THE DAY: A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series)

by John Price

  52

  Oak Mountain State Park

  Pelham, Alabama

  Ten thousand acres of rolling Alabama woods would normally hold a wide variety of wildlife. By the time Scott, Tim and his son Tyler arrived at the area’s largest state park they began to wonder if the popular forested area had been hunted out. They left their school safe house at 3 AM, hoping to be deep in the woods and up Oak Mountain before sunrise. They were delayed, however, when they bumped into two other small groups of armed men. The men in all three groups wore full beards, as all men were by now bearded. Electric and blade razors were no longer useable and few had access to long blade razors as used in the 19th century.

  They saw the first band of hunters from a distance, both groups heading in the same direction along state road 119 towards the state park. Scott decided to hunker down and give the hunting party ahead of them fifteen minutes before they started hiking again. Just as they reached the eastern edge of Oak Mountain State Park Tyler spotted four armed men just entering the woods on the south side of Alabama 119. Tyler’s yelp at seeing them was too loud, however, drawing the men to wheel around to locate the source of the sound. Scott raised his arms, stopping Tim and Tyler. The two armed bands of men stared at each other, about four hundred feet apart. No one spoke.

  Finally, Scott took the initiative, "Greetings, men….we’re just here to hunt….don’t mean you or anyone else any harm."

  The armed man with two rifles slung on his shoulders looked sidewise at his three armed companions. Seeing no reaction, he turned back, stared at Scott and said in a deep-toned, menacing voice, "Hey pal, get outta here….these here are our woods. Got it?....You come in this park you may find that a stray bullet will find its way into your ugly face….We’ll let you live for now, but scat….now….leave this park alone. Any questions, hunter man?"

  Scott whispered to Tim and Tyler, "We’re leaving, but don’t turn your back on them. Just move backwards up the slope until we’re behind those cars we passed up there on 119." Slowly they shuffled back up the small rise to 119 until they were out of sight of the belligerents. Tim asked his dad, "Pops, what do we do now? We came all the way to Oak Mountain, hiked who knows how many miles? Are we gonna’ let those jerks keep us out of the best hunting area in this part of Alabama?"

  "We don’t have any choice, Tim," his father replied. "The three of us have either got to fight these guys who have more weapons than we do, or we wait for a time, and then we head straight west and hopefully avoid meeting up with them."

  Scott silently prayed for wisdom. Looking the situation over, he said, "Let’s just move off the road on the north side, down in that ravine that leads into the park. We’ll wait for a good half hour. By then it’ll be dawn. Then we’ll head straight west, since they went south. We can’t take a chance of bumping into those guys. They looked pretty much like us, just hungry men out looking for game to feed their families, but we’re out-manned and out-gunned."

  By nine AM Scott, Tim and Tyler were deep into the park, climbing up Oak Mountain, staying away from trodden paths. Tim spotted a large oak tree growing near the side of a deep, heavily wooded ravine. By helping each other up to the lowest branches, the three hunters were able to climb into the heavy branch structure of the imposing tree. Once in position, as comfortable as possible, the hunting party waited for game to come by their position.

  They waited….and waited. And waited. The closest they came to spotting an animal worth bagging before noon was a large rabbit hopping through the woods at the edge of the ravine beneath their perch. The angle was such that no one had a good shot. All three were praying for deer, but so far no deer were spotted.

  As they waited in the oak tree, Tim whispered to his son, "Tyler, have you ever heard the story of Masada?"

  "Masa….what? I don’t think so. What is it?

  "It happened a long time ago, in Israel." Tim spoke softly, so as not to scare off any game, though the last three hours of waiting had about convinced the hunting party that they were wasting their time. "The Romans who occupied Judah back in Bible times built a large fortress at the top of a quarter-mile high mountain named Masada, south of Jerusalem. They chose the site because it was almost impossible to scale the cliffs that surrounded the fortress. Several Jewish rebels against Roman rule took over the fortress on Masada in 70 AD. Three years later Rome laid siege to Masada. They built a siege ramp up the side of the mountain. Then they brought up a battering ram and hammered their way into the fortress. When they got in they found the dead bodies of 960 dead Jewish rebels, who took their own lives over destruction by the ferocious, blood-thirsty Romans.

  "Interesting story, Dad, why did you tell it to me?"

  "Oh, no particular reason, son….It’s just….It’s just that sometimes people do things to avoid a bigger harm….Umh….Do you know what I mean?"

  "No, not really, Dad."

  "It’s probably time," Scott whispered, "that we head back to the school. We’re not going to get any game today, guys."

  53

  Colonel James B. Irwin Elementary School

  Birmingham, Alabama

  "Hey, Mom, what’s for dinner? I’m really hungry." Chris, twelve years old, was noted at the safe house for having an empty pit for a stomach. The unavoidable problem was that the twenty families had now been living for almost two months at the school named to honor one of America’s astronauts who walked on the moon. The food the families brought to the school was dwindling. On the first day Scott’s wife, Sally, along with Audrey, were designated responsible for meal planning. Soon after the families locked themselves into the school Sally and Audrey inventoried the available food. They found that about three fourths of the food was in the form of canned meat, vegetables and fruit. They also counted over thirty bags of rice and beans. Dried spaghetti filled out the food available to them. Within two days there was no more bread, fresh meat, nor fresh vegetables or fruit.

  Once the inventory was completed, the forty adults met to plan how they would consume the available food. Scott, who was seen by the families as their informal leader, asked Sally and Audrey to give their report.

  Sally listed for the group what the inventory showed, then said, "It’s clear to me that we have only enough food on hand to feed eighty-seven people for no more than seven weeks, give or take."

  Beau snorted and said, "Hunh? What about all those canned goods and bags of rice I saw when we moved stuff into the school kitchen? We must be the worst preppers in the land."

  Sally looked down at her hand-written list, looked up at Beau and softly replied, "Beau, brother Beau, don’t forget that the number of people is eighty seven. Multiply that number times three meals a day and you need 1,827 meals a week. Beau, that’s over 7,800 meals a month. Unless we can pray up some miraculous expansion of the food in hand we will barely make it seven weeks."

  Audrey added, "Here’s worse news. What Sally and I concluded, after counting up the food supplies, is that we have to cut back to two meals a day, even to make it through seven weeks."

  "What?" The heaviest set man in the room was having none of it. "I would die if I don’t eat three meals a day. How can you seriously…."

  Scott interrupted, "Look, we’re not talking about running over to the super market and picking up a few bags of groceries for dinner. The stores, as we all know, are totally picked clean. We only have what we have, and what we can scavenge in the days ahead."

  Beau said, "Scott’s right. Think about how we get more food once what we have is all gone. It’s late summer, so it’s too late to plant gardens. If we make it through the winter, which I pray that we will, then next spring we can plant gardens in the inner court yard here of the school. In the meantime we have to find ways to supplement our diminishing food supply. We had some success hunting right after The Day, but since then we’ve come back almost empty-handed. It looks like the woods around here have been hunted out. Too many hungry hunters it seems. I’m open to ideas."

  Sally a
dded, "There’s a dairy farm a couple miles from here. It has a large number of dairy cows."

  "That’s not an easy solution," Scott replied, "We don’t own those cows, they’re the property of that farmer. I don’t know if I’m totally comfortable with just shooting the man’s cows."

  "Scott," Beau said, "get real. It’s either shoot the cows and live. Or don’t harvest them, and then ….just die."

  "But, we’re not savages. Most people here are Christians. We don’t steal other people’s property. We have to…."

  "You know, Scott, those are nice words….but, man, we gotta’ eat. If it’s us or some farmer….I choose us. Plus, man, if you don’t think that somebody will eat those cows if we don’t, you’re living on another planet. We’ve been here now what, how many days?....I’m already losing track of time….I betcha’ that most, if not all those dairy cows have already been slaughtered and have either been eaten or are being smoked and dried for eating later. There are a lot of hunters in this area, and they all like to eat, you agree?"

  Sally asked her husband, "Scott, dear, isn’t he right? I love you dearly, but he has a good point. If the cows aren’t used for food, they’re not going to be used for dairy farm purposes. How would the farmer get them milked with no electricity? No gasoline to haul the milk in tankers to a processing plant, which has no electricity to homogenize the milk in any case. I’m just saying that if we have some gold coins, or silver, why don’t we offer to buy a cow or two or three?"

  The heavy set member of the group responded to Sally’s idea, "I have a small bag of pre 1964 silver coins. If we can have three meals a day, I’ll throw in my coins to buy a cow, alright?" For the first time since the group had fled to the school, laughter filled the room. The group adjourned after accepting the offer and appointing a group of three men, headed by Beau, to come up with a plan to negotiate to buy a cow.

  54

  Rancho McDonald

  North of Durango, Colorado

  "Dad, there’s someone down at the front gate," Zach yelled across the barn yard to his dad, Larry McDonald, Colorado farmer and prepper.

  Larry’s head snapped up as he looked at Zach and then at Rancho McDonald’s front gate. In the five years the McDonalds had been living at their remote Colorado ranch he could count on one hand the number of people who had shown up uninvited. He reached behind his back to insure that his Glock was securely on his belt where he always kept it when he wasn’t sleeping. At night it would be in a holster taped behind the headboard of his bed. What Larry saw didn’t cause him any great joy. Two large men, both armed with long rifles, were standing at his gate. It was some time now since America was attacked with multiple nuclear devices. The nukes’ EMP effect knocked out the use of the McDonalds’ electronic devices, but their water was pumped by hand, they had plenty of cut firewood, their plentiful food and ammo stocks were secure and their 1952 Ford pick-up truck still worked.

  Larry decided not to get too close to the gate. He stepped forward just a few feet, on the way whispering to Zach to get a rifle from the house.

  Seeing Larry move slightly in their direction, the roughest looking of the visitors yelled, "Hey, man, come over here and talk to us."

  Larry stopped, saying, "That’s all right. I can hear you from here. What do you want?"

  "Okay, pal, have it your way. We’re just trying to be….like….like….friendly…..you know?"

  "What do you want? I’m not asking again."

  "Cool it man, that didn’t sound too friendly to me. We just need a little food. You know, man, some foodstuffs. We’re hungry."

  Larry considered how best to respond, finally deciding it was best to terminate the conversation and get rid of the uninvited intruders to Rancho McDonald. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Zach, his rifle up to his shoulder, standing several feet away from Larry, just as he had taught him. "We don’t have any extra food. You’ll have to move on. Try the churches in Durango. Now, scat. We’ve got work to do."

  The visitor who had said nothing so far started to lift his rifle into firing position. Larry filled his hand with his Glock quicker than the intruder could fully raise his rifle, calmly saying, "Stop right there, Kemosabi. Lower your rifle, now….NOW….or you won’t be walking out of here."

  The visitor slowly complied. The verbal visitor, though, took everything to a new level, "So you think you’re the Lone Ranger, right? Well, you’re gonna’ need a lot more than that pea shooter in your hand and the rifle in your teenager’s quivering hands to stop us from eating. I told you that we’re hungry. We know you’re preppers. We know you’ve got food, probably lots of food. It didn’t take long in town to find out where the preppers in this area are located. Did you think you could put away enough ammo and food to last you forever? Did you think you wouldn’t have to share it?"

  Larry, his Glock steadily trained on the men at his gate, his voice rising, replied, "I told you to scat. Now scat. Get out of here….and don’t even think about coming back."

  "Mister, you must think that nothing has changed in this country. Ya’ been up here in your little enclave and you must not know how many people died with the nukes and the fallout. Ya’ must not know how many preppers like you have been taken out by hungry folks, folks like us. Everybody knows somebody who’s a prepper and where they live, so no one is safe, get my drift, pal? We don’t mean you no harm, we just wanna’ eat. But since ya’ don’t wanna’ share, we’ll leave. Sure enough, we’ll leave ya’ little rancho enclave. But, pal, you can count on one thing….we’ll be back….we’ll be back….when you least expect it. Adios, Mister Lone Ranger. Tell Mrs. Lone Ranger that we have plans for her."

  55

  Colonel Jim Irwin Elementary School

  "Sally, we’re out of rice," Audrey was shaking her head as she looked at the empty food storage container.

  "I figured we were close to empty. How about the frijoles, the beans?"

  "We’ve got enough to feed the kids today," Audrey replied, "but not enough for the adults. I don’t know what we’re going to do tomorrow." The ladies had stretched their food supplies to almost eight weeks, originally estimating that seven weeks was the maximum. Each person in the school/safe house had lost weight. For a few weeks they were able to provide meals, even though limited, three times a day. They had to eventually move to a two meal a day schedule, but had been on a once a day schedule for the last three weeks.

  Sally asked the five ladies in the kitchen of the school, "Apart from prayer, what’s our plan to feed everyone tomorrow?"

  "Today’s food scouting party isn’t back yet. Maybe they’ll come across some food in one of the nearby houses."

  "Audrey, our food scouting guys haven’t located any food in abandoned houses for at least two weeks. That’s one reason we’re where we are. We keep eating, but we don’t keep finding food. Eventually….eventually….we’re totally out of food. We’ve already voted, twice, that we won’t take food away from anyone. We only take food that has been left in homes by people who are dead, or who knows what, but, nevertheless, are no longer in their homes."

  Sally jumped in, "But, here’s the final issue, what Scott would call the real bottom line. Abandoned food is nowhere to be found, now. We can’t raise food until next spring, and then it will take the growing season before we can harvest and eat the food. No one in our hunting teams has found any game in weeks. We all have been praying, but we need to prioritize our praying….Girls, we are facing starvation. We especially need to pray that the guys’ plan to buy a cow will work."

  "Oh, how I wish we had listened to the Bible," Audrey sighed, "if we had fled, like Marty and Tom and Liz and Max, we wouldn’t be watching our children wither away and die. God knew what He was doing when He warned us to flee."

  Sally replied, "What’s the verse? The prudent see the evil coming and flee from it. May God help us."

  56

  Colonel Jim Irwin Elementary School

  Beau led the ‘cow hunting party’, as it was so la
beled by Audrey, his wife. He picked as his fellow hunting party members Mark, an ex-veteran, and Quinn, a nineteen year old, reputed to be a skilled marksman. Beau had a small bag of silver coins in his back pack, along with extra ammo for the rifle which was slung over his shoulder. His strategy was to wake up and leave the school before dawn, at about 5 AM. His plan complied with his rule that no one be seen leaving the back door of the school during daylight hours. They planned to return from their mission after dark. The very last thing they wanted, Beau insisted on frequent occasion, was to be seen going out from or going into the school, as it would alert others to the possible presence of the most valuable item in America – something to eat.

  The plan was to hike briskly from the school west across the no longer traveled state road to the Pleasant View Dairy Farm, estimated to be a two mile trek. Walking in the dark, with only a half moon to illuminate their path, the three man cow hunting party arrived at the farm just after 5:15, before sunrise. Though they didn’t come to the farm to use their firearms, they were armed because there was a high likelihood that the farm would be well defended.

  Beau assigned his two companions to spread out and carefully approach what appeared to be the farm house, as it was the only residential looking building on the sprawling farm. Having driven past the farm frequently, Beau knew the general layout. The two large dairy barns stood to the left of the house. Another low-standing aluminum farm building was behind the house, with three milk transport trucks parked nearby. Though no cows were seen in the pasture adjoining the first barn, Beau concluded that either the farmer had moved his herd further away from the road, to a distant pasture, or that the cows had already been slaughtered and taken by hungry neighbors. They would soon know.