A Powerless World (Book 2): When the Peace is Gone Read online

  As we got up to gather the kids, I noticed Sara and Pete both had strange looks on their faces. It was like a mixture of pain, fear, and confusion. I went up to Sara.

  “Sara? What’s wrong? Are you worried about something?”

  She looked down, then back up at me.

  “Anne, I don’t know anything about handling a gun. I’ve never held one in my life because I never had a reason to. Does everybody have to be armed? Honestly they scare me.”

  Russ overheard and walked up to us. He looked at Pete.

  “Is that what’s bothering you, too, Pete?”

  Pete nodded.

  “I’m not scared of them, but I know nothing about guns. Never shot one, never even held one.”

  Russ looked at them both.

  “Well, we’re not going to force anyone to do anything that makes them uncomfortable, but I will tell you that you need to learn how to use a gun. Those people we ran into on the road are just a sample of the kind of folks we are going to be dealing with. They will kill you for the clothes on your back, let alone the food in your home. If you don’t want to learn that’s fine, we’ll find some other ways for you to help out. You both have skills we need. I will ask that you at least watch the training so that, if something happens, you will be able to pick one up to defend this place if needed.”

  Pete put his arm around Sara and nodded.

  “We will, Russ. Thank you for understanding. We’ll try to help out however we can.”

  Monroe stuck his head around Russ.

  “Where y’all from, I mean before Tennessee, cuz I can tell by the way you talk you ain’t natives.”

  Sara replied, “We moved here a couple of years ago from New York. We grew up in the Northeast. Pete got transferred down here for his job.”

  Monroe backed up.

  “That explains it. Nazi York. Telling people guns are evil and no one needs one except that the politicians who are saying it are surrounded by their armed bodyguards.”

  Sara and Pete looked a bit shocked. Bob snorted in laughter while the rest of us hid our faces to try to cover up the smirks. Millie stood and walked over to her husband.

  “Come along, dear. It’s late. We have a big day tomorrow.”

  Monroe grumbled all the way into the house, though all I caught was “damn Yankee liberals”.

  Bob grinned at the Raines.

  “I’d apologize for him but it wouldn’t do any good. Besides I agree with him. Welcome to Tennessee! We have lots of guns. We love to shoot our guns. We’d be more than happy to teach you to do the same. Try it, you might like it.”

  With that he headed toward the back of the house.

  “Bedtime, kiddos! Wrap them games up and don’t forget to put all the pieces back in the boxes. You don’t want Ms. Millie on your case, believe me.”

  We followed behind him to make sure they did just that. We couldn’t afford to lose game pieces. It’s not like we could run to the dollar store and buy new games to replace them.

  I linked my arm in my husband’s.

  “Baby, do you think it’s really going to get that bad? That people will come storming in here shooting the place up?”

  Russ stopped, turned me to him, and with the most serious look I think I have ever seen on him, answered my question.

  “Yes, Honey, I do. I think it’s already gotten that bad. The scavengers back in the neighborhood, the people on the road by the mall? What do you think would have happened if we had stopped to try to help them? You saw how desperate they looked.”

  I nodded, sadly acknowledging that what he was saying was true. He went on.

  “And let’s not forget the ‘road block’ (he actually did the air quotes that time) and the trap right before we got here. Those people were absolutely ready to kill us or, at the very least, hurt us bad, to get our supplies. Those men would have taken you and Janet, possibly the boys, and done things that make my blood boil just thinking about. So again, yes, it’s bad, and it’s going to get worse. Count on it.”

  Well, didn’t that just suck?

  CHAPTER 6

  After the long, busy day yesterday I had hoped to sleep in just a bit longer the next morning, but the rooster reported for duty right on time. Who needs an alarm clock when you’re on a farm? I got up quietly, as Russ was still sleeping from his watch duty the previous night, did my business in the bathroom that we shared with the folks upstairs, and headed down to get what sounded like would be a busy day started.

  The early morning crew was assembling in the kitchen – that would be those of us who couldn’t sleep through the rooster alarm. Millie was at the stove, putting a second pot of coffee on to boil; Monroe was talking to the Lawton brothers and Lee, who must have been excited about getting the bunkhouse started; Janet was pulling out coffee cups. She turned to Millie.

  “Aunt Millie, I know that you think of this place as ours, all of us, not just you and Uncle Monroe, but we kind of defer to you when it comes to cooking. I don’t want you to think you have to bear all the burden of deciding what we’re eating, plus do all the cooking for this many people. We ended up with a lot more folks than we originally planned on, at least for the beginning of something like what has happened. If you want to handle it, that’s fine; but if we need to help, or take it over, we’ll do it, no problem. I don’t want you to wear yourself out trying to do all this for everyone all the time.”

  Oh, didn’t I feel like shit. I hadn’t even thought about that. Millie had pretty much handled all the food prep yesterday while we were getting everything unloaded and put up. But we needn’t have worried. She smiled at Janet and shook her head.

  “It’s not a burden, dear. I grew up in a big family – there were eight kids. I learned early how to cook for a bunch and how to make enough out of a little. I feel like I’m getting to use my skills again. Monroe will eat anything I put in front of him.”

  At the sound of his name, he looked up at Millie and blew her a kiss. She smiled serenely at him and went on.

  “Right now, outside of helping with putting up stuff from the garden, with all these people to do the chores, I won’t have much else to worry about. This is how I can contribute. You know me. If I need any help or to take a break, I’ll let you know.”

  Janet walked over and hugged her aunt, then held her at arm’s length.

  “Alright then, did you have anything in mind for breakfast, because I think with all the projects we have planned for today we need to make it something quick. I was thinking a big batch of oatmeal with some of those late strawberries, and some honey and cinnamon. How does that sound?”

  Millie nodded, still smiling.

  “I think that sounds like a delicious plan; and if you will work on that I can get some bread started for lunch. I think we’ll be on sandwiches for lunch until further notice. Peanut butter and jelly, or tuna, are quick, easy, and full of the protein everyone will need for the chores they’ll be doing. I would like to chat with you gals in the mornings for ideas about supper each day. Two dozen folks are a lot to cook for on that meal. The good thing is there aren’t usually a lot of leftovers to contend with, what with no refrigeration now. I was thinking maybe beef and noodles tonight. We’ve got a bunch of canned beef chunks and cases of egg noodles. That with some French style bread should make a good meal. We should add a veggie though. How about green beans?”

  My mouth was watering just listening to her.

  “Yes ma’am, all of that sounds amazing. Just let us know what you need help with.”

  She waved a hand at me. “This one will be easy. I’ll make the bread after lunch. The green beans will need about an hour. The rest is fast. If you can get someone to bring the stuff up from the basement, that’s all the help I need right now.”

  This was TEOTWAWKI, right? I had a feeling with Millie around we wouldn’t notice it that much, at least not from an eating standpoint. I couldn’t wait for supper now.

  ****

  It took about an hour to get everyone
up and fed once breakfast was ready. Like I said, two dozen people is a bunch to run through the kitchen. We did shifts again which helped. After the last bunch was done, we sent the kids out to the screen porch and shooed the men out back to their building project. It was time for the Mom Meeting.

  We all sat down at the kitchen table. Even though she wasn’t a mom, we included Marietta. This meeting would lay out chores for the women as well. Janet had a pad and pen. She started by making a list of all the kids and their ages, then listed the women folk. The youngest was Moira at six years old. The oldest was Matt at seventeen. He could technically be grouped in with the single men, but we’d keep him with us for now. She handed the list to me. I looked it over and started the meeting.

  “Okay, ladies, here’s what we have. Four kids under twelve. They can take care of weed pulling in the gardens. We’ll need to make sure they know the difference between a weed and food. At six Moira may be too young even for that. We may give her feeding the rabbits, ducks, and chickens with Tara and Katlyn. We’ll definitely start teaching her the difference in weeds and good plants, along with the rest of the kids.”

  I checked the list.

  “Tara, Katlyn, Aiden, and Tony can definitely pull weed duty. I think we can have Tony work with Ben and Rusty on feeding the larger animals as well. Rusty, Ben, Matt, and Nick will be responsible for chopping wood for the wood stoves. The younger kids can stack and carry. Those four boys will also take turns mowing the yard. They will pull sentry duty as well, probably with one of the men. We’ll have the girls gather eggs each morning, and the younger boys can haul the milk from the cows and goats once they’ve been milked. They can also keep the outside wash stand in water. Am I forgetting anything?”

  Sara and Kate looked at each other, then back to us. Sara commented.

  “Wow. That’s a lot of chores. I had no idea there was that much to do each day. Will we have time for school as well? Sounds like their day is full of other things.”

  She seemed a bit disheartened. I tried to reassure her.

  “It sounds like a lot because it takes a lot of work to keep a farm going. Most people have no idea where their food comes from. Farmers do not get the respect they deserve for providing pretty much everything we eat. It is hard work to take care of crops and livestock. We also have some extra challenges with the power being gone, so we have added work to make up for that. We will be washing clothes by hand, for instance. That means pumping and heating water. The good thing is, with this many people, it won’t take long to do the daily chores.

  “In the beginning, the kids will be slow because they are learning how to do the tasks. As they learn, they’ll get faster. I would say they can have all the livestock feeding and collecting done in thirty minutes to an hour. That will be their first priority. Then, garden duty and wood chopping and stacking are next. We want them to be done with that before the heat of the day. I think they can do that in one to two hours each day. They should finish right around lunchtime. After lunch, I would think two to three, maybe four hours of the three R’s would suffice, wouldn’t you?”

  Sara didn’t look any less concerned.

  “Anne, I really think we need to make sure they don’t fall behind in their studies. When the power comes back on, schools will open back up; and they will be playing catch up with the other kids. Is there not a way to devote the majority of the day to studies?”

  I looked at her incredulously.

  “Sara, who do you think these other kids are that are going to get ahead of our kids, who, by the way, just happen to have a teacher with them? What is your estimation of how long this will last? If this is as widespread as we think it is, it will probably take years to get back to any semblance of normal. This is not a glitch or a hiccup. This is a major reset of our way of life. You have to stop thinking of this as a temporary situation. If our theories are correct, your son will be a legal adult before we see anything even remotely resembling what we had and lost two weeks ago. Honestly it could take a decade or more to recover, and it may never again be what it was.

  “The most important things in everyone’s life right now are water, shelter, food, and security – pretty much in that order. All those other kids, if they make it, will not be trying to keep up their studies. They will be trying to exist. As I said, you can have their afternoon time. Their mornings are going to be full.”

  Even in our current reality, some people just couldn’t fathom that life as we knew it was over. I didn’t want to sound like a bitch, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get her to understand that all that crap that was important before, meant little to nothing now.

  She stared at me, and I could almost see the light go on in her head while tears formed in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Anne. It’s so hard to think of this whole situation as the way it’s going to be now. We had computers and a world of knowledge at our fingertips on the internet. I still can’t believe I can’t go to my phone and look up ‘how to distinguish weeds from edible plants’ anymore. That’s something that would be really helpful right now, since I have no idea which is which either. I can see you all put a lot of thought into how to survive if something like this happened. I’m just kind of lost right now. Surviving, shooting, scavenging – these are not things I know how to do. I just hope you all will have some patience with me while I learn. I really want to know how to live in this new, old world.”

  I softened my tone a bit.

  “I understand, Sara. I was like you once. I didn’t believe anything like this could happen. But I planned for when it did. I have some really good books on some ereaders that we protected from the pulse that will help you with things like plant identification. You also have us, our guys, Monroe and Millie, even the Thompson boys, who all know the difference between a weed and food. Although, truth be told, you can eat some of the weeds, too. You’ve been killing food in your yard for years.”

  She looked at me wide eyed. “Seriously? Like what?”

  “Dandelions, for one. The flowers, leaves, and roots are all edible and actually good for you. They have potassium, antioxidants, and vitamins A and C. Chickweed is another edible ‘pest’ plant. Clover is edible but not tasty, although you can make jelly out of the flowers. The point is that we are all in school now. We are all going to be learning how to survive and thrive without what we had before. How about if we have our school in the morning, while the kids are doing chores? We can go through the ereaders, find stuff we want to learn more about or how to do, and then you can share what they need to know with the kids as part of your curriculum in the afternoon? We don’t have school books, so this is all going to be pretty primitive anyway. We’ll call our mornings Laundry and Learning, since I’m pretty sure we’ll be doing laundry every day now.”

  They giggled at my joke, and everyone seemed to calm down but, more importantly, get on board. We needed all of them to understand what the priorities in life were now.

  Janet stood up. “I think we have a plan for now. I’ll take the little ones out to take care of the small animals and show them how to handle them, as well as how to get in and out of the pens without letting any loose. Anne, you can take the bigger kids out to the barn to feed the pigs, goats, cows, and horses. I’d love to know if we have any hidden talents in the milking department, but I’m sure Uncle Monroe has already handled that this morning. We’ll check with him about letting them watch, and possibly participate, this evening. Then we’ll take them all to the garden for Weeds vs Food Level One: Know the Difference.”

  We all got up and got ready to head out. I took in all the ladies at the table.

  “It will take all of us to make this work. You are all important to the success of this place. We don’t know each other that well yet, but we will figure it all out. I’m a hugger, so if you don’t want one you better back up.”

  There were big grins, small smiles, and a few giggles as I made my way around and hugged them all. No one backed up; in fact they hugged each
other as well.

  “Ladies, let’s get to work!”

  Sara and Kate followed Janet while Marietta followed me, as we all went out to gather kids and get busy. School was in session.

  CHAPTER 7

  While we were laying out the schedule for the kids, the guys were setting the corner posts for the bunkhouse in the ground. Lee was a great carpenter and was meticulous in his work. We knew that from the tables he had built for us. He made sure the posts were exactly level and measured the distance between them multiple times as the posts were going in the holes. With so many of them to handle the big beams, it didn’t take them long to get the corners set and ready.

  Monroe walked up, looked the setup over, and paid particular attention to the point where the post disappeared into the ground. He questioned Lee.

  “How’d you set the posts without any concrete? I know I don’t have any of that. It doesn’t keep well if you can’t keep it dry all the time. Too much humidity here for that to be possible. What’d you use?”

  Lee came over to him and leaned on the closest post. It didn’t budge. Monroe was impressed and his face showed it. Lee smiled.

  “I’ve done research on lots of different ways to build lots of different things. I came across an article a few years ago that described how to sink a post without using concrete. In fact, the author explained it was better not to use concrete. Basically, you dig the hole as close to the size of the post as you can, burying up to a third of the post in the hole. We went with as deep as we could dig with the auger attached to the tractor, which ended up about four feet deep. Next, you drop a rock in the hole for the post to rest on. That keeps the bottom out of the damp soil. We went with a few to get us to about nine feet of pole to work with. Then you brace the post up level and fill in the hole with a mix of dirt and smaller rocks, tamping it down every few inches. When you get to the top of the hole, you leave a little mound so the rain will run away from the post to keep it from rotting. That left us with what should be enough pole to build out walls and brace for the roof. I’d like to build the floor off the ground a bit in case we get any heavy rains, that way the water will run under the building instead of through it, so we’ll need a little bit of post to attach that to as well. I think the guys did a great job, don’t you?”