Bug Out! Part 8: RV Park Terror by Robert Boren Read Free Book Online

said. “There’s a small lake over there. Wonder if it belongs to this property? See it? About three hundred yards over there.”
    “Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Why hasn’t anybody bothered this place?”
    “It’s in the middle of nowhere,” Jeb said. “Not enough people have found it. If this was on the outskirts of a big town like Phoenix or Denver or even Colorado Springs, it’d be gone by now. Hell, the county governments around those towns probably would have foreclosed. The land is worth too much.”
    They walked to the left now, along the back fence. There were ruins of a horseshoe game and a volleyball court back there, also a few broken picnic tables and old iron barbeques. Over further to the left, almost to the far corner of the park, there was a broken down children’s jungle gym set, and some swings. It was eerie back there, like a ghost town. The fence was intact around it.
    “Wonder how many RV spaces there are here?” Dobie asked.
    “I was trying to count earlier. Just under 200, I think. It’s sizable. Probably was a good business before I-70 came along and mucked it up.”
    They turned left again, and walked along that side of the park. The only thing close by that side were RV spaces, until the front third of the park. Then there was the swimming pool area. In front of that was a large clearing, which looked like it had grass on it before the sprinklers got turned off. They got all the way up to the front corner of the park. No problems with the fence on that stretch.
    “Too bad that pool is so messed up,” Jeb said.
    “It might be fixable.”
    “Maybe,” Jeb said. “I don’t know that we should become too attached to this place, though.”
    “Why?” Dobie asked.
    “Because it’s not even a little bit defensible. The enemy could surround us on all sides from a long way off and just move right in. They could also bring tanks in here and just pound us from a mile away.”
    “True,” Dobie said. “Our safety here completely depends on the safety of this state. We all knew that going in.”
    “I know, I know. I just feel like my butt is flapping in the breeze. Doesn’t matter - we’ll end up here anyway. We have a lot of smart folks with us, and they’ll get this place running again in no time. I can feel it.”
    “We’ve only got until winter, though, right?” Dobie asked. “It’ll be tough to stay here after that.”
    “Oh, I don’t know. There were old folks living here year around. I’ll bet it wouldn’t be as bad as I was thinking. Some rigs would do better than others. Mine’s set up for winter use…it’s got tank heaters and insulated plumbing and dual furnaces. There’s things we can do with the other rigs too, especially if we can get the city power up and running. Ceramic heaters, for instance, to supplement the propane.”
    “Let’s take a look at the front area and see what we could do about fencing,” Dobie said. Jeb nodded, and they walked over there.
    Back in the barn, Charlie, Terry, and Gabe struggled with the lock on the chain link cage. They got through it, but it took two of them pushing on the bolt cutters to do it. The gate creaked open.
    The first thing Charlie checked was the fuel tank. “It’s about 2/3rds full, from the look of it,” he said.
    “How long is that?” Terry asked.
    “Depends on how much we run it. Could be weeks if we only run it every so often to charge up coach batteries,” Charlie said.
    “Can we get these things started?” Terry asked.
    “Yeah, we can,” Gabe said. “These things are pretty simple. The starting batteries are probably shot, though.”
    “Any chance we can jump them?”
    “Maybe. Might be worth a try, but even if we can get it started, the batteries might not hold any charge.”
    “Maybe Howard sells them,” Terry said. He took out his iPhone and took pictures of the batteries.
    “Before we go trying to start these things, I think we’d better go looking around for switches that are