Compass Call: Survival & Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 3) (9 page)

John saw that Jenna was beginning to digest his logic, and he was glad for it. Of all the people sitting at the table, he desired most that she come to terms with their need to leave. Leaving was a hard thing to consider, let alone do, but it would be much better for her to accept the need to leave on her own terms rather than his, or worse yet, on the terms of an angry mob. John actually considered his plan to leave as a “tactical withdrawal,” for he figured that’s what it would end up being.

He didn’t know what threat would present itself first, be it a biker gang, or neighborhood mob, but he had a very strong desire to not kill a bunch of unarmed people, or being routed by a numerically superior force. Even with a squad of trained and combat ready Soldiers, there was still the issue of protecting those who couldn’t fight. And, as Pete pointed out, it would only take one well-placed fire-bomb to force them out.

John’s house was safe, but it wasn’t a bunker, and it would cease being safe once it was a widely recognized target. Then, at that very moment, he realized even without the movement order from Eli that they would either have to share everything, or leave. He concluded that Eli was probably saving him the pain of realizing their situation too late.

Pete was confident they could defend against the first couple of attacks, because the mob would most likely come at them in uncoordinated waves, but beyond that, there was no guarantee any of them would be allowed to leave the house alive. Once they started taking lives, in the defense of the home, all bets would be off. Besides, the thought of taking lives bothered John. He knew it wasn’t in his path to facilitate a confrontation that resulted in blood shed. It was better to leave than fight and kill his desperate neighbors. “Nope. The bunker is not an option,” said John, more to himself than anyone sitting at the table.

“What bunker?” asked Paul, for a second time, but he managed to ask with patience, which was rare for him.

“It’s our underground shelter . . . in the back, under the shop. It’s big enough to hold my family, maybe a few more in a pinch, but right now it’s holding all of our long-term food storage and other supplies,” said John.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it before?” said Paul, quickly rising to his classic level of offense and agitation.

“Paul, please explain to me why you think I should have shared something with you that has absolutely no consequence to you or anyone in the group right now,” said John, patiently. “Do you honestly think I kept something from you that you deserved to know about because you . . . helped pay for it, build it, or stock it full of food? I don’t understand why you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” said Paul, now visibly agitated. John was surprised he wasn’t already standing, which was something Paul liked to do when he got himself really worked up. “I just think you should have told me about your bunker . . . I mean your shelter, that’s all,” said Paul.

John turned to Pete and asked, “Pete, are you upset that I only just told you about the shelter?” John had told him about it, in passing, the previous evening while they were talking in John’s shop about his drive up. Paul wasn’t with them during that conversation, and John didn’t see the urgency in telling Paul about it just because he told Pete. But he was beginning to think Paul had an inferiority complex, and that it was most likely centered on his friendship with Pete.

John immediately regretted bringing Pete into the conversation when Pete said, “Shelter . . . what shelter?” in a very poor attempt to sound innocently naïve.

“You knew about the shelter too?” asked Paul, with surprise and suspicion as he glared at Pete. He turned his attention back to John and said, “I can see you don’t trust me!”

Everyone shifted uncomfortably in their seats, even Paul, but he somehow found the strength to remain seated, which continued to surprise John. They all seemed to anticipate an equally emotional
response from John, but they didn’t know the gates had changed him. They changed how he saw and handled himself, and he was in much better control of his emotions than ever before. He wasn’t about to be goaded into a confrontation with Paul, or anyone else for that matter. John stared at Paul, trying to calm him with his calm. “Paul, I trust you as far as you trust yourself,” said John.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Paul.

“It means that the limitations you place upon yourself are much greater than any I would place upon you. I have not given you any reason to doubt my trust in you. I’ve opened my home to you . . . shared my food and water with you, and given you shelter. All at great risk to myself and my family. Why on earth would you think I don’t trust you just because I failed to mention that I have a shelter under my shop?” asked John.

Paul remained defiant and unyielding, and he stared at John blankly, as if he didn’t hear a single word John had just said. At that moment, Adam’s voice carried down the hall and into the kitchen. “Dad, there’s two guys out front. They’re both carrying hunting rifles, and they’re putting something in our mailbox.”

John and Pete rose quickly and ran to the front door. John occupied the door’s peephole and Pete climbed the ladder to the alcove to look through the curtain flap. “I can’t see anything from this blasted peephole,” said John. “What do you see, Pete?”

“Two males, mid to late thirties, one with a semi-auto hunting rifle, probably a three-o-eight or thirty-ought six. The other a bolt-action number. They’re walking away to the right . . . to the east. The one with the bolt-action is carrying a note pad and a marker. I didn’t see him put anything in the mailbox,” finished Pete.

“He did!” said Adam. “I saw him open it and stick something in.”

“Calm down, Adam, Pete’s reporting what he saw, not what you saw,” said John. After a moment he added, “Why would they stick a note in the mailbox. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard since the disaster started. Do they think people are checking their mail?”

“Want me to go out and check it out?” asked Pete.

“No, I’ll go. Just cover me from the window. I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll leave the front door open to the first doorstop just in case I need to get back in quickly.”

“OK, we’ll cover you,” said Pete.

Just as John was about to slide through the door, Paul approached and asked, “Do you want me to cover you from the door?”

John stopped, and after briefly studying Paul’s face he asked, “Do you know how to handle one of these?” as he handed his AR to Paul. Paul’s eyes got big and he shook his head. “What about my pistol?” he asked, as he rested his hand on his holster. Again, Paul shook his head. “Tell you what,” said John, “I’ll get your shotgun out of the safe as soon as I check the mailbox. Can you wait until then?”

Paul nodded and said, “I can wait. Thanks John.”

With that, John squeezed through the gap in the door and walked to the mailbox. There was indeed a single piece of white, college-ruled, paper stuck partially in the mailbox door. John grabbed the paper, opened the mailbox to see if there was anything else inside, and closed the thin metal door with a snap. He looked around and saw the two men walking away down the street, towards the front of the development. They appeared to be systematically placing notes in every mailbox they passed.

John read the note as he walked back to the front door. “Meeting, today, 16 Oct, 3:30 pm, Water tower.” John flipped the paper over, but there was nothing written on the back. He was annoyed that it offered no names, agenda, or anything else to reveal the purpose of the meeting. He wondered who had called it, but suspected it was the HOA president, or somebody on the president’s “board of directors,” as he called them. John wasn’t a fan of self-important people, and the men and women on the neighborhood HOA were, for the most part, self-important. They voted themselves into position as a way to maintain control over a neighborhood that really didn’t need controlling. As far as he was concerned, it was an emulation of a third-world dictatorship
in a first-world country. He hated being told how he could or couldn’t live on his own property, especially by a bunch of self-appointed neighborhood bureaucrats.

After leaving the Army, John despised anyone who tried to tell him how to live, and that definitely included his neighborhood Home-Owners Association. Apparently, since the real government was in a disaster related time-out, the HOA decided to act. At first he wasn’t interested in attending the upcoming meeting, but when he thought about it, he realized that missing it would be foolish. He suspected they wanted to meet to discuss their survival, and since he was the only one prepared to survive, he really didn’t have a choice. For John, it was all about collecting information, situational awareness, and group-preservation.

It actually amazed him that a neighborhood as small as theirs even had an HOA, but apparently it was established on conditions set by the original developer. The monthly fees were nominal, and they covered things like trash collection, streetlight maintenance, and landscaping, but it irked John to no end that a group of his neighbors felt it was their right to exert themselves on their fellow neighbors beyond what it would take to simply maintain the streets. Since John’s arrival, the HOA had grown and established ridiculous bylaws that regulated where people could park their cars, where they could set their flag poles, and where they could place their sheds. As far as he was concerned, it was a huge waste of time and energy.

Following John’s previous failure to organize a preparedness effort in the neighborhood, an effort that earned him the public scorn of the HOA president himself, John completely turned his back on the neighborhood. He didn’t care what they did as long as they left him alone, but that was before the disaster. Things were very different now, and he was curious to see what they had planned for the neighborhood. He didn’t know if they would turn to him for help, but he knew it was only a matter of time before everyone learned he had water to share. He wasn’t about to let them dictate
what he could or couldn’t do with his resources. He had to attend the meeting.

“What’s it say?” asked Pete, when John stepped back into the house.

John closed and locked the door and dropped the short beam into place. “There’s a meeting this afternoon . . . at the water tower,” he said.

“A neighborhood meeting,” mused Pete. “Are you going?”

“I am. I have a feeling they’ll try to rally the neighborhood, you know, consolidate food and water . . . that kind of thing. Maybe even propose some security patrols. You guys care to come along with me?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said Pete.

“Me neither,” said Paul. “Are we taking guns?”

“Are you kidding,” said Pete, “this is my new American Express.” He held up his rifle and said, “I’ll never leave home without it.”

They laughed lightly until Adam leaned over the edge of the alcove and offered a plea, “Dad, can I have a brake now? It’s past my time and I need to pee.”

“Who’s your relief?”

“Corbin,” said Adam, without delay.

John glanced at the OP duty roster taped to the wall by the front door. “I thought you guys pulled watch together?” asked John.

“Well . . . we do . . . sort’a. But I haven’t eaten yet, and I have to use the bathroom.”

“If someone’s covering your shift, you don’t have to ask for permission to step away. I just want someone watching the front at all times,” said John.

“Got it, dad. Thanks,” replied Adam, and he turned to give instructions to Corbin.

John returned to the kitchen to find Paul and Bonnie washing the breakfast dishes. Jenna was in the laundry room starting a load of
wash, so John joined her. But as soon as he stepped through the heavy plastic curtains into the cleanroom, she asked him how much longer the plastic was to remain up. John knew the hanging plastic was an inconvenience for her, and since the storm passed and the ash was no longer a problem, he began to pull the plastic down around him. It was quick work, but Jenna frowned when she saw how the duct tape pulled paint off the wall, or remained attached to the wall high up near the ceiling. When John finished, the small room looked ragged and trashy.

He wanted to tell Jenna that he would fix everything, but he knew he wouldn’t. In fact, he knew they would do more things to damage the house in their effort to establish better protection. Jenna studied John silently, and he could see it in her eyes that she was trying to adapt to the reality of their survival. Baby steps was still forward progress, and he was grateful she didn’t make him promise to fix the walls. She was coming to understand the change, and willing to try and roll with it.

John kissed her and bent to roll the plastic into a large ball. He said, with some grunting as he worked, “At least the solar panels are producing power again?”

She swatted him on the butt and said, “That may be true, but I still love this house. I don’t like the idea of carefree destruction of everything we worked so hard to build together.”

“I love the house too, but I love you more.”

Jenna started the washer and turned to face John. “I wasn’t saying I love the house more than you. It’s just that it’s hard to see you tear the place apart.” John started to protest, but she stopped him with a soft kiss and said, “I understand what you’re doing, John. I’m just saying it’s hard . . . at times. But I’ll get over it.”