Prepper's Crucible (Omnibus, Volumes 1-3): A Post Apocalyptic Tale (Preppers Crucible)

by Bobby Andrews

“Moving now.” Ed heard the ATV start and, a few seconds later, Bud and Mary sped past. Ed and Ann returned to their vehicle after Bud told them he was in position and moved around the corner, where they parked next to him.

  “Everybody okay?” Bud asked.

  “Rattled, but we’re fine.” Ed replied.

  “Let’s get a few miles away before we stop,” Bud said grimly. He looked shaken and pale. They traveled another ten minutes before pulling over and walking into the trees, where they sat watching the road.

  “I think I hit him,” Bud whispered. “I saw a red mist puff up after the second shot.” He seemed to withdraw into himself and stared at the ground. By now, the adrenaline rush was wearing off and they all stared at the road in silence, grateful for escaping the ambush.

  “We fired over a hundred rounds. It could have been any of us. And, besides, you don’t know that anybody hit him, or if he just ran off when he saw all the firepower,” Ed replied, after a pause, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  “I know I hit him.” He was clearly struggling with the idea of taking a human life.

  “If you did, you probably saved our lives.”

  “Yeah, honey. He was shooting at Ed and Ann, and there was no choice. It might have been my bullet that hit him. We were firing at the same time.” Mary hugged him and touched her palm to his cheek.

  “I think he wasn’t trying to hit you,” Bud said, looking at ED. “All his shots went wide. Nobody could miss the ATV at that range. He probably wanted your vehicle.”

  “He didn’t ask for it.”

  “He didn’t have time. I shot him first.” Ed could see there was no consoling him. He would have to work it out on his own. They waited another five minutes before Bud said, “let’s get this nightmare over with. I’ve had enough. I just want to get to the ranch.”

  They didn’t stop for the remainder of the trip, both vehicles filled with total silence. They were still shaken by the experience of being fired upon for the first time. It was a relief when they finally pulled up to the gate at around three o’clock.

  “Don, you at home?” Ed yelled. The door opened and Don came out with an AR dangling from his hand. He half-ran to the gate, opened it, and walked up to his four friends with tears in his eyes. “Thank God you made it!” he said, opening his arms and embracing the group. Kate ran to them from the house and joined the huddle at the gate. There was not a dry eye in the group.

  “I guess were at the beginning of the end of the world,” Ed said, as though emerging from a dream.

  “No,” Kate replied slowly. “It’s the end of the beginning.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The sunrise was spectacular, but Bud was not able to appreciate it. He was still brooding over the fact he had taken a human life the day before.

  He had never really considered the day would come when he would extinguish another human being. The finality of the act, and the thought that whoever he shot the day before probably had a wife, or children, or both, was deeply disturbing. His family would be worried and maybe searching for him. But, the fact was the man was never going home again.

  Bud thought, in retrospect, they should have gone back and at least recovered the body for a decent burial. At the time, his only thought was to escape the ambush, and to make their way to the ranch. He tried to shake himself from his brooding distraction, and rose from the chair to go inside and make coffee. While the coffee perked, Bud paused to look around the interior of the home. The ranch house had been remodeled, so there were four master suites, one on each corner of the house, with the great room in the center. At the back of the great room sat an operations center where they would put gun lockers, a ham radio, battery chargers, and walkie talkies. It would also have an ammunition locker and a video monitor to oversee the eight infrared cameras that they would eventually mount to cover the entire perimeter of the land surrounding the house.

  They had taken the precaution of stocking everything they needed in a barn they converted to a Faraday cage. Shortly, work would begin in earnest to fortify the house, set up the security cameras and monitoring station, and restore power and water to the ranch via a wind turbine, a series of water pumps, and a solar array on the barn. The ranch also had a greenhouse, as well as a very large garden, two wells, and all the equipment needed to survive in a world without power, running water, or transportation.

  “You’re up early,” Don said as he entered the great room. He was dressed for the day, and went to the coffee pot, poured two cups of coffee and walked to Bud, handing him the cup as he sipped his own. “Didn’t sleep too well I guess?”

  “Hardly a wink.”

  “Let’s go outside and have a chat.” Don held the door open as Bud walked out of the house, then followed him down the steps to a picnic table on the side of the structure.

  “I know what you’re going through,” Don said as they both sat. “It’s a horrible thing. I’ve been through it myself, and I have seen hundreds of soldiers deal with it as well. There really isn’t much I can say or do. The only thing that will heal this is time, and you eventually realizing you had no choice.”

  “I just can’t believe it happened. You know, we’ve talked about this before. But, it was theoretical then. Now, I just don’t know if I could pull the trigger again. It happened so fast I didn’t think of what I was actually doing.”

  “You were doing what you had to do. The world has changed now, and the old rules are gone. But, the fact you might hesitate in the future places all of us at risk. We need to be able to count on you when things get tough. And, before this is over, they will get very tough. So, you need to get your head straight and get back into the game. I know you’re feeling guilty about shooting that guy, but you’re a part of a team, and the team needs you to recover from this.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Bud replied, but it was clear he was not taking the chat to heart. Don expected that, but also knew the fastest way to get him whole again was to try to make him think of how his behavior affected the rest of the group.

  “You won’t be leaving the ranch for at least a week now. So, hopefully you will have some time to recover with some peace and quiet. Trust me. This will go away. You just need some down time, and work, to take your mind off it. We should have plenty of both over the next few days. Let’s go inside and see if the others are up.”

  When they entered the house, the remainder of the group sat gathered at the kitchen table.

  “How did everyone sleep?” Don asked. Everyone answered they slept well, so Don continued. “You guys all know your assignments, so why don’t we relax this morning, but everyone review what’s going on with your areas of responsibility. We can meet over lunch and bat around the priorities for getting things up and running. I know you just went through a very difficult time, but we need to get organized and use the next few days to finish our preps.”

  “Sounds good,” Ed replied. He was responsible for the gardens and greenhouse.

  “I’ll go to the barn and make sure all the components are working,” Bud said. The idea of having something to do seemed to cheer him a bit and Mary smiled at him before walking over to give him a hug. Bud was a technology freak, so he earned responsibility for installing and maintaining all the electrical and other systems on the ranch.

  “Ann, can you review all the medical stuff and see if there is anything we need to get short-term? We have another few days of peace and quiet, so we need to use it to get anything critical before everything goes to hell.” Ann was a registered nurse, and the logical choice to be in charge of health care on the ranch.

  “Got it,” she replied.

  “When was the last time you did a food inventory?” Mary asked. She was in charge of buying food and organizing the stores in the basement and barn.

  “About a week ago,” Kate replied. “But, we haven’t inventoried the food Don and I got two days ago. It’s pretty much in a pile in the basement.”

  “I’ll do that after we finish our coffee,�
� Mary said.

  “Okay, let’s spend a few minutes relaxing, then review our areas of responsibility. I am generally not a fan of meetings, but I want to make sure we are all on the same page when it comes time to start making decisions.” Don was the de facto leader of the group, and not because the ranch belonged to him. He was a natural born leader who spent twenty years in the military honing his skills. The group recognized that he was the logical choice, and it was an unspoken agreement among them that Don would be the final word on almost any subject.

  “All right, I’m going to the barn to inspect the sensors and get the computers and monitors we need for the security system,” Don said. “Bud, you want to come?”

  “Sure.” The remainder of the group all drifted off to prepare for the meeting.

  “I’ve got a new toy for you,” Don said as he and Bud entered the barn. “See those two yellow boxes in the corner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, open one up.” Bud opened the first of the boxes and stared down with a quizzical expression.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a drone. We just have to assemble it. Look in the other box.”

  “Wow, this one is assembled.” Bud noted that it was quad multirotor helicopter around two feet in diameter, with a camera attached.

  “I flew it last week. Simple as can be. That is the Phantom 3 drone. It is almost soundless and has a ceiling of 18,000 feet. Both are special order and have four batteries rather than two. So, they have up to fifty minutes of flight time. The one you’re looking at has an infrared zoom camera, but you can’t fly it at night with anything but line of sight. The other is equipped with a standard zoom.”

  “What are we going to use them for?”

  “Perimeter security and we can use them to see what’s going on in town. If we have to make a night run, it will be handy knowing where people are. We can detect roadblocks, ambushes, and use it to spot game. I haven’t even thought of what else we can do with it. But, having the ability to know what’s around us, when others don’t, is a big plus.”

  “No kidding. Hey, this thing has a hard point. How much can it carry?”

  “Rated up to eighteen pounds with the camera.”

  “That opens up all kinds of possibilities,” Bud said. “I need to think some on this.”

  “There’s a manual in the box. I read it and flew it ten minutes later. It has an autopilot, so you can just set waypoints and it will fly itself. I have a separate monitor for it I’m installing in the operations center, so you can watch the perimeter and the drone camera feed at the same time.”

  “Can I give this thing a test drive?”

  “Sure.” Don showed him how to take off and land the drone. He then showed Bud how to enter the waypoints, and how to use the battery powered monitor to view the camera feed. Finally, he demonstrated how to zoom the camera lens. Bud was flying the drone like an expert in fifteen minutes. Finally, he landed the drone and placed it back in the box.

  “Do you think you can train the others so everyone can fly it?” Don asked.

  “Sure. Nothing to it.”

  “Okay. Then why don’t you assemble the other drone and set up some lessons for tomorrow?”

  “I’m on it.”

  Ed stared doubtfully at the garden. It badly needed water, but with the pumps down, it would have to be watered manually. He made several trips to and from the hand pump with two pails dangling from each arm before he was satisfied the garden would be fine for the next few days.

  “Lunch time,” Kate yelled from the back porch of the house, where she was grilling hamburgers. The table also held bowls of potato salad and coleslaw, as well as paper plates and condiment trays. The group slowly assembled, filled their plates, and sat down.

  “It’s hard to believe the world is coming to an end, and here we are munching down burgers like nothing has changed,” Mary said.

  “No kidding,” Ann replied. “It’s surreal. But, I’ll take it over the MREs any day.” They both chuckled at the memory of how good the MREs tasted during the time they were coming up the trail to the ranch.

  When they finished eating, Don called the meeting to order. “I would like to start with the security situation, if nobody objects,” he started. The group all nodded their heads. “So far, we have been lucky and haven’t had any incidents here. We did go into town on the first day, and things were already getting tense. But, it’s only going to get worse, so let me suggest that, from now on, we wear a sidearm at all times, and that at least two of us carry an AR. I will be one of them, and the rest of you will rotate days. Kate, could you set up a schedule?”

  “Sure. I’ll post it on the board in the ops center.”

  “Thanks. Now, we need to decide what our priorities are for the next few days. Bud, can you start with the state of our components, and what your plan is?”

  “Sure. I need one helper and I can have the solar up by tomorrow, and the wind turbine generator fixed. I have the water pumps already fixed, but I need new circuit breakers. I’ll replace those this afternoon. We should have water by around three o’clock. As you know, the backup generator is fine and that’s what we are using now. It will do in a pinch, but it won’t last forever if we depend on it for all the power needs we are going to have around the place.”

  “The irrigation system in the garden isn’t working,” Ed complained.

  “It’ll come on this afternoon,” Bud replied.

  “Now you tell me.” Ed rolled his eyes once.

  “Okay. Thanks Bud. Good job,” Don said. “Ed, you’re up next.”

  “Well, the garden needed watering so I did that. But, we need to get the summer harvest done and get it canned. Within a few weeks I’ll get the fall garden in, and the greenhouse is going to need some source of heat to get ready for winter. We won’t be harvesting anything from the greenhouse, but will use it to get a start on next year’s garden earlier. We can start things in the greenhouse, then transplant them when we’re certain there won’t be any more freezes. I want to make sure we don’t miss a season due to a short growing period. We have enough animal feed for around two years. The rabbits are now out of the cages and doing what rabbits do, so we should have plenty of meat. We can also slaughter a steer in the next month or so. The chickens are going to need a larger coop because we’re letting the eggs hatch until we get the population up to around thirty.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Don said.

  Ann spoke next. “I’ve gone over all the medical supplies and we are doing pretty well. I wish we had some prescription drugs like painkillers and blood thinners, but I really don’t see how we can get those. We have a lot of the over the counter stuff, and we do have all the equipment we need, including first responder kits and field dressings.”

  “Can you make a list of the prescription drugs you want?” Don asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Just give it to Kate. The next time we go to town we can try to get whatever we can. Okay, Mary is next.”

  “I have inventoried the food you got from Wal-Mart, and when added to what is already stored, we are good for two years and three months. That presumes we all consume two thousand calories or less per day. At that level, we should be able to work hard and maintain most of our body weight. Less than that, it becomes a real problem. Bear in mind I’m talking about long-term supplies only. That includes dry goods, like flour, beans and rice, and canned meats. We also have a good supply of canned vegetables, but we’ll need to supplement that with the gardens and fruit trees to make it over two years. I talked to Kate, and we’re going to work on a meal rotation so that, if we have to live off the dry goods and canned food, we can get some variety, and still meet our calorie goals. We also feel we should rotate cooking duties, so that one person doesn’t have to do everything themselves. Feeding six people, three times a day, is a full-time job. Now, I’m not counting the MREs, as those are emergency rations and we can’t touch them unless we have a total meltdown. We have twelv
e hundred of them, or enough for two hundred meals, for six people, in the event of an emergency.”

  “Let’s hope we don’t have to resort to the dry goods, and yes, let’s all rotate the cooking, the guys included,” Don replied. “Thanks.”

  Kate spoke next. “We have about seven thousand dollars in cash that we need to spend. We also have around twelve thousand in gold coins. I want to spend the cash as quickly as we can. I am guessing that, before too long, it’s going to be worthless. When that happens, we can then spend down the gold. But, we need to make a list of what we need, by priority, because I am guessing the prices are really going up right now. There is going to be a shortage of everything and, if we wait too long, there won’t be anything to buy.”

  “Well, let’s have all the team members submit a list, ordered in priority, to Kate,” Don said. “As you know, going into town to buy stuff is probably getting riskier by the day.”

  “That’s exactly my point. We need to go sooner rather than later,” Kate said.

  “Kate and Ed, can you two come up with a final priority list? If we are going to do this, I don’t want to make more than two or three stops. Bear that in mind when you do the list. Right now, I am not inclined to make the trip into town. I think the risk outweighs the benefit, and we need to keep enough shooters here to defend the place Going into town would mean two of the guys would have to go, and that leaves us short here.”

  “Ed and I will have the list by the end of the day,” Kate responded.

  “Any other business?” Don asked. Mary and Ann looked at each other.

  “You know that forest ranger we told you about that helped us when we were on the trail?”

  “Yep.”

  “We think we should bring him into the group. He has survival and weapons training. We think he could be handy, and he seems like a very nice and capable person.”

  “Do you all agree on that? We can’t take this lightly. We do need more people to make it in the long run, but we’re talking about someone you spoke with for ten minutes. Are you all confident he would work out?” They all nodded in the affirmative. “So, tell me about his family.”