Shelter: Book 2, A Long Days Night (37 page)

“No, he’s loose and inside. We needed his ‘cell’ for our two female guests.”

“How are they doing?”

“They’re trying to adjust to shall we say, a new reality, one that doesn’t get them special treatment in exchange for their bodies.”

“Do you think they’ll realize they have a second chance?”

“I hope so. I think I shocked the hell out of them when I shot their friend.”

“Don’t blame yourself, it needed to be done.”

“I haven’t lost any sleep over it. This is a different world. A real Brave New World.”

Fred looks at me, “Jay, my gut says we’re going to be spending a long days night. We’re going to be living in darkness for a long time.”

“Fred, then we’ll make our own light. We’ll be one of the first lights of a new America, a new country.”

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Shortly after dinner and the President’s speech, Tony knocks on my door frame, “Tony, come in.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Your ring, you always knock with the ring. What’s up?”

“Jay, I wanted to confirm with you the payment structure for the Lowes supplies.”

“I was thinking about that, I’m glad you stopped by to see me. Why are we paying the General Manager for the supplies versus trading him supplies for security? He can stay here with us. We’ll use his supplies to strengthen the farm, he and his family can live inside our compound.”

“Jay, what if he doesn’t want to move his family inside the compound?”

“Once he understands what we’re planning, he will. You did.”

“Let’s say he has other ideas, are you going to pay him?”

“Tony, is there a General Manager or are the supplies in one of your warehouses?”

“Jay,,,”

“Tony, thank you. I now know you own them and were going to charge me for them. All this time I thought we were friends. I thought we trusted each other and put aside the pre-meltdown BS. I never expected that when you think it’s safe to raise your head, you will try to put the screws to me. I guess once a mobster, always a mobster. Tony, you've really done it this time.”

“Jay, listen to me, everyone has to learn and prepare for the future.  This is a once in a lifetime chance. Why don’t I make you a partner?”

“Tony, I don’t want to be your partner in milking money from my neighbors. I’m happy to be your partner in other ventures, but milking our own neighbors, the people who we fought next to? The people we’ve been living with for all of this time? The people who lost their homes, their family treasures and all you want to do is take advantage of their suffering? I’m really disgusted. I think this would be a very good time for you to leave me alone for a while.”

“Jay, let me explain this a different way…”

“Tony, let me put it very clearly, please leave and don’t approach me again. If I have anything to say, I’ll come find you.”

“Jay, you’re making a mistake, you don’t understand my motives…”

“Tony, please before I say or do something I’m going to regret.”

Tony backs out of my room, he picks up one of his men in the hallway as he walks to his room. A few minutes later, Lacy arrives, she looks at me asking, “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Lace, I don’t want to talk about it right now. Maybe later, right now, I want to digest what I just heard.

“Did I just see Tony leaving?”

“Lace, please not right now.”

“OK, I passed Franco, who said he would like to see you. Something about plans to review with you.”

“OK, that’s what I need. Something to take my mind off of the last ten minutes. Did he say where he wanted to meet?”

“He suggested the mess hall in fifteen minutes, he said the blueprints are large.”

Laughing, “I remember the ones he brought for the shelter. They were in rolls. I thought he did them one to one scale. I’ll go see what he’s got in mind. Want to come?”

“No thanks, I don’t understand blueprints. You know what I want, I trust you not to screw it up.”

“I know, if I screw the design up, you’ll make me pay.”

We hug each other laughing. “I’m going to find Franco. Please do me a favor, if Tony returns, tell him, I was serious.”

“Just that?”

“He’ll understand.”

“OK, if I’m not here when you return check at Fred and Cheri’s.”

“Will do. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I find Franco in the mess hall holding a few rolled up paper drawings. “Franco, what have you got?”

“Jay, let me show you. I looked at your foundation and your idea of building a new house of reinforced concrete. I have to tell you, I like it. The house will have thick enough walls with foam insulation in between the layers of concrete to help keep the house warm in the winter. The thick walls will keep the house cool in the summer, as the thick walls with insulation in between the layers won’t be fully warmed by the sun, even on the hottest summer days. The thickness will also make the house, except for the windows, bullet-proof.”

“Franco, I had a thought about that. What if we don’t build normal windows? What if we used slit windows to provide very few places bullets could enter the house and these we place high on the walls.”

“Jay, the house will be very dark without windows.”

“I’m assuming we can rebuild the windmills and solar panels to provide electrical service. The marine batteries from our old house are still in the basement which was untouched by the twister.”

“I’ll look into changing the windows and placing solar panels on the roof. I think we can build a tower, like in a castle with a windmill on top of it. Placing the windmill so high will almost ensure it’s in the wind and make it hard for any attacker to take them down.”

“Franco, look into some way of covering them in case of another storm.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“How do we stand on the supplies we’re going to need to build the house?”

“Jay, I looked at the inventory Tony supplied us with from his friend’s warehouse, we can rebuild the entire community and even expand the shelter with them.”

“Franco, where do we stand if for some reason his friend changes his mind?”

“We have a lot of concrete and reinforcing rods, we can build you a hell of a house, it’s the other families I worry about. We need sheets of plywood and sheetrock for them.”

“Do you know of another Home Depot or Lowes?”

“Yes, but they are further away.”

“I suggest we form an away team to check them out. They may have items we need.”

“Good idea, I’ll send my sons there tomorrow.”

“Excellent.  Let’s meet again tomorrow.”

“OK Jay, I’ll work on the window change tonight.”

If Franco is correct, I’ll have a Feudal Lord’s home in the twenty-first century to go along with the shelter. We should be safe here for a very long time.

I return to our room with a large smile on my face. Lacy asks, “Jay, you look happy, I should send you out to play with Franco more often. How is the design of the new house?”

“Castle my lady, castle.”

“Huh?”

“We’re not going to build a house, we’re going to build a castle. It’s going to be made out of reinforced concrete. It will be almost bullet proof and very hard to break into. I’m thinking of a moat and drawbridge.”

“Jay, you’re crazy, what’s next metal armor and lances for everyone and horses? Are we going to be the new knights of a new roundtable?”

“Don’t laugh it might come to that. Fuel is impossible to find. How are we going to get around if the current situation lasts? Our cars are going to be useless. If things stay like this for a long time, we’re going to run out of bullets. We can make gun powder and cast bullets, but the variables are going to make accurate shooting difficult. We might end up fighting with bows and arrows, maybe even broadswords.”

“I get it, we’re going to live in a castle, we’re going to have knights, as a little girl I always dreamed of being a princess, I just didn’t expect to have it happen at this stage in my life.”

“Honey, better late than never.”

We hug each other to break the tension.

Chapter 27

Three weeks after venturing out of their shelter for the first time, most families have cleaned out their homes, two have been repaired with two in progress. Tony provided some of the needed supplies trying to work his way back to my good side. Franco’s sons found a Home Depot that was untouched, they brought back truckloads to us. More could have been completed if I hadn’t demanded some of the adults stand guard duty any time they were outside of the shelter. The group found that only one of the barns had been broken into, the others remained safely fortified, refusing to give up their treasure. The group had vehicles and their buried fuel tanks. Tony tried to make amends by donating most of the supplies needed to rebuild the group’s homes. I haven’t spoken to Tony in the three weeks which has become very noticeable to the other families. All wanted to know what happened, the only two people who knew for sure weren’t talking. Most of the families gave up asking and just accepted that something happened and it was none of their business.

Our building site has been cleared, Franco and his sons have begun the new walls of our new house which we decided to expand from the previous seven thousand square feet. Franco and I decided on an even twelve thousand square feet, the extra space will be used for extra bedrooms and storage rooms. Franco is building the house by forming sections of each wall, using a crane to lift and place the section of wall in place. The walls are twenty inches thick with 6 inches of foam insulation separating the two sections, each ten inches thick. The two wall sections are held together with cement, large bolts and wire straps. I got my way over Lacy’s objections for small windows high on the walls, the windows have wire screens embedded in them to block anything being thrown through the glass and entering the house. The original floor plan was repeated except the five thousand square foot addition which is being added behind the main house and connected to the house by a walkway. Each section of the home can be safely closed off from the other.

Franco built a three-foot-square section of the new walls so they could test it. We set up the wall section behind the house, he was surrounded by everyone in the community. I fired an AR 15, AK 47, M16, M4, M1, shotguns and every handgun we had. No round penetrated the new wall, making me smile. In a few weeks, when the walls and roof were completed we’re going to have a bullet and fireproof house. John sarcastically said, “Christ Jay, are you sure the wall is strong enough? It’s taken every round we have without any breaking through.”

I smiled, “John, I like it. We’ll have no worries about anyone shooting through our walls or burning us out, we can all be safe here if a worst-case situation arises.”

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Two miles away Captain Sarnoff heard the shooting, “Halt. Did anyone else hear the gunshots?”

His first sergeant replies, “Captain, yes, very strange, one or two rounds from different guns. I heard an M16, a shotgun, and different handguns.”

Another soldier says, “Me too, why single shots?”

Sarnoff pauses to think, he says, “What if someone is testing something.”

Nikita asks, “You mean like armor? Is it possible to make homemade body armor?”