Fight for Power (17 page)

“I assume others are not doing as well,” Herb said.

Dr. Morgan shook his head. “They went through a pretty horrific time. All will recover physically, but mentally there are some who will never be the same.”

Some people looked down at the table or floor as if they couldn't even make eye contact with Dr. Morgan. I'd heard the stories—I guess we all had.

“I think this is the time for me to mention the food situation,” Ernie said. “I know it sounds a little insensitive, but all my calculations have had to change with forty-seven new people to feed.”

Now it was my time to look down at the floor.

“There will be shortfalls. I'm almost afraid to suggest it, but I think we have to do more than just talk about reducing the daily rations of food.”

“That would have a negative impact on the mood and morale of the entire neighborhood,” Judge Roberts said.

“And I know that food, or rather lack of food, has been a source of tension leading to some of the disputes we've been settling,” my mother added.

“I know, but we can't get soup from a stone,” Ernie said.

“Then maybe we have to get more soup,” Herb said. “What if we tie the larger patrols in with the scavenging crews and see if we can find more food?”

“I'd even offer to lead that,” Howie said.

“I'd appreciate you being part of that—your leadership would be such a positive—but if people don't object, I'd like to go out on the first few,” Herb said.

“I wouldn't object,” Howie offered. “I'd feel safer knowing that you were with me.”

“We all can endorse that,” Judge Roberts said.

“I don't think we even need to go far,” Herb said. “We might take a little trip to the mall down the road.”

“We'll leave that to your discretion. Now, if there are no more items in need of immediate attention, I suggest we adjourn for a few minutes, stretch our legs, and get something to drink.”

 

15

We rumbled through the neighborhood on our way out. It had taken less than twenty-four hours for Herb's suggestion to become a reality. No surprise there. First in line was the open-bed truck with three men in the cab and another half dozen in the back—all of them armed. Howie and Brett were among them, which was reassuring.

The truck pulled one of the hay wagons from the farm, rigged up with a special harness. The wagon and the bed of the truck were our grocery carts. It was good to have the wagon and everything it could carry, but it was really slowing us down. It was old and wooden and rickety, and if they tried to pull it too fast it might just fall to pieces. We weren't going to be running from trouble pulling that behind us.

We had been given a grocery list: nails, cement, fertilizer, windows, and anything else that looked good. It was a strange list, even stranger when you thought that we were authorized to use force to get what we needed, armed to protect ourselves, and the “anything else that looked good” didn't involve impulse purchases at the check-out line. My hope was that we could find some food. I felt like all of those extra mouths that we'd brought in were on my head.

I was second in line with my car, Todd in the backseat and Herb beside me. Along with us, simply for security, were four other members of the security team, all armed, all riding on newly constructed go-carts. All of us were wearing body armor as well. We were a formidable force—one I wouldn't mess with. I just hoped other people thought the same.

“Lots of activity at the school,” Todd said as we passed by.

“You give teachers a job to do, and they get organized. The school is running extremely well,” Herb said. “It's also allowed the parents of the children to be freed up to do other things around the neighborhood.”

“I'm good with school as long as they don't try to rope me in,” Todd added.

“It's not a reform school,” Herb said.

“I don't think I've ever heard you crack a joke,” Todd said.

“Who said I was joking?” Herb asked.

I thought Todd was wrong about school. I would have loved to have things back the way they were. We should all be wishing we were back in class. Would that ever happen again?

“Besides,” Herb said, “it's not only that those kids need to be educated but also that we need to establish a sense of order, of normalcy.”

“Come on, none of this is normal,” Todd said.

“Not normal, but a
sense
of normal. In a normal world, kids go to school or day care and their parents go off to work,” Herb said.

“Well, if a bunch of us going out to scavenge and steal from other communities is a normal job, then I guess this is all just a usual day,” Todd said.

“The hope is to make it as normal as possible,” Herb said. “And that's why the dentist is filling teeth and doing examinations, the doctors are seeing patients at the walk-in clinic, and the salon is open to cut hair.”

“But all those things need to be done as well,” I said.

“They do, but there's a basic human need for things to be normal and predictable,” Herb said.

“The strangest thing for me is still the group supper,” Todd said. “An intimate dinner with sixteen hundred people each night isn't any part of normal that I've ever heard of. I still don't know how they're doing it.”

“Ernie has plenty of help with that meal,” Herb said. “There is a whole crew that is cutting, chopping, cooking, and serving.”

Each night everybody gathered at the school in three shifts for the one big meal served to all. It was amazing to see it being prepared. There were always at least fifty people who helped chop and mix and cook. They used a series of small stoves—they were called buddy burners—and I'd learned about them in Boy Scouts. They were used for most of the cooking. When the weather was good and the sun was out they used solar cookers assembled from pieces of corrugated cardboard and aluminum foil with a window on the top to keep the heat in. There had to be a hundred of them that lined the south wall of the school where they could best harvest the sun. Using those meant no wood or fuel was consumed. I was continually amazed at how something could come from nothing.

Politely, people lined up, had food put on their plates, and then went to one of the classrooms to eat. Nobody was going hungry, but the amounts weren't as much as most people were used to and there wasn't a lot of variety. At least now the first crops had come in and there was some fresh lettuce, peas, and spinach. A stew didn't need much meat if it had fresh vegetables. Some strawberry plants had produced fruit, and some black raspberries had been gathered from the ravine. None of it was much, but together it was enough to keep us going.

There was a whole lot of grumbling, though, and it was probably going to get worse before it got better. The other part we didn't know was how tough it was going to be to even keep this amount of food flowing. We had to just hope we found enough to keep us fed until the big harvest in the fall.

We came up to the guard post at the intersection. The armed guards saw us approaching and opened up the big gates to let us pass. The truck pulling the wagon eased through the gap and turned to the right, toward the mall. Two of the go-carts followed right behind and then roared off, taking the lead to scout what was up ahead.

“Stop here for a second,” Herb said.

I halted right in the gap and the guards came over to our open windows. I recognized them both.

“Tony, Ralph, how are things going?” Herb asked.

“I worked the whole night,” Tony said. “It was quiet, but it looked like it had potential for trouble.”

“Yeah, around midnight one group rolled by in a big beaten-up old church bus,” Ralph added. “They slowed down and gave us a long look before they decided to keep going.”

“We were pretty glad about that. There had to be a dozen of them, and they had automatic weapons … I could see gun barrels out the windows.”

“As long as they can see easier prey they won't target us,” Herb said. “Marauding gangs are no different from a pack of hyenas or jackals—they'll try to pick on the soft targets, the easy score, places and people who look like they can't or won't fight back.”

“We'd put up a fight,” Ralph said. “Believe me, nobody is getting past us.”

Tony nodded. “Listen, Herb. I had a thought about something that would make the neighborhood easier to defend.”

“Tell me,” Herb said.

“We could do something about the fences on the other side of the street,” Tony said.

Herb looked across the road at the high walls, which had been identical to the ones on our side of the street before we'd made ours taller and stronger. They had been put up by the city alongside the road as a sound and sight barrier, and were made of interlocking cement slabs stacked on top of each other, strong and high. On our side of the street they made great boundaries to protect us. On the other side of the street they were something for somebody to hide behind and take shots at people on our side.

“Well, we've contemplated that, but there are people still living over there, aren't there?”

“A lot of the houses have been abandoned, but I know there are some residents,” Ralph answered.

“I'm not sure we can justify taking down their walls to make ours safer,” Herb explained.

I know Herb had already had some conversations with the people who still lived there in the shadow of our neighborhood. They hadn't been able to organize themselves enough to provide adequate security or to start planning for the future. Instead they lived side by side with the few remaining neighbors, not working together, relying on the illusion that being close to us would provide some safety.

“I guess I understand,” Tony said.

“I gotta tell you, and this may sound strange, but it's not the armed punks passing by that trouble me,” Ralph said, still leaning into the car to talk. “It's people like that.” He pointed to a man and woman. She was holding the hands of two kids: a little boy who couldn't have been any more than eight or nine and a girl who was maybe two years older. The father was pulling a kid's wagon loaded down with things.

“I hear you, brother. I just wish we could do something for them,” Tony said.

“You're both good men, but I want you to be good sentries. Remember, just because something or somebody looks innocent doesn't mean it is that way. Try not to let your guard down. I've seen experienced soldiers who did that and found themselves dead. There are places and times when I've come across twelve-year-olds who would kill you just as soon as look at you.”

“I've heard about things like that … child soldiers.”

“But I can't imagine that happening here,” Ralph said.

“Could you imagine
any
of this happening here?” Herb asked.

Ralph shook his head.

“All right, gentleman, we have to get going. There's safety in numbers both here and out there.” He motioned for me to go.

I put the car into gear and we edged out through the gap. The guards waved goodbye. I hung the turn and hurried after the rest of our group. The two other go-carts roared off to catch up with the lead truck and wagon.

We quickly caught up to the family that had passed by the gate. The parents eyed us carefully and the little girl pressed in behind her mother to hide from us. In that half second I saw fear in her expression. The little girl was afraid of us—they were
all
afraid of us. I couldn't help but wonder about that look in her eyes, which made me think not of my little sister but of my own father, who was still out there, somewhere, even more alone than this family, far from home.

I had tried hard not to think about him much. It made me feel guilty that he wasn't in my thoughts more, but feeling guilty was better than being frozen with fear for him, wondering how he was doing, and if he was even still alive.

I pulled us in tight behind the farm wagon and then realized that I didn't like the idea of having my view blocked, so I backed off a little.

We crossed Erin Mills Parkway and then rumbled into the parking lot of the mall. We passed by row after row of abandoned cars. The car owners had all come innocently to shop at the mall seventy-odd days ago. Many of the vehicles now had obvious signs of vandalism—smashed windows, trunks open, and doors ripped right off. Several had been set on fire. Our scavenging parties had already been here and drained each vehicle of its last ounce of gas.

Some people were walking through the parking lot, but they fled as they saw us coming. I didn't blame them: We were a large, well-organized posse carrying weapons.

We pulled to a stop by the main doors, or at least where the main doors had been before they were smashed and ripped apart. Inside was darkness. We gathered by the opening.

“I want to make sure that we all follow the rules,” Howie said.

The rules were simple. We were going to be scavenging, taking things, but we weren't simply going to be stealing. We were to mark every item; every single thing had to be logged in a notebook and given to the procurement committee. We had to record the date, the location it was taken from, any damage that was done, and who had taken it. It was what we had done with the cars, with everything that had been taken. Some people, like Brett, thought it was a stupid waste of time, but it was our attempt to do things the right way. Today I just figured we were wasting our time in a different way. After ten weeks, what of value could possibly remain in those stores?

“I want four people to stay out here and guard the vehicles,” Howie said. He pointed at four of the team. “The rest, come with me.”

Todd moved in right behind Howie. I hesitated. It might have been better to stay out here with the vehicles, but that wasn't an option. Instead I went over to Herb, who was standing by Brett.