The China Pandemic (22 page)

Both boys were still screaming, not sure if Graham had been injured in the melee. They couldn’t tell from their vantage point and Mark was trying to convince Bang to stay up in the tree while he went to check. Graham stood and motioned for them to calm down, not trusting yet if the coast was clear. He continued to check behind him as he carefully walked around the downed wolf with Sheriff sniffing the carcass as they passed by.

He and the dog returned to the boys and Graham saw Bang’s snotty and tear-streaked face, and even caught a stray streak of moisture on Mark’s, which he pretended not to notice. He held his arms up so that Mark could lower Bang to him, and caught the little boy close in a comforting hug before putting him on his feet. Then Mark turned around and Graham caught his sneaker to help lower him down as well. He gave Mark a hug like a father would give to his teenage son. “I’m okay. It’s all right,” he said to them both and Bang grabbed Graham’s leg, wiping his tears on his jeans. “It’s okay, guys, we have to get through things like this,” he said to them.

“Thank God for Sheriff,” said Macy behind them, startling all three. Mark turned his head to wipe his eyes. “Did you trail him?” Graham asked her.

“Yeah, we heard a shot and Sheriff was acting funny and ran like a dart in this direction. I ran after him and heard the commotion. When he stopped, I stopped and heard the growling. He moved so fast that I couldn’t keep up, then I heard it before I saw what was going on. The next thing I knew, I saw Sheriff attacking a wolf and you were on the ground. I yelled, but I don’t think you heard me,” she said.

“No, I didn’t hear anything else. It was all in slow motion for me,” Graham said, then clapped his hands. “All right, party’s over. Let’s get this stuff back to camp and then we need to check out our hero there and make sure he doesn’t have any injuries.”

Macy kept her pistol ready as she and Sheriff guarded the party as they made their way back to camp.

Once there, they were greeted by a very concerned Tala and Ennis. They put the boat down and Mark was welcomed by Marcy as she came up and hugged him, kissing him on the cheek. “I was so scared,” she said.

Mark looked a bit embarrassed and said, “Graham put me and Bang up a tree. So no heroics here.”

Graham tried to ease the moment by saying, “Actually if it hadn’t been for Sheriff, I don’t think we’d be talking right now.”

“Sheriff jumped right at the wolf before it got Graham,” Bang said and choked a little on the last word, motioning with his hands as he remembered the action occurring just minutes before. They were all a little surprised when the boy spoke up. Tala hugged Graham and he pulled her close as Bang hugged his leg again. “I’m all right,” he said, just for her.

“Let’s see if he has any bites or scratches that we need to treat,” Graham said about Sheriff, and started running his hands through the dog’s fur.

Sheriff was so pumped up he just thought he was receiving much needed attention and began reaching around and licking Graham’s hand in gratitude. Then he returned his attention towards the dangers of the forest with his ears twitching and turning for any indication of danger.

They were all getting a little cold standing out in the open in two inches of glistening snow. After they put the small boat away and removed the contents, Tala hurried those not on guard duty indoors, where they removed their boots and put them all along the wall. She made them hot tea or cocoa and they all warmed up from the steaming cups and more so, from being together after coming so close to tragedy. Other than a few scratches around Sheriff’s muzzle, he seemed unharmed and for that they were all grateful. Graham suspected he would encounter the wolf again and he would need the dog and any other help he could get next time.

Dalton got the surveillance report of action in Graham’s camp. A commotion of some sort happened. Tough they didn’t have cameras in the east forest. It appeared, though, all the occupants were accounted for and none of them looked injured, including their pet dog.

When the previous report had come in about the three men in the canoe approaching Graham’s camp at night, he and several of the other Preppers crowded the small observation room. They held their breath and watched as Graham and Tala slunk into the woods just before the men came walking into the camp. Then they could just barely make out and piece together the next events. Though they didn’t have audio set up, it was clear one guy was down and the other two made their way back to the canoe in haste with the dog after them.

“This guy doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing,” he remembered Rick, their technology specialist, saying at the time. “He should have dropped all three already.”

In Graham’s defense, Dalton said, “He’s a math professor not military, remember? He doesn’t think like us, but you’re right, he should never have let them get that far into camp. Now they’ve got a better layout of the campsite.”

Dalton knew those guys would be back.

Since then, he’d felt edgy and helpless. If something were to happen to Graham’s crew, he knew he shouldn’t act. It would be too dangerous, exposing himself and the others. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stop his emotions. He owed Graham for caring for his young cousin, and he liked Graham, too, for that matter.

What made things worse was the rest of the team becoming more attached to the carriers. Graham’s camp became a sort of soap opera for them. Rick started it all one evening at dinner. A source of entertainment that he often recalled during their evening meal for the other members to enjoy. Rick suspected that Graham and Tala were getting ‘better acquainted,’ as he put it. He regaled them with the humorous chicken story as Bang pulled them out of the truck cab and when one got away and how the boy finally pinned it down with the wings flapping him in the face. He told them about how Macy and Marcy were very different twins. Macy often helped Graham and Mark with splitting wood and other outdoor chores, as Marcy aided Tala in all things domestic.

A boring life in the end it was. These little entertainments of human activity kept them looking forward to the next day. They’d been sheltered since the beginning in the safety of their haven. Occasional hunting groups allowed the men to venture out a little now. Planning for next year’s vegetable gardens and the care and keeping of tools and equipment became mundane.

So the news from Graham’s camp each evening provided a treat to look forward to and helped keep them from dwelling on their recent past and the losses all had endured. This practice wasn’t unlike, “Something like television in the old days after a hellacious day on the job,” Rick said.

Concern about the safety of Graham’s camp, due to the invaders, occupied Dalton and Rick’s conversations lately. Rick had become enamored of Graham’s camp because of his daily surveillance of them.

Rick wanted to talk to Dalton about reaching out to Graham to help him secure his camp more efficiently. He was sure Dalton wouldn’t go for it but since they were now all involved in their story, he might entertain the idea, even though he knew logically they shouldn’t do it. If they didn’t do something soon to help, Rick felt certain the invaders would attack them and they’d be wide open for slaughter. Of course, in doing so, they risked revealing to Graham that they were watching them.

The people in the small cabin had suffered much more than any of them in the Prepper compound. Somehow, these few had found one another after losing their entire families and realizing their immunity to the virus made them a much hated minority, endangered by the fact they were known to carry the virus.

They could see Graham had somehow picked up foundlings whom he might have determined as being of no concern to him. Despite that, he’d collected them and brought them to safety. They knew he’d just stumbled onto Tala and the old man, but even they were accepted. Graham’s kindness in taking in Dalton’s young cousin without question had earned him a great deal of respect from all the Preppers. They felt they owed him, in a way, and maybe that’s why they’d all become emotionally involved and were cheering the carriers on. Not just because Graham was Dalton’s boyhood friend but because he’d taken these others in without question, in these horrible times, and they couldn’t help but feel admiration for the man.

~ ~ ~

Dalton walked into the dining tent where his wife, Kim, and Tammy were making lunch for the children who were watching the cartoon version of Pocahontas, down below in the underground shelter.

They’d established a strict rule about what they could bring into the compound when an emergency hit, but one of the other dads smuggled the DVD player into the shelter. When they found out, he argued it was necessary to keep the kids safe and occupied. They continued to argue about it until he revealed his collection of DVDs with all the Disney movies in addition to all of Clint Eastwood’s
The Good, The Bad and The Ug
ly, among others. After the rest of them saw that, they voted that it was actually a good idea and then started having a weekly movie night for both the children and adults, using a wide screen computer monitor. All in all, it became a kind of escape for them from the reality and dangers the carriers posed for them.

“Whatcha ladies making today?” he asked Kim and walked up behind his slim wife, planting a kiss on the top of her head.

“Tuna sandwiches and dehydrated apple rings.” Then she renamed them. “Otherwise known as tuna triangles and apple snacks,” she said and laughed when Dalton tickled her neck with his kiss.

“Stop that, mister, we’re working here,” Tammy butted in, amused at the two causing a scene.

He loved Kim’s smile. Actually, he loved everything about her. From her strawberry blonde hair to her perfect unpainted toes. Dalton was terrified when the chaos broke out. He couldn’t get her and the boys to safety fast enough. Now the challenge was just to keep them safe.

They started out eating just MREs when everyone was gathered and stayed locked up underground in the shelter they’d built over the years in secret. Then when things settled down, or more precisely, when most of humanity had perished, they opened the doors, pulled out the military tents and established new rules.

They began cooking with what supplies they had and the meat they’d hunted, saving the MREs for leaner times. Kim and Tammy also started baking bread more out of a need for comfort than anything else. Tammy had always made their own bread at home and now she was doing it on a larger scale for the rest of the group, which everyone enjoyed. They were able to make sandwiches out of peanut butter and jelly or tuna or even canned chicken. One night, she caught Rick making one out of some cold roast venison and he swore it was the best thing he ever had. The only thing it was missing was the fresh tomato and lettuce.

They had yet to see the real cold snows of winter and were already dreaming of tender green onions, crisp red radishes, heads of romaine and peas tucked in their jade pods. This pastime, not unlike the drama of Graham’s Camp, came a close second in the evening conversations. So much so, they would begin salivating until someone would put a stop to it by asking for mercy. Spring could not come fast enough. Even though, it was way too early, they’d already set up the tables and hung the grow lights in anticipation of next February.

Tammy had the most knowledge of this, having worked in a nursery and even knew how to spot beneficial plants out in the wild that were either medicinal or edible if it came down to it.

One of the first outdoor projects that Dalton and the other men got busy on, besides putting up the tents, was fencing in their immediate compound. They’d stored the metal fencing in a buried bunker complete with chain link pullers, posthole diggers, sledgehammers and bags of concrete. They worked quickly and efficiently. Since they’d spent so many weekends working together, they had already worked out the kinks of their relationships. Where Rick was bossy, Sam was contemplative, but they all figured out a way to work together and surprisingly, there were few arguments. They depended on one another and that was crucial in their situation. Above all, they respected Dalton’s final word on any debate. He’d gotten them this far and they all knew it was because of him.

With the perimeter up, they were safer from wild animals and the occasional human who might stumble onto their camp, though that was unlikely these days. At first, after Graham’s camp established itself, exposure became their major concern. Now they realized they needed to keep an eye on his camp to keep them all out of danger.

After the women had kicked Dalton out of the kitchen, he wandered over to check out Sam’s work on the deer hides. This man knew how to utilize every part of any catch. No one else had ever learned the art of tanning, but Sam had it down to a science. With the colder temperatures, there were fewer flies to contend with, even though he worked with a smoke fire nearby to keep the pests away.

“How’s it going, Sam?” Dalton asked.

“Good, and you?” Sam asked.

While they talked, Dalton watched as Sam never broke the rhythm of rubbing the fat off the flesh side of the deer pelt during their conversation.

After that, he knew Sam would layer plain salt over every inch of it flat out. He once explained that it drew the moisture out and helped keep the fur from falling out or decomposing. Because of the moisture in the air there, he often kept smoke fires nearby with pelts in progress and covered them loosely at night with tarps. After this procedure, Sam would soak the stiff pelts in cold water for a few hours, making them soft before the tanning process, which involved boiling a concoction. When cooled, he added volatile battery acid to it.

Sam did not permit any observers nearby during this process, not because he wanted to hide a secret ingredient, but because of the danger it imposed. Submerging and soaking the skins in the solution became the next step. Then the extensive rinsing process and hanging to let the pelt drain. Finally, he would add oil to the skin inside with a sponge and put it on a frame stretcher.

Sam always made a point to neutralize the barrel of tanning solution with baking soda, keeping everyone far away, including himself, due to the toxic gas it emitted. Afterward, he poured it over the gravel drive when it was no longer toxic, but kept some of the weeds down.

Daily, he would check on the hides and when they were dry in the center, he’d take them down and rub them with a wire brush on the skin side, softening and fluffing it a bit so that it would be workable. Then, he’d dry it even more. So far, these tanned pelts occupied a small corner of the compound building in increasing quantities, waiting for their final use.

Dalton knew Sam never had spent time in the military, but the experience would have been lost on the man. He said he’d learned everything he knew by being raised by his grandfather deep in the Montana forest. Dalton stipulated in the initial rules that all members must have spent some time with the discipline of the US military to join their group. After seeing what Sam could do, they made an exception.

Tanning hides, hunting, tracking, snaring, fishing, knife fighting, bow making and beer brewing were only a few of the man’s many talents. Not only that, Dalton liked the man because he didn’t talk too much. They got along well and would often have a beer, sitting in lawn chairs at night saying little to nothing without pressure and Dalton liked it that way.

Sam’s sinewy frame with deeply tanned skin and thick dark hair revealed him as a true woodsman. Dalton guessed his height to be about five eleven. He’d never seen a man tread through the forest as quietly as Sam did and he liked to go on hunts with him just to watch the way Sam manipulated various natural obstacles without a sound.

Often the group would debate different decisions they needed to make since Dalton required everyone to have a voice. This became the only cultural difference in the group, as Sam would often just act on his own expertise without consulting the group. It was automatic for him. It always ended up being the right decision anyway, but Dalton explained to Sam that he needed to consult them first before acting on something that affected them all.

Sam didn’t have a problem adjusting to this. He wanted to get along, so when the issue came up for building the outdoor bathroom facilities, Sam waited patiently for everyone in the committee to have their say, adding to the design.

Then he said, “You could put it there and do it that way if you want to breathe in the aroma right around supper time as the cool evening breeze floats this way. But I’d suggest you move it down the natural slope of the land here.” He pointed his worn index finger to the corner at the back of the sketch up. “Dig two fifteen foot holes to put the outhouses over, keep plenty of ash and wood chips to spread after use. Also, I suggest each father teach their boys to piss out behind it through the fence into the brush to help keep the deer and their predators away. But that’s what I’d do. Otherwise, you’re going to have a line forming in the morning with this many people and we’ll have to fill in the shit popsicles holes in the middle of winter when the ground is too frozen to dig new ones.”

After Sam’s rare monolog, he walked off to work. They were all silent, imagining what a year’s worth of a ‘shit Popsicle’ would look like. Rick broke the silence and started laughing and then said, “Sounds good to me, let’s do it his way.” The others emphatically agreed right away without further comment and walked away to get two outhouses built in the newly desired location.