Black Autumn

by Jeff Kirkham

  Chad met Jason Ross as Chad finished an instructor slot at BUD/S, Naval Special Warfare in Coronado, California, where Navy SEALs are selected and trained. In a chance encounter, Jason and Chad met while working out at the gym. Chad later snuck Jason onto the Navy SEAL base and they borrowed a couple of instructor kayaks and went for a paddle around Coronado.

  Jason had no background in the military, and he had only been vacationing in Coronado to appease his wife. But, before long, Jason and Chad’s conversation found common ground; they both loved garden composting. Chad was probably the first Navy SEAL in history to take classes on composting and organic gardening while instructing at BUD/S. There had been a hippie commune out by Imperial Beach, just to the south of Naval Special Warfare. Chad jumped into classes put on by local tree huggers on organic composting whenever he could. Taking hippie classes wasn’t unusual for Chad; his rivals called him a “crazy” and his friends called him “iconoclastic.” Chad secretly enjoyed both monikers.

  Chad generally ignored pop culture, movies and anything written within the last hundred years. At the same time, he accumulated—and occasionally abandoned—huge libraries of classical non-fiction. He was fond of saying, “If it wasn’t written more than a hundred years ago, it probably hasn’t been proven yet.” He loved his books, but he rarely read more than thirty percent of the words, scanning stacks of books like an endless succession of magazine articles.

  While Chad was the weirdest person any of his friends knew, he also loved spiritual pursuits and he had toyed repeatedly with the idea of enrolling in theological seminary. In reality, no church on Earth would want Chad as a pastor. He was too odd, entirely unable to enter the paddock with the other sheep and enjoy the grass. Still, Chad loved people and he gravitated toward spirituality at every turn. Essentially a restless soul, Chad drifted like a leaf on the wind.

  The SEALs hadn’t done him any favors. He never talked about it, but he had served a hard-hitting tour in Iraq that would set him up, probably for life, with an unsolvable internal struggle. High passion, high sensitivity and six months of non-stop brutality don’t mix in a man’s psychology. Then again, the United States government didn’t worry too much about the nuances of psychology when they sent Special Operations Forces to do their dirty work.

  Chad’s cell phone rang and he picked up, hands-free.

  “Hello.”

  “Good morning. Where are you in the world today?” Jason Ross always started the conversation like this because, even though they were close friends, he never knew where Chad was at the moment.

  “I’m in Nebraska heading toward Salt Lake.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve been following the news?” Jason asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No. What’s up?”

  “Just the end of the world.”

  Chad assumed he was joking. “Is this about the Saudi Arabia thing?”

  “Yeah, and a nuke going off in California. And about six other things that are taking the country down. The flag’s going up and you’re the last one to find out.”

  “Seriously?” Chad had no idea.

  “Yeah. Is the power still on where you are?”

  “Now that you mention it, the stop lights were out in the last town I drove through.” Chad still didn’t think the two things were necessarily connected, but he was intrigued.

  “Will you listen if I give you some advice?” Jason asked. Chad was silent, which was as close to a “yes” as Jason was going to get. “Drive straight out to your little girl, pick her up and drive directly to Salt Lake. Or, dump your Jeep and get on an airplane if you can.”

  “Seriously?” Chad asked again, about two octaves higher.

  “Yes. Get to Salt Lake City as quickly as possible. You’re probably up shit creek as it is. I’m surprised this call even went through. There are a bunch of people I can’t reach anymore by cell. I assume we’ll lose comms after this call. Do you have a gun?”

  “I have my 1911 and a box of shells. I’ll be good. I also have my go bag.” Chad pulled over to the side of the road and did a little mental math, thinking about the route back to his daughter in Omaha.

  “What the hell am I going to do about Audrey?” Chad wondered aloud. Chad and Audrey had been divorced for several months and she was still as angry as a wasp in a dude’s jockstrap.

  “I think she needs to come to Utah for her own good. Your daughter will never forgive you if you leave her mom behind. Audrey absolutely must get in your car. There’s no time to explain, and with her, explaining might take weeks.”

  “Damn…” Chad thought through how he was going to pull that off. Getting Audrey into his Jeep, under any pretext, would take some serious bullshitting. An airplane? No chance. But could he really tolerate being stuck in a car with that howling bobcat for nine hundred miles?

  Jason was right and Chad knew it. Little Samantha would never forgive him if he left her mom behind. All bad feelings needed to be set aside right now if what Jason was saying was true. It sounded like warrior time, and all he really cared about in this world was that little girl. That meant Audrey came as part of the package.

  “I hope you’re right about how bad things are because, if I drag her into the car and I take off toward Salt Lake City, and then everything goes back to normal, the lawyers are going to have a good time with that one.”

  Jason wrapped up the call. “By the time you get back to Audrey and Sam in Omaha, you’ll have no doubt the world is crashing. Dude, I’m looking out my balcony and I can see fires burning out of control in Ogden. No kidding. Get here fast.”

  “Okay,” Chad agreed.

  “Oh,” Jason had one more thing to add, “you’ve always argued that the super-secret American oligarchs would never let a collapse happen. So, this goes on the LONG list of things when I was right and you were wrong.”

  “Screw you. I’ll believe it when I see it.” Chad laughed. “I’ll see you in a few days. Keep everyone safe. Love you, brother.”

  “Godspeed.” Jason hung up.

  5

  [Collapse Plus Four - Saturday, Sept. 23rd]

  Shortwave Radio 7150kHz 2:30am

  “YOUR SERVANT, JT TAYLOR HERE again, for another episode of As the World Burns.

  “Saudis are flying bombing runs over Iran this fine evening in retaliation for Iran NUKING THEM. Lots of bang-bang over Tehran tonight. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of homophobic racists...

  “The Russians are making a beer run into Ukraine in their T-90 main battle tanks, overrunning the entire country. It’s like dad’s out of town and the kids are breaking into the liquor cabinet and the stack of Playboys under the bed. No adult supervision in the world tonight, folks…

  “Oh, and I have a bit of top secret news from a Drinkin’ Bro in the 5th Fleet in the Med: Israel has rolled into the Sinai hammering the Egyptians once and for all. And our very own big boats are backing Israel’s play.

  “On a personal note, I’m running low on booze and I’m heading toward Arizona unless they blow me up first. I need a rendezvous with a certain Drinkin’ Bro-ette who is holding a case of Leadslingers Whiskey for me, hopefully along with a badly-needed game of hide-the-sausage. I’ll be the one rolling up in the Humvee bristling with antennas...”

  Federal Heights

  Salt Lake City, Utah

  The view from the back of the kitchen had been the deal-clincher when Jimmy had bought his luxury home seven years ago.

  At the end of the Avenues neighborhood, Federal Heights ran up against the University of Utah campus and the Jewish Community Center. Why anyone had built a Jewish Community Center in an almost completely Mormon town was a mystery to Jimmy. There must have been an underground Jewish crowd in Salt Lake because the Jewish Community Center looked fancier than anything except the Mormon Temple and the Mormon Tabernacle itself.

  As the name implied, Federal Heights perched up on the high bench, with panoramic views of the Salt Lake Valley. They couldn’t claim to be the riches
t neighborhood in Salt Lake, because the Heights had been built over a hundred years ago. Still, folks knew you had been blessed if you owned a home in Federal Heights.

  Jimmy stood there mesmerized, his hands in his pockets, trying to decide if he was seeing fire or not. Almost ten miles across the valley, in what looked like West Jordan or Magna, he saw what looked like a plume of smoke, lazily reaching up to form a layer of haze, like a three-mile-wide mushroom. Six or seven miles to the north, mostly blocked out by his big cottonwood tree, Jimmy could see more smoke, maybe drifting south from Rose Park.

  Jimmy knew his intelligence ran far above average. He had earned a scholarship to BYU, and that was no small feat. Even so, his mind struggled to accept the obvious truth—a reality that could be seen as plain as day through his bay window: Salt Lake had begun to burn.

  He couldn’t hear sirens from this distance and the evidence was hard to refute. Something gurgled and he felt that hard place in the pit of his stomach that had re-appeared two days ago. Every time he considered the danger brooding within that smoke a picture flashed to mind: his six-year-old daughter on Christmas morning in her Disney Princess pajamas.

  Little Olivia was as smart as a whip and as sweet as a little girl could be. For Jimmy, she embodied purity and grace. He adored all his children, but his love wrapped around Olivia like a never-ending blanket.

  What he saw out the bay window hinted at a malignancy beyond anything he’d ever faced. Jimmy was darn near certain he wasn’t man enough to protect Olivia or his family from the maelstrom that smoke implied.

  “Jim,” a voice penetrated his foreboding like a slow knife. “JIM! I’m talking to you.”

  “Huh…” Jimmy turned, and his wife stood in front of him, a bit too close.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked rhetorically. “We need you to find all the flashlights in case the power doesn’t come back on before night. We need flashlights and the Coleman stove so we can cook in here.”

  “Um.” Jimmy came back to reality. “You don’t need the Coleman. You can’t run it inside anyway, I think, because of carbon monoxide. The stove works fine. Just light it with a match.”

  “We don’t have matches, Jimmy. It’s not like I’m a closet smoker.”

  Jimmy knew they were both on edge, so he let her snarky comment pass.

  “We have matches in my backpack in the camping supplies. There’s a whole box.”

  “Okay. Would you please get all the flashlights rounded up?”

  “Sure, hon.” Jimmy turned to the kitchen and began rummaging through the drawers looking for flashlights and “D” batteries.

  • • •

  Ross Homestead

  Oakwood, Utah

  I bet that’s some kind of anti-tank gate, Alena thought to herself as they rolled up to the Homestead. “Wow. Somebody takes themselves seriously,” she carped to her husband as she glanced at the two men bracketing the gate, armed with rifles.

  She knew she wasn’t angry with the Homestead people or with Jason and Jenna Ross. The events of the last two days had frazzled her, and she realized she was being irritable—pissed off that things weren’t going her way, to say the least. Having her world out of control scared her. When Alena got scared, she got angry.

  As a registered nurse, Alena had been invited to join the Homestead by one of the Ross brothers she knew back when she used to swing dance in college. She figured she had been invited because of her nursing background, but she never felt comfortable around the Homestead people.

  Alena hated guns and, even though her husband served as a CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) specialist in the Utah National Guard, she would not allow firearms in her house.

  Beyond the gate, the Homestead looked like a massive camp-out. Campers, trailers and a couple of RVs were jammed wherever they would fit. Military-style tents were going up on a big lawn, and people mulled about everywhere. Outside the gate, cars were parked tight on both sides of the street leading up to the entrance, all packed to the rafters with mattresses, chairs, coolers and camping equipment.

  Her husband, Robert, pulled the car through the gate, and a big hairy guy she didn’t know walked up to his open car window. Looking more Hell’s Angel than helpful, the guy had long silver hair and a gun strapped to his belt. “Can I get your names, please?”

  Robert answered, “Robert and Alena James.”

  “Great. I’m Ron. Do you want to sleep in the detached garage, or would you rather put up a tent on the Great Lawn?”

  “Um, I think we’ll need beds inside. We didn’t bring a tent.” Robert looked sheepish.

  “That’s great. We’re running out of tent space anyway. Pull up the driveway, unload the stuff on this list, and then park back on the street. Leave everything not on the list in your car.” Ron gave them a piece of paper. “Jordan will answer questions about the list when you get to the garage.”

  Robert thanked the big man and drove along the driveway to what must have been the “detached garage.” A young man with a baseball cap approached them. He wore a handgun on his belt, too.

  “Hey, I’m Jordan. Here’s what you’re gonna do… Did Ron give you a list?”

  Robert nodded.

  “Okay, you get two of these totes,” the young man said, pointing to a tall stack of black plastic totes beside him. “It looks like you have kiddos back there. Okay, that’ll be three totes for you guys. Everything you take with you into the detached garage must fit into these three totes. Everything. Otherwise, the garage will look like a tornado had sex with a garage sale. You follow me so far?”

  Robert and Alena nodded.

  “Anything you have on this list,” Jordan pulled out another list, “we will inventory and store for you.” Alena took the list from Robert and saw things like “extra prescription medicine” and “ammunition.”

  “Why are you keeping this stuff?” Alena asked, trying not to sound too aggressive. “Why wouldn’t we keep it for ourselves?”

  “Good question. That’s the stuff we’re pooling for everyone. We’ll keep track of who gave it to us, but we’ll probably all use it until it’s gone.”

  Alena read the list while he was talking, and she stopped at “toilet paper.”

  She barked, “I’m supposed to give you our toilet paper?”

  Jordan held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m just telling you what everyone else has been contributing to the group. If you want to keep your toilet paper, that’s your business. But everyone else is sharing this stuff. Oh, and if you have prescription medicine you’re taking, keep it and report it to the head nurse.”

  “Who’s the head nurse?” Alena asked, an edge to her voice.

  Jordan searched around and came up with a clipboard that had been inside the top black tote. “The head nurse is Alena James.”

  “That’s me,” Alena replied.

  “Awesome. You should probably go see the lady of the house. Jenna’s right over there.” Jordan pointed to an attractive woman in her early fifties, sitting behind a table talking to a gaggle of people. “She’ll be stoked you made it.”

  As Alena and Robert loaded their personal belongings into the totes, she could see that their stuff wouldn’t fit. She went back to the list she’d been handed at the gate.

  The list made sense. It had everything they needed for daily life, such as rugged clothing, toothbrushes, towels, and such. It would be tight, and she didn’t see how the kids’ toys were going to fit. Down the list, she saw “kids’ favorite toys.” The Homestead people had thought of everything.

  After she crammed the totes full and unloaded the car, she sent Robert to park on the street. Alena trundled down the stairs of the massive garage carrying a tote. As soon as she descended the stairs and looked around, the list and the totes made a lot more sense.

  The basement of the garage reminded her of Costco, only it was people that were stacked on shelves instead of merchandise. She was pretty sure that the “bunks” were ac
tual Costco shelving—with orange beams and steel mesh flooring.

  Many of the people had already settled into their bed areas, with mattresses on each level of shelving and black totes stacked at the foot of each mattress. Layered like this on racking, she could see how the garage could house dozens of families.

  Jesus help us if someone gets the flu.

  Outside the big rolling door on the back of the garage was a large cook shed. Inside were three gigantic wood-burning stoves and, by the smell of it, someone had baked bread already. Inside the shed was an area large enough for five or six people to wash dishes or clothes around six huge industrial sinks. At that moment, someone was cutting up fresh vegetables, presumably for stew.

  Alena had left the kids upstairs, so she headed back and found them playing. “Let’s go, guys.” She rounded up the little ones and made her way over to Jenna Ross, who was coordinating the mayhem from an eight-foot plastic table.

  • • •

  “Ron needs you at the gate.” Jordan poked his head into Jason’s office and interrupted him for the twentieth time that day.

  “All right.” Jason looked up from his list. He didn’t bother asking Jordan what Ron needed. He could guess, and his gut filled with dread.

  He walked down the driveway like a man heading to his execution. At the gate, he could see Ron talking to a family. As Jason recognized them, his heart sank even further.

  This next week will be filled with this. Get used to it.

  “Hi, Terry. Hi, Mark.” Jason knew the family from church. As he approached the confrontation, he remembered how many times he had told Mark he loved him over the years. Maybe a dozen times?