American Revenant (Book 2): Settlers and Sorrow (19 page)

Chapter
27

Shortly after three in the morning the Camp was brutally
awakened by the blaring horn of the person on top-watch.  People gathered
together quickly, everyone arming themselves, and meeting in front of the main
house.

            Rick, who had been on top-watch met the
group minutes later.  “Someone just took the VW Beetle, couldn’t see who it was
though.”

The group left the small car parked down beside the
Cambrey house with the keys always in the ignition.  Anyone could use the car
as needed; they just had to check in with those staying in the house so that
someone knew the car was in use and by whom.

“Who the hell would take the car, and why?”  Gordy
asked the group in general.

Garret spoke up from the group in response.  “I think
it was Arianna.  I haven’t seen her since she woke up earlier this evening.”

“Dad, do you want me to take the De Soto and try to
find her?”

“I’ll go with Dean,” Rebecca said.

Gordy thought for a second, “No, she’s gone, let her
stay that way.  We can’t chase her around at night like this anyway, even if it
is a full moon.”

“Gordon Fletcher, we can’t just let that woman go!  She’ll
get herself killed out there, she can’t defend herself.  If it wasn’t for Becca
and the others she would have died a long time ago, or worse.”

“I know that Jan,” Gordy said, a sour look on his
face, “but she made her choice.  I don’t think she would stay here even if we
did find her.”

Gordy turned his wrist so that the moonlight shone
brightly on the face of his watch.  “It’s nearly three-thirty in the morning. 
I’m not going to be able to go back to sleep, and there are things we need to
discuss.  If anyone wants to go back to bed, go ahead, I can fill you in later,
if not, meet me down at the Cambrey house in a few minutes.”

Gordy and Jan went back in to the dispensary where
they had set up two cots close to each other.  Gordy changed from a pair of
fleece sleep pants he had gotten from the items that had been cleared out from
the Dollar Store, into a pair of jeans.  As he changed he told Jan, “Meet me
down there when you feel up to it.  I’ll have coffee and oatmeal going for
everyone that wants it.”

Jan nodded at her husband’s back as he closed the door
behind him.

Rebecca and Dean were already there, along with Rick
and Calvin.  They worked together at the stove brewing coffee and starting
water to boil for a pot of oatmeal.  Though they said little, while working so
closely, hands and shoulders would often brush together, and the two would
flash a quick smile to each other.

Rick and Calvin smiled knowingly.  It was obvious the
two young people had developed feelings for one another.

The smell of brewing coffee put a smile on Gordy’s
face, as it always did.  It was one of those small things that took him back,
even if only for a moment, to a better time, when he and his family were happy
and safe.

“Good way-early morning, Gordy.”

“Ha, thanks Rick, you too.”

“Coffee will be ready in a minute, Dad.”

Gordy sat at the table with Calvin and Rick, watching
his son and Becca work together to make breakfast.  He was pleased that they
had both taken to each other so well, but he often prayed that his son could avoid
heartbreak. 

“So what do you want to discuss that it couldn’t wait
until a normal time, Pops.”

“Don’t call me ‘Pops’ Cal, I can still whip your ass,”
Gordy said, smiling at his son.

“Ha, maybe we’ll have to see about that later.  Stage
us a wrestling match out on the ball diamond.” 

Rick laughed loudly.  “Now that’s something I’d pay to
see.”

“Anyone else plan on coming down, or did everyone go
back to bed?”

“Mike said he was coming down.  He probably went to
see if he could get Jimmy to join us.”

“Thanks Rick.  Let’s wait a few minutes, give others a
little bit before we jump in.”

They sat there waiting, enjoying hot cups of coffee,
and idle chatter.  Several minutes later Mike and Lisa came through the front
door, with a tired looking Jimmy following close behind.

“Tam and Trish are staying with the kids,” Mike told
everyone.

Shortly after they sat down with coffee and steaming
bowls of oatmeal with hand-made maple syrup and a dash of sugar, Jan and Lynn
came in.  Gordy waited for them to get drinks and food before he started
talking.

“We’ve had a lot of changes lately,” he said, looking
around at the faces gathered in the cozy kitchen.  “We’ve added several new
people to the group, and we have met some difficulty because of it, but we are
still together and as strong as ever.  Before I go any further, I want to say,
Jimmy we love you, and you’re family.  Whatever you’re fighting with, you don’t
have to do it alone.  Talk to us; let us be there for you like you’ve been for
many of us.”

Jimmy lifted his head from gazing into his oatmeal,
straight into Gordy’s eyes.  Gordy couldn’t tell if it was lack of sleep that
gave Jimmy’s eyes a glassy sheen or if tears were waiting to fall.  Jimmy
nodded to Gordy, both to say thank you and telling him to carry on.

“Continuing work on the wall is important, because
having the Camp as a place of safety to fall back on for everyone is
paramount.  But I want everyone to consider that we are building more than just
that here.

“We are becoming a community, and we’ll soon outgrow
the Camp.  Saverton has been cleared out, and we know that there are a lot of
homes down there available for use.  The biggest problem is keeping everything
secure in such a spread out area.

“I think we should consider closing off the only
outside access road to Saverton, which is Highway E off Highway 79.  If we
block that off somehow, just this side of the Woodland Groves turnoff, then we
can limit entrance into the town itself.”

Gordy paused to take a sip of lukewarm coffee as well
as to let the others consider what he was saying.  Alex walked through the
front door just as Gordy was setting his coffee cup down.

“I miss anything important?”

Gordy refreshed his coffee and poured a cup for Alex
as the others filled him in. 

Alex nodded at Gordy as he took the steaming mug of
brew, and asked, “What about the length of Highway E that extends around past
the dam.”

“That part of the road ends right there in the
Thompson Conservation area.  Since it doesn’t connect to anything else I think
we could just gate it off, preventing anyone that might come up the river and in
to town on foot from just walking in.”

“But we can’t just put up a gate at the other end,”
Rick offered.  “Anyone could smash a sturdy vehicle through it.”

“I’m hoping you guys might have some opinions on how
to solve that,” Gordy told him.

“Obviously we would have to dig up the road,” Dean
thought out loud, “but that makes it impossible for us to use the road as
well.”

“Maybe some sort of drawbridge over the gap?” 

“Not a bad idea, Lynn,” Mike said, “but that’s going
to take some engineering to do.”  Looking to Gordy he said, “If you want this
done pretty quickly, which I assume you do, a drawbridge might take too long to
build.”

Gordy nodded, taking in their suggestions.  “I like
the idea, but what would be a faster way to implement it?”

Simultaneously Alex and Jimmy said, “Cattle guards.”

Everyone burst out into laughter, though Jimmy’s was
more subdued than the rest. 

“How would we use cattle guards?”  Lisa asked.

“Well, what I was thinking,” Alex began, “and maybe
Jimmy is too, is that we cut a deep trench across the road, maybe five or six
feet deep, sixteen feet long, and about six feet wide.  Then you set cattle
guards down in the top of the hole, mounting them on something so they sit
flush with the road. 

Then we set up a pulley system, which will be fairly
easy, that would either lift it straight up and suspend it there above the
hole, or make it so that the cattle guards, when lifted, make a sort of wall or
gate as well, standing straight up on the long edge on our side of the trench.”

“Pretty much exactly what I was thinking,” Jimmy told
Alex.

“That would take a lot of back-work, since we don’t
have excavating equipment,” Calvin said.

“Uh, I hate to sound stupid, but what is a cattle
guard?” Lynn asked.

“A cattle guard is just a bunch of metal, usually
tubes, welded on a frame.  They have wide gaps between the pipes, about six
inches.  Cows won’t walk across them, so farmers use them so they can have an
open gate without worrying about livestock walking off.”

“Jimmy’s right, Lynn.  On the rare occasion that a cow
does walk across them their hooves slip through, breaking their legs.  Doesn’t
happen often, but it can happen.”

“Thanks Jimmy, Alex, and thanks for not laughing at
me,” she said, smiling.

“Ok, I think we need to look into that, and soon,”
Gordy told the group.  “Once we’re ready to start on that we can stop work on
the wall until it’s done.  I really think we should have all hands on it, and
get it finished as quickly as possible.  Now on to the other subject I wanted
to talk about.”

“You really like to hear yourself talk, don’t you,
Gordy?”

Everyone laughed at Mike’s jab, though a few others
would admit to themselves that they were thinking the same thing.

Gordy grinned hugely and said, “I do when I want to
hear intelligent conversation, Mikey.”

Shouts of “Oh Damn!” and “Burn!” resounded through the
bunch, which everyone took as intermission for the conversation.  A fresh pot
of coffee was put on, and the oatmeal pot was scraped clean.  People stepped
outside to relieve themselves, or get a breath of cool morning air.

Everyone gathered in the spacious living room and
Gordy continued. 

“As I was saying, before being so rudely interrupted
by the peanut gallery,” he said with a smile, “there is something else we need
to consider.

“We need to decide if we want to completely isolate
ourselves from everyone, and just continue surviving and living here as our own
little group, or do we want to reach out to the world around us.

“Since everything began we’ve focused on just
surviving, and now we know we can do that.  But what about others out there,
people who don’t have the resources or ability that we have?  Do we just let
others die, or should we begin looking for more survivors?  This is something
that has really been weighing on me.

“We have our cozy little pocket of the American
heartland here, and we are working our asses off to make it a safe little
pocket.  But does it mean anything if we neglect to help others survive as well?”

“Why should we go out there and risk getting eaten by
a damn gut-sucker for people we don’t know?  It’s their job to survive, just
like it was ours.”

Gordy and Jan both looked at their son, surprised to
hear him say something so callous.  “I would’ve never expected you to think
that way, Dean.” 

“Oh, I don’t, Mom, I’m just playing devil’s advocate
here.  Whether or not people are going to say it is one thing, but I’m sure
some of us were thinking it.”

“And it’s a valid point,” Rick said.  “Most of us here
prepared for years for something to happen, and it paid off for us.  We have
knowledge and skills, as well as the means to implement them.  Do we risk our
lives to help people who have so far just been lucky?”

“Ok, I see what you guys are getting at here, and I
agree that’s one point to look at.  But can we really afford to think that
way?  There is strength in numbers, and safety among friends.”

“True, Gordy, but there are also those human monsters
out there that we talked about.”

“I know Jimmy, but I don’t believe we can shut
ourselves off from the world because of those types of people.  But we will
have to put in place strict rules to deal with them, that’s for certain.”

“So, we go out into the wide world of Zoms, and bring
back other people?  We build ourselves a nice solid community of farmers and
fisherman and quilt makers, then what?”

“If you want to look that far ahead, Becca, then I
would say we work on pushing back against the zombies that outnumber living
people.  Maybe we put together crews whose sole purpose is to hunt and kill
them, and take back the smaller communities.”

“That’s all good and fine Gordy, but it’s going be
more than just zombies we face off against and you know that,” Rick said. 
“Hell we had more problems with the human element than we did with the zombies
right after everything happened.”

“You’re right, and I do realize that.  That’s the
other reason I wanted to talk about this.  There are some pretty bad folks out
there that will take advantage of others if given the opportunity and we need
to be prepared to deal with that.”

“Sun’s coming up,” Rebecca said.