When the Power Is Gone: A Powerless World - Book 1 (2 page)

Next question: how were we going to make sure some douchebags didn’t come kick in the door and take all of our hard earned preps? We lived in a rural neighborhood – that is, we had neighbors across the street, but with a half-acre of front yard on each place, it was a walk to get there. That was the layout of the whole street. Close, but not too close. The problem was that big, open front yard. With a few trees for shade, it wasn’t really a defensible location. There was about a half-acre between our house and the Hoppers.

When Russ first brought up defense, I kind of rolled my eyes. Really? You think people would just come kick in our door to get our stuff? Decent people don’t act like that, and I truly believed most people were just that - decent. Then there were riots in Ferguson, MO. Then Boston. Guess what? People were going around kicking in doors and windows and taking other people’s stuff. So we bought guns. Handguns, both revolver and pistol; shotguns, in 12- and 20-gauge; rifles in just about every caliber there is. And ammo – oh, the boxes and boxes of ammo. Thousands of rounds, hundreds in each caliber, at a minimum. And of course, Bob and Janet did as well. We had multiple firearms that would shoot the same bullets among all of us.

Everybody learned to shoot. We spent hours at the range with different handguns and rifles, until all of us, including the boys, were comfortable, loading, unloading, shooting, cleaning, safety application – the works. All of the adults had handgun carry permits as well. We didn’t go anywhere unarmed. We also didn’t go anywhere that posted “No Guns Allowed”. The world is a dangerous place, and the cops get there in time to draw chalk outlines and take witness statements. We would not willingly put ourselves in a position to be victims, because here’s the problem: bad guys don’t care if you have a sign. They still come in, with guns, sometimes out and shooting, and all the law-abiding citizens didn’t bring their lawfully owned and legal-to-carry side arms in with them because of your stupid sign, so there’s no one to shoot back. And now, they are among the wounded or dead, as well as your other customers and employees. Dumb asses.

The biggest part of our survival plan kind of happened by accident. Janet’s uncle was getting on in years, but wouldn’t leave the farm. As Janet was his only surviving relative, Uncle Monroe Warren signed over the deed to his 20-acre farm to Janet and Bob a couple of years ago. His only stipulation was that he and his wife Millie get to live out their days on the farm, and that they be buried side by side on the hill behind the house. For that, they would keep the farm going, with our help and a couple of the neighbor boys. We went to the farm at least every other weekend. We made sure we had established gardens, with every vegetable we could think of to grow. Millie had always lived on a farm, and lived off of the land as a child, with her family. She knew how to grow and store pretty much anything we planted. We had all kinds of livestock, both for food and working animals, and a herd of big dogs, who loved us all and were fiercely protective of the folks and the place.

We kept the large farmhouse in good order. Monroe had built the house when he was young, right after he and Millie got married, expecting a large family. Fate kept that from happening. Monroe was kicked by a horse he was trying to shoe, and the wound left him sterile. He and Millie never had children, but they filled that big six-bedroom house with love. As a child, Janet begged to spend the whole summer out there. Aunt Millie kept her busy, but Janet didn’t see it as work. She thought it was fun. Ah, kids. Millie was still quite feisty, and when we first started going out there with Bob and Janet on the weekends just to get away, she mothered and grand-mothered all of us. I couldn’t have loved and cared for them more if they had been my blood. They were country people, who had lived through hard times, and were a wealth of knowledge on what we were doing. Millie had a root cellar filled top to bottom with home canned goods, root vegetables, old metal cans full of flour and sugar, boxes of salt, the list of food items was long. They also had kerosene lanterns, candles, cast iron cookware that had seen more than its share of open-pit cooking, as well as country hams hanging and a butter churn. Seriously, a for real pump-the-dasher-up-and-down butter churn. Millie said it had belonged to her mother, and that yes it still worked.

When we told them what we were doing, they smiled at us, then each other. Millie said, “Well, it sounds like we’ve been preppers for a long time.” She was right. If everything went down, the only way they’d know is the lights wouldn’t work. They had a wood burning stove, fireplaces, lanterns – they were set up perfectly for what we would need if the world went to hell.

The farm was 30 miles away. We could get there in 45 minutes to an hour, barring any traffic problems. This was our bug out location. In the event we could not stay in our homes, this was where we would go. After no more than 30 days, this was where we were going.

As we were going over what needed to be done, and trying to prioritize everything, there was an incessant knocking at the front door. I looked out the security peephole and saw my best friend Janet from next door. I opened the door, and she burst in, tears flowing.

“Anne, my God, this is it, isn’t it? Nothing electric is working. It’s all dead. What do we do now?” Janet was an emotional sort, but right now, I was feeling almost as overwhelmed as she looked. She was followed by Ben, who was still carrying his school backpack.

“The bus didn’t show, and I guess now it won’t,” he said, more to Rusty than anyone. Both of our sons had been involved in our planning for this sort of situation. They understood as well as we did what was happening, although right now they were a little too happy about not going to school. They’d get over that. I had a feeling in the upcoming months, they would wish for a boring day at school over the daily grind of just living without any modern conveniences.

“Where’s Bob?” I asked Janet, hoping the answer wasn’t what I was afraid it was going to be. Bob was a computer tech at a big electronics store in town. If he was at work already, he was 15 miles away, with a car that no longer ran. Their bug out vehicle was in their garage.

“He left about five minutes before everything went off. He is probably about five miles away, if traffic wasn’t bad.” Janet was pacing the kitchen like a caged animal.

Russ chimed in. “Right before it went off, the radio was on a local station, doing a traffic update. Said it was backed up from Pine Haven all the way to the interstate from an accident. No way he was even on the interstate yet. He should be walking up in the next hour, no longer. He has his GHB (get home bag) in his car, and his pistol on his side. Don’t worry, he’ll be here. We have work to do while we wait.”

****

A GHB is a bag you keep in your car that has supplies to get you home from wherever you are if something like this happens. Usually, it has food and water for about 72 hours, along with a first aid kit, mylar blanket, emergency flares, whistle, flashlight (preferably wind up) – the list is completely adaptable to the person and the situation. I for one have an extra pair of underwear and socks in mine. A gal has to have priorities, and dry socks and drawers are some of mine. Oh, and feminine products. It would suck REALLY bad to get caught away from home for a few days and your monthly visitor shows up. Bob probably wouldn’t even have to dip into his for anything other than water.

Russ knew getting Janet focused on what lay ahead was the best thing right now. Just the words spoken seemed to calm her down, and you could see the resolve in her eyes. “You’re right, Russ. The more we have done before he gets home, the less he’ll have to do when he gets back.” She even graced us with a small smile with the words.

“First thing we do is check to see if the faraday cages actually worked,” Russ said. “Those electronics will make our immediate future easier, and our long term survival better.” Russ was right again. We had invested some money and energy in electronics, in the hopes we could protect them from this very thing. I was anxious, but excited to find out if the electronic devices we had tried to protect from an EMP were still functional. We all headed to the prep room.

A faraday cage is a metal enclosure, built to surround electronic devices, and protect them from an EMP. The premise is that the enclosure will absorb the pulse, as long as the electronics are insulated from the metal. This can be done with paper (doubtful, but maybe if they were wrapped in aluminum foil around the paper), cardboard (probable), possibly even anti-static bags. I say possibly because, in the prepper community, there is still a lot of speculation as to whether or not this would actually work. The small faraday cages were lined with cardboard and each of the electronic devices was inside an anti-static bag. Bob works at an electronics store, remember? We had plenty of bags.

Russ and Bob read everything they could find on them, but in the end it was always going to be a hope and a prayer. They built them out of metal ammo cans, for small electronics like e-readers and two-way radios, and metal cabinets for the electric hand tools and generators. The ammo cans were in the prep room and housed e-readers and small tablets with a lot of survival books loaded on them, as well as two -way and emergency, multi-band radios. Everything from urban gardening and backyard animals, to identifying edible plants in the wild and basic first aid, were loaded on the e-readers. They would definitely help us survive in the coming days, weeks, months – hell, it could be years.

Russ pulled out the first can, the one with my e-readers and mini tablet. As he opened the can, I said a quick prayer. Aside from the survival books, I had over a thousand novels on one of them. With no TV, radio or internet, having a thousand books on a small handheld device would definitely help to pass the time, and save a lot of space. He handed me the e-reader on top. “You loaded it up, you get to do the honors.”

I took it, closed my eyes, and flipped the cover open. The screen lit up! “OH MY GOD! IT WORKED, IT WORKED, OH MY GOD!!!” I was screaming, and dancing around the room, and everyone else was grinning and high fiving each other. The boys were particularly pleased, because there were at least some games on the tablet to occupy their time. First test: success!

We put everything back in the can after we tested each item. We checked the other cans with radios, both emergency and two-way, a cheap pre-paid cell phone (who knows, maybe you could send a text), and a hand held ham radio. We verified they survived, then packaged them back up, just in case. Who knew if there might be a secondary pulse? We didn’t want to get sloppy right out of the gate.

Since the small cans worked, Russ was antsy to check the cabinet in the garage. A working generator would increase the time our cold stored foods would be edible. The longer we could go without breaking into our long term food stores, the longer they would last. We all trekked out toward the garage.

As we were going out the kitchen door into the garage, there was an incessant knock at the front door. Rusty started that way, but Russ stopped him. “Beginning right now, no one goes out of the house alone. No one even goes to the door alone. And everyone starts wearing their sidearm, even you boys.” Russ grabbed his from the kitchen counter, where he had laid it when he came in. He went to the door, with all of us around the corner, and looked out the peephole. He turned around with a grin, looked at Janet and said, “I think it’s for you.” Janet looked confused for a moment, then squealed and ran to the door. She jerked it open, squealed again, and jumped into Bob’s arms. Bob picked her up, carried her inside, and we joined in a round of hugs, handshakes, and back slaps. 

“Oh Honey, you made it home! I was so worried!” Janet was laughing and crying at the same time.

Bob grinned at her and said, “Sugar, you should have known nothing would keep me away from you and Benny.” Ben grimaced at the “little boy” name his dad still used from time to time but couldn’t hide the happiness and relief he felt that his dad was home.

Russ stepped in, looked at Bob with a serious expression and laid his hand on Bob’s shoulder. “We checked the small faraday cages, Bob.”

Bob took on an equally serious and slightly pained expression. “What? They didn’t work?” Bob would have taken that as a personal failure, since he was the electronics geek and had done more research than anyone on how to build one that would actually, hopefully, work.

Russ looked down at the floor, and back up at Bob with a smart-ass smirk. “They worked great. We were just going to the garage to check the big one. Let’s go buddy.”

Bob turned his frown upside down, smacked Russ in the back of the head, and headed for the garage. “Asshole.” That was a term of endearment between these guys. We went to the garage and stood before the cabinet like it was a shrine. This was a big deal.

“Bob, since you missed the appetizers, you can open the main course,” Russ said. Bob grinned again, took a deep breath, made the sign of the cross (and he is NOT Catholic), and reached for the handles. We all took a deep breath with him, and pretty much held it as the doors opened. The first thing Bob grabbed was an electronic volt meter. If that functioned, the rest of the equipment had a good chance of working as well.

He flipped the switch, and the display lit up. “YEAH! ALRIGHT!!” Bob was fist pumping the air, while the rest of us did another round of hugs and high fives. We had electronics and power. This life changing day was starting to take a turn for the better.

We were all feeling pretty good about the direction things were going and talking about how to utilize the protected electronics when there was another knock at the front door. Everybody we needed to worry about was here. So, who was at the door?

****

Russ and Bob both had their side arms on them – Russ from earlier, and Bob from his trek home. His gun and his GHB were always with him when he went back and forth to work, just like Russ and me. Prepping 101: your preps mean nothing if you can’t get to them. Russ told the rest of us to stay in the kitchen while he and Bob went to the door. Looking through the peephole, he turned around and mouthed the word “Brian”. I think we all rolled our eyes at once.

Brian was the snooty neighbor from the other side. He was single, probably because he was annoying as hell and full of himself. He had the latest and greatest of every gadget out there, the most technologically advanced available. He was some kind of financial planner, so he kept banker’s hours and hadn’t left for work yet. He was wearing a suit and tie and holding his phone in his hand, while constantly trying the power button. He had a look of complete confusion on his face when Russ opened the door.

“Hi Brian, what can I do for you?” Russ was starting with polite. I knew it wouldn’t last. He couldn’t stand Brian.

“Yo, mornin’ Russ…say, is your power out? Everything just shut off a while ago. Funny thing is, my phone isn’t working, which is weird, right? I thought maybe the battery went dead, so I went to my car to try the charger and my car is dead too. I mean, what the hell, man? How could everything be dead?” The whole time he was talking, he was still pushing the power button on his smart phone, as if one of the attempts would be the magic one that turned his precious lifeline back on. Pitiful. But then, a few years ago, that would have been me. Before I took the red pill.

Russ covered up a sigh, looked Brian in the eye and nodded. “Yep, all ours are down, too. The whole neighborhood is out.” Russ decided to try playing dumb.

While Brian was an ass, he wasn’t a dumb ass. He looked at Russ, looked over at Russ’s truck in the driveway, then back at Russ. “Didn’t I hear you drive up in your truck right after everything went off? Is your truck still running? Why is your truck running but not my car? I mean, my car is state-of-the-art. Can you give me a ride in to the office? I have a big meeting at 10:00, and I really need to be there for it. It would really help me out, man.” Brian was carrying on the conversation with himself, because, well, in his mind, the world revolved around him and his needs. I looked at Russ, who was losing his fight with himself to not slam the door in Brian’s face, no explanation, just done. We had things we needed to be doing, and dealing with Brian was not on the list. Russ looked at me, gave me a slight nod, and turned back to Brian. The nod said, “I’m giving him the condensed version, then getting rid of him.” Yep, we were that close – I knew what he was thinking.

“Look Brian, I’m going to try to explain to you what I think is going on, so be quiet and listen. I believe we have been hit with an EMP, which—“ was as far as he got before Brian interrupted him.

“What the hell is an EMP?”

Russ bit his tongue, and started again. “As I said, I will try to explain, but you need to shut up and LISTEN.” He looked at Brian, waiting to see if he would comply; when he didn’t say anything, Russ continued. “An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse. It can be created by detonating a bomb in the atmosphere, or even by a sun spot exploding. When that happens, anything with a computer chip in it, or anything electronic plugged in to an electrical outlet, would probably be rendered unusable. Since most appliances and all devices like cell phones and laptops have computer chips in them, they are all toast now. New cars have tons of computer chips in them, so those are garbage now as well. The reason your car doesn’t run is it is full of chips. The reason my truck does run, is it was built before cars had computer chips in them. Life as you know it is pretty much over.” Russ stopped to see how Brian was dealing with all this information. Brian had the deer in the headlights look big time. He didn’t speak, so Russ continued.

“No, I can’t take you to your office. I guarantee you that meeting is cancelled. No one will be going to work again for a while, at least not a regular job in an office. You have a new job now, called surviving. It will take everything you have, everything you are, to live now. I can help you with that, just a little. I can give you some advice and hope you take heed to what I tell you.” Russ stopped again, making sure Brian was still listening. He shouldn’t have worried – he had the full attention of not just Brian, but all of us. This was the discussion we would have had with the kids had we not been interrupted by Brian. Not that they didn’t already know it, but it deserved a refresher course.

“The first thing you need to do is fill every sink and tub in your house with water, while it is still running. It won’t be for long – when the system is emptied, it will be gone. Anne? Speaking of water…” Russ looked at me, and I knew what he was talking about. “I’m on it. Janet, can you help me? I want the boys to hear what Russ is saying.” Janet and I went to work filling waterBOBs in the tubs.