Black Tide Rising - eARC

by John Ringo

  “Stalking me, you mean.”

  “Legally it has not reached that level. They are free to observe, as you are free to buy.”

  “And everything I have is legal. If the cops show up with a warrant, they’ll find exactly that.”

  Merritt said, “I’m quite sure, sir. But if the police do show up, they’ll confiscate everything on at least a temporary basis, and then there will be articles in the news. You know how they paint gun owners.

  He followed with, “Sir, I’m on your side. I’ve got a safe full of ARs, an early Russian SKS, an FAL—”

  “Metric or Inch?”

  “Metric. Imbel. Imported back before you had to chop barrels and sub parts.”

  “Nice. Do you know the Empire ones can take metric mags as well as their own?”

  Merritt nodded. “I’d heard that.”

  Grandpa twisted his mouth and shook his head. “So you’re saying some asshole is pitching a fit about me being a collector, and if I don’t want my collection ruined, I need to divest.”

  “There’s more nuance than that, but that is the rough summary, yes, sir.”

  “Goddamit.”

  Grandpa sat staring from man to man for about three minutes. Andy said nothing.

  “And what will convince the concerned idiots I’m not some sort of deranged Nazi or whatever?”

  “I don’t think there’s any specific number on it. But some of the racks of MREs and such, and ammo, and the scarier guns. One AR is not an issue. Five different ones, I can make the case that they’re for different target shooting, or collectible. Once you get to a dozen, people start to freak out.”

  It was another three minutes before Grandpa said, “I’ll think about it.”

  * * *

  Andy felt like crap. Grandpa had taught him to shoot, and he’d enjoyed it. He just never got into it the way the old man did, almost an obsession. If Grandpa had fifty cars, it would have been the same, or if he’d been binge buying collectibles on eBay. Even if he wanted to be safe against disaster, four or five guns was enough. He had taken that one trip to Africa, and a couple of the hunting rifles were really gorgeous.

  But adding in all that food…it was hoarding, and it had to stop.

  Doctor Gleeson was soothing, and feigned interest in the details, or maybe he was interested, but he kept the discussion moving about liquid assets that could be accessed in case of illness. That tack seemed to help.

  While everyone was busy in the living room, he took a surreptitious look in the garage, at the rafters above it. MREs, canned goods, toilet paper, plywood, pallets of something. Down in what had been bedrooms were a couple of racks of rifles, three gun vaults, another pallet with boxes stacked on it, and some footlockers. The closets had various camouflage clothing and a lot of things like parkas. They were mostly different, but there were dozens of them.

  Maybe they should try to coax the old man into a retirement home. Otherwise, he could open his own surplus store.

  The other bedroom contained more varieties of knives, machetes, axes and clubs than he’d ever known existed. Some were on racks and stands for display, which was either awesome or creepy, depending on the presentation.

  At least the front room was a perfectly normal office, with computer, filing cabinet and bookshelves, until he realized the books were all about gunsmithing, emergency medicine, and survival, with military manuals and a bunch of woodworking and craft books. At least the latter was normal.

  He knew that a lot of people raised in the Depression hoarded stuff out of habit. Grandpa had been born after WWII, though, and had a middle class upbringing, then had worked as an engineer after Vietnam.

  It could be something war related, or maybe he was just old and obsessive.

  Andy wanted to help the man live a healthy, normal old age.

  * * *

  Reggie Thompson looked around his living room and sighed.

  He’d reached a deal with these pansies that involved selling his collection slowly. As long as his numbers were going down, the limpwristed little shits felt better.

  He really didn’t care how they felt, but the world being the world, they’d make life hell on him. If he had a choice, he’d just move fifty miles out and tell them to go piss up a rope. He needed to be near the hospital, though, in case of another problem with his lungs. No good to live in the boonies and die from something treatable. He also suspected as soon as he was in hospital, stuff would start disappearing. Even if he had a spreadsheet for reference, he’d be told he was crazy and steered toward a home.

  This was how his grandkids repaid him for all those hikes, fishing weekends and range trips.

  He thought about calling John and his wife but his son was out in Oregon, and they’d had some words over that idiotic election. That was partly Reggie’s fault. He was a blunt, unrelenting son of a bitch, and he knew it.

  He looked around. It really was a collection, not just prep. He’d had one of every pattern of AR, from the original Armalite AR15, to the first USAF issue, first Army issue Model 602, that he’d carried in ’Nam in ’65. Then he had the A1 he didn’t care much for, the A2 that was better, A3 and A4, several M4gery variants including the Air Force’s. He’d paid to have the proper markings on them, even if they were semi-only civilian guns.

  One of the buyers had about gone apeshit at the “BURST” markings. The next had taken a quick look at the internals, saw they were all legal, and grinned. He’d paid a decent price.

  So now he had five. The old school, the functional civilian modern one, and three carbines.

  Those didn’t hurt so much. They could be bought anywhere. He’d been willing to take a few hundred dollar loss overall. He’d probably have to. Which one did he really need? One of the carbines would have to do.

  But they wanted to thin out his Mausers and Lee Enfields. Those things were appreciating in value, fast, and were both pension and his grandkids’ inheritance, though he got the idea that little bastard Sam was the whiner about it, or at least one of the whiners.

  Those would have to wait a while, as would the H&Ks. He didn’t care for them much, but their fan club sure did. Okay, so those before the classics.

  He really hadn’t made a big deal about them, but he did sometimes load a dozen gun cases into the van to go to the range. This area was increasingly young liberals moving into older homes for the atmosphere. What were they called? Hipsters, that was it. He thought about the irony that these days there was no one under thirty you could trust.

  He had a month’s worth of food now, the rest donated to charity, sold cheap to the Scouts for camping, and most of the MREs sold on Craigslist.

  He’d sold the suppressors, but still had the M60. That was worth a damned fortune, and more all the time unless they reopened the Registry. With .308 running what it did, the Pig cost two hundred dollars a minute to shoot, but that really wasn’t a bad price for an orgasm.

  Fuckers.

  That would be near the end. He could milk out this sale for a year or more. Hell, he might be dead by then.

  When the last of the AR rack sold on Gunbroker, he had some AKs to start listing. And then all the mags.

  He’d still have the tents and winter gear.

  He was almost certain Sammy had been the problem. The boy had never really got into guns. He’d been a video gamer from the 80s on. Not shooting games, either. Then there was his wife, who’d constantly talked about, “Endangering the children.”

  “I’d hoped to leave some of the antiques to you and the great grandkids,” he hinted.

  Sammy seemed to be choosing words very carefully when he said, “That’s a kind gesture, but we wouldn’t really know what to do with them.”

  Andy didn’t have kids, and his interest in guns stopped with a Remington 870 he’d last used, as far as Reggie knew, a decade before.

  Dammit, there was culture here, and craftsmanship, and collectible value, and they just didn’t care. They were the same kind of people as Maxwell’s kids
, who had no interest in his classic ’64 1/2 Mustang and ’69 Cuda. He’d watched the man sell them at auction. He got good money, but they were gone and he’d never see them again. The man had slumped as he handed over the keys.

  This was his estate, his life, his heritage, and they just didn’t care.

  That was the unkindest thing he could imagine.

  What always pissed him off in these arguments, first online, now here, was that the hunting rifles in that case packed two to three times the power of the so-called “assault rifles.” Hell, if they knew what the Merkel .375 double rifle put out, they’d need Depends. You could use that on charging rhino. 5.56mm wouldn’t even puncture the skin on one.

  But the lawyer and the counselor had been correct. If he tried to fight this, the little bastards would just dial up the press, the soccer mommies, and the panty-wetters until someone came along and took everything for “examination” and tossed him into a don’t-care facility.

  His plans didn’t allow for that. They did, very reluctantly, allow for this.

  But he still hated the ungrateful, nosy little bastards.

  * * *

  Andy sat with Sam in Chili’s, drinking margaritas and waiting for fajitas.

  “That spreadsheet was impressive,” he said.

  “It was creepy,” Sam replied.

  “Yeah, but it listed everything.”

  “That’s what’s creepy about it,” Sam said as he licked salt and took a drink. “Guns, magazines, cases, slings, cleaning tools, every goddam screw that might go on a rifle. And hell, he had more stuff than the local police.”

  Sam probably didn’t know what the police actually had, but there had been a lot.

  “Well, I got him into a good mutual fund. It’s near a hundred thousand now.”

  “It’s obscene. A hundred thousand dollars on guns. How rich would he be if he’d put it into something useful?”

  “It wasn’t all guns.”

  “Right. I forgot. Enough food for a year, like he’s a Mormon or something. Even they don’t do that anymore.”

  “Well, he’s smart enough. I think it’s partly our fault.”

  “Huh? How?”

  “Dad lives in Oregon now. We should have been visiting a lot more often, especially after Grams died. He needs company. I doubt there’s much of a dating scene for seventy-five year old widowers.”

  Sam frowned. “Oh, there probably is, but I doubt he cares. He did love her a lot, and he does miss her I’m sure. But you’re probably right. We should visit at least once a month, maybe even swap off.”

  “And take the kids.”

  Sam said, “Monica isn’t comfortable around him. You know how she voted. Grandpa is loud about it, even online. She feels he’s angry enough to be scary.”

  “I hate being critical of your wife, Sam, but she needs to remember she joined this family. We visit hers, she needs to return it.”

  It’s not that easy.”

  It probably wasn’t. Sam had never been the strong one. He read a lot of books, sat in the corner, and even now, he sat in an office writing corporate reports. Andy actually traveled and looked at the sites he was insuring, ladders, hoists, the works.

  He hated to think his little brother was a wuss, but in many ways, he was.

  * * *

  The screen showed a dozen people, naked and vacant-eyed, suddenly turning angry and charging toward the camera. Then there were rubber bullets, then tasers, and cops wrestling with angry, snarling, biting people.

  Reggie wasn’t sure what to make of the video. It could be drugs, like Krokodil or bath salts, but it was a lot of people. It had to be some sort of disease. So he’d need to start quarantine protocols. He’d also need to make sure he had plenty of diesel for the generator.

  He pinged his friend Kevin in State Dept, for any info he might have, and Ted, who was a neuroscientist. Both had private emails that didn’t go through official servers.

  Ted didn’t reply. Kevin’s response was very short. “It’s real. Global. Duck and cover.”

  He stared at the screen for a few moments, then composed a new message.

  “My place is available. Ping if you’re inbound.” He addressed it to six people and pressed send.

  He felt bad that none of them were family.

  He slammed the locks into the doorframes, and he was glad the kids had never seen those. Steel doors with internal crossbars were proof against a lot of things, and they were kevlar lined with light ceramic backing.

  The windows, though, on the ground floor especially, were going to be tough. He had the sandbags. He needed to fill them. There were a lot of them, and the fill pile was at the bottom of the yard, nicknamed “goat mountain.”

  The video from the cities got worse over the summer. There were rampaging mobs of naked, insane people, and someone used the “Z” word. Zombies. Whatever it was was communicable and nasty. He was going to have to secure things as best he could.

  The food, more than the guns, would be useful now. He had a well out back, and there was a seep from the cornfield that he could filter. It might contain a few fertilizers he couldn’t neutralize, but that was less important than not going near anyone communicable.

  He took to ordering all his food online, and having it delivered to the garage. It was all packaged, and he ran them under the UV light, spritzed them with bleach, then rinsed them off with the hose. Then he put on his paint respirator and used tongs and gloves to shelf stuff. After several days, he dated each item with a Sharpie, then placed them into regular storage. They’d still need rinsed again, though. He’d need rinsed, actually, and it was hot enough a shower was a pleasure.

  At his computer, he ordered a lot more bleach, soap and respirator filters.

  He also realized that he might have to triage his own grandkids, if there was a risk they were contaminated.

  As he was thinking that, he heard a car out front. He stretched to look out the window. It was Andy, pulling into the driveway, still doing about thirty. His wife was with him.

  He sprinted and strained up the stairs to the door, before they were out of the car.

  Andy called, “Grandpa! I called in sick at work. Do you have room?”

  “For what?”

  “Have you seen the news?”

  Yup. That was it. “Yes. Why did you come here?”

  Andy spread his hands and said, “Because you have all that food and gear.”

  Oh, he was going to make them sweat.

  “I see. So now that you actually need help, you want me to take care of you. After you already told me I didn’t know what I was doing and made me get rid of most of it.”

  Andy looked ashamed and embarrassed. “Dammit, I’m sorry, Grandpa. We couldn’t know.”

  “And what are you bringing?”

  “Uh?”

  “What do you have that’s useful? Skills? Food? Ammo?”

  “Uh…”

  “Did you even bring your shotgun?”

  “No.”

  Reggie gave the young man The Look. It was the look all old timers kept on hand for these occasions. Tommy Lee Jones did it perfectly. Reggie had practiced while watching him.

  “Grandpa…please.”

  He tilted his head. “Go out back. I’ll send out a tent, and it even has a heater. Park it down the street and walk back slowly so you don’t scare people.”

  “Tent?”

  “Quarantine, for a week. Then you can come in.”

  Andy gaped. “Are you serious?”

  Reggie was serious, and had to make them believe it. Besides, he owed payback on Andy helping Sammy cut back his preps.

  With The Look, he said, “Don’t make me shoot you. Park, then ’round back.”

  The man did so.

  So, was Sammy going to come running up with his brats? Reggie had been gentle with John, John had been downright wimpy with Andy and Sammy. And once it got to Sammy’s boys…

  Andy parked, but he walked back awful briskly. It was obviou
s he was tense. Reggie noticed he didn’t bring anything from the car. Not even sunglasses.

  Meanwhile he called his neighbor Wendell.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, old man, seen the news?”

  “Only a bit. Some drug gang or something?”

  “That’s what I thought, but it’s worse. Quarantine is in effect.”

  “Crap. You’re serious?”

  “Yeah, my friends in State and elsewhere say it’s depopulating chunks of Africa and Asia already.”

  “I ain’t got more than a couple of weeks of groceries.”

  “I still have you covered.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Any time, brother. But when did you last go out?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “So you stay there five days, and don’t answer the door or get close to anyone. Then you come here on Saturday.”

  “Will do.”

  Wendell had far less preps, but the man had skills. He’d volunteered for a second tour before Reggie was drafted, and had real decorations from it. He still knew how to shoot, too.

  Andy squealed and sprinted as he reached the driveway.

  “I saw one!” he said.

  Reggie looked up the street. Yeah, that was a naked old man, soggy and flabby, who seemed aware enough to track Andy and follow him.

  Reggie reached inside the door, grabbed the rifle he had there, and took two shots. The second one dropped the man.

  “It’s started,” he said.

  There were eyes at curtains and windows around the neighborhood, and he saw Davis across the street in his front porch, holding a rifle. Davis had been Navy during the Cold War, but he knew how to shoot.

  Andy set up the tent with difficulty, but managed. They had an airbed, blankets, an electric heater for night, extension cord for laptop, and his wireless. He put food outside the French window every meal, and they took it. He handed out a box of bleach wipes, and they dug a slit behind the hedges. Reggie wished he’d stocked lime. If they were contaminated…

  * * *

  Sammy arrived the next day, with Monica and kids. He pulled into the driveway and parked, fussed around, then got out.

  “Move it down the street,” Reggie said.