Empty Aisles & Empty Hearts (Preppers Perspective Book 3) (5 page)

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They better listen and learn about Quarantine. I seen a lot of quarantine signs growing up, you alls generation was spared that.” Dennis’s Mom said nodding her head

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Isolation, quarantine and eventually a vaccine is the only thing that is going to save us now. Meantime, except for us going out to buy them chickens off the neighbors , we all are officially self-quarantined and when I talk to the folks with the chickens I am keeping my distance. Dennis said adamantly.

Smallpox is an unbelievably deadly disease. It is the most contagious disease known to mankind – spreading literally like smoke. In the last known outbreak in Europe, a man early in the throws of smallpox, against doctor’s advice, opened his hospital window. In the cold German night, his exhalations went out the window, up the wall of the hospital into an open window on another wing and killed several nurses. That’s contagious. Get the picture?

Phones were an iffy situation at best these days. Sometimes you could get a line out but most times not.

Dennis dreaded every time the phone rang and when he picked up the receiver and spoke it sounded like he answered it gruffly with a tired attitude of “hurry up and tell me what you want.” It wasn’t that Dennis in anyway begrudged giving advice on what to do in this situation, it was the having to repeat he “just didn’t know or couldn’t help so many times.

Acquaintances, business partners, friends, fellow preppers, you name it, had all somehow seemed to just now remember his phone number for “all things regarding the end of the world” and were seeking him out like he had some kind of magical prepper lore to teach them at this late state in a catastrophe to help them survive.

The conversation always started with the same question, how do you treat smallpox at home? The only thing Dennis could say most of the time was that it was a just “Live or die” situation and keep the patient comfortable and God be with them.

Two phone calls received today were expected, dreaded and welcomed all in the same wave of passing emotions. First was his ex-girlfriend turned lifelong prepper buddy Charlene. She and Dennis had been talking on and off for years on what to do in this kind of situation. Dennis had a permanent open door policy to her in case she needed to bug out and now was the time with the encroaching threat of smallpox in the cities. Sanitation would be almost nonexistent and government attempts to control the disease by travel restrictions and forced quarantines would soon make bugging out on anything but a less traveled back road very difficult and dangerous.

Charlene had her own preps and lots of them from when she had followed the road of prepperdom with Dennis. The food stores and medicines she had stored away were desperately needed to augment his supplies as well as provide for herself, but there in lay the quandary of what she was bringing, how she was going to load it all, when she was coming etc.

The original plan she and Dennis had for Nuclear or Solar EMP was for her to “Bug IN’, help out her sister and mother as things developed and bug out to her relatives in the country with her family or separate from them and and just she would bug out to Dennis’s location. These type of decisions were heart rending and mind numbing, but the option of leaving the mother and sister with country farmer relatives was practical from a survival point of view, but distasteful on a ,moral or blood kin basis.

Dennis and Charlene had been over the finer points and pitfalls to all these problems so much in past prepper conversations that it was decided that inevitably Charlene would end up joining him to face the apocalypse together and at the end, just be secure in their hearts they had done everything possible for her relations before leaving them on their own.

It was never a cruel or cold hearted decision to decide thus. This is what Charlene and Dennis had prepped for and had on more than one occasion been laughed at or been belittled by friends and relatives for spending so much time, money and energy on preparing for these types of disasters.

Dennis thought that it really sucked that it had taken them both over 5 years to each put together enough food for the two of them to have over a years worth each of food stored and now that food was being divided amongst so many hungry mouths that depended on them now because of their own lack of preparations.

Dennis had resolved himself to the fact that it was a live together, die together world now and that his humanity and soft heart could do nothing about. He really didn’t have it in him to deny others if he could give a shred of comfort. Oh he knew it was easily his downfall and prepper logic said it was the ultimate mistake, but it put him right with his feelings about his relationship with the man upstairs.

He felt it was better he spend his time keeping up everyone’s spirits sharing meager rations fairly, than ever carrying the memories of a out right cold hearted denial to a starving or thirsty man or women. His conscience would kill him long before the loss of any morsel of food or unshared canteen. Oh he would fight like a deranged demon to protect what was his and protect his extended family and friends survival from those usurpers and beggars that challenged it, but he had a sixth sense on weighing hearts also.

Dennis could look a man or woman in the eyes when he was clear headed and tell if their hearts carried evil or they would share with him if in the same position. He told everyone he knew for years some Native American wisdom that related to being truly happy with ones self. He stated that “You live by your first instinct and you die by you last.” If you remembered that and followed your first instinct, then you wouldn’t be second guessing or questioning yourself all your life about what was right or wrong.

Dennis was known to say “the doctor smacked you on the ass and your first instinct was to breathe, your last is not to. Don’t worry about whether or not you had a decision with either. Live life, follow your instincts.”

Charlene would divide up her food stores and preps as she saw fit. The remainder would be moved by them both if possible to Dennis’s Prepper shack and nothing more would be said about what they were ultimately left with. No bitching about “Should of, Would of, Could of” What was left was all they had, what was given away was all they had. Simple, nothing left to do but fight death or starvation the best they could and try to remember to look at it as the big adventure in resourcefulness it was and attempt to smile while doing it.

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You can’t keep a good man or woman down! Where there is a will there is a way and if I got a pocket knife and a piece of string I will amaze you!” Dennis had joked to Charlene regarding some trapping prowess he hadn’t demonstrated in 30yrs that they were now forced to rely on him teaching to all.

A odd mixture of old southern gentleman and hell raising redneck, Dennis was well suited to try and lead this little group of possible survivors through the murky depths of modern man mastering forgotten skills before it was too late.

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You just thought I was getting eccentric.” Dennis had said many times over on showing off his constant add-ons and tweaks to his preps in the form of aircraft cable modern snares and steel Conibear body hold animal kill traps.

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Everyone here is an eater or consumer in some way, so everyone here has to be a hunter, a trapper, a cook, etc. Why it will take me 10 days to even set out and teach you how to run two short trap lines. First off, never touch my damn traps! Charlene, you and you in particular remember that. You got a bad habit of having to touch or point to closely to anything you are talking about. These damn things are dangerous for one, but also remember I don’t want you scenting up my traps! Animals will be getting smarter by the day once I start looking at them as other than nice furry creatures and we all are about to live in the realm of hunter and prey.

We can’t lose one critter by stupidity, have anyone break or lose a hand or finger to a trap or miss a meal because you don’t listen to me. We got food now but it ain`t going to last long and when these reserves are gone its only what we manage to preserve or get for ourselves. “Dying times” started a week ago in the hospitals when the lights went off and they were the lucky ones. Now we got plaque, disease, starvation, dehydration and social unrest and violence just cracking out of the egg. Keep your composure, keep up each other spirits, above all keep your humanity and don’t bicker about what you can’t change because the only lifeboat we got takes all hands to keep from sinking. This house was not designed to support all of us and living conditions are going to be a cramped as hell soon enough but, remember the stories of heroism in P.O.W. camps, the survivors of the holocaust who managed to live under worse conditions than we will ever face.” Dennis said before being pointedly asked by Monica what freedoms or rights Dennis was leading up to that they would no longer have.

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You all know I have been a “public prepper” on the internet and somewhat locally for years now. I got “stuff” folks want and it will soon be people are crazy desperate. That means visitors of various bents on mischief. So, security first. Get ready for a big freaking confrontation and wanting what food they think I got. The unwanted visitors can come upon us at anytime day or night. You got the ones that will start neighborly and those who are scared of my known affection for guns and and my assurances I don’t mind using them if we feel threatened. The later visitors will come at dusk, dark of night or predawn to take our wares. I can’t be trying to trap the woods for animals when I should be setting a few mantraps and guards on our perimeter for safety sake.

Everyone will have a work schedule and a guard schedule, I see no other alternative. Community meals will be out and we eat in shifts soon enough so we ain`t all bunched up and ready targets. It takes awhile to get into this mentality and we are all going to be scared of our own shadows and picking at each other for not observing basic security rules until it feels commonplace. Me and Charles will fall back in the zone of our military war skills, but me and him freaking you out to make sure you are not sleeping on guard duty or observing light and noise suppression is going to drive you ballistic.

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No one, and I mean it when I say it, starts the crap about saying we ain`t in the military or this isn’t basic training because it is for awhile. It’s a new way we got to live now folks. No calling our business loudly to each other like its time for dinner or I am going to take a poop etc. Don’t holler at me in the woods “where am I at?” if we get separated when I am running point or trapping. Talk low, keep visual distances, watch and wait when in doubt and for all our sakes be very safety conscience in regards to your field of fires should you want to pop some caps at something. More folks die off of friendly fire than enemy fire, I can’t stress that enough. Basically you ladies guard the house while men folk forage and hunt like a bygone era and we try to outlast the known threats and prepare for the future ones. Everyone is going to be dependent on his or her tribe of brothers and sisters and individuality will be put on the shelf until a “way of being” is established.

We are all very talented but a division of labor and security is to be considered as effective until we can all surmount this learning curve we are forced to deal with in adapting to this strange society we find ourselves in. Hey I know I sound all caveman or something but it’s like this, I hunt, you clean what I catch, while you cleaning I am doing security. All the neighbors might be figuring out that gunshot they heard was me getting a deer and wanting a rear haunch of what I got when their hunting efforts are not feeding their families. I need to be out of the woods and close to home as soon as I can. There is wood to gather for the cook fires, gardens to tend etc. I can be tired from the trail carrying back meat or from sitting in the rain waiting for Mr. Animal to pass by for an opportunity to feed us. Up at dawn for me to go hunting or trapping don’t mean we sort out personalities or problems until the wee hours of the morning if it can someway be overlooked. The grand thing we got to do is put the tribe common welfare first beyond petty jealousies or personal problems.

We sacrifice for the community or tribe, not to one another. It is the focus of a common goal and existence that must take precedence. Be a believer in that. The extra cracker or choice portion of meat goes to best hunter or forager. It is up to them to decide the disposition of that item for themselves or sharing with others. If someone is lacking in skills due to age, talents or otherwise then community support is needed and not harassment. Common goals and ideals, common defense, do you get me? Feel me? Or whatever it is I am supposed to say in this day and time? “Dennis said as he finally finished his diatribe about how they should show each other kindness and understanding in a world gone topsy turvy.

All the pieces of a "perfect storm" are lining up over the next few days in a manner such that I believe next week will be like no other. From man-made natural and unnatural disasters to the chaos in Washington NOTHING happens by accident anymore. Get ready to hear the term Quarantine and Isolation being tossed around like popcorn by the media.