Chương 50: Chapter 47: Sanctuary

When I awoke the next morning, the high summer sun was already streaming directly through the office windows, casting bright geometric blocks of light across the carpet. I rubbed the grit from my eyes and sat up, expecting someone to have shaken me awake for my scheduled slot on the night watch. Either I had slept right through my wake-up, or the guys had completely bypassed my shift.

Walking out of the administrative office, I found Joe slumped in a swivel chair behind one of the reception desks, his rifle resting across his lap as he pulled the final watch of the morning.

"I thought someone was supposed to wake me for my rotation," I said, my voice rough from sleep. Joe turned his head, offering a tired but steady look.

"You took a massive hit last night, Derrick. Almost bled out on the asphalt, if we're being honest. When you finally turned in, you still looked like you were running on half a tank, so I figured it was only appropriate to let you sleep it off."

"Thanks, Joe. I appreciate that," I said, stretching out the lingering tightness in my back.

"What do you think? Time to get the rest of the crew on their feet and get things rolling for the day?"

"Yeah," Joe agreed, rolling his shoulders.

"We need to lay out a proper framework."

"First order of business is running a complete diagnostic on the campus to see what infrastructure actually works and what doesn't," I explained, leaning against the counter.

"Then, we need to dispatch a secondary team over to the RV dealership on the highway to salvage deep-cycle batteries."

"How many are we going to need?" Joe asked.

"I've been doing the math on that," I said, visualizing the layout.

"Each of those deep-cycle units can store roughly two and a half kilowatt-hours of power. Now, before the grid collapsed, an average household chewed through about nine kilowatt-hours a day. But back then, people were constantly running electric clothes dryers, heavy stoves, water heaters, and every useless gadget under the sun. We don't have that luxury anymore. Our nighttime draw is going to be strictly limited to baseline security lights, basic water pressure, and refrigeration.

We can handle the heavy labor during the peak daylight hours." Joe let out a low chuckle, shaking his head.

"Don't bog me down with the contractor logistics, boy. Just give me a round number."

"Fifty to start," I replied with a grin.

"That will give us enough of a bank to stabilize the main buildings, but we'll almost definitely have to double that number as the community expands."

"Expands?" Joe asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course," I said.

"You didn't think we were going to be the only ones trying to find a safe harbor, did you? Once our own families are moved in and taken care of, we're going to have to establish a policy for refugees. But first things first." After tapping the radio to ensure the home teams were up and packed, I had Joe take the van back to our neighborhood to help coordinate the first leg of the relocation. By mid-morning, the school grounds were absolutely bustling with activity.

Vehicles were idling in the loop, doors slamming, and people were hauling everything from storage bins and hunting gear to bedding and dry goods up the concrete walkways. Joe ended up making three separate, grueling trips with his livestock trailer just to transport his cattle. The animals had grown so significantly over the last few days that he could only squeeze two or three into the bay at a time without risking injury. My mother and Frank were among the very first arrivals.

Frank, with his decades of construction experience and deep plumbing background, immediately teamed up with me to trace the campus utility lines. We started with the main water pumps and storage heaters. Fortunately, when the school district had installed the massive solar farm a few years back, they had retrofitted the utility rooms entirely with commercial electric heaters, meaning we didn't have to worry about a lack of municipal gas.

The baseline heating elements and plumbing lines were all standard, heavy-duty electrical wiring—completely unaffected by the EMP. The commercial kitchen appliances were equally functional, with one major exception: the microwaves. Every single unit we checked had its digital control boards completely fried by the electromagnetic surge. The classroom lighting was another bottleneck; they all utilized older fluorescent ballasts that had burned out instantly when the pulse hit.

Hoping for a workaround, I tracked down a simple, vintage desk lamp from an office cubicle and plugged it into a live wall outlet. To my utter fortune, the bulb flickered to life immediately. It made perfect sense—a basic lamp relies on primitive electrical paths: a hot wire, a neutral wire, and a ground. No delicate microchips, no fragile motherboards.

Realizing we had a viable lighting solution, I clicked my radio and broadcast a message to the entire convoy, telling everyone to scavenge every simple, analog plug-in lamp they could find before leaving their houses. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Right around noon, a strange voice broke the squelch on my earpiece. It was one of Pete's extended family members who had been posted on the southern perimeter fence for security watch.

"Derrick, we've got a situation on the south boundary line," the voice reported, sounding tense.

"Two individuals wearing police uniforms are standing right at the property edge. They're heavily armed."

"Copy that. Hold your position and do not engage unless fired upon," I ordered. I turned to the main office and called for our core team to assemble. Frank stood by me, and within two minutes, Joe and Pete converged on the lobby, rifles ready. The rest of our younger guys were still out on the road managing transport details with the families.

Forming a tight, defensive diamond pattern with Dog tracking point just ahead of me, we stepped through the front doors and marched out across the lawn to confront the potential threat. As we closed the distance across the open grass, the sun glinted off the badges pinned to their tactical vests. Halfway there, my eyes locked onto their faces, and a sudden wave of recognition hit me.

They were the exact same two local patrol officers I had ambushed and cuffed in the back lot during our midnight raid on the police department. Neither officer made a move toward the AR-15 rifles slung across their chests. Instead, seeing our four-man stack approach, they both slowly raised their palms into the air. I stopped ten paces out, keeping my father's heavy rattlesnake-backed bow raised, an arrow resting lightly against the shelf.

"If either of you touches a sling, you're going down," I warned them, my voice deadpan. The officer on the left let out a dry, breathy chuckle.

"We know the drill, man." The second officer spoke up, keeping his hands perfectly still above his shoulders.

"If we came here looking for a firefight, we wouldn't be standing out in the middle of a sunlit lawn in broad daylight. We would have crawled over your fences in the middle of the night—the exact same way you did last night." I narrowed my eyes, keeping my stance anchored.

"And how exactly do you know how we operated last night?"

"Simple," the first cop replied.

"We're still carrying the department portables. The radios you cleared out of the tactical locker have an automatic scan function, remember? We've been sitting on a hill listening to your team's tactical chatter all night and half the morning." I suppressed a bitter grimace. Another absolute amateur mistake, I thought to myself.

I hadn't even considered the reality of unsecured local frequencies, but given our lack of military-grade encryption keys or frequency hoppers, it was a liability I couldn't have easily fixed anyway. Besides, I knew it was only a matter of days before word got around that someone had fortified the high school and brought the power back online.

"Alright," I said, lowering the bow slightly but keeping the arrow nocked.

"You've got our attention. What is it you want?"

"In a word? Sanctuary," the lead officer replied flatly. He gestured with a subtle nod toward the public park directly across the street from the campus. From the dense, overgrown brush lining the park's perimeter, a ragged group of civilians slowly began to emerge into the light—roughly fifteen people in total, including older adults, several women, and a handful of young children.

"As a show of absolute good faith," the officer continued, turning his eyes back to me, "we brought everyone who matters to us in this world. We wanted to prove to you that we aren't looking for trouble, and we aren't holding a grudge about what happened at the station the other night."

"In retrospect," the second cop added quietly, "securing our own supplies and ammunition probably should have been our first move anyway."

"You have a choice here," the first officer continued, his voice steady despite the high stakes.

"You can turn us away right now, you can let us join your ranks, or..." He paused, looking at the children waiting across the asphalt.

"... you can choose to shoot us and our families down right here on the pavement." I let out a slow breath, relaxing my draw completely.

"We aren't in the business of killing people without a damn good reason. Do you two have actual names, or am I supposed to call you Starsky and Hutch?" The lead officer smiled faintly, the tension breaking just a fraction.

"I'm Zack. And this is Anthony, but everyone just calls him Tony."

"Fair enough, Zack," I said, unshipping the arrow and sliding it back into my quiver.

"If we agree to let you and your families clear the gate, what exactly do you bring to the table? We aren't running a charity or handing out free passes in this compound. Every single soul inside these walls works to keep the collective alive. That means farming, manual labor, structural building, crafting, and pulling shifts on security around the clock." Zack looked over at Tony, a broad, knowing grin breaking across his face. Then he looked back at me, his eyes gleaming with a strange energy.

"We can definitely handle the workload, and then some," Zack said. He tilted his head slightly.

"Tell me something—were any of you guys big into gaming before the world turned upside down?" I blinked, thrown off by the sudden pivot.

"Yeah, I played a bit. Why do you ask?"

"Do you happen to know what a Bag of Holding is?" Zack asked.

"Of course I do," I replied, my brows furrowing as I tracked his movement. Zack's grin grew even wider. Keeping his motions incredibly slow and deliberate, he reached a hand up to the small tactical pocket on the front of his uniform shirt, slipped two fingers inside, and pulled out a small, non-descript object. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it straight through the air toward my chest.