Fuel (Best Laid Plans Book 1)

by Nathan Jones

  “The meeting last night. You didn't hear anything about it from your parents?”

  “No,” he said miserably. “Look, Tam, all I've got is cash.”

  The auburn-haired woman frowned. “I'll have to ask my dad, but I don't think he's going to go for it. It's not you it's the money itself, and that's a liability we can't take even for old friends.”

  “What's a liability?” came a voice from the backroom. Scott Tillman emerged from the open door leading Matt's dad. He was wearing his reading glasses which suggested he'd been doing paperwork.

  Matt went over and shook the older man's hand. “I'm trying to pay in cash but apparently the town decided to go to a barter system. Whose crazy idea was that?”

  Tam snickered, and Mr. Tillman smiled slightly. “My wife's. Catherine felt that moving to a barter system before the US economy collapsed and the dollar became worthless would at least keep the local economy fairly stable. The rest of the City Council seemed to agree. Didn't you hear about the meeting?” Behind Matt Tam made a choked noise, like she was trying not to laugh again.

  Matt shot her an annoyed look over his shoulder. “No. But I tell you what, I'm going to be at the next one if you're making these sorts of decisions.”

  “I'm sure we can work out an arrangement, Scott,” his dad said, then glanced at Matt. “This is all stuff you need, right son?”

  He nodded. “Well yeah. If I'm going to volunteer for the roadblock I'd like to have a clean gun, plenty of ammo and extra mags, and a reliable holster.”

  “You're volunteering to defend the town, eh?” Mr. Tillman asked. “Well then tell you what, we can set you up on credit for now and next time you come around we can talk about bartering.”

  Matt rubbed at the unshaven stubble on his chin. He hated owing anyone anything and did his best to avoid debt, but at the same time this stuff could save his life in the future and his money was useless. Besides, he had all the stuff he'd bought at the store up in Orem, as well as his other possessions. He should be able to find something to pay the debt off. “All right. That would be great, thanks.”

  Mr. Tillman nodded and got behind the counter beside his daughter, taking a cheap pen and clipboard from beneath it as he began looking over Matt's purchases. Under “Matthew Larson” written large and underlined in its own column he began making a list of all the goods.

  As the older man worked Matt watched him in confusion. “Um, the tally's right there on the register. Why are you writing everything down?”

  Tam shook her head at him, and his dad chuckled. “Tally up with dollars?” Mr. Tillman asked. “We're not on dollars anymore, so it has to be the goods themselves we jot down so we can guess at their value later. The dollar value is just a place to start.”

  “Yeah, but in a barter system the value of the stuff I'm getting can change at any moment. Especially the longer we go without getting supplies.”

  Tam shrugged. “Taking credit presents its own complications I guess. We're still feeling this all out as we go but we'll do our best to give you a fair deal.”

  Matt wasn't happy about it. The Tillmans were the most honest people in town, but even though he trusted them it was uncomfortable being in a situation where nothing stopped them from talking up the value of the goods when it came time to settle.

  “Well just so long as you know what you're getting into,” he said as he picked up the paper bags Tam loaded his things into. “I think I can manage bartering, since I'm probably one of the few people in town with any real negotiating experience. I was selling cars to pay my way through college, remember.”

  Mr. Tillman glanced past him out the store's big window, to a couple parked vehicles in the parking lot with empty tanks. “I know. I won't hold it against you.” His daughter laughed.

  Matt finally smiled too, appreciating the humor of the situation. Of course he'd also appreciated the humor of it while trying to sell cars with gas prices climbing steeply all last year. “Thanks again. I'll be back when I've got the time, depending on what Officer Turner says and what my family needs from me.” He turned to look at his dad, who'd come to stand beside him. “Breakfast is probably done by now.”

  His dad waved him on. “I'm going to stick around and help Scott in here. If you get some free time maybe you can swing by too and see what needs doing. Bring your new friend Sam if she wants.”

  “Ooh, a new friend?” Tam asked, brightening. “And a girl. Does that equal girlfriend?”

  Matt felt his face reddening. “We just met,” he protested, backing through the door. “I'll, um, let Mom know you might miss breakfast Dad.” With that he turned and hurried away.

  Back at home he came into the kitchen to see that his mom and Sam had prepared an enormous breakfast. At first glance he was dismayed at their irresponsibility, but then he realized that with the power out the food in the fridge was probably already going bad, and what was in the freezer wouldn't be far behind.

  As they ate he let his mom know what her husband was up to, then quizzed her on what he'd missed at the meeting. Sam was an active participant in the discussion, genuinely seeming to care what happened in the town. To Matt's surprise she even agreed with the decision to turn away the refugees, although he'd still been on the fence about it in spite of being willing to help Officer Turner.

  “I know it's a bit hypocritical since I'm basically one,” she admitted. “But we saw how the food situation is up in the cities and it sounds like it's only a bit better down here. If all those people come around looking for a meal any hope the town has of surviving goes down the drain.”

  “Well I agree with just about everything you said,” his mom answered. At Sam's quizzical look she smiled. “Except that you're not a refugee, you've got a home right here.”

  Matt had expected Sam to protest, but to his further surprise her eyes welled with tears and she went around the table to hug his mom. “I'll find ways to pull my weight, I promise. You can't know how grateful I am.”

  She abruptly turned to Matt, businesslike. “Speaking of which, your mom mentioned you were going to go see about helping at the roadblocks. I want to come and volunteer too.”

  “Sure,” he said, pleased at the chance to spend more time with her. Although he didn't know how he felt about her being in a potentially dangerous situation. He cleaned the last bites off his plate and stood. “Should we get going?”

  The dark-haired woman nodded and hurried to grab her shoes. While she was doing that Matt retrieved the holster he'd purchased from the bags still near the door and looped it on his belt, then holstered his Glock. Sam gave the gun a curious look as she finished putting her shoes on, but she didn't comment on it.

  Together they set off north along Main Street to the edge of town, where his mom mentioned that the policeman and town volunteers were setting up the first roadblock. On the way he pointed out a few features of Aspen Hill and named the neighbors who lived in all the houses they passed. Sam seemed interested in the information, but he couldn't help but notice her eyes constantly darting to the mountains to the west.

  “This has been my favorite thing about living in Utah,” she admitted when he asked her. “I love having mountains on my doorstep. Back in Provo-Orem I'd go up to Rock Canyon on weekends to hike the trail. I even tried rock climbing with friends a few times, although I wasn't very good at it.”

  Matt had always appreciated the beauty of the mountains himself, but he hadn't really thought about them since they'd always been around. “There's some nice lakes up there,” he offered. “I've been fishing a few times with my dad and the Halssons.”

  “Halssons?” she repeated.

  “My friend Lewis and his dad. He's the cousin of another of my friends, Trevor Smith, and Trev was up at the university with me.” Matt made a face. “He warned me about leaving Orem after the attack and even offered to let me come along when he left, but I assumed things would get back to normal before too long, or at least wouldn't get bad as quickly as they did.”

>   “Well I'm glad you didn't go,” she said, patting his arm. “It may be selfish, but I'd still be stuck up in Orem if you had.”

  “Yeah, I'm glad too,” Matt glanced north along Main. “I should go out and say hello to the two sometime soon. They've got their own place up northwest of town.” He was about to tell her about the shelter that he'd done a little to help the cousins build and had visited a few times after it was finished, but Lewis had asked him to keep quiet about it and he respected that request.

  Main Street ended in a road that led out to Highway 6. Just outside the city limits, a stone's throw from the spring Aspen Hill had first been built around, he saw men working together to push cars into place perpendicular across the road, in such a way that they could be pushed to either side to let vehicles in if necessary. More cars were situated behind them all the way to the sidewalks, and a few heavy dressers had been placed across the sidewalks to finish blocking the way.

  The properties on either side of the street were fenced in, which did a fairly good job of preventing anyone from going around, but more important to securing the roadblock were the people themselves. Turner had a shotgun slung over his shoulder with a bandolier full of shells looped across his chest, as well as his service weapon at his hip. The handful of other men helping build the roadblock were also armed, some with pistols and other with rifles leaned up against the dressers where they could be quickly picked up if necessary.

  Matt made his way over to the policeman and introduced Sam, then mentioned they'd like to volunteer for helping with roadblocks or wherever else they were needed. Officer Turner nodded at that, looking approvingly at the 9mm on Matt's hip. “I've seen you out at the range a time or two, so I assume you've at least used a firearm before.” He turned to Sam. “How about you?”

  The dark-haired woman looked a bit sheepish. “Once, on a date a bit over a year ago. We rented an automatic rifle of some kind at a gun range in Salt Lake City and he let me try it out. I, um, wasn't very good with it, but I'm willing to learn.”

  Turner smiled slightly. “Well I appreciate the offer and we can put you on the list, but at the moment we've looking for people who won't shoot themselves in the foot or smack themselves in the face when their firearm recoils. If you want to help out there's plenty you can do, though: Councilwoman Tillman is organizing volunteers for all sorts of things down at the new town storehouse.”

  Sam nodded, although she gave Matt a slightly disappointed look. Had she wanted to stay with him? “I will, thanks. But I hope you'll keep me in mind if you need anyone, even just to run errands or be a lookout. I want to help out.”

  “That's the spirit.” The policeman turned to Matt. “By the way, I don't know if you've heard yet but with the power out the Mayor wants to get the word around that anyone who's got more perishable food than they can eat before it goes bad is welcome to bring it to the storehouse for vouchers. He's going to bring the freezer units from Mercer's grocery store around and hook them up to a few generators. We've got enough fuel to keep the units running until we've eaten up the food in them, and to help empty them quicker the town's going to hold a parking lot potluck at around 6. Everyone's invited, and we'll use up the food that'll go bad the soonest or doesn't freeze well.” He glanced at Sam. “There's another way you can help out, if you want to come early and help the Councilwoman and her volunteers cook it all up.”

  “Sure,” Sam said uncertainly. “I'm not much of a cook but I'll do what I can.”

  “I'll come along too,” Matt offered. “It'll be fun.”

  Turner abruptly turned towards the men working on the roadblock. One of them, Tam's husband Carl Raymond, had been tying the bumpers of the two cars across the road together. “Don't do that,” the policeman shouted, starting over, “we need to be able to move those in a hurry!” He paused to glance back at Matt. “We should be good for today, but come around tomorrow morning and I'll let you know when your shifts are.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Matt called at his back. He turned and glanced at Sam. “Sorry if he was rude.”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “He's fine. Should we head back to Tillman's and see what we can do, then?”

  Matt hesitated, glancing northwest past the few houses outside the town limits. About a mile beyond them were a few hills leading up to the foothills below the mountains. “Listen, I've got another errand to run real quick. Can I meet you there in about an hour?”

  “Oh I can go along too,” Sam offered.

  He shook his head, cursing Lewis's paranoia. He didn't want to insult Sam or suggest in any way that he didn't trust her, but at the same time he couldn't bring her around to the shelter without the cousins' permission. “It's going to be a long walk and I'll just be visiting some neighbors to let them know about the potluck. They live far enough out that they might not have had a chance to come around to hear about it.”

  Luckily she didn't press the issue. “Okay, I'll see you at Tillman's.” With a quick wave she headed back the way they'd come, while Matt made his way around the roadblock towards the hills.

  He'd been relieved to hear from his mom that Trev had made it safely, but he wanted to go around to personally make sure his friend was okay and see how the cousins were faring with all this. He was also interested to get their opinion on everything, since preparing for society's inevitable crash and burn had been their area of expertise for years.

  * * * * *

  There was music playing on the other side of the heavy metal-sheathed door leading into his friends' shelter when Matt arrived.

  At first that completely threw him for a loop, wondering how they'd managed it with the power out, until he remembered the solar panels up on top of the rounded dirt hill the shed was buried beneath. Trev and Lewis might not even know the rest of the town had been thrown back into the Old West days.

  He knocked loudly with his fist to be heard through the thick door and over the music, and about half a minute later it cracked open to reveal Lewis in the doorway, wearing camouflage gear and holding a can of chili in one hand. “Oh hey, Matt, you made it home,” his friend said, stepping aside. “Your mom was worried about you last night at the meeting. Come on in.”

  “Thanks.” Matt followed his friend in and over to the small living area they'd set up beside the door, which had a couch and a few beanbag chairs, and settled onto the couch. “Sounds like those solar panels are paying off,” he added with a jerk of his head to refer to the music in general. “At least until you get sick of the songs in your collection.”

  His friend plopped down on a beanbag and set his chili on a nearby table, leaning back and grinning. “That might take a while. I've got ten terabytes of movies, TV shows, music, and books on a server. I don't know if I'll even be able to get through it all in a lifetime.”

  Matt whistled. “Ten terabytes! You must've been pirating for years.”

  His friend gave him an insulted look. “Not a single thing. I converted over my parents' old collections of songs, TV shows, and movies, and Trev's parents' stuff too. I also found cheap or even free collections of older stuff online. As for the books a lot are free downloads from legitimate sites, but most are from projects that collect free domain works, especially the old historical and cultural classics, and archive them for posterity. Sure, it was a bit more effort doing it that way and I had to go with what was offered, but I'm not complaining.” He suddenly brightened. “You should bring your family over for a movie night sometime.”

  “Yeah, sure.” For some reason talking about movies after what he'd seen in the city yesterday annoyed Matt. “Where's Trev?”

  Lewis pointed vaguely towards the back of the bunker. “On patrol. Mayor Anderson asked us to watch the northern border. We were up early this morning finding a good patrol route and planning things out, which took us about four hours. Even though it means he'll have to patrol longer today Trev asked for the four hours remaining in the shift, so I'd come on to do a full eight hour shift afterwards. It means he'll basic
ally be doing 16 hours, and I'm a bit worried about how he'll hold up doing all that just after getting done with a 50 mile hike, but he was pretty insistent.”

  “Wait, hold on,” Matt demanded incredulously. “You guys are trading off eight hour shifts? Officer Turner's got a dozen men at the roadblock and half of them are sitting around!”

  His friend shrugged. “Anderson's sorting it out. He said it would only be a few days until he could set up a better patrol roster, a week at most.”

  Matt thought about being sent home from the roadblock today and the vaguely promised future shifts if he was needed. He almost regretted volunteering there now, since it seemed like he could do much more good here. At least with three people they'd all be doing 8-hour shifts a day instead of trading off 16 hours. “Listen, I'm going to be doing shifts at the roadblock but I can help you patrol too. Tell Trev I'll take the last shift tonight, and once I see the schedule for the roadblock I'll fit in as many patrols out here as I can.”

  Lewis nodded. “Thanks, that's actually a huge relief. Come by around 8 and we can walk you along the patrol route before your shift starts. If you don't have a flashlight I've got one for you, and it looks like you still have that pistol Trev got when Nelson tried to mug him.” He said that last with a nod at the gun at Matt's hip. “You'll probably also want to bring food and water, and dress warm.”

  “Okay sure.” Matt hesitated, almost apologetically. “By the way, the town's holding a potluck at 6. I don't know if you want to cancel your shift or what, but . . .”

  “I'm good,” his friend said, “but I'll let Trev know.” He reached for his can of chili and took a bite. “So I guess that's all settled. How about you? It sounds like you had an exciting day yesterday and I'd be interested to hear about it. The news can only tell you so much about what it's like to be caught in up in the chaos.”