“More people might not be a terrible idea,” John told the group. “It means more hands to fetch water, more recruits for security.”
“More mouths to feed,” Arnold chanted.
“There may be ways to produce food,” John said.
“Does it involve eating squirrels?” Arnold offered with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
John shrugged the comment off. “Not at all. Each and every one of us has a lawn that isn’t doing a whole lot. If we strip away the grass, we can use that soil to grow crops. Potatoes, carrots, maybe even corn.”
Arnold burst out laughing. “It’s not a bad idea, John, but who’s going to strip all that grass away?”
“And the water demands will go through the roof. My team is stretched just making sure we have clean drinking water.”
John sighed. “No one ever said a life without electricity was going to be easy. Sure, it’ll mean lots of work on everyone’s part, but how can we just turn them away like animals?”
“I agree with John,” Patty Long said. Her medical team had already set up a makeshift treatment center in her house. “I can’t imagine condemning people to die.”
“We aren’t condemning anyone,” Arnold shot back. “We aren’t the ones who shot up their street last night. The simple truth is, if we start taking in everyone who wants to get in now, where do we draw the line? You wanna talk about playing God, then all the more reason we can’t start picking people out of the crowd.”
As much as John hated to admit it, Arnold was making a valid point. If they knew these were the only refugees who’d come knocking, the decision might be a manageable one. But who knew what the future would bring?
“I say we take a vote,” Arnold said. “All in favor of turning the refugees away raise your hand.”
Arnold, Susan and Curtis raised their hands. John and Patty were the only ones who voted no. Al was the solitary vote left and there was a guilty look in his eye as his hand rose and then stopped in mid-air. A third vote for no meant there would be a tie and perhaps room for more discussion. These were people’s lives they were debating after all, not what color shirt to wear or whether Bud Light was really less great-tasting.
Finally Al’s hand went up and it was settled. Through every stage of his preps John had been comfortable with sacrificing the lives of others in order to save the ones he loved. But seeing it all play out for real, the pain and terror and misery, those decisions he’d thought would be simple were proving to be the most gut-wrenching of all.
Chapter 23
John was the one who would have to deliver the news. He returned to the western barricade near Pine Grove to find that a number of Willow Creek residents had gathered with horror on their faces. This was a scene one would expect to see on the nightly news in a Third World country. Not the USA.
His son Gregory was in the crowd, along with Diane. John felt ashamed of what he was about to do. There was a chair near the barricade the deputies sometimes used during their long watches and John stood on it. There must have been two hundred people pushing up against the barricade, begging to be let in. Recruits were all along the wall, weapons in hand. The one thing they didn’t have was a megaphone. It hadn’t been part of John’s preps since he’d never imagined needing one. He cupped his hands around his mouth so his voice would carry.
“I know all of you are frightened and desperate to get to safety. Our committee’s spent the last hour trying to figure out whether we would be able to take any of you in. As it is, our own food stocks are dangerously low. After a difficult vote we’ve decided we can’t take any refugees. I’m sorry.”
“What does that mean?” a woman with blood on her face demanded. “If we stay out here we may die.”
“You can go and fortify your homes against attack,” John offered. “Just like we did.”
They didn’t seem convinced. “They’re burning people’s houses, can’t you see that? We need weapons. There’s safety in numbers.”
“I’m sorry,” John said. “We took a vote and there’s nothing more I can do. I wish you all good luck.” The crowd was growing restless. “I need you all to move away from our barricade.”
People on the other side were crying, a few of the men cursing at John, telling him their families were going to die because of him. Tears rolled down Diane’s cheeks. The enormity of what was happening coupled with the strain on her husband’s face must have been too much.
Gregory climbed up on the chair to see, holding onto his dad’s waist.
“Son, you shouldn’t be up here,” John told him.
A boy from the crowd with a red ball cap waved at them and Gregory waved back.
“You know him?”
“Yeah, that’s Sean. He’s on my baseball team. Can’t we just let him and his family in?”
John shook his head. “And what about the rest of them, son? How can we justify allowing some while turning away others?”
“’Cause we know him,” Gregory said innocently.
“Don’t you think we know most of these people? I see them when I go to the grocery store. I talk to them at your baseball games. See them in the park on the weekends.”
Gregory grew quiet and gave a final wave again to his friend in the red cap.
Some of the crowd began moving away as John had instructed and already small groups were walking up Pine Grove, dragging their belongings behind them. But another group of around thirty people weren’t leaving. A handful even started pushing against the barricade.
John ordered them to stop, but they weren’t listening. If they managed to breach the wall then everyone who had walked away would turn back and flood inside. In other words, all hell would break loose and the lives of everyone would be in danger.
The mob was still shouting and pushing against the wall. John removed his S&W M&P40 Pro and fired three shots into the air. The crowd ducked and then scattered. Within minutes they were all gone. The ground beyond the wall looked like a battlefield, except instead of bodies it was cluttered with the discarded possessions of those who had fled. Maybe they would return to collect them after dark, but either way, someone would take what was there.
It had taken hundreds of years to make a country the greatest on earth and only seconds to turn it into a nation of scavengers.
•••
The last remnants of the mob hadn’t disappeared from view for more than ten minutes before shots rang out. Semi-automatic gunfire similar to what they’d heard the night before. The crowd had been heading toward the interstate and it was starting to sound to John like they’d been ambushed.
“We’ve got to go help them,” John said, eyeing the deputies around him. There were seven, surely enough to head out and fend off the attackers. “We can go through Tim Sheridan’s backyard.” Tim’s high wood fence had a gate they sometimes used to enter and exit the perimeter.
John waved them over.
“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Peter said. “I mean, what if you all get killed? We can’t afford to lose anyone.”
“We weren’t able to save these people by taking them in. The committee voted and I respect their decision, but I’m sure as hell not going to stand by and listen to them get massacred.”
Peter took his arm. “And who’ll protect your family and the community when you’re dead?”
Shots continued to echo down the street and John double-timed it toward Tim’s place, followed by seven deputies. Four of them had AR-15’s. Two had deer rifles and one had a Glock 19 from Frank’s collection. John had his own AR and the S&W he’d used to disperse the crowd.
Tim’s yard had a side gate facing Willow Creek. They entered through there and headed straight for the door facing Pine Grove. John opened the door slightly and didn’t see any immediate threats. They moved out onto the street, staying close to the houses for cover, maintaining at least twelve inches from the wall to avoid ricochets and rabbit rounds. Each man guarded a different sector to ensure all angles were covered. They
’d drilled several times moving through an exposed area. The firing had died down to little more than sporadic pops here and there.
Pine Grove made a gentle curve to the right as it led up toward the interstate. As John and his seven recruits rounded the turn they saw the bodies. Dozens of them lying on the ground. There was no sign of the gunmen who had done this, nor any of the survivors who’d made it through. Even from far away, one of the dead stood out to John. A kid around Gregory’s age, wearing a red baseball cap.
Chapter 24
The massacre on Pine Grove was still soundly on John’s mind the following day. Emma had joined the food management team and was busy removing the top layer of grass on Arnold Payne’s lawn. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to lend a hand and do what he could to stop seeing the dead bodies every time his eyes closed.
Initially, Arnold had spoken of planting tomatoes and vegetables before John offered a suggestion he thought made more sense. Vegetables or annuals would need to be replanted every year. A more sustainable solution was to concentrate on perennials, plants that would grow year after year without requiring new seeds. The trick was to mimic Mother Nature and plant in concentric circles. Typically, fruit trees provided cover for plants like rhubarb that sought shade. Outside of that shrubs like blueberry and blackberry could grow and beyond that herbs that would act as a screen against pesky insects that might otherwise attack the fruit trees. The added bonus was that the ground around herbs created nitrogen—a natural fertilizer—which the other plants could use to grow.
Other lawns would later be prepped for crops such as corn whenever they managed to find the seeds. John had a stockpile of seeds stored up at the cabin, but he wasn’t willing to risk the dangerous trek all the way there to retrieve them.
Food was Arnold’s area and John was careful not to overstep his bounds. By now everyone knew very well about the massacre. Tears were spilt, but no one who had voted against taking in the refugees ever admitted they’d sent those people to their deaths.
After his conversation with Arnold, John went back to helping Emma and the others who were prepping the soil for planting. She’d been quiet and withdrawn since Brandon disappeared. So much had changed for all of them in such a short amount of time that there was bound to be an adjustment period. Course, it was one thing to get yourself accustomed to living in a world that had no electricity, hot showers, microwaves, cell phones or iPods. It was another thing entirely getting used to being without someone you cared deeply for.
Emma turned to John. “How long will we have to do this?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied, using the tip of his spade to separate grass from soil. “I’m hoping the army or National Guard will roll in and let us know what happened, that they’re slowly restoring order.”
“Do you think the ones who killed those people are gonna come after us next?” she asked, still churning the ground at her feet. She didn’t want to look at him, maybe so he wouldn’t see the fear in her face.
“Not if I can help it, honey.” He’d come to perform a menial task to get his mind off of death and roving gangs and now he was right back where he started.
“Maybe we should just leave and head for the cabin,” she said.
John moved in close to her and whispered: “The cabin is a secret, honey. That isn’t something we talk about. We’ve already been over this many times. There isn’t any point making preps if everyone in the neighborhood knows about them.”
The guilty look that crept over her face made him wonder if she was about to burst into tears. John pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry, Emma. I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I don’t think anyone heard. Besides, they don’t know where the cabin is. I just don’t wanna do anything that might further jeopardize our safety.”
She nodded and wiped her tears away.
A single blast from the fog horn startled them. John’s eyes went immediately to the eastern barricade. Both deputies there had their rifles pointed at a man standing with his arms in the air in the middle of Pine Grove. Flapping from one of his raised hands was a white handkerchief.
Chapter 25
John turned. Frank was in the tree stand, lining up the Barrett’s crosshairs on the man beyond the barricade. John reached the Pine Grove defenses within thirty seconds. The sound of the horn had brought the entire street to a standstill. After the refugees who’d been slaughtered, the fear spreading through the neighborhood was almost electric.
Peter was at the barricade when John arrived, slightly winded, his heart pounding in his chest.
Is this another refugee? he wondered. Or someone far worse?
“Has he said anything?” John asked.
Peter shook his head. “Not yet. He’s just been standing in the middle of Pine Grove waving that hanky.”
“He’s waiting till we tell him it’s safe to approach.” John climbed up on the chair and took a good look at the man. He wore baggy jeans and a loose-fitting shirt. Every visible inch of his arms was covered in intricate tattoos. But these didn’t look like the type that cost hundreds of dollars. These ones looked smudged and poorly drawn. The sort of tattoos men got in prison. A quick look at his face confirmed John’s hunch. Long red hair tied into a pony tail. A similar-looking goatee also tied off with an elastic. But what sent shivers up John’s arms was the skull tattoo on half the man’s face. The other half was clean, but the impression it created was a disturbing one. This guy was unstable. Had a temper. Could snap at any time and commit unspeakable acts.
Maybe the slaughter you saw down the street?
The man’s head was tilted slightly to one side as he waved the white handkerchief. He looked like he was possessed, although maybe that was what he wanted John to think.
“What do we do?” Peter asked.
“We see what he wants,” John told him, waving the man forward and removing the S&W from his drop-leg holster. The pistol he kept out of view, but at the ready in the event trouble started. When a man with a skull tattooed on his face wanted to talk, it was best to have a gun handy.
The man sauntered forward with an arrogance that worried John. Only two types of people showed that sort of demeanor in a grid-down scenario: the insane and the bad guys.
The man came within ten feet of the barricade when John told him to stop. He tucked the hanky into his back pocket. His fingernails were long, and it made John think of acoustic guitar players.
“Pleasure meeting you fine folks,” he said and then glanced up at the sky. A swath of dark clouds were rolling in from the south. “Looks like rain’s coming.”
“What’s your business here?” John asked.
The man’s eyes settled on John. “Protection, friend. That’s my business. The name’s Cain. And you?”
“John.”
“Are you the leader here, John?”
“One of them.”
“Good, because I have an offer for you. One I’m sure you won’t wanna pass up.”
“Go on,” John said. “I’m listening.”
“The world’s become such a dangerous place since the pulse bomb hit.”
“Excuse me? What pulse bomb?”
Cain grinned as if the idea of everything going bust turned him on. “I call it a pulse bomb, but you’re right. There is another name for it. EMP, I believe. Those North Koreans finally did us a favor and fired a nuke into the atmosphere above Kansas City. Knocked out the whole damn grid, man. Melted every computer chip on the continent. Practically sent us back to the Stone Age.”
Whether Cain should be believed or not, this was precisely what John had suspected. During the Cold War, both sides had relied on the concept of mutually assured destruction (M.A.D.) to prevent nuclear war. In destroying us, you’d be guaranteeing your own demise. When the Cold War passed, the concept of M.A.D. took a slightly different form. Countries like China and the USA were now linked by strong economic chains. If the economy of one country plummeted, it would bring the others down with it. Mess with
us and you risked sinking your own ship in the process.
But now something rather ironic had occurred. The very chains that discouraged our largest enemies from attacking us only emboldened our smallest enemies. Detonating an EMP over America would at once sink the biggest economic power in the world and drag down everyone else with her. A perfect strategy that only a country like Iran or in this case North Korea could fully benefit from.
John swallowed hard. “How do you know this?”
“Some of the men in our… group… are former military. They tell me things may be down for months. Maybe longer. Which is why we’re here, to offer you and your people protection. In exchange for a small price, we can guarantee no one touches you. All we ask is a monthly donation of food and water. Say thirty percent of whatever you collect.”
“We don’t need protection,” John shot back.
“Everyone needs protection, friend.” Cain was grinning again, but only on half of his face.
“Besides,” John went on, “we don’t have enough food or water to spare. That’s why we were forced to turn away those refugees.”
“Yes, I saw you chase them off. Whatever became of them?” Cain asked.
“I’m sure you know perfectly well.”
“Believe me when I tell you thirty percent is a cheap price to pay for your safety.”
John gripped the pistol in his hand and Cain’s eyes narrowed as though he could see what was in John’s mind. “You shoot me and there’ll be a hundred men to take my place and none of them are nearly as kind or forgiving.”
“Is that all you wanted?” John asked coolly.
“I think it’s in your best interest to take our offer seriously. We’ll give you until first thing tomorrow. If you agree to our terms, hang a white bedsheet from this barricade. If we come around and there isn’t a white sheet, we’ll assume you’ve refused our generous offer.”
A black pickup drove into the intersection and Cain nodded, walked over to the truck, and got into the passenger seat before the truck drove away.
Last Stand: Surviving America's Collapse Page 10
