by David Peters
“Let’s call the council together at first light. If the ‘Rupt’s are changing up their tactics, it’s going to turn into more of them on our doorstep. It always does.”
~1~
“So that sums up what little information we have about the situation in Folkesburg. Does anyone have any comments, questions, observations?” Niccole asked.
Caperson cleared his throat, “What are the odds of them making it here? You said they have wagons for their horses, any idea how many or how big they are?”
“The only thing I can tell you is that Laurie had mentioned one time that they reminded her of an old west style wagon, complete with the dirty white canvas. Neither Dylan nor I want to speculate on how they are going to get here. I can’t begin to guess how many different routes they could choose to get here. If they are on foot, they have several different valleys they could come through that would shave nearly one hundred miles off of their trip instead of coming by road only. They could go for Montana or Canada too as far as that goes, it’s only another three or four hundred miles further.”
Caperson nodded, “But we are the only town on record that blew up a local hive, we are the place where everyone is going to come at some point, I have to go with Dylan on that one.”
Niccole nodded, “While I agree with that, we still don’t know where, or how for that matter, they are going and we don’t have enough free people to commit to an all-out search. Let alone trying to coordinate that. Without very many radios, it would be a nightmare in these mountains.”
Erica interjected, “We may not know where they are going, but that doesn’t mean we can’t plan for them arriving. More people show up every month and we aren’t growing at any sort of pace that can keep up with it. Food and housing are both falling behind. The only thing we do have an abundance of right now is water, but even that could change if next summer is as brutal as the last one was.”
Doc spoke up, which was a rare enough event that the room quieted whenever he spoke, “We need to be a little more realistic about the change in climate. It’s high time we start realizing that the weather changes we are seeing will get steadily worse for us.”
Someone at the back of the room spoke up, “It’s getting warmer, I don’t mind not having to shovel three feet of snow off the walkway to be honest.” Several people laughed uncomfortably.
“That three feet of snow you hate so much is the snowpack of stored water that keeps our river running through the summer. We have only a trace on the ground compared to what we had here four years ago. There is a very good chance that our river will be dry come mid-July.”
Dylan added, “And a dry river means a seventy-five percent cut in our available power, that means a big cutback in what lighting and equipment we can use.”
“Worse than that, Dylan,” Doc continued, “all of our crops on the hillside are watered from that river. If it’s dry, we have no choice but to either lower our yield, or pull water up from the lake. I’m not sure which of those ideas would be more impossible.”
Dylan turned to Erica, “Does all of this gibe with what we have in stocks?”
“We definitely aren’t putting as much into longer-term storage than we were a year ago,” she flipped through the well-worn binder that she always had with her. “The two biggest concerns of late have been available land for both crop production, or more precisely, aggregate crop field space, and the fact that we are running out of real estate for cabins. That leaves us with two options for growing available living space, up or out. Up isn’t really an option given our limited ability and supplies. We are going to have to go with more communal living space going forward. Probably something more along the lines of the Native American longhouses.”
“So just to get everything into one ugly basket, food will be short, water will be short, power will be short, living space will be cramped and the Corrupted are starting an entirely new campaign to kill us all. We may, or may not, have an unknown number of new people, maybe one, maybe one-thousand, show up at the gate that will need to be put somewhere. Did I capture all of that?”
The room was silent as Dylan looked around at the eyes. No one could deny the problems but they looked to him for solutions. “Okay, first and foremost, I want our defenses top notch. If the Corrupted are trying something new then we need to push our patrols out further, push our defenses out further, and possibly look at having early warning stations positioned some distance out.”
Caperson added, “It might be a good time to fire up the long-range patrol plan Jokester and I have been working on. We are ready to start that up the second you give the okay.”
“As much as I don’t like the idea of sending someone out there for several days at a time, we simply don’t have a choice. Make it happen, we need a better picture of what’s around us beyond the ten or fifteen mile area we have now. As far as future power and food issues, Erica is going to have to see what our options are, she and Travis have kept it going this long, I expect they will continue to do so for the future.”
“At the very least I think we should start thinking about controlling how much food is going out,” Erica added.
“So you want to start rationing?” Dylan asked.
“If that’s what you want to call it. I think it is more about being aware that maybe scraping that uneaten salad into the compost pile isn’t the best idea. We need to be thinking about the future. Things are going to continue to warm up and supplies continue to thin out.”
Dylan leaned back and rolled his neck as he tried to release some of the stress of the day. New reports of stepped up Corrupted activity, the potential of several hundred more mouths to feed and the fact that the environment itself may start to work against them was enough to give him a migraine.
Dylan stood to wrap up the meeting, “So going forward, it’s time to start thinking a little more long term. A little less working on tomorrow and the dinner that comes with it and a lot more planning for next year and the year after that. Just to be clear, I see most of this as a good thing.”
Niccole raised an eyebrow, “How so?”
“This is the first time in four years we have had to worry about too many people. The last four years were spent living day to day and wondering if the next day would be our last and suddenly we are throwing around phrases like communal housing and future growth.”
She nodded back her agreement, “I guess I hadn’t quite looked at it that way. As good as it may be, it still spells a lot of work in the near future.”
He leaned over and whispered to Caperson, “Do you have any idea how badly I could use a beer?”
Chapter 4
Dylan leaned against the work shed wall as he watched Travis finish the final weld between a heavy looking plate and a short length of two or three inch wide metal tubing.
“Careful what you lean against there, Boss,” Travis said as he indicated something behind Dylan with a heavy-gloved hand.
Dylan leaned forward and looked behind him. A small brass latch held the heavy, swinging door in place.
“Every now and then someone hits that latch just right. With the flue open on the forge, the air movement through the room will slam that door so hard I swear whoever is standing there just about craps their pants.” He laughed as he lowered the protective visor as the sparks started back up again. He continued to chuckle quietly to himself, “Still makes me laugh every time.”
Shadows danced on the walls as the intense blue light formed the two pieces of steel into one.
Travis looked the weld over. He brushed several places with what appeared to be a brass barbecue brush and found it to be to his satisfaction. With several turns of the large silver handle, he removed the object from the workbench vice. Cradling the heavy piece of equipment in his arms he gently lowered it into a small A-frame bipod on the ground, “So we would probably have enough for thirty, maybe forty shots, depending on how far you want to toss one of the rounds. Accuracy will probably be, well, lacking as will overall ra
te of fire.”
“That isn’t a lot of ammunition. I would think that could be burned up in a heavy battle pretty fast.”
Travis shrugged, “Until I can get more of those soup cans that’s the best I can do.”
Dylan knelt down and looked at the crudely made mortar, “So this is something that you and Whitey came up with when you were mad that you couldn’t get the lumber for a giant catapult?”
“That describes the situation pretty accurately. Actually, the whole thing started out as one long, run-on joke. We were talking about old techs that we could build out using what we had around town. It wasn’t long before we began making jokes about old flintlocks and cap and ball muskets that Daniel had kept for whatever reason no one ever knew. I’m pretty sure he simply believed we wouldn’t be able to make modern bullets and round ball would be easier to keep. I don’t recall him ever saying anything about shooting black powder, first the grain type he has is too big for the rifles he bought, you would probably blow the barrel out before you could get a round moving fast enough. Secondly, the man went and bought several lifetimes worth. Big old five pound cans, must have been some reenactment group or something, old Civil War stuff. Can’t imagine how many government agencies had him on some list wondering why he needed that stuff. We have nearly half a pallet of it in the weapons shed.”
“How did that conversation turn into this weapon on the floor?”
“We were talking about actually trying to use the powder in a narrow barrel and Whitey joked that we should build an old twenty-four pounder. You know, one of those old brass cannons. It didn’t take too much longer before we realized we couldn’t get it up on the wall and would need something that can shoot over it. Light bulb went off and bam, black powder mortars. Made perfect sense and all we had to do was liberate some tube...uh,” he paused for a moment as his face turned red, “I mean, we needed to talk to the proper people and get the correct pieces together.”
Dylan walked over to the workbench and looked at the long line of what looked like soup cans with a small copper band welded around the middle. Three small fins were crudely welded into what looked like the back of a dart while the nose had what appeared to be the remains of a heavily modified shotgun round, “What is the tip of this for?”
“Giant lawn dart dude! It’s the best part! This thing is a masterpiece of apocalyptic engineering, man!”
“Come again?”
“Just because we can huck one of these cans of Dust two hundred meters into a field doesn’t mean it will do anything more than bounce once it arrives. I set the ass-end of the shell in there to detonate a small charge in the center of the can. Not a really big boom, but it should give about a twenty meter by ten-meter cloud of Dust with a little bit of shrapnel for added flavor. We had so much bird shot in the armory,” Travis shrugged then gave Dylan a serious look, “Did Daniel have something against birds?”
“Not that I recall. He did like to go turkey hunting but I don’t think there is a whole lot of that around here. So you were able to put three of these things together?”
“Oh yeah! They’re crude, the welds are rough and look like cheap imported crap, but they’ll work.”
“I don’t doubt that for a minute, Travis.” He placed the round back on the bench and knelt down to look closer at the weapon, “So you actually mounted the rifle actions onto the bottom of the tubes?”
“Have to fire it off somehow. A real mortar has a pin in the bottom of the tube, the round itself has the charge to propel it back out of the barrel. I couldn’t quite figure out how to do that without simply having a three inch wide shotgun that was more likely to mess up the person shooting it than hurt anything on the other side of the wall. I just don’t have the materials I would need. Even if I did, I don’t have the tools I need to make some of the finer pieces. I could do it though!”
Dylan smiled and shook his head as he looked at the weapon, “You like this way too much, Travis.”
“Everyone has a purpose in life, Boss. Mine just involves turning things into large clouds of smoke and fire,” he threw his infectious smile toward Dylan.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Not for a single minute. I would probably be lurking around in the woods as a Hunter if it wasn’t for you.” Dylan turned and started for the shed door, “You and Erica up for dinner tonight? I’d like to talk more shop but over some more of that elk you have if you are able to?”
“Be there with bells on, Boss. I have a roast marinating as we speak.”
“I’ll let you get back to it then. Good job as usual, Travis.”
Dylan stepped out of the shop and walked toward the town center. He could see Cap-Cap yelling up to the top of the guard tower and made his way in the direction of the yelling.
Caperson was cupping his hands over his mouth and yelling at Jokester up in the tower, “So with the locking bracket bent back now, how far will the fifty swing up?”
Jokester disappeared as he ducked down and pointed their fifty caliber machine gun skyward. The long, black barrel was pointing nearly straight up.
“That looks good, bolt it tight there! Then try to swing it down with the new arm in place!”
Dylan could hear a ratchet being used in the high tower. After a moment of silence the large machine gun swung out and down, pointed directly at the ground underneath. “What’s all the yelling about, Chris?”
“That fifty is the heaviest weapon we have. When it was originally set up, it was designed to cover the wall, west facing for the most part. That’s only what, maybe two hundred meters total? That weapon can reach out several kilometers and still hit like a bus. I’m just trying to get a little more leverage out of what we have. Basically, I wanted full movement.”
Dylan leaned close and quietly said, “So what you are saying is you wish we had bigger weapons?”
“Dylan, where I come from anything weighing less than twelve tons is considered a small weapon. So, yeah, you could say it would be kind of nice to have something bigger.”
Dylan smiled, “Travis built you three mortars.”
Caperson turned and gave him a stunned look, “He did what?”
“They aren’t fresh out of some pre-Fall modern weapons factory. But they are genuine, old school, black powder mortars. General Washington would have thought they were outdated but I’ll bet he wouldn’t have turned them down.”
“And did our marvelous little Travis give you any idea of the range of these bad boys? What kind of payload? What’s their rate of fire? How accurate are they?”
Dylan held his hands up to try to slow Caperson’s questions, “He seems to think he can push out to two hundred meters but it hasn’t been tested. He has specially built Dustbombs. It’s pretty much duct-tape and glue, but that is what Travis does best. The other stuff I don’t know about. I’m guessing you would like to be involved with that when it is done?”
“Damn straight I would! Where is that mad scientist right now?”
“I left him in his Mad Scientist’s lab. You and Jen need to come over for dinner. Travis will be there so you can get all the details. I think I talked him into bringing more of that elk he and Whitey got on the west slope.”
“I’m there!” He turned and shouted back to Jokester, “Let’s wrap this up, my high-towered friend! I have places to be!”
~1~
“So you really think there are that many elk in the herd? That’s nearly double what our gather teams were reporting a year ago,” Dylan asked as he leaned back from the table and folded the napkin on his dinner plate.
“At least several hundred from what I have seen. If there were still records being kept I’ll bet there are some new ones moving around in those hills,” Travis pointed to the west as he spoke. He held his arms out wide as he spoke around another mouthfull of potatoes, “Rack was this big on one of them. He was a solid fourteen points, bet he has more than four-hundred pounds of meat on him. Jonathan would be carving away at that for a week!”
�
�I guess we won’t be having any shortage of wild meat in the foreseeable future,” Niccole added as she handed her empty plate to Caperson.
Caperson grabbed several other plates and joined Jen in the small kitchen, “Won’t hear me complaining about it. That has to be the best damn steak I’ve ever had.”
“If anything we may have an overpopulation problem come next season, although the lack of a real winter snow is causing the grasslands to grow like mad. It will reach equilibrium at some point,” Dylan walked over to the homemade highchairs that Annie and Daniel were sitting in.
Caperson added, “Assuming the climate doesn’t continue to get worse for us. Those grasslands growing like mad make for an entire hillside of kindling when those summer lightning storms hit.”
The table fell into silence as they finished off their meal. Dylan found himself staring into his empty plate thinking heavily about the past. He shook his head as if to ward off thoughts of days gone by.
Niccole broke the awkward quiet that had settled over the table, “You know it’s been more than four years since I looked at an email?”
Dylan laughed, “Four years since I had to run back to my truck because I left my cellphone on the dash. I would be shoulder deep in some poor guys busted tractor and hear that thing ring all the way across the field. About the only way I could guarantee no one was going to call me was to keep that blasted thing in my pocket.”
Jen smile then sighed, “Four years since I stood in line for a movie and could smell the popcorn inside. Remember those glass display cases with all that chocolate?”
Niccole smiled, “Give me anything with caramel!”