Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Community

“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.

“I understand your concerns,” Grant said. “I will be ultra-careful. The good news is that with the guard shack and the Team, I don’t need to have guns out too much in the house. We are very safe here. Very safe.”

Lisa nodded. She would rather not have any guns around, but she, too, was more interested in a harmonious stay out at the cabin than trying to win an argument. Besides, with all that had happened in the past few days, her opinion of guns had changed a little bit.

Grant grabbed his pistol belt. He hid it from her. Not that she didn’t know it was there, but he thought “out of sight, out of mind.” That’s why he kept his tactical vest with magazine pouches in a suit bag in the closet. That thing would definitely scare Lisa so he kept it out of sight. For now.

When Grant was in the kitchen, he put his pistol belt on. Ahhh. He had missed the weight of the pistol and his mag holders with four full magazines. He felt naked without it. With his pistol on, he felt like things were back to normal. A new normal.

He went outside. It was gorgeous out; about seventy degrees, with a slight breeze from the water. He went to the Morrells. Chip was making them coffee. Grant told them to come over in a while.

Grant went to the Colsons. Paul volunteered to pull guard duty while the rest of them ate. Paul didn’t like people to see him eat. He was so heavy that he thought people would look at him funny for eating a meal, like he should only be eating carrots and celery or something. He usually ate alone.

Grant went over to the yellow cabin. The Team was sound asleep. They probably stayed up late telling and retelling war stories from the trip out and from their various milk runs.

He went to the guard shack and saw Scotty. God, he looked impressive. Standing in a tactical vest with his AR across his chest. He looked like a military contractor. The average criminal would see him and run away to an easier target. That was the point. Grant hoped they would get through this whole Collapse without ever firing a shot. He knew that was unlikely, but it would sure be great if it happened.

“There’s hot tasty pancakes at my cabin, Scotty,” Grant said.

“Awesome,” Scotty said. “I’m starving.” He looked down the road. “Nothing at all last night. Some dogs started barking around 2:30. Could have been a rabbit they were hearing. It could have been…” He didn’t need to say.

Dogs were great burglar alarms. The Colsons had two little dogs who yapped when someone was coming up to their house. It was annoying at first, but reassuring now.

“Paul’s coming to relieve you, then it’s pancake time,” Grant said with a smile.

Scotty nodded. He was watching the road the whole time they were talking. In most settings it would be impolite to not look at someone during a conversation, but guarding their family was more important.

This felt so right. Like it was meant to be. Grant was getting that feeling a lot, lately.

As he headed back to his cabin, Grant realized that he had a choice to make. He could continue with the story to his family that this was just a week or so of vacation and then everything would turn out OK, or, he could use this first meeting to set the tone for the whole stay out there. First impressions were everything. The breakfast meeting would be the first time the whole group was together.

This was an easy choice. He needed all these people to realize that they were in a survival situation. The most important thing—the very most important thing—in a survival situation is the will to live. Everyone needed to understand the dangers and then decide whether they’d do what it takes to make it through it.

Grant had eased his family into the “vacation” thing as much as possible. Now it was time to take the easing process up one level, from vacation to permanent stay.

Surprisingly, Lisa had already come to this conclusion. Not from Grant’s brilliant managing of the situation, but from reality.

While Grant was out rounding up people for pancakes, Lisa checked her cell phone. There were the pictures of her trashed house and Ron’s message, “Don’t come back.”

OK, it is real now, she thought. It wasn’t some big misunderstanding that would lead to a few days at the cabin because Grant overreacted and she was humoring him. This was real. She couldn’t go back. Some lunatic, probably Nancy Ringman, had decided to go after her family. All the “politics” that Lisa hated weren’t just a game anymore. The government, or at least some psycho in the neighborhood, hated Grant for some reason. He was on some terrorist list and their house had been destroyed. There was no going back there. Not until things fundamentally changed, and the Nancy Ringmans of the world were no longer able to do things like this.

Lisa felt violated. Someone had come into their beautiful home and destroyed it. Their home. Lisa had worked so hard to make it just the way she wanted it and then this happened. She kept looking at the pictures on her phone. It was ugly; both the trashed house and the reason it happened. There was something dark and almost demonic about the whole thing.

Well, at least this solved the problem of whether she and the kids really needed to be out at the cabin, she thought. OK, then. This cabin thing sucked, but at least she wasn’t in the house when the destruction happened. She and the kids were in a safe place. She took a deep breath. This was where they needed to be for a while. She would make the best of it. People were stirring and coming over. It was time for breakfast.

Pretty soon, the cabin was full of people eating and talking. Perfect, Grant thought. When he came in, they seemed to unconsciously realize that he was the leader. It was his place and he was the common thread connecting all of them. He knew he needed to lead. He’d been doing it his whole life, and he felt very comfortable leading out there at Pierce Point.

“OK, thanks for coming over this morning,” Grant said. “I wanted to go over a few business items while we’re all here. I guess it’s no secret that things are kinda going downhill back in the city. Things will be rocky for a while. We will have to count on ourselves for food and security. I hope this is temporary; it probably will be. But we can’t count on things just getting back to normal. Therefore, I propose that we treat our mutual survival as our jobs. Just like our former work jobs. We should put the time and energy we normally put into our old jobs into getting food and taking care of things here on Over Road. If things get better, this will have been a great big adventure we’ll tell our grandkids about.” Grant smiled. He wanted to be positive. “Is everyone OK with what I’m talking about here?”