By Jason’s calculations, the gas in the SUV, the gas on the trailer and the gas in the motorcycles would get Emily and a companion from Maryland to Utah. Accomplishing that feat would be harder than one might think, and it required bending the Hampden EZ Storage rules a fair bit when it came to the storage of fuels and ammunition.
Among other violations of the rules, the Escape Pod contained a hundred fifty gallons of unleaded gas and two thousand rounds of ammunition, along with two handguns, two AK-47 assault rifles, sixteen high capacity magazines, four cases of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat,) a half-dozen maps, a ham radio base station, two ham handsets, twenty-five-hundred dollars in gold and silver, and two thousand dollars in cold, hard cash. Costing as much as everything else combined, Jason bit the bullet and included two pairs of white phosphor night vision goggles (NVGs).
All of that premium survival gear… all gone to waste.
It had taken a few tries, but eventually Jason had enlisted a Baltimore-area Army Ranger on Craigslist to go shooting with Emily and teach her to ride the motorcycles. It hadn’t hurt his proposition to the Army Ranger that Emily was exceedingly easy on the eyes.
Option One had prevailed and his daughter Emily had made her plane ride home. Jason would never get to meet the Ranger kid in person. While he wove his way through stalled cars and broken traffic patterns heading toward the airport, he texted a message to the Ranger kid, hoping the text would go through on his end.
I left a bunch of gear you’re going to want in storage unit A5 at the Hampden EZ Storage. Bring a pair of bolt cutters. Thank you for taking care of Emily. Merry Christmas. Enjoy the NVGs.
Jason pulled into Salt Lake International Airport. People flooded the terminal with strange baggage—heirloom furniture, old-fashioned trunks and family picture albums; everyone was trying to get somewhere, anywhere else.
When he saw Emily at the curb, Jason’s heart leapt, intensely grateful to have her home. She jumped into his arms as soon as he pulled in and stepped out the driver’s side door.
“Oh, my God, Daddy, that was the weirdest flight ever. People were freaking out.”
“I’m so glad you made it,” he said as he smelled her hair, feeling like he could breathe a little better.
Fisker Residence
Omaha, Nebraska
Chad knew that the longer he sat outside in his Jeep, the more likely it would be that Audrey’s dad would see him and come hassle him.
Audrey’s parents had never been fans of Chad Wade. From Chad’s point of view, her mom was a huge bitch, and her dad had surrendered his balls a long time back. When Audrey left Chad and headed home to her parents with their daughter Samantha, there must have been a mighty rag-fest in the Fisker home that day.
Since then, it had only gotten worse. Visiting Samantha was an exercise in intense humiliation, orchestrated by Chad’s ex-wife and her mother. Every minute, they would hover over Chad, like self-appointed social workers for his “supervised visits.”
There wasn’t a damned thing in their divorce decree about supervised visits—Chad had full rights to visitation—but Audrey and her mom enjoyed making him squirm.
On the drive into Omaha, Chad got a front row seat to the collapse of America. Jason had been right; this was indeed the Apocalypse. At one point that morning, Chad had been forced to gun the Jeep and go rip-tearing through the grass around a roadblock that was being set up on a small town highway. There was no way he was going to stop and leave himself and his gear at the mercy of small town law enforcement.
As he made the sweeping turn into Omaha, onto the high-bridged belt route, Chad could see fires burning in the dense parts of town. On the opposite side of the freeway, the one leading out of town, cars were stacked bumper to bumper, barely moving.
Now he sat in his Jeep in front of Audrey’s childhood home, not looking forward to the coming confrontation. And, yep, as predicted, Audrey’s dad trudged out the front door with a rifle in his hands. He walked around to the driver’s side window.
“G’morning, Chad.” Robert mumbled. “I guess it’s afternoon.” He chuckled uncomfortably.
“Good morning, Robert.” Chad stayed in his Jeep, talking through the open window.
“I’m not an idiot,” Robert began unsteadily. “I know what I am, I know what my daughter is, and I sure as hell know what my wife is.”
Chad wasn’t following. He had serious doubts Robert actually did know who all those people were. When in doubt, say nothing. That was another one of Chad’s life mottoes.
Robert shuffled. “I need you to take Audrey and the baby and go. Leave here. Go back to your Navy SEAL buddies or wherever you need to go to protect them. That okay with you?”
Flummoxed, Chad didn’t know what to say. He nodded.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” Robert continued. “I’m going to grab you a bunch of supplies from the house and the garage. I want you to load it all up in your rig. How about you just stay outside the house for now? That okay?”
“All right, Robert. Then what?”
“Then,” Robert thought for a second, “I’m going to go inside and bring Audrey and Samantha out and I want you to leave with them.”
“Um, are you sure you can pull that off?” Chad had serious doubts about Robert getting anyone or anything past his wife.
“Chad, this isn’t going to end well.” Robert waved the rifle barrel around, gesturing at the city. “I’m pretty sure you love our granddaughter, and that you stand a fair chance of keeping them both alive. Will you promise me to keep them both alive?”
“Robert, I will.”
“Okay, then. Come get the stuff.” Chad jumped down from the Jeep and followed Robert into his messy garage. They picked through piles of gear looking for useful supplies. Gas cans. Water jugs. A pair of binoculars. A compound bow with a quiver of arrows. Sleeping bags and a bunch of camping gear. Robert poked around until he found things that might be useful and handed them to his former son-in-law. Chad carried it all to the Jeep.
The front screen door banged open and Chad’s ex-mother-in-law stormed onto the front lawn.
“What in the name of Jesus are you doing, Robert?”
“Reyna, go back in the house. I’m doing what I can for our daughter and our granddaughter.”
Reyna stood with her hands on her hips. “You’re not doing any such thing, especially not with this person.” She spat the last two words.
Robert handed his rifle to Chad, sighed, and walked over to his wife. He took her by the arm and Chad could see his aging muscles tighten as he steered her toward the front stoop.
“Now is not the time for your… nonsense, Reyna. Please get back in the house, and I will come talk to you shortly.”
Reyna huffed and sputtered, not accustomed to Robert talking to her like that. Muttering, she went back inside.
Robert returned to the garage and to Chad. “That gear’s about all I’ve got. I’ll have Audrey bring out some food, too. Why don’t you wait out here for a bit?”
“Okay, Robert.” Chad’s confidence in Robert had gone up six hundred percent in the last two minutes. In any case, what else could Chad do? Robert was his huckleberry, either way.
As soon as the screen door clacked shut, Chad heard shouting erupt from the house―Robert’s booming bass, which Chad had never heard before, and Reyna’s shrill soprano, which Chad had heard plenty of times. Then Audrey’s pleading tenor joined the fray. Back and forth, inaudible except for tone, until a long and hardy stretch of bass ended the debate.