by Ron Foster
This wasn’t a hard task at all to speculate on unless you tried to figure out your place in the scheme of things. How far back in the ration line you would stand and that was if there were any rations to be given out. People don’t like to know that they were just a number, a subtractable or addable number that had no individual bearing on the outcome of the “plan.” How people acted when they received the aid as well as if the populace looked at you as a benefactor or occupier helped or hindered actions.
Just what level of misery it took to for you to get classified as a survivor, refugee, displaced person or whatever also indicated what camp conditions would be like if you ended up in a relief center.
A Eureka moment suddenly came to Hogan. A brilliant clarity of mind you might say touched him based solely on his primal instincts versus his educated mind, but you would be wrong. Where do I want to stand and be classified as in this world right now he thought? If I don’t matter I want to stand in the middle where I won’t be counted and remain unnoticed, he said to himself. Not on this side, not on that side, just a free man living life as best he could. He smiled at his simple condition in life now and the choices he could make for himself, by himself. He wanted to get away from everything, away from this place and live unnoticed.
Hogan thought of his friends Lori and Sam who had really got him into this river camping idea by them introducing him to a portable survival trailer, bug out recreation boat thing a year or so back.
Hogan had met Sam at an annual camping meet in Florida called “Preppers On the Beach” and had been amazed you might say as well as become pretty much infatuated with the idea of the marvelous boat Sam had brought there. It was called a Tetra Pod Trailer. Why that marvelous thing was the coolest slickest idea since sliced bread in Hogan’s opinion.
It was a survival trailer that could fold out and turn into a boat! How cool was that? But the neatest concept to it was how Sam had integrated it into his and Lori’s lifestyle.
Sam was the creatively inspired survivalist one that had pointed out to Hogan the joys a prepper could have living what he called the “lifestyle” of practicing preparedness recreation boating. Not only did you get to enjoy normal fishing and camping around lakes and rivers, you also had the opportunity of interacting with a myriad of like minded people sharing skills and pleasurable company in the outdoors.
Old Sam in Hogan’s mind had always been his favorite prepper par excellent for a number of reasons, mostly because it seemed the guy could always adapt to the ever changing tides of fate he was exposed to and bounce back as a winner or master of something new.
Sam had told him his ingenious master plans for survival and experiences from everything from truck gardening when he lost a job to how to live in the woods next to a lake for an extended stay and catch a fish on a twig. (Sam didn’t mean using a twig as a fishing pole neither as you might think. He meant using a thumbnail length piece of stick sharpened on each end as a hook to catch a fish! (Go look up a fish gorge on Google if you don’t know this trick.)
When Sam was asked what he was going to do, or where he was going to go when SHTF, he always just said he was going to “Check Out Of Society.” Nothing more, just that he was going to drop out and live life best as he could.
“He told me that he was going to grab the girl, the gear and the grub and hightail it to a place not a bunch of people knew about and be a beach bum.” Hogan said grinning to himself remembering fondly the man sharing bits of woods lore with him over a cold one.
“Did he actually tell you where he was going to try to get to or did he keep big secrets to himself also?” Annie said playfully hinting she wanted to know more about Hogan’s secret bug out location on the river..
“Maybe he did try to keep some secrets from me. I don’t really know if he had a specific place in mind that he was going to or not. They travelled around a lot of northwest Florida. He just said he was heading for Florida’s Forgotten Coast and we talked about a few areas in general but nothing specific.” Hogan said pondering where exactly Sam had talked the most about above other places.
“Oh I have been to a few nice spots in north west Florida when I visited on vacation. It is absolutely gorgeous down there! Didn’t you say this river ran in that direction?” Annie said excitedly.
“Yes you are correct; the river does go that way. There are a couple ways you can get there by water but it isn’t a clear shot all the way straight through. I will show you on the map later a couple places we can put a boat in at that can get us on a hundred or so miles of open water to travel down and end up coming out right into the bay.” Hogan said eying the two pillowcases of canned goods Annie had brought over and dropped next to the couch.
“Do you want me to put those cans up in your cabinets?” It won’t take me a minute.” Annie said thinking that since she was moving in here semi permanently they may as well get the food situation sorted out.
“Not just yet. Matter of fact I was trying to decide if I needed to bag mine up to be ready for a quick getaway. I still have uncontrolled fires on the brain and that huge drop in water pressure isn’t helping that feeling any. I know I need to get my clothes together if I need to sky out of here though. Come on and follow me to the bedroom while I start getting those sorted and we can talk about what to do with the food.” Hogan said heading down the short hallway.
“I probably need for you to help me bring some more clothes and other stuff over here from my apartment if you plan on bugging in here for awhile, but maybe not. I got the car crammed full of clothes that I won’t probably be wearing anytime soon anyway.” Annie replied.
“Did you grab all your winter stuff?” Hogan asked starting to stuff his heavy weight field jacket along with a wool OD green sweater into an old military duffle bag.
“No I don’t have any winter stuff to load. I didn’t think I needed anything for awhile when I moved here and I was either going to get my winter clothes sent to me or go home before Thanksgiving and pick them up. I am going to be kind of in trouble aren’t I Hogan come the fall?” Annie said regretting that she only had a lightweight jacket in her bug out gear and little else for the season of winter.
“Not necessarily, I don’t have any wool skirts or girly winter hats with me but I have stuff you can wear. I have even more clothes and stuff in Alabama if we ever we get there for you to dig through so you will be ok.” Hogan said going to his chest of drawers and getting his gloves and scarf and such.
“Don’t say “if we ever” like there is any question of us not making it. I thought that was the big plan. We wait it out here and then we drive out when the roads clear.” Annie said studying him.
“Oh that is my plan alright. I am just not nearly as hopeful as you are that the cars are going to remain working. I know supposedly the biggest geomagnetic storm pressure hit last night but we got today’s incoming solar storm to contend with and whatever effects both of them cause for days communication wise. We will probably be on the receiving end of charged particles I am guessing for at least a week but they will be mild, not that it matters.” Hogan said estimating when the major damage and threats would be occurring the most, well on this side of the planet anyway.
“I guess no one will know what’s happening for at least a week then. I mean even though the emergency broadcast system is hardened for that type of EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse), if we can’t get a transmitted signal it will be a radio blackout. That’s if an unshielded radio still works and didn’t get its circuitry fried.” Annie added glad that theirs were safely residing in a makeshift faraday cage.
“Yea it’s not like the government will be delivering us the Sunday newspaper telling us what’s going on. I wish I had thought to bring my old rotary phone from prepper shack up here. Landlines will be working for the phone company mostly I imagine. I know the old system we had before they got into fiber optics was made to resist nuclear EMP but I don’t know how much the upgrades will affect things.” Hogan said regretting he only had an el
ectrical nonworking phone.
“Hey what happens if I plug that phone into my portable car jumper? That’s the ticket I bet that might work and Annie can get a call out to her family maybe.” Hogan mused.
“I have an old phone that works when the powers out at home. Most people don’t know there is a small amount of electricity on those lines even when the powers out. I wonder if they will shut that off low voltage off also. Do you know Hogan?” Annie asked.
“Good question! Want to find out? Oh crap!” I just thought of something. Hogan said jumping up and heading for the door.
“What’s the matter Hogan?” Annie asked worriedly.
“I like an idiot left my jump starter in the back of my van.” Hogan said rushing out to get it and mentally cursing himself for forgetting it.
“Oh hell!” Annie exclaimed as she followed him out.
Hogan unlocked the hatch on his van and fiddled with the jump starter once he located it and was rewarded with the loud sound of the air compressor going on.
“Yay!” They both giggled at one another as he immediately shut it down and removed it to carry back inside.
As he was locking his van back with his key he brought up an interesting point to Annie’s question about “what happens to electronic locks on a car during a solar storm.”
“I love talking to you Annie! You ask all the right questions that I haven’t thought of yet. Now I have never seen any data on that electronic lock theory thing but I am guessing they stay locked. I remember they came out with a Corvette or something awhile back and the thing didn’t have any manual release locks on it. You had a special place on the outside of the vehicle with battery contacts accessible for connecting a battery to in order to release the locks if the battery went out on it. They finally fixed that stupid idea after a few people got locked inside their cars and the company spent a lot of money informing first responders to just hook some jumper cables to them instead of tearing up the car. ” Hogan said thinking it was a very good question as to whether or not cars would magically open once their circuits were fried.
“Wow I am glad that people won’t necessarily get locked in their cars if the sun fries their computers. Be bad enough to be going 70 miles an hour down the road when your power steering gives out after the engine dies. If you lived through that and then found yourself unable to get out of the car it could be really bad. What do you think will happen to car computers in general, Hogan? I mean if the solar storm is powerful enough to melt their circuits, wouldn’t the car catch fire?” Annie asked grateful she had someone like Hogan around to answer all these odd questions they needed to be concerned with.
“There you go again, great question! Let me refer back to the car locks or electronic locks in general because you got me to thinking about garage door openers and such. I say the wires melt so quickly that they can’t start a fire most times and the lock remains closed but unencumbered to be unlocked manually. Let me explain what I mean by that. They use high temperature plastics in those things that tend to melt more than flame depending on temperature. The wires themselves or their connections will melt long before the box they are in so the surge of power stops. So an electronic lock as soon as it has negative bias to it will release whatever physically locks the lock and that’s the end of it. A physical action like flicking a lever or pulling a button will override that and release it. I can’t see any melting components interfering with that operation but you never know. Now car computers are another thing, every modern car today baffles me and whether a certain model has theirs inside or outside the firewall I can’t even tell you that. I can tell you that from now on we are going to ride with the windows part way down because I don’t want to be driving along and get stuck smelling acrid electrical smoke if the computer does decide to melt down or a stray stream of geomagnetic energy decides it doesn’t like my radio antennae.” Hogan said not too keen about driving around anywhere for awhile.
“Good answer, I suppose all those digital gas pumps have some kind of failsafe mechanism in them don’t you think Hogan?” Annie said looking even more alarmed when Hogan evidently didn’t have a ready answer for that.
“Dang I hope so, seems like they would. I really don’t know though. If there is no electricity to pump the liquid fuel then I think the danger of fire is negligible. On the other hand you got us back to thinking on the lock question. The old mechanical gas pumps always had some fuel left in the hoses you could get even after you shut the pumps counter down. I think these modern ones do too but it won’t give it to you before you start fueling. Remind me I need to check a shutdown fuel pump for gas in the hose just for the hell of it.” Hogan advised.
“Looks like the gym rats are having themselves quite a barbecue.” Annie said looking over at the corner of the next building and referring to a couple of over large weightlifters and their friends evidently having a use-up-the-freezer cookout.
“Leave it to me to have the incredible Hulk along with his hulksters to be living next to us during the apocalypse.” Hogan said caught a little off guard by the five very large muscular tank top wearing fitness freaks laughing and having themselves a party around an expensive propane grill.
“I don’t know why it is you dislike them folks so much, Hogan. I talked to the biggest one once and he seemed pretty nice.” Annie started to object.
“You never been around when they have a football watching party or they come in the bar wanting to change the TV station. All the noises they make remind me of a pep rally for the Planet of The Apes.” Hogan said not to be put off about his opinion of the boisterous over developed mutants in his mind’s eye.
“You are just jealous your arms aren’t that big.” Annie said knowing she was going to get a rise out of Hogan by kidding him that way.
“They can be big as a house for all I care. I wonder where Misses Hulk is at. I saw her in a bikini once down at the pool and her dang arms are bigger than mine! I ain’t a fan of that type of woman as you know and she takes that physical fitness body building to extremes. I think she got even more buff as they call it the last few months. Why her chest is so flat looking and distorted now I almost got caught scrutinizing her crotch to see if she was one of those Atlanta a he/ she’s that are hard to recognize after I got done freaking out about studying her big butt before she stood up and turned around.” Hogan said watching the athletes over at the other apartment joking with each other like they didn’t have a care in the world and this was just another big hurricane party to them.
“I hope that is not all the food they have got.” Hogan remarked.
“I sure wouldn’t want to be the one to tangle with none of them over a can of food. Do you think they will be a problem, Hogan?” Annie asked now looking at them in another light.
“Me neither, but a .45 slug could settle any possible disputes with them from my end. I wonder if those boys are into guns or not. I don’t see anyone carrying one off hand, do you?” Hogan asked looking them over more closely.
“I don’t see any open carry pistols on them and I doubt they are concealing much with those shorts they got on. Are we going back in the apartment to try out that jump starter or hanging out here?” Annie asked.
“We will go back in shortly. I bet them boys have enough protein shakes and vitamins stored up to last them a month or two.” Hogan whispered and then waved to the men who evidently noticed Hogan and Annie studying them.
Annie waved back also and they both politely declined an offer to participate in the cook out from one of the younger ones.
“See, they aren’t so bad.” Annie said in a low tone as Hogan decided to go back in.
“That remains to be seen. Annie that biggest lump has got to be on steroids or something. I wonder what steroid withdrawal does to someone. I know taking them can make you have violent outbursts as well as shrink your nuts they say but I don’t know if anything happens when you try to come off of them.” Hogan said leaving it to Annie to advise him the answer on that one.
“I don’t know, I knew about that testosterone aggression thing but I never heard of that odd medical fact you just mentioned. Does it really? I mean you know? Shrink things?” Annie asked.
“That’s what they say, can’t imagine why a man would trade his virility for muscle mass but some do I guess. That was what they said when all that info come out a long time ago of the necessity to test Russian Olympic athletes as well as ours but I don’t know. I also heard about it because some of those gyms have a black-market business in human growth hormones and such too. They are going to be getting hungry like everyone else though soon enough, protein shakes or not so I wouldn’t be opening any doors for them if they come knocking to visit if you know what I mean.” Hogan said pointedly.
“Point taken, anyone of them could force themselves in the door pretty easily if they wanted to, I suppose. Hey you said you had some long guns. What do you have?” Annie inquired.
“I got a 12 gauge, a .22 and a multi-rifle. Bet you never heard of one of those.” Hogan said referring to the last one.
“A multi-rifle? What’s that?” Annie said perking up with interest.
“I got a TNW Aero survival rifle with a multi barrel package. The particular model can shoot 9mm, .45 and 40 cal. pretty much any common pistol caliber I can find.” Hogan said proudly.
“That is a sweet rifle! What I mean is that is a seriously cool rifle and useful too with that ammo variability. Are you going to let me borrow your shotgun?” Annie asked.
“You can borrow the Aero rifle if need be. I prefer carrying the shotgun for now. I usually pack that rifle in my boat’s bow bag. I really like that secured storage feature on my boat. It is big enough that I can pretty much pack a whole 72 hour bag plus camping equipment or whatever I want in it.” Hogan said before telling her he would show her what all he kept in that bag later when they did a repack of both of their gear.