Surviving

by Jaron McFall

  “That’s fine,” Cedric said to the group. He started to see how ‘getting to know’ a girl that he now lived with was going to be challenging.

  “Alright,” Charlie said bringing his laughter under control. “Tell me how your plan is going to work. There’s bound to be some infected in the path.”

  Cedric saw from the corner of his eye that Karli looked livid. “You and Jack take the Jeep to the exterior door of the drafting and engineering room. It’s the one with the trebuchet outside of it.”

  “Catapult,” Charlie mumbled.

  “While you are doing that, Sue and Ross go to Freshman Hall. When everyone is ready, Ross busts a window, they throw in a smoke bomb, a little vile of blood, and that radio-ball I made. All the infected should run to it. When the classroom is clear, you three unlock the door with the keys, run in, and grab what we need.”

  Cedric glanced at Karli who looked like she had calmed down considerably while he was talking. At least, once she realized Cedric was not part of the plan. This was the third time Cedric had told the plan to the table, though it was the first time Karli heard it.

  “Alright,” Charlie said, “you need to tell the others.”

  An hour later, the groups worked in tandem, with Cedric, Karli, and Denise watching through binoculars on the roof. Ron and Ben were on lookout duty with rifles. The fact that Cedric was on his stomach, with only one good arm, and his back turned to Karli’s dad who happened to have a gun, didn’t make him less nervous in the slightest.

  The plan, however, seemed to go off without a hitch. Half an hour after the plan was put into motion, Ross and Karli were strapping the camera set that Cedric had built to a drone retrieved by Charlie’s crew. Cedric watched as they studiously zip-tied the camera set in place making minor adjustments as they went.

  The next step of the plan took a lot of the group working together. To Cedric’s chagrin, Ron was an integral part of this part of the plan. While Cedric explained exactly what he needed from Ron, Ron spent the entire time glaring at him.

  After Cedric was through, he said, “So, is that doable, or do I need to think of a different way.”

  Ron continued to stare for another solid minute. Then two. “I like you boy, but I don’t like the fact that you sleep less than fifteen feet away from my daughter. I also hate the fact that you say her name in your sleep.”

  Cedric felt his face turning red. “Sir,” he said.

  “Yeah. I can build a ‘super-charged Wi-Fi router’ as you put it. And you did a good job assembling the components we would need.” Ron was back on task, just like a true engineer. “You can help. You’re smart enough.”

  “Right,” Cedric said, “I can try. This is a little out of my area of expertise.”

  “I would expect so,” Ron said. His clipped tone and demeanor seemed to have vanished. “You’re a high school senior. I wouldn’t expect you would know how to do it. But you know the concept well enough. That’s impressive. Oh, by the way, stop staring at my daughter.” He said this last part without breaking stride or tone in his sentences.

  Cedric turned blood red again and felt the heat rise into his face. Karli wasn’t in the room at the moment, she was with the kids again. But he knew what Ron meant. Cedric stole glances frequently. Not in a creepy or weird way. He just liked seeing her. And he really liked it when she smiled.

  “Yes, sir,” Cedric choked out. Then he noticed Charlie and Jack were hoarse laughing at the other end of the shop.

  After this short, yet very blunt chiding, Ron seemed to be perfectly fine with Cedric. This is one thing he really liked about Ron. Once he told you how he felt, he was okay. By the time lunch came around, close to one o’clock, Ron was even joking with Cedric some; although, Cedric didn’t really understand electrical engineering humor that much. Ron seemed to be one of those people whose mind functioned ninety percent on the job.

  At lunch, Cedric ate with Karli, Ron, and Ross since these were the only people in the group who understood the dynamics of the Wi-Fi frequency plan to any extent. Ron did the majority of the talking. Cedric eventually lost focus for a while because Karli decided to grab his hand after she was done eating. Ross noticed, but pointedly did not look or draw attention. Ron, on the other hand, was too excited about the prospects of the challenge to notice anything of the sort.

  After lunch, the four of them went back to the shop. It would take all four of them working together to finish the antenna. Even with as much work as they were putting into it, the antenna was still not finished by dinner that evening.

  Despite all the work that had to be done, the group stopped an hour before dark and held a memorial service for Danny. Everyone, including Ben, came outside for it. Earlier in the day, Jack had assembled a pyre for Danny. There had been a discussion about burial, but they decided a fire was best given the circumstances. Even though the group barely knew him, they had all grown to like him. His death was a stark reality that any of them could easily die at this point. There was no nighttime discussion after the memorial service. They all just went to bed.

  The next morning, Ron had disassembled no less than fifteen Wi-Fi routers that they had collected to create a large enough circuit base for the range needed. Ron and Ross then had to work together to program the firmware to cooperate with the system. This turned out to be the most challenging part. They were using one of the Linux based computers from the technology lab to work on the programming.

  While Ron and Ross worked together on the system, Cedric and Karli assembled the sections of the antenna on the roof. It was during this time that Karli made the comment, “I wish we could find a few moments alone.”

  “I know what you mean,” Cedric said, “just to have a good conversation.”

  “Is that all you want, Ced?” Karli teased.

  “Actually, yeah. Remember? I said I understand. I want to have the chance to get to know you more. I like you.”

  “God, that’s corny,” Karli teased. “And there goes this conversation,” she added when she saw her dad poke his head out of the hatchway.

  Ron climbed onto the roof carrying a small tool bag. He drilled a hole through the roof. Once the LAN cable was run, the antenna was water-proofed, and the entire system was ready, they began test flights of the drone. The drone had an original camera on board, but Cedric knew that that camera was soldered to the board and had to transmit to a website. He knew they were using a local network. So, the camera he attached was one compatible with a local wireless network.

  After a few test flights, the group knew their plan would work so long as the antenna had enough strength. In theory, this antenna should give a 4G like signal up to fifteen miles. As Ron continually pointed out, however, was that this was nothing but theory and it could lose connectivity at any moment—especially in the wooded, mountainous area of Rogersville.

  “We send the drone after lunch,” Cedric stated before he started walking back toward the ladder. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was running low on energy. He climbed the ladder down and walked to his old agriculture classroom in the hallway above the shops. Most of the people did not go to this area since it got extremely hot, but Cedric was used to it. He even grew to like it. He was curled up in the corner of the room when Karli came in.

  Cedric looked up at her and she said slightly embarrassed, “If you want me to leave you alone, I will.”

  “No,” Cedric said. “I’m just a bit worn down.”

  Karli walked toward where Cedric was laying and sat down next to him. After he fell asleep, she stayed and read a book, just to watch over him.

  Fortunately for them, it was Ross who found them an hour later. Unfortunately for them, everyone noticed that they had disappeared for an hour together. Nobody really commented on it, but everyone gave them ‘the stare.’

  Cedric and Karli came back down for lunch after Ross had found them. It was obvious he had been asleep. They knew it had been completely innocent, though, so neither one of them really cared. “
In the way everything else is just messed up,” Cedric had told Karli, “it’s nice to have something that isn’t.”

  After lunch, nearly the entire group, including Julie and Adam, went to the roof to watch the path of the drone. Cedric had an iPad that showed the video and Ron had an iPad that controlled the unit. Everyone was trying their best to watch the screen.

  Ron flew the drone in the exact path that Cedric told him, straight onto the path that he had taken a few days earlier, except in reverse. On the iPad, the group watched in shock as the wall came into view. Ron flew the drone over the area Cedric had jumped off the road and down the side of the mountain. There were a few dead infected humans rotting where they had landed. The camera could not pick up a lot of detail which Cedric was grateful for.

  Ron continued to fly the drone through Rogersville. It was easy to tell what ‘the badlands’ were from an aerial view. The town had half its area walled in. In this area, most of the houses were burnt or burning. It looked systematic.

  Ron flew the drone over his own house to see it had been one of the houses destroyed. Much to his relief, the library, with the large emergency broadcasting antenna, was still intact. Ron commented that this was essential for rescue. Nobody argued, but nobody was hopeful for rescue by this point.

  Just as the drone went over the wall on the other side of the badlands, Cedric saw something. A short caravan of vehicles. He told Ron to follow it if he could. The drone must have been low enough to be spotted, however. After a few moments, the caravan pulled to a stop. Someone got out of one of the middle cars. They could not make out enough details to see what he was doing, but they could tell from his shoulder movements that he was looking at the drone. Ron started to pull the drone up, but the next thing they knew, the signal died.

  “What happened?” Charlie asked.

  Ron shook his head, but Ross answered, “I think they shot it down.”

  EPILOGUE

  “We need to find a leader,” Ben said to the gathered crowd. “We need to decide who will make the decisions for the group as a whole. Someone who has the final word.”

  “We don’t need a leader in charge of everyone,” Charlie said. “We vote. It’s that simple. We all vote.”

  “That’s bullshit!” Ben burst out. “I think we need to elect a leader.”

  “Look,” Cedric began but was immediately cut off.

  “I’m tired of taking orders, suggestions, and plans from a damned child!” The more Ben spoke, the louder and more red-faced he was getting. “Thirty-five. That’s it. Thirty-five at least. Just like our president had to be thirty-five, our leader should be thirty-five.”

  “I dunno why you think we need a leader,” Jack said. “Charlie’s right. And so far as the age thing, I think everyone who works has a say in what happens. Sure, leave the two young’uns out of the voting and major discussions. But Ross, Charlie, Cedric, Karli, and Denise all have a right to speak and be heard. Their votes matter.”

  “Hear, hear!” Ross shouted out. “It seems as though you are in the minority. All in favor of electing a leader, raise your hand.”

  Ben, alone, raised his hand.

  “All in favor of an age limit on being a part of decisions?” Jack added.

  This time, nobody raised their hand. Ben’s face was cherry red by this point. The meeting had not gone his way. Cedric thought Ben was trying to bully his points across. He thought he could bully himself into being leader.

  “Now on to a different point. Doc, do we have everything we need for medical supplies for a while,” Charlie asked.

  Dr. Moore responded, “So long as we don’t have to do surgery, there is no reason we can’t make these supplies last more than a year.”

  “Good,” Charlie said. “Now, this other group. We went back and watched the video again.”

  “And again, and again,” Jack said.

  Charlie ignored this and continued, “We now know that they shot the drone down. We can see it took him two shots. Probably because Ron started to pull up.”

  “So,” Sue began, “the badlands, they called it? What was it?”

  “We don’t know exactly. I think it has a higher concentration of the infected. Cedric thinks they are luring them into the walled areas. They are burning houses down inside the area too,” Charlie said.

  “And who do you think these people are?” Jack asked Cedric.

  “It’s like I said earlier. I don’t know. I never even saw what they look like. The last time I was out that way, when I found Ron and his family, I didn’t see anything like this. No wall, no high volume of infected, no paramilitary jerks.” Cedric took a deep breath. “I think, judging by what they did at the hospital, and their knowledge of which roads to take, and everything else, those guys built the walls. And they’re from town: natives.”

  “But why?” Sue asked.

  “It’s obvious, I think,” Doc said. “That group of people, the paramilitary group as Cedric said, is funneling them into the walled off areas. From the descriptions Cedric has given, I think that they are burning areas of the city to try to burn these creatures…” Doc paused for a moment. “Well, not burn them alive. Maybe alive? I’m not sure. But I think these guys are trying to take full military control of the city. And if not that, then definitely trying to blockade the infected from their areas of the city.”

  “So, in short,” Charlie said standing up, “we have a high concentration of these infected people in the main part of the city. A wall is being built around parts of the city. A group of somewhat trained people who like to kidnap and tie up prisoners is somewhere out there. And we have more questions than we have answers.”

  “And they don’t like drones,” Ron added.

  “That sounds about right,” Cedric said standing up. He squeezed Karli’s hand he was holding before letting it go. He then patted Charlie on the shoulder and said, “But despite everything. Despite all this deep mess we seem to be in. We are surviving.”