If I am out of town, I will head to your mom’s first. That is truly the safest place for you and the boys. Bring any neighbors who will go and be helpful, or your dad.
The more the better, and quick within 24 hours. All can take grocery carts to put their kids and stuff in.
It’s about thirty miles to your mom’s house and will take you about three days with the kids. Her ranch is not safe for the long term but will be good for a month or two, before the city people overrun the small farms close enough to walk to.
Everyone take as much food as possible, sleeping bags and a tarp or tent. Only take enough water for two to three days. You can filter more on way out from any lake or stream. Water is heavy to carry. Empty the big jugs in the garage and take with you. Only fill one or two.
6. If your phone doesn’t work, it may take weeks or months to restore power. No help is coming, so be proactive quickly. People will get desperate after a couple days and you will not be safe here by yourselves.
7. There are 100 gallons of drinkable water in our two water heaters in walk-in attic. Just pull the plug near the bottom after the water has had time to cool.
8. Take pistols out of small safes under our bed. Keys are in my drawer. Take rifles out of the gun safe. Code is 928146. Have magazines and bullets. Someone will know how to use them.
9. Bring pets if you can. Ringo can provide protection and can be leashed to a grocery cart.
10. Key is doing things right away. Most people will not know what’s going on until their food runs out in a few days. When Katrina hit New Orleans, it was deadly in a couple days, as people panicked and turned on each other.
11. If power is out and phone doesn’t work, we have had an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) or solar flare caused by the sun or a terrorist attack, like 911. In either case, power may be out for a year or more. Need to band together with others quickly in a day or two.
12. Take any weapons with you—bow and arrows, BB gun, with BBs or pellets, crossbow, knives: all in garage closet.
13. Take all working batteries out of the kids’ electronic toys, smoke detectors, and anything else. You will need as many as you can get. Some small electronics will still work if stored properly.
14. Bring alfalfa sprout seeds and any garden seeds you can find. Most are heirloom, so can be replanted year after year.
15. Don’t panic and don’t stay in the house. The neighborhood will not be safe in a few days.
I will be home as soon as possible. Pray often and don’t give up!
Thank you, Lord, Joy said to herself, that he’s not out of town.
*******
Chapter Three ~ Dallas, Texas
After everyone at my office grouped up, at least those who were leaving, I made a quick announcement. It would be the last time I would see most of my employees.
“I am heading to the grocery store now to hopefully secure a cart and any possible items that I can buy with cash. I will make a brief stop back here to join with anyone going my general direction. We will then go over the rules of travel.”
“What kind of crap is that?” asked the jerk who accused me earlier of not paying my electric bill. “What’s your name, Sir?” I asked, still trying to be civil. “My name is Lawrence and I say we put all decisions to a vote.”
Lawrence was middle-aged, tall and thin with wire-rimmed glasses. He reminded me of Bill Gates in his looks and your typical asshole in his mannerisms.
“Which direction are you headed, Lawrence?” I asked, hoping it was any other direction but north. “I’m headed to Prosper, just north of McKinney,” he replied. Of course you are, I mumbled.
“Anyone going to the store with me, we are leaving right now.”
To my surprise, most all of the people in the room started heading out the door with me to the store. Lawrence did not. Please, Lord, let him be gone when I get back, I thought.
The trip to the store was quick, as it was only about a mile. There was a lot of nervous talking among a few people, but most were dead silent.
I thought it must be sinking in for them now that we were all pretty much screwed. We passed a few cars on the road as we walked. Some were abandoned and others had their hoods up, with the owners tinkering with the engines. They looked up as we passed, startled at seeing nearly 25 people all walking down the center of the always-bustling Preston Road.
I was pretty sure I was the only one conceal carrying, but knew I could be wrong about that. I wasn’t about to let anyone know unless I had no choice. A few months back I had taken my CCL concealed handgun license course in Plano, near my house. After a short shooting accuracy test and an easy written exam, all that was left was the background check. My instructor said, “Just in case you get pulled over by the police for a speeding ticket or minor violation, give them both your driver’s license and CCL ID. With the CCL, they know you have passed a background check and will be much more at ease. It may even get you out of a ticket, but don’t quote me on that,” he cautioned.
After my class, I researched good conceal carry pistols. After reviewing at least ten acceptable models, I settled on the Ruger LC9. It is a compact sleek pistol with the punch of a 9mm bullet, especially in a hollow point. Not having an extensive knowledge of guns, or even having a lot of experience with them growing up, I did own the Ruger SR9C compact and SR 40 full-length pistol, firing a 40-caliber round. I had shot both numerous times over the past few years, with no jams or any other issues.
As a kid growing up in a large community / cattle ranch in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Northern Colorado, I was more familiar with bows and arrows than guns. My friends and I would enter Archery contests in the barebow category. To qualify for barebow we would shoot a recurve bow with no sights or pulleys that you find on a compound bow. I owned both a recurve and compound bow but grew to love the simplicity of the recurve. There was a peaceful feeling just before the shot, when I knew exactly where the arrow was going without any thought beyond the steadiness of my breath. It was a feeling like I have never known since those days, nearly thirty years later.
I bought a takedown recurve bow from Cabela’s last year after reading a post-apocalyptic book by A. American that really got me thinking. I hated to admit it, but it was still in the box, as were the arrows I had purchased in my “camping” / end-of-the-world closet.
A sudden nearly overwhelming fear gripped me as I realized right there in the grocery store parking lot that I was the guy I had been hearing about in many of the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it audiobooks I had been listening to over the past year. I had bought a lot of gear but hadn’t even tried to use it. Hell, some of the stuff I had no idea even how to use properly. It was just neatly piled up in my garage.
Now I had to get home to Joy and the kids as fast as I could.
Where were they? Are they home? Are they stranded? I was starting to panic. If I had just left after my speech at the office I could be closer to home now and traveling fast. If it had been just me and that asshole Lawrence at the office, I would have been gone in two minutes. But these people with me are people that I have put trust in and they in me, some for years. I at least owed it to them to get them off to a good start, even if it meant delaying my journey home by a day. “Hey,” asked Johnny, one of my now former staff members as he put a hand on my shoulder. I jumped just a little and realized everyone was looking at me. “Are you OK?” he asked, with a genuine concern in his voice.
“Sure,” I managed to get out, sounding as confident as I could. “I was just going over some strategies in my head. Give me just a second,” as I pretended to rummage through my backpack. It gave me just enough time for a silent pep talk to myself. Get your shit together, Lance, I said under my breath. You have a lot of people counting on you and you had better come through and make it home.
With that, I was ready to go. “OK, everyone. Grab a cart. There are still plenty out here in the lot. Who has cash on them? Raise your hand.”
Most all raised their h
ands. “OK,” I said. “We can pool the cash and divide the goods or all fend for ourselves. Anyone who trusts me to make good purchases, stand over here and give me all of your money. All others, stand over there. I’m putting in all my cash, so don’t think you’re getting screwed here. I have $600 in small bills. Anyone pitching in will go into the store with me and we will divide everything back at the office before we head out.”
To my surprise nearly everyone lined up to pitch in. Only a few stood in the other line. There was a man and woman, a couple I surmised to be in their mid-50s that stood in between both groups. The man spoke first, addressing me as Sir. “Sir,” he said. “I’m not asking for any charity but we don’t have any cash; just credit cards and a couple checks. I just don’t know what we should do.” I knew him by name but didn’t recognize her. His name was Harold and he was a longtime patient of mine. I had never met his wife but assumed this was her. “Harold,” I said, “I’ve known you for a while and you are a good man.” I walked over to them and handed them each $100 out of my $600 stack of $20s and $10s. “OK,” I said. “Give me your cash and let’s get shopping.” His wife started to cry and Harold just kept saying, “Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much,” as they handed me back the money. We entered the store through the automatic doors, which were now held open by a large cinderblock on either side. The front was fairly well lit by the sunlight streaming through the wall of windows that spread out across the entire front of the store.
The Manager was right up front and was not expecting nearly twenty people to all walk in at the exact same time. “Wait a minute,” he questioned, with a hint of authority that he obviously thrived upon. “We’re closed for business on account of the power outage.”
“What’s your name?” I asked, with a bit of sarcasm. “My name is Lloyd and I’m the manager of this store. We have protocols and if the power goes out we close until it’s back online. That’s it.”
“OK, Lloyd,” I replied. “Let’s talk over here,” as I motioned to a corner out of earshot of any of his employees and my so-called entourage. “Listen,” I whispered. “I have $2736 in cash and want to buy some provisions for my group. I’m going to write a business check from my office just a mile down the road for an additional $2,500, made out to you personally. Is that something you can work with?” Lloyd thought about it for about a second and said, “I think we can do that.”
“Sandy,” he called towards a girl that was finishing sweeping around the registers. “Let’s have you go shopping with them and take this calculator. We can’t scan any barcodes due to the power, so add it all up as they shop and don’t forget to put the 8.25% state tax on it. I don’t want to hear about it later from the district manager. They have $2,736 to spend total between all of them.”
With that, we were headed down the aisle. I put on my headlamp and gave out a couple flashlights from my pack to a few others. “OK,” I said. “We are going to start in the canned meat and soup aisle.” I grabbed as much canned tuna, salmon, soup, spaghetti, raviolis and chili as I could see. Keeping in mind the price tags on the shelves, I was not interested in quality at this time.
Next we bypassed the refrigerated items and headed for the beans and pasta aisle. I was loading a lot of carts with these and was pleased with the low prices. Ramen noodles came next and we loaded 100 6-packs of various flavors into the carts. I wasn’t concerned with the near-zero nutritional value of these meals, knowing it was an easy meal to fill a stomach.
We passed the beer and wine aisle with just a few comments from the group. “How about a six-pack?” came a comment from someone in the back. “Not today,” I stated, and kept moving. We rounded the trip out with canned vegetables, batteries of various sizes, multivitamins, a few cheap flashlights and various over-the-counter pain relievers and Imodium. I made a point to check the baking and utensil aisle for a bit of sugar, salt and all of the handheld can openers they had. It turns out they had 14 of those.
Sandy was furious on the calculator and came up with $2,702, including the sales tax. “OK,” I told her as we got to the checkout stand. “Give me five packs of this beef jerky here and we will call it even.” She seemed relieved just to be done with it. I paid her under Lloyd’s watchful eye and headed out with our goods without a fanfare. Lloyd not so discreetly reminded me of the business check I had promised him. I was happy to write it and told him to go to the bank as soon as possible. I knew I had the money for it and thought just maybe they would cash it for him on good faith since I had been banking at that branch for the last eight years.
It was only a mile back to the office, but it seemed much longer. We were now getting plenty of interest from people just milling about, not sure what to do. I was starting to feel vulnerable and unconsciously had my right hand resting on the butt of my pistol.
As we reached my office parking lot, there were just a few people sitting outside the office. “Lawrence,” I remarked. “I thought you would be gone by now.”
“Nope,” he replied smugly. “I had to wait until you got back with my groceries.”
“OK,” I said to the others, without responding to his smart-ass comment. “We will divide the water from the office equally among everyone here and the provisions only among those that pitched in,” I said, looking squarely at Lawrence. Once we had everything divided, I called my group heading north to go over the rules I had promised.
“For anyone travelling with me, you will need to agree to the following rules. Anyone not able to commit to them is welcome to head out your own way.
“Rule number 1: We will head straight up Preston Road, north to Hwy. 121. I will personally detour from my route up to two miles to get any female home safely. Once we hit Hwy. 121, I will head east to my home.
“Rule number 2: We will all travel as a close group and will not be able to add any more people to our journey.
“And Rule number 3: If I ask you to do something, rest assured it will be for your own safety. I have done quite a bit of research on what we are about to encounter and I can tell you it won’t be easy.”
I had four men and six women in our group. “Is anyone here former or active military?” Two people raised their hand, one man and one woman. I didn’t know them but believed them to be a couple. He spoke up and said, “I’m Army Ranger retired and my wife Nancy here is former National Guard.”
“That’s perfect,” I replied. “Can we talk a minute over here?” as I gestured to the corner of the office that was empty.
Jake was about six feet tall and at least 250 pounds, with dark hair and a strong square chin. He looked like a Sergeant and I had no doubt he could be a leader of men. Nancy was blonde, with straight shoulder-length hair and pretty in a no-nonsense way.
“I’m not military,” I told them, “but have the upmost respect for those who are. I happen to have done quite a bit of research on EMPs over the past few years and have an idea of what we may be up against, not only in the next months or years, but even just getting home. We need to keep an eye on Lawrence. I already know he’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t want him riling up the rest of our group. Are either of you carrying?”
“I am,” said Jake. “I always do, and Nancy has a pistol in the truck.”
“OK, let’s get that discreetly. I am carrying as well, but let’s keep it to ourselves if at all possible.” “Agreed,” they both replied in near unison.
“OK, everyone, let’s head out.” I checked my watch purely out of habit and found it dead, of course. I guessed it was about 1 p.m. As we were walking I created a crude map of our route, with major highways and cross streets marked. I had everyone put the approximate location of their home on the map, with their name.
We had gone less than a mile when I realized we were drawing a lot of attention from people walking about. A few people asked why we had all that food and where we were headed. I told everyone in the group to not answer any questions and just keep moving forward, staying as close to each other as possible. We were coming
up on an Aldi grocery store on the right, about fifty yards away. There was a crowd of 30-40 people out front and we could hear shouting between a few of the men. “Let’s cross the street to the other side now and keep walking,” I told our group. “Don’t make eye contact with anyone, and don’t stop.”
No more than twenty feet ahead was a large RV at an odd angle, right in the middle of the road. I couldn’t see around it, so we veered to the far left of the street and went up the sidewalk. As we broached the back end of the RV, four men stepped out from behind it and the lead guy yelled “Stop!” These guys were thugs and I had seen their type before.
“Where you going with that food?” asked the apparent leader of the group. He was a large black man with sleeve-type tattoos on both arms. Not the detailed expensive-looking artwork you may see on a trendy Chef in an upscale restaurant, but more like what you would expect coming out of a long stint in the big house. He wore a white tank top that clearly showed the barbed-wire tattoo all the way around his neck. One of the other guys looked like a skinhead and the other two appeared to be Hispanic. All had numerous tattoos and looked like they just walked out of jail.
Next World Series (Vol. 1): Families First Page 4