by Ray Gorham
“Leave me alone!” the man cried breathlessly.
Kyle pulled him by the ankle, jerking him down from the top of the creek bank. The man kicked out with his free foot and caught Kyle solidly on the side of the knee, dropping Kyle to the ground. Kyle let out a pained yell, but didn’t release his grip on the man’s ankle. He twisted hard, spinning the man around onto his side. Kyle lunged at the man’s head, but caught a fist on his own cheek instead.
Kyle grunted, tasted blood in his mouth, and moved his hands to protect his head. The man beneath him swung again, the blow grazing off of Kyle’s ear in the dark. Kyle steadied himself. He was straddling the man’s torso and could see the arms swinging at him again. Kyle deflected the blow, then unloaded a series of punches to the man’s face. After four solid blows, the man quit fighting back. Flooded with anger, Kyle was pulling back for one last punch when he heard another voice nearby.
“What’s going on down there?”
Kyle immediately recognized Ty’s voice. “I’m over here,” he answered. The man he sat on moaned and shifted beneath him. Kyle unclenched his fist and frisked the man, then got up and retrieved his own weapon from where he’d dropped it.
“Is that you, Tait?”
Kyle could see Ty walking on the creek bank above him. “Yeah, it’s me.” Kyle pointed his gun at the man on the ground. “You have any weapons?”
The man groaned but didn’t respond verbally. Kyle knelt down and frisked him again, finding only a small pocketknife and a dead flashlight.
Twenty minutes later, Kyle stood in Gabe Vance’s living room with Sean Reider and the wood thief, Dale Briggs. Dale wiped blood from a cut below his left eye with a damp rag that Lori Vance had given him as Kyle explained what had happened.
Gabe looked at Dale and shook his head. “Anything to say for yourself?” he asked.
Dale shook his head.
“Go home, Dale,” Gabe said. “It would have been easier for you to go cut down a tree.”
“I don’t have an axe,” Dale mumbled as he turned towards the door and let himself out.
Kyle looked at Gabe, embarrassed. “Sorry about disturbing you like this. Guess it wasn’t that big a deal.”
“You’re fine,” Gabe said, waving his hand. “I wasn’t sleeping that well anyway, and that kid deserved to get his butt kicked. Maybe it will knock some sense into him.”
“I’ve never seen him before,” Kyle said. “Thought maybe he was a looter from out of town.”
Gabe shook his head. “No, well, yes. I guess he is a looter, but he’s one of ours. His mother is Lois Briggs. Good lady. Teaches with your wife at the school. She’s a single mom, and Dale’s her youngest. She worked for an architect in town while Dale went to college. He graduated a couple of years ago with a degree in literature, but a job was never handed to him, so he just hung out at home being a nuisance to his mother. She makes excuses for him. Says he has depression, but I think he’s just a lazy bum.”
Sean zipped up his jacket. “I tried to talk him into joining the militia, but he went off on a tirade about guns. Glad now he didn’t join. We don’t need to have some kid there to babysit.”
Gabe nodded. “You’re better off without him. It would take two guys to hold his hand. I should probably be nicer, but he ticks me off. Doesn’t help his mother at all, and I know she splits what food she gets with him, so she’s going without. Stealing that wood was probably the most initiative he’s taken in the last year. Maybe there’s hope.”
CHAPTER 7
Thursday, December 29th
South of Deer Creek
Kyle cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Hello!” He waited and listened, but only the turkeys trailing behind him responded. He waited a few seconds more and called again. This time he heard a dog bark, and he retreated to a rock outcropping, climbing on top.
Copper bounded up the hill, heading straight for the boulder that Kyle was perched on. “Copper, sit!” Kyle commanded, but the dog ignored him, circling the rock and growling. Kyle looked down the hill and saw Frank walking warily towards him, his gun drawn.
Frank shouted something and Copper quit pacing and sat down.
“Kyle!” Frank exclaimed when he got close. “I’m sorry. My vision’s not so good; I should have recognized you,” he said as he lowered his gun. “Get down off that rock. Copper probably won’t eat you; I’ve already fed him today.”
Kyle watched the dog as he cautiously climbed down. Copper growled but didn’t move towards him.
“What brings you to these parts?”
It was late December, unseasonably warm, and Kyle, who worked ten days on and four days off, was in the middle of his days-off period. “I wanted to invite you to a New Year’s Day party.”
“Is it that time already?” Frank asked. “Guess I don’t pay much attention to the calendar.”
Kyle nodded. “Well, three days from now it is. We’ve invited the folks from the town of Clinton to come. I thought maybe you and Brenda would enjoy coming and meeting some people. It’s all dependent on the weather of course.”
Frank raised his hand to cut Kyle off. “I think we’re going to have to pass on this one. I know Brenda would love to go, but she twisted her ankle pretty bad last week. She’s up and hopping around now, but I don’t think she’d be up for a party.” He paused a second. “I guess I shouldn’t make the decision for her. Why don’t you come down to the house and ask her. I know she’d enjoy seeing you again.”
Kyle followed Frank down the mountainside. They took a left after eighty yards and walked past a stand of pine trees. Frank came to a stop. “What do you think?” he asked.
Kyle looked for a small cabin, but didn’t see anything, then noticed a pair of windows in the rock face. “You live in the hillside?”
Frank beamed. “It’s the most expensive cave in Montana, or at least I’m guessing it is. Actually, it’s not really a cave, and I have no idea how it compares cost wise, but it sure as hell wasn’t cheap. Come on in.” Frank led Kyle to a steel door, painted to blend in with the rocks, and pushed it open. “We got company, honey. Hope you’re decent,” he called inside.
Kyle followed Frank into his home, letting out a low whistle after his eyes adjusted to the lighting. “Wow!” he said. “This is amazing.” Kyle’s eyes swept the room. “This is not what I was expecting. How’d you do this?”
Kyle heard a door open, and Brenda emerged using a crutch for support. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was dressed comfortably in sweat pants, a t-shirt, and bright yellow socks. She greeted Kyle. “I know you’re the Deer Creek guy, but I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Kyle,” he said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“You’d think I’d remember. It’s not like we’re swamped with visitors. Come. Have a seat. Frank must have given you the stamp of approval if he’s exposed our hideout. Whatcha think?”
Kyle shook his head as he continued looking around. He was in a large room, forty feet wide by twenty feet deep. If he’d been blindfolded and led inside, he’d have thought that he was in a modern house because other than a shortage of windows, it looked like a completely modern dwelling. The room he was in had a reclining, leather sofa, a large ceiling fan hanging from a ten-foot ceiling, and a home theater system centered on one wall and surrounded by shelves filled with books. The room was sparsely, but nicely, decorated with rugs, paintings and photographs. The kitchen and dining area were on the far end of the room and had modern cabinets, slate floors, a gas stove, and a dishwasher. Three separate pine doors at the back of the room, leading deeper into the hillside, were closed.
“I’m speechless. Thought I’d be in a cave with water dripping from the ceiling.”
Brenda laughed. “When I married Frank and he said he wanted to live in the mountains, I was thinking a little cabin with a nice porch. Didn’t think he meant literally ‘in the mountains’. It took him a bit to convince me this was the way to go, but I’m glad
we did.”
“This must have cost a fortune.”
“Not as much as you’d think, but it all depends where your priorities are. There’s over $90,000 worth of concrete and rebar here. The rest of it wasn’t that much since the labor was free. It’s not going to win any architectural awards, it’s just a big square with five rooms, but it has everything we need.”
“This is nicer than my house.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Frank replied. “We do without some things, though not as much as you might expect. There’s no AC, but being in-ground keeps our temperatures fine in the summer. Water’s a bit of an issue. We have two cisterns further up the hill, one fed by a small year-round spring, the other by a stream that runs March until August most years. The spring gives us twenty gallons a day, so we’re not hurting, but we can’t take baths or irrigate with it, and we only flush a couple times a day.” Frank stroked his beard and thought for a second. “I had more working solar panels than we do now, but the EMP took them and the better charge controller out. Fortunately we have some old equipment that we’re running off of, but it’s not full power. There’s some other stuff, but you get the idea.”
“I’d love to have something like this. It’s fantastic.”
Frank motioned for Kyle to sit, and walked towards a woodstove. “Can I get you some coffee?”
Kyle’s eyes widened. “I think I’ve forgotten what coffee tastes like. I’d love some.”
“Milk? Sugar?”
“You’ve got milk?”
“It’s goat milk, but it’s good.”
“Both, please,” Kyle said, watching expectantly as Frank poured the hot drink while Brenda retrieved the milk and sugar. Kyle took the mug from Frank and cradled it in his hands, sipping slowly, savoring the warmth and flavor. “I may never go home. A pot of real coffee would be worth a mint down there.”
“Didn’t you have anything stored?” Frank asked between sips. “A case of coffee, some MRE’s, anything?”
“No, I mean, we’d stock up in the winter a little bit, in case the weather kept us snowed in for a few days. But Jennifer, my wife, she worked in town, so she could get to the store easily.”
“Can’t get to the store now, can you?” Frank said, staring intently at Kyle.
“Brace yourself, Kyle. The lecture’s coming,” Brenda said, then shook her head at Frank. “He’s a guest, dear. Don’t be too rough on him.” She turned back to Kyle. “Our son got this lecture all the time, as did all our friends, family, you name it. They’ve all heard it. That’s why no one comes to visit.”
Frank looked at his wife and gave her a defensive look. “No one comes to visit because they didn’t listen to me, and they’re probably dead or dying. Prior to September, they laughed at me behind my back. Thought I was a fool. Thought that the blood and sweat I put into this place was a waste of resources. ‘Buy a condo,’ ‘go on vacation,’ ‘get a boat,’ they’d say while they flushed their money away. You ever been to Hawaii, Kyle?”
“No,” he answered. “We wanted to, but couldn’t afford it.” Kyle heard Brenda catch her breath.
Frank took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses with his shirt. His good eye was bloodshot, and his cheeks were getting red. “I’ve never been to Hawaii, Kyle, but I didn’t want to. Do you know that for the price of a vacation in Hawaii you could buy a year’s worth of food? Half our friends went on fancy vacations every year, but didn’t have jack squat for food storage.”
Frank was talking faster, his eyes darting between Kyle and his wife. “Do you smoke, Kyle? Or I guess I should say did you smoke? A lot of people went cold turkey this year.”
Kyle shrunk back in the couch and shook his head. “No. Tried it once, but it made me sick.”
“Good,” Frank said. “Nasty habit, and a waste of money. Do you know that if you smoked a pack a day for ten years you would have spent enough to buy food for your family for two years and enough guns and ammo to fight off a small army.”
“Frank, Kyle didn’t come up here to be lectured. Besides, this doesn’t do anyone any good at this point.” Brenda’s eyes were pleading but warm as she spoke to her husband.
“Relax, dear. I want him to think a little on his walk home.” Frank’s tone was icy cold. He turned back to Kyle. “Eat out much?”
“I don’t know. I guess if you count lunches, probably seven, eight times a month.”
Frank’s eyes bugged out. “That’s at least $100 a month wasted. Just as bad as cigarettes.” Frank took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Look, you can tell by looking around that this stuff is important to me. Promise me something.”
“Sure, what?”
“You’re young. Promise me that when things come back around, because they will, and you’ll still have lots of life to live, promise me that you’ll think a few years down the road. It doesn’t have to be another EMP. It could be a pandemic, or a war, or a solar flare. Shoot, Mother Nature has half a dozen things up her sleeve that she could use to really mess us up. Promise me that you’ll get ahead of the game.”
“Okay, Frank, that’s enough. Let poor Kyle up for air.”
Frank grunted. “Wait here, Kyle.” He got up and walked through the far door.
Brenda smiled weakly at Kyle. “Sorry about that. He took a lot of grief from everyone about all this,” she motioned around the room. “I think he wants to be able to gloat. Don’t take what he said personally.”
“He is right, you know,” Kyle said, looking Brenda in the eyes. “I’ve thought about it a lot. There’s a ton of stuff I could have done differently. What you’ve got is way out of my league, but I could have been a lot more prepared.”
“Well, you’re still alive, so you must have done something right.”
“I don’t know. God must like me, or something. By all rights I should be dead.”
“You didn’t come up here to be lectured, Kyle. Is everything okay?”
“Things are good. I actually came to tell you about a New Year’s party.”
Kyle was filling Brenda in on the details of the party when Frank returned holding a plastic baggie filled with white powder. He tossed it on the table in front of Kyle. “Take that,” he said. “It’ll help you out.”
Kyle looked at it uneasily, reaching out to touch the bag. The consistency of powder was a little finer than table sugar.
“That’s okay,” Kyle said. “I appreciate it, but I think I’ll pass.”
Frank looked puzzled. “Take it. It’ll help you get through this. If you have younger kids, it’ll help them, and the older, weaker folks too. But you don’t have to share if you don’t want to. You can use it all yourself. It’s up to you.”
Kyle was shocked at Frank’s suggestion. “Hey, really. I appreciate the gesture, but I’ve got to say no. I admit I tried weed a couple times when I was younger, but I stayed away from the hard stuff. It’s not my thing.”
Frank’s expression switched from curiosity to amusement as Kyle spoke, and he began to laugh loudly. Kyle looked at Brenda, who was covering her mouth. He could see in her eyes that she was laughing as well.
“I’m guessing that’s not what I thought it was.”
Frank shook his head, his laughter calming. “This is to make your water safe. It’s bleach, or actually it’s swimming pool shock -- calcium hypochlorite. Same thing as bleach, but this will last forever. Liquid bleach degrades fairly quickly; this won’t. I wrote the mixing instructions on a paper in the bag.”
“So it’s not crack then, huh?” Kyle confirmed, embarrassed.
Frank shook his head. “No drugs here, Kyle, at least not that kind. Did you tell Brenda about your party?”
CHAPTER 8
Monday, January 9th
Deer Creek, MT
David pulled the collar of his jacket tight around his ears as the wind blew cold and steady, as it so often did at night up in the observation nest, pelting him with flecks of ice scoured from the side of the mountain. The militia had constru
cted an observation post on top of the western mountain, where they had the best views of the valley below, and David’s assignment was to scan the area for threats. The outpost was crude, consisting of a shallow, twenty-foot trench with dirt and rocks piled around it to block the wind and shield the observer. At night, and on especially cold days, a tarp could be drawn over the top of the trench as a shield from the wind and to retain heat from a small fire the sentries kept burning by their feet.
Once he was resituated, David grabbed the binoculars with his gloved hands and scanned the roads below him. He had a good view of the freeway, from the east side of Missoula all the way to Clinton, but the view of the smaller road on the south side of the river was partially obstructed. From the east, he could see the road clearly until it was almost directly below him, then an outcropping of rocks and some trees blocked the view for nearly a mile, until just a couple hundred yards from the militia house.
David swung the binoculars from east to west, then back east again, pausing on every rock, shadow, and tree that caught his attention. He noticed movement along the far side of the river and twisted the focus knob to sharpen the image. A buck stepped gingerly onto the ice and snow, dipping its head down to the water, then raising it up quickly, looking back over its shoulder. David watched it turn from side to side, then dash off across the freeway and up into the trees on the facing slope of the opposite mountain.
He continued to swing the binoculars east, past the bridge, along the road, past a couple of abandoned homes on the far side of the river, and then into the town of Clinton. His gaze lingered on the town, wondering which home belonged to Amy Carpenter, the girl he’d met the week before when she’d come with her family, and most of the residents of Clinton, to Deer Creek’s first annual New Year’s event.
The party had started at noon and lasted about 4 hours, with food, games, a children’s production of Toy Story, dancing, trading, and a lot of socializing. David had noticed Amy during the games. They had been on different teams during the relays, and she was one of the few teens who had kept up with him. During the last hour of the party, a well-intentioned band from Deer Creek had provided music, and David had asked Amy to dance, giving him an opportunity to learn her name and get to know her.