by J. B. Craig
“I will give all of the eggs to Ethyl, Jefe.” Said Esteban, guiltily, “But I had chickens when I was a Niño, and always loved feeding them. I can find food for the chicken in the fields outside.”
Greg’s deaf parent gave him a gift – the gift of calling BS. He could usually smell a lie like a fart in a car. He saw Manuel’s eyes dart up and to the left when he talked about the eggs. “10 bullets for 10 eggs, huh? So you traded 20 bullets for 20 eggs, is what you’re telling me. Is that right, Este?” Greg looked at Esteban, who couldn’t meet his eyes. Greg looked back at Manuel. “Is that right?”
Manuel looked at Greg and couldn’t keep up the charade. “OK, Jefe. OK. It was 20 bullets for 2 dozen eggs. But Este and me – we haven’t had any eggs for a long time. She hard-boiled 4 for us, and offered us old bay to sprinkle on them. We each eat two. Scavenging is hard work, Jefe,” Manuel blushed, in shame. Este hung his head and walked away. Manuel added, “I think she like me, Jefe. She did not offer Old Bay to anyone else. I was being friendly eating those eggs.” Manuel smiled, with a twinkle in his eye. I did this off shift, Amigo.
“You’ve been working hard, Manuel. You too, Este. Don’t sweat it. You get to take some of what you find, that’s the rules of salvage. But there’s no need to lie to me, Hermano. We all have to eat. Especially that big one over there!” Esteban laughed out loud and smiled at Greg. The guys learned a valuable lesson that day – Don’t B.S. Greg, and they wouldn’t get called out. Greg had established a little more loyalty on this day.
Hidden Treasures
One day in May, Greg was digging further into the recesses of the Grandparents house on Seahawk Circle after sleeping a beautiful 6 whole hours. He was digging into a fairly empty closet in the back-left corner of the bedroom. It had very little in it. A few jackets and fishing shirts, along with some too-small shoes that he would bring to the community center for someone who fit a size 10. He also went through the hallway pantry, looking for canned food, as he wanted to eat something, anything, without the eyes of the community on him. He found a can of spaghetti O’s, and a packet of microwave mac & cheese tucked in at the back of the top shelf. While he didn’t have a microwave, he had a meal.
“Hey Jennifer, how about dinner at home tonight? I bet Annie could be convinced to eat some Spaghetti-O’s?”
“Pisketti!!!!” Yelled Annie from the living room.
“I guess that’s a yes, Greg. Where’d you find that?”, asked Jennifer.
“Top shelf. I needed to get the step-ladder. It’s a little expired, but who’s counting during the apocalypse. I’ll go see if Ethyl has any stuff to go with it. She’ll understand our wanting to have some time alone with Annie.”
A few hours later, they had cooked a decent dinner consisting of perch fillets in Mac & Cheese sauce, spaghetti-O’s that went mostly to Annie, some Kudzu and baby lettuce in an olive oil, vinegar and dried herb dressing, and one warm Coke, split 3 ways, along with some boiled rain water.
“I can’t believe you found this on the top shelf. I’ve looked in that closet a dozen times.”
“Tall man strong and creative!” Greg blustered
Jennifer laughed, then added “I wonder what else is in this house. Any other surprises?”
“Well, Pop did work for NSA. I’m sure he had lots of secrets. The family always talked about treasures that nobody could find after Pop died. Even Grandma didn’t know where he kept things like his guns and gold, even though she knew he had both. I suspect the aunts and uncles each thought someone else ‘acquired them’ but were too nice to ask. None of them are like that, though. I bet he’s got a stash somewhere… “, Greg trailed off.
“Jen. Follow me, like physically and metaphorically. I have an idea.” They got up from the table, set Annie on the floor of the living room to play with her coloring book – the last one they got from the “school” library.
“Follow this thinking. See THAT wall - the one behind the wood stove?”
“Uh, Yeah. It’s right in front of me!” She sounded sarcastic, but when he looked at her, she was smiling her 10,000-watt smile.
“OK – This closet where I found the food is part of that wall, right?”
“Still not blonde, Greg. Keep talking.”
Greg laughed out loud, and swatted her on the ass. “That’s for being a smart ass. Now… come into my bedroom.”
“Pervert – You have your room, and I have mine, remember?”
“Yeah, just come on in here for a second. We’ll leave the door open if you need it, although you’d probably kick my ass if I made a move. So, come in here and look in THAT closet. I was going through it today and wondered why it wasn’t just a rectangle. See that cut-in? I thought it was for cleaning the stove or something, but the stove clean-out is in the cellar.”
“Yep, I see it. Still have no idea why we’re in your room, other than the obvious reason – and the answer is still NO, even if you are getting cute as you lose weight!”
“Stay with me, horny woman. THIS wall, at the back of the closet, is the other side of the fireplace stone wall, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Makes sense. What’s your point?”
“My point is, the closet is 2 feet deep and 2 feet wide. The hallway one is the same. That means that 6 feet of space behind the bed, times 2 feet deep, and 10 feet high, are unaccounted for. That’s 120 cubic feet of storage area. You could put a lot of stuff in that much space. I’m hoping that Pop’s history with hunger during the depression, and the NSA sneaky stuff he did at work may help us out. Let’s get a pry-bar or some hammers.
As Greg stood looking at the wall, the first thing he did was move the bed away from the wall, hoping for something behind the headboard. No luck there. Before Greg started banging on the wall, he wanted to respect the family, and take down the pictures over the bed.
The solution came to Greg when he tried to remove the pictures. They were in frames nailed to the wall. The frames weren’t hanging on nails or screws, they were nailed into the paneling behind them. They were access panels!
Greg and Jennifer used a pry bar and hammer to lift the picture frame/trim off of the wall, and it took the picture and paneling behind it with it. In a few minutes, they were looking at 2 holes in the wall, about 6 feet up, and almost 2 feet square.
“I’m going to get a candle,” said Jennifer, who ran out of the room. Greg got on the step stool and looked into the holes. He could see the brick of the fireplace vent filling the space between the holes, but he could also see hints of treasures between the fireplace.
The next few awkward minutes were spent with Jennifer standing next to Greg, holding a flaming candle next to his face while he looked around at the gifts from Pop. They settled on a short boat-hook from the shed and pulled out everything back there. Lying on the bed was Greg’s “inheritance” from Pop.
First, there was a German-era Browning 12 gauge semi-automatic. This “Goose gun” was a long-barreled 12 Ga that, once loaded was just “pull the trigger” fast. It wasn’t a pump, or a lever action, but a fast-shooter. Greg tried to load it, and it only took 3 rounds in the tube, which didn’t make sense to Greg. He removed the cap on the tube, and the loading spring popped out, with a plug. Pop had a hunting plug in, because in many areas, 3 shots are all you are allowed. “Well, we don’t have to worry about Game wardens!” Greg shouted, as he tossed the plug, and was able to load 6 rounds of buck-shot into the tube, chamber one, and then add 1 more, for a total capacity of 7 rounds of 2 ¾ inch 12-gauge heaven. The peninsula just added very formidable stopping power to its Army!
Pop had 2 ammo cans full of 12 Ga. One was buckshot, and one was full of slugs. Both were magnum shells, with the expanded brass on the bottom to deliver more punch. While only good out to about 50 yards with buck shot accuracy, the slug put the range out to more like 100 yards.
There was another weapon, farther down in the wall. It looked like a short-barreled rifle, or SBR. When Greg hooked it, and pulled it up, he found that it was,
technically, a pistol. It was a CZ Scorpion 9mm pistol with a “wrist stabilizer” where a rifle’s stock would be. This was a work-around to SBR laws, in that it was made to wrap around a forearm, and be shot one-handed, but could be shouldered, even if some said that it was illegal to do so, because shouldering it made it an SBR. This theory was silly, because holding a hammer head to ones shoulder doesn’t make it a rifle stock. That said, it was a nice close-quarters weapon. It came with a sling, and a 30-round magazine, shooting the same 9mm ammo that Greg’s Glock 19 did.
Looking back in the hole, Greg hooked an old Crown Royal bag. This was the big, half-gallon bottle bag. He pulled it up, and it was heavy. It had about 100 loose rounds of 9mm in it, and another loaded 30-round magazine, with 2 more loaded 20-round magazines for the Scorpion. He smiled at Ginger. “This is our new home-defense weapon!” It stays with us, whenever we are near Annie. It will throw 30 rounds pretty accurately, and can hang from our shoulders, easily staying out of the way. It’s not as easy to carry as, say, my .40, but holds a lot more, so we’ll keep it here in the house. If we ever get cornered, it’ll allow us to blast someone through these thin doors.”
There was another, lighter ammo can in the storage space. This had various silver “proof sets” of coins, from the 50’s to the early 70’s, when quarters and dimes were still made of silver. This container also had several rolls of Morgan silver dollars, and even a half-dozen gold-ounces in either American Eagle or Canadian Maple leaf. These would come in handy for trading in the future. The several thousand dollars in cash rolled up wouldn’t be so useful now, but might be at some point in the future.
“I remember Pop being all fired up about the Y2K bug back in the late 90’s. I was working in computers at the time, and I made a fortune doing consulting for a few dozen firms that didn’t have an IT guy, but worried about their systems crashing, and possible grid-down talk. This could be from those days. Because he was alive during the depression, he saved everything, and said that he’d never go through hunger like he felt in the 1930’s.”
Jen picked up a few flags, and asked “What are these for?”
“Those are Semaphore flags. For signing letters between ships at large distances. I don’t know how it works, but it’s all about arm position. A Navy buddy of mine was a signalman, and was so good, he could spell and read almost as quickly as typing.”
“Well,” Smiled Jen, “here’s a quick chart on how to do it! I don’t know what we’ll do with one set of flags, but we should list it among our assets.” She winked at Greg and her reference to one of their favorite movies, the Princess Bride.
Later, Greg sat on the back deck, cleaning and checking the Browning. Jen was off at her old house, now the community school, teaching math to the kids. The mindlessness of cleaning the gun allowed Greg to remember all the times he would ask Leigh, and make Maria and Jared help with cleaning guns after they went to the range. When Greg shot alone, he didn’t always clean the guns after each shooting. A pistol like his Glock, safe and sound in the holster mounted behind his bedside table at home could easily fire 500 or more rounds between cleanings. After all, their advertising line of “Glock, Perfection” was not far from the truth. They fired every time you pulled the trigger, unless you put in crappy ammo, and even then, they fired almost every time unless you tricked them out with competition triggers, which Greg always did.
That said, Greg wanted to instill in his girls, son, and any other guests he brought to the gun club, the practice of shooting, then cleaning. It also created a familiarity with how the guns worked mechanically, while also getting users familiar with how to easily break-down and re-assemble the weapons. Despite some initial push-back, once they were sitting around a table with a protective towel over it, they had some pretty good times cleaning barrels with CLP (Clean, Lubricate, Protect) oil and giving each other crap about how their own gun was cleaner than Greg’s. He missed his son and those girls, and missed the non-stop ribbing they gave each other, all in fun and love. Truth be told, his son always got the guns the cleanest. His Engineering training, and attention to detail meant that he was also the family gunsmith, since he would experiment and take them apart farther than what “field maintenance” called for.
He remembered how Maria rolled her eyes when he brought home the Ruger Mark IV 22-45 Lite semi-auto target pistol, with a Site-Mark red dot. Her first words were “That looks a lot harder to clean than my revolver, Dad.” She rolled her eyes and grumbled about another gun until he took her to the range, and she first used the red-dot sight on it. After that, she never complained about the cleaning, even though it was a lot tougher, and more necessary to keep clean than her Blackhawk revolver. He hoped she was keeping her guns clean now, and hoped his wife and son would come down the driveway any day. His daughter lived closer to the extended family in Maryland, so she would show up with an army of cousins, Aunts and Uncles first – he hoped. He knew it was a long shot, but he had to keep his hope alive.
June
About 2 months into the end of the world, Greg woke up to one bell from across the harbor. Greg looked across the harbor, and saw 2 men talking on the sand bar, with who could only be Esteban covering from the trees. It looked like someone was handing one of Greg’s guards a weapon, so it was indeed just a 1-ring alert. About 5 minutes later, Greg was geared up and headed out when Angel knocked on Greg’s door. Greg had been on guard duty the night before and had heard more than the usual shooting sounds coming across the water. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but knew that someone had a really bad night. The residents still alive in Rock Harbor were about done listening to the single, or 2 gunshots of those that decided to end their own lives, rather than die from lack of medicine, or food.
At the door Greg saw Angel, who was in charge for the first shift, with Les, the “biker” from the first night at the airplane crash in his canoe on day one. Les looked less than at his best. His leather vest was dirty with either mud or dried blood, (it turned out to be both) and his shoulders were slumped. He looked the opposite of the confident, self-sufficient biker that he did when they were surveying the plane wreck.
“Greg, I didn’t know what house y’all lived in, but I remember you from E-Day. That’s what we folks in Beasley Point call the day that the EMP happened, or the day we lost electricity. I’m glad to see that you’re doing OK, and you’ve got a pretty darn good security perimeter here in Rock. I wish we had done the same in Beasley Point. Those assholes from the Homeowners association didn’t do anything but divide us. Some wanted us to all share food, others hoarded, and nobody got their shit together for mutual defense. Now most of those idiots are dead, and … my wife was killed.” He paused to wipe a few tears from his face, then continued, “Can I come in? If you had a drink of anything, I’d appreciate it – it was a long night.” The bloody wound over his ear made that pretty clear.
Angel looked at Greg while carrying a strange hunting rifle over his shoulder. “Greg, this man gave up his gun with no complaint. I don’t like to take it but you know rules, Jefe. If you cool, I give it back, OK? If he shoot you with it, then maybe we get more time off.” He laughed. “If you trust him, then I give it back, OK? Then he can keep you safe – because you shoot for shit, Amigo!”, Angel smiled as he said it. This was based on the few rounds of ammunition the community was able to spare for the Guard’s target practice the previous month. It’s true, Greg was not a great shot. That’s one reason he joined the Combat Engineers in the army. Close is good enough in horse shoes, and more importantly, demolitions!
“Angel – Go back to making frijoles or something, amigo…” Greg smiled, sure that Angel knew he was kidding, as all soldiers do with each other. “Giving a Piss” was a world-wide phenomenon among veterans of different branches, or just guys in bars in general. Appreciation was expressed by how hard a time you gave your friend. “We’ve got this. Gracias, Angel, por bringing my visitor. I’ve got him from here. Come on in, Les. Let’s go out on the back deck. I have a b
ottle of Pappy that I’ve been saving, and this is a rare, if sad occasion.”
Les took a seat on one of the plastic recliners that Greg had found in a nearby house. He looked longingly across the Nomini to his own community, and Greg could see some signs of smoke coming from the area, miles away. Greg poured 2 fingers of Pappy Van Winkle from a freshly cracked bottle. Not even his thirst would have made him crack it shy of an emergency.
“Over there,” Les pointed at the smoke column about 4 houses from the point. “That’s where I lost her. Those assholes from the HOA wouldn’t get their shit together, and so I was keeping watch by the entrance to the community by myself. I heard motorcycles coming and was behind a picnic table that I turned on its side. I had my trusty M1 Garand with me. It served me in Korea and continues to be one hell of a gun.
“The sound of the motorcycles masked whoever came up behind me and bashed me on the side of my head. That’s the sum total of my memory of the battle. For whatever reason, I’m guessing that they thought I was dead or they left me for later and joined their brothers. Lesson 1, Greg – They send scouts ahead on foot, and this one was quiet to sneak up on me. He was close enough that he could rush me when the motorcycles came in.