299 Days: The Stronghold Read Online Free Page A

sleep.”
    Grant went as quietly as possible into the cabin and slept on the couch; he didn’t want to wake Lisa.
    He opened his eyes about two hours later when Manda was up and starting the pancakes. He talked to her for a bit and then got the CB that they kept in the cabin. He got Rich on the line, which required a walk up to the top of the hill to get decent reception. He was tired and starting to have a very mild hangover. He hadn’t drank much in the past few years and it didn’t take much anymore to give him a fuzzy head the morning after.
    “Hey, Rich,” Grant said when he slowly got to the top of the hill overlooking the water near his cabin, “sorry to wake you but we have a funeral to plan. Mrs. Roth down here died. Hey, can we use the Grange for this?”
    “Yeah, sure,” Rich replied. “The one thing we don’t have is a mortician here. Could we get away with using a wood box that’s covered up? A quick burial before…things break down without embalming fluids?” Rich was grossed out by what he was saying.
    “Sure,” Grant said. “Do we have any clergy out here?”
    “Not really.” Rich said. “There’s Pastor Pete. What’s his name…Peter Edmonds, I think. He tried to start a church out here but there wasn’t enough interest. Most people who go to church—and that’s not too many—go to ones in Frederickson. He was a mechanic supervisor at the Ford dealership in town before it closed, but studies theology. Nice guy. Not a Bible thumper. He lives by me. I’ll go by his place after breakfast and call you back.”
    “Thanks,” Grant said. “Who can make the box?” Before Rich could answer, Grant said, “How about John Morrell? He’s a carpenter and his wife, Mary Anne, was taking care of Mrs. Roth.”
    “Sounds good,” Rich said.
    “See you up at the Grange in a couple hours,” Grant said.
    “Roger that,” Rich said and then said, “Out.” Talking on a radio was different than talking on a phone, but it was helpful to make sure the messages were clear.
    Grant went to find John. Grant didn’t know how John would react to his request, but there was only one way to find out.
    “John,” Grant said, “we probably will have more of these…events. I don’t think we’ll necessarily have enough wood for all the coffins. We might need to ‘recycle’ them. Could you make one that’s big enough for most people? We can use the coffin for the funeral and bury people straight into the ground without the coffin. Sorry, but…”
    “No need to be sorry,” John said. “It’s practical. Besides, I never understood $5,000 coffins back when we had $5,000 to waste on such things.”
    “Any thoughts on a place for a cemetery?” Grant asked, realizing how serious this whole thing was. With so many people cut off from their medications, like Mrs. Roth, Grant was afraid several people would be dying. Planning a cemetery would force the community to confront that reality.
    John thought. “There’s a vacant lot on top of the hill overlooking the water. It’s right off the road leading here, so people could stop and visit graves. I don’t know who owns it, but it’s been vacant for years.”
    Grant suggested they could figure that out by using the map with the lot numbers.
    “If it’s owned by someone who hasn’t made it out here yet, they just donated the land,” Grant said. Of course, to be the good Patriot role models they were striving to be, Grant would make sure that an owner of the land who could actually be located would be compensated for the land by the community. They could make sure some of the deceased’s property went to the people who owned the cemetery property. Something like that: simple, but fair.
    As Grant walked back down to the cabin, he realized that he needed to get to the Grange, but he didn’t want to use all the gas that Mark’s truck would burn. He had walked home from the Grange a few hours ago, been up most of the night, and was coming off a buzz. It