“Bloody hell mate, you’ve got some serious fire power here,” I whispered excitedly. “Your brother’s done you a big favour. He must have some pull to be able to get these out of his base and deliver them to you.”
I had to get them all out immediately just to admire and hold them.
“Right then, which one shall we play with first?” was my slightly childish question, in response to which Jerry laughed, as he could see how excited I was. As we unpacked the crate, I realised that there were only 9mm bullets and shotgun cartridges. The Glocks and the MP5s clearly needed the same ammunition. That was good news, because although I hadn’t counted the bullets yet, there seemed to be a lot of them. There weren’t as many shotgun cartridges, as these probably took up a lot of room, but I had plenty of those at my house anyway. I picked up the MP5 and starting loading one of the ten magazines from the crate. I had never done this before, but had seen it done in films. Once I had it fully loaded, I told Jerry to show me how to get to his back garden, which he did.
“Right then,” I said, standing with the gun in one hand and the magazine in the other, “let’s see how these things work.” I inserted the magazine, pulled back the cocking lever and put the gun to my shoulder. I aimed at a tree in the back garden and pulled the trigger. Nothing!
“Oops,” I said, “I must have forgotten the safety.” Making sure the gun wasn’t pointing at anybody, I looked at the side of it and saw a lever by the trigger. I saw four positions and from the symbols by them it was easy to work out that they went from safe to single shot then to three-shot burst, then full automatic. I selected single shot and again aimed at the tree and pulled the trigger. The silencer worked well; there was just a low cracking sound and that was it. Looking at the tree, I thought I’d missed it. I selected the three-shot burst, aimed and pulled the trigger again. At least one shot hit home.
I could have played with it all day, but I was there for a reason. I showed the features on the gun to Jerry, gave him the basic gun safety rules, like how to check it was loaded and therefore ready to fire, and how the safety worked. I suppose the rule of not pointing a gun at anybody was now irrelevant, so I changed it to never pointing a gun at anybody you didn't want to shoot.
Jerry fired a few shots at the tree. “Bloody hell, he hit it more than me. But that’s only because I’m such a good instructor,” I thought to myself. The Glock was a bit trickier to work out, because it didn't have a safety. If you held the gun in the correct firing position, somehow it activated the gun and you could fire it. We took a few shots each, but we didn't want the noise to attract any unwanted attention, or to waste ammunition. The shotgun was a pump-action and loaded in a similar way to my semi-automatics, but this one held eight cartridges. I showed Jerry how it worked, but his children had been upset by the noise from the Glock, so we decided not to shoot it for now.
Back in the house, he showed me the radio that had also been in the case. It was quite a large, impressive looking military-type communication radio. We tried turning it on, and to my surprise, the lights came on. It seemed to be OK and had clearly survived the EMP. When I examined the crate, I realised why. It was made of heavy duty metal with a foam padding lining and must have been specially designed to protect its contents from the effect of an EMP. We couldn't pick anything up on the radio, so we turned it off, because we couldn't see a way of charging it and could only speculate as to why his brother had included it in the crate, along with the instructions.
We spoke again about moving to my road, so that he and his family could be safe.
“The main problem is the amount of supplies I gathered in the days before it happened, and how to move them. Look at all this I collected.” It was an impressive amount, almost filling a large spare bedroom in his house.
“Mm.” I said, “There’s far too much to move by carrying it. The only logical way would be to get my Land Rover out of the garage, hook the trailer up and keep going back and forth until everything’s moved. But I haven’t told anyone on my road, not even Allan, my policeman friend, that I’ve got a working vehicle.”
“Will people think I should have told them? Will they wonder what else I didn’t tell them? Will I be exposing myself and my family to more danger? Even though we’re working well together as a neighbourhood, will the temptation of finding a way out of the city, to a place that might be safer, prove too much for some of them?” These thoughts were running through my mind, and I had a feeling that the cooperative was only going to last as long as the food supplies did. Jerry took the conversation up.
“The car itself is going to be a massive problem as well. The noise is likely to attract unwanted attention and could lead to dangerous confrontations, because everybody will want it at any cost.”
The more we talked about it, the more obvious it became that driving to and from his house was going to be completely impractical, if not potentially deadly.
We agreed it was certainly a dilemma, and fortunately, Jerry understood my position immediately. He said if it was going to cause me trouble, he wouldn't move and would find a way to manage at his house. I wouldn't hear of it.
“If there is a way I can think of doing it, without any repercussions, then it’s going to happen and that’s the end of it,” I told him and his wife.
“Well, I do now feel confident with the weapons and how to use them. I’m sure we’ll be safe staying here until we can think of a way of moving everything without arousing unwanted suspicion.”
“Jerry, have you got somewhere in the house where we can hide your supplies?” I asked. He wasn't sure, so I asked him to show me round.
His house was the typical turn of the century type, with rooms on the third floor in the eaves and no attic, so that ruled out hiding anything there. However, most old houses have a cellar, so I asked him to show it to me. It was a large cellar split into several rooms by the supporting walls in the house, with a door-sized opening between them. With the light of the torch Jerry had provided, I could see that the first room was lined with shelves full of the normal things you would find in a cellar. The other rooms were empty and Jerry explained that he had always planned to board them out and turn them into more usable space, rather than just have the plain brick-floored and brick-lined rooms they were now. As it was likely to involve quite a bit of work to damp-proof them properly, he hadn’t got round to it yet. An idea formed in my mind.
“How about we move all your supplies into one of the back rooms in the cellar, then move one of the shelf units over the opening? That'll hide it and if people break in, they most likely won’t have torches with them anyway, and all they’ll be able to see is one room lined with shelves.” It seemed a simple but effective solution.
“Good plan. I’ll make a start moving our supplies as soon as you’ve gone.”
Before I went, I helped him board up his broken kitchen window with a few old pieces of timber we found in his shed, and we checked for any other weak points around the house where someone could break in easily. There were a few, but without proper materials, all we could do was push tables and pile chairs against the French windows leading on to his patio to make a temporary barrier. Anything that might slow them down would give Jerry time to react.
I radioed Becky and told her I was on my way back.
As I was leaving, Jerry insisted on giving me one of the MP5s, a pistol and five hundred rounds of ammunition, saying that as there were only two people in the house who could use the weapons and he still had three left, there was no point in letting them sit there. I have to admit that I was hoping he would, so I accepted straight away and thanked him profusely.
I'm not daft. Jerry’s thoughts were transparent.
“If the neighbours in the road see the weapons you’ve got access to, they’ll be far more amenable to letting you and your family join us.” I smiled as I told him this and he looked a bit sheepish about being found out, but I laughed and said, “It’s exactly what I would have done.” I walked home in a hurry
, because it was starting to get dark and I was due on neighbourhood patrol soon.
Later that evening, Jerry called me on the walkie-talkie. He asked me about my old Land Rover and why it was still working.
I explained about the engines in older cars being simpler and not having computer chips and that as soon as I’d changed the battery in mine, it had worked just fine.
“So let’s find another old car then, and we can get it going and move all my stuff over to your road. Everybody must assume that all cars aren’t working, and aren’t aware that with some cars, all it’ll take is a new battery. If we can find one and get it working then nobody will need to find out about yours.”
“Brilliant idea mate, you are a genius!” I replied, amazed at how simple some solutions can be.
“There’s someone on the next road to us who has a vintage Land Rover. In the morning, I’ll take a quick trip out to see if it’s still there and I’ll radio you so that we can plan the next move,” Jerry said, as we ended our radio chat.
That evening there were more shouts and screams and at least four gunshots that sounded close by in the local area. I'm not an expert, but it sounded like a shotgun being discharged. I'd heard enough being fired in my time so I was confident it was. The neighbours were becoming very nervous now and the two of us in the road who owned shotguns decided, after getting the agreement of the others, that it was time to start carrying them with us, if not all the time, then at least when we were on patrol duty. I had to give Bob, the other shotgun holder, a few boxes of cartridges, as he didn't have any. That night, on patrol, I carried my semi-automatic shotgun and my Glock in its holster, hidden under my coat. I still hadn’t shown my neighbours my new weapons, as I wanted to get them all together in the morning to discuss Jerry joining us and then show them what he could bring to the party.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Pete came round in the morning to report that a house in the next road had been burgled the previous night. When the man had fought back, they had shot and killed him and his entire family.
“We need to get everybody together right now,” I told him. “We need to take more steps to protect ourselves. They’re not just content with robbery now. They know there are no police and they’re getting braver. They’ll take any action, including murder, to take what we have.”
Pete immediately went and rounded up the neighbours, including Allan, who we called on the walkie-talkie. He handed the meeting over to me, claiming that I was the expert on what we were about to discuss.
“Expert!” I thought. “All I’ve done is read a few books on the subject, but I suppose I have been preparing for this for a few years and so I do know a lot more about what to expect than most people here.”
I climbed on to the bonnet of a car and began my hastily prepared speech. “Friends, you've all heard what happened in the next road last night. Allan reckons the reason we’ve escaped the violence so far, is because we’ve been working together. Those out there, who have resorted to violence and stealing, know that, and have had much easier targets to steal from. We’re in a good position here at the moment, thanks to Allan sharing the supplies from the police station with us.” There was a general murmuring and a quick round of applause directed at Allan, who blushed and held up his hands in recognition. “With what Allan has, I reckon we have at least a couple of months’ worth of food available. If we’re careful with it we won't need to worry about that for the moment. What we need to talk about is protecting what we have. Just walking about as we are at the moment won’t deter them for much longer. Food is going to be getting scarcer by the day and soon whoever is out there will see us as the only place to get some.”
“And why is that?” asked someone from the back.
“Because we’re still here, being visible and obviously protecting something. If you didn’t have food you’d have left in search of food elsewhere, like a lot of people have. But how much food is out there? The countryside must be swarming with people looking for food and there’ll be some vegetables growing in fields, and animals as well. But how long are they going to last? I don't know the exact answer to that but I don’t think it’ll be long. Winter’s coming. Do you want to be sleeping in a tent or shelter when winter gets here? I certainly don’t.” I hadn’t meant to go on so much, but I was getting into my stride and my prepper side was starting to show through. “Pete called you here because we need to start getting more serious about security. I’ll set out what I think we need to do to try to stay safe. Then I’ll hand you back over to Pete, so he can start getting it organised and, can I add, if you don't think this is necessary, then you need to question why you’re still here!”
Probably a bit over the top as a speech, but then again, if they didn't want to take steps to protect our group more (including my family) then I personally didn't want them to stay. Over the years, I had given some thought to how I would protect my home, so now I just expanded my ideas to cover quite a few houses.
“At the moment we’re spread out over too many houses. I suggest that the families living at the ends of the road either move into some of the empty houses near the middle or move in with friends. That way it’ll be easier to help protect each other.” That prompted a few moans and shakes of the head, but I continued.
“We’ll block both ends of the road by creating a barrier of cars. This’ll stop anybody coming down our road by accident. We’ll then create another barrier where our houses are as our main line of defence; this’ll have to be manned at all times. Our back gardens are vulnerable and could provide another way for us to be attacked.
I’ll try to find enough barbed or razor wire to make a complete circle around all our properties. We can add to it and improve it as time goes on, but initially it should be sufficient to help protect us.
“As a few of you know, I own a few shotguns and Bob over there owns one as well. I’m willing to allow other people to use mine if they want to, to increase our fire power if need be. We also need to start collecting other things we can use as weapons, such as knives, cricket bats and golf clubs, and work out which will be best to use.” I saw a few people start and look worried at the mention of guns and weapons, so I added, “Those of you who aren’t looking too happy about the guns, think about that poor family on the next street last night and what he would have given for the chance of defending himself and his family and not letting some coward shoot him. Talking about weapons, do you remember me telling you on the first night about what had happened and what I’d learned from a bloke called Jerry via his brother in the army?”
Most people nodded. “Jerry lives not too far away in Kings Heath and I’ve been in regular contact with him by walkie-talkie. Yesterday I went to see him because his brother had sent him a crate with some things in and he wanted me to help him learn how to use them.” I pulled the Glock out of the holster and the MP5 from where it had been slung on my back underneath my coat. “A few of these were in the crate and he’s given me these to help protect us all. Jerry and his family are feeling vulnerable where they are, because nobody is helping anyone else in the way that we are here. His house was attacked yesterday, but he managed to scare them away. He’s also a doctor and because he had advanced warning, he’s very well stocked with medical supplies. I’ve invited him to come and live with us, and don’t worry, he also has his own food supplies so he won’t need to use any of ours. In fact, as I’ve got to know the man, I imagine he’ll want to share some of them with us. I realise I don’t need to ask your permission for someone to come and stay with me, but I would prefer it if you all agreed with my decision.” I looked up and could see most people nodding in agreement. I wasn’t sure if it was about my defence proposals or Jerry.
“How much food have you got then, Tom? You knew this was coming, you must have loads stashed away,” shouted Rick from the crowd. My heart sank. I'd never got on with Rick. I found him arrogant and called him “Rick the Prick” behind his back. He was one of the neighbours who had initially
refused to help and only joined in when he saw the food Allan was giving us. He was constantly moaning about everything, from having to patrol in the middle of the night to how bland the food was. He was starting to annoy most of the remaining street with his constant griping. Pete stared at him and said,
“Who cares what he’s got? If you weren't so busy moaning all the time you’d have noticed that he’s not taking any of the supplies Allan’s giving us. He’s using his own, which means there’s been more for you, and if it wasn't for Tom, none of this would be happening. We’d all be starving by now and fighting each other for whatever we had left.” He looked at everybody and carried on, “Does anyone else want to add anything?” Nobody spoke and most shot angry looks at Rick, which pleased me no end.
Pete stood up next to me on the car bonnet and I nodded my thanks to him. He asked if there were any questions about the defences or Jerry. Most seemed to accept my ideas as sensible, which I hoped they were. A few looked very uncomfortable about the idea of basically turning us into an armed camp, under siege in our own city. The idea seemed so foreign to most English people that some of them couldn’t take it in, or accept it as being the only possible course of action. Pete asked about Jerry and requested a show of hands from anyone happy for him to join us.
I was relieved when they all put their hands up. At least they could see the benefit of having a fully equipped doctor among us.
Pete quickly showed his leadership skills, organising work parties to start moving cars in order to form the initial barricade, and starting a list of the residents who would benefit by moving, so that he could find out if they would.
I got on the walkie-talkie and called Jerry to give him the good news. He was ecstatic, as last night the gang had returned and had tried to break in through his front door. He had ended up firing the Glock, in sheer terror, through the door at them. He sounded as if he was in shock and apologised for not checking on the Land Rover, as he hadn’t wanted to leave the house because that would mean leaving his family. I told Becky what had happened to Jerry, and she immediately agreed that they must come and stay with us and that I should go over and help him straight away. I called him back.
UK Dark Series (Book 1): UKD1 Page 8