by Ron Foster
Our End of The Lake
Our End of The Lake
Midpoint
OUR END OF THE LAKE
Preppers Road March
Book 1 of the Prepper Trilogy
By
RON FOSTER
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 by Ron H. Foster
All rights reserved.
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Acknowledgment
To My Special Friend Cheryl Chamlies
For All Her Inspiration and Support
1
Grid Down
Ah hell! David muttered to himself as he began trying to look around the room after the lights went out in the restaurant just minutes after sitting down and receiving his menu.
“Hey Jack?” He inquired of the shadow sitting next to him, “Have you been having brown outs in the city lately?”
“Not that I know of” Jack responded. “But Atlanta always has some kind of shortage of infrastructure capacity and common sense going on” he grumbled. Jack was going to be David’s new boss at FEMA and after he had just passed the final interview process this morning, Jack was welcoming his new Emergency Planner to the area by buying lunch for him and bringing along the areas section chief for an introduction.
Blake the area’s section chief was a grizzled old First Sergeant from the Vietnam era that had retired from the Army and was soon to retire from his second career at FEMA. Me and Blake I decided, were going to get along just fine, as it was he who had suggested this particular restaurant with a sly wink towards my direction, that this place was his hangout and part of his way he of getting to know folks in his command at the familiar environs of the bar attached to it, and “Hellooooooo! Do you like beer or whiskey as your poison of choice?” Blake asked me.
“Don’t need to ask me twice to help indulge in some adult beverages, but I best explain.” I told him, ”I have a bit of Native American in me and although I love the whiskey, it doesn’t love me.” The last statement produced a loud guffaw from the old bar reveler.
“David, you are all right! You know your limitations.” Blake did look at me a bit comically evil and said, “I might test your limits later though with some good sour mash whiskey.”
“That would be Jack and Coke for me.” I replied. But I protested to my new leader, “Hey, you’re supposed to lead me away from my downfalls, not towards them.” I say with a chuckle.
He looked serious about this for a moment and said, “I need to see you at your worst, so I know if you will restrain yourself at your worst, while still trying to do your best.”
Well, that’s one subject I am not going there on, so I tried to direct the conversation to something else that showed my experience with alcohol, without any admissions to my possibly wavering ways or occasional wilder side tendencies, that I learned the hard way to curb. He started eying my shoes and made some comment about needing a little touch up polish.
Damn, I thought, this old goomer who had been pushing troops his whole life should lighten up on the personal quizzing and inspection, he already knows every trick and excuse, but we aren’t in ‘this Man’s Army’: as I say, “no more” and his scrutiny down to a ‘boot inspection’ is not something a old seasoned trooper should have to endure. For those of you readers not familiar with the era of the last military basic training cycles of “Nam” requiring a “boot inspection”. It is a degrading and necessary adaptation to military life that is at first experienced by those uninitiated soon after the point when you sign that first bit of paper that that swears your allegiance to America and the Constitution and that resolutely puts you in the Army for the duration of your enlistment.
Everybody joins the military for their own reasons. I can summarize based on my own experience why anyone would do it now and join up for the same economic hardships we faced then. A statement by one of my former Drill sergeants regarding enlistments can be summarized as a quote. The number one understanding to relate to all reasons people enlist is ‘A bare ass, bare pockets and a bare cupboard, will put you in the military’. I did it myself and remain proud that I signed on the dotted line, because I was a dumbass first and foremost to the facts of real war, ignorant to the facts of life and also needed the ultimate way out of my then current situation, as so many others choose to do.
But, I digress, the reader really wants to know at this point what’s up with the analogy of the “marked boots” thingy I mentioned. When you’re sorry trainee ass arrived at boot camp in my day (hippie era early 70s), you get eventually herded into a warehouse to get your ‘basic issue’ in every branch of service. You get measured and rushed down a dizzying array of equipment and a line of folks throwing gear at you, that you put into one of two duffel bags. One is for field equipment; one is personal clothes under the ID of uniforms, including your civvies you walked in with. When you go out the door, if you’re a man, your head has been shaved to make everyone appear uniform and you can’t recognize anybody after that, including yourself, and now you are also carrying two 40 plus inch canvas or nylon bags approximately 65lb to 75 lb each of BS, that is your gear and goods needed for this new career to account for as well as the papers assigning it to you.
At sometime in this process of being herded about, you are told to grab one pair of your two pair of boots and put them on your feet that have been covered with your civilian shoes up to this point. Then you are told to step up on a wooden stool, face front and allow someone to take a pencil eraser they dip in white gummy paint to apply it to the top of the boots you are now wearing. I wore black boots then you had to polish, just keep in mind times are changed now. One dot per boot for two reasons, you are too dumb to remember to change your boots every other day for hygiene purposes and so the DI can get on your ass, if you forget or try to cheat. I included this bit of reminiscing for those that think about signing up for the most eye-opening experience that you will ever have, put some dots on your daily wear shoes and then try to explain them to friends without my ramble, you can’t do it unless …. Seen it, done it been there.
Let us get back up to the here and now, as some folks might say. After a moment or two of the restaurant’s elevator music being shutdown by the power outage, the normally subdued voices of the restaurants patrons began to murmur loudly and inquisitively about what to do next. The normally helpful and subdued waiters and waitresses began to lose their cool amongst what was starting to look like a laser light show of little flashlights flipping back and forth across the room, as they turned to respond to the next dufus customer loudly grousing about if the power would be back on soon, ‘I don’t think I should have to pay for this’ etc.
Blake was totally unperturbed about this and said, “Let’s go out to the porch bar until this shit settles,” as he flicked on a little photon light on his key ring to guide the way.
Acknowledging this was the best idea we had heard all day, Jack and I made haste to follow the old First Shirt through the maze of tables and freaked out staff. The staff at this point was retreating towards the establishments center bar to confer with the managers on what to do next, thus leaving the p
atrons in the dark to their dismay, when we swung open the door to a bright sunlight lit Tiki Bar looking affair on the back deck.
“What’s up Sarge!?” said an old NCO club manager looking type. as he was already mixing Blake’s favorite potion of a Singapore Sling.
“Powers out!” roared Blake, as he sidled up to the bar and started searching his pockets for one of those little cigars I hadn’t seen in years. “David, this is our medic and bartender friend, Bob. He will also answer to a few other names that you might hear before the night wears out.”
I grinned as these two old soldiers embraced and noticed that Jack wasn’t having any problem getting his drink without ordering it yet either. Bob extended his hand with an exaggerated gesture and said,” So you’re the latest master of disaster going to work for frick and frack,” dutifully eying Jack and Blake.
“Yeah, that would be me,” I admitted, then I tried to ease my way into a more comfortable conversation after enduring a painful pause of scrutiny, while watching the twinkle in his eye as a side glance went to Top. I have seen that look before, I recollected, amongst the old mud boot military cadre, it meant ‘what do you really think of this recruit?’ A quick nod by both my superiors, and a slap on the back by Jack, meant ‘he is ok’ and we settled down to enjoy our drinks, in that camaraderie all ex-service men share.
“You ever have been to Atlanta before?” asked Bob in my general direction, as he started to serve some more patrons pouring in the side door to take advantage of our great idea to partake of adult beverages in the light of day.
“Yes. I used to be a stockbroker up here awhile back,” I replied.
“A ‘legalized bookie,’ huh!” cried Bob with a laugh. “We got several kinds of those weasels that make their home here. Hey, Bill come on and meet David.” he exclaimed pointing a finger in my direction.
Bill was an Armani suit wearing, manicured, stuck up ass who I think breed in the gutters of the financial district of Bankhead and that always seem to be some sort of a inbreed Atlanta lounge lizard there. Bill half assed waved at me, and then said something about not starting any shit to the bartender, who just smirked happily back, secure in his own domain and place in the city’s pecking order. The bar had crisscrossed timbers for shade and several ceiling fans lazily stirred the humidity, but it did not seem to be doing anything to help beat the 95 degree Georgia heat, so I loosened my tie and got out of my suit coat.
Jack asked me if I had a long drive this morning coming in from Montgomery, Alabama. I replied, “No, the trip was not too bad, because I missed a lot of the rush hour traffic during travel times.” I reminded the group that I had a 10.00 o’clock appointment with them, so I had left out at 6.30 AM to be on the safe side and it took me about three hours to get in to town. I remarked I sure would like to see the power comeback on so I could get something to eat, because I hadn’t had the opportunity to munch anything today. Bob said I would hear the cash register cycle when it did and shoved some pretzels my way to tide me over. Meantime, I see his boss and what looks to be a bouncer waving him down from the corner and he trotted off to their summons.
I told Blake I was going to the restroom, if I could find it, and would he give me navigation directions.
“You want to borrow my light, David?” he asked while waving a ham size fist full of keys it was attached too.
“No thanks.” I said, “Got my own.” and waved my keys back at him.
“What the hell you got on that thing?” Jack exclaimed, as he was eying what evidently he thought was some kind of huge baffling mystery of accumulated key ring add-ons.
I laughed and said, I’d explain it all when I got back. But at the moment, my back teeth were floating and I was in a hurry to recycle some of the beer that I had consumed with him and his partner’s interview process.
I wandered back into the restaurant shining my light in front of me and noticed they had raised what few shades there were and that the front doors were open with quite a loud commotion of voices drifting in from outside. Lights were still out, so I didn’t think bar fight or anything other than the restaurant and customers bitching about bills. I took care of my business and was headed back out the door to rejoin my comrades, but got interested in what appeared to be a mob of people at the front door of the business just milling around. I need to go be nosy; I thought and proceeded to check out what the fuss was about. As I neared the doors I heard I heard a hubbub of voices asking ‘what would cause a car not to work?’ and ‘why are they cars stalled?’ etc., I then got a sinking feeling as I exited the doors.
‘Oh shit. Lord protect us!’ I thought, as I see disabled cars and the drivers psycho-babbling about. Frigging EMP! Now wait, it’s not nuclear caused, well as near as I can tell at the moment. Skies clear, no tell tale mushroom cloud, etc. Think man think. Ok, radiation is not a worry for the moment; maybe this is a natural event. Haven’t I been repeating the warning that NASA already put out about solar storm cycles and CME events for years? Well, Merry Christmas, your ass is stuck in the middle of the hell you predicted.
2
Spread the Word
“Daaaamn!” I was drawling out to myself in my southern fried accent, what to do, what to do, as I reentered the restaurant, ok go calm David. Hey! There’s a steak knife on that table, I need that and slipped it in my suit pants pocket. It was one of those rounded point, politically correct jobs, that although I was bitching about it not having a usable point, but no… “oat meal beats no meal’ AND! I was glad it wasn’t a worry to slide in my pocket. I had a knife. I had an edge for multiple survival tasks I needed to perform soon. As I opened the door to the bar, I thought about all the years of Risk Communications I had studied, but studies didn’t prepare me for what I had to do next and that steak knife in my pocket was a joke if I thought it was the best advice I could give on how to get through the crap hitting the fan I’d just witnessed.
Jack was grinning like a Cheshire cat when I returned and said, “Ok, lemme see that key ring!”
I said, “Jack, poke Blake and come talk to me over here, I got some SITRAP to share (situation report).”
Blake was giving Bill hell about never having served in the military and objecting to Bills BS liberal, negative attitude on FEMA`s response to Katrina, when a poke to the ribs got his attention.
“WHAT!” Blake said, as he had slightly alcohol induced steely daggers coming out his eyes in our direction.
“David requires our attention to some problem and is looking awful serious.” Jack said.
“Better be good.” Blake hissed and followed us towards the decks railing.
Before arriving at the railing, I turned and hesitantly said, “Come over here,” while lowering my voice.
“DAMMIT, Dupree!” Blake directed at me, “I don’t take interference well, so what the hell is your problem needing such urgent attention?”
I stared into the big old mans eyes and said, “’Houston, we got a problem’ is about all I can say that fits this.”
Puzzled, he looked at me and I waved them both closer to the railing instructing both to, “Have a look.”
Peachtree St., the artery to the city and the heart of the financial district, as far as the eye could see in both directions, was Kaput! Cars, trucks, service vans etc. littered the scenery as far as the eye could see. All the vehicles and occupants were in various states of disarray depending on the driving skills of the operators. People were just stopped in the streets, people were on curbs, newly attached to light poles, head on wrecks, rear ended etc. it was a Machiavellian hell. This wasn’t a power outage-party anymore; it was every Emergency Management offices’ worse nightmare!
Simultaneously both my bosses said, “Oh HELL!’ and I responded,” You got that right.”
“We got to get moving,” said Jack.
“Yeah, but where?” I asked Blake.
Lord help him he is a card, said “First back to our drinks and then talk privately about the bar tab.” Heads turned up to ey
e each other, solemn nods and back to the bar we went. Jack ordered a new round to refresh the drinks we swallowed in kind immediately and then we moved off from the rest of the 40 or so revelers, who had not a clue yet as to what had just happened to end the world as we had known it.
I got to give it to Blake, after serving more than 45years for his country, he wanted to stay on duty and make it back the 13 miles by foot to the closest FEMA headquarters to try to help with this situation. Jack and I glanced at one another, considered and nothing more needed to be said. There were no plans for this type of event that we could help with, and we had family and friends to help survive. We turned to Blake to try to dissuade him, but he hushed our objections with a wave of his hand.
He said, “Look, I don’t have anyone but me basically and you are the only troops I can look out for, so...let me give you 10 minutes of advice and then get your asses out of here.”
“But…,” I interjected.
And before I could carry on, he hammered one of those giant meat hooks some people call hands on me and said, “Hush, I got my duty. You, David, are low man on the totem pole, so you listen to me first. Go get Bob to give you two pitchers of water and three shots of Jack. Tell him the Jack Daniels is for me, he understands and will get the message.”
“While David goes on a mission, I will discuss something with you, Jack, privately,” he said refocusing his attention to the street out front.
Well, while I dutifully ordered up at the bar and returned to our table, I was haunted by the way Bob had looked, when I gave Blake’s ‘special order’. He was still his old self hurrahing the bar, but he was a changed man somehow. He’d gotten that ‘thousand yard stare’ those of us that seen battle get: a new determination and resolve that, well to the untested, is just plain scary. It is like dead eyes looking at you and you just know someone is about to kick your ass and they have no doubt they can do it. I turn around and glance back at Jack and Blake, and they are locked into one of those 8 inch conversations you know means business. Meantime, Bob is discussing something intensely with the bouncer named ‘Dump Truck’ and staring in my direction. Bob hands me my order and says to talk to ‘Dump’ before I leave, and then he is back in his happy bartender mode waiting on the rest of the bar, as I make my way back to the table.
