299 Days: The Community (17 page)

Grant was sure to say hi to as many people as he could and introduce the Team. They were saying “sir” and “ma’am” to everyone and making a great first impression. This was key. Grant didn’t want his guys to be stuck doing menial things they were overqualified for. That would lead them to maybe want to go back to the city, as crazy as that would be. These guys wanted to use their skills. Grant needed his guys to be very happy where they were. He needed the Team to be the Pierce Point SWAT team, or at least to be on the SWAT team. They would share the cool roles with qualified people, like the Afghanistan Marine. But just about anyone could man the gate. Guys who had shot for a long time together, in semi-SWAT-like training situations, should be the ones knocking down doors.

Knocking down doors? Grant realized that the Team had never actually done things like that. They’d cleared imaginary rooms where Ted drew the boundaries of the room in the dirt, but they’d never actually done it in a real house, or actually been shot at.

Oh well. No one else had (except Ryan McDonald and maybe Rich Gentry). The Team, while inexperienced in some areas, was more experienced than almost everyone else, overall. This was a time to make do with what they had. Pierce Point had Rich Gentry, Dan Morgan, Ryan McDonald. And the Team. Not bad.

After a while, Rich came up to Grant. “I’d like to meet your guys. Now, tell me how did you all meet?”

Grant told Rich about Capitol City Guns and how they started shooting at the law enforcement range and the things they practiced.

“What are their backgrounds?” Rich asked. Grant explained that all of them were civilians with no formal training. This was interesting to Rich. He had never run across civilians who just trained like this on their own. He had heard of militia wannabe guys who did this, but he could tell Grant’s guys weren’t like that. They didn’t wear military clothes and seemed eager to help instead of fantasizing about killing people like they were in a video game. Rich kept wondering what the catch was.

“Can you guys come by the gate tomorrow?” Rich asked. “Maybe show us a bit of what you know. Bring your full gear.”

“Sure,” Grant said. He looked Rich straight in the eye. It was time to set himself exactly where he wanted to be in the Pierce Point pecking order. He said to Rich, “You have things pretty organized out here. My guys want to be part of your system. Not some rogue group. We are an asset out here. We want to have a good role because we’ll do a good job. We’ve worked very hard and have some impressive gear that will help the effort. It would be a waste to put us on the gate, in my opinion, although we will honor your decision.” Grant owed it to his guys to try to get them the best jobs possible, but he also wanted Rich to know that the Team was not some rival, renegade group.

This was politics; not the political party kind of politics that had driven the country into the crapper, but the kind that was about getting along with everyone in tough situations, while not selling out. Grant was good at it. He had to be. It was how people would survive.

Rich smiled. He appreciated Grant’s acknowledgement of his authority, and he appreciated that Grant was trying to get his guys the best spots possible. Grant was a leader; a leader of a small unit that wanted to fit into a larger one. He was the perfect kind of leader to have within an organization. Rich also had a sense of how valuable the Team would be to Pierce Point’s security. He said, “I think I have an idea for your guys, but I’d like to see their stuff tomorrow. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” Grant said. He could tell this was going to work.

Chapter 90

A Case of Tuna, Big Boy

(May 8)

On the way back home, Grant told the Team that they would have a try out the next day. They were very excited. Mark and John were happy, too. Their friends would be contributing a lot to the effort. Paul was silent. He wasn’t pissy, just quiet. Grant assumed it was because he knew he was too out of shape to be doing the cool stuff.

Grant asked Mark and John, “is there any way the Team can sleep tonight instead of doing guard duty? I want us to be rested for tomorrow.”

Paul’s eyes lit up. “Hey, I can take guard duty tonight. No problem.”

“Hey, that would be awesome, Paul,” Grant said. Paul was stepping up. He had been doing everything he could since they got out there. He had a heart of gold. He fought like hell to get his daughter from his druggie ex-wife, he worked hard around the cabins, and now he was volunteering for a boring night of guard duty. Grant made a mental note to find plenty of things for him to do.

“We’ll brew some coffee when we get back,” John said.

“I’ve got something better, at least something that won’t use up our coffee,” Grant said. “I’ve got some caffeine pills for just these kinds of occasions. One tablet is 200 milligrams of caffeine; about one strong cup of coffee. Would you like a couple?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Paul said. After a while he said, “With a serious guard station at the Pierce Point gate, I think we can go down to one guard at our shack. Besides, every cabin is full of well-armed people.”

Everyone nodded. This was the first time they had thought that the community-wide security was making their individual security better. They didn’t need two or three guards in the shack all the time. There was a sense that the community was improvising and coming up with solutions to problems. They had all been immersed in chaos for the past week. Chaos they could not have imagined before all of this. But now things were slowly settling down. Finally, something was working out.

They pulled up to their cabins and Drew was there with his lever action carbine. He waved them in. They hadn’t been overrun by biker gangs in the two hours they had a retired accountant with a cowboy gun guarding their families. Maybe things weren’t so dire.

“Pancakes tomorrow morning at 8:00, gentlemen,” Grant said. It was getting dark now. He was tired. He had been moving and thinking all day, and was ready to take a load off.

Grant walked into the cabin and Cole said, “Hi, Dad. How was your meeting?”

“Nice talking, little buddy,” Grant said. He loved to hear Cole communicate so well. “I got home in time for tucking.”

“Thank you, Dad,” Cole said.

Lisa was getting the kids ready for bed, although it was still a little light out. It was hard to say they needed to go to bed so they could get up for school because there was no school.

“How was your meeting?” Lisa asked. She was a little afraid her gun-loving husband would volunteer for some crazy militia thing.

“Really well,” Grant said. He described the level-headed former cop Rich, how organized things were, all the military and law enforcement people involved, and how the Team had a try out tomorrow. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“So you’re going to the try out?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m part of the Team and our skills are needed.” He had decided on the ride back from the Grange that he was going to tell Lisa he was with the Team and would be patrolling with them. He knew she would flip out. A couple days of getting along with her would be over. He was trying not to get upset.

“OK,” she said with a smile. “Just be careful.” She didn’t want Grant to do this, but she was trying hard to avoid getting into an argument. At the same time, though, she knew it made sense for him to do it. She was proud of him for taking such responsibility for everyone’s safety. She just wished it was someone else’s husband doing it.

“The community asked if there were any medical people here,” he said. “I didn’t want to volunteer you without talking to you.”

Lisa had been expecting this conversation. A few times, when they were driving on long trips for a vacation, they would come across a car accident before the ambulances got there. Lisa would get out and “go to work” as she called it. She had come to accept that as a doctor, an ER doctor no less, she needed to help people. But she wasn’t always exactly thrilled about it.

“There’s no decent hospital or even clinic here and I don’t have insurance,” she said. “What am I supposed to do? Treat people with third world supplies and get paid in chickens?”

Yes. Exactly. But Grant didn’t want to say that. “Well, you have skills. Life-saving skills. We can’t just let you sit it out while people die or suffer needlessly.”

Lisa got mad. She didn’t want to go be a doctor out there in Hillbillyville. She wanted her old state-of-the-art ER back in Tacoma.

But she knew she had to save all the people she could. Of course she would do that. But under primitive conditions. The whole situation sucked. Damn it. Nothing was right. She would have to treat people like they were in Haiti or something. Why couldn’t things be normal again?

As mad as she was, she couldn’t come up with a solid reason to disagree. She wanted to help people—there was never a question about that—but treating people out there would be such a nightmare. She was insecure because she knew exactly what to do with all the equipment and supplies of a modern emergency room, and with all the help of a team of ER nurses. What if she didn’t know how to treat people without all that stuff? It was scary.

“I could do a walk-in clinic,” she said after thinking about it for a few minutes. “Check-ups. That kind of thing. No organ transplants,” she said, laughing at that last part. The laughter broke the tension.

“Deal,” Grant said. “No organ transplants. There are a couple of nurses and an EMT out here. You wouldn’t be doing this alone.”

“Where would we do this?” Lisa asked. “Certainly not in our cabin.”

“Our” cabin? Grant was glad to hear her referring to the cabin as their place. Not Grant’s cabin, like she had before. She was slowly accepting that she would be out there for a while.

“And waivers,” Lisa said. “I want people to sign waivers. You can write them up.” She was surprising herself that she was actually agreeing to do this. But she knew she had to. Try telling a mom that her child would have to die because Lisa didn’t have insurance.

“Waivers are no problem,” Grant said. “There are no courts anymore, but I’ll do one. No problem. That sounds reasonable.”

Grant paused. “By the way, I don’t think you’ll be doing this for free. You can ask for food and other things for doing this. People will be glad to pay for medical care. And, just think, no taxes,” he said with a smile. Hey, there had to be some kind of upside to doing third world medical care in exchange for chickens.

“Yeah, I guess,” she said. “But I won’t turn anyone away who really needs it.” She paused and smiled, “I won’t give some middle aged guy a testicular exam without getting a case of tuna.” She winked and whispered, “Unless you have a case of tuna, big boy.”

Grant blushed. He had not seen that coming, and he planned to take her up on that offer later.

Thank God she was OK with this doctor thing. He went into overdrive to make this work. “I’ll talk to Rich in the morning. We’ll figure out a clinic facility. We’ll get an inventory of medical supplies. I have some rubbing alcohol here, for example.”

She looked at him. “You have rubbing alcohol? What else did my psycho survivalist husband pack up out here?” She was so happy he had taken these precautions. She was just having some fun with him.

“You’ll see, my dear,” Grant said. He started to describe all the things in the storage shed. He emphasized the fact that he bought all these things with the money it took to buy an ounce of gold back when it was just $900. “A two-quart pack of rubbing alcohol was $4.99 at Costco up until recently,” he said with a smile. That’s as close to gloating as he would come.

“Well, you’re still psycho but I’m glad I have some rubbing alcohol,” she said and then winked. “That way I can thoroughly sterilize my hands after giving testicular exams to all your friends.”

Grant looked around at where the kids were.

She read his mind. It wasn’t hard. She looked at him and whispered. “Yes, when the kids go to bed. My parents are upstairs, but I’ll try to forget that.”

This set up out at the cabin wasn’t ideal, but the basics were getting taken care of. Like sex. Oh, and food, water, shelter, and security. And sex.

Chapter 91

Show Time

(May 9)

How would they get more food? Grant woke up at 2:30 a.m. wondering that. They, the Matsons, had months of food for themselves, but that wasn’t enough. The Colsons and Morrells had a month or so of food. The Team had practically nothing. Drew had plenty of cash, but would the stores have food to buy? Would the inflated prices mean the cash would be gone quickly?

Grant laughed at himself. Before the Collapse, he would wake up in the middle of the night on occasion worrying about a work problem. Back then, he thought that if work would just go away after society imploded, he’d be set. All his work problems would go away and everything would be fine.

He realized that wasn’t true. Now he didn’t have to worry about something at work, but he had to worry about getting food for his family. Not necessarily a good trade.

Well, look at your assets, he thought. You can offer security. That’s worth something. It’s worth more now than having a lawyer argue about the meaning of words. Lisa can offer lifesaving. That’s sure worth something.

“I have a new job,” Grant whispered to himself. That was it. He had a new job. He would hopefully get paid in meals and maybe some gasoline. His wife would similarly get paid. They had emergency “savings” in the form of the food in the storage shed. Not bad.

So how would everyone else on Over Road get food? Tammy had a normal job. People needed electricity. That would be a huge priority of the government. Imagine the political problem if a government supposedly in charge couldn’t keep the lights on and the water running.

The hunting and fishing was nice, but no one really expected that to sustain the seventeen people on Over Road. Everyone in the area would have the same idea. Game would get scarce fast. That happened during the first Great Depression. Old timers told stories of squirrels getting rare. The same with fish. The days of seeing closed oyster shells with live oysters in them on the beach would soon be over. The hunting and fishing was great for a meat “anchor” one meal, like the deer steak BBQs at the Colsons. Gas was in short supply, and travel was dangerous, so people in Pierce Point couldn’t just drive a few miles to a place with no people and hunt and fish there.