“I think you’ve eaten one too many squirrels, kid,” John said. “Come on down, and where are the ladies?”
The door to a giant tool locker pushed open, and both women stepped out with looks of relief on their faces. Jared could only imagine what they’d been through since he’d last seen the two. They were prisoners, rescued, and then left with a teenager as their protector. This was probably not the best way to go about things, but in their current situation, people were being forced to deal with and move on from things that in the past would have constituted dozens of sessions with a therapist. Now there was not only a shortage of therapists, but people had things that absolutely must be done to ensure their survival, leaving little to no time for lamenting bad experiences.
Jared smiled at the women in hopes they would appreciate the fact he and John came back and that everyone was alive and seemingly in good health. The women instead looked nervously at Dwight, which amused Jared since Dwight, even to Jared, seemed as harmless as the women did. Sure, the man was armed, but he was not truly trained in any sense of the meaning, and Dwight was grossly out of shape, which became evident when the four of them were forced to delay their trip a day and a half.
Devon climbed down from his perch as the women were introduced to Dwight. Once Stephani and Claire saw Dwight was not a threat and seemingly part of John and Jared’s team, the two women relaxed slightly. Stephani and Claire had survived on the food left by the three men, refusing to eat the rats and squirrels Devon hunted for them. The two parties caught each other up on what had transpired during their time apart, which amounted to very little in regard to the women and Devon. The teen had hunted while the women remained hidden in the shop for the majority of the time Jared and company were gone.
“Now what?” Stephani asked, her voice heavy with nervous energy.
“Good question,” John said, twisting his mouth to one side and scratching his chin. “We had planned on coming down and getting Dwight so we could grab a Tesla car battery and see if it would work as power storage for a solar setup. We didn’t plan on three more people being part of that operation.”
“Why wouldn’t you just use a Tesla Powerwall? They’re designed for that,” Devon murmured, his head lowered, eyes turned slightly up, making minimal eye contact with John.
Every head in the shop turned to him in amazement.
Dwight and Barry turned to each other; their lips parted for the briefest of moments.
“We need to find a Tesla dealership,” Barry snapped.
“They don’t have them,” Devon said flatly, his eyes now locked on Barry’s.
“Who does?” Jared questioned incredulously. “And how do you know about this?”
“I did a paper in school on clean energy, and it was something I researched,” Devon said, shrugging his thin shoulders.
“Tell us more about your paper,” Barry prodded.
“Tesla sells the cars, not the Powerwall units. Solar companies sell the Powerwall units as a package along with a solar array—you know, the panels?” Devon said, not knowing if the men understood what he was talking about. Dwight, Barry, and Jared understood completely.
“And do you know where any of these companies are located?” John asked as Devon finished.
Devon shook his head. When the group looked exasperated, like he’d wasted their time by speaking up, he hurriedly added, “I actually got a tour of the company. I just don’t know the address, but I know the name, so if we can find a phone book—” Again he shrugged, looking embarrassed.
“Well,” chirped John, “if there was any doubt about how fucked we were before, I think the fact that our little scavenger hunt includes a phone book pretty much confirms it.”
Wanting to stay focused, Jared interjected, “Where would we find a phone book in San Jose?”
“Train stations, some public spots like a jail or city building may have one. If that doesn’t pan out, then I’d say older folks’ homes. Not everyone from the older generation embraced technology like people born in the eighties and nineties,” John announced confidently.
Jared turned and gave John a questioning look.
“Don’t forget where I came from, junior,” John said with a toothy smile.
John had learned a great many things about living on the run in not only a foreign country, but at home as well. In fact, his training came in the form of a school in Colorado. He and several other classmates were dropped several states away and made to return to the school undetected and with no support. Before this exercise, John was taught valuable lessons like where to find a pay phone in a time when they were all but extinct. He also learned how to locate firearms, which were far easier to find and steal in the United States than in most other countries. Now, these lessons would hopefully pay off, John hoped.
Chapter 23
Jared thought about all the times he’d ridden Caltrain to and from San Jose, which had been numerous times for work-related meetings with other companies up and down the west side of the San Francisco Bay. He couldn’t definitively say he ever saw a pay phone in any of the Caltrain stops he’d used along the way. Most of the stops were simply a glass enclosure designed to keep riders out of the rain as they waited for the next train. Other than the covering and a bench, there usually wasn’t much else as far as Jared could remember.
He did remember going to a San Jose Sharks game the year before the solar flare. He used Caltrain to meet a co-worker who had the tickets. The two met at a Caltrain station not more than a block from what was known by hockey fans as the Shark Tank. This station was different than the others in that it was much larger and had quite a few amenities not offered at most of the other Caltrain stations. Jared hadn’t been looking for a pay phone at the time, and truthfully now, he didn’t even remember seeing one.
Based on the size of the station, Jared was sure there was at least one pay phone since that spot was a fairly major hub for the train. Not many people before the event lacked a cellular phone, but there were a few, and Jared was confident Caltrain management had seen a need to have at the very least one pay phone option at that Caltrain station. The problem with this was the ironworks shop was in the northeast part of San Jose, while the Shark Tank was pretty far south from their current location. This meant they would have to traverse miles of potentially hostile city streets in order to reach a place that might not even have what they were looking for.
“No public places, we search homes till we find one. There are a million phone books sent out every year and, yeah, most people probably tossed them, but going on a wild-goose chase with the ladies here is a bad idea,” Jared said, looking straight at John with a look that told John that Jared wanted his approval.
Dwight and Barry remained mute on the subject, not having anything or any expertise to add. They glanced at one another, but said nothing while the women’s eyes darted back and forth between Jared and John.
Stephani was confused with the hierarchy of this group of men. John seemed like the guy who should be in charge based on how he carried himself. He was a spectacular specimen of physical prowess; however, he and the Jared character seemed to give and take in the leadership role.
Jared was no physical presence like John, but he had an ease to him, a refined presence that John lacked. She wasn’t uncomfortable being around John, but Jared projected an air of harmlessness she knew wasn’t completely accurate based on the manner in which he maneuvered with the rifle. She was by far no expert in guns nor the men who carried them, but she knew when a person looked relaxed using a tool that took some level of competence, they were usually proficient with whatever the tool was.
John ran his tongue between his lower teeth and lip as he thought about what Jared just suggested. “Jared’s right, we can’t go dragging this size group all over the city looking for a phone book. If we go that route, I’m sure we’re going to get ourselves into trouble. Trouble means one of us may get hurt or killed, so I vote for house searches. We move back towards our
place so we’re killing two birds with one stone, and we search houses along our route. We enter any house through the back so we can hopefully see if the place is occupied. If a place is occupied, we move on. We’re not here to take anything from anyone or get into a fight with a scared homeowner,” John declared by way of agreeing with Jared and laying out their operational plan all in the same breath.
Jared silently concurred with a dip of his chin as both he and John searched the eyes of everyone in the ironworks shop. There appeared to be no opposition to Jared’s apparent cancelation of searching for a pay phone and the addition of John’s plan of searching homes for the coveted information they would find inside a phone book.
“We still need weapons for me and Claire,” Stephani reminded the group.
“You need to be trained so one of us isn’t the one you shoot when things get a little sideways,” Jared said in a serious yet kind voice.
John stepped up and unslung his pack. “I think after what these two women went through, we can make an exception. I mean, we’ve all been through some bullshit, but nothing like—”
Stephani cut him off with an irritated look. “First off, you don’t know what we went through,” Stephani chastised, stopping John dead in his tracks. “You have no idea what Claire and I went through, so don’t ever assume you know our story,” Stephani hissed, her anger growing like a North Shore swell.
John stopped what he was doing with his pack and looked up, flabbergasted. “I was just saying, after what the bikers must—have put you through.”
Stephani craned her neck out towards John, her eyes ablaze. “Those bikers kidnapped us and chained us to a wall with several other girls. They brought men in who traded for the other girls, traded things like food, tents, things like that—for people. Those bikers never laid a hand on any of the girls. They were sweet for each other, not us, but they sold girls to men who—” She seemed to lose some of her momentum as she squeezed her eyes closed, trying like hell to drive away the memories. Mostly the memories of the other girls who were unchained and dragged screaming from the tiny room she and Claire had called hell for weeks.
The rest of the men stood frozen, no one wanting to be the focus of Stephani’s release when it came. They were all very uncomfortable with the situation, but thankful she had zeroed in on John and not one of them.
Claire began to cry as she too was dragged back into the past, thinking of the weeks she’d waited to be traded to some animal for a box of ammunition or a sleeping bag. She’d been so hungry and frightened for so long, she’d almost forgotten who she was and where she came from.
“They never raped us, if that’s what you’re insinuating,” Stephani growled. “What they did was make us feel helpless, and I don’t want to feel that way ever again. You’d never understand.”
Jared winced as John opened his mouth. “No, I get it,” John unwisely continued.
The blaze instantly returned to Stephani’s eyes. “You get it? No, you don’t, you have no idea. If you want to know what it’s like to be an unarmed, untrained woman in this—” she turned looking around the room, suffering from a temporary loss of words “—this place, then I suggest you strip naked, leave your weapons, have your hands tied behind your back, and allow me to strap a large sack of food around your neck. Then you can go walk around the city and see what it feels like to be a woman after whatever the hell happened.”
Jared watched John’s mouth twitch as Stephani finished, her chest heaving and her hands balled into tight fists. Jared thought about what the woman said, and it made sense to him. Actually, he thought, she hadn’t explained it enough. A naked unarmed man with a sack of food would either be killed and the food taken, or he would be beaten and have the food taken. A woman had certain physical attributes some men thought they were entitled to and were willing to lower themselves below animal status to obtain.
“Listen,” Jared said, having heard enough from Stephani to know he needed to be careful, respectful, yet firm in order to steer her along with the rest of the group back out of hostile waters and into more calm getting-along waters. “Everyone here has a different story, and every one of those stories is bad if not downright tragic. Two things each of us has to be cognizant of is to act and speak appropriately. Secondly, every one of us has to get past what we’ve been through and not be so sensitive to the point where we have constant fighting.”
Jared looked directly at John and then over to Stephani, waited for his statement to sink in, then moved on. “We need to help each other, and I agree, the ladies should be armed. I know I was against it a minute ago, but Stephani made a valid point, and quite honestly, the thought of walking around San Jose naked with my hands tied and the food-sack thing scares the crap out of me.” Jared paused, hoping he’d added just the right amount of humor.
To Jared’s relief, Stephani let out a short breath as her eyes showed she understood and was relaxing as her temper began to cool.
“The longer this crisis continues, the more I am realizing when we refer to our community, I am not talking about community like we used to know it, I am talking about a community that is as tight as a family,” Jared continued. “We have to be like brothers and sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, whatever. What I mean is we have to have close relationships if we want to survive.”
Jared turned to John. “Can you give the ladies a one-day crash course in firearms training?”
John looked over to Stephani, then seesawed his head in agreement. “Sure, I can get both of them through some basic safety stuff and maybe a little sight-picture work.”
This was all Greek to both women, but one thing they did understand was they were going to be armed, and this delighted Stephani while it frightened Claire. Claire had never been around firearms and, growing up in the Bay Area, had been subject to the nonstop demonization of any and all firearms. Guns were bad, guns killed people, but now people were bad, like the bikers who chained her to a wall, put her up for sale like a piece of meat, and nearly starved her to death; then people with guns came along and killed the bad bikers, and now she was free to do as she pleased.
So maybe now guns were okay as long as they weren’t in the hands of people like the bikers or the others she’d seen come to trade for the other girls. All of her college professors had lamented the evils of the gun manufacturers and the dire need for strict gun control, which Claire had fully embraced at the time.
Now she wondered where those men and women were today. Were they dead? Were they somewhere being protected by men like John with guns? She didn’t know. What Claire did know was she was getting one of those scary guns, and she’d better pay attention to the square-jawed stack of muscles who intended to teach her and Stephani how to use it.
It was decided they would stay at the iron shop twenty-four hours before leaving. During that time, John set up a watch along with a training schedule for the women. John pulled out the rifle he’d scavenged for himself, checked that it was unloaded, and handed it to Stephani, wishing he’d grabbed two. Next, he armed Claire with a Glock 17 he’d taken from one of the dead campers up in the hills.
Jared hovered nearby, watching John set up the training for the women. John had the women place the weapons on a table, then showed them both how each firearm was disassembled and then reassembled. John showed the ladies the parts on both the rifle and the pistol that required the most attention when cleaning them. John sounded a lot like a more refined version of Jared’s friend Bart when the older man had done the same thing with Jared not more than three months prior.
Jared’s training seemed like a lifetime ago as he watched John make the women tear the weapons apart and reassemble them over and over until they complained about hot spots on their hands. Not wanting the women’s hands to deteriorate, John transitioned to a more classroom-instruction style. He preached weapons safety and showed both women how to properly clear both weapons. At the end of four hours, both women could break down both the rifle and pistol, make both guns sa
fe, and understood the importance of keeping the weapons clean and pointed in a safe direction.
John spent another hour teaching Stephani and Claire how to clean the guns, showing them the different tools he had in his pack for eradicating the malfunction-causing carbon buildup produced after the weapon was fired.
After Stephani and Claire were finished with the cleaning portion of their instruction, everyone took a break and ate some dinner. The sun was getting low, and light would soon be a factor in bringing the women’s training to an end.
John traded Devon a bag of freeze-dried eggs for some squirrel meat. The meat was a dark meat much like the dark meat taken from a turkey. After it was cooked, John dug in and found the meat tasty although a tad dry. He remedied this with copious amounts of water.
Chapter 24
By the time Jared and company finished dinner, there remained about half an hour of usable light, so John grabbed a Sharpie from the shop’s office along with a pad of paper. He returned to the table and began drawing a proper sight picture for the ladies. The three sat around the table, peering through the rifle’s and pistol’s iron sights, the women trying to correlate the picture John drew with the actual sights. Stephani was the first to have her aha moment. She gave the impression of being more comfortable around the weapons than the younger Claire did, but John wasn’t surprised since age bred self-confidence. John did not voice this observation for fear of weathering more of Stephani’s wrath were she to hear him refer to her age in any context.
After darkness enveloped the interior of the ironworks shop, John showed the women how to use the iron sights in low- to no-light conditions in order to emphasize how difficult it would be to shoot accurately without the aid of night vision or electronic sights. Neither woman understood fully what John was talking about since neither had seen or used night vision and had zero idea what an electronic sight was.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 2 | Tears of Chaos Page 18