I turned to Elsie. “I’d like to see the lists you were working on this morning.”
She climbed to her feet and headed toward the kitchen.
Denise waved a hand. “What are we going to do about baths? I could really use one.”
Another chorus of nodding agreement erupted.
“Me too,” Jessie said emphatically.
I hesitated. The thought of a warm bath called to me as much as the rest. The question weighing on my mind was water. Eleven baths a night would eat through the drinking water in the cistern quickly. Even so, the thought of lying in my own pool of sticky sweat all night had less appeal at the moment than being thirsty. Bathing wasn’t an option either. Sooner or later we had to do deal with the water problems and that moment seemed as good as any.
“Here’s the deal,” I said with a sigh. “We have running water in the bathroom and a tub. It’s cold though. If you want hot water, you’ll have to heat it on the cook stove in the kitchen.”
I let the statement hang there for a moment and then followed up with the downside.
“What we can’t have is the kind of long, hot bath we all want - at least until we figure out the water supply. That tub in there holds thirty gallons or better. We could burn through our entire supply in one night,” I said and followed the words with a grimace. “So, I’m thinking Navy showers.”
Kate frowned. “What’s that?”
“Use enough water to get wet. Soap up and use enough to rinse off,” I told her. “The experience isn’t great, but you do come out cleaner on the opposite end.”
Kelly rose and stretched. “I have an idea that will address both sides. It won’t take long to get the sleeping bags arranged. How about Tyler and I start heating water? We’ll use that big pot back there. It’s about a gallon I guess. We’ll supply that much hot water for anyone who wants to take a bath. They can mix it with the cold as they want.”
She made a face. “I think the temperature will limit the water usage more than anything. I know I don’t relish the thought of stripping down and pouring cold over myself.”
Elsie returned with a sheaf of papers. She shot a curious look around the room. “What’s this about people stripping down?”
“It’s a new symptom of The Fever,” I told her with an innocent look on my face. “People run around naked for some reason.”
“Well,” she huffed, “I don’t think anything would addle my brain that bad.”
Her comment drew the first laughter I’d heard in days. Elsie stared at them in confusion as the group broke apart.
The lists were longer than I expected. The food items ran for several pages. What those pages laid out in stark details however, was maybe two weeks of padding. We could scrimp and make do for about that long. Beyond that, we’d be hungry if we didn’t find some way of replenishing supplies.
The old woman knew what I was thinking. “I’ll get on the phone tomorrow. Earlier today, the radio woman said that food centers were being set up around the country to supply neighborhoods. The Judge might not be able to get us off the island, but he might be able to get some food delivered here.”
“God, can you imagine the scale of trying to feed a nation?” I asked, even as my own mind tried to grasp the amount of work and logistics involved.
“Yes, I can,“ she said. “I was born in 1930, right at the start of the Great Depression. I remember boats bringing over government food. We didn’t have a car. My daddy used to take a wagon down to the General Store and come back with big blocks of butter and cheese along with sacks of beans, rice, potatoes, sugar and flour. They did it once. They can do it again.”
“Yes,“ I said, “but, there are big differences now. People back then grew a lot of their own food and raised their own livestock. We don’t have that padding now, not here, not across the country as a whole. Sure, some people still have chickens, goats, and cows, but not the majority. A good many people could scrape by back in those days.”
I glanced up at her. “They can’t now. The difference is people have no sustainable food sources these days. They’ll be entirely dependent upon the government to deliver.”
She looked thoughtful. “That’s true. If I can get the Judge to agree to send out some supplies, I’ll see if he can’t use one of them big flat bottomed boats down at the ferry and bring some chickens and maybe a cow. We’ll set up our own little farm here.”
I let her remark slide. I had no idea how much pull she had with the Judge or what authority he would have to arrange a food drop. I didn’t want to start banking on supplies coming in from the mainland only to discover it wasn’t going to happen.
Back on the lists, several pages of hand tools and miscellaneous items followed. One of the oddest was several rolls of plastic sheeting.
I looked up at Elsie with a confused look on my face.
She waved her hand. “Most of that list came out of a storeroom down at the General Store. The plastic sheeting was mixed in with a dozen paint buckets. I reckon they used it like a drop cloth.”
That made sense, though what we would do with it was anyone’s guess.
Tyler came by carrying a large pot of steaming water. Denise broke off and followed him to the bathroom, giving a fist pump as she went.
“Woohoo, bath time,” she crowed and grabbed Joshua by the arm. “Come on, big boy. You wash my back and I’ll wash yours.”
The night flew by, with some dropping out to bathe, and others crawling into their sleeping bags. Daniel nodded off. He had sat silent and brooding most of the night, acting way too old for his six years.
Around ten o’clock, Kelly walked up to the table carrying a big pot. Steam rose from the edges. “Your turn,” she said. “Everyone else is clean. You’re the only stinker left in the group.”
I chuckled. “So, I get the title of Village Stinker?”
She picked up the pot and headed toward the bathroom. “Only if you forego the warm, soothing bath provided for you.”
Elsie poked my arm once the girl had disappeared behind the door to the bathroom. “Better watch them girls, Hill William. A couple of them have designs on you.”
I looked at her like she was crazy and told her so.
“Don’t let your ego run wild. It’s natural that men and women migrate toward each other and the pickings around here are pretty slim,” she said and gave a dismissive shrug. “You’re the only man that ain’t took besides Tyler. If you want to know the truth, one of them other girls has been making eyes at him. We might just have some domestic disputes to deal with before long.”
I felt stupid. “Which one?”
She looked over the rim of her glasses. “Which one what? You want to know who’s makin’ eyes at you or Tyler?”
“Tyler.”
“Kate,” she said. “That blonde girl you don’t like.”
“What makes you think I don’t like her?”
Elsie shrugged. “I ain’t stupid. That’s what.”
I didn’t want to argue with her. I felt nothing one way or the other about the girl. I couldn’t remember more than a dozen words between us since the first day.
The idea of jealous rivalries in an already tense situation made my head ache. I rose and stretched. “These women have got to be twenty years younger than me. They’re better suited for people their own age. Be interesting to see how it all shakes out, but I can take myself out of the mix.”
Her mouth twisted in a wrinkled smile. “One thing you got to learn about women, Hill William, is that you can’t make those choices for them. You are right though. It will be interesting to see who ends up with who.”
I nodded but had nothing to add to the conversation. After a long moment under those sharp eyes, she waved me off.
“Now go get your bath before we all start calling you Stinky.”
An hour later, everyone except Joshua and Denise had rolled into their sleeping bags. Those two had the first watch. I left them sitting at the bar with the rifle laid out across it.
>
Sleep came quickly, despite a hundred things running through my mind. Again, the dreams came like scenes from a horror movie. Things crept through the night, ravenous beasts that drooled and moaned with excitement at the thought of fresh meat. Screams rippled through the dark images. Some of the voices I could recognize as human. Others were filled with an eager anticipation, like dogs on a chain with the smell of the hunt close and thick. In the middle of it all, Daniel sat with his blank, staring eyes. He looked at me finally, his head turning almost backward on his body.
“You don’t have long, Mr. Hill. They’re coming and they’re hungry.”
I wanted to ask him what was coming, ask who they were, but the words stuck in my mouth. I struggled to get them out, tears running down my face as the howls grew closer. Dark shapes milled in the shadows. Red, feral eyes glowed in the darkness.
Daniel’s head swiveled toward me again. He stared at me with his empty eyes for a long moment, and then opened his mouth in a grin that grew wider and rounder until, like Zachary, it looked like he could swallow a softball. Rows of sharp yellow teeth gleamed in the dark and cavernous opening.
“Or maybe,” he said, his voice suddenly deep and throaty, “we’re already here.”
Chapter XI - Motivations
The next few days drug by. I pushed the group hard to clean out the old station and put it back in working order. Keith found a small stack of treated lumber under the porch that looked to be the remnants of wood brought in by the conservation crowd. Most had been cut for one project or another, leaving us to sift through the leftovers. Elsie’s survey of the General Store had noted a bucket of rusty nails. We had plenty of hand tools. None of them would do us much good without basic items needed for any renovation where security meant more than looks - more wood, heavy bolts, angle iron - the list seemed endless.
The station had been built to withstand storms and raging seas that sometimes washed across the old village. The sturdy timbers and stout design had served that purpose well. They would serve us well too. We just needed to make it livable.
The first order of business should have been securing the windows and doors. Keith attacked the doors, using the limited supply of cut-off pieces he found under the porch. The windows, arguably the weakest link in the line of defense, had to wait for shutters. We simply didn’t have the materials. Instead, we crisscrossed the longest boards across them as an interim measure. The result looked pitiful. It wouldn’t stop the thing I’d encountered in Angel’s stern, but until we found or figured out a way to come up with more supplies, that was the best we could manage.
After studying the situation for a few minutes, I adopted a battle plan that basically said, if they come in, run for the stairs. Keith and Tyler worked on the hasp and lock that secured the bottom door until they had it free. I had them move the hasp to the inside where we could bolt the door closed if need be. At least we would have a single point of defense if things turned crappy.
I had the image of Spartans defending the pass at the Battle of Thermopylae in mind. None of us had been raised from diapers with spears and a thirst for battle. At the same time, I understood the value in taking away the advantage of overwhelming numbers by forcing the enemy into tight quarters where, at most, we would be facing them one or two at a time.
I had Keith move the hinges inside too. It didn’t seem to make much sense to lock the door on one side with those three little pins on the other side.
That strategy might have seemed overblown given that I’d only seen one of the creatures. I figured we could handle them individually with about any weapon. As ugly, gross, and deformed as it had been, I could have probably bested the little demon in a straight up confrontation, but against several I’d have stood no chance. The thought of a dozen of them swooping in like bats with their raspy voices grating out a chorus of “We-lee-um” prompted the idea of retreating to the staircase. I’d seen only one. That didn’t mean he lacked friends.
Elsie and the girls tackled the two enclosed rooms upstairs, leaving the dormitory for me and the guys. We cleaned. We moved out the items that had been stacked between the bunks. We laid claim to sleeping space and marked a drawer as our own in the two rough chests that sat against the wall. We listened to the four girls debate who would go in each room. In the end, they opted to all sleep in the biggest when Denise mentioned they might need a sick room later. Elsie stayed out of that conversation as she had already picked the sole bedroom downstairs next to the bathroom for herself and Daniel.
We’d grown accustomed to spending our meal hours with Christine Arapaloe. I don’t know why. Every newscast turned gloomier than the last. Each time, I, along with the rest, sat stunned at the bewildering speed The Fever appeared to be spreading. Counts of the infected and the dying doubled every day. Riots and demonstrations broke out daily somewhere in the world. The ban in the U.S. hadn’t aged more than a couple of days before stories started hitting the news about people fighting over food, fighting over supplies, fighting over just about anything one could imagine. It seemed we weren’t happy with the Fever laying waste to humanity. We needed to kill off the stragglers as well.
I knew we were only getting the highlights. With so much happening, news would have needed to run 24/7 to relay it all. We heard about presidents and world leaders, body counts and estimates, and stories that offered the most brutal assault on the senses. In upstate New York, someone had decided there was no reason to starve, not with a readily available food supply sitting around in houses. Police were finding bodies, not eaten, but butchered. In California, battle lines were forming between the northern half of the state and the southern half. Police and military units were swamped with refugees fleeing harder hit sections of the country and rushing to get out of metropolitan areas.
The first few days of the travel ban had proven a couple of simple truths. Laws work when most obey them. They never work when police units are scattered, enforcement lines are thin, and those violating the order feel they have no other option. Rural areas had few problems. The confrontation between Presidential power and terrified populace occurred in cities pregnant with terrified masses that authorities could no longer feed nor protect. Military detachments would eventually shore up local law enforcement and draw a tighter net, but not before hundreds of thousands managed to flee.
As bad as those stories sounded, I knew millions, if not hundreds of millions, had to be sitting in their houses, staring at dwindling food supplies, watching the chaos unfold, and wondering what crisis would come next, who would live, who would die, and when the coughing would start.
They had to be wondering because five miles off the coast, far from the epicenters and far from the daily immersion in military convoys and police lines, we were.
I pushed the group hard because I had to. The constant stream of bad news, death counts, and fear generated a sense of futility in all of us. Every time I looked at the mountain of work that lay ahead, the effort seemed meaningless. In varying degrees, I saw it in the others too.
Simple tasks drug on forever. I caught myself staring off into space, as often as I did the rest. Elsie, perhaps understandably, seemed the least affected. The why bother question had an answer every time it leapt into her mind. All she had to do was look down at the six-year-old beside her. The worst had to be Devon, Kate, and Joshua. Getting anything out of the three proved next to impossible. Watching the rest at work reminded me of seeing a video filmed in slow motion.
Keith proved to be the exception, not just taking on work but adding his own touches to the task. At one point, I asked if anyone had any experience working with electricity.
He raised his hand. “I have some. My old man’s a mechanic. I’ve done wiring in cars before.”
“That’s perfect. This will be right up your alley,” I told him. “Joshua brought up a dome light I took out of Angel and one of her batteries. See if you can rig it up to provide some light in here. We need to save the propane lanterns if we can.”
He nodded. “I set it and the battery on the back porch, near that other door.”
I raised my eyebrows in an “aha” moment. I’d forgotten about the back porch and its odd door off to one side. I’d meant to ask Elsie a dozen times if she knew what lay behind it but kept forgetting. I pushed it away again to focus on the problem at hand.
“That box is built to hold the battery. Once you set it inside and hook it up, power runs to the twelve volt receptacles and switches on the front. There should be a repair kit back there too.”
Keith looked up and scratched at his stomach. He looked like a young Santa in the off season.
“How about if I put it up there?” he asked and pointed above the bar.
“Sounds good to me,” I told him. “Those receptacles, by the way, will work with car chargers. If anyone thought to bring theirs, they can charge their phone off the box.”
I had no great expectations. The dome light would give off a pitiful amount of light compared to the lanterns, but the battery could be recharged. The lanterns couldn’t. To my surprise, he didn’t stop with the dome light, but added a couple of flashlights next to it.
“We can save those D-cell batteries,” he explained. “I just turned the flashlights on and wired up the positive and negative sides to the same switch that controls the dome light.”
He flicked the switch on the box to demonstrate. The dome light came on and showered a cone of light down across the bar. The beams from the flashlights shot upward to the ceiling and scattered to provide an over-all ambient light source.
“It won’t be like turning on the lights at your house, but the three of them will provide a lot more illumination than just the dome light alone.”
The idea surprised me. I would have never thought about adding the flashlights in that way.
“I think you just earned the title of Village Electrician.”
He looked back over his shoulder and grinned.
The Island - Part 3 Page 2