The following may stay just the way it is today. OR it might become nothing more than a short, short story. If that happens the entire short story will probably be posted here.
HOWEVER.........If it turns into any kind of book only the first 50% or there a bouts will be posted here on the forum, the rest will be included in the book that will be sold at some whopping, huge, humongous, stratospheric price.
One last time! It is entirely possible that at some point only a portion of the following story will be FREE!!!!!
Additionally, as is always the case, this draft is rough, or rrrruuuuffffff, take your choices. Yes there will be misspelled words, yes there will be too many comas, too many run on sentences, and most certainly problems with syntax and grammar!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Folks I feel terrible having to write what I did up above! I am forced to come off as some kind of jackass. You all have my most sincere apologies for having to coming off like some idiot.
Just as an aside, if I am offending anyone, please cut me some slack.</span>
A few hours ago I decided to write some more on the Don’t Step On The Butterflies story. When I opened word right next to the icon to launch that story is the blank document icon. Right then an idea hit me and I opened the blank page and started typing the following story. No I don’t know why it just happens to me that way sometimes. It’s great to have a new idea but more than frustrating when you are trying to work on something specific. Good Bad or Indifferent here is what I wrote. Right now I can’t see this being anything more than a short, short story. But I have no idea what might come to me later so maybe it will become a 60,000 words story I just can’t tell right now.
As you will be able to tell this is almost exactly what came out of my head to my fingers then onto the page with no editing!
I really, really need to finish at least two other stories so it might be a month before I get back to this! If it is going to bother you to have to wait DON’T read any further. I can’t even tell you right at this exact moment IF there will be more.
No Preps, No Guns, No Clue
Drew P Caldwell you really need to get a life he told himself for the umpteenth time this week. Living in the oldest and smallest popup trailer imaginable was bad enough. Living in it beside the construction shack on the property you are the project manager for is not a life!
Drew started working summers and weekends for Honeywell and Barnes contractors. At twenty-seven he had been promoted to project manager. Up till now they had all been smallish jobs lasting three or four months. This was his first real big stakes project. Thirty acres would eventually become a series of stores and restaurants on the edge of suburbia. The owners were betting it all on the fact that going north from town was the only viable way growth could happen.
His bosses Honeywell and Barnes were betting a lot on Drew’s ability to pull this job together on time and on budget.
Drew couldn’t afford to blow this opportunity. He had moved the construction shack/office made into a forty foot container onto the job right after the first level spot was graded. The next day he moved his popup right next to it. There wasn’t even a temporary power pole yet. For power there were solar panels and a collection of batteries so that he could use his laptop to connect with the internet and to charge up cordless equipment. A three hundred gallon potable water tank that was set up on legs and a Porta Potty were all the luxuries he had for the first six weeks.
Drew cooked on a three burner stovetop run on propane and almost never ate out. He ate a lot of cheap hamburger, ramen noodles and rice. Using the company Costco card Drew bought hamburger and cans of chicken in sleeves four cans to the sleeve at a very attractive price. Quart size dry gravy was cheap so Drew had rice, chicken and gravy as one of his staples. Every penny he could squeeze out went to reducing credit card debt.
When water became available he recycled a cracked fiberglass shower enclosure and added a propane fired on demand hot water heater leftover from another job. It cost him $10.97 to buy a propane jet to replace the natural gas one and he now had the luxury of hot water. After washing up at the cold water spigot for two months his homemade shower was heaven.
There was a retired police officer doing guard duty from 9pm to 6am when Drew was up and going. Too many jobs run by the company had their supplies stolen. Ten thousand dollars of windows had taken a walk on one of the other project manager’s site. Drew trusted Sam but he was determined to prevent stealing at all costs. Plus it never hurt to be onsite 24/7 for any unforeseen issues.
Drew had to laugh at himself as he rolled all this over in his mind. It wasn’t like he had an outside life anyway. Divorced after two years. His credit in shambles from a wife who decided to quit her job as soon as the ink dried on the wedding license. Her claim she just wanted to be Suzy homemaker and make them a life turned out to be a pipe dream. What she had actually become was the shopping networks best customer. She believed that if she still had credit cards or checks there must be money to pay them off.
A divorce where she was mandated to pay half the house payment while the house was being sold didn’t impress her. Drew had never received a dime from her. The one time he took her to court she had her story all ready. She told the judge how she had quit her wonderful job to become as stay at home housewife with her goal being to create a wonderful place for Drew to come home to every night.
It had cost him $600 and he never saw penny from her. Drew literally couldn’t afford to keep spending money to recover money he would never get. With a staggering credit card load at 21% Drew was forced to let the bank have his house. Short sale by the bank got him out from under the house but he still owned the bank $33,000 to make up the short fall. All in all he had a $71,000 debt load.
It had taken drew eleven years to build up a good credit score. It took his former wife eighteen months to drive it into the ground. He had lost a house to the bank and no apartments that weren’t slums would even talk to him once they checked his credit.
His one bright spot six days a week was his trip around 6am to the QT convenience store four blocks away. On those morning Nancy would be there and he would get a large coffee and an apple fritter. Lately she was either being friendlier or was actually flirting with him.
Considering his track record he was taking it slow. She always had time to chat for at least ten minutes. Lately Drew noticed she had her work caught up and concentrated on their conversations.
Up at 5:40am Dew stepped out of his popup and stretched. It was still dark but he could see the ghostly outlines of the one row of finished buildings and the adjoining set. The plumbing and most of the HVAC was run and the structure was dried in with all the outside walls in place. About two thirds of the drywall divider walls were installed.
Turning around he gazed off across the flattened twenty acres of open ground until it joined the woods at the back edge of the property then turned to look with pride on the already built and occupied buildings. Where he was standing was 15 feet higher than the newly built restaurants. From here he could see the older stores across from his new project. He could see the sign on the ACE hardware glowing in the dark and could imagine the nail salon and the other typical strip mall stores surrounding the ACE.
Right now the air smelled of earth and the night. In a few hours the smells from the Chinese, Italian and a fresh seafood restaurants would blow his way. He was already hungry but when he had his apple fritter it would hold him for a while. When the restaurant smells came his way later he knew that apple fritter would be but a memory. Chinese, Italian and fish restaurants had great smells but by far the smells from the Mellow Mushroom pizza place would have his moth watering.
Stepping around the office door Drew said, ”Good morning Sam how goes it?”
“As usual it’s been quiet as a tomb. I’m almost ashamed to take money for this job. There hasn’t been one issue in all the months I been on the job.”
“Don’t feel bad. I would rather have someone like you guarding my ass just in case. The way my luck goes the first time I did without your services I would lose twenty thousand in stolen supplies or one of the pieces of equipment would come up missing.”
“Does seem to be the way it goes sometimes. I know it’s only 5:45 but would you mind if I took off? My wife has to work today and she needs the car.”
“No problem. You go on ahead. I’ll hurry and get my coffee. I don’t think anything is going to walk off in the fifteen minutes I’ll be gone.”
Drew always drove the twenty year old gas utility vehicle that looked a little like a golf cart with a flatbed on the back. It was rough and some of the fenders were rusted through but it was as tough as a two dollar steak. In this case it was more like a golf cart on steroids and could haul a ton of crap around the job sight. The engine had been rebuilt two years ago and it always started. Being the low man on the totem pole all of Drew’s equipment was old. Including the backhoe with a bucket on the front, an off road forklift used for lifting material to the second floor and a water truck the county insisted he use to keep the dust down on the graded part of the property.
The bosses had promised him all new equipment for the next job if he brought this project in on time and at budget. There wasn’t anything wrong with what he had but new equipment would be sign to the world he had finally become a full fledge member of the Honeywell and Barnes team.
He kept waiting for the morning when a police car would cruise up the street and give him heck. It was only four blocks and the old hos had headlights. Still it wasn’t licensed for driving on the street. Besides at this time of the morning this far out not even the four lane in front of the QT had more than a couple cars every five to ten minutes and they went by at 55mph. The side street he was using wouldn’t see a car for another hour or more when some of the construction guys started arriving.
He was a little early this morning. It was only ten to 6 but it looked like Nancy was already done with her side work as he watched her through the glass.
This morning like most morning Nancy gave him a thousand watt smile and said. “Good morning. You’re early. I just put out all the doughnuts and other pastries. I have the biggest apple fritter in the bunch already in a sack for you. I was going to make you a big coffee but I was waiting until your usual time.”
“Wow, you don’t need to go to all that trouble you know.”
Drew had just fixed his coffee and was headed back to begin his usual round of chatting with her when she took him by surprise.
“Hey, you are my most faithful customer. You deserve some special service.”
She was laughing when she said it but to Drew it sounded sincere. Her smile coupled with her saying he deserved special treatment made his breathing go all funny.
Drew was trying to think of something to say to that when the lights went out. It took a second but the battery powered emergency exit lights came on.
“Good thing I already got the fixings in my coffee.”
“Sure is it might be hard to pour sugar out of the container in the dark…” Nancy’s voice trailed off as she looked over Drew’s shoulder to the outside.
“Just a second Drew I need to check on something.”
Nancy walked outside and across the front lot past the gas pumps with Drew right behind her. It was just dark outside it was the absolute dark you might see on some remote mountain top. Looking all around and over toward the city thirty miles away she stood frozen for ten seconds before turning to Drew.
Outside they could hear all the burglar alarms from the direction of the new businesses. The combined noise was impressive even four blocks away.
“Drew all the lights are out. Not just out here or up and down the highway. The city is pitch black. Usually you can see the glow in the sky. It is clear and if there were any lights we could see them. I know it’s starting to cloud up and rain is in the forecast but that front is blowing in from the west and can’t be the reason we can’t see the lights. Check your cell phone.”
Drew’s phone wouldn’t even light up.
While Drew did that Nancy ran to the store and got her purse. Fishing the keys out her keys she tried her car. It wouldn’t even turn over and the lights wouldn’t come on. Opening her glove compartment she took out a device and opened the case.
“Drew do you know what an EMP is?”
“Not really. I read a book once that talked about it. Something about a nuclear explosion?”
Holding up the little device she said, “This is something my dad and his friends cooked up. I don’t know exactly how it works but it detects EMP surges. We definitely just experienced one. I have to get going and you need to get some food and water together. Give me a second and
I’ll help you move some things out of the store onto your little truck.”
Nancy used her keys to unlock a mountain bike mounted on a carrier on her back bumper. Quickly she removed saddle bags for the bike and attached them. Next she removed a back pack and what looked a lot like a large gym bag. Then she rolled the bike across the lot and into the store.
Opening the door to the supply room she waved Drew in.
“Take all the cases of food. We don’t carry much but there are a couple cases of beans, vegetables and Vienna sausages. Take anything filling even if you don’t like it. Don’t worry about junk food unless you want some but wait until you have the real food and all the cases of water you can find. I’ll be right back I have to change.”
Nancy disappeared into the ladies’ room leaving Drew with his mouth open and trying to absorb what he had just seen and heard. Then it hit him. If Nancy thought he needed all the food he could lay his hands on he had a feeling he better believe her.
The urgency in Nancy’s words had gotten through. Dew was moving as fast as he safely could. There wasn’t that much in the store room and it was hard to see by the emergency light so Drew went to the section where the flashlights were and got one going. It made things go quickly.
It seemed like Nancy was only gone for a few seconds before she was back.
“I’ll bag up all the food off of the shelves in front. There are a couple of cases of dry mix sports drinks you should grab all those too.”
If you took out all the junk food and sodas there wasn’t that much real food. Still it was better than nothing.
“I’m sorry but it looks like you have just about all the real food and it doesn’t amount to that much. Drew I really like you and was just waiting for you to ask me out. Now I wish I had said something.”
Reaching into her backpack Nancy took out a big ring binder and handed it to Drew.
“I was going to give this to you to read at some point but like waiting for you to ask me out I waited too long. It tells you all about EMPs although I suppose that isn’t important now since we are living it. There are a lot of other things in there. Basic first aid. What many people believe will happen in a case like this.
Most of us believe that there will be a real breakdown in society. No vehicles means no aid from the government. I don’t mean like hurricane Katrina when it was weeks too late. Now it is very likely we will never see any help from the Federal Government. People will be starving. Their kids will be starving. Imagine what a parent would do to feed their children. They will kill you with no warning for a can of beans. I can’t stress this enough. Trust no one!
I hate to leave you in the lurch but I have a sixteen mile bike ride ahead of me and I want to get it done before people realize what is going on. My family is part of what is called a MAG, mutual assistance group.
There are twenty-six of us and I need to get to them. We have a location where we will ride out what is coming. I wish I could take you with me but I can’t. Anyone joining the MAG has to be vetted and the number one rule has always been not to tell anyone about our group or our preparations. The second rule is no one not vetted and known to the governing board came come into the group once an even has taken place. I would take you anyway but they wouldn’t let you.
Find more food. You will need a lot. A year’s worth would be best but at least enough for three or four months at a minimum. Get everything you can in as soon as you can. Everything! I didn’t see any stalled cars so it’s going to be a while before people walk here but they will come eventually. Once they decide their cars aren’t going to start and when they understand no help is coming they will hike up the road and this will be the first place they will look for help at. Another thing you need to take seriously. Hide. Keep out of sight. I now you are living out of your trailer at the job sight but that won’t work. Eventually scavengers will get this far and they will steal anything you have and probably kill you in the bargain. Do you have a gun?”
“No. I’ve only held one once and fired it five times.”
“I have my 9mm. I only have a few hours to ride and no one will know what is going on yet. You take mine and I will get my spare when I get home.”
“No. I can’t let you do that. Besides I would be more dangerous to me than to anyone else. It’s not that I won’t defend myself I will. But a gun would just make me too big for my britches.”
“OK, you have a point but I’m worried about you.
No one knows how long things will be bad. It could be weeks but a more realistic view is years. But once things are picked over in every possible store or house things could settle down in a few months. If it looks safe I’ll come looking for you. Do you think you will be around here somewhere?”
“I suppose so. I don’t really have any family on this coast so I suppose I’ll find me a hidey hole around the job sight.”
“OK look for me and probably my dad in a few months then. I’m really sorry about this but I have waited too long now and my folks will be worried the longer I am away.”
With a kiss to his lips and a wave Nancy rode into the night.
There wasn’t time for beating himself up for missed opportunities it was time to get into high gear. After a moment’s thought Drew decided this was just like making a parts list for big job. With his flashlight he investigated the storeroom for anything besides the food he already moved that might be useful.
To one side were two cases of industrial toilet paper. The kind that comes on the huge 12 inch rolls. Drew shook his head at the thought of what it would be like when all the TP was gone. There were cases of paper towels and he added them to his load. There were a couple gallons of bleach and he hauled them out to his ride along with the TP.
His flashlight lit up a wonderful sight. One of the biggest sellers at the QT was coffee. Regular, dark roast, light roast, decaf and a host of flavored coffees in cases stacked three across and five high. Drew wasn’t much for flavored coffee but it would be better than no coffee when the good stuff ran out. Next to the coffee were cases of sugar in paper containers for pouring into your coffee at the fixings table. Along with the sugar were cases of dry creamer. Drew was going to miss the real half and half he usually put in his coffee.
That triggered a thought. Drew took all the cases of plastic drink cups and all the Styrofoam coffee cups along with paper napkins and plastic cutlery. No electricity meant that eventually there would be no water pressure and no water. No water meant no washing dishes except for a pot or two.
Next he bagged up all the sports drinks and water from the cooler. If he was going into hiding for a year he wanted some comfort items. He loaded up all the Dr. Pepper and all the Coke he could lay his hands on. All the junk food from potato chips to Slim Jims went into bags to be stacked on top of the real food.
All the flashlights and batteries along with all the boxes of wooden matches and all the disposable lighters, all the soap of any kind got loaded. When he had gone over every square inch for anything even remotely useful he had a thought. Outside on his ride was a tool box. He got a hammer out and went to the restrooms and broke the plastic covers off the toilet paper dispenser.
It was a good thing the bed on his ride had 18” high sides or he would have left a trail of things along the road when he headed back. The old vehicle handled the weight no problem but the shear bulkiness made him have to make two trips. A third trip netted him all the propane tanks from the steel lockup at the font of the store. He took not only the full ones but all the empties.
While he worked Drew considered his options for a hideout. He unloaded his first load inside the partially finished arcade that would run between all the stores placing the load so he could use his forklift to lift his plunder to the second floor. It would save him from having to haul everything by hand up the one staircase three hundred feet away from where he wanted his plunder deposited.
He didn’t try and get any of it up to the second floor yet. What Nancy had said about getting as much as possible before people started showing up really struck a chord with him. Where he was staging things was on the inside on the backside of the building. He would be relatively invisible from anyone not standing right in the opening he was using to haul things through. Right now it seemed much more important to raid the restaurants for food.
Before he left he checked the water pressure. It seemed about like usual so he used some bleach on his 300 gallon water tank rinsing it out and starting a hose slowly filling it. Another hose he ran to the water truck to top off that tank as well.
At least he wouldn’t have to worry about any alarms since every store in the vicinity including the ACE was blaring away at a decibel level designed to raise the dead. He wouldn’t have to break the doors in since he still had a set of keys so that his guys could work on any last details the managers had problems with.
Before heading out Drew attached a little trailer similar to one lawn service guys pulled for a couple of mowers to his ride.
First stop was the Italian restaurant. The cases of tomato sauce and tomato paste, well actually all the canned goods, were in No. 10, 3 quart 6 1/2 pounds to 7 pound and 5 ounce cans. The pasta was all in 5lb boxes. There were even canned meatballs in No. 10 cans as well.
Drew scoured the place, loaded the bed on his ride and the little trailer with everything he could eat or drink. There were 12 cases of those glass containers with candles in them that were always burning on the tables for ambience. He took those as well. All the take out containers along with paper plates followed the food onto his transportation.
It took three trips but at least Drew was only two blocks away.
The Chinese place was almost a carbon copy of the Italian restaurant with the exception of the all the canned vegetables being mostly of the Asian variety and instead of pasta there was over three hundred and fifty pounds of rice. Drew liked sweet and sour chicken but had never realized that you could buy the sauce in gallon containers. Just like before everything that could be eaten or drank along with candles and sundries were loaded up. At the Italian place Drew had scored a couple of likely looking pots and utensils. Here he decided on two woks that might work for him.
Drew had been hurrying as best he could to avoid any chance of discovery. On the last trip from the Chinese restaurant the cloud cover was really low and the dark clouds promised rain any second. Drew tried to push the go peddle through the floor.
Inside his little stockpile was safe and dry but outside a light rain had started. Time to check the water tanks and make a run for the ACE. At the ACE Drew had to break in and he came prepared with a 9 pound sledgehammer and a 6’ hardened steel bar used for shifting full pallets of supplies and a 4’ long set of bolt cutters.
The flat end of the bar slipped into the crack where the two exterior doors met in the middle. The door wouldn’t shift enough so Drew resorted to bruit force. After five full force swings he safety glass was falling out of the frames and the lock was distorted enough for the bar to pop them open.
Drew headed through the store to the roll up doors, clipped the paddle locks holding them close then retrieved his ride and drove into the store room. Just in time too because the clouds decided to really let go.
The store had a small camping supply area and drew took all the gas fired lanterns with extra mantels, and all the fuel for them he could find. Two cots went onto his trailer along with anything else he thought might be handy.
By the time he was finished Drew had cleaned out all the batteries, all the battery powered lanterns and boxes of odds and ends. From the front of the store he collected all the propane tanks in their rack just as he had at the QT.
In a chain-link enclosed yard held bags of gardening soil and fertilizers. All the vegetable plants were lined up on one side. Here too were dozens of 55 gallon drums that could be connected to a downspout with a connection kit. Drew had seen plenty of them hooked up in peoples yards and thought it was a clever idea for using stored rainwater to water your flowers.
Seeing this Drew started the wheels going in his head while he went to check on what he had actually come out here for. There it was. A 500-gallon propane tank used for filling the cylinders people used on their barbeques. Some people didn’t like to exchange tanks from the front of the store preferring to buy and keep the same tank. Some folks didn’t trust the exchange ones to be safe.
It was still raining so Drew found the tarp section and threw on a few for later use and used two to tarp his load.
On his way to drop off this latest load Drew made a decision. What he intended to do would call for his forklift and another trip to Ace. An hour later he was back with the 500-gallon propane tank. Pallets of garden soil, fertilizer and all the potted vegetable plants along with all the seeds from the seed section, followed the tank to his drop off point. Since he knew very little about gardening he also went to the do it yourself section and collected any book or magazine that might help him out.
By now it was 10:35 although it was hard to tell since the cloud cover was making it as dark as early evening. Drew hadn’t seen anyone back where he was pillaging not that he was surprised. The nearest houses were at least a half mile away. Kind of a hike in the heavy rain that had been falling.
There were only two more stores he felt he needed to visit if he was going to have to hide out for months on end. One was a used books store and a one of those chain vitamin stores that had a health food section. Drew didn’t hold out much hope for it as a source of food. The vitamins and supplements were his real targets. As far as food went he made a happy discovery. They stocked tons of granola and power bars of every type and description.
When he drove up to the used book store he noticed that the business to the right was a hobby shop. He decided to give it a quick once over when he was done at the book store.
By 2pm Drew had stripped anything and everything he could imagine even a minor use for out of the stores around him.
Tucked inside out of sight it was time to use the empty pallets that had been stacking up around the job sight and start moving his booty up to the second level. He wasn’t looking forward to moving all those newly loaded pallets, the propane tanks and his water tank around on the second floor with a manual pallet jack, no not at all.
It stayed dark and dreary and rained off and on all day long. By 6pm it was getting too dark to suit Drew so he broke off what he was doing and during a lull in the rain he moved his shower, the mattress and cook top from his popup. He loaded a pallet with all the cordless tools and a gas fired cut off saw and chain saw, tools and an assortment of screws and bolts. Using all the hose he had around the job sight he ran a hose inside the new construction up to the second floor. The pressure was down a little but would still push water that high.
He was worried about the pressure so he arranged all the 55 gallon barrels on pallets and started filling them.
By the time he moved a few more loads from the main floor up to the next level it was too dark to work.
On the second floor he set up one of the cots and ate cold pork and beans with crackers while he kept filling the barrels. Somewhere around midnight his exhausted body betrayed him. He woke at 5:30 to the gentle sound of a barrel overflowing and water running off the side of the slab to the floor below. Luckily the water was cascading off a hundred feet away from the supplies till on the lower floor.
The water pressure was definitely low this morning. While there was still pressure Drew hooked his shower up to the hose, hooked up a propane cylinder and took a hot shower. The water just ran off onto the concrete but considering the floor around for twenty feet was wet what was a few more gallons?</span>
No Preps, No Guns, No Clue
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