One Second After

“Still, we are on the real edge now of running out.”

“Damn it, Doc,” Kate snapped. “We still got forty head of cattle here, a couple of hundred hogs, the horses, and Swannanoa maybe even more.”

“One cow a day for ten thousand?” Kellor asked. “At best two ounces of meat, less than a cheap hamburger at a fast-food joint without the bread. Ok, two cows a day and a hog. Five ounces of meat, barely enough, and the cows in both communities are gone in not much more than days, every last one. Then the horses, maybe another ten to twelve days. Then the rest of the hogs. Seventy days max and we’ve eaten our way through the lot. Then what?”

“And that’s at everyone getting about a thousand to twelve hundred calories a day. Then we are out of food, one hundred percent bankrupt.” He looked at Charlie.

“You got to plan until next spring, four times longer than what we’ve been talking about.”

Charlie looked at John, who reluctantly nodded in agreement.

“Don’t count on anything from the outside, perhaps never. To get to us from Charleston, they’ll first have to reestablish control in Columbia, then up to Greenville, Spartanburg. There are millions of people down there, just a couple of hundred thousand up here… and besides… they’ll think we’re ok up here in the mountains. Everyone always thinks that up the mountains there’ll be plenty of food.”

“What about trying to send Don Barber down there with his plane?” Tom asked.

There were several nods of agreement.

“At least it’d let them know we are up here.”

Charlie shook his head.

“That plane is valuable beyond measure for keeping an eye on things locally. Its range, though, fully gassed is less than two hundred miles.

“We could rig up some kind of strap-on tanks to take it one way into Charleston,” Tom said.

“Why?” Charlie asked.

“To get help,” Tom said. “For God’s sake, at least he could come back with some medicine. Doc Kellor could give him a list. Antibiotics, anesthesia…”

He hesitated and drew in his breath.

“Maybe even some insulin.”

John looked at him, not sure how to react, it was as if a taboo had been broken, to not speak of the threat to Jennifer. He could see the look in the police chief’s eyes, they were filled with compassion.

John couldn’t speak, a flash thought that maybe Tom was right. Surely whoever was down there would answer their appeal.

“I’m sorry, Tom,” it was Charlie, speaking softly. “And John, God in heaven knows I’m sorry for you, too, but I have to say no.”

John couldn’t speak, feeling that his worst nightmare had just been laid bare before this group, that a decision he now desired was obviously for himself, and the logical one that he knew Charlie would drive for he would be forced to agree with, even though he wanted to stand up and scream for them to agree with Tom or he’d quit being on the council.

He was embarrassed to realize he was actually trembling, eyes filling up with tears.

“It is a hard question of logic,” Charlie continued, unable to look directly at John. “We definitely do have Don Barber’s plane, we need that to keep an eye on the territory around us, it is crucial for the survival of all of us. We all know the rumors about various gangs starting to form up, only Don Barber and his L-3 can give us advance warning if they are coming this way.

“Sure the Navy might be down there in Charleston, but John, you yourself said there’s millions of people along the coast they are already tending to. And besides, I think Doc Kellor would agree with me, how much insulin do you think they carry on board Navy ships, most likely none at all, and what was down there has most likely already been used.”

John lowered his head, he did not want anyone to see his tears.

“If I was in command down there,” Charlie continued, his voice sad, remote, “I’d give Don Barber some platitudes, maybe a few bags of antibiotics at best and a promise that help was on the way. I will not risk our only plane for that.

“And besides, worst case scenario, they just might confiscate Don’s plane and that would be the end of it.

“If they are starting to rebuild down there it will be a step at time,” Charlie continued, “restringing wire into the adjoining town, establishing order, then moving farther in. And with each step it’ll mean more to feed; get as far as Columbia and they’ll add a million or more extra people to take care of, or down the coast to Savannah another million or two. No, they’re not going to come up here with relief supplies based on an appeal of a few thousand of us up in the mountains arriving via an antique plane.”

There was a long moment of silence until John finally nodded his head in agreement.

“Charlie, I got a hard proposition to make,” Kellor said breaking the silence. Go on.

“So far we’ve been very egalitarian about the food. Everyone on the same rations, young children and expectant and nursing mothers the only exemptions for getting extra, something absolutely no one would object to. But you do have to consider that we might have to categorize.”

“What?”