Chapter 16: Moving Past Bleak

"Well, what are the plans for today?" Caitlyn asked, anxious for something to do. She liked it whenever they did something together, even though they'd been spending more time at home lately.

"Actually, I was thinking we'd do some shopping today," David said, causing the women to look up at him in surprise, so he hurried to finish his thought. "Maggie, I'd like you to visit some of the nearby farms and see if you can buy some of their unused produce. Better yet, try trading them some gas so they can continue to run their farms. That would benefit everyone. Just make sure you don't give away our gas cans. Fill their tanks, but we can't afford to give away equipment we may need in the future."

"What are we going to do with extra food?" Alice asked. "Even though our freezer and fridge are large, I'm sure they'll fill pretty fast."

"Well, I've still got a dehydrator a certain someone gave me several years ago. I figure one of you can start processing whatever we pick up. And hopefully we can trade for canning supplies as well. Try to spread around the wealth as much as possible. Potentially helping others will win us some friends who'll be able to help us out in the future."

"Sounds like I'm going to be visiting a few farms," Maggie answered. "Anything in particular I'm looking for?"

"I figure things are going to get worse before they get better," David explained. "In case you haven't noticed, the sun hasn't really been visible recently. Although there wasn't much dirt thrown up from meteor impacts, they seem to have burned up in the atmosphere, leaving their remains in the air. That's going to block the sunlight, reducing the overall temperature of the Earth below and affect growing seasons, so we need to prepare for it now."

"You know, now that you mention it, I've noticed that the sky is much more colorful lately," Julie observed.

"I figure that's because of the chemicals from the meteors that are now in our atmosphere. The colors show that there are a lot of heavier elements up there, which just makes the problem that much worse."

"But that doesn't answer what we're looking for?" Maggie reminded him.

"Whatever you think will last, or will be vital. Things like peas and carrots carry essential vitamins and we can dry them. Potatoes, though full of calories, tend to rot. Also, this is going to be difficult, but ask around about mushrooms."

"Mushrooms?" Linda asked, clearly confused.

"Yeah, I figure if things get bad enough, the temperature might drop and we might be unable to grow anything. We might have snow coverage for much of the year, which is unlikely, but if we do, we'll need something else we can live off of. I'm thinking we have enough caves around here, like the ones I used to build the house from, that we can farm mushrooms deep underground, where they'll be protected, climate controlled, and about the only thing we'll be able to eat."

"You're certainly painting a bleak picture," Ellen said.

"I'm just trying to plan for the worst case scenario. As I said, I'm not planning to go into this whole hog, but I want to know what my options are, and I want a leg up if we find we have to move in that direction."

"I'm guessing you're assigning this to me because I know a lot of the local people, and they'll be more likely to trust me than anyone else, so that makes sense. OK, I can manage that, what else?" Maggie said, trying to keep things moving rather than allowing everyone to focus on getting depressed. As unrealistic as she considered their previous attitude about the disaster, she realized it had served its purpose, and that it kept everyone motivated and ready to work.

"I'll take you with me, Ellen," David continued. "I'm going to head towards the hospital. If I'm not mistaken there was a building supply distributor who sold do-it-yourself greenhouses. If we put up a couple here, we can grow enough produce to live off of in a temperature controlled environment, while maximizing the amount of sunlight we'll get.

"Wouldn't you want me to help you?" Alice asked, leaning forward, ready to escape the confines of the house.

"Ah, but that's just it. You've assigned yourself the role of head broadcaster, so you need to be here for your noon and six o'clock broadcasts."

"Damn, that's right," she swore, not having taken that into consideration.

"That's OK, there's still plenty you and the other girls can do. In order to have room to build, I want you to take down the various outbuildings, especially the sheds were we lived and stored our supplies while they were building this place. That'll free up space, provide us with already poured foundations, and provide us with extra building supplies we can use in the future."

"Great, not only do we have to stay home to babysit a radio, but we have to knock crap apart," Alice groused, no longer watching her language.

"Hell, I'm looking forward to it," Amy replied, smiling at the prospect. "We get to tear down some buildings. That's something I've always wanted to do. I remember building sand castles when I visited the beach when I was younger. The best part was when I got to smash them to bits when we were done."

"Well, technically I don't want you to 'smash them to bits'," David reminded her. "We want to save the materials. Try to keep the boards in one piece, and I'm sure Alice can show you how to preserve the nails. You remember how to do that, don't you, Alice?"

"Yeah, yeah, you use a block of wood so you don't put too much twisting pressure on the nails," she answered, showing she'd paid attention during those years when she helped around the building site.

"What about me?" Linda asked. "I guess I'm riding herd on the girls."

"Actually, I want you to try to find more basic materials we're likely to need. Specifically, things like industrial gloves, plastic sheeting and buckets. If the virus gets worse, people will likely ask us for help, and that's likely to include disposing of dead bodies, since the county is no longer going to be able to handle it. If we're going to stay safe we need to be able to handle them without exposing ourselves, so we'll need ways of handling the bodies without having to actually touch them. And don't forget things like bottles, canning supplies, fencing materials and things like that. I figure the local food stores will have sold out of much of their basic food supplies, but they're unlikely to have sold much of those kinds of things, and we can use them to preserve what food we have."

"That makes sense, even if it's a little gruesome," she replied. "But then who's going to watch the kids."

"That," David replied, turning to the listless Bobby, who was sitting at the end of the table, not paying attention to eating, "is something I was hoping that Bobby could help with. He knows his way around building things, so he should be able to help the girls take something down as well. If they have any questions, he can help."

"Huh?" Bobby asked, looking up in momentary confusion after hearing his name.

"I said I want you to look after the girls. They need someone to watch over them, and someone to tell them what to do," David told him patiently, as if speaking to someone somewhat impaired. Since Bob got the bad news about Ma he'd been largely nonfunctional, moving around as if in a stupor. David was hoping that giving him responsibility over the girls, even if they were largely responsible for themselves, would be good for all of them.

Bobby simply nodded his head dully, so David continued. "Make sure you each wear your masks whenever you talk to anyone, and explain about the virus and about the radio station. It'll take a while before everyone learns we're broadcasting, so spreading the news will help the information get out, especially if we spread the news to the very people everyone has to go to for their food."

"I was hoping I could go see Ma," Bobby objected, looking lost.

"I wish we could, but she's in the contamination ward. They won't let you in to see her, and hanging around the hospital is the last thing you need right now, as there won't be anyone there that'll have time to help you if you need anything."

"I don't need any damn help getting around," Bobby responded proudly, but David didn't want to tell him he would if he couldn't get his act together. The last day he'd been morose and unresponsive. If this kept up they'd need to do something about it. David was hoping being responsible for others might do the trick.

"Still, just being there, they'd have to find space and check on you periodically. Just by being there you'd take time away from their busy schedules, and that wouldn't help anyone."

Bobby grumbled unhappily, but David knew when he did that he'd made his point.

"What about the rest of us?" Erica asked. "You know that Caitlyn and I aren't very good at construction, what should we do?"

"Well, for this kind of work you should be fine. You aren't pounding nails this time, and you can easily collect the used supplies and organize the stuff. But there are only so many hammers, gloves and supplies to work with. The others I'd like to start planning some gardens. I'll lay out where they should go. I'll need you to use the tools from the shed to turn over the soil, get rid of the grass, and get it ready for us to plant some seeds. If nothing else, we may need to grow our own food for some time. Its dirty work, so I figure it's perfect for a bunch of dirty young girls."

"And a dirty old man to help them explore their dirty undersides," Bobby teased, showing he still had enough spunk to keep the girls entertained in his usual style.

"Caitlyn, I'd like you to accompany Linda today. She'll need help carrying and remembering things. Just remember to limit your exposure to anyone, for the both of you."

"I can do that," she answered, taking her assigned role with more conviction than Bobby was.

"Good, then let's get busy. There's a lot of work for everyone today, and none of it is pretty or even exciting," David said as he began collecting dishes, signaling that breakfast was officially over. They couldn't sit around and wait for Bobby to decide if he was hungry or not. He'd decide to eat when he needed to, but babying him wouldn't help him get to that point.

"So what do you think about Bobby?" Ellen asked after they'd gotten away.

"I'm worried about him. He's always been independent, getting around on his own without needing much help, but now it's looking like he's becoming helpless. There are stories about other blind people assuming he could see, and people always being impressed by how much he can do, but right now he's regressing."

"Do you think it's just from the shock, or are you more worried about him?"

"Frankly, all things being equal, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. If he was on his own I'd worry about him, but I'd just let him grieve at his own pace. But now we're in a very precarious position. We all have to chip in and work together, and I'm not sure how well we'll do if we have to assign someone to watch out for him full time. What's more, if he's depressed, I'm sure he'll be more vulnerable to this new virus, and if he's not strong enough to fight it then this becomes more than just being 'out of sorts', instead it becomes literally a matter of life and death, both for him and for the rest of us."

"That's pretty extreme for the situation," Ellen cautioned. "After all, it's only been a couple of days. You've got to give him time to recover on his own."

"Again, it would be different if he was on his own, but we've got a lot of people to focus on. It's hard keeping everyone motivated and busy. If we let up and leave everyone to their own devices, those girls are likely to get into all kinds of trouble, and I'm too worried about the possibilities of their getting sick. Hell, all it would take would be someone slipping away because they're 'bored' and meeting up with some cute kid. They could get infected and bring it back to the rest of us, and then where would we be?

"The problem with Bobby isn't that he actively needs to help, although his help has been crucial to what we've been doing, but that he'll become a drag on us. If he can no longer function, he's likely to bring down the spirits of everyone else, and the need to always leave someone behind to watch out for him will make keeping everyone motivated much harder. And if you've got one bored kid, then you'll soon have a trouble with the others as well. One kid gets into something, and the others follow. All it takes is one refusing to participate, and soon no one wants to do anything and everyone is going in their own direction. We've been lucky so far in that they're all anxious to do whatever needs to be done, but we can't afford to let up, because the stakes are even higher now than when this all started."

"OK, I can see how it would be a problem from that perspective, but still, I think you need to give him some latitude. It wouldn't take much for the girls maintaining the radio duty to check in on him every now and then. I hardly think his taking some time to regroup is going to endanger us anyway," Ellen said, expressing her 'live and let live' philosophy.

"You may be right, but I'm just afraid to test it out. As I said, we've been lucky so far. I've been able to motivate the girls to do what needs to be done on their own without begging, pleading or demanding. But that whole thing rests on a lot of things, and if one of the central elements of that relationship gets yanked, the whole thing is likely to tumble."

"Well, we'll all watch out for the girls, trying to make sure they're still motivated, but I still think you're making too much of this. You expect everyone to respond like you do, to always be ready to go, and to distance themselves from what they're feeling. It might have worked with Alice, but it doesn't work with everyone else. After all, that might have been part of the problem between you and Linda. Everything will be fine," she reassured him, "you'll see."

David and Ellen had been driving for a while, well out of their 'comfort zone' of the areas around the local community. They saw a lot more people getting around, either walking or riding older decrepit bicycles. They also saw more signs of sick people, including more bodies, some lying off to the side of the road, supposedly where they simply collapsed and died, but there were others as well.

One troubling sight was that people were simply leaving bodies, often dressed only in their bed sheets, out by the side of the street like just so much garbage, relying on the nonfunctioning government to take care of the problem for them. David could see certain people having to make that unfortunate decision, like those too weak or old to handle the physical stress of trying to bury their own dead, but you'd assume many of those would also have families. The fact that these people had neither family, friends nor associates who could pitch in when things were difficult, showed just how fragile modern life had become. What's more, it showed that so many people were now unfit for what life was throwing at them, either too old, too sick or simply too fat to cope now that things had turned topsy-turvy. But then, David imagined the natives in less fortunate countries would have similar problems with people being too underfed, diseased or worn out by life to do any better.

They were almost to their destination, making it a point to not stop and help anyone who could get by on their own due to the risks of exposure, when they noticed a large crowd in front of one house. Getting a bad feeling, David pulled over and parked on the far side of the street. Ellen glanced nervously at him, not knowing what he was planning, but he simply motioned her to the side while he grabbed his guns from behind his seat.

It looked like a crowd had formed, trying to intimidate an older couple. David couldn't see exactly what was happening, but he could recognize an angry crowd when he saw one. Leaving Ellen behind, he calmly walked across the street until he was standing behind the crowd, still a fair distance from any of them at the curb, and fired the shotgun into the air to get their attention.

Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and spun around, staring at him.

"What the fuck is going on?" he demanded.

Everyone was silent for a moment, as they took him in and tried to decide whether he presented an aid or a risk. Finally someone spoke up.

"These people are trying to kill us," he insisted.

"They're trying to dump the body of someone who died from the plague in the street, where we'll all be exposed to it."

"We told them to leave it where it is, and we'll burn him and the whole infected house down," claimed someone else, a bit too enthusiastically.

"No one's burning anything down," David insisted. As the crowd parted, he could now see the couple, easily in the sixties or seventies, standing over a body wrapped in a sheet. They looked scared and there were several rocks and bottles lying around them, and they both had several bruises on them, showing what such detritus had been used for. As David was taking this in, he noticed a few people trying to circle around and get behind him. He turned and fired a shot in front of one group of these people, and they quickly backtracked.

"No one's going to gang up on me, so forget about trying to get around me. Now, you people are just being idiotic. What do you really expect these people to do? Clearly they're too old to handle the body on their own. Do you expect them to just live with a rotting body? At least they're trying to dispose of him."

"But if they leave it in the street it'll expose all of us," someone protested.

"I can agree with that, but did you ever consider offering to help, rather than threatening to burn their house down?"

The crowd actually appeared confused by this suggestion, as if they couldn't make any sense of it.

"This is a community. You people should act like it. You all got together to address this problem, so man up and deal with it. We'll need some shovels, a heavy duty plastic sheet and some strong plastic gloves for several people," David insisted. No one moved, however, so he fired another shot into the air. "Move, damn it!"

At that several people, mostly women, took off running to their nearby homes. While they did that, David took to reloading his shotgun. He knew that if anything was going to happen it would be then, since everyone would assume it was the best time to try jumping him. What they didn't know was that he still had several rounds in both the shotgun and his pistol, as it was an eight shot riot shotgun the sheriff's office had given him, and he could certainly draw down on them faster than they could reach him.

"While I'm not in favor of mob violence, I've got no problem either defending myself or anyone else," he warned those who looked like they might be tempted to try something.

"You don't expect us to handle that body, do you?" someone asked in a demanding voice.

"That's exactly what I expect. The only way to defend a community is if everyone acts together. And this threat isn't something being brought in by strangers from the outside, it's affecting your neighbors. Just remember, that could just as easily have been you," David reminded them. "Now, I'll help, but the first thing you have to realize is how to minimize the risks. Clearly, leaving dead bodies on the street is a bad idea, but burning down the homes of anyone with a sick person inside is equally as bad. It'll make people hide when they're sick, and it'll prevent anyone from asking for help. That's a guarantee the disease will spread in secrecy."

"Who are you, and what makes you such an expert?" someone else demanded. A few of the men were still trying to get behind him, but they were moving much slower now, and as one group neared the street, Ellen showed up carrying a two-by-four, with a tire iron conspicuously hanging from her belt in easy reach. That was enough to stop those people from advancing any more.

"I've been working with the police, and I broadcast a radio news program on FM 100," he told them. "Since no else is broadcasting we chose the easiest number people could remember. We've been trying to tell people how to deal with situations like this, and also giving them reports on what's happening across the country, and how others are dealing with these same issues."

"Really? How the hell can you do that? No one here has any power."

"We're lucky, we happen to have a ready supply of power, just enough to supply the radio station and some communications gear so we can learn what's happening. We've been trying to leverage that information so that we can inform everyone else, but it's hard getting the word out."

"But won't handling the body expose us?" one of the women asked, sounding a bit more reasonable for once.

"Potentially, but the key is to protect yourself. All you need are gloves and old clothes. You've got to ensure that you don't touch the body with your exposed skin, and any clothes that touch it will have to be burned, but otherwise you should be fine. Though, it's really a bad idea to carry a body around in bed sheets," David also pointed out.

"It's all we had," the frail old woman protested.

"Which is why these mob scenes are such bad news. If she could have, she'd have asked for assistance. Instead, they're forced to leave the body somewhere no one will notice it except for the nearby wildlife, which will help spread the disease."

"But they've been exposed as well," someone else complained, pointing at the couple as he said it, as if there was any doubt who he meant.

"True, but that's part of nature. Everyone who's exposed presents a possible risk, but they also offer hope. For everyone who gets sick, a few will get better, and it's those that we need. We need to develop antibodies. Killing anyone who gets sick is a guaranteed way to ensure the disease is never controlled. We need to help people recover, and when they do, we need to study why some people survived and why others died. The common flu killed more people than any other disease known to man over several years, but today all it does is make you miss a couple days off work every now and then. What would have happened if you'd chosen to kill the very people who turned it from a killer of millions into a mild fever? Do any of you know who turned the tide on the Flu during World War I?"

No one responded, though David was sure it was as much due to their unfamiliarity with the death spread by the Flu during the First World War as it was with any arguments they might have.

"We need to allow the disease to run its course if we hope to recover from this, and forcing people to go into hiding won't help anyone. If that happens, then scientists won't be able to study what's different between those who survive and those who die. And that's vital information we need at this point. We've been working with hospitals and research labs across the country, and they're actively working on this issue. Don't go cutting the feet out from under our recovery because you're scared."

"You'll actually help take care of this," someone asked, "and not just point a gun at us and tell us what to do?"

David figured that was the turning point. People were starting to make reasoned decisions and consider their options. He smiled at them, turned back and held his shotgun out.

"Ellen, would you be a dear and put this away for me?" She tossed her two-by-four a fair distance away and hurried over to him, taking the gun from him and heading off to the truck, hoping he knew just what he was doing. However, no one missed the fact that he still had his pistol stuck in the waistband of his pants, or that Ellen still had a tire iron handy.

"Sure, I'll help. That's what I'm here for. It's only by chipping in that we'll all survive this troubled period. We need to be helping each other: sharing our resources, working together, communicating with each other, and volunteering whenever there's work to be done. That's what's going to differentiate the survivors from those who quietly pass away. And we also need those who won't let bad decisions go unchallenged. You're all reasonable people who let their fears get away from them. I'm not about to tell you that your fears aren't justified, but there are better ways of managing it than hurting innocent people."

A couple of the women who'd run off were now coming back, bringing various supplies with them. David heard Ellen approaching behind him and turned. She handed him gloves and a plastic apron she'd stored somewhere. Acting calmly, he put the things on so that those watching could see how he chose to protect himself.

"Obviously, we weren't planning to bury any dead bodies today, and I didn't bring any disposable clothing, so I'll have to toss the clothes I have on later and drive on naked. I hope no one will be offended, but I consider our communal health to be more important than anyone's supposed moral outrage."

Ellen then tapped him on the shoulder, handing him a sweat suit. Smiling, he kissed her in thanks and then excused himself, even though he didn't move away. In front of everyone watching, he stripped down to his underwear and put the sweat shirt and pants on, then put the gloves and apron back on before turning back to the assembled people.

"Now, where's a nice protected spot we can bury this poor man? I figure it should be on these people's property, but we'll have to bury him at least five feet down and away from the water and septic systems."

"Wouldn't it be safer burning it?" someone asked, as the people around him started moving closer finally, taking the items offered by the women, some others running off to get some spare clothing they could afford to throw away.

"Ideally, yes, but hopefully you've heard how much of the country is in flames at the moment. We can't afford to start fires just to make us feel better. What's more, you're unlikely to be able to build a hot enough fire, and you'll end up with a badly damaged corpse that you'll still have to bury. If anything, find an old portable barbeque grill and we'll use it to burn the clothes after we've used them, but believe me, being near a burning body is the last thing you'll want to be exposed to."

"I take it you've done this before?"

"Hey, everyone here is going to have to start doing a lot of things they never considered doing before. It's part of the communal effort. We each need to do what we can. That's what the radio broadcasts are for, we tell people what they need to do, but we can't manage to be here doing everything for everyone. There is no social safety net anymore. From now on it's communities that have to stand up for themselves, since no one else will do it for them."

"Would you really have shot someone while trying to save someone else?" a woman nervously asked.

"Absolutely," David answered with a calm detached assurance. "I'll do whatever I need to in order to keep everyone going. If someone decides to do something so stupid that I've got no choice but to put them down, I'm not going to let them risk the rest of us."

The others thought about that as David and Ellen helped everyone prepare for what was going to be a fairly lengthy burial process.

When David and Ellen reached the building supply company which carried the greenhouses, located in the same region as the hospital, they each put on their masks and set out as quickly as they could. They got a lot of questions regarding the masks, to which they gave terse explanations and handed out cards with the radio channel's frequency and the times of the broadcasts, but they didn't stick around to get into any long discussions.

The store employee they asked seemed confused they'd ask for such a thing, as they'd been inundated with people looking for virtually anything but those types of things.

"Most people have been looking for home repair supplies," he explained. "Then recently they've been trying to buy home reinforcement supplies, you know, the types of things they think will help them resist invaders. However, if someone is coming gunning for you, a couple extra sheets of plywood aren't going to do you much good."

Hearing this, Ellen glanced at David, wondering whether they were missing something, not trying to take a more active role in defending their house—the only one in the area with working electricity and abundant supplies. However David merely shrugged, choosing not to answer right then.

"There aren't that many people worrying about how pretty their gardens are at the moment, and since we haven't gotten any gardening supplies in lately, we've largely been ignoring it. The building supplies are pretty well wiped out, despite our attempts to limit how much anyone could buy, but the garden supplies are mostly untouched."

He showed them where the supplies were, and offered to help them load them and explain what they'd need to do. Then he stopped to ask them something that had been bothering him.

"Are those masks to keep the sickness at bay?"

"Yes, we've been trying to broadcast warnings to the public about what's happening around the country, and this virus seems to be getting worse all the time. We generally try to stay away from public areas as much as we can, but if we have to, we use these masks whenever we do."