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It took about five seconds to cut the chain, which felt like a full two minutes to Clint as this was really stepping up the breaking and entering.  When the handle didn’t turn, he smashed the rubberized handle of the hammer through the window.  Then he scraped the glass out of the way with the claw end of the hammer, reached in to unlatch the deadbolt and the door handle, and they were inside.

Clint really didn’t have a desire to take everything in the shop, and was initially torn between being silent the entire time and speaking out in case someone might be hiding inside.  He finally decided to say something.  “I’m not here to take everything but I’m obviously here to take
some
things.  I cut the chain as close to the lock as possible so that you can re-lock it after we leave.  I made as small a hole in the window as possible for the same reason.  I’m not a vandal, but I do have people I need to protect just as I’m sure you do--wherever you are.  Understand that I’m only here to take what I need and I’ll leave…which will include leaving you enough to protect yourself.  I’m not trying to clean you out of anything, including the guns.” 
And I didn’t even sound like a dumb hick from the backwaters of stupidville either!

The guns were behind the counter and they were locked, which meant that Clint had to cut another cable.  In this first store they ended up leaving with eighteen rifles of various makes, mainly Winchester and Remington, and five shotguns in a variety of gauges.  They also made off with about 3000 rounds of ammunition.  True to his word, though, they didn’t come anywhere near cleaning the place out of rifles, shotguns, or ammo.  They didn’t touch the handguns or anything else in the store.  They closed the door when they left and then looped the chain so that it at least appeared to be locked from the outside.

As he climbed into the truck and looked back at that first pawn shop something changed inside of Clint.  He decided that he wasn’t going to explain to the owner of the next two shops he planned on visiting if they happened to be there when he showed up. 
They wouldn’t hesitate to take it from me without explanation if they needed it, why should I be any different?
”

Their pattern with the next two was a little different as well; any rifle or pistol of the caliber that Clint designated went with them…period.  The last pawn shop also had had a number of assault-style rifles.  Clint made sure to grab all of those on the off chance that they could be of use in the future, as well as every round of ammunition available for them.  By the time they were done with the three shops they had targeted they had accumulated ninety-seven hunting rifles, forty-two shotguns, twenty-nine handguns and thirteen assault-style rifles.  They also had almost 40,000 rounds of ammunition.  Clint was just getting started.

He had grabbed a phonebook from a phone booth outside of a convenience store and checked it for car dealerships the afternoon before.  This was phase two.  “Earl, you’re driving again.  Head to the CarMAX we passed back on Gallatin.”  While Earl drove he got two of the drills fitted with the carbide tipped bits and the bolt cutters ready.  Both drills had been charging thanks to the inverter.  Bolt cutters made quick work of the chain on the gate and they were in.

“The goal is to replace every car in our group with a truck or SUV,” Clint said as he looked at the three who had come with him.  “If there’s enough, everyone who can drive gets a vehicle.  Nothing smaller than 8 cylinder, 4WD is preferable and automatic is required.  I don’t want to get stuck somewhere because we ran out of people who don’t know how to drive stick. .”

When all three men nodded, Clint went on.  “I want tow-hitches on everything, immediate disqualification if it doesn’t have a hitch.  No exceptions.”  More nods.  “Now, before we get started we have to get these lock boxes off without destroying the windows so I’m going to do something I’ve always wanted to do.”

The something that had started changing inside of Clint on the way out of the first pawn shop had continued working its magic on the drive to the car lot.  Clint walked over to a Jaguar XJ8 Vanden Plas 4 door sedan, took a batter’s grip on the bolt cutters, and swung for the fences at the driver’s-side window.  It wasn’t the most expensive car on the lot, not by a long shot, but it just
screamed
snob to Clint. 
What in the world is a
Plas
anyway!?
Clint thought to himself.

The feel and sound of the shattering window was deeply satisfying; the sound of the car alarm, after three days of no technology but the cars themselves, scared him half to death.

“Dude!”  Shane, one of the guys Clint had brought along as additional muscle this morning, yelled almost as soon as the window had finished shattering.

“Had to get the lock box off the window,” Clint yelled back over the noise of the car alarm as he reached in and grabbed the box and then popped the hood.

It took a less than a minute to get all the wires to the battery completely cut and silence the alarm. 
It’s amazing how quickly you can silence those things when you aren’t worried about moving the car afterwards,
Clint mused.

“Did you have to go after a Jag, man?” Frank, the other muscle, asked.

“Why not?” Clint replied, no remorse.

“Because there is a Civic
right next to it!”

“What’s the fun in that?” Clint asked.  “Neither of them are of any use to us in their current state but frankly I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head who’s ever thought they were more important than I was who drove a Civic.  This,” Clint hit the fender with the bolt cutters, causing all three of the other men to wince, “well, how many times have you been cut off by one of these, huh?  Tell me you weren’t the least bit jealous it wasn’t you swinging just now.”  Clint raised an eyebrow.  When nobody spoke up, Clint shrugged, “Fine…moving on.”

Clint had seen the key boxes open before but wasn’t sure exactly where the locking mechanism was so he began methodically drilling on the box from the Jag until it opened.  Now he knew where the mechanism was…Next!  “Since there’s only the four of us we can only take at most four trucks with us, and that’s assuming we move all the guns.  I want to take the keys for
all
of the vehicles we want though.  It’ll make getting them all that much quicker if we already have the boxes open and the keys in our possession when we come back.”

It took almost half an hour to collect all the keys and be back on their way to the RV Park they’d been using for the last couple of days.  Each of the vehicles had a little less than a quarter of a tank of gas so that there would be enough for test drives but that wasn’t going to be enough for long.  That was why Clint had gotten the DC fuel pump and hoses earlier in the day, and he’d be using them shortly.

The approach to the RV Park could have been dicey if they hadn’t moved the CB into Clint’s new truck but with notice, nobody panicked at the arrival of four new vehicles.  With the additional space the SUVs and Crew Cabs provided it was a little easier to pack everything up, get everyone back to the car dealership, and get the remainder of the trucks that they wanted.

A ten-minute ride and the entire group were at the dealership picking vehicles.  Two minutes later they were being questioned by the police.  The problem centered on the fact that one car driving around inside a closed parking lot is suspicious, but not overly so.  Thirteen cars driving around inside a closed parking lot plus almost twenty adults milling around cars that they don’t own would make Tommy Chong suspicious.

And then a decision was made.  The two police officers, as that’s all that had showed up, couldn’t help but notice that several members of the group they were questioning were armed.  Not everyone looked to be intimately familiar with what they were carrying but there were a whole lot more of them than there were of the officers.  The officers were single and had been doing their beats on their own out of a sense of duty, but with no coordinated or centralized management, for almost three days.  For all they knew, these guys just might be some of the new law.

“So, are you all looking for a hand?” Officer Robert Cooper asked.

“Depends on just what you mean by that.” Clint replied.

“Well, you look to be in charge of this here expedition and it does seem to be going smoothly.  I don’t know that bucking what appears to be the new system would be the wisest course of action for us at this point.  You need some extra hands?”

“In that case, I think provisionally, yeah.  You plan on bringing that along,” Clint nodded to the cruiser, “or grabbing something here?”

“Personally, I’d rather get something here.  Those seats are for the birds and I’ve got a bad back.  Unless you want everyone to be able to pull something, there’s a Beemer back there I’d love to grab.  But if you prefer, I’ll get the Escalade in the back row.” Officer Anthony Roach replied.

“Me, I’m getting a 4X4 crew cab.  I like the Midnight Blue F350 over there, if that’s alright.” Cooper said.

“Sounds like a plan,” Clint said, slightly surprised but not alarmed at the ease with which the officers had switched allegiance.  “Earl has the keys.  He’s the one with the birthmark on the right side of his face.  Let him know you’ve seen the light, as it were, and to come see me if he has any questions.  You going to bring along any of the gear from the car?”

“Absolutely.  I’m not leaving that around for just anybody.” Cooper replied.

“Good man.”

As they were getting ready to leave, a thought struck Clint and he pulled Roach aside.  “We have enough people to drive your Escalade back to where we were setting up camp for the night, but it might be helpful to have the cruiser with us for the next little bit as we go to get gas in all the vehicles.”

“Wow, good point.  We’re down under a half a tank as it is.  You already have a plan for that?”

“I do.  Having a ‘Police Escort’ for it might keep people off our backs as well.  Make it all look legitimate.”

Cooper smirked.  “Not a problem Mr.?”

“Clint.  Just call me Clint.”

…

Once everyone who could drive had a truck or SUV the next stop was a gas station, or in this case a truck stop on the outskirts of Madison.  It took a few minutes to get the filler cap off the underground tank and another couple of minutes to snake the hose down, but within ten minutes they were filling up all the vehicles with 91-octane.  Only the good stuff for this crew, at least to start.  Like the pawn shops and the car dealership, the truck stop hadn’t had anyone show up today either, so they made a run on the packaged food and the over-the-counter medicines always in such abundance at truck stops.  They also outfitted all the new trucks with CB radios and antennas.

It took almost forty minutes to fill the nineteen trucks and SUVs that had met Clint’s criteria.   By the time they were done, Clint had decided it was time to be a little less visible with all the fairly new rides.  They had been car camping at an RV park which had given Clint his final idea before heading out this morning and was the reason for getting only vehicles with tow hitches and big engines.

“Ok, everybody, I’ll be in the lead and I don’t want any questions once we get back on the road.  From this point on it’s an all or nuthin’ deal.  We’ve got decent rides, we have fuel, and we’ve got food.  Now we’re going to get places to sleep that we can take with us.  I don’t know what we’re going to walk into, though, so I want everybody over eighteen armed.”

He hadn’t mentioned this last leg of the outing to anyone yet, so there were some looks flying back and forth--but nobody asked any questions.  That was good, so far.  “Grab something you are comfortable with from Earl, Shane, or Frank.  They’re going to make you load it, unload it, and safe it.  If you can’t do that, they are going to take it away from you and make you pick something else, aren’t you boys?”

“After I hit ‘em, durn straight!” Earl yelled.

“So pick something you actually know how to use and don’t come crying to me if you get smacked.  I want to get going in five minutes and I’d
really
like to do it without having any shots fired.”  Clint looked over at the two former officers, “Either of you ever hook up an RV?”

…

The Internet had been a wonderful thing; some people had even called it awesome.  Unfortunately it had required electricity to run and an ISP to get online.  The yellow pages, however, required neither and could
still
be just as awesome in a pinch.  In Madison and the surrounding area there were seven RV rental and sales lots, and it took the convoy five tries to get lucky.

The first one appeared to be heavily defended by the owner, his family and friends, dogs, and a number of very obvious firearms.  Just because Clint and company
had
weapons didn’t mean he wanted to have to use them.  The second lot was junk--either because it had already been picked over, because it had seen better days, or because that was what they trafficked in.  The next two were mostly all-in-one RVs, fifth-wheels, or pop-ups.  The fifth lot was a gold mine, though.  They had over one-hundred trailers on site ranging from twenty-eight to thirty-four feet long.  It was deserted.  It hadn’t been picked over.  There were no guard dogs to give them trouble and the sales office even had things like bedding and kitchen implements to outfit the trailers.  It was, in a word, perfect.  They even had extra ball mounts for the couple of trucks that only had receivers.

“Ok, folks, I don’t want to be here forever but at least we don’t stand out like we did at the truck stop.  Let’s take a little bit of time and pick one trailer per truck.” Clint said to the group after they had all parked and closed the front gates.  “I’m not dumb enough to think that everyone knows how to tow a 30’ trailer but we should be able to get a bunch of these back to the RV Park without anybody rolling anything.  We’ll take it slow and make wide turns and then we’ll let the people with some experience park ‘em when we get back.”

“I also understand that I have husbands driving one truck, and wives driving another, and in at least one case their sixteen year old son driving an SUV.  Yes, I want a trailer hooked to all three vehicles.  No, Aaron, as far as I know your parents are not going to let you live on your own.”  That brought a few laughs.  “We need to get as much as we can while we can.  If the opportunity somehow presents itself to get more trucks or SUVs and bring more trailers along, then even more will come with us.  Let’s not take any longer than we need to though.”  Clint had picked a white Dodge Ram 2500 SLT Turbo Diesel when they made the smash and grab for the trucks.  It had been the only diesel on the lot and luckily it had more fuel than the other vehicles to start with.  They were going to need to get another pump, because they couldn’t use the same one for diesel and gasoline without fouling the regular engines.  Now it was time to pick his new home.