The Event: The Beginning (36 page)

One sailor was brave enough to go remove the rope used to tie her to the pole, but the entire group watched him give the two sisters a wide berth. They inspected each other, noting a few blood trails on each other, but no wounds, and no blood sprayed anywhere other than their clothes. Once they discovered they were fine, they gave that girly scream and hugged each other. As they made their way back to the group, they were both smiling, and all the men eyed them with a mix of shock, horror, and gained respect. It was obvious that this woman who was supposed to nurture and care for these girls had instead made their lives a living hell. While revenge was not necessarily a trait that was fostered in the military, justice was, and it was apparent in the sisters’ reactions afterward, as well as Jeff’s, that this was obviously well deserved justice.

The report continued on with other information about the mission, but none of it was concerning, and it appeared they were headed home. I put the report back in the folder and left it in my desk drawer. I knew it would be another few days before the Freedom would be back in port. I headed down to the hangar bay where Roger and I had set up a sparring area for people who wanted to learn to swordfight. I wanted some practice before attending to other things.

Two days later the Freedom pulled back into port, and there was a grateful reunion. I had read the report that said Nicole had managed to get a small group to stay on the island with her, and made a point to make sure I at least said hello to those newcomers as they departed the Freedom. We had a system in place now for new survivors to get settled, fed, and even new clothes the day they showed up. I sent them off in the capable hands of the personnel in charge of that and headed back to the Nimitz. I knew Michelle and the others would be tired, so I would give them a chance to rest before asking them to relate the details of their encounter in person.

It was now June 2
nd
, three weeks since we began the wall project, and all had been accomplished so far. The wall was completely finished, the base had been scoured and checked for infected, and we had found more survivors in the process. Nicole was finally retrieved safe, along with her husband Joey and their daughter Maggie, plus the fifteen others she convinced to stay with them. So far my plan was working, thanks entirely to the hard work of everyone.

One of my favorite things quickly became the marina we had managed to restore. Several sailboats had been left there, and the few boats that were adrift in the bay had been retrieved and docked at the marina. There were a couple of decent fishing boats, but the majority of them were simple day cruisers, meant for enjoyment only. The next few months were spent in training others to sail, fishing, and spreading out into the base so the ones who felt claustrophobic on the ship would be more at ease. Several of our supply runs netted us solar panels, and we began setting them up as we could. Our electricians also managed to isolate the base power lines from the rest of the city and connect power to the base from the Jefferson, so until we could set up a proper power grid from solar power, the base had electricity. That meant working refrigerators and freezers, fans and ac units since summer was in full swing, and radios could be set up for the guards. People also opted to move off the ship and into the many houses we now had available, and with the construction of the wall, people felt safe again.

At some point during all my planning and running around, a couple of our tech wizards somehow managed to get the Nimitz connected to long range communications satellites again. Even though there was probably no one to communicate with, it was a plus as it also allowed us to tap into reconnaissance and weather satellites as well. That meant we could see storms coming from longer distances, and with the arrival of two trained meteorologists, we had someone to help predict the weather for us. Since Norfolk had a major news station broadcasting out of it, they had requested a team to take them to the news station and acquire the necessary equipment for proper weather watching. While that was a major undertaking, the station had a helipad on top, so after the team secured the building and cleared it, completely blockading the lower floor, they could work in relative peace, disassembling the computers and labeling it all to be brought back and set back up. Ready Room 2 was now the Weather Room.

Ready Room 1 had been turned into a surveillance room earlier as we had acquired night vision cameras and installed them all around the outside of the ship, mostly tucked underneath the flight deck overhang. Even though we had not much use for it now that the base was secure, it was designed to be used for those times we were under attack, or extremely severe weather, and had to seal up the ship. The tech guys were supposed to be working on how to wire the wall with cameras and have the feeds routed wirelessly into that room as well, in order to cut down on the amount of guards needed at one time.

One of the duties of the radioman now was to maintain a recorded message being sent out, and occasionally send out a live message, instructing anyone that heard it to come to us, that we had safety and security. We broadcasted our message on ham radio, as well as every CB, FM, and AM frequency we could. One of the sailors had an idea as well that we adopted for a short time, and that was to fashion a small message packet with instructions to find us, and let them loose with tiny parachutes from the helicopter. We did that, including the message to find us, with our location, as well as the date so anyone who found it would hopefully not assume it was a joke. The pilots took them well away from the base, and as high as the choppers could go safely and let them go. The estimated coverage with wind patterns was most of Virginia, into West Virginia, and hopefully even into Tennessee.

My biggest worry soon became the weather, not the infected. I knew in Oklahoma, spring time was the worst, but here on the east coast, it would be late summer and fall. Hurricanes would do as much if not more damage than a tornado, and over a wider area. Flooding was also a concern with that. Even if we scraped by hurricane season with no problems, winter with no solid food production would not be easy on us. We had several small gardens started successfully, but no real decent sized crops yet. We managed to find some livestock to bring back, which included one cow, four chickens, two pigs, and three well trained horses. An area had been set up for animals, and it did not take much to build a coop for the chickens. There were several large lumber supply stores in the area, and we had raided them for wood of all sizes. There wasn’t much we couldn’t build to suit our purpose at this point, and we had the ability to acquire more if needed.

June gave way to July, which eventually turned into August. Christian was helping lead the charge on supply runs, but we had to continually go further and further away to find anything. We had discovered several of our people had excellent hunting skills, and they were assigned as a new team to focus solely on that purpose. We also quickly discovered that zoos had let the animals go, or they escaped, as more and more wild animals that were not native to this area began popping up. Many a night the guards reported hearing the sound of monkeys, or seeing large, gliding shadows that appeared to be feline in nature. Lions had been spotted during the day, as well as deer and antelope. Wolves were heard, and one guard shack swore they saw the neck of a giraffe one day over the roof of some nearby houses.

In order to fill the ranks out properly and make sure we had enough people on each job, we had to start looking at the older kids. Jeff’s kids and mine were all older teens and early twenties, and they all wanted to volunteer, so we found what they wanted to do, and trained them. His son Nathan turned out to be a pretty good shot, as well my daughter Desi. The other three of his kids, Dustin, Alexis, and Austin all wanted to help on the wall, so they were all assigned as guards. My youngest daughter, Angie, also wanted guard duty, so she joined them. Cassie was interested in the medical field, so she went to join Sickbay and learn what she could. My other kids Kenny and Katelynn, were unsure about what they wanted to do. Katelynn eventually decided she wanted to stay onboard, and since a girl she had befriended volunteered in the laundry, so did Katelynn.

Jeff had essentially taken over as second in command, as Christian made it clear he didn’t really want the job anymore, and I left him with much of the day to day operations of the ship. I spent most of my time reviewing my plans, trying to make future ones, and making sure no one felt misused, neglected, or ignored. While I was horrible with names, I had at least met with everyone on board and tried to make contact at least once a week. I also spent time working in each department and area, just to make sure everyone knew that I was just as willing to work just as hard as I asked them to. Except for the galley, Michelle made it clear I was to be nowhere near a kitchen.

It had been requested that we begin having a Sunday service for those who wished to keep up with their religion, so we found someone willing to take that over and made him the official Chaplin. From what I understood he did his best to keep it non-denominational, but I rarely attended a service. Any free time I ended up with I spent with the kids if they were available, sword practice, or on the sailboat. I had given clear boundaries on sailing, not leaving beyond the outer bridge, and no going upriver out of the bay without express permission. I followed these as well so no one thought I was playing favorites, or that I held myself above them.

Summer gave way to fall finally, and temperatures started dropping. Foreseeing the cold, we had built a small barn for the animals to be stabled in and gathered as much hay from feed stores and such as we could, stockpiling it for later. The first cold snap was in October, as the temp dropped to 42 overnight. Not too cold, but enough for some people to be worried. We had not really celebrated much in the way of holidays this year, as no one really had the heart for it, but I started hearing rumors that the kids wanted a Halloween. It was actually brought up in one of the weekly meetings I insisted on with the department heads to make sure everything was running smoothly. We agreed it would probably be good for them, so Roger volunteered to start planning one, along with Val and a few others.

The next big thing was Thanksgiving. We discussed that one in length, as many felt we still had plenty to be thankful for, but others felt it was no longer relevant since America was no longer a country. I reminded them that America was still a country as long as we believed it was. We eventually decided, however, that due to lack of supplies, we would forgo a Thanksgiving feast, but would still take a few minutes at some part of the day to be thankful for whatever we wanted to be thankful for. It was also under discussion on whether we would do anything for Christmas as well. We probably would, for the kids’ sake, even if it wasn’t a lot.

As it got colder, we had managed to get some lawns cleared in order to plant small gardens in the spring. The animals had pens built, and those of us that had brought pets had places to keep them outside now. I had managed to bring my dog, Max, who the girls loved, and quite a few others also had dogs or cats they brought along as well. Many were concerned for pets that couldn’t be brought, birds usually I heard, but I assured them that as long as they had set them free before they left that they would be fine in the wild. I didn’t get to visit Max daily like I wanted, but there were several people who volunteered as caretakers and made sure he was fed and interacted with.

We finally had our first freeze in mid-December when the overnight temperature hit 25. All the animals had been put up or at least had access to a warm area inside. Since we did have power, most of those houses had working heaters, as well as the ship, but the barn itself had not been ran with heat yet. Several large space heaters had been set up in it though, so the animals wouldn’t freeze to death while we gathered the supplies needed for a central heat system. The long term plan was also to rig a misting system up by next summer to help them stay cool when it heated back up again. A small water purification plant was located on the base, and we had set people there to maintain it as well try to figure out a way to make it bigger. The base had its own pumping system so we could have running water, and I set our engineers to working out how to connect the city grid to the base grid and block off the rest of the city from what we had secured. Since the wall included quite a bit of city residential area, we had to make sure the area outside of the base itself was connected to us and separated from the rest of the city. They assured me it could be done, and I hoped they were right.

After having a small Christmas celebration, we continued on surviving the winter. The days were staying cold, the nights even worse, but luckily no one had any issues staying warm. The guards on the wall had warm coats and gloves, as well as guard shacks set up with heat. The hunting teams continually brought in fresh meat; mostly deer, but also more exotic animals like lion, bear, and even the occasional wolf. The latter being killed only because they attacked the hunters, but we would be stupid to waste the meat. The infected also posed a problem for the hunters, but the hunting blinds we had acquired helped keep them from sight. Luckily we had not suffered any losses during hunting expeditions as of yet, and I hoped it stayed that way. The wall guards reported a steady stream of contact, and at times it did seem to increase in volume, but we also hadn’t had any major attacks on the wall.

To prevent any wild animals from jumping it, once we started seeing the lions and tigers, we built privacy fencing sections and installed them along the top of the containers. There were already supports for posts installed on them for past use, so we simply used those to put the support posts in and build the fence off that. So far it seemed to be effective, but I don’t think we had really had an animal be determined enough to try it yet, either.