Compass Call: Survival & Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 3) (20 page)

“No. I didn’t laugh at him, but I did ask if he wanted me to set up a water delivery schedule,”

“Really?”

“No. I told him to come back when he was better prepared.” As they walked through the front door, Pete added, “I’m beginning to think people in this neighborhood have a problem with preparedness.”

“Tell me about it,” said John, “tell me about it.”

CHAPTER 6

T
he evening was interrupted several times by people asking for water, but they all had coupons so John complied with their requests. Despite his earlier warning that he would treat all late comers as potential threats, a few folks still came for water after dark. But no one threatened them or turned them away. All the requests were for families with small children, the sick, or elderly. He came to appreciate the order in which the coupons were issued. The lady responsible for issuing the coupons, John couldn’t remember her name, was doing a good job, and he planned to compliment her at the next meeting.

At one point John was tempted to post a sign and just let people take the water as they needed it, but he knew that was risky. As soon as he abandoned control of the water to everyone, somebody would come along and crap in the pool just to spite the others. He had seen it before, how people could be so dangerously spiteful even in extreme conditions. If experience taught him one thing, it was that most people were eager to serve themselves, but deny that same opportunity for others.

John knew they would have to continue handling the water requests until they left the neighborhood. After that, the pool water wouldn’t matter to them anymore. But until then, he tasked Paul and Marcus to manage the water detail every day until 21:30. It was a perfect job for a father and son team, especially one that needed to reconnect. The two spent most of their time talking together on the front porch, which is exactly what John hoped would happen.

John knew Paul was angry at himself for surrendering his shotgun to Darrel. He also knew Marcus was angry at his father for allowing the assault on his family to happen. The attack clearly wasn’t Paul’s fault, but guilt racked his soul. That combination of guilt and anger made for some very tense moments between the two of them, and John was ready to put an end to it. He thought them spending time together was a good first step in mending their relationship.

John tried to explain the reality of the situation to Marcus, but the young man failed to recognize his father’s position, and continued to see his father’s actions as weakness rather than love and concern. Paul learned a lot from that traumatic experience, but he was being overly hard on himself since it happened. Knowing his oldest son, Marcus, hated him for it didn’t help matters. For John, the road to recovery couldn’t be a long one. He needed them whole. Everyone had to trust each other if their group, the company, was to survive the disaster.

John realized the biggest challenge for them in the coming days would be maintaining their forward momentum toward departure. But other issues, such as Tony, and another biker raid, weighed heavily on John’s mind. He really didn’t care if anyone in the neighborhood helped him with the ambush because he thought they could handle it themselves, but he absolutely didn’t want to leave the house unguarded, not even for a minute.

He considered the biker gang a personal challenge because they represented a direct threat to him and his company, much more than to anyone else in the neighborhood by a long shot. So whatever it was he planned to do, it would be according to his own agenda and not some collaboration of disinterested neighborhood parties. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t accept any help from neighbors if offered, but the setup and command of the ambush would be entirely his. The gang’s ability to ride into the neighborhood and burn down a house without facing any organized resistance would likely embolden them, and John looked forward to capitalizing on that. He hoped they’d return in
the same careless manner, it would make his job eliminating of them so much easier.

Following a delicious dinner meal and kitchen clean-up, John called an adult meeting to discuss the results of the neighborhood HOA meeting and subsequent biker raid. Interestingly, Jenna wasn’t as bothered by Tony’s power grab, or the biker raid, as she was about John’s physical altercation with one of the neighbors. Jenna knew John could handle himself, but she didn’t like the idea of him making local enemies. The biker gang was an outside threat, but she felt that an angry neighbor, one who could simply walk over to their house at any time and confront them, was a far greater threat to their safety and security than anything else.

When Pete didn’t come to his defense, John quickly admitted he was wrong and apologized for his prideful and disorderly behavior. He knew she was right, that he shouldn’t have goaded the man into attacking him, but he was tired of dealing with ignorant people, especially those who failed to grasp the enormity of the current situation. The way John saw it, now that the survival period was in full swing, actions spoke louder than words. Gone were the days where people could sit around and debate the finer points of social accountability through politically correct dialogue. Rudeness now carried a risk of direct consequence and immediate accountability. In other words, he wasn’t going to take crap from anyone, especially if it involved a communicated threat to himself, or anyone in his company. Since the rule of law no longer applied, personal defense took on a whole new meaning, a meaning that extended well into the future.

John loathed how politically correct social conditioning rendered so many good and responsible people impotent or ignorant of personal accountability. People were so afraid to voice their true thoughts or feelings on issues that lies were more common than truths. It didn’t matter that the vocal minority successfully recalibrated the nation’s moral compass to point due south. To stand for anything morale or spiritual before the disaster meant you were a disruptive,
nonconformist, judgmental hypocrite who failed to jump aboard the bus of contemporary humanism.

Religious freedom, free press, economic prosperity, national pride, and personal dreams were all carefully governed lies. A few believed everyone had a right to be equal, and if they couldn’t achieve that equality then it was the government’s responsibility to make it happen. Everything was becoming part of a larger social collective, a convergence of thought and practice that demanded uniformity and compliance through direct pressure. Tony was just a small example of where the country was headed before the disaster, and he was trying to keep that idea alive.

One thing that troubled John the most about his preps was that he sacrificed a lot to become a prepared and self-sufficient family. And now that the disaster justified his every effort, people like Tony wanted everything he had. It didn’t matter how hard he worked, or how long it took him to get prepared, his unprepared neighbors demanded their fair share of his effort as if they actually contributed. They demanded equality, a redistribution of John’s resources, because it’s what they were lead to believe was their right. Responsibility without accountability. Compensation without contribution.

It sickened John to see where his country was heading before the disaster, and he wondered why more people didn’t see the writing on the wall, especially when America started to distance itself from God. People were encouraged to embrace the idea of coexistence, to eliminate religious individuality in favor of religious equality. Or worse yet, to deny God altogether and embrace human accomplishment above all else. As far as John was concerned, he wasn’t surprised destruction fell upon the country. America was, in his opinion, ripe for it.

He wondered if the disaster would cure America of its insanity, but he doubted it. A lot of damage had been done and the craziness would somehow endure. Corrupt and selfish people, people bent on power and control, would always be around to stir things up. Tony was case
in point. People were no longer self-sufficient, or desired to be so. They preferred charity and hand-outs, and demanded their share of the pie, whether they earned it or not. Any leader who supported such a claim would continue to be popular, especially in an unprepared survival environment. John shook his head whenever he thought about how the country would never have gotten off the ground if the people today lived in the 1700’s. He wondered what change was harder to accept, the slow painful process of constitutional deterioration, or the sudden and violent anger of Mother Nature.

The ash was a reminder of that change, but now that it was less present people seemed to think they were already on the road to recovery. But John knew better, he saw the extent of the damage across the country, and wondered if he was the only one to recognize the enduring aspect of the change. Acting as if the disaster was gone, or was little more than a temporary setback, would be a painful lesson on awareness for those who finally figured out the truth. There would be no normalcy for many years to come, perhaps even generations to come.

Alongside the people who longed for a return to normalcy, there would be those bent on pursuing their unrestrained passions. People like Darrel who had no respect for life, or no desire for civilization in any form. They would take advantage whenever they could. The extremes were always dangerous, especially when it came to living in a world facing desperate survival. John struggled to make sense of it all, how he and his company could survive. He wasn’t sure if they would, but was going to do everything in his power to make that happen, or at least die trying.

When he thought of his neighbors, he realized that very few people would settle in the middle on the animal versus civilization scale. Survival could exist anywhere along that line, but it would most likely settle on the animal side. For John, how you survived meant as much as if you survived. If survival meant killing and eating your own, then what purpose was there to survival? There was a limit to John’s depth
of depravity, but he knew that if people didn’t come to terms with the disaster they would end up killing each other, and probably even eating each other. That was the one thing he wouldn’t discuss with Jenna or the kids; that cannibalism would most likely emerge.

John knew there were many potential outcomes for the neighborhood, but he couldn’t begin to predict what would happen because there were way too many variables to consider. If the neighborhood organized and unselfishly cooperated, then their chances of survival would be high. But power struggles and infighting, which John considered to be their most likely course of action, would eventually tear them apart. From that standpoint, it would only be a matter of time before a larger gang came along and either destroyed, subjugated or assimilated the remaining survivors. There was also a distinct possibility that people would just slip away until the neighborhood was entirely abandoned, or maybe they would accept and include passing groups, but that too was impossible to predict. Everything seemed to be up to chance.

John reflected on his impulse to shoot Tony. He was certain Tony’s primary motivation was to establish control as a way to guarantee his own survival. John knew he didn’t have any food, and that he was acting out of self-interest, but at least he was doing something to organize the neighborhood. John agreed with Pete that Tony reminded him of Hitler, but he doubted Tony could build up an army from the desperately unprepared neighbors around him. A lack of resources would end his quest for power.

As for fighting and humiliating the big angry man during the meeting, he knew Jenna was right, it was stupid and careless. John knew he shouldn’t have focused his general frustration on that idiot regardless of his rudeness, but he had, and it couldn’t be undone. By acting as he did, John knew he added risk to their survival, but he felt the entire event was more important than their perceived safety. He didn’t know what would come of it, but he would try to correct his course tomorrow. He would find the man and make every effort to
apologize. Until that time, all he would do is continue to remain alert, which essentially changed nothing for him.

“John, did you hear what I just said?” asked Jenna. She was obviously irritated that John seemed to be ignoring her comment, but she wasn’t nagging.

“You’re right, babe. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” He looked at her and nodded with a half-smile. “So, what did you guys come up with for field rations?” he asked the ladies in general.

“We don’t call them that,” replied Jenna and Bonnie simultaneously.

“OK. What do you call them then?” asked John.

“We decided to call them, meal-packs, and please don’t form that into an acronym,” begged Bonnie, as she looked from John, to Pete, and then back to John.

“What? I like the sound of MPs,” teased Pete.

“Seriously Peter, one more acronym from you and we’ll leave you standing high and dry. You can pack your own food,” quipped Bonnie.

“High and dry? You mean H-N-D,” replied Pete.

Bonnie leaned over and smacked Pete on the shoulder, and she kept smacking him until he turned and hugged her, pinning her arms to her side. He began kissing her face and she squealed. Everyone found it funny, and the room filled with laughter and witty side-bar comments. At one point during the fun, the kids stuck their heads into the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about. They quickly left again when they saw it was nothing but dull adult silliness. For all Pete and Bonnie’s distracting antics, John knew it was good to blow off a little steam. Finally, when John cleared his throat, everyone returned to the business at hand.