Compass Call: Survival & Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 3) (12 page)

Lunch cooking on the stove made John wonder where they were on their propane storage. He had a large tank, but with all the additional washing and cooking going on, the propane was quite literally being burned up at an accelerated rate. John reminded himself to check the tank on his next trip to the shop.

Jenna had the men organize the pails, and then everyone paused for a lunch break. They enjoyed a meal of tacos, beans and rice, all
blessed by the hands and words of Marissa. John wondered if the others appreciated how fortunate they were to still be eating well, but he didn’t dwell on it for long. His preps were being used, and he was glad for it. But he knew, that in a day or two, they would no longer be able to dedicate so much time to preparing and enjoying their meals. Everything around them stood in opposition to their surviving in place. He never thought he’d say leaving their home was the only way to survive, but there he was.

Following lunch cleanup, Jenna, Bonnie, Marissa and Abby started a brainstorming session to decide how to break down and assemble the dried and bulk foods into small, easy to carry packages. After seeing what John brought in from the shelter, they began to fret over their menu choices. But John fixed that by providing the ladies with a complete copy of his food storage inventory.

The list had everything categorized by type, which was namely fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, dairy, baking ingredients, and so on. John was well supplied, but the one thing he didn’t have was ready-mixed meals. He had enough of those in the army, and preferred the basics, used with variety and creativity, when it came to whipping up a main course. He also provided them with a short stack of related cookbooks. Cooking with dehydrated and freeze-dried foods wasn’t hard, but it was a little different. He hoped the cookbooks would help them devise a variety of menus.

Another element of cooking with freeze-dried and dehydrated foods was that they demanded water, and sometimes needed time to soak. John reminded Jenna of that fact, but she only smiled at John and said, “We’ve got this. I’ll give you our shopping list in a few minutes. Now leave us alone. We’ve got work to do.” She kissed him on the cheek and turned him around, and much to the amusement of the other ladies, she smacked him on the butt as he walked away. Though John typically liked to know what was going on, in this particular case he was glad to hand over the food prep to the ladies. Besides, he had other, more pressing matters to attend to.

John found Pete standing in the entryway hall, directing the actions of his three-man work detail. Under Pete’s direction, the boys fashioned a very respectable sandbag fighting position in the alcove. The entire forward facing wall, and a portion of each side wall, was two sandbags thick. The sandbags on the floor were covered with a sheet of three-quarter inch plywood to prevent the sandbags from tearing open or becoming uneven footing.

Pete had the boys stack the sandbags in an interlocking grid pattern, similar to bricks on a wall, so the entire structure was solid and very stable. The interlocking pattern also facilitated a gentle “V” shaped slope along the front wall above the firing port box. Pete explained that the slope would allowed two additional people to shoot over the top of the sandbag wall at an angle, so as not to expose them to direct fire.

Pete removed the folding chairs and constructed a plank bench that allowed whoever was manning the OP to sit comfortably and observe, or fire their weapon through the two-foot wide, and ten-inch high, firing port. The position of the plank also provided a useful shooting platform for whoever needed to observe or fire over the top of the sandbags on either side of the alcove.

Pete wanted to remove the large alcove window because he was worried about flying glass, but John nixed the idea, partly for Jenna’s sanity, but also for his own concerns. He wasn’t yet ready to advertise their defensive position. However, John did agree to allow Pete to run chicken-wire over the exposed upper section of the alcove window. At least then, if someone tried to throw something heavy through the window, it would hit the wire and fall away. John also wanted to keep the heavy curtain in place for the time being. The last thing Pete did was mount one of John’s five-pound fire extinguishers to the wall of the OP.

A front yard inspection revealed that the front of the house looked unchanged, but the same couldn’t be said for the entryway, which now resembled a military bunker. The dirt filled sandbags added a lot of weight to the alcove, but it was stable thanks to the support structure
that was built under it. Both men were extremely pleased with the ballistic protection the sandbags would provide, and though Pete also wanted to stack sandbags on the ground floor, on either side of the front door, they didn’t have enough.

Pete offered to make more sandbags out of plastic bags, or old pants and shirts, but after discussing it with John they decided the ground floor really didn’t need the additional protection because the façade of the house was protected by four-inch limestone blocks, which were sufficient ballistic protection for the time being.

All in all, John was very impressed with the construction of the OP bunker, especially with how quickly the boys had built it. And the boys were absolutely thrilled with the new OP, and decided to combine their watch shifts and pull duty together for the rest of the day. John inwardly cringed at their eagerness, knowing that the reality, namely the need to actually shoot someone from the bunker, would take all the fun out of it for them. But then again, they would have to face the reality of the new survival lifestyle soon enough.
Better to face their first contact from a protective fighting position than in the open
, thought John, and moved on to his next task.

While Paul was entertaining his two youngest children, and everyone else was distracted with their various duties, John pulled Pete aside and asked, “Do you want to work on your gates? This might be a perfect time to do it.”

“Do we have enough time?” asked Pete.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to get through all eight gates before the neighborhood meeting, but I think we can manage the first two or three,” said John.

“Where do you want to do it?”

“I think the guestroom is the best place. We’re least likely to get interrupted up there, and you can lay on your bed while I talk
you through from the chair. I’ll go let Jenna know we’ll be tied up for about an hour . . . hour and a half, and I’ll meet you upstairs,” replied John.

Ten minutes later, in the relative seclusion of the upstairs guest-room, John began taking Pete through the meditation steps he recently used on himself. For John, the most challenging part of reaching a meditative state was clearing his mind. So many thoughts constantly whirled around in his head that when he stopped thinking it made him feel exposed and vulnerable. But he came to realize that such clearness was a necessary doorway to spiritual access, that the only way to open his mind was to completely clear it. John figured Pete wouldn’t be much different since they were so much alike. Pete was another non-stop thinker, so John took his time talking him through what he called the “cool down.”

John began Pete’s cool down with relaxation instructions. He knew it was equally important for the body to be completely relaxed before moving into controlled breathing, so he methodically instructed Pete to release all the tension from his body. John started at Pete’s head, and gave him instructions to, “. . . relax all the muscles of your face. Allow the stress and tension to leave your cheeks and jaw . . .” while using a low and calm voice.

John could literally see the results as Pete followed his instructions. John talked Pete into relaxing his entire body, and when he was done, Pete looked so relaxed that John thought he was asleep. John asked Pete if he was awake, and he was about to lightly shake him when Pete said, “Yes,” in an equally low voice.

Relieved, John began to talk Pete through controlled breathing. He instructed his friend to take several deep cleansing breathes to rid his body of all stress and impurities. Pete began to fill his lungs to capacity. With each breath Pete drew in through his nose, and let out from his mouth, his chest and stomach began to move rhythmically up and down, like the waves on an ocean. John instructed Pete to fill his lungs and expel his breath in a controlled manner for several minutes,
and when he thought Pete was in his most comfortable and regulated breathing pattern, John moved on to the next stage.

John’s goal was to get Pete’s mind to a place of balance. Most people were either left or right brain dominate, but a true meditative state required an equal balance between the two hemispheres. John was able to achieve that by imagining the infinity symbol in his head. He would see the horizontal figure-eight in his mind, and then trace that pattern repeatedly until he achieved synchronicity. Intuitively, he didn’t think that would work with Pete, so he decided to use a visual numeric countdown. Relaxation and breathing opened the mind, but preparing the mind to take the final meditative leap was very important, and couldn’t be accomplished without left-right synchronization. John began by having Pete visualize the number ten in his mind, to literally see the number. After a few seconds, John asked Pete to visualize the number nine, and so on, until he reached number one. The exercise made the analytical left brain define the number, while simultaneously making the artistic right brain create it from nothing. It was a very effective way to achieve balance of the mind, and John felt, more than saw, that it was working on Pete.

With the numbers finished, John was ready to take Pete through the gates, so he wasted no time in reading from the prepared narrative. He placed Pete in the same open field where he began his own journey. And though he held the written narrative in his hands, after several sentences John found that he really didn’t need it, that it was more a crutch. His memory of traveling the gates was very much intact and came easily forward.

For John, it was more a matter of setting the correct pace for Pete. He didn’t know how Pete would respond to each gate, so he kept his dialogue smooth and articulate as he spoke, “You are standing in an open field. Before you is a large mountain. It is tall, solid, unchanging and enduring. The strength of the earth is before you. Sheer stone cliffs can be seen high above. Large rocks and boulders at the base . . . they rest at the foot of the mountain like silent sentinels. You feel the strength of the earth, the safety of it from where you stand, and you move towards it.

You are now standing at the base of the mountain. You see a gap in the rocks, it is an entrance to a trail marked by a comfortable opening between two large boulders. It is the beginning of your trail, a trail that will lead you to the top of the mountain, and freedom.” John paused a moment to let Pete build the picture. “You pass between the rocks and enter a large clearing. In the middle of the clearing stands a column of rock. The walls around you are sheer and high, and they make you feel safe and secure. The space speaks of survival, of strength and security, and it is stable and comforting. You go to the column and examine it closely. Now, tell me what you see?” asked John.

John wanted Pete to respond, to actually tell him what he saw in his mind’s eye. He didn’t know why it was important to have Pete tell him what he saw, but he knew it was, that it would allow him, as the gatekeeper, to assist Pete in every way possible.

Pete immediately began to describe what he saw, such as how the column looked to him, what it was made of, how it felt when he touched it, and even what was written on it. Throughout the session, John would occasionally ask, “Tell me what you see?” but only if he felt Pete was getting stuck or distracted. Pete’s replies were presented in a low and even tone, as if he was replying from a hypnotic trance. John supposed the gates were, in effect, a form of self-hypnosis, but he couldn’t think about that while working with Pete.

John was most intrigued by Pete’s descriptions of what he saw and felt, mainly because they were so different from his own experience. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised that Pete’s experience was different, but it made perfect sense. The gates were, after all, Pete’s gates, and not his own. But it revealed a truth about the gates he didn’t realize with his own experience, that they would be different for each person.

When Pete was done interacting with the pillar, John continued the narrative by saying, “You turn around and see, at the end of the clearing, a gate. You approach the gate and examine it. As you stand before it you begin to feel fear. The feeling of fear is unlike anything you have ever felt before. It is cold and deep, and makes you feel like
you have lost control of your life. It threatens to envelope you. You want to flee, but you cannot. You want to pass through the gate of fear. You want to move up the trail, but you must first overcome fear. You must look within yourself, examine your feelings of fear, and let them go. Now . . . tell me what you see?” asked John.

Once again, Pete began to describe what he saw. When he was done, John had him touch the gate and tell him what he felt. Again, John found it interesting to hear Pete’s description of the gate. It was different, but in some ways the same. John didn’t know what it meant, but he knew it was important for him to see the gates from Pete’s perspective. He wasn’t a psychologist, but he sensed that something really important was going on in Pete’s mind, that it was good for him, like a cleaning or purification process.