William Weber - Surviving America's Collapse

Emma sobbed, burying her face in her mother’s arms. Not simply from the loss of their long-time neighbors. The enormity of the situation had finally hit home and the weight of it had been too much.

Bill Kelsaw, his head wrapped in a bandage, came up to John. “Hell on earth,” he said.

John nodded. What else could he say?

“What about Frank and Peter?” John asked.

Bill’s eyes dropped. “I found them over there.” He pointed to the tree stand. “They put up one hell of a fight, that’s all I’ll say.”

John closed his eyes and said a silent prayer.

“I won’t be staying,” Bill said. “Not anymore. There’s nothing left. We beat them back, but we’ve got nothing left.”

He was right and Diane knew it too. They could stay here and spend precious time digging a pit to bury all the dead, or they could leave Willow Creek behind and head for the safety of the cabin.

John didn’t need to ask Diane what she thought, nor the kids. The answer was obvious.

The family’s bug-out bags were already in the Blazer. That was something John had made sure of the very first day in case they needed to get out of Knoxville in a hurry.

The next hour was spent transferring other essentials. The food stored in the pod, as well as the canned items Diane had prepared early on. First-aid supplies, weapons, ammo and water. Other items like the pressure canner, jerrycans with diesel and Coleman lanterns and batteries were also included. The list was a long one and it took some ingenuity to squeeze it all into Betsy. Course, after the EMP hit, the Ford F-150 had become little more than a giant paperweight. A pity really because it halved the amount they could bring with them.

As it was, they were each leaving behind dozens of items of emotional significance. Photo albums were nice, but they could never take the place of a rifle or filtered water.

Once Betsy was packed, John went out and spoke with the other survivors. He made sure they had the food and water they needed. Bill Kelsaw said he would be heading to Nashville to look for his sister, who he hadn’t spoken to since the collapse. Others had a similar plan. There was no point in staying on Willow Creek, not anymore. John was just glad he’d listened to his gut and stayed. Every armed man and woman had counted last night and without any one of them, the battle might have turned out differently. The worst-case scenario would have been Cain’s forces rolling in with little or no opposition. Then what would have become of those who remained? A terrifying thought indeed. Grim as it was, at least now they had a chance.

The sad truth was that most of the survivors didn’t have a secret bug-out cabin in the hills they could escape to. But taking them all with him just wasn’t an option. With rationing, he and his family could survive on what was in the cabin, along with the supplies from the house, for over a year. Water would be the tricky part, but a stream nearby would act as a plentiful source. A source they would need to filter and purify.

Taking another look at those assembled before him, John was struck by one other thing. Not a single member of the committee besides himself had survived. Al, Arnold, Curtis, Wendy and even Patty were all gone. Those who remained stood together and said a final prayer for the fallen and a few words for the future.

With some help from Bill and the others they removed the dead from the street. This was where the Blazer would be coming through on its way out of Sequoyah Hills and running over his old friends was an indignity they didn’t deserve. It was bad enough they would be denied a proper burial.

After they’d finished that terrible job, John and Bill stood for a minute, John wiping the sweat off his brow, Bill fanning his t-shirt to cool himself.

“How long you figure it’ll take you to reach that cabin of yours up near Oneida?” Bill asked.

John stared at him in shock, trying his best not to let his face betray how he was feeling. “What cabin, Bill?” He wasn’t one for playing games. The idea that their secret bug-out location wasn’t such a secret after all left him feeling numb.

“Oh, all right, John, my mistake then.”

“Who told you I had a cabin?”

“Just a rumor, John. I think Curtis mentioned it to me. That you had a place up in the Appalachians stocked with food and water.”

Now John was getting angry. That cabin was the difference between life and death for his family and wasn’t something to be discussed among neighbors. More than that, John wanted to know how word of it had leaked out. Could Diane have said something to Patty or someone else in her group?

“Didn’t mean to upset you, John,” Bill said, pausing briefly before clapping him on the shoulder. “Your secret’s safe with me. Forget I even brought it up.”

John nodded, feeling the sudden blinding need to speak to his wife and find the source of the leak.

John and his family left an hour later. The trip itself was going to be dangerous. Betsy was a great, reliable truck that was up for the challenge, but she wasn’t armored. John had opted for speed and fuel economy rather than building himself a tank. Sure, a Brinks truck might have made the ultimate bug-out vehicle, but it didn’t hold a candle to Betsy in the fuel-efficiency category.

In Diane’s lap sat a Beretta 9mm and the Kel-Tec KSG shotgun loaded with double-ought buck. Since he was driving, John carried his S&W. The AR was nearby however, snuggled between the console and Diane’s seat. If things got hairy, he could have it on target in seconds.

The truth was, John wasn’t expecting many ambushes once they hit the interstate. Most everyone was either on foot or using bikes now. A truck barreling by would be a rare sight indeed.

Getting out of Knoxville—that would be the dangerous part.

The highways in town were still cluttered with stalled cars. As a result, the goal was to use the major boulevards and streets in order to hit the interstate on the outskirts of town. There John hoped it would prove less congested.

It had been a little over a week since the lights had gone out and already the city looked completely different. Many of the houses had boards over the windows, others were burned out.

The fires he knew weren’t all from vandals and thugs. Millions of people all over had likely turned to candles. After the first few days, some of them would have become careless and that was when fires started. Without any firefighters, buildings that went up in flames would have suffered the same fate as the ones on Willow Creek and the surrounding neighborhoods.

The memory of seeing Al’s house with the bodies of him and his wife still inside, burnt to a crisp, was still fresh in John’s mind.

Sad how long it took to build something worthwhile and how quickly all that hard work could be turned to ash. It was true for Willow Creek as much as it was true for the country as a whole.

Cumberland Avenue led to an interstate on-ramp. They were far enough on the outskirts of Knoxville that John guessed the highway would be relatively clear. If their current location was any indication, then they would be fine. John had kept a hand on the pistol that was resting in the console’s cupholder, releasing it every so often when he needed both hands to navigate around a car blocking his path. Up to this point, however, he hadn’t seen a soul. Surely the noise of Betsy’s diesel engine was attracting attention, but if faces had popped out of doorways after they sped by, John hadn’t seen them.

The on-ramp appeared on his right and John went up it. Just as he suspected, the traffic leaving the city was light, giving him plenty of room to bob and weave between the few stalled cars that were there.