by Tj Reeder
It is our belief that the entire world will collapse as far as civilization goes, but here in this spot those who remain will keep the light of hope burning and we have the means to not only survive but to flourish and bring aid to those close to us and in time we will move out across the country side bringing that light of hope to all who wish to see it, and we will kill all those who wish to turn it off.
What you see happening right now will only get worse, in time it will spread to every corner of the country and globe, I know how you feel about your family’s, but if they can’t contribute to the general good then we just have no room for them.
This place did not just happen over night nor did it just spring into being with help from the Government, it happened because Sam and I and a few others had a dream and we put our hearts and souls and fortunes into it. We will not allow the light of freedom and liberty and civilization die.
Now it’s up to you, come to me one at a time with a written list of who you want to bring in and what they can bring to improve the place and we will discuss it, but I mean only your immediate family, mother, father, sisters and brothers that’s it unless you have an uncle or aunt who has a really needed skill.
With that he walked away leaving them all talking at once, it was going to be interesting to see how it went. In the mean time we had other things to do, the mall was closed to only locals, and that included the fuel pumps, pre placed logs were pulled from behind the mall and placed around the front , each connected to the next by heavy chains, each log was big, too big for a vehicle to cross over and then rebar spikes were hammered into the logs pointing outward, then a man with a power grinder put sharp points on them. It would slow down most anything.
The call had gone out to all the store employees and they were told to head for the ranch and the mall, we had a lot of work to do and damn little time to do it, after they started rolling in and parking in back they were put to work.
All the windows and doors were boarded over with one inch plywood with narrow slits in it, and then sand bags were placed against the walls inside up to chest high, all were pre-filled and on pallets ready to be brought out just for this purpose.
In 4 hours time the mall was as secure as we could make it and that was pretty good, any attackers had no place to shelter except behind their own vehicles, and then would be flanked from the ends by people who were going to be using armored trucks to do so.
As soon as the Mall secured John and Sally told the employees that it was time to head home and load up everything they wanted to keep and bring it to the ranch, the dorms were now open and they could start moving in.
After they left John and Bob settled down out front to answer questions from the locals who were starting to arrive in panic for last minute items they needed, when told the Mall was closed there was some grumbling but nobody was rowdy or loud, most understood and moved on to other places, some seemed to want to hang around but were asked to move on.
Soon Sheriffs cars were racing past with lights on headed to something, the scanners proved to be invaluable, it seemed that people were pouring out of the city’s and the Sheriff had decided to stop all traffic into the county except for residents or family members who were identified by residents and who were willing to take them in, road blocks were set up at places where traffic could be detoured around the county, nobody was coming in.
The folks in the county now understood why they had a Sheriff’s reserve dept with over 100 trained officers, and no body was complaining…yet.
The news was all bad and getting worse if that were possible, the rioting in the major Texas city’s was as bad or worse then anyplace else, all were burning, looting was rampant, old scores were being settled between the inner city gangs, all the gangs were based on race, and soon the gang wars spilled over into the public and from there turned into all out race wars, people were fighting anybody not of their skin color, those who tried to stop it were killed, once started it wasn’t going to stop until only one side was left, and as they fought the city’s burned down around them, many waited too long to run and were trapped, still fighting as they were swept up in flames.
The news stations still on the air were getting fewer by the hour, the last we heard was that there had been an all out attack on the White House and the other seats of power in Washington DC, from out of no where terrorist armed with heavy weapons attacked, firing RPG rockets at the buildings as fast as they could reload, in less then 5 minutes the entire Government complex was burning, the Secret Service fought hard but were never really prepared to take on this kind of attack.
A Marine one chopper was seen landing and people who looked like the president and his staff ran to it and as soon as they were in it lifted off, and
As it banked away it was hit by a ground to air missile, it exploded on contact and fell to the ground burning, no survivors, everybody watching this was stunned, how could it happen?
The seat of power of the once greatest country in the world lay in burning ruin, the leadership dead or scattered to the winds of fate.
Not all bad in and of it’s self, they had brought us to this point with their selfish ways, their willingness to be bought and their unwillingness to follow the Constitution as written by men far smarter and honorable then themselves, They had sold the nation out and had now paid the price or would in time.
Nobody could pin down the exact time that the United States died, it just burned away almost over night, once started it didn’t go on for weeks or months, it was mostly no more then a week, most people didn’t understand that it happened but it did.
Shortly after the collapse started and all eyes were turned inward nobody noticed the old freighters that were sailing 200 miles off both coasts, and very few were aware that these ships carried the newest versions of the older Scud missiles, in all 4 were fired about 200 miles above the US, all four carried nuke war heads that exploded causing an EMP.
Most of the country was blacked out; here and there some things still worked but for the most part the people still surviving were doing so with no power and almost nothing in the way of transportation.
All the people on the ranch could do was settle in and wait for the outcome; it would be weeks before anybody really knew anything. Jim Daniels came by in one of the vehicles that the Jonas brothers had worked on, they were working on all the Sheriff’s Dept. cars and trucks, just having the parts and the ability made it an easier job then it seemed, the way all the buildings on the ranch had been built made them EMP proof.
It had been policy that all ranch vehicles when not in use would be parked in the protected garages, thank god for pre planning and the money to make it happen.
As it stood now our county was locked down to outside access, getting in was possible but not easy, all bridges into the county were closed, all roads with no bridges had been closed at the county line with manned barricades of deputies and trusted volunteers, Jim had been very busy and had got more done then we had thought, things in this county were going almost too well.
People that were allowed into the county told horror stories almost beyond belief , just the collapse of civilization was bad enough but it was even worse then we had thought, huge gangs were forming behind the worst kind of leaders, nobody was safe, rape and murder were the rule of the day, the outlaws had taken over the food centers and after only a week were taking females in trade for food and booze and drugs, slavery was one of the new forms of currency, in one week we had ceased to be a nation of law, it was now the law of the gun and the strongest.
I believe we were all feeling guilty sitting in our area, almost untouched by the collapse of civilization yet we knew that when the last hand was played then and only then would we be able to begin the job of rebuilding.
As for the ranch it was buzzing with activity, all the gardens were producing, the green houses were now being worked mostly as herb gardens, both food and medicinal, Ellen and her clinic crew were learning all they could about natural he
aling and were still treating people that could get to the clinic, nobody was turned away and nobody was charged for the treatment.
When word came about somebody needing help and couldn’t make it to the clinic Ellen and a nurse would travel in one of the armored trucks with a driver and two security people and a chase car just in case, we could not afford to lose Ellen or any of the medical staff.
A month after the collapse Jody and I along with John and Bob took several security people and armored trucks and made a patrol of the county along with Jim and 10 of his men, we spent 3 days covering every drivable inch of the county, talking to the people we handed out heirloom seeds and pamphlets made up covering as much survival stuff as we felt the people could absorb, the prep work done in the months before the fall was now paying off, people were digging in and doing all they could to stay alive and just knowing there was a force standing between them and the death outside their small world gave them hope.
It’s been strange here on the Ranch and even in this county, it’s like nothing happened, there is no hunger as everybody has gardens and with the growing season here in this area there really is almost no need for the green houses we built, although in what passes for winter here it is nice having fresh veggies we need with plenty to share with the elderly and shut ins who can’t do for themselves. Most folks seem to take it all in stride, yes most everybody lost family and friends but right here it was so much better.
Oh we do have problems with the gangs, and after training our own version of a home guard and an armed reaction force we have sent out patrols into the areas outside the county, after a few brushes with our patrols the bad guys wisely moved on.
Surprisingly until you get close to the major city areas it seems very peaceful, the rural folks here in Texas just hunkered down and let the worst of it blow over, we found some places burned out with the remains of both good and bad. Most of these rural folks not only have weapons they know how to use them.
Lots of family groups pulled together and formed communes taking in those they could and were doing very well and for the most part seemed happy with the new way of life.
Ellen and her clinic crew helped the doctors in the county to form small clinics like hers and set up classes to teach as many paramedics as possible, some of the Doctors had a bit of a problem with the word “free” care until they realized that life outside our county was not good and that to remain here had a price.
The Sheriffs dept. had the foresight to lock down all the service stations and grocery stores when the trouble started, large generators were found to keep the freezers working , that food along with everything else in those stores was helping greatly in keeping the people fed and clothed.
The restaurants, school cafeterias became mess halls for most people’s meals.
Many people have trouble understanding that things have changed so much in the last months, but any who don’t like the rules here are free to leave, the only rule is they are not allowed to take children under the age of consent with them, the county leaders said if they wanted to go look for a better place fine, but they were not going to endanger children, 98 % of those who did leave were back at the road blocks within a day, three at the most with a new understanding of life, the ones who survived to come back that is.
But now after 6 months we are really ready to venture forth to see what’s left out there, with the ranch working so well and everybody knowing their job Jody and I decided we would take a small heavily armed convoy and head west.
We were both informed by the ladies that they were going along and that was it. Ellen got her crew lined out and had the Jonas brother’s armor up 2 ambulances and 2 SUVs for the medical unit plus a truck loaded down with medical supplies that we had plenty of plus plenty of herbs and pamphlets on what to use for what.
Our communication equipment was all set up by the geek squads that had formed within the county to handle the stuff that most of us know nothing about, and it was they themselves who came up with their name.
We had been monitoring the air waves and there was a lot of chatter as people got back on the air, information was being passed from all over and as bad as it was it wasn’t near as bad as it could have been, America like the rest of the world had changed over night but good folks were out there working hard to stay alive and the bad folks were working just as hard to take from the weak.
Our group would be made up of the people from the ranch security force, all trained by John and Bob and almost all of them had also worked as Special Deputies for the Sheriffs Dept. all were as close to combat trained as they could be without ever having been in the military.
We were heavy on fire power and all the trucks had been plated to at least stop the type of rounds that most people would have, anything bigger then 30-06 and we would have problems, the Jonas brothers had built weapons mounts for all the trucks so each had an M 60 mounted in it with 360 degree fire capability
We also had three heavy duty 2 ½ ton trucks more heavily armored with 3 60’s mounted along with gunners and loaders there would be one in front, in back and one in the middle they would be able to put out a great deal of heat on anybody stupid enough to take us on.
When we were at last ready to roll we had the lead big truck, followed by a one ton quad cab with a team of four shooters followed by the command truck with Jody, myself and Jade and Ellen who refused to ride in the armored ambulance. The rest of the convoy fitted in where they felt best.
At dawn 7 months from the day the end came we rolled out, the entire ranch turned out to see us off, several of the younger men from the clan had joined the security force as scouts who could move through the forest like shadows, they had moved out several hours ahead of the main convoy.
They could check out an area, if needed they would pull over and some would move into the forest on both sides of the road, shortly we would know who or what was waiting for us.
As a special “weapon” each vehicle had with it a man from the village who was the comm. man, so now all radio transmissions were in a language very few could understand, this brain storm we owed to my lovely wife who brought it up just days before we rolled. She said she read about the Navaho talkers of WW2 fame…go figger…
One of the things we had stocked up on was Camo BDU’s, and Jody being an old Marine grunt had a thing for the old Nam era Tiger Striped BDU’s, so here we were a large (by today’s standard) convoy of armored trucks filled with people armed with Russian weapons, dressed in Viet Nam Camos and using small brown men as talkers who looked like they belonged in a movie. I figured we were going to scare the hell out of anybody who met up with us.
The first few hours we made pretty good time as the roads weren’t blocked with cars that stopped when the EMP hit, as we got further out we saw more and more signs of fighting with shot up cars, some burned some not, some with remains in them, the wild hogs and other things had gotten to them where they could.
We decided that we would see more signs of life if we got away from the major highways and used the secondary road systems.
We also decided to avoid the bigger city’s and towns when possible, we knew we could learn more from the people living out in the country side then folks who hid out in the wreckage of the city’s.
We were 75 miles out when we made our first contact, the scout car pulled over and radioed that they were checking out a spot that didn’t look right, with in 30 minutes we heard rifle fire coming from the front, every thing in us wanted to race forward but we didn’t, we would wait for the scouts to make contact, we could tell from the sounds of the fire fight that our guys were winning the fire power battle, soon the all clear came and we rolled ahead, what we found was a choke point made to look like an accident involving several cars, most people would slow down, look it over, get out to see how to get thru it and “ BAM!” ambush, and it had worked from the looks of several shallow graves in the woods, the scouts had flanked the ambushers and after seeing what they had in mind for us they si
mply cut them down, there was 5 man and 4 women laying dead where they fell, all looked well fed and were all wearing many rings and watch’s, sure signs of murderers and robbers, well no more, we collected everything usable from their bodies and camp and clearing the road we moved on.
I half expected to hear some remarks from the medical staff about the shoot first ask questions later rule the scouts had used but after finding children’s stuff in the camp with no kids it was clear these people were all bad.
The day ended at a roadside park with a pitcher pump and good water so we set up camp , early dinner and with guards out we all hit the tents early, morning came after a quiet night, but as we were eating breakfast one of the guards radioed that some people were headed our way on foot, when they got close to the outer ring of guards they stopped and called out asking if they could come in to the camp, it was 2 men and a woman , all were dirty and ragged and half starved, after searching them and finding no weapons they were brought in to the edge of the camp and told to sit on the ground .
