It Makes no Sense (standard:adventure, 14116 words)
Author: Slash Maraud	Added: Dec 12 2006	Views/Reads: 3234/2328	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The Adventures of a retired Naval Captain when the end of known civilization happens.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

"heated exchanges", so sitting in the lap of a military base didn't 
seem wise, but being able to raid one if things worked out for the best 
looked good. 

I lucked into finding an old, 1950's era grade school on the market. It
was going cheap due to the outmoded HVAC plant. I snapped it up and had 
a long talk with local city building inspector. The second floor was 
shaky, but the first floor was in excellent condition. The gym needed 
some work, but it had a garage door. I applied for a renovation permit 
to convert the place into secure storage, got a loan on the property 
and went to town. I bought a big welder, cement mixer and a concrete 
saw. I installed rebar in the windows and filled them full of concrete. 
All but one door saw the same treatment. 

I spent a long, harrowing two weeks chopping up and pulling down the
second floor. I bought 2 tons of concrete premix on skids and 1/2 ton 
of rebar. 

Eight thousand dollars gave me a reinforced concrete slab roof secured
by construction adhesive. You could land a Sikorsky skyhook on the 
damned thing. (and later did, much to my surprise) I lined the entire 
place with six inches of pink construction insulation board. Winters 
got cold in Wyoming. As a finishing touch, I had a very secure garage 
door put in, a hydraulic lift dock and a Generac generator. I would 
play with putting in an apartment and such later, but for now I had to 
get the supplies in. Something was pushing me, hard. 

I bought vitamins by the case, as well as vegetables and fruit. Canned
meats and butter. Dried milk and sugar. Soap and bleach. Medical 
supplies. Baby food in cans and formula. Even diapers. Lots a trash 
bags. Everything was going to get wet. I bought everything. 

I made four trips to Cheyenne to fill up on bulk foods and barrels for
water. The building inspector really didn't like my inside bulk propane 
tanks until I arranged for external venting. Four thousand pounds of 
security; all mine. 

To keep my head above water, I actually advertised and got business as a
secured storage site. The fact that there was a 24/7 on-site guard (me) 
sold several clients. It gave me an excuse to buy weapons and ammo, 
too. 

Now, Wyoming being the land of the free, home of the brave and the
number three militia state in the union, I'd had my pick of toys once I 
let a few guys know I was serious. 

I bought a couple of street-sweepers for up close and personal, a
half-dozen H&K .308s, four.357s, a mixed batch of S&W and Colt, a 
bitchin' .50 cal with bipod that took 11 rounds in a magazine, an M79 
40mm grenade launcher and 77 pounds of Semtex. He threw in 20 blasting 
caps when he saw the size of the order. Ammo? My god, I bought ammo. If 
that end of the building went up they'd think it was world war three. 
I'd never know it. My connection grinned like a fool when he showed me 
the mortar. An honest-to-God US Military 4.2” mortar commonly referred 
to as a four deuce. I damned near creamed my jeans. I took out a second 
mortgage for that load and ammo, but it was worth it. I invested in 
starlight goggles, seven scopes (one for the .50 cal cost over 
$1700.00) and seven spotting lasers. 

The pistols and shotguns got lasers, scopes and passive lasers for the
rifles. I told him that if he ever got hold of any anti- tank killers 
or stingers to give me a ring. I think I bought him out. 

I took delivery from a fully loaded semi with a very nervous driver. I
did have to buy some cleaning kits, holsters and slings locally. I 
picked up a nice stabilized low-light spotting scope too. 

Ranging in the scopes gave me pause. A certain 'Welcome to Colorado'
sign took a lot of shit one night. I wonder what they thought of the 
.50 cal holes. 

I still had rebar and concrete, so I poured a few interior walls for my
apartment. I began to think I'd really made a mistake before they set. 
It seemed to take forever to set up and dry... I lived with a 
dehumidifier for a couple of months after that. 

The quiet seemed a nice tradeoff. 

I loved the walk-in refrigerator and walk-in freezer from the old
cafeteria. A little under-the-counter Freon recharge and I was in 
business. The refrigerated fur storage business, to be exact. I was 
actually paying back the loans at an accelerated rate when it hit. 

Holy shit, did it hit. A nickel-iron asteroid the size of a large ocean
liner splashed down in the Mediterranean sea 40 miles South West of the 
boot toe of Italy. 

God hated Sicily and gave Mt. Etna an enema. The Israeli's problems were
finally over. Christ, the entire Mideast was gone along with most of 
Europe and North Africa. The tidal wave rolled up France and Germany. 
Only the Alps stopped it. The Netherlands were gone. The Scandinavian 
Peninsula was almost unharmed. Then the rains started. The impact 
caused a crustal fault under the Italian peninsula to open up. The 
inrushing seawater of the Atlantic went straight up into steam and lava 
bombs. At least, that's what the satellite pictures showed. There were 
no onsite witnesses. It's funny, though. At the time all I could think 
of was "there's a new name for Hezbollah-- Chum". 

Not so funny now, though. Despite the shock, people carried on as usual.
The school shut down, sending all the students home. Some had no home 
to return to, as the tidal waves had wiped out most of the eastern 
seaboard. The sea levels were rising. All that geothermal energy was 
gradually driving the global temperature up past the critical 
point--the ice caps were quickly failing. 

I spent the next week eating salads, mushrooms, fish and steaks. I
pigged out, realizing that I may never eat these foods again. 

Fresh pizza--yum. That's where I met Jackie. She walked into the pizza
parlor looking jittery. I was the only one there. I suppose that's what 
drew her eye. She walked up to my table and grabbed the chair opposite 
me with white knuckles. 

"Hi. May I sit down? I need some company." I motioned for her to sit
down and dished her up a couple of pieces of heaven. (OK, so sue me. 
Heaven in the form of a sausage, pepperoni, black olive and mushroom 
pizza). 

"Here. eat this. It's already happened, so we can afford to live in the
minute." 

We polished off the pizza. I ordered a pitcher of beer for us and
another pizza to take home. We talked. Jackie was an athletics coach 
for the school. With no one to go to and no one to talk to she was 
quietly going mad. 

I guess I was some sort of lifeline that night. We discussed what life
would be like during the next few years and scavenging would be all 
that we could do until the global weather stabilized again. We also 
discussed the fact-to-bullshit ratio that the news was spewing, and 
which stations tried to advise calm while others were in full 
shit-your-pants panic mode. 

Where's Geraldo Riviera when you need a good laugh? I invited her back
to my place. That got me a wry little grin. 

"I don't even know your name!" 

"Umm, I'm Art. Art James. I run a secure storage place across town." 

"Jackie Moser, aerobics instructor." "So much for dinner and a handshake
on the first date." 

I just whistled tunelessly and inspected the ceiling for flaws. She took
my arm, I grabbed the pizza and we headed out into the rain. Everyone 
wore boots. There had been a torrential downpour for days. Some of the 
newer houses had slipped their foundations and surfed downhill, 
smashing other houses and blocking roads. Some roads were just gone the 
interstates were impassable except the high line up into northern 
Montana and across into Oregon, and up into Canada. Somehow the 
railroads were still operating. Nobody could even guess as to how long. 
The water in the ravines had already surpassed the five hundred year 
flood levels. 

We were lucky that the electricity was still operating. When it went,
the fresh water went. I was collecting rainwater in barrels, filling 
all available food-grade barrels. 

I had traded in the van on a black seven-year-old Jeep Cherokee with lug
tires and an eight-inch lift kit. The trailer bought me a used 
snowmobile, which I mothballed. I had 450 gallons of gas stashed. I 
knew that it wouldn't last for spit, but I had to make the effort. The 
Jeep got us to my home, wet but safe thru the flooded streets. Wyoming 
is like North Dakota--they expect flash flooding and design the streets 
accordingly. Everything flows downhill. Just don't get caught downhill! 


The electric door opener got us inside the semi-sized security bay I'd
constructed out of more concrete and rebar. I unlocked a second, 
heavier door at the end of the bay and invited my guest inside. I'd 
invested in a low-voltage lighting system to be driven off of 
batteries. Along with the bright paint I'd used it softened up the 
feeling of the concrete walls immensely. The apartment took me a while 
to build out, but I'd taken my time and done it right. The coffee table 
separated the couch from a fireplace I'd built and vented to the 
outside. I threw the pizza in the fridge and sat beside her. 

"Doing better? You were looking a little shaky, back there." 

"Lots! I guess I just needed to vent, and have someone listen. I've
hardly seen anyone for days." 

"Some of the dorms are crammed full. They've nowhere to go. The poor
kids have moved in together for company and, I'd guess, commiseration." 


Jackie took my hand and laid her head on my shoulder. I shifted closer
to her and put my arm around her shoulder. She took that hand and 
sighed. "This is what I needed. The personal touch" she said into my 
chest. 

"Trust me," I said. "I've been missing this too." 

We simply sat like that, smelling each other's scents, relaxing in each
other's touch. We fell asleep like that. 

I awoke with hair in my face and an arm over my chest. I was on the
couch. Oh hell! I had company! I turned my head and there she was, 
sleeping the sleep of an innocent. 

Last night's beer wanted out, and I wasn't about to pee on my new couch.
Carefully I shifted out from beneath Jackie and stumbled off to the 
necessary. Hmm. I need an elevated tank to catch rainwater, say 500 
gallons. A bulk dairy tank would be perfect. Easy to do--the place 
started out with 10-foot ceilings. Then I could keep using the shower 
and toilet without worrying about a composting toilet. I could store 
more gasoline that way, too. 

All right, so I think way too much in the toilet. 

I started breakfast, hoping that the smell would tempt her into
consciousness. It worked. A tousled young lady soon appeared. 

"Bathroom?" or something like it came from here direction. I took her by
the shoulders and guided her to the right door. A moment after the door 
closed I heard "Yessss". I guess beer is universal. 

Oops. Burning bacon. By the time Jackie showed up I had coffee, eggs,
bacon toast and tomatoes ready. We both showed our appreciation by 
silently worshiping the food. Hmmm. Happiness is a warm belly. Snoopy 
was right. 

"So," I said, "You wanna do this again tomorrow?" Gawd, I love puppy-dog
eyes. 

"Really?" "Really. If we fall into something, that's fine. If you want,
we can pick up your stuff today. I need to get some stuff, too. Want to 
help?" 

"Sure! What's up?" 

"I want to put in a cistern to hold rainwater for when the city water
gives out. When the electricity goes, the water will go within a day or 
two." 

"Why?" 

"Well, we're using deep-well water. Once the power goes, whatever's in
the water tower is it." 

"What about this place? Won't it be real dark when the power goes?" 

"Naw. Let's take a tour-- I'll show you." 

I started with the old gym/garage. The generator and LP tanks removed
most worries. I showed her the charging array, stash of low-voltage 
bulbs and extra batteries. That took care of the lights. I had solar 
cells too. The rain couldn't last forever. 

The larder impressed her, along with the walk-in freezer full of frozen
meat, fruit, veggies and butter. I had cases of frozen fruit juices. I 
showed her the crane and grill to cook over the fireplace, and how the 
doors and windows were secured. We cleared out my "office"--read junk 
room--for a bedroom for her. There wasn't much room in the jeep, so we 
rented a van for the day. We picked up her apartment goods and stopped 
at a resale shop for another chest of drawers. I arranged for the milk 
bulk tank to be delivered the next day. I had to buy pipe and MIG 
sticks to weld the stainless tank in place and cap the top for 
pressure. I had to figure out how to pressurize the system but that 
could wait. One damned thing at a time. 

She moved in with hardly a ripple. I just suddenly had a lot of "girl
stuff" in my bathroom. You win some, you lose some. That night... 

Art??? 

Umph. Wa. Yumpf. What?? 

Can I sleep with you? 

silence... "Uhhh, sure. Don' expect much. Mmm. sleeply." 

Did I dream it? Nope, I guess not. I woke up with a female teddy bear
again. She couldn't have messed the bed if she'd tried. You see, she 
had this big plug up against her back end... 

I woke up with an arm full of something soft and nice. My pecker was
buried between, well, you get the idea. Careful extraction was 
definitely memorable. 

I decided on a cold breakfast that morning. I was eating my cereal in
between sips of coffee when she eased up onto a stool. 

"I had the nicest dream last night." 

"Hmm?" You can't say much with a mouth full of cereal. 

"I dreamt I was a horse on a merry-go-round. The pole was just about to
push into me when the dream ended. It left me kind of let down." 

I spit cheerios all over the table. "Well, about that. You almost did
get spitted last night due to a case of underwear failure. Mine." She 
just sat there looking innocent at me, until one corner of her mouth 
started to twitch. I realized that I'd been had. 

"Moving kind of fast, aren't you?" 

"Hey, that's usually my line." 

"Well, if the underwear fits..." 

She looked down at her lap and got serious. "You don't mind, do you?" 

I sat back and thought a minute. "No. It's just that I've been down that
road before. It's narrow and nobody ever showed me a map. And after a 
couple of crash-and-burns you start to twitch and drive reeeal 
defensive." 

She nodded in complete understanding. Things were quiet for the rest of
the day. 

I remembered to buy into more gasoline. The Jeep would only handle two
50-gallon drums at a time. That's 100 gallons at 12 bucks a gallon. I 
did that twice. I picked up a case of Stabile at a car parts store, 
too. I avoided the tank pressure problem by mounting it high in the 
gym. A 40-foot ceiling gave me all the head pressure I wanted. 

We managed to not offend each other the rest of the week. We heard that
four Semis had re-stocked the local grocery. We got together Saturday 
and raided the Safeway to top off the freezer. The prices were thru the 
roof but they were almost sold out by the time we got there. I managed 
to grab six pre-frozen roasts, six chickens and some fruit. She got 
flour, eggs, shortening; stew beef, canned tomatoes and case of white 
wine. We tried to buy case lots. I noticed that we caught some looks 
when we were loading the jeep. It made the hair on my neck stand up. I 
was gonna start packing. 

After unpacking the jeep Jackie started cooking dinner while I wandered
around with an eye towards beefing up security. There was enough room 
inside the remaining door to construct a pass-thru lock, and I wanted 
firing points on all four sides of the building. The old gym ceiling 
was higher than the rest of the building. I REALLY had to reinforce 
that wall section. Hell, a firing point there would be nice, too. I 
wanted weapons ready at each firing point. No sense getting there with 
nothing but my dick in my hand. 

Jackie made a very nice goulash with garlic bread with a frozen berry
shortcake for dessert. I decided that whatever she wanted that night, 
she got. Wow. I lit a fire in the fireplace and we curled up with a 
little wine. 

"Your momma taught you well." 

"Hmm?" 

"The way to a man's heart is through..." 

"Oh, yeah. Well, um, did you like dinner?" 

"Consider me bought and paid for." She crawled into my lap and I wrapped
my arms around her waist. She hugged me back and squirmed in my lap. 

"I'm ummm, " 

"Needy?" 

"Yeah, that'll do. Needy. I need a little attention." 

"Here?" I palmed her right breast and nipple. "Umm, yeah, but," 

"Or here?" 

I laid a palm over her mons and squeezed gently. The air went out of her
like a deflating tire. 

"More yeah. More?" 

We held a nice, long discussion that night. We argued several points and
came to a mutually satisfactory consensus. Several times. I'm still 
trying to figure out how to re-cover those couch cushions to this day. 

And I'll have to re-glue the coffee table. It developed an odd squeak.
Next time, Scotch guard everything. Did you know that you can use a 
fireplace brush to... naaw. YOU figure it out. 

We stopped going outside. People were starting to get goosy. I welded,
mixed and poured myself silly that next week. Our poor little Radio 
Shack had a half-dozen B&W CCD cameras and a monitor. I opened 'em up 
and replaced the IR film with polarizing glass from a pair of 
sunglasses. Instant IR cameras. 

I drilled out holes under the roofline and epoxied 'em into place, then
ran cables to what became our ready room--a corner of the living 
room--so that we could always look over the system with a glance. It 
took a lot of work, but eventually I figured out how to make a rolling 
cast-concrete door that sealed with a big hydraulic press I stole from 
a foundry. The movement ram had a 6" barrel and the locking ram had a 
20" barrel bracing an 18" thick door in a 20" thick wall. It was a real 
bitch to cut the firing point. 

The human-sized door got anti-personnel mines at the rear corners of the
entry lock. I didn't feel confident in waterproofing any mines, so 
everything stayed inside the perimeter building wall. I did weld up 
some car-killer caltrops out of 2" rebar and tack 'em down around the 
building late one night. It was starting to look medieval out there. I 
got a couple of calls from my clients who wanted to check on their 
stored goods. They were impressed with my stepped up security measures. 
They thought it was for them. Idiots. 

Finally it happened; our first confrontation. A crowd of young punks
from the college wanted to scare up a party and had decided that we 
were fair game. 

They had bolt cutters, wrecking bars and Molotov cocktails. We spotted
'em down the road a bit. I popped the latch on the outer door and we 
sat back to watch the fun. They found the door quickly enough, and 
tried to push their way in. Each wanted to be first. Four were still 
outside when I touched off the first Semtex load. The nuts and bolts in 
wax facing the explosive made a hell of a mess. The whole place echoed 
like someone in a big truck had hit a corner of the building. When I 
opened the inner door it looked like someone had put raw hamburger in a 
blender and left the top off. I tried to remember if I had any garden 
hose and where the nearest spigot was. 

Lesson number one. Remember to provide for cleanup. Lesson number two.
Keep a high sash between the killing floor and the rest of the place. 
Blood flows. It took two hours with a squeegee to get it respectable, 
and I had to patch the walls. The hardware had bounced around a few 
times. I guess I used too much Semtex. 

I called the Sheriff in the morning and explained about the mess. I got
a nice house call by a very polite man. He looked around, fingered a 
few of the wall divots and accepted a cup of coffee. We shook hands— 

"Karl Andresson, county sheriff." 

"Art James" 

"Must have been a hell of a mess. By the way, we've kept it out of the
news to prevent panic, but martial law's been declared. Looting and 
attempted looting is a shoot-on-site offense. You saved me some work. 
Thanks. Now, hold out your hand." 

I slowly reached out a hand to him... He slapped my wrist. 

"Bad civilian. Bad. No biscuit. There. You've been chastised." 

"Um, on that note, I'm short detonators. Anybody around got 'em?" 

He puckered up like he was sucking lemons, then grinned. 

"Semtex, right? I know the smell. Since you seem to know what you're
doing, within reason, I've got a bomb disposal kit that nobody seems to 
know how to use. It's got 12 kilos of Semtex and 50 number 8 blasting 
caps, as well as a magneto. Can do?" 

"Oh yeah! Semtex, primacord, AMFO, firing straws, you name it, I'm
happy." 

"Where'd you learn?" 

"Started off building fireworks then joined the Navy to see the world.
Went EOD then put my chit in for SEAL. Finished my 20 with the 
SeaBees." 

"Impressive.” 

" It was a lotta fun.” 

“Oh, any place around here use bulk epoxy? I need about 400 pounds of
2-part." 

If I had that much Semtex, I was going to set up some housewarming
gifts. 

"Jackie, would you take this clay and roll it out thin between two
sheets of waxed paper? Try to make the edges square." 

"Sure. What's it for?" 

"It's a surprise." 

I cut 1/2 inch plywood into strips to hide the cables. I anchored one
end of the 22 cables to the edges of the roof slabs, laid out the 
Semtex sheets, then the cables surrounded by plywood. Epoxy covered it 
all. Inside that ring went the Semtex covered by nails, covered by 
epoxy. I kept 14 inches between each load to keep 'em from chain 
firing. The buried detonators had wires leading down to the ready room. 
The roof door got the Semtex/nails/epoxy treatment, too. 

Jackie bugged me so many times about what the hell we were doing that I
figured I had to show her. I made a 'welcome' mat for the front door, 
just like the roof. I showed it to her, and had her jump on it. Fine. 
We went inside and I offered her a glass of wine. I snuck back out and 
put a box of phone books on the mat, then went back in. 

"You wanted to know what all that work was for? Watch this." 

I wired the leads to a door buzzer. 

"Ding dong, Jehova's Witnesses!" I pressed the button. Whumph! 

"Go take a look." 

Fucking confetti everywhere. 

Poor Jackie didn't know what to think. She thought we were insulating or
something. I opened my arms and she hugged me. I held her and talked 
gently into her ear. 

"It's a new world out there. It's going to get a whole lot worse before
it gets better. Now, what do you say we lay out a new welcome mat?" 

Damned if she didn't giggle. 

"Nasty man. You scared the piss out of me." 

We set out the new "welcome mat" and set mines at the other corners of
the entry lock, then started to do the same for the heavy door. 

"Whoa. If we set these off, we'll blow the outer door. That would be bad
news." 

"What about shotguns? BIG shotguns?" 

"Pretty girl, you're smart, too." 

I went scavenging for plate steel and found enough 1x1 foot by 1-inch
sections to keep me happy for a while. I welded four-inch diameter, 
four-inch high rings onto the plates, and bored a blasting-cap sized 
hole near the bottom of each ring. We loaded two ounces of Semtex in 
each, covered that with ball bearings and poured wax over the mess. I 
epoxied the detonators into the bottom holes, and viola--two dozen 
crowd reducers. I tack-epoxied them to the side walls of the back bay 
and ran the control wires back to a common point at the back wall, each 
run thru a 1/2 inch gas pipe. I ran the wires to a switch box with a 
nice, new 12-volt battery and hung moving blankets over the walls. When 
I fired 'em I could pry 'em off with a wrecking bar and replace 'em. 

There's nothing like a cottage industry to warm the heart. 

Well, it finally happened. The power failed. I woke up in the middle of
the night to dead quiet and total darkness. The clock was out. No 
juice. No big deal! I bumped and fumbled my way to the dresser, grabbed 
flashlight and headed down to the garage. I popped the breaker on the 
city panel so that I wouldn't be trying to energize the grid, then 
started the Generac. 

LP gas burns clean and quiet. When the motor smoothed out I kicked in
the Generac's breakers. Instant home. Within three minutes I had two 
arms around me and a nose buried in my back. 

"What happened? I woke up and it was DARK! 

"The grid finally died. We're on our own power, now. We're on
non-renewable resources for real, now. I'll be pulsing the system to 
keep the batteries up and the freezer within tolerances. That'll 
stretch the LP gas. We'll sleep together to keep warm if that's all 
right with you." 

"No problem." 

I got the batteries and charging panel wired in and added the acid.
Twenty minutes later I put the low voltage system in circuit and 
started it charging. I figured eight hours for an initial charge, then 
once a day for an hour or so. I wanted to take advantage of the extra 
amperage during that day. I figured on a nice, hot bath for two... 

"Hon? Which would you rather have, a sauna or a hot tub?" 

Silence. "I guess a sauna because it would be easier to heat when we
needed it and we wouldn't have to keep it hot all the time." 

"Sold. We'll start building one tomorrow." 

"Good. Remember, plug the screw heads. They'll get HOT!" 

"Yes, dear." 

"Hmph." 

"Hon? Wake up. We're lobsterizing." 

"Oohh. This is so nice." 

"Think of the dorms. Cold, dark. Soon, no water. No toilets. No
sanitation." 

"You think diseases?" 

"Yep. And fires. It's going to get very nasty, very fast now. You know
anybody you really trust and want to get out of there?" 

Boy, it was quiet. "It's not so much what we want as what we need, you
know?" 

I hugged her tight. She was getting the message. We had to survive, and
every resource expended was a resource lost for several years to come. 

We talked it over during pancakes at breakfast. We needed a medic and
another shooter, preferably one with mortar training. I wanted to keep 
the gender balance even or a little towards female. We knew we couldn't 
advertise, but we could go 'hunting'. 

We went to the hospital to check out the staff board. There was a
pharmacy and full staff of doctors, some female. A phone book matched 
some of the names. Now we had locations. The streets were pitch black. 
Our engine sounded loud in the night. We geared up and parked on a 
street near the hospital. We were going lion hunting, but we really 
wanted the antelope. Eight o'clock, shift change. They came out of the 
hospital mostly in groups, but a few singletons walked quickly away. It 
may not be that night, but it would happen. There were still too many 
in the dorms. It didn't take as long as I thought it would. 

It was only the second night. Six guys stopped a young female doctor
that we'd been staking out and started herding her up a driveway 
between two houses. Both Jackie and I had night vision goggles, street 
sweepers and .357 revolvers. That little Chiquita was small at 5'5, but 
had enough muscle to out-wrestle me! 

We broke up the rape party one shot at a time. They'd cut themselves off
next to a house. The only way out was past us. None made it. Our 
target, though, was down. Carol was on the ground with her clothes half 
ripped off, half covered in blood and nasty bits. Her eyes were huge. I 
could tell she was in shock. 

"Jackie, go get a blanket and a poncho, would you?" 

"Sure, Art." 

I stared at her a minute, considering how to talk her down. I guessed
that the truth was the best. 

"Carol, I'm Art and that's Jackie heading back with something to cover
you up with. We've been staking out a couple of you from the hospital 
the last couple of nights waiting for something to happen. The kids at 
the college are turning feral. We're sorry to say that we expected 
something like this." 

Jackie had returned with a blanket and poncho by then. I expected Carol
really didn't want me touching her then, so I backed off. I needed to 
get her attention again. 

"Carol, do you have someplace secure to stay? Warm? Something to eat?" I
could see her start to cry as she violently shook her head. Jackie 
hugged her, probably the best thing she could have done at the time. 

After a while Jackie got her on her feet and we took her home with us.
We got her cleaned up and warm. I cooked up steak dinners on the 
fireplace and everybody got stuffed. I figured it was a good time to 
sacrifice another bottle of wine. We all got a little laid back. We 
found out that Carol was a GP, but everyone took ER rotation. We all 
were tired and a bit enervated, but managed to get some sleep. 

In the morning, I made like a hero--refrigerated pints of eggs taste
pretty good as scrambled eggs if you butter 'em. We had bacon, toast 
with butter and jam and coffee. It was like a silent prayer service. I 
explained my philosophy to Carol and got some weird looks from the both 
of them when I talked about the dreams that sent me West. 

I told 'em I figure I can take a hint and didn't care much about its
pedigree when it was proving out like this one was. We talked about 
survivability. We talked about pandemics and population die-outs. The 
hospital only had planned on a two-month fuel supply for its generator. 
That was almost full now, but that was it. I wondered if the LP gas 
reservoir outside of town still had any load left. What about abandoned 
farms with bulk tanks? We were talking about planning for ten-year 
survival. I had about three in local food. 

The dorms were no longer tenable as shelter. The first floors were
flooded due to backed up sanitary and storm sewers. Several had had 
room fires that killed most of a floor due to smoke inhalation. We 
hadn't heard about that--it had been kept quiet. The satellite weather 
predictions were looking like several more months of rain--there was no 
break in the global forecast. We were going to have to talk to the 
sheriff about someplace larger, harvesting remaining beef and securing 
more fuel. 

Well, we were too late. The sheriff got called into the mess at the air
force base. Some idiot panicked and pulled the plug on something 
biological and nasty. The base went to lockdown status and took all the 
regional police and sheriffs with 'em. We figured it out from the 
dispatch notes in his office. 

Boy, things were going to get rowdy. I called a quick conference with
the women. Stopgap measures just went out the window. We had to start a 
policy of denial. I harvested all the weapons and ammo I could from the 
Sheriff's station, then we went on to do the same for the police 
stations and the National Guard arsenal. I finally got my tank killers, 
AT-4s, which had replaced the old M72 LAW. I locked the place up as 
best I could and took all the keys. I wanted to keep track of the two 
Abrams tanks, four Deuce-and-a-halfs, the water buffaloes and the two 
crew-served howitzers. All we were missing for a hard point was a 
phalanx missile system. I took everything portable plus the ammo. I had 
to break some contracts to clear the room. It was too bad. The Arsenal 
building was in the middle of town. It was too approachable. 

Carol wanted a pharmacist (read biochemist), a pathologist and a
nurse/EMT to join us. She was going to do a little recruiting the next 
few days. I was going to inventory the neighborhood. I took a plat book 
and started driving. Wherever I found an empty farm and cattle, I made 
a note. I also laid down hay. Thank God most farmers around there had 
switched to roll bales--all I had to do was lay 'em out. The rains had 
forced the cattle to whatever shelters they could find. That was 
usually their winter blinds and mangers. 

It was easy to feed 'em. I counted over three hundred head before I
stopped. It was getting to be all I could do to feed the ones I had 
under control. I found twelve farms still operating and talked some 
ranchers into helping me out. I talked about co-opting the air force 
base and got a lot of nods. They got a little goosy when I told 'em 
about the loose biologicals, so I told 'em I'd investigate so nobody 
would get hurt that already hadn't been. I told everyone I could on the 
farms about the feral kids and that the law was gone. There were a lot 
of blanched faces until I started talking ditches, defenses, razor wire 
and how to set up a field of fire and ranging stakes. I distributed 
M-16s and ammo packs. We had ourselves something between a co-op and a 
militia. 

I realized that if Uncle Sugar didn't bless this mess we could be in
trouble, so I took a little trip back to the Sheriff's station to see 
if I could stir up a little trouble. I found a two-way base station and 
commenced calling. It wasn't too long before I was talking to a very 
alarmed person who wanted to know everything at once. Once I got him 
calmed down and let him know I wasn't going anywhere, we swapped ID's 
and started horse trading. Boy, let me tell you, all that bullshit took 
me back. He wanted a Sitrep and all that shit. 

I let him have it with both barrels, starting with the feral kids at the
college, lack of power and water, and the condition of the dorms. I 
started asking hard questions of him, like when an un-suited person 
could expect to walk thru the air force base and live. 

He got all paranoid about that until I explained about the notes on the
Sheriff's desk and where all the cops went. He'd get back to me on 
that. I beat on him about that one, letting him know that the damned 
base was the only defensible place with concentric perimeters in 
strength within 400 miles. And that I had farmers and ranchers out 
there that wouldn't last a year on their own. The fact that I'd gotten 
them together for defense and gotten them to harden their farms earned 
me some bunny points. I told him about what I had and my idea about 
collecting all the bulk LP gas we could in a tank farm at the base. 
There, we'd have a collection point for food, medical care, bunking, 
distribution and communications. We cold collect any heavy construction 
and agricultural machinery we needed to keep running and store 'em in 
the hangars for mothballing and maintenance. 

We decided to get back together in three days once he could get approval
for some of what we talked over. It took a load off my mind--I had 
tacit approval. 

That night I got invited out for more pizza. Pickings were awfully slim
we went to a house I'd not been in before. We had canned mushroom pizza 
on hand made dough cooked over a fireplace. I met Tim, Lisa Tracy, Pete 
and Zeena. Tim was an EMT, Lisa a pharmacist and Tracy was a 
pathologist with oncological training. Pete was the head of a 
maintenance shift at the hospital and knew enough about diesel engines 
to just about grow one in a garden. Zeena was a fully qualified 
surgical nurse, just out of training. Carol had given 'em the gist of 
what we'd decided that weekend and they wanted in. 

I told the group about what I'd been doing and the talk I had with the
army captain, including my ideas about taking over the air force base. 
Everybody liked that, but agreed that for the interim we'd better 
hunker down and wait for the screaming to blow over. 

We did discuss the issue of communicable diseases and what would happen
if a cholera or mumps; much less chicken pox or encephalitis epidemic 
took hold. We needed immunizations and a future source of media. I 
started making another list. Medications and replacements for their 
aging out, especially short-lived ones like immunization media and 
insulin were pretty high on the list. I wanted to be able to gather and 
train a militia under the auspices of the US Government. 

I wanted to be able to seize goods and materials without fear of
reprisal. I wanted to be able to relocate civilians without fear of 
reprisal. I NEEDED to be able to shoot to kill within adjudicated 
reason, that going up before a review board, not the courts martial. I 
needed help with decontamination, decommissioning the base, 
decommissioning any NBC munitions and training in quartermaster and 
fixed position defense considerations I used to build 'em, not defend 
'em. I couldn't even operate a crew-served weapons platform. 

Our ten-year supplies and rebuilding picture looked bleak, too. 

Well, three days rolled around Captain Miller must have sent up a flare,
because there were a hell of a lot more that one person on the other 
end of that radio Saturday morning. I had the base commander for Rocky 
Mountain Arsenal, a brigadier general and god only knows who else as 
staff. Those are the three I talked to. We discussed the bug at Warren 
AFB. It would definitely be dead in two months after initial exposure. 
That was a month and a half from current. We could hold out that long. 
We discussed the re-commissioning of the base and disposal of any NBC 
and/or ‘special' munitions. 

The militia issue was side-stepped by re-commissioning ME as a Colonel,
reassigning my service from Navy to Army with a mission of recruitment 
and training of a minimum of one company in strength and providing for 
the safety and succor of all civilians in a 100 mile radius of Warren 
AFB, my new base of ops as of two months from current date. They would 
helo up a decontamination crew and two squads to help clean up the base 
and subdue any students alive at that time. The base commander brought 
up the power issue, bless his heart. He mentioned a modular pebble-bed 
reactor and I brightened up right away. We were just sending some guys 
out for training in installing the modular reactors when I retired. 

That would solve a lot of problems if there was a coolant supply. There
was. There was an open sweet water lake at Warren. We were in business. 
With my newly minted virtual eagles, I grew another set of balls. We 
went scavenging with a vengeance. We found tractor-trailers all over 
town. We got 'em fuelled up at the armory and started raiding. We 
cleaned out every drug store and warehouse we could find. I started a 
long-term project of cleaning out the college libraries. I wanted all 
the oxidizers carefully lifted out of the chem. lab supplies, too. 
There wasn't a chemical supply house in town, but there was in 
Cheyenne. That puppy got a bookmark from me. 

I also used my welder to put barred windows and bench seats in two semi
trailers to transport the ex-students; my new troops. 

I started a house-to-house campaign explaining what was going on, what
we were doing and why. Winter was coming on, and I really didn't get 
much opposition. I even got a few retired swabbies and former marines 
to join up. Hey, three squares were getting damned hard to find. My 
place was warm and dry, so I converted the whole place to bunks, and we 
activated the armory. We had to rig cisterns to fill the water 
buffalos, then 'commandeer' another generator and LP bulk tank, but we 
had another safe haven in a matter of days. I talked the cafeteria 
staff from the college into helping out so we wouldn't poison ourselves 
or (shudder) waste food. 

We knew that we couldn't keep them fed for long, so we started
butchering the standing beef stock. The ranchers identified the various 
strains and reserved out a representative breeding stock for each. We 
discussed the long-term viability of frozen sperm, in vitro blastocyte 
storage and bovine sera cross-contamination. We ended pulling in a 
couple of biologist head cases over the radio to plan out a way to keep 
the strains alive after the hay was gone. This was going to get 
complicated. Anything complicated fails. We were going to do it in 
triplicate. We--that is our site--were going to do it for beef, horses 
and pigs. Other sites would duplicate our efforts and expand to local 
strains and avians. Mighty technical folk, these modern ranchers. We 
were getting optimistic. 

I know, I know. Hubris. Setting myself up for a fall. 

We thought we had everything covered, moving the remaining 6,000 or so
souls from Laramie to Cheyenne. Bullshit. Our goddamned bunch of 
rowdies discovered the Laramie airport and a couple of 'em knew how to 
fly. At least one knew rotary. Remember those four idiots that didn't 
get pureed on the first attack at my place? Well, they had big mouths. 
I got trick-or-treaters and it wasn't even Halloween yet. 

One idiot tried to land a helo on my roof. I wired up my little cable
surprise and let him have it. What happens when a rotary propeller 
intersects twelve vertical half-inch steel cables? Even I didn't expect 
that much mess. When I blew the base charges under the cable around my 
roof, they stood up straight for just a second or so, then started to 
drop under their own weight. I triggered the charges just as he was 
coming over the wall. To say it was brutal was--so innocent. It was 
like a firefight, car wreck and earthquake wrapped up in one. It was 
dead silent for long minutes after that. Then, it was like mooning a 
rabid dog. It looked like a cut scene from Mad Max. Some climbed the 
wreckage to the roof, some fought the doors. I popped the latch remotes 
and let 'em force their way in against the weight of the doors without 
the benefit of the lift motors. When they were in, I locked the doors. 

First, to get rid of the roof rats I triggered phase two--the screws
embedded in wax topping the Semtex. Imagine a 30'x120' flat claymore 
mine I think I overdid the Semtex again, even though we rolled it out 
paper-thin. When I looked out, they were GONE. I looked around and 
everyone was looking at the building with their mouths open, or lying 
flat. 

There was a red fog, almost mist-like, hanging in the air, starting to
come down. Screws were coming down like steel hailstones. Phew. Gotta 
remember that one. Fuck the screws. Shaped explosion front. Hmm. I 
wonder. If you made a 10-foot concrete dish on bearings, lay two layers 
of thin semtex in the bowl separated by an inch of wax or clay and ran 
a 7 ms delay fuse between 'em, and popped the back one first. What 
would you call it? Fist of God? Hmm. 

Oh well, time to put the shock troops to bed. I went back inside the
roof access and buttoned it down. In the living room I wired and keyed 
the front access cell mine number one and triggered it. Thump. Nice. 
Much nicer than last time. The resonance in that small chamber must 
have pulverized things nicely, though. Now let's wire the back bay, key 
it and... WHAM. One and a half million steel ball bearings roughly the 
size of 00 buckshot in a concrete room the size of two semi trailers 
wide and two semi trailers long. Shit. I bet I overdid the Semtex 
again. Crap. Well, let's go look. I unlocked the back bay door and 
looked in. I had to take pictures of this one. Yep, overdid the Semtex. 
It looked like a rave gone reaaaly bad. I cranked open the back door 
and started in with a squeegee, then a hose, then a pressure washer. I 
had to spray down the place with bleach to get the raw meat smell out 
of the concrete pores. 

The front access was pretty much the same with less spraying. Bits still
clung to the walls, kind of like meat pudding. I love resonance 
effects. I can do more with three pieces of primacord and some timing 
straws than most can do with a kilo of Semtex. And a Kilo is a hell of 
a lot of Semtex! I took pictures of that one before cleanup, too. On 
reflection, I should have saved the mess in drums for fertilizer, but 
then who wants to keep slurry of idiot around for ten years? I'd drawn 
quite a little crowd by then, some my people, some city folk. I guess I 
had to say something. 

"I guess their irresistible force met a better immovable object. Hmm.
It's an object lesson here, somehow." 

One wit came up with a good one. 

"Prior Planning Proves Piss Poor Performance in oPonents?" 

"Hey! Not bad!" 

"How about enough concrete will stop anything?" 

"Hmm, fair. You need something about a rabid water buffalo in there
maybe." 

Things got spirited for a while as people unwound. A big sword was gone
from over their heads. The worst of the ferals had just taken 
themselves out of the gene pool. 

I didn't sleep much that night. It wasn't my fault, I swear it. It just
happened that way. 

I ate with the group, showered and went to bed. I relaxed, figuring a
good job done. I was almost asleep when... 

"Art?" 

"Hmm?" 

"Move over." 

"Mrph." 

A different voice, also female. 

"Hey, there's no room over here, now. Move over." 

I started to wake up. Someone was pulling the sheet down to my feet,
then I felt someone crawl up the bed over me. 

"Hey, Art. You did good. You know what heroes get?" 

"Umm, laid?" 

Silence, then giggles. Honest to god giggles. I heard "That'll do." 

The rest is, um historical, er, history. 

I really didn't want to get up the next morning. My arms were sore. My
back was sore. My legs were sore. My dick was past sore. My jaw and 
tongue were so sore I couldn't move 'em. But I had to piss. Damn. I 
just PROVED I wasn't 18 anymore. 

I sat down to piss. I didn't care. Phew. No blood. 

Looking back into the bedroom it looked like a naked bar fight. There
were bodies everywhere. One, two, three, four... Where the hell did the 
other three come from? I didn't feel so bad. Six innies against one 
outie and I was the first one up. Not so bad, old man. I snuck over to 
my dresser and found my camera. It took a while to get the right angle, 
then... FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! I had evidence! I started running. Damn, I 
paid, but it was worth it. 

After that night, I started talking to the vets. We needed to get the
kids under control. Some good ones could be getting killed by the scum 
and we'd never know it. It was time to take charge. 

We got three squads of 14 men and women, mostly combat vets, some
farmers and ranchers. We all got into fatigues and combat boots, ALCE 
packs, MOLLE harnesses, helmets and weapons. Half with shotguns, half 
with M-16s. All those spotting lasers from the shotguns looked 
positively intimidating. 

I also was packing a Colt .357 Python in a belt holster. Fuck it, if
Patton could carry, I could too. 

Itty-bitty little Jackie went Cro-Magnon on me. She was packing an M79
grenade launcher and a 40-round grenadiers vest. I think she was an 
adrenalin junkie. I purely didn't want to know what would happen if she 
fired that thing, but I wasn't about to try and take it away from her. 
I think she'd been practicing mean. 

I found out that our mechanic, Pete, had watched too many Rat Patrol
shows. He showed up in a WWII Jeep with a pintle-mounted .50 ‘Ma Deuce' 
M2 and an ammo load-out that almost flattened the tires. One of the 
vets was his ammo man, and another drove. Shit, they looked absolute 
badass. 

Tim was on hand in a fully configured field ambulance, with Carol and
Zeena attending. 

We had another vehicle, a hummer with a mounted .30 patrol the back of
the building so nobody would slip away. Then, o'dark thirty (that's 
four thirty AM to you civilians) I had Pete lay down a strip of .50's 
across the first floor windows. Only lookouts would be there as the 
rooms were flooded anyway. That was to get their attention. I keyed my 
bullhorn. 

"All you in the goddamned dorm! Listen up screwheads! I am the local
military commander, and you will comply with my demands or you will 
die, no second chances, no bullshit.” 

“Everybody, repeat everybody will stand against the wall farthest from
the door of your current room with your hands extended fully above your 
heads and wait for a troop to evacuate you. If you do not comply you 
will be shot. If you give the troop shit you will be shot. If you 
attempt to harm the troop you will be shot multiple times. If you open 
your fucking mouth a barrel will be forced into it and will be 
discharged. You have one and only one chance to comply." 

I turned to my squads. "From the top floors down, two squads. Third
squad keep 'em coming downstairs and push 'em into the cattle cars. Any 
needing a medic I expect to see a red banner out the window. Any troop 
down, I expect to see a white banner. Any white banner or sound of 
gunfire, third troop reinforce with two troop. Any standoffs, HE 
grenade. No bullshit. GO. 

We took out one slaver and a couple of wannabe militia. They got the WP
grenades. The slaver tried to take hostages. Fucker didn't know that a 
pintle-mounted fifty can single shot a quarter mile. Heh. I guess Pete 
liked his new nickname-- Rat patrol! 

Some of the girls had really been badly treated--little or no food,
raped, beaten, you name it. We had way, way too many red banners. We 
had sixteen documented firing squads backed by photographic evidence 
and testimony. I am disappointed to say that they were all gut shot, 
but admit I would have done the same, seeing the condition of the girls 
and knowing that minimum care could have been provided. Ten of those 
shot were women. 

What do you do with almost 180 displaced teenagers under martial law?
Simple! Conscript them! We used the high school as barracks and 
cafeteria as mess hall. Uniforms were hard to come by, but we made do. 
First, everybody, repeat everybody, including me, got immunized. All 
health care workers got immunized. Hepatitis, Cholera, Yellow Fever, 
you name it. 

The armory had a globulin freezer and we used it all before it went bad.
All vets, cadre, everyone I could justify before the globulin ran out. 
We kept shot records, too, in case we could be restocked by our 
upstream command. It seemed brutal, but I had everyone's blood type 
tattooed inside their wrist along with their serial number. When you 
can't talk seconds count. Then I got smart. Instead of depending on 
military staffing models and ASVAB tests, we sat everyone down and 
found out what they'd done. Naw, not their criminal records, WORK 
records. Who'd poured concrete? Who had done summer construction work? 
Who did summer road crew work? Who rebuilt cars? Who helped Uncle Ed 
rebuild a tractor? 

Who sewed? Who baked? Who enjoyed cowboy action shooting? Who hunted for
the table? Who had butchered cattle or elk or deer or moose? We found 
plumbers, electricians, shoemakers, tailors, draftsmen, toolmakers, 
press men... the list went on and on. We asked everybody to do what 
they could when it was needed. We got near 100 percent compliance. The 
kids were in a locked down barracks except for the ones under medical 
care and six others-we had a small ROTC group! They were mostly juniors 
and seniors. Instant cadre! That helped. It also helped that they knew 
most of the others and could identify the assholes immediately. It 
saved us a lot of tears down the line. 

Soon enough, the day arrived that a small fleet of Sikorskys (UH60
Blackhawks to the layman), landed at the local airfield. I bunked 
everyone the first night willy-nilly, then got things cleaned up the 
next day. I needed more staff for this shit. At least everybody got 
bedded down in a warm, dry bunk with a hot meal in their gut. Just ask 
any ground pounder--happiness is a dry everything and a warm meal. Ooh 
Rah be damned. After an "are we on the same page" meeting the next 
morning, the decontam/decommissioning team headed east, while I talked 
things over with the two 'gift' squads left over. It seems that I had 
made a lot of waves. If this project went over it could be repeated 
elsewhere. If I asked nice, I might be able to get nice things, hint 
hint. Example, the reactor was due to be installed in a week. To get 
organized, I asked for and got a current high- definition satellite map 
of the Warren AFB and ten miles in all directions. 

Now, Cheyenne was a city, with everything from slums to swank
neighborhoods, libraries, art galleries and museums. I wanted to 
preserve it all. Pthppp. I know, no way, no how. Well, I wanted to 
survive. I also wanted to survive as better than a cave man. I wanted 
to stay in the 20th century if possible. External combustion engines 
worked perfectly fine. 

They were just a little less efficient due to more mass. I'll bet they'd
last longer, though, with modern alloys. If we went back to horses it 
would be a shame. Enough of that. We started with the phone book. I 
started our meeting with the troop-- 

"Remember, Rape, Rob, Pillage, THEN Burn!" I almost got a laugh out of
that. 

"Our goal is to first, decommission the base, second, move the Laramie
civilians and troop, third, move the Laramie resources, fourth, notify 
and consolidate the Cheyenne civilians, fifth, identify and request the 
recommissioning of the Cheyenne troop, sixth, consolidate the Cheyenne 
resources, Seventh, consolidate our perimeter to support and succor any 
we can to the limit of our resources. Repopulating any ranches and 
farms within 100 miles would be a very good thing. Remember, the 
ranchers and farmers are our friends. 

You piss them off, you piss me off. Don't piss me off. That's our
six-month plan. We may be here for ten years before we can plant a 
crop. We just don't know. We have to preserve anything and everything 
we can. If something looks like a seed, SAVE IT. Even if it's weeds, 
we'll need ground cover to keep the soil from eroding. 

Damn, it was hard. It was scary. But in the long term, it was
satisfying. 

I asked for, and got another powwow with the general. 

"Boss, I've got to let my hair down. I know that Warren's primarily an
ABM site. I don't expect that to change. I need zone maps so that we 
can fence off the dangerous parts and assign permanent guards to any 
sensitive, read launch, facilities. We're going to have civilians, 
children and teenagers out there and if they can get into anything by 
god they will. Help me out here, hoss." 

"Okay. You can stop twisting that arm. You'd better razor wire off
everything but the southeast quadrant of the base." 

Silence. 

"I'll need about six boxcar loads of razor wire. I'm gonna put in a
triple defense perimeter with five to seven hundred feet between the 
lines, then mantrap and tank trap the inner perimeter. I'd like to run 
a 5 KV eight foot fence down the middle of the whole mess." 

"You don't fuck around, do you?" 

"Nope. Do you realize how long it could be until we can plant a viable
crop?" 

"I've heard five to six years batted about." 

"Try almost twice that. The soil has to thaw and stabilize, the ecology
has to ramp up and the weather has to stabilize. I don't know how the 
hell we're going to make it, and quite frankly, I'm terrified. We might 
have food for three or four years. Most of Cheyenne is going to have to 
die off, and that means local war. We're going to be the bad guys, make 
no bones about it." 

"I can get you train car loads of grain and canned goods, some dry goods
and processed foods. I can definitely get you the razor wire, and with 
a little logistics work the equipment for the 5Kv fence. I'll get 
logistics on it right away." 

"Great. I heard from a little bird that this is a test site. Make 'em
all hard sites. We're gonna lose a lot of people in the freeze. A lot. 
Speaking of, how are you fixed for insulation? Corning pink 
construction foam should be easy to get. Four boxcars of that would be 
appreciated." 

"Anything else? A brass band?" 

"Naaw. I play a mean harmonica. We'll strip the local concrete plant for
a ton or two of stock and I'll be happy. Oh, I'll definitely need a 
Julie map." 

"Julie map? What the hell is that?" 

"It tells me where I can dig without cutting pipes and cables. We're
putting in some sub-grade barracks and blockhouses. Eventually, I want 
to hide or hard-point everything and range mark all access routes. 
We're going to trench and cut to minimize access routes as soon as the 
rain stops. Not much sense, now. Is anybody still brewing immunization 
globulin? How about that bio process for creating insulin I read about 
out of Canada?" 

Dead silence. "Jesus God. We forgot about immunizations. Oh, Christ." 

We took possession of the base bright and early Monday morning. The CO's
safe was empty and open. Hmph. So much for temptation. 

The power was on and I was happy. I sent Jackie out to find a house for
the tribe. We marked out the site for an LP gas farm and tasked the 
pilots with scavenging tanks from everywhere I'd marked. I got some of 
the new troop to drive around Cheyenne with a platt book and either 
make friends or mark resources to scavenge. We drew the line at one 
hundred LP bulk tanks rated at 1000 pounds per. 

We used underground pipe to link 'em and kept ten feet between the rows.
Then we stole all the bulk propane trucks in town and all the gas we 
could get. We drew the line at siphoning it out of people's home bulk 
tanks. We had to stop somewhere. 

We had a caravan of Semis tootling back and forth between Laramie and
Cheyenne for a couple of weeks. I had Lisa Knight lead the team to 
strip the college labs for anything that could synthesize anything we 
could use, and secure any and all feedstock's we could get. Then, I had 
her attack any pharmacies, chem labs, diagnostic labs and the big chem 
supply house in town. It was kind of a take no prisoners thing. You 
know, for a pharmacist, she did a hell of a Genghis Khan impression. 
The base had a class 4 isolation lab and a hell of a chem lab to start. 
Our decon team led the way and gave everything the green light, then 
our chem and bio people started working on antibiotics, per my request. 
We dug and poured and dug and poured until we had over six acres of 
underground real estate over twenty feet deep. They thought I was crazy 
when I started the troop confiscating manure piles. We went far and 
wide, stealing shit. Yes, shit. 

While that was going on, I had another crew wiring the underground space
with halide lights in banks. They started to get the idea when the sand 
went into the concrete boxes and drilled pipe into each box, fed with a 
water manifold every twenty feet. We were going to have the biggest 
damned truck garden this side of the California valley. It really 
wasn't enough, but it was a proof-of-concept. By Christmas we had 
lettuce and green onions. That was enough proof of concept for me. By 
the January hard freeze we were quadrupling the size of the operation. 
The general called me a fucking genius. I just shrugged and pointed to 
the reactor. We couldn't have done shit without it, much less scaled 
up. 

We got the rail cars full of grain. We sent 'em back full of lettuce,
tomatoes, corn, peas and onions. Damn, we made some happy Canadians. 

You know--everybody volunteered for field duty. The halide lamps gave
everyone nice suntans and kept people's attitudes waaay up. It got kind 
of risqué down there-- people didn't like tan lines. 

Somebody liked mushrooms. I got a request for a dark field. What the
hell, I liked mushrooms, especially on pizza. So, we grew mushrooms. 
Shitakes, Morels, you name it, we grew it. I had to draw the line at 
psilocybe cubensis, though. Nice try, guys. 

I did put the word out that I was looking for a few fertile cannabis
seeds though. It was a cheap non-narcotic. I guess you could call it a 
pain reliever. After a few years overseas I had come to the conclusion 
that Uncle Sugar was a bit anal-retentive when it came to the killer 
weed. Nuff said. 

We ended up with cannabis oil in the pharmacy, hemp wallpaper, hemp rope
floor mats and hemp rope. We included a wider definition of 
intoxication for being intoxicated on duty and got along fine. Some 
square footage got special treatment. We planted flowers. We traded 
Denver for lambs, cats, dogs and ferrets. We had a petting zoo for the 
kids. A lot of grown up kids seemed to enjoy it, too. 

The freeze finally came. One October the rain stopped and things just
got colder. I knew the climate break had come. Now the population shake 
out would come. We dug more underground shelters. This time it was for 
housing. We buried the base. Nobody wanted to go outside, so we dug 
tunnels connecting the zones. We went from using surface digging 
methods like cranes and backhoes to rotary boring machines. We just had 
to evacuate the exhaust fumes. We undermined the golf course and the 
sports complex. We spread off the base and undermined the Cheyenne 
country club, poking into our section. Nobody ever noticed. Who the 
hell was playing golf at 20 below? 

Spring was coming. It was the hungry time of the year. We'd butchered
the last of the beef on the hoof. We knew people were dying of cold and 
hunger and couldn't do a damned thing about it. It hurt. They never 
bought into this. I sat down with our supply staff and went thru the 
numbers, long and short term. As long as our reactor would hold out, we 
could expand. We already carried 2200 warm bodies. There was no reason 
we couldn't double it. 

We could go on short rations for a while, and my old freezer in Laramie
still had about eight tons of meat, and should have never thawed. Fuck 
it. I called a base-wide meeting and laid out the issues. It seems I 
wasn't the only one with a deep bellyache about the whole issue. We 
were going to go out and salvage as much as the town as we could, kids 
first. I was a hero again. 

We made a run back to Laramie to scavenge anything at my old strong
point. 

My helo pilot saw the mess left by the last attack of the feral kids and
asked what caused it. "Fifty foot steel cables, 1/2 inch thick with an 
explosive assist to vertical. I read about it in an old science fiction 
book. Sure works." 

I've never seen a man turn green before. Interesting. 

I made it a point to hit the hospital first. Some of the staff were
hanging on. I adopted them. We went from house to house. It was tragic. 
That's the only word I can use besides horrifying. Over and over again 
I saw parents curled up over their children, all frozen to death. We 
took in whomever we could. Some had gone to the schools and churches as 
warming centers. They were starving. The youngest and oldest were 
already dead. We couldn't feed them much so we made soup. To my dying 
day I will remember spoon-feeding soup to a little boy that didn't have 
enough muscle mass to pick up the spoon. 

This happened over and over. God, the nightmares. I cried. I still cry.
I can't help it. 

We dug tunnels and stole furniture from the hotels and old base housing.
We raped the old base housing for materials. We dug tunnels and planted 
clover. Clover grows like a weed. (humor there, folks.) We raised 
rabbits for protein on the clover, and later goats and sheep. Then 
chickens. We were four thousand eight hundred and thirty souls 
distributed among four stories of underground warren. Warren Air Force 
Base finally lived up to its name. 

Come July the temperature almost got up to freezing. We came up into the
frozen white of a glaciation summer and looked around. Cheyenne was a 
ghost town. Nothing moved. I put in motion my plans for the long haul. 
We held an activation ceremony for the company. We were now up to 
double a normal company in strength, but that still didn't match a 
modern company's T/O when it came to support. We made it up with 
civilians. Everybody worked, everybody ate. No problem. 

We destroyed the city. It was a total denial policy, similar to what the
Russians had left Napoleon with. We evacuated the ranches and farms 
into the base. We dug and blasted trenches, cut access roads and mined 
the rest. We established defenses in depth. We established go-nogo 
zones and false redoubts. We ran razor wire everywhere to channel 
killing zones and placed Semtex mines everywhere an invader may seek 
shelter. We deliberately set up bait houses with epoxied floors that 
were gigantic claymores. I expected visitors but didn't know from 
where. I talked to the general about survivability and final denial. He 
assured me that they would take care of things in a worst-case 
scenario. I asked him if he were a religious man. 

"Son, at times like this we all get religion." 

I think that's when I made a friend. 

Whoever was watching these things must have started cloning our site. We
got a lot of questions as to how we built the tunnel coring machines, 
foot-candles per square foot for each crop in the field bays, pH 
balances, nitrogen versus phosphate balances... After a few minutes of 
that I sort of made myself invisible and went home for the day. Oh, did 
I mention? All I've got to do is step foot in the door and sing out 
"Lucy! I'm home!" and I hear "Ricky!" from six directions. 

Gawd, I'm glad I picked up that "I Love Lucy" boxed set over the
Honeymooners! 

I got a call from the General letting me know that the Mongols were
coming. The crew of an aircraft carrier had mutinied, blown the hell 
out of Victoria, BC, pillaged it blind and started East on the 
TransCanada One rail line. They'd heard about the fresh food coming out 
of Wyoming from a rancher they'd taken captive in Calgary and tortured 
to death. They were on a rail line headed south as we spoke. Well, 
that's all the warning I needed. Have you ever seen a railroad caltrop? 


It's the size of a baseball dugout and has to be dug into the ground. We
had time. We had crew served howitzers and two Abrams main battle 
tanks. If worse came to worst, I would test mount a Nike backwards and 
light it off. Come to think of it... we buried more munitions and shit 
around those rail lines than ever came close to the Maginot line. When 
they came blasting into the base it was almost anticlimactic. 

The first engine got speared with a modified "end of line" detent. The
next engine got thrown into the air by the first levering the detent. 
The Nike engines pointed at the rail lines for the next half-mile down 
the track slagged the cars. They sure as hell melted the tracks and 
fused the rail bed. 

The general tried to give me a ration of shit about the mess. I just sat
there and grinned. When he wound down I asked a simple question. 

"What's rule number one?" 

"Always operate within your mission parameters." 

"What's my mission?" 

"Protect and preserve." 

"Nuff said. General, nobody fucks with me and wins." 

We found out later that the only reason he was pissed off was because
the control lines for a wing of ICBMs used to be under those tracks. We 
ended up digging a new comms tunnel for his wiring guys, 20 feet 
sub-grade, before he dropped the attitude. I resolved to be very Jewish 
about it. Never to forgive, never to forget. 

It took four more years to see blue sky again. The young kids actually
freaked out, ran back down the access tunnels and hid. We had to hold 
them and talk them down, then talk them thru the experience. Everyone 
else just stood in awe. It was still cold as hell, though. 

It could have been brutal without the airlifts of vaccine and vitamins
We'd had to isolate and flame sterilize entire fields seven times when 
fungal infections took over the fields and destroyed the roots. We then 
sacrificed a clover field after harvest and strip-inoculated the burned 
field with the rootstock, then watched to see if the clover and 
bacteria population would survive or if we had to do it all over again. 
We grew to over 5100 souls. We ran 16 percent children. That was the 
best confidence test we had. I tried to live up to that confidence. 

We brainstormed what could happen and war gamed out the decisions. Our
worst potential enemy was a mutated plague or a nut with an ICBM launch 
code. "That's 'icky-boom' in third grader parlance. Everyone 
contributed. 

We ignored the UCMJ fraternization laws. It contradicted our mission.
The general agreed. We got more diad, triad and quad marriages. I was 
getting to need a Viagra prescription for those evenings I got ganged 
up on. 

We got better batteries--Fuel cells, really, from Missouri. We traded
new testing procedures for infectious diseases and several simplified 
antibiotic synthesis algorithms. We traded deep frozen seed stock and 
live animal ova. We were getting ready for the thaw. We found out that 
our neutral clover conditioning was a big hit. We found out that there 
were over forty bases like ours, all sub-surface with self-supporting 
greenhouse fields. Hmph. We had bragging rights. 

It was almost 9 1/2 years to the day since the impact that we noticed
weeds growing. A whole lot of us got religion that day. I passed the 
news upstream. Everyone was on pins and needles. The kids listened to 
us argue and bicker, sweat and wail about the chances we were taking 
with our precious seed stock. You know what the kids told us? The same 
thing we told them when re-inoculating a field. "Trust the clover. It 
never fails." We tried a trial planting and got away with it. I knew we 
only had so much seed and held off planting another month. I couldn't 
help it any more--we planted. 

We got lucky. We reconditioned the discs, harrows and planters. We
didn't know how long the growing season would be so we pushed ourselves 
mercilessly. For two solid weeks all we did was plow, harrow, plant, 
eat, and sleep. Sixteen-hour days were common. We did it, though. We 
turned over the clover and fertilized with slurried septic compost. 
Then it occurred to me. Oh, shit. Where would we put it all when we 
went to harvest? We'd solved half the problem. The produce from the 
underground fields was eaten as it was harvested. We needed to replant 
the trees, too. Some would come up wild but I wasn't holding my breath 
after ten years. Without trees, what would we build housing with? Well, 
we were going experimental. We tried spray insulation over a form. Too 
expensive. Nasty out-gassing. We tried foamed concrete over a form. Not 
strong enough. We finally hit on it-- Teflon spray an inflatable form, 
spray it with insulation, apply foamed concrete, dry and cover with 
inflatable foam. Spray paint it and deflate the form, paint again, move 
on. We did 1/4 mile blocks at a time. After berming them the kids 
nicknamed 'em--hobbit holes. Cute. 

We combined 'em for nurseries and schools. Industry and stores were
relegated to the old base buildings near the golf course. 

We stuck with tried-and-true low voltage systems. They were easier to
build and cheaper. We could use bulbs from old autos as a ready 
pre-made supply, or source of filaments. 

Near first harvest I got a surprise. A visit from the general. We were
first to get breeding stock for the frozen ova. And then, he told me 
something that made no sense. 

He was taking it all away from me. I just sat down in the dirt. I
couldn't believe it. They were taking away my commission. I just looked 
him in the eyes. 

"But why?" I whispered. 

"Because you can't hold both civil and military rank. Congratulations,
Governor." 

Governor? Governor? What the hell was I supposed to slow down? My mind
had shut down. I just walked away from him, into the fields. 

I realized it was getting dark. I was watching a sunset. All the land in
front of me was desolation. What nightmare was this, and when would I 
wake up? I rolled up into a ditch and forced myself asleep. It was a 
long night. The next morning I got up and kept walking. The mud and 
gravel had dried hard, into a kind of high plains desert. 

There was an occasional weed, pushing hard to grow and reproduce. I
slept that night near a stream I found. The water was sweet. I heard 
noises during the night but went back to sleep. 

I drank my fill the next morning, crossed the stream and struggled up
the bank on the other side. I kept walking. I came upon a copse of dead 
brush next to an old railroad embankment. I checked my pockets for a 
lighter. I found my butane lighter. I gathered some firewood and leaned 
back against the embankment waiting for dark. At least I'd have a fire 
that night. I heard the noises again. Nothing made sense. 

I woke up with the sun. There was someone there. I didn't care who. I
got up, crossed the embankment and kept walking. I could feel my feet 
striking the ground. They were real. I could trust that. I heard more 
noise. Then I felt a pain in my shoulder. I reached and found a hand 
with a needle. I put them down hard. I heard them cry out. Then--I fell 
forward. It was good to sleep. I wasn't hungry. 

I woke again. I was inside. Why wouldn't these fuckers let a guy die in
peace? Damn them all. I wept. Where did that come from? I didn't care. 
Nothing makes sense. 

I went back to sleep. 

I woke to the sound of an argument. A woman's voice. 

"Well, there he is, you bastard. You shithead. Hi, I'm from the
government and I'm here to help you. Fucker! Climb into your bird and 
leave before I shoot your ass. You've done enough damage here for the 
rest of your life." 

Who cares. I slept. Sleep and wake blended together. Sometimes people
were there, sometimes not. I looked at my hands and could do nothing. 

It made no sense. 

I woke. I got up from the bed, shaky. The door was locked. The drawers
weren't. A broken scalpel makes a decent screwdriver. I was out within 
an hour. It must have been night shift. 

The halls were empty. The outer doors may or may not be guarded. I
carefully approached the outer doors--no guards. I walked outside, 
naked as a jaybird. It was chilly. I rooted around in a few deserted 
cars and found suitable clothing, then picked a direction and started 
walking. 

My feet hurt, hadn't found any shoes or boots. Tough. The stars and
moonlight were beautiful. I could understand them. 

"Mister? Would you help me? I'm lost and I don't know where mommy is." 

I looked down and saw this little kid, couldn't have been more than
three or four. 

I sat down and we were eye to eye, talking in the moonlight as if it
were the most normal thing in the world. 

"Hi. I'm Art. Who are you?" 

"My name is Sandy Baker. I'm lost." 

"Well, honey, I'm kind of lost, too. Why don't you sit in my lap? I'll
keep you warm until someone comes to find us." 

She crawled up into my arms. I hugged and rocked her to sleep. 

I watched the stars. 

We both waited for the dawn. 


Tweet