by Byron Tucker
“What I'm about to tell you is probably going to upset you, if not make you downright angry at me. And that's okay, you're free to hate me all you want.” When she got nothing but deadpan stares from them, she continued, “The simple fact of the matter is that we've been living high on the hog, which is the wrong thing to do in our situation. All of us are fully aware that we have a limited amount of food down in that cellar. It seems like a lot, but with six of us chewing our way through it each day, it's being cut down fast. Since it's imperative that we make that supply last as long as we possibly can, Ryan and I have decided that we will limit our daily caloric intake to fifteen hundred calories a day, beginning immediately.”
Jimmy was the first to voice an objection. “Well, if it wasn't for you shacking up with my uncle here, we'd not being going through it so fast, would we?”
Ryan stepped forward as he shot him an angry glare. “That's a low blow, Jimmy. You can't say things like that. Nora's helped us in more ways than we can count, and she did shoot that deer, you know.”
Jimmy wasn't mollified, however. Leaning forward, he locked eyes with Ryan. “That's fine and dandy, but you won't let me hunt any deer, or anything else for that matter. You've taken me shooting exactly once, which is stupid, as I bet I could be bringing home all sorts of game. I understand if we have to cut back on what we have, but I'll be dammed if I'm going hungry and not be allowed to hunt.”
Sam raised his hand. “Enough, Jimmy. You know it's not safe to be out in the woods is this weather, especially with those raiders roaming around.” He took a moment to meet Nora's gaze and said, “You're absolutely right, this is something we should have started a long time ago. You have my full support.”
Nora looked over at Irene and said, “How do you feel about this? Do you feel that it's necessary to limit our food consumption?”
Irene looked down at her hands as she spoke. “Yes, I agree that this needs to be done, but perhaps we can ease into it gradually. I think Jimmy needs to have a bit more food, as he's an awfully big boy.”
“Mom, I can't believe you're agreeing with this,” Jimmy said with an alarmed expression.
Nora began speaking again, not allowing Jimmy to voice additional objections. “I know it's going to be hard, feeling hungry all the time, but it has to be done. Ryan and I will do some additional hunting as soon as we catch a break in the weather. Regardless of us being able to bag additional game, however, it's still not going to allow us to exceed our food budget. We need to have enough to last at least until the summer after next, when we might be able to grow stuff in the garden.”
Sam interrupted by saying, “Rest assured, we're not going to be here for two years. I'm sure we'll be able to move on by next spring.”
Ryan looked at his brother with an incredulous expression. There won't be a spring next year, you idiot.
Asserting control of the room once again, Nora pointed to the wood stove next to her. “This is another thing we need to talk about. There's no reason to have a roaring fire all the time. Wood is a limited resource, so we need to burn enough to make the house livable, not be a Finnish sauna. I'll be in charge of the wood stove in here until all of you learn how to keep a small fire. If you feel chilly, put on more clothes.”
Jimmy stood up and walked directly in front of Nora, shooting her a nasty look. “What the hell, I'm not having it.” He walked to the foyer and grabbed his leather coat and went out the front door, slamming it shut behind him.
Ryan noticed his brother looking at him with a fake, used-car salesman smile. “That's a sixteen-year old for you,” Sam said. “They're a bit difficult to talk to sometimes.”
Anger welled up within him, not because of what Jimmy had done, but the utter lack of parenting by Jimmy's father. When he and Sam were growing up, Father would give them a real ass-whipping if they ever disrespected an adult like that. “If you don't make him come back in here and apologize, then I will.”
“You're telling me how to raise my son, huh? If you're so good at being a father to sixteen-year boys, be my guest. Get out there and make him come back in here and apologize to Nora. Go on, do it. I'd love to see you try.”
Ryan edged around the stove. “Fine, if you want me to talk to Jimmy, I will. If there's one thing we have to agree on, it's that we cannot allow Jimmy to be the bully of this family. Now, if you all will excuse me, I'll be back as soon as I can.”
Giving Nora a subtle wink as he passed her, he grabbed his heavy coat and stepped out into the raging blizzard, the snow blowing sideways in near-whiteout conditions, despite the protection of the berms. Tromping through knee-deep snow, he walked around the side of the house, following Jimmy's fresh tracks. Not surprisingly, the dimpled footprints led to the shop, so he made a beeline for the door, relieved to be out of the frigid gale.
Closing the door behind him, he yelled out, “Jimmy? Are you in here? We need to talk.”
When he got no response, he walked past the motorhome, squeezing past the place where the slide-out extended close to the wall. He spotted Jimmy over by one of the work tables, putting together the .22 rifle that had been taken apart earlier for cleaning. “Jimmy, we need to talk.”
He looked at him with an unwelcome glare. “Yeah? What do you wanna talk about, Uncle?”
“That you need to come back inside and apologize to Nora. That was a very rude thing you just did back there.”
Jimmy's cheeks flushed with visible anger, his fists clenching at his sides. “No, what's rude is how she's playing dictator all of a sudden. First, you said she was only staying a week. Then the next thing we know, you guys are sleeping together. That was fine, though, I have no problem with that. I'm actually happy for you about it, really. But this idea of her telling us what we can and cannot do, no, that's going way too far. You've got like a zillion tons of food under that house, so I'll be dammed if I go hungry around here. And I'll be pissed if you're not going to let me go hunting, either. If it's safe for you and Nora to be out in the woods, it's safe for me too.”
Ryan let out an exasperated sigh. “If you go out there now, in this weather, we'll never see you again. You'll be a Popsicle within the hour. However, if it clears up a bit, maybe Nora and I will let you hunt with us, since I know you have a strong desire to contribute. But you know, the biggest way to contribute to this family is following the plan that Nora and I have come up with, which I've worked on from the very beginning. I know we have a lot of food here, but it also has to last a very long time. You know what it's like out there.”
Jimmy seemed to relent, but only slightly. “But we didn't vote for her to be the boss, though. We're all in this together, right?”
Ryan moved a bit closer to his nephew. “Yes, we are all in this together, which means we all need to do our part to conserve. Conserving is the name of the game from here on out. Nora just happens to be an assertive person, so it's only natural to let her be the authoritative voice around here.”
“In other words, you're a pussy, so you're going to let your woman be the slave master around here. Hell, I bet you enjoy her tying you up and flogging you with a whip.”
“Jimmy! Enough. It's rude and disrespectful to say things like that about people. If you really want to get to the bottom line about this, this is my land, my house and my supplies. I've allowed your family to take refuge here by my own choosing. In addition, I have the right to preserve my chances of long-term survival, as well as yours, by implementing a rationing program. And Nora's exactly the person we need to have around here to keep us in line, since none of us have been able to discipline ourselves worth a silly damn, myself included. I have little doubt we're all going to be thanking Nora for this later on down the line.”
Jimmy stared at him for a few moments. Finally, he said, “I'll go back in and apologize. That doesn't mean I'm too happy about it, though.”
Ryan gave Jimmy's shoulder a squeeze. “Well, I don't think any of us are happy about this. Trust me, I'm not. I enjoy eating just as much as
you do. But it has to be done, there's just no alternative.”
Jimmy pointed toward the door, letting out an annoyed snort along with a rolling of his eyes. “Let's go back to the house and get this over with.”
Jimmy's Journal Entry, November 13th, 2019
I can't believe I wrote the previous entry just a week ago, as it sure seems a lot longer than that. Time goes a LOT slower when you're hungry, so the days just drag on and on and on. The blizzard just keeps blasting day and night without end, so we can't do anything outside to hunt for game or anything, so we're trapped inside the house, with like nothing at all to do.
What really sucks, though, is how Uncle Ryan has let Nora put us on a severe rationing plan, which means we're not allowed to eat more than 1500 calories a day. That is, like, NOTHING. That's like a piece of toast with four bits of dried fruit for breakfast, a bowl of soup with another slice of bread for lunch, a cup of trail mix for a snack, and supper is something like a potato cake, a tiny piece of chicken and a bit of pasta, or rice with peas or something. That's it. We've been doing it for five days now, and damn, I am H-U-N-G-R-Y. The food that I do get to eat just doesn't satisfy, and then my stomach will start growling an hour later, and I realize that it's like five more hours to the next meal. I hate it, I really do. Being hungry all the time sucks more than you'll ever know. And what sucks even worse is that Uncle Ryan let Nora put a huge padlock on the door to the cellar, so none of us can sneak extra food. But, I've found a how-to-guide of how to pick locks in Ryan's library, so maybe I'll be able to pick that lock so I can get myself some food. In the meantime though, I'm going to rely on an old teenager standby that almost never fails, if you keep it up long enough. I just say the words, “I'm hungry,” every chance I get, especially around Nora. “I'm hungry. I'm hungry,” all freaking day long. No sane adult can stand the Chinese water torture forever. It just can't be done.
I sure hope this weather breaks soon too, as it's just making things that much harder being trapped inside all the time. The whiteout is so bad that Uncle Ryan and Nora have run a rope from the house to the shop, so we don't get lost. When you can't see three feet in front of your face, it's really scary that you can get lost so easily. So any kind of hunting is out too, obviously. Nora says that we should be glad of the weather though, as it means that the raiders probably are having to hunker down, even if they've run out of food. I think she's exaggerating when she says there's hundreds of them lying in wait up around here. I say maybe a couple dozen at most. And you know their numbers are going down constantly as just about everybody up here has guns. If we do get attacked though, I bet it'll be a cinch to pick them off with the AR-15, especially with that laser scope. It'd just be like my game, Stalker. I could lie on top of the berm and do the ol' sweep as they come up that hill. Nora and Uncle Ryan can guard the back, and we'd be invincible.
I know, I'm just fantasizing, life isn't a video game, yadda yadda yadda. I just wish we could see some action around here, as I am SO BORED. Nothing to do, nothing to eat, everybody being grumpy because they're hungry, man, it's getting pretty nutso around here. I just don't see how much longer we can keep doing like this, starving ourselves even when we have lots of food, and just sitting in the house, all day, every day, while it keeps blowing a blizzard nonstop. Something's gotta give, and soon. Maybe tonight, when everyone's asleep, I'll sneak into the kitchen and see if I can pick that lock. I'll just have to make sure I don't make any noise. If I can get down there, I'll try and get out some energy bars and bags of nuts, so it'll be easy for me to sneak in extra snacks when nobody's looking.
I'll write in the next entry if I've been successful or not. *Winks.*
Chapter 19
President Barnes watched General Ackerman and his associates file into the room, including the former Director of the CIA, Alan Zimmerman. He was in a none-too-good mood, as the latest negotiations with Texas had resulted with egg on his face. The Texan representatives had made him look like an utter fool on Texan media outlets. Supposedly, the President of the Republic of Texas enjoyed a 92-percent approval rating, while Barnes was struggling to maintain 50 percent. And if the Texas fiasco wasn't bad enough, the problem of all those millions of refugees pouring into the Coalition were pushing things to the breaking point, especially in Florida. Brazil and Argentina were balking at sending additional food unless he sent them tons of gold – gold that he simply didn't have. The newly-minted Coalition Dollar was proving to be a total and absolute fiasco, with few willing to trade in it.
It was clear something needed to be done, and soon. Although he hated to see it come to this, an invasion of Texas was all but inevitable. With a grunt of disgust, he turned to Zimmerman. “Any progress on locating Ryan Durant?”
The pale-faced gentleman shook his head slowly. “We've come to a dead end everywhere we've looked. It seems Durant has been a master at OPSECS procedures. He's covered his tracks about as well as anyone I've ever seen. I've tried tracking down his mother, his brother, old flames – they're nowhere to be found.”
Barnes gave him a pointed stare. “Nowhere to be found as in dead, or just fallen off the radar?”
Zimmerman shrugged his shoulders. “Probably both. The closest I've been able to come in determining where Ryan might have gone to ground is somewhere in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I've sent some feelers to the National Guard up that way and, so far, no clues. If you want my honest opinion, I think he's left the country.”
Barnes let out a long, annoyed sigh. “You're probably right. He never had any kind of loyalty to this country, so it's only fitting he'd flee at the first sign of trouble. It's too bad, as we sure could have used his expertise against the Texan military.”
General Ackerman said, “What do you propose at this point in time?”
Barnes looked at him with a deadpan stare. “What I propose is a full-out invasion of Texas. We're faced with no other choice.”
A murmur of agreement rippled around the table.
* * *
Wishing that he'd had more to eat for supper, Ryan stepped into the motorhome. Since Nora was doing inventory in the cellar, he decided to flip on the shortwave to see if there was anything new being reported. To his surprise, the first thing he heard was how the Coalition, governed by the insufferable George Barnes, was declaring war on the break-away state of Texas, threatening actual combat. Civil War Two, the announcer was calling it, and going by the way Texas was behaving, it was all but inevitable. Knowing George Barnes, Ryan wasn't too surprised that it'd come to this, although he questioned how he'd managed to get the governors and citizens of thirteen states to believe he actually had the right to be President of the country, or what was left of it.
The newscaster then went on to describe how the Coalition was continuing to maintain “evacuation corridors” leading from the western and northern states to Georgia and Florida, where they were still building vast “resettlement communities.” The various State National Guard units were managing certain roadways to keep them open for travel, providing fueling stations for motorists and the like.
Ryan shook his head. This was fine and dandy and everything, but there was still no denying there wasn't enough food on hand to feed all those millions of people. Even Texas, with their successful attempts to import food from Mexico, would be having a tough time of it in the months ahead as the bitter cold moved southward. Pretty much all of the former United States was doomed to starvation, unless they could manage massive imports from other countries, which he knew wasn't going to happen.
Nora stepped into the motorhome, pointing to the radio. “Turn it off.”
When he did so, she said, “What do you hear?”
Ryan cocked his head to the side, unable to hear much of anything. “Nothing? You hear something?”
“That's exactly it. The wind's stopped. It's dead calm out there.”
“Not snowing?”
“Nope, nothing.”
“That's going to be a problem if it's calm for more
than twenty-four hours. No more juice from the windmills.”
Nora nodded in a grim fashion. “We're going to have a bigger problem than that.”
“What's that?”
“The raiders. They've been locked down all this time, but with this break in the weather, they're going to be on the move. I think we should start standing watches.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes, tonight, starting now. I'll take the AR-15 and stand first watch. It's eight now, so I'll come and get you at two. Eight o'clock tomorrow morning, we'll put Jimmy out there. Get him out of that house for once.”
Ryan shook his head. “I'm not sure about Jimmy handling the AR-15.”
Nora's mouth formed a small “O.” “Why not? You think he's too trigger-happy?”
“Yes, I do. No telling what he'd be tempted to shoot with that thing.”
“Good, since we can't afford to take any chances. While I'm standing watch, I want you to give Sam one of your Glocks, and tell him keep it with him at all times. I'd like Irene to carry as well, but we know that won't happen.”
Ryan swallowed the nervous lump forming in his throat. “Do you really think we could defend ourselves in an attack?”
She gave him a steely-eyed stare. “Do we have any choice?”
He watched Nora reach under the couch for the AR-15 and sling it over her shoulder, looking like a tough hombre as she cradled the large weapon. If there's anybody that can save us from ruthless predators, it's her.
Once she had slipped out of the motorhome, he went to the back and pulled out his other guns, which he had withdrawn from the safe some days previous. Nora had told him that they were not doing any good locked up in the gun safe, and she was right. The raiders would probably attack with little or no warning, and they needed to be ready at a second's notice.