[IC] Life After- A Sorta Nation Prepping RP

WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE FOLKS! STAY TUNED FOR NEWS FROM YOUR FAVOURITE DJ, THREE DWAG, AS HE ENLIGHTENS YOU ABOUT WHAT'S GOING WRONG TODAY!

Current Times:

The apocalypse has started! Now's the time for you to react to the initial events of the apocalypse, as things aren't quite at Doomsday, but are very close to it! Cults should be culting, average people are all screaming and buying supplies, and most of the West Coast is fucked.

[Enigmatik]

Earlier today, at 0203 GMT hours this morning, the so-called Toba Supervolcano, located underneath Lake Toba, near Sumatra, Indonesia, erupted once more. The last time this supervolcano erupted was more than 70,000 years ago, and scientists believe that it may have been responsible for the 'genetic narrowing' in human DNA, causing human life to almost end before it started...

The Toba Supervolcano, long thought extinct, has erupted today in the early hours of the morning. Scientists are baffled as to why the seemingly dead volcano chose now to erupt, as there was no seismic buildup to indicate that this would be happening. The amount of volcanic material that has been ejected from this event has never been seen on Earth since it last erupted, in BC 79,000, and the sheer volume dwarfs that of the earlier Eyjafjallajökull in Icealand. All air travel to the following countries has been rendered impossible...

The eruption of the Toba Supervolcano has caused huge amounts of seismic activity. More than fifteen earthquakes, ranging from 6 to the never-before seen 10 on the Richter scale have rocked the area near Indonesia... There is an uncountable death toll already in the archipeligo, and one that is looked set to rise as further aftershocks hit the area. In addition, the Earthquakes have triggered a number of tidal waves to begin sweeping their way across the Pacific ocean- China, Japan, India, Australia, Malaysia and more have all experienced these tsunamis... Experts say that the western coast of the US will be experiencing them shortly, as well as further Earthquakes...

The National Guard and the army have already been deployed to the state of California. Death tolls are rising within San Francisco, and the states of Washington and Oregan have also been put on high alert. Mexican troops have crossed the border in order to supply aid, and US troops are being martialled to provide aid to Baja California. San Diego has become a rallying point for troops of both nations...

The seismic activity caused by the Toba Supervolcano eruption two days ago has caused 'incalculable seismic catastrophe,' potentially causing a 'domino effect of earthquakes,' and sparking the Yellowstone Supervolcano to also erupt. Wyoming, Utah and Idaho have all had military presences in the area dramatically increase...

"The whole world's going to shit." Robin looked at his phone, astonished. "I mean, it isn't quite the virus we expected, but this is... Much, much worse." He shook his head. Already, things were getting colder in the US. Just four days since the Toba Supervolcano eruption had gone off... Everything had gone to shit so fast.

"Just be glad we prepared at all. We can survive this." Trixie pecked him gently on the cheek, fiddling with the radio as she did so. She had been flicking through channels for a while- lots of people were suddenly online. One of the channels she switched to, however, seemed a little different than the rest.

"Hello America! My name's Three Dawg! I'll be your post apocalyptic radio host, as the world goes to shit around you! I'll be offering advice, music, news and more every day until I can't broadcast no more, or this whole mess gets sorted out, whichever comes first!"

The voice that boomed out was loud, but cheery as well.

"Huh. He got on air fast." The firefighter cocked her head a little bit. As soon as the pair had heard about the National Guard moving into California, they had quit their jobs- dropped them like hot coals. They did not want to be on the frontlines of them and potential wildfires, or whatever else might ravage their county. No thank you. Was it selfish? Yes. But they would only survive by being selfish, and as ruthless as possible. That would be the new world.

"Reckon he's a nutjob?" Robin drummed his hands against the side of the sofa as his phone moved achingly slowly. The internet and phone lines were intermittently overloaded. This seemed to be one of those times. Servers were probably crashing, although the power grid was still working fine it seemed.

"Nah, I don't think so. I just think he's a massive Fallout fan who's living out his prepping dreams." His girlfriend gave a laugh and stretched out a little bit. "Apparently the Chinese place is still delivering. Want to get some takeout whilst we still can? Y'know, before the entire country gets locked down, and we're dealing with another supervolcano blowing its top to boot."

"You reckon that it's really going to go? I mean, it seems to be indicating that way, especially with the one in Malaysia..."

"Indonesia."

Sorry, with the one in Indonesia going off so suddenly like that."

"Yeah, I reckon so too. Man, it's getting chilly, isn't it?"

"Yeah. 'Global cooling.' All the ash from the eruption is getting into the atmosphere. They're recommending that people start wearing those filter masks if they have to go out, and staying within cars rather than walking or biking to places. Good job we were prepared for that too."

"I just can't... Oh. Oh dear."

"What?"

"It's like they're all trying to kill each other."

"Because they are?"

[Andrew Blade]

Driving home from work, Dean Westin cursed at traffic. Anxiety used to creep up inside of him when he was stuck in gridlock- a side-effect of his time in the Middle East that he had worked hard at pushing down- but this was new and different. After Toba, and California, and worries about Yellowstone, the U.S. Army Staff Sergeant began to wonder how long before panic set in here in Omaha. Scenes from disaster movies filled his imagination in exactly situations like this- stuck in traffic, desperate to get somewhere, either to escape the city or get to his family- and unable to do anything about it.

Since he was a teenager, Westin had decided he would never be helpless. To him, that meant learning to be able to protect himself and defeat any threat in any situation. Years of mixed martial arts training, including Muay Thai; Brazilian Jiu Jitsu; Shootwrestling; and Wing Chun, were paired with a sprinkling of Maphilindo Silat and Sayoc Kali to provide him with the tools to fight with his bare hands as well as edged and blunt weapons. His parents had never been big fans of guns, though they didn't discourage against them either. If he wanted to expand his skill-set to include firearms, he needed to make a decision. After 9/11, though, that choice was made fairly easy. Military service had skipped a generation in his family- with both of his grandfather's serving during Vietnam in different capacities, one in the navy, the other the air force. After watching the towers fall, a deep sense of duty to protect the innocent and prevent any further tragedies like that spurred him to join, the only Westin in two generations to volunteer to serve. Even though he wasn't old enough to enlist until several years later, that fire had still burned in him, and off he went to seek out and bring pain to those that wished to cause more of the same carnage he vowed to fight.

His time in the military only bolstered his mindset of physical preparation for physical violence, this time coupling battlefield tactics ranging across a variety of terrain and situations with an array of weapons and equipment. When his active duty contract came up, he elected to switch over to the civilian side of things, but signed on with the national guard in his wife's home state of Nebraska. After settling here, he found himself fascinated with apocalypse scenarios that seemed to be gaining in popularity with mainstream culture. When he had served on active duty, the idea of facing a natural disaster seemed to have a pretty simple solution centered around the military base he operated out of. Now as a part-time soldier and civilian, he was realizing that if things were to go completely pear-shaped, he would have to rely on his own supplies and equipment.

Confident in his training, he supplemented his knowledge and skills with weapons and supplies based on the education he'd been given by the Army. Some called him a prepper. It wasn't a term he preferred, but he accepted it. He didn't have a bunker, or a plan to raise rabbits a source of food, or even the skill with a bow and arrow to take down large game when society had collapsed and so much time had gone by that firearms were no longer a viable option to hunt with. No, Dean just liked to be able to take care of himself and his family just in case the worst came to pass.

And now those plans and supplies and fantasies about living a life off the grid under a social collapse were crawling through his brain. The disastrous volcanic eruption, the earthquakes and tsunamis, the global conflict all around, all of that caused a sense of anxiety and hyper vigilance that had him on edge. Working with school children every day, he put on a brave face when they expressed their concerns and fears, but even some of them had stopped coming to school- no doubt pulled out by their parents in fear of the worst. Now he was wondering how long he should wait, how far he should let things go before he took extreme measures himself and began to implement the plan he and his friends had talked about just in case of an situation like the one going on around them. Ammunition had flown off the shelves, and people had pulled up to Wal-Mart to buy pallets of bottled water just a few days ago. Canned food was being horded, and some people were even beginning to build large fences, installing concrete support structures in their yard (homeowners' associations be damned) to stave off looters and rioters in the case of a civil revolt.

Gripping the steering wheel of his Toyota Tacoma and gritting his teeth, Dean felt his heart rate start to raise. He had told himself years ago to not let being stuck in traffic bother him- no one was going to lob a grenade at his vehicle or set off an IED on Interstate-80, but now, the scenes from movies like World War Z, with six-lane highways turned into parking lots as panicked civilians abandoned their vehicles to escape their fears on foot began to creep into his mind.

How much longer would it be until things got that bad here? They had already mobilized the National Guard in several states out West. How long until his unit was called up to support them? He had been there to assist with hurricane relief several years ago, and his CERFP unit had been put on alert during several major disasters, but every time before he had gone knowing that things at home were stable and secure. This time, he didn't think he could leave his family if they called him up. It seemed like it was just a matter of time before the social structure around them crumbled and people devolved once again into tribal systems, fighting each other for survival in a panic to protect themselves from uncertain doom headed their way.

Flipping open his phone, he looked down and selected the number of his now-ex-wife. They weren't together anymore, but they still cared about each other, and their children were the brightest lights in their world. He worried that if something happened in the coming days, they wouldn't be able to get to each other.

"What would you say about you and kids staying at my place for a few nights? Just until everything going on settles down. I don't like the neighborhood you live in, not with the way things are right now."

[Banzai Tracers]

10:30pm New York City.

Stan and Bradley were over visiting Lewis at Tom's house. Brad and Lewis were taking turns playing Hitman while Stan watched.

It was Lewis's turn on the PC.
Agent 47 turned the corner, the security guard was walking in the opposite direction. 47 took out the fibrewire and began to close. Just then a popup appeared through steam on the corner. "Steam..." Lewis groaned and closed it without reading. "Wait holdup" said Bradley. Who had a flash memory. "Lemme see it".

Stieney:
You seen whats happening on TV? Theres some big earthquake and they say YELLOWSTONEs next! Just sending this out to those on my friendlist as ive got friends in central. Stay safe people.

Lewis; "What do you think..."
Bradley turned to Stan "Turn on the TV".
Stanley got up; "Why?" as he reached for the remote.
CNN; -ituation, alerts have gone out through the west coast as the area is buffeted by tsunamis from the Toba super volcano Eruption. California officials said that disaster relief preparations are being deployed after the region suffered 9.5 Earthquakes. Experts say that the Yellowstone super volcano is showing increased signs of stress and the National Guard have evacuated the area around Yellowstone caldera. We now go to our correspondent-

Bradley got up and began pacing about. "My god this is it, this is it, this is it."
Stanley tried to calm him down. "But thats far away from us... Jesus those poor Indonesians." He thought, people often treat poverty as something to be punished and that stupidity is somehow deserved of disasters but that isnt how things actually are. We all started off small once. he turned back to the TV.
They watched in silence as news reports were filtering in of the war over Israel. Stanley's thoughts began to come as a constant stream matching the speed of the new events unfolding. "God, they finally decided to gang rape Israel. Ofcourse Israel will respond with nukes, no way it could stand up in a conventional war. What apartheid state is complete without nukes. The Arabs must know this... but they think while America is busy there will be no one to bail them out. Jesus what about the nuclear winter? That combined with the volcanoes will seriously effect the weather."
Stans phone began vibrating as texts from clan members started filtering in.
"Stan is this for real?"
"Stan im picking up my family and heading straight to Canada. What does the clan say about all of this?"
The last one was from Jack. "Stan im heading to you, stay at Toms place until i get there."
Was this it? He asked himself. Was this the time? Bradley was jittery and Lewis looked worried.
He thought to himself. Super volcano, nuclear war. The thing that most scared him was the part about Russia and the US leaving the UN. He decided. Its a good thing he'd been contacting the Clan members list for such an event in the recent months.
He opened the text function on his phone and selected: To Clan List. List of prewritten messages. "This is an Emergency message. Dear Clan MacStewart members. In light of recent events the Clan community center is now open for those wishing to shelter their families and friends until we ride out the storm, please bring all the supplies you can purchase and carry, the address again is..."

Bradley: "Is that the text? Should we go?"
Stan: "We should go, Lewis, get Sandy and Tom and start loading up the cars." He thumbed the Rangerover keys in his pocket.
Bradley: "What about food? You know we-"
Stan: "We'll stop by the costco as planned, everyone will be scrabbling for the shopping centers. The pro move is the costco. We'll coordinate with Mum and Dad enroute."

Stan then sent out the same message by E-mail and all other forms of communication he had. He included the itinerary list in a second text. The Phone was slow, so he moved to the internet.

At the back of his mind there was something nagging. "If the volcano was thought extinct, why DID it erupt?"

[Raylah]

The Oakwood Ranch

Anna peeked into the room only to see Ethan packing his bag.

“I have to go, mum,” he said when he noticed her.

Anna snorted. “Like hell you have to.”

“I am a DOCTOR, they are rallying everyone to…”

“Are you insane?” she interrupted him. “Have you seen the news? Do you want yourself get killed? To abandon Alex? For what?” Anna shook her head desperately. How can her own son be so stupid?

“I took an oath to help people.”

“You can help people here. There is nothing you can do for the others.” Anna absentmindedly touched the gun, safely placed in a holster at her side.

Ethan looked at her nearly with disgust. “So this is how is it going to be? We will hide out here and shoot everyone who comes close?”

“Of course not. But in case you haven’t noticed, the society out there isn’t what it used to be anymore. People are killing each other for a can of soup.”

He rolled his eyes. “You are over exaggerating.”

“Am I? Give it a few days and you will see. But you will do that from here. You are not going anywhere,” Anna said firmly.

Ethan gave her a sad laugh. “I’m not fourteen anymore, mum. You can’t ground me.”

She nodded. “I can’t. But she can,” Anna pointed at Rachel, who was just going up the stairs, cradling Alex in her arms.

“As much as I hate to say it, I agree with your mother,” Rachel frowned. “You are not leaving me and our daughter just because you think you have some obligations to other people. There is no discussion on that.”

“See, she agrees with me. You don’t see that every day, do you?” Anna laughed. As much as she disliked her daughter-in-law, right now she was glad for her support.

---

George was atop of the northwest guard tower. Well, he liked to call it a guard tower, but truth be told, it was pretty far from being an actual tower. Still, it provided him partially covered and elevated spot to see over the wall and far to the grass fields surrounding the ranch, as well as to the edge of nearby forest. He lowered his binoculars. Careful observation of the entire horizon didn’t reveal anything unusual. Perhaps it was too soon, but he believed that in times like these, you can never be too careful.

He glanced at his sniper rifle. While he was ex-military, he never was a professional sniper. Still, he would be better than any untrained civilian, which will soon start roaming the country, searching for things to steal and people to kill. It was maybe little too pessimistic thought, but George believed it. Sooner or later it is going to happen, and he will be prepared.

He overlooked the pasture where Bob and Mary tended to the cows. The animals have finally calmed down, they felt the tremors from the earthquakes long before humans even noticed them. But while animals could relax as there was no immediate threat to them, humans could not. The electricity was still working and most TV channels were operational, providing everyone with images of riots, shooting, even bombing.

Frowning, George thought it was just typical. There is a huge disaster, and instead of helping, people immediately jump at each other's’ throats. Countries in the middle east took the advantage of turmoil in the UN and reignited every old feud they had with each other, killing thousands of civilians in the process. Not that human life had had any value in those parts of the world even before all this mess.

George shook his head, trying to get rid of those depressing thoughts. He saw Anna leading the house and quickly jumped down from his spot to catch up with her. “So how did he take it?”

“Not well,” she sighed. “But he will do what Rachel says.” George just laughed. “Hey I don't like her either, but what can we do?”

“Everything looks fine for now, at least around here.”

Anna nodded quietly. “I don't think there will be any immediate trouble for a few weeks, but we better be prepared.”

“Yea, my thoughts exactly.” For anything.

[Dusty]

Things were getting worse. Eric Freeman leaned forward to turn up the radio using his other hand to wipe away the thin layer of sweat that was collecting on his forehead. He was in his kitchen with stacks of plywood cutouts, screws, and stands all ready for swift deployment should the disasters sweeping the world rear their ugly heads in central Texas. Eric wasn’t confident that anything would happen, thus the unbarred windows, but it never hurt to be cautious. His preparations would make putting up the barriers easy enough for even Tonya to quickly achieve in a short notice, on the off chance something happened while he was away from the house. The chances of that seemed unlikely as well however. Freeman hadn’t received a call from his employers since last week, when they canceled his flight into Anchorage, giving him little reason to leave.

A sense of foreboding had fallen over the local community and state as a whole, even despite the lack of any real calamity there. Stores were picked clean of canned goods and survival gear faster than the businesses could restock their warehouses. Eric could clearly see the signs of growing unease, and remained grateful he’d been pre-prepared before any of this went down. He’d felt the same way some years back after all, which was why he became prepared in the first place. Some sixth sense, or stroke of luck prompted him to ensure his place of residence remained his castle of security, a location where he would not become helpless in the event of a disaster. A way to take care of number one first and foremost, and of course Tonya. Admittedly the arrival of his niece six months back threw a wrench into his survival plans, and he’d been forced to accommodate accordingly. Once again thankfully before the outside world went to shit.

Finishing up with the windows Eric set aside his tools and walked into the living room, bringing the radio with him. The device rarely left his side nowadays, and its constant blaring of bad news was making him depressed, but it was necessary. Just the other day he’d heard the report on scientists concerns about Yellowstone, and the monumental catastrophe they predicted it would cause, but it was far away as well, hopefully far enough.

Sitting on the couch was Eric’s tenant, a young man named Peter who looked disheveled and exhausted from lack of sleep. Normally Peter would be at his classes but lately he’d been spending all his time trying again and again to contact his family back in Korea. Over the radio it’d been confirmed that many of the Asian nations had been hit particularly hard by the aftershocks of Toba, and with the world tension at what it was right now the lack of closure haunted the younger man’s every hour.

“Nothing yet?” Eric probed sitting down across from Peter. The tenant shook his head, bouncing his phone on the palm of his hand with a nervous energy. Eric understood, doing nothing, just sitting around and waiting chewed on the nerves. He’d felt the same way when sitting on an aircraft carrier back when he’d been in the Navy, wishing for something to do. “I’m sure they’re alright.” Eric reassured with false optimism. “There’s just something up with the signals, all the towers are busted or, you know….” Invasion, utter destruction, and massive death tolls. All things he couldn’t rightly say out loud to Peter.

“I just hope they’re alive, and safe, and this whole thing would just be a bad memory.” Yawning Peter stood up, rubbing at his eyes. “I can’t stay awake any longer. Please excuse me.”

“You and me and the whole world agree on that one son. Go on, and get yourself some shuteye. You look like you could use it.” Eric insisted. As Peter departed the room Eric refocused his attention on the radio, listening in as the bad news steadily got worse. He had that feeling again, like things were only going to get worse. And maybe, their current situation wouldn't be recalled as a bad memory of global disaster, but as the calm before the storm.

[Banzai Tracers]

The convoy of MacStewart cars had stopped by the costco and picked up whatever wasnt being bought by someone else, which was surprisingly untouched so far. They had bought as much canned food and food in jars as possible. Lewis sat at the back with a jumbo jar of peaches in syrup on his lap. Bradley sat next to him with his mp3 player connected to the cars speakers, thumbing through the music list.
They were waiting in the traffic moving slowly upstate, possibly to Canada. Stan was behind the wheel of the Range rover followed by Tom in a 2017 BMW 7 Series and Sandy in a Jeep Renegade.

The progress was slow. Bradley hit the music and the next track started.
When they exited the freeway a few miles back some of the people decided they could not stand waiting in traffic. SUVs and off roaders had driven off the sides of the road into pastures and farm land to slowly get ahead. As they approached there was a man and woman by a Chevy impala that was stuck in the mud next to the backed up traffic a man was trying to dig out the sod between his front tires by hand, to no avail. A woman sat on the drivers side door looking unimpressed and worried. A kid of about 10 looked out from the back window.
"Right." Stan flicked on the indicator lights and merged out of the traffic.
"Whats going on?" Said Bradley. "We're gonna help those people?"
"Yup." Stan said matter of factly.
A little while later Stan had manoeuvred the Rangerover in front of the car. They had found a tow rope and attached it. The grateful man and his family had reentered the car and were behind the wheel. Slowly the Rangerover tugged and the car half slid half drove up to the verge of the road again.
Stan put on the sena bluetooth headset. "Stan to Tom. Any chance you could let us merge in front?"
Once they and the car were back on the road. Bradley said "Time for a news update" and switched on the car radio.

"Hello America! My name's Three Dawg! I'll be your post apocalyptic radio host, as the world goes to shit around you! I'll be offering advice, music, news and more every day until I can't broadcast no more, or this whole mess gets sorted out, whichever comes first!"

They listened in silence."That was fast to capitalise on a crisis" Bradley said.
"Hmeh, atleast its gonna keep people calmer." Said Lewis.

[Andrew Blade]

0300, Somewhere between Omaha and Wahoo, NE

"I still can't believe we're actually doing this," Genevieve Tyler sighed as she gazed out the passenger window of the Nissan Sentra she had bought with her ex-husband several years ago. The single mother hated driving at night, and so she'd made Dean get behind the wheel for the short trip. Despite eventually agreeing with her ex that things really were probably only going to get worse, she had been arguing with herself for the last several hours about the decision to join Dean's paranoia.

"Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you..." she reminded herself, using one of her ex's obnoxious quotes that he always used to support any of his overzealous ideas that she was pretty sure he indulged in because he was a child in a grown-man's body rather than out of a sense of safety or security. In this case, though, she was able to draw a little bit of comfort from them while she tried to push down the nerves that were spreading from her stomach.

Wahoo was a relatively small town, bigger than most of the other rural towns in Nebraska, but a small fraction of the size of the cities in the state, like Omaha, or Lincoln. It served as the county seat for Sarpy county, with a courthouse and a jail, along with some of the other governmental buildings that came with such an appointment. The reason Dean and Genevieve were heading that way in the thick of the night, though, was the National Guard armory stationed there and the massive trucks they had in their motor pool.

Dean had been a member of the Nebraska Guard for about seven years now, serving as a vertical engineer with the Wahoo unit, which Genevieve always thought was a fancy way of saying "carpenter." He had deployed once with them about five years ago. They ended up building some schools around the capital city of Afghanistan. That was all she knew, though. She had never bothered to try to get very close to any of his friends or their families in the unit, especially when it became apparent that they weren't going to stay together. When he first said they were going to go to his unit tonight to prepare for the coming panic, she thought he was crazy enough to try to get into the armory's vault and steal guns. The plan he had, though, sounded much simpler, but she couldn't believe it could be as easy as he had made it sound.

As they pulled into town, Dean turned off the headlights, navigating under the glow of the moon and stars with the occasional street lamp helping show the way. Now that they weren't on the highway, he wanted to draw as little attention as possible, and that meant keeping headlights from shining past windows. It wasn't too long before they turned down a side street adjacent to the large, deserted brick building he had come for. Just past the parking lot of the armory, a chain-link fence topped with razor wire held over a dozen military vehicles, most of them ten-ton dump trucks usually used by his unit of engineers to transport materials to and from work sites.

Something so bold would never have worked if he was trying to avoid being caught. Dean was sure that the balaclava over his face and the scarf and hat over his wife's wouldn't do much to hinder any investigation once the authorities began to track down the party responsible for stealing two military trucks. Night-vision-capable cameras would record the whole thing. By the time they would find him, though, if they were more interested in tracking down and arresting him than dealing with any of the other problems that were going to pop up, then he was wrong, and he'd go to jail and the world would hopefully go back to normal.

Parking his ex-wife's Sentra on the street down the block, Westin shut off the engine and got out, dressed in his multicam-pattern Army uniform. If anyone was going to see him in one of these trucks, it would be better if he looked the part. He had given his wife one of his zippered tops as well, but hopefully nobody would inspect her outfit very closely. None of his pants fit her frame, and she didn't care enough to try to make the disguise look much more convincing than just a uniform jacket and a patrol cap that were both too big for her.

With a large pair of bolt cutters in hand, Dean quickly went to work, cutting off the large padlock that held the gates to the motor pool shut. From there, he opened the gate, wincing as it squeaked on its rusting hinges, and walked quickly toward the nearest ten-ton dump truck. They used air brakes, and would need a few minutes to fill the tanks with air before they would be fully-functional. Luckily, these new models were all outfitted with automatic transmission. It might take a bit of getting used to, but if he allowed her the time, Genevieve would adjust to the sheer size of the truck and be able to follow him on the road without much difficulty.

Climbing up into the cab of one, and then the other, Dean started the engines on both with the push of a button. The only mechanism preventing them from being stolen was a steel chain looped around the steering wheel that was attached to the floor. Once again, Westin's bolt-cutters went to work while the noisy machines sputtered, waiting for their tanks to fill.

"Hurry up!" Genevieve hissed at him, the noise of the two trucks sparking her fear. She glanced around anxiously, positive that it would just be a few moments before flashing lights and sirens would scream around the corner to throw them in jail.

"I'm going as fast as I can," Dean told her in the calmest tone he could summon, "I told you, we have to wait for the tanks to fill up. Once the red light on the dash goes off, we can go. Come here, I'm gonna run you through the basics real quick before I go cut the lock off the other truck and scrounge up as many gas cans as I can find.

Genevieve climbed into the cab and examined the buttons and lights on the panel- which was quite different from the sedan she was used to operating. She made sure to focus on which buttons controlled the lights and the transmission, but past that, she had a hard time following everything Dean tried to tell her. The red light on the dashboard held her rapt attention as well. She knew that as soon as it turned off, they needed to get moving as quickly as possible.

Four minutes later, the dashboard light went dead and Genevieve looked up to see Dean close the driver's door on another massive, tan truck, and start the vehicle crawling forward. His eyes looked toward her expectantly, and she took the parking brake off and set the truck into Drive, like he'd taught her. After a little bit of fumbling, she managed to get the lights on and they were off, headed back toward the city.

Dean wondered how long it would take for someone to get to the armory in the morning and realize there were two trucks missing. He had looped the chain back around the gate again after leaving to make it at least look like it was still locked, but he had his doubts that his deception would last very long. They had a very limited window to pack up as much of their stuff as they could into the beds of these trucks and then stash them somewhere out of view. Neither he nor his ex-wife would be getting much sleep until they parked the vehicles somewhere out of sight, but the alternative was to play it safe and risk getting caught in a city filled with desperation and panic.

"Hello America!" a raucous voice cut into the steady growl of the truck's Diesel engine, "My name's Three Dawg! I'll be your post apocalyptic radio host, as the world goes to shit around you! I'll be offering advice, music, news and more every day until I can't broadcast no more, or this whole mess gets sorted out, whichever comes first!"

"What the hell...?" Dean looked down at the speaker attached to the SINCGARS radio mounted to his dash. A few moments later his phone lit up with a text from his wife; she had heard the same thing and now music was playing over the sound system in her truck as well as his, a system that was usually reserved only for communication between military radios.

While the frequency-hopping function allowed the SINCGARS to pick up a broad spectrum of broadcasts, it had a security feature built in that made it difficult for anyone that didn't have the same security programmed in to listen in on secure broadcasts. With that in mind, Dean pushed a few buttons to transition to non-secure transmission, cleared his throat, and got on the microphone.

"For anyone else out there, this is Ginga Ninja reaching out to anyone that can hear me," he chose a call-sign he often jokingly chose during radio-training exercises because of his dirty strawberry blonde hair. "I've commandeered some heavy-duty vehicles and I'm looking to take care of my family in the coming crisis, but I don't know where would be safe to go. I was thinking of heading up to Montana just because of the terrain and isolation, but it seems now that I'm not the only one paranoid that this is gonna get worse.

"I guess I don't know what exactly I'm trying to say, other than that I think this would be a heck of a lot easier with a little bit of help, and I think I'd be able to offer a significant asset to anyone willing to provide adequate shelter to a family of five. We're heading to go collect all of the useful material we can find, and we're going to be heading out from there this morning to a location out in the country. We're in the midwest currently, with a pretty decent range of travel."

Dean didn't know what exactly to expect, or what the full extent of his plan moving forward was going to be. So far, he had only planned to head back to the apartment, throw everything he could grab in the back of his Tacoma and these two dump-trucks, and then head for the rural community in Iowa he had grown up in. There were several farmhouses and barns that had been abandoned years ago, as well as his parents' house that could offer shelter. His childhood home was likely out of the question, though. If there would be a man-hunt for him and Genevieve over the stolen trucks, he would want to lay low and keep his mom and dad out of it.

Right now, it looked like it might be worth it to see if other options might be out there.

[Raylah]

The Oakwood Ranch

Anna rolled over in her bed, staring into darkness. She has been trying to fall asleep for the past three hours, but wasn’t very successful. Thousands of thoughts kept swirling in her head, most of them questions to which she had no answers. What is going to happen to the world? She was worried, even though she spent a lot of time preparing for something like this, she felt utterly unprepared and powerless.

So far it was going well - there was still some feeling of law and order left in the society. But what will happen when the stores run out of goods? When people decide it is easier to loot and destroy than to grow and build? Who is going to protect her family then?

She sighed and jumped out of bed. She did know that getting old would mean not being able to sleep through the night, but she thought it would wait at least until her fifties. Quick glance on the clock on the wall revealed that it was shortly after 3 AM. Anna grabbed a warm coat from the closet and went downstairs as quietly as she could, careful not to wake up little Alex sleeping in the next room with Ethan and Rachel.

The night sky looked almost the same as usual, the only sign of change was rapid decrease of plane position signal lights. The air traffic in the area was never huge, but still it was an immutable part of the view, and Anna caught herself missing it. This is what life is going to be now, she thought. Piece by piece things will be disappearing and we will be left with nothing but melancholy, remembering ‘the good ol’ times’? “Way to lift your spirit,” she grinned at her reflection on the water surface in the well.

She was about to head back inside when her ears caught a sound of quiet music. She headed over to the southeastern corner of the wall to track the source. The music was coming from a small radio, tied to a ladder to the guard tower.

“Out for a night stroll?” George smiled down on her.

Anna shook her head. “Do you never sleep?”

“Not if I can help it,” he grinned, but then his tone got serious. “The truth is, I can’t really sleep every since it all started.” Well he could sleep, but it was better to stay awake than to face all those nightmares.

“Yea, me neither,” Anna said, nodding. “It’s funny when you think about it. We spent so much time preparing, we should sleep well with the thought that we have done all we could have. And still, all I can think about is all the ways of how it could get worse.” She paused for a second, listening to the music. “Wow, I haven’t heard this one in ages. Didn’t take you for such romantic soul.”

George shrugged and swiftly climbed down from the tower. “I’m not,” he said, his hand reached out towards her. “Shall we dance?” he winked at her.

“Very funny. I’m in my pyjamas and winter coat and we are going to dance in my farmyard,” she frowned at him.

“Mhm, exactly. You have a strange way of pointing out the obvious things,” he grinned and grabbed her hand, pulling her closer. They didn’t really dance, just rocked from side to side, hugging each other.

“I’ve missed this,” Anna whispered with her eyes closed.

“You were the one to call it off.”

“Who is pointing out the obvious things now? It became clear that it was just about sex for you.”

“Aren’t we a bit old for all the romance and dating?” He raised his eyebrow.

“Well thank you very much, you know how to flatter a woman,” Anna said, teasing him. “You just want me because you are afraid and alone.”

His eyebrow went even higher. “And you aren’t?”

“Of course I am. Things are more complicated for me. I have to take care of my family and…”

He interrupted her. “I will help you with that. That’s why I am here. I know you think I’m just a grumpy weird madman, but I can be a nice guy when I want to.”

He tried to kiss her but she leaned away a bit, studying his face. She had some doubts about that, but what the hell. The world might be ending soon.

Some time later…

Anna stretched and blown a straw of hay off her face. “It’s scratchy.”

“It’s a haystack, it isn’t actually designed to be comfortable,” he grinned at her.

“Oh, shut up,” she rolled her eyes and turned over to the radio to turn the volume up a bit.

"Hello America!" a loud voice interrupted the music and Anna looked at George with surprise, "My name's Three Dawg!"

“Oh it’s this lunatic again. I’ve heard him a couple of times in the evening. So far he hasn’t offered any news, not even talking about advice. But the music isn’t that bad.”

Anna looked around to find the top of her pyjamas, only to see it lying in the middle of the barn. She walked over to pick it up, wondering how it even got there in the first place and trying to avoid the accusing look from Gale, a brown horse lying in the stall closets to them. Apparently he didn’t like being woken up in the middle of the night by some humans rolling around in the hay.

“Hey, do you…”

“Ssh,” George interrupted her, pointing at the radio. Some other voice was coming from it. “This Ginga Ninja sounds like a reasonable guy,” George said when the radio went silent.

“Yea, can we respond to this?”

George frowned. “We can. But the question is, should we?”

Anna stopped to think about it. “Well I guess it can’t hurt to talk to people. If we don’t give out any specific details about where we are or what we have, we should be safe.”

“All right, you are the boss.” He walked outside of the barn and headed towards the shed, Anna jumping on one foot trying to put a shoe on the other one. He took some electronic device off one shelf and tweaked with it for a while. “Here, just press this button and speak into this.”

Anna took a deep breath. “Hello everyone, this is Grandma Betty speaking from western Colorado.” George chuckled and she gave him an angry look. "We have a relatively safe place here and we would like to have friendly relations with other groups, so that we can help each other survive this. We can even accommodate a few people here, provided we like them and they are willing to do some work. I would like to wish everyone good luck and never forget that we are all human beings.”

“Such moralizing, grandma,” George grinned at her when she released the button. “You think you will fix the world by telling people to behave?”

“Well someone has to try.” She yawned and looked outside. The eastern horizon was getting brighter, but there was still time to catch some sleep before the morning duties on the ranch. Or some other things, she thought and winced at George.

[Enigmatik]

Rocky perked up. The pair looked down at the pooch, recognising the signs of him getting antsy, and then came the doorbell ring. Half-cautious, half bored, Robin held one of the Glocks down by his thigh, trigger finger resting alongside the barrel. The door swung open, and at the sign of a nervous looking, skinny Asian teen, he calmed down. A beat up moped rested with a food carrying back attached to the rear, and the smell of takeaway was quite strong. "H... Hi? Did you guys order Chinese food?"

"Yeah. Yeah we did. Thanks." Calmly, the firefighter holstered his weapon, before taking the proffered bag. "I'll just get my wallet." He sat the meal down next to the door and walked to his coat, taking his jacket out. An odd feeling struck him. This might be the last time that he ever had a meal delivered to him. Walking back to the door, he took out two bills- Benjamins, and handed them over. "Keep 'em. Enjoy the world while you still can. Take your girl out for a treat or something." He shook his head and watched as the teen tried to process the amount of money he had been given. Closing the door once more, he sighed.

"What's up?"

"Dunno. We've been planning for so long, but it still feels like a kick in the fuckin' teeth to realise what we're losing. Hot showers. Ordering Chinese food. Instantaneous news from across the world. Talking about that, what's the Dog talking about?"

"Dunno. Wanna listen?"

"So, folk, a lot of people have been on the airwaves recently. Some have even been talking to me! I'll read you the highlights in a bit.
First off, imma give you a tip for some real good eatin'. Rabbits and hares are easy to catch. If ya got yer grandpa's shotgun, you've got a rabbit! Once the rabbit's dead, here's a tip. Rabbit fur is soft. a few little tears, and you can whip the whole thing off like it'sa jacket. Don't even have to bother with gutting! Hack off the legs, take some strips from the back, and you've got a meal high in protein and deeeelicious for you folks!"

"Wonder where he's from. I can't pin the accent."

"Or who he's appealing to with that tip. Preppers know that, and most non-preppers won't have a ham radio."

"Alright, I promised you highlights, here it is! Two folks that made me laugh. Ginga Ninja, from the midwest has got some truckin' hardware, and he's looking for some friendly folks to hole up with maybe 'round the Montana area. If you think you can handle a family of five, drop me a message and I'll see if I can't get you two folks talking! Next up is Grandma Betty, from Colorado. She say she could do with some folks helpin' around the house, and in true gramma style, wishes luck to all, and a reminder that we're all human!"

"Huh, didn't expect tha-" Trixie cocked her head a little bit as she dug into her food. One of the pots of steamed rice was placed down at her feet, and Rocky greedily began gulping it up- the German Shepherd seemingly having an insatiable appetite.

"Shush!"

"Of course, countries seem to be forgetting that. A flash broadcast tells me that... Well..."







"Seems like we might not be having such an easy go of this all folks... Expect me on air a lot more!"

"Maybe we should make a broadcast."

"Don't see a reason not to. I'll do it now." Trixie turned to the radio and took the microphone down. This is... Dalsatian's Doghouse, from Nowhere Nevada. We're just a few folk and our dog looking to make it through this whole mess. If you're swinging by the southern states, we might be able to rustle up something for you!"

[Banzai Tracers]

05:00am Between Albany and Montreal

The crew of the Rangerover had heard all of the latest news from 3dog.
"Looks like its going to get worse before it gets better" said Stan.
"You know you cant eat rabbits for the rest of your life, right?" he said.
"Yeah i know, they'll deplete your body of vitamins until you eat something else." Said Bradley.
"Do you want to talk to those people?"
"I cant, we dont have a cb radio."
"Sure you can, just connect the bluetooth headset to the radio. It does wireless. You didnt read the manual did you?"
"Should i say something?"
"Hello, Testing, testing.. this is Stan MacStewart with the MacStewart community center upstate from Albany. Were gonna ride out the storm together with the rest of our family here. O-uhm. We cant offer space to anyone not from the clan but tradings always a possibility. Ok, over and out 3dog."

The Cars arrived at Plattsburgh and drove at a steady pace to the Community centre. Down a side road through some forest and there was the school. His mom and dads car were already there. Stan wheeled the Rangerover round and parked it and got out. The glass doors swung open and Jack came out and met the two sons in his embrace. Bradley didnt enjoy hugs but he got one all the same.

"Wheres mom?" Said Stan
"Shes in the kitchen cooking something for the new arrivals" Jack said
"And Ian and the rest?"
"I had a text from them about 2 hours ago, they say their moving upstate slowly with traffic."
Everybody else was exiting their cars and stretching their legs from the drive.
They all had assembled near the group. Stan turned.

"Well I dont go much for micromanagement. You can all decide where you're needed. No jobs for today, just get the food and unload the cars and make yourself at home. Theres some food being cooked up, i suggest you fill your tanks."

With that they all began unloading he cars. Stan turned to Jack. "And ninja?". "Hes in his box in the principals office."
Stan went straight into the principals office. There was a blue box, he went over to its front cage. A very sad and very put-upon "meow" came from the box.
"Hey there ninja, hey there" Stan opened the box and immediately the cat tried to force its face out the gap moving with its full body in the way cats do. "Ok you can come out, but for now you'll have to stay in this room. I'll get you some water." A littl while later and he'd set up his laptop and bose speaker in the principals office. He went to the old principals microphone-speaker system, something which had come with the whole place. He turned on some Music and put the speaker next to the microphone. He then exited the room. The speaker system played a diminished but still recognisable version of the music. He then went out to the parking lot to help with the luggage and boxes. Some of the speakers were present in the parking lot and the music blared out there too.

A little while later and Stan had helped move all the boxes into the kitchen. "I hope you brought plenty of spices." Said Fiona.
"Ah sorry mom, i forgot." He said. "Just as well i didnt." she smiled. "Nice music by the way".

A delicious meal of sweet potato soup with fried onions and bacon bits at the school dinner benches and everyone was talking.

Sandy said "Ive made an inventory of all the medical supplies we have. Im afraid we're really short on some things, i made a list."
Lewis: "If no one else is gonna do it i could stay on the radio and wait for any responses from family on their way up or threedog or something".
Stan: "Sure, go for it, the HAM radios in the principals room, and the speaker system for the schools in there too. You could hook them up. But dont let the cat get out."
Lewis: "You brought a cat?"
Bradley: "Yeah, ninja remember? Couldnt leave him on his own."
Jack: "Wheres the showers in this place?"
Fiona: "I think they're in the sports block, but is there any hot water?"
Stan: "There should be, because as long as the electricity holds out the heaters should be working. And we've always got battery power."

A little later half of everyone had gone to sleep in the cheap creaky aluminum beds. Stan went into one of the classrooms that had been left undefined, he unlocked it. Inside were a load of pelican cases with the weapons in them. He opened one of the smaller ones and took out a PPQ. He charged it with a mag and took another mag and slipped it into his pocket. He then tucked the PPQ into the pants waist of his dark red chino pants. He then left without locking the door on purpose. It was directly opposite the sleeping room so he feared nothing.

He saw that the light was beginning to dawn outside and checked his watch. It was 6am. He then went to the foyer to wait but passed by the faraday room. Brad and Lewis were setting up Lewis's alien ware desktop pc.
"What? Its 6am what are you doing?"
"Cant sleep. Too much excitement." said Lewis
"We're gonna finish that game of Hitman." "Why dont you join us?"
"Nah ive gotta wait to see if anybody else turns up." He then made his way over to the library room. Fiona was sitting in one of the comfortable leather chairs. She was reading something, probably something Buddhist. He waved. Went over and went to select a book from the action section. But he stopped, maybe a little bit too much action for one day. He looked a little further and found "How we evolve ourselves" in the science section. He went book in hand to wait in the foyer and sat on one of the cheap ikea sofas there.

[Raylah]

It was early morning but the ranch was already buzzing with activity. Bob and Edward were tending to the cows and horses, Mary was feeding the hens and Anna was dragging bucket full of pig feed through the open gate to the pighouse. She stopped to look around and straighten her back for a bit, only to see George leaning over the wall from the southwestern watchtower, grinning widely.

“Care to help me?” she shouted at him.

“Nah, just enjoying the view,” he laughed and gestured to the countryside around the ranch.

Anna had to admit that it was a beautiful morning, a bit colder than usual, but view of the sun shining on the meadows around was almost poetic. “What a gentleman you are.”

“Always at your service,” he said with a small bow and disappeared beyond the wall.

Anna cursed quietly and lifted the heavy bucket again. The pigs were already waiting for her by their troughs, grunting eagerly. She emptied the bucket and wiped sweat off her forehead, turning around only to see George heading towards her.

“Ah, it seems I am too late,” he said, trying hard to sound sad.

“Oh don’t worry, I am sure that there is still plenty of work to be done,” Anna answered, irony dripping from her voice.

He just shook his head with a sad frown. “Nono, I already asked. No work left for me. You should find some for the princess though, she is acting like she is on a vacation in a five star hotel.”

Anna laughed. “Yea, I can’t really picture my daughter-in-law mucking the pigs out or milking a cow.” George raised his eyebrows. “I know,” Anna said defensively. “But what exactly do you want me to do? I can’t actually threaten to kick her out.”

“Well you can say that who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat.”

“Really? You would starve to death,” she grinned. “It will be alright. She will come around, she just needs some time to adjust.” Anna dearly hoped so. Their relationship has never been good, even at the start. Anna hoped that it was just a crazy dating phase her son would get over, but the beautiful blonde art student has wrapped him around her skinny finger. A few months later she was sitting on their wedding with a stiff smile, as she watched Ethan swear to love that witch forever.

Sighing, Anna had to admit that it was partially her fault for letting her discontent show even in front of Rachel and not really giving the girl a chance. But it had to be an ART major, for God’s sake? There weren’t many less practical fields to study. And that attitude of hers, never laying a finger on anything even remotely resembling work. Anna honestly had no idea what Ethan sees in this girl. Only after Alex had been born the relationships went from open hostility to a quiet tolerance, spiced up by a few ironic or sarcastic remarks. At least Ethan had this idea of taking his family and staying at the Oakwood ranch for a few weeks. It made things much easier now that the world was going to hell.

She realized George was talking to her. “Sorry, I spaced out a bit. What were you saying?”

“That we should go to the city.” Anna looked at him with a surprise, but he continued. “Just to Cortez, to raid what is left in Walmart and some other stores. This is the last chance to get supplies, maybe for a very long time.”

“You are right, let's tell the others.”

---

Ethan glimpsed at the man driving the car. He never understood what his mother sees in a man like George. Had he known that his mother was thinking the same thing about him and Rachel just an hour ago, he would have probably laughed at the idea. He always thought that Anna May was a bit crazy. He loved her, of course, but all her fears of the world ending and society collapsing and need to prepare just weren’t… the most normal thing a mother would say to her child. Ethan remembered that his father could keep her ideas on acceptable level, but ever since he died, Anna became almost obsessed. Well, now her ‘I told you so’ moment arrived, but no one was happy about it.

Sighing, he turned his head to the window. He has been in Cortez maybe twice or three times before and it always looked like a typical sleepy town. Well, if it looked sleepy before, it looks dead now, he thought. A lot of shop windows on the main street were closed, the usually busy cafés and bistros were empty, there were almost no people in the streets, no children playing on the playground. It seemed like everyone has either left the city or barricaded at home, refusing to stick a nose out.

The parking lot in front of Walmart was a sharp contrast to the empty streets. There was a lot of people there, many with large trucks or at least pickups similar to theirs. Everyone was loading large packs of bottled water, cans, even huge boxes of shampoo bottles and toilet paper.

“Let’s hope we are not too late,” George said, pulling the car into an empty parking spot. As he leaned to open the door, Ethan could see a gun in a shoulder holster, partially covered by his jacket. He shook his head, but didn’t comment, knowing he would just get another lecture on how ‘you can never be careful enough’.

The inside of the store looked like it was Black Friday and at least 80% discount on everything. Most of the shelves were empty, with just an occasional piece of goods that had been torn apart, spilled on the floor, or otherwise damaged when people were fighting over it.

“It looks like we are too late after all,” Ethan said, picking up a pack of flour, the only one left on the shelf, just to notice that the paper is torn and more than half of it is already spilled out.

George just grunted and headed to the hardware section, which wasn’t as sacked as the food section. “There we go,” he smiled and started picking up some wires, strings and other things.

“What do we need garden hoses for?” Ethan’s eyebrows went up.

“You never know.”

Seriously? Why does this man have to treat him as a child? Shaking his head, he walked to another aisle, just to get away from George for a bit. “Hmm, this might actually be useful,” he mumbled to himself, watching some machetes and axes.

A deep voice growled behind him and some large body pushed him aside. “Move away, kid.”

Ethan turned around to say something but paused when he saw a big and dangerously looking man in biker jacket. “Excuse me, sir,” he started, trying to sound as assertively as he possibly could. “But I was here first, so if you could just wait and…”

Man’s eyes narrowed and he grabbed the largest axe, pointing it to Ethan’s face. “You were saying?”

“He was saying that we are leaving.” A quiet but decisive voice made the biker turn around. They stared at each other for a while, but the man looked away first, growling something and leaving the aisle. Ethan stood there stunned, unable to think. Did someone really just threatened to kill him with an axe inside a Walmart? How did this happen?

George gave him a sympathetic look. Maybe there still was hope for this kid. “Let’s go.”

But Ethan shook his head. “We need to stop by at the pharmacy. Looks like we are going to need a lot of medical supplies.”

George nodded and smiled. “Now you are talking.”

---

A while later they were loading everything into the pickup truck, along with a considerable supply of bandages, antiseptics, painkillers. Ethan also prescribed some strong broad antibiotics for George, so they could pick them up right away.

“What does this cure?” George asked, puzzled by the cryptic names on the pill boxes.

Ethan just laughed. “Everything, hopefully.” Seeing the sceptical look on George’s face, he explained. “These are broad-spectrum antibiotic, which will function against multiple types of bacteria. They normally aren’t used much, because there is a general fear that the bacteria will adjust to it, rendering it completely useless. I don’t think that will be the problem now, though. These are various antivirotics and other things to help treat most common diseases I could think of on such short notice.”

“What about the uncommon ones?”

“Well, we will just have to improvise.” They laughed together and stepped inside the car. “So, when are you going to give me the ‘I told you so’ talk?”

George shook his head. “Do I have to? Man, you have much more to lose than I do. It is you who should be worried. And I think you finally realized that this is no joke or crazy talk.”

Ethan had to admit that George was right. He had a family to take care of. He might dislike George, he might think his mother is crazy, he might hate the guns and violence, but this world wasn’t for cowards. He sighed. “Looks like I’m gonna have to learn how to use a gun.”

Laughing, George nodded. “Now you are talking.”

[Andrew Blade]

Stubborn and resigned, Dean's parents had told him over the phone that they weren't going to bother traveling with him. The Westins had lived in their old five-bedroom farmhouse for as long as their eldest son had been alive. There were too many unknowns for them to be comfortable abandoning the comfort of their home for the uncertainty of the road, and they had genuine worries that they might actually hinder the progress of their boy and his family. They decided it would be better to live through whatever may come in their home, but they offered whatever supplies they could spare to their son, which wasn't much, but the heavy foot locker full of old rocket motors from the days back when Dean and his father would build model rockets (some as large as 28' tall) might provide some needed firepower should they ever need the material for bomb-making.

The elder Westins had invited Guinevere's mother to stay with them as well, but Julia Tyler told them she felt obligated to stay with her daughter and former son-in-law out of a sense of responsibility to their kids. While she recognized the hardships, she owed it to her grandchildren to persevere in order to help see them into a future that gave them every chance to survive and succeed possible. Dean was secretly relieved- while the old nag was a constant thorn in his side, it was really nice to have another adult to help care for the children and provide an extra set of eyes and ears. It was also a surprise because the woman had never displayed any hint of resilience and fortitude in the past that led him to believe she would be willing to go along with them.

So a few hours later, several shotguns, a handful of boxes of ammunition for them, and a mix of power, pneumatic, and hand tools, along with an extra air compressor were loaded up in the bed of one of the dump trucks. They had a generator as well, but it wasn't very mobile, and the two grandparents would need it in case they lost power. A few hugs and kisses and a tearful good bye from Dean's mother as well as the children, and the family was on the road once again- Dean and Genevieve each driving the massive military dumps with the bumper numbers that had been spray-painted onto them obscured while Julia drove between them in the Tacoma with the kids.

Once on the road, Dean wasn't sure where to head, but he knew he wanted to get further away from Yellowstone. His fears were only confirmed when he heard Three Dawg's voice over the radio warning that martial law had been declared in the states surrounding it.

Several other dedicated groups were out there already on the airwaves offering advice and shelter as well as trade opportunities- like the world had already ended. Dean thought it wouldn't be a terrible idea to put himself out there again.

"Ginga Ninja here," he said as he brought the mic to his mouth and tried to think of the best way to put his ideas into words, "The family and I are headed south, probably toward Arkansas. The Ozarks might provide a good amount of resources and shelter while still being out of the immediately fatal range of everything going on out West. I figure it's not a good idea to be closer to the ocean, especially in that region, but the weather shouldn't be deadly every winter. I don't know what to expect, really, in the coming weeks and months, but I figure I should probably be planning for the long haul. I don't know what I'm going to find, or if I'm going to find anything at all, but I figure Northern Arkansas has gotta be as good a place as any. If anyone out there wants to join me, I could probably use the manpower and knowledge. If anyone listening is already there, I'd appreciate any advice or hospitality you could offer. I don't want to be a burden, though, and it's gonna be hard to trust just about anybody in the coming days, so don't be offended if we turn you down."

[Banzai Tracers]

Plattsburgh 07:00am

It was early morning and Stan awoke with a start still sitting in the chair of the foyer. A volkswagon hatchback had rolled into the parking lot. He recognised it, got to his feet and strode forward, through the glass door and into the lot. Ian and William were just getting out of the car.
"Welcome, welcome. I guess it was a crazy journey?"
"Yes, sort of. Everyone in the country decided to move around like musical chairs was the safest thing to do." Said Ian in his trademark sardonic humour.
"Well come in, we've got some sweet potatoe soup left in the kitchen that you can warm up. Most everyones asleep... well atleast i think they are... I was..."
"Hi Will, hi Addison" he waved as they disembarked unloaded things from the car.
A little while later and they had warmed up some leftover soup, mugs of tea and bread.
Ian, who preferred not to talk to the young men had no other choice but to make small talk. "Well so what exactly's the plan here, we stay in the community centre, have wars like mad max with other groups over important things like sheep?"
Stan hesitated and then said "Well... i was thinking we could croft, like some of the old places up in the highlands. Deer, wild birds. You could even do some fishing... we have a boat."
"Ah, good... ive been planning a fishing holiday." said the Engineer as he drank some more tea.
"Soo...." Addison began folding her arms and rolling her eyes. "Hows the family been?"
"Everyones holding together hoping this will be over soon... we'll be expecting some more people."
"How many more?"
"Well theres plenty on the membership list. As many as turn up i suppose. A dozen or so???"
William let out a sigh as he tapped on his ipad. "Internets' still slow."
"Well, we have a computer room already set up, just off to the side of the foyer. Bradley and Lewis were setting up a computer last night. You dont know Lewis but hes from the other side of the family. Professional Drummer." William raised his eyebrows but then went back to his glum teenage look and then slunk off from the table to go find the others.
"Dont mind him. SO. Is there any jobs we can do?" Said Addison. Addison who had, of all things grown up on a sailing boat travelling the world with her father who as ex-military officer but somehow made domestic bliss look second nature with Ian.
"Its fine. Besides he hasnt had any sleep... neither of you have. Just get yourselfs ensconced and at home and i'll show you the boat later."
"What kind of boat is this we're talking about? Wooden barrel? Upturned bucket? Powered by blueberries?" said Ian.
"Oh... its a zoidiac." Stan said, not sure how to react to the joke.

[Banzai Tracers]

Plattsburgh 10:00am

Later on some people had woken up. Stan rallied Jack and Tom to go with im to show them around. He showed them the outdoor sheds the jetty, the zodiac and had gathered one of the nets hed put in the shed. He then walked into the woods towards where the water screw turbine house was.
"These woods are hopefully where we'll hunt. No messing about we need to get hunting as soon as possible and i was hoping you two would help me. We've got electric ATVs for brining back food and hunting rifles we'll train you on. I suggest taking the ATVs out a good one and a half kilomiters out to hunt. Stay in contact with Lewis, whos our radio operator with the bluetooth headsets. Theres probably too much commotion at the centre to get good game. Ducks and pheasants and whatever are probably a good idea with the shotguns. There will be arrow firing gass guns for bigger stuff on the ground like deer or whatever. Those will be silent so you'll have more of a chance."
They approached the water screw. "Right, im going to set up this net by the water screw. Sometimes fish come down here... i mean, i assume, because it says its designed that way." He made his way down the stony embankment and with Jack crossing over the other side they were able to pin a net with some rocks.
"We'll keep catching as much food as we can and vacuum packing it; we have an industrial vacuum packer. That way we'll have enough for winter."
"Whats the point in hunting when the shops are still open?" Jack said as he dutifully placed down a stone on the net.
"Well, exactly, today were going to go see what the local shops look like. I passed a strip mall on the way here."
"Yes i know the one." Said Jack.
"There... imagine if we catch a salmon, then we can have salmon." Stan said as he put down the final stone.
"What do you say? Up to an excursion to the shops?" He said looking everyone in the face.
"Sure, why not?" Said Tom.
After a silence Stan said. "We'll have to take some guns. From now on nobody leaves the centre unarmed. Its just a precaution."
"Im not sure, do we need to? I dont want to actually shoot anything." Said Tom.
"Dont." Said Stan. "They're just for show." He then added "Hopefully."
They then went to the armoury room and picked out 3 LWRC carbines. Loaded 3 mags each. And took two additional PPQ pistols.
Bradley and Stan then gave them a run down of gun safety. They stressed these points.
"The gun is always treated as if its loaded. Always. Even if its empty you dont point the barrel at anything you dont intend to die." Said Bradley. "Also, if you are in a gunfight and your ally is infront of you behind cover. You dont fire OVER their cover. Never fire over the cover. If they stand up suddenly, or bullets drop down, their dead. Bullets also skip on stuff like pebbles on water. so be careful and never fire near an ally unless you have to." Stan said. Then he added. "Theres a bit of a legal confusion over brandishing vs not brandishing. As of now im telling you we do not practice brandishing. If you have a pistol, you keep it hidden right up until the life or death moment. If someones being a bastard, try convincing them right up until the moment they threaten to kill someone. We dont want anyone to be able to gauge our strength because our strength is not that big." He then let the instructions sink in.

[Banzai Tracers]

Plattsburgh 11:00am-2:00pm

Just before they all got in the Rangerover, Stan stopped by Sandy to get the list of medicines they needed. Bradley was staying back this time and the team was made up of Stan, Jack and Tom. The sleek green Rangerover hybrid whined out of the parking lot driven again by Stan. Trees lined the road either side until they got out to the two way main road which had telephone wires and a few houses here and there. Not even twenty minutes passed and they were at the strip mall.

They pulled up to a shop that said "Seeds and Flowers" on the outside. Stan parked close to the building entrance which was easy as only a few cars were parked there. The building, which had metal bars on the windows had the lights on. Stan let his rifle hang from his back and peeked through the door window before entering followed by Jack and Tom. A woman of about 60 with her grey hair in a bun was behind the counter.
She eyed them suspiciously as they entered.
"Hello, im from the clan MacStewart community centre and..."
She eyed the black rifle barrel poking out from his back and began to back away.
Stan raised both hands palms empty "We have money. We have money." he quickly said.
"We have MONEY and we'll PAY you." He stressed the terms "We're from a community centre and we need some seeds for vegetables."
She looked a little confused and then called "Arnie?" to the back of the room which was filled with shelves of grow bags.
A moment passed and Stan kept his palms up for good measure. Then Arnie appeared. A younger, fitter, rotund looking man with black hair, of about the same age. "Can i help you?"
"Have you got any seeds for us to BUY." Stan said while trying to smile. "We're local" He added. "Just off church street, by the old summer camp. We were thinking we could grow some extra food and anyone that would sell to us we could enter into a business relationship, sell back to them stuff WE have. Safety in numbers. Until all of this has blown over..."
"We're all out of seeds." Arnie said.
Stan looked crestfallen.
"They were all bought up by the traffic that came through yesterday" Arnie said.
Arnie looked over the strange young man in front of him wearing the tartain pants.
"What community centre did you say you were from again?" he added.
"We're from the Clan MacStewart community centre up by the old summer camp. Theres a bunch of us." Stan said.
Arnie mulled this over for a nanosecond.
"You dont need seeds. You want vines and grow bags." He finally said, confidingly. "Noone bought any vines or soil."
Stan continued cautiously. "How many can you sell me?"
"I can let you have about 12 tomatoe and squash vines today. And about 12 more each month." He said slowly.
"Sounds good to me." Stan said looking at Jack and Tom. "Lets pay the man."
A little while later and the back trunk was filled with vines and soil bags.
When they were done Stan said "Ok lets check that pharmacy over there."

They walked across the carpark, passed the KFC restaurant. The pharmacy had its lights on, but the shelves were clearly completely empty. The bell rang as they went in.
"Hello? Anybody here? We'd just like to BU-" he stopped as he turned round the corner.
"An old lady was on her knees comforting a young man who had been shot." There was lots blood all over the floor, it was a deep red, too much. "Help, i dont know what to do!" She cried.
Stan darted over with Jack at his side. He bent down. "I-i tried calling the hospital but the lines too busy." She had obviously tried to staunch the bleeding by pressing down bandages but they were all soaked through onto the floor. She wore a pharmacist coat and name tag 'Gladys'. Stan immediately reached back into his pocket and took out a quick clot patch. "here this'll help stop the bleeding." "SOMEONE GET HIM SOME WATER QUICK." he shouted. The young man also wore a pharmacy labcoat and groaned deliriously. Stan took off the sodden bloody bandages, a big circular bullet hole right over his liver oozed blood and Stan slapped on the quick clot. He tried to poke the patch closer inside the hole but he was too squeamish to jam his finger in. "Oh Mark... oh Mark!" said the old lady. Tom appeared with a cup of water. Stan took it an tried to poor it down the mans throat. He groaned and swallowed. "We have to get him to a hospital. Theres one in town." Stan said. The woman who was in tears said. "You cant carry him! I'll get a hammock." and hurried to a back room. She appeared with a sheet and they lifted him onto it. They then grabbed each side and picked him up in the sheet. The young man groaned in pain but was too delirious to say anything. They quickly carried him back to the Rangerover and holding the man up with the strength of one arm Jack opened the rear doors. "What about the plants?" said Stan. "Theres no fucking time. We'll have to leave them in." Replied Jack. They piled the man ontop of the grow bags and Tom climbed in the back. The old lady got into the side door and Jack and Stan ran round to the front seats of the SUV and strapped their seatbelts. Stan hammered down the accelerator and tore out of onto the main road at top speed. "Tom, i need you to prop his legs up. WAY up there. Keep them WAY up there." Shouted Stan. The SUV revved as the accelerator kept going up gears. There was nobody else on the road and they hit top speed after about 6 seconds. "Whats going on?" Stan heared Lewis in the bluetooth earpiece. "Ive found a random man shot and we're proceeding to hospital." Stan said slowly and with concentration. After a little while he heard Lewis respond. "What do you need me to do?", "Stay on the line, the hospitals just coming up.". They rounded to the main entrance and Stan honked the horn and hit the brakes which squealed to a halt. In a moment they were out of the vehicle and Stan ran into the hospital. "A PHARMACISTS BEEN SHOT! I NEED A DOCTOR!" A moment later some nurses and a doctor came running out with a gurney. The young doctor called out "Wheres he been shot?" Stan said "the liver... it... it looks like the liver.", "i need to get him into an operating room, quick." called the doctor. He looked at the guns. "We didnt..." Stan began "I dont care." replied the doctor as he ran up with the gurney. The old lady Gladys disappeared with them into the hospital. In a moment they were gone and the 3 were left standing on the concrete driveway. Leaving bloody bootprints, Silently they got back into the car. "We've handed him off to the hospital, Lewis. We're heading back to the strip mall."
On the drive back, adrenalin pumping, this time obeying the speed limit. They parked at the strip mall and Stan pulled the break handle back. They sat silently. Stan breathed in and then breathed out a big sigh. "Well, that was unexpected." he waited another moment. "C'mon lets finish the job." He popped open the door and got out into the carpark. He took out the list. "Doesnt look like we'll get any of those medicines today." He looked up at the KFC. "But how about some food? Its getting about lunchtime." He set off to the KFC, Jack and Tom followed. The lights were off but the glass front door was ajar. He took out his rifle from its sling and wielded it one hand as he opened the door with the other. "Hello?" He entered the gloom. The lights were on by the kitchen. There were illuminated signs saying "6 piece meal." and etc. There was a strong smell of frying and the faint sound of boiling in the background. Stan walked as quietly as he could. He reached the cashier tills and walked around. He could see that the tills had been opened and the cash swiped clean. "Huh." He said half to himself. He then turned his attention to the kitchen and advanced slowly around the corner. The frying vats were still bubbleing, boiling infact, actually he could see some blue smoke raising up from them. JESUS A FIRE! He went to the dails on the front and switched them all off. He saw the wires heading back to a fuse box, someone had put a nail in the fuse socket. So this is how it was? Swipe the cash and arson the building to cover your tracks. Jack and Tom surveyed the situation. "Well how about that? Ambulance AND fire preventers?!" Stan said jokingly. "I dont know about you, but i'd say preventing a building from burning down has urnt us a free lunch just as soon as these fryers cool down" He then went to the managers room at the back of the building. The vault was open. "Ah, an inside job." He went back to the kitchen and over to the fridge and opened it. There were huge bags of chicken. He took some from the open bag and dropped them into the fryer. He passed some giant cans of cooking oil. "Thats what we need. Cooking oil!" He picked up the cans and started to load them onto the cash desk. "You want to just, TAKE these?" Said Jack. "If it werent for us, the whole building would have burnt to the crisp, heck the entire strip mall, I say we eat our lunch and go."
"This doesn't feel right." said Tom.
"Ive had a rough day and i want some chicken." Stan retorted.
"He does have a point." said Jack. "People have gone crazy and we dont know when we'll get more food."
Tom just shook his head. He took out his wallet, a sleek black hugo boss leather affair and opened it to reveal a huge wodge of hundreds. He took one out and placed it on the chash desk.
A little while later they were eating at one of the KFC stalls. Even Tom to everyone's surprise. They eat silently, enjoying their ill gotten just reward of self service KFC.
Stan broke the silence by getting out the list again. "Humm, alcohol to disinfect and dull pain." he read out. Ofcourse, there weren't any pain killers in the centre. Lots of iodine, no pain killers. "Ok after this we'll try the liquor shop." They finished up and Jack and Stan loaded the cans of cooking oil into the Rangerover.
"Ok stick close." he said.

They all walked up to the liquor shop. Stan had a bad feeling about this as he saw the glass window was broken. He opened the door quietly and slipped inside.
Inside was a room full to bursting with alcohol of every different type. Nothing had been touched he walked slowly and noticed there wasnt much glass to step on... He approached the desk counter his hand hovering over his pistol holster... a man was sitting with his back turned to them. He hadnt heard them enter. An open bottle of scotch sat next to him and a radio was playing 3 dog. "Hello?" Stan called.
The man wheeled around, eyes flashing white and pulled out a pump action shotgun. "WOW, WOW, WOW" Stan shouted "FRIENDLIES, FRIENDLIES!!" The mans burst of speed had got the drop on all of them he was standing up, aiming at Stan. He had white stubble and thinning hair.
"Get out the way you came." The grizzled looking man said.
"Friendlies! We just want to buy..."
"GET OUT. You scavengers are all the same. I heard the shots next door."
"That wasnt us! We helped! We took the guy to the hospital."
The man looked confused and angry. Lowered the shotgun to his hip.
"I saw. It wasnt you. It was that other guy. I took a shot at him through my window. The guy with the white Ferrari."
"A white Ferrari?" Stan repeated.
"But you still have to LEAVE."
"Ok, we're leaving, we're leaving." Slowly they backed out awkwardly out of the door.
They went back to the car and got in.
"Lets go, not every store visit has to be a victory." He said as he hit the indicators.
"A white Ferrari?" Said Jack.
Stan slowly blew air out of his teeth. "Some people..."

[Raylah]

Anna sat in a rocking chair downstairs, cradling little Alex in her arms and watching fire through the glass doors of the heater. It wasn’t that cold yet, but it also heated the water and Rachel has been nagging them about taking a hot bath. But there was enough of wood and there was always plenty more in the nearby forest. And of course, fire was something nice to look at, as long as it wasn’t your house that was burning.

She smiled a bit. I’m really becoming a cynical old hag. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the weird rumbling sound coming from the outside right away. She only raised her head when Bob ran into the room.

“Are the boys back yet?” she asked. George went for a supply run to Walmart and took Ethan with him. Anna was glad, she always had a feeling that those two aren’t getting along too much.

Bob shook his head. “No. Something is happening, you need to see it.”

Anna got up, alarmed. She called on Rachel to come pick up Alex and then headed outside. Now she could clearly hear the strange noise. It sounded like there was a rave nearby. The bases were thundering and they could even hear some music beneath all that. “What is that?”

“There is a school bus parked before the driveway, apparently equipped with giant speakers.”

“A what?”

Bob just shrugged and pointed to a small watchtower they had recently build at one side of the main gate. Anna climbed up and carefully looked over the wall. And there, right behind the outer gate, was a yellow school bus, blasting heavy metal from several speakers attached to its roof. The outer gate was not really a gate, just a piece of fence put over the driveway at the end of the cow pasture, with signs marking private property. If the driver wanted, he could have run the bus through it without any problems. The fact that he didn’t do it was slightly comforting.

Two men were walking the road from the bus towards the main gate. They didn’t look extremely threatening, aside from the the fact that they had guns hidden in holsters under their long coats.

Anna grabbed the M16A4 rifle that Bob had left on the watchtower and stood up, holding it in front of her body, not really aiming at the men, but ready to do so if they do anything. She caught a glimpse of Bob taking a spot on the other side of the gate, also with a gun in his hand, for now remaining hidden.

“That is far enough,” she yelled at the men and they stopped and looked up to her. “You are on a private property, gentlemen.”

One of the men raised a hand to his hat in a greeting. “Aye ma’am. We saw your ranch from the main road and were hoping that you could sell us one or two of your cows.”

Anna frowned. The ranch wasn’t visible from the main road, and they surely couldn’t see the cows from there. “We don’t have anything for sale.” She moved the tip of the rifle a bit more towards them.

The other man raised his hands and smiled. “All right, all right, we are all friends here. I am reverend Holmes and we are just a group of pilgrims seeking redemption in these troubled times. Perhaps you would like to join us on our journey?”

Anna’s eyebrows went up. “No, I most definitely would not like to join you on your journey.” She wondered how many more are hidden inside the bus and how well armed are they. This had to happen when George was away, such bad luck. She forced herself to smile. “But I wish you all the best and may you find what you are looking for.” Somewhere else.

Holmes shook his head and a fake sad smile appeared on his face. “I am not sure I can leave a lonely soul alone here in the middle of the wilderness. Do you not want to be redeemed?”

“Oh no, I am looking forward to going to hell. Lots of friends there. And I am not a lonely soul.” She gestured to Bob to stand up and she also noticed that Edward was on the northwestern tall watchtower with George’s sniper rifle. Holmes glanced that way and apparently noticed him as well, because he wiggled uncomfortably. “I suggest you leave, now,” she said in a hard voice. She hoped that George and Ethan will not choose this moment to come back, running right into these people. That could be bad.

Reverend shrugged. While he had more men he couldn’t just send them storming the walls, so the defenders could take them down one by one, safely hidden at all times. He knew the ranches around here were often bought as summer houses by the rich and old and he hoped to surprise some of them and steal everything he could. But he wasn’t prepared for such fight just yet. “As you wish. We will pray for your souls when the end comes.”

Anna watched the men turn around and slowly walk back to the bus. Even long after it was gone, they could still hear the music and the bases.

“That was weird,” Bob turned to her, rifle still in his hands.

Anna had to take a deep breath to keep her voice from shaking. “Indeed. We need to keep watch all the time now, in case these guys decide to come back.” She hoped her boys were okay out there.

[Enigmatik]

"Ahehe... It's Three Dawg here folks. Now, if you haven't felt the earthquakes, you really shoulda felt it by now. Or, at least, be about to feel them. Seems we've had a 'minor eruption' at Yellowstone Volcano. Not one of the big 'uns, but uh, still pretty big. They say most of the US gon' be pretty fuckin' cold in a few days time. More than that though, Israel has officially launched a ground invasion into Jordan, and have declared that its Arabic neighbours have 'no official sovereignty." The already some-what familiar voice offered a clearing of the throat. "Not sure if WW3 is about to kick off as well folks. Keep an ear on the news. Three Dawg's going to catch some Zs."

Robin and Trixie looked at one another. "He didn't say the Richter, but felt across the US?" Trixie raised an eyebrow, before an emergency broadcast pinged on their phones at once.

ATTENTION CITIZENS: THE FOLLOWING STATES ARE UNDER MARTIAL LAW...

"That's every... Every state apart from Alaska and Hawaii."

"What the fuck."

"Shit's going... Shit's going down. God damn." The two didn't know where to look. "You think the word's about to end? Like, for real? All our preparation facing the actual, full on end?"

"We never really thought it would come to this, did we?"

"... Not really, no."

"Do you wanna enjoy the end of the world before we feel that earthquake?"

"Sure. Rocky, stay." Robin pointed at the dog, who looked up and him, and then neatly sat down in front of the door. "Wanna see if I can pick you up still? I haven't tried in ages."

"Sure... Why not." Trixie let out a grin, and Robin knelt down. Hands in a bridal carry, up she went.

"Hey, would ya look at that."

"Oh stop it Robin."

[Dusty]

The local governance had decided that in times of nationwide crisis and martial law the best way to achieve stability was by keeping life going as normally as possible. After all, besides a slightly frostier atmosphere each morning the Republic of Texas had suffered no true calamities over the last couple weeks. Many of its citizens counted themselves lucky to live within the Texan borders and worked doubly hard to ensure their fellow Americans on the Western coast would have a still prosperous neighbor to prop them up in their time of need. Of course it wasn’t like Texans weren’t feeling the weight of international disaster and mass movements of refugees from the west. Still, despite economic hardships, geopolitical strife, and global panic the people of Texas, or at least those in San Antonio area, attempted to go about their daily lives in a somewhat normal fashion. At least to what degree it was possible. Stores remained open, public transport ran smoothly, and traffic was monstrous as usual.

One of the first and most important things determined by the city council was that public schools needed to remain open and safe. What better way of ensuring normality than to have children attending school on scheduled hours. It was because of this decision after a weeklong break Tonya found herself back in her small middle school in lower New Braunfels ploughing through the repetitive motions of day to day classroom life. Of course if normality was the goal the instruction provided on that first day of reopening seemed oddly counterintuitive in Tonya’s humble opinion. The assembled students were grilled on personal safety and how to contact emergency services among other childish safety lessons for hour after hour. It wasn’t like every kid didn’t know not to play with fire, or how to dial nine-one-one on their cell phone. The simplistic foolishness of it all amused Tonya at first, but she quickly grew bored as each period usually devoted to math, science, and reading was instead filled with nonstop risk management rhetoric that could bore the ears off any normal child. Not that the normal school day was any more entertaining. What didn’t help was Tonya’s eccentric uncle had been teaching her much more interesting and useful things at home, like how to shoot a gun, skin a rabbit, and sanitize water. He’d been getting the odd tips from a radio show he listened too, and they’d proved to be vastly more entertaining than learning to hide in a bathtub should a tornado pass through. Tonya found herself glancing down at her new watch Eric had bought her with increasing frequency urging the slogging time to go faster.

The hour finally reached three O’clock, leaving only thirty minutes left before the bell released the students to return home. That’s when the first tremor struck.

Everyone felt the strange rumble, so uncommon in that state hardly anybody fully understood the gravity of the situation. Tonya heard a slight whimper behind her. Frowning she turned to see a girl about the same age as her looking very pale, and clutching at the side of her desk looking almost like she was praying. Tonya didn’t know much about her other than her name was Bianca and a few months ago she’d moved here from California. Right around the same time Tonya moved down from Montana actually.

“Was that you?” Tonya whispered, the teacher kept droning on about fire hydrants seemingly unconcerned now that the tiny tremor vanished as suddenly as it had come. Tonya kept her voice low as she inquired of Bianca. “What’s wrong?”

“Didn’t you feel it?”

“What do you mean?”

Then the second tremor struck.

The floor shook and trembled as if the very building had begun dancing to a merry tune. The walls splintered a cracked, the great granite stones crumbling to dust under the immense foreign pressure as an enormous earthquake shook the entire city to its core. Students screamed in panic and the teacher yelled something incoherent as the lights flashed on and off. Tonya had time to watch Bianca duck down low on the floor before the lights went out completely. The only light came from the now shattered windows, out of which some panicked individuals jumped. Deciding to copy Bianca’s actions Tonya crammed herself under her small desk cowering beneath the pitiful cover just as the roof and walls gave way completely, plunging Tonya into total darkness.

[Raylah]

Something was wrong. At first George thought he was finally going crazy, but then he saw the animals running around nervously and making desperate squeals. “Bob!” he yelled, jumping down from a watchtower. “Get Edward and check the horses.” He was halfway to the barn when he felt the first tremor. He leaned against the truck to gain balance and sprinted towards the house. “Anna!”

He could hear the child screaming and people rushing down the stairs. It was Ethan and the women, one of them holding the baby in her arms. “Get into the basement,” he ordered and pushed them towards the entrance. The basement shelter wasn't really a shelter, but it should survive even stronger earthquake. The house was well built, but George was worried about the barn and the horses inside.

Once he was sure that Anna and the other women were safe, he went back outside. It was then when the second earthquake hit. George was just jumping down from the porch and the sudden tremor sent him tumbling to the ground. “Fuck,” he gritted his teeth and got up to one knee.

A strong hand pulled him up. “Gotcha, mate.”

George nodded at Edward who was helping him get up. “How does it look like?”

“Not well, the horses are going crazy and one of the beams on the eastern side must have cracked, because the wall is starting to bend outwards. I don't know how much longer it will last. Bob is inside trying to calm the horses.”

George rubbed his forehead. “If the east side falls, will the entire barn collapse?”

Edward just laughed desperately. “Dude, my expertise in this area ends with building sheds out of planks and nails. I have no idea. Based on the layout of the beams inside it should hold, but I'm not a freakin barn architect.”

“All right, go help Bob get the horses out if you can, but first sign of something falling apart or another earthquake you sprint for the gate, is that clear?”

Edward nodded and ran inside the barn. George circled it from the outside, to see the damaged wall. It didn't look extremely bad, the sheet metal on the side was bent and the whole wall had a weird angle, but unless there was another tremor, it should hold.

“Need a hand?”

George turned around to see Ethan frowning at the damaged barn. “Why aren't you in the shelter?”

“Yea, Im such a delicate flower I need to be hidden away with women and children,” Ethan rolled his eyes. “We could use the long logs to build some improvised braces to support the wall.”

George nodded, the idea had also crossed his mind. Slightly relaxed that the shouts of men and horses from inside of the barn were getting more and more sparse, he and Ethan started to work on supporting the wall with heavy logs.

A few minutes later Anna showed up, bringing them some water. “It’s Yellowstone,” she said with a serious face. “They just said it on the radio. Supposedly a smaller explosion.” She sighed. How do you protect your family from something like that?

---

“I think we need to discuss our options,” Anna said, looking on George and her son.

Ethan nodded. “We should get as far away from Yellowstone as possible.”

“That was my first thought when hearing the news as well, but we can’t. I mean in case it really does explode, there is nowhere to go in the US. North America will mostly be screwed and so will Europe, thanks to the ashes travelling high in the atmosphere. We could go south, but where? The flights are already cancelled and only place we can go by cars is Mexico. And with what’s happening right now, everyone will have the same idea. How long do you think it will last when the Mexicans close the borders and start shooting people trying to cross?”

George nodded. “Yea, they aren’t really in a position to accept millions of refugees. Plus can you imagine what the roads will look like these days? Traffic jams everywhere, people fighting over last gallons of gas. It will be like Mad Max in the rush hour.”

Ethan laughed and shook his head desperately. “So you are expecting me to let my family sit 500 miles away from a supervolcano, possibly about to erupt and just do nothing?”

Anna placed her hand on her son’s. “We are far away from the initial blast area, which means that if something happens, we will have time to react.”

“Yes, and we will be prepared. We will be ready to load the supplies onto the truck, jump in the cars and get out of here at the first sight of trouble.” George tried to sound convincing to calm Ethan down, but he was worried. The plan was nice and all, but as all plans, it could go either really well or fail horribly.

[Andrew Blade]

It was slow going on the way down to Arkansas. Many of the main roads were flooded with abandoned vehicles, and several times Jason and his ex-wife had been forced to turn around and consult a map to find the best route. In the end, it became apparent that the majority of their travels would have to take place on back roads.

That third night- the first since they'd decided to head south, but the third since they'd stolen the trucks- Jason and his ex-wife slept in shifts. They parked the vehicles in the middle of a field out of sight of the road. It didn't give them a very good tactical advantage, but it did mean that they wouldn't be spotted by anyone just driving by. Luckily, a few coyotes in the distance and the sound and shadowy movement of what Chambers figured were deer were the only things to catch his attention this deep in the country.

The next day the kids woke up early. Knowing that it was rough to keep them in car for so long, they ate some of the MRE's Jason had saved and relaxed before getting back on the road. The kids ran around and burned off some energy while Guinevere turned her phone on to read the news. What she saw confirmed the suspicion that Jason had based his decisions on. The world around them was starting to plummet into chaos.

"Yeah..." Jason commented as she showed him the headlines that popped up on her phone's news feed, "it was time to go. I'm just glad we got out when we did. I'm not even going to turn my phone on. Not until we get somewhere we can stay for a while. By then the phone might not even be working anyway. You should turn yours off for now- save the battery."

Cleaning up the boxes and bags from their breakfast, Jason used a small entrenching tool to dig a little hole and the matches from one of the MRE's to set their trash fire, putting as much of it into one bag as he could fit. It would probably go out after a while, but he wasn't going to bring the garbage with them, and it wouldn't do the environment any good just blowing around.

The next day and night was much of the same- very slow going taking back roads to get where they wanted to go, especially having to turn around several times when they came to dead ends. But it was the next day that they encountered their first real challenge. Coming over a hill, they realized a bridge at the bottom of it was the only way across the creek that ran across their path, but in front of it were four vehicles, set up to block anyone from crossing from either way. As soon as they realized what was going on, a large camper pulled out from behind a barn behind them, parking directly behind them in the road so as to block their escape. Five men stood in front of the vehicles near the bridge, while three more got out of the camper behind them.

"This is bad," Guinevere's voice trembled over the radio, "Real bad. The kids and Grandma are in the car between us. Even if we ran... This is bad."

Jason listened to her while he grabbed the plate carrier loaded with his magazines and tactical equipment and threw it on. They weren't going to let them go without at least taking almost everything they had, and Jason couldn't just run- they'd never get away with all three vehicles. Either way, someone wasn't walking away from this.