Alone: Book 1: Facing Armageddon Read online

  He moved the freezer away from the wall, hoping beyond hope that the condenser was running. When he saw that it was he muttered, “Hallelujah!”

  It was a small victory, sure. But he’d take them whenever he could get them.

  He walked into the house, making sure that the door closed securely behind him. He wouldn’t go back into the garage for several hours. That would give the deadly carbon monoxide time to seep out of the cracks around the overhead doors after the generator ran out of fuel and died.

  In the pantry, an extension cord came under the door. The hundred foot cord ran through the pantry and the kitchen, around the corner and into the den. A power strip was plugged into the end.

  This, once Dave built his safe room, was where he would hook up his microwave and coffee maker, as well as a small television, a DVD player and a floor lamp. He’d computed the wattage requirements of each item, and determined he could run all of them if he wanted to.

  As long as the generator was running.

  He walked into the back yard, toting his second AR-15 rifle with him. He leaned it up against the fence where he’d be working, just in case he needed it.

  Then he started to dig.

  In the corner of the yard, where he’d assembled the outhouse before, he took his post hole diggers and dug a hole twelve inches across and four feet deep. Once done, he took the wooden components of the outhouse and assembled it, like a large three dimensional jigsaw puzzle. He made sure that each piece was added exactly as it was the first time he’d built it, so that all of the screw holes lined up perfectly.

  The final step in the process was installing the padded seat that Sarah had insisted on. He couldn’t help wondering if she would ever make use of it.

  And he made a vow to himself, then and there, that he would find a way to find Sarah and the girls. And if they were still alive, he would find a way, somehow, to get them back home again.

  Once he was done, he went back into the house, placed two rolls of toilet paper into a watertight Tupperware container, and placed it on a shelf within easy reach of the seat.

  It was late afternoon. He’d succeeded in killing most of another day. But he felt productive. He knew that as each day went by, his solitary prison would become a little bit more tolerable. It wouldn’t be a easy life, living here. But he figured he’d be a lot better off than his neighbors, who hadn’t done anything to prepare for doomsday.

  It also occurred to him that all those times he doubted himself, all those times he thought he might be crazy for prepping for Armageddon, were just wasted emotions. He had been right about the Mayans and the EMPs.

  There was no one to brag to. No one to tell, “I told you so!”

  But despite the fact his whole world had gone to shit now, he still managed to take just a little bit of satisfaction in knowing he was right. And he would survive, when most others wouldn’t.

 

  -14-

  He walked around the fence line, examining it closely for any cracked or broken fence pickets.

  Once he was satisfied, he went back to his covered deck and opened up the first of two rabbit cages.

  The girls had named each of the four rabbits, but Dave could only remember one of their names. It was light brown in color, with white paws, and his name was Thumper.

  He reached inside the cage and lifted Thumper out, not knowing that Thumper didn’t like to be carried.

  He learned something else about Thumper too. Rabbits have sharp claws.

  One thing about Dave Speer, was that he usually learned his lesson the first time. After Thumper sprang free from his arms, leaving behind a bunch of nasty scratches, Dave decided there had to be a better way.

  The other male rabbit was black and white. He’d wanted to name it “Squad Car,” but the girls thought that was a dumb name.

  “No, it’s cute. Squad car, like a police car. It’s black and white, Get it?”

  This time he carried the cage to the back yard and merely turned it on its side, so that the rabbit slid to the bottom and out the door. Then he righted it again as the bunny hopped off, looking for a place to hide.

  Next came the second cage, which held the two female rabbits. He freed them the same way.

  After all four of the rabbits were bounding about the back yard, he looked at them and smiled.

  “Go forth and multiply,” he told them. “Do what rabbits do best.”

  The rabbits were their solution to the need for long term protein in their diets.

  Two years before, when they started prepping, one of the first problems they struggled with was what to do with their family pets. They had a black Labrador retriever, named Max, that Sarah had owned before she and Dave met.

  Dave went to her one night and said, “We can’t have a dog when the blackout hits.”

  “Don’t you dare tell me I have to get rid of Max. He won my heart long before you did. And besides, he’ll be good for chasing away looters.”

  “Honey, you’re missing the point. A vacant house isn’t supposed to have dogs. He’ll bark every time someone approaches the house. He’ll give us away, and everyone will know there’s someone living here. And they’ll know that we must have plenty of food and water, if we have enough to share with a dog.”

  “I don’t care. Find another way.”

  They finally decided to compromise. Dave would not get rid of the dog, and Sarah agreed not to get another once Max died of old age. He lived another year and four months, and died peacefully in his sleep. That solved the dog problem.

  Their cat, Toby, fancied himself a great lover, and roamed the neighborhood looking for ladies to romance. He’d always been that way, even when they tried to keep him inside the house. He’d lay in waiting and then bolt out the door when someone came or went, and then he’d be gone for days at a time.

  One day Toby was crossing the street, on the scent of a feline in heat. He had love on his mind, and never saw the delivery truck which came barreling out of nowhere. He was flattened like a pancake, and the cat problem was solved.

  Then the only problem was the girls’ desire for a new pet.

  Dave went to Sarah one night and said, “Let’s get them some rabbits.”

  “Why rabbits?”

  “Because rabbits are perfect. They’re a great source of protein, and probably the only animal we can raise in our back yard without the neighbors knowing about them.”

  “Yes, but you want us to eat rabbits, of all things?”

  “Well, think about it, Sugar. We’ll need a source of protein to keep us strong and healthy. We can’t raise chickens because the roosters crowing would alert the whole neighborhood. Rabbits multiply faster than chickens, and make no noise at all. And they eat grass. We wouldn’t have to stock a lot of feed for them. During the warm weather months they can eat the grass out of the yard. We can pull up the extra grass from the Hansen’s yard, put it in trash bags in the garage, and use it to feed them in the winter months when the grass isn’t growing. It’s perfect.”

  Sarah was still a little hesitant.

  “But what’s to keep us from having a whole yard full of rabbits before the blackout? What if they multiply so fast we can’t keep up with them?”

  “We’ll get two of each. Two males and two females. We’ll get two big cages, and put the males in one cage and the females in the other. We’ll tell the girls they can take them out to play with them, but not to let the boys mingle with the girls. Then, when the stuff hits the fan, after the blackout, we’ll set them all free in the back yard and let them start making babies.”

  “How many babies will they make, exactly?”

  “They have litters, like puppies. I read on the internet that a pair of healthy adults can turn into three hundred offspring a year. Four will mean six hundred a year. They’re about they size of a chicken after they’re skinned. So they’ll be an excellent source of protein that’s absolutely renewable.”

  Sarah had thought for a minute and then said, “Okay, number one. I hope you don’t mind catching them and skinning them, because I don’t think I could bring myself to do it. Second, won’t we get tired of eating rabbit every single day?”

  Dave smiled.

  “I will kill them and clean them and give them to you stew pot ready. And I don’t think we’ll get tired of them.”

  “Why not?”

  Dave put forth his best impression of Bubba, from Forrest Gump…

  “Well, there’s rabbit stew and rabbit steaks and rabbit chili, and boiled rabbit and baked rabbit and rabbit meatloaf…”

  “Uh, huh. Rabbit meatloaf?”

  “Sure, why not? My point is, you’re very creative when it comes to cooking, And we’ve included all kinds of seasonings in our stash. So no, I don’t think we’ll ever get tired of eating rabbit. And in reality, it’s the only serious option for meat. So even if we do get tired of it, we’ll eat it anyway.”

  She turned up her nose, but didn’t say anything, so Dave went on.

  “Besides, after the dust settles and the survivors start coming out, we will more than likely be the only source of meat in the neighborhood. We can barter a pair of rabbits for damn near anything. Water, ammunition, whatever we’re running short of. And we can barter the meat, too. Any extra we have I can turn into jerky. And you can bet a man who hasn’t had meat for several months will move heaven and earth for a bag full of jerky.”

  “How long do you think that’ll be, Dave?”

  “How long before I think people will start coming out of their houses again? I don’t know. Maybe a few weeks after the blackout. Maybe a few months. It’s hard to say, but I think it’ll happen, eventually. I think after all the weaker people commit suicide, and the looters stop coming around because there’s nothing left to loo
t, the survivors will see a need to band together for mutual protection. As far as how long that’ll take, I haven’t a clue.”

  “You know the girls aren’t going to let you kill their pets, don’t you?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it, sweetheart. When we buy their rabbits, we’ll buy collars for all four of them. When the blackout hits and we let them get together to breed, I’ll promise the girls that their pets are not for eating. They’re just for making babies. We’ll let them live out their lives and die of natural causes. Then we’ll bury them in the back yard and have funerals for them, just like we did for Max and Toby.

  “And we’ll tell the girls constantly not to let themselves get attached to the baby bunnies. Because they’ll all be eaten eventually.”

  -15-

  On the weekend after they’d decided to get rabbits, Dave had gone to Home Depot and brought back four large rolls of heavy duty chicken wire.

  Sarah saw him unloading it and carrying it into the back yard.

  “I thought you said you wanted rabbits. You know we’re not zoned for chickens. The city will confiscate them and fine us.”

  “Relax,” he’d said. “I’m not going to build chicken coops. I’m going to bury this.”

  She looked at him like he was nuts.

  But he was serious. And over the next seven weekends, he dug around the fence line to a depth of about a foot, three feet out from the fence. And he unrolled the three foot high fence along the hole before burying it again.

  Now, with all four rabbits set free, he expected them to do two things. He expected them to dig, and he expected them to mate. He wasn’t disappointed to see Thumper mount one of the females almost immediately.

  As for the digging, he didn’t care if they dug any burrows in the middle of the yard. He just didn’t want them to do it close to the fence, where they might get out. His logic was that if they tried to dig a hole within three feet of the fence, they’d only be able to go down a foot before the heavy chicken wire stopped them dead in their furry little tracks. If that happened often enough, they might get the hint and just give up. If they didn’t give up, then at least their holes would be in the center of the yard.

  He took Max’s old water bowl from a shelf on the back of the deck and placed it onto the deck floor. He’d keep it filled with water, so that the rabbits had a ready water source in his back yard. Another measure to discourage them from digging their way out. It would pain him to some degree to share the precious water with the rabbits. But it was an acceptable tradeoff. They would provide him with nourishment and strength for the foreseeable future. Fair is fair, after all.

  The rabbits wouldn’t be able to get into the Hansen yard because of the six foot privacy fence that separated the two yards. Dave, however, would need to go over there on a daily basis in the spring, to water and care for his crops. He’d need ready access in the summer, to gather fruit and nuts from their trees. And he’d need access in the fall and winter, to gather firewood from inside the Hansen house.

  To solve this problem, Dave took a keyhole saw, went to the back fence and cut through the top horizontal stringer, between two of the vertical pickets.

  The stringers were nothing more than two by fours that ran between the fence posts, on which the pickets were fastened.

  After he cut through the top stringer, he installed a hinge to reconnect the two.

  Then he did the same thing to the center and bottom stringers.

  Lastly, he cut the stringers in a similar fashion four slats over, and had himself a crude gate.

  After trimming the stringers a bit so they wouldn’t drag, the gate swung freely and was just wide enough for Dave to squeeze through.

  He put sliding bolt locks on each side of the gate, so that regardless of which side he was on, he could secure the gate and keep the rabbits from getting into the Hansen yard and eating his crops.

  It was late in the afternoon now, and Dave was getting hungry again. It occurred to him that he needed to start counting his calories.

  It was imperative that he count calories so that he didn’t waste any food. Anything wasted would mean it would run out faster.

  It would be easy to tell himself that the food stores would last him for many years. They’d stored enough dry stock to last the four of them for two years, after all, and now it was just him.

  But that wouldn’t do.

  Because he fully expected to be reunited with his family some day.

  In fact, the thought of that was really the only thing keeping him going. If he knew for sure they were dead, he’d blow his brains out and join them. But the last thing he wanted was to commit suicide, and his family find a way to get to him later on. He didn’t want his daughters to find his body. So he’d press on.

  He’d call it a day and go into the house to find something to eat. He’d calculate the calories for the sandwiches he’d already eaten, and wouldn’t exceed two thousand calories for the day.

  First, though, he needed to try out his fancy new outhouse.

  -16-

  Hi, honey. I wish I knew for sure that you’ll find this some day. In a way, I feel ridiculous for writing. It seems strangely akin to a man sitting in solitary confinement talking to himself simply because there’s nobody else around to talk to.

  Eventually those men go insane, I know that. But what I don’t know is whether or not it’s the talking to themselves that makes them insane. Or maybe talking to themselves helps keep them sane longer.

  I’m finding that putting these words on paper is somehow therapeutic. Somehow, I feel closer to you when I write to you. I know that sounds ridiculous, but hey, you always said I was a ridiculous kind of guy, right?

  I’ve been hesitant to go into Lindsey and Beth’s bedrooms. I’ve been afraid of how I’ll feel when I go in there and smell their scents, and see their stuffed animals and other things. I know I need to do it. But I’m so afraid I’ll break down and cry like a baby.

  I’m determined to do that tomorrow, though. It’s been six days since the blackout now, and I haven’t taken a single step towards hiding our food.

  I did pull out the old posters we’ve been collecting. I even laughed, remembering when Lindsey insisted that she wanted to throw away all of her Justin Bieber posters. I remember when you told her, “But just a few months ago you were madly in love with him.” She said, “Mommmm, that was before I grew up. I’m so over him now.” And you turned to me and said, “I must have missed the memo. Since when is eleven grown up?”

  I counted them. All total, including the ones currently on their walls, we have twenty two of them. I can stash quite a bit of stuff behind twenty two posters.

  That’s my project for the next two or three days. Actually, it may take longer than that. But that’s okay. Time and loneliness are the two things I have the most of.

  I saw the Castros leave yesterday. For several nights I was been able to peek out of our west window and see candles burning in their living room. It gave me some comfort, knowing they were okay. But I guess they figured they were better off moving elsewhere. I don’t know where they went, or if they’re coming back. I just saw them… all five of them, heading off down the street about nine yesterday morning.

  They were heavily loaded with backpacks, and Julie pulled her wagon, which was loaded down with bottled water and boxes of foodstuffs.

  They weren’t armed. Wherever they’re going, I hope they make it safely without being robbed. I know we didn’t know them well, but they were quiet and never caused us any problems. All in all, they were good neighbors.

  I’ll keep an eye on their living room window to see if the candles start burning again. If they don’t return, I’ll go over there and see if there’s anything I can use. I figure I can get enough firewood from the Hansen house to last at least two years, maybe three. If they’re not back by then, I’ll assume they’re not coming back, and I’ll start mining wood from their house as well.

  I installed the outhouse a few days ago. It works great. I even put some Sports Illustrated magazines in there, in a waterproof container.

  I know it doesn’t sound very romantic, but every time I sit on that padded seat I think of you and smile. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that part.