“We’ve got enough food stored and enough fuel to keep us warm,” she said as the wind started picking up. “It’s going to be cold, and it’s going to be long, but I think we’ll make it.”
There was a brief respite from the winter weather in early October. The Indian Summer was a pleasant surprise for everyone. The final softball and football games of the year were played. Russ finished the tennis round robin tournament in a respectable third place, but he pointed out that he’d won his age group.
Eldred took the time to stage fuel for the winter and figured a 500% safety margin because he could and Lisa made sure every house was fully stocked with foodstuffs.
The final block party before the winter was one to remember. Zach James played a set with six other people. He played everything from metal to classic rock, country and, just for his girlfriend Chrystal, a young lady from southern Illinois, the wedding march. He walked down the aisle with his guitar playing the music and the minister, the first ordained in their community, performed the ceremony in front of a cheering crowd of 300-plus people. It was the first wedding for the community.
The only thing that marred the block party was the cold wind that moved across the crowds just after the sun went down. The temperatures dropped quickly and the party, which during the summer would go until the wee hours of the morning, broke up not long after dark.
Lisa and Russ said good night to their closest friends and retired to their own home. It had been a difficult few days for both of them. “I always was a sucker for weddings,” Lisa said when they were in their bedroom. “They look like they were looking forward to their wedding night, didn’t they?” Russ said as he turned on the television and turned it to the radar station Bare had gotten working.
“I remember when I was that young,” she called from the bathroom. He could hear water running. The weather channel was a public access channel before the fall of the world. Bare and her electronic gurus were able to fix it so they could broadcast local programming. When local information wasn’t being broadcast, the channel broadcast the radar picture from the mobile unit on top of the armory.
“Neither of us were ever that young, my dear,” Russ told her. “We were born this age and in a hundred years, we’ll die this age.”
She came out of the bathroom and sat down on his lap, wrapping her legs behind him. They had slept together since their second night in the house, but it was more than three months before she finally made it plain she was ready to move forward with their relationship. It was a slow and gradual process for both of them. Both were well past their prime, but Russ found her attractive in more than just body, but in mind and heart. Lisa found Russ to be both a gentle and passionate lover when motivated and while it took some time to find out what worked for them, both found a way to share of themselves with the other and their relationship grew into one of love, even if the words were seldom spoken.
She kissed him and he returned the kiss with a quick peck. She pulled her head back, wondering what it was that was distracting him. He pointed to the television. On the screen was a weather front moving toward the base from Lake Michigan and it looked massive. “Damn,” Lisa said. “I’m glad I have something warm to hold tonight.”
Russ got the point she was trying to make and responded by turning off the television. He was just getting ready to lay her over onto the bed when he heard his command radio calling him.
“Come in, Colonel, we’ve found another military base! Colonel, are you there?” It was Myles and the captain was decidedly excited.
“This is Hammond, captain. Say again,” Russ said into the radio as Lisa’s fingers did their best to distract him.
“Colonel, I’m glad I caught you before you went to bed,” the captain said and Lisa called him a cock-blocker. Russ shushed her with a playful swat. “Erica...I mean Sgt. Bare said she’s made contact with a settlement in Kentucky. Some kid named Keith was calling for the Saunders Farm when Erica picked up his call.
“That means there’s at least one camp and maybe more people like us out there! Isn’t that great?”
“Knowing you’re not alone in the world is of course good news, captain,” Russ said, running his hand up Lisa’s leg. “You make sure to monitor the situation and give me a report tomorrow morning, okay?”
“Yes, sir. Can do, sir. This is so exciting!” the younger officer said over the radio.
“Yes it is,” Russ said to Lisa as he dropped the microphone and allowed his other hand to work its way up Lisa’s leg. “Yes it is.”
Chapter 5
“Dammit Chuck, can’t you back that thing up any better?” CJ hollered at the driver of the concrete truck. “Yvonne did it in one try and you’ve been at it now for 10 minutes.”
Chuck slammed his hand on the steering wheel. He’d watched the young black woman who he’d saved from murderers and rapists drive one of the two concrete trucks the people in the compound had recovered with adept skill. Yvonne seemed to be a natural at driving the lumbering beast, but Chuck, who could make a Harley dance, couldn’t seem to make the concrete behemoth move the way his hands said it should.
He put the truck back in first gear and pulled forward. He backed up again to where CJ was pointing. He kept the RPMs up and worked to steer first hard left, then hard right to get lined up exactly where CJ was pointing his long probe stick.
Yvonne was passable as a driver with good depth perception and Chuck, with a little teaching from Jo, could handle the concrete mixer well enough the two were put in the driver’s seats of the concrete mixers.
CJ Perry, who had been found hiding in a survival shelter with 17 other people five months earlier, was directing yet another operation in making the Perry Compound a viable and safe living environment for the people who came from the sea and Sacramento. CJ’s family had owned a lot of the property on which they were building the compound and Jo had tagged it with his name. He was also the only person with a good working knowledge of how to do the concrete work.
Chuck had been sitting at the same table with his brother Garrick, a navy submarine medic and his friend Marissa, a concierge from the Pride of America, CJ the tennis player, Jo the trucker, Yvonne and Danielle, and the Professor, (what one of the survivors, a science fiction fan. called The Council of Eight) and they had just blown up one of the shelters which had no less than six mutants inside. The mutants had attacked the shelters, killing those hiding in one before being blown to hell by Chuck and his brother Garrick.
Jo had made the suggestion that this was as good of a place as any to begin rebuilding civilization.
Chuck had never thought this was where his life would lead. “Hell,” he said to himself and Danielle, who was riding with him. Danielle was with him most all the time. He’d tried to gently make sure she didn’t permanently bond with him as they settled into living at the Perry Compound. He tried getting her interested in one of the other men, one younger and with less baggage than what he carried, but Danielle couldn’t be dissuaded. She was Chuck’s family and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Yvonne didn’t mind and the three moved into the same room of one of the shelters.
Five months and a week ago, Chuck had been three years into a life sentence. He thought he would die in prison, a ward of the state. Now he was working 12 to 14 hours a day helping these people create a livable compound where they could feel safe, have a warm meal and raise kids to repopulate the world. No one knew of his past except Garrick, and Garrick never said a word to anyone.
The past was history and leaving it in the past was what was best for everyone now.
The shelters they were constructing had already proven their worth by outlasting the quake and tsunami. The Council of Eight decided to build more.
“Until someone in that shelter opened the door, those mutants couldn’t get in and everyone inside was safe,” Chuck told them. “It’s a good design and a safe design,” Chuck heard himself saying. He still shook his head that he was commenting on the best way to make th
e people here safe. He was thinking like a man who was concerned for others instead of himself and for Chuck, it was a feeling as foreign as leniency from a prison guard.
Jo was an ace freighter jockey and rigger and knew her job. One of the search parties found Jo a tractor trailer rig she was more than happy to drive. CJ took her up on the offer to haul anything. The six shelters were moved into an area near the submarine that was parked in a slough that paralleled CJ’s parents’ property. The parts for 14 more shelters were then transported to the same area and new shelters were being put together even before the concrete plant was back in operation.
The nuclear power plant of the submarine provided much needed power and shelter for the survivors, but it took almost two weeks before a generator big enough to power the concrete plant of CJ’s dad’s company could operate. Then it was finding and sifting aggregate which had been washed out of the plant location. The cement, the limestone, clay, gypsum, and various other chemicals and minerals, was still stored in one of the buildings which had been badly damaged by the quake, but salvageable.
Once the plant had power, equipment for moving the aggregate and cement to the mixer had to be found and fueled and a source of water was needed. While this was going on, the first of the forms were being built and re-bar added. By the time CJ had the plant working and he had the correct mixture figured, two-thirds of the forms were up. Chuck and Yvonne were hauling the mixture and pouring while nine other volunteers poked and prodded the pour to decrease the number of air bubbles.
CJ had no illusions they were experts at what they were doing, but they would have a wall, topped by the same type of concertina wire Chuck had had over his cell in prison. The wall might only last a few years, but it would give the people who survived a fighting chance.
The sub, once abandoned by the survivors, was now a power source for all the shelters and provided clean desalinated water until another source could be found, which took more than a week of searching.
The former survivors from the sub had been headed for Sacramento, but that city, and nearly every other one in California was now wiped from the face of the earth or a burning pile of rubble. There was little left of the glorious state that, if it had been a country, would have been one of the most affluent countries in the world.
CJ was the only one in the executive shelter to keep his room. Jo and Chloe moved in with him to make room for others. It was Jo’s suggestion that the three adults stay together because she believed God had put them there for a reason. Two sleeping bags were found and CJ and Jo slept on the floor while Chloe got the bed. Chloe insisted she should sleep on the floor but CJ’s upbringing wouldn’t hear of it.
Teddy kept his own bed on the first level until he eventually moved in with a mother from the cruise ship, freeing Chloe from having to raise him.
Garrick, Marissa and the Professor took the third bedroom in the only shelter that was totally complete.
It took almost a month before the new shelters were in real production. CJ had to find the materials for making concrete, find and rebuild forms, block and tackle for lifting and moving the heavy walls on and off the trailers. The amount of work that took the people in the compound a month to begin had been done before the fall of civilization in a week by two guys.
Once started, the new shelters were being completed about every other week. The furnishings were not as complete as the original, but the shelters were secure from mutant zombies and roomier than the berths on the sub.
Chuck, Yvonne and Danielle got their own shelter because they had formed a family unit. The Council decided that the people who had bonded should stay together and since Chuck and Yvonne were on the council, they were one of the first to get the new shelters.
The shelters were different from the original model in that they didn’t have all the electronics, or fancy lighting strips. The new models had standard plumbing, regular lamps and beds because the custom-made furniture went with the building CJ’s friend Jack used to build the furniture in. They did find 50 steel doors and hinges, and portals for the shelters. The furniture however, was salvaged from houses and businesses that had not been totally destroyed by the recent upheavals.
Chuck loved the new digs, comparing them in his head to his former residence – an 8 by 12 prison cell. Some more televisions, laptops and beds had been recovered for the shelters and Chuck, Yvonne and Danielle all slept in the same bed now. He didn’t know why it worked for them but it did and he wasn’t going to complain.
Despite all the world had thrown at him, the hell he’d seen, trouble he’d created for himself, mistakes he’d made, Chuck felt his life was better now than anytime in his 32 years. He loved both women and they loved him. No one cared about the arrangement and no one said they were wrong. It was what it was and all three enjoyed what they had.
Garrick and Marissa moved back aboard the U.S.S. North Carolina with most of the other survivors. They’d seen the earthquake pull San Diego into the sea and rode out a tsunami that had washed away the fires and the bodies of the dead.
The basic supplies they needed to survive were still aboard. As more shelters were completed and plumbed, more people moved back onto land, freeing up more room in the submarine. Salvaging crews were able to find enough food for everyone and the North Carolina provided clean drinking water until a tanker truck was found and cleaned. One salvaging crew was detailed to keep the 8,400 gallon tanker trailer filled with clean, safe water.
CJ and Chloe got their original shelter back to themselves when Jo moved into her new semi-truck. One of the salvaging crews found a semi tractor trailer with an ICT sleeper that was exactly what Jo preferred to drive and sleep in. She showered and kept extra clothing in CJ’s shelter, but lived in her sleeper. When Jo moved out, CJ expected Chloe to move back into her room but Chloe chose to stay in CJ’s room and eventually suggested CJ join her in the small bed.
It had taken most of the summer, but a team of 36 people, including Chuck, Yvonne and Danielle, had 42 complete shelters built. After getting the shelters built on location, the wall to protect them was designed and work began on building it.
It was also the day 14 people showed up from Travis Air Force Base. Four were airmen and officers from the base and the rest were civilians. They were ragged and beaten, mostly starving and wallowing in self-pity or denial, but had survived the worst the earth could throw at them. The senior officer of the group, a lieutenant, said the base had been a rallying point for more than 150 people before the quake and the 13 who were still with him were all that had survived.
They became part of the Perry Compound. The lieutenant was a communications expert. With the help of a few others he built the compound’s radio communication network because he said there were other camps and communities in the United States.
What had gotten Chuck pissed this morning was his inability to line up the concrete truck for the pour CJ needed. CJ told him that he had exactly 75 minutes between the time the concrete mixer was loaded with cement, aggregate and water to get the truck unloaded. If he wasn’t able to get the truck to the forms, he’d have to dump the load where ever he was. “There’s no wiggle room, Chuck. We only have two concrete mixers and if that stuff hardens in the barrel, the truck is useless until it’s cleaned out and that will take days. Seventy-five minutes and not a minute more,” CJ had told him.
The shelters had been built for all those who wanted them, which was everyone except Garrick and Marissa who turned the sub into their personal living quarters, but now the teams were erecting in a concrete barrier around the shelters for safety. There had been two more attacks by the mutants on the salvaging teams, killing four and injuring two. With only about 170 people in the compound, the Council adopted the idea of building a 24-foot tall barrier around the shelters and to the dock that lead to the submarine. It was a series of big pours and was taking longer than CJ had anticipated.
Until the wall was completed, the CJ said he wouldn’t feel satisfied they’d done
enough to protect everyone. To Chuck, the concrete walls looked a lot like prison walls, but he wasn’t going to say anything. Twice he’d encountered the mutants and if he had to look at the concrete walls rather than suffer being attacked and eaten by the beasts, he’d help pour the walls.
The last of the walls was being poured, but Chuck couldn’t seem to get his truck backed into the spot CJ wanted and his time was running out. He looked at the clock on the dash and he had seven more minutes to start unloading before he would have to pull forward and dump the load on the ground. It would piss Chuck off because it would be the second load he’d lost that week. CJ would be upset because he wanted this wall poured so he could begin installing the gates that were being welded together. They were also almost out of cement.
CJ figured they had about 5,000 lbs more of dry mix than they would need if they didn’t waste any. He was hoping that once the walls were built, he’d have enough to pour a basketball and tennis court for the compound.
But worse for Chuck, was that Yvonne would be watching him dump the load of concrete. Each of them had been forced to dump two loads so far, and he didn’t want to be the one to dump the third load, just as they were finishing the project.
Chuck shifted the truck into reverse and checked his mirrors. He eased off the clutch and the back wheels started to spin in the mud, but they eventually found traction. He could see CJ standing 20 feet behind him with his long stick poked exactly where he wanted concrete truck to park.
He cranked hard on the wheel to straighten the front tires. He was in line and CJ was waving him back. He glanced at the clock and he had four minutes. If he went over those four minutes, CJ would know.
Learning from his previous mistakes, Chuck stepped on the brakes when he was three feet from where CJ had his stick. The back tires locked up and the truck slid in the mud to within two inches of where the end of the stick was.
Hell Happened (Book 3): Hell Released Page 25