Graham Heights
Beginnings
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Chapter 8
Vigilante or Militia
Vigilante or Militia
Journal Entry - September 17 2017
Alan Scott
Alan Scott
It seems that our elected representative, and I use that term loosely, are representing someone else’s interest as “our” government implemented new taxes on the middle class, it was subtle at first but as time progressed it became more obvious. Large corporations were struggling again due to bad investments in foreign countries, natural disasters and changes caused by Global Warming. As, this so called global warming or climate change, continued to redefine who got rain and who didn’t. These changes ranked from dry or arid climates getting soaked and areas that were used to getting several inches of rain were now getting next to nothing. The South American bread basket was turning into a desert. China’s agricultural machine was doing even worse as the precipitation was only a part of their problem. Their farm-able lands were disappearing so rapidly, that it was estimated they had less than two years before it would be in total collapse. Scientists were actually talking about environmental domes again. So, out of desperation they lobbied congress and the senate to bail them out again. This too big to fail philosophy meant the middle class had to foot the bill, again.
In the midst of this, we have been saving materials and food for more than a year. Our numbers have grown to a total membership of 55 men, women and children. They are ready to join together and protect what we have built. What we did not know is that others in our areas were doing the same. Now, for some reason, they were now reaching out to see if others felt as they did. We didn’t know what to think about it, as it could be nothing but a ploy to expose other’s stashes or a true desire to band together. Either way, the thought of being able to secure the entire area seemed grand, but possible. That's if, a large enough groups banded together and created… a militia that protected its own.
Out of caution we were going to keep our little group in the shadows until we could ascertain the intent of these rumors and subtle inquires. So low and slow was the name of the game with the exception of Mike. Mike was loud and friendly. As a matter of fact, everyone was a friend and his overt nature pulled things out of people that they usually kept to themselves. In less than two weeks Mike had managed to get the skinny on five families that were buying abnormally large amounts of food and supplies using cash. This led to the discovery that out of those five families, four were banding together with other groups to help each other, just like we were doing. We continued to gathering intelligence all summer and by the time we were through we knew of 15 families or organizations that were collecting things. We were definitely not alone.
Unrest in the cities were starting to spill into the rural areas and the local store managers were starting to see a significant losses due to shoplifting. If that wasn’t bad enough, in July one of our strip malls was burned to the ground when three men tried to rob a vape store. In their botched attempt, they started a fire to distract the emergency responders. All they managed to do was burned themselves alive along with six others. The sheriff department put out a statement that all residence should arm themselves; It was bold and scary. By the end of July, the local grocery manager put up a notice that he was looking to put together a group to help protect our community. This militia thing was happening with or without us, so we decided to join the meeting.
The first meeting was awkward at best. To meet so many total strangers and try to size them up as friend or potential foe was uncomfortable. We purposely kept our representation to three, out of the five leading members our our group. This was done, as we did not want to show how big or how small we were. The meeting was somewhat unorganized and went something like this.
Hi, we are… we think… and we will be willing to do…
Amongst all these groups there were a few that were too eager to kill and then there were the rest. Like us, they just wanted to preserve what they had. The only thing that really came from the meeting was the confirmation; that we weren’t alone and that others in the area that were well armed. And well-armed hungry people were dangerous. So we had two choices with so many people so close and organized. The first choice was to stay under the radar and the second was to throw all in and help them see the path either back to normalcy. Well that might not be the right word. Maybe a new norm that would lead us all out of this mess and into a time of rebuilding. This meant that someone was going to have to present the plan and be persuasive. No, that meant that I was going to have to present the plan and be very persuasive.
At the next meeting we did just that. As everyone took turns speaking, when we were given the floor to speak, we presented our plan to succeed when all else was failing. We spilled it all to our neighbors and that our plan was designed for a variety of calamities and was both short term and then, if necessary, long term. This got a lot of people talking, as many did not think of the long term and were well short of being able to survive once the initial crisis had passed. Others just thought that they would hunt or return to the old west times and farm and or gun slinging. No one planned to rebuild what we had or protect more than the few thousand square feet that their home was built on. Only one other member of this meeting was as prepared, however they seemed reluctant to share much of what they knew. With so much to think about It was decided that the next meeting would be a planning meeting and that they were going to have to choose leadership that would represent them at different levels of the organization. The real question was just how far they would they be willing to take if and when the bullets started flying?
This was certain, we had more work to do and not much time to do it. Our world was starting to come unglued and instead of banding together it was de-evolving to everyone for themselves. By August the Chinese had invaded South-East Asia. Which went unchallenged as the US was still trying to bail out our too big to fail, banks, again. This time, however, the effort to stimulate the economy was not working and Wall Street was losing ground. In one week it went from its record breaking 25K level down to 13.5K. The dollar was devalued so much that the Euro was adopted as the leading currency for the world economy and for oil. However, it might have been better if the Chinese yen was adopted because infighting in the European markets made it difficult to determine the Euro’s actual value. Fluctuations were so bad and frequent that money traders were making millions off of every good guess and dumping money every time it started slipping. The whole system seemed to teeter on a razor's edge. Most people, unwilling to risk their life's savings in the market, withdrew their money from and put it in savings accounts, only to find that when they tried to access their money the banks did not have the currency to back it. Couple this with the fact that credit was hard to come by and interest rates were bordering on absurd.
In the Middle East, Russia was still in Syria as they claimed that the Syrian government needed them to keep the area stable. It was costing Russia dearly as the neighboring countries harbored rebels and terrorist and allowed them to cross back and forth to attach the Syrian Coalition. This so called Coalition had made several attempts to access the rebel camps only to find both Turkish and Iranian fighters well able to handle them. Life in the Middle East was difficult at best as killing were so normal that the media quit tell us about it. When the US pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan, ISIS and the Taliban re-infested the area within months. Iran tried to exert some form of order on its neighbors but little helped as it was mired in its own issues. Half the government wanted to take over the entire area and the other wanted to just nuke them all. With all the unrest in the Middle East region, our experts claimed it was just a matter of when nuclear weapons would be used, not if.
The media tried to act as some type of liaison with the terrorist groups and the West, but had little to no ability to determine who was doing what. All attempts to gather intelligence on any one given event was futile. There were so many violent events and reasons to hate each other or subject one’s ideology over their neighbors, that it was information mostly in accurate and unmanageable. Our media did however, report the results, as six super tankers bound for Europe were on fire in the Straits of Hormus making it near impassable. Some believed that the pass was mined. On top of all that two other supertankers and couple that with dozens of oil fields were set on fire along the coast of Iran. To say it was a mess was a massive understatement.
About the only country seeing any success at keeping the terrorists out, were the Israelis. They basically cleared the streets of all non-Israelis’ and closed the borders. The few missiles or projectiles that were fired in their direction were being deflected or shot down on a regular basis. It was believed that they had developed some type of deflector shield, but if they had, they weren’t sharing with anyone else. I personally didn’t blame them as America abandoned them after pulling out of Iraq and most of the Middle East. Our government deemed it too expensive to maintain a presence and tucked its tail and ran.
Opec was forced to ship their oil South to the Red Sea, but trying to keep the pass open to the Gulf of Aden was proving impossible. This narrow stretch of water was subject to tidal issues and was so narrow that a shoulder fired rocket could reach the ships. Rarely did they sink any ships, but they cause tremendous amount of stress and fear. The Saudis employed warships, they bought from the US. At first they had a great deal of success until a extremist group managed to get a suicide bomber on board a tanker out of chili and sank it by the Mayun Island. At this point, the ports were cleared of all non-locals. It stopped the attacks, but created a shortage in labor both skilled and unskilled. Unable to meet demands caused the purchase of oil to drop and the world started looking for other sources or alternative fuels. With the drops of income, infighting in the royal family was frequent and bloody. As the royals fought each other Al Qaeda, Islamic State and other splinter groups gained followers to further threaten the sovereignty of Saudi Arabia. Needless to say fuel cost shot up which in turn increased the cost of everything. Local farmers were either heroes or villains as they tried to price their produce according to the market with hopes of having enough to plant again in the spring.
We fared a little better as many of our members had gardens of their own, but as the long summer days shrank into fall our Graham Heights numbers dwindled some. About six families decided to move inland. They were more of the extreme survivalists, that wanted to head into the Rockies to make their final stand. Others were just discouraged by how much time and energy it took to put together a complete package. Others tried to convince themselves that our government could not fail so, all this preparation and effort was worthless. Either way the group dwindled to just thirty three families or loose family organizations; of which, five main leaders were showing themselves to be the ones that everyone would be willing to follow. Of those men, two were looking for the head position. A vote of the entire group was finally organized and taken. The results were a bit shocking to me. It seems that the assembly did not choose any current leaders. It was a write-in, they chose me.
I was about to decline when Mike stood up among the ones that were on the ballot and said that he would not follow anyone else, but me. Surprisingly three other members on the board stood up and supported Mike’s statement. A short round of applause and I stood up.
I was shaking as I accepted and turned to the board and ask everyone them to stand and swear they would follow my leadership and that they would never hold back their opinions. It was one thing to lead, but a different thing to set up a dictatorship. This would not be the normal representative government, but it would not be a dictatorship. It would allow for opinions of the representative to shape the direction we were headed. I guess the closest form of government that it represented was the colonial style. However, the leadership would not change unless both the counsel and the general population thought it necessary to keep the colony alive.
That night I woke up in a cold sweat. I was in a full state of panic and Allison was worried about me. One thought that kept running
through my head like a freight train, “I’m going to get us all killed!”
As you know this blog contains two books of the Remnant Series. Graham Heights is book 3 of the series. Below is more.
Book 4: Obsidian Arrows
Book 1 is now available in paperback or kindle The Grey Abyss
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R. A. Legg
R. A. Legg
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