Phoenix Rising

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

By the time Jake and Karin arrived, there was very little left of the Wal-Mart Supercenter on South 231. The doors had been smashed in, and Karin started to step inside, but Jake held out his hand to stop her.

“Wait,” he whispered. “Let’s make sure nobody else is in here.”

The two stood quietly just inside the store for a long moment. The store was so dark that they couldn’t see two feet in front of them, which meant that if anyone was here they would have to be using a light, and the light could be seen.

They saw no light, and they heard no sound. After waiting about a minute, Jake turned on the large flashlight he was carrying.

“I think we’ve got it all to ourselves, such as it is,” Jake said.

As the moved deeper inside they could see that what merchandise did remain was scattered around on the floor. There was a large yellow smiley face next to a sign that said SHOP WAL-MART.

Jake moved the light back and forth on the floor so they could see to pick their way through without tripping over anything.

Though the food products, clothing, and small utensils had been well cleaned out, the large-ticket items, TVs, etc., remained. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have been strange, but because there were no television stations broadcasting anywhere in America, at least as far as Jake knew, seeing the TV sets still sitting on the shelves wasn’t at all surprising. However many of the TV sets had been smashed, not incidentally, but purposely, as an expression of anger and frustration.

Over each empty aisle in the food store were signs that told what product had once been there. Now the signs were little more than a tantalizing tease.

COOKIES, CRACKERS, CHIPS, AND SNACKS

RICE, BEANS, SPAGHETTI, NOODLES

SOUPS, CANNED MEAT

COLD AND HOT CEREALS

COFFEE, SOFT DRINKS

“Soft drinks,” Karin said. “Do you think . . . ?”

“I bought the last root beer they had when they were still doing business,” Jake said.

There was not one food item remaining anywhere in the store. Not even bulk, uncooked items, such as rice, flour, or beans.

In the book and magazine section, there were several soft-cover books scattered around on the floor.

“Let’s grab as many of these as we can,” Jake suggested. “Without TV or radio, I expect reading will be about our only source of entertainment.”

“Good idea,” Karin replied. “What do you like?”

“Westerns, action stories, just about anything, I guess. I think we are far beyond the ability to be choosy.”

“Look, tablets and pencils,” Karin said, scooping up several of them from the same aisle as the books. “This will please Julie.”

As they moved on through the store, Jake saw a box underneath a turned-over stocking shelf. Pushing the shelf out of the way he saw that the box, though not completely full, had at least ten packages of “sandwich cookies, peanut-butter filling.”

“Whoa, now this is going to be a treat,” he said, stuffing the cookies down into the large, canvas bag.

“Where to now?” Karin asked.

“Let’s go to the garden shop,” Jake suggested.

Amazingly, the garden shop was virtually untouched. There, Jake found a wheelbarrow, which he loaded with a couple of watering cans, spades, rakes, and dozens of packets of seed from half a dozen vegetables. Here, too, he found insect repellent and he put as many cans as he could into the wheelbarrow.

“Wait,” Jake said, stopping at one shelf. “These are the seeds we want.”

“What do you mean? What’s wrong with what we have?

“These are non-hybrid seeds. I can’t believe there are so many of them.”

“What are non-hybrid seeds?”

“Almost all the vegetables we see today are hybrids. Hybrid vegetables make the best vegetables, but they can’t be counted on to produce seed that will reproduce. For that you need seeds in their original form. That’s what this is.”

Jake scooped up several packets, getting much more seed than he would need.

“If we can stay alive until these seeds produce, we’ll be in good shape,” Jake said.

Karin laughed. “Oh, great. All we have to do is stay alive? Yes, I’m for that.”

Finally, with a completely stuffed B-4 bag on top of the filled wheelbarrow, Jake and Karin stepped back through the smashed doors and started across the nearly vacant parking lot toward Jake’s Volvo.

Jake saw a pickup truck parked next to his car, and he knew, at once, that the pickup truck driver was either siphoning, or about to siphon, gas from his car. He heard a loud, crunching sound, and realized that the driver had not started yet because he had been held back by the locked cover over the gas cap.

Jake set the wheelbarrow down and ran quickly toward his car. The gas thief had a tire iron and was trying to pry up the cover. He was so intent on breaking into the gas tank that he had not seen Jake approach.

“Mister, I paid an arm and a leg for that gasoline and I don’t intend to stand by and watch you steal it,” Jake said.

Jake’s voice startled the would-be thief, and he glanced up at Jake with a wild look in his eyes. He raised the tire iron he was using over his head.

“Stay back, Major,” he said, remembering Jake’s military rank. “Stay back or I’ll lay your head open.”

“You recognized me,” Jake said. “Are you a soldier ?”

“I was. But there ain’t nobody a soldier no more, not even you,” the wild-eyed young man said. “And you bein’ a major don’t mean jack shit to me no more. So you just stand over there—sir.” He slurred the word sir, setting it apart to show his disdain. “And soon as I drain your tank, I’ll be on my way.”

Jake pulled his pistol and pointed it at the young man. “Son, you need to learn not to bring a tire iron to a gunfight. Now my recommendation to you is that you climb in your truck and you drive away. Otherwise I’ll just have to shoot you.”

Seeing the gun in Jake’s hand, the young man’s demeanor changed. No longer belligerent, he lowered the tire iron he had been using to pry open the gas-cap cover.

“All right, all right, I’m goin’,” the young man said, holding one hand out in front of him, palm facing Jake as if by so doing, he could hold Jake off. He glanced at the right rear quarter of Jake’s car. The paint was badly scratched and dented where he had been working to open the gas-cap cover. “I, uh, I’m sorry I messed up your car.”

“Don’t talk anymore,” Jake said, coldly. “You piss me off every time you open your mouth. Just shut up, get in your truck, and drive away from here.”

The young man threw the tire iron into the back of his truck, hurried around to the driver’s side, got in, and drove away.

“Come on, Karin!” Jake shouted. “Let’s get out of here.”

By midnight everyone had returned to Jake’s house and they put their acquisitions together to see how well they had done.

Clay and Marcus scored two five-gallon cans of gasoline. Jake didn’t ask where, or how, they got it.

Deon and Julie returned with fifty pounds of flour, ten pounds of sugar, twenty pounds of rice, twenty-five pounds of dried beans, and five gallons of cooking oil.

“Where did you find this?” Jake asked. “I can’t imagine any grocery store or warehouse still having any of this left.”

“We got it from a VFW kitchen,” Deon said.

“Whoa, good thinking.”

“It was Julie’s idea.”

“My aunt used to work as a cook in the VFW back in Georgia,” Julie said. “I know her kitchen was always well stocked and I thought there was a chance that nobody would think to look there.”

“We also got this,” Deon said, pulling something out of a sack. It was a bullhorn and he held it up to his mouth, then pulled the talk trigger.

“Jumpers in the air, you have a sixty-knot wind coming from your right!”

“Whoa!” Clay said, laughing. “That’s a hell of a wind to be jumping into.”

“Maybe for a leg,” Deon teased. “Not for an airborne troop like me.”

“I’m glad you came up with that thing,” Jake said.

“Why, what are we going to use it for?” Karin asked.

“You heard Deon. What if we see some paratroopers in the air? We might have to give them directions.”

The others laughed.

“Okay, you guys did well. You did very well in fact,” Jake said. “So now, I suggest we spend the rest of the night here, then go out to the post in the morning. Our first order of business will be to find a hangar we can secure; second will be to find a helicopter we can put into flying condition.”

The next morning the eight gathered for breakfast in Jake’s dining room, again eating MREs though, as Jake explained, these were from a broken case and not part of the fifteen cases he had for their survival supplies.

Karin looked around the dining room, gray walls set off by a large seascape painting, a dark blue carpet, and off-white upholstered chairs.

Jake saw where she was looking and he reached out to put his hand on hers. “You are thinking about this room and how we decorated it together, aren’t you?”

“Jake, will we ever come back here?”

“I don’t know,” Jake replied. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but I have to be honest with you. I truly don’t know if we will ever be able to come back or not. And if we do come back, what will we find?”

Karin nodded. “I know,” she said. “And I’m okay with it.”

Jake squeezed her hand, then looked over toward Willie.

“Willie, what do you say we crank up one of these radios and see if we can pick up any news on the shortwave bands?” he suggested.

“Good idea, yes, let’s see what’s out there,” Clay agreed.

Willie cranked the radio for one minute; then he turned it on and started sweeping through the frequencies.

“Getting carrier waves,” he said. “That’s good.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means there are some transmitting stations that are still up, just nobody talking on them right now.”

Marcus continued to turn the dial until he picked up a woman’s voice. She was clearly on the edge of panic.

“Someone, anyone,” she was saying. “Can anyone hear me? This is Yellowbird. Can anyone hear me?”

Willie keyed the microphone.

“Yellowbird, this is Mickey Mouse. Over.”

“Mickey Mouse, oh, thank God! There is someone out there!” The woman practically shouted in her excitement.

“Where are you, Yellowbird? What is your status? Over.”

“I’m in Portsmouth, Virginia, real close to where the bomb went off.”

“Are you safe?” Marcus asked.

“Safe? What is safe? We weren’t hurt by the bomb, but I don’t know about the radiation. We are so close.”

“You say we. Who is we?”

“My husband, our two children, my brother and sister-in-law, and their three children.”

“Are there others around?”

“Nobody that we want to associate with. There are a lot of men wandering around outside, shouting and breaking into houses and cars. We’ve heard screams and shooting. I’ve been trying to contact the police, but haven’t been able to do so.”

“What you need to do is get out of there,” Willie said. “There are no police.”

“How do you know there are no police? Oh!” In the background, Marcus could hear loud voices and the sound of shooting. “Can you hear that? Why don’t the police come?”

“Yes, ma’am, I can hear it. But you can’t count on the police. There has been a complete breakdown of all government agencies including the police. Do you have a car? And if so, do you have gasoline in your car?”

“I . . .” There was a long pause before the woman came back on the air. “My husband says I shouldn’t answer that.”

Now everyone was huddled around the radio listening to the woman’s terrified voice from the other end, hearing, also, the shouts and the shooting.

“Your husband is correct, ma’am, you shouldn’t tell,” Willie said. “And I apologize for asking. But my advice to you is this. If you have a car with fuel, pack as much food, water, blankets, matches, and other such items as you might have, then get as far away from there as you can. The farther away from people you are, the safer you will be. Over.”

There was a long silence, and Willie keyed the mic to speak again. “Yellowbird, do you read me? Over.”

Still no reply.

“What happened?” Julie asked. “Why doesn’t she answer?”

“I don’t know.” Willie keyed the mic again. “Yellowbird, if you can read me, pack as much food, water, blankets, matches, and other such items as you have, then get as far away from there as you can. Over.”

“Good advice, dipshit,” a man’s gruff voice replied. “But the little lady and her family won’t be needing it now. Over,” he added with a malevolent laugh.

Willie did not respond. Instead he pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Damn,” he said quietly.

“See if you can find a broadcast somewhere,” Jake suggested. “I mean a real news broadcast.”

“Yeah,” Willie said. “There’s nothing we can do for Yellowbird.”

Willie continued turning the dial, picking up whistles, static, sidetones, and carrier waves.

El gobierno Mexicano ha cerrado la frontera para impedir a Estadounidenses de inundar nuestro país.

“What is he saying?” Jake asked Marcus.

Marcus chuckled. “How is this for irony? He is saying that the Mexican government has closed its borders to keep Americans from flooding into their country.”

“See if you can find something in English,” Clay said.

Willie turned the dial again, finally picking up an English broadcast.

. . . broadcasting over this shortwave frequency in the hope that there are some people out there with shortwave radios who can hear us.

“Hey, that’s George Gregoire,” Jake said. “I recognized his voice.”

“Damn, I used to watch him,” Clay said. “I thought they drug him off and killed him.”

“Evidently not. Let’s see what he has to say,” Jake said.

Everyone drew close to the radio.

Hello, America.

I can’t tell you where I am. As I’m sure you know, I am now a wanted man. I never broadcast from the same place twice for fear of the SPS homing in on my radio signal. And to be honest with you, I don’t even know if there is an SPS anymore.

I have a small group of dedicated people with me and they have been tuning in to shortwave broadcasts from around the world. We do that so we can keep you up to date on what is going on.

It has always been my belief that the peril we know is much less dangerous than the peril we don’t know. And, as of now, this is what we know.

There were three nuclear bombs detonated on our soil. One in New York, one in Boston, and one in Virginia. These were not small bombs, certainly not the “suitcase” bombs that were, for so long, the stuff of novels and action movies. The bombs were huge, and the devastation is great. It is believed that the bombs were smuggled into the country inside large cargo containers on board container ships.

There has been no word from any official of the New World Collective government, that is assuming that there is a government. We don’t know if the supreme leader of the New World . . .”

Gregoire paused in mid-broadcast for a moment; then, with a sigh, he continued.

To hell with that New World Collective nonsense, he said. I intend to refer to our country, or what is left of it, as the United States. And I think I am perfectly safe in doing so, since if we do have any government left, they are totally impotent now. We have tried to make contact by shortwave with anyone in Washington, D.C., who could give us some information on the status of Ohmshidi—indeed, the status of our country. They say that there is a silver lining to every cloud. It is hard to find one to this cloud, but if there is, it is that the government, and if I may be so bold, Ohmshidi, are no longer functioning.

As some of you may have heard on our initial broadcast, the United States was not the only nation to suffer these brutal nuclear attacks. Much of Europe seems to be in chaos right now, though they are not as bad as we are. We still don’t know anything about Israel, other than the fact that they were hit by at least three, and maybe more, nuclear missiles.

America, is there any question as to how and why all this has happened? For nearly a century now, going back to the First World War, America has been the bulwark of freedom and democracy. We defended Europe in the First World War, we freed Europe in the Second World War, and we stood at their side during the long, frightening days of the Cold War.

But the first thing Ohmshidi did when he took office was pull all American soldiers back from their overseas assignments. Then he systematically disarmed us, while at the same time destroying our nation from within. Without a strong America, there is nothing left to stand between the world and the evil that would engulf the world.

I cannot but hope that there are groups of you hearing my voice now, groups of you who have taken the necessary steps to survive. And, once survival is assured, it is my hope that we will come together again, reclaim our nation, and once more be a united country under the Stars and Stripes.

And now, a word about who we are, and why and how we are broadcasting. As I am sure everyone within the sound of my voice is aware, there are no longer any television networks, or even television stations that are broadcasting. Those of us who are continuing with the shortwave ’casts are no longer employed, nor are we being compensated. But we do this because we are newsmen and women, first, last, and always. We do it because we must. And if providing news to a shattered people who are desperate for information serves a mission greater than ourselves, then we are compensated enough.

I am signing off now, but will broadcast again sometime tomorrow. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific as to the time, but for now, I must err on the side of caution.

This is George Gregoire saying, good night, America, and God bless us all.