Cessation

By David L Atkinson

The story is a speculative journey into a possible future that may lie ahead of us all. There is evidence that such a future may not be impossible. We have been warned that unless we increase the ability to produce electricity there could be power cuts in the next ten years. Our modern day lives are permeated through with the need for electricity and its production.
Although Cessation could be categorised as a dystopian story I find that rather a negative word and the purpose of writing the tale is to allow elements of hope in a seemingly desperate situation.
The story begins in 2023 a couple of years after the lights go out for the last time. Our group of survivors are thrown together on a farm in the low Pennines north of the M62 motorway and within striking distance of a number of northern towns which could prove useful for supplies. Initially the group is small and live on a farm called Serendipity but as time passes the size of the group waxes and wanes for a variety of reasons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David L Atkinson
• Release date: Dec 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781849144339

David L Atkinson

Born in Sunderland in 1950, retired after 34 years teaching and then a further 6 years working in a bank.I began writing in 2009 and have published 10 Patrick A Steele stories, a dystopian novel and 2 collections of original poetry.

Book preview

Cessation

By

David L Atkinson

Copyright David L Atkinson 2013

Published by Smashwords

Prologue

Here is the news.

19th February 2013

Ofgem (Energy Industry Regulator) claimed it had been warning the Government of the impending supply crisis since October 2009.

A looming energy crisis threatens to unleash a new wave of price hikes for millions of households, the industry regulator warned today.

We have to face the likelihood that avoiding power shortages will also carry a price.

If you imagine a ride on a rollercoaster at a fairground, then this winter, we are at the top of the circuit and we head downhill - fast.

16th June 2013

The risk of future blackouts has trebled in the last year as Britain is facing an energy crunch,

30th October 2013

Do you have reliable access to electricity? Do blackouts affect your day-to-day life?

11th November 2013

Spare capacity in the energy market is so tight that it is not possible to guarantee that there will not be power cuts after this year.

Chapter 1

It was bright. He screwed his eyes against the dazzling sunshine and at the same time shivered slightly as a chill wind blew from over the top of the hill behind him. The spring of 2023 was being fairly typically English. It looked great but there was no guarantee as to the temperature. This was especially true on the slopes of the Pennine hills, the backbone of England. Paul Mason gazed into the hazy distance and rubbed the back of the head of his constant companion, Monty, a young and trusted Border collie. The dog wasn’t just Paul’s only friend but a working dog also.

Life had changed considerably in the last couple of ears and the population was in culture shock as a result. It wasn’t as if what happened had been unpredictable or unpredicted, but when the balance is between greed and common sense, unfortunately too often, the greed rules! For many years before the turn of the third decade of the 21st century it had been painfully obvious that oil wasn’t going to last for ever. The ruling classes knew that simple fact but rather like a child who will not relinquish a broken, favourite toy they fought against developing alternatives in any serious way. Oh they fiddled around the edges with wind farms and other ways of producing energy naturally but no serious strategy was put in place to phase out the dominance of oil.

Even though we all could see what was going to happen by the time the governments of the world decided to act - the lights went out. Almost literally! We lived in a society almost exclusively dependent for everything on the generation of electricity. Even the gas central heating systems in our homes had electric pumps. All our records, both health and bank, were held on computer and many control systems were computer controlled hence the need for electricity. Since the turn of the century experts had been warning the powers that be that we would be having regular power cuts by 2015 but they just continued to try and take their profits and to ignore the inevitable.

When the end came it was a decided anti-climax. Everything just stopped! One day we could get fuel, use the computer, watch the TV and all the things we normally did and then over a couple of hours the lights went out. After that there were odd occasions when things seemed to have returned to normal but ‘normal’ was relative. The TV and lights would come on, a kettle would boil, the computer beeped it’s ‘I am here’ signal but then there would be a flicker and all was gone again. Then nothing!

Queues began to form at shop doors, petrol stations and many other establishments in towns and cities all over the world. The lawlessness was almost instantaneous when people realised that things weren’t going to change and no one was coming to help. Governments were unable to talk to their people, their armies or police forces. Overnight everything went from the global to the parochial. There was no news! That had a myriad of consequences and resulting actions. When the comfort blankets are removed from people’s grasp they revert to type. The bright non-aggressive remain that way and looked for solutions, the opposite groups set out to destroy and rob out of a mis-placed sense of self-preservation.

Paul Mason was fortunate in a number of respects. He was a reasonably bright man who lived on the edge of the Pennine hills in a semi-rural situation and who knew people who lived in the country. He had his health. The fact that he had been a lecturer in metal work at a local college would stand him in good stead, although he didn’t realise how much until later, and he’d always grown his own vegetables. He had some relevant skills but at the time he and everyone else weren’t fully aware of how relevant.

We relied so much on communication over both short and long distances. The sight of people walking around chatting on mobile devices, texting and even buying things was commonplace and then it stopped. It just totally stopped. The satellites still orbited our planet but there was no way of picking up their signals. For a little while, where there was some battery power, things still worked but when there is nobody out there receiving even that petered out within a few hours. There were some hospitals and other organisations with their own generators, so things were safe until they ran out of fuel. The internet had gone down rapidly and therefore, information on patients was lost.

Paul was going over these things in his mind as he gazed out at the motorway that was a mile or so away. There had been a few cars still moving at first but when the fuel ran out they stopped and were abandoned. There was the odd vehicle here and there still moving because some people, farmers, private haulage firms had their own fuel supplies and provided they could syphon it into their vehicles’ tanks, or had hand pumps they could still move. There was such a fuel tank where he was staying. He considered himself very lucky but the transition hadn’t been easy. The trouble with using motorised transport was that the noise of the engine attracted the attention of the wrong sort. There were lots of gangs and aggressive groups led by power crazed individuals who would attack first just to see what they could find to make their own lives more comfortable. Fortunately, they tended to stay nearer the large conurbations and to ambush unsuspecting groups who were scavenging for their own needs. The numbers of these groups were dwindling because when nothing is being produced, above the subsistence level, what was left from before soon ran out. That is not to say that there was nothing to be had, but it was no longer available quickly and easily. The years of instant gratification were well and truly over.

Two years ago Monty, Paul commented.

The dog’s ears pricked up and he looked trustingly at his master and wagged his tail enthusiastically.

It had only been two years since everything stopped for the majority. Paul had known that his friends, Jonathon and Kate, whom he’d met through college, had the farm on the moors. He had been at their wedding and since then helped out with one or two jobs that needed his metalwork skills up on the farm. They had bred border collies and that was where he’d bought Monty so, for the dog, when he’d made his way up here it was a home coming. It was that rapid decision to come up here that had really saved his bacon and that was what he was reflecting on in the late afternoon sun.

The power cuts had started as predicted so many years ago and at first they were planned and people were informed. However, Paul had noticed that, as time progressed, the accuracy of the planned cuts was somewhat less reliable; particularly the time given when power would be switched back on. People complained to the authorities but they just disappeared into a proverbial black hole. The chat amongst friends about the frequency, length and inaccuracy of cuts rang alarm bells in his mind. After one prolonged power cut Paul tried to ring Jonathon but the phones were dead and the mobile signals had disappeared. On that occasion the power eventually returned but not to the phones which was weird because they don’t run off the National Grid but have their own 40 volt power supply. When a few hours later there was still no return to normality Paul packed clothes and essential tools into his car and headed off into the Pennines to Jonathon’s farm.

He was always a bit of a loner, quiet and to a degree slightly reclusive, and of his two friends Kate was quite sensitive to that and he was always made to feel welcome. When he turned up at their door they were pleased to see him as always, but when he pulled a suitcase and bag full of gear and tools out of the car they were both astounded. Paul explained his fears and the following twenty four hours were hectic. Jonathon was living in the wilds of the Yorkshire hills and they were a couple who had made the jump from the ‘rat race’ to the rural idyll in an effort, in their words, to retain some semblance of sanity. The drawback of that, in this case, was a lack of information about the current situation that was evolving in the world. All they knew was that their phone wasn’t working and the lights kept going out. It had been such a problem that they’d searched out an elderly generator and Jonathon was trying to get it going but without much luck He had been considering contacting Paul with a view to getting him to come to the farm to help him out when the man himself turned up with this wild story. Since that time Paul had become a permanent house guest.

He sat on the moorland turf looking out at the view and going through the subsequent events of the last two years. After a fashion they’d done pretty well because of a combination of luck and good choices. Within a few days of the last flicker of power people began breaking away from their normal patterns of behaviour and took on the ‘I’m looking out for number one’ attitude. Initially, the shops closed and stayed shut. Their stock control computers, personnel records and checkouts no longer worked. Managers of all businesses began closing up and like the remaining of the populace looking after themselves. By the beginning of day three the breaking and entering, thieving and looting had begun and 24 hours later there were numbers of riots kicking off worldwide. City and town centres were ‘no go’ areas, a situation that pertained to this day.

Two years on and there were fewer out and out riots because the collective behaviours of we humans had reverted back to the Stone Age. People were banding together in what would have been euphemistically called ‘self-help groups’ a few years ago, but were now running as nothing more sophisticated than gangs.

The day was growing colder. Even Monty was feeling the chill as he’d stood up and was running around bothering the grazing sheep.

Monty, you crazy puppy! yelled Paul.

The young collie bounded back to him demanding attention. Dogs were so much easier to deal with than people he thought. He was okay with Jonathon and Kate but their household had grown since the early days of his arrival. Kate’s young cousin Jennifer and her mother were permanent residents also. Jennifer was sixteen and quite young for her age, the mother, Kate’s aunt Barbara, in her fifties. They were nice enough people but contributed little to the group. Barbara was rather arthritic and Jenny a weak teenager of limited experience who needed direction. Paul couldn’t be bothered with either of them. When they were brought by Jonathon it caused a change in the arrangements in the main farmhouse. There were three bedrooms but Jenny didn’t want to share with her mother and it ended up with Paul moving into part of the barn. It suited him. He could get away and have private time with his books, his sketchpad and his dog.

So there were five adults, four more than capable of working, and a working farm. Currently there were six dogs including Paul’s Monty, a couple of dozen sheep, a horse and a few hens. The regular eggs, home grown vegetables, lamb, chicken and rabbit provided good nourishment but tended to be sparse. Dairy was the difficulty. When they could get hold of the stuff Barbara could bake and felt as though she was contributing. There were always shortages, days were often hungry and no one was putting on weight.

When the original three had realised that there only option was to develop the farm to a level whereby it would sustain them they had started raiding places for goods and they had built up a supply of canned and dried goods but they put their energy into obtaining chicken wire, seeds, fruit trees, hardware of a wide variety and clothing. Of course the electrical stuff was useless so hand tools became like gold dust. While the idiot gangs were nicking food, they took things that would help produce or protect everyone in the group and they were still here after just over two years. It may have been a different story if the end had come at the onset of winter but as it was early spring they were able to plant on a limited scale with varying degrees of success. Starvation was avoided and the summer and autumn was spent as many animals do, collecting for the following winter. The next step would be to produce enough goods to trade with, all supposing they could find another group similar to them whom they could trust.

Paul! Dinner! called Kate. He waved in acknowledgement and stood stretching his back and shoulders.

C’mon Monty, let’s see how you do today, Paul said to his dog.

Paul had been training his dog to drive the sheep. Twenty minutes later the dog, the man and the sheep were back within the perimeter of the compound and not without one or two mistakes. Jonathon was laughing at the sweat Paul had worked up.

I think you ran further than the dog, Jonathon commented.

He is coming to, was Paul’s gruff response.

As things were they all sat together for dinner and while the women prattled on the men listened and relaxed. The work was hard, as was life, simple in many ways and very physical, so tiring. The progress made each day and the jobs for the following one were always a topic of conversation. They were eating rabbit again, which was the one type of meat that seemed to be in endless supply but there was no endless supply of shot for their guns.

We could do with a shopping trip, stated Kate.

Paul looked up at Jonathon who nodded agreement. These trips were high risk and down to the men.

Where to this time? asked Jonathon.

It was in intensely practical and strategic matters that the whole lot of them relied on Paul. He was good at organising and planning and there was a pretty reasonable acceptance that without his input they may have not lasted this long. It didn’t make him any easier to get to know for those who hadn’t known him that long. The choice of venue could often be crucial. If they went to a small town the chances were that it would be ‘owned’ by one gang and almost impenetrable. On the other hand large places, such as Bradford, Huddersfield or Halifax, which were nearest, were so spread out that searching took longer and the risks once again increased. If they went to a far flung place they’d have to risk the truck, closer places they could use the horse and cart. Although as a getaway vehicle it wasn’t that quick.

What about an industrial estate? muttered Paul.

Where? repeated Jonathon. He was getting a bit exasperated with Paul. At times he could be very deep, uncommunicative and almost sullen. Jonathon had his mood swings off to a tee and knew the best treatment was minimal contact and no pressure as he would soon come round. Barbara and Jenny weren’t used to him yet and kept pushing for communication but all that happened was Paul would disappear into his room in the barn.

We need some tinned stuff, clothes, seeds, tools and anything else you think useful, Kate smiled. She was so good with Paul. I’ll get you a list of sizes for the morning.

Paul nodded and went through his usual mantra about wasting time bringing stuff back that was useless.

I think we’ll go towards Bradford in the truck Jonathon, Paul said firmly. There’s that small industrial estate half way up the old M606. There was a big D.I.Y. store, a hotel and several other smaller businesses. It’s probably been picked over but they never get everything and if we are short of things it’s only a mile up the road to an area of private housing that may well yield other stuff.

Can I come? asked Jennifer.

No you’re too young, interrupted her mother Barbara. It’s too dangerous Jenny, stated Paul in a tone that brooked no argument. Jenny looked downcast and as if she was about to burst into tears. He realised that his words had more than the desired outcome and continued,

If you are serious, the child nodded vigorously. Paul went on,

If you are serious I suggest you start running up and down that hill, start getting fit so that if we take you and there’s a problem you could get away.

Quite a lengthy speech from the usually reticent Paul, in company! So much so that everyone had stopped their own forks in mid-flight to listen. What had been said was true but also almost kind and it had the desired effect on the girl. In fact it seemed to energise her mother as well as she put in a request for wool, knitting needles, cloth and sewing equipment. Well we were going to Bradford and historically it had been a textile city. It seemed to Paul that the two latest members of the group would feel better if they could demonstrate positive contributions to the greater good.

Good night, said Paul to the room and off he went to his bolt hole.

Chapter 2

It was misty and cold, as it can be in the hills, when we set off the following morning at 04:30. It would take us around half an hour to get to our target destination which was half way up the M606. That was all supposing there were no hitches, gangs or ambushes of any sort. The truck was a flatbed wagon to which Paul had fitted half metre high sides and back. It could hold a lot, not that there would be a lot to be had as experience reminded Paul. They had a couple of old shotguns, a handgun and a pair of knives with them, as well as tools for dismantling or whatever. The day was full of tension even at this early hour which was demonstrated by the worry etched into Kate’s face as she kissed her husband goodbye. She even told Paul to look after himself. Of course she wasn’t being over sensitive as there was real danger around built up areas. Barbara and Jennifer looked on from the farmhouse doorway not really understanding but then they had no real connection with either man.

The journey that used to take no more than twenty minutes had to be approached very differently. The motorway, the M62, could at times be nothing more than a car park, but that was more than two years ago, but now it was littered with abandoned vehicles and only the odd car or truck moved, The noise of a motorised vehicle often attracted unwelcome attention from desperate people who lived close by and thought that they could acquire something for nothing. Of course, as time had passed by, there were fewer people who lived close enough to be a threat. So out in the countryside, where the motorway did not pass through or close to a significant conurbation, the risks were much reduced. Another factor which would keep them safe for a little while was the reduced population.

The risks would be greatly increased as they reached the junction of the two motorways where the population was denser. The engine would attract attention and so they needed to proceed as quietly as was humanly possible. After they’d been going for fifteen minutes or so there was a downhill stretch and Jonathon, who was driving, slipped the truck into neutral and coasted the next section. That was the way they continued until the branch off of the M606 about half a mile in front of them. It was still short of 06:00 and so eerily quiet, but there was daylight which had the quality that presages a warm day.

There wasn’t much in the way of conversation between the two partly due to Paul’s reticence and also the tension of what they were doing. It was almost like rolling several adventures into one day. There was the risk of travelling; invading others’ territories; stealing or looting - whatever you wanted to call it; and, the risk of animal attack. The latter wasn’t too high on the danger agenda the greatest danger being from wild, scavenging