Earth Reset: Shadow of Death

By Nick Eager

It has been four months since the solar flare knocked out the electric grid. Nick and the people who’ve banded together with him have been able to provide for their basic needs. However, there are many concerns from people, such as whether they will be able to survive through winter. People are complaining about Nick’s domination of the decision making and demand that they have a voice. Others want to begin being paid for their work so they are fairly compensated for their efforts. Another group of survivors, that call themselves Eden, seems to be doing better. They invite everyone to join them, but Nick is suspicious. Representatives from Eden are never able to answer all of Nick’s questions. When everyone doesn’t join Eden, relations become hostile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Eager
• Release date: Apr 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9780463381120

Nick Eager

Nick Eager is a pseudonym for the author. Nick lives and works in Michigan. He has professional experience with planning for solar flares.

Book preview

Earth Reset – Shadow of Death

By Nick Eager

Copyright 2021 Nick Eager

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Earth Reset – Shadow of Death

About the Author

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Chapter 1: Beginning of August

When I woke, I figured out that tomorrow would be two weeks since our assault on our neighbors in Raleigh. When we attacked Mitchell’s home, we hadn’t realized that he had already left. That was a great relief. Our friend Bob and his wife are the only people who remained in the town.

We assumed that Mitchell had moved to a suburb farther west. Dorian had told us that many others had gone, too, because there was a group there with plenty of food.

There were many warehouses to the west. That made me think that the group had found a grocer’s distribution center.

We were doing fine with food. Feeding one hundred people who had banded together had been a challenge since the beginning. The solar flare had knocked out the electrical grid, and that caused the food distribution system to collapse immediately.

We had scavenged items from abandoned homes, but I was trying to save all of that. We ate wild foods. There were always as many greens as we could possibly eat from the garden and from the wild. Also, the garden bell peppers were producing, and large tomatoes were starting. For fruit, the mulberries were still growing on a few of the tall trees, but many trees were done for the year. The trees near the creeks were doing the best, so I thought we should plant more near there.

We always had a little meat from the hunters. Another protein was the maple tree helicopters which came down occasionally, but we still had a basement full of them. Every day we had bread made from phrag flour. Also, I was watching the apples and acorns develop for the future.

I had slept in the tent last night. On hot days, the house stayed hot all night. I got up and headed to the outhouse. The construction crew had recently put stepping stones on the path through the grass. I hadn’t asked them to do that. I was glad that people were finally thinking for themselves. There had been a time when I thought people would forget to breathe if I didn’t remind them to do it. Mostly, we had adjusted to the new life.

Returning to my home, I noticed Steve approaching. I went around the side of the house and waved to him. Steve was the instigator for our attack on Raleigh. Now that that threat was gone, I hoped he’d be less trouble.

What if I want my share of our gasoline? he asked out of the blue.

You want gas? I asked.

Yes, so I can drive south.

Do you mean you want to move south?

Yes, he said. I don’t think that we will make it through winter.

We still have a long time. It is only August. When were you thinking about going?

The grass is already turning. It won’t be long until everything falls apart.

The grass was less lush than in spring, but we rarely ate it because we had better greens. I thought it was ironic that Steve had been willing to fight Mitchell for our land, but this week he was fickle about staying. Maybe with our main threat gone, Steve felt bored. Yet, I wouldn’t mind very much if Steve moved away. With him gone, his friends might be more manageable.

I will talk to Mark about it, I said. Steve nodded. Our only working vehicle was the truck. Mark, our only auto mechanic, had taken the batteries out of all the vehicles and removed their tires. Some cars drained the batteries really quickly. Some of the newest vehicles were the worst. My wife’s car had constantly listened to see if she was going to call it, so it was always alert. That meant that it was dead in two weeks if nobody drove it. Nobody was ever going to call it again. I smiled when I thought that the car probably felt lonely.

Samantha arrived to help me plan the work schedule for the day. Others got up to fix breakfast. I ate bread for my meal. It was a common breakfast food because it could be made the day before. However, the cooks often tried to add some variety with other foods.

Mateo was the leader of the scavenging crew. Now that Raleigh was fair game, it was the closest place to scavenge since it was just a block across Linwood. That made his crew happier because they didn’t have as far to carry back supplies they found.

I avoided making too many group announcements in the mornings because the hunters were up and gone by then, so they wouldn’t hear them. Instead, I met some of the team leaders individually. I talked to Tim and George who were co-leaders of the construction and firewood crews. George said that he’d go through Raleigh to identify deadwood that could be easily harvested. Then I talked to Tim about the sewer system. I was worried that after a rain, it would back up into our homes. Now that we didn’t use the system, it would be best to cut off from it. We’d just found a backhoe, so while we still had gas would be a good time to dig down at the end of the block to cap the sewer pipe there.

My first job that morning was to get projections from the gardeners on how much produce we’d have. We planted several large gardens and it was all looking very lush. Nicole, and my wife, Ann, were the leaders in gardening. I talked to them as we all pulled weeds.

The garden looks really nice, I said. I am gracious for all your…

Grateful, not gracious, Ann said, interrupting me.

Yes, I said. I knew the right word, but my brain hadn’t completely woken up. We started work at the crack of dawn to avoid the heat of the day. I forgot what I was going to say.

We are going to have a lot of vegetables, Nicole said.

No one is going to ever eat them all, Ann said. They will go to waste.

We have one hundred people to feed. We eat a lot of food a day.

Nobody is going to want bell peppers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Ann said.

Maybe with an omelet, Nicole said.

…if we had any eggs, Ann said.

Does pickling work on bell peppers? I asked. That would give us food variety for later.

Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers, Ann said.

Oh, yes, that should work, I said.

…but that is jalapenos, Ann said.

Bells are the same, I said.

Next, I went to count the canning supplies we’d found. We had a few cases, but we could go through much more, so I wrote down to tell Mateo to look for more jars and vinegar. Also, I talked to Luke, the lead cook, about how many vegetables he’d want to serve versus preserve. They had already been using our canning supplies on mulberries.

Would we ever run out of vinegar? Luke asked.

There is a lot of it, I said. Almost every home has some, but yes, eventually we’d run out.

You can make vinegar from apples easily. We should have fresh apples soon.

Good, I said. I am more concerned about canning supplies. Had you canned food before the mulberries?

No.

I think you aren’t supposed to reuse the lids because they don’t seal well the second time.

Oh, he said. How do you can vegetables?

They are usually sour pickled. Having a sealed jar isn’t as important for them because the vinegar kills anything that gets in. You have to remove the water using salt, blanch the vegetable, and then cure them in vinegar.

Luke went to check in with the cooks who were lighting fires to cook food for lunch. It was already a hot day. I didn’t envy them being near fires.

I wanted the construction crew to put up tents to shade us from the sun at lunchtime. Most cooking happened around my house, so out front was the communal area. Some of the tables were under the tree in my front yard. That helped with sun, but not rain.

I wanted to make mealtimes inviting. When people took their food home with them, they’d miss announcements. Also, keeping the group cohesive took continuous effort. We needed to interact socially regularly, or we’d fall apart. There were plenty of places to eat, but that wasn’t the issue. We could scatter tables into garages. I could put one on my back porch if the kitchen crew didn’t work there.

The scavenging crew had found two large tents, but I had the construction crew working on the sewer pipe. He was on the backhoe at the end of the block. Tyler was working on Tim’s crew, but he mostly just stood around. Currently he was looking into the hole Tim was digging. He was waving his arms to Tim about something. I decided that I could unpack the first tent and figure out what to do with it.

The tent needed to be staked down. Sandbags might work to hold it from blowing away if I put it on the driveway or street, but that would be an option for another day. My tree had low branches, so I decided to put the tents starting on the next yard. The first one could hold four picnic tables if they were crowded together. That would be fine during a chilly rain, but not during heat.

Mark returned early for lunch. He saw me putting up the tent and helped. We carried two tables into it.

Steve was saying that he wanted to move South, I said.

Oh?

I don’t think he is happy here. He wants to try living somewhere else.

How would he get there? Mark asked.

That’s why I wanted to talk to you. How far could a vehicle make it?

A hybrid might go 500 miles, or maybe 600 miles if he kept his speed down to 40 miles per hour.

That probably isn’t far enough, I said. I remember hearing about a traffic jam of stalled vehicles. He might not even find a way through.

Well, we have a lot of gas. He could take some with him. It will only go stale anyhow if we don’t use it.

Could he put gas canisters in his trunk? We heard that Tennessee might be okay. That might help him get that far.

How many? Ten extra gallons might take him far enough, but the car would smell the whole way, he said.

Even if it is in the trunk?

Yes.

Instead, he could put a bicycle on the back. That would help he be mobile when he runs out of gas, I said.

Is he going alone?

As far as I know. He’s friends with Rob and his family.

He argues all the time with Rob, Mark said.

That is their friendship style. Also, he hangs around with John, Charles, Dan, Meg, and Samantha.

All are troublemakers, but Samantha.

John isn’t bad. He has moods, but most of the time he isn’t around anyway. He stays at his own home.

At lunch, I sat with Ann, but our son, Frank, sat with friends. Lily, our daughter, got her food and went in again. I saw Nicole smile when Tim sat with her and her daughter, Ava.

Are they a thing now? I said to Ann, nodding towards Tim and Nicole.

How should I know?

You are with her half the day or more.

We don’t talk about that, Ann said. Mostly we talk of gardening, if we talk at all.

That reminded me about canning. Ann had made strawberry preserves once in the time we were married. I told her about talking to Luke about jar lids.

Remember when your grandmother gave us jelly? she asked. My grandmother was still alive when we were dating.

Yes, it was made from wild berries. We picked them every year when I was younger.

She reused her jar lids, but she put a wax layer over the top of the jelly to keep it fresh.

That’s a great idea, but where do we find wax? We don’t have a wax factory. I asked. Can you make wax?

Bees make it.

We don’t have any bees either.

I got up to make announcements. Also, I had my crew leaders speak. George mentioned that there was a lot of deadwood in the park in Raleigh. He wanted his full crew to help get started harvesting it later.

After lunch, I told Mateo and Luke to keep an eye open for wax that was food grade. We’d already scavenged grocery stores for anything we could use, but people might have it at home.

When it was hot like today, we would break for a few hours in the afternoons. Additionally, rain was more likely then. It was light in the evenings, so we could easily work then. Our breaks were the only time of the day that my house wasn’t crowded because the cooking crew was based in my kitchen.

Today I spent my quiet time sewing a hole in my shorts. Sometimes I used this time to check in with people. Other days when I wasn’t busy, I often wrote about my life story. Charles had been a history teacher. He had joked that we needed to have an official history of our town. Charles said since most people had a sort of hero worship of me as the founder and leader, my history was theirs. I thought that he was subtly digging at me when he said that. We’d never agreed on history but had compromised the lessons the children would learn in school. Still, I thought his joke was partly true. My thoughts and experiences had strongly influenced how I set up our community. In the future, people might want to learn more about my background.

Someone knocked on my screen door. I turned to see Linda standing there. I was the group’s doctor because no one else would do it, so I wondered if she or one of her boys had a problem. She had come to us with severe depression over the death of her husband. Yet now she was smiling at my door.

Yes? Come in, I said. She opened the door.

Luke said that you were asking about making wax, Linda said.

Yes. Do you have any ideas?

Wax can be made from sugar. When I was waxing my leg hair, to save money, I made my own wax.

Really? How? I asked.

I used 1 cup of sugar, one-eighth cup of lemon juice and one-eighth cup of water. You have to boil it until it is thick.

That sounds like hard candy. Was it sticky?

That’s the point. Hairs stick to it, she said.

I wondered if that would work the same as real wax. We had lots of sugar now, but no lemon juice unless it was in a sealed bottle. Eventually, we’d run out of sugar too. Still, we needed wax. Hard candy usually kept very well unless the ants found it. That shouldn’t be a problem as long as there was a lid on top. We had lots of recycled mayonnaise jars scavenged from people’s refrigerators.

Why don’t you try it some day on the mulberry jam? I asked. It was better to try it now while we had many mulberries.

Okay. She left, looking motivated.

I had an encyclopedia that we’d brought over from the library. I wondered if it had any information about wax. I found the entry. I learned that commercial wax is made from petroleum, so it was a type of plastic. However, you could make it from plant and animal oils. That was probably what bees did. The chemistry of wax was discussed in depth, but I didn’t understand it.

I recalled that I had my own personal chemist on staff. My daughter Lily would be able to help. She did very little work, but I could sometimes get useful information from her about chemical or environmental issues. I got up and knocked on her door. I braced myself in case she yelled not to bother her.

What is it? she asked. I cracked open her door.

I have a question about chemistry that I hope you can help with.

Maybe.

I summarized our need for wax. Then I told her about how using sugar and lemon juice wasn’t practical.

It doesn’t have to be lemon, she said. There is nothing special about lemon juice. It is acid with a lemony flavor.

What are other acids?

Vinegar.

We have lots of vinegar, I said, and we can try to make it. How much vinegar?

They have roughly the same pH, so the same amount.

That is helpful, but still sugar isn’t the best for long term. I have the encyclopedia description of wax. Can you look at the chemistry to see if it is something we can do here?

Okay, she said. I was relieved that I didn’t have to pressure her. I was her father and her leader, and it was hard to be both. I put a note in my kitchen for Linda to use vinegar rather than opening the lemon juice bottle.

At supper, I talked to my crew leaders about the rumors about an Eden in a western suburb. I told them that Dorian, our trader, would be around soon and that he might have information. Afterwards, Steve came up to me. He asked if I had decided about giving him gas for his car.

It seems dangerous to carry gas in your trunk, I said. Your car could explode. It’d be safer to bicycle.

He shook his head and left before I had a chance to get out my whole thought. I was trying to work with him on his plan. Most of the time, we had no urgent tasks to do, so we could spend as long as we wanted discussing issues. However, he didn’t want to hear me.

In the evening, I joined the scavenging crew. Steve was often among them, so I thought that I could talk with him more. However, it looked like he was angry, so I didn’t approach him. We were in Raleigh, across the street from Linda’s old home.

I saw that you put up one of the tents, Mateo said. It keeps the sun off, but it cuts down the breeze.

Oh, I said. Are there tents that open?

Probably, but you might want Tim to build a picnic shelter instead.

That’s a good idea. Where would we get the materials? You might want to keep an eye open for porches that can be disassembled.

While going through possessions people had left behind, Mateo had found a hammock. I’m going to put this up at home in the shade for my siesta, he said. The shade around my house was currently taken by tables, but if they moved, I might have room for a hammock.

I’m jealous, I smiled. You might get 100 requests for hammocks when everyone sees.

Wednesday morning, I talked to Tim about some ideas for sun shelters. He liked the idea of permanent structures because he said the tents would blow away. We looked at where to put them. Tyler just sat and waited while we talked.

Normally, people would put a shelter in their backyard, Tim said.

This would be for community meals and events. We need them clustered together in the front, I said. We had picnic tables under my tree, in the new tent, along my driveway, and some in the street.

I’d like to put them where we have room in the street, but the old cars take up a lot of room. Many people had brought their cars when they moved over from their previous homes.

It’d be a big effort to move them all now, I said. They are kind of stuck there. Mark had removed all of their tires and batteries. Plus, if it gets cold, they are a convenient place to sit where it is nice and warm.

When it is cold, are people going to sit in each one to eat?

I guess so.

The shelters might fit in the neighboring driveways. That is still close, but I can move the cars. It’d be easier just to push them. Have you see any shelters around? he asked.

No, but they should be easy to find. It only takes a couple seconds to look down a line of backyards.

They may be harder to find than that. My buddy had one, but he took it down in winter. It was a hybrid between a tent and a permanent structure, he said. Then I saw Ann come out of our house.

She paused before interrupting. Lily wants to talk to you, Ann said to me.

Thanks, I said, and I went inside. Lily was waiting.

I have the information for you about wax, she said.

Good. She talked about chemistry in greater detail than I’d care to hear, but as her father, I was proud of what she’d done.

Wax can be made from oil, she said. You have to hydrogenate the oil. Hydrogenation is how they make margarine from corn oil. You could make margarine into wax by just making it harder.

Margarine is really bad for health, I said.

You aren’t going to eat your wax.

Is hydrogenating something that we can do?

I hope so. It is also how you make soap. Hydrogen is a strong base, she said.

Isn’t ash a strong base?

"I don’t know. Anyhow, if your purpose is just to