by Joe Kelly
Food was the next biggest issue, namely that in another week or so they would have o start rationing if they didn’t find more of it soon, Last week he had sent Ori and Jason to scout up Old Pine road, which became the old Main drag through town after a couple of miles, there were a couple of stores, a school and the Funeral home that he had thought might be far enough out they could check. But Ori had managed to scout all the way to the Save a Bundle, a low cost grocery store, that was no more than a mile from the center of town and had brought back two cans of coffee and some snack food and the news that the store still had a lot of supplies inside.
With what’s in the store we stand a good chance of making it through the winter, but come spring we are going to need more food to survive, Jared thought. We can’t keep doing this. We have to find a way to secure food and equipment to survive and lets face it we need to do more than survive.
At some point we have to move beyond survival and start salvaging what they could of the old world so they could rebuild without losing to much knowledge. That’s assuming the undead don’t end up killing us all, Jared thought angrily. And that’s exactly why I, no we, need to start thinking about the future. Planning for what comes after, or finding a way to rebuild even with the undead swarming all over the land.
It was hard enough to get the group motivated for the necessary things that needed to be done. How could he get them to start planning for a future that most of them tried hard not to think about because deep down they believed they were going to die under the teeth of the undead.
And if I have doubts about our future how can I convince them there is hope when I worry about the same damn thing. And how can I convince them to look towards a better life when our immediate concern is food, namely the lack of it. We need food, a steady supply of food. We can’t go plant crops outside the camp because of the undead and we cant really plant much inside because of lack of space and of course every time we leave here to scavenge we risk not coming back and the flip side is if we come back we risk leading the undead right to our door.
The only reason We’ve made it this long are because of the plans we came up with during bullshit sessions of what if long before the dead rose, long before we even believed in the dead rising and those plans had relied living off the preps and scavenging for only so long which was supposed to have given us time to hunt for food and establish a garden here at the camp to stock our larders. Well the game in the area is scarce and we don’t have enough space to plant a garden that would feed all the mouths we now have.
At least for the moment we have food so no one was going hungry yet!, and we have time to find more. Those thoughts led him back to the beginning we will have to scavenge and that risks lives. Well buck up brother no one said it was going to be safe at the end of the world.
He sighed softly and leaned against the porch rail. On the plus side of their situation, he thought Ori was happy for the first time since the dead had risen. Ori had finally taken his friends advice and now he and Beth were a official couple. I hope Beth does as much for him as Jill has for me. With out her I would have lost it before now.
Beth was not the type that Ori would have dated before. Jared thought with a real smile. Most of Ori’s previous girlfriends had to get dressed to quit their jobs and the way he acted with Beth was completely different than how he had been with the others. The end of the world changes a man, Jared thought trying to make it a joke but it wasn’t funny and it was damn sure true he thought his smile fading away into a frown.
“Morning Jared” Sharon said as she passed him. “Morning Sharon, not showing yet I see.” Jared joked.
“I’m only a month along Jared, Don’t wish fat on me this early.” Sharon said with a smile that could be forgiven if it looked more nervous than happy. Happiness was something that was on the endangered species list since the dead had risen.
And that, He thought is the other situation I would love not to have to deal with. Two pregnant women in camp, Mark had announced to the camp at large last night that Sharon was pregnant, That it scared the hell out of him he hadn’t mentioned to anyone but Jared.
It worries me too, but not, he admitted, as much as he worried about carol who was due anytime now. He had plenty of time to worry about Sharon but Carol whom he had teased about looking like a weeble was due much sooner.
They had no doctors and his own medical skills were barely above first aid level. Carol how ever actually seemed calmer at this point than he was, often joking about the fact she would need to find someone to make custom bra’s for her and that there was no way she could stand up with out carrying a counter weight on her back.
The one bright spot in that situation was Linda who had been a nurse before the dead had risen, which made him a little less worried than he had been.
Jared sipped at his coffee, which was more chicory now than coffee but he could pretend and it filled the need judging by the fact he hadn’t killed any one yet.
The Kids were recovering at least as much as they could at any rate after the nightmare ordeal they had been through. And the kids seemed to have brought every one together at least on that topic. Every Adult in camp felt like a parent to the Children, and saw them as something precious a symbol of the innocence of a lost world and they would protect the kids at all costs. The thing that bothered Jared was could they protect them?
He watched Cathy climb out of the RV and walk to the water barrels and fill up the gallon jug she carried. She lifted a hand and gave him a single, hesitant wave. Jared waved back. Now those two he didn’t know about. She seemed okay, but Henry, he just struck Jared wrong.
Cathy was one of those women who had a sturdy build and a pleasant face framed by auburn hair. She went out of her way to be friendly maybe to make up for Henry. Who was no friendlier now than the day he had first arrived.
Maybe with time but till Jared could trust him; he had to leave people at the camp to keep on eye on things instead of riding out to do godly battle. He grinned at that phrase, more like to salvage and shoot walkers. Having to leave people he trusted at camp cut down on the number of gunslinger's he could bring to bear on a target. Gunslinger's he thought with a chuckle. The name Beth had bestowed on the dirty six-pack, after the return from the battle of Wal-Mart as she called it.
Now Jason and Linda were something, Jared thought with a real amusement.
They were an odd couple in some ways, muscle-bound, Hollywood good looks kind of man and petite, oddly cute if plain, quiet unassuming wife. They were two really great people to be around. Linda had a knack for keeping peoples spirits up Not to mention Jason had an incredible repertoire of Irish drinking songs which included some of the filthiest drinking songs ever composed by man. Those songs had endeared Pappy to the younger man. The great thing was that they both had pitched in from the first helping anyway they could around the camp.
Deacon was a good guy but almost worthless from any stand point but acting as a guard. He had been a clerk at a store before the dead but he was willing to learn and was a natural good shot. He was working with Rob on the side helping with vehicle maintenance and what every project Rob had come up with.
Outside of Henry Kyle was the next most surly person in the camp, he was nice enough most times but he and Pappy had butted heads, not a surprise, but he also rubbed Steve the wrong way and if those two tangled, Jared wasn’t sure which one of them would come out on top but they would both regret it.
Lets face it, you’ve been stalling because your avoiding making a decision that would place these people in more danger. But at some point your going to have to go into town and the danger will still be there and you know that running missions to the outskirts first will give people like Kyle and Deacon more experience with how the veterans operated.
These people need a direction something to focus on or the situation here in camp is going to go further down the tubes. You know how morale affects security, people will get sloppy and start wondering why they are even both
ering.
The few fights we’ve had here will climb in number. The arguments will end up turning into more fights or shoot outs. Hell Ronny and I have butted heads more than once over that damn ultralight because I keep putting off making a decision over using it. He thinks that I have no confidence in his ability to fly the thing or in his judgment and my denying it doesn’t do a thing to convince him his opinion is wrong. Yes I hate flying, but…
Face the music Jared, He told himself, the truth is your tired, burned out and you really don’t want to be the leader. Well tough luck, You’ve got the job. Maybe someone with brains will step up and take over at some point but till then stop feeling sorry for yourself and make the hard calls.
How he kept his sanity, how any of them kept their sanity he didn’t know, but he had to admit that in his case a lot of it had to do with having Jill in his life, it made all the difference in the world for him. Just waking up next to her did more to help his battered psych hold on than anything else he had tried.
“Penny for your thoughts” Jill said from behind him. He smiled as he sat aside his cup and rose to hug her thankful for the distraction.
“Oh lord, get a damn room, no one wants to see your pecker” Pappy said as he hobbled up for his usual morning cup of coffee and smiled at Jill in passing, the smile was much more like a leer.
“He is like a demented Yoda” Jared commented, Jill spluttered a laugh.
“I’m like a what, you young ass wipe.” Pappy growled turning a glare on Jared that could have peeled paint.
“Yoda, one who espouses wisdom and teaches the young about the ways of life” Jared said with a straight face that the pope might be suspicious of but not many others. Pappy glared at him, sure he was being put on but had no idea how then finally nodded in satisfaction.
“if youn’s got your faces out of pussy long enough to listen I got an ass load of wisdom.” He said then stomped into the kitchen.
“we need to get him robes and a cane.” Jared said as Jill tried not to laugh. “ ooo… young Skywalker. Concentrate you must, cocksucking little piss ant you are.” He said doing a fairly credible imitation of the Yoda channeling pappy. Jill started laughing and couldn’t stop for a couple of minutes. The good mood was gone by lunch when he had to deal with another crisis.
“We can't finish the wall” Steve was saying as Jared walked up to the inactive backhoe. The unfinished palisade wall mocked him with its incompleteness.
“Why the hell not?” Jared asked ticked off but not surprised. Private Murphy seemed to have no place to be and was enjoying jacking them around lately.
“Because we blew the hydraulics on the damn backhoe. We hit what we thought was a piece of field stone and instead of getting Jeff who is a hell of lot better with this kind of thing. Rob thought he could just use the back hoe to pry it out of the ground. turns out He, well really, we weren’t smarter than the rock and killed the hydraulics. And we cant get the rock out or finish the wall till we repair the Damn backhoe. Which means parts that may not even be in town.” Steve replied as Jared let loose with a slew of cursing.
“You’re finally learning” Pappy called out from where he sat at in front of Jeff’s travel trailer. Watching the show with an old Garand M1 across his knees “I was starting to think you were cursed to be the politest most annoying prick I’ve ever met.”
Steve snorted a laugh at Pappy’s comment. “Well this just another reason we need to start cleaning out the town. Linda was telling me she needs some stuff for Carol’s delivery and of course we need more food. All of which means we have to deal with the zombies in town who seem to be just waiting for us to poke our heads in.” Jared said as he glared at the Backhoe for a moment as if he could make it work by force of will alone.
“we have to do this the right way” Jared added facing the fact that he no longer had the option to take his time in making the decision and there was no way he was at this point going to bring up one of the reasons he had been so hesitant was because he had an idea that the zombies had set up an ambush at Walmart, it made sense in way but it really didn’t fit with the what they knew of how the undead acted.
All the zombies that had flooded out of the back, had been there the entire time, doing nothing, while Jared and the others had run back and forth with the carts and making a lot of noise usually they swarmed to noise. .
It had only been when he and the others had been about to leave that the undead that had been in the back of the store had put in an appearance, at the same time as the gathering crowd of undead in the parking lot had begun to advance on the doors.
It seemed like it had been planned, but maybe the ones in the back had just been to far into the storeroom that it took them that long to reach the front of the store.
He knew he would never know the truth of it, but just the thought of the dead possibly acting with cunning, was making him super cautious. Especially if they had sprung a trap, which meant they were getting smarter or even worse someone had been hiding back there and opened a door to let them out. He shuddered at that thought. Not sure, which bothered him more, smarter zombies or someone using them as weapons.
Those thoughts flickered through his mind as fast as lightening, he looked at the backhoe and shook his head, it didn’t matter they had to go into town.
“ Tonight, we need to sit down and make some plans. Because the day after tomorrow, we are going back to town.” Jared said. “I want to start in the outskirts, do some scavenging and scouting before we move into the town proper. We don’t have a choice, we need meds, more food. Fuel, and now parts” Steve looked like he wanted to protest but didn’t. He knew Jared was right. This was survival; he didn’t have the luxury of avoiding the dangers in town.
“are you sure Jared, I mean couldn’t we find the stuff we need with out risking that?” Mark asked as he joined them beside the backhoe.
“Mark, if you can tell me where I will gladly scrap the idea. But if you can’t we need fuel and the parts for the back hoe and maybe more importantly we need those medications and the only place I know to get them is in town.” Jared said forcing himself to sound calm and upbeat.
Mark sighed then shook his head, “no I don’t know where we could find that stuff.” He said not happy about the idea.
“well folks we have things to do so let’s get it done.” Jared said as he headed for the door of cabin one.
Mark knelt beside the disassembled pump glaring at it as if that would solve the problem. He wasn’t happy that much was obvious to anyone that glanced at him and Rob who was searching a tool box beside him was tired of feeling uncomfortable with marks silence.
“you okay?” he asked Mark as he spotted the wrench he had been looking for. Mark grunted a reply. “Look I’m just trying to let you talk it out before you blow up at someone.”
“I know, sorry.” Mark said quietly. “It’s just that,” he paused for a moment then continued “its stupid but I can’t shake the feeling that something is going to happen when we go back into town.” He frowned as he looked up at the sky. “the only reason I’m going to go is Jared. Anyone else and I would tell them to kiss my rosy red butt.”
Rob was silent for a moment. “you guys are really tight. I mean all of you moved to Tennessee because of him.”
“We’ve been through a lot together in and out of the army and I guess you could say we moved, the truth is we were all stationed on Campbell so when Jared pitched his idea about the guide business it sounded like a blast. So as our tours wound down we got out in Tennessee instead of going home. Jared and Ori were the only two in our group that had grown up here.” He smiled at a passing thought. “Steve was from California, Ronny was from Alaska, I grew up in New Mexico and Chris was an Army brat and grew up on a half dozen army bases. When I first met Steve he wanted to go back to Cali and become a stuntman.”
“always pegged him as wanting to do porn or was a former MMA guy.” Rob commented as he got back to work on the pump.
“Pe
rsonal fantasy about Steve is it?” Mark asked jokingly anything to keep his mind off what Jared had planned. He had a bad feeling about going into town.
“Not my type” Rob protested. “seriously no, you guys are my friends I don’t think about you that way.”
Mark lifted a thick eyebrow in amused question then nodded. “I think most guys want to do porn at some point.” Mark said giving Rob a lop sided smile. “MMA is more Jared’s thing, not that he ever did but he could have. Now his brother Eric has fought a few MMA fights.”
“why am I not surprised” Rob said absently. “Jared’s family must have been hyper masculine or something”
Mark actually laughed at that. “Jared’s dad was in the Army, Special forces to be exact. But from what I gathered over the years they were a pretty normal family. If you really want to know ask Jeff or Pappy who was, well not exactly friends with Jared’s dad but they were supposed to have been tight.”
“I can’t imagine Pappy having friends.” Rob said glaring at the pump even more intently than Mark had.
“me either,” Mark replied. “he isn’t exactly possessed with patience or a civil tongue.”