Chapter 3

I got out to take a look, and I had an immediate idea of what was wrong. “That’s a VW with a boxer engine. I’ll bet that no repair is possible short of the factory. We are headed for Las Vegas. Where are you going? Oh, my name is Jim and that is my wife Emma.

“It looks to me like we need to give you a ride to the first town where we can fix you up with a replacement car. How much stuff do you need to take along. We can probably fit it into our space until we can get you fixed up with another car.”

“That’s damned considerate of you. Yeah, we would appreciate a ride as far as needed to get us a new car. All we need to take with us are some tools, some clothes, and our small generator we use to make the gas pumps work.”

“Do you have any guns?”

“No, why do you think we need any?”

“This morning, we had to chase off four men on motorcycles who were going to rape my wife before they killed all of us. You just can’t afford to do anything nowadays without some sort of protection.”

“Okay, it looks like we need to pick up some guns, but neither Joan nor I know how to shoot.”

“Don’t worry about that. I can teach you enough to get you by. I suggest that you go for 9 mm pistols and shotguns. We can nitpick when we find some at a gun shop.”

We helped them transfer the appropriate stuff to the pickup bed, and they climbed into the back of the pickup cab with Johnny, Sarah, and Jack. It took all afternoon to get to Las Vegas, and we found a motel where we could spend the night. I don’t know why, but Las Vegas was as deserted as any other place where we had been.

We went to a restaurant for supper, and Emma and Joan found enough food to fix us an entirely adequate supper. I talked to Bob while the wives were working on supper, and we did the babysitting. It turned out that Bob was very likable and felt pretty much like I did about the wall of fog. He had been an engineer at the China Lake Proving Grounds, and was pretty sure that the fog was nothing developed by the US as a weapon. He was leaning toward the theory, half joking, that the wall of fog was produced by aliens from another solar system. I had to admit that he could be right.

We started talking about combining our resources and swapping my pickup for a large RV (Recreational Vehicle). We figured that the RV would use more fuel than the pickup and trailer combination, but less fuel than two such rigs. In other words, if we could find a suitable RV for all of us to ride in, then we should stick together. It was a cinch that the four of us would be a hell of a lot safer than we would be by ourselves.

Bob suggested that we find a suitable RV and head to China Lake. If it was as empty as every other place that either one of us had seen, then we could pick up all kinds of useful stuff there, especially in the way of weapons. He happened to know that the guards were all equipped with AA-12s. That would be our opportunity to pick up several more of the guns and maybe pick up some of the FRAG ammunition that I wanted. As I thought about it, I wanted to pick up some HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) shells that could be even more useful.

When supper was served, we told the women our ideas, and they agreed that such a combining of resources would be a good idea. Therefore, we would head to China Lake tomorrow, as long as we did not run into any more walls of fog. Of course, that depended on how long it took us to find the RV we were looking for.

Well, as you might expect, it took us almost all day to find an RV that would fit our needs. However, we eventually found a huge RV that both women approved of. Fortunately, Bob had worked for awhile in college as a big-rig driver, so he could drive such a monster. He said that he could teach the rest of us how to drive it, so that was the one we settled on.

We found the maintenance manual and the prepping instructions. Doing the prepping took the rest of the day, so we still had some things to do before we could leave for China Lake.

All seven of us, that included Jack, took the RV to Walmart for sheets and other stuff that was needed to outfit the RV. That wound up taking about 90 minutes. While the women were getting stuff for the RV, Bob and I went to the manager’s office to find a Yellow Pages. I was amazed at the number of gun shops listed. Bob thought he knew his way around Las Vegas well enough to find a couple of the places, so we figured to go to the largest of those first. If necessary, we could keep looking, but I figured that we could probably find what we needed in the first place we looked.

The women were finally ready to leave, so Bob drove the RV in front of the doors to make it easier to load what they had selected. That was when it suddenly dawned on me that I wanted some extra 5-gallon fuel cans. I dashed into the store and found four plastic “jerry cans.” I tossed them into the luggage space and figured to worry about filling them the first time we picked up diesel fuel.

Our next stop was at the gun shop. Wow, there were so many guns there of all styles that I was taken aback for a moment. I picked up a .22 automatic for teaching purposes and two Glock G17s in 9mm and three more Glock G21s with several extra magazines. We also cleaned out the stock of 9 mm, .45 caliber, and 12-gauge shells. I now had plenty of ammunition to train Bob and Joan with their new pistols. I had picked up the extra G21 for myself. I had realized that I wanted plenty of firepower if I ever needed it.

At last, we were ready to leave. Bob drove us out to the highway and gave me the opportunity to drive. Driving on the highway was not difficult at all. I set the speed control for 50 MPH and let her rip. Bob sat in the adjacent seat to navigate for me.

The women fixed a lunch for us while we were still moving, and that saved a lot of time, especially when it came to feeding the kids. It still was nearly supper time when we got to China Lake because the road got kind of curvy and I had to slow down to make sure I did not make any silly mistakes. We pulled into an RV park and hooked up to water and sewage, but we used the RV for our electricity. The owner’s manual said that was acceptable, so we decided to take a chance. We used the on-board shower and toilet and went to bed. Even the kids were tired. Jack made a short trip and came back inside to sleep.

The next morning after breakfast, we drove up to the main gate. Bob was driving, and he was not sure which of the other gates were wide enough for our RV, so he just took the way he knew. As usual, there was nobody around as far as we could tell, so he drove through the gate after stopping to make sure of that. Bob happened to know where to find the armory, so that was the first place he headed.

He pulled in beside what amounted to a loading dock, and Bob and I went in. The women waited with Jack and the kids inside the RV. All I can say is that we must have hit the place at a relatively good time, because nothing was locked up. Uh-oh, this place must have been hit by the wall of fog. Skeletons in military uniforms were everywhere.

The fog must have hit the place as weapons were being issued. Every skeleton had an AA-12 in its hand or lying on the floor beside it. To be on the safe side, I picked up 12 of the weapons from the hands of the skeletons. Those weapons were sure to be fully functional. Those we transferred to the RV, along with 12 drum and 36 stick magazines.

I found a key ring and was able to unlock some doors. That was how I found the ammunition. There was a small hand-truck in the ammo room, and we used that to move two boxes of ammunition, one FRAG and one HEAT, to the RV. We already had so many buckshot shells that there was no room for any more. Bob drove us to an open field where I showed Bob and Joan how to use the AA-12, and we tested every one of them with buckshot shells to make sure that they were completely functional. They were. I had planned to swap any that were marginal, but that was not a problem.