First off, I apologize to you unknown reader. I must have gotten too drunk. Scratch that, I know I got too drunk. I was calling Charli Shannon. When I first met Charli I used to call her Shannon all the time. She used to frown and say "That's not my name."
The good old days.
That night we all scrambled out of our apartments at the same time, right after the crash. I have a feeling a lot of people had decided to drink because many looked bleary eyed and 3 people wobbled so badly I had to tell them to go home. We ran off in the direction of where we thought we heard the crash come from, close to the intersection where the school had been. The entire area back in this section was very close quarters with only a single path leading into and out of this area. There was a fence around it as well, separating it from the rest of the complex. I've been told it was a small expansion after the rest of the complex had been built. Seems to fit, the buildings are closer together then the rest of the complex and they are all clustered around a pool, the only one in the complex. When we walked by it it was filled with water still and a very generous covering of leaves.
I remember I wanted to get it cleaned up so we could have a big summer time bbq by the pool Las Vegas style. I miss that, the old parties that had so many people you could not even move. Don't get me wrong, I hated them when they were going on, but now that I know there won't be anymore I miss them.
"Sometime later this needs to be cleaned out, if someone wants to help me later," I said. Martin said "Right here" and Auker said, "Tomorrow, me too." I liked Auker. He was from Germany and talked with a thick German accent. He was also very blunt.
We rounded the corner and saw a van sticking through the wall. Lot's of bricks were in front of where the van came out of the wall. There was someone strapped into the driver seat of the van. It's face looked torn off and it started reaching for us through the window. Auker yelled "firing" and put a single bullet in it's fore head. I didn't know anyone in the camp knew about saying what they planned to do in a fire fight. I'd have to ask Auker where he learned that.
None of the other zombies outside the fence could get in, the van blocked them from entering, although that didn't stop a large crowd of zombies to form outside the wall, pushing absently and oblivious to fact that the act either happened or that the van hadn't moved out of the way. Just in case, we couldn't leave them here. Auker and I climbed a set of stars that when we reached the top overlooked the area right behind the wall at the van. We set our firing positions, aimed, and started dropping zombies. At this distance I rarely miss and managed to keep up a very nice one shot one kill stance, only missing 1 of the 20 or so shots I took. But if I thought I was good, Auker made me look like an amateur. He took several 1 hit 2 kill shots. Impressive. So I asked him after a few shots where he learned to shoot. He told me in the
Kommando Spezialkräfte and left it at that. German special forces. Tough. Their school has a 4% pass rate. We finished off the last few and went back to our places. We just left the van. Nothing looked like it could get in so we'd take care of it when the sun was up.
The meeting was the next day, but before I talk about the meeting, I have to talk about that mornings cup of coffee. Coffee. I'm a coffee addict. These days we have almost no coffee and we're gong on a coffee run early tomorrow. Back then a month ago before the meeting my mind wandered to diplomacy. In most post apocalyptic movies I've seen the only people who don't get killed are the people who are in heavy commerce with everyone. Plus having a strong military presence is always good. Lead with a gift with an army looking on. And, I know how to grow coffee. You need a green unroasted seed and you germinate it in a damp but a little wet paper tower in an empty aquarium at 70ish to 80ish temperatures for 2 to 6 months. The older the bean the less likely it is to grow. After it germinates put it in a light sandy mulchy soil, give it water daily, and feed it with orchid fertilizer. Simple yet complicated. And this got me thinking about how many different coffee's there are at the grocery store. It's a little selfish, but I know my pet project. I have about 10 different green seeds that were just in the bag when I bought them, all from different types of coffee. Hopefully all 10 seeds grow. I can clone those ten plants to twenty and then I can make clones of my twenty and offer those clones to other survivor groups as a token of friendship. With any luck within 5 years I should create a "coffee belt" across the survivor groups as far as we stretch. All the different types of coffee. And hopefully the trade of coffee and other things will keep everyone peaceful. Potatoes too.
The meeting. The whole reason it took me so long to write this up. The meeting was needlessly long. It must have lasted 8 hours at least. The only thing we didn't discuss was when we'd be rescued. All the remaining tv stations were displaying the messages "There will be no rescue" "no help coming" "we are on our own". The us government, from a private concrete bunker, had released a brief statement for the few news stations still broadcasting. Basically, due to the already overwhelming government debt as well as a severe shortage of manpower, no attempts will be made at backing up local law enforcement nor will there be any plan put in place to clear the zombie menace. We have been given the freedom to "do what we must" to survive. We spent hours after that trying to decide how we would govern ourselves. Naturally, everyone at first wanted to stay with a democracy or a republic type government. And while I really like democracy, it dosen't lend itself very well to our current situation. A king is what we needed. Someone who could make the decisions solely by him or her self. Most people agreed with the idea, the power to decide quickly, but no one liked the idea of all the power solely on one person. We eventually decided upon something similer to the old roman government. There were three people who became "Leader". Every day decisions, obvious choices, and immediate danger would be decided by the three or as many of them as were around. Other things would be brought before a "senate" consisting of the rest of the people or who they choose to represent them, or a mixture of both. Basically, if you wanna go to the meeting and sit in the senate, then go do it. If not, get someone else to speak for you, although they gain no extra votes. The first person they decided would lead them was.... me. Surprised me. The Second was Rachael, which didn't surprise me at all. I thought Nolan would be the third, but Auker ended up being the third. After that, we finalized clearing the rest of the complex; expanding north to the other side of the street, east along the northern street to the stoplight, and include the old school wreckage, the large mostly empty lot just south of us, and the school and the complex to the west of us to the highway. After we cleared the condo's in here, we'd go out in sorties and attempt to make contact with everyone still alive in the area so we could let them know what's happening and what we were doing, both to make sure they know and also so we get no bullets in the back. Then we'd make a dash for the main county construction equipment storage facility and pick up a few heavier vehicles. Specifically, we want a cement mixer, a well digger (I think I heard we had one there), a crane (Thank you martin for having a crane license), a backender and a front ender, maybe a dirt and rock grinder, a Heavy Rescue Vehicle if they have one, and I would give my left thumb for a snow plow but clark county keeps those out by the mountains where it snows. I read about someone in a zombie apocalypse using a modified snow plow to kill zombies and push them out of the way to avoid flat tires from bones. Personally, I don't know if bones will puncture tires, but I'd rather not find out. If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. Worst time possible I'll get a damn flat on a zombie bone. No thank you. Give me the snow plow.
Ok, flat tire rant aside, we also decided asap after we cleared the complex that we'd turn Rachaels old condo to a look out post, with communications and surveillance equipment and a 3 or 4 story look out tower secured to the top of the building.
The entire area I wanted (the parking lot) would be ripped up with the road to the north being extra protected on the sides and turned into more garden land. The empty plot to the south would also become garden land.
And we yelled. A lot.
Denika and Rachael started talking after the meeting. Denika moved into our place later that night actually, though I didn't realize for a week. Auker, Martin, and Me started clearing houses after that as well. We actually finished the last building yesterday, the 24th building. I've been switching people in with the house clearing to see who was any good at using a weapon and how much practice they would need. Maybe the situation has sobered some of the dumb mistakes out of people. No one stands out in my memory in either direction so we'll just take people out and see how they are in the urban zombie sprawl.
Ya, Clearing houses. I guess we were lucky with that. There were no more then 50 zombies in the various condos, mostly in just a few of them. The majority of the complex was empty of living and undead. Generally each house had enough food to feed a family of 4 for about a week. Our group was about 4 families of 4. 22 buildings with 8 condos and 2 with 4 condos is 46 months of food. Wow. Except 3/4 of it will go bad within 3 weeks. so that's 11 months worth of food we've added. And almost none of them had any coffee. I mean what are the odds? Did they all take the coffee with them? Tomorrow is our last day with coffee. So a little after we have that last cup we're going to the star bucks across the highway to go coffee shopping. From my limited outlook at my balcony it looks like there's no zombies over there. Hopefully. Though I'm most likely jinx'ing myself.
And I can't let that build up anymore. I'll have to start writing all this down every day for a while, catch up on the other parts hopefully.
Later
David
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