“That sounded promising,” Chad said out loud to nobody.
About twenty minutes later, an angry, weeping Audrey blew through the front door, her mother close behind carrying little Samantha, dragging a car seat. Audrey carried a huge box of canned food, and she refused to look at Chad.
Chad stepped back, saying nothing, while the women loaded the cargo into the Jeep.
“I’ll get that.” Chad took the car seat from Reyna and went to work securing it in the backseat.
While the ladies buckled Samantha into her car seat, with tearful kisses and hugs from her grandma, Robert stepped up to Chad.
“I want you to take this.” Robert placed the scoped bolt-action rifle in Chad’s hands. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a box. “Here’s 30-06 ammo for it.” Robert slowly placed the box of shells in Chad’s other hand.
“Son,” he looked Chad in the eyes, “we’ve had our differences. But, man to man, I’m trusting you with my two most precious things.”
“I understand, Robert. I’ll protect them. Are you sure you’ll be okay without the rifle?”
“Well,” Robert drawled, “whatever happens to us, it’ll be okay so long as you keep those two safe.”
“You have my word.” Chad climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Reyna, say your goodbyes, please. They need to leave now,” Robert ordered his wife.
As the divorced couple and their daughter drove down the street away from Audrey’s home, Chad felt certain he should say something to his ex-wife. She was coming undone before his very eyes.
The moment he made the slightest exhale, as if to say something, she pounced. “Don’t say a single word, Chad Wade! Not a single damn word.”
Well, Chad thought, I guess I should count my blessings.
6
“THIS IS JT TAYLOR, COMING to you from an undisclosed location, thoroughly pickled in fine liquor, bringing you the news that makes the FCC, NSA, FBI and CIA piss themselves.
“First of all, nice try, Army Electronic Warfare team. I enjoyed the fireball when you hit my $129 repeater with your $1.5 million missile. Better luck next time. I’m still here, drunk dialing the world with your dirty secrets.
“Word on the street has it that the commander of Fort Bliss has seized control of the town of El Paso. I always knew that guy was a tyrant. Enjoy martial law, boys and girls. It’s coming to a town near you.
“And… in the Middle Eastern dumpster fire: Iran GLASSED a chunk of Saudi Arabia yesterday, according to Drinkin’ Bros in-theater. I guess Iran had nukes after all. How’s it feel to get PLAYED, Mr. Obama?
“Closer to home, Marines at Camp LaJeune report that their base is closed up tighter than a Baptist girl’s nethers. The Marines are going au natural without civilian contractors or outside support. Hey, if a cockroach can survive it, so can a Marine, I guess…”
Ross Homestead
Oakwood, Utah
As much as he would love to strangle Jeff Kirkham sometimes—which was likely impossible because Jeff didn’t appear to have a neck—Jason felt like he might share some of his stress with the Green Beret. In Jason’s mind, Jeff had slid into the role of second in command. Plus, Jason liked talking to Jeff. Jeff never failed to deliver perspective.
Jason walked down the drive with purpose, avoiding all eyes and sending out the vibe that he was on important business, which wasn’t really true. Jeff was giving a property patrol last-minute instructions.
“Hey, Jeff, you got a second?”
“Sure.” Jeff wrapped up and sent the armed men off, marching into the hills around the Homestead.
Jason dove right in. “I’ve sent probably fifteen families away today at the gate, and it makes me want to put a bullet in my head.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Jeff snapped, rejecting Jason’s hyperbole.
“Right, but you get what I mean. This is screwed up. If the collapse gets any worse, those people I sent away will die. There’s no way I can reel those families back if we decide we can help them later. Those families are gone forever. Am I doing the right thing?” Jason laid it out, exasperated, hoping Jeff would bear some of the weight.
Jeff responded with certainty. “First off, it’s not your decision. You’re executing the decisions we made together when we set up this hard point. We have enough food for our people, plus seventy of their extended families based on our projected harvest from the greenhouses. We’ve already handed out the extra family slots, so that’s a done deal. It’s not your call. Send someone else to handle the gate if it’s bothering you, because who stays and who goes isn’t your call anymore.”
Jason’s eyebrows went heavy. “These are my friends I’m sending them away to starve. The least I can do is face them.”
“Okay. Do whatever you need to do, but don’t talk to anyone else like you’re talking to me.”
Jason cocked his head, a question in his eyes.
“You’re making this personal,” Jeff explained, “as though this whole collapse and Homestead thing is all about you and your feelings. Yes, you did set this all up originally, but that was then and this is now. This ain’t no vanity project anymore. Hobby time is over. My family’s life is on the line and you’re talking as though this is some kind of popularity contest. Focus up.”
Jason rubbed his face. “So, tell me then, how am I supposed to feel about dealing out death at those gates every day?”
“Consider this.” Jeff turned and walked away a bit, finding an old stump on the edge of the forest to sit on. Jason followed him and remained standing. “Consider a convenience store with twenty people inside when a volcano erupts and buries the store in a hundred feet of ash. Among those twenty people are a nutritionist and a meteorologist.”
Jason raised an eyebrow. “Is this a joke? Like when a German, an Irishman, and a Mexican walk into a bar?”
“Of course not. It’s a hypothetical scenario from one of my instructors in SERE school. So picture that convenience store right after the volcano eruption. The meteorologist knows for certain that it’ll take exactly ninety days for rescuers to dig them out. The nutritionist does an inventory of the store and calculates that, at near-starvation levels, only eight of the twenty people can possibly survive, and that’s assuming the remaining twelve are killed immediately.”
“Apparently, the model excludes cannibalism,” Jason quipped.
“Affirmative. My first question, what’s likely to happen?”
Jason thought about it for a second. “Based on my experience of most people, I’m guessing they won’t make a decision at all. They’ll do nothing.”
Jeff nodded. “Right. Then everyone dies. In ninety days, when rescuers get there, the place will be wall-to-wall corpses because the food and water would’ve run out.”
“So what’s the best way?” Jason could think of a number of alternatives. “Women and children first” came immediately to mind.
“People often think that it could be handled with a lottery or some sort of voting system. But, in reality, for that to happen, a strong man would have to arise to enforce the lottery or whatever selection method they chose.”
Jason was skeptical. With Jeff, things often came down to the need for a strong man.