by J. B. Craig
In the last few weeks, the community gathered up all of the propane tanks in the community and had a couple of outdoor gas stoves made for frying turkeys, or boiling crabs. Ethel would have her team of helpers go from house to house and gather the rain water from cisterns in a big plastic fertilizer sprayer on a trailer that was rigged to be towed behind the tractor. Also on the trailer were 5 gallon buckets of clean water. Ethyl’s team would filter the rainwater, and then bring it to a rolling boil, adding a few drops of bleach to each container. These would be dropped off at the homes where residents lived, much like a milk delivery in the past.
When dry-spells happened, the well was a source of water that required much hauling and filtering, but they had a back-up water plan. One day, they’d have to send people down into the well to clear out the years of silt and settling, but for now, water was not an issue, as long as the rain water was conserved.
As Greg was walking towards the water tractor coming, he held the fish up, triumphantly, and Ethyl clapped her hands appreciatively.
“Good morning, Gunga Din’s”, Greg said and smiled. “I come bearing gifts.” Most of the group laughed back at him, and Greg saw Ethyl explain to the younger ones his reference to the storied water bearer in the English battles in India. Greg walked out to the tractor with the empty 5-gallon bucket by the front porch, and picked up a fresh one, saving the team the trip. “Ethyl, my contribution to dinner is this fish, who made me swim to get him. Please save Jen a tender piece with some crab-meat stuffing if you can spare it.”
Both of them laughed, as crab was something that they never had a lack of.
“Nice Job, Greg. I’ll do better than that. The asparagus is coming up, and I’m thinking something with crab, asparagus, and a little hollandaise sauce. We have enough to give everybody a little if Sam can catch one this nice, or at least some perch. Don’t you worry, Jen will be able to bask in your glory, oh great fisher God!”
Greg smiled at the ribbing he was taking, but put the fish in his empty bucket, and handed it to one of Ethyl’s helpers. She was one of the farmer’s daughters. Now that all of the crops were in, and the main farming job was to “watch the crops grow”, the had a larger population, which would be that way for a month or so. Then, the plan was to have all but the guard shift go help the harvest. The influence of the Rock Harbor community was growing outside of the borders of the harbor.
He carried the full bucket back to the cistern he built in the house, on top of the refrigerator to let gravity feed water through a garden hose to the sink area. He got on Grandma’s ancient, but still sturdy, step ladder, removed the plastic cover, and topped off his “plumbing.”
For toilets, everyone in the community agreed that they would scoop their own water out of the harbor, and just fill the big tanks on the back of their toilets. This saved potable water, yet allowed residents to use modern plumbing, and flush it when done. Because some trips to the harbor were farther, or more uphill, Greg reminded them in one of their meetings of Pop’s old saying from his life on the family Pineapple farm in Hawaii: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” Greg foresaw a time when septic tanks would be filled, but hopefully with limited flushing, and the bacteria in the harbor water, that wouldn’t be for a while. With an abundance of empty homes, that was a problem he would worry about at a much later date, as every home had at least one toilet and a septic system.
As Greg was finishing up his morning constitutional, and flushing per the old saying, he heard Angel knocking on his door. “Greg, I have report for you – Mucho importante!”
Greg had the spare bucket of harbor water by the side of the toilet and swished his hands in it for a quick cleaning of sorts and made a note to come back and fill the toilet tank later. He headed out to the porch, where Jennifer was standing with Angel.
“Que Pasa, Amigo?” asked Greg, in deference to the language that they were developing among the groups on the peninsula.
“This morning, dawn. One, how you say?” (he mimicked a motorcycle noise, and put his hands up in the air, like on handlebars).
“Si, motorcycle – good sign language, Angel! But muy malo – bad news, right?”
“Si, he drives up to the trees, and looks through, um, eye glasses?”
“You mean binoculars? Greg stepped inside and pulled out the pair that the Grandparents kept on the porch to look across the water.
“Si! Yes – Binoculars. He sees our tower, and then he, ah.” Angel looked at Jennifer and pointed to his middle finger instead of lowering the other 4 fingers. “Lo Ciento, senora.”
“He flipped our guard tower off?!?!” burst out Jennifer.
“Si. He saw our tower and, how you say, ‘flipped us off’. Then he ride away back West. “
Greg was thinking about how they just got scouted by a potential enemy. “I think I just figured who’s behind most of that shooting the last few nights. It has been getting closer, hence the few farmers that moved inside the perimeter. Hopefully his middle finger was out of frustration at seeing our defenses. Maybe the wolf will pick easier sheep to eat.”
“What is wolf, Greg?”
Seeing as how they weren’t likely to be attacked during daytime, Greg shifted into professorial mode. Greg looked back through his limited knowledge of Spanish, but Jennifer saved his butt once again.
“Lobo, Angel.”
Greg explained, and Jennifer translated as necessary. “Angel, I have a sheepdog patch on my Bug-out-bag. There are 3 types of people in a situation like this. Wolves take what they want. They are the criminals, rapists, druggies, murderers, and apparently, these bikers.”
“Sheep are the defenseless ones: our children, the elderly, sick, those that can’t, or won’t fight for what they believe. That’s not meant to sound disrespectful, or treat them as stupid, but Tripp is a sheep, also. They’re the ones that need protecting for whatever reason.”
And Sheepdogs – that’s us. We protect the herd, even if we must lose a fight to the wolves. Wolves cannot be allowed to bully the sheep. If left un-checked by sheepdogs, the wolves will take over everything, and everyone.
“Now, I’ve known a bunch of great bikers – Look at Les, Doc and Kim. I don’t want us to assume that anyone on a motorcycle is a threat, but today shows us that some may be dangerous.”
Jennifer snorted – “YOU, the nonprofit tree-hugger prepper knew a bunch of bikers, did you?”
“Yeah, Jen. My daughter’s godfather, Carlos was a biker. I attended his biker wedding and made a lot of good friends. I also picked a fight once, with the biggest biker ever, and he bought me a beer.”
“OK, I’ll bite.” Said Jennifer.
“Just a few weeks before this apocalypse happened, I took my nephew to St. Augustine. We wanted to find something to eat, and I Googled ‘St. Augustine best food’. I sure am going to miss Google. I hope it’s not gone forever.” He paused to think about a world without Google. Jennifer translated as necessary for Angel.
“Anyway”, he continued, “The online review gave the place right next door 5 stars for food, BUT there were a few comments that said they didn’t like tourists. It was a local joint. We went over anyway, since we wouldn’t have to drive after a few beers. My nephew and I walk in, and the place is packed – with lots of leather-clad riders. The bar was full, and there was a wait for tables – at 9:30pm! So I knew the food was good.”
“The biggest, hairiest biker I ever saw – he had to be 6’6, and 350 lbs., turns around when his buddies look my way, and it gets a little quieter in the bar. I had on an Army tank top, and was with a young man who was fair of hair and skin, and only about 125 lbs.”
“This biker walks up to me and says ‘Son, this here is a local’s bar only – and we’re all Navy, as he points to the group of bikers behind him. I figured they’d been riding together all day, and now they were clearly enjoying the March Madness, and beers.”
“My nephew took a few steps back toward the exit, but I walked up t
o the big dude, and I said to him ‘Well, I doubt this is a Navy Bar. There’s not enough drinks with umbrellas in them, big guy. That, and none of you have hit on my nephew yet.”
“No, you did not!” laughed Jennifer in her trademark guffaw. “You’re still alive.”
“God’s-honest truth, Jen. Things got really, really quiet for about 10 seconds, then the big guy laughed out loud, and his buddies laughed with him. The guy patted me on the back, said ‘welcome’ and walked back to his buddies. One of the older guys in the group told the 2 bikers sitting on stools next to him to stand up, and they did. He gestured us over and pointed to the 2 bar stools.”
He said to me, “That took balls, son. Luckily, I’m also Army, and I know the 2 of us have more balls than all of these Nancy’s.” The guys with him laughed, and I realized there wouldn’t be a bar fight tonight. “You’re drinking on me tonight.”
Jennifer had translated the story to Angel, who laughed, looked at Greg and said “Si, I always say you Loco, Greg.”
With a little bit of levity out of the way, Greg asked Angel to call together the rest of the sheepdogs. It was time to turn up the defenses. The wolves might be coming back – any night.
Scavenging
As the defensive plan was fleshed out, and the patrols picked up in range and intensity, those off-shift continued to get more creative in their scavenging of houses. More than one had hidden closets like Greg built, or goodies stashed in crawl-spaces.
One of the treasures found on the peninsula was a mint-condition Remington R-25 found in one of the absent neighbor’s hidden gun closet. This rifle was based on the AR-15 platform, but instead of being in a 5.56mm, AKA .223 caliber, it was in a larger, more powerful .308 caliber. In the Army, Greg knew guns of this caliber as Main Battle Rifle’s (MBR’s). .308 caliber, also known as 7.62 x 51mm NATO is the same caliber as the M14 rifle used by the Marines in Vietnam (see Full Metal Jacket) before they switched to the M-16. It was also used in the Army M-60 machine gun that Greg carried at times during his time in service, as well as the M&P 10 “boar rifle” he had at home. This versatile caliber was also used by its younger brother, the newer M240 belt-fed gun. It was good to punch through up to 3/8ths inch of steel and keep going. This treasure came with about 100 rounds of boxed hollow point hunting ammunition, and another 200 or so rounds of “green-tip” armor piercing rounds.
When the find was brought to Greg’s attention, he immediately moved it to the lower position at the barricade. With the bipod stand, Leupold scope, and 20 round magazines in semi-automatic, it was the peninsula’s most potent defensive weapon. He felt that it needed to be lower than the tree stand, because a lucky shot would take out the peninsula’s only tower. While Greg would prefer something like the “Ma Deuce” he trained on (i.e a .50 caliber M-2 Machine gun), he would take the .308 in semi-auto. While the round didn’t have quite the punch of his 8mm Mauser, being able to pull the trigger and empty a 20-round magazine on assorted targets in under 10 seconds was a definite plus. Since the ammunition that was found with it was “green tip”, or armor piercing ammunition, only a very stout tree, or an engine block would create cover. Everything else anyone was hiding behind would only be concealment. Concealment kept you hidden, but not safe, as bullets go through concealment. Think of concealment like hiding in a bush, and cover hiding in a bunker.
Carlos came to the command center and showed what he found while scavenging houses inside the perimeter, but out on Captain Point. Rock Harbor was really “The Rock Harbor & Captain Point association (RHCP). Captain Point was a second community, accessed through a road alongside the club house. There were only 2 people in residence on the Captain Point when the lights went out: Ethyl and Drew. There were probably 10 houses on Captain Point, and while they had been scavenged for food and medicine, digging deeper into them was something that Carlos was doing. He would go into the rafters in the basement, check for fake walls, and do a very thorough job making sure no survival things were unknown. Carlos was a tremendous asset to the community, as he worked a full night shift, and only slept about 5 hours, maximum, on any given day. He was very unselfish, as anything that he found, he brought to the community center for Ethyl to distribute, or to guard shift or other groups, as appropriate.
During the shift change one day, Carlos brought back his latest find: an ammunition can inside of a cardboard lined galvanized trash can. When he opened it, he turned on one of a set of 2-way radios, and both shifts exclaimed in delight when they heard the squelch of a walkie-talkie radio.
“Fuck me running!” exclaimed Greg, before he remembered those around him. “Someone built a Faraday cage! I thought I was the only prepper on this peninsula. Carlos – that house needs to be dug through like no other house. This person knew what they were doing.”
Jennifer translated the main idea of what Greg said, then put her hands on her hips, and said “Spill it” to Greg.
“Faraday cages are made to suppress EMP’s. A microwave is a Faraday cage, as it doesn’t let the microwaves cook your head when you stand in front of it, right? What Carlos found was an improvised faraday cage made by someone as paranoid as I am. Layers of steel and insulating material were thought to maybe keep electronics intact. I have one at home with a world-band radio, and a few walkies in it, along with a tablet with the full library of “Mother Earth News” loaded on it and a solar charger with a USB plug. Lotta good it’s doing me here.” Greg frowned at all of his wasted effort.
“Greg, you have to keep believing that Leigh, Jared and any friends down there are using everything you stashed away. They have a lot farther to go than you did, since you were here. Stop beating yourself up. Your faraday cage might just save their lives.” Jennifer put her hand on Greg’s shoulder, and looked very sincere. “You can’t give up hope. I know – I’m living this with you. Jared, and maybe Leigh will get here, just like Mike will.”
Angel had a shocked look on his face and blurted. “You two really aren’t…” he trailed off. “Never mind – not my problema. What’s in the box, Carlos?”
Carlos pulled out a Red Cross crank-and-solar charged radio. In addition to that and the 4 Midland GMRS radios, a folding Goal Zero Nomad 7 solar charging array, with attachments to charge the AA radio batteries, and a set of 6 spare batteries.” He was smiling, and looked at Greg – “Bueno, No, Jefe?”
“Fucking-A Bueno, Carlos. Bueno Trabajo, Amigo!” Jennifer laughed at Greg getting the words basically right, but not exactly. Carlos and the other Hondurans were used to his totally trying, and failing to connect with proper grammar, diction and verb tense. Greg heard them laughing and said, “OK – Sign Language!” and gave Carlos a thumbs-up.
The shift leads should keep this cranked up and check all bands at least twice per shift. Try different times each day, at the top of whatever hour you want. I don’t know if there’s a government out there, but if they are, they MAY be able to broadcast on one of these bands – probably AM, because it travels a longer distance.
The group smiled at the possibility of news from the outside world. Greg checked the charge on the radios. They were down, but not dead. “Day shift, keep the charger with the spare batteries in the sun all day, please.” Greg requested. Angel – I’m taking one radio for the Osprey nest. The day and night security captains each get one. The last one goes to the community center. Captain’s point can ring the bell if there’s a problem, and we can relay that via radio. We’ll replace the batteries every day-to-night shift change alternating which radio has to wait a day, since we have radios needing 8 batteries, and only 4 can re-charge at a time. We’ll talk on Channel 7.11. Easy to remember, and not a usual channel that the bad guys would guess. When I get home for the night, I’ll do a radio check. “Night Hawk” is the call sign for night-shift. “Phoenix” will be day shift leader. “Osprey” will be my place, and our fallback position. Crab Cake will be Ethel’s community center. We all good?”
Gunny
Gunny woke up to the sounds of a
gun battle, and her chicken coop going bonkers. She lived in a house behind Rock Hall Mall and had the chicken pen in a clearing in the forest between her house and the store. She liked fresh eggs, and sometimes sold them at the store, to locals.
The next community out-peninsula appeared to be taking pretty heavy fire. So, she did what Gunny’s have done since the rank was invented, she suited up in some dark clothes, put on a boonie hat, and grabbed her M-14, chambered 7.62 x 51 NATO, the same ammo as the R-25 at the front of Rock Harbor. With that ammo, she had plenty of stopping power. Gunny was issued the M-16 A-2 when she was a Marine, but after years of competitive shooting, she decided that the M-14 was the gun for her. The increased reliability, and the greater stopping power made it her “home defense” weapon of choice.
Gunny moved quietly along the well-worn path to the next community inland. She had a few friends there that she visited, bearing gifts of fresh eggs when she had a surplus. The community had plenty of retired Navy, and a few “former Marines”. People had often made the mistake of asking Gunny if she was an ex-Marine, and after a proper scolding, she’d explain “Once a Marine, always a Marine” and that she was just in mothballs until they needed her get her out so she could kill some more.