Cals Quest 2

Every available parking spot was full of vehicles. The hospital, recreational center, sports fields, school yards, the streets surrounding them. But nowhere could people be seen. Except for the odd cat or dog wandering the streets, they were bare. Only the sound of the wind could be heard.

Looking to his left, the gas plant ten miles to the north had every one of its safety flare stacks belching flames as did several wells and pumping stations in the area, relieving pent up pressure. The power sub-station that distributed power throughout the area was a blackened melted mess of goo and melted metal, as were the transformers mounted on poles and the once large green boxes that housed the transformers for underground distribution lines were now black and melted.

Cal drove down to the hospital and parked in the open driveway before the front doors. All of the vehicles parked neatly everywhere, were covered in dust. None of them had moved for a while. Taking his flashlight with him, Cal entered the hospital and wandered the empty halls. He next made his way to the local police station, the schools, senior’s complexes, and fire hall. Everywhere it was the same. Dark, empty buildings. Everything neat and tidy. The only thing missing, people.

Cal drove to a few of his friend’s homes and found the same thing. Everything normal, waiting for the occupants to return. No signs of hurried evacuation or panic. Just empty homes. Driving east the five miles to the main highway, he saw no other vehicles on the road or any activity in the farm yards he passed. Cal stopped in the middle of the overpass crossing the four lane highway and glassed north and south, seeing absolutely no traffic on the normally very busy highway. In the time he had been looking around, not one train had passed through the town. Normally there would have been one train per hour passing through the town.

It was getting late in the day and Cal made his way home. What was going on? No signs of struggle, no dead bodies anywhere. Just no people anywhere. There were animals, farm and wild life, everywhere, so it couldn’t have been a war or other disaster. That would have not only affected the animals but there should have been some kind of indication other than the lack of electrical power that something bad had happened.

The next morning, after feeding the animals and himself, he split enough wood to last a few days, stacking it beside the wood stove. Then he took stock of his food situation. He had enough to last for about a month, maybe two. Nowhere near enough to last him until harvest time. Well he had to survive the next little while anyway. He would worry about it later.

He took a look at his mother’s vegetable garden patch. It should be big enough for him. The blue berries bushes were budding. He would take half, prune them heavily and plant the parings. That would still give him sufficient berries to preserve for the winter. He would thin out the remaining half the next year. It would take three years for the cuttings to establish themselves and begin producing berries for him.

He had four horses. Two of them had foaled in the spring, one was a male foal. Ten of the cows had had calves in the spring, with three males. He would keep the best of the three for stud and make the other two steers. So meat was not going to be a problem for him. One steer or cow, would last him all year.

His father had not shipped his grain to market yet, so the granaries were full. Four with wheat and four with barley. With no electricity or refineries, fuel would be an issue. He would have to look into converting the machinery from fuel consuming engines, to animal propulsion. But that could wait for now. There was more than enough grazing and hay land now. His father had thinned the herd a lot the year before. Prices had been low and they were losing money on the cattle. He would figure out how to harvest the hay later.

With the one bull, the next few years would be fine as far as the cattle breading was concerned. But he would have to find another stallion if he wanted a healthy horse herd and he was going to need one as soon as the fuel ran out.

Checking the two diesel and one gasoline, thousand gallon fuel tanks they had, Cal found that one diesel tank was full, the other half full and the gasoline one was down to a quarter full. Well, he knew how to rectify that situation in the short term at least. He fired up the big JD tractor with its bale loading forks still attached to the front end loader arms and drove it to a storage shed. Hooked a five hundred gallon spare portable tank to the forks and dropped it in the back of their five ton grain truck.

Chaining it down so it was safe. He drove to Caroline’s house, just three miles down the road. He knew they were not home, they had still been away when all this had happened. Although the owned a full section of land, they leased most of it to other farmers, keeping only enough to pasture the four horses Caroline and her mother kept for a hobby. The house was a five thousand square foot monstrosity, with two four car garages, one to each side, attached to it. It had a tennis court and an indoor and an outdoor swinging pool. A putting and driving range and a very large motorhome that was seldom used, parked under semi enclosed shed.

But most importantly for Cal, was the two five hundred gallon gasoline tanks placed beside the motorhome shed. One was full, the other three quarters full. Cal cut the lock holding the refuelling hose of the almost full one off and began the long process of fueling his portable tank using only gravity instead of a powered pump to do it. Once that was done, he walked over to the house itself. He knew they had a generator, but it was natural gas powered, so it would not be working, and the alarm system would be dead by now.

He knew where Caroline stashed her spare key, retrieved it and entered the house. The first thing he did was go to the kitchen and toss everything that was in the refrigerator out into the back yard. It was already spoiling. The birds, coyotes and skunks would feast on it. Then he went to the large freezer and tossed what was already starting to thaw, along with anything he didn’t want, to join the rest of the food on the back yard. He packed what he wanted into the two insulated coolers he had brought along and tossed them into the cab of the truck. Now he cleared the pantry of any canned goods he wanted, placed them in the boxes he had brought along and put them in the box of the truck.

Next he raided the wine cellar of any booze he wanted. Mostly beer and a few cases of vodka, whiskey and rum. With one case of wine included. The next stop was the gun room. As he expected both large gun safes were closed and locked. After some experimenting, he found that they were both to heavy to maneuver easily by hand, but that both were not bolted to the floor.

Just out of curiosity, he walked into Caroline’s bedroom it was a teenage girls room, pink and pastel colors on the walls and fabrics. Stuffed animals and dolls on walls and on the bed. Pictures of the latest male super hunk, poster sized of course, on the walls. He turned on the laptop on her desk, just to see if they might have internet access. They did not, but her email program was open on the screen and her last received email was staring him in the face and it wasn’t from him.

It was from another guy from the big city. A guy he had met in this very house and who had been introduced to him by Caroline’s father as her cousin. It had all been a lie. The emails between Caroline and this guy went back a year and it was very clear, that she was just using him. Her and her family had big plans for him, but not as a member of the family. They wanted his father’s property, or the mineral rights he held, that is.

‘Nice,’ Cal thought. ‘Thanks a bunch.’ Well no loss. He had pretty much decided the relationship was going know where anyway and from the looks of things, she and her family would not be back anytime soon. Still, to find out he and his family had just been played with hurt. His parents had really liked Caroline and made her one of the family. He picked up the laptop and smashed it against the wall.

He left the front door unlocked when he left, but closed it. He would be coming back and didn’t want any wildlife in the house when he did. He already knew that the garages held fancy cars and SUVs. He had no use for them and didn’t even go into the garages. Caroline’s father and older brother just owned them, they never worked on them, so there would be no spare parts or tools in the garages. He might have use for the motorhome later, but not right now.

It was dark by the time his small electric pump had transferred the fuel from the tank on the truck, to the big one in the yard. By the time it was finished, he had transferred all the supplies he had liberated to the house and fed his chickens and retrieved their eggs.

The next morning after chores and breakfast, he hooked up the flatbed trailer they had to the back of the five ton and parked and secured their yard tractor onto the flat bed. Then he drove back to Caroline’s house, parked under the fuel tank and filled his portable one again. Once that was done. He drove the yard tractor off the flat bed and over to the front door of the house, with a two wheel fridge dolly in the bucket attached to the front of the tractor. Then one by one, he manoeuvred the gun safes onto the dolly and from the dolly to the tractor bucket, which he then used to load them into the truck box.

Once that was done, he started going through cupboards and drawers in the gun room, finding all the supplies he knew they had for making bullets. Caroline’s dad made all his own. He also found two hunting bows and arrows along with two crossbows and bolts for them. Not only that, spare parts and strings for the bows and crossbows, arrow heads, spare shafts, fletching and books. Books on reloading bullets and arrow making.

Even though he was home earlier, it was still dark by the time he had unloaded everything that day. The two gun safes he had unloaded in the workshop. The rest down to the basement of the house. Now both his gasoline fuel tanks were full and the portable one in the back of the truck still had fuel in it. He would be ok for a while now.

It took him most of the day to cut through the pins locking the safes closed the next day. Inside the first were an assortment of high powered hunting rifles and shot guns. Some, fancy, but most were utility weapons. The other safe had tactical shot guns, two AR15 semi-automatic assault rifles, two AK47’s and enough clips to hold a hundred rounds for each rifle. There were also, four Colt Automatic 45 caliber pistols, three Glocks in 9mm, also with enough spare clips for a hundred rounds each. There was a small Smith and Wesson .38 revolver and a small .22 caliber revolver. A brick of a thousand rounds of .22 bullets and four boxes of .38 bullets. There were also several holsters for the pistols. Some belt holsters, some web belt and holster, shoulder harnesses and ankle holsters.

Cal picked one Glock and one Colt at random along with a web belt and holster and took them with him to the house. He would play with them later.

The next day he went back with his pickup truck and four horse trailer, loading up the stallion, two mares and the gelding from Caroline’s house and letting them loose with his horses in the pasture. The rest of the day he spent deciding which of the pistols he liked better and chose the Colt. Although it was harder to control shooting multiple rounds, it was more robust and had more hitting power than the Glock did.

The next few days, he cleared out the guest bedroom of the house and started constructing shelving units in it to hold all the canned goods. Then he rototilled the garden patch. Pruned the blue berry bushes and transplanted the cuttings. The days began to become routine as he fed and watered the animals in the mornings, tended the garden in the afternoons, practiced archery in the evenings and set up the armory in the basement of the house after supper.

He had a lot of time to think and started planning for harvest and winter. There was an old windmill that used to power the old mechanical pump in the pump house. It was a fairly simple device and did not take him long to figure out how it worked. With a lot of patience and time, which he had a lot of now, a few days of rummaging around to find bolts the right size and a lot of oil, hammering, elbow grease and cursing, he was able to repair broken and bent pieces and free up seized parts. It started working again.

Now he started to figure out how he could use it to grind the grain into flour. Using parts he scavenged from broken down and rusting farm machinery, he soon had a system that worked not bad and had made some fairly decent wheat flour. He had to strain it to get rid of the bad bits, but it was alright.

One afternoon he let the wind mill work in the afternoon and put a small hand held tachometer on the shaft that used to power the old hand pump in the pump house. It was not all that windy, but he thought it was rotating fast enough to power an automotive alternator. So the next few days he played around with different pulley sizes and soon had a spare truck alternator hooked up so that it would charge the batteries in the pump house on days when there was little or no sun, or at night. The system had come originally designed to accommodate both wind and solar power and would switch automatically to which ever was producing the most power. Now he should be ok, even in the winter time, or on windy nights. Sweet.

It was late August. He had already harvested and stacked the first crop of hay. The second would not be as good, but he would have more than enough for the winter. The garden was progressing nicely and he had rigged netting over the bushes to keep birds from eating his soon to be ripe berries. Both his apple trees were loaded with apples that he would harvest soon. He was set.

Now he took a chance and drove to town, stopping once again on the back side of the hill and creeping up to check it out. It was completely deserted but for a few dogs and cats and the odd deer. His first stop was the grocery store. The doors were unlocked and from the smell, all the frozen and fresh food were spoiled. But all the non-perishable items were still there.

He spent the next few days loading up everything he thought he could ever possible use, including the shelving and took it back to the farm, dumping it all in the barn. The next stop was the hardware store. He loaded up all the electric heaters he could find, then all the chain, nails, nuts and bolts, pipe, pipe connectors, wire, electrical parts, paint. Pots and pans canning jars, candles, paraffin wax blocks.

He had to stop to harvest the garden and fruit trees, then was back at it until he had to once again hay. Once that was done, he started to fix the old barn. Replacing old rotten boards on the stalls and old wiring for lamps. Repairing holes in the siding and feed stations and stall doors. There was enough room for all the cattle on one side in a large open stall. All the horses on the other in individual stalls, a foaling stall and a grooming area for the horses.

He even fixed up the old original chicken coop attached to the barn and installed an infrared heater in it for the chickens. He thought the old beams supporting the loft floor and the floor itself would be alright for this year, repaired the unused for years hay lift and had enough hay to cover the loft floor with two rows of bails. The shingles on the roof were good enough for this year and the hay would act as roof insulation for the barn.

He felt he was ready for winter. He started packing his 45 with him on his trips to town, along with an automatic shotgun in the pickup. As yet he had seem no human beings, but the dogs in the town had begun to pack up and might start becoming a problem. It would be his last trip to the local building supply store. He had cleaned it out of all the lumber, nails, screws, shingles, paint and bags of concrete that were there. He had also cleaned out all the automotive and fuels stations in town of anything he could remotely think of using. The large Quonsets that normally held tractors, trucks and other farm machinery, now had building supplies and lubricants stacked in them. He would start checking houses and garages next.

There were abundant sources of wood nearby now that he didn’t have to worry about private property and he soon had five cords of wood cut in stove lengths and using the power wood splitter he had picked up at the hardware store, it was a simple matter to split it all up. He stacked four cords in an unused hay barn that was enclosed on three sides and made a wood shed big enough to stack one cord, close to the back door of the house.

He had shot a big mule deer buck, butchered it and put it in the large freezer he had found new and unused in town. All of his fruits he had canned and preserved. His potatoes were stored in a bin that he had made in the basement along with the carrots and the peas from the garden. He found his grandmothers old recipe book and started experimenting with simple recipes that did not require sugar and butter. He didn’t have any, but using supplies he had on hand, was able to make fresh flat bread.

A stray young dog adopted him and the two of them were soon going everywhere together. Cal did at times allow his mind drift to what could have happened to all the people and he did miss his folks, a lot sometimes. Once in a while, he even thought that maybe this was all a dream, or maybe he was insane or something. But life had to go on. Animals had to be fed and the sun still came up each morning and went down each night. The days were becoming shorter, the nights longer and it was a little colder each day, until finally the late October deep freeze hit.

His electrical system handled it just fine. Between his solar array and his wind mill, the batteries had enough power to take him through the worst of the cloudy and snowy days. After a minor hiccup where the water pipes froze in the barn. Everything was working just fine. He fixed the water problem by wrapping heat tape around the pipes in the barn, the water troughs were already heated. He had plenty of straw bales stored up from previous years to provide bedding for the horses cows and chickens. This year he wouldn’t have to worry about calves, his little bull was still to young, as was his little stallion, but at least one of Caroline’s mares was pregnant and he would have to keep an eye on her.

He did miss his bacon to go with his eggs in the morning, he had no pigs. But made do. He poured any grease he had into old cans and saved it. It would come in handy later for cooking or baking. He had checked all the nearby farms and he would most likely have enough fuel to last a few years, but decided he should start planning to use other means to plant and harvest. Soon his long nights were filled with him making drawings and sketches of the machinery he had and how he could modify them to be horse drawn. One problem. He had no harnesses.

Then he remembered. There used to be a guy who made saddles and harnesses about an hour down the highway from his local town. There was bound to be something left he could salvage. So the next day he fueled up his pickup, put a rifle and a shotgun in the rear window mounted gun rack and his 45 on his shoulder holster and he and Dog went for a drive.

It was more like three hours, than one. The road was snow covered and there were no plows clearing it anymore. Luckily, he had good snow tires and four wheel drive, as in places there were drifts he had to plow through, but he made it. A warm front had moved in bringing well above freezing temperatures so as he sat looking at the buildings with his binoculars, no smoke would have been seen if there had been any to see. But after an hour of no signs of life, he drove into the yard slowly, the 45 in his hand on the seat, just in case.

No dogs or humans came crashing through the snow after him, so he cautiously opened the truck door and got out. Dog just jumped out and tail wagging, disappeared around a corner. But there was the smell of wood smoke in the air. Someone was about. He banged on the door heavily with the meat of his fist.

“Anybody home?” he yelled. He did that several times, then tried the door handle, it was not locked and he slowly opened the door and yelled again. Still no answer, he stepped inside. It was warmer in the house, but not much. He crept in, the pistol along his right pants leg.

The house was a mess. Empty booze bottles were everywhere. The place smelled like an old time saloon. A mixture of booze, old food, tobacco and wood smoke. An old man was laying passed out on the living room coach a half full bottle of some kind in a hand on his chest. He was alive, because his chest war rising and falling. His hair and beard were long and unkempt. His clothing soiled to match his surroundings. Cal left him be and investigated the rest of the house which was full of garbage, dirty clothing and bedding, but not much else.

He put a hand on the airtight wood stove and found it was still warm and opened up the door and the damper. There were still some live coals in it, so he brought them out of the ashes and piled them together, then put some kindling he found in a pile beside the stove on the embers and blowing on them, got the fire going again adding more kindling and finally some bigger pieces once it was going good enough and shut the stove door. The old man slept through it all. Rooting through the kitchen, Cal found a semi clean coffee pot and a can of coffee. There was a bucket with what appeared to be fresh water in it and he filled the coffee pot and placed it on the stove top. Then he cleaned the junk off an arm chair, took off his jacket and waited.