During the meeting, we learned Nate had been a manager in a fast food restaurant and Vera was a housewife.
Jerome Watters spent twenty-two years in the army. For the next two years, he'd drifted from one job to another as he travelled the country looking for a place to settle. And then the zombies happened. He was tall, stocky and friendly. Three failed marriages while he was in the army convinced him to remain single.
Sam Williams came from Canada. He was in the States working when the zombies hit. He'd worked at several northern state’s oil refineries in several construction trades. He and Jerome met in a bar, formed a friendship and stayed together for survival as the zombies overran North Dakota. He was twenty-six, slender, medium height, and liked to tell jokes. Funny clean jokes.
The last of the new arrivals, Vivian Alverez, said she was twenty-eight and originally immigrated to the US from Mexico. She was vague about her past but said she'd worked at a variety of service type jobs and could help in a lot of areas. I guessed she was five feet seven, with a slender build and movie star looks.
Overall I was pleased with our new members and felt they were good additions, in spite of my uneasy feeling about Nate Robard.
An hour after the meeting broke up, I heard my name called. Shane and Nate each yelled for me to stop. They'd entered through the north door with Vera doggedly trailing behind. Winter coats and hats over ruddy faces attested to the severe temperature drop that blew in from the north overnight. Nate wore a frown on his wind-burned red face, and his fists were clenched at his sides. He yelled at me from twenty feet and waddled closer. Several people in the area stopped their activities to watch the brewing confrontation.
"Who the hell said you could search my vehicle and destroy my possessions?"
"What possessions?" I knew what he'd referred to but chose to make him say it.
"I had cases of beer and Scotch in the Humvee, and Shane said it was destroyed while we were caged like animals. I want it replaced and replaced now."
"Alcohol, tobacco and street drugs aren't allowed here. It's a rule the original founding members set. The zombies cause enough problems without injecting others. We can't afford to have someone drunk on guard duty or cause one of our people to die because a drunk makes a mistake or doesn't react quickly."
Nate shook his finger in my face. "I don't give a damn about that. You didn't tell me that up front and I want all of it replaced."
"No. That won't happen, Nate. Alcoholic beverages are not allowed on our property. If you want it that bad, you can leave and find it yourself. But then you can't come back. You were given a copy of our rules last week and that's covered in detail. Is there anything else you object to?"
"Yes there's that exercise clause. I have health issues and can't do that calisthenics crap."
I shook my head and turned to leave and Nate grabbed my arm and jerked me to a sudden stop. It wasn't the time or place for a physical confrontation with him.
He blared, "Now you just listen to me. I have rights and I want my property back."
I flung his grip off and leaned down close to his face. "No. Sue me if you don't like it. We gave you and your family refuge from the zombies when you were in danger. For that you'll abide by all our rules or you can leave. Those are your only choices."
Past Nate and Vera, I saw one side of Shane's lips rise as he smirked. "Told you what the answer would be. Now do you believe me?"
Nate glared hatefully at Shane, then focused his anger back to me. "This isn't the end of it." Vera stood behind Nate like a drab little mouse as he ranted. He waddled off in a huff, and she meekly followed with her gaze toward the floor.
Shane stood next to me and shook his head. "Yep, he's going to be trouble alright."
"And that puts us in a bind. I don't want to expel Vera and their kids because Nate's an ass. I assume they'd all leave as a group. If they leave it's a death sentence because that moron doesn't have a clue of how to protect them."
Christmas and New Year's Days passed, and the group was ecstatic that no zombies attacked us during the festive season. I remember overhearing Ed Jarnigan, our Navy SEAL weapons expert, sum up our holiday attitude by mentioning the WWII song, “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition”.
After the holidays, John Alton, Shane, Marcie Tanka, and Andrea Michaels drove to Cedar Rapids to pick up another load of 1/2" steel plate and angle iron. They returned two days later with a boom truck leading an over the road tractor pulling a high capacity lowboy trailer loaded with steel. The steel plate would be installed to provide protection behind 2nd floor gun ports and in both watch towers. Naively, we'd only planned on shooting from the building at zombies. We didn't anticipate humans shooting back. In retrospect, the leadership committee admitted to a person that we must have had our heads in a dark, smelly, place when we didn't consider the evil element that tramples others in the human race.
When John Alton, our resident mechanical engineer, redesigned the building plans to expand it from a one hundred foot by two hundred foot horse barn to a long-term place of refuge, he over-designed the structure's steel beams and supports. As a group, we couldn't predict what the future held for us, so he increased the structural capacity for
