by Ron Foster
Annie wanted to consider it anyway and said they should lay all the pluses and minuses out like a continuity plan and evaluate what advantages they could gain by throwing their lot in with the evidently well equipped group. Hogan said they could; but it would just be a mental exercise because he had no intent on doing so.
“Why not, Hogan?” Annie had asked and was rewarded with a string of negatives starting with first “we don’t really know them or what they stand for” and ending with “they probably wouldn’t take us in anyway.”
“Why not? We are prepared and have our own guns, ammo, food, boats, camping gear etc. what is there to object to?” Annie said trying to sway him to just go talk and hoping that if the owner was selling ammo they could get some more.
“Annie for ease of transport and room in the packs or on the boats we got plenty of ammo already. I don’t see the risk in going there just for a couple extra boxes of ammo we don’t need. That’s why I got what I got in ammo already so I don’t need to go out and take any risks or deal with unknown people.” Hogan had fumed.
“Well you know some of these people on a friendly basis and they are about as likeminded as we will ever find I would think. Well I am not counting the cops that sometimes hang out there and might be in their hunting club or something but you said most of them seemed pretty much all right and didn’t have that confrontational disposition when they were off duty. Don’t they sell M.R.E’s there also?” Annie said remembering some peanut butter packets Hogan had bought there and shared with her for their preps.
“They don’t sell full meals there.” Hogan reminded her because the owner evidently made bucks out of breaking down complete meals or buying overstock of basic components.
More food was going to be needed sooner than what Hogan thought no matter what form it took. Annie had argued and she had even threatened to go down there on her own but listened when Hogan had reasoned that they should between their two prepper heads be able to think of another alternative. They agreed rather quickly that rather facing the mob at the gun store even if they had somehow managed to stay open to do something else was sensible.
“Now what we want to think about going after maybe is what nobody else wants or has thought about yet.” Hogan had advised to direct the conversation to more obscure alternatives.
“That’s a hard one to think about! Everything that comes to mind people might not be actively seeking right now like bug repellant etc. maybe could be found on another aisle of another store we haven’t thought of going to right now eh, Hogan? I have been trying to think of an alternate list of things like taking a trip to maybe a veterinary supply store for medicines, or possibly places people may not have thought of yet like food vending machines in an office building. Any place I can think of all carry there own risks.” Annie had mused.
“As much as it sounds awful interesting and in some weird way exciting to join in the fray of maybe getting some free stuff for the taking now or later, it is still looting in every sense of the word at the moment. We aren’t desperate enough to have to do it. It would be a very foolish thing to consider doing anyway. Every store owner is closing down their places and expecting trouble and every cop in the city is on duty.” Hogan said wisely.
“Staying indoors and off the roads does sound like our best option. If we don’t add anything to our food stores, how long do you think we can make it?” Annie asked.
“Well we don’t have a lot for variety or thinking long-term subsistence but the food we do have on hand is so much more than most other people have to depend on for the future. We have got almost 100 lbs of rice and if we ate nothing but a pound of rice a day with some soy sauce on it between us; we have one meal a day for a 100 days. That’s a hundred days longer than anyone who gets shot day one or lord forbid gets put in jail for looting right now. Day thirty and sixty we would still be sitting pretty with all those beans I got stored and that doesn’t even take into account that month’s plus worth of can goods we got between us. I tell you what, all those things that nobody wants right now that are not food products will still be behind the broken in store windows and such in a month or so and there will be a lot less competition for collecting them.” Hogan advised having his feet firmly planted in his apartment at the moment.
“Like you said, no sense in us getting arrested or killed to just risk getting more of what we already got. Doesn’t seem right however, for us to be just sitting around here and doing nothing though, do you have any other ideas?” Annie had asked before they concluded the conversation for the evening.
Hogan had awakened the next day with the same question running through his mind. If there was a power outage from a hurricane or something normally you just clean up your yard some and relearn the fine art of conversation again with whoever is around to talk to. You listen to the radio to hear how badly damaged other areas are and are thankful yours maybe has less trees down or something. You do this from morbid fascination and with nothing to do you might ride around to survey the damage in the neighborhood. After asking your neighbor if you happen see them in the yard picking up sticks and branches if they need anything, you also speculate with them on who has ice for sale in town and life goes on.
Then the days pass waiting for the power to come back on. The ice melts and the food in the freezer melts and gets cooked in the order it needs to sets the tone for the menu as it gets used up. You do this waiting and coping with the times game until the miraculous power of electricity restores your life and normal everyday living. Somehow you managed to gain a little bit more experience to do it all over again in a few years. Well they weren’t waiting on power to be restored for life to resume as normal, so what was it they were they waiting on? This new life was going to be the new norm for a long time to come. One without electrical power and worse yet, no running water someday soon.
If he was back at home in Alabama, he had his gardens to get ready and wood to gather. Wood! They needed firewood! He and Annie could go see what sticks and twigs they could pick up around this manicured residential area before anyone else did and store it up for later use. That is exactly what task they could be doing instead of this nonsense about talking what to try to get a hold of that wasn’t theirs this early in a disaster.
They brought their pitiful haul of make do firewood back to the apartment griping that the task heating up coffee water in the morning was going to be a foregone luxury all too soon. There was an extreme lack of burnable materials around here which would make cooking difficult after using up Hogan’s propane and alcohol supplies.
They spent part of the evening talking about other places they could get to by car or boat to forage for wood and thought about the bands of people who would soon be forced to do the same.
It wouldn’t take too long before every construction site and cabinet making shop was picked clean of combustible material they decided. That was something to put on their ”to do” list they reasoned and then took stock of their fire fighting capabilities by wondering where some unattended fire extinguishers might be.
Chatter and speculations of foraging in the early days of an apocalypse carried on for a while with ideas and discarded suggestions. Hogan and Annie decided to deescalate their senses and go do some mundane chores to clear the mind before bedtime and packaged up some daily meals in smaller servings for awhile. Tiring of that chore and reasoning there was nothing left to do today, they retired to their respective sleeping areas…
“Hey, Annie! Good morning to ya! How long have you been up?” Hogan said wandering into the kitchen from his bedroom.
“Somewhere around dawn about an hour ago or so the sun light started coming in the patio door and freaked me out because I had a fire nightmare last night and I just stayed up off and on mostly.” Annie said looking tired but cheery.
Hogan regarded her for a moment but was pleased she had taken the frightening awakening in stride. Not much more was said besides him saying that he was sorry to hear that she didn’t sleep wel
l and he had woke up once or twice to sounds in the night. Annie didn’t comment any further so he went to the window to regard the new day starting.
“I made some coffee earlier, it might still be warm.” Annie offered.
“Thanks! Did you come up with any missions for us to go on today?” Hogan asked as he went out on the balcony to check the percolator still sitting on his rocket stove.
“I thought that we could hook the battery cables back up on the cars and maybe make a little reconnoitering excursion around the area to check on road access and see what’s going on with the businesses in the area.” Annie said and explained she had already done the dishes and wished they had a bunch of paper plates stored.
“Is the water still on?” Hogan asked quizzically wondering if she had used any of the water they had stored to do the dishes.
“It’s on and it is flowing better than it was trickling out of the tap yesterday but there isn’t much pressure. Did you think of anything for us to do today?” Annie inquired.
“Yea I did, let’s take my van and do your idea of riding the neighborhood but we will also gather as much wood as we can find before everyone else starts foraging for it.” Hogan offered thinking that was one resource that would go quicker than anything else.
“We could go cut some green wood if you want; I noticed you had a saw in your gear when we were rearranging preps some.” Annie offered.
“That’s an idea, but we won’t be around long enough for it to dry out much. Hey you know what I want to look at today... This might sound a bit crazy but let’s go by the Post Office and see what’s not happening there.” Hogan suggested.
“Now that’s an interesting concept. What’s over there to look at beside a pile of undelivered bills and possibly interesting packages if one was to risk looking at them later?” Annie asked.
“I don’t know, I do know that people sometimes use them for directions or as a place to meet up at when they are from out of town. It’s a government building so maybe the National Guard might be around if they started mobilizing but I doubt it, most likely everyone is still trying to get to the armories if they decided to show up. Hell, a lot of soldiers just won’t flat be able to get to their appointed drill areas because of the traffic jams. With all the communications down, it’s going to be major confusion, pandemonium and probably even more grid lock on and around any of the major roads. I wonder what the cops and fire department are doing outside of having to send runners with messages to command stations. That’s right, they can communicate with telephone hard lines between them and emergency management often times. That ought to be interesting; they aren’t used to not being able to blabber on a radio when they need help or to direct an action. Radios ought to be up and functioning though soon enough and there are emergency cell phone towers they can bring in. Now on the other hand, maybe no radios because anything as big as those antennas they have to transmit and receive with at the stations that weren’t disconnected they would maybe have fried.” Hogan said wondering about the complexities of solar EMP.
While no one in the US saw it, felt it, or even read about it in the newspapers, Earth was almost knocked back to the Stone Age on July 23, 2012.
He had told Annie about that particular close call incident before and his suspicions about why it had taken scientists and the government to tell the public the entirety of it two years after the fact. They eventually advised us that the Sun had kicked out one of the largest solar flares and coronal mass ejections ever recorded during that period. They never did say why no one warned the populace back then that the solar storm had missed Earth by a whisker. If that thing had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces. That is, if we had somehow managed to pull it all back together after a catastrophic grid down situation we were totally unprepared for.
“Well I am about ready if you are, unless you’re thinking about eating some breakfast.” Annie said. She was ready right now to go do something, go do pretty much anything in order to get out of the apartment and see what was going on out in the rest of the world. A major societal shift had just happened, how were people responding? What sights were there to see?
“No thanks, I usually don’t eat breakfast very often. There are some powdered instant breakfast drink pouches on top of the fridge if you want some. Or there are always the leftovers I think are alright from yesterday.” Hogan offered.
“We ought to save all those concentrated calories in a package for our river vacation and put them in our bug out bags.” Annie suggested.
Annie and Hogan knew that they had any number of new problems barreling their way now to contend with. They realized after a few more short days of them basically feasting on what was in the freezer; the grim game of day to day rationing of food survival would start in earnest.
“Good thinking, Annie! We will keep those foil packets put back as our emergency rations and not tap into them until we see the hardest days hit. The little bit of gas that we will use up in the car nosing about on a short trip to town doesn’t worry me, but I just thought of somewhere that might be more interesting for us to go take a look at.” Hogan said speculating on foraging as Annie waited for him to tell her where.
“I am wondering what the kayak livery on the river and the State Park look like.” Hogan said with an eyebrow raised.
“I am curious about what is going on in those places also, but I am not so curious as to want for us to try to drive all the way over there to check them out. What’s over there anyway that has you so interested to check them out?” Annie said regarding him.
“Well I am thinking it’s more of an intelligence gathering mission I had in mind than anything else, except I do want some river maps if anyone is still hanging around the kayak place. I am pretty curious also what all those campers will be doing that might be still staying at the park campgrounds. They will run out of food faster than most I think is reasonable to say. I wonder if the Park Rangers are still hanging around or they have gone to check on their own homes first. Then there is the country club down that way to consider. I wanted to check in there out of curiosity also. There are a few other places to consider looking over and recon like where we put in our boats at usually. We won’t most likely be using those boat ramps but others might. That will give us maybe some ideas and indications of what the river traffic is like.” Hogan suggested.
“Maybe we will see the Yak Boys down that way. Depending on how far we go that’s a fifty mile round trip. Can we waste that much gas?” Annie asked.
“We don’t have to go all the way down that way if you don’t want to; I was just kind of curious about the road conditions. Those roads are probably in pretty in much the same condition as they are around here anyway. But they would be interesting to see because we can get to some back roads that lead to the interstate that way.” Hogan advised her while trying to figure out how best to escape this place. Working out how as well as when he would be able to gain access to a route remained problematic at best.
“I can see the point in us going to go undertake to drive over there then I guess. I know it’s pretty early in the disaster, Hogan and most folks are behaving, but I can’t help but worry about me having all that gear stored out there in my car. We can’t afford to have any of it stolen now or later. Do you think that we should consider driving both of our vehicles down that way in case we can get a clear way out on the road and just keep on going?” Annie asked thinking they might as well try bugging out if they were already going down that way anyway.
“I thought about us doing that but I am still guessing that the highway is likely a huge mess with locked up exit problems going on at the moment. I worry about the traffic snarls less than I worry about the overzealous law enforcement types getting to break out all their zombie apocalypse gear and wanting to clear the exits any way they can and control those points. I don’t like how police departments seem to like to be seen as a military occupying force versus a so called cop on the beat peace officer. We all know someon
e that gets way too exuberant and is the overreacting type of person that needs reining in to calm down about any adrenaline charged situation. That is why rookies in the police force get older stable hands to direct them and trainee soldiers get their over hormone selves directed towards doing more mundane tasks over and over that teaches them personal control and tones down the testosterone.” Hogan said.
“Well I am sure they get plenty of practice clearing wrecks off the interstate anyway but I remember they had themselves some trouble getting protestors off the road awhile back.” Annie said thinking if people were also trying to escape any fires or wrecks by foot at the moment.
“Both of those jobs I mentioned however take focused aggression that they are trying to build up in recruits to handle a situation. If someone has chosen a bad leader to put in charge, they can train people wrong or allow their charges to let out some of that aggression or judiciary force in the wrong direction. I am all for letting everybody blow off some steam if that’s what they are going to do after getting themselves all hyped up on the theory the sky is falling and the lawless hordes are coming. Let everybody wear themselves out a bit more while some time passes if you want to call it that. Everyone right now is a shade too panicky to be around for my taste. Let me tell you something Annie, disasters are boring, dirty and heart rending, but mostly they can be boring. Ninety eight percent of the time this is the one time everyone in the community acts like they have a lot of good in them and since the cops are not messing with them for petty crap, everyone gets along. Cops then are actually respected and regarded for trying to help see everyone gets along in troubled times.” Hogan said remembering how many times he himself had seen this community coming together of people during a disaster.
“I can remember a bunch of times I have seen on TV and the internet that law enforcement wasn’t so nice during a disaster.” Annie said thinking of a few instances like that mayor of New Orleans that didn’t have the sense God gave a pump handle ordering gun confiscations on private citizens during Katrina.
