Chapter Nine #2
allowed for error by turning on the radio early.
They listened to the static, standing around and talking quietly among themselves, waiting for the broadcast to start. A minute
ticked by, then another. An alarmed murmur ran through the crowd. They began looking around and at each other. Sela met Mike
Kilgore’s eyes, and saw awareness in his.
There was only static.
Carol looked at the dial, adjusted the knob a little in case it had been bumped and knocked out of place, at one point or
another.
Static.
People crowded around, hoping against hope. Carol scanned up and down the dial, trying to find another station they could
receive, however weak the signal. Nothing.
The alarmed murmur got louder. Barb made a sound of distress, then pressed her hand to her mouth. Sela saw a girl in Olivia’s
group start crying, and Olivia try to comfort her though she, too, looked as if she was about to start tearing up.
Sela tried not to be too disappointed but she felt as if they’d turned a corner, and not a good one. It was inevitable that
the radio station would go dark, but he’d said just yesterday that they had enough for another two or three days. Had he simply
miscalculated the amount of fuel? Had the station been attacked?
Had he given up, and simply not gone to the station? They had no way of knowing.
“Well, that’s that.” Decisively Carol turned off the radio with a quick and final flick of a switch. “I never thought I’d
actually miss hearing so much bad news. Damn, I need another cup of that weak-ass instant coffee.”
Mike had moved closer, and Sela said to him, “We need to take a look at our security situation.”
Carol and Barb both looked at her, and the people around them fell silent to listen. “Why?” Barb asked.
“People are leaving Knoxville,” Sela replied. “Most of them will stick to the interstate going south, but some of them might
come this way, and they’ll be desperate.” Desperate or mean, the end result didn’t matter. Whoever came to the valley would
be looking for food, for shelter, for weapons and supplies and anything that could be sold or traded. “We have enough to get
by for a while, enough for us and our neighbors. But if we’re overrun what we have won’t last a week, assuming we’re left
with anything at all, or aren’t killed outright.”
“She’s right,” Mike said. “We should have already thought about this and got something set up.”
“Who would come here?” Barb asked, alarmed. She wasn’t the only one; some younger people were looking around in confusion,
as if expecting to see hordes of people pouring down the highway toward them, while the people who had been in the military
were nodding their heads.
“Could be anyone,” Mike said. “Look how many tourists drove through this area every day. And people in the cities already
know they can’t stay there, so if they have any sense they won’t head for another city, they’ll look for small communities—like
this one—that are self-sustaining. They know country folk have guns and gardens, and that’s what they’ll want.”
Sela hadn’t noticed Ted Parsons in the crowd, but now he maneuvered into the nucleus of the conversation. “Looters and gangs
will be in the minority. A lot of regular people will be leaving the cities, too, and they could be a lot of help. There’s
safety in numbers. A gang will look for isolated people they can overwhelm, not a place where they’ll be outnumbered.”
“If we had unlimited resources I wouldn’t disagree with you,” Mike said.
“As it is, we wouldn’t be able to house and feed a bunch of other people,” Carol pointed out. “All the vegetable gardens have
stopped producing, and we won’t have a fresh supply of food or the ability to grow more until next spring . . . say, eight
months until more crops are in. We can’t take in more people without shortchanging the ones who are already here.”
There was a rumble of agreement around her. Ted looked frustrated. “But more people are more hands to cut wood, and hunt.”
“That works only if they bring their own axes and ammunition with them,” Sela said quietly. “Otherwise they’d be using tools
we already have. No matter how much we want to help people, if we want to make it through the winter we will already have
to severely conserve what we have.”
That earned her a scowl from Ted, which she wouldn’t care about if he didn’t have just enough argument on his side to cause
serious dissent. Their resources were so thin she didn’t know if they could survive a break in their united front.
She wished Ben were here, for all the good wishing did. He’d know what to do, but though he’d taken the trouble to warn her,
and then flabbergasted her by checking on the Livingstons, weeks could go by without anyone seeing him. He’d already refused
Mike’s invitation to join them. He was in great shape up there on Cove Mountain, and didn’t need them. Assuming anyone wanted
his supplies, they’d have to first climb the mountain, then fight him. Even street gangs would go for easier prey, and leave
him and his shotgun alone.
But he wasn’t the only person around here who’d been in the military; there were several standing here around her, mostly
men but a couple of women, too. They had a forest ranger, a retired cop, and a whole lot of people who had spent their whole
lives hunting in these mountains. The valley people weren’t helpless, or without knowledge.
Carol reached for her ever-present notebook. “Okay, people, I need some names. We’re going to need people who can start riding
or walking patrol. We need enough to keep an eye on the main highway approaches, and that new parkway over the mountain from
Knoxville to here is going to be a pain in the butt, you just wait and see.”
Sela agreed on that. The new parkway had sat unfinished for years, then the project got going again just in time to cause
a problem by creating another vulnerability. Keeping an eye on it would require at least two people, each pulling twelve-hour
shifts, and that wasn’t going to be easy.
Trey Foster, the man who had offered to keep her supplied with firewood, spoke up. “I was in the army, I can help with patrolling.
But if we’re patrolling we won’t be able to hunt, or chop firewood, and our families will suffer for that.”
Mike said, “The sensible solution would be to pay the security team with food, everybody chipping in with a little. If someone
brings down a deer, part of it goes for payment.”
“Some people can’t afford to give away their food!” Ted said, looking alarmed, which told Sela he and his wife hadn’t gathered
as much food as they could have.
“Then you should join the community patrol,” Mike said, immediately coming to the same conclusion.
Ted looked startled, then said, “Well, okay.” After a second, his expression morphed into one of pleasure. He was not only
being included, but doing something important. Maybe that was the key to handling him: keep him busy, and stroke his ego.
Carol wrote down their names, Trey’s and Ted’s, and at Mike’s nod added his to the list. “I’m waiting,” she hollered. “Y’all
step up here and help keep the valley safe, or I’ll be talking to your mamas and wives, and you don’t want that.”
That provoked a rumble of laughter, and men began moving forward. There weren’t that many of them, maybe two dozen, but there
were enough to patrol the highway approaches, and eventually they would have to settle disputes, but for now—it was a start.