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When nobody objected and everyone offered to help, it was actually more work and chaos than Rachael had thought it would be when offered.  It did, however, take everyone’s mind off the fact that they would be leaving their homes for the foreseeable future, which was the real reason she’d suggested it.

Chapter Nine

Everyone was going to drive a truck or an SUV.  Sheri’s Explorer and Karen’s Pathfinder were both 2-wheel drive but each could carry a lot while keeping it under cover.  The Taylors had a Suburban; which, while a gas guzzler, could tow anything anyone would be driving--even fully loaded.  Chuck had an F-350, and Eric had a Silverado--both of which were turbo-diesel crew cabs.

Between them they had seven tents, six lanterns, four 20lb propane tanks from backyard grills, almost two dozen disposable propane canisters, more than enough sleeping bags, coolers for three or four days of food--assuming the dry ice lasted that long--and a couple of weeks of canned goods.  Karen had wisely suggested that they pack the vehicles in the garages so as not to arouse any suspicion.  They weren’t necessarily hiding from the rest of the neighborhood, but there weren’t any other folks in the neighborhood that they wanted to seek out and bring with them either.

Packing was going slowly, due in part to the fact that everyone was subconsciously putting of the inevitable departure.  At about a quarter after three in the afternoon, Carey knocked on the Taylor’s door.

“Carey, what can I do for you?” Joel asked.  He wasn’t about to invite Carey in, but he wasn’t going to be rude either.  Frankly it was actually cooler outside than it was inside with the A/C not working.

“We’re going to start pooling resources and need to compile a list of what you have so you can bring it to one of a number of central points.” Carey replied…straight-faced.

Joel couldn’t respond right away and just blinked for a few seconds.  “Ok, when do you need the list by, and what are you wanting catalogued?”

“I’m here to make it now,” Carey said.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean ‘you’re here to make it now’?” Joel asked.

Carey was taken aback by the question.  “I’m here to make an inventory of what you’ve got as far as food, water, fuel, and clothing,” he clarified-- and made as if to walk into the house.  Unfortunately for Carey, Joel didn’t get out of his way, so he had to stop.

“We don’t have a huge amount of time to screw around Taylor…”

“My first name is Joel, and the hell you’re going to walk in and inventory my house.  This isn’t the Communist Community of Carey Pavlovich buddy!  A few hours isn’t going to make or break anything; so you can just back off.  Maybe you need to be a little more concerned about the fools out there mowing their lawns with what little remaining gasoline there is, or the two or three people who’ve fired up their backyard propane grills this afternoon to cook a half-a-dozen hotdogs.

“If you want a list of the resources I’ve got, fine, I’ll give you a list.  But you’re going to give me a list of where you think you’re going to put it and how you think you’re going to protect it.  Where’s that list Carey, huh?  You bring that with you?  No, then get off my porch and get to work doing something useful; and don’t come back until you can answer some simple, basic questions.”  Joel slammed the door in Carey’s face.

“It’s probably a good thing we’re leaving,” Rachael said.

“Ya think?”

…

Sheri’d had her windows open and heard the door slam across the street.  She got to the living-room window in time to see Carey slam his own door and wondered what was going on when Rachael came out of the Taylor’s house and started across the street. 
Uh-oh, this doesn’t look good.

She opened her front door just as Rachael reached the porch, and waved her in.  “What just happened?”

“I’m not sure if it was Carey’s idea or not but apparently there’s a plan to consolidate supplies; and for us, at least, it was going to start with Carey himself performing an inventory of our house.”  Sheri’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes got wide at that.  “Yeah.  Joel read him the riot act about doing something productive and then slammed the door in his face.  I swear, if I had more tender sensibilities I’d be all flushed and fanning myself and saying things like ‘Isn’t this just so excitin’, but this is just getting stupid.”

“Well, that explains the visit I got a little while ago while I was, um, indisposed.” Sheri said.  “Chuck answered the door and told the guy that he wasn’t someone he thought I was expecting--since it wasn’t Carey, Rick, or one of you folks--and never even let the guy finish.  He eventually gave up and said he’d come back later.  I wonder what Eric said.”  Sheri and Rachael both grinned like idiots thinking about that.

…

“No.”

“Excuse me?” the man at the front door said, perplexed.

Eric simply repeated himself.  “No.”

“Sir, I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation.”

“Oh I assure you I do, more so than you by leaps and bounds.  It’s you who don’t understand.  You are on private property.  You have no authority here, period.  No authority to enter
my
home, no authority to catalogue or inventory
my
possessions, no authority whatsoever once you cross those borders to do anything at all.”  Eric replied.

“But the board,” the man continued.

Eric interrupted, “Doesn’t have the right to do what you are saying they’ve sent you out to do.  This is a home owners’ association, not a sovereign nation.  Are you kidding me?  Are you insane?  No.  It doesn’t matter what I have or don’t have.  If I have something I feel I would like to share then it’s up to me to do so.  If I run out then it’s up to others whether or not they will share with me.  Frankly, I have every intention of sharing but I’m not letting you or anyone else into my house to make a list of what I have and then turning everything over to someone else to manage.  Not gonna happen.”

“But what if there isn’t enough for everyone to go around?  What if there isn’t enough for the kids?  That’s not fair for one person to decide!”

“Ok, you obviously aren’t listening so I’ll try it another way.  How much food, water, and fuel do you have at your place?” Eric asked.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with everything!  You want to come in and inventory
my
house but won’t tell me what
you
have? Doesn’t that strike you as even the least bit hypocritical?”

The guy at the door, whose name Eric still didn’t know, was working his mouth like a fish with no words coming out.  The word gobsmacked came to mind.  “I think we’re done here.  I’m going to close the door now, bye.”  Eric was barely able to keep from laughing until the door was completely shut.

…

 As the evening progressed, more people were out and about but the mood in the neighborhood was tense.  Carey was holding one of his infamous HOA board meetings in his driveway, which made it all the more difficult to hide the fact that Sheri and Chuck, and Eric and Karen, at least, were pooling resources for dinner with the Taylors.

“Are we the only neighborhood that’s acting like this?” Rachael asked as dinner was wrapping up.

“Acting like what?” Sheri countered.

“Well, all paranoid and worried and weird.  Is knowing that the power isn’t coming back on better or worse than not knowing?  Are other groups out there freaking out more, less or the same as we are?”

Eric waited a few heartbeats before he replied because nobody else had answered.  “I think that the majority of people are starting to freak out, as you say, because it’s sinking in that there is absolutely no contact with the outside world.  Aside from no electricity there’s no phones, no radio, no cell phone, no wireless Internet, no satellite radio… nothing.  People aren’t used to that level of isolation--even when they go camping.”

“How have you been doing, Sheri?  I know things didn’t go as well as they could have at the cabana today.” Karen asked.

Sheri sighed.  “I’m exhausted, but I don’t know how much sleep I’m going to get tonight.”  She was looking at the back of the house, scanning it from one end to the other, taking it in and not realizing she was doing it.

Chuck reached over and took another one of the bagged rolls he’d brought back from his house, catching Sheri’s eye.  “Chuck!  Why don’t you stay at my place tonight?”

Chuck stopped with the roll part way to his face--mouth hanging open.  “’Scuse?”

“Well, you’re already packed and here. I have an actual guest bed for when the occasional family comes to visit; and that way we can get out of here as early as possible in the morning.  I’ll sleep better knowing someone else is in the house too.”

A slightly awkward silence followed before Chuck finally agreed.  “Ok.  I mean, sure, makes perfect sense.” Chuck tried to cover his pause with humor, “As long as the pillowcases aren’t all lacy and froofy smelling, because I won’t be able to sleep if they are.”

“Yeah, you know me too well.  Froofy-smelling pillowcases--as if.” Sheri replied, obviously relieved.

As they said goodnight and headed back to their own homes for some final packing and an early night’s sleep they were all recipients of icy looks from the board members still in Carey’s driveway.

Tomorrow morning can’t come soon enough for me
, Joel thought to himself.

Chapter Ten

Joel was a little surprised to wake up to an empty bed.  Occasionally he or Rachael would grab a blanket and go sleep on the couch if the other one was snoring loudly or tossing and turning--but Rachael hadn’t taken her pillow downstairs which meant she had gotten up for the day.  Joel made his way downstairs and was met by the sound of soft sniffling.

“Rach?” Joel said as knelt by the couch in front of his wife.  “Hon?  How long have you been up?”

“Not long, only about ten minutes.  I had to say good-bye though.”

“We’re not coming
back
Joel.  We’ve lived here since before Maya was born.  There are three guinea pigs and a cockatiel buried in the back yard.”  Rachael grabbed another tissue.  “This has been our home for over half of our marriage, Joel, and we’re just going to walk away from it in a few hours…and not look back?  I don’t know if I can do it.”

Joel didn’t have a response at first, except to lean forward and hold her.  When he did speak, his voice was more raw with emotion than he’d expected.  “I really haven’t wanted to think about this.  You’re right, you know.  We’re not coming back, because I don’t think we’re going to be able to come back.  Once we leave,” Joel pulled back and looked Rachael in the eyes, “it won’t be ours anymore.  Once we’re gone, someone else will most likely take it.”

Rachael closed her eyes and looked away from him.

“Rach, look at me.”  It took a few seconds, but eventually she did.  “How do you think it makes me feel to say that?  I’ve worked for over a decade to make this house our
home
.  I built the gazebo.  I built the fire pit.  We’ve put how many hours into keeping that horrible lawn alive?”  She barked a small laugh.  They were constantly complaining about how they had a thriving lawn full of lush crabgrass and chickweed--but couldn’t keep fescue alive for love or money.

“And now, for no good reason, we’re leaving it all behind.”  Joel said.  “I don’t mean we don’t have a good reason to leave--because we do.  I mean that some oversight committee, or panel, or appropriations board, or overfunded and under-brained bureaucracy out there knew this was coming but screwed up so thoroughly that nothing was done.”

“Now I’ve started worrying,” Joel continued, “about what we’re taking.  How long are we really going to be gone?  Do we have the right clothes and enough of them?  Do we need to pack more blankets or towels or knives or ammunition?  Should we have tried to get a trailer or a car-top carrier and loaded it too?”  Joel’s voice rose, “I don’t know what I’m doing here, with any of this,…my wagon train always died when I played Oregon Trail as a kid!”

“And you weren’t supposed to be awake yet hon.  I was supposed to be down here alone being neurotic for a half an hour and get it out of my system.”  Rachael was smiling just a little.

“I’m glad I was awake though,” Rachael said.  “I think I needed to see you freaking out.”

Joel snorted.  “Yay me.”  He leaned forward to give her another hug and a kiss.  “Shall we take another walk-through to make sure we haven’t missed anything?”

“Not right away,” Rachael said, as she pulled back just far enough to be nose to nose with Joel.  “Unless you want to start in our room…”

…

It was almost 8:00 by the time Eric checked in with all of the families and they agreed it was time to go.  All three garage doors opened at roughly the same time and the trucks and SUVs started up as if on cue.  Joel would be first in line with the Suburban, so he pulled out first.

Out of habit, Joel reached over and turned on the GPS--which would normally take a few seconds to find a satellite--and then turned on the radio.  He tried to cover his gaffe by switching to the CD player, but caught Rachael’s smile out of the corner of his eye.  “Hey, I’m not the one who tried to turn on the alarm.”

Rachael snorted, “Ok, that’s fair.”  Then she reached over and, also out of habit, pulled up the state park from the list of past destinations on the GPS.  Neither of them expected the semi-robotic, vaguely female voice saying “In point two miles…turn left.”

Joel came very near to causing a five-car accident right in front of his house when he slammed on the brakes.  Eric and Sheri’s tires screeched.  He and Rachael were still staring wide eyed at the GPS when Eric came running up to the driver’s side window.

“What’s wrong?” Eric asked, more than a little concerned.

“I don’t know,” Joel replied, still looking at the GPS.  “I mean, I don’t know if it’s wrong or not.  Just a sec.”  Joel switched from the CD changer to the radio and was met with static.  He tried a number of their FM presets followed by a couple of the AM stations he’d checked the previous morning and was greeted by a different frequency of static--but static just the same.