The Last Tribe (54 page)

“We’ll run out of chlorine at some
point too.”  Rebecca noted.  They used chlorine to purify the rain barrel water
for drinking and washing dishes.

“We’ll figure it out.”  They
strolled at a leisurely pace.  “You know, Avery, I spent two months here before
you came, and I never stepped foot in the bookstore.  We always went to the
library, the college library.  I guess I didn’t do enough recreational
reading.  We’ve been busy reading statistics and things like that.  My brain
could use a break.”

“Your brother talked about starting
school for the kids down at the town’s library.  He said there is a
fireplace.”  Avery liked Hank.  He was a big, kindhearted man. 

“It’s a walk, but that’s probably a
good thing too, keep the muscles and the mind fit.  Yeah, that will work well
for the time we need it.”  He turned and looked at the young woman.  “How old
are you, Avery?  Seventeen?”

“About to turn eighteen.  Good
guess.”

“I had four daughters.  One was
your age.”  Hank looked at Rebecca.  “You can go a little easier on the new
guy.  He doesn’t understand what he’s up against.  I think he still believes
he’s a managing director.”

“I don’t know what that means.” 
Rebecca replied defensively.

Avery laughed.  “He means Ahmed
still believes he’s a big shot.  That somehow his former life is going to come
back into play.”  She looked at Hank.  “Has Rebecca been mean to him?”

“He pressed me for details on my
analysis.  I gave them to him.  He keeps saying things that are wrong, and I correct
him.”  Rebecca answered flatly.  “I am not being mean.  He’s being mean,
talking to me like I’m in fifth grade.”

“I know.  I was just kidding.  It’s
been interesting to watch.  Ahmed is it?”  Hank asked Avery.  “He was probably
a big shot analyst, or managed analysts, and he is used to beating people up
with his intelligence.  He’s taking it well.  I can tell he’s a good person. 
He opened up when we were fishing.  Yeah, he still thinks he’s in charge of
something.”

“Well, I haven’t been mean.”  Rebecca
repeated.

“I know, I was just giving you some
grief.  Geesh.”  Hank put his arm around the girl and gave her a half hug as
they walked down the road. 

“Ahmed’s a good person.  He always
ate last, always helped Bernie with the kids.  It took a while for him to
realize no one was coming to help us, that there was no one to ‘call,’ but
after that, he settled down and worked really hard to keep us alive.” 

“He’s out of his league with our
champ here.”  Hank beamed about Rebecca.  “Granite State represents.”

“Oh my god, you’re such a dork.” 
Rebecca told him.  “Represents?  What are you talking about?”

They pulled up to a gathering of
people near the RV and large grill.  The adults stood around the burning
charcoal and wood.  The RV generator was running.  Hank assumed the kids were
watching a movie or playing video games.  Greg and Matt tossed a baseball in
the yard. 

“What’s the word?”  Hank asked as
he approached the grill.  “Burgers coming up soon?”

Kelly offered her assessment.  “We
moved the moose into the wood room and shoveled ice and snow onto the ground in
there.  It will keep the meat the right temperature for a long time.”  She had
blood on her clothes, signs that she helped move the large slabs of meat.  “It
was like an episode of the Flintstones, moving those giant moose legs, but we
got them moved, hacked off some meat, and Peter is cranking the grinder while
Jamie forms patties.  I bet they come up with some meat in a few minutes.”

Hank nodded, “okay then.  What’s
the talk at the grill?”

“I want to have a meeting after
lunch.”  Todd told him.  “We should get together to discuss needs and chores. 
Maybe set up a schedule or chart.  There are animals to feed, traps to tend,
fishing to be done.  We need to figure out a water solution, set up a school
for the kids, find more supplies, stock the firewood bins.  Let’s spend a few
minutes, or even hours, coordinating.  We have a lot of people and a lot of
moving parts.’

“Everyone okay with that?”  Hank
asked around the grill.

“It’s the smart thing to do.” 
Ahmed replied.  “I totally agree.”

Bernie nodded, “we need to get the
kids back to school, but we also need to make sure someone is finding food and
cooking for us.”  She took the conversation further.  “We need to make bread
every day, bread or rolls or some kind of food that can be used for lunches. 
We can’t expect to have a big cookout every lunch.  We have water to find and
boil or purify.  At some point we will have to tend gardens, can fruits and
vegetables, the list isn’t endless, but if we don’t get on top of it, well, we
might end up like we did in New York, lost and very hungry.”

Hank was surprised.  He expected
tension from the new group, but they yearned for order and direction.  He was
all for setting up daily chores, not assignments, but a list of ‘must get done’
for each day.  It was their initial roadmap towards a society.

“Okay then, sounds like a plan. 
Lunch and a meeting.  Do we have a side dish?”  Hank looked around.

“Solange is making pasta salad in
the RV.  Orzo mixed with veggies and lemon dressing.”  Melanie told him. 
“She’s watching the kids too.”

“Is there anything for me to do
other than stand here?”  Hank, in constant motion for months, was uncomfortable
‘just standing around.’

“Relax, it’s your turn to stand at
the grill, make some conversation.  Meet everyone.  I’m Melanie.”  The doctor
stuck out her hand.  “I don’t think we’ve spoken more than a few words.”

“Are you a New Yorker?”  Hank
asked.  He remembered her name was Melanie, and she looked after three of the
kids.

“No, I met up with the group in
D.C., just outside the White House.”

“Melanie, I’m Hank, I am John and
Todd’s oldest brother.  I rode over from Dayton, OH on a motorcycle last
December, spent two months at a bed and breakfast in Vermont, true story, then
arrived here on the snowmobiles parked by the cottage.”

“You were in a bed and breakfast?” 
Melanie asked, shaking his hand.  “It kind of makes your story seem less
tough.  If you say you road motorcycles, then snowmobiles, and leave out the
B&B part, you will be cooler.”

Rebecca snickered.

“Well, I wasn’t trying to sound too
tough, you just met me.”  Hank admitted.  “I could tell you about how I lived
in a burned out house for a few months, avoiding government capture.  That is
pretty cool.”

“Why would you do that?”  Avery
asked him.

“Wait a second, I feel ganged up
on.”  Hank put up his hands to signal ‘enough.’

“Really, why were you in a burned
out house?  Was that in Vermont?”  Avery asked again.

“Well, it seems kind of foolish
now, since you all survived without moving into a hole, but, well I was worried
about the government grabbing me for experiments or something nefarious.  I had
a friend that was snatched.  I didn’t want it to happen to me.  I hid in the
ground for a few months.  I waited for everyone to die.”

Ahmed jumped into the
conversation.  “I had a coworker get nabbed.  He went to the food handouts at
the Metropolitan Museum.  He got snatched for not being sick.  A bunch of us
were supposed to go on a raid and get him, but I was too scared.  Everyone else
had fevers, weren’t eating, they were dead people walking.  I had my wife at
home to care for, and I wasn’t sick.  I believe you.  Roundups were happening
everywhere.”

“Don’t encourage him.”  Todd said. 
“Please just roll your eyes.”

Bernie shook her head.  “They came
to the seminary after the blog post about me and how I wasn’t getting sick. 
They told me they needed people to derive a cure, maybe a vaccine.  They asked
me to turn people over to them.”

“Oh my god, you didn’t do it, did
you?”  Kelly covered her mouth.

“Does it look like I helped them?” 
Bernie responded.   “I’d always shake my head when new people came into the
seminary, lower my eyes to say ‘fever’ or ‘no appetite.’  They helped with
supplies as long as I agreed to point them towards healthy people.  The
interesting thing?  I was worried the officials would notice Ahmed and the
children, you know, staying healthy, like me, day after day, but the clipboard
holders died so rapidly I would get a new official every visit.  They never had
a memory of who was already at the seminary.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”  Ahmed
was stunned by her admission.  He was with Bernie before the blog post.  He had
a reporter friend write the article. 

“Because you would have called
someone, Ahmed, you know you would have.  You were driven by a need to
accomplish, a need to speak to someone in power.  If I told you they were
rounding up people, you would have called and probably gotten yourself taken. 
I accepted the risk alone.”

Ahmed lowered his face.  “You’re
right, that’s exactly what I would have done.  I can be a bit of a dumbass. 
Ask Rebecca.”  Ahmed was aware of his reputation.  Like all of the survivors,
he worked on fixing his faults.

“I didn’t say anything.”  Rebecca
replied.

“I know.” Ahmed smiled at the
girl.  “I’m just saying you can back up my claim of being a dumbass,
particularly when I question you about analytics.”

Todd spoke.  “Solange and I went to
the Metropolitan.  We took some of the art, but had to walk through hell to get
it.  It was a battle or a massacre or something in between.  Horrible.  Be
thankful you made the right decision.”

The door to the house opened and
Jamie walked out with a platter of raw mooseburgers.  “We ran the meat through
the grinder three times.  It’s tough stuff, but we should have eatable
burgers.  Is the grill ready?”

“Yes!” was cheered in response.

Jamie placed twenty burgers on the
grill.  Peter was grinding another ten.

 “We have to try and make cheese.” 
Matt noted, coming over from his game of catch. 

“I’ve made ricotta and mozzarella. 
It takes a lot of milk.”  Todd told him.  “I’m not sure it’s worth it.  I mean,
it’s worth it, but I’m not sure it’s worth the amount of milk we’d have to
use.  The kids need that milk.”

“I need it for my coffee.”  Ahmed
added.

“Amen.”  Bernie agreed.

There were no buns.  Todd added the
absence of buns to his list of comments for the meeting.  If the group had a
schedule, a plan each day, he would have made hamburger buns that morning.

Solange emerged with her orzo salad
and several cans of fruit cocktail.  Plastic plates were distributed.  There
was silence as most of the people enjoyed their first fresh meat in over six
months.

“I forgot how great burgers are.” 
Avery broke the silence.  “I was a vegan before the rapture.  It’s been like
four years since I’ve had a real burger from the grill.  Oh my god is this
delicious.”

Hank suggested they make another
round.  “Did we even put a dent in that meat?”  He asked Peter.

“No sir.  This is five pounds off a
hundred pound leg.  There’s a bone, but we used a tenth of the meat from just
one of our four legs.”

“Let’s cook more.  I’ll work the
grinder.”  Hank followed Peter into the house and down to the basement. 

Jamie put the ten uncooked burgers
on the grill. 

The children were done eating, but
the adults were not.  As Peter and Hank returned from the house with another 20
burger patties, Paul, John, and Emily pulled down the road in a lime green
Hummer.

The enormous SUV stopped behind the
RV.  “Are you kidding me?”  John jumped out.  “You had a cookout without us?” 
He watched Hank slap 20 burgers on the grill.  “We went to a store to try and
find supplies, and you party while we’re gone?”

“Relax, these are for you, we’ve
eaten.  There is pasta salad and fruit salad right over there.  The burgers
should be done in a few minutes.”  Hank waved off his brother.

“How’d we do?”  Todd asked his wife
as she gave him a quick hug and kiss.

“Big score.  Bags upon bags of
flour sealed in a storage vault free of rodents.  Boxes of cake, cookie, and
bread mixes too.  We are set for a year.”  She quickly pushed passed him and
grabbed a plate.  Emily piled the pasta salad into one of the plastic
compartments.  “I miss fresh fruit so much, but this will work.”  She spooned
some of the peaches and pears into a second compartment.

“Hungry?”  Todd asked her.

“We were surrounded by pictures of
bread, cakes, and cookies, but there was nothing to eat.  Yeah, I’m hungry. 
Hurry up with the burgers!”

Paul and John agreed with Emily,
and piled the remaining side items on their plates.  “You know.”  Paul said
through a mouth full of food.  “They had a huge commercial pizza oven.  I know
you have a home sized one, but seeing the larger oven got me thinking.  It
makes sense to tackle larger baking projects from the oven at that wood-fired
pizza restaurant downtown.  They have a commercial sized pizza oven.  It would
be a pain to walk down there all the time, but for big bakes, like a Monday
when we cook loaves for the week.  Or if we decide to do a group pizza night,
that oven is much larger.”

Todd pulled out his note pad from
his back pocket and scribbled what Paul said.

“What is that?  Are you a detective
or a waiter?”  Paul asked him through his mouth full of food.

“If you’re a waiter, put me down
for another burger.  These are fantastic.”  John told him.

“We’re having a meeting after
lunch.  I’m making notes.”

John tone changed.  “What kind of
meeting?”

“I suggested the meeting, but the
rest of the group agrees we need one.  We need to set chore schedules, plan
meals, assign larger and long term tasks.  We need to hash out possible
projects, discuss what Greg and Rebecca have already tried, what other people
have tried when solving issues.  We need to take stock of our supplies, food
and intelligence.”