Harold took his wife’s hands in his and looked deep into her eyes. “Sweetie,” he said, “this is it. All those things that I’ve feared for so long are coming true. We have to work through this together. We need everyone here as much as they need us.”
“I know,” Kay said. “I’m just afraid that I’m not going to be able to do much to help. I’ve never complained about being in this chair. I know God has a reason for everything. What are the others going to say if they don’t feel like I’m contributing enough and earning my keep?”
“They can say goodbye,” Harold said. “This is your house. If they don’t like how things are they can find somewhere else to be, simple as that. I’m confident that you are worrying about something that isn’t happening now or is ever going to happen. Everyone here loves you. Not as much as I do, of course.”
“More,” Kay said as she leaned in and kissed her man. As she leaned in there was a familiar sound that filled the quiet room; the sound of methane leaking from its confined space.
“Not,” Harold said after breaking the kiss.
“I’m so glad you can’t smell,” Kay said. Her face turned a bright red as she tried to hold her breath before breaking out laughing.
Harold just shook his head as he stood and started to walk out of the room. “You’re nasty,” he said. He was smiling the entire time, grateful he couldn’t smell the green, gaseous mist that was floating ominously waist high in the room.
Just then Roxie walked in through the back door. “Whoa Nellie,” she said. “Smells like sumpin’ died up in here.” She could tell the way Kay was laughing meant only one thing.
Harold winked at her. “Kay said you brought a truckload with you?” he asked.
“Yep,” she answered. “Mostly food an supplies. But I did bring my small freezer and what meat weren’t thawed out. I need to get it in and plug it up or we may lose it all.”
“I’ll get some help and bring it inside,” Harold said. “Why don’t you put the rest of your things in the travel trailer out back and make that your place until you decide to leave us and go back to Caney Headville.”
“You mean the one you built tha shed over or one of them others?” she asked. She looked at him intensely, sending a silent message.
“Of course, woman,” Harold answered. “You don’t think I’d offer you a trailer without walls, do you?”
“I hope not,” she said with a smirk. “I’m gonna like havin’ my own little place out back. Since I reckon’ I’ll be the cook around here it’ll be good to be by the fire pit an well. I feel loved. That’s the best tiny house around here.”
Frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrumph. The sound of more methane escaping into the room could be heard emanating from near the dining room table. Roxie and Harold hurried out the back door, leaving Kay to fend for herself.
Just outside the back door, Beetle and Ellen were preparing to enter the house with the buckets of freshly picked produce. There was another bountiful harvest.
“Just carry it inside and put it on the counter,” Roxie suggested. “We can cook it up to feed these hungry people after I get the truck unloaded.” The two women carried their buckets inside.
“That was mean,” Harold said. “They had no warning about what they were walking into.”
“They’ll survive,” Roxie said. “Probably.”
By the time Roxie reached the pickup, Ellen and Beetle were by her side. They eagerly volunteered to help with the unloading. Maybe a bit too eager. At least they were outside in the fresh air.
Harold walked out to the back, near the garden where the ‘tater shed was. He went to the side of the small shack, through a door and into a room that held most of the gardening tools. There were shovels, rakes, hoes, shears and other tools neatly hung on racks on the walls. A table was on one end of the room with pots and potting soil on top of it. All sorts of pesticides and fertilizers were stored on the numerous shelves in the room.
Harold leaned over and stuck his finger knuckle-deep into a knot hole in a floorboard. He lifted, and a section of the flooring raised on hidden hinges. A couple of steps were visible in a hole beneath the concealed doorway. It was dark down there, but Harold didn’t hesitate to start climbing down.
A few steps down there was a battery-operated light affixed to the plastic wall. A simple push and the light came on, showing the way down the ladder. It was about 10 feet down before Harold’s feet fell upon a grate landing. Another light was affixed to the wall. Clicking it on brought better visibility into the submerged opening.
Turning away from the ladder, Harold could see the large room he had climbed down into. The cinder block walls were painted white, which served to reflect the available light. The room was an eight-foot by 12-foot area with two different openings coming from the roof of the room. One was the passage he had entered from (which was nothing more than a black plastic culvert that was three feet in diameter). The other was on the opposite end of the room and was larger, a four-foot square passageway.
The back door of an old school bus was centered in one of the long walls. Harold walked to the door, turned the handle and swung it open into the room he stood in. He stepped inside the dark bus, reached to the right of the door and pushed another light fixture. The light wasn’t very bright but enabled the eyes to see that the bus had been converted to a very practical living space with an aisle down the middle wide enough for a wheelchair.
Harold walked further inside the bus. He immediately noticed how much cooler it was down here than it was outdoors. Shelves lined both sides of the bus, with a wide assortment of non-perishable food items filling them completely. Further inside, about eight-feet in, the space opened up to a living area.
A built-in couch (more like a love seat, given its width) was against the right-side wall and a television mounted onto a section of wall with a swivel hinge on the left-side wall. A dvd player was mounted beneath the television.
Concealed behind the television was a doorway that led to a side room. The room was rather large, 12-foot by 12-foot room. The walls were constructed of earth bags covered with a thin layer of concrete.
Inside the room was an assortment of MRE’s. There was case upon case stored in the room, leaving just a small area on one side of the room where two cots could be placed if needed for someone to sleep. The space had been intended for more food items, but Harold and Kay had bought all the left-over MRE’s they could find from people after Harvey.
Beyond the living area was a small kitchen area, with a convection oven, microwave, coffee maker and full-size fridge. There was a small counter space with storage above and below it. Beyond the kitchen area was a partition with a sliding door. On the other side of that wall was the bedroom area, with a queen-size Murphy bed.
The driver seat and steering wheel of the bus had been removed to allow more space in the room. Where the front windshield should be, Harold had installed a pair of 3-foot culverts. They were both about eight-feet long and were plugged at the end, creating a small area for someone to sleep or for additional storage. The ends of the tubes were covered by doors that looked like rustic cabinet doors.
Down the steps and through the front door of the bus was yet another room. This room was equally as large as the one behind the television, but inside it was quite a different collection of survival needs. This is where Harold had stored a variety of solar panels, batteries, security systems (complete with cameras, monitors and control panels), laptops, a computer, an assortment of electronics and components, ham radios and other communication devices, and replacement parts for most of the items in the room.
Almost half the room was packed with things Harold and Kay imagined they may need in an emergency situation. On the other side of the room was a wide assortment of firearms and ammo. There was a barrel of gunpowder and numerous tubs of Tannerite, as well as other types of weaponry.
In the back corner of the room, a small bathroom hid. There was a composting toilet and a small shower stall, complete with a
solar powered on-demand water heater. Water was fed to the shower through a holding tank and drained into a barrel buried beneath the shower itself. A sump pump had been installed to empty the barrel. If nothing else, Harold thought, he would always be able to take a hot shower.
Harold hoped the electronics survived the pulse, given they were stored underground. They had spent a lot of money burying the bus and equipping it with the items that were now inside it. Not many people knew what lay beneath the garden, but as he stood in the dimly lit room, Harold was glad they had invested all that time and money on the bunker.
He had sometimes caught flack for his endless trips to garage sales and flea markets gathering items for the hideaway, but it was something Harold felt driven to do. Now he understood why God had guided him to do all that preparation.
“Uncle Harold,” came a voice from topside. It was Jake. He was one of the few people who knew about the hideaway since he had helped lower the bus into the ground and build the walls to the side rooms and entry room. “You down there?”
“Yea,” Harold answered as he walked back to the doorway. “Come on down.”
A minute later Jake was looking around the dim space. “Dang,” he said, “this place looks a lot nicer than it did the last time I saw it. Look at all this stuff.”
“I just hope it’s enough,” Harold replied. “I’ve been stockpiling and saving for so long. Now I guess it’s time to start making good use of this stuff. I reckon’ this is about to become mine and Kay’s new home. She has to be in a more controlled environment and the house isn’t big enough for us and everyone else.”
“I’m sure Allie and the kids wouldn’t mind staying down here if you’d rather be in the house,” Jake said as he walked into the living area of the bus. “This is so cool.”
“I bet they would,” Harold responded. “But Kay already said she was ready to come to the bus and you know she always wins.”
“Yes, Dear,” Jake said. “They always do.”
Jake walked around the bus looking around while Harold prepared things to bring Kay down. He made sure the lights were all working and that the bed was made. He looked in one of the kitchen cabinets and pulled out a bowl. He opened the lid and pulled out a few mints. He handed one to Jake, placed one on each of the pillows on the bed and opened one and tossed it in his mouth. He didn’t want to forget anything before bringing his bride to their little underground cabin.
“I’m gonna’ need some help setting up some solar panels,” Harold said. “I’ve got the battery banks set up and all the wiring done, I just need to put the panels on top of the ‘tater shed and hook ‘em up. The batteries already have a little charge, but not enough for very long.”
“Let’s do it,” Jake said. “The sooner we get it done the quicker those batteries can be replenished.” Jake followed Harold through the bus and into the room where the panels were stored.
“Dang,” Jake said when he entered the room, “I didn’t know about all this stuff. You’ve been busy since the last time I saw this room.”
“Yea, well,” Harold replied, “we really don’t have to let anyone else know what all’s down here. The less people that know the less we have to worry about someone wanting to try and take it.”
“Gotcha,” Jake replied.
The two men carried several of the panels to the rear of the bus, to the entry room, and stacked them on a rectangular section of flooring beneath the larger opening into the room. Harold climbed the ladder and exited through the same trap door he had come in through.
Once in the tool shed, Harold reached above the header of the door and removed a pin that wasn’t visible while standing on the floor. Harold had installed the pin, so he knew exactly where it was. He then climbed back down into the dimly lit pit below.
Harold then took his place next to the solar panels and pushed a button on the railing that surrounded the floor panel. The panel moved as the sound of a small motor filled the room. As he rose, Harold was pleased with his homemade elevator. He had been concerned that a garage door opener would not be sufficient for the job but adding a series of pullies and cables had eased the load on the motor and it worked just fine.
As the elevator approached the ceiling, a section swiveled upward and created a passageway for the elevator to rise through. From the top, the section appeared to be part of the flooring of the tater shed.
It didn’t take but a few minutes for the two men to install the solar panels on top of the shed. Harold had installed brackets to mount them on when he first built the shed above his hidden cellar. He had even prewired the setup where all he had to do was retrieve the connectors from their concealment box and plug them into the panels. Once that was done, the system was good to go. The batteries were being charged.
Harold looked toward the house and saw that everyone was gathered near the fire pit. It had been a busy day and a lot had been accomplished already. There was so much more to be done, though. He could hear one of the cows in the pasture mooing, reminding him that he needed to ensure the animals were safe from predators – such as hungry humans. Those cows, the pigs, goats and chickens, were going to be critical to the survival of the humans gathered before him.
“I think we need to go have a talk,” Harold said to Jake. “We need to figure out what to do next and it needs to be a group decision.”
“I agree,” Jake said. “I’ll go get everyone from inside while you gather up everyone outside.”
The men set forth with a plan, however they had no idea what to say.
Chapter 8
Group meeting
“Alright, guys,” Harold began once everyone was gathered and had settled in to their comfortable space. “We’ve got to figure out a game plan. It looks like things have reached worst-case-scenario and aren’t going to get better for a while.”
“So, what’s really going on?” John asked. “Did we really get blasted by an emp?”
“It looks that way,” Harold answered. “I haven’t heard any different, but it sounds like the pulse wiped everything out all over, not just around here.
“You mean all over the country or all over the world?” Tommy interjected.
“I’m not sure,” Harold said. “I listened to the radio and all anyone seems to know is that there was an emp. That was yesterday, though. There may be more current news. I just haven’t taken the time to sit down and listen to the radio since then.”
“I can listen to it and see if there’s anything new,” Ellen said. “I’m sure we’d all like to know what’s going on.”
“I would,” John said.
“Me, too,” said Tommy. Several other people also joined in, saying they wanted more news.
“We all want to know what’s going on in the outside world,” Harold said. “I’m more concerned with what’s going on in our world. There’s nothing we can do about the rest of the country or the world, but we can take control of what happens to us. We need to worry about us before we worry about anyone else.
“We’ve got food, but it won’t last forever. We have water. We’ve got four cows, eight goats, four pigs and the chickens. That will provide us with milk and eggs, as long as we take care of the animals. The pigs will provide meat, but not for very long. And the garden is about to play out. It’s time to plant the fall garden. I suggest we plant a bigger one than we have going now. There are more mouths to feed with what we can grow.”
“I can get meat,” John said.
“And I can bring the food we have at the house,” Tommy added. “As long as we can take that truck to bring it with.”
“I’ll help with the garden,” Ray Lynn said. “I’ll start tillin’ up the dirt in the mornin’. It’ll take more than me, though.”
“If we work together on it we can get it done pretty quick,” Harold said. “We can work the section of the garden that’s done first and then add more as we go along. We’ve only got one tiller and the hand plow to use, but that should be enough for now.
�
��We need to get the cows closer in, too. We’ve already had someone tryin’ to steal food from the garden. I’d hate to lose any of the livestock to thieves. The milk and meat they provide is too important now.
“Me and Ellen can stay in your barn and keep an eye out for the livestock,” Tommy said. “That’d give us our own place and have someone closer to the cows and goats to watch out for ‘em. We can bring ‘em in with us at night.”
“That’s a good idea,” Harold said. “The loft is plenty big to turn into a living space for the two of you.”
“We can move in with ya’ll,” John said. “It may be tight, but we could make it work.”
“I’m not sure it would be big enough once the animals are brought in at night,” Harold said. “What if you and Ashlyn rearrange the stuff in that storage building over there. It’s got a loft on either end and enough room to make a bedroom for you two to give ya’ll a little adult space of your own. The girls could sleep in the loft and there would be room enough for a living area left over.”
“That’ll work,” Ashlynn said. “We’d be much obliged if we could use the building.”
“I get tha best lil’ trailer on tha property,” Roxie said. “I already have my stuff in the camper trailer where I can be by the fire pit. Looks like I’m gonna’ be the community cook.”
Everyone seemed pleased by that bit of news.
“Guess that means I won’t be serving sandwiches again,” Kay said. Everyone clapped and cheered playfully. “Gee, thanks.”
“O.K.,” Jake said, “we have a cook, a shepherd and a gardener. What else do we need?”
“Eyes,” Harold said. “We need everyone to keep their eyes open. We actually have it pretty good, compared to most. Sooner or later someone is going to stumble on our little community and want what we have. We all have to be on the lookout for strangers that may want to harm us or steal us blind.”
“Since Tommy and Ellen are gonna’ stay out in the barn they can watch that end,” Ray Lynn said. “I can pull one of them empty campers over by the garden to stay in and keep an eye on that side.”
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