Chasing the Dark: The Demon Inside

by A. P. Texan

  “Okay lady, believe me or not, I don’t care. But in a couple days you’re going to wish you had listened to me and taken my advice. I'll tell you what, in three days, if you want to face the truth and have a chance of surviving what’s coming, meet me at the Dollar General store up the street, and I’ll tell you everything I know. Now I’m going home to my family. By the way, my name is Chase, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

  Putting the GHB back on my back and standing up, I walk back across the street and continued my way to the house.

  0615 11 September 2021

  Keller, Texas

  I am walking into the Keller area, and realize how much I love this little town. Even though it is a medium sized suburb of Fort Worth, and borders North Fort Worth on one side, they have managed to keep the small town feel through the years. As I'm walking down the street, I pass the Keller Feed store on the left. This is a feed store in the classic sense, basically a general store. They carry lumber, animal feed (both livestock and domestic), hunting supplies and farm and garden essentials. Across the street is the Keller Ag-Power. This is a store dedicated to mowers, tractors, and other commercial and residential grade Lawn and garden tools. Both stores are maintained with a small-town country feel. Everything about Keller gives it a great country small town vibe. Even the old water tower with the school mascot painted on the side. The train still runs through the middle of town a couple times a day. Well, it used to anyways, up until a couple hours ago.

  Fortunately, this happened early enough in the morning that I didn’t run into anyone else, until I entered the neighborhood. I noticed about half the vehicles had their hoods up, and people leaning into the engine compartments. These people don’t understand that their cars will likely never start again, and their phone will never ring. The worst part of it, is that most of them will be dead in less than a year. I can only hope my family and I are not a part of that grim statistic.

  I enter the neighborhood where the wife and I share a home with my parents. It is your typical small-town neighborhood. Old growth trees line the streets of homes built in the 60’s but have seen numerous renovations and updates through the years. In the driveways, there is a combination of Pickup Trucks, SUVs, and family sedans of different makes and years, but consisting mostly of domestic and Japanese brands, as this is a primarily, blue-collar area and you won't see many European luxury vehicles. Now, if you go over a couple neighborhoods you will see the exact opposite. In that area are the million-dollar McMansions, with their expensive luxury and sports cars.

  Almost home, just another hundred yards or so and I’ll be there. There she is, Sandy, my love, my wife, my Latina beauty. Standing outside the front door looking up the street, watching for me. She is a five-foot Latin beauty. Long silky black hair medium build with curves where they should be and the absolute best demeanor and attitude of any person I have ever met. Every day through her actions alone I can tell how much she loves me. I only hope that I show her 1/10th of the amount of love she showers on me. Even now she stands outside the house patiently waiting for my return.

  She and I have discussed this very scenario several times and have talked about what we would do if it happened. The number one thing we would do, is get home first. I am thankful this happened early in the morning before she had left for work or she would have been walking 4 times farther than I had to which still isn’t far at 12 miles, but I still feel better with her being home.

  Home: Home is an interesting place. For 3 years I had a great job, making great money, with great benefits. But that came to an end and at the age of 43, I was forced to move back home and when I say back home, I mean I am 43 and living with my parents. Both in their 70s, dad has severe COPD and dementia, and mom is a two-time cancer survivor that has more auto-immune diseases than most people have socks. On top of that my twenty-five-year-old nephew lives there, he is on the autism spectrum and has severe ADHD and Social Anxiety Disorder. As I said, home is an interesting place.

  “Hey babe, looks like it went down. We didn’t think it would, but here we are.” I said, as I approached her

  “Oh my God, I honestly thought you were crazy, and I just went along with your plans to keep you happy, what are we going to do now.”

  “Well, first, we need to get in the house and switch dad’s O2 over to one of his bottles on the lowest flow possible that would still benefit him. Thankfully, we are in September and it won’t get too hot, or he would be in real trouble. We need to go through the entire house and get an inventory of all the food and start figuring out how to conserve what we have. We need to find every container we can, so we can collect as much water as possible, while the pipes still have pressure.”

  “Okay babe, I’ll take care of that. Your mom, of course is in denial, and thinking the power will be back on in a few hours, and your dad is still asleep. Should we wake him up to switch his Oxygen, or just wait till he wakes up.”

  “Of course, she is. Doesn’t matter how much I talked about this; she still won’t come to terms with it, I mean damn, you yourself said you thought I was crazy. As far as dad goes, I think we can probably switch his hose over without him even waking up. We will try that and hope for the best. The problem is, even with his bottles on a very slow flow, it still won’t be enough to last him more than a day or so, if even that long. I’m going to have to find a generator for him.”

  “What about the girls and Charles, how do you plan on getting them?”

  The girls and Charles; is referring to my kiddos. I have four kids I call my own, two are biological, and two are step kids I raised for most of their lives, before their mother decided to have an affair. But that is another story for a different day. Three of them live with their mom across town. The other one, my oldest, is the daughter of my first wife and me. She is almost 21 and lives 500 miles away in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

  Stephanie, my oldest child, will Be 21 in January. She currently lives with her boyfriend in Stillwater Oklahoma where he is a Veterinary Medicine student at Oklahoma State University. She is a great kid, and like her little sister Savannah, a bit of a tomboy. Savannah, my youngest child and my other biological is my baby. She is thirteen years old but is going on thirty. She is so much like her old man it is scary. She looks like me, acts like me, and has my same attitude. She is a tomboy, loves to go camping, and playing in the dirt. When she was ten, I bought her a Mossberg semi-automatic 22 rifle of her own for Christmas, and she loves to go to the range with me to shoot. Isabella and Charles are my two step kids from my second wife. Isabella is 16 and Charles 19. Both are magnificent kids, but they are also complete polar opposites. Charles is a super organized, neat (Possibly OCD), and extremely smart, Isabella on the other hand is a mess. She doesn’t believe in organization, is a little ADHD instead of OCD and is just a bit scatter-brained.

  Charles is my buddy. I raised him since he was 4 and it has been a challenge. When he was little, he was a terror child. And I don’t just mean normal toddler terror. I’m talking spawn of Satan evil. But with a lot of work from a lot of people he has grown into an amazing young man, and I am proud to call him my son. Isabella is a good kid; she just gets on your nerves a bit. As I said earlier, she is a little scatter brained and talks A LOT. She cannot calm down and is always going 100 miles an hour. I love her to death but can only take so much.

  My number one priority since getting back home to Sandy, is to now make sure the kids are safe. If something were to happen to them and I thought I could have prevented it but didn’t, I don’t think I could live with myself.

  “Savannah, Isabella, and Charles I’m going to go get, as far as Stephanie in Oklahoma I’m not sure. I want to bring her here, but I don’t know how yet. First things first, let’s get dad taken care of as well as the food and water sorted.

  Quietly sliding into my dad’s room, I very quietly switch his O2 tube from the no longer operational concentrator and carefully attach it to one of his four portable bottles. I turn the flow rate down to two
liters per minute and quietly slip out of the room him never knowing I was there.

  “Okay that’s done. How are we looking on food?” I ask

  “Well in the pantry if we can conserve, we have probably a week of dry goods, fridge and freezer we have more than we can eat before it spoils”

  “You two are blowing this way out of proportion. The power will be back on in a few hours and everything will be fine. Now calm down and go back to work”, Mom pipes up from the living room where she is kicked back in her recliner.

  “Mom, we can’t go to work none of the cars are operational, I had to walk 3 miles back here because the truck died on the side of 377, We can’t call work because everyone’s phones are dead. Wake up and understand we have just been set back 200 years and this country and the world are most likely screwed beyond comprehension. The power isn’t coming back on, most cars will never run again, and your phone will never receive another scam call or telemarketer, which isn’t really that bad. NOW if you will excuse us, we are trying to figure out how to keep this family together and alive. If you want to help, great, if not stay out of our way” I sharply retort.

  “Sandy, we also have the two totes of 4 Patriot meals as well as all the free 72-hour meal kits they sent us. Let’s get those into the rotation to extend our food as much as possible. I’m going to go get the propane stove and bottles out of the Garage. I’m also going to get the French Press we use for camping. I need more coffee.”

  Out in the garage I dig through our pile of camping gear and pull out the Coleman 2 burner stove, three twin packs of propane bottles and the Stanley brand stainless steel French press. While there I take stock of our water situation. We have two cases of 16oz. bottles and two 1.5-gallon jugs. Thank God we were planning a long weekend camping trip next week for our families or we probably wouldn’t have that much.

  Back in the kitchen, I see Sandy sorting the food and Mom going through the cabinets getting everything she can find to collect water, good she is coming around.

  “I’m going to set this up over here on the stove top. We need to use this sparingly we only have six bottles of propane unless I can find more. We have plenty of charcoal and wood so we will use the grill and fire pit as much as possible.” I say as I set up the stove and French press, scooping some coffee into it and getting some water from the faucet. At least we still have water pressure for now. Good strong coffee in just a few minutes. That will help me keep moving, as well as keep my mind focused.

  “I need to figure out getting to the Kids and how best to deal with the Wicked Witch and her Warlock Boyfriend. Personally, I vote for .45 caliber hollow points but I’m sure that would probably be a bad idea in the long run. What do you guys think I should do?” I ask aloud to the room.

  To say the relationship with my ex-wife is tenuous would be an understatement. I don’t want to get into it but to summarize. She had an affair with someone I considered a friend and mentor. Then when she got caught and I left she started spreading the rumor that I was cheating to try to tarnish my reputation and make herself look good. On top of that she is a God-awful mother and parent to the kids. Anyway, I digress back to the story.

  “Tell her you are bringing them here whether she likes it or not and just leave. What’s she going to do, call the cops” Sandy tells me.

  “You guys aren’t going to like this but I’m thinking I should bring them here. Before you yell, let me explain. She is still the kids’ mother. All of us may despise her, but they deserve to have their mother around for better or worse. On top of that, Eddie is another trigger finger should we need it. Right now, I’m the only one here capable of defending us and some back up wouldn’t hurt. They will have to understand though, that this is my operation, and they will behave and do as they are told or be out on the street. We can also strip their house of anything useful. I’m guessing since they don’t know how to cook there will be lots of boxed meals and canned goods, those will come in real handy soon.”

  Mom, who has never liked my ex or her boyfriend, has no qualms voicing her opinion, “They can both die horrible deaths as far as I’m concerned. But you do make good arguments. They can come but if they act up, I get to shoot them both myself.”

  “I don’t like the idea either but yes, the kids deserve to have their mother, but so help me God if she looks at you funny, I’m gouging her eyes out.” My fiery Latina bride says with a slight smile on her face.

  “I seriously doubt it will come down to that. I am planning to leave as soon as it starts getting dark. I want to take the black tote with the wheels on it as well as a good pack. With that tote I can get more stuff from their house or stuff I salvage on the journey. I’m also going to take the pistol and the AR. I’ll leave Savannah’s 22 and the .308 here. I’m going to load them both, but don’t touch’em unless it is a real emergency.”

  Going back out to the garage I find the .50 cal ammo can I have rigged up as a Faraday cage and bring it back in the house. Inside is a pair of Beofang uv5r radios with extended antennas and batteries as well as charging docks and a solar charging array. Additionally, there is also a Garmin Rhino GPS with built in FRS radio. Turning all three on, I see the batteries are fully charged so I turn the Beofang’s off then wait for the Garmin to start picking up satellites. Looks like the radiation from the nuke fried the GPS satellites in geosynchronous orbit the unit can’t pick up a single one. That’s fine I know where I’m going, and I have the good old fashion Map and Compass.

  “I think that’s about all we can do for now, I’m going outside.” As I step out on the front porch and light up a Marlboro letting the acrid smoke settle in my lungs before a long exhale. Man, I needed that. This is the first smoke I’ve had since 0430 and it is now 0900. Still a long day with lots of daylight ahead of us.

  I need to think about what I am going to do about Dad. His bottles will only last a day or two and then he won’t be getting his much-needed oxygen. I need to find a generator that works. Where are we going to go? Every SHTF Scenario I’ve ever read in fiction or the real world has always ended badly for those in the cities. Now granted Keller is only a suburb, but at 47350 people it is still much larger with a whole lot more people than I’m comfortable with. We could go to the Farm, 200 acres about 40 miles north-west of us, that a close friend of mine owns. But that is 40 miles and an hour drive by car. It would take us days to walk there, and that is not happening with Mom, Dad and Russell in tow. We are going to need an operational vehicle. Okay, priorities, got to set my priorities

  Food- done (couple months there)

  Water- done (Couple weeks if we conserve)

  Kids- should be back late tomorrow early Friday at the latest

  Generator- Need today

  Vehicle- Running, big enough for gear, food and people.

  Fuel- Generator and vehicle are no good without fuel

  Of that list, the only thing I can do right now is a generator but where to look? The feed-store, I’m sure the feed store has one and they probably have other goodies I can grab as well. The good thing about this happening so early in the morning is most stores were closed and will most likely stay that way. Which means I can go “shopping” with little to no interference from people who don’t have the same opinions as me on shopping in the apocalypse.

  Well, it’s time to get to work. I step on the butt of the cigarette ensuring it is out and go to get ready. In the garage, I have an old military surplus Medium Alice pack that I will take, the 1911 and AR are going. I’m also going to grab the Chest rig with all the extra mags on it. This is going to be heavy, but the Feed Store is only a few blocks away.

  Inside, I see the women and Russell (Rusty) filling all the containers. “I’m going to walk up to the feed store and see if they have a Generator”

  “Why the feed store? And I’m sure they’re closed plus we don’t have the money for a generator?” Mom always the pessimist

  “Well Mom, since you asked, it is because we have no money that I’m counti
ng on the fact that they are closed. I also figure there might be some other goodies I can grab while I’m there”

  “So, I guess now we are just common thieves. Is this all it takes for us to become thugs like you see on TV? Disaster strikes and the first thing we do is start stealing and looting. I don’t know if I can condone this let alone be a part of it.” Mom says defiantly with her arms folded across her chest.

  “Mom, listen, I don’t like this any more than you. However, I am looking at this from a realistic standpoint. Now follow along and stop me if I’m going too fast. The modern civilized world is over. This isn’t just an attack that we will all get over and everything will be back to normal in a few weeks. The 9/11 Attack as horrendous as it was pales in comparison to what we are going through now. Experts say that the Power Grid won’t even start to be repaired for fifteen months minimum. In that fifteen months there is going to be a massive die off. Most agree that within the first year of a total grid down situation there will be a 90% death rate. That means statistically in the next year nine out of every ten people in this country will be dead. I say all of that to simply say this. No, I am not an average thief, or a common criminal. I am a desperate man who knows without a shadow of doubt what we are facing and as long as I have breath in my lungs and beats in my heart, I will do anything and everything to protect this family and keep everyone alive. Is that clear.”

  “Well, if you are just going to start stealing stuff anyways you should try the school maintenance yard. They have all kinds of stuff there and it is a lot closer than the Feed Store.”

  “Mom you’re a genius!” I exclaimed, “They will have a generator, fuel and probably some working lawn mowers or other tractors. I could probably kill three birds with one stone. While I’m there I’m going to check to see if they have vending machines as well. Any calories are good calories when the shit hits the fan.”