Planning Pays Off - Chapter 1

Sven Denali jerked awake when the Oregon Scientific weather radio alarm went off. He fumbled on the bedside lamp and picked up the radio, trying to read the warning as his eyes adjusted to the light. He didn’t have to read it on the display. The announcer started speaking. Sven noticed the difference in tone from the usual broadcasts of tornadoes and blizzards. His voice was actually shaking.

“This is an announcement from the President of the United States of America.”

Sven swung his legs around and put his feet on the floor, fully awake now. “My fellow Americans,” came the president’s voice from the speaker. “Now is the time for all of us to pull together. We expect…”

The president’s words stopped and the weather radio squealed for a moment and then fell silent. At the same time, bright light flooded the bedroom from outside.

“Uh-oh!” Sven said under his breath and dove for the floor beside the bed, wrapping his arms around his head to protect it. Most of the glass from the windows when they shattered landed on the bed and floor. Only a little landed on his bare back. The reverse wave whistled, and Sven knew windows on the other side of the house were now in shards, too.

Sven waited for a little while longer and the ground shock shook the house. He heard something crash somewhere but couldn’t tell what it was. An interminable two minutes later, clad only in the boxer shorts he wore to bed, Sven slipped his feet into the sandals he kept by the bed, after shaking them clear of glass, grabbed the Colt 1911A1 .45 pistol and the Maglight six D-cell flashlight from the bedside table and headed for the basement of the house.

There was still some light coming through the ripped shades of the windows, but it was an eerie purplish and orange color. He turned on the bright flashlight and kept going. There was glass everywhere, as well as debris from the shaking the house had suffered from the blast waves.

The stairs to the basement were intact, though Sven had to put his weight against the upper door to get it open to have access to them. Sven was now a bit concerned the hatch to his fallout shelter might be difficult to open, too, Sven moved the cabinet hiding it from view, worked the combination of the safe door, and spun the opening handle.

Sven let out a sigh of relief as the heavy, counter-bounced door swung open easily at Sven’s steady push. Another couple of moments and Sven was inside the shelter, closing the door behind him. A flip of a switch and the shelter lights came on and he turned off the Maglight flashlight.

It took a few moments to calibrate a pen style radiation dosimeter and clip it to the Tyvek suit with a hood he put on, adding rubber boots, respirator, and rubber gloves, before opening the access door and going back into the basement, Colt and Maglight again in hand.

Instead of moving to the stairs of the basement, Sven moved to the outdoor entrance of the basement and opened it slowly and carefully. There was something lying on it, but he was able to push the slanted doors open and step out. It was a piece of his neighbor’s roof that had partially blocked the door.

Sven left the Maglight turned off as he walked around his house. There was enough of the purplish/orange light to be able to tell the house wasn’t going to be repairable. Not if what he thought was happening was really happening. The still forming mushroom cloud off to the east sure was a good indication it was. A nuclear attack on the US. The President was in the act of warning the population about it when it happened.

Sven turned off all the utilities where each one entered the house. Hearing cursing from someone nearby, Sven weighed the pros and cons of contacting the neighbors. He’d long ago made the decision to isolate himself and let everyone else cope the best they knew how. But he hesitated. What if…

The gunshots in the near distance decided him. “Follow the plan,” he voiced, and then turned and hurried back to the outside basement entrance. He realized he should have acted faster when his neighbor, Zander Smith, called over. “Is that you over there, Sven?”

A feeble beam of light accompanied the voice. It barely reached Sven, but there was enough light for Zander and his wife to see the white Tyvek suit, respirator, and Maglight. Sven was holding the Colt slightly behind his hip.

Glenda, Zander’s wife, screamed loudly when she saw Sven. “You better get out of here, whoever you are,” Zander said, taking Glenda into one arm. “Sven won’t like it, you messing with his stuff.”

“It’s me, Zander!” Sven said. There wasn’t anything coming from the sky at the moment so he lifted the respirator so the two could see his face.

“What are you doing? Why are you wearing that? And is that a gun?”

“No. Flashlight,” Sven said, turning the bright beam on. “This is the gun,” he added, holding it up.

Zander and Glenda shrank back from him.

“I suggest the two of you get in your basement and try to rig up some fallout protection,” Sven said and turned around to go down into the basement.

“What about you?” Zander asked. “Could you show us?”

Sven could have kicked himself. It just slipped out. “I’ve got shelter. There isn’t enough time…”

“You have a shelter?” Zander asked, the two now moving slowly toward him.

“For me,” Sven said, back up, watching the two.

“You have to let us in, man!” cried Zander. “If you have a shelter. It’s the only thing to do. Come on Glenda.” Zander took a much larger step forward.

Sven lifted the Colt. “I’m sorry,” he said. “There isn’t enough room or food for all of us.”

“You can’t do that!” Glenda was screaming and she pulled free from Zander, taking several more steps forward. “Take me in! I’ll do anything you want! There is enough for two, is’t there?”

“Glenda!” exclaimed Zander.

Before Sven could react, Zander was lifting the little pistol he had been clutching in his free hand in his pocket. Sven began to lift the Colt, but Zander didn’t shoot at him. He shot his wife in the back, the gun making very little noise.

“Crimeny!” Sven yelled, now with his gun pointed at Zander.

“Just two, right? Zander said, taking yet another step further. “You and me. We’re buddies. You’ll take me in, won’t you?”

“Not just no, but…” Sven didn’t finish the comment. Zander was shooting at him this time. Sven dived for the open basement doors and rolled down the steps after snapping off a quick shot at Zander.

Climbing to his feet, Sven ran to the shelter entrance, went through, and heaved it closed, yelping in pain when he put his shoulder against it to move it faster. A bullet hit the door and whined off somewhere in the shelter, but the door was closed and Sven spun the locking handle before Zander could get to it.

Sven reached over his right shoulder with his left hand after setting the Maglight down. The hand came away bloody. “That SOB shot me!” Sven leaned back against the shelter door and then slid down to a seated position, losing consciousness as he did so.

It wasn’t until he looked at his watch when he came to, did Sven realize he’d been out for over an hour. He groaned when he tried to use his right hand and arm to push himself up. He quit doing that and rolled over to his left, finally managing to get up.

There was total silence, except for his breathing, in the shelter. Concerned about his shoulder, Sven stripped again, taking enough time to look through the dosimeter. It was still on zero. There’d been no fallout while he was outside.

After a shower, Sven tried to get a look at the shoulder. Eventually he used a hand held mirror, along with the mirror in the tiny bathroom of the shelter, and got a look. There was a tiny puckered hole over the shoulder blade on his right side. There was a tiny spot of blood in the center of it. Despite an extensive first-aid kit, all Sven could do was apply a dab of triple anti-biotic ointment on it and cover it with a simple band-aid.

He moved his shoulder around. There was no restriction of movement, but the muscles were stiff. Sven wondered what was going on. He had a cheap AM/FM radio and connected it to an outside wire antenna, after un-grounding the wire. Only static could be heard on both bands. Disconnecting the antenna and grounding it once more, Sven went over to the door of the shelter and put his ear against it. He couldn’t hear anything, though there was an occasional vibration that Sven put off to distant nuclear detonation ground waves.

With nothing better to do, Sven went to one of the two bunks in the shelter, crawled into the lower one, rolled over, and went to sleep.

Glancing at his watch when he woke up, Sven noted the time. He’d either slept four hours and it was seven in the morning, or sixteen hours and it was seven in the evening of the day after the attack started. The way his bladder was feeling, Sven figured he’d been asleep the sixteen hours.

After going to the bathroom, despite his growling stomach, another indication it had been sixteen hours, Sven hooked up the little AM/FM radio. Static again. Possibly slightly less than before.

Turning to the CDV-717 remote reading survey meter, Sven checked for fallout. He smiled. Only about twelve roentgens per hour. Unless he got some from targets to his west, he should be able to leave the shelter in a few days. Satisfied there was nothing more to do, Sven prepared a meal, picked one of the paperback westerns he had stored in the shelter, and began to read.

That’s what he did for two weeks. Eat, sleep, read, and check the radio and radiation meter. There must have been some additional fallout from somewhere, for the level didn’t fall quite as quickly as Sven expected. He decided to just stay an entire two weeks, just because.

When he suited up again, in a Tyvek suit without a bullet hole, the radiation was under 0.05 r/hr. Nothing to worry about, as long as he was careful not to inhale any of the fallout, or carry it back into the shelter with him.

After pressing his ear against the shelter door and hearing nothing, Sven fastened the respirator into place and tried to spin the opener wheel. It moved a partial turn and stopped. Despite his best efforts, Sven couldn’t get the locking mechanism to unlock.

“Well, nuts!” Sven said. He walked across the shelter and crawled into the open end of a thirty-inch culvert. Wishing he had kneepads on, he made his way the full length of the culvert. Sven situated himself at the end of the culvert so he could release the doors above the pit that ended the culvert.

When he released the doors, sand began to fall into the pit. It took less than a minute and the sand quit falling. Shining the bright Maglight up to the bottom side of a sagging layer of grass, Sven got into the pit, pulled the Colt from his pocket, and stood up, pushing through the grass mat without any problems.

He did a quick full three-sixty to get a look around for possible trouble. Seeing nothing but damaged houses, his included, Sven climbed up out of the hole and got to his feet. Moving cautiously, he checked the houses closest to his for any sign of anyone. He found no one living. Whoever had gone through the houses scavenging for food didn’t seem to be around. There were plenty of dead bodies, both inside and outside, including Glenda’s.

Having seen plenty of death while in the service, he didn’t think too much about it until he realized that the body wasn’t were it had fallen when Zander shot her. There was some signs of depredation, but not from something that could have moved the body. She hadn’t died instantly.

Shaking his head, Sven looked over at the yard shed. It had collapsed into itself. Deciding to worry about it later, Sven went to the front door of his house. It hung loose. It had been closed and locked when Sven had gone to bed that fateful night. The scavengers had been in his house, too. As he had the other houses, Sven went through his own with the pistol up and ready. Also like the others, the fridge and pantry shelves had been cleaned out of everything edible at some point between the attack and now.

More curious now than worried about why the main door of the shelter wouldn’t open, Sven went down stairs to take a look there. That’s when he gagged and almost threw up in the respirator.

Zander was there, plus a couple more of the neighbors, dead. And they had all died badly, from the amount of blood showing on the walls, floor, and even ceiling of the basement. Not to mention the equally bloody axe, pick-mattock, and sledge hammer. Then Sven noticed the empty cartridge cases at the foot of the stairs.

The best explanation he could come up with was Zander, probably alone initially, had tried to break into the shelter door. That was why it wouldn’t open. The locking mechanism had kept the vault locked under the assault of the sledge hammer, pick-mattock, axe, and bullets, but couldn’t be opened due to the damage.

At some point, some of the neighbors tried to take over or just help. Something went wrong, probably panic, and they set on one another. Perhaps it was triggered by the scavengers. Perhaps they came later. Sven couldn’t tell and didn’t want to hang around the mess to try to figure it out. Seven people were dead at the entrance to his shelter, some having died horrible deaths.

When Sven turned to leave the basement, something caught his eye, near where the remains of Zander’s body lay. It was the tiny pistol he’d used. A Raven .25 ACP. That explained the fact that Sven wasn’t injured worse than he had been when shot with the diminutive round. Though it had served its purpose with Glenda, even if she didn’t die immediately.

Sven started to leave it where it lay, but turned around and picked it up. Never knew when another gun might come in handy. Even a Raven .25.

Next on the agenda was to check on the truck in the garage. The truck seemed to be just fine, but Sven couldn’t get the garage door open. Leaving it for the moment, Sven went back into the shelter the way he’d come out. Through the escape tunnel.

He didn’t bother to decontaminate, going straight in. With the respirator tilted back on the top of his head, Sven went through the small shelter and moved everything he was going to keep, slowly and painfully, through the tunnel, and piled it all outside, near the tunnel exit. Some things were a tight fit and difficult to handle going through the tunnel, but Sven kept at it and finally had what he wanted sitting beside the tunnel opening.

He did the same with things in the rest of the house, though there weren’t that many things he wanted from inside. The task done, Sven rested a while. When he got up out of the folding chair he moved once again to the garage. He tried a couple of other options to get the garage door open, but the frame was just too warped for the door to move.

“Well, nuts!” Sven exclaimed. He then went about loading a few things from the shelves in the garage into the back of his old Suburban in the dim light coming through the two windows in the garage. Then he lowered the two preloaded Thule cargo containers onto the roof rack of the Suburban and fastened them in place.

Next, Sven put the hitch mount cargo box in place and loaded it up with the last of the things he wanted from the garage. He hesitated then, but finally went back into the house and into the basement. There were a few things he wanted from there. He just hated to be around the gore.

After three trips he had everything, including the bloody tools. Those he placed in the roof cargo rack between the two Thule units. The other things went into back of the Suburban, through the right side passenger door.

Knowing he couldn’t put it off any longer, Sven got behind the wheel of the Suburban, crossed his fingers for a moment, and then turned the key to start it. He grinned when the diesel fired right up. It was a non-electronic diesel and he hadn’t been too worried about EMP, but it was good to know the engine would run.

Leaving the engine running, Sven got out, dug out a pair of large bolt cutters from the rear box and climbed up onto the bumper and grill guard on the front of the Suburban. It took only a couple of moments to cut the cable of the electric door opener, and then the two cables that connected to the counterbalance springs.

There was a terrible racket as the springs unwound and the door fell downward, only two inches, still in its tracks. After putting the bolt cutter away, Sven got back into the driver’s seat of the Suburban.

Putting the transmission in low, Sven eased the Suburban forward until the heavy bumper and brush guard was against the door. Giving the diesel just a bit more throttle, Sven began to push against the door. It was no match for the Suburban and began to crack and splinter as Sven kept going.

A bit further and the rollers jumped out of the tracks and the garage door fell, the upper panels slamming onto the hood and then sliding off. Sven winced. “There goes the paint!” he muttered. But he didn’t stop. He rolled right over the remains of the door onto the parking pad.

A few minutes later and he was backed up to the similar garage door in the yard shed. There was no way he could just cut the door loose the way he had the one in the garage. Things were just too jumbled up.

“Oh, well, I built the trailer to take it…” he said aloud and got into the rear cargo box again. Taking out a hitch mount winch, he slid it into place in the extension tube of the hitch on the cargo box and locked it into place.

With a grimace, Sven climbed up the access ladder on the rear of the Suburban and retrieved the bloody axe. At least he had his gloves on. It took only a few swings with the axe to make a hole in the door at one side so he could run the winch cable through, pull it around and snap the hook into the tow hook on the rear bumper.

He’d put the Suburban in four wheel drive when he was moving the it, in anticipation of what he was ready to do. He eased the Suburban forward, felt the cable tension, and then pressed the accelerator a bit more. The Suburban sort of grunted, but eased forward amidst the screeching noises of the yard shed coming apart at the seams.

Then the Suburban surged forward and Sven brought it to a stop. He got out to look. Sure enough, the garage door and frame had finally pulled loose. But the shed had collapsed the rest of the way down onto the custom trailer that was inside.

Sven dragged the door out of the way, unhooked the winch and put it away, and inserted a pintle hitch into the hitch tube, locking it securely into place. He backed the Suburban up to the tandem wheeled trailer. There was just enough clearance for him to make contact with the trailer. He set the brake, hopped out, and connected the hitch ring of the trailer to the pintle hitch on the Suburban. He plugged up the wiring connection, and the fuel line from the tanks in the trailer, and then got back into the Suburban.

When he pulled forward the trailer eased out of the collapsing shed easily and Sven sighed with relief. The trailer wasn’t an absolute necessity, but he really wanted it with him on his upcoming journey.

Working very carefully, Sven loaded a few things from the remains of the shed onto the trailer, careful not to let the structure collapse on him. He finally looked around one last time, stripped off the protective equipment, shaking it off and putting it in the Suburban, and started to get behind the driver’s seat again.

The voice came out of the blue. “Put your hands up and step away from the rig, dude, and I won’t kill you.”

Sven did as requested, turning slightly so he could see who was talking. There were two of them. Both in their twenties, Sven thought. Both armed. One with a twenty-two caliber revolver, and the other a very dangerous looking semi-automatic. Sven was pretty sure it was a Hi-Point, but he wasn’t sure. Didn’t really make any difference. A 9mm bullet from it was just as dangerous as one from a Browning Hi-Power.

“You don’t need to do this,” Sven said slowly. He noted both men’s appearance. Both were suffering from radiation sickness, and probably malnutrition. “I’m willing to help…”

“Shut up!” screamed the man with the .22 revolver, waving the gun menacingly toward Sven.

The other said, “Let’s just kill him and take his stuff.” He held the pistol loosely in his hand, in classic on-the-side gangsta hold.

Sven had the sudden feeling that was just what the two were going to do. He had nothing else to lose. Sven dived to the men’s left, hitting the ground rolling, grabbing for the Colt in the small of the back holster.

Several shots rang out and Sven had to think for a moment to figure out if he’d been hit or not. It didn’t seem so, and both of the men were down. Still trying to sense if he’d been shot, Sven got up and walked carefully over to the two men. Revolver man was dead where he lay.

Sven kicked the gun out of his reach anyway, his eyes turning to the pistol packer. He wasn’t dead, but if Sven was any judge, and he was, it wouldn’t be long. And unless Sven put him out of his misery, it would be a painful death. Two of Sven’s rounds had hit him in the stomach, another in the thigh, which was what took him down.

Again Sven slid the gun away from possible access and then bent down to pick it up. It was, indeed, a Hi-Point 9mm. When Sven leaned down and began to go through the man’s pockets he screamed in pain. But Sven had three more magazines for the pistol, a partial box of ammunition, and no less than three knives.

As the glazed eyes of the moaning man looked on, Sven searched the other guy. Two fifty-round boxes of .22’s, and only two knives. But the revolver was a Ruger Single Six, and, like the other man’s, the knives were Cold Steel and Spyderco brands. “Wonder if they got a package deal,” went through Sven’s mind as he gathered everything up.

“What about me, mister?” groaned the wounded man.

“It’s simple, dude. You lost. You die. Now, if you want, I can put a bullet in the back of your head, or you can just lay there and die.”

There was enough attitude in him for the man to reply with a string of expletives. Sven got into the Suburban and drove away. He almost turned back when he saw the pack of dogs roaming near the entrance to his subdivision. They were a sorry looking bunch of dogs, and probably didn’t have long to live themselves, but if they picked up the smell of blood, and Sven thought they looked like they had, the gangsta still alive would die even harder than the stomach wound would cause.

Putting it out of his mind, Sven kept going, heading for where he knew he should have been at the time of the attack.

Planning Pays Off - Chapter 2

Sven reached over and adjusted the rifle leaning against the passenger seat to an easier position for him to grab and use if he needed to do so. He’d been careless at the house and could have wound up with another bullet hole in him, or as dead as the gangstas, his rig in their possession. It would be one thing to die and have a family get his stuff. But he wasn’t about to let lowlifes get it and use it to terrorize even more people.

If he had been able to implement Plan A, nothing that had happened the last two weeks or so would have occurred the same way. He would have been where he was now heading. Hopefully he could make it to his small retreat on Lake Wappapello north of Poplar Bluff, Missouri without any more encounters like the last one.

Nothing happened. At first. But he did have to change the route. His keychain radiation alarm began to chirp. Sven turned the rig around and retraced the route until the alarm stopped sounding. Sven took out a map to check his alternate route.

The best alternate would take him back into the fallout zone for a bit, but would then turn away from it. Probably. Depending on the actual fallout pattern. And there was no way for Sven to determine that, without going through it. The risk was too high. That meant an alternate to the alternate.

With the Yaesu FT-819D scanning the Amateur HF frequencies, Sven turned the Suburban south, rather than east. He hoped to be able to contact an Amateur with some information, as none of the broadcast stations seemed to be on the air. He’d had no contact, except the Gangstas, since the attack. All the radios had been silent, except for static. He had tested his equipment and everything seemed to have survived in the faraday cages he’d stored it in.

Sven kept edging east, when a road was available, but kept hitting the fallout line, and had to keep going more southward. He was beginning to get a bit worried that the retreat site might have taken much more fallout than he had thought would be likely.

There had been no real certainties when he was looking for the property. It was a toss up whether the empty silos associated with Whiteman Air Force base would be hit. It was almost a certainty that Whiteman would be. But that would be only two or three small devices. If whoever it was hit the empty missile silos, there would be much more fallout going southeast from them. Perhaps enough to keep the retreat off-limits for some time to come.

Sven put the possibilities out of his head and kept his attention on the road and his surroundings. If there were more bad guys, or even some good guys with too good of an opportunity, he could be attacked for his working vehicle.

He’d seen many others stranded on the road, though there had been only a couple of dead visible in one of them. Everyone had apparently sought shelter somewhere when their automobiles quit. Sven had no doubt it would have been much worse if the EMP had come during a morning or evening commute rather than so early in the morning.

Sven was getting hungry around five in the afternoon and began looking for a place to stop and eat, and perhaps lay over for the night. He was on a southeasterly course and the alarm began to sound again.

With a sigh, Sven turned around, intending to head back to the last place he could go more southward. Only a minute or so on the back trail and he saw two pickup trucks. For the first moments he thought they were stopped on the road, but he suddenly realized that he hadn’t seen them when he came past that point earlier.

Sven slowed down and came to a stop. The two pickups were slowly approaching. Whoever they were, they weren’t very smart. When they realized that the Suburban had come to a stop, several of the occupants in the beds of the pickups began firing. It settled one problem for Sven. He didn’t have to wonder if they were friendly or not.

Stepping out of the Suburban, Sven brought the PTR-91 with him. He had a Beta-C dual drum magazine in it and began to empty it toward the two trucks as they accelerated toward him. He must have had a lucky shot for one of the trucks immediately slowed down and rolled off the road, nose down in the ditch. The other one kept coming.

Sven got back into the Suburban, started it forward just enough to let the four-wheel drive engage, and then turned off the pavement. It was a rough ride, but the Suburban and trailer both made the transition from pavement to dirt through the ditch without trouble. The other truck immediately tried the same thing, and made it across the ditch, though with two less people in the bed of the truck than in there originally.

Keeping the sped up as much as he dared, and that was quite a bit, he was pulling away from the pickup when it slowed and stopped. Sven kept going, glancing in the rearview mirror from time to time.

The pursuing truck had turned around and was headed back toward the other. Fortunately the best route out of the pending ambush was to the south, away from the fallout, and Sven kept going until he could pick up a road.

When he got back onto pavement he stopped and did a quick walk around of the vehicle. There didn’t seem to be any damage until he got to the back of the trailer. There were a couple of bullet marks on the metal, but they’d been glancing blows along the side of the trailer and had only scratched the paint and dented the metal.

Sven hit the road again, looking for a likely place to stop, security the uppermost in his mind. He found a gravel road that led off the two lane highway fairly soon and turned off onto it. It went into a stand of trees and just sort of petered out. Sven managed to get the Suburban and trailer turned around in the tight space, and parked with the rig headed back the way they’d come into the trees.

Taking four of his passive infrared perimeter alarms from the Suburban, Sven set them around the camp area and turned them on. He went about setting up his tent and then prepared a quick meal, opening up an MRE and heating the entrée with the heater included in the package. He ate the side dishes and desert slowly, after he ate the entrée.

After going into the trees to dig a cat hole, just inside the range of the alarm system, he did his business, covered the hole and went back to the tent. The twilight was now darkness and Sven didn’t use a light when he rolled out the sleeping pad and then the bag. He stripped down and slid into the cotton liner already in the bag, setting the Colt within reach. The PTR was again loaded with a full drum. It was handy by the door of the tent. Sven closed his eyes and was soon asleep.

He slept well, though he did wake up a couple of times. There were no alarms, but Sven had the Colt in his hand when he left the tent to go to the bathroom and take a look around. Satisfied he was alone, Sven set about getting breakfast. It didn’t take long. When he had eaten and broken camp, he fired the Suburban up and left less than forty-five minutes from the time he had left the tent.

He was even with Joplin, Missouri. Sven stopped and hesitated. It wasn’t that far to Tulsa. He had family in Tulsa. But they should be either at the retreat or on their way, just like him.

He kept going, eastward again, feeling hopeful that the radiation alarm wouldn’t start sounding. He a few miles south of where his retreat was on Wappapello Lake. More or less on a line with Poplar Bluff. He began to relax some when he picked up US 160 north of Branson. Though 160 would take him further south, Sven decided to stay on it unless there was an overwhelming reason to leave it. It meant he would have to cut north, either through Poplar Bluff, or take a route around it, to get to the retreat.

The look of the weather began to bother him. There’d been no immediate ‘Nuclear Winter,’ the way some scenarios had predicted. But it was suddenly uncommonly cold for this far south at this time of year. The sky had been hazy ever since Sven had left the shelter, but now real clouds were forming. It looked like it could be a really bad storm.

Trying to keep an eye on the storm that was building behind him, Sven almost didn’t see the roadblock ahead in time. He was on the west side of the small town where the 160 crossed an arm of Bull Shoals Lake.

Sven checked the rear view mirror when he came to a stop. Sure enough, he’d missed the blocking force. “They must have been on one of the side roads,” Sven muttered to himself. They were approaching slowly and Sven debated another minute to take a quick look at the map before he took his foot off the brake pedal and put it on the accelerator. He began moving forward again. He was in, essentially, a cul-de-sac. Any of the side roads would take him to a dead end or another roadblock, he was sure.

The blocking force stayed well behind when Sven stopped twenty-feet or so from the road block. He kept his hands up, in sight, after he opened the driver’s side door of the Suburban, and got out very slowly.

“Just passing through!” he called out, facing the roadblock. He hadn’t seen anyone, but felt like there were a dozen pairs of eyes on him. Finally a man stepped from behind one of the cars that made up the roadblock. He had a shotgun, the butt resting on his hip.

“This is a toll road now,” said the man. “Going either way. Once you passed through our line, you owed us.”

“How much? Will you take a check?”

The man didn’t like that, at all. The shotgun came down of his hip and was now held in two hands. “Not funny, guy. Not much humor left in the world. I’d be careful where you tried to dish it out. Now fork over five gallons of gas, or we’ll look things over and take what we want.”

“How about diesel?” Sven asked.

“Diesel is fine.”

“I’ll get it out of the trailer,” Sven said, and turned to go back to do it.

“Easy,” said the man, walking forward now to join Sven. “Okay. Any funny moves and you’re dead and we’re rich, from the look of your rig.”

Sven took the threat to heart. He lifted the lid of one of the side toolboxes of the trailer and pulled out a jerry can. He tried to hand it to the man, but the man backed up. “Set it down on the side of the road.”

After doing so, the man waved toward the roadblock and one of the cars began to move, being pushed manually by two more people.

“In your rig and get out of here. I’d suggest you don’t come back. Things are going to get tough and we have to take care of our families any way we can.”

Sven simply nodded, got into the Suburban and pulled through the gap in the roadblock. There were some people about in the small town, but they simply stared at Sven driving by, making no move to wave or speak.

When he reached the other side of the town, he drove through the gap already opened in that roadblock. “After all that,” Sven said aloud, “I hope the bridge is okay.” It was and Sven crossed it, vowing to himself to be more careful. He wasn’t sure if there had been anything he could have done. The roadblock had been placed well, and the blocking force knew what they were doing.

Shaking off the almost doom-like feeling, Sven continued on his way, at a slightly more sedate pace, watching carefully ahead. He did continue to take a glance in the rearview mirror, both to check on the approaching storm and to make sure he wasn’t be followed.

The town on the other side of the lake seemed to be abandoned. He saw no one, not even a stray dog, as he passed through the town at a moderate speed. He sighed in relief when he cleared the town and was on the open road again.

Stopping well before getting to each of the small towns he came to he would study the map and find a way around them on county roads. He even used some farm roads. The process, while apparently safer, was much more time consuming.

The storm caught up with him just outside of West Plains. He decided to wait it out in the Suburban, after finding a bare field adjacent to the highway where he could park. Sven turned off the engine of the Suburban and leaned the seat back to get comfortable, taking the Colt from the seat next to him to hold in his lap.

It was a fitful evening and night. The storm raged for hours. Every once in a while the keychain radiation alarm would sound, but only two or three chirps before it went silent again. Catching a lag in the storm, Sven got out and used the bathroom, getting back inside the truck just as the rain and hail began again.

He drank a bit of water and had a couple of handfuls of Gorp that he kept handy in the truck. It was still raining when Sven woke up the next morning. He hurriedly went to the bathroom in the rain after starting up the Suburban so it could warm up. The temperature had dropped significantly during the night and the rain was verging on freezing rain and sleet.

Another couple of handfuls of Gorp and a long drink of water, and Sven put the Suburban in gear and got back onto the road. The borrow ditches were full of water, sometimes covering the road two or three inches deep. Sven left US 160 west of West Plains and turned north, again wondering if he would run into heavy radiation further north.

The rain continued the entire time, actually turning to sleet as Sven went north. It quickly turned to heavy snow and Sven reduced his speed even more. He didn’t want to come up on one of the abandoned vehicles on US 67 and hit it due to lack of visibility.

The radiation alarm began to chirp, very slowly and Sven tensed up some. But he was only a few miles from crossing the Wappapello at the north end of the lake and turning back south to get to his retreat. He pressed on, keeping his speed low, but marginally faster.

When he crossed south of Greenville and turned back south on county roads the alarm slowed down more and finally quit beeping altogether. Sven breathed another sigh of relief. Another three hours of slow going on the back roads and Sven was near his retreat.

As soon as he saw the gate blocking the dirt track leading to his property Sven knew there was trouble ahead. The gate was standing wide open. Though not locked, the latch mechanism was rather complex. An animal couldn’t get it open and it sure wouldn’t open on its own. Someone had been to the property and was probably still there. There was room to turn the rig around and Sven did so, going back the way he’d come.

When he got to the spot he was headed, Sven pulled off the road through a small opening in the forest and parked in the clear area a quarter mile off the road. It was already late in the afternoon and the snow was lighter, but still coming down. Sven wasn’t in the mood to stay in the Suburban again, or set up a camp this close to the retreat.

A grim look on his face, Sven got out of the truck, pulled a pair of Carhartt bibs and a parka from the gear in the back and put them on. He shrugged into a combat harness of suspenders, belt, and pouches. He slipped the Colt into the holster on the belt, checked the six magazine pouches carrying magazines for it, and then checked the pouch of four twenty-round magazines for the PTR. He put the respirator that had been sitting on the passenger seat into a thigh bag.

With everything as it should be, with the truck and trailer covered with a camouflage tarp and the alarms set, Sven set off in the snow with the PTR-91 slung over his shoulder. He’d been all over this area on foot and knew exactly where he was going and how to get there unheard and unseen. The snow was actually an aid in his endeavor now.

It took him an hour to hike to the clearing where his retreat was situated. There were some signs of activity. He circled the entire area, looking for anyone that might be outside in the miserable weather. As expected, there wasn’t anyone out and about. He checked the locations of all the caches he had around the area. None had been disturbed.

Sven went back to the clearing and approached the plain looking concrete block structure that was the basis of his retreat. There was a thin column of smoke coming from the fireplace chimney. He watched for a little while as twilight deepened into full darkness, with only the whiteness of the snow allowing any visibility that deep into the forest.

Backing away from the clearing, Sven went to get one of the cached shovels nearby. The ground wasn’t frozen so it was easy to use his field knife to dig the thin layer of dirt from the shovel. It was a fiberglass handled shovel and the shovel head was well oiled and wrapped in plastic. It was in fine shape.

Shovel in hand, Sven moved to another spot, carefully checking his bearings. A few scoops with the shovel and a four inch plastic pipe came into view. The end was capped. Another two shovelfuls and a plastic ammo can was exposed. Sven opened it and took out a battery powered fan, and one of the six smoke grenades the box contained.

Sven slipped the cap off the pipe, pulled the pin of the grenade, set it just inside the pipe, turned on the fan, and set it so it would blow the smoke down the pipe. A little smoke was escaping, but not enough to matter. PTR ready in his hands, Sven moved to a position where he could see the chimney and the door of the retreat. He took a minute to put on the respirator.

It didn’t take long. Thick smoke came billowing out of the chimney and people came rushing out of the small building.

In a prone position, the PTR on the bi-pod, Sven aimed at the only person that came out of the building with a gun in his hand.

“Drop the gun and I won’t kill you!” shouted Sven.

Rubbing his eyes the man fired the pistol at the sound of Sven’s voice. Sven drilled him right in the center of the chest, turning the PTR on another of the four remaining people. “Surrender or die!” Sven yelled this time.

Though all tried to put their hands up, none could keep from coughing and rubbing their eyes. “Anyone else inside?” Sven asked as the small group moved further away from the smoke still billowing from the open door.

Before anyone could answer, another man came charging out through the door, a pump shotgun in his hands. Sven had to give him credit. The man was game. With tears streaming down his face, and moving at a dead run, he still managed to get off three rounds of twelve gauge buckshot toward Sven, before Sven shot him, again, a shot to the center of the chest.

If Sven had been standing, at least one of the loads of buckshot would have hit him.

“Don’t shoot any more, Mister! That’s all of them! We didn’t do nothing! They made us!”

Through the snow Sven finally made out that the remaining four were either women, or children. None were dressed for the weather, obviously. Sven got up and approached the group. “Don’t try anything or I’ll kill you like the others,” Sven said.

“We’re freezing, Mister!” said the same voice. Sven still wasn’t sure if it was a boy or a girl.

“Give me a minute and I’ll clear the smoke and we can go back inside. You’ll just have to stand it for a couple of minutes.” First grabbing up the two weapons the men had used, Sven ran back to pull the now empty smoke grenade from the pipe. He left the fan running.

Going to the building, Sven went inside carefully, the PTR at the ready. A quick look around in the heavy smoke and Sven went to a hanging cabinet, reached in and tripped a lock. The cabinet swung away from the wall, exposing an electrical panel. Sven flipped a breaker and the faint sound of a fan moving air could be heard.

When he went back outside, three of the group were huddled around the fourth. Sven stood there at the door, just watching, checking the inside of the building every few seconds. “Okay,” he finally said. “I think it’s clear enough to come back in. It’ll smell, but you should be able to stand it. It wasn’t teargas or anything. Just marking smoke.

The three helped the one and half carried what Sven could now see was a young woman, girl really, barely clothed. He grimaced. She probably was just about freezing. She was hustled inside and over by the fireplace. One of the other three grabbed a blanket from a pile on the floor and wrapped her in it.

“What now?” asked the woman after turning around from helping the other woman. And it was a woman, not a boy or girl. It was the same person that had spoken each time before. He got a good look at both of the others. There was another woman, and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen.

“Depends,” Sven said.

“You try to hurt my sister like the others did, I’ll kill you!” The boy was shivering, but stood tall when he made the threat.

“Your sister, you… all of you, have nothing to fear from me, as long as you don’t go trying to kill me like those other two. Now, who are you? Who were they? And why are you trespassing on my property?”

“You should know,” said the talky woman. “Those guys said they knew you.”

“Knew me?” Sven said, obviously surprised. Sven stepped back outside and took a better look at both of the men. He stepped back and started to go inside, but hesitated. He pushed the door open but didn’t enter.

“Where I can see you, if you please,” Sven said when he saw the brother, sister, and third woman, but not the talky one.

Obviously reluctantly, the woman moved into Sven’s line of sight. She held the fireplace poker in her hand.

“Now, now, now,” Sven said, going inside and taking the poker from her hand without a problem. “You’ll be a lot better off if you work with me, rather than against me. Now. I want some introductions and information.

“I’m Belinda Montgomery,” said the woman that had tried to ambush him. “That’s, Traven Gregory and his sister Elaine. And my sister, Pru Conrad.”

“Okay. I’ve got the names. What happened here?”

“What’s the relation between you and your sister, and Traven and Elaine?”

“Coincidence. They were in the car ahead of us on 67 when all the vehicles on the road stopped running.

“Probably EMP,” Traven interjected.

“Yes. I suppose,” said Belinda. “For whatever reason, the cars stopped and we all were standing around wondering what happened. We were just this side of Greenville. A bunch of us started walking toward the town, but then those two goons… Do you know them or not?”