They watched as a younger blonde woman walked up and handed Dan a large coffee pot to set atop the stove.
“Coffee will be ready shortly,” Dan announced to the group of around 30 people now forming up inside what was once the armory’s gymnasium. A few more people were still slowly making their way inside.
Everyone left in Riverport, Illinois attended these weekly meetings.
“I think someone else finds Dan looking rather good for his age,” Ben nodded toward the blonde who lingered just a little too long beside Dan before moving on.
“Huh…Marta?” Jill snorted. “She’s had a thing for Dan for years. Guess it’d be tough serving drinks alongside him almost every night and not having formed some sort of attachment.”
“You think they ever acted on that ‘attachment’ as you so nicely put it?” Ben eyed his wife.
“Don’t know,” Jill shook her head. “At first, I thought that she was just a conniving little Polack looking to get her citizenship by marrying an American. But I’ve seen enough guys make a play for her that she certainly had her opportunity. Seemed like she was always waiting for something more…something better than just a free ride to citizenship.”
“And you think that this something better she was waiting for was Dan?”
“Why not? Pickings are pretty slim in Riverport, especially for a non-citizen. People are wary of outsiders as it is here. You know how long it took us to feel comfortable in small-town Illinois. Heck, I still feel out of place sometimes.”
“True,” Ben conceded, tilting his head to the side as he considered.
Across the room, a couple already having chosen their seats from among the rows of folding chairs was eyeing Ben and Jill with curiosity. A little girl sat at their feet on the floor undressing her doll.
“Brandon?” the woman named Cara, said quietly.
“Yeah?” he answered.
“You think we would still get along the same way Ben and Jill do if something happened to Lou…you know, like it did to their little Jonathon? Like if…God forbid, a biter got her like it did Jonathon.”
“Hard to say,” Cara’s husband of five years said. “I mean, I hope so, but well, I guess you just don’t know until it happens. I mean, I know I’d always love you, Cara, but there’s a lot of stuff that can come into play with a situation like that. One parent could blame the other in some way for what happened. Or the parents might end up blaming themselves…rehashing the events that led to the tragedy over and over again. They keep thinking about what happened, what they could have done differently…or what the other person could have done differently, until they go kind of nuts. Either that or they grow such a strong resentment toward the other person that the relationship falls apart. I’m no marriage counselor or psychologist or anything, but I could see something like that really putting a strain on a marriage.”
“You don’t think something like that could ever make a marriage stronger?” Cara eyed her husband curiously. “Like it could form a tighter bond because the two people have to rely on one another for strength during the recovery process?”
“Don’t know,” her husband shrugged. “I suppose it could. I pray that we never have to find out,” he glanced down at the curly-headed blonde girl still playing quietly at their feet. “I heard that those two use the biters as their therapy. I’ve seen some of it in action.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mean that they vent their frustrations on the biters. Rather than dwelling on the child they lost, they exact their revenge on the ones responsible for taking their child from them. One day I was out cutting wood. Saw a group of biters coming down the road, maybe twenty of them in total. I was just getting ready to take off when I saw those two,” he nodded at Ben and Jill, “come out of the woods. They took down the entire herd without a shot being fired.”
“But how?” Cara breathed in amazement, not having been on nearly as many of the biter-killing trips as most of the remaining residents.
“Well, he carries a sort of ice-ax thing.”
“What’s that?” his wife interrupted.
“You know, like the things mountain climbers use.”
“Oh…okay, gotcha,” Cara nodded.
“He carries that in his dominate hand. Carries a machete in the other. Kind of gives him a backup. If his ax gets stuck in a biter or something, he has the machete for hacking.”
“And what does she use?” Cara asked, finding this conversation far more interesting, and far less depressing than the one about how losing a child would affect a relationship.
“She carries this quiver of javelins. They’re, I don’t know, maybe two, two-and-a-half feet long, steel poles. She used to throw the javelin in high school, I guess. I think she makes them out of pieces of re-bar that have been filed down to a point at one end. Anyway, she hurls the damn things at the biters, impaling them until she runs out. But her last one is a longer piece that she uses as a sort of baton or pike. She can stab, jab, whack, or whatever with it.”
“Wow,” Cara breathed, amazed. “Sounds like they’re pretty bad-ass.”
“A lot of pent up anger to relieve,” her husband said. “Can you imagine how you’d feel if a biter took Lou?”
“Good point,” she nodded.
“Want any coffee?” Brandon asked. “Looks like it’s ready.”
“Sure, thanks. You?”
“Yeah, I think I’ll get some to. It’ll warm my hands if nothing else.”
A minute later, Brandon was back.
“Thanks,” Cara smiled as he handed her a steaming foam cup of coffee.
“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Richard, the town’s mayor, stepped up to a small podium set at one end of the gymnasium directly beneath the sagging net of a basketball hoop. Richard was in his early forties and had a full, brown beard with wisps of white. Most men in the community wore beards of some sort mainly because it was too hard to shave these days. Richard had formerly run a small real estate business in town in addition to serving as mayor.
The crowd that had grown to around forty people, gradually quieted. They constituted almost the town’s entire remaining population except for those currently on watch duty. The group sat scattered among five rows of metal folding chairs.
“Thank you all for coming,” Richard began the meeting. “I’m sure everyone has already noticed that we’re a few people short this week…as we are most weeks at this meeting. It’s my sad duty to report, although I’m sure most, if not all of you already know, that we lost Fritz Yunger, Otis Williams, and Shirley Tillman this week. On Monday, Fritz and Otis were taken from us by biters while on guard duty. Shirley was attacked by a biter just outside her home two days ago.” Richard scanned the crowd. “If we could now pause in a moment of silence for these fellow townspeople, as well as in remembrance for all the friends, neighbors, and loved ones we’ve lost during these extremely trying past several months.”
There was a moment of silence in which the assembled crowd bowed their heads. Then Richard resumed the meeting.
Richard wasn’t an overwhelming presence physically, average in stature and build, but he had a low, booming voice that resonated inside the gymnasium and presented an overall air of authority.
“As I’ve said before, those we’ve lost should serve as a constant reminder that while we’ve made significant strides in securing our community, we still have a lot of work to do. I know it’s of little consolation, but if we think back to this time one month ago, the list of casualties incurred by biters was three times as long. A month before that, and it was easily several dozen.”
“Only because there are fewer of us to eat now!” someone called from the crowd.
“Well,” Richard hesitated uncomfortably, “that might be partially true. But we’ve also made significant changes to our security procedures and the care we’ve taken to secure the town. This brings me to the reason we’re all here, the review of general announcements, assignment of duties, and other
housekeeping issues.”
Richard didn’t like drawing out these meetings. People’s fuses were getting shorter by the week, as was Richard’s pool of labor on which to draw in an effort to keep the remnants of his town safe.
“I’ve posted a new watch schedule on the wall, so please take a moment to check that before you leave. And remember, the chef and dinner cleanup crew stays the same for this week. Those are now two-week positions. That timeframe makes it easier to develop weekly menus and get into a better meal-prep routine. I’ve also posted the new scavenging teams, although I haven’t put up times for those teams to go out yet. Missions and locations will of course be dependant on weather and the biter situation in surrounding areas. I’ll do my best to notify everyone a day in advance of such missions, but there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to get a hold of everyone, so make sure you’re checking that schedule on a daily basis.”
Richard glanced down at a notepad he held with a checklist of items to cover during the meeting. And as he glanced back up at the small crowd seated before him, for a brief instant, he almost felt like crying.
At last count, there were 47 survivors from a pre-biter town of 329 people. And even with most of the biters in the near vicinity having finally been neutralized, sacrificing 85 percent of their town’s population to reach this point was no small price to pay.
Every week, Richard added to the list of deceased. Most were killed by biters. A few had succumbed to the flu, infection or other sicknesses or disease. Sadly, a few months earlier, what had killed these final few would probably have been preventable with a trip to the hospital or even just some generic antibiotic ointment or prescription medication. Now, the world was not only more dangerous due to biters but to deaths caused by afflictions that had formerly been easily preventable.
“I do have some positive news to report,” Richard pressed on. “I’m happy to say that our last few roving patrols have found only a few biters in the area, all of which were eliminated. Most of the biters were found wandering alone rather than in the larger packs in which we found them just a month ago.”
“That’s because all the food, us, is drying up,” someone called from the crowd.
Richard ignored the comment.
“The patrol that came back yesterday said that it appeared that the neighboring towns of Station Point and Riggsville were relatively clear of biters as well.”
“Did they find any uninfected survivors in those towns or learn anything about possible help from the government or army or anybody?” Dan Higgins, the former bar owner and current coffee server at the meeting asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” Richard shook his head. “This can be viewed as both good and bad.”
“How’s that?” Dan asked.
“Well, it’s good because first off, there’s no one left in those areas to be converted to biters. Second, with no survivors, it means we won’t be taking in more mouths to feed or having to fight people for supplies. At the same time, though, it means there’s no one left to assist us with our duties here. And there’s no one to provide news related to safe zones or combating the spread of the Carchar Syndrome.”
“So what the hell is the plan for us then?” a young man with short cropped hair in his early twenties said almost angrily, his frustration with the situation obvious. “We’re just supposed to hold out here, waiting, doing nothing, more of us dying every week until we’re all dead? I mean, we heard about that possible safe zone in St. Louis a couple weeks ago. Have we heard anything else? What about sending a scouting party down that way to see what the hell’s going on there or at least see if we can get close enough to confirm whether it actually exists? I mean, I feel like we’re just sitting here waiting to die.”
Richard took a deep breath, putting up a hand in front of him. “I hear what you’re saying, Eric. But we just don’t have the manpower or the resources for such a trip. St. Louis was a two-hour trip from here before the biters came along. God only knows how long it would take us now. We’d have to expend food, water, fuel, vehicles, time, and manpower on such a trip, all of which are in short supply. And how many people would we send? Four or five? They could easily be overwhelmed if something went wrong. Ten or fifteen would be better, but then we’re spreading ourselves too thin here at home. If a roving herd of biters came along, we could be overwhelmed.”
“But you said it looked like the biters around here had been cleared,” Eric shot back, undeterred.
“For the moment,” Richard nodded. “But that doesn’t mean it will stay that way.”
“So then we should try to make it to safe zone…if position here is still unsecured,” Marta, the blonde bartender said in a thick Polish accent. “Maybe we should all go…together…everyone.”
Eric glanced over to where Marta sat several seats from him. Their eyes met, locked, and then broke as Richard responded.
“But what if we pack everything up…all our supplies, all our people, and head for St. Louis only to get there and find the situation is just as bad as it is here?” Richard tried to take back control of the meeting. “Then we could be stuck there. There could be tons of biters or there could be vigilante groups who would try to take our supplies and kill us in the process. I just don’t see that it’s a good option right now. If we can pick up that radio signal again, it’s one thing. But we haven’t heard it in over a week. It might only have been a ploy to get unsuspecting people…”
“Country bumpkins like us, you mean,” Eric glared at him challengingly.
“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant to get people who were smart and able enough to outlast the biters, and who probably still have supplies, to travel to the city, bringing their supplies with them.”
Eric backed down at Richard’s response.
Richard was college educated, and he had worked in Chicago for ten years before returning to his hometown of Riverport. Some residents had welcomed his homecoming, appreciating the experience and knowledge he brought with him to help manage their tiny burg. Others, like Eric, who had barely finished high-school and had worked at the local feed store, tended to resent him. They viewed Richard’s return as the big-city boy having come home for his chance to play big shot.
“For now,” Richard continued, “I think it’s best to sit tight, wait for winter to break, and hope that help finds us, rather than us having to search for help. This is our comfort zone. We know this place. We have set it up so that we can survive here. Who knows what awaits us if we go venturing off in search of greener pastures. We’ve all suffered enough death in the past few months. There’s not one of us here who hasn’t lost a friend, a neighbor, a loved one or some combination thereof. If we can just hunker down and make it through the rest of winter, we’ll see what spring brings.”
Here he locked eyes with Eric. “We’re all in this together, like it or not. And I’d suggest that we do our best to at least try to like it, because it will make things a hell of a lot easier if we do. Getting all the kinks worked out here is going to take some time. I’ve told you that. The world as we know it doesn’t just end without some discomfort.”
“Don’t we know it!” a woman called from the back row.
“And the sooner we come to grips with that, the better it will be for all of us,” Richard said determinedly. “We’re family now. All of us. And we need to start acting like it. We need to stick together, work together, and support one another. That’s the only way we’re going to get through this together.”
Chapter 11
Victor had a plan. He’d been working on it for a while. And while his scouting mission the other night had been a bust, costing him several of his herd, it had taught him things as well, and learning was important. He was confident he could still execute on his ideas. And he was confident his herd would follow him. They were growing smarter, stronger, and more loyal by the day. They were willing to die for Victor. And Victor was willing to let them, not because he wanted to, but because he realized that their sacrifice wou
ld add to the greater good of their race’s cause.
But their deaths had taught him several valuable lessons. First, he saw that if they could get in close enough to one of the boxes that their prey lived inside, it made it harder for the prey to utilize the exploding things that shot hot metal at them. There were often openings in the box walls that made it easier for their prey to use their exploding devices. But sometimes, due to the size or angle of these openings, it made it difficult for their prey to maneuver the devices to shoot at those like Victor. If Victor and his herd stayed away from those openings, it kept them safer. And getting in close, and staying low, also seemed to help them stay away from the exploding devices.
On their recent outing, Victor also finally made the connection regarding the usefulness and power of the moon. When the moon was out, it made it easier for Victor and his herd to travel. But the moonlight also allowed their prey to more easily see them coming. That made it more dangerous for Victor and his followers. Without the moon, they were better concealed, and they could approach their prey largely without danger. And if they stuck to wooded areas on the approach to their target, avoiding the hard-packed paths on which the large metal beasts with round rolling feet roamed, Victor was confident that he and his herd could reach their targets largely unmolested.
His herd now numbered well over a hundred. They were well trained, well rested, and motivated by a ravenous desire to feed. They hadn’t eaten in almost two days. They hadn’t even ventured out on any hunting trips. Victor had kept it this way for several reasons. First, prey was scarce. But Victor knew where food could be found. Second, he wanted his herd to conserve their energy. Third, he wanted his herd hungry, almost on the verge of being desperate for food. He knew that this would increase the fight in them.
Victor walked through their den inside the Riverside Library, rousing his herd. It was a clear, cold night. There was no moon. It was just the type of night Victor had been waiting for.
The Last Bastion (Book 3): The Last Bastion Page 11