Slow Collapse 4: Conclusions, page 5
No electricity meant no modern conveniences, like on-demand heat, refrigeration, or even the ability to pump gas to keep generators going. Not every house had an old-fashioned wood stove to keep them warm.
For the remaining citizens, body collection was just one more of the many jobs that needed to be performed daily and the daily numbers of dead were increasing dramatically. Bradley’s teams struggled to maintain adequate staffing, and bodies began to stack up because they had no means with which to provide proper burials. All of their resources were currently dedicated to keeping everyone alive.
As the winter wore on, they moved as many people as possible into better facilities, but there weren’t enough to accommodate everyone. Many had outright refused to leave their homes, fearful looters would come and take everything they had left. The majority of those people eventually died in the cold.
The collection and stacking of bodies had become such a rigorous detail that nobody wanted to do it. It was morbid, depressing, and bordered on inhumane but it needed to be done to prevent disease and pestilence from occurring.
At the same time, moving large numbers of people into communal shelters came with a whole different set of concerns. Something as trivial as the common cold became a far greater issue than anyone had imagined. Masks had been issued to slow the spread of illnesses, but that solution failed as there was no way to clean them properly.
Personal hygiene was another problem for those trying to survive in the shelters. Clothes washing was limited or had been stopped due to lack of resources. What little clean water was available was reserved for drinking and cooking. People were dirty, sick, and downright tired.
The town had a medical facility but supplies there had run out long ago. Local drugstores had run out of everything shortly after the power died as people flooded the stores to stock up when they realized that the power might not return any time soon.
People with medicine-dependent illnesses like diabetes or high blood pressure were some of the first to die. Modern medicine was a wonderful thing, but in the absence of manufactured pharmaceuticals and a health care system dependent upon working utilities, people didn’t know what to do.
Unfortunately, these issues were not just limited to Ashland, Wisconsin. They were nationwide, and gaining strength as the winter wore on, becoming part and parcel of the new way of life in an America without electricity.
Bradley pounded his boots on the sidewalk to knock off the accumulated snow before he entered the cafe. The area had picked up an additional six inches overnight, masking the landscape in another layer of white. Taking a minute to look around before heading into the relative warmth of the shop, he observed the people trying to clean up the snowy mess. He found himself longing for the days when snowplows or snowblowers were a thing. As he watched people shoveling snow, mindlessly throwing the white stuff wherever they could, a sudden thought hit him like a snowball to the head.
“Hey, what if we can use the snow to our advantage?” he said to Val as he entered the café, now the de facto town hall.
“And good morning to you too,” Val replied sarcastically.
“Sorry, morning,” Bradley answered, picking up a mug of hot water. They had long ago run out of coffee. "Seriously though, can we use the snow as part of our defenses somehow?”
“I don’t see how,” Val said.
“Yes, it can stop a bullet,” Ted, one of the four veterans who made up Bradley’s defensive consultant team, told her. “I’ve done it, but it has to be pretty thick and fairly hardpacked.”
“Can’t we just pile it up where we need it?” Mike asked. Since the death of his wife, he’d found himself drawn more and more to the defense group. It was mostly to keep his kids protected, but deep down, he also wanted to kill Bobby, the man responsible for Beth’s death.
“That could take quite a while with just hand shovels,” Bradley replied.
“You got anything better to do?” Mike responded.
“Actually, I have a ton to do,” Bradley dejectedly answered. He was getting tired, and everyone could see it.
“Couldn’t we use some equipment to make the snow mounds? Or whatever we’re gonna call them,” Mike asked.
“Problem with that is lack of resources, namely gas. And the noise they will make when being used could draw unwanted attention to us,” Bradley said, trying to think of a way to make this work. “Have the patrols come back today?”
“Nothing around us for miles,” Val reported. The defense team had established regular foot patrols going out several miles.
“No Soviets?” Bradley asked again.
“None,” Val replied with a smile.
“That won’t last,” Bradley muttered, more to himself, pacing as he thought through various options in his head. “We do have equipment here that the city used for snow removal, we just need enough fuel to get the job done.”
“Most of the vehicles and equipment run on diesel fuel,” Mike said.
“And?” Bradley said.
“Biodiesel!” Pete responded with a shout. “We can make biodiesel.”
“How?” Bradley asked.
“It’s not a very long or complicated process. Over time it might gum up the engines, but we can do it,” Pete said. “We need oil, like from a restaurant, and filters. Need a catalyst too, like sodium hydroxide, and a few other things.”
“What the hell is that?” Mike asked.
“Lye,” Pete replied. “Basically. Most hardware stores have it.”
“Can you make it?” Bradley asked.
“Sure, but in the quantities you’ll need? Doubtful, unless we can find a stockpile of supplies,” Pete said.
“Get started,” Bradley directed him. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”
“It’s ok,” Val told him.
“NO!” Bradley shouted, “It’s not! How many people could we have saved if we had thought of making fuel before now? How many generators could have been running, providing heat?”
“How could you have known?” Val asked him. “Nobody could predict what was going to happen, nobody! You can’t keep blaming yourself for every little fuck up that happens!”
“The hell I can’t!” Bradley nearly shouted. “You told me that everyone sees me as their leader. Well, that means the responsibility for thinking of these things ahead of time lands on my back!”
“Stop that shit, right now!” Val glared at him. “You couldn’t predict this! And even if you could have, would it have made that big of a difference? We’re talking about running noisy equipment, alerting anyone within earshot that we are here. You want to talk ‘would-a, could-a, should-a’, then talk about that! All it means is we would have delayed the end result a little longer and we would now have even fewer resources to dedicate to our defenses!”
“Bradley, she’s right,” Ted told him, jumping into the conversation. “The only thing that will come from you beating yourself up is an unconfident leader who constantly second-guesses himself. That will kill us all.”
Bradley stood quietly and mulled over what the two had just said. Val was right about one thing; it didn't matter now. What was important was what they needed to do going forward. He was frustrated over the loss of life because he took it personally. He never reached the point of a full-blown anxiety attack, but at times it was often close.
"Pete, collect what supplies you need to make that diesel. Mike, get him everything you can."
"Will do," Mike replied. Pete nodded his head, and they were off to start the biodiesel refining.
"Pete!" Bradley called out. "When's the soonest you can have some ready?"
"Two days, max," Pete replied. Bradley sighed. Two days might as well be two years. It was a long time to be waiting.
"Very well," Bradley said. "As soon as the list is ready, go shopping."
CHAPTER EIGHT
ASHLAND
WISCONSIN
Just as Bradley’s impromptu meeting was breaking up, Christine came bounding through the door, out of breath and excited.
“I brought goodies, but I got the truck stuck,” she exclaimed.
“What truck? What goodies?” Val asked.
“That’s part of the shopping I was referring to earlier,” Bradley announced, getting up out of a chair. “Get your snow gear on, grab a shovel from someone, and follow me.”
Bradley led them out of the café and headed east down the street following Christine’s tracks in the snow.
“Stuck?” he asked Christine.
“Well, more like Joe got the tractor stuck, and I was trying to pull him out,”
“Good thing we all brought shovels,” Bradley joked.
The group walked well over a mile before they saw Joe using his hands to try and clear snow from around his tractor. It was an older model John Deere, with a loader on the front. He and Christine had been using it to try and bring a delivery to town.
“How come he has fuel?” Pete asked as they were getting close.
“Because he’s a farmer who had storage tanks. But he doesn’t have nearly enough for us to do the job we were thinking of,” Bradley replied, knowing that was going to be the next question.
“You ok?” Christine asked an out-of-breath Joe.
“Ju-th fine,” he beamed at her.
“Here,” Bradley said as he opened the back of the truck. “Take these and stand guard while we get the tractor dug out.” Bradley started passing out M-4s to his team that he had borrowed from Nathan’s personal stash.
“Where did you get these? And how many do you have?” Ted asked as he looked the weapon over, checking the barrel for cleanliness.
“A benefactor,” Bradley said, referring to Nathan. “And not nearly enough.”
Bradley and Christine got straight to work digging Joe’s tractor out while the others stood watch. The tractor was old and loud, and Bradley knew between Joe and Christine’s efforts they had made a lot of noise while trying to get the tractor unstuck, hence the precaution of setting a guard detail.
Within minutes, and with the help of the shovels, they had Joe’s tractor freed, and he continued forward, pulling out the truck and clearing a path for Christine to drive into town. As people heard the noise of the tractor, a crowd started to gather, following the truck down the cleared street to the cafe.
“Listen up everyone,” Bradley announced, standing in the truck bed so everyone could see him. “The real work begins today. The time for mourning our dead will come, but first, we need to finish preparing our town’s defenses. At the last meeting, we divided the volunteers into various groups and appointed leaders to a few select teams. Based on my observations over the last few days and at the advice of some of the group leaders, we need to define some of the teams even further to ensure that everything is done to defend and preserve the town.
“Val will continue to lead her group and going forward they will be responsible for acquiring and providing medical supplies and assistance. James will lead a team of mechanics to secure, repair, and prep some defensive vehicles. Ted will lead a team to requisition any additional resources we need, while Pete will start training the militia.”
“Out of all the volunteers from the last meeting, we have a solid number of people for each group. If you were not already assigned to one of the four groups mentioned, you will be part of the labor force we need to offload the gathered supplies, secure our town and build its defenses.”
“I am sending Ted’s team on a shopping expedition,” Bradley informed the crowd. “They will be acquiring a number of heavy items, so manual labor will be needed to help them offload and store them. If you are capable of assisting them, please see Ted at the end of this meeting.”
Bradley thanked everyone for gathering and climbed down off the truck to meet up with his leaders.
“Val, take your team and secure whatever you can find at the clinic and hospital. Bring it to the church and build a med center. If you need help, go grab some of the people who volunteered to help Ted. He won’t need them until he returns.”
“Pete, take the rest of these weapons and start getting the militia trained. Then get over to the airport and see what James has found that we can use,” Bradley instructed.
“Ted, Christine, and I are going with your team. The list is long and will most likely need to come from several places.”
“Every group needs to have defense support personnel of some sort in place as they work, we don’t want to send people anywhere unguarded.”
“And just how are we going to travel to all these places?” Ted asked.
Bradley looked down the street to see Eric leading a team of horses. “Ask and you shall receive.”
“Where did those come from?” Val asked.
“I had Eric round up all the remaining livestock from nearby vacant farms,” Bradley told them. The mood turned somber when everyone realized Bradley was talking about locations where the owners had most likely died.
“Hey, they’re a resource we need,” Bradley exclaimed.
“No,” Val said. “That was smart. Very smart.”
“Ok, let’s get to it,” Bradley said.
“Um, one thing cowboy,” Christine said. “Not everyone knows how to ride.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re here to teach them, baby,” Bradley smiled at her. There was that word again.
“Wha-th I do?” Joe asked.
“Keep plowing us out,” Bradley said. “Start piling up snow around the church. Tall and wide.”
Without a word, Joe went back to his tractor and started on his project. Everyone else split into their groups, the scavenger group getting a quick riding lesson from Christine, with a couple of people in the group helping her.
After the brief riding lessons were done, Bradley and Christine accompanied Ted’s team to the local Wal-Mart. Bradley was sure that it had been picked clean long ago but he was hoping there were still some items that might have been overlooked.
Ted took them the long way around, coming up on the rear of the store and stopping the group just inside the tree line to avoid drawing attention to their objective. While approaching from the back helped hide the team, the large, windowless rear expanse of the store also limited their defensive lines of sight.
Ted told the team to stay put while he cautiously crept down and around one side to check out the front. Meanwhile, Bradley handed his reins to Christine and moved down to test the various back doors and loading docks to see if he could gain entry. Finding them all solidly locked, including the semi-trucks backed into the loading docks, he returned to the waiting group.
“Looks clear, the front doors have been busted into, but there was no glass on top of the snow, and I didn’t see any human tracks, so it probably happened a while ago,” Ted said when he returned.
“Stay alert,” Ted told them as they dismounted and started making their way to the front of the building, leaving their horses with a guard just inside the tree line. “I didn’t have a chance to scout inside.”
Copying Ted’s actions, the group readied their weapons and braced for an unexpected attack as they approached the front doors.
Upon entering, Bradley immediately had a feeling something was wrong. The lights were off, it was cold, and he had this crawling sensation on the back of his neck that told him they shouldn’t be there.
By the dim light coming through the entry doors, they could see the place had been torn apart. Shelves had been toppled, items were strewn about, glass from broken bottles littered the floor, and they could smell a faint hint of smoke in the air.
“Something isn’t right,” Bradley whispered.
“I know,” Ted said as he continued forward. “But we need anything we can find at this point.”
“We should go,” Bradley insisted.
“You’re just nervous,” Ted replied as he continued further inside, heading for the grocery section, which stunk of rotted food and death. “There’s nothing over here we can use. Let’s head to the back.”
Reluctantly, Bradley followed along, his gut telling him to get out. They passed the sporting goods section, noting it had been picked clean. Again, bare shelves had been toppled over, and the ammunition case behind the counter had been destroyed. Just beyond the tire section were the doors to the back stockroom.
“When we get to the doors, stay low,” Ted told Bradley, as he crouch-walked the rest of the way to the doors, glass crunching under his boots. As he started to open the swinging door, a shotgun blast rang out, shredding the center of the door and hitting Ted squarely in the shoulder. Ted toppled over with a grunt as Bradley opened fire, emptying his entire magazine through the half-open door. As he changed magazines, he could hear people behind the door screaming and the sound of others running.
Whether it was sheer boldness or plain stupidity, Bradley surged through the door, firing his M4 as fast as his finger could pull the trigger, only to see the last of the attackers fleeing out a side door.
Bradley raced after them, smashing through the side door and continuing to fire at the fleeing attackers. He dropped two, but the rest made it behind cover and were still running away.
Walking up to the two he had dropped, he saw they were still alive and slammed the butt of his rifle against the back of their heads, knocking them out cold.
“Get them inside, and tie them up,” he shouted as he re-entered the stockroom and approached the interior doors where the rest of his group had gathered. “I want to question them when they come to. How is Ted?”
“Hit in the shoulder,” Christine told him, kneeling over Ted and applying pressure with her hands to the rapidly bleeding wound. “He needs medical care fast.”
“Shit!” Bradley exclaimed as crouched next to Christine. “Somebody find something to stop the bleeding!”
“Check the trucks,” Ted said through gritted teeth.
