“Stop!” I shouted in a loud voice, shining my flashlight in their faces. The boy and girl of about 16 stopped abruptly and put their hands up. They couldn’t see our faces or our guns but they were scared anyway. “Uh, we’re sorry. We didn’t take anything. We just were…well…uh…we’re sorry,” begged the girl as she began to cry. “Please don’t call the police on us.”
“How did you get in here?” I asked. “The back door was unlocked,” answered the boy. “Who else is in here?” “Nobody,” he said. “I swear. We just want to go home.”
“Go,” I hollered, “and I won’t call the cops if you promise not to tell anyone you were here.”
“Thank you. Thank you. We won’t tell anyone,” they promised, and ran down the aisle and out the door.
“You’re still going to call the police on the young lovers, right?” Jake joked. “Just as soon as I find a pay phone, buddy,” I told him.
We grabbed our carts and headed for the canned-meat aisle. “Let’s get meats, soups, fish and soups.” Next was the pasta aisle, and then spices. We grabbed batteries and beef jerky from the front aisles.
“You still want to pass on the beer, like we did this morning?” asked Jake. “Hell, no,” I jested. “We should grab a few cases and some wine for the ladies.”
We rounded out the carts with as much salt, sugar, honey and peanut butter as we could fit in. “Just one more thing,” I remarked, as I grabbed a few jars of pickles. “Pickles?” Jake asked. “Those are not the best survival food.”
“Don’t worry. They won’t make it more than a day or two at my house,” I replied. We headed out the back door and each grabbed a bunch of roses as a peace offering to the girls for robbing a store.
“That’s far enough,” came a voice from the alley. This time the flashlights were in our faces. I had my hand on my pistol but didn’t draw it. I couldn’t see anything and didn’t want to get killed over a misunderstanding. “McKinney Police,” the two men barked. “Put your hands on your head and turn around.”
“What do you want to do, Jake?” I asked in a low voice. “I don’t think we have much of a choice at the moment,” he declared.
“Maybe we can talk to them,” I told him. “Let’s comply for now.” We put our hands on our heads and turned around.
“My name is Lance Ewing and I live just across the street,” I announced. “We were just…”
“Lance, is that you?” came a voice from one of them. “It’s Lonnie.”
“I know him,” I told Jake in low voice. “He’s a neighbor of mine.”
“Yeah, Lonnie. It’s me.”
“What the hell are you guys doing?” he asked.
“Can we put our hands down and talk for a minute?” I asked. Thankfully they hadn’t seen our pistols yet.
“Sure,” said Lonnie. “He’s OK, Mike,” he said to the other officer. “He’s a friend of mine. Lives in my neighborhood… This doesn’t look good, Lance,” he said in a serious tone.
“I know. I know!” I retorted. “Let’s just talk for a minute before you make any decisions. I want to ask you a few questions, respectfully, as a friend. Can I do that, Lonnie?”
“Sure, buddy. Go ahead,” replied Lonnie.
“OK. First, where’s your car? I bet it doesn’t run.” “That’s right,” he acknowledged. “It stopped running this morning, along with a bunch of other cars.”
“I bet none of your cell phones or computers work either. Am I right?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “What are you getting at?”
I said, “Do you remember that get-together at my house a couple months back, where I showed you my freeze-dried food storage and told you about EMPs?”
“Sure. I remember… Oh shit,” he followed. “You talked about the cars, electric grids and cell phones all going down.”
“What the fuck is he talking about?” asked Mike. “He’s talking about the apocalypse,” stated Lonnie. “The end of the world, as we know it… And he’s right! It all makes perfect fucking sense now.”
“Well, perfect!” retorted Mike, with a sarcastic tone. “Let’s just help them home with their stolen groceries.”
“Listen man,” Lonnie told him. “By tomorrow this store will be completely looted, along with every other grocery store in this city. We need to check on our families,” he said.
“Listen,” I proposed, “we can put the carts back in the store and just go home.”
“No. No,” replied Lonnie. “I’m not saying I condone it, but by tomorrow it won’t matter. Take your carts home to your family and I’ll stop by in the morning to talk more about all this.”
“You OK with this, Mike?” Lonnie asked, more as a statement than a question.
“I guess so,” uttered Mike. “This is all fucked up, and if the power comes back on tomorrow, it’s on you, Lonnie.”
“No problem,” asserted Lonnie. “I can assure you, it won’t be back on for a long, long time.” Lonnie was a short Hispanic man with a full mustache and a heart of gold. Mike looked like a disgruntled military man who became a cop to be the big man. I wasn’t in position to figure it out right now.
“Well that was fun,” Jake quipped as we headed home with our carts in tow. “Ha,” I added. “That could have gone really bad if it hadn’t been Lonnie.”
“You want to go back for a third round?” Jake asked. “I’m not sure,” I replied. “We can use all the supplies we can get but we may be pushing our luck.”
We ducked through the cut into my street and heard a cough from behind the bushes to my right.
We stopped and both drew our weapons. Jake shined his flashlight at the bush and yelled, “Come out real slow.” Two men came out from behind the bush.
I recognized one of them. He was my neighbor, Jeff. I didn’t like him and he knew it. He was a know-it-all and was always stirring things up on the block. I didn’t know the other guy but figured he was an asshole, if only by association with Jeff.
“What are you doing with that stuff?” noted Jeff in an authoritative tone. “Wouldn’t you rather know why you have two guns pointed in your general direction?” I retorted.
Without responding he added, “I know what’s going on. Your wife refused to talk to me but I’ll get answers.”
“Smart lady,” Jake interjected. “I wouldn’t talk to you either if I had the choice.”
Jeff continued: “So are you going to tell me what you are up to or do I have to tell our HOA representative?”
He was of course referring to Hazel and her ridiculous committee, always busting good people for minor things. The grass is too long or too short; the dog barked for a few minutes. Maybe you left your trash can out for an hour after pickup. “Yeah, you should do that,” I protested. “Now get out of our way.”
We walked into the garage with lights out. I didn’t want anyone to see what was in there.
“Well, I guess that settles it,” exclaimed Jake. “We need to stay in for the night.” We locked both garage doors from the inside.
Ringo was right there as we entered the house. The ladies were still up but fading fast. “I assume you have everyone set to sleep somewhere?” I asked Joy.
“Of course,” she replied, and added: “Jake, you and Nancy will be upstairs in the guest room and Tina will sleep on the foldout couch down here.”
“We will keep Ringo downstairs to keep an eye on everything,” I added. “If he starts barking we need to do a perimeter check quickly.” All agreed, and Jake and I decided to take different parts of the house if needed.
“We saw Jeff outside,” I told Joy. “Yeah, he is a special kind of asshole,” added Jake. “Pardon my French, ladies.”
“That’s not French,” joked Nancy. “That’s backwoods country slang.” “Ohh,” we all said, and had a good laugh. “I’m just a good old Colorado country boy,” Jake said. “No more, no less.”
“We will talk about him and everything else tomorrow,” I said. “Also, Lonnie will be by in the morning,” I t
old Joy. “Good,” she said. “Tell him to bring Jane and the kids if he can. I like them.” “Me too,” I added. “Now let’s get some sleep.”
I left the blinds open this night. I wanted to know when the sun was up.
No sleeping in for the foreseeable future, I thought. The boys always got up around 6 a.m. but I wanted to be sure to get up early anyway.
I was surprised at how quiet the house was as we slept. No kids’ monitor set to white noise, no bathroom fan to block out the snoring—probably mine. I expected Ringo to have at least one bout of barking with all the new people in the house, but none came.
I was up at the crack of dawn. With the windows open and no alarm, I felt like we were camping.
My mind drifted to the camping trip just a month ago, when we took the boys to Dinosaur National Park, about two hours southeast of here. It was the first camping trip for them and I wanted to make sure they loved it, so they would want to go back. They all thought it was the best. I wondered how soon it would be before we would be sleeping in a tent again…
I walked into the living room and smelled coffee. I saw Jake out on the patio with the camping coffee pot on the Coleman stove. “I think we’re going to get along just fine,” I stated, “but where is my fucking bacon?” He just laughed and said, “Good morning to you, too.”
“Is anyone else up?” I asked. “I don’t think so,” he replied.
“Let’s talk for a minute out here,” I added. “We’re going to have a problem with Jeff and whoever will listen to him. Lonnie can be a help to our little group if we approach it right. He’s a good man and it can’t hurt to have a cop on our side.”
“Agreed on both issues,” Jake replied.
He handed me a cup of coffee and asked how much I had in stock. “That’s a problem,” I admitted. “I didn’t think to grab any last night. I’ve got a couple cans but we need more, for sure.”
“Daddy! Daddy!” came from the living room. “Come on out here, guys.” It was Hudson and Danny.
“Mmm…coffee,” said Hudson. “Nope, buddy,” I stated. “I don’t give you coffee; you know that.”
“I just want a bean, Daddy.” “All right. Just one, little buddy.”
“Can we get donuts today, Daddy?” he asked. “We always get donuts when you stay home from work.”
“No. I’m sorry but they’re not open today,” I told him, and realized his little world was gone. “We can have breakfast outside today, though,” I said. “Does that sound fun?”
“Cool, Daddio,” he said.
An hour later everyone was up.
We got some bacon out of the freezer and eggs from the counter. On a recent trip to Bolivia, I learned if you don’t wash eggs you can set them in a bowl on the counter for a couple months. You just have to have chickens or get them somewhere besides a grocery store. We got some from Joy’s mom’s ranch, about thirty miles from here.
Everyone ate good. Even the girls finished their plates. Ringo interrupted us with loud barking at the front door.
I answered the door with my gun in hand but pointed down. It was Lonnie and, to my surprise, his family. “Just in time for breakfast,” I announced.
“I’m usually the only one with the gun,” Lonnie replied, but with a casual demeanor. “Sorry,” I replied. “It’s just…well, we will need to talk in a bit.”
After we ate, Jake, Lonnie and I went out to the garage to talk. “You guys went back for another cart?” asked Lonnie, looking at our four full shopping carts.
“No, of course not,” I joked. “We were able to get two carts out long before McKinney’s finest were able to respond.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Lonnie, as Jake and I were laughing. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot your asses.”
“Thanks,” I responded. “Now let’s get busy and get on the same page.
“Are you going back to work?” I asked Lonnie. “Hell, I don’t think so,” he stated. “Headquarters is seven miles away and I don’t have a car that works or any way to contact anyone. I don’t think I’m going back until things get back to normal. I have a family to take care of.”
“Yes, you do,” I agreed, “and so do we. That’s why we’re here. We need to get a core group together, and fast,” I added, “as long as we pick the right people. We don’t want any freeloaders or troublemakers, and we both know we have a few around the neighborhood.”
“Well, that’s true,” he agreed. “Let’s talk to a few people this morning and try to get our group together.”
Lonnie, Jake and I headed out around the block an hour later. We made it just to the end of my driveway when Jeff and a group of about ten walked up.
“Officer Sanchez,” Jeff said, looking at Lonnie. “Thank God you’re here. Hazel and I need to talk to you about Lance and the people with him,” pointing at me.
I laughed out loud at that and Lonnie stated, “You have exactly five minutes, Jeff, and then you’re done.” Jeff and Hazel spewed off enough hate and lies about me and most of the neighborhood to let Lonnie know they were a problem. About five minutes later Lonnie looked at his watch and said, “OK, you’re done. Now go home before we have a problem.” To my surprise, they all just turned and left.
“Let me see your watch,” I said to Lonnie. He showed me his watch that read 10:03, obviously broken from yesterday, and we both laughed. “You’re right,” he agreed. “That guy will be a problem.”
“Let’s make our rounds and get this done,” I responded. It took another two hours to add five families to our group. It would have been seven but two of them were on vacation, out of state, when it went dark. They would not be back soon, if ever.
We all agreed to meet at my house around 4 p.m. Since no one had a working watch, we agreed to the placement of the sun just over the water tower, towards the west of the neighborhood, to be about that time.
We had everyone bring an inventory list of food, guns and ammo, medicine and skills to help the group. All told, we had 17 adults and 15 kids ranging in age from 1 to 17. The adults met in our living room at 4 and the kids played inside the house. I wanted to keep everyone inside for now and not draw any attention outside from anyone else.
I addressed the group and gave them my EMP speech—the same one from yesterday, more or less. This one, however, had a twist. We were headed for Colorado, and for most here it was the first they had heard about it.
I wasn’t sure what to expect but knew it would be hard to get most to abandon their homes here and head a quarter of the way across the country to the mountains.
When I finished the speech, most stood silent, and more than a few were shaking their heads no.
Lonnie was the first to talk. “Lance, I’ll be honest,” he said. “This is a lot to take in. Do you really think it’s going to be that bad?” he added.
“It’s already bad,” I answered, not wanting to divulge too much just yet about my walk home or Joy’s trip that she told me about last night after everyone went to bed. “What I mean is, both Joy and I had trouble just getting back home, and that was just the first day. Bad people are out there right now, looking to take what they want and do harm. Good people are out there too, but they are still a few missed meals from turning bad. Our job now is to survive as families and a group.
“Families First,” I said in a near chant. “Families First!”
I was gaining some traction now, and most were shaking their heads yes. I could imagine small groups all over the country hearing speeches like this.
There would surely be more than a few religious fanatics who would be jockeying for position about now. I’m not talking about the good Pastors and Ministers already preaching the Word, but about some crazy fucker who could not get a date in the old world now finding people to listen to his version of whoever they decided to worship on a whim.
This would not be our group. Sure, there had to be structure or nothing would get done, but everyone would have a voice.
“I would like to make a plan in the ne
xt day or two. All those agreed right now, raise your hand.” Most hands went up. “Those not sure, raise your hands.” Just a few here.
“Those who are out?” Steve and Anna raised their hands. “I’m sorry, buddy,” said Steve. “It’s just that she has family here and I can’t leave them.” “No problem,” I told him. “I understand.
“All right. All those who are sure they want to join the group, be back here tomorrow around noon. Sun straight up. Thank you all for coming. And please, whatever you decide, keep this to yourselves.”
People continued to socialize but Lonnie hung back. “What happened on the way home?” he asked in a serious tone. “I’ll be happy to tell you in a couple of weeks, when I’m sure you won’t arrest us. Where’s Mike?” I added. “He would be good to have around also.” “I’ll call on him in the morning,” Lonnie responded.
Next World Series (Vol. 1): Families First Page 9