by Zack Finley
I hadn’t tried the new showers at the community center yet. This was probably a good time.
I trotted to the community center and left my weapons and plate carrier with Mike lounging near one of the wood stoves. I noticed he was a lot cleaner than I was. A reminder I needed to budget time to take care of my personal hygiene.
There were six changing rooms in the entrance with a bench to sit on and hooks for clothes. Three were available. The rules posted on the wall were minimal. A reminder that kids used the facilities and not to leave weapons unattended in the changing room, not to track mud into the changing rooms, clean up after yourself, a recommended maximum shower time of 5 minutes. An addendum, written in a felt-tipped marker asked people to turn off the shower when done.
The last note was puzzling. Who would leave the shower on often enough to prompt that rule? The mind boggles.
I washed and shaved quickly but then let the hot water cascade over my head and shoulders for the rest of the allotted time. This now defined luxury. The luxury of hot water showers. I didn’t even feel guilty about the rest of the world trying to keep semi-clean in muddy ditches. I was delighted my dad insisted on breaking out the Rube Goldberg wood-fired hot water heater. I’d gladly cut and split a cord of wood just to have an occasional hot shower.
I didn’t linger once I turned the water off, because the building wasn’t heated and it got nippy mighty fast.
Mike was still sprawled over a chair near the fire, reading a well-thumbed novel with a lurid cover. I shrugged into my body armor and shouldered my M4. Mike’s gear was on the floor beside him. I said goodnight and headed home.
Granny met me at the door and nodded approval, “Much better. Claire insists you were an officer, but you were looking mighty scruffy.”
“Just conserving resources, granny. The kitchen staff needed the hot water more than me,” I said.
“If you take time to shower, others will know it is okay to do the same,” my granny said, wisely. “I know you have engineering stuff to do tonight but if you could explain to Joe what you are doing it will help him adjust.”
“Sure, I’d be happy to,” I said. The coffee table was the only flat surface we now had to put drawings on. I asked Joe to help me lay out the blueprints.
Not that engineering drawings were blue anymore. Now I was stuck using reduced sized versions of digital prints because the original program was locked in some dead computer somewhere.
Joe wasn’t the only one suddenly interested in what I was doing. Ellie and Melissa remained intent on their books, but Jennifer and Billy came over. I asked Jennifer to find the magnifying glass. She knew where it was and brought it out right away.
I then reviewed the design of the walls and roof of the jail. What I was interested in was the maximum snow load used in the design and any other design loads.
In a case like this, I was willing to nudge into the safety margin.
Water was heavy. Every pint weighs just over a pound, I explained to my watching public.
I suddenly realized part of what granny was trying to convey. Everyone with a skill needed to find a way to either pass on that knowledge or preserve it. If we needed to depend on me for passing on civil engineering knowledge, we were all screwed. I left school too long ago for that.
I found explaining to my audience helped me remember what I was calculating. Dad got a great deal on some poly tanks, many years ago. They came in two sizes, 5,000 gallons, and 10,000 gallons. I estimated the 5,000-gallon tank would weigh 41,000 pounds when full. I recalled it was about 12 feet in diameter. This yielded a loading of 363 pounds per square foot. Trivial for the ground and even a wall, not so minor for a flat roof. No building inspector in their right mind would ever agree to this before the crash. But I thought the risk was minimal if we sited the tank near the corner and used wooden blocking to give it a wider footprint. None-the-less I was definitely intruding into the margin of safety.
Joe went right for the jugular, “This might make the roof collapse?”
“No, it isn’t that much of an overload,” I reassured him. “The ceiling will bend more than we’d consider good practice under pre-crash conditions. We might get small cracks in the concrete, but no collapse.”
I could see he wasn’t convinced, “The other way we keep everyone safe is our initial test. We’ll fill up the tank and monitor the deflection or bending. I’ll make everyone move to another part of the building once we are half full. After it is full, we’ll look for cracks or signs of distress. If it looks good, then we’ll put it in service.”
Jennifer asked, “If you are sure it is okay, why test it?”
“I don’t know for certain they built the building according to the drawings,” I said. “If they took a shortcut or used bad materials then it might break. One way to tell that it is safe without guessing is to test it under real conditions.”
That satisfied my audience, and it felt right to me, too. I’d pull one of the 5,000-gallon tanks from inventory, but we’d replace the Valley inventory with a few steel tanks from the equipment yard. They’d be suitable for expanding our fuel or water stores, not something a poly tank could do.
After putting the drawings in the mudroom to take back to Justice, I sat in my recliner and found I was suddenly quite popular. Melissa claimed the seat of honor in my lap. Jennifer and Billy sat on the arms. Joe sat on the couch next to us.
I asked each of them about their day. Melissa fell instantly into a recount of triumph over crafty hens. Billy was helping in one of the greenhouses. Jennifer achieved her first chin up. Joe liked working with Uncle George and the puppies.
This caused a great uproar, as the other kids demanded to know “what puppies?”
I was glad to learn I wasn’t the only one George was keeping in the dark.
Joe agreed to ask Uncle George if the puppies were ready to meet everyone.
Granny announced “lights out” a few minutes later.
Craig slipped in unheard sometime later, but he got up when I did. As I added wood and stoked the fire to knock the chill off the house, I could hear the other three members of Force Beta staying in my old dining room getting ready for PT.
There was more grumbling than usual at PT this morning, due to the steady cold rain. Rain gear and parkas today. I suspected Joe might keep the puppies to himself for another day. I doubted any of the kids would be that eager to spend much time outdoors. Some chores had to be done, rain or shine. Others could wait a day or two for better weather. I knew my mom was scrambling to adjust assignments.
Granny was already at the cookhouse. I knew Jennifer would get Melissa moving and hoped Joe would get his crew going too.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs and breakfast meat with prunes and coffee. One of my favorites. I even liked the canned prunes.
I arranged to meet with my dad and Roger over breakfast, but no one spoke until our plates were empty. I wasn’t the only one who preferred this breakfast to oatmeal.
“I’m going to take one of the poly tanks we have in storage for FOB Justice,” I said. “There are enough tanks in the equipment yard we looked at yesterday to replace it with, but none were suitable for perching on top of a building. The equipment yard tanks are steel and are suitable for fuel storage. At some point, we may want to collect fuel from vehicles and other storage tanks in town.”
“It might be better to put the fuel tank at Justice and fill it. Get one of your creative guys to jury-rig some mechanical siphon device. It takes too long to siphon gas from a tank with just a tube. You are too vulnerable while waiting for gravity to work. I was thinking of something like a hand-powered barrel pump,” Roger said.
“Yeah, Steve can keep his equipment fueled, without running a generator all the time, and he can share the rest with the community,” my dad said.
“Since its raining, we are assigning a few extra people to Justice for the day. They include Joe, Billy, and Ellie. I need you to take them in your Humvee,” my dad said, getting to the
main reason for our meeting. “I’m sending one of Sally’s techs to install the repeater for the GMRS radios. It will replace the CB radios in the Hummers and other vehicles. It should allow you to retrieve all of your tactical radios for your team to use exclusively,” my dad patted me on the arm. “I know you are worried about someone breaking them.”
“Sally has been listening on all the GMRS bands, and they’ve been quiet since the static broke. She worries that once we have the repeater up and running, we are in range of Oneida. Sally still worries someone will be listening,” Roger said. “Her proposed code plan was way too complicated, so she’s working on a simpler one. I doubt in the near term any code is needed. The government was very restrictive about using these frequency bands, so not a lot of equipment uses them. Sally has data on local usage from before the crash. I figure if no one was using them before, they certainly aren’t using them now. If we get wind of any government agencies operating in the area, we can revisit that.”
“I assume there is more than one channel we can use?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think we will assign one channel to security and distribute the others as needed. The Family Radio Service units work fine in the Valley and will do great at Justice. GMRS gear can access the FRS radio bands but not vice versa. We’ll need to put a second GMRS repeater in the Valley, that should allow the FRS handhelds to communicate between the two locations. What we are doing isn’t exactly legal under the old rules, but I doubt the FCC will come looking for us. Once we’ve converted, only the radio huts will monitor the CB channels,” Roger said. “If Aaron weren’t such a pack rat, we wouldn’t have all these options. He and Sally went a bit crazy on radio stuff.” He paused, then grinned, “Which we are taking full advantage of.”
“I’d like you to get those leaflets out all over Huntsville. It won’t hurt to start collecting and placing your moving roadblocks either,” my dad said.
“Moving roadblocks?” Roger asked.
“Yeah, the school buses. I think using them is brilliant,” my dad said. “Anyway, even if we don’t need his help, I’d like you to contact Jerry Hill and leave him a leaflet. He’ll get the word around the area that we are now running things. I suspect that will help us all.”
“What are you saying about Jerry?” I asked.
“He is connected to many of the more,” my dad paused considering his words before continuing, “prepared members of the community. I think he will be relieved to know Allen is out of the picture,” dad said. “If you talk with him, find out if any of his people need anything. We owe him for those roadblocks. He might know more about what is going on around the state, too. Put leaflets in some mailboxes in the roads around Huntsville. Put up the flags, and someone will notice and come look. That will help spread the word.”
“One of the first roadblocks I’m putting up is on the Mecklin River bridge south of Huntsville. I wanted Sheriff Lewis to block it first thing. The bridge is wide enough I might borrow our big-rig and drag the useless roadblock we now have down there,” I said.
“We need to block Highway 27 to the north, too. I want to make it very difficult for anyone to mount a serious mobile threat to Huntsville from any direction. Especially by those yahoos in Oneida,” my dad said.
“When you talk with Jerry, get his input in where else to block the road. I’m sure he has considered it from every angle,” Roger said.
“He was always worried about acting without authorization,” I said. “Do we know what happened to the county mayor?”
“He was staying with the sheriff’s bunch until he just disappeared,” Roger said, indicating something going, poof.
“I’ll suspect we’ll find his bones wherever Sheriff Lewis’ are,” my dad said. “Or we will never find them. I’m just sure he didn’t die of old age.”
I left to load up Justice’s new water tank on the flatbed trailer. At 12 foot in diameter, the tank would slop over the sides but could be loaded with a forklift. The trailer was already hitched to a pickup. Strapping down the tank was the signal everyone was waiting for to form up for the trip to Justice.
I gave Joe, Billy, and Ellie a ride in my Humvee. Joe was a qualified marksman, but at 16 was considered too young for anything except defense. I asked him which weapon he was most comfortable using and I checked out an AR-15 for him to carry while he was outside the Valley. We had a lot of them courtesy of the Lloyd Mountain Militia.
As we drove through FOB Echo, I radioed FOB Justice we were on our way. I wanted to get the tank unloaded right away. Razor and Phil were coming with me again today. Buzzer and Matt would use the truck currently pulling the tank to pick up the wood stoves now at the middle school.
I agreed to that, knowing Buzzer was going to keep bringing it up ad nauseam. Also, I expected we’d get some visitors at the middle school today, and it would reassure them to see Matt and Buzzer.
Steve and Mandy were delighted to see their kids, although I got an odd look from both of them when they noticed the AR-15 slung nonchalantly over Joe’s shoulder. That the rest of the adults on the expedition were also carrying automatic rifles should give them a hint.
FOB Justice and the route to it was still considered a hostile location.
Days before someone set up several portable composting toilets from our fallout shelters in the sheriff’s lobby for Justice residents to use at least temporarily. They were marginally better than a five-gallon bucket and a pile of sawdust. As it was, the men were being encouraged to pee in a small version of Zeke’s saltpeter factory he set up in a strip of lawn next to the building.
I wanted to install a set of micro-flush composting toilets for this facility. Using them would remove the blackwater from the building’s sewer system. We could then reuse the grey water for irrigation or just let it drain to the creeks. I’d seen several designs, but they all featured a digester which separated the liquid from the solids. The liquid could be used to create Zeke’s saltpeter, and the solids would compost and provide food for the worms. Properly sized digesters could go years without needing to be harvested. The digester avoided some of the most unpleasant aspects of composting toilets, too much liquid, stench, handling the semi-converted shit, and flies. At least flies weren’t a big problem this time of year.
I’d sketched the basic layout and rough dimensions for a four-holer and left it with Matt. I recommended it be located near the door on the southwest side of the building near the exercise yard.
That should be far enough away from the irrigation well we were using to supply the water for Justice. The well didn’t have a sanitary seal, so we needed to be mindful of the potential for cross-contamination.
Scott had no transmissions from the recon patrol.
Phil drove the Humvee, with Razor as shotgun. I sat behind Phil and kept watch, as we led Matt and Buzzer to the middle school.
I left Razor on watch in the Humvee while the rest of us dismantled the stovepipes. The sooty pipes were clear evidence the seniors burned a lot of wood in the short time they were there. Some of the joints refused to budge without a lot of persuasion.
I was the recipient of one black explosion when a joint broke apart abruptly. I’d need another shower before granny would let me come in the house tonight.
By the time we had the stovepipes in the back of the pickup, I wasn’t the only one in blackface.
Just as we started bullying the wood stove toward the door, we got an alert.
“I have one man waving a white tee shirt across the road. He has his hands up and appears unarmed,” Razor radioed.
Buzzer radioed back, “The guy’s name is Murph, let him know we’ll meet him halfway.”
Then we heard Razor over the loudspeaker, “Murph, Buzzer says he’ll meet you half way.”
Buzzer handed Matt his rifle and scooted out the door. He paused next to the Humvee to have a quiet conversation with Razor before raising his hands partway and walking to meet Murph.
They spoke a few words, and then both of them made
a beeline for the middle school door. “We are coming in, it is too damn wet out here,” radioed Buzzer.
“We got your flyer,” Murph said, once introductions were made. “What happened to Sheriff Lewis?”
“Deputy Allen offed him and the county mayor, too, as best we can tell,” Buzzer said. “We don’t know where they dumped the seniors, we made a few patrols looking but couldn’t find them. I suspect if they were alive, one of those fuckers would have traded their location for his life.”
“Too bad,” said Murph, “but not any different than we thought. Is it true you have some medical supplies? One of my buddies’ little girl is very sick.”
“We have a medic at Justice and what’s left of the supplies the deputies collected from the pharmacies. If it's bad enough, Dr. Jerrod might be willing to come to Justice to treat her.”