William Weber - Surviving America's Collapse

John wasn’t buying it for one second. “Fact are facts. The night before we all heard the gunfire. What did you think was going on? You chose to save yourselves and now we’re in a tougher spot because of it.”

“You’re not being realistic, John,” Arnold said. “As it is we’re low on food. We would have all starved to death.”

Patty clapped her hands together, making the bracelets on her wrists clang together. “And how do we know what chronic medical conditions they were bringing in with them? We already have one young girl with diabetes and we’re struggling to keep her going.”

“I’m not saying the choice was an easy one,” John told them. “What I’m saying is that with a breakdown of law and order, security is always a grave concern. Gangs forming to prey on the weak is a fact of life in every country where the police aren’t there to help people. We need to stop thinking that we’re any better, or any different.”

Just then, Peter burst into the room, startling the committee members. The look on his face spoke volumes and none of it was good.

“What is it?” John asked, his pulse quickening.

“There’s been an accident.”

The wounded were being carried in from the park by deputies. Two men and one woman. Their clothes were soaked in blood. A gash across the woman’s head was bleeding badly. Diane, Emma and other members of the medical team were there to receive them.

“What happened?” Patty asked, checking their wounds as they came in.

“We were ambushed at the river,” the man said. His name was Tray Lynch—he was an insurance salesman who lived in a house by the park. He was on Susan Wheeler’s water management team.

“What about the others?” Diane asked.

Susan was nowhere to be seen, along with two men from her group and the two deputies who’d gone with them to provide security.

The crush of residents rushing in was making it hard to get them to safety and John ordered some of his deputies to form a barrier so they could get to Patty’s living room which had recently been converted to a triage center.

John followed them in and closed the door behind them. He needed to find out what had happened, who had done this and where Susan and the missing residents and deputies were. In all, Susan normally went to fetch water with five other members of her group. Each of them rode bikes with baby trailer attachments they used to pull the water they’d collected. Two or three armed deputies normally accompanied them during these excursions. The Tennessee River wasn’t far, but given the state of the neighborhood, the trip could still be dangerous.

One of the deputies who had helped bring Tray in told John he’d been there and seen the whole thing. “We were parked by the river’s edge and they were filling buckets of water when the shots rang out. Susan was the first to get hit and she fell into the water. We tried to return fire, but we just couldn’t match them.”

He was talking about the pistols and deer rifles they were using against semi-autos.

“All I know is four people are dead by the river and one of them is Deputy Alex.”

“Alex Winters?” John asked.

The man nodded.

Alex was from the very first training class. A nineteen-year-old kid who might have made it to the NHL if the EMP hadn’t hit. Now he was dead and Cain and his thugs were likely to blame.

Susan Wheeler was another loss they couldn’t afford. In spite of her high-strung personality, she’d run the water retrieval operation like a well-oiled machine. Now someone new would need to take her place and John wondered if they’d be nearly as efficient.

While the wounded were being patched up, John took eight well-armed deputies and went to retrieve the dead. Part of him hoped Cain’s men were still there. As much as it was against his better judgment, he couldn’t help wishing for an opportunity to seek out vengeance for what those animals had done.

By the time they got there, only three bodies were visible. Deputy Alex and the two members of Susan’s team. All were dead. Susan herself, who the surviving deputy had said had fallen into the river, was nowhere to be seen. More than likely her body had been swept downstream and left to snag on some jagged outcropping of rock or an overhanging tree branch.

It was becoming crystal clear that a war had started. Abraham Lincoln had once said that God could not be for and against the same thing at the same time. The thought was at once sobering and heartening since it was difficult to believe He could be on the side of Cain and his gang of criminals. How all of this would turn out John didn’t know, but one thing was becoming clear. When the smoke finally cleared, only one group would remain standing.

That evening, John had descended into the pod with Diane, Gregory and Emma to say goodnight. For them, sleeping down here was now more important than ever following Cain’s attack on Susan and the members of the water retrieval team.

There would need to be some kind of funeral in the morning. Right now the community was on high alert until further notice. Going down to the Tennessee River for water was now off limits. The committee would elect a new resident to take on Susan’s responsibilities and additional hands to replace the folks who had been killed. From now on they would stick to draining the water heaters from houses on nearby streets. Those were supposed to be their last-ditch reserves in case of emergency. Well, the emergency had finally arrived.

John kissed Emma’s forehead as she lay in her bunk. He then went to Gregory and did the same. The frailty of a human life had been driven home several times today. From now on, he would kiss his wife and children whenever he got the chance, knowing it might be his last.

Finally he came to Diane. She wasn’t tired, he could tell—not physically tired, although emotionally, all of them were drained.

John took her in his arms and hugged her.

“Promise me you’ll get us out of here before things get too out of hand.”

He pulled away and stared at her, not entirely able to maintain eye contact. “You know I can’t make that promise.”

“A little voice inside me keeps saying we should have left straight away.”

“But how could we have known it would come to this?” he cut her off. “I’m sure there are plenty of other groups within a ten-mile radius scraping by without a guy like Cain threatening to harm them.”

“We got a bum deal, is what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying we made a choice based on the information we had at the time. If we hadn’t stayed and helped organize these people, how long would any of them lasted? At least now they have a fighting chance. You saw what Cain did to the others around us who didn’t band together.”

“I know,” she whispered. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Maybe you’re right,” John said, hating what it would do for Willow Creek’s morale if he and his family were to up and leave. It would look like they had decided to cut and run and maybe that was exactly how Diane was feeling, but their marriage had always been a partnership, not a dictatorship.

The community would be shocked and disappointed, no doubt about it. But his responsibility to them had always been a distant second to the responsibility he felt for his family.

“Okay, tomorrow I’ll call a committee meeting and make the announcement that we’re leaving. I’m sure Peter and Frank will be able to fill my shoes quite nicely. I suppose getting the ball rolling was more than I could have asked for.”

The muffled sound of gunfire from topside made all of their heads snap to attention. Then came the distinct boom from the Barrett M107 being fired, followed seconds later by the fog horn. One short blast at first. Then two and finally three.