299 Days: The Community

by Tate, Glen

  But, fewer and fewer National Guardsmen were reporting for duty. Many were cops or others who were working their other jobs to the point of exhaustion. Others didn’t want to leave their families during the crisis. Some tried to report for duty but got caught in the traffic jams.

  Jeanie could see that the state government really had no idea what it was doing. She was talking to media all day long, giving the state spin. Things will be OK, we’ll all pull through, people are helping their neighbors, terrorists are taking advantage of the disruptions, don’t be a hoarder, and listen to the government for further information.

  Even though Jeanie was in chaos central at the state’s command post, she could see legitimate signs that not everyone was in a crisis. Oddly, most people were staying home from work, watching TV news, helping their neighbors, and eating the several days of food they normally had on hand in their pantries and refrigerators. It was not a complete breakdown of society. Things were bad, worse than anyone had ever seen in modern America, but not the end of the world. It was a partial breakdown with patches of normalcy.

  Chapter 72

  Closing the Parts Store

  (May 7)

  Steve Briggs was running out of parts at his auto parts store. He hadn’t seen a shipment in days. He was in the very isolated town of Forks, on the extreme northwest tip of Washington State, so he got his supplies in batches from a distribution company. The truck usually came on Tuesdays and Fridays. He hadn’t seen one in a week.

  The internet was out, so he had to phone in orders to the distributor’s Seattle office. That seemed to take forever; he really missed the internet. The Seattle office seemed really shorthanded. The people he normally dealt with weren’t at work. He was on hold a lot. Each day, the Seattle office told him, more and more frequently, that they couldn’t get various parts from their California suppliers. He would have to make do with what he had in stock.

  With the internet out, how could he process credit card orders? That’s how most of his business was conducted. He could accept cash, but he paid his suppliers via credit that went through the internet. He couldn’t just hand his distributor a bag of cash once the parts came.

  He started wondering if he and everyone else had to start paying for things in cash, would there be enough cash to do this? People didn’t carry too much cash around anymore. They paid big bills, like a new clutch or car battery, with a debit or credit card. He did the same, like the year’s worth of truck insurance he just paid for. So if everyone needed a lot more cash, where would it come from? The bank didn’t have much. They kept some in tills, but a few days ago people started coming in and trying to get their money out of the bank. Besides, the bank had closed yesterday with the national bank holiday. So people only had the cash they had on hand. For some people, that was maybe $100. How would anyone buy things?

  Then there were the prices. Everything was going up. It seemed like a 10% increase just from the week before. Now that everything seemed to being coming apart, prices went crazy. It wasn’t “inflation” in the sense of “this costs a dollar more than last week”; it was “I hear they have these, but they’re $100 now.”

  Steve would have to pass these increases on to his customers, which would be hard. The unemployment rate in Forks was…who knew? It was always high, but it recently seemed way higher than usual. Many people in town had government jobs of some kind, with the game department or the environmental agency. Some teachers had been laid off. Two of the police officers had been laid off, too. About the only government jobs that were untouched were at the government utility that supplied power and water in town.

  But no one was going hungry. Almost everyone had deer meat in the freezer. Plenty of fish, too. If an older person didn’t have any, neighbors and relatives would probably share, like they always had. Lots of people had gardens and canned. The one grocery store in town was already getting low on things, but that wasn’t terribly unusual. Since it was an hour to the next town of any size, if a semi took an extra day to get there, people would notice it on the shelves.

  Steve was most concerned about the older people on prescription medications. The little drug store in town, run by his neighbor, Jerry, the pharmacist, was running low. Jerry said that some people really needed particular medicines, and he was going to go into Port Angeles to get some.

  Given all that was on TV about the looting in the cities, Steve was also worried about crime. There wasn’t any increase in crime in Forks; at least so far there hadn’t been. There never were enough police to do the job, even during normal times. People relied on each other. They knew everyone in town.

  Some folks in town were concerned about the few Mexicans who lived in Forks. Not Steve. He knew them because they came into the parts store. They were mostly hard workers; family men. Just like Americans used to be.

  Another reason Steve wasn’t worried about crime in Forks, population 3,000, was that everyone had guns, though no one was carrying them. On the news, they had pictures of people carrying guns at neighborhood checkpoints. There was none of that in Forks.

  The power outages weren’t that big of a deal. They were inconvenient, but not the end of the world. They had a generator at the small hospital and the old folks’ home. The internet being down was hard on the businesses like Steve’s and a few white-collar businesses, like the accountant and real estate office that couldn’t do any work.

  School was cancelled because everyone was glued to the TV, and parents wanted to be around their kids. Steve was glad school was cancelled. He liked having the kids home.

  Steve was beginning to get concerned because the gas station hadn’t had a shipment in several days. He knew the underground tanks were big and could last for a while, but if he couldn’t get parts, he knew that fuel supplies would be scarce because they both got to Forks the same way: semis. He wondered how long this would go on before things got back to normal. Then again, he had known this was coming. A country boy can survive.

  Chapter 73

  This Ain’t Paddy Cakes Anymore

  (May 7)

  Tom Foster’s home was near the historic district of downtown Olympia, within walking distance from the WAB offices. His family had been shut in their house for two days as the protests raged. They were nothing like the usual little protests they saw in the state capitol. These were more like mobs. It reminded him of the WTO riots in Seattle in 1999, but worse. Riot police, the smell of tear gas, broken glass everywhere, constant sirens. He’d been awake for most of those two days. He’d doze off for a few minutes and then wake up when he heard more sirens or yelling. He was starting to lose his grip on reality. He couldn’t tell what was real and what might be a dream from when he dozed off.

  His family was handling it well. His wife, Joyce, was scared, but not saying so. Even before all of this, she had been afraid that some loony leftist would attack her husband. They got death threats every so often.

  Tom’s son, Derek, was fifteen years old. He was a good kid, and looked exactly like his dad. Derek was looking forward to defending his house against the people who seemed to hate his dad. He had even started carrying a bat around lately and would love to use it.

  Tom had his gun; a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun. He was so glad he’d gotten that. It seemed crazy at the time, but now he understood why he needed it. He could not have slept at all if he hadn’t had it.

  They had enough food for a few days. They basically watched the place to see if anyone tried to break in. It wasn’t random crime they were afraid of, although that was a concern. They were afraid that someone in the crowd of angry leftists would realize that evil Tom Foster of the Washington Association of Business “hate group,” a group representing small businesses, was sitting right there. Mobs of union thugs had been “visiting” the homes of people they didn’t like. Tom had not heard of any mobs attacking the families, but there wasn’t a lot of specific news anymore. The news focused only on giant events like the Olympia protests and looting in Seattle. The nationa
l news constantly reported on the terrorists’ strikes, the regional power outages, and the Southern and mountain West states “opting out” of the federal government. Besides, even if the media found out that homes of “right wingers” had been attacked by the mobs, they probably wouldn’t report it. It didn’t fit into the media’s general theme of “concerned public employees and vulnerable citizens expressing their anger at budget cuts.”

  Two days after the big protests started, Tom decided to finally venture out of his house. It was early morning and things were pretty quiet. Even union thugs had to take a rest, and protesting was probably some of the hardest work these government employees had done in a while. He tucked his gun into his pants and left while Joyce and Derek were asleep.

  Things were OK a few blocks around his house. The destruction seemed pretty contained to the offices downtown. WAB’s beautiful brick office building was eight blocks from his house. As he got closer to his office, he got more and more reluctant to see what had happened. He knew the protestors would hit WAB’s offices, but he could not believe what he saw two blocks from the office.

  There was smoke rising up from the direction of WAB’s offices. Oh, God. They didn’t. Did they?

  Tom started to run toward the office, but he could only jog because the gun in his belt would come out. So he jogged, holding his gun in his belt. He wondered if any of his employees were still in there. He had sent them all home, but maybe some came, anyway. He prayed not.

  Tom got closer and could see all the windows smashed and swastikas spray-painted on the beautiful brick walls of the historic building. Were the swastikas to say that WAB were Nazis or were the protestors admitting they were fascist thugs? Tom knew that the protestors were too stupid to understand that they were the actual fascists. He concluded that they spray-painted the swastikas to make people think the occupants of the building were Nazis.

  As Tom got closer, he was actually a bit relieved. The fire was pretty small. It was a brick office building, so the structure wasn’t burning. It looked like papers and other combustibles inside the building were burning. That beautiful building now looked like a charred hull of its former greatness. It looked like a black eye on a beautiful woman.

  Tom ran in and checked to see if anyone was in there. He pulled his gun out when he went through the front door. He remembered what Grant had told him about checking to make sure the safety was off when he wanted to use the gun. He found himself pointing the gun like he’d seen in the movies.

  Tom ran through the office to see if anyone, friend or foe, was in there. It was empty. Thank God. He looked around at all the destruction. It was weirdly quiet in the office. The only sound was the soft crackle of small fires, and papers blowing around. No voices. No hum of office machines running. No phones ringing. Just soft crackling.

  Now that he knew no one was in the building, Tom went first to his office. He saw the pictures of his family on his desk had been smashed, which pissed him off. This wasn’t just political anymore. It was personal. These assholes were trying to kill him and his family. He was going to try to kill them back.

  Tom had always shied away from the “Patriot” and “Don’t Tread On Me” side of the conservative movement. Every time he saw the Don’t Tread on Me flag, he had become uncomfortable because it seemed to imply people couldn’t wait to hang “Loyalists,” like during the Revolutionary War. It was a little too…dramatic and violent. Not that he thought Patriots and those with a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag were violent; he had been to Tea Party rallies and knew they weren’t. It’s just that there was an implied message that liberty must be restored by “any means necessary.” That scared him. Not because he was afraid of a fight—he fought the government all day, every day—but because he didn’t want to become a hater. He was concerned about guys like Eric Benson, a young WAB lawyer, who seemed to have turned into haters and actually enjoyed the “we’ll do what we have to do” part of the liberty movement. Tom knew how good people could ruin their lives with hatred.

  His thinking around this changed quickly, though, when he saw his beloved WAB offices on fire. Now he understood the violence. “They’re trying to kill me” kept running through his mind as he looked around his office, burning and trashed.

  Violence? Why hold back on violence? It had already happened to him. He didn’t start it. “This ain’t paddy cakes anymore,” he muttered to himself. This is a game for keeps. They wanted to kill him and his family. It’s on.

  In an instant, Tom’s entire outlook changed. At his core, he was a “Patriot” and would protect his family “by any means necessary.” He would try not to be a hater, but that seemed like a luxury in these times. Protecting his family and trying to restore liberty were more important than the ill effects of hating people. In fact, Tom thought, hating people might be necessary to have the strength and mental clarity to do the things that needed to be done. That was it: hate is a tool. A necessary tool.

  Tom had to get out of the WAB building. He couldn’t take all the destruction. He jogged back to his house, holding his gun in his belt. That gun felt different on the way back. On the way there, it had seemed so foreign and weird. A gun? Him? Carrying a gun?

  Now, after seeing the destruction of the WAB building and realizing how much these people really hated him, that gun didn’t feel weird anymore. It felt like a tool. A tool as necessary as hate.

  After a block or two, Tom knew what he needed to do. It was time to get Ben and Brian’s families, the senior WAB staff who would be targeted by the protestors or government or whomever, to the Prosser farm.

  Tom snuck up on his house. He’d seen on TV too many times when people just walked into their house, only to have a bad guy waiting for them. He carefully entered the house.

  His wife was in the kitchen crying. That sound always gets a guy’s attention. He goes into problem-solving mode, to do what it takes to make that crying stop.

  “Are you OK, honey?” Tom asked Joyce.

  “They say you’re a terrorist,” she choked out through the tears. “A terrorist!”

  What? Tom couldn’t even understand what she was saying. He wasn’t a terrorist.

  Joyce pointed to her laptop on the kitchen counter. On the screen was a list titled “Persons of Interest.” Under the “F”s was “Foster, Tom…Wash. Assn of Business.”

  Tom wasn’t surprised. The political attacks had been increasing for months leading up to this. Before he saw the burned out WAB offices, this terrorist-list thing would have surprised him. Not now. It seemed mild compared to what he’d just seen.

  “This is just a list of Persons of Interest. That’s not a terrorist list,” he said. He wanted to reassure his wife.

  Joyce screamed, “Read the top of the list!” He did. It explained that the people on this list were “Persons of interest to the police for possible illegal activities, including domestic terrorism.”

  Huh? “Domestic terrorism”? That was like the environmental terrorists or the white supremacists or whatever. Not a business association. He kept reading. Sure enough he was on the same list as people described as “Red Brigades,” “Skin Heads,” “Animal Liberation Front,” but also “Tea Party,” “various ‘Patriot’ groups,” and “tax activists.”

  Tom looked for his name again. He couldn’t believe he was on this list. Oh God. So were Ben and Brian. “Wash. Assn of Business” was by their names, too. Grant, too.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” Tom said as he grabbed Joyce by the wrist. “Right now. We’re going to the Prosser farm. They burned the office and trashed it. They’re trying to kill us. Get Derek and let’s go.”

  Joyce cried louder. Her grandfather had lived through the Holocaust and this seemed a lot like the story he told about leaving Holland.

  Chapter 74

  Mailroom Guy to the Rescue

  (May 7)

  The Prosser Farm was owned by the WAB mailroom guy, Jeff Prosser. It was between Olympia and Frederickson, a couple roads of
f of Highway 101, and was hard to find, even with directions. There was a steep hill to climb before the road dipped down to Jeff’s farm and his neighbors’, all of whom were relatives of his. The farmhouse was down a long road and surrounded a state forest. It was the perfect hideout.

  Tom called Ben and Brian. Voice service was working, although it hadn’t been the night before. He told them about the POI list and that they needed to go to the Prossers' like they had talked about two days before. They would meet at Tom’s house. It was a central location. A little too close to the capitol, where the protesting had been going on, but it was the plan and he didn’t want to change things up. He wanted to get the hell out of there.

  Joyce, Derek, and Tom were packing as quickly as they could. They threw clothes, computers, and medicines into their car. Joyce made sure their family photo albums were packed. She thought about her grandfather. Was she being dramatic? She hadn’t slept in two days; maybe that was it. No, her husband was on a list of “terrorists” and his office had been burned only a few blocks away. How could it get any more dramatic?

  It took about an hour to pack. Tom kept looking at the clock and out the doors and windows. He was sure a group of thugs with torches were coming. He had his gun in his belt. Would he be able to shoot someone trying to attack his family? Hell, yes. He’d shoot all of them. And like it. He thought the Campaign Finance Commission suit against WAB was an attack on him. That seemed like child’s play compared to this. He had never fought for his family; he had never had to, though. He was making up for lost time. He was so ready to kill those bastards. He just wanted his family to make it, first.