Crystal Beach (Crow Hill Book 1)

by Tom Larcombe

  He found a buy one, get one free sale on the store's brand of pasta. Twenty of those went into the cart. He would've gotten more except the shelf was almost empty already.

  I can make my own sauce for this from the garden. Hey, I finally figured out a use for that bulk item section they have. I always wondered what it was for. This probably isn't why it's there but I won't complain.

  In the small bulk section he grabbed a couple five gallon jars of honey, three twenty-five pound bags of rice, and three ten pound bags of dried pinto beans.

  He continued making his way through the store getting two large bags of dog kibble for Calvin, a few bottle of vitamins, and a lot of other staples. He nearly cleaned out the coffee shelf. Even he wouldn't want to be around himself if he didn't have his morning coffee. When he hit the hygiene aisle, he stopped cold.

  Crap, I wonder how long I'm trying to stock up for? Deodorant, soap, toothpaste, extra toothbrushes... the list just goes on and on.

  He settled on getting enough for a year. Michael decided that since prices were going up constantly he'd save money if things went back to normal more quickly than that.

  When he got to the checkout aisles, the lines were long. People kept getting to the cashier and then leaving the store in a huff. They also left their carts full of goods or, worse yet, the belt loaded with everything that had been in their cart.

  Michael wondered what was going on. He found out shortly when the lady in front of him tried to check out.

  “I'm sorry ma'am, we can't take any form of card. Credit and debit cards, even EBT cards are all being denied,” the cashier said.

  “What do you mean my EBT card won't work? How am I supposed to feed my kids?”

  “I'm sorry ma'am, I can try it, but every card I've tried to run today has been denied.”

  “You better run mine and it better go through,” the lady said.

  The cashier shook her head and ran the order over the scanner. When the card came back as denied, the lady threw a fit.

  The cashier raised her hand and Michael saw the security guard start to walk over. So did the lady throwing the fit. She swept her hand across the bottom of the belt, where the items she had planned on purchasing were piled. Several of them went flying as the lady stormed out of the store, just ahead of the guard.

  “Here, let me help you with that,” Michael said, starting to load the items back into the empty cart.

  “Thank you, I can't believe the day I'm having. I think I might call in tomorrow. If I have to go through another day like this I'm going to lose it,” the cashier said.

  “That might be a good plan anyhow,” Michael replied.

  “No, I can't really. It's hard enough to find a job nowadays, I can't risk losing this one. I can dream though, can't I? Please tell me you're paying cash? I'd hate to send you out empty-handed after you helped me and all.”

  “Yes I am. Here, let me move her cart over with those others. I assume they're all over there to get restocked?”

  “As soon as they finish restocking the last batch,” the cashier said.

  Michael checked out, paying only an arm instead of an arm and a leg like he'd feared.

  I knew stuff was getting more expensive, but Ouch! Well, same deal as I was thinking before. If I bought this stuff later on, I bet I'd pay a lot more. I'll just have to make sure to use all of it if things get back to normal. Then I won't be any worse off and maybe even save a little money.

  His last stop was at the small, privately owned hunting and fishing store at the edge of town.

  “Hey Bill, how's it going?” Michael asked.

  “Michael, I haven't seen you in months. I thought you might've started getting your ammo online or something.”

  “Nah, I haven't been shooting as much. I used to take pot shots at the rodents in my garden, but I've got a crow that adopted me. He keeps them out now.”

  “That's weird. Well, what can I do for you today?” Bill asked.

  “I realized I didn't have that much ammo on hand any more and wanted to stock up.”

  “I might be able to help you out, only if you've got cash though. Can't run any cards today.”

  “Never used a credit card, never will. Cash only, that's how I run my life,” Michael said.

  “It's a good plan. Too bad more people don't think that way. They wouldn't get over their heads in debt. What do you need?”

  “I need some .223 for my Mini-14 and then some .30-06. Got a couple of old WWII rifles up at the mine office. They look to be in mint condition so I'm gonna try them out.”

  “The old M1 Garands? Nice guns, might be worth something if they're in as good a condition as you claim. Although, clips instead of magazines takes some getting used to, it's harder and slower to reload.”

  “Well, I'll try them. I know, in theory, how to load them.”

  “Alright then, the only thing I got for the .223 is some Russian stuff. All I can say is that it's cheap. Can't reload it though,” Bill said.

  “How much do you have? Wait, I ought to ask how much you'll let me have instead?”

  “You're paying cash, I got twenty-five boxes of twenty rounds each. Ten bucks a box. Take as many as you like.”

  “I'll take them all.”

  “You weren't kidding about stocking up, were you? I've got ten boxes of twenty rounds each for the .30-06. Thirty bucks a box.”

  Michael considered his dwindling cash.

  “Would you take five hundred total for all the .223 and .30-06?”

  Bill thought for a bit.

  “Tell you what, invite me up to run a few rounds through one of those mint Garands sometime and it's a deal.”

  Michael counted out five hundred dollars and laid it on the counter. The ammo made for a hefty load and Bill triple bagged it for him.

  “Thanks Bill, come on up whenever you like. I'm there most of the time.”

  “Will do Michael, it'll be nice to see a Garand that hasn't been re-manufactured repeatedly.”

  Michael left the shop and checked the time.

  Ten minutes until Jeff gets out of school. I've got just enough time to make it.

  He started the Jeep and headed towards the local high school.

  * * *

  Michael pulled off on a side road opposite the school. There were several buses in front already, along with lots of cars. He had no desire to enter the automotive fray so he parked across the street and walked over to the sidewalk in front of the school.

  The bell rang a minute later and he scanned the children coming out of the school. He hoped he'd recognize Jeff after their brief acquaintance. The river of children slowed to a trickle and he was about to give up and go back to his car when he saw Jeff coming out of the school. The boy looked around and when he saw Michael he broke into a big grin.

  “Cool, I thought you might have changed your mind about giving me a job,” Jeff said.

  “Nope, but I do want to make you an offer.”

  “What's that?” Jeff said cautiously.

  They started walking back to the car.

  “Well, I know that all the stores are having problems with credit cards right now so I'm guessing your mom is out of luck for buying food. Were you planning on giving her some of your pay?”

  Jeff nodded.

  “All of it actually, for a while anyway.”

  “Then here's my offer. I'll give you your first week's pay in advance and we'll stop at your house on the way to mine. You can give it to your mom and she can go stock up on some food. You'll need to eat well to have enough strength for the work you'll be doing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Hey, I know where you live,” Michael kidded, his face breaking into a grin.

  They arrived at Michael's Jeep.

  “Hop in, we'll head to your place first.”

  Jeff walked into his house proudly, holding his first week's pay. When he came out a few minutes later he slid back into the Jeep and Michael handed him one of the Cokes he'd bought.


  “You need to treat yourself now and again also, keeps you interested in going to work. At least it does for me,” Michael said.

  When they returned to Michael's house Joshua was no longer in the back yard. Michael assumed he'd closeted himself in his bedroom until he was in a better mood.

  “Okay, first task for you every day is going to be cleaning my solar panels,” Michael said. “They get dusty all the time and that lowers their output. This is how you do it.”

  Michael demonstrated cleaning them with a soft rag and let Jeff do the last one.

  “What kind are those?” Jeff asked. “I've seen solar panels before, but not like these.”

  “Messing with electronics is kind of a hobby of mine. I made these myself. They work like the regular ones, mostly, and they're more stable. I had some problems with the normal style shorting out and had to figure out how to prevent that.”

  “Cool, you work with electronics too?”

  “Now and then. Okay, your next daily task will be up at the mine office. Come with me and I'll show you.”

  Michael ran Jeff through a series of tasks that would normally take a couple of hours if done properly. He left Jeff to work on them while he unloaded the Jeep. When Jeff was done, Michael took him home. By the time Michael finally got back to his own house, Joshua was in the kitchen.

  “Kid done for the day?” Joshua asked.

  Michael nodded as he started putting things together for dinner.

  “Any chance I can get you to check the market and stuff out online after dinner?” Joshua asked.

  “I was planning on doing that anyhow. I'll let you know what I find out. With the stock market closed early, I'll mainly be looking for stories letting me know what's happening over the rest of the country and see if it's causing problems elsewhere in the world,” Michael said.

  After dinner Michael fired up his computer while Joshua sat on the other side of the room. Soft classical music filled the living room.

  “Okay, it looks like there are some riots in the bigger cities. Never thought I'd be grateful to be based out of a small town. Some foreign markets are reacting the same as ours did, not too good there. Looks like the EU is having the same problem with their credit cards that we are. Crap, riots are already getting out of hand in Greece and Spain.”

  Michael shut his system down and wandered over near Joshua.

  “Want a porter?” Michael asked.

  Joshua nodded.

  “Why did you shut down?”

  “I was getting too upset at the news. Even with the static strap and power strip I can blow the system out myself, I did it with the last one before this. So, I'll try to mellow out with a porter and if it works I'll go do some more searching.”

  Over the course of the night Michael searched several more times. When he was done he came to the conclusion that the Western way of life was slipping. Most of the Eastern countries were doing fine, although there was some contagion from the panicked Western markets. When he went to bed, he was exhausted and fell straight to sleep.

  * * *

  Michael woke early the next morning. He had to meet Jeff and start teaching him how to garden. Jeff showed up promptly at six-thirty and Michael led him over to the newly fenced-off section of garden. Calvin landed on the fence and watched the two of them.

  “This will be your area for gardening. I'm going to start you from scratch and teach you everything. The first thing is about how to get the soil ready for planting. Our soil in this area is okay for gardening, but not great. So what we're going to do is get the soil ready so the plants grow as well as they can.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “It starts with a shovel and some amendments. We're going to double dig the soil. What that means is that we'll dig a trench and put the soil from it in a wheelbarrow. Then we add some amendments and dig them into the soil at the bottom of the trench. The soil just gets loosened and put back in the bottom of the trench with the amendments mixed into it. Then we do the same thing again, right alongside the first trench. The top layer of soil from the second trench goes on top of the first trench. When we're done, we use the soil in the wheelbarrow to fill in the top layer of the last trench.”

  “So all the soil is loose then and it's got the amendments where the plants can get to them?” Jeff asked.

  “You got it. That lets the plant roots expand easily, which makes for bigger, happier, more productive plants. We'll do four foot wide sections fifty feet long. Your garden area should hold seven of those if we leave three feet between sections and two feet next to the fence. You'll want to not step on any of the areas after you double dig them or they'll just compress again. That's why they're four feet wide, you should be able to reach anywhere in them without stepping on the area you're using for the plants.”

  Jeff and Michael marked out the areas to dig. Then Jeff picked up the shovel and started digging. After a few shovelfuls he paused.

  “This is gonna take forever though,” he said.

  “It gets faster once you get used to it. I'll help you dig the first section and we'll get it planted. I bet seeing the plants coming up will keep you moving. If you'll let me pick, we'll put down some radishes, cress, and a few other things that mature quickly. The cress only takes a bit more than a week before you can start harvesting it. There isn't a lot to it, but it's something at least. Radishes take about a month, maybe a bit less. So within a month you'll be harvesting your own plants.”

  Jeff went back to digging. It looked to Michael like he was a bit more enthusiastic about it now. Even so, he hadn't gotten far by the time he needed to leave for school.

  After Michael drove Jeff to school, he fed Calvin and started his own breakfast. Joshua was up and grumpy. After breakfast Michael tossed on his MP3 player, rolled his long sleeves up as far as he could, and went back outside to finish double digging the first section of Jeff's garden.

  It was still before lunchtime when he came back in and booted his computer. He sat down and checked the financial charts first, after turning on some light classical music.

  “Market's closed again already,” he said.

  Joshua shook his head and grumbled.

  “More riots, now some in smaller cities as well,” Michael added.

  “Why are you even bothering?” Joshua asked.

  “I'd like to know what's happening. You know we're going to feel it here. Yesterday when I stocked up? All the stores were already cash only and there were some really pissed off people.”

  “You know what's happening. It's just more of the same, and now it's snowballing.”

  “You're Mister Cheerful today, aren't you?”

  “Yeah well...”

  “Fine, I'll do something else,” Michael said.

  * * *

  Jeff ended up staying more than two hours that afternoon. He did the work Michael showed him the day before and then he planted his first section of garden.

  “I made sure my mom ate some of what you gave me yesterday,” Jeff said.

  “Good, I hope you ate your own share also.”

  “Oh heck yeah, that stuff's good, lots better than what we get from the supermarket.”

  “Yours will be also. Supermarkets don't worry about taste, just whether or not something looks good and how long it will look good for. That tends to lead to less taste and nutrition in their stuff.”

  “I can't wait. Thank you again for this,” Jeff said.

  “You're welcome. I like to introduce people to gardening. That's why I give classes on it. Oh, hey. If you like I can give you some eggs also. Joshua picked up some cheap grocery store ones, but I got the local ones I prefer so if you want them you can have the store-bought ones.”

  “Do the local ones taste as much better than the store bought as the vegetables do?” Jeff asked.

  Michael grinned and nodded.

  “If you have the spare time, I can ask Miriam if she has any chores you could do to trade for some of her eggs. She's had ext
ra recently since she hasn't been selling as many.”

  “Would you? I wouldn't mind doing some chores on the weekend in order to try those out.”

  “She's in my current gardening class, I'll ask her the next time I see her.”

  Jeff ended up taking the store-bought eggs home with him when Michael dropped him off.

  Michael spent the evening online again. All the news was bad. He finally gave up and went to bed around ten o'clock knowing he had to be up early for Jeff.

  At some point in the night Michael woke to Joshua pounding on his door.

  “Michael, wake up! Got some chick on the phone says she needs to talk to you, that it's an emergency. Said her name's Rynn.”

  Michael snapped awake instantly.

  Rynn? it's been thirty years and she calls me in an emergency? Maybe I was wrong, maybe she felt like I did and was just scared?

  He hopped out of bed and raced down to the phone.

  “Rynn?”

  “Michael, thank goodness. You actually remember me?”

  “Of course I do. Joshua said it's an emergency, what's wrong?”

  Rynn proceeded to explain her predicament to him. When he reassured her that she and the students were welcome to come to him, she started theorizing on how to get there.

  “Take an older car. They're more reliable for us,” Michael said.

  “I can't drive; I never learned how,” Rynn replied.

  “Can any of the students?”

  “I don't know, I can ask—”

  Some sort of alarm interrupted Rynn's sentence. She asked Michael to hold on since she had a problem getting through to him and he listened to silence for a minute or two.

  “What's up?” Joshua asked.

  “Rynn needs a place to go, along with some students from the school.”

  “Why, what's wrong?”

  “She said there are riots going on there and it looks like it's getting worse.”

  Joshua's face turned pale.

  “My house is only twenty minutes away from the school,” he said. “If they're having problems there... Give me the phone Michael.”