The Solitary Man’s Refuge (3 page)

Don got the feeling that Janice was going to give
up her preps and house to her sister and mother if she
bugged out to his place. Janice knew that come hell or
high water Don would either be with his Mom when the
poo hit the fan, or expect Janice to pick her up and bring
her with her towards him, or he would somehow reach
them and bring them both to the BOL. (Bug Out Location)

Some EMP based scenarios, like cars breaking
down, had been discussed already, but nothing in the form
of a concrete plan was ever decided upon regarding
timelines to bugging out.

It had taken Don many years to get his Mom into
more than basically preparing for a disaster such as a
hurricane and many arguments had occurred as he, in her
words, “wasted his money” and bought prepper gear that
was delivered to the house off his prior meager income.

He had his brother who lived in Texas on the
bandwagon somewhat and prepping seemed like it was
his brothers’ hobby passion too until Don had bought his
little prepper place.

Don remembered the conversation on this subject
all too well. He had tactfully and tactically waited for what
he thought was an opportune time to advise his brother
that maybe this year the family should consider
celebrating Xmas a bit further south at his place.

His brother, Bruce, had always come home for
Christmas and because he lived in another state, Don
wanted him to consider and plan for being away from his
preps if the 2012 predictions had any validity at all and left
him being stuck at his Mom’s house on Dec 23.

Well, that scenario and suggestion went over like a
lead balloon and his brother commenced to denounce any
possibility of such an event ever happening and had a few
unkind words to say about his brother spending money on
his bug out location versus buying some health insurance
and the sibling rivalry party denigrated from there.

Not to be dissuaded or discouraged Don just made
a few more difficult mental notes about adding some more
food and which gun he would let his block-headed brother
borrow if the crap really did hit the fan when he was in the
area.

His Mom’s house in the City had minimal preps at
best and he was moving the majority of his he had
formally stored there out to the country. He still had a
locked army footlocker there that she didn’t know what
was in it and neither did his brother, he had left there as a
backup.

Don was regularly driving back and forth while
visiting his old hometown and spending the night at his
Mom’s, so it seemed like a good idea to keep that house
prepared for himself and his family as well with some extra
preps stored there.

The trunk contained a Sig Sauer 45, a short 12
gauge Mossberg cruiser and a folding Keltec 9mm
carbine. If Don had his pants on, he had his pistol permit
and his .380 Ruger LCP in his pocket so there was plenty
of firepower available to go around if need be. If his
brother was visiting for Xmas, he usually lent him his little
9mm Keltec that was now out in the country and he would
have to remember to bring it in. His brother could carry it
concealed legally in Alabama because of the reciprocal
CCW laws in his state with Texas. Their Mom’s house had
at least several extra weeks of food already stored up
because Don and his brother had been getting his Mom
into hurricane preparedness and possibly preparing for a
pandemic mode, but that was it. Nothing for a long- term
disaster was put away or stored there.

He had plenty of preps for one person, but not
enough for three people. He guessed he would just go
back to stocking the old standby prepper basics of beans
and rice to build up his food reserve stores and use his
good stuff to break up the food monotony and that would
be the best he could hope to achieve on his own
economics.

This line of food security planning had him going
back over his mental prepper plans and lists which
seemed to consume most of his thoughts these days. If he
had received forewarning of a big CME solar event about
to occur, he had decided to go on his own mission while
folks were emptying grocery stores and take a few extra
precautions for his neighbor’s welfare. He was going to go
down to the local seed and feed store and stock up on
cheap feed wheat, barley, corn, etc., to feed some of his
dead-end road neighbors and himself maybe safer. He
had already added an extra inexpensive cast iron flour
grinder to his preps so that they could grind their own
dinners if he was forced to go the handout route as the
collapse lasted longer than anyone but him was
anticipating in his area of operations. Add to some more
plans to my PREPPER LIST Don began musing to
himself:

•
Locate all the Seed and Feed stores in the
area.
•
Locate the pet stores for antibiotics like
FishMox, etc., as emergency substitutes for prescriptions.

•
Check the viability of his bottled herbals and
add a few plants to get established his own medicine
chest in his garden.

•
A years worth of legumes and wheat that
was Mylar canned with oxygen absorbers from Emergency
Essentials was about $400 so he needed to find 800
bucks or chip away at it bit by bit this year and maybe add
regular can goods from sales plus 5 gallon buckets to up
some of his own wheat and such iron rations.

Prepper Plans change daily with threats, political
temperatures, finances etc. It’s always best to think
outside the box and review the “what if’s” with a clear mind
when trying to choose what needs to be done next and in
what order to spend funds and energy accomplishing
things.

Don kind of figured that the end of the Mayan
calendar Dec 21, 2012 was not going to start with a big
bang and immediate technological failure like they said
Y2K was going to do for technical reasons.

No, that was just his finish by preparations goal
date, to be home, safe and sound in the house and well
prepped. Kind of like heeding the wisdom of staying off the
roads and having a drink at the house on New Year’s Eve.
The all too real threats were known for this day and the
avoidance of those threats was common sense and just
seemed practical to avoid them if you possibly could...

The way solar storms seemed to be occurring
both more regularly, as well as more intensely, he pretty
much stayed on his guard for the big one he expected and
was content that what he had already managed to put
away, placed him miles ahead of most folks in the ready
for anything preparedness department.

One thing that disturbed him though, was what if he
was out in the country at his home and his mom was in the
city when one of those giant CME turn-off-all-the-new
model-car-engine geomagnetic storms hit?

He had plans to buy a motorized bike maybe on
his want list, but when? He had expenses out the whazoo
already on his need it, got to have it, so try to get it
prepper wish list. He had seen on eBay kits to convert
bikes for about the cost of a normal bike. They varied from
$150-$250. He could go buy a bicycle now and maybe
convert it later if he found some extra funds, but he didn’t
really like that idea. Assembling anything takes time and
there seems to be gremlins added to the boxes of the stuff
he got nowadays like missing pieces or bad directions. If
his wallet was fat he would have all ready got an eBay
already assembled Chinese special for about $450 or so.
Too many other things needed to be considered though.
Add to PREPPER LIST, Don decided, one WalMart oldstyle beach cruiser bike.

Don had thought about in the past a few times, a
certain moral dilemma that seriously worried him, but then
he had quickly put it out of his mind. How long did he
suppose would it take to get an 80 yr. old woman who was
his mother the 40 miles to his place on the back of a
bicycle? Hell, the trip itself could kill her; she was doing ok
on the meds the doctor had given her for her heart, but
who knows what that kind of stress would do to her?

If he was in the country at his place when the
storm hit, Don would get back to her come hell or highwater and see to her needs, but then what would he do?
Getting her to leave her house under the societal
breakdown conditions he foresaw would be extremely
difficult at best. They could only ride out the social
collapse in the city for so long and then it was just too hard
to contemplate the physical and emotional outcomes of a
bug out with your old mom scenario.

What would happen to all his stuff while he was
gone to see about her? He was making friends with the
local neighbors who would possibly look out for his house,
but what condition were their pantries in? Kind of hard to
disguise the fact you are a prepper when you write books
on the subject and several of your neighbors know it and
had also visited his home.

Those folks don’t really know what a real prepper
is, but NatGeo and the rest of the media was making it
mainstream news that Preppers “got stuff”, food and guns
especially. I wonder what they think I might have. Don
considered as he turned off the interstate on the county
road that led towards his house.

Don had decided he had to create his own
personal kind of opsec. Hide in plain sight as it were, was
basically the only choice he now had. He reminded himself
not to get into any conversations on conspiracy theories
with the locals. That much he knew he could still avoid.
Just be himself and act like a regular good ol’ boy that
happened to have a few pieces of writing published and to
learn as much about his neighbors as he could, as well as
try to get their thoughts on prepping. So far, everyone on
his little dead-end road seemed like nice, salt-of-the-earth
type folks and displayed none of the prejudices towards
strangers often found in small towns that wouldn’t accept
you unless your great-grandfather was buried in the
proper cemetery in town.

He wasn’t going to be letting his guard down
however. He did daily recon and scenario evaluations
mentally as he drove past all the neighbors on the roads
leading to his house and waved to them when they were
visible in their yards or riding past in cars.

He took into account many little observed details
regarding the neighborhood, the number and size of their
dogs. What the age and health of the houses occupants
looked like. Who visited, were they family or friends, etc.,
and what vehicles they driving?

There were mostly trailers on his small road ending
in a two- house cul-de-sac. Not a lot of places in a trailer
that the inhabitants could have a well stocked pantry to
cope with the hard times. What would they do in a couple
weeks after the SHTF and the cupboards got bare? There
was a church not far up the road; it was likely many would
seek solace there. Don was not the church going type so
his recon of it just was an occasional drive by on Sundays
and a visual look over of it’s parking lot. Pretty much
everyone in the area would probably revert to hunting if
they could and would send out every able bodied person
they had to get something for the pot when the hard times
came. As far as Don could tell, their style of hunting was a
deer stand and sometimes the use of a 4- wheeler maybe
to run some ridge lines. He doubted many of these stand
hunters would have any luck or inclination to stalk hunt on
their own. But, he was also surrounded with hunting club
properties that knew how to organize themselves and
drive game to a shooter.

That can work for or against me, Don thought. If
they stay on the hunting land, the deer most likely would
migrate and hide on the smaller parcels of land so this
road would have more game. That being said, the people
on this road would be in the same dire straights and
probably start hunting their backyards and the deer would
try to leave the area. With millions of hunters on the loose
in the US, the woods were going to be dangerous. The
deer to survive would be in the swampiest, nastiest, briar
filled areas they could find for safety. Most hunters would
figure this out and have to go farther afield to have any
luck at all. That meant wandering deer camps full of
desperate armed men and women and it also meant many
households would lose its best defenders so the criminal
elements might take to looking for opportunities. Man,
what are the lots full of armed trailer trash and others
going to be up to living so close together? David thought,
as he pulled in his driveway and shutdown the car after a
quick glance around the property for invisible possible
threats.

Don didn’t know what might happen amongst
those trailer zombies if faced with starvation within the
confines of a trailer park. He figured many would choose
the moment of a WROL (Without Rule of Law) situation to
settle old scores, the same as the intercity and whack
each other in some short-term violence. Then what? Of
course they would band together under whoever had
some military or gang related experience and move to a
suburb to attempt to take what they needed. DISTANCE,
distance was Don’s friend. The suburbs would fight some
of the anarchy headed his way, the cities would spew the
gang-bangers and riff-raff past many guns in other
peoples hands before he had anything to worry about, he
guesstimated. Total Chaos would drive many regular folks
out of their homes regardless, so it was hit or miss option
if they wandered his way. Don liked most people in
general and could not stand for an animal or human to
suffer, but he wrestled with how to turn the needs of others
down if it meant his or his family’s own survival if push
came to shove.

He had no problem shooting someone in defense
of his or his charges survival or safety. Years of the
military and street smarts had taught him a calculated
callousness to it all. He would not consider shooting a man
robbing his garden to feed himself or his family. But in
desperate times with armed intruders everywhere, how
much or how careful of a warning was wise? History tells
us of eras filled with strife and yet travelers were bedded
down in the barn etc. and common hospitability extended.