I brought a folding chair from the garage and set it up inside the front door next to the window that faced the street. With my AR at my side, I sat down with a clear view of the road and as soon as the candles were out, an invisible view. In short order, everyone went to bed. Jenna slept on the red couch and Ethan on the floor in a sleeping bag. I spent the night thinking. Trying to unravel this puzzle. If we sought to hide, I knew if the National Guard were on our doorstep, they would not do a cursory search, it would be thorough and complete. It was an M.C. Escher problem. No matter what path we chose, somehow, we end up going in a circle, and it all ended the same. With all of us at the camps.
I opened the front door as quietly as possible. I could hear Jenna’s snoring, and I produced a half-smile at the sound. I stepped out and closed the door. I wanted to smoke one of my remaining cigarettes. I lit the cigarette and inhaled the toxic smoke with a loving sigh. A few birds were chirping in the night. Every now and then I could see on the horizon to the south a red and blue light flashing. Police cruising in the evening. But, no sirens, which I thought was odd. The night was cold. How could this have happened? I thought for the first time since that first night. It was a thought I knew that could not be answered by me, but a thought I had none the same. That first night I had felt confident I could survive this. Even when everyone showed up, and I felt responsible for them, I still felt confident things would work out alright. We would all make it to Utah and live happily ever after. Now? Now, I felt different. If we were to survive and make it to Utah, we may have to do some things we would not have done in the former world. I understood this, but I was not sure my friends did or would. And that scared me.
I finished my cigarette, with no clearer answer than before. I sniffed the butt out with the heel of my shoe, picked it up and flicked it into the gutter. I quietly opened the door, with Jenna’s snoring providing comfort. I sat down at my lookout post and thought one hopeful thought. What if they never came at all? What if no one came to enforce the evacuation? That may be our only hope. I smiled and shook my head. If that happened, we would be the luckiest survivors in the world. I looked out the window and said a small prayer to whoever was in charge of this crappy universe and asked for that miracle. Just leave us alone, I thought.
Alone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
11/16/2024
I awoke the next day just after noon, alone in the guest bedroom. The sun shone into the room from the no longer boarded window. I shifted slightly and hesitated to get up. Usually, I could remember my dreams, but after the long night I must’ve slept like a rock, I couldn’t remember anything.
I arose from the bed and did some slight stretches, an old military habit, and walked out of the bedroom into the hall, and as I turned into the family room, I saw all the eyes of my guests turn to me.
Zero was now on the lookout. Ethan and Drew were discussing something when I came in and turned toward me with a smile on their faces. The women of the household were nowhere to be seen.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I think-” Drew said, before being interrupted, as the back door opened and Alicia, Jenna, and Kaitlyn entered the home from the kitchen, with Natalie and Jane at their side.
“Blake. Good your up,” Alicia said. “We got something to show you.” This was interesting. I wondered what they’ve been doing while I slept.
“Ok,” I said. “But can I get coffee first?” I pointed toward the kitchen.
“Oh, yeah. Of course,” she said.
I walked past the women and children and prepared myself some coffee. Standing in front of the stove I felt their eyes on me. I turned my head toward them and smiled. They smiled back. I lit a match and turned one of the gas burners on, to boil some water. As I placed the pot down on top of the lit burner, I looked over again and smiled. They all smiled back. I just shook my head. They were waiting for me. They wanted to show me something, and by their never-ending stare, I guessed they had waited all morning.
I poured the boiling water slowly through the drip coffee maker’s carriage that had a coffee filter and a half a cup of ground coffee inside. Eventually, I took a sip of black coffee, as I did, I turned and faced the living room. Where I found fourteen eyes staring back at me. Zero was the lone exception as he was on the lookout.
I walked into the living room and finally said, “Ok. So what do you have for me to see?”
They all looked at each other. Then Alicia stood up and said, “It’s not something, in particular, it’s...I believe a solution to our problem.”
This was intriguing, they all seemed to be behind whatever it was they were selling.
“Okay. What is it?”
“I need you to go outside and pretend to be the national guard,” she said, and I gave her a quizzical look. “And when I mean pretend, I mean pretend. I want you to act as if you were the national guard and you were coming here to evacuate us.”
“Okay.” They were practically pushing me out the door.
“Start down at the end of the street,” she said as I took a step outside the front door. She closed the door before I could respond. While it wasn’t early in the morning, I had only been up for ten minutes. I shook the cobwebs from my head and tried to make sense of this development. Apparently, they think they found a solution to the problem of evacuation, and instead of just telling me, they wanted to impress me with the act. Okay, I can play along.
In my garage, I opened the main garage door, grabbed a cigarette, one remaining. Lit the smoke and sat down on one of the fold-up chairs. If they really wanted to play this out, I needed to surprise them. So, I waited ten minutes. Finally, I put the cigarette and coffee down, then walked down the sidewalk to the end of the street.
What would the national guard do, when they were evacuating citizens? It would not be a stealth operation. They would pull into the cul-de-sac and go door to door, most likely in pairs. Since it was just me, I walked right down the middle of the road. I turned to look at my front door, just to see if I could identify anyone at the window next to the front door and saw nothing. The reflection from the sun off the vertical window, which Zero was behind, hid him from my perception. I turned toward the house. Crossed the sidewalk, onto my front lawn, then the paved path to the front door. At the door, I knocked.
“This is the National Guard. There is a mandatory evacuation. If anyone is inside, please come out, and we can help you get to the evacuation centers. If you have no mode of transportation, we have buses at the local high school, that can take you to the appropriate... place.” I was just making this up, but I thought it was fairly accurate, after what we saw last night.
I knocked again. Nothing. I grabbed the door handle and turned. The door opened into my home, only now I needed to view it as a foreign place with potential undesirables. It was empty. I slowly crept inside, keeping to the left with one eye on the kitchen, the other on the opening to the hallway and back rooms. As I came up parallel to the hallway entrance, I took two long quick steps and side-stepped my way to the hall archway. I walked backward a pace keeping both the kitchen and hallway in my view. Looked right, then left, down the hall. Then slowly crept toward the bathroom at the end of the corridor. Nothing. The guest bedroom. Nothing. The office, nothing except Zeros sleeping bag and clothes. Down to the master bedroom. Again, nothing but sleeping bags, suitcases lying opened and clothes scattered on the bed. I retreated into the living room. Acting cautiously, I entered the kitchen and could smell the coffee, which was still warm and smelled great, and I had an intense desire to grab another mug. But, I kept going. I was generally interested in playing this out.
Out the kitchen’s back door and into the yard. I noticed immediately that the pathway we had made in the fence, between the houses, had been repaired. Clever. I looked around the backyard, nothing out of the ordinary, except an empty keg. I strained to hear any whispering or unusual or at least human sounds. Again nothing.
They sneaked over to Enrique’s home. So, I w
ent back out of my front door, just as I assumed a National Guardsman would. I probably should’ve done a cursory check of the attic, but I knew in a realistic scenario, there would not be enough time for us all to get into the attic and be quiet enough to stay there. If they were in the attic now, I would have to shoot down that plan. I was confident they were next door.
I went to my neighbor’s yellow front door and knocked. I said the same speech I said at my front door. As I finished, I heard some footsteps coming from the backyard, along with a slight creak of a door opening and closing. I went into Enrique’s home, the door was unlocked, and immediately went to the backyard. Outside I saw no one. I looked at the spot where the fence had been taken apart for our pathway and saw what now looked like a door. New hinges had been placed on the fence, along with two new horizontal pieces of wood, which appeared to now allow someone to pull or push the whole two-foot section open and enabling them to close it. Clever, now they were back in my house. I went back out the front door and back to my home.
I walked inside.
“Ta.Da,” Zero said. I smiled and looked around at everyone beaming with pride. Natalie and Jane stood next to their mother, hands covering their mouths trying not to laugh.
“So, what do you think?” Alicia asked.
“Very good,” I said. I meant it. But, I also understood its faults. What if they didn’t go door to door one at a time? What if they hit all the houses at once? I kept those thoughts to myself.
“Do you know what we did?” Drew asked.
“I think so. You went next door as I approached and when I went next door, you came back here,” I said. They were kind of disappointed I figured it out. So, I continued, “But, like I said I knew the pathway was there and that was an option. I am just glad you all didn’t climb into the attic.” They laughed.
“It was Jenna’s idea,” Alicia said.
“No. It was all of us,” Jenna said.
“Did you notice the door?” Zero asked.
“Yes. But, I was looking for it.”
“I made it.”
“It’s a beautiful door.”
“Do you think it could work?” Drew asked.
“Yes. I think it might. But, only if they truly believe the houses are empty. I did hear some shuffling and the makeshift door opening and closing. Which would mean they would do a more thorough investigation.” Everyone seemed to take this correctly. I wasn’t trying to destroy the plan, just saying we needed to be perfect for it to work.
“Okay, so what do we need to do? To make it better,” Alicia asked.
“First, we need to make sure if someone enters the home, the house looks abandoned. If I was a soldier, I could tell right away that someone was here recently, based on how the clothes, suitcases, beds, candles, books, dishes were all around.”
“What else?” Drew asked.
“Practice. Going quietly from here to next door,” I said. “Let’s see how you do it now, and we can see if we can make it quicker and quieter.”
And practice we did. It was only ten hours before we would have to enact our plan for real.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
11/16/2024
Zero stood up from his lookout position and snapped his fingers three times. On hearing this, Drew who was sitting on the couch reading to Jane and Natalie stood up and went to the kitchen to let Alicia know the drill was on. Alicia went to the living room, grabbed Natalie and Jane, turned back to the kitchen and out the back door. I had been seated at the dining table, and as soon as I heard Zero’s fingers snap, I went into the hallway and checked all the rooms to make sure everything was put in its proper spot. All suitcases were to be hidden away, mostly under beds or in closets. Sleeping bags rolled up and hidden as well. The rooms needed to appear deserted. I found Jenna and Kaitlyn in the office and let them know the drill was in motion. I grabbed my handgun from the top drawer. Kaitlyn oversaw the living room, making sure the candles were put away, all books and movies were in their proper place, and dishes were nowhere to be seen. Jenna was in command of the two bathrooms. All the toothbrushes, towels and other daily hygiene were to be stored below sinks and in drawers. Ethan, who had been outside, was in the kitchen as Kaitlyn, Jenna and myself made our way out the back door. Ethan oversaw the kitchen, making sure the coffee, dishes and all other used items were placed in the dishwasher. If the coffee maker was still warm, he was to wipe it down with a cold rag and the coffee dumped outside. Zero, was the last man out, he stood watch and made sure we all were outside before he followed us. Once we were all out of the house, Drew would close the kitchen door and shut the fence door after we passed into Enrique’s backyard.
“How’d we do?” Drew asked Zero. The lookout kept the time and executed the random drill.
“One minute and,” Zero said as he looked at his watch. It was my watch, an old digital one that I had to teach everyone how to use. “Eight seconds.” We had been steady at around a minute all afternoon.
“That’s about the same as before,” Alicia said.
“Yeah, just a few seconds off,” Ethan said.
“I think we’re ready to go,” I said. “I don’t believe that we can improve much on that time.”
“Is it good enough?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “We may have to move the lookout to catch them coming sooner.”
“Where?” Zero asked.
“Down at the end of the block. We need at least a minute to get into position before they approach the door.”
“Use the walkies?” Alicia asked.
“Yes. We need to test that first. If that doesn’t work, we will just have to make do.”
I took one of the Batman walkie’s from the house and walked down to the end of the block. The sun had just begun to set behind me. I depressed the button on the side and said, “Can you hear me?”
“We...hear... some..” was all I heard back. But, I wasn’t worried, it would be good enough. The walkies were never designed to work that far away. They were toys for children to play in the house or backyard. But, the fact they heard something would be enough. That’s all we needed. It was only thirty yards from the intersection of Seagull and Gully to my front door. Seagull Dr. was the street I lived on. The cul-de-sac had six homes from that intersection, three on each side.
I reported my opinion to the group, and we all agreed that it was enough. I pulled my car down to the very end of the block, so whoever was sitting in the car, could see any vehicle descending Gully Drive.
We spent the rest of the day waiting for the inevitable.
At six in the evening, I took Drew’s place in the lookout spot. I told everyone I would be the lookout for the rest of the night, despite their protest. They thought that was too long. I told them I wanted some alone time. Zero made a masturbation joke, and I was ‘allowed’ to sit in my car all evening.
The truth of the matter was: I wanted to write. I felt I needed to start getting our experiences down before I forgot them or ended up dead. So, under the overhead car light, I began to write our story, which you are currently reading.
It was a chilly night, and I was clothed in my post-bomb standard attire, a black beanie, and black sweatshirt. Kaitlyn said it made me look like a prowler. I just thought black was easier to wear repeatedly since dirt didn’t stand out so much. I had a black ball point pen and my notebook. I wrote furiously, the sound of my pen on paper was all I heard. Outside the car, I heard birds chirping, a car strolling over the pavement, far away, as now sound carried much further in this dead town, and from time to time a dog would bark. But, those sounds became white noise. Every few minutes I would stop, raise my head, and listen for anything out of the ordinary.
By 10 p.m. I could see my breath, in the compact Hyundai. I wasn’t sure if the writing was any good, but at this point, it mattered little to me. I needed to get this down. If we ended up in the camps, I wanted to leave this behind for some future generation to know where we ended up. Whether they would care, was
not a question for me. I needed to document as best I could.
I heard footsteps before I saw the figure approach on the passenger side of the car. My right hand immediately dropped the pen into the cup holder between the front seats, I reached behind my back and tried to see who was approaching using the side mirror. It was nearly pitch black out, and I saw a little shape, just a black mass about five feet tall. The overhead dome light was sending a glow out into the street and as the blob passed the trunk, the glow from inside the car shined a light on Kaitlyn’s wonderful face. My hand relaxed, and I hit the unlock button on my door.
“Sorry. I hope I didn’t scare you,” Kaitlyn said as she sat down in the passenger seat.
“No. Just didn’t expect to see anyone.”
“I know. I couldn’t sleep. Not much to do and everyone else had gone to bed.”
“So, you wanted to come hang out with me, in forty-degree weather?” I said. She was wearing the brown and red Superbad beanie, that used to belong to my brother, a V-neck fluffy sweater and her red converse.
“Maybe. I’m not used to sleeping by myself.”
“Is that why you asked me to join you, the other night?”
“Kind of. Well. And Jenna needed the couch. I knew you would do your self-sacrifice thing and sleep on the carpet with just a blanket. So, I thought what the hell, we can be adults, and sleep together as friends. Friends without benefits,” she said and laughed at her own joke. She did that quite a bit, and it used to drive me nuts.
“It is strange,” I said.
“It is. I know.”
“But comfortable as well,” I said as she gave a strange look. “I mean. We cannot see each other for years and yet when I woke up the other morning it seems like just yesterday we were at Cal State together.”
The Ending is Everything Page 12