Last Stand: Surviving America's Collapse (15 page)

They would
move across the land like a swarm of locusts, devouring everything before them. That was the prediction some had made and here it was coming true. He hadn’t exactly witnessed a swath of destruction in their wake, but a group like that needed to eat something and when they did they were liable to empty entire farms in one sitting. It was an army and John was just glad it would surge right past the side roads which led to the cabin.

N
ot long after that they turned off Interstate 75 North and followed State Route 63 West. Rocks and gravel crunched under the Blazer’s tires as they travelled along country roads. The scenery in the area was breathtaking. Lush forests and rolling hills. The air warm and clean.

In the past couple of years, t
he family had been to the cabin about half a dozen times, mostly during bug-out drills when John had timed them to see how long it would take to make the trip from A to Z. During each trip they’d brought up sacks of grains, powdered milk, wholewheat flour, yeast, baking soda and other food they could store. They’d also set up a water filtration system using two fifty-gallon drums and an impressive underground storage unit. The process was simple enough. One drum was placed on top of the other. Holes were poked in the bottom of the top drum and filled with alternating layers of sand and charcoal. These would help to strain the larger impurities. What collected in the bottom drum would then be boiled to kill any remaining harmful bacteria.

Another few minutes up the gravel path brought them to the private road which led to the cabin. It was only one
of three cabins on this side of the mountain, which meant very little traffic came up that dirt road. When he had time, John and Gregory would come down and lay some obstacles over the path. A log would work. Either way it needed to be something that could block a vehicle from driving right up to the cabin’s front door. In addition, John would also look at camouflaging the turnoff to his cabin. That way it might hide them from would-be attackers or raiders looking for an easy target to plunder.

Up to now, most of John
’s energy had been spent supplying the cabin with food and an ability to filter water. More weekends up here would have meant more time to build defenses and booby-traps. In the end it meant he and Gregory and the girls would need to hustle.

Betsy
hummed as she clawed her way up the steep dirt path. A second later the cabin came into full view. A smile spread over John’s face. She was a sight for sore eyes. The eye in the great storm that was tearing the country to shreds. And that was when his smile began to fade.

Diane was already pointing at the cabin. “John, am I
imagining things or is that smoke coming from the chimney?”

He
slammed the brakes and stared, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

Before him was
a simple, two-story wood beam log cabin. John had liked that idea since the sixteen-inch walls would stop small-caliber rounds. Two windows on the main floor. One on the top floor for each of the three bedrooms. There was room enough for each member of his family, but the smoke coming out of his chimney meant someone else had stumbled onto the cabin and claimed it for themselves.

There wasn’t any sign of a car or even bikes out front, but those things could
just as easily be parked in the open space behind the cabin. There also weren’t any police or local sheriffs John could call. It was every man for himself and every prepper’s nightmare. John backed the Blazer up until it was just beyond view.

“What are we gonna do
, Dad?” Gregory and Emma asked at almost the exact same time.

Diane was looking at him with a “what now” sort of look.
They all wanted to know and their panic and fear was making it hard for him to think straight.

“You three stay here,
” John said as he got out and went to the back of the truck. Once there he opened the hatch and removed his tactical vest and two-point sling. In the front mag pouches were four thirty-round magazines for his AR. The S&W was already in his drop-leg holster.

Gregory turned around. “You gonna go blow them away
, Dad?”

John shook his head. “I hope I don’t have to. But one way or a
nother, whoever’s in our cabin is about to get an eviction notice.”

He closed the hatch quietly and went back to the driver’s side where Diane handed him the AR which he clipped to the sling.

“Fall back if you’re outnumbered,” she told him.

“I will
, honey. You just be ready with that shotgun in case I do. Love you.”

A
million scenarios were running through John’s head as he approached the cabin. The front windows were dark, making it impossible to see how many intruders were inside. He set himself up along the tree line next to a patch of overgrowth and dug around for some rocks. He would start by throwing them at the cabin door and wait to see who came out.

The first two rocks skittered over the front porch. The next two struck dead on, creating a loud bang. A face appeared briefly in the window and John removed the safety on his AR and took aim. Then the face disappeared and the door opened. A single figure stood silhouetted in the doorway. It was a man and he was holding a small
-caliber pistol.

“I’ve got you dead to rights,” John said. “Now set the gun down and kick it away
before I blow your head off.”

The man hesitated.

“I know what you’re thinking,” John continued. “You’re wondering whether you can slam that door shut in time. I promise that you can’t. Now do as I say before I drop you right now. Do it!”

The man complied.

“Kick the gun away.”

He did.

“Is there anyone else in there with you? And don’t even think of lying to me.”

“Yes,” the man said. He sounded scared. Fear was exactly what John wanted him to feel. Fear was what gummed up all the works in men’s brains, prevented them from thinking
straight. Humans tended to fall back on their instinctual habit of following orders when that happened. It was why police stormed a suspect’s house shouting for them to drop their weapons.

“How many
others?”

“Three.”

“Men or women?”

“My wife and two kids.”

John wanted to curse, but bit his lip. Why couldn’t it have been a group of bandits instead of a family?

“This is private property and you have no business being here.”

The man in the doorway paused and then said, “John? Is that you?”

Now it was John’s turn to be stunned and surprised.

The man came into the light and John’s jaw nearly dropped.

Standing before him was Tim Appleby.

•••

M
inutes later the two families were in the kitchen and the awkwardness was thick enough to cut with a Bowie knife. The only ones who were happy with the present situation were Emma and Brandon. She’d practically jumped into his arms, tears running down her face.

John wasn’t the least bit happy with any of it, especially the long hugs
Emma and Brandon kept sharing. The Applebys didn’t seem to mind those. In fact, they thought it was cute. Maybe if it was their daughter instead of his, they might not have been so keen.

The rest of them stood around, Diane trying to catch John’s eye, to tell him
as usual to be nice.

“Would you like some coffee?” Kay Appleby asked.

She was only trying to be polite, but being treated like a guest in his own home by people who’d broken in and been eating his food for days was boiling John’s blood something awful. Diane put a hand on him and he shook it off.

“
Let me start by saying I’m happy none of you were hurt,” John began. “The rest of us on Willow Creek thought you’d been kidnapped by Cain and his men.”

“Cain?” Tim asked
, looking puzzled.

“A
real bad man,” Diane said. “John… killed him.”

“
His thugs were probably the ones who broke into your home. We assumed the worst the next day when you were gone. Your car was missing too. Figured you’d been killed or carted off for God knows what.”

“The car’s
here,” Tim said sheepishly. “Parked it around back so no one would see it.”

John drew
in a deep breath. “What I really wanna know is how you found out about the cabin in the first place. And how you knew how to get here.”

Tim hesitated and then seeing the deadly serious
ness on John’s face acquiesced. “Brandon told us.”

John and Diane both
looked to Emma at the same time.

If looks could kill.

“I didn’t mean to,” Emma started, unable to maintain eye contact.

“Yes, you did,” Diane
cut her off. “But don’t bother with excuses, we’ll discuss it later.”

“Here’s the thing
, Tim. If you’d been anyone else I probably would have shot you dead. You broke into my house. Been living here for a better part of a week. We could have also run away, but instead we chose to stay and help defend Willow Creek from a pack of drug-dealing murderers.”

“I’m sorry
, John. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You should have stayed. That’s what I’m telling you. You
fled when you didn’t need to. When the community needed you the most.”

Tim’s eyes fell. “So why are you here now? I mean, what changed your mind
?”

John didn’t know if he’d be able to say it.

“We were attacked last night,” Diane told them. “By Cain and a couple hundred of his men. Most of them were killed, but so too was nearly everyone on our street.”

Kay burst into tears. “Oh, no
. How horrible.”

“At least they went out fighting,” John said. “
Those who lived one street over didn’t pull together quickly enough and became refugees. Most of them were killed on their way to the interstate. Cut down like lambs to the slaughter.”

“I hate to admit it, but we were afraid
, John, and that’s why we fled.”

“Well, that’s all ancient history
,” John said. “Right now we got a situation on our hands. The cabin’s only got a supply of food for four people. I’m assuming you didn’t bring any of your own.”

Tim shook his head.

“So then you’ve already started into ours.”

“Just a little bit,” Kay said, trying to minimize it.

What she didn’t know was there were two stockpiles John had created. The first was the main one hidden away in a cold room accessed through the crawlspace under the cabin. The food Kay was talking about was the decoy. It still counted toward the year’s supply, but was intended to be what any thieves would grab instead of looking for the motherlode. That way they could survive a breakin if they were away and still keep the bulk of their preps.

“So you want us to leave,” Tim said, pulling his wife and daughter
Natalie in tight. Brandon stayed by Emma’s side.

John didn’t say a word right then, but that
was exactly what he was thinking.

J
ohn and Diane went off to discuss it. Emma tried following them, intent on putting her two cents in, but there wasn’t much need for that. It was clear enough Brandon was the reason she’d wanted to stay on Willow Creek so badly in the beginning and why she would now try and convince them to let the Applebys remain.

“I think I know what you’re going to say,” Diane said first, taking John by the hand.

He smiled. “You know me so well, don’t you?”

“After sixteen years of marriage, a woman learns a thing or two about her husband.”

“I’m all ears.”

She released his hand and became serious. “
You want them to go, maybe more than you’re letting on. You want them to offer to leave on their own, rather than forcing us to turf them out.”

“So far so good.”

“You’ve always been a firm man, but I’ve never known you to be unfair. I think it was incredibly difficult when you were forced to turn those neighbors at the barricades away and then listen to them being slaughtered.”

John nodded, staring off. “I’
ve seen similar scenes play out in Third World countries as one tribal group turned on another even after the United States was called in to play peacekeeper. Our rules of engagement prevented us from getting directly involved in local disputes. That feeling of having your hands tied behind your back while bad men do terrible things is something I’ve never forgotten. I’d hoped it would be different at home if ever there was a collapse, but I see now it was exactly the same. And there I was again, hands tied while innocent people were marched off to die.”

“I can’t imagine,” she said. “It must have been awful.”

“I said I’d never let it happen again, but when the time came and I had to choose between the safety of others and the safety of my family, I made the same choice.”

“You can’t take responsibility for that, John. The counci
l outvoted you. If you’d have ignored the vote, their authority would effectively have been destroyed. Besides, those refugees made the choice not to prepare for the worst. That wasn’t your fault.”

He squeezed her hand. “I know. I’ve been telling myself that ever since. Every man makes his own bed. I don’t weep for the men and women who didn’t plan ahead.
But I can still see that man trying to pass his child over the barricade. Those children never made that choice.”

“The sins of the father,” Diane said.

John nodded. “We also have another issue. Before we left, Bill Kelsaw let it slip that he knew about the cabin.”

Diane’s eyes grew wide. “
If Bill knows then everyone knows.”

“That’s what I was thinking. He said he’d he
ard about it from Curtis, but that he wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it from.”

“Obviously
Emma must have mentioned something to Brandon,” Diane said. “She was probably trying to let him know that if our family disappeared in the night, that was where we were going.”

“That old British saying from World War II comes to mind,” John told her. “Loose lips…”

“Sink ships. Sometimes the best-laid preps can be undone by a casual slip. You don’t think the remaining folks from Willow Creek will begin showing up, do you?”

“I’m not sure,” John said. “I tried my best to downplay it, make Bill think there was no cabin, but I wouldn’t put money on whether he bought
the attempt. I suppose we’ll find out in a week or so.”

Diane looked at him quizzically.

“I figure without a car that’s how long it would take to make it to the cabin on foot.”

“Unless they bike
.”

“With all the gear they’d need to bring with them? Maybe you’re right. Then I guess we’ll find out in three or four days.”

“Between now and then, what do you wanna do?” Diane asked.

John shook his head. “I’m revoking
Emma’s right to weigh in. She’s broken my trust and if groups of city folk start showing up then she may have denied us the cabin as well.”