Prepper Fiction Collection: Four Books in One

by Susan Gregersen

  After a cold and restless night the family were grateful to get out of bed in the wee hours of the morning. Blankets and pillows were dumped on the chair by the door and they gathered up the last odds and ends. They drank the last of a jug of juice, which had been sitting in the snow outside the back door since the electricity had been turned off, and they ate a package of graham crackers.

  A light knock came at the door, and Pete quietly walked to the window and peeked toward the door. Dave was standing there, hunched down into his coat in the early morning chill. Pete opened the door.

  “Gee, I’m sorry you guys are going through this,” Dave said apologetically. “I hope things turn out well for you. Debbie’s sister and her family are talking about moving in with us to help with expenses. It’s tough times.” He cleared his throat, then handed Pete the .22 rifle and dug 3 boxes of cartridges out of his coat pocket. “Wish I had more.”

  Pete pulled the house key off his key chain and handed it to Dave. Dave cleared his throat again and held out his hand and shook hands with Pete. He swallowed hard, turned, and walked out the door. “Good luck!”

  “Saddle up.” said Pete. He’d been trying for an upbeat tone but it came out strangled. Without a word everyone helped gather up the blankets.

  “Wait! What about Grandma’s rocking chair? We can’t leave it!” Danny protested.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” Grandma said. “There’s no where to put it. Let it go.”

  Danny looked sad and tearful as they climbed into the cars, packing blankets and pillows and extra coats around them. Grandma and Danny rode with Lonnie while Carrie and Zach rode with Pete. It was hard to open the garage door without electricity for the automatic opener. In moments they were rolling out the driveway and down their street for the last time.

  It was February 17, Grandma’s 76 birthday. She felt like she was being reborn this day and wondered what the future held. She wasn’t fearful of it. She felt familiar with it, having heard her parents’ stories of the depression and living through some pretty hard times herself. Her mind traveled back through the years.

  “What’s that song you’re humming, Grandma?” Danny asked. She smiled at him and began to sing.

  “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go! The horse knows the way, to pull the sleigh…” she sang.

  “Wow, did you write that yourself? Will you teach it to me?” For the next hour they sang it over and over. Lonnie was happy Danny was being entertained, but after a while she suggested they find a different song!

  They had figured the miles they would need to drive and how much gas they would need, but had not counted on gas going as high as it was now. The prices averaged $6.50 a gallon. Lonnie was glad they hadn’t waited a couple more months to leave. They were fortunate to have money left on Grandma’s charge card in addition to the cash they had. They used the charge card until it was “maxed out”, then started using their cash.

  “Can we buy some pop or something? I’m hungry!” Zack asked at one station. Pete and Lonnie looked at each other. They had to eat.

  “Why don’t we buy a loaf of bread and I’ll dig out one of our jars of peanut butter?” Lonnie suggested. Pete went into the station and came out a minute later with a bag of buns.

  “They’re out of bread. They said the trucks haven’t been coming as often because of the fuel costs. But they had this bag of hamburger buns. It cost $4.75, for 8 buns!” Pete said with disgust.

  Lonnie divided the buns so everyone got a whole bun and part of another one. It suddenly occurred to her how grateful she was that they didn’t have pets to feed as well. Carrie was allergic to dogs and cats, so they’d resisted the kids’ pleas for a pet.

  She slathered peanut butter on the buns, being generous in spite of their desperate situation, knowing everyone needed something to glue their stomachs together to get through the day.

  They drove late into the night, stopping only for gas and restroom breaks. Everyone got out and walked around during these breaks, to get the blood circulating. Finally Pete and Lonnie were too tired to keep driving. Lonnie dug around in one of the grocery bags she and Grandma had brought home yesterday, and she produced two cans of tuna and a package of saltine crackers.

  Using a manual can opener she opened the tuna. With a plastic spoon she spooned tuna onto the crackers and passed them out. Everyone got 3 crackers with a spoonful of tuna on each. Then they snuggled down in their blankets and slept.

  Snow was swirling on the windshields when they woke. The sky was gray, turning from night to day, but looked like it would stay dreary. Not knowing the forecast but not wanting to stay there, they drove on, carefully and slowly. By noon it had stopped snowing but the wind was picking up.

  They’d crossed into Iowa the night before and were now approaching the South Dakota border. They were north of the interstate on a 2-lane highway, which hadn’t been plowed in a while, maybe not at all. People had driven around the bigger drifts, leaving a one-lane trail through the shallower snow. They didn’t meet any cars.

  Eventually they turned on a county road, then another, then a country lane which ended in the yard of a 2-story farmhouse surrounded by snow-covered outbuildings.

  “All ashore that’s going ashore!” Pete said to Carrie and Zack. Carrie made a face and Zack snorted. Pete ignored them and got out of the car.

  Danny was already out and running around the yard hollering “Wow” and “Oh, COOL!” every few minutes. He jumped up and grabbed a branch on a tree and swung for a minute. He ran up on the porch, along it and down the other stairs. Then he disappeared around the side of the house.

  Pete climbed the stairs of the porch and picked up a snow shovel that rested next to the door. It was covered with dust and cobwebs. He shoveled the snow that had blown onto the porch and then down the stairs. Lonnie was walking with Grandma to the door, followed by the subdued-looking Carrie and Zach. Grandma had a look of wonder on her face.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Pete said. “I know where they keep a key.” He disappeared around the house where Danny had gone, and reappeared with Danny and a key. He unlocked the house and they all entered.

  In the gloom it looked like a haunted house out of a movie. The old house had high ceilings and old furniture draped with sheets. There was dust and cobwebs everywhere. Pete’s gaze stopped on the parlor stove in the living room. He walked over and opened the door on the front, then reached up and twisted the handle of the damper in the stove pipe. He tapped on the pipes to see how stout they were.

  “I wonder if they were cleaned before Mom and Dad left? I wonder if any animals made nests in them?” He bent over and looked in the door. “Well, I see faint light, so it’s not totally blocked. Come on, boys, let’s go scrounge up some wood and get a fire started.”

  Lonnie had pulled a sheet off the couch and motioned for Grandma to sit. Stubbornly Grandma informed her she’d done too much sitting lately as it was, and she helped pull the sheets off the rest of the furniture. They wandered into the kitchen and looked around. Another smaller woodstove was in the kitchen as well as a gas cook stove.

  “Probably propane,” Grandma said. “That’s what rural folks use. I wonder if there’s a tank outside, and if it has any propane in it? Doesn’t matter, though. We can cook just fine on the woodstoves.”

  Pete and the boys came back in with armloads of sticks and branches. They’d broken them to length outside and now Pete stuffed some in the woodstove. He walked over to a desk and opened a drawer to look for paper. He found some and glanced at it to make sure it wasn’t something important, then used it to start the fire.

  The fire was smoky at first, and he damped it too soon and made it even more smoky. He opened the damper to allow more air to flow through and as the fire got hotter it quit smoking. The stove began to feel warm, but whenever they stepped away from it they were cold again.

  “We should close the doors to the other rooms,” Grandma said. “Keep the heat in here
.”

  They did, but the open staircase went up one side of the room and there was no way to close it off. Danny and Zach went upstairs and shut all the bedroom doors. Soon the living room was tolerably warm.

  “Before it gets dark we need to get a bunch more wood. Grandma, you stay here and tend the fire, and all the rest of you come help.” Pete led the way. Grandma was grateful this time, to be able to sit down. She wasn’t tired, but didn’t relish tromping around in the snow looking for wood.

  They brought in the blankets and as much of the food as they could before it got dark. Lonnie found a pan in the kitchen and heated soup on the woodstove.

  “Where are we going to sleep?” asked Carrie.

  “Good question,” said Pete. “Let’s go look in the bedrooms and see if we can find mattresses. We’ll bring them down here and sleep in this room. Best to just heat the one room for now. I’m sure there is wood-cutting tools in the barn or sheds, but it’s too late to do anything today.”

  The next day dawned clear and frosty cold. Pete had kept the fire going during the night with the sticks and limbs they’d brought up on the porch, but it had kept him busy most of the night. He was weary and grainy-eyed.

  Lonnie filled a big kettle with snow and put it on the woodstove to melt. She was dismayed to see how little water it made. She kept adding more snow, and more snow, and more snow until she had a full kettle. She let it come to a boil to make it safe to drink, although she didn’t know if it was already clean enough, being out in the middle of nowhere. No sense taking a chance though.

  She found tea bags and sugar in the kitchen and made tea for everyone. For once none of the kids complained. They sat lined up on the couch drinking the tea without a word.

  “I looked around in the kitchen while I was in there. There are plenty of pans and dishes, and dry foods.” Lonnie said.

  “There’s a root cellar, so any canned goods are probably in there,” said Pete as he finished his tea and set the cup down.

  “Well, we’ll try to eat what we brought so we don’t use up your parents’ food unless we have to. Plus we’ll plant a garden as soon as we’re able to.” Lonnie went around and gathered up the cups. “I have a box of pancake mix in the car, and a bottle of syrup. Pete, if you’ll get those for me, I’ll find a couple of pans and fry pancakes here on the woodstove.”

  He did as she asked, and soon the sizzle of frying pancakes filled the room. When they were done eating, Lonnie melted more snow and washed the dishes. The cars were emptied and moved around back, then everyone scattered to explore.

  Lonnie and her grandma looked through the kitchen and pantry, making a rough inventory of what was there. They moved everything to one end, then arranged the goods they’d brought from the city onto the shelves. From the back door they peered around the yard for the root cellar Pete had mentioned.

  Seeing a mound on the far side of the back yard they were pretty sure that was it. Lonnie took the broom and went out to poke around on it. She found a hard surface under the snow and started sweeping. In minutes she had uncovered the door. It was frozen shut and she kicked it a few times, then pulled it open.

  At the bottom of the stairs she looked into the gloom and saw rows of store-bought and home-canned food on shelves from floor to ceiling. Dozens of white buckets sat in the shadows. She didn’t understand why they would have left so much food in here and gone overseas, but she was grateful. She vowed to herself to work hard to grow as much food as possible to keep them fed and to replace what they would use. She went back to tell Grandma what she had found.

  Danny had decided to explore the rest of the house. There was another living room, a dining room, a bedroom, and a room that looked like an office on the first floor, plus the kitchen, pantry, and the living room they’d slept in. He went upstairs. It felt creepy to be alone up there, and he walked nervously down the hallway.

  He opened doors to bedrooms, peeked in, and closed them again, afraid to go in alone. There was a bathroom and a storage closet in addition to the bedrooms. At the end of the hall was a bigger bedroom, and just as he closed the door he spotted something wonderful!

  He overcame his fear and walked across the room and brushed his fingers gently on the polished wood of a beautiful rocking chair. It was too heavy for him to move, so he went to find his Dad.

  Pete and Zach found a chainsaw, handsaws, axes, and splitting mauls in a room at the end of what was clearly a woodshed. Pete tried to start the chainsaw using the same technique as starting a gas lawn mower, but it wouldn’t start. He smelled the gas in the saw and in the nearby gas can and decided the gas was too old.

  “Well, son, I guess we’ll be cutting with handsaws.” He looked at the saws hanging on the wall. There was a big two-man crosscut saw and several bow saws of different sizes. He lifted two of the bow saws down and handed the smaller one to Zach. The boy had had to become a man overnight, and was taking the role seriously. He took the saw and followed his Dad out the door. He felt 6” taller already, and knew he’d be getting some admirable muscles pretty soon! If he lived through it!

  Danny came racing across the yard and told his Dad about the rocking chair and asked him to help bring it down for Grandma. Pete explained that it was more important to cut firewood and he’d get the chair when he came in for lunch.

  “But…” Danny said, “why don’t we use the wood in the shed?”

  Pete pointed behind him. “The shed is empty, son. See all the bark on the floor? We can use it for kindling since it’s dry.”

  “Dad, come here!” Danny led the way around behind the shed. Another half of the shed faced the other way, built back to back with the shed where Pete and Zack had been. Pulling back a canvas tarp nailed along the top of the open side of the shed to serve as a door, Pete saw row after row of cut and split firewood. Leaning in to look he estimated it held around 10 cords of wood. With a look of astonishment on his face he stepped back.

  “Let’s go get that chair now,” Pete said as he walked toward the house. He called back over his shoulder, “But we still have to cut firewood later! Cutting by hand is slow, tedious work. We have to get at it and keep at it!”

  Lonnie and her grandma came into the living room just as Pete set the rocking chair in place near the woodstove. Danny danced over to Grandma.

  “Look, Grandma! Just for you! Go sit in it! I’ll get your blanket!” The boy was so excited.

  Grandma looked like a queen in the chair as Danny wrapped the blanket over her legs.

  “Well, isn’t this nice? Thank you!” she said, leaning back in contentment. Pete smiled at her.

  “It was my Grandma’s chair. She’d be happy to see someone else enjoying it! It’s sat in her room since she passed away more than 15 years ago! She moved here with Mom and Dad after they bought this place and always said she loved being on a farm again.”

  Over the weeks that followed they worked hard. Lonnie, her Gandma, and Carrie cleaned the house from top to bottom. The house was full of treasures such as a treadle sewing machine and a double washtub and hand-cranked wringer. In the basement were shelves holding dozens of empty canning jars. Canners, juicers, strainers, and other supplies had been placed in large plastic bags to keep them clean.

  The house was well-stocked with sewing supplies, First-Aid kit, and cleaning supplies. The attic held many dusty boxes of old clothes. “You girls can cut up some of this fabric for your personal needs when you run out of your supplies,” Grandma said.

  They looked puzzled for a minute, then comprehended what she meant. She opened a box of old magazines and gave a cry of delight. “Toilet paper!” she said. “In the old days people kept catalogs, newspapers, phone books, magazines, whatever they had, in the outhouse for that purpose!”

  Lonnie and Carrie exchanged looks. These were things they would have never thought about before.

  Pete and the boys had explored the barn and sheds and found hand tools for the garden, and a hand pump that could be put on the well…if Pete
knew how to do that.

  A couple of times people drove up to see who was there. They were distant neighbors in the rural farming area and had seen smoke from the stove pipe and other signs someone was living there.

  One of them remembered meeting Pete when he’d visited his parents. Pete was able to ask a few questions about how things worked, but he didn’t want to be dependent on or a burden to other people, so although they were sympathetic to their plight, most of the time he told them they were fine and didn’t need anything.

  Stories came to them about worsening conditions in towns and cities. So many people were homeless or without utilities that a rash of vandalism and senseless beatings and other violence had taken place. Schools had to cancel classes because children were being attacked on their way to and from school. The children of parents who still had jobs were left unsupervised, which led to even more problems. A fad of burning down random houses started among these bored kids.