Chapter One

SEEING THE HUGE GROUP OF stragglers coming into Haven was so overwhelming, I was grateful that Bodo carried me out and sat me down off to the side. I needed a few minutes to gather my wits and wrap my head around the idea that I was now responsible for five times as many people as I had been before.

Maybe I shouldn’t have felt so pressured. We were all responsible for ourselves, really. But I knew they were looking to me for direction. I had to accept the fact that for at least the next few weeks, I was going to be in charge here - the mayor of Haven, kind of. Hopefully we’d get some form of government put in place soon that didn’t involve me being a dictator or a chiefesse as Fohi liked to call it.

“Are you ready to go back out dare now?” Bodo asked, searching my eyes, probably worried I’d finally gone completely over the edge.

“Yes, I’m ready. Bring it on.” I stood, leaning on Bodo a little, not quite ready to be without his strength.

Peter stepped into the small alcove where Bodo and I had been resting. “Hey, Bryn. How are you feeling?” He rubbed my arm and searched my face like Bodo had.

“I’m good. Don’t worry about me. I just needed a little breather, that’s all. Let’s do this.” All those people were out there waiting, and I didn’t want them wondering what the heck was going on with me. All I needed was a group of people doubting my ability to hold it together when we were just in the beginning stages of a massive reconstruction of our lives. They had to know they could count on me to hold it together, even when the doo was hitting the fan. Each minute that ticked by, I had more and more respect for the Amazon chicks that we’d met back by the coast. They were already at least ten steps ahead of where we were in this abandoned prison surrounded by barbed wire and fences.

“What do you want to do first?” asked Peter.

I sighed heavily. “I don’t know. Talk to everyone? Start making plans for moving those corpses out of the fridge? Hand out new clothes? Set up showers? Plant a garden?” The sheer immensity of our task was already blowing my mind.

Peter snapped his fingers in my face in a zig zag pattern. “No. No. No. No. You are not going down to crazytown right now. Baby steps, and I only need step one right now. Give me step eighty-five tomorrow.”

I had to smile. “Am I really that bad?”

“Yes, you really are. Stop acting like this is all on you, okay? You have me and Bodo and everyone else out there ready to not just lend a hand but to decide what needs to be done.”

Bodo frowned. “You are talkingk about dat ruling by committee stuff, und I can tell you dat it doesn’t work very good. It will be taking too much time to make any decisions.”

“No, I’m not talking about ruling by committee. I think for now Bryn should be the ultimate decision-maker.”

“I agree,” I said, “but within a couple weeks, I want to have a more formal arrangement that doesn’t have me at the helm. At least not alone.”

“You have to be da one,” said Bodo, pushing gently on my shoulder to angle me towards him. “Efreyone dat came here did it to be with you. They are counting on you. Dat’s a lot of pressure, but like Peter said. We are helping.”

Even this was too much to figure out right now. “Whatever. What should I do now, helpers? Because I feel like putting a list of everything we need to do on the wall and then throwing a dart at it.”

“Do we have darts?” asked Peter.

I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling. “I smell. I’m cranky. And I will come over there and smother you with love if I have to.”

Peter held up a hand in surrender. “Say no more. I live to do your bidding. Just please, no love smothering.”

“If you want to know what I think, I will say we shouldt move dose bodies out really fast. Maybe dey have diseases or da virus, and we don’t want dat to be a problem here with all dese peoples.”

Peter nodded. “He’s right. And maybe a couple kids from the new group will be able to help us move the bodies out, too.”

“I doubt that,” I said, moving to leave the alcove. “Did you see them? They’re barely alive, some of them.”

We came around the corner, and I almost bumped into Ronald.

“Oh, hey, Bryn. You okay? I was just coming back to see what I could do to help.” He flashed me his pearly whites. I was so jealous of that smile. My teeth felt totally furry right now.

I put my hands on his upper arms and turned him around. “Perfect. We were just looking for body baggers. Thanks for volunteering.”

“Oh. Boy. Aren’t I glad I decided to come visit?”

“Yes, you are,” said Peter. “Follow me.” He walked off in a hurry to position himself at the end of the lobby near the door that led to the hallway we would follow to the kitchen. “Can I have everyone’s attention?” His girly voice bounced around the large space.

The talking stopped almost instantly, heads swiveling first towards him, then at me, and then back to him again.

“Thank you. We have a huge amount of work that needs to be done in the next few weeks or months, and we need your help. Everyone who is able-bodied will be expected to participate.” He gave the room a stern look. “The first order of business is getting rid of the bodies that we found in the refrigeration unit.”

“What bodies are they?” asked a girl out in the crowd. She looked scared, glancing sideways at a couple of her friends.

“Adults who were brought here to die. From before. It’s not pretty. In fact, it’s pretty disgusting, but it has to be done. So please raise your hand if you feel like you have the strength to do some lifting and pushing and possibly digging.”

Everyone from our original group raised a hand except Jenny who was sleeping on a blanket on the floor. Her color was much better than it had been, but she was still too weak to do anything.

The first settler who’d arrived, Derek, raised his hand and looked over at me, nodding once.

I nodded back to let him know I appreciated his efforts. I could already tell he was going to take his oath of fealty to our community very seriously.

Several other hands in his group went up, but even from where I was standing I could see it was just wishful thinking on their parts. Their arms were trembling and their faces going white with the effort of holding them up.

I walked through the crowd and stood next to Peter. Everyone whispered as we discussed the situation privately.

“You cool with me taking over and leaving you out here to do other stuff?” I asked.

“Do poodles doodle in the woods?”

I laughed. “You just said doodle.”

“I know. Slap me, would you? I’ve lost my mind.”

I grinned. Peter was definitely feeling chipper now that we’d found what felt like it could be a real home for all of us.

I looked out at the kids and spoke louder. “We’ll do this in shifts. First shift is eight people.” I surveyed the room. “Ronald, Jamal, Bodo, Derek, you … sorry I don’t know your name, Gretchen, Winky, and me. We’ll start. The rest of you get some food, get some rest, and after a few hours we’ll come back to get a second shift going.”

I turned my back to everyone and nudged Peter so he’d join me.

“Yes, my queen?” he asked.

“Say that one more time and I’ll eye gouge you.”

“Stop flirting with me. What do you want?”

“I just wanted to say that most of those people out there are going to volunteer, but they aren’t ready to do any manual labor yet.”

“I noticed that.” Peter folded his arms.

“So while I’m gone, why don’t you do a little evaluation of everyone and see what they’re good at. I’m putting you in charge of city management.”

I looked up in time to see a little sparkle come to Peter’s eye.

“City management?”

“Yeah. Can you hack it?”

“Pfft. You’ve obviously forgotten who you’re dealing with.”

I reached over to hug him across the shoulders with one arm. “Not for a second.” I bent down to mess with the laces on my moccasin. “We need crews for medical care, gardening, cleaning, building and engineering, animal care …” I frowned, pulling my laces tight. “What am I forgetting?”

“Uhhh, soldiers?”

I jerked my gaze in his direction. “Say what now?”

Peter sighed heavily. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to put your head in the sand and pretend like we don’t have a major problem with the canners still. Barbed wire isn’t going to do crap if they’re determined enough. I’m still worried they’re going to roll through here in tanks one day.”

I stood again. “I know, I know. Jesus, tanks? I just … never mind. You’re right. But we don’t need just one group of people for that. We need everyone in on that part of it.”

“Everyone?”

“Yes. Everyone. Every single person in this place, no matter how weak or small, needs to be a part of our militia or whatever you call it.”

“Why? I mean, I’m not questioning you, I just want to know what you’re thinking.”

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. We are a chain, and I don’t want to bite the big one because some dipshit on the laundry team can’t hold a gun.”

“Uhhh, okay, Yoda. I’ll get on that.”

“Why Yoda?”

Peter studied me for a few seconds. “I think it’s the hair.” And then he walked away, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, listen up, people …”

I didn’t hear anymore. My body disposal group members had made their way over and looked like they were ready to go, so we all left the room, headed down the many hallways that would take us to the kitchen where the mass of corpses waited.

***

Ronald led the way to the kitchen. It seemed only fitting, since he was the one who’d discovered the bodies and unleashed their horrible stink on our new compound. Halfway there he stopped, turning to face the rest of us.

“I was wondering … shouldn’t we have some special gloves and clothes on when we do this? And get those bags?”

My face burned with embarrassment. I totally should have thought of this myself. “Yes, of course we should. Sorry. I’m spacing out, I guess.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Jamal. “You have a lot on your mind, and we’re all tired. I remember where we saw a bunch of that kind of stuff in the other section. Want me to go get it?”

I nodded. “Do you need help?”

“I’ll take Gretchen.”

“Yeah, no problem. I can carry stuff,” she agreed. “You guys go ahead. We’ll grab someone from the lobby if we need another set of hands.”

“Go for it,” I said. “We’ll keep going and meet you in the kitchen.”

Jamal waved over his head as he took off jogging in the opposite direction, Gretchen beside him.

“How big is this fridge, anyway?” asked the guy who came with Derek.

“Huge,” said Ronald. “Like the size of a work trailer.”

Winky interrupted whatever Ronald was going to say next, addressing herself to the guy who came with Derek. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Flick. That’s what they call me, anyway. My real name is James.”

I held my laughter in. All I could think about was how he must have gotten that nickname. I prayed if it was for booger-flicking that he’d given up the habit.

“Flick?” Bodo was at the back of the group. “Dat’s a strangch name. What does dat mean?”

“It’s just a nickname. It doesn’t mean anything,” said Flick.