by Mike Kraus
“We’d love to, thank you both.” Frank smiled and shook Liz’s hand.
“Yeah, thank you very much.” Linda forced out a smile even though she was still distracted by the new information and the equipment in the room. “And I’d like to talk to you tomorrow about the routes down south if you don’t mind, Liz.”
“Of course. Talk to you both then!”
Frank, Linda and Frank walked back down the length of the motel before Jacob stopped at another door and opened it. “Here’s your room. Feel free to leave your things here; they won’t be touched. Once you get settled please come back outside and get some food and drink and we can continue talking.” Jacob walked off before Frank or Linda could say anything. They glanced at each other before entering the room and closing the door.
Standing in the middle of the colorful room with a ceiling fan turning lazily overhead, Frank was the first to speak.
“What in the hell is this place?”
Chapter 15
The soft ‘thunk’ of tear gas grenades being launched through the air is lost amid the screams and shouts of the shoppers inside Gristedes supermarket at the south end of Manhattan Island. It has taken just under a day for riots to break out across the city as the power has gone out, fires are still spreading and food is dangerously short. The small supermarket is packed dangerously full of people and just outside fights have broken out as others desperately try to get inside to secure some sort of food for themselves. In a city where every square inch of space is at a premium, no one has food on hand for more than a few days at best and most have less than that.
Nearby, at the Brooklyn Bridge, the walking and driving lanes are packed with people walking, jogging and running as they try to get off the island as quickly as possible. A few brave souls still try and drive their cars, but the amount of people on foot makes it nigh on impossible to get anywhere quickly. Up ahead, halfway along the bridge, the people come to an abrupt stop at a series of barriers set up by NYPD and the National Guard. One officer, speaking through a bullhorn, orders the people to turn around and return to your homes.
“Emergency relief supplies are being airlifted into the city!” He sounds confident as he speaks, though he is trembling inside. The crowd is not happy about being stopped and they look anxious enough to force the issue. “Return to your homes and places of business for your own safety! No traffic is being allowed on or off the island until proper security measures can be implemented!”
The crowd pushes against the barriers, shouting and yelling in frustration and anger. Most of them do not live on the island and all want to return to their families, not the stores and shops and offices where they work. Behind the barrier, one of the members of the National Guard speaks into a radio in hushed tones, his expression growing nervous as he hears the replies.
“I don’t think we can hold people back much longer sir.”
“Keep them there, dammit! Between the fires and the looting there’s nowhere for these people to go!”
“They need supplies, sir. Any idea when the food drops are coming in?”
At the other end of the radio, at a nearby military airbase, a Lieutenant leans back in his chair and sighs as he rubs his eyes. He has been without sleep since the incident occurred and it’s likely to be another twelve hours before he can get any rest.
“We’re working as fast as possible. Just do your best out there, son.”
The radio goes silent with a click and the officer at the airbase stands up and stretches his back. He looks out the window at the people below on the airfield and the organized chaos that is still ongoing. After a civilian truck detonated on the base and destroyed two buildings in the process, there have been no flights authorized to take off or land until a complete check has been made of every vehicle, aircraft and piece of equipment. This scene is replicated across civilian and military airports and airbases across the country. Emergency supplies sit in hangers, ready to be loaded onto aircraft, but it will be days before the brass feel comfortable with sending them out.
By then, deaths will number in the hundreds of thousands as the most vulnerable and weak fall prey to hunger and become victims of the underbelly of society as the fight for survival begins in earnest.
Chapter 16
“I really don’t think it’s a good idea to leave the rifle behind.”
“Linda, it’s going to look really awkward if we go back out and I’ve got it over my shoulder. You’ve got your pistol and besides, every single freaking one of these people is armed. It doesn’t matter how many guns we’ve got.”
“Ugh.” Linda sighed and shook her head. “You’re right. But dammit, this has got to be the weirdest place I’ve ever been.”
“No kidding. Bunch of pseudo-hippies with guns, computers, solar panels and a whole self-sustaining setup in the middle of nowhere upstate New York. It boggles the mind.”
“So let’s go get some answers.” Linda picked up her jacket off of the floor and looked around the room one last time. There were two beds on opposite sides of the room with a colorful curtain hanging from the ceiling that could be pulled back or stretched out to provide privacy to the beds.
The walls were painted a bright blue, the ceiling was stark white and the slowly turning fan overhead had each of its blades painted a different primary color. A small bathroom sat off on one side of the room with a toilet, sink and shower and the main window for the room looked out over the rolling hills beyond, though it was hard to see anything at night.
Linda and Frank stepped out of their room and closed the door behind them. Frank had been initially worried about leaving all of their things behind, but based on his interactions with Jacob so far, he felt a strange sense of calmness about the entire place. That plus the knowledge that the people at the commune could have overpowered them at any instant gave him a sense of relief that was hard to explain.
Outside the building on a table near the fire, Jacob was sitting down in front of three plates of food and large cups filled with water. A thick slab of roast pork, fresh vegetables and steaming potatoes just pulled from the coals of the fire sat on each plate. He was in the midst of taking a bite when Linda and Frank emerged from the building and he waved them over as he stood and wiped his mouth.
“Hello you two!” He smiled broadly as they sat down at the table. “I hope this is satisfactory. If you have any allergies or intolerances to anything, just let me know; don’t be shy about it, please!”
Frank and Linda both shook their heads. “No, I think I’m good.” Frank said.
“Yeah, same here.”
Frank picked up a fork and glanced at Jacob. “Thanks for this, by the way. You guys really didn’t need to feed us or give us a place to stay for the night.”
Jacob smiled again as he cut another piece of pork. “Nonsense. I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t at least do that. But that’s not why you’re here. You’re here for information, I know. Please, eat until you’re full and then ask whatever questions you have.”
Frank and Linda wasted no time in filling their growling stomachs. Frank knew in the back of his mind that the food tasted so good due to how little he had eaten in the last couple of days but he still swore that it was the best meal he had in his entire life. He and Linda both said nothing as they ate, and a few minutes later when their plates were clean, she sat back and nodded appreciatively at Jacob.
“Thank you again. That was amazing.”
Jacob smiled and looked behind him. “The vegetables and potatoes all come from our gardens. We have the ones you see there in front of the building plus several more large patches in fields behind us.”
“Can we ask you about that, Jacob?”
“Of course, Linda. Please ask away.”
“Who are you people? You live like hippies on the outside but you all carry guns and your computer setup is like nothing I’ve seen before. Plus you have enough solar panels and battery capacity to run everything off the grid. How did you do all of this?”
Jacob took a long drink from his cup as he studied the pair before replying. “I was one of the five original founders of this place. We were originally from the Boston area and we were entrepreneurs, starting and selling off companies to larger organizations. We were quite good at our jobs. It became apparent to one of my friends first that he was getting tired of the constant cycle of creating something only to sell it off and have to start anew. So he, I and three others sat down one weekend and brainstormed about what we wanted to do.” Jacob spread his arms and motioned around. “This was the result. We don’t have a formal name for this place, but it’s our home and our way of life now.”
“You were all tech guys?” Frank raised an eyebrow. “Startup founders and stuff like that?”
“Hard to believe, yes, but we were. The challenges we were facing had grown too mundane so we collectively decided that we wanted to challenge ourselves in a different way. We brought ten others to this place with us and we’ve grown to twice that size. Mostly families live here now and we all work together to keep this place free from the cares of the outside world and focused on what really matters.”
“So why all the guns? And the computers and all that?”
Jacob laughed. “Having money makes it easy to get permits for things like firearms here, even with the recent changes to the laws. That happened a month after we arrived, when some unscrupulous individuals decided to vandalize the building and scared one woman half to death that they were going to kidnap her or do something far worse. We agreed that we would act as our own protection from that day forward. I’m thankful every day that we don’t have to use them.”
“What about the computers?” Linda repeated the second half of Frank’s question.
“We’re still very much technology-oriented. Everything we grow is optimized by computerized systems we developed.”
Linda chuckled. “Doesn’t that sort of negate the point of living off the land?”
Jacob shrugged. “Remember who we are. We’re people who made our living in the city, working on computer systems all day. Tackling something like this even when it’s augmented with computer systems is a challenge for us. But that’s the point and that’s what we set out to do—challenge ourselves to create a small community that could flourish. If I had to be completely honest about it, we also wanted to keep some comforts from our old lives. Things like air conditioning and occupying some of our time with the systems we’ve built. But we don’t believe that negates what we’ve done in any way.”
“Fair enough.” Frank nodded, impressed by Jacob’s open answers.
“So what’s with all the monitoring you were doing? That’s what I assume you were doing anyway; I think your wife and that other person were monitoring radio transmissions?”
“Yes, that’s something we started as soon as we realized something was going on. We decided to try and monitor and record as much information as possible about what’s going on so that we can analyze it at a later date and use that information for good.” Jacob shrugged. “Who knows if anything will come of it, but we’ve already discovered some limited uses, such as finding out what’s going on between here and your destinations. We’ll have something for you in the morning that should prove useful, I hope.”
“That would be amazing.” Linda was taken aback. As she started to ask another question, a man walked up to Jacob and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Your shift’s about to start, Jacob.”
“Ah! Of course.” Jacob pushed back his chair and stood. “All of us are taking turns monitoring for transmissions. I’ll be doing that for a few hours if you need me, but you should feel free to speak to anyone else, as well. Everyone here is more than capable of helping should you need anything. I’ll talk to you both in the morning.”
With that, Jacob was off, heading back into the motel. Frank and Linda sat in silence at their table for several minutes as they watched the fire and the other people around them. Finally, after a long sigh, Frank spoke.
“Well then. This place is something else, isn’t it?”
“No kidding.” Linda shook her head. “I’m not sure what to think of it. It seems like it shouldn’t even be real but… it is? I think?”
“It’s an oddity here for certain. But I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth since it sounds like they’re going to be setting us up nicely tomorrow.”
Linda snorted. “Either that or they’re going to skin us while we’re sleeping.”
Frank laughed. “Speaking of sleep, we should get a few hours. I’d like to make as much progress tomorrow as we can.”
“Agreed.” Linda lowered her voice and looked around. “I want to keep watch in shifts tonight, though. Just to be absolutely certain we’re safe.”
“That sounds fine to me. I’ll take first watch as long as you promise not to run off without me.”
“If I do then you can just join them here and start gardening.”
Frank chortled and they both stood and headed back to the motel. It took them a few minutes to find their room again and once inside they were pleased to see that their belongings were exactly where they had left them.
Frank stayed up for a few hours, sitting on the edge of one bed while Linda slept in the other. His thoughts wandered as he stared out the window at the darkness beyond. He still felt confident that his parents were doing well on their ranch. Linda’s parents, though, he wondered about. She told him that they were in a nursing home but he had no idea how their health was. Every time he had probed about her personal life she had given him the minimum amount of information required to answer the question and then either changed the subject or refused to go into any more details.
Oh well. We’ll be in Tennessee before too long and then she can take care of her folks while I get to Texas.
***
Frank woke Linda a few hours before dawn and she kept watch while he slept. The bed was firm but comfortable and it felt like heaven after a month of sleeping in the back of his truck. When he woke up, the room was empty and he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he got out of bed. “Great.” Frank grumbled to himself as he stood up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “She took off again. What a—”
“What a what, Frank?” Linda popped her head out of the bathroom and flashed him a smile.
Frank rolled his eyes. “What a lovely person you are to not leave me here.”
“Oh come on, Frank. It’s not so bad here.” Linda stepped out, running a brush through her hair before pulling it up into a ponytail again. “They have power, running water and lots of food. Plus everyone seems creepily friendly. It’s the perfect place to spend the rest of your life before they pass you a cup of off-brand Kool-Aid and tell you to drink up.”
Frank laughed and grabbed his backpack off of the floor and rifled through the contents to double-check that everything was there. “No thanks, I’m good. And besides, they’re not that bad.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s actually scary how nice this place is. Makes me wish we could stay here some more and get to know these people better. I’m sure they’re doing a lot better than most.”
Frank stepped into the bathroom after Linda went out. “Still, though, we have places to go. Let’s find Jacob and see about that information he promised us.”
After both Linda and Jacob were refreshed and had their backpacks on, they headed outside. The morning was foggy and overcast with more warmth than they had felt for the last few days. The fire in the pit had died down over the night, though it was still being fed wood as the small group tending to it started to set up equipment for cooking breakfast. Jacob was nearby talking to his wife, Liz, and he smiled at Frank and Linda as they approached.
“There are our guests! How did you two sleep last night?”
“Very well, thanks.” Frank shook hands with Jacob and Liz and Linda nodded in agreement.
“Excellent. I’ll leave you two for a few minutes while I get your promised provisions. Liz has s
ome information that you’ll no doubt find useful for your trip.”
“Oh you don’t need to give us anything—you’ve been generous enough already.” Frank protested but Jacob waved him off.
“Nonsense. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Jacob jogged off leaving Frank and Linda to talk with Liz who pulled a manila folder out of a small bag she kept on her shoulder.
“You two are heading to Tennessee, right?”
“Yeah, Tennessee for me and then Frank’s going on to Texas from there.”
“Right. Well. I don’t have much in the way on information between Tennessee and Texas. All I can do is advise you to stick to back roads near cities and take highways in between, and only when you have to. As far as getting from here to Tennessee, though…” Liz opened the folder and pulled out a colorful map of the northeastern portion of the country with several colorful lines drawn between New York and Tennessee. She ran her finger down each of the lines as she spoke.
“Here are the routes you could take. I advise staying away from Washington as much as possible. It’s a hellhole right there, as is the rest of the northern Virginia area. I’d say to get down through Pennsylvania and West Virginia using the back roads as much as possible, then crossing through the western tip of Virginia before you hit Tennessee. Where is it in Tennessee that you’re going?”
“Pigeon Forge.” Linda studied the map as she answered, not seeing the look of shock going across Liz’s face.
“Pigeon Forge you said?” Liz asked the question hesitantly.
“Yeah… why, what’s wrong?” Linda picked up on Liz’s concern and was suddenly worried herself.
“That whole area of Tennessee was hit by a nasty storm two nights ago. Three or four feet of snow with more expected tonight, if the forecast from a few days ago still holds true. You’re in for a rough time once you get there.”
Linda’s thoughts immediately flew to her parents and the potential danger they were in. “How long do you think it’ll take us to get there if we use the back roads?”
