299 Days: The Visitors (20 page)

This was classic “normalcy bias.” It was an epidemic in the cities. The more dependent people were, the easier it was to fall into normalcy bias because they had no way of handling the new situation. The government counted on normalcy bias. They managed normalcy bias by trying to create the illusion of normalcy and then directing people to act like they had in normal times, which was to do what the government said. Hence, the reruns and fake news on TV.

The internet was much the same. The government had acquired “emergency” powers to control it. It was hard, of course, to totally prevent Patriot websites and communications. A person might be blocked on nine out of ten attempts to find Patriot web information, but would get through on the tenth try. There weren’t really any police left, so no one cared if the authorities knew that a computer they were using was accessing a “terrorist” website. This was less true in the cities where there were more police or, more accurately, FC. They would get lists of people accessing restricted websites and go “visit” them. The FC would try to intimidate people and, on occasion, take them in. This was to cause fear among the population. The government really didn’t have the facilities to jail everyone, so they let most of them go, after taking away their FCards.

Thinking of the cities and all the government controls reminded Grant once again of how good they had it at Pierce Point. The productive people at Pierce Point were working hard to take care of themselves and their neighbors. Drew and his assistants were merely keeping track of who was helping, but they were not trying to direct it. They weren’t the government. People at Pierce Point could tell the difference. They liked the approach out there. Individuals at the Grange, like Drew, were there to help, but not control things, which was such a welcome change from what had been happening for the past few years.

People were rediscovering their own self-sufficiency. It felt good to take care of themselves and others. They had a sense of pride after spending all day canning or drying food and then having something to show for it. Many people hadn’t had that sense of pride in quite some time. They had gone to jobs in cubicles and come home and watched TV. Life was more…real now. More like it was supposed to be.

Grant pulled Drew aside so people couldn’t hear the conversation. “Are you getting a sense of who is on board out here and who the slackers are?” Grant asked.

“Yep,” Drew said. “I see the same names on the donation records. The same people seem to be coming up to me to ask if anyone needs to borrow their truck or if anyone needs help with a project. Most of the people are like that.”

“What about the lazy people?” Grant asked. He knew the answer.

“Well,” Drew said, “their names don’t show up in my records, so we could figure out who they are by a process of elimination.”

That was exactly what Grant had thought. In an instant, he decided to start “keeping files” on people. Not files, really, just a map. He had to. Soon, resources would be scarce and it would be unfair to start giving things away to people who weren’t contributing. That could split the community apart, and they needed the community solidly together in order to survive. Survive, Grant said again to himself. Keeping files on people is about surviving. Don’t let it turn into anything else.

“Yeah,” Grant said to Drew. “Could you get the master lot map and come up with small maps showing the helpful and unhelpful so I can have them?” Grant would add the Patriot, Loyalist, Undecided, and Oblivious labels himself after he had evidence in each case. Helpful people weren’t necessarily Patriots and unhelpful people weren’t necessarily Loyalists. The map would label both community contributions and political leanings. Grant would use the list of contributors, regardless of their politics, for the decisions on allocating resources. That would show he was being fair. This would bring many of the Undecideds, who were the majority of the population, over to the Patriot side. If a Loyalist was contributing, then great. He or she would be rewarded and the Undecideds would see that.

Creating this map would be a lot of work. Oh well. Grant needed to have a command of these important details. He couldn’t delegate this one. This was really important. He had to know, with specificity, who the good and bad guys were. This was his job now. He still would judge cases and might kick down doors on raids now and again, but his main job was political and administrative, as Pierce Point solidified from a group of people to a mini-republic. It wouldn’t just happen with luck. It would take hard work to get things formed right so Pierce Point could be a model.

Exactly. This is your job.

Grant arranged for Drew to get a set of the lot maps copied by Ken. He wouldn’t tell anyone about his political map. He didn’t want to alarm anyone about what he was doing. Grant wouldn’t even tell Rich.

He realized that he needed to get to know the people out there better. He needed to be able to personally call on the Patriots for things, and have a good sense if others were Loyalists or just Undecideds or Oblivious. He wouldn’t label someone as a Loyalist unless he had a good reason for it. He didn’t want to accuse someone of that without proof.

Grant realized he hadn’t had any time in the past to just get to know people out there. He had been so busy doing “gun things.” Now it was time to do “people things,” like talking to people, refining the lot map, judging cases, and coordinating all the self-help out there. He was the perfect person to be doing this.

Now you’re catching on.

Despite knowing this, Grant still felt like he should be grabbing his AR and kit and patrolling or something. He fought that urge, and instead talked to people at the Grange and did miscellaneous coordinating.

Pow came into the Grange and said, “Hey, man, we’re going out to Dan’s place to get briefed on the new dogs with Kyle. You comin’?”

“Nah, ‘fraid not,” Grant said. “I need to do a bunch of stuff here. I’d love to, man. You know that.” He wanted to ride in the back of a truck with his guys. He felt so comfortable with an AR and standing with these guys.

“Totally understand,” Pow said. “Kinda figured.” Pow smiled. He wasn’t offended at all. “Besides, it’s probably best not to have the judge going out on all the raids to catch bad guys.”

Grant nodded. “Hey,” Grant said, “the Team is in great hands with you in the lead. Seriously. I’m proud of you guys. You don’t know how many people talk to me and say they appreciate what you guys are doing.” It felt weird to talk about the Team by saying “you guys” instead of “us.”

“Of course,” Pow said with his big smile. “We’re good.” He straightened up his back, did a press check of his AR, and said, “Gotta run, man. Take care here.”

“Adios,” Grant said. “Stay safe, brother.”

As Pow was leaving, Grant yelled, “Oh, and this never gets old.” Pow laughed. He knew Grant wanted to come out with them, but things were changing out there at Pierce Point. The first few weeks were done. Now it was time to settle in for the long haul.

Chapter 157

Pop-Tarts and Spray Paint

(June 28)

“Who wants Pop-Tarts?” Ron asked his kids.

“Me! Me!” they said. Ron hadn’t seen them this happy in quite some time. He held the box of Pop-Tarts like it was gold. The box looked so fresh, so new. Like something he hadn’t seen in weeks, because he hadn’t.

Ron had a huge grin on his face as he opened the box and handed a foil Pop-Tart package to each of his kids.

“Where did you get these, Daddy?” Ron’s oldest daughter asked.

“The store,” Ron said. “I heard they would have them today so I walked over there and got a box. That was the limit. One box. But, hey, I’m glad they had them,” he said with a big smile.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she said sweetly. Her bleak world was temporarily suspended. Things weren’t so bad. The store had Pop-Tarts.

Ron’s wife, Sherri, came in and saw the Pop-Tarts. Her eyes lit up. “This means that things must be getting better,” she said. She was a realist and had been doing really well throughout this whole ordeal. She could look at the situation objectively and decide how to proceed. She was not trapped in the good ole’ days of “normal.”

That being said, Sherri still craved for “normal” to come back. She continued looking for any little sign that things were getting better—like Pop-Tarts. This must mean the food factories were getting supplies and were producing, and were also able to get the products out to the stores. This was a good sign.

Sherri really didn’t care if Ron committed a felony to get the Pop-Tarts. Who cares if he got them at the store or from some gang? Pop-Tarts from a gang? Did she really just think that? Boy, life had changed in America.

“Yeah, it was cool,” Ron said, always trying to highlight the good news for his wife. “They had them at the grocery store. Ken Kallerman told me about it.” Ken lived in Ron’s neighborhood, the Cedars. Ken was a high-ranking fish biologist for the state fish and wildlife department before the Collapse. Now he was working on keeping drinking water systems functioning. This gave Ken inside information. And he was Mormon, like Ron, so they shared whatever they could.

“Did you use the FCard?” Sherri asked Ron.

“Yep. But they weren’t cheap,” Ron said a little concerned that Sherri would get mad. “Umm…$45.”

“You paid $45 for a box of Pop-Tarts!” Sherri whispered, out of the hearing of the kids. “Are you insane?”

Ron became defensive that his big score of Pop-Tarts was now a bad thing. He decided to reason with her.

“Honey,” he said, “How much is a gallon of gas?”

“They have some?” she answered. “I heard no one had any.”

“Precisely,” he said. “It’s not about what something costs in terms of dollars; it’s about whether there is any of it available.”

She nodded. That made sense.

“Besides, what good is $45 on our FCard account if there’s nothing to buy with it?” That made even more sense.

“They’re just FCard credits, not real dollars,” he continued. “I know, I know. It’s hard to quit thinking of the cost of items in terms of pre-Collapse dollars. But things are totally different now.”
She knew he was right. “Yeah, I guess,” she said slowly. “But…”

“But we all do it,” he said. “I do it every day. It’s getting easier to quit pricing things in pre-Collapse dollars, but it’s still the starting point we all use.”

She appreciated that he was being reasonable. It was hard to conceive of a box of Pop-Tarts costing $45, no matter what was going on. She decided to salvage the joy of him going out and getting Pop-Tarts for his family.

“What flavor?” she asked.

“Strawberry,” he said.

“That works,” she said.

“Twelve Pop-Tarts in a box,” he said. “Three kids. I think we can snag a Pop-Tart a piece for us. Wanna have a Pop-Tart with me, beautiful?”

How could she resist that? “Of course,” she said with a wink. That meant something good was coming later.

Ron opened the last Pop-Tart package and gave her one.

Sherri was almost afraid to eat it. It was so perfect. She just looked at it for a while, and then she put it in her mouth. The Pop-Tart tasted so sweet; amazingly sweet. Then Sherri realized they hadn’t really had sugar for about two weeks. She could almost immediately feel the sugar rush hit her bloodstream.

In that moment, things seemed so normal again while they were eating their Pop-Tarts. Things can’t be
that
bad.

Ron wanted to drink some milk. He never really drank milk, but Pop-Tarts and milk went hand in hand. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any milk. Refrigerated things, like dairy and meat, were very hard to come by because they had to remain refrigerated during transport and, with the potential for weeks of delays to get a semi load of products across the country, hauling these products was an extremely low priority for the government. And the power was still going off intermittently. It was too hard to warehouse things that needed constant refrigeration. The government had switched to supplying only easily storable foods, like Pop-Tarts.

“Could I get you a glass of water?” Ron asked Sherri, before she could mention how good the Pop-Tart would taste with a glass of milk.

“Sure,” she said.

“Me too, Daddy,” Ron’s youngest said, as she came back into the kitchen.

They stood in the kitchen talking about the general stuff that a family talks about while they enjoyed Pop-Tarts together.

Ron would try to get another box tomorrow. If he got one, he would hide it and give it to the kids for Christmas, which, by then, could be the best present ever. He would walk to the store in the morning, as gas was too valuable to waste on Pop-Tart runs.

He drove around much more than most people because he could still get gas by selling the silver he squirrelled away before the Collapse. He traded silver coins for FCards and then used the FCards to get gas at the gang stations. As an accountant, Ron didn’t really have a job anymore so he had time to help people who needed transportation, especially people from his church.

Believe it or not, he actually made a living this way. His overhead was low—no taxes anymore. Technically, there were taxes due on things, but the last thing in the world the government had time or resources to do was collect taxes. It was funding itself by stealing everyone’s savings and bank accounts and by controlling all the food and fuel supplies—and taking a cut, of course. Ron didn’t have any real bills. The government quit sending power, water, and natural gas bills because it realized that cutting off these utilities would cause a massive revolt. All the other things the Spencer household used to spend money on—saving for college, clothes, restaurants, vacations—was no longer being purchased. It was amazing how much money they no longer spent. Amazing.