“You okay, mom?” Mark wandered into the living room and glanced at the TV before looking at her.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Did you find out anything?”
“Nothing useful.” Dianne sighed again and shook her head in frustration. “I did find out that this is happening all over the country, or maybe the world. We should probably get settled in if that’s the case, and figure out what to do around here to survive long-term.”
“Survive?” Mark scrunched up his eyebrows. “You mean living off the land, that kind of thing?”
Dianne smiled as she stood up and embraced her eldest son. “I don’t know, kiddo. If things are as bad as they sound, though, then maybe. But we don’t need to worry about that tonight. Come on; let’s find something for dinner and dig up a movie somewhere.”
As Dianne walked back into the kitchen after Mark, she paused at the back door and looked out at the property behind the house. The sun was setting behind the lake and the animals were all grazing in their pens while a gentle breeze rustled the trees, making them shake in a dazzling gold, orange and red display of natural fireworks. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as she said a silent prayer.
Rick. Wherever you are out there… come home. Please. Just make it back home.
Chapter 11
Los Angeles, CA
Between Rick and his wife, Dianne had always been the one more prone to gravitate toward self-defense. She always carried a small revolver on her person—legally of course—and remembering that fact made Rick extremely grateful. He was no stranger to firearms, having dispatched more than a few injured animals over the years with a bullet to the head and been on several hunting excursions over the years where his prowess had been proved by bringing home three large bucks. He didn’t carry a gun normally, though, and being on a business trip meant that he was carrying nothing at all when he landed in Los Angeles.
That’s why, as he approached the fringes of the city proper and began to encounter the residential areas, Rick paused at the corner of an intersection, staring at a large warehouse-like store across the street with twin pictures of a hunting rifle and a deer’s head sitting on top. The store’s windows and doors were smashed open, and the interior was dark. The image of Jack and Samantha laying lifeless on the ground flashed through his mind, and he thought about what—if anything—he might have been able to do if he had been armed and close enough to help.
A show of force? A distraction? Taking one or two of them down with me? As much as Rick wanted to imagine he could have dispatched six armed thieves intent on committing grievous bodily harm, he had to admit that it wasn’t very likely he could have changed much about the situation. In spite of that, though, a thought still lingered in his mind.
What if?
Rick approached the store cautiously, peering in through the broken windows and door as he tried to see if anyone was still inside. Glass littered the ground outside the shop and the floor directly inside, and it crunched and crackled with each footstep, making a stealthy approach impossible. He glanced around at the empty streets before calling out softly through the hole where the front window used to be. “Anyone in there?”
Silence was the only response, so Rick took a deep breath and stepped through. He went a few paces to the side, hugging the wall, before stopping so that his eyes could adjust to the darkness. The store, once filled with shooting and hunting gear and accessories of all shapes, types and colors was a disaster zone. Shelves were overturned on the floor and goods were scattered, torn and trampled on, leaving a distinct and obvious pattern of destruction from when the building had been looted. The back and left walls were filled with rows of black pegs that had once held rifles, before every single weapon was removed and absconded with. Most of the glass display cases carrying the few types of pistols still legal in the state of California were shattered, as were the demo cases for the hunting, fishing and camping gear.
The store looked as though a miniature tornado had blown through, leaving very few portions of the building untouched. Rick decided to look for anything that appeared useful anyway, though, since he had no idea what the conditions were outside the city and no clue as to how long it would take for him to find a way back home.
A backpack that had been tossed into a corner was the first item he selected, followed by a shirt, pair of pants and a couple of jackets. He changed out of his suit in a hurry before lashing the jackets to the back of the backpack with some paracord. The food aisle of the building had been mostly cleaned out, but Rick dutifully searched through all of the debris, eventually finding several boxes of energy bars which he dumped into his backpack. A few pairs of socks and underwear followed, then three pairs of shoes—one for his feet and two for spares—that happened to be the last three in his size.
With his immediate food and clothing needs met, Rick turned his attention to the main reason why he had come into the store—a weapon. He went around the glass display cases lining the walls and began searching inside the cases, on the floor, under the counters and in the racks on the walls for any weapons and ammunition he could get his hands on. After a good twenty minutes of searching, Rick had found virtually nothing. There were several boxes of 9mm ammunition, a stack of 5.56 NATO boxes and a few boxes of 12-gauge ammo, but he had seen absolutely nothing in the way of guns.
Rick tucked the ammunition into his backpack and pockets regardless, on the off chance that he might find a gun later down the road. As he picked his way through the back area once again, he paused in front of a door marked “Employees Only” before pushing it open and heading through.
His penlight hadn’t been needed in the main section of the store, but as he headed into the back, he pulled it out and switched it on. Much of the back area of the store was taken up by boxes, empty pallets and shelves stocked with supplies meant to be put out on the floor, but there was a small section enclosed in cubical walls that had two large wooden tables with a variety of tools and oils along with a large assortment of firearms.
Rick moved immediately toward the repair benches and firearms, and quickly discovered the small tags hanging off of the guns that marked when they had been brought in along with whether they had been repaired. He grabbed a small 9mm pistol, a hunting rifle chambered in 5.56 NATO with a moderate-sized scope on the top and a pump-action shotgun. He piled the two rifles into a soft gun case, zipped it up and then slung it on his back before ejecting the empty magazine from the pistol, filling it with ammo and then slapping it back into the gun and chambering a round. A pair of knives went next—one into his pack
and the other in a sheath hanging from his belt—and then Rick turned his attention to the stacks of pallets behind him.
“How did they miss all of this?” Rick was astonished that the back room of the store had been completely left alone in the mad dash to loot the front area. As he searched through the boxes and pallets of goods, he cut open boxes with his knife, pulling out stacks of batteries, two flashlights, a small one-man tent, more packaged food and—to his relief—a larger backpack to store it all in.
As Rick carefully stuffed the larger of the two backpacks full of supplies, he suddenly felt a twinge of guilt and paused to sit down on the floor and look around at darkened room. “So this is what I’m reduced to? Less than a day after a few cars blow up and some planes fall from the sky, I’m sitting in the back room of a store, stealing from them?” Rick sighed and put his head in his hands as the memory of Jack and Samantha being shot in the heads played through again. “Bastards.” Rick whispered softly and continued his packing, pushing the memory aside. He wasn’t sure why it was still affecting him so much, but he was determined to make sure he didn’t end up dead on the street along with them.
He stood up slowly and put the pack on his back and adjusted the straps before taking the gun case up in his left hand. With his right he tucked the 9mm pistol into a small holster on the inside of his pants, concealing it from view. He felt like a pack mule as he slowly lumbered out of the store, trying to avoid catching himself or anything he was carrying on the overturned shelves as he went.
Standing in front of the store, Rick turned to the east, shielding his eyes from the sun with his right hand. Ahead of him, with any luck, he would discover that his paranoia was unjustified, and he would be able to ditch all of the supplies he had just looted and be on his way back home to his family before dark. As much as Rick tried to tell himself that it was a possibility this could be true, he had the distinct feeling that nothing could be further from the truth and that his journey home would be anything but easy.
With a deep breath, Rick Waters put one foot in front of the other and began his journey home.
Chapter 12
Los Angeles