Chapter 2

Of course, we both originally thought of a new truck from a dealer’s lot, but then it occurred to me that it would need the routine preparation that all vehicles got before delivery to the customer. That could take several hours, and I didn’t want to waste that much time. Instead, we should look at the used vehicles to see if we could find one of those that fit our needs.

Damned if we didn’t luck out. We had hardly entered the city when we came to a used car lot that had a line of pickups conveniently set out for us to look at. We went down the line looking for a truck with an extended cab and a diesel engine. I was biased toward a diesel because the engine could be adapted to run on almost any liquid that would burn. I remembered reading that the first diesel engines were built to run on peanut oil.

As a further bit of luck, the diesels were grouped together, so that cut into the amount of walking we had to do, and cutting back on our walking was something that we were both in favor of. We found a Ford F250 that even had a large cap over the pickup bed. The tires looked to be in good shape, so this seemed to be the answer to our problem. I looked through the window and saw that the inside was decked out like a luxury car. It had air conditioning (A/C), and that made it ideal for us. It even had a license plate and an inspection sticker for the current year.

I left everybody else at the truck while I went to the office for the keys. Dammit, the keys were behind a locked door with a glass panel. Oh, to hell with it. I smashed the glass panel and pulled out the keys. I was not going to pay for the truck anyway, so what difference did it make that I also left a broken glass panel behind me?

The truck was priced at a ridiculous price if I could believe the sticker, so I wondered what was going on. Well, I did not worry about it, but went back to the truck to try to start it. BINGO! It started on the first try, and the fuel gauge showed nearly a full tank. That was a wonderful bonus.

We loaded into the truck and drove to a Walmart that we had passed as we entered town. I had to break the glass door to get in, but there was nobody around, so I didn’t worry about it. This time, Emma and the kids came in with me because she wanted to get them some new clothes. What they were wearing were dirty and almost beyond repair. She headed for the clothing department while I went looking for a generator.

I found what I thought I needed, but I had to settle for a gasoline-powered engine. Hopefully, that was not going to be a bad choice. I picked up some jumper cables and appropriate tools for using the generator. While I was about it, I took all of the 12-gauge and .22 hollowpoint LR ammunition that I could find. I even went back into the attached warehouse to see what more ammunition that I could find. While I was about it, I picked up a couple of hunting knives and several LED lanterns and flashlights.

That was where I tripped across a pump shotgun to replace the double-barrel one that I was using. That made me think that I was going to look for a gun shop to pick up suitable pistols for Emma and for me. In my spell in the Army, I had learned to shoot the standard 9 mm, and I wanted one for Emma. I was going for a .45 if I could find one. Either one with hollowpoint ammunition was a good self-defense piece. I had a bad feeling about the way things were going, so I was going to introduce the kids to pistols as soon as they were old enough.

By the time we had loaded what we wanted into the back of the truck, it was obvious that we really needed a sleeping trailer to pull behind it. Okay, we were going to take the time to find the pistols and the trailer before we left town. We now had the means to stay ahead of the wall of fog no matter how much time we spent hunting what we needed.

I went into the office of the store manager and looked around until I found a Yellow Pages. I took that back to the truck and we set out to find a trailer dealer. There were four in town, but we headed to the one with the big ad in the book. There was a map to help us find the dealer, so that was the reason that place was chosen for our first stop.

My God, this place was advertised as The Camper’s Heaven, and I could believe it. We found what we wanted very quickly. There was a suitable trailer hitch also available, so it took us only an hour to be fully equipped. We headed back to the Walmart for sheets and other stuff, and Emma picked up some more cooking and eating utensils. While she was getting that, I visited their food section and picked up things like coffee and tea and some other stuff. For a while, at least, we could stop eating rabbit and birds for our meat. Like a good husband, I even took some vegetables.

It was 1:30 PM, and the kids were hungry. Well, so were Emma and I. We found another burger place, and Emma was able to fix us a lunch without too much delay. We even managed ice cream for desert.

Once we had eaten, we headed for the largest gun shop in the book. I hoped that there would be a large selection of pistols because we were so close to Arizona. Well, I was not disappointed. If you will pardon the expression—there were gobs of guns! There were a lot of cheap guns that I had never heard of, but there were the standards, too. There was no problem finding a 9 mm Beretta for Emma. I went for that one because it was the one I knew the most about. I chose a Glock G21 in .45 caliber for myself. To be on the safe side, I took every bit of 9 mm and .45 ACP ammunition in the store, both in standard and hollowpoint. I don’t know why, exactly, but I just had a feeling.

Out of curiosity, more than anything else, I went into the storeroom and what did I find but the latest version of the AA-12 combat shotgun, along with a 50-round drum magazine and four 30-round stick magazines. I had never seen one before except on TV, but it had such rave reviews that I had to take it. It would handle standard civilian shells, but I wished that I could find some of the military-grade FRAG ammunition. I didn’t know what I would ever use it for, but that fragmentary ammunition intrigued the hell out of me. I guess that I am just a kid at heart.

We loaded all of these goodies into the truck and drove to a supermarket so that Emma could pick up the food items that I did not find at Walmart. For practical purposes, we had wasted a day in our escape from the wall of fog, but with the motorized transportation that we now had, I was not worried about being able to outrun it.

We slept in the trailer that night and resumed our trek for the Yuma bridge the next morning after breakfast. The kids were still a little pissed off that they did not have TV to watch, but they had Jack to play with, and that was adequate compensation. I drove at a steady 45 MPH, and we reached the bridge just before noon. Oh, my God, there was another wall of fog almost to the other side of the bridge. There was no way that we could cross and automatically find safety. Now what?

At least, now we knew that the problem in southern California was not unique. We needed more information before we could start looking for a permanent home. If any sort of large body of water, fresh or salt, would stop the wall of fog, then we should find a fairly large island in a lake or river to settle on. Eventually, maybe in a year or two, we were going to have to start growing our own food because even the canned stuff would be going bad in a lot of cases.

It seemed to us that we did not want to locate where there was a lot of cold weather and snow, though we could manage a little bit of that sort of winter weather. Likewise, we would like to avoid the Santa Anna-type winds. Hurricanes and tornadoes were to be avoided, too, so we were rapidly cutting down on the possible places for us to locate.

Dammit, once we thought about the situation, we did not know of an ideal location and figured that we would just have to compromise some of our objections. Southern California was probably our best bet if we could just find a way to avoid that damned wall of fog.