299 Days: The Collapse

Chapter 45 “You will be well taken care of.” (First week of May)

Grant walked into his house, still without having formulated a clear excuse for going over to Ron’s in a half hour.

Lisa asked, “Hey, how did the neighborhood meeting go? Are they going to do anything?”

Of course not, Grant wanted to say. He would just tell her that everything was fine.

“Nope,” Grant said. “They’re not going to do anything.” She looked surprised.

“So,” Grant said, “Ron Spencer and Len Isaacson want to talk about getting some guys together and taking some drives around the neighborhood at night to keep an eye on things.” He left out the part about the guns.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Lisa said. “What a relief that would be.”

Wow. It worked.

“I think I’ll do it,” Grant said. “We’ll have those radios we gave to Manda back when she rode her bike all the time. We’ll be very safe.”

“Good. Thanks for doing this,” she said. Whoa. Lisa, while she was stuck in the current world of relying on 911, was not stupid. Far from it. She knew there were problems out there, but she couldn’t come to grips that the solutions involved things like guns, bugging out to the cabin, and abandoning her home. Little things like a neighborhood watch seemed perfect to her. This allowed her very smart brain to acknowledge the problem of lurking criminals, but not have to come up with a “farfetched” solution like bugging out.

Grant kissed her. He had to try to get her to start thinking about bugging out. He knew this was risky, but these were risky times.

“Honey,” Grant said, “I’m going to give the neighborhood patrols a solid try and hope that it works. I hope all this bad news stops. But if it doesn’t, I have a very detailed plan so you will be well taken care of.” He looked at her right in the eyes and said it again, slowly: “You will be well taken care of.”

She had no idea what he was talking about. She will be “well taken care of?”

Grant continued, “You and I have an obligation to the kids and each other to be safe. That means we need to consider a plan to go out to the cabin, at least for a short period of time to let things calm down. I have… ”

“No,” Lisa said. “We’re not going out to your cabin to live,” she said. Your cabin? Wasn’t it their cabin?

“No, no, no,” she said, shaking her head. “All my stuff is here. All of Cole’s stuff is here. We can’t just go out there. Whenever we go on a trip, I always have to do all the packing.”

That was because she wouldn’t let Grant do it. It had to be done her way.

“We won’t need to pack much because there is already a lot of stuff out there,” Grant said. Then he realized that she had no idea how much stuff was actually out there. She’d never looked in the “spider shed” that had about nine months of food.

“No,” she said, getting mad. “That cabin is your little place to go on the weekends. It’s not a place to live for any period of time.” She just stared at him. That was the end of the conversation.

Grant was insulted. All his work and planning and she was just going to dismiss it like that? Grant started getting really mad. He had to control it. He couldn’t turn bugging out into an “I’m right, you’re wrong” issue with her. He struggled for a few seconds to get control of his anger.

“OK,” he said. “I hear what you’re saying. I disagree, but hope you at least think about it. If things continue to go downhill and get dangerous, I will share my concerns with you.” That was feminized speech he learned in government: “share my concerns with you.” He had to talk to her like the normal suburban wife she was, instead of the survivalist he was.

He had to act like this was no big deal. “I’m going to get ready to go over to Ron’s. Thanks for listening to my concerns,” he said as he kissed her. She smiled. She thought she had won that argument. Grant knew there would be a Round II.

He got the radios and went upstairs to where he kept his Glock. He tested the flashlight on the end of the barrel. He checked the magazine; full of self-defense rounds, the good ones that cost a $1 a piece. He wrapped the pistol in a hand towel to get it past Lisa, and went out to the garage where his gun stuff was and got his pistol belt, holster, and extra magazines. He had his holster that allowed him to put his Glock in with the flashlight on the end. He quickly loaded the extra mags, put on the belt, holstered his gun, put a light jacket over it, and got a big Maglight flashlight. He had done all of this without getting caught by Lisa.

Grant popped his head from the garage into the house and said, “See you in a little while, honey. I’ll be at the Spencer’s.”

“OK. Be safe,” she said.

He went over to the Spencer’s, two houses away. Len came by, about twenty minutes late. He came with four other guys.

“Sorry to be late,” Len said. “Us Navy guys hate to be late, but I thought you’d be OK with why,” he said motioning to the four new guys. Grant knew one of them, Dave Burton, because his daughter and Cole were in the same grade at school. The other three looked mildly familiar, but Grant wasn’t sure they lived in the Cedars. After some introductions, he found out they did.

Grant explained about the radios. They decided to go out and test them. They did that for about an hour, trying from every corner of the subdivision. The radios worked well.

These guys were pretty decent. The new guys owned guns, but weren’t hardcore “gun guys.” That was OK; at least they had concealed pistols and permits to carry. They were the kind of first-time gun buyers Grant saw all day long at Capitol City Guns. He was actually surprised that out of the fifty or so houses in the Cedars that even seven guys had guns.

“We will have our pistols on us at all times, but will also have a long gun in the car,” Grant said. “Technically, it’s illegal but I’m doing it. Who’s with me?” They all nodded. When all else fails to motivate guys, try shaming them into being a bad ass.

“I only have a pistol,” said Chris, one of the new guys.

“Me too,” said Mick, another of the guys.

Ron was a duck hunter. “You guys know how to run a pump shotgun?” They nodded. They had both hunted a little. “I’ll set you up with one of my Remington Wingmasters. I’ve…” he caught himself, but decided to trust these guys, “… got a couple.” He smiled.

Now that the two guys without long guns each had one, no one asked each other what kind of long gun they would use. While they were all on the same team, there was still something about not blabbing about all your guns. Each one said they had an adequate long gun in the car, which was all anyone needed to know. Grant realized that an hour ago these guys barely knew each other. They all were a little afraid about the government trying to take their guns away. So they didn’t talk about them.

Grant knew what long gun he would use—his AR with the EO Tech red-dot sight. It made it possible to aim in the dark. It wasn’t a night-vision scope. The target wasn’t lit up, but the place where the bullet would go had a bright red dot and a red circle around it. The street lights would provide the light necessary for identifying the target, hopefully, but they would not provide enough light to use regular sights. Grant was very glad that he had night sights, whether the glow-in-the-dark dots on his iron sights or a red-dot sight, on each of his battle guns.

“Battle guns?” Did he just use that term in his head? Yep. It seemed to fit. This was serious shit.

They came up with a schedule to provide a two-car patrol from midnight to 5:00 a.m. It was May, so the sun rose at that hour. This meant patrolling every third or fourth night and having his weapons handy when he slept in case he heard a car horn. This would suck, but it had to be done.

For the first time in a while, Grant felt like he was doing something constructive out in the open. He prepped in secret and always knew he was doing something to deal with the problems that were coming, but he had never done them in public. Now he felt like he was publicly taking some actions to deal with the problems.

It was public because everyone in the neighborhood knew that they were out “driving.” Most didn’t know about the long guns; certainly not Grant’s AR in the car. Nancy and the other weenies didn’t say anything because they knew the patrols were necessary. People like her, the people who ran the government, had always had it both ways like this: they relied on armed and brave men to protect everyone, but they still got to be in charge and talk about how they hated violence and aggressive men. OK, say what you will, Grant thought, as long as my family is protected.

Over the next few days, patrolling was boring. Grant was getting used to the schedule. It was only every third or fourth night, so he could handle the loss of sleep. When he was on call, waiting for a car horn to blare, he had to be prepared to rush off to a gunfight. He had his pistol belt, with his pistol, in the trunk of his car, along with his AR. Lisa wouldn’t look in the trunk. And if she did? So what. He was protecting his family.

Grant kept both guns loaded, but not racked with a round in the chamber. He always checked to see if a round was in the chamber before using a gun, so he wasn’t concerned that he’d forget to rack a round.

Grant had a tactical vest, similar to those that soldiers and SWAT teams wore. He used it when he trained with the Team. However, he didn’t want to be seen with it by the weenies. Grant would lose all credibility if he were caught in that tac vest. But he had it. He kept it in a suit bag in the garage so no one had a clue what was in it.

Instead of a tac vest, Grant used a small shoulder bag with extra AR and pistol mags. It looked totally normal to have one. He could jump in his car and be to most parts of the subdivision within a minute. He could also open his trunk, grab his AR and shoulder bag, and run to anything in his immediate area. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than calling 911 at this point in time.

Grant didn’t just focus on the security of the neighborhood; he also had to worry about his house being broken into, which was his first priority. He kept his tactical shotgun under the bed. A few years prior, he had a shoe repair shop use their strong sewing machine to make a customized bandolier sling for the shotgun. The sling held twenty-five shotgun rounds. Grab and go. He wasn’t locking it in the case. He knew Lisa would flip out, but he needed to have it ready to go if he heard glass break. He didn’t load it, at least. He had practiced speed loading that shotgun so many times with the Team he could do it in his sleep.

Grant really wanted Lisa to know how to use that .38 with the laser dot. He asked Manda if she thought Lisa was ready to confront reality in this way. Manda brought it up and Lisa said hell no. Manda reported back to Grant.

“Well, Manda,” Grant said, “you can train Mom on this in a minute or two, can’t you?”

“Yep,” Manda said. “But why wouldn’t I use it? I mean, I know how to shoot and she doesn’t.”

Smart girl. “You’re right,” Grant said. “You will be responsible for home defense when I’m not here. Don’t store this thing unlocked. Use the padlock set one number off so you can get it quick. Hide it in your room where your Mom won’t find it.”

“OK, Dad,” she said.

Grant hated to sneak around Lisa like this, but he had to.