A Different Virus - Laura's Story

Chapter 46

I heard Dave's alarm clock go off. This was the first time this trip that the smell of Diane's cooking didn't wake us up. We hadn't set up the tents last night, so I sat up and looked around. I sighed with relief as I saw Diane below.

It looked as if she had just started cooking. I started climbing down the ladder and noticed some odd flat square shapes leaning against the second trailer. I sat beside Diane and helped to flip the very first pancakes.

I heard Joel's surprised voice, "Where did those come from?!" I looked over to see him staring in shock at the odd squares. From this angle I could see that they were actually solar panels. Others were also looking his way, they had not noticed the solar panels yet. Then again, most hadn't even gotten out of their sleeping bags yet.

Diane chuckled at Joel's expression, "A present for you. I hauled them, but you have to set them up and connect them." Joel was our main tech when it came to electricity or the solar panels. He shook his head and went over to inspect the solar panels with excitement.

Dave looked surprised, "Where did you find those?"

Diane shrugged, "A small specialty shop I once saw when we drove through that town."

Dave turned to look at the decent sized town that was below the ridge we had camped on. I had looked at the town from on top of the trailers yesterday and it had been crawling with dozens of zombies. Dave commented, "A lot of zombies down there."

Diane chuckled, "Tell me about it, I noticed as I was packing those things back."

I eyed up the solar panels. There were at least thirty of them and each of them was longer than Diane was tall. I doubted that even she could have carried more than four at a time. That was a lot of trips through a town riddled with zombies.

Dave glanced at Diane, "We never even drive through towns that large due to the zombie infestation. We just don't move fast enough and we can't lure that many zombies away at once."

Diane was all too well aware of how slowly these trailers moved and glanced over at Joel. "Well, perhaps once Joel gets those things hooked up we might travel faster."

I grinned, she was probably tired of traveling so slowly. Dave chuckled and wandered over to steal the first pancake. He sat down to watch Joel excitedly moving the panels this way and that as he looked at the specs on the back. Dave called over, "So Joel, think you can rig those things up?"

Joel looked up, "Oh yeah, most solar panels use the same wiring so hooking them up will be a cinch once we secure them. We can probably attach a few to the sides of the trailers permanently, but most of them can be laid on top of the trailers and it will greatly improve the power coming in. We will just have to be careful if we have to climb to safety. I just have to splice a few wires and reset the converter to allow for greater power flow."

Dave looked interested as he munched on his stolen pancake, "Do you think you can have them up and ready by the time we break camp?"

Joel nodded as he dragged his electrical bag out of a trailer, "Sure, give me three or four helpers to get some of these things secured to sides and I can do the ones on top as we travel."

I helped pack up the camp as Joel conscripted three others to help him secure some of the panels to the side. They stored the rest on top of the trailers and Joel would work on them as we traveled.

I sat on my horse and watched as Joel hooked up the last of the wires. All three trailers now had all of the solar panels hooked up. Joel jumped down and closed the truck hood, "That was the last one, let's see how she goes."