by P. A. Glaspy
“Threat neutralized!” Marco called out.
“Who else wants to die today?” Damon shouted across the street. “We’re trained soldiers! We don’t miss!”
One of the men came running out of the gym toward the man lying on the ground. “John? Johnny! No!” He slipped in the snow, got up, and hurried to his fallen comrade. After turning him over, the look on his face told Damon’s crew what they already knew.
“You murdered my brother, you assholes! You’re supposed to protect us not kill us!”
“Then lay down your weapons and come out with your hands up like I told you to do from the beginning! No one else has to die!” Damon waited; body tensed ready for action; his finger off the trigger but hovering near it. The whole team seemed to be anxious, poised to act if the situation called for it.
The man made his choice. “I’ll see you in hell first, you son of a bitch!”
The action of raising his pistol to aim their way was enough for Stacy to take aim and fire at him. The bullet hit him in the chest, and he dropped to the ground beside his brother. With two of their people down, the other four appeared in the parking lot unarmed, arms raised.
“Hands behind your head and get down on your knees!” Damon’s voice held no hesitation and left no room for misinterpretation. The men complied.
“Manning, Thompson — keep your eyes peeled on the parking lot. Light, Perez — you watch the buildings.” Hutch issued the orders as he and Damon started toward their attackers. They walked slowly, checking the area, looking for threats or anything out of place. They approached the men kneeling in the snow. Three of them wouldn’t meet their gaze. The fourth glared up at them.
“Do you have something you want to say?” Hutch asked, addressing the belligerent-looking man.
“Zeke was right. You’re the National Guard, aren’t you? You’re supposed to protect us, help us! You killed two men!” The man spat the words at them in a venomous tone.
“Those two men were shooting at us,” Hutch replied calmly. “When someone shoots at us, we shoot back. We gave you the choice to walk away with everybody alive. You chose poorly.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do? We’re almost out of food. None of our cars or trucks run. The water will stop flowing any day now. We’ve got no way to heat our houses. We’re either going to freeze, starve, or die of dehydration!”
“So, you felt that trying to carjack a bunch of soldiers was your only recourse?” Damon asked. “Not real smart on your part. Where are your weapons?”
The man jerked his head toward the building. “Ours are inside. Leon’s is over there by the two men you murdered.”
The insinuation was not lost on them, but Hutch and Damon ignored it. Damon replied, “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to get back in our vehicle and get going. We have a lot of miles to cover to get back to D.C. You boys are going to stay right here until we can’t see you anymore. If you move from this spot while you are still within our sight, the man on top of the camper will make the body count go up. Do you understand?”
All four men nodded. The other three still had not spoken a word. The fourth asked in a pleading tone, “Isn’t anyone coming to help us?”
“I don’t know,” Damon said. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you something different, but I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen. I do think you should choose another way to try to get your hands on supplies, though. This one is pretty dangerous, as you can see. The next person you try to steal from may not be nice enough to leave any of you alive. Good luck, guys.”
Hutch and Damon turned to head back across the street. Hutch called out loud enough for the men behind him to hear, “Perez, anybody moves, you shoot. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!” Marco replied sharply.
As they walked, Hutch said under his breath, “They didn’t train us for this.”
Damon nodded. “There is no training for a situation where we are forced to fire upon American citizens. That’s not what we’re supposed to do. Yet, here we are, doing it.”
“This is turning into a pretty sucky day,” Hutch added.
Damon replied, “Agreed. And there’s still some of it left.”
Chapter 8
“Okay, run that by me one more time, Joel.” Elliott had a confused look on his face.
Excitedly, Joel explained his plan. “You have everything we need here to power this generator with the tractor. We use the power takeoff shaft to turn the big pulley from the water pump. It uses the belt to turn the small pulley which powers the generator! I may need to scavenge some parts from other equipment here to mount everything up, but I think it can be done. Do you know what the PTO speed is relative to the tractor engine’s RPM?”
“I think the specs were five hundred forty PTO RPMs at like twenty-six hundred engine RPMs.”
“So, that’s real close to a five-to-one ratio. Close enough for this setup. The pulleys are twelve inches on the big one and about two on the little one. That’s a six-to-one ratio. If the tractor engine idles at around one thousand RPMs, that means the PTO is turning at about two hundred. That gives us approximately twelve hundred RPMs at the small pulley on idle. I think we’re going to need more than that to get the right frequency; but without testing equipment, we may just have to wing it. If we can run the tractor at idle, it will use much less fuel; but I think we’re going to need about eighteen hundred RPMs to reach one hundred and ten volts. The voltmeter on the front will tell us what we need once we get it going.”
Elliott was starting to get excited himself. “You mean we could actually run power to the house with this setup?”
Grinning, Joel nodded. “Yep. Nothing too heavy — no HVAC or water heater, pretty much nothing with a heating element. But lights, fridge, freezer — I think that’s totally doable.”
“What about the well?”
Joel’s forehead wrinkled. “That’s two hundred and twenty volt. I don’t know if we can generate that kind of power. It won’t hurt to try. You said it was an artesian well, right?”
“Yep. Great water, great pressure. Only takes one pump, maybe two, to get it going. It was coming up out of the hole pretty good when they hit it.”
“Well, it must be a non-flowing one or it would be bubbling out of the ground all the time. Maybe we could come up with a solar system to run the pump, if we can get our hands on some solar panels.”
“Sounds like a scavenger hunt to me,” Elliott chuckled. “Wow, this will definitely change things for us, Joel! If we can run the fridge and the freezer, that opens up all kinds of options for food storage.”
“Yes, it does. We may not be able to keep the fridge cold enough. Those doors let a lot of air in and out when you open them. It takes a refrigerator like eight to twelve hours to get to the set temp. The freezer is easier. It’s a chest type, so when you open the door, the warmer air of the room doesn’t drop down into it, because hot air rises and the colder air in the freezer doesn’t rise out. We should be able to run the generator for an hour, then off for two, to keep the freezer stuff frozen. We can cover it in blankets or sleeping bags when it’s off. That will help hold the cold in. How full is the freezer?”
“Almost to the top. I bagged a deer a couple of weeks ago, and there’s flour and meal in there as well. Lots of meats and some vegetables. The bottom is lined with gallon jugs of water.”
Joel smiled and nodded. “Excellent. That’s one we won’t have to worry about then. It could probably go forty-eight hours without anything thawing if it was kept closed at full capacity. We’re past that now, but, hopefully, we can salvage any meat that’s starting to thaw. We’ll try to keep the fridge cold as well, but we may need to coordinate running the generator with eating times when it would be opened more. Let’s get to scavenging!”
Most of the family joined them for the construction of the generator. Aaron and Cameron were in awe as they watched their grandfathers build it. Ethan and Will assisted with tool requests. Amanda was t
alking softly to Flossie and rubbing her neck. Lauri and Carly had stayed in the house to work on supper.
When everything was ready, Joel said, “Well, only one way to see if it’s going to work. Let’s take it for a test drive.”
Elliott climbed on and fired up the tractor. The generator started running, and a group shout went up. Joel squatted down by the front of the generator to check the voltmeter.
“Yep, that’s what I expected. We’re getting about eighty to ninety volts at idle. Give it a little gas, Elliott.”
Elliott pushed the throttle slowly, and the engine revved up. Joel watched as the voltmeter started climbing. When it got to one hundred and twenty volts, Joel called out, “Right there! What’s your RPM?”
Elliott looked at the gauge. “Seventeen fifty, give or take.”
Standing and arching his back, Joel replied, “That’s about what I figured it would be. Well, we can still do it, but we’re limited to whatever fuel you have.”
Elliott turned the tractor off and climbed down. He pointed to a fifty-five-gallon drum not far from him. “That one’s full. I’ve got another one out back that’s probably half that. We’ve got a little for now.”
“Well, all that’s left is to get the power from the generator into the house. Do you have a cord for the generator, Elliott?”
“I think so. Let me see what’s over there.” Elliott went back to the corner and rummaged through some items. He held up a twenty-five-foot long heavy-duty power cord. “Here we go!” He handed the cord to Joel.
Joel took the cord, looked it over and smiled. “Perfect. Now, I’m going to have to ask you to make a sacrifice, buddy.”
Elliott’s eyebrows raised as he replied, “Um, okay. What do you need? Blood? A pinky finger?”
Everyone laughed as Joel said, “No! Nothing that drastic or painful. I just need to cut the plug off your dryer cord.”
“Is that all? If it gets juice to the house, you can have the whole dryer!” Elliott started for the door of the barn. Joel and the rest followed, still chuckling over the interaction.
When they got back to the house, Elliott went straight to the laundry room. He pulled the dryer away from the wall. “Do you need me to take the back off and detach the cord?” he asked, looking at Joel who was standing in the doorway.
Joel shook his head. “Nah, it’s going to be ruined when I get done with it. Just cut it off. Leave me a couple of feet of cord to work with.”
Elliott cut the dryer cord close to the back of the machine. He handed it up to Joel and came out from behind the dryer. He started to push it back to the wall, but Joel stopped him.
“We’re going to need that outlet. Just leave the dryer where it is for now.”
Lauri walked out to the laundry room, drying her hands on a dishtowel. “What are you boys up to?”
Joel turned to his wife with a twinkle in his eye. “We’re going to make electricity.”
Carly bounded over. “Oh my God! Are you serious? We’re going to have power again? I’m so glad I brought my cell phone and my tablet. I can charge them up and maybe we can get on the Internet and find out what the hell is going on!”
“It doesn’t work that way, honey,” Joel said, shaking his head. “The pulse fried their circuitry. Those devices won’t work again, ever.”
“What? No cell phones anymore?” Carly exclaimed wide-eyed.
“No, not until new ones can be made anyway. But cell phones are way down on the priority list right now for what we need to live.” Joel was using a pair of wire strippers Elliott had given him to expose the wires inside the cord as he talked.
“Maybe low on your priority list,” Carly mumbled. “Some of us had a life that was pretty awesome. Everything is just a big bag of suck now.”
“What is wrong with you?” Amanda’s loud exclamation caught everyone by surprise and made Carly jump. “You have been nothing but catty, whiny, snarky, and mean since I met you! It’s like you blame everyone around you because this happened! None of these people caused this. None of them can fix it. Life is as good or as bad you make it. My mom is a thousand miles away dealing with this alone. I may never see her again! She could be dead because some asshole wanted the food she had in the house, and I will probably never know. You have your family here with you. Do you ever stop to think about anyone but yourself? I’m sick of your bitching and moaning about every little thing! I think it’s about time you pull up your big girl panties and start acting like a grownup instead of a bratty, petulant child. Excuse me!” Amanda brushed past Ethan and went outside.
Everyone stared at the closed door she had exited, shocked at the outburst from a person they had just met. Cameron broke the silence.
“Wow. She’s got a set of lungs on her.”
Carly spluttered, “Well, that is about the rudest anyone has ever been to me! Will, I know you like her, but I don’t think I can stay in the same house with her. I don’t think this is going to work —”
“Think again,” Will replied. “Everything she said is true. Rather than acting like the strong woman I’ve always believed you to be, you have been behaving like a spoiled teenager. No offense, guys.” He looked at Aaron and Cameron, who were both in shock over the whole situation. “For a single mom who put herself through school while raising two boys and working, I expected more. Our world is changed, likely forever, but at least for the foreseeable future. I, for one, do not want to spend it listening to you complain about it. This is it. This is what we’ve got. Deal with it. And for everyone’s sake, grow up, Carly.” Will went out the door as well.
Silence ensued again. Finally, Joel spoke. “Well now, that needed saying. I really do like that Amanda. Come on, Elliott, let’s go make a cord to get some power in here.”
Joel and Elliott left the room with the rest of the menfolk following. Carly was standing in the middle of the kitchen, still shocked by the interactions with her brother and Amanda. She turned to her mother. Before she could say anything, Lauri spoke.
“Amanda is right, honey. Your behavior has been horrendous. We all love you and didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Your father and I talked about it more than once. We honestly thought you would get over it at some point and get on board. I admit, it’s been hard for me to accept, too. But we have to accept it and make the most of it. Amanda was absolutely right. We are blessed to be together. We have a place to live that is better than where we were, providing warmth and safety. We can build a new life, but we have to work as a team. I know how strong you are. I know you can do this and be a vital part of this family. But you need to deal with this life and stop pining over your former life. It’s gone, probably for good. Now, let’s get back to supper.”
Carly walked slowly over to where Lauri was standing. Quietly she said, “I’m sorry, Mom. I guess I was taking it out on everybody else. It’s just so … surreal, you know?”
Lauri hugged her and replied, “I know, honey. It’s going to be alright. We’ll figure it all out. I do think it would be a good idea for you to extend that apology to the rest of the family. Later tonight sounds good.”
“Yeah, Lord knows there won’t be anything else to do besides talk.”
“Carly …”
“Sorry.”
Chapter 9
President Olstein slammed his office door closed behind him.
“How dare they walk out on me! I think everyone in Washington has lost their minds, because no one is listening to me!” He slammed the papers he had been carrying down on the desk then, in a fit of rage, he swept his arm across the top knocking everything onto the floor. He grabbed a glass pyramid off the credenza and threw it violently across the room. It shattered, making a very loud noise, which had Agent Walters bursting through the door.
“What’s happening, Sir? Are you alright?” he asked, scanning the room for potential danger.
“I’m fine! Get out!” Olstein screeched at the head of his security detail. Walters gave him a curt nod and left, closing the door as
he did. The president stared at the mess he had created. He waded through the rubble on the floor, opened the door, and bellowed into the hall, “Strain! Get your ass in here!”
David hurried down the hall and stood in the open doorway looking down at the mess strewn across the carpet. Finally, he said, “Yes, Mister President?”
“Where are they?”
“They, Sir? Oh, you mean the Speaker and the Joint Chiefs. Speaker Roman said he would be here shortly.” He waited for the president’s reply, fidgeting nervously with the pen and notepad in his hand.
“How shortly?”
“Well, he didn’t give an exact time frame, Sir.”
Olstein rolled his eyes. “Of course he didn’t. He wants me sitting around here with my thumb up my ass waiting for him! If I could, I’d fire him, too. Maybe I’ll write an order giving myself the power to do that, too.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not what they were thinking when I saw them, Mister President.”
“They? Who else was there?” the president snapped.
“Um … well, he wasn’t there … not right away, but …” David stammered, trying to find the right words — the ones that wouldn’t upset the man any more than he already was. His attempt was in vain.
“Spit it out, dammit! Who else?” The vein on the side of Olstein’s temple was bulging with pent-up anger.
“Speaker Roman called General Everley and asked him to come over before I left.” David hoped it would end there. It didn’t.
“Why would he do that? Why would they need to meet before coming here?” Olstein looked at David with a confused expression.
David replied hesitantly, “I don’t really know, Sir. Perhaps they were going to ride together or something. If there’s nothing else, I should probably go check to see if the conference room is ready. I’ll let you know as soon as they arrive, Mister President.”
Olstein waved his hand toward the door. “No, go ahead. But I want to know the second they get here.”