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Halstead and Wilson were in the lead vehicles, and before they were in sight of the group they made sure to make contact and let them know that more than two vehicles would be showing up.  The last thing they wanted to do was spook somebody with a deer rifle.  As they pulled into the weigh station, Wilson radioed to Halstead, “Looks like the same number of trucks, but it doesn’t look like all the same trucks.  I couldn’t tell you which ones are different though.  You catch that?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Halstead replied.  “It’ll be the first thing I ask Tim when we stop.  Good eye though.”

Once they were parked, a little closer than last time but not too close, they walked halfway to meet a larger group of drivers.  Halstead opened, “Afternoon, Tim, looks like you’ve got a few different folks with you today, who changed?”

Tim, to his credit, blushed a little.  “Well, we weren’t trying to pull a fast one on you.  A couple of folks decided they wanted to head back home.  One fella was from Memphis and another was from Little Rock.  I don’t know how he’s gonna get diesel, but that’s not my problem.  A couple more wanted to head for elsewhere, too.  I can understand wanting to get home.  Everyone else here is either single or a team, so home is their rig.”

“We figured that since thirty-four was the number we gave you yesterday, it’d be ok if we replaced ‘em with folks we knew who’d cropped up recently.  Overall, I think the trades were pretty good.  We ended up replacing a half empty truck of tanning beds with a mostly full auto-parts truck.  We also picked up another propane tanker, and if there’re any kids where we’re going, I think they’ll be happy with the last acquisition.”

“And that would be?” Halstead prompted when it became obvious that Tim wasn’t going to offer until asked.

“We got a McDonald’s truck.  It’s even got Happy Meal toys--not that they’re really worth much, but they’ll break the monotony for five minutes before they break.”  Tim was obviously pleased with himself.  “I’ll admit we deliberately hid it in the middle because it sticks out like a sore thumb.  You can’t miss it.  We also pulled an inventory from everyone.  If you’ll still have us, we’re all ready to pull out now.”  Tim handed over a sheaf of papers which proved to be the manifests from each of the drivers.

Halstead looked over a few of the invoices at random and then handed them to Wilson.  “In that case, let’s get this show on the road.  The one thing we ask, although we can’t enforce it, is that you not broadcast the destination yet.  We’re not asking for radio silence or anything like that, but we are requesting that you not broadcast where we’re going for the time being.  It’ll be public knowledge soon enough, I’m sure.”

“Fair enough.  I’ll make the formal request, as it were, once we all get saddled up, and, Sergeant Halstead, thank you.   We all appreciate this.”

“You’re welcome, Tim.  It’s all in a day’s work, but you’re welcome.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Wilson took a few minutes to organize the invoices by type of vehicle and inventory, and put together a parking list which he radioed to the AA.  The truckers didn’t maintain radio silence by any stretch of the imagination, but unless there was some incredibly inventive and complex code being used, they also weren’t trying to tell anyone where they were going.

The side road that had originally been crushed into existence by the Army vehicles and then re-graded once they’d gotten the bulldozer wasn’t exactly ‘smooth’, but it was smooth enough; and the truckers who’d previously been to the park were impressed with the road that hadn’t been there a week before.  After about a mile, as the road didn’t lead straight into the encampment, they pulled into the new parking lot.

Ramirez had outdone himself with the parking, as he had with everything else so far.  There were a total of sixty-five parking spots for semis with up to 53’ trailers, including a turn-around area.  There were fifty spots for smaller military vehicles, like the Humvees and LAVs.  There were one-hundred and fifty spots for larger military vehicles, like the 5 and 7 tons, and the towed artillery, and there were over five-hundred civilian-vehicle-sized parking spots.  There were even parking lines on the ground.  All of that had been done, in addition to everything else in the encampment, in three days.

Tim had to say something over the air about the parking lot, “I’ve been driving for almost twenty years, and I’ve been in dives and established truck stops from Chicago to Dallas, from San Francisco to New York.  I have to say, this is a a far cry above many, and the equal of most.  My compliments to the crew who put this lot together and especially on what had to be short notice.”

There was a chorus of ‘Amen’ and ‘You said it’ when he was done.  Ramirez, to his credit, who was in fact listening, kept his finger off the transmit button and his mouth shut.  After all, he did feel a certain completely understandable sense of pride as his boys
had
done a pretty amazing job.

It still took almost twenty minutes to get everyone into what were essentially assigned parking spaces.  They didn’t want all the fuel trucks next to each other, for obvious tactical reasons--some habits were hard to break.  And based on the invoices that had been handed over to Halstead at the beginning, they had decided to put some of the trucks closer to the camp than others simply to ease unloading.

By the time they were finished parking, word had gotten around that the trucks had arrived and Eric had made his way over to where Tim was talking to Sergeant Halstead.  Tim noticed Eric after a few seconds and held out his hand.  “Good to see you again, Eric.  How’s the Op-Sec training coming?”

“Nice, thanks, really appreciate that,” Eric laughed.  “How’re things going with you?”

“Well, good, I think.  Looks like things are shaping up nicely here.  Just so you know, Eric, you were part of the decision to fall in with this crowd.  One of the deciding factors was whether or not you were here--for me at least.  I wanted to get that out in the open first thing.  I don’t know if anyone had mentioned that from yesterday’s conversation or not, but I wanted to make sure you knew.”

Eric nodded, “I’d heard that my name was mentioned.  I appreciate that, especially since you really didn’t have a whole lot to go on at the time.  I understand the owner, Frank, closed down the truck stop on Saturday?  How’d everybody make out when he ran everyone off?”

Tim grimaced a bit before he answered and made like he wanted to spit, “That’s where most of this bunch came from.  We were up to about sixty trucks by then, and I think ol’ Frank was getting nervous with all of us just sitting there, though for the life of me I can’t imagine why.  He knew almost all of us by name, and has for years.  Laurie pretty much had him pegged with ‘skinflint’ and ‘prick’ though.”

“A couple of them were heading out to family, using either CBs or shortwave radios to keep in touch.  A couple of folks wanted to stay put, though they had to be ‘off the property’, and Laurie came with us.  She’s been on again-off again with one of the other drivers, and it wasn’t no big surprise that they got back together when Frank kicked us all out and closed the store.”

“I really hope everybody does ok.  They all seemed like good folks when we were there on Friday.”

“That they are, and I think they’ll probably be fine.   They’ve all got folks they can turn to and band together with, just like we do now; I think they’ll be ok.”

“So, where in the world did you find a Golden-Arches truck?  I mean, what are the odds?”

“Better than you’d think, actually.  Those places go through a
lot
of food.  I can’t say for sure how much, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t get deliveries of one thing or another every couple of days.  That one is just about plumb full, too.  Even though it’s a refrigerated truck, there’s a pallet of toys on the back end for Happy Meals as well, which we figured might break the monotony for some of the littler kids as they roll in.  At least for a little bit.”

Eric saw Rachael and Sheri walking up and took that as his signal to leave, “Well, it looks like the official welcoming committee has arrived.  I’ll hang around to make introductions as necessary, but I think you’re probably going to be busy for the next little while getting settled in.  Good to see you again, Tim,” they shook hands just as the women walked up, “Ladies, you all remember Mr. Grace …”

…

“Ok, so we’ve grown, we’re going to continue growing, and we’re going to need to worry about feeding more for an unknown amount of time.  The refrigerator trucks are going to help in a number of ways, but they don’t actually produce food.  Talk to me people.”  Mallory had what she was coming to think of as her think tank, which included her platoon Sergeants, Eric, Karen, Joel, Rachael, Chuck, and Sheri in what she assumed was the command tent.  Having the group split like this was already getting old.

“Two things--getting food and keeping food,” Joel answered.  “You mentioned the trailers, and that’s great for keeping it cold, but refrigerated and even frozen food only keeps for so long.  We’re going to need to can or preserve whatever we get somehow.  I’m assuming that none of those trailers out there can do deep freeze, which could keep almost indefinitely.  We’re also going to have to build at least some structures to hold the food, as we won’t be able to rely on the trailers forever.  Plus, having a building with three or four of the trailer units working together would be more efficient and provide redundancy should a unit fail.”

“Rachael, you’re keeping him well fed?  Making sure he gets enough sleep at night, every other Saturday off?  I need him healthy; I can’t afford to have him break!” Everyone could hear the smile in Mallory’s voice and Joel was blushing slightly, but Rachael was beaming.  She loved the fact that Joel had embraced his role as ‘big-picture man’ and was running with it.

“Oh yes, he even gets laid once in a while.” Rachael said.  Now Joel was turning bright red, and trying to look nonchalant, which just drew more attention to the fact that he was giving himself a second degree burn on the face…from the inside.

“Excellent.  Anything you need Rach, you let me know.”  Mallory replied.

“You mentioned getting the food first.  Explain that if you would please.”

“Well, there are a number of places that we can get food.  We are less than a week into this problem, and you are
the
military force in the area.  Like it or not many existing food warehouses, suppliers ,or retailers would be happy to hand over their food supplies to you and make distribution your problem.  That is not a problem you want to have, however.  That, of course, assumes that the owners and managers of those supplies are even still in control of the supplies.”

“It is possible that some supplies have been taken over by various groups who are incapable of or unwilling to manage it and will simply destroy it for lack of ability.  People will die due to their inability to maintain the food supply and distribute it efficiently.  If someone were to come in and ‘liberate’ it, leaving a certain amount for a new manager to be in charge of, but take the rest, well, there are Costco, Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart, and Super Target stores all over within forty miles of here.

“And that’s just getting the easy food in the short term.  All of which could be gone, depending on how many people we get into the base, how hard they are working, what we can supplement with hunting and home gardens, in as little as three months.  If we are able to get some really good refrigeration and freezing shelters together and make some massive runs on some of the big-box stores--again assuming there is something left to run on--I’m thinking we could conceivably put up almost a year’s supply, though.

“But you have to think about things like milk; will it be powdered or fresh?  We only have two cows so far.  Eggs, very few chickens--and they need crushed oyster or clam shells in their feed to make decent eggshells.  Ducks, if you like rich eggs.   Fresh beef, chicken, or pork?”

“Now we step back and look at the big picture.  We are surrounded by arable land that is being actively farmed, right now, even with the power out today.  We need to approach those farmers, carefully, gently; find out what they need and what we can offer them.  We need to build a relationship with them, including a work swap with them.  If they need additional labor to get a certain amount of their harvest in or planted, or whatever done in a fixed amount of time, we cut a deal.  Bread needs flour, salads need vegetables, etc, etc, etc.  They may know someone with an orchard who knows someone with a dairy herd who knows someone with more chickens than they can coop.”

“We just need to find slightly newer, slightly older, or just plain different ways of doing things that get the same job done.  And frankly, with less and less people playing ‘Blow up the Space Zombie Rocket Scientist Rock Star’ for nine hours a day, so what if something takes a little longer to get done than it used to?  We have a whole lot more hands and hours to get it done with.”

“Hold that thought, Joel,” Mallory said and opened an additional radio channel to the communications tent.  “Delta Two, this is Alpha Six, over.”

“Alpha Six, this is Delta Two, go ahead.”

“Has there been any traffic from any of the farmers or the ranches in the area recently?  Over.”

“Roger Six, a little chatter, nothing major.  Some seems to be routine, some to be expected related to ‘the CME’…  We have it recorded; would you like a dump to your device, Top? Over.”

“Negative Two, I’d like to listen to it in a few with 15klic, over.”

“Roger that, I’ll have it set up and ready when you call, over.”

“Six out.”

“What’s a 15klic?” Joel asked.

“Not what, who,” Mallory replied,  “we call you 15klic as you’re the one with the 15 kilometer, or about 50,000 foot view, of the situation.  I want to listen in on their CB chatter with you and see what they’re talking about and if it can give us any clues on how to approach them and what they might need.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Frankly, Mr. Tripp, Ms. Gharity, we’re of two minds about the whole situation.  We know we aren’t fully self-sufficient right now, and we don’t have a lot of the skills we might need in the long run, but we’re not out in the cold either.  One of the guys we keep in touch with has two-hundred and fifty acres of soybeans, for example, which works out to a little over 12,000 gallons of biodiesel every year.