by Pete Thorsen
How to prepare was the big question. They lived in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh which had its good and bad points. Logically the best spot to be would be out in the country on a farm somewhere when things went bad. Well that’s fine but they still had to earn a living right now in case nothing happened for several more years.
It helped that all four of them Ron, Ann, Em, and Ike all were on the same page and agreed on what was coming and that preparation would be the key to surviving when it did go down. So they were doing what they could to prepare both physically and mentally.
The riots in other cities were getting worse. If things got too bad the plan was for the two families to ride it out together at Ann and Ron’s house. The only reason to pick their house was the location was not so close to downtown and they lived on the end of a cul-de-sac. At least the sign said it was a dead end street but from the back side of their place there was a dirt track that led to a vacant lot on another road. So they had the advantage of a dead end street with the option of an escape exit.
The two families were in contact at least once a day and everyone knew that total chaos was likely a month or less away. But there was still hope that they were now seeing the peak and soon things would settle back down to a more normal level. Ike and Emily knew that if things got real bad so they had to go to Ron and Ann’s house that it was very likely their house would be trashed or burnt down if left vacant.
But they all decided it was still the best option for survival of both families. Even though the only national news available now was the GBS channel they still had a local TV station that was working and they all tuned into it for the local situation. So far locally things were not too bad.
There were protests but so far only one had turned into a riot and the police had contained it fairly quickly. There was hope the real bad stuff might miss their area. It was bad in Philadelphia but that was far enough away from where they lived. They were still all working but none of them did anything away from home after dark. Maybe just maybe their area would be spared.
Chapter Thirteen
Just back from lunch Emily looked out the window of her office at the street down below. Right when she looked out she saw a kid run between two parked cars and into the street right in front of a delivery truck. The girl (at least Em now thought it was a girl of maybe 7 or 8 years) was struck by the truck and it looked like the front wheel ran right over the girl. The driver had stopped but not fast enough to keep from hitting the girl. Em looked away long enough to call 911 to the report the accident using her office phone.
“911 What’s your emergency?”
“I just saw a kid get hit by a delivery truck right outside my office window. Please send an ambulance right away the little kid is hurt.”
“We show the address as 2713 Second Avenue. Is that correct?”
“Yes. That is the correct address. Please send the ambulance right away.”
“Please stay on the line for one minute………………Are you still there?”
“Yes. Did you call for an ambulance?”
“Yes emergency services are on the way. Is the driver still there at the scene?”
“Yes he is now out of his truck and I think he and a passerby are attempting to help the child. It was not the driver’s fault. I just happened to be looking out my window and saw the whole thing. There was no way he could have stopped. The child ran right out between two parked cars. He had no chance what-so-ever to miss the girl. I’m pretty sure it’s a little girl. Please hurry.”
“Emergency services will be there soon.”
“Oh God. The man just laid his jacket over the little girl. I think she might be de…ad.”
“Please just sit down ma’am. I’m sure they are just trying to keep the injured child warm. Emergency services will be there soon. Are you going to be OK? Just step away from the window and sit down.”
“Yes I’m Ok. I was just shook up after what I saw. I’ll be Ok. I just hope they get here soon.”
“I’m sure they will be there in just a minute or two. I have many other calls coming in right now and I’ll have to let you go. It’s possible that police might contact you later to get a statement. Can they reach you at this number?”
“Yes they can call on this number. “
“Ok I will let you go now and in a minute emergency services will be on scene. I’m sorry but we are short handed here and I have to go. Goodbye.”
Emily was surprised that the 911 operator hung up the phone. She thought they always stayed on the line until officers were on the scene. Em continued to watch out the window. She kept glancing at the clock and looking out the window. Finally thirty five minutes after she called 911 a single police car arrived on the scene.
Emily was totally shocked at what happened next. The policeman went over to the child and she could see him check for a pulse. He then talked briefly with the driver of the truck and walked back to his patrol car where he removed a blanket from the trunk. He then gave the driver back his jacket from over the little girl. The policeman then wrapped the girl in the blanket and carried her over to his patrol car. The driver followed him and opened one of the rear doors so the policeman could lay the little girl on the back seat of the cruiser. Em saw the policeman talk very briefly with the truck driver then get back into the patrol car and drive away!
Emily couldn’t believe what she had just seen. There were no other police cars and no ambulance. And the cop had never even written anything down! He just took the girl and drove away with her. Granted Emily knew it was an accident and it was not the truck driver’s fault but the policeman did not know that! And why was there no ambulance? And when someone died in an accident of any kind there were always many police and they would shut the whole area down for several hours while they ‘investigated’ the scene. This episode was just bizarre.
Em just sat for awhile and tried to figure out what just happened. She was still very sad about the little girl but this mystery had somewhat pushed the sadness back some. It was Thursday so she called Ann because she knew that Ann had Thursdays off.
When she told Ann about the whole strange episode Ann was very quiet for a bit then said she was making a large batch of lasagna and why didn’t Em and Ike come over for supper tonight? Ann couldn’t reason out the strange events either and thought they should all get together to talk about it. Emily agreed and said they would be over later.
That evening after a great supper they all retired to the living room after Hal was put to bed to talk about what Emily had seen at work.
“So no other police cars ever showed up?”
“No. I have very little to do at work lately and I kept an eye out the window off and on all afternoon and no one else ever showed up and the police never called me back.”
“Remember all the talk the city was having about having to cut back because they are so short of money. They mentioned they might have to cut back on both police and fire departments’ manpower.”
“You know thinking about it I haven’t seen any police anywhere for a couple weeks or more.”
“Some time ago the ambulance service the city used had went bankrupt but I had just assumed another company was hired by the city to replace that company. Maybe no other company was ever hired and the police and fire departments have been transporting people.”
“They can’t do that. You have to transport people in an ambulance. The city would be sued after the first time if they did that.”
“Well there was certainly no ambulance today. And only one cop too. It would be pointless to sue any entity that was totally broke like our city.”
“Six months ago the police would have had that street shut down for hours while they investigated the accident. Plus there would have been several fire trucks on the scene also.”
“I don’t think we have any ambulance service any more and I think we basically have no police or fire department either. I could certainly understand the city not wanting this information to get ou
t.”
“I can hardly believe things have sunk this low. It was a slow slide but now it seems to have started to snowball down hill very fast.”
“When the crooks and arsonists discover that the city is wide open it is going to be total anarchy.”
“I wonder how many cities this is happening in. You can safely bet that our city is not the only one. I assume whole counties are facing the same things also.”
“I think this weekend I am going to make those bullet resistant boxes we talked about using the two by six frames and covered by half inch plywood and filled with dirt. When I get the lumber I’m going to get a roll of that welded steel wire fencing to cover the windows with also.”
“I had already bought the plywood and cut it to fit our windows so when things get bad we can close up our house and come over here to ride it out. I’ll help you build and fill those ‘bullet’ boxes. We can also cut that wire mesh to fit your windows and get what we need to attach it also. You don’t want to install the wire over the windows yet do you?”
“No, I don’t think we need to put the mesh up yet but we sure should get it ready. I’ll buy another gallon of paint to match the house and we can paint those bullet boxes so no one will hardly even notice them up against the house.”
“We ladies can help fill those boxes with dirt and help with the painting. You guys always get half the paint on yourselves whenever you try to paint anything.”
The plans for Saturday were finalized and there were no further developments on Friday. On Saturday afternoon while all four of them were working on the preps for Ron and Ann’s house Ann received a call from one of their neighbors that lived on the corner of the street that led to their cul-de-sac.
The lady was quite shook up even though nothing had happened at her house. Instead she had gotten a call from her daughter that lived a couple miles away about a break in they had the previous night.
It seemed that a couple of bad guys had maybe thought they were gone and had broken into their house while they were sleeping. They had woken up and the lady’s son-in-law had grabbed a pistol and confronted the two robbers. When the robbers had advanced on him he had shot one of them and the two had then run off with one helping the injured man. While the son-in-law was confronting the bad guys the wife was on the phone to 911.
It took the police almost two hours to show up and then it was only one car and he only stayed long enough to take their statements and give them an ‘incident’ number that they could use if their insurance company asked for it. Then the single policeman left and no one else ever showed up or called them.
After Ann told everyone about the call they all agreed it sure fit with what they had already thought. The people living around here were totally on their own when it came to their protection. All four agreed that from now on they would all carry guns all the time. They had no concern about being stopped by the police because basically there wasn’t anymore police. The call sure gave all of them added incentive to finish the prep projects on their homes. They knew the dark days had started and from now on it would only get worse and worse.
Chapter Fourteen
The four ex-military guys watched the news and were sickened by what was happening to their country. None of them were surprised but all had somehow hoped it wouldn’t come to this. They watched it get worse and worse everyday. As it got worse they all spent what they could and bought a huge amount of food and other consumables.
The storage shed was packed with stuff. Every vehicle was full of fuel and there was extra fuel stored. There were even extra solar panels stored in the shed in case they were needed. They all had plenty of ammunition stored up for every gun they owned. On the north side of the shed there were a large number of full twenty pound and hundred pound propane tanks stored in the shade waiting to be hooked up and used when needed. They were as ready as they could reasonably be.
Joe had called his two kids many times just to talk to them and see how they were doing. He warned them that at some point the government would shut down the internet and all phone communications. They both realized that their dad was likely correct about the loss of communications and each of them had stock piled food for their families.
Joe told them to hide some of the food and told them at some point the government would likely do house to house searches for illegal guns (which would be all guns of course). He told them to buy heavy duty slingshots and pellet guns because they might be still allowed.
Also an axe and hatchet would likely be allowed but things like a machete would very likely be confiscated. He told them to buy a couple of kiddie pools and if the power went out to fill the pools in their basements so they had extra water for flushing and washing that their neighbors could not see. They each had saved water in every bottle and jug they owned for drinking.
He told them at some point it was possible that the government may try to evacuate certain areas and move the people to relocation centers. At that point they would have to make their own decision about what to do, either run, fight, hide, or comply.
And all four would very likely be bad choices. Joe wished he could do more for his kids but they were both smart and had their heads on straight so he thought they would do as well or better than most folks. In turn his kids told him about the almost total lack of police in their area and about some of their preparations so far.
On the internet conspiracy theories abounded with many saying the riots were all orchestrated by the federal government to start a race war and when things got bad enough the citizens would ask and then beg for the federal government to declare martial law and use the military to bring order where there was now just chaos.
They said if the things were not real bad and the President declared martial law the people would revolt against the government so instead the feds would just bide their time until things got bad enough so the bulk of the population would ask for martial law. Granted many citizens would die during this time period of ‘waiting’ but that would also fit into the plan of the feds as the old and weak would die and they did not have much to offer the government anyway.
The old, the sick, and the weak would just be a drain on the nation’s resources anyway in the governments view. Many expected federal labor camps where people would be brought in to do intense manual labor at the government’s bidding.
Dissentients would be publicly executed as a lesson to all. Joe did not believe much of what he read but some had a ring of truth to it. He sure hoped all of it was not true. He did believe the riots were at least somewhat orchestrated by the federal government to start a race war as the whole ‘glitches’ in the EBT card thing stank of a government action.
About a quarter mile from their place there was a very small mine. Well it was not and never had been a real mine but in the past someone had dug into the hill side for about twenty or thirty feet before they gave up. The guys put some of their supplies in the old mine and then laid rocks up with a couple of bushes and weeds intermixed to cover the entrance.
When they were done it looked like it had been closed off for many years. The tailing pile was a scar that was hard to hide but they did what they could to hide that also. They doubted that it was needed but they had nothing better to do and it was something they all agreed on.
The news channels on TV started dropping off and soon there was only the government news channel called GBS for Government Broadcasting Service or as Gus said just Government BS. They pretty much stopped watching TV. There were only reruns of everything because no new shows of any kind were now being produced.
They listened to the local radio station where they got news of what was going on in their nearby areas but it had no national news except what was from the GBS station. Some times the radio station was on and sometimes it wasn’t.
The station explained that there were rolling black outs where they were and they speculated that there were likely rolling blackouts throughout the whole United States. The station explained that even
though they had a generator there was no fuel for it. Joe got this same information about rolling blackouts from the internet also.
Then one day everyone’s cell phones went dead. Joe checked and the internet was dead also. None of the guys expected either to work again until the government decided they could which would very likely be a long time from now. They all realized that things must be very bad for the government to shut down the phones and internet and by doing so it would end all commerce in the United States.
There could be no credit card or debit card or EBT card transactions; it would have to be cash only and no ATM machines would work. And the banks might or might not let you take out any money from your accounts because they would not be able to see if you had taken any money out at a different branch of the bank.
How would businesses pay for merchandise, cash to the trucker? How would the businesses order merchandise, by mail? The police would be about worthless with no way for anyone to call 911. The gas stations would not be able to call in to have more fuel delivered and would soon be out of fuel. The list of problems with no phone or internet would be staggering. The power grid in North America was all tied together and required constant monitoring and communication, take out the communication and the grid would very likely go down at least sections of it creating a huge list of other problems.
The local radio station was now their only connection to the outside world. Then one day the radio station said there was a convoy of military vehicles that came into town. It was about an hour later that the radio station went off the air and did not come back on again.
The guys loaded up and went about ten miles towards town to a spot they had picked out. There was a hillside there that loose rocks would sometimes roll down and out onto the small dirt road. They all climbed the hillside and they had a couple of long pry bars with them. They proceeded to loosen and start many very large rocks rolling down and after and hour or so they stopped and looking down thought they were done because the road was basically impassible now.
