by David Wilson
After getting nods all around, I stood and motioned for everyone to get ready to move. So far everyone was holding up pretty well. We moved out and the next hour passed without seeing a single person. I turned us south once we reached Snowden River Parkway, not stopping for a break as we were within a couple of miles of our destination. Cutting though a couple of the residential areas we began to see signs of people, yet none came out to make contact with us. Any that were outside quickly went inside once they saw the weapons we carried, but one guy did call out to us and we stopped. I keyed my radio, “Don’t bunch up, Ben keep a close eye on the road in front of us. Jeff you have our rear. Mat keep your head on a swivel. Don you are with me. Everyone call out if you see anything strange.” After getting a roger over the radio from everyone, Don and I walked over to the guy. He was a middle-aged guy dressed in kaki trousers and a polo shirt, medium build and was fairly clean cut. He didn’t appear to be bothered by our weapons. “How are you guys doing?” the man asks. “We are doing just fine,” I replied, “How is everyone doing around here?” The guy looked us over and ask, “You guys cops or something?” I glanced over at Don and replied, “Something like that, have you guys had any problems?” “We haven’t but someone needs to get here soon with some water, everyone is almost out since the water stopped yesterday. Some of us have some bottled water but that isn’t going to last for long. Also someone needs to come pick up old man Evan’s body. He dropped dead of a heart attack when the power went out, someone said that his pace maker stopped. His daughter found him the next morning but without phones we could not call anyone. I see you have radios, can you call someone to come pick him up. He is already being to bloat and smell.”
“Sir, you need to go ahead and bury him. I would recommend that if anyone has any lime that you all dig a grave at least four feet deep and wrap him in a blanket, cover his body with lime directly on top of him, cover him and place rocks or cinder blocks on top of the dirt to keep animals from digging him back up. No one is going to come and do it for you or to take the body away. As far as the water goes, get some of the guys together and go from house to house and drain everyone’s hot water heaters, each of those will be holding 40 to 50 gallons of clean water. Any other water you collect you should treat it with plain bleach. 8 to 10 drops per gallon,” I stated. I motioned Don to follow and we turned away to leave. The man followed us, trying to get us to stop, “Hey aren’t you guys going to help us?” the guy ask. I stopped and turned back to face him, “You are going to have to help yourself. No one is coming to help. Get your neighbors together and get a handle on your resources. Help one another. Again, no one is coming to help you, not now, not tomorrow, not from the government or the state. No one, get your act together or things are going to get really bad around here. Collect up all the bleach from all the houses, if anyone has a pool see if they have any pool shock. Regular bleach older than one year is probably no good. You can mix us fresh bleach from the pool shock. After you add bleach to water, shake it up and let it sit for an hour or so to make sure it has a chance to kill all the bad stuff. It won’t taste great but its better than shitting your brains out.” I turned away again and began walking. The guy calls out after us, “So when can we expect help to come? We need food and water if this goes on much longer?” I just kept walking but could feel Don’s eyes on me.
After reaching the end of the neighborhood, I dropped back to walk beside Don. Lowering my voice so only Don could hear, “Don, we can’t stop and help everyone, you know that.” Don started to say something but stopped himself, after pausing for a few seconds, he said, “I know we can’t save everyone, but you have a lot of knowledge and skills that would help a lot of people survive. It just seems wrong not to help where we can.” I didn’t hesitate, “Don, none of those people in the neighborhood are going to survive this. I doubt any of them will make it to the 30-day mark. If someone within that community had the know how to organize them, they would already started getting their act together. Yes, I feel sorry for the kids but that is why we cannot stop and help. It would take days to organize them and then some of the people within the community itself would not want to contribute. What than? Kick them out, don’t feed their kids. What about security? The neighborhood is undefendable without major work. I bet there isn’t three firearms within that neighborhood and those are going to be a hunting rifle or a .380 someone has in their nightstand. No, these people are sheep waiting for the wolves to come to the slaughter and there is nothing you or I could do to stop it other than die with them. They will just sit here and wait to die. Within two or three day at the most waves of cholera is going to hit these communities as these people are already drinking contaminated water. The survivors of that will take what they can and start walking. They will have no idea where to go but they will know that they can’t stay here. Most will head to Fort Meade thinking the government will help them. I know this sounds cold but it would not matter in the end if we stayed to help these people, we might buy them an additional two weeks or a month but in the end it would not matter. There just isn’t enough food to keep this many people alive over the winter. If we stayed to help it would more than likely be the death of us also. Are you willing to risk Mat’s life on the off chance we can help the immediate situation. Because that what you would be doing. That is your decision to make, I’m heading west.” Don met my eyes for about ten seconds before looking away and nodding. I heard him curse under his breath and I agreed, “yes it’s a whole new fucked up world now.”
It was almost 2 o’clock by the time we reached the shopping center that had the Dick’s Sporting Goods store. We stopped in a small alcove of trees that provided a good view of the front of the store and the surrounding area. It was obvious that some looting had taken place. A health food store across the shopping center had its front window smashed out and various bottles and containers of product were scattered in front. Thinking waste not, want not, we would go there first. If we could pick up a few large containers of protein it would help stretch out our supplies. Calling everyone over to me, I said, “We are going to check out the store with the smashed out window first. Ben and Jeff will cover us from here and protect the gear. Mat, as soon as we are in I want you to grab as many of the protein bars as you can stuff into two shopping bags. Don’t get picky, just grab all you can. Don, I want you to grab several of the large containers of Muscle Milk protein, try and get different flavors if you can. I’ll be going after the vitamin packs to include vitamin C.” Ben raised his hand, “Sir I hate those chocolate protein drinks, please grab any other favor.” I smiled and said, “We will do the best we can. I want to be in and out within 5 minutes. Let's drink some water because I believe we should be able to refill at Dicks. We move out in three minutes.” I pulled out my Klean Kanteen and took a long drink. Watching the others to make sure they were drinking I said, “If you see any sports drinks in there grab one or two but we don’t have room to carry liquid that is not water. Grab it and drink it, but don’t weigh yourself down with it. Understand?”
I stood from where I had been pulling several empty stuff sacks from my ruck. Everyone took up their positions and I nodded to Ben and Jeff. We all headed across the parking lot at a trot stopping at the corner of the health food store. Stacking up next to the building, I called into the building, “Anyone in there? This is the police, if you are in there call out now.” Silence, I listened for about ten more seconds than moved inside thought the broken front doors. Without stopping I moved to the counter, which was located in the center of the store. Going low I ducked under the counter and stopped and listened again. Nothing. I popped up and did a quick 360 degrees of the store. Nodding to my team members, I motioned for them to get to it. As they began moving towards their objectives, I moved to the back storeroom door. Trying the handle I found it to be locked. I keyed my radio, “Mat change of plans. I need you to cover the storeroom door. If you see it move or hear something from that area, call it out.” Mat immediately moved to
cover the storeroom and I headed over to the vitamins. Taking one of the stuff sacks, I began grabbing multivitamins and a couple large bottles of vitamin C. Next I headed over to the protein bars and grabbed several boxes of Power Bars, ripping open the boxes and dumping them into the stuff sacks. After completing that task, I moved over to where Don was and at the same time pulled several heavy-duty gallon sized zip lock bags from my pocket. Opening one of the gallon sized protein canisters I opened the zip lock bag and dumped as much of the protein powder into the zip lock as it would hold. Repeating this until I was out of gallon zip locks, I double-checked to make sure I had at least two bags of something other than chocolate. Looking back at the shelf I grabbed a couple of shaker bottles, spinning off the tops and filling both of them with more Whey powder. After stuffing the shaker bottles into the stuff sacks, I turned keying my radio, “Are we ready,” I ask. Receiving acknowledgements from Ben and Jeff, I got thumbs up from both Don and Mat. I nodded and turned to head back out the front door but froze as I heard the deadbolt from the storeroom turn. I gestured to Mat and Don to get behind the counter and raised my M4 to a ready position. The storeroom door cracked open about 1/2 an inch. I called out, “Freeze, this is the police. I want to see both of your hands out the door right now!” Talking a step to the left after I called out, just in case some one decided they wanted to shoot though the wall in the direction my voice. Two hands slid out of the darkened storeroom. Taking one more step to the left I said, “Ease the door open slowly and come out.” The door opened as a young lady of about 20 eased out of the door. “Are you alone,” I ask. She nodded, not really looking too scared just wary as is she was ready to leap back into her storeroom. She than saw the two other rifles pointed in her directions. “I work here,” she said as if that would explain everything. “Miss, please step out of the door over to your right, Mat keep her covered, Don, if any shooting starts, empty a magazine though the wall to the right of the door.” Reaching into my cargo pocket I pulled out several glow sticks, quickly breaking them I shook them for a couple seconds than tossed them into the storeroom, I followed the glow sticks with my M4 at the ready and had swept the room before the glow sticks came to a stop on the floor. The storeroom was about 20 feet by 30 feet with racks arranged along each wall and one down the middle of the room. It only took a glance to see that the room was empty of any other people. I let everyone know it was clear and that they could relax and return to watching for any other visitors outside. I walked back into the store and motioned for Mat to lower his rifle.
“Miss,” I said, “This is not a good place to be. You need to get home as fast as you can.” She was about 5’10” tall with an athletic build and blond hair, and very attractive. When I looked back up into her eyes, they were hard and flashing. “And just how would you suggest I get there. My apartment is in Silver Springs and none of the cars are working,” she replied tartly. “Miss,” I started again but she interrupted me. “My name is Elizabeth but most of my friends call me Beth, you can call me Elizabeth.” I heard chuckles from all the guys. She looked over at them and gave them the middle finger. I openly laughed at this and looked over and saw Mat staring at her with his mouth hanging open. I walked over to him and whispered, “Close your mouth,” I laughed, “Go find a bag and get more power bars.” He turned to go but looked back over his shoulder. I pushed him in the general direction of the power bars and turned back to the girl.
“Miss, we are just passing though and saw the store broken into. We will be moving on in just a few minutes. If you are not aware of the current situation, we, the USA was hit with an EMP and nothing electrical is working. You need to come over to Dick’s with us and we will help you get set up with a bike and some equipment so you can head home.” “I know what an EMP is,” she said, “Why in the world would I want to head into the city. It’s going to be completely crazy down there. Plus I said that is where my apartment is, NOT where my home is. My family is in Kansas.”
“Miss, Kansas is a long way from here, I know as I’m heading to Texas to my family, but isn’t there somewhere else or somebody you know that is closer where you will be safe?” I ask. She looked at me and thought for a moment before replying, “No, not really, I just moved here after transferring to the University of Maryland. I got this job to pay the bills and I really don’t know anyone around here.” I looked around at Don and he shrugged. Mat spoke up and said, “She can come with us.” I turned to him and glared, he sheepishly turned back to stuffing more bars into the gym bag he had found. Elizabeth jumped in, “And what makes you think I would want to go with you guys wherever the hell your going?” “Miss, we are leaving to go over to Dick’s to rescue some mountain bikes. You can either stay here until the looters come back to finish the job or go with us. While I can’t say what the looters will do with you, I can say that as long as you are with us no harm will come to you from any of us.” She just glared at me as I walked over to my sacks and picked them up. All of the others took my cue and picked up their bags. Mat picked up the full gym bags and looked like he was going to say something to the girl, but he abruptly turned and headed out the door with the others. Mat stopped just inside the doors as all of us walked out and headed back across the parking lot. As I was crossing the parking lot I keyed my radio, “Mat we don’t have time for this, let's move.” Mat came back with, “Hang on for just a minute.” Keying my radio again I said, “You have one minute.” Looking over at Don, he just smiled and shrugged his shoulders. About 30 seconds passed when Mat appeared with the girl following also carrying another gym bag stuffed full of supplies. I keyed the radio, “Ok guys, let's stay sharp, pay attention to your surroundings, not the girl.”
We moved across the small parking lot in front of the health store and across the road separating Dick’s from the rest of the stores. A major brand discount store was besides Dick’s but not attached. We moved between the two stores to the loading docks in back of the stores. “Ben, take the far corner, Jeff take this corner. Let me know if you see anyone,” I said into the radio. Receiving “Roger that” from both, the rest of the group moved up the short flight of stairs to the loading dock. There were three-garage type roll up doors with no windows, and one metal fire door with a small 8 x 8 inch wire reinforced window in the upper half. Glancing at the door I walked past it to the loading ramp door. Rapping a knuckle lightly against one of the roll up doors I took a couple of steps to the side and shrugged out of my ruck. “You guys keep a sharp eye out,” I said to Don and Mat. Beth said, “You guys are not cops.” It was a statement, not a question. Glancing over to her, I said, “No, but my Father was a cop if that matters.”
Taking out my Zombie Tools Traumahawk, I stood with my back to the roll up door and griped the handle. With a back handed motion I drove the hand ax into the light metal of the door. I inwardly winced thinking what I was doing with one of my favorite blades, but I knew that the damage to my ax would be little to none as the Traumahawk was almost indestructible. I worked the blade up and down and side to side a couple of times before pulling the blade out of the door. Turning and facing the doors I took three more swings of the Traumahawk, cutting an inverted V shape into the metal with each leg of the V about one foot long. Sheathing the blade, I pulled the tin snips out of the top of my ruck and began cutting across the wide mouth of the V shape. The metal of the door turned out to be tougher than I had estimated but it only took me a couple of minutes to get the V cut out of the door. Taking a look into the hole I had made I carefully reach into the hole. It only took me a second to locate the wire leading to the latches on each side of the door. I called Mat over the told him to get a hold of the door and help me to raise the door. He looked at me as if I had horns growing out of my head, but went ahead and worked his fingers under the door. Once he had a hold, I nodded to him and we both lifted. The door slide up smoothly. Withdrawing my hand as the door slide up, Mat and I raised the door to about chest height.