Journal Entry 11
The mood at the meeting was, in a word, depressed. We had lost eight of our small community and none of them were Mrs. Deneaux, I thought sourly. There had been five raiders, four were killed, one wounded and subsequently captured. You guessed it, my old pal Durgan had lived.
“Okay,” Jed began, “so now the question is, what do we do with the prisoner.”
“Kill him!”
“Shoot him!”
“Put him outside the gates!”
There was an assortment of angry replies from the group.
Jed was trying his best to restore order, but the crowd (mob) wanted nothing to do with it. Eight of their own had been killed and they wanted good old-fashioned Western justice.
“Talbot, this is the second run-in you’ve had with this guy. What’s your opinion?” Jed opted to turn the discussion over to me.
Thanks so much, Jed, for dumping this mess on me, I thought sourly as I stood up. “Jed, Durgan is dangerous and probably insane, but there isn’t anywhere here that we could lock him up. Even if we did, we would have to spread our already thin resources to guard him. I’m also not much for cold-blooded murder, so I guess I haven’t solved anything,” I sat down dejectedly.
Jed scowled at me as if to say ‘Thanks for nothing.’ I shrugged. I wasn’t getting paid the big bucks to make the difficult decisions. “Well then, we’re just going to have to set up a court system. I know that man killed our friends and neighbors, but I will not condone a lynch mob.”
“What gives you the right? He killed my best friend!” More than one resident yelled their agreement with Don Griffin, the man that had shouted out. “We know the outcome of the trial already, let’s just skip the formalities.” The yells of agreement were louder and contained more voices; it appeared to me that Jed was quickly losing ground and his tenuous hold on power.
I don’t know why I stood again, part of me thinks it’s because my whole life I’ve bucked the system. Society says go ‘right’ I go ‘left.’ I’ve always been a rebel…even if only in my mind.
“LISTEN!” I shouted. I waited a few seconds for the murmurs to die down. “You know Jed and I don’t always see eye-to-eye.” That received some laughs, most people remembering an easier life when the biggest problem was the correct time to put out the trash. “But he’s right—THIS TIME,” I emphasized. “I would like nothing more than to kill Durgan, but not like this, not in cold blood. Mr. Griffin?” I asked. “Could you, even now, as mad as you are, walk up to that man and kill him?” I didn’t want him to have enough time to ponder the question. He was still pissed, so I hastened on. “Of course you can’t, you’re not a murderer. I know it’s cliché, but do you want to step down to the level of that man?” I spat out the last word. It tasted funny on my tongue even as I was saying it. “Jed’s right,” I said with less vehemence. “We have to hold onto our civility or we just become a pack of rabid dogs.” The crowd wasn’t overly enthused with my speech, but the dissension had died down and I think if put to a vote even Don Griffin would acquiesce.
Jed thanked me with a slight nod. “All right, we will meet tomorrow to discuss who will preside over the trial, who will defend the accused, who will prosecute and who will sit on the jury.” There was still some grumbling in the audience, but it didn’t look like Jed was going to have his power usurped tonight. Jed continued. “Okay, now we have the more pressing concern of having to figure out how to defend against invaders. I honestly thought that zombies would be our only threat, for that I take full responsibility. I had the misconceived notion that any survivors would be thrilled at the prospect of joining our small society, not destroying it. If five armed men can cause this much destruction, we have to come up with another plan.”
“How about putting their severed heads on pikes outside the gates,” Griffin griped. Apparently he wasn’t quite done. Jed did the best thing he could. He ignored the comment.
“Listen, folks, I made a mistake,” Jed said dejectedly. “We are going to have to be more vigilant, and more vigilance means more guards.”
That did not sit well with the natives. “We already spend most of our day doing guard duty, what’s the sense of living if all we’re doing is defending against dying?” said one of the gentlemen I had seen around the complex walking his Bassett Hound during better times. There were other irritable words but Basset Hound man had pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Jed put his hands up in a placating manner before he began. “This is just temporary, I’ve already been talking to Alex and he has come up with plans for guard towers, and thanks to Talbot we now have the equipment and supplies to build them. They will be about fifteen feet tall, with a retractable ladder, armor plating, and lights. Because of their height, the guards on duty will be able to cover a wider range. This will mean fewer guards in the foreseeable future. We have also had ideas about heightening the wall but materials are going to be a factor. So if anyone can think of something, I’m all ears.”
I stood up again. I didn’t get the same reproachable look from Jed I had received the first time. “I think I know what we can do, although I’m not all that thrilled about it. There’s a National Guard armory about seven miles from here. Their entire enclosure is surrounded by Dannert barbed wire. We could cut it down and place it here. It will be close, but I think there will be enough.”
For those of you who don’t know what Dannert barbed wire is, picture it as beefed up barbed wire. This stuff is nasty. It literally has razors positioned on it every few inches. The team that was going to have to retrieve this stuff was most likely going to need blood infusions when the task was completed. Like a dumb ass, I had volunteered. Why didn’t I listen to my drill instructor from boot camp? He told us flat out, ‘Don’t EVER volunteer for anything! If you’re picked you go, but don’t EVER volunteer your worthless lives!’ Words to live by. Nice going, Talbot.
“All right, now that we know I’m going, we’re going to need a few more people, some to guard and most to help haul this stuff.” Clearly these people had never been to boot camp, because I got more than enough volunteers without any serious cajoling. “A couple of things. Bring the heaviest gauge clothing you can. This stuff will slice through denim like a shark through water. I’m not kidding. Next, does anyone know how to drive a truck?” Thank God someone answered, because just thinking about driving that behemoth again made my stomach turn.
“Excellent, excellent,” Jed continued. “Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. Alex will ask for volunteers to help build and erect eight towers. Three towers each on the west and east sides and one on each of the gated sides. We’ve got the folks going with Talbot, we’ll need ten or so people for food distribution, and on a more lugubrious note…”
The guy next to me asked what in the hell ‘lugubrious’ meant. I had no clue, I was in remedial English in high school so I just shrugged.
“…we will need a burial detail for those of our family and friends that have fallen.” I tuned back in to Jed’s instructions.
Don Griffin immediately shot his hand up. “I’ll go,” he said sullenly. “He was my friend.” The remainder of folks already not on one of the other work details raised their hands also.
“All right, folks, let’s let this night be done,” Jed finished.
Chairs squeaked, backs popped, soft sighs emanated from the crowd as the meeting came to an end. I walked up to Jed. He wasn’t a spring chicken when this carnival ride began. He was looking every bit of his age and then some.
I opened with, “You been getting any sleep, Jed?” He rubbed his eyes in response. “Jed, you can’t do it all. You can’t be mayor and sheriff and a soldier, that’s too much,” I empathized.
“What, because of my age!” he shot back. He softened when he saw the look of semi-shock on my face. “I’m sorry, Talbot, you’ve been an unexpected ally during this…this crisis. You’re right I am tired. I’m dead tired. No pun intended,” he said as he pointed a bony finger at me. “I’m afraid.”
I moved in to comfort him.
He shrugged me away. “Not for me, you pansy, I always knew you Marines were a fruity lot.” I laughed and so did he. The expression looked more natural on him than the scowl I had always thought was permanently fixed to his face. “Now if you’re not going to get all soft on me, I’d like to continue.”
“I’ll try to keep my hands to myself,” I assured him.
“I’m afraid for our little community we’ve got here. The TV reports say that humanity is on the brink of extinction.”
“Oh, you know how the news exaggerates,” I cut in, trying to lighten the mood.
He wasn’t having any of it. He continued joylessly, “There are other holdouts out there, and eventually we’ll find a way to get in touch with them. But right now we have to stay alive, and if it isn’t against those soulless zombies, we also have to be on guard against humanity’s worst offenders. So maybe the zombies don’t have any clue what they’re doing,” (on an aside, I wanted to interject a differing opinion but, wisely or not, I kept it to myself) “but that animal Durgan, he is the epitome of evil. I saw him, he was laughing while he was killing folks. Laughing, Talbot!” he almost screamed. “It almost doesn’t seem worth it, if that’s what we’re trying to save, let the damn zombies have the place.”
Holy crap, I didn’t think I’d ever hear Jed getting ready to throw in the towel. He must be a lot more tired than he looked.
“Jed, I’d be inclined to agree with you,” I said slowly. He looked at me with his head slightly tilted as if to say ‘Bah, you’d never agree with me.’ I pushed on. “There have been days, even before all this atrocity came raining down, that I wanted to just give up. But there are more important things in this world than just me. I trudge on because of my family and because of my friends, and most of all…” I paused for dramatic effect, “because of you.” I raced in real quick and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “See you tomorrow, Jed!” I yelled as I raced out of the meeting hall, something clattered close to my heels.
“Fuckin’ fruit,” Jed said softly, smiling as he wiped his cheek.