Dystopia: The Long Road

by DJ Cooper

  It puzzled him how it could not have gained such a status and sometimes annoyed him that there were observed holidays for stupid things yet not to remember the fallen on this day. ‘Maybe it is just that I don’t want to go to work that it annoys me.’ Laughing to himself, he fixed his lunch and headed out the door.

  The morning was the same stuff he had been doing for the past three months.

  He spoke hushed to his friend Lefty saying, “Hell man, you would think working on at army depot today we might get to at least see something interesting.”

  Lefty looked at him, saying, “You know, I was just thinking that. It seems too quiet today, usually we see uniformed guys doing this and that. Today, though, there is nothing, almost eerie.”

  John nodded and went back to his work thinking, ‘it is too quiet, and eerie was a good word for this day.’ He shrugged to himself and tried to look busy enough to get him through till lunch.

  During lunch there was chat about the lack of activity on this date and some speculation, but John just had an uneasy feeling about it all. Looking into his lunch, he could not help but wonder ‘What was I thinking this morning?’ Inside the cooler was a decent turkey sandwich, but he had also tossed in some random junk food. There was some candy, a Swiss Roll, a baggie full of chips, and a yogurt drink.

  Lefty looked at his lunch and asked, “What happened to your lunch? Did a nine year old pack it for you?”

  John just shrugged and said, “I was a little distracted this morning. I usually put in some leftovers, not sure what I was thinking.”

  They both laughed and Lefty stole his yogurt drink, while John headed for the soda machine for something else to drink. The rest of the day was more of the same, John was glad when it was time to go home. He hoped Amy was cooking something good for dinner after the less than appetizing lunch he had. He drove home in his usual mood, with NPR on the radio. However, today he was barely listening to it, his thoughts were elsewhere.

  Each day passed much the same and John was finally feeling better about the eerie quiet of the eleventh. Driving to work a few days later he chided himself thinking, ‘I always get these feelings of dread, I should not let them get me all nerved up.’ Amy phoned bringing him out of his self-reprisals.

  Answering the phone he said, “Hi babe, what’s up?”

  She responded, “Hi yourself, you forgot I had a hair appointment today and needed the truck.”

  Sighing, he said, “Be ready in five, I’ll be right back.”

  He had forgotten and now this was just one more thing to curse himself over. He would be glad when this week was over.

  Chapter 3

  “Trouble in the wind”

  “Has a remarkable opportunity arisen for President Putin to Bust the U.S. Petro Dollar and collapse the Criminal Banking System behind it?”

  -Preston James, Ph.D.

  September 14th

  John woke before the sun came up; he liked having some quiet time in the mornings. He grabbed himself a cup of coffee and sat down to watch some news, this was unlike him, but lately he had been watching in the mornings. For reasons he himself didn’t know, he felt better after the eleventh was passed, but still had this feeling he couldn’t shake.

  He always said, “The news is full of nothing but fluff and circus acts.”

  He figured he would watch the circus for a bit before starting the day. He had the day off and planned to make the most of it.

  He was half watching the news and half thinking about what he wanted to do for the day. He knew Amy had some plans but couldn’t remember what, he also knew he would catch hell for not remembering. As he sipped on his second cup a line scrolled across the bottom that made him take notice. “Financial markets are experiencing drop today in the wake of the OPEC announcement that the standard for oil sales will no longer be in U.S. currency, all oil will now be transferred in Gold.” He knew what this meant, although most Americans have no clue what the petrodollar is, he knew exactly what this meant…. Hyperinflation was on the horizon.

  This changed everything he’d planned to do today, now not only was he feeling like something wasn’t right, he was sure something very bad was on the horizon. His mind began to race, going through all the possibilities of how things could go down. He found himself pacing through the house without direction.

  Most people would not think anything of this, but he had done a lot of research on the petrodollar and without the oil to back the U.S. dollar, it would crash, becoming nearly worthless. Since going off the gold standard the only thing propping up the dollar had been OPEC and its agreement to trade all oil in U.S. currency.

  John knew deep down, that coming soon would be something that was nothing short of disastrous.

  He scolded himself as he did often, “I’m not ready for this!”

  Checking things off in his mind, he began his mental list of things he wanted to address. “Cache” he thought, he had wanted to get that done this summer and had been putting it off. The thought struck him like a truck when it crossed his mind, ‘Matt’s parents, I have to go over and see them. I need to see what their situation is.’

  John and Matt had been friends since middle school and he was close to his parents. Often just strolling in around lunch time and helping himself to snacks while chatting with them. He decided he would go over this afternoon, coincidentally right around lunch time. He giggled to himself thinking how he would be going to check on them yet helping himself to lunch.

  Heading to the barn he got out the fifty-five gallon drums, he had collected earlier in the summer that he planned to use for his cache. Behind the barn was the chicken pen, he planned to bury them in the far corner of it. With the chickens constantly scratching the ground there was no grass anymore, he figured no one would be able to tell something was buried there.

  In one of the three drums, he planned to put fuel, he had wanted a diesel truck, but Amy insisted she wanted him to get “normal” gas. She said that she hated the smell of the diesel and said she would not ride in it if he did. Thinking about it, he felt it was a good choice as he would now be able to fuel all the vehicles without the need of different drums. He buried all three of the drums without backfilling until he was done adding the contents. The fuel drum he filled full which took a few trips to different gas stations with his five gas cans that each held 5 gallons.

  He then began to decide what he should place in the others. He knew that a time might come when his guns could be confiscated so that was one thing he was going to consider for the non-food drum.

  The other was a food cache; he lined the drum with a large Mylar bag and placed 2 cases of freeze dried meals inside with coffee, sugar, powdered milk and chocolate. He also added canned meats of various kinds and fifteen pounds of beans. There was still room in the drum so he added salt and other spices and ten pounds of rice, topping it off with some flour and powdered eggs and a few jars of canned butter and peanut butter. Not wanting to waste any space he poured a large bag of various packets of things he had collected from all his takeout food to fill the voids. He sealed the bag and closed the lid taking care to make certain it was closed properly.

  The final drum was non-food items he placed another Mylar bag inside, but only to make sure there would be no damage in case of leakage.

  He decided on fishing equipment, a net and some snares. He added zip lock bags full of matches and lighters along with a whole box of heavy duty trash can liners.

  He opted for two of his Glock 19’s both chambered in 9mm and five hundred rounds for them. He also had a 12ga that he had picked up at the flea market and two hundred-fifty rounds of bird shot and another hundred of double ought buck. Finally, John added his old .22, and five hundred rounds of ammo for it. The gun had been a gift from his grandfather when he was nine years old, and held a special place in his heart.

  Standing back looking at it, he knew he could get still more into this one, so he decided on a hatchet and camp saw. Not knowing what else he could add
he began to walk about just looking at different things when it hit him, “Water” he said out loud.

  Searching through his closet, he found what he was looking for, he had purchased some time back a Katadyn portable water filter, and it even had two replacement filters for it. As he was headed back to the drums, he remembered his other Med kit and decided to add it as well. Feeling fairly content with his caches he added random smaller items. These consisted of some silver coins, five bottles of varied liquor and a few flashlights along with spare batteries.

  Once filled and all were sealed he completely covered the drums and spread the rest of the leftover dirt around the chicken pen. He rolled it with a large, heavy roller he used to mash out the mole trails in the yard; I worked well to pack it down. Afterwards he spread some chicken scratch around to get the chickens moving about so it would look like it usually did

  Heading to the house to clean up, he asked Amy if she wanted to go over to Mark and Renee’s with him.

  She said, “Babe, you know I always go out with the girls on Fridays.”

  John replied, “I know that there sassy pants, I just didn’t want you to think you were not invited.”

  He winked at her as he did his best strut into the house. Watching his strut, she laughed, and shouting out after him, “Oh yeah, shake that sexy ass.”

  He laughed as he headed for the shower, he loved her playful banter. Driving the five miles over to Mark and Renee’s he considered what he might say. They had always thought he was just a little bit “off” where his thoughts on things like this were concerned.

  He decided he would just try and play it off light, as though it might cause some disruptions and make sure they go do some food shopping. While there he would look around and quietly assess their situation and get Mark to go out and fill the tanks on the vehicles.

  John walking into the house went right over and grabbing a soda from the fridge, sat down in his usual seat. Renee, true to form, started making sandwiches for the guy’s lunch. John knew Mark always came home for lunch around eleven o’clock and would time it just right.

  Laughing Renee said, “We were expecting you today, being your day off and all.”

  Mark and John both laughed, while John winked at her and gave her a kiss on the cheek saying, “You know me well, mom.”

  John talked with them a while about things and felt confident they would take his advice, at least for now. He and Mark went and filled the tanks in both vehicles and picked up a few items from the hardware store. This gave John a chance to talk to Mark about things.

  He explained, saying, “Mark, I know you and Renee think I am crazy sometimes, but something isn’t right about all of this. I know you know what OPEC is but if the world goes off the Petro-dollar we are in big trouble. It wouldn’t hurt anything to do your grocery shopping tonight instead of waiting till Sunday would it?”

  Mark agreed to head out to the grocery store this evening just to appease him.

  While they were chatting John got a text from Matt that said, “There is going to be an announcement on TV, you need to check it out.”

  John texted back telling him they would watch. John and Mark headed into the house to put on the afternoon news.

  John, waiting to see something other than a circus show said, “You know Mark; the news of OPEC this morning was pretty big. This is all going to cause our money to crash.”

  Mark just nodded with his usual dismissal of things John would say. John knew he was being dismissed on the subject and left it alone for the moment. Renee had brought them both a cup of coffee while they watched the news.

  Mark looked at John and said, “The weather sure has been cold for this early in the season, now they are calling for snow already.”

  Mark nodded just waiting for whatever Matt had wanted him to see. The news was almost over when the anchor said, “In financial news, a cyber-attack against the banking industry today has caused some computer glitches in the system. At the close of business today all systems will be offline until Tuesday morning. This bank holiday will allow programmers to correct the problems with the computers over the weekend.”

  John hopped up from his seat exclaiming, “I didn’t think it would begin this soon. Mark you and Renee need to go to the store now and pull your money out of the bank!”

  Mark, waving him to calm down said, “Why would I need to do this, don’t worry so much the banks are insured.”

  John replied, “Listen Mark, if I’m wrong and God help us I hope I am. Then you can just go put it back in on Tuesday right? Please, Mark just this once trust my conspiracy theories. What harm will it do to take it out and put it back in if everything is ok?”

  Mark had never seen John so adamant, so he agreed to do as he asked. As they were all getting ready to leave John told them, “Listen, try and get things that won’t go bad if we lose power or anything. Plus, if you buy extras it won’t take up too much freezer room.”

  They agreed and each went their own way to take care of what they had planned to do. John admonished them to not talk to people about anything or they might find others looking to dig a little deeper and he did not want anyone questioning anything.

  Chapter 4

  “In the midst”

  “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy”

  -Alfred Henry Lewis

  John and Amy’s checks were direct deposited into their account and he wanted to withdraw all of their money. He did not, however, wish to drain the accounts and cause a red flag to go up. They had a number of accounts so he began with the smallest credit union, they were pretty chummy with the tellers there and he decided to empty all but a hundred dollars in that one.

  He went into the bank and filled out the withdrawal slip, taking it to his favorite teller he started making small talk. “Hi Sharon, how ya doing today?”

  She replied in her usual cheerful tone, “Sure glad it is Friday.”

  He nodded and said, “No rest for me this weekend, I’m finally going to be getting that new barn.”

  She looked at the withdrawal slip and said, “I thought you needed to save up more than this to do that.”

  He just winked at her and said, “My buddy Matt is going to loan me the rest so I can get it done before winter.”

  Counting out the cash for him, she wished him luck with it and he waved as he was going out the door.

  He was practically dancing at how easily he had fabricated the story for her. Smiling to himself, he thought, ‘Well, I’m not really full of shit. I was saving it for the new barn.’ While driving to his other bank, he wondered how he might pull most of the money without questions. Many things went through his mind about it; this was a much larger bank and often asked questions about large withdrawals. I was not unusual for him to do so to pay taxes or other things so he hoped he would not have too much to explain. As he approached the line a lady cut right in front of him, with bleach blonde hair and 4 inch heels brandishing her designer purse like it was a trophy. She was demanding everyone wait on her immediately, saying, “I’m in a hurry, so can we please get this place moving?”

  John was irritated with her, she had no apologies for her actions just pushing everyone around. He got to the teller and said, “That was probably the most irritating thing I’ve seen all day, that woman was a piece of work.”

  The teller agreed while John continued, “I don’t know where she thought she was more important than everyone else.”

  The teller replied, “She’s always in a hurry and I’m just thankful it wasn’t my line this time. She’s always demanding something and being rude to us tellers.”

  While the teller was taking care of his transaction they continued to discuss the woman, the teller never asked him about his large withdrawal.

  On his way home he wanted to buy some extra ammo from a few different stores and pick up a few odds and ends along with some groceries. He knew deep down the banks would not be re-opening, but didn’t want to go crazy spending the money
just in case. The rest of the way home his mind was racing through all the possibilities. He was sure this was no false flag and that there was something more to it, but what he didn’t know was how OPEC and now the banking issues were tied together. He knew this was no coincidence and that he needed to be ready for almost anything.

  Over the next few days John was busying himself with various activities and quietly squirreling away things in other places on his farm. He had an old tree stump he had hollowed out a few years back to hide his goody snacks from Amy, he decided to put some extra camping gear into it. Under the stairs, he had made a compartment and kept his.38 special with extra ammo hidden in it. To that he added a bunch of MREs and multiple Lifestraws. John knew all along that his place would not be sustainable long term and had already talked with Matt a few times about what they called bugging out. They had already made maps with directions to his location if the need ever arose. Knowing this, he made sure that what he was stashing were things that were more portable and lightweight.

  He visited Mark and Renee a few times over the weekend and was glad to see they had done the shopping and taken the money from the bank like he asked them to. He worried because Renee was not in the best health and that she would struggle on a long journey. He was glad he had asked them in the spring when a late storm had knocked out power for a week to make sure they had extra prescriptions on hand just in case.

  Renee had managed to get them into a plan that would give them 3 month prescriptions. John already had found a way for them to have two months in reserve. After the power went he had her tell the doctors that the pipes froze and when the heat came back on the bathroom faucet exploded, ruining their medications. After being scolded by the doctor for leaving the caps off she was given a two month supply. John knew a journey like the one he was sure they were going to have to take would be very difficult for them both. He had promised Matt that if anything happened to make him go, he would make sure Matt’s parents came with him.