James Rawles - Liberators

It became clear that the eastern United States had been the hardest hit. With its high population density, there simply were more mouths to feed than there was food, and the chaos was intense. He expected a massive die-off, especially in the frigid Northeast. Canada’s large cities—particularly Toronto and Montreal—had enormous riots that had been quelled only with machine-gun fire. Alaska was completely isolated. Because it had long been dependent on air transport, there were thousands of deaths due to starvation and hypothermia. In Alaska’s larger cities, there was even some cannibalism.

The McGregors were anxious to hear any news about the conditions of their daughters’ locales in Tavares, Florida, and on Samar Island in the Philippines. The only concrete things that Phil heard about Florida and the Southeast were that the eastern power grid had gone down and stayed down, and that there was uncontrolled looting all along Florida’s southern Atlantic coast from Coral Gables to Delray Beach. There was also continuous looting throughout the Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville metropolitan regions. He heard a secondhand report that the City of Ocala had barricaded itself and was fending off large bands of looters from Orlando. He hoped that Tavares, a slightly smaller town in the same region, had taken the same precautions.

Because they still deemed the threat of looter gangs minimal in the ranch’s remote region, the McGregors didn’t institute twenty-four-hour-a-day security, as they’d heard the families in Kamloops had done. They did take the precaution of doing some target shooting to confirm the point of aim for every rifle and pistol at the ranch—except for the old “flop top” single-shot .577 Snider carbine, for which they had only seven cartridges. Since neither Alan nor Claire had any military experience, Ray and Phil taught them the basics of patrolling, ambushes, and “fire and maneuver” team tactics. They did quite well, considering their age.

As the Crunch continued and society devolved, millions of average Americans were forced to go out and “forage” for food. The first targets were restaurants, stores, and food distribution warehouses. As the crisis deepened, not a few “foragers” transitioned to full-scale looting, taking the little that their neighbors had left. Next, they moved on to farms that were in close proximity to the cities. A few looters formed gangs that were highly mobile and well armed, ranging deeper and deeper into farmlands, running their vehicles on surreptitiously siphoned gasoline.

Once the envy of most nations, the United States quickly plummeted to conditions matching those of many Third World countries. Power failures were followed by municipal water supply failures, followed by major disruptions of food distribution, the collapse of law and order, fires, and full-scale looting. The last phase was a massive and desperate “Golden Horde” outmigration from all of the major cities, mostly on foot, as food supplies ran out. The loss of life was tremendous.

By late December, Joshua’s little group had patrolled a sizable swath of the forest in their environs, and in that time they did not see very many people, nor did they see any snowplows on the roads, although there were tire tracks. They heard occasional rifle shots in the distance, usually just one or two shots. But on three different nights they heard firefights, with exchanges of gunfire that ranged from dozens to hundreds of shots. Clearly, someone was taking lives in addition to property. The closest firefight sounded like it was two or three miles away, an uncomfortably close distance.

When Megan and Malorie returned to the cave after the patrol out to Clear Creek Road, they reported that they had spotted more deer tracks and even fresh deer scat—but were unable to pack out any venison.

“I’m just glad that you were able to make it back safely,” Joshua said. “The boys have been playing quietly most of the afternoon. When I went down to check on them earlier, Leo had fallen asleep.”

Malorie slumped down to take the load off her feet and spoke first. “Megan and I did take a SALT report while we were out there. It was rather odd, so I’ll let her tell it.”

“Well, with a lead-in like that…” Megan smirked at her sister. Jean and Leo, who had decided to collectively sit on their mom’s lap, giggled when Malorie returned fire by playfully sticking out her tongue. Megan continued, “We went west as far as Clear Creek Road on our hunt. We stopped to rest and observe on a hill overlooking the road. There were tire tracks, but no vehicles around. The odd thing was that Malorie spotted a man just sitting on the edge of the road by himself.” Megan handed the scrap of paper holding the SALT report to Joshua to read over. “She observed him for a few minutes, but he just sat there. It appeared that he had some kind of cardboard sign with something written on it and something flat in his hand resting on his leg as he sat against the tree.”

Joshua pondered what he had heard, and said, “It’s only a matter of time until the fuel runs out, but I have to think that there will be more people tracking through these parts. We can’t be the only ones to find out about the caves.”

Megan spoke. “Good point, Joshua. I say that after the last of the snow melts off and at the last phase before a new moon we should leave here and continue west.”

Malorie said, “That guy we found today makes me think that we might get discovered before then.”

Joshua leaned over and grabbed a stick to draw on the ground, then said, “Take this as Clear Creek Road, and this as the lake over here to our east. We have no idea who or how many other people are out here, but if they didn’t roll out of town supplied like we were, then most of them are not going to make it for very long.”

Malorie looked down. “I hate that our survival chances depend so much on the demise of others.”

“It bothers me, too, Mal, it really does,” Joshua said.

As Malorie walked to the observation post, Joshua continued, “So the next patrol/hunt is not for two more days. We sure are burning up a lot of calories without having any meat to show for it. Can you pass the map to me?”

“Sure thing. I have to imagine that the hunting pressure is high on these deer and that they’re making themselves scarce.”

“So we’ve been checking out this swath of land here up to Clear Creek Road, right? Well, it looks like there is a pretty big section across that road over here before you get to Highway 211. I’m not much of a hunter, but perhaps I can go with Malorie. It appears to be about six miles one way, putting us there at midday if we set out early. And if we can’t make it back in one day, we could set up overlooking Highway 211 and try to get some intelligence for what is going on.”

“Right, but your best hunting opportunities are not going to be midday,” Megan answered. “Game studies have shown that deer are actually active for feeding based on the rising and setting of the moon. Plus, don’t you think that going to a patch of woods near a big road is dangerous? There would just be two of you—not enough of a force to mount an effective defense if you were spotted. “

“All good points, Megan. I guess that I just really want to know what is going on out there in the world! We still have a long way to go to get to Bradfordsville, and there just doesn’t seem to be any way to get the info we need.” After a few minutes he said, “Okay, tomorrow it’s my turn to get water from the lake. I’ll see what fish I can catch and perhaps a better idea will come to me.” Megan nodded in agreement.