The next morning Alex and Tim found Bob behind the store, shovel in hand burying the dog that had been killed the night before.

"Hey Dad. I thought you said that nobody went anywhere alone around here."

"He's not alone." A voice came from above them.

Looking up, Alex and Tim found Michelle sitting on a rooftop, with a shotgun laid across her lap.

"Alex, you above all people should know I try not to break my own rules." Bob said as he stood and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"I just didn't see her up there."

"I thought I taught you that when you might come under attack, by man or animal, you have to be aware it can come from any direction, and take steps to prevent it. Or at least make sure you have an advance warning. You should know that."

"I thought I did. Well, as you always say two sets of eyes are better than one. I think I'll join her. If you don't mind that is."

"I don't mind as long as you don't make her throw you off the roof. How's the arm, by the way?"

"I'm O.K. And YES I get the point. Since Tim is here with you, I'm going up. Where's the ladder?"

"Around front. And Son, please try to make sure your eyes look around the area once in a while. O.K.?"

"O.K." Alex said a little angrily, and with that went to the front of the building Michelle was sitting on in search of the promised ladder.

Bob and Tim both smiled at his back as Alex walked away. After a moment, Tim turned to speak to Bob.

"I was going to ask you to continue what we were talking about last night, but right now you have my curiosity up. If we are trying to stay out of sight, why are you burying this dog and not the others?"

"In a word, camouflage. All the other dogs have been dead for a while, and show it. This one is obviously freshly killed. So we need to get it out of sight."

"Couldn't someone flying over see the grave has been recently dug?"

"Not if we are careful about it. Do you see that?" Bob nodded his head at a sheet lying on the ground which was covered with dirt.

"Yeah, but I don't get it."

"Look closely at that dirt and the dirt covering the dog. Notice any difference?"

After studying it for a moment Tim said, "The dirt on the grave is darker."

"That's right. Surface dirt is always a different, and usually lighter color from the dirt just a few inches down. So I skimmed off the top layer and set it aside. Now in order to hide this, we take that layer of what was on top and spread it all over everything I've done here. That way, at least from the air, there won't be a tell tale color difference."

"What about at ground level? Surely anyone walking around here will see the mound of earth."

"Tim, if someone is walking around down here, either we won't be here, or we will never leave here. In either case it won't matter."

"I see what you mean." Tim thought about it as he helped Bob spread the lighter colored dirt over the recently filled grave. "Bob, it seems there is a lot for all of us to learn. I don't expect you to make me and expert at it, but could you give me some pointers on camouflage?"

"Certainly. It isn't that hard. You see, when most people look for something, they look for the entire object. For example, when you lose your wallet. You look for the wallet. You aren't looking for say, just the corner of it sticking out from under a sheet on the bed. Another example would be novice hunters. They look for an entire deer or whatever. A more experienced hunter is looking for a bit of antler sticking above the brush, or a leg moving underneath low hanging branches. That sort of thing. The point is that whatever you are trying to hide has to be made to either look like it belongs there, or at least doesn't look out of place. One of the ways to do that is to simply break up the outline of yourself or whatever you want to hide.

For example, you've seen cars that have a protective cover on them, right?"

"Sure."

"So what would they look like if that cover was camouflaged?"

"Like a car with a camouflaged cover."

"Exactly. They wouldn't be hidden at all. Now what if you placed things on the car and under the cover that broke up the outline? And you also put a few tree branches and other local native plants on top of it?

"It would be a lot harder to pick out from the air, for sure and I imagine it would be just as hard to see even from the ground."

"Bingo! Give the man a cigar."

"Now I begin to see what you mean. Did I ever tell you that before Kathy and I got married I used to do a little scuba diving?"

"Can't say I recall ever hearing that. Why?"

"There are certain sea creatures that will swim to the bottom, and cover themselves with sand by using their fins. They only leave their eyes exposed. After that they lay there and wait for something to swim by close enough to become their next meal."

"You've got it. Only we are talking about doing that on land, instead of underwater.

Another example, I remember when they were teaching us about it when I was in the service. Since I had been hunting with my father for years before that, I knew how to hide myself already. So, after I had done the best job I could, I sat down on a log and waited for everyone else to finish. Some of the guys laughed at me, thinking I had taken the instructions a bit too far. They quit laughing when our drill Sergeant, who was a combat veteran, came up, looked around and asked the rest of them where I was at. I was sitting not two feet from him and he almost jumped out of his skin when I answered him. I always considered it a high compliment that he didn't even know I was there."

"Now wait a minute. You said people look for an entire object. Didn't he expect to see you guys camouflaged?"

"Not exactly. He was expecting to see a bunch of guys trying to camouflage themselves. He didn't expect to see one that already knew how, so he missed me."

"I think I have a lot more to learn than I thought."

"Don't we all?" Alex said from above them. "I never have been able to do that, and believe me I've tried."

"Son, I hate to tell you this, but you suffered under a handicap.

"I did? What was that?"

"I trained you. So I knew what to expect, and I looked for that."

"Dad. That's cheating."

"No. That's training. Now, I know that under most circumstances I could march a company of men right past you, and I mean within a couple of feet of you, and as long as you didn't move or make noise, they would never have a clue that you were there."

Bob folded the sheet the dirt had been on, picked up the shovel and looked at Alex and Michelle.

"Tim and I are heading back to the store. Are you two going to keep watch?"

"I'll keep watch." Alex answered.

"I know that. But what I meant was watching the road."

"Very funny, Dad."

Bob smiled at Tim, who grinned back at him and together they turned and headed back around the store for the front door. As they walked to the front, Bob spoke again.

"You know this reminds me of a story from World War II. Early in the war there was a British illusionist who really believed in camouflage. He tried for a long time to convince the Royal military of it's benefits. Finally he did convince them to run a test. The Royal Army took nine artillery pieces and had their men hide them in their usual fashion. He was given one gun to hide. When the time came, a British General was taken out to the field to try to spot all ten of the guns. After awhile the General had spotted nine out of ten of the guns. Not willing to give up, he started to walk all over the field where they had been hidden. Soon, he was standing on a small hill and admitted that he just couldn't find the last one. He turned to the illusionist and asked where he had hidden his gun. The illusionist answered him.

'Sir, you're standing on it.'

Needless to say the British decided the guy was on to something."

As they entered the store, they found Maria going through the available supplies still left on the shelves.

"Hi there. Found anything interesting?" Bob asked.

"It's not what I found, it's what I didn't find." She answered.

"Oh. What didn't you find?"

Maria looked up from her work, smiled and said,

"An answer to the question Tim asked you last night. With all the cars dead, what do you think we should do about transportation?"

"Oh that. To tell you the truth, that question was answered when they set off the bombs. Any vehicle that has electronic fuel ignition is now dead."

"I know that, but do we have any other options?"

"A couple of them. First of all, anything that starts with a pull rope, like my go-cart, should still run. Of course, go-carts aren't going to handle all of our needs. We need something more than that, but I'm not sure we can do to much about it. You see, any vehicle that has electronic fuel ignition is basically run by computer, and so it is dead. Our second option is that it is possible to take a pull rope machine, like a chainsaw, and adapt it to a bicycle. Now when you consider the weight involved, it isn't going to move very fast, and you might even have to push it on the uphill, but that is better than walking.

But then again on the subject of bicycles, you have to remember that during both World Wars, soldiers moved themselves and their equipment quite a ways on those same two wheels. True it wasn't easy, but it was more than anyone had a right to expect."

"Bob, How do you turn a chainsaw into a motor for a bicycle?"

"It's not that difficult. First thing is to remove the blade and chain from the saw. Then you rig up a couple of brackets to hold the motor in place. Next comes the tricky part. You have to use the bikes' chain to go around the sprocket on the motor. Now most bike chains have a master link which you can take apart. You use that to shorten the chain to the right size. After that, it is simply a matter of rigging up a throttle to one of the hand grips, and there you have it. As I said, you won't go fast or far but it beats walking, and you can carry a very limited amount of cargo."

"That is unreal. I'd have never thought of that. But what do you do when the gas runs out?"

"If you can find a replacement for the chain, you ride the bike. If not you use it to carry your stuff. Either way life is going to be a little bit easier for you than it is for the people that don't have a bike."

Bob looked around the store for a moment and asked,

"Is there anything around here a man can have for breakfast? I got an early start, and haven't had the chance yet."

Maria laughed. "I was fixing something for Mike and myself when you grabbed her for lookout. So I fixed something for both of you. Where is she anyway?"

"Still sitting on the roof last time I saw her. But she wasn't alone. Alex was with her. I'm just not sure how much looking out the two of them are getting done, if you don't count looking at each other."


BW, Vietnam Vet

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If you missed the beginning of this exciting series, it started with Overthrown – Death of America. You can catch up on all of the previous installments here.