The Lottery Winner

by Pete Thorsen

  This was sure turning into a very strange world in which to live. The words of my boss came back to me about things getting ugly. But the radio news never mentioned any protests and certainly not any riots. This seems strange because just last summer there were many protests and things had gotten much, much worse since then. To me, that would mean many more protests would be happening now.

  Then I remembered what the worker at the library had said about the news only reporting about what they wanted to and just ignoring the things they did not want to report. Could that be the reason there is nothing about protests and riots? Everything is so complicated now and almost impossible to completely figure out. Especially for just a regular plain guy like me.

  I was torn about what to do. Actually about whether to do anything at all or not. I could just stay here at home. I had enough food to last me for maybe two or even three months if I was careful and rationed it some.

  Or I could go back into town. In town, I could draw out more money from my bank account. I could buy more food, so if I wanted to stay hidden out here, I could have enough food to stay here longer. And in town maybe I could get more answers and gather information. The Army did teach me that information or intel is very valuable.

  I was safe here. And while it had always been completely safe in town, I just wasn't real sure that would always be the case. Likely it was safe there yet. But I had this uneasy feeling. I just felt like things were getting out of hand. Mail only delivered once a week. No fire department. Bank not letting you have your own money. And the odd contradicting news on the radio.

  If they cut the fire department completely did, they also cut at least some of the police department? I remembered the angry complaining I overheard in the bank. People were not happy. And my boss saying things would get ugly. And the guy at the gas station saying "We haven't seen anything yet." Meaning things would get much worse, and they had if that business of firing the whole fire department counts.

  I decided I would go into town. But I might just take a couple of precautions first. And I decided to call my bank and see if they would even be open when I got there. I almost never used my cell phone, but I did always make sure it was charged up. I took it now to make the call to the bank.

  “No Service.”

  Was on the screen. I had never seen that before, but it was obvious what it meant. I would not be using the cell phone. I would take it with and see if it worked when I was in town. I had the feeling that it would not. I actually wondered if it would work ever again.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning I decided to go into town. But first I took a fair sized hunting knife in a sheath and threaded it onto my belt. Next, I took the small three eighty automatic pistol I had bought cheap off a guy that needed money and slid that loaded gun in my front pants pocket. In a back pocket, I put an extra loaded magazine for the small gun. Carrying the gun concealed I knew was not legal but it made me feel safer anyway.

  I even briefly thought about putting a loaded rifle in my truck but thought that was going a little overboard. I took plenty of the cash I had now at home and headed into town to see if anything had changed.

  The road and the drive in were eerily empty. The road usually carried little traffic way out where I was but closer in to town there would always be other people on the road. But not today.

  Once I was in the city limits, I did see a couple of other cars on the streets. As I got into the business district, I could see many more buildings were all boarded up and were closed. I drove to the bank first. It was open which sure was the first good sign so far on this drive.

  At the door, I saw the new sign. It was now two hundred dollars as the maximum limit on cash withdrawals. Not happy I went inside. I never complained. I just took out the two hundred max limit and left the bank.

  Then it was off to the Walmart store. There were some other cars in the parking lot, and I could see people going in and out of the store. I guess it looked pretty normal. I parked and went inside.

  I went right to the grocery section and started shopping. The shelves were not bare, but they certainly had less on than they did on my last trip here. But there was enough, and I bought and bought until my cart was about as full as could be.

  There were signs near all the checkouts that said no credit card or debit card sales. I asked about checks, and the checkout girl said they were still accepting checks as of right now. Made me think that soon it would be cash only. I had enough cash, but I would use a check as long as I could. I always carried a single folded up check in my wallet.

  I checked out and paid and left the store. I never lock my truck. There is nothing in there to steal, and I had never had anyone ever mess with it. That now changed. There was a guy next to my truck, and I could see someone else was half inside it.

  The one on the outside saw me coming and alerted his buddy who backed out of my truck. I said nothing as I moved up pushing the very heavy cart pretty fast. I rammed the heavy cart into the lookout guy, and he slammed hard into the side of my truck. With all the canned goods in the cart and all my weight behind the last mighty shove, the cart hit him hard.

  I did not look to see if he fell because I was facing off on his partner. When I was close enough to the other guy, I made a move like I was going to take a roundhouse swing at him. Instead, I kicked him in the groin as hard as I could. When he groaned and bent over, I kicked him again with everything I had behind the kick. I caught him in the lower ribs and stomach area. The toe o my heavy work boot made a big dent in him.

  Then I turned back to the first guy that I had hit with the cart. He was having a lot of trouble trying to gimp away from me, and I caught up to him in just a couple steps. He held his hands up in surrender which was fine by me. With his hands up I slugged him hard in the stomach. When that bent him over, he received the same hard kick just like his buddy got.

  He fell to the ground. But that did not stop me. With him lying on the ground I kicked him in the ribs really hard, and I felt ribs break. Then when I brought my heavy boot down hard on his ankle he let out a scream just like a little girl.

  Done with him, I went back to his partner who was lying on the ground next to my truck moaning and holding his crotch. I know my boot had broken at least a couple of his ribs when it connected. He was flat on his back, and I brought my boot down hard on his shoulder. When I did, he did not scream like his buddy. Instead, this one was quiet and just passed out.

  I calmly loaded all the items from the cart into my pickup and being careful not to run over anyone lying on the ground I drove out of the parking lot.

  I had put everything inside the cab of my truck this time. And I drove the short distance to the dollar store where I parked and went inside, but I locked my truck this time.

  The sign on the door did not surprise me when it said cash only. I walked around the store and bought what I could, but they had little there now that I wanted. Other than knick knack stuff they did not have much for things people needed. And they had some less after I bought what I wanted.

  I talked briefly to the checkout gal and then took my things out to my truck. No ruckus this time and just drove away in peace. I found a gas station that was still open (I had gone past three more that were closed down) and pulled in. Sign on the pumps said cash only. I went inside after being shocked at the price at the pump.

  I gave the clerk forty dollars. I did not need much gas, but it was seven fifty-nine-a gallon, so money did not stretch very far. After I filled my truck's gas tank and got my eight dollars in change, I talked to the clerk for a bit just like I had everywhere I had shopped. Then I bid him a good day and left for home again.

  I drove straight home and put away my purchases. It was still fairly early in the afternoon, so I went for a walk. I do my best thinking it seems when I am walking and right now I had quite a lot of thinking to do.

  When I went to the bank this morning, there were two armed guards in there. And they were indeed armed. Each had a si
dearm, and each had a long gun. And the two men looked like they were not just there for show. They watched me carefully from the second I walked into the bank until I walked out again. My guess is that at least one of them went to a door or window and watched me leave the parking lot. They were professional looking and were likely only hired to be there because they were needed.

  When at the stores I shopped at today I noticed a few things. All had shorter hours, and none were open after sundown. Walmart had always been open 24/7 and so had the gas station too I am sure. Now each had short hours. The dollar store just by the amount of merchandise they had on the shelves looked like it would be closing down for good very soon.

  When I went into the gas station to give the clerk money so he would turn on the gas pump, I noticed he had kept one hand out of sight behind the counter. I had the distinct impression that he had a gun in that hand. I had also noticed that there were at least two bullet holes in the glass front of that store. The big plate glass windows had not shattered but did crack when the bullets had passed through the heavy glass.

  There had been signs on the gas pumps stating that they had no higher octane fuels. Only diesel and regular gas. The shelves inside the gas station were just about bare of merchandise.

  I had never seen any police cars anywhere. That maybe was not all that uncommon but still worth noting. When I had beat up those two guys who tried to steal items from my truck, there were at least four other people that had witnessed the altercation. The police had not shown up by the time I unloaded the full shopping cart and fitted all the stuff inside the cab of the truck. I never hurried that job either.

  Things were not all roses in town.

  Chapter 9

  The power was off when I got home from my walk. The weather was mild, and there was little wind. So the power outage was not weather related. I was not concerned because the power goes off once and while when you live out in the country. You might say it just goes with the territory.

  Other than being a little dark in the house the outage caused me no real hardships. I lit a kerosene lamp and made my supper the same as always. I opened the refrigerator door only twice so not to let all the cold out. I have a fair sized water pressure tank, and I just did not take a shower before bed. The power had been off for maybe about four hours or so when I hit the sack for the night.

  Just like I figured the power was back on in the morning. It was no big deal. I exercised for longer than normal in the morning and then took my morning shower. I kept mulling over what I had gone through and what I had learned when in town yesterday.

  I had talked to all the clerks, and they had all said the same things. Things were bad, and they all said they expected things to get worse. Each had different stories about things they had witnessed. The girl in the dollar store said many of the town police had been laid off to save the town money. All of the clerks had talked about things the town had been doing to save money. I had to assume the same was happening at the county level and all other levels of government.

  None of the clerks knew much about what was happening at the national level. They all said they couldn't take credit cards because the internet was down and had been for awhile. The stores needed the internet to complete credit and debit card transactions. I asked about cell phones, and all said there was no longer any cell service. Land line phones worked, but you could only make local calls, no long distance calls.

  The guy at the gas station was apparently pretty mad about the internet being down and about how worthless the TV news shows were. He went on and on about it and cussed out just about everyone from Congress and the President to stupid voters and the stupid TV news shows. It was quite a rant, and he was red faced when he stopped for air.

  Everything I heard pointed to nationwide troubles and that the news programs were not reporting about just how bad things were across the nation. At noon when I had a light lunch I listened to the radio news while I was fixing and eating my meal. There was no real news of any kind except the weather reports.

  I had no idea how bad things were in the big cities, but I could only guess that it was considerably worse in those urban areas. And I agreed with everyone I talked to about it being likely things would get worse before they got better. I decided that I would not be going back to town for some time.

  Then I had second thoughts about that. I had just been to town yesterday, and now I knew what to expect. Plus if I waited things would obviously get worse. So I put the little pistol in my pocket and immediately drove back into town. I drove right to Walmart and parked as close to the front doors as I could. I decided against locking the truck because there was nothing to steal inside.

  Inside the store, I first checked at the counter to see if they still took checks even though I knew they had just yesterday. The woman said yes they were still accepting checks for payment. I thanked her and grabbed a cart.

  I did no shopping. I just went to the grocery section and piled food into the cart. Mostly the exact same food items as I had bought just yesterday. I completely filled the cart and even filled the bottom tray and heaped up the main compartment. I checked out and paid with the check that I had made sure I brought with me.

  Outside I looked around carefully as I made my way slowly to my truck. No one was close, and I hurriedly emptied the overloaded cart into the truck. I drove straight home again without any other stops. As I unloaded all the food at home, I was pleased with the decision I had made to make a quick run into the store again. It worked out very well for me with no problems, and I both got more food, and I used none of my existing cash supply.

  I wondered how long I would continue to get unemployment. It was blatantly obvious that I would not be getting re-hired anytime soon that's for sure. I even wondered about what cash I had in the bank right now on whether I would ever be able to get any of that money. So maybe it was pointless whether the unemployment checks kept coming in or not.

  I did have an idea for something that could maybe help me. I had purchased a couple of cookbooks at yard sales for less than a dollar each. I had never really used them but had paged through them for something to do and more or less just looked at the color pictures of the great looking food.

  But I had seen recipes for making your own jerky. They had several recipes and had used a standard oven for making the jerky. So I would test that out I thought. When I shot a jackrabbit the next day after I cleaned it, I took some of the larger pieces of meat that I cut off and dipped that meat in a salt/spice mix and put it in my small camp oven on the wood stove. I ate the rest of the rabbit for dinner.

  When I thought the jerky was done I tried a piece after it had cooled down completely. It wasn't too bad. But I thought I would cut down on the spices some for the next batch. The next day I took my truck and went for a drive. I left well before sunrise.

  By noon I was back with a dead gutted out buck mule deer in the back. I hung the deer in the garage, and after skinning it, I took one-quarter in the house. The weather was getting warmer, but it was still plenty cool for the deer to not spoil anytime soon. And I expected to have the deer all cut up and processed within a full day or two at the very most.

  I cut the meat into thin strips, and after dipping in my salt/spice recipe, I put the meat in the oven at a low setting of two hundred degrees. I also put some in the tiny camp oven on the wood stove. A few cuts of meat I wrapped and put in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. I did have venison for lunch and dinner also.

  I made jerky for about a day and a half. It turned out edible which was enough for me. I had cut way back on the spices, and the mix was mostly just a salt dip with some pepper and small amounts of a couple of other things they had listed in the recipes in the cookbook.

  Most of the jerky fit into a couple of larger containers of Tupperware that I had bought at a yard sale. I had a lot of room in the refrigerator, so that is where I stored all the jerky. It was pretty dry, and I am sure I just could have kept it in a cupboard, but I had t
he room, so it was kept refrigerated.

  The jerky would stretch my food out even longer. I was considering shooting another deer. The one I shot was a buck, and if I shot another, I would try to get another buck. The females would all have fawns in them this time of year. Better to let them live and produce more deer for later use.

  I did go and shoot another buck deer. This one took longer to find, and I was out for the greater part of a day. I skinned the deer in the evening that I shot it and started processing it the following morning. Same procedure as the last one though I did drop all the spices on this one and just used salt and a small amount of pepper. It still tastes fine to eat as-is, but it will work good to add to soup or stew so I can have a variety of food to eat. I like eating plenty of meat.

  With the now two deer that I have processed, I have a good supply of meat. I still have many cans of chicken and tuna also. If I do not go to town again for quite awhile, I will miss having bread for sandwiches. I do have what I need here to bake bread, and if I miss it enough, I just might try baking some, at least once.

  I have mostly stopped listening to the radio news now. It is just a waste of my time. The news stations don't give any real news on anything. Every two or three days I will turn it on so I can get the weather forecast and that is about all the use I have for the radio.

  One nice thing was there were no commercials on the radio anymore. None. And I know nothing about running a radio station, but I do know that they do it for profit. No commercials meant no income, and that meant no profit. So why were they still on the air? The obvious and only answer was because our government was forcing them or paying them to remain on the air. And if you are paying to run it then it seems likely that you can also dictate what is reported and what is not reported.