The Preppers Lament (3 page)

Damn right those savage people need rounding up first and detained somewhere in a concentration camp like sized affairs. As far as David was concerned, hell they need to just be shot while crossing the border and he wasn’t adverse to summarily declared executions if found to be foreign agents in a round up. This was a touchy subject with him, As far as he was concerned as a former soldier, a soldier was a soldier and deserved the rights and privileges of the Geneva Convention. But he had no problem throwing out the rule book when dealing with the festering politically and religiously radically influenced insurgents that might come to our shores.

David thought that regular Mr. or Mrs. John Q citizen shouldn’t worry too much about some of the more oddball internet conspiracy theories on FEMA camp reserving a place for them should the whack jobs in Washington somehow feel threatened about preppers or patriots right now. The government was going to be entirely too busy and have their hands full dealing with real active threats and challenges to care if they been complaining on face book too much or about which citizens was ever on the DHS list for expressing patriotic sentiments that somehow the justice department found to be subversive .Hell us good old boys and Constitution wavers are now the first line of defense and they can worry about us taking our country back later.

David thought disgustedly that the terms the media bandied about causally labeling folks like him or those following a lifestyle of self reliance as being some kind of a nut job right or left wing prepper, homesteader or survivalist, you name it was treasonous to our history as a nation. Did they think our fore fathers never prepped or what? The label or name they wanted to put on you these days usually depended on what kind of firepower, guns and such you might have personally on hand and what they thought this subjective term might imply to their political aspirations or sensationalism. 

Well no one would probably label him or call him an excessive armament stocking doomsday prepper or some kind of bunker conspiracy fearing commando survivalist. He believed in the common core Minute Man theory our leaders should have learned in elementary school regarding his guns but he just had what he considered basics.

However, you could also easily say about him that he had more than a sufficient range of firearms and ammo to deter most folks from trying to take his stuff and encourage their thinking that he was far from an easy target or mark to be strong-armed or robbed should someone get such an ill advised strangely misbegotten notion... Couple shotguns, some pistols, a few rifles, more than some folks, less than others, nothing special.

Whatever the label
someone used to describe those survival oriented folks like him who were trying to become more self-reliant while becoming less reliant on big government was redundant. The common thread about it all concerning the survival movement and self reliance community was that things are going to hell, we see it for ourselves everyday in the news and feel that you should and can take measures and steps to defend and provide for yourself and your family.

It didn’t matter what you wanted to call David, to him it was enough to know he just tried to live a lifestyle that mattered. He was a survivor, someone who believed in the Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared.” and he dang sure planned on keeping it that way. He knew deep in his soul that the societal glue that held everything together was dissolving faster than he might be realizing and if he was taking unnecessary precautions to deter someone at this stage of the game, well then you could bet your sweet bippie he didn’t give a damn. It was open carry season in his neck of the woods now.

Practicing his battle drills in anticipation for what threats or risks he knew would come later in his direction as this apocalypse progressed didn’t seem to him to far fetched either..

Tactics or drills he envisioned and had rehearsed from his old Army days might just become necessary soon enough as cities burned and people migrated. There were oh so many half remembered or tried to be forgotten memories of mayhem and battles that needed to be practiced and planned for by him, He had an edge and some practical experience if such extraordinary measures were required to hang on to his homestead should it be challenged and he didn’t plan on making any forgetful or newbie mistakes.

A loaded semi auto black AR 15 rifle with an adjustable stock and his old green canvas H pattern harness military web gear sat next to his boogy bag in back of a black futon not far from him. The field gear was positioned somewhat out of sight should the need for him to decide to go full military battle rattle. He looked over at its familiar comfortable presence of the web gear to once again reassure himself that it was handy and that the straps and rigging remained untangled for quick donning should the need to put on his rig in a hurry occur.

“That is if, the big if”, David considered. This wildly obscure depending on his luck big “If”, was something that might be his opportunity to flee should he somehow be lucky enough to be forewarned, or “if” he possibly saw a large group of folks approaching his place, then he hoped he might, just might mind you, have enough time to get the hell out the backdoor of the house unnoticed and deal with the threat from his now hopeful unscathed and miraculous escape to the wood line.

David could
decide if he made it to a safe position with a survival pack and his battle rifle if it made more sense to take flight or fight from there. Running away from indefensible odds or escaping to fight another day was not cowardice but hard earned wisdom and survival. He could always bring the fight back under his own guerilla warfare rules another day if it made sense. Live to fight another day, haul ass, avoid confrontations when you can and let folks know the devil might follow them back home if they knocked at his door with hate or theft in their hearts.

“After all, the ants should be ready when the starving grasshoppers start running around in the woods or vice` versa.”
David mused grimly with a wicked smile. He knew you had to prepare for the fact that true aggressors are not going to use the normal way to your house, knock on your door or unlatch your gate hollering to come in etc. If they were intent on robbing you, you were going to get robbed, but folks just looking for a soft or unguarded target of opportunity were a different matter. So were folks with murder already in their hearts who were most likely on the prowl taking by force already. That’s why countries have different uniforms, so enemies recognize each other and shoot on sight remains an option. Thing is, whose uniform you going to shoot at and why now?

David wasn’t ignorant of the messy facts facing him or even considering deluding himself in anyway that he or his girlfriend could do anything much more than maybe performing a heroic vain attempt at temporarily holding off a determined enemy.  If people wanted something from you, eventually they can get that from you, your food, house, wife, it does not matter what. You are not omnipotent or ever awake and ready; it’s as simple as that.

Only chance for him and Julie in the unlikely, but still very possible event of being directly targeted was that the imagined adversaries did not notice his escape. He also considered Psychological warfare. If there was an opportunity that he could convince others that they might think he had enough men or firepower to protect his goods from loss they might decide whatever it is they wanted from the house was going to cost too dearly and avoid him and his house.

“Now then, back to this stupid stagnant reality
I am trying to sort out. At this very moment I am looking good.” David said to himself while admiring his gaunt but wicked looking form in the mirror.

“Yea, handsome indeed.” David kidded with himself comically posing with a shotgun and six shooter like some
Wild West photo shoot.

“If I spied someone coming in the gate and it was just a neighbor that was looking for another hand out coming to see me, this .357 mag hogleg style pistol on my belt and this 12 gauge pump shotgun I would be holding should more than suffice to get my point across that this” mothers “cupboard was bare and guarded by some redneck cowboy shooter in a unfriendly mood about the notion of giving up any of his vittles
.” David mused admiring himself in the mirror once more while making mock threating faces.

“Hopefully who ever it might come visiting unannounced desperations would not out shine their realization that it might be very unhealthy to hang around and not take his firm no way José for an answer.” David thought while considering where he was going to conceal his extra 9mm backup pistol on his body.

“Hey, extra knife too, he surmised checking that he could easily get to some kind of a weapon with his left or right hand in an instant.

“Humm, how about that brace of
OSS Phillips head looking knives he had  pit back from his crazier times thinking about this day? No that was frivolous and unnecessary. He had what he needed weapon wise and if it wasn’t sufficient he would be dead anyway.” David thought why was it that no one was considering that just plain dying of old age was no longer an option and that helping each other in mutual kindness to hopefully not meet too much of a untimely or very painful death was much more important than dreaming up things to die over?
Of course if a lot of people just remembered the fact that survival skills are not just for war, they’re needed in our daily lives as well, then we might all get through this.

.

That it was a well known fact by some that David had military grade weapons around and readily available to him was a pretty much known or a guessed fact by most folks in his small rural community.

The residents of this backwater were also precariously somewhat aware or had been forewarned about his alleged prowess and marksmanship in using said firearms tactically and effectively. For him to have pondered on his small arsenal of guns and having chosen as his daily carry for today an old western style six shooter and a 12 gauge pump shotgun also spoke volumes about his shoot them if I need to mindset.

Nothing like
having a shotgun in close quarters battle. David also stood a pretty good chance at shooting a deer at 50 yards or so with the flat trajectory of his potent .357 magnum pistol.  He could at one time back in the day, he thought whimsically also place an accurate lightening quick follow-up shot with the single action pistol if needed. He wasn’t really to sure how much of his previous prowess and accuracy he retained with it though, because he hadn’t fired that particular weapon in years. However he was comfortable with it and hoped his muscle memory and brain sighting of it remained.

David loved the old simple six shooter pistol and had learned and practiced several western trick marksman shots with it over time, but that had been with a younger mans eyes and a much longer time ago than he cared to think about. A lot of water had passed under his bridge and time and age had sneakily caught up with him as the years faded and he mellowed.

David had been prickly as hell though lately, hinting about or directly telling the few folks he had seen around that his “well was running dry” regarding any food supplies and that his “well bucket” had had itself a big hole in it for weeks in regards to leaking out any more morsels of food to the needy non preppers looking to him for a hand out.

Oh, give him a little credit now. He had given away some basic foodstuffs away like a few pounds of rice and beans to assuage his conscience and other folks hunger and he use some goods to try to gain some time and allegiance with one set of not so savory neighbors, but he had judged this little bit of foodstuff loss as a necessary evil and not a total loss entirely.

The old late seventies in age couple across from his property had taken in the grandkid and his girlfriend a year ago and the boy had walked over  about a week and half ago to ask David would he mind helping dig a grave for his grandmother that had just passed. She had been on a cord plug in oxygen generator and had bless her old heart, expired within a day of switching to bottled emergency oxygen. This tragic event had happened not to long after the grid was shut down and was a surprise to David just because he had not considered her fate or plight until then. Too many things affecting his own life and others made him remiss in his considerations of some neighbors he rarely saw.

David didn’t really have to ask the surviving relatives exactly why they wanted to bury her on their homestead, but like an old goombah he was he asked them anyway. Sometimes you just don’t think things out. The boy said him and his grandpa had decided it was neither fitting nor proper to bury the old woman in the city mass graves that were filling up if they had their own land to pick a peaceful plot on. Said the old women would be happier that way in only the way the living can relate to last wishes.

The radio had advised in no uncertain terms awhile back that the closest town’s community mortuaries were full up and that the morgues were way over capacity in the hospitals and with no fuel to run emergency generators for refrigeration that mass graves were a necessary sanitization issue and services were being held to bring out your dead for civil affairs disposal. The National Guard was setting up numerous grave registration rosters to try to keep up with the deceased so a record could be kept of those who had expired and gone to the great beyond, but the boy and his grandpa like many others of like minds or hearts chose not to waste the gas or energy notifying anyone of the women’s passing. They were just going to handle the laying of the woman to rest matter quietly themselves in a more meaningful manner.