by David Rogers
Tyler looked at Austin, who nodded and spoke up. “It shouldn’t take us very long to get everything out of the SUVs. Some of it is coming in here, and the rest will be going into the warehouse outside. Then we’ll park everything and get back under cover. For now, and probably for good, I don’t see any need to do constant patrols on foot outside, so we’ll mount a watch on the roof where it’s easier to see and is safe. I’ve got Billy, Darnell and Jamal down for the first shift. A schedule will be left here on the counter, so be sure to check it before dark to see when you’re supposed to be up there.”
Austin made his face very serious, almost stern. “We’re all in this together. If everyone pulls their share, there won’t be a problem. Please don’t make it hard on everyone else by not cooperating. Be on time when it’s your turn for a watch, and if there’s something that needs doing, lend a hand. I’ll sort other tasks out as they come up, but all you need to worry about for tonight is whether or not you’re on the roof, and when. Anyone have any questions for me about that?”
Heads shook. Austin studied the faces for several seconds, then looked at Tyler. The executive nodded briskly. “Okay, some bad news, but don’t worry, it’s not really too bad. There’s only enough food on hand to last us about a week. The better news is that gives us plenty of time to get settled and do some restocking, which Mr. Carter here will be organizing starting on Tuesday. And the good news is tonight we’re all having steak.”
Jessica surprised herself by laughing along with most of the others. Tyler grinned and shrugged. “One of the things we do here is host clients, so we try to have good food on hand to make sure they feel like we’re treating them seriously. But it’s silly to let it all go to waste. Isaac, the facility maintenance foreman, tells me his wife Kay is already working on dinner. Anyone who knows their way around a kitchen and who isn’t otherwise tasked is encouraged to help her get everything prepared, so we can all get some food in us that much sooner.
“Okay, any questions about the rest of the day, and tonight?” Tyler looked around expectantly.
Head shook again, though some nervously or hesitantly. Tyler gave it a few moments, then smiled. “So, keys, check yourselves in, then get to the kitchen or back down here to help with the unloading. Then we’ll settle in for the night and keep watch. I want everyone to take a moment and relax. We made it. We’re safe.”
* * * * *
Darryl
Darryl looked up as the music blasting from the speakers hung on the outside of the clubhouse abruptly died. He waited a few seconds, expecting it to come back on. People occasionally hit the wrong switch on the amplifier, or sometimes tripped over one of the cables, but the music stayed off. A few moments later Monique emerged from the back door of the clubhouse with a worried expression on her face.
“Power just went out.” she announced.
A chorus of groans and curses rose from the people lounging around the patio area in the back yard. Big Chief set his plate aside and stood up, looking at Bobo. “Time to fire up the generators?”
“One.” Bobo said. “And first go through the house with a flashlight and turn everything off. Nothing runs except Mr. Soul’s TV and enough lights to see by.”
“No AC?” one of the Dogz asked.
“No. Pulls too much power.” Bobo shook his head.
“Aw man.”
“We ain’t got but so much gas.” Bobo said, unrepentant. “And tell Jody she gotta alternate the fridges. Only one plugged in at a time.”
The loss of power was not unexpected. The Dogz had three generators ready to go in the barn, with extension cords and multi-plugs already run over to the clubhouse and threaded into the rooms where they were needed. The problem was, according to Big Chief and EZ, the generators were going to burn a lot of fuel if all three were running. That was a lot of gas, and Bobo wanted to stretch what they had as much as possible.
Big Chief was the club’s mechanic, and he and EZ – mostly EZ since Big Chief wasn’t too good with anything that didn’t involve riding, driving, or fixing things – had figured out they could run a few lights, two of the televisions, and one of the three refrigerators at a time off a single generator. The air conditioning was just too high draw, even if they’d bothered to get it wired in. If they wanted to fire up the stove and oven, that would require a second generator. Bobo was still thinking on that one, but they had even less propane for the camp stoves the Dogz had looted.
Big Chief nodded and plucked a mini-Maglite off his belt. “Come on Monique, you might as well help me go start connecting stuff.”
“You ain’t got no call on me.” she snapped back. “You had your chance to put a ring on this finger.” she continued, dangling a hand at him.
“Monique.” Bobo said calmly.
“For you Bobo, sure. Not cause he ordering me around.” the woman sniffed after a moment. “I his baby momma, not his woman.”
“Guess we all gonna be spending more time outside then.” Darryl remarked.
“Yeah, it too hot inside without the AC blasting.” Stick groused.
“For now, sure.” EZ pointed out. “Wait a few more months and it’ll start getting cold.”
“One problem at a time.” Bobo said calmly as he resumed eating.
“EZ, how much of that fuel shit we got left. The stuff you say we need if we’re gonna have it sitting around for months.” Darryl asked as he decided he was full.
“About enough for two more barrels.” EZ answered. “But getting more ain’t gonna be much harder than getting more gas gonna be.”
Darryl spotted one of the older kids hovering nearby who still looked hungry. At his gesture, the kid came over and claimed the plate Darryl offered him with the remaining half of a hamburger and potato chips the biker didn’t want.
“We already got a couple hundred gallons stored up.” Spider pointed out.
“Yeah, and we gonna need at least four or five times that much just to see us through winter.” EZ shrugged. “More if them heaters we picked up pull more juice than I figuring.”
“You think you wrong?” Joker asked.
“Shit no, but this ain’t no time for guessing.” EZ laughed briefly before his face turned serious. “And the longer we wait, the worse the gas in any stations is getting.”
“Assuming someone else don’t roll by and claim it.” Tiny said.
Darryl frowned as he pulled his cigarettes out and got one going. He didn’t disagree with any of it, but they were seriously starting to run out of places to put things. Especially things that were hard to store, like fuel and food. The food needed to be kept dry and away from insects or whatever that might go after it, and a bunch of gas cans sitting around was a risk anyway you cut it.
“We gonna have to move quick in the next couple of days if we serious about it.” EZ added, catching the expression on Darryl’s face.
“How many fools you think is still out there grabbing shit?” Low asked.
“Everyone.” Bobo said. “If they smart.”
Darryl nodded. “Where Tank at?”
“Fucking up one of the latrines.” Smoke said, pointing at the line of new wooden sheds that had been put in near the back of the fence line. Each enclosed a hole four foot deep, and were as simple and make-shift as the fence. Solid enough to do the job, but ugly and lacking in polish or finish. The smell was already bad back there, but the clubhouse’s fixtures had never been intended to support the number now living in it. Even two bathrooms wouldn’t have been enough. They were showering on strict shifts and time limits as it was, even after the ‘toilet traffic’ had been diverted from the bathrooms to the outhouses.
“Fuck, that nasty.” Evil said, wrinkling his nose up.
“That what they for.” Bobo said. “What on your mind DJ?”
Darryl shrugged. “We need to figure out some more storage. Tank bossing all the building stuff.”
Bobo grinned. “Yeah, but I ain’t useless, just busy. I been thinking on it some.”
&nb
sp; “Well, spill it Top.” Fish said.
“Option one, we can round us up enough cans and drums and whatever to lay in more gas.” Bobo replied around a mouthful of burger.
“Unless we find a warehouse of them barrels, you talking about a lot of cans.” EZ told him.
“Yeah, I know. We could put in some shelves to stack them, but I ain’t thinking we gonna find that many gas cans laying around anyways. Option two, we see if we can’t find us some storage tanks we can liberate and haul back here.”
“What kind of tanks?” Stick asked curiously.
“Anything that’ll stay sealed. Like you see outside houses sometimes.”
Low shook his head. “Ain’t those heavy?”
“Yeah, they is.” Bobo nodded. “And we probably gonna need to find some tools, maybe a damn cutting torch, to get them knocked loose anyway.”
Darryl wasn’t sure how that would work, even if they threw a lot of Dogz at the problem. It was impressive what a sufficiently large group of men could accomplish, but he couldn’t see it being very easy to lift and move a metal storage tank. And even with the two Home Depot flatbed trucks they had, he wasn’t sure if the weight could be hauled without breaking the trucks.
“Option three, we put us in a pool, line it, fill it, and cover it.”
“A pool of gas?” Spider’s eyes were goggling a little.
EZ was shaking his head. “How we gonna line one big enough to bother with? It go to leaking and we just wasted all our time, plus all the gas.”
“We find us enough concrete and it might work.”
“Concrete porous, I think.” Tank said as he returned. “It ain’t water-tight.”
“We need to find a damn tanker truck.” EZ said.
Darryl smiled. Leave it to EZ, never willing to go for slow when he could find a flashy option with balls. “Great, where we look?”
“Shit, don’t ask me. I live in fucking Doraville.”
“Not no more you don’t.” Stick said. “Doraville now zombieville.”
“Just about everywhere zombieville now fool.” Needles laughed. “Welcome to the end of the world.”
“I fucking know that crackhead.” Stick retorted.
“Knock it off.” Bobo commanded before anyone had a chance to dive into the verbal back-and-forth. “We can add it to the list. It a good idea.”
“If we can find one.” Tank pointed out.
“Yeah, but it ain’t no different than anything else we looking for.”
“Damn Bobo, you talking about a fucking semi-truck.” Low said, sounding unhappy. “Where we gonna find one.”
“They out there somewhere.” Darryl pointed out. “We just have to keep looking.”
“DJ right as usual.” Bobo nodded. “We just gotta keep looking.”
“Hey.”
Heads turned to the roof of the clubhouse. Fish was standing at the edge, and pointed when he saw people were looking at him. “Got another group coming out of the trees on foot.”
Darryl reached for his shotgun and stood up. “Guess it my turn.” he said as he shouldered the weapon.
“Careful you don’t go getting almost shot like last time.” Needles laughed.
“Just for that fool, you coming with me.” Darryl told him. “Come on, let’s go warn them off before they get to fucking with the fence.”
“Why you gotta be like that?”
“Cause you running your mouth. Get up, let’s go.”
* * * * *
Peter
The motel walkway was crowded, but it was the only space where everyone could gather within earshot. None of the rooms were big enough to fit more than maybe a dozen people at a time. The civilians were murmuring a little amongst themselves, but many looked somewhere between scared and unsettled. Peter didn’t blame them. Not much about the situation wasn’t scary or unsettling. He looked around as the last of the refugees emerged from their rooms, then caught Burns’ nod and raised his arms above his head for attention.
“Okay, listen up please.”
What cross-talk there was quieted, and Peter felt the eyes coming to him. He glanced around, giving everyone a chance to get their attention fixed on him, then spoke loudly. “Here’s where we are at the moment. Unless the big picture gets a whole hell of a lot better soon, we’re not expecting to keep power much longer. When it goes, the main problem is going to be the loss of refrigeration in the restaurant, which means we need to do something about supplies.
“Now there are probably dozens of stores within twenty minutes of here, but getting to them and back with supplies is probably going to mean dealing with outbreak victims.”
“Zombies.” a couple of voices said.
Peter glanced around, seeing some steady looks, others wincing, and a few who just looked uncomfortable or flat out scared. He shrugged and gave a nod. “Zombies. And they’re still wandering around here as well. Which brings me to the problem before the problem; I don’t have enough soldiers to cover a supply run and maintain security here as well. So I need some help.”
There was a pretty eclectic mix of refugees on the walkway, ranging from a brother and sister in their middle teens up to an older man who had to be past seventy, and split about evenly between men and women. About half were military age, though more of them than Peter liked weren’t in the greatest shape, even for civilians. But he only needed a few to cooperate with the additional duty he had in mind.
“Everyone’s scared, and I know my people are still tired from what we had to go through just to get out of Atlanta. If some of you are willing, and willing to follow some simple orders, it would greatly ease the load here and solve the problem with retrieval of supplies.”
“How?”
“What are we supposed to be able to do that soldiers can’t?”
Peter raised his voice some to cut through the questions coming from the civilians. “We’re maintaining a watch of six people at the moment, making sure the stairs stay blocked and any zombies who show up don’t have a chance to get up here. That’s all that’s needed to keep everyone up here safe. For what we’re dealing with, it doesn’t take someone who’s been through boot camp to keep an eye out. I’d like to pull four of the six soldiers and replace them with volunteers.”
“You want us to fight?”
“No.” Peter shook his head at the woman who asked that question. “We have some pistols we can make available for anyone who wants to be armed while helping out, but you don’t have to do any shooting, or even carry one if you don’t want. What we need are your eyes and ears and your attention. It’s not exciting, but it’s necessary. If you can stay awake and pay attention, that’s enough. All you need to do is make sure the soldiers on duty with you know about any zombies that show up. They’ll handle the rest.”
He glanced around, seeing the uncertain looks and thoughtful expressions as the civilians considered his request. “I’ll be blunt. With ten soldiers there’s no way we can even maintain the current watch schedule without help. And we’re already beat. We need a chance to get some sleep tonight, so we’re ready to head out for supplies tomorrow after dawn.”
“I can help.” a man said, raising his hand.
“Me too.” a woman offered.
“Yeah, no problem.”
Others spoke up as well, and Peter did a fast count, though it looked like most of the refugees were willing. “Alright, good. Corporal Whitley will take names and work up a shift schedule in the next hour. It’ll be four hour shifts, and the list will rotate. The schedule will be posted on her door, 224 over there.
“Other than keeping your eyes open and letting the soldiers know about any problems, the only thing you need to know is to wait at your post for the next in line to come relieve you. That means you don’t go to the bathroom, you don’t duck out for your smokes, you don’t go get a drink, and you don’t looking for your replacement if they don’t show up. If they’re unable to take their shift, we’ll get someone else, but you’ll be on watch, which m
eans you stay put and keep watching until you’re replaced. Those are the only two rules you have to follow. Does anyone not understand?”
It was as simple as he was telling them, but Peter knew from long experience not everyone grasped the concept of ‘watch’ from the get go. He’d run into more than a few Marines in his time who had to go through a little one-on-one time with a Drill Instructor or a NCO before they understood that watch meant staying on station and paying attention.
There were no complaints though, so Peter nodded. “Good. If you volunteered, check the corporal’s door in an hour or so to see when you’re scheduled. Now, the next issue is the supply run. Myself and six soldiers will be heading out, but if anyone’s willing to come with us, we could use up to four able bodies to help us.”
He was prepared for that to draw a stronger reaction, and he was not disappointed. It was obvious the thought of venturing out in the newly changed world was terrifying for more than a few of them, but he was surprised by the number that seemed almost stoically accepting of the concept.
“Only four?” one of the younger men asked, a fellow who looked to be in pretty good shape, and tanned from sun exposure.
“Four should be enough.” Peter nodded. “No one has to go, but four would be a help, and is all I feel comfortable taking right now. I’m not planning on looking to get into a big battle against a crowd of zombies, but I expect there will be some shooting no matter where we go. Four people who can carry and load supplies will ensure my people can focus on security so we all get back quicker and safer.”
“I’ll go.” the tanned one said.
“Yeah, count me in too.”
A handful of others volunteered, and Peter eyed them swiftly before making his decisions. The four he pointed out were the ones who looked the most steady, which seemed to confuse one who appeared to be a construction or warehouse worker who wasn’t picked, but no one complained over the choices.