Day by day, load by load, Jordan slowly accomplished his mission. He was looking forward to the day his dad said “enough” and they started filling the pond. That’s when he’d feel the pride of ownership for the project, and get to stand back and admire what he’d accomplished.
Scott’s younger son Zachary was helping his dad with the other unfinished project. It was grunt work, pure and simple, but Zach was strong for his age and wanting to grow stronger. And Scott was certainly willing to help him attain that particular goal.
The pair carried plywood into the house and up the stairs, a single sheet at a time. They started at the northeast corner of the house, laying down four sheets of half inch plywood in a stack. Then they lifted up all four sheets, and installed wooden stops in the floor and the ceiling to hold them into place.
Joyce and Linda, out of curiosity, went up the stairs to see what they were doing.
“I’m bulletproofing the house,” Scott answered.
“You’re doing what?”
“I’m bulletproofing the house.”
He explained his logic.
“There may well come a time when we have to defend what’s ours. And it could get pretty ugly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that even in the best of times, there’s a certain type of man who finds it easier to just take from someone else instead of work for what he needs. In the worst of times, when the whole world is scrambling to survive, I expect there’ll be a lot more of that type of men out there.
“That’s one of the main reasons we’re so isolated. Without vehicles, we’ll be a lot harder to get to than, say, if we were closer to town.
“There aren’t a lot of people who will walk seventy miles in search of safety and to find food and shelter.”
His next sentence bore an ominous tone.
“But some will.”
“And you think they’ll attack us?”
“I think some might. I think it’ll depend on how curious they are.”
He went on to explain.
“I think there will be some men, and maybe their families too, who leave San Antonio in search of someplace safer, where maybe they can hunt deer and rabbits for food, and maybe even grow a garden. Most of them will find a place to settle before they get to this point. But gradually, I think some will have to come this far because the closer places are taken.
“And if they happen to be looking for a place to settle, and see our big black fence off in the distance, some might be curious enough to want to see what’s inside our fence. And if they can see what’s inside our fence, they’re surely going to want it.
“And some of them might even be bold enough to try to take it.”
“But we’ve got the high ground here, Scott. There aren’t any hills close enough to see into our compound, and there’s too many trees in the way.”
Scott shook his head.
“They don’t need any hills.”
He took the women to the window of the upstairs bedroom they were in. They looked out the window to the east.
The women had forgotten about the string of high tension power lines that ran past the compound two hundred yards to the east, and continued up north to the power plant outside of Kerrville. Each tower stood as tall as a twenty story building, and were spaced exactly one hundred fifty yards apart.
Joyce said, “Dammit! You think they’ll climb the towers?”
“I would,” Scott said, “if I were in their situation. If I was looking for a safe place to settle, I’d climb up one of the towers every mile or two just to have a look, to see if there was a clearing near a stream, or maybe an abandoned farmhouse. And if I saw a big black fence with a garden and a herd of cattle inside it, I just might want it bad enough to try to take it.”
“How hard is it to climb one of those towers?”
“Oh, it’s easy as can be. The only reason people don’t climb them now, for the fun of it, is because not many men will climb a steel tower with two inch thick power lines buzzing above them, carrying fifty thousand volts. But once they’re dead, it’s no different than climbing a tree. In fact, it’s easier, because the towers have steel ladders attached to them. Trees don’t.”
“Okay. I almost wish you hadn’t told me. But since you did, what’s our plan to protect ourselves?”
“That’s where the plywood comes in. We’re going to panel the whole interior of the house with four sheets of plywood. And it’s simple to install. All we do is stand up four sheets against the wall, and install a wooden strip on the floor and the ceiling to hold them into place. When we’re done, we’ll have a two inch thick wall to catch bullets, in addition to the brick and outer and inner walls of the house.”
“Will that be enough?”
“It should be. I stood up four sheets against one of the barns the other day while you were all gone and fired some AR-15 rounds and 9 millimeter rounds into it. Nothing got past the third sheet. And that didn’t take into consideration the other layers from the house itself.”
“You’re not going to board over the windows, are you?”
“No, but I’ve got a plan for the windows too. Initially we’ll cover the walls but leave the windows uncovered. Then we’ll go back and build portable walls. They’ll be four sheets of plywood thick, but will be on wheels. They’ll roll off to one side when not in use, and will stay in place by rails on the floor and ceiling. I’ll make a shooting slot in each one about four inches high and a foot wide. That way we can shoot back if we’re fired upon. We’ll be able to roll the portable walls into place within seconds if we ever need them.”
Joyce was impressed.
“Wow, you’re one smart cookie, mister.”
“That’s not all. Once the power goes out, the electric company will abandon those power lines. For one thing, they won’t need them any more. The power station will be out of commission permanently. And for another thing, none of their vehicles will work, so they couldn’t patrol the area around the lines even if they wanted to.”
“So what are you planning to do?”
“Two things. First of all, I’m going to take some wireless long-distance cameras and mount one pointed in each direction, so we can see anyone following the power lines either up or down the mountain. The cameras are already in the Faraday cage, so they’ll still work after the blackout. And they’ll work with small solar panels, like a lot of the portable highway signs they use these days. They will have attached batteries that will never go dead unless we have about three consecutive days without sunshine.
“The second thing I plan to do is take my sixteen foot ladder and a cutting torch and cut the ladders off the towers. They can still get up there, but they’ll have to jump sixteen feet to grab onto something. My guess is they’ll just pass it on by.”
“How many towers will you have to do that to?”
“Only six. I climbed to the top of the wind turbine to service it a couple of months ago. It’s a lot taller than the fence. While I was up there I looked out at the towers. There were only six of them where I could see the lower half of the towers above the trees. The rest of them are okay. If we can’t see the lower half, then anyone on the lower half won’t be able to see us either.”
“There’s one last thing, but I’ll only use it as a last resort.”
“What’s that?”
“The cameras will be attached to a motion sensor alarm. We’ll know when someone is coming long before they get here. And we’ll see if they start trying to climb the towers. I’ll have plenty of time to set up my sniper rifle and zero in on them.”
“You’d shoot them off the tower?”
“Yes, and here’s why. A normal man will pass by the tower when he sees the ladder’s been cut away. He’ll just keep going until he finds another one that has a ladder. That’s if all he’s looking for is a safe place to stay.
“If he goes through all the effort of getting up on a tower with no ladder, then he’s out for more than just safety for himself. If he
’s curious enough and devious enough to force himself up that tower to see what we’re hiding, then he’s a threat to us. And I’ll take him out in a heartbeat.”
“My God, Scott. Don’t tell me you’re serious. What if he’s got his family with him? Are you going to just shoot him off the tower in front of his children?”
Scott was stumped. That didn’t happen often, because he usually thought things thoroughly through. But it had never occurred to him he might have to shoot a man in front of his loved ones.
He knew he’d have to put some more thought into this part of his plan.
He muttered, “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”
-25-
Joyce stopped and got an Egg McMuffin on her way to the office. She had planned on making breakfast at home before she met a client in Northridge Estates to show a house. But then she remembered she left the sales packet for the house sitting on her desk the day before.
“Dammit,” she murmured under her breath. She hated it when she did stupid things. Luckily, the office wasn’t too far out of the way.
She’d have to forego a leisurely breakfast, but if traffic wasn’t too bad she’d have a few minutes to eat at her desk.
Traffic wasn’t bad, and when she got to the register at McDonald’s and ordered her sandwich, she was greeted with a smile by the manager.
“Good morning, ma’am. We’re running a new promotion this week, and every hundredth customer gets breakfast on us. No charge for you today.”
Joyce didn’t know what to say. She’d never known McDonald’s to give anything away free.
She managed, “Um, thank you…” and grabbed her breakfast and headed for the door.
Traffic the rest of the way to the office was extraordinarily light. She began to think that maybe this was her lucky day after all. The house she was showing was a four million dollar estate. If she could secure the sale she’d lock up a nice commission. Yes. Today was her lucky day. She could feel it in her bones.
She sat down at her desk and put the sales packet on top of her car keys. No way was she going to walk out the door without it a second time.
The clock said 10:17. She could leave at 10:30 and still make it to the house with twenty minutes to spare. She’d learned years before that although prospective buyers are almost always late, realtors should always be a bit early. There’s always a scuffed floor to wipe, or litter in the yard. Or some other little thing that’ll turn a buyer off.
She eased back in her chair and took a bite of her Egg McMuffin.
The fluorescent lights above her head flickered and then went off.
“Damn power surge.”
Someone in the outer office said, “Damn! I just lost my monthly report!”
The office smart aleck shouted out, “Two words: Auto Save.”
Joyce sat back and relaxed. The power would be back on in a minute or two. The building they were in was old, and this happened on a regular basis, every time the weather was stormy. It always came back on rather quickly.
She took another bite of her sandwich, careful not to drop anything on her jacket in the semi-darkness.
While chewing, it dawned on her. Wait a minute. It’s not stormy today. Not even windy. Then what in heck made the power go out?
In the outer office, somebody shouted, “Hey! Look out the window!”
Joyce got up from her desk, walked to the window, and pulled the heavy gold curtain aside.
The street outside looked like a parking lot. As far as she could see in both directions, cars and trucks were stopped dead in their tracks. Several of them had their hoods up, and their drivers were checking their engines, wiggling battery cables, messing with carburetors.
And scratching their heads.
Several of them were standing outside their cars, pacing back and forth, talking to other motorists or trying to call a loved one for a ride, or for a tow truck.
Trying to call, but not being able to.
Joyce saw three different people punching at their telephones, then looking at them disgustedly. One woman was so disgusted that her phone didn’t work, she threw it to the ground.
Off in the distance, she heard a baby cry. Then she heard a woman scream and point to the sky.
Joyce looked in the direction the woman was pointing, as did several other people.
A low flying commercial airliner was approaching them from the east, no more than five hundred feet off the ground. It looked like it was gently gliding in for a landing.
But the nearest airport was miles away.
The airplane flew silently over them, with no working engines, so closely that Joyce could see the faces of panicked passengers looking out the windows. It continued on, deathly quiet, until it crashed in a fireball at a large apartment complex a quarter of a mile away.
There were more screams outside. And more crying.
Instinctively, Joyce reached for her cell phone to call 911. Deep inside, though, she knew it was not working. Her cell phone, her lifeline to the world, was now nothing more than a worthless paperweight.
The solar storm had hit. The blackout had begun.
-26-
Zachary was in third period. Eighth grade algebra. He couldn’t stand algebra, and he hated Mr. Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins was a turd with ears. No, wait. He didn’t have that much personality.
Zach hated the class. He hated the teacher. The only thing good about coming to this room every morning, the only thing that made sitting here tolerable, was that he sat directly behind Amy Alvord.
He’d been madly and deeply in love with Amy since the first grade. He was convinced that someday they’d marry. Of course, the odds were against it, since he’d never mustered the courage to say more than a few words to her.
It wasn’t that he was afraid to talk to her. It was just that, well, she was so beautiful and wonderful and popular. And Zachary was just… Zachary.
In his early years, he convinced himself that someday he’d get the nerve to talk to her. And after awhile he’d become bold enough to ask her to be his girlfriend. And in his fantasy world, of course, she’d say yes. And that would lead to the pair going steady, and then being college sweethearts, and then getting married and having a zillion kids.
The trouble was, as each year went by, Amy became more and more unapproachable. As she grew into a beautiful teenager, she attracted more and more attention from other boys. And that got exponentially worse at the start of the previous school year, when she was one of the few girls to start wearing a bra. And one of a vastly fewer number who actually needed one.
Suddenly Amy was the center of attention among the football team and the preppies in the school. And poor Zachary was pushed even farther into the background.
Since his dad had told him months before about the world going black some day, and about Zachary having to move away, he started to feel a certain desperation. He just could not go on with his life without letting Amy know how much he loved her.
There were a couple of problems with that, of course. One was that she was now dating the captain of the eighth grade football team. Danny Brasco was a surly sort of guy who liked to display his bravado by beating up on kids half his size.
And Zachary was almost exactly half of Danny’s size.
The other problem was that Zachary was quite comfortable around boys. But he was still painfully shy, and terribly awkward, when face to face with the fairer sex. He stammered and stuttered and looked like a fool.
So as much as he desperately wanted, or more accurately needed, to tell Amy how he felt, the situation grew more and more hopeless as each day went by.
Mr. Jenkins was trying to explain a basic algebraic equation on the board when the lights flickered twice, and then went out. Several of the students cheered and a couple of the boys high fived each other. Any distraction from the incessant droning of Mr. Jenkins was a welcome relief.
“All right, settle down. Everyone stay in their seats. You may talk quietly until we can re
sume. Anybody who leaves their seats will march right down to the office.”
John Jay Middle School had been around since the 1950s, and was still equipped with old fashioned venetian blinds on its windows. Mr. Jenkins went over to the row of windows on the classroom’s east wall and began rolling up each of the window blinds to let more light into the classroom.
At the third window, he peered out and said, “Well, that’s odd.”
Nothing will get the attention of a room full of teenagers faster than a teacher finding something odd. All of the boys, and several of the girls, stood up to look out the windows to see what Mr. Jenkins was talking about.
And the hair suddenly stood up on the back of Zachary’s neck.
Outside the window, on Marbach Drive, was a long traffic jam of cars stopped suddenly in the tracks. Going absolutely nowhere. The wailing horns that would normally accompany such an event were eerily absent. For the horns didn’t work without a car battery to power them. And all the car batteries had been suddenly and permanently shorted out.
One of the boys in the back of the class asked, “What the hell?” and everyone began murmuring, speculating on what was going on.
Zachary, of course, knew exactly what was going on. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. It was completely dead.
He whispered to his friend Paul, “Hey, check your phone. Is it working?”
“No. It’s dead.”
Another boy spoke up from the next row. “Mine too. That’s weird.”
Zachary knew what he had to do. He’d been drilled on it by his father many times. But first, he had a personal mission he had to accomplish.
He sat back down in his chair to catch his breath and to calm his nerves. He’d always been able to unstress by counting backwards from ten. In his mind he heard his own voice slowly counting, “Ten… nine… eight…”
When he got down to number one, he knew it was now or never.
He stood up with a resolve he’d seldom felt before.
He took two steps forward to where Amy was standing in front of her desk.
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