William Weber - Surviving America's Collapse

John kept water and some food in the truck already, along with the row of five-gallon jerrycans filled with diesel on the back. If they had to hurry, they could simply grab their bug-out bags and be gone within minutes.

With the rear windows and doors secure and the sharpened nail boards completed, John and the kids worked at attaching close to fifty feet of razor wire along the inside window frames. For that, each of them wore stainless-steel cut-resistant gloves and took their time to ensure no one got hurt. John’s basic medical supplies consisted of sterile pads and gauze, cotton and medical tape, and compresses as well as hydrogen peroxide—enough to treat most any scrapes, cuts or wounds—but he had to keep in mind there wasn’t any emergency room to go to anymore if things were more serious, so the best bet was to avoid getting hurt in the first place.

Just as he’d suggested to Al, John wanted his family to sleep in the pod. A hand-cranked air filtration system would help provide them with the oxygen they would need.

Beat after a physically and emotionally exhausting day, John was looking forward to grabbing some sleep. Diane and the kids were already in the pod unrolling their sleeping bags. Using a battery-powered Colman lantern, John went to the gun safe he kept in his office and removed his Colt AR-15, along with his MCR1 Condor Tactical Vest that contained four thirty-round polymer magazines. Next he grabbed his PVS-14 nightvision monocle and walked through the house to ensure it was secure. Confident the house was properly locked down, John headed for the pod. Among the items he was carrying, the nightvision was one of the most important. If looters entered the house at night, he wanted to be able to see them before they saw him.

By day two, for many the reality of the situation still hadn’t sunk in. Standing on his front step, John saw a large group of his neighbors and their children having a cookout in the middle of the street. Some of them had rolled out three propane barbecues in a line and were making hot dogs and hamburgers. Next to it was a table with cases of soda. Bill Kelsaw, a neighbor from two houses down, waved John over. He was wearing a tall white chef’s hat and flipping meat patties. Reluctantly John approached, not sure he wanted anything to do with what was going on.

“You want a burger?” Bill asked, smiling.

“What is all this?”

Bill looked at him as though he’d just landed from another planet. “John, it’s the block party. Have you already forgotten?” Bill was having a great time. Behind him, kids were playing and shouting in the noonday sun. More neighbors had brought up folding chairs and begun chatting with one another. Then John spotted Al and Missy, mingling in the crowd.

Could he have already finished those preps on his own? John wondered.

“We’re not gonna let some power outage ruin a yearly ritual,” Bill was saying. “Hey, John, why don’t you bring Diane and the kids down? I’m sure they’d love to have a bite and enjoy themselves. John?”

“Huh, no, I don’t think so.”

Bill stopped flipping burgers long enough to put a hand on John’s shoulder. “Let your hair down, man, and live a little.”

Bill was seventy now, a child of the Sixties. As long there was a drink in his hand and he was having fun then nothing else seemed to matter. He hated anyone or anything that threatened to bring down his high.

“I feel like I’m dreaming,” John said, looking around him.

“Hey, I’ve lived through all kinds of outages, my man. Ice storms, earthquakes. You name it, I’ve done it. You know the one thing I learned, John?”

“No, what’s that, Bill?”

“You can’t let Mother Nature control you.” Smoke rose up from a row of burning patties. “Oh, damn,” Bill said, flipping them again and realizing they’d become hockey pucks. Bill scooped them off the grill and tossed them into a trash bin beside him.

The sight of such waste, especially under the circumstances, was almost too much to bear. “In a week from now you’ll be digging through the trash to eat those burgers.”

Bill stopped, stunned. “Excuse me?”

“Are all of you living in some kind of fantasy land? Don’t you see what’s going on?”

The look on Bill’s face was that of someone dealing with a madman.

“Now take it easy, John. Is this about the burgers I threw out? They were burnt, no one’s gonna want them.”

“Haven’t you wondered, Bill, why none of the cars are running? Why the phones are all dead?”

“I have, John, and no one here knows what’s happening because the TV’s not working either. That tends to happen when the power goes out.”

“I was near the interstate yesterday after it happened and you know what I saw?”

Bill shook his head, looking like he didn’t want to have this conversation anymore.

“I saw thousands of stranded motorists abandoning cars that no longer worked and walking down what had become a parking lot.”

Bill didn’t say anything.

“Something terrible has happened, Bill, and to the degree that it’s possible, I believe I’m prepared to handle what’s coming. Are you?”

John walked away, but he didn’t go home. He went over to Al, who was sitting in a folding chair next to his wife, drinking a beer.

A guilty look spread over Al’s face, like a child who hadn’t done his homework.

“Hey, Al. Hi, Missy.”

“Hi, John,” Al said, as Missy nodded hello. “Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?”

“It is. Did you manage to make any headway on what we spoke about yesterday?”

“I did,” Al said. “Still plenty to do. Was going to do some more after the block party’s done.”

John smiled. “Okay, Al. Just let me know if you need a hand.”

“Will do.”

As he turned to leave, Missy said, “Why don’t you send Emma and Gregory out for some hot dogs and drinks? I’m sure the other neighborhood kids would love to see them.”

That was when John spotted Brandon, the young man he’d seen with Emma yesterday. He was sitting by Rose Myers’ maple tree, looking sad and lonely.

When John got back to the house, an argument was in progress. Diane and Emma were shouting back and forth at one another. It was unusual to hear fighting in their household. He’d tried to teach the kids that being calm and collected was the best approach.

Diane was at the top of the stairs. “Will you talk to your daughter?”

“What’s the problem?”

“She wants to go to the block party.”

John shook his head. “I was just there. None of them have a clue how serious this is.”

Emma poked her head out of her room. “I don’t see why we’re locked up in this house like prisoners. People are having fun outside and I’m stuck in Alcatraz.”

“We’re doing this for your own safety,” John said. He turned to Diane. “The less in touch with reality those people outside are, the more it jeopardizes our own security.”

“You don’t think any of them would try and take what we have?” Diane asked, worried.

“Who can say for sure? Hunger can do crazy things to people. But more importantly, if the neighborhood isn’t a united front, we’ll be easy pickings for roving gangs looking to raid supplies.”

From her room Emma said, “Look outside. They are a united front, Dad. We’re the ones on the outside.”

Diane bit her lip. “I hate to say it, but she might have a point. If we intend to stay, even for a little while, alienating ourselves from the neighbors might come back to haunt us.”

John sighed. Under the circumstances, the willful neglect that was going on outside went against everything he held dear, but they did have a point. Adaptability and being able to swallow your pride for the greater good could spell the difference between life and death. History was littered with the bodies of men who’d stuck to their principles and died from inflexibility. He swallowed hard, knowing that putting on a smile while the world around him slowly boiled over would be difficult, but if the community was going to come together to make decisions in the future, he didn’t want to be left on the sidelines.