The Forgiven The Fallen The Forsaken (4 page)

Evelyn said,
"Jim, you know those bastards aren't going to do that."

He stared out
the window for a moment and said, "What if I paid for the supplies and had
them sent to your place?"

Janet asked,
"It really means that much to you?"

"It's
extremely important."

"We need a
favor, too," said Evelyn.

"What?"

"Shut the
fuck up about the end of the world stuff for a while.  We're going to miss you,
you nut."

Janet said,
"Look, even if it is real, what makes you think we want to stick around
for a world where everyone we know is dead?"

That silenced
him.  He hugged both of them when they dropped him off.  He sent the extra
masks and gloves but he never saw either of them again.

LAS VEGAS & FLAGSTAFF

OCTOBER
23
^rd

The most
difficult part of leaving their life in Las Vegas was the reality that they
would have to sell the house that they had planned to live in for their
retirement.  It was devastating. 
I’m going to strangle Rob if he’s wrong
,
thought Jim. 

Susan bought
two large enclosed cargo trailers and they hired a local moving company to come
in, pack them out, and load everything into the trailers.  The idea was that
everything could be safely left in the trailers at the ranch until they got
around to dealing with them. 

Jim towed the
first trailer to the cabin with the plan to drive back later that evening. 
They would wrap up the clean- up and painting over the next couple of days, and
have the house on the market by the end of the week.  With a little luck they
would clear eighty thousand dollars over what they owed, but they would still be
leaving a lot of money on the table to sell it quickly. 

The long drive
up to Flagstaff was meditative.  He used the time to run through preparations
in his head.  The logistics were daunting.  A year’s supply of food for thirty
people was available freeze dried in cans and should be good for twenty years
if kept clean and dry.  He could easily pick up enough to fill a few shipping
containers without making a dent in his budget.  He would fill a few more of
them with canned foods, noodles, juices, drinks, teas, and coffee, to start
with. 

Sooner than
he’d expected, the three and a half hour drive to the ranch was done.  The turn
off to the dirt road was very easy to miss, so much so that he had put up a
sign with the address and an arrow.  Turning on the unpaved driveway, he was
grateful for the 4 wheel drive. 

After unhooking
the trailer and locking it up, Jim sat on a tree stump, popped open a soda, and
paused to look around the property.  It was covered with Juniper, Pinion Pine,
and Cedar trees.  The cabin was near the center of the property and, truthfully
was more of a 900 square foot “goat farmer's shack,” as Susan had jokingly called
it, than anything else.  He had always thought that he would hate to have to
spend a winter in it, yet here he was. 

Internet access
and phone were wireless, but that wasn’t too much of a problem now. 
I
wonder if it might be later.
He pushed the thought aside to ponder another
time. 

The satellite
TV system worked, but wasn’t anything to write home about.  At least there
would be TV while there still was TV.  Hopefully Rob was wrong about the
eventual threat of EMP.

Security wasn’t
a concern when he bought the land, but it could become a problem. 
How the
hell do you protect a chunk of open forest?
  The trees effectively hid the
cabin from the road on the north side of the property, making it very difficult
to find for anyone who didn't already know it was there.  He would have to
remember to take down the sign he’d put up with the address so the delivery
people could find it. 
But not until after all the deliveries are complete,
he thought, laughing. 
Rule #1: never shoot yourself in the foot.
 

It was now late
afternoon.  James had vacillated between heading back to Vegas and getting a
load in Flagstaff first.  The key factor in the end was the time he would spend
loading and unloading the truck, so he found a 6’ by 10’ foot enclosed cargo
trailer online, picked it up in Flagstaff and went to a warehouse store where
he bought two pallets of freeze dried foods with a long shelf-life.   He filled
the rest of the trailer with toilet paper and blankets to take up the remaining
space and to pad the cargo.  In the truck he loaded up several cases of various
wines and liquors. Well, you never know, he thought.

The half hour
drive back to the ranch was quiet.  He unloaded the trailer and locked the
hitch on it.  That wouldn’t stop someone who was dedicated, but it would slow
them down.  Finally, he unloaded everything from the truck into the cabin,
locked it up, and started the trip back to Las Vegas.

For the rest of
the trip, he cranked up the truck stereo and listened to whatever rock stations
he could find.  And he worried.  Best case, he’d be back to working two jobs to
make up what he’d blown.  Worst case, well, he really didn’t want to think about
that. 

He didn’t get
back to Vegas until almost 11PM and was sleeping like the dead by 11:30.  In
the morning, he would be repeating the trip with the second trailer.   

OCTOBER
27
^th

Susan's cell
phone rang while they were eating lunch.  She talked for a moment before
saying, "That's great.  We'll be down this afternoon."

She hung up and
told Jim, "The house sold in a cash deal.  Ready for a road trip?"

Jim said,
"Sounds good.  I'm really starting to feel the permanence, though."

"Tell me
about it.  Plus it feels like we gave it away at that price."

"No point
in waiting too long," said Jim, wistfully.

Selling their
home felt like closing the door on a large part of their lives.  He and Susan
had moved to Las Vegas almost 20 years before to finish their degrees at UNLV
and to soak up the general chaos that is Vegas.  They had loved it there.

Vegas was the
kind of place where one could build a great life, free of prying eyes and
having morality shoved down your throat at every turn.  It was also the kind of
town that would gleefully exploit any and all of one’s vices and weaknesses. 
It was a town that could eat your soul in a heartbeat.

That said, it
could also be just a great place for a normal life, and it had been for them.  They
didn’t spend a lot of time on the Vegas Strip and rarely gambled, not because
they had strong feelings about it, but rather because it wasn’t fun once you
understood the odds on a gut level.  All in all, the town had been very good to
them, to the point at which they were within a couple of years of paying off
the house.  Mostly, it was a good middle class life with a few great hobbies
and a couple of toys.  They had always loved living there.

They drove
mostly in silence, both of them lost in their memories, knowing they would
never move back to Las Vegas, and missing it already. 

FLAGSTAFF,
ARIZONA

OCTOBER 28
^th

Jim and Susan rented
a box at a private mail box store and paid extra to be able to have larger
deliveries there.  Then they went to DMV to transfer over their licenses and
car titles.  Jim sent in the application for his Arizona paramedic license that
afternoon. 
Just in case,
he thought.

The ranch still
felt more like a construction zone than home.  The water tank for the RV spaces
was in place and much of the infrastructure was done, but it was still fairly
raw.  Still, there was time and money for some more projects.

 Jim had RV
ports installed in each of the RV spaces to make it easier to enclose them in metal
if necessary, but he planned to wait until there was a need.  He moved the
fifth wheel to the RV port closest to the cabin and hooked it up to water and
the septic system.  Life should be a bit more comfortable now. 

He felt a
little crazy doing it, but Jim decided he wanted a fish pond on the property.  He
paid fifty thousand dollars for a used full sized excavator that he used to dig
a huge pit at a low point on the property in order to take advantage of natural
drainage.  The pit was twenty feet deep at the center and gradually sloped up
to the edges.  His best estimate was that it would hold over 200,000 gallons
once full.  If nothing else, it would be a source of water that could be
filtered.

Not to be left
out, Susan asked for a shot at using the excavator as well.  After running her
through basic safety, he turned her loose to dig two holes for root cellars in
a small hill closer to the cabin.  They could shore up the walls and add a roof
later.

Finally, Jim had
her dig several holes on the far side of the property for the underground fuel
tanks he planned to install while he cleared a small roadway to that location. 
By dusk, he felt like they had accomplished a month’s worth of work.

OCTOBER
30
^th

Jim used thick
plastic liner on the bottom of the pond with the thought that it would last for
a few years, at least, and he wouldn’t need that long, hopefully.  His rude
awakening came when he bought a water tanker truck with a 4,000 gallon
capacity.  It would take fifty or more trips to fill the pond, if the pond pit
wasn’t actually bigger that.  If Susan had thought he was nuts before, she was
sure of it now.

Faced with the
prospect of looking like a complete idiot in front of his wife yet again, he
did what made sense; He hired a handyman to drive loads of potable water back
and forth until all of the tanks were full and then to start filling the pond. 
He paid the man several thousand dollars with the stipulation that he was to
keep his mouth shut about the job.  Hopefully that would work. 

Jim didn’t want
to think about how many zoning and environmental rules he might be breaking at
the ranch, but he didn't care.  He would be careful not to be overly
destructive to the environment, but most of the petty rules had little to do
with that.  Besides, even if he was caught, any sanctions against him would
require a court date, and that would be weeks after the flu hit.  

It would take more
research, but he was sure he would be able to have the pond stocked and
functional in weeks, if they still had that long.  Unfortunately, his reading
into fish pond design and maintenance so far had convinced him that he didn’t have
a clue about what he was doing. 
Never stopped me before,
he mused.

Meanwhile,
Susan continued to fill the shipping containers with more nonperishable foods
and more mundane items like toilet paper and toothpaste.  While she wasn’t
crazy about driving the diesel truck, she had taken to making trips to Phoenix
with a cargo trailer to pick up many of the loads, partly to avoid attention,
but mostly because she was sometimes cleaning out several stores of specific
items.  With each trip, she tried to bring back a several five gallon propane
tanks and deep cycle batteries as well.

Susan also took
charge of researching green houses, hydroponics, and livestock.  She knew it
wouldn’t take long to lose enthusiasm for canned and frozen foods. 

One of the five
used Airstreams they had bought and sealed was dedicated to solar panels and
related equipment.  They planned to wait until everyone was there and they were
sure any EMP threat had passed before dealing with those, which was fine by
her.

She also bought
several more propane generators of different sizes and stored most of them in
the Airstreams.

Overall, she
was starting to feel like Noah’s wife before the flood, watching him build an
ark on a mountain, waiting for the guys in white uniforms to take them away.

NOVEMBER
2
^nd

The five double
walled, 1,000 gallon fuel tanks were finally in place and covered with cement. 
Jim had used class 2 material below and around them and had properly installed emergency
ventilation for them. The three diesel tanks were a few hundred yards from the
cabin and the kerosene and gasoline tanks were slightly farther.  Each was
surrounded on three sides by an embankment and the area around them was free of
trees and brush. 
At least they’re installed correctly, if not legally
, thought
Jim.  

To fill the
tanks, he installed a 150 gallon tank in the bed of a second diesel pickup he’d
bought and was using that to fill the gasoline tank first along with
preservatives.  The diesel tanks would be next, then finally the kerosene. It
would take a while, but they would all be full soon enough without attracting
too much attention.

A second shed was
filled with five gallon cans of kerosene and kerosene heaters.  Another, larger
shed was completely filled with five gallon propane tanks.  With all of the
RV’s they were planning to have on property, it just made sense to have as many
portable tanks as possible.

Jim and Susan walked
around the property after breakfast.  “Our vacation ranch is turning into a
compound,” Jim said, “and I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

“We may have to
buy a vacation property to get away from the vacation property.”

Jim chuckled
and said, “I think I’m just about vacationed out this year.”

“This doesn’t
feel like a vacation.”

“You’ve got
that right,” Jim said quietly.

"Still,
the work is the only thing keeping me from thinking about the holocaust around
the corner," said Susan.

"Maybe
he's wrong."

"I can't
remember the last time my brother was wrong about anything.  He's infuriating
at times and he's always thinking twenty steps of everyone else in the room,
but he doesn't get things wrong."