by Boyd Craven
“Oh yeah? What makes you think that?” Steve asked, curious.
“The girls always hang out when we do these shindigs. I know little Miss Amy loves to sit out here until she’s either tired or bored to tears. She went willingly enough though.”
“Yeah, I did want to talk to you. It’s mostly about what’s been going on in the world….”
He paused talking and looked up to hear a window pane push shut and the curtains swishing shut in Billy’s room. He took a deep breath and then saw a light come on in the window next to it and a figure come to the window.
“They always that nosy?” Dwight asked as Sarah Wilson squinted, looking outside, probably blinded by the light in her own room.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Steve said. “That’s why I’m surprised none of them figured out I’m a prepper. That’d go over the neighborhood like a lead balloon.”
“That’s the secret? Sheeeeeeeeeeeeyit, I knew that a long time ago,” Dwight said.
“You did?” Steve asked, thinking he’d been easing that one in there at an opportune moment.
“Well sure. You’re not a farmer, but you’re interested in all things farming.…you have a few hens, some rabbits with an extra couple of hutches for growing them out, and you’re awful keen on learning about how to do things without refrigeration.”
“Well shit, yeah. You got me,” Steve admitted. “How obvious was it?”
“Pretty obvious to me, but I doubt any of these sheep around here would notice. Remember when they thought you were a handyman for always coming home with your truck loaded? At the HOA meeting? They just never paid attention to what you had in it.”
“Oh, I remember,” Steve said with a groan, “did you get the latest letter?”
“Yeah, and I called up El Jefe and told him that he can stuff it. Matthew told me the next day that Jeff was fit to be tied. What’d you get?”
“Threatening to sue me for running a home business as a HOA violation.”
“Oh, your networking, programming, and security thing?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how they found out, but it’s kind of against the rules.”
“What did your lawyer say?” Dwight asked.
“That if they enforce it with me, they have to do it with the rest of the community. When I pointed out to Jeff that his wife had an Etsy store, he shut up real quick.” Steve said taking a big chug from his own beer.
“So if that isn’t bugging ya, then what’s got you dialed up?”
“The inflation, the riots, and the damn war that seems to be looming over us all.”
“You’re a prepper. You’re ready for just about anything. Why worry?” Dwight asked.
“I think I’m pretty set on food for a while, but…you’ve stuck it out down here when the hurricanes knocked out power, when the stores weren’t getting resupplied on time. I was wondering if you could take a look around and see what you think? I’d love to pick your brain.”
“Pick away,” Dwight said.
Steve stood up and grabbed his beer. “Come on, I want to show you,” he said.
Dwight followed and they went in through the back door, cut through the living room, bypassing the kitchen on the right, and then hooked a short left and opened the doorway next to the hall closet leading to the garage. Steve flicked on the light and walked in. His old Ford was gleaming in the fluorescent lights.
“This is new,” Dwight said, looking at the mechanical room on the left.
“Yeah, it’s a little bit of camouflage,” Steve said and opened the door.
Cardboard and the smell of wood from the crates wafted out. Both men walked in after Steve hit the light and illuminated this section of the garage.
“It’s tight,” he said and started walking towards the far end where the storm shelter was.
“This is a bit more than I expected,” Dwight said, “How come the door was unlocked?”
Steve stopped and turned, looking sheepish. “Because the storm shelter is over here,” he said.
“Ok, but what happens if you have a ton of hungry angry zombies and your entire food supply is attacked and removed?”
“So lock it, and give everyone a key to carry with them?” Steve asked.
“I would do that, and then find other places to stash some of this stuff. I’m assuming you have some food in the storm shelter too?”
“I do,” Steve admitted and turned to walk over and unlatch the trapdoor and open it.
He headed in and Dwight followed. He whistled and looked around, turning in a full circle before taking his hat off and taking a big swallow of his beer.
“Holy shit. You got yourself a fallout shelter. How in the hell did you manage this with asshole neighbors like you got in this area?”
“Well, it’s not really a fallout shelter. There are a couple of vents. One of them goes into the garage and the other goes outside. It looks like a well head stub with a cap on it, but it’s screened and vented to keep critters out. Plus, there isn’t that much overhead of us. Part of this is under the garage slab, but the rest is in the side yard by the gate.”
“Yeah, but this wasn’t a normal feature, was it? The shelter I mean?”
“The builder told me that there were three houses they had with these. Since this one was a spec house and already done, I told him we’d take it. I don’t know the other two houses that got them though, they were part of the third expansion of the neighborhood.”
“This is kinda cool. How’d you plumb in the bathroom over there?”
“There was a floor drain in the back corner capped off. I think it goes into the main sewer line, but it could just as well tie into the storm drain system.”
Dwight walked around and sat down on one of the bottom bunks and bounced a little bit, got back up, and looked at the stacks of boxes. He raised an eyebrow and Steve motioned for him to go ahead and look. He opened the flap on one box and pulled out a gallon jug of water and then put it back down and closed the box.
“How much water?”
“Right now, fifty-four gallons,” Steve said.
“So without bathing and flushing, you have enough down here for roughly ten, twelve days?”
“Yeah, roughly,” Steve admitted.
“Gun safe looks secure. Bolted down?”
“Yeah. So…this is most of it. What do you think?”
Dwight sighed, rubbed his hand across his face and then looked Steve in the eye.
“You’re in pretty good shape all things considered. How much food do you reckon you have?”
“A little over a year’s worth, and then we have the rabbits and chickens….”
“Let’s go get some more beer,” Dwight said finishing off his bottle.
Steve nodded and both men headed upstairs. They dropped their empties in the sink to rinse out and recycle later and grabbed a couple more and went back out to the patio in the back. One of the chickens made a startled sound and they both looked. Nothing seemed out of order, so Steve sat down. After a moment, Dwight did too.
“So what do you think?” Steve asked after a moment.
“I mean, I sorta knew you were doing a lot of this stuff, but why ask me?”
“Your family lived through the depression, your dad and grandparents…right there,” Steve said pointing with his beer.
“And you think the house of cards is going to fall down again?”
“Look at the price of gas.”
“That’s true. I think somebodies been siphoning a couple gallons of fuel from my tank farm by the barn. I had to put locks on the handles. Fuel’s been getting more expensive, but I figured it was because of all the war uncertainty stuff.”
“I’m sure that plays a big part of it, but the whole Fed. The thing has me worried too.”
“Well, I think you’re in better shape than just about everybody around here, except maybe me. As long as we don’t get another bad drought like last year, I will probably be sitting on a ton of food if something goes crazy.”
&nbs
p; “Plus, your kitchen garden and animals.”
“Yeah, but what worries me, is if something were to happen…I’m just one guy. We live outside of the city a little bit, but we’re not all that far. I know Macon seems big, but when you really put on your thinking cap, we’re not too far from Atlanta too. It wouldn’t take much to pick the farm clean.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it looks like a lot, but you get a couple hundred people walking through, they’d clean me out of all my breeding stock and feedstock in no time flat. Sure, I have my own food I set aside, but my hope would be to protect some of my breeding stock, or trap some pigs and start over once people start to die off.”
“There’s an unpleasant thought.”
“Yeah, just like figuring out who’s been stealing gas and diesel.”
“You want a hand with that?”
“What, you know how to set out traps that aren’t gonna get me sued or arrested?”
“I know a couple of tricks,” Steve admitted with a grin.
Steve found everything he needed from the junk drawer and in the garage and was walking with Dwight when his cell phone rang.
“Hello?” he asked.
“Hey babe, where you at?”
“Headed to Dwight’s for a second.”
“It’s late,” Angela said.
“I know, I’ll fill you in when I get home. Nothing to worry about.”
“You’re not…”
“No, we stopped after the second beer.”
“No, I can tell you’re not drunk, I mean…you’re not worried now. Something’s different in your voice.”
“Yeah, we talked about a ton of stuff, but listen, I’ve got my hands full. Can I talk to you in a half hour?”
“Yeah, babe. Love you, bye.”
“Love you too,” Steve said and then hung up.
“So tell me how this is going to work,” Dwight said walking towards the barn.
“We’re just going to make a simple switch with a paperclip. Might have to throw a bucket over it when it’s done to waterproof it, but…”
“I’ve done a lot of crazy things, but I never would have thought of this.”
“Did a lot of crazy things as a kid. We were on the farm for a while, that’s why I know how to do some of the stuff with you, but I was a kid and never learned the important stuff.”
“I’ll go get the battery and horn,” Dwight said and headed inside the barn.
Steve stayed outside and pulled out the supplies he’d brought from home. A few feet of black coated electrical wire from an old project, two brass thumb tacks, a large wooden clothespin they kept a supply of for potato chip bags and a roll of electrical tape. He sat down on the raised concrete pad that the fuel tanks were on and kicked his legs out, getting comfortable. He started cutting the wire to length and then stripping it with his Leatherman.
He could hear Dwight curse and then something fell with a crash. More cursing. Steve grinned and then pushed the thumbtacks in halfway in on the inside of the clothespin. He made a hook with the tip of the wire and hooked it around the thumbtacks and pressed them down tight. Then he used small strips of electrical tape to hold the wire along the outside of the clothespins with a loop and waited.
The theory was simple. He was going to hook one of the wires coming from the positive side of the battery to one end of the clothes pin. The other thumbtack and wire would be hooked up to a tractor horn he had off an older tractor, and then the other wire from the horn would go to the negative terminal on the battery. They would shove a stock in between the brass tacks on the inside of the clothespin to keep it from completing a circuit and then tie on the fishing line. When somebody stepped through the tripwire, it would dislodge the stick, the spring on the clothespin would push the tacks together and the horn would go off.
It was something he did as a kid, but he’d had an old horn from his dad’s old Buick station wagon that had been slowly rusting in peace out of their garage in Ohio. Back when playing “Cowboys and Indians” wasn’t a triggering term for half the country.
“I damn near busted my thumb pulling this out of the pile. Should have a charge,” Dwight said walking out with a small battery.
“Great.” Steve said and started hooking things up.
Dwight handed him the horn module when he got to that part and then pushed the pin up and looked around for something nonmetallic to put in it while he was going to hook it up to the battery. In the end, he double folded a piece of electrical tape with the sticky side together and put the plastic tape between the contacts and then finished hooking it up. Then he put tape around the connections, just to hold them in place.
“Want to test it?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, just a little toot,” Dwight said with a grin.
Steve held onto the tape, squeezed the pin and pulled the tape out. Then the pin was allowed to close for half a heartbeat. A loud but fast beep sounded and Steve was the one smiling when he saw it startle Dwight.
“Dammit, I was ready for that, and it still got me,” he said.
“Yeah. All we have to do now is find something nonmetallic to shove between the contacts and figure out where you want to set this all up.”
“I can take care of that, now that I see how it’s gonna work. You go ahead and get home to your wife and daughters.”
“You sure?” Steve asked.
“Now that I see how it’s done, I feel kinda dumb for not thinking of this myself. I’ll get it moved and hidden and set it up tonight. Just call me before you come over next time, and I’ll show you where not to step so you don’t scare the hell out of me.”
“Deal,” Steve said and held his hand out.
Both men shook and he started heading home, and for the first time in a while, he didn’t feel so helpless. They had discussed a plan, Dwight had offered to dig a cache spot for them, and together they would start making a backup plan in case the “Zombies” invaded.
CHAPTER 11
Steve watched the daily news as the shooting match and the uneasy truce was called off. Then things got more heated. In the week since he’d shown Dwight how to make the alarm, things had started to globally deteriorate. He watched as another Iranian ship tried to get in front of a US Signal ship that monitors global communications and was subsequently run over and sunk. Global markets trembled, and the price of goods had started creeping up at a rate faster than he could imagine.
Work was steady for him. If anything, he was going to have to hire somebody on if he wanted to expand. The past week ran in waves. He had a day where he had almost nothing, then worked twenty hours straight the next day shoring up the cyber security of one of the firms that had left IT Bytes. More than once he had thought about asking Brandi if she wanted to work with him, but he had heard through the grapevine that with her buyout, she had to sign a non-compete clause. He left before that, so no such clause prevented him from working with the company. Brandi had actually funneled some business his way.
As long as everyone paid their bills, he was a little further ahead than he was when he was working with someone else, but the constant news coverage and worry was starting to test his patience. Almost nightly now, Dwight would stop out, and Angela and the two men would talk about just in case scenarios. Amy had only been all too happy to have her dad home for work now, but he was finding it hard to work when Angela wasn’t keeping her busy. Steve thought it was only going to get worse after Amber started working at the restaurant a few miles down the road.
“You ready?” Steve called into the bedroom, pushing his door open.
“Dammit, Steve,” Angela said, covering herself as he let himself in and closed the door behind him.
She dropped the towel and walked to the walk-in closet, her hair still wet.
“I take it as a no,” Steve said admiring her form.
“You’re perving on me again,” Angela said.
“Isn’t that how Amber and Amy happened?” he asked walking up behind her and pulling
him close.
She leaned back into him for a moment, and then rubbed her wet hair on his chin, making him break his hold.
“Oh man, you play dirty,” he said with a chuckle, wiping his face with his forearm.
“Dirty enough to skip church today?” she asked, turning to face him.
“No, ma’am,” Steve said, but he was sorely tempted to.
“What time are we leaving?” Amber called from outside the door.
“Give me twenty minutes,” Angela yelled back.
“Ok, I’ll get out of your hair,” Steve said backing up and walking backwards towards his desk.
“Uh huh. I don’t see you hurrying to leave.”
“Just admiring the view, ma’am,” Steve told her with a grin.
“Admire it somewhere else. I need to get dressed and do something with my hair, and if we don’t leave in twenty minutes, we’re going to be late.”
“Got it,” Steve said and booted his laptop.
He had gotten up early to finish a couple lines of code and to do his surfing on the darknet. He knew that Angela hated when he did it because you could find anything there. Anything included subjects that weren’t appropriate for polite conversation. Anything from drug deals, human smuggling, child exploitation, arms deals…and hacking. The latter is why he logged in and visited the .onion sites. He was following somebody who claimed to be from the Ukraine who was doing some probing of military satellites.
Steve thought it was absolutely insane to do something like that. It was so ballsy and difficult that he felt like the guy was wasting his time, but he was logging everything he was doing, and it made for interesting reading. He could use the methods and weaknesses found by the hackers to build better systems, and while his wife was working on not being naked and distracting, he distracted himself for a minute by looking for the latest updates.
What he saw shocked him. The North Koreans had been firing off ballistic missiles to test the new president’s resolve and in return China had imposed sanctions by cutting off all coal purchases. It was going to cripple the PDRK’s ability to build their military, industrial strength with little to no income. What got his attention though was Russia. The hacker had given up on getting into the US Satellites and gone after a Russian one.