The Ranch_Mischief And Mayhem

by Brian Quest

  Debbie sat up and, for a brief moment, she had forgotten about the events from the night before. It wasn’t until she saw her father standing at the window, gun on his hip, that she realized the night before not only had happened, but had been horrible. Andrew turned around and looked at his oldest daughter. Pride filled his heart when he thought about what she did for her family, and he went to her. She fell into his arms, let out a soft cry, and just stood there, so unsure about the world and what it had become.

  “It’s okay, Sweetheart. We’re all safe now.”

  “I know we are now, but what about next time?”

  “Let’s just hope there isn’t a next time.”

  Debbie wiped away her tears, stood tall, and said, “I’ll go make some coffee.” She knew that a lot of the mugs had been broken the night before, so she grabbed the tin camping cups and got to work. While the coffee was brewing she grabbed the last of the eggs, the two loaves of bread that she had wrapped a couple of days before, and set to the task of making fried egg sandwiches. It wasn’t a fancy breakfast, but it was fast and easy and didn’t require a lot of dishes. She looked around and couldn’t believe the mess the men had made in there.

  When the food was ready, she loaded the sandwiches onto a tray and brought them out into the living room, setting them on the chest so she could go back into the kitchen to grab the coffee. By the time she got back into the other room, all but one of the sandwiches already had been snatched up.

  “Wow, one minute ago you all looked like a bunch of oafs, laying there pretending to be sleeping!” she said, laughing at the sight of everyone sitting up, already eating their sandwiches. “Thank you for leaving one for me!”

  While they sat eating their food, Andrew went over in his head how he was going to tell the girls what he had been dreading telling them. He decided it was best if he just came right out with it. He took a deep breath and said, “Well, I’ve been thinking.”

  “Uh-oh! Look out!” Thomas said jokingly.

  “I’m being serious right now. Last night was a wakeup call for us all. We have to do what it takes to protect each other, and right now I think it would be best if we moved to the shelter.”

  “Dad! No!” Connie cried.

  “I know you don’t want to, but if last night was any indication of how bad things have gotten, then we have to do what is necessary.”

  “But the shelter? It’s so dark and dreary! Why can’t we just stay here?”

  “Because it’s too easy for people to get to us.” He looked at his daughters and the expressions on their faces. “Look, I know it sucks, but too many people know about the ranch, and it’s too big for the handful of us to keep secure. Until we can figure out a way to be more secure, I think it’s important for us to go underground. You won’t be locked down there forever, I promise.”

  “Fine, but I don’t like it,” Connie replied.

  “Me either,” Amy chimed in.

  “Yeah,” Beth added.

  Andrew couldn’t help but grin. “It’s still snowing pretty hard, so we may have to stay here another night. Today I want you girls to pack up whatever you want to bring with you.”

  “Really? We can bring our stuff?” Beth asked.

  “Of course you can. Now you girls go on and start packing. Bring what you want, but you can’t bring it all. There’s room in the shed for some things, but just leave them in the kitchen and one of the guys will put them in the shed. Okay?”

  “Yes, Daddy,” Amy said, kissing her father on his cheek and running up the stairs to start packing.

  “Well, I still think it stinks, but whatever,” Connie said, stomping away like a two-year-old.

  Andrew went to go after her but Debbie stopped him and said, “Dad, let me. Right now she’s mad at you. So you’re the last person she’ll want following her up there.”

  “Right,” Andrew replied. He turned and started to walk away and then turned back and said, “Try to get her to see that it’s the right thing to do, okay?”

  “I will, Daddy. Now go on, we have a lot of work to get done. I’ll get the girls started upstairs and then I’ll get some stew on the fire. Everyone can just eat when they get hungry.”

  “That sounds good, Baby-girl Thank you.”

  Once all of the girls were upstairs, Andrew turned his attention to the bigger task at hand. Before they could go underground, the house would have to be packed up, the horses readied to be moved, and the sleds packed up for the move to the shelter. With the amount of snow that had fallen, moving eight people and their belongings across the ranch would be no easy task, and they had to work quickly; they had no idea if the four men had friends or how long it would be before anyone else tried to take over the ranch.

  As he stood at the window of the living room watching the snow fall while he finished his coffee, he thought about the day he decided to start the underground shelter. He smiled to himself when he remembered the look on his wife’s face. She thought he was crazy for ordering ten shipping containers and having them delivered to the ranch. She thought he was even crazier for having them buried deep underground under the front edge of the woods.

  The snow seemed to be playing games with the whole family…each time they thought it was slowing enough for them to get moving, it would come down harder than before. The girls were able to make pretty fast work of packing up their rooms and getting the rest of their stuff cleaned up. The men that forced their way into the house the day before really had torn up all of the rooms, and even though they wouldn’t be staying in the house for a while, they didn’t want to leave the mess to have to clean up when they were able to leave the shelter.

  “I don’t really know what all to take,” Connie said to Debbie as they finished cleaning the mess off the floor.

  “Well, we already have stuff there, so we probably don’t need much. I’m just going to bring the few things that are most important to me and then my bedding and some of my comfy clothes.”

  “This really stinks, Deb. We shouldn’t have to do this at all.”

  “I know, but it’s the safest thing right now. What happened last night could happen again.”

  “Yeah, I know, but it’s stupid. Why do people feel the need to steal from others? I mean really…get your own stuff!”

  “Ever since the EMP, people have survived on bartering, Connie. If you don’t have any stuff to trade, you don’t get the things you may need to survive. So, the people who don’t want to do any work just steal from people to get what they need.”

  “It’s stupid. Why are people so lazy?!” Connie asked, not really expecting any sort of answer, and then went back to the task of deciding what to bring down to the shelter.

  Amy and Beth had all of their stuffed animals packed into garbage bags and two boxes full of dolls and other small toys. Even though Beth was a little old to play with some of the stuff, it reminded her of her mom, so she decided those were the things she wanted down in the shelter with her. She didn’t care how many clothes she had…all she cared about was being surrounded by things that reminded her of a better time.

  The girls began bringing down the things they wanted loaded on one of the sleds. Then they checked with Keith and Stewart to see if they wanted help packing up their stuff. “We can pack up your stuff. You didn’t really have a lot of stuff up there. So we could just put it all in boxes and bring it down for you,” Debbie said to Keith.

  “That would be so great. Thank you guys!”

  “You guys will have to figure out whose stuff is whose when we get to the shelter.”

  “That’s okay. Thanks again. I gotta get back to work. There is so much to do.”

  “Okay. We can give you a hand when we are done upstairs.”

  “That would be appreciated.”

  Keith went back down in the cellar and returned to the task of bringing up boxes and stacking them by the back door. Luckily the sleds they had were big enough to carry almost everything they needed to bring to safety. There would be v
ery little to go back for, which was a good thing. The less they were seen at the house, the less trouble would find them.

  The stew simmered in the cast iron pot, and all day long, people stopped to grab a few bites of it when they took a break. It took hours, but by the time the sun had set and even more snow had accumulated on the ground, the entire house had been packed up, cleaned and was ready for the move. The house, however, was more ready than Connie and Beth; they were still less than happy to be going underground, where the sun never shone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The snow fell most of the evening, and while everyone sat around the table for dinner, they talked about the shelter. Keith and Stewart had joined the ranch after the shelter was completed, and they never had gone down below. So they were getting a crash course. The girls were quiet throughout the conversation.

  “So, Andrew, tell us about the shelter,” Keith said.

  “Yeah, I guess if we are gonna be stuck down there, we should know a little bit about it,” Stewart said.

  Andrew sat quietly for a moment, obviously lost in thought. He finally spoke, and when he did, he had a tone in his voice nobody was really familiar with. “Years ago, when people started talking about prepping and the apocalypse, I thought it would be smart to have someplace safe for my family to go. I ordered ten shipping containers and began the tedious process of burying them in the ground just beyond the pasture.”

  Eyes wide open, Stewart asked, “You buried ten shipping containers?”

  “I sure did. It took forever, too.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Like I said, just beyond the pasture. They are in the woods, under a large stand of evergreens. They’re deep, and right next to them, hidden pretty well I might add, is a barn just big enough for our horses. Once the shipping containers were in place, I would spend an hour here and two hours there working on them to make them as livable as I could.

  One container is the kitchen, and it has everything we need to actually eat like we do here. I even built a table and benches, so we don’t have to sacrifice our family meals. There is another container, just off the kitchen, that is set up as a living room. Some old couches are in there and even a recliner for Thomas.”

  “It sounds like you’ve thought of everything,” Keith said.

  “Yeah, I guess I did,” Andrew said, smiling proudly. “The bedrooms are nothing too special…not like the ones in this old house, but they will do. There is a room set up for me, one for Thomas, and then there are three other bedrooms, one for Beth and Amy, one for Debbie and Connie, and one for you and Stewart,” Andrew said to Keith.

  Keith smiled and said, “You made one for us?”

  “Well, I had it set up for our previous ranch hand, but when he left and you guys came on, I made a couple of changes to accommodate two people instead of just the one. The last three containers are special. Two of them are strictly storage. We have enough food and water down there to last more than a year. That is also where we have ammunition that should last a good long time, along with the supplies to make more.”

  “What is the last container for?” Stewart asked.

  Amy finally joined the conversation and said, grinning ear-to-ear, “That’s where the toilet is!”

  “Toilet?”

  Andrew responded, “That’s right. It’s nothing fancy, it’s a portable toilet. It even flushes, using water piped in from the creek. It has to be taken out and emptied every couple of days, but it beats having to go out to an outhouse to go! That’s only part of the last container. I also put in a draining portable shower…with warm water.”

  “How in the world are we going to have warm water?” Keith asked.

  “Like the toilet, the shower runs on creek water.”

  “But how does it get warm?”

  “I have strategically placed tiny solar panels at the tops of the trees all around the shelter. The energy pulled from those is stored in batteries. Those batteries will run a number of things in the shelter, from lights, to the occasional use of the TV, to the heater that will warm the water for the shower. The batteries take up the last portion of the tenth container.”

  Amy asked, “What about when it’s cloudy?”

  “Well, you know the line of old windmills?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Those aren’t just old and nice to look at, they also are used for power. They have been a part of the ranch since it was built, and people just have become accustomed to them as something to look at. Nobody knows they actually are being used for power. If you have noticed, they always seem to be spinning, so that means we always will have power.”

  Beth looked up from her plate and asked, “Why haven’t we just been using power here, instead of oil lamps and cold water?”

  “Because the windmills are just too far away for us to use the power out here.” He turned back to Keith and Stewart and said, “So, you see, we are all set to live life closer to the way it used to be than we have been this last year…except for the fact that we all will be underground.”

  “I never thought I’d actually know one of those crazy prepper types!” Keith said, causing Thomas to laugh.

  “He may be crazy, and he may be a prepper, but he is definitely not one of those crazy prepper types!” Thomas said, still laughing.

  “Got it,” Keith replied.

  Andrew got serious again and said, “Now, we don’t want people to know where we went, and eight horses pulling four sleds definitely will leave tracks. So Debbie, you will be pulling my sled and leading my horse while I ride one of the four-wheeler’s. I will be dragging the grate behind me to disguise our tracks. Connie, you will pull Stewart’s sled and guide his horse. Stewart, you will take the other four-wheeler and grate and ride around the ranch with it. If it just looks like someone was having fun riding around, people will be more prone to think it was just something random.

  “We will be taking the long way to the shelter. Thomas knows the way, so you guys will be following him. He will take you on a windy trip through the woods. We definitely don’t want there to be a direct path to the shelter. Along with the shelter and temporary barn, I also built a small shed to hold the four-wheelers.”

  “How have we not come across it in all the time we have explored and hunted?” Stewart asked, confused and curious.

  “Because I put it out past Emma’s.”

  “But, that’s bear country,” Stewart said, his look of curiosity turning to something more closely resembling concern…maybe even fear.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what the rifles are for. Don’t worry; I have spent plenty of time up there. I have scouted, and built, and camped and hunted. It’s not as bad as you think.”

  After dinner, they brought the conversation into the living room with their coffee. Andrew explained exactly how he was able to create such a large underground shelter without anyone noticing. He told them the steps he took, and how he joined the containers to make a home and not just a dark and dreary place to hide. About halfway through the stories, Connie excused herself.

  “If you don’t mind, Dad, I’d like to sleep upstairs tonight.”

  “But it’s so cold up there.”

  “I’ll bundle up. I just want to spend one last night in my room. Can I?”

  “I guess so, but if you get too cold, please come back downstairs?”

  “I will. I’m gonna bring my stuff up now. I’m tired.”

  Beth stood up and asked, “Can I sleep up there with you?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Can I, Dad?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  Connie and Beth brought their pillows and blankets up and laid them out on the floor of the cold bedroom. Connie could tell there was something bothering Beth and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to go to the shelter.”

  “Neither do I. That’s why I’m not going.”

  “You’re not? You have to.”

  “No, I don’t, and I won’t.”r />
  “Dad will make you.”

  “I’m not going. I’m leaving the ranch.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re not. It’s too dangerous out there for you.”

  “No more dangerous than it is for you. When are we leaving?”

  “As soon as the others are asleep.”

  “We’ll never get past them. You know that, right?

  “We won’t be going past them. We’re climbing out the window. We’ll walk around the porch roof and slip down the back. They’ll never even know we left.”

  “Yeah, until the morning, when they can’t find us. That doesn’t seem nice.”

  “Well, it isn’t nice that they are making us go live in a tunnel.”

  “You heard Dad,” Beth said, “he told us how nice it is down there.”

  “I don’t care. It’s not very nice that we are being forced to live down there.”

  Beth didn’t argue with her sister any more. Instead, she lay on the blankets and curled into a ball. It was cold, and she hated feeling cold. While the two sisters lay there, waiting for the others to fall asleep, Debbie lay on the floor in the living room. She felt like something was wrong.

  “What is it, Deb? You look perplexed,” Andrew said, having noticed her mood.

  “I just feel like something isn’t right.”

  “What do you mean, not right?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel like something is off.”

  “Well, I’m sure it’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” she replied, and lay down, covering up with her blanket and closing her eyes.

  One by one, the whole group went to sleep. About an hour after the last one closed their eyes, Connie slipped down the stairs to check and make sure they all were out for the night. When she was satisfied they all were asleep, she quietly hurried back to her room and started bundling up. Beth followed suit, and soon both of them were sliding out the bedroom window.

  The breeze was gentle, but freezing, and the snow finally had stopped falling. In the moonlight, they could see that more than five feet of snow had fallen, and that made Connie nervous. It would be hard to travel. “Come on, we have to hurry.”