INDEX CARD NOVEL: Never move the refrigerator
He was hit again in the face. His family was in various other rooms being tortured or worse. “Where’s the stuff, old man”? Smack. He pretended to be out. Water was splashed on him. He thought back a few weeks.
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All of the media outlets had gone to commercial-free coverage. The Dow had dropped 4,000 points and trading was been suspended on Wall Street. Countries transferred their reserves from the US Dollar. Even the mighty Chinese couldn’t staunch the flow. They were holding 5T$ and were just a ruined as the US. Oil futures climbed to $5000 a barrel before trading was suspended. A national bank holiday! The grocery stores are cleared. The gas pumps dry up. Trucks delivering goods are stuck at truck stops. Inner city areas are zones. The Interstate becomes a parking lot.
The fat old man had a plan to shelter in place. He had his “stuff”. He had caches. He had guns. But he also had to sleep.
The gang had him.
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The beatings continued. He’d had the survival school training. He knew he’d break but he had to make the act believable. He passed out again.
When he came to, in the time before it was obvious, he thought about a year ago. He told his family “Whatever anyone does, no one is to move the refrigerator except me.” Everyone shrugged; who cared. He did!
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The screams from the bedrooms were getting louder. He couldn’t figure how anyone was going to escape this. It was time to give in. Sucked into a microscopic black hole? No, but it could seem like that.
“OK”, the fat old man gasped. “Where is it?” “You’ll let the others go?” “Sure” “Under the refrigerator” In a flash, the gang leader was at the fridge pulling at it. “You better not be lying, you fat piece of …”
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The fat old white guy was an injineer. Small common household Liquefied Petroleum Gas canisters in the basement were intended for cooking and heating. A bunch of conventional pipe bombs strapped to them was an “insurance policy”. It was intended to be detonated if they were driven out of their safe house. There was a detonator buried at the property line. If he couldn’t have it, no one would enjoy it. As an after thought, he thought about the story where a survivor planned for mutants to take over his shelter. He added a pressure switch under the refrigerator.
He’d done his best. His family was no longer suffering and he’d cleaned up his part of the neighborhood.
Bad guys 8; fat old white guy 42.
And the motorcycles, they rode in on.
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Moral of the story: Never move the refrigerator
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Posted by reinkefj 
Reinke Faces Life 
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