Apocalypse Coming
Page 34
She then turned more serious and continued, “Now, you brought up lust. Now lust is a strong word, and it can be carried to a sinful point, but we’ve talked about this in the past. I’d much rather you tell me that you think someone is hot than to secretly keep it to yourself. Obviously, Carmen is hot. The girls you use to point out on television were hot. Why would I get jealous of the obvious? I would know you were lying if you tried to say that you didn’t think they were. Lust is when you dwell on something constantly and would do anything to have it.
Everybody has thoughts though, where they think someone is hot or super attractive and those that say they don’t are probably lying. To be honest, most of them are self-righteous hypocrites.
When women go to a Vegas show, like “Thunder from Down Under,” you know, the male dancers? Old women go, young women, married women, and even couples. Do you think the women look at them dancing and say, “Hey, I’d sure like to read a book with him?” No, they think they’re hot and probably have a few sexual thoughts at the time.
Anyway, again, I don’t have a problem with this as long as you and Carmen are always honest and loyal to me. Look how you’re telling me about your conversation with her.
I honestly believe because of our honesty and understanding, it has made us so much closer than most couples. That’s one of the reasons we’re like best friends as well as husband and wife.”
I smiled at her, “You know, you being like you are is why you don’t ever have to worry about it. There is no way I’d ever love anyone as much as I love you.”
We then kissed and climbed into bed. I was just starting to doze, and Kim asked, “Are you awake?”
“I am now.”
“Sorry! Do you think we should invite the neighbors tomorrow? I mean the ones on our street and maybe even Blake and his family.”
I turned over, “I thought about it, but we won’t have near enough steaks. I think we would have enough to invite Jake and his family and send a couple of cooked steak dinners to the Jones,’ but beside them, I would like this to be a thank you for everyone’s hard work.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
Shortly, we both faded into a deep sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Orville Lebowski was the new, self-appointed mayor of Pine City. Even though the town was unincorporated and didn’t have a mayor, he decided a few days after everything went dark, that the town needed a leader.
There was no election, and anyone that opposed him seemed to have an unfortunate accident, usually the night that their opposition was revealed to him. The so-called accidents occurred by the hands of his two sons, Billy, who was 26 and Thatcher, who was 24.
Orville was 53 years old, divorced, as his wife had left him ten years earlier, due to his physical abuse and drunkenness. When she filed for divorce, she had full intentions of getting full custody of the boys, but after a severe beating and his threat that he’d put a bullet in her head, she dropped the request for custody and left the state soon after.
He and his boys didn’t work as he had discovered six years earlier that he could live a lot easier off President Prescott new welfare program. He got a nice monthly check, free health care, food stamps and even a free cell phone and the internet. Then, once he had his boys do the same, and they combined all three incomes and benefits, he could live rather comfortably.
Two years earlier, he decided to go into business and had his sons build a meth lab. Soon afterward though, the meth lab that they had in an abandoned house exploded, giving Billy third degrees burns on his face, chest, and arms. He barely made it out alive, and he carries the scars to this day. Billy’s face still looks as though his skin started melting off.
Orville decided the three of them would just live off the government, for the most part.
Soon, due to his advice, several of his acquaintances in Pine City quit their jobs and followed his example. No need to say, that all of them were huge supporters of President Prescott and his political party.
He took over the little part-time store that was in town and made it his city hall. Soon after that, he made the executive decision that all food within the city limits would be stored in his city hall and the town would have joint meals together. Anyone that refused to turn over any food that they may have would be dealt with, on a permanent basis.
The residents of Pine City had a few gardens, but most of the population didn’t store much food. Like most of the country today, they were so used to running to the grocery store and fast food restaurants every few days. No one kept too much on their shelves.
Orville, who by now, had involuntarily recruited many of the remaining citizens in town, had them and his two sons do house to house searches for any hidden food. If they found any, the residents were shot, and the food was confiscated.
He realized that due to the lack of supplies in town, that he needed to expand his operation and start annexing the area into his town. No one would get to vote on it, again, this was an executive decision on his part.
“President Prescott made such decisions and Congress never seriously challenged him, so why can’t I do the same thing?” he would say.
Knowing his boys were completely loyal to him and not being sure how honest his recruits would be, he sent the boys out of Pine City, to nearby, usually isolated homes, to take whatever they felt they needed for their personal survival.
Strictly by accident, the boys discovered that even though the other vehicles in town didn’t run, Thatcher’s 1961 ¾ ton Ford flatbed truck would. He had gotten it from a friend that owed him a gambling debt and couldn’t pay, so the friend agreed that he could have the truck to pay off the debt. Thatcher always said that he was going to restore it but it sat in their backyard since just rusting away.
Once Orville sent the boys out, he didn’t care what they did as long as they came back with food, water, and supplies. The boys had gotten shot at the first time they went out scavenging, so now they usually only went out at night, unless their destination was more than a few miles.
At first, they had plenty of gasoline as they had siphon it from the vehicles in town. But with the high gas prices before the lights went out, not too many in town had full gas tanks. So soon after that, the boys were collecting gas out on the highways. That seemed to be more profitable as for the most part, the vehicles on the highway seemed to have more fuel in them. They were also able to clean out the vehicles of any supplies that were left by the owner.
After a couple of weeks, supplies, fuel, and food were getting harder and harder to find. The town had 600 plus acres of soybeans bordering the town, but that was too much work. Orville wanted food ready to eat.
What he really needed though, was more firepower. They had only one AR-15, with a single 20-round magazine. All the rest were deer rifles, shotguns and a few handguns that the residents in town-owned but not the kind of weapons he wanted. He wanted more assault weapons and more ammunition for all the guns. This had to be a priority.
Orville, his sons, and a friend were sitting in “City Hall” having a meeting.
“Listen you little sons of bitches; you better start producing more. We need more weapons as well.” Orville said to his sons, with true anger.
Thatcher replied in a sarcastic tone, “It’s not that easy. We’ve cleaned out all the homes in town, plus all the abandoned homes in the area. We’ve even started raiding some occupied houses.”
“I know where to get everything we need, but you’re too much of a coward to let us go after them,” Billy said with hate.
Orville stood up and backhanded Billy, knocking him to the ground. Billy stood up as though he was going to strike back but had second thoughts.
“You never talk to me that way, you little bastard, or I’ll send you packing,” he said with a glare.
Avery, who was as close as anybody to being second in command and the closest thing that Orville had to a friend, asked, “What’s he talking about? Who has what we need?”
Orville replied, “The next road south, the Johnson Farm. He seems to be turning it into a little community of their own. We suspect he has everyone on that road in some alliance and he has several people living there on the farm. He’s also got a nice little garden, a hell of a deer herd and quite a few turkeys.”
Thatcher spoke up, “Don’t forget the airplane that’s working.”
“A working airplane? How do you know that?” Avery asked.
“The day after the power went out, the plane flew in and landed there. Since then, they’ve been building, what looks like a dirt runway.” Orville said.
“Well, so what? What good is an airplane to us? Do any of you know how to fly a plane? I certainly don’t.”
Billy, still rubbing the side of his face and with a hateful expression said, “No but we could force the motherfuckers to fly for us.”
Orville looked over as though he was going to hit Billy again, “They also have an arsenal. An arsenal that could be used against us.”
Billy yelled, “He’s just a fucking old man! I’m not worried about that son of a bitch!”
Thatcher started laughing, “That’s not what you said a few years ago.”
Billy grabbed Thatcher and threw him against the wall and yelled, “Shut the fuck up!”
Orville yelled, “Stop this shit!”
“What’s Thatcher talking about?” Avery asked.
Orville chuckled, “A few years ago, Billy here, decided he was going to make a few extra coins by, let’s say, borrowing anything that some of the farmers around here left lying around. Well, he was driving down Johnson’s road about 2:00 in the morning with his lights out, scoping out Johnson’s place. Johnson spotted him and jumped in his truck and chased after him. He ran his ass all the way back here. Billy was far enough ahead of him that he was able to hide his car here in town before Johnson could catch up to him.”
“I should’ve confronted the bastard. That’s what I should’ve done.” Billy stated.
Orville scowled at Billy, “He would’ve chewed you up and spit you out, you dumb motherfucker.”
Billy gave Orville a “go to hell look” and then threw the glass which he was drinking out of, against the wall and stormed out of the room. Thatcher soon followed him.
Avery asked, “What do you mean by an arsenal?”
“Oh, he’s got a shooting range set up in his field, and you can hear him shooting all types of weapons. Hell, we’ve even heard automatic gunfire coming from there. Supposedly, his son’s a cop and works someplace up north. I assume the automatic was his.”
“Who is this Johnson? I’ve never heard of him.”
“He pretty well stays to himself. They say he retired from the Army and is also an ex-cop. I know he has some military statues in his front yard. He’s some patriotic bozo that even has an American flag flying next to the statues.”
“Sounds like a tough nut to crack. But you know Orville, using force isn’t always the best way to go about getting what you want.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Well, can I suggest that we go do down in peace. Make it sound like we’re just trying to bring the community together. If he goes for it, then you bring him into the fold, but even if he doesn’t, you could see what he has firsthand. There can’t be that many down there. If his son worked up north, maybe he’s stuck up there.
If he doesn’t cooperate, you’ll still get to see what you need to, and then later we could confront them with force and take it all.” He said, with a sly smile on his face.
“Yeah. Yeah! Excellent idea. Boys, get your asses in here!
The day after the plane landed, I had the boys sneak through Aker’s soybeans with binoculars, to see what they could see.”
Billy and Thatcher came back in the room, and Billy sarcastically said, “Yeah?”
“How many did you say you saw down at Johnson’s place?”
Thatcher replied, “We couldn’t see all of them, but I’d say maybe 6 or 7, plus some women. I know they have a nigger family living there with em’.”
“Yeah and a couple of hot looking younger women too. The rest of them looked like a bunch of old men, just like Johnson.” Billy added.
Thatcher laughed, “Since when do you care if the women are hot or young. To you, pussy is pussy.”
“Yeah, but it’d be nice not to have to close my eyes when I’m on em’.”
Orville, in a raised voice, said, “Shut the fuck up and listen. Billy, you may have had a good idea, for once. We’re going to go after the Johnson’s.”
Billy pulled a long 12-inch Bowie knife from the sheath on his belt and said with a smile, “Yes!”
“What you retards have to learn, is you don’t confront unknown force without trimming them down a little. Now it sounds like they have their entire road sticking together. Aker’s has too many in their family to hit them first, so what we want to do is trim the fat from the other end of the road. So tonight, I want you guys to make a little run.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I woke up at 2:30. I don’t know if it was my internal alarm clock or if it was because my shoulder was killing me. I took a pain pill, got dressed, and walked in to get a cup of coffee.
Paul and Mike were both hovering over the shortwave radio.
“What’s going on?”
Mike replied “Something is going on in Korea. The signal has been terrible, but it sounded like they said, North Korea was making a move on South Korea. Usually, we have a pretty good signal, but tonight we’re only picking up bits and pieces. We lost the signal just a few minutes ago and can’t get it back, and no other English-speaking station is talking about it.”
As they continued to try to pick the station back up, I grabbed a cup of coffee and a piece of buttered homemade bread. After a few more minutes, Paul proclaimed, “Yeah it’s gone for sure.”
I remarked, “It wouldn’t surprise me if they were making a move. You know, supposedly, Prescott last orders were that all troops deployed overseas were being recalled. If that happened, I’m really surprised the North didn’t take advantage of it before now.”
Mike replied, “Didn’t he say, that the European Union was going to replace our troops though?”
“Come to think about it, that’s what he said but who knows if he was really telling the truth.”
Paul added, “Something else, we heard some vehicle to the east of us last night and it sounded close. Maybe not on our road but close. By your description, it sounded like that flatbed truck you’ve been talking about. We went out to listen for it, but we couldn’t hear it any longer but then later, we heard it again and this time, it sounded like it was driving away.”
“Well, you can bet those punks are up to no good. Trust me, sooner than later, they’re going to be a problem to us.
Listen, I don’t want you telling anyone this today because I want today to be a positive, restful, fun day for everyone.”
“Speaking of the others, let me go wake up Mo. He’s on watch with you.” Mike said.
“Let him sleep, and you guys do the same. I got this.”
Mike raised an eyebrow as though he was saying, “That’s against the rules.”
Before he could say a word though, I said, “I know what you’re thinking but today is special.”
He nodded his head, and they both headed to their beds.
I then walked to the chest freezer and pulled out all the steaks we had left. 16 Kansas City Strips and four other type that we apparently forgot to mark. “If Jake’s family comes down and then adding the Jones’, this should be just enough.”
I laid the steaks in the sink, so they would thaw out quickly and then made myself a sandwich.
Aft
er a couple of more cups of coffee and listening to music on the shortwave, I turned off the master switch on the perimeter alarm, put my Glock 22 on and went outside.
There was no wind, and according to the outside temperature gauge, it was a very nice 70-degrees.
The sky was beautiful. It still amazed me how bright the stars stood out without any manmade lights and especially when there’s no moon out. I thanked God for his creation and told him that only man could screw things up the way we’ve done.
I thought about how God, had to have a hand in our life because it was too much of a coincidence that all the guys happened to be coming through when they did. I also thanked him for giving me the forethought to prepare for bad times.
I then thought about the people that were truly suffering again, and I prayed that we’d never take what we had for granted. I knew, we couldn’t even comprehend what most people were going through, that were still alive anyway. Just like the Jones’, who were slowly starving to death and only two houses down from us.
Then the idea of what people living in the big cities were going through, almost gave me the chills.
Just about that time, Lucky and Ornery came walking up to the fence so I walked over and pulled a couple of ears of corn off the corn stalks and walked back and gave it to them. “Don’t tell Kim I did this.”
Suddenly, a couple of shots came from the Pine City area. “We need to find out what is going on up there because almost every night, we hear shots. I’m sure whatever it is isn’t good.”
I grabbed my flashlight and went out to the garden and checked the watermelon. We had only planted “Sugar Baby’s” this year. They were small compared to the 50lb. Black Diamond that we usually plant but they were extra sweet and juicy. I checked the bottoms, and there were five that were ripe. I knew I couldn’t put them in the fridge as everyone would see them, so I washed them off and set them in the swimming pool.
I went back into the house, turned the perimeter alarm back on and grabbed another cup of coffee. I have to admit, being by myself, it was hard not to doze a little, but the rest of the night passed quickly.