I broke my own rule. I wanted badly to see inside this house and opened the front door. I glanced back at the two security guys and they looked nervous but both had their weapons at the ready. I raised my rifle and stepped inside. A musty odor greeted me as I entered and I could see that everything was covered in a fine layer of dust. I moved from room to room checking for any sign that anyone was there. After clearing all the way to the back door, I came back toward the front. This time I conducted a more thorough search. I looked in closets, behind doors, and under beds. The place was empty and I called for Kat to join me. Just like with all the other places we had searched the furniture was still present but there was no sign of clothing, pictures of the owners, or any personal artifacts.
We determined the cottage to be a two bedroom home with a kitchen, living room, and bathroom that would be perfect for the two of us. I could tell Kat loved the place as much as I did and determined then and there that this would be our new home once we moved to The Dell. There was plenty of room in the village for all of our people, and then some. I only felt a small amount of guilt as I took a page from the note pad I carried and wrote, 'Property of Scott and Kat Williams’ and stuck it in the crack between the door and jamb.
After a last glance at our happy little cottage we made our way back to the main road and arrived just in time for the appearance of the first three loads of T-Walls. John Hendricks had maneuvered the crane to a point where he could start unloading the huge concrete barriers. I got my first look and I had to agree they were formidable. Two feet thick reinforced concrete, twenty-foot tall. I could understand now how they withstood car bomb blasts. I couldn't suppress the smile that spread across my face just looking at them. I was sure we would be safe behind a wall of those things.
Jim and L.B. were both overseeing the setting of the first of the barriers. They had decided it would be best to start at what would be the gate and work their way around. The backhoe would level the ground and a T-wall would be placed. Then the next, and so on, until they met back at the gate, trying to keep four equal sides as much as possible. It appeared that they had the situation well in hand and I asked Jim if he intended to spend the night here, to which he replied yes. I told him with that being the case, I’d take one of the gun trucks and head back to the Lebanon compound and get started organizing his big shopping trip. I also told him about the little house in the trees and that I had laid claim to it. Just in case someone else had the same idea. He handed me his completed shopping list and I gathered Kat and the security guys and we loaded in the truck and left.
I had been concerned about driving back to Lebanon by ourselves but the trip turned out to be uneventful and we were soon inside the fenced in compound. Once back, I found Dave as quick as I could. He had been making his rounds of the perimeter, talking with the guards, and checking that everything was in order. I caught up to him as he came back from the gate. He said he had seen the single truck come in and wondered who it was. I told him that we needed to organize the foraging trips into Lebanon and showed him the shopping list given me by Jim.
"Wow! There's a lot of stuff on here. What do we do with it?"
I told him the trucks, once loaded would go straight to The Dell and unload. We didn't have any more Humvee's so we would have to use pickups and a few of the remaining security people to watch over the trips. He agreed with my plan and said he'd get it set up. I told him that in addition to what he had on the shopping list, I wanted to start stocking up on anything and everything we might need once we made the move to the Dell. He said okay and asked if I could give him an idea of what I meant. I told him we would need all the same household-type items we had used before with the exception of a lot of electronic stuff. We would need dishes, pots and pans, cleaning supplies, clothes, hand tools, nails, screws, and wood for building. I also told him to find wood burning stoves. Most of the houses we checked had fireplaces and some already had wood burning stoves for heat, but not all. The houses that didn't would need them if we were going to survive the winter. He nodded in understanding. "In short, if I think it can be used you want me to take it?" he asked.
"Right on. Take any vehicles you think you might need and as many people as you think prudent. Take the stuff straight to The Dell. Jim will show you where to unload it,” I answered.
"How many trips a day?"
I thought a minute. I wanted to get as much done fast and safe as possible but I didn't want to push the time factor to much either. If they started early and worked hard I figured they could do two loads a day and still make it back before dark. That was, of course, if they didn't run into trouble. "I think two trips a day max is good. What do you think?"
"I think we can do two a day. We'll try it tomorrow and see. We can always adjust if it's not working." I agreed and told him to make it happen. He gave me a jaunty salute and headed off to get the trips organized. I headed into the warehouse to see Doc. I wanted to talk to him about a real doctor’s office at The Dell. There was a house on the main road a short way from the General Store that I thought would do nicely. A two-story with a big living room up front that could be used as a waiting room and three decent size bedrooms down stairs that would make great exam rooms or surgery rooms. There’s also a room that I thought might have been a big pantry off the kitchen that would be perfect for an office and there was still plenty of space on the second floor for him to have a study and bedroom. Doc was single and I didn't see much chance of him ever having a wife again. He had lost his wife to illness before the Event and told me during one of our many conversations that he had no interest in ever marrying again. He said Linda, his wife, was his one and only love and could never be replaced. Any woman he would ever be with would be judged by Linda's standard and that just wasn't fair. I knew how he felt. I couldn't imagine myself without Kat. She was one of a kind.
I found Doc where I always find Doc, in the Aid Station sitting at his desk. He looked genuinely happy to see me when I came in and I filled him in on my idea. He seemed as excited as I was. I asked him about medical supplies and he told me he would like to arrange with Dave to take him to the University Medical Center on West Baddour Parkway. He reminded me that he had already been there. That's where he got most of the medical equipment he already used. He said he knew there were lots of useful items still there and he could get everything he needed in one trip. Of course, the Event had set back medicine about a hundred years or more.
Along with the fact that there would be no more pharmaceuticals produced and anybody with a medication dependent condition had already died, there was a lot of diagnostic equipment that we would never use again. We didn't have the electrical power to support X-ray machines or to store film. The more high tech equipment just wasn't supportable in anyway. Doc had to resort to the old ways, a stethoscope and touch to make most of his diagnoses. I knew he had asked for books on herbal medicine and other home remedies. Of course, some medical problems were just out of his reach and this bothered him more than anything. A simple infection that could have been cured with an antibiotic now meant an almost certain death sentence. That would try any doctor’s patience.
Doc felt this loss intensely and hated losing any patient but he especially hated losing one that he knew he could have saved if he'd had a piece of equipment or a drug that was common before the Event. I knew we had to take extra good care of Doc Groves; he was possibly the last real doctor left. Anybody that decided to become a physician from now on would learn on the job. No more medical schools. We had a long way to go before we got to that stage again, if ever.
As I stood to leave, I pointed this out to Doc and suggested that he pick someone to start teaching, you know, just in case. He said he thought that was a good idea. Then I pointed out the fact that he wasn't getting any younger to which he flipped me off and went back to his reading. I left knowing that our relationship was just fine.
Over the next three weeks, we moved tons of supplies to the Dell. Jim and L.B. were getting things org
anized and Jim's wife Gwen had joined him out there. She left their two children at the compound in Lebanon and went at Jim's request to set up the General Store and inventory the supplies being brought in by Dave's crews. The store now looked like a real store and the small stock room in back became filled to overflowing. I had sent word to Jim about the house to be used by Doc and he had gotten it set up and all the supplies that Doc had been able to scavenge at University Med. were inside and waiting for Doc to arrive. L.B. had even started using the single barn in the village to store some of the bigger items. Thanks to Dave, we now had two huge generators capable of providing power on a limited basis to the whole town. Dave had also found two forty-foot long, ten-inch wide steel I-beams that would be used to support the gate into the Dell and John Hendricks went to work getting them set in huge concrete filled holes on either side of the road coming in.
Along with the generators and everything else, the four fuel tanker trailers had been moved and we had a serviceable fuel farm that would supply our needs for at least a year. Longer if we used conservation and limited our driving. To this end, Dave had brought several ATVs that the security guys could use to accomplish a roving patrol around the inside of the perimeter and to move guards to the distant guard towers. This would keep us from having to use the less fuel efficient larger vehicles.
Pressure treated six-inch by six-inch posts had been brought in and set in the dirt filled Hesco containers at the gate to be made into guard towers and the same would be used at intervals around the inside of the wall to provide complete observation along the outside perimeter. About half of the front side of the T-wall barrier had been placed and we were moving at a pace that I hoped we could sustain. If we could, The Dell would be ready to move into in about two months.
In his spare time, and I told him I couldn't figure out when that would have been, Hendricks had dug a pond in a low muddy area in the field to the east of town. He'd used the backhoe and the natural spring had already started to fill it. He told me he knew the animals would need a water source and this would keep people from having to carry water to them. I congratulated him on a brilliant idea and he told me he couldn't take credit for it. It had been Judy Aikens, our agriculturist, who had suggested it. I told him I'd thank her the next time I saw her.
One of the most important finds we had made had been by Jenny Moss and Bob Thompson again. They were spending most of their days out on I-40 at the convoy site providing security for the truck drivers hauling the heavy T-walls to the valley. They found two MRAPs that had been used as convoy escorts for the T-wall convoy. I had to ask what MRAPs were and Dave explained they were large, as it turns out enormous, armored trucks and the acronym stands for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle. These monsters take a crew of three, driver, commander, and turret gunner, and can carry four to six passengers. Jenny and Bob had spent their time getting the trucks running and were now using them to cover the convoy. This freed up the two Humvee’s they had been using to help with the big shopping trips.
The MRAPs would be a great addition to our security vehicle fleet and the added fire power would come in handy. I now had a Humvee to use for my daily trips out to The Dell to inspect progress and I couldn’t have been more pleased with what I saw. On my last trip out, I found the highest point I could find and spent an hour up there just site seeing. I could see the Cumberland River Valley snaking its way through the hills and I could see the entire valley that we would soon be calling home. We had been lucky so far. No problems with either the Stinkies or the Road Gangs. We had not been plagued with injuries or accidents either. I just hoped our luck would hold out.
Chapter 11
The Secret is Out
I knew our good luck would have to run out at some point but I had certainly hoped it would last longer. The month of June passed and we were making steady progress. July in the south is usually a hot and humid month with little rain and this July was no exception. Temperatures reached well over one hundred degrees and we suffered our first loss because of the heat. John Hendricks had been an incredible worker and tireless in trying to get things done. He and some other men were working on the gate that would be the entrance to The Dell when he suffered a heat stroke and died before we could get him cooled down.
The gate’s very heavily being made from more of the pressure treated six-by-six posts banded with steel channel front and back. John had been hard at work all morning and determined to have the gate finished by night fall. Some of the other guys had tried to get him to rest but John worked like a machine drilling and bolting the heavy timbers to the steel frame work. And, like all machines, sometimes they break down, sometimes for good.
John will be missed, not only for his energy and work but he was a part of the family that is now our group. His wife, Donna, was inconsolable when she was told and never said a word during his funeral. John is the second person and first from our group to be interred in the little cemetery beside the church. I found it ironic that he had dug the first grave and we put him in the second. His loss has been devastating to the crews working on the project and we took a day off for remembrance and to give everyone time to rest. I reminded them all that we wanted to get things done but it did no one any good if they died as a result of pushing too hard. This was another expensive lesson and I didn't want any more.
Hendricks died on July fifth and our second, third, and fourth deaths occurred on the twelfth. If Johns death wasn't enough to let me know our good fortune had run out the incident on the twelfth brought the fact home in glaring detail. One of the semi-tractor crews while connecting to a flatbed trailer loaded with two T-walls were jumped by a group of Stinkies. The truck driver, a mechanic, and his helper had already disconnected the old tractor and towed it out of the way and were in the process of reconnecting their truck when the rotten, smelly sons of bitches jumped them. The security crew never saw them and two of our people were down before anybody even knew something was wrong.
Brian Bracket, Kevin Worthy, and Manny Gonzales lost their fight to survive on the side of Interstate 40. Brian and Manny were lucky; they were killed outright during the attack. Kevin wasn't so lucky. He was the one that passed the alarm and the security crew moved in and killed the Stinkies but it was too late to help Kevin. During his attempt to help save his two friends he received a small, otherwise insignificant bite on his left hand, but it was enough. Jenny Moss was the security crew leader that day and she told me later what happened.
Jenny said that Kevin was shaken up and hadn't realized he'd been bitten until a few minutes later. She said as soon as he noticed the bite he became calm and sat down on the steps that led up into the back of one of the MRAPs. He looked at her and shook his head. I have to hand it to Jenny, she's one tough girl. She told him she'd stay with him and sent the rest of her crew to make sure that Brian and Manny were truly and finally dead. Kevin asked for some paper and a pen and, after she handed it to him, he wrote a quick note to his wife and little girl. Jenny said he never complained but seemed resigned to the fact that he was experiencing his last few minutes on Earth. She stayed with him until the end and then did what he'd asked her to do.
They brought all three bodies to the Dell and they became the third, fourth, and fifth bodies to be added to the plot of ground beside the church. The little cemetery was filling up quick, much, much too quick. At this rate there would be no one to move in when our protected village was finished.
I held a review of our procedures to find out how this catastrophe had occurred. Jenny had the security vehicles positioned to provide observation both east and west along the Interstate. What they hadn't taken into consideration was the fact they couldn't see between the vehicles up close. Somehow, the group of Stinkies had managed to get close enough that their presence had been obscured by the trucks we were trying to move. Because of his budding romance with Jenny, Dave asked to be excused from the inquest and it was left up to me to determine if they had made mistakes that resulted in the loss of
three of our people.
Initially, I was convinced that someone had made a mistake. I couldn't see how it was possible for eight alert security people to miss a group of seven walking corpses. Jenny and the rest of her crew answered all of my questions and even drew their positions on a sketch so I could see how they had been deployed. I then accompanied them back to the scene so I could experience firsthand what it had been like that day. They repositioned the vehicles and showed me the pile of rotting corpses lying beside the now abandoned semi-truck. During my examination of the scene, I found a trail of body fluids left by the Stinkies as they advanced on our people. I followed it to an overturned box van lying in the median between the east and west bound lanes. It appeared that all seven of the creatures had been either in or around that overturned van and had come out after being attracted by the noise made by the truck crew.
As I walked from the van back to where the attack occurred, I became amazed that I never could see the turret of the MRAP that covered this direction. The most amazing part was I was never more than twenty-five yards from the security vehicle. I had climbed up in the turret and was convinced I would have been able to see anybody approaching but the position of the other vehicles gave a false impression and I could now see how it was possible.
I determined that Jenny and her people were not at fault. I didn't like the fact that three of our people were dead but it was obvious that she had performed in accordance with the guidelines Dave had developed to keep us safe when we were out. It was just bad luck and another indicator that no matter what we did, we couldn't cover every situation. Sometimes, it's just not your day and there's nothing you can do about it.
We Go On (THE DELL) Page 13