Jeff Brackett - Half Past Midnight

I chuckled. Money was a thing of the past, and we all knew it. A person’s value now hinged on what he could do, not how much money he made. “Mark, he’ll cut into your learning time. How do you feel about it?”

Mark never hesitated. “I’d like him to stay. We work pretty well together. He thinks like I do. Always knows what I’m trying to do or say nearly as soon as I do.” He paused to gather his thoughts before he went on. “You’re the boss. You have to make the decision. But if I get a vote, I vote to let him stay.”

Until then, I didn’t think I had ever heard Mark string so many words together at one time. I figured he must feel pretty strongly about keeping Brad.

I turned back to Brad. “Building a second forge was a good idea, and I like anyone who can think for themselves that way.” I offered my hand to seal the deal. “You stay as long as you want. I can afford a little more time when I know it’ll pay off in the long run.”

And so I acquired two apprentices for a skill I barely knew myself. It was a hell of a world we lived in.

***

After the mayor died, the town coasted along as if on autopilot for a while, but it soon became apparent that some sort of leadership would be necessary. On September twentieth, nominations were taken at a town meeting held in the Rejas Eagles Football Stadium, and on September twenty-seventh, Chief of Police James Kelland was elected mayor.

I sheepishly recalled the day he had come to ask Amber to work at the hospital. Wanting the excuse to humiliate him, I had waited almost eagerly for him to attempt to draw his revolver. My feelings had changed since that day, and I was a little ashamed. The man had just been doing his job.

That was what made Kelland such a good choice for mayor. He did whatever was necessary to get the job done. He didn’t care if he hurt somebody’s feelings, angered a mob, or stepped on somebody’s toes in the process. He got the job done.

And if he didn’t know how to do it, he would find someone that did. The man knew his limitations and had learned to draw on the talents and knowledge of those around him, allocating jobs as necessary.

One of the first things he did was appoint several committees to study the state of affairs locally and abroad. “I can’t get nothin’ done ’til I find out what needs doin’,” he’d proclaimed.

The mayor coerced Ken into accepting a position as a “special advisor” to the new Chief of Police, Chris Henny, to help coordinate the town’s defenses. Ken’s experience in military tactics and weaponry made him a natural, and his popularity after the attack of the marauders didn’t hurt any. Everyone knew him, and everyone was more than willing to cooperate with him.

I ended up as an aide to a couple of the mayor’s committees. Sort of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, I could often help pinpoint problems and leave others to work out the solutions. Debra volunteered to help organize reports from the committees to the new mayor, and as soon as her organizational abilities were recognized, Kelland snatched her up as his personal aide.

I directed the Resources Committee’s attention to the fact that we needed to scrape the top few inches of soil off of as much of the farmland as was possible. If we waited much longer, the autumn rains would mix the fallout-contaminated topsoil with the deeper, cleaner soil too well to separate the two. Ken and his construction crew worked at the chore with bulldozers, dump trucks, and gas masks.

I also convinced them to supplement the present food stockpile, to which the Dawcett clan had finally donated a van full of provisions we had gotten from the pantries of many of the surrounding abandoned homes, with a hunting team. There was considerable opposition to that idea at first since the fear of fallout was still paramount in everyone’s mind. Everyone knew the dangers of ingesting fallout, and most knew that local wildlife would have had to have eaten contaminated flora at some point since D-day in order to survive. So, they were understandably hesitant to risk eating “contaminated” meat. With the help of one of the doctors from the hospital and several books from my personal library, I finally convinced them it was safe as long as proper precautions were taken.

The chosen hunters were instructed to pick only the healthiest-looking animals. They would field strip the animals as soon as they made the kill and leave behind any organ meat, as well as the muscle closest to the bone. Organ tissue and bone marrow were where any fallout the animal had inhaled or consumed would be concentrated. That would provide Rejas with safe meat and leave some of the hardier scavengers with some extra food as well.

The bishop of the Mormon Church and several hundred of his followers searched every abandoned home in the area, gathering any supplies that might have been left behind, and locating several small gardens that still had some usable fruits and vegetables. They added everything they found to the stockpile, canning the fruits and veggies in mason jars.

The LDS group grew by leaps and bounds as the locals saw that they weren’t some outlandish cult, but just good God-fearing people whose beliefs, though quite different in some respects, did happen to include preparing for whatever tests God might fling at them. The LDS congregation before the bombs had numbered about two hundred strong in Rejas. The day after, Rejas found that caravans of Mormon refugees had arrived in the night to swell their ranks to nearly eight hundred. Others had trickled in over the last few weeks, and there had been a rash of conversions, as well, swelling their ranks to more than fifteen hundred members.

Though Rejas had begun rationing immediately after D-day, fuel was another immediate concern, and all of the stations were quickly down to critical levels. In reality, this was actually a threefold problem.

First, we had to find enough fuel to keep Rejas functional over the next few years. That should be enough time to determine whether the country was ever going to get back on its feet, or if the U.S.A. was gone for good. If the former, we could probably count on some kind of assistance eventually. If the latter, we were on our own and would have to search for long-term solutions.

Next, after we found enough fuel to keep us going for a while, we would have to find a way to preserve it. That problem was more difficult. Fossil fuel would store only for a matter of months before autoxidation set in, the decomposition process which would break the fuel down into a variety of lacquers and gums, rendering it unsuitable for use. I had read about it years ago and purchased two sixteen-ounce bottles of a fuel preservative that might prove to be the answer. Each bottle was guaranteed to prevent autoxidation for up to five years. Unfortunately, thirty-two ounces would only treat a hundred gallons, hardly enough to supply a whole town.

Enter Wayne Kelley, Rejas High School chemistry teacher. Wayne was able to analyze and duplicate enough of the preservative to treat millions of gallons. He claimed it was actually a simple compound to copy, made of alcohols and other fairly common substances, and he soon had a small production facility set up in an abandoned warehouse.

The third part of the problem was transportation. None of that fuel would do us a bit of good in surrounding towns. We had to get it back to Rejas. So Kelland sent out an appeal through the Chronicle for volunteers.

First, we needed scouts to check neighboring towns and locate fuel, as well as any other usable items. They would take with them enough fuel preservative to treat any fuel tanks found.

Next, truck drivers were called for, anyone with experience in driving eighteen-wheelers.

Volunteers began pouring in immediately. Hundreds volunteered for the scouting runs, and fifty-eight truck drivers came forward, including three that had previous experience hauling gasoline. From those fifty-eight, Kelland selected the forty-eight that were in the best physical condition and divided them into two teams of twenty-four for our sixteen trucks. The remainder would serve as standby drivers.