Burning Skillet: Southern Fried Infrastructure (Grid Down Prepper Up Book 2) Read online

  Slim said that the old white clapboard church up the road would make a good return address for the “mail” they were thinking about sending and they could maybe arrange for everyone to meet on a given or chosen day to barter and trade news at, kind of like an old church social or trader rendezvous. Even if none of the mail recipients had anything to trade at least this meeting of the so-called neighbors would allow people to be able to talk to others once more without fear of being shot or robbed on sight and something good might come out of that.

  Could be the camp’s foragers could pick up the return mail on the way back from town it was speculated if whoever owned the boxes had seen the messages they had left in that short time. The group was used to the habits of local rural mail carriers and the homeowners noticing what goes on with their mail boxes so it was speculated that many indeed would notice “They had gotten mail!” flag and would be anxious to check it out. It was also assumed to be somewhat safe to approach a mailbox, well safer than hollering at a house or honking their car horns for attention to get the occupants inside to consider meeting on more neutral ground.

  Mail carriers were sort of considered benign and trusted, weren’t they? Maybe folks would think it was an official notice being delivered if the foragers could somehow get a real mail truck to drive when they went to town. Steve had at the cabin of all darn things a real African Safari looking Pith helmet that he had left at the cabin, that from a distance looked like some of those hats some postmen wore and it was suggested that whoever was getting out of the van to deliver the mail should wear it. Nobody would take a pot shot at a mailman after not seeing one for so long would they? Might be some official government communication they bet a lot of people would think was being delivered and down the rabbit hole of planning their next moves they went.

  “I wonder who the regular mail carrier used to be for this stretch of road? I also wonder what they are doing these days and if they live close by?” Travis had speculated.

  No one could decide on what exactly should go on a general all-inclusive note or written greeting to drop in the mostly roadside mailboxes along the way. besides the lack of time or an agreed upon plan they also had working against them only one half used pad of note paper to use for the task so envelopes, paper and pens was added to the foragers go look for list.

  As Tina was writing the scrounging want list she stopped and said “I just had an idea!” and waited for everyone to settle down and then explained.

  “What if for example our note said something to the effect, “I am going to town can I bring you anything back?” Now I know we aren’t going to the corner store to get a gallon of milk for a neighbor but just like we need paper and envelopes I am sure that there are other items that we should be able to find and bring back that people want. That is if we are aware of what it is they needed besides food.” Tina elaborated.

  “We could maybe operate a rural to city delivery service of sorts! That might work… brilliant idea Tina!” Travis said contemplating the notion.

  “That kind of an off the wall service ought to be worth something we could get paid some way for. Tina, I think you might have really hit on to something here. That package expediting service itself can be our barter tool to offer, that is if and it’s a big if mind you that we can scrounge up the fuel to do it. However, the items you might find in town themselves have their own value attached, although that’s problematic too because nobody really has a means of exchange or valuing things anymore.” Carl said thinking it’s pretty much what you asked for a price and what someone’s willing to give. That is if they had anything you wanted, this problem of banks being closed kept any kind of currency hard to obtain and what was it worth now anyway?

  “I don’t think anyone has any extra food they would be willing to trade for anything anymore and any cash they might have on hand can’t be spent anywhere so what’s the use?’ Slim said dejectedly after first being pretty excited about the prospect of bettering their conditions and creating themselves a business of sorts.

  “Well we don’t know what other people might have or be willing to exchange for something until we ask. People still need people even in these hard times and it could be if nothing else that we could generate some neighborly goodwill by just doing a favor for someone or donating something that we ourselves can get for free.” Beth said speculating.

  “Like we have time to risk doing that sort of thing for nothing! Besides it’s dangerous no matter how you look at it to give or receive. Somebody, namely me most likely often times will have to go look around in some mighty spooky places and maybe deal with a few sketchy characters here and there. Now I am not totally condemning the ideas mind you, I just think it needs a lot more thinking on before we make any kind of a move.” Slim said complaining about the notion not being scrutinized more or looked at in the proper light while advising caution should be observed.

  “A token of exchange or exhibiting a bit of good will is the best way that I can think of to get some kind of civilization and modern humanity going again around here. Slim has a good point. I don’t like the “announcing ourselves or our local presence” without a complete plan we all agree on. By the way, how do we know that church down there never gets occupied? We never go over there on a Sunday to see if anyone’s about, we just pretty much drove in here and started trying to live one day to the next which isn’t working out for us so well. If there is still any functioning community around here they might not take too kindly of us using their church as our own personal return PO box.” Travis said surprising everyone they hadn’t thought about that particular fact yet.

  “Wow! I hadn’t really considered that part. Depending how it is you signed a note they might get confused as to who it was and think a congregation member sent it I suspect whatever kind of preacher they still have or had would have something to say about our assuming we could use the church as a post office. We might be treading on peoples toes before we even get started if we choose the wrong return address” Steve said.

  “Well they are going to supposed to be responding by either putting a message back in their own mail box and we come by and check it occasionally, or they are supposed to send us a note somewhere we give as a location. Lots of folks aren’t going to waste gas on delivering us a letter or wanting to play wait and see if we come by to read their note first.” Beth responded.

  “Yea a return address gives us some kind of creditability as well as a means of receiving our own communication. But whose name do we sign to it? What name is it that we are going to be calling ourselves as a group or whose here might use their real name as the signatory? “Tina asked

  “That’s a good question, should we just go ahead and sign as the Fish camp? That sort of gives away our location and some of our identity for someone to speculate on. but that’s about as close I want to get to the people that already have their names on their mailboxes.

  “How about if we use Q? Travis said laughing referring to an insider information resource Q Anon or maybe we can use John Galt? Travis asked

  Author Note:

  John Galt is a character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957). Although he is not identified by name until the last third of the novel, he is the object of its often-repeated question "Who is John Galt?" and of the quest to discover the answer.

  “Well we got plenty of time to decide on the signature issue later. I will get some envelopes and paper somewhere for the time or day that we decide if, or for that matter when to do it. Right now we just need to get on the road and go scrounging. Let’s see here, we didn’t go over this list like we should have so give me a minute.” Slim said and pulled out of his vest pocket a folded foraging shopping list the group had put together.

  Anything edible was what was needed so no specific requests or notes necessary for that.

  The obvious needs to have or items that were good to have was written on the list of course

  Toilet Paper, napkins, paper towels etc.

 
Bug repellant

  Candles

  Any kind of cooking oil

  Priority items

  Salt

  Giant stainless restaurant pots with lids

  Winter clothes for Slim

  Over looked places

  Paint store (denatured alcohol or other flammable liquids)

  Possibly muslin

  Over looked items

  Canning jar lids

  Mason Jars

  smoker

  Places to avoid

  “First off we are going to have ourselves a look around for possible likely looting targets and try to get the lay of the land on the way in. This so weird for us to be going out to see how many folks are still living and for us to attempt to compete and scavenge amongst them. Hopefully if we are lucky we won’t have any trouble and everyone will be concentrating on trying to just get by with no trouble just like us and not want to dispute access to any picking areas if we bump into each other. Now considering that I want to see the ocean as soon as possible I think I am just going pretty much drive in the most direct way down there to see water and sand first and scavenge later” Travis stated.

  .

  3

  Road Trip

  Travis fired up the van and everybody waved their goodbyes to their friends that were going to remain back at the fish camp and headed out on their scrounging and foraging mission to Panama City Beach. There was an underlying current of fear amongst them all about venturing out into the great unknowns and exactly what they might encounter. For example, road conditions. On their way to the fish camp they had been surprised at the number of wrecks that made it pretty much impassable until they dragged the cars out of the way with the RV.

  There was also the threat of highwaymen or townsfolk using barricades to impede their progress or set up hiding in an ambush to try to rob them. When they got to town they had their plan and list of what they could look around to find in areas that they thought might have been overlooked.

  Any building or location that was even mildly suspected of containing anything edible at this point of the societal collapse would surely have been already looted long ago by desperate people. and searched over time and again for any remaining scraps. The thing is, that any place that sold food commodities could have many other less common items that were overlooked that might help in their survival. For example, like a dollar store or hardware store contained numerous items for preppers or survivalists with the knowledge to repurpose things.

  “That gas station over there looks like it’s been gone through pretty good. I don’t know what it is about people that just need to tear something up just to be doing it!” Travis said disgustedly eyeing several broken-out windows of the establishment.

  “I don’t know either! Perhaps when the looters found nothing, they got mad and just decided to smash a few things. “Slim said looking out the back-seat window of the van and still worrying about their incapability of being rolled down for him to poke a gun out of if necessary.

  “I know how you are, Travis! You just want to go see the water and sand down there. Every time we went on vacation, you had to see the ocean first then we could go on about our business of checking into a hotel or getting something to eat. Food for your soul or a charge and a change for your spirit, I think that was what you used to say about our going out of our way to just see the ocean. But do you have any other reasons we got to go do it today first? You know Instead of going to the back-beach road towards the department stores to see if anybody’s got any back stock of winter clothes we need. You’re the one that’s been scaring everybody to death the last few days about this mini ice age coming and I for one need me some better winter gloves.” Tina said eying him ruefully.

  “Good luck with finding any winter gloves in Florida this time of year, but they might be some left over in a backroom who knows. I really don’t know what anybody is going to do down here who is not expecting the super cold weather that’s coming! Do you know the Seminole Indians in the Everglades talked of in their historic traditions of the great white rain! Yea, that’s right Slim, it has literally snowed in the Everglades before!” Travis said as Slim poked his head up between the seats looking Google eyed and saying ‘What?"

  “So, it really has snowed as far south in Florida as Miami? Do you think that mini ice age you’re talking about is going to come on us all at once or be gradual?” Slim asked with a bit of trepidation and fear still thinking that part of this mission was to find himself some good winter clothes. It would be nice to get some new things if he could, but most everybody kind of agreed if they ever did find any winter stuff anywhere it was going to be in somebody’s house and they were going to try to avoid breaking in any private homes initially.

  “There’s no telling when a cold front will arrive. The Emergency Broadcast System is talking about or alluding to certain things in the future, I don’t know exactly when anything will occur at the moment. I do know they are talking about a conference of the world leaders that is supposed to take place to end the weather manipulation and geoengineering that is still going on.” Travis said referring to a practice that was widely done but not widely known to exist commonly in the world outside of the “conspiracy theorists”.

  Part of what had been occurring was Russia, Japan and China had been stirring up the atmosphere creating winds and storms in order to keep the fallout from North Korea getting nuked off their borders. What was known by Travis and Tina was also a subject that hadn’t been coming up in the news regarding the alleged chemtrail conspiracy theories that they had been following closely in alternative media and their prepper forums for many years. What exactly it was the governments were spraying out of planes remained a mystery but there was enough admitted evidenced in the news that aluminum particles and some rare earth metals had been being sprayed by the globalists for years on the international scale to supposedly combat climate change and the increased radiation coming from our sun.

  This particular type of geoengineering for some reason was a huge secret performed by every nation and its effects were shrouded in deep secrecy. It wasn’t until just a few months before the grid went down that one of the pilots of disguised commercial passenger planes leaked the true chemtrail news and defected to a grandstand media event to show the actual scale of the spraying that was going on.

  The pilots were not entirely aware of the true purpose of this massive agreed upon airplane spraying mission that the world leaders had somehow agreed upon among d it. Travis had jokingly said “Maybe they were spraying for aliens like they were allergic to it or something and it was our way of keeping them off the Earth. How else would you get everyone in the world to agree on something like crop dusting the entire earth? Tina had jokingly said but there was a lot more climactic and solar anomaly to consider.

  “Are we all going to go in the store or is someone staying outside with the van? What’s the protocol on this kind of foraging and survival stealing Slim?” Travis asked

  “Why are you asking me? There is no kind of set protocol for doing this sort of thing I know of. Just because I helped loot a few small stores back home don’t make me anymore of an expert than you over there. But if you’re just asking for my opinion, yea I guess somebody needs to stay with the van and act as a look out.” Slim said contemplating the clothing store.

  “I guess we just honk the horn a couple times and holler is anybody here? before we go in.” Travis said eying the big glass front building.

  “Well we could take a few extra minutes after we honk the horn to get out and look in some windows.” Tina offered wanting to gauge the contents of the store as well as look for any dangers.

  “What do we do if somebody is in there? Just tell them we are leaving and go?” Slim asked.

  “Sounds like a plan to me. Just don’t scare or corner anyone, no use us getting shot or shooting somebody over nothing. I doubt we will find anything but a bunch of tropical print shirts in this store so we don’t need to be spending t
oo long in there.” Travis said looking over towards Tina.

  “I might grab something if it catches my eye but I am not shopping. I think this place is usually closed in the winter but we can glance at the backrooms.” Tina said wanting to go look for some other more likely places to find winter wear.

  “So, we all going in? Or you want me to wait out here?” Slim asked eying the neighborhood for any signs of life.

  “Well that’s a big building but it’s pretty well lit by the sunlight coming in the windows, if you don’t mind us going in alone this time I would appreciate it Slim. Tina and I are used to each other’s actions and reactions so we will give this one first go. Me and you can go first on next one and maybe Tina can stay with the van.” Travis offered wanting Tina safe but also wanting to share the experience and show his confidence in her as his back up.

  Tina agreed and she was glad for the opportunity of a bit of adventure after the claustrophobic cabin they had been sharing due to the unprecedented rain. They all got out of the van however and looked in the available store front windows and down the sides of the building.

  “It doesn’t look like a hell of a lot of stuff has been taken out of here” Slim said walking back towards the couple now peering carefully in the broken door.

  “Not much demand for beach wear I guess’” Tina said looking inquisitively at Travis who was gathering his nerves and wits to step in the door first.

  “Let’s do it.” Travis said and pulled the broken plate glass door open and stepped inside as Slim held it open for Tina to pass.