“Despite our late president’s lack of tact, our input would be invaluable to them,” one of the senators said. This set off a chorus of agreements. Zach stared a moment before answering.
“They do indeed need valuable input, but in the form of manual labor. Are you interested in volunteering?”
This started several people arguing at the same time, which served nothing more than to drown each other out. It continued for a full minute before Zach rapped the table with his knuckles several times. He waited until everyone had stopped talking.
“Let me clarify the situation for you, ladies and gentlemen. You people need Marcus Hook more than they need you.”
“They seem to forget they need food,” one of them said.
“Not anymore,” Zach replied. He received a few puzzled stares. “It’s taken them a lot of hard work, but they are now self-sustaining. Their farming operation is going strong. In fact, they now have four fishing boats up and running. Let me ask you people, when is the last time any of you had lobster for dinner?”
There were a few murmurs, but the complaining had stopped.
“Exactly,” Zach said. He did not tell them about the one and only time he had lobster. He was thirteen and the church his grandmother attended had a seafood feast one Wednesday night. It was wonderful. The thought of fresh steamed lobster made his mouth water.
“If you guys work it right, they’ll supply you guys with diesel and seafood. You guys either agree to their terms or they’ll go back home and that’s the end of it.”
“What about the roadblocks?” Bob Duckworth asked.
“They have agreed to dismantle all the roadblocks and restore the telephone system. They have also agreed to assist in refurbishing the roads between here and Hook when the weather warms and after the spring crops are planted.”
Zach paused and looked around before settling on William Rhinehart. “Mister President, you haven’t had much to say.”
William looked up and a glimmer of a smile passed across his lips. “I’m not officially the president yet, but I’ll go ahead and propose we take an informal vote. All in favor of accepting the terms presented by the representatives of Marcus Hook signify by a show of hands.”
Zach watched as almost all raised their hands. The two holdouts looked around and slowly raised theirs. It was unanimous. William nodded in satisfaction.
“The proposal passes. Mister Gunderson, since you have acted as the mediator in this matter, would you please do the honors of passing along our decision to them? Oh, and tell them I am extending an invitation for them to stay for the inauguration tomorrow after the funeral services. It’s my understanding a rather festive celebration is planned.”
He started to say more, but suddenly grabbed a napkin and coughed hard into it. When he was better, he clenched the napkin in his fist and looked around apologetically.
“I believe I’m coming down with a cold. If you all will excuse me, I’m going to get a refill of tea and head back to my room.” He then smiled slightly. “I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow and need my rest.”
His quip got him some ingratiating chuckles. Everyone stood when William stood. Although Mount Weather was far less formal these days, it seemed as though they wanted things to go back to where they once were and were depending on William Rhinehart to make that happen. Once he left, Zach addressed the table.
“It’s up to you guys, you know,” he said.
Bob Duckworth held up a finger. “Zach, we all know how to get things done, but we can certainly use your expertise.”
Zach did not respond, instead he motioned toward the door.
“Johnny G and Riley are waiting outside. Let me go give them the good news and invite them to join us. You guys need to make them feel welcome. Resuming relations with Marcus Hook is a win-win for everyone.”
Chapter 59 - Funerals & Inaugurations
At zero-eight hundred, there were only a few people in the conference room. They were cleaning and getting it ready for the funeral services that were going to occur later. The rest of the Mount Weather population was actively working on disposing of the rest of the zed corpses, but when the whistle blew, most of them stopped what they were doing and headed inside. When the clock clicked to zero-nine-hundred hours, First Sergeant Crumby stood and began the debriefing.
“It isn’t going to be easy to explain the last seventy-two hours, but I will give it my best. Three nights ago, a couple of things happened simultaneously. First, there was this man by the name of Gilbert VanAllen, who became president after his wife was murdered. His craziness manifested itself and thanks to Senator Duckworth, he was ousted from office.
“He then really went crazy. He sabotaged the blast door to the bunker trapping almost all of you inside. He then compromised the guard detail, killing Trucker Troy in the process.”
The first sergeant paused as there was some angry commentary in the audience. When it was over, he continued.
“During this, we were invaded by a horde of zeds. From the looks of it, it was a planned, coordinated attack involving several hundred of the no-good bastards. I don’t know how and why they chose that moment to attack, we’ve had random attacks the entire time we’ve been here, but like I said, it had the appearances of preplanning and coordination between them. For example, there were several zeds who appeared to be the Chinese soldiers Clay Fleming had originally reported.
“Intermixed with these zeds were several hundred other zeds who appeared to be average infected American humans. During Mister McCoy’s recon mission, he stated he observed several hundred zeds massing together and heading west. So, we had a horde from the west and a horde from the east who converged on Mount Weather. I have no explanation for this behavior.”
The First Sergeant paused and waited
