cleaning out Cedar City. I didn’t see a single zombie. I stopped two miles away from the Golf Club next to a suitable two story commercial building with a flat roof; I didn’t want any of the SaLTs to hear my bike. Once I met with the Director, I planned on leaving in a hurry in the middle of the night. I needed to prepare a secure camp.
If you’ve done much rock climbing, the sides of most buildings, especially older ones made of real stone and brick, are as safe as climbing a ladder. The door on to the roof was locked from the inside. I spiked metal wedges into the space between the door and the jam to make sure that a zombie couldn’t open the door.
I climbed back down the building and started walking. I took the time to scout out a path that would be reasonably safe to navigate in the dark. Along the way I saw one zombie. I let it get close. I used the SaLT baton to strike the zombie’s temple. It was the perfect tool to take out a zombie. I loved how easy it was to carry while collapsed.
When I got to the golf course parking lot, I saw an APC. It’s nice to be proven right. There were guards posted around the perimeter. There was a defect in the SaLTs’ training. They assumed they were fighting zombies and vampires; enemies that would always attack. They weren’t prepared for an enemy that wanted to sneak past them. There were two blind spots. I got up on the clubhouse roof without being seen.
The roof had asphalt shingling. I lifted the edges of the shingling and used a small hand powered drill and a folding saw to cut a small circular piece out of the roof. I cut the piece so asphalt tiles overlapped the outer edge of the plywood by a couple inches. I slid into the building. I slipped small pieces of sheet metal between the piece of plywood and the asphalt that hung off of it and fixed them into place with small screws that had been painted dull black. I plopped the trapdoor back into place above me. The sheet metal kept the piece snugly in place.
The clubhouse didn’t have a true attic. Wooden trusses crisscrossed the entire area under the roof. A drywall ceiling below was covered with fiberglass insulation. I worked myself into the center of the building and used my hand drill to make a peephole through the drywall. The building had a drop ceiling. Electrical wires, conduit, and pipes filled the utility space between the true drywall ceiling and the false ceiling.
I drilled small holes in the dry wall and lowered audio sensors down on top of the false ceiling tiles below. I hung a hammock in the trusses and was lying back with headphones on listening to the people below me when I heard a difference in the volume and intensity of the voices. The Salt Lake City reinforcements had arrived. A room was set up for the Director at the back of the clubhouse.
I used a fiberoptic scope to find a place to cut a hole in the drywall big enough for me to get through but also would be hard to spot from below due to the clustering of pipes, conduit, and wires. I brought nylon climbing webbing with me. Webbing is lighter and packs in a smaller space than similar strength rope. I used the webbing to make a harness for myself. I tied small loops of webbing around the trusses and lowered them into the utility space below me through small cuts I made in the drywall. I climbed down below the ceiling and used carbineers to attach my harness to the loops that I had already hung. I scouted out a path to the Directors room and the hallway just outside his door. I went back and forth from the attic to the utility space multiple times to get all webbing loops in position
Once I was done, I got back into the attic and climbed back into my hammock. I had a busy night ahead of me. I needed to rest. Over the years I’ve learned to trust my internal clock and told myself to wake up at 3 am.
In pitched darkness, I woke up and packed my hammock away into my backpack and left it under the trapdoor. I made my way to the hallway just outside the Director’s door by hooking my feet and forearms into the nylon loops I had hung. This time I didn’t wear my harness. I didn’t want to wear it in front of the Director and I had another use for the webbing; I used it to make a short rope ladder. I moved a ceiling tile out of position. It was late at night. The SaLTs
were using candles and kerosene lamps for light. I gambled that no one would notice a tile out of place. I tied the rope ladder over the opening so it hung high enough to be out of the way if people walked below it but low enough that I could jump up and grab it from the hall.
I then went over the Directors room. I slowly raised a ceiling tile. He was asleep. I dropped into the room—making sure the the tile slipped back into position. I pulled out two cultivators. My cultivators were Sears Craftsman brand because Craftsman tools are casted rather than machined or welded; casted metal tools are stronger.
You don’t have to know martial arts to be good assassin. Knowing how to shoot and make bombs is a much better use of time than learning how to break bricks with your hand. I became an expert martial artist for the same reason I became good at slight of hand; it was fun. On rare occasions like this, it was useful.
Most expert martial artists learn how to use traditional Asian weapons. Aikido practitioners tend to focus on the katana. I liked the sai. A sai is about a foot long with 3 spikes; it looks like a small trident. The middle spike is long and the two sides are shorter. At one time sais were used by Okinawan peasants as gardening tools.
Okinawa was invaded by a Japanese Clan in 1609. Their conquerors made it illegal for Okinawans to carry weapons. The Okinawans found that the sai, a gardening tool was surprisingly effective against samurai. The three prongs make it easy to catch a sword’s blade. The sai can be used to twist the sword out of the samurai’s grasp or to even break the blade. A man with two sais can block a sword strike and then use the other to attack.
The Japanese lost considerable face when they were forced to outlaw a gardening tool. I fell in love with the sai. Given the gardening origins of this weapon, I had wondered how the Western equivalent to this gardening tool, the hand cultivator would do against a sword.
I found that from a defensive standpoint the cultivator was even more effective. The curvature of the prongs on the cultivator made it easier to capture and hold on to a sword blade. Offensively since it doesn’t have a long spike, it isn’t as good.