Chapter 37

"It's working, yes!"

"Nice! Now we would have the elevator working to move around. I was already tired of using the stairs."

"This thing will bring us back to modernity. Now we can have the air conditioner working to make the rooms cool at night. I woke up so sweaty every day."

"The TV will be working too. We can watch some movies or TV shows on them. Goodbye, boredom!"

"Not only that, we can charge phones and have a nice laptop again. The only pity is that there will be no internet."

It was early morning and the people in the group were cheering at the generator working as it should after they filled its tank with the fuel they siphoned from cars they would not use around the area. They still had a surplus of it with the extra they brought back from their stop at the gas station when they started to run low on cars to siphon around the resort. With the generator working, it not only brought back power to the hotel and other facilities of the resort, making life easier with the things that needed electricity to work, but also brought a sense of returning to their previous life.

"All those things are good and fine, but we need to find a way to cut the hotel sign. Even in the day, that thing is noticeable far away. It's like saying 'Come, we are a safe place with a generator and electricity working.' This is sure to attract people," Paul said as he pointed out the hotel sign at the top of the hotel.

"Yeah, it could be trouble if it stays on," Oscar said, looking at the sign lit up. It was a bright red that still could be noticed far away in the distance.

"Let me see... I believe it is one of these handles that turns off that section," Elena said, a little doubtful, quickly working to figure out which one it was on the many things the generator panel had.

"Done," Elena said after pulling down a handle. The hotel sign in the distance was turned off while still the rest was working fine with power.

"Nice! How much gas does this thing consume anyway? It looks like it will burn through it," Paul asked doubtfully as he looked at the big generator.

"A lot. This is a big generator. At full output, it can produce 1000 kVA," Elena explained. "Obviously, we will not use that much. We will reduce it to only the minimum we need for consumption and a little more. Doing that, we will save a lot of fuel, even more if we just use it only during certain hours in the day. In any case, we will need to bring everything from the Pemex gas station and siphon every car we can get hold of so we can keep enjoying it continuously."

"We should use it during a scheduled time and not all day," Madison said as she heard Elena's explanation.

"Maybe sometime during the morning, the afternoon, and the night," Claire suggested. "As the military did back home in California."

"We should do it like that," Madison nodded in agreement, with others also approving of it.

"For now, let's enjoy it all we can. We earned it," Paul said to everyone. "Later on, we will find a few tankers and have enough fuel to reasonably use it all day."

"Yeah!!!!" Everyone cheered.

After that, everyone dispersed to use their time as they pleased. A few people stayed with Elena to power down all the sections and facilities they would not use, and some people looked around the perimeter. Others were already trying to figure out how to work a plot of land in the resort grounds to cultivate food, while others enjoyed fishing at the sports pier.

Paul, instead, left to sit at the bar as Strand was putting the place back into shape. The first thing he did was put the ice machine to work.

"So, what do we have to enjoy this afternoon?" Paul asked as he sat on a chair beside the bar counter.

"A lot of things. This ice opens the door to many possibilities," Strand said as he took hold of an ice cube in his hand, enjoying the cold on this sunny day.

"Give us something nice. Let's continue from where we left the other day," Madison said to him with a smile as she sat on her son's lap, pushing her big ass into his cock.

"Uh uh. Let me see what we have here," Strand said with a smile as he looked at their available stock.

"This place is taking shape fast," Madison said as she moved her ass on her son's lap, resting her back against his chest and her head beside his. "We are back to modern times with the lights on. It was feeling old with the candles all the time."

"Yes, it is," Paul said to her beside her ear as he smelled his mother's scent and put a playful hand between her legs. "But we need to get more guns and bigger ones at that to secure this place better. It's too big for the little bunch of us. Eventually, we will need more people if we want to be firmly rooted in this place. We will need to be ruthless with anyone who comes to look for trouble with us, and they will come."

Paul cupped his mother's tits into his hands and massaged them a little as Strand ducked behind the bar, looking for bottles. Madison trembled into his embrace as she softly moaned in his ears until he stopped pawing her tits as Victor got up. "These Mexicans never had a good reputation because of their rampant activities and gangs. So, we will need more people, more guns, and more ammo."

"Well, we have a lot of time now for that to happen," Strand said as he removed the dust from a few glasses and opened a bottle. "We have a secure perimeter free of walkers, which is a lot. Who knows when someone will come looking for trouble."

"Victor is right. Let's enjoy drinking for now and later we will worry about these things," Madison said with a smile as she raised her glass. "To us!"

"To us!" Paul and Strand raised theirs as they cheered and drank.

"Don't send the glass in your hand flying this time, Mom," Paul smiled as he touched the inner place between her legs.

"He is right, Madison," Strand said with a smirk. "We will not have more glasses to use."

"We will drink directly from the bottles then!" Madison shrugged as she smiled.

"Goodbye, margaritas," Paul said as he kissed his mother's neck.

"Now that we have secured the resort grounds with a wall around it, maybe we should start considering a security perimeter for the sides. The problem is, this place is big," Paul commented to them both as he drank and touched his mother's body subtly, hidden from Strand's sight, to not give him a show while they were at it. Madison also followed his lead, doing little movements on him.

"It's too big that we don't have the numbers to secure it and at the same time continue improving the place. At this moment, we are 28 people in total: the eleven of us that came here, Elena and her nephew Hector, Oscar and his brother Andrea, and Ilene along with them, twelve more that were their friends and family," Paul continued as he awaited Strand to fill his glass again.

"How many people are you considering investing in the security?" Madison asked doubtfully, thoughtful about it as she felt her son's cock in her ass.

"At least half of us need to be placed as security guards, rotating in three shifts of five to have all the sides secured 24/7. One man would be roaming around the compound. They would have an eight-hour work shift each day. We can rotate them weekly or bi-weekly to avoid getting them bored too. But this is the minimum. It's not worth it in the face of, let's say, a dozen men coming from a side when there is only one to see it. At most, it would work as an early alarm to let the rest of the group know there is a problem," Paul explained to them both.

As they were talking, Elena, Oscar, and Daniel got into the bar.

"I see you guys are enjoying yourselves," Daniel commented as he eyed the ice and the drinks.

"Oh, not only that. We are also thinking about the place," Strand said as he smirked, putting a few glasses more on the bar counter for the new guests.

"What are you talking about?" Oscar asked as he sat in a chair. "The wall was a success. It looks sturdy."

"Yes, I never thought we would get so far, actually. But we did it," Elena said, amazed and sporting a smile on her lips as she took hold of a glass passed by Strand.

"We were talking about the security of this place, now that we have the wall," Madison explained to them what they were talking about just a moment ago. "The place we are covering is too big for only us, and we would need more people eventually if we want this place to prosper."

"Oh oh, so you finally are taking notice of that," Daniel smirked as he sipped from his drink. "What do you have in mind?"

"Three shifts, five people per shift of eight hours," Paul commented to him and the other two.

"Smart, but will not be enough for this place," Daniel nodded at that.

"I know, that's what I was saying to them. I would like at least to triple that number per shift for this big place," Paul shrugged. He could wish, but reality was another thing. He played, touching his mother between her legs as they were thoughtful.

"We would need people to look for resources and food out there too, to make a farmable plot inside this place which some people are already looking into it as I saw, to fish in the pier who some like to do it seems too, to maintain the wall and the place, people for cooking in the restaurant, cleaning personnel, a medical room, people to control and administer the storage room," Madison said what she thought for now to the group as she tried to be composed while speaking as her ass moved slowly on her son's cock.

"That sounds like a lot of people would be needed," Paul commented, relaxed about it.

"It sounds because it is," Elena said with a raised eyebrow as she saw their mother-son play because she was beside them. "How would we decide which people do this or that?"

"We would do as I say. I will tell who does what they need to do, and it's final. If someone doesn't like it, they can come to tell it to my face. We will see if he will not do it," Paul smiled as he was saying that with an arrogant voice that left no room for opposition. Seeing that he got the desired effect, guided by the twitching faces of the people around him, his smile widened a lot. "Or it is what I would like to say if I wanted to impose myself, which I don't. But we need everyone for this, no one can be lazy as the rest work hard doing something. Contributing to this place and its people. For that, at least a schedule of working hours needs to be in place, doing their hours each day they secure at least their daily food and water that they need for living and their place of stay."

"For that, we should do a survey of the people's previous work they did. For now, the guard duty is a priority we should take into account, at least for the day, and at night we just cover the night duty at the stairs as we did and by day we move in a big group sweeping around this place. But it is not a solution, it just makes us waste time when there could be people guarding at all times for that. In the end, we need people, more people for anything," Paul sighed.

"For the people doing guard duty, it needs to be selected from those who have the determination to kill. We can't have someone who doesn't like guns or fear using them. If they are not good with them, we can train them. But someone who doesn't have the guts to pull the trigger to a living being or a walker is something we can't have wasting time and resources," Daniel said slowly.

Paul didn't say anything but he nodded at what Daniel was saying.

"Let's say we accept more people into this place. How do we feed them? Where do we let them stay?" Oscar asked after a while that they were silent.

"It is bound to cause disagreement if we let them enjoy the fruits of our work for nothing to those newcomers," Strand commented as he refilled the glasses of those who had them empty. "Not to say, how do we screen them to make sure they will not be more trouble than a benefit to this place?"

"We can let them stay in the other two towers with rooms. It is on a corner of the compound away from the hotel from where we would be sleeping in case of trouble. We can still place security on our stairs at night to protect us for the time until we can think of something better," Madison commented as she rested against her son's body. "For the food problem, Paul and us can go to loot a few places for it. In no time, we can have enough for more than a hundred people for a few months."

"With him, nothing is impossible..." Madison said as she kissed Paul's neck with love. "But even then, we can't give them anything as they please. We will provide them just enough, a place to stay and enough food to pass the day. If they want more, they will need to integrate into our community and provide to it, working in the jobs we need around the place."

They continued chatting well into the evening as the sun hid away, drinking while also eating a snack as they continued making better a plan of what to do and the working roles of the people in the place. As they became thoughtful, an early design of a point system was raised to reward those works that are not so good or risky, while those that are more comfortable with not so much effort or danger, as farming, fishing, cooking, cleaning, wall maintenance, got fewer points depending on the job and a rotation system so people don't need to be staying all the time in that same work if they don't desire it, leaving them a road to something more productive and dangerous, as scavenging, duty guard, or cleaning walkers around the place.

As they were chatting, Liza suddenly barged in fast with a worried face as she took her breath before speaking. "We have trouble... We have trouble at the gates of the highway. There is a crowd of people wanting to get inside. They came because of the sign that got lit when we started the generator."

Paul and the rest looked at each other hearing what Liza was telling them and promptly got up. Paul took hold of his mother and raised her with him as they left their glasses on the bar counter.

Taking hold of their guns, Paul said, "We need everyone at the gates to hold control of the crowd. Everyone needs to take any weapon we have available as a dissuasive method."

After they promptly left the hotel, they saw in the distance at the gates a lot of people of different ages carrying luggage with them seeking to enter into the resort grounds. Chris, Andres, Hector, and a few others were trying to keep these people at bay as they banged into the gates.

As they were getting near, they started hearing the yelling of the people. The crowd, a mix of men, women, and children, pressed against the metal gate, their faces etched with desperation and fear. The clanging of the gate echoed through the place, punctuated by the urgent cries of the people.

"¡Señor! ¡Señor!"

"¡Ayuden! ¡Por favor, ayuda!"

"¡Déjenos entrar, por favor!"

"¡Abran la reja! ¡Abran la puerta!"

"¡No nos dejen aquí!"

"¡Necesitamos ayuda!"

"¡Abran! ¡Por favor!"

"¡Ayuda! ¡Please, let us in!"

The sound of their disorderly pleas filled the air, yelling their desperation. Children clung to their parents, their small voices adding to the chorus. A woman, her voice hoarse from shouting, clutched the bars of the gate, her knuckles white. "¡Por favor, ayuda! ¡No nos dejen aquí!" she cried, her eyes filled with tears.

A man, his face streaked with sweat and dirt, pounded on the gate with his fists. "¡Abran la reja! ¡Necesitamos ayuda!" he shouted, his voice cracking with urgency.

The crowd surged forward, their collective weight making the gate rattle and groan. The tension in the place was filled with the scent of fear and the metallic clang of the gate. The pleas continued, a relentless tide of desperation.

Paul took his whistle and whistled with it, trying to make everyone hear it.

"Silence!!! SILENCE!!!!" Paul shouted at the crowd as he continued whistling.

Some people did hear him and became quiet, but some kept making trouble. With his patience reaching a limit at hearing so much disorderly noise that he couldn't understand the words of what they wanted to say from so many voices combined from these stupid people, who had not thought that they could bring walkers to only get killed because they were outside without protection instead of making themselves be heard, he chambered a round and shot into the air.

That universal sound that is known in all the world seemed to have made the magic trick because they became quickly really quiet after it. "Now that we have your attention, we can talk as people and not animals. With so much noise, we can't understand between each other. It only makes things difficult for you people."

"No podemos dejarlos entrar si siguen así a los gritos," Elena said to these people, trying to calm them down. ("We can't let you get in if you continue shouting like that.")

"Que va a pasar con mi hijo?" The woman who was clutching at the gates asked Elena with worry in her voice and eyes. ("What will happen with my son?")

"Ya arreglaremos algo cuando se calmen, primero tenemos que ver donde los haremos ingresar," Elena kept speaking with them. ("We will figure something out when you people calm down. First, we need to see where we will have you.")

"Tienen que dejarnos entrar, por favor, no tenemos nada y ustedes este castillo," a bald man who kept banging the gates all the time and pleading talked more calmly this time. ("You have to let us in, please! We have nothing and you have that castle.") "Hasta luz tienen, por favor." ("You even have power! Please!")

"Lo sabemos, lo sabemos," Alicia said to them. ("We know... We know.") "Los ayudaremos pero a su tiempo." ("We will help but at his given time.")

"What do we do with these people?" Chris asked quietly beside them.

"We will take them in. We can use the multistory parking lot as a quarantine zone to check these people first, to make sure they are not bitten by walkers before we start screening them," Paul said to the group. "Liza will need to check them up."

"I can help her. I have had a year and a half of medical school experience," Andres offered his help to the group.

"Good, you will be helpful if you do," Liza said to him as she nodded quickly at his help, being a little troubled with so many people to be checked.

"Alright, we will keep them in check as we start checking them in the parking lot. We would need to bring chairs to have a place to sit them and water to hydrate them too," Paul said as they decided it.

"Escuchenme bien," Paul shouted to them after whistling to grab their attention. ("Listen to me carefully.")

"Vamos a ayudarlos a todos y a dejarlos entrar en el resort, pero van a tender que escuchar atentamente a nuestras indicaciones. No quiero ver o oir a nadie hacer cosas innecesarias, porque los vamos a matar. Si escucharon bien, voy a matar al que haga disturbios e incite a la gente aqui dentro." ("We are going to help all of you and let you into the resort, but you will have to listen carefully to our instructions. I don't want to see or hear anyone doing unnecessary things, because we will kill them. If you heard me well, I will kill anyone who causes disturbances and incites people here inside.") Paul continued.

"Quien eres tu? Por que tenemos que escucharte a vos?" A middle-aged man questioned Paul's words without fear, not taking him seriously. ("Who are you? Why should we listen to you?")

"Yo soy la ley en este lugar, viejo. Yo digo que se hace y que no. Si no te gusta, te puedes dar la vuelta y marcharte. Pero en mi sitio, vas a escuchar y hacer lo que te digamos." ("I am the law in this place, old man. I say what happens and what doesn't. If you don't like it, you can turn around and leave. But in my place, you're going to listen and do what we tell you.") Paul answered him with a mocking look.

The man didn't say anything more, but Paul took note of the glint in his eyes.

"You will enter in a single file line without making any sudden or strange movements, or trying to walk off wherever you want. You will go in a line following the person who will guide you to the parking lot where you will be checked and treated. If you are in optimal condition, that is, you do not have any bites from the dead, you will be accepted without any issues. Otherwise, you will be in a quarantine area while we treat you," Paul instructed them clearly.

Seeing them becoming calm after hearing him and more assured that they would get in, they started forming a line.

"Open it," Paul told Chris as he gave him the keys to remove the chain from the gate after they organized. "Elena, lead them to the parking lot while the rest of us guard them."

As the people entered the resort in an orderly manner, the man who had questioned Paul while passing near him suddenly lunged at him, attempting to grab his weapon. Paul, with a mocking smile, punched the man's head with incredible speed, causing it to explode as it was removed from his neck. Brain matter and blood splattered onto the faces of the people in the line, who screamed in fear as they felt it and witnessed the gruesome event unfolding before their eyes. They couldn't believe what they were seeing, and now looked at the young man in front of them with terror and fear, making them more docile and calm, no longer thinking of questioning his words.