“Your brother’s out there now, helping to build barricades.”
The front door opened and closed, then footsteps ran up toward them. It was Peter Warden. “Sorry to barge in, John. We’ve moved some vehicles into blocking positions by Pine Grove and near the park.”
“Okay, good,” John said. “Anything else?”
“Everyone’s assembled outside, ready to go over your suggestions for the committee.” Peter seemed to sense the unease within John. “None of us on Willow Creek have any military experience. That’s why they look up to you. It’s not a bad thing.”
“I know. I just don’t want to get used to it, that’s all.”
The people assembled outside John’s house represented all the residents of Willow Creek. They ranged in age from Claire and Tom Hodges’ six-month-old daughter to Dorothy Klein, who had recently celebrated her eighty-second birthday. In all, he guessed there was close to a hundred of his neighbors gathered before him.
The ladder he’d used earlier outside Paul Hector’s place had already been set up. He climbed up the first few rungs until he could see everyone and reached into his back pocket for the envelope where he’d written the names.
“The Willow Creek committee will consist of six members. I’ve made recommendations for each position based on skillsets and experience in each given area. If any of you would prefer not to have a role on the committee let me know and I’ll scratch you off.” John peered down at the jumble of pen marks and scratched-off names and began to read. “For food management I recommend Arnold Payne.” John stopped and searched the crowd to find Arnold, who raised his hand and nodded. “You up for the challenge?” John asked.
“Anything I can do to help,” he replied.
“Good to hear. For water management I recommend Susan Wheeler. I’ll temporarily take charge of security until we can find someone else. Patty Long will be responsible for health. Al Thomson will be our liaison officer and Curtis Watkins will be in charge of gathering and disseminating information to the residents of Willow Creek.”
John searched the crowd, eyeing each person he named. “If any of you don’t feel up to performing your duties let me know as soon as possible so we can find a replacement.”
Bill Kelsaw raised his hand.
“Yeah, Bill, what is it?”
“Al’s our new liaison guy, but I’ll be damned if I know what that means.”
Others were nodding as well.
“Think of the liaison officer as a kind of diplomat. He’ll be in charge of talking to any other local groups that have begun to organize like us. He can help negotiate mutual security, medical or food items to be bartered. He can also arrange borrowing certain skilled laborers we don’t have. Welders, carpenters. That sort of thing.”
John then quickly went through and explained the other roles and what their responsibilities would be.
When he was done, Arnold spoke up. “So what do we do now?”
“Now,” John said, “we have our first meeting and figure out how to keep everyone on Willow Creek safe.”
The first meeting was held in Patty Long’s house. All six members of the new committee sat around her antique dining-room table. The chairs weren’t terribly comfortable, but that might encourage them to keep the socializing to a minimum.
All eyes turned to John and once again that wave of discomfort washed over him. He should have known the minute he’d first climbed that ladder in front of Paul Hector’s place this morning that he was setting a dangerous precedent.
“We have a lot to do in a very narrow window of time,” John told them. “So I suggest we get started. Generally speaking, all of you know your roles, but there are some specifics we need to cover. First things first, we’ll need to create lists of the resources at our disposal. I suggest each of you get a good old-fashioned notepad and pen before we begin. Computers and tablets are gone now, so we might as well start getting used to it.”
Nervous laughter sputtered from Susan and Curtis.
“Arnold, since you’re in charge of food, you’ll need to find out what families on the block are getting low on groceries. As I’ve mentioned before, the average household will be running out of food soon.” John turned to Susan. “Water’s even more crucial. I know you worked for the sanitation department, so none of this should be news to you. You’ll need to get a team of five young people to help you collect and purify water. Set up a central reservoir somewhere so anyone on the street can get what they need.” He then looked at Susan. “For you, a list of the street’s most at-risk residents is a must. The elderly, diabetics, anyone taking medication. Those are the ones likely to go first if we can’t get them the help they need. Once we know, we can start looking at ways to find pharmacies that haven’t been looted already.”
“Good luck,” Curtis said. “I walked to the convenience store over on Harvard and it was boarded up. Peeked through to see if anyone was inside and all the shelves were empty.”
“We’ll think of something,” John told them. “Al, you and I spoke earlier about your role as liaison. Once I’ve selected my security team, I’ll assign one member to stay with you on your rounds of the local neighborhoods. Start by looking for any sign of organization and if you find one, make sure to speak with the person in charge.”
Al flashed his impossibly white teeth. “Will do.”
“Am I forgetting anyone?”
“Uh, me,” Curtis said, smiling. “Who am I gonna be, Robin Williams from Good Morning, Vietnam?”
They all burst out laughing, including John. “That would be nice, if we all had radios that worked. No, I think for now you should head out with Al and ask around to see what you can find out. Afterward, come to us with whatever you’ve discovered and we can all vote on which bits of information to pass along.”
Curtis, Patty and Arnold were visibly uncomfortable with this.
“I think it’s better to put it all out there,” Patty said, “and let people decide for themselves what’s important.”
“I’d have to agree,” Arnold added. “We don’t want to start treating people like children, do we?”
“And what about unsubstantiated rumors?” John asked. He’d already started sketching out the neighborhood’s defenses. “Surely those might lower morale.”
“Or increase it,” Curtis said. “I think we should take a vote on that right now.”
The others seemed to be in agreement, except for Al.
“By show of hands it’s four to two,” Curtis said. “Besides, rumors are swirling around anyway, a few more can’t hurt.”
John knew otherwise, but kept his mouth shut. Much as he hated to admit it, there was often a valid reason why certain bits of information were withheld from the general public. The problem was everyone wanted to be in the know, so finding a place to draw that line was difficult. He hoped for the sake of Willow Creek and its inhabitants that Curtis and the others were right.
After the meeting broke up and each member went to attend to the items they’d discussed, Al stopped John on his way out. “I’d say overall that went pretty well.”
“Better than I expected,” John replied. “I can’t say I was all that surprised with their reaction toward the end.”
“I had a similar one,” Al said frankly. “Even though it might be the right thing to do, decisions like that take time.”
“They take mistakes.”
“How so?”
John frowned. “Protocol in the military wasn’t built upon successes so much as they were built on mistakes. Usually those mistakes meant lives were lost.”