Three Orphan Pilgrimage (The Alternative to TWDG's Final Season) [Walking Dead]

75. Contingencies

"Can you see anything?" asked Jet as he pressed his flashlight up against the rain barrel.

"Not really." Clem moved in closer, hoping to see through the plastic just enough to know if there was any water inside or not. "I don't see anything, the plastic is too dark."

"Well, maybe if look in through the vent I can tell," reasoned Jet as he stood on the edge of the bench supporting the water barrels.

"Why did Sin use black barrels anyway?" asked Clem.

"He said he wanted to keep algae from growing inside, and blocking out the sun was the best way to do that," said Jet as he looked down one of the vent pipes. "But he said if he builds another collector on the other side of the field, then he'd include a couple of white barrels in the middle so we'd know how much water is in there."

As Jet tried to find out if there was water or not in the upper barrels of the collector, Clem stepped aside and approached the barn door. Heading inside, she looked up at the blue tarps Devlin and Sin had painstakingly rigged up to replace the missing roof. Sin had originally planned to create a water collector by stringing up tarps before they had found Ceres Acres, so using those to repair the barn wasn't too difficult. Still, Clem couldn't stop herself from noticing the bent and torn metal near the top of the walls and wonder what an even worse storm would do to their tiny farm.

"Okay, there's water in there," said Jet as Clem hurried back outside.

"You can see it?" asked Clem as she watched Jet hop off the bench.

"No, but I put my ear up to the barrel and slapped it, and I can hear water sloshing around. The top barrels definitely have water in them."

"Great, that means the new roof worked," concluded Clem. "And it rained all night, so we should have plenty of water."

"Yeah, now let's just hope there will be enough pressure for the whole field this time." Jet turned a large valve on the center of a pipe running in front of the collector, then hurried over to the small pipe running across the short side of the field, Clem following right behind him. They split up and started turning a series of smaller valves running under this pipe. Turning the last valve, Clem moved through the wooden fence and started following one of the soaker hoses across the field. Leaning down, Clem could already see where water was seeping through the hose and moistening the dirt the corn was planted in; it was working.

Moving down the row, checking to make sure the hose was still working, Clem was surprised by how tall the corn had gotten. Already it was coming up to about her stomach, and she suspected it wouldn't be too much longer before it was taller than her. She couldn't see any developing ears of corn yet, but she did notice the long vines twisting their way up the bean poles planted between the stalks. Clem concluded it wouldn't be long before they needed to wrap them around the corn stalks like Sarah originally planned.

Continuing to check the dirt as she moved, Clem's optimism dimmed as she noticed the soil grew steadily less damp until it was eventually just dry. Kneeling down for a better look, Clem could see there was still a tiny trickle of water seeping out of the hose a bit further back only to stop entirely just beyond that. Standing up, Clem could see Jet on the opposite end of the field, likely noticing the same thing. Carefully maneuvering past corn stalks and around cucumber cages, Clem met Jet in the center of the field, looking as disappointed as she felt.

"It stopped halfway, didn't it?" Clem nodded at Jet. "Dammit. I was hoping the first time it only went halfway because the tornado tore off the roof before the barrels could be filled, and so there wasn't enough pressure. But they're definitely almost full this time and—"

"It's not enough for the whole field."

Jet sighed. "Granddad said that probably was the problem. He also said if we parked the semitrailers on the other side of the field, he and Devlin could probably use tarps to rig up some kind of roof over there and build another rainwater collector if he gets some stuff from Tulsa at the beginning of May. If we had that then—"