The End

by G. Michael Hopf

  San Diego, California

  Gordon yawned and stretched his tired and achy body. The sun’s initial rays were pushing their way through the eastern clouds. Gordon and Jimmy were staged at the central park waiting for his scavenger party to show up. Gordon had stayed up into the night working on a plan that would ensure their survival. Three two-man teams would scavenge daily for food, water, fuel, medicines, vehicles, and weapons.

  He assigned each team a specific task: one was to go get food and medicines, the second water, and the third to find vehicles and weapons. The hours would be long, but what else did they have to do now? Beyond the scavenger teams his plan called for a hospital, a team of gardeners that could start to work on converting one of the parks into a garden, perimeter security, and school and community maintenance teams. The community would meet daily to get their rations delivered to them based upon what they found the day before.

  He was concerned about Mindy and the board’s cooperation. Not everyone had shown up yesterday to be added to the list, so he wasn’t sure if everyone would be in agreement with his plan or if he would have a divided neighborhood, something he desperately did not want.

  He and another team convoyed to the Carmel Mountain mall, a large series of strip malls about five miles away from his neighborhood. There they split up so they could adequately cover more territory. He sent Nelson with another man to recon a potable water reservoir close by. If his hunch was correct, there could be water in the tank. If there was, they would seize it, isolate it, and conduct daily water runs.

  During the drive, Jimmy just chatted about nothing and Gordon took the time to relax. It wasn’t long before his relaxation turned into sleep.

  Gordon was jolted awake by Jimmy punching him in the arm and yelling at him to wake up.

  The first store, a grocery store, was teeming with people. Mobs were carrying out armfuls of food and supplies.

  “What should we do?” Jimmy asked, leaning against the steering wheel looking at the people running around.

  “Ahh, let’s see,” Gordon said, sounding a bit foggy from his short nap.

  “Bro, that looks like a cluster fuck.”

  “I think you’re right, but I need to go in and see what I can get. Keep the truck back,” Gordon said.

  Pulling his pistol out of his shoulder holster he press-checked it to confirm it was loaded. After ensuring Jimmy was armed and prepared, he left for the store. Gordon counted dozens of people coming in and out. All along the front of the store and into the parking lot, debris and crushed food items were strewn. Gordon wore a large backpack and made sure he kept his jacket unzipped so he could get his gun if needed. To Gordon the mob was proof positive the word had gotten out. Knowing his odds of securing a large cache of food and supplies was limited, he still had to go get what he could.

  Upon entering the darkened store, his assumptions proved correct. Walking briskly down the empty aisles, he grabbed what lone can or packet of food he could find or pick up off the floor. Seeing the pharmacy right away, he proceeded toward it. The pharmacy shelves were stripped bare too. Jumping over the counter and into the pharmacy was easy since someone had smashed the windows. He picked up what he could and stuffed it into his pack. Feeling frustrated after spending twenty minutes with not much to show for it, he left the store.

  He exited the dimly lit chaos of the ransacked store to witness what would soon become the new normal. Jimmy and the truck were surrounded by three men. They were rocking the truck back and forth, all the while taunting and yelling. Jimmy returned the taunts and screams. He also was threatening them with his gun, but the threats didn’t stop them.

  Gordon began to run toward Jimmy. He unholstered his Sig, held it above his head, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun made the men stop. They turned and looked at Gordon, who pointed the gun at the closest one and yelled, “Back the fuck off! Step away from the truck!”

  “Hey, bro, chill!” yelled the man whom Gordon had the gun trained on.

  Gordon’s situational awareness was still there. While he kept his gun on the one man, he was also tracking the other two. He noticed the other two took a few steps back but the one man did the opposite. He took a step toward Gordon.

  “Get the fuck out of here now!” Gordon yelled at him.

  “Hey, bro. This your truck? Let us borrow it.”

  “Get the fuck out of here NOW!” Gordon yelled again.

  Taking another step closer to Gordon, the man yelled something in Spanish to his two friends. Gordon didn’t understand what he said, but whatever it was made the other two start to advance again.

  “If you don’t listen and back away from the truck, I’ll shoot you!” Gordon commanded.

  Gordon was feeling a way he hadn’t felt in a long time: fear coupled with anticipation. Time started to slow for him. His eyes shifted from the man to his front to the other two and back again. His hands were firmly grasping his pistol. He then noticed the man was looking over his shoulder at something behind him. Sensing that he needed to look, he glanced back quickly to see three other men running toward him. They were forty feet away but closing fast. Gordon instinctively looked back to confront the original three just in time. The first man had closed the distance and was feet from him. Without hesitation Gordon shot the first man in the face. The back of his head exploded then he fell to the ground with a thud. Gordon advanced, stepping over him, and took aim on the next man. He squeezed the trigger, unleashing another 9 millimeter round. The bullet ripped through his chest and the man fell back. The third man turned and ran. Showing no mercy, Gordon aimed and shot him between the shoulder blades. Knowing that a threat still existed, he swung around to address the other three, but they had stopped their advance and were running away. The distance was too great for the capabilities of his pistol, so he didn’t waste the bullets. The shooting had slowed the looting and ransacking of the store. People were standing in the parking lot staring at him. The voyeurism lasted only moments before everyone went back to looting.

  Hearing the truck door behind him, he turned and saw Jimmy slowly getting out of the truck. His face told Gordon the state he was in. He looked over the three lifeless bodies that surrounded his truck. Only in movies had he ever seen anything like this before. In fact, he had never seen a dead person except for his grandparents a few years before.

  Gordon re-holstered his Sig and walked up to the first man he shot. He knelt down and started to check the man’s pockets.

  “What are you doing?” Jimmy asked, clearly looking disgusted.

  Not looking up at Jimmy, Gordon responded, “Seeing if he has anything of value.”

  “Are you serious, man?”

  Gordon looked up at Jimmy with a blank stare. “Jimmy, you better realize that this is the new world we’re in. They might have something that we could use. Now go check that one,” Gordon ordered, nodding in the direction of one of the dead men.

  Jimmy looked at the body next to him and said, “Fuck that, man, I’m not doing that.”

  Finishing his search of the first man, he walked up to Jimmy. “If you’re not going to help, then step aside.”

  Backing away to let Gordon pass, Jimmy walked back to the truck and got in. He watched in bewildered amazement as Gordon searched the dead men. Only two days after the attacks and the world was going to shit. His thinking had not caught up with the realities of the new world, as he thought Gordon did not have to shoot all three. The entire situation made him feel very uncomfortable and out of place.

  Gordon got back in the truck. He began to wipe blood on his pants. “Not much on those guys. I have an idea, though; there’s a Home Depot just down the street. I want to go there and get seed for our gardens.”

  Jimmy sat motionless and quiet.

  “Jimmy, snap out of it; we need to go.”

  “I just don’t understand why you had to kill the other two guys.
The first one, sure, but the other two had stopped,” Jimmy said, speaking in a low tone.

  “I can see why you would think that, but I will say it again. What you saw out there is just the beginning. We will have to kill more people just like that. I did us a favor by killing them now. Hell, I might have saved a life. Those guys were up to no good. I only wish I had a rifle. I would have shot the other three.”

  Looking over at Gordon, Jimmy queried, “Seriously? You would have killed the other three guys?”

  “Yes, Jimmy, I would have,” Gordon said, not pausing a second to think of the answer.

  “What happened to you over in the war man, did it fuck you up?”

  Gordon looked down at Jimmy’s shaking hands, then stopped defending his actions. He knew he needed to help his friend, as Gordon just realized he was in shock.

  “Hey buddy, I know this is tough for you. But please trust me when I tell you I did it to protect us all, especially your family. If they could have they would have probably killed you,” Gordon said with a softer tone.

  Jimmy kept seeing images of what just happened over and over in his mind.

  “Let me drive, okay?” Gordon said.

  Jimmy just nodded and got out of the truck. Gordon slid over behind the driver’s seat and started it. He watched Jimmy slowly walk around and get back in. The drive to Home Depot was quiet as both men processed in their own way the events that had just occurred.

  USS Makin Island, Indian Ocean

  “Yes!” Barone yelled, responding to the banging on the hatch to his quarters.

  The hatch opened and a young Marine lieutenant stepped inside.

  “William, my boy, so glad to see you, son,” Barone said with happiness in his voice as he stood and approached the young Marine. They both embraced, patting each other on the back.

  “Dad . . . I’m sorry, Colonel; good to see you too.”

  “Billy, it’s just Dad when we’re together; you know that,” Barone said back. He motioned for his son to sit down at a small table in his room. “I’m so glad you could make it for dinner with your ol’ man.”

  Billy was Barone’s only son; he had a daughter, too, who was still in high school back in Oceanside. Billy looked very much like his father but with a slender athletic build. Billy had followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Marine Corps after college. While his father went on to become an infantry platoon commander out of school, Billy saw his future in the air. He became a fighter pilot, flying AV-8B Harrier Jump Jets. It was just a coincidence that he was onboard the Makin Island. Billy had been on a West-Pac deployment with his unit as part of the 11th MEU. Barone could not have been more excited to have his son with him as they started this new mission together. He had not had a chance to speak with him since they arrived, and now they’d be able to catch up. Billy always looked for his father’s approval and did what he could to always support and make his dad proud.

  “Dad, I have to say, it would have been nice to see you before you made that huge announcement.”

  “Sorry, son, timing was everything; I knew you’d be with me and I had to move fast the minute we boarded the ships,” Barone said.

  “I understand. I just got some heat from some of my colleagues.”

  “So, tell me, are they on board with this?” Barone asked, looking concerned and earnest to hear his son’s thoughts.

  “At first there was shock, but everyone agrees that our mission should be back in California not on the East Coast.”

  “I’m sorry, son, can I offer you a drink?” Barone asked, pointing to a bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on his desk.

  “That would be great, thanks, Dad.”

  Barone stood up quickly and grabbed the bottle and two plastic cups. As he poured, he asked what was a sincere and sensitive question for him: “Billy, tell me honestly. Do you agree with this decision? You can be honest with me; I trust and respect your opinion.”

  Billy raised his eyebrows in surprise; it was not often that his father asked him about a decision he had made. This really struck him as odd, but he also felt proud that his father trusted his thoughts enough to ask. “Dad, I don’t know how it could have gone any different. I look at what’s happened and think we need to be home protecting our families. So, yes, I agree with your decision; I know in some people’s eyes we are now traitors but I know enough about history to know that we will be judged by those generations later who have a clear view of everything in its context.”

  “Thank you, son, I appreciate your candid thoughts. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I just couldn’t go along with leaving our families defenseless at home; I only wish we could get back sooner. I estimate that if all goes smoothly, we should be pulling into San Diego within three weeks. From there we’ll be in a better situation to assess the situation on the ground.”

  “Dad, what happens to us once the president finds out?”

  “Billy, you don’t have to concern yourself with that now. I will take full responsibility once and if, I emphasize if, we are charged with anything.”

  “Why would you say ‘if’?”

  “Because I don’t know if our country will survive this. I fear it will rip itself apart and when it comes back together it may not look like the country we left.”

  “So in some ways we aren’t risking it all, because there may not be a country to mutiny against in the end.” Billy said, nodding. All of a sudden the bigger picture was becoming apparent to him.

  “Right now, our concern needs to be getting to Diego Garcia, where we will try to drop off those who don’t want to go with us. We also need to pick up additional supplies and from there we’ll head onto San Diego,” Barone said, before he took a drink of his Jack Daniels.

  “Dad, whatever you need from me let me know. I support you one hundred percent.”

  Barone reached across the table and patted his son’s hand and said, “Thank you, son.”

  They enjoyed the rest of their dinner together with conversations about home. After Billy left, Barone sat back down and poured himself another drink. He looked around his state room, the cold, gray steel walls and piping that zigzagged across the ceiling. He liked his life in the Marine Corps; a room like this had been his home on and off for a long time. Upon their return to San Diego, he wasn’t sure when he’d set foot on a ship again. The journey home would be full of potential surprises and possible conflict. The paradox of it all was that the worst case for him personally was that the country returned to normal. He would surely be arrested, court-martialed and jailed for a long time. He wasn’t hoping for the country not to recover, but he was betting it wasn’t going to. He longed to be with his wife in Oceanside who was alone. He could not bear to think of what might happen to her and his daughter, Megan. He had been married for twenty-eight years and wasn’t going to leave her alone and in need. Everything had become complicated, but he felt what he was doing was just. He decided he wasn’t going to concern himself with the distant future; whatever would happen, would happen. After pouring another drink, he looked at it before he quickly drank it down with one gulp. The effects of the whiskey were starting to take hold. He welcomed the feeling. He wouldn’t have very many breaks, so getting a bit drunk was his way of escaping the realities of his self-imposed situation.

  San Diego, California

  Gordon’s Home Depot plan had proven to be a good decision. As Gordon liked to say, “It was a target-rich environment.” He gathered every packet of seed, batteries, flashlights, gardening tools, junk food, drinks, and miscellaneous supplies he could take. The way the ransacking was going at the strip malls that day, he was surprised that no one had broken in yet. It took him fifteen trips and two hours to bring everything back. The darkness of the stores made the scavenging difficult. Gordon laughed to himself about how finding things in Home Depot was tough when the lights were on. Each time he returned with a full basket he could see
the shock wearing off of Jimmy. They exchanged some casual banter back and forth. Gordon had liked Jimmy from the first time they met. They both shared similar values and raised their children in the same fashion. Gordon also appreciated Jimmy’s sense of humor and respected his business prowess.

  “How are we looking for fuel?” Gordon asked, after dumping his backpack of candy bars into the bed of the truck.

  “We could use some, let’s top off over there,” Jimmy said, pointing to a new model Chevy Tahoe.

  “Sure, pull the truck over there and get the siphon going. I’ll grab some empty gas cans and toss them in the back, too.” Gordon said, putting his pack back on and heading to the store again.

  Gordon gathered up all the gas cans he could find and came out to find Jimmy petting a dog.

  “What a sweet dog,” Jimmy said, crouched down petting the gray pit bull.

  “I think that’s it,” Gordon said, tying down all the scavenged items in the bed of the truck. He ignored Jimmy and the dog.

  Jimmy kept petting and talking to the dog in a high-pitched voice.

  “Let’s head back, make a drop, and see if we can make it back out maybe somewhere close before it gets dark,” Gordon said, walking around the truck to talk to Jimmy.

  Jimmy was still petting and talking to the dog.

  “Helloooo,” Gordon said.

  “Yeah, I heard ya,” Jimmy answered, then followed up with, “Do you think he’s lost?”

  “No, I don’t. He’s just scavenging like us, now let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

  Jimmy gave the dog one last pet and kissed the top of its head before getting behind the driver’s seat. He started to pull away and saw the dog starting to follow them. As he weaved around parked and stalled cars in the parking lot the dog kept following. This happened for about two minutes before Jimmy stopped the truck and jumped out.