by Pete Thorsen
Soon the day came when the large asteroid would be passing past the earth and no one was really giving it much thought at all anymore. By this time all astronomers had agreed that it would hit nothing and just fly past us. Many astronomers did say it would be passing quite close to the earth and some were kind of excited to be able to witness this rare event. And it did just fly past and not hit anything but then the weird stuff started happening.
We had to piece it together some because communications of all kinds were some of the first things to disappear after the close ‘fly by’. Apparently the asteroid was made out of iron or some kind of metal (this was just theory or speculation of course) and when it flew so close past the earth it messed up the earth’s magnetic field or something.
And this triggered a spontaneous ‘geomagnetic reversal’ or what is sometimes called a ‘Polar Shift’. This very rapid reversal was something that previously was not thought possible or at least thought to be very highly unlikely to ever occur even in geologic time (which I think means a very long time).
But it did something and ruined pretty much everything electronic. All radios, telephones (both land line and cellular), TV, and satellite communications went down. Then the power grid went down. Compasses and GPS units were all now worthless. All navigation on land, air, and sea had to be done by sight only. Ocean vessels could only go by the location of the sun and stars to know what direction they were going.
Planes could see a long distance and find their way over land from looking at landmarks but they had to land without any aids just by sight and there were no radio calls to warn them of other planes in the area and no radar of course which also used radio signals. Most cars still ran just fine but with the electric grid down the gas stations could not pump any fuel.
I admit some of this is just speculation on my part because with no communications of any kind now it is hard to get any real facts. Some I know to be true because everything did not just happen in an instant and we got some small amount of information before all the communications went down but like any news it did have to be sorted out some.
We do know for a fact the situation is worldwide. We can safely surmise that the problems were a direct result of the close passage of the large asteroid because they both happened at the same time. I still don’t trust any of my compasses. If the poles reversed then the compasses should point south instead of north but for awhile they pointed east so maybe the poles are in flux right now or something. Best to rely on the sun and I know the North Star is still in the north where it has always been.
Well now I can see what Val was talking about when she said she was preparing for a devastation event. This certainly amounted to about total devastation in this country and likely everywhere in the whole world at least in the more advanced nations.
I guess it could be worse because most vehicles still work and all the houses and buildings and roads and such are all still intact. Our solar power still works and even our two laptop computers work. There is no internet anymore of course. I don’t know if the satellites are all wrecked or if no signals can pass back and forth between the ground and the satellites but it amounts to the same thing right now anyway.
We were in town working when it all started happening so we likely know as much as anyone else about what happened. We stayed in town that day until after dark trying to gather any news we could. But when it got dark it was really dark with all the power out. We had both vehicles in town with us of course because we had both drove to our respective jobs that morning. When it got dark we came home and have not been anywhere since and that was a week ago.
We try the radio and the internet everyday but they do not work. Today I remembered the cheap two-way radios we had bought to add to our preps and we tried them but they do not work at all. We had checked them after we bought them and they were good to about a half mile or so but now they do not work at all even in the same room.
Our solar power works fine but I don’t know if the solar controllers are OK or not. They do not seem to be over charging the batteries so maybe they are fine. I do have a spare for the house and for the well set-up also but I will not change them out if I don’t have to.
We live on a forest road and it had an old gate at the beginning where it turned off a county road that apparently at one time the forest service used to block our road. A couple days ago I swung the gate shut and locked it with a heavy padlock I had bought earlier just for that purpose if something bad did ever happen. It was not very secure but way better than nothing.
I also cut some brush and brushed out our tracks before and after the gate. Maybe that would do nothing to make us more secure but it cost nothing and took only a few minutes. Our house was the only one on this dead end forest road. The road was mostly used by hunters during hunting seasons and occasionally by sightseers and people that had a tree cutting permit or the occasional lost soul.
About a half mile from our house I noticed a large tree that was close enough to the little road so I could cut it down and it would drop over the road to block it. Something I would not do yet but something to keep in mind as a possibility for the future.
We settled into somewhat of a routine at home in the days that followed. We could only guess what things were like in the towns and cities. With no electric power there would be no water for anyone, in cities or rural areas. And with no power to run sewage pumps the sewers would back up into homes and apartments. Besides being very smelly it would be a serious health risk for everyone also.
We are sure the grocery stores were emptied out in the first couple days. I’m sure by now most stores have been looted; no matter what kind of stores they are. With no phones and no radios and with the very limited supply of fuel the police won’t be able to protect people or businesses.
I think and Val agrees that most of the nation is likely to be lawless by now. At first I think stupid and confused people would riot and that would lead to looting and fires. Any fires that got started would just have to burn themselves out because there would be no water to fight them with.
After the week that has gone by since the power went off I would think there are people that are starting to die of thirst or if not soon will be. I am sure many are now dying very violent deaths at the hands of those that were previously held in check by the nation’s laws and the very real threat of capture and imprisonment.
With the police now about helpless with no communications those bad people will be doing what they please to anyone that is not armed well enough to protect themselves and their possessions. It must be a dark and ugly world out there by now, especially in urban areas.
But it was not so dark at our house. We had plenty of power thanks to the solar array we had installed. We have oil lamps and such for back up but do not use them yet. Even though we are literally in the middle of no where we pull the heavy drapes at night to stop our bright lights from being seen from a distance. We know those lights would be a magnet for anyone who sees them.
We are both armed with pistols all day everyday now. I had made simple gun racks for near the doors of the house and loaded rifles and shotguns are stored there at all times. We have installed heavy wire fencing with a fairly tight mesh over all the windows.
This of course would not stop bullets but would stop any rocks and such that were thrown at the windows. The wire mesh would also prevent the windows from being broken by any birds that flew against them. This we had planned and had purchased the wire mesh some time ago without knowing if things would ever cause us to use it.
We have normal locks on the doors but I had also put brackets on the inside so we could bar the doors to make them much more secure when we were inside. Another part of our security is the hikes (or patrols) that I take daily.
Sometimes Val will accompany me. I always take slightly different routes so I will make no trails that could be easily followed or traps set up on. Fall is coming and I will soon try to shoot a deer. This should not be much of a feat be
cause I see deer and elk just about every single day.
The fruit trees that I had planted when I first bought the place are starting to produce a little fruit. Not very much so far and not enough to can or anything but they do provide us with some fresh fruit to eat.
The closest house to ours is a little over two miles away and the last time I checked there was no one living there. I hiked past the other day and saw several apple trees there that had plenty of apples on so the next day Val came with me and we picked apples until we both had a heavy load in our backpacks. The next day I went back and picked all that we hadn’t the day before.
Val either canned or dried almost all of these apples for later use but left a few for us to eat now. It was quite a treat to find the apple trees and great that we could put them to use instead of just letting them spoil. Though the deer and maybe the elk had eaten many of the apples before we got any.
We hadn’t planted a garden this year because we had both been working in the spring. But we had plenty of food stored up to last us quite a long time. Plus I would shoot a deer soon and I could shoot an elk if we wanted because there were plenty around. We have seeds so we could and will have a large garden next spring. I don’t know how long the food we have stored now would last us but I think easily a year or two especially if we supplement it with some wild game. Though of course we have no idea how long this event will last. Maybe in a month things will be back online again but obviously we can not depend on that being the case.
Val admitted she had little experience with cooking but we had bought several cook books and I had cooked a fair amount living alone or with Bill for a few years so we work together in the kitchen. We have tried cooking many different things and some did not turn out very well but our failures are getting less and less as we get more practice.
We are both anxious to try cooking the venison that we will soon have because neither of us has ever had venison before though I had elk and that was quite tasty. We are well set up here and in great shape for whatever else might happen which has made us a little sad for the millions of fellow Americans that are facing deadly hardships right now and most face even worse times to come.
I wonder about my friend Bill down in Phoenix and how he is doing. The situation there must be absolutely awful by now. He knows he is always welcome here and it would be fine if he showed up because we have plenty of room and would enjoy his company.
Chapter Six
Bill
Sid has me jumpy now with all his talk of the economy collapsing. I have to admit every day it looks more and more like he is going to be right. I am sitting pretty well myself with this house actually paid for and at Sid’s urging I have some supplies on hand also.
He sure went to a lot of expense at his place getting ready for something that likely will never happen. I told him that if the world ever did come crashing down I could easily live off the land. I enjoy camping and hunting anyway so I will be just fine. He must have forgotten that I was a Marine and saw enough action to know what to do.
He said if anything ever did happen I should just come up and live with him. I would have likely considered staying at his house but he’s married now and things are different. Val is a nice woman and has made it plain that any friend of Sid’s is a friend of hers but still I would feel like a third wheel living with them. But I know their offer to stay is sincere and it is great to have their house as a backup plan.
Man gas is getting so high. Even though I live right here in Phoenix where I work it still costs me a bundle every week for gas. And beggars are everywhere along with a constant barrage of break-ins and thefts. I am so glad this house had bars on the windows when I bought it. And here I was planning to take them off to make it sell better.
Two weeks ago I even put those steel security doors on and I am so glad I did because the next door neighbor’s house was broken into yesterday when he was at work. Right in the middle of the day! The bad guys obviously saw that this house would be a tougher nut to crack so they went next door where it was easier pickings instead.
Arizona has always had a lot of people that had guns but now almost everyone is carrying one openly. One day while in line at the store I asked the guy ahead of me if he knew that it was legal to carry concealed besides carrying open like him. He said ‘I know that but I want them to see that I am not a walking ATM machine’. I had to admit that he had a point.
I stopped at two gun shops but they were both almost completely empty of guns. One shop did have a Ruger SP101 in .357 that they wanted almost twice as much for as they list for and I wanted an automatic but I bought it anyway. They had no ammunition on the shelf for it but had saved three boxes under the counter in case someone did buy the gun. They sure didn’t throw the ammo in on the deal either but I bought all three boxes. Two boxes of thirty eight specials and one box of three fifty seven magnum.
I bought a holster to fit the revolver at the same shop. I took the revolver with today to work and after work I drove a couple miles from the job site to some vacant land and shot the gun some. It is quite accurate at least, so even though I spent way more than its worth I did get a good gun.
I am so glad I bought the revolver when I did. I was at work of course when the asteroid ruined everything. No one knew at first what had happened but then we heard about the asteroid causing all the problems. But our cars all worked so we just went home and thought by the next morning everything would be fine. Boy, were we wrong. In the morning there was no electric power and no phone service at all.
The first day I just sat at home waiting for the power to come back on but of course it never did. The next day with no power and no TV, no radio, no internet, and no phone service I was getting very concerned plus I started to hear gunshots in the distance. On the third day, today I decided to leave town and I went to try to buy some more food before I left.
I wore my new revolver on my hip because I had heard shooting off and on the last two nights and some already today. The amount of shooting had increased dramatically each day so far. I went to the closest grocery store and they were letting people in only a few at a time so I had to wait my turn to get in. They had big hand made signs up outside that said ‘cash only’ buy I expected that and had some cash (again thanks to Sid for urging me to keep a bunch of cash on hand all the time).
Inside a clerk went with me and he had a flashlight to light our way. He told me the prices were all twice what was marked and he carried a magic marker that he used to write the new double price on each item I put in the cart. I filled two carts very full and we made our way up to the new checkout.
They had made a makeshift checkout and it was now much closer to the door to take advantage of the sunlight coming in through the doors and windows. They added it up on a calculator and bagged it as they went. I paid with my cash and headed out the door. Outside there were many people waiting and I went directly to my truck to put the groceries inside.
I was worried and kept a close eye out for trouble and it did not take long and I saw two guys heading directly for me. I stopped loading and drew my revolver and yelled for them to stop when they were about thirty or forty feet away. One guy I now could see had a piece of pipe and the other had a big knife. They did not even slow down when I yelled for them to stop.
I really don’t entirely know what happened next. I think it was just like when I was deployed in the war and it was totally automatic. My gun was already in my hand and I raised it and shot the closest guy and swung and shot the next guy before the first had a chance to even start to fall down.
I then swung back on the first but he was definitely out of the fight. Turning back to the second guy he was on the ground and howling with blood pouring out between his fingers that he had on his chest. I put the gun back in my holster and finished loading the groceries in my truck and then just drove home.
When I got home I put all the new groceries in the house and then just sat and tried to think. I had a whole lot of food now with
my new purchases and all that I had stockpiled before this happened. But it is way too dangerous here in town even with the bars on all my windows. In the morning I’m loading up and pulling out. I have a small covered trailer and between that and my pickup I will be able to take everything I have of any value except for my furniture which all will be left in the house.
In the morning I walked over and got the neighbor to stand watch while I loaded my stuff. I knew it would go a lot faster if I could just load without constantly watching for bad guys. I gave him twenty bucks and it was money well spent.
Once he yelled and I grabbed one of my rifles that I had handy and there were several guys headed our way. I yelled for them to turn around or they would be shot. I had my rifle to my shoulder and my finger on the trigger. One more step I thought to myself but they must have seen that I meant business and turned around and were soon out of sight.
“Would you have really shot them?”
“One more step and I would have shot them all. It’s a different world now and if you want to live you better be ready to defend yourself.”
“I don’t know if I could do that.”
“Then you will very likely die. And you don’t even want to think about what will happen to your wife after you are dead. You are welcome to use my house. It is much more secure than your house. That will help you a little but if you can not defend yourself and your wife you will both end up dead. Here is one of my keys. If I were you I would move in here right away or move in with someone else so there are more of you for defense.”
“Thank you but you can keep the key though I do appreciate the offer of your house. I think we are leaving for my wife’s brother’s house today. He’s more like you and I think maybe that is what we need right now the way things are.”
