Blackout: A Tale Of Survival In A Powerless World- Book 1 Page 6

  The rest of our group varied in the success of their adaptations to Camp Haven. Nita did well. She was in awe of Jax’s work in the med bay. Apparently, the camp had never had medical students before, and Jax was eager to teach Nita what it was like to treat patients in the middle of the wilderness without the advances of medical technology. Every time I ran into Nita, whether at the Bistro or DotCom for community events, she was always studying something. She read books on natural remedies, identifying useful herbs in nature, concocting medications in a low-level laboratory, and other curious subjects that would have never crossed her path during standard medical school.

  “Did you know Jax used to be a trauma surgeon at a level one trauma center?” she babbled one night, her nose buried in yet another textbook that she had borrowed from the med bay. “And then one night, they had a giant pile up come into the emergency room, and she just couldn’t take it anymore. Can you imagine? She gave up her entire career to live in the woods. Brutal, right?”

  The only thing Nita every complained about at Camp Haven was the cold. As a native of Spain, Colorado wasn’t her ideal place of residence, but it was easier to ignore the harsh winters in the heated comfort of an apartment. As November wore on, the degrees dropped off one by one, until the first of many snow flurries fell upon the compound. For the residents of Camp Haven, the snow brought more work. When I wasn’t setting up our communications system, I helped out in other areas. I dried and stored food, sewed wool lining into jackets for added insulation, and prepped the radio tower for harder weather.

  Others did not take so well to the work and the cold. Jacob’s feet were freezing no matter how many layers of socks he wore. I was grateful that he and I no longer shared a bed. I certainly didn’t miss his frigid toes seeking the warmth of my calves in the middle of the night. The wind whipped at his sensitive skin, leaving his cheeks red and dry. His lips peeled from the exposure no matter how much soothing balm he smoothed over them. I did not miss kissing him either. He suffered from other complaints too. Despite his eager declaration to ensure his entrance to Camp Haven, manual labor did not sit well with Jacob. Hours upon hours at the gym, benching and squatting away in an air-conditioned room, had not prepared him for lugging wood, constructing buildings, and mucking bathroom stalls. His palms bled from the wear and tear before calluses hardened the skin. He often lay awake in bed, rolling from one side to the other in order to find a position that didn’t compromise his sore muscles. He found no energy to complain, but rather moped in dejected silence about his new way of life.

  Penny, Jacob’s mother, had yet to recover from the open wound in her leg. No one said it out loud, but the signs were bad. She suffered from weakness and general fatigue, unable to stand for more than a few minutes at a time. The wound itself failed to close, which was a sign of infection. Jax administered small doses of the camp’s antibiotics, but supplies were limited and Penny wasn’t responsive to the drugs. She was the only permanent resident of the med bay, and I could tell by the whispered conversations that this was an unusual circumstance. Nevertheless, Penny remained there, existing without full awareness of her circumstances.

  Pippa, weeks away from her delivery, had rejoined her mother in the med bay after Jax assigned her to bed rest. I visited her every once in a while. She resented being stuck inside on a cot all day, but I did well to remind her that at least she was out of the cold and free of the labors that the rest of the camp pushed through. At this point, her belly had grown to such proportions that I feared she might burst like an overfilled balloon. She perched books and plates on top of it as she lay in bed as if it were a convenient table to use at her disposal. Other that her restless boredom and impending epidural-free delivery, the only thing Pippa worried about was the state of her friends back home. And the fact that Camp Haven had no access to nail polish.

  “What do you think happened to them?” she asked me one morning when I delivered her breakfast to the med bay. She picked crumbs from the extra muffin I’d swiped for her. “My friends. They probably found somewhere safe, right? I’ll see them when all of this blows over.”

  I sat down on the edge of the small cot. “Maybe one day. Sure.”

  Her big brown eyes were doleful. “You think they’re dead, don’t you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I’ve known you long enough to tell when you’re lying,” she said. “It’s how I know that you and Jacob aren’t together anymore.”

  I looked down at my ring finger. A few weeks ago, Jacob and I had been fighting over my lack of dedication to the diamond engagement band. Now, we were nothing but a pair of pretenders, taking advantage of our previous relationship to pull one over the heads of Camp Haven.

  “Why bother faking it?” Pippa asked. “Who cares?”

  “Your brother does.”

  “Jacob’s an idiot.”

  “I’m trying to make this as easy on everyone as possible,” I told her. “If he wants to pretend that we’re still together so he can sleep in his own room, then that’s fine with me. I don’t mind.”

  The door to the med bay opened, and a gust of wind rushed in as Eirian entered the room.

  “Hi,” he said, his cheeks pink from the cold and his dark hair tousled. “How ya doing, Pippa?”

  “I’m fat, Eirian. What else is new?”

  “That’s the spirit.” He stomped snow off of his boots on the mat near the door before plopping down on the cot next to Pippa’s. “I have to get back to work soon, but I just wanted to know what time you needed me for Communications today, Georgie.”

  I checked my watch, one that I’d managed to procure from the extra storage room at DotCom. “How’s four o’clock sound? Meet me at my office?”

  “Four o’clock sounds great,” Eirian said, cupping his hands around his nose to warm the pink tip of it. “Can’t wait. Hang in there, Pippa.”

  “Oh, I’m hanging.”

  He patted her knee, smiled at me, and left the med bay.

  Pippa nudged my thigh with the toe of her foot. “Well, I know one person who might mind that you and Jacob are only pretending to be engaged.”

  “Shut up. Eirian and I are just friends.”

  As soon as I said it, the phrase felt like a lie. Pippa wasn’t entirely wrong. There was a natural ease between me and Eirian that had always been missing with Jacob. We could talk, really talk, about the matters at hand. We didn’t bicker or moan at each other. He had a steady hand and a steady attitude. Not to mention, he’d grown up like I had. We bonded over our similar childhoods, though I had yet to mention how mine had come about. It was easier this way, for now at least, that it had always just been me and my dad on the homestead, father and daughter learning to make it on their own. The messy details could run dry for a while.

  Pippa pinched my cheek. “Just friends. Sure.”

  “I have things to do,” I told her, stealing the uneaten muffin from atop her belly. “And I’m taking this back. Think of it as a tax for teasing me.”

  “Rude.”

  I left the med bay, muffin in mouth, thinking that I might work a few hours in the Communications office until it was time for Eirian to meet me. What with the snowfall, we had put aside assembling radios to focus on more important things, but the kitchen staff had released me of my duties that day. I figured I could at least start gathering the pieces that I needed, but that plan was derailed when a shouting match reached my ears. I gritted my teeth together as I recognized one of the voices. Jove. I veered off course from DotCom, following the argument toward the outhouses.

  “I won’t do it!” Jove yelled to another man. He was, like the other sanitation workers, dressed in a gray jumpsuit that protected his clothes from the hazardous waste in the outhouses. He threw a shovel to the ground. “I’m sick of shoveling shit. Do you know who I am? Do you know how much money I have? I could pay someone to do this disgusting work for me.”

  The other man, Jimmy, was the burly head of sanitation. A layer of blubber s
at upon his entire body, hiding the muscle beneath. The result was a large man with a larger presence who spent every day knee deep in human waste. I couldn’t imagine the kind of patience a man like that preserved, but I was certainly smarter than Jove not to test it.

  “Of course I know who you are. You won’t stop reminding all of us.” Jimmy waddled around and waved his arms in a strikingly accurate imitation of Jove. “I’m Jove Mason! CEO of Mason Property Management! I own half of Denver! Well, guess what, Mr. Mason? You ain’t in Denver anymore, and here at Camp Haven, what I say goes, so pick up your damn shovel and get back to work.”

  Out of all the members of the group that I’d arrived at Camp Haven with, Jove was the most problematic. This wasn’t the first time he’d gotten into an argument with the superior officers in the sanitation department. Not only did he fail to perform his job assignments efficiently or effectively, he also complained about everything. The food served at the Bistro was bland. The mattress in the cottage was too small for both him and Jacob, as well as far too lumpy. The events at DotCom were crass and boring. No matter how little an inconvenience, Jove made sure to let everyone within a fifty-foot proximity know that he was dissatisfied with the way the camp ran things. So it wasn’t a huge surprise when he kicked the shovel with such force that it skidded across the frozen ground and bumped up against the heel of Jimmy’s boot.

  “I sure as hell won’t,” Jove declared.

  Jimmy, who had already turned his back on Jove’s petulant temper tantrum, looked down at the shovel. “Mr. Mason, I would like to remind you that your identification badge already bears two demerits. One for failing to show up to work on time for more than three days in a row and one for failing to complete your sanitation duties. If you do not retrieve this shovel and follow the rest of the boys out to the filtration systems, I’m afraid I’ll have to add a third demerit to your collection. Do you know what that means?”

  “I don’t give a damn what it means.”

  “It means you’ll sit for the tribunal,” Jimmy said. “And you won’t like what they have to say.”

  Jove closed the gap between he and Jimmy, stepping on the wooden handle of the shovel and cracking it in half, until his nose was a mere inch from the other man’s. “Give me the demerit, asshole.”

  Jimmy looked more amused than intimidated by Jove’s ridiculous show of arrogance. They were matched in height and girth, but the laugh etched on Jimmy’s face gave him an edge. It infuriated Jove that he couldn’t rile up his opponent and act on the resulting emotions.

  “Hand over your badge,” Jimmy said.

  Jove pulled the tiny card out of his pocket and flicked it at Jimmy. It bounced off Jimmy’s cheekbone, close to his eye, but Jimmy refused to flinch. Instead, he stepped on top of the badge and ground it into the dirt.

  “There’s your third demerit,” he told Jove. “See you when the tribunal gathers.”

  Jove waited until Jimmy was out of sight before he picked up the badge, dusted it off, and tucked it away again. He spotted me watching him.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “What is your problem?” I asked him. “These people didn’t have to let us live here. They could have closed off the gates when we showed up here and sent us back to the city to die. The least we can do is help them to accommodate us and everyone else here.”

  “Do I look like a sewage worker to you?”

  “Yes, actually. The jumpsuit works wonders for your complexion.”

  He furiously unzipped the suit, stepped out of it, and kicked it aside. “Goddamn it. I’m—”

  “Jove Mason,” I finished for him. I picked up the jumpsuit, flapped it around to dislodge most of the dirt and snow, then folded it neatly. “Yeah, we know, but here’s a concept that you appear unable to grasp. Nobody here gives a damn about Jove Mason. You don’t matter. Your money doesn’t matter. All that matters is the two good hands that you aren’t putting to use.” I drove the point home by shoving the folded jumpsuit into his chest, nearly knocking him off balance. “So put them to use, Jove.”

  “This place has made you bold, hasn’t it?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. “You think you’re hot shit because you don’t have to clean toilets or shuck corn or whatever the hell else the people here do. You just sit in that little office of yours. Tell me, Georgie, what exactly did you do to win all of these idiots over so quickly?”

  “I help out wherever I’m needed,” I told him. “I don’t turn my nose up at jobs that I think are beneath me. I get my shit done correctly and on time. That’s how I won them over. You could take a couple pointers from me.”

  Jove scoffed and turned away, slinging the jumpsuit over his shoulder. “Pointers from you. That would be the day.”

  “You should be careful,” I warned him as I turned back toward DotCom. “I hear the tribunal is strict. You might want to reassess how you behave here, or you might find yourself on the other side of that wall.”

  “Tribunal, my ass.”

  The comment wavered a little at the end, the only hint that Jove preferred the inside of Camp Haven to the outside. I let him stew in his own guilt. It wasn’t my job to keep Jove in line. That fell to Jacob, yet another thing that we argued about whenever we had the cottage alone together. I refused to take responsibility for Jacob’s father. If Jove wanted to gamble his place at Camp Haven away, then that was his choice, but I wouldn’t go down for his mistakes.

  DotCom, which usually bustled with winter preparation activity, was slow that day. The community center—the big shared room with the low ceiling in the center of the building—was currently home to several children and their teachers. The school was in the process of being renovated ever since the leaking roof had caved in due to a snowfall. I smiled as I watched the toddlers shove handmade baby toys into their mouths while the older kids completed lessons on reusable chalkboards. The orange glow of the oil lamps staved off the wintry gray light that filtered in from outside, and the center smelled like hot tea leaves. While Jove and Jacob craved a higher level of comfort, the warmth and coziness of the community center was more than enough to relax me.

  The Communications office in DotCom had become a safe haven of sorts. It was quiet, set away from the rest of the camp, and there were only three people who had the key. Me, Ludo, and Eirian. No one bothered me there as I tinkered with parts, trying to build working walkie talkies and radios with rechargeable batteries. The problem was finding an energy source to charge the batteries. The closest I’d gotten to a breakthrough was when Eirian brought me a broken solar panel from one of their salvage missions. I fixed the panel and managed to get it working, but I couldn’t figure out the wiring to get it hooked up to the battery chargers. Despite the lack of development, the radios, like the labor, took my mind off of everything else going on, so I spent as much time in the Communications office as possible. When Eirian came in hours later, I was immersed with the solar panel, the battery chargers, and several half-built radios.

  “How’s it going?” he asked, closing the door behind him and flicking open his lighter to light a second lamp. “You shouldn’t work in the dark. You’ll ruin your eyesight.”

  My eyes watered at the sudden illumination as I hunched over my work. “Sorry, I got a little carried away.”

  “A little?” Eirian said. “How long have you been doing that?”

  “About an hour.”

  His hand covered mine. “Okay, take a break.”

  I sat back and rubbed my eyes. They felt stiff in their sockets, like I’d forgotten to blink while I was focusing on the solar panel. Eirian moved my work to clear a space for himself to sit on the desk, something that would’ve driven me nuts if Jacob had done it. However, Eirian handled the solar panel and spare parts with such obvious care that I couldn’t get mad at him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “What makes you think anything’s wrong?”

  “Because you’re holed up here in the dark with bloodshot eyes and a k
nife,” he reminded me. “No one’s that determined to get an old broken solar panel to work, Georgie. You’re clearly worried about something.”

  “Ugh,” I groaned, slumping in the chair and covering my eyes. “What am I not worried about? Penny’s infection is getting worse, Pippa’s about to burst, Jove just got himself a meeting with the tribunal, and Jacob hasn’t looked me in the eye for two weeks. Meanwhile, my dad’s still missing, and I can’t even go look for him because I’m stuck waiting out this post-apocalypse bullshit—”

  “Hold on,” Eirian said, his expression solemn. “Did you just say that Jove is going up against the tribunal?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “He got his third demerit from Jimmy today because he’s an idiot and an asshole. Honestly, it’s not my problem. Jove won’t change his attitude about this place, and I’m done trying to change it for him.”

  “It’s going to be your problem,” Eirian said. “Camp Haven doesn’t take a tribunal meeting lightly, Georgie. It’s a community event. Everyone turns up to vote on the outcome, but the tribunal gets the final say. From the way Jove behaves around camp, he definitely won’t have it easy.”

  “So let them smack him down a little bit,” I said with a shrug. “That’s what he needs anyway.”

  “I don’t disagree,” he replied. “But I’m afraid the camp has stricter rules than that. They could kick Jove out of Camp Haven, and then you’ll have even more things to fight about with Jacob.”

  I straightened up. “Wait, they would actually kick him out? I threatened him earlier about that—told him that they would—but I figured it was just a white lie to get him to fall in line.”