At five-thirty in the morning we were all up. At six, breakfast was served in the main cabin. Andrea had been up earlier and was in the kitchen with Verlie and two of her granddaughters. It was apparent Ira and Verlie hadn't gotten enough rest, but both were up and moving. They could sleep on the drive back to Deliverance. The food was typical southern country style that tasted great and would sustain us for many hours. Glass from shot out windows that had littered the floor only hours earlier had been cleaned up. Bullet holes in the pockmarked walls couldn't be eliminated from sight so easily. Morgan said he and the boys would jury-rig a temporary chicken coop on a flat bed trailer. They intended to cram all of the fowl they could into it. Next to the coop, a temporary pig pen would hold about a dozen of the smaller hogs from their stock. While he and the boys caught animals, the rest of us packed their personal belonging and supplies into our trailer and a similar enclosed trailer of theirs. Although they tried to hide the tears, Verlie and her daughters and grandkids had red eyes and sad expressions. Being driven out of their home wasn't being taken lightly.
At two that afternoon, our five vehicle convoy pulled out to start the trip to Deliverance.
After midnight, I radioed the watch towers from the end of the lane to our compound. Gawkers lined the corridors as we escorted the group upstairs and showed them to their rooms. We tried to be quiet, but everyone woke and came to meet our new friends. Finally, we all got to bed and fell asleep for a few more hours. Late night arrivals were getting to be a bad habit.
My time the following week was consumed with showing people around our compound, working with Elsie Talbot, Janice, and Irene on scheduling and answering a myriad of questions. Overnight our population exploded to a total of fifty-two. Ed and I collected the diverse array of firearms brought by the new people and issued new ones of their choice from our preferred stock. Everyone seemed pleased with our choice of weapons and went to the firing range immediately. They were scheduled for target shooting every week for a month and then they would drop back to monthly practice like the rest of us. The men with Morgan were all avid hunters, so leading a target with a handgun came easy to them.
Our school teacher, Shana Thompson, added three new students under age sixteen for a total of ten.
With Shana's help, we initiated drastic changes to our education curriculum. After taking our vision of the declining future of mankind into consideration, the group agreed to focus on appropriate life skills training and drop detailed history, technology and geography studies. Shana would still teach the location and names of continents and countries as far as size and location, but not details about cities, populations, government and most of the notable people in history. She would touch on larger cities, countries, extinct populations, and achievements or lack thereof, only as a matter of ancient history because they no longer existed. We left mathematics, reading and writing untouched.
The new life skills subjects centered on practical work-related skills: animal husbandry including blacksmithing; carpentry; basic building design and construction; sewing; identifying and cooking edible plants, small animals and fish; and work ethics and communal living. She would have access to any and all of our group to serve as teacher's aides in the new classes.
The influx of new people absorbed some of our workload and freed people for projects we'd put on hold for too long. A committee of four people formed to write a record of life before and after the zombie affliction. We wanted to capture the major good and bad happenings across the globe as a snapshot of what mankind had achieved before its near extinction. One issue the leadership committee insisted on was that the report be balanced with both the positive and negative aspects of mankind, especially during our lifetime.
Days after that, Kira and Vivian volunteered to maintain a history of the people and events that were responsible for and had shaped Deliverance.
On a Sunday after lunch, I heard screaming, shouting, and shrill cursing. Upon entering the dining room, I saw Grace and Kelly Pitchford, one of Morgan's daughters, being held apart by Kira and Vivian Alverez. Half a dozen others stood looking on at what must have been a rough and tumble fight. I got in the middle of them and glared at Grace and Kelly questioningly. They both spoke at once, and I waved them to be quiet. They both looked too prejudiced to tell me the unvarnished truth of what had led to their fight.
Looking at the restrained ladies, I said, "I can guess the two of you were in a tussle. Kira, Vivian, were you two here when it started?"
They relaxed their grips on the two lightweight contenders who each wore scratched faces and arms and mussed up hair. Vivian said, "Kelly's kids were cutting up and singing loudly. It was hilarious. Grace told them to shut up, and we ignored her. She walked over and slapped Merriam, and Kelly punched her. They went at it, and we let them tangle until it got too serious. I would have done the same thing." Kira and Kelly nodded their agreement.
I focused on our problem child. "Why, Grace?"
"She needs to control her damn kids. I was trying to relax and they were screaming and carrying on like a bunch of retards."
A chair scraped the floor as I pulled it out and sat with my forearms on the back. "You're about to wear out your welcome here. Do you really want to go back to living on the streets with
