The New Seasons: Chapter IV

Winter

The first thing I did after I left Stuart’s was to find all that literature he had given me. Thankfully I didn’t throw any of it away. Some of it was lost but I found most of it in a pile. The pages with the diagrams were pretty tattered and on top of the pile but I didn’t need those pages any longer. I spent the rest of that day scanning through it all and any time I saw the word shift I read the paragraphs around it for context. No matter how many paragraphs I read, I still didn’t understand. I needed someone to translate it to my level of understanding. There was no way I would go back to Stuart though. It just didn’t feel safe. That left me with one choice: Carpenter.

I used my phone and took some photos of the paragraphs that I thought might be most helpful. Was I taking pictures of too much? Too little? The wrong thing? I had no idea but this was my best plan.

The next day I stayed after work for an hour waiting for a chance to nonchalantly catch her in the break room. When she finally came in and sat on the couch another coworker was in the room. I nervously waited for 10 minutes and it was getting close to Carpenter to return to work. Just in time, the other coworker stood up and left which means now was my chance.

“Hey,” I said softly.

Carpenter didn’t hear me and was scrolling through her phone.

I cleared my throat. “Hey Carpenter,” I said.

She looked at me surprised. I don’t usually initiate conversation.

“You like to read, right?” I rushed.

She nodded. “Sure.”

“I have this book I’m reading,” I said. I thought up this lie last night when I decided to ask her for help. I still didn’t want anyone to know what I was up to. “I was wondering if you could help me? I’m not too sure what is going on and you’re a smart girl.” I learned this technique from my Uncle Smitty. If you’re going to ask someone for something you need to throw in a compliment. “Could you take a look at it and see what you think?”

She shrugged her shoulders and held out her hand. I handed her my phone.

After a moment or two of reading she looked up. “This is a book you’re reading?”

I nodded.

“Ugh, It reads like a text book.” She continued reading. “Wow,” she said after another minute. “This seems awfully familiar. Like what we are currently going through right now.” She looked at me, “This is not a novel, is it?”

I shrugged.

“Wait, are you a resetter?” she asked lowering her voice like what she was saying was top secret.

“I don’t know what that is,” I said slowly and regretting asking anyone for help.

“A resetter,” she spoke quickly, “are those people that think the Earth is about to reset. That’s what your ‘book’ is about. How the Earth is about to start to unwind and go back to its original state.”

I scoffed. “Go back in time?”

“No, no, no, no,” she said quickly then for emphasis added one more, “no.” She leaned closer and handed me my phone. “Not in time, just to its original state.”

The look on my face must have told her I wasn’t following. “Look, you know how our area used to be a tropical forest?”

That much I remembered from school. The reason we had so much coal under our soil was because this used to be pretty much the opposite of the dry desert it is now. I nodded.

“The Resetters believe we are going to go back to that. The Earth is going to, you know, reset. There’s a guy in town that has been saying that. I think his name is Steve…”

“Stuart,” I corrected.

She smiled and I realized my mistake. She now knew that I knew more than I was letting on. She nodded, “Stuart, that’s right. He’s been talking about this all over town about how we need to prepare. My parents think he’s crazy though.”

I shifted at that word again.

She didn’t seem to notice and continued, “Me? I’m not so sure. I mean, look at it outside. This is not normal.”

I didn’t know how to respond so I just nodded my head.

“So,” she asked again, “are you one of them?”

Since I didn’t even know what a resetter was until this conversation I answered truthfully. “No.” Okay, technically it was part truthfully. I didn’t belong to a group that I didn’t know existed but I was still taking the same actions as them. What was I exactly?

She nodded unconvinced. “So, you’re not prepping?”

Okay, this answer wasn’t going to be able to only be part truthfully. So I just shrugged and looked toward the door. How could I disappear at this moment?

“You are, aren’t you?” She looked at me with her eyes sparkling like she had just accomplished a major detective feat. “But you didn’t know about the reset? Why are you even prepping?” This seemed like such a novelty to her.

I shrugged again. “I just had a feeling. The weather isn’t right. Everyone said it was just a drought and we’d get our moisture at some point.” I looked at her even though I expected to be mocked again for saying it out loud. “It just didn’t feel right.”

Her smile disappeared and instead of mocking me she said, “I agree. But my parents aren’t listening to me. I started buying some food to stock up on but it’s kind of hard since, you know, I live with my parents. I’ve been stashing it in my brother’s old room now that he is at college but if my mom ever opens that closet door, I’m afraid she might just toss it all out just because.”

I got it. We were in the same boat. Suddenly I felt a release because it felt good to not feel so alone in this.

“Well,” she said, “I have to get back to work.”

I nodded. I still wasn’t ready to confess what I was up to but I liked Carpenter. She had always been fairly friendly with me. “Look,” I said quickly, “If you ever need anything find me.”

She nodded.

I left taking note of how good it felt not to feel alone. That made me think of Stuart and his family again. Maybe it was time to expand my circle and bring my family into my plans.

But I was still a chicken nursing the wounds of being mocked by everyone last spring. So, I didn’t work up the courage right then. Instead, I did what I considered the next best thing. I started to prep for them.

I volunteered to do my grandma’s grocery shopping. Maybe mom had started to soften when it came to the whole prepping thing since the news no longer called it just a drought. The term that was being thrown around now was a climate emergency. Plus, you’d have to be pretty blind to not see the effects it was having on our small town. It wasn’t all that safe to be out if you were in any way considered vulnerable. And two elderly women were definitely considered vulnerable. So, it wasn’t that hard to convince either one that I could do the shopping for them since I did, after all, still work at a grocery store. I wouldn’t even have to make an extra trip.

I did the shopping and I was able to buy a lot more than double the canned goods. But I had some time to make up for. My only hope is that mom wouldn’t check the receipts that I handed her to see all the food I purchased. If she did or not she never said anything so I kept buying. I was able to store most of it in grandma’s basement since the two of them never went down stairs. The only one that went down stairs besides me was my brother and we hardly saw him. His work was so short staffed that he rarely was able to come and visit.

My cousin was also hardly coming around anymore because she just wasn’t going anywhere anymore. She was able to work remotely and she only left her house if it was absolutely necessary.

It was about this time that I made the difficult decision to just move into grandma’s house. Rent prices skyrocketed and I was spending my time either at work, at the shed, or grandma’s house anyway so it just made sense. Plus, I was beginning to feel unsafe to be living alone when law and order seemed to be quickly declining.

I continued to work on my shed and the lot. I dug a hole big enough for some fuel containers. I still wasn’t able to afford any but I had the hole. My garden produced a quite a few onions and some pathetic looking carrots.

Winter came and it started off as mild as the previous one. The temperature had only cooled off slightly since summer. In fact, it felt more like a typical late summer or early fall for us. It certainly didn’t feel like the winters we were used to. It was so mild I was able to keep tending my garden hoping I could get it right. At times I had a talking to my garden and tried to reason with it to grow more. When reasoning didn’t work I’m not ashamed to admit I begged and pleaded. And then I gave in to what might be considered a form of bribery. You know, a person could bribe a garden. But it was pretty stubborn and continued to produce only the smallest harvest.

It was about this time that I realized I should be stockpiling seeds, soil and other garden tools as well as food. Especially when I considered my sew to harvest ratio so far. Having a supply of seeds seemed like a good idea.

Going to the store for supplies was getting more and more dangerous. With the migration of people that had left town we were really left with those that were more or less stuck. People who feel stuck with no options start getting bold in their self-preservation actions. The law personnel that was left couldn’t keep up with the lawlessness that started to abound. First, it started with vandalism and when it was discovered the law couldn’t keep up with the vandals the lawlessness became more bold. It moved to theft and robbery which escalated to violence.

It was right on the cusp of the violent actions when I overheard my mom and grandma talking in the kitchen. I had been chastising myself about the fact I hadn’t yet expanded my circle yet but was countering with the question of when exactly would be the right time? This was an ongoing argument I had with myself while putting my grandma’s unknown food supply away downstairs. After one such argument I was walking up the stairs trip when I paused mid-step. I heard my mom and grandma talking and I decided to eavesdrop instead of interrupt.

“The Hudsons are gone,” my mom said. I already knew this. They were discussing this gossip at work while I was there and probably all over town. Apparently Rocky Hudson and his wife left town in their 5^th wheel in the middle of the night. Just left. No goodbyes or anything.

“Can’t blame them,” grandma said and I nodded my head in agreement. “It was only a matter of time before they went after them like they did that poor family.”

I swallowed. They were referring to Stuart’s family.

“Apparently,” my mom said, “that family didn’t have a chance. Those people,” she emphasized those to separate them from still decent townspeople, “obviously planned the whole thing. I mean, they had to knock the power out just to get in to the place. The father had it pretty well fortified with an electric fence and other protection. But there was enough of them they just bust right through all that.”

It was tragic what happened. A few nights ago, a mob of townspeople went after Stuart claiming he was withholding water from them. They broke through his fortifications and tried to get water from his dry well. When that didn’t work, they went to his house and banged on the door. He fired a warning shot from a second story window and didn’t hit anyone. Someone in the crowd fired a shot back and hit him. He fell out the window. The crowd ended up busting into his house and killing his wife and two children before the police arrived. Here’s the kicker, no one was held responsible because Stuart fired the first shot. The crowd claimed self-defense. Not one arrest was made which showed the rest of the town just exactly where we were at with law and order. It must have been enough to panic Rocky. He and his wife fled town leaving their home behind to be looted.

At least, we all hoped that’s what happened. That Rocky and his wife left town and didn’t suffer the same fate as Stuart and his family.

Mom continued about Stuart. “He was going all over town handing people his address. What did he expect would happen?”

Grandma joined in. “I heard he told them his well was dry and that’s when they started for his house. He fired a couple of shots into the crowd probably to scare them. Somebody in the crowd fired back but didn’t miss. Killed him right there on the spot, is what I heard.”

“Well, I heard they killed his whole family. His wife and kids, all killed.”

“So sad,” grandma said.

“A tragedy,” mom agreed. “They completely looted the place. A couple more people were killed fighting over all his stuff. By the time the police showed up there were at least 6 or 7 bodies.”

“I heard closer to ten,” grandma said.

“Not that the police will do much to anyone in that mob.”

“There were probably several of the police in the mob,” grandma said quietly.

“They all claimed it was self defense because that Gibson fellow fired a warning shot.”

Stuart and his family were killed. All because he initially tried to help people. He started with a large circle and tried to shrink it down. I started with no circle and this is why I was finding the trust to enlarge it.

Another moment of silence. “I’m afraid,” grandma said, “we are just at the beginning of it. People are desperate and desperate people fighting for survival tend to make up their own rules. I’m wishing we had a small supply of our own. It would be nice not to have to go to the stores so much these days.”

That was the poke of bravery I needed. I continued up the stairs. They were surprised to see me as I walked into the kitchen. They looked at me. I took a deep breath, “Mom, grandma,” I said quickly. “I have something to tell you.”

They looked at each other and then at me. “You’re not going to tell us you were part of any of those mobs in town, are you?” mom asked with a worried look on her face.

“What?” I asked surprised. “No, of course not.”

Mom let out a deep breath.

I moved closer to them. “Remember when I told you that our spring felt weird?”

They looked at each other. Mom looked back at me. “Kind of.”

After all the mocking they don’t even remember it? That stung a little but I continued. “Well, I have been preparing since then.”

“Preparing for what?” mom asked slowly.

I shrugged because I still wasn’t sure how to explain it. “This! I have been storing food and supplies for us.”

My mom panicked a little bit. “You mean like the Gibsons?”

I nodded. “Something similar.”

“Will the mob come after us?” my mom asked.

I shook my head. “No one knows. The only person I told was Stuart Gibson. And technically a coworker but I didn’t actually tell her. She just guessed. And I told Stuart because, well, he was the one who gave me the idea and it seemed like the right thing to do. I used his design to build a well…”

“You built a well?” mom asked. “Where?”

“Behind grandma’s garage.”

They looked at each other again.

“Look, I don’t really know what’s going on or why. I heard a theory or two. All I know is I have food and water stocked up for us.” I looked at them. “I’ve been stocking up grandma’s food supply since I’ve been doing her shopping. I even have a little garden and if you like onions and carrots you’re in luck.”

I said it fast without taking a breath. Here I expected to get yelled at for wasting money. Or to even get mocked again. What I was not expecting was the response I got.

Grandma stood up and looked me in the eye. “Thank you,” she said and pulled me into a hug.