299 Days: The Collapse Page 12

  He said through the door, “Sorry to bother you, Lisa.”

  She looked surprised. How did the police know her first name? This must be about Grant.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  He smiled, “Yes. This is about Grant. It’s very good news.”

  Lisa let him in. She was surprised to see a six-foot tall Asian guy.

  Pow paused and looked Lisa straight in the eye, smiled, and then asked, “You gonna eat that pickle?”

  What? Why was a cop asking her about a pickle? Then Lisa remembered that this was Grant’s first line to her back when they met.

  “What?” Lisa asked. “I’m not sure I understand you.” She couldn’t believe what he had just said.

  Pow smiled even bigger. “I am a friend of Grant’s. We shoot together all the time, me and some other guys. Grant sent me a text.” Pow held up the phone so she could see it. “He wants me and my guys to give you an armed escort to your cabin.” Pow was bursting with pride. He felt fantastic that he and the Team could help Grant and his family reunite.

  Lisa just stared at him.

  Pow added, “He told me to use a code phrase about the pickle. Said you’d know it could only be from him.”

  That clever bastard, Lisa thought. Grant hadn’t completely abandoned her and the kids. He was trying to reunite with them. And he had sent a cop with a Hummer to take them there. For the first time in two days she didn’t hate him.

  Lisa was still trying to process this amazing news. She just stood there staring at the cop offering an armed escort out to the cabin to be with Grant. Was this really happening?

  The kids came downstairs, hearing that a visitor was there. Lisa motioned for them to go back into their rooms. She didn’t want to alarm them.

  Pow showed her the text. “Here’s the text he wanted you to see.”

  Lisa could see it was from Manda’s phone number. That’s right, she remembered, yesterday Manda asked where her phone was. Grant took it. Why wouldn’t he want to use his own phone, though?

  She read the text:

  “Lisa: I’m at the cabin. I’m fine. Things are great out here. I have 9 months of food. The gov’t is collapsing. Seriously. I know from Jeanie. She told me top secret stuff. Things will get worse. You and the kids have to leave NOW. Leave. Leave. Leave. Pow is a Korean guy who is a friend. He has a team of guys who will provide an escort out here. You and the kids will be safe here. You won’t in the city. I want to be with you. Please come out here. Love, G.”

  This was crazy, Lisa thought. She is just supposed to leave her house and get in a Hummer with a cop? There were some things on the news about things breaking down, but it wasn’t the end of the world. The country was having some troubles like it did on 9/11, but it bounced back from that. This was nothing to overreact about.

  Lisa wanted to go and be with Grant, but the idea of going wasn’t…normal. Normal was the house, her job, the kids going to school tomorrow. Normal felt good. She wanted normal. Normal meant Grant being back and things being OK. Going off to the cabin would be admitting that things weren’t normal, and that things were dangerous in Olympia.

  “Sorry, but I don’t think we need to go,” Lisa said. “I appreciate you coming out here, but tell Grant we will stay here.”

  Pow was shocked. How could someone not want to go to a safe cabin?

  “Really?” Pow blurted out. He was stunned. “I mean,” he said pointing out toward the city center, “have you seen what’s going on out there? Those looters will be back. Probably at night. You think they’ll be OK with you guys shooting their homies? Are you kidding me?” Pow realized he was scaring her with reality. He reeled it back in. “I mean, I understand that it’s a big thing to leave but, ma’am, you need to. It’s not safe here.”

  Pow remembered the “badge” hanging around his neck and that Lisa thought he was a cop. He would use that. “Ma’am, I’m a professional and I’m telling you it’s not safe here.” He hated lying to her, but knew she’d thank him later.

  Lisa stood there and thought. She knew it wasn’t safe at her house, but it just seemed so weird to leave. Plus, if they left their house, it would probably get robbed and all her stuff would get broken. She couldn’t just leave and let that happen.

  But how could she stop robbers? Grant was gone. And she wouldn’t touch that gun he left. Those things were dangerous. Ron and the other guards would prevent any robbers from coming in. And so would the police. After all, there was a police officer right now at her house; this proved to her that the police were still on patrol. The protests, or whatever those sirens were all about, would be over soon and things would get back to normal. Then Grant would figure out that he was just overreacting. He’d come home and things would be normal.

  “No thank you,” Lisa said. “We’ll be fine.

  ”Pow was speechless. He never even considered the idea that she wouldn’t come. He figured she would view him as a hero.

  He had to think of something to say since this wasn’t going like he thought it would. “Well, OK,” he said, “but Grant has Manda’s phone so you can communicate with him that way.” He got out a piece of paper and a pen. “Here is my cell phone number. When you change your mind, call or text me. Me and my team will be here, no matter how rough things are. Grant is a teammate and I’ll risk my life for him. All of us on the Team will. We made a pact, ma’am.”

  That floored Lisa. Grant was on a “team”? What? A “pact”? This was all just too weird.

  “OK, I’ll call if I need you,” Lisa said, “but I doubt I will. What I need is for Grant to come back home. Tell him that. His home is here, not out in the boonies somewhere.”

  Pow, the insurance salesman, felt like he was losing the biggest sale of his life. She and those kids would be dead in the city. “OK, ma’am,” he said, not wanting to leave just in case he could figure out something to say to get her to come along. “But please call me when things get scary. They will.” He reluctantly left.

  Lisa closed the door and started crying again. This was all too much. Why couldn’t Grant come back home? Why did he have to “win” by having her come out there? Why was he acting this way?

  *****

  Manda came downstairs. “Mom, you should call that police officer. We need to go. Dad is right.”

  Lisa cried more when she heard Manda say, “Dad is right.” Lisa was starting to realize this, too. But it was impossible to admit that they needed to go. She wanted “normal” back. She just wanted normal. And leaving for the cabin with an “armed escort” was not normal.

  A few minutes later, Lisa heard gunfire in the distance. Then she heard a car horn honking and a car speed past her house. Then another. Was it another attack?

  Manda went up to her room and came back down with the revolver Grant had left. Lisa was horrified that there was a gun in her house.

  Manda said, “Mom, I’m going to have this with me. I don’t care what you say. I have to do this.” She sounded like an adult saying that.

  Lisa didn’t know how to respond. Her daughter was holding a gun. People might be attacking her neighborhood. Her husband was gone. A police officer had just been at the door offering them an armed escort out the cabin, and telling her that Grant was on the officer’s “team” and had made a “pact.” Lisa was getting dizzy. She needed to sit down.

  After about twenty tense minutes, Sherri Spencer, Ron’s wife, came to the door and said there had been a false alarm; it was only some shots a few subdivisions over. Lisa was relieved. See, nothing bad was happening to them, she thought.

  Right now. But there were several more hours left before the sun came up. Lisa was praying for the sun to come up. It was the longest night. She was terrified.

  Lisa took the police officer’s phone number out of her pocket. She couldn’t dial it. It was late and she didn’t want to wake Grant up. She kept staring at the piece of paper.

  “Call him,” Manda said. Lisa didn’t know she was standing there. “Call him,
Mom.”

  “Go back to bed,” Lisa said. This was not happening. This was not happening…

  Chapter 59

  Alone

  (May 6)

  Grant was on guard duty that night. He was alone; they had stopped the two-guard shifts because things were so peaceful out there. Besides, everyone was getting tired.

  It was beautiful out there. It was May and the spring weather was fabulous. A clear night. But his mind was elsewhere.

  He felt Manda’s cell phone vibrate. It was Pow, who would be telling Grant when Lisa and the kids would be arriving. Grant couldn’t wait to read that text.

  The text said, “She wouldn’t leave. Won’t leave house. Said you need to come home. Sorry, man. I tried super hard. We’re coming out soon. We can go back and get her if she calls.”

  He felt like someone kicked him in the stomach. He couldn’t believe it.

  Then it hit him: he was on his own. He no longer had a family. He was alone. He started crying and couldn’t stop

  His life was over. He had failed. He hadn’t gotten his family through what he had known was coming for years. He had done all the preparing he could, but he still lost because his family wouldn’t make it. He’d rather be dead than have them go through what was ahead of them. How could this be? He had plenty of food and a safe place, but no family to share it with. What good was that?

  You’ll see. They will be fine. Have faith.

  Was that just wishful thinking? The outside thought had not been wrong so far. It had told him to prepare when the rest of the world continued to live obliviously. It told him a crisis was coming even when that seemed preposterous.

  Grant remembered that survivors of various disasters always said the same thing: once you quit trying to live, you will die. You have to believe that you’ll make it. And making it was not just that Grant himself lived; it meant Grant and his family surviving. So he decided that he would find a way to get his family. They would come out to the cabin. He would figure out a way.

  He sat there the rest of the night. Alone. He immersed himself in constructive thoughts. How to guard the cabins. How to get food. How to introduce himself to other neighbors so they could start a bigger and bigger common defense and food sharing system. It didn’t take long before he fell asleep.

  Chapter 60

  Power

  (May 6)

  “It’s time to go,” Tony, Menlow’s chief of staff, said to Jeanie. She picked up her single suitcase and followed him.

  Tony and Jeanie got Menlow and met Trooper Vasquez. They went to the parking garage, which was nearly empty. An unmarked police car pulled up, and the uniformed trooper opened the doors and trunk. Vasquez loaded the suitcases, said something to the driver, and motioned for them to get in the car. Tony took the front passenger seat so it was the Menlow and Jeanie in the back seat. It felt surreal.

  Everyone was silent for the first few minutes. They saw the capitol campus go by out their window. They were heading onto the freeway, to who knows where.

  Menlow finally broke the silence. “You know, Jeanie, the Governor called me and said that the State Legislature will be on recess for the foreseeable future. There are things going on in D.C. that would boggle your mind, too.”

  Jeanie was stunned. Menlow just stared out the window.

  “Do you know what ‘black bagging’ is?” He asked Jeanie.

  “No,” she said.

  “It’s when the government grabs someone,” Menlow said, “puts a black bag over their head, and takes them away to prison, or torture, or death. It’s what all the teabaggers are worried about and it’s what’s sparking this thing off,” he said. “You know, with the checkpoints we’ve set up?”

  Jeanie was thoroughly confused. Menlow seemed to be out there in space.

  “It’s been out there for quite some time,” Menlow said, “that Homeland Security thought the biggest terrorist threat was returning vets, conservatives, libertarians, Ron Paul types. You know.”

  Jeanie had been to the Homeland Security trainings at the State Auditor’s Office about what to look out for. The “terrorists” in the training materials were always “militia types.” Never Arabs. But Jeanie was still confused. Maybe Menlow had lost it.

  “Well, these vets and teabaggers,” Menlow said, still staring out the window, “have been getting stopped the past couple of days at the check points. They don’t know if it’s just a traffic stop or if they’ll be ‘black bagged.’ The Feds can do that, you know? To ‘belligerents’ or ‘enemy combatants’ or whatever…” Menlow just trailed off as he looked out the window.

  Jeanie had heard about that. It was the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, but it was only supposed to be used on “terrorists.”

  “Yep,” Menlow said, “so when a few of these teabaggers see the checkpoint, they think they’re about to get ‘black bagged.’ So some of them decide they’ll fight it out to the death rather than be taken away.”

  Menlow turned around to look at Jeanie and shrugged. “The sad part,” he said to her, “is that the checkpoints weren’t to pick up teabaggers but, now that cops are getting killed left and right, it’s turned into that.”

  Menlow turned away from Jeanie and stared out the window again. “A self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “A sad and horrible self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  Menlow looked out the window at the people on the street. Those poor folks had no idea what was coming. He felt sorry for them, but he was glad he was in the back of a police car going to someplace safe. He focused back on his brief phone call with the Governor.

  “The Governor is signing a bunch of executive orders,” Menlow said. “Emergency powers. They had a plan for this worked out some time ago, but no one thought they’d ever have to carry it out.”

  Menlow paused and kept staring out the window. Finally, he said, “You know…the cycle is broken. The political cycle. Where the Ds spend a bunch of tax money and then some Rs get elected. Then Ds win, then Rs do, all the while, each side is spending more and more. Maybe at different rates, but spending more. Well, that’s over now.”

  Menlow paused and looked out the window some more. Those poor bastards out there walking around, Menlow thought. They have no idea.

  “Politics is over,” Menlow said as he turned to look Jeanie in the eye. “This can’t be fixed with elections. That’s a big thing for a politician to admit,” he said with a chuckle. He turned away from Jeanie and looked back out the window.

  “We can’t restore order with politics,” Menlow said with a sigh. “Politics? That’s how we got here. It will take something bigger than politics to get things stabilized. Power. That’s what it will take. Power.” He kept staring out the window.

  Everyone was silent.

  Menlow continued, “The Feds are doing the same stuff. Emergency powers. Some scary stuff. You know the old line, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ They’re not. They’re going to announce a new civilian law enforcement auxiliary called the ‘Freedom Corps.’ This is like 9/11 times a hundred.”

  More silence. Now they were getting on the freeway. Menlow said, “Oh, did I mention that the Southern states are basically seceding? Yep. Everyone’s wondering what the military will do. I wonder about our National Guard in this state. How many will be willing to carry out some of these new powers? Then again, it’s the only way to stop the chaos.” Menlow wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he was thinking it: now is precisely the time the state needed a law-and-order Republican governor. He smiled. Power.

  Chapter 61

  Weenie Uprising

  (May 6)

  Nancy Ringman had been sent home that morning like all other state employees at the capitol. She couldn’t believe how the state and Feds were letting these right-wing hateful Tea Partiers push everyone around. She knew that the right was responsible for all the terrorism. The corporate media was saying it was the “Red Brigade,” but Nancy knew it was those gun-toting right-wingers. They were masquerading a
s “welfare protestors” and destroying the city. She hated them.

  The rumor mill at her office had already described the new “Freedom Corps.” That sounded like a good idea. It would give people like her, leaders and people traditionally excluded from the “good ole’ boy” system, a chance to help the state restore order. She couldn’t wait to join. She would lead the Freedom Corps in her neighborhood, of course.

  That reminded her. The “good ole’ boys” were running wild in her own neighborhood. Ron and Len were turning the Cedars into an armed camp. And Grant Matson had murdered those kids, which was completely unnecessary. Gunfire in a residential area! What were those men thinking?

  Nancy hated having to see men with guns every time she drove in and out of the subdivision. Macho. That’s all it was. Some men trying to be macho. She felt the neighborhood gravitating toward them and their guns. She could feel she was losing power.

  There was a meeting of the neighborhood association planned for that evening. She would make a stand against the testosterone. If she didn’t do it now, everyone would think guns were the answer to all of this.

  When Nancy arrived, she called the meeting to order. “Everyone is so thankful for Ron and Len and the other volunteers, but I have a concern,” she said. “It seems the more guns we have out, the more they get used. Grant, who has apparently abandoned his family, killed three kids and wounded four more. It was horrible. And it wouldn’t have happened without a macho hothead like that deciding to spray the neighborhood with automatic weapons. We need a better way to stay safe because, quite honestly, I don’t feel safe with all of these guns around.”

  “I suggest that we have people out observing, but that we call the police if we need help,” she said. “The police are trained professionals.” That resonated with the audience. They had been told their whole lives that life was complicated and to leave things up to the experts.

  It didn’t resonate with everyone, though.