Houses in Order
For the next several weeks, the wall team shuffled home once a week, trading people in and out so they weren't burning themselves out on the projects. After a month and a half, the first row of shipping containers had been collected and arranged around the town. They were still working on the gates, so things weren't quite ready to bring the others in. However, since it was close, I joined the guys, Matt, Lucas, Tyreese, and Trent on a run out there. I wanted to get a jump on cleaning out the houses that were going to be lived in. Louise and Kristen asked me to keep an eye out for a good place for them and to use my best judgment in picking out their homes. They had only one request; that they were close to the field that they were going to turn into a garden. There were several that fit that request, so that was going to be an easy one to fill. Tanya and Lacey joined me as well to help make the houses livable. I felt a touch of guilt knowing that there were so many people on this trip because it left the group in Idaho seriously undermanned, especially in relation to kid to adult ratios, but we needed to make the houses in Montana somewhat ready for the others when they came. I tried to spin it in my head that the lack of people in the Idaho house would actually be a relief, but I didn't really believe it. Tanya and I went with Lacey in her little hybrid so we were able to have a vehicle while we were in town.
When we reached the town, we were amazed by the work that had gone into the wall. Around one hundred containers were in a ring, securing a great deal of the area, and a mixture of large tires, wooden spikes and razor wire stopped anything from getting through the gaps that were between the containers. I was impressed with the guys. It amazed me that they were able to find the containers in the first place, and since I didn't have a clue how they pulled them off the flat beds of the trailers without those huge cranes that lifted the containers from the trains, I was doubly impressed with how they not only pulled them off, but they managed to put them into position where they wanted to. At each gate there was a guard shack so there was a place for people to find a refuge from the cold or sun. In the corners, there were little duck and cover points in the event of a live attack, like what happened back in California. A walkway was built along the top of the wall with fencing so someone could make their rounds on the wall. The only unblocked breaks in the wall were where Elliot Street ran through the town, just like we talked about doing. Since they didn't have actual gates yet, the guys used a couple of the old school buses as road blocks. They rigged up a wood panel on the bottom of the bus to block anything from slithering underneath, but left them mobile to allow cars to come in. It was a pretty good temporary solution until they could build the gates that they wanted to build. The long term goal was to fill the sections of the wall that were without a shipping container as they became available. We had slight delusions of grandeur when we thought that getting 250 containers was going to be easy. Maybe if we were in Long Beach or some other sea shipping yard we would have been more successful, but it was still awesome.
I noticed that there was a larger pile of the dead outside of town where we were dumping bodies. It seemed that my concern that the dead would be attracted to the sound of the walls being constructed was a valid one. I hated that there were so many bodies piled up, and I knew it was just a matter of time before we had to burn them, but I knew that we were waiting until most of the work was done before we started the fire. I overheard Tyreese mention that he wanted to wait until the weather changed into the rainy season so they wouldn't accidentally burn down the state. I thought it was a good idea.
We drove up to the area around the main street to take a look at what this area had to offer in the way of houses. I had already found the place I wanted right next to the medical center. It was a little three bedroom home, designed in the 50's, and had a nice charm to it. There was a pretty yard despite the overgrown garden, and I saw a lot of potential in it. It didn't take long before Tanya found a place that she fell in love with just a block north of the downtown area. The lot shared a driveway with two houses, one house was smaller, almost like a guest house with two bedrooms, although one bedroom had been converted to a library, and the other house was a four bedroom home that Trisha would probably be happy in with the girls. There was a narrow alley that separated the houses from the street behind it. The house that stood behind hers was a two bedroom house that would be perfect for DaWayne. She wore a wistful look of hope while she cleared out Trisha's house, and it seemed like she was less tired now that she was connected to the town. I couldn't wait for Lacey to find her house as well.
Lacey and I decided to walk down the street to take in the neighborhood. This area was surprisingly beautiful for such a small town, and now that I wasn't clearing out piles of bodies, I let myself absorb the beauty of the homes. The mountains in the background looked like a painting, and I could imagine that when the people lived in this town before, they couldn't help but feel like they were connected to something bigger than themselves.
We walked a couple of blocks when we found the ideal house for Lacey. The house was a two-story building with what looked like an attic, so we went inside to check it out. There were four bedrooms and indeed a usable attic that could be turned into another room. She was happy about the place, it definitely would be a comfortable fit for her expanded family. Next door, there was a three bedroom house that she knew Lucas would insist on Matt moving into. Since Merideth's death, Lucas didn't like Matt being too far away. This would serve their purposes well. Just like when Tanya found her home, Lacey had the same look of hope in her eyes. Hope was an amazing thing, and we took every shred of it as a gift and a reason to keep going.
Two houses down on a corner lot was another three-bedroom home. You could see the field from the backyard. I took it as a prospective place for either Louise or Kristen. The kitchen was large, and had more than enough room to teach a whole village about cooking in it. On the counters were a variety of high end mixers as well as a series of antique ones that required no power. I imagined that the previous occupant loved cooking and had a soft spot for being able to do things the old fashioned way if there was a power failure. It even had an island in the center of the kitchen with a hanging pot rack over it, filled with copper-bottomed pans. This was Louise's home, no questions about it.
Across the street, there was a two story house with three bedrooms. It backed up to the field and had its own little garden with several fruit trees in the yard and even a little greenhouse that had plants still growing in it, despite the lack of attention. Directly across the street was the elementary school. Even though we weren't going to be using the school itself right away, I knew that the playground would see a lot of action, and I wanted nothing more than to see my nephew take advantage of the jungle gym that one of the bedrooms looked out over. This was Kristen's house for sure.
We decided that even though there were probably a lot of supplies in the other houses, we were going to leave cleaning those out for another time. We had the rest of our lives to go through those places, and we had enough work on our hands as it was. There was one exception, we did go in the kitchens and rummage through the pantries for food before we even started on the houses we wanted to move into. We took all the food we found and loaded it into the trunk of Lacey's car to take back to the group. Each can was a gift, even the super processed canned ham.
We decided that the best way to do this clean-up was to pull out everything that we knew that the people moving in didn't want or couldn't use. We made two piles in front of the houses, one of things that were still able to be used after they were cleaned, and another pile of trash and stuff that we were going to burn with the bodies. The items that were placed in the good pile were going to be taken down to the mercantile, and people could take what they liked from there instead of us hoping we got it right and dropping things off in front of the houses, wasting time and energy. I imagined that we would all be able to pretend like we were shopping at the store, buying things for our new homes.
We started at the school area, since it was the last area to be assigned, and decided that it would be easiest to just go house-to-house from there. Moving the contents of the houses was harder than we had anticipated. We knew that things like beds and sofas would be a struggle but we didn't take into account the completely repetitive motions of things like fishing out pots from the bottom cupboards or the arms filled with clothes from the closets. It occurred to me that the lack of calories in our diet was making things more difficult than it would have otherwise been as we went room by room.
Not all of the houses had a zombie or a suicide in it when we cleared the area, but there were some. The things that we took from a zombie or corpse occupied room were automatically thrown into the burn pile; no one wanted to take the chance that they could come into contact with a surprise glob of gore. We stripped the carpet off of those floors as well, and poured an extra coat of bleach down. We knew that there was no way that we were going to render these places clean completely, and when it was time for each family to move into their homes, they would definitely have a lot of work ahead of them, but if we could make a dent in the work, we were going to be coming out ahead. I hoped that at some point we would come across a store that had paint, not just to cover up gross stuff, but so we could personalize the rooms. That idea crossed my mind as we were clearing out a very pink room in the house that Kristen was going to move into. Nathan was definitely going to reject the idea that he was going to have to be in a girl's room.
After we took care of cleaning out Kristen's house, followed by Louise's, we decided that we hit a good stopping point for the evening. I spotted Trent and the truck not too far away so I went and retrieved the truck keys from him. We piled the truck bed high with the stuff we wanted to keep and dropped them inside of the mercantile for a later sort and shelve project. It would be a perfect job for the kids later, since they always wanted to help with something. After we made three trips, we returned to the burn pile and loaded it into the truck, taking care to not inherit any of the gore. Tanya had a great idea after we scooped up the first pile and went inside to grab trash bags. She pulled out her pocket knife and cut a slit at the top and on the sides. She slid the bag over her head like a poncho, creating a barrier between her and the nasty stuff. Fortunately, there were less burn items than there were keep items and it only took one trip with the truck to drop off the soiled stuff.
On our way out to the dump site, we came across an interesting discovery. In the road, there was a large cardboard box with the words 'open me' painted on it. I was certain that it wasn't there when we came to town. I sent Lacey in the truck to go fetch the guys. I kept a bit of distance from the box, wondering what could be inside, and more than a little afraid of what it could be.
Obviously, it was from the living, and my wariness came from our previous run-ins with people. I was afraid that there was something nefarious inside, like a zombie head or a bomb, or something like that, to tell us that we were not welcome in this area. I hoped that my anxiety was based more out of too many movies than anything real.
When the guys came to see what the big deal was, they too had a flash of concern on their faces. It was funny how such an innocuous little package could trigger these feelings. We stood around this box in a circle of silence, no one wanting to be the one to have to deal with the mystery box. Finally, Trent decided that there was no point sitting in the street staring at the box and slowly approached it. He removed his hunting knife from its sheath and poked the tip under the flap to open the top. He leaned over the box and looked inside. His eyebrows furrowed in a twinge of confusion as he reached in the box and plucked a folded sheet of paper from the package.
Trent unfolded the paper and began to read aloud.
Good afternoon, new people moving in. We are in a settlement nearby and thought we should make the first contact since we already know the area. In the past, the neighborly thing to do would have been to knock on your door, but times have changed and, well, we know nothing about you.
In the box there is a radio. We will be on channel five at dusk. If you are interested in introducing yourself and meeting our people, you'll turn it on. If we don't hear from you, we will have to assume you have more sinister purposes in mind, and we'd recommend against that course of action. We didn't survive this long to be taken out by a bunch of strangers, and if we have to we will defend ourselves with force. We learned that the best defense is a good offense.
The choice is yours. Channel 5, dusk.
Trent looked up at us with a look of skepticism. He leaned back over the box and retrieved a small walkie-talkie from inside, and looked it over before he searched our eyes for a hint of what we were thinking.
Lacey looked around the area we were standing in to see if there was anyone that was watching us. "We probably need to move this discussion inside of the safe house. I have a really paranoid bone that is buzzing like hell right now, and I know I would feel better if we were inside while we talked about this stuff." No sooner than she said that, did I feel waves of chills all over my spine. From the looks on the others faces, they too got their share of goosebumps. It was funny how quickly we all convinced ourselves that we were alone out here, and how quickly that security net was taken away. Lucas picked the box up out of the road, and we all walked with a brisk pace to the house.