Survivors – A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Michael Lyon shook his head from side to side, and Andy continued: “Those are some amazing ruins. Now, again: I fully expect to see you and your family on my doorstep someday. In fact, I’ll be disappointed if I don’t.”

Andy stuffed the flashlight into the loops on the back of his handlebar bag. He and the policeman shook hands and wished each other well. Lyon waved as Andy pulled out from the curb into the drizzle. As he pedaled away, Andy realized that the Mesa Verde ruins had belonged to a culture that had been erased from existence. In the late 1200s, Mesa Verde was abandoned, and the society was never rebuilt. He wondered about the hopes for his own civilization in the long term.

Heeding the policeman’s warning, Andy avoided central Dover. Instead he skirted around the city. He kept on the Dover Road, which roughly paralleled the A258 highway. Eventually he got to Pegwell Harbor. There, Andy learned that there were no boats headed to the U.S., since the East Coast and Gulf Coast were reportedly in utter chaos. The few yachts and commercial vessels there that might be sailing were all headed to New Zealand. One of the motor yachtsmen kindly spent an hour on his VHF radio on Andy’s behalf, calling yachtsmen and commercial vessels to ask of any boats with planned sailings to the U.S. or Canada that winter. There were none. This was discouraging news. But also hearing that all flights were still grounded, he had no choice but to press on up the coast.

As he was cycling up the Hereson Road, just north of Ramsgate, Andy was confronted by two young toughs on Kawasaki motorcycles. They zoomed up behind him, and one of them turned sharply and braked to a halt right in front of Laine. He was forced to apply his own brakes to avoid hitting the motorcycle. The thug quickly dismounted and shoved a length of hoe handle through the spokes of Laine’s front wheel. It was deja vu of the incident near Homberg. Andy jumped off his bike, simultaneously pulling his newly acquired flashlight from its retaining loops. Taking a high swing, he brought it down hard on the young man’s forearm. The biker screamed and shouted, “My arm!”

Andy immediately turned and delivered a rapid series of baton strikes to the chest and arms of the other motorcyclist, who was slow in dismounting. Overwhelmed, he gunned his engine and sped off. Seeing Andy’s furious show of force, the first biker jumped back aboard his Kawasaki and sped away unsteadily, shouting curses. As he picked up his fallen bicycle and inspected both it and the trailer hitch for damage, Laine muttered to himself, “There must be some international college of thuggery that teaches the bike-spokes technique.”

22 A Semblance of Normalcy

“During the hyperinflation in post WWI Germany, what used to be a comfortable nest egg was suddenly the value of a postage stamp. If one held just a portion of their savings in precious metals, the crisis was greatly softened. Gold will never be worth nothing, even if the exact price fluctuates. There is a famous photograph, however, of a German woman during this time period burning piles of tightly bound banknotes to keep warm.”

-Congressman Ron Paul

In better weather, another day of cycling the minor roads north from Dover brought Andy to the quintessentially Kentish town of Boughton, just short of the town of Faversham. He spent the night in the woods, just off the road from Boughton to Hernhill, uneventfully. After breakfast and a shave the next morning, he cycled back to the main road. Andy felt like he was deep in the heart of the land of thatched roofs and tweed jackets. At Faversham he turned down to the yacht harbor at Oare Creek. Laine was surprised to see such a large number of private sailboats and motor vessels in the harbor.

Although he was first met with suspicion at the harbormaster’s office, he was eventually given a safe place to leave his bicycle and trailer, while he scoured the docks to make inquiries.

He arrived at low tide, with the water so low that most of the boats were resting on their keels in the mud, looking forlorn. The harbormaster explained that it was an unusual “minus tide.”