We waited till sunrise to try and get a better idea of what sort of folks were there. We watched a group of about twenty people come to the southernmost tip. They were all armed with assorted weapons, but they also carried buckets and gardening tools. With varying degrees of skill they repelled down on five lines that, once everybody was down, a few young children about Joey’s age pulled up.
There didn’t seem to be any zombies in the area, but it was clear that these people took no chances. They followed the river on the side opposite us and disappeared over a slight ridge. Tim and Samantha crept away to try and see them from another position and returned forty minutes later to report that they had a large fenced garden in an obviously well tended plot of land about the size of half a football field.
After a quick discussion, we backtracked with the RVs and found a place to hide them. It was decided that Antonio, Colleen, Perry, and I would go and see if they were welcoming strangers. If no word returned within a week, everybody would leave and continue seeking a place to try and call home. I made it clear: No hero crap. No rescue. We should be able to tell in a relatively short period of time what sort of folks these were.
The four of us grabbed a few weapons and enough supplies to support our story that we had been on our own as a group surviving off the land. We approached the plateau in plain sight from the northwest, again doing our best to keep knowledge of our comrades’ direction and location as hidden as possible.
We knew we had been spotted when a crowd began to gather along the western edge of the plateau. A man with a bullhorn actually called down to us, telling us to follow the river south to a single tall pine. We did and were met by a handful of men and women on the other side.
They directed us to a six foot log with an eye-bolt screwed into it. A casual look around revealed three more logs of similar size scattered about. Hmm. Clever. They tossed us a nylon line with a big nut-and-bolt weight at the end. Of course it fit in the eye-bolt, and after hauling the log to the water, the folks on the other side pulled us across the thirty foot wide rushing river.
We were asked very politely to come forward one at a time to be searched. After being looked over, and a brief conversation, we were invited to climb up. It was made clear that we would be quarantined—together if we wished—for seventy-two hours for “safety reasons.”
This evening we will be invited to come out and meet people. So far, they’ve treated us fine. They did ask that we relinquish our firearms, but were allowed to keep our hand-held bludgeons.
“Nobody should be without some protection,” a young blond in her twenties named Tara smiled as she led us to a long building that served as a crude medical facility. This is where we spent our isolation time.
We’ve been treated great. Fed well. Had several visitors, who I can’t remember the names of, all inquiring if we need anything.
I’m terrified that I will wake up any moment now to discover this is all a dream.
Friday, April 25
Irony, USA. I get it. It seems that this was a compound built by some fringe white-supremacist group. They set up a town and, while they were apparently on some government watch list, they had managed to live off the grid. When the Z-plague hit, that’s what it is referred to as by folks here (I can’t bring myself to be so glib just yet) the Homeland Security agent assigned to the area died, but not before he told his wife about the compound.
Grace Arndt could be a neighbor on Desperate Housewives. She’s in her mid-to-late forties and is a total knockout. That is where the similarities end. Grace is a no-nonsense lady. When she heard about the compound, she rounded up a bunch of her twenty-two-year-old son’s college friends, equipping them at an arsenal of the town’s (she is from Boise) abandoned National Guard depot.
It turns out that somebody had brought the infection in from the outside. All they had to do is clean the place out. Now Derrick Arndt, Grace’s son, is masterminding the garden we saw on the way in. It seems he was a major in Agricultural Science at Oregon State.
I must admit that finding salvation in some separatist compound has an ironic element. Did I also mention that while Grace’s husband was the image of a WASP, at least in the picture I glimpsed in Grace’s house, Grace is what I would call Vanessa Williams-brown, complete with long, silky black hair and green eyes that seem to cut into your soul.
There are almost a hundred people here. About a third to half of what this place seems built to hold. There are solar cells, windmills up on the hill opposite of where my people are hiding, and four generators. One is modified to run on some sort of bio-fuel and Derrick plans on converting one more of the generators soon.
Everybody here works and shares in the maintenance, security, upkeep, and farming. In short this is exactly what we were seeking to start ourselves. I’ve only been here a couple of days, and only out of quarantine for one, but tomorrow I think I will talk to Grace. That is if everybody else has the same vibe as me. I will ask to go get the others.
I want to do it tomorrow because I’ve already signed up to make a supply run. It seems this place still has need of outside resources. (They say the hope is to be completely self-sufficient within the year.) We have a briefing tonight to lay out the plan. They have maps and all sorts of stuff.
I do think that it would be wiser to let Grace know about Spokane and also about those government spook types we encountered in Pasco.
I am actually feeling hope. For the first time in a long time, I truly believe that things might be okay. Sure, they will never be normal. But maybe, just maybe, we can stop running. Sleep the night through. Take a walk in the sun.
Maybe.
Saturday, April 26
The tiny town of Chilco was the target for today’s supply run. Of course it has been a busy twenty-four hours for me. Grace was not only thrilled to have the rest of our group join the population of Irony, she was impressed to see the foresight we used in our approach to this community. She was most excited to welcome Julia. Having an RN arrive was big news here. We still have no actual doctor. But there are five nurses here now which is, when you think about it, a very favorable ratio.
Anyway, there were ten of us on the supply run. We hiked out of the woods and came to a gravel logging road. After a couple of miles we came to an abandoned Ranger Station where an assortment of vehicles are kept: Jeeps, Hummers, pick-up trucks, and five deuce-and-a-halfs! All but one of the deuces have tarp covers. The real prize is a pair of fuel tankers. Derrick has it rigged so that, upon return, any vehicle that needs it can be gassed. Having been told about the RVs, he said a team could have them brought here tomorrow. Tim has already signed up.
So, we pair up and I team with Trent Blake. He was a bank manager in Coeur d’Alene. Never married, but had a seven-year-old son who he says lives—he won’t use past tense—in Seattle with his mother. Trent, at age twenty-nine, has pretty severe male pattern baldness with just a faint wreath of blonde hair. He seems a bit too optimistic which, from all I’ve seen, can only end badly if and when reality sets in.
We rolled into town and it was clear that they had hit this place before. Trent pointed out buildings with big, white spray painted “Xs” on them. Those were places already hit. So as we roll in, the zombies of course start coming from everywhere. The town population was posted at 2107 and it looked like more than half remained to greet our intrusion.
Each of the deuces had reinforced bars in front so the convoy just plowed through, sending bodies in all directions. I was driving ours and I glanced over once at Trent who had grown silent the moment we hit town. He had his hands covering his eyes. I can’t say I enjoy smashing into what had once been a five or six-year-old, but I can’t think of them that way. They are the husks of humanity and will try to take a bite out of me any chance they get.