Lamp Black: Second Edition, Disaster, Preparedness, Survival, Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 2) (6 page)

Adam set the ladder up in the laundry room and they immediately got to work constructing the clean room. John measured off several lengths of clear four-mil plastic and hooked them to the ceiling with carpet-tack strips and duct tape. He then hung plastic wall sheets from the tack-strips, and sealed all the seams with more duct tape. For the floor, John taped plastic to the tiles and closed the seams with yet more duct tape.

For the clean room doors, John hung two complete sheets of plastic on both ends and taped them at the top and bottom. But he only taped one side of each sheet. “To enter the clean room,” he told, Adam, “you have to slide between the two sheets of plastic.” John knew it wasn’t airtight, but it would serve the purpose of keeping the ash out of the main part of the house. After they put away the construction supplies, John declared, “I’m ready to go out.”

“Outside?”

“No. On a date,” replied John, sarcastically. “Yes, of course, outside. But I’m not sure where I want you to be positioned. I was thinking an upstairs window, but with the ash falling it might be best for you to guard the side door.”

“Will the night scope work in the ash?” asked Adam.

“No. I don’t think so, there’s too much obscuration.”

“Obscuration?” asked Adam.

“Yeah, you can’t see through the air because there’s too much junk in it, like dust or smoke. The night scope won’t penetrate the ash. It’s
not a thermal sight, though I think that probably wouldn’t even work in these conditions,” mused John. “I was thinking my shotgun, but you can use your rifle if you wish.”

“My AR-15? Yes, the rifle. Thanks, dad,” was Adam’s quick and eager response.

“OK, we’ll get it out of the safe, but I don’t want to see you playing with it. It’s not a toy,” warned John.

“Dad, please. I know it’s not a toy. I’ll be careful.”

“You’ll load and unload it only when I say. Understand?”

“Yes, dad. I can handle it. You know I can.”

“I know you can, but things are different now. You’ll be jumpy, and I don’t want you accidentally shooting me. If I get shot in these conditions . . . I would probably die. It would be really difficult to get to the hospital, and once we got there, well, there’s no telling how crazy things will be. It’s best we be very careful with our weapons, with anything that can hurt us, even knives, axes, and such.”

Adam nodded and waited patiently for John to retrieve his rifle from the gun safe. Once opened, John handed Adam three, thirty-round magazines, and three, twenty-round boxes of ball ammunition. He considered giving him hollow points, but decided against it since he only had a few hundred rounds. He wanted to save them for hunting, if and when the opportunity ever presented itself. John didn’t think Adam would be shooting his rifle anytime soon, but it made him feel better to know that Adam’s rifle was ready for action. John wasn’t interested in carrying his rifle just yet. It was a pain to sling it over his back while working with his hands, so he decided to carry only a pistol, at least for the time being.

John really wanted to get Adam through the entire disaster without him having to fire his weapon even once, but he didn’t think that would happen. With people like Darrel already on the prowl, there was no telling what they would have to face in the days and weeks ahead.
No
, thought John,
Adam will end up firing his weapon at someone long before the disaster is over
. John was sure of it, and knew he would have
to act fast to minimize the effect it would have on his son. Shooting someone was not as innocent as it seemed in the movies, or on video games; it could really mess with someone’s mind.

“Go ask your mom if she wants her pistol,” asked John, as he reached into the safe to grab Jenna’s .380 semiautomatic pistol.

Adam ran into the house and John quickly inspected the pistol. It was a new model Walther, a PPK, light and compact, deadly at close range. John wasn’t a fan of the short nine-millimeter ammunition, but Jenna liked it. The pistol fit her well, and she was very accurate with it. The challenge was convincing her to keep it close. She was never a fan of carrying a loaded pistol, even though she had a concealed handgun license of her own. She just didn’t like “packing,” and said it wasn’t necessary since John always carried his pistol. He surrendered to her decision long ago, but hoped she had a change of heart since their run-in with Darrel.

Adam burst into the garage and said, “Mom said to bring it in.”

John’s eyebrows went up and he said, “Really?”

“Yeah. She said something about keeping it in her closet, or something like that,” said Adam.

“OK. Hold this,” said John, as he handed Adam a black plastic gun case. He grabbed a box of .380 ammo and handed it to Adam. “Go ahead and load your mom’s magazines, but don’t put one in the pistol. Let her do that.”

Adam nodded. He moved to John’s work table and quickly got to work. Adam could assemble and disassemble all the weapons in John’s collection, and he could do it blindfolded. It was a drill John enjoyed as a Soldier, and Adam loved it as much as he did. John’s old platoon sergeant would field strip a Beretta 9mm, an M16, and an M60 machine gun, and then throw all the parts into a wooden footlocker. It was Johns challenge to put them back together while blindfolded. Sometimes he would have the best time, and sometimes not, but the drill was an excellent way for him to learn the weapons. It also took all the mystery out of them.

“All loaded, dad. But if you want me to close the box I’ll have to load mom’s gun. Do you want me to go ahead and put a magazine in?” asked Adam.

“No, keep it out. Just hand it to your mom when you give her the box. Go ahead and take it to her now.” Adam went to leave and John called after him. “And Adam, be sure to let her know you didn’t load it. OK?”

“OK, dad.”

While Adam was inside, John pulled out two oil lamps, and two 100-hour candles from a footlocker under his work bench. The 100-hour candles were prefilled, plastic containers fitted with a candle-sized wick. Filled with liquid paraffin, they were single-use, but very functional in an emergency. The lamps, on the other hand, had to be filled. John didn’t store them filled because they had a tendency to leak if tipped, but the fuel also evaporated, which made them dangerous to store filled. John filled one lamp and lit the mantel. He adjusted it to a smokeless level, and was satisfied with the warm yellow light that filled the garage. It didn’t provide the accustomed level of illumination, but it was better than draining his flashlight batteries. He also had hand-cranked LED and propane lanterns, but they were in the shelter, which was pretty much inaccessible, at least for the time being.

He liked the propane lanterns because they produced a bright, white light, but their thin mantels were fragile, and they consumed fuel that could be better used in other ways, like with cooking. At his last count he had thirty-two small propane bottles, but he wanted to save them for when and if they had to move. The last thing John wanted was to carry the small propane bottles on his back, but it was still better than carrying lamp oil.

Adam returned and John handed him a burning lamp. “Take this to your mom, and get my brass whaler’s lantern from the bookshelf in my den.” Adam nodded and ran off again. “Thanks, Adam. You’re a good man!”

John looked through the other camping supplies he had stored in his garage, and pulled out one of his LED headlamps. He forgot all about the headlamps, which were perfect for hands-free operations in the dark. He didn’t see anything else that he needed from his camping supplies, but he did need a few things from his weapons supply box. He walked over and unlocked his weapons “A” box, and removed two holsters, a Kydex one for Adam’s Glock, and one for his Sig Sauer. He saw his tactical thigh holster and wondered if Adam would like to use it, but then thought better of it. He trained Adam to draw from a waist-high holster, and knew it wasn’t the right time to experiment with a new method of draw or carry, even if Adam thought it would be cool.

While serving in Iraq, John grew to dislike his thigh holster. For one, it prevented the use of the right cargo pocket of his DCUs, which was a big deal for him because he liked to use all his pockets. He fondly remembered once having to carry one-hundred-thousand dollars in crisp, new, one-hundred dollar bills in that very same cargo pocket. It was money confiscated from an Iraqi male at a U.S. Army checkpoint. The money was later returned to the man when it was discovered that he was a legitimate banker, but carrying that brick of bills in his pocket was really cool. It completely filled his cargo pocket, and probably would have stopped a bullet. He ended up carrying a lot of stuff in his pockets during the war, and he always relied on them, so the thigh holster was his least favorite.

Another reason he didn’t like thigh-holsters was that if they weren’t really tight against his leg they would flop around when he ran. And when they flopped, they turned, so that when he reached for his pistol it wasn’t always where it should be. It wasn’t off by much, but enough to delay his draw by a second or more, and in combat, a second could mean the difference between life and death.

John also couldn’t wear an inside-the-waist holster because of his body armor. When the army required him to wear the thick ballistic side plates, a waist holster became impossible to use, so he ended up
settling for a chest-rig holster. He removed the waistband plate from his Kydex holster and attached it directly to his body armor cover by threading Molle straps through it.

John was about to close his weapons box when he saw two of his favorite knives, his large Gerber combat, and a smaller boot knife. Thinking of his body armor made him decide to grab the knives. They were another familiar addition to his vest.

Using a step-ladder, John climbed up and removed a duffel bag from the ceiling mounted storage rack above his head. His eight duffel bags were all marked, so John knew exactly which one he needed to grab. They contained his old military equipment that included an assortment of duty uniforms, sleeping bags, load-bearing equipment, and other miscellaneous field gear. The duffle bag he wanted was the one that stored his body armor vest. He no longer had the thick ceramic Small Arms Protective Inserts for his vest, or SAPI plates, as the military coined them, but he did add two level-three Kevlar panels to make it effective against most small arms ammunition.

John considered buying SAPI plates, but when he saw that a single chest plate sold for around nine-hundred dollars, and the side plates for another four-hundred dollars each, he decided he didn’t need them that badly. To commercially equip his tactical vest with complete SAPI plates would run him close to three grand, and that was way more than he could justify to Jenna. Strangely, he actually resisted the idea of wearing the heavy plates while in Iraq. That was until he saw one stop a high-powered, armor piercing, sniper round from killing one of his Soldiers. When the event was reported up the chain of command, everyone who went “outside the wire” was made to wear a vest with complete SAPI array, even the embedded reporters.

What John liked most about his tactical vest was the ability to attach a variety of extra equipment, and have it easily accessible. Equipment such as a combat knife, radio, spare rifle ammo, spare pistol ammo, frag grenades, smoke grenades, a pistol, a flashlight, and multi-tool all claimed a spot on his vest. John hated the idea of needing
anything, and the vest was the perfect platform for carrying all that he needed. The down side was that it was very heavy, especially with the SAPI plates; more than forty pounds all told.

The army let John keep his tactical vest when he retired, which he greatly appreciated, so he was able to assemble a pretty good facsimile of the vest he wore in Iraq. He also had the small tactical Kevlar helmet, but he hated wearing it in combat, and wouldn’t wear it during his shooting competitions, so it remained buried at the bottom of a duffel bag. However, he knew helmets served a purpose, so he purchased a special-ops helmet on Ebay, a used Pro-Tec, A-bravo, tactical helmet with Wilcox G24 head straps. The tactical helmet was light, rugged, and could hold a flashlight with Velcro, as well as night vision goggles. It wouldn’t stop a bullet, but it would protect his head from blunt force trauma. He wore it once while he was out on his mountain bike, just to see how it felt on his head. It got him a lot of attention, so he liked to think he contributed to the sales of Pro-Tec helmets to the mountain biking arena.

Adam emerged into the garage, breathing heavy. “What’s wrong?” asked John.

“Nothing, dad. Mom had me running up and down the stairs for her. She’s hanging blankets over all the upstairs windows, and she needed me to carry them up for her.” replied Adam. He was trying to control his breathing while talking, which wasn’t easy for him.

“Did you get the lamp?”

“Oh,” replied Adam, “It’s in the kitchen. Just a sec.” He was gone for less than a minute and returned with John’s fine, brass, whaler’s lamp. “I thought this was a decoration,” he said, as he handed it over.

“It was a decoration . . . in a way.” said John, “But it’s a functional decoration, like most of the antique lighting stuff you see around the house.”

“Like that brass candle holder hanging on the wall by the front door? The one that looks like a clamshell?” asked Adam.

“Yes, like that one. You place a candlestick in the holder, and when the brass is polished it reflects the candle light back into the room. It’s
very effective. But this is my favorite,” said John, as he held up the small brass whaler’s lamp to examine the pencil sized cloth wick that was protruding from the oil reservoir at the bottom. The clear glass cylinder was about the size of a large drinking cup, but the lantern managed to produce a bright warm light that could fill a small room. It was designed to function in the wind and rain. John unscrewed the brass reservoir from the lantern and sat it on the table. He removed the wick and filled the reservoir with liquid paraffin through a small funnel. He struck a match to the wick and screwed the lantern back onto the reservoir.