Epilogue
Three months later
Chloe and Rok held hands as they entered the Gillioz for a “critical special all-hands meeting andvote.” Kevin had been left home in the backyard.
With New Springfield’s population “booming,” the gatherings were the easiest way to receive progress updates, address issues, and ensure everyone heard the same message. Survivor meet and greets occurred twice a week now, on Mondays and Fridays, the Wednesday in between reserved for all-hands. They’d never met on a Saturday before.
They didn’t usually vote, either. There’d only been one vote—to unanimously elect the members of the town council. If decisions needed to be made, the five-member council got everyone’s input and then made them.
The first to arrive, Chloe and Rok wended down the aisle lit by generator-powered lamps. No more candles and flashlights—not yet, anyway. They took aseat in the empty front row, and she eyed seven chairs behind a table on the stage. Grav would take the sixth chair as a non-voting advisor, but who was the seventh for? A smaller table had been set on the stage near the edge. On the floor was a three-legged wooden stool.For displays? Show and tell?
“Fifty-two!” Rok read off the updated population count on the whiteboard. She had been teaching him to read and write. It had been no boast he was a quick study; he learned fast. “We gained three more!”
They’d missed the previous welcome meeting, but they tried to attend as many as they could. Chloe remembered how important it had been to learn there were survivors and have a way to meet up with them.
“Fifty-two is more than double since we arrived,” she commented.
For the first two months after their arrival, newcomers had trickled in, one to three per week.
Then, last month, numbers had doubled after Chloe and Rok had gone to St. Louis and posted signs directing survivors to Springfield.
Aware the Progg might still be there, she’d been wary and nervous, but she felt a duty to go. Of everyone, she was the most familiar with the city. She reassured herself that Rok, armed with his vaporizer,could protect her, and, as a bonus, she’d been able to retrieve her phone with her photos from the trio’s house.
They posted dozens of signs at various locations. The English version directed humans to Springfield, while the Progg version, written by Grav, reported the end of the campaign and ordered a ceasefire. In case the Progg was still at the Arch, Rok had gone alone to post notices there, but reported no sign of him or any indication he’d ever been there. She wondered if the trio had lied about his whereabouts, too, if the Progg had been in the neighborhood all along.
They’d encountered no humans on the trip, but shortly thereafter, people began arriving four to six a week from St. Louis.
A noise drew her attention to the rear of the theater. Horace Greenly, one of the “originals,” as she’d dubbed those who’d preceded her and Rok, ambled down the aisle, and she waved for him to sit with them.
“We had the all-hands this week. Why are we meeting again?” he asked.
“No idea,” she replied. “When LaTasha delivered the flyer, we tried to catch Laurel, but she and Grav had already left.”
A sitting member of the council, Laurel served as New Springfield’s mayor. Also serving on the council were three originals—a cop from Kansas City, a hairdresser from Big Creek, a Springfield TV news reporter—and a newer resident, a personal trainer who’d trekked in from Oklahoma.
“This had better be good,” Horace said. “I have a lot to do. The clock is ticking.”
“You’ve made great headway clearing the roads,” she said.
“Fifteen hundred vehicles and seventy-five miles!” In three months, Horace and two helpers had cleared 1,500 cars from seventy-five miles of roadway.
Tow-truck driver Horace had been out rescuing a stranded motorist when Springfield got attacked. Absence was the commonality survivors shared—everyone had been away when their city was vaporized. The motorist Horace had gone to rescue was Guy Baker, a defense attorney on his way home after a fishing trip. He hit a deer and smashed up his car. Bad luck had saved his life and Horace’s.
Nobody needed lawyers anymore, but Guy’s fishing and hunting skills were a great asset. He and a couple of recruits provided fresh fish, venison, wild turkey, and rabbit for the community.
Some people worked harder than others, but there were no idle hands. Everybody contributed either knowledge, skill, or manpower. Even fifteen-year-old LaTasha Zeldon, a street kid from Kansas City, helped out. She served as a gofer and messenger for the council and the townspeople.
Two of the most valuable and hardest-working individuals were originals Jacob and Sarah Bontrager, an Amish couple who provided critical know-how all but forgotten by the “English.” With their guidance, a huge garden had been planted and tended by the community. Sarah had taught Chloe and several other women how to can and how to bake bread from sourdough starter. Besides vegetables, the women had put up venison and fish provided by Guy and his men. The Bontragers had scouted for and rounded up two horses, a cow for milk, and ten adult chickens, which had hatched a bunch of little chicks. They couldn’t yet supply eggs to everybody, but once the little chicks grew up, that would change.
As dog grooming wasn’t needed, Chloe and Rok worked at the Bontrager farm, weeding and tending the garden and helping with the animals. They’d learned how to milk a cow. Surprisingly, the smell of milk didn’t bother Rok.
In another month, most everyone would assist with the fall harvest, followed by a major canning and preserving session.
Afterward, they planned to celebrate with a harvest festival.
The people of New Springfield were eating well. The immediate critical need—food—had been easy to fulfil.
But numerous problems without discernable solutions loomed.
