Chapter 9

Project Runway quickly moved away from Tallahassee on towards Jacksonville after the mop up. Landing areas were quickly cleared every ten miles as the militia guarding the project kept vigilant watch. No further unpleasant surprises were encountered. The temperature cooled down a bit as is sometimes the case during autumn in northern Florida. The only problem came as the group approached Lake City. A lone sniper hidden in a wrecked car on an overpass fired shots that ricocheted from the pavement near one of the prisoners. Forces that had been traveling parallel to the interstate quickly finished the sniper. No one else was harmed as the sniper's shot completely missed the prisoner he was aiming at. Notes found in his small nearby camp nearby led us to believe that he had been alone since the day of the collapse. Those writings expounded upon the sniper's belief that the collapse itself was God's vengeance on a wicked world.

I would love to have been with the group but there were other efforts that often demanded my attention. For one thing, an abundant harvest was upon us and even though our farming was highly mechanized many additional able bodies were needed for that effort. Shortages of personnel meant that I was constantly mediating heated discussions centered on the allocation of workers. Although no one directly questioned my decisions, the mayors and other leaders did not enjoy the same support. It seemed that the natural pettiness that is inherent in the human condition and which sometimes turns adults into childlike whiners was beginning to show itself in all of the towns.

Although it wasn't a big problem yet, I knew that something had to be done about it before the divisiveness drove a wedge down the middle of our communities. We couldn't afford the wasted energy that these petty disagreements were creating, especially during harvest season. On the other hand I didn't want to become an outright dictator and lose the creativeness that comes from people who discover new ways of doing things. This resulted in many small talks with disparate groups that used up a lot of my time.

In addition to all of that I wanted to spend more time with my wives, especially Kari, who was having a difficult pregnancy. Kari was one of the lynchpins of our group. Her seemingly natural ability to organize and direct operations made every area that she touched run more smoothly. She wasn't vain but she knew how invaluable her contribution was and as a consequence she often overworked herself. I was at the point that I was going to take the next self-serving whiner I found and put him or her in Kari's job for a week.

Year Two: Day Forty-Seven: Friday

I was so involved in this business of politics that the situation with Project Runway had slipped my mind. I was discussing a particularly nettlesome problem with Kari while giving her a neck and shoulder massage. Kari had relaxed to the point that I thought she was asleep and not paying any attention to what I said when she spoke up. As usual she was clear and to the point as she opined, "You need to make the supply run to Project Runway tomorrow morning dear. That will get you away from all of this."

I knew that she had spent most of the afternoon juggling the flight schedule and waited to hear her reason for making that statement. She reached up and took my hands in hers as she added, "I'm going to miss that while you're gone."

Kari kissed my hand as I thought on what she said. Finally I said, "Why? I'm not going to be gone that long. Am I?"

Kari continued to nuzzle my hands as she remarked, "Jim called this morning and said they would be finished on the current portion by this afternoon. If you were paying attention you would know that Camp Blanding is next. I know you want to be there when they open it up."

Prior to the collapse Camp Blanding had held the headquarters, training and operating facilities of the Florida National Guard and was expected to be rich in needed military supplies. I didn't argue about my desire to be there when we opened up that hoped for storehouse.

I called that evening and let Jim know that I would land at Camp Blanding the following day as soon as the runway there was checked for debris that might impede the landing. Jim told me that he would have the prisoners out there performing a walk down of that runway at first light. Kari surprised me that evening by springing Lana on me as the pilot of my flight. Lana had flown in late in the afternoon and was waiting for us in our quarters. Even though I could tell Kari was tired I couldn't keep her from whole-heartedly participating in the conjugal passion of our reunion. We all drifted off to sleep well before midnight.

Year Two: Day Forty-Eight: Saturday

The next morning we managed to leave Kari sleeping as we headed off for our early morning launch. Lana had letters for Grandpa Jim from his seven-year-old grandkids, Jenn and Jer, that I was sure he would be glad to get. The sun had barely peeked up from the horizon as we lifted off into the clear Florida sky. Lana was pilot and it was a pleasure to be her co-pilot. Ron Simmons dozed in the navigator's seat during the flight to Blanding so he could co-pilot during the return trip. The flight took less than an hour and Lana's landing was as smooth as any that I had made on my own.

The prisoners quickly unloaded the supplies as Jim read his letters from home. He proudly showed me the lines that Jenn had penned asking when her 'favorite grandpa would return. He smiled and said, "She calls me that when she wants to butter me up. I really miss both of them. Hopefully we can wrap this thing up in the next couple of weeks and get home."

I shared his feelings and wondered when all of my family would be together again. As soon as the supplies were offloaded and distributed to the waiting trucks Lana took off, headed back to Hurlburt Town. We immediately turned our attention toward the large warehouses. Among the military supplies we discovered the largest storehouse of MREs that we had yet uncovered. I estimated that even if we had no other food our entire population could subsist on them for several years. It would take many flights to distribute them to warehouses in our towns as well as those on the bases guarded by our militia. Some would stay here for the militia unit soon to occupy this base.

There were also enough weapons in storage there to outfit a small pre-collapse third-world army. Many of the larger weapons were not currently needed because of the limited size and composition of our militia. We believed that our air power was an effective alternative to the heavy weapons and allowed our forces to react to a threat in a timelier manner. Of course that didn't mean that we wanted these weapons to fall into the hands of others who might employ them against us.

We also discovered almost as many military bulldozers and other pieces of heavy equipment as we had already found at the Seabee base at Gulfport, Mississippi. These had been the property of the 202^nd "Red Horse" Civil Engineering Brigade, which was stationed here prior to the collapse. Records in the headquarters of that unit indicated that these combat engineers had been in the process of returning from deployment when the collapse occurred.

In addition to the small airfield on the base we found enough barracks space to billet a full brigade of soldiers. We found that the base's electricity operated on the same type of kerosene generator that we had earlier used at Whiting. Our engineers managed to reactivate that system with little trouble. It was logical that security concerns and the original isolated locations of these bases must have required that most utilities be self-contained. We found over 100,000 gallons of kerosene/jet fuel in large underground tanks. This would be sufficient to run the generators until alternate sources could be provided. It would also give us the ability to refuel aircraft that we flew to the area without flying fuel out from our towns. We felt that this base had the isolation as well as the infrastructure to become a town in its own right if we found enough survivors to justify the addition. I ordered a security detachment deployed to the base in the interim to guard these valuable military assets.

It was surprising to us that there was no evidence that any of the supplies at Camp Blanding had been pillaged. About halfway through the open space between two of the large warehouses I made that comment to Bill. He continued walking ahead and quietly said, "I was wondering if you'd notice that. It's obvious to me that someone has tried to protect the base from being looted."

I was surprised by his lack of emotion as well as his response. I asked him, "What do you mean?"

Bill put his foot up on a stack of empty pallets stacked outside the door that Jim was opening and acted like he was tying his shoe. While he was in that position he said, "Don't turn around, I think someone may be watching us."

We continued inside and as soon as the three of us were away from the door Bill turned to me and said, "Jim discovered that all of the road signs on I-10 that would have led anyone driving that route to Camp Blanding were missing."

Jim nodded his acceptance of that fact. Bill continued, "I deployed scouts around the base but didn't find anyone. What they did find was that all of the signs pointing to the base are missing. Many of the guys have been here before and even found where signs that had once been there had been dug up. It's obvious that someone is trying to keep the base under wraps."

I looked at both men and asked, "You said 'is'. How come you think they're still here?"

Jim looked over at me and said, "Just a feeling. It's strange, but I get this feeling when someone's watching me. I've got that feeling now."

Bill nodded his agreement and added, "A lot of us old combat veterans get that feeling. It doesn't always work but when the hairs on the back of my neck start rising I know something's not right."

Jim said, "Another thing is that we haven't found any survivors in the area. I know this area. Jax had a lot of people, but this area, to the west between Jax and Lake City, didn't have a whole lot of people. Hell, there is over 200,000 acres in the Osceola National Forest. Most of the towns around here are tiny and most of those are surrounded by corn and dairy farms. This area should have scores of survivors. I know some would have left but where are the rest?"

Jim made sense. The briefing before the start of the project included projections from our experts. These projections agreed with Jim's statement. We should have begun to encounter pockets of survivors by now ... unless those people had moved out for some reason. I turned to Bill and asked, "What do you suggest we do now?"

Bill answered, "I think the group watching us is just trying to stay alive. If they've encountered renegade groups, or know of any of those groups, they may be in hiding. Hell 90% of the men and a good many of the women in this area are hunters. They know how to blend into the surrounding woods and wait."

We sent back a coded message to Kari and through her to the others involved in the project, advising them of what we had encountered. Hopefully they would have some suggestions. Our hope had been to bring several of the search planes onto Camp Blanding in the next few days to begin an active search for survivors. I suggested in the message that we delay that to allow the survivors to accustom themselves to our presence. Other than that we tightened security around the base as much as possible.

Year Two: Day Forty-Nine: Sunday

I didn't want this development to completely disrupt the schedule of Project Runway. Sunday morning a security detachment was flown to the base to allow the project to move on. Chuck Swanson, commander of Det Two, met me, Jim and Bill in the base operations building thirty minutes after he arrived. Chuck had already been briefed before departing Whiting about the change in our situation. The three of us updated that information and further briefed him on our decision to take no hostile action unless we were fired upon. Chuck understood that gaining the support and trust of the surrounding survivors was priority one. In my mind this type of operation is one of the hardest that you can ask a military commander to perform.

Project Runway was so close to completion that I decided to stay with the group for the final few miles. It would save me from having to return to inspect the remaining bases that we were interested in.

Later that afternoon we moved the main group out of Camp Blanding and on towards Jacksonville. The next runway was just across from a huge Publix supermarket distribution center that fronted on the interstate. As planned, we checked the large warehouses and were surprised to find pallets stacked almost to the ceiling with canned goods. The warehouses had been closed up and were quite stuffy. Rats and other vermin had apparently had free run after the collapse. All of the boxed and bagged food stuffs were consumed by these rodents. We found abandoned nests, inside boxes that had contained pasta and other perishables, all over those warehouses. Fortunately most of those types of items were stored together and pests had been less of a problem inside the warehouses devoted to canned goods. We wore masks as we inspected the warehouses because of the rat droppings and found evidence that the rat population had blossomed rapidly and then crashed as they emptied those warehouses of edibles that they could access.

Jim had the prisoners clean out the warehouses containing canned goods using the available emergency generators for lighting. All of the canned goods with shelf lives of several years would be available as needed. In the short term they would provide food for the work crew and cut down on the use of MREs and the need for daily supply runs to feed the group. Ten miles further down the road, a large Winn-Dixie supermarket distribution warehouse facility was almost an exact duplicate of the large Publix facility. Again the prisoners had the fun job of cleaning up the desiccated rat carcasses and droppings.