299 Days: The Stronghold (31 page)

Grant noticed that more people were wearing pistols. Mostly revolvers and some in makeshift holsters. Others were tucked in belts. There were bulges in pants pockets that Grant surmised were small handguns. The people who had been at the Grange meetings seemed more likely to be armed. None of the new faces had a visible pistol. It was like people were realizing that other people were wearing pistols so it was OK for them to. It was taking time for people to feel comfortable carrying a gun. But they were.

Before the service, Grant asked the Team to store their ARs out with Chip. He thought it was somehow disrespectful during a religious funeral service to be sitting in the audience with a rifle. For many people, it was the first time they’d seen the Team without their rifles. It added a solemnness and respectful feeling to the service.

Grant saw Lisa there. She had lots of people meeting her and asking her medical questions. She and the rest of the medical team were giving people good information on the prevention of various things. Tim, the EMT, was organizing a first aid class. Grant would have loved to spend some time with Lisa because that had been so scarce lately. But people were talking to both him and her. And the topics were important. They were both working. That was still hard for Grant to fully comprehend. They no longer had traditional “jobs.” Their duties at Pierce Point were their new jobs.

Pretty soon, it was 5:00 p.m. The afternoon had flown by. Many of the people were still there. When people don’t have the gas to just drive wherever they want, whenever they want, they tend to stay at a location and get as much done as possible. At the Grange, that meant networking with their neighbors and, as it turned out, squeezing in a meeting while they were there. Several people asked Grant and Rich if they could just have the usual 7:00 pm meeting early so they didn’t need to go home for a while and just come back. Gas was at that much of a premium. If they had a 5:00 p.m. meeting, they could get people out before dinner time and free up the Grange space for the dinners for people working for the community.

Rich said in a loud voice, “If it’s OK with everyone, we’d like to have a meeting now instead of at 7:00.” Everyone seemed OK with that. It had been long enough since Mrs. Roth’s funeral service that it didn’t seem rude to turn the gathering into a business meeting.

Rich told the crowd the sanitized version of his trip into town. He kept it positive. He was proud to announce that they had some medical supplies out there, but that people shouldn’t expect the level of medical supplies they had before the Collapse. He asked Lisa to explain. She did, saying, “We have enough for some surgeries, but we will only use supplies on people who really need them.”

Rich explained about the FCard applications and handed them out. That seemed to brighten up the crowd. A little too much for Grant’s liking.

Grant, realizing the political implications of the FCards, felt compelled to remind people that the government wasn’t taking care of all their needs. “The FCards are nice, but understand that there isn’t enough on them to fully feed you. The FCards are a supplement to what you have or what you can grow or hunt,” he said.

That seemed to bother some people, especially the new faces. They initially thought the FCards were a magical solution. They were disappointed to find out they were not. Good. Better to lower their expectations now rather than have them rioting later.

Rich explained that it was too dangerous for people to go into town and, besides, he had the only armband ID. No one really had gas, either. Rich said a “town run crew” would be formed. They would be the only ones going into town, he said.

“Are you saying we are forbidden from going into town?” someone asked.

“Not at all,” Rich said, correcting himself. He didn’t want to appear to be authoritarian. “Be my guest. Burn up your gas. Try to get through the roadblock without one of these,” he said pointing to his armband. “If you get in, let us know how it went,” Rich said semi-sarcastically, which was unlike him. Later Rich would make sure the guards didn’t let anyone go into town except the town run crew. He needed to maintain the “Marines and contractors” story.

Rich made a mental note to start implying to Bennington and others in town that the Marines and contractors were training off in a separate compound and didn’t mix with the civilians. To further this story, Rich would try to find a piece of land out at Pierce Point that was far away from everyone else and call it the “Training Grounds” or something like that. This would explain why someone from Pierce Point, if they made it into town, might say to the townspeople, “What Marines and contractors?”

Rich explained that people needed to put in their grocery lists to one person who would pool the lists and come up with one big list for the “town run” people to take into town. Two people volunteered to coordinate the grocery lists for the town runs.

It was amazing how much administrative work it took to run things like this, Grant thought. Then again, the volunteers doing it spent about one percent the time the government had spent running every aspect of everyone’s lives. But still, administrative things are part of what it takes to survive when there is no government. It’s not all guns and gardening.

Rich said, “Don’t expect to get anything approaching what you put on your lists. First of all, the store may not have it. Second of all, we can’t spend the gas to go get a particular brand of something you like. When it comes to the FCards, you get what you get. Be glad you got it.”

“After all, those groceries cost you your bank accounts and 401(k)s,” Grant said. It was a little obnoxious on his part, but he felt compelled to remind people that they should not view the FCards as charity from a benevolent government trying to help them. The FCards were the scraps from all the wealth the government had stolen.

“Who goes first on getting their orders placed?” someone asked. Good question.

Grant came up with an answer. “We’ll have a lottery. That’s the only fair way.” He was determined to show that there was no favoritism in anything. That was essential to holding the people together. The slightest rumor of favoritism would tear them apart. “Everyone who has an FCard will get a number and then we’ll draw however many numbers to see whose order gets on the town run.” That seemed to make sense to the crowd.

Even people who didn’t contribute to the community would be eligible for the town-run lottery. This was because people with FCards who didn’t contribute would start to try to go town themselves and would either get shot or would blow the “fifty Marines” story. Grant didn’t want to push the community contributor thing too far; giving out meal cards was probably as far as he could take it without people getting too upset. Grant always had the ability to sense just how far he could take things politically before he had to accommodate the opposition. He had been doing it since he was a kid.

Grant figured that people who won the lottery and got their list submitted to the town run crew would not necessarily keep all the food for themselves. They might share some, but they probably would trade some. That’s fine. In fact, that’s the free market at work. It was amazing how capitalism sprung up everywhere, even in a place where the government supposedly controlled everything.

No government law can override the law of supply and demand. Supply and demand was a natural law, just like the law of gravity. Supply and demand is how the universe was set up to operate, just like gravity. The proof of this was a few feet away from Grant. The government outlawed bribery and the unauthorized selling of medical supplies, but a trunk load of now-illegal guns and ammo got all those medical supplies sitting a few feet from Grant in the locked room of the Grange. That’s all the proof needed to demonstrate the law of supply and demand.

After discussing the details of the FCard lottery and the town run crew, Rich asked, “We have anything else to talk about?”

“Yes,” someone said. “Someone busted into my shed.”

Chapter 137

Tweakers

(May 14)

“Yeah, me too,” said another person after the first one said someone had broken into their shed.

“Yep,” said a third person. “They came into my house.”

Oh crap. It’s started, Grant thought. He was amazed that they’d gone two weeks without any crime out there. It was only a matter of time.

Rich, the cop, went into investigator mode. “Where do you guys live?” he asked. They all lived on Frog Lake Road. Right near each other. That’s what Rich feared.

It was the Richardson house. Those were the meth addicts and assorted “friends.” The Richardson house had been a constant problem for years.

“Damned tweakers,” someone said. “Tweakers” was a term for meth addicts. Apparently when they got on a multi-day speed high, they would take apart mechanical things and try to put them back together out of nervous energy. They would “tweak” with things, hence the name.

“What did they take?” Rich asked.

“Tools, generators, chainsaws, some gas cans full of gas,” the second man said. He realized after he said it that it might not be good to tell everyone at the Grange about the things he had. Or used to have. Oh well. He wanted to get them back and this was how to do it.

The third guy, who had them come into his house said, “They got my wife’s jewelry and two of my guns. They left the food, though.”

That figured. Only meth heads would steal things like that but leave the food since they had no appetite.

“Do you have any idea who did it?” Rich asked. He wanted to see if there was evidence that it was someone other than the Richardson tweakers.

“Them damned tweakers,” the second man said. “It’s that damned Richardson house,” he said. “All those low lifes.” The crowd started buzzing.

Rich wasn’t about to go arrest people on this little evidence. He didn’t want a mob to go after them either. He needed more proof.

“How do you know it’s the Richardson house people?” Rich asked.

“I saw one of them,” the third man said. “I saw one of them, a young guy, running out of my yard. I’ve seen him before at the tweaker house. He’s been hanging out there for the past couple weeks.”

“Are you sure?” Grant asked. He didn’t want the vigilante stuff, either. And, as the judge, it was Grant’s job to make sure innocent people weren’t convicted.

“Positive,” the third man said. “He had the same black hoodie sweatshirt on I’d seen him in before at the Richardson house when he was out in the yard when I drove by. He looked like trouble. He was a new guy out there. I’m positive.”

Normally Rich would do a lot more investigating before settling on a suspect. No need to turn over every rock on this one. Rich knew the Richardsons and instantly knew they did this.

Rich pointed to the crime victims and said, “We’ll talk after the meeting. We’ll get the constables together and go get your stuff back.”

The “constables,” of course, were the Team. Rich wanted to show that the self-government at Pierce Point would be handling things. He didn’t want a mob to form and go after the tweakers, but he wanted to show the crowd that the self-governing Pierce Point community would do something about it. Rich looked over at Grant and Grant looked at the Team. They gave the thumbs-up sign. Looks like they’d be going out to the Richardson place right after the meeting.

Ryan was worried that the tweakers would get word of an impending raid. So he said to the crowd, “No one here talks to the tweakers. If they get tipped off about this and one of us dies, you will be an accessory to murder.” The room was silent. The seriousness of this was sinking in.

In the past, before the Collapse, people would just call 911 and let the police take care of this. But now there were no police. They people in the Grange hall were their own police. They had to do this themselves. The upside was that someone would actually do something about this instead of just taking a police report.

“Next time,” Rich said to the crime victims, “please come to us privately with these reports. We can’t have everyone knowing where we’re about to hit.”

“Oh, sorry,” the third man said. He hadn’t thought about that. He was just answering Rich’s question about whether there was anything else that needed to be dealt with

Rich didn’t want the guy feeling bad or worried that the situation was out of control. So he said, “No problem. We’ll handle this after the meeting. This is what the constables do. It’s no big deal.” Actually, it was. Rich and the Team knew it.

It was a big deal because tweakers were not like other people, Grant thought. The good news was that they would probably be so high and sleep deprived that they couldn’t be too effective with weapons. The bad news was that the meth made them extremely aggressive and fearless. Absolutely fearless. And, at some level, wanting to die. That made them formidable opponents.

Lisa looked at Grant and mouthed to him, “Don’t go.”

Oh, great. His wife didn’t want him to go do his job. Not this again. Not this “stay at home like everything is normal,” crap again. He didn’t need this right now.

The meeting broke up and the crime victims came up to Rich and the Team. Dan sat in on the conversation, too. Some volunteers also came up. “What can we do to help?” one of the volunteers asked. This was the most excitement that there had been in days out at Pierce Point.

“Get out there right away,” Dan said to the volunteers, “and make sure no one goes in or out of the area by the house. But do it discreetly. Don’t get within earshot of the place. For all we know, someone here called them and tipped them off. No one goes in or out of the area.”

The volunteers nodded and took off.

Rich and the others came up with a hasty plan to go out—right then—to the Richardson house and “drop in” as they put it. It was still light out, so this was not the optimal time to do this. But, they didn’t want the tweakers to have any extra time to prepare. It had to be done right now.

The Team had their full kit with them. Pow tapped the bulletproof plates in his vest and smiled. “This is what they’re for,” he said. That conveyed a sense of the seriousness of the situation.