Pandemic: The Beginning (Pandemic Book One) Page 8

  As loud conversation filled the air, Matt was doubly glad he’d bought the 9mm and the rifle, and was especially glad he’d stocked up on ammo.

  “I don’t own a gun,” one man said.

  Matt looked at Derrick, who shook his head. “Don’t know what to tell you, sir.”

  “Maybe we can put together patrols,” Matt said. He didn’t know why he was speaking up. He was a software engineer, not a security expert. Then again, maybe it was because of his run-in with Jack. He didn’t want to have to be on his own protecting his family. Safety in numbers and all of that.

  “Good idea, Matt,” Tony said, then he turned to the crowd. “Whoever’s willing to be on patrol, please see Matt.”

  Matt’s eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. Just because he’d suggested the patrols didn’t mean he wanted to be in charge. Before he had a chance to object, most of the men and a few women turned and walked toward him. To his relief, the three military men were also approaching.

  He looked at Jessica, who looked back at him with raised eyebrows. Was she surprised because he would be in charge or because so many people were headed their way?

  Chapter 19

  Matt

  Things were moving fast. They’d come to the meeting to observe and suddenly Matt was responsible for security in their entire neighborhood? How had that happened?

  Glad they were wearing gloves and face masks, when he saw Tony walking toward them with his clipboard in hand, he couldn’t hold back a smile. It felt good to be part of this group where everyone wanted to help.

  “Here you go,” Tony said as he passed the clipboard to Matt, then he grinned. “In case you want to write anything down.”

  “You don’t actually think I should be in charge of security, do you?” Matt asked with a wry smile as he took the clipboard and pen. Then he remembered he was wearing his mask so Tony wouldn’t be able to see most of his facial expression.

  Tony grinned. “That’s totally up to you.”

  With a soft chuckle, Matt looked at the men and women approaching, his focus on the three guys who had military experience. “Which one of you wants to head up security?” he asked the three.

  Derrick glanced at the other two men, none of whom volunteered, then said, “I will.”

  More than happy to hand it off, Matt held out the clipboard and pen. Derrick waved it off.

  Feeling foolish for thinking Derrick would need it, Matt handed it back to Tony, who raised his eyebrows as he took it.

  “First,” Derrick said, looking at all of the people gathered around, “we need to monitor all major roads leading into our neighborhood. We need to control who has access. Second, we need to patrol in pairs, day and night, to keep an eye on what’s happening.” When everyone nodded in agreement, he gave a few pointers on what to look for when on patrol and added, “You’ll need to supply your own weapons.”

  As he listened, Matt felt a sense of community. He didn’t have to rely solely on himself. Others had expertise they were willing to share that would benefit all.

  “What if I don’t own a gun?” a man asked.

  Derrick shifted his gaze to the man. “Do you know how to use one?”

  The man shook his head.

  Matt thought Derrick was frowning, but it was hard to tell since Derrick wore a bandana. “Anyone else need weapons training?”

  Several hands went up.

  “All right,” Derrick said. “Meet here tomorrow morning at seven am sharp and I’ll provide training.”

  “I’d like my teenagers to come,” Matt said.

  Derrick looked his way and nodded. “That’s a good idea. The more people who know how to handle a weapon, the better.”

  Matt could feel Jessica fidgeting beside him and knew she couldn’t be thrilled with his idea, but he agreed with Derrick. And if their family was threatened and he was incapacitated in any way, he didn’t want his family to be helpless.

  “Who’s ready to begin patrolling tonight?” Derrick asked.

  Matt, along with several others, raised his hand.

  Derrick nodded at Matt. “You and I will take the midnight to four am shift.” Then he assigned the other two military men with volunteers to take the earlier and later shifts.

  Though Matt wasn’t excited to have to be up in the middle of the night, he was pleased to be paired with Derrick. He had a feeling the man could teach him a lot.

  The meeting broke up a short time later. Matt took a look at the clipboard before they left. As they drove home, he was more than glad they’d come.

  “I’m going to the weapons training tomorrow,” Jessica said after she pulled off her face mask.

  Her statement took him by surprise but he was pleased about it. Turning to her, he removed his mask as well. “Let’s make it a family activity then.”

  She smirked. “A little different from game night, but yeah, I think that’s a great idea.”

  “It’ll be interesting to go on patrol with Derrick.”

  “He seems to know what he’s doing.”

  Matt wholeheartedly agreed.

  “I have to admit,” she added with a frown. “I’m a little nervous about being home with just the kids while you’re gone.” Her frown deepened. “Especially with the power out.”

  He didn’t like the idea of leaving his family either, but then he had an idea. “Tell you what. Let’s use the power in the RV to charge up our walkie talkies. That way you can contact me if you need me.” He turned to her with a smile. “We’ll just be in our neighborhood, so we should stay in range.”

  With a look of relief, she said, “Great idea.”

  A few moments later they pulled into their driveway. The second they entered the house, the kids peppered them with questions.

  “How many people were there?”

  “Was anyone sick?”

  “What’d you guys talk about?”

  Matt held up one hand. “Family meeting.”

  At that, the five of them went into the family room and sat down. The kids looked nervous, like Matt was about to deliver bad news. To counteract that, he smiled. “Tomorrow morning at seven you’re all going to weapons training.”

  “Yes!” Dylan shouted with a fist pump, but both Kayla and Brooke seemed less enthusiastic.

  “What for?” Kayla asked.

  “I don’t like guns,” Brooke said.

  “I’m going too,” Jessica said with a soft smile.

  The girls looked at her, their mouths falling open.

  “Really?” Kayla asked.

  “Why?” Brooke said.

  “All right, Mom,” Dylan said with a wide grin.

  Time to take control of the conversation. “All of us need to be comfortable with how to use a gun,” Matt said. “The way things are heading…” He let his sentence trail off. He didn’t want to scare them. Especially Brooke. She’d been through more than anyone should ever have to go through. But they needed to know the truth, needed to be prepared. “To keep us safe, we all need to know how to use a weapon safely.”

  Dylan’s smile grew, if that was possible, but the girls looked even less certain.

  “I’ve never touched a gun before,” Brooke admitted.

  Kayla looked at her friend. “Neither have I, but I guess…” She glanced at Matt before turning back to Brooke. “I guess it would be a good idea to, you know, not be scared of them.”

  Glad she was getting on board, Matt smiled. “You’ll be trained by a military vet. Derrick.”

  “Derrick Weathers?” Brooke asked.

  “Yeah. I think that was his last name.”

  Brooke seemed to relax. “I know him. He lives two houses down and across the street from me.” Her face fell. “Well, from where I used to live.”

  “It’s still your house, Brooke,” Matt quietly said.

  Her gaze went to her lap, but she nodded.

  Wanting to take away the melancholy she was feeling, Matt said, “So, you know Derrick?”

  She lifted her ey
es and met his gaze. “Yeah. He helped my dad lay sod last year. He seemed like a nice guy.”

  “I’ll be going on patrol with him tonight.”

  “Patrol?” Dylan said, smiling with enthusiasm. “Cool.” Then he looked at Matt with undisguised hope. “Can I come?”

  “It’s not up to me. Derrick’s in charge of security. But I suspect he’ll want you to get that training before he’ll let you come on patrol.”

  “He’s too young to patrol,” Jessica said beside him, her tone urgent.

  “Carl was taking out bad guys when he was, like, twelve.”

  “Carl?” Jessica asked, her eyebrows furrowed.

  “Yeah,” Dylan said. “On The Walking Dead.”

  Matt forced down a chuckle.

  “That’s just a TV show,” Jessica pointed out.

  “Maybe,” Dylan said in reply, “but the world fell apart on that show and it’s falling apart now.”

  True as that was, Matt didn’t want Dylan to think this was all fun and games. “This is real life, Dylan. Not a TV show. We can’t script how things go. Even good guys are going to get hurt.”

  Jessica jabbed Matt in the side. He looked at her and saw her glancing meaningfully at Kayla and Brooke. Both looked extremely worried.

  “That’s why we’re going to have patrols,” he said, hoping to assuage their fears. “To keep the bad guys away and keep our neighborhood safe.”

  “Which reminds me,” Jessica said, standing. “Let’s charge up those walkie talkies.”

  “Uh, mom,” Dylan said with a tone that said duh, “the power’s off.”

  Matt stood and tapped Dylan on the back. “That’s why we’re going to use the RV’s power.”

  His face brightened. “Oh. Right.”

  With that, the five of them plus Cleo trooped out to the RV.

  Chapter 20

  Jessica

  Once Matt unlocked the door to the RV and held the door for her, Jessica stepped inside and pressed the buttons to open the three slide-outs. The space became much larger. Even so, Jessica tried to imagine what it would be like if they had to live in the small space—all five of them plus a dog. There was a small bedroom with a queen size bed for her and Matt, and in the corner of the main space was a bunk bed with a double mattress on the bottom and a twin on top. There was also a small table, a couch that converted into a bed, and a tiny kitchen. They’d been on dozens of camping trips in this RV, and they’d loved every trip, but it had always been nice to get home where they could spread out. With no power in the house, come winter it was possible they’d need to sleep in the RV. Assuming they had enough propane. If they managed to keep their propane tanks filled, they’d be able to stay warm.

  Cleo made herself at home, stretching out on the laminate wood floor in front of the couch.

  “Where are the walkie talkies?” Matt asked as he pulled open cabinets.

  “Right here,” Jessica said as she opened a drawer and took the walkies out along with the charging base. She set everything on the counter, and after Matt pressed the button to turn on the inverter, she plugged the base in. A tiny light glowed red, indicating that the charging base had power.

  Glad that they’d sprung for the solar panels and inverter when they’d bought the RV several years earlier, Jessica wondered what everyone in their neighborhood would do if they needed electricity for critical items. Then she wondered what would happen if everyone discovered that they had access to power. The thought sent a zing of panic up her spine.

  “Hey, guys,” she said, her voice tense.

  “What’s up?” Matt asked, his eyebrows tugging together as he looked at her.

  “I think it would be best if we kept this,” she swept her hand toward the charging walkie talkies, “a secret.”

  “The walkie talkies?” Kayla asked, her nose wrinkled in confusion.

  “The electricity,” Matt said. “I agree. This is information we need to keep on the down-low.”

  “Okay,” Brooke said.

  “How come?” Kayla asked at the same time.

  “If everyone knows,” Dylan said, “then everyone will want to use it.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” Kayla asked.

  Jessica looked to Matt. He said, “If people find out, we’ll have a line a mile long. It would tax the system. Besides, it would probably be for useless things like cell phones.”

  “Useless?” Kayla asked, her eyes wide. “Why would a cell phone be useless?”

  “Do you have service?” Jessica asked as she sat on the small couch. The last time she’d checked her phone was before the power had gone out so she didn’t know if service was even available.

  “Yeah,” Kayla said.

  “Really?” Matt asked as he took his phone from his pocket. He looked at his screen, tapped on an icon, then said, “I don’t.”

  Kayla grinned. “Well, I do.” Then, to prove it, she took her phone out of her pocket and looked at the screen. “Wait.” She tapped a few icons as panic swept over her face. “I did before.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” Jessica said. “With the power out in so many places it was inevitable that service would go out too.”

  “That sucks,” Kayla said, her face glum as she shoved her phone into her back pocket.

  “When power comes back on,” Brooke said with hope in her eyes, “cell service will be back, right?”

  Jessica thought about the report Bryant had given—that power was out all across the country—and decided her children shouldn’t have false hope. “If it comes back on.”

  “What do you mean?” Kayla asked. “It always comes back on.”

  “It’s different this time,” Matt said.

  “Wait,” Dylan said like reality was just starting to sink in, “it’s not coming back on? Like, no more TV? No more video games?”

  Jessica wouldn’t miss TV or video games. Other things—critical things—would be much harder to go without. No more lights, no more washing machine, no more refrigerator, no more oven or microwave.

  “That’s right,” Matt said, cutting into her thoughts. “Too many people have…” his eyes slid to Brooke before going back to Dylan, “died. No more people to fix or maintain the electrical grid.”

  The kids began listing all the things they would miss, and when Jessica realized that nearly every single thing she did relied on electricity, a sense of dread began sweeping over her.

  “Okay,” she said abruptly, cutting off Dylan’s long lament over how hard it was going to be without video games. Everyone looked at her. “Enough whining because you’re not even going to care about electricity if you have no food.”

  Kayla’s eyes widened. “We have food. Dad bought a lot.”

  A pinched look came over Dylan. “We’ll have to scavenge.”

  Jessica hadn’t meant to spark panic, but her children were focusing on the wrong things.

  “We won’t have to scavenge for a while,” Matt said. “We should be set for now, but we have to be careful.”

  “Wait,” Kayla said as she held up both hands, “are you saying we’ll eventually have to scavenge?” She looked horrified by the idea.

  “It’ll be cool,” Dylan said. “We can go into people’s houses.” One side of his mouth quirked up. “I mean the houses where everyone’s dead. And we can take whatever we want.”

  This conversation was all kinds of wrong. Jessica had to put a stop to it. “Enough.” She audibly sighed. “Let’s go back in the house. We need to better organize our food and update our inventory list.” She looked at Matt. “We need to keep better track of what we have.”

  “Good idea.”

  Brooke held up her hand with a grimace.

  “What’s wrong, Brooke?” Jessica asked with a soft smile.

  “Speaking of food. I, uh, I’m just about out of dog food for Cleo.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you have more at your house?” Matt asked.

  She nodded. “We have a lot. Dad…” Her eyes filled with
tears. They gave her the time she needed to get her emotions under control. “He’d just gone to the store before…well, before.”

  Jessica’s eyes shifted to Matt. He looked back at her and she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. That they could add the food from Brooke’s house to their supplies.

  Matt looked at Brooke. “We can go to your house and get Cleo’s dog food.” He paused. “Would it be okay with you if we brought the food from your house here?”

  Brooke smiled. “Of course. I’ve, uh, I’ve been thinking we should do that but I didn’t know if you’d want to.”

  Relieved she was okay with them basically raiding her house, Jessica went to Brooke’s side and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, then she looked at Matt. “When do you want to go.”

  His gaze went to each person. “Right away.”

  They stepped out the RV. Matt brought up the rear, locking the door behind him.

  Chapter 21

  Matt

  “Are you sure you want to come?” Matt asked Brooke as they prepared to take a trip to her house.

  She nodded. “When Dad…,” she blinked several times, “when he died, I…I buried him in the backyard.” She dragged in a deep breath. “And Mom…well, she died at the hospital.”

  Amazed at her strength, Matt didn’t know what to say.

  “I didn’t know about…,” Kayla said beside her, “well, about what you did with your dad.”

  Nodding, Brooke smiled sadly at Kayla.

  “We’d better get going,” Matt said. It was getting late and he wanted to get this taken care of right away. He kissed Jessica. “Will you be okay here by yourself?”

  They’d decided one person should stay behind to keep an eye on things.

  Jessica nodded. “Yes. Besides, Cleo will be with me.”

  That actually did make Matt feel better. He turned to the kids. “All right. Let’s go.” He led the way to the front door and out to his truck.