Chapter 5
...to repeat.. today Russia announced that they were not going to stand idly by while the United States once again pushes their military might against the rest of the world...
In other news right here in the U.S., There are reports coming in from all around the country of power outages, problems with banking and ATM transactions, telephone dropped calls and Internet black outs. The official word from government is that the problems are being created by solar winds and should resolve themselves in a few days.
Unconfirmed sources within the government however are saying that there are massive cyber attacks occurring on all fronts, although the source of the attacks are not currently known....
Stand By while we try to link a live report from one our our reporters in the field....
Tom are you with us.... Yes, I'm here... I'm standing here in Washington D.C. Watching as so many other people standing around me are, in amazement as Senate and House members are being rushed out of seemingly every door of the Capitol building.
Reports are coming in that the White House is now in lock down and that Air Force One is being readied on the tarmac as we speak. OH MY!!! There was just an amazi....... (static)
Abe jumped up and tried to adjust the radio dial on the kitchen counter to fine tune the station, then finally a familiar local newscaster's voice broke through the static.
… It appears that we have lost our national satellite feeds due to equipment malfunction of some kind, we are attempting to reconnect the feeds as soon as possible, in the mean time we will return to our regularly scheduled sports cast (click)
With that said Abe turned the radio off and slowly turned to face the family “What do you think that's all about”? He said.
“It just kinda goes right along with what Allen was saying earlier on the porch, don't ya think”? Said Sam.
At that point everyone just sat around silently for a few minutes looking at each other, waiting for someone to speak.
Allen finally broke the silence and calmly instructed everyone in the room to get their preps in final order, he said that it looked like “go time” had arrived.
Sam and Allen headed back to their house to put away the supplies Sam and the girls had brought back from Ripley.
Abe and Olivia stayed at their house to spend the evening getting their vehicles unpacked and their things put away in the right spots.
When Allen walked into the basement he was stunned to silence at all of the supplies Sam had managed to get this morning. “Dang”! Allen said, “How are we ever gonna get this put away and organized”? Sam just gave a loving smile to him and started sorting stuff into organized piles.
While Sam got started with the piles Allen went over to the big oak bookcases on the living room wall, reached carefully into the middle shelf and pulled the well hidden latch, with one hard tug he pulled the latch and swung the bookcase open on its concealed hinges.
Staring him in the face was the massive vault door which normally stayed hidden out of sight behind the bookcases.
Turning the combination tumbler back and forth, Allen entered the 5 digit code required to open the shelter.
Walking into the main shelter Allen felt along the wall until his fingers contacted the light switch, which he immediately flipped up. The lights flickered for a second then quickly came on providing illumination to the underground living quarters Sam and himself had invested so many hours and dollars into.
Walking across the main living area of the shelter, Allen headed to the left corner and opened a door. Glancing in he saw a good majority of the supplies the Reeds had managed to tuck away over the years. Canned foods, medical supplies, lots of toilet paper, female necessities as well as many other various items stuffed neatly onto the tall shelves silently gazing back at him. Once he had the shelter opened up, he headed back out to the main house to give Sam a hand.
Sam was quickly making short work of the massive pile in the living room, food items were going in one pile, paper products in another, reloading supplies in yet another and so on and so on. Without speaking a word Allen grabbed a handful of supplies and headed toward the storage room to put them where they belonged.
Once he got the first armload stored away, he grabbed one of the shopping carts stored along the wall to make his trips more efficient. Nearly two hours had passed and the pile was finally down to a couple small miscellaneous items. Sam helped Allen store the final supplies, then they turned off the lights, locked the vault door and pushed the bookcase back into place.
The shelter which was built into the deep clay behind the Reeds basement was one of the best kept secrets on the ridge, not even Sam's parents knew of its existence. Sam had always been afraid if she let the secret out, even amongst her own family, they would not prepare for themselves and would begin to think that Sam and Allen would do it all for them.
Allen of course agreed to this line of thinking and the girls were sworn to secrecy as well.
The shelter wasn't massive, but had been designed to sleep 20 comfortably with maybe a few more stuffed in if needed.
It had a main living area with couches and comfortable chairs for people to sit around and chat, read a book or just relax, in the same open space was a small well equipped kitchen with propane refrigeration, a 6 burner propane cook stove and a small on demand water heater. Cabinets lined the walls filled with items such as dishes, cooking utensils, glasses, mugs, food and other kitchen items.
On the right side there were three bunk rooms with 6 Army style bunk beds in two of them and 4 bunks in the other one. Along the back wall was the storage room along with Sam and Allen's private bedroom which included a private bathroom and sitting area.
On the other wall was a entertainment room with a TV, Video Games, Library, MP3 players, Computers and other entertainment components. The final room was a large bathroom with 3 shower stalls, two toilet stalls, a double sink, and a washer and dryer.
The shelter would be full with 20 or more people, but in the event of a major attack or disaster, the occupants would be safe from harm. The fresh air was filtered and there were battery banks in a small room hidden off the main storage room. In this same room were two small diesel generators built in as backups to the solar panels. The air in the battery room also came from it's own filtered source separate from the main shelter.
As they were headed upstairs to put something together for dinner, Abe and Olivia came busting in the upstairs front door.
Abe was out of breath from running, and muttered something about the President leaving Washington and headed for a secure location, he gushed on about how Congress had been spread out to various secure Government shelters around the U.S. As well, all because of some threat made by an international player or some other major country.
Abe said he wasn't sure what was going on though because the radio had cut out once again while the talking heads were still discussing the situation.
Sam invited her parents to stay for dinner, and calmed them down by telling them everything would be fine for now, even if something big did happen, they were located far enough away from the cities to have time to prepare.
Olivia was keeping herself busy trying to make contact with her other children on her cell phone, but either got a message saying the circuits were overloaded, or instead received just a plain fast busy signal.
Little did any of them know how fast the evil in the world was beginning to accelerate...
The sun was dipping sharply in the evening sky, and now...
Sunset was upon them!