I walked up to the grocery store. It was ransacked, but the walls were still standing. There was a bulletin board out front, used by the locals for notices of school plays and business opportunities and garage sales. All the notices were old. Including one prominently displayed in the center of the board, over all of the other notices.
I looked at the notice. The ink was faded a bit, but you could see that it was an 'official notice'. It had the Placer county seal as part of the letterhead. I read the notice.
NOTICE TO ALL RESIDENTS
Due to the shortage of food, medical supplies, housing, and electricity, and the widespread disease, the County of Placer is under martial law, pursuant to section 12.302 of the County Code, and as authorized by the State of California.
All residents are ordered to assemble at the Foresthill Elementary School parking lot on October 2nd by 11:00 am. Each resident can bring only one medium size suitcase of clothing and personal effects. You should also bring any medications and personal identification and other legal papers.
All residents will be bussed by military convoy to a settlement area to be determined.
There are no exceptions to this order. Continued Military patrols will ensure that all residents comply with this order. Violations of this order will be dealt with harshly.
Some high-ranking bureaucrat whose name I didn't recognize signed the notice.
So that's what happened to everyone. They were forced out of town, relocated to some camp somewhere. It happened just a few months after the Problem started.
I read the notice again. And then I started thinking about the last paragraph. "Continued Military patrols", it said. Here it was in April, nobody was around town, and I suspected that 'continued' meant exactly what it said.
This wasn't a safe place to be.
I took a quick look around the grocery store. There wasn't anything left of value that I could see, or that I could use. I got back on the bike, and started it up, putting the rifle in its sheath, and the handgun in its holster. I drove over to the hardware store, or where it used to be. It was pretty well ransacked, but there were a few things that I was able to pick up.
I found some vegetable seeds, a shovel and rake, some files, saw blades, and an axe and axe handles, and a couple of knives. You would have expected that most of these items would have been gone, but I guess the forced evacuation had worked to my advantage. People hadn't stayed around long enough to fully ransack the store.
I couldn't fit much in the milk case strapped to the back of the bike, but the things that I got were going to be useful. I made a couple of quick trips into the store to get useful items, packing them carefully but quickly into the milk case and saddlebags. And I kept a sharp ear for any sounds other than the hawk flying overhead.
I was in the hardware store for about ten minutes total. One last trip inside to grab a few more things. I started for the door, and heard a strange noise. It was a low growling type noise. It wasn't mechanical, it was four-legged. And it was coming from the back room of the store.