“What are we doing? We need to get out of here.” Thompson was eager to make a run for it.
“We sit tight for a few hours, to let things cool down,” Dennis smiled at his own pun. “Then we take off and we get as far away from here as we can.”
CHAPTER 35: November 3, 11 a.m.
“Some of us are getting out of here.” Portland Frank had cornered Eve, out of sight of the tower, on the way to Building 3 during daylight. He stood very close and whispered conspiratorially. “We want you to come with us.”
Eve looked up at Frank. He carried the fresh smell of the outdoors and chickens on him, but kept his hair longer. He looked nervous.
“They’re not going to be able to keep this place running without Dennis and Brit. It’s time to bug out.” Eve found herself looking down, staring at his thick, strong hands. Frank grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look into his eyes. “The land is empty. It’s ours for the taking. Three hundred million Americans are down to a few million, maybe less. We’re going to find some cattle, chickens, stake out a big piece of good farm land in the California valley.”
“What about the infected?” Eve asked. “You won’t get a mile from here without the lights.”
“We don’t need the electric lights. That’s over anyway. You live in the open. The fire keeps them away. That’s what the other survivors are telling us.”
“I don’t know,” Eve said. “We have everything here. It’s going pretty good.”
“It’s over. The writing is on the wall. This place is going into meltdown. We’re leaving.”
Eve just looked at him, trying to process Frank’s words. Frank came closer, invading her personal space. He spoke into her face, even more intensely. “I’m not sure that you’re understanding me. I want you to come with me. We are four families. There’s nobody left. We’re starting the world all over.”
Eve stared into his eyes, shock and surprise fading into realization, “What…what are you asking me?”
“I want you to be my wife.” Frank looked down, the sound of his words dropping of at the last word. It was out in the open. He was suddenly an insecure teenage boy asking a pretty girl to the school dance, no longer a strong and capable man.
“Am I interrupting something?” Alexis came around the corner. She stood there smirking, eyes narrowed and calculating, one hand on her hip.
“No. Nothing.” Frank jumped away from Eve, who was resting her back against the wall.
“Looked like something from here.” Alexis pressed her lips together. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” Frank turned to walk away but Alexis grabbed his arm.
Eve put her head down and began inching away.
“What are you not telling me?” Alexis held firmly onto Frank’s arm. “Maybe this is something that Candy needs to know about.”
Frank nodded at Eve, signaling her opportunity to escape. Eve walked quickly away with her head down.
Eve’s head was spinning. Her stomach was in her throat, and there were butterflies in her stomach. Did Frank just propose marriage?
She admired him as a leader, but she had never really looked at him that way.
CHAPTER 36: November 3, 11:30 a.m.
Something was definitely up, and Frank wasn’t going anywhere until she got to the bottom of it. Alexis pulled him closer, smiled, and rubbed her large natural breasts against him, realizing with consternation those beauties were bound up in a bra. “Come on Frank, you can tell me.”
“It’s nothing. We were just talking.” Frank was blinking rapidly, trying to backpedal and get away.
Alexis leaned into him, grabbed his collar and pulled him closer. “Come on Frank, you can trust me.” She pressed her body against him, grinding her pelvis against his to simultaneously block his escape and create friction.
“We were just talking about Dennis and Brit. It’s going to be hard to run the power plant with just Brit left.” Frank smiled nervously, hoping the half truth would satisfy her.
Alexis pulled him in and kissed him on each cheek in turn, “True, true.” She took her other hand and squeezed his ass through his pants and then moved around to the front until she found his cock and began rubbing it, still holding onto his collar so he couldn’t escape. “That seemed like an intimate moment that I interrupted. Are you sweet on Eve? That’s Sven’s girl. He might like to know about that.”
“Alexis, please.” Frank pushed her hand away from his pants, but she immediately went right back to work. He squirmed uncomfortably trying to get his face away from hers. She kissed him again on the cheek, and then went for his lips, giving him an unwelcome wet French kiss, her hand rhythmically rubbing him over his pants. “What do you want from me?”
“I just want the truth.” She kissed him again on the mouth, deeply. She could feel him hardening in her hand as she continued rubbing and squeezing. Men were so weak, she thought. She looked him in the eye, then dramatically down at the pronounced bulge she held in her hand via the front of his pants. She arched her eyebrows into a question. Frank nodded defeat.
Alexis, holding firmly onto his balls with one hand, pulled him toward her until her back was against the wall, then knelt down and unbuttoned his pants. He was fully erect when she put him into her mouth. She made quick, expert work of it.
“How much?” He said, when it was done.
“Just the truth. What do you want with Eve?”
“Nothing.”
Alexis had played all of the sex cards available at that moment. “Then I’ll just have to talk to Sven,” she threatened.
“If I tell, you have to keep it a secret.” Frank felt that there was simply no escape.
“You know you can trust me.”
“I’m serious. Some of us are planning to leave soon. You can’t tell anyone.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me?” Alexis was genuinely upset. “I want to come with you.”
“There’s just a few of us and no one else can find out. I’m serious, Alexis.”
“Take me with you. You know how much I love you,” Alexis said, reaching for him again, not believing it herself, even as he evaded her touch. But this was a great opportunity.
“The group is small, a few families only. It’s better that way.”
“Oh,” Alexis suddenly had a realization, “then Eve is for you, like a family. She’s just a girl. She can’t do for you what I can do.”
“She’s young and strong. It’s not going to be easy.”
“You’re planning to have children then.”
“Eventually, yes.”
“No one can compete with me in the bedroom.”
“How many men have you been with Alexis? How do you even know you can still have children?” Frank looked up and saw that he had wounded her with his honesty. “I mean, I asked Eve. It’s her choice. You are a beautiful woman and very smart. You would be a great asset.”
Alexis felt stabbed in the heart. Frank didn’t want her. He didn’t respect her as a woman. He couldn’t see her as a mother to his children. How had this happened to her, she wondered? When had she ceased to be a beautiful, powerful woman, aggressively mastering her world, and become a prostitute prowling the street?
Upon leaving, Eve wondered if she could see Frank and Alexis if she went all the way up to the upper tower and stood on the catwalk facing the fence and leaned out a bit. She could and she did. They looked like a freaky Barbie and a Ken doll from there. Why did Frank allow Alexis to do that to him? It was disgusting.
CHAPTER 37: November 5, 9:30 a.m.
Today was the day Sven would talk to Eve about Brit. Even if something had gone on between Eve and Brit, there was no denying Eve’s reaction when Sven had touched her hair on the chicken run. There was also no denying how he had felt at that moment. There was definitely chemistry between them. Today’s pot harvest would be a perfect opportunity. There would be a party to celebrate the harvest; a little celebration with food, music, drink and, of course, pot.
Everyone would be in high spirits, and when the time was right, he would simply pull her aside to chat privately.
A tiny yellow chick stood valiantly on top of Dixon’s head, peep-peeping as Sven lay there on his mattress, surrounded by the plants. Dixon furrowed his brow and looked at Sven, but didn’t move. All around him were a mother and seven more chicks. When they arrived, Dixon chased the chickens. Sven only had to reprimand him a few times, then he came to understand that it was his job to protect the chickens the same way that he protected Sven.
Now that things were set up, he would have a harvest every four to six weeks. He started first thing in the morning, and it took him all day. It was a solid harvest, especially with all that had been going on. He hung the harvest up on lines to dry. He showered all the stickiness off of himself and changed his clothes before going out for the regular evening meeting in the tower control room.
“Where is Waldo?” Sven asked Jackie.
“It’s been four days since we’ve seen Dennis or Thompson,” Jackie said.
“Some folks have been seeing fires at night up the hill. Seems like maybe we should send a team to check what’s up there,” Jeb spoke slowly. Mack and Tiny nodded, suddenly realizing they’d just been nominated.
“We’ll take a look in the morning,” Jackie said, “on our way out to pick up those dairy cattle.” A herd of dairy cattle had been reported by a new arrival, about ten miles away. They would become a valuable source of meat and milk and cheese. These also would go under Portland Frank’s supervision, with the new guy and his family handling the details, all ultimately under the supervision of Jackie and crew. There wasn’t enough room in the tower for everyone, and no one seemed willing to move back to Building 3 since the events with Dennis. So, the cattle being there should make others comfortable enough to move back over to 3.
“I think Dennis and Thompson are gone,” Sven said, lighting up his bong.
“Or the infected got them,” Jeb said, taking a large slug of his home brew, then passing it to his left.
“No, we would have seen their hairy asses around the compound if the infected got them. They’re either gone or holed up somewhere,” Jackie said, holding out his hand for the bong.
“So, I’ll pop down and call Candy and the girls and the rest up for our little celebration. See who else wants to come…” Sven said, walking toward the metal door dividing the top of the tower from the bottom. Maybe this was his chance to talk to Eve alone.
The lights dimmed and flickered. “What was that?” Jackie said. The lights returned for five seconds, then dimmed to only emergency lights on the walls. Alarms began bleating loudly from all over the power plant. A calm, electronic female voice intoned loudly, “Code yellow. Reactor temperatures are rising to dangerous levels. Immediate action required. Code yellow. Reactor temperatures…” The message repeated itself infinitely, never tiring.
CHAPTER 38: November 5, 5 p.m.
The controls in the tower lit up like a Christmas tree. There were lights blinking everywhere.
Jackie, Sven, Jeb and the boys crowded into the control room in a keystone-cops like jumble. “What’s happening? Why did the lights go out?”
“We are on emergency power only. The plant automatically shuts down all non-essential power usage,” Brit explained, furiously pushing and flicking buttons, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“Code yellow,” The electronic female voice calmly intoned, “Reactor temperatures are rising to dangerous levels. Immediate action required.”
“How do we fix it?” Sven asked, feeling panic rising in his chest. Everything they had worked so hard for could be swept away in a night.
“I don’t know yet. Give me a minute.” Brit hustled around the control room, ignoring everyone else.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Jeb asked quietly, almost to himself.
“I had only been here three months when the infection started. I’m still officially on probation. There’s a lot I don’t know,” Brit said.
“Great! That’s just great!” Mack shook his head and exhaled forcefully.
“How much time do we have?” Jackie grabbed Brits arm and held him in place.
“Not sure. We’re code yellow, not code red. If I don’t fix this code yellow, the crisis will go to code red. At code red, I have four to eight hours to fix the problem before reactor failure.”
“You mean nuclear meltdown?” Sven asked, his eyes wide.
“Yes, nuclear meltdown. At that point, the best you can do is get as far away as possible and hope that there is no explosion.”
“Oh shit…” Sven was looking out at the fence where the floodlights had just clicked off. Already there were fifteen to twenty infected around the gate. One slipped under the fence on the right side. They had planned to concrete all along the fence to both close and prevent the infected from digging under the fence again, but they hadn’t gotten to it yet. “We have to turn the lights back on! How do we turn the lights back on?”
Everyone turned to Brit, “I can’t. The computer won’t let me. It’s an automatic override of the entire system. We have to correct the code yellow, then we get control back.”
“Everybody strap up. We’re going out there in two minutes,” Jackie ordered. He turned to Brit and got right in his face. “We’re going to take a look at the plant and we’re going to fix this problem now. Understood?”
“Dennis destroyed all the plant manuals, but I kept one and hid it in Building 3 behind the turbines,” Brit was visibly shaking at the thought of going out among the infected after nightfall. “We have to get to that manual. There are code yellow procedures.”
“Will that tell us what’s wrong?”
“It…it could be anything. The plant is a very complex piece of machinery. It takes dozens of people to run this plant normally. I’m just one person.” Brit shook his head hopelessly and began chewing his already chewed nails.
Jackie grabbed Brit by his shoulders and shook him until he held his gaze, “If you don’t fix this, we’re all dead. Everything we worked for up until now will be gone and we’ll be back out there at the mercy of the infected. We have to fix it. We don’t have a choice.”
CHAPTER 39: November 5, 5:30 p.m.
When they rushed through the steel door with Brit to the lower tower, it was madness. A bucket brigade had been formed to throw every mattress and every stick of furniture out into the yard. Through the door, he could see men breaking up the furniture and lighting it on fire.
“What are you doing?” Jeb asked.
“Staying inside is a death trap. Out there,” Portland Frank pointed toward the fence, “if you hide in the buildings at night, you’re dead. They climb, they dig, they get in. You can’t keep them out. It’s just a matter of time without electric lights. We had electric lights.”
“So what - you’re going to burn all the furniture?” Mack asked.
“Yes. We have to get out in the open. Create a circle of fire. They won’t come into the fire,” Frank said, not pausing from his work.
“They don’t like the fire, huh?” Jeb said. Then to Tiny he said, “Stay here and do what this man tells you.”
“Are you going out there?” The man said to Jeb.
“We have to fix the code yellow. No choice,” Jackie answered.
“Those flashlights are useless. You need torches. Some of the infected will still come after you but the torches will keep most away. Let me fix you up.”
Candy led a group of fifteen women and several young children carried by their mothers, sprinting away into the growing darkness. “Stop! Where are you going?” Sven called after them.
“The guardhouse. We’re going to lock ourselves into the cells,” Candy called behind her as she ran. Several more joined them, running to catch up, maybe twenty in all.
“Where is Eve?” Sven looked around frantically.
“Here,” she said from steps away.
“Stay in the ring of fire until I return.” Eve nodde
d. Sven really wanted to connect with her but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Sven thought that was strange, but there really wasn’t time right now. Sven turned to Tiny, “Make sure nothing happens to her.” Tiny nodded.
“She’s safe with me,” Portland Frank said.
“The cells in the guardhouse is not a bad idea, really,” Jeb said thoughtfully.
“It’s safest in the open,” another man beside Frank said. He was new and Sven had seen them together often recently, but wasn’t sure of the man’s name. “I know it’s counter intuitive. We’re trained to think it’s safer inside. It’s not. The rules have changed. Until I got here, we stayed out in the open and we made fires. They don’t come into the fire. This is the safest place. You all can do what you please. Me and my people we’re making this fire, and one way or another, we’re going to be here in the morning.”
“Make us some torches,” Jackie said.
“When we left a town, every morning we torched all the buildings.” The man continued, “The infected hide out the day in the buildings. This is how you kill them…as much as you can kill something that’s already dead.”
CHAPTER 40: November 5, 5 p.m.
Candy began loudly panicking almost the moment the lights went out. “What’s happening? What-The-Fuck-is-Happening?! Will someone please tell me?” Then, when Frank and the other guy started carting all the mattresses and furniture outside into the circle for burning, that’s when she really freaked out. Alexis could already see the infected standing in the deep shadows around Building 3, their weird red eyes shining. The other girls saw them too and that’s when panic set in.
“Lock down the bottom tower,” Candy ordered.
“It’s not safe in there without the lights,” Frank said, not pausing from his work. “You’re better off out here.”
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