299 Days: The Collapse (6 page)

The driver rolled down his window. He didn’t look fazed by the sight of a man with his hand on a holstered pistol. He was probably a gun guy who knew that Grant was not some amateur. Gun guys aren’t usually scared of other gun guys. Someone with their hand on a pistol is not something unusual to them.

Grant used his confident, but not asshole, voice to say, “Where you headed?” He was trying to sound like a cop so the driver would assume he was and might listen more to what he told him to do.

“Gun store,” the guy said. He kept both hands on the steering wheel, yet another signal to Grant that the driver knew what he was doing; and knew how to avoid getting shot.

“It’s closed,” Grant said. “Try back tomorrow.” Grant stared at the driver as if to say, “Seriously.”

“OK. Thanks,” the guy said. The driver paused and looked at Grant’s exposed pistol. “Things hairy enough out here to need a pistol, huh?” He answered his own question by saying, “I guess so. Downtown near the capitol is a frickin’ mess right now. That’s why I wanted to come get a case of ammo.”

“You and lots of others,” Grant said. “That’s why the store is closed for a while.” Grant hated lying to people, but sometimes circumstances just called for it.

The driver nodded and said, “Have a good evening.” He then looked at how he would get out of there. He said, “I’ll turn around up there and come out the way I came in.”

Grant nodded. He looked over to Bobby and motioned that the SUV would go up the street, turn around and then leave. Bobby understood, gave the thumbs up, and then gave the signal to Scotty, who gave a thumbs up. Hours and hours on the range using hand signals to communicate allowed them to do this effortlessly.

Grant didn’t want to give away the positions of his two colleagues, but he didn’t want them to shoot this guy, either. When Grant got the thumbs up from Scotty, he turned back to the driver and said, “That ought to work. Have a good evening.”

The driver did exactly what he said he would do. The turnaround was smooth and careful. On the way back out the main entrance, the driver waved at Grant. He waved back.

Grant was glad he didn’t get shot or have to shoot anyone. Wow. This was for real.

He had a funny thought: How many other lawyers were doing this tonight? Actually, with all the protests and mayhem in the country, probably quite a few.

Chip came out of the parking lot and signaled that the trucks were loaded. He pointed to Bobby first, and then motioned for him to come into the store. He signaled for Scotty and Grant to stay put. Bobby walked into the store and came out a few minutes later. He signaled for Grant to go in next. Grant put his AR on the car seat, locked the door, and walked into the store.

Chip and Ted were inside with Wes and Pow standing guard at the door. The store was nearly empty except for accessories and cleaning supplies. There were a couple beater hunting rifles left on the wall, but no ARs or AKs. The glass pistol case was empty.

“OK, here’s the plan,” Chip said. “Me and Ted are going to go deposit this stuff in a safe place. A place none of you know about—no offense.”

None taken.

Ted said, “Me and Chip can unload it by ourselves because we’ll be in a much safer place and we don’t want to keep you gentlemen here when we might have visitors.”

That was appreciated. Besides, Grant had to get back home to start the process of convincing Lisa to go to the cabin.

“Thanks again, guys. Really appreciate it,” Chip said. He shook Grant’s hand and said, “Go tell Scotty to come in here so I can thank him in person. Then go home.”

Grant shook Chip’s hand. He shook Ted’s, too. “No problem, guys. Happy to help.”

Grant walked out quickly. This was not the time to chat. He motioned for Scotty to come in, and told him, “Chip needs to talk to you. I’ll take your position until you come back out.” Scotty nodded. “See you in a while,” Grant said to him.

It was still quiet out by Scotty’s truck. He came out of the store after a few minutes, and gave Grant the thumbs up, and Grant did the same. When Scotty got back to his truck, Grant said, “Keep your phone on.”

“Yep,” Scotty said. Grant walked back to his car. Bobby was gone by now. He turned around and drove home.

On the drive home, Grant started to wonder if he had just become an accessory to the illegal transfer of firearms. Yeah, probably. But the cops had other things on their plate right then. There weren’t any cops around waiting to arrest him. Or so he thought. He saw red and blue flashing lights in his rearview mirror, and then heard a siren. Oh shit. The cop was right on him. Grant had a loaded AR in the passenger seat. Oh shit. He got very nervous; shaking-hands kind of nervous. He started pulling over. His life might pretty much be over right now.

Grant had a decision to make in the few seconds that it took to pull over. Would he shoot the cop? No, he quickly decided; he would go to jail. Then Grant realized there probably weren’t any jails anymore, not for something like having a loaded gun in the car. He’d walk.

The cop car behind him sped past him, followed by a couple more. They must be going to the capitol. Thank God. Literally. He had been saying that a lot today.

Chapter 48

“Because this is my first gunfight.”

(May 5)

By the time he arrived home, Grant had calmed down from his near encounter with the police. To say he was thankful to have made it back home alive and not arrested was an understatement.

He pulled off onto a side street by the entrance to the Cedars. It was dark and deserted. He transferred his AR from the passenger seat into the trunk. He didn’t need Lisa or a cop seeing that. He took off his pistol belt and put that in the trunk, too. He noticed that here, near his neighborhood, the sirens were much quieter because it was a few miles farther from the capitol than the gun store. In fact, inside the houses in his neighborhood, he imagined his neighbors couldn’t even hear the sirens. That might explain why most people in this area really didn’t think much was going on.

Grant headed into his neighborhood. When he got near his house, he hit the garage door opener. What an evening. And it was only getting started.

“How was Len’s?” Lisa asked when Grant walked in. Thank goodness she reminded him of the excuse he had used.

“Fine,” Grant said. “We’re fine tuning our patrol ideas. Are the kids OK?”

Lisa nodded. “Cole wants ‘Dad to tuck,’” she said, referring to Cole’s word for tucking in.

“Will do,” Grant said. “It’s the best part of my day. Are you OK?”

“Yeah,” Lisa said. “Why?”

“There’s a lot of scary stuff going on,” Grant said, “and I want to make sure you’re OK. I love you, Lisa.”

“Love you too, hon,” she said with a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. I think the neighborhood patrol and police probably have this temporary situation under control, don’t you?” She had heard the faint siren sounds and that made her nervous. She was fishing to get his real thoughts.

“Oh, yeah,” Grant said, “I think things are fine. Hey, I should get tucking.” He didn’t want to tell her what he really thought. It would just be another argument.

Grant went upstairs and tucked in Cole. He loved that kid so much. He was so innocent. All he wanted in life was his dad to tuck him in. That’s really all Grant wanted, too. But you can’t have tucks when bad people are breaking down your door. So Grant would have to go out and keep the bad people away.

After tucking, Grant had to decide if this was the time to try to convince Lisa to go to the cabin. He wanted to get out there right away. Each hour that went by might mean it was too late to get out there safely.

Wait
, the outside thought said.

OK, then. Grant would wait.

Grant remembered that his shift for the neighborhood patrol was starting at midnight, which was soon. He changed into his 5.11 pants and hillbilly slippers, went downstairs, kissed Lisa, and said, “It’s my patrol shift now. Bye. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said. Grant sure was kind of emotional, she thought. Telling her he loved her so many times like… he didn’t think he’d get a chance to tell her that ever again. It was a little frightening.

*****

In the garage, Grant popped the trunk to double check he had everything he’d need. In the trunk was his pistol belt and pistol, along with his AR and shoulder mag bag. They were on top of the food in the trunk that he needed to unload later. He took the AR and mag bag from the trunk and put them on the passenger seat of his car. This way he would have them handy if he needed them on patrol. He put on his pistol belt. It felt so good on his hip. So reassuring.

Grant would be patrolling with Ron. Good. He trusted Ron’s gun skills. That night on patrol, they talked over things, traded information about the Olympia protests, the bombings, and the power outage. Grant didn’t talk about the inventory evacuation at the gun store, of course. His attention turned to the power outage.

“I don’t want to freak you out, Ron,” Grant said, “but if someone is able to crash the electrical grid periodically, things are… going to get rough.” Grant was trying not to sound alarmist.

“Yep,” Ron said. “Let’s hope that’s not it. Let’s hope that some bird flew into a power line or something.”

Grant didn’t want to continue talking about simultaneous terrorist attacks and the power grid crashing. He would have said something that would alert Ron to Grant being a “survivalist.” Grant decided to focus on the task at hand: a neighborhood patrol.

“We might go through quite a bit of gas driving all night, even at slow speeds,” Grant said. “You got a full tank?”

“Yep,” Ron said.

“Me, too,” Grant said.

“Let’s do it,” Ron said with a smile.

They went to opposite ends of the subdivision and started going up and down each street and cul-de-sac. They could hear the sirens, but only faintly. They looked for anyone who didn’t seem to belong. They were listening to the news on the radio. It was unbelievable all the things that were happening. It was bigger than the 9/11 attacks, especially, as some were speculating, if terrorists could take down the electrical grid.

Suddenly he heard Ron’s horn. It sounded like it was coming from the entrance to the subdivision. Grant raced toward that direction. He came around the corner and was horrified. He was hit with so much adrenaline that he became numb and tingly.

At the entrance to the subdivision was a crowd of about a dozen young men. They were walking into the Cedars, whooping and hollering. Waving their arms and yelling. Some had sticks, or something. A few had rifles. Hunting rifles or shotguns. They were right under the street light.

Dumbasses, Grant thought. Silhouetting yourselves in the street light. Grant was thinking clearly and was terrified at the same time. Instinct and training took over.

There was Ron’s car about 100 yards inside the subdivision. Grant couldn’t see him, but could see that his driver’s side door was open. Ron blasted the horn again and then came flying out the driver’s side with his shotgun. The punks started yelling, which was immediately followed by the sound of gunfire.

They were shooting at Ron. Actual shots! Grant couldn’t believe it.

Grant drove straight toward Ron’s car. He was more afraid of getting in a car wreck than he was of the shooting from the men. He felt a surge of confidence as he remembered Ted telling him that most bad guys are shitty shots. Grant punched the gas pedal and raced toward the gunfire.

Ron used his car door for cover and started firing into the air above their heads. Damn! That shotgun was loud. Lights started coming in on the surrounding houses. Ron shot five or six rounds at them. Grant wasn’t sure how many; he was concentrating on getting in between Ron and the crowd with his car. Ron would need to reload soon, and that took a while with a shotgun. Probably too long for Ron.

When Ron stopped shooting to reload, the pack of men started to run toward Ron. They were about seventy yards from his car, still silhouetted by the street lights.

Grant’s foot was all the way down on the gas pedal. He was driving straight into the crowd. He didn’t really have a plan. He just kept thinking he needed to get between the crowd and Ron.

Grant flew past Ron and slammed on the brakes. He was about to plow into the crowd of men. He skidded and stopped about ten yards in front of Ron’s car. Grant prayed that Ron didn’t shoot him as he zoomed in front Ron, who had reloaded and was blazing away with a shotgun. The hours of training with the Team made it so that Grant wasn’t bothered by the shooting happening all around him.

Grant could see and hear the crowd as it approached his car. They were about twenty-five yards away. Grant opened his door, jumped out of the driver’s side, got behind the door, smoothly drew his pistol, and got in the kneeling position, using the car door for cover. The closest people in the crowd were now about ten yards away. Grant could see their faces. They were running full speed at him. So many of them. To Grant, they were just like a bunch of steel targets when he was at the range with the Team. Just pick one and then another and keep going. No big deal.

Grant put his front sight on the closest bad guy. The glow-in-the-dark three-dot sights told him exactly where the shot would go and the street light lit up the target, who was right on him. Grant got a good grip and pressed the trigger. He felt the recoil but didn’t really hear the shot. The guy was hit, but kept coming. Grant put a quick second one in him; right in his chest. The bad guy stopped cold right in front of him, but his forward momentum kept him flying toward Grant. The others in the crowd were further behind the first guy, but close and getting closer.

Grant flashed back to his training with the Team. Shooting at those human-shaped steel targets was paying off. The men were moving, but they were just targets to hit. Grant shot them one right after another. Efficiently. It didn’t feel like shooting a person; it felt like shooting steel target. After he hit a few of the targets, they quit charging him and started to turn around.

He felt someone come up behind him, and swung around, prepared to shoot whoever was attacking him from behind. It was Ron. Grant turned back around toward the crowd, and realized he had used the cover of his car door for quite a few shots so it was time to find new cover. He looked around for any close-in threats. He looked behind him and Ron. He remembered Ted telling him that bad guys have a tendency to be where you least expect them, so search and assess after you shoot. Constantly look for threats.