Finding Shelter

Posted on Wed Apr 10th, 2024 @ 5:42pm by Hale Stratton [Major, United States Army] & Alonzo Blazevic & René Rouen & Reuben Baptiste & Vienna Quinn & Killian Sutton & Calista Sutton & Victoire Olaffson [Lieutenant, United States Navy]

2,042 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Winter is Coming
Location: Outside of Bangor (Western Side)
Timeline: 5 September 2010 - 7:00 p.m.

The northern and southern gates, having had traffic through them most of the day, had drawn the attention of the not-so-dead but the western gate, where Hale led the group, shut and locked owing to lack of personnel, was quiet. He used his copy of the key Danforth had given him and the group slipped out. Because he had been leading scavenging and rescue efforts, he had a high quality map of the area surrounding the zone and he used that throughout the day to bypass locations that had been flagged as problematic but it was growing late in the day now and a twelve hour hike had brought them far enough away from the city that he was starting to feel … better. Less worried about their chances.

He sent Ethan ahead to let the scouts know to return to the group and once everyone was back together, gestured toward a house sitting by itself at the top of a low hill. "We need a place to sleep for the night and I'm thinking that house could work," Hale said. "We'll have to make sure that it's not occupied and we need supplies. There's a small grocery store about a mile down the road. So we'll split into teams."

Vienna looked around, the house was looking inviting right now. “I can go to the grocery store, we might need extra medical supplies in the future, so I can pick those up while we’re there.”

"And lighters," replied Alonzo. "That would be nice to find some lighters. Even the cheap plastic ones will do" he added. He was not about to add cigarettes to the shopping list, but he certainly wouldn't have mind if a carton or several made it back.

Vic eyed Alonzo for a moment at his request and then chuckled. "Y'know, eventually you are going to have to either learn how to make your own from scratch or quit altogether in this world" she poked at him before looking about the area and scrubbing Jasper's head. Her gaze shifted to Reuben and his dog and settled there for a moment before she spoke again. "Master Sergeant; how about you and Kenny stay here and ensure the house is secure; Myself and Jasper will go into town with Vienna and anyone else willing and ensure that that group remains safe."

Hale's expression turned thoughtful as he regarded Vic. "We all secure the house first. Once we're sure the house its safe, I think that's the beginnings of a plan. Reuben, Rene, Emma, Ethan, and Alonzo will stay here. Start getting things set up for tonight. I'll go into town with Vic and Vienna. We'll secure some basics, including a lighter or two," he nodded toward Alonzo, "and be back as soon as we can. It's little more than a convenience store, so I'm not sure how much they'll have but we'll do what we can."

"Alright, let's go check out the house." There was a driveway that led up off the road toward the house. Dark enough now that several things were already evident. No light sources showing and the windows weren't boarded up. As they reached the foot of the driveway, he said quietly, "Reuben, Vic, why don't you circle around to the rear. Get them from behind if its needed. Rene, Alonzo, you two are with me. We'll go in from the front and on the off chance that anyone's there, we'll knock. So you two stand behind and to the sides, so that if they fire immediately, you won't get hit."

Alonzo looked at Hale "Don't stand directly in front of the door if you are worried about someone shooting" he said with concern. "I don't want you getting shot either. We can't afford that," added Alonzo.

"Understood," Hale said, his voice softened, "I'll be careful."

Meanwhile ...

Since Killian had spent the morning digging the hole and the afternoon with both of them with the elderly partially eaten corpse had been meticulously carried down the stairs and out to the field to be buried. Killian had finally wrapped up burying the poor woman right as the sun had started to sink below the tree line.

It had been a well deserved quiet day. Heading back into the house, he went to find Calista who had finished categorizing the things in the kitchen.

"We were lucky," she commented. "The cat food was right next to the tuna..."

A chill went down Killian's spine as she spoke those words as he closed the front door. "Yeah, sounds about right. I'm going to go upstairs and get cleaned up before we lose the rest of the light."

"Sounds good. I have some more things I want to do to try to make at least the guest bedroom sleep-able." She didn't feel right sleeping in the room where they found the dead woman. The cat obviously had been trapped for some time and resorted to what it needed to do.

She had seen the cat hanging around the barn but would run away whenever she had tried to approach it earlier. Shuffling the guest bedroom full of boxes and magazines over to the wall of the master bedroom was definitely a hard laborious task that she had spent most of the day working on while he had been working on digging and burying. It was hard enough for the both of them to drag her corpse out of the house.

"Should probably lock the door, just in case since we're both upstairs," Killian called down from the top of the stairs.

"Was already on it," she had called out after locking the door.

It had been a good thing she did. Having looked at the horizon before locking the door, she hadn't seen anybody. Not even ten minutes after walking upstairs there had been a knock on the door. Calista stilled what she was doing waiting to see if the knock would come again.

It did. She quietly went to the window and looked down through the gauzy material that covered the window that she hadn't been able to open. She stood back enough that she could see out but couldn't be seen with the darkened room engulfing her.

Killian popped out from the bathroom around that same time, drying off from the buckets of water that he had hauled in that morning from the water pump in the side yard. He hadn't figured out how to get the water to work in the house. The well pump worked perfectly though. He looked at her as the second knock happened.

She pointed down towards the floor at the front door. She held out her hand with all her fingers out for the ones that she could actually see without moving closer. The third knock on the door made her jolt a bit.

He wasn't sure what they were going to do because they weren't technically the owners of the house and didn't want trouble for the squatting for the day that they had done. He walked quietly into the room to see the group of people. They looked mismatched enough that it didn't seem like anyone that was looking for the proper homeowners. He grabbed Calista's hatchet and put it in the back of his pants. "Stay here," he commented and pointed at the ancient shotgun they had found in the house that they hadn't bothered to try to fire that day as they had spent all their time working on proper rights for the owner.

Nodding hesitantly, she went for the shotgun in the hall way as Killian went down to the door.

He figured that it was better to answer than it was to have them try to break in and their boundary now not be defensible. "Yes?" he called out behind the closed door, gauging their interest to the house.

Occupied, Hale thought. Darn. Well, there was another one not far down the road. They could try there easily enough. Still, best to put their minds at ease.

"Sorry to disturb you," Hale said. "Name's Major Stratton, 5th Special Forces out of Fort Campbell. The Safe Zone in Bangor has fallen in case you intended to go that way. We were just looking for a safe place for the night but we can go elsewhere."

Reuben walked around the right side of the house. He quickly noted it was a two-story farmhouse. As he got to the rear of the house he noticed two things, a barn and a mound of freshly turned dirt, similar to a grave. Whispering to Kenny "Stay." He motioned to Vic with his right hand. He took two of his fingers and pointed at his eyes then toward her and then the door. Next, he pointed to himself and indicated the barn. The message simple for those in the military, she would take watch at the door, and he would move towards the barn and secure it.

Vic nodded at him, returning a raised hand with a quad of fingers raised, indicating that he had four minutes before she came searching for him. She took position at the rear door, peeking through the window to try to get a gauge of the situation.

Whoever was inside had not fired any rounds. That was at least a sign they were not the shoot first and ask questions later sort. Alonzo took that on good faith. "Hey," Alonzo said speaking up. "We aren't that large of a group. We don't mean you any harm or trouble, but we have several kids with us...er teenagers really. Some of us are armed, we would be willing help you for a place to stay."

Alonzo looked at Hale and shrugged. It was a gesture of may as well lay the cards on the table.

Killian grimaced as he heard that Bangor had fallen. He had hoped with it being a major city that it would have stayed longer than it seemed Millinocket had. At least it was seemingly a couple of days extra time. "That's not good," he said. While he wasn't apt to trust them after what happened at the Millinocket Airport, he realized that he could either trust them enough to allow them a place to stay as it was now darkening outside, or he could turn them away.

"This is not our house, we only came upon it last night. The owner had seemingly passed away from natural causes, I hope at least. I'm not a doctor, so, it's a best guess." He offered up his free hand that was on the door handle and moved the hand holding his wife's hatchet out to be seen and stepped aside letting them into the house. He wouldn't mention that she was up the stairs just yet, in case they proved him wrong. "Excuse the smell. Between rotting flesh and food... we've had the entire place open all day and it, while marginally better, still is bad."

"That's alright," Alonzo said pleasantly. "I've been traveling with soldiers and two teenage boys. Trust me, neither smell like a garden of roses" he said. "I don't want to startle you, but we had others going around the back of the house. We weren't sure if it was empty or occupied."

René pulled off his backpack and opened the large compartment. He pulled out a large can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew, something he had scavenged from the Quinn home on their (Vienna and Rene) trip there when the group first arrived in Bangor. "We have food to trade for a night's shelter." He handed the can to Killian. "Keep it even if you don't want us to stay."

"We have various things to offer" Alonzo added. "We do not want to crash here without returning the favor."

"Alonzo, if you could organize everyone who's staying, maybe help getting the place cleaned up and food going," Hale said, "we'll take that trip down to that strip of stores and see what we can bring back. Possibly some soap," he added dryly. "Vienna, let's go get Vic and head out."

Vienna nodded, giving René a smile as she prepared to head off to look for supplies.

 

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