299 Days: The Stronghold

Chapter 116 The Beards Have All Grown Longer Overnight (May 12)

The next morning, Grant heard people stirring for pancakes. Amazingly, he fell back asleep, despite all the noise, and woke up around noon. Famished, he devoured some left over biscuits, but it wasn’t enough. He needed some protein. Alone at the cabin today, there wasn’t any deer meat being served up by anyone, so he went into the storage shed and got a big can of canned turkey which he wolfed down like some starving guy in a movie. He was finally full.

Grant remembered he had a crock pot out there; he had purchased it used at a garage sale for $1.00 and took it out to the cabin before the Collapse and practiced cooking refried beans in it. Then he perfected cooking rice in it. Finally, after some trial and error, he perfected cooking crock pot red beans and rice.

After eight hours slow cooking away in the crock pot, the beans and/or rice came out perfectly. The beans were creamy just like the beans at the taco truck he frequented before the Collapse. They were way better than canned refried beans. When he had perfected the crock pot refried bean and rice recipe, he went back to Cash n’ Carry and got another 100 pounds of beans and 100 pounds of rice. And more spices.

The spices really helped make the beans and rice go from bland to awesome. He got a few pounds of garlic salt and onion powder. The bulk seasonings at Cash n’ Carry were amazingly cheap. The 100 pounds of beans and spices cost less than $100. It was about the same for the rice. One pound of beans or rice made about a half-gallon, enough to feed his whole family, even when he was hungry from all his physical activity and ate a ton in one sitting. So, $1.00 fed the whole family a meal. Well, the foundation of a meal. They added other things to it. But, in a pinch, that pound of beans or rice and sprinkling of seasoning could be a meal.

Grant pulled the crock pot out of the basement and got some of the vacuum sealed bags of beans and rice from the storage shed. He gave the recipe to Eileen and she started up a batch.

After lunch, Grant hung out with the kids for a while. They seemed to be doing fine. Cole missed Grant tucking him in, but he was getting better about it.

Lisa was at work and Drew had ridden one of the mopeds to the Grange. Eileen said he really like riding it but she thought it was “dangerous.” A moped is dangerous? Grant got a kick out of that.

Eileen had stopped asking if she could go into town to get some clothes for her, Lisa, and the kids. She knew it wasn’t safe. Grant felt bad because she was making a perfectly reasonable request. In peacetime, at least. But this wasn’t peacetime.

Grant realized he hadn’t had a shower in…he didn’t even know how long. He was stunned that Lisa let his stinky carcass sleep in the same bed with her. But she must have been as tired as he was and just passed out in bed.

For the first time in many days, Grant looked in the mirror. Whoa. He had a week’s worth of beard. He couldn’t remember when he last shaved. “The beards have all grown longer overnight,” Grant sang. It was a line from the song “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who. That song described how a socialist revolution fools the people and how things under the new government don’t change much. “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss,” was one of the other lines. That song perfectly described the United States…or whatever the country was now.

Grant thought about it: The beards had grown longer overnight. Guys weren’t shaving regularly. The Team was looking pretty shaggy, except for Pow. Asian guys don’t grow beards as quickly as white guys.

The Team looked pretty badass with beards. They truly looked like military contractors now. The beards on the constables of Pierce Point said something like “We’re too busy shooting looters to shave.” Grant thought that was a good image for others to see.

As badass as the beard was, Granted wanted to shave. It would make the shower complete. It would make the freshness complete. He started to shave. He hated shaving during peacetime, but suddenly found that now he loved it. Shaving, and showering for that matter, meant there was a lull in the work and he had shaving equipment and hot water. Those were luxuries now.

After shaving, Grant took a shower. He felt like a new man; he felt… civilized... The shower washed away the stress and grime that had been his life for the past few days. He felt lighter, springy, floaty. Clean. Decent. Civilized. Normal.

After taking the long and wonderful hot shower, Grant went into the master bedroom to get ready. He saw a pair of Lisa’s socks on her nightstand, which looked odd because she never left things lying around. He picked them up and, to his surprise, found the .38 underneath the socks. It had one of his trigger locks on it. Yep, sure enough the key was in the nightstand drawer. Not exactly Quick Draw McGraw material, but better than nothing. Lisa might be changing her mind about things.

That reminded him that Lisa was at the Grange and going out on house calls without any guns. He needed to make sure the medical team had security. Some druggies or a crazy off their meds might want to storm the clinic. Or, maybe if a Patriot/Loyalist split got nasty, the Loyalists would want to bring down one of the most important services the Patriots were providing to win hearts and minds: the clinic. That was it–the medical team needed security.

Just then, Chip came into Grant’s cabin. He was looking for his pocket knife. Grant realized that Chip would make a great security man for the medical team. He wouldn’t have to break down any doors, Grant trusted him with his life—and his wife’s—and he was great with close quarters gun fighting.

“Hey, Chip,” Grant said, “would you be interested in providing security for the medical team? Hanging out at the Grange and going with them on house calls?” Grant knew the answer.

Chip smiled. “That’d be great. But do you trust a handsome devil like me to be around Dr. Foxy all day?” He winked at Grant. It was impossible not to love this guy.

They talked about the details. Grant wondered if Mark could take him and Chip to the Grange to talk to Rich about this, but Mark was out hunting with John, which was a better use of their time than driving people around and burning gas. They were going to have to come up with a better transportation system.

Grant got on his pistol belt, put on his tactical vest, grabbed his AR, got on his moped, and headed to work. A tactical vest and moped. Two things not normally paired together.

When he pulled into the Grange, Grant saw several other mopeds. Someone Grant had seen at the Grange meetings, but whose name he couldn’t recall, pointed to the mopeds and said to Grant, “Pretty cool, huh? Some people brought them by a few minutes ago. They’ve been donated for the constables.”

“The what?” Grant said.

“You know, the constables,” the guy said. “Your Team. You know, you said at the meeting that they were the constables.”

Grant was embarrassed. He’d forgotten he said that. “Oh, right,” he said. “Of course. Cool.”

Grant went in the Grange and looked for Rich and was told that he went to the gate because there was some big thing going on. Grant raced out. He saw Lisa and waved at her. She smiled but was busy, too; he wished he could have talked to her. Grant zoomed—to the extent a moped can “zoom”—to the gate, which took a few minutes. There was a commotion. A car was at the gate with several people standing around it.

“What’s going on?” Grant asked a guard, a teenage kid with an SKS rifle.

“Someone,” the kid said, “who lives over on Tamber Road,” which was in Pierce Point, “just came back from town and said things are pretty bad.”

Grant went up to the crowd to hear the story. A man in his thirties and his wife were in one of the cars telling everyone what had happened.

“The blue ribbon guys,” the man in the car said, “guarding the entrance to Frederickson now have some ‘FC’ guys. Some guys with military clothes and these yellow hard hats on. One of the blue ribbon guys said that the ‘FC’ was the ‘Freedom Corps’ sent in from Olympia. They’re a civilian auxiliary or something. The FC didn’t have guns but were telling the guards what to do.”

“That’s good, right?” one of the Pierce Point guards said. “The authorities are here and helping.”

Some guards shook their heads “no,” a few nodded “yes,” but most didn’t react. The idea of the authorities riding in to save the day seemed so unrealistic to them.

“The Mexicans,” the guy said, “have blocked the west side,” which was the Mexican part of town. “The blue ribbon guys said not to go there. The gangs—I didn’t even know there were any major gangs in Frederickson, but I guess there are now—won’t let you in unless you’re Mexican. Except if you want to buy stuff. They have gas in gas cans they’re selling. For cash and those FCards that Martin’s is now taking,” he said, referring to the grocery store in town.

The man perked up with some excitement. “Oh, speaking of that store, when I was in town there was a rumor that Martin’s was getting a load of food. People swarmed there. We went, too, and people started fighting for a spot by a truck that was docked in the back where they unload stuff. Some cops came along with some Mexican dudes. They beat back everyone and stood guard around the truck. It looked weird: the cops and the gang bangers were, like, on the same side or something. We left. It took us awhile to get back to the gate out of town. I shouldn’t be in town anyway, but my wife wanted to get some things,” the man said, looking at her. She shot back a cold glare.

Then she yelled at him. “You wanted to get some cigarettes, you asshole. Don’t blame this on me, you son of a bitch.” It would be frosty at their house for a while.

The man looked embarrassed. He continued, “Anyway, when we were at the gate going out of town, one of the blue ribbon guys said the cops—what’s left of them, which isn’t many—and the gangs took the food from Martin’s and now are selling it. The FC guy heard what the blue ribbon guy said and just shrugged.”

Great. Gangs and rogue cops and the government were running a giant racket called the City of Frederickson. At least a truck of food got in. But, now the gangs had it. Nice.

Grant wondered if the whole country was like this. He figured the bigger cities would be worse. Olympia would be bad, Seattle worse, and God forbid imagining what was going on in L.A. right now.

Just then, Grant noticed some of the Pierce Point guards scurrying around. There was a black man with his hands up walking slowly toward the bridge.

Grant looked at the man. He knew—he just knew—that this was important.

I am providing for you.