Final Dawn: Escape From Armageddon (9 page)

     But even though diesel was considerably safer, it was still dangerous. So the Snyder brothers went overboard on caution. Better to be too cautious than to be dead, they reasoned.

     The other 140 tanks would be plac
ed a few bays down, in Bay 15. This would be the main water supply. The first tanks, already in place, were already being filled.

     When Mark entered the mine this day, he checked on the progress of water tank number two.

     The previous tank, tank one, had taken two full days to fill, with a continuously running water hose from a water tap in front of the mine. They’d had to string eight garden hoses together to stretch to the back of the mine. It was city water, coming out of the water plant in nearby Kerrville. They expected to get clobbered on the mine’s water bills the next few months as they filled up all 140 tanks. But that’s okay. They had the money to pay for it.

     Mark would check the water level in the tanks once each day when coming to work, and again before he went home. When a tank was close to getting full, he’d check it more often. At the rate they were going, they’d have plenty of time to fill all 140 before impact. And those 140 water tanks represented seven years of life for the forty.

     While Mark was puttering around the mine, waiting for the air horns that would signal the arrival of today’s tank deliveries,
Bryan was at the warehouse down the highway, unloading a truck from Symco Foods. The 53-foot trailer had backed up just over an hour before, with 24 pallets of food and paper goods. Each pallet measured 48 inches long and 40 inches wide, and stood about six feet high.

     This load, like the one that came in the day prior, would be lined up in the receiving bay. Once
all the pallets were off the truck, the driver would provide Bryan an invoice, and Bryan would call off each item.

     “Rice, 25 pound bag.”
Bryan said. “Twenty.”

     The driver would find the rice
bags on the pallets, show them to Bryan, and Bryan would mark them off the list.

     “Toilet Paper, 48 count case.
Bryan said. “Twelve.”

     “Check.”

     “Ramen Noodles, Beef, 96 count case. Twelve.”

     “Check.”

     The pallets were wrapped with clear plastic shrink wrap, which allowed the markings on all boxes to be read easily. The workers at the Symco Foods distribution center were experts at stacking the pallets so that everything was visible from the outside. Only occasionally did Bryan and the driver have to break into the pallets to look for a missing box packed on the inside.

     Once the invoice was signed and the driver departed,
Bryan would pull his own rig out of the west parking area and back it up to the truck pit.

     Then he’d jump on a 4,000 lb Hyster forklift and load the new pallets into the back of his trailer.

     Once loaded, he would call Mark to make sure there weren’t any truck drivers at the mine who might ask too many questions.

     Given the all clear from Mark,
Bryan would drive to the mine, into the entryway, and would park in the main corridor.

     I
n the main corridor, Bryan would climb aboard another Hyster forklift, the identical twin of the one he’d been on half an hour earlier. He would take the first two pallets from the end of the truck and place them in the food storage area at the back of Bay 9.

     After the first two pallets were off-loaded, Mark would lend his brother a hand
.

     Mark would climb aboard the back of the trailer with a heavy chain and wrap it around the center piece of wood on
the next two pallets. He’d then attach the other end of the chain to the rack on the front of the forklift, and hop back down while Bryan dragged the next two pallets to the door of the trailer.

     They’d repeat the same process for the next two pallets.

     Once the first six pallets of food and paper goods were off the truck, Bryan would use the forklift to lift a pallet jack onto the back of the trailer. Mark would use the pallet jack to take the rest of the pallets to the end.

     It was this met
hod the brothers used, after some trial and error, to unload several trailers a week full of dry foods, paper goods, and other supplies, into the back of the mine’s food storage area. And they were getting pretty good at it now. The two of them could now unload a truck in under an hour. Twenty four pallets of lifesaving food and supplies.

     It wouldn’t all be dried beans and spaghetti noodles, of course.

     They planned to stock a variety of foods. So they ordered all of the dry stock first- the foods that wouldn’t go bad.

     The next step would be to
order the frozen goods. They were building two huge freezer units. One was at the mouth of the mine. The other was at the feed store. Each freezer kit was identical, and was ordered from a company in Pittsburgh. They were like big erector sets, really. Each had dozens of four-inch thick insulated steel panels, which bolted into place. Ceiling panels held the walls in place and added stability.

     The last step was to install four huge
condensing units inside each freezer, which would keep the temperature at a constant twenty degrees, and would keep their food edible for several years.

     When completed, each of the two freezers would measure forty
by thirty feet, with 1200 feet of floor space. Each would have a sliding door which would allow a small forklift to drive in and out of it.

     And each would store a
lot of food.

     After all the dry foods were safely stored, and after both freezers were full of frozen food, the third step would be to buy canned goods. Lots and lots of them.

     Symco’s distribution center stocked hundreds of different foods in large, number 10 cans. These were the type of cans that supermarkets usually carried in that out-of-the-way aisle that were as big as a man’s head.

     So, first, the pasta, then the frozen stuff. Then cases and cases of canned Ravioli and tuna fish and vegetables. And when they were done, they’d have plenty of food to keep the forty fed.

-18
-

JUNE 3, 2014.       19 MONTHS UNTIL IMPACT

     Sarah and Hannah decided to stop at Carino’s to celebrate. They both loved lasagna, and they figured they deserved a nice lunch after finally crossing the last item off of their shopping lists.

     They had become so
weary of seeing the same tired cashiers at Walmart for months. Using the same blue shopping carts with the wheels that went “thump, thump, thump” as they pushed them up and down the same, tired aisles.

     “Here’s to us, and to the end
of our joint reign as the Walmart queens!” Sarah said, as she raised a glass of iced tea.

     Hannah said “Yes, and good riddance to you, big blue box store, now and forever,” as she toasted Sarah’s glass with her own.

     The next step in the girls’ quest would be to design the layout for the mine. The boys had tried to do it, but had screwed it up badly. They had put the food storage bay a hundred feet away from the bay which would hold the kitchen and dining room.

     “
Hello! Duh…” Hannah had chastised them. “I mean, what were you thinking?”

     Then they put
the kids’ playground in the bay far away from the sleeping and living quarters.

     Sarah had some heartburn with this one. “Why would you expect a five year old to have to walk two hundred yards to ride a swing? It makes no sense.”

     Men, as all women know, can be so stupid sometimes. So the girls fired them from the layout and furnishing side of the project, the men hung their heads in shame and went on to other tasks. Tasks they weren’t so likely to screw up.

     “So what’s next on our agenda?” Sarah asked her friend.

     Hannah responded. “How about we design the common areas around the RVs? Make them look like a back yard. Install some artificial grass, and some patio tables. We could even put some patio umbrellas in the center of the tables, to cut out some of that harsh light.”

     Sarah added some ideas of her own. “How about some playground equipment in the common areas? Not a full-blown monster
piece, like we’ll have in the play bay, but maybe a slide, or a small backyard swing set, or something?”

     “Ooh, ooh,” Hannah countered. “And how about a small pla
yhouse for the children as well? They could play even if they didn’t want to go all the way to the play bay.”

     So, by the time the girls had finished their lunch and walked out of Carino’s, they already had their next mission in mind.

     But that was for tomorrow. For now, they planned to go unload their last batch of Walmart goods and take the afternoon off. After all, they deserved it.

     “What do you want to do?” Hannah asked.

     “I want to do some shopping. But for us this time. Some real shopping. And my nails look like hell.”

     T
hey climbed into their vehicles laughing like schoolgirls who had just finished a long and difficult school project.

-19-

     One of the things Sarah had mastered in college was Auto-Cad, an architectural design program. At one time the whole concept of building design had so fascinated her that she had given thought to becoming an architect. She had taken several courses to that end, until the stars and planets captured her heart in the same way they’d captured Hannah’s.

     Using her Auto-Cad skills, Sarah designed the layout for the interior of the mine. She had to work around certain things, of course. Mark had insisted that the security center be facing the main entry. She didn’t understand why, until he explained that he’d already run miles and miles of coax and telephone cables to that area. To extend them with additional add-on cables would degrade their strength, Mark said.

     Sarah wasn’t an engineer and didn’t know beans about signal strength or why that was important for security cameras, so she just took his word for it.

     She also had to work around
Bay 11, where Mark had set up the “Walmart,” Bay 9, where Bryan was putting all the food stores, Bay 15, which held the water tanks, and Bay 20, which held the diesel.

     Hannah wasn’t familiar with Auto-Cad, and looked over Sarah’s shoulder with some fascination as she designed a common-sense layout for the mine.

     Hannah said “You’d think that an engineer and a master electrician would try to lay out a floor plan before they just took off on a project, wouldn’t you?”

     Sarah laughed and replied “Yes, but you have to remember that these are the same guys who would never, ever, ask for directions if they were lost. And the same guys who insist they can put anything together without ever looking at the instructions, and then wonder why they have pieces left over.”

     “Yeah, I guess you’re right. You’d think they’d be better at planning.”

     “But really, what do you expect?” Sarah said. “After all, they’re only men…”

     When Sarah was finished she printed out several copies of the mine layout. She passed a copy to each of the other three over dinner to see if they had any questions.

     They didn’t, and Mark and Bryan were secretly impressed that there was
finally some method to their madness. For months they’d been talking about all of the things that they had to cram into the mine, but had no real plan on where to organize everything. Now, thanks to Sarah, they did.

     Under Sarah’s plan, Bays 1 through
4 would be reserved for living quarters.

     On the eastern edge of the main corridor, outside of
Bay 1, they would paint a large circle on the floor. Twelve feet across, this would become the “dog park,” and all family dogs would be trained to use it. Mark’s brother in law Mike, Debbie’s husband, was a professional dog trainer, so he’d be asked to make this happen. All dog owners would be asked to take turns cleaning up the mess periodically, and a large 55 gallon drum would be placed adjacent to the park to hold the waste.

    
Bay 5 would have a playground, complete with a mammoth piece of playground equipment, a sandbox, and a handful of tricycles, bicycles, skateboards and scooters.

    Bay 6 would hold four small modular buildings, each about twelve feet square. One would hold a clinic, and would be equipped with a tiny exam room and a doctor’s office.

     The second building would provide space for
Mark’s brother-in-law David, their resident dentist. At some point they would get a wish list from him and would order all the equipment needed to get through seven years’ worth of dental needs.

     The other two buildings would be one-room school houses. One for little kids and one for teens.

     The first fifty feet or so of Bay 7 would contain a wide variety of pool tables, ping pong tables and foosball tables. Lining each wall would be several full-sized arcade games, and in the center would be three entertainment centers, each with a large television and video game consoles.