He was in and out of consciousness then; unable to stay alert as his body pulsed in agonizing fits of pain. He knew that the music had changed, but the impacts on his back, the assaults on his already beaten body, made it hard for him to do anything other than moan weakly and endure the assault.
“Changing legend into fact
We shall ride into history
Turning myth into truth
We shall surely gaze
On the sweet unfolding
Of an antique mystery
All will be revealed
On the trail we blaze!” the lunatic sang; punctuating each verse by slamming a fist into his broken and bleeding body.
He thought he heard people talking in the shadows, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying over the roar of the music. He tried to sit up, but the ropes kept him in position. He was broken inside, humiliated, and completely helpless; resigned to the fact that he was going to die naked over this barrel, his work unfinished and forever forgotten.
“No!” he screamed one last time, then his head lay on the bloody barrel, his mouth slack and open, his body nothing but a sack of needles searing every point of his beaten frame. He lay there defeated, unable to move, given over to the fact that death was soon going to take him from this world.
He welcomed it; anything to release him from the punishment he was taking.
Then the man had his lips pressed against his ear and began to whisper. “I’ve got your little whore too, think I’ll have some fun with her for a bit, then let my friends over there have her for a while. Though, some are just biting at the bit to take a shot at you, and I’m obliged to give into their needs. Enjoy the ride, big boy. Oh, and I’m sorry the big guy didn’t make it, he looked plenty big and strong, but I guess you’ll have to do. When I get back, I’m going to get your brand ready, put it right on this tight black ass of yours, a big R, to remind you that you’re now mine; you belong to Renny and his Jets,” the man cackled as he got up, leaving him tied up on that barrel.
There was a shuffle of feet in his direction and his vision began to pulse. As blackness approached, Robert dove forward and it carried him away from the hell that had swallowed him whole.
Chapter 8
Committed
Todd
Compound 2
They decided to have lunch above ground at the picnic tables by the lake. The man-made reservoir stretched across forty acres and was quite deep in the center. Sean had insisted on creating a pipe line that stretched from the Gila River to the lake; keeping the water level stable and consistent.
It had been designed so that their irrigation could be fed from the lake rather than pumped from underground, which they used for their drinking and sanitation needs. More pipes had been run from the above ground housing and the main installation out to the crops, the idea that even their sewage could help them survive. Sean had put another in that went to a sewage treatment building south of the compounds, but he had no clue where that was, only Rodger would know that. He had never cared to ask.
There were plenty of tables set up around the lake, planted trees providing shade from the midafternoon sun. The boat dock on the southern beach was small and housed a couple of motor boats for fishing. He had taken his kids out there plenty of times over the past few years and the rainbow trout made for a nice resplenishable food source. He couldn’t eat fish, had been born with an allergy to it, but the rest of his family loved it just fine.
The kids sat at an adjacent table with their mother and Rosilynn, who would not stay for long; she was eager to bring something back for Matt to eat as well. Manny, Alicia, Sabrina, John, Naima, and Michael sat with him and he saw their constant glances at their surroundings as they tried to absorb their new home. It would take more than an afternoon for them to adjust and hopefully they had plenty of time ahead to do so.
“Gets some getting used too, I know,” he told them with a smile, as he cut into his steak. He tried to keep his A1 from leaking onto his mashed potatoes, but it was a losing battle. “When Sean and I first started considering sights to build on, he really did not want to do it in Arizona. Most out-of-state folks think of nothing but desert when they think of the southwestern states, so when he set eyes on this land; he really just couldn’t believe what he was seeing. We are at a higher climate, surrounded by forest, and the Gila River is just a few miles east of us. There is an underground lake beneath us, not too different than the one that is currently being sucked dry under Tucson, just on a smaller scale. That was one of the deciding factors when we chose this site, as water is one of the few resources you absolutely have to have to survive.”
“So most of our water comes from underground?” Naima asked as she shoved a fork full of corn into her mouth. “Is it filtered?”
“Of course. We have a water filtration system in place, and don’t worry, it won’t make your teeth fall out like that CAP water they forced upon us in town,” he grinned. He was trying to keep the mood light. He knew that things could go south at any moment and it was best to enjoy this time amongst friends while they could.
Alicia was sitting close to Sabrina and had rarely left her side since his younger friend’s arrival. She was skittish and never said much, but he had heard what they had both suffered earlier that morning, so he let her have her space and tried not to intrude.
“You said this place was two-hundred acres? Isn’t that a bit overkill?” Manny asked him. He was almost done with his plate and acted like he hadn’t eaten in a week. Who knew when the young man had last had a decent home cooked meal, much less meat not pre-packaged and on a shelf?
He nodded. “Turns out that this part of Arizona isn’t in high demand and we were able to get it at a decent price. We were originally planning on a much smaller scale operation, but with the price they were asking, it was just too hard to pass up. The real bitch of it was getting that wall built. I have no idea how much it cost the man, but whatever it was, it will be worth it.”
“Walls can be climbed,” Sabrina observed; she always knew how to cut right to the heart of a matter.
“I know. We installed a camera system both on the walls and in the woods at intervals to help us with early warning on anyone approaching the site, but in every defense, there is always a weakness. We tried very hard to limit ours, but there may be things we never anticipated or planned for. For now, just trust me that if anyone does come our way, Ben will surely know about it, and we should have time to defend ourselves before they even reach the walls,” he told them, but after seeing how easily Sean had gotten around that surveillance system, he did harbor his own doubts about that.
“There is more land here than we actually need at the moment, but we constructed this place using a long-term view,” he explained. “We have the potential to house and feed over sixty families if need be; and that is about what it would take to restart everything once this is over.”
John coughed. “And yet you only planned on having twelve here to start with? Where were you going to get the other fifty or so families to join you? How did you ever think you could defend a place like this with only ten or so armed men and women?”
He glared at the former sheriff for a moment. He hated having the errors in their logic so blatantly pointed out like that; it made him uncomfortable and he didn’t have an answer readily available. “Look, when we started building, it was just a game to us. We were given a large allowance with very little in the way of restrictions and you think big, but you don’t consider the rest until after it’s already done. Ever go to the Golden Corral, get three plates of food, but you only finish one? Does that stop you from filling those plates?”
“I’m going to miss that place,” Manny snickered.
“I won’t,” Naima responded. “I once watched as a lady licked mashed potatoes off a spoon, then dropped it back into the food. When I told the employee behind the table about it, she cried “oh my God”, ran and got a new pan of mashed potatoes, switched it out, and put th
e same damn spoon back in the new pan. Nope, not going to miss it at all.”
The younger man paused, a spoon of mashed potatoes half way to his mouth.
He had to snicker. “Don’t worry, I’m sure Rodger didn’t lick any of the serving spoons.”
“I heard my name over there,” came a loud voice to his rear.
“I said I love the way your ass looks in those overalls, Rodg!” he yelled back and heard laughter from the table behind him. “Anyway, my point is, we thought big, we built big, but none of us considered how many it really took to defend big.”
John was slowly cutting his steak, but his eyes were staring right at him while he was doing it. “Seems to me that would be the only consideration I’d have.”
He sighed. “Yes, if we built smaller, it’d be easier to defend, but there are things that you have to take into consideration if you want to survive in an apocalypse. Take farming as an example. A full one fourth of this land is agricultural. At the moment, most of it is unused, as we only needed to grow enough crops to sustain the lives of a few, but it has the potential of being a much larger operation. We have all the farming equipment, the mills, everything that you can think of to help make the process easier, but we simply didn’t have the need for it yet. We have seeds of every type stored, just waiting to be planted and cultivated. We have to rotate the crops, keep them sprayed with pesticides, and make sure that we keep the critter population to a minimum. There are multiple gardens of food of all types, and most of it has been wasted so far because only Rodger’s family was here to eat it. Then there is the canning and preservation process. Believe me, in the days ahead, we are all going to have the chance to pitch in and you will each learn everything there is to know about it, because we cross train on everything.”
“I’m not much of a farmer,” Manny told him with a grin. “I’m an artist and you want to get my hands dirty and blistered?”
He dropped his smile so that the young man could see how serious he was when he replied, “we all have to learn it; if someone dies, we can’t have that person being the only one here with a certain skill set. That’s why we all take defense lessons, why we all learn first aid, and why we all pitch in with all the chores. We can’t be selective. Yes, once all those skills are drilled into you, there will be assigned tasks; but you will still have to refresh them now and again so that you won’t forget them.”
Manny quit smiling, feeling the weight of what he was talking about. “All right man, was just saying.”
“It’s easy to forget what’s going on right now, as we sit here and eat our steaks and talk about growing watermelons, but keep in mind that millions of people are out there dying at this very moment. We must not take anything for granted,” he told them, and they were all silent for a moment.
John had a Bud in his hand, and he took a long drink, trying not to smile at the young guitarist trying to shrink into his clothes and disappear. “So, if one fourth is farmland, and obviously this lake takes up another large chunk, what’s the rest used for?”
He was still trying to glare at Manny, but the squirming the young man was doing was only making him want to laugh. “The livestock take up the southwestern fourth of land, the cows and horses require a lot of grazing room and though we grow our own hay, they can still go through it pretty fast. There are stables and all of you are going to miss your cars as we all have to learn to ride horses instead.”
“My ass already hurts thinking about it,” Michael moaned and Naima laughed. The baby was sleeping on a blanket in the grass behind him and started to wake up at her mother’s laughter. “Oh no,” Michael told his wife when she stared at him. “You woke her up, she’s all yours.”
“We have a lumber mill and a forge to aid in maintenance and construction. There are two large warehouses set aside for storage, and Sean had them build a neighborhood of houses on a plot of fifty acres. They are all closed up and unused, because at the moment we want to stay in the underground apartments where it’s safe. But if this thing ever comes to an end and we are no longer in danger, we won’t have to continue living underground,” he told them with a smile.
“I don’t understand,” Sabrina pitched in, shaking her head. “I have seen the guard towers along the walls, you say there are cameras set up to warn us if anything approaches, why not live in the houses and retreat to the bunkers only when needed?”
“And how do you power all this?” Naima asked in turn.
He was chewing food and couldn’t answer right away and got glares from both girls for his silence. “Right now, it’s about what we can defend,” he finally said as he swallowed a chunk of unchewed meat. It hurt going down and he had to hastily drink his Coke before he choked.
“John is right, we do not have the manpower to effectively defend the wall if a large force came our way. If they concentrated at one spot, we would stand a chance, but not if they hit us at multiple points at once. The main building though is built out of steel, concrete, and titanium. It could withstand a direct shot from a tank. There are two ways in and out of that building, and both can easily be defended against intruders. We are all staying down there because at the moment, it’s the safest place to be. As to the power,” he said nodding to Naima. “Every house in that neighborhood is covered in solar panels. The roof of the main building and the warehouses are also rigged with them. There is also a large solar farm located to the northeast of us that has lines running to all three compounds. To supplement that, are forty or so windmills spread across the property and if things really get tight, there are generators in the subbasements of the complex and several large tankers of fuel against the western wall to replenish them. There are also more tankers back at Compound One, just in case our fuel supply goes down. We have redundant systems everywhere and a self-contained computer network that monitors those energy levels and shuts off non-essential systems in case they get too low. We did a lot of research before we ever started construction and watching that Doomsday Preppers show gave us even more ideas on what we could or not do as well.”
“Damn Todd, you built a small city here,” Naima commented. “You got a mall too? I’m going to miss my shopping.”
He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you’re just going to have to go without. Can’t have everything. However, you’ll be surprised what we have in those warehouses, you’ll think you’re back at Costco.”
She snickered, “yeah, one of the few places we went while we were dating. Oh, Honey, you have nothing to worry about, I’m all yours,” she told Michael as he shot her a jealous glare. “I’m not like Todd here, I don’t have the need to spread myself around.”
“Hey! That’s not how it is at all!” he returned, his jaw dropping a bit.
“Why have that other group use the backup compound, it seems that we could use those extra men here instead,” John interrupted, trying to steer them back on topic.
“After shooting you guys out of the sky, let’s just say, it’s the only thing I could get the girls to agree on,” he replied, nodding in his wife’s direction. “Being that you were on that Huey when it went down, I thought you’d see it from their point of view. Besides, the crops over there will have to be planted, the livestock fed, and the building needs to be kept maintained. It’ll be easier for us to do things over here if we don’t have to make constant trips in that direction every day.”
“I can see that and yes, I do take getting shot at personally, but not if it means giving up extra men on a wall that large,” John returned.
“There is a wooden barricade that I’m sure you saw when we drove through the first compound upon your arrival. It’s not as large as the concrete wall, but it spans the entire length of this one as well. There are wooden spikes to drive away anyone that approaches, a large moat between that wall and the larger one behind it, and cameras situated along the entire length as well. From what Ben was saying, there were upgrades put in while I was away. I’m not up to speed on them yet but let me assure you,
if anyone comes our way we are not going to make it easy on them, even with the amount of people we have. Remember, Joseph’s group is just hours away and there will be nearly forty people here, it’s a good start.”
“I just can’t help but think of all the people out there dying and how many we could have saved by telling them this place was here. Much less the other seven you guys built across the country,” John told him, his eyes glaring.
He took another drink and didn’t flinch from the man’s gaze. The others were silent; knowing that to speak now would only get them a stern glance as well. “You don’t think we thought of that? That I wanted to leave people out there? That I didn’t want to tell as many as I could, hey, I got a safe place for you to go? Hell, I tried that this morning in Morenci and those people would rather die in their homes than give it up to come here. Not everyone can be convinced; most of them don’t want to believe that it’s come to that. They are expecting some last-minute rescue from a government that is not coming. And the other side of the coin is, say that I did say something back in Tucson before I took off and that knowledge got around, we can safely house and feed sixty families, but what about a thousand? What would we do if a large mass of people descended on this place seeking refuge? How would you turn them away? How would you choose who can stay and who you’d send off to their deaths? You want to hold a lottery?”
“I’m not saying—,” John began, but he cut him off.
“Robert found out about this place and he doesn’t want to share it, he doesn’t want to coexist, he wants it all to himself and fuck anybody else that was here first. That maniac is murdering people to get his hands on this place and you think that I should just blatantly tell everyone that it’s here? That is one man, what if there were forty more like him? How would we defend against that kind of evil? This is about our own survival and as ugly as it is, that is what matters most. Those of us that are here have to be viewed at a higher regard than those still out there. It’s them or us—and I’m choosing us.”
The Rotting Souls Series (Book 3): Charon's Debt Page 5