Disclaimer:The name "Jericho" and all character names and trademarks associated with the television program are the intellectual property of Junction Entertainment, Fixed Mark Productions, CBS Paramount Television and/or CBS Studios, Inc. The following stories are works of fan fiction intended solely as an intellectual exercise without profit motive. No infringement of copyright is intended or should be implied.
Warning's: AMATERUISH...Among the first fiction I ever wrote. This and the next two chapters...But for sake of that I already wrote it (And I am busy writing more), I am not re-writing them. ALSO...This series is a little "Off" of the rest of the Chinook chapters. SO take this one with a grain of salt.
Description: Due to not including Jericho directly I thought I would give a brief description. This revolves around a small town roughly 65 miles north of Jericho called Chinook.. The main characters will be a single family but sections will be included from many nieghbor's.
Timeline(Roughly): Bombs +40 days.
Feedback: Don't bother...This series is a old one, and almost not worth adding. But here it is.
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3:30 AM. Normal time.
Why did he have a bad feeling? He felt as if something had woke him up, but he didn't hear anything now. He reached down alongside the bed and picked up his pair of shoe's and his gun belt. He was already dressed. Long ago he had started wearing full clothes to bed. He sat on the edge of the bed and laced up the pair of work boots.
Standing, he buckled on the belt. He looked down at the gun and caressed it. The one thing he truly treasured was that gun. He got it a couple of days before the attacks. A brand new S&W Magnum. A few people ridiculed it. Calling it overbore and uselessly powerful... As if they knew what was useful. He stuck cartridges in a couple of empty loops.
He reached towards the chair alongside his bed and picked up the armor vest. It wasn't much. Light sections flat-iron steel secured to a regular vest. But it was a lot better than nothing. And it stopped most small caliber rounds such as 9MM and buckshot. He secured it, picked up his Ruger Mini-14, a couple extra magazines and a small red-lens flashlight and headed towards the bedroom door.
As he walked down the hall his foot crashed through the floor "Damn cheap trailer house" he muttered. The floor there rotted away from rain coming through the roof and sitting there. He walked further sidestepping to similar hole getting to the larger room at the other end of the small 36' trailer. He slowly and quietly peer's out the window's. Seeing nothing he walks over to a hole purposely cut into the floor and drew out a bottle of water, a small handful of jerked meat and a apple. May be an odd place but the underside of the trailer was about the coolest spot around.
He opened the door, flipped off the light and stepped outside cautiously. He looked over the building and saw what woke him up. A piece of tin had come loose in the wind and was lying alongside the house. He looked over the aging building. 30 years old and hadn't been used for 5 years. Not what some would call habitable. But. It was near their main grain storage and fuel tanks. Someone had to stay there and keep a eye on things.
Waiting outside the building he blinked several times. It was still extremely dark outside and it took a bit for his eye's to adjust to it. Finally good enough, he walked away and began his circle. He first made his way to the closest gas tank and checked it. Finding nothing unusual he makes his way to 2 other fuel tanks and around the grain bin's.
He didn't see nothing until coming to the last one... In the night someone had come and tried to pry into it. Apparently they hadn't brought a vehicle in order to not alert anyone. A crowbar wasn't gonna get that locked door open. Once the raiding had begun his dad had welded extra bars on the doors that could be then be bolted and padlocked to the bin.
He finalized checking the graineries and then worked his way out of the circle of bins, fuel tanks and the lone trailer towards the main house a quarter mile south. Closer to the river it was the main buildings. That was where the majority of the fuel was along with the vehicles. ATV's, Pick-up's, truck's and heavy machinery had all been moved there to keep a eye on it. The fuel and grain where he had slept the night couldn't be moved. So they took turns. Different person each night stayed there and kept watch. Waking up every 2 hours to make a check.
He came closer to the main buildings and looked at his watch again. 4:15 AM. His dad was probably up and about. He didn't see any lights but he didn't expect to. Walking closer flipped on his flashlight. This time of night anyone not showing themselves was likely to get shot. He went up closer to the house and rapped on the door. Within a moment or two it opened and his father John stepped out.
"I got up a little early. Lets go finish that truck" he said. Grant followed behind him as he finished slinging his rifle. A Colt AR15. A sporting version of the military rifle. Ironically it had been bought a few days before a law banning them was emplaced... Also ironically by his mother-in-law as an anniversary present.
They reached the main shop and halted beside a power pole. Their tractor-powered generator was already hooked up to it. No power was forth-coming from the power company so they just routed it straight from the generator. "Guess we better start it. We will need the air-tool's for awhile" John mentioned.
Nodding Grant climbed into the tractor and started it. The generator powered to life and inside the shop the lights flickered on. He climbed out and went inside the shop. On the one half of the building resided an old Chevy grain truck. It was old but the best one they had. All but one rear section of the box was covered in 1/2" flat-iron. Reinforced support bars were welded from the bottom to help support the extra weight.
Grant went over to the other side of the shop and helped John push a cherry picker holding the last section of flatiron next to the truck. After about a hours work it was secured next to the other sections. The entire box was now fully armored with 1/2" flatiron. The very rear of the box was removed and replaced with a heavy duty-swinging door made out of 1/4" flat-iron. The front of the truck was armored as well where they could put it. They had to be careful how much to add and where or it wouldn't support the weight. The front had a new grill-guard installed on it. Heavy iron bar's fixed directly to the frame. The truck would be destroyed before it ever would be. Perfect in case of plowing through roadblocks.
John straightened from the work. "We are done. Lets go finish up some of our work. We gotta leave early if we want to get to town and be back before dark."
Grant nodded, picked up his rifle and went outside to the barnyards. He went over to the horse pen. The 2 inside trotted over to the fence at the sight of him coming and knickered softly. Beautiful Montana Traveler's. He halfway cringed when he came up to them. They hadn't had time to get them into good riding shape before the attack and now they even less time... You could ride them but being young and spirited they would usually dump your ass at least once. He didnt mind that part but the thought of 2 horses as nice as that being less trained... Ah well. Time would come sometime to finish them.
He threw over their ration of hay. A little less than most times but hay was short and they wanted to stretch it.
Walking around some more, he threw hay over for their 4 milk cows, goat's and a very skim scattering of wheat for the chickens and geese.
He started to head back to the main house and met his mom, Deb, coming to the barn with the milk-pails. "Got 'em all fed?" she asked. "Yeah mom. Finish up as soon as possible. I'm gonna go see what Dad has got planned." She nodded and kept going.
He got back to the shop and John was just finishing checking their Dodge. They had added it's armor plating a week ago and had put 50 miles on it. He wanted to see how it held up. The box had been plated, as had the re-enforced grill guard and in smaller sections most of the hood, along with the doors to hopefully deflect the majority of any bullets.
Straightening he wiped his hands on a rag ,and then spoke "Looks like everything's ready. We will stop up a Calvin's on the way and tell him we are gone and pick Dan up at his place. Get the stuff ready."
"Got it dad" Grant said. He went to their house and stepped into the 'Armory.' Formerly it was the gunroom. He stepped over to the gun-safe and opened it. He plucked out a Pump action 12 Gauge and a bandolier of shells. It sported a full 28" barrel hardly what most people would call 'Ideal' but it was what they had. He also grabbed a scoped bolt action. Accurate, it had enough power to blast through most light armor and destroy anything underneath. He then shut the door and twirled the combination to lock it then left the house.
An hour later they left the small cluster of buildings and headed out the lane leading into their place. The truck in the lead driven by John, followed by the Dodge driven by Deb with Grant riding shotgun. They exited the lane and turned onto a main gravel road leading west towards the local town of Chinook. They happened to meet Calvin Annet while he was out riding patrol around his place and told him that they were gone from their buildings. His own place was 2 miles north of the Stout's and nestled on top of some low hills. Easily capable of watching their place if needed.
They stopped at Dan Stout's house, which neighbored Calvin Annet's house on the way to Harlem and picked him up. He was John's brother. He climbed into the grain truck carrying a SKS carbine. This trip was to pick up 3 families in Chinook that had agreed to move to the Stout's home place to help defend it and work it. The town was quickly being overrun by homegrown gang's and raiders and just wasn't safe. They had gambled on taking their chance out in the country farther from civilization. Stout's needed them due to increased manual labor vs. what was done my fuel-driven vehicles.
They drove for 13 miles and slowly came closer to town. As they came close to the city limits a police car barricaded the road ahead of them and 2 officers exited the vehicle.