2nd Earth: Shortfall

by Edward Vought

  I know that sounds so cold and presumptuous of us, however, we have to assume that the same thing happened there that happened here. We feel that we have to be prepared to be able to live for six months minimum, just in case things don’t work out the way we hope they will. Many of the books we got are on farming, as well as other topics that we will probably need. I found a book on building our own windmill to generate electricity by using the wind. We got books on electrical work, plumbing, building, canning, preserving, and drying foods, medicine and pretty much every topic you can name. We won’t be able to call an electrician or a plumber, and odds are we will not be able to run to the neighborhood store to buy groceries. If indeed we are, we have been gathering money. Mostly the coins and silver, but we have a pretty large amount of the paper kind as well. We are making a list of what we think we should take with us, and how much of everything we will need. Of course we are hoping that we may be able to visit cities in that area and do what we do here. We are aware of course that we can’t depend on that. There may be a much larger number of people who have survived, and there may not be any food in other areas.

  Everything is speculation and the only way to find out what we need to know is to go there and see. We discussed the possibility of me going to see if I can find us a place and then come back to get everyone. That was voted down very quickly. Everyone agreed that we won’t survive more than maybe another year here before we are out of food, so there is really no reason not to go somewhere else. Many of our family members say they feel like pioneers because that’s what they did when this land was being settled for the first time. That is when this country was being settled by the European and other people that we refer to as the white man. Everyone is anxious to get started although we still have some preparations to be made. When the weather breaks and we can go outside again, without getting soaked, we start teaching some of the others how to drive. We also go back to the dealership and salvage three large vans for traveling in, and that enclosed truck we found last time.

  It takes us several days to get all the tires found and changed, but we manage and then getting the vehicles started is another adventure all its own. We are all extremely proud when we have all the vehicles we think we will need sitting in front of our home. While we have been getting the vehicles ready, others have been visiting the stores farther out from where we live, bringing home truck loads of food to take with us. Billy and his new bride, are very proud to show us what they found today while they were out. They found a hardware store and loaded up on shovels, hoes, picks, rakes, hammers, and all kinds of tools that we will definitely need. They also found thousands of bags of seeds that may or may not be any good. Since they are dry, they may work, all we can do is try. Billy says there are at least four large generators in the storeroom of the store he was at today. We will need another truck to haul them in, but it could be well worth it. We look for another large truck with the box on the back. Billy says he saw another dealership, so we go there and find exactly what we are looking for. It takes us a day and a half to get it ready to go, but it is a very nice truck. We stop at the hardware store for the generators on the way home.

  It is all we can do to get them loaded on the truck and we still have room for more supplies. A stop at the store fills the remaining room and gives us a bigger cushion than we thought we would have. We are all getting excited about the journey we are going to take. We are all surprised that the predators haven’t bothered us at all in the past couple of weeks. That in itself should be a tip off that we can expect something to happen. We decide that we will rest tomorrow, since it’s Sunday, and then load the trucks on Monday, to leave on Tuesday for our destination. Naturally we are all a little afraid of what we will or will not find when we finally leave, but we know that life cannot continue the way it is for much longer here. On Sunday, we read the scriptures together and then talk more about the move we are making. The women that are expecting are getting closer and we feel that it will be better to be in our new home when the babies are born. We get everything packed and ready to go except for loading the trucks with all the food, and other supplies, and belongings that we are taking with us.

  In the morning we start loading the trucks and making sure everything is packed that we will need for at least the next six months. Most of our family has gone without so much they feel that living on what we have will be very easy, as long as we have each other. While we are loading we get a surprise in the form of another woman and two children coming out of the building across the street and ask if they can go with us. We can’t see why they shouldn’t be able to so naturally they become part of our family. We find we still have some room in the big truck for food so Tim and I leave Billy at home to take care of the family and we head to one of the stores to get as much canned goods as we can fit in the truck. When we get home we finish loading the truck and make sure we are ready to leave first thing in the morning. I am making sure that everything is ready in the big truck cab and when I start to climb down I hear the whack of something hitting the door of the truck right beside my head.

  A split second later I hear the report of a gun and the screams of many of our family members who are outside watching me. I yell for them to get into the house, which is where they are going anyway, and I hit the ground next to the truck as fast as I can. Tim yells from the doorway asking if I am alright. I tell him I am, but I don’t know where the shot came from. Just as I say that another shot is fired that hits the door again very close to my head. No matter which way I start to move the shooter seems to be able to see me. Tim says he will find the shooter and runs back into the building. I am lying almost under the truck to avoid being hit. I have my pistol, but I can’t see anything or anyone to shoot at. Dayna wants to come and help me, I assure her I’m fine, and I tell her to stay in the building, we will take care of the shooter or shooters. She seems to calm down a little when she hears that I am okay, at least for the time being. From the sound of the shots the shooter is using an M14 military weapon. Definitely enough gun to kill someone in the wrong hands. It seems to take forever, although I am sure it is no more than a few minutes before I hear the report of that .307 we found. I see a predator break cover about a hundred yards away and then the gun barks again and he goes down. It doesn’t look like he will be getting up any time soon if ever.

  I start to stand up and almost get hit by another shot from a different direction, the .307 speaks loud and clear, and then I hear Tim call down to me they are running away. He asks if he should shoot more of them. I tell him not to bother, but it is clear to us that the predators are getting more serious now than they have ever been in the past. It is only mid-afternoon when we all meet in the house. I ask Tom and Billy’s mom if they can see any reason why we don’t leave right now. If worse comes to worse we can find another building to stay in overnight closer to where we are going. At least that will put some distance between us and the predators. We throw everything we own in the trucks, everyone loads into the vans and trucks wherever they can find a seat and we head south to no one knows what. Oh yeah, we take long enough to say a family prayer before we leave.

  It is slow going, picking our way through the city, until we get on what I guess could be called a highway that avoids at least some of the city. We picked up two more small families on our way through the city, all women and young girls. We tell them we don’t know exactly where we are going, and they say they don’t care as long as it is anywhere, but here. We get to New Jersey before dark and find a reasonably nice building in what used to be a shopping center. The nice thing about this place is that we can park the vehicles where we can watch them. We take turns standing guard during the night to make sure no one bothers them. In the morning we take off as soon as the sun comes up. We find a market with lots of canned goods still in it so we get breakfast from there, and then about an hour later we find a gas station with a generator that I am able to get running enough to fill all the vehicles. That takes an hour and we are joine
d by another mother with two children that look to be around eight and ten. They say they haven’t seen anyone else in a long time and were beginning to think they were the only ones left alive.

  We are making better time than we thought we would. The main roads are rough, but at least we can get through the cars parked on them, and the pavement, although broken and buckled in places, isn’t as bad as it could be. We are going through southeast Pennsylvania in the afternoon when we come upon a road block with three men standing on the road, they are all carrying guns. Tim and I get out after stopping a little ways back from them. We have three guns trained on the men just in case this doesn’t go well. The three men are definitely low life trash that would have to improve to be called a predator. We can smell them from ten feet away when we get closer to them. They ask us what we have in the trucks, and say that we have to pay the toll to use their road. We are looking around and don’t see anyone else and there isn’t much cover around here.

  I ask them how much the toll is, and they all get a really disgusting smirk on their faces saying they want women. One of them is waving a rusty pistol around like he thinks we are afraid of him or something. I tell him I’m sorry, but all the women in our family are married, so they will have to ask for something else. This makes them think we are afraid of them, one of the others says they will take young ones. They don’t care how old they are. No matter what happens here today, these three are going to die. I have always hated men, or should I say animals like this. Tim whispers that there are no more than this three, we have been looking and by now someone would have showed themselves. The guys in front of us ask us what we are talking about, and I tell them I am going to the truck to see if any of the girls would like to stay with them. They start to smile as I turn to walk back, what they don’t see is my hand gripping the butt of the 9mm Sig I have behind my belt under my shirt. Tim is turning the other way and he has his gun in his hand as well. We spin back facing them and open fire as we do. My first shot takes the first one who spoke in the face. The second is just a split second ahead of Tim’s in the middle ones chest. He got the other one with his first shot. We hear some gunfire back at the trucks and run to see what is happening. We see two dead men beside the second van, which is loaded with our family members.

  Tom says these two tried to sneak up while the others kept us busy. We figure we better get out of here before any more show up. We make it to Maryland before dark and find another place similar to the one we found last night. Everyone is in high spirits, although I think we are all a little scared now that we are getting so close to our destination. My fear is not getting there, but of being able to keep this family of ours alive and safe in a world that is so uncertain. Again we take turns standing guard to make sure our vehicles are safe all night. Morning comes, and with it much anticipation, because we all feel that we will find our new home today. We find another gas station where we can fill the trucks just before we cross into the state of Virginia. We are driving through mostly farm land, and since we know we will probably not find what we are looking for on the main road, we get off onto some smaller roads that we can find on the map. It is early afternoon when we see what we are looking for.

  The place has the look of total desolation about it, which tells us no one has been here in quite a while. The mountains are visible in the background, but here it is at least twenty or thirty degrees warmer than it was up in New York. What we have found is a farm, with what looks like eight houses, along with several barns in what looks like a small town, right here on the farm. Gunny and Ma Horton explained to me that it wasn’t uncommon in rural communities to have an entire family of several generations living on a single farm. Often, they would just build another house when the children grew up and got married, so they could stay on and help farm the land. Everyone is excited as we get out of the vehicles and go exploring to see if this is somewhere we can stop and live.

  We go through the houses one at a time, checking for any signs of recent life, and there is nothing to indicate that anyone had ever lived here before, except for the skeletons we have to remove from them. The houses are in various stages of decay, but are actually much better than the places most of these people lived in where we just came from. We find out there are actually nine houses in the little community. One was kind of blocked by two others. Either way, there is plenty of room for all of us to live here. Once we determine that we can stay here if we want to, we put it to a vote. The newest members don’t feel that they have a right to vote, but we assure them they are part of the family now, and have as much say as any of us do. Not that it matters, because it is unanimous to stay. We get to work in crews cleaning the houses to make them livable. We men go to work putting doors back in place where hinges had broken, and we open stuck windows to air out rooms that have been sitting closed in for decades.

  By dark, although not as good as we would like, the houses are ready for us to spend our first night in our new home. We are so used to staying together that everyone wants to try to stay in one house. That doesn’t work very well, so we divide up and sleep in four of the houses tonight. Again we stand guard since there hasn’t been a whole lot in any of our lives to make us feel comfortable yet. Dayna and I stay up talking most of the night. She is so excited about living in the country, because all she has ever known is the city. She makes sure she tells me every day how much she loves me and how she doesn’t feel like her life began until the day we met. I feel the same way about her. It is getting harder to remember what life was like before we came to this, well whatever this is. I just want to take care of her the way she deserves to be.

  7

  In the morning, while the others continue cleaning, Tim, Billy, and I go exploring to see what else is on this place we are claiming as our home. We did not have time to check out the barns yesterday so we are doing that now. There are more skeletons in all four barns as well as a lot of great farm equipment in the form of tractors and a bunch of other equipment that I have no idea what it is used for. I am sure we will find out and maybe even be able to use it to farm the land. There are two small skeletons in one of the barns that look like they were probably children who died there. We decide to dig graves for the people who lived here before and give them a proper burial. While cleaning the houses the women find papers telling the names of the people who lived here, so we make a headstone with all the names we found in the houses. We feel that it is the least we can do for them.

  We take one of the trucks and drive around the farm just to see what there is to see. There are some vegetables growing wild in large garden patches behind all of the houses, and we see cattle grazing on the long grass not far from the main yard. There are also deer and signs of other game in the woods that are not far from the houses as well. All the houses have wood burning stoves in them for heat, as well as gas furnaces. A quick check of the woods shows us that there is plenty of deadfall to keep us all in firewood for at least this winter and probably many more to come. When we get back to the houses we are given the chore to get the stoves working in the kitchens. They are all propane and there is still propane in the tanks that they are hooked to so it shouldn’t be too hard to get them working.

  Actually just cleaning the gas lines on the stoves gets them working in time to fix lunch. While looking around the yard we find a windmill that has blown down and is lying on the ground. That is our project for the afternoon, because if we can get that working we won’t need gas or propane to keep the generators running. We manage to get it standing up again and the wind vanes turning. We have to use some of the parts we brought with us to build a windmill, but being as far along as we are this quickly, puts us way ahead. In each of the houses the women find hundreds of jars and cans of food that the former inhabitants had put up for food storage. Not all of it is still good, but most of it is. That will come in handy and help the supplies we brought with us last longer. Our second evening in our new home is spent deciding who will live in which house and with which m
embers of the family. Each house has at least four bedrooms, three of them have six bedrooms, and three have five. Since our family now numbers sixty-four members, we know we can have seven in eight of the houses, and eight in one.

  We will be growing by five within the next couple weeks, but the babies won’t take up too much room. Actually some of the individual families have gotten to be quite close so they want to live in the same house, which works out perfectly. We just want to make sure that each house has at least one married man and his wife in it with the others. Again it works out well. Dayna and I will be sharing a house with two of the mothers and their children. Melissa has two darling four year old twin daughters that I told you about earlier and the other is Robin, a mother and her three children who are ages six, eight and ten. The ten year old is a young man who wants to grow up way too fast. He is really a great kid who would defend his family without any regard for his own safety. We all get along great so it will be a good mix. We all agree that if anyone gets tired of the living arrangements, we can switch with someone else.

  The third day finds us working on the windmill some more. With the parts we have, we are able to get it fixed and producing electricity by early afternoon. When we get everything ready and finally flip the switch, starting the houses running on the electricity generated by the windmill, we find that only three of the houses are powered by the windmill. A careful search shows us that some of the wiring rotted away that would allow at least one other house on this one circuit. Billy and Tim find a second windmill behind one of the other houses. We start on that one and it is in much better shape than the first one, and we actually have electricity in the rest of the homes by dark. Everyone is in extremely high spirits with all of our success so far.