by Jeremy Lock
“How long is this going to last?” Cassidy asked him bringing him a cup of coffee and sitting down.
“How long is what going to last?” Sean asked looking up from his maps.
“People going crazy, the lights off, no food. How long will this disaster last?” she asked.
“Well that depends on a number of things. It depends on who attacked us, if they are going to continue to attack, if we are going to respond and with what weapons. Best case is years. With the US economy collapsed the world economy is in for a rough ride. The world will enter a depression and people will take advantage. Wars will be fought, vendettas will be answered, and there’s no one playing police man anymore. The gloves will be off all over the world and just like here the strong will take from the weak and when or if we emerge from the darkness the world will be a different place.” Sean replied flatly.
Cassidy just nodded and looked at the table. “How do you deal with all the stuff you have seen?” she finally asked.
“I don’t really know, I just am able to compartmentalize it and put it away. I don’t like hurting people and I don’t like seeing evil but I just come to expect it. When you set your bar of expectations from human beings low enough it’s hard for them to shock you. “Sean answered and again Cassidy nodded.
“I guess we are going to leave soon?” Cassidy asked.
“After we eat but I need to ask you some questions” Sean stated.
“Ok” Cassidy replied hesitantly.
“Do you know how to shoot?” Sean asked.
“Umm…well I have shot but I didn’t really like it and I don’t think I was very good.” Cassidy replied.
“Well were going to have to stop to get gas a few times on the trip and I’m going to need you to have my back.” Sean walked them out to the truck and pulled out the guns he had.
After explaining what all the guns were and explaining their operation he handed Cassidy the 20 ga shotgun. “This is going to be your primary weapon. It’s a shotgun so all you have to do is point it at the bad guy and pull the trigger and then pump the handle to load another round.” Sean explained and asked if she had any questions which she didn’t.
“This here is a .22 pistol. I want you to keep this in your pocket. It’s your back up gun in case you run out of bullets in the shotgun or you lose the shotgun for some reason. All you do is point and shoot using the sights on top of the gun.” Sean said.
“You see that stump over there? I want you to shoot it.” Sean said pointing to the stump 15 feet away.
Cassidy raised the gun and pulled the trigger hitting the ground in front and right of the target. Sean corrected her stance, hand grip and sight picture. “Now you slowly add pressure to the trigger, don’t squeeze hard, let the bang of the gun startle you a little.” Sean explained.
After a few more rounds Cassidy was hitting the stump consistently. Sean then showed her how to reload the gun. Having the ability to defend herself seemed to raise her confidence dramatically and it was visible in her demeanor throughout the evening. Sean heated up a couple cans of stew on the stove and they sat and ate.
Chapter 19
“Sean, can I ask you something?” Cassidy asked.
“Of course” Sean replied not knowing what to expect.
“What are we going to do with my grandparents?” she asked. Sean hadn’t even considered them and was now scrambling.
“Um.. I don’t know, what do you want to do?” Sean asked.
“Shouldn’t we bury them, it seems wrong to just leave them outside.” Cassidy said.
“The ground is frozen, I don’t think I could dig a hole deep enough to bury them Cassidy” Sean replied with a touch of sadness.
“I understand, can we cremate them then? I just can’t leave them to the animals.” She replied with a tear in her eye.
Sean thought about it for a few minutes “I think I can arrange that. Give me half an hour to get setup and then we can do it, but we will have to leave immediately after. “Sean replied and Cassidy looked him in the eye and almost smiled.
Sean went outside and started building the funeral pyre out of the firewood sitting outside the house. He built two separate stacks next to each other and then went to the basement. There was a stack of old newspaper which he used to fill the inside of the pyre. Next he grabbed the cans of lacquer thinner and a couple old painting drop cloths and brought them up. He carefully wrapped the 2 bodies in the drop cloths and placed them atop the pyre. He then walked inside and found Cassidy and asked if she was ready. She nodded to Sean. He asked her to give her a few minutes and then come outside. He ran out and poured the flammable thinner over the 2 bodies, the wood and the newspaper. Cassidy came out a moment later with a book in her hand. It was an old family Bible that had clearly been around for many, many years. Cassidy asked Sean to say some words because she couldn’t do it and Sean agreed.
“Mr. and Mrs. Condit, I didn’t know you but I know your granddaughter here a little and believe you truly must have been amazing people. You raised her after one tragedy and gave her the fortitude to survive another. For this I wish I could have met you in a better time and better place.” Sean said not knowing what else to say. Cassidy opened the bible and began to read a verse that seemed remarkably appropriate for their times.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Sean was not a religious man at all. His parents were never religious and even though a few guys in the military were Christian he never had any interest. He saw how religion had twisted the minds of his enemy and had no interest in it but the verse sparked his curiosity. Sean looked at Cassidy, who nodded, and Sean lit the pyre with a lighter. The fire spread quickly and within moments both bodies were fully consumed in fire. Sean left Cassidy for a moment and double checked the house for anything they may have forgotten and then went to get her. They had to go. He found Cassidy staring into the flames and he paused. He didn’t want to disturb her so he gave her another minute but his brain was screaming that it was time to go. He approached her and saw the tears flowing down her face.
“It’s time” was all he could say and she nodded.
He touched her arm to get her walking and she embarrassed him. Hugging him tightly she let go, crying from deep in her soul letting it all out. He just held her for what seemed like hours but was really only a few minutes until the tears stopped. Then he continued to walk, holding her with one arm carefully escorting her to the passenger door of the truck and helping her in. She sat grasping the worn Bible in her arms as Sean got into the driver’s seat and started the truck.
“Ready?” he asked and she only nodded.
He put the car in drive and started heading down the driveway.
“Stop!” Cassidy screamed and Sean slid the truck to a stop looking for a threat.
“What’s wrong he asked?” but Cassidy was out the door and running into the house.
Sean yelled to stop her, but she was off. Sean put the truck in reverse and pulled back up to the house and then ran inside trying to find her. He entered the house and heard something being drug across the floor. He followed the noise to the den and found Cassidy leaning over the floor. He saw the desk moved away from the wall.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
Cassidy was pulling up something out of the floor. “I just remembered that Gramps kept this box in here.” She said pulling out an old metal box roughly the size of an old school lunchbox.
She lifted up to the desk and was surprised by it
weight. “I saw Gramps putting his grandfather’s old pocket watch away in it after telling us a story about him as kids years ago. We were never allowed to go in his den.” She said opening the box.
Sean turned on his flashlight and peered into the box. He was quite surprised. Inside was the old pocket watch, an old Colt 1911 pistol, several military medals and a number of old coins.
“Bring the box, we need to leave” Sean said.
Cassidy put the lid back on the box and together they to the truck and began their long journey.
Chapter 20
Jason yawned as he looked at the clock on the computer. 315am. He had been up for nearly 24 hours and he was almost 3 hours away from sleep. He poured himself another cup of coffee from the thermos and ate another chocolate chip cookie from the package. He had been thinking about how short on manpower they really were. With drinking so much coffee had had to use the bathroom nearly every 30 minutes but he couldn’t leave the observation post so he had ended up peeing off the balcony while having a cigarette. The smoking was going to be an issue too. He had 2 cartons of smokes left and he was practically chain smoking to stay awake.
“The withdrawal was gonna really suck” he thought, but at least quitting this time would be permanent. He’d tried to quit more times than he could count but could never stay away. He ran 3-4 days a week so he didn’t get winded too easily but he knew he had to quit and now he was being forced. Boredom had set in hours ago and he knew next watch he was going to have to bring a book. The other crews would be better off having 2 people. They could take breaks and relieve each other. He was currently calculating how much gas they would need to bug out to Wyoming. Almost 2000 miles and each vehicle getting about 15 mpg would mean nearly 300 gallons of gas and 36 hours of straight driving. His parents ranch was just south of Buffalo Wyoming near Big horn national forest. 300 gallons of fuel was going to be a problem. He had 3 empty 55 gallon drums but that was half the fuel they would need and he would have to find a way to fill them. So far though, thankfully, things had been going better than he expected. They hadn’t had any real problems up here at the farm and he had only heard a few gunshots and those were probably from people hunting illegally. Maybe they would be able to get through the bad times here at the farm, he just had to get through the winter and they would most likely be fine. Most of the city refugees would have either found a place to settle of would have died off through the winter. Besides, they would never be able to load all of the food and other items they had stored for the trip, there was just too much and he didn’t want to leave anything. What he needed was about 4 more people to help with security and they would be in much better shape. Maybe he would walk down to the Henderson’s place down the street and talk to Bill. Bill was a retired NJ state trooper who enjoyed hunting and fishing just like Jason. They talked here and there but weren’t really friends. Jason was a private person and didn’t talk to many neighbors.
“What harm could it do?” Jason thought. After a few hours’ sleep he would go down to talk to Bill and at the worst he would have an extra look out down the road. At 530 am Jason woke up Jeff and Mark. He wanted them awake when they took watch. Jeff and Mark went down and made some coffee and ate a granola bar. Jason showed them the chore schedule they had when they got off duty and they both grumbled.
“Cook dinner and doing the dishes?” Jeff moaned.
“Hey I’ve been up for over 24 hours and I now have to go feed the animals and collect eggs from the chickens. Tomorrow I’m going to add hauling firewood and cleaning the animal stalls to my list, I’m just too tired and I have stuff I need to do tonight.” Jason added clearly not interested in arguing. Jason headed outside and Jason and Jeff settled in.
Chapter 21
Money Mike and his crew had a good system working in the town. The 2 supermarkets were now under their control, but they were already pretty sold out of supplies. He had men shaking down the residents for “protection money” taking food, jewelry, cash and even sex from some of the female residents. Those that refused were dealt with permanently except for the attractive women. Those were taken back to Mike. He now had a prostitution ring working and the cash was flowing in. He also was selling the booze collected back to his crew which motivated them to get work done. They had moved out of the Jail and were now taking up residence in several houses in the historic district. The residents either left voluntarily with the clothes on their back or were cut down. Originally his men were just out raiding the houses but after an incident he changed the plan. A group of 4 of his men were gunned down by a father and son team after his men kicked down the front door. The family had fled when another group had found the dead crew and Mike couldn’t afford to lose too many men. So that when he started the protection racket. Some of his men weren’t thrilled that they couldn’t keep all of the spoils of their raids but Mike reminded them that he was the reason they were out of jail and they had sworn an oath to him. He had only had to kill one man as an example and the men had gotten back in line. Yesterday afternoon Mike and 4 of his other men had hit a storage unit on the very edge of town. With a small collection of tools that they had found they were able to open up several of the units and raid the contents. The problem was the van they had had limited room and it was the only vehicle they had. They looked for food, weapons and valuables. By dark last night they had a pretty full load, the best take, a full case of real Russian vodka, and they decided to come back in the morning to continue. That night the party at Mike’s house was in full swing and most of the case of vodka was consumed in the festivities. Mike had ordered everyone up at daylight but as the party raged on it didn’t seem likely.
Chapter 22
Sean and Cassidy had gotten extremely lucky on their road trip. After syphoning 2 pickup trucks to nearly fill the truck they had put several hundred miles behind them. At around 2am Sean had accidentally gotten them onto a state highway that was 4 lanes across. Sean had wanted to avoid the highways and stay on back roads but the street atlas he now had to use didn’t show the smallest roads, only the major ones and he was stuck. He carefully drove down the highway at around 45 miles an hour to conserve fuel and to avoid the cars randomly blocking the road. He watched out for fires. He knew ambushers would most likely have fires to keep warm in the November night and the fires should be able to be seen for miles. The first fire he had seen was a good way off and Sean decided they would cross to the other side of the highway and just drive by. This was a poor plan and as they approached they had to drive through a volley of gunfire. Sean put the pedal to the floor and careened through the jumble of disabled cars until the fire was out of sight. He pulled over and made sure that Cassidy and the truck were ok. They were. Of the 20+ rounds fired at the truck Sean could only find one bullet hole in the tailgate of the truck. They had gotten very lucky. At the next fire Sean decided to get off the highway, head down the local roads in the proper direction and then get back onto the highway, hoping to completely avoid the ambushers. This is where his luck proved to be with him again. With the fire nearly a mile distant Sean pulled off the exit ramp and to his surprise found that the entire lane was blocked, by a gasoline delivery truck. Sean almost yelled in joy. He and Cassidy got out looking at the truck. It had clearly been pulling off the highway when the pulse hit and had long been abandoned. Sean tapped the tank and was pretty sure it had fuel in it. After using his flashlight to go over the truck he figured he could hook one of the trucks hoses up and hoped gravity would do the rest. Again his luck held out and they were able to fill the truck, the gas can, and the bucket with fuel. He and Cassidy then searched the other abandoned cars for any containers they could use to fill with gas. They were able to store an additional 12 gallons in empty gallon water jugs, several 2 liter bottle of soda which they dumped out and even in an old 5 gallon paint can that still had a lid. They loaded their fuel and were off again. Sean calculated that they might make it up to NJ before they needed more fuel. Sean knew he had 25 gallons of treated fuel in h
is storage unit and that would get them north and out of dodge. Sean continued the slow pace and fire avoidance but it was definitely slowing down their pace. At sunrise they were still well out in Pennsylvania and had at least 2 hours of driving to get to his storage unit. Sean had taken them well west of Philadelphia, a city he would avoid in normal times, and that put them well off schedule. Daylight brought with it more danger of ambush and Sean knew he should stop for the night but he was so close and just wanted to get out of dodge. He pulled over and had Cassidy drive so that he could pull security with the shotgun and the 30.06 rifle at the ready. Sean was at least now familiar with the area and could give Cassidy directions without needing to check the map. They continued to use smaller highways and county roads to head to the NJ border. Once they crossed the border Sean knew they had less than 1 hour to go. As they cruised across rural northern NJ Sean checked their fuel status. Just less than ¼ of a tank, enough to get him to his storage unit. As they entered through the Town of Newton Sean was shocked by the desolation. No one was visible on the streets of the once busy town, only bodies lay out on the streets in front of a number of houses. As they passed the local hospital smoke was visible coming from multiple sections of the building, it looked as it had been burning for days. As they approached the town which he had spent the first 22 years of his life Sean directed Cassidy down back roads and around the town center. The main roads through town entered a square in the town center that was barely passable in normal times, and would be an excellent place for an ambush. The back roads were small, the disabled cars didn’t help but they were able to push and squeeze their way to the far side of town. As they passed through the business district and to the edge of town Sean still had not seen a live person, however the dead must have numbered at least 50. They drove into the large storage facility and Sean directed her to the proper unit. When Sean’s father had died 2 years earlier he had flown back from Afghanistan for the funeral and to deal with the estate. Sean’s father had done well for himself as a real estate developer and Sean’s sisters were already positioning themselves to get the most they could. Sean was the Will’s executor and when he went to the probate lawyer he made one thing very clear. He didn’t want any money. The only things he had any interest in were the NY hunting property and his father’s gun collection, something they both had a passion for. The girls were happy and Sean was able to avoid most of the drama. He set up the storage unit with an automatic payment system. Inside he placed his father’s Liberty gun safe filled with the guns and cases of ammunition. Additionally he placed his years’ worth of food, hand tools, 25 gallons of treated gas, a beer brewing system and a mass of other camping and other supplies. The 10x20 storage unit was pretty full when he left it. As they drove into the storage complex Sean’s heart dropped. Many of the units were visibly opened and looted. He just prayed that his was still intact, but as he rolled in front of his unit he knew his plans were going to have to change. The door to his unit was half open with a number of tools, clothing and boxes strewn around the front. He told Cassidy to stop and just hoped his fuel and guns were still there, but he knew his luck would fail at some point. He pulled out his sawed off 12 ga and handed the 20 ga to Cassidy. He opened the door the rest of the way and had sufficient light to see the destruction. Food gone, fuel gone, every box opened and nearly all essential items gone. The only positive was his gun safe was still in its spot and still closed. He walked up and saw damage to the safe though. Someone had clearly tried very hard to get in and he was thankful that his father had bought such a quality safe. Sledgehammer and pry bar marks were visible across the front of the safe and Sean hoped the door would still open. Sean was thankful that he had bolted the safe to the wall or else he knew the safe would be gone although loaded as it was it had to weigh 800 or 900 lbs. He turned the combination dial and made a wish before turning the unlocking mechanism. The bolts slid free as if it had left the factory the day before. Sean breathed a sigh of relief as he looked at the most precious things he had left. To the normal American viewing the gun collection in front of Sean, they would think he was some kind of nut job but Sean and his father had a passion for weapons and the diverse collection was something to behold. He quickly grabbed 2 guns out of the unit and brought them back to the truck along with a box of ammunition. Sean quickly loaded the first gun into the back of the truck carefully even though it was in a hardened plastic case he still treated it with the utmost care. He then told Cassidy to start grabbing guns and loading them into the truck, while he opened the ammo can and pulled out 3 magazines for the other weapon which were loaded with 17 rounds of their 20 round capacity. He grabbed a handful of loose rounds and loaded them into the open space of the magazines. Next he loaded the now full magazine into the weapon. He hefted the gun, pressed the slide release forward and turned on the digital optic. The FN Scar was chambered in 7.62x51mm and Sean had it loaded with Armor piercing rounds he had acquired overseas. Sean then began loading the many boxes of ammunition into the truck while Cassidy loaded the weapons. Sean made sure to grab the tactical vests, medical bag and bug out bag out of the large safe. The hair on the back of Sean’s neck stood up and he paused. Cassidy noticed.
