The Battles of Rock Harbor

by J. B. Craig

As he looked around, every house that was built inland, or in process was a 2-story Tudor wood-and-stone monstrosity. He sighed at the huge houses with almost no lawns, all built tall, to see some of the harbor over the waterfront ranchers.

  Greg showed up at the family place, and un-packed what he needed to for the night from his Tundra. He found the hidden key in its normal place and turned on the water at the curb with a wrench from under his back seat. He spent a while un-mothballing the place, like turning on the hot water heater, and running water through every sink. He set the time and wound up his Pop’s old Navy “Ship’s clock”, and turned the manual hand on the matching brass barometer to the current pressure. His cousins occasionally came here for a fun weekend, and there was a check-in and check-out list that they all usually followed pretty religiously. The Grandparent’s estate covered basic things like satellite TV, and wi-fi, plus basic utilities. Things had to be turned on, powered up, and some passwords needed to be entered, but it was a pretty routine turn-up process, as the directions were laminated and pinned to the cork board by the phone.

  He was really looking forward to a week or 2 of fishing, writing, exercise and drinking. On one hand, he was glad that his wife asked him to leave, on the other, uncertainty caused him anxiety. He was much better in a fight than worrying about the possibility of a fight, for example. The looming unhappiness that they both lived through in the last few years was replaced with sadness, but a little relief, too. He had a clear path to a new life. He was also relieved that the situation forced him to move back into the family house, even though he was pretty sure that the memories of his dead Grandparents would haunt him during his stay. He had so many good memories here. Coming to a mothballed house was going to be painful, but he felt it was time.

  What to do first when the SHTF

  After drinking his wine, catching his breath, and recalling what got him here, he sprang up from the rocker, almost surprised that for a moment, he forgot the urgency of the situation. “SHIT! The apocalypse finally comes, and I’m rocking in a chair! First step – Water!” Greg said out loud as he got started on the important business of survival. He sprinted, or did an impression of a sprint done by a near-300 lb. fat guy, into the kitchen. He sprayed a paper towel with bleach cleaner and wiped out the double kitchen sinks. He pushed down the sink drain plugs, and started the water running right in between the 2 sinks, hoping to fill both as quickly as possible.

  Then, Greg took the spray bottle into the bathroom, and sprayed out and wiped the tub. After it was what the Army would call “field expedient” clean, he plugged the drain hole, and ran that water. He went around the house doing the same thing in every other basin. He knew he had 50 or 60 gallons of water in the hot water heater. He also verified that it, like every other one he was aware of had a drain in the bottom, he didn’t want that to be his only water. He noticed the water pressure was already dropping in the pipes, so took a moment to appreciate how his vaguely-quick thinking may have given him a few weeks more of water in the tub and basins.

  There was no time for too much self-appreciation. The clock was ticking. Next, he needed to determine what food there was here at the house. He did NOT open the refrigerator, because he knew that whatever cold was in there would likely be the only cold it got before rotting. He’d have to worry more about the food in there rotting than he would have to worry about what was in it. He recalled from last night that most of the things in the fridge were non-perishable, because the house stayed vacant most of the winter. After all, he had to turn on the water at the curb, and the hot water heater when he got here. He did remember the freezer being full of frozen pizzas, hunks of possibly freezer-burned meat, and other things like that.

  He started to wonder if maybe he was wrong about TEOTWAWKI, so he grabbed his Tundra keys, and went out to see if it would start. It didn’t take long to confirm his worst fears. Not only did the remote not open the door, but when he used the key to unlock it, the cabin light didn’t come on. He had to try, so he put the key in the ignition and turned it, to the unsurprising sound of nothing. Yes, it was either an EMP or a CME, and the why’s and how’s of it didn’t really matter, did it? If it was a power grid collapse, something else that he prepped for, the truck would start and the electronic devices would work. This situation was a step down the Apocalyptic ladder. At least he didn’t see any mushroom clouds, because fallout is a very bad thing to try to survive. The Electrical Age of America, and maybe more countries was now a thing of the past, at least in this part of the world. He had no idea how far this thing reached and could only hope that his wife and son in Atlanta, or his daughter in Philadelphia weren’t impacted, but he felt that something this big very likely stretched to cover both areas, depending on how high up the Nuke was when it was detonated. If he was at the edge of the impacted area, some things, like boat motors, with very few electronic components SHOULD work.

  Nobody really knew what the real impacts of an EMP/CME would be, except the government, which did do some limited tests on EMP’s – then gave the results a top-secret security clearance. Greg had heard some chatter on the internet about these studies but didn’t really dig into any of it. He thought of himself as a “hobby prepper”, spending some money to prepare for the worst, a similar hobby to the one his wife spent money on for lottery tickets. Correction: soon-to-be ex-wife. He’d have to get used to that concept. Once again, he lamented her change of heart towards him. They had regular sex for 24 years of marriage, but something didn’t make that enough. He knew his drinking and apathy was a part of it, but figured it might be her corporate drive, in that work was such a big part of her life. She worked 60 hours per week and traveled too much. He figured that had something to do with it, in vague denial about what his role really was.

  Having no time to worry about things he couldn’t control, he decided to do what he could to deal with the things he could control – making Rock Harbor as safe a harbor for his family as he could. Despite her actions, he would welcome Leigh here if she arrived. He didn’t think they’d ever have a romantic relationship again, but they raised kids together, and he owed her at least that.

  Greg knew from his time in the Army that those who acted first often were the last ones surviving. Inaction was the only way to guarantee that nothing happened, and he was a man who would rather be moving than not moving at all. Moving in the wrong direction was still movement, and making these mistakes created experience. Make enough mistakes, and that experience creates wisdom. After all the mistakes he had made in his life, Greg laughed internally, he was plenty wise. Hopefully, some of that wisdom would pay off now and in the future.

  It was inventory time, and time to do as much as he could to practice the 5 D’s of security: Deter, Detect, Defend, Deny, and Delay. To do this, he needed to take inventory of his assets. He knew he had his bug-out bag, BOB, which had all sorts of interesting, state-of-the-art toys in it. He needed to find out what he had at the house that might be useful. Because the house was used by various family members throughout the years, he could see from the time that he walked in that it had lots of party things. There were countless bottles of good booze that had been brought and left in various stages of full. The refrigerator downstairs was where the beer was kept, and had maybe 70 beers made up of a dozen or so varieties. There was one Fisher “Momma Bear” wood stove, which would come in handy on cold nights, and the boat house was full of about 20 different fishing rods for all of the different nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles, most with tackle on them. There were several big tackle boxes, from recent ones to Pop’s original tool box, with spinners and lures from his travels around the world in it. Greg remembered the stories Pop told him about the origins of some of them. Pearl Harbor, Japan, Okinawa and other places were where Pop collected fishing lures like some people collected other souvenirs. It would have to get very hungry out for Greg to use any of these treasured mementos.

  As Greg prowled the rest of the house that afternoon he saw, under the deck, abou
t a half-dozen crab traps. They had poison ivy vines crawling up them, and through the gaps in the deck. He knew he’d have to clean that up carefully, as he was terribly allergic to Poison Ivy, usually getting a secondary infection from scratching. During this apocalypse, an infection could kill as easily as a bullet.

  He also found an old flashlight that worked and inspected deeper into the basement than the fridge that was right by the door. Down there, he saw some remnants of Pop’s prepping. As a survivor of the depression, Pop used to keep all kinds of things that others might throw away. There were about 5 cases of Water, drinking labeled in black & white nondescript soda cans from the Anheuser Busch plant about an hour away in Williamsburg, VA. They were pull-tab cans, the kind of tabs that you had to pull all the way of. These were not the kind that modern soda cans have, where you lift a tab, and it bends down the part that the liquid comes out. Greg didn’t know if water could go bad, but didn’t think so. At worst, it would have to be boiled. He bet that this would be a valuable find in the coming weeks.

  Greg found numerous hand tools, rolls of wire and balls of rubber bands. He found containers of all kinds of chemicals, from lock-tite oil to cleaning fluids like ammonia, acetone and bleach. He was covered for refinishing, as there were gallons of polyurethane, paint, deck stain, and other paint supplies. At least 4 cords of seasoned hardwood were piled under the awnings of the garage, and the garage also had plenty of yard-chemicals like round-up, lawn fertilizer, and other things to make the property presentable.

  On the shadier side, Greg found several dozen glass canning jars of fruit and other things. They LOOKED fine in their mason jars with bell lids, but he figured he’d have to be pretty hungry to try the cling peaches, tomatoes, or strawberry preserves. Home-canned food didn’t come with an “expire by” label. Greg counted these as assets, but didn’t know if they were survival food, or poison for bad guys.

  Greg also remembered that the basement had a full-sized freezer, where Pop used to store his meat from hunting. While there was no meat in there now, Greg opened it briefly, and saw several dozen 1-gallon milk jugs filled with ice. Pop used to fill them ¾ of the way, and then freeze them so that expansion wouldn’t burst them. These, he would throw in a cooler when fishing, or when guests came and needed ice for their coolers. The freezer was pretty full with this ice, and not much else except a few frozen pizzas, lean cuisines, and bait for fishing and the crab traps. This was a great find, in that with the quality freezer in the basement, and full of ice, Greg hoped it would be cold for quite a few days, maybe weeks. He moved several of the gallons of ice to his prized Yeti cooler, which was advertised to keep ice frozen for up to a week. He then moved the frozen food in it to the cooler, and left it sitting next to the freezer. He was curious as to which would stay cold longer, but his money was on the Yeti.

  The basement had several types of hand tools, coffee cans full of screws, nails, various oils and paint thinners, and several metal tools that Greg didn’t really know what they did. He knew the power tools down there were now just paper weights. What he didn’t find were any firearms or ammunition. After food and water, Greg knew that his sparse collection of firearms and very little ammunition would not be a long-term solution. Once again, he kicked himself for leaving all of his prepper toys at home when the Apocalypse, or at least TEOTWAKI finally hit. It was time to take inventory of his weapons.

  Bastard Calibers, and the results

  A few years ago, Leigh came up with a term that Greg latched on to. “Bastard Caliber” is what she called some of the ammo rounds that Greg had. While he didn’t agree with the term, he did agree that it wasn’t very efficient to have his vast (some might say too-large) collection of pistols in .22 Long Rifle, .22 magnum, .32 Auto, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .40 Smith & Wesson, .44 magnum, .45 ACP and 9mm, all just for hand guns! After all, if he was going to hit the road with his bug out bag (BOB), he wasn’t going to effectively carry all those calibers and guns.

  When Greg and Leigh first moved to Georgia from Virginia, he stumbled across a gun range near the house. The Governors Gun Club was his neighborhood hang-out for the last few years. They had a huge selection of pistols, rifles, shotguns, and even things like suppressors and fully-auto guns, for those willing to pay for the tax stamp, which is way to shout out to Uncle Sam “I live here with major weaponry, come take it!” While Greg didn’t have any tax stamps, or registered firearms (Georgia is good that way), he did have about a dozen pistols, a few rifles, and a Mossberg 500 12 Gauge shotgun that he converted to a “street sweeper” model, with a pistol grip, laser, and other fun attachments like his green-dot laser “zombie gun sight”.

  Greg decided that it was time to consolidate his gun collection to a few calibers of different utility, and spent a year trading 2 guns for 1 higher-quality gun, and getting rid of most of the calibers in his gun room. At the end of the year, he had 2 pistols for each of the 3 of them, and only 2 calibers, plus his “Gucci gun”. Greg’s daughter, Maria, loved the .22 Ruger that he inherited from his grandfather. It was a ‘single-six’ Blackhawk revolver that had 2 inter-changeable cylinders - .22 magnum and .22 LR. They both liked the punch of the .22 Magnum for varmints up to about a coyote, and .22LR was cheap plinking load. He also bought Maria a Ruger Mark IV 22-45 in .22LR. This was a target pistol with an inexpensive, but reliable Sightmark red dot sight. The last time he visited her at college, he dropped off the .22’s with her, telling her, over her objections (she was only 19 and it was “illegal”) that it was better to have and not need, than need and not have. He had them all packed into a Bug-Out-Bag of her own. One of the common sayings in the gun community is “It’s better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6 (i.e. pall bearers). He assured her that if she got attacked, or otherwise needed them, he, or the NRA would help defend her, as long as she used her head and didn’t pull them if not needed.

  He had tucked the .22’s in a camouflage backpack that he filled with various survival things, creating Maria’s own bug-out bag, including ammo, pistol cleaning supplies, rain gear, fire starting tools, and some freeze-dried food, among other things. He told her that she should only go into the bag if the shit hit the fan. She had been listening to his apocalyptic talk, mostly involuntarily, as long as she was old enough to understand him, most often rolling her eyes, or mocking him with a “sure dad, why not prepare for Zombies, too!”

  His son, Jared shared his love for 9mm’s, and was the recipient of a few hand-me-downs which he kept in his Jeep, despite Greg’s protestations that a Jeep with a gun in it was an invitation to a break-in. So far, the boy had been lucky, and his mom’s purchase of a vehicle gun safe, with a steel cord connecting it to the seat mount made everyone, even Jared happier.

  His son preferred fishing to shooting, but learned long ago, after banging his head against his dad’s stubborn Scottish head that it was easier to go with the flow. On one hand, that understanding allowed them to have less “drama” in their relationship. On the other hand, the 2 Creighton Men were a bit more stand-offish, and Jared gravitated to his mom more often than dad. They weren’t anything like at odds with each other, they currently just had the peace of 2 Lions, the old one and the young cub that was about to become a man – and didn’t want to get eaten by the big lion before that happened.

  The main pistol caliber in the house was 9mm, but on several platforms. Greg’s every day carry pistol, after much trial and error, was the Sig Sauer P938. A beefed-up version of their famous pocket pistol in .380. Greg didn’t feel comfortable with the .380 caliber, as it could be stopped by a drugged-out bad guy with leather and denim, if not shot accurately. 9MM, especially with some good personal defense ammunition was a good balance between cost, recoil, and stopping power. He did like the size, and with the pocket holster that he purchased, it “printed” (i.e. gave the outline in his pocket) like a large mobile phone. While most residents of Georgia understood that about 1 in 4 people was carrying, it was considered bad taste to have a gun imprint, or “print�
� under your clothes. There were, after all, liberals who might make a fuss. The holster would stick to his pocket, and he could draw from it relatively easily.

  Greg’s wife Leigh had a Head Down Glock 19 that used to be his. One day, while shooting together, Leigh finished up with a magazine on the 19, looked at it appreciatively, and said “Mine.”. Greg tried to point out that it was his baby, and that he would buy her one. She looked at him with that wife look, and said, “Mine – buy yourself a new one.” After that day, Leigh had a top-of-the line Glock 19, heavily customized by Head Down, a company in their neighborhood.

  Greg replaced his loss with a custom Glock 19 of his own, or Franken-Glock. It had a Venum red dot sight, trigger job, competition barrel and raised sights. The happy gun-toting couple had several interchangeable magazines for the Glocks, including a few 30-round stick-magazines. Unfortunately, this Glock was still in his bedside safe at home. He’d miss his marriage, but the once-bitten, twice-shy side of him said that he’d miss the Glock more.

  Rounding out the 9mm collection, Greg had a Ruger LC9 Revolver, which held 5 rounds of 9mm in half-moon clips. Greg bought this Ruger revolver, as his truck had been broken into by someone in Atlanta looking for guns once already, and he didn’t want to have a high-dollar gun stolen if it happened again. Luckily, when the theft happened, Greg’s gun was on his hip, but there were several places that Greg frequented that still prohibited firearms, like his old job, so the revolver was often left in his truck.