When the Power Is Gone: A Powerless World - Book 1 (6 page)

Brian was smiling at Bob, then Russ. “That sounds great, guys, and the offer to join you sounds even better. I know I’ve been a dick – “ He paused, like he was expecting one of them to disagree with him. They didn’t. He continued, a little disappointed, mostly in himself. He had been a dick and treated them like a nuisance in the past. Then he laughed at himself and continued. “But I think I could bring something to the table, and I would definitely be in your debt. What time is dinner?”

Russ looked at his arm, where he wasn’t wearing a watch anymore. “I don’t know about yours, but none of my watches work now. If you want to change clothes, you can come over when you get ready, or if you want, you can come back with us now. We’ll probably be eating in a couple of hours. We can talk more while we wait.”

Brian stood up and headed for the door. He grabbed his .40, slid it in his waistband, and opened the front door. “I love roast. Let’s go. Wait, let me grab something to bring to dinner.” He went to a closet off the kitchen, opened the door and grabbed two bottles of wine. He turned and looked at the guys, a question in his eyes. “Yes? You guys aren’t anti-alcohol, are you?”

Bob looked at the wine. “I prefer a good bourbon, but this will go much better with dinner. We’ll get to the bourbon later.” He reached for one of the bottles and went toward the door. Russ and Brian laughed and followed him.

Bob grabbed the door knob, and froze. Was that a car, running?

****

Janet and I ran to the window and looked out front. An old pickup, like ’75 or so, was coming down the street. The boys came running in from the back yard.

“Mom! I hear a truck or something!” Rusty was so excited, probably at the thought there were other living people besides us. Unfortunately for him, we weren’t going to be inviting them in for coffee. If Russ hadn’t taught me anything else, it was that once something catastrophic happened, we couldn’t trust people blindly now.

“Rusty, Ben, you boys get upstairs. Grab you pistols, shut the door, and don’t come back down until we call you.” Rusty grumbled, but they headed for the stairs. “Go ahead and get cleaned up while you’re up there. Dinner is soon, if this isn’t trouble. I mean it, stay up there until we tell you to come down.”

The boys had no sooner closed the door at the top of the stairs, when Russ and Bob came bursting through the back door. They had Brian with them, and a couple of bottles of wine. I’m sure there was a reason for that, but finding out what it was would wait. I was surprised at them coming in the back, and I’m sure my face showed it.

Russ was headed for the front window, but said over his shoulder, “We heard the truck, used a ladder from Brian’s place, and came over the fence. We didn’t want anyone to see us. Have you seen anybody, has anyone gotten out of the truck?” He said all this as he rushed to the window. He pulled the barn door shutters tighter together, then looked through the crack between them at the street.

I joined him at the window and looked over his shoulder. “No, we haven’t seen any people. When I saw the truck, I closed the shutters and sent the boys upstairs. Can you see anybody out there?”

Russ shook his head. “Hand me the binoculars, babe.” I went over to the corner and grabbed Russ’s BOB (bug out bag). In the front pocket was a small pair of binoculars.  I handed them to Russ. He dialed in the focus and looked in the truck.

“I see two guys in the cab. The driver is driving real slow, and looking at the houses. The passenger has some kind of shotgun. He isn’t pointing it out of the truck, but he does have it ready. It looks like they are looking to see if people are home. They could be planning out places to ransack for supplies. Where are the boys?” He was obviously a little rattled, since I had told him I sent the boys upstairs.

I saw Russ put his hand on his pistol. “I sent them upstairs and told them to stay until we called them. Would there be people doing that already? It hasn’t even been 48 hours since the pulse. I mean, I knew it would happen, but I didn’t expect it this fast. What should we do?” I was surprised, and disappointed, because if things went to shit this fast, we would have to step up our plans to get to the farm.

Russ put his arms around me and pulled me close. “Right now, we’re just going to watch and see what they do. Hopefully, they’re just checking for future reference and are going down more streets than this one. Everybody just stay quiet and wait.”

We were all by the shutters, looking out at the street. The truck didn’t stop, but it did go very slowly down the street, to the dead end, turned around and worked its way back up and out of the neighborhood. We breathed a collective sigh of relief. They were gone for now, but still… Russ looked at us, and gave us a half smile. At least there was part of a smile, so not completely hosed, for now at least.

“Is dinner ready? We need to talk, all of us. Get the boys, and let’s sit down. By the way, Brian brought wine for dinner. I think we’ll be needing that.” I didn’t disagree. None of us did. Things were about to get serious. Dammit.

After a wonderful dinner of roast, potatoes, beans and rolls – I would miss rolls when yeast was gone – and a very nice red wine, we had worked out a plan. We still wanted to stay at the house for as long as possible. For now, we would start security measures, and step up the loading of the trailers with what we wanted to take to the farm.

The first couple of weeks would be the most dangerous, once people’s food ran out and there was nothing else at the grocery stores. Into the third week, there would start to be die-off of those unable to acquire food and clean water. Unclean water would have taken out the unknowing, the ones who mistakenly drank water that “looked okay”. The elderly, very young and those hospitalized would have died in the first two weeks. No power to run life support, dialysis, oxygen machines, or anything electronic would show no mercy to those who needed these things to live.  Ironically, the death of the first ones would increase the danger of the lives of those still here. No services to properly dispose of the bodies meant more diseases for the living. Smart people would at least burn the bodies, but who would take care of the ones in the hospitals and nursing homes? No one was working – they were all trying to survive, looking for supplies to feed their families. The infirmed would die quickly as well. Then there was the trash and human waste. People take for granted that these things will be handled by someone in the modern world, and they don’t think about how they would do this for themselves if they had to. Now, they had to, but what’s more important – burning trash and dead bodies, burying what you used to flush down the toilet, all to ward off diseases that, by the way, there are no doctors or meds to treat if you get them – or finding food and water, so you and your family can survive?

The more time that passed, the fewer people there would be alive in need of resources. But the majority of the ones who survived would very likely be of the non-savory persona. Those survivors would have killed people for their supplies. They would have banded with others like them into gangs, and they would be looking for ways to further their efforts through intimidation and violence. They would take what they wanted, whether it was food or something more sinister. With no police or consequences, criminals of all kinds would be running free, doing whatever they wanted to get whatever they wanted or needed. They would start in the cities, because that’s where the largest populations would be, so more possibilities for food, water, weapons – between the stores they could loot, and the people they could take from, they could last there for weeks. But eventually, things would run dry there, and they would have to widen their range for gathering supplies. The suburbs outside the cities would be their next targets, but those places would have little to nothing to offer the gangs, since those people would have been using those potential resources for their own families. So they wouldn’t be in the burbs long. After that, rural areas like ours would hit their radar. We didn’t want to be here when that happened.

Russ had relayed all of this to us over dinner. Thankfully, he saved the grossest parts until we had finished eating.  Now that he had given us the worst case scenario, we couldn’t sit around and wait for them to get here.  “First thing we do is start a 24-hour watch. The visitors we saw today are reason enough. Someone will be awake at all times. Us guys will handle that for now. We can do two- to three-hour watches at night.” I started to protest, but he stopped me.

“Anne, I know what you’re going to say, but I want you and Janet, and the boys, working on getting the supplies loaded in the trailers. You gals know what food, clothes, linens, first aid and toiletries we can use, and you pack better than us.” He grinned when he said the last part. He was right. We did. We could get more stuff in less space. I think it was a love of puzzles that made us that way.

Bob took over the conversation to offer his own input.

“Russ, Brian and I will work out a schedule for security. I’ll step up and offer to take the least favorite shift from 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM. Those are the most dangerous hours as far as falling asleep on watch. As long as you gals keep me caffeinated, I’ll be good. But I have to fulfill a promise to Brian first. I promised a good bourbon after dinner, and I think we could definitely use it.”

He headed to the kitchen, grabbed the Wild Turkey and five glasses, and brought them back to the table. He looked at Rusty and Ben, and motioned to the stairs.

“Boys, go play a game or something. We got some grown up shit to talk about.”

The boys snickered but did as they were told. Like they were going to complain about playing a game. They couldn’t get online, but they had some pass and play games on the mini tablet. They could deal with that.

I looked at Brian. “So, it looks like you’ll be joining us. With people roaming the roads, I think we should move you in as soon as possible. You guys need to take wheelbarrows, or whatever we can use, over to Brian’s, get his stuff and get him set up here as soon as possible. Brian, we don’t have a spare bedroom, but we’ll set you up in the den. There’s a hide-a-bed in the sofa, and you can at least close the door. I think we should do this tonight. What can we do to help?”

Russ raised his glass. “I’d like to propose a toast. To our families, and our new addition. May we stay safe until we can get to the farm.” We all raised our glasses, and downed the bourbon. That warm sensation went down to my toes.

              As we put our glasses on the table, Bob started to refill them, but Russ stayed his hand. “Let’s get Brian moved in first, then we can chill a bit more. Brian, are you ready to do this?”

Brian nodded. “With folks already casing the neighborhood? Hell yeah! What’s the best way to do this?” We all thought for a moment, then Janet spoke up.

“I think we should do something like a fire brigade, over the fence. We don’t want to go through the front yards, in case there are people watching. If we do it out back, the fence should shield most of our activity. Brian can pass to me in his back yard, I can pass to Bob at the fence, Bob can pass to Russ over the fence, Russ can pass to Anne, who can either set it on the patio, or in the yard. The boys can help as well. As long as we get it in the back yard here, we can move it later. Would that work?” We all agreed that was an excellent idea. Russ got a ladder from the shed, and we got started.

It took about an hour to get all of Brian’s supplies over to our house. He had an impressive amount of food stores for a single guy. I’m sure there was a story behind that, but we had plenty of time to hear about it later. He sent his bike and trailer over as well. Who knew if something like that could come in handy in the future. He brought a variety of clothes for all seasons, which told us he didn’t intend on going back to his place for a while, if ever. He locked up his house, climbed the ladder to the top of the fence, reached over to his yard and grabbed the ladder, and hauled it up and over to our side.

“Don’t want those assholes knowing someone or something is over here.” Good thinking, Brian. He continued to amaze me. I couldn’t wait to hear his story. Somehow, I had a feeling we were going to have lots of time to talk later.

We all worked together to bring Brian’s stuff into the house – to the kitchen, den and garage, depending on what they were. Once that was done, Russ looked at Brian. “You want first shift or third shift?” Brian reached for his pistol.

“I’m pretty wired from everything that has happened today. I can take first shift. Can you get to sleep pretty quick?” Russ grabbed the bourbon bottle, turned it up for a good hit, and set it back on the table.

“Yeah, that should help. You wake Bob at 1:00. Bob, you wake me at 4:00. Does anybody have a watch that still works?” Bob pulled out a wind up pocket watch.

              “My grandpa’s pocket watch. From old to gold. Grandpa would be so proud. Good thing I’ve kept it wound.” He handed it to Brian. “Get me up at 1:00, buddy. Just knock on the door. I’m a light sleeper.”

Brian took the watch and pulled a bar stool up to the front windows. He looked back at us with a determined look on his face. “Get some rest, gang. This may get really interesting, real soon.” He had no idea how right he was, unfortunately. The game was going to change quickly.

****

Fortunately, the night was uneventful. No more drive-bys, all quiet outside. In the morning, Janet and I put on a big pot of coffee, gathered fresh eggs from the chickens, and made omelets with the last of the ham and cheese from the fridge. We had moved everything we could from the fridge to the freezer yesterday, trying to get as much cold as we could from the now useless appliances. I had frozen bottles of water in two-liter soda bottles, rinsed and filled and placed in the bottom of the freezer, for this purpose, as well as emergency drinking water when they thawed. Those bottles were still keeping the inside of the freezer cool enough to act as a cold storage. We might get another day or so of use with this setup out of the appliance, maybe more. We made toast in campfire stands over the camp stoves. With what Brian brought from his house, we had almost four loaves of bread we needed to use.  The one from our place was getting to toast age anyway, because I would have been going to the grocery store in a couple of days. It was weird to think that I wouldn’t be grocery shopping again for a while.

I wondered what things were like outside of our little corner of the world. None of us had left the house since it happened, except Brian. It had been over 48 hours since everything went down, and I was sure a lot had changed. When I broached the subject at breakfast, Brian spoke up.

“If you want, I can ride my bike out to the main street and take a look around. I’m kind of curious myself.”

Russ looked at Brian and started shaking his head. “I don’t know Brian. It could be getting dicey out there. I also wouldn’t want you to go straight out of here, or come straight back, in case anyone was watching. We don’t want anyone to know we’re here, for as long as possible.” Brian nodded.

“I agree, and I actually had a route in mind that would take me through the woods out back. I’ve ridden there quite a bit, and know my way around. What do you think?”

Russ considered it and stood up. “Yep, I think that might not be such a bad idea, and I think I’ll join you. I can ride Rusty’s bike. Let me get the boys busy with some chores, and we can head out. Do you have a bug out bag, Brian?”

Brian looked confused. “I might, if I knew what it was.” Russ laughed, along with the rest of us. Next lesson, Brian: prepping 101. Always have a BOB.

“It’s a backpack that is filled with items you can use to survive if you have to leave home in an emergency situation. You put items in that you think you would need – energy bars, water filter, spare underwear and socks, a way to start a fire, an emergency blanket, a mini first aid kit – the list is long and adaptable to the person. So, you got one?”

Brian looked thoughtful. “No, but I think I can come up with one. Give me a few minutes.” Brian disappeared into the den.

While he was gone, Russ called the boys to him. “Okay, fellas, there’s chores to do. I want you to check with your moms to see if they need anything done, then go to the preps room and start reorganizing everything we brought over from Bob and Janet’s, as well as Brian’s stuff. We need to get everything sorted together that is the same, so when we have to start loading the trailers we can keep it all in some kind of order. I also want you to stack the wood you split yesterday. You left a mess out there. Any questions?”

Ben and Rusty looked kind of disappointed. “But Dad, it’s not a school day. We have to work all day?”

Russ looked at Rusty with a smirk. “Son, the world you knew before is pretty much gone. There is no screwing around all day on non-school days anymore. Everything is about food and water, heating and cooking, the act of surviving. No it will not be work all the time, but right now, it is. We have a lot to do to get everything ready to go to the farm. We all have to work on that. Understand?” Rusty and Ben both nodded and headed for the back door.

I stepped in front of them. “Forgetting something? Brushing? Flossing?” They looked heavenward, which I think they did in an attempt to not roll their eyes in my presence. Good thing, because that would have gotten them a smack. They turned around and headed to the bathroom.

Brian came out of the den with a nice backpack, not one of those cheapies from the dollar store. He showed it to Russ. “This is what I could come up with. Maybe you can help me finish it.” Russ looked inside. He saw a couple of bottles of water, granola bars, protein bars, gum, hard candy, socks, underwear, a hoodie, a flashlight, a lighter, a box of ammo for his pistol, a hunting knife (he hunts?), a toothbrush and travel toothpaste, and hand sanitizer. Not bad at all for a beginner.

Russ grinned. “Really, really good start. Let me give you a few more items. Follow me. Bring your bag.” They went to the preps room. “Sorry about the mess. The boys are going to be working on straightening this up today.”

I chimed in. “Janet and I will be helping them. We know where we want everything to go.”

Russ laughed. “Admit it, Anne – your mild OCD won’t let you NOT tell them where you want everything located.” I stuck my tongue out at him. He blew me a kiss. Smart ass.

Russ went to the first shelf. He pulled out a mini water filter. He handed it to Brian. “This will filter any water source – up to 100,000 gallons, and 99.9999% of all bacteria. You can put the water in any bottle, stick the straw on the end of the filter, and drink it right from there.” Brian looked it over, and added it to his bag. Russ moved over to the next shelf. He grabbed an emergency blanket and a breath mint tin. Brian watched, and noticed there was a stack of the tins.