We Go On (THE DELL) (9 page)

Now I was even more confused. They were going out to count
T-walls, which we already knew were there.

"What? You found what?" I asked.

If it is possible for someone to actually beam, Jenny did. "Our
new home,” she said.

It's been close to a month since the night of the council
meeting and Jennifer Moss' late return. It's nearly June and the trees have
completely filled out now. The days are longer and after five years of no
industry the air quality is fantastic. You can see for miles with no hint of
smog. Earlier today, I stood on a high hill overlooking the Cumberland River
valley and was almost able to forget what had led me here and why. It amazes me
and leaves me melancholy at how well the Earth’s correcting herself. It brings
home to me how truly insignificant we humans are. All of the attempts we made
to control our environment, all the work we put into making our world more
convenient are disappearing. Nature’s an amazing and unstoppable force. After
only five years nature’s reclaiming all that we stole from her. The roads we so
counted on to move us around and that we complained so loudly about if we were
inconvenienced by a pot hole are slowly being covered by vegetation. It won't
be long until there is virtually no sign of them at all. Of course, for all
signs of our existence to disappear, it will take thousands of years but the
evidence is undeniable. The Earth’s trying to erase the past as if we were a
failed experiment. I'm not a tree hugger by nature but there's a lesson here, I
think.

Now I'm not a Puritan either and I occasionally like to have
a drink. I used to really enjoy a cold beer on a hot day. Can't seem to find
much of that now but when the Event occurred, liquor stores were not high on
the places people hit for those last minute survival needs. You can walk into
most any liquor store left standing and find a bottle of your favorite poison.
I'm a bourbon drinker and my personal favorite is Booker's 126 proof. I have a
case stashed in my room. Kat doesn't mind me having one or two in the evening,
she says it mellows me out. At 126 proof, it would mellow a bull moose out but
with our situation being what it is; I can't afford to be drunk. Just wouldn't
look right trying to direct the defense of our compound while sloshed. Kat said
it would be unseemly. She's probably right.

But I'm feeling particularly gloomy tonight and have had
three, maybe five, drinks. The fact that the human race, well at least the
living version, is on the verge of extinction and our planet could give a crap
has left me hurt and disillusioned. At least that's the excuse I'm using
tonight. It's just that standing on that hill today, overlooking one of the
most beautiful valleys I've seen in a long time, and realizing that there’re no
cars moving on the few roads I could see. There’re no vapor trails cross
hatching the clear sky above me. The only sounds came from the slight breeze
disturbing the new leaves on the trees and bird song. Even after five years the
silence is a little disconcerting.

On the survival front though, things are going quite well. I
should fill you in on what has transpired during the last month since Jenny’s
statement about finding our new home. Once we had gotten things settled down
from their late return, Jenny and Bob were able to tell us the story. They’d
had a busy day. After leaving the compound they’d gone straight to where Bob
had found the T-wall convoy. Their mission was to count the T-walls and come
back. They accomplished that mission but were cut off from returning west on
I-40 by a group of a couple hundred Stinkies. I didn't like hearing that news.
After the Event, the Stinkies were all congregated into large groups and they
were hard to get away from. After a couple of years, these big groups started
breaking up and the Stinkies we’d been encountering since had been in small
groups or alone. After the group had helped us in the battle with the Road
Gang, I had hoped it was a fluke and they had been attracted by the noise.
After the encounter, Jenny's patrol had with a two hundred strong group of Stinkies,
I wondered if maybe they were starting to converge again. It wasn't a disaster
but was definitely more of a problem than if they'd stayed in small groups or
individuals. We would have to keep an eye on this.

When Jenny's team had been cut off from moving west, they
went a few miles further east to the highway 141 exit at Shaver Town. Their
plan was to come back to Lebanon on 141, however an accident left over from the
days immediately following the Event had the road blocked. They then intended
to cut north through Flat Rock to highway 70 and use it to get back. Either of
those roads would have put them back in Lebanon within a mile of the compound.
Instead, they got lost in the hills bordering the Cumberland River between
Lebanon and Carthage, Tennessee. After a couple of hours of backtracking, they
finally made it to highway 70 near Bellwood and back to Lebanon and the
compound. During this unintentional foray into the hill country west of
Carthage they made a fantastic discovery.

Jenny said they were trying to find a place to turn around
and pulled into an unnamed single lane country road. She explained that it
headed in a generally western direction and something told her to just go with
it instead of turning around. I'm not much of a believer in voices or spiritual
guidance, of course I didn't believe in zombies until a few years ago either.
So, I don't know but I'm glad she listened.

The road went up hill in a gentle slope and after about five
miles went through a cut between two steep wooded hills. Jenny described as
they went through the cut the road dropped downhill into a valley about three
miles long running east and west. This valley was more or less an oblong bowl
with another steep set of hills and a deeper cut that the road followed out on
the western end. Thickly forested hills surrounded the valley and a stream ran
out beside the road in the west. Jenny said that when they first glimpsed the
valley in its entirety she told the driver to stop and they sat admiring the
view. According to her, she and Bob came to the realization at the same time.
She turned in her seat to look at Bob and he said the Promised Land. Bob, who
had stayed silent during her description smiled and nodded his head. Jenny
continued with her story and described a small town or village located near the
center of the valley. She explained that about thirty or forty houses clustered
around several community buildings with the road running through the middle.
She described a church and what looked like a country store and an old Post
Office. She also described a long single story building that might have been a
community center or lodge of some type. Best of all, the stream they could see
running along the road and exiting the valley to the west originated at an
artesian well in the center of the village. Bob finally broke into the
conversation with his description of the well.

Bob said it was a large artesian well and water flowed out
like a fountain. He said sometime in the past a spring house and catch pond had
been built there and the overflow was the origin of the stream that ran along
the valley floor. Jenny chimed back in and in chorus they said it's beautiful.
I had listened intently to their narrative and my mind raced with the
possibilities. Dave took this opportunity to ask if they had seen any survivors
or Stinkies during their inspection. Jenny answered no and Bob further
explained it was deserted. He added he felt kind of weird looking at the place.
“It’s like it was waiting for us to find it,” he said.

I asked them if the place had a name and Jenny nodded. She
said there was a small sign just before you entered the village that said,
'Welcome to Dell, Tennessee.'

"Dell?" Dave asked.

Jenny turned to him. "Yeah, you know, like the kids
song, The Farmer in the Dell."

Listening to the description of the valley and town, I had
almost forgotten to ask the results of the reason for the mission in the first
place. Bob's smile grew even wider. "I am happy to report there are
exactly fifteen-hundred T-walls loaded on seven hundred and fifty flatbed
trailers. Each trailer’s connected to a semi-tractor and I'm sure we can get at
least one or two running. There are also two flatbed trucks loaded with Hesco
containers,” he said.  I had to stop him for a description of a Hesco
container. Bob described them as a wire frame basket about seven-feet square
connected to each other to form a long line of the baskets. They’re lined with
a fabric material and you fill them with dirt to form a barrier. He said
they’re collapsed and you set them up by spreading them over the area you want
and opening them. Then just fill them with dirt and instant wall seven-feet
thick. You can stack them to make them higher and once the dirt is compacted
they are nearly as strong as the T-walls.

After his description, Bob continued, "The two trucks
of Hesco and the T-walls could enclose a huge area including the town and
several acres of the surrounding land. There is also a truck loaded with twenty
concrete Y or Jersey barriers and a truck mounted crane to lift it all. I don't
know where they were headed but they must have been intending to set up some
kind of refugee compound. They never made it and it's sitting in just the right
spot for us."

I was excited about the information they had given me. The
Dell sounded perfect and the quantity of barriers we had available to build the
enclosure was better than I had hoped. It was coming together, if only the
council that waited for us upstairs could come up with a plan to overcome the
other obstacles we faced. I told them all to follow me and we headed upstairs
to give the council the good news.

Back in the planning room there was a collective sigh of
relief when I entered followed by Jenny and Bob. I got everyone’s attention and
had Jenny first then Bob repeat the information they had just given me. There
were a few questions which they handily answered. After their narrative, I
asked Meredith for a new acreage figure based on the updated number of barriers
we had available. She said based on the T-walls alone we could enclose around
eighty acres. I addressed the council again. "All right, we now know we
can protect an area big enough to contain all of us and it sounds like this
place Dell is a great candidate. I'm going to go out there tomorrow to get a
better understanding of the place. I'd like some of you to go. The ones with
particular expertise that can help me evaluate the area to see if it can
support us. What I need to know now is it feasible? Can we solve the problems
and make this work?"

Jim was the first one on his feet and addressed the whole
room. "Based on what we know and with the information brought to us by Bob
and Jenny, I'd have to say it's more than just feasible. It’s my opinion that
we have to try. It sounds too good not to."

There was general agreement around the room. With everyone
in an agreeable mood I thought it would be a good time to go over the solutions
to the problems we had come up with yesterday. I asked Jim to continue with the
report from his working group. He started by outlining the issues his group had
studied. Water, land size and proper management, living space plus space for
essential infrastructure. They also looked at electrical requirements, along
with fuel and other necessary consumable supplies. After restating their task
he delivered his solution. "It sounds like the Dell's location solves most
of our problems for us. Heating and cooking will need to be accomplished by
burning wood. The abundant forest around the valley should provide all the wood
we need for the foreseeable future. Wood is a renewable resource and proper
management will ensure its continued availability.”

He took a few breaths as he flipped pages on his note book.
“The water problems solved by the spring in town. Of course, it will need to be
tested to ensure it's not contaminated. As long as it's potable we’ll have
water except in the case of extreme drought.”

 He continued, “Land size of eighty plus acres should
support all of us and leave room for growth if that should become an issue. The
available structures allows for adequate living space and also for office space
for government type functions. The church can double as a school and the store
can be used to house and distribute food stuff.”

Jim looked at me. “We haven't had a need for money and
assume that practice will continue. Food should be shared in an equitable
fashion." I nodded my agreement so he went on. "The only problem left
to be solved is electrical and we have come up with both a short term and long
term solution.

“For the short term, generators are the way to go. We think
two large, in the neighborhood of three hundred kilo watts, would be sufficient
for all our power needs. The only limiting factor would be fuel. Generators
that large are normally diesel and we’d have to have a quantity on hand to keep
them running.”

That could be a problem, I thought. Fuel stored for a long
time gets stale and I’d have to remember to ask about this later.

“We could extend fuel by instituting power usage times. As
an example, the generators will be run from 7 a.m. until 10 a.m. and then from
3 p.m. until 6 p.m., or as necessary for work details, Jim continued.

A few people spoke up with questions but they were minor
detail items.

"A long term solution could be wind or solar power.
Solar is much more labor and maintenance intensive so our recommendation would
be to use wind powered turbines. If we could find them they would offer the
best and easiest solution for long term power needs,” Jim said.

I asked about where we would get the fuel for the generators
and he explained that there should be a fuel transfer station here in Lebanon.
"We need to find it and we can park two or three tankers in the enclosure
and they should last, with proper management, for a long enough period to start
a renewable power project." Then I asked about the stale fuel issue.

“Diesel lasts longer than gas but we’ll just have to cross
that bridge when we get to it.” I nodded and asked if he had anything else. He
said no, so I thanked him and he sat.