2nd Earth 2: Emplacement (5 page)

Our family has a very simple rule about doing our jobs or chores. Once someone has been asked to do something, or has volunteered to take on a project, the rest of us leave them alone as far as telling them how to do it, unless of course we are asked for our input. Sara, Ken, and Gary have volunteered to do this project, so the rest of us are letting them handle the technical aspects of this move. Naturally we are all supporting them in any way we can. We prepared the building that will house the mill, based on the prints that we found. Ken and Gary drew the plans for a paddle wheel to drive the grindstone and using the tools in the barns we have been able to build a pretty fair paddle wheel. The group that has been at home working on this end has done a remarkable job as far as I’m concerned. They set the wheel in place and it turns perfectly so far. Of course there are no grind stones in yet, but we are certain it will work fine. The big day is finally here to set the bottom stone and then install the grinding stone.

We use a big fork truck, that we brought from the city closer to us, to carry the big base stone into place. It slides in perfectly and looks just like it did in the mill where we found it. The top moving stone will not be quite as easy. Our team is more than up to the challenge though. They have every detail worked out, even though there are some minor surprises along the way. It takes them a couple of days to get everything hooked up and installed, but when we release the paddle wheel the stone turns perfectly to grind our wheat. The wheel is even adjustable so that they can vary the coarseness of the flour. When everything is in place, we finish off the end of the building that we left open to make moving the large items in easier. We put a two car garage door and a walk in door so that we still have access for large items and can open the door in the summer when it will probably get too hot in here.

Our new friends are proving to be more than willing to do their share of the work. It has been warm for this time of year. They have painted all six of the houses in their group. They have had some help from the other groups, but they are all hard workers. They all say that if someone would have told them even a month ago that they could live like this they would have thought they were crazy. Jessica, Jenny, Samantha, and several other teenage girls have been helping the other groups build their flocks of chickens. They show them how they were able to catch our chickens when we first came here, and so far it has worked well for them too. Don, Dan, and Andrew have more than enough willing students to teach how to hunt. Like we did with them, they always stress not hunting close to home so that we don’t frighten the game away. They have even started butchering most of our meat and have shown most of our friends how they do it.

Tim and I have been studying the layout of the groups and we are concerned that we are leaving ourselves open to attack. Dayna told her sister Charity about the dream and she told Tim. Tim told me that he had a very similar dream about building houses. The trouble with that is no one wants to leave the farms that they have worked so hard to get to where they now are. We were thinking more of building the houses between the groups, to eventually combine the groups into a community. We are planning to start building a road across the fields and through the woods. There is already a rough road which is actually more of a trail, but we want to grade it and perhaps even put gravel down to smooth it out. The last time Billy and Tom went into town to get more building supplies they decided to check out an area that said it was the Department of Transportation. From the front it looked just like any other building, but when they drove behind it they found huge piles of gravel and more building supplies than we did at the lumber yard. They also found some dump trucks that we are going to see if we can get them running soon now.

5

The women love the new wheat grinder. They can do several bushels in the time it used to take to do enough for a few loaves of bread. They do have to go farther to get it, but there is no shortage of helpers at least for now. The children love to watch the big stone go around while it is grinding the wheat. Some of the older boys were swimming in the river and decided to take a ride on the paddle wheel. They would hold on as it comes out of the water on the one side and ride it as far as they could before falling off into the water of course. We know it’s a lot of fun, but repairing or replacing that wheel won’t be, so we asked them to refrain from that practice. Besides the younger children wanted to try it and it is just too dangerous for them. We are into November now and the weather is starting to turn colder, but is still not what I would call cold. We are continuing our trips to see if we can find anyone else before winter gets here.

Tim went out with Billy and some of the others while I stayed home this time. They have been gone for two days, but we expect them to be gone for most of a week, unless they find something early. They are traveling east toward the coast, but they don’t expect to get that far at least on this trip. Yesterday we received a call from our new neighbors. They were concerned because they heard a very large something out in their yard during the night and had no idea what it could be. Andrew, Don, and I went over, accompanied by Dons new bride Olivia, to see if we could figure out what was running around their yards at night. Don is anxious to impress Olivia, he really doesn’t have to, she thinks he’s the greatest husband ever. Anyway when we got there we started looking for prints in the dirt and sure enough we found out what it was.

Actually we didn’t need the tracks, because while we were looking we heard one of the young ladies, who was sprinkling chicken feed out towards the woods to draw in more chickens, screaming that she is being chased by a wild animal. It wasn’t really chasing her but she was being watched by a hog about the same size as the ones we have been finding for meat. This one is big enough that if he had openings on his sides we would think he is a compact car. I ask Ray, who is one of the leaders of this group, if he is ready to learn how to smoke meat and make lots of sausage. Before he can answer, the pig decides he has seen enough and charges toward us. Don has a .307 that he found in one of the gun shops. He takes a step toward the charging pig and fires as coolly as anyone I have ever seen. It took three shots into that huge head to stop it cold about thirty feet away from us.

Several of the young men in this group who idolize Don, Dan, and Andrew were more than ready to help dress and butcher the hog. Tom and Frank have already fixed the freezer in the barn on this farm, so they have a place to keep the meat fresh. They also have a smoke house, which we get ready while the young men are manhandling that huge beast into the barn. They are loading the sections of the pig, as they quarter it, onto the plastic tarp in the back of the pickup, then take it into the barn and unload it. Even quartered, it takes a couple strong men to get it onto the table. Don and Olivia spent most of the day helping them with that hog. On the way home I got a call from Robin wanting to know if we would like fresh fish for dinner. The girls went to the mill shortly after we left and the children decided to take their fishing gear to have something to do while they wait.

The short version, which I did not get by the way, is that the children caught enough fish for the entire group. Some of the older young people decided to try their luck and caught enough to share with our friends. Since most of the people in the new group have never had fish, they are happy to have some. The deep fried fish and the deep fried corn meal balls were a big hit for supper last night. Today I am thinking about starting on the road between the groups. We have a backhoe with a bucket on the front to level the ground with. I am getting the backhoe when Dayna comes running and says that she just got a call on the CB that Barbs group has some guys on motorcycles riding around their houses, trying to get them to come out. Around here you can’t have a conversation outside without having several people hear it. Don, Andrew, Dan, Rod, and I grab our motorcycles and guns and head cross country to get to that group.

We get there just in time to see the bikers speeding off. Barb comes out of her house and tells us they heard us coming and took off. Luckily they were not able to get to any of the women or young girls in this group. This is the one I fear the most for, because it is the smallest. The men in the group have guns, but they say they didn’t want to shoot anyone unless they tried to get into the houses. As long as they just drove around the yard they didn’t want to shoot. Andrew and Dan decide to stay here for a couple of days, to make sure they have help, in case those guys come back. What scares me is what brought them to our area in the first place, and will they leave now knowing that there are women here, plus food and other comforts. Rod and I decide we better get going on that road to make the time getting to each other as short as possible.

The next three days go by very quickly. Rod and I have finished the road to the newest neighbors and to Barbs group. We put gravel down so that in the rainy times the road doesn’t turn into mud. It is just a rough road, but we can make much better time than we could before. Ryan’s and Doc McEvoys are only a couple miles away and we have paved road to get to those. On the fourth day we get a call on the CB from Ken. He, Tim, and Billy along with their wives are only a few miles away headed toward home. They say they have seven more new friends to join our groups. It must make the new people happy to hear all the groups answer him saying that we all have room for them.

The new people are two couples, and three children, who are just about the same ages as Teddy, Kathy, and Karen. They are all very shy and nervous. We understand fully and just try to make them feel welcome. I take Tim, Ken, and Billy aside and tell them about the attack the other day. They say they thought they heard motorcycles in the distance about four nights ago, but couldn’t be sure. I show them the roads that we built while they were gone and we all feel better that those are in. Ryan’s group takes the new people, a few of the single men from his group are going to join Barbs group for a while, just in case. When that is all settled, the guys tell me they have a surprise for me. I was so preoccupied with those motorcycles that I never even noticed the tarp covering something quite large in the back of the truck.

While they are uncovering the surprise Billy says he has been dreaming about finding one of these since he saw one in a book. Ramona smacks him lightly and tells him she thought that he only dreamed about her. He smiles and tells her that now she will be the only thing, because now we have this one. He climbs up onto the back of the truck to be the one to actually take the tarp off this treasure. When he pulls the tarp free it really is a treasure. They found a very large saw for cutting rough cut lumber into finished boards. The blade must be five feet in diameter. They were only able to get about half the table, but are sure we can build one. The part they weren’t able to get is the table up to the saw and the table going away from it. We can always go back if we have trouble duplicating the ones that were with it, but they don’t have to be exact. The saw has a power feed that drags the wood into the blade as it is being cut.

We start to look for a likely place to set this great find up. We all agree that it should be close to the woods, or at least where we can take logs off the truck and set them on the bed of the saw. We decide to build a three sided addition to the barn that is closest to the woods and has a driveway that runs right up behind it. Most of the wood we found in town and in the city is still good and solid. We don’t waste any time getting started. We all enjoy building and this is a project that will be worth its weight in gold very soon. All we get done today though is marking off the ground in the dimensions we feel we will need. The barn is sixty-five feet long, but there is a large door at the one end that gives us a straight wall of fifty feet. We are intending to use all that space to allow us room to bring large logs into the saw area and set them on the table with a fork truck. We have to have an equal distance on the other end to give the logs room to cut completely off.

After we knock off for the evening, Tim and Ken come over to talk about our next trip. They want to go to the coast where there is a Marine base. At least there was one in the world we all come from. They are in a hurry to get the next trip started, they have no idea why, but they feel strongly that we should go there soon. I assumed that they wanted to go, but before they leave they ask me when Sara, Gary, and I can leave. Dayna says she wants to go along this time, Robin and Melissa say that they can watch little Timmy for us. We have no idea what we will run into so we have no idea how long we will be gone. We don’t anticipate it taking more than a week, but we can’t be sure of that. Dan asks if he can go on the trip as well, in case we need to fight. We are always happy to have the younger men along. They are becoming very confident and always helpful.

Dayna and I both have a dream that something very important to us is going to happen at that Marine base. Neither of us ever saw what, but we both felt strongly that we need to get there as soon as possible. We decide to prepare today and leave in the morning. We have everything prepared by midday so we decide to get started. We have only been east about thirty miles, so what lies beyond that we can’t be sure. The road is fairly clear so we can make pretty good time. By the time the sun is going down we are sixty miles from home. We are in a city that looks like it has been deserted since the war. The stores here are full of canned goods, clothing, and canning supplies, and pretty much anything people need to survive. We watch for smoke before sunset and there is not a sign of life anywhere.

We decide to push on and stop on the way back to load up the trucks with supplies, if we have any room. We get to the base around midday and the city outside the base is as deserted as the one we were at last night. The buildings here seem to be in rougher shape than where we are, but that could easily be because of the storms that come in off the ocean that don’t get inland as far as we are. It feels strange to drive onto a military base without having to stop at the guard on duty. We are not sure what we are supposed to be looking for so we decide to drive around the base and see if anything catches our eye. I see a sign that catches my eye and apparently Gary and Sara see the same building, because they call us on the radio and tell me to turn in at the armory.

We go up to the door and it is still locked. We carry tools for situations such as this. A pry bar works nicely to break the lock although it doesn’t really feel like it has deteriorated any. There are rooms in the building so we start checking them to see what we can find. There are plenty of great military weapons and ammunition. We find rocket launchers, cases of grenades, pretty much any kind of weapon we could ever want. Well almost, I am looking for one of the fifty caliber rifles like I used to use in the SEALs. Dayna finds a door marked experimental weapons so we head that way. This is where the guns like the ones we were using are located. That makes sense because this time is way before we were in the military. I find a whole case of the fifty caliber rifles with infrared scopes on them and several dozen cases of ammunition for them. These are going out to the truck right now.

As much as we would like to we can’t take everything that we want, at least on this trip. We discuss it and load one of the trucks with guns and ammunition to take back. We also take several cases of plastic explosives as well as hand grenades and grenade launchers. We lock back up as best we can and head for a warehouse that looks promising. We find cases of camouflage clothing, military blankets, and enough supplies to outfit several thousand soldiers. We could really use some of this stuff, but we only have so much room, so what do we take first? We are contemplating that when Dayna, who is checking out the offices, comes running back to us and says she saw a couple coming our way.

We run for the door to see who she is talking about. When we get to the doorway, we see a very nice looking young couple, looking very confused staring at us. The young man asks us if we are supposed to be in that warehouse without permission. Sara tells them she got permission from the C.O., but he died in 1969, so there is no way she can prove it. The couple looks even more surprised and asks what we are talking about, it’s 2010. I am staring at the uniforms they are wearing. Dayna smacks me and tells me to stop staring at the young lady, even if she does look very good in that uniform. I explain that I notice that they are in the Air Force and ask them what they are doing on a Marine base. The young man has been doing all the talking up to this point, but the young lady says they are stationed here on a joint venture with the Marine Corp and the Navy. She introduces them to all of us. Their names are Jenna and James. They are married and have just returned from a camping trip.

Sara asks them if they were flying when they came back. She answers that they were, but how does she know. Sara goes on to tell them that she bets she can tell them exactly what happened. She doesn’t wait for an answer, but continues.

“You were on your way back to the base when you ran into fog thicker than you have ever seen before. You managed to land using instruments, when you couldn’t raise anyone in the tower. The fog was so thick you decided to sleep in the plane because you had no idea where to go to get to the buildings. When you woke up the fog was lifted, but nothing looked familiar anymore. You decided to look around to see if you are indeed where you think you are. My guess is, that happened last night.”