by Pete Thorsen
“Thank you. That would be very kind of you. I’ll be OK here or I can help you if you wish.”
“No Ma’am. I’ll take care of it. Is that you car right outside here?”
“Yes, the keys are in it if you want to use it.”
“Ok I will. It is going to take me a little while I get everything ready. At least a couple hours. If you would like please lay down. You have been through an awful lot. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
I loaded her husband and drove to the cemetery (I had been to a funeral there a few months ago) and unloaded him when I got there. I then looked and found a building where the lawn equipment was kept and there was a small backhoe in there also. It took a little while for me to get the backhoe running and a few minutes to figure out how it worked because I had never used one before.
I just drove it to a likely spot and through trial and error I was able to dig a reasonable grave for the man. There was a funeral home nearby and I went there and broke in and found some caskets. I tried several and took the lightest one and dragged it outside. I was able to lash it to the bucket on the backhoe and I placed it in the grave I had dug.
Then I got the man and put him in the casket without unwrapping him. The man had been shot in the head so the wife should not look at him again. When things were ready I drove back to the motor home and again knocked before I went in. The woman was still on the couch but now was sleeping. I went up front and as quietly as possible I started the rig and drove slowly to the cemetery.
When I got there I gently woke the woman and told her things were ready then led her out to the grave. I just stepped back and let her spend a few last minutes at the grave and when she turned away and went back in the motor home and I refilled the grave using the backhoe. I never expected to be doing any of this stuff today. But I am happy that I at least found someone else that is alive even though I had to shoot one of them.
So I drove the motor home away from the cemetery for a change of scenery for the woman and parked in a parking lot. Turning to the woman he said “My name is Thaddeus Olson but everyone calls me Tad. I’ll make us a quick dinner if that’s OK with you.”
“I’m Kimberly Nelson. And dinner is fine but I not sure I’m very hungry.”
I busied myself in the kitchen making just a quick microwave meal for us. Kim did eat and we kinda became more comfortable with each other with the small talk during our dinner. Kim and her husband Bill had a house on the edge of Sedona. That is where they had stayed after the nukes went off. Their house was stone and cement with a walkout basement.
They had stayed in an interior basement room with two cement walls between them and the outside. She thought they had both gotten moderate radiation poisoning with her husband getting a much worse case. He had never let her leave the ‘safe’ room though he had done so several times to get things they needed. She had no intention on going back to her old home because she did not want to face it alone.
Kim thought my idea of using a motor home was a great one. It had all the comforts just like before the war. I told her she was welcome to come with me because I was going to find a house and equip it with as many conveniences as possible for the very long cold winter that I expected was ahead of us. Kim said she thought it was already way colder than normal and we had both had heard of ‘nuclear winter’.
I told her I had read some about it when war looked likely and one to three years of colder winters were to be expected but all the scientists were just guessing. I said I was going to collect a lot of food, propane, and maybe firewood. Any house I picked would also be set up with running water. I told her I was actually heading south farther when I met her to start searching for a suitable house because I thought time was critical and likely a lot of work would have to be done to get ready.
Kim said she would accompany me for now but might decide to strike off on her own. I told her that was certainly reasonable and that I sure could use the help as long as she wanted to be partners. If she wanted to leave at any point we could split any goods we had gathered fifty-fifty. We could also pick up another motor home so she could leave in comfort if she decided to do so later.
We even shook on the deal and Kim asked if I would drive to her car because she had a bag in it with some clothes and gear. We stayed in Sedona that night. Kim stayed in the rear bedroom and I used the couch. It was still pretty comfortable and I would have slept on the roof just to have another person around to talk to.
The next morning I told her I wanted to stop in Camp Verde because I thought there was at least one survivor there and hoped to meet them. I could see that Kim was hesitant from her last meeting with a survivor but did not argue about it. I drove right back to the grocery store and honked the horn in the parking lot when I stopped.
I took my trusty shotgun and explained to Kim about the dog situation and that’s why I had the shotgun. Kim asked me to please teach her to shoot as soon as possible and I quickly agreed because it would be safer for both of us if she could back me up.
We entered the grocery store together and I saw that my sign had been moved. Then I had a suspicion and loudly said “Please come out and meet us. We are friendly and mean you no harm. We will not hurt you in any way. Please just come out and talk to us.”
Kim caught the hint and also said “It is only the two of us and we would like to meet more friends. Come out now or we will just leave you here by yourself.”
We waited a few minutes and then heard something from the rear of the store. After a bit we thought we heard footsteps approaching. Then a young girl walked out slowly where we could see her and stopped. Kim took a small step toward her, bent down, and said “Hi honey. Are you here all by yourself? Please can we be friends?”
The girl said nothing and just stared at us for a few moments then ran to Kim and hugged her tight as she started crying. Kim carried the girl and started to walk outside to the motor home. When the girl saw that they were heading to the door she started screaming to stop.
Kim held the girl tight and walked back into the store farther away from the doors. I thought I might know what the problem was and said “Is it the dogs? Is that what is outside that you are afraid of?”
The girl just nodded her head yes and clung tightly to Kim. I told her “I’ll go outside and look for them. Then I’ll drive right up to the door with our big motor home. You can run into the motor home and I will not let any dog even look at you. I promise.”
So I left and went outside. I did look around carefully for any dogs and walked to the motor home and drove it as close as I could to the store’s front door. Then I walked back in and told them it was now safe outside and it was only a couple steps to the safety of the motor home.
The girl looked scared but said or did nothing when Kim carried her out the door and into the motor home. With the door shut firmly behind them the little girl seemed to realize she was safe now and finally released the death grip she had on Kim the whole time. We all sat down on the couch and Kim asked her if she would like a nice cold glass of milk.
“You have milk and its cold?”
“Yes. This man’s name is Tad and he found some special milk that is not sour and has it in his refrigerator. Would you like some?”
“Yes please. My name is Mia. Can I stay with you?”
“My name is Kim and we would be very happy if you would stay with us for as long as you want.”
Kim grabbed a glass and poured Mia a glass of the shelf stable milk that I had found and stocked in the motor home. It could be kept without refrigeration for a year or more and only when opened did you need to put it in the refrigerator. Mia looked happy to see the milk and did not hesitate to drink it when Kim set it in front of the girl.
“Are you all alone here?”
“Yes. My dad got very sick and his hair and teeth fell out then he died. My mom and I had been living in our basement for a long time. After my dad died we drove to the grocery store and we were staying there because there was plenty
of food for us. Then my mom said she was going to next door to get a few things from that store we could use.
The store was locked and my mom broke the door and it made a lot of noise. She did not want me to walk on the broken glass so she told me to go wait for her in the grocery store. I was in the grocery store when I heard my mom scream and I could see a bunch of dogs were biting her and I didn’t know what to do. I heard my mom yell for me to stay inside and the dogs kept biting her. I couldn’t help her and I couldn’t watch either. It was so awful.”
The girl started crying again and Kim just held her for a long time. When she quieted I said “Remember when I was here a couple days ago. I shot and killed a bunch of dogs that day. We are not going to stay here in this town though. You can stay with us and I promise to protect you. Will you help Kim and I pick out a nice house for all of us to live in?”
“You will let me help pick it out?”
“Of course you have to help pick it out if you are going to live there with us. That’s only fair. But you have to help us get the house ready for winter and we have to go get all of us some nice winter clothes and maybe pick out some games we can play over winter too.”
“When are we going to pick a house?”
“We are leaving right now. How’s that?”
With that statement I got in the driver’s seat and headed out of the town. On the edge of town I remembered a Dollar General store so I drove there and all of us went inside and Kim and Mia picked out some clothes and several other things like tooth brushes and what-not. I also grabbed several flashlights and batteries that were handy in the darkened store and would be needed at our next stops also.
Then we drove south and turned on highway sixty nine. I announced we would start looking for houses now and turned down several small drives looking at houses. I said we want one with solar panels either on the roof or mounted on poles by the house also it should have a chimney. We found some with the panels and some with the chimney before we found one with both and stopped to look at it.
I had them both stay inside while I checked around outside first. When I thought it was safe I told them to come out. We first walked around the outside some and I checked to make sure it had a well. Then I again had them wait a bit while I went inside the house. I came back out and let them in.
“It stinks in this house” Mia said.
“Yes it does but because the power went out and most houses had food that spoiled like it did in the grocery store. Remember that was smelly too. We can get the smell out later lets just look around a little bit here.”
We looked around the house but I did not let them go into one of the bedrooms. We walked back outside and Mia said “I think we should keep looking for a house.”
“I think so too,” I told her.
So we all climbed back in the motor home and looked for more houses. I found another with a ‘for sale’ sign in front and stopped there. Again I checked things out before letting the girls come out. When they got the OK we all looked around the place. The house was locked and I went back into the motor home for a minute and came back with some lock picks. I said we will have it open in a minute but it turned out to be more like five minutes but at least I didn’t have to break something to get inside. Once in Mia said happily “It doesn’t stink in here.”
And as I had thought a house for sale would likely have been emptied out which was a good thing. We all walked around in the house which was fairly big and looked even bigger with no furniture in it. It had a wood fireplace in one room and a gas fireplace in another. It also had a gas kitchen range which was a requirement.
It had plenty of space for us and was located partway up on a hill that faced south which would be great in the winter to provide some heat from the sun and we could always pick out a different summer house if it ever got too hot in the summer. The attached three car garage would have plenty of room for more storage and we could store stuff in the fourth bedroom also.
I said “I vote we pick this house.”
“I like this house because it doesn’t stink and I can have my own room. I vote for this house too.” Mia said with a smile.
“I wanted a purple house but I suppose this color would be OK, so I vote yes too,” Kim said winking at me.
“Are we going to get beds and stuff for our new house?”
“I think I would want a bed to sleep on. I think a couch and a kitchen table would be nice to have too.”
“You women always want everything perfect. OK we can go shopping tomorrow to keep you two happy. We’ll stay here tonight in the motor home and shop tomorrow. We might have to stay in the motor home for a few days until we get everything set up inside. Is it Mia’s turn to cook supper tonight?”
“You’re silly. When we start living in our new house can we make a pizza some time for supper?”
“I think that it is very likely that we will have pizza for supper sometime. But it might be a little different from the pizzas that you have had in the past because things are different now and we will not be able to find all the ingredients that we had before. But the first thing we have to do is make supper for tonight and eat a lot so we are all strong for the work we need to do tomorrow.”
This time Kim cooked a nice supper and we went to bed early so we would be rested for all the work tomorrow. I am very happy to find a house this quickly but the work that faced me to get this thing ready and livable for the winter scares me a little.
Outfitting Our New House
In the morning I removed my cycle and the carrier from the back of the motor home. On the way into town I stopped at my old house and from there I drove my truck and Kim drove the motor home. We stopped first and got two trailers to put behind each vehicle then on we went to the furniture stores. We ‘bought’ three new beds, a dining table with chairs, a couch with a matching love seat, two recliners, end tables, night stands, chests of drawers, and lamps. Then we got bedding, towels, more clothes, kitchen utensils, cookware, flatware, and other mixed items until we had no more room in truck or in the trailers.
We then drove directly back to our new house and I ran extension cords from the motor home into the house and gave the rooms a quick vacuuming job before hauling in all our new furniture. After lunch I left the girls to ‘buy’ more stuff and haul home while they put things away and did some cleaning using water and electric supplied by the motor home.
A few hours later I was back with a fairly large generator and extra fuel which I promptly hooked up to the house so they could have lights and running water. I also brought a load of mixed food items to start stocking the house with food.
There is still a little propane left in the house propane tank that should last us for a couple weeks or more using it for water heating and cooking. Everyone worked together putting the remaining items away and then we had our first meal cooked and eaten at our new house. The girls had made the three beds and put clothes in each closet and chest drawers. We all enjoyed showers and went to bed tired.
The next morning Kim and I started making a list of things that needed to be done and items to bring to our new home. The list was quite long and the two girls were very reluctant to separate again like we had done yesterday when I had returned to town alone while the girls worked. I guess I did not want to be apart again either.
I sure didn’t want anything to happen to either one. Kim asked why we needed the generator when we had all the solar panels. I explained that in most house installations the solar power was designed to only work when the power grid was on and to shut down if the power grid went down (we both thought this was a pretty dumb way to have it).
I inspected the solar hookup and made a list of things needed for me to hook it up for our use. I will have to haul home many batteries to power the house at night and a large inverter to change the power from twelve volts to standard house voltage. I told Kim that I did not think the solar had enough power to run the well pump so I would install a large water tank on the hill above th
e house and only use the generator to run the well pump to fill it as needed then it would gravity feed water into the house so we always had water.
That would entail getting a large tank, setting it in position, and running the plumbing from the tank to the house. I will need a small backhoe to bury the water line so it will not freeze and I will have to at least partially bury the water tank to help keep it from freezing. I think I might even build a little ‘house’ over the water tank to keep it warmer also so there is no chance it will freeze this winter.
I also need to bring at least one more propane tank out and hook it up plus then fill both tanks with propane. Neither Kim nor I know what to expect for the length and severity of this ‘nuclear winter’. I think we will just have to plan for the worst so we are prepared for whatever comes our way.
We need to get a lot of firewood to have on hand and I want to install a wood stove into the fireplace because it will be much more efficient for heating. We will have to stock pile a large supply of food, especially canned food because if it gets real cold, which is likely, it will freeze and burst any canned food if left in the stores.
I want a few smaller propane tanks and a portable heater to have for our garage in case I need to work out there. I also want to get a full set of tools to work on anything that needs it. Also we should raid the library and bring back a load of books for all three of us to read and to school Mia. I have to teach Kim how to shoot and let her pick out a couple guns of her own.
We can also teach Mia a little about guns so she will understand their use and lose any mystique they may hold for her. Walkie talkies or some kind of radios would be great so if we do have to separate we could still communicate with each other. We should set up a computer and load it with as many educational programs as possible for all our use because we can use as much knowledge as we can get. Plus I think a computer will be a big benefit for teaching Mia.
We also listed other items we need and things we need to do then we made two more copies of the lists so one could be in each vehicle. Today when we left for town we only took my old truck with a trailer. When we got to town I drove to a car dealer and broke in to get access to the keys then I picked out a much heavier duty diesel pickup which we had to jump to get started. We then drove to the place where I used to work and I loaded all the deep cycle batteries they had on hand there. And loading those batteries was hard work and I can look forward to unloading them when we get home.