Prepper Central: A Prepper Fiction Novel (Prepping - Together we will Survive Book 1) (4 page)

‘It’s not a supermarket dad,’ I laughed.

‘Surely has more stuff than the one in town did the last time Eleanor and I went. So I guess we can call it a super-super-market.’

‘Stockpile,’ mom interrupted.

I spun my head around so fast I was sure that I wouldn’t make it out of the basement without whiplash. ‘Huh?’ I asked, focusing on her lips to see if the words really came from her or if it was Marge who, somehow, started to sound like my mother.

‘You said it’s called a stockpile, didn’t you.’

‘Oh mom,’ I threw my arm around her shoulder, ‘I’m so proud of you. I knew there was a prepper in there somewhere.’

She snuggled her head into my shoulder and smiled.

***

The rest of the day went rather slowly. There wasn’t much to do, other than sit around and catch up on life. However, when it came to mom and dad, the humor was more interesting than any adventure they had embarked on- because, well, their highlight of the month was going to the farmer’s market. In the evening, I’d planned on taking them to a prepper meeting and getting them acquainted with the group. I would be the only member who had brought in family, in light of the situation that was going on. Those who had parents and children living in the city were the first to open invitations to Cherry Hills. Urban areas were the worst. There wasn’t a day that went by where stores and entire neighborhoods didn’t have to deal with robbers. Banks were being torched. Protests were alive and kicking and the police were hardly capable of containing the mess that society was turning into. Though I’d jumped in fright at the thought of mom and dad getting hurt in their neighborhood, I knew that they were a lot safer than they’d be, had they lived smack in the city. However, it’s better to be safe than sorry and so, my move to get them out of there as quickly as I did, had been the right one.

***

‘This looks like some kind of cult,’ dad fussed.

He wasn’t a guy who enjoyed the cold of winter and thus, having to go on the two minute walk from the car to the auditorium stirred him the wrong way.

‘Dad. We talked about you being on your best behavior today,’ I warned.

‘I know. I know. This is important and all that but come on, you’re headed to a church for a meeting and everyone just looks so… uptight.’

‘They’re all really lovely people and trust me, uptight is the last word that you’ll be able to call anyone in this group. Plus, it’s an auditorium, not a church.’

Behind us, mom and Marge were engaged in conversation that didn’t allow for dad and me to get in the way. I figured they were either talking about mom knitting hats for the baby or just how adorable of a child we’ll have. Whatever it was, I was overjoyed that mom was on her best behavior. Though she’d been pleasant the entire time she’d been here- bar waking up before the sun- she too, could be a handful.

‘Alright dad,’ I said as we approached the crowd that had gathered to the right of the auditorium.

‘I’m telling you now,’ dad replied, tucking his hands in his pockets, ‘if y’all start praying, I’m out.’

I shook my head before nodding the group who looked in our direction as we walked past. Though I wasn’t usually late, I don’t think I’ve ever- until today- been early enough to witness the gathering around that was done prior to the beginning of our meetings. I instructed dad to make his way to the front, where our seats were and I stepped back to speak to Tommy who was busy jotting something down in his journal.

‘How’s it going, bud,’ I grabbed his attention.

‘Oh boy, there’s so much to go over today,’ he tapped his pen on the pad of paper, ‘I just don’t know where to get started.’

‘Yeah. Well I’m sure you’ll figure it all out. Say, I’m planning on skipping out to town in the middle of the week to boost up the stockpile. I would appreciate it if you could get everyone to shoot me an email with supply suggestions.’

‘To be honest, Jimmy, I’m thinking you’ll need to do your trip as early as tomorrow. In fact, almost everyone will be hopping out to the stores before shit really gets crazy. Stewart should be in any minute to get us briefed on the state of the nation. And then we’ll have to talk about something a little bit closer to home.’

‘Closer to home?’ I asked, unable to determine what he was referring to.

‘Yep. There’s just so much going on right now and an incident occurred last night which we still haven’t been able to get to the bottom of.’

‘Oh wow. Well, looks like it’ll be a pretty long meeting.’

‘It definitely will. So, how’s the wife doing? You know, with the pregnancy and all?’

‘Marge is doing really well. It’s been able to keep her mind off the excitement or rather, the scariness of our economy. So, I’d say that even in the grimness of things, there’s a little light there, waiting to be released.’

‘I’m very happy for you both as is everyone here and you know what, you won’t have a thing to worry about, Cindy’s going to take good care of that lady of yours.’ He patted me on the shoulder and forced a smile.

I knew that Tommy was happy for Cindy and me and thus, the difficulty in which he mustered up that smile was a bit puzzling. Perhaps there really was something going on that needed to be worried about.

‘Thanks, Tommy. I’m gonna head back to the group now.’

His eyes widened at the mention of the word ‘group’. ‘Oh shoot, I definitely forgot that your parents were here.’

‘Yes indeed,’ I replied, mimicking his smile- half there, half somewhere else.

‘So how is it?’

‘Eh. Let’s just say my dad’s fuller than a handful.’

Tommy laughed sincerely, ‘I think all children say that about their parents and vice versa.’

‘Yeah, but this guy really takes the cake. Anyways, I’m gonna see what they’re getting up to.’

‘Alright Jimmy, I’ll catch you later.’

I headed back to mom, dad and Marge, saying my ‘hellos’ to the familiar faces I passed on the way to the front of the auditorium.

‘What’s that I’m hearing about Anna,’ Marge’s face went pale.

Anna was one of the oldest members of our group. Her husband had passed a few years ago and ever since then, she’d been living on her own.

‘What do you mean?’ I tried to decipher the look on Marge’s face but failed.

‘Prepper Central,’ Tommy’s voice boomed through the microphone.

My eyes were still focused on Marge. ‘He’ll probably key us in. Shh,’ she said before I could get another word out.

‘If everyone could get seated, that would be great.’ He paused for few seconds while the members scattered around, finding somewhere to seat themselves. ‘Okay. Awesome. So I know that we usually start with introductions and all, but after what happened last night, we’re gonna switch things up a bit and get right to the updates. Today, we’ve got one member who’s not with us.’

His words hung over my head. What did he mean that there was one member who wasn’t with us? He must have been talking about Anna. Was she dead?

‘As some of you already know,’ Tommy continued. ‘Anna was attacked in her home last night.’

A series of gasps filled the room. I was one of the members to let out a big sigh of horror.

‘Yes, some coward broke into that poor old lady’s home, in search of money, supplies or only god knows what.’ Tommy went on. ‘Thank goodness, she’s okay.’ Now the roomed filled with sighs of relief; relief that we hadn’t really
lost
one of our members. ‘But you know what. I don’t blame that imb
e
cile that wiggled his way in. No. I blame each and every one of us. We’re supposed to be looking out for each other. We’re supposed to be the ones who ensure that our community-even in the midst of chaos- stays safe. It seems as though we’re all living too relaxed. When I look back at what I was doing at that moment, I’m ashamed to say that the television drowned out the noise of the community and any chance that I would have had to hear Anna’s cries for help.
We
need to stay more alert.
We
need to be more aware.
Together
we will survive.’ Tommy paused and glanced around the room and when his eyes wandered over me, it felt as though they were penetrating my conscience. ‘We shouldn’t only become aware of a situation when it’s too late. This man should have been caught the minute he strayed into our neighborhood. But instead, we were only able to react when Anna placed the phone call saying that she’d been hurt. This can’t happen again. This
will not
happen again. Look out for your neighbor and rest assured that your neighbor is looking out for you. That’s how things should be. Does anyone have any questions?’

My hand shot up and with a nod of his head, Tommy instructed me to speak. ‘I just wanted to ask where Anna is now and also, if there are any measures you’re considering putting in place to up our security.’

‘Great question, Jimmy,’ Tommy nodded. ‘Cindy and Edward are looking after Anna as we speak. The injuries she sustained weren’t bad and Cindy believes that the main thing that she’ll need to overcome is the shock of it all. So I want you all to say a big thank you to Cindy and Edward for stepping up to the plate. As far as security measures go, we’re looking at running the neighborhood watch a little differently. Instead of just having everyone peek out their windows, we’re gonna have a couple guys on patrol at each corner of the Cul De Sac- and those men will need to ensure that they’re armed, aware and alert- the three A’s.’

Everyone in the room applauded.

‘Joseph,’ Tommy said.

Joseph- another member of our group- cleared his throat before speaking. ‘Did anyone manage to get a look at the guy?’

‘Another great question. This man happened to be the person in charge of bringing Anna her groceries and such which goes to show that pretty much no one can be trusted. His name’s Dan and many of you have probably seen him at some point in time as he’s been helping her out for over a year now. We’ll be putting up pictures of this guy around the neighborhood, just so that we all know who we’re looking for.’

‘What do we do with him if we find him?’ A woman blurted out.

‘Shoot him,’ dad said under his breath.

‘Well, I’d say shoot him,’ Tommy mimicked dad’s words, even though I’m confident he didn’t hear them. ‘However, because no one needs to have blood on their hands, I’d say we get the cuffs out and call the cops. Mind you, in a few months, we may not have the cops to rely on, so a justice system is something that we’ll need to come up with for the future.’

‘Okay, so if no one else has any questions. I’ve just got one more thing before I hand the microphone over to Stewart. Before you leave, I’d like all the guys to sign up for a night watch.’

‘Only the guys,’ Marge spoke quickly.

Tommy laughed. ‘Excuse my sexism. Absolutely not. Ladies, except for you Marge,’ he winked, ‘are welcomed to sign up for night watch. I know that quite a few of you know how to handle your weapons so please forgive me for not initially making it clear that you’re included. Oh and just one more thing. For all of you who want to brush up on your gun skills, we’ll have target practice in the coming week, so be sure to check your emails for the date. Okay, I think that will be all, and now to you, Stewart.’

Stewart jumped to his feet and made his way to the stairs of the stage, squeezing past Tommy as he always did, except this time he gave him a pat on the shoulder and mumbled something that I couldn’t decode.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he started. ‘Firstly, I want us to say a silent prayer for Anna, so if you’ll just bow your heads.’

I placed my hand on dad’s leg, ensuring that I’d be able to pull him down in the event that he decided to leave. He did say he’d be ready to skip out once someone started to pray. However, he was on his best behavior, proving that I had nothing to be worried about.

‘It’s such a sad thing that happened to Anna,’ he resumed, ‘and together, we can make sure that no one gets as far as they did last night. I want us to remember that today, we’re living in a society that’s been shaken. The constant loss of jobs, houses and security have led to an increase in crime and evidently, we’re not immune from feeling the repercussions of a shaky economy. We’ve got our supplies. We’ve got our resources and we’ve got each other. So with this, we’re all in a better place than many members of today’s society. However, this also makes us a target. Those who get wind of our wealth while finding themselves at the bottom of the food chain will not hesitate to find their way in. We’ve got to prevent them from causing harm to Prepper Central.’ His eyes traveled around the auditorium, observing each and every member. I knew this look. It’s the one that I gave my class whenever an exam was in place. He wanted to ensure that everyone’s head was in the game; that everyone was absorbing the words that left his mouth. ‘Now, for our regular update. Due to the three recent notable riots that have left two-hundred and forty people killed in three states, the president has requested to increase the budget for police spending and a shorter recruiting time for new cadets. This request was done in order to combat the increased uproar that seems to be happening on a daily basis. Congress, however, shut down the request. I won’t even bother to go into how this is their way of saying
fuck you
as a means of discrediting the new party and garnering votes for the new election.  What this simply means is that we need to be aware. We cannot expect the police to be as responsive as they were in the past. It took a whopping four hours for police assistance to arrive and while there were promises of a further investigation and the collection of fingerprints, you can imagine that the crime labs are overloaded and Anna’s case will and probably already is forgotten.’

Before the meeting came to a close, I stood up and took my turn at the microphone. ‘Good evening everyone.

‘Good evening, Jimmy,’ they replied.

‘I’m not going to take up too much of your time but after the notice that Stewart just gave us, I think now’s the time to ensure that we’re all as prepared as we can be. I know that most of us have managed to get our stockpile to the point where it’ll be able to last for a good year. However, we’ve got some cash left over from collections and I’d love to have some suggestions as to what needs to be purchased. I’ll be making a final shopping trip either today or tomorrow and so it would be great if I could have those suggestions in as soon as possible. There’s paper at the back of the room, so if anything pops in mind while you’re signing up for night watch, feel free to jot it down. If, however, you think of something between tonight and tomorrow, feel free to shoot me a quick email. Thanks guys, and keep safe.’

I was the last person to speak and so, after my few words, everyone rushed to the back of the room. I’d never seen so many people eager to stay awake longer than was normal. However, it was great to see just how enthusiastic everyone was about protecting our community. I spotted Jonathan, who joined our group not too long ago, and was overjoyed to see that we’d have some military skills during night patrol. Rather than joining the line to sign up for night watch, I hung around with mom, dad and Marge, until mostly everyone was gone. Seeing as I needed to collect the shopping list, I needed to hang around until the end anyways.

‘That’s horrific, isn’t it?’ Marge took hold of my hand.

‘Could have been worse. I’m just happy that she’s okay. Sometimes it takes a bad incident to get us all in the right frame of mind,’ I replied.

‘But gosh,’ Marge shook her head, ‘pick on someone your own size. I just find it so pathetic when these so-called criminals take advantage of the weak, you know.’

‘At least now, she knows that we’re all here for her and we all know that it’s time to really start looking out for each other.’

‘I’m not weak,’ dad chimed in, perhaps offended by the fact that I had insinuated that old people are weak.

‘I know you’re not, dad,’ I smiled.

‘I would have shot him right where he stood.’

‘With what gun?’ I chuckled. Dad losing his gun was, by no means, something to find humorous. However, the way he perched himself like a teenager and shot off rounds with his finger guns was a sight to be seen.

‘Damn it,’ he exclaimed. Remembering that his gun had been stolen.

‘I’ve got a weaponry cabinet. Well, not quite. I’ve got a spare gun or two in the safe,’ I whispered. ‘Maybe we can go to the shooting range with these guys.’

Dad nodded, seeming interested in something I had to say for the first time since he’d been in my company. I looked over to the auditorium door to see that the last person was jotting down their name on the list.

‘Okay, let me collect this list and then we can head home.’

I scanned over the list before folding it neatly and placing it in the inside pocket of my jacket.

‘Night,’ I said to Tommy who was standing outside the door, ready to lock up.

‘Night, y’all,’ he replied.