The Great Unraveling (A Preppers Perspective Book 1)

by Ron Foster

  The land in back of his cabin had raised bed gardens that he had been organically building up the soil in for a few seasons. He had planted a small orchard a couple years ago and his land and the adjoining acreages woods had lots of wild edibles and game in it so chances were good he would live to see a few more years if people didn’t get too nutty.

  “That’s just it, people WERE going to get nutty and soon be down right dangerous to be anywhere around. Deciding when to bug out, or how long to stay” bugged in” was what he had to hurry up and make up his mind about.” Dennis grimaced to himself and then went to listen to the latest radio announcement with his elderly mom.

  2

  The “Shut ins” and “Shut Outs”

  The news on the radio was actually just more of the same. Dennis’s mother remarked that they could at least give a weather report along with the news and this started a conversation between her and Dennis about could the weatherman even accurately predict weather nowadays in a grid down situation.

  “I have a very nice ship’s barometer down at my house to predict weather with, but it is not doing us much good here.” Dennis said broaching the subject that they would be moving or bugging out to the country soon. This had been a major point of contention and discourse with his mom the past few days. Bug in or Bug out? Each had their own arguments.

  As far as Dennis was concerned they could have left for the country yesterday, but his mom was hesitant to leave that quick and he didn’t want to upset her or her bad heart if he could help it in anyway, so he just played along with her and tried to calmly wait

  .

  “We will be going to your place in a few days Dennis. I haven’t forgotten. We have got to work on closing up this house first and also eat up some of this food in the freezer before we go though.” Dennis’s mom said trying to rationalize the situation.

  “Oh sure I know that Mom, I just wanted you to consider something though... I have a portable ice maker down at the house that we could use to keep some of this meat fresh a little longer.” Donald said playing his trump card.

  “That runs off that solar thing of ma jig you got?” His mom said suspiciously.

  “Yea it runs off my solar generator, also I can run my bread maker, my food dehydrator and a bunch of other things.” Dennis said proudly thinking about the bright yellow SUNRNR solar generator he had installed in his utility room.

  “Does it run your hot water heater too?” His mom queried

  “Oh no, I have a totally complete separate setup from Helitos that heats the water. It has its own solar panel that runs the pump that circulates the water.” Dennis explained.

  “You think the city water will get turned off here anytime soon because of that, what did you call it? That EMP thing?” his mom asked worriedly.

  They had plenty of water in the house for their immediate needs and it was readily available. His mom upon hearing the emergency warning had filled up the bathtub, all the sinks and several containers with water. Dennis had a 15 gallon container and a 5 gallon jug full of water stored in his metal shed office in the back of the house that he used for an office when he was home. His mom had a few big cases of bottled water stored in the cupboard. It could have been better water prep wise, but that was all he could convince his mom to have on hand. They also had the 55 gallons in the hot water heater if need be.

  They had plenty of storage space but his mom had a habit of what she called “working things down” which meant she preferred empty space and not cluttered up with preps Dennis would have rather had around.

  “Well the waters still running for the moment, I guess they are using backup power down at sewage and sanitation so I would give it another week or so left before water shutdowns start occurring. It depends on if they can or can’t get anymore fuel to run the emergency generators. Seems to me they would be using very large diesel generators so they might be able to scrounge more fuel from somewhere and keep them running for a period of time longer than I can speculate on.

  The Water authority issued that boil and conserve water warning over and over on the radio so I guess the main purification plants are already down or running at reduced capacity. We still got natural gas to cook with, which reminds me we are light on charcoal but I need to use it up to cook that freezer full of meat. I think we got another 3 or 4 days before I got to either lose some of that meat or cook it up. As it is, we have more than we can eat and those bags of ice and containers we got in the freezer are melting fast.” Dennis said thinking about the upright freezer he had wrapped in blankets for insulation.

  “How much food do you have in your freezer at home Dennis?” his mom asked.

  “About a weeks worth, that’s another thing. I am sure it’s all probably mostly unfrozen by now.” Dennis said leaving the decision and facts with his mother to mull over as he got ready to go fire up the grill.

  “Well I hate to leave here, but it looks like we need to go down there or you go and come back before it starts to spoil.” Mom called after him.

  “Hey Mom, I explained to you we got to really conserve on the gas now, I doubt we will see anymore gas available for a long time to come. I can’t see myself wasting gas on a round about trip just so we can stick around here a bit longer.” Dennis replied a bit testy at the notion.

  “Well I am just thinking out loud! You could go cook your food and bring some back and while you’re gone I can finish packing up some things around here.” His mom whined at him upset at his tone for whatever reason.

  “Well if you hadn’t taken all those cans of food out of boxes and rearranged the shelves we wouldn’t have that to do that now.” Dennis wanted to say to her but caught himself and treaded lightly.

  “True that’s a thought. I guess my old truck will make it fine for another few trips. I could run up to the country and come back in the afternoon if I got an early start out of here. I don’t know if I should cook what’s in the freezer up there or bring it back here to grill it. I could bring some more charcoal back with me I suppose Mom. I have extra stored there.. You know I got that neighbor friend of mine up there that’s supposed to team up with me if we ever had this kind of disaster. I don’t know how fixed for fresh food he and his girlfriend are though. Unfortunately all they have are cell phones; some telephone landlines still appear to be working if you have a non electronic phone by the way. I got one in my cabin and I am curious about seeing if it works or not, not that I have anyone to call, It seems everyone is cell phone or electronic phone dependant these days.” Dennis said speculating about who he might be able to contact.

  “So Dennis, would you be staying the night in the country or would you be coming directly back here? Don’t you have some things up there you need to get ready before I come down?” His mom asked. not sure if she liked the idea so much now that Dennis might decide to spend a day or two there before returning for her.

  “I got a thousand and one things to do as soon as I get there, but not anything pressing that needs to get done right now. I keep that place pretty much ready to just walk in the door and start regular daily living. I do need to be seen some around the local area though. There are several people around there who know I got preps of some sort on hand and might possibly think of breaking into my house if they were getting desperate for food.” Dennis said worriedly.

  Dennis made his living by selling books on prepping, so that meant as part of his marketing campaigns he told people about what he sold and wrote about. He was known as a prepper. That fact could come back to bite him one day but he was also sure the folks who might consider taking something from him probably thought he was pretty well armed and would think twice about trying to rob him.

  “Dang that reminds me! Dennis thought, he had promised his neighbor Charlie and his girlfriend Monica he would lend them some guns and ammo if the poo ever hit the fan. Well Charlie already had that old 20 gauge single shot shotgun his uncle had given him so he wasn’t totally defenseless. The ties of society hadn’t really st
arted breaking down too much yet, so he would be alright until Dennis supplied him some better fire power. I best get those weapons out of the gun safe and also grab something for mom to use if need be. She didn’t know how to shoot yet, but he had a revolver he could tell her to just point it forward and keep pulling the trigger in an emergency. I wonder if I can borrow a dog off Charles. He had those three big hounds of his and Dennis figured maybe he could sort of temporarily adopt one and put it in his house for security for a day or two, or maybe to temporarily adopt and keep around fulltime to make his mom feel more secure. She liked dogs; she just didn’t have one because she didn’t particularly like them in the house. Feeding three big dogs was going to be a bitch now so he thought Charles would go for it if he said he could feed and care for one.

  “Dennis, I was talking o you! Would you pay attention please? I said are you going to be staying overnight at your house in the country?” his mom said looking a bit put out that his mind had wandered far from the conversation and he wasn’t listening or paying attention to her.

  “I haven’t said I am going to go without you yet. Give me a couple minutes to think about it while I get the chicken on the grill.” Dennis replied apologetically and went to do the task at hand.

  Dennis knew that most folks were most likely only sitting around waiting for the government to come save them and these people would soon become unglued mentally when it didn’t happen. That is in his opinion, “FEMA “had become a generic name for 'nobody's solved our problems.'" and people would start the rioting and looting before too long demanding aid and wanting it right now.

  He had to absolutely get himself and his mom out of city long before that started happening. Not that the country would be much safer to live in. People in the city had no idea how their food was produced and would start looking in the county for farms thinking that the people there had lots of food available. Plenty of transportation was still available with whatever gas a vehicle had in it, so they would migrate to the countryside fleeing the big cities.

  “His house was too small and off the beaten path to be an obvious target to the swarm of locusts that would soon be fleeing the city Dennis thought. Now dealing with his starving neighbors out in the country would be another matter entirely.” He thought dejectedly.

  “Well Charles and his girlfriend were sworn to help protect his stash of prepper food supplies. Not much consolation in that, but it was some added security knowing they would go to a gunfight with him. The idea now was for him to go as low profile as he could get and keep his food preparation and cooking indoors so as to not alert anyone to how well he was prepared to be eating for awhile. Trash and light suppression would be important too. Can’t be producing too much trash or burning it off or that could tip people off he was eating regular. He had bottles of propane for his camp stove and alcohol fuelled stoves he could get by with, but he hated the thought of using up those diminishable preps when he had a whole forest of wood around him to be cooking with. He would rather save the propane for the rainy and cold days ahead when he had to be stuck inside.

  Blending into the community really was the best strategy for survival right now, but it was going to be difficult on that dead end road he lived on. You pretty much knew if your neighbors were coming or going and to keep up appearances he would have to look and act as destitute as those less fortunate or prepared. He would have to be seen going out to look for food, if he met anyone he knew he would also be asking where to find it. That sucked because the whole idea of being prepped was so you could avoid the mobs and food riots and didn’t have to get out on the road. Then you got to worry about folks seeing you leave your house unattended and that seriously complicates matters.

  He would have to work out all the little nuances of safety, security, surveillance and putting on a charade of seeking food in town. Damn that charade unnecessarily burns up gas he would need for lots of things like running his garden tiller and chain saw. Maybe Charles could be seen coming and going between their houses and town on his motorcycle and they could seriously cut down on fuel. Of course if he ran any kind of machinery the whole neighborhood would know he had fuel. Car pooling with the neighbors to go to town in search of food made total sense but he barely knew any of them. That was liable to change though as things worsened.” David considered as he was waiting on the coals in his grill to get hot enough to cook up some of the thawing meat he was making for dinner.

  Dennis had one of those big old round Weber grills and when he was done cooking he would close the vents on the lid and place it back on the grill to snuff the coals out. He reused the coals from his previous fires and just added a little more charcoal when necessary. This really saved on the charcoal consumption using this conservation method.

  “The whole neighborhood must be cooking out.” Dennis thought while sniffing the air and looking around for puffs of tell tale smoke drifting from backyards.

  “Good nobody is starving yet, well at least not around here anyway by the looks and smell of things.” He mused as smoke and food cooking smells filled the air.

  Dennis had explained to his mom after he finally got home from Atlanta that there were now truly just two types of people to think about in the world. The “Shut Ins” and the “Shut Outs”.

  The “Shut Outs”. Were a group that he had almost become a part of if he hadn’t of found a lucky ride home. Those were the people who were far from home and had no way to get there and were essentially shut out of a safe environment and thrust into a dangerous one. The “Shut Ins” was those that shut everyone else out to protect what little they had as times got harder. You started seeing both kinds of groups the minute the disaster hit. Restaurants and grocery stores shooed their customers out and locked their doors. Without communications or computers for flight schedules the airport must have turned into a mad house with all the stranded travelers milling about looking for answers to where they would stay the night or how to try to get home another way.

  “Dennis had sympathy and compassion for both groups. However, he couldn’t dwell on others misfortunes at this time. He had to concentrate on the here and now and his own families survival first and foremost. From here on out, every single decision he made had a bearing on that. One bad or good decision and his and his mom’s chances for survival were either enhanced or reduced disproportionately. Darn he wished she would just go ahead and bug out with him to the cabin. Maybe he could coax her a bit more he decided as he put chicken legs and thighs on the grill to cook.

  Dennis pondered all the upcoming problems he foresaw for social unrest and violence and decided he would take a little quick run to his farmstead, arm Charles and his girlfriend Monica, see to any food needs they might have and then he would haul ass back to the house. He would load as much stuff as he could in his truck this go round from his mom’s house and make the best of using up some gas. Cleaning out the pantry tonight and boxing up the emergency stores would leave little for his mom to do and thus hasten her departure. Moving all that stuff now would allow him room in the truck for the next trip to add a bunch of useful crap he was going to have to leave behind otherwise.

  “Now next trip what do I need to bring back to the homestead with me?” he was considering while fixing his and his moms dinners plates so they could sit down to supper.

  “Mom we need to box up all the toilet paper, bug spray, blankets towels etc. we need to basically start a new house up with. Those are the type items we will need or the goods we will most likely run out of first. I mean take the paper off the dispensers in the bathroom, take a run through every drawer and cabinet in the house and look for items we might be able to use. Take the dish liquid and soap but leave all those household cleaners here. We don’t have room for them and I got some already at my house. Oh yea, take the bleach and laundry soap. Charcoal starter, you name it and we see how much of this kind of stuff we can get into the vehicles when I get back. I am going to take some of the firewood you got stacked out on the patio and fill
up my deer rack basket on my trailer hitch. We need to try to take as much of that seasoned firewood as we can in order to get help get us through winter.” Dennis said between mouthfuls of barbecued chicken.

  “I need to look through my clothes and choose what might be best to bring along. I remember you have almost zero closet space at your farm.” Mom said getting into the spirit of a permanent move for the best while putting on a brave smile.

  “There you go! I will see how much I can get loaded tonight and I will leave out first thing in the morning. You keep that pepper spray handy tomorrow Mom, even though I am sure you won’t need it while I am gone and then look for me and my truck about dark thirty tomorrow night.” Dennis said elated that the subject of when they were going to be leaving had finally been resolved

  “You need to be back before dark Dennis, the government said they were starting curfew soon and I don’t want you in any trouble.” His mom said putting her plate aside and coming to hold Dennis’s hand.

  “Will do mom, back way before dark, don’t you worry, we are going to be just fine.” He said giving her a firm but gentle hug and holding her a moment to reassure her.