by Howard, Bob
EXIST FOR NOW
BOB HOWARD
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowlegments
Chapter One - 1969
Chapter Two - Life Goes On
Chapter Three - Georgetown Survivor
Chapter Four - Oconee
Chapter Five - Suburban Life or Death
Chapter Six - Above Every Shelter
Chapter Seven - Ambassadors Island Shelter
Chapter Eight - Mercy Mission Ship
Chapter Nine - Return to Mud Island
Chapter Ten - Mud Island Assault
Chapter Eleven - Epiloque
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright © 2017 Bob Howard
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-945754-16-6
Cover art by Lorena Martin of Premade Ebook Covers
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
When I started writing, I found there’s much more to it than putting the story on the pages. I found that you have to live it and breathe it. Writing the story means getting into the heads of the characters and walking in their footsteps. That’s the really fun part because you get to make up who they are, what they say, and what they do. For some reason I’ll never be able to explain, I can’t get enough of that part. This book is dedicated to my wife, Dawn, for living and breathing the creation of each book along with me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The work that goes into a book would be much harder without the people who give their time to read it in advance, edit the mistakes, give their reactions and opinions, and sometimes endure the frustration of trying to make me change something. Just ask my wife. I’ve already dedicated this book to my wife, but she has been more involved with the writing of this book than the first three, so I should mention here that she deserves more credit than ever for her hard work and for being my main advance reader.
As always, my family has given me their support in the form of simply recognizing that this has been a dream come true for me. I can’t thank them enough for their encouragement.
This book had three new advance readers who were asked to read the book for various reasons. Stacie Turcotte enjoyed the first three books so much that she immersed herself in the characters. I asked her to read the book to see if she stayed as connected with them as she had in the first three books. It appears that she did, so I hope to have her available for the next book.
Kathi Gibbs was the inspiration for one of the characters, and I had to see if she would read the book with the same excitement as the first three. Believe me when I say she didn’t let me down. Her enjoyment of the book was what I needed in order to feel that I had done her character justice.
Tim Harrelson contacted me after reading my books, and he offered me some insights and ideas without really even realizing that was what he was doing. Reading his comments about survival and protecting loved ones during an apocalypse made me realize that we might be able to suspend our beliefs and disbeliefs long enough to accept a book about a zombie apocalypse, but the reality of an apocalypse is something that exits no matter what we suspend. Whether it’s a natural disaster or a pandemic, we can’t help feeling like something is coming. Everyone I know says we’re overdue. Tim and his family will probably be among the survivors.
On a more upbeat note, I discovered the designer of my covers after I decided to put the books in print. That was why the covers changed after the first three were available as ebooks. Lorena Martin of Premade Ebook Covers is very creative and has been a true artist. When I was ready for the cover of this book, I gave her an idea of what I wanted, and she came through for me once again.
CHAPTER ONE
1969
Standing on the shoreline at the edge of the trees and looking out across the marsh, it didn’t look like much more than another overgrown lump of dirt and ugly trees to Titus Andronicus Rush. He had his hands on his hips and his legs spaced evenly with his shoulders. To the small group of men standing behind him, it didn’t appear that he had moved a muscle since assuming the stance.
It was warm for March, and the mosquitoes had already begun to swarm and pester the men, but they didn’t seem to be bothering Titus. He opened his eyes for a moment and then shut them. The only change on his face was a slightly deeper furrow across his weathered forehead.
“Do you suppose he could hurry this up a bit?” complained one of the men. He was a heavy set bureaucrat of some kind, and his business suit looked out of place against the tall bushes and trees. He was sweating from the humidity and kept mopping at his head with a soaked handkerchief.
His complaint had been addressed to a tall man standing next to him in an Army uniform. He was wearing combat fatigues, or battledress, and was more at home in the coastal wilderness than the other man. He had the close cropped gray hair of a career military type, and he had the hard, chiseled features of a man who had seen rough times. He had a General’s insignia on each shoulder, and he appeared to be less interested in the bureaucrat than the man they were watching. He also didn’t look like he was as bothered by the mosquitoes, the humidity, or even the rank smell of the mud that appeared above the water when the tide went out. He was wondering more about what Titus Rush was thinking, and he would wait as long as they needed. His job was to make progress with their plans, and they weren’t going to make progress without Mr. Rush.
Titus opened his eyes again and looked from left to right. His long hair fell from his left shoulder and crossed to the right as the men watched him move for the first time. He was prematurely gray, and he hadn’t bother to shave, so he looked like an aging hippie to them. His head traveled back in the other direction and stopped as he faced the northern end of the marsh. From where they were all standing, they could see an opening and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
He kept his feet and hands where they were, but he turned at the hips and looked at the General. Titus liked the guy. He was prone to asking questions that he was smart enough to answer for himself, but Titus knew he was just getting things out in the open. An almost imperceptible nod of his head made the General smile slightly, and he stepped away from the others to stand next to Titus. The bureaucrat started to move forward too, but Titus froze him in his tracks with a cold stare.
Titus had made it clear from the start that he didn’t like the whining man who had flown with them from Washington down to South Carolina, but he had been enjoying the man’s obvious discomfort. Just to mess with him he glanced past the sweating man toward the trees behind the group of waiting men. There were six of them, and they all turned to look at the trees, but Titus knew the desired effect had worked because the only one that didn’t turn back toward him was the whiner. They had seen alligators moving through the swamps on the other side of the trees, and it would give the whiner something else to think about while Titus talked with the General.
“What’s the verdict, Mr. Rush? Can we make this work?”
Titus grinned at the tall military man. He had given the General a short list of requirements, and the General had come back with his own short list of locations. This was their second stop, and Titus looked pleased.
“General, I don’t think we need to visit the other locations. This one will need work, but I can see it. It’s not bad as it is, but it can be made perfect.”
Titus pointed to the stretch of land that was about two miles long and looked like a bad
place to spend the night.
“The island looks like it has a northern entrance and a southern exit. When the tide comes in, of course the water comes in from both ends, but with the right amount of dredging, you could keep the entire marsh flooded and create a current from north to south that would be strong enough to act like a river.”
“It sounds like you’re talking about a moat, Mr. Rush. How is a moat supposed to make this place safe? People can use a boat to get across.”
“Think about layers of safety, General. You said you could finance the construction of a shelter that’s impenetrable. That’s good, but you can’t just put it anywhere you like. It has to have layers outside that at least make it miserable for someone who’s trying to take it from you.”
The General had heard Titus make his speech before, but he liked the way the unconventional man thought, so he listened to it again.
“The perfect shelter has to protect you from whatever has happened, whether it’s a nuclear war, or a natural catastrophe. Let’s call it an apocalypse. It also has to be able to meet your basic needs for a very long time, and it should be something you can protect from people who try to take it away from you. Anything else would be temporary.”
The General looked back toward the island and said, “Okay, we need a moat. The Army Corps of Engineers can dredge out this marsh until it’s deep enough for you. What about keeping it from getting filled back in by sand carried in on the current?”
As soon as he asked the question he knew the answer. Titus didn’t bother to say anything.
“Jetties,” said the General. “That’s a big order, Mr. Rush. Do you know how much that will cost the taxpayers?”
Once again, Titus didn’t answer. He already knew he would get whatever he needed. When he and his survivalist group were first approached by the government and asked to make shelters that were guaranteed to protect their occupants, they had agreed to do it on the condition that the financing would be a blank check. Otherwise, they would give no guarantees.
His group had also made it abundantly clear that there couldn’t be a total guarantee, but they could be close to perfect if they were given everything and anything they needed. Right now, at this same moment, the other members of his survivalist group were spread out across the country with their teams of Generals, politicians, and money men. All of them were playing out their own personal fantasies about what would work if they could have whatever they needed, and if they had the resources to make their shelters work. Each shelter would stretch the imagination of the planners and builders, as well as the wallets of the government. Besides, Titus knew they were also collecting money from influential people who would be brought along for the ride in the event of an apocalypse.
The General had gotten used to Titus Rush not answering, and he decided it wouldn’t do any good to turn down any of his requests no matter how costly they were.
“What else, Mr. Rush?”
“I’ll give you the plans for the shelter. I’ve already drawn them up. This site will be perfect once the moat is in place. I’ll also need a dock here on the mainland and one on the island. I’ll add them to the drawings so you can see where I want them. I need a boat, and I want the power supply to be permanent, so we’ll need to connect the shelter to the mainland by something that crosses the bottom of the moat.”
The General started to ask Titus how he could already have the plans drawn when he had just seen this place for the first time, but he decided it was another rhetorical question not likely to be answered by Titus. He reasoned that the smaller man had undoubtedly been picturing this possibility for a long time. If he was really a survivalist, then these ideas of his had been rattling around inside his head just waiting for their chance to come out.
“I need something else, General, and it’s something your friends back in DC already agreed to.”
“What’s that, Mr. Rush?”
“Upgrades. I need to get upgrades as technology makes advances. We’re going to start with shortwave radio and TV reception, but there’s no way those things are going to remain state of the art. From what I hear, there’s going to be a man on the moon this summer. After that, I expect to see technology take off. If it gets invented, I want it in this shelter.”
The General turned toward the rest of their group. Two were armed military escorts. The stuffed shirt who was sweating too much was the man who was supposed to make the money move from one place to another without questions, and the others were the engineers who would get the work done. He gave them a nod much like the one he had gotten from Titus, and they all knew the project was begun.
******
The next meeting of the survivalists was the following week, and Titus got to see all of their individual choices. He thought some were questionable, but he had given them free rein when it came to their own plans. He saw that his own choice was going to be far less expensive than a few of the others. His friend, Bus, had chosen to build his shelter on his own property, and he couldn’t say that he blamed him. There was something to be said for living close to your shelter. When the bombs fell or the apocalypse began, it would be a good idea to get inside as fast as possible.
Titus had been the unanimous choice when the group had selected a leader. It wasn’t that he was the best choice, but his personality was so strong that people stopped talking whenever he started. So it was when they met for the first time to talk over their individual shelters.
Thirty-one people stopped talking as soon as he said his first words.
“Does anybody have a complaint about our government friends? Are they cooperating?”
He looked around at the faces surrounding him, and only one hand had been raised. He pointed at the Viet Nam veteran with the serious look on his face and waited for him to speak. He was a tough man because he had already done a couple of tours in the war, so it wasn’t like him to complain.
The man stood so everyone could hear him and said, “I was led to believe we would each be taking in a few important people if we ever have to use the shelters. They added to my plans, and now it’s going to be big enough to hold an entire army.”
“We knew they would have an agenda of their own when we agreed to this, Jerry. Are you saying you wanted something just a bit more cozy?”
That got some scattered laughs, but Titus could get away with it. Not everyone could tease Jerry.
“You know what I mean, Titus. What’s to stop them from forgetting who owns the shelters? Remember, that was the deal. They may be paying for it, but we still own it. If I have a battalion living under my roof, they could just chuck me outside.”
Jerry said it with just enough humor in his voice to earn his own laughs. Titus got the feeling Jerry was less concerned about it happening than he was with just making sure the point was discussed.
“I can only tell you what we know, Jerry. We are to be treated as royalty in our own shelters, and we have a say in everything. Whether they will honor that promise or not is one of the uncertainties of this little project. Hell, Jerry, what makes you think we’re all going to live long enough to ever get to use these shelters, anyway?”
“I’m moving into mine as soon as it’s done,” said one young man with long hair and a big pair of round, wire framed glasses.
Like most of the people in the room, he was wearing a pair of denim bell bottomed jeans and a colorful tee-shirt. What looked like a roomful of hippies was actually a collection of some of the greatest minds in the country. Most of them had doctoral degrees in some kind of engineering or science, and they would be valuable people to keep alive after an apocalypse.
“That’s because you got evicted from your apartment again,” said one of the six women in the room. “He keeps asking if he can sleep on my sofa until he gets a new place.”
Titus liked the good natured laughing and didn’t try to discourage it. He knew they were a close knit group, and no matter what happened, they were getting a leg up on the rest of the population by buildin
g the shelters. He just wondered if any of them would actually wind up living in them over the years to come, or if they were really just building them for the government. After all of the major players were dead and gone, whether they were in this room with him or they were people in power in the government, they were going to be replaced just as often as the technology. He looked around and wondered how many of them would be replaced over the years.
“Okay everybody,” said Titus. “Let’s get down to business. We need to talk about each other’s choices. The locations, the construction, second lines of defense, and anything else we can think of. I’ll start us off by reading a list of shelter sites. I want each of you to speak up and say what will make the site better.”
Titus read the list, and as he did he called out the owner’s names. The one that got the most attention as a bad choice was the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The owner was one of their newest members, and he had clearly focused on isolation as a layer of safety.
One by one the other members of the group told why it wasn’t such a good choice, but since it was already a done deal, they added how they would improve the plans. One idea was to mine the Gulf for a few miles surrounding the oil rig, but there was no way the government would go for that idea. When all was said and done, the only layers that could be improved upon would be detection and weaponry. It went without saying that the shelter itself would be hardened to be nearly indestructible, but its visibility was going to make it a tempting target.
Titus took the heat off of the young man by putting his own plans on the table. He described a salt water marsh as the perfect place to put a shelter, and the rest of the group started suggesting ways to make it better. One suggestion was to protect the underwater power lines with strong nets. They might catch something in them from time to time, but at least nothing could knock out the power to the island. Titus wrote the idea in a notebook, and in the margin of the page he wrote that it would have to be very strong. He wasn’t sure why he thought that, but he was prone to getting hunches, and this felt like a good hunch.
