If I remember right, when they asked
Rockefeller how much money it would take for him to be satisfied, his response
was “One more dollar.” I have to admit, that kind of thinking is pretty
inspirational. Of course, here and now, money doesn’t exactly mean a whole a
lot. I remember there was one fantasy series where the currency wasn’t gold. It
was steel. Gold is soft and malleable. With steel, you can make armor and
weapons. Steel is useful. I would have to imagine that if there were large
enough pockets of society still left out there or if a small wandering band
came through, we would have to negotiate trade like back in the day.
What good is money going to do in a
world such as this where there is barely even a country left (as far as we
know)? No, I think trade would have to become the new standard. And in this
world, you want to trade for something that just might save your life. So,
right now, one of our single most prized possessions is ammunition.
Water? Food? Medicine? We have all
that. But as for ammo, how much is enough? I think this is where you have to
come back to that Rockefeller mentality. How many bullets are enough? How much
do we need? Our answer has to be: “Just one more bullet.”
One more bullet means one more zombie
dead. And in a world where there are potentially 7 billion zombies walking
around this world, you need every bullet you can get. Now, this latest run to
Pryor? Fred died for that run. He did. No bones about it.
But the guys literally came back with
shopping carts filled with straight ammunition. Think about that. Shopping
carts. This means that in his death, Fred provided us with the means to defend
ourselves against a fairly big invasion if things ever go really wrong. I would
think it would take us months to go through all the ammo that Fred provided us
and I would think that we would have more bullets than zombie skulls to put
them in.
There was a quote from a sci-fi movie
at a funeral where the leader of the group talks about some people that have
died. In the flick, Lance Henriksen says something like, “When we reach for the
fruits of their labors and find them gone, that’s when we will miss them.” I
always liked that idea.
As long as that ammo that Fred died to
bring us holds out, in a way, he is still here, serving as a protector for our
family. Knowing how to field strip a weapon and how to clean it is something
that Alex will carry for the rest of his life. And those skills could save his
life someday. In that regard, Fred is not really gone. Nor will he ever be. He
will live on in our memories and in the skills and lessons that he has taught
us.
Can anyone else entertain me by
walking around the Produce Prep Room on their hands? No. Can anyone else
entertain me with stories of three tours in Iraq? No. Will anyone else in this
place be seen as a father figure for me? No.
Don’t get me wrong. Fred is missed. He
will always be missed. But I can honestly say that no other person in our group
singly prepared us more to go on and survive after they were lost than Fred. He
never made himself obsolete. Instead, he just elevated all the rest of us to
his level before he checked out.
