Neighbors by Jerry D. Young Page A

the job got done.

Most went armed during the work, despite a few protests against the idea. But with the arms collected from those that had tried to force their way inside the shelter, everyone that wanted a gun, got one. Hank kept only one of the recovered weapons himself, since he had most of what he wanted anyway.

It was a sweet little Beretta Tomcat .32 ACP. Only three magazines, but the woman that he’d recovered it from had been carrying two full fifty-round boxes of ammunition, plus over half of another. She had carried it in a Galco Pushup model belt holster that Hank took to wearing whenever he was out of bed, the holster and pistol carried in the small of his back.

With getting a bit of a late start, and the continuing coolness of spring, most attention was turned to getting the various gardens and greenhouses planted. But Hank, Pete, Henry, and Juan took it upon themselves to start an area census and do a little salvaging for critical supplies and for things that would go bad anyway, if not used within relatively short time spans.

First they located everyone in the rest of their development that had survived the attack. There weren’t many. None had any type of long term supplies, or preparedness gear. They had lived after the attack in expedient shelters in their basements, going out as necessary to take food from wherever they could find it.

The decision was made to move them to the houses nearest the cul-de-sac, after cleaning them up. It would make helping them easier, and easier for them to work inside the cul-de-sac. None of them would take any of the arms Hank offered.

The next order of business was to strip the strip malls that lined both sides of the road leading into the rural development. It took days to get everything they wanted, or were asked to look for by those not going on the salvage trips. The biggest triumphs were two loaded grocery trucks stopped at one of the grocery stores. Neither had even been opened when the attack came.

With no luck getting either of the semi trucks started, everything was moved two trailer loads at a time, using Hank’s trailer and Suburban, and Juan’s work truck and tandem-wheel flatbed trailer.

They continued their salvage operations without any problems, finally getting one semi truck to run. They were able to use it to recover the two semi box trailers they’d emptied and then use the trailers to accumulate things in before taking a full load back to the cul-de-sac to unload there. Most of the items went into the community shelter and various garages that had room in them.

The fuel tanks in the two competing service stations were all approximately half-full of fuel. It took the team several days to locate enough fuel tank trailers and a three-phase generator to power the fuel pumps so they could transfer all the fuel from the tanks to the tankers. As each tanker was loaded, it was delivered to the cul-de-sac and parked in an out of the way place, keeping them as far from the houses as possible.

The team made a special trip to the nearest propane dealer and filled all the delivery tank trucks they had. There was one semi with dual tanks that delivered to the facility, and five of the ten wheel home delivery trucks. All were moved to the cul-de-sac, and like the liquid fuel tankers, parked well away from the houses.

They began running out of space to park semi trailers, and the shelter was full, as well. That was about the time that they began to meet with resistance on their salvage trips. Determined to fill the community center before they gave up the salvage operation, the team continued their task, but began to be much more careful.

The original team of Hank, Henry, Pete, Bren, and Juan became the scouts and guards for the others that now drove the vehicles and loaded up the goods the team found. Finally, with Hank shot in the right leg, and Juan with a bullet crease just above his right ear, the cul-de-sac and the area just outside of