The Unraveling: Book 1 of the Bound to Survive Series

by Charley Hogwood

  The power was still off and they worked a generator plan to keep the food refrigerated. They would run the gennies for 10 hours overnight, which would allow them to also run fans for sleeping. Luckily, it was January and not August. Even still, they were going to run into a fuel problem in a few days.

  The generator plan would cut their fuel use in half. Even so, the 500 gallon farm tank Cal kept out by the barn had only about 200 gallons in it at the moment. The generators were using about 10 gallons a day even on the abbreviated schedule.

  Water was another challenge. The house was supplied by a well which was operated with electricity. If the generators were turned off during the day, so was the well water. They decided that they could use water from the pond on the property to flush toilets with buckets and for other various tasks that did not need drinking-quality water, but for people, sanitation, and medical needs, they had to have clean water.

  They decided to fill all the containers they could find that night when the generators were running. In the meantime, they would make due with the few gallon jugs they had on hand. It was also determined that they would combine as much freezer and fridge space as they could to try and shut down extra appliances, if possible. The full loads would also help keep the food cold for the off-power hours.

  Cal had not heard from Mark in a couple of days, and Mark had no idea the group had ended up together. None of this was planned, it just happened, and Cal felt it was important to touch base with him for two reasons: to keep Mark informed and to hear any outside medical information.

  “Rusty, how about we take a ride over to the hospital this morning and check on Mark and Clara? With the phones out, they have no idea that the group is mostly here. We should let them know and figure out some way to keep in touch with them.”

  “I have just the thing. Portable HAM radios. I have about six good handhelds that are all programmed and ready to go. My buddy in the local Amateur Radio club got me all fixed up. The hospital has a signal repeater on the roof that can boost the signal to other repeaters up and down the coast. Normal walkie talkies have a very short range, but HAM radios can talk as far as the repeater system reaches. In some cases, across the country or around the world–under the right conditions,” Rusty explained.

  “Really? That’s great,” Cal replied.

  “There are some limitations, like we would need to be within a few miles of a repeater, but my radio buddy gave me a map of the repeaters throughout the state. There are plenty in our area. My buddy is also a disaster reservist and volunteers with emergency management as one of their back-up commo guys. He set my radios up with the freqs for search and rescue and the rest of the emergency services. HAM is the last line of communication when all else fails. During the 2005 hurricane season, when every mode of commo failed, even the satellite phones, most of the emergency services could not talk to each other. The HAMs came together and set up MESH nodes and a commo net for the whole state. My radios are on all the same repeaters that fire rescue and law enforcement use.

  “He told me that even the military has gotten back into HAM to just in case North Korea launches an EMP and takes out our national grid,” Rusty continued.

  “OK, can we give a radio to Mark at the hospital and set up our own net?” Cal asked.

  “We sure can. I have each radio packaged with instructions, freq sheets, and extra batteries and chargers in waterproof cases all ready to go.”

  “How will we know when to make sure everyone is listening? It’s not like we can leave voicemail on a radio,” Cal said.

  “The way it is supposed to work is called the 333 plan. When you are trying to save battery power or prevent your location from being signal tracked, you have everyone turn on their radios every three hours, for three minutes, to channel three. My radios are programmed to a list of identical freqs and channel three is the common channel. We can switch to other channels for private or tactical conversations. That’s why I have a written list of freqs and code words–so we can move about the spectrum with some privacy. It won’t be totally private if someone has a scanner or RF direction finder, but it’s the best we can do without encryption. That’s why we need to work on some more code words. But for now we just need to keep in touch with each other.”

  Amber was out in the backyard with Mandy and Tempest when she heard the neighbor’s horses having a fit and running around.

  Mrs. Joyce lived on the five acres behind Cal’s property. She was a divorcee and spent most of her time caring for the horses. On occasion she would let Amber come over and ride Misty and Tito. Misty was a 20-year-old rescue trail horse and Tito was an ex-thoroughbred race horse who was a rescue after his racing career ended and he was left in a pasture.

  The girls walked back through the trees in their yard to the fence that held the horses. Both horses were clearly agitated. It did not look like they had been fed yet today. There was no hay in their pen and the food bucket was upside down in the dirt. Mrs. Joyce would never miss feeding them; she lived for those horses, but there was no sign of her.

  The girls decided it would be best to go get Cal to check on Mrs. Joyce, given how things had been going lately. They tried to pet the horses before they left–both horses came to the fence but spooked and ran away when they didn’t see any food. The girls headed back to the house to get some help.

  “Daddy,” Amber said, “Mrs. Joyce’s horses are really upset. I don’t think they have eaten and I don’t see Mrs. Joyce out there. That’s not like her. You need to do something.”

  Cal and Charlotte looked at each other. He was just on his way out the door with Rusty to the hospital.

  Charlotte interjected, “Your dad is going to check on his work at the hospital. Maybe Glendora can go with me to check on Mrs. Joyce.”

  “Well, I sure can. I love horses.” Glendora joined the conversation.

  Shane offered to go along for support. He did not think it was a good idea for the ladies to go alone. The three of them made their way out the door with Rusty and Cal as they were leaving for the hospital.

  “Be careful, love. Come back soon and don’t touch anything. We don’t want ‘the sick’ here,” Charlotte said, referring to their pet name for anytime someone did not feel well.

  “I will,” Cal said, as they kissed goodbye.

  Shane and the two ladies headed through the backyard toward the sound of unhappy horses. Once at the fence, they passed through the gate and walked up to the house. There were no lights and no activity, so far.

  “That’s unusual. She always has a TV on,” Charlotte said, adding to the drama.

  Shane reminded her the power was off.

  “Oh right!” she replied, embarrassingly.

  Shane rolled his eyes a little as he walked around the house toward the front, glancing in the windows. As he passed the master bedroom window he peeked in–hoping to not get shot at–and noticed a disturbing sight. Mrs. Joyce was still in bed but she was laying in a pool of bloody vomit and her eyes were bulged open, frozen in agony.

  “Hold on,” he told the two women. “Mrs. Joyce is no longer with us.”

  Charlotte and Glendora moved to the window and took in the sight. They both stepped back at the same time with a look of sorrow on their faces.

  “Poor dear,” Glendora said.

  Charlotte had no words. She knew that no one would be coming to check on Mrs. Joyce. She had no family in the area. Suddenly Charlotte felt a deep guilt for not being a better friend to her neighbor. How hard could it be to pick up the phone every once in a while, or step back to the fence to say hi. It’s easy to just say life gets in the way, but isn’t being neighborly a part of a good life?

  Shane broke the trance, “What about the horses? Is there some food in the barn maybe?”

  Charlotte remembered that the barn was always stocked with large bags of feed and headed that way. Glendora moved to fill the water bucket for the horses. The large animals settled down once they had some food and water.

 
; “We should take the horses with us to my house,” Charlotte suggested.

  Shane saw the golf cart in the barn and suggested they load up the cart with the last three 50-pound bags of food to make the trip easier.

  Charlotte and Glendora each attached a lead to the two horses and walked them behind the golf cart being driven by Shane.

  Amber and Mandy were out in the yard and thrilled to see the horse procession coming through the trees and ran out to greet them.

  Cal’s property had an old horse pen that they had never used, and the horses were turned loose in there for the time being. They loved it because there was plenty of overgrown grass to munch on in the old pen.

  “OK, now the hard part, who is going to tell Cal he just inherited a couple of horses to care for?” Shane asked. Both Shane and Glendora looked at Charlotte as if playing the game “Not it!”

  “Well, crap. I didn’t think this one through,” she replied as the odd man out.

  26

  Chapter 26

  Friday, January 12th

  Loxahatchee, Florida

  Cal and Rusty made their way from the house on the long dirt road along the canal toward the pavement. They were headed to the hospital to see what was going on and to try to find Mark. The hospital was a good twenty minutes away. There were not as many cars on the road as one would have expected for a Saturday. Normally, everyone was out running the weekend errands, but not today.

  Cal noticed some blue lights moving quickly toward them in the rear view and began to slow and ease over to give them some room to pass. The two police cars sped past Cal’s truck with lights and no siren and a khaki-colored Humvee struggling to keep up. The Humvee had about eight troops in the back holding on tight. They appeared to be wearing full battle rattle and carrying long guns. M4s at first glance.

  “You don’t see that everyday,” Cal said.

  “I wonder where they are going,” Rusty chimed in.

  It was not long before they had the answer to that question. A couple minutes after the pack of vehicles passed them it became obvious that the police were responding to some sort of incident.

  As they approached the blue lights, they saw the police cars pulled awkwardly across the road in front of a house situated on a larger property. The Humvee was also pulled sideways and the troops were on the ground using the vehicle as cover.

  The severity of the situation did not really register with Cal as he slowed down to pass the stand-off. Without warning, all hell broke loose. Heavy gunfire erupted from the direction of the house and a shed on the left side of the property. The police worked to return fire but the Humvee was pulled up too far and the troops were exposed to the gunfire coming from the shed. Several of the soldiers fell to the ground in pain just as Cal drove by. A volley of incoming bullets pinged on the truck body. Two rounds blew out the driver’s window and exited through the windshield. Cal and Rusty ducked in the hail of glass and Cal went to the floor with the gas pedal. The police cars were in the way of their escape and Cal swerved around them, but the truck slid into a shallow roadside ditch that held several inches of water and muck.

  A full-on gunfight was underway behind them and they were in the line of fire. Cal spun the tires but the truck was beginning to get mired in the ditch.

  More rounds pinged on the bed as Cal tried to back up. He rotated the four-wheel-drive knob on the dash and the drive gear slammed into place. The truck sprayed mud back and forth as he shifted from reverse to forward on the shifter. Rusty was preparing in case he had to jump out with his own M4 and provide cover. Just then, the truck hooked up and shot out of the ditch in a muddy rooster tail. Not letting up on the gas, Cal found himself crashing through a plant nursery.

  The truck bounced and shook as they raced the four-wheel-drive across rows of small plants in gallon-sized pots. Cal did not let up until he found a driveway across the ditch and skidded back onto the pavement.

  “Holy shit dude!” Rusty said, as he patted himself down looking for leaks. “You ok?” he continued, as he gave Cal the once over as well. Cal was still instinctively slouched down, almost looking through the steering wheel rather than over it. He still had his foot a little heavy on the gas and they were running about twenty over the speed limit with a cool wind blowing in through the broken glass.

  “I think so,” Cal replied, switching back and forth from looking through the holey windshield to the rear view mirror.

  “What is going on out here?” he asked no one in particular. “It’s like the world is collapsing right in front of us. I’ll be glad when this is over in a couple of weeks. Surely it can’t get worse.”

  In an almost ominous cosmic reply, they heard a deep whopping sound reverberate through the truck cab. Both of them started looking around as the vibration got so loud they could not hear anything else. Just then, a flight of Blackhawks passed them at almost treetop level going in the same direction.

  Six birds in formation and moving fast. The sight of low-flying helicopters always brought out the little boy in a guy but this was different. Each bird had door gunners peering out from the window behind the pilots. The gunners looked to be actively searching for threats.

  Behind the gunners, the large troop doors were locked in the open position with what appeared to be a full complement of armed soldiers crowding the benches. Following the flight of Blackhawks were two large twin-rotor Chinooks. They were flying higher because of the sling loads they were carrying. Rusty craned his neck to look at the two school bus-sized helicopters.

  “I think things just got worse,” he said. “The shithooks are carrying large pallets of concertina wire.”

  The guys watched as the helicopters flew out of sight. “I have a bad feeling about this. You know I’m the last guy to own a tinfoil hat, but that looks like bad news right there,” Cal said, referring to the aggressive military presence.

  They drove in silence for a couple of miles pondering the last 15 minutes of their lives when Rusty decided to lighten up the mood and poke Cal with a verbal stick.

  “I think the trade-in value on your new truck just took a hit. I doubt there is much of a resale market for high-end shot-up trucks.”

  Cal gave Rusty that deadpan look again. “I hate you.”

  Cal wheeled his newly pierced pickup truck toward the hospital. As he rounded the corner of Forest Hill Boulevard, he saw a line of cars, some on the road and some parked haphazardly on either side, as if abandoned. Up ahead he saw road flares lined up to create lanes in the road and what appeared to be National Guard members wearing surgical masks with attached eye shields and black nitrile gloves. They were all armed and a group of soldiers with clipboards seemed to be sorting cars and pedestrians into lanes and lines.

  Many cars were turned away and some people seemed to be agitated at that. Cal’s truck moved at a snail’s pace through the line of cars.

  “This is new,” Cal said.

  Rusty slid the M4 under the seat and out of sight, trying to not look obvious.

  As they crept closer to the hospital, Cal noticed the parking lot had several large military-style tents arranged outside of the ER. The tents all had big red crosses on top. The line of pedestrians that were being admitted were being escorted by personnel wearing full-body infection control suits with hoods, yellow rubber gloves, and yellow rubber boots. All activity was being monitored by armed troops wearing Tyvek suits and chemical warfare masks.

  Cal’s truck was finally at the checkpoint. A masked trooper approached the truck and stopped about six feet from what was left of the driver’s window. Looking at the bullet holes and shattered glass as he walked up, he said, “What are your symptoms err… Bonnie and Clyde?”

  Cal wasn’t sure how to respond, but he did not want to be herded into the sick lane–or arrested.

  “None, we are contractors helping with the expansion. We got called in to repair a broken medical gas line on 4A.”

  Cal flashed his construction all-access badge and tried to sound c
onvincing. The trooper looked at Rusty, who gave a toothy smile and an awkward wave. The trooper muttered something about not dealing with another degenerate today and waved to another trooper to let them pass.

  “That way, stay away from everyone, don’t touch anything, and wear a mask and gloves everywhere you go,” the trooper ordered impatiently.

  Cal rolled the truck out of the line and through the barrier the other trooper had opened for him. Rusty looked out the passenger window at the scene. It was like a whole parking lot of hopelessness.

  They parked in the construction lot and headed to the back entrance. Cal handed Rusty a reflective vest and a hard hat, then grabbed a tool bag for appearances.

  Rusty was carrying the radio case and shrugged as if to just go with it. “See, all you need is a pickup truck and a tool bag and you can go anywhere.”

  They easily walked into the caged maintenance area, but as they approached the door to the main interior hallway, a musclebound man dressed like an urban operator stopped them.

  “Who are you?” he said rudely. Cal held up his construction ID again but this time it did not work.

  “I don’t care who you are, turn around,” the muscle head continued.

  “Ok, buddy. There is a broken medical gas pipe up on 4A. Pure oxygen is filling the wing. What is your name so I know who to blame when the fire destroys the Pharmastat lab?” Cal was steadily making up stories today.

  “Hold on, I’ll call up there to verify,” the man said.

  “Ok, but we’re going to wait outside because a ringing phone will probably cause an explosion,” Cal continued.

  The man was genuinely perplexed at what to do now.

  Just then, Mark rounded the corner in the hall with Clara. He saw Rusty and Cal being held up by the goon. Cal continued his charade.