by Mary Griggs
"Well, me, of course." The smile on Jay's face never made it to her eyes. "It's my house, my rules. I'll share all I have but only to those who work as hard as I do."
"I don't think that's very fair."
"Shut up, Doris." Martha leaned across the table. "We don't expect something for nothing. We're all willing to work and we'll all chip in."
Pointing at the skeletons, Doris spit out, "If we don't, are you going to do us like you did those people?"
"First off, I didn't kill them, although I would have had they endangered me or mine." Her voice cold and remote, Jay made eye contact with everyone around the table. "Secondly, if you don't agree, you go no farther up the mountain and neither do your friends." There was an uncomfortable silence. "We've made it this long without the kind of trouble that is common down below and we're not about to sacrifice it all for folks we don't know."
"You know Susan and her children."
"Yes, I do. I also know Martha. Susan vouched for the rest of you and I'm willing to risk it but not without your assurance."
"You'll just take our word for it?"
"Well," Jay said, pulling a knife out her sleeve and flicking her thumb against the blade. "It will be more official in blood."
Leaping up, Doris shouted to Martha "Stop her! She's going to kill us."
"Not funny, Jay. Put it away." Susan rubbed her temples. "That isn't helping," she scolded.
"Sorry." Jay slid it back into the sheath on her forearm.
Doris was still furious. "Sorry isn't good enough."
"Doris, knock it off. She was trying to be funny and the operative word is trying." Martha was close to losing her temper. She addressed Jay, "All you want is our word?"
"Yes. Tell me that our safety is your safety."
"You have it."
Jay looked around the table and got agreement from all of them. She had to wait the longest before Doris finally threw up her hands and nodded.
"Excellent. Are y'all ready to head up?" Her soft southern accent still in place after two decades on the West Coast, Jay stood up and started to clear the table.
"Um, Jay?" Susan began. "How are we going to get the cart up the trail?"
"That is the first secret that I will be trusting you with," she replied slyly. "Help me clear away all trace of our meal and I'll show you."
Chapter Four - The Sheltering Rock
There is a Rock in a weary land,
Its shadow falls on the burning sand,
Inviting pilgrims as they pass,
To seek a shade in the wilderness.
Then why will ye die?
O why will ye die?
When the sheltering Rock is so near by,
O why will ye die?
Words & Music: William E. Penn, 1887
With a lazy grin, Jay waved for them to follow her up to the path. "We decided from the beginning that we needed to camouflage our presence. So many people only see what they're expecting to see. Starting with this chain here. We soaked the lock in battery acid so it would rust quickly. Strangers see it and think the road is abandoned." She pulled one of the stakes out of the ground and lowered the chain to the ground.
Jay returned the stake to its upright position once the group had pulled the cart past. Still talking, she walked past the small group. "There are four homes sharing this mountain and none of us want unexpected visitors."
At the pipe, she asked which two of them were willing to get damp. Martha and Piper volunteered. She indicated that they should enter the dark pipe after her. "Come to the center and feel around for metal rod," she called out, her voice echoing in the dark.
They both looked dubiously from her to the water covering the bottom of the pipe. "Go on," she encouraged.
Piper reached down and felt around until she found the rod. "What now?"
"Lift up and turn it enough so that it can't reseat itself in the indention." After Piper did so, she directed them back out of the pipe to the other side.
She poked her head out and looked at the women with Susan. "You guys push on the left side." She got out on the other side and told Martha and Piper to push on their left side. With almost comical ease, the pipe rotated, leaving plenty of room for the cart to pass. Once they pulled it past, she had them replace the pipe and the rod in their previous position.
"Can I borrow your canteen?" she asked Martha. Taking it, she said, "Remember to return the water to its previous level," as she poured out the contents to cover the rod.
Stepping out, she waved the group on. "Ever forward and choose the middle ground," she intoned.
"What?"
Susan shook her head and smiled at her friend. "Up ahead, there is a fork in the road. We take the center path."
"Where do the other paths go?"
"The lower road eventually hits the far side of my property before leading to one of the neighbors. The upper leads to the house of my, I mean our nearest neighbor." She led them through the trees and to the brick blocked driveway. She showed them how removing two bricks allowed the center section to be pushed out of the way.
Once the group walked through with the cart, Jay pushed the wall back into place. Carefully, she brushed away the telltale marks of its movement before she returned to lead the group forward.
Approaching the house, she whistled for the dogs. When they bounded up, she made them sit. "Can you come up one at a time and meet my gals?" she asked.
As they did so, she introduced the refugees to the dogs as friends. Once the animals had sniffed each hand and gotten a scratch behind their ears, she directed everyone the short distance remaining to the house.
Dropping the cart to the ground, they looked around the yard in amazement. They were on a fairly large plateau and could see for miles in all directions except for where the mountain rose at their backs.
Sitting to one side of the two acre clearing, the house was grey stone with black, slate shingles. To their right was a small pond with a short pier. On it was an upside down canoe. There were several cords of wood stacked under the nearest trees. Beyond the pond there was a small greenhouse, almost hidden at the edge of the forest.
Jay watched the group as they took their first looks at their new home. She wanted to laugh at the wonder in their expressions but the tension was still too high for them to find any humor in the situation.
Instead, she spoke gently. "Welcome, to my, and now, your home. Come inside and let me show you around."
Almost stumbling because their eyes were not on where they were walking, they followed her through the front door. Piper noticed the heavy shutters on the windows and the thickness of the door. At her raised eyebrow, Jay shrugged. "I could tell you the winters are really bad here but, the truth is, I wasn't just interested in their weather stopping ability."
She waved everyone in around her. "I designed this place to have the highest R-value possible. The walls are insulated concrete forms that extend from basement to eaves. They have an additional layer of stone on the outside. Not only could they withstand a 200 mile an hour wind, they can withstand anything short of an amour piercing round."
"You get many of those?" Martha asked.
"Nope, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared." Jay continued, "I don't know whether you noticed the solar cells on the roof?" At their nods, she said, "I went for a system of photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into direct current electricity." She grinned at their blank looks, "I'll explain it when we get to it, suffice to say we have power."
"You're kidding? Power?"
"I wouldn't kid about something like that. All the appliances were the best of their time, with high efficiency ratings and low power requirements." At their excited looks, she shook her head. "Calm down, you can't run everything at once but then again, I planned this place to not require much."
"During construction, I did everything I could to get off the grid. I didn't want to be at the mercy of the greedy bastards in charge of the utilities. I hadn't considered the greedy bastards of the Confederacy. Si
nce the bombing, we've been self-sustaining by default."
"Self-sustaining?"
"Yep. Water comes from an artesian well and the septic system I have will last for decades. The real work is to collect food and wood."
Carol stepped forward and hugged her. "I already feel better for being here."
"I am glad you are here and grateful that you made the journey in safety. It gives me hope." She snapped her jaws shut over anything else she might have said. Taking a deep breath, she shrugged off their curious looks. "Anyway, let me give you the five dollar tour."
"I thought tours only cost a nickel?" Susan asked.
"For guests that aren't expected to pull their weight, yeah. However, you guys are family and, since I'll be putting you to work tomorrow, I think it best I show you everything."
Pointing behind the group, she indicated the two doors on the same wall as front entrance. "Right by the front door is a closet that mainly has coats, weapons and ammunition. Next to it is the door leading downstairs."
She opened the door and directed everyone inside. "Let's start with the basement." They walked down a flight of stairs and stopped around a pool table. "Down here is guest room with bathroom." She opened the door and they peered in at two single beds separated by a nightstand. The room had a line of narrow windows near the ceiling that brought in a surprising amount of light. "We can discuss later where everyone will stay."
She opened up another door that led to the storage area. She flipped on a light and everyone gasped at the flickering bulb. Ignoring that, Jay went on. "As you can see, we are pretty well stocked in staples." Filling the center floor to ceiling racks were canning jars filled with vegetables. Other racks along the walls contained sacks of flour, rice, pasta, and sugar. There were cans of olive oil on the floor and stacks of things they could hardly identify in the darkness.
"My, god," Doris held onto the doorframe in disbelief. "It's been five years since the War and you have so much."
"Two people don't use that much and you learn to be frugal." At the doubting glances, she raised her hands in surrender. "Okay, so we stockpiled a few essentials and canned a lot of vegetables." Shooing them back out the door, she added, "There'll be plenty of time to see everything later, let's get through the rest of the house now."
Flipping off the light, she directed the group to door to the right of the stairs and entered the laundry room. She walked over to the circuit breakers. "Gather around, gang. Let me go over exactly what powers the house."
Jay waited while the group circled around her. Once they had stopped fidgeting and had fallen silent, she began to lecture. "I've got a 1,400 watt solar array on the roof that consists of four 24 volt direct current sub arrays." She pointed at a dial. "This indicates the power that is currently being consumed. Beside it is a digital readout of what is being generated by the photovoltaic panels on the roof."
Kicking a double line of car sized batteries along the floor, she continued, "These twenty Delco batteries are attached to an equalizer that keeps the battery bank's charged so that all the batteries have the same capacity." At their blank looks, she explained, "Running down the batteries shortens their life."
"With just Harmony and myself, the house averaged about 900 kilowatt hours a day. This system is designed for nearly twice that at 2,400 kilowatt hours a day." Jay smiled. "Now that there will be so many of us, I'm glad I oversized the system."
She opened the breaker box. "Each item is labeled with the amount of kWh required once that breaker is engaged and all the items plugged into are running. I've got a list here of what is currently using power." She unhooks a clipboard and calculator from a nail beside the breaker box. Flipping through the pages, she ticks off various items. "The upstairs fridge, the freezer and hot water heater are listed with steady watt use, see?" Jay waited until everyone had seen the figures.
Taking the calculator, she did the additions. "Okay, we switched on a light in the basement. That's 60 watts, plus 66 and 68 for the freezer and fridge respectively. Add to that 818 for the water heater. Finally, you have to add the requirements of the system itself to the total. That number is 30, which is the combined wattage of the battery regulator, equalizer, and inverters. Our current total is 1042."
She jerked her thumb at the digital readout. "Right now, the system is delivering 2,128 watts of continuous use, leaving us plenty of watts to play with. On a cloudy day, we might only be getting 1,000 watts. On such a day, using the washer would exceed our capacity."
"What do you do then?"
"Remember, that we can subtract 60 for the light and maybe even turn off the freezers for a bit." She looked around to see if everyone was following her. "Before you turn on anything else, you have to do the numbers. Exceeding the base load is really, really bad. I can't stress that enough. If the system is drained, we can lose what is in the cold cases." She hooked the calculator back on the wall. "Worse, we may never get the system back online again."
Piper flipped through the pages on the clipboard. "You can do all this with solar power?" she asked, hardly able to get her mind around what Jay was telling them.
"That and a well designed house and energy efficient appliances. Neat, huh?"
Cody asked, "What about during the winter?"
"As the days shorten, we won't be able to run as much. But I built the house so that panels are aligned to collect as much sun as possible and we have the benefit of the battery system to supplement our needs. In any event, you'll still be better off than you were." Wagging her finger at everyone, she sternly repeated, "Check the numbers before you turn on anything."
"Got it." Susan spoke for everyone when she added, "We never expected anything like this."
Jay laughed. "Darling, you haven't seen anything yet. I've got loads of tricks up my sleeve." She pointed at the numbers. "As we've still got several hours of daylight, I figure that we have enough to power to run at least two loads of laundry through the wash and for everyone to shower."
"Oh my, goodness," Doris' voice was hoarse. "Are you sure you're not kidding us?"
"I have a sneaking suspicion that y'all wouldn't respond well to me pulling your leg. The system is everything I've said it is."
"I just can't believe it."
Martha ran her fingers over the dials. "We figured you were just surviving out here. I don't think anyone thought that you'd be living so well."
"You took a big risk coming out here in that case."
"Susan had faith that this was the place for us to come." Martha touched the back of her hand to Susan's cheek. "As usual she was right."
"We sure stepped through the right looking glass." Piper added.
"Nothing that fantastic. It was a simple matter to build around a worst case scenario."
"I don't think anyone else on the planet planned so well for disaster." Her voice dry, Susan couldn't help but smile at her ex-lover.
"Hey, I tried to get you on board but you thought I was a cock-eyed pessimist."
"More like the boy who cried wolf."
"Just because Y2K was a bust and the Loma Prieta and Northridge quakes didn't shake your particular corner of the state, doesn't mean that you were entirely safe." She chided her.
"Not the first time I was wrong."
Jay laughed, loudly. "Yeah, but I never tire of getting you to admit it." She put her arm on Martha's shoulder. "You can back me up on how nice that is, right?"
"No comment. You don't think I'm stupid enough to agree with you?"
"Coward." She ruffled the taller woman's hair. "All right, let's go see what's upstairs." Leading the way back to the stairs, Jay stopped at a closet. "Oh, here are pretty extensive medical supplies. Does anyone have training in first aid?"
Martha nodded. "Both Piper and I are certified."
"Good. I've also got the Army medic's field manual on disc upstairs. In case of a real emergency, anyone can follow directions and become a surgeon."
"I'm not so sure that I want any of you operating on me
." Doris threw out.
Jay laughed. "Hey, when it comes down to the wire, I don't think I'll be concerned about checking qualifications."
Nodding, Susan agreed. "I wouldn't care if someone played connect the dots with my entrails as long I was still alive at the end of it."
"Here, here, love." Martha kissed her partner and looked over at her sister. "Don't worry, Doris. We'll respect your wishes to die from your injuries instead of receiving any amateur treatment." The two siblings stuck their tongues out at each other.
Returning upstairs, Jay opened the door next to the basement entrance. Here is the first guest room." Inside was a double bed and a desk with an extensive computer set up. "That Mac uses a lot of juice, so it should only be accessed on really sunny days or after you've turned off everything else."