Apocalyptic Apothecary

by Ron Foster

  “That’s hard for me to say, buddy, as time goes on people have become more desperate and dangerous. Now of course, you got less people to contend with but they are all at different stages of this long downhill survival journey. That makes them highly unpredictable, trigger happy and with them mostly being well armed to the teeth and suspicious of strangers, that creates an environment for fatal misunderstandings, as you well know.” Zack said carefully.

  “Well, let me put it to you a different way then. When is it do you plan on trying a few places? We can’t just sit around here and wait until the food runs out to go scavenging and we are not catching enough fish or finding enough game to not have to supplement with some of your preps. I am a pretty good getaway driver, as you well know!” Ezra said with a smile, wanting to get Zack motivated to letting him help go rummaging around a bit and the pair of them do a bit of armed pilfering. If you scavenged and looted these days, you were well armed. It was as simple as that and usually lots of other people you didn’t know were doing the same thing so tenacious and frightful weren’t the only words for it. Downright 50/50 dangerous and foolish, Zack called it.

  “Well, Ezra, first we got to go out and scout us a likely target or two. Study the places some. Problem is, we need something or someplace that is not already thought of or already five times picked over by now. I will be danged if I can think of such a place off hand at the moment, can you? I don’t have any solid ideas but I am working on it, rest assured. So are lots of other people, so keep that in mind, too. These days when it comes to scavenging, you got to remember, being too careful or too brazen in your attempts is what gets you killed. Tonight, I think I will bring up the subject at supper and have us a group discussion about what the house thinks about likely prospects and possibilities.” Zack said deciding that keeping Ezra around the home front was giving him cabin fever and realizing now was the time to get proactive and making a plan on trying to get some supplies needed to get done.

  “I have been giving a few places a thought regarding the gas I need, Zack. I have been noticing lately that there are more cars with gas in them around than there are people with houses and a source of drinking water and wondering what that exactly means.” Ezra said giving Zack something to ponder.

  “That’s a good point, you old varmint! I noticed that odd fact myself not long ago, but they got to be going out somewhere close to gather water nearby or they are going to be running out of gas themselves pretty soon.” Zack said pondering the fresh water angle because, in-between bouts of mega rain it was hot, dry drought-like conditions around here most of the time. Collecting water for the garden was part of everyone’s everyday chores despite the fact they had 55-gallon plastic drums scattered around the mansion house field that seemed to always need refilling to help hand water their crops with regular garden hoses hooked to spigots on the bottom.

  “Well, I have been noticing lately and you probably have too, that some of those cars we see in the driveways ain’t been moved around in a long while. Perhaps their owners are already dead or something. I am specifically talking about the ones that don’t have any tenants’ trails worn from the front door out through the weeds on the lawn.” Ezra said, suggesting that some of the houses he had studied going and coming from Rod’s community, might hold something in them besides death. Could be that somebody had, for one reason or another, passed away before they had a chance of eating everything in their pantry, or could be, maybe they just never made it home yet to begin with for one reason or another.

  A lot of people have never considered just how many people there might be who had been possibly away from home, out of state travelling on business, on vacation, in the hospital, on life saving medication, got shot looting, ran out of gas, bugged out, moved away etc. when this disaster happened. There are hundreds of reasons why a house might be left abandoned in one form or the other, those places may still yet contain a weeks’ worth of food, some gas or other goods, if a would-be survivor looter got lucky.

  Of course, another thing for most people to consider was, that any close neighbors or friends would have already probably broken in there long ago but there had to be still aces left in the deck, had them a key or broken into long ago, Ezra figured. People would be driven to do the same opportunistic thing as they were of trying to drive around if you had the gas and run across likely houses to try to find something to eat at.

  The opportunistic struggling poor would of course, besiege the richer neighborhoods in hopes of better pickings and encountering, shall we say, less aggressive or violently inclined or oriented victims to prey upon, but they hadn’t planned on the true lead-laden reception they would likely get for the attempt in these days and times.

  No, not by a long shot had the representative minority or otherwise looters considered a lot of these more well to do folks, left wing liberals included, who had all seen previously, the writing on the wall as it was and the state of society in general, before this collapse and had armed themselves properly, the same as preppers had in anticipation of the need for firearms for such a day the criminals or entitlement groups decided to pay a visit grid down.

  Too long now and impacting way too many places, people had seen crazy gang-oriented teenagers, malicious mall rats or other crazies like Antifa etc., cause societal stress and mob violence upon the unprepared or unwary. Many people said, why don’t the cops bust some heads and put an end to this bullshit, or say if they tried that shit around here, I would shoot the sorry bastards and bitches getting away with it… it was no holds barred now and no holding back. It was gun toting Dodge City. A whole lot of folks with a whole lot of angst and ammo said go ahead and try that shit now and make my day! You want to come around here acting all crazy and trying to hurt someone or steal from me, I got something for you and nothing is holding me back from doing the right thing to prevent it. You get all aggressive and shouting walking down the middle of the road these days, someone was waiting with a shotgun enema for you somewhere.

  A rowdy mob from the ghettos of America wanting to riot was not met with so called social or politically correct understanding and news reporters with minimal arrests like some of the liberal cities of the past. The populace and police already had enough of that crap and they weren’t holding back. If you were fool enough to get your fellow gang bangers in a mindless shouting rabble thinking you were going to take things from whitey, well then they were just as apt to say never again and be organized and waiting on you saying “Oh Hell No!”, while wetting the front beads on their gun sights!

  This was the apocalypse: a world without rule of law mostly. This was a time of reckoning and revenge and folks found that deadly reality out really quick. The fact was that there was no Constitution to be upheld or considered anymore. There were no entitlement classes to be recognized as special or given special rights. Just pure primordial action and reaction. Act right or die seemed to become a common theme.

  .

  6

  THE RIVER

  “Where are you all going off to today loaded for bear?” Sloan asked after seeing Zack and Ann carrying battle rifles instead of toting their trademark hunting and defense shotguns.

  “We are going out to do some kayaking and exploring and figured these were the better arms choice.” Zack said uncomfortably while unloading his van.

  “Any particular reason that you are launching your boats down here instead of your place or do you just like our company?” Sloan said with a grin not willing to give Zack any wiggle room on saying exactly what he and Ann were up to.

  “Sloan, quit grinning wickedly at me. We are just going to go have us a little look see around down river and for that purpose launching from here is closer.” Ann replied climbing up on the van’s floorboard from the open back seat door to unstrap the kayaks from the roof on her side.

  “Are you going to go try your luck scavenging some river houses? You best be careful! A lot of people have moved to the river and are living in them now.” Sloan said
skeptically.

  “More like we chose to go have ourselves a look see around this end of the river, closer to camp. We need stuff, you need stuff and we are curious about a few places I think that might be down that way.” Zack replied sliding a dark green kayak off the vans’ roof.

  “Well, don’t take for yourselves any unnecessary risks and get yourselves shot full of holes. That medicine tonic stuff you made up has been working well and we don’t want to lose our pharmacist. Anything I can do to help?” Sloan warned with a slight smile.

  “I don’t plan to get shot; we are going scouting and try to do a lot of looking at conditions and we will definitely stay on the center of the river mostly.” Zack replied assuring his friend he wasn’t actually considering raiding supplies today.

  “I been thinking about getting out and having to do some of that creep and peep appraisal myself. Teaching folks over here how to do “farm to fork living” is taking way too much of my time to get any more than a leftover morsel maybe left to nibble at the moment. Between this weathers heat wanting to take people out with exhaustion and a hand to mouth mass nationwide famine going on, we got us an onslaught of pesky bugs in the garden and a hell of a bad drought to worry about. To make matters even worse, we are starting to get more of what I call wayward wanderers coming around. Most of them uninvited guests are just people at the end of their ropes looking for water and wondering what living conditions are like over here. Others not so much. Bobby lets most of them get water from the river at the landing, but we are following my operational security directives and restricting their movements through camp. Far too many come by, a lot of them asking about and remembering that there were goats here in abundance at one time. Most that ask politely are talking about buying one, some ornery types have been kind of demanding us to sell them one and have been talking pretty threateningly to the gate guards. We got us a pitiful looking bunch of gate guards, by the way, but that can’t be helped. I can teach them military tactics but you can’t teach good health or reduce their age and infirmities! Keeping them from becoming trigger happy or over threatening back is also becoming a problem for me and I dare not tell them be extra vigilant these days because I think some of those people that come around are agent provocateurs casing the joint.” Sloan said, indicating his worry of keeping a hazardous balance on security and mental and moral health with the thoughts of shoot-the-other-guy-first going on.

  “You still niggling at me and trying to borrow the team of Nick and Knobby again, Sloan? We got problems of our own to look out for in bunches as I have told you many times before in the past. Right now, they are sort of busy at my house and securing their own perimeter.” Zack said not wanting to even start to do the constant tug of war argument over who got benefit of having the best security team around to help out on something.

  “Hell, no boy, I ain’t going there with you today. Why we can’t even afford what it takes to feed them big boys the extra chow it takes for doing the extra hazardous security work. Mark my words, buddy, it really has gotten that bad around here, Zack! I am telling you for a fact it has gotten to be some mighty thin living on this side of the pond. Why, I am telling you here and now, it’s critical times and I wasn’t just alluding to me wanting to do a bit of advantageous looting acquisition and interested in what you were up to. Now, I ain’t up for being one of those damned no account blood thirsty marauders but if there was a food truck for those worthless politicians that ain’t helping us none coming down the road, I wouldn’t see me getting up from the table and going home if you all were talking about maybe robbing it.” Sloan said arching one eyebrow suggestively, indicating that if Zack did have any insider emergency management info on that subject, he was all up for talking and maybe even doing and helping at this point.

  “I doubt, Sloan, that there is one loaded semi-truck driving out on the road anywhere in America without a full-blown jumpy military escort attached to it. That is not on my mind at all to do anywhere around here anyway! I doubt we will even ever see a trailer load of food again at all, except maybe where someone dropped one off of something like mayonnaise before shagging ass for home when the fuel pumps quit working. I got me a short list made up of where I think that we maybe can find us an abandoned tractor trailer truck load of something but that’s an iffy proposition at best, as you know. There are just way too many people who can have, or have had the same ideas as me and it ends up a being a bunch of wasted gas or risk with no return to try for one.” Zack stated adamantly.

  “The longer we continue to wait to go try is a good old military Catch 22 for sure, Bud. On the one hand, you want to wait for the crazy shit to die down and on the other hand if you wait too long, then there is nothing there when you get around to finding it. Are you up for a bit of special forces style military rover appropriation? I hear tell through some reliable scuttlebutt about a possible marauder camp or gang banger safe house that is not very far from here that might could use a visit, if we want to put our war bonnets on.” Sloan said with a vicious smirk.

  “Well, we could talk on it…. Nick and Knobby are bringing the dingy down here in about a half hour and they are supposed to be following me up the river without a clue where I am at or going to Gunboat Shute and playing a game of “Run Rabbit Run!” I tell you, keeping those two busy and non-tactical is like having a pair of attack trained German Shepard dogs without anything to do but sit in my living room! If you want to keep the animals calm and not bored and feisty and bitey, you have to get the squeaky toys out and do a little play exercise.” Zack said with a grin.

  “OK., you got my interest perked now! You too old to try to wrestle with them, Ha! I will talk to you about that other project later! Run Rabbit Run…. I suppose you are the old rabbit they are chasing and you are trying to sharpen their brains and bloodhound instincts with realistic hunting skills to find you without being ambushed?” Sloan said with a whimsical smile towards Zack and what he appeared to be up to.

  “Those two boys are going to learn that old dogs missing teeth can bite fiercer than young pups time you done, I suppose!” Sloan added chuckling.

  “No, I ain’t all bruised up or got my tail tied in a knot! Well, it’s sort of like that, this is just a game of hide and seek with guns, if you know what I mean. The pair of them have been saying too often for me, with my other concerns challenging my time and brain, that we should be training Rachel and Donna who aren’t too much into running gunning. I said alright, we would do something, so I can try this little exercise to put some steel in the backbone of our little household operations, come what may. What’s going to happen at the old homestead mansion with them and me gone? There is no security to speak of there with Nick and Knobby not about, unless you count old Ezra sitting on the front porch under the awning and whether or not he is sleeping with his shotgun sitting next to his rocking chair to make a noise if he was disturbed. Those two ladies ain’t on security mostly anyways, they are supposed to be up in the attic helping to make herbal tinctures while we are gone. I told the ladies think about what happens if we never come home again? Poor old Nick, Knobby, Zack and Ann can easily get themselves wasted out here all too easy and too many ways while going out on a mission for this or that. Or even worse while we are gone, the house could get overrun by looters or marauders without our extra guns to defend the house if need be! Everybody needs to coordinate their attention and work as a whole, but we all need to be capable on our own when it comes to taking any component out of the situation. Anyway, Nick and Knobby think or were advised that they are going on a trial run for S.E.R.E. (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape) which, although they think they can do just fine, I told them they were woefully remiss in their thinking to be able to backtrack me or the military schools I learned from. Today’s schedule is one of our team has gone missing while out scavenging and not come back. We loose the dogs (that’s them) and they got to find whoever it is and get them home safely without jeopardizing the home front or future possibilities of getting
along with the neighbors. It’s going to be fun!” Zack said gleefully looking forward to it like he was a much younger man.

  .

  7

  HELPFUL HEAL ALL

  “What has got you all down in the dumps and dragging about today with your tail between your legs, Zack? I have noticed more than I should you haven’t been yourself the last few days and notice that you have been thinking on something pretty hard.” Ann said as Zack put his fishing pole down on the bank and turned to talk to her.