by P. J. Kelley
Homeland Security Provision 3313 nipped this problem right in the bud. It was a stroke of evil genius if ever there was one. Earlier, I mentioned harnessing Humanity’s Essential Nature rather than seeking to change it as being a more realistic goal, and The Homeland Security people definitely owned that playbook. Provision 3313 was diabolical, a work of Machiavellian cunning. The trick, you see, is to divide and conquer. As long as all the averagenauts out there viewed State Elites as possessing something desperately needed which was inaccessible to the masses, the State was the enemy. Provision 3313 changed that perception. It gave the lower classes somebody else to hate and fear, namely each other.
The events of 2013 could be told from millions of different perspectives. I hope that when this particular story is done, you will understand that I was not attempting to diminish the other stories by omitting them. I only have my own discretion to rely upon, and this has at times proved unreliable, so please have some forbearance, children.
Chapter Six: Buying Guns
After a few miles, The Celtics turned north onto Rimrock Road and followed it. True to Dan’s promise, after about a mile a large, low, white structure emerged from the gloom. It was lit up, and there was the sound of a generator clacking away. There didn’t seem to be any other sign of activity when they pulled in. Dan looked at the place, and then around at the group.
“He might get nervous if we all start piling in there at once. Let me run in and tell him our situation. He’s pretty cool, really, but it is pretty late.” When no one dissented, Dan hopped out and ran over to the front door and started pounding on it, yelling “Jerry! Jerry!” Dante kept the motor running. Almost instantly, a light appeared in the front window, as if a curtain was quickly parted. The door opened slowly, and Dan seemed to literally be pulled in by his arm. After what seemed an interminable wait, Dan came running back out with a large sack and what looked like a golf club bag.
“He says you can’t come in. He doesn’t believe your story about the rehab, though he did say it sounded like something Homeland Security would pull. He did give me a couple of pretty nice shotguns and about 1000 12 gauge shells for my gold watch, 300 credits, and my debit card with my ATM password. He says he’ll only take out 1000 credits off it. I told him what happened up on Highway 33, but I don’t think it sunk in. He buys and fixes up guns for a living and buys shells in bulk, so he’s happy because he just made some credits.”
Everyone looked at each other.
“Does he know what’s happening? You said he’s got a ham radio.” Bridget queried. She sounded cross. Bridget, along with more than one of the others had been hoping they would be invited in to hole up. A rifle range seemed like a pretty ideal place to be right now.
“He says it’s getting blown out of proportion. He said that what he thinks it is that the generic Life Pill G causes a buildup of electropositive metals in the brain. When the comet went by, their brains basically got supercharged. He said it has to wear off in a couple of hours.”
From the back, Al spoke up. The rest had almost forgotten he was there. “Who told him it was the comet?”
“He has a ham radio. Some guy in Fort Lee, New Jersey was going on and on about it. Jerry said he sounded pretty smart. This guy was convinced this whole thing would fizzle out. Jerry said he hasn’t seen anything happen here. The guy in Fort Lee is giving updates every 12 hours or so, and he is due anytime. There’s been some rioting, but Pill G Psychos are really dumb, I mean, the cops will take care of this. Jerry said Highway 33 sounds like a fluke.”
“He should tell that to Barb and Bob,” Jorge spluttered, as Jen nodded vigorously. “They got ripped to shreds by that fluke.”
“That’s what I was saying. What I think it is is that he doesn’t know me real well, and he might think I have gotten overexcited.” Dan frowned. “To tell the truth, Jerry knows my family and thinks I’m a spoiled rich kid.”
“Hold up a second. He gave you four 12 gauges for essentially about 2000 credits,” Jorge began, “So it might be smart to pool whatever credits we have and load up here. Where else can we buy guns right now, and if this is just the beginning, like you said, where else are we going to get weapons? The price will go way up if Jerry thinks this is real.”
Each of the rehab patients had been given one hundred credits in sets of ten in their satchels for gas and expenses to get to New York and back. Jorge had fifty credits. Dante had a gold ring. Gregor had a thin platinum chain. Keisha threw in a thick gold necklace, Jen slowly took off some pearl earrings, and Bridget tossed in her wedding ring.
“Look, I’ll make sure he knows you’ll want to buy these back soon.”
Keisha smiled, and said “He can keep the chain. Just see if he has a 9 mm Beretta, ammo, and an extra magazine.” Bridget said thank you, and that she might want her ring back someday. Jen said thanks, because the earrings were a gift from her mother.
Dan ran back to the door. Each patient kept forty credits. The jewelry was easily worth five thousand credits wholesale. Dan disappeared again, and another long wait ensued. The night was motionless and silent.
Dante spoke, “Okay, this Jerry, he doesn’t think the Psychos are a big deal. He must be worried, though, unless he always cranks up his generator whenever there’s a power outage. He seemed mighty quick answering the door too.”
“He might be doing a lot of business,” David suggested. “Fear seems like it would drive gun sales.”
Keisha giggled. “It’s like buying dope. I bet he buys these junk guns under the table from private citizens, restores them, and sells them at a jacked up price to whoever can pay enough to stay off the books.”
“Either that or he knows Dan well enough to trust him. He can’t exactly run a check on us at this hour,” Gregor said.
“Whatever, I just bet there aren’t any serial numbers on these guns.” Keisha didn’t sound upset. “As long as I get my 9, I don’t give a shit.”
“What’s that?” Al said sharply. From the woods beyond the edge of the firing range, shapes could be seen, moving slowly towards house. It was impossible to say how many there were. Jorge grabbed a shotgun out of the golf bag and start jacking shells into it, and Dante followed suit. They were Remington five shot cop shotguns, very basic to maintain and operate. More hesitantly, Gregor picked up a shotgun and started loading it. Keisha grabbed the last one and loaded it like an expert. Al hadn’t budged. Bridget looked uncomfortable. David, however, experienced a pleasing sensation akin to being seated front row and center for a screening of a B gangster movie. This was much more entertaining than David had thought rehab could ever be.
“Should you lay on the horn a little?” Gregor asked Dante. Dante looked uncertain.
“Do you think Jerry would mind a big black guy with a shotgun pounding on his door at one a.m.? The horn might tip off the Psychos we’re here, if they don’t already know,” Dante asked.
The figures drew closer. “Fuck it, I’ll go,” Keisha went to the exit. “Open this up, I’m not leaving without my chain or my 9.” The door opened, and Keisha raced to the door and began knocking, hard. She was holding the shotgun with the barrel pointed at the ground, looking around her as she waited, her breath making a fine mist in the air around her. In the street light, her bright red jacket seemed lurid, like living blood. The door opened quickly, as before, and she was pulled in like Dan had been earlier.
After a minute, a tall and thin bald man with a goatee who may have been in his early 60’s emerged. He hardly glanced at the minibus. He was carrying what looked like an AK47, and held up field glasses, scrutinizing the tree line. He scanned one side of the field and then another. He stopped at one point and adjusted the focus. Apparently satisfied, he turned to face the door again. “It was probably just some deer.” He screamed, as a dozen Psychos lunged at him from behind a shed. Recovering his wits quickly, he started firing his AK. Keisha and Dan ran to him and started blasting away as carefully as they could to avoid hitting Jerry, and Dante, Jorge, a
nd Gregor raced out as well. Dante grabbed a short shovel leaning against the shed and started swinging it like a battle axe at the heads of the Psychos who were trying to grab Jerry. Their quick reaction had a lot do to with how on edge they had been since seeing the RV and its occupants.
Suddenly, Psychos were everywhere. Jerry’s house had a lot of windows, and Psychos were breaking them and crawling in. Others rushed the front door, as others began to try to enter the minibus. Al vaulted from the back seat and slammed the bus door shut. He peeled out in a wide circle, and seemed to be getting ready to flee. Instead, he slammed into reverse and expertly pulled up in front of Keisha, Dante, Dan, Jorge, and Gregor, who had succeeded in freeing Jerry from the clutches of the Psychos. Jerry seemed shaken, but unhurt.
“Hurry up,” Al shouted, as the group quickly piled in. Al immediately peeled out as the Psychos pursued.
“Go in a circle and wheel back. There is a bag of guns and ammo on the front step. We need it,” Dan said adamantly.
Al must have agreed, since he drove the bus in a wide circle and then skidded up to the front, blocking much of the door with the bus. Dan quickly leaped out, grabbed the bulky bag, and immediately returned. The bus was peeling out again before the door was completely closed.
Jerry panted, trying to catch his breath, “I have a lot more guns in the house.”
Al looked in the rearview. The house was literally being swarmed. “Is there anybody else in there?”
“Not since my wife became an alimony check. What just happened?”
“I was trying to tell you. These Psychos are all over. People are getting ripped to shreds. You can forget about the rest of your stuff for now. Be thankful for what we managed to get out.” Dan was stern and chiding. David wondered if there was some small element of satisfaction, or vindication in this episode for him.
“Well, you bought at the right time. In fact, I’ll buy everything I sold you back for three times what I paid for it right now. “Jerry said. Jorge chuckled grimly. He’d been looking through the Army duffel bag Dan had retrieved. “We’ll sell you 500 rounds of ammo and an extra clip for your AK if you give Jen back her pearl earrings. “
Instantly, Jerry produced the earrings. “I felt guilty about these anyway. Dan told me the mother was dead.”
“In my religion, we do not consider those we loved dead. Thank you for the earrings back, Jorge.” Jen put them back on.
“No offense meant,” Jerry apologized.
“I know,” Jen said calmly.
“This is cool,” Keisha said, holding up a sawed off shotgun.
Jerry looked embarrassed. “I honestly thought Dan would be back in two days pestering me to buy the stuff back. I sort of gave him odds and ends, but everything works good. There is a gun in there for every job. I admit I thought Dan was making most of this up, or maybe had been smoking too much chronic. You have a sniper rifle, a couple of snub nosed revolvers, and an old Chinese drum gun that can shoot 120 rounds if it doesn’t jam first. There is this sawed off, and a halfway decent M4 knockoff from Czechoslovakia and a couple of good deer rifles with scopes. There is even a 9 mm Beretta, as ordered. I threw in a 2.5 Taurus Judge, because Dan said he thought some of you couldn’t shoot so well.”
Dan colored a little. “All I meant was that some of you didn’t seem too enthusiastic about the shotguns, so I figured you never owned a gun.”
Bridget chimed in. “Well I never have. The rest of you seem to have some background. David didn’t seem too enthused either.”
This was an unfair assumption, thought David, who had bought a gun a while ago, and had been trying to work up enough interest to kill himself with it prior to his arrest and conviction.
“As for me forgetting about the rest of my arsenal, that’s not really going to happen. I have been accumulating guns for so long in case of just this kind of disaster, the irony would be too bitter to lose everything now, just when it was all about to pan. I made a big mistake not listening to you Dan. I apologize. Now what do you say we regroup and head on back there? Even if there is a couple of hundred of those things, the ten of us could take most of them out from the bus windows, at least long enough to load all the weapons onto the bus and my SUV. What do you all say? I’ll make it worth your while.” Jerry seemed to have bounced back from his near death experience fairly quickly. As if sensing that no one was tempted, he leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Now, I know a lot of you are trying to get sober at the rehab. Now, I don’t believe in alcohol or hard drugs myself, but in addition to all the guns and ammo you need, and cash for the trip, I have a half a pound of Pocono’s finest hydroponic version of Sour D. This hybrid blend is normally reserved for the upper echelons of Manhattan delivery services, but it can all be yours. A very good friend of mine has a greenhouse up in the woods.”
Still no one answered, but Jerry knew this idea was in play, at least with some of the patients. Dan started laughing. “Jerry, you are evil.”
Keisha spoke speculatively, “It would be nice to calm my nerves a little bit. I mean, I am coming off heroin.” Gregor also seemed to be considering the offer.
“I hate smoking pot,” Bridget said categorically.
Dante just laughed. “No way do you have so much Diesel. You probably don’t even know what it is.”
Al and David maintained their habitual silence. Jorge suddenly spoke. “It might not be a bad idea to shoot some of these Psychos. Popping them from the bus window would give us a chance to use these weapons, and have the experience of shooting at someone. The Psychos still look like people. I don’t feel comfortable shooting them.”
“Yeah, and you’ll blow out your eardrums. Do you know how loud a shotgun is going to sound contained in here?” Al spoke up.
“Well how about this then. I have a couple of friends who live about fifteen miles from here. If you give me a lift over to where they live, I could try to recruit them for this.” Jerry was still trying to hustle.
“The problem is your house isn’t fortified. The Psychos are all over it. If we drive them out the door, they’ll be coming back through the window. This can’t be done, especially since there could be thousands of them. They seem to be attracted to light and noise. What’s going to happen when we start making all this noise and emitting barrel flashes?” David was stating facts, not opinions. He didn’t care what the group did, in an abstract sense.
“My cellar is fortified. In fact, heavily fortified is a huge understatement. If we try this and get stuck in the cellar, we could ride this thing out for six months easy. Seriously, I have tons of supplies down there.”
Gregor said with conviction, “As long as my Uncle is alive, I am going to New York. The rest of you simply do not know him. He has made my recovery his very top priority.” Gregor wryly smiled. “He will be extremely disappointed if I am unnecessarily diverted.”
Dante was also against it. “I just don’t want to give that bastard Gerard the satisfaction. He already told me I couldn’t quit using.”
“That was just his game. Gerard is really smart, or at least really good at seeing what makes people tick. I wouldn’t take that personally,” David said, suddenly very talkative.
Bridget said firmly, “New York.”
“New York,” Al also said simply from the back.
Keisha agreed. “I’d feel better in the hood. Nobody I know is the type that takes Life Pills.”
“You guys are just going to New York, doing some stuff and coming back? That might only take a few hours really,” Dan said. “If you wouldn’t mind the company I wouldn’t mind tagging along.”
“That only leaves Jen, Jorge, Jerry and David left to decide,” said Dante.
“I’m in,” David said. “Gerard doesn’t think I could face my personal goals. I just want to teach him about the power of philosophy.”
Jen and Jorge looked at each other. “Can we come too? We seem to be out of places to go,” Jen asked.
“Whatever else we are, nobod
y here would put two kids out alone on a night like this. I just hope you’re making the right decision,” Bridget said. Everyone nodded.
“Answer me this though-when this is over, would you all help me sweep out my house? I mean, say we are coming back in twelve hours. Will you all provide some cover fire for me as I kick Psycho ass? Because I think that might be all I would need, that and about fifty clips of ammo which I can grab from my kitchen cupboards the second I get in the house.” Jerry was still bargaining. “It looks like being out on the road in a well-armed group might be the safest way to play this, barring being in my cellar with the steel shutters bolted down. What do you say?”
Nobody had any objections. The bus could comfortably have fit 20 people, and when one has an AK47 and is extremely adept with it, personality flaws, if any, are usually overlooked in desperate circumstances
Al pulled over. “Dante, you want to drive again? I need some sleep. Also, we need to start thinking about getting some fuel. We still have about two thirds of a tank, but we should fill it up and even get some gas cans if we can.”
Dante climbed behind the wheel. “I have to say, Al, you don’t talk much but you sure can drive when you have to. When you peeled out, I thought you were taking off. Sorry for thinking that. Thanks for proving me wrong too.”
Al said nothing. He just climbed into the last seat and lay down.
For a while at least, Silence ruled. Each person dealt with their regrets and desires alone. Surprisingly, the addicts and alcoholics were not as obsessed with thoughts of their drugs of choice as one would think, as their bodies created superhuman amounts of adrenaline and endorphins that would compensate for any chemical cravings.