Post by Sarah Sharpe on Oct 31, 2016 14:46:30 GMT -5
Current map of Belle Isle & Detroit environs; red line above denotes border of cleared areas controlled by Belle Isle
...seven weeks after the departure of the New York Scouts....
As she watched the first snows of the season falling upon the city of Detroit and Belle Isle island, Sarah Sharpe looked out from her office on the third floor of the former Detroit Yacht Club building and thought about everything that had happened since Tegan Lyell and her New York Scouts had left their beautiful island.
All-in-all, it'd had been a relatively beneficial experience for the Belle Isle inhabitants; they'd learned a bunch of key items in regards to security and had taken the lessons to heart, beefing up security not just on the Island itself but throughout the areas they had cleared. Part of this had worried Sarah, at times making her wonder if they had enough people to not only defend the island but keep the cleared areas as secure and safe as possible. Fortunate for us, she thought, that we've started getting in new survivors from east of the river, thinking of the groups of new survivors from southern Ontario that had arrived over the past few weeks. Rather than risk going overland and using the now-fallen Ambassador Bridge to the south, they'd ferried everyone over on boats and rigid-hull skiffs, getting it done before the first freezes of the Detroit River turned the waters to ice for the winter to come.
To accommodate the newcomers, they'd built large frontier-style cabins just inside Belle Isle's ring road; those four cabins, along with several DRASH shelters, had allowed them to handle the influx without much difficulty....by her own count, there were now 160 or so people at Belle Isle, a number that Sarah thought should be able to weather the coming winter. The influx of newcomers had also changed a few things, organizationally-wise, as well.
Because of the loss of about a dozen people to what everyone on the Island was referring to as "the Detroit Flu", some of the island's long-time residents - most notably Kate McCready-Bates and Elise Diefenbaker - had had to shoulder more responsibility; in Kate's case, that included the security of the Island and the areas they'd secured across the river over in Detroit. In Elise's case, the former Windsor resident was now the Island's logistics chief and Sarah knew with as sharp a mind as Elise had, they should easily have enough supplies to get through the winter.
And there was one new addition to our Island in the past weeks, Sarah happily thought, as she heard her daughter Meredith cooing in the background; walking over to her bassinet, Sarah scooped her up in her arms and cradled her to her chest, smiling at her and thinking, If only Ian were here to see you, my dear, Sarah thought sadly, her smile slowly falling as she turned away for a few moments. Her beloved, Ian Sharpe, the Island's security chief, had succumbed to the Detroit Flu; while Sarah knew he'd been one of the ones quarantined in the wake of the flu's return weeks before, she had kept herself ensconced away from the quarantine area for both her protection and Meredith's own protection. It'd broken her heart immensely at hearing of his death and there were times where she had to hold it together, not just for her own sake for the sake of the Island....but as she cradled Meredith in her arms, her heartache seemed to fade away more and more. One of these days, my sweet child, she whispered softly to her, I'm going to tell you everything about Ian; he may no longer be here with us, but he's up there in Heaven watching over you and me everyone else, smiling more brightly as Meredith held her arms up as if trying to reach the sky...