by Jeff Kirkham
“Word on the street has it that the commander of Fort Bliss has seized control of the town of El Paso. I always knew that guy was a tyrant. Enjoy martial law, boys and girls. It’s coming to a town near you.
“And… in the Middle Eastern dumpster fire: Iran GLASSED a chunk of Saudi Arabia yesterday, according to Drinkin’ Bros in-theater. I guess Iran had nukes after all. How’s it feel to get PLAYED, Mr. Obama?
“Closer to home, Marines at Camp LaJeune report that their base is closed up tighter than a Baptist girl’s nethers. The Marines are going au natural without civilian contractors or outside support. Hey, if a cockroach can survive it, so can a Marine, I guess…”
Ross Homestead
Oakwood, Utah
As much as he would love to strangle Jeff Kirkham sometimes—which was likely impossible because Jeff didn’t appear to have a neck—Jason felt like he might share some of his stress with the Green Beret. In Jason’s mind, Jeff had slid into the role of second in command. Plus, Jason liked talking to Jeff. Jeff never failed to deliver perspective.
Jason walked down the drive with purpose, avoiding all eyes and sending out the vibe that he was on important business, which wasn’t really true. Jeff was giving a property patrol last-minute instructions.
“Hey, Jeff, you got a second?”
“Sure.” Jeff wrapped up and sent the armed men off, marching into the hills around the Homestead.
Jason dove right in. “I’ve sent probably fifteen families away today at the gate, and it makes me want to put a bullet in my head.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Jeff snapped, rejecting Jason’s hyperbole.
“Right, but you get what I mean. This is screwed up. If the collapse gets any worse, those people I sent away will die. There’s no way I can reel those families back if we decide we can help them later. Those families are gone forever. Am I doing the right thing?” Jason laid it out, exasperated, hoping Jeff would bear some of the weight.
Jeff responded with certainty. “First off, it’s not your decision. You’re executing the decisions we made together when we set up this hard point. We have enough food for our people, plus seventy of their extended families based on our projected harvest from the greenhouses. We’ve already handed out the extra family slots, so that’s a done deal. It’s not your call. Send someone else to handle the gate if it’s bothering you, because who stays and who goes isn’t your call anymore.”
Jason’s eyebrows went heavy. “These are my friends I’m sending them away to starve. The least I can do is face them.”
“Okay. Do whatever you need to do, but don’t talk to anyone else like you’re talking to me.”
Jason cocked his head, a question in his eyes.
“You’re making this personal,” Jeff explained, “as though this whole collapse and Homestead thing is all about you and your feelings. Yes, you did set this all up originally, but that was then and this is now. This ain’t no vanity project anymore. Hobby time is over. My family’s life is on the line and you’re talking as though this is some kind of popularity contest. Focus up.”
Jason rubbed his face. “So, tell me then, how am I supposed to feel about dealing out death at those gates every day?”
“Consider this.” Jeff turned and walked away a bit, finding an old stump on the edge of the forest to sit on. Jason followed him and remained standing. “Consider a convenience store with twenty people inside when a volcano erupts and buries the store in a hundred feet of ash. Among those twenty people are a nutritionist and a meteorologist.”
Jason raised an eyebrow. “Is this a joke? Like when a German, an Irishman, and a Mexican walk into a bar?”
“Of course not. It’s a hypothetical scenario from one of my instructors in SERE school. So picture that convenience store right after the volcano eruption. The meteorologist knows for certain that it’ll take exactly ninety days for rescuers to dig them out. The nutritionist does an inventory of the store and calculates that, at near-starvation levels, only eight of the twenty people can possibly survive, and that’s assuming the remaining twelve are killed immediately.”
“Apparently, the model excludes cannibalism,” Jason quipped.
“Affirmative. My first question, what’s likely to happen?”
Jason thought about it for a second. “Based on my experience of most people, I’m guessing they won’t make a decision at all. They’ll do nothing.”
Jeff nodded. “Right. Then everyone dies. In ninety days, when rescuers get there, the place will be wall-to-wall corpses because the food and water would’ve run out.”
“So what’s the best way?” Jason could think of a number of alternatives. “Women and children first” came immediately to mind.
“People often think that it could be handled with a lottery or some sort of voting system. But, in reality, for that to happen, a strong man would have to arise to enforce the lottery or whatever selection method they chose.”
Jason was skeptical. With Jeff, things often came down to the need for a strong man.
“I’d like to think that people could come up with a benevolent solution,” Jason argued.
“People might do that, but when it came time to murder twelve people, no matter how they were selected, it’d take a real asshole to make that happen.”
Jeff was making sense, but Jason objected out of habit. “If there was a real asshole in the group, wouldn’t he just choose himself, his family and the women he wanted to screw?”
“That’s a strong possibility but, even in that case, the survivability of the group would be maximized. Think about it. Eight people would survive. In the alternative, all would die.”
Jason objected again. “Yeah, but those who survive might not be the best people.”
Jeff and his instructor had already thought of that. “For the ‘best people’ to survive, not only would the strong man enforce the elimination of some, but he would have to survive, too.”
“Hold on,” Jason argued, “if the strong guy is benevolent, he’d never let someone die in his place.”
“He’d have to,” Jeff disagreed. “Without the strong man, discipline would break down, someone would take more than their share, then everyone would take more than their share and they’d all die. In order to ensure the survival of the other seven, he would have to be one of the eight who survive, even if that means a child or pregnant woman dies in his stead. The group would insist on it if they had any sense.”
“That’s harsh, but probably true.” Jason could see the parallels to their current situation. “If the ‘convenience store’ scenario were to go down, the benevolent strong man system would rarely happen. It’d take the perfect strong man—a guy with noble intentions and a guy who would vote for himself to live.”
“Right. And you’re describing a benevolent warlord. That’s why my instructor and I had the conversation in the first place. We were in the business of setting up warlords.”
“Does that make me the warlord?” Jason said, not comfortable with the idea.
“No. You’re getting carried away. This is not about you. This Homestead. We are the warlord. Our group decides who lives and who dies. No matter how it feels, we have to execute on our plan. Otherwise, we’ll end up being a convenience store full of corpses before this is over.”
Jason sighed heavily. “Okay. Thanks, I suppose.”
Jeff sat silently and Jason thought about Jeff and Tara for a second. Many of the Kirkhams’ own family members were still out there on their own—most of Jeff’s brothers and sisters hadn’t taken his invitation to come seek shelter at the Homestead. Tara’s parents and her brothers had refused to come to the Homestead, too, preferring their family cabin in the woods.
“That helps. Thanks.” Jeff stood and they shook hands. Intellectually, Jason walked away with new perspective. Emotionally, nothing had changed.
• • •
On her third day at the Homestead, Jacquelyn approached Jenna, the lady of the house.
“
Hey, Jenna, how’s it going?”
Jacqueline gawked at Jenna’s simple beauty, perhaps the most elegant fifty-year-old woman she’d ever seen.
Jenna blew a lock of auburn hair out of her eyes. “It’s a regular three-ring circus around here. I answer questions all day and, truth is, I’m making it up as I go. I never was the Survival Lady. I spent more time on yoga and Pilates than on canning.”
“Well,” Jacquelyn said, “I can probably help you there. As you can tell from my thoroughly average figure, I didn’t put much time into yoga and Pilates. As fate would have it, I do know a thing or two about canning. You want help?”
“Oh, boy, do I ever.”
Two hours later, Jacquelyn sat working alone in a concrete box—a root cellar that held the Homestead’s bucketed food. She hauled buckets outside, organizing them into piles of sugar, dried milk, beans, pasta and dried veggies.
The Homestead had a couple of thousand pounds of freeze-dried entrees, but the bulk of their food was hardy, inexpensive dried food. Jacquelyn had been there, five years ago, setting it all up. They had figured out how to get an entire year’s supply, at two thousand calories a day, for only five hundred bucks per adult. It had required finding the cheapest bulk source, then sealing everything in surplus plastic food grade buckets.
The buried root cellar kept the dried food cool without air conditioning, but it made for cold and clammy work. Jacquelyn borrowed someone else’s gloves, since God only knew where her gloves had ended up.
She could have asked others to help, but she needed time to herself. Jacquelyn fought to keep it together, imagining her loved ones and how scared they must be in Texas—her sister, her niece and nephews, and her mother. Cell service had dropped between Salt Lake and Texas the day before, so her imagination ran wild.
She kept imagining her family glued to their radio, yearning for some good bit of news that might allay their fears. No doubt, they remembered she and Tom’s warnings over the years about a collapse. Back then, her family had either ignored them or joked about their paranoia. She had thought Tom a little over the top at moments, too, but she had conceded to him about preparing, for the kids’ safety, if nothing else.
Driving home from Texas, she and Tom had often criticized her sister and brother-in-law for their blind faith in the government. While the kids slept in the back seat of their truck, they took pleasure in running Jacquelyn’s family down, repeating back stupid things they had said and chiding them for their “sheep-like” trust in America. Back then, she and Tom enjoyed feeling “right”—being smart enough to see the inherent risks in modern civilization.
Years later, sitting on a plastic bucket in a concrete bunker with civilization crumbling by the day, Jacquelyn now knew the truth. She had been the fool. She had been the one on a power trip. Yes, she and Tom had seen through the thin optimism of American prosperity. So, what had they done with that foresight? They had used it to feel superior. Now her sister and her family would probably die horrific deaths.
All that rightness was gone, replaced by foreboding and shame. Any sense of victory vanished and it left behind only deep regret. She would trade all the rightness in the world to put just one of these goddamn buckets of food in the middle of her sister’s living room in Galveston.
If she had been a little less self-righteous about preparing, maybe her sister and brother-in-law would have come around, at least enough to store a little bit. Or, maybe she could have given them some of her own food storage when they went down to visit. The Homestead had already set aside enough food for Jacquelyn and Tom. Why did they need their own food storage, too? They could have taken at least some of that extra food to Texas over Christmas last year. They’d had enough space in back of the truck for it. She had been so caught up feeling disdainful of her sister’s reliance on the government that she didn’t stop to think about simply giving her food storage. It was extra, for Christ’s sake!
Jacquelyn slumped on the bucket outside the root cellar and cried. Her hands in someone else’s gloves, she cried for her sister and for her family. She cried for shame in her own pride. She cried for what they were all losing and what might never return.
Why couldn’t that beautiful world have kept going? Why couldn’t they have lived forever in a society where a pasteurized gallon of milk waited just five minutes away on a chilled market shelf? Why couldn’t food keep crossing the oceans, landing on their doorsteps as if by magic? Why did things have to go to hell and leave her sister, nieces and nephews terrified and probably starving?
A hand touched her shoulder and Jacquelyn jumped. It was Jenna Ross. Jacquelyn pulled herself together, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her jacket.
“Hey, girl, you need a hug?” Jenna helped her up from the bucket.
Jacquelyn threw her arms around Jenna and began crying again.
“I’m so worried about my family…” she muttered between the sobs. “My sister’s in Galveston and I’m pretty sure they don’t have any food or water at all.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jenna consoled her. “We need to hope and pray for our families. We need to pray for them to be clever and strong. There’s a chance they can figure this out and pull through. There’s a chance, Jacquelyn. We need to hope and pray they’ll make it.”
Jacquelyn and Jenna stood there for a long time holding one another, two women crying in a stumpy forest of white buckets amidst the death throes of America.
• • •
Road 199A
Outside Lewellen, Nebraska
His former father-in-law’s binoculars were the crappiest binos he’d ever used, but Chad was glad to have them. He had been watching the bridge over the North Platte River for half an hour. He had already reconnoitered and rejected three other bridges—all of them being used as choke points for local towns to control ingress into their areas.
Chad knew if he went through enough roadblocks, someone would steal his supplies. He figured it would be best to avoid human interaction at all costs, and roadblocks were the worst kind of human interaction.
He hoped that the bridge on Road 199A had been overlooked by the town of Lewellen. He had already rejected the bigger bridge to the east, since the town had placed a roadblock of concrete barricades and a couple of trashed-out recreational vehicles.
This bridge looked like it had been built by drunken teenagers compared to that bridge, and Chad hoped against hope it was open, as unlikely as that might be. He glanced at his watch and decided to observe the bridge for forty-five minutes and then take a shot at crossing.
A few minutes later, he had run out of patience and hopped back in his Jeep.
“Keep down across this bridge.”
Chad and Audrey communicated for survival and nothing more. Audrey shifted in her seat, slouching down.
Chad gunned the Jeep and careened onto the road, making a hard run at the bridge. Before committing, he slammed on the brakes, hoping to sucker someone out into the open.
Sure enough, an old pickup truck jumped the gun and popped out onto the road trying to catch him in the open on the bridge.
“Dumbass rednecks,” Chad said aloud.
He yearned to pull out Robert’s 30-06 and kill the man in that truck. Chad felt no compunction about opening a dude’s melon if that dude meant to ambush his family, as this asshole clearly meant to do. But Chad had overcome the unchecked compulsion to attack long ago. This situation was no “close ambush” where he had no choice but to fight. He could back out now and live to fight another day.
In the SEAL teams, the mantra went something like this: “Any time you find yourself in a gunfight that you didn’t plan, you are being ambushed. Never fight the other guy’s ambush unless you have no other choice.”
This time, Chad had a choice. He threw the Jeep into reverse and boogied backward onto Road 44.
Just five days after two nukes and the stock market destabilizing, the Midwest turned feudal. Every town had walled itself up to prevent enemy ingress. After today,
Chad would travel only by night.
In two days, he had covered only two hundred twenty miles, a third of the way to Salt Lake City. But that wasn’t his biggest problem. They had slowed down. With all the barricades and probable ambushes, Chad couldn’t run in his favorite mode—speed over security. They barely crept along, making time-consuming detours to avoid the interstate and population centers.
The shit had undeniably hit the fan. Even tiny towns had hardened their chokepoints and were pointing guns at the highways and byways.
Chad couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to move on foot with his pissed-off ex-wife and their three-year-old daughter. Moving overland on foot four hundred miles with two dependents penciled out to certain death, if not from evildoers, then certainly from the elements. No matter what, they needed a vehicle in order to make it to Salt Lake City.
His second biggest problem was fuel. Even with the extra gas cans Audrey’s dad had given him, they would be lucky to make it half-way to Utah. Chad would be forced to steal gas, and gas theft could get him killed faster than trying to outdrink an Irishman.
With that said, he had squirreled away two secret weapons in the back of his Jeep: NVGs and a GasTapper.
The world thought of American operators like gods of the battlefield. Chad wondered how much of that perception depended on the shit they pulled off thanks to NVGs. Always operating at night, teams of SEALs, Rangers and other cheating bastards of the USA could catch the suckers sleeping. Rolling up the bad guys wasn’t nearly as difficult when they were sawing logs, dreaming about their seventy-two virgins.
Chad expected the same applied to Midwesterners, except they would be dreaming about Budweiser, and Chad Wade would be the guy stealing their gas.
The GasTapper completed his plan. While internet survival experts droned on about siphoning gas or spiking gas tanks and draining fuel in the Apocalypse, neither of these approaches worked for a good goddamn. Chad had tried both those methods on a video he shot for ReadyMan and they had been forced to scrap the video. Auto makers made it nearly impossible. Fuel tank necks had become engineering works of art, with an endless number of ways to keep folks from stealing gas. Siphoning a tank was easier said than done.
