notice later today.”
Kellor nodded.
“I think in at least thirty or forty cases we should move preemptively, meaning now, even if they still have some meds left. As a doctor, I know which of my patients were truly over the edge long before this happened. Patients who had repeated hospitalizations and incidents. Tom, you would know some of them, too, from incidents that led to their going to a psychiatric unit or jail. I think we should grab those people now before it gets bad.”
“One thing,” John said quietly.
“Go on.”
“Keep in the back of our minds how that power was also used to lock up those that neighbors just didn’t like, political dissenters, and, in a darker time, the belief that insanity was satanic and the resulting witch hunts. We got a couple small churches in this community that are already preaching that this disaster is God’s punishment to a sinful nation, and/or that it is now the end-time. I never thought about what Doc here was saying in regards to mass psychosis, but we might see some of these deranged people being seen either as prophets if they have a good gift for gab even though they’re crazy or, on the other side, demonically possessed.”
“Damn, this is starting to sound medieval,” Kate sighed.
“We are medieval, Kate,” John shot back. “If we got people going off the deep end, and definitely if there is prior record of severe mental disorder, yes indeed, we’ll have to lock them up, for everyone’s protection. All we need is a bunch of people following some mad prophet around or a mob stoning a witch and it could come to that, but it’s a fine line and we can’t go overboard on it. We all know the news leaking in from Knoxville about that crazy cult; we don’t want even the beginnings of it here.”
John looked over at Kellor, who nodded in agreement.
“And one other item related to this,” Kellor said. “Alcohol. The rush on the ABC store pretty well cleaned it out on Day One and the looting afterwards finished it.”
John found himself thinking about single-malt scotch, the few ounces left in his bottle behind the desk.
“So the drunks, the hard-core alcoholics, are out by now, and that can get tough. My concern: some will try anything for a drink, trying to distill it.”
“Every ear of corn goes to food,” Charlie snapped. “We catch anyone trying to steal corn to turn into booze and there will be hell to pay.”
“Not that, Charlie. I mean trying to distill out of
“A dry community,” Kate chuckled softly. “We were for a long time after the Depression. Guess we are again.”
“Now down to the harder issue,” Kellor continued. “Food.”
There were sighs around the table.
“With the cutting of rations yet again, we are, at best, doling out little more than twelve hundred calories a day per person. Our reserve stockpiles are down to not much more than ten days. I am going to have to suggest a further cut, by a third or so, to extend that out to fifteen days.”
“What I was thinking as well,” Charlie replied.
“What about the food on the hoof, cattle, pigs, horses?”
“We’ve gone through a third of that stock, and we must stretch that reserve out as long as possible.”
“For how long?” Kate asked.
“The radio, though,” Tom said. “If things are coming back online down on the coast, hell, help might be up here in another month or two. All they need is one diesel-electric locomotive and it can haul ten thousand tons of food and supplies.”
“Easier said than done,” John announced. “When we got hit, every train on every track in the country stalled. It’s not like a highway, where you just move around it. Once they get some locomotives working, every stalled train on every line will have to be pushed somewhere to clear the line. All switches will have to be set manually.
“I’ve been hoping the folks up at Smoky Mountain Railroad might actually get something running with their steam locomotive, their track actually connects down into Asheville, but there hasn’t been a word about it.
“Whatever help is coming in now, it will be from the coast. We are now like America of two hundred years ago. Get a day’s walk in from the coast or a major river and you are in wilderness. So don’t plan anything here with the hope that just maybe the legendary ‘they’ will show up.”
“Maybe isn’t definite,” Charlie replied. “I agree with John on this one. Think of it, Tom; let’s say the navy did steam into Charleston. There’s a million people there without food. Anything beyond spitting distance of the sea I’m not optimistic for right now. Doc, tell us what you are thinking.”
“The rations are running short,” Kellor said. “Compounded by the fact that more and more of our locals are applying for ration cards as well, now that their own food stocks have run out. So even as we run out, there are more mouths to feed.”
John had yet to apply for ration cards for his family. He had always been proficient with a rifle, and using the .22 he had nailed several possums, a number of squirrels for the dogs, and remarkably, just the day before, a torn turkey that had been such a feast that he had invited the Robinson family up to join them, Lee Robinson actually producing a quart bottle of beer and canned corn for the occasion. Makala had been there as well with a chocolate bar she had kept stashed away. Even the dogs had been given some scraps.
The possums, well, they reminded John of the old television series where Granny was always talking about possum pie. Jen was horrified when he had brought the first one in, she tried roasting it in the stove out on the deck, a disaster, but they were learning, even though the darn things were greasy as hell.
“You realize that if we cut back to around nine hundred calories a day we are at nearly the same level as the siege of Leningrad. Resistance is already down; the average person has lost at least fifteen pounds or more. For many that’s actually damn good, but now we start getting into the body eating itself, and not just the reserve fat most Americans carry around.
“Strength will be impacted significantly and I want to talk more about that in a few minutes. For the general population on rations the impact is going to start kicking in within the next couple of weeks. Immunological systems in everybody are weakening, meaning if that flu down in Old Fort gets up here, it will be like the 1918 epidemic that killed nearly two million in America. I’d estimate ten percent of us dying in a matter of days if flu breaks out. I think, Charlie, that we will have to shut down our free passage through the gap or change the procedure. Lord knows how many flu carriers are walking along our interstate every day heading west.”
Charlie sighed and looked over at John and Tom.
“We do that,” Tom said, “there’ll be more riots. Getting those people moving further west has prevented any more problems since the big riot of two weeks back.”
“I agree with Tom,” John said. “Block the barrier, we’ll have a buildup of a couple of thousand again within days, even more desperate than the first wave, and it will be a bloody fight. Let them through, but drill our people on extra caution.”
“They’re wearing the hazmat suits already,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, and most likely taking them off with their bare hands, not washing down properly.”
He sighed.
“It’ll most likely jump no matter what we do. People are not just staying on the roads; they’re crawling up through the woods.”
“I’m getting reports of that,” Tom said. “Strangers breaking into houses, then running back up into the woods when someone shows up. Most likely outsiders.”
John looked at Kate, who said nothing. The word was ingrained now across the populace. Even those who had not been inside the town on the first day but came in before the barriers went up were now using it, almost as if to say, “I’m here now; I’m not one of
“Nutrition-wise, thank God we’re well into June. Scurvy is not a concern; we got enough greens of one sort or another, though the soup made out of boiled grass and dandelions is a bit rough to swallow. The first vegetables are starting to come in as well.”
Throughout May Charlie, taking a page from the memories of some of the older folks, had called for a Victory Garden campaign. Every last seed in town had been snapped up and once beautiful lawns, yet another luxury of a pampered society, had been spaded over for lettuce, squash, beans, anything that could be eaten.
