The Shelter: Book 1, The Beginning

by Ira Tabankin

  Chapter 18

  The small road that borders our farms is not the easiest to find in normal times. There’s not even a road sign to say the name of the road (we took it down three months ago). Our road is falling apart due to a lack of maintenance and overuse by the heavy delivery and concrete trucks making numerous trips to our complex. We’re happy that we’ve been forgotten and left alone for months, it’s given us time to complete our shelter construction, get our crops harvested and plant our fall crops. We haven’t been bothered because of the general lack of fuel. Most people had a hell of a lot more important things to do than bother with four small farms which most people forgot about or didn’t remember where we’re located. Today, hundreds of refugees are walking towards us. The road that runs along our farms is covered in refugees, they are spread out over half a mile. I ask John, “Do you think they’re coming for us?”

  “Jay, either they’re lost or they’re coming for us. There’s nothing else on this road, our road loops around and merges with the main road a few miles past us. If they’re not careful, they could be walking in a circle for a very long time.”

  “John, our road is pretty hard to find, it’s almost hidden from view by the overgrown trees. It's even harder to locate since we removed all of the local street signs. Even if they had our address, we would be hard to find unless someone knew exactly where we’re located.”

  “Jay, some good news, if anything can be good news. Given the number of refugees, the videos show almost none of them are armed, or at least no weapons that we can see.”

  “John, we have to assume the worst. How long until they reach us?”

  “If they’re coming for us, their front line of people will reach your gate in less than three minutes.”

  “John, is there anything we can or should do at this time?”

  “Make sure everyone is ready. If they’re hostile, we’re in for a hell of a fight, look at their numbers, there must be a thousand of them. We could kill every other one and they’d still reach us. Quantity is its own quality.”

  “I heard that was the Russian’s operating line from the cold war.”

  “Sure was. Their tanks and planes might not have been as good as ours, but they had something like a ten to one advantage. Even if we’d nailed a Russian tank with every round our tanks fired, we’d still have lost the battle due to their numbers. Our tanks would have run out of ammo and the Russians would still be coming. Yeah, quantity is its own quality. This group is so large they could easily overrun us. If we shot every one of them with each bullet we had, some would still reach our trenches. We have to stop them before they can get close enough to hurt us.”

  Before I can respond, John’s iPad receives the video from our cameras mounted in trees covering the lines of approach to our property. The video shows the front line of the mob. John looks up saying, “They’re here, they’re milling around the front gate. They look confused. Wait, two are climbing over the gate, we’ll have to do something to make that harder. Let’s see what they want before we open fire.”

  Two refugees manage to climb over our front gate, bringing tools to take apart the hinges so they could open the gate, allowing their people to swarm in. Five, twenty, one hundred, three hundred, more keep coming, starting up our driveway. John hands me his binoculars, “John, they look dirty and tired. They look defeated, but it doesn’t mean they won’t fight. We have to assume they’ll fight because they have nothing to lose.”

  I ask John, “Is the driveway trench uncovered?”

  John replies, “No, whenever the alarm sounds the driveway trench covers are automatically uncovered, however, when I saw who was coming, I stopped the process. They have no vehicles, I thought there was no reason to give away one of our secrets.”

  John picks up a handheld microphone, “STOP where you are. You are trespassing on private property. STOP or we will open fire.” John fires three shots into the air. The front line of the mob stops when they hear the gunshots, two men walk towards us holding a dirty white/yellow t-shirt over their heads, “We want food and water.”

  John responds, “I’m sorry, we don’t have enough to share.”

  “You’re not going to shoot us, we’re unarmed, we mean you no harm. We’re hungry and tired. Feed us and let us rest in your barns, when we’ve eaten and rested, we’ll move on.”

  “There’s too many of you, we can’t feed all of you.”

  “You can and you will. We knew there were groups of small farms up here that aren’t sharing with the city. You’re not doing your fair share and leaving us to starve. It’s your shared responsibility to help your brothers and sisters. You have all of the food you need, we have nothing. If you won’t or can’t feed all of us, give us enough to feed the children. You don’t want their lives on your conscience do you?”

  “How many children do you have?”

  “A little over two hundred. If you can’t feed all of us, you must have wells with fresh water for us.”

  “If you don’t come any closer, we’ll bring you food and water enough for the children.”

  I look at John, “Can we afford to feed the children?”

  Lacy says, “Jay, I’m ashamed of you. Of course we can feed the children, we have to. I’m not going to go to bed worried about the children. We have plenty of wells, we have more than enough cows, we can give them water and milk, plus some food.”

  “And what about the next group and the next?”

  “We’ll deal with each when they get here. I’m not saying we feed them to hurt ourselves, but we have plenty, it’s the right thing, the Christian thing to do. We have to share what we can afford to. There’s no reason to touch our stored supplies in the shelter, but I won’t allow the children to go hungry.”

  The eight of us in the trench all nod at Lacy’s comments. John yells back, “Sit down where you are, we’ll bring you some food, water, and milk. Do not advance up the driveway.”

  I guess what John said was repeated because we heard cheering from the crowd. Five of the community’s teens gathered drums of water and milk, which they rolled down the driveway into the crowd. They returned telling us the crowd looked tired, hungry and very dirty. They were sitting or lying on the grass between the barbwire fence and the street. Matt said, “There are hundreds of them, they look like they’ve lost everything, they are overjoyed at the water and milk. Jill, Flo, and Liz took some paper bowls and cereal to the children, they also brought three cases of protein bars to the adults”. Flo told them, “I’m sorry, this is all we can afford to share. We haven’t harvested our crops yet. We hope this helps you. For your safety, slowly and carefully move off the grass, stay on the driveway, there are booby traps in the grass.”

  The crowd screamed in fear. Flo said, “Everyone on the grass stands up, don’t move, just stand where you are. If you can see your footprints in the grass, step on them until you reach the driveway. Don’t wander into the grass.” Five didn’t listen, they stepped into a hunting trap which broke their ankles. They screamed in pain. Flo thought to herself, Shit, now we have to use some of our first aid supplies to fix them up. Flo used her handheld radio, “John, have a problem down here, five stepped into the hunting traps, broke their ankles, we’re going to need some tape and splints.”

  “I’ll send it down to you, do you require other assistance?”

  “I’m OK, condition purple.”

  John nodded his understanding, that purple meant she was OK.

  The crowd had tears in their eyes. One of the women hugs Flo saying, “Thank you for your kindness. Do you mind if we rest here on your driveway for a little while?”

  “No, that’ll be fine, is there anything else we can share with you?”

  “Some bottles so we can carry some water with us.”

  “We can do that, where are you going?”

  “West, towards Memphis, to the Mississippi. There’s good land there, we heard the government set up a few refugee camps on the banks of the Mississippi. We�
��re going there if we can make it.”

  “We hadn’t heard that.”

  “Someone told someone who told one of us, we have no place else to go, so we’re going to the river.”

  “Good luck and God bless you.”

  “Thank you for your kindness.”

  Flo, Matt, and Jill carried two cases of empty plastic bottles to the crowd, which they filled with water from one of our wells. They used the outhouses we’d set up on the edge of our property which we used when we had to go and didn’t want to go back to one of the houses. Three hours after they arrived the last one was gone. A sense of sadness and a sense of relief flowed over us. We met the hordes and they weren’t evil, we shared some of our resources with them. We never learned if they made it to the river, we never heard about any refugee camps. We wonder what happened to the people who wandered past our farms in the early days of the crisis, we wonder if they lived or got caught by the roaming gangs who prey on the refugees. The highwaymen who rob and rape are the worst. We know one day they will find us and the end result is going to be very different than the initial group who came by asking for charity for their children. We know it’s only a matter of time, we don’t know how long it’ll be until they arrive, but we know they’re coming. We’ve heard the HAM reports of the roaming highwaymen who attack anyone they encounter, the gangs who broke out of the cities looking for food and valuables. We got off easy in our first encounter, we know the next won’t be as painless. It seems the roads between the cities are dangerous, the inner cities are death traps. Anyone entering the inner cities, not in a heavily armed group will come under attack, even larger groups are attacked. The cities have deteriorated into active war zones, no one willingly enters them anymore. Tony told us that there’s nothing left of the music center area. Every building was looted and burned until all that remains are the building’s steel skeletons. He said it reminded him of the pictures of Hiroshima. All of us feel a loss of Nashville’s music center. We wonder what happened to most of the country music stars who live just outside Nashville.

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  “Jay, we have a problem.” Said Tony.

  “Add it to the list, it should be number nine hundred and something, sooner or later I get to it.”

  “Jay, cut the bullshit, we have a serious issue. This morning Jack died.”

  Jack was our construction manager, he was overseeing the building of our shelter.

  “What happened?”

  “You know Jack rode his bike everywhere, this morning he rode into a trap, around fifteen punks tied a rope across the road, Jack didn’t see it, he hit the rope, it almost cut him in half, the punks finished him off, they stole his bike.”

  “How do we know this?”

  “One of my men was a few hundred yards behind Jack, by the time he arrived, Jack was already gone.”

  “Shit, I hope Franco can pick up the slack and finish the shelter. Damn it, I’m really going to miss Jack.”

  “Me too.”

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  In order to protect as many people as we can, we rotate people in and out of the shelters and their homes. We usually try to keep 50% of us in one of the shelters, that way some of us will survive in case of a surprise attack. The main shelter turned out to be 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, it’s buried ten feet under our crops. The ventilation pipes are mixed in with our crops, hiding them in plain sight. Most of the interior space is made up of small rooms. The kids share bedrooms sleeping in bunk beds, usually six to eight per room, the adults sleep in rooms that are tiny, usually only 8X9 feet, a couple are only 8X8. Some jail cells are larger, but it was the only way we could give every couple their own room. Storage space in the bedrooms is very limited, each person gets two drawers and a small section of one of the closets. There are also pull out storage under the beds. Most of the bedrooms have windows painted on the walls so we feel like we’re spending time above ground. Every bedroom has reading lights and a ceiling fan to help circulate the air. Body armor, helmets, weapons, and ammo are stored in the armories. Everyone has an armored vest, a helmet and shooting gloves. There is one large kitchen with six restaurant ovens, ranges, and microwaves and there are also four restaurant size dishwashers. Since Tony owned a restaurant, it was easy for him to arrange the kitchen equipment for us. The most popular place in the shelter is the serve-yourself drink station where the coffee machine runs 24/7 and we also have Tony’s soft drink machine for the kids. Most people also liked the self-serve soft ice cream machine, the ex-military called it a dog machine, the rest of us were confused until it was explained to us. There’s a single very large dining room with cafeteria style seating, long tables, and chairs. We try to mix up the seating so everyone gets a chance to sit with everyone else. We don’t want small cliques forming. The main shelter has six small bathrooms and a medical/first aid room which also serves as a small surgical room.

  Every inch of open space in the shelter is filled with supplies. The shelters are connected together with tunnels separated by steel blast doors. We’ve spread the supplies through the different shelters in case one is overrun. This way the people in the others will have a chance to survive. The security room has its own small generator and air supply separate from the other areas. This way if our power is cut the security room will still be operational. The security room has two walls covered with monitors with a server room tucked behind the security room. Every camera and sensor we have are fed into the security room. The room is manned 24 hours a day, usually by two people. Even though the sensors will sound the alarms automatically, we want to have a person in the loop. Our main armory is next to the security shelter. Each shelter has its own armory, the main one is centrally located. We store our extra assault rifles, parts, and ammo in a central location, we have AR15s/M16s/M4s/RPGs/hand grenades/side arms/shotguns and of course ammo. We recently received a present from Tony’s contacts in Miami, four full automatic Thompson submachine guns each came with four 50 round drum magazines. These will be perfect for in close-in combat, as will our 12 gauge shotguns. We have over 400,000 rounds of ammo for each caliber weapon we have. The floor under the armory is filled with 50 caliber steel ammo cans stuffed with ammo. We have cleaning kits and oil so we can keep our weapons in good shape. We’ve also recently completed our goal of acquiring a silencer for each AR/M type rifle. We purchased eight the legal way, we paid the ATF their fee of $200 per silencer, filled out the paperwork and waited four months before our permits and tax stamps arrived. The others we picked up from our contacts in Mexico. In additional to stocking rounds for our weapons, we’ve also stocked 40,000 rounds for AK47s and .308 rifles, plus 5,000 rounds for 40 Cal handgun rounds. We think we’re ready for any extended battle. In addition to the firearms, we have ten crossbows and over 800 bolts. We have these for quiet hunting or just in case we get attacked by zombies. At this point, anything is possible, plus, we got them free so why the hell not stock them?

  I was curious how Tony’s pre-made shelters would work out. I wasn’t sure if large sections of steel culvert pipe would work. I have to admit I’m pleasantly surprised, each came out very nice. I wish they could have delivered when I contacted them, it would have saved us a lot of time and expense. Since each of Tony’s shelters is circular, a floor is laid in each pipe, under each floor is storage space for supplies. We’ve tried to make the shelters more pleasant to live in by painting the walls in light, cheerful colors. We let the kids paint their own bedrooms, and we’ve hung pictures on the walls, all to make living in them feel a little bit like a normal home. While Tony’s are smaller than the main shelter, he has eight of them buried under the farms, all are connected to the main shelter which we use for cooking and eating. While we have completed the shelters, all of us hope we never have to use them. No matter how much we make them like home, we know we’re going to be very crowded and stressed if we have to retreat into them. Retreating to the shelters means we’ve lost the battle for our homes. It means we’re being overrun and have taken losses.
Losses we can’t afford. The shelter is our life insurance. A policy we hope we don’t need. However, as the country falls apart, we know the day is coming when we might have to move into the shelter to save our lives. Many of us worry about how the kids are going to handle living in the shelter for a long period of time.

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  The third week of October began with beautiful fall weather, sunny, dry, temperatures in the mid-60s. It was perfect weather for us to harvest our crops and start canning them as soon as they were out of the ground. We began the harvest with the farthest acreage. As soon as the crops were harvested, the soil is turned and our fall/winter crops are planted. Thanks to almost perfect summer weather our crop looked to be a record breaker enabling us to survive for another couple of years. Farmers know not to get overly optimistic. One season’s good weather usually meant the next was piss poor. We all knew our luck couldn’t hold out forever. The country had broken apart into sections. While we still had a central government in Washington D.C. they were further removed from reality than ever before. None of the states or locals paid D.C. any attention. They passed laws and rules all trying to centrally manage an economy that had fallen apart. No amount of income redistribution was going to fix this flat tire. We were done. Banks were open only five hours a week, (one hour a day, Monday-Friday) even then, they were empty. Barter replaced cash and credit transactions. Credit was what one person was willing to extend to another, usually based on how well each party knew the other and the number of transactions completed with each other over the previous few months. Credit cards disappeared, their only use was as pocket ice scrapers in the Northern States. As the Federal Government became more useless, the states and in many cases the local community governments became only government most people followed. Many areas set up their own government, which covered the spectrum from warlord to full democracy where everyone had a vote on everything. In our case, Tony and I tended to make the important decisions together that affected our community. We won the right to decide due to us investing in the infrastructure to bring everyone together, provide the shelters and most of the supplies. This isn’t to say we didn’t seek advice from the community. In order to keep the peace, we tried to hold weekly full community meetings so everyone could discuss our plans and major decisions. In order to keep everyone up to date and share news, we tried to gather at my house or in the main shelter’s dining area to share drinks, coffee, and talk. With each of us being so busy, this allowed us to get together and share news and exchange thoughts.