They Laughed part 1

The year, 2016.

They laughed at my idea, that idea was building a bunker. In Evergreen, Alabama sitting on two acres of family land, a gift, from my grandmother who recently passed from that horrible c word, cancer. My imagination, and instability may have added to all the chaos, as it takes less than 2 minutes for one’s imagination to start it’s material manifestation.

I started to dig, and dig, and dig. I reflect back on the sarcastic opinions of several house guests using words like, “you’re crazy” and “I think you’re overdoing it a little bit”. Irrespective to what the doubters had to say, I kept digging. Metal, wood, and concrete shall be the salvation, for a small group of people, preferably my immediate family and friends, and a few neighbors to boot. And I kept digging, and I kept building. I'm a normal man with no architectural skills so I must give my architectural knowledge to the experts on YouTube.

Got to love the 21st century where knowledge is at your fingertips.

Fast forward February 1st 2021, that was the day that I finished my project, that was the day that I was most proud. As the coronavirus pandemic gains traction, my project was completed right on time. I was not so crazy after all. At that time, I thought that covid-19 was the event, that I was planning for. For the last 4 years I’ve been a content creator, a writer which allowed me to be home, and work on, what I call, the great work. I kind of felt like Noah who built his ark. A taste of despotism showed it’s face March 1st 2021.

The cities had no games, no crowds, restaurants were shut down, live concerts became non-existent. The death toll started to rage out of control, at least that’s what the story was. While the covid-19 numbers increased, heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, in fact all remaining disease statistics, decreased. I’ve built a bunker large enough to save 20 people, but not enough to save the world. But that didn’t stop the Americans.

Summer 2021, the covid-19 story started to be unmasked by a new spawn of researchers. You know what they say, behind every pandemic, is an Esquire.

December 1st. 2024, nothing was the same, Life as we know It takes a new spin towards artificial intelligence. The old money system, the Swift system, starts to lose its stronghold to cryptocurrency.

A currency reset, The changing of the guard if you will, upset the bosses at the apple cart. The final blow would be a new strain of covid-19, the last ditch effort from a dying paradigm. Anyone infected with the new strain, had about 1 week to live.

All Law & order fell to the wayside. Energy grids failed all through the country. Holmes powered by generators for free energy were instant targets, like rooms full of gold cannot be protected. Long before what I call the super virus I’ve modified my cave to blend in with its natural environment.

Not so crazy after all. God moves in strange ways, and ironically out of the 18 of us that found refuge In my bunker, eight of us had the skills and the knowledge to start a whole new society, if need be. Back when I first started building my bunker, we had a dinner guest, he was a retired judge. He was the dinner date of a friend, of a friend. When he found out what I was doing, I showed him my bunker, he was impressed and he was not being sarcastic. He gave me something that night and told me to take great care of this gift. It was a leather business folder, which felt like a stack of papers inside. I stored the folder in the office area of my bunker and told him “this is the safest place ever for your gift, thank you”.

A flashback of that moment sent me looking for that folder. I found it. A stack of papers, with legible writing which can only be described as, chaotic note-taking. But from the first page, I couldn’t take my eyes off what I was reading. Somehow the judge was tied into this deep-seated plan to ruin the world. And just like I figured, this deadly virus came from man, and there is a cure.

There is a cure, were the last words of the stack of papers that were in chronological order. I couldn’t believe it, that in my hands I had the evidence, of all the players behind this despotism. But none of that mattered at this point.

Upon further inspection of the leather folder I found a small pocket with a black zipper. In this pocket I found an index card folded twice, when I opened up the index card it read cure, it had an address, and it said, find Penelope’s heart locket. Flashing back to dinner at my house to where the retired judge was my guest, we were speaking about our sons and daughters, and if my memory serves me correct the retired judge’s date Margret, had a daughter named Penelope.

I remembered the story about Penelope because she was a pianist who played classical music at such a young age and the fact that Margaret lived in Andalusia, Alabama which is about 27 minutes from my location. The address on the index card, was an Andalusia address. It’s a long shot in the dark, to take a chance at exposure or the unseen dangers of taking that trip. Here in my bunker we have a grow room, where we grew our food, we also had a drinkable air unit which extracted water from the atmosphere. We had a copper wire free energy unit, which holds the power of the sun. How fortunate we are, but humperd down in this bunker, started to take its toll.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TbR4rJ5MNFuWWCVF9

Out of all the new technology that we managed to store, it was a 1970s CB radio that led to the decision, to make an attempt to save the world. We found contact, with the sovereign government, for the people and by the people. During our transition from the house to the bunker, for our safety we burnt our house to the ground. We also buried our black BMW, including our Land Rover SUV. Seven of us would gear up for this trip with protective gear, plenty of guns and ammo, and an unshakable faith that we will reach our objective. Find Penelope’s heart-shaped locket.

Not knowing how the neighborhood has changed over the year and a half we were in the bunker, not knowing what dangers lie ahead, we set out on our trip. Seven in an SUV with no lights, pitch black outside, two of us held handheld flashlights from the moon roof. Silence, not a human in sight. But the smell was that of a city on fire.

Avoiding the common areas, we headed down the long back road to Andalusia. Out of all that has happened thus far, the insects were alive and well.

With 10 miles down, 20 mi to go, and out of the blue, three large vehicles off to the right, which look like pickup trucks at first glance, all turned on their headlights around the same time. So we hit the gas, speeding toward our destination. We prepared for the worst case scenario and far off in back of us in the distance, headlights turned onto the main road heading in our direction. We managed to get about a good mile head start. There is a hideaway spot, not known by too many, a spot where naughty lovers meet. I being behind the wheel, dipped off road towards that location. It was just off the train tracks, and if you did not know of the location, you would go right past it. Hopefully whoever is tailing us would go by us. So I dipped off into the wooded area, by the train tracks, we killed all lights and got in defensive position. We can hear their engines, gunshots, and laughter as they got close. Just as I figured, three pickup trucks and by the sounds of the occupants, they were the bandit type. All three pickup trucks passed by our location.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/gc4GbHFBAkmrXhxU7

The shortest distance between Evergreen and Andalusia was down this road US 84 , so we would sit in darkness, hoping that the trucks return, passing us again in the opposite direction.

1 hour passes by, insects of the night sounds tripled in size. We didn’t want to take the risk of being out in the daylight, so we made the decision to move forward. Pedal to the metal we go for it. Our plan was to shoot anything in sight that would threaten our trip. I guess the pandemic skips over assholes. Fortunately we made it to our destination without further resistance. Luckily it was a single stand alone house, two story and very dark. The front door was unlocked as 4 of the seven entered the home. The smell of the house can only be described as death. The staircase to the upstairs revealed the body of an older gentleman, shot several times and what looks like return fire for he had a shotgun still in his clutch. We all stayed together to check the rest of the house. There was no one else on the first floor, so we would go past the dead body to the second level. The first large bedroom, I assume was the master bedroom revealed two more bodies, a woman and a small child. Vomit and tears was the scene as this site was too much to bear.

The woman with gunshot wounds to her back was draped on top of the little girl, it looked like a defensive position. The bodies, still decomposing, were hard and rigid. Upon further investigation, in a loose clutch of the little girl’s hand, was a gold heart-shaped locket. Could we have found it so easily? I opened the locket, on the left side engraved were the words, “to my darling Penelope, love Dad”. On the right side of the locket, a small micro photo of some type. I got the idea to take a photo with my phone and zoom in, which revealed a formula of some type. “This has to be it” I said. While exiting the room, I recognized a photo on the wall, it was Margaret, the retired judge, Penelope, and three young to middle-aged men, dressed in fatigue, and in the background were 3 black pickup trucks. Could they be the same pickup trucks that spotted us on US 84? Out of nowhere we hear the roaring of engines approaching fast towards our location. All four of us rushing to the front door, but we were too late. Heavy gunfire. To be continued…