Chapter 4: The End of Summer

Two weeks later, the house no longer looked like a construction site. It looked like something being buried on purpose.

Dean stopped by in the morning with donuts and coffee for the construction crew. It was an excuse to check daily progress and a gesture of appreciation for the work the men were putting in.

Little rituals like this helped preserve a sense of normalcy, even though Dean knew that within a fortnight the world would be anything but.

The foreman approached as the men rotated through, each grabbing a cup of coffee and a donut before returning to their tasks. Even during these brief “breaks,” the workflow never stalled. Not once did a task go unattended?

Taking a sip of his coffee, the foreman glanced toward the towering shell of half-constructed reinforced walls that now formed the foundation of the structure.

“Micro-geothermal as a primary power source was an unusual request,” he admitted. “But frankly, if I were building something like this for myself, it’s exactly what I would choose.”

He gestured toward the structure.

“We had to significantly extend the basement to accommodate it. It’s practically a subterranean complex now. The lowest level houses the geothermal plant itself. The level above contains your redundancy systems: battery banks tied into the solar roofing, an isolated diesel generator, and the gasifier. If the geothermal system ever goes down, the batteries will carry the load long enough for corrective maintenance.”

He paused, then added evenly,

“I’ve left detailed maintenance manuals, and your storage facility already contains all necessary spare parts, properly preserved for long-term use.”

Dean nodded. Power was secured, and the structure itself was becoming something far more deliberate than a house.

“What about the workshop and the greenhouse?”

The foreman gestured toward the acre of property, where additional structures were rising behind reinforced forms.

“As requested. Both are tied into the main structure via heated underground access. You won’t need to expose yourself to the weather to reach either. Reinforced concrete throughout, insulated against thermal loss, with independent climate controls.”

He shifted his stance slightly, eyes flicking up toward the roofline.

“The end result will have a continuous sheltered balcony system built into the upper structure. Snow-shedding roofs, angled overhangs, and concealed sightlines. It gives you full perimeter visibility without advertising elevation.”

His tone remained clinical.

“CCTV coverage is full three-sixty, no blind spots. From the outside, it looks like weather mitigation. From the inside, you won’t miss much. The cameras have a night vision mode with white phosphor and thermal overlays, making it easier to detect threats, and motion detection alert systems that will silently wake you at night if a threat appears. You can modify the settings as you please.”

He considered the site for a moment longer before concluding,

“In my professional opinion, assuming zoning committees stay off your back, it would take a coordinated force, with either explosive ordnance or sufficient armored capabilities to breach this place. And even then, they’d have to know what they were looking at.”

He met Dean’s eyes.

“And without armored vehicles or explosives? No one’s getting in without your permission, assuming you’re willing to pay the price to defend it.”

Dean didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

His expression said enough.

A vibration from his backup phone broke the moment. Dean flipped it open and read the short message.

Your delivery is at these coordinates.

No signature, nor was a reply expected. He hung up the phone and finished his coffee.

“I’ve got to head out for a bit,” he said. “Keep up the good work.”

The foreman nodded and returned to the site. Dean walked to the dumpster, tossed out his trash, then snapped the burner phone in half and buried it beneath the rubble before walking away.

He got into his car and drove to the location provided.

The coordinates led to an abandoned warehouse deep within the city limits. The property had clearly been untouched for years; rusted chains hung slack across the gate.

Dean parked along the road and hopped the fence. Once inside, he drew his sidearm and swept the area with the mounted light, confirming the absence of anyone or anything that could be waiting for him.

In the center of the warehouse sat several wooden crates. A freshly polished crowbar rested nearby.

Dean pried open the first crate and found exactly what he had paid for. Weapons, munitions, and ordnance.

All of it had been manufactured across the Pacific, more specifically, by Ruthenia.

He lifted one of the AK-74M rifles, a GP-34 grenade launcher mounted beneath the handguard. He ejected the magazine, racked the charging handle, and confirmed the chamber was clear with practiced ease.

A quiet chuckle escaped him.

“God bless the Union of Columbia,” he muttered. “If it hadn’t started a damn war in Novorossiya, I’d never have gotten my hands on beauties like these.”

The contents were stacked neatly after inspection: rifles, magazines, accessories, and ammunition arranged with care.

The arsenal included AK-74Ms, RPK-74Ms, PKM general-purpose machine guns, SVD Dragunov rifles, RPG-7 launchers, RGD-5 grenades, and several more specialized platforms.

They weren’t sophisticated in a modern since, and current western systems outperformed them on paper.

But these weapons had been designed for conscripts, mud, neglect, and cold that killed machines before men. In the Long Winter, simplicity would matter more than innovation.

Loading the crates into his truck would have been risky, if not for the key included in the stash.

Dean unlocked the rusted chains, drove the truck inside, and secured the cargo in the bed before covering it with a tarp.

After locking the warehouse behind him, he drove off. Payment had already been made days ago in the form of an unmarked dead drop. Now he simply collected.

—

After securing his weapons cache, Dean drove to the temporary storage facility he had rented for the month. He stashed the illicit goods alongside the rest of his belongings, all of it waiting for the day his property’s reconstruction was finished.

He didn’t linger. He verified the locks, checked the seals, and ensured everything was secured before returning to the build site.

On the drive back through town, he passed the local park.

People were gathered there, enjoying the hot summer evening. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of families filled the open space. Some were tossing frisbees. Others clustered around grills, laughter drifting through the air. A few lies sprawled on towels beneath the setting sun, tanning as if this were a beach instead of a city park in the Pacific Northwest.

But no matter what they were doing, they all shared one thing in common. They were calm and unafraid.

They moved through their lives without the faintest awareness that the world they knew; the peace they took for granted, was already sliding toward a brutal end.

Dean glanced at them through his window as the light turned green and the car rolled forward.

“Ignorance is bliss…” he murmured.

His car turned into the lot just in time to see Yuki returning home for the evening.

Her first semester at university wouldn’t begin until the fall, but she clearly wasn’t spending her summer in leisure. Judging by her uniform and the exhaustion in her posture, she’d just come off a shift at a nearby café.

She walked toward her mailbox, stretching her back as she went.

Dean rolled down his window and eased the car to a stop.

“Hey. It’s Yuki, right?”

She looked over her shoulder, startled, then relaxed slightly when she recognized him. The crazy gaijin from next door.

She forced a polite smile, masking her irritation.

“Yeah. Dean, right?” she replied. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Dean shook his head. His gaze lifted briefly toward the sky.

The clouds were distant and serene. The horizon burned orange beneath a deepening blue, peaceful and untouched.

“There’s a storm coming,” he said quietly. “When you run out of supplies and the power goes out, my door will be open to you.”

He didn’t wait for her answer.

The car slipped back into motion, rolling past her mailbox and toward his own lot, where the night shift of contractors was already trading places with the day crew.

Yuki stood there for a moment, replaying his words.

Then she looked up at the sky.

Just as he’d seen it, clear, calm, and without a single sign of impending turbulence.

She scoffed softly and shook her head as she gathered her mail and headed inside.

“A storm in mid-July? What did I say…” she muttered to herself. “Pretty to look at… but completely insane.”

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