Chapter 3

[West Georgia]

We waited. It seemed endless. Mary looked at us and said, “If they will join us, our current worry about medical help will be covered.”

“Very much so.” Shirley responded. “Give him time. He has to talk to her and I am sure she will have a lot of questions. Jack, should we give our cell phone numbers and suggest we take this off the air?”

“If this were normal times, I would say, ‘yes, ‘ but the times aren’t normal. If they want to do that, we will. We can give them anything up to our exact location. I do want to guard that from eavesdroppers still. Given that, why don’t you talk to them while I go check on things outside?”

Janice said, “May I come?”

“Sure,” I responded, “I’ll be glad to have your help.” Janice smiled at that. We went outside and looked back at the house. “Let’s look at how the windows shine light. If someone is searching for us, they will look for light and movement.”

“Jack,” she said, “we should have a CB just in case there are bad guys and they are using that. It would give us some warning.”

“You are right. Tomorrow, we will set up a station for that purpose.” We walked around and saw two lights that needed to be shaded from the drive. Other than that, we listened and heard no noises. We went into the house and took care of the lights and then went back to the radio room.

“Anne, this is Shirley. What can I tell you?”

“You are Shirley and you’re married?”

“Correct. Jack and I were students at Georgia Tech and had met in a class he was teaching as a graduate assistant. We later found each other after the Day, became attached and his folks had a wedding service for us. We have our own house with a widow, Mary, and a teenager Jack and I found in Atlanta, Janice. Jack’s folks live a couple of miles away along with his uncles, aunts, and grandparents. My folks survived but Mom had a heart attack and Dad didn’t want to go on without her. Jack and I buried them. What else can I tell you?”

“Shirley, what kind of medical facilities do you have?”

“Anne, we are rural. That’s good and bad. That means we are in the country, of course. On the other hand, Carrollton, Georgia, which is close to us, is a nice sized town with good doctor’s offices and a good hospital. Atlanta is a little over an hour away and has anything medical you can imagine. Locally, we need a medical person, so you would be appreciated here. People here are pretty smart. They just don’t have all the fancy book learning that Jack and I got at Tech. Jack’s parents are high school grads and farmers but are smart and interested in everything and anything. His dad picked up on the value of ham radio in seconds and figured out how to apply it to living. If he had heard of it and didn’t have me to operate it, I believe you would be talking to him instead. You would be impressed. Another thing to remember, Anne, there aren’t many people around any more. We are a good, solid group with plans for the future and that counts for a lot. There are a lot of things that aren’t going to work in the future. Our family is making the plans to survive and thrive.”

“Thanks, Shirley. Let me talk to Dad for a while. Will you stand by?”

“Yes, Anne. One of us will be here.”

It was a half hour later when Ollie came on the air. “Ollie calling Shirley.”

“This is Janice, Ollie. Shirley is in the room.”

“Very well, Janice. Anne and I have decided that we would like to join you. I guess it would be warmer down there?”

“I’m glad you’re coming, Ollie. Yes, it’s warmer here. We rarely get snow. Summers can be pretty hot and humid though.”

“Okay, what do we need to plan for our move?”

Janice looked at me and said, “Jack, you or Shirley or Mary should handle this.”

I was closest. I took the mike. “Ollie, this is Jack. I’m Shirley’s husband. We have housing and furnishings here. I would suggest that you pack clothes, personal items, and medical kits for the move. Can you put a radio in your vehicle?”

“Yes, and it’s good to hear you, Jack.”

“It’s good to talk to you, too. Also, it would be a good idea to be armed. We have seen dogs get wild and zoo animals have been freed down here. One of our radio friends wrecked trying to avoid a rhinoceros. He’s okay but his small truck was totalled. Driving can be a bit more interesting than it was in the past. We have a net on 3.970 every evening at eight eastern time.”

“I appreciate the information on traveling. I will try to check in on the net tomorrow night. If you don’t hear me, please call me on this frequency after the net ends. By that time tomorrow, we should have details on our travel plans. Thanks. Ollie clear.

“Okay, Jack clear.” By silent agreement, we all went to bed for the evening.

The next morning, we rose and ate breakfast. While we ate, I said, “Last night, Janice and I talked about setting up a CB for listening purposes. Also, I think we need to run a speaker inside or put another radio in here. We need to monitor HF better.”

Mary said, “There must be more people on the air and we need to find them. Why don’t you want to use the CB to communicate, also?”

“I am concerned about the potential type of people who might be on CB. I quit using CB because of the language and tone of a number of the people.” I said. “I think it might be more useful as a burglar alarm. I agree that we need to make a more concerted effort to contact other people. That’s my reason for the speaker or additional radio to monitor HF.”

Shirley said, “Okay, you’ve convinced me. You take Janice and check the drive. Mary and I will clean up and run some speaker wire.”

“Okay,” I said. A few minutes later, Janice and I got in my truck and went out the drive to the tree. We got out and went to the other side. Off to one side, I saw marks in the dirt beside the drive. I showed all this to Janice teaching her how to interpret the signs. Someone had been there and turned around! I pulled my cell phone and called Shirley.

“Shirl, someone was here last night. I can see marks where they turned around.”

“That’s not good. What do you want to do?”

“I’m going to remove any tracks I made, back the truck and clear the drive to hide any more marks I may have made. I will be back in the house in a few minutes.”

“Okay, be careful, Hun.”

“Okay, Bye.”

We cleaned all traces of our trip up but left the other tire tracks. We returned to the house. Now, we knew we weren’t paranoid, someone had been watching. The questions were “what did they see?” and “what will they do?” Shirley and Mary had set up a speaker for the HF and set up a basic CB radio and antenna while we were gone. It was close enough to lunchtime, so we prepared and then ate lunch together.

“What do you think we can do about our watchers?” I asked the table.

“If all they are is watchers, what’s the worry?” Janice said.

“My concern is that they might not just be watchers.”

“Jack, I think you should call Robbie to let him know and, if he agrees, to pass the information on to the rest of the family.” Mary said.

Shirley said, “I think we need to monitor the repeaters, simplex and the CB channels heavily for a while. We need to gather all the data we can. Warn your parents, Jack.”

“Okay, I will call Mom and Dad now.” I said, pulling my phone. I dialed and Mom answered, “Mom, this is Jack. Is Dad close by? Good. Put him on, please. Dad, Jack here. We have a situation and you need to be made aware of it. We are being watched. Yes, sir. We went into Carrollton yesterday to pick up a couple of generators and then some fuel for them. My shoulder blades itched the whole time. We blocked the drive at dusk. This morning we went up there and saw new tracks that we didn’t make. Okay, Dad. I’ll let you know.”

Shirley said, “What did he say?”

“He said he’s been suspicious for a few days. Now, we have confirmed it. He’s going to call the family and we’re to let him know what, if anything, we decide to do.”

“Jack, I can see it in your eyes. You have something in mind.”

“Well, yes. Actually, I have two things in mind. One is to set up a sentry post up the drive to watch for someone coming. And, the other is to do some scouting. I think we need to find these folk before they do something. Carrollton is big enough that some people could have survived and banded together. We need to find out about them and either have them join us or dissuade them from hanging around.”

“How do you plan to do that?” Shirley said carefully and slowly.