The End of America

by Pete Thorsen

  Joe would also take a pack with some gear so if necessary he could ditch the cycle and return on foot overland avoiding the roads. Gus told him of three ‘friendlies’ he could contact and who might give him assistance and/or information.

  Gus would not let Joe write down the names or addresses, he had to memorize them in case he was caught or killed so the friends would still be safe. When they had everything hashed out Joe left the next morning.

  He easily got through the rock slide and then tied some brush on a rope to drag behind to hide his tracks. When he got to the paved road he left the rope and brush to use on the return trip. He stopped near the summit of each hill and carefully peered over the top with binoculars to check the road ahead. Joe continued until he was fairly close to town. He had gone past many places but so far he had seen no one. He rode to the first of Gus’s contacts and rode right up to the place. He wanted to hide the cycle and sneak up to the house but the land was wide open here so he just did a bold approach.

  Joe knew it was the right house from Gus’s description but no one was home when he knocked on the door. He then tried the door and found it unlocked and went inside. The house was indeed empty and the closets and dressers were still full of clothes. There were a couple gun racks on the wall in one room that were empty (though might have been empty for years) and one place in the open kitchen/living room there was a small amount of what could be dried blood on the floor. No sign of a fight or an orderly evacuation either one, the people were just gone. A quick check in the cupboards found no food at all.

  Joe left the place as he found it and rode to his next stop on the remembered list. That stop produced the same results as the first stop, door unlocked, no people, and no food. Then it was on to his last stop on the list and this one was different.

  Coming up on the place it looked more like an operating ranch. Joe could see some horses and a few head of cattle from the road and what appeared to be a working windmill. This place was the farthest from town of the three.

  At this place Joe had the option of hiding the cycle in some brush fairly close to the road and he did so. From there he made a large circle around and approached the ranch from the side instead of from the front. There was a wash or dry creek bed and he used this to help hide his approach as far as he could. Then he watched the place for awhile to see what he could see.

  After watching about a half hour or so he had seen only one man and one woman doing what he assumed were just everyday chores on a small ranch. So he stood up and climbed out of the wash and walked towards the shed he had last saw the man walk into. When he got close to the shed he did not try to enter instead he just spoke in a normal voice.

  “Hello the house. I would like a friendly conversation.”

  The man slowly stepped out from the door of the shed. He had what appeared to be an old twenty two rifle pointed at Joe’s chest.

  “There isn’t much friendly conversation left anymore.”

  “Gus said that you might be a little cranky.”

  “You staying at that old beat up place in the hills with Gus?”

  “You know very well Gus doesn’t stay at that place. But I am staying in that nice basin with him, yes.”

  “I would expect Gus to come here by himself instead of sending someone I didn’t know.”

  “This is just a little recon and I happened to have a small motorcycle that filled the need for this job so I was elected. Gus also said to remind you about Twenty Nine Palms whatever that is supposed to mean. ”

  The man looked at Joe a bit and then set the rifle just inside the shed.

  “Come on up to the house and sit a spell.”

  The two men walked up to the house and went inside.

  “My name is Joe.”

  “I expect Gus told you I’m Harry and this is my wife Matty. Would you like a glass of water?”

  “Yes water would be great. So what’s happening? We have been holed up for a month or better and we decided to see what is going on out in the world.”

  “It’s all bad out here. A smart man would stay holed up and stay quiet if he knew what was good for him the way things are now.”

  “We all guessed things were bad but none of us feel right about hiding with our tails between our legs. If things are bad we will likely try to set them back right again.”

  “I admire your thinking but it will be a tall order and a very tough order to fill. The feds have taken over most everything. There was no way to fight them. They just drove in here with a Bradley and left the other rigs out near the road but within our sight.

  They said come out of the house unarmed or they would just open up with the cannon. When nothing happened right away they sent a burst into one of our sheds. So we came out with our hands in the air. There was nothing we could do against the armor and that twenty five millimeter cannon would have cut the house in half in just a couple of seconds.”

  “So you are still here and healthy. What happened?”

  “They asked what we did for a living and I told them we raise beef cattle. They asked a bunch more questions then did a very thorough search of the house taking all the guns and ammunition. After that they said we could stay at the ranch and asked when I would have cattle ready to ship, about how many, and if I would require additional manpower for the round up and if so how many and what date should the manpower show up. He wrote everything down and that was about it. I got the impression that if I had not been an actual working rancher I would have been either killed or hauled away to become ‘additional manpower’ for someone else.”

  “Do you know where they take people or where they are based?”

  “No I don’t know anything about what is going on. The questioning was a mite one-sided you might say. It often is that way when one side has all the guns pointed at the other side whom are not armed. Besides the Bradley they did have at least two Humvees that had mounted machine guns.”

  “Thank you for talking to me. I’ll report back with what I do know and we will decide what we are going to do next.”

  “From what I saw you can either stay where you are hidden or you can come out and just get dead. Good luck with either one you decide on.”

  “Thanks again and good luck to you also.”

  With the conversation done Joe just walked directly to his motorcycle and headed back to his home.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  One evening after supper Ike was fooling with one of the radios and heard the tones for an ‘emergency’ broadcast. He turned it up so all of them could hear what was coming.

  “This announcement is from the United States Department of Homeland Security. We are now in the city of Pittsburgh with additional assets arriving daily. We will soon start going door-to-door throughout the city and the surrounding area.

  We will be checking on local citizens and in some cases transporting citizens to established Security Centers for their safety and comfort. While we will be working diligently at this but it will still take some time to reach all the people in this area. Please just stay in your homes and we will come to you. As I am sure most of you know the President has implemented Martial Law throughout the United States.

  Travel is restricted and we have road blocks and check points on most roads and highways. There is a dusk-to-dawn curfew and this will be strictly enforced. No looting will be tolerated.

  We will be distributing some food in this area and to assist in that we will be checking area homes for hoarding. Hoarding food will not be allowed and the food will be distributed evenly to all residents.”

  Everyone in the room sat in stunned silence for some time. It was a nightmare come true for all of them. They all tried to think through the ramifications of what they had just heard on the radio. Ron started the conversation.

  “We might as well all start thinking out loud so we can think this all through. Go through our options, weigh the pluses and minuses to any actions we might take. I would guess we might have a week or more before they wou
ld show up here but there is no way to predict that at all.

  We could maybe think of some way to hide some of our food but if we tried to hide it and they then found it that could be bad for all of us.”

  “I suppose we could just let them come in and take all of our food but they made it sound like we would then be charged with some kind of a crime.”

  “I wonder how they decide who will be ‘transported’ to the Security Centers. Do they take all the able-bodied men or take all the women? What about kids?”

  “You can be very sure that when they search for food they will also search for any weapons and take every one of those. And again if guns are found it would likely be cause for imprisonment at best.”

  “When they come here and see our security enhancements to this house they will not view us as common sheeple. My guess is some or all of us will be transported to the Security Center or just shot. I think it is for their security not ours.”

  “So yes or no. Total submission is out?”

  Everyone agreed that total submission was not a viable option at all.

  “That leaves at least three options. Run or fight or hide just like my dad said it would come down to.”

  “If we fight we will lose but we will go down fighting. If that is any consolation when you are dead.”

  “It sounds like they expect some people to try to run and have already taken steps to prevent that from happening. Running from here we would have to go past countless other homes and really where would we go?

  Would we go on foot or try to take the vehicles? Leave at night or during the day? Sounds like they will just open fire on anyone who breaks the curfew. And if they have any thermo-imaging equipment you could never hide at night.”

  “One thing we should do is check during the night while we are here and see if we can tell if they have patrols out and if they have air support. Though if they are using high drones we would never hear or see them.”

  “Even the local cops had some of the thermo-image stuff so I would think these feds would sure have it also. I really don’t see any option of any kind where we survive together or apart either for that matter.”

  “Let’s not be totally negative. There has to be an out. Plus we have some time so we can keep thinking and maybe come up with a plan.”

  “I have a plan where there are two chances for us to survive. Neither chance is very good.”

  “Well let’s hear it.”

  “We burn the house and at least one vehicle.”

  “OK, you got our undivided attention with that statement but I hope there is more to your plan.”

  “We move at least one vehicle into the front yard and shoot it full of holes and start it on fire. We also start the house on fire but only in front and no more than we can safely put out. But it has to look bad so we might need to start it and burn more a couple times. The whole point is to make the place look un-livable and vacant. That is the first part of the plan, the object of it is if it looks bad enough then when DHS comes they glance at the house and move on without coming inside.”

  “I see where that could possibly work and if it did we would be safe. What is the second part of the plan?”

  “We have two rigs loaded and backed up near the back door and if they come to check the house anyway we high tail it out the back and make a run for it.”

  “We could lay out all those nail boards I had made up to slow anyone down that were walking up towards the house. I would say if we do this plan and they advance towards the house anyway we all blast away with everything we have to slow them down and maybe cut down on the number that would be chasing us.”

  “I say we do this plan because it gives us a slim chance that we might not have to fight or run.”

  “I agree. We do this plan and hope for the best.”

  “OK, I agree we do this plan. Ike, it’s your idea so I assume you’re in favor of it?”

  “I think it is a very poor plan but it was all I could think of. If we have nothing else we might as well try it but we should all keep thinking and maybe one of us will come up with something better hopefully.”

  That night they set-up watches all night to see if the DHS had patrols out and they listened carefully for any planes or copters that would indicate air patrols. None were seen or heard. The next day they picked the sacrifice vehicle that they would burn in front and backed the two rigs they would have loaded and ready near the back door. They then loaded the two vehicles in back and waited two additional days.

  On the third night they shot up the sacrifice vehicle and started it on fire. At the same time they started the house on fire in two different spots but had a couple of garden hoses ready to fight the house fire. They let it burn some and put out one of the fires easily so they let the other fire burn a little longer. The second fire almost got away from them but with the two hoses they finally got it out completely.

  The car they just let burn and it was still smoking the next morning. No one was allowed to go outside now because it had to look vacant. The following night they spread out all the nail boards that Ron had made up and covered them lightly with debris. In the light of the moon the house looked un-livable and un-safe to even enter.

  They all hoped it was enough. They had their best rifles all loaded and ready. They had the two getaway vehicles loaded and ready. They had went over maps of the area until all four of them were well versed in where they would go, where they would meet if they got separated, what route they would use if they had to ditch the vehicles, who would drive and who would be literally riding shotgun. Now all they could do was wait.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  It was only two days later that Jason decided to run. In the morning he found some fairly small but very strong magnets. He put two in his pockets. Later in the afternoon when in an apartment he found some camping gear and a little food and even some cans of soda. He loaded a backpack with everything he thought worthwhile. Then he loaded the second backpack with more stuff. He left them both and continued working. When he found some tape he knew that today was the day and put the tape with the backpacks.

  By the time they were about done with the building it was late in the afternoon. On what Jason thought was going to be their last load he told his partner he had a good plan and was going to escape right now. He said he had it setup for two people. His partner was too afraid to try it and Jason had expected that answer. They were in a bedroom and Jason was standing in the only doorway blocking his partner’s escape. Jason had a cane he had found already in his hand and quickly struck his partner repeatedly.

  Then Jason moved quickly to the backpacks and first securely taped both magnets to his back over the chip putting the remaining tape in the pack. Then putting on the first backpack he made his way down and out the back of the building and ran. The pack wasn’t very heavy and Jason was quite strong and he ran and ran. They had been working street by street in this area and Jason knew where two guns were hidden in this area.

  He wasted no time and retrieved both guns and put them in his pack. One of the guns had two boxes of ammunition next to it that Jason assumed would fit that particular gun. He did not waste time now doing anything with the guns other than just taking them with; he wanted to get as much distance as possible away from where he started running.

  He knew the troopers would radio for help and Jason thought they might have a drone so after running for about twenty minutes or so he found a likely building to hole up in. Even if the drone could not track him with the chip it could likely still see him running so it would be logical to hide and rest. He picked a building that had a basement level so there would be a better chance to hide his thermo signature from the searchers. Jason went to the center of the basement in a room with all cement walls, sat down, opened a soda and ate some of his food. When done he laid down and promptly went to sleep.

  Jason woke up still alive and free which he thought was a good start for a morning. Today his plan was to go to some of the cache
s of food he had made to build his food and water supplies. Then he was going to try to get out of Chicago. This might be a very tricky and dangerous undertaking. He assumed that the military had additional security centers scattered throughout the whole city and likely the suburbs too. Plus almost for sure there would be road block/check points on roads leaving the city and possible roving patrols.

  But he sure could not stay here. The work crews were stripping the whole city of any food that was left so there would be no food for him to scavenge. Jason hoped he could find some in un-searched areas on his way out of town. No matter what at least he was free, even though he was a hunted man and if spotted he would be shot on sight. That day he collected the food he had stashed and again slept in a basement but this time he dragged a mattress down from a room above and slept in comfort for the first time since this all began.

  The days that followed were all the same he walked everyday always south or west and did quick searches in buildings for food or water. He found enough to eat and even build on his supply slightly. He had to replace the tape holding the magnets on his back many times. He thought he could likely get by leaving the magnets off but so far he had not taken the chance.

  He found a sporting goods store that was totally looted but did contain a couple books about guns. Jason read the books by candle light at night and he learned many things about guns and learned how to load and fire one of the pistols he had found. He felt much better now with a loaded gun that he knew how to shoot. He was afraid to try it as he knew it would be loud and could be heard for quite some distance.

  But if necessary he would shoot. He had seen some military vehicles but they never saw him. He was out of the city itself but still in the sprawling suburbs. He was very careful approaching these houses because there could maybe still be someone living in them but when inside he searched them more thoroughly.

  He found many useful things and often exchanged things in his pack. The pack was fairly heavy now but he was strong and soon became used to the weight of the pack. He did have several pistols at one point but got rid of all but one that he plenty of ammunition to fit.