Tabernacle (Super Pulse Book 3)

by Dave Conifer

  Carlo shrugged, assuming the question was for him. “For me, it just reinforces what I already believe. We don’t have enough armed fighters on the job protecting this place. If we’d had more than four men scattered in the woods down by the lake, there’s a good chance we’d have caught this earlier.”

  “What about the perimeter?” Grover asked. “How close are we to finishing the wall? How much difference would that have made here?”

  “Well, it’s not my bag, I don’t know exactly,” Carlo said. “I think it’s about sixty percent finished. There are still some huge gaps. And of course, the lake itself is a gap.”

  “Indeed,” Roethke said.

  “As far as I understand it, work on the wall is progressing as quickly as possible,” Grover said. “It takes a lot of workers and a lot of material. I don’t see any way to speed it up. No?”

  “I don’t see any way, either. The wall can only do so much anyway,” Carlo said. “I mean, I’m all for it, we have to have it. But—“

  “Here we go again,” Roethke said, rolling his eyes.

  “—there’s no substitute for boots on the ground, as they say,” Carlo continued, ignoring Roethke’s interruption. “We need a larger force, and more of them have to be on duty at a given time. Can you imagine what would have happened if they attacked the camp after stealing those vans? We’re lucky all they did was break out and escape. They bailed us out by doing that. Think about it! They were inside the walls!”

  “Indulge me. What would have happened had they attacked?” Grover asked.

  “It would take us an hour to get mobilized, Grover,” Carlo said. “We have the people, but half of them are off cleaning latrines or plowing up fields. Not that those things aren’t important. They are. But we need to be faster on our feet when it’s time to fight. And the only way we can get to that point is to have more fighters.”

  ~~~

  The residents of Tabernacle were shaken by the events of the day, much more than they were by the recently repelled invasions. It didn’t take a military genius to point out the difference between attackers who’d been stopped outside the gate and ones who’d slipped inside it, murdered one of their members and managed to escape with two of their valuable vans.

  Robert wasn’t the only one who vowed to leave his current job to join the Sec Forces. It was a staple of conversation at many a dinner table that evening. Carlo knew about the up-tick in the recruiting, and was gratified. But it wasn’t going to be enough.

  Seventeen

  The van was already parked at the curb in front of the brown house when the two women came out. They’d left the kids inside. Nick could understand that. There was no reason for them to trust strangers who were carrying a lot of guns. They pulled the front door closed behind them and stumbled off the porch towards the van, their eyes narrow as they adjusted to the sunlight. Although Nick sensed that they were no older than he was, their movements were as painstaking and laborious as somebody twice their age.

  Now that he was getting a good look at them, he realized how badly off they were. Each wore tattered, filthy clothing – one in jeans, the other in a dress. Their faces, as soiled as the clothes they wore, were gaunt and drawn with hunger. Each looked so fragile that it was hard to believe these were the same women who’d sprinted away from them just a few minutes earlier.

  “Come on over here,” Nick said when they’d finally reached the van. “Nick and Dewey,” he added as a reminder. “Are you hungry? We have food and water.”

  “I’m Elise,” one said. One side of her face was yellowed with bruises that were still healing. Her lip was scarred and slightly jagged. She’d survived some serious violence.

  “I’m Jane,” said the other. Nick looked closer and realized that beneath the dirt and the circles under her eyes, she was Asian. Probably Chinese, if he had to guess. “Is there enough for all the kids? They haven’t had any clean water since yesterday morning.” He guessed from her thick accent but flawless English that she was well-educated and had grown up someplace else before moving to America.

  “Yesterday morning?” Dewey asked incredulously.

  “Absolutely,” Nick said. “Bring em’ on out and we’ll feed them.”

  Elise didn’t have to be told twice. She’d already taken a seat in the overgrown patch of weeds that had once been a lawn, but she fought herself to her feet and walked back inside the house without a word.

  “Are any of these kids yours?” Nick asked Jane. She shook her head, with a grim, steely expression on her face.

  There was something there, but he thought it best not to probe. “How about we start them off with some of the dried fruit with the water,” Nick suggested to Dewey.

  “Yeah, good idea,” Dewey said. “I don’t think they’re ready for meat. It’ll just come back up. Like, no use wasting it.”

  The children Elise led from the house, all of whom looked to be between five and ten years-old, were so wretched that Nick was at a loss for words when he saw them. Like their caretakers, their clothes were nothing but filthy rags, many of which were brown with diarrhea. They wore their malnutrition a lot worse than the adults did. As they filed toward the van, none could muster up the courage to look at Nick or Dewey. Any time they weren’t looking to Elise or Jane for direction, they watched their own feet or looked around nervously. When Dwayne slammed the front door of the van and came around to help, all the Lockworth residents jumped as if a gun had been fired.

  “I’ll get a water jug and some cups,” Dwayne volunteered before climbing into the the van through the side panel door. A few minutes later the Lockworth residents were all gulping water as fast as it could be served. Even Elise and Jane chugged it down, despite warnings that they should take it slow. The kids were more willing to look their visitors in the eye after they’d enjoyed the water. At least that was some kind of progress.

  “We have dried peaches and dried cranberries,” Dewey told them. “We have meat, too, but, like, I don’t think it’s a good idea yet.”

  “Peaches,” Elise said dreamily. So peaches it was. There weren’t any plates, so Dewey walked around and passed the slices out. Everybody took them greedily and jammed them into their mouths. Nick doubted that the chewy, shriveled fruit Elise was gnawing was what she’d been dreaming of when Dewey mentioned peaches, but she looked like she couldn’t get enough of them. Several of the kids coughed and choked momentarily, but none stopped chewing for long. A few minutes later, Dewey distributed cranberries, while Dwayne refilled water cups.

  Nick saw John in the distance, spreading his arms as if to ask if it was all clear for them to approach. Nick didn’t think he had a choice, so he waved them over. “Listen,” he told Elise and Jane. “A heads-up. There are three more of us.” He pointed at John, Carly and Linda, who were now in plain sight and on their way over. “They’re on your side, just like we are. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “You’re safe,” Dwayne said. “We came to help.”

  The other three reached the van and stood watching awkwardly until Nick introduced them. The kids were nervous and wary again, now that there were twice as many strange grownups around, but it couldn’t be helped. Whatever the reason, it appeared that it would be a long time before they trusted adults again. Especially adults with guns.

  “We need to hear your story,” Nick said. “Can you tell us what’s happened here since the power went out? How many people are here?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Jane said. “When it happened, we all just waited for the electricity to come back. After about a week, a lot of people left. They thought it might just be a local thing, or just a New Jersey thing. Maybe it was. But the rest of us are trying to survive.”

  “It’s, like, way bigger than just a Jersey thing,” Dewey said.

  “Sometimes our men go out looking for help,” Elise said. “Or at least for some food. But so many of them never make it back alive. There’s a lot of dangerous people out there. Our husbands aren’t like tha
t. They weren’t used to that.”

  “They don’t go out so much anymore,” Jane said. “The ones who are still alive. They never brought much back after the first time, anyway. We try to keep them here, now. We need them here, even if we’re hungry.”

  Nick thought back to the attack at the gates of Tabernacle that had brought Barton Moon into his life. Nobody else in his traveling party or even back at the camp knew it, but that’s what she was talking about. As brazen and bold as they’d tried to appear, those had been desperate, frightened men trying to take care of their families. It didn’t excuse stealing, nothing did, but it kind of explained it.

  “How do you feed yourselves?” John asked. Nick noticed with appreciation that he was speaking in a softer tone than he normally used. “Do you do any growing or hunting?”

  “No,” Elise said. “Some of us had gardens, but we had no way to water them, so they dried up way before the end of summer. Mostly we go out into the fields and the woods and scavenge up whatever we can. That’s what we were doing when you found us.”

  “And you find enough to eat?” John asked, visibly skeptical.

  “No,” Elise said bluntly.

  “It’s getting worse every day,” Jane said. “We’re eating grass and roots and weeds now.”

  “And, like, just wait until winter starts,” Dewey said. “It’s gonna’ get a lot worse.” Nick shot him a look. “What? What did I say?”

  “Where do you—do you have any latrines set up?” Nick asked, although he already knew the answer based on what he’d seen and smelled so far.

  “No,” Elise said, looking ashamed. “We just go into the empty houses. When it gets too bad, we move on to another one. Some people don’t even bother doing that much. It’s why so many of us are sick, I think.”

  “That would do it,” Nick said.

  “What did you mean when you said you need the men here?” John asked. “For what? Are they setting up for the winter?”

  Elise and Jane looked at each other, their faces suddenly distraught as though they had a dirty secret to share. If so, neither appeared anxious to deliver the revelation. They’d alluded to it briefly already, down in the basement. Nick was certain that Elise’s battered face had something to do with it. Jane finally spoke up. “We have a lot of visitors. Well, mostly the same visitors over and over. And they’re not as friendly as you are.”

  John’s brow furrowed as he cocked his head. “How so? Who?” he asked.

  “We don’t know who they are,” Elise said. “They come every few weeks. It used to be more often, back when we had something to steal. Whoever they are, they have a lot of guns. And we don’t have many anymore. That’s why there aren’t as many men around here as there used to be. They tried to fight, but...“ Her voice trailed off.

  “It’s the reason we ran away from you,” Jane said. “That’s who we thought you were. These men, they’re—clean, I guess it is, like you, with good clothes. Not like anybody here.”

  “How long ago did this start?” John asked.

  “Just a few weeks or so after the power went down,” Elise said, fighting a battle to control her emotions. “See, after a few days, when we knew this wasn’t getting better, we raided the ShopRite warehouse just a few miles out of town. We were late to the party, but we forced our way in and took out a lot of food. Lots of canned goods.” She smiled. “We must have found the soup aisle. We brought the food back, hid it in the police station, and guarded it. Nobody was having seconds at dinner, but nobody was starving, either. We shared it as best we could.”

  “But word got out,” Jane said. “That must be what happened. And those guys started coming. We had a few guns, and we held them off for a while. But then they just overpowered us, and we couldn’t stop them. Before long, they’d taken almost all our food. And beat up or killed anybody who tried to stop them.”

  “It wasn’t just their guns,” Elise said. “They had cars and trucks that worked, just like you do. And they were mean. They’d do anything.” She started crying, right there in front of the kids. She didn’t even try to stop herself. “What I’m trying to say,” she finally said, “is that they did every horrible thing you can imagine. There was nobody to stop them. Anybody who tried got killed. And that’s why this place is dying. They killed it.”

  “They took my daughter, and hers, too,” Jane said. “And they killed her husband.”

  Nick looked inquisitively at the rest of his own people as Elise continued to sob softly. They all nodded back as if they understood what he wanted to do. He moved over and put his arm around Elise. “I think it’s time for me to tell you why were here.”

  ~~~

  Nick wasn’t sure if he was the best spokesman for the group, but he had the floor, as it were, and nobody else looked like they wanted to take over the role. He spent ten or fifteen minutes describing Tabernacle and its history. The two women were especially impressed when he told them matter-of-factly that he doubted that the men who had terrorized them were any match for the Tabernacle Sec Forces. Next he explained that they were there on a recruiting mission, because they knew they needed to grow. He finished by asking for a meeting with the leaders to see if there was any interest.

  The traces of optimism and even joy were already beginning to show on their faces. “How would we get there?” Elise asked, wiping her eyes with a sleeve. “How far away is this place? Not everybody’s strong enough to walk.”

  “We would send a few vans or trucks out to bring you back,” John said. “It’s a half-hour drive from here on a good day.”

  “You have that many cars?” Jane asked incredulously. Still dabbing at his eyes, Dwayne nodded back in the affirmative.

  “Everybody could come?” Elise asked. “If you count the kids, there might be as many as fifty or sixty of us left. I just don’t see how you could feed so many people. How could there be that much food anymore? It’s hard to believe it would be any better there.”

  “Trust me,” Nick said. “It would. John here is in charge of the food thing at Tabernacle. We can do it, right, John?”

  “Yep,” he answered. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here having this conversation. You’ll be safe and well-fed there.”

  “But what about our daughters?” Jane asked. Elise nodded emphatically. “If we leave, they wouldn’t know where to find us. We’ll never see them again.

  Nick didn’t want to go there. His thoughts on the topic were too ugly. “That’s something we—I mean, you, would have to work out for yourselves, I guess. It’s a tough call,” he said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “I wouldn’t leave without finding my daughter,” Jane said. “Whatever happened. I have to know.”

  “Same for me,” Elise said. “How do you know Christie Moon?” she asked Nick. “You asked about her before, remember?”

  Nick had been hoping to handle this in a private conversation. For now, he’d have to stick to the story he’d told The Committee. “I met her husband on the road once. We were on the way to our camp. He told me about your town, and I thought it sounded like a good fit.”

  “Bart went out about a month ago and never came back,” Elise said. “It was the last time they went looking for food, because so many of them got killed.” She took a deep breath. “More of us turned into widows that time than any other.”

  “He had two girls, if I remember correctly,” Nick said. John eyed him suspiciously, but Nick pressed on. “How are they? Did you know them? Were they friends with your daughters?”

  Jane shook her head. “No. Christie’s girls are a lot younger. They live with Christie a few houses down from me, now. On Savoy Street,” she added. “That’s where everybody lives.”

  “I think we should go there now,” John said. “We need to move things along and get back to Tabernacle once we have a plan. When can we set up a meeting? Do you have any kind of leadership?”

  “Nobody’s really in charge, if that’s what you mean,” Jane said.

&nbs
p; “If anybody is, it’s Jim Crowley,” Elise said. “He got beat up and left for dead during one of the raids, but he lived. If there’s anybody that the rest of us follow, it’s him.”

  “And you,” Jane said. “You and Jim have been our leaders ever since -- you know.”

  “All of our take-charge kind of people are gone,” Elise explained. “That’s what happens when you’re outgunned. Some of them were a little too brave, I think. I’ve tried to fill in as best I can, partly because my husband was a leader, but mostly because nobody else did.”

  “Okay,” John said. “How about we shoot for a meeting with Crowley, then? You two should probably be there, too.”

  “Sure,” Jane said.

  “If we drive there, are we gonna’ get attacked by your people?” Dwayne asked.

  “Could be,” Elise said. “They’ll think you’re the bad guys coming back for more. Not that anybody has any weapons. They’d probably just hide.”

  “We don’t want to get into a fight at all,” Nick said.

  “How about if I walk back over with the kids first and warn them that you’re coming?” Elise asked. “I don’t think you have room for them in your van, anyway.”

  “Can they make it?” Linda asked. “Is it far?

  “Why not?” Elise answered. “If you hadn’t come, that’s what they’d be doing in the first place.”

  “Can I walk over with you?” Nick asked. “I’d like to get a look around this place.”

  “I’d like that,” Elise replied.

  “You cool with that, John?” Nick asked.

  “No problem,” John said. “It can’t hurt for one of us to get some eyes on the town and see what we’re taking on.”

  “We’ll set up the meeting with Jim as soon as we get there,” Elise promised.

  ~~~

  The kids trailed behind them like baby ducklings as they walked. Nick thought Elise was somewhat careless about keeping an eye on them, but he figured she knew what she was doing. There probably wasn’t much danger at the moment, and the last thing any of these kids was going to do was run off and get lost.