Fred & Wilma 2nd Day Still

 6.

By now it is about 4 pm. Sun is still up to 7 or 8 tonight. I am wondering if it is too late to go see about Leigh and Elfonzo and the girls. Eff it, lets go.

 I talk to my family about it, and we decide we will take Kathleens Dodge Ram, and me and Wallace will go, with Wallace driving and I will ride shotgun. James and Marie will stay here with Wilma and Kathleen and Renee and hold down the fort.

He has his glock, Wilma has her revolver. I pull out the long shotgun and show it to Kathleen, she is okay with it. Don't have any slugs, but double ought buckshot should get the job done. Then I pull out the ruger 10/22 that belonged to my wifes dad and showed Renee how to use that. As far as I know she has never handled a gun before.  James took over and was showing her some features of the gun. I asked James to get Marie checked out on his grandma's 380 and he said ok.

 Kathleen's truck has about 3/4 tank, so we add 5 gallons to it from my stock. We take one full 5 gallon gas can with us. It's only about 20 miles, so I think that will be enough gas.  I have my pistol and the short shotgun, Wallace has his 9 mm. We load up and we both buckle our seat belts. Don't want to get stopped for that, stupid highway patrol.

 Head out, get on the main road and head east. When we get to the burned out substation, the chp has a detour set up so we have to bypasss  the substation, doesn't really take us out of our way. We make it around and get on hiway 41 headed south. No traffic, just a couple cars here and there. Takes us about 15 minutes to get down to the mckinley exit, take that and head east.

 This area looks deserted. Very few people are out and about, and almost no traffic. Usually this place is bustling. We get down past the shopping center and get down to 9^th street and turn, and then onto Leighs street. Up ahead I see two people fighting in front of their house. I tell Wallace to floor it, and we come up hard and fast and come to a screeching halt. I jump out and see Elfonzo kicking the shit out of some guy and Leigh  is holding two others at bay with her revolver.

 I fire the shotgun into the ground and everything stops.

"Whats goin on here?"

Leigh says these guys broke past their gate into the backyard just for the hell of it cause no cops around, and Elfonzo chased them out and now here we are. I checked the street and not one of the neighbors is out looking to see what is going on.

I look at the three assholes. "You guys live around here?" Silence. Leigh bounces her revolver off the head of one them, and I say "You guys live around here?"

"Yeah, up the street." So I channel my inner Kurt Russel in Tombstone, fire the shotgun into the ground by their feet and yell "Run You Cur!!!" Hee Hee. Actually, no I didn't do that. But I thought about it.

Told them to leave and never come back, they left, but don't know about the never come back part.

 "Wallace and I came to check on you guys, looks like you're doing okay!"

"I'm glad you came Dad! This is the second time those guys  have been here!"

"You guys want to load up and come up to the house? Wallace and Kathleen, Renee and James are there. We got plenty of room, more people to help means more chances of making it thru this thing?"

Elfonzo and Leigh look at each other and come to one of those mutual husband wife silent decision type things.

"What can we bring?"

"Load up all your food and water, blankets sheets pillows, guns, ammo, clothes. Also whatever you need for Spiral."

At that Leigh starts crying and says "We need to bury Spiral before we go. He had a heartattack earlier before these jerks came around."

 When she said that, I started crying too. Omry and Autumn came out and they were also crying. We shared hugs all around. 

"Elfonzo, if you want to dig a grave for Spiral, I will help you. Leigh, Wallace and the girls can start loading up. I recommend we load your car and your truck both. I know the truck tires aren't the best, but I think they will make it up to the house. Does that sound like a plan to you?"

"Yes, lets do that."

"Wallace, maybe you might want to keep watch up front while Leigh and the girls start loading. We will be quick.  Here's the shotgun. Keep it close. Don't set it down."

So that's what we did. Took about 15 minutes to bury Spiral. He was a good dog. He was a big dog.

Then Elfonzo and I started in loading, Wallace still watching. Took about an hour and a half to load up, by then twilight was setting in and I started getting antsy.

"Guys, thats the last of it. Lock it up and let's get this show on the road. Let's backtrack to Mckinley and from there to the freeway. I don't want to go down kenmore, too easy to set a trap."

From there it was easy peasy lemon squeezy, made it to freeway 41 okay, and then 20 minutes later we were at the house. Boy, did I start breathing easier when we got there. My butthole was puckered the whole way.

 By the time we got home it was full dark. The only light showing was from the solar pathway lights, and the solar gutter lights. There were 2 of the gutter lights in front, and 4 on the side of the garage. Inside the house a few lights were on from the solar system. With all of us we made short work of unloading the vehicles.

I gave Wilma a big ole hug and a pat on the bottom and she slapped me for my effort, grinning the whole time. Crazy woman.

 I asked her if they had eaten and she said yes, and she had some leftover beans and biscuits for us. Sounds like heaven. 

 I asked James to take a quick count of who had what weapon. Then I called for a  brief family powwow.

"Guys, anybody want to say anything about our situation, now's the time."

Nobody spoke up, so I said okay.

"There are ten, no eleven of us here.

1.Bathroom. There is a temporary potty out back, nobody goes inside the house unless it is an emergency sickness or something. Please, don't throw toilet paper into the septic, we gotta try to prevent clogs.

2. Food and water. With supplies from us and you guys, I predict we have about 2 months supplies of food.

Tomorrow we need to go down to the high dollar food store and see if we can stand in line and get some food.  Mom and I didn't today cause we forgot to bring chairs. Tomorrow Mom and I will go down. Has to be us they are checking id's. Maybe the both of us can buy the $100 they have limits on. Elfonzo, if you would go with us to help with our security I'd be grateful

3. Water. I have about 600 gallons in barrels outback. We have about 100 gallons in the tub. The waterheater has 30 gallons, and we have, I think, about 30 cases of bottled water. All usage rates I know about say about 1 gallon per person per day, but we don't have enough to do that, so we are gonna have to ration. Then come up with a plan to haul some from the river. So since we have 11 people, figure on 5 gallons a  day. At that rate we only have enough for,POSSIBLY, 5 months. And thats if we get lucky with it and nobody tries to force  us to share it. As in the sheriff dept. confiscating it to distribute to "others."

"The water I have stored in barrels has been chlorinated, but even so, we still need to filter it. Wallace, tomorrow  let's you and I dig out my filtration system for water. I have several of them. But for now, I have a travel Berkey stainless steel system we can put on the counter. The water in the tub can be filtered thru here. Omry, would you keep an eye on the level in that and keep it filled? Thank you."

 4. Security. "Every one needs to help keep an eye out for trespassers. I don't expect any here right off the bat like this, but based on  what we saw at Kathleen and Boogers place, you never know. We got a lot of cars out front, anybody got ideas on how we might use those for security? Think about it.

James, you took a list of who has weapons? Good. Would you look at what is left in the gun safe and maybe distribute out what you can? And keep an eye on the ammo, as that is all we have."

 "Okay guys, I guess thats it for now. All I can think of at the moment is we need to try and organize what we have and take an inventory and try to figure how to make it last."

 "For tonight Omry will check the Berkey  and keep it filled from the bathtub water bob. Because it is so dark we can't do much more tonight. So let's get sleeping arrangements figured out and then just kind of unlax I guess. Maybe tell some stories."