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) (6 page)

“That was a really old box of shells and only half full. Guess I should have told you about them. You reckon you are going to get in a firefight with him next, Farley?” The boy questioned.

“Where did you learn that word from boy, firefight- you probably learned it playing on them violent video games like all the rest of your generation?” Farley asked regarding the kid.

“No, my Daddy was a Vietnam veteran. He’s crazy too you know and stays down there at the VA hospital but he used to tell me stories before he got all mean.” The boy said as Farley regarded him and wondered what a hard life this kid had experienced that was beyond his years.

“I guess I should have searched that house more myself. Did you pay particular attention to his front and back doors when you were looking for guns?” Farley asked.

“Yea, that was the first thing I did. Weren’t any weapons around there. I knew to do that because that is generally where everybody goes to put them up when Mama comes to visit.” The boy said.

“Good deal. I doubt that he has any firearms then, but we’ll be careful just the same when we head back.” Farley advised.

“How ya’ll fixed for food over there Jeremy? You look like you have been finding enough to eat.” Farley said thinking about what a fix he was in now that he was about to have some gas and had all his preps hidden in the woods but not being able to tell the boy anything about that .

For that matter, what the hell was he going to do now that he had gas for his van and all that shit stashed with this kid in tow. Do I leave it, do I load it, do I give the kid the car and send him on his way? Or do I get ready to shoot the old bastard when I come by again?” Farley thought in a whirl of panicky thoughts.

“Why are you way out here, Farley? Do you live around here someplace? Were you staying over at the campgrounds?” the boy asked.

“No, I’m traveling out of the city and I was going to try to move up to an old fishing cabin I had at the lake and see if I could get by a little bit better over there.” Farley said still distracted by the other thought of what to do with his preps and the old man.

“I told Mama that we should stay ourselves right here and not go to Mobile at all and that I could get us by. There’s some fish in the lake, although they are not going to bite every day or even regularly. I would have found me a gun I was going to hunt with but I haven’t seen any in the houses yet.” Jeremy said flinching as he realized he just clued Farley in as to how much thieving he’d been up to and then immediately changed the subject.

“Folks at home don’t like Mama and me too much; they kind of tolerate us and invite us over at times. But they don’t do it that often or that much and forget sometimes that we’re related. Sometimes we have to go to social services or something to get us a little help. We got us one rich relative that’s pretty good about making sure she’s got enough money to pay for her meds, that is if she doesn’t spend it on liquor occasionally. Other than that they don’t have us around much, so I don’t know why she thinks it’s so all fired important to get back down to them.” the young man said with some dismay.

“You got you a hard life you’re living, my friend. Wish there was something more I could do for ya’ll but times being what they are, us two hobos got to just keep making do, I guess.” Farley said enjoying the child’s smile of being included in the two hobo sentence.

“Why don’t me and you stay down here and hunt and fish and take care of Mama? There’s an empty cottage next to us. I will tell her I couldn’t find any gas and you won’t have to tell her you smacked the old man upside the head with an axe. We could hunt and fish and just get by. Mama’s still a pretty woman; she’s not hard to look at. You might even like her.” The boy said hopefully, looking at his new found hero.

“I, uh, ummm, nope don’t think that sounds like such a great idea, Jeremy. We will get you some gas, plot and scheme around that old man if he’s up and about and ya’ll can get on up with your kin folks down south, that sound o.k.?” Farley said wanting to pat the boy on the shoulder but knowing that might be the wrong thing to do.

“Aw, come on now! I told you that you can live next door. You ain’t got to take up with the old lady. I was just suggesting it. She won’t like you anyway, too old with that gray white hair. Oh, no offense now!” The boy said slowing down for some ruts in the road that Farley was about to warn him about.

“See how it pays to watch the road, Jeremy. You handled that well. No my friend, I think it’s going to be time pretty soon for us to part ways and seek our own paths but thank you for the invitation. I might stick around a day or two just to make sure that old bastard doesn’t come after ya’ll but I think the best idea is for you all to head south and I head to my place up at the lake.” Farley said to the quietly contemplating boy.

“That sounds like a good idea, I guess, if you not going to stay here by us. Maybe you could help me talk to Mama into staying here because we don’t know how the folks back home are going to receive us. Like I said, they don’t much like being around us, we don’t really even know what’s going on; we don’t have any radio, you see? The folks at the country store said that the sun had somehow messed up the electricity and that there were bad earthquakes up around Tennessee way. Mr. Garcia that had the cabin next to us hung around for a week and he had a radio. That’s the cabin I told you that you could have. He told me that the whole United States had no power and that raging wildfires and badly damaged cities that the government had to deal with were occurring all over but he didn’t tell me much more than that. Must be bad, him and Mama were whispering a bit and all he did was pat me on the head when he left and told me to stay safe. Why is it that adults think they got to pat younger folks on the head like we don’t understand a thing?” Jeremy asked.

“I don’t know boy, you want a pat on the head?” Farley said laughing and sharing the moment that he had been treating the kid like a small ignorant adult all this time.

“That’s another thing, I don’t want to get around that cheek pinching Aunt of mine, she lives in a big house with one of my other relations and I don’t like going over there. You got to dress up and wash up and everything else for an hour of dinner as they talk about us and how much they been helping us and such.” Jeremy said before asking “is that you up there on the left?” after spying Farley’s van.

“Yea, that’s me.” Farley said as the boy slowed down.

“How are you going to get the gas out of this car? I didn’t think to ask you to cut a piece of garden hose off back at the house.” the boy said.

“I got something better than that. I have got me a readymade siphon hose with a bell on it to jingle so I don’t have to worry about that.” Farley said thinking about his readymade hose. The Emergency Siphon™ and hose come packaged in a re-sealable zip-top bag for clean, compact storage anywhere you need an Emergency Siphon™. To use the Emergency Siphon™, you simply insert it into your barrel or source container and shake to start the water flowing.

“O.K., now this is how we are going to have to do this little transfusion here, little brother. I got to siphon the gas out of this car into the five gallon jug and pour it into my tank and then we will siphon some more and get you filled up. The way I figure it, that’ll probably leave old Mr. Finch about a quarter tank when we’re done and that’s good enough. I still hope like hell he’s incapacitated and don’t decide to get out in the middle of the road as we go by with a gun or something he might have. I got me another gun and no, you can’t have it, that’s called a Henry Survival Rifle and let me tell you what, it’s a tack shooter when it comes to target shooting. It’s disassembled at the moment but I’m about to assemble it, just in case.” Farley said opening the backdoor of the van and dumping the three quarter full five gallon jerry can of water out on the ground after telling the boy to drink his fill and doing so himself.

Farley had left the thing in the van instead of putting it in his cache because if someone else got themselves stranded on this desolate end of the road it would have been there for them but actually he didn’t feel the need to carry this fifty pounds of weight an eighth of a mile to a more secure location and had got lazy. As Farley siphoned off gas and filled his van and prepared the fuel container for Jeremy’s homeward bound journey, he thought about his preps and what to do next. Well, carry them with you of course you dang fool, he told himself with some trepidation.

“Look here, Jeremy; I’m what you might call a prepper of sorts. No, get that light out of your eye, I ain’t no Doomsday prepper with 5 years worth of supplies but I do have a bit extra with me that I am willing to share with you. Just some basic rations to get you and your mama home for helping me load my van with the rest of it.” Farley said regarding this young soul that fate had stuck him with.

“What do you mean? Where’s it at? How far? Where do we have to go to, Farley?” A flurry of questions started spouting from the boy.

“We ain’t got to go nowhere but here but it’s a hump to tote it back to the vehicle. I got my stuff stashed in the woods around here close. I unpacked this van yesterday after I run out of gas with hopes of coming back to it and guess what? I’m back. Now if your little lightweight self can man up enough to help me carry it all out of the woods and load it back into my van again, I will give you two weeks’ worth of food, that is if you’re eating light. Some of it may be unrecognizable to you but food is food and the first thing on your list is a twenty five pound box of parboiled rice. Now that doesn’t sound like much for gourmet eating but oatmeal beats no meal, son, and I’ll give you six cans of cream of chicken soup and a bottle of soy sauce to make it go down easier every day. Actually, twenty five pounds of rice could feed you and Mama for a month but I ain`t going to be that hard on you because you’ll be thinking you ought to be looking like a Chinese eating all that plain rice and you’ll be fussing at me . I will give you one case of MRE’s, that’s meals-ready-to-eat, little soldier, stuff army gives you and that’s cool ‘cause it’s got stuff like matches and toilet paper in them, too. What you want to do is, you and your Mama split them 12 meals and share for twelve days, one meal a day between the two of ya’ll and eat that rice as your second meal of the day. Save the hot sauce in them  MRE’s, you will need that later. Rice with hot sauce and whatever will be just as good as the soy sauce is to break up the monotony. Don’t ask me for no more even though you know I got it or you’re about to know I got it cause I ain’t giving it to you. Old Farley can be as mean as old Mr. Finch if you bug him too much. What are you doing about fire? I see you got that Boy Scout knife of yours, you been a Boy Scout or did you just get one of them uncles to give it to you?” Farley asked standing tall letting his whole six foot two inch frame slightly intimidate the boy not to beg him for any more food or supplies than he was willing to give.

“Well, we got matches. I have been collecting those, and toilet paper and old lighters and everything else from the houses I have been looking around in on the lake.” Jeremy said giving Farley a wince at the boy’s thieving ways and wondering if the places were occupied or unoccupied with that little thieving or foraging boy running around.

“You ever hear of a 72 hour kit or a survival kit like those downed pilots use sometimes before?” Farley said thinking and rubbing the stubble of his beard that he had started sporting many weeks ago.

“I’ve heard tell of a survival kit before but I never heard of a seventy two hour kit. What’s that?” Jeremy asked.

“That’s three days worth of food or 72 hours worth of stuff you put together to prepare for hurricanes like you do down there in Mobile from the government memorandums and warnings they advise you to do. Does your Mama get extra batteries and water and such getting ready for the storms to come?” Farley asked.

“Well, we talk about it and we got a few extra things but you ought to understand we don’t have much money mostly and when hurricane season comes around we generally count on neighbors and relief to help us through.” the boy said to Farley while rubbing his hairless chin.