by D A Carey
Gus had a few large, well-hidden underground fuel tanks. Dave asked how full they were and if he would be open to lease a couple of them to the charter town for backup of fuel storage. It was always good to diversify and have contingency plans in places that were not obvious.
***
Dave was getting settled into the South Park Colorado location. Being up here made the rest of the world seem a million miles away, and since the onset of the national crisis, it was even more so. The South Park valley had more than one small town. He usually stopped in Fairplay for supplies or lunch at the diner. He enjoyed relaxing and chatting with the locals. His favorite watering hole and restaurant was unpretentiously called the South Park Steakhouse. In the valley, stores were open, schools were in session, and people went to church on Sunday. Still, Dave knew this valley wasn’t totally self-sufficient. Sooner or later the strife in the cities would impact life up here. So far, they had been untouched by the turmoil and violence down in the big cities. People here acted oblivious to what was going on in the rest of country. It wasn’t that they didn’t know; it was that they mostly didn’t care. Most of them always assumed something like this would happen anyway. People opened stores and conducted business, and the cattle ranches went about their business much as they had for a hundred years or more.
Inside the valley, and especially the town of Fairplay, life still went on with a peaceful small-town feel. Power was plentiful and coming in strong from multiple sources. Due to the Renewable Energy initiative passed by the Colorado voters more than a decade ago, wind energy sources had been on a steady uptick in the state. Dave made sure the South Park valley was one of the leading experimental sites for that effort. The valley was perfectly situated to take advantage of the winds over the mountains that made use of the huge, efficient wind turbines. That effort, combined with abundant solar energy and the natural gas facility still producing, meant that things hadn’t changed much in the valley. While it wasn’t always warm in South Park, the sun did shine on the mountains so the solar power grid ran at peak capacity.
If Dave hadn’t loved this valley for its beauty and people, he would have loved it for the perfect location it was for the central Ark of America. This was a place to store the seeds of rebirth for the country. This valley would be an ark of art, humanity, medicine, religion, and people in the face of tough times to come.
There were only a handful of roads that someone could use to get into the valley. They could stop most of the traffic to and from the valley by blocking two of the main routes at certain places. The other routes were not well known to people who weren’t locals and weren’t accessible most of the year if you didn’t have a four-wheel drive and snow chains.
The most commonly traveled two-lane highway traversed a gorge for a dozen miles before reaching the valley. Dave arranged for some of his security people to dress as road workers and block the bridge under the guise of dangerous conditions. They would only let people through who were locals or bringing in supplies, turning away those who didn’t have a reason to be here. Admittedly, it was a bit heavy-handed, and if the people that lived in the valley knew what he was doing, they might turn against him. They were a proud and independent group. Dave only expected to do it for a short period of time. If things got better, he would pull his people back and no one would be the wiser. If things didn’t improve, he would go to the valley council and admit what he’d done in an effort to gain their support. Because the other roads were lightly traveled and not well known, Dave arranged for roving teams to monitor those roads. They were instructed not to take any action yet.
He didn’t harbor the romantic feelings of many in the prepper community of one man against the world. He just believed in being prepared at a grander community level from the beginning. The only purpose of bugging out and bunkering in away from the world would be to weather an initial storm of chaos. There was so much good in the world they owed it to the next generation to ensure it wasn’t lost in the flames of change. While Dave’s charter town version of a bunker was fabulous, his plan was for naught if it didn’t preserve a spark to re-ignite society. It was imperative that the flames of chaos not consume the people and knowledge it would take to start over. In that case, over time they would drift down anarchy. Accepting defeat went against everything Dave believed in and thought was good and noble about humans as a race.
Good people fight against things that are bad. They are builders and are at their best when working as a team over miles and generations to create something bigger, better, and more noble than any one man could do on his own.
Humans are at their worst when they tear things apart. When they can’t work together or have discourse over miles, generations, and philosophies, then they are at the beginning of an end.
General Douglas MacArthur warned of this when he said, “I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”
<< Liz >>
Liz was now on her sixth day feeling like a captive in her own suite. Until now, they’d been able to go down to the hotel restaurant for sandwiches and soup while Liz stayed in the penthouse with a guard. With her notoriety, joining would have been too big of a risk.
A few hotel employees were still coming to work and making what food they could, doling out toiletries and other supplies from the hotel’s dwindling stock. The people who showed up for work dropped dramatically each day.
Junior volunteered to accompany a local security person from the hotel and one of the young men from the concierge staff into the city to scout for supplies and food they could store in the apartment. A few hours later, Junior returned alone with a nasty knife wound in his side. He related the story while Frank worked on his wound.
When they got down to the street level, it was clear there had been looting and a lot of damage. The streets were eerie and quiet. It felt wrong at a visceral level for such a huge, vibrant city to be so quiet. Even so, the security guard who’d lived there all of his life was sure there must be some stores behind iron shutters who would be willing to do business for cash. During their search, they’d been spotted by a large group of people who were clearly roaming the streets and preying on people like a pack of coyotes.
“The weirdness didn’t stop there,” Junior told them. “These weren’t only the local hoodlums. We expected to see gangs and people being held up. This was different because there were women and children with them. Some of the people were dressed as if they were nine to five workers only a few days ago. Now they’re like jackals preying on each other! When they came at us, the kid from the hotel staff took off. The security guard tried to reason with the gang. He said we’d trade with them and had some good stuff. The plan was to bargain from a position of strength and show we were armed. We wanted the gang to decide that trading would cost less lives than fighting. It was no use. They were a mob and acted like they didn’t even speak English. The security guard got too close, and they attacked him. It took me a minute to clear them, because I was afraid of shooting him by accident.”
Junior took a shaky breath and ran his hand across his eyes. “I fired off a few rounds, and most of them ran off. By the time I got to him, he was dead. They caved his head in. Even though I knew it was no use, I checked his pulse, and that’s when I felt the knife go in my side. I was able to twist away and shoot the one with the knife, but there wasn’t anything else I could do. I got back here as fast as I could, working my way past more gangs like the one we encountered. It’s chaos and screams and sirens out there.”
“Sirens are good,” Frank said. “It means some of the police are still trying to settle things down.”
***
The next morning, they made a trip downstairs for more supplies. When they returned, Frank was extremely agitated, and Junior was bleeding again. Jennifer wasn’t with them. Frank’s agitation was completely out of character, and Jennifer’s absence was a terrible sign.
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“She wandered over to another side of the room, and we lost track of her. We weren’t worried because there were other guests in the area and it was safe enough before. I was sure it was okay because we were all in the lobby area.” Frank slammed his fist into his palm. “I’m an idiot! I let my guard down.” Frank spoke under his breath, eyes focused out the window. It was clear he wanted revenge but knew his place was here with Liz.
Junior picked up where Frank left off. “One of the busboys let some friends come in the back way for food. They were drunk or high, and within seconds most of the guests cleared out. We were headed back upstairs when we noticed Jennifer wasn’t with us. Frank went back for her and found that some of them had pulled her into a side room and attacked her.”
Frank resumed his account in a calmer, after action report manner. “I engaged two of the attackers and was able to put them down. Meanwhile, Junior knocked two men off of Jennifer and was helping her gather her clothes. The men Junior thought he’d chased off had only made a tactical retreat. They returned while he was helping Jennifer and stabbed him in the shoulder from behind. It was that damn busboy who did it! I’m sorry for saying it that bluntly, ma’am, but you need to know how it is out there.”
“I should have never turned my back on him,” Junior said.
“Jennifer tried to help Junior,” Frank said. “She pushed them off him, and they cut her throat.”
Junior’s voice betrayed the anguish of losing the life of a young lady he was charged with protecting. “I tried to apply pressure until we could administer first aid. It was obvious she was gone and things were rapidly getting worse down there.”
“We didn’t know if they were coming back with five more thugs or fifty,” Frank said. “I wanted to take them out, but I couldn’t get a clear shot.”
“We tried to find the hotel security,” Carol sobbed, nearly hysterical. “There were so few security people to begin with. When Jennifer was killed, that was the last straw for whatever was holding this place together. They ran away.”
“We couldn’t find or flag down any police either,” Frank added.
Liz insisted that they call a meeting of a few other people still staying at the top of the hotel. They could meet in her penthouse. It took less than thirty minutes to get everyone together, where they huddled in the penthouse to plan next steps. There were a few members of the film crew that were staying in other rooms as well as the male lead from the miniseries. They pooled their resources to stay in the penthouse. For now, the goal was just to be safe. No one had a plan yet for next steps.
The stone balconies off the penthouse were a common gathering spot for many of the people where, like Nero, they watched the city burn beneath them. It was hard to see details that far down. From what they could discern, the police were in running skirmishes with looters and rioters. As soon as it was put down in one area, it would flare up in another. Bottles would be thrown, shots fired, and people would scream and run. Then it would all become eerily silent for a while until a very similar scene would play out again on another street with another group. There didn’t appear to be a rhyme or reason to the violence, and no ground was taken.
They had all thought of the hotel as a safe zone. Losing Jennifer proved how vulnerable they were.
Strife
“Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.”
- Roy T. Bennett
Waldorf Astoria, Chicago, IL
Jorge settled his two children into a hotel room in the corner of the third floor at the Waldorf. He’d been a doorman at the hotel for almost four years. When things went crazy, he decided to stay home and weather the storm. He had been used to chaos in his native Guatemala. The scale of this was so much larger than anything he experienced back there.
He and his family had been hunkered down in their small apartment, hiding from the sounds of riots and shots, when two men kicked in their door. Despite the chain and deadbolt, the frame gave way. While Jorge fought with one, his beloved Delmy fought like a wildcat to protect the children. Jorge plunged a large kitchen knife into his attacker, then he turned his head to find his wife’s neck twisted to an unnatural angle. A tremendous fury overtook him, and he killed her attacker as well.
With no place else to go and the hope that criminals would never take time to search all the rooms in the hotel, he snuck in his children and what little food they had left. Occasionally, he could hear the guests in the halls or congregating downstairs. He dared not leave his children to investigate.
<< Vince >>
Vince was watching the news of the riots and unrest in Chicago. It reminded him of the news feeds of the war-torn eastern European countries. He had been trying all day and was nearly frantic by the time he finally got through to Ellie. Although Ellie said things were okay and tried to project calm, it was clear she was worried and scared. It was obvious to Vince if for no other reason than the fact she stayed on the phone with him so long. As much as he wanted to talk to Kate, he was enjoying talking to Ellie. He was worried they would lose the connection at any moment. This was the first time he had gotten through in days. Ellie told him how great Malcolm was doing during the crisis stocking up on food and organizing the other men from the block to barricade the street with old cars at both ends of the block. They’d formed a neighborhood watch. So far, most of the crime, thugs, and looters had stayed away. Ellie wasn’t sure how long they could hold out. She wondered rhetorically to Vince how long the current crisis would last.
“I arranged to get you a SAT phone from Uncle Dave’s sources in the area,” Vince told her. “We’re still working out exactly how to get it to you. I promise I’ll be there to help. I have some plans in the works.”
“How can you get a phone delivered to me? It’s not like Amazon is delivering right now,” Ellie asked in amazement.
“Uncle Dave has offices in Chicago that procure government contracts for roads and bridges. Their building is about halfway between your place and downtown Chicago. He said they have several SAT phones at the office for their visits to more obscure locations, and they have drones they use for survey work. Those employees are bugging out with their families, and Uncle Dave convinced them to strap a SAT phone to a drone and get it to you. They’re good men who are very loyal to Uncle Dave. They’re also going to get another phone to some Hollywood starlet Uncle Dave knows who is trapped downtown, although no one has been able to get in touch with her and let her know it’s coming. We can only hope she’s still where they think. The last we heard, she was trapped at a luxury hotel before things got bad. I don’t know when or how they’ll get the drone to your house, but they have your address, so keep an eye out.”
Ellie was so drained emotionally at this point all she had in response was a simple “Thank you.”
***
More than two weeks into the unrest, things weren’t getting better. While it appeared better in Louisville, Vince was sure it was only a temporary respite. The problem had spread all over the country. Things had come to such a boiling point in most major cities that issues in one area ignited chaos in other areas. Like organ failure in a body, the effect was cascading from city to city, and the leaders were hard pressed to stop it. By and large, the rural areas were spared the worst of it. Vince’s concern and total focus was Chicago.
He talked to Ellie and Kate as often as possible. Frequently, he would get the “all circuits are busy” recording. That message made him so frustrated and furious he wanted to hit something. Vince also talked to Malcolm a time or two in order to understand his view of things in the neighborhood. It was his hometown, and Vince needed to know what he was seeing. Malcolm was becoming more worried as time passed and things didn’t improve. However, he still held out hope the government would get things back under control soon.
Malcolm’s neighborhood group had shot at two looters, leaving a heavy blood trail from one home leading out of the neighborhood. No one wanted to venture outside the block to see if
they killed the looter. They hadn’t been able to get any police response to their neighborhood before they armed themselves and barricaded the block. After the shooting, they still couldn’t get any fire, police, or EMS response to take their reports.
Power had been out more often than not for about a week now. They were using the barbecue grill to heat food. They’d eaten the most perishable food first. They still had some of the food Malcolm had gotten from the bodega. Most families on the block were not as well supplied. Malcolm was alternating the generator he’d salvaged from the refrigerator to the freezer in the basement to keep his food supply fresh. Most people in the neighborhood shared because the perishable food would go bad soon. Malcolm told Vince that he expected the sharing to end when that food got lower. He didn’t blame his neighbors and admitted he was holding back some of his own food as well. He’d asked Ellie and Kate to begin rationing the food he’d acquired and locate any container they could find to fill with water in addition to filling the bathtubs to the top while the taps were still running. The last couple of days, the water pressure had been dropping. They could still get water, but it was coming out at a trickle.
Vince decided he couldn’t wait any longer. It would take a few days to get there by ground. If he waited any longer, he could be too late, and the consequences were too horrific to contemplate. If he was moving too fast, the worst would be wasted time and resources.