Surviving The Black (Book 4): Betrayal From Within

by Finley, Zack

  "I'll take care of it," I said. Buzzer, Mike, and Tank would distribute handouts in Robbins. I could drop by the Arkansas group hut tonight to let Lois know the plans for tomorrow changed. "What specifically are you looking for?"

  "They may have maps or a list of seed sources. If you identify the ag extension people, tax rolls and property records could help us find them. Though I don't really want a box truck full of records. Knowing what is there might be enough. In the extension office, home addresses for the agriculture agents who worked there would help. I doubt you will find a treasure map of warehouse locations, but one can always hope. For the rest, Phil convinced Claire to start salvaging computers. Pick up paper and printers, toilet paper, the usual," he said.

  The county mayor disappeared early in the crisis. Most of us believed Deputy Allen's thugs killed him and dumped the body. I doubted anyone visited the county offices since he disappeared. Bureaucratic red tape was not very useful once the shit hit the fan. The only reason people went into offices now was to recover janitorial supplies and for paper to start warming fires. The location was a modern one-story complex with a brick façade. It didn't even have a solar power system.

  "We are storing all the salvaged computers in the tech building for now," I said. "It is too bad Steve couldn't convince them to put in solar."

  "Yeah, we offered them a package nearly at cost, and they still couldn't afford it. Same with the county offices. We only installed solar at the justice center because the sheriff got a renewable energy grant from Homeland Security. Ironic."

  "I've been thinking about using the Mecklin River to generate power for the Valley," I said. "It runs 24-7 and all year 'round. We might be able to reduce our dependence on generators. Better in a lot of ways than wind. Any reason it wasn't in the Plan?" My dad and I enjoyed discussing topics like this. After I left the Army, we spent many evenings shooting the bull on similar topics.

  "We put most of our effort into solar. Trying anything in the river beforehand would have created problems with Fish and Game plus a slew of state and federal agencies. Steve looked into some of the newer water turbines, but most were better suited for small streams. Add a waterwheel to your to-do list for this summer. It might be a great keep-cool project for mid-August. If you can do the in-river parts this summer, we can work on the rest after harvest. Claire probably has some design plans for various styles of waterwheels. Once you spin a waterwheel, making it turn a rotor to generate electricity should be easy. Steve's been looking at some windmills for the roof of Justice to help generate more power, especially during the winter months. If the river was closer to him, I doubt he'd be looking at wind power."

  "I'll talk with him about water power and if we need to do something to get ready. The bridge area seems a reasonable place to put a wheel, but if Steve already looked at it, that will be even better. I also think we should start collecting car batteries, if not now, then later in the year," I added.

  "I wouldn't send out a salvage team for them, but we will need them over time. Not sure how we are going to replenish the electrolyte in the long term, but the longer car batteries are viable, the better we all are."

  I nodded but then lowered my voice. "How is mom doing?" I asked.

  "I don't know. She acts like nothing happened, but hasn't been sleeping well and is short-tempered. She won't discuss it. If anyone asks her about it, she cuts them off. She did talk with the jury when they came by to interview her. I don't know what else she told them because they chased me out. She seems more worried about me. Mind you, I'm in a rotten place mentally.

  "I feel like I did when I first got home from Vietnam. Big difference now though, I don't have a lot of Pops' moonshine to knock the edge off, and I have responsibilities. So, I just keep plugging on. None of us are doing well. George is a total mess, and I'm very glad Bob has Clarice to support him. Roger is taking on so much, I feel guilty. But we all do what we must. I really want this trial to be over. The only positive thing to come of this is Carmine stopped being a bitch. She and Jim Smith are really helping with George."

  "I've been splitting wood, what is going on with Uncle George?"

  "He doesn't handle change well," my dad said.

  "No fooling, although he has actually done very well since the crash," I said.

  "The crash came on the heels of all those changes you introduced last year. I think they were bigger stressors for George than the actual apocalypse. You made him ramp up beef, egg, and milk production, and horrors, added goats, and rabbits. Since the crash, mostly he has had to deal with a bunch of untrained helpers. But he did that annually as part of our summer programs. Anyway, Mama passing really sent him into a downward spiral. I didn't realize how much she centered him. I'm very glad he has those dogs.

  "I need his help to find a sustainable balance between human crops and animal feed. He is in no shape now to help make those choices. Jacob and Jim are really stepping up, but George is the linchpin. Now he is obsessing over the lack of a veterinarian. Amelie is doing what she can for the animals, but she is overtaxed just taking care of the humans."

  "I'd better find him a vet, then," I said. "And, help for Dr. Jerrod."

  "Thanks, Jeremy. I wanted to recruit a veterinarian for years, but George insisted he was working on it. I'd have recruited a vet out of school, offered to help pay his or her college debt, and provided a house in the Valley in exchange for taking a job nearby. Similar to what we did for Dr. Jerrod. George didn't want a rookie; he demanded the perfect vet. Now we'll be lucky to find someone with experience tending pet cats or dogs," he said.

  My dad fought hard with George over many issues, but he was also fiercely protective of him. Now he tried to set aside his own grief to care for his younger brother.

  I squeezed my dad's shoulder as I stood up. There wasn't a lot more to be said, and I left to begin rearranging tomorrow's schedule.

  On my way out, I poked my head into my mom's office, "Hey Mom."

  "Hey, Son."

  "Dad says the whole seed problem just got worse."

  "Yes, just another nail in the coffin. A slow-motion ride off the cliff." My mom didn't even look up, continuing her assault on her laptop keyboard.

  Whoa, this was different. I expected some reaction, but this didn't even sound like her. It made me want to slink away, but I was made of sterner stuff. "I always assumed that America's farmers could scrounge enough seed for the future."

  My mom stopped pounding her keyboard and let out a breath. Turning to me, she said, "Is there something I can do to help you?" The intensely polite clip to her voice was not something I usually faced.

  "Uh, no, I was just checking in."

  She grimaced and then sighed. "I'm not very congenial company right now. And learning no one saved any seeds locally did not help. Humans are so stupid we don't deserve to survive this."

  Red alerts started going off inside me. While I split wood, my mom took a turn to the dark side. I always considered her realistically optimistic. Pops was realistically pessimistic. My dad was mostly neutral. My mom and Pops argued about nearly everything for most of my life. I knew she really missed their sparring matches after he died.

  My dad was practical, but he never denied her anything. And he never wanted to argue with her. I couldn't decide whether to stay and talk with her or leave and let her work it out on her own. It wasn't like I felt very optimistic now, either. But I wanted to know. "How so?"

  "Our hodgepodge electrical grid was never meant to carry the weight of our entire society. It just kept growing, until it was too important to fail. But we didn't build it that way. We built everything on a foundation of quicksand. Power companies expanded and expanded, but no one had the money or wherewithal to fix the fundamental flaws. Even that wouldn't have been so bad, but after World War II, everything was all about centralized efficiency. When Eisenhauer started building the American autobahns, we had to pay for them somehow. We did, at the cost of any local sustainability.

  "Cor
porations would have outsourced local plumbing repairs to India if robotics had developed faster. Now I learn none of our local farmers has any seed for this year's crops. Not even hybrids. Even if we find seed for them, it is only a temporary solution. It is like every choice people made in the past 100 years is rendering us obsolete. For the cost of one stealth bomber, we could have upgraded much of the nation's infrastructure to survive this. Last night I reread the recommendations to Congress about preparations for a CME or EMP. It reminded me how shortsighted our nation was. Stupid priorities. It wasn't like we didn't get plenty of warnings. Floods, hurricanes, fires, and earthquakes."

  "I don't know Mom, I just don't. The Valley is doing pretty well. Even if we didn't anticipate everything, we have the reserves to get through this."

  "What good is that if there are no other decent people left alive?" She demanded. "This whole situation rewards the takers, the raiders. The deputy Allen's of the world. Why work hard for months to grow a crop when you can swoop in at the end and steal it. If you help someone, they just figure you are weak. If you give anyone something they haven't earned, they just want more."

  This was a darker side of my mother. She was never a Pollyanna, but I never heard this level of cynicism from her before. I couldn't even refute it, since I shared her perspective.

  "Roger was right from the start. I thought if we helped people around Mecklin County live through this, we would automatically gain allies. People are too selfish for that to work. Hell, people resent us even when we invite them into our homes to live exactly as we do. Those shits kept going on about how our family got a secret meal each day. That it was only the newcomers who worked from dawn-to-dusk. How they were now our slaves."

  "What made them think that?" I asked.

  "I'm sure they would treat others like slaves if they were on top," she said. "I even told the jury that death was too good for any of them. I want anyone who took part or who chose not to warn us to be on a chain gang. Forced labor on limited rations. I want Mandy to take them, although having some working around the Valley might serve as a deterrent. Hang the three actual kidnappers and force the others into slavery. Heck, we can give the future slaves a choice, the quick bullet or life as a slave," my mom looked thoughtful.

  My mom was no pacifist, but until this incident, she never expressed such hardline views. While I couldn't refute her solution, I was disgusted that my issues dealt more with the logistics of stopping prisoners from committing sabotage or escaping rather than morality. Was this worse than taking them to a remote site and abandoning them?

  "I think that would be a bad idea," I said. "Not for those who betrayed us, but for our own people. Being a prison guard is corrupting. It changes people. Right now, we are more like a co-op. Everyone works hard and everyone benefits."

  "What happens when someone, maybe Allie's father, announces he is going on a labor strike. Or even worse, just quits working hard. Then others take up his banner. Every day I hear complaints and most boil down to, 'I'm working harder than my neighbor or why does my neighbor have an easier job than me?'" She turned off her laptop and closed it. "Aaron, Roger, and I spent decades preparing for this. Now I realize most of my preconceptions were wrong, and Pops was right. We expected more from our fellow survivors. I wasn't naïve about the way society would break down; I just didn't think it would break down in the Valley less than six months after the shit hit the fan. With what we just learned about the lack of seed, it means a lot more people will die this year. That makes every spot on our lifeboat even more valuable. At this point, I want to trade our whiners for people who will build this community, not tear it down with their petty differences."

  I didn't recognize this version of my mom. My dad's melancholy made more sense now. My mom was always a glass half full person. After her ordeal, I expected anger, but the bitter edge to her current world view caught me by surprise. While I played soldier, she juggled an impossible number of variables, attempting to balance the wants and needs of our community against impossible odds. Only to have some she tried to save betray us all. Before now, all our defenses aimed outside the Valley.

  I feared this marked a turning point for us. If we tossed doubters like Allie's dad out, how would Allie and the rest of her family react? Probably not well, even knowing he spread discord and did the bare minimum to get by. By letting him slack off, we were doing a disservice to the rest. Was the only answer a bullet, slavery, or exile? There had to be a way, or this would tear our community apart.

  My mom wasn't looking to me or anyone else for answers. Right now, everyone in the Valley was in a state of shock and disbelief at the viciousness of the revolt. The actions taken to resolve this mess would set the Valley's course for the foreseeable future. Most believed that our compassion earned us betrayal and murder. The Arkansas group was lucky they arrived before the breakout. I doubted we would welcome any new group into our midst so easily. Some might even revolt at the thought of selective recruitment.

  I kissed my mom on the cheek and hugged her tightly with one arm. She patted my arm and then flipped her computer open as I left the room. I had a lot to consider. But first, I'd warn Lois of tomorrow's mission delay.

  The inside of the Arkansas hut looked more comfortable, homier than the last time I visited. Rugs covered much of the cold concrete floor. Kids' toys lay in a jumble on the rug in front of the woodstove. An assortment of red and blue pillows softened the basic furniture along with a collection of puffy comforters. A haphazard stack of books rested on a coffee table. LED lights provided a modest level of illumination, though task lighting was located around the great room. Several people took advantage of these lights for personal projects, like reading and sewing.

  The kids must be in bed, but most of the group sat close to the woodstove. March night time temperatures on the Cumberland Plateau were still frosty, and none of these people had any personal insulation from the cold. Bricks covered the top of the stove, warming up to take to bed later.

  "Hi Jeremy," John called from the corner near his grandma Juanita's chair. "I think Grady and his men are at the recreation hut tonight."

  "Hi John, I'm actually looking for Lois."

  "She's tucking the kids into bed and should be out in a few," John said. "My guess is they demanded an extra story tonight."

  I walked over to talk with John, nodding at Juanita and greeting the others. The air temperature in the hut felt stifling to me, but everyone else wrapped themselves in either a comforter or one of the thick woolen Coast Guard blankets. Jamie sat near John; his shoulder still bandaged from the surgery Dr. Jerrod conducted to repair it.

  "Jamie, how is the shoulder?" He'd been wounded in the Helena ambush of Andy's crew and needed major surgery to repair it.

  "The therapy hurts like hell, but I'm getting a little usage back. Dr. Jerrod doesn't want me doing too much for a few more weeks. Then we are due to start therapy. Left on my own, I'm inclined to just strap it down and do everything one-handed. She doubts I'll get the full range of motion back, but she thinks over time it will be okay for routine activities."

  "I don't see Sean," I said, looking around. "How is he?"

  "He's at the rec hut with the rest of Grady's team," John said. "He wants to get back on full duty, but Dr. Jerrod won't even let him do PT in the mornings yet." Sean received his wounds in the attack that killed Andy.

  "What about you, John?"

  "I'm doing okay. I applied to join Gamma, but they say I need more time in the Valley first. I'm helping Jimmy and Joel in the garage."

  "Do you like it?"

  "To early to tell. I'm just fetching tools or helping lift things. I've asked for a few shifts in the horse barn, just in case I like that better. Right now, the priority is on getting the tractors and other farm equipment ready for spring. We are using a lot of rust busting solvent on the sod scraper."

  The scraper was a nuclear war asset, aimed at allowing us to farm after nuclear fallout. My dad purchased it used from a sod far
m nearly 20 years before. Since we planned to convert a lot of pasture into cropland, my mom wanted to try several methods this spring. Using the sod scraper to remove the top inch or so of grass would then allow us to till the soil underneath. My mom hoped it would limit the weed seeds. Composting the 'sod' saved any nutrients for future crops and hopefully killed the weed seeds. This would only work in areas with deeper soil and minimal rocks. Whether it was worth the trouble and fuel was still unclear.

  We should probably have tested this in October after the crash and planted a winter wheat crop, but it was a low priority at the time. Breckinridge Valley lacked the deep topsoil of the flatlands, so there was some debate about whether fighting the weeds was a better alternative.

  "Do you think it will run?" I asked.

  "Once Jimmy gets done with it, I'm sure of it," John said, sticking up for his buddy.