Class of 2013 - 13

Chapter Thirteen

The horde outside Sweet’s house was thick, but James knew that to test this effectively he’d have to make his way through the crowd of flesh eating creatures. Torch held above his head and forward, he walked toward the horde carefully, moving as quietly as he could. He soon neared the first one and held the torch before it. A grin spread across his lips as it leaned back and turned from the flame; heading away from the source of heat. Just as he’d thought, its instincts told it that fire was dangerous. He soon did it to another couple of zombies, much to the same effect. Without the ability to see, they couldn’t tell the difference between a torch and a blazing inferno. With a grin, he looked back to the door and pointed to Lea before motioning for her to come out.

Lighting her torch, she soon stepped outside and, quickly but quietly, made her way over to James – the keys to her car in her hand. Together they held up their torches and walked to her car, parting the horde as they moved. Once they got to the front of the car they split up – James heading to the passenger’s side, and Lea heading for the driver’s side. As quietly as possible they opened the doors, having to both move slowly and keep their torches held out to ward off any zombies that began to get close to the car. When finally their doors were open enough to slip into the car, they did so and dropped the torches just outside the doors as they slammed them closed. With quick reaction the key was stuck in the ignition and turned, and the car fired up. The attention of the zombies was immediately grabbed, but the old GTO shot out of the driveway in reverse before the horde could try and grab hold of the car.

Backing the car up, Lea span the wheel to the right – and as the car turned she slammed on the brake to make it face abruptly down the street. Shifting into first, she revved the engine a bit and then… simply took her foot off the brake and let the car idle down the street. The horde of zombies turned away from the house and followed after the puttering GTO as it ambled on down the street. As the car slowly moved away, Sweet cracked the door open and watched as the horde shamblingly pursued the nearly five decade old muscle car. Once the last of the horde was off the front lawn, Sweet opened the door and headed outside; looking this way and that to ensure the area was cleared of zombies. Satisfied, he returned to the door and had the rest of the group begin grabbing things to stuff into his Oldsmobile. As they hurriedly did this, Lea sped up just a bit, just enough to get a little distance from the horde, and James hopped out of the passenger’s side to sit on the trunk of the GTO. Once the horde was close enough, Lea allowed the car to resume its movement at a crawling speed of below five miles per hour – just fast enough to stay ahead of the horde.

As the car moved slowly, being chased by the shambling meat sacks, James brought up the shotgun and took aim; blasting zombies until he needed to reload. Five shells and then a reload, over and over, again and again, taking out one or two zombies each time he fired. Once or twice he even got lucky and scored a triple kill with a single blast. It wasn’t going to do much aside from whittle away at the gathered horde, but every dead zombie was one less that they had to worry about later. Thirty minutes went by before Sweet radioed that his car was loaded, and then headed out to meet them. He ended up driving over the lawn of an abandoned home to go around the horde, and pulled up a little in front of Lea before circling around. James got off the trunk and hopped into the passenger’s seat of the GTO, and then Lea followed Sweet around behind the horde. A quick exchange of what to do, and James got out of the GTO and into the Cutlass. Lea headed back to the house and Sweet drove around the horde again.

When Lea reached the house, she killed the engine and began immediately helping with loading supplies into the trunk of the car. Meanwhile, James hopped out of the Cutlass and onto the trunk, doing his same trick as before – much to the same effect. And, being James, as he picked off zombies with the shotgun he was mumbling the lyrics to “Little Bunny Fu-Fu”. Another thirty minutes or so passed, and then the GTO was filled. Sweet got James back in the car and headed back to the house, leaving the horde a long distance behind. Once there, James hopped out and got back into the GTO, along with Lea, Alice, and Timothy. Sweet’s wife and daughters climbed into the Cutlass quickly, and then both cars were off. Within minutes they were back on the freeway, and headed toward Perris – the sun rising behind them.

==X==X==X==

About the time that the rescue team was headed back to Perris, Chien and I had just woken up and were mulling about the cafeteria, trying to think of what to make for breakfast. We looked through all the supplies that we had, and with how early it was we were basically grunting, growling, and scoffing at the suggestions that continued to be tossed out. Nothing sounded good. Not a damn thing was able to catch our eyes and make us truly want to ingest it. Perhaps it was the early morning hours, or the fact that we’d stuffed ourselves the night before, but either way it really, truly, totally sucked. That was… until I started looking at some things that we had grabbed the day before. You see… we hadn’t exactly gone straight back to the school after dealing with the horde that had tried to surround us at Big 5. Instead, we had felt that we deserved a treat. Thus… we had gone to Baskin Robbins and raided them for every bit of ice cream and other such delicious foodstuffs that were held within.

We’d used a good deal of freezer space in doing so, but… we felt it was worth it. I mean, let’s face it, the power was going to go out country wide inside the next couple of weeks, and even backup generators with automated systems would only last for so long. After the power went out, it would only be a matter of hours before places without high efficiency solar backups went dark, and most stores didn’t have those. Even those that could stay on for a while wouldn’t be running their freezers and refrigerators for more than a day, or two at the max. By the end of the month, any food that wasn’t claimed by survivors, or in an airtight seal of some kind, would have gone bad. Milk would go bad even before that, unless it was actually frozen – or was that powdered stuff. Hell, that actually went for a great many foods that were kept on open-air refrigeration shelves. That stuff would be going bad in the next week or two.

Sad as it was, most of the food in the United States would be going bad inside the next couple of weeks. Bread wouldn’t last more than a week (or two depending on how fresh it was) unless it was sealed up tight and/or frozen. Meat at the supermarket delis might already be going bad considering it had been left out for two days already, though the frozen stuff in back would be alright for a while longer. Anything green and leafy that wasn’t kept cold would be bad in a day or two. Crackers and the like would last longer than the bread by quite a bit, out to a month (longer still if you didn’t mind it being stale, but not that much). Chips and anything else with airtight seals, that didn’t need to be kept cool or frozen, would probably last a couple of months or longer (hell, when was the last time a bag of chips went bad?). Vitamins could last a while, though most medications began to lose strength after their expiration date.

Thinking about that all actually started to make me wonder how long we really had. We had plenty of ammunition and supplies, but these next couple of weeks would really decide just what we could do. We needed to gather people and supplies, as much as we could of both, and we needed to do it as soon as possible. We would also need a lot more space for frozen foods. If we somehow managed to get even a hundred people… that would be three hundred meals every day. Number of people and multiply by three. Also meant that no matter how much food we managed to collect, at some point, we would start running out if we didn’t plant crops and maintain them to the best of our abilities. Thankfully, once we started doing that, I knew we would be alright. Chien might not have really seemed like it, but he’d been raised on a farm up north before moving here. He knew about planting crops and handling the agricultural stuff.

“Hey Chien, I have an idea.” I said as I looked into the freezer full of ice cream.

“Yeah? What?” He asked as he looked over at me.

I grinned at him in that sleepy way. “Dude… breakfast sundaes…”

Chien grinned as he walked over and looked in the fridge. “I like the way you think.”

About fifteen minutes later we had settled in with our chosen breakfast, as childish as we both knew it was, and were munching away. Leave it to the end of the world to make it stop mattering how childish some food choices were, right?

“You know, I’ve been thinking about something, Chien.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Chien smirked, but I just rolled my eyes.

“I been thinking about our supply situation.”

“Oh? What about it?”

“Well… we have some frozen stuff, but there’s a hell of a lot more out there. I mean hell, Stater Brothers, Food 4 Less, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club… they all have tons of frozen and refrigerated foods. As soon as the power goes out that stuff will start to thaw and go bad. Matter of fact, the refrigerated stuff will start going bad even if the cooling systems don’t shut off. Only way to keep any of it good beyond a week or two is to freeze it. That means doing one of two things: either finding some way to go out and make sure the power grid has less chance of blowing out, or going out and bringing all of that stuff back here. There are problems with both of those ideas though.”

“Yeah, major ones, Roy. Man… the only way we could probably make sure the grid didn’t go down would be to go around and shut off everything we can, from air conditioners to computers. Which… really isn’t all that hard, come to think of it. The other idea has the problem of… well… we don’t have that kind of space here, obviously. We wouldn’t have anywhere to put all of that food.”

“I know… but we could make room. I mean we could go and get freezers from the department stores and such. Could probably fit ten of the damn things on that trailer at my place. Just hook it up to the Suburban and pull it. Would need some tie-down straps and such to make sure we didn’t lose them all, but we could do it.”

“What about power?”

“Well, the solar grid here could support them for the daylight hours… assuming we didn’t store anything in the batteries. The generator could support them at night, if we had that many of them. Of course… if we were to actually build the steam generators and we could do it properly… then we could have that power source too. Strange as it is, those corpses seem to be a clean burning fuel source, so we don’t have to worry about running out any time soon. If nothing else, we can also go grab other solar cells from different places and make our grid here independent. We’ll still need the steam generators for the winter months when solar won’t do as well, but we’ll have plenty of power for running air conditioning, freezers, refrigerators, lights, and all sorts of other things during the summer months.”

“Sounds like a good idea. So… what do we do first? I mean… we’ll only have sixteen people. We can’t have everyone gone from here at the same time and expect to get everything done. Right?”

“Good point.” I thought for a moment. “Well, if Sweet stayed here and oversaw the construction of the steam generators, and directed the others in what to do… that would leave the four of us to be able to go out and do whatever else needs done. We still have space in the freezers here, so we don’t have to go and get more freezers just yet – besides which, the generator will take time to prove itself being that it’s still not really made out of what we need it to be. It’ll be built all out of bus parts, and that’s not what a steam engine should be made of. It won’t have the right pressure capacity for proper power generation, and considering it’s not stainless steel and it’s not all that thick, it’ll rust through eventually and… when that happens…”

“Boom?”

“Big boom. Steam explosions are some of the worst, strange as that might sound. Other sorts you can see coming, but some of the energy goes into the fire and the light that comes from it. Steam explosions don’t have that. You just get the concussion wave, and if you didn’t see any warning signs… that sort of rupture can land you in the hospital or worse, depending on how close you were when the pressure chamber ruptured. Of course, there’s also a chance that it won’t explode. If you have a spot that’s weak, but the rest is strong, you might get a rupture that just lets out steam like a tea kettle.”

“Which do you think is more likely with those parts?”

“Assuming it works like it should?” I asked, and Chien nodded. “Well… depends on the point of failure. All the connections will need gaskets, so… that’s a lot of opportunity right there. If they use engine and automotive gaskets though… should be just fine. Next concerns are the pipe and the boiler. With the gas tank being used as a boiler, I doubt we’ll have a problem there unless it’s rusted and we can’t tell, so… I suppose the main point of concern for a rupture would be the pipes since we’re using the exhaust pipes, and that means that we’re using something that isn’t that thick. If it’s rusted or has a hole or any of that, it won’t work. We might end up having to use something else. Fuck it though… if it gets to that point, I’ll put concrete around a fence post and use that.”

Chien laughed.

“I’m not joking.” I said flatly.

“I know.” He grinned, “But that image is hilarious.”

I cracked a smile when I thought back on it. Then I imagined a steam engine with concrete coating all the weak parts and couldn’t help but laugh too. If only it wasn’t likely…

“So what’re we doing first?” Chien asked me once we were calm again.

“Collecting some more food. So far the power is holding, but we can make some trips to Stater Brothers and collect enough to at least fill the freezer.”

“Aw man… what about the ice cream?”

“…It stays.”

==X==X==X==

A little while after Chien and I were finished with the sort of breakfast we hadn’t gotten to fix since we were in elementary school, we heard the rumble of the Cutlass and GTO as they pulled up outside. After a good half hour of everyone unloading the cars, we got to talking and figuring out where things would go and people would stay. Thus far everyone had been staying relatively in the same place – namely Mr. Malone’s room. Now that there were more people we decided to handle things differently. We divided the majority between male and female, save for Alice, Timothy, Sweet and his wife, and Lea and the three of us. The rest were put in the rooms flanking the armory. The eight of us took the office. Sweet and his wife shared the back area and his personal office. Alice and Timothy shared the counselor’s office and waiting area. The remaining four of us divided up what was left; each taking one of the small rooms in the office. Thankfully it actually worked out that we took up all the available spaces.

At first I thought it was odd that Sweet and his wife would have their daughters in the girls’ ‘dorm’ instead of in the office with us, but after thinking about it I came up with some possible solutions. There were three primary reasons that stuck out to me: one, he didn’t want to seem like he was playing favorites. Two, there wasn’t really anywhere to put them with us all in there, unless another room was shared (though considering Lea and I had been living together for years and had started out sharing a room at home, that wouldn’t have made much difference). Three, he might have wanted them to be social. Just because their old friends might not have been around anymore didn’t mean they should stop having a social life. With them out of the office it also meant that we had both the only woman experienced with being a mother, and the only true children, under the same roof. That… and the entire command staff was in one place away from prying ears and eyes. It gave us the ability to plan without scrutiny.

Well, without too much scrutiny. When Chien and I told the other six of what we’d been up to while they were gone, well… it wasn’t exactly received with praise. We were berated, lectured, and in general mouthed off at by just about everyone – except for Alice, surprisingly. She seemed to be the only person in the building aside from Chien and I that really understood what we’d been up to. She agreed with the rest that going to Big 5 by ourselves had been foolish, and none of them at all believed our kill count (considering they’d been faced by a horde of a few hundred and had tricked them instead of killing them). However, Alice saw the reasoning behind using the dead zombies as tinder for the steam generator that we had planned. The rest, save Sweet, seemed completely disgusted at the thought. Sweet himself was quiet about it.

“It’s disgusting! You guys burned someone for fuel! How the fuck could you do that and not feel anything?!” James snapped, looking between the two of us, though when his gaze landed on me he added, “Okay, you, ya black-hearted, soulless, son-of-a-bitch… I know you could do it, but…” He looked at Chien then, “…You too? Really? What the fuck?!”

The excessive profanity in the company of two eleven year olds got James abruptly thumped and glared at by Lea. He was about to look at her questioningly, until he saw her pointing at Alice and Timothy, and then he just facepalmed.

“They’re not even dead people, James.” Chien reasoned, “They’re dead zombies. It’s not like we went up to perfectly healthy human beings, shot them in the head, and then tossed them in a furnace. The people died, rose from the dead as cannibalistic creatures of doom, and then we shot them in the head… or bashed their heads in… or… whatever. They were already no longer human by the time that we re-killed them. Besides, it’s more sanitary to burn them anyway. It’s like cremation, kinda. Just instead of using fuel to burn them at extremely high temperatures, we just have to light them on fire and they self-cremate. The only real difference between cremating them and what we plan to do is that we’re actually getting useful things out of doing this.”

“Useful? Like what?” Lea asked. “What are you getting from burning the corpses?”

“Electricity, for one.” I said, “As well as that, we’re also getting potential fertilizer to put in the ground. At the temperatures the corpses burn at, it would kill anything that was dangerous in their remains, and thus renders it clean and likely good for the soil. We can grow crops. Where is the down side?”

“It’s not right, that’s the down side!” James snapped.

“What’s so wrong about it?” Timothy asked then, and for a moment everyone was quiet as they looked at him – and then to Alice as he pointed at her, and the pad that she had held for him to read. Then our eyes went to her as she scribbled again, and Timothy spoke for her. “Well?”

“It’s wrong because they were people and deserve some dignity.” James answered, glaring at me as he did so.

“So what would you do with them, if not burn them?”

At that, James paused. “Bury them, I guess.” He shrugged.

“In a mass grave?”

“Well, no… individual ones.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not committing genocide, that’s why.” James said flatly, and got an elbow to the ribs and a stern look from Lea. “Well we’re not!”

“Would you mark the graves?”

James sighed. “Yeah, probably… why?”

“What for? Just to let everyone know that someone is down there? From what I gather, we don’t know who any of the corpses belong to.”

Lea broke in then before James started getting snippy. She could tell he was getting annoyed with the line of questioning. “Alice, what are you getting at?”

“I’m getting at it being a waste of resources and time to just bury them and let the worms get them. They’re more useful to us if we burn them. We’ll have another source of electricity, and a source of fertilizer, and a way to get rid of the corpses. We can’t bury all of them, and that leaves two other options: burn them, or leave them scattered on the surface wherever they drop. It’s admirable to want to bury them, but it’s just not very realistic. We don’t have the space.”

With that said, Lea looked to Sophie for some advice. For a while, Lea hadn’t really had a mother figure. I mean, she listened to my mom and did what she said, but no matter what, at the end of the day, my mother was still her aunt, and my dad was still her uncle. They weren’t her parents and couldn’t replace them. Sophie, however, had taken a liking to Lea just as Sweet had taken a liking to James. The difference, however, was that while James looked to Sweet as a father figure, and one of few authority figures he respected, Lea looked to Sophie almost like an older sister. There were mother-daughter aspects of their relationship as well, namely the things that Sophie could teach her and advise her on, but for the most part they were like sisters. There were even times that Lea would spend the night at their home just to have time with Sophie. Even James didn’t spend the night without the rest of us. She’s the only one.

Unfortunately, Sophie didn’t know what to say about the facts Alice had pointed out. The eleven year old genius had a rather obvious point; there wasn’t enough room to bury everyone. The cemetery next to the school Chien and I used to go to didn’t have the room. We couldn’t bury them at P.M.A. if we wanted to have crops. Burying them out in the middle of nowhere wouldn’t really serve any purpose aside from doing it, and that was just a waste of time. We couldn’t just leave them laying around, either. Even though they let off oxygen, they were still a health hazard and a danger if they did end up catching on fire. Before the argument could go on any longer, however, Sweet finally decided to speak.

“Chien. Roy.” He looked to the two of us. “I can’t say that I’m proud of you for taking it upon yourselves to choose to do this sort of thing without consulting the rest of us. I want it to be clear, here and now, that this doesn’t sit well with me. The thought of using corpses as fuel, zombies or not, is not something that I’m comfortable with.” He paused for a moment to let that sink in. As he did, I could see James nodding with a little grin. “However… that being said, I am proud of your ingenuity. You saw a potential obstacle, adapted to your environment, improvised a solution, and overcame the problem. The jury is out about where this course of action rests on the scale of morality, and while I’m not personally comfortable with the thought, I also realize that this opportunity is not one that we should pass up on. These bodies can’t be buried. We’ll have to burn them either way. At least in this manner their energy can help us keep the lights on, and their ashes can help us grow crops to live off of.”

James’ face held a look of astonishment, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Boss, you can’t seriously be agreeing to this, right?”

“James…” Sweet sighed, “…this isn’t about morals. Either way we’re going to burn them; better that than letting animals pick at the carcasses. Being that they’re going to be burned, I don’t see what difference it makes if we put a drum full of water and some machinery over the fire. Think about it. At least this way they’re put to good use… disturbing a use as it may be.”

James looked at the group and glared, fists clenching. After a moment, he threw up his hands and walked away from us all. “Alright, fine…” He growled out, slamming his hands on the push bar to open the nearest office door. Then when he stepped out, he bellowed, “…Welcome to Auschwitz, everybody!”

Chien glared toward the door, and Sweet shook his head. Everyone else just kind of looked shocked, save Lea and I. Then Chien took a couple steps, as if to follow after James and give him a piece of his mind for the comparison, but I grabbed his shoulder to stop him. At the same time, Lea stepped forward; walking toward the door.

“Don’t worry; I’ll go talk to him.” She said, and then looked to Chien and I. “For the record, I don’t like this idea either, but I can’t argue against the facts. Just remember you two, at some point, those zombie corpses you’re tossing into the fire were people. What you two came up with is a good idea, but that doesn’t make it right.”