I need to thank my editing team. Harddaysknight is my mentor and reads for me, giving me critical advice. SBrookx103x also reads for me and gives me peer review. My editors are PapaKilo14, Hal, Olddave1951 and GeorgeAnderson. Thank you, gentlemen, I love you all.
This story is a repost from another site several years ago. I had to take it down, but now have the ability to post it again. Hope you enjoy.
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The day the bottom fell out Davis Rade hardly noticed. He knew when the inflation rate reached 20 percent. Of course, the Federal Reserve System didn't intend for that to happen, but they had no choice at this point. The national debt was soaring and the only way they could even make interest payments was to print trillions of dollars of money. He noticed when inflation reached 1000 percent, then 1000 percent per week. He also noticed when his cell phone service died and when his satellite dish quit working. It didn't really bother him. He listened to ham radio broadcasts and discovered that the bank in Medicine Lodge had closed its doors and there were a lot of angry people out there. There wasn't a bank open anywhere as far as his set could reach, and he could reach a long way. The government had abandoned the dollar as a currency. He had about 500 of them in the bank but he wasn't going to miss them.
Some smart guy at the Federal Reserve came up with the bright idea of converting to blue dollars instead of the green ones and that lasted about a week until the blue ones were as worthless as the green ones.
Davis knew what the problem was. When you print money by the tens of trillions of dollars, sooner or later people are going to catch on. Their money is suddenly worth half what it was two years ago and people notice that. The price controls lasted about a month and then merchants started ignoring them. The last time he was in Medicine Lodge gas had been 12 dollars a gallon. That was a year ago and you would have had to bring in a truckload to fill your tank last week.
It took about three days for things to begin to unravel. Runs on grocery stores soon emptied shelves and with no currency with which to restock, hunger stalked the streets. Hungry mobs rioted in the cities and roamed the streets, stealing from those who were unable to defend themselves. Fuel vanished and people began to die of starvation. Barter was the only system of exchange and could only be attempted by the bold and those who could ensure their trading items would not simply be stolen. Sewage systems quickly failed and disease walked on two feet. In its death throes, the government thrashed about trying to restore order and failed.
Davis heard on the ham radio about the food riots in Wichita and Kansas City. The National Guard had been pretty brutal about putting them down and that triggered a lot more violence. It sounded like full scale chaos. Ordinary people were hiding in their houses and bands of thugs ruled the streets. The pitiful National Guard force had gone rogue and violence seemed to be the order of the day. By the tenth day, barbarism reigned.
The powerful had moved pretty quickly to secure hard currency supplies, fuel storage facilities, flour, sugar and commodities and the powerless and weak starved or became slaves.
Davis wasn't worried. Sitting in the middle of 100,000 thousand acres of open range land in the middle of Kansas, he was pretty hard to find. If someone wandered up by accident he was prepared to deal with that, too. People were fleeing the cities, and he decided to close the gates in the fence in the morning.
At three AM the dogs woke him. They were making quite a fuss out by the wall, and he got up to investigate. He turned on the flood lights and he could see a motorcycle outside. The wall gates were always closed, and he heard the intercom buzzer.
He pulled on black sweat pants, a black hoody and picked up his M16. He didn't bother with the intercom. He walked down to the gate. The dogs were at the gate milling around and barking. He stayed behind the bunker and walked down the wall. He peeked around the corner and saw two people on the bike. He didn't see any weapons so he shouted at the dogs.
"Anubis, Isis, Lilly! Heel!"
The three Cane Corso mastiffs came running and sat down beside him. They stopped barking and looked up at him, big pink tongues lolling. 400 plus pounds of dog waited for a command.
"Who are you and what do you want?" he called.
The driver of the bike got off and came close to the gate. Davis could tell by the way she walked that it was a woman. She unsnapped the chinstrap and took off the helmet. She looked familiar.
"Who are you?" he called again.
"Mr. Rade? Do you remember me? I'm Calista De la Vega. I work for Channel 3 News. We met at the Peace Treaty Festival three years ago. I did a feature piece about you on Channel 3."
"I remember. You told me you wanted to do a human interest piece on the only baseball player to ever retire at 30 after getting 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases the year before. I also remember that you said I was a racist gun nut that was waiting for the end of the world on a remote ranch in Kansas."
"Look, Mr. Rade. I don't know how much news you get out here. Do you know what's going on? Wichita is in flames, people are killing each other in the street and I'm desperate. We had to get out of there and I thought of you. You were right and I was wrong. The world did end, just like you said. I know you've got a fortress in there. I saw it when I interviewed you, remember? I'm sorry about the story. I just reported it the way I saw it."
"You still haven't told me what you're doing here?"
"We need help. Will you open the gate and at least let me talk to you?"
Davis pushed the button and the gate rolled back. She walked through and into the yard. She was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a leather jacket and he remembered. She had looked very good three years ago at 22 and at 25 she was stunning. She had that Latina curve going on and the mane of black hair with its auburn highlights framed a face to die for. Huge dark eyes and flashing white teeth in that mocha complexion lit up the television screen like a light bulb.
"Listen Mr. Rade, the world is going crazy. We're starving. We're almost out of gas and if you don't help us we're going to die, or worse. Did you know that there are gangs in Wichita that are enslaving women and children? We need help or we're going to die. We're desperate, Mr. Rade. Please help us."
"You keep saying 'us and we'; who's we?"
"Malina," she called. "Could you come here please?"
The bike passenger got off and walked toward them. Davis could see that it was another woman. Calista was a tall woman, nearly six feet, but the passenger looked more like five four. She removed her helmet as she walked and a cascade of golden hair fell out.
"Mr. Rade, this is Malina Nebrija. Malina, this is Davis Rade."
Malina extended her hand and spoke with a Spanish accent, "I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Rade."
She had the most beautiful blue, almond shaped eyes in one of the most beautiful faces Davis had ever seen. She was obviously very young. Her skin was a golden honey color and the dark blonde hair had hints of brown here and there. Her little mouth formed a recurved bow with the some of the fullest lips he had ever seen. She was gorgeous.
"You're Hispanic?" he was more than a little surprised.
"No," Calista told him, "she's a foreign exchange student from Spain. She picked a very bad time to come to Kansas. She can't get home now. Her host family lived next door to me. They were killed four days ago during one of the riots. Some men were breaking in her house and she got away and ran out the back door and over to my house. The men who were breaking in saw her going across the alley and down to my house. They set her house on fire and were coming to my house. We jumped on the bike and got away. I didn't know where to go. We have been running and hiding for three days. We're thirsty and starving. Our bike is almost out of gas. I was racking my brain trying to think of a safe place and then I thought of you. You've been expecting this for ten years and I knew you'd have the right preparation. Please, Mr. Rade, will you help us?"
