The Complex: (The Reanimates) (12 page)

             
"Joey and I talked to Tyreese about the run tomorrow. He's going to come with us if I can talk you into taking watch."

             
I looked at him. I still wasn't thrilled over the run. I still thought about the risk to them and the risk to the complex if they were followed back.

             
"Jody calling a council was a great idea. We plan on calling a meeting in the morning to see if there is anything the other resource units needed. We figure on taking the truck and if we can talk Martha into it, the U-Haul Eric had rented when he bought all that garage sale stuff a couple weeks ago. It's the best way I can figure to get the most stuff back."

             
“Trent! You're planning a dual team? Really?" The idea of separate vehicles was asking for trouble. "I'm freaked out that you all will separate thinking you'll save time."

             
"I can understand that. You do need to remember that no one said anything about a dual team. I get that you're scared. You kinda have to get over that. I'm saying that we are going to stay together, you need to trust that."

             
He was right. I knew it was my own fears that were leaking out all over. Part of it was I wasn't going to be there with him to see for myself that all was going as planned.

             
"So, are you willing to be the head watch while we're out?"

             
"Yeah. That won't be an issue. Drew will most likely going to play at Liam's anyways. It will give me a job and keep me occupied which is a good thing. Hey are you taking the rhino gun?"

             
"Nah. It's just a single shot gun so it's not practical for doing runs."

             
"Tomorrow will you teach me how to fire it?"

             
"Sure. We've been leaving it up there for watch people anyway."

             
"Ugh. It's getting late.” I said. I felt bone tired at that point, wanting to just give in to the dark. “We probably should turn in. It sucks that we can't do our bed time movie thing now. Even with the generator we probably can't do that anymore. It's weird that it matters to me that we can't have that routine anymore."

             
Trent gave me a half smile, one that was empathetic but not condescending. "You know, I understand that. It's kinda like another nail in the it's-over coffin. It's a new life. I keep feeling like we are strangers in a foreign country and we don't speak the language. And yeah, it does feel late. It is time to turn in. Come on bud."

             
We all climbed into bed and Trent shut off the lantern. My head churned with thoughts. Today felt like an emotional wringer. The talk I had with Drew was weighing heavy on me. When I fell asleep finally I dreamed about a person lost in the desert with cacti that came alive. In the dream I was trying to help this person but I wasn't ever close enough to have him hear me. When I woke up the next morning I felt more tired than when I went to bed.

Council Planning

             
Since the power was still out, a likely permanent reality change, we fired up the camp stove and made scrambled eggs on the patio. Drew seemed to get a kick out of it anyway, and he hated scrambled eggs. I suppose the novelty of barbecued breakfast was fun. At least there was a glimmer of adventure to it all for him. When we were done cleaning up after breakfast Trent went around to the resource heads to put together a meeting. After a bit I heard him calling out my name. I stuck my head through the door to see what was up.

             
"Cal? The general consensus is that there is no time like the present for this meeting. Are you ready?"

             
"Sure. Lemme wash my hands real fast and I'll be down. School?"

             
"Yup. See you soon." He flashed me one of his awesome smiles.

             
I hurried through a last minute clean up and ran a brush through my hair. I truly hated my hair sometimes. Its baby fine and curly, not a great combo unless you're going for an insane Gerber baby look. Too bad that was over in the 80's. I wrapped my hair up in a "silk" scarf to hide the mess which I realized I've been doing that more often since the zombies showed up than I ever had before. Something about the end of the world just takes away hair styling.

             
Here I was again, putting my brain on stuff that totally doesn't matter just to not think about the stuff that did.

             
"Hey Drew! Come on hon. We gotta run over to Jody's place." I called. He came out of his room with an old mp3 player he had.

             
"Check it out. It still has a charge. I can listen to Flogging Molly and Dread Crew of Oddwood later!" He had a huge grin on his face. I wondered how many things he had in his room that he was going to be able to rediscover. That mp3 player was pretty well forgotten when he got his iPod. He had told me last night that the iPod had enough time on the battery to watch a movie or two since it had gotten almost a complete charge before the lights died, but he wanted to save that for a special night. He shut it down completely and put it away.

             
We talked about doing reading time at night with the e-books as an option for entertainment. We could have someone read out loud for the manufacturer's recommended 30 minutes a day. With the wifi obviously off they were supposed to hold a charge for two months each. Trent was working on a hand crank USB charger that he had learned about in the past. I could see us now, happily reading along getting to the part of the book where the bad guy was about to be figured out. It would be then that the battery would start to go so we would have to run and get the hand crank, crank like mad for a bit get two more pages rendered and having to do it all again. Maybe this little generator run would make it so we can charge up our devices every once in a while not have to hand crank like the dark ages. Though I guess we could cope with the dead tree books. On that note, I wonder if we could talk Jody into setting up a library for everyone in the school. Maybe turn one of the bedrooms into it? We could have an adult section I bet. Trent could even build up shelves, if he made it back. All we had to do was collect the books that got left behind in the units. I realized again I was drifting my brain everywhere else. I wondered if there was a way to stop coming full circle on these thoughts. I reasoned that if I could manage to not be aware of myself distracting then the self distracting would be a great deal more effective.

             
"Mom? are you OK?" Drew's face was a bit lined with worry.

             
"Yeah baby, I'm OK. Just thinking about stuff."

             
"Like dad's trip?"

             
"Well, actually, I'm trying to not think about that. Instead I've been thinking about wearing this scarf on my head a few times in the last couple days, hand crank USB chargers for the Kindles and if I could talk Jody into starting a multiple age group library in her school. And now? Right this very second? I'm thinking you've gotten really good at raising one eyebrow at me. Like scary good."

             
"I've been able to get a lot of practice." Drew said almost dryly, but I could hear the smile in his voice, which gave away the game. I almost shuddered to think about his humor and the maturity to deliver the sarcasm that would be right around the corner. He was going to give all of us a run for our money.

             
"Alright kiddo, run up stairs with Liam. I'll get you as soon as this meeting is over." I wanted it to be over already. If it had been some sort of work meeting where I could call in sick I would have. I had a really bad feeling about this. I wondered if it had been someone other than Trent and our two security guys if I'd have felt better, though it wasn't as if there were any better options. Steven would fall apart out there, successfully killing everyone. Daniel was a single dad to really young kids so sending him out would just set up a big risk of too much distraction, especially since he saw what happened to Eric with his own eyes. He would not be able to focus like he needed to. Those were the only two adult men to go. Out of the adult women I couldn't fathom Tanya rolling with the chaos well, she liked the nice orderly precision of plants and domestic duties. It had shown in the old world. Her patio had always had a planter that bloomed perfectly and a raised garden table that you could see all sorts of different vegetables growing. Her house was neat as a pin all the time as well, which struck me as amazing with two teens in the house. Jody was a great planner and organizer which spoke well of her teaching days but there was nothing planned and organized about the zombies. Martha and Mercedes seriously lacked the physical abilities to move under a great deal of stress. Too bad zombies were immune to the sharp tongue that Martha had. This took out the adult women aside from myself.

             
Damn, I thought, this really is the only way.

             
"Morning everyone!" Jody sang out cheerfully. I wondered if my eyebrow was doing that same upward motion that I had commented on Drew doing. I worked hard at keeping my face neutral.

             
"So, I know we have lots of things to talk about today but I had a question that I wanted to propose. I wanted to know if anyone had an objection to calling this the Council. Meetings of resource heads sounds like we should be on an episode of "Futurama" or something." I smiled at the reference. I thought it was great. "Does anyone object to the name change?" No one said a thing. "Well then," Jody smiled brightly, "welcome to our council meeting then. I'm going to go ahead and give Trent the floor then so he can talk about why we are all here. Trent?"

Trent stood up to speak. He noticed all eyes were on him and looked a hair shy for half a second. "Hello everyone, I'm Trent," he began. I knew what was coming next. That's a great thing about knowing someone for years. "...and I'm an alcoholic." Yup. I was right. "Oh wait, wrong meeting. That's 9 PM, not AM right?" Even knowing that was what was coming I still giggled with the people in the room.

             
"Well I guess it's serious time now. We're here today because as you all probably know, we, er, Joey, Tyreese, and I are going to go out on a run. We plan on going to a few places this time, but included in the run is going over to the new home improvement store and hopefully grabbing a few generators to keep lights on here." He looked over to Martha and then added "True we don't NEED electricity. It would help though to be able to see what's happening in case of the zombies show up on our door step. While we are out we also plan on getting more propane, gasoline, ammo and if we're lucky, more weapons, as well as water and food which are both, as we all know, a very precious commodity here. We wanted to ask everyone if their resource unit needed anything while we are out. Kinda like a shopping list I guess, but if it's an item that is obtainable we might as well get it. No fair asking for helicopters or alien abductions to get us far away from this whole mess cause I already called it."

             
Mercedes threw out her request for the rapture then. I laughed.

             
Tanya wore a huge smile and commented, "Seriously? If you're going to the home improvement, get seeds, any veggie they have available. Oh, and plant food."

             
Trent smiled at Tanya and said that was an excellent idea. She smiled shyly.

             
“Does anyone else need anything specific?” Trent asked. No one else spoke up.  “OK then, we of course will be on the look out for things that strike us as that could be handy.

“
If it's alright by you, Martha, we would like to use the U-Haul that Eric had rented. It would make it so much easier to haul the most amount of stuff.” Martha rolled her eyes and nodded.

             
Tyreese cleared his throat. “While we are out Cali said she'd take watch. If anyone can relieve her for breaks that would be awesome. We are going to be working on the theory about us leaving a smell so on our way back we're going to pour bleach on the road to see if we can throw those dead things off our trail. Even still, the moment we get back we are on high alert. Young kids need to be in their homes with the door shut and locked. Same goes for all the resource units, they need to be shut and locked. We don't want to have one of the dead stumbling in and find their way into a unit and have no one know until they go in to grab something and get themselves eaten. We are going to be leaving one unit unlocked though so we can secure our finds when we get back until we are sure that the risk isn't astronomical for a hit by the zombies. As soon as the stuff gets dropped off into the processing unit everyone needs to report to their areas that I'm going to assign after the meeting. This time, we are going to be ready for them.”

             
I liked the idea of a plan very much. Assigned areas will help reduce confusion as to where people needed to go. It felt safer this way. I made myself continue to think about all the plus sides to this run and how comfort measures like a charged Kindle were going to be such a morale boost and we always need one of those.