“Oh, so you’re more important than us?” one of the women from the clinic shouted back. “You think that just because you have a child that my life is worthless?”
“No one is saying that,” Liz answered, and she felt her control over the situation slipping.
In total, there were twenty-nine people currently living at the facility. Over half of those people were from the women’s clinic.
Just when the shouting was growing out of hand, Liz saw Cole and Nancy return from their searches. But the look on each of their faces didn’t bode well for their situation.
“Everybody out here just needs to remain calm,” Liz shouted. “I’m going to speak with the rest of my team and figure out what’s going on. I just need all of you to be patient.”
Liz turned her back to the grumbling crowd and joined Cole, Nancy, and Sarah inside the front doors of the mess hall. Once she was inside with everybody, she locked the door. She hoped that it was simply a precautionary measure, but it was one less thing for her to worry about.
“Tell me you found something good,” Liz said.
Cole shook his head. “I couldn’t find anything at the Johnsons or the Kippers.”
“The tents the women from the clinic were using were all empty, too,” Nancy said.
All of them looked to Liz to determine what they should do next, and Liz began to feel the weight of what needed to be done. She had grown tired over the past few weeks. With Ben busy with the exterior threats, Liz had been dealing with ones on the inside. And now it seemed that all of those tiny little grievances people had held in were all about to come out at once.
“Mom?” Sarah asked.
Liz nodded and pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to concentrate. “If we don’t have the food here and whoever took it won’t come forth, then we need to figure out where they hid it. They probably buried it, and with that large amount of food they couldn’t have gotten very far, so I want all of you to look for any churned-up dirt around the exterior of the fence.”
“And if we don’t find anything on the outside of the fence?” Nancy asked.
“We cross that bridge when we come to it,” Liz answered. “All that matters is diffusing the situation. Is everyone here armed?”
Everyone nodded, and Liz saw that each of them had at least two firearms—a rifle and pistol. If push came to shove, then they could use intimidation to get their point across.
“Nancy, I want you up in the tower,” Liz said. “Is that something that you think you can handle?”
A shadow of a smile spread across Nancy’s face, and she nodded. “No one will do anything stupid while I’m up there. I promise you that.”
Liz had no doubt that Nancy could handle herself. She had come a long way from that first day of the EMP. She had become one of the best shots in the facility, almost as good as Ben.
“You don’t take a shot unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Liz said. “Understand?”
Nancy nodded and then headed for the door. Once it was just Liz, Sarah, and Cole, she saw the crowd grow even more rambunctious outside.
“When you leave here, don’t make any comments to anyone,” Liz said. “If somebody presses you, just tell them that you’re still looking for the food.”
“What are you going to do once we’re outside the fence?” Sarah asked.
Liz turned back toward the angry mob that was growing outside. “I’m going to try to make sure this doesn’t turn ugly.”
But before Liz could work her magic, somebody else had stepped up to the plate outside. And when Liz opened the door, she saw Jane Percy addressing the crowd.
“It seems to me that everybody here is innocent,” Jane said, much to the crowd’s delight. “And if no one here was responsible for the missing food, where’s the only place we haven’t checked?”
And as Jane turned around, Liz felt every eye the crowd bore into her soul. It was a silent penetrating gaze.
“I say we take a look inside the Rikers portable,” Jane said.
Even before Liz could raise her voice, the crowd echoed in agreement. And there was only one reason for that woman to make such a statement.
They were going to find stolen food in their portable.
“All right, all right,” Liz said, raising her arms high above her head, trying quite the swell of demands rising up from the crowd. “If that’s going to make everybody calm down, then, of course, we can check our portable.”
The crowd quieted down, and Liz turned her back to the crowd. She tried to rack her brain of how she would explain what they found in her portable. There would be an incredible amount of anger and betrayal, but Liz decided to get out in front of it before things became worse.
“I’m sorry,” Liz said again, holding up her hand and turning around to face the crowd. “I do have a confession to make.”
The crowd whispered amongst themselves, and out of the corner of her eye, Liz saw Jane begin to frown.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that the mood around the facility has been one of frustration lately,” Liz said. “And in an effort to combat that, I decided to run a drill.”
The whispers shifted to confusion.
“I thought I could bring us together by presenting a challenge to all of us,” Liz said. “But seeing as how much more frustration this has caused, I can see it was a bad idea.”
“What are you talking about?” Shelby asked.
“The food is perfectly safe,” Liz answered, and she watched as relief rippled through the crowd. “I stored it in our portable.”
“Why would you do that?” Susan asked.
Liz raised her voice, and the members quieted down. “There is going to be adversity for us in the future. And if we can’t rise to the challenge during a crisis, then we
