seem to fit the bill. Engineering them to work with the pump and transport them up will be the challenge but it is a long-term, viable solution.
The days pass as we settle into a rhythm of sorts. The wall extends a great deal daily until it is almost beyond our line of sight. I notice the night runner’s nightly attacks drop off to a degree but they are persistent little buggers. I wonder if it is different packs each night or if they are the same ones hitting us periodically through the night. Another reason might be that they are either dying off or moving out of the area. Frank continues to look at the pictures brought in and recognizes several packs by their clothing. It seems they might have an area they cover but that doesn’t hold true all of the time as some pictures, from multiple cameras spread throughout, show the same packs roaming large areas. His guess is their food supply has dwindled. Some pictures show a new pack arriving or a pack showing up only once. Traps are set in places that Frank indicates as high movement areas. The teams are briefed extensively of the trap locations. We also set traps outside some of the larger building entrances, where there are indications of night runners inside, in order to clear the building out some prior to entering for supplies. Some have to be replaced when the teams are out and note that the traps have been triggered. Night runner bodies lie in the streets where they have been activated. Our doors hold up and we check on the structural integrity daily.
Solar panels are built on the roof, wired into a room we set aside as for batteries, and wired into the main electrical panel. This gives us a respite from the generators that run almost continually during the days and requires us to fill them with fuel on a regular basis. The generators are reset back into their original capacity, to supply power in the event the batteries get low. The backup system is now measured by battery charge rather than a supply through the old commercial lines. Robert, Bri, and I continue to meet on the roof in the late afternoons just before our nightly training sessions.
The training sessions themselves span a variety of subjects. I teach a two day course on indoor search and rescue techniques. Others teach what they know about horses, growing vegetables, fixing engines, building cabinets, anything and everything with more each night. The daily burns continue and we find other people who trickle into our group and find their place; after first being introduced to Lynn and her training. The first training class with Robert, Bri and the original group still progresses with Lynn becoming a little worried about Bri’s intensity in the training.
“She’s become, well, quite enthusiastic,” Lynn reports during one of our meetings.
“Well, that’s a good thing isn’t it?” I ask but I know Lynn wouldn’t mention it if she wasn’t a little worried.
“Enthusiasm is great and she has a lot but there’s an intensity and zeal to it. She’s becoming a little harder inside,” she says.
“Well, I think we all need all little of that but we’ll keep an eye on her,” I reply.
I have noticed the changes in Bri myself. She is still ready with a smile but there is an intensity and hardness in her eyes. I’ve noticed a slight change in Robert as well. The simple fact is I’ve grown a little harder as well. This new world has changed us all but losing Nic has put a small, tougher place in the three of us. I wish it wasn’t true as Nic wouldn’t have wanted it to be that way but it is there nonetheless.
I take some time during our days to visit Nic’s place of rest and have a quiet moment with her. Talking with her and letting her know what we’ve been doing. I get the same flash of movement behind me as before when I drive out of the area and have that uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Stopping and backtracking, I still don’t find anything out of the ordinary or what caused the movement in my rear view. A search of the entire area doesn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. It’s almost too bad the roads are blacktop as I can’t look for tracks.
I also spend a bit of time during the evenings with Robert and Bri going over the helicopter manuals; studying the systems. Time is spent during the days when Red Team is on standby learning to fly the helicopter and operate the systems onboard; the top-mounted camera and equipment. I become efficient at maneuvering and using the systems but not to the advanced degree I’d like. I feel comfortable down low now and nap of the earth flying.
We send the supply teams up one day when we’re are pretty well-stocked to see if there is something that can be done for the animals at a zoo not far away. Since Bri mentioned this, it has been weighing on my mind. I feel bad for not thinking about it myself but the stresses of our situation drove anything else from my mind. I brief the teams not to take any risks entering darkened buildings but to do the best they can. If there’s anything left alive that is. It’s been a long while for the poor, trapped animals without someone to feed them so my hopes aren’t great that many, if any, have made it. I also suggest they free the prey animals first if any are left to give them a chance. Freeing the predators first, or in combination, will not be very helpful for the prey animals. I mean, it isn’t really helping a gazelle if you free it only for it to be brought down seconds later by a lion or pack of wolves freed earlier. I feel this mission is an important one as we are caretakers of the world and have a responsibility towards all life. Yes, I would feel this way for the night runners if they weren’t constantly trying to eat us.
The teams return from the zoo mission to report that many of the animals were already dead in their cages or enclosures. In many instances, there was evidence of night runners gaining entry and killing them for food. There were a few left alive and the teams did the best they could for them. The birds were the largest in number left alive and they merely cut the netting over the enclosures. There was nothing they could do for any of the aquatic animals but most of them were already dead. The thought of these animals trapped and starving to death or confronted with night runners weighs heavily on me. The absolute unfairness of it. The one thing of note is there were several night runners lying in one of the bear enclosures and the team engineered a solution for it to escape and then they beat cheeks out of there.
The days turn into weeks and we are blessed with good weather and long days for the most part. Several days pass with rain showers which slows the progress of the wall to an extent. We take breaks on days of heavy rain, of which there are only thankfully very few, as we don’t want any sicknesses to break out. Being sick in this new world takes on a different connotation as opposed to merely calling into work and laying back taking meds. We have some meds from our excursions but try to limit exposing ourselves to risk. The longest day of the year is behind us but our days are marked by the progress of the wall which grows larger with each passing day. We make the mile adjacent to the Interstate and turn the wall to the west.
We bring in and erect fuel storage tanks in a section of the fields close to the edge of the far parking lot to allow vehicles to refuel. The tanks are located as far from the main building as possible in case of an accident. We make sure to ground them in the event that lightning, rare in this area, decides it would like to pay the tanks a visit.
The long, blessed summer continues. We find other survivors trickling in from both our forages for supplies and our drive through the areas for the burns. Our numbers swell to almost a hundred by the time the wall nears completion. The burns have taken out large tracts of land and have left an overhang of smoke in the area. We eventually clear out most of the city neighborhoods in our proximity. We are fortunate with the layout of the cities in that we don’t have our fires run away from us into the areas where we want to scavenge supplies. The teams allocated for burns are put on a search of outlying areas for survivors bringing in several more; some days finding a few and some none at all. The upper story of our sanctuary begins to get a touch crowded but it’s good to see there are others who have survived. Additional trips to the armories are conducted and supplies, arms and additional vehicles are brought in.
Robert and Bri’s training concludes and I begin taking them out when we have time to add to that training. I take all teams and those who finish Lynn’s initial training through advanced training, designed by Lynn and I, but take Robert and Bri through a little more. I want to give them every ounce of my knowledge and give them every chance at surviving. We still continue to have our little moment of time together, with Lynn joining us, on the roof but have to step a little more carefully with the top covered in solar panels.
Talks during our nightly meetings encompass longer range plans for when the wall is completed. Some of these include bringing livestock and long-term food supplies in, setting up the pastures, feed, buildings, and other aspects to include the construction of a large greenhouse. Bannerman mentions that it would be nice to erect a water tower to pump the well water into and utilize the gravity flow. That would conserve on the pump being constantly utilized and preserve not only our electricity, but the pump itself. He also wants to rig up and install one of the wind towers to make the pumping more of manual process with the windmill. For some reason, both of these seem much larger projects than building the wall.
The day arrives, in late summer, when we are ready for the last sections of wall to be placed. All of us
