299 Days: The Community (6 page)

The guys’ trucks were all parked near the yellow cabin, which was right next to the guard shack. What a great place to house four extremely well-armed and well trained men. He wondered about the owner of the cabin, that guy from California. Would he be pissed that they sort of took over his property? Oh well. He was probably stuck in California and couldn’t use it, anyway. Besides, if he did make it to Pierce Point, they would give his place back and pay him some kind of rent.

The Third Amendment. Grant thought about the little-known Third Amendment to the Constitution. It said that troops would not be quartered, which meant housed, in private homes without the owner’s permission, in most cases. The British had forcibly quartered troops during the Revolutionary War and the colonists hated it. Grant and the Team would honor the Constitution out there, Grant thought. Even the inconvenient Third Amendment. That’s how they would do things out there.

As Grant walked up, Bobby and Wes were unloading a final load of things from their trucks. They were happy to see him.

“Awesome place, man,” Bobby said. He was grinning so wide he couldn’t contain himself.

“My pleasure,” Grant said. “Well, it’s not exactly mine, but I’m guessing it’s OK to borrow it.”

Bobby and Wes nodded. Grant pointed down the road the opposite direction from his cabin. “There are lots of empty cabins here. If the guy who owns the yellow cabin comes back, it shouldn’t be hard to find one for the neighborhood’s security force. I would think most people in the neighborhood would kind of welcome it, to be honest. You know, having armed men who they can trust nearby. Kind of a bonus, nowadays.”

Grant grabbed a duffle bag from Wes’s truck bed and brought it in with them.

Pow and Scotty were inside putting their stuff in dressers.

“Bobby’s got the couch,” Pow said. “He’s the shortest and can fit on it no problem.” Bobby shrugged.

“Like when I’m at your momma’s house and you have to sleep on the couch,” Bobby said. Momma jokes. Some things never change.

Scotty opened the refrigerator, which was empty. “We gotta do something about this,” he said.

“Yep,” Grant said. “Way ahead of you. Make up a list. In the morning we’ll go into town and get a last batch of whatever is still on the shelves. I have some ‘feminine products’ to get.” They all laughed at him. Grant was actually proud that they were laughing at him. He was taking care of his family, which was the highest honor a man could have.

“But, seriously,” Grant said, “I am not letting my family know that this is probably the last set of supplies we can get in town. They haven’t been in the stores like you have and don’t know how bad it is. I am trying to make them believe things are as ‘normal’ as possible. I’m selling this to them as a few days of a ‘vacation.’ I need you guys to play along.”

“No prob,” Pow said, understanding how hard it must be for Grant to try to keep his family calm during all that was going on. “Hey, you’re the landlord so what you say goes.”

That was reassuring to Grant. A house with four extremely well-armed men, who couldn’t be dislodged from the place without a professional SWAT team, were saying, “Hey, you’re the landlord.” Grant would never trust well-armed strangers with the location of his cabin. He realized how important it was to know—really know—the people invited out to a bug out location. Grant was thankful for the “coincidence” that he had been training with these guys for a couple of years and had gotten to know them extremely well.

He thought about the outside thoughts and all the things that had fallen into place to make this whole set up possible. He knew, with absolute certainty, that everything was happening for a reason and they had a job to do. Absolute certainty.

“Can one of you guys help Chip with guard duty tonight?” Grant asked. “We really should have two guys out there. Besides, I don’t want Chip to be lonely.”

Scotty raised his hand. “No biggie. I can’t sleep now, anyway. I’ll grab one of you tonight to replace me if I get tired.” They all nodded. That’s how the Team did things. It was amazing.

“So, Scotty, to answer your question about the fridge,” Grant said. “We’ll be making a milk run tomorrow morning, but we should have a nice big breakfast first. I have some grub at my place. Can you guys keep a secret?” Grant paused for effect. “A couple months of food, at least a couple months for my family, but you can have it, too.”

Wes said, “We know. Pow told us.” Pow looked a little guilty.

“I know it was a secret, Grant, but I figured it was OK to tell the guys,” Pow said shrugging.

“Of course,” Grant said, realizing that he had been taking the secrecy about the contents of the “spider shed” a little too seriously now that the Collapse had hit and he was among friends out there.

“It’s other people I worry about,” Grant said, which was true. Random people knowing that they had food would guarantee some break-in attempts. Maybe even an armed mob. But not with the Team and the Morrells and Colsons.

“So we’ll have some pancakes in the morning,” Grant said. He had been looking forward to big breakfasts with the Team and his family. “What time sounds good to you guys? Sun comes up at about 5:00. We all need to sleep. What about 7:00?”

Grant noticed that, despite feeling like they were in military mode, he was using the civilian times instead of “0500” or “0700.” That made sense. They were civilians. This reminded Grant that one of the things he liked so much about the Team was that none of them were mall ninjas or military wannabes. They were just sheepdogs with guns. They didn’t have to try to be anything they weren’t. They were comfortable in their own skin, but not cocky. It was the perfect combination.

Grant realized that they might be hungry now. They had been on the move since about dinner time and it was now about 11:00 pm. “You guys need some dinner or a late night snack?”

“I do,” said Wes. The others didn’t disagree.

“We had some deer steaks BBQ’d right before you guys came,” Grant said. “I bet Tammy,” he pointed up the road to the Colsons’, “put them in the fridge. I’ll go see. You guys should come with me so they can meet you more.”

Scotty had an MRE in his hand. “I’m OK,” he said. “I’ll take this and go hang out with Chip.” Grant hated to see an MRE used when other food was available, but he wasn’t going to tell people what to eat. Besides, showing alarm at the use of an MRE would imply impending starvation. He didn’t want to have people worrying about that. It was just one MRE and they had a bunch of them out there.

All of them, except Scotty, left the yellow cabin. They had pistols on their belts, of course. Wes pointed at his AR propped up on the couch, motioned, and asked, “should we bring these?”

Grant shook his head and said, “I don’t think we should carry ARs all the time around the cabins. At least for now. Probably later. But for now I don’t want the neighbors to feel like this is Afghanistan. I don’t want them wondering if we’ll turn on them. So let’s downplay the firepower. For now. Pistols for sure, though. What do you guys think?”

“With Chip and Scotty guarding the entrance, we’ll be OK without ARs,” Pow said.

“Let’s go get our eats on, gentlemen,” Grant said. This felt so good. Hangin’ out with the Team. At the cabin.

Grant wanted to say hi to Chip. They walked out to the guard shack. “Hey, man, thanks for taking guard duty,” Grant said. “Scotty will be joining you in a minute. Don’t hesitate to get me if you need me.”

Chip said, “Sure. I talked to John and Mary Anne and they’ll put me up in their guest bedroom.”

In all the activity, Grant had totally forgotten about Chip’s accommodations. He felt bad about that. “Oh, cool, I figured they would,” Grant said, as he realized he’d made the assumption they would do that.

“It’ll be good to have us spread out a little in the cabins,” Bobby said.

“We’re going to see if the Colsons have any leftover deer steaks for the boys,” Grant said to Chip.

“They’re fantastic, guys,” Chip said as he rubbed his stomach. Chip was a thin guy.

Grant didn’t want Chip to feel abandoned. He asked, “Chip, you need some more coffee?”

“Nope, I’m fine,” he said.

“OK then,” Grant said. “We’re off to get some grub.” Right then, Grant’s stomach growled. He remembered that he hadn’t eaten dinner, either and all of a sudden he was really hungry.

They went to the Colsons and were consciously talking in their normal voices as they approached so the Colsons wouldn’t think strangers were sneaking up on their house.

Tammy answered the door and was glad to see them. The Morrells were at the table.

“You guys hungry?” Tammy asked. It reminded her of when Paul had his friends over growing up. She had loved feeding the boys.

“Got any deer steaks?” Grant asked. “I tried to eat one earlier tonight, but these jackasses decided to show up. With my family or whatever. Interrupted my damned dinner.” Everyone was laughing and smiling.

Tammy opened the refrigerator and got a platter covered with foil. “Eat up, boys.”

They did. It was amazing how much food hungry men could eat.

After a while, Grant said, “Hey, I’m having a pancake breakfast tomorrow morning. Come over at about 7:00.” Everyone said they’d be over.

They didn’t talk about guard duty, food supplies, looting, inflation, the collapse of America, or anything like that. They just ate. It was a group of people who had known each other for a couple of hours, yet they were eating like they had grown up together. It was an amazing time.

Grant wanted his family to come over, but he knew Lisa would be trying to get Cole and Manda to sleep. There will be plenty of chances to have the whole neighborhood together for dinner in the coming…days? Weeks? Months? Who really cared. They were there, and they were safe. They were way better off than most of the country.

Chapter 79

Pancakes

(May 8)

Morning came way too fast. After deer steaks at the Colsons, which went past midnight, Grant quietly snuck over to his cabin and collapsed into bed. He was so tired that he didn’t even remember his head hitting the pillow. He had slept most of the previous day, but the emotions of the arrival of his family and the Team had wiped him out.

Grant woke up with Lisa next to him. Wow. That felt great. He honestly thought that would never happen again.

He looked at his watch. It was 6:30. He had some pancakes to start cooking. He got up and got the pancake mix out of the storage shed; a five pound vacuum sealed bag. He would have to tell the Colsons and Morrells that he had the food because they would see the vacuum sealed bag and realize something was up.

Oh well, it was OK for them to know. Keeping the food storage a secret made sense before the Collapse and before he fully trusted them. Besides, they had shared their deer steaks the night before and would be sharing many other things until this was over. They were in this together. They would only get through it by sharing. The cabin neighborhood of the Matsons, the Team, Morrells, and Colsons were now a gang. Not the motorcycle kind of gang, but a group taking care of each other.

Grant’s favorite smell in the morning was pancakes, and the enticing scent called to the others, as well. Slowly, people started stirring in the cabin. It was magic. They were all together and Grant was getting them up with pancakes. The sun was shining into the cabin through the evergreen trees. The water was still and beautiful.

Grant wanted to make sure Cole, who needed the same routine because of his mild autism, was OK with his new surroundings. He had been to the cabin plenty of times, but never had his grandparents sleeping in the other bed in the room. Grant went up to the loft. Cole was awake in his bed talking to his sister.

“I’m happy that we’re all here,” Cole said. That melted Grant’s heart. Cole really, really needed that tucking in last night.

“Me too, little buddy,” Grant said. “I have some pancakes for you, pal. We have syrup, too.” Grant didn’t tell Cole that the syrup was a different brand; whatever they had at the Dollar Store. He was curious if Cole’s need for routine would allow him to eat a different syrup.

“Sounds delicious, Dad,” Cole said. Grant had never heard Cole say the word “delicious” before.

The new syrup would be a test for Cole. He was a growing thirteen-year old boy and constantly hungry. Grant figured Cole’s hunger would override his need for routine.

He needed to invite the Morrells, Colsons, and the Team over, and went to get his hillbilly slippers on. He felt naked, though. His pistol. He forgot his pistol. He quietly went into the bedroom where Lisa was sleeping to get his gun belt off the nightstand. She was stirring.

“Whatcha doing?” she asked, half awake.

“I need to invite the neighbors over for breakfast,” Grant whispered. “We have some things to talk about.”

“Could you not leave that gun on the nightstand right by our heads?” she asked politely.

OK, Grant thought, decades of thinking guns spontaneously combust had rooted itself pretty deep in her. She was fine with him wearing a gun and carrying an AR, so this wasn’t too bad. He had to pick his battles.

“Sure, honey,” Grant said. “By the way, your dad and I talked to Cole about guns again. We told him that it’s only OK for him or any other kid he’s around to touch a gun if a grownup is there and says it’s OK. I asked him to repeat it back to me and he did.”

“Good,” she said. “You know, I see kids in the ER with accidental gun shots.” That was a fair point.

“That won’t happen here,” Grant said. “Your parents or Manda are constantly with him. My guns will only be on me or under the bed.” Grant would put his AR under the bed. Probably his shotgun, too. At least at first, until Lisa got comfortable with his AR and shotgun being propped up on the wall by the bed.

Under the bed was not an ideal quick-reaction spot, but he was trying to ease his wife into this whole situation. He was trying to convince her that this was just a week-long vacation while the government got everything back in order. Grant realized he could try to win an argument, or have his wife on board with the most important decision they would make in their lives. It was an easy choice.