Grid Down Perceptions of Reality

by Bruce Buckshot Hemming

Preston said, “Yes, I’m sure there are, but it only takes a few bad apples to give them all a bad name. Well the good news is this little band of corruption is now stopped for good. I’m sure there’s good and bad in any group and I’m not going judge anybody, or any group, based on these clowns. I had a friend that after serving in the Army, he became a lieutenant in the Seattle Police Department, and I would trust my life to him any day.”

  Scott said, “Well, I think that house I showed you is your new place to live now. Right?”

  Preston looking at the camp as it was burning to the ground, said, “Kind of looks that way. Don’t it.”

  They collected all of the weapons and supplies, tossed the dead bodies into the burning cabin so they would burn with it, and then they rode off to spend the night at Scott’s place. Little did they know that Joe and Jane would be looking at the burnout camp the next morning.

  The next day, Preston, Amy and Michael moved into the new house. They had to haul water until they could figure out how to get a generator working. They spent the day cleaning and organizing the house. Amy asked what they were going to do for food? Scott and his family had given them a few days’ worth, to get started, but they would need much more.

  Preston said, “If we were lucky, the fire didn’t burn down into the root cellar and maybe some of the food and supplies can be saved. The fire should be cooled down enough by tomorrow so Michael and I will go check and see if we can salvage anything.”

  The next day Michael and Preston rode down to the camp. They stood there looking at the burnt-out structure. “What do we do now?” Michael asked.

  “Well, we carefully work our way along the floor and see if we can get down to the root cellar.”

  They heard a voice call out from the woods, “Oh my God. Is it really you Preston? Michael?”

  They both turned to the woods where the voice had come from, and were shocked to see Joe and Jane come running out. Preston, with a shocked look on his face, said, “What? How can you two be alive?”

  Jane ran up and gave Michael a big hug, saying, “We found you. Where’s Amy? Is she okay?” She was crying and laughing at the same time.

  Joe and Preston shook hands and gave each other a hug. Preston said, “Damn good to see a brother. I would have never left if I knew you were still there. I’m so sorry, I had no idea. How in the world did you survive?”

  “Well, there was one thing I never told or showed you. I built a fallout shelter in the basement. We dove in there just as the first round hit, the only problem was that one of the main beams fell across the door, blocking it, and I had one hell of a time getting us out.”

  Jane walked over and gave Preston a big hug. “Take me to Amy. Where is she? How far away is it?”

  Preston laughed, returning her hug, and said, “It’s good to see you too Jane. Amy’s fine and she can fill you in on all of the details.”

  Preston looked at Joe and said, “What took you so long? I had given up on ever seeing you again.”

  “Well, first of all, I had to get us out of there, and thank God we had the Last Chance camp built. We stayed back there until Jane healed up and I traded for a couple of bikes. We headed out and spent a couple weeks helping a small community get rid of a warlord. Afterwards, they didn’t want us around anymore, so we left.”

  He added, “It was well worth the wait. Just wait until you see the supplies we have. By the way, what happened to the camp?”

  “We had a little trouble, but that’s taken care of now. Come on, let’s go see Amy.”

  They rode off to the new house. When they arrived, Preston walked in first, blocking the door, and as Amy was getting wheat sprouts growing, she looked up at Preston. “All burned up? Nothing worth saving?”

  Preston had to keep a straight face as he said, “I don’t know. We got interrupted by some people.”

  Amy looked up with worried look on her face. “More of the bad guys?” she asked.

  He stepped to one side and Jane came running in. The shocked look on Amy’s face was priceless. Her jaw dropped open and she stuttered, “What? That can’t be. Is it really you Jane?”

  They hugged each other and were both babbling at the same time, and crying. Nobody could understand a thing.

  Preston showed Joe around, “And it has an electric water pump. They have a Mr. Brainiac here, and he is trying to make a wood gasifier to run generators for everybody.”

  Joe said, “That sounds wonderful. By the way, we have some supplies stashed. Some really good supplies, but we need to go get to them right now. The friends that helped us bring it all up in a wagon had to leave. When we saw the camp burned to the ground, we stashed the stuff in a house a few miles from here.”

  Joe asked, “Do you have some friends with a wagon that could help us haul it all here?”

  Preston said, “Yes we do. We can send Michael go get some help and a wagon. It shouldn’t be a problem and you and I can go protect the supplies, but first we need to show Michael where it is.”

  They got on their bikes and headed off. It was a little more than 2 miles. A couple of miles means different things to different people and it was more like 5 miles. They showed Michael where to bring the wagon and help, and then he headed to Scott’s place.

  Joe and Preston went and looked at the booty, with Preston ogling all of it. He looked at the Kel-Tec KSG shotguns. “Wow, I’ve never seen a shotgun like this. What’s the thing hold, 20 rounds?”

  Joe said, “It holds 14 in the duel tubes, seven in each one, and one in the chamber, so you have 15 shots. We have 500 rounds of buckshot and slugs to go with it.”

  Joe picked it up and started explaining the space-age looking high-tech shotgun. “What’s great about it is, look at this,” holding the forearm Joe worked the action, “see it’s like a normal pump action shotgun right? The difference being that you grab it here,” showing him the handle, “pull down, and a handle drops down.”

  Preston responded, “That’s awesome, and it gives you a better hold for quicker action on the pump.”

  Joe continued, “You empty one tube, flip this little lever, and the other tube is ready to go. If you are using three-inch Magnum’s, you can only fit six in each tube.”

  Preston reached out and Joe handed him the shotgun. “Kind of heavy.” he whipped it up to his shoulder, “Wow. What great balance it has.” He worked the action. “Smooth, but I love that drop-down handle. How do you get it to go back up?”

  “You push in on the stop button here,” showing him, “and then it will fold back up. It also ejects out the bottom. Here, let me show you how to load it.”

  Preston handed the shotgun back to Joe, and he open an ammo box full of buckshot. “You load it here,” showing him the loading and ejection port on the bottom, “pushing each shell in just like a normal shotgun, but here’s the cool part, you see the slots on each side. You can quickly look and see how much ammo you have left in each tube.”

  Changing the subject, Preston asked, “How you doing on food?”

  Joe told him that they had about six months’ worth for two people, a little over two months for all of them. He asked Preston, “How’s the stash at the camp?”

  “I don’t know. I got interrupted when you showed up and wasn’t able to find out if it survive the fire are not. After we take care of this stuff, we’ll go check it tomorrow. How does that sound?”

  “Great. It’s just so good to be here and know you guys made it. We really missed you guys.”

  A couple of hours later, the wagon pulled in with Scott, a friend and Michael. Preston made the introductions and they got to work. They loaded all of it into the wagon and took it to the new house.

  Once they unloaded everything, Preston asked Scott if they could borrow the wagon and team, so they could go see if any of the supplies at the cabin survived.

  Scott said, “Sure. Just make sure you take care of the horses. Give them plenty of food and water, and you can bring them back tomorrow night. Will that work for
you?”

  Preston said, “That’s great.”

  Scott asked, “But how are we going to get home?”

  “You can borrow our bikes of course.”

  Scott nodded his approval and he and his friend headed for home on the bikes.

  As Preston continued to show Joe around his new place, he said, “We can take that rain barrel,” pointing to one at the corner of the house, “and take it down to the lake and fill it with water. We can use it to put a bucket full of water in the toilet tank and then we’ll be able to use the toilet like normal.”

  Michael said, “What about toilet paper?”

  “I give you a working toilet and you want toilet paper too. Picky, picky, picky.”

  Joe and Preston both laughed and then Preston said, “That is your other job. Go forth and find us phonebooks and old newspapers. We’ll find some scissors and just cut the newspaper to toilet paper size. Not the best, but it will have to do.”

  “What will we do for showers?” Joe asked, as they were riding down to the lake in the wagon.

  “For right now, we can just use solar energy. Did you see that TV series of the survivalist experiment called, Colony? They took a big black tank and put it up on the roof and then gravity fed a hose down to the shower with a shut off valve. We can do something similar. We can take “Navy” showers, soaking ourselves, shut off the water, soap up and then rinse off. If we do it right, and can find like a 30 or 50 gallon tank, we can fill it once a day and have enough water to take our showers at night.”

  Joe looked at Preston. “And you didn’t think to buy me that TV series as a Christmas present?”

  Preston responded, “What? Why didn’t you buy it for me? Oh, that’s right, you didn’t know about it. I guess we both have secrets, like you not telling me about your little fallout shelter. You know I would have dug it all out by hand to find you two.”

  “Oh for Christ sakes don’t bring that up. I had to listen to Jane for days about how stupid I was. So don’t you start in on it.” He quickly added, “I’m sorry. You’re right, but please drop it.”

  Preston laughed heartily and said, “I bet in that small space you heard quite a bit about it?”

  “Yes, and I will never not tell you everything from now on.”

  They reached the lake and filled up the barrel, hauling it back to the house. They managed to get it off the wagon without spilling too much, and put it close to the back door, which was nearest to the bathroom.

  They had a great time that night, and it felt so good to be back together.

  The next day, Joe, Michael, and Preston went to the cabin to see what they could salvage. Using rakes and shovels, they cleared a path in the debris to the door going down into the root cellar. Parts of the floor were burnt-out and other parts of it was still together and holding strong.

  They sent Michael down the stairs because he was lightest. He called up that some of the buckets on top were burned and melted, but it looked like the rest are okay. He asked, “What do you want me to do.”

  Joe told him, “Carefully try to move the top burned ones off and start hauling the good ones up.”

  Of the 46 5-gallon buckets stored in the root cellar, they had only lost eight. “At least we have food. Now we just need to add deer and maybe a bear, and we will be in good shape.” Joe said.

  Preston said, “Maybe even a cow, if we get lucky. We saw some feral ones running around a couple of weeks ago. Wouldn’t that be awesome if we could eat some rib eye steaks come January? If Brett, the genius, works out this wood gas thing, we could be driving around in a truck, have electricity, a working freezer, and a real water pump. Life would be good. If he can rig up a tractor to run on it, we should be able to get the whole community going pretty easily, and start rebuilding civilization one wood gas generator at a time.”

  Joe smiled. “It would be great. Now all we have to do is clean up the vermin. We still have a score to settle with those Rainbow Warriors.

  “You bet we do. But first, we need to take care the necessities of life. Let’s get our community going. Let’s get our crops in, and our cattle, pigs, and chickens can start producing milk, real butter, cheese, and of course bacon and eggs. If everyone on the outside will leave us alone, we’ve got a real good chance of making it here.”

  “What about the Rainbow Warriors?” Joe asked.

  Preston said, “Well according to Scott, they were stopped about 50 miles East of here. If we can join all the survivors together, under a mutual agreement, I’m sure we can clean them all the way out. We just have to find out what they’re up to in this state.”

  Joe nodded and said, “Okay then, let’s go meet this genius and get these gas generators and vehicles going.”

  As they were riding back to the house with the supplies, Michael asked, “Can I go bear hunting?”

  Both men laughed and Preston said, “Not with your .22, but I think you’re big and strong enough to use the 12 gauge with slugs. You need some serious fire power to knock a bear down.”

  Michael said, “Good. I always wanted a bearskin rug.”

  Joe laughed. “That will definitely impress the girls. They’ll be fighting over you Michael.”

  “Girls? Huh? What the heck do they have to do with the bearskin rug? Besides I don’t even like girls.”

  Preston laughed. “In a few more years you will. And then you’ll spend your lifetime trying to figure them out. I’ll give you a hint, don’t even try.”

  Both men laughed and Michael just had a quizzical look on his face.

  They made it back to the house and unloaded all of the supplies, and then Joe and Preston left to return the wagon and horses.

  When they arrived and thanked Scott, he mentioned that they should go see Brett tomorrow, and see how the plans are coming for the wood gas.

  Joe said, “It would be great if we get some vehicles running. We can do real patrols and clean out this area, keeping the vermin out. Then we’ll have a nice community.”

  Joe asked, “By the way, how many people are there in the community?”

  Scott said, “Well, we’re looking at about 300 people in the community, but we used to have 4500 in the whole county. Almost a 95% reduction. And I really couldn’t tell you how many we lost due to murder; disease, starvation, or they just packed up and headed out.”

  Preston said, “My figure was that 90% of the population would be gone the first year. I say this fall we take care of this county and then expand south. Joe already knows some of the people down there. We do that county next year. We keep training teams, share knowledge and expanding, then we should be able to handle two counties the following year.”

  “It will be a long, slow process, and we need to figure out some type of monetary system. We can branch out through the whole Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and even into Minnesota. We can write a Constitution and keep the damn lawyers out. Who knows, in 200 years America might be a really nice place to live. We’re going to have set it up better this time. Term limits for elected offices and no government bureaucracy, just hire the minimal number of people the government needs to operate. With firm limits on everything, and the things they are allowed to do. An honest money system based on silver and gold. I think we should ban lawyers altogether. The whole corrupt justice system needs to be canned and reworked so all laws are written for the common man. And anyone can defend themselves when disputes arise. We get rid of this whole judge deciding what the jury can and can’t hear. No special justice language. No special “good old boys” club of lawyers deciding everything.”

  When Joe finally finished, Scott looked at him and said, “Sounds like paradise, how we do it?”

  “Well, my idea is that we will have to build in restraints, to hold the government accountable to the people, with grand juries of common men and women being convened to oversee all government officials. The second they step out a line and break a law, they’re immediately tossed in prison, of course after given a fair trial.”


  “We go back to “knock first” search warrants. No more SWAT teams. No more flash bang grenades and breaking down the door. We can do this right, but the only way is with grand juries to review government officials. Term limits, prison time and accountability, that’s the only way I see it working.”

  “Preston said, “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? Don’t you think we need to take care of surviving first?”

  Scott laughed. “Okay gentlemen, have a good night and let’s plan on meeting here in the morning, and we will go talk to Brett. Let’s take care of the immediate problems first and worry about the rest later, but I do like what you’re saying Joe, and by the way, welcome to our community. You’re a fine asset.”

  Joe smiled and shook his hand. “Scott, I like you all ready and I’m looking forward to hammering out a new civilization with you.”

  Preston and Joe rode the bikes back to the house and called it a night.

  Chapter 22

  Scavenging

  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, what he doesn’t appreciate the next man will.

  —Unknown

  That morning, Joe and Preston were at Scott’s house and they rode over to meet Brett and see what he had come up with. They warned Joe about Brett being a little eccentric.

  Arriving at Brett’s house, they knocked on the door and Brett once again opened the door and stood there staring at them, lost in his own world of thought.

  Scott said, “Brett, did you find the gasifier book you are looking for?”

  Brett looked at him like he just asked the dumbest question ever, and said, “Of course I found it. You guys can handle this, I’m going to fix them windmills.”

  He motioned for them to come in and continued, “You see, what Americans have done wrong is instead of having lots of devices to do things, they should have made one unit to take care of everything in their house. Instead of having an electric or propane cooking stove, a furnace for heat, and a separate hot water heater, they should have made it an all-in-one unit to take care of all the household needs.”