by Nick Randall
“Really?” Butler raised his voice. “You think this whole thing will just die down?”
Butler stomped up to Dale, towering over him.
“Eventually, yes,” said Dale. “Put more guards on high alert and keep an eye out so we’ll be ready for them just in case they do come back, but don’t go off on a wild goose chase.”
“The only way to make sure they are no longer a threat to us is to eliminate them!” yelled Butler. “We need to take the initiative! We need to go out there and find them! We need to attack them before they attack us! We have the numbers and we have the firepower!”
“Let’s hold it to a vote!” someone in the crowd shouted out, and everyone else shouted in agreement.
“I’m in command here!” said Butler. “I have been from the beginning!”
“This is a decision the community as a whole needs to make, not you,” said Dale. “The majority has to agree.”
Based on the noise and indications from the crowd, Butler realized a majority of them would likely vote against him.
Just then, the front gates to the wall opened up and the Chevy Blazer and Ford Bronco drove in and stopped behind the crowd.
Gale stepped out along with the other men. Butler was relieved to see him.
“They got away,” said Gale. “Stopped their vehicles and opened fire on us. We’re lucky as many of us survived as we did.”
That’s when everyone saw them lift the dead body of Mike out of the front seat of the Blazer, two gaping bullet holes in his chest.
One of the women in the crowd screamed in horror.
“MIKE!!! NO!!!”
She pushed her way through the crowd to Mike’s dead body, sobbing over him. Rose ran over to comfort her.
“You see that?!” said Butler. “You see what they did?! These people are murderers! You all want to be safe? You will NEVER be safe with these people out there! NEVER!”
Rose stood up from comforting the sobbing woman and faced the crowd.
“He’s right,” she said. “We’re not safe inside these walls or outside with them out there. We have to find them, and we have to kill them before they kill more of us. Normally I wouldn’t want to resort to violence, but now I see we have no other choice. It’s either us or them.”
Dale said nothing and looked down at the ground.
Butler could sense the public opinion was now swinging in his favor with Mike’s death and Rose’s speech. Now he could call for a vote.
“You all wanted to vote on this?” asked Butler. “Let’s do it. All in favor of staying here and doing nothing about these murdering scum, raise your hands high.”
Dale raised his hand, and after a few moments, around twenty percent of the crowd raised their hands with him.
“Now all in favor of bringing these scum to justice, raise your hands,” said Butler.
Butler, George, Gale, Rose, the sobbing woman, and the rest of the crowd raised their hands quickly.
Butler nodded in affirmation.
“Then it’s decided,” he announced. “Today, we’ll hold a funeral for Gerald and Mike and then we’ll begin the process of hunting down the people who killed them. We’ll send scouts to gather intelligence and track them down. Once we find out where they are and their number, we will devise a coordinated attack plan that will guarantee we won’t lose. We’ll even gather more people from the surrounding area to our side if we can. Every man and woman between the ages of sixteen and sixty will contribute. We’ll fortify our defenses and have more guards on high alert so no one will ever breach our walls again. We are a community and we’re in this together. I promise you all, we will not stop until the gang who killed Gerald and Mike are dead and each of their corpses are hanging from a tree. Every single one of them.”
Chapter Four
The Lake Cabin
Everyone got very little sleep over the next twenty four hours. His military skills and experience kicking into gear, Robert had at least two people watching from the windows of the cabin at all times and two more people out on patrol at all times to scout for any sign of hostile forces.
Per his suggestion as well, everyone was now packing either a semi-automatic pistol or a revolver on their hip, and there were rifles and shotguns placed at strategic locations in the cabin as well for defense.
Randall had retrieved gasoline from the shed and refueled both of the Hi-Lux’s in the event that they would need to bug out quickly. He was applying all of the knowledge he had gained from all the survival books and blog posts he had written, and had both trucks packed with a bug out bag and a can of extra fuel.
The lake cabin area consisted of three primary living spaces: the cabin itself, an old RV, and a shed that had gas cans, gardening and lawn equipment, and ATVs and motorcycles stored in it. Of course, each of the ATVs and motorcycles had been rendered useless because of the EMP.
Randall had searched inside the shed for provisions, but beyond the gas cans and some gardening seeds and soil he didn’t find anything of real use to the group.
With Robert, Marcus, and Claire out on patrol, Randall took the opportunity to go talk to Barry, who was alone in the kitchen cutting up and repackaging vegetables.
“We need to talk about provisions,” Randall said. “I didn’t see any food in the shed.”
Barry laid his knife down on the counter. He didn’t say anything. Randall continued:
“I know we’re running low. How much longer is our current food supply going to last us?”
“Maybe a week,” Barry said. “But we have bags of gardening seeds in the shed.”
“I saw that, but unless you have a greenhouse ready to go those seeds will be no good until next spring,” said Randall. “And I don’t see a greenhouse.”
Since it was early fall, Randall was right they wouldn’t be able to grow plants and crops of their own until spring of next year.
“We need more food,” continued Randall. “And we’re going to need warm clothing too for when winter sets in. More ammunition wouldn’t hurt either. We used up a good chunk of it in the rescue mission.”
“We’ll talk about this later tonight when everyone gets back,” Barry said. “It’s a discussion we all need to have together. We’ll all decide as a family what to do then.”
* * *
That night, everyone was seated around the dinner table, including Thomas. His hands and face bandaged, he nonetheless had gathered the strength to join the rest of the family and refuel himself with food and water.
Jane was within earshot of the table, but was seated next to the window so she could watch outside for any sign of the Compound’s forces. Yet again, she was the designated watchman of the family and didn’t have a say in it.
After the group had finished eating, Randall broke the silence. No one had spoken around the dinner table until then.
“Our provisions won’t last us much longer,” he announced. “We need more food and warm clothing for the winter. And more medicine, ammunition, and gasoline wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”
“He’s right,” said Barry. “We discussed this earlier. We have enough food to last us about a week, and that’s stretching it.”
“So what do we do?” asked Christine.
“Back in my condo in Coeur d’Alene, I have a six month’s supply of food and a lot of ammunition,” said Randall. “Granted, it was a six months supply for only one person, so it will last a lot shorter than that for all of us. But it would be unwise to let it all go to waste.”
“Coeur d’Alene is more than a two hours drive away,” said Angela. “It took you and Thomas weeks to walk here from there.”
“We have the trucks now,” said Randall. “So the journey will be much faster. We can be in and out in no time.”
“Are you crazy?” Bruce spoke up. “You were talking about it yourself earlier. Anyone sees us with working vehicles, they’ll kill us for them.”
“I know, I know,” said Randall. “But we can stick to dirt roads as much as
possible from here to Coeur d’Alene, and we can hide the vehicles on the outside of the city and walk in from there to retrieve what we need.”
“That’s just crazy, there’s so much that can go wrong,” Susan said, always on the more practical and realistic side of things.
“Yes, it’s a risk,” said Randall. “But for our survival, it’s one we need to take. Unless anybody else has better ideas.”
“There’s more than just your condo in Coeur d’Alene,” pointed out Marcus. “There’s our house and Thomas’ place. We have stuff there too we can grab.”
“Sounds like a goldmine,” Robert mentioned.
“If it wasn’t looted already,” Bruce countered.
“The only way of knowing is if we actually go there,” Randall said.
“Surely there are things we can get here,” said Susan hopefully though pragmatically. “There are people in our vicinity we can trade with. Maybe there are a few farmers markets open too even.”
“All the stores around this area will definitely have been looted and stripped clean,” Randall said. “Even in Coeur d’Alene, I was seeing it happen to businesses there. And maybe our houses have been broken into and looted too, but there’s no way of knowing unless we actually check.”
“I don’t know, Rand,” said Bruce. “Coeur d’Alene is a ways away. Even if we get what we need there, who knows who we might encounter on our way there or the way back. Don’t count on it being an uneventful joyride.”
“Look,” said Randall. “We need food, that’s obvious. We’re going to need more blankets and warm clothes soon too. And as long as we’re in this for the long haul, we need more guns, ammo, fuel, and medicine with it. We just took a major risk to save Thomas, didn’t we? We need to take this risk for more provisions too. I’ve written on this subject extensively. The easiest way to get what we need is in our homes in Coeur d’Alene, otherwise, we’ll have to barter with others, and that’s not something I want to be reduced to doing yet for a variety of reasons.”
“So what do you propose?” asked Marcus.
“Three or four of us can go to Coeur d’Alene in one of the Hi-Lux’s,” said Randall. “The rest of you stay here with the other Hi-Lux to hold down the fort and keep an eye out for the Compound’s men. If you’re forced to evacuate, you’ll have the second truck to make a quick escape.”
“Splitting up is the last thing we need to do,” said Susan.
“I agree,” Claire spoke quietly but resolutely.
“We’ll be gone for twenty four hours at the most,” said Randall, sensing he was losing the debate. “That’s time we can afford to risk.”
“The Compound could be planning an assault on this cabin at this very moment!” Bruce raised his voice. “We need to stick together. Listen to your mother, Randall, I definitely don’t like this idea of splitting up.”
“Neither do I,” said Randall. “But like I said, we need those provisions. Otherwise, we’ll all starve to death.”
“In Randall’s defense, I don’t think we were followed back here, so if the Compound ever finds it us it will be a long time from now,” Robert spoke up again, taking a sip of water. “And I agree with him, if we can get those supplies from his home, Thomas’ home, and Uncle Marcus’ home then that could be a lifesaver. It’s a mission that will be well worth the effort.”
Silence fell over the table again.
“So who goes?” asked Marcus.
“Robert, Jane, and I,” said Randall. “We can pile into the front row of the truck, use the bed to haul the supplies. I know exactly where to go and Robert’s military experience could help us out if we get into a pickle.”
“You know all the dirt roads from here to Coeur d’Alene?” asked Marcus.
“A lot of them, and if there’s a map we could use that would be helpful too,” said Randall. “Once we get into Coeur d’Alene itself, I have all the best routes memorized.”
“No matter what, you park the truck outside of town,” said Bruce. “If anyone sees that truck with you in it, either you’re dead or they are.”
“And make sure it’s well hidden,” said Christine. “Anybody steals it, you’ll be cut off from us for weeks and you may not even make it back.”
“I still don’t like this,” said Susan. “There’s just so much that can go wrong.”
“I don’t think any of us like this idea, mom,” admitted Randall. “But if we want to make it past the winter, we have to do this. Supply runs are a part of survival from now on.”
The only one at the table who hadn’t spoken up was Thomas. Though his face was still heavily swollen from the beating, he made the effort to speak.
“You guys saved my life,” he said.
Though his voice was weak, his words penetrated the heart and soul of everyone in the room. They all looked at him.
Thomas took a few breaths before continuing on:
“But what good is saving my life if we don’t even have the food and supplies to last another week? What good was it to save my life if we’re all gonna die anyway? If we need those food and supplies to make it, then we’ve got to go get them.”
“Then it’s settled,” announced Barry after another silence.
As the patriarch of the family, when Barry said something was settled, it was. The debate was now over.
“Tomorrow, Robert, Jane, and Randall will make a run for Coeur d’Alene,” Barry continued. “Food, warm clothes, gas, medicine, and more guns and ammunition from Randall’s condo, Marcus and Susan’s place, and Thomas’ place. Nowhere else. Twenty four hours there and back.”
“And maybe some information on what’s going on,” said Angela. “Information on what’s happening in the outside world, what’s caused the grid down, and what the government is doing to fix it, if anything.”
Everyone murmured in agreement on that one, even Bruce and Susan who had been extremely wary of the plan from the beginning.
“I agree, information could be more valuable than the supplies itself,” Claire said.
“We’ve been sitting around here long enough,” Robert stood up promptly. “Who has the night shift for watch and patrol tonight?”
“Me,” said Randall.
“Not anymore,” said Robert. “If you’re coming on the supply run with Jane and I tomorrow morning to Coeur d’Alene, you’re gonna need all the sleep tonight you can get.”
Chapter Five
The Compound
Gerald and Mike were buried in a grove outside the walls of the Compound. The lone pastor of the Compound’s residents, David Kimble, presided over the funeral.
Butler stood in attendance, flanked by George and Gale, and fought back tears as he watched Gerald’s casket being lowered into the earth. It was the first time he had to fight back tears in a long time. He couldn’t remember the last time he had wept, but it was a long, long time ago.
After saying another thoughtful prayer, Kimble asked Butler if he would like to say any words over his son before the caskets would be formally buried.
Butler stepped over to the edge of the hole with casket that contained his son’s body at the bottom. He said a few words under his breath that no one else in attendance could make out, not even George, Gale, or Kimble could make out.
After saying goodbye to his son, Butler stepped back, and the gravediggers began to throw dirt over the two caskets with shovels.
Butler didn’t bother to stay. He had work to do and a plan to create. After the first few shovels of dirt had been thrown over the caskets, he turned and walked back through the front gate, and his two other sons followed him.
* * *
Butler stood in his office, hands on a table upon which a large map of the surrounding area was spread out.
Also in the room were Gale, George, and his two lieutenants, Patrick Jones and Nathan Mitchum.
“Our new and biggest priority is to find out where this Parker group is at,” said Butler. “Gale, you know for sure they were taking this road?”
/> Butler pointed to a road on the map that was headed east.
“Yes,” said Gale. “But just because they took that road doesn’t mean it leads to their hideout. They were just trying to escape and for all we knew they took a detour somewhere else.”
