The Beginning at the End of the World: A Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian Series (The Survivor Diaries Book 2) (31 page)

“Have we had enough snow for an avalanche?” I asked.

“Of course,” said the put-out Mason.

“Sorry, just a Cali native here,” I replied to his indignation. “Now, ask me about earthquakes, and that’s a different story, Colonel (asshole).” The “asshole” was implied.

“We need to get out of here soon,” Jackson said. “We will send out more teams until we can find a way out.

“On another front, I hear that we are picking up more hitchhikers, Colonel Jackson?” Mason said.

“More human beings, yes, we are,” I intercepted that one. “As long as anyone needs our help, we will take them.”

“They were stripped of weapons and submitted to a pat down,” said Jackson.

“And they had two small children with them,” I added. Why did I have to explain my decision? “We will take any person who does not pose a threat to our safety.” Having been through this argument with Jackson, time and again, I was tired of having to defend my position.

“We understand that, Laura,” said Mason. “But it’s already hard enough to get a group as big as we are out of this mess. The more people we have, the harder it will be.”

“So, who do you propose we get rid of?” I asked him. I looked at Mark and then Jackson. Both of them begged me with their eyes not to go down that road.
Screw them.
I am not going to waste my time on arguing this anymore. “Maybe we should get rid of the kids. They don’t lend much to the ‘mission.’ Or, how about the old people? They are just weighing us down, right?”

“That is not what I am proposing,” said the now irate Colonel. I was starting to wonder if I had the power to demote him. “We are just saying that the larger the group, the more at risk we are of not getting out of here alive.”

I looked towards Jackson who nodded his head in agreement with Mason.

“I guess that means we need to come up with a killer plan then,” I said. “I will never sacrifice a life in the interest of making it easier on the rest of us. Unless someone is a direct threat to the Village, like Rolette was, we continue to figure out how to get the hell out of here without leaving one deserving soul behind.”

That was the highlight reel from that meeting.

∞

Mark caught up with me on the way to the Council meeting. I didn’t want to hear his critique of my performance at our debriefing meeting, so I tried to circumnavigate the conversation.

“I would like you to continue on the Council, if you want to,” I said.

The uncertainty about our relationship made me cautious when I spoke with him anymore. The awkwardness between us was becoming a big, swollen rash. When I scratched, it would only grow more red and bumpy.

“Whatever you want,” he said. “I don’t want you to give me anything out of guilt.” Okay, it was his turn to scratch this time.

“I don’t allow guilt to guide my decisions when it comes to the well-being of the Village. You should know that by now. And as for me and Jackson, I don’t have guilt.”

This time I think I might have scratched so deeply that I hit a blood vessel. He marched off to the big tent without saying anything else.

∞

The Council was seated and ready to go. With the relatively new revelations concerning the military that infiltrated the Village, I asked Thomas to attend only for a report on the engineering team’s progress. They had continued to meet after the attacks, and I was hoping for something solid and “macgyvered” to get us out of here, or to at least make it more difficult for potential threats to detect us.

A now uniformed (something I insisted on since he had been deceiving us all for so long) Major Thomas Stevenson stood and addressed the Council of which he was no longer a member. “We have come a long way with our classes for the Villagers. They are really getting involved with questions and suggestions. As far as coming up with answers to our latest dilemma, we still have nothing.”

One great big pile of nothing.

“Colonel Jackson, please report,” I said.

Jackson stood. “We are doing reconnaissance to find a new route to the Valley, but it looks as though the path that the Out-bounders used is blocked in several places. We sent a group out with the golf cart that we brought with us in our military transport. They are headed south, again. We will report any new information to Laura and anyone else Laura chooses to have briefed.”

“Okay, I will get back to you on that one. Did you have the post-mortem on the lapse of a plan for missing people after the Levi Samuels debacle?” I asked.

I made them have a post-mortem, which was just business speak for a meeting to dissect problems after a project was finalized. I made the MT have these meetings, and delighted in how much they hated terminology from the civilian sector, which was pretty much the only reason I used it.

“Yes, and when we determined that it was safe to return to walkie-talkie communication, we distributed them to the security team and the rest of the Villagers. We are also implementing a three-person buddy system for all civilian personnel on security duty,” concluded Jackson.

“Thank you, Major Stevenson and Colonel Jackson. You may go now,” I dismissed them.

Neither looked happy, but they departed as requested. The Council is the place to have a real say in how the Village is run, and they had lost that privilege. Today, we planned on discussing the military presence in our midst and how best to utilize them.

“How should we proceed with the MT?” I asked the group.

Jill had always been a defender of Jackson’s, but I didn’t know how she felt about the group that we were recently introduced to. “I think there is a lot to be learned from them,” she said.

“Agreed,” said Billy. “I think it’s easy to only remember our perceived notions of their deceptions. And while their secrecy has become a real wall between them and us, we might want to try and see it from their point of view.”

“And what point of view is that?” asked Katie. I think that they had lost her support since we left the Village.

“Well, Katie, we need to put on their combat boots, so to speak,” Billy said. “Their job has always been to work behind the scenes to protect American lives. It seems to me that they have been doing this since Jackson announced his presence to us. I know that it seems like they have been manipulating us, and perhaps they have, but you can’t question the results. It’s a fact that we are still here because of their deception.”

Don’t you hate when you are clearly proven wrong about something that you believed strongly about?

“Mark, do you have anything to add since you have made the decision to return to the army?” I asked.

“I do,” he said. “I am a Villager first, and a soldier second, which goes against the oath I took in the past. I think it’s possible to be for the Village and remain in the military, if that helps.”

It did. We took a vote and it was decided that the MT were members of the Village. And now we needed to find a way to remove the veil of secrecy from their operations so that we could come together as one community. How was Mason going to take this one? Did I care?

I got on the walkies. “Jackson, are you there?” I asked.

“Here,” he said. I have always been able to count on him being there.

“We have reached a decision on something, and we need the whole military team here in the big tent right now.”

“Um, a decision?” he asked. “Laura, what are you doing now?”

“Fixing things,” I told him. “In five, okay?”

“Sure, five” he said.

∞

All twelve of them, including Bri and Mark, stood in front of the Council, hat in hand.

“Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” I began readying myself to inform them of the Council’s resolution. “We have come to the decision that we need our two groups to merge in a purposeful and mutually respectful way for the good of the Village as a whole. We understand that you have done what you have done for the good of our community, and for that, we want to sincerely thank you.

“We do have an ethical conundrum, however. We have been used by you, and whether or not it was done for our own good, we still don’t believe that we should sit back while you make decisions for us without our say.

“So, we would like to make a proposal. We would like for four of your members to continue on our Council. They would be: Jackson, Balous, Patton and Stevenson. We would also like to begin to have regular meetings with your team. These meeting will include discussing our present urgent problem, as well as our future.”

The MT didn’t seem to know how to react. Finally, Jackson asked, “Can we have some time to meet and get back to you?”

“Of course,” I said. “We would like to hear from you by COB tomorrow. So, thanks. Um, you can go now… or dismissed. Go, bye.”

∞

Everything was moved back to the RVs. I took back the one-person tent and shuffled everyone around, yet again. Bailey would now sleep in an RV with Annie, and Mark would be bunking with the MT.

“Knocking,” said Jackson from just outside my tent.

“Come in,” I told him. “I don’t want to talk about the meeting today. Your team will come together and deliver the news tomorrow.”

“Agreed. So, what’s with the tiny tent?” he asked.

“It’s what it looks like,” I said. “I’ll be sleeping in it until the end of the road.”

“You’re going to be pretty cold inside here without someone to keep you warm,” he whispered.

“Hershey and I will manage,” I said lightheartedly.

“There you go, giving yourself the worst possible arrangement again. You know, this self-sacrificing thing you do is getting on my nerves. I get why you are doing it, but it’s going to bring you down, and it’s something I can fix, finally.”

“Jackson, what are you thinking about?”

“You’ll see.”

He gave me a peck on the cheek and disappeared through the tent’s opening. “Be a good boy,” I yelled after him.

Why doesn’t he get that I picked this tent for privacy, not a sacrifice? I need time to think.

∞

By suppertime, I was ready to get out of my tent and spend time with my family and friends.

There was a nice fire going in the middle of our camping ground, and a few people had found perfect logs to place around it so we could all enjoy some well-earned downtime together.

Before I joined them, I shouted into the tent of our new friends who were doing their time in quarantine.

“Audrey,” I said in a loud voice.

“We are here, Laura,” she answered. I could see her face through the mesh netting window. “We are doing great. Thanks for everything. And by the way, you look awesome in Agenia’s clothes. I knew they would fit.”

“It feels a little strange to be wearing someone else’s clothes, but it won’t be the first time,” I told her.

“Well, you are welcome to anything in the cabin.”

I smiled, “Thanks, Audrey. And don’t worry, you will be out soon.”

Suppertime was in full tilt by the time I picked up my MRE and cup of water. I looked around for my family, and they were front row center, in front of the big fire.

“Scoot down,” said Ammie. “Make a place for Laura.”

I set up my camera on its tripod and sat to eat. My cheese omelet was not too bad. I pocketed my instant coffee to add to my morning’s brown sludge, as I do every day now.

I looked around and could find neither Mark nor Jackson. I could hope only that they weren’t out in an icy field somewhere, beating the life out of each other.

Everyone was having content conversations, and I watched and made myself realize that I played a part in all of this: people surviving, people looking towards the future and away from the past. It felt good. I closed my eyes so that I could hear the sounds of people who were happy to be alive.

A roaring truck noise filled my ears, breaking my concentration. I opened my eyes to see Reverend John stand in front of everyone.

“Please, I need your attention. It’s here,” he said to the crowd.

I leaned over to Ammie and, with hand over my mouth, I whispered in her ear. “What’s here?”

“You’ll see,” she said.

“Laura, there is something that we have been keeping from you today. On behalf of all of your Villagers, we would like you to accept this small token of our appreciation,” said Reverend John.

Bruce Lefebure drove by in his tow truck that bore the name of Lefebure Towing and Body. Obviously and thankfully, I wasn’t getting a tow truck.

Next came a truck, driven by Sampson, with Jackson in the passenger seat. He jumped out and waved the truck forward until I saw that it was towing the tiny cabin on the back.

No way were they giving me my own mobile cabin, but they were.

“Laura, we would like to present you with a place of your own,” said Reverend John. He bent down and whispered into my ear. “You deserve it, my dear Laura. Thank you for bringing us this far.”

Large, warm tears ran down my face as the entire group rose and applauded. Their applause turned into a loud roar.

“It’s too much,” I said.

“No, it isn’t enough,” said Jackson in reply.