by Jeff Kirkham
Even though most gas tanks were composed of plastic, it was always heavy plastic and close to the lowest point on a vehicle. Working under a low-slung car with a screwdriver and a catch basin required skills worthy of a Chinese contortionist. Then, after wedging your cranium, hammer and spike between the tank and the ground, you would have to bang away at the tank for a dangerously long time to pierce it just to see if the damned thing had any gas.
But all was not lost. The GasTapper hacked the anti-siphon system of almost every modern vehicle. With a series of tubes and a twelve-volt pump, Chad’s field tests convinced him this was the ticket for stealing gas during a Zombie Apocalypse.
He never imagined it would really happen―he thought all that talk of a collapse was akin to fantasy football for outdoors guys―and the GasTapper was only in his Jeep because he forgot to give it back to Jason after running product tests. The catastrophic mess in the back of his Jeep made such an oversight entirely plausible.
The same couldn’t be said for the NVGs. Those he had straight up stolen from Jason’s vault. Considering the situation, he felt confident Jason wouldn’t mind.
Better to ask forgiveness instead of permission, another informal mantra of the SEALs.
• • •
Federal Heights
Salt Lake City, Utah
The meeting crammed the chapel and the cultural hall, filling every seat and along the walls.
Jimmy McGavin noticed that half these people didn’t show up for church on Sunday. Otherwise, Sunday services would be full to the gills. Now, with their rear ends in the proverbial sling, everyone in the neighborhood was suddenly a Mormon.
Attending Sunday services wasn’t the only commandment. Storing a year’s supply of food was also the holy word of the prophets and he had ignored it, just like most of the people in this chapel. Thinking again of the shrinking supply of food in his home, his throat constricted. They had enough canned goods for about three days and a bucketed “two-weeks’ supply” that Jimmy bought from the Boy Scouts three years ago. The contents of the bucket read like something out of the Great Depression: five pounds of wheat, some dried milk, dried pinto beans and a bit of dried macaroni. He didn’t own a wheat grinder or yeast, so the two-week supply added up to just a few days of food for his wife and four children.
Jimmy’s whole hope, shamefully, rested on the verdict of his ward leader, the bishop, now speaking at the front of the chapel. The question of food weighed on everyone. So far, water still flowed through the pipes in Federal Heights, though the bishop asked them to use it only for drinking, as the concrete reservoir above their neighborhood would soon run dry.
Jimmy wished the bishop would quit dancing around the topic and just tell them: would the Church provide food?
“I’ve been instructed by the stake president to let you know that the Church doesn’t have enough food in Salt Lake City to help all the wards. We must rely upon our own food storage to get us through these troubled times until help arrives.”
The chapel erupted in angry chatter, which would normally never happen. Of course, many of those in attendance weren’t regular churchgoers.
Someone shouted, “What if my family doesn’t have food?” While Jimmy never spoke out of turn in the chapel, it had been the question on his mind, too.
The bishop shifted his weight on his feet before speaking. “We can figure that out between neighbors,” he answered.
The bishop must have his own year’s supply handled, Jimmy concluded.
The same guy from before shouted again. “But what if my neighbors won’t share? Will Mormons be sharing only with other Mormons?” Jimmy figured the guy talking must be a non-member. This meeting wouldn’t take long to get ugly, he realized. When the bishop didn’t answer, the non-member guy continued. “You could make the Mormons share their food with the whole neighborhood.”
The room exploded with angry conversation, and a member of Jimmy’s ward, Bert Johanssen, shouted, “Those of us who followed the commandment to store food shouldn’t be forced to do anything. It’s our family’s food.”
People began shouting over one another, drowning out the bishop.
“Bishop! You can’t ask us to put our families in jeopardy to feed the whole ward—even the non-members…”
“You FUCKING Mormons with your high and mighty bullshit…”
“How dare you come into this chapel only when it serves your interests and use language like that…”
“How dare YOU think your children are the only ones worthy to eat your precious food…”
The bishop tried to restore order, but he had nothing new to add. The crowd continued in its fear and rage until a scuffle broke out, probably for the first time ever in the history of the Federal Heights chapel. Jimmy couldn’t see who was fighting nor did he really want to know. The whole scene made him sick to his stomach.
“Please leave,” the bishop shouted from the pulpit. “Please go home and work this out between neighbors.”
The fight broke up and people streamed out of the chapel, grumbling.
Jimmy walked home alone. He felt the crushing weight of a man failing his family.
Jimmy knew obedience was an all-or-nothing equation. He couldn’t count himself among the faithful if he obeyed most of the commandments. While he had always known this, today he knew it on a new level. His stomach twisted precariously. For a moment, he felt like he might vomit on Sister Nelson’s lawn. He had failed his family by sloughing off a commandment of the Lord, by ignoring the prophets.
He walked through his front door and came face to face with his wife, who had stayed home with the children, her hands slowly curling around each other. Luckily, the kids were someplace else.
“What did the bishop say?” she demanded.
“The Church doesn’t have food right now.” He softened the bad news. “They can’t help just yet. We need to make our food storage stretch.”
She looked in his eyes. “James, we do not have food storage. That little Boy Scout bucket doesn’t count as food storage. We can’t eat dried beans and wheat kernels.”
“We’re going to have to make do, at least until help arrives.” Jimmy studied the floorboards.
7
[Collapse Plus Six - Monday, Sept. 25th]
Shortwave Radio 7150kHz 1:15am
“GOOD MORNING, AMERICA. BY THE way, you’re on fire.
“Baltimore, New York, Boston, D.C., Detroit… I’m hearing chatter all night long about cities lighting up the sky like bonfires. A National Guard Bro-ette in Maryland just called in to say that they went to retake D.C. from the criminal element but they couldn’t get out the gates of the base because of gridlock.
“I got a bounce off the ionosphere from our boys in Afghanistan and they tell me that the U.S. is flying sorties in support of the Saudis against Iran. Stick a fork in them. Iran is done. BUT, not before they scored chemical weapons hits against Mecca and Tabuk.
“For all of you fleeing out of the shit-show of southern California, don’t head south. Camp Pendleton’s closed the freeway. And why would you want to go to Mexico anyway? Pretty sure the cartels control northern Mexico by now…”
• • •
Ross Homestead
Oakwood, Utah
“Did I hear correctly? Did one of our men shoot at a hiker?” Nurse Alena was like a brushfire, whipping through the Homestead, igniting anything that would burn.
Jeff looked straight at her. “Yes. Only it wasn’t a hiker.”
“Were they on Ross property?”
“They were within our zone of control,” Jeff replied stonily.
Alena’s eyes widened with disbelief. “And what the hell is a ‘zone of control,’ if I may ask?”
“It’s the buffer zone we patrol to turn people around before they disappear into our AO… our Area of Operation. If we don’t stop them there, then we have to shoot them on our doorstep, here.” Jeff pointed down at the ground.
“Why,” Alena paused fo
r effect, “is it necessary to shoot anyone?”
“Because, if we don’t hold our boundaries, we’ll be overrun and we’ll all die.”
“So let me get this straight,” Alena said, “you’ve instructed your men to shoot at people passing by on public land just so there’s no chance that we’re overrun by the hordes that we haven’t actually seen yet. Is that right?”
“Affirmative,” Jeff said. “I don’t expect you to understand.
“Don’t talk down to me,” Alena fumed. “I’ve been saving lives as long as you’ve been taking them, so don’t act like I’m a child who doesn’t understand how things work. You’re going to start killing the neighbors here in a few days and I’m going to be complicit in murder because I’m part of this group. I’m telling you right now, I won’t let that happen.”
Alena had more experience than just saving lives, but she wasn’t going to mention her experience with violent, controlling men in this conversation with Jeff Kirkham. She had been raised by what people called a “mean drunk.” Her father never laid a hand on her, but he had beaten her brothers senseless on numerous occasions. A few times, he had sent their mother to the emergency room for stitches.
When Alena was sixteen, she called the police while her father delivered a savage beating to her younger brother for leaving a screwdriver to rust in the yard. The police arrived and things got complicated. Her father served as a policeman himself in a neighboring town and the local cops caught him red-handed, beating the boy.
The consequences had been severe, with her father demoted and narrowly avoiding losing his career. Her mother had sent Alena off to live with her aunt for fear of reprisals. Alena never returned home to live, and she and her father gave one another a wide berth to this very day.
If she could face down a violent, overbearing alcoholic, she could face down the likes of Jeff Kirkham.
Jeff summed up his position. “I’m telling you that I’m going to protect this hard point, whatever it takes. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”
Alena spat back, “Or YOU can leave.”
“I’m not leaving,” Jeff stated flatly.
“Mark my words: you cannot control this situation.” Alena took in the valley with her hand. “And you won’t be able to force and murder your way out of danger here. If you try, innocent people will die and their blood will be on your hands.”
“I’m prepared to pay that price if it means my family survives,” Jeff replied.
“You think so, but you will not be prepared. Men like you say you will pay the price, but people like me end up doing the bloody work… and we end up doing all the grieving, too.”
Alena turned and stormed back toward the infirmary.
• • •
“What happened out there?” Jason asked Jeff later that afternoon.
Jeff and Jason walked toward the office and suspended the conversation until they could get behind closed doors.
“Jeremy was on duty at the upper valley observation post, and a small group of trespassers crossed our No Trespassing line. Jeremy called to the overwatch guy—it was Tom—and Tom fired a warning shot. He didn’t hit anyone.”
Jason looked concerned. “It’s starting already? We’re shooting at people? Do we have barbed wire and signs up?”
“Yes. We strung the barbed wire and hung “No Trespassing” signs along the boundary. These guys crossed over the barbed wire.”
“Were they armed?”
“Two of them had rifles.”
“Jesus. Can we afford to be firing warning shots? Could that get one of our own guys killed?”
Jeff thought about it. “For now, we can get away with warning shots. Soon there’ll be too many wanderers up there, and firing off rounds will draw attention and could get one of our guys shot. If nothing else, hungry people might think it means someone shot a deer and they’ll come running. Keep in mind, most of the guns coming at us are scoped rifles in big calibers. They’re no joke. Hunting rifles can tear a man’s arm off.”
“There’s no way to keep it secret from our people when our guys shoot at trespassers. I’ve got people complaining about it already.” Jason returned to the issue.
“That’s your problem. I keep this location safe; you get to handle the politics back at the ranch,” Jeff argued.
Jason deflated. “My dream job… Please call me on the radio when something goes down so I have a little notice before people start chewing my butt.”
“Will do. We have another bunch of five or six SOF guys joining up. They’re friends of mine and Evan’s.”
Jason nodded. “Yeah, okay. Send Jenna a list of the operators and their families, please. She will get them settled in.” Jason did the mental math and concluded that addition put them at fifteen Special Forces guys, including Chad. They were bumping over their two-hundred-eighty mark, on paper. He didn’t expect most peoples’ extended families—the ones they had lately given permission to join—to make it to the Homestead, not with the civil disorder gripping the city with ever-greater intensity.
Years ago, the Homestead committee asked, “What about our extended families?” Many of the members had folks in town. If the world collapsed, what would happen to the extended families who weren’t part of the group?
Survival math for a group the size of the Homestead wasn’t easy. If a collapse occurred in the spring, the food-growing potential of the Homestead and its affiliated farms would factor in, solidly expanding their carrying capacity. But, if a collapse occurred right before winter, they would have only the greenhouses to grow food. Even with five thousand square feet of greenhouse space, the Homestead could only grow about ten percent of their nutritional needs. Growing calories was a lot harder than most people thought. Growing in winter was borderline impossible.
Every dystopian book, movie and TV show vastly underestimated the difficulty of growing food after a collapse. Under ideal circumstances, a person could grow enough food to support one adult with one acre of ground, and that required an up-and-running fruit, vegetable, compost and livestock program with perfect edibles, perfect timing and no devastating bacteria, mold or insects.
According to most survival fantasies, a couple of rows of thrown-together veggies can feed the whole family. In truth, that much garden would be hard-pressed to feed a toddler—and then only during the peak of the growing season.
In one TV show, a group of thirty survivors flourish on an acre of walled compound, working half-a-dozen grow beds. They even have food to give the local warlord half their produce in exchange for protection. In the cold hard math of small farming, that much garden space couldn’t feed three rabbits, much less thirty humans.
Growing food was a tough business, and it had required generations of expertise and local experience for early settlers and natives to live off the land. If the Homestead counted on any amount of fresh food in their survival math, they would be taking a risk.
The committee took a leap of faith and decided to factor in their grown food and livestock in drawing up support estimates. The alternative was to let the extended families of Homestead members starve only to find out later that they had grown excess food. The collapse had come at the worst time of the year—fall—so the committee settled on a number of people whom the Homestead could support. The magic number had been two-hundred-eighty souls, including children. With two-hundred-four members already inside the gates, that left seventy-six extended family who could join the Homestead. On top of that, every possible accommodation had to be made to add experienced soldiers to the group.
The resources shepherded by the Homestead were a poorly kept secret in the community. Prior to the nuclear attacks, service personnel, friends and sundry locals had come through the gates of the Homestead on the order of a few per day. It didn’t take much to notice that the place was like the Playboy Mansion of preparedness. The massive gardens, milling livestock and gleaming solar panels fairly screamed prepper.
With so much to lose, and little secr
ecy to protect them, Jason focused all available resources on defense. He figured the Homestead must appear as vicious as a wolverine and have the fangs to back it up.
“I’d like to put the SOF guys to work right away,” Jeff said.
“What’s that mean?” Jason asked, feeling a little hesitant. Jeff was pushing the envelope with the Homestead, recently inviting more veterans to join. Jason liked the idea, but didn’t like that Jeff made the offer without consulting him.
“My guy Alec had an idea… the town of Oakwood is not going to hold together much longer. We were informed this morning that the hospital’s still intact. I’d like to form a three-squad element to take down the hospital, the pharmacy and one of the refineries in North Salt Lake. We’ll start with the hospital, leave a squad there, then hit the refinery with two squads. That’ll leave one squad to take the pharmacy.”
Jason sat back hard in his chair. “I see the logic in what you’re suggesting, but the timing’s got to be perfect. Otherwise, we’re just thieves stealing a refinery and a hospital. If things go back to normal in the world, you and I go to jail.”
“Who knows?” Jeff said. “Whoever’s in charge of the hospital might welcome us with open arms.”
“Do we know what the Oakwood police department is doing? Are they covering the hospital?”
“We’ll need to do some recon on the hospital, the police station and the refinery. Either way, we should put our SOF operators to work. Otherwise, they’ll start making trouble, screwing the housewives and all. They’ll be champing at the bit to do something useful. Taking and holding a hospital and a refinery will keep them busy. Obviously, those big assets could speed up recovery later. We should keep them from burning to the ground. We can always give them back later if we feel like it.”