An Old Man And His Axe: A Prepper fiction book of survival in an EMP grid down post apocalyptic world (Old Preppers Die Hard 1) (18 page)

“No, the boy said she hasn’t had any real issues with that aspect of things. He is a pretty good kid and I have sort of grown to like having him around, him I am not worried about. Now her on the other hand, I am not so sure about. It’s hard enough taking on the responsibility for another without wondering if they are going to hold up under the pressures we are going to be facing.” Farley said for consideration.

“You sound like you might want to take her on anyway. Do you have other reservations? You got any interest in her other than just helping her and her boy out?” Charlie said wisely as a man of experience...

“No, she is a good looking woman don’t get me wrong, but I don’t have any thoughts in that direction. I think I probably need them as much as they need me, though. When I started on this dang trip I was resolved to trying to survive alone but I have come to many conclusions since then. The first thing is being alone is one thing, staying alone is another and it sucks.

“I have never subscribed to the theory of being a lone wolf survivor but I was kind of forced to become one, now I have options to change that no matter what kind of reservations I have about it. There is a ton of work to be done planting a garden, setting up a house etc. and although I could do it on my own, it is a hell of a lot better to share the work and the appreciation of getting it done with someone other than myself.” Farley declared.

“We got us a garden started and expanded already. We didn’t have a lot of seeds to expand the one we started in spring but we added a bit more. You got lots of vegetable seeds, Farley?” Charlie asked.

“I have a good bit of seeds in my supplies I brought along and some fertilizer but I am light on a bunch of things. I got this book called “Bug Out Gardening” that might help us out though that tells how to make some stuff out of grocery store items and use innovative growing techniques that might be of help. Oh that reminds me; I got an odd request for you seeing now that you have a refrigerator running off a generator.” Farley said.

“What? You want me to make room for some of your beer?” Charlie said laughing.

“No, not at all but that’s not a bad idea.” Farley said smiling back.

“I bought me a whole bunch of worms for my garden at the Bait store earlier today and I wanted to stick them in there for a couple days until I can get me a worm bin built.” Farley said.

“Worms! Well I will be damned, didn’t think nothing was open around here, let alone a bait store. They have anything else interesting for sale?” Charlie asked very interested.

“No, I asked did they know anybody with any live chickens for sale but they said not at the moment. I sort of want to go back once in awhile and visit so I can keep up with them folks but I am kind of worried about being around people at this particular time, too.” Farley declared.

“You worried because you whacked the old man or you got something else on your mind?” Charlie asked shrewdly.

“Well that is my biggest worry, I just soon lay low and get forgotten for awhile now. The only folks that might recognize my van or me are some country boys staying in a trailer not far from where Becky’s place is but we are transiting or going into strange times now. Who is to say if it’s right or wrong at this given time to be out foraging for supplies if I find the need to do so and doing a little breaking and entering? Not burglary mind you of structures people are normally living in but places I call abandoned if nobody has been living there for 10 weeks or more. I don’t want anyone observing me doing it and then accusing me of doing something or being responsible for a theft when I visit the store.” Farley declared.

“Well with all that gray hair of yours, you don’t exactly blend in well and I am sure you’re not the only one that has it but I see your point. I hadn’t planned on going to a local store around here but I thought I might try my luck at the Air Base in Montgomery later to see if I could get some government aid. I cant go down to the store for you and try to blend in looking for information because I am Asian and as you know some of them folks don’t like me just because of that.” Charlie said realizing some old prejudices were likely to surface after this disaster.

“Damn what a couple of misfits we are!” Farley chuckled and said cheers to his beer drinking buddy.

“Why would you need to go out stealing, Farley? We got pretty much everything we need here for a little while.” Charlie questioned.

Farley looked at him momentarily angered of being accused of stealing but soon regained his composure and with a sigh advised Charlie what he was talking about doing didn’t really rank in his current morality code as stealing as long as he wasn’t directly taking it from someone or knowingly hurting them in some way by taking supplies but he had a point. Farley agreed the best thing for him to do was stay at the resort and keep his head down for 30 days or longer but that meant to him that what ever was abandoned or not thought of yet would soon disappear. That bothered him. He could have been gathering and storing for leaner times that they both knew they would face later on as their own supplies ran out.

Charlie pondered that for a few moments before reminding Farley he had expressed some skills in hunting and fishing and couldn’t he at least wait even longer to consider thievery being that he didn’t want anyone coming after Farley for revenge or arrest as a burglar on his place.

“Damn, you would think I was the wickedest man to ever set foot out around here! That’s not the case, I don’t steal because I can or just want to fool. We are talking about survival man!” Farley said softly before beginning to talk more normally and agreeing with Charlie that he wouldn’t venture off the place on a foraging mission for at least 30 or more days.

“Ok if I am going to stay here and try to play Daniel Boone to help feed us all, I got to know a few things. First off, I already put all my cards on the table in regards to how long I can hold out and what kind of supplies I got. Now, you tell me how long you think you can last with just what supplies you got on hand?” Farley asked.

‘You ask some hard questions, Farley! That’s a reasonable one though seeing that it appears that we are going to be sharing the same lifeboat so to speak. Ok, I will give you an honest answer, I don’t really know. It all depends on how much we cut down or you and I are willing to share together to stretch it all out. “Charlie said wrinkling his brow at Farley over this uncomfortable conversation.

“Let’s say then that if neither one of us shared anything with each other and your boy didn’t catch any fish and I don’t shoot any deer… Then how long do you think your family could survive on it’s own with only what you got on hand right now this minute?” Farley questioned.

“Since you put it that way, and I might add that was a kind of dastardly way to put things, I am guessing we have a month and a half, maybe more? Hey you don’t happen to like Jalapeno peppers, do you? I got three industrial sized cans…” Charlie began before Farley cut him off and said that he didn’t like them and don’t be counting jars of pickles neither because there was no way he could live off those except for an occasional few on the side with a dinner.

“Look here; do you remember your military training about becoming a P.O.W?
(Prisoner Of War)
Never mind, I forgot the Air Force don’t go into that type of training with everyone. The survival rule is that you try to make your escape as early as possible because that is when you’re most likely the most well fed and physically fit to survive the rigors of evasion. In our case the whole S.E.R.E. (Survival, Evasion, Escape, and Resistance) scenario takes on different attributes and different meanings. For example, my wanting to go foraging now and learning the lay of the land while resources are more common and less likely to be already looted in some areas. If you waited to tell me someday that you only had two weeks worth of food supplies left and I could have been gathering supplies during those two previous weeks my need to take risks or have an unequal return for my efforts now increases because I waited.” Farley said trying to get Charlie’s moratorium on pilfering lifted.

“Another point to consider in my favor that I want to bring up is that if I clean out every abandoned house close by to here of food supplies, the chances of a some roving band or individual looking for supplies venturing this way is reduced and they will hopefully change direction towards what appears to have not already been gone through by others. It also leaves a message about how many survivors are in an area. Eventually, if folks haven’t done so already, everyone becomes a forager or looter depending on how you look at it, well the truth is just out of necessity.” Farley said studying the man for signs of understanding that if something is inevitable then dealing with that aspect becomes a priority to consider early on in a disaster.

“I see your points and they do have some merits but like you said it’s all about when timing comes into play. I would say within 2 weeks of the grid going down that the  folks around here have already been through every known empty house in their area and have already begun venturing out farther a field with their scavenging efforts. That means you would probably be endangering us and your life for nothing. That scenario also increases the odds of desperate people meeting desperate people willing to fight over the same goods, so your chances of a violent encounter increase now and decrease later.” Charlie said sticking to his guns on the need to stay low for now without voicing any Buddhist or otherwise beliefs about trying to live a peaceful life.

“I got to disagree with you on that, Charlie, and here is why: a person, that is most people, have not reverted to higher degrees of savagery and out and out lawlessness yet. They still retain their humanity and they are able show compassion as a virtue to be upheld in times of trouble. Oh yea, on any given day you have your 5% of folks that are just plain rotten or evil and your other 10% we will call opportunists that are increasing in numbers and most likely skills daily but they have a habit of sorting themselves out in petty violence or be being taken out by the law abiding types to keep their numbers lower than the rest. You got to look at things now like wolf packs or tribes that follow the law of the jungle or survive on supply and demand. If a wolf pack meets a bear unexpectedly, they are going to harass it. They are not trying to kill it for food, or attack it because they hate bears in general; they just want it to move on and not compete with them for game or worrying about it harming their cubs. They don’t want to have to get very close to it either because even if they received only a minor wound from not observing the necessary caution the animal deserves they would greatly decrease the packs and their own survival rate by not being able to hunt well. With tribes of people it’s similar, you have a territory, you protect your territory, and you expand your territory when a neighboring tribe is weak or becomes assimilated. See Charlie, if one tribe has good hunting grounds for themselves that are productive, others want them so they can grow strong and prosper like the current occupants. On the other hand, because their territory creates a bounty it gives the tribe strength to fend others off or have surplus to trade and make new alliances to help guard their borders.  This is also how news travels and the politics and reputation of a region get set up.” Farley explained beginning to layout his plan of action he thought they should undertake.

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

“So in essence what you are saying is that if Becky and her boy and you decide to stay here we are forming ourselves a little tribe of sorts? That’s not much of a tribe, Farley.” Charlie said stating the obvious about two old men, two young boys and two unarmed women’s chances of survival against even one of these big country families known to exist around here.

“That’s the thing, we appear to be the poorest tribe in the county to ourselves but no one even knows we exist yet and in actuality we are the richest in resources we need to protect. We only need to keep folks away from us so they don’t find out what an easy mark we are and if we do go up against anyone we just got to make sure they worry about if we are worth the effort. Getting back to the bear and wolf analogy there is one creature in the woods that is much smaller than them but they all fear, do you know what that is, Charlie?” Farley asked.

“I know where you are going with this, I was stationed on Elmendorf Air Base in Anchorage, Alaska right before the great earthquake and tsunami devastated it in 1964. You’re talking about a wolverine, right?” Charlie said remembering the awe he had experienced when he first found out one of these over sized badger like creatures was known to chase both wolves and grizzly bears off a kill. Nothing wants to mess with a wolverine.

“Well, like a wolverine, I want our presence known but I don’t want any direct confrontations with anyone but if one does happen I am going to growl and snarl and be as tenacious as that little beast and I expect the same out of you all. We can indeed live around the bigger predators in the same territory and have respect. I never heard of wolves or bears trying to steal from a wolverine- that animal has a particular way of marking their territory which I will explain to you later. In the meantime as a tribe, we just look poor and not worth getting hurt over.” Farley said thinking about a quote: