When The Fault Breaks: Life Will Never Be The Same Read online

  Scott retrieved the MRE's, and handed them out to the strangers. Everyone attacked them like they had not eaten in days. Brandon and I just had some instant coffee and gave them the rest of ours.

  Floyd spoke first, "Thank you for the food it has been a spell since we have eaten anything but fish and berries."

  I replied, "It seems to be a standard practice for us, feeding strangers we find. Why don't we all go around and introduce ourselves and tell everyone where we came from. I will start, my name is Peter and I'm originally from Bellingham, Washington. I had been traveling and living full time in a motor home with my wife Ann for about three years when the quake hit."

  Floyd spoke up, "Holy shit! We're neighbors, we are from just outside Concrete, Washington."

  "Then you and I will have to have a one on one talk at some point. Anyway we were in northwest Arizona when the quake hit. To my right is Brandon."

  "Hi I'm Brandon, I'm the leader of the security force here."

  "My name is Tom, and I'm just a foot soldier."

  "No Tom you are far more than that."

  "My name is Fred and I used to be their leader."

  "Well I'm Floyd, my right hand here is Alice my wife." Gesturing to his left Floyd held out his hand. We could be at this all day, so I'm just going to go from my left here and give you everyone's name, if that is okay with everybody.

  "I'm good with that."

  "Alright, this is Mark and his wife Kate, Bill and Ed, Hank and Ted, and John and Edith. We all came from different parts of the country and all of us have made our way out of a zone of destruction. As I said before, Alice and I made our way out of the Pacific Northwest. I'll let everyone else tell you their stories, but I really don't want to get into those details here and now."

  I said, "I'm with you there Floyd, I know you're tired, and I'm certain that everyone else would like to hear more about what is happening outside the valley."

  "It's not just you guys here?"

  Brandon replied, "No Mark not by a long shot, but before we go over that we need to know your intentions."

  Floyd added, "I don't think we really have any intentions except to stay alive. The only guns we have are the ones your men have, and some more pistols in our packs. We have very little food but if you need some you're welcome to it. We're just looking for someplace safe to live, away from anyone that wants to do us any harm.

  We're all simple people and want rest. I get the feeling that you guys feel the same or you would have already killed us in our sleep and taken everything from us. Please tell me I'm right about my impression of you."

  I spoke up, "You're more right than you could ever know. We live in a settlement up valley from here. We're a community of like-minded people that made our own little utopia, for lack of a better word. It has been our way to bring people in from the cold and make them part of our world, but you would be expected to comply with our social standards and to do your part for the whole.

  If you're all in agreement with that we will take you to our settlement and find you a place to live. We will help you get settled in, then you will be given a chance to tell everyone else of your travels."

  Mark was still not sure he trusted us, "And what if we don't want to join you, will you let us leave here?"

  I replied, "We will, but I'll warn you that if you make that choice, then think you can pretend to leave and try to return with hostile intentions, you will not make it within a mile of our compound."

  "Is that a threat?"

  "No Mark I'm just saying."

  We went over all the rest of the conditions to join us. Floyd looked around at his traveling companions who were nodding their heads in agreement.

  "Well it looks like it's hell yea."

  I said, "Okay then if you are each in agreement then raise your hands."

  Before Mark raised his hands he asked, "What did you say about what happens to people that break the golden rule?"

  I replied, "Well so far so good, we have not had to ever deal with that, but if it does the person will be dealt with in an appropriate way depending on what happened. Something like rape or murder will be fatal, and on from there. Those are some very interesting questions you have Mark. Why would those be the questions you ask in this situation?"

  "It is very simple Peter, you're not the first group that we have met that had guns that wanted us as slave labor."

  I added, "You're right Mark, many in our home have had the same experiences and have been just as suspicious, that's a good sense to have."

  "Do you have a name for your little home?"

  "Yes we do, it is Little Haven."

  I called out, "So show of hands."

  Everyone's hands went up fast except Mark. He had this cautious look on his face and looked at the rest of his traveling companions. He noted that all had their hands up and were looking back at him with an are you nuts look. Finally, Mark slowly raised his hand too.

  With that we returned their weapons to them and collected all their belongings and started up the valley. This was the first time I had gone up the valley from below since everything was built and I smiled as it all started to come into view.

  That day everyone showed them around the area and our new guests were surprised at how nice a place we had built. We showed them the outside of the fort and the cave, then we brought them by the mill and on to other places. We knew the cave would not hold everyone so we invited Floyd and Alice to stay in our loft until they could get a cabin built, the rest were split up between the cave and others in the community.

  That evening we all met at the cave for a potluck dinner and meeting. We had a nice fire going in the fire ring outside. Everyone wanted to hear about the outside world, I really wanted to hear about home so I asked Floyd and Alice to be first. I was being selfish but sometimes I deserve the perk of being the Chairman. What Floyd related could only be described as an apocalyptic scene.

  Chapter 22: The Pacific Northwest

  "The devastation was complete, absolutely nothing of the green lush land we loved remained, none of it. Vancouver, BC was so hard hit that Canada abandoned it. I'm sorry to tell you Peter and Ann but Bellingham, Washington was completely washed away by multiple waves."

  "To be honest Floyd I expected that, we both did."

  "Ash from Mt. Baker fell nonstop for days so it was dark even at noon for many

  more days. After the ash fall slowed and it wasn't so dark we decided we needed to check out the low lands to see the damage. The only news of the quake we had was from the few people that had made it up from the Skagit Valley below.

  We were not sure why we had not seen anyone from Anacortes, Sedro Woolley or any of the low land cities at the bottom of our valley. If anyone had made it up they would have had to follow Highway 20 to get away from the damage.

  I needed to find out what went on down there, so my neighbors and I put together a scouting party of four guys. We headed west down Hwy 20 to get a look at the destruction but did not get very far before we started finding it. The highway was covered by over a foot of ash in places and it was getting deeper. Cars littered the highway having smashed into each from the ground shaking so violently, then they were completely covered with ash.

  Further down we came upon the most unsettling sight. Some thirty miles inland from the Puget Sound was a long pile of rubble. All of it laying haphazardly and intermingled with everything under the sun. The pile was only a couple feet tall but went as far as we could see in both directions. I immediately knew what it was because we could see cars, boats, and the remains of houses left behind as a wave must have made it that far than lost its energy.

  We could see the tangled mess we were standing on top of must have been the high water point for the biggest tsunami wave. In front of us was an obliterated wasteland, completely covered in gray ash. Behind us everything was also covered in ash but still mostly intact. It was the most disturbing sight I have ever seen.

  In the distance we could see bands of m
ounds coming up the valley with nothing between them. They were clearly the same type of debris lines from smaller waves. The waves washed all the way up the Skagit Valleys to the base of the Cascades.

  It looked like a wasteland. There were no trees, no buildings, no vehicles, nothing. The ground was mostly flat and covered with small debris. Every so often we could see the foundation of houses and the posts from various signs but the signs were gone.

  As we made our way further down, less and less was found between the mounds. Even the foundations and poles were gone, and we saw fewer bodies. The smell of the rotting flesh was horrendous.

  It took us a couple of days before we got down to what we expected to be the low lands, but there was none, all we saw was water, salt water. What used to be corn, berries and tulip fields was now the shallow tidelands of the Sound. It was impossible to tell exactly where we were because there were no landmarks left.

  We were not able to get further south so we could not check on Seattle but we knew that no one below where we stood survived, so it was most likely also the case in Seattle too. We made our way back home and decided it was time to get out of there. There was nothing left of the region and no hope of ever getting any help, so we had to fend for ourselves.

  We lived at a higher elevation outside of Concrete up near Baker Lake. That area escaped the waves but had lost everything to the shaking. There was no power, water or anything. Many left right away even though they had little hope of getting very far. The bridges east of town were all destroyed and there was no west anymore.

  We had a ham radio but heard little about the Sound, as there were no local radio signals to be found. However, we were able to pick up others further away. Listening to those broadcasts we picked up limited reports about other parts of the country and learned that nothing would ever be restored.

  After a few days the sheriff and his deputies feared for their families so they went home to protect them, and with that chaos ruled. It was clear that our world was not going to make it so we headed out as soon as we got back. We wanted to make sure we could still travel.

  We put the topper on the back of our 4x4 pickup and packed it with everything we could fit in it then headed east. We took a portable gas pump from my toy hauler to use to get gas from underground tanks at gas stations. We filled the truck with gas and then filled several 5-gallon cans with enough fuel to fill the truck twice more on the road. With that we would be able to go over eight hundred miles.

  I had customized my truck with a really high clearance and big meaty tires. Everyone used to ask me why I had done that to my pickup, but now it was clear. Any time we came across a wiped out bridge we just went around it. With the extra high clearance and tires we were able to cross all of the streams even if we had to find a better spot to cross.

  As we passed through Eastern Washington we found that area had faired the quake well, with many people still in their homes. There was ash everywhere but not so much that they couldn't survive. But those areas where overtaken by militia or looted and burned afterwards, one group had taken control of the National Guard facilities and all their equipment. Many of the men assigned knew the government was done so they simply followed the militia's orders in hopes of protecting their own families, but many civilians were killed disobeying them.

  We avoided every major city trying to get south and traveled by night as much as possible to avoid the roving militia patrols looking for '"volunteers'" and anything they could use. We ended up in Arizona in a remote section of the Kaibab National Forrest where we met up with Kate and Mark, who were on the rim of a canyon west of the Colorado River. They had a nice camp and we were relieved when they invited us to join forces with them."

  Everyone thanked Floyd for telling us about their harrowing experiences and he thanked us all for listening.

  Chapter 23: Las Vegas

  Next up was Mark, a tall skinny guy with a little mustache and no hair. It was clear he was intelligent and had no problem thinking on his feet. Kate was also tall, skinny and seemed like a perfect match for Mark. The two of them seemed to know what the other was thinking.

  "We were in Las Vegas when the quake hit and could really feel the shaking. As soon as we heard the news about the scope of the quake, and that it had affected the entire west coast, we knew everything was going to change and fast. We knew that we needed to get out of town quick before all hell broke loose.

  Luckily I had inherited a ton of money from my grandfather so money was not an issue. We swung by my buddy Ned and his wife Amanda's place and picked them up before we headed to the stores to get the last of the gear we felt we would need. The four of us had been great friends and had done several practice runs on bugging out over the years so we were sure we were ready for anything.

  We had been prepping for years so I already had a fully loaded diesel Land Rover with a snorkel and exhaust riser, it was capable of driving down the middle of streams with water over the hood. It also had a very high clearance and big meaty tires for even the roughest terrain. We hooked up the large military trailer we had for it so we could transport more gear.

  We hit an Army Surplus store first and bought everything we felt we would need from there. Next we headed off to one of those big sporting goods stores to load up on even more survival gear, we filled the truck with as much gear as we could fit in, on, and behind it. We already had a large walled tent with a wood stove.

  We had a nice chuck wagon kitchen with cast iron skillets and everything needed to spend an extended time in the woods. All we needed to focus on was food, then guns and ammo, then a few comfort items. We got every case of freeze-dried food in the place as well as every MRE they had. When we walked out, there was no food left in the store. Then we decided we needed to get lightweight gear for when we no longer had the Rover.

  We picked up one of those expedition style backpacking tents that could hold up in any wind. After that we got four lightweight down sleeping bags good down to negative ten degrees and all kinds of cold weather clothes. Next we got a couple of small multi-fuel backpacking cooking stoves and two lightweight titanium cook sets.

  We picked up every ultraviolet light water purifier they had, the type you just put the water in and crank a handle to purify the water for drinking. We got two large backpacks and two smaller ones for the girls so we could carry everything. We were as ready as we could be.

  Before we headed out of town we loaded up two dozen five-gallon yellow Jerry cans with diesel in the trailer so we had plenty of fuel. We picked up topographical maps of the entire southwest region to make sure we were covered wherever we went.

  We headed west into the Kaibab National Forrest, where we had already scouted a really remote section of it. The plan was to get as far from people as we could in hopes of staying away from those that would want what we had. We reached our destination late the first night and set up camp. We only set up a quick camp and left everything else in the trailer and Rover in case we needed to get away fast.

  We hoped we would have the place to ourselves but we were not so lucky. We had been there a week when a small group showed up. Kate and I were in camp while Ned and Amanda were off fishing when the group surprised them on foot. Before we knew it the bastards killed both of them. Kate and I took off in the Rover and were able to get away. I wanted to kill all of them but Kate convinced me we needed to get away instead. I'm going to miss them Ned was my best friend since grade school.

  After a few more days of travel we reached a spot high above the Colorado River. From our new location we could see the river below and we had plenty of water from a small stream passing through camp. Whenever someone new showed up we would hear about the mayhem we left behind. We learned that the government flat out stated they could not help anyone on the west coast and that everyone had to fend for themselves.

  In time a fair amount of people showed up so we got a good picture of what was going on and it proved I was right about what to expect. I'm not sure how long we had
been there when Floyd and Alice showed up and joined our little camp."

  Ann said, "We were swamped where we were, I wonder why you didn't get as many people at your camp."

  "I have no idea Ann, maybe because when Las Vegas fell not many people made it out of town, it's anybody's guess."

  Chapter 24: The Great Flood

  Mark continued....

  "It was only a few days, maybe a week, after Floyd and Alice arrived that we heard a loud roar coming from the canyon. Everyone rushed to the edge of the canyon to see what the noise was. We couldn't believe our eyes; a massive wall of water, trees, rocks and mud was rushing down the canyon wiping out everything in its path. Looking down on the scene, I could only imagine what had happened up stream.

  Later we heard that the violent shaking from the quake had damaged the Glen Canyon dam and weakened it leaving it in a vulnerable state and primed for failure. Fleeing the surrounding cities many had migrated up the Colorado River and settled on its banks. Unfortunately, there was no one to tell them about the state of the dam above them.