The Mechanic

by Jerry D. Young

  Since the property was ostensibly for a commercial operation, Sterling was able to get a ten-thousand gallon propane tank installed on his property. Jennie and Jocko, and Triple Seven were limited to one-thousand-one-hundred-gallon tanks. But for the type of structures being built, a thousand gallons would last for well over a year.

  With the solar hot water preheat system and similar pre-heater for space heating, Sterling’s ten-thousand gallons of propane, once he had the tank filled, would last for years.

  The sense of urgency to complete the project was upon the group as the world situation continued to deteriorate, and new discussions over whether there was actually global warming or global cooling going on. Another year had passed with minimal sunspots, which many thought could lead to the cooling trend.

  With those thoughts in mind, all three parties began having manure stockpiled, and compost heaps created, for future use on gardens. Sterling went a step further. He had a commercial greenhouse erected, equipped, and supplied, though he didn’t plant anything.

  Attached to the greenhouse on one end was a solar heated, naturally cooled, earth sheltered building. One section was a large chicken coop. Separated from it, in the rest of the building, were a large number of rabbit hutches built over worm beds, and a series of fish tanks.

  The chicken coop opened onto a large completely fenced and roofed chicken yard, the fencing adequate against even the coyotes that roamed the area. Like the greenhouse, Sterling had the means available, but didn’t start any production of rabbits, worms, chickens, or fish.

  Nate made a similar deal with Jocko to have a large barn built, with protecting the animals from fallout radiation and extreme temperatures in mind. He fenced his property to contain his small ranch operation if he needed to move it from Reno.

  To provide more space for the animals, and for general security, Jennie and Jocko, and Sterling also fenced their properties.

  In between the regular auto mechanic duties that Sterling did at a shop in town, he built a small scale biodiesel production facility in one corner of his shop on the property. He was able to collect plenty of waste vegetable oil from restaurants in town to supply his needs, plus add to his ten-thousand gallon diesel tank.

  With some money set aside specifically for it, when he’d first had the idea, Sterling began to buy older model vehicles that seemed on their last legs, and fixed them up at his shop. He had a triple axle trailer he used to get them to and from the property, as most, even when running, couldn’t use the road.

  After the first three he did, he was able to keep one up for sale as he worked on another. This went on for about four months. And then, what he, Triple Seven, Jennie and Jocko had all feared came to pass.

  It is debatable as to what the initial trigger mechanism was. Some said the colonial aspirations in Africa caused South Africa to launch their nuclear arsenal. Others said the preemptive attack by Mainland China on Taiwan on the eve of their independence referendum. Yet more thought it was Russia and Germany that started it, over long held grievances each had against the other. A few even suggested that the US started it, perhaps by proxy in the Middle East.

  Whatever started it, the War started, escalated rapidly, and ended slowly. In some areas, the fighting would drag on for generations, just as it had before the advent of nuclear weapons, with shield and sword and spear.

  Sterling, and especially Jennie and Jocko, had expected more of a warning if there were a nuclear attack. They didn’t get much. Perhaps twenty minutes before the missiles were launched, giving a good forty minutes before the warheads designated for the area began to land.

  Jennie, Jocko, and Triple Seven were lucky. Reno wasn’t hit in the initial attack. Jennie and Jocko bugged out immediately for Winnemucca at the first warning, Jennie in her Subaru, and Jocko in their Winnebago, that Sterling had switched engines in for them. It now had a non-electronic diesel. The Winnebago was pulling a Suburban, also with non-electronic diesel engine, which, in turn, had a tandem wheeled trailer attached.

  Triple Seven, on the other hand, used the time to load his stock animals into the two old stock semi trailers he had, that were attached to an old Peterbilt semi. None of the three items were in very good shape, but Nate only wanted the one trip out of them. The third trailer, a reefer was in similar shape. It held, pre-packed, the rest of the things he wanted to take to the retreat. All he added to it was to winch the Chevy LUV onto a rack on the rear of the reefer.

  All three of his hired hands took off when the warning came. All three had agreed to help Nate with the evacuation, if ever needed, for space in his shelter with their families at the retreat.

  “Apparently,” Triple Seven muttered as he put the Peterbilt into its lowest gear, “they had better offers. Or aren’t as smart as I thought they were.”

  Though Triple Seven didn’t know it, the first of two nuclear devices to hit Los Vegas detonated as he left his driveway. Within seconds one hit Fallon NAS. The mushroom cloud was losing formation when the single vehicle convoy passed the nearest point to Fallon from I-80. He could see it to the east of him. And then one behind him. Reno had been hit.

  Triple Seven didn’t look around much. The road was littered with stalled vehicles and people milling about because of them. He had to take to the median a couple of times. Fortunately not in the area of the Humboldt River Sink. He would have mired up for sure. But he kept the rig rolling as fast as he could, twice firing his Remington 11-87P shotgun through the glassless windshield of the Peterbilt semi.

  The four-hour trip took seven. It was getting dark when Nate eased the rig up the first part of the driveway. He was met by Sterling, who was armed to the teeth. Sterling opened the gate and let Nate through, locking the gate behind them.

  Sterling was tempted to push on the last trailer, the rig was moving so slowly, but knew it was a borderline psychotic idea that he could do anything to move the truck and three trailers any faster.

  But Nate was finally pulling into his piece of property. Jennie and Jocko came out to help. Jennie kept an eye out for anyone that might have been following Triple Seven, while he, Sterling, and Jocko got the stock unloaded and into the barn.

  Sterling didn’t like the look of Triple Seven. His face was drawn and pale, and he was leaning heavily on his walking stick by the time they were done. The stock was all somewhat upset by the long ride and went directly to the watering spouts in the barn.

  “I’ll get them some feed in a few minutes,” Sterling said. “Let’s get you down into the shelter. Anything in the third trailer you need?”

  “No. Just the items in the cab of the truck and the sleeper. The LUV and the rest can wait until after the fallout level is down. Any yet, by the way? My keychain alarm hasn’t sounded.”

  “Nothing yet,” Sterling replied, not quite helping Nate, but staying close enough to him to support him if needed.

  Nate grunted when he sat down in a chair at the communications desk in the common area of the shelter. It was where the remote reading radiation meter was located. It wasn’t showing anything yet, and there had been no sign of fallout while they were outside.

  “I’ll go feed the animals now, and milk the milk cows,” Sterling said. He hadn’t been idle since the first alarm. The people he’d made deals with to get breeding stock for his hutches, coop, fish tank, and worm farm were beside themselves when he stopped and got out of his truck not long after the alarms sounded.

  Sterling insisted they keep to their deals, and sweetened them with a bucket loaded with supplies that would be needed for each family during and after the attack. Sterling made sure none of them followed him back to the retreat. The HEMP devices set off with the first wave of missiles to hit the US had yet to detonate, and there were people driving around, with no clear destination in mind that Sterling could see. He wasn’t about to give them one.

  So, just as he’d done with his own animals, Sterling fed Triple Seven’s small herds of milk cattle, beef cattle, and hogs, plus the pack
of working dogs, dipping into the feed stocks Nate had been building up over the months. He milked the milk cows and put the milk in the chiller located in the barn.

  Sterling took the time to unload the cab and sleeper of the semi for Triple Seven, depositing everything just inside the entrance of the shelter for expediency.

  When he went back to the shelter with the last load from the Peterbilt’s sleeper, a rather coarse dust was falling. Sterling stepped up the pace until he got to the entrance of the shelter. There he stripped out of his clothes, took a shower in the decontamination room, and put on a pair light coveralls and sneakers. The contaminated clothes went through a hatch into a lead lined receiving bin for decontamination after the radiation had declined to a safe enough level to run them through the washer and dryer.

  Back in the common room, Sterling was alarmed at Nate’s appearance. A glance at Jennie and Jocko showed concern on their faces, too.

  When Sterling went over to the communications desk and sat down in the second seat, he saw that Triple Seven had been taking notes. Sterling wasn’t sure of what, since the radios were still disconnected from power and antennas, and in the faraday cage.

  “Here is all I can think of to help you with my gear and supplies,” Nate said, gently pushing the yellow notepad over to Sterling. “I’m not going to make it.”

  “Sure you will!” Sterling said, ignoring the yellow pad. He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “Don’t think so.” Nate held up the empty nitroglycerin pill bottle with his right hand. “I’ve taken the last seven and it’s not getting any better.”

  Sterling noticed that Nate’s left arm hung straight down. Then Nate slipped down in the chair slightly, closed his eyes, sighed, and was gone.

  Sterling looked over at Jennie and Jocko. Jocko’s eyes were showing his shock and surprise. Jennie had her face buried in Jocko’s shoulder. Slowly Sterling stood up. “I’ll… I guess I should go get one of the… bags.” His words brought a sob from Jennie.

  Sterling left, but returned shortly with one of the ten body bags they’d put in common storage for just such an event. Jennie was nowhere in sight, but Jocko was there to help Sterling get Nate’s body in the bag. And it was Sterling that went through Nate’s pockets, before zipping up the bag. He put everything on the communications desk.

  It was something of a struggle for the two men to carry the body to where it would lie until they could bury Nate, after the shelter stay. When the task was done, Jocko went to be with Jennie in their area of the shelter. Sterling went back to the common area and sat down where Nate had been.

  He began to read the notes Nate had jotted down just before he died. It was both will and instruction sheet. He had no family and left everything to Sterling and Jennie. There wasn’t as much as Sterling had assumed. Only five guns, with five-hundred to a thousand rounds of ammunition each, depending on caliber.

  Ten ounces of gold, mostly in one-tenth ounce US Gold Eagles, bought when gold was only three-hundred-fifty dollars an ounce. Two-hundred dollars face value silver coins, split between pre-1965 US dimes and quarters. Like the gold, the silver had been purchased when prices were low, several years previously.

  There was a year’s supply for one of military MRE’s, all seven years old or older; a full year’s worth for one of Mountain House freeze-dried entrees, supplemented with Emergency Essentials freeze-dried and dehydrated foods for additional protein and variety; and a five year supply for one of LTS basics, such as wheat, rice, powdered milk, and so on. The food was all in the reefer.

  A large array of both packaged goods and bulk packed goods took up more of the space in the reefer, according to Triple Seven’s notes.

  There was the miscellanea of an old-line prepper. A large paper library, and upwards of thirty CD’s and DVD’s with prep information on them, with an old laptop computer in a metal faraday case to read them. Various BOB’s, field equipment, camping equipment, LBE, and the, for Triple Seven, ever present game cart still strapped in tight in the back of the LUV.

  Sterling sighed and leaned back in the chair. He fell asleep a few minutes later. The faint clicking of the CD V-717 survey meter finally woke him. The radiation outside was going up. More than he expected. Perhaps Triple Seven had been right and there had been nukes used against ships and subs off the California, Oregon, and Washington coasts. If there had been, off the northern California and southern Oregon coasts, Winnemucca would get fallout from them.

  Connecting and then clicking on an exterior mounted camera, wireless to prevent EMP effects as much as possible, Sterling took a look around. It was raining. A muddy rain. That lent credence to Triple Seven’s theories. The massive amounts of water vapor created by ocean detonations of nukes, combined with the dry surface bursts, was making radioactive mud.

  If it rained enough, after the radiation decreased, decontamination wouldn’t be very hard. The properties were sloped and much of the fallout would wash down to the foot of the slope. With enough rain.

  If there wasn’t much rain, the resulting dried mud would be a real bear to get rid of. Only time would tell which would be the case.

  Neither Jocko nor Jennie made an appearance that night. Sterling continued to doze. He would wake occasionally and record the level of outside radiation. By morning, when he went to his personal quarters to get some breakfast, and, more importantly, a cup of coffee, the radiation level had reached a peak and was going down. He would use Tired Old Man’s Seven/Ten Rule spreadsheet to calculate probable shelter time when he went back to the common area.

  When he did return, Jocko and Jennie were there, looking at Triple Seven’s notes. Both looked like they had slept very little.

  “He prepared so hard, for so long…” Jennie said, stepping over to Sterling to give him a hard hug.

  “We talked about it once,” Sterling said, stepping back after the hug. “He kind of thought the actual event, if it was a major one, would get him. Anything that lasted longer than two or three months. He was on a lot of medications I didn’t know about, that he couldn’t live without.

  “I honestly didn’t think he’d have that much trouble. He seemed so… tough isn’t the word…”

  “Prepared,” Jennie said softly, tears in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Sterling agreed. “He seemed so prepared. Just not for the really long haul. Knowing what he knew, I don’t know why he planned for as long as he did. I’m afraid I would have given up, were I in his condition the last few years.”

  There was a long silence, which Jocko broke. “What do we do now?”

  “Wait it out,” Sterling said. “I’ll check on and feed and water the animals every few hours. Milk the cows. I’ll have on PPE so I can decontaminate easily. Shouldn’t get much exposure in the buildings, just on the quick runs between them and the shelter.”

  “Maybe we should all…”

  “I don’t think so,” Sterling said, cutting Jennie off. “I’m the oldest, with the least to loose. You two may still want kids. I don’t think you should have any more exposure than absolutely necessary.”

  “But…” Jennie said.

  This time it was Jocko that cut her off. “Thanks, Sterling. Everything else that we can do, to even out the work load, you let us know.”

  Sterling nodded. Jennie looked like she wanted to say more, but held her peace. Sterling thought that she and Jocko might have further conversations about it, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want them exposed to the radiation.

  The thirty-seven days before the radiation was below 0.10 R/hr went fairly quickly for the three. Jocko and Jennie both went outside to take a look around. Sterling had warned them about the dried mud. It hadn’t rained enough to wash the fallout down the hill. They would have to suit up and use brushes and water hoses to decontaminate the area.

  Sterling’s place had fared much better. He’d turned on the roof and wall wash down sprinklers on the shop, greenhouse, and his small barn each time he’d checked on and fed and watered
the animals and milked the milk cows. It had washed the fallout away from the buildings, at least. The rest of his property would have to be decontaminated. One of the things on the property improvement list had been yard sprinklers. They would have made it easy. But they didn’t get installed before the attack.

  The remaining month they needed to stay in the shelter most of the time really wore on Jennie. Sterling decontaminated the area just outside the entrance to the shelter and she would go out occasionally, but only for the few minutes that Sterling suggested.

  But finally, with the radiation level around most of the property under 0.05 R/hr, Jocko and Jennie joined Sterling in putting on the PPE and buried Nate. The three then began the work of decontamination. There was plenty of water from the well, and the three used it. While Jocko and Sterling used brooms to break up the mud clots, Jennie used the one inch fire hose strung from the underground pump and tank house, connected to a fire pump located there, to wash the dust down the hill.

  They could only do it in sections, both due to the hot temperatures of late summer compounded by the PPE coveralls, and the fact that the fire pump would empty the water tank in three hours of steady pumping. They had to stop and let the solar well pump refill the water tank.

  Though they kept a close eye out, all around and up at the sky, they saw no one or signs of anyone during the thirty days it took to completely decontaminate the three properties and the pasture that Triple Seven and Sterling had planted.

  The reefer was emptied, the LUV parked in Sterling’s garage part of his workshop. The contents of the reefer were stored in Triple Seven’s area of the shelter.

  The three sat down one evening after the evening meal and talked about what they were going to do next.

  “We need to explore a bit,” Sterling immediately said. “See who’s alive and who isn’t. Find out if there is someone in charge or not. What the community resources look like. Decide if we’re going to try to salvage as much as we can, or get by with what we have and can barter for or buy.