The Unraveling: Book 1 of the Bound to Survive Series

by Charley Hogwood

  The screen switched to a clip of a CDC press conference. Cal heard the kettle boil and absentmindedly burned his hand as he distractedly reached for the handle and missed.

  “Son of a..! Gahh.” He seethed at his error.

  “…'When you have a failing healthcare system there can be any number of things going on. Suffice it to say, we understand that there are rampant illnesses taking lives at this minute and no way to track any of it. Our ongoing concern is that if we have a mass migration trigger event, all those illnesses will begin to spread around the hemisphere.’ That was Arianna Valdez reporting from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Back to you in New York.”

  “Well that just sounds awesome,” Cal said as he ran cold water over the burn. “If we aren’t careful we’ll end up with some kind of viral apocalypse. Better get that border wall built,” he muttered to himself as he spooned some coffee grounds into the press and carefully added the hot water from the kettle.

  “The World Health Organization has declared Venezuela a failed state and a human disaster zone. Food convoys are now routinely attacked by hungry citizens and gangs….”

  Click.

  Cal turned the TV off as he waited the required four minutes the French Press needed to brew before slowly depressing the plunger. He had already warmed his wife’s coffee mug in the microwave so it would stay nice and warm as she sipped at it over the next hour. He never understood how she could make just about any drink last so long and often teased that she was a cheap date.

  He carried her steaming mug to the bedroom in an obvious attempt to get her moving for the day. He saw that the baby had weaseled her way into the big bed again, but at least she was an early riser. At the moment, she was sitting up and babbling to her teddy bear, and Cal smiled.

  “Oh is that so? He did what?! Oh no!” he said. Tempest began shaking her head and mimicking his tone. Charlotte sighed and rolled over to face Cal.

  “You know, there used to be a time when we could sleep in, enjoy the morning light…” she said, trailing off as Tempest began crawling over her.

  “You mean the time we spent living off love and practicing creative financing? Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that again. I mean, I still love you and all,” Cal said.

  “You were never good at that whole ‘romance’ thing my love, thank god you’re good lookin’,” she tried to wink and drive the point home, but it came off more awkward than sexy.

  “Oh…honey…yeah, it’s the thought that counts.” said Cal, laughing at her early morning attempt at seduction. Cal leaned over and gave Charlotte a kiss and a nibble.

  “I’m leaving for the office, love. Your coffee is on the nightstand; you’d better get it while it’s hot.”

  She knew what that meant and gave him pouty eyes with the promise of rewards later if she could sleep for just a few more minutes. As usual, that only almost worked. With willpower waning, he took his leave and on the way through the dark house, tripped over their couch-sized Brazilian Mastiff.

  “Dammit dog!” he hissed, “Can’t you use that massive dog bed you big ole hound? The world is going to hell, but I’ll probably die tripping over a drooling dog the size of furniture.”

  Cal shook his head and continued to grumble as he left the room. Rufus sighed and pretended to go back to sleep, but he’d keep one eye open until Cal closed and locked the front door.

  It was another muggy day in South Florida, the kind where you sweat just checking the mail. Cal hurried to his four-wheel drive Silverado, hopped in, and as usual, tortured himself with more news and talk radio on the way to his office.

  Cal owned a general contracting company and things had finally started picking up after about eight years of post-recession recovery. Construction used to be lucrative, but after the crash, there seemed to be too many desperate contractors, and not enough money to go around. Unwilling to low ball and try to stretch every nickel into a dollar, Cal decided to suspend operations. He decided to use this influx of free time to do some things he had always wanted to do, and worked to reinvent himself. He went back to school, took every training opportunity he could find and worked to rebuild his life. Charlotte was what really saved him. She somehow tolerated him and brought a love that he never thought would happen again. The strange part was, she was about as opposite as she could be to him in most ways, yet identical in others.

  Born in the big city of Miami, Charlotte was well educated, indicated by her multiple diplomas, which included a law degree. She was born to marry big, have the condo with the little white dog, 2.3 children and drive the requisite sports car. Somehow, she found her way to a guy a little further down spectrum of that image. Her situation was reminiscent to that country song where the uptown girl marries the country cowboy, much to her parent’s great distaste. Cal did his best, but boy was it slow going with the parents.

  Cal rolled up to the office, took his spot in the lot, and tried to convince himself that today would be a good day. But of course, that lasted all of 20 seconds because it was Friday. Before he was able to make it through the front door, two of his construction crew leaders ambushed him, arguing over who should do the weekend night work on the downtown law office project.

  “This is crap!,” One of the crewman yelled. “I worked all last weekend!”

  “Hey, you’re the low man on the totem pole. It ain’t my fault. I did my time in the hole,” came the response from the the other crew leader.

  “OK, ceasefire,” Cal said as he walked between them.

  Being top dog is overrated, Cal thought as he tried to quash the mini rebellion.

  After putting out several other fires that morning, Cal ordered pizza for an office lunch in an attempt to keep up morale. The guys all knew Cal was a news junkie, so when two of the them got wrapped around the flagpole about whether Russia would start a nuclear war if the U.S. were to invade Syria, they turned to him for an opinion. Naturally, he had more information than any of them really wanted. By the time he laid out the overall geopolitical picture, they were all convinced doomsday was afoot. But, today was payday and the men would forget all about the troubled world after a beer run on the way home.

  Not sure that the pizza party turned out the way he intended, Cal worked for another couple of hours then headed home for the much-revered Bohannon Steak Hoagie Night tradition. When he arrived, he saw that his daughter Amber had come home from college for the weekend, and was helping Charlotte wrangle the baby and make dinner. He heard a knock on the door and his buddy Rusty breezed in with a tall plastic cup of refreshment in hand.

  “Just in time for dinner. Did the steak smell waft all the way to your house?” Cal said sarcastically.

  “You know I only come to harass you,” Rusty said.

  “Naturally. Well, grab a seat and eat something, since you look like you’re wasting away.”

  “Hey, at least one of us can fit through a door lardo.”

  “Remind me why we’re friends again?” Cal asked as he rolled his eyes.

  “Because you love me, baby.”

  “That reminds me, I was just headed to the garage for a shovel, duct tape, and plastic sheeting, why don’t you meet me by the trunk of the car and we’ll take a drive to the swamp?” Cal said with a pirate smile.

  “You don’t want none of this old man, I still got some moves,” said Rusty, referring back to his MMA days.

  “It’s been what? 82 years since you used those moves? Besides, you’ll never catch me in those pink Crocs.”

  “You’re missing out bro, these things are so freakin comfortable. Don’t hate on the pink just because you’re too ginger to pull it off.”

  “Dude, I’m too ginger?! Have you looked in a mirror lately?! They call this particular color auburn by the way, and some of us can pull it off,” said Cal, pointing to Rusty’s bright orange hair and then back to his own for comparison.

  “At least I’m not going gray, look at all those old man hairs.”

  “Seriously? You’re
using the old card? You must be running out of material. Come on, Charlotte’s got dinner on, you know she’ll be pissed if we let it get cold.”

  “I HEARD THAT!” said Charlotte from the kitchen, “I’m putting an extra layer of spit…I mean love, on yours, babe.”

  Cal rolled his eyes and the guys joined everyone else for dinner. This was pretty much their relationship, strange to some people–okay, most people thought it was strange–but it worked. There was not a more dedicated friend anywhere in the world. Most people didn’t know what to make of him, and frankly, neither did Cal at first, but after they hung out a few times, Cal realized that Rusty was rock solid and there whenever you needed him, without fail.

  After dinner, the girls stayed in to watch some sort of hospital drama show, and Cal and Rusty went out on the porch to sip some Crown Apple whiskey. The conversation quickly turned to Cal’s office experience from earlier in the day.

  “Rusty, I’m concerned with the state of affairs. If we jumped into a time machine back in the early 80s, and fast forwarded to today, we’d actually be running the politicians out on a rail by now. What happened? And don’t even get me started on that nutcase in North Korea. They just admitted their two satellites are actually nukes that can destroy our electric grid. Is that even a thing?”

  Rusty kept listening and drinking. He wasn’t sure whether he should be laughing or crying at Cal’s obvious dismay over society. Cal continued his rant.

  “And what about the diseases coming out of South America? The CDC said there is something unidentified down there and it could be the next global pandemic?”

  “Dude, you need to turn off the news,” Rusty said, cutting off Cal’s monologue. “Let’s go camping this weekend, you need to step away from the TV. That shit’ll cook your mind.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I have stuff to do. But listen, I was reading, and it occurred to me that maybe we should be prepared in case we lose power or something. I have some basic supplies, but we would be in trouble if the power was off for more than a few days. Have you ever thought about that?”

  Cal was a bit apprehensive, unsure of how Rusty would react to that kind of question. He was surprised when Rusty gave him that look, the one you get when it takes you too long to get a joke.

  “Dude, you’re late to that party. While you’ve been getting your panties tangled up watching TV, we’ve been getting ready.”

  “Ready? For what…?”

  Cal looked at Rusty for a moment trying to figure out what he was talking about. Rusty took a swig from his tumbler to build the anticipation, which he knew drove Cal nuts.

  “For all that shit you just said.” Rusty waved his glass around as if to drive home the point.

  “I’ll fill you in later, but first, we need to get you squared away. I’ll be here to pick you up in the morning to get started.”

  Rusty got up and strolled off the porch, leaving Cal wondering how his buddy made it through the day being so cryptic all the time.

  At 5 AM the next morning, Cal was failing miserably at the whole “sleeping in” thing. Baby Tempest had again weaseled into the big bed and had been kicking him in the kidney for about 15 minutes while she babbled and watched her daddy try to sleep.

  I think she knows what she’s doing, he surmised.

  Charlotte was also laying there, pretending to be asleep in that game parents play where if they all pretend to be asleep, either the baby will get sleepy or the other parent will blink first and get up. Charlotte declared herself the winner of this round as Cal gave in and picked up the baby. He made his way to the kitchen to begin the coffee process.

  “Is it wrong for me to loudly grind the coffee beans while momma lounges in for her first win of the day?” Cal said to Tempest as he tickled her belly.

  His cell phone rang just as he got settled on the couch with the baby. With the grumble that comes when you get all situated and have to get right back up, Cal walked over to his phone. Seeing that it was Rusty, his thoughts were that either the world has ended or that this was Rusty’s allotted phone call from jail. Both were equally scored.

  He answered with a gruff, “I know you never sleep, but that’s because you’re not human.”

  “Who loves you, baby!?” rattled loudly from the handset.

  Knowing fully well that this meant Rusty had done, or was about to do, something for him, Cal replied, “I’m guessing this means I need to put pants on.”

  “Awe, come on man. You weren’t sleeping anyway. I know because that pretty niece of mine is programmed to wake your ass up at zero-dark thirty. Get your panties on, we’re going to the range. You need to learn how to shoot.”

  “Learn to shoot? I was only a Recon Scout in an armored Cav unit during my 15 years in the army. I’ll perforate your scrawny ass like Gunny Highway.”

  “Yeah whatever, old man. We don’t use muskets anymore so let’s go. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Kiss that hot wife of yours and roll your wheelchair to the curb.”

  “The only wheelchair needed around here is the one carrying your severed body parts when I finish with (click)… Are you still there? Bastard hung up on me!” Cal was still talking after the line went dead.

  Realizing that this was going to happen, Cal grumbled to himself as he headed back to his bedroom to get dressed. Writing a love note, Cal tried to come up with a positive version of why he was leaving so early in the morning to hang out with Rusty. He opted for the good Samaritan version.

  “Hi love, coffee is brewing, baby is back to sleep in the crib, Rusty needs some help, be back soon, bye.” That should do it, he thought.

  Cal grabbed his gun bag, collected a few magazines and an ammo can, then headed to his gun safe. Opening the safe, he surveyed the contents with pride, the same way a classic car owner looks at his ride after a good detail cleaning. He opted to take his recently purchased Glock .43 compact 9 mm since he hadn’t had an opportunity to shoot it yet. This was supposed to be his everyday carry gun, but he wasn’t ready to bet his life on the piece until he had fired at least 500 rounds through it to be sure it would run smooth if, or when, he ever needed it.

  While he was shopping in the safe, he might as well take the Stag AR-15 with the Trijicon TA31D ACOG fiber optic battle sight. What the heck, he thought, let’s grab the Rock River AR as well. This one was set up with an Eotech red dot style battle sight with a three-power flip-down magnifier. Even though he was an Army veteran, he didn’t tell many people about the contents of his gun safe. He liked firearms, so he owned a couple. Okay, maybe more than just a couple, but that was it, nothing more nefarious than that.

  As he was stacking his gear outside the front door, Rusty pulled up in Toadie, his prized Jeep Wrangler. Cal wasn’t sure why, or how, the Jeep got the nickname, but he had always assumed it was because it looked like a toad the way Rusty had dressed it out. Rusty hopped out with the usual sarcasm, poking fun at the unexpected armory Cal had brought out.

  “What, did Blackwater call looking for mercenaries? I didn’t know you had any real pew-pews. Too bad they’re ARs and not AKs.”

  “…and that’s why I don’t get into gun talk.” Cal replied. “Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. I have an opinion, and you are an asshole.”

  “But I’m your asshole, Callie baby. Get in and quit yer whining.”

  The range was an hour away, which gave them plenty of time to pick up their previous conversation about being better prepared.

  “I didn’t know you did any real preparing, I just thought you liked the hunting look,” Cal said.

  “The only hunting I like is the two-legged varmint kind,” Rusty teased back. “Seriously, I’m not the kind of guy who sits around and waits for some political windbag to make all my decisions and hope there’s food when it’s all over. Heidi and I have been setting aside some chow and supplies for a long time. I won’t say we are ready to feed the world, but we’ll be OK for a month or so. Besides, it gives me an excuse to stock up on whiskey. Alcoh
ol will be a good barter item in the apocalypse, so I’ve been told,” he said with a scheming laugh.

  “What about you and Charlotte, how long could you last if the zombies come shambling into town?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. We have the usual recommended few days of food, but since she took up couponing, I probably have enough shower gel and shampoo to bathe an army. Don’t tell her I said that.” Cal laughed, remembering the fight Charlotte had had with the closet shelves trying to fit everything in after one of her massive shopping trips.

  “Like I was saying, recently things just don’t feel right so I’ve been doing some more reading.”

  “Reading? Isn’t that where you look at those marks on paper and they magically tell you something?”

  “Yes, that thing some of us do to fill our heads with ideas. Aside from dazzling you with my intellectual abilities, I saw a book on Amazon that talked about building your survival group. It was called The Survival Group Handbook. I ordered a copy and it’s not what I expected. I thought it was going to be all…conspiracy: build a bunker, wear a helmet, that kind of thing. It turns out that it makes perfect sense. I figure, safety in numbers, right? I’m not sounding crazy, right? I mean, I don’t need to form a militia or anything like that. I’m just thinking that I don’t want to stand in line for food if something bad happens.”