Chapter 2

Everyone pitched in to fix a full country breakfast. As they ate they discussed what they should do today, the first full day in the new reality. The Giddings girls thought that it would be a good idea to look for other people who may have survived simply by being in the right place when the alien death Ray, or whatever it was, hit. Maybe more people were trapped in CONEX containers. They had seen a lot of them as they drove from Giddings. And they could rescue animals too. Charlie thought it would be a good idea to look for other useful things while they were at it.

After they cleaned up from breakfast, they left in the truck descending on the neighbors property going through barns, letting animals out, except chickens, chickens would be moved home along with their coop. They would come back for these. The people who lived in the first place they stopped had been a young couple with two kids under five years old. They would take them to daycare while they were at work. The girls were looking through the drawers in their master bedroom and found three vibrators and a dildo. In the closet they found a box with X rated movies, a Sony camera with a bunch of SD cards, and printed photographs of a beautiful woman engaged in different sex acts. They brought the box.

They had a brand new John Deere 3031E 31.2 H.P. Tractor with a variety of implements, much better than the almost thirty year old Massy Ferguson Charlie had. There were a few tools and a welder that he could use. He stacked everything together, he would bring his trailer back to pick them up.

The next place didn’t have much, it belonged to an older couple whose kids were grown. They did have a new zero turn mower he could use however.

The third place had also been owned by an older couple. He had been a machinist, and had a complete shop with a Bridgeport Mill, a South Bend six foot lathe, and about anything else a man would ever need to make almost anything. Charlie was going to have to build a new building.

The next few places had some cows and horses they let loose. The girls found some more private stashes of toys, movies, magazines and some more photographs of nude wives.

The next driveway, over two miles from his, was guarded by a substantial metal gate that had a lock. Charlie had brought along a universal key, a Dewalt 20 volt Angle Grinder with a cutting wheel already mounted. Thirty seconds later they were through the gate and traveling down a long winding driveway. It led to two houses that had belonged to two reclusive brothers.

There were three guard dogs, vicious sounding and aggressive. They each received a 45 caliber from a 1911 Colt between their eyes, it quieted them right down. But it begged the question, why so much security? What were they guarding? Each of the houses and outbuildings were laid out the same, mirror images of each other. First was a house, behind that were two barns, expensive raised wall concrete structures with steel roofing. Each was thirty by sixty feet, low single story gabled design. Both were exactly the same and weren’t suitable for livestock. Alongside of the barns arranged between the two were two rows of five CONEX containers. All of their doors were locked.