by David Achord
Fifty-seven years old now, President Stark was still fit-looking with sharp features, alert blue eyes, and steel gray hair. And, wouldn’t you know it, he was wearing a starched white button-down shirt and a pair of gray slacks that looked like they’d been bought a couple of hours ago. He said hello to various people, forgoing handshakes—he never shook hands—and slowly made his way over to our table while Parvis and his two children went in the opposite direction and joined his girlfriend. I stood as he approached.
“Happy birthday, Mister Gunderson,” he said with a small, seemingly warm smile.
“Thank you, sir.”
He made a generic motion with his hand. “You’ve become a popular man these past few years.”
I nodded, but didn’t answer. As far as I was concerned, with a couple of exceptions, my only true friends were the people sitting at this table.
“Won’t you sit down, sir?” Rachel asked. She patted the chair next to her while smiling sweetly. She wasn’t necessarily being flirtatious, she only wanted to get a rise out of Kate. Kate Redbank had come to Tennessee along with her sister, Sammy, and Sarah. From there, she traveled with us to Mount Weather. I’d never seen eye-to-eye with Kate. There was no overt animosity, but I guess it was a simple clash of personalities.
She’d hooked up with Shooter while still in Tennessee but had left him almost two years ago and had hooked up with Stark. She was called the First Mistress by everyone and she didn’t like it. Currently, she was standing beside Stark and shooting daggers with her eyes at Rachel, who acted like she didn’t notice.
“I’d be delighted,” Stark said with a smile bordering on lecherous.
Rachel Benoit was the same age as Kelly. Cute, lots of freckles, she had a dry, often whacky sense of humor which was always preceded with a mischievous grin.
We chatted about inconsequential things for several minutes. I caught Fred looking at me a couple of times. He didn’t like stuff like this, but suffered in silence. I sympathized with him. I didn’t care much for this stuff either.
Eventually, President Stark stated he had other duties to attend to and stood. “I hope you don’t overdo it tonight, Zach,” he said. “We have a lot to go over tomorrow.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“Walk with me to the door,” he directed. We walked outside into the hallway before he spoke.
“Ohio has gone dark,” he said.
“I’ve heard,” I said. “No radio contact whatsoever.”
“Correct. We’ll discuss it in more detail in the morning. Enjoy your party.”
After he left, I returned to the table. I glanced over at Fred, who looked downright miserable. I decided to throw him a lifeline.
“Hey, Fred. The president said he was outside earlier and thought he heard some kind of disturbance in the horse barn.”
He stood, almost a little too quickly. “I better go check on it.”
Rachel stood too. “I’ll go with you,” she said, and then flashed her usual grin. “You might need protection.”
Fred frowned and Kelly giggled as the two of them walked out. They were an unlikely pair. Both of them had a relationship with Sarah at one time. After her death, they’d formed a deeper friendship. We suspected the two of them were occasional lovers, but if they were, they weren’t telling.
“What did the president say?” Kelly asked.
I leaned over to her and spoke quietly. “Big meeting in the morning. We might be going on a road trip in the next day or so, depending on what the president says.” I started to explain, but she cut me off.
“Yeah, the rumor mill is already churning. Ohio has gone dark. No comms from them for five days now, right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said with a grunt. The Mount Weather grapevine ensured there were no secrets around here.
“How long, do you think?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Depends on what we find.”
She gave me a look, so I modified my answer. “No more than three days, I’m thinking.”
She sighed, but after a moment she reached under the table, found my hand, and gave a squeeze.
Because so many people had young children, the party did not last long, thankfully. Almost everyone had left by ten. Janet and Grant surprised me by telling us they’d take care of cleaning up and shooed everyone off.
I looked over at Kelly as we walked back to our suite. She returned a small, knowing smile because she knew exactly what I was thinking. All we needed to do was to get the kids to bed.
Chapter 11 – Life is a Meeting
Sex. All I wanted was peace and harmony in the Mount Weather universe, and sex. But, Murphy’s Law always seemed to intercede on both fronts. Last night was a good example. Kelly had teased me throughout the day with little hints of what awaited me after the party, but, the little hellions overdid it with the sweets at the party and ended up getting sick.
Honestly, it was our fault, we should have kept a closer eye on them. Even so, I was frustrated, both emotionally and sexually. I took pity on my beautiful pregnant wife and let her sleep while I dealt with their aching stomachs. Macie puked first, which caused Frederick to puke, which caused Kelly to jump out of bed and run into the bathroom puking, which almost caused me to puke. Fortunately, Macie went to sleep almost immediately after I got her cleaned up, as did Kelly. My son was another matter. He moaned and complained, convinced there was a miniature zombie running around in his tummy. He finally fell asleep a little after two in the morning.
So, yours truly only got four hours of sleep, and no special birthday present. I suffered in silence and gave Kelly a smile when the alarm clock went off.
“Did you sleep okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, once the odor went away, or maybe I just got used to it,” she answered. “How about you?”
“Oh, okay, I guess.”
I hopped in the shower first, bathed quickly, and then swapped with Kelly. I watched her as I toweled off, which was stupid. Watching her did nothing but get me aroused. She noticed when she stepped out.
“Wow, look at you,” she teased.
“Pregnant women are sexy,” I said as I dried off her back. She faced the mirror and ran a hand along her stomach.
“I’m going to get stretch marks,” she lamented.
I reached around and began rubbing her belly. She moaned in appreciation.
“Your boobs are getting bigger,” I murmured in her ear as I worked my hands upward and started nibbling on her earlobe.
She moaned again. I started to bend her over the sink counter when we were interrupted by the bathroom door being thrown open. The two little monsters burst in, causing me to hurriedly turn my back to them and cover myself with a towel.
“Daddy, I’m hungry!” Frederick shouted.
“Yeah, Daddy, I’m hungry too!” Macie shouted.
Kelly gave me a look as she wrapped the towel around herself. “I guess they’re not sick anymore.”
I stifled a sigh and smiled. “Alright, kids. Let’s go eat.”
“Put some clothes on first, Daddy,” Macie admonished.
Breakfast was subdued; a lot of people were hung over. No doubt there was an “adults only” party after my birthday party.
“We need car parts,” Josue informed me as we ate.
“What kind?” I asked.
“The kind that wears out, especially tires.”
That didn’t help me much, but in Josue’s own way, he made sense, I guess. I started to ask him to write me up a list and email it to me, but Josue did not care for computers and seldom wrote anything down. He kept it all in his head.
“Alright, I’ll add it to the list,” I said. After all, we had a complete inventory of everything in Mount Weather on spreadsheets, including all of our vehicles. I could extrapolate what parts we needed from it.
An hour later, I was sitting in the office I shared with Parvis. If one wanted to be technical, he shared his office with me, but he’d been sharing it for the past five years, s
o I guess it was mine as well. Normally, it was large enough for two or more people, but Parvis was a collector of sorts. The office was a conglomerated mess of organized chaos. In addition to two desks, there were books, technical manuals, scattered files, various pictures of the area around Mount Weather, and of course, there were the dry erase boards. We had four and they were filled with notes detailing the progress of all of our ongoing projects.
In one corner was a table with a hotplate. Parvis stood when I walked in. “Tea?” he asked. “I’ve got some fresh ginseng.”
One thing about Virginia, ginseng grew in abundance in the hills and Parvis loved it.
“Yeah, sounds good,” I replied and looked at him. He’d never been a big man, but now he was down to probably a hundred and thirty pounds. “Did you eat breakfast?” I asked.
He grunted. “You sound like Kendra. I managed to get down a piece of toast that I’d sopped up with bacon grease.”
He’d told me the grease settled his stomach somehow. Priss had suggested marijuana to help with his digestion, but Parvis was firmly opposed to it.
“Did you enjoy yourself last night?” he asked.
“Immensely,” I lied. “How about you?”
He smiled ruefully. “Yes indeed. I apologize for not joining you and Kelly, but I wanted to spend some time with my family, and you and I see each other so much, I didn’t think you’d mind. Time is precious to me nowadays, you understand.”
“Of course,” I said.
I watched as he took the teapot into the restroom and heard him fill it from the sink. He then put it on the hotplate and prepared two tea balls before sitting.
“So, Ohio. What are we going to tell Stark?” he asked again.
He liked doing this before the weekly meetings, going through question-and-answer scenarios. It worked though, so I didn’t complain. We talked about it for several minutes while we drank our tea. Our conversation soon segued to the topic of Marcus Hook.
“Have we heard any word from the esteemed Roscoe Sidebottom?” he asked and then snickered. “Every time I say his name, I laugh.”
I had to admit, it sometimes brought a smile to my face as well. “We received a radio report from the crew we sent out there. They’ve repaired some equipment and upgraded their water treatment system.”
“Excellent, but we need those people back as soon as possible. We need them.”
“They are due back by the end of the week,” I said.
Parvis nodded. “Excellent.”
“Even so, they need more people living there permanently.”
Parvis nodded in agreement with a slight smile.
At the beginning of our second year of living here, Parvis sat three books in front of me one morning. “I expect you to be an expert on the topic,” he said with a grin.
I can’t say I became an expert, but I learned a lot about the wonders of petroleum. Petroleum was also used in rubber products, cleaning products, bath oils, lotions, toothpaste, lipstick, anything made of plastic, pesticides, preservatives, food and candy flavorings, paint, asphalt, anesthetics, fertilizers, the list seemed endless. All it took was crude oil and refineries.
“Perhaps we should require any newcomers to immediately relocate to Marcus Hook,” he suggested.
“We’d need to provide incentives to encourage them, I think.”
Parvis nodded at my idea. “Yes, we’ll need to think that one over and come up with something.”
“It won’t be so easy with the ones already living here. They know this is probably the best thing out there.”
Parvis chuckled. “I guess we have ourselves to blame.”
He was right, in a manner of speaking. We had crops, livestock, some degree of medical care, a secure facility, electricity, potable water, and a sanitary sewer system, almost all of the amenities of what people took for granted, back before.
There were still issues. We had many shortages and we were limited in advanced medical procedures. We had no means to produce pharmaceuticals on a large scale. Our manufacturing facilities consisted of a woodshop, a blacksmith shop, a machine shop, a couple of sewing machines, and a loom.
No, we still had a long way to go, but it was certainly better than living in a farmhouse where you had to depend on batteries and solar energy for power and had to barricade the doors and shutter your windows every night.
“So, more people. We’ll get the scouting missions going again as soon as the weather breaks and try to recruit some survivors. We need to start working out way further west.” I looked at my watch and stood. “The meeting is in fifteen minutes, we better get going or we’ll be locked out.”
Parvis chuckled as he stood. “Oh, there is one more thing.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Abe has directed us not to mention the POL report in this morning’s meeting.”
POL was a military acronym we used for Petroleum, Oils, and Lubricants. We had everything measured down to the ounce and we usually read it out. I looked at him questioningly.
“Okay, but why not?” I asked.
“People may see our surplus in that area as a good reason to take vehicles out on frivolous joyrides.”
I guess it made sense. “Whatever you say, boss.” I glanced at my watch again and motioned toward the door.
We relocated to the president’s conference room. I took my usual seat beside Parvis, booted up my laptop, and sat back. My mind drifted as other people began filtering in and engaging in small talk. Life at Mount Weather was punctuated with meetings. Every decision had to be discussed. Hell, it took hours of debate before we finally decided to use the word “zed” in our records to describe the infected instead of all of the other descriptors that were used.
Senator Rhinehart and Lydia were discussing what kind of work projects they could assign to the scout teams. For safety purposes, we pulled the teams in every winter, with the exception of Melvin and Savannah, who seldom listened to directives. Senator Rhinehart was the head of the logistics team, and they believed in the adage about idle hands are the devil’s workshop. I doubted either one knew the origin of the phrase because neither of them had ever read the Bible. Lydia saw me looking.
“What do you think, Zach?” she asked.
“There’s always plenty to do around here,” I said in agreement. “But, don’t forget about our commitment to Marcus Hook. Maybe some of them would be willing to live there for the winter and help them out.”
Lydia nodded thoughtfully. Rhinehart scowled at me, probably because he did not think of it first. As we talked, I thought of our scout teams. They had become skillful over the years. Whenever they found pockets of survivors, they’d vet them and extend an offer for them to be inoculated. We had some limited successes, but we were perpetually in desperate need of skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen. Medical people, engineers, electricians, carpenters, plumbers, scientists, farmers, gunsmiths, blacksmiths, farriers, heavy equipment operators, tailors, you name it. The list was endless.
For those who were willing to relocate, we put them up in fortified houses in the area surrounding Weather. It was not a perfect system, but over the years, we’d substantially increased our population within the hundred-mile radius and had made alliances with other groups, but only east of the Mississippi. Hopefully, with the help of Roscoe Sidebottom and his Marcus Hook people, we’d be able to expand our scout teams west of the big river.
I opened a file and was typing some notes when the president walked in promptly at eight. Ruth and Raymond walked in immediately behind, shut the doors, and locked them, a reminder that he had no tolerance for tardiness. They bid everyone good morning and took their seats. He got right down to business.
“Alright, we have a full agenda for this morning, let’s get to it. Parvis?”
Parvis started to stand but then he began coughing. I quickly poured him a glass of water. He nodded gratefully and then slid his laptop toward me.
“Mister President, if I may?” I asked.
>
“Proceed, Mister Gunderson.”
I stood as Parvis took a seat and coughed a few more times before taking a tentative sip.
“I’ll start with the easy stuff. Our water production is operating at peak efficiency. Our fall harvest was excellent and our greenhouses are going strong. The same with our livestock.” I pointed at the screen. “There are the raw numbers for those of you who are interested. In summation, we are well prepared for the winter and even though we’ve given a sizeable amount to Marcus Hook, we’re expecting a surplus.”
“Here, here,” somebody said.
“As far as our other commodities, we have a severe shortage of sugar, salt, and other various spices.”
“Like coffee,” someone said.
“Yes, definitely coffee. It is an ongoing concern with no solution in sight at the moment. We’ll work on this in the spring when we can renew our scavenging.
“Second, our wastewater treatment plant. The annual cleaning and flushing of the sediment tanks for our waste water facility has been completed. The personnel who undertook this thankless job wanted us to strongly remind everyone that certain things should not be flushed down the toilet.”
There were some guffaws of laughter along with some murmurings of consent.
“Second, our Marines, along with our Navy man, Ensign Boner, have been diligently working on reloads. In the past month, they’ve cranked out eleven hundred rounds of five-five-six and eight hundred rounds of nine-millimeter.”
“Impressive,” someone commented.
“Our count is still down by over three thousand of each caliber from this time last year,” Justin said. Grace had put the numbers up on the projection screen, to which Justin pointed at.
I nodded in his direction. “You are correct, Captain, and in addition, we have a severe shortage of other calibers. At some point, we are going to need to conduct a long-range mission to one of the known arsenals or we get lucky and find the home of a dedicated prepper who died before he used up all of those thousands of rounds of ammo he hoarded.”