We Go On (THE DELL) (10 page)

Next I called on Doc Groves and he explained that we should
institute a physical exam process for anybody wanting entrance into our
compound. I said I thought we were already doing that and he replied we were
doing a bite check. What he intended was an exam to also look for signs of
disease. He explained that we could not afford an outbreak of any communicable
diseases and he also recommended in addition to the exam we initiate a three-day
quarantine. He explained that if they came to us with no symptoms the three-day
quarantine should tell us if they are safe. I agreed and got agreeing nods from
around the table.

I moved on to Dave for his security plan. He stood.
"Now that we know how much material we have to use to construct the
enclosure, the only real question is the gate. The gate will have to be strong
enough to withstand the continued assault by a large group of Stinkies. We
believe it needs to be metal and would be mounted to steel I-beams. We have
people with the required welding skills to construct the gate if we can find
the material. Other than that, it's just a matter of heavy equipment.

“A back hoe to level the ground and fill the Hesco. The
crane to lift the T-walls in place and a concrete mixer to provide concrete to
fill in gaps and set the gate posts. We can use a culvert denial system where
the stream exits the compound."

I stopped him there for an explanation of the culvert denial
system.

"It's something we used in Afghanistan to keep the
insurgents from placing IED's in culverts under the roads. It's basically rebar
set in concrete that allows the water to flow but not allow a person to access
the culvert. It's no problem to build." With that, his presentation was
finished and he sat.

Judy Aikens went next and reported on how much crop
production it would take to feed a group as large as ours. As all of our
produce would go to feed the population and none to sell, she said with proper
management of seeds from planting season to planting season we could easily
feed ourselves by the second fall. We would still have to rely on foraged food
supplies until then. Livestock would take a while longer. She estimated it
would take three years before we would be self-sufficient without hunting to
supplement us in the meat department.

I thanked her and after she sat I asked if we had missed
anything. I saw Kat step away from where she’d been standing against the wall. I
knew what she would propose and I hoped it would be well received. People are
funny when it comes to the law. If it's to their benefit, they are all for it.
If it restricts them in any way, they tend to get perturbed.

I looked at Kat. "Counselor, would you like to add
something?" She smiled sweetly and I knew I'd pay later for forgetting to
call on her.

She looked around the room. “There is an area that I want
all of you to consider. We have always had rules in place and there a common
sense item’s that we don't have to talk about but everyone knows is wrong,” she
said in her best courtroom voice. “Living communally as we do, most of the
rules we have are designed to help us get along and keep us safe. Rules that
were made in order for us to survive, and are based on fear. Fear of the Stinkies
and the Road Gangs." She paused to look around the room, gauging if she
had the audience’s attention. "Once we move to this new location and I
believe we must move if we’re going to continue to survive. Once we move and we
are more secure and more self-sufficient, a lot of that fear’s going to vanish.
Once the fear’s gone, people will want to see less restrictive rules. Here are
the issues I think that need to be addressed."

She consulted her note pad and raised her index finger in
the air. "One; there will need to be clear rules of conduct. What is
acceptable and what is not. We all know murder’s wrong but what about stealing
food? What about failing to do your share? You've said you want the
distribution of food to be equitable. Shouldn't that be based on the equitable
participation in the work load?"

Another finger joined the first. "Two; how will we
divide the degrees of crime? There will have to be punishment for violations of
the law. Will you punish everyone equally regardless of the crime? What will
that punishment be? We do not, and I don't see us having anytime soon, the
ability for long term incarceration. If you can't put them in jail, how’re you
going to punish them?"

A third finger went up. "Who’s going to administer this
system? As long as we’re operating in the survival mode under martial type law,
Scott will need to be the mediator. Once the new location’s established and
things run relatively smooth, I suggest we move to a more civilian administered
system.” She glanced at me to see if I reacted to her recommendation that I
give up control of the group.

I smiled and winked to let her know I agreed. She went on,
“I'm not advising a timeline on this and I'm not saying the popular vote system
we all know is the answer. But as the fear reduces people will want more
control over their day to day lives. We are, and always will be, too small and dependent
on each other to tolerate rebels. One person refusing to do his or her share or
flagrantly violating the law could endanger the entire community."

She looked around the room as she lowered her hand. "I
believe that waiting until later to make decisions about how we’re going to
govern our new home will only result in confusion and anger. If we move forward
with everyone in the group aware of what the majority agrees on it will ease
the transition from martial law to civilian law. And an agreement to follow our
laws should be included in the consideration process for admitting new
survivors to The Dell. Thank you." With that she turned and went back to
stand beside the wall.

The people in the room were silent as they contemplated what
Kat had said. Jim raised his hand and I indicated for him to proceed. "I
guess we … I assumed that all the laws we were used to were still in effect. I
had never considered that we would need new or different laws. I don't think
anybody has." Agreeing nods could be seen around the room. I think that it
finally dawned on some of them that there wasn’t any going back to the way it
was. Some still held out hope that someone would come and the government would
make things right. The truth’s no one’s coming and the government we had always
counted on no longer existed.

I stepped back to the table. "I know this isn’t an area
we’ve spent a lot of time talking about. As Kat mentioned, we don't have to
make all the decisions right now but a few need immediate attention. We can't
afford for people to go off on their own agendas just yet. Maybe in the future,
as our community grows and prospers, more freedom or less restrictive laws can
be implemented. For now, though, we have to maintain control over most
decisions for the good of everyone." I paused to see if there were any
questions and was surprised to see Meredith Glenn's hand go up.

I nodded to her and she asked, "Who’s the
we
that will be maintaining control over the decision process?"

"For right now the
we
is me and the council. At
some point in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later, the
we
will switch to an elected council but for now it's me and the people I've
appointed to help me." I tried to make this statement sound like normal
everyday business. I wasn't ready for an argument over who should be in charge.

Meredith nodded. "That's fine ... for now." Her
statement was clearly a challenge and it was one I’d have to think about, but
not now. There was still too much to do to be worried about who liked me or who
didn't. Besides, by the time they were ready for some new shepherd to lead the
flock, I was sure I'd be ready to pass him or her, the staff.

I asked if anything else needed to be discussed and received
no's all around. I told Jim and Dave that I wanted a patrol put together to
leave early in the morning to go look at the little village of Dell, Tennessee
and for them to include any individuals they thought might be able to give
answers to the problems we’d find. The meeting broke up and people filed out of
the room. Kat hung back to wait for me and, once we were alone, came over to
where I stood.

"Well that was interesting,” Kat said. "I don't
think Meredith likes you very much."

I shrugged. "I got that but I can't figure why. I've
never done anything to her and she's so quiet I haven't said more than a few
words to her since she joined the group."

Kat nodded. "I think her and the Anderson girl were
close."

I looked at her. "Who?"

Kat explained she meant Heidi Anderson, the young woman who
had died in the Aid Station after the fight with the Road Gang a month ago.
Evidently, Meredith blamed me for her death. Join the club, I thought. I blamed
myself for all three deaths that morning. After all, it was my plan that went
wrong. My wife and I talked as we moved toward our room. I have always valued
her opinion and I do love to talk to her. It would be one of the things I would
look forward to when I was no longer in charge. A time for us to have real
conversations, like we used to.

That night I lay in bed and thought about all the mistakes
I'd made during the last five years. To my thinking there were simply too many
to count. I think sometimes we’d made it this far by luck. When I was asked to
take charge of the group, there hadn't been anybody else willing to do it. I
knew I wasn't perfect but I knew I tried my best. Apparently, some in the group
thought they could do a better job. Well, they were welcome to it. I would
relish the chance not to be the one making all the hard decisions. I still
thought about it as I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning dawned a brilliant late spring day, warm
and clear. The convoy started out around 7 a.m. with Jenny Moss in the lead.
She knew the route and it would be easier for her to lead than to be relaying
directions to me. There were eight vehicles in the convoy and we had enough
people to inspect the whole village of Dell. As we were preparing to leave, I
heard everyone refer to the place as the Dell. I had heard it spoken that way
several times at the meeting the night before but now it was everywhere. When
people were talking it was the Dell this or the Dell that. I guess Jenny's
reference to The Farmer in the Dell had stuck.

We saw a few Stinkies as we drove through the streets of
Lebanon but they were ones and twos and didn't present a problem for us. We
just drove right past them. They would moan and reach for the vehicles as we
sped past and a few took a step as if to follow us. We were soon out of the
city and into the country side. We didn't see any more of the creatures once
outside the city and the drive through the country became relaxing and
pleasant.

The land we drove through was mostly rolling farm land
interspersed with wooded tracks of tall hardwood. Oaks, maple, and beech with a
few evergreens like cedar and pine covered the hillsides that lined the road.
This was truly beautiful country. I soon noticed that the hills were getting
larger and considerably taller. The road we were on wound around and over these
hills and along streams with rocky bottoms. I wondered if there were any trout
in them and I would like to have spent some time fishing these creeks.

We had been driving about an hour when we turned on to a
single lane blacktop road. I knew we were getting close and started to pay more
attention to the road and the immediate area. Jenny had told us we would be
going in from the opposite direction than when she first saw the place. She
said that the road was not as high on the western end as the east so we
wouldn't have as good of view of the whole valley but this way was faster.
Besides if we wanted a view of the whole valley all we had to do was drive to
the other end and turn around.

The road wound through the forest alongside a creek and the
sun played through the trees to cast ever moving shadows. Leaves had built up
on the road and quieted the passing of the vehicles. You could feel the
anticipation flowing from everyone. We were all excited by the prospect of a
permanent home and Jenny's description of The Dell filled us with excitement.

We passed over a small rise and the view opened up before
us. It was just as Jenny had described it. Even from this end of the valley the
place was beautiful. The bowl shaped valley, the heavily wooded hills
surrounding it. The stream flowing west out of the valley and there in the
center was the little village of Dell. Jenny pulled her vehicle to the side of
the road and we all followed suit. Everyone got out and made their way to where
Jenny stood. No one said a word; we simply stood there soaking in the
picturesque scene.

Jenny turned to me and her smile covered her face." Here
it is, just like I said. The Dell."

"Isn't it beautiful?"

I turned to see the rest of the group standing behind Jenny
and me. It was Judy Aikens that had asked the question I could tell from the
look on her face how she felt about The Dell. To be honest about it though, it
really was a beautiful setting. The grass was a dark green and long enough it
swayed in the slight breeze. Wild flowers grew along the fringes of the woods
and could be seen in clusters thorough out the valley giving a nice touch of
color. Kat would have been pleased, she does love her flowers. From what I
could tell of the little village in the center of the valley, most of the
structures were a uniform white and had it not been for the totally deserted
feel, would have presented an inviting image.

From our vantage point I couldn't tell much about Dell,
Tennessee, so I suggested we re-mount the vehicles and take a closer look. I
admonished everyone to keep their eyes open. We didn't know for a fact if the
town was deserted and I didn't want to get caught with our pants around our
collective ankles.

The vehicles crept forward, gunners swiveling their turrets
from side to side. Vegetation had started to creep onto the edge of the road
and grass had started to grow in the cracks in the black top. Other debris had
either washed in from rain or been blown in by wind also did it's best to
obscure the road. A few small animals darted across the road, disturbed by our
passing. Dave, who rode behind me in the gun truck, leaned forward between the
seats. "Into the valley of the shadow of..."

I stopped him before he could finish. “If the next word out
of your mouth isn't dreams, I'm going to make you walk back." He looked at
me with that silly, mischievous grin of his and held both hands up in
surrender. I turned back around to look out the windshield thinking to myself,
'It had better be dreams, not death. I'm going to be really pissed if it's not
dreams.'

My vehicle was in the lead as we approached the edge of the
village. I could see the sign proclaiming, "Welcome to Dell, Tennessee,
population one hundred and eighty seven." The road ran straight through
the center of town and someone had hung a hand painted sign under the welcome
sign. This one was slightly more to the point. It said simply, "Go away."
Not likely, I thought, we've come too far.

I told our driver to stop the vehicle and he braked to a
halt. I told Dave to get everyone out except the drivers and gunners. We'd walk
from here with the trucks creeping along behind to provide cover. I wanted to
get a good first look at this place and I couldn't do it from the tiny window
in the Humvee. We dismounted and a few of the security folks moved up front as
a point element. The vehicle mounted gunners alternated the guns to cover 360
degrees and the non-combatants clustered in behind Dave and me as we started
moving down the main drag into town.

We eased our way toward the edge of town, carefully watching
for any sign of Stinkies or anything else that might be a danger. A deer jumped
up out of the tall grass on the right shoulder of the road and dashed across
right in front of us. I'm not sure who was more startled the deer or our point
man. I saw one of the security guys tracking the deer with his rifle and I told
him to let it go. I feared the shot might bring more than a possible meal. The
security guy gave me a disappointed look but continued down the road.

I had been right about the houses, they were all white.
Either the inhabitants of Dell didn't care for color or there had been a sale
on white exterior paint. All of the construction was uniform, as well. All the
houses were two story farm styles with clapboard siding. The Church, Post
Office, and General Store were of the same type of construction. Every building
had a front porch except the church and every porch had at least one rocking
chair sitting on it.

It looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting
except for the fact that the place appeared to be completely deserted. There
wasn’t a car to be seen anywhere. I thought this was strange. Even in the
places where everyone was dead or un-dead there had been signs of one time
habitation. This place didn't have the feel of having been lived in for a long
time. It was like it was frozen in time about fifty years ago, not five.

We continued down the center of Dell until we came to the
spring house and the artesian well. Jim immediately ran over to the catch pond
and leaned over looking into the water. I moved up beside him. "Jim, don't
run off like that. We can't cover you if you aren't with the group," I warned.

He looked at me. "There's no one here, this place was
deserted long before the Event. I don't know why everybody left but they
weren't here when it happened." He went back to looking in to the pool. He
looked like a kid staring into a wishing well. Finally I asked, "What’re
you looking for?"

Without raising his head he replied, "Crawfish."

"Crawfish?"

"Yes, if the water is clean there should be crawfish
and frogs. Unless it's contaminated there will be something living in
here." Dave walked up on the other side of me away from Jim and his
approach startled a frog that immediately bailed into the catch pond and swam
toward the sluice that ran from the spring house. Jim clapped his hands and
laughed. "That's it, there’s a frog in the pond. The water might not be
drinkable but at least it's not contaminated."

"Well, there's only one way to find out,” Dave said,
and before either of us could stop him, he reached down and scooped up a palm
full of water, sucking it into his mouth. "Damn, that's cold, and good,
too." Jim just shook his head and I pointed out how big of an idiot he
was. Dave didn't seem to care; it’s like he was high on something. The smile
never left his lips as he leaned over and stuck his whole face in the water of
the pond. When he straightened up he shook his head back and forth like a dog
to get the water off and loudly proclaimed, "Shit this place is great. We
need to get started right away. I can't wait to move here." With that, he
turned and walked toward the old General Store that sat across the road from
the spring house.

I looked at Jim and he just shrugged his shoulders. "Don't
ask me. He's your friend."

"Yeah, uh ... I guess this means the water is
okay?" I asked.

Jim answered that he would take a sample back for Doc to
study under his microscope but, yes, the water was most likely good. Unless
Dave keeled over in the next few minutes, Jim thought we'd be alright to drink
from the spring.

As Jim and I finished our exchange, I turned in time to see
Dave walking up the steps to the porch in front of the store. I started heading
that way, reminding Jim to stay where we could see him. Dave stood on the porch
now looking in the plate glass front window of the store. As I started up the
steps, Dave opened the door and went in. I yelled for him to stop and sped up
to catch him. I went through the door with my rifle up at the ready. There’s no
way of knowing what’s in these buildings and I didn't want to lose anybody
because they were distracted and not thinking clearly.

Dave stood in the center of a large open room with shelves
lining both sides all the way to the back where a counter ran across the width
of the room. More shelves lined the walls behind the counter and there were
still a few items sitting on them. I saw all this in the couple of seconds it
took to realize we were alone. I was too pissed to notice more as I turned to
Dave. “What the fuck are you doing? You know better than to enter a building
without a partner.”

Dave ignored my rant and I walked over to where he stood. I
intended to get his attention so I could finish chewing his ass when I noticed
what he stared at. A corpse sat moldering in a nylon web lawn chair beside a
small table. I took a breath to calm down. "Dude, you have to chill. You
can't run off like that."

Dave just nodded; his eye’s never leaving the corpse.

Whoever he was, he had been dead for a long while. I
estimated a couple of years. Bone showed at the top of the head where the skin
is thinnest. The rest of his skin was shrunken, all wrinkled, and a mahogany
color. He was dried up like a mummy but his clothes were still mostly intact,
except for the discoloration where body fluids had leaked into them.

I stood beside Dave as we studied the corpse. He continued
to look at the body. "I guess we know who wrote the 'Go away' sign."
I had to agree, we hadn’t seen any other signs of people. Unless our mummy here
had friends that had stuck around and I didn't think that was likely or they
would have helped him.

The small caliber revolver on the floor at his feet and the
dark stain on his shirt where blood had drained from his mouth answered the
question of how he had met his end. An open rusty can of food sat on the table
with a spoon stuck in the dried remains of whatever it had been. Dave looked at
me. "Do you think he drank the water?" he asked.

I nearly choked trying to keep from laughing. When I finally
had it under control and could trust my voice, I replied, "No I think he
became despondent over the lack of real meat in his Alpo there, and decided to
end it." Dave nodded his head and turned and went back out the door on to
the porch. I followed him back into the sunlight and met the rest of our group
standing at the base of the steps. I explained what we had found inside and
told them we needed to check the rest of the little village for signs of life
or … well, you know.

Dave hoped off the porch without using the steps and walked
over to where Jenny Moss leaned against the fender of her gun truck and began
an animated conversation. She smiled and laughed at whatever he told her.

I went down the steps to the rest of the group and Jim
suggested we check the other community buildings before looking at the private
residences. It made sense as the Store, Church, Post Office, and Community
Center were all together here in the center of town. As a group, we headed over
to the Community Center. This was a long single story building with double
doors in the center. Its construction was identical to the rest of the town,
clapboard siding and white paint.

We cautiously opened the doors and went in. Dust floated in
the air visible in the shafts of light coming through the windows. A few old
tables and chairs were the only things in the large room that made up the
inside of the building. A large American flag hung across one end of the
building and a few framed photos showed people with handmade quilts and prize
winning vegetables. Other photos showed group meals that were held in this same
room. The clothes worn by people in the photos were of recent style but I
couldn't find any information concerning the exact dates of the photos. There
wasn't much to inspect so we filed back out into the sunlight.

Once we were all back outside we proceeded to the Church. A
sign beside the double door proclaimed this the First Baptist Church of Dell
and it was a clone of the rest of town, single story, and white clapboard. The
only thing that set this building apart was the steeple. We opened the doors
and reverently entered. The inside was just what you would expect from a small
town southern church. A walkway ran down the center of the large open room with
rows of pews on both sides. Hymn books sat in the little pockets on the back of
each pew. At the front of the room was the pulpit raised on a small dais with
pews for the choir and deacons on each side.

It dawned on me that this was the first church I'd been
inside in over a decade. I hoped the roof didn’t cave in. A couple of smaller
rooms for Sunday school classes were located in the back and were quickly
cleared. Again, dust lay on everything and had not been disturbed in a long
time.

The Post Office came next and it looked like everything else
we had seen so far. Inside, a caged counter cut the building in half with the
public half in front. Dead potted plants sat on tables in the lobby along with
a few chairs. What few postal service posters that hung on the walls were all
ten to fifteen years old. A half door led through the counter to the back of
the building. Rows of cubbies lined the walls and I realized this was where the
mail had been sorted. A few old pieces of mail lay on or below the counter and
were like the posters, ten years or older. The most recent piece of mail we
found was postmarked December 2008. Most likely a Christmas card, I thought.

We decided to continue the search and moved to the houses
that lined the main road running through Dell. None of the doors we had
encountered so far had been locked and the first house we searched was no
exception. All the furniture seemed to still be in place but a fine layer of
dust had settled on everything indicating that nothing had been moved or
touched in a very long time. The pantry in the kitchen was empty of food but a
few dishes and flatware remained. No clothes hung in the closets and the
mattresses in the bedrooms were bare. I still couldn't figure out what had
happened here. It’s as if the residents had packed what they could and left
behind all their furnishings. I wasn't sure if we'd ever be able to solve the
mystery but at least there would be furniture for us to use when we moved.

We didn't have time to search every house; it turns out
there were sixty-eight houses along with the four common buildings. Most of the
houses sat on half acre lots and the whole village covered an area roughly half
the size we would be able to enclose with our barriers. That would leave around
forty acres of land for crops and pasture for our animals inside the enclosure.
I was still having a hard time figuring the place out. This was a farm
community, it was apparent the land around the village had been cultivated in
the past but there was only one barn in the whole town and there was no old or
new farm equipment anywhere. It was all a mystery.