Empty Aisles & Empty Hearts (Preppers Perspective Book 3)

• Empty Aisles
  
• Midpoint
  

Empty Aisles and Hardened Hearts

Alabama, USA

© 2013 by Ron Foster

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13:

978-1482669367

ISBN-10:

1482669366b

Printed in the United States of America.

SunRocket Kettles

Heliatos Solar Water Heaters

SUNRNR Solar Generators

Crank –A-Watt by Practical Preppers

Taylor Brand Knives

LowBuckPrepper

The Real Day Prepper Show

Dennis sat on his wooden backyard deck starring intently at his woods and thinking about all the things he had to do or should be doing today. His friend Charles had gone inside to check on how his mom and Monica were getting along with arranging his kitchen cabinets and to utilize the bathroom.

It had been seven days since an
electromagnetic pulse (
EMP
)
caused by a
nuclear
explosion high over the United States
took out the electrical grid. Dennis reminded himself at this point that they were very lucky indeed that they still had running county water in the pipes. A lot of the big cities up north already had huge water shortages occurring and in many places people had no running water at all because of pump system failures. His little town had boil water warnings and be conservative usage advisories broadcast on the emergency channels, but as of yet no dire warnings were being issued by the water authority of when they had to quit pumping water because they lacked emergency power backup or fuel for the generators.

Dennis had started his day off with big plans for what he was going to do today, but he soon got sidetracked and overwhelmed mentally reviewing all the tasks at hand. He had decided on talking out all the possible projects which needed to be done and which one should get done first with Charles. He and Charles had managed to get a few chores done earlier, but after several beers worth of discussion, treating their situation as sort of a hurricane party for the rest of today started to seem logical to them in a fuzzy sort of way.

“
Partying with so much to be done is not going to go over well with his mom but she needed to somehow realize that’s the way he and Charles got things done at times correctly. Play hard and talk all about it, get up the next day and do it with or without a hangover regardless and until it was fully completed. They didn’t have that much beer to consume anyway.” Dennis mused to himself.

Charles came out the backdoor of the house leading to the deck and Dennis turned towards him.

“
Are the ladies having themselves some fun and playing nice in there?” Dennis asked speculatively.

“
They are pretty much done organizing all that canned food and seem to be getting along great. I told them they really should take themselves a break and come outside and have a beer with us when they had a chance.” Charles said as he was picking up his half empty beer can he had left on the table.

“
How did my mom act? She seems ok with it?” Dennis asked arching one eyebrow.

“
That’s what I have been doing the last 5 minutes was standing around talking to her. She was telling me she would drink ONE beer and hadn’t drank one in a long time and wasn’t sure if she wanted a whole one. Then I heard about your grandmother when she was alive drinking ONE beer occasionally and saying she could feel the effects of it etc. and got a buzz” Charles told him with a slight grin that the conversation had pretty much gone as Dennis had suspected it would.

“
Well eventually I will get her on the subject of some of my old relatives being bootleggers during prohibition of one of the funny stories about my grandfather getting a buzz and falling into the Christmas tree.” Dennis said hoping he could influence the conversations.

“
You must take after your grandpa” Charles said chuckling as he bedeviled Dennis.

“
And my father and his. There are a lot of hard drinkers on both sides of the family, men and women as well as a few hypocrites and abstinence followers. Mom knows I drink to excess and gives me hell about it when she decides it disrespects her or hurts me, so we in for interesting times in the future. She has got a lot of preconceived notions regarding the effects of alcohol on me as well as the mother’s trump card of a guilt trip so it won’t be no picnic.” Dennis said having second thoughts of having his mom hanging out around his “hurricane party”.

“
Well me and Monica will play nice and I think if we watch the language and keep the brakes on the drinking a bit, I think your mom will be ok with it.” Charles said going off his first impressions of meeting Dennis’s mom. But moms were usually moms regardless he thought to himself and she wouldn’t approve.

“
Well I will run the Crank-A-Watt and charge some batteries while sipping a beer and then you can spell me some on it as I get tired. That way it at least looks like we are doing something constructive while having a beer. That broadcast today of a summit at the UN and an emergency meeting of the US president and the Russian ambassador has really got me speculating on whats going on. I mean they didn’t say shit about what was up with the Chinese, Japanese, Iran, North Korea, and India, the UK or anybody else. They made a point to say we were talking to the Russians though and I don’t think I like that particularly much. you are I both cold war era boys Charles so you probably feel the same as me abut the communists.” Dennis said speculating and then sucked down his beer so he could get as close to needing another one as he could before his mom and Monica joined the little party on the back deck.

“
Monica and your mom have finally got most of the food in the cabinets sorted out; I must say they were grumbling a bit though about your choices of menus.” Charles said sniggering somewhat which usually indicated he was going to kid Dennis about something.

“
Hey, there is my suggested serving menus and me telling them to make up their own menus if they didn’t like mine.” Dennis began protesting to indicate his suggestions were not written in stone.

“
I believe it had more to do with what they had to work with and the way you seem to have your food stores seem to bet set up based on your own personal tastes. What the hell do tamales in a can taste like anyway?” Charles asked innocently enough but kind of miffing Dennis that anyone even thought about turning their noses up at the selection of food he had managed to have stored up.

“
Hey now Charles, buddy I will have you know those damn tamale things are good! Well, I mean they are nothing to write home about but they are a quick convenient meal and I at least get something approximating meat to eat. My mom and well I guess most women in general I know can make themselves a meal off just vegetables but me, I have got to have some meat in my meals! Ha! You know there is a whole yummy case of
Sweet Sue’s Canned Whole Chickens,
in there?

That might sound like hell now, but come one Sunday dinner I know who is going to be eating a drum stick and who might be lucky to share the other one. I don’t know, maybe I might not want to share a leg with anyone; those are awfully small chickens they fit into them cans. “Dennis said grinning as he teased Charles a bit.

“
It wasn’t me that was the complaining one buddy.” Charles quickly assured him.

“
Dennis you have got food stuff stored that I never heard of before, well none of us have before except you and we are just curious what its going to taste like. Of course I think that chicken will taste better than a possum, but I haven’t ever tried one of those either!” Dennis said joking around with Dennis who had been known to collect possum recipes for just such a SHTF situation like this.

“
I don’t know about that, but at least you don’t have to skin that can in order to eat it!” Dennis quipped back regarding the possum comment.

“
Seriously though Charles, that chicken is a high priced luxury now. Why it is worth its weight in more than just silver now, not that I would ever sell any of it. We need to be seriously thinking on how we can get us some real yard bird type chickens and feed for them ASAP! Then we need to think about how much it’s going too cost us in trade for them.” Dennis said thinking about how quick 12 cans of whole chicken could go to his hungry household and him being forced to barter them for more of a lesser valued food.

“
I wonder how many pounds of rice or beans a can of chicken should bring?” Dennis began musing

“
I been thinking on that chicken purchase subject, I don’t know anyone close by Dennis that has any and I don’t know where the folks live that I know do got them and might be willing to sell.” Charles said remembering folks we knew from the local country bar but not that close personally.

“
Charles I am up for us taking my truck and cruising the back roads around here and asking whoever we see if they will sell some chickens to us before this shit gets really bad. Folks are not crazy scared out here on these back roads yet. I got a good bit of green cash, some silver, a lot of ammo but I ain`t trading any ammo just yet. I don’t have any booze stored but I do have an ace up my sleeve on that particular highly favored barter item. I have been ready for this day awhile.” Dennis began before a chuckling Charles reminded him that he knew that fact too well because of all of Dennis prepping talk over the years and had showed him a table top style alcohol still.