White Wasteland by Jeff Kirkham (best color ebook reader .txt) 📕

everyone knew that Clorox disinfected water. When Clorox ran out, the ham radiomen spread the word that pool and hot tub treatment chemical would also do the job.

Strangely, President Thayer and his team discovered that stake presidents often spurned anything having to do with guns. Over the last thirty years, the Church had side-stepped the question of firearms and a belief had sprung up that guns were somehow anathema to Mormon faith. President Thayer’s radiomen dispelled that myth and encouraged the stakes to take up arms and form defensive barricades and perimeters around their stake boundaries.

Once upon a time, the LDS faithful had been commanded to keep a year’s supply of food stashed in their basement. But that commandment had been issued in the 1970s, and it’d grown decidedly stale. Still, thousands of church members had buckets and buckets of thirty-year-old wheat. Unfortunately, wheat in its kernel state is barely edible. It could be boiled and choked down whole or even eaten raw, but hand-operated wheat grinders and yeast became guarded neighborhood treasures. Unlocking the secrets of bread, without electricity or ovens, rose to mythical heights. One stake even had a bicycle-operated wheat grinder and they traded handsomely with neighboring stakes for flour.

Ham radio had proven a cumbersome and unreliable way to communicate detailed information and President Thayer set to work hand-writing a tightly-packed survival “cheat sheet” that described the tips and tricks that were saving the most lives. As soon as it was safe to travel around the valley, he would move heaven and earth to have the front-and-back page printed and distributed to every stake. For now, members around his home spent hours a day hand-copying the page, then personally delivering it to an ever-growing radius of neighboring stakes.

As he munched the spaghetti given to him by Jack Vanderlink, President Thayer poured over his original, hand-written copy of the page, trying to find a place to cram his most recent treasure—a tiny diagram of a rocket stove out of cinderblocks and sheet metal.

An insistent knock at the front door interrupted Richard and Melinda’s lunch. He looked up from his half-eaten MRE, pulled a plate from the cabinet, and covered his food.

The odor of food had become a major factor in the post-collapse world. The human sense of smell kicked into high gear in the presence of starvation. Whoever knocked at the door had certainly smelled the spaghetti already, and it pegged President Thayer as one of the profoundly privileged—a person enjoying a savory meal. Embarrassed, the Mormon prophet wiped his hands on his jeans, straightened his crumpled, white dress shirt and walked to the door.

In the middle of the second knock, President Thayer opened to find Brother Davis, the ham radio operator—standing on the threshold.

“Brother Davis.” President Thayer greeted his neighbor, “Did we forget a piece of business in our meeting this morning.”

“No, sorry President. I just heard something urgent on the radio. I thought I better come right over. Am I interrupting your lunch?” Brother Davis held his hands to his chest with a pleading expression.

“No, no. Come in,” Thayer opened the door wide and showed Brother Davis into his office. Sister Thayer waved from the kitchen bar.

“So, what did you hear on the radio?” President Thayer asked, a knot already forming in his gut.

“I finally made contact with Elder Burnham’s people down in Utah County. I didn’t actually make contact, I heard a recorded message from their church. I mean, our church… Elder Burnham’s church. Darn. I just don’t know what to call it. The Provo church.”

“You can call it the Provo Church, I suppose. What did they announce?”

Brother Davis held his hands to his chest again. “They’re calling up an army. They’re asking for fighting men and weapons. They’re even asking the polygamists in southern Utah to join them and bring guns. The polygamists have lots of guns and Elder Burnham’s team—the Provo Church, I mean—said they’re okay with polygamy now and that the polygamist groups should rejoin the Church.”

“Why do they need an army? Who are they going to fight?” President Thayer’s throat tightened in a rare flash of fear.

“They say they’re going to fight Salt Lake City.”

“Have a seat, Brother Davis.” The prophet offered the aging man a seat in the office, an act of courtesy to sidestep his own sudden terror. President Thayer needed to sit down too; the blood had rushed to his head. He pulled his rolling chair out from behind the desk so he could sit knee-to-knee with the ham radioman.

“Now, who are they going to fight with an army? Can you remember their exact words?” Richard Thayer had learned long ago not to take the first version of bad news to heart. Still, his heart drummed in his ears. With death and destruction everywhere, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would start a war, much less Rex Burnham, a member of the Quorum of the Seventy.

Brother Davis looked up and to the left, straining to recall the exact words of the broadcast. “The ham operator said that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had moved headquarters to Brigham Young University campus in Provo and that Elder Rex Burnham had been anointed and set apart as the president, prophet, seer and revelator. He said President Burnham had received revelation that polygamy was to be reinstated where inspiration dictated, given the restoration of the genuine gospel now upon us.”

“Wait,” President Thayer interrupted. “What does that mean ‘the restoration of the genuine gospel?’”

“I’m sorry, President, but the announcement didn’t explain. Maybe they mean we’re living like in old times now.”

President Thayer chided himself for interrupting. Of course, Brother Davis wouldn’t know what they meant. Richard reminded himself to listen. “I apologize. Please continue.”

“Then, after bringing polygamy back to the church, the radio announcer said that the Law of Consecration had also been restored to the church. He said that was by revelation too.”

President Thayer wanted to interrupt again, but he bit his tongue, motioning for Brother Davis to continue. The