Apocalypse Aftermath (39 page)

“Hah!” Sawyer snorted.  “Why don’t you explain to the Gunny here how
you’ve
been handling the problem.”

Peter glanced between them, then focused his gaze on the ‘acting governor’ steadily.  “Well?”

“The situation at the Cartersville site only proves my point, which Ms. Sawyer has been disputing ever since my fellow senators and myself arrived.  The outbreaks demand a cautious approach to avoid further disruption to what limited relief is left to us.”

“He means he’s thrown nearly everyone out he thinks he can get away with, and has turned thousands more away.  I’m not being allowed to offer
any
relief.”

“Hang on.” Peter made a placating motion in the direction of the desk, but kept his attention fully on Carlson.  “Have you been turning refugees away?”

“Security must be maintained or no one will receive any help.” Carlson replied levelly.  “It’s not pleasant, but those are the simple facts of the situation.  Cartersville only underscores that need.”

“Is that what you call the roadblocks?” Peter asked in an equally calm voice.  “Security?”

“We can’t have refugees disrupting operations here at the site.  And we’re saving them additional travel by meeting them further out while they’re still closer to the secondary sites.”

“Senator, that may or may not have validity, but conditions are bad out there.  And from what we’ve seen so far in Cumming, they’re more on the bad side of average than some of the other places we’ve passed through on our way here.”

“Again, only underscoring the need for my orders.”

“So what’s being done to assist the refugees?”

Carlson blinked, again just a slight tic in his manner and expression, but Peter spotted it.  “We’ve directed them to several other nearby schools that have the room to get them under cover and behind walls.” he said reasonably.  “And we’re currently making arrangements to start food and water deliveries soon.”

“You’re not even feeding them?” Whitley asked, her tone more than a little skeptical.

“We’ve been preoccupied with security, inventory, and some ad-hoc gathering of additional resources before determining what is available.”

“Gunny, it’s bullshit.” Sawyer burst out.  “I’ve got tents and pavilions to house ten thousand on the school’s sports fields.  Three of them are fenced, so I’ve been using the track and soccer field to park my trucks; which have shelf stable food and bottled water to last that many more than two weeks.  But I can’t get any of it distributed, and my people haven’t been allowed to gather the manpower to put up more than a few of the shelters.”

“We don’t know how many refugees are ultimately going to need aid.” Carlson said, his tone showing the first hints of truly obvious anger at last.  “Nor have we been able to make a full accounting of what the town might have available to stretch the supplies needed to support them.”

“Bull—” Sawyer began, but Peter held out his hand again and stood up.  Lifting his AR, he took a certain amount of petty pleasure from how Carlson flinched at the weapon; but Peter just slung it carefully, avoiding sweeping the barrel across anyone in the office.

“Senator, I’ve heard you both.  Now, here’s what I have to say.  I’m going to leave some of my people to guard our bus out front.  It got us out a really tight spot in Atlanta, so we’ve sort of gotten a little fond of it.  We don’t want to come back later to find it’s been beaten into scrap by zombies or something.  I’m going to take the rest of my unit and we’ll do a check on the secondary sites as you’re calling them.

“When I get back, Ms. Sawyer here is going to review the counts and I’m sure she and her staff can produce the report you seem so concerned about.  I doubt it’ll take very long.  Am I correct in that Ms. Sawyer?”

“Hour, tops.” she said.  “We know what we’re doing.  It’s all pencil work and grade school math.”

“There you go.  In the meantime, I would suggest you get with Lieutenant Kinney and reassess your security arrangements, because you’re far too focused on the roads and not nearly enough on your perimeter.  Zombies don’t follow roads if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Sergeant Gibson—” Carlson started, but Peter shook his head.

“I expect we’ll be back by dark.  What schools are people being sent to?”

“The other three Forsyth county high schools.” Sawyer answered.  “Central, West and South.”  She rummaged through the papers on her desk for a moment, then lifted a Post-It note.  “Here’re the addresses.”

“Whitley, grab that.  Senator, Ms. Sawyer.” Peter nodded to them both and stepped past Carlson.

“DJ.  Yo, DJ!”

Darryl turned from the shopping carts full of charcoal at the shout.  The list of things Bobo, or someone else with a good idea, decided they needed seemed to grow daily.  Darryl was beginning to think they might have well just have taken over the Wal-Mart for their own.  Or at least the Home Depot.  Both had suffered so many trips for supplies at the hands of the Dogz that it was starting to get a little silly.  Currently they were busy hauling charcoal out of the Wal-Mart, as a backstop against problems with the generators or the supply of fuel to keep them running.

“What?” Darryl yelled as he scanned around the area.  He couldn’t see anything that signaled a problem, but the trucks blocked his view down the side of the big store.  And the burned out wreck of the police car from Friday night.  He was past feeling
truly
guilty about that by now, but he still didn’t like being reminded of what had gone down with the cops who’d tried to stop the ‘looting’ the Dogz had been busy with.

The same looting they were doing now.
  The only difference now was no one would call it looting anymore.  Funny how a shitpot of zombies could change definitions.

They had three trucks with them, and a total of twenty-five Dogz on this run.  Six were acting as Guards at the moment, watching the area around the vehicles to make sure nothing dangerous showed up.  Darryl was ostensibly an Escort, not a Grabber, but he was helping load so long as the Guards kept their eyes open.  With as much as there was to do, he felt better doing more than just standing around with a shotgun in his arms keeping watch.

Covering brothers who had their hands full lifting and fetching was important, but Darryl didn’t want anyone to think he was just taking the easy jobs.  He was big and strong and more than capable of doing his share of lifting and fetching.  It was just that he was also one of the more level headed Dogz, and one of the better shots as well.  He hadn’t cleared his decision to split his time on the supply runs between the two roles, but he also didn’t catch nearly as much shit as the Dogz who stuck to just the Escort or Guard jobs did either.

Every little bit helps.  The realization had startled him, but he was seeing its truth as the work of surviving went on.  Everyone was working hard, but some were working harder than others.  Since he was often supposed to be organizing the work, he needed every edge he could get.  Some of the lazier Dogz were already doing a lot of angling for rooftop duty at the clubhouse.  Sitting and watching was a lot easier than sweating, even if it was boring.

Darryl was just worried about the lazy ones getting too many of the soft jobs.  Both because easy didn’t mean it wasn’t important, and also to stave off as much division and dissent amid the Dogz as possible.  If people started laying into each other with teeth – metaphorically, thankfully – behind their usual exchange of back and forth abrasiveness, he knew it could get out of hand really quick.  The last thing they needed was a split that led to fighting.

“Bunch of cars rolling up on us.” Mad called.

“Keep loading this shit in case we gotta move.” Darryl said to the Grabbers as he picked up his shotgun from the pavement beside the truck.  Moving around the front of the battered Ford, he got a clear view out into the parking lot.  The Dogz favored the side entrance of the Wal-Mart, the one that opened through the automotive and service department of the store.  But if you moved out from the building some, you could see a good chunk of the store’s vast front parking lot.

They’d bumped into a few other scavengers on previous trips, but never more than a couple at a time.  This wasn’t a couple of guys, this was a full on convoy of eight vehicles; five pickups, two vans, and a big U-Haul box truck.  He saw armed people through the windshields, some of them with long guns propped up and sticking out the windows.

“Keep loading.  And pay the fuck attention to what going on in the store and behind us down the side.” Darryl said loudly, knowing without looking a lot of the Dogz would be curiously watching what was happening.  “We about full up anyway, so get it done and don’t let no damned zombies sneak up because someone gawking like a fool.  And don’t nobody go starting any shit unless they start it.”

Assents rumbled and grumbled back.  Darryl walked toward the rear truck, gripping the shotgun one handed down by his side where he hoped it was less threatening.  No sense in giving them the idea the Dogz were looking for a fight.  All Darryl wanted to do was finish with the charcoal and get back.  They had most of what the store stocked on those shelves by now anyway.  He had no idea how long it would last, but the tarp lined and covered pile in the clubhouse back yard near the outhouses was getting pretty big.

One of the trucks in the newly arriving convoy swung out and slowed, the driver waving the others by him.  Then he stopped as his fellows drove past, heading for one of the sets of front doors.  Darryl waited, then – as the last of the vehicles disappeared in that direction – the truck turned and drove slowly toward them.

“Stay fucking cool.” Darryl said immediately as Mad and 2C shifted a little on their feet.  “Don’t start shit.”

“I know, I know, jeez DJ.”

“You know, you know, yeah right.  Be cool.” Darryl repeated.  “There ain’t no doctors so ain’t no need to get shot unless you looking to die.”

The truck stopped twenty feet from them, and the doors opened.  The passenger stepped out, but the driver just stuck his head out and yelled at them.  “Friendly, we’re friendly.  Just looking to talk.”

“Talk is fine.” Darryl called back.  “Ain’t no problem with talking.”

The driver emerged and started walking toward him.  Darryl moved to meet him halfway, though he noted the passenger stayed standing next to the truck, behind the open door.  Smiling, the driver held up a hand in a friendly gesture.  “Motorcycles, patches, you guys must be the biker club we heard about.”

“Yeah, we Dogz.” Darryl nodded.  “If you know us, guess that mean you either local or coming out of Watkinsville.”

“Yup.  I’m Blake Lehman.” the man said conversationally.  He was brown haired with a medium height and weight, but his cheeks looked a touch sunken, and there were hollows beneath his eyes.  He didn’t look like he was a drinker or a druggie, two types Darryl had seen a lot of bouncing at the Oasis, but if he wasn’t, then Darryl guessed that might mean he was either overworked or underfed.

That might be a problem.

“Darryl Jacobs, call me DJ.” Darryl said as he considered the man.

“You guys look like you’re busy.”

“Surviving ain’t as easy as it was last week.” Darryl shrugged.  “Guess you figured that out as much as we have.”

“That’s the truth.”

“How things in Watkinsville?”

Blake frowned a little, but Darryl didn’t take it as directed at him.  “We’re running ourselves ragged.  There’s a lot of area we’re trying to get set up so we don’t have to keep running patrols to make sure no zombies get in, and we got a lot of mouths to feed.  Lot of women and children, lot of older folks; lot of people who ain’t good with weapons or putting in hours on physical stuff.  To be honest, we could really use some more able bodies throwing in with us.”

Darryl studied the man for a moment, using the time to make sure he kept his voice polite and calm.  “Like I told your guy the other day, we ain’t looking to bother no one, but we okay on our own.  We got our own people to look to.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if we all worked together?”

“We ain’t so sure about that.” Darryl replied.  “We got our own women and children and old folks depending on us.  And we ain’t so sure yet the zombies done just showing up out of the blue.”

“How do you mean?”

Darryl shrugged again.  “You ain’t seen none of that?”

Blake blinked at him.  “Well, we’ve got zombies wandering in from all over the place.  It’s why we’re trying to barricade the town, so they can’t get in.”

“Naw.” Darryl shook his head.  “I mean, you ain’t seen someone just turn into a zombie?”  Blake’s expression stayed a little confused, so Darryl elaborated.  “Like, one moment they a person, then they just sort of shudder and maybe collapse, then they a zombie trying to eat someone.  Like what happened to the President.”

“Oh.  Uh, I heard a few stories about that, but I haven’t seen it myself.  Just the ones that are already zombies.  I did hear about the thing with the President, but I wasn’t paying attention to the news until after midnight on Friday.  I guess I sort of thought people were exaggerating things.”

Darryl couldn’t believe everyone hadn’t heard that story, but that wasn’t his problem.  When the damn President of the United States got bit by a senior member of the military, live on television during a national press conference, he figured people were going to know about it.  Especially since that was the last time anyone had seen the man.  “Well, it good if y’all ain’t seeing none of that going on in your people, but we seen it a couple of times back in the weekend.  We still waiting to see if everyone who left gonna stay breathing.”