“I’d like to think that people could come up with a benevolent solution,” Jason argued.
“People might do that, but when it came time to murder twelve people, no matter how they were selected, it’d take a real asshole to make that happen.”
Jeff was making sense, but Jason objected out of habit. “If there was a real asshole in the group, wouldn’t he just choose himself, his family and the women he wanted to screw?”
“That’s a strong possibility but, even in that case, the survivability of the group would be maximized. Think about it. Eight people would survive. In the alternative, all would die.”
Jason objected again. “Yeah, but those who survive might not be the best people.”
Jeff and his instructor had already thought of that. “For the ‘best people’ to survive, not only would the strong man enforce the elimination of some, but he would have to survive, too.”
“Hold on,” Jason argued, “if the strong guy is benevolent, he’d never let someone die in his place.”
“He’d have to,” Jeff disagreed. “Without the strong man, discipline would break down, someone would take more than their share, then everyone would take more than their share and they’d all die. In order to ensure the survival of the other seven, he would have to be one of the eight who survive, even if that means a child or pregnant woman dies in his stead. The group would insist on it if they had any sense.”
“That’s harsh, but probably true.” Jason could see the parallels to their current situation. “If the ‘convenience store’ scenario were to go down, the benevolent strong man system would rarely happen. It’d take the perfect strong man—a guy with noble intentions and a guy who would vote for himself to live.”
“Right. And you’re describing a benevolent warlord. That’s why my instructor and I had the conversation in the first place. We were in the business of setting up warlords.”
“Does that make me the warlord?” Jason said, not comfortable with the idea.
“No. You’re getting carried away. This is not about you. This Homestead. We are the warlord. Our group decides who lives and who dies. No matter how it feels, we have to execute on our plan. Otherwise, we’ll end up being a convenience store full of corpses before this is over.”
Jason sighed heavily. “Okay. Thanks, I suppose.”
Jeff sat silently and Jason thought about Jeff and Tara for a second. Many of the Kirkhams’ own family members were still out there on their own—most of Jeff’s brothers and sisters hadn’t taken his invitation to come seek shelter at the Homestead. Tara’s parents and her brothers had refused to come to the Homestead, too, preferring their family cabin in the woods.
“That helps. Thanks.” Jeff stood and they shook hands. Intellectually, Jason walked away with new perspective. Emotionally, nothing had changed.
On her third day at the Homestead, Jacquelyn approached Jenna, the lady of the house.
“Hey, Jenna, how’s it going?”
Jacqueline gawked at Jenna’s simple beauty, perhaps the most elegant fifty-year-old woman she’d ever seen.
Jenna blew a lock of auburn hair out of her eyes. “It’s a regular three-ring circus around here. I answer questions all day and, truth is, I’m making it up as I go. I never was the Survival Lady. I spent more time on yoga and Pilates than on canning.”
“Well,” Jacquelyn said, “I can probably help you there. As you can tell from my thoroughly average figure, I didn’t put much time into yoga and Pilates. As fate would have it, I do know a thing or two about canning. You want help?”
“Oh, boy, do I ever.”
Two hours later, Jacquelyn sat working alone in a concrete box—a root cellar that held the Homestead’s bucketed food. She hauled buckets outside, organizing them into piles of sugar, dried milk, beans, pasta and dried veggies.
The Homestead had a couple of thousand pounds of freeze-dried entrees, but the bulk of their food was hardy, inexpensive dried food. Jacquelyn had been there, five years ago, setting it all up. They had figured out how to get an entire year’s supply, at two thousand calories a day, for only five hundred bucks per adult. It had required finding the cheapest bulk source, then sealing everything in surplus plastic food grade buckets.
The buried root cellar kept the dried food cool without air conditioning, but it made for cold and clammy work. Jacquelyn borrowed someone else’s gloves, since God only knew where her gloves had ended up.
She could have asked others to help, but she needed time to herself. Jacquelyn fought to keep it together, imagining her loved ones and how scared they must be in Texas—her sister, her niece and nephews, and her mother. Cell service had dropped between Salt Lake and Texas the day before, so her imagination ran wild.
She kept imagining her family glued to their radio, yearning for some good bit of news that might allay their fears. No doubt, they remembered she and Tom’s warnings over the years about a collapse. Back then, her family had either ignored them or joked about their paranoia. She had thought Tom a little over the top at moments, too, but she had conceded to him about preparing, for the kids’ safety, if nothing else.
Driving home from Texas, she and Tom had often criticized her sister and brother-in-law for their blind faith in the government. While the kids slept in the back seat of their truck, they took pleasure in running Jacquelyn’s family down, repeating back stupid things they had said and chiding them for their “sheep-like” trust in America. Back then, she and Tom enjoyed feeling “right”—being smart enough to see the inherent risks in modern civilization.
Years later, sitting on a plastic bucket in a concrete bunker with civilization crumbling by the day, Jacquelyn now knew the truth. She had been the fool. She had been the one on a power trip. Yes, she and Tom had seen through the thin optimism of American prosperity. So, what had they done with that foresight? They had used it to feel superior. Now her sister and her family would probably die horrific deaths.
All that rightness was gone, replaced by foreboding and shame. Any sense of victory vanished and it left behind only deep regret. She would trade all the rightness in the world to put just one of these goddamn buckets of food in the middle of her sister’s living room in Galveston.
If she had been a little less self-righteous about preparing, maybe her sister and brother-in-law would have come around, at least enough to store a little bit. Or, maybe she could have given them some of her own food storage when they went down to visit. The Homestead had already set aside enough food for Jacquelyn and Tom. Why did they need their own food storage, too? They could have taken at least some of that extra food to Texas over Christmas last year. They’d had enough space in back of the truck for it. She had been so caught up feeling disdainful of her sister’s reliance on the government that she didn’t stop to think about simply giving her food storage. It was extra, for Christ’s sake!
Jacquelyn slumped on the bucket outside the root cellar and cried. Her hands in someone else’s gloves, she cried for her sister and for her family. She cried for shame in her own pride. She cried for what they were all losing and what might never return.
Why couldn’t that beautiful world have kept going? Why couldn’t they have lived forever in a society where a pasteurized gallon of milk waited just five minutes away on a chilled market shelf? Why couldn’t food keep crossing the oceans, landing on their doorsteps as if by magic? Why did things have to go to hell and leave her sister, nieces and nephews terrified and probably starving?
A hand touched her shoulder and Jacquelyn jumped. It was Jenna Ross. Jacquelyn pulled herself together, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her jacket.