Surviving The Black (Book 4): Betrayal From Within

by Finley, Zack

  "I didn't know that either, but I'll tell my guys, they dislike preferential treatment. So, what's on today's agenda?"

  "Nothing for your team, except physicals and skill interviews. Tonight, Jules and his dad will nominate all the Arkansas refugees for admission to the Valley. There is no opposition to your admittance that I'm aware of. After breakfast tomorrow, Roger and Jules need to swear you all in so everyone can receive their initial day-to-day work assignments. In the next week or so, someone will certify your marksmanship.

  "After that, everybody will learn their emergency responsibilities and receive their duty weapons. When the siren goes off, some move kids and noncombatants to safety, while the rest report to specified locations for deployment. Every certified marksman age 17-or-older must carry their duty weapon and a light ammo load with them everywhere, just in case of an alert. While we train our kids on weapon safety and to defend themselves, we evacuate them to safety in an alert, if possible."

  "Has any group ever attacked the Valley?" Grady asked.

  "Not really," I said. "They sniffed around and set up ambushes but never attacked this side of the bridge."

  "Are they still around?"

  "No."

  "Good," said Grady.

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 3

  Zeke and Tom attended the council meeting with me. Zeke as my second and Tom as Kurt's sponsor. Due to the unprecedented number of council members expected to attend, we gathered in the large barn. George turned all the horses out into the corral for the duration. George wouldn't take part, but he would show up soon afterward to put the horses back.

  My Granny took all her great-grandkids to the recreation center for the evening, a rare treat for them, and they went eagerly. Her thoughtfulness allowed the parents to concentrate on the assembly.

  The first item, the introduction of a Valley charter, did not go over well.

  "What are you going to propose next, Claire, an effing mission statement," growled one of my dad's cronies.

  "If we need to, you bet," she said. "But we are now in a bad spot with too many people rocking our effing lifeboat. Including too many of our own relatives. Nobody, and that includes me, expected civilization to end. To me, the Plan was a high-powered fire extinguisher. I may own a fire extinguisher, but that doesn't mean I expect a fire to start; I just want to be prepared in case one does. I will be shocked if anyone in this barn believes the living conditions anywhere in America are better than right here in this Valley. Can you say the same for your son-in-law?" A murmur took strength and built across the barn before losing momentum and petering out.

  "I didn't think so," Claire said. "Even some members of our extended families wonder whether relocating to the Valley was the right call. We acted swiftly to pull everyone in, but that means most never experienced the disintegration of society first hand. Because your son-in-law has ties to this Valley and us, I trust him not to disrupt the lifeboat. I also expect you to correct a family member before they get out of hand. I can't say the same for some we took in just after the collapse. Some of these newcomers believe we took advantage of them when they felt vulnerable after the crash. They consider themselves unpaid slaves and think we exaggerate conditions outside the Valley. Others want to take our stuff and run the place to suit themselves."

  That started another round of rumbles, but these rumbles contained a lot more anger.

  "A charter or code-of-ethics is one way to inform everyone that sowing dissent, not doing your share, or wasting common resources has serious consequences. I wanted to introduce this before bringing the Arkansas group into the Valley. I endorse the petitions to admit them, but discussing rules and expectations with our nominees upfront might prevent some of our current issues from developing later," Claire said.

  Roger stood up. "I see nothing in this charter I disagree with, so I will happily make it a condition of bringing our new people on board. Despite that, we all must decide if this is what we stand for. That means, kick this around some more. Is it too harsh or too lenient? A charter can be more than a paper, it can be our new constitution. Claire doesn't want a vote tonight. As we expand our recruiting efforts, I prefer to avoid problems. Something like this can't hurt, and it might help. Consider this a set of lifeboat rules."

  My dad added, "The proposal is a modified code of military conduct. The Valley needs laws eventually to resolve or avoid internal conflicts. I want to use the calm before the planting season, to forge a conceptual framework before mid-March. We'll discuss the charter at our next meeting in more detail." My dad pointed toward my mom to continue.

  "We have two proposals to add people to the Valley. No one raised any prior objections, but we need a formal vote."

  The council voted with no dissent to accept Kurt and the Arkansas refugees on a probationary basis, effective immediately. Jules and Tom faded away after that announcement. Roger and Jim stayed for the more contentious topics.

  The issue of our malcontents opened with a statement from Glenn, "I apologize for sponsoring a bunch of good-for-nothing whiners. Two families are gold, but the others are varying degrees of dog crap."

  While this got some laughter, the humor died down quickly.

  The other two men who sponsored their Huntsville neighbors offered similar observations, although Glenn captured the most chuckles.

  "We have a good idea who the problem is, what do we intend to do about them?" I couldn't see who raised the question.

  Choruses of "kill them all" and "boot them out" rose spontaneously.

  "Wait!" shouted my mom. That cut off the dueling chants before they gained momentum. "There are too many of them, and they know too much about us. For some, it is ignorance."

  "Send them all to Justice and let Steve and Mandy sort them out," yelled someone in the back.

  "No!" Mandy roared, jumping up from the bale of hay she sat on. "Hell no. Take out your own trash."

  That was not helpful.

  "The sponsors are responsible for dealing with this," said Glenn.

  "Not alone, Glenn," my dad interjected, once the worst of the shouting died down. "We voted unanimously to bring them in, even though it violated the Plan. We didn't want our neighbors to suffer."

  "Aaron, now we are the ones suffering," echoed from deep in the barn.

  My dad ignored the anonymous comment, although I knew he recognized the voice.

  "We have a few suggestions," he said, moving to write them on a portable chalkboard I failed to notice until he walked up to it. He started writing, and then people began shouting ideas, barely giving him time to scrawl down the different suggestions.

  The final list looked a lot like the earlier one on my mom's table.

  1. Post charter for comments and discuss with the rest of Valley residents.

  2. Sponsors talk to each person still on probation and warn them about lifeboat rules. After meeting with each newcomer, sponsors would offer to return them to their home with only the items they brought with them. We would emphasize the one-time nature of this deal. If they turned it down and then violated any provision of the charter, we would evict them with nothing.

  3. Generate a list of all persons considered problematic.

  4. Assign malcontents to assist Mecklin Defenders with outreach tasks.

  The list seemed too little, too late, and I feared, just kicked the can down the road.

  I stayed after the meeting and helped Jim and George put the horses back in the barn. The metaphor about closing the barn door after the horses got out felt real on me.

  Morning PT came with a surprise. Grady, Dwayne, and three of the Arkansas soldiers showed up to take part. They wore shorts and tees, nearly leaving once they saw us in full battle rattle. Tom called them together for a quick meeting before we got underway. Tom then spoke with Zeke, our leader for this morning's torture session. After that confab, Zeke pointed to Eric, and another discussion ensued.

  I guessed Tom worried about the health of the new crew and tried
to set different expectations for them with Zeke. I sensed pushback from Grady and his men. I suspected Eric's task was to make sure we didn't kill them.

  Zeke showed no mercy on us, not modifying the PT at all to accommodate the new additions. That surprised me, but then the burn from my own lack of conditioning took over. I would let Tom, Eric, and Zeke deal with the newcomers.

  I would like to say that a few mornings of PT was enough to get me back into peak shape, but I would be lying. Pre-dawn calisthenics made me feel my age more than ever. Spending weeks on the disabled list with broken ribs hadn’t helped, either.

  Grady and his men faltered as expected, but they still impressed my guys. In PT garb, the new men's gauntness was painfully visible.

  My guys gave the newcomers a lot of back thumping and encouragement. We appreciated the grit required to reach warrior-shape and supported their efforts to get there.

  At breakfast, my team helped the new guys navigate the whole food token thing. Grady's men acted embarrassed over their tokens, but that didn't last long once Buzzer took charge. Buzzer introduced them to the dining room staff, including Granny. There ensued a back-and-forth discussion of the merits of today's breakfast versus tonight's supper.

  Some took Buzzer's advice and doubled up on breakfast, but others held out for extra supper. Nobody acted embarrassed anymore, not after Buzzer jumped in.

  After breakfast, Allie asked to see the progress Buzzer made on her knife. Responsibility for rehabbing her combat knife was his punishment for a lost wager. Buzzer pulled the blade out with a flourish for the table to admire. While the knife was on the mend, deep nicks and gouges remained all along its cutting edge. Digging a shooting position into rocky soil was hard on knives.

  That prompted Tom, Mike, and Joel to pull out theirs for comparison. Since Helena, each of their knives had received some level of remediation. Then everyone turned to look at me. I reluctantly pulled my knife out for examination. My blade was clean and oiled, but in terrible condition. I spent no time honing out the deformities since Helena. The walk of shame. No one said anything, but knife repair moved to a priority on my to-do list. I expected to start on it tonight during quiet time at my house.

  Once everyone finished eating, Zeke passed out this morning's work assignments. He worked closely with my mom and her cronies to set work priorities for Beta and Gamma. He had a lot of flexibility but made sure we performed our fair share of the work needed to keep our community functioning.

  We planned a salvage expedition to the schools today in force. Starting with the high school. Mostly a check for security threats and a basic walkthrough. I asked Zeke last night to assign four teams, half Beta and half Gamma, to come with me.

  Craig, Ben, and Scott remained on limited duty. Ben and Craig would help Zeke in the armory and with marksman certifications.

  Scott chafed at the restrictions Dr. Jerrod kept him under. He felt ready to go back on unrestricted duty, but she refused to clear him for offensive duties. While she authorized him to resume hard physical labor, it was too soon to risk another impact to his chest. That meant he remained on support duty for any military operation.

  While Scott was eager, the rest of us remembered how close he came to dying in the Lloyd Mountain Militia fight and weren't willing to buck Dr. Jerrod to change things.

  After I left on the Helena trip, she agreed to lift his work restrictions on March 8, barring new complications. Scott circled that date on the armory calendar for everyone to see. Unfortunately for Scott, the posting also made it easy for Zeke to enforce Dr. Jerrod's mandate.

  Knowing Scott's frustration, Zeke assigned him to Jacob's farm for the next week. Our group enjoyed working with Jacob and considered this a plum assignment.

  The other work assignments balanced our team's skills and interests with the needs of the Valley.

  Tom left for the hospital to help with Jamie's surgery. Joel returned to the garage to work on a backlog of mechanical projects to prepare the farm equipment for spring.

  Eric and one of the Gammas got K-9 duties with Uncle George. This sparked a lot of speculation and questions. Zeke raised his hands, "I don't know if this means George is ready to release them to us for training or not. This is the first step, a work in progress. Give Eric a hand if he asks, since we want this to succeed."

  "Do you even know if George will let us see the pups?" Eric asked.

  "No, he may even hide them again," Zeke said. "If you can't find them, locate Joe Breckinridge, that kid usually knows where the mutts are. So far, Joe is the only other person George lets get close to those dogs. Today your job is to find and then extricate them from wherever George hid them. Consider this a hostage rescue operation. After that, Dwayne tells me the dogs need socialization in a big way. Once you recover them, recruit Dwayne and any other help you need. Take the dogs for walks around the Valley. Play fetch-the-stick, tug-of-war. I don't care. Don't try any formal training, they just need to learn there are other fun humans around, besides George."

  Everyone acted excited at the prospect of bringing the new dogs into the group. Every Ranger worked with K-9 teams before and considered them unmatched in locating hidden threats.

  "Is it true George wants them to herd pigs?" Buzzer asked.

  "Yes," Zeke said, "and goats, too."

  "How do you herd pigs?" Buzzer asked.

  "I don't know, why don't you ask George for us?"

  That shut Buzzer up, which was what Zeke intended.

  George was my favorite uncle, but even I avoided asking him certain questions. Any question touching on animal husbandry, even obliquely, qualified. Once he latched onto a subject that he thought you needed to know, the lecture began. It then went on, and on, and on, long past any reasonable boundary. Even if you started out interested in the topic, by the time George finished, he squeezed every bit of interest out of you. Leaving a lifeless husk.

  It was both good and bad that the behavior triggered unpredictably. Good that sometimes weeks went by without an episode. Bad because other times merely saying "hello" set it off.

  The rest of the group received work assignments all over the Valley, from mucking out stables to helping in the greenhouses. The teams congratulated Allie on scoring a week with Jacob and Rachel.

  The laughter ended abruptly, out of respect, when Roger approached our table. Everyone started to rise, but he waved us back into our seats.

  "I need to borrow these guys for a few minutes," Roger said, pointing toward Grady’s group.

  They stood up and followed Roger to an empty corner of the room.

  "Everyone, daylight's wasting," Zeke said. This started a scramble to gather up dirty dishes.

  "I'll meet those going with me on the salvage op, at the armory in 15 minutes. Full gear, normal ammo load. Two pickups," I said.

  I planned to bring Grady with me, but was not willing to delay the trip to Justice to wait for him. Roger remained sequestered with Grady and his men in the corner, showing no signs of ending their intense discussion.

  Seeing Mom stand up from her table, I slipped over to intercept.

  "I wanted to confirm that you agree with Phil on the computers and computer parts?" I asked. I didn't trust her distracted agreement from yesterday.

  "Yes, I always equated EMPs with CMEs since the collapse of the power grid was so similar. But Phil is right, and we should have adjusted for the differences once we got into this mess. I doubt it cost us much, but we should correct the oversight now. Families are polling their teenagers to identify kids with computer skills. I'm thinking of putting one of them in charge of the project. While I'm tempted to assign the task to Sally, I don't think that will help her sanity," my mom said, grimacing as if in pain. "If I put Phil in charge, he will claim retaliation."

  "He has a lot of stuff on his plate already. It would be better to find someone not already juggling 20 jobs. Phil also gave me a list of skilled people to recruit from the Robbins area that he and Mandy feel is the next priority. That w
ill delay sending teams to Oneida to search for the medical people." I said.

  "I'm good with that, since it took us so long to determine their home addresses. Someone pieced them together from information we salvaged from Oneida. If we had the addresses in January, recruiting them would have been a priority at that time," my mom said. "Amelie is really feeling the strain of being our only doctor. Having the nurses and Tom helps, but she needs better backup. Robbins is where Dr. Kyle lives, which boosts its priority. Dealing with the collapse is having a profound impact on all the kids. They need support, and so far, the Valley lacks people with the skills to help many of them. Since Kyle broke through to both you and Jennifer, that is a remarkable recommendation for his skills." With a wave, she left, leaving me standing there with my mouth open.