Honeybee

Chapter 45

The night went by without any incidents and Jason, Amanda and the Doc awoke to a peaceful, sunny morning. After eating a breakfast made up of granola bars and coffee, which Jason had spent thirty minutes preparing, they began to talk through where they we going to go.

‘We could find a bigger vehicle and travel around the country looking for survivors.’ The Doc suggested.

‘Good idea Doc, but the fuel is going stale, we wouldn’t be able to find enough to keep us moving.’

‘Yes, didn’t think about that.’ The Doc said.

‘Why do we have to go anywhere?’ Amanda said. ‘Why can’t we stay here?’

Jason thought for a long moment.

‘There’s nothing around here.’ Jason said. ‘And the place isn’t strong enough anyway.’

‘We can make it strong. We can put up signs around the area for survivors to come to us.’

The room was silent as all three of them thought through the whole idea. Jason knew that Amanda was right, why go anywhere else, why go up and down the country trying to find the perfect place to settle. This was the perfect place, it just needed to be secured and Jason knew the surroundings like the back of his hand. In a matter of minutes, Jason had considered the pros and cons and made the decision.

‘Ok, we’ll stay. But we have a hell of a lot of work to do.’

The morning was spent emptying the supplies out of the van and storing them securely in an upstairs bedroom. The Doc set to work putting the supplies into some sort of order while Jason and Amanda took the empty van to search for timber and building supplies. The explosion had left the bottom corner of the house completely open to the elements and also open to attack. Before they did anything else, they needed to repair the hole and secure the floor above.

Jason pulled the van into the car park of a large DIY store and backed it up to the shutter doors, used for loading trade vehicles. Next, they needed to get into the store, which turned out to be easy. The main entrance doors were wide open, left that way from the riots almost two years before. The outside of the warehouse was being slowly covered in vegetation, attempting to find its way inside and eventually pull the building to the ground. Luckily for Jason, it hadn’t yet pulled down the building and the supplies he needed were still neatly stacked on the shelving units. They found the chain that operated the shutter doors and pulled them open. Jason loaded the van with lengths of timber and sheets of ply-board, and screws and nails and wire mesh. And hand tools and anything else he thought would be useful in fortifying his house. When they were finished, they pulled the shutter doors shut, more out of politeness than for a practical reason, and then got into the van and drove the short distance home.

When they got back home, the Doc was busily cutting back the vines and vegetation in the destroyed kitchen. Half of the room was already clear and Jason could see a neat pile of vines just outside which Myles was attempting to destroy. The Doc was heavily sweating but he looked like he was enjoying himself.

‘Good job Doc.’ Jason said.

‘I finished sorting the supplies so I thought I would help out here.’

‘It’s very much appreciated.’ Jason said. ‘At this rate we’ll have the place back to normal in no time.’

The Doc smiled and then continued hacking at the vegetation. Jason left him to it and went outside to unload the van. All the treated timber and wire mesh went around to the back of the house, this would be used to secure the perimeter. Everything else went inside until it was needed to repair and secure the house.

Once the Doc was finished in the kitchen, Jason wasted no time in installing supporting timbers to prevent the floor above from collapsing. All his battery power tools were dead and he wasn’t looking forward to cutting and screwing everything by hand, but then he remembered he had a small generator in his shed that he used when he was working out in the woods. He brought it around to the back of the house, flicked the fuel switch and gave the cord a firm pull. It spluttered for a second and then died. He pulled it again, with the same result. Then again, and again, and finally it coughed to life. Jason smiled as the generator chugged along happily. He plugged in two chargers for his battery tools and then plugged in a jigsaw and began cutting the sheets of plywood to size.

The rest of the day was spent working on the damaged corner of the house, Amanda helped and Jason was impressed by how hard she worked. By the time it was dark the destroyed corner of the house was secure, it didn’t look the best, in fact the plywood looked ugly, but it was secure and that’s all that mattered.

The Doc had cooked a reasonable dinner on the little gas stove, so they all ate and then headed straight to bed. The next week or two would be spent on turning the house and grounds into a fortress, so they needed to rest. Jason lay there in satisfaction, his body aching but his mind wandering, and then he fell soundly to sleep.