Empty Aisles & Empty Hearts (Preppers Perspective Book 3) Read online

“Ah, hell, we got to play adopt a puppy then?” Dennis questioned? He liked Floyd well enough on normal days and they had talked a bit of prepping in the past, but having him suddenly thrust in their midst with little to no preps of his own sort of freaked Dennis out a bit.

  “He will most likely be moving in with me eventually, he is going to stay in that old trailer down at the trailer park for awhile first though.” Charles said thoughtfully.

  Floyd and Monica had inherited an older three bedroom trailer and had not sold it yet. It was parked in a mobile home park about 10 miles away from Dennis and Floyd had stayed there until he took his new job. Dennis and Charles looked at each other for a moment with neither one of them wishing to talk first.

  Charles finally broke the silence by assuring Dennis that it would be alright and they would all muddle through somehow.

  “I guess your right Charles, we can certainly use his help on a lot of projects, but he is a pretty big boy with an appetite to match.” Dennis said stating the obvious.

  “Look Dennis, I am not asking you to feed him much. It’s not fair at all to you to take on so many people. Monica and I will share rations with him and we will just have to make do and hunt more to make up the difference.” Charles suggested.

  “That sounds agreeable now but we don’t have our bellies trying to touch our backbones yet. There is going to be some jealousy issues as well as other emotions going on amongst us all soon enough over food.” Dennis said trying to foresee some of the squabbles that might go on over sharing the least little thing.

  “I got it under control, you just tell me how you want things done and we do them that way.” Charles declared in voice that said he was the patriarch of that side of our little tribe.

  “I know you do buddy, shit that means I got to arm him too with something. Well we will sort that out later. If I remember right he has been deer hunting before so that old 303 British Enfield of mine might be the ticket. Damn I sold off a SKS and a Shotgun last month curse my luck, oh well I got some kind of outfit for him. I just got to ponder it. I got that short Mossberg cruiser but it’s not a hunting weapon. It’s a good carry for him though if he is doing some field work putting in some gardens though. We got a lot of tilling to do and no friggin fertilizer for the crops by the way.” Dennis said thinking about their situation.

  “Are you going to talk to talk to Lomax about planting some wheat on his land?” Charles asked referring to their neighbor at the entrance to the dead end road. Lomax had some open fields and a couple fish ponds that were probably going to be a point of contention soon enough with the neighbors all along this road wanting to fish ot get drinking water from.

  The ponds consisted of one small catfish pond that Lomax fed the fish on and one somewhat larger so called wild pond he didn’t feed that had a variety of fish in it.

  Dennis and Lomax had talked about a “what if” hypothetical SHTF situation and mutual cooperation when Dennis originally moved in years ago but outside of an occasional neighborly chat the subject had not been brought up again. Lomax had said he wouldn’t mind sharing fish but he wanted something in trade for them. He wasn’t just going to let anybody and everybody have access to them.

  Dennis knew Lomax had a tractor as well as a tiller and he had eyed all the open land around Lomax`s ponds for sometime as a community survival resource. Lomax and Dennis both knew that in order to survive it takes a community and no one household on its own could survive where they were at on this road so getting Lomax to agree to Dennis’s agricultural plans shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

  Dennis had cans of wheat he could plant down there as a cereal crop. He had bought most of his wheat as food rations but his studies of survivalism had shown him that a community could not exist with out some type of grain crop to depend on.

  “Yea we need to go and talk to him in depth, I have no idea how we are going to help him handle security on that place but we need to dream up something. He sort of got in prepper mode after I talked to him that first time and was going to fill up his pantry some, but I have no idea what he has down there food wise or even how many family members he has around at any given time. Seems like somebody is always coming or going around his house and he just set a double wide trailer down on a pad 6 months ago for his son and family to use.” Dennis said getting agitated a little bit about how little he actually did know about this neighbor.

  “Well you got your raised beds and I got my garden spot for veggies but most of the other land we got is so poor you can’t raise a fuss on it. We are going to have to think on how to solve our fertilizer problem on mine because it’s not setup to be organic like your raised beds are.” Charles said as watched Dennis pour hot water from the SunRocket kettle into their mugs of instant coffee.

  You know Charles This SunRocket is a useful part of any emergency preparation kit – not only can it heat water for drinking but it can also kill water borne bacteria through heat treatment, be used to rehydrate freeze dried food and even to melt snow!” Dennis said refilling the chamber with water for the likelihood of having a second cup of coffee this morning.

  “I like it because we don’t have to worry about building a fire! What is our OpSec on open fires going to be anyway Dennis? I mean everyone is cooking around here already on firewood, charcoal or propane if they got it, but pretty soon they ain`t going to have anything to cook and you know how cooking smells travel. By the way, I told Floyd we were going to eat lunch at my house and have a little talk. He said Birmingham has already started turning to pure Bedlam already.” Charles said raising one eyebrow in Dennis’s direction.

  “Hell I don’t doubt that for a minute, ten to one it started in the 5 points area of town didn’t it?” Dennis said referring to a notorious crime ridden and gang infested area of the city.

  “You’re probably right, but he was just talking about the city in general. He said fights broke out in the grocery stores, regular looting had already begun and it was all too common to hear lots of gunfire through out the day and night. That’s why he shagged ass down here. He said they had an IT bunker for the electronics up there, but with nothing but reserve power and no food for the workers running it that it was pointless to try to hang around or go to work.” Charles declared

  “Damn idiots in IT always talk about “disaster recovery” but never think about the employees not being able to get food, fuel, water or having to bed down in the place because its too dangerous to drive to work. What was he working on anyway? Banking records? That would be a joke; you can’t even cash a check these days.” Dennis said glumly.

  “I know what you mean; I am not sure what he works on. I know he has something to do with the Colleges academic records being stored and their email and such, but that is a huge server bank he works on with about a 100 other technicians. Damn Dennis can you imagine all the poor students we got stretched out across this country right now trying to get home with no gas pumps working and no money even if they found a station with a generator running? Just that segment of the population itself is so screwed. Hey did you with your emergency management connections ever find out what the plan for prisons were in a situation like this? “Charles asked as he watched Dennis start pacing around as he was apt to do when he had a lot on his mind.

  “ No my friend I haven’t and God help the millions of them men and women as well us at this dark moment. I got a feeling that a lot of them convicts are being shot or starved to death at the moment. It’s really too horrible to think about. I don’t mean to change the subject on you so quick, but I cant even wrap my head around that scene. The prisons in the south that raise most of their own food might carry on for awhile. Hell holes like Angola prison in Louisiana are used to operating before, during and after a disaster, but who knows about the rest? I guess if the wardens or sheriffs have a soul they release all the non violent prisoners but how about the hardcore criminals? Damn! Let’s just change the subject man to our little piece of the world. We got problems aplenty ourselves jus
t considering the good old boy law abiding folks that will soon be desperate enough to do anything to feed their families. Every dang one of the houses around here have guns aplenty and more than likely are already in the woods trying to hunt game. There are some crazy bastards living around here as you well know and I got to wonder if folks are going to be hunting each other as well as animals in these woods.” Dennis said ominously.

  “It won’t take but one stray bullet or one back woods confrontation to set a feud off with these rednecks around here. Every one is going to be now “tribing” up or forming family clans about right now. Hell old Sikes down the road has 10 deer hunters as relatives for his own little private army not counting the wives or children under nine armed with 22 rifles that live within a half a mile of each other. If you count the neighbors that will fight with them you got a couple platoons or a company size force to deal with. You think ever think about that Dennis?” Charles asked sagely.

  “Yea I did and I didn’t. The human mind is a strange thing in a survival situation as you well know. You and me are reverting back to our military discipline and camaraderie, but those who never experienced that kind of discipline or thought processes tend to do a lot of authority challenging or internal quibbling amongst themselves when the chips are down. That’s our only advantage and for all I know the likelihood of every house within 10 miles of us having at least one blood kin relative who has served in the armed forces is almost assured. Just in National Guard troops Alabama has more soldiers serving than any other state in the union. Christ we used to say if they started the Civil war again we would win by sheer numbers. We in deep deep doo doo my friend if anybody gets the ass with us or wants to take what we got.” Dennis said fatalistically.

  A dark look went over Charles face that Dennis well knew and his mind raced to get his friend out of the “thousand yard stare” status of a Vietnam vet with post traumatic stress syndrome.

  ‘ We ain`t going to war brother.” Dennis said quietly fighting off his own nightmares and regrets.

  Charles looked at him hard and after contemplating a moment upon seeing Dennis’s look of resignation his own heart took over and he murmured the old soldiers lament of “War No More” and grasped his friends shoulder momentarily with a gaze that could have betrayed either one of them’s thoughts of shedding a tear for fallen comrades or lives ill spent.

  “You and I Charles have already identified the “problem people” on this road we need to watch out for. I know of others that live somewhere back here, but exactly where I don’t know but there is always a neighbor that could tell us if we coalition together. Let’s just kick the ball around a moment and talk about this ok?” Dennis said wondering when, not. why or if some armed group might start going house to house trying to take whatever they could get so their children could live another day.

  “Dennis I always thought you were sort of full of shit with your academic studies of sociology and disasters, but you had years of time in school to study and discuss how people were going to act in this situation, what kind of an F ing solution or hypothesis did you come up with?” Charles demanded.

  Dennis’s eyes flared black for a moment as the anger of the challenge affected him like a slap in a bar. Then his countenance softened and he diplomatically but sheepishly said “He never had come up with much better than “all or none”.

  In Dennis’s mind he knew he couldn’t defend against a inevitable attack. He couldn’t even depend on obscurity because he had shot his mouth off too many times talking about the prepper community publicly as part of his marketing. Oh yea, the folks around here would not directly confront him because they knew most preppers were well armed and didn’t think it was worth the risk to see if he had extra food because he appeared to lack financially unless it came to drinks in the bar. But someone would and could come looking for him and take a cowardly shot at him just to get a lifesaver candy if they thought he had it and the probability they were talking to their friends while building up group courage to do just that was high. Charles wanted to go on the offensive and use every nasty special forces trick they both knew or had heard about to lessen the threats before a knock at the door or a sneaky ass shot ended their worldly worries but Dennis couldn’t live with himself like that.

  “Think! Think Dennis think!” He admonished himself, how in the hell do I get through this? Concertina and booby traps along the wire wasn’t an option. Neither was a seek and destroy mission. No if they were all going to survive on this one small piece of a road and this little segment of society was going to make I,t then it was going to be in musketeer mode.

  “Yea right! All for one and one for all with this bunch of hillbilly rednecks and factory worker mentalities was doomed to failure unless he sold the prospect to them of being attacked by outsiders from beyond the neighbors. That was no far stretch of the imagination; city folks would be coming to the country and exiting the big cities in droves. These were country folk though, we already sort of knew who was mean worthless and sorry in our own rural landscape and were watching them close. Community, Community and how to establish a sense of it supporting all its members was the quandary. It would be like a chain, from the paved interstate turn off leading in here to the dirt road exiting it. Where do you start at? Luckily back in the day when Dennis wore the Green Beanie of Americas Special Forces he knew. The Green Beret were not the Billy bad asses that Hollywood tried to make of them like some sort of over muscled Rambo types. No, their job was to jump with a seven man team in 150 miles behind the lines and teach the friendly civilians how to resist who ever we as the United States of America were at war with.

  Our motto was “De oppresse Libre” It is US Army tradition that the phrase is Latin for "to free from oppression" or "to liberate the oppressed". Dennis was damn proud to ever have anything to do with this elite unit.

  The bad asses or dumb asses depending on who you talked to, were the Airborne Rangers who would force march walk 50 mile in through the enemy lines fighting much of the way at company or platoon strength. They the ones with the giant muscles and funky buzz cut hairdos, not the teachers, diplomats and linguists from the beret who made friends with the locals and that lived daily with the indigenous peoples they fought beside.

  Superior guns, Super-defenses, are meaningless. If people think they should steal your things, that you're profitable in some way – they will try. It's only a question of time and the amount of guns and hands which side has that influences outcomes and tactics.

  Grocery Store Grumblings

  “Lets go do us some “wandering and pondering” Charles!” Dennis said referring to his personal way of doing a little work here and there on the property, while spending more time planning and observing the land than actually working on it.

  “Sometime today we need to do a little wander and ponder around my place also. I want to show you what I got setup to start making a little mash.” Charles said as he walked towards Dennis’s small orchard.

  “This will be the second year since I put these trees in so I doubt we are going to get hardly anything fruit wise this year,” Dennis said as he walked down the hill on a small trail leading towards a selection of peach, plum, apple and pear.

  “Well at least you got hell of a start on next year, some of the trees might begin producing by then shouldn’t they?” Charles asked

  I should think so, I have a few early bearing apple trees that might make crop this year and some plums also, but I really don’t know for sure. They don’t get much in the way of fertilizer because I haven’t really been able to afford to buy any yet. I did dump a 50 lb bag of manure and spread it in each of the 10 raised boxes I have trees planted in. The ones that I have just planted in holes along the path to the orchard are just on their own. “Dennis said surveying his little cleared orchard area about a hundred yards from the house.

  “Looks like you got yourself some deer damage.” Charles said examining a bunch of peeled bark on the base of a sapling apple tree.
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  “Damn those pesky deer! Looks to me like they might have killed it. Dennis said seeing how girded the trees trunk was from their nibbling of the bark.

  “That’s going to be my number one project for this morning. I got a bunch of daffodil bulbs to plant around these trees drip lines. Deer don’t like daffodils or rosemary; they are supposed to be good repellants for them and help keep them away from my fruit trees. I meant to have already done that particular job but I just hadn’t got around to it. I also have a bunch of onions and garlic I am going to plant around the orchard to mess with the bugs and maybe repel a field mouse. I was going to make this kind of a forest garden this year and plant grapes next to my apple trees etc. but no time for that now unless I can find some small wild muscadine grapes to transplant.”