TOCABAGA (Revised Edition) (Book #1 of The Tocabaga Chronicles)

TOCABAGA

The
Tocabaga Chronicles

B
y Thomas H. Ward

REVISED EDITION

Copyright ©2013.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic mechanical methods.

April 11, 2026

If you are reading this then you are one of the lucky ones or smart ones who have survived the first year of the collapse. I am writing these chronicles to pass on a history of what has happen
ed, a history telling how we have survived so far. I do not reveal the full names of the people living here in case the Feds happen to come upon this. Read my story and tell others what has happened here. Pass it on; it may save your life.

My name
is Jack Gunn and I live on Tocabaga. The real name will not be disclosed, nor the location. Tocabaga is a clue as to the general location of this island. It is a sanctuary where one can be safe from what is going on in the outside world. If you happen to come here, are of good character, and believe in the freedom of man and the Constitution, you are welcome to stay. The current population is 556 people. We help each other stay alive.

I am 63 years old and have traveled to forty countries in my lifetime. I have seen a lot of despair around the world,
those poorer than poor with no hope of improving their lives. People are living in their own filth and stench, inside cardboard boxes without water that is safe to drink, or even a bathroom. Little kids pick through the garbage dumps for rotten food. It breaks my heart to see this. They have hyper-extended little bellies, which means they are starving to death. These people live day to day, meal to meal. They have no hope for a better life for them or their kids. What are we, what are you going to do about this? 

I
t is so quiet here, so quiet I can hear the birds singing. You can hear the flutter of their wings and the wind blowing through the trees. There are no cars or noisy motors, no road noise at all. Every now and then you may hear a military plane fly overhead but not often.

It wasn’t always like th
is. In the old days 5,000 cars would pass by my house on a holiday weekend going to the beach. The cars were loaded with people, grills, coolers, bikes, and boats. The peak time was the 4
th
of July weekend. Cars were bumper to bumper. July 4
th
Independence Day, what a great time we used to have going to the beach and watching the annual fireworks, as each year the city would try to make them bigger and better than the year before.

We use
d to have a 4
th
of July Parade and everyone decorated their cars with red, white, and blue paper streamers and followed the two fire trucks our city had, beeping their horns while driving, while we were waving American flags. Afterward we would all go to the only bar here for a drink with free hot dogs and burgers. We acted a little like hicks but it was fun for everyone. Boy, a hot dog with mustard and onions sure would taste great right now. We still celebrate July 4
th
with no parade and no hot dogs, but it means more to us now than it did a couple of years ago. Now we are really fighting to keep our freedom and Constitutional rights.

One thing we
do hear are the sounds of drones flying overhead at night. They’re like a buzzing bee, a low tone which you can barely discern. No one has ever seen a drone, we only hear them flying at night like bats. Drones have excellent night vision cameras and can identify any person. Drones can shoot missiles that have the ability to blow up a car or truck so the drones make everyone a little concerned. We know the government is watching us but why are they watching us?

Does someone think we are a threat to the country?

We are waiting for you to contact us by email to
find where Tocabaga is located. There is an email address hidden within these chronicles.

I
will reply
.

April 17, 2025

12 Months Earlier

My brother Ron, who was on guard duty, radioed me, “Ten cars are coming down the road, they must be the same ones the Rangers warned us about, so get your butts down here fast.”

I radioed back, “Ron
, we are on the way.”

The rapid response team and all security persons grabbed their guns and headed to the bridge
; a total of fifty men. No one said a word as we jumped into our vehicles but I knew everyone was worried about what would happen next. The sun was setting and soon it would be dark.

Ron spent 25 years in the Navy and was a Crew Chief. He retired as a Senior Chief Petty Officer. He made drug and illegal immigration arrests in the old days. The Crew Chief is the one who man’s the 50-caliber guns and other small arms as well as makes any repairs needed during flight. He also was a chauffeur and bodyguard for an Atlantic Fleet Admiral and the Fleet’s heavyweight boxing champion. Grandpa taught us how to box and shoot when we were kids. Grandpa used to box for money when he worked in the coal mines and he always carried a Colt .45 in his waistband. He was a tough old guy who died of a heart attack at the age of seventy-eight. He served in the Army in WWI and was in combat with the Russian Wolf Hounds. Ron is a great shooter and not afraid of anything. We’re very close and I can trust him to do anything for me. Since the Civil War every man in my family has served in the Military.

Our compound is on a
n island with one way in and one way out over a two-lane guarded bridge. Our little island is a mile and a half wide and two miles long. This used to be a busy little place, with four restaurants, one bar, one church, one seven-eleven store, two gas stations, and two marinas. There are 1,975 housing units, which includes condos and homes. Once we had a little over 3,000 people living here, now it’s reduced to the 556 remaining. I estimate there are about 1,200 abandoned cars and about 300 boats left by the people that used to live here. That means we have plenty of fuel and gasoline on hand.

When you leave the island your property becomes
more or less community property. Cars, boats, houses and anything in the house such as food supplies, guns, or whatever, will be taken for the general good of the community. When you return, or if you return, you’ll get your property back.

W
e have a lot of resources, materials, food, gas, guns and cars that are now targets for the criminals to steal. We have the resources and a location that is very desirable. We accept new people but we cannot let in any bad apples. The problem is finding out who is good and who is bad.

We all piled into our vehicles and drove as fast as possible to the bridge, just three minutes away. Upon arriving, we saw Ron and my son Tommy standing behind a car watching the vehicles pull up to our roadblock. There were ten vehicles and I estimated at least forty people, who probably all had guns.

It looked like a scene right out
of the old movie, “Mad Max,” starring Mel Gibson. A bunch of beat-up old cars and evil-looking people inside them. I wondered how these jerks found our compound because it is not well known unless you are from around here and even then many locals do not know our location. The Mad Max cars stopped about 160 yards away.

I told Ron and Tom
my, “Keep under cover while our other people get into position.”

Everyone knew what to do as we
had trained for this many times. Due to the uphill rise of the bridge our men were not visible to the potential enemy. They could only see about six people. My hands were sweating and my heart was racing. I was thinking,
What do these guys want?
Whatever they want, it can’t be good for us.

Tommy spent eight years as a Marine Scout Sniper and fought in the Korean War in 2018, which only lasted sixty days. Thanks to him and other brave soldiers, Korea is now a united free country again. He received the Silver Star and is credited with 45 confirmed sniper kills. His weapon of choice is the Remington model 700, firing a Winchester .308 caliber bullet. He can hit a melon at 600 yards. He is the best long distance shooter we have. His real name is Thomas Matthew Gunn but he soon gained the nickname Tommy Gunn because of his shooting skill, named after the Thomson Submachine Gun called the “Tommy Gun.”

Two men stepped forward holding a white flag and approached with no visible weapons and hands raised. Rick the duly elected head of our group, yelled to our men, “Everyone, hold your fire.”

I told Ron and Tommy
, “If these guys put their hands behind their backs, shoot them. They might have a gun hidden behind them.”

Rick
said, “Robbie and Jack put down your rifles. Let’s go see what they want; we’ll meet them halfway.”

We still had our side
arms on as we walked towards them. Like a shadow, Mark was following behind me carrying his pocket knife. Never take a knife to a gunfight is my motto but this was Mark’s only weapon; he used it to skin fish.

We stopped
walking and they came closer. I said, “That’s close enough,” putting them at about ten feet away.

We
needed to keep some distance between us and these people in case a fight broke out. This would give us time to draw and shoot our handguns.

I looked at them,
unshaven, in dirty clothes; they were grimy-looking people. I couldn’t tell who they were but I didn’t like the looks of them. My sixth sense was telling me these people weren’t good apples.

The
biggest guy asked, “Who is in charge?”

Rick replied,
“I am, what do you want?”

You could feel the tension in the air.
My eyes were fixed on these dirt bags; never ever take your eyes off the enemy. The wind blew their body odor in my direction and I almost gagged from the stench. They looked and smelled like they hadn’t taken a shower in months. Their hair was long and both had long scraggly beards. They were just dirty-looking junkies. The type of people you want to avoid.

The
larger guy said, “My name is Big Jim, what’s your name?”

Big Jim was about
6‘5” tall; the other guy was about my size at 5’ 11” and 200 pounds. They both looked to be about forty years old but it was hard to tell.

Rick
answered, “My name is not important, what do you want?”

Big Jim re
plied, “That’s not very friendly of you. We are just good old boys from up north of here and we need food, guns, supplies, cars and gas. We are willing to trade. We have some women, slaves or drugs if you need any. We know you have the supplies we need, how about helping us out?”

That was
our clue that these were very dangerous men. I felt sorry for the women being used as slaves.

Rick answered,
“We have nothing for you. We cannot spare anything and we don’t need any slaves or women.”

Big Jim looked at the other guy and wh
ispered something in his ear, then said, “You must need something, let’s make a deal. Look at how many men I got, we can take anything we want from your little group but we don’t want any trouble. We just want to come in and look around, take what we want and leave.”

I wa
nted these guys dead for making that threat. You could tell they were big dope-heads and meth users. Half their teeth were missing. I kept staring at this Big Jim; he looked familiar but I couldn’t remember from where. His huge head, the Neanderthal shape of it, or size of it, was different. I was thinking,
Where have I seen him before?

I
asked, “How many slaves do you have? Let us see them and maybe we can make a deal.”

Big Jim
replied, “We got five.”

Big Jim told the man next to him to get the slaves. While they were walking back
, I saw one woman about 25 years old, two young boys about 12 years old and two young girls about 10 to 12 years old. They were tied up with ropes around their hands and necks.

Robbie
and Rick both looked at me and Rick leaned over and whispered in my ear, “What are you doing?”

I just whisper
ed back in his ear as soft as possible, “Trust me and follow my lead.”

The sl
aves were standing next to Big Jim with their heads hanging down and they looked in terrible shape. I felt anger and sorrow at the same time.

I took
off my gold chain necklace and said, “I’ll trade you this 18K gold chain for all five slaves. It is worth about $20,000 on the market.”

My wife purchased the chain for me on our 20
th
wedding anniversary so it had great meaning and value to me.

Jim said, “Let me see it.”

I
stepped forward to hand it over to him, he reached out and grabbed it from my hand very quickly as if to say, give me that you fool. I didn’t even like the idea of him touching my chain.

H
e looked closely at the chain and verified it was 18K and then he said, “That’s not enough for all five. I need more than this but I’ll keep it as a down payment until we reach a deal.” He stuffed the chain into his front pocket.

Big Jim just made a big
-ass mistake. That really pissed me off and I looked right into his eyes. He knew I was mad and I could see a smirk on his face, he liked what he was doing. He was a bully and I hate bullies. He was use to getting his way by intimidation because of his size but that didn’t scare me as I knew I could kill him in an instant.

I had no intention of letting him ke
ep my gold chain.

Then it hit me
. I knew who this Big Jim was, I saw him about a year ago while I was peering through my rifle scope in the dark. I saw his silhouette, which was frozen in my memory, the shape of the head, the size of his huge Neanderthal head, and his beard rang a bell.

I had enough of this talk and
knew I had to kill these two guys. I looked at Robbie, I looked at Rick; he didn’t know what to do now or what say to these slimy dirt bags. I was thinking that talking time was over. I hoped Tommy had his 308 aimed at these jerks.

The clock was
ticking; I could feel they were going to make a move.