The Forgiven The Fallen The Forsaken

by S. M. Armstrong

  Most of them thought he was nuts, but promised to be careful. He hoped that when the flu cases started that they would remember and pay heed, but he didn’t know what more he could do. Even with that much warning he was taking a huge risk.

  The party started winding down around three AM even though the prepaid tab still hadn't run out. Jim was relieved that he had made a point of drinking only Cokes after the first two drinks. He asked the bartenders to split the rest as their tip and accepted a ride home from Janet and Evelyn. On the way home he told them, "I know this sounds nuts, but it's real. If this flu hits it's going to take out eighty to ninety percent of its victims. You're going to have to demand that the company has extra masks and safety equipment ready. You need to make sure they take it seriously when it first shows up or ninety percent of you are going to die."

  Evelyn said, "Jim, you know those bastards aren't going to do that."

  He stared out the window for a moment and said, "What if I paid for the supplies and had them sent to your place?"

  Janet asked, "It really means that much to you?"

  "It's extremely important."

  "We need a favor, too," said Evelyn.

  "What?"

  "Shut the fuck up about the end of the world stuff for a while. We're going to miss you, you nut."

  Janet said, "Look, even if it is real, what makes you think we want to stick around for a world where everyone we know is dead?"

  That silenced him. He hugged both of them when they dropped him off. He sent the extra masks and gloves but he never saw either of them again.

  LAS VEGAS & FLAGSTAFF

  OCTOBER 23rd

  The most difficult part of leaving their life in Las Vegas was the reality that they would have to sell the house that they had planned to live in for their retirement. It was devastating. I’m going to strangle Rob if he’s wrong, thought Jim.

  Susan bought two large enclosed cargo trailers and they hired a local moving company to come in, pack them out, and load everything into the trailers. The idea was that everything could be safely left in the trailers at the ranch until they got around to dealing with them.

  Jim towed the first trailer to the cabin with the plan to drive back later that evening. They would wrap up the clean- up and painting over the next couple of days, and have the house on the market by the end of the week. With a little luck they would clear eighty thousand dollars over what they owed, but they would still be leaving a lot of money on the table to sell it quickly.

  The long drive up to Flagstaff was meditative. He used the time to run through preparations in his head. The logistics were daunting. A year’s supply of food for thirty people was available freeze dried in cans and should be good for twenty years if kept clean and dry. He could easily pick up enough to fill a few shipping containers without making a dent in his budget. He would fill a few more of them with canned foods, noodles, juices, drinks, teas, and coffee, to start with.

  Sooner than he’d expected, the three and a half hour drive to the ranch was done. The turn off to the dirt road was very easy to miss, so much so that he had put up a sign with the address and an arrow. Turning on the unpaved driveway, he was grateful for the 4 wheel drive.

  After unhooking the trailer and locking it up, Jim sat on a tree stump, popped open a soda, and paused to look around the property. It was covered with Juniper, Pinion Pine, and Cedar trees. The cabin was near the center of the property and, truthfully was more of a 900 square foot “goat farmer's shack,” as Susan had jokingly called it, than anything else. He had always thought that he would hate to have to spend a winter in it, yet here he was.

  Internet access and phone were wireless, but that wasn’t too much of a problem now. I wonder if it might be later. He pushed the thought aside to ponder another time.

  The satellite TV system worked, but wasn’t anything to write home about. At least there would be TV while there still was TV. Hopefully Rob was wrong about the eventual threat of EMP.

  Security wasn’t a concern when he bought the land, but it could become a problem. How the hell do you protect a chunk of open forest? The trees effectively hid the cabin from the road on the north side of the property, making it very difficult to find for anyone who didn't already know it was there. He would have to remember to take down the sign he’d put up with the address so the delivery people could find it. But not until after all the deliveries are complete, he thought, laughing. Rule #1: never shoot yourself in the foot.

  It was now late afternoon. James had vacillated between heading back to Vegas and getting a load in Flagstaff first. The key factor in the end was the time he would spend loading and unloading the truck, so he found a 6’ by 10’ foot enclosed cargo trailer online, picked it up in Flagstaff and went to a warehouse store where he bought two pallets of freeze dried foods with a long shelf-life. He filled the rest of the trailer with toilet paper and blankets to take up the remaining space and to pad the cargo. In the truck he loaded up several cases of various wines and liquors. Well, you never know, he thought.

  The half hour drive back to the ranch was quiet. He unloaded the trailer and locked the hitch on it. That wouldn’t stop someone who was dedicated, but it would slow them down. Finally, he unloaded everything from the truck into the cabin, locked it up, and started the trip back to Las Vegas.

  For the rest of the trip, he cranked up the truck stereo and listened to whatever rock stations he could find. And he worried. Best case, he’d be back to working two jobs to make up what he’d blown. Worst case, well, he really didn’t want to think about that.

  He didn’t get back to Vegas until almost 11PM and was sleeping like the dead by 11:30. In the morning, he would be repeating the trip with the second trailer.

  FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA

  OCTOBER 27th

  Susan's cell phone rang while they were eating lunch. She talked for a moment before saying, "That's great. We'll be down this afternoon."

  She hung up and told Jim, "The house sold in a cash deal. Ready for a road trip?"

  Jim said, "Sounds good. I'm really starting to feel the permanence, though."

  "Tell me about it. Plus it feels like we gave it away at that price."

  "No point in waiting too long," said Jim, wistfully.

  Selling their home felt like closing the door on a large part of their lives. He and Susan had moved to Las Vegas almost 20 years before to finish their degrees at UNLV and to soak up the general chaos that is Vegas. They had loved it there.

  Vegas was the kind of place where one could build a great life, free of prying eyes and having morality shoved down your throat at every turn. It was also the kind of town that would gleefully exploit any and all of one’s vices and weaknesses. It was a town that could eat your soul in a heartbeat.

  That said, it could also be just a great place for a normal life, and it had been for them. They didn’t spend a lot of time on the Vegas Strip and rarely gambled, not because they had strong feelings about it, but rather because it wasn’t fun once you understood the odds on a gut level. All in all, the town had been very good to them, to the point at which they were within a couple of years of paying off the house. Mostly, it was a good middle class life with a few great hobbies and a couple of toys. They had always loved living there.

  They drove mostly in silence, both of them lost in their memories, knowing they would never move back to Las Vegas, and missing it already.

  FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA

  OCTOBER 28th

  Jim and Susan rented a box at a private mail box store and paid extra to be able to have larger deliveries there. Then they went to DMV to transfer over their licenses and car titles. Jim sent in the application for his Arizona paramedic license that afternoon. Just in case, he thought.

  The ranch still felt more like a construction zone than home. The water tank for the RV spaces was in place and much of the infrastructure was done, but it was still fairly raw. Still, there was time and money for some more projects.

  Jim had R
V ports installed in each of the RV spaces to make it easier to enclose them in metal if necessary, but he planned to wait until there was a need. He moved the fifth wheel to the RV port closest to the cabin and hooked it up to water and the septic system. Life should be a bit more comfortable now.

  He felt a little crazy doing it, but Jim decided he wanted a fish pond on the property. He paid fifty thousand dollars for a used full sized excavator that he used to dig a huge pit at a low point on the property in order to take advantage of natural drainage. The pit was twenty feet deep at the center and gradually sloped up to the edges. His best estimate was that it would hold over 200,000 gallons once full. If nothing else, it would be a source of water that could be filtered.

  Not to be left out, Susan asked for a shot at using the excavator as well. After running her through basic safety, he turned her loose to dig two holes for root cellars in a small hill closer to the cabin. They could shore up the walls and add a roof later.

  Finally, Jim had her dig several holes on the far side of the property for the underground fuel tanks he planned to install while he cleared a small roadway to that location. By dusk, he felt like they had accomplished a month’s worth of work.

  OCTOBER 30th

  Jim used thick plastic liner on the bottom of the pond with the thought that it would last for a few years, at least, and he wouldn’t need that long, hopefully. His rude awakening came when he bought a water tanker truck with a 4,000 gallon capacity. It would take fifty or more trips to fill the pond, if the pond pit wasn’t actually bigger that. If Susan had thought he was nuts before, she was sure of it now.

  Faced with the prospect of looking like a complete idiot in front of his wife yet again, he did what made sense; He hired a handyman to drive loads of potable water back and forth until all of the tanks were full and then to start filling the pond. He paid the man several thousand dollars with the stipulation that he was to keep his mouth shut about the job. Hopefully that would work.

  Jim didn’t want to think about how many zoning and environmental rules he might be breaking at the ranch, but he didn't care. He would be careful not to be overly destructive to the environment, but most of the petty rules had little to do with that. Besides, even if he was caught, any sanctions against him would require a court date, and that would be weeks after the flu hit.

  It would take more research, but he was sure he would be able to have the pond stocked and functional in weeks, if they still had that long. Unfortunately, his reading into fish pond design and maintenance so far had convinced him that he didn’t have a clue about what he was doing. Never stopped me before, he mused.

  Meanwhile, Susan continued to fill the shipping containers with more nonperishable foods and more mundane items like toilet paper and toothpaste. While she wasn’t crazy about driving the diesel truck, she had taken to making trips to Phoenix with a cargo trailer to pick up many of the loads, partly to avoid attention, but mostly because she was sometimes cleaning out several stores of specific items. With each trip, she tried to bring back a several five gallon propane tanks and deep cycle batteries as well.

  Susan also took charge of researching green houses, hydroponics, and livestock. She knew it wouldn’t take long to lose enthusiasm for canned and frozen foods.

  One of the five used Airstreams they had bought and sealed was dedicated to solar panels and related equipment. They planned to wait until everyone was there and they were sure any EMP threat had passed before dealing with those, which was fine by her.

  She also bought several more propane generators of different sizes and stored most of them in the Airstreams.

  Overall, she was starting to feel like Noah’s wife before the flood, watching him build an ark on a mountain, waiting for the guys in white uniforms to take them away.

  NOVEMBER 2nd

  The five double walled, 1,000 gallon fuel tanks were finally in place and covered with cement. Jim had used class 2 material below and around them and had properly installed emergency ventilation for them. The three diesel tanks were a few hundred yards from the cabin and the kerosene and gasoline tanks were slightly farther. Each was surrounded on three sides by an embankment and the area around them was free of trees and brush. At least they’re installed correctly, if not legally, thought Jim.

  To fill the tanks, he installed a 150 gallon tank in the bed of a second diesel pickup he’d bought and was using that to fill the gasoline tank first along with preservatives. The diesel tanks would be next, then finally the kerosene. It would take a while, but they would all be full soon enough without attracting too much attention.

  A second shed was filled with five gallon cans of kerosene and kerosene heaters. Another, larger shed was completely filled with five gallon propane tanks. With all of the RV’s they were planning to have on property, it just made sense to have as many portable tanks as possible.

  Jim and Susan walked around the property after breakfast. “Our vacation ranch is turning into a compound,” Jim said, “and I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

  “We may have to buy a vacation property to get away from the vacation property.”

  Jim chuckled and said, “I think I’m just about vacationed out this year.”

  “This doesn’t feel like a vacation.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Jim said quietly.

  "Still, the work is the only thing keeping me from thinking about the holocaust around the corner," said Susan.

  "Maybe he's wrong."

  "I can't remember the last time my brother was wrong about anything. He's infuriating at times and he's always thinking twenty steps of everyone else in the room, but he doesn't get things wrong."

  Jim sat on a log and looked up at her. "Everyone has blind spots."

  "He's more than capable of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. I would expect that half of his job is dealing with things that require setting aside ethics to get them done, but he is one of the most patriotic and pragmatic people you'll ever meet. I don't think there's much chance of him being wrong, nuts, or off on some rogue mission to benefit himself."

  "So what is bugging you about him?"

  "He's in over his head, Jim. There are too many moving parts for him to stay on top of it all. That's why he's given us all the responsibilities around preparing this hidden base camp. I grew up with him. I can see he's scared that he won't be able to pull this off even though the stakes may be a trip back into the nineteenth century for most of the planet."

  "You're sure of him?"

  "I'm not worried about us being on the wrong side, if that's what you mean. Rob's solid. He's a good person. And he's one of the worst enemies anyone could ever imagine. I'm mostly worried about the entire situation. It just feels like we should be able to do something to save more lives."

  "Maybe what we're doing will make a bigger difference than we can imagine." He stood and offered a hand to her. "And if not, at least it's a good distraction. Let's get started."

  Today’s project was installing commercial grade A-frame greenhouses designed to handle a snow load. He’d cleared the land earlier in the week and had a crew from California putting in four of the 40 foot structures today. He placed them to one side of the pond site so that water would be readily available.

  As each of building was finished, a second crew would start installing hydroponics systems along both sides of the greenhouse and tables of planting pots in the center.

  Susan had been collecting seeds and irrigation systems all along and was delighted to see the greenhouses being built so that she could start working on those systems.

  She had also had finished off the livestock pens with chain link fencing and gates earlier in the week. She planned to have chickens, goats, pigs and rabbits. Jim teased her about being “Farmer Susan,” but she was enjoying role much more than she ever would have believed.

  They had added four more large fifth wheel RV’s and two travel trailers that were functional, if not all pretty, so seven of the twenty
ports now had RV’s in them.

  Half way through the day, Susan was surprised to have Rob and Denise’s daughter, Julie, pull up to the cabin in a small white SUV towing a cargo trailer. Julie leaped out and ran up to her, “Hi Aunt Susan!” They hugged as a second twenty something young woman got out of the SUV and walked up to them. Julie continued, “And this is my friend, Helen. She went to UC Irvine together with me. You’ll love her.”

  Susan hugged Helen, too, and said, “You’re both welcome here. Come on in the cabin and I’ll get you something to drink.”

  Julie was Robert’s daughter through and through. She was tall, brunette, athletic, and looked like she had just stepped off a volleyball court. At 22, she looked like a kid to Susan, but Julie was sharp and tough as nails, so much so that Susan always expected Julie to become a marine officer or something along those lines. Susan wasn't the least bit surprised that Julie had chosen mechanical engineering as a profession.

  Helen had a similar build but with Asian features, maybe half Japanese. Susan never could tell ethnicities very well and really didn’t care. She was delighted to have them both.

  They sat at the kitchen table while Susan poured iced tea for them. Julie looked frazzled. She said, “I don’t know a lot more than you do, but I’ll fill you in with what I do know. Dad’s up to his eyeballs at work and won’t talk about it in the house because he figures that the place is bugged. There was a tracking device on my car, even. It’s getting crazy."

  Susan said, "A tracking device. Really?"

  Julie nodded. “We put it on our next door neighbor's car. Dad had me tell everyone who would listen about me moving to Colorado Springs to take a job. Then he helped me pack the trunk with photos and such things and go trade the car in on this SUV. He gave us money, a map to here, and a list of things to pick up. He said he can’t just take off yet, but he’ll be here when he can."