299 Days: The Collapse (12 page)

A minute after Chip left, John and Paul came over. First they told Grant the news that mushroom clouds were seen in Israel and Iran. No one knew who started it, but it didn’t really matter. They felt bad for all the innocent people who had just died. They couldn’t help thinking about the other consequence: gasoline would be worth its weight in gold now. There had been more suicide bombings in New York and DC and elsewhere. Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group that had been openly operating in Mexico with the drug cartels, took responsibility and said it was in retaliation for the strike on Iran. John and Paul said there were protests everywhere. People were furious that everything was coming apart. Grocery stores were being looted in parts of California, although the news showed video after video of calm at grocery stores. No news about Olympia.

Nothing seemed different out at Pierce Point, though. It was like the news was about a different country. At Pierce Point, it was just another beautiful spring day out on the water. The weather was perfect.

After the news update, John and Paul talked about what they came over to discuss, which was fishing in the inlet, and gathering clams and oysters from the beach. They had all the gear and knew all the spots. They would go out in pairs during the days and bring back some food. They all had some regular food stored up. Grant hadn’t told them about his food stores yet; he was saving information like that for people on a need-to-know basis, but he knew he’d be telling his neighbors about it soon.

All the fish and seafood would stretch their regular food supplies quite a bit. Plus, fishing and gathering clams and oysters was relaxing in a stressful time. Mary Anne and Tammy, who was now back from work at the power company, volunteered to cook up all the goodies. They would have a group BBQ each night. Fresh salmon, clams, and oysters. After John and Paul left, Grant’s phone started vibrating. It wasn’t Manda’s phone; it was his. He had turned the transmitter off so why was it vibrating? He looked at his phone. He had a calendar event on it. It said he had an argument in a court case tomorrow.

Work? Oh, crap. He hadn’t even thought about his job for the past thirty-six hours. He laughed to himself. Work. Like anyone was going to work right now. There wouldn’t be any judges at the courthouse to hear him argue his case about why the government broke some law.

Law. Courts. That was a lifetime ago. It seemed so artificial and abstract now. Having enough food for the next few weeks, not getting shot, being able to be with his family. That’s what mattered now. It was the “new normal.”

Between guard duty and fishing and seafood gathering, each person would be pretty busy. Good. Grant could stay in shape that way. He couldn’t go to the gym anymore.

More importantly, they weren’t sitting around waiting for the government to save them. Their little group was bonding and really pulling together.

You are in the right place with the right people.

The outside thought was so soothing and reassuring. Grant, in the middle of all this life-changing chaos, had confidence he was going down the right path. He relaxed when he realized that.

While he was thankful to be where he was and who he was with, he was also thinking about his preps. This was the big test. Did he think of everything? Could he improvise to solve the problems that would surely come up? Grant was actually excited to find out. He felt guilty that he was excited because he had just left his family to do all this. (No, he corrected himself, Lisa had left him by staying in an unsafe situation when a perfectly safe one was waiting for her.) But he couldn’t deny that he felt excited by this new phase of his life. However long he might live. Two weeks? Who knows.

He planned on living through this, but things could get really nasty, very quickly. Two weeks, he thought. That’s probably how long he’d live.

Grant realized that assuming he’d be dead soon actually made things easier. He wasn’t afraid of things. He could just do what needed to be done. If someone were attacking the guard shack, he knew he could run up to it with guns blazing and save his neighbors. He didn’t want to die; he just accepted the very real possibility that he would be gone pretty soon. But he wanted to see his family again. That was his goal for living at the moment.

Chapter 54

Don’t Scare the Kids

(May 6)

Lisa was all cried out when the sun came up. She physically couldn’t cry anymore. She was a wreck. She hadn’t slept or eaten in at least twenty-four hours.

Lisa’s life was over. Her life was about her kids and husband, and he had left. Bastard.

She didn’t see this coming. It was like he had been hit by a bus. Suddenly he was gone and she was all alone to deal with everything.

She finally looked at a clock. It was 6:12 a.m. Her mom would be awake. Lisa desperately wanted to talk to her mom. They were very close, to the point that people said they were practically clones of one another.

Her parents were living in Olympia now that they were retired. They only lived a few miles away, but it didn’t seem wise to drive over there. The phone would have to do for now.

“Mom, Grant left last night,” Lisa said without crying. Only for a second, though. Admitting this to her mom made Lisa break down in tears again. After a minute of sobbing, she continued. “He killed some robbers. It was self defense. They were trying to attack him and a neighbor with guns and clubs. Then he came home and was acting crazy and said we needed to go to the cabin. He must have PTSD.”

“PTSD?” her mom, Eileen, asked.

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Lisa said. “I see it in the ER all the time. After a stressful event, people do crazy things.” Lisa had convinced herself that PTSD was the only explanation for why someone would think they needed to run out to a cabin. The more troubling part, however, was that this hadn’t been sudden; Grant had been stockpiling food and guns, so he had been suffering from some mental disorder before the shooting. Lisa could not figure out what had been driving him to have food and guns out at the cabin. A mid-life crisis? Whatever it was, it was crazy. Full-on crazy. Grant was probably permanently insane. She had married a mentally ill man.

“He just left us here,” Lisa said. More sobbing.

“I’m coming right over,” Eileen said.

“Mom, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Lisa said. “There has been a lot of crime.”

“Not in our neighborhood,” Eileen said. They lived in a really nice part of Olympia. “I’m coming over to help my girl.”

They hung up and Eileen got in her car. The short ride to Lisa’s house was smooth. No crime, no sign of any trouble. Things were strangely quiet, in fact. Very few cars were out on the streets.

Eileen was in for a surprise, though. When she came into Lisa’s subdivision, there was a man there with a gun. What was that all about? Was he a plainclothes police officer? That was probably it. Eileen wasn’t stupid; far from it. Like Lisa, she had an extremely high IQ. It’s just that, like Lisa, Eileen had never experienced things like violence or the system not working. She was like so many other Americans during the Collapse: smart but completely ignorant when it came to how to stay alive when nothing is working.

Eileen drove slowly up to him and rolled down her window. The man with the gun politely, but firmly, asked her, “What’s your business here?” He could tell that a nicely dressed lady in her sixties in a very nice car was no gang threat. She was probably visiting someone.

“I’m coming to see my daughter, Lisa Taylor,” Eileen said.

The armed man said, “Oh, Grant’s wife. You know Grant saved Ron Spencer’s life last night? Go ahead and go in.” He waved her through.

Grant had saved someone’s life? That couldn’t be the shooting thing Lisa was talking about. Maybe it was. Eileen then thought about the guard with the gun. How strange, she thought. He didn’t have a badge, but he had a gun. That didn’t make any sense. Then again, lots of things lately were not making sense.

She drove the last two blocks to Lisa’s house. Her little girl was there in the doorway crying. It must be because Grant left. What had gotten into him? He seemed like he had a good head on his shoulders.

Eileen spent the rest of the day consoling Lisa. She also spent time with the kids, reassuring them that everything would be OK, and that surely, their dad would be home soon.

It was dinnertime, so Eileen decided she needed to go home and get some clothes to stay over with Lisa and the kids. They needed her. She said goodbye for now and left.

When she was leaving the neighborhood, a different man with a gun was at the entrance. Maybe they were guards, Eileen thought when she saw a second man with a gun but without a badge. He motioned for her to slow down and roll down her window. He realized she was not exactly a gang threat.

“Will you be coming back?” the guard asked. He had a clipboard like he was keeping track of these things.

“Yes, in about a half hour,” Eileen said. “To see my daughter, Lisa Taylor.”

“OK, but be careful out there,” the second guard said. “It will be dark in a few hours. You don’t want to be out in the dark.”

“OK, thank you,” Eileen said. What was that about not being out after dark? Sure, there had been some protests or some political things going on, and some terrorist attack in far-off cities, but that hardly meant that terrorists were out roaming in Olympia at night. She thought the men with guns were overreacting. Maybe the men felt better having their guns. They weren’t hurting anyone, so it seemed OK.

The ride back to her house was uneventful. Few cars were out. Eileen’s husband, Drew, was waiting for her.

“What were you doing out there?” Drew asked her. “Things are dangerous.”

Eileen was a little mad. “I was taking care of our daughter, who needs me,” she said indignantly. What was with all these men being so worried about “danger” out there?

“I’m going back to spend the night with them,” she added.

Drew knew he couldn’t tell her not to take care of her daughter. Besides, Eileen would be driving before dark.

“I’ll come with you,” Drew said.

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Eileen said. She thought he was overreacting.

“No, I will come with you,” Drew said. He had already loaded his two guns, a duck hunting shotgun and a .357 revolver, and was ready for what might be coming. He had been watching the news all day and knew that things were getting worse each night.

“No!” Eileen yelled at Drew. She hadn’t yelled at him in about twenty years. “Everyone needs to stop overreacting!” she yelled. “Lisa needs me and I’m going. Things are fine. This will all be over soon.” Eileen stormed upstairs to get her things for spending the night at Lisa’s. Drew knew he couldn’t do anything about his wife driving out in possible mayhem. He went back to watching the news. No use even trying to convince her, he thought.

Eileen got her overnight things and left without saying a word to Drew, which was very unusual. On the way to Lisa’s house, there was a car speeding up behind her. It zoomed past her and ran the red light. Crazy drivers.

Eileen came up to the same man who had let her out of the subdivision. He saw her and waved her through.

Eileen spent the evening and night listening to Lisa and doing all the grandmother things she loved to do, like making cookies and playing board games with the kids. She wanted to do all the normal things they loved; this would take their minds off of all the unusual things that were going on. She kept the TV off. There was no need to scare the kids.

Chapter 55

Mrs. Nguyen

(May 6)

Ever since the previous night, when they evacuated Capitol City Guns, the Team (minus Grant) was sticking together. They were on an adrenaline high. They were, after all, young men who loved to help people and had trained for this and were extremely well armed. Guns and training—and being sheepdogs—were the focus of their lives. This was “go time.” It was what they lived for.

If Grant were twenty years younger and single, he would have had the same reaction, but he had a family so he didn’t have the luxury of treating the Collapse as a big adventure. He couldn’t think of himself; he had a family to protect. This adventurous spirit of young men is what had fueled wars and heroism for several thousand years. It was hardwired into some percentage of the male population (and some percentage of the female population).

After the Capitol City evacuation, Pow, Wes, Scotty, and Bobby met up at Pow’s little rented house. It was located a mile or two from Capitol City and was a central location for the other guys. They lived in apartments throughout the city.

“How are your parents doing?” Scotty asked the group. “Mine called and they’re OK out in the sticks.”

Bobby nodded, “Mine, too.”

Pow said, “My parents and all my brothers and sisters are doing fine up in Tacoma.” Pow was the youngest of six kids.

Wes was silent.

With that out of the way, it was time to get down to business.

“Well, gentlemen, this is it,” Pow said. “We need to protect our neighborhoods and our stuff.” He pointed toward the “gun room” in his house. He had a giant safe and reloading equipment, with cases of ammunition on the floor. The contents of his gun room were now worth tens of thousands of dollars.

“We need to secure our gear,” Pow said. “Things are going to get dicey, at least for a while.” Pow thought things would be crazy for longer than that, but didn’t want to seem overly dramatic. He was the leader. He needed to be calm and rational.

Wes said, “Yeah, but where do we take our stuff? We need to be with it. Hell, we might need all of our gear.” Scotty was nodding.

“I have good news, my friends,” Pow said with a smile. He told them about Grant’s cabin. They were all grinning from ear to ear.

“I knew there was a reason we let a lawyer on the Team,” Bobby said.

“So, let’s come up with a plan to get our shit over to Grant’s cabin,” Pow said. “I have a call into him but his phone isn’t working.” They spent the next two hours carefully planning out how to load and move their personal armories. They prioritized the things they would need the most. The first priority would be ARs, 5.56 ammo, and pistols in 9mm, along with 9mm ammo. Mags, spare parts, and specialized tools for these guns would also be in the first priority. The other stuff—AKs, shotguns, bolt rifles, other pistols—would be in later loads.