OK this is my first attempt at this so be gentle. This is a story about subruban survival with ordinary Americans who don't have 10 years worth of preps. The scenaro is based on what I have around me and how I would make the best of it. Those of you in similar circumstances to me that can relate are free to pitch in with suggestions if you want to. IM me if you don't want to give out any spoilers. I've tried to make it somewhat light hearted since too many survival stories are a total bummer.


Renaissance

Chapter 1.

John Wazniak woke just after dawn had broken. He hadn’t really been ready to wake but an unusual noise in the distance had triggered his sub-conscious self-preservation instinct. John had wanted to be a cop as a kid, but the need to make money had driven him to be a mechanical engineer. The sound of someone hurriedly dressing in the next room told him they had also detected the sound.


It was early March, or late February, in the north Phoenix suburbs a great time of the year to live there. Phoenix had been the 5th largest city in the USA before the sickness had struck. It certainly had been an equal opportunity killer striking down young, old, black, white, rich and poor alike with impunity. Many years later the source of the sickness would be traced back to a seemingly failed bio-weapons program from the former Soviet Union that the Russian mafia had sold to Muslim terrorists. Unfortunately the virus wasn’t dead and had in fact mutated into something a little more benign but that still had a 95% mortality rate and could live outside of a host for months. The muslim terrorists had sneaked the virus across Americas southern border and released it into the water supply in order to commit the mass murder that Americans were unwilling to commit. John had been relatively lucky, he had lost Alison his wife of 19 years and his 18 year old son Alex but he still had his 15 year old son Dave. It had been 9 months since he lost  his wife and son and in that time he had somewhat come to terms with their loss, if not for Dave he might have gone on to join them.
John and Dave had decided to stay in the family home and make a go of things. They had lived in the house for 9 years and knew the neighborhood very well. The house was a fairly large 2 story structure at the end of a cul-de-sac. Uncharacteristically for Phoenix the sub-division was in was a veritable maze of curved streets rather than the grid structure that most of the city had been laid out on. This was in large part due to the golf course that ran through the middle of it and also that it was an older area, built when developers had had a little more pride in their work. John’s family had moved there because it was quiet and secluded whilst also being very close to shopping and other amenities.
In the early days after the sickness this had been a blessing and John and Dave had taken the time to stock up on staples from the local grocery stores, having completely cleaned out the local Safeway of everything they liked. Free shopping had been fun at first but the realization that this was not a sustainable way of life came after the power went out. This had been 2 weeks after the sickness struck and refrigerated goods decayed real fast in the Phoenix summer. John liked fried eggs and Dave liked pancakes. And so they decided it would be a good idea to see if they could locate some laying chickens and have their own source.
Most people think of Phoenix as being either desert scrub or concrete and steel. Both are true, however there are a number of “ranchettes” that were built in the late 50s through the late 70s. These were built on 1-2 acre parcels in what was the outskirts of town. The town grew up and around these ranchettes and most people don’t even notice them as they go about their daily business. These types of properties are typically settled by people who need or want a lot of space either for their hobbies or for home businesses. One of them near John’s house had belonged to an acquaintance of his who had raised chickens. The acquaintance was an old Polish man who had fled communist Poland in the 70s and had kept chickens all his life. He had ended up as a successful plumbing contractor but still he liked fresh eggs. John and Dave went over to the man’s house fully expecting to find him dead and to take the chickens. John didn’t consider it theft, the man was dead and the chickens soon would be too without someone to feed them.  He was dead alright although his 18 year old daughter Dana was not and she was sunbathing by the family pool as John and Dave waltzed into her backyard. John’s older son had briefly dated Dana as a junior in high school and Dave had had an adolescent crush on her. Dave got quite an eye full.
Dana had had no contact with anyone else, although she had once seen a pick up truck cruising the neighborhood after dark with its lights turned off. She gave them surplus eggs that she couldn’t eat and they told her where to find them in case she needed their help. Two days later the pick up truck returned and the occupants ransacked a big house on Dana’s street whilst she cowered in fear locked in her bedroom. The next morning she and her chickens arrived at John’s house and she had moved into John’s older sons room.

It was Dana that john had heard rapidly getting dressed, “come on something’s in the chickens!” she shouted and she banged hard on John and Dave’s bedroom doors as she ran past them and down the stairs. The chicken coops were set up in the garden of the house next door. John had created gates in the walls between his yard and all the surrounding houses backyards. By doing this he had amalgamated a little over 5 acres that were secluded and convenient. They were by no means secure and Dana had been concerned about this when she first moved in following her encounter with the pick up truck guys. She had wanted to barricade off the entry to the cul-de-sac, John had said no preferring the concept of hiding in plain sight. So far it had worked.
As Dana reached the bottom of the stairs she was already racking the slide of her shotgun. It was an older Winchester model 120 that John had salvaged from a neighbors house. It had started out life as a 28” barreled duck gun with interchangeable chokes. Now it had a 16” barrel and a sling made from a cartridge belt that was filled with half #8 shot and half 00.
John was just pulling his boots on when he heard the back door slam, “shit that girl’s impatient he thought” and he shouted  “Dave let’s go!” as he grabbed his 22 rifle and chased off after Dana. The 22 was an old Winchester gallery gun. It actually was his gun and he’d had it since he was 13, that and a 38 revolver that he’d kept in the glove box of his car were the only guns he had had before the sickness came. Actually that wasn’t totally true, he’d had a Ruger red label O/U shotgun that his grandfather had left him but he’d lost it when the boat he and his buddy were duck hunting from capsized. There had been a certain amount of alcohol involved and John swore off drinking and shooting after that. As John reached the bottom of the stairs Dave was just exiting his room, he was carrying a Bulgarian AK74S and he racked the slide on it as he started down the stairs, John yelled “Dave watch what the fuck you’re doing with that thing, you’re right behind me”. The warning was a little un-needed, Dave had been a member of high school JROTC rifle team and was a better shooter and safer gun handler than John was.
John went through the open back door when he heard the shotgun blast, instinctively he racked the slide on his gallery gun, hoping he’d brought enough gun to the fight. Dave was right behind him and he was sure he’d brought enough gun. John ran through the gate into the next door garden but Dana had already taken care of business. “A fucking feral dog again” she spat out angrily, “John I keep telling you we’ve got to get proactive about this, we’re losing too much livestock to them.” John knew she was right but he hated shooting dogs.
John was sitting down at the kitchen table, Dave had scrambled up some eggs and added some canned ham from the stock they had secured last year. He added in some chopped onions and tomatoes from the gardens they had planted and gave the plate to his dad. “Do we have any of that green Tabasco sauce left Dave?” he asked. “No I think we’re out of it” came the response. Dana came in and sat down next to John and Dave set a plate down in front of her. “What happened to the dog?” John asked, “I cut it up and fed it to the hogs” she replied. “So the morning hasn’t been a total loss then” Dave added.
John was sitting down in his lazeboy contemplating the mornings events and it was still only 9 o’clock, or maybe it was 10 o’clock. Details like that didn’t seem to matter anymore. He reflected back on Dana and the way she reacted to the feral dog attack on the chickens and his thoughts drifted back to his wife. It would have been his and Alison’s 20th wedding anniversary in 2 weeks, if today actually was March 4th. John felt no sexual attraction to Dana, he really was old enough to be her father and she had dated his son. Sure she was a very pretty girl and although she had been probably 20# over weight when she came to live with them she had lost that through physical work that had honed her body into a hard yet feminine masterpiece. John saw the same strength and beauty in Dana that he had seen in Alison.
Dana came and flopped down in the chair next to John. “John I’m serious, we’ve gotta nip this feral dog shit in the bud”. John looked at her “yeah I know you’re right but I just have a problem shooting dogs for no apparent reason”. “We’re not doing it for no reason, we’re doing it to stop them from killing the chickens!” Dana replied somewhat emphatically. “Look Dana we’ve managed to pretty much fly under the radar of all the MZBs out there by keeping our head down and hiding in plain sight, if we go and start exterminating all the dogs around here I think someone’s going to notice.” “What you mean because they’re not getting plagued with dog attacks any more? I don’t think anyone will consider that a problem worth investigating” Dana snipped. “No because they’ll hear the sound of all the shooting, and MZBs tend to notice shit like that!” John shouted back. John was pissed, but he was more pissed at himself than he was with Dana.
Dave walked in and said in a funny and sarcastic tone “Could you adults please stop swearing before I have to go wash my own ears out with soap and water”. John and Dana both laughed, it was a needed release from the tension. “So what’s happening?” Dave enquired. “Dana wants to take care of the feral dog problem but I’m worried about it attracting the wrong kind of attention”.  “How?” Dave enquired. “Well the noise of all the shooting for one” John responded. “Not even a problem Dad” Dave replied, “You know that guy over in the next cul-de-sac that you knew, the one that got Alex the internship at Inertrode? Well he had a couple of suppressors as well as all the hardcore black rifles and tons of ammo”. “OK I guess it’s time we took inventory of his stuff and see what we can do with it” said John.
Dave and Dana got up early the next morning and fixed an awesome western omelet for John. “So what’s on the agenda for today?” he asked. “We got a silenced Ruger 10/22 and a brick of Remington sub-sonics and we’re going to take care of the feral dog problem. Plus we’re looking for any targets of opportunity like rabbits on the golf course” Dave replied. “So I’ll just stay here and tend the gardens and feed the chickens” John replied.”How far afield are you going” John continued, Dave replied “8 in blocks in each direction”. “OK, just watch out for any MZBs or others like us that are hiding in plain sight. In fact be especially careful of people like us.”
Dave and Dana set off, actually it was more like Dana and Dave set off. Dave had more time in the woods than Dana had but she had really risen to the challenge. When John and Dave had first come across her she had been a typical spoilt daddy’s girl, obsessed with her friends, her I–pod and her I-phone. Lounging by the pool in a thong and halter top without a thought for her own safety. A brush with some low-lifes that thanks to the grace of God she had survived had been the slap into reality that she had needed. “Where do you think we should start?” Dave asked. “Well the houses are sure loaded with DEEK bodies, but the dogs can’t get at them. So maybe we should head for the grocery stores”. “Yeah but isn’t that where the MZBs are most likely to be?” “Well if they are they’ll have taken care of the feral dogs and we won’t have a problem”. “OK we’ve got to go about a mile to go, I suggest we do bounding cover at about 50 yards each. And Dave do you think you could stop staring at my ass and my tits all the time and concentrate on not letting someone shoot us?” Dave blushed pretty hard, sure he’d been rubbing one out on a daily basis fantasizing about Dana especially since there was no longer any internet porn, but shit she was pretty much every teen boys fantasy.
They arrived at the point where the golf course cut across the main road through the sub-division. “Lets wait for a minute” Dana cautioned. “Sounds good” Dave replied, “I think I’ll look around for some targets of opportunity”. They both drank from the nalgene bottles in their packs and Dave glassed the golf course for anything worth shooting. He saw a nice big rabbit and nudged Dana to let her know. She was watching the rabbit when it suddenly dropped like a rock. “Wow that suppressor really is quiet” she remarked to Dave. “I didn’t shoot” he hissed back.

Chapter 2

John was having a pretty decent morning. Dana had checked up on the chickens before she’d left and so John just kind of puttered around between the gardens pulling weeds here and there and watering where needed. He had also done his weekly check on the well to make sure all was good. Living without electricity was an inconvenience, living without water wasn’t living. The well was part of the golf course and it was originally used to supply water to the clubhouse, irrigate the golf course and keep the levels up in the artificial ponds. The golf course pre-dated the subdivision by about 20 years and when it had been built there was no city water in this area. John had salvaged enough PV arrays from the neighborhood to run the well pump, and had even put a solar water heater on the roof of their house. It didn’t supply as much head as city water and John had re-plumbed it so that no longer supplied the golf course, routing it into a 1” line that ran to his house. So far the set up had worked well, the PV cells charged deep cycle batteries and the pump ran through an inverter to refill the header tank. All this had been rigged with parts salvaged from the neighborhood, radio shack and home depot. Dana had actually done the plumbing work, her father had no sons and had taught her a lot, eventually she had planned to run his contracting business.

Before they’d secured their water supply they had been draining all the hot water heaters in the neighborhood. Thankfully these were all located in the garages attached to the houses. John knew a lot of his neighbors and wasn’t ready to deal with their decomposing bodies. Although in reality it had been 9 months and they were probably all desiccated by now due to the heat. The heat was going to be something else he’d have to deal with come summer time. Last year they’d hooked up a salvaged generator to their house to run the A/C unit but all the gasoline had spoiled since then so they needed a plan B. Whatever they did they’d need to do it fairly soon. The easiest thing would be to convert the generator to run on propane or get a propane generator. This had been plan A and so far it hadn’t worked. Propane generators are fairly common in rural areas but not where John lived. The most sensible thing to do was to try and adapt to your surroundings, rather than making your surroundings adapt to you.
Back in the pioneer days men in Phoenix packed the family off to stay in the high country for the summer. Those that couldn’t leave had simply stayed in the shade and slept in wet blankets at night. It hadn’t been as hot back then as it was now. The increase in heat was a man made event, although it didn’t have anything to do with CO2 emissions or any of the other junk science peddled by the global warming hoaxers. When people build large cities of concrete and asphalt the buildings and roads tend to absorb the heat put out by the sun. A lot of this heat is also radiated back out from these structures thereby raising the temperature of the surroundings. Scientists that have monitored the temperatures of the desert areas outside of the cities have discovered the ambient temperature in these areas has varied very little since records have been kept. The global warming hoaxers were probably aware of the thermal mass effect but since they couldn’t make any money off it they kept quiet about it.

John’s house had a Mastercool evaporative cooler on it in addition to the A/C unit. Evaporative coolers work pretty well as long as the humidity is low. This is fine in Phoenix except for in July and August. He’d never used it since Alison hated the musty and somewhat fishy smell that evaporative coolers can put out. This smell is indicative of a poorly maintained unit with stagnant water rather than an inherent fault with coolers. She had grown up in Phoenix and her dad hadn’t really understood how they worked and hence hadn’t kept it running well. John had grown up in Romeo MI and had no idea how they worked either. The principal was fairly simple, water evaporates and as it changes from a liquid to a gas it required energy to do so. It extracts energy in the form of heat from the surroundings and in doing so causes a local reduction in temperature. This is basically how your body works, you sweat, it evaporates and you feel cool.
So you need 2 things to make an evaporative cooler work, water and moving air. John had the water part, he just needed to supply the air. He put down the HVAC book he had been reading and started making notes, I love it when a plan comes together, he thought.

Dave caught the slight movement of a laurel bush 10 yards to the right of the now dead rabbit and brought the sights of his rifle to cover the area. The rabbit was about 70 yards from him across clear cut, but now dead, grass. “Dana” he whispered ”whoever got the rabbit has to see us”. Dana had already figured this out and she’d slid herself down further into the water retention basin that they were in. The water retention basin was a depression in the grassy area about 200sq ft in area and 2 ft deep. It had a large palo verde tree in the center of it which shaded much of it. This tree was actually good concealment and had provided enough shade to hide Dave and Dana from the new owner of the rabbit until Dave had moved his gun. “How many of them do you think there are?” she asked. “Probably just one, and unarmed as well I’d bet” Dave replied. “How do you know that?” Dana asked “Do you see the rock next to the rabbit? Well that’s what killed it, and it was a pretty impressive throw”. Dave said.

“You can have the rabbit mister, just don’t shoot OK?” The voice was kind of accented and didn’t sound like it was an adult. “Show yourself, come out from behind the laurel bush” Dave commanded in as grown up a voice as he could. “No, you’ll shoot me” came the response. “That sounds like a girl” said Dana and she stood up.”It’s OK honey we mean you no harm, come over here and bring the rabbit with you.” Dana’s softer tone did the trick. After more exchanged words a filthy looking dark skinned adolescent girl slowly came from behind the bush and picked up the rabbit, she looked both ways before venturing across the golf course, as if she was crossing a busy road. Dave still kept her covered with the rifle but his finger was off the trigger.

The girl joined them under the tree. She was about 13 years old and had dark hair and facial features that are typical of the meztiso Indians. “Hi I’m Dana, and this is Dave”. Dana offered “Tensie” the girl replied. Dana and Tensie fell into conversation, Tensie had already seen the set up at John’s place, so much for hiding in plain sight, and Dana elaborated on their circumstances. Dana felt very warm towards Tensie, her sister Katey had been the same age. Tensie told her story. Her family had come from Durango in Mexico 4 years previously. They had emigrated legally and it had taken 7 years for the family’s visa to be approved. Tensie was an only child, her parents did not want to bring up a large family in poverty although they did plan to have more children once they were settled in America. Tensie’s parents had insisted they all speak English, they understood that it was the only way to succeed in America. They saw the prosperity that the English speaking Hispanics had and they wanted part of it too.
She lived in the townhouses at the opposite end of the subdivision and had been existing on canned food from the grocery stores. She had killed the rabbit to get their attention and she had been watching them for almost 2 months before making contact. This fact worried Dana, since they had had no idea of Tensie’s existence. She made a note to seriously talk to John about this. “I’m surprised I haven’t seen you before, did you go to the middle school?” Dave asked. “No I went to the catholic school” Tensie replied. “Well we were going to hunt feral dogs but I think it might be better if we took you back to meet John” said Dana. “Is he the man?” Tensie asked, then contiuned “He’s not your father, is he your…” “NO, he kind of knew my father and he’s kind of taken the place of my father though. Dave is his son” Dana replied.

The 3 of them walked back to the house, “can you walk a little ahead of us please Tensie cause you smell a little ripe” said Dave. “I don’t have the water to waste on showering like you do” she countered in a matter of fact kind of way. Dana had winced when Dave had made the remark, it could easily have been considered insulting although there was no malice in his tone of voice. “Yeah we drank up all the bottled water last summer. Then we were drinking from hot water tanks before we got the well set up, we bathed in swimming pools when they still had water in them” Dave recalled. “I did the same after the stores ran out of bottled water too” said Tensie.
Dana did not ask Tensie about her parents, she knew they were dead as were her’s and her sister. She had buried them all in the backyard of her home 3 days before John and Dave had shown up. The 2 mounds in John’s backyard were evident as well. It was not something any of them had talked about yet. She knew John was not over grieving for his wife and besides he looked like the kind of person who kept most of his feelings bottled up inside. Dave was his fathers son plus he couldn’t keep his eyes off her ass. Dana couldn’t blame him too much for that, he was 15 and a raging bag of hormones but it pissed her off none the less.

It was a little after noon when Dana opened the gate to the backyard. The front of the house looked deserted and an old Honda Civic was in the driveway with flat tires, in fact pretty much like every other house in the cul-de-sac. There were only 2 windows on the front of the house, one in the downstairs family room and one upstairs in Dave’s bedroom. The curtains on both windows were drawn and appeared tattered, however behind them were blackout curtains and the downstairs one was boarded up. The windows looked perfectly normal until you got right up to them. They wouldn’t stop a determined intruder but would slow one down enough to give time to respond defensively.
John was asleep under a tree with some notes on a piece of paper in his hand, the gate closed heavily and he woke with a start “what the f..?” he asked as he saw the 3 of them threading their way through the raised beds that was now his garden. Dana spoke “this is Tensie, she lives in the townhouses up near 43rd ave. She’s been watching us for 2 months and decided to say hi.” Dana’s tone was a little sarcastic at the last part of her sentence. John decided to let it slide for the time being. He knew Dana was concerned over their security, she was the only one who was permanently armed. Where had she gotten that Browning hi-power from anyway? John had not had the terrifying experience that Dana had had and from her reaction to it he figured there was more to the story than she was letting on.

“Nice rabbit” John quipped, “I don’t see an entry wound on it. Clean it up Dave and we’ll have it for lunch. I take it you’ll be joining us for lunch Tensie? Come sit here and tell me about yourself.”  John winced as her B.O. hit him like a fist. “You know what, how about a shower and some clean clothes first. Dana you must have something she can put on.”
An hour later she was back and the transformation was little short of astounding. It was amazing what a shower and a clean set of clothes could accomplish. In all fairness Dana had done most of the work and it had taken her 15 minutes to comb all the knots out of Tensie’s hair. Tensie was wearing one of Dana’s old “fat” t-shirts and it hung on her like a dress. John looked her over and it looked like she had taken care of herself fairly well, she was maybe 5ft tall and 95lbs. Girls develop more quickly than boys so this was probably as big as she would get. That girl needs a sammich or 2 he thought.

They were sat down for lunch consisting of a garden salad and the rabbit she’d killed earlier, to be followed by fresh fruit from one of the other gardens. “Are you going to say “Grace” Mr. John?” Tensie asked. “I don’t normally bother, but go ahead if you want to, and it’s just John Tensie. I’m not going to stand on ceremony, he never stood on me”. The last line was a joke from an 80s British sit-com, but nobody else got it. They spent the meal getting John up to speed on Tensie and it was agreed that she should come and live with them. They still had a spare bedroom and it just didn’t make sense for Tensie to live alone.

As the afternoon wore on Dana asked Tensie if she had contacted any other people. She had seen but not contacted another group a couple of miles to the east. Dana asked why not and Tensie replied that she got a very bad vibe from the way they interacted with each other. They seemed to spend most of their time getting drunk and ransacking other houses. John interjected that he sure liked a glass of wine and he wasn’t above taking things from those that didn’t need them any longer. Tensie asked him if he had a big screen TV? He replied no, it has no value. Apparently the other group thought it did. This had been a couple of weeks after she started observing John’s group and she could see what would give her a better life.

The sun was going down and it began to cool off. Dave took Tensie inside to get her set up with bedding for the night. They typically slept dusk to dawn since they needed all the propane for cooking, also it was not a good idea to advertise your presence by showing a light. Dave sometimes read at night with the aid of a hand cranked LED light but his bedroom had the blackout drapes so he was OK.

Dana turned to John “sooner or later those low-lifes are going to run out of liquor stores and twinkies and come knocking on our front door”. “Well I don’t see why, we’ve got nothing they want”  he replied. “John, we’ve got a pretty sweet set up here, I mean OK it’s not the Biltmore” she continued ”but sooner or later we’re going to cross paths and I’d rather it be on our terms and not theirs”. “What do you want to do Dana, kill them all and let God sort it out?” “Don’t be such an ass John, you know the world isn’t sunshine and lollies with rivers of chocolate there’s bad people out there that prey on others and I don’t intend to be someone elses lunch” with that she stormed off.

Dave came back outside, “what was all that about?” he asked. “Oh just Dana doing her mama bear act again” John replied. “I don’t know dad, I think she’s got a point and all. Wouldn’t it be better to find out who’s out there and what their intentions are? I mean we could hook up with people like ourselves and try and establish some sort of a community” Dave was able to get the message through to John in a way Dana couldn’t. John was amazed at how the 2 of them had matured in the last 9 months, Tensie didn’t seem like a child either. “Yeah I’ll think about it some” John replied “but now it’s time for bed.”

Tank woke up with his head on fire. It wasn’t actually on fire but it sure did feel like it. There was an empty plastic 1.75 liter bottle of vodka on the floor next to where he had slept and he was pretty sure that that had caused the problem. Oh man, he thought I’ve gotta stop drinking that shitty stuff. He didn’t see Slash anywhere, which was just as well. Tank thought Slash was an asshole and only stayed around him because he was able to keep the truck running. The truck was their lifeline and kept them mobile enough to scavenge although the pickings were getting slimmer. Slash had been Les Johnson’s buddy and Tank was Les’s buddy also. That didn’t mean Slash was Tank’s buddy though. Les, Tank and Slash had all survived the sickness. Unfortunately for Les someone had blown off his junk and he’d bled out. Some of the shotgun pellets had severed his femoral artery and that had been that. Neither Tank nor Slash had any idea who had done it or why, it had happened on a night very much like the last one, only the vodka had been higher quality.


Chapter 3

Tensie wanted to go back to her old home and pick up her stuff and Dave said he’d like to go with her. He felt comfortable with her which was strange, since he’d always felt a little uneasy with girls his own age. He was a couple of years older than her but felt she was his peer. Maybe it was the girls maturing faster than boys thing she’d hopped the fence on the house next to John’s and had made her way to the golf course through other backyards. Dave surmised this is why they’d never seen her since she kept off the roads. The roads were all dusty and even walkers left tracks in them. They’d have to watch that if they were to continue hiding in plain site.
Dana had visited the house with the guns and completely cleaned it out of everything. There were 30 guns of various different types, handguns, shotguns and rifles. The guy had been quite a collector and had about 20 50cal ammo cans full of ammo of various different calibers. He’d also had a reloading press and lots of other tools that she couldn’t identify. She also took all the books he’d had on guns and shooting, figuring knowledge was real power. It had taken her 4 trips with the wheelbarrow to move all the guns. She’d also found a lot of dried food stuffs stored in 5 gallon buckets with sealed lids. She’d ignored them at first since they were cleaned paint buckets, but it was the labels containing foodstuff and date stored information that had finally caught her eye.
John was back under the tree where he’d been the day before, Dana approached him. “Whatcha doing?” she asked. “I’m figuring out how to cool the place for the summer” he replied. “How are you going to get the cooler working?” she asked, already figuring this was his idea. John explained about the PV cells he’d gotten from the red light cameras in their area and how he would basically replicate the set up he used to power the well pump. “That’s going to make life a lot more bearable” she said enthusiastically, continuing to tell him about her find of the dried foodstuffs and the haul of guns and ammo. John was happy to hear of her finds and he wondered what else would be of value in the other house.
Dave and Tensie had got to her old house and Dave had rounded up a radio flyer wagon from one  of the neighbors back yards. He said a silent “thanks buddy” to the imaginary former owner of the wagon. Tensie didn’t have a whole lot of stuff. She’d worn out most of her clothes in the past 9 months. She brought the remainder of them, a photo album, some Christmas tree ornaments and some thing else that looked like it was made from corncobs. On the way out of the door she stopped to retrieve a silver necklace with a crucifix and a gold wedding band on it. She put the necklace on and a tear came her eye, Dave saw her as she wiped it away. “What’s up”  he asked her and the flood gates opened. Dave went to hold her to try and comfort her, but he wasn’t sure what to do. He felt all choked up as well. He knew why she was crying and he had good reason to do so and so he did. It lasted a full 5 minutes but it felt so good after it was done. “I thought boy’s weren’t supposed to cry”, Tensie said, but not in a harsh way. Dave told her why he’d cried and how much better it made him feel. He’d not cried since losing his mother and brother until know and this simple act had cleansed his soul of a lot of sadness that he’d been carrying around.
They made their way back home using the streets because of the heavily laden wagon. Coming into the house they saw Dana sitting in the front room reading a book next to a large collection of rifles that were leaned against the wall. The book was a copy of “small arms of the world, 12th edition”. Dave was impressed by the collection and he told Dana so. She confirmed that they were the former property of the survivalist dude and she was trying to identify them from the book she was reading. “I guess you didn’t watch much Military channel on the cable did you?” Dave remarked. He continued “those 3 are AK47s, that one with the bipod might be an RPD but it’s most likely a semi-auto. The black one is an AR15 and it looks like it has a national match barrel and sights on it. Next to it that looks to be a FAL of some type, there were so many of those made I couldn’t even guess at what type it is. OK the bolt action rifles, that looks like a German K98K and the 4 next to it are all Lee-Enfields, looks like one each of the main variants. Hey pass me the Enfield with the scope on it, please”. She handed Dave the old rifle with the scope, it was fairly heavy but she liked the weight and balance of it. Dave checked it to make sure it wasn’t loaded and looked at the side of the receiver. Sure enough, it was a #4 mk1(T) made by Holland and Holland in 1943. “I sure hope you got a bunch of ammo for this one, it’ll really reach out and touch things. My rifle coach in ROTC had one of these, but his wasn’t in this good shape. These things are really expensive. They kick like a SOB as well”. That’s a shame thought Dana, she really liked the look of the old gun but didn’t think her 110# body would be up to the punishment.
“So Dave the AR15, what do you think of that?” Dana asked. “Oh it would be perfect for you, probably just as accurate as the Enfield with nowhere near the recoil. That book there is the manual for it.” She picked up the book, it was a US Army training manual. “This says M16 Dave” she replied, “same thing” he countered. Dana took the book and the rifle to her room and studied both intently the rifle was really heavy, and after she took the butt plate off she found out why. The area inside the stock had a slab of lead in it that weighed about 3 pounds. Removing this changed the butt heavy weight bias, but made the gun a lot easier to handle. It had a 20” stainless steel barrel, national match sights and trigger. It was already clean but with the aid of the training manual she stripped it and checked it anyway. Light was fading fast so she put the rifle in her closet next to her short barrel shotgun and went downstairs to get dinner.
The house had originally been all electric and this was just not feasible anymore. John had built the solar cooker to make the most use of available natural resources. It worked in the same way as a conventional slow cooker only it used focused sunlight instead of an electric heat source, it was a good way to cook casseroles or stews and only required a little forward planning. John and Dave had also built a large outdoor kitchen around a massive bar-be-que grill. The grill had sold $1995 + tax before the sickness, but they had gotten it for free. The climate in Phoenix was well suited for this arrangement.
John had had a bean casserole cooking in the solar cooker all day and it was done to perfection. Dana sat down next to John and got herself a bowl full. “Where are the kids?” she asked, John found this amusing as she was only 18 herself. He told her they were pulling weeds from the lettuce beds and had already eaten. “This is pretty good” she commented, referring to the casserole. John got the impression that there was something a little more pressing beneath the surface so he flat out asked her what was the matter. Dana explained that while she was happy here she wanted to go off by herself to see if there were other people around that were living and organizing communities. John sensed she was looking for a mate and figured the best thing to do was to let her go look in the surrounding areas. Maybe she would find other people. John suggested she study the books on small unit tactics and survival and E & E that she had gotten from the survivalist and spend time practicing weapon skills before going anywhere.
The next morning after she and Tensie had fed the chickens she asked Dave about a good place to shoot her AR15.  He suggested she use the ciener 22lr conversion kit and take the suppressor off the 10/22 and shoot out on the golf course. They set up targets at 25, 50 and 100 yards and Dana practiced shooting from prone, kneeling and off-hand. After about 1000 rounds she was feeling pretty confident and could snap shoot a head shot easily at 50 yards.
Dave had found a Buckmark in the survivalists collection and it had the barrel threaded for a suppressor. Dave figured Dana had never fired the Hi-Power she always carried and so he showed her the workings of it and suggested she practice with the Buckmark. A Buckmark and a Hi-Power use the same grips and the feel of the 2 guns in your hand is almost undistinguishable. They re-set the targets to 5, 10 and 15 yards and Dana shot at them very confidently. She had mag changes and stoppage clearing down pat after another 500 rounds. Dave showed her how a pistol could be used at longer range by shooting at a metal garbage can in the back yard of one of the houses that faced the golf course. He had to walk his shots on target but after doing so he could hit the target about 3 out of every 4 shots. The garbage can was 130 yards distant. They finished off practicing shooting at 2 opponents, double tapping to the chest and followed by a head shot for safety. Dave referred to this as “Mozambique”, she didn’t know why.
Dave had chores to do so he left Dana to continue practicing. He came back to the house where John and Tensie were talking about corn. Tensie had brought some Christmas ornament from her home that her grandmother in Durango had made from cornsheaves. The corn was a type that was ideally suited to growing in their climate and it had been the staple diet of the Indians that had inhabited the southwest USA and northern Mexico. Her father had some planted in the backyard of their townhouse and John wanted to transplant them to one of his raised beds and cultivate more of a crop.
Their was a sound of a lot of shots, 12 or 13 maybe then silence. Then 12 or 13 more and then silence Dave was already out the door with his AK74 heading towards the golf course where he knew the shots had come from he was hoping it was Dana doing the shooting and it was, he shouted to her but she didn’t hear him, as he came onto the green where they’d set up he saw why. There were 5 dogs either dead or dying and Dana had a series of bad bite marks along her left side. “The fucking things came out of nowhere!” she yelled, still deaf from the noise of the shooting. She had used her Hi-Power and from the looks of things had done well. “I was packing things up and had the bolt out of the AR15 to clean it when they jumped me”. Dave helped her up and they started back to the house, meeting John and Tensie on the way John picked her up and carried her, she was bleeding steadily from the wounds on her leg. When they got her home they attended to her wounds. Dave had gone back to the green and surveyed the attack scene. At least 5 dogs, coming from 2 directions by the look of things. Dana had engaged them all after being attacked and shot till slide lock, then reloaded and shot to neutralize the remainder of the threat. Dave policed up all the brass saving the 9mm for reloading at a later date.
Back at the house Dana was telling the story to John. The initial attack had been frontal and Dana had seen the dogs coming, she had drawn and fired to slide lock. As she was changing mags the other 2 dogs had attacked from behind knocking her down. She had held onto the mag, loaded and engaged the 2 remaining dogs eventually killing them but not before sustaining some serious bites. John was worried, that kind of attack suggested leadership in the dogs. They had been someone’s family pets last year and it was worrying to see how quickly they’d reverted back to the wild. I guess you can never bread the wolf out of the dog he thought to himself.
John had cleaned and bandaged the wounds on her leg. They looked worse than they were and they stung like mad. She had some injuries to her chest but she had Tensie clean those in private. Dave came in to where John was.”It’s OK none of them were rabid, I dumped the bodies in one of the other back yards”. “Yeah, it sounds like our Dana warrior princess put up a hell of a fight”. Dave laughed at the Dana warrior princess line. “That pack would have wiped out all our chickens”, john said, “I think you and Tensie should go out and find any others nearby and kill the all. I think you need to get Tensie as good with a gun as you got Dana, someone needs to watch your back.” “Well dad, Dana was kind of self taught, I just showed her the basics and she took it from there.” “Exactly”, John replied” girls don’t have the same ego hang ups as a lot of boys do and tend to listen to direction better.”

Chapter 4

It was the end of March and Dana was in the shower, she was thoroughly cleaning herself with an anti-bacterial soap. It wasn’t as nice as the Dove body wash she used to use. it was hard getting a good lather with this soap and she missed the feel of the soapy bubbles running over her breasts and stomach. She was checking out the damage to herself. The bites on her leg and breast were scabbing over and starting to heal. She had lost quite a bit of meat in the attack and was pretty sure they would leave real scars, oh well she thought I’m probably not going to be spending much time lounging around by the pool or staring in “girls gone wild” videos in the future.  She got out of the shower, dried off and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She was still sore and had a slight limp but it didn’t stop her from doing her chores. Today was thought to be Easter Sunday, according to Tensie, and Dana had an old hen that had stopped laying that was currently being prepped for dinner. “Sorry old girl, there’s no such thing as a free ride” she’d said to the hen just before she’d wrung it’s neck.
John had run the cooler for the first time the day before and it had worked really well, cooling the house down to 60f instead of the 95f it was outside. John had reset the thermostat to 75f, not wanting to totally drain the batteries until absolutely necessary. He had had a good couple of days working in the garage. The survivalist had had all kinds of interesting gun related items including complete parts kits. John had looked into these and found 6 complete Sten mkII kits and also one for 1928 TSMG, but the real prize had been a Sterling L2A2. John didn’t know how much of a prize this was until he read about it in Small arms of the world, 12th edition. The Sterling is a tube gun and was designed to be built in simple workshops. It was a derivative of the Sten which was the simplest gun ever made. John had cut a length of 1.5” tube from a car muffler system and welded up the sterling. It ran like a top, it had 3 34 round mags but could also use Sten mags as well.
Dave and Tensie had been out everyday since the attack on Dana and killed over 100 strays. Their most successful technique was to bait a trap with the carcass of  a previous victim and then set up on the roof of a house close by and wait. One would be shooter and the other would be security. They had been switching out duties and Tensie was every bit Dave’s equal on the trigger.
John was switching out propane tanks on the grill when Dave and Tensie came back from the days hunt. Dana had butchered the chicken and it was in the solar cooker with some onions, carrots and potatoes from the raised bed gardens. The bisquits would be courtesy of bisquick and a fruit salad from the orchard next door would be desert.
“Hey dad, do you think we have any use for an electric cart?” asked Tensie during dinner. She had taken to calling him dad since she wasn’t comfortable with John and he wasn’t comfortable with Mr Wozniak. John replied “not a golf cart, no”, “no it’s one of those gator type carts, like a mini pick up truck” she replied. Dave expanded, explaining that they’d trailed a pack of dogs to the golf course maintenance yard and found all manner of electric vehicles. One of them still had some charge in it’s batteries but had flat tires. There was no way to inflate the tires so they had left the Gator after dispatching the dogs. John figured he could hook up some PV cells and make a charging station for the truck. He’d seen the trucks in action before the sickness and they looked to be a useful addition to their life.
Dave salvaged a foot pump from one of the neighboring garages and so the next day they set off back to get the truck. John went with Dave and Tensie stayed with Dana since she still wasn’t 100%.  There was an ulterior motive to this pairing, John and Dana had noticed the growing affection between Dave and Tensie and it was time for John to have “that talk” with Dave. Dana was supposed to do the same thing with Tensie, he just hoped that someone had given Dana “that talk”.
John and Dave were walking the mile to the maintenance yard. John’s attitude towards security had changed dramatically following the attack on Dana, he had traded his gallery gun for a FAL from the survivalist’s arsenal and had a webbing belt with 3 extra 20 round mags. He had also taken to carrying a S&W model 29 in a shoulder holster around the gardens. Dave was carrying the AK74 side folder with 5 mags. He also had taken one of the survivalists Browning Hi-Powers and never took it off. John liked the feel of the FAL, he’d never been in the services or even done ROTC. His father had been a pacifist and had even been opposed to John’s grandfather giving him the gallery gun as a teenager. John’s mum had over ruled his objections to her fathers gift to his grand son. John had studied up on the FAL courtesy of “small arms of the world, 12th edition” and he knew it inside and out. He appreciated the technical brilliance of the guns mechanism in a way only an engineer could.
Dave was on point and John was checking their six. “Dave, hey slow down a second, lets take a knee under that mesquite” said John. They sat down and John took a drink from his canteen and said “You and Tensie make a pretty good team and she’s a real hard worker. You know, I’m glad she lives with us”. “Yeah I know dad she’s a really cool girl” Dave replied. The tone in his voice made John think “oh fuck, I hope I’m not too late!” “You know Dave it’s never been easy growing up and it’s gotten a whole lot harder this last year. You’re coming up on 16 and Tensie just turned 14 last week, and I hope you guys and Dana live long enough to be able to have something like normal lives in the future. But that’s going to depend on us all being able to get some kind of a support structure in place and or hook up with some other like minded souls. The gardens are doing well and so are the chickens. We get the odd small game kill and the hogs are coming along nicely but it requires all 4 of us pulling our weight” “Well why wouldn’t we continue to do so?” Dave asked. This was not going the way John had hoped and he didn’t see any way to steer it back so he just said “look Dave, the last thing we need right now is for Tensie or Dana (he added as an afterthought) getting pregnant. And unfortunately all the equipment for that works really good at your age”. “Well you needn’t worry dad, Tensie took a chastity pledge to her grandmother 2 years ago and I don’t think Dana is interested in me”. John knew the success rate of those pledges was approaching zero. Oh well maybe I won’t have to worry about it for a couple of years he thought.
They rounded the corner to the maintenance yard when suddenly Dave froze and then quickly concealed himself behind a low wall. John was about 10 yards behind and saw this. He dropped too and swept the area behind him for threats. Seeing none he whispered to Dave trying to get an idea of what was wrong. Dave beckoned him over and he took cover behind the wall as well. “Dad, I’m pretty sure we closed that gate yesterday” he said gesturing towards the gate to the maintenance yard. The gate was a welded tube type with wire meshing in between the tubes, it did not look like the kind of gate that would get blown by the wind. This could be good or bad John thought. “Dad, I think I see tire tracks in the dust by the gate”, “do you see 2 sets that overlap?” John countered. “Yes I do” replied Dave. OK thought John, this probably means one vehicle that entered and exited so whoever was here has now gone. He peered around the side of the wall and could see or hear nothing out of the ordinary. “OK let’s go, you go to the left side of the gate and I’ll take the right”. John wasn’t expecting to find anyone in the yard but he held his FAL at high ready nonetheless. Dave did likewise entering the yard just after John. They swept the yard but whoever had been here had, as John surmised, already left.
Nothing seemed to be missing, so whatever it was the searchers were looking for they didn’t have. John surveyed the maintenance yard, it had been months since he’d been here, last time was to search for gasoline and there hadn’t been any. There was a large supply of grounds keeping tools that had been used to maintain the golf course. John went over to a shed and checked inside. He found a small plow and harrow along with large grass cutting rollers. He wondered if he could adapt the gator to tow them, if so he could make good use of some parts of the golf course. The only problem with this is that it would be a big sign to the outside world that something was going on.
They checked the gator. The battery condition gauge barely registered. John lifted the battery compartment cover and checked the cells individually, noting those that were below 12 volts. He did the same on the other golf carts eventually finding enough that had sufficient charge to move the battery gauge past the ¼ mark. There was a walk behind roto-tiller that looked in good shape and they loaded it onto the back of the gator. “Why are we taking this dad? We don’t have any gas” Dave asked. John explained “the lower compression of the side valve engines on these types of equipment means we might be able to use old gas and if not I’m intending to try converting it to run on alcohol.” They stayed another hour, using a foot pump to inflate the tires and gathering up anything of use for back at the house. There was a lot of seed but it was probably only grass seed so they left it. The gator ran fine for the mile back to the house and they parked it in the empty garage of the house next door. John had a spare PV charger set up as a spare for either the cooler or the well pump, so he hooked it up to the gator. “I’m not sure how long this will take, or what kind of range we’ll get off a full charge, so we’d better keep a log of charge versus distance.”
Dana came into the garage and looked at the gator. It was afternoon and already hot in the garage. “Nice, I always wanted a convertible truck. Couldn’t you have got one in red though?” John laughed and said “I suppose you and Tensie want to go cruise down to the mall in the gator”. “Actually I was thinking more like a trip to china-mart, we need some clothes and other feminine products. I’d like to get a couple of mountain bikes with flat-free tires and one of those tow behind baby carriers.” John looked at Dave. “It’s for hauling stuff that I need when I go out to find other survivors” she said. “When do you want to go shopping then? Are you feeling up to the trip” John asked “Yes I’ve been moving around quite well the last few days but I don’t intend venturing out alone until I’m 100%. I figure I should start to plan ahead for my trip though” replied Dana. The nearest china-mart was a little over a mile west of the house and there was another 2 miles further west of that. The closest store would probably have most of what Dana needed and it also had sold guns at one point. It was already hot outside, so they decided to go shopping the next day. If they left before sun rise they could get there in safety and be back before the heat of the day. There were a couple of other places John wanted to visit on the way as well.
John woke early the next morning, it was dark outside probably at least another hour till dawn. Dana was already up having fed and watered the chickens and was now making breakfast on the grill outside. That girl must have cats eyes he thought. The day before John had had everyone put together a pack containing 2 days of food, water and ammo. This was intended to be a quick half day trip but you never knew what was around the corner. John had salvaged a large pull cart from the maintenance yard. It had a 5’ x 3’ bed with stake sides and inflatable tires. John figured it was good for at least 1000# of cargo and since the land was flat, could be hauled by 1 person fairly easily once it was going. Ten minutes later the 4 of them were sitting around the picnic table by the grill eating breakfast. There was an excited buzz in the air and everyone was ready for the outing.
They set off. Dana and Dave were 50 yards ahead of John who was pulling the wagon and Tensie was bringing up the rear. Dana had her AR15 and her Hi-Power, Dave had left his AK74 at home and was instead carrying the Enfield #4 mk1 (T), he also had a Hi-Power, but his was an Inglis. John had his model 29 in a shoulder holster with his FAL on the cart and Tensie was bringing up the rear with the Sterling. John had offered to build up some of the Stens for Dave and Dana but they weren’t interested. Tensie really liked the Sterling, she could hit person sized targets in single shot easily to 100 yards and could really hose stuff down in full auto up to 25 yards. The Sterling had a neat feature in that the safety also locked the bolt open. It is dangerous to carry an open bolt sub-gun with the bolt forward and a mag inserted. If they are dropped it is possible for the bolt to travel rearward just enough to strip a round from the mag, chamber and fire it without it engaging the sear. The safety feature on the Sterling allowed it to be carried with the bolt locked back and a mag in place and ready to fire.
The route was on back streets and Dave and Dana were on opposite sides of the street. This allowed them to cover each other if needed. They were using extreme caution and it had taken them almost an hour to travel the mile to china-mart. The sun had risen and they were taking cover behind a big stone sign that had once proclaimed the name of the sub-division they’d just traversed. The location gave them a great view of the front of the china-mart store. Dave was scanning the area through the 10 power scope on his Enfield. He could see the glass front doors of the store were smashed in so that meant they might not get everything on their shopping list. He continued scanning and said to Dana “it looks deserted, go tell dad someone’s already hit it and ask him if he wants to go on to the next one”. Dana low crawled over to where John and Tensie were secluded and relayed the info. He reached into his pack and took out a 36 power spotting scope and handed it to her. “Dana it’s got to be 100 yards to the front of that store and it’s all open ground with no cover or concealment. Glass the whole area, especially the surrounding houses. Look for anything out of place, anything that looks like its fortified, anything that could be a hiding place”. “Do you think there might be someone else around?” she asked. “I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t expecting the front of the store to be all smashed in. I would have opened a back door so as to keep the contents of the store secure from animals and the elements. The sort of person that just takes what they immediately need and moves on isn’t the sort that’s thinking long term and isn’t the sort I want to surprise me”. “Do you think they might be MZBs?” Dana asked, he nodded affirmative.
Dana and Dave were keeping watch, the sun had moved around and was no longer reflection off the glass windows of the store. She could see someone had parked a pickup truck just inside the store. Dana recognized the pick up truck.
Inside china-mart Slash had been up tweeking for 3 days. He had emptied the pharmacy of all the pseudafed and lithium batteries and cooked up a massive batch of meth. Tank hated the smell of that shit and had locked himself in the managers office at the back of the store with his good pals Johnny Walker and Jim Bean. Tank, Johnny and Jim had been going at it pretty hard the night before and Tank was sleeping off a massive drunk. Slash had ransacked through the audio section of china-mart and had found a Slayer CD. He went to play it in the truck cd player, as he opened the truck door Dana saw him through the 36 power spotting scope. The blood in her veins turned ice cold. “Mother fucker!”, she spat out. Dave had also seen Slash and he turned to her just as the sound of the music came across the street. John and Tensie heard it as well.
“Give me the Enfield Dave” she said in a cold and detached manner. She was sure she could hit Slash from this range with her AR15, but she wanted to make sure she would get through the rear glass of the truck and anything else that might be in the way. A 174 grain 303 at 2600 fps would do that, a 55 grain 223 at 3100 fps might not. “Dana, what the fuck’s gotten into you?” asked Dave, this was a side of Dana he had not seen before and it scared him. “Just give me the fucking rifle Dave, me and that piece of shit have some unfinished business from last year”. Dave  gulped “Dana don’t you think we should see if he’s with anyone?” “He’s with Tank, who’s probably drunk. There was another guy but I already killed him”. She took out her Hi-Power, “this was his gun”. Dana grabbed the big Enfield from Dave and hastily set up in position to fire, the crosshairs of the scope lining up on the back of Slash’s head. She did not have a good cheek weld and in her rage jerked the trigger. The rear glass and rear view mirror in Slash’s truck exploded as they met 5218ftlbs of 303 174 grain FMJBT projectile.
Dana cycled the bolt on the old sniper rifle, and went to re-acquire her target but it was too late. Slash had been up for days but he still knew enough to take cover when he was being shot at.

Chapter 5

Dana swept the inside of the store with the scoped rifle searching for Slash, but he was long gone. As she did John crept in behind her and Dave. “Are those the guys?” he asked her. She shook her head yes. “What guys?” asked Dave. Dana gave Dave the PG13 version of her rape ordeal that ended with her killing Les Johnson and escaping. John had heard the un-rated version when Dana had first come to him and he was ready to kill.
“Well we kind of lost the element of surprise and since we need what’s inside the store we can’t just go pull a Waco on them. That means we’ve got to storm the place.  Now they’re probably not expecting anyone to be around so I seriously doubt they have defensive positions in there, so if we move fast we can still retain the initiative. John motioned Tensie over to join them and briefed her on what they would do. The team was going to split in two, with Dana and Dave taking the rear of the building and John and Tensie going in through the front door.
Inside the china-mart Slash was freaking out, he’d been up tweaking for 3 days and now someone had just tried to kill him. He had no idea who they were, where they were or why they wanted to kill him. He ran to the sporting goods section, he’d already seen that the guns had been removed by other salvagers but he needed some 380ACP ammo for his Lorcin. He had most of a mag in the gun but he figured a full box would help. He was half way there when automatic fire took out the remaining glass in the front of the store. “Holy shit! Holy fucking shit!” he shouted, freaking out even more.
Tensie was firing 3 round bursts from the Sterling into the front of the store. John had told her to hold over about 2 feet due to the range and trajectory of the 9mm rounds and the bullets were going in at waste height. She had 3 34 round mags and intended to use one of them for suppressing fire to buy time for the others to get into position to assault the store. As she started firing Dave and Dana made their break for the rear of the store and John charged over to the west end of the front of the building. He covered the 100 yards in 16 seconds. Not bad for an old dude carrying a bunch of gear he thought. He slipped off his pack retaining the belt with the extra mags for his FAL and the S&W model 29.
The sound of automatic fire had woken Tank up from his drunk and he staggered down the stairs from the managers office. He’d woken up this morning with his head on fire and his eyes too bloody to see, but he still knew those were the least of his problems. “Tank, someones fucking shooting at us!” Slash screamed frantically. “Well shoot back!” Tank replied. I’ve got to get the fuck out of here thought Tank, I’m tired of that tweaking asshole Slash anyway.
Dana and Dave had arrived in the alley way behind the store and had spotted a door that had been forced open but was closed. The store had been visited by other salvagers before, people who had taken what they’d needed but intended to return. Dana was just about to open the door when it burst open in her face. The opening door cold-cocked her, knocking her flat on her ass. Tank had burst open the door and was standing in the doorway holding a Norinco coach gun. Luckily he was blinded by the sudden exposure to the bright sun light and his hangover slowed his responses just long enough for Dave to shoot him in the chest at point blank range with the Enfield. Dave tried to work the bolt of the Enfield for a follow up shot but Tank fired the coach gun. Tank was falling as he fired so only a couple of pellets caught Dave in the fleshy part of his calf, Dave was so stoked he didn’t even notice.
Dana had dropped her AR15 when the door hit her and as she saw tank falling she drew her Hi-Power and shot him twice in the chest and once in the head. “Nice Mozambique” Dave remarked. They were both shaking. “Was that the guy?” he asked. “one of them” she replied. Dana took a series of deep breaths to try and compose her self and she retrieved the AR15.  “OK I think we’d better get inside and help out Dad, there’s only 1 guy left and I think we can take him”.
Inside the store Slash was walking towards the front of the store, holding his Lorcin gangsta style, shooting for effect and shouting “Die mother fucker die!” as he did. John could see his reflection in a mirror on one of the pillars inside the store. I’ll nail this asshole when he stops to reload he thought. Slash’s slide locked back and John was just about to step inside the store when another movement caught his eye. Oh fuck he realized there’s someone else in there.
Slash had stopped to reload, he only had one mag for his Lorcin, and he had bent down behind a display cabinet for cover whilst reloading it. He had finished and was just about to get back up and shoot when he realized something was stopping him. At first he thought he’d caught his shirt on something but then he realized that it was the arrow sticking through his chest pinning him to the cabinet that was doing it.
The archer that had shot him called out to John, “I mean you no harm, I have no connection with these men, I just want to go about my business”.
Dana and Dave arrived just as the archer was reloading, John saw this and called out “it’s OK kids don’t shoot.” The Archer put down the bow and John came into the store with his FAL at low ready. Dana approached Slash, “do you remember me mother fucker?” she asked. Slash looked at her in disbelief. “I’d better see if I can help him” said the archer, Dana’s Hi-Power barked twice. “It’s too late, he’s dead” she said coldly.  Dave stared in disbelief at her “hard fucking core” he said. Dana turned to him “he was already at death’s door, I just opened it for him”.
The archer looked at Slash’s body “I could have saved him”, “no you couldn’t” replied Dana. The archer looked at Dana “Young lady, I’ve been an ER nurse in south Phoenix and flight nurse in the Air national guard for 15 years, I think I could have saved him” she said emphatically. “Not disputing your skills old woman, but he raped me and I would have killed him regardless” Dana replied kind of matter of fact.
John thought it best to intervene before a major cat fight broke out. “Ladies, please. Hi my names John Wozniak, this is Dana, that’s Dave and Tensie is over by the door”. “Betsy Ross” came the reply. “Any relation to the flag lady?” asked Tensie.  Betsy rolled her eyes mentally, she hated when people made that connection, “no just a coincidence, actually why don’t you call me Liz” came the reply.
John couldn’t take his eyes off of Liz, she was smoking hot for a woman that had to be nearing 40. She was about the same height as Dana. She had a real woman’s figure that curved where it was supposed to but was not flabby. The shorts and tight T-shirt she was wearing really emphasized her figure. She had a pretty face and medium length dark brown hair tied back in a pony tail. John guessed she was probably of Italian heritage.
Liz pulled up a chaise-lounge from the furniture department and flopped down on it. “I’ve been waiting 3 days for those assholes to leave, I’m assuming you got the other one as well?” she said. Dana shook her head affirmative. “Good they were low life pieces of white trash, this one was a meth head and the other one was always drunk. In fact I think they were both borderline with scurvy judging by their complexions and they existed on a chips and twinkie diet.  Fuck ‘em, they probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway.”
“How did you avoid them catching you?” John asked. “Pretty simple really, like I said the one guy was always drunk and the tweaker spent all his spare time watching really nasty pornos on that big screen over there”, she motioned to the home entertainment department .”You know I’ve seen a lot of weird shit in my time working the night shift in the ER, but even I was shocked at what was going up people in those pornos”. “Anyway, I made a hide in the cloth bolts in the home fashions department and laid low. There was no way in hell either of them would ever go over and check out the curtains or carpet so I figured I was safe”. “You’re pretty handy with that bow, where’d you learn to shoot like that?” John complimented. Liz blushed slightly, adjusting her position on the chaise-lounge to give him what, she considered, her best side. “Oh I took up archery in high school to avoid all the asshole jock type sports and found out I liked it. I’ve been keeping in practice ever since”.
John and Liz were deep in conversation, with the other reflectively listening whilst the other talked, there was an obvious chemistry. Liz had been alone since the sickness and was glad to have someone to talk to. Dave interrupted them “hey dad, I think I got tagged back in the alley way”. Dave lifted his leg to reveal a large blood stain on his pants leg. Liz took charge immediately, removing 3 #8 pellets and applying a field dressing. “Thank God for that”, Dana whispered to Tensie, “I was about to suggest they go get a hotel room” and they both giggled.
“Dave, why don’t you go get a chair and sit over by the store entrance. You can rest your leg and keep a look out at the same time. Me and Tensie are going to get the stuff we originally came here for” said Dana. Dave hobbled off and the girls set to work.
John and Liz resumed their conversation. Liz told John she had originally come to the china-mart to get all the Coleman white gas to use in her generator. John was surprised she still had a generator and she explained it was only used to power the well pump at her place. She had moved into an old nursery that had specialized in desert plants and had been using a small 5hp gas powered generator to run the well pump only. She had been able to grow all the fresh vegetables she needed there and had been relying on canned goods. She was concerned about long term viability of the place because of all the rabbits eating her crops. She had not been able to kill many of the rabbits due to lack of a suitable weapon. John promised her his old gallery gun and a “private lesson” on how to use it. Liz giggled and blushed again, batting her eye lids at John.
There was nothing going on out on the street and Dave was getting bored. He had thoroughly scanned the whole area with the 36 power spotting scope and he was confident that no-one else was at home. He walked over to Slash’s truck. It was kind of beat to shit on the outside and the inside was full of garbage, but the tires were new and it looked like it had been looked after, at least mechanically.
Dave didn’t have a license but he had driven his older brother Alex’s truck on many occasions on dirt roads when they’d been out hunting together. The truck was an early 70s full size Chevy, the most stolen vehicle in Arizona.  It had this title because the “coyotes” would steal them on the way back from delivering a load of illegal aliens and take them down to Mexico. That way they got paid for both legs of the journey from Nogales to Phoenix. You got to love the free enterprise spirit of criminals, if only they’d apply it to legal occupations instead.
There was no computer, it had a simple 2 barrel carburetor with points and condenser ignition. Absolutely nothing to go wrong. OK so they got shitty gas mileage but that hadn’t been a consideration in the old world. Dave turned the key and much to his surprise the engine burst into life.

Chapter 6

Everyone else was surprised as well, except for Liz. Liz had seen the truck come through the front window of china-mart destroying the garden cart she was using to haul supplies in the process. Dave shut the engine down on the truck because the exhaust fumes smelt pretty bad. “Looks like we won’t have to walk home”, he said “good thing and all, since my leg hurts like hell”. The sound of the truck had jolted John and Liz out of their little love fest and John came over to Dave. “Nice wheels son, can I borrow it to go cruise Central?” “Yeah, no” Dave replied.
The girls had finished shopping and came over with laden carts, Dana had a couple of high end mountain bikes, one with a baby trailer attached to it. She had filled it with the best camping gear that china-mart had. “I’m sorry Liz, looks like the white gas was all gone” she said. John checked the gas gauge on the truck, it showed ¾ full. Somehow the former owners had found a supply of gas that was still relatively useable. It had to be something fairly straightforward since neither of the guys they’d killed looked like rocket scientists. Unfortunately they’d taken their secret with them. John walked over to the automotive department and returned with a 5 gallon can and a siphon hose.
“You killed one of these guys so by rights half the gas in the truck is yours” he said to Liz all business like. John was in turmoil over his feelings, he wasn’t sure he was ready to move on with a relationship even though he was wildly attracted to Liz. Liz thought his attitude a little odd considering the beautiful moments they had just shared. “I’d better find something to haul it in, since those assholes destroyed my cart” she replied. “We can drop you off if you’d like, the kids can ride in the back of the truck”, said John. Liz shook her head in agreement, maybe I should play things a little easier she thought. Liz had not had anyone before the sickness, working nights in the ER tended to ruin relationships. She’d made good money and had lots of “stuff”, but she had pretty much resigned herself to the fact that she would end up as a crazy old cat lady.
They loaded up in the truck except for Dana. She decided to ride her new bike back to the house as a way to try it out. She figured she’d better be comfortable on it if she was going out on her own. It took all of 3 minutes to get to the summer winds nursery that Liz had taken over. From the road the nursery looked deserted, and it was not the kind of place that MZB types would pay any mind to. “Drive round the back”, she said to John, ”I figured the best defense is to not appear offensive.” She continued, “I had a nice condo up near Arrowhead lakes, it was convenient for the hospital and other shopping. Once the fresh food ran out I decided to try and grow my own. I had intended to turn one of the grassy areas at the condo into a garden, but nothing would grow there and after the city water ran out I had to come up with an alternative. I figured some of the older areas probably had their own water supply and I came across this place. Since it already had water and things growing I figured it would be best to move in here. The office over there makes a good enough home for one and I find I really don’t miss all the stuff I left behind. The place was already set up with the generator and I’ve been able to maintain it god so far. I know I’ll need to figure something else out eventually when the gas runs out.”
“It’s getting dark, we should head home” said John. “Have Dave stay off that leg for a couple of days and change the dressing on it every day. I’d like to check on it in 3 days or so, could you guys come back here, or do you want me to come over to you?”said Liz. John thought for a moment and told her where they lived. He needed to sort out a few things in his head and 3 days would be time enough to do so.
The next morning Dave and Tensie were checking and cleaning the guns from the previous day. “Dave a couple of times the gun didn’t fire when I pulled the trigger” she said “the bolt would be forward and I know it should be at the back. Then another time I went to fire a single and it fired a 3 round burst.” “Yeah I think it might be that we’re using 9mm pistol ammo in your Sterling and it might not be powerful enough.” Dave replied.
Open bolt sub guns are incredibly simply devices and 99% of them operate on what’s referred to as “advanced primer ignition”. Advanced primer ignition works thus: the bolt is retracted rearwards against it’s spring and held by a sear; the trigger is pulled and the bolt is allowed to fly forwards; as it passes the magazine it strips a round off and feeds it into the chamber; just before the round is fully chambered the fixed firing pin ignites the primer and the bullet fires; the cartridge is the fully chambered and the gas pressure in the barrel blows the bolt back to be caught by the sear. The reason the cartridge is fired before the bolt is fully forward is to react the firing of the cartridge against the kinetic energy of the moving bolt and spring, rather than just reacting against the mass of the bolt and the spring. This allows use of a lighter bolt mass and spring than would be possible under normal circumstances. A good example of this is to compare the effort required to cock an old open bolt Mac 10 versus the later closed bolt Mac 10. To make this system work you need a cartridge powerful enough to blow the bolt back far enough to both strip a round from the magazine and catch on the sear.
Tensie took Daves comments on face value, after all he seemed to know what he was talking about. Dave was pulling a patch through the Enfield. It used Radway Green ammo with a 1955 head stamp which was corrosive. He had put a plug in the muzzle and run boiling water down the bore first. This expanded the microscopic pores in the barrel that are a natural artifact of the manufacturing process. These cracks collected the corrosive salts that are formed when certain types of powders are used in cartridges. The British had been big on corrosive powders and short on cleaning which is why the bores on so few of their rifles had survived in pristine condition. Tensie was re-installing the bolt and recoil spring into her Sterling. “Dad said you were excellent at the china-mart, really cool and collected giving covering fire, he didn’t even know you had any problems”. She blushed slightly her father had always told her how much he loved her and praised her when she did well so she was confident in her ability but it was special when Dave praised her.
Liz wasn’t having such a good time of things, she had forgotten to secure the gate to her nursery last night and a family of javelinas had gotten inside. She had been fast asleep and they had quietly eaten most of her peppers and lettuce plants. She woke up and heard them rooting aqround outside the office that was her home and she had exited out the back door with her bow. She had come across the boar who had snarled at her. She hit him with a broad head just behind his shoulder and he’d folded like a cheap tent, DRT. The rest of the family beat feet out the gate leaving the remnants of her garden behind them. Shit she thought, no fresh greens and I’m coming up on winter.
It wasn’t actually winter as such. Phoenix has an unusual climate, summer is not the prime growing season. From mid June to mid August virtually nothing grows due to the extreme heat. Her current crop had been set to mature early June, but the javelinas had eaten it all.
She went back into her house and returned with a sharp knife and a length of rope. She hooked the rope around the javelinas back legs and dragged him over to a patio cover. She looped the rope over an exposed beam and strung him up. Well at least I’ll eat good for a while she thought as she gutted and quartered the javelin. She was wondering what to do about the javelin entrails when her 2 kittens came over and started poking their noses in them. “Scat you two”, she called out half-heartedly. Muffins and Tibalt were 4 months old and full of energy. Liz had found them abandoned in a wash a month ago. She figured a coyote had probably eaten the rest of the family and had taken them home. They’d earned their keep by taming the local mouse population.
She spent the rest of the morning preparing the javelin meat to make into jerky. She’d saved the best cuts for stew and steaks. This would be good to take over to John’s when she went to check up on Dave. She set up her solar cooker and threw in a couple of onions and tomatoes that remained after the javelinas had eaten the rest. Well, she figured, after this is gone I guess I’ve got to go back to scavenging the surrounding houses for the next couple of months.
John had awoken late that morning very refreshed. He had never been a religious man but last night he’d had a dream. He and Alison were sitting in their backyard, except it wasn’t their backyard but the backyard at his parents house in Romeo. They’d been sharing a bottle of wine and Alison had said “Liz seams like a really nice person, you shouldn’t be alone.” John saw this as the sign that Alison was watching and wanted him to go on with his life. He came downstairs and saw that Dana was checking out the gear she was going to take on her trip.
“Do you have an idea where you’re going to go first off?” he asked. “Well I was hoping we could talk about that, I’m really not sure what’s going to be the best way to attack this.” She replied. “Are you sure you still want to do this? I mean we were really lucky yesterday at china-mart”. “No, we won out through superior weapons and tactics”, she replied. “Dana that guy had knocked you flat on your ass and he would have killed you had Dave not shot him and Liz killed the other guy. I think we might be getting a little over confident here. You know it’s one thing going out with a team, but it’s completely different going out alone.” “John, how old were you when you left your parents home?” she asked. “Well I was 18 and I went to college in the next county”. “Right and I’m 18 as well, I think I need to spread my wings and fly. At least for a while” John thought about this and replied “well OK, I can’t stop you from going so I guess we need to figure out what’s the best plan for success.” “Thanks dad, I knew you’d understand” she replied.
“No-one is going to have survived long with out an independent water supply” said John. “All the places on city water are pretty much un-inhabitable except maybe to MZB types who aren’t looking to live a sustainable life. What we need is a map showing where people lived before the city grew up around them. So we should probably visit the library and get a street map from the 1930s through the 1950s and use that as our start point. I figure the places that were inhabited then have the best chance of supporting families now.” “Why?” she asked “I mean we’re doing OK here”. “True, however we aren’t typical. Anyway those places were built and settled without a mains water supply and probably without electricity, so the houses are designed to better suit the climate here. This house was built in 1970, when all most people had was an evaporative cooler. That’s why the place is nice with just the cooler running now.” “OK, that makes sense, let’s hit the library”. She replied. “Good, since we’re going over that way let’s call in on Liz and see how she’s doing” said John.
The library was a little over a mile away and they rode there on their new china-mart bikes. John had brought his gallery gun and a brick of 22s, Dana had her AR15. Dave had modified it for her, the survivalist had had a lot of spare parts, including a pre-81 DIAS, M4 upper and stock. This made the gun a lot easier for her to carry whilst on her bike. The back door to the library that John had forced open and then re-closed was still shut. He opened it and they went inside to the reference section. The reference section had copies of old maps showing how the city had grown over the years and in particular the area of the city they were in. Dana was looking at one from 1929. “Hey this whole area was orange groves, I never knew that” she said.”When I first moved here there were a lot of orange groves, the hospital Dave was born in was in the middle of them” replied John. The next map she found was from 1940, the orange groves were still there but there were more houses shown around them. John looked at the map, “that’s probably about as new as you want to go” he said. She took the map, re-folded it and put it in her pack. They were readying to go and John turned to put the older map back on the shelf. As he did something moving outside the window caught his eye. In a very fluid and practiced move he drew and cocked the model 29 from his shoulder holster, holding it in a Weaver grip. Dana saw and pulled her M4 up to low ready, flicking off the safety with her thumb. “What is it?” she hissed at him. “I saw something move out there, I don’t know what it was. OK we’d better find a different way out of here in case they saw us enter.” “Do you think it’s a person, MZB?” she replied. “I have no idea who or what it is, I’m going to go out through that emergency exit over there and you go out through the opposite one. We’ll both make our way back to the bikes.” John felt a little under armed with only the Model 29, he had left the gallery gun on the bike and he now realized what a stupid move that was, he had potentially armed who/what ever they now faced.
He opened the door and exited as quietly as he could. Looking right and left he saw nothing, however the brush was pretty thick and it didn’t make him feel any more comfortable. He started towards the bike, his heart racing. This was not a good feeling for him and he wished he’d stayed with Dana, there was a strength in numbers and he wasn’t feeling it right now. A roar and burst of automatic fire from the other side of the building just made things worse.
Dana had exited the building just as the bush in front of her moved, she had seen something big and white and reflexively un-loaded onto it. She was sure she had hit something when John almost knocked her over as he came running around the side of the library. “What is it, what did you see?” He asked frantically. “A tiger, a great big fucking tiger” she screamed hysterically. “Next time you go out this fucking door, cause I don’t need this fucking kind of shit! Fuck all I want to do is find some guy to settle down with and I almost get eaten by a fucking tiger”. John pondered at the settling down with a guy part but didn’t want to interrupt her rant.
Dana had dropped her M4 and was pacing back and forth with cursing really loudly “Jesus fucking Christ, I just don’t fucking believe this.” She took off her shirt and threw it down on the floor. “All the shit I’ve been through this last year and I almost get eaten by a fucking tiger!” “Dana, Dana honey you’ve got to calm down and focus. Did you kill it, how many times do you think you hit it?” John said in his calmest most rational voice. What he really wanted to say was where the fuck did a fucking tiger come from, but he figured one freaking out person was enough. Dana was hyper-ventilating and was anything but calm so John walked over to her and slapped her across the face. It wasn’t too hard but it was enough to shock her out of it. She shook her head “thanks I guess” she said. “Sorry Dana, I had to do that. Now lets go find this thing and make sure it’s dead”.
They tracked it through the brush. It wasn’t hard as the animal had just plowed through everything in its path leaving a pretty good blood trail in it’s wake. They found it on the far side of a wash. It was still alive. John was about 15 yards from it and had his big S&W trained on it, wounded big game animals are the most dangerous and he was not about to be this ones lunch. “A white tiger, I do believe I’ve fucking seen everything now” he said to her. “This one must have escaped from that zoo that’s west of Peoria. Goodnight kitty” he said as the big Smith barked once. A 240 grain JHP destroyed the big cats brain and it was dead.
“This is a female, they normally do the hunting. I sure hope there aren’t anymore around. We’d better be leaving I think” he said to Dana. “Yeah, lets go” she agreed. Neither said it but they both felt uneasy about not being on top of the food chain, even if it was only temporary.


Chapter 7

John and Dana got to Liz’s just as the Javelina stew was coming to temperature. They’d approached the nursery cautiously and had called out a welcome first. John had seen how good Liz was with her bow and had no intention of being on the wrong end of a friendly fire exchange with her. Liz was pleased to see them and they all examined the damage that the Javelinas had caused. John offered Liz a share in there fresh produce in exchange for her help in the gardens at Johns place and she accepted.
John told Liz about their encounter with the tiger and they checked around the perimeter of the nursery for any signs of big cats. The tiger had been able to get to the library up the Skunk creek wash. This provided it with the cover to move around the city in comfort, but there was nothing like that where Liz lived. After some discussion on the issue they all felt Liz was safe from the likelihood of a tiger attack, if there were even any more tigers around.
John wanted to check out her well to see how easily he could convert it over to solar power. While he was doing this Dana showed Liz the proper care and feeding of the gallery gun. Liz took to it like a duck to water. She was easily hitting rabbit sized targets on the far side of the nursery. The well pump was similar to John’s and he felt he could easily convert it to run on solar power.
They all hung out for a couple of hours, it was the heat of the day and the temperature was well over 100f. Liz’s house was a trailer that had an additional shade over it’s roof, kind of like a rain fly on a tent. This extra shade helped by reflecting heat off the roof. The trailer had an evaporative cooler as well but it was not working due to lack of power. John knew how to fix that and already knew where to get the parts.
Discussions turned to Danas journey. Liz agreed that the plan to check out the older areas was a sound strategy, although she doubted there were any other people still living in the area. Dana had decided to leave as soon as possible and to stay out for no longer than 10 days. She had decided on a sweep that would take her first out to the west side of the city and then north, finally returning eastwards. She planned on writing a diary each day telling of her findings and would leave a copy of it buried under a cairn of rocks at the intersection of a major cross street. In the event that she was delayed or injured this would give John somewhere to start looking for her.
Liz’s Javelina stew was terrific. The nursery had had a lot of herbs and peppers growing in it which Liz had put to good use. Wow, this woman can really cook thought John. Liz was well aware that the real way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. She also knew that showing up naked and bringing beer was a good plan as well. She’d used the latter one quite a bit in the past although it’s long term effects weren’t a successful as the former. It was getting dark and John thought it advisable that they leave.
The next morning Dana rose early. She showered and dressed in a desert camo BDU pants, T-shirt and a boonie hat. This was all courtesy of the dead survivalist guy. As usual she strapped on her Hi-Power. She was also taking her M4,the SBS and silenced buckmark. Dave had cooked up a large breakfast and they all ate in silence, Tensie looked close to tears but she realized that this was something Dana was determined to do. They said their goodbyes and she left.
She was heading for the Hedgepath hills as her first stop, it was about 10 miles distant and would be a fairly easy ride she thought. She planned to stay on the side streets except to check out any grocery stores and water ‘n’ ice places for re-supply. She was carrying 5 gallons of water and 3 weeks worth of MREs in her trailer. Food wasn’t a problem but she would definitely need re-supply of water in 2 days. Plan A was to hit the grocery stores and water ’n’ ice places first and then empty hot water heaters and filter the contents. It took her 3 hours to get to her destination. Towing a trailer with almost 200# of gear was not an easy task.
Dana found a nice house to use as a base and stowed her bike and trailer in the garage. She had a good rest and chowed down on some of Liz’s Javelina jerky. The plan was to climb to the top of the hill and survey the area. The hill was approximately 500’ higher than the rest of the area and with Johns 36 power spotting scope she hoped to be able to get a good handle on what was happening. It was mid-morning and she decided now was the time to climb. She took with her the scope, a camo tarp and her M4.
It took about a half hour to get to the top and it was hard work. She set up on the south side of the hill first, figuring this side would be too hot later on. She found a nice spot and got comfortable. After about 2 hours of scanning it seemed that there were no signs of life. She’d spotted a few places that had been working farms in the past but no one was home now. She was able to identify some of them on her map and figured she would inventory them in the next few days.
The north side was a little more interesting. About ¼ mile along the hills and slightly lower was a big water storage tank. It was probably about 200’ in diameter, definitely worth a closer look she thought. Again the north side provided no signs of life, Dana was a little despondent. It was hot up here she thought, she had a good drink of water and adjusted her shade to counter the movement of the sun. it was mid afternoon and she decided to go check out the water storage tank and see if it was any cooler over here.
The water storage tank was surrounded by a high chain link fence and the gates were firmly padlocked shut. She took out her Bulgarian AK74 bayonet and used the wire cutter on it to cut the chain link. She cut one strand top and bottom and then pulled it out, in effect un-zipping the fence. Her dad had told her about anti-siphon features on toilets and she wondered if this storage tank had such a feature. If it did it could mean they had years worth of water in storage. It might not be drinkable any longer but it would be good for growing crops. She broke a window to get access to the control room. As she expected everything was controlled electronically, although there did appear to be manual over-rides on the main valves. She went back outside and saw what looked like a sampling valve on the side of the tank. This would let her see if there was water in the tank and to see what the quality of the water was like.
The valve was a 4” diameter gate type valve. She was familiar with the type and knew it would flow a huge amount of water, luckily it could also be opened to small increments and flow small quantities. She cracked the valve and about 5 gallons dumped out. It ran down the concrete pathway and collected in a rock depression forming a natural basin. The water was nice and cool, being about 30f cooler than the ambient of about 105f. Dana threw her boonie hat into the basin and let it get saturated, then she put it on and it felt good. It felt so good she went and opened the valve again, filling the basin to a depth of about 3’. Then she stripped her clothes off and lay down in the coolness of it. It felt wonderful, she’d spent all day on the hilltop being baked by the sun and looking for signs of life that didn’t exist. But this felt nice. She washed out her underwear and draped them on a rock to dry. Then she lay floating in the basin for about 30 minutes feeling the water gradually warming up, or was she just getting used to the coolness of it.
The sun had gone down on her side of the hill and she got out of the water. The evaporation of the water off her skin cooled her down even more. She wandered around naked for a couple of minutes until she was dry and then put her clothes back on. Time to get back to the house she figured. It wasn’t quite as bad going back down the hill as it had been coming up it.
She got back to the house as dusk was falling. After eating MRE she went to sleep in a bedroom on the second floor. She slept soundly until a drumming sound woke her up. WTF, she thought, it never rains this time of year. Sure enough though she could smell the familiar smell of creosote bushes that accompanied every rain storm. The rain lasted for about an hour and dropped about2 inches on the dry ground.
Phoenix gets its average 7 inches of rain mostly split between January/February and July/August evenly. Sometimes there is rainfall in October, but it is sporadic. Weather forecasting is not an exact science and mother nature frequently does whatever she feels like. This was one of those days. It had rained a lot harder north west of where Dana was and the water sheds were already filling up the washes that drained down to this area of town. Rainwater drainage is not thought of as a high priority in Phoenix since it seldom rains.  Developers were supposed to put in adequate drainage to the sub-divisions that were springing up all over town. The area was experiencing a drought that had lasted 8 years so the developers had been cutting a lot of corners on flood retention and storm water drainage and the local government had given them a pass on it no doubt thanks to lobbyists “assisting” them on their re-election campaigns. Everyone remembered the two back to back “500 year floods” of 1994-95 and figured they were safe for another 488 years. They were wrong of course, the only saving grace was that the corrupt politicians that had taken the “campaign contributions” from the developers were already dead.
Dana got up and had a light breakfast as the last of the rain was falling. She was sitting downstairs in the kitchen area with the large arcadia door to the backyard open. It was nice and cool although a little humid. The plan for today was to head 5 miles due west and inventory the farms she had seen from the hill top the previous day. She made a note of this and detailed her findings in a note for John. Before leaving she filled one of her empty gallon containers with water from the houses hot water heater. This was just in case she didn’t find anything better, it was drinkable if filtered it just tasted odd.
Dana set out on her bike towing the trailer. She had travelled almost 4 miles when she came to the big wash near Campbell Mercantile and it was in full flow. Shit she thought, there’s no getting across this for a while.
Dana was a Phoenix native and was well aware that you never ever, under any circumstances enter a flowing wash. Every year without fail, usually during the winter rains, some idiot snowbird from Minnesota or New York City in a rental car would try to cross a flowing wash. The outcome of this was invariably the same, helicopter dispatched to pluck stranded person from the roof of the car about ¼ mile down stream. In between taking bribes and generally making asses of themselves, the state legislature actually did something right. In 1993 they passed what was referred to as the “stupid motorist law”. In contrast with laws that are named for someone, which are usually knee-jerk emotional outbursts, this one was actually chock full of common sense. It stated that if you were foolish enough to enter a flooded wash then you were responsible for the costs incurred in rescuing you
Well when life hands you a bunch of lemons the best thing to do is make lemonade thought Dana. This area was very like where she lived, so she decided to check out the houses for any good salvage. There were lots of RVs, quads and sand rails but nothing of any real use. She’d gotten six propane cylinders though and they were worth something. One of the houses had a 500 gallon tank that looked nearly full. The problem would be how to move it though. There was a forklift truck at the Mercantile building that ran on propane and that would probably lift the tank. All she would need was a trailer to load it onto and John could use the truck to tow it back.
John had also woken to the sound of falling water, but in his case it was the sound of someone showering in his bathroom. Oh fuck, he thought to him self, I hope this isn’t going to be awkward. It stopped and a minute later Liz exited the bathroom wrapped in a towel and came and flopped down on the bed next to him. “Well I guess we had a bit too much to drink last night, you know I don’t normally just jump into bed with guys on a first date”. “Well it wasn’t exactly a first date technically speaking. The shoot out with the MZBs at the china-mart where you pinned that guy’s chest to the wall with an arrow would have been our first date” John replied. “Oh well that makes me feel much better” she said and they both laughed. “How do you feel about, you know…..” asked John. “I feel great, I had a good bottle of wine, good conversation, great sex and now the first real shower I’ve had in nearly a year”.
Liz had come over the day before to check on David’s leg wound. It had healed over nicely and there was almost no trace of it left. Liz had taken time getting ready for the trip, she was really attracted to John and felt she had a good chance for something special with him. She’d washed up as best she could and put on her cleanest clothes. The top she had on was fairly revealing but not too slutty and she’d applied light make up so as to not appear too obvious. Clearly she’d had complete success. She had also brought over the remains of her Javelina stew and a couple of bottles of decent Shiraz that she’d salvaged from the Bev-Mo near her nursery. They had stayed up late talking by the fire ring and one thing had led to another. The sex had felt very natural to them both when it had happened and neither felt any regrets or guilt over it.

Well done..I'm ready for more!

Good start... please keep it coming!

looking forward to more

I like it but please use paragraphs. Hard to read.

Great start, keep it up!  +1 on the paragraph breaks to make it easier to read.

Cool, I own a Winchester model 120 , got a Ruger 10/22 as well but who doesnt.

Great start to your story.  More please!!!!!!

Quoted: I like it but please use paragraphs. Hard to read.

yeah, sorry about that. I did it in word and it looked good, for some reason it looks kind of cramped here.

That's cool, we appreciate your effort!

Quoted: That's cool, we appreciate your effort!

+1

Good story and you have a enjoyable writing style.  I wish I did.  I tried to write a SF story and it didn't go well.

Pretty good, entertaining too.

added chapter 2.

Another great chapter!  Easier to read also, thanks.  Keep it up!

Jumps around a bit, but, I like it. I suggest elaborateing a bit on the weapons they took from "the guy down the street". Getting a suppressed .22 is great, but what else?

Keep it coming.

Edited to add.. Thanks for the bigger font.

Keep up the good work.

BTT with more gun pr0n.

I think I'm in love with Dana!!  I think she needs to start looking at John as something other than a father figure!  Hate for a girl that hot to get cold at night!

Quoted: I think I'm in love with Dana!!  I think she needs to start looking at John as something other than a father figure!  Hate for a girl that hot to get cold at night!

this is set in Phoenix, no need to worry about cold nights

Another good read.

great stuff so far. Thanks.

OK it's too hot to go outside  plus there's a ban on shooting on state lands due to fire hazard, so here's another chapter.

Good one!  Thanks

schweeeeet

no don't let up.

Good stuff.  Keep it coming!

this is awsome love it

BTT with chapter 5

nice work, keep going.

Good stuff!  Thanks!

keep it coming

Waiting for more.

good read, keep it going.

I'm impressed.

tag for more updates

Good read.

YAYYYY!!!!!!!!

anymore?

Tagged.

BTT with chapter 6

w00t!  new chapter is great!

wow great!!

great story so far, update please!..

I hope this story (and others) will be continued.  I am thinking the new chapters aren't coming out because it is summertime and the author(s) have real lives.

BTT with another chapter.

Quoted: I hope this story (and others) will be continued.  I am thinking the new chapters aren't coming out because it is summertime and the author(s) have real lives.

thanks for the compliments. I clasify this as our harsh weather climate. it's about 108f with high humidity, not the kind of day to be outside unless you have to.

Another good one.

good story!

keep it coming

Chapter 8

Dana looked again through the 36 power scope. It was definitely smoke out on the horizon, not too much but definitely smoke. Since there had been so much rain just recently she figured that it probably wasn’t a natural occurrence, such as a lightning strike, but was man made.
It had taken 2 days for the wash at Campbell mercantile to subside. She’d done well with her time scavenging, having found a lot of food and more importantly 5 cases of bottled water. She’d also picked up a Walther PPK in 380 with some nasty looking hollow point ammo, a perfect hide out gun. She also got a Mosin Nagant 91/30 sniper rifle with a PU scope and 700 rounds of Czech silvertip ammo. She’d tried out the rifle at ranges of up to 600 yards and been impressed by its accuracy. She figured it had to be the equal of Dave’s Enfield #4 mk 1 (T). She was wrong, but it was still a pretty good rifle. She’d only taken 100 rounds of the silver tip with her, figuring the rest of it wasn’t going anywhere and she could get it later. She was now a day west of the wash and figuring how far away the smoke was.
She’d left John a detailed note at Campbell mercantile telling him where all the propane was as well as the food stuffs she’d found. Campbell mercantile was also heavily stocked with heirloom seeds that were suited to growing in this part of the country. It also had a lot of literature on how to get the best yield from these seeds as well. There was a storage tank of fuel oil in back of one of the houses and she wasn’t sure if it was any good but she mentioned it none the less.
Dana had climbed up a utility pole to try and get a better fix on the smoke. It had to be at least 20 miles as she figured it.  Hauling everything she had that would be a days ride at an easy pace. Or she could un hitch the trailer and do it in 2 hours. Fuck it she thought, it’s early I’m going to go for it. She stashed the trailer in the back yard of a house and took an MRE, a gallon of water, her M4 with 3 magazines and set out on her bike. The land was flat and she made really good time. A little over an hour later she was crouched down in a damp wash looking at the periphery of a fairly major farming operation.
The smoke was coming from the main farm house which looked to be about ½ mile distant across open fields. The fields looked like they had once been cotton and were now lying fallow. Dana had lived amongst the cotton fields out in Peoria as a child and knew they were infested with black widow spiders. Her little sister had been bitten once and had nearly died as a result. It was getting warm and she decided to lay low and see what the lay of the land was. It looked like a perfect set up from her view point. The wash was nice and cool and still had pockets of standing water in places. She figured it probably ran right through the farm and decided to explore it. She hid her bike and carried on on foot.
About ¼ mile up the wash she set up the scope again and looked around. Wow, this just keeps getting better she thought. She could see cattle pens with cows in them, so they had to have milk, cheese and fresh meet on the hoof. There were fields of corn and some kind of citrus and vegetable gardens. Some good size buildings that were most likely chicken coops and it even looked like they had sheep as well. She still hadn’t seen any people and figured a farm of this size would need at least 10 people to run it, so where were they all?
OK she thought, cows need milking at dusk and dawn, hens lay over night, so need attention and feeding at dawn. Therefore right now the people would either be in the farm house or out tending the gardens or fields. The fields were empty so that left the gardens and they were on the other side of the farm house. Luckily the wash ran about 100 yards to the east of the farm house and so she followed it up there. She set up with a good vantage point towards the gardens and waited. 2 hours passed before any movement was seen. Dana spotted a Latina girl who looked about her age coming out of one of the shacks about 50 yards from the main house. She was followed by a Latino boy about 13 years old. They both came to the vegetable gardens to tend them, Dana could here them talking to each other in Spanish. She couldn’t understand what was being said but she sensed the atmosphere was tense.
The boy was working pulling weeds from the lettuce patches, he came to within 10 yards of Dana so she said quietly “Hola amigo”. The boy froze in his tracks. He recognized the speaker was not a native Spanish speaker and so he replied equally quietly “hello my friend, you’d better leave here”. Dana was taken aback, “why?” she replied. The boy looked around before replying “there are many bad men here, they make us work the fields against our will”. “Why don’t you leave?” Dana asked. “My father tried to, and they killed him” the boy replied.
“How did you get here?” Dana asked. The boy replied “We were told we were coming to America to work in an agriculture program. You’re government had agreed to let us come and these men had secured the right paperwork to let us come here. We are poor people from Xoahaca and if we worked here a year we could save enough money to buy our own farm back in Xoahaca. But they lied to us, there was no program and they said we had to pay them $5000 each or they would not let us go”.
The girl had seen what was going on and approached Dana from the other side. Dana instinctively covered her with the M4. The girl recoiled in horror, her brother said something to her in Spanish and she softened her attitude. “My sister does not speak English so good” he explained. “The bad men they take her to their bed at night and she returns to us and cries for hours. I want this to stop”. Dana looked at the girl, she was a lot like her, young, pretty, hard working, she deserved a lot better than this. “How many of there of you?” Dana asked. “20” the boy replied. “Why don’t your men fight back?” Dana asked. “They have the wives and young children held captive in the basement of the farm house. We cannot do anything or they’ll kill them”. “How many of the bad men are there?” she asked “six, they sleep in shifts so there are 3 sleeping while 3 are awake” came the reply. “3 guys against 20, you’ve got to be shitting me!” The boy looked at her non-plussed. Dana looked at the girl, “listen sister, I know what you’ve been through. The same shit happened to me, only I didn’t let myself be a victim. 3 guys had their way with me one time. I killed one of them that night and the other 2 I killed at a later date”. “I have no weapons and my mother is their captive” the girl said almost apologetically, “what could I do?” Dana was about to say “at least bite one of them’s dick off while he’s forcing you to blow him and die with some dignity” but she figured this was not a winning strategy.
“OK, so where are these 3 bad guys while the other 3 are sleeping?” Dana asked “They could be anywhere” the boy replied. “Usually I see them up on the upstairs balcony of the farm house, but they’re not there. I hope they haven’t seen you”. Fuck! Dana thought, I’d better leave. “I’ll be back with some friends to help you, be ready for us” she said and left as fast as she could. She had to avoid contact with the bad guys other wise things could turn real nasty for the other people at the farm. She made her way back down the wash undetected and without leaving any noticeable tracks in the soft earth. She got her bike out of the cover and mounted up riding as fast as she could back to the rest of her gear.
She’d been seen out on the road by one of the bad guys. They weren’t MZBs in the “according to Hoyle” definition but they were close enough. The bad guys were coyotes who were “escorting” a group of illegal aliens from mexico into el norte when the sickness had hit. They’d been hiding in a remote location and had avoided the sickness. When their food had run out they’d taken over the farm and used the illegals as a form of slave labor to work the farm whilst they reaped the benefits.
Dana heard the roar of  a V8 behind her and knew she had to get off the road right fucking now. She ducked into a wash and heard the truck slow down to a stop and then speed up through the wash and stop again. OK she thought, I’ve got some behind me and some ahead of me. She hid her bike in the bushes, pulled the charging handle on her M4 and tapped the 2 spare mags on her heel. She wished she had her Hi-power with her, she’d left it behind to travel light. Although she did have the PPK, she took it from her pack and slid it down into her cleavage, just in case.
Since the best form of defense was attack, she decided to go to the threat that was behind her. She moved further down the wash away from the road before climbing out of it and into the field. The bad guys had not seen her after she’d gone into the wash and were still on the road looking at each other. The one she could see looked like a typical gaucho with a big sombrero, Zapata moustache and a Winchester 94. He had not seen her, probably because he figured she would be cowering somewhere in the wash. He was too arrogant to think that a mere girl posed any serious threat. No this guy was just looking to get his rocks off with another pretty blonde gringa. Dana judged his range to be approximately 100 yards and she fired. Goucho’s head exploded, spraying a good sized mist of blood over the road. MZB #2 who was closest to him saw this and about shit his pants. What the fuck he thought people aren’t supposed to shoot at us, they’re supposed to do what we say. He ran back to the truck as fast as he could. MZB #3 had a bit more about him and he called out something in Spanish to MZB #2. Whatever it was it must have been a powerful insult to his manhood, because he stopped in his tracks and turned back. Dana saw the guy was carrying what looked like a Browning Auto 5 shotgun with the barrel roughly cut down to the end of the magazine tube. This would be a formidable CQB weapon she thought, but since Dick Cheney had failed to do much damage to his buddy at 25 yards she was not too concerned. MZB #3 had picked up the dead guys Winchester 94 and that would reach out and touch her.
The 2 MZBs entered the wash and started down it towards where she had exited it. She dropped down into the scrub grass and tried to figure out where they were. They weren’t being too stealthy and she was able to pick up their position. They were about at the point where she’d come up out of the wash and she was ready to fire. Amazingly they didn’t see her trail out of the wash. She couldn’t believe her fortune, either I’m the Queen of the forest or these 2 assholes are dumber than a box of rocks she thought to herself.
Dana’s field craft wasn’t that good, but thankfully the MZBs had been hitting the cervezas pretty hard since just about the time they had gotten up this morning. The one that she had killed earlier had had the most shit on his face, but the other two weren’t that far behind him. Dana decided to slip back into the wash and take them in a flanking maneuver. She saw they were about 30 yards ahead of her and she crept back into the wash. She was concentrating too much on them and not enough on her footing and in doing so she slipped and slid down the bank on her ass. In doing so she involuntarily tightened her grip on the trigger and let off a 10 round burst. Browning auto 5 MZB had seen her and fired of the contents of his mag at her. Luckily he had had it loaded with #8 birdshot and whilst she was stung by a few pellets she was unharmed. He was now dry, but she was more concerned about the Winchester guy. She saw him working the lever and pushed herself to her right side just as the 30-30 slug burrowed into the tree next to where she had been crouched.
She looked back across the wash and Browning auto 5 guy was headed out of there. He’d not had a stomach for a fight in the first place so she decided to concentrate on the Winchester guy. Another 30-30 round went through the branch near her, she saw him behind a palo verde branch  and let off a long burst towards him. She saw the gun drop and he followed it. OK two down and one to go she thought and started running back to the road. He reached the truck about the same time she reached the road. The truck was moving towards her, she aimed at the truck with the selector on full auto and dumped the remainder of the mag. The bolt stayed back and she saw the truck still coming. Instinctively she dropped the empty mag and shoved a fresh one in, slapping the bolt hold open paddle and engaging the threat again. This time she did not panic and fired a 5 round burst through the trucks windshield and into the remaining MZB. The truck passed her and then rolled to a halt.
Dana ran up to the truck to make sure the guy was dead. No obvious signs of life and 3 clear entry wounds in the upper torso she thought. She took the PPK from out of her cleavage and put it in her waste band. That was a stupid move she thought, her breasts were very sore from the gun sights rubbing against them. Next time I’d better get a holster before I put anything in there again she thought.
She dragged the dead looking MZB out of the truck and dumped him by the side of the road. There didn’t look to be much blood on the seats at all, she turned to see MZB #2 stirring slightly and quickly gave him the coup de grace from the PPK. It looked like the 223s had fragmented as the passed through the windshield and had in fact only stunned the guy. The truck was still running so she mopped up the blood from the seats and drove back to the wash to pick up her bike. Then she picked up her trailer and drove all the way back to John’s house arriving just after dark