PARDIGAM SHIFT. copywrite Cleman Simpson, this material may not be reproduced or sold without consent of the author
CHAPTER ONE; THE QUICK AND THE DEAD
2 Timothy 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.
March 6th , 200.....
In hindsight I guess we did get some warning, but it was not anything most of us recognized at the time. The only things unusual in the news that day were that the new Pope had given a speech from the Vatican saying the Catholic Church was reversing its stance on abortion and birth control due to world overpopulation, and that the first cloned baby of a human had been born. I had watched the Pope's address live on C-span and came away with the distinct impression he was homosexual. Not that it was unusual for homosexuals to be among the Catholic preisthood or that I had anything against them, but I had never thought they would name one as Pope. Cloning humans set my teeth on edge, the potential abuses were too horrible to even contemplate.
In other news China was raising cain about us selling advanced destroyers to Taiwan and was deploying yet more missiles along the coast. Nothing new there. Russia was threatening to sell ICBM's on the open market unless we bailed out their economy for the umpteenth time in the last fifteen or twenty years. It was nothing they hadn't said before. In the western states more herds of cattle were being slaughtered and burned in a doomed effort to stop mad cow disease. Opec was raising the price of oil again, that ought to put us over two bucks a gallon and summer was still months away. NASA's latest Mars mission had dissapeared into space. The Dow had hit 7000 and the Nasdaq was at 1200. Gold had hit 658 dollars an ounce and several of the larger banks were under chapter eleven protection with the rest promising to file by the end of the week. On the brighter side the weather man was forecasting a week of sunshine after two weeks of steady rain.
My wife Amy had turned in early after a hard day at the office, working up a bid on a contract I was submiting for. The economy had been slow for months and we were having to cut our cost and profit magins to the bone just to keep the company afloat. She was depressed over our financial situation after stopping at the grocery store on the way home and paying five dollars a pound for hamburger meat and fourteen dollars for a small fryer. Enough food to last the two of us three days had cost her nearly sixty dollars and we hadn't eaten a steak in months. She said ribeyes were going for upwards of forty dollars each. I wondered what exactly the government was using for reference points in their consumer price index. We had reached the point it was costing a thousand dollars a week to maintain a lifestyle considerably more barren than we had been accustomed to living for a third of that and still they insisted inflation was under control. I couldn't imagine how the people in Europe were surviving.
For the past thirty minutes I had been on the computer chatting with my oldest daughter. She was excited about a new job she had gotten at Dallas Regional Hospital. Her mother, my ex wife Jenny, was a nurse on staff there and had gotton her on as a nurses aid while she finished her college courses for LVN. She promised she would be down to meet with my other daughter Maggie here at Easter, and we would all go to my grandfathers old church to visit his grave. She had recieved the locket I sent her two days before and loved it, which is what I mainly wanted to hear.
After we got offline I called Maggie to tell her Nicole was coming for sure, and asked her if the necklace I had sent had arrived. "Yes dad, it's beautiful. But yall shouldn't have done it, I know this must have cost a fortune." she said.
"It was Amy's idea, when you were down Christmas and kept talking about paw paw after we got back from the cemetary, she got to thinking we should go ahead and pass his stuff along to you and Nicole. We went through it and found paw paw's old gold pocket watch and grandma Maggies wedding rings, but couldn't decide which of you should get what. Amy suggested we have them made into the lockets for you each, a matching set. Paw Paw had requested he be buried with his ring on, but he carried that old watch every day for decades. So I guess in a way they still symbolize the continuity of his marriage and the legacy of family he has passed along to you both."
"That was sweet of Amy dad, but this must have cost a fortune and I know your work is slow right now, everybody's is. Can I talk to Amy for a minute? I want to say thanks."
"I'm afraid she's already gone to bed honey, I'll have her call you tomorrow evening when you get home from college though if you'd like."
"Ok, that will be fine. I'll be so glad when I finish this up and get my teaching certificate this fall. I'm exhausted from working eight hours a day and going to classes for four more every afternoon." She said. I felt a flash of guilt, not having been able to send her enough money to live on while she was in school, but it simply wasn't there to send. We had already exhausted our IRA's and took a hard hit on our taxes for doing it, and I'd had to put a new undercarriage on the dozer last month which cost a small fortune.
"I know it's been hard Maggie. I'm sorry I haven't been able to help more. Maybe things will pick up once the dry weather sets in and I can send more money your way. I would lay off Tommy but he has a wife and son to feed and he's always been a good hand when I had the work to keep him busy. He'd also be hard to replace once things do pick back up, good help is hard to find."
"No dad, I'm not complaining about your not sending more money. God knows just making my car payments has been enough, more than I have any right to ask for. I don't want you feeling guilty on my account, I should have worked harder when I was in school and gotten a scholarship instead of running with the crowd and trying to be popular. We all have to pay for our mistakes in life, if you have taught me anything over the years it's that."
"Well if you get into a bind call me, I can still sell off some of my gun collection if we need to. They're just gathering dust in the safe anyway, Amy and I hardly ever go shooting anymore." I said.
Maggie laughed and replied. "Don't tell me after all these years you're going to quit on the survivalist movement, they may fold and go under without you."
I laughed with her and replied, "I said some, not all. I don't think I could bear to part with our AR-15's. But seriously Maggie, it's a dangerous world out there, even though the veneer of civilization here in this country mask it to most. I wish you would at least keep a couple of hundred pounds of rice and beans in reserve, they don't cost much and they last for years. It's durn cheap insurance, especially for a young single girl like you living so far out in the country."
She sighed and said, "We've been through all this before dad, I hate beans. But I did buy a few cases of water to set back, my well pump goes on the blink at least once a month and I got tired of having to drive fifteen miles for a drink while I am waiting for Mr. Simmons to get it fixed. He's pretty old and doesn't get in any hurry about anything."
"You ought to get some fifty gallon barrells and fill them up like we...." she cut me off. "DAD."
I laughed and said, "Ok, honey, I'll drop it. Have you found a new boyfriend yet?"
"I don't have time for a boyfriend dad. There's a guy at work who's pestering me for a date but I'm not interested in being some guys shack up or steady squeeze. When the right man comes along you'll be the first to know."
"Ok, Maggie, I'm glad you got your head on straight with this. You have plenty of time to make the right choice, just don't make the same mistake your mother and I did getting married too young and burying ourselves in debt before we even had a chance. I wish I'd had your level head when I was your age, but then again I don't guess we'd be having this conversation if I had. I guess every dark cloud really does have a silver lining."
She started to say something in reply but a sonic boom rattled the dishes in the china cabinet, followed instantly by the roar of jet engines at low altitude. As they diminshed Maggie said, "What was that?"
"Some hotdog out of Barksdale I guess. He'll probably get his butt fried for making that sonic boom over a populated area. Well I guess I better let you get to bed for the night. We'll give you a call tomorrow."
"Ok, Dad, tell Amy I said hi and give her my love. You take care of yourself and I love you."
"I love you too honey, goodnight." I waited till I heard the click of the phone then hung up, feeling better after talking to her.
I was sitting in front of the tube watching the late local news when a double flash of light like an arc welder striking illuminated the curtains and a thunderclap rattled the windows. The lights flared for a split second and some of the bulbs popped as the power failed. The smell of ozone and overheated electronics wafted through the house as I dug in the desk drawer for a flashlight. In the distance I could hear and feel the reverbations of explosions as lightning type flashes lit the night horizon. I stepped out onto the front porch, and noted the nearly full moon in the crystal clear sky, and the flaming wreckage of the transformer on the pole.
The explosions in the distance had subsided but I could plainly see the glow of fires burning and columns of smoke beginning to rise. As I turned to call the fire department a blindingly bright light filled the sky to the west, joined almost immediately by others to the east and southwest. It was brighter than high noon outside, so bright I had to shield my eyes even facing into the house. I knew what it was. My soul jerked spasmodically in my body, horrified at the deaths of millions, including Nicole, memorialized in the ashes.
Everything seemed to slow down. I had to get Amy up and under some kind of shelter. Racing to the bedroom I nearly mowed her down as she came through the darkened doorway, all I could see were red splotches. "Get in the closet!" I screamed at her, as another brilliant flash, this one close, turned the darkened room into the surface of the sun. Strobing electric blue stuttered through the hand I cast up to shield my eyes. The outlines of the bones clear as an x ray. Blind as a bat I pawed for the closet doorknob, thrusting Amy inside just as the shock wave disentigrated the bedroom windows. I felt my right eardrum rupture even as I was hurled into the closet by the force of the concussion on the open door. Luckily it shielded me from the flying glass daggers, but the door struck me a heavy blow on my left leg as it slammed shut. We were sprawled in the closet floor entangled in clothes which had torn loose from the hangers when the smell of smoke drifted in. The house was burning. "What in the world is happening?" Amy screamed.
"Somebody finally pushed the button," I shouted back, "It's a nuclear attack. Stay here while I see what's on fire." I flung open the door and fought my way across the debris littering the house to the kitchen, grabbing a fire extinguisher out of the cupboard by feel, still half blind. Broken glass crunched underfoot as I made a quick run through the house, seeking the fire. All the windows were gone, blinds hanging tattered, curtains shredded. The ones in the east facing bedroom were burning on the floor. I decided to save the extinguisher and using the curtain rod threw them out the shattered windows onto the ground, then ran around and dragged them away from the house. The paint on the east side of the house was scorched and what few shingles that remained were smoking a little, but nothing else appeared to be burning.
The view to the east was a look into hell. It looked exactly like the dreams I had been having for years. I could see the area five miles away where Tommy lived with the trees now gone, it was awash in flame. I prayed it had been quick and painless. It appeared the nuke had gone off roughly over the city of Longview, about ten miles to the east of us.
Fire raged as far as the horizon, underlighting a still growing mushroom cloud which was not dissapating in the still night sky. The moon had turned red, red as blood. I could see fire growing in the old vacant house down the road, part of its roof caved in by the concussion. A single jet fighter thundered over at low altitude, his afterburners glowing. He was headed southwest, towards Mexico. I limped back in the house and told Amy to start cleaning out the big double closet, but she was crying and unresponsive. I sat down beside her on the floor and held her to my chest, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head. "Look baby, we have got to get sheltered, the radiation will cut through this house like it isn't even here. If we don't get started immediately we'll be dead in just a few days at the most. If you will just clean the stuff out of the closet I'll gather up some supplies and see if I can seal the windows. You've got to be strong now, we will mourn later."
Amy finally nodded and wiped her eyes. "Ok, Nick, I'm getting a handle on it now." I stood back up and she started throwing stuff out of the large double closet, centrally located in the house. I gathered up bedding, food, lights, radio, batteries, etc. to put in with us. I was glad I had kept the shortwave and the portable AM-FM packed in the steel trash can just in case this ever really did happen, protecting them from the electromagnetic pulse.
When she had the project well underway and had calmed down enough to work alone I went to the garage and got some sheets of panelling to nail over the windows, then taped sheets of plastic over that. By the time I had finished Amy had drug the mattress off the bed into the closet and had what we absolutely needed, lights and water inside. I kicked a panel out of the closet door and taped the hepa filter out of the bedroom window air conditioner over it, then took the one from the big airconditioner in the living room and taped it over the hatchway in the closet which led to the attic.
She had hung the battery powered coleman lantern from the back clothes rack and the closet shelves were full of snack food, colas, bottled water and medicines. Within an hour of the initial explosions we were sealed into the closet with two weeks worth of water and food, and several buckets for waste positioned in the next room. I thanked God we had been spared, and for the fact I always keep my emergency water topped off. And I prayed for the dead. As I lay in the dark holding Amy all I could see in my mind was Nicoles and Maggies beautiful faces. I was fairly confident Maggie was ok, considering where she lived, but that didn't stop me form worrying over her.
I don't know when I finally drifted off to sleep, but when I wakened Amy was in my arms shivering and crying softly. My shoulder was damp from her tears and muted daylight was showing under the door jamb. I lay still for another hour until Amy wakened, just holding her tight to me. I wondered how big the attack had been, pretty large I figured if they had bothered to hit the medium sized city of Longview nearby. The city had some wartime type industry but it had to have been pretty far down on any target list. It was almost a certainty the flashes to the West had been Dallas-Ft. Worth going up in smoke, along with my daughter Nicole. I was trembling in rage at the thought, somebody would pay for this, if it took me the rest of my life. But for now my main goal had to be keeping us alive long enough to reach Maggie.
My leg was bruised badly and dried blood was caked on the side of my face from leaking out of my ear. Every time I exhaled I could hear air rushing through my right eardrum, and that whole side of my head hurt. Amy poked a cotton ball in my ear and cleaned the blood off my face for me as I wondered how much radiation we were getting, but there was simply no way to know. A lot, I figured, we had to get better shielding. When we were remodeling I had used lead impregnated sheetrock on the closet walls and roof, along with the back side of the door, the kind they use in x-ray rooms, but I wasn't confident at all it would stop the kind of radiation we would be getting when the fallout from the west reached us. Thinking on it I realized the only way to go was down. Straight down.
The house is pier and beam, an old frame farmhouse built shortly after the turn of the century of native white oak with a high peaked roof. From the walls of the closet the exterior walls are about twenty-five feet away in three directions, forty in the fourth. Well nothing to do but dig, we best get at it. I explained to Amy what I was going to do and she started pulling the stuff back out of the closet floor as I got dressed to go outside.
I put on my rainsuit slicker and rubber boots, then donned an Israli gas mask. I had bought a pair of them from the army navy store to use when I sprayed for termites and pest, and truth be told as an emergency item in the event the terrorist biological attacks they were always talking about actually came to pass. I also had potassium iodide tablets which we had started on the night before. Supposedly they blocked the absorbtion of radiation by the thyroid gland and helped prevent radiation sickness. Maybe all the kidding I had taken over the years for being a survivalist was going to be redeemed. I also strapped on my .45 automatic before going out to the garage and fetching my chain saw, two shovels, more plastic sheeting, some rope, and a bucket. I listened for any traffic while I was outside but heard nothing. The smoke was still rising off towards Longview, but the house down the street had pretty much burned itself out.
I came in through the back porch door and shed my boots and raingear, then through the porch door into the house itself. Using the chainsaw I ripped a four by four hole in the floor towards the back of the closet, then jumped in and began to dig, throwing the dirt around three edges of the hole underneath the house to build a berm. After a couple of hours the berm was complete, I was about four feet down, and the ground was getting harder as I encountered a seam of clay.
After taking a break I began tunneling back under the remaining closet floor, putting the dirt into the bucket and passing it to Amy to dump on the closet floor above. With the four feet of hole depth and the space of the house piering, I was about six and a half feet deep and making slow progress digging eastward. Finally I was exhausted, and Amy jumped into the hole to spell me off. Working in tandem we managed to excavate another four or five feet back by dark, and the dirt in the closet floor was now several feet thick. Enough until tomorrow, we layed the plastic sheeting in the hole, lined the walls, and settled in for the night. Tired, filthy, bruised, and battered, but still fighting.
Day two: I woke before daylight, so sore I can barely move. Every piece of my body hurts, and I creak when I move. The cotton in my ear has helped my eardrum, at least it doesn't whistle dixie when I breathe. Amy hasn't spoken since last night unless I ask her a direct question. As we sit in the darkness I hear something bang in the yard, and it instantly gets my adrenaline off the scale. "Stay here, I'll be right back." I said to Amy. I handed her the .45 automatic and grabbing my AR-15 I rushed out the door, shouldering the rifle as I exited the house. A singed and crazy looking doberman was knocking over my trash cans. He turned and bared his fangs at me, growling deep in his chest. I shot him in the head.
The gunshot was extraordinarily loud in the silence, reinforcing the fact we hadn't heard a car or plane since the night before last, and nothing but static on the radio. I wished I hadn't had to shoot the dog. Now I had to get rid of it. I donned my improvised radiation suit again and dumped the trash out of the overturned can, inserted the dog, then taped the lid shut with duct tape. Maybe that will contain the smell and keep off the flies until I can stay out longer. Amy had watched the whole thing without uttering a sound from the doorway, the .45 hanging loosley in her hand. I know what she is thinking. Her entire family lived in Ft. Worth. She was slowly going into withdrawal and I was at a loss how to snap her out of it.
I went in the house and made coffee on the coleman stove, then resumed digging. I had to cut another hole in the floor by lunch, this one in the bedroom over the extended hole. It was slowing me down too much to have to carry the dirt back to Amy at the old hole and I wanted her down inside with me where the radiation would be less. I had drug the barbque pit into the back porch room, and the the meat from the fridge was slow smoking on it. I went in to check on it and put Amy's favorite tape in the portable cassette player. It was full of blank spots, I guess the EMP had partially erased it. Looking out the door I could see flakes of ash falling like grey snow. I guessed the fallout from Dallas had arrived, so I got back in the hole with Amy and left the meat to smoke.
I was worried sick over my family, as was Amy over hers. I wanted to take some of the radiation pills to our neighbors, but I kept hoping some of the family members would show up and we'd need them. The days drug by, still no sounds of traffic, no radio signals, just a hole in the dirt and a wife who I feared was slowly losing her mind. Two weeks spent in a plastic lined dirt hole under the double closet. Two weeks of static puntuated by flashes of intense white noise on all radio bands. We only went out long enough to relieve ourselves and to bring more bottled water and food back inside. Every couple of days I would pour water for Amy while she washed her hair and then she would do the same for me. I was afraid we would get lice sleeping in the hole.
The stench was unrelenting. All the cattle in the pasture had died and their ripening carcasses rotted uneaten even by buzzards in the field. I guess the buzzards had died too. I had only one case of filters for our Israeli gas mask, and couldn't squander them to quelch odor, so we used Vicks under our noses. No cars, no trains, no planes broke the silence, only occaisional gunshots in the distance. After the second week Amy started talking again. I was worried for several days she was going catatonic on me.
I had killed time in the hole by working on my CAR-15. Using a set of plans downloaded off the internet pre Y-2k I had built a simple device called a lightning link with my portable drill, hacksaw, and some needle files. Basically it was just an old bottle opener with a couple of holes in it and the ends cut off, then another small piece made from a piece of a saw blade which inserted through the rear hole. It just dropped into the action and converted it to full automatic.
When I had finished with that and tested it I started in prying the flares out of rounds for my 37 mm Bushmaster grenade launcher and refilling them with a little extra powder and bundles of flechettes wrapped in newspaper and sealed watertight with candle wax. The Bushmaster is a large shotgun barrell that mounts under the rifle barrel of the AR-15. It has a separate trigger which is right in front of the rifles magazine, which acts as the pistol grip when firing it. Both the lightning link and the flechette loads were illegal, but I didn't figure the ATF was going to be coming around checking after all this. But the Russian army might, and I wanted to be ready to give them a warm welcome. There was also the impending threat of starving looters. It wouldn't be long before people started to get desperate. Amy wasn't too interested in what I was doing, she was reading her Bible and crying a lot.
There was still not a flicker of electricity, nor any dial tone. Nor had anyone come around to check on us. The trucks and the car were all unstartable, but the generator and the four wheeler both ran. I guess the alminum storage building shielded them enough from the EMP to limit the damage to their electronics. I have a spare alternator and distributer ignition for the old truck packed in a steel trash can in the alminum shed, but have feared to spend enough time outdoors to install it. And we could be hit again at any time.
I rode the four wheeler down to the only neighbors we have on this rural cul de sac and gave them some potassium iodide and a jug of unscented bleach to purify water. I had finally given up on Nicole or any of Amy's family showing up, If they hadn't made it by now they weren't coming. It was a half minute drive, clad in knee high rubber boots, gas mask, rain slicker, and rubber gloves. I don't know them, just have spoken a few times when we met at the mail boxes at the end of the road. They live past us in rental property at the end of the road and this was the first time I had ever been to their place.
There were two houses, one a frame farmhouse similar to our own, the other a nearly demolished trailer knocked off its blocks. The father, 10 year old son, and now dead mother (Killed by flying glass in the attack) lived in the frame. I remember her name was Stacy, or something similar. The dead mother's little brother had lived in the trailer, he was now dying of internal injuries and gangrenous broken bones in his dead sisters wrecked house. The husband had put his wifes body in the deep freeze. The food in it had ruined anyway and he couldn't stay outside long enough to dig a grave. It was a better burial than untold millions of others were getting. I was getting ready to leave when the father asked me my name. "Nickoli Krushev, most people call me Nick." He spat on the floor and handed me my bottle of pills back. "Goddamn Russian" I just looked at him for a moment and turned away. My family had been in Texas since the revolution against the Czar. Back to the hole.
DAY 15:
My hair is falling out and my gums are bleeding a little. I can taste low grade salt in my mouth. At least I don't have any burns or sores on my body. Amy is fairing better, I have made her stay indoors throughout. I had to shoot the cats. They were dying horribly.
Day 17: I think.
Amy and I were eating lunch when we heard gunshots from the neighbors direction. I took my AR-15 and snuck down to his house in my bright yellow slicker suit. Everybody was dead. The Father had put little brother and son's bodies in the freezer on top of his wife, then climbed in and shot himself. I was glad I had worn my gas mask, it wasn't a pretty sight. I slammed the lid and ran outside, tearing off the mask as puke filled my mouth. When I had heaved all that was in me I went back home. Back in the hole.
Day 18:
The short wave was scanning stations and finally locked on something other than loud static. A frantic voice reporting columns of Russian and Chinese armor moving along I-20 outside Sweetwater, Tx. Headed East, towards us. No report of any U.S. forces opposing them. How in the hell did they get so far so fast? I wondered. I noted the frequency and locked the shortwave on it. If the Chinese were also involved, which I had suspected from the beginning, we were in really deep trouble. Amy was looking at me with fear in her eyes and asked, "What are we going to do Nick? They're coming straight at us."
I gave her a hug and said, "We'll just go ahead and leave now for Maggies place, then from there into the mountains to Jerry's cabin. I'll go get started fixing the truck right now if you will box up some clothes for us and start stacking them by the door."
She nodded and gave me a kiss, then came outside to help me push the truck into the garage. I dug my spare parts out of the alminum storage building and began changing the electronics out. It isn't much of a job. The alternator has only two bolts and the distributor has only one. On these older model Chevrolets the whole ignition system is contained inside the distributor, no computers at all. I'd had this old truck ever since before Amy and I had gotten married four years ago, and she had pestered me to buy a new one for a long time but finally gave up. I just put a new engine and transmission in it and kept on driving. My work truck was a late model Z-71 but the back half of it was full with a diesel tank, gas powered compressor, and tool boxes. Not that it mattered, it had a half dozen computers in the system and every one of them was fried to a crisp, as was Amy's LeSabre.
Day 19:
The truck is running again. I wish I had replaced the headers and glass packs with Midas mufflers. It seems abominably loud in the stillness. Both tanks are full and I rigged up an old electric fuel pump to drain other vehicles tanks.
Only one more transmission on the shortwave band. More armor, he estimates several hundred tanks with full support equipment and artillery. Dozens of heavily armed communist helicopters are flying through the area and jet fighters are patrolling the skies. The radio operator says he is going offline to try and stash his equipment for later reports as the Russians are searching houses in the area.
I resumed packing the truck with supplies and weapons. The sixteen foot trailer is also hooked up. I guess my neighbor won't be needing it any more. (the trailer that is). I debated taking the four wheeler but it just takes up too much room and is just something else I'd have to feed gas to. It breaks down just about every time I use it anyway. Tomorrow I am going to knock the windows out of the truck and fill the doors with sackcrete to bulletproof them. Then we leave, destination Arkansas. First to my daughters house, then on up into the buffalo river mountains to my probably now dead friends cabin. And all those supplies and weapons cached there.
The next day dawned with a fresh chill in the air, and a low overcast. It had rained heavily during the night for several hours, which I was thankful for. At least most of the ash would be washed off the roads. I think it has been twenty three days since the attack, but my watch doesn't work any more and I'm not positive of the exact date. The background static is starting to recede from the shortwave, as the ionization of the atmosphere fades. I can pick up garbled snatches of conversation scanning through the frequencies, mostly unintelligible due to weak signal or foreign language. One signal is clear and strong though. A Russian accented voice repeating over and over that the U.S. launched an unprovoked attack on the Russian people, that they counterattacked in self defense, and that the American government had since surrendered unconditionally. 3 bald faced lies. I wondered if that was what the history books would say.
Using a crowbar I knocked the door glasses and the rear winshield out of my 78 chevy half ton, then pried the window facings far enough apart to pour the sackcrete in. I was mixing it in a five gallon bucket so it took about an hour to fill them all the way up. Using a four pound hammer I knocked the door strikers off and used bunji cords looped through the window holes and rear window casing to secure them closed. Hopefully if anyone shot at us we could duck down below the level of the window jambs and the concrete would stop the bullets long enough for us to either exit the vehicle on the far side or just punch the gas and drive blindly out of their field of fire.
Next I used my air chisel powered off the generator and air compressor to cut a large hole in the passengers side roof going back completely into the rear window frame. This gave me room to stand up and fire from inside the truck or roll over into the bed where I had left a hollow in the piled supplies. Amy would be doing the driving.
I decided to leave the front windshield in, and draped chicken wire over the whole of the cab, winshield, and emty door glass holes. As an afterthought I ran a piece of rope through the release lever on the trailer hitch and payed it out to the passengers side of the truck, hoping I could dump the trailer on the run if violent maneuvers or more speed were needed. I disassembled my CAR-15 and Amy's Carbine AR-15 and put them in the two bug out packs lashed to the front hood with bunji cords, along with a dozen loaded magazines and two .357 mag revolvers. If we had to leave the whole rig on the run at least we would have a chance to grab our kits. I had lashed two spare tires to the front grill on top of the bumper, hopefully they would provide some protection for the radiator and engine without overheating the truck.
In the front seat I had my M-14, my H-BAR AR-15, and a Remington 870 riot gun loaded with 3 inch slugs. Also a half dozen pistols of various calibers and actions. Behind me in the bed rested my 7mm Weatherby magnum in case I had to make any long range shots to shake off pursuit.
By a little after 2 in the afternoon we were finally ready to roll, I could think of nothing else that would better our chances, and we were loaded with all we could haul that would concievably be of any use. The trailer was primarily loaded with sacks of beans, rice, corn, flour, and sugar which had been stored in the garage, along with a large amount of canned goods, spices, salt and three fifty gallon drums of fresh drinking water. In the back of the truck I had our clothes, the generator, weapons, and several thousand rounds of assorted ammunition along with our camping gear and the batteries from our other vehicles and my hand tools.
We encountered our first car stalled on the side of the road by the EMP a half mile from the house after tuning onto the main county road. They grew more numerous as we approached Gladewater, and soon people were coming out in their yards as they heard us approach. Not a lot of people, but still some. None of them looked anywhere near as healthy as us. I told Amy to slow as we passed anyone standing out, and I shouted to them that Russians and Chinese were coming this way from the West as we passed. Several bolted and ran for their doors at the news, others just gave a glazed stare.
In town we passed the local Brookshires, its plate glass windows blasted out, and I wasn't surprised to see people rolling near empty shopping carts down the sidewalks. Everyone had a gun, or so it seemed. Of course this is Texas. Leaving Highway 80 west we turned North on 271, next stop Gilmer. Pulling my 4 wheeling goggles down over my eyes I told Amy to keep her speed up as best she could while dodging stalled vehicles, and I climbed into the pickup bed with my M-14.
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