299 Days: The Stronghold (25 page)

Grant knew he needed to talk to Chip for Rich’s plan to work. He went outside and talked to Chip. It took a while, but Chip eventually agreed. Grant went back in and told Rich the plan would work. Rich smiled.

Chapter 133

The Legend of Pierce Point

(May 14)

Grant got up at about 7:00 a.m. that morning, which felt like sleeping in. He felt rested, a feeling he hadn’t had in a while. He had a light day ahead of him for the first time since he got out there. He needed it. All these all-nighters, stress, and runnin’ and gunnin’ was wearing him out.

He got up and started making pancakes. He wanted to give Eileen and the others who had been making breakfast for the past few days a little break. Not that they minded doing it, he just wanted to show his thanks by doing it for them.

Grant loved the smell of those pancakes. He took several deep breaths and savored the smell. It wasn’t just that they smelled good and he was hungry. It was that he had pancake mix out there and he had his family to cook for. He had prepared for this and—by some miracle—his family was out there. He had written them off when he first got out there. He had mentally decided that he would spend the rest of his life without them because they wouldn’t come out. Now they were sleeping in his beloved cabin and he was making them pancakes. What could be better?

His family started stirring. First Eileen, and then Drew. Eileen helped with breakfast and Drew made coffee. Grant, who didn’t drink much coffee, was very glad he brought out plenty of coffee and filters before the Collapse. He knew that coffee had a civilizing effect on people. A morning cup of coffee was a pre-Collapse routine. Having a cup out there was a connection to the pre-Collapse “normal.” That was very important.

Grant had always hated normalcy bias, but there were parts of “normal” that were healthy and beneficial. A morning cup of coffee reminded people of the past when things were good and gave them hope that even during this stressful time, these things of comfort were still available. Not everything had changed; that was reassuring. They would have coffee through this and enjoy it after things got better.

The Morrells and Colsons came over. Missy Colson was playing with Cole, and Manda was watching over them. That was working well. It seemed that Manda had grown up in the past few weeks, nearly overnight. It was remarkable to see her—who Grant remembered just a few short years ago playing like little Missy—now being the teenager in charge.

The Team came over, too. Ryan was now fully integrated with them, which was good. He was staying out at the yellow cabin with the rest of the Team. They were a tight-knit group, so it wasn’t easy to quickly fit in, but Ryan, a combat Marine, had the respect of the guys, so it worked well.

Wes came in and smelled the pancakes. “I loves me some pancakes,” he said in that rich southern drawl of his. “I bet you the last meal I eat will be pancakes.”

That statement struck Grant. For some reason, Grant thought Wes might be right. Grant thought it was superstitious, but he kept thinking pancakes would be Wes’s last meal. He couldn’t shake that thought.

The last guy to come over was Chip. When he came to the door, Chip signaled Grant to join him outside. Grant knew that they had business to conduct.

When they got outside and away from everyone, Chip said, “OK, let’s do this.” Chip had the keys to the downstairs unfinished basement in his hand. He was holding the keys like they were gold coins. They were. They were the keys to something worth more than gold: guns and ammo.

Grant motioned for Chip to lead the way down to the unfinished basement. Chip went down the stairs to it. When Chip got to the door, he paused. He looked at Grant and said, “How bad do we need those medical supplies?”

“Real bad,” Grant said. Chip smiled. He knew it was true. Chip wasn’t greedy, he just wanted to make sure the sacrifice he was about to make was worth it. It was.

Chip opened the door to the unfinished basement. It was dark in there, so he turned on the light. There they were. Boxes and boxes of guns. Cases of ammo stacked neatly. Boxes of magazines. Several scopes and red-dot sights. Several handgun cases, mostly Glocks. Leaning on the wall were AKs and tactical shotguns with a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag partially covering them from view. On the bench were Chip’s gunsmithing tools.

Chip looked at all the guns. They were his “babies.” He loved every one of them. Grant knew that what Chip was about to do would be hard, but he would still gladly do it.

Chip started checking the labels on the ends of the boxes. “How about standard M4s? Carry handles and standard handguards?”

Granted nodded. “Yeah, we don’t need to give out the good stuff.” About half of Chip’s guns were the fancier models with flat tops and rails for mounting optics and other accessories, like lights. The standard M4s didn’t have those features. They were general issue military carbines, except they weren’t fully automatic. They were great guns, just not all tricked out.

Chip selected two gun boxes and handed them to Grant. Chip went to one of the big boxes of magazines and pulled out twenty standard aluminum magazines. He tested each follower to make sure it worked. They all did. He handed each magazine to Grant after he tested it. Grant found an empty box to put them in. Then Chip went over to the ammo stack, looked at the label and turned to Grant and asked, “A full case of 5.56? Really? Ouch.”

Grant just nodded.

“OK,” Chip said. He grabbed a full case—1,000 rounds—of 5.56. It was heavy and he was in his sixties, so he lifted it slowly. He brought the case over to the two gun boxes and the magazine box Grant had over by him.

Grant looked at the guns, ammo, and magazines and said, “Thanks, man. Seriously. This is a life-saving thing you’re doing.”

Chip smiled. “Oh, I know. That’s why I’m doing it.”

Grant motioned that he would go outside and make sure no one was looking. He trusted everyone upstairs with his life, but…he still didn’t want anyone to know that they had enough guns, ammo, and magazines to outfit about forty fighters. That’s just not something to share. Until it’s time. And it wasn’t time yet.

Grant went out into the daylight and saw that no one was around. He came back in and grabbed a couple of beach towels and motioned for Chip to bring the guns out. They went to Mark’s truck and put them in the bed. Grant covered them with the beach towels. Next, came the box of magazines and the case of ammo, which Grant carried. They all fit under the towels. Grant put some pieces of firewood on the towels to keep them on.

Grant said to Chip, “Hey, man, you go have yourself some pancakes. You’ve earned them. I’ll hang out here. Then tell Mark we need his keys to take something up to the Grange. Tell him to enjoy breakfast. We got this all by ourselves. You can have someone at the Grange run the truck back to him later this morning.”

Grant took this opportunity to sit and just take in the sun and nature out there. God, it was beautiful that May morning. Birds chirping. Sunny and warm with a slight breeze. Nature was still its beautiful self, right in the middle of all the human chaos.

A few minutes later, Chip came out with Mark’s keys. He had his AR slung across his chest, a paper plate of pancakes in his hands, and a plastic fork in his mouth. It was the oddest thing Grant had ever seen, but it made perfect sense.

Chip got in the bed of the truck and Grant started up the engine. Chip was busy keeping the firewood on the towels, balancing his AR, and working on those pancakes. How a guy could simultaneously sit in the bed of truck and do all that at the same time was unclear, but Chip was doing it.

It was almost 8:00 a.m. when they pulled into the Grange. Perfect. That’s when they were supposed to meet Rich, but his truck was already in the parking lot.

“You finish up those pancakes and guard the goodies,” Grant said to Chip, who nodded. Grant went in and saw Rich. He motioned for him to come out. Rich came to the truck and looked in the bed. Chip pulled the towels back and showed Rich what they had brought. Rich smiled.

Grant said, “Rich, I love you man, but I’m not telling you where these came from. These were hidden.” Grant was trying to imply that these two ARs were all he had. “I can’t say who I got them from, but I did. Legally. Well, to the extent anything is legal. You know what I mean. I didn’t steal these.”

Rich understood. He wasn’t offended that Grant didn’t disclose where he got them. Rich assumed they were extras the Team had, though it was odd that the Team would have extra guns in their factory boxes like this. Oh well. Rich didn’t think about it too much. He was just glad they had them.

“Great,” Rich said. “Thanks, gentlemen. Let’s get these in my truck with those towels on them. Grant, you should watch them. Chip needs to get the day Grange guard organized and operating.” Chip gave Rich a friendly salute and hopped out of the bed of the truck. He took his syrup-soaked pancake plate and put it in the garbage. He went off and started getting the day guards together. It was work time.

Grant sat in the back of Rich’s truck and chatted with people. They offered him breakfast. He’d already eaten some pancakes, but he took some more breakfast. He could never predict when he might miss a meal, or two.

A volunteer, a teenager Grant had met down at the gate, came up to Grant and asked for the keys to Mark’s truck. He said he was going to pick up the Team and Mark so Mark could drive the truck back. Grant handed him the keys.

Grant stayed in Rich’s truck chatting with people. About a half hour later, the Team arrived in full kit, as usual. Since they didn’t know the source of the guns, it was OK to tell them what was going on. As soon as they got settled, Grant told someone to send the Team out to Rich’s truck. They came out and saw Grant sitting in the bed of the truck, which was odd. Grant looked around to make sure no one else saw them. He motioned for them to come closer.

Grant whispered, “We have two ARs to sell in town. Don’t ask where they came from. I didn’t steal them.” The Team was very surprised to see Grant had some ARs. They all started to wonder how he got them. They weren’t coming up with any answers.

Knowing that they would be wondering where the ARs came from, Grant said, “Community donations.” That was true, just not the whole story. They were Chip’s community donations, but were still “community donations.” Grant couldn’t lie to the Team, but he felt OK telling them part of the truth when it was necessary.

“We’re going into town to buy us some medical supplies and,” Grant winked at Rich, “something else that you’ll see later.” Rich smiled.

Grant continued. “I’d like Pow and Ryan to come with Rich and Cindy, the nurse. I can’t go because of that POI thing. And Wes…well, some Mexicans are looking for a white dude with an AK underfolder right now, so he’s out.” Wes was embarrassed, but still smiling.

“I chose Pow and Ryan for a couple of reasons,” Grant said. “I want Pow because he’s Asian. He’ll stand out in a crowd there in Frederickson. I want people there talking about ‘that SEAL-looking Asian dude. Don’t mess with Pierce Point.’ I want kind of a signature thing and Pow’s ‘ninja’ bad-assness is perfect.” Pow was smiling and very proud that his “ninja bad-assness” was a selling point.

“I also want Ryan because he’s a local,” Grant said. “I want the Frederickson people to know that Ryan and Rich out at Pierce Point have recruited some stranger badass support. Something exotic. And a six-foot Korean in full kit fits the bill.” The guys were patting Pow on the back and laughing.

“Why not take us all as a show of force?” Bobby asked.

“Good question,” Grant said. “That was my first idea, but we need plenty of the Team back here to deal with anything that might come up while they’re gone. We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. While we have reason to believe our little shopping party won’t be arrested,” Grant again looked at Rich, who smiled back, “we would only lose a few of our Team—but not all—if that happened.” Bobby nodded, satisfied with the answer.

Grant pointed to the packages under the towels. “Not a word about these. Not to anyone. We do not need people knowing that we have extra ARs or people speculating that we have more. Seriously. Not a word.”

“What ARs?” Scotty said.

“Don’t see nuthin’,” Wes said, pretending to be the stereotypical dumb southerner.

“Exactly,” Grant said as he looked at his watch. That was another new thing in Grant’s life: a watch. Pre-Collapse he always used his cell phone to keep track of time. Now he didn’t use his cell phone because he could be tracked by it. So he dug out his old Timex, which still worked perfectly well. He was quickly getting used to it being on his wrist. With all the coordination of plans requiring him to be places at certain times, he had to have a watch.

“Rich, Pow, and Ryan will meet Cindy here at 9:00 a.m., which is in twenty minutes. The rest of you will get the day’s jobs from Dan, who I think will have you guys down at the gate today training some of the new guards. I will be going to Mrs. Roth’s funeral at noon and working on administrative things, like the meal cards. Tomorrow, when the full Team is back, we’ll resume our visits to the residents. Any questions?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Okely dokely,” Grant said, imitating Ned Flanders of the Simpsons. “Let’s go to work.” The group broke up and went into the Grange to talk to Dan.

Pow and Ryan went over their gear with Grant. Pow had his body armor plates in a load bearing vest which had magazine pouches all over it. He carried four double AR magazine pouches, which was 240 rounds, plus the thirty rounds in his carbine. Well, actually 252, since Pow and the Team only loaded a magazine with twenty-eight rounds instead of thirty to prevent any feeding malfunctions, which were extremely rare. But still. Why not take out the possibility of a malfunction when your life depended on the gun going bang? Pow also had four seventeen-round Glock pistol magazines in two double-mag pouches and one mag in his pistol. He had a fairly large first aid kit on the back of his kit. And his Camelbak water bladder. Lots of guys thought ammo was more important than water, but a person drinks several times a day and almost never fires their gun. Which was more important?