Free Black Tide Rising - eARC by John Ringo, Gary Poole

sidewise—and you don’t have to worry about getting the mattresses soaked when it rains.
    What good were three big containers of Round-Up with spray wands? They were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and they were worrying about weeds ?
    Dump out the herbicide and replace it with water and a cup or so of bleach—and you’ve got a pretty handy all-purpose disinfectant spray.
    A bunch of folding metal chairs made sense—but why all the plastic tubs and containers with lids? They wouldn’t possibly need to collect that much rainwater.
    And what in God’s name had possessed them to load four big shopping carts on top of the pile?
    Specially-designed rooftop toilets. And the shopping carts are for privacy screens, once they’re cut up. We’re tired of crapping out in the open.
    It was agreed by consultation over the walkie-talkies that the following day Freddy would cut away the bottom part of the staircases leading up to two other towers. Jack promptly labeled them Kappa and Omega, which wasn’t maintaining proper alphabetical order but his knowledge of the Greek alphabet was hit-or-miss and it was the best he could manage. Freddy would also weld on lightning rods. After he was done, he’d spray bleach over everything he’d touched or walked on and the AME people and the Vasquezes could relocate from Delta and Gamma—which they’d also sanitize with bleach so that any newcomers could move onto them without too much risk of cross-infection.
    * * *
    At dusk, not long after the nearby street lights came on, the power grid finally went down. A few hours later, when the sun was well below the horizon, the people on the towers got their first experience of just how dark the world could be without electricity and with a new moon in the sky. The only light being provided was coming from the fires still burning in and around the refinery in Whiting. That was a fair amount, actually, but it was miles away.
    They did use a few flashlights and lamps in the huts and tents, but Andy insisted that the people standing watch had to make sure that none of the light was leaking out. Any gleam of light was sure to draw zombies, in that darkness.
    Andy herself spent a fair portion of the night using the walkie-talkies to consult with Pastor Collins and his three matriarchs, on the one hand, and the Vasquezes on the other. They all agreed that it would be wise to establish an official ruling body so that joint decisions could be made and any new arrivals could be presented with a formally established setup which they were welcome to join but had to obey the rules.
    True, there was really no way to enforce those decisions, but they figured that as long as they were obviously common sense people would be willing to abide by them.
    So, Andy’s previously established “Quarantine Regulations” and “Zombie Rules of Engagement” got formally adopted. And they worked out the language for another set of regulations which Andy then keyed into her laptop and printed up.

    SANITATION RULES
    Each tower will be provided with a toilet that can be used on a roof. The toilets will include portable sanitation tubs which must be kept covered except when in use. Once a sanitation tub starts getting full, it needs to be lowered off the roof with a hoist and taken to a trench which each tower is responsible for digging for its own use.

    Freddy and his fellow scavengers had brought back enough folding chairs and tubs to make eight toilets. They’d need three right off, for Alpha, Kappa and Omega Towers. Up on Delta, Jerome Bennett was still alive and unturned, although he said he was sick as a dog, but he’d just have to keep making do with a chamber pot until he got better. If he got better—but if he didn’t, sanitation facilities for him would be a moot point.
    If more than five more groups showed up…
    Well, they’d deal with that when the time came.

    A shovel will be provided for any tower that needs one.

    Right now, they only had five