Liberators: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse

22 HUNGER

As their small party of five with two carts merged into the crowd of foot traffic already walking across the bridge, Megan grabbed both boys by the hand and instructed them in French to stay very close to her and not let go of her hands for any reason. As they descended the bridge on the Kentucky side, they saw the Kentucky National Guard HMMWV with a Gore-Tex-clad soldier manning the crew in front of the two commandeered Coca-Cola trucks, just as the cop at the Fort Gay entry checkpoint had described it. The soldier on the Mod Deuce looked as though he was very cold and indifferent as he squinted in the morning light to see the approaching walkers. Joshua noticed—as did Megan—that there wasn’t actually any ammunition belt hanging out of the .50-cal. It was simply a “show of force” measure.

Malorie kept the sense of direction in her head and successfully navigated them out of town on a westerly route past the Kentucky National Guard soldiers carrying their issued M16s without any magazines in their rifles. It seemed that the presence of the good guys was enough to keep law and order without having to actually risk life in this part of the world. There wasn’t any power in the town, and although the streets were eerily deserted by day, Joshua wondered how long you could keep thousands of hungry people from looting the shops under the cover of night.

Once they were on the other side of town, they stopped and adjusted their loads and drank some water. Malorie had her M1 Carbine across her lap as she sat down for a halt, as did Megan. They all discussed the importance of the Cooper situational awareness color code and one’s ability to react to threats if one hesitates and/or is not paying attention. Their fluid SOP would be to pull out their long weapons at the halt with the exception of either Megan or Malorie—whoever wasn’t pushing the cart—because she would already have her carbine at the ready. Joshua decided to keep his .270 rifle secured on the cart to not risk bumping the scope, which he had sited in for two hundred yards.

“By the way, thank you ladies for helping me to balance the cart so well back there on the West Virginia side. I’m doing okay with mine, how about you, Malorie?” Joshua asked.

“Mine seems to be riding well, thanks.”

Megan suggested that they try to take a halt every hour if possible and rest for ten minutes so that they could maintain their endurance—especially with the little ones.

Malorie had her regional road map out and said, “I think if we stick to 32 at a good pace we can probably pick up Route 7 West tomorrow; that should take us to the Olympia State Forest by tomorrow evening.”

Joshua craned his head over to Megan and said, “Can I please have the state forest map, beautiful?” She handed him the map and brushed his cheek.

He opened it up and as he looked at it he said, “Here’s my thought process, but please let me know what you think. We should aim for the west side of the lake. Like this dovetail-shaped protrusion into the lake here. We’ll have plenty of firewood and lots of access to water and fishing. This will also mean that we’ll be over any major bridges, an obvious key choke point, after winter is over. Our strategy is not very complicated, but it is difficult—wait out the winter. Like you said, Megan, ‘Stay warm, dry, and unseen.’ We can’t travel fast enough on the road to cover the 120-ish miles to Bradfordsville before winter, and it’s not like we can get ahold of Dustin to come and pick us up, either.” Megan and Malorie nodded in agreement.

“As cruel as it sounds, we’ll have to let the starvation and cold of winter partially clear the way for us. Based on our dependency on cheap energy and given that winter is imminent, plus the fact that people typically only keep three days’ worth of food in their house and the grocery stores operate on a just-in-time delivery system—I’d estimate that we’ll lose about a third of the population before spring.”

“Don’t forget the roving criminal gangs, and people not getting their medicines,” added Megan.

Joshua nodded. “With that said, we’ll have less people between the state forest and Bradfordsville in the spring; however, the bad news is those that are left will be highly suspicious of road walkers.”

“I agree,” Megan said. “But I think that we should walk and talk so that we’re making progress.”

There were still a few vehicles on the road here and there, but not like what they had expected. There were other groups of road walkers as well, occasionally a family, but none of them seemed to be very well prepared. Joshua’s party was wary whenever a stranger approached, and they kept their guns close at hand. Folks headed east would ask them about news out that way, whether they could cross over into West Virginia, if Louisa was peaceful, and so on. Likewise, the small group would try to ask for news to the west without giving up too many details of their own.

At a halt everyone would drink water and eat something, even if it was just three or four dehydrated carrot slices, in order to keep their energy up. Given their slower pace with the boys, the sixty minutes on- and ten minutes off-duty cycle worked out especially well for their mileage expectations. Since they were eating small bites here and there, they didn’t need to take a long break for meals, either.

The group stopped to rest for the night before they reached the Route 7 junction. It was their first full day of walking and everyone was getting used to the hot spots on their feet. They all decided to move one hundred meters into the dense brush off the road to set up camp for the night. The carts were picked up and carried in through the first ten meters of thick roadside brush to avoid leaving any obvious sign of crushed brush that any unskilled tracker could follow. Since they didn’t know who would be coming along the road, they also decided against having a fire that night. Jean and Leo heaped up a pad of leaves and pine needles about ten feet by twelve feet and six inches deep. Megan laid out the large tarp she’d bought at the pawnshop. Then she pulled out her smaller tarp, which was folded in half and zip-tied together on two sides, putting her sleeping bag inside that. Malorie did the same.

Jean and Leo would take turns sleeping with either Auntie Malorie or their mom on a given night, helping both of them to stay warm with each other’s heat. Joshua put his sleeping bag in between theirs, and the other side of the tarp would fold over to keep them mostly dry should it start to rain or snow.

Sidearms were to stay either inside their sleeping bags or inside the fold of a sweatshirt acting as a pillow for ease of access. Likewise, long weapons would be between the sleeping bags to stay dry and not be out of arm’s reach if they were to encounter robbers at night, a fear never far from the minds of the adults.

Since it had been days since the adults had slept, the group decided not to keep a watch that night, and with the exception of bio breaks in the middle of the night they all slept from complete exhaustion until daybreak.

Leo was the first to awake in the morning, when a squirrel dropped an acorn on the tarp. He had grown up on the homestead but had never slept under the stars before. In the still morning air, he just lay there snuggled up next to his auntie Malorie watching and pointing one little finger out of the sleeping bag at the squirrels racing up and down the tree. Not long after, Malorie awoke and noticed that her nephew was watching the squirrels. She kissed his head and smoothed his hair and couldn’t help but think how incredibly hard the next few months would be for all of them, and how they were refugees in their own country.

The group broke camp and repacked the carts after a small breakfast. It was unspoken between the adults to not eat as much as they normally would so that the food supply would last longer for the boys. They would need more fuel for warmth and for growth, and it was their survival that served as the charter for this mission in the first place.

By late afternoon they had reached their destination in the state forest, but they still needed a place to shelter. Megan stayed with Jean and Leo to watch the carts, while Joshua and Malorie left on a recon patrol to find a suitable place to over-winter. Malorie had the map out and was speaking to Joshua on a hilltop overlooking the beautiful lake. “I heard you say that you liked this dovetail protrusion here sticking out into the lake? I think that we should check the south side of that ridge for a suitable cave to shelter in. This way we can maximize our solar exposure and not be as cold.”

“Good idea, I like where your head is at.”

Before long, they found a suitable cave that would prove to be very tight quarters, but would keep them dry and, they hoped, undetected by anyone passing through. They decided to drop their packs to lighten their load on the way back so that they could move quickly with Megan, Jean, and Leo before complete darkness. Malorie suggested that they just take what they needed from the carts and leave them cached well out of sight so that they could move faster and bed down before nightfall. Joshua replied, “Good idea. Megan, may I carry your pack? This way you can assist Malorie with the boys. I’ll grab the tarps and extra blankets. I’m not sure about you, but I got cold last night.”

“Not me,” said Malorie. “I was too busy with all of the squirming going on in my sleeping bag!” as she reached out to tickle Leo, who squealed with laughter.

The next morning, everyone awoke and ate something. Megan wanted to start good habits, so she had the boys brush their teeth with the minimal amount of toothpaste immediately after breakfast, and then everyone gathered around and took turns reading a chapter of Scripture followed by prayer. It helped the morning feel more normal and familiar.

Megan and Joshua set out to retrieve the carts from their cache. It gave them a chance to sit, talk, and share their thoughts—something that they had not done since fleeing D.C.

“You know, Megan my love, the last time we got to sit and talk was at the Agency. It seems like a lifetime ago. I have to tell you, I really feel cheated by this whole Crunch.”

“Really? How is that?”

“Well, I knew that I was falling in love with you, and of course I was thinking marriage, but it takes time to reach that decision, you know what I mean?”

“I do. As a matter of fact, I was in no hurry to get remarried. I was convinced that as soon as a guy found out that I had two sons, he would bolt. And even if he did stick around, who would walk me down the aisle now that my papa passed?” Megan traced a pattern in the forest floor between her feet with the stick she was holding. “That seems silly, doesn’t it?”

“Not to me it doesn’t. I want to hear your thoughts on marriage—I kinda like you.” He elbowed her and she giggled. “Wow, when was the last time you laughed?”

“Just now!” She laughed again, then looked away as a whitetail deer bounded back into a thick clump of brush on the other side of the open glade. “When you came along and still wanted me despite of all of the turmoil in my life, I thought that I was getting that second opportunity to live life again. Then, after just six short months of a romance, we have this financial crisis and the whole stupid Crunch—it’s just not fair. Why couldn’t we just have had two years to be married? You could have taught the boys to ride bikes, I could’ve packed your lunch every day for work, and we could’ve gone for family hikes after church on Sundays—why all of this? Why now? How many couples come home to each other and don’t say a word, each one taking dinner into a separate room to watch separate television shows and chat with separate friends on social media and sleep on separate sides of the bed? They wasted their days in peacetime, and they’ll probably be the first to kill each other in the lean times of this Crunch. I just think that you and I could have done better together.”

“I am with you now and if you’ll have me, I plan on marrying you the first chance we get. And as for now, what would you say to an extended camping trip in the Olympia State Forest—no phones ringing, no high-side e-mail to check, no disgruntled ex-wives’ club clicking their tongues around your cubicle space—how does that sound?”

Megan kissed Joshua. Then they got up, found their bearings, and located the carts. Getting the loaded carts up and over the rugged terrain was not easy and took most of the day. “This should make it more difficult for someone trying to pursue us, if it was this hard for us to get these carts up here,” Megan said.

“Well, maybe, but someone doesn’t need to bring very much with them to spell trouble for us up here.”

When they returned to camp in the midafternoon, they were completely exhausted, but the weather had changed. The air was wet and almost warm, the kind of conditions that were familiar to Megan or anyone else who’d grown up in cold country as being a precursor to snow. “The snow should cover our tracks and give us a clean canvas to know if someone has been in our area. Also, it’ll be easier to track game.”

Malorie had Leo and Jean on leaf and pine needle detail. They eventually had quite a thick pad of brush down for everyone to sleep on. The cave had a narrow entrance, and they had to stoop to enter. It was a classic karst water-carved cave, but at some point the limestone formation had gone dry, leaving a chamber that varied between four feet and eight feet wide, with a gentle upward slope. The height varied between six and twelve feet, before sharply tapering at the back. The cave lacked fancy stalactites and stalagmites, but the boys still declared it “awesome.”

They squeezed the deer carts into the back of the cave. There were spots wide enough for beds down the length of the cave, with enough room to walk by them. Joshua’s bed spot was closest to the entrance, then came Malorie’s, then Megan’s, and finally the boys’. Megan and Malorie helped set up the quarters as best they could in the space they had. Once a blanket was rigged to cover the cave’s entrance, they noticed that their body heat alone—when added to the sixty-two-degree ambient ground temperature—soon took the chill off the air in the cave.

Joshua set about improving the site in small ways, such as digging a slit trench for a solid-waste latrine, improvising an overwatch position, and making a range card for everyone’s use.

“We’re going to be here awhile, so we need to be able to defend it. It likely goes without saying, but our first defense is passive. That means that we remain unseen. We’re too small a force to ward off anyone, and it won’t take any time at all for the reports from our guns to alert anyone within earshot that there are people up here. People mean possible resources to exploit, which brings me back to the first thing that I said—passive defense.”

Malorie added, “I can see a real need to go out for water, to forage for food, or to hunt. I’m assuming that our chief liabilities as far as protection would be the children. That being said, one adult is likely enough to stay here and take care of them and ‘hold down the fort,’ but if anyone needs to go out, they should have at least one adult with them.”

“I like that idea,” Megan said. “What about weapons?”

“Yeah, about that.” Joshua took off his watch cap and scratched his head. “Handguns mandatory at all times—always within arm’s reach. I’m fine with long weapons slung around your body, but definitely at the ready anytime you’re leaving camp with another adult, like you said, Mal. I’m going to see what I can fashion out of some wood and 550 cord to put the .270 in the cave up off the ground so that it’s accessible and out of the way. I think that your carbines are decent for close targets as are both of the shotguns; we’d only need to use these to defend ourselves, because if someone is out far enough that we would need the .270—”

Malorie finished his sentence, “Then we’re to be quiet and unseen in a passive defense, right?”

“Exactly!” Joshua replied. “So for day-to-day storage, the .270 will be in the shelter out of the way. Besides, a shotgun is my preferred weapon anyway.”

Megan said, “I’ll do a thorough inventory of our food and set a rations schedule for us. We’ll be dependent on fishing, foraging, and hunting for supplementing what we have. I can’t think that we have anyone that we can trade with here, so we’ll have to make what we have last.” Joshua and Malorie nodded in agreement. “There must be houses around, so I think that we should probably set up deliberate two-person patrols to find out if there are others in our AO so that we can steer well clear of them. Anyone with a house nearby is likely going to be very keen on shooting first and asking questions later of anyone approaching their turf.”

“Joshua, do you have much hunting experience?” Malorie asked.

“Truthfully, I don’t. I have plenty of trigger time, so if a deer wants to hold the broadside pose I can hit it, but I know that there is more to woodscraft than that.”

“Megan and I had lots of hunting experience with our papa, so I think that we should set out to hunt/patrol at least three days a week.”

“Good idea, Mal,” Megan said.

“We can move slowly, take notes, and report back on what, if anything, we see. And if, I mean when, we take a deer we can quarter it, hang it up, and pack it out in two trips.”

“After we harvest the deer, we’ll have to find a way to smoke it since we don’t have nearly enough salt to cure the meat in order to preserve it. I’ll start thinking of how we can do that.” Malorie rubbed her fingertips across her eyes and said, “After our meat stock is good, we can certainly switch the patrol schedule around.”

“I think that any two-person party leaving needs to leave a plan behind: where they’re going, who’s going with them, what’s the intent, when they should be expected back, and what actions are to be taken if they don’t return by that time. This will all be critical since I can’t just take the boys with me to go get you or vice versa,” Joshua said.

“I agree, let’s do that,” Megan said. “Also, we have all of our eggs in one basket here. What do you think about taking the bug-out bags and stashing them in another cave under a tarp covered with leaves? Perhaps taking the compact valuables as well as the junk silver, my AR-7, or ammo and cache that somewhere else, too? This way, if we do get hit here we can escape and evade without losing everything.”

“I like it. It spreads out our attack liability,” said Joshua.

“Since this is ‘home’ for a while, we need to set up a watch around the clock. This is going to mean a lot of boredom and downtime on watch. I don’t mind taking the night shift provided that I can sleep during the day.”

“I have an idea,” said Malorie. “If everyone takes exactly eight hours with a small pass down at shift change then we’d be pretty much stuck on the same schedule all the time. But if we rotate seven hours or nine hours, then the watch will slowly change over time and no one person gets stuck.”

“Hmm, Mal, that might just work,” Megan said. “The other fourteen or eighteen hours could be divided up into sleeping or taking care of the camp, cooking, cleaning, looking after the boys, etcetera.”

“But for us to really make the most of our time here, we’ll need to hunt and do patrols as well. When it comes time to move in the spring, we’ll be familiar with each other enough on the trail to cover the ground to Bradfordsville with the best possible chance of avoiding detection,” Malorie said.

With the battery slowly running out of power on her phone, Malorie noted the date and devised a way to count tick marks to keep a written calendar on the cave wall so that they would not lose track of time. The group also took turns reading the survival guides out loud with the screen on the lowest brightness setting. They hoped that if everyone read them out loud, perhaps as much as 40 percent of the information could be recalled among the five of them.