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Post by willc453 on Apr 30, 2014 17:35:11 GMT -6
Last year, started reading several paw type stories at survialistboard.com. Some I enjoyed, some not so much. Many of the stories have people either totally prepared for end of the world type disasters or as they are scrambling to save a loved one, they find someone else's prep supplies and things go so much better for them. The 2nd scenario is what some of us D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) gamers call a monty haul dungeon: kill a giant rat, you've just earned 50,000 experience points and oh yeah, you now have 3 million gold pieces for your 1st level character to enjoy. So I commented on what I thought were unrealistic, monty haul type stories and was told the writers put a lot of hard work in writing them and I should enjoy it OR come out with a story of my own.
Many of us prep, some have been at it for decades, other a few years, others just starting and of course, each prepping for a disaster they think (but hope not) will happen. Sure that a lot of people here have read One Second After and it got me to thinking about terrorists. Just because a lot of them blow themselves up to kill others, doesn't mean they are all suicidal and will use their brain to think of some way to cause more deaths with the least amount of deaths by their followers. As Patton is suppose to have said: you don't win wars by dying for your country. You win wars by making the other poor son of a b*tch die for his. Look at Iran when it hacked into the programing of the U.S. drone last year and apparently, Russia did it to us this year over Ukraine. So Joe Terrorist thinks One Second After is pretty good, especially since most of the world is run by computer/computer chips. What else can we do to really a lot more deaths? And that got me to thinking of several twists for this story.
I am 60 years old, wear glasses and been driving trucks for 10 years. Before I got a full time line haul job with my company, I was a floater, meaning I filled in for who ever needed time off for what ever reason. Usually once a month, I'd get a run from Reno to Portland, something I always looked forward to. Part of it was the money of course, but also there's a great hobby shop in Beaverton and of course, Hooters. Wing are my favorite food as in eating them usually 7 days a week, some times twice a day. (3 or 4 wings per meal) Some may say I go there because of the "décor" (women) which is partially true, but if the food was cr*p, I wouldn't eat there. Which is why I've never gone back to the Ontario, Calif. Hooters along with the poor service I got in 2 visits. I am NOT some slim jim....try couch potato instead. In writing this story, I have tried doing some things that I had Andy doing and couldn't. So those entries/thoughts went out the door and tried something that I could do/did work. Layover is a drivers term. We can only work/drive so many hours per week. Once we reach that limit, we MUST stop, pull over and shut down (layover) for 34 hours.
With my physical abilities/limitations in mind, decided to write The Layover. The character does NOT leap over tall buildings in a single bound, being faster than a speeding locomotive, etc. The story is written as how I would react to situations. The equipment/ knowledge that the character Andy has/talks about is mine and I have used them. I have no idea how to write in a 3rd person kind of way, so the easiest way for me was to write it as a diary entry. So what you read is what Andy has seen/heard/said/done and written about in his diary. You may notice the way the entries are entered change as time passes. In this scenario, things happen almost every day, so time does not just fly by. Which is why you'll read what's happened either day by day or every couple of days. There are currently 59 chapters covering basically a 30 day period in Andys life and when I talk about entering 6 pages for a chapter, the front/back of the paper I consider to be 2 pages. I have also talked with people from the national guard about their equipment and asked questions of people at survialistboards so I knew what could/couldn't be done.
HERE YOUR WARNING: This story was deleted at survialistboards because of content, basically because of language and what one moderator said was soft porn. If you noticed, I use the * in place of a letter in a curse word in Andys diary. If you don't like curse words: DON'T READ THIS STORY. I have tried to make this story as realistic as possible and includes bad words used to describe women/parts of their anatomy, rape, murder, torture, death....it all goes down in Andys diary. If you don't like reading about the things I just said: DON'T READ THIS STORY. One of the rules here about any story is: would you want your mother to read this? I say yes. She might not like it/part of it, but she would know/understand that I think realism takes precedence over being pc.
Questions for lady readers: I'm always looking for feedback from you. Got a couple of the ladies at survialistboards that have been giving me feedback on how women think, though they are at a different mind set because they are preppers. I've explained my reasoning on why some of the women Andy has met has acted like they do/did and they understood where/why I was coming from. And I'm always looking for comments/suggestions from readers and yes, I'm willing to use them if/when/ where possible. Chris
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 3rd originally chapters 1 thru 16 was all ONE long chapter. It's then I realized I needed to break the story up into smaller chapters to make it easier for me to enter online. Somewhere along the line, I forgot to count and forgot the number 3. By the time I did, I had already entered something like 10 chapters. Oops.
Andy's writing about his family & people at work, so here's a list of who is who:
Andrew Thaddeus Thomas: main character, driver from Reno, NV. Dwayne: Andys younger brother Karen: Andys younger sister Aunt Veronica: Andys aunt Beverly/Bev: Veronicas daughter, Andys cousin Sheila: Veronicas other daughter, Andys cousin Victor: Andys friend who is more like a nephew to him and calls him Uncle Andy Salina: Victors wife Johnathon: Salinas son by former marriage Jim: Andys regional manager in Beaverton, Oregon Dildo: Andys nick name for his boss in Reno -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 12th Sorry for not putting in more chapters over the weekend. When I first posted the story at survialistboards, found mistakes (spelling, punctuation, etc.) in my print out, so just highlighted/scribbled notes on the print out. So part of the weekend was spent updating these chapters and making some of the chapters separate. For example, I'd get to writing the story and before I knew it, I'd have 12-18 pages....that's a lot of typing to do online at one time. Got it fixed so the chapters are separate/easier to put in at one time. But the chapters are getting longer like chapter 16 is 5 1/2 pages long.
To those who have read these earlier chapters before, I'm sure you're smiling when reading about Andy & Blevins "proposition". I know I was. Which also reminded me of a lot of lost threads I'll be putting in chapter 60 and others. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 21st Sorry not posting any chapters this past week, but lost my internet for a week. Right now, been working on chapter 60 off and on and hopefully will post a lot more chapters with in the next few days/this weekend. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 26th Just finished entering chapter 22 and it's just after midnight. This chapter was almost 7 pages long to enter. Before I forget: the cities & guard units I write about in Oregon are real and are where I write about them. Called a couple of Oregon guard units for info along with the NV. army guard too. The Winco distribution centers Andy writes about are there too, along with a golf course not far from the Woodburn guard base and a large field across from the base. The one thing I can't do is make balloon animals....d*amn balloons I bought had to be defective because when I used to try and make them (it LOOKS easy, but aint), they'd pop. Some may be shocked at what Andy's been putting in his diary....remember, he's a reflection of me and this is what I do with mine. Tired, and there was something else I wanted to say, but can't think of it right now. Later. One of the things I don't remember ever reading in any shtf type story is something being funny. It always seems to be so grim...like death is here, death is over there, death is everywhere. Which got me to thinking why? Went to Lackland AFB, TX for basic training (Sept.) and wasn't used to the humidity. The last few years in high school was spent in the desert with its DRY heat and before too long, my thighs were sore enough that I looked like I was trying to march with a watermelon between my thighs so they wouldn't touch. D.I.'s tend to notice things like that and things didn't go to well for me when he noticed it. Thought I was just a sloppy, candy a$$ civilian. So the thighs got back together and it got worse. My "friend" in basic suggested I use after shave on my thighs to help clear it up since I couldn't get my hands on any baby powder. Dad always uses Old Spice (90% alcohol?), so that's what I use to this day. Had both hands with lots of after shave in them and patted them on my thighs. I will tell you this: the pain I had from the thighs rubbing was IMMEDIATELY forgotten from the pain of that alcohol on them! And I would of screamed like a girl, but was in too much pain. Got busy using a wet towel on my thighs while my "friend" and others were laughing their a$$es off. But it cured the rash.
Another thing is sometimes a person will say one thing, but the person hearing it, hears it as something entirely different. Andy's a loner...it's safer that way as he has found out going thru life when dealing with women. As to my own diary entries, yeah, I've done a lot of ranting/raving in them when I start, but writing it down gets rid of the anger/frustration I feel at times. And yes, that includes a lot of cursing, without using the *. Beats keeping it bottled up all the time. The diary is Andys emotional release valve. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 7th Sorry to have taken so long in getting chapter 30 entered. Hopefully I'll get another 3 entered by Monday night. Like to think I'm pretty good at spelling, but some times I just get them wrong as I'm writing this story up. Since this story is a hand written diary entry and there for, no spell check, these words remain as is. Also, some times what's written isn't easily understood. When I wrote about the women in a coma/trance/state of shock state where they would pull up into a fetus position, should of read/been written that they curled up into a fetal position. Caught this mistake when I entered it at SB, but like there, decided to keep it as is. Remember, Andy's trying to write EVERYTHING/much as possible of what he saw/heard/was told.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ June 9th Sorry I only got 1 chapter between the 7th and now. Been doing a lot of cleaning. And then there's the time involved putting a chapter in. Chapter 31 is 6 1/2 pages long, took 2 hours to enter/proof read it with NO break except for bathroom and coffee. Chapters 32 & 33 for example, are also 6 1/2 pages long each. For those who have read these and other chapters on SB, now on chapter 62 and soon it will turn to 63. Finally learned last week I could cut from one chapter and add it to another. Makes it a lot easier for me to continue writing a chapter with out having to start another and maybe lose my train of thought. And yes, there are some misspelled words in this chapter....no word check in a hand written diary, remember.
---------------------------------------------------------------- June 15th Chapter 33 notes A few of the ladies at SB took me to task in the way I was having Helen react/offer herself to Andy, saying there was NO WAY they'd EVER do anything like she was doing. I was thinking of the lady in One Second After and the part where the townies had closed the town off to people passing thru, making the refugees (for lack of a better word) who were fleeing the larger nearby towns to just keep going elsewhere. The lady who offered herself to the main character in return for food/protection. In that story, she had been raped by 3 guys the previous night and when they left her behind in some shed, they gave her a sandwich and she was thinking/wondering if maybe that wasn't a good trade. So now you have Helen who's life is based on technology and now it's gone, perhaps forever. Then here comes Andy not only with what she figures is a lot of food, 2 attractive women, a little boy, but doing things in town right off the bat.
Then you have doubts being planted in Andys mind by Helen. Holding a girls hand is rare for Andy and basically just not done. Better not to tell someone how you feel about them, so you don't get hurt down the road. Thing is, Andy's told the girls how he feels about them. As for kissing, that's d*mn serious in Andys eyes and as far as he knows, he has an agreement with the 2 girls, though nothing has been spoken out loud what the agreement is. But because of other attempts in meeting women, Andys thinking that maybe the girls are just better at using him till they're safe and then it's thanks, but no thanks because we don't like you in that way. A man (or woman) can always fool themselves into thinking of something that just isn't there. Then Helen offers herself to him, including being undressed? Yes/no, yes/no, yes/no....you can see (I hope) the demons that Andy fought in regards to Helens offer. Then the girls are ragging on him about feeding Helen and he kind of snaps. What happens next is in the next chapter.
And yes, I do have a lot of food in my cupboards and that was before I started prepping. I grew up listening to Dad/Mom/Uncle Walt what it was like growing up during The Depression. Like Uncle Walt and his 3 brothers looking in bird nests for eggs so they'd have something to eat. Grandma (Moms mom) crying while to make biscuits with nothing but lard and flour to feed the kids. Grandma had 12 kids, 3 died before they were 6. And Mom ALWAYS had extra food in her cupboards in part because of what she went thru and then of course, all of us would stop by to visit her on a regular basis when Dad/Mom got divorced. Dad has extra in his cabinets, though not like Mom.
Almost forgot....in SB, told everyone what Helen looked like. Remember the Oriental woman with "jade eyes" in Big Trouble In Little China? That's who I was thinking of when writing about her. Thing is, curiosity got ahold of me....what happens to people after a movie is released? Yeah, the big names are always in the paper/net/etc., but what about those 2, 3, 4 times down the list of characters in the movie credits? For example, the little red headed girl in Witches Brew? YEOW! She aint little no more, nor is the girl who played Penny in the Lost in Space movie. As to the "jade eyed" lady, she basically has disappeared, though she was in 2 Penthouse magazines.....and yeah, I bought both issues. I always figured some gazillionaire has her as his mistress which is something that's on my bucket list when I hit the Power Ball, Mega Millions, etc. ------------------------------------------------ June 19th Chapter 35: that bit with Herbert choking on the fish actually happened to "Choo Choo" Charley, a friend of the family and next door neighbor. Charley used to take us 5 kids with him to go water skiing with his wife and our family was always going fishing when possible, so he got invited to go with us. Mom fried up the fish and yeah, he started choking on some fish bones. First time he'd ever eaten fish....everything before was fishsticks?! And thing is, Charley was in his 20's! Charley got his nick name when he ran into a train one night after coming home from work. The RR crossing wasn't lit, no cross arm, etc. and because it was quite dark.... He was driving a Dodge Dart he had souped up and remember him telling us how he had to crawl/scramble to the back seat area to smash out the rear window to get out of the car before the train really did a job on his Dart. Said afterwards, the engine looked like a "U". He didn't like tailgaters, so he rigged a switch which would turn the brake lights on without hitting the brakes. -------------------------------------------------- June 27th Chapter 38: sorry for not putting this one in last weekend/Monday...thought I had. The helicopter repair people are real. Met the husband in Sacramento last year when the lift gate on the trailer went out. Stuck in a GM dealership for 2 hours or so before he arrived. He saw my hat and of course, we got to bs'ing about each others time in the service. His wife is also a helicopter mech and met when they stationed at the same squadron. They also have a 9 year old daughter. You'll learn more about them in future chapters.
Haven't touched/added to the story in past 2 weeks because of Simon, my dog. Let me be blunt: according to the vet, he's got cancer. We've been together for 10+ years and next week going to see what surgery options I have. Only thing I DON'T want happening is having it removed, and a few years down the road, he gets it again and from what I understand, surgery can actually aggravate it to spreading even further/faster. $hit happens, suck it up. --------------------------------------- July 7th Chapter 41 Under the story The Affected, wrote about why I haven't been entering the chapters like I had been. Planned on entering a chapter yesterday, but been dealing with yard/house work, then my swamp cooler motor went out....and it's been hitting 100 and too d*mn hot to get on the roof to replace it during the day. By time the evening came around, I was beat.
Some may ask where/how do I come up with my story line/ideas. When headed to Hayward, I'm mainly concentrating on getting there because I've got over a dozen people waiting to unload the trailer and get the auto parts ready for shipping to Alaska/Hawaii via the airlines. Found out that each flight costs the company $20,000 and if they miss the flight, the airline could make them pay that bill, period. But the airlines understand acts of God, like me being delayed because Donner is closed, having to chain up, break downs, etc. But on the way back, there's no rush. I had been writing this chapter and sitting there, wondering was there anything else I could add? Then came up with the whorehouse idea. The "fun" part was now that I got it down on paper, how the heck did Sampson/Andy have this happen to them? And how to explain it to their girls? After all, how would you ladies feel finding out that someone who's interested in you (Sampson) or courting you (Andy) are partners in such a thing? Can we say awkward moment?
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Post by cthorner on Apr 30, 2014 17:45:36 GMT -6
I for one applaud your upfront honesty. I say post what you want as long as it’s in line with the terms of use. And I’m sure the moderators here will help with any unintentional mistakes because you have posted this heads up.
If the Mods take it down you have already explained why your ok with that.
Looks like a win, win can’t wait to read what you got. Or not. LOL.
CT.
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Post by willc453 on Apr 30, 2014 18:22:20 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 1 July 3rd Wednesday
One more run to Turlock, then off to Portland. Not sleeping too well....bad/confusing dreams/nightmares involving Dragon Age 2 and survival/prepper themes from watching those tv shows from time to time. Been taking the dogs out every day since I'll be gone a couple of days. The 3 man tent came in from Ebay on Monday. Haven't had time to set it up/test it yet. Not taking it with me. Just not worth the hassle. And 2 more magazines for the Ruger. Forty dollars each, plus shipping for pistol magazines? But gives me a total of 5 which is more than enough. Don't figure there's going to be hoards of moaning/shambling zombies running around. Decided to take the big Alice backpack (with frame) with me on this trip instead of the medium one I keep in the day cab. And Bev dropped off a bunch of the nylon straps with the plastic locking clip things on Monday. Used two of them to hold 1 of the sleeping bags to the backpack. Even tried putting the 2nd bag to the base of the backpack. A bit heavy/awkward, but can be done. Great job on double stitching the straps like I asked. Works pretty good, so tossed a couple of each size in the backpack. Got the Ruger 9mm in the backpack with all the magazines for it and taking 150 rounds. That's a lot of ammo. All that stuff is in the bottom of the main bag. Haven't decided to take the AR or not. Kind of leery about it. California seems to be going anti-gun crazy even more than usual and Oregon seems to be a clone of California with its anti-gun attitude.
July 4th Thursday Got back from Turlock around 07:00, but didn't get out of the yard until almost 07:45 because I had to break the set up and then load my gear into 18315. Decided to take the AR with me which kind of scares me to tell the truth. I've never had my truck searched and have no idea what kind of sh*t a cop could give me not only for having it, but 10, 30 round magazines that are loaded AND 300 rounds of ammo on top of that. People net shows I got off work at 07:15, so can take off no earlier than 15:15 which is kind of a pi$$er because I won't hit Portland at least till 03:15 which is good news too because it'll give me some time for some sleep, then hit the hobby shop, book store and maybe a couple of Walmarts. Jennifer works swings, so once I'm done running around, get some more sleep and get something to eat. Yeah, got a bad crush on that girl.
I don't know....it's this prepper thing. I can understand if I lived some place like Florida with its hurricanes or Kansas with it's tornados, but Nevada? There ain't sh*t here except Area 51 and of course, that place doesn't exist. But I have met some good people in the local prepper group and the garden is doing a whole lot better with Karen's advice. Kind of strange to see food growing in the backyard instead of just buying it from the store. Dwayne's got no interest in the garden, but noticed he still hasn't said sh*t when I planted the 2 dozen (each) blue & raspberry bushes in the back yard. It's also a bit more work intensive than I thought, but getting some satisfaction in working the garden much like building a model. Eventually the model gets done and in this case, the food will be ready to eat.
July 5th Friday Portland, Oregon Left the yard at 18:00 on Thursday and decided to take the AR in its guitar case. Took 10 of the loaded 30 round Pmags & 300 rounds of .223 and 150 rounds of 9mm. Pistol/magazine are in the bottom of the backpack. Refueled in Weed but told Pilot's not carrying the south western scrambled eggs thing any more and instead, going with chili which is okay, but man, those eggs were good with a little melted cheese mixed in with it. Got to the Ford yard just after 04:30 with no problems. Traffic really light, but then it's because of the holiday and driving late at night.
Took a 6 hour nap after dropping the trailer in the yard and then started bobtailing around. By this time, everything was open. After some searching, found that used huge book store I went to last year. Books cost me $45 and hobby shop only nicked me for $75. Got several of the new Airfix 1/72nd ME-262 kits along with some plastistruct & glue. Keep looking at their military reference books and they are outstanding in the amount of photo detail shots they give----but $50 each? Thing is there's 3 I'd like to buy. Maybe next time?
Walmart in The Dulles area had 9mm ammo by some company Tulammo which is made in Russia with a STEEL casing? Which means they can't be reloaded. But figured what the heck, gives me something to target shoot with so I don't use up my brass ammo. Bought the last 3 boxes they had. Other stores, nothing.
Refueled at Flying J out there so I could get a free shower and also did 1 load of laundry which killed an hour. Headed back to Hooters parking lot and then got a bunch of photos of the various docks & boats in the area along with me in some of them using my tripod. More future driving memories. Cr*pping out for a couple of hours till swing shit starts at Hooters.
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Post by willc453 on May 1, 2014 19:58:07 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 2 July 7th Sunday
Still hard to believe what's happened here & to me. Like watching some horror/disaster movie. Always wondered how I'd react in a disaster and now I know....I just reacted to the things happening around me and with a certain amount of doodah luck, you survive.
Saturday, didn't wake up till 20:30, much later than I wanted to. Should of set the alarm, not thinking I was that tired. Jennifer wasn't there as she was taking a couple of days off. Left the books for her with one of the girls working there along with my phone number, thinking maybe she'll call.
At 21:30, ALL the sports shows went off the air with the emergency broadcast system coming on stating that the L.A. area has been hit by a 11+ Richter scale earthquake. That due to the severity of the earthquake, the San Andreas fault line had greatly shifted which was causing other earthquakes to be set off along the west coast. I'm thinking we're okay because I never heard of earthquakes happening in Oregon. I was just kicking back as I had finished supper about 10 minutes earlier, but about 10 minutes after the broadcast was made, the ground started to shake a little bit, then a whole lot more. I'll admit it....I screamed like a little girl: EARTHQUAKE---EVERYONE OUTSIDE NOW! Well, everyone started moving, but then everything started falling apart. Lighting, roof beams, etc. falling from the ceiling. I'm at one of the window booths and hauling a$$ for the door I came in from out of habit. Two of the Hooter girls had fallen to the floor, stunned by falling debris with a couple of guys just jumping over them to get out the door. Reached down and grabbed each of them by one of their arms and just kept hauling a$$ for the door. Fortunately both doors were jammed open and I kept going till I got near my truck. Ground kept shaking for a couple more minutes after we got out and then there was a fireball of flames followed by falling debris from the restaurant. Figure something set the grease in the fryers on fire and with broken gas lines....if anyone was inside, they're dead. Got lucky....part of the Safeway store wall had collapsed inwards, other wise it would of fallen onto the truck. The 2 girls (Patricia & Evelyn) were a bit scrapped, but okay other wise. Looked around and saw the parking lot was buckled in some places and the street was buckled in even a few more places. Decided to check on the people in Safeway....broken glass everywhere and of course, everything on the street/inside store was pitch black. Got the 3 small cell flashlights I always have out of the truck and while at it, got the hand cranked flashlight & hand cranked emergency radio out of the backpack. The extra cell flashlights I passed to a guy who said he'd help me and the 2 Hooter girls took the other two while I used my led headlamp. It was a mess inside with cr*p covering the floor. Told the girls to each take a shopping basket, find the medical isle and load up on bandages, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, tape and anything else they think we might be using. Others came to help us get the injured out of the store and to the parking lot across the street. Two people were killed by falling debris and some guy had 2 broken legs plus a severe head wound. Used a couple of broom handles on each side of his legs, held in place with those bandages that stretch like when you pull a leg muscle. Best I cold do was wrap his head with gauze. Some of the people in the area were trying to leave, but some of their vehicles had been bounced against each other and wouldn't start. At least they were offering rides to each other. It was then I had an ugly thought: tsunami.
That's when I started shouting that a tsunami may be on its way here and to head for higher ground. That's when people started panicking. The 2 girls & I had made a stretcher out of some really long push brooms and used a couple of t-shirts from the clothing section of Safeway as the stretcher part earlier. The girls were going to run off in their cars till they realized their cars were busted up from the exploding restaurant. Told them to help me get this guy on the catwalk and I'd get us out of here. They grabbed the broom handles at one end while I took the other. Got him on the catwalk and all I could do was bungee cord him into place. No way I could get him into the cab as he was. That's when I felt another rumble and after a minute or so, the earth quit shaking. Then 2 more girls come running up asking for a ride out of here and I said okay. The Hooter girls are in the truck, telling me to hurry and I finally got the guy strapped in place.
Waiting for that 15 seconds for the truck to do its self diagnostic test seemed to last forever. Head towards I-5 and can see the overpass is damaged and there are several cars/trucks that have broken thru the concrete barriers and onto the ground....no time to stop to check for survivors. Overpass has actually partially collapsed like a "V" and not sure if I'm going to make it thru or not and really hit the gas because I don't want to get stuck while trying to get under it. As I get pass the onramp for I-5 south, for a brief second or two I can see the water actually rising because the boats & docks are rising up and I know the tsunami isn't far behind. Head south, but know I gotta go east for higher ground and only way I can do that is take the MLK exit which for a mile or so, actually puts us at even lower ground elevation before going to higher ground. Road is cracked & buckled in places, but no slowing down. That's when one of the girls screamed IT'S COMING and scared the sh*t out of me. Looking in my mirror thought it was some clouds on the horizon....instead it was a wall of water I don't know how many feet high it was. Hit MLK exit curve at 45mph though it was suppose to be 30 and I could feel the truck sliding, but kept the truck under control. Hit the straight away and had it at 70mph, hitting the air horn when ever I could. Blew thru what traffic that was trying to get thru, but they stopped/got out of the way when they saw/heard me coming. I saw the wave hit the overpass and that's at least 30(?) feet high and the wave was at least 2, maybe 3 times higher. Took what ever road I figured was higher and finally hit a crest (plateau?) that looked it was high enough all around me.
Stopped the truck, set the brakes and got out as I wanted to see what was happening. No moon that night....but knew when the water hit land as I could hear faint noises and the lights going off as the water washed over the land. After a few minutes, I could make out it was coming my way and knew I was done running. No idea where to go next and if this was the best I could do, so be it. The wave got with in a hundred feet or so before finally stopping maybe 3-4 miles inland. Stood there for a couple of minutes before remembering the guy strapped on the catwalk. He was dead. I had bandaged his head wound, but never thought of immobilizing his head. There was fresh blood on the bandages and who knows what killed him? The violent turns, the bumps....tried to save someones life and failed. The girls got out and told them that the man had died. That I'd take his body off the truck myself and put him some distance from here. They wanted to head to their homes and told them to forget it. There's no lights on anywhere and there's no moon to see by either. I wasn't moving till daylight and figure out what was going on, but if they wanted to, they could leave. They didn't. They tried their cell phones which didn't work---how many towers went down that night? Took the body a couple of hundred feet away from the truck and then went to sleep in the drivers seat...just exhausted. Told the girls they could have the bunks, along with the 2 sleeping bags & 1 pillow. Took the guitar case and backpack from the top bunk and put then in the closet space. Turned on the truck and hand crank radios and got nothing but static. Not good.
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Post by hamrad on May 2, 2014 13:36:23 GMT -6
Hi Chris Nice to see you putting your story up here. Looking Forward to the finish
regards
Kev
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Post by admin on May 2, 2014 18:10:23 GMT -6
Enjoying it so far, don't worry too much about the swearing, there's very few words I have blocked and so far you have not hit any of them. You've given the warning that there is swearing, so its all good as far as I am concerned. If you are going to have an explicit sex scene then perhaps another warning on the chapter header would be in order. We're pretty easy going here and you'll find that we're not too strict on writing. Heck we've even had people post poetry here.
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Post by 223shootersc on May 3, 2014 7:25:06 GMT -6
Glad you came over here Willc453, look forward to the rest of the story, keep up the good work
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Post by willc453 on May 3, 2014 18:40:41 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 4 (please note there is NO chapter 3...see my notes above about this) July 7th Sunday (contd)
Think I had about 4 hours of sleep when I was woke up by some dogs barking and out of habit, said shut up Grizzly. For a few seconds thought I had one of those realistic dreams. You know, the kind where you think you're awake, but you're still actually dreaming. The really bad ones have you thinking you've woken up, but you're still dreaming....and when you do actually wake up, you're wondering if you are awake or is this another dream? One of the girls in in the top bunk, while 2 are sleeping in the bottom bunk, 4th was dozing in the passengers seat. Don't know what's going on, so dug out the 9mm and a loaded magazine along with my led headlamp. Girls left my flashlights behind at Safeway. Make sure the door is locked when I leave and head out to check on those barking dogs. Figure someone's hurt and that's why they're barking.
Get a couple of hundred feet from the truck, following the noise of the dogs. Water has receded a bit, but things are wrong. I remember passing a bunch of houses, small shopping centers & hotels on the way up here ---where were they? The water from the tsunami should of receded by now....unless the earth actually dropped by how many feet? With the flashlight, I could see a roof of a house and on it, were 2 dogs and a couple of smaller things. Took me a few seconds to realize the roof was actually floating and slowly heading west towards where the ocean was. The smaller things were pups and making pitiful cries. Thought the roof would hit something and the dogs/pups would be okay, but then realized the water here was deep and who knew how far the roof would float....or how long? The dogs & pups were barely moving and I could see the roof wasn't that stable and could over turn maybe at any time. F*ck me running as Victor would say because I knew what I had to do or some/all of the pups would drown. Stripped to my undies and then saw a plastic tub floating by. Grabbed it and with the aid of the headlamp, started swimming to the dogs. Water was f*cking cold and it took me 2-3 minutes of swimming to reach the roof.
The 2 dogs are barking till I told them to be quiet, which they did. Slid on my belly to get on the roof and even then, it was a shaky thing. Four pups AND 2 cats were there. Started grabbing pups and put them into the tub. Cats didn't want anything to do with me at first, but offered no resistance when I got them by the scruff of their necks and dumped them on the pups. Of course, the pups and cats weren't happy with this but at least none of them tried jumping out of the tub or fighting each other. Slide me & the tub off the roof and then started swimming back to shore with the 2 dogs following me. Problem was, we were now further away from shore and thought I was swimming 10-15(?) minutes before I touched ground. Only thing that helped me know where the truck was due to leaving the running lights turned on. Chest was hurting and as soon as I got the tub on firm earth, the cats jumped out and hauled a$$ for some place. Turned the tub to one side & pups came tumbling out. Mama dog started cleaning them and all I could do was just lay there, with a layer of dirt, mud & grass. After 5 minutes or so, felt like moving and headed back to where my clothes were....and find the dogs/pups following me. After getting my clothes, banged on the side of the truck and the girls asked who was it. Almost thought of telling them it was Freddy Kruger or Pin Head, but didn't. Told them I need a towel and where to get it from my overnight bag....the regular one I always carry on trips like this and not the backpack. Got back into the water to clean myself, then dried myself using the tub to clean my feet. Dogs & pups still following me.
When I opened the truck door, mama dog didn't hesitate jumping in with a pup in her mouth. Papa dog followed with one in his, so grabbed the other 2 and put them in. The girls get to screaming/screeching about wet dogs and then see the pups and start cooing....till mama dog growled at 'em. Truck can be small enough with just me in at times....now there's 4 women, 2 full size dogs, 4 pups and me in it. Mama dog is on the floor cleaning the pups, papa dog is sitting on the passenger seat and the women....they hauled a$$ for the upper bunk when mama dog growled at them. Told the women that at least 2 of them had to get off the upper bunk as it may collapse on them and if that happened, they jut might fall on/near the pups and mama dog wouldn't like that at all. So all 4 got down to the lower bunk. Mama dog kind of growled till I told her to hush. Took the towel and started wiping the other pups down and then passed them to the women who really started ooing, cooing, aawing over them. They asked me how did the dogs get here, so told them. Pups were 6 weeks old(?) and maybe they had started eating solid food. Mama dog sort of growled at them a bit when they went for her teats, but let them have at 'em. Saw both dogs had collars and tags. Mama dog was Queenie while the male was Prince. Both had phone number on the tags, so thought I'd try calling the number and the cell phone worked?! No answer though. Dogs look like pure breed Rottweilers.
Called Dwayne and left a message on his answering machine. Called Aunt Veronica and was surprised to actually get her, being early as it was. Seems the L.A. earthquake also set off some earthquakes in Verdi/ Reno area. She's without power and no idea if she has running water or not. She had no idea what I had gone thru and just gave her the highlights. Her back had been killing her, so she took a pain pill for it and went to bed around 20:00. Did reach Victor, told him what happened. Told him to get to our place, wake Dwayne up and both of them read the SHTF letter left for Dwayne on my computer desk before leaving for here. They don't have power and he checked....no running water. All 3 (Salina, Johnathon) were woken up by their double wide being shook, but fortunately it was still level. Told Victor that I was prepping a couple of months ago because Dwayne would give me $hit about it being stupid/waste of time/money. Victor knows about the food/supplies in the second bedroom, but nothing about what's in the large wood shed in the back yard....the extra guns/ammo stashed there besides what's in the second bedroom AND my bedroom. Like having THREE AR type rifles instead of just the one I told them about buying last year. Or the two short barrel, pistol grip kind of 12 gauges. The stuff in the second bedroom was nothing but window dressing with a single shot, bolt action, 22LR, bolt action 3 round .410 and a single shot 12 gauge with 4 boxes of shotgun ammo for each of them and 500 rounds of 22LR. Told him I'd call Dwayne back when I could and he would go over to our place asap. His parents place didn't do too well....it shifted and the patio they added on completely collapsed, damaging their trailer. Reminded him to check both places for possible broken gas lines.
when I got back inside the truck, the women were yammering about different names for the pups....and coming off with really crappy ones like Perciful, Serenity, etc....till I said BULL$HIT! That quieted them down and told them the pups names were Hope, Faith, Lucky & Karma. What really surprised me was the women said okay.
It was getting light outside and decided to see what was around us. The women tried using their cell phones, but only 1 got an answer. From what I could see, it was ugly. Bodies of people & animals floating by. Debris of all kinds. Decided I had better get some dog food and who knows what else I might need before things returned to "normal"? Called to Prince and he came out of the truck and down the road we went.
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Post by willc453 on May 3, 2014 20:05:13 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 5 July 7th Sunday (contd)
The first 15-20 minutes didn't see any place I wanted to stop at....mainly auto repair places, money lenders, etc. Then came to a small mall where there were different stores, including a Petco and mom/pop kind of grocery store. Took a shopping cart and loaded a large bag of regular dog food and 4 small bags of puppy food into it along with 6 bowls that could be used for water/food for the dogs and of course, "cookies" (dog biscuits). Oh yeah, and 2 leashes just in case. Place was a mess with aquariums busted everywhere. Only good thing was I didn't see any puppies/dogs/cats inside. I could see where they had some cages for ferrets & rabbits, but they were empty. And of course, all the birds flew the coop. Wrote on a piece of paper of what I took, the total price of everything and added 10% to the bill just to make sure I wasn't cheating them and left the money on the cashiers counter weighted by a couple of dog biscuits.
At the Mom/Pop store, it was bread, eggs, margarine, peanut butter & jelly, cooking oil, ham/bologna/ cheese, cans of tuna fish, a bunch of candy bars, cans of stew and 5 gallons of water in 1 gallon bottles. Also took 3 cartons of non filter cigarettes, all the pumpkin seeds they had and 3 bags of ice. Wrote down what I took, but this time left my name & phone number so if it wasn't enough, they could call me and we'd square things up later. Left $250 on the counter weighed down by some candy bars. As I was leaving, see there's some Oregon bank branch and figure maybe the ATM is working and I can get some cash as I was down to about $200.
Once I got close to the building, remembered power's out. The drive thru roof over the ATM has collapsed and getting ready to head back when I see part of the bank is split open....and curiosity got me. Shine the headlight lamp into the open part of the bank and it's the vault?! I can squeeze thru the split with no problem and all over the floor is money....lots and lots of money. Part of me wants to haul a$$ out of there before a cop drives by, the other is telling me they won't be here for awhile as they're probably busy enough as is. And there's no alarm going off either. Grabbed an empty money bag and started stuffing it with every bill I could get my hands on. Once it was filled, grabbed another to fill. With the third bag, realized not all the shelving had fallen over and could see stacks of hundreds which I took all of them and stack of 20's. Now to really haul a$$ out of here. Pushing the cart as fast as I could walk within 5 minutes, I was past this little shopping center. Turned around and saw shadows heading for the bank....seems I wasn't the only one to take advantage of an opportunity. Did I feel bad about stealing from the bank? Yes & no. Stealing is wrong, but the government's been stealing from the people with its over spending and give aways to foreign countries with out taking care of its citizens,finally getting some of mine back. All I have to do is get back home with it. No stupid spending like buying a new car and paying in cash. Don't know how much I've got, but with that last bag, must have at least $25,000.
Back at the truck, put the money in the drivers side box. Rapped on the trucks side to let the girls know I was back and everything was okay. First thing I did was get Queenie and the pups out of the truck and started feeding them. Two of the girls had finally reached family and they all wanted to go home. Said they'd have to wait until it got daylight enough for me to drive without headlights and were they hungry? All of a sudden they were and I had them gather wood for a fire. Took my Coleman set of cooking gear and started scrambling eggs. One girl said she was a vegetarian and wouldn't eat meat or diary products and did I have any veggies? I said no and you can either eat what I'm cooking or go hungry. Said she'd go hungry, but didn't mind taking a couple of the candy bars from me. A carton of eggs and half a cheese package I had bought were gone very quickly. Afterwards, washed & put away the gear using the tub as a sink.
When it finally got light enough to see, took the digital camera out to take a bunch of photos. Even got some of me and the dogs/pups together. The women were a bit pi$$ed about this delay, but tough $hit. Only 1 didn't go ape $hit when I pulled the 9mm out from my backpack. Who knows what they were thinking? Maybe I was going to rape them or something? Not my thing and besides when I do get horny and get to the Mustang Ranch, 5 finger Mary is always there for me.
Took 6 hours to finally get the women to their homes/apartments as they all lived within 20+ miles south from where we were at. Lots of damaged/debris blocked streets and collapsed bridges/overpasses. My biggest worry was blowing a steer tire. If that happened, we'd be really f*cked. As it was, did hear some gun shots which scared all of us. The last Hooters girl (Patricia, who was not afraid upon seeing my pistol) lived in the Beaverton area and asked if I was a prepper. Told her kind of/sort of. Not that I prepped like those on tv were doing. She said any prepping is better than none. What really surprised me is when she gave me her cell phone number and said you know where I live....I ain't the brightest bulb in a pack of light bulbs, but that sure sounded like a come on to me. Thing is, do I have the balls to call her after everything settles down? Truthfully, she's glad she's alive and maybe not thinking clearly right now. She's gotta be in her 20's and me being 60. Her Mom & Dad coming out to greet her once they recognized her. We talked a bit, but told them I had to get to my yard to find out how things were there. But at least they had power & water. Both were eyeing my pistol till Patricia said it was okay. Told Patricia that she & her folks should stock up on supplies just in case. Her parents had no idea what I was talking about, but saw she understood and agreed. And the pups got good homes.
Then remembered Oscar/Cindy and their prepper group here that was camping for this 4 day weekend. No answer when I called. Took me another 45 minutes to get to the yard and it was f*cked. Building walls had collapsed on each other. Tried reaching Jim, no answer. Other warehouses in the area also damaged/ destroyed. Decided I needed more supplies just in case. Who know how long I'll be here.
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Post by willc453 on May 4, 2014 10:15:30 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 6 July 7th Sunday (contd)
Walmart's maybe a mile or so down from the yard, so headed there. Man, the lot was packed, but at least no one was going ape $hit looting, etc. Store would only allow 200 (total) people in the store and when 25 left, let 25 others in. Thirty minutes of waiting before I got in. Took $2,000 with me from one of the banks money bags. Two 12 packs of toilet paper, six of the 2 pack Coleman propane bottles, 4 big packages of generic beef jerky, 1 box of 36 gallon plastic garbage bags, some Ziploc bags, a pack of 300 paper plates, 2 boxes of paper matches, two 20 pound bags of rice, 20 packages of instant gravy, 5 bottles each of chicken & beef bullion cubes, 5 pounds of sugar, 3 bottles of ground cinnamon, 1 bottle corn syrup, bag of Krutzies pancake mix. Also got the large can of Folgers & 2 bottles of French Vanilla coffee creamer and 6 bottles of the instant stuff. No ice of course but got 12 bottles of Gatorade and 3 packages of double A batteries for the camera & flashlights including 1 pack of triple A for the led headlamp. Three containers of table salt, 2 tins of black pepper. And d*mn near forgot the Fixadent for my dentures....got 6 bottles of that stuff. Don't think anything is going to happen here, but who knows how long supplies will last till trucks start rolling in with fresh/new supplies? Thought of buying a laptop for $300, but figure things will kind of settle down in a few days and I still have my old one at home to use. Something to think about bringing with me on my next trip. And inverter to recharge laptop and batteries. But did get prints made from the cameras memory card while there. A local burger place was open, so got something to eat there. Paid for everything with the stolen bank money. Seems strange that power is out in one block, but on in the block next to it.
No answer from Jim or Dildo, headed for the local Oregon Army national guard in Woodburn with the thought I could maybe help in rescue operations further north. Had printed a list of guard units along I-5 along with their addresses & phone numbers a month or so ago. Did the same with units in Sacramento area and south of here. Took me 30 minutes to get there and no problem finding it with the help of my GPS. Guardsmen were coming in and talked with the guard at the front gate about me helping them with rescue operations. Had to wait 15-30 minutes before an E-5 (?) named Johnson came out who asked what could I do? Said I got a truck and can get a pup with a lift gate on it from my yard up the road to bring back injured people to the nearest hospital or MASH unit if they had any in the area or just haul supplies where ever needed. He said he'd check with the commander and after another 20 minute wait, came back and said get the pup and come back.
While hooking up the pup, Jim & Dildo both call me. Told Dildo what I was doing and then said Jim was calling. Tell Jim what happened, the condition of the warehouse, trucks, etc. and what I was going to be doing with the guard. He said okay and had been telling everyone to stay home until further notice. He would also call Dildo about all of this. Have no idea whether I'm on the payroll for this or not....not that I give a $hit or if Jim/Dildo said I couldn't be doing this with company equipment. Back at the guard base, Johnson asked why didn't I have a larger trailer. Told him I had a hard time just bobtailing from Portland to Beaverton to begin with and with a 48 or 53 footer, probably would of never made it.
Got on the cb, telling other drivers what I was doing and where the guard base was at and who to see. Made sure I had good guard phone numbers to call in case something happened or I saw something. First 2 trips were hauling troops & supplies about 10 miles north of Beaverton. Stuck 5 guys in the truck with me and all of them were armed. Queenie & Prince eye balled these guys while they eye balled them back. Queenie & Prince claimed the lower rack while 2 of the guard guys was on the upper. Then started back to the nearest hospital which was in Beaverton with 30 or so injured people. Made 4 trips and then back to Woodburn for more troops/supplies. Also towed 2 large generators behind the pup on my first trips. Finally started slowing down and told the hospital people I had been up for 19 hours and needed some sleep. Not only was I loading people into the pup, but unloading them too. Told I had to take them (the injured) to Woodburn as they were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers of injured people. Got directions to the hospital and after unloading the injured there, drove about a block away to crash. Called Johnson to let him know what was going on and I'd be back on the job in 6 hours. All this writing has taken me 90 minutes to write, but wanted to get it all down before I forgot anything. Just wish I had brought my laptop....would of made things soooo much easier. Still no answer from the dogs owners either. Radio stations are broadcasting nothing but news and basically saying the same thing: at least 50,000 dead in L.A. area, massive rioting/ looting going on. Governor Jerry Brown is dead and someone I never heard of has declared martial law. Cops/firemen/paramedics being shot at. Hundreds of thousands of people trying to leave the city on foot due to the freeways being jammed with broken down vehicles and broken bridges/over passes. The scary part? People reported seeing a mushroom cloud minutes before the quake hit. Congress & Senate are having an emergency meeting in DC on Monday. EVERY National guard unit nation wide is being brought to active duty until further notice. Even some unverified reports that thousands of Mexicans have come into the country to do their own looting here. Don't know if anything like this is happening along the other border states.
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Post by willc453 on May 4, 2014 10:40:52 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 7 July 10th Wednesday
When I got back to Woodburn (on Monday), told Johnson that I needed to refuel. He couldn't help me with that as theirs was for official use only. WTF?! My expression must of showed and he looked apologetic, saying it was orders from higher up. Who or how high, he didn't say. Told him I'd to the Pilot (Flying J?) about 30 miles south of here and be back asap. Then told me to report to another guard base for supplies and bring them back here. Even gave me a letter with the Guard letter head on it stating I was helping rescue operations here and was expected there. As I left, remembered to turn the truck radio on and some really strange/heavy $hit was being reported.
Heard our elected officials went to meet in D.C. to deal with the earthquake and aftermath. Many never made it. Seems the Al Qaida and other groups decided to put their religious differences aside and really hurt "The Great Satan" (America) was not by crashing airplanes into buildings or boats into ships, but directly attacking Satan's head: the Senate & Congress. Guess there must of been hundreds of these nut cases in country, all poised to kill their targets. Some targets were killed in their home state, while the majority of them were either killed in the homes in the D.C. area or as they left the airport complex. Which killed a lot of regular travelers and of course, newspaper/tv reporters wanting answers to their questions from our reps.
The White House was under multiple attacks by terrorists using remote controlled planes loaded with explosives & marble size ball bearings. Obama was being evacuated while Biden had already headed his way here to look at the damage. Of course, this meant it'd be loaded with press and other worthless people instead of badly needed medical supplies or anything like that. Worthless d*ck wad. Got the feeling that after all was said and done, there would not be any more cutting back of the military, it would increase and the U.S./Mexican border would be fortified/patrolled. F*ck, who knows....maybe all foreign aid given out by us will stop?
Was about 10-15 miles south of the guard base when the truck & radio died. WTF? I had at least a quarter of tank of fuel. Was doing 62-63 and going up a hill when it died. Shut off the jakes and was able to not only make it to the top of the hill, but slightly on the down side of it, pulling over to the side of the road just under an overpass. Then sat there trying to figure out what happened. I could understand engine problems, but to see everyone (!) else's cars also dying on the road made no sense. Only thing that could make this happen was an EMP explosion either by nukes in the atmosphere or one big a$$ solar flare. Even the GPS was dead....like no power to any of them. Not even a click from turning the key in the ignition. But my watch still worked....till I remembered it was a Timex windup I bought from Ebay several months ago. Bought it because I'd never have to worry about the battery going bad and to me, just as important, it was made in 1971, the year I graduated from high school.
People had pulled over best as they could and just kind of wandering around not knowing what to do. They're all trying their phones and of course, getting nothing. I can sense the fear/panic starting to build up in them. Decided to look for a pay phone, so after locking the truck up, walk up the freeway on ramp to see even more vehicles stopped everywhere and people just kind of wandering around with the now usual WTF look on their faces. Went to a 7-11 store where there was a pay phone and it didn't work....no dial tone, nothing. Not good and wondering if it was an EMP effect or from a solar flare even more. If so, how long does it last? Were all electronics destroyed/damaged? Questions up the wazoo, but no answers.
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Post by willc453 on May 4, 2014 18:29:03 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 8 July 10th Wednesday (contd)
See a cop a block down the street and head for him. He's surrounded by people wanting to know what's going on and of course he has no answers and nothing in his patrol car is working. Asked if I could talk with him privately, but he wasn't interested in a private bull$hit session with me until I said I may know what happened. Now everyone wants to know what I'm thinking. So told everyone about the effects of an EMP having on modern electronics. That an EMP could be caused by a solar flare or a nuke in the atmosphere/in space above the earth. They thought I was full of $hit till I asked why weren't cars running and no power any where in sight but my wind up watch still worked while their battery operated ones didn't? That scared the hell out of them with the cop mad at me for scaring everyone. Then he got busy trying to deal with about 100+ people with even more questions....like when was the government going to be there to help them? That's when I decided to add to my supplies because if an EMP has hit, there's going to be a lot of scared/ panicky people....along with those who are going to rob, loot, etc. Then we all hear a putt, putt, putt sound of a running engine, we turned to see what it was: a Volkswagen. I was kind of stunned for a bit then people started getting nasty, saying they ought to beat the $hit out of for scaring them so badly. I could see the cop eyeing me, thinking he should arrest me for attempting to spread panic and all that. Then I realized what was going on with the VW....told the cop to find out what year it was made and if it had a modern cd deck/radio in it and that probably just went out. He flagged the guy down and finds out it was made in '68 and yes, his cd/radio had just quit working with in the last 20 minutes or so. Then people wanted the driver to give them rides so they could get home. The bidding war began.
Took this as my cue to get out of here and walked back to the truck, take $3,000 out of the bank stash and headed for a bicycle shop about 3 blocks away, this time taking Queenie with me and leaving Prince inside to guard the truck. At least when power went, I had the windows down about 6 inches as normal because I like fresh air coming thru and I opened the sleeper vents for more air flow for the dogs. Going to need better/faster transportation and be able to carry a lot more stuff, which would also mean I may become a better target for any looter. Took my 9mm & holster out and stuck it behind my back. Between always wearing an extra large t-shirt and a vest, it wouldn't be noticeable. No way I was going to be a punching bag for any a$$hole or group of them.
Lady in the store asked what was going on and told her I had no idea, but was interested in buying a bike. Found a mid priced mountain bike which was better built than the ones I had seen at Walmart in Reno. The lady explained the differences to me between a $180 Walmart type mountain bike vs what she was selling. Had her add a basket to the handle bars, 2 saddle bags to put over the frame and a pannier(?) on the rear of the bike with a metal basket on each side of the wheel. Oh yeah....and a larger (wider) seat cause I got a fat a$$. She also had one of those bicycle carts that attach to the bike and bought that too. Total was $1,450 which I paid in cash. She tossed in 2 locks for the bike.
Then looked to see what stores were around me for other stuff. Lots of fast food restaurants, 7-11, shoe store, smoke shop, etc. At the smoke shop, found the owner there. Got 5 cartons of non filters, 5 pounds of pipe tobacco in 1 pound bags, 5 cases of rolling paper, 20 Bic lighters, 5 Zippo lighters, 5 packages of flints, 5 bottles of lighter fluid and 2 boxes of matches. Cost me a little over $300. At a dollar or more store, bought 5, one gallon jugs of water, 5 cans of beef stew, 3 packages of toilet paper (4 rolls per pack), 6 boxes of baking soda and a cardboard box which was free and 2 packages of trash bags bigger than the cardboard box. And a couple of packages of nylon rope that were 20 feet long. Figure if I gotta $hit, can use the box, plastic bag and baking soda to help absorb the smell. One thing about those Indian/Pakistani's----lack of power isn't going to stop them from making a buck. Both of them used pencil & paper to add up everything. Stash everything on the bike/cart and had to laugh at what Moms neighbor once told her. Her neighbor was a prostitute and rode her bike a lot. Mom asked her how things were going and the lady replied "Not too bad. Just pedaling my ass around town as normal". Get back to the truck, stash my stuff and chain the bike & cart to the passenger side catwalk and frame. Figure if anyone comes around, if I don't hear 'em, the dogs will. It's been a hour or so since doing all this stuff and see that some people have left, others just kind of still wandering around. But some have food/drink with them when they return to their cars. Don't know what they/I'm waiting for to happen next. Like things are going to return to normal at any moment. Right now, don't know what to do....head back to the guard base and what then? Or wait here a little bit longer? Decide to give it a couple more hours then heading back to the guard base as I figure it's going to be the safest place for me to stay at. Took the AR out of its case and 2 loaded magazines now are on the upper bunk. The 9mm is in the side pocket of the drivers door just in case. Enough.
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Post by willc453 on May 4, 2014 21:46:02 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 9 July 10th Wednesday (contd)
It was about 16:00 on Monday and was reading 1942 when I heard the woman screaming. WTF? Open the passenger door and peer thru the door frame & cab to see 3 men dragging a woman from her car only 200 feet or so from me. Then they're carrying her and tearing at her clothes, saying "this is a fine piece of pu$$y. She's even better than the last one". Another says "her t*ts are bigger too" and 3rd guy says "remember, I b*tt f*ck her first this time". The other says okay, "but she'll take it in her mouth at the same time then". I don't believe what I'm seeing/hearing and look to see what other people are doing. They're either running away or to their cars where they try to lock their doors and then duck down below the doors like if we don't see anything, we won't hear anything. And besides, it's a cops job to do something about this sort of thing....and maybe if they don't see us, they won't bother us.
That's when the dark side came out howling and it said two words: NO MORE. Got the AR from the upper mattress, grabbed the 2 loaded magazines besides it and after putting one in my pocket, b*tch slapped the other into the rifle. Pulled the cocking handle and popped the lens covers up and after turning my red dog scope on, headed for the open door. As I reached it, hear the wanna be a$$ f*cker say "take her over past the bushes as there's some grass over there. Let's do this in comfort". On the ground, hear a little kid screaming MOMMY, MOMMY! DON'T HURT MY MOMMY! and is running to his mother. A 4th guy comes out of the car, grabs the kid above the elbow, tells him to shut the f*ck up. Then after hitting him with his other hand, throws him against the car where the kid falls to the ground and doesn't move. The guy's armed and my first target. Two shots to the chest and swing the rifle to the right where the 3 guys are only 20-30 feet from the bushes along the freeway. The guy pulling off the womans pants partially turns to me and takes 3 rounds to the chest & belly. The other two drop the woman and turn towards me, pulling their pistols out and holding/shooting them in what I call "gangsta" style....holding it sideways while pulling the trigger. I heard the shots they fired at me and no idea how close they came. Fired 4 times at the man in front of me, one hitting his chest, the other in his belly. The other 2 shots missed completely. But the last rapist must have been hit/wounded because he suddenly had enough, screaming I give up, I give up and tosses his pistol to one side and lays face down on the ground. I'm not moving until I'm sure there's not a 5th armed rapist around.
See the woman scrambling to get to her son even though she has no pants/panties on and her blouse is torn all to hell and gone. Move to the drivers side of the truck and work my way up to where she is, always keeping an eye out for any more bad guys. No more bad guys except the ones I shot and the one still laying face down in the dirt. First thing I did was take & toss their pistols to where no one could grab them without me seeing them first. See that the guy who surrendered wasn't moving t all, just waiting to see what I was going to do next....and waiting for some cop to arrest him. Rifle barrel's pushed into the base of his spine while I check him for any other weapons and when I don't find any, have him roll over on his back with his legs & arms spread out. Starts telling me they had been drinking and were just out to have some fun. His father physically abused him, his mother was a crack user & sister was a whore. It wasn't his fault because the psychologists said so, so please help me and please don't hurt me. Asked him if he believed in Jesus and he said yes. So I sent a bullet right above the bridge of his nose and said "Good. Now you get to meet him". I truly enjoyed the look of horror & understanding in that guys face in that brief nano second.
Turned around, picked up the womans pants & panties, then went to the woman holding her son who was starting to become conscious. Guess I looked pretty scary because she started crying out over & over again: "I'll do what ever you want, just don't hurt my son". Told her I wasn't here to hurt you or your son. I'm the guy who killed those 4 who were going to rape you, remember? She's still carrying on, so tossed her pants/panties so they landed over her head and told her to get dressed or be arrested for indecent exposure. She says "hunh?" then realizes she's basically naked and scrambles to put her pants on. Panties were trashed and while she got dressed, I went back to get the pistols from the 4 dead guys I had tossed aside earlier. Made sure the safeties were on, putting 1 each in my front pockets, the other 2 in the front of my pants. Then checked the 3 other dead guys, finding 6 loaded magazines.
It was then it hit me...what the f*ck have I done? I just killed 4 guys who were going to rape a woman while others ran away/hid. yeah, I can see the DA's office saying I acted as judge, jury & executioner when I simply chose to kill them instead of holding them at gun point until the police arrived. My crime would not of been so heinous if I had only fired after being fired upon. Could see me doing a lot of prison time for what I considered doing the right thing. And what am I going to do if a cop shows up now? Go meekly with him, surrendering my guns? No....but don't want to get into shoot out with a cop because they're the good guys. This is when I decide I'm going to have to run. No idea where I can hide or what the future will hold for me. Since I just killed 4 men, may as well take what I can off their bodies. A total of $217 and some change on them. One had one of those big Rambo survival type of knife. Then find 3 small packages (1 inch by 1 inch?) that had some crystal looking stuff in them and 2 short pipes....meth or crack? Broke the pipes, then after ripping open the packages, tossing everything toward the bushes.
Head back to the lady and her boy's awake with both of them crying/hugging each other. About this time realize that Queenie & Prince are near us. No idea when they showed up or what they did during/after the shooting. I call them over and they actually obeyed when I said sit. The ladies blouse is torn to hell & gone and knotted so it's under her t*ts....and she filled the blouse pretty good. When asked if she & her boy were okay, she says they were and thanked me. That made me feel good. Then I got to looking at her.... WTF? I said Jennifer? She looked at me questionably and said, yes? Said it's me, Andrew, the guy who's always reading a book at Hooters. Do you remember me? After a few seconds, she says yes and it was a yes that meant she did remember me and not saying it to be polite. I hadn't recognized her in part because she dyed her hair from brown to blonde and her hair style was different....made a big difference.
Then noticed movement coming towards me from the south. Three black guys & a white guy carrying weapons of some kind. Told Jennifer to take my truck keys and to get her & her son to my truck and lock the door. Told her my companies name and that it was on the door sides. She's saying "what?" "what?". Now these guys are with in 100 feet of me and I'm ready to dance. Three have baseball bats, another a tire iron and they're starting to spread out. Stood up, pointed the rifle at them and shouted "freeze f*ckers or I send you to hell like I did your buds". They stopped quick enough but one guy started edging to my left towards the cars, but stopped when I pointed the rifle at him. The big black guy said whoa, whoa....don't shoot. We were told some woman was being attacked and we came here to stop it. Find out they're G.I.'s (infantry) returning from additional training at Fort Lewis and headed back to Fort Irwin. They were to be shipped to Iraq in 2 weeks and it would be their first deployment into combat.
There's Sampson, a HUGE black guy that makes Tall Tom look like a dwarf and Tom's 6'3" tall. Of course, Sampson's got a lot more muscle/bulk on him. The other 2 black guys were normal sized and names are Montana & Reginald (NOT Reggie, either). The white guy was short....I mean he came just up to above my chin and I'm 5' 10". His name is Socrates and yes, that's his real name. Did most of my talking to Reginald because they all seem to defer/look towards him during our talks. Took us about 5 minutes of talking with lots of distance between us before I told them it was okay to come closer and I lowered my rifle. Socrates goes to inspect the bodies and whispers something to Reginald and told him what ever you got to say, ay it out loud so I hear it too. Tells me any of the shots I hit the bad guys with were kill shots except for the guy shot in the face. I said yeah....he wanted help, so helped that rotten mother f*cker on his way to hell. They all nodded their heads in agreement. What they didn't know was shooting/hitting a human size target 100 yards away is nothing, even with iron sites. Which is why I switched to shooting at cantaloupe and then later on, apples. Nine out of 10 on cantaloupe, but only 4 out of 10 on apples.
Socrates came up with additional news before everything went. At least 100 Congressmen & Senators were reported dead before there was a government news blackout of what was happening. The blackout was effective though due to the internet....at least it was while it was up because everyone has camcorders or use their phones to do the job. Marine One as shot down, though no one knows if Obama was on it or not... or saying. Just before the EMP effect hit, the radio was saying "all military, guard and reserve report to"....then nothing.
I remember SAM's could reach up to 60,000 feet, but not their range. But what if Iran, Al Qaida & N. Korea got together? Nukes from N. Korea, SAM's from Iran and hundreds of Al Qaida willing to die for Allah in the suicide bombings. Use freighters registered in Nigeria or Panama loaded with 2 nuke tipped SAM's each and fire the missiles outside U.S. territorial waters? Al Qaida and the Iranians aren't stupid people. Look at what Iran did in hacking and taking over that U.S. drone earlier this year. Or maybe drones were smuggled into the U.S. with small nukes? Who knows....or ever will? I have to deal with the here and now.
Asked the guys what they were going to do next and they really didn't know. They couldn't walk back to Ft. Lewis as they had called Ft. Irwin and told to report back to help with earthquake relief in California. So suggested they go with me to the Army national guard base at Woodburn and report in there. Then told them about me helping out with relief efforts with the injured. Not only would they be reporting in, the guard base would have weapons, ammo, etc. even if the mechanized/wheeled stuff didn't work. Reginald wanted to know how come I knew about this base and told him about me taking photos of myself at different points of interest to me like historical markers, etc. so I'd have more than memories and a paycheck as a truck driver. That one of my hobbies was building plastic models and armor, so I was always looking out for military museums or active duty bases in case I had a chance for detail shots of something. Wasn't saying sh*t about being a prepper or having a list of bases on I-5.
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Post by hamrad on May 7, 2014 13:01:26 GMT -6
as alway good to see the Layover here
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Post by willc453 on May 10, 2014 19:46:09 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 10 July 10th Wednesday
While we were talking, kept an eye on what was happening around us. People had gotten out of their cars, some getting away as far as possible from me. But when Reginald & company showed up, some started getting closer....and started hearing bullsh*t from some of them. How I killed 4 unarmed men, someone needed to call the police, I had an illegal assault rifle, machine gun, etc. The crazy & wild side came out and with out even thinking, shouted: this is my rifle and held it up in the air, then grabbed my crotch and said this is my gun. One is for killing, the other for fun. Then shouted: who's you daddy? The expressions on some of those people were priceless....like what the f*ck? Some hauled a$$, others just stared. And that's when I started laughing like some insane mother f*cker which quickly turned to crying. I know guys aren't suppose to cry....that's the way I was raised. Just suck it up until you're alone and NEVER, EVER admit you were crying. Turned and saw Jennifer standing there and she reached out for me. I reached for her with one arm and started sobbing between her neck & shoulder like a little girl. I don't know what it was that set me off....maybe it was just coming off the adrenaline rush, maybe realizing that what's happened has changed our world forever. All the people that have died, maybe are dying, the attempted rape of Jennifer, my killing those 4 guys....insanity unleashed upon the world. After a couple of minutes, I finally calmed down and we released each other. Told her thanks.
Looked at the guys and they didn't look like they were thinking I was some sort of pu$$y for crying. Started feeling snot coming out of my nose, but since I didn't have a paper towel, just turned my head and blew it country boy style. Light up a cigarette and noticed my hands weren't shaking which was good. Two of the guys lit their up while Socrates stuffed some chew in his mouth. It was what I call nut cracking time.
This is when you decide you're going to get the job done no matter what it takes. Took the 4 pistols and spare magazines and gave them to Reginald. Told him you guys need to be armed because a world of hurt has just hit the U.S. and it's only just starting. Asked how much money they had and it was a little over $300, so gave them the money I took from the dead guys, then pulled out almost $2,000 I hadn't spent earlier. Told them to get to the bike store to get the cheapest bikes they can, along with tire repair kits for each bike. Also get baskets mounted on them too. Then get as much food & supplies while you can. Also gave him the Rambo knife. The pistols were one .45, two 9mm and a .380, a caliber I had heard of, but never saw before. One spare mag for the .45 & .380 and 2 each for the 9's. Reginald sent Sampson & Socrates out for the bikes & supplies and Montana back to their car for their orders, luggage, food/drinks they had bought for the trip back to their base. Especially their cammies (what they now call BDU's?) and put them on before we're really ready to leave.
People were getting closer wanting to hear what we were saying and now some of them were wondering out loud what to do. And of course, there are those who always saying let's wait for the government help to arrive. So raised my voice so a lot of them could hear me. I told them: people, this is what has happened and is happening now....and told them what I heard and the guys heard over the radio and what I went thru the day before. That as far as I knew, there was NO federal government or help coming to the rescue. You're on your own. Best they could hope for was government at the city or county level and who knows what's happening there? If you were a cop, would you be worried about keeping order, or taking off to make sure your family is okay/safe? If you can, get home and stay there until things settle down, if at all. If you have guns, get them out because you saw what those 4 guys were going to do to Jennifer and what they did to her son. And it's going to get worse, a lot worse before it even comes close to getting better. Some people started denying everything I said....that things would return to normal because the government said it was always ready for disaster. That's why FEMA/Homeland Security was created. Others had real big problems in living something like 60 miles or more from here. No way they'd be able to walk back home.
Suggested they follow us in the morning (pointing to me and Reginald) to the guard base in Woodburn. They'd be lot safer there than trying to get home by themselves. Reginald looked at the people who were coming towards him, then at me and said "thanks for nothing". I said no problem, the Air Force is always willing to help the Army. He looked at me with no understanding.
Turned to Jennifer and said you need to go with us; it'll be safer for you & the boy whose name I found out was Herbert. Says she can't----has to get home to her mother as her Mom broke her right leg a few days ago and needed help getting around the apartment they shared. Oh sh*t....this is not what I wanted to hear especially since her place was about 20 miles away in a different direction. Montana showed up after 20 minutes later, but it was starting to get dark when Sampson & Socrates showed up with 4 bikes & supplies stored in the baskets.
Said people were staring to look the grocery stores, 7-11, etc. They were lucky they had just paid for everything at the store when the looting began. And it wasn't easy pushing 4 bikes & supplies back either. They had some money left over ($300?), told them to keep it.
People started going back to their cars to spend the night inside them. Turned to Jennifer and told her that she/Herbert couldn't spend the night in their car as it wouldn't be safe. If she wanted to, they could spend the night in the truck as I have 2 bunk beds and she/Herbert would have better shelter/ protection. Kind of hesitated and mentioned she could get a motel, but dropped that idea when I told her by now, most of them are already full from stranded people. But if her mind was made up about a motel, would she mind me going with her as there would be safety in numbers? Decided she would go with us to the guard base. Said okay and headed back to my truck with everyone following me. Asked where I was going and told her I needed to get my gear out of it, including my bike/cart.
Took me close to 45 minutes to get the bike/cart unchained, water jugs, extra food, overnight bag, Alice backpack....everything strapped & held in place on the bike/cart, some of it paracord. Even took my modeling books/supplies, along with my briefcase. Since I didn't know when/if I'd be back, took everything else that may come in handy. Like the bungee cords, fire extinguisher and of course, the small bag of hand tools I've used for quick on the road repairs, but left the guitar case. Also tossed in that tub from what seems like a lifetime ago. Maybe I was thinking it was some sort of good luck charm? Think I had 200+ pounds on it. Had put my hat on while loading everything on the bike/cart and that's when Reginald saw it with the various metal pins stuck in it showing some of the bases/commands I had served in. Asked how long and my mos. Said 10 years and comm.
Asked Herbert if he'd ever been in a semi-truck or slept in one. When he said no, said this was your lucky day as tonight, you get to do both. Not every 7 year old gets to do this. Says he's 5 and asked if he was sure, because he sure was brave in defending mommy and because of that, thought he was a lot older. You could see the smile lighting up the kids face at what I had said about being brave. During our talking, the kid stuck next to Jennifer like he was super glued to her....not that I blame him after what he had seen/had happened to him. Hoping I could get his mind off it a little bit.
Jennifer went with Sampson to get her stuff which we were going to add to all of our gear until I thought about coffee in the morning. Dug out the propane stove, coffee, creamer, etc. Reginald looked at all the stuff coming out of the truck and asked if all truck drivers carried this much stuff. Said no, but I once stayed at a Holiday Inn. They were stunned at first, but then got a laugh from all of them. And then came up with a couple of ideas.
Walked to the north side freeway and knocked on a drivers door whose curtains were drawn inside the cab. I called out that my handle was AtAt (as in the machines from Star Wars). The lady driver (Pearl Diver) moved the curtain aside and though we hadn't talked over the CB, she'd heard of me. Told her what we were doing and why....would she & other drivers like to join us in the morning? She thought it over and said it sounded good. We both worked our side of the freeway. When we got back together, we had another 20 drivers who'd go with us, some who were armed.
Talked with Reginald about security and they said they'd do it. Asked if they wanted me to be part of it, they said no. They had their own way of doing things, but did take the offer of sleeping in the truck with me, Jennifer & Herbert when one of them wasn't on watch. Kept the 9mm and lent Reginald my AR, the bag of loaded magazines along with my watch.
Jennifer/Sampson had come back with her stuff and they didn't have much. Some groceries and some new, used clothes for Herbert. They were going home after window shopping when the SHTF the second time. Sampson & Montana were taking 2nd watch, so told Sampson to take the lower bunk and I'd sleep in the drivers seat while Montana used the passengers seat. Gave Jennifer one of my t-shirts as a couple of times I thought the knot holding her blouse together was going to come undone. And yeah, if it had, I'd of looked.
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Post by willc453 on May 11, 2014 6:12:10 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 11 July 10th Wednesday (contd)
Told Reginald that I had to get a phone book and maybe some other stuff. That hopefully, I'd only be gone 30 minutes or so. Asked if I wanted the AR and someone to go with me. Said no, they needed the AR & everyone here more than I did for security. Then wanted to know why I needed to take off on my own, so told him. He looked at me like I was crazy, then nodded, saying that it just might work.
Took Prince with me and telling Queenie to guard, pointing at the ground/truck. When I got back, I'd feed them. One thing in all of this was making sure my Alice backpack was on top of everything, with the dog food right under it.
As far as I was concerned, everything around me was Injun country, so had the 9 in my hand, held alongside my right leg. If I had kept the AR, was thinking I might get cocky/over confident. But with only a pistol.... While it was dark, it wasn't black black dark and once again, wondered if a lot of Americans were afraid of the dark. That's because where ever you go, there's ALWAYS lights on, even in empty parking lots, along with the freeway, etc. And now it was a different world. Found what I needed, but took me almost an hour and didn't feel comfortable at all pushing that grocery cart back. Not many people moving around and those that did were like me....watching each other and making sure we had lots of room between us.
When I started down the onramp and up the freeway, called out to the guys near the truck. I knew when I was near them because Prince was looking to the underpart of the overpass where the truck was parked so I knew one of the guys was hiding up there, watching. Reginald asked if I got the phone book and said yes and a bunch more stuff. Fed/watered the dogs and then went to sleep in the truck.
Kind of stiff when I woke up the next morning around 05:00. At least it was better sleeping in that seat than day cab seats. Took us over an hour to get everyone together before heading out....at least it was light enough to see. Went to see Pearl Diver and she started getting the others up/ready to move. After making coffee for us (Jennifer, Reginald, etc.) and having a couple of smokes and putting everything away, we were ready to go.
One of the people in the group came up, asking if he could have my pistol and I kind of just looked at him. Says them "soldier boys" have guns, so he should have one too and since I had a spare.... I didn't like it at all the way he said "soldier boys", not like he was calling the guys n*ggers or anything like that. Just like he looked down on the military. F*ck him and said no. That's when he offered me $1,000 for the pistol and some bullets or if I wanted more, he'd write me a check for $5,000 which was good anywhere of course. Now I really didn't like this guy. His name is Aaron and dressed in a rumpled suit and tie that must of cost some bucks and didn't come from any Mens Warehouse. This is when he says he's a criminal lawyer and I should reconsider his offer as I had killed 4 men and could probably use his services in the future. That's when I told him to get the f*ck away from me right now. And he left. Just didn't like/trust that guy....and Prince/Queenie didn't either as I saw them staring at him and their ears were laid back during our short conversation.
There's the guy in the wheelchair and his wife going with us. Thing is, he also had a small oxygen tank strapped to his chair. I bluntly asked him if he was going to be okay and his wife started coming unglued saying we couldn't just leave them behind. That's when the guy (John) told her to "hush Mother" and she did. First time I EVER heard anyone talk like that other than in some movie. Said he would understand if they did fall/get left behind. Two things got me....not putting up a fuss about maybe being left behind and his hat. Said two things: U.S. Marines and under it, said Chosen Reservoir vet. Said Air Force, 10 years and we don't leave ours behind either. He wasn't armed, so gave him the 9 and the magazines. Told him about arming the Army guys, but if they got armed at the guard base, he'd get one of the 9's from them and more ammo for it. Put him in the middle of the group and one of the unarmed drivers said he'd make sure the man & his wife kept up with us.
Told Jennifer that she'd have to push the bike as we & the others were going to be security as we made our way back to Woodburn. Asked Herbert if he could ride on the seat without falling off and he said yes, I'm not a baby. I said no, you're not.
Asked the group of people going with us if 4 would volunteer to push the bikes as the Army guys and me were going to provide security for everyone during our walk to Woodburn. Two men & 2 women volunteered, so put them in the middle of the crowd in the hopes if gang bangers were looking, they'd see us armed, but not what we had as far as supplies go. Figured I was over reacting on such a thing happening as others seemed more interested in looting stores than holding up a large crowd of people....especially those with guns in their hands.
Had 2 AR magazines in my pant pockets and the other magazines in the ammo bag across my shoulder so it hung by my right hip. Also reloaded the magazine I used earlier. Asked Reginald how he wanted to work this as far as security. Since I had the only rifle, I became point with the others to the left, right and behind the crowd. But then we got supplemented gun wise by 2 women & a guy who had pistols.
So began our walk with a bunch (80+?) of people following us. Soon started seeing other drivers standing by their rigs and told them about the EMP and what we were doing. In an hour we had 9 more drivers, 5 of them armed. Eight others refused to "abandon their load" as they put it. Asked each driver what they were hauling and any of it useful to us as a group? Seems they were headed south to refuel, then get more supplies/equipment for up north. Talked with Pearl Diver about doing the same. Most of the time, the south bound drivers were empty, but did have their normal snacks, food, water, etc. which we put on the bikes with the understanding that their stuff was their stuff and not to be shared unless they said it was okay.
As we're walking north, there are still people with their thumb up their a$$....their attitude is "we're waiting for the government help to arrive which will be at any moment". Others listened and decided to go with us. Helped that some of them had bicycles and had taken other people bikes when the owners abandoned their cars, leaving theirs in the car racks. Every 15 minutes, we'd call to the north bound group to see how they were doing. They were doing a bit better than us supply wise and agreed to give us some of the food & medical supplies they had gotten out of the various trailers which we put on the bikes, held in place by rope/bungee cords from the drivers we picked up. North bound had also thought of bikes, but didn't have that many.
One of the problems with us moving so slowly was having 8-10 people in their late 70's (or older) and starting to stiffen up from so much walking. How they had gone this far, I don't know which meant no later than every 2 hours, we'd have to stop and give them a 15-20 minute rest. I know they wanted more time to rest, but I wanted us at the guard base before dark.
Four and one half hours of walking later, I declared we needed a really long break, so everyone took time for lunch. I dug out the Coleman stove and started heating up cans of beef stew for our group (Jennifer, Herbert, Reginald, etc.) to eat. Most everyone had some sort of snack food/water/sports drink. Those that didn't, everyone shared with them. John (the Marine vet) and his wife Marcy were doing okay, but made sure they and the driver pushing John got some of the beef stew. I wasn't really hungry....satisfied with chewing pumpkin seeds and a swig from my canteen from time to time. That strawberry/kiwi powder I had mixed in with the water wasn't bad at all.
One of the drivers said he had heard that Shasta dam had broken/had cracked. Wondered how Uncle Clancey & family were doing in Yreka and RJ and cousins were in Redding. As to everyone needing to use the bathroom on our breaks, used my canvas tarp & some line to jury rig a privacy screen for the ladies near some trees when possible and dug a hole using the shovel I forgot leaving in 18315 late last year while going over Donner on my way to Stockton and then to Portland during the winter.
We used some the plastic spoons and foam plates I had gotten from the trashed/empty fast food places the night before along with some of those large rolls of tp. Made sure no one threw away the utensils/plates away till we'd come up with regular spoons, etc.
Odds & ends before I forget. We were going slower than I wanted not only because of the age of some of the people, but the amount of stuff we were trying to take with us. Along with Herbert, we had kids from 2 babies in diapers to 9 year olds. And not counting 5 teenagers of which, only 1 seemed to understand how serious things were. Got with Pearl Diver and we sent people out to grab grocery carts from 2 small strip malls (empty/gutted of course) which made things a lot easier. Gas stations, 7-11's, fast food places, etc.----stripped. But things still left behind that I/we could use. Grabbed every city/state map I could get my hands on, adding them to the pile I had gotten last night and more plastic utensils and packages of condiments along with tp. But to me, almost as important was half a dozen notebooks, pens & pencils so I can continue the diary.
Took us 9 hours to reach the guard base and we were a ragged looking bunch of people. By this time, think we had 200(+?) people. Still hard to think all of this happening on Tuesday. Quitting for now....cramps from writing so much and Jennifer says supper's ready....which sounds really, really nice to my ears.
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Post by willc453 on May 11, 2014 13:42:06 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 12 July 10th Wednesday (contd)
Supper's over and asked Jennifer not to bother me while I'm doing more writing. A lot of things to cover on what happened the rest of Tuesday.
About 200 of us arrived at the guard base and things aren't right. There's a stalled set in the main gate and wondered why. The 3 of us (Reginald, Pearl Diver & me) talked it over before going to see the 1 guardsman doing gate duty. Get everyone settled to begin with, THEN talk with the guard and eventually with who's ever in charge. Then we took the time to explain to everyone what we were doing and why.... basically didn't want a mob of people at the front gate. Pearl Diver said she'd wait for us (me, Reginald, etc.) to come back to let them know what was going on.
Get to the guard and he's looking at us rather strangely because the guys are in their cammies, all of us armed....and I'm the only one with an AR rifle. Peterson (guard) says to halt, so we did, but let Reginald go forward who explained who they were, showed their orders, where we had come from, etc. At least he didn't say anything about me shooting those 4 guys on Monday. Peterson tells us to stand there till he got somebody higher up to check us out at which time I offered the guard letter to Reginald who passed it to Peterson and I asked if we could talk with Sgt. Anderson. Think he was a bit relieved that I may actually know someone here and the letter had been signed by some Major in the transport pool. Said it might take 20-30 minutes before Anderson could get away and see us.
Asked him what was going on with the set blocking the main gate. Said it died like everything else did on Monday and they had nothing to pull it out of the way. I said bull$hit and it was like I tried copping a feel on his wife or teenage daughter. Reginald asked what was going on with me & my sudden attitude. Asked him if he was ready to dance and the 5 of them looked at me rather strangely. Told the guard we'd be back in a bit and started hitting drivers for chains. Thought I was asking for tire chains, but said no.... wanted any tow chains they had. Maybe the tire chains would of worked, but doubted it. Two of the drivers that were originally stuck here had tow chains. Explained my plan to everyone and they were first against it, wanting to know why should they do this till I explained the reasoning behind it. Hook the 2 chains together so we had a length of 50 feet or so and then hooked it to the tow hooks on front of the truck stuck in the gate entrance. Got the rigs driver to release the air brakes and with the help of 30(?) drivers, we started pulling. Peterson didn't know whether to $hit or go blind. Telling us at first to stop where we were, that we weren't given permission to do this, etc. Told him to shut the f*ck up or give us a hand. And we started pulling. All we could do was kind of rock the set, but not really break the set free/ moving. But other guardsmen saw what we were doing and came running over to help and that did the trick. Pushed/pulled the set so it was down the street a bit and then over to the side of the road. Told everyone thanks and I'd be getting back to them in a bit after talking with the guard people.
As we're walking back to the base, see Anderson was one of the guardsmen helping push the set. Introduced Reginald & the guys to him and after they showed their I.D.'s to him, Anderson said you're in the Oregon Army national guard for the duration. Asked if they could get any spare gear from the guard as all they basically had was their cammies. Anderson said no problem and I was happy to see he didn't make any comment about the guys having pistols and me with a rifle.
Started talking about some of my ideas and says he can't make that kind of decision. That's up to Lt. Millar. Seems everyone from Capt. on up got involved in relief operations/looters up north. Said that when the EMP hi9t, it fried EVERYTHING, even their night vision goggles. They were able to replace batteries in their flashlights, but the more complicated electronic stuff was fried and replacing batteries didn't change anything/get them to working.
That's when I checked my red dot scope....and it didn't work. No red or green light came on. Think I got lucky when I shot those 4 guys. Couldn't remember if the red dot was on or not when I started shooting. Thing is, I must be old school. Prefer iron sights and really don't trust electronic equipment, especially when it comes to shooting. Which is why I practiced shooting with the scope caps open, but scope turned off and using the iron sights which were set up to sync with the red dog when it was turned on. Thing is, don't remember ever packing a spare battery for it in bob. Cleaning kit, yes. But battery?
Noticed that Aaron wasn't one of the guys helping us push the set and wondered what he was up to.
Back at the gate, there's a Lt. Millar and I'm not impressed. Looks like he should still be in college. Behind him is a MSgt.(1st shirt?) named Blevins. Anderson introduces us and Millar starts off with he doesn't have the resources/supplies to help us and we're going to have to leave. And we DEFINITELY can't stay/camp here. That we're going to have to move along. He appreciates us moving the set, but.... At which point the MSgt. says maybe the Lt. should listen to what I have to say first and asks me how did I figure out how to move the set without a vehicle and why. Maybe Millar wasn't as dumb as I thought because he shut up and waited for my answer.
Said 200 of us came here hoping for help/information. When I saw the set stuck in your gate area, knew that if we showed what we can do, you wouldn't be thinking of us as 200 bellies to feed/shelter. That the Chinese built 1,000 foot or longer runways for B-29's and other aircraft to use BY HAND during WW 2. I felt that people should lead, follow or get the f*ck out of the way. Since no one was doing anything when the $hit REALLY hit the fan, I started leading. Blevins nodded and said speak your piece.
I started talking: Power: hit Home Depots, Lowes, hardware stores, etc. for generators, shop lights that are on stands, barbeques, propane bottle, etc.
Communications: Radio Shack, Walmart, Best Buy, electronic stores, etc. that sell walkie talkies, ham radios, etc. Also take all the batteries available, no matter what size they are. Take every lap top, pc, printers, paper, pencils, etc. they could along with flash drives, etc. so they could keep track of inventory, issue orders, etc. once they have power from the generators.
Transportation: Radio Shack and electronic parts stores may have what they can use or be adopted for use in their vehicles.
Museums: there's a train museum around here, and it has a WORKING, WOOD BURNING locomotive and because of that, there should also be rolling stock also on display. With a train, we can possibly reach other guard units and state officials. The train tracks may also be near the Winco distribution center that's some where south of here, just off of I-5. What other distribution centers used by supermarkets may be around? There's also a car museum which hopefully has vehicles which never used any electronics to run the engines. With stalled cars everywhere, there's our gas and batteries from the auto parts stores should get them running. There's at least one museum which displays old farm equipment, including steam powered tractors.
Food & water: hit the supermarkets for what ever food can be taken along with any/everything else that may be of use. While checking out the warehouses in the local area, there may be vending machines loaded with snacks, soda, water, etc. that can be used. Are there any farms around here & what do they grow? We'll need transportation to gather and distribute it, other wise it'll rot in the fields. Also, any stables with horses or cattle farms around here? With the barbeques, food can be cooked even if it's only for a little while.
Time & distance: if we're to do ANY of this, we need to start asap. Only reason I can figure there hasn't been more looting is because of distance and transportation. You can fill a cart, but do you actually seen anyone pushing it 5, 10, 15 miles back to their home? Everyone's going to be busy hitting the local places/malls. And most housing communities only have small malls near them.
Really getting into it when Millar says whoa, whoa....we can't do this because if we do, we're no better than thieves/looters. I said no sir, we're NOT looting or stealing. We're acquisitioning material during this state of national emergency. And we can leave notes on what we've acquired at each place and let the government settle up later on.
Blevins looks at Millar and says sir, this just might work, but where did you come up with all of these ideas? Run back to our camp, dump some stuff out of the grocery cart and started pushing it back to the gate. Dig out a couple of different telephone books and those tourist attraction pamphlets that are everywhere in stores along the freeway and motels/hotels. Showed it to Millar who immediately showed it to Blevins but he had two questions. Why would I have this stuff on me to begin with and there were only 100 guard people on the base and they all couldn't go and even then, not enough people to hit/check out the places I talked about.
Said a friend of mine in Long Beach is into model railroading and I was always looking for different kinds of equipment & time periods to photograph/email to him. Like for example, there's 2 diesel locomotives sitting on a side rail in Tulelake, Calif. along with a couple of passenger cars and a mail car. A guy in Tulelake owns the cars and has been trying to buy the locomotives from Southern Pacific for the past couple of years. But my friend couldn't make up his mind what kind of layout he wanted....really weird to see a wood burning locomotive model from the 1800's pulling modern day box/flat cars. And don't even ask about the buildings on his set as he'd change them from time to time. As to the cars, my brother in Florida is a car buff, so send him stuff every once in awhile. I just never had the time to get to any of these places, but wanted the information on me just in case. That I had also gotten the phone books, etc. on the way up here.
As to his people, they wouldn't be going alone, as I had already talked with a bunch of our people and I got at least 50 volunteers to help out. Maybe I could get more to come if that was okay with the understanding we'd be welcomed here until things got back to normal or maybe find a better place to stay/be out of your hair.
Millar looked at Blevins and said Sgt. Major, what do you think? Blevins said this guy's right....he's spoken about things we should of been thinking about/doing earlier. That's when Millar asks Blevins to gather the troops, the cavalry is on the move. Blevins started giving orders and people started moving. Told it would be an hour or so before they'd have the supply gathering parties ready because they had to go thru the phone books and pamphlets to see where everything was at. I left all my stuff with them, but took the shopping cart. Came in handy once, may again. Reginald and the guys went inside the base to get outfitted while I started talking with people from my group.
With Blevins being a Sgt. Major, it explained a lot on why the c.o. felt comfortable leaving a 1st Lt. in charge of the base. Dad retired as a MSgt. (E-7), but aren't Sgt. Majors E-8's or E-9's? And from what I understand, some how he outranks a 1st shirt who is equal rank? There's God, then Sgt. Majors and woe to any jr. officer who doesn't listen when the Sgt. Major talks. Ignore God all you want, but NOT Sgt. Majors. From what I understand, even Jesus & Mary can't help you when you pi$$ one of them off.
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Post by kaijafon on May 11, 2014 14:17:46 GMT -6
Thanks again for posting this here just as good as the first time read!
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Post by willc453 on May 11, 2014 14:45:26 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 13 July 10th Wednesday (contd)
Lied like a mother f*cker when I told Blevins abut the volunteers. Didn't know for sure if or how many I would get, but hoped that everyone would see the need for everyone to pitch in. Just didn't want to tell Blevins/Millar that I THOUGHT I could maybe/if get 50 people to volunteer, other wise they might have doubts in helping us.
Back to my group, explained what was said and we could use volunteers. Got 33. Some of the people were just beta from walking so much. Others, like John & Marcy were too old.
What pi$$ed me off was Aaron opening his mouth and telling everyone that the government OWED it to us to take care of us. That's why we pay taxes in one form or another every day, all year long and that we shouldn't be stealing/looting as there could be far reaching legal repercussions to consider when things return to normal. That got people to thinking like sheep again.
Explained that we WERE NOT stealing/looting, a list of what we took would be left behind and the local, state or federal government people would be settling up when things returned to normal. Told them that the stuff we're taking will be used/distributed by the Oregon national guard. That with them using some of my ideas, we can get on our feet quicker and get things back to normal, maybe a whole lot sooner. But they needed volunteers to help get/bring back these supplies. Then Aaron says it sounds like I'm helping the military to set up a dictatorship with them controlling all supplies with me getting a cut from everything brought back. Mother f*cking, weasel d*ck licker....
Tried a different tack. Said this reminds me of Aesop's tale abut the grasshopper & the ant and told them the story. Said bottom line was those that help or at least try to help will be higher on the food chain than those who just want to sit on their a$$. Some asked what did I mean and replied those that are helping are going to get more/better food than those who aren't helping because those who are helping are using more energy. That some of you are just like me....too damn fat and we're NOT going to have the calories to be stuffing in our faces like we used to. Some are too old, but I'm sure they have skills that may come in handy and if not, there's always some light, odd jobs that they can handle. And think about this: what happens if a volunteer is injured vs a non volunteer? Who do you think the medics are going to help first if both have the same injury?
Aaron once again wants to bring up his military dictatorship bull$hit again and that if you refuse to be their serfs, you'll be on your own....and how long with it take for things to return to normal? After all, didn't I (meaning me) promise you we'd get help from the guard? Told everyone that I honestly thought the guard would be in better shape than what it is now, but by pulling together we not only save ourselves, but others in even worse situations. Aaron says no, that's NOT how it should be. That we should take care of ourselves right here and now and let everyone else fend for themselves until we have enough supplies which we may share some time in the future. And that did pi$$ me off.
Asked if he really believe what he just said in keeping supplies for ourselves and may share some of them in the future and he said yes. Said, people, remember our walk up here, the breaks and the time out for lunch? A bunch nodded their heads and then asked remember how we shared what we had with those who had little or nothing? And that included stuff we & the guys had in my cart/on our bikes? More heads nodded. Remember this guy going from small group to small group asking for stuff, saying he didn't have anything? Even more heads nodding. Yeah, right. Reached out and grabbed the small backpack that Aaron had in his hand, pulled it open and food/water just started tumbling out of it. Must of have had 10 pounds of snacks & water in it. Then asked Aaron to open his briefcase so we know what's in it. He gets all pi$$ed off, saying he doesn't have to show me anything, that what's in his case is his personal property and when he finds a cop, he's going to have me arrested for assault. Then gets busy stuffing everything back into the pack. While he's doing this, said it's your choice. Pointed at myself and said ant and then at Aaron, saying grasshopper. Got 27 more volunteers to help look for supplies while others volunteered to work around the base which was good.
Then Reginald & the guys came to me outfitted with all sorts of gear. Got my pistols, magazines & ammo back. Talked with John, Marcy & Benny (the driver who pushed Johns wheelchair) if they'd be interested in joining Jennifer, Herbert & me as I still had food for us for the next couple of days. Got my 9 & magazines back from John, but gave him & Benny the 9's and magazines I got from the wanna be rapists. They were to keep the ammo I had given them earlier. They said okay and while they went to see Jennifer, headed for Pearl Diver and her group.
Earlier when we had set up camp outside the guard base, the guys left their bikes with Jennifer & Herbert along with the supplies they had bought on Monday.
All but a couple of her drivers & stranded people volunteered to help once I explained what was going on and what I hoped WE would accomplish. A couple of guys & women were just too fat, looking more like poster kids on why NYC tried passing the law on the soda pop size limit. Told them I understood, but they could still help out around the base. They still had no interest in helping out. Asked/got their names, writing them on the back of my hand. When asked why, told them I'd inform the base commander about their refusal and ask they not be given any help/supplies at all. That they were on their own. Was told they couldn't do that and I replied, the f*ck they can't. They are the ONLY form of recognizable government in this area and hopefully within a few days we'll be in contact with state officials and really get things going. They decided to "volunteer" but told Pearl Diver (a bit loudly) that I'd let the Sgt. Major know what was going on with those people as I thought they'd be jacking off as soon as possible, but still wanting food, etc. Gave her the .380 and spare magazine. Asked if she'd be interested in joining our group and said she'd have to think it over first.
Someone asked how long did I expect us to remain here and told them I hoped to leave tomorrow, Thursday at the latest with my girl....uh, lady friend who is worried about her mother who has a broken leg. She also has a 5 year old son to worry/look out for and they live somewhere south of here. But if the guard gets even some of the stuff I've talked about, we're all going to be better off in supplies for those who want to return south for what ever reasons.
Turn around and d*mn near bump into Jennifer who says supper's ready. I kind of turned red in the face, said thank you and headed to our camp with her & the guys following. And the woman gave me $hit all the way back. Continually saying "I'm your girl....uh lady friend"? "I'm your girl....uh lady friend"? Must of been some Freudian kind of slip or subconscious desire on my part in thinking of her maybe as my girlfriend. I'm 60 years old, bald, fat, wear glasses and don't have all my teeth or hair. If a woman saw me, she'd probably shoot me just to put me out of my misery simply because of the way I look. And I could hear a couple of the guys snickering each time Jennifer went into her little spiel and I wasn't going to turn around to see who it was. $hit and double $hit.
But she quit her spiel when I went to bob and dug out a box of 9mm ammo and got me a plate full of chili & rice. Doctored it up with some Taco Bell hot sauce I got Monday night. Asked her if the others (John, Marcy & Benny) had been fed and she said yes. Asked if the guys were hungry, was told they had just eaten some MRE's. So we just sat there eating/kicking back till one of the guardsmen came for us. That's when I remembered to grab a canteen with nothing but water in it and small medical pouch I carry in the day cab & can't have bob in the truck with me. Put scope in bob.
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Post by willc453 on May 11, 2014 18:27:19 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 14 July 10th Wednesday (contd)
Follow the guardsman to the main gate and next to it are 6 national guardsmen (one a woman) with some guy named Patterson in charge. By his expression, he's not a happy camper seeing me armed, but doesn't say anything about it. Not that I'd give a $hit, because I wasn't going ANYWHERE unarmed anymore. Says the Sgt. Major has assigned us to check out a Home Depot about 6 miles up the road. Got 3 people from my group and 2 from Pearl Divers. Two of my people have pistols of their own and after asking the other 3, lent the .45 to an ex-Navy guy with the understanding it was a loan only.
Paterson goes into a spiel how we're not looting, etc.....the same spiel I gave to Millar earlier. While they're armed and wearing helmets, notice they're not wearing Kevlar vests and only 1 has what looks like a medical pouch. They've got their M-16's, 4 magazines....and that's it. Not even a canteen. But looking at Reginald and his guys, they're prepared for bear: Kevlar vests and while they only have 4 magazines, they do have 2 canteens and medical pouches. About this time I'm hearing Paterson telling everyone that WE are under HIS COMMAND. Our "mission" as he put it was to secure certain items and bring them back to the base. We were NOT to have any weapon with a magazine in it and not to lock & load unless HE gave permission and though there were regular Army people in the group, they are expected to obey his orders. Since they knew the area, the guard would lead and cover left & right flanks of his group with us civilians in the middle with Army in the rear. Then he waves and calls out Forward HO?! Think this guy has seen that Patton movie or a John Wayne western one too many times.
Within a mile, the guard started bunching up and bs'ing with each other. I don't understand this at all, so slowed down to be near Reginald & the guys, asking what's going on with this supply party & Paterson? Reginald said Blevins pulled each of them aside after I left, wanting to know why 11 Bravo's were following a civilian? (Told 11 Bravo is the Army's MOS for infantry) As I thought, you don't play games with Sgt. Majors even if they're in the guard as they have contacts in ALL branches of the service. They told him everything, including me shooting those 4 guys, getting people organized.....basically leading while others followed or in my words, got out of the way. Since I had been making good suggestions and coming up with good ideas, they would follow until either I screwed up or they got to the guard base. And Paterson? He's normally an office clerk....that explained a lot. Blevins passed the word that no one was to give me any $hit for me being armed, but not why, which pi$$ed Paterson off. The other civilians who were armed were not to be hassled unless they became a problem. By the time we got going, it was still daylight and we had 3 hours or so before dark. At least the moon would be out a little bit tonight.
Looking around as we walked, see a lot of warehouses and it was quiet. So used to hearing the noise of a city like it was alive and now, not hearing it was strange. Reminded me of that town near Goodfellow. Feet were beginning to hurt from walking so much earlier and thought I was starting to get a case of crotch rash. Should of washed my feet and gotten a clean pair of socks on before leaving.
After walking a little over an hour, called out to Paterson, asking how much further was it and d*ck head says "awwww, does your feet hurt"? Says we've got maybe a mile to go. Another half hour of walking and I can see the Home Depot sign posted near the street. See that the guys grouped together and bs'ing with each. I looked at Reginald and asked is this how infantry moves in Injun country? Asks what I meant and told him what I felt like when I went looking for those supplies Monday night. Better to think everyone's hostile/to be on guard than get caught by surprise. Thought I was over reacting, but hissed to the guys to break it up, which they did and spread out a bit.
See a bunch of cars/trucks abandoned in the lot. Probably people buying stuff to fix their homes when the earthquake hit on Sunday. Looking around and something didn't feel right and that's when I got boinked. Hissed to Reginald, asking him to have everyone slow down a bit and fall a bit behind the main group. Called out to Paterson that I've got a stone in my shoe and please wait. You know, give it a quivering tone in my voice. Reacted just like I hoped, telling Reginald that since he brought him, they were to wait and guard me from any bogeymen and then catch up with him and his party. '
Tell Reginald that I just got boinked and started explaining it to them. It's when something bad is going to or may happen if I don't do something about it or be aware of it possibly happening real soon. Realized then the last time it happened was when I thought of the tsunami. I've had 9 boinks in the past 15 years and something bad happened in 6. The tsunami, made it 10 boinks, 7 bad things happened. Told them it was the same feeling I had when I thought of tsunami in Portland. He looks around and says, I don't see no tsunami, trying to lighten things up. Said no....look at the cars and trucks. You're Joe Bob buying stuff to fix up your place after the earthquake hits and then the EMP hits. Notice a lot of the cars/trucks have their doors open/trunks and some even look like the windows have been BUSTED open? Wouldn't you try to take at least some of the small stuff home or do you say screw it, leaving your doors and trunks wide open? Look at the cars/trucks in the drive up area. Notice that NONE of THEM have open doors/trunks? And see how they're together, more like they've been pushed to form a unnoticeable perimeter/defensive area? He started to say no, but then saw doubt creep in his eyes along with the other guys.
Asked if they got any grenades or even smoke grenades and told no. Said ask Paterson to stop before we get any further on the parking lot. He did and when we got close enough, ask in a stupid, ignorant kind of civilian way that I was wondering why everyone wasn't carrying grenades, rocket launchers or at least a machine gun like everyone else does when on the news. Could see the look of disgust on his face at my question and he replied that they were on a supply gathering mission, nothing more. We weren't in some 3rd world $hit hole like Iraq or Afghanistan, where they use their hand to wipe their a$$. We were in the United States of America which is why they didn't have rocket launchers, grenades, bazookas or machine guns. The people will be happy to see and greet us. Replied oh....sorry for my stupid question. He says with a superior smile, that's okay. Know he didn't mean it. So he and the others start towards the parking lot and I waved the guys to fall back a bit again. But called out to Navy and when Navy turned around, nodded my head towards our group. Told him I thought that something bad was going to happen and would he mind staying with us? He looked at Patersons back and said okay. I'd of called out to the other guys, but they were hanging close to Paterson. Told everyone to grab a rock the size of grenade and start angling off to Patersons left where there were a few more cars & trucks than the semi-open area where Patersons group was going. What got Reginalds/the guys attention was when I gave them each one of my AR magazines, saying just in case. Told them they had 28 rounds in the mags. That left me 5 in the bag and 1 in the rifle which had a round in the chamber.
Thank God someone got nervous and started firing before Patersons people got closer. As it was, they were within 300 feet of the overhang area where the cars/trucks were "parked". As soon as I thought I saw movement (or a shadow?), I shouted run and moved like a jackrabbit with its a$$hole on fire. That's when Patersons people started getting shot at. We only had 40 feet or so before we were behind cover, but it seemed to go on forever. Hear more firing and it's Patersons people retuning fire from behind other vehicles. Maybe the shooters got nervous when they saw us splitting off to the left? When everyone was behind the jacked up pickup truck, Montana says he knew white people can't jump, but he didn't know OLD white people could run so fast. Told him you ain't seen me run yet....wait till I hear the dinner bell ring. We started firing at the people behind the cars/trucks but realized after a couple of minutes, this isn't going to make it. They're hold up and they could actually fall back to our right and down the delivery road and then flank us on our left or right. Along with Home Depot, there was a Baby R Us, Staples, and a bunch of small stores like AT&T, hair dresser, Game Stop, etc. Asked everyone if they still had their rocks and they looked at me like I was crazy. Reginald says yes and if you want them, they're right on the ground by us. So I got 3 and passed the other 3 to Navy who said WTF and quit firing his .45. Kind of smiled and asked everyone if they were ready to dance....Navy looked even more confused and the guys didn't like it one bit with Socrates saying oh $hit. Waited for Socrates to ask the question that I knew he didn't want to ask, but did: what's the dance this time? Said notice how the cars are parked, but the left/right flanks are left open? If we Injun more to our left and you guys take a run for the pallets of manure/bark, you'll have cover and hopefully start shooting fish in a barrel. He says that's nice, but what are you two going to be doing? Replied....oh, we're going to throw hand grenades at 'em and scare the $hit out of them so the first thing they're going to want to do is leave cover. Remember, there's a whole lot of cars/trucks parked there and I bet they've all seen the movies where when a grenade is thrown, cars get blown up into the air. And who wants to be in the landing zone of a burning/exploding car? We eventually worked our way with in 50 feet of the building and about 100 feet from the bad guys who started shooting at us even more.
Explained how the dance was suppose to go and when they were ready, I shouted THIS IS THER OREGON ARMY NATIONAL GUARD, CEASE FIRING OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES. Their reply was even more gun fire. I really didn't think it would work, but wtf. Then called out loudly again: LIBBY, ORTEGA, TACO, MACDILL. TOSS YOUR GRENADES AND WE'LL KEEP THEM PINNED DOWN. DO THIS ON THE COUNT OF THREE. At which time Navy & I started tossing our "grenades" and I shouted three about 3 seconds after tossing them. The guys hauled a$$ for the loaded pallets. Navy and I did reasonably well considering in that 4 of the rocks not only went over the cars/trucks, but actually hit the building wall and bounced next to the cars/trucks as planned. Heard screams of GRENADE, GRENADE and saw some moving/running to our right. Which gave enough time for the guys to start shooting because the people behind the barricade didn't expect "grenades" from our position and thought we'd start shooting while the other party tossed "grenades".
Started running for one of the pallets, when there was a loud BOOM and find myself flying thru the air. Several more BOOMS go off and one of the cars actually explodes, hitting the top of the overhand area. Then I'm bounced off a car and in a daze. All I could think of was I was okay, but needed to pick up the fried chicken off the road and get back to the comm. center. Instead, just kind of laid there stunned out in the open.
To make a long story short, there must of been some propane tanks that the looters had taken, but not loaded up on carts and one of the guys must of hit one which set off a small chain reaction. About half a minute later, the overhand collapsed on top of the cars/trucks. While the other guys stayed under cover, Sampson came running out, grabbed/jerked me up and took us to hide behind ne of the pallets. I could see his mouth moving, but not hear anything for a minute or so and he's busy looking for wounds. No returning fire from the looters, but wondered/worried about 2 things: did any looters make it into the store and we gotta put the fire out. Kind of wobbly on my feet and tell Reginald my concerns. Says they'll check it out while I stay here and I said okay because right then, I was/would be a liability to the group. See my AR on the pavement, but not going for it till I KNOW it's okay to do so. Sit there with the 9 in my hand for I don't know how long till the guys come out to say it's okay. I'm pretty much back to normal, so get the rifle and say we have to put the fire out or we can lose everything in the store. Find the racks of fire extinguishers and try to put this thing out, but the fire's getting bigger. See the fire alarm mounted on the front wall and out of habit, pull it. Like I said, I was pretty much back to normal but not quite. Reginald says let's grab what generators and what ever else we can and get out of here. I'm ready to do this, then remember how the hero/heroine set off the sprinklers by putting a lighter under the sprinkler head. Tell the guys to start shooting the sprinkler heads because while there's no water pressure per say any more, there's still water in the pipes. They started shooting and knocked off several heads...or poked holes in the pipes. That seemed to have done the trick, but helped that I and Montana used more fire extinguishers on the flames. I could see wisps of smoke coming from several places from the pile of the fallen overhang, but all I could do was hope it wouldn't flare.
Left the store to see how Patersons group was. He was dead, along with a driver. The woman guardsman was wounded and it was ugly. Got hit by flying debris and the guys were trying to stop the bleeding and not succeeding. I could see there was a slash/cut about 6 inches long near her hip and because she was thrashing around, it would get a little bit longer each time of her jerking/twitching. The guard guys were trying to hold her down, but.... Told one of them to move over and I bent over her head/neck area. Found the artery in her neck, pressed down and started counting. Within seconds, she quit thrashing and just laid there so released the pressure on her artery. Told Reginald & Socrates to get all the tubes of super glue they could and without hesitation, they went back into the store. The womans wound had split about 1/2 inch and told Sampson that I needed his help.
Reginald/Socrates came back pretty quick and I started looking at the type of glue they had. Found the super glue gel and with Sampson squeezing one end of the wound together so it formed an upside down "V", laid a couple of inches of the gel length wise on her wound. Had Sampson hold it for a minute before it became dry and then moved to the next couple of inches. Now the guard guys could cover her wound with bandages from the one guy who had brought his. No idea if she was internally bleeding but did what I could.
Socrates wanted to know how I knocked the woman unconscious and the super glue. Explained the artery on the left side of the neck carries blood to the brain. Blocked off, pretty much instant unconsciousness. Super glue was developed for bravos in Vietnam for wounds like this. Says he never heard of infantry treating wounds like this. Said, Bravos back then was slang meaning medic/corpsmen. When a man got shot, the last thing needed was hearing the cry of medic, medic because the VC would know the man running up was a medic and he'd become a target for all their shooting....which would kind of pi$$ off the medic. And that's something you really don't want to do in a combat zone/situation.
Then remembered my rifle and where was Navy? Go to where it all started with rock throwing and he's dead with a seatbelt buckle half way buried in his forehead. Find my .45 and the empty magazine on the ground nearby and that's when I hear a cry of HEADLIGHTS! Oh f*ck me....the looters are not only back, but have wheels? Everyone's scrambling for cover and I'm all by my lonesome. Two of the guardsmen grabbed the lady by the shirt collar and drag her around to the other side of the car. Yelled out to the approaching car: This is the Oregon national guard, DO NOT come any closer or we WILL fire. That's when I hear Blevins call out, THIS is the Oregon national guard and you WILL surrender NOW. That's when I called out saying who I was and Blevins said if so, what's your motto? And I said: lead, follow or get out of the way.
Before the EMP hit, one of their Humvee engines was down for replacement among other things, but with the earthquake relief, no time to fix it as the guard mechs were busy enough keeping their gear going along with helping drivers when they had problems. After EMP, they pulled out all the stops to get it going. I've looked at the engine compartment of one of those things when the civilian models first came out and it had all sorts of $hit on it....most of it unrecognizable to me. Everyone heard the shooting and then the explosions with Blevins getting people moving. That's when one of the mechs said the Humvee was ready to go. So they hooked up a couple of military cargo trailers, piled troops on it and here they were. They had 2 medics who started taking care of the woman and that's when I passed out.
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Post by hamrad on May 12, 2014 13:14:19 GMT -6
Thanks Will.
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Post by biggkidd on May 12, 2014 17:22:39 GMT -6
Really good story! Larry
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Post by willc453 on May 12, 2014 19:34:34 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 15 July 10th Wednesday (contd)
Woke up and no idea where I was at, then realized I was back in camp and in my sleeping bag. Jennifer's over to one side with Herbert and I must of made some sort of noise because she turned and came over to me, saying I scared the $hit out of her and not to do that again. Told her not to yell because my head hurt like a....and was going to say mother f*cker, but Herbert was there and been trying to cut back on cursing when he's around. Says I got a light concussion from hitting the car. I said okay and fell back asleep.
When I woke up the 2nd time, felt a lot better. Prince is laying just a foot or two from me. Heard me move and crawled over to start licking my face. Told him he was a good dog, but like Simon, gotta be careful when talking to him as we did some tongue swapping. Ick. Jennifer asked if I was feeling better and said yes; then asked for something to drink. Got me some water and after a bit, got up and started moving around. Felt stiff, like I spent a few hours sleeping in a day cab and asked for some coffee. That took 5 minutes or so, but after my usual morning hacking (and a frown from Jennifer), had a cigarette (another frown from her) which wasn't bad, but mouth tasted like $hit and dentures were loose. Dug thru the cooler for the French Vanilla creamer and wondered how long it would be good for. Ice was melted of course, but could be poured into one of the empty water jugs.
Remembered I hadn't had my dentures out since Monday and here it was Wednesday. Asked if I was hungry and she brought over a plate of scrambled eggs that I had no idea (or caring) where she got the eggs from. Added some hot sauce from Taco Bell and started stuffing them in my face when I had a panic attack....where were my guns? Saw them both by bob, along with my magazine bag and hat. Got my hat on, then checked the guns out. The 10 magazines were there & loaded. So were the 9 & 45 magazines. Rifle, 9 & 45 weren't loaded, fixed that. What surprised me was finding 10 boxes of 5.56 for a total of 200 rounds and 2 boxes of each for the 9 AND 45 which gave me another 100 rounds for both. They were in brown boxes and looked like military issue. After stuffing them in bob, went back to finishing breakfast. Rewound the watch and saw the crystal had a slight crack in it....ahhh, Timex. Takes a beating, but keeps on ticking.
Get shoes/socks on and it's almost 13:00. Asked/told I was out for 16+ hours. Grab the rifle, put the 9 & holster on my hip and hit the porta pottie. Get my stuff so I could shave and even more important, brush my teeth. Saw the guard had set up some wash stands for each of our groups by the porta potties. F*ck, I felt OLD. Couldn't figure out if I felt worse now than my first hangover in Panama. If not, it was running a close 2nd. What was nice was Jennifer bringing over a small pot of hot water so I could shave AND another cup of coffee WITH French Vanilla creamer in it. After another cigarette, (and another frown from her) felt almost human.
Walking back to our camp, looking around, see people/the guard moving around/doing unknown things. I was here, but not here, at least mentally. But knew I'd be pulling out of that state of mind in a bit. Which got me to thinking about other things that might be done. Jennifer said Blevins wanted to talk to me when I woke up and I said okay....and we were getting low on water. Said we were down to 5 gallons of the bottled stuff I bought earlier. And started thinking about that. Asked where Herbert was and she pointed to him. He was busy with a couple of other kids and they were all playing with Queenie and doing fetch the stick thing. Asked if the dogs had been fed and she said yes. Felt like $hit that I forgot to feed/water them yesterday before taking off. At least they stayed by her & the boy like I told them to yesterday.
Anderson comes over, says he heard I was awake and Blevins wanted to talk to me. Said okay and asked what had been happening since I was out. Called the dogs to me, telling Jennifer that we'd be back in a bit. Wanted the dogs with me as I hadn't really been spending much time talking/playing with them. Told the medics checked me out at Home Depot, figured I had a slight concussion, but would be okay after getting some sleep. If not, check back with them. Water was getting short, but they had been hitting a couple of water traps at a near by golf course and bringing it back with help of the Humvee. One of the generators from Home Depot as running one of their portable purification machines and filling one of the water bladders the guard had in case of deployment. Said we should find any construction companies around her and get their water trucks running. But couldn't we hook up a generator/pump to suck out what water there may be in the water mains? Told if they did that, they/'d lose water pressure and probably not get much water that way. Asked about wells and he said he'd check into that. Asked how the $hitters were doing and looked at me strangely. I said how full are they? Says in another day or two, they'll be full and thinking of digging latrines. Suggested they hit the company that supplied the potties and see if they can't get those trucks running so the potties can be emptied. Or bring in more potties, but I had no idea how they'd dispose of this waste unless they went back to burning it in drums/diesel fuel like they did in Vietnam. And more ideas on transportation, power and water.
While the EMP friend everything, there may be cars in for repairs at the dealerships and maybe some of them could be gotten to work IF the batteries weren't connected. Also hit the truck companies & repair shops if they needed any parts for any of their vehicles. From what I understand, a lot of military stuff used regular commercial parts. Told they were already doing that with the rigs here. Check airports around her. The jet/turbo prop stuff won't fly but I know south of here, there's a small airport with a bunch of tail draggers. The electronics like radios, gps, etc. would be fried, but replace the batteries and the engine should still just start up and that would give us not only aerial reconnaissance, but also the ability to transport supplies/people even faster using roads as landing strips. Check out companies that dealt with solar & wind power. Also any drilling companies....what was the water table around here?
Says they've been busy all night gathering supplies from Home Depot, Best Buy, etc. BUT they've also been putting guards on these places to make sure they get everything. Told him to check out AT&T and other places for phones, but he said phones aren't going to work with the towers down. Said no, but seen phones that could be used as walkie talkies as our dispatchers used them talking with the hostlers. While we're talking, Anderson is taking notes.
As we entered the base, see some rigs with hoods popped and being stripped for parts which reminded me that the truck repair places also had lap tops to diagnose problems with a rig and told Anderson about that. Suggested once they have their equipment up or even before, they might consider getting the rigs to running. Give us a LOT more ability to carry people/supplies and we might even have a chance to save any food in abandoned reefers if the trailers haven't been opened.
Was told we had to wait 15-20 minutes before seeing Blevins and the dogs would have to stay outside the building. Told them to stay/sit. Went to light up inside Blevins office, but Anderson says I can't smoke here, so went outside. Anderson's a little ticked because I'm not waiting in Blevins office and told him, I smoke and need my fix. Get that done and I'll be okay. Tells me smoking's not good for you and the military has been trying to have everyone stop smoking for health reasons. Almost turned on him to tell him to f*ck off/I'm NOT in the military, but didn't. Needed the guard more than they needed me and Anderson's been ok so far. Besides, there are times I'm a little crabby when I wake up and need a large cup of coffee and 3-4 cigarettes to get to feeling human.
Outside, ask what else happened after I passed out. Says Paterson and 3 drivers are dead and a guardsman wounded, not counting the woman guardsman. The woman was doing okay and in the base dispensary. Reginald told the medics treating her what I did with the super glue & getting her unconscious. Apparently the blood was coming from small vessels, with nothing major cut. But with me super gluing her back up, it helped stop a lot of the bleeding. She got 27 stiches and wants to see me. Finished half the cigarette and said let's go see Blevins.
Blevins was a little unhappy that I wasn't waiting for him in the office, but told him I needed my fix and held up my smokes. Says okay and thanks me for taking care of his troops. Wanted to know what I was going to do and told him about Jennifer & Herbert. Tells me that they may be able to help me out on that which surprised me, but also made me suspicious. But then had a really stupid look on my face when he asked where she lived. I had no f*cking idea except she lived somewhere south of where all of this started. Blevins looked at me waiting for an answer and told him the truth....and he just stared at me. Then it was: I was going to help a woman and her child with no idea where she lived, what the conditions were like between here/down there, limited supplies....all on my own? I said no, not quite. Think there are other people who'll be traveling with us and should make better time going south and hopefully be at her place the same day as we've been down I-5 once already.
Says a Capt. Mendoza came in with 32 troops from up north. Portland is tearing itself apart and gangs have taken over parts of the city. They even got stupid enough to attack the guard in Beaverton. $hit, never though of gangs. When I do, I think of places like L.A., NYC, etc. He lost 8 men and equipment walking back due to gangs. No word from their c.o. So now there are some gangs with M-16's Kevlar, etc. Not good. No long distance comm (meaning military radios) and that's when Anderson told him about Radio Shack & the phones. They're searching the area for electronic stores for parts right now to get that fixed. That's when I suggested they look for local radio stations because if they can get at least one of them fixed and broadcasting, we can start broadcasting information on what's going on and most importantly, people will know there's still a government. Hurt yes, but not down and out. And maybe it'll put a crimp in the gangs looting, etc. Blevins said he'd get someone to check into it and added they did get some cb's hooked up with one of the working Hummer. They also had some on the propane powered forklifts which were busy hauling material back to base using Home Depots flat carts. Also expect to have more vehicles running either by today or tomorrow.
But he had a proposition that Capt. Mendoza ok'd. How'd I like to join the guard at least on a temporary basis? Now THAT really threw me. Said that the train museum was south of here and since your girl & son lived there.... He also said they were worried/wondering how the other guard units south of there were doing so we could also check on them.
Said I'd have to talk with Jennifer first and he said ok, but they planed on leaving by Friday at the latest. That's when I remembered & mentioned Babies R Us. Said some of the women had babies and they probably needed formula, diapers, etc. And probably a lot of other women could use this stuff too. Blevins said it was already taken care of. Asked, but have you thought of using baby strollers/carriages to use for moving supplies? Caught him flat footed on that one. Said I didn't see the guard pushing them around, but maybe the people going south with us or somewhere else can use 'em. He said okay, but the people would have to up there to get them.
As I walked towards the gate, see Herbert who is saying something to the guard. But when he see me, he SCREAMS, Unka Andy, Unka Andy. A man is scaring Mommy and I thought of Aaron. And this time I did run.
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Post by willc453 on May 13, 2014 17:22:19 GMT -6
The Layover Chapter 16 July 10th (contd)
Took me a few minutes to reach our camp and see John & Benny with their guns drawn at a guy who's near our supplies/bikes. Then see Jennifer holding her left cheek while on the ground with Marcy holding her. Slowed up to hear the guy saying "I am very, very sorry for my outburst and losing my temper. But the woman was being very unreasonable as I have offered her 2 gold coins which are valued at over $3,000 in return for one bicycle and some cans of food". By then I was walking up to him and upon hearing me, he turned around to say "are you her grandfath....and hit him in the mouth with the butt of the AR without saying a word. He fell back a bit and started spitting teeth and blood with his hands covering his mouth. And the dark side came out again wanting real blood, but I was able to control it. So kicked him squarely in the balls with my foot trying to reach as high as his head with that foot. He eeked, then passed out. Prince/Queenie started to go for him, but pointed at Jennifer and said guard. Dark side said that's not good enough. Told Jennifer & Marcy to close their eyes and turn their heads away and they took one look at my face and did it. Whipped out my d*ck and started p*ssing on his face, making sure I got his open mouth. He started coming to/coughing and trying to roll away, but made sure I covered his head and shoulders good. Let him get to his feet and told him never come back or I'll do something really bad next time. He staggered away from our camp to who knows where.
After zipping up, turned to Jennifer/Marcy and said it's okay now and they uncovered their faces. Went to Jennifer to see how she was doing and sat besides her, not really knowing what to do. She just turned to me like I did to her on that Monday and started crying. All I could do was stroke her head and shoulders, telling her she was alright and we'd be home soon. Then Herbert was there, patting/ hugging her, saying Mommy don't cry, Unka Andy is here and we're safe. She eventually calmed down and said thanks and told her what goes around comes around as she remembered me and Monday.
After both of us got up, turned around and there's Blevins & Mendoza! Mendoza turned to Blevins and said Robert, there are times I think you exaggerate some things, but not about this man. Get him. Thought he meant for Blevins to beat the sh*t out of me, throw me in jail or something like that.
Asked Jennifer what happened. It came down to the guy wanting to buy 1 of the bikes and some of the canned goods, but Jennifer kept saying no, it belonged to me and couldn't sell it. That's when the man said he couldn't wait for me to come back, tossed the 2 coins on the ground and started grabbing supplies. She tried to pull him away and that's when he hit her and she screamed with Herbert running off for me. John/Benny/Marcy were on a work detail when they heard her scream with Benny leaving John/Marcy behind. Benny held the gun at gunpoint with the idea of either him or John going for help with the guy trying to explain his actions several times with the hopes of getting away/out of there and that's when I arrived.
Blevins said when you've got time, drop by my office and we'll talk some more. I said okay and looked at Jennifers face. Big bruise on her left cheek and all I could think of tracking that f*cker down and really give him a hurt. She must of seen something in my face when I saw the bruise as she touched my face with her hand said no; he got what he deserved, no more please. I said okay.
John said you don't f*ck around do you and Marcy gave him a light what at the back of his head, saying Johnathon, your language please! Put my arms around Jennifer and Herbert, saying not when it comes to her & the boy. Herbert was clinging to my leg, so told him to stay with here. He was scared something else might happen if I wasn't around and Marcy spoke up, saying she'd stay with them until I got back. Got ready to leave when I saw the 2 gold coins on the ground, picked them up and gave them to Jennifer. Said don't think the man's going to come back for them, you may as well have 'em. Told Prince to guard Herbert, Queenie got Jennifer. I'd never leave them alone without one of the dogs being there to watch over them.
Told John, Benny & Marcy thanks....and got to thinking about the supplies and maybe a way of using them to help them/us out. Asked if they were going south with us tomorrow or Friday and John/Marcy kind of hesitated before saying no. Asked why, was told they really didn't have much to go back to as they had been living in a retirement home. It was nice, with their own apartment, laundry done, meals served or being able to cook their own, but.... Maybe they could find/do something more useful around here. And it would be safer here by the guard base than further south. Benny said he'd hang around here and I could see he and them had bounded in some sort of way....kind of like a small family? Asked if they had thought of taking a new trade/occupation and they had no idea what I was talking about. Said that we're going to be leaving tomorrow or Friday and there's no way we can take all this stuff. We've got 5 bikes and even if we lent some of them to the people going south, it'd be hard to keep them in the long run. I'm sure there are people who live further south than Jennifer and what if they're using one of the bikes? I really couldn't see myself taking it from them when we got to Jennifers place. So the 3 of you set up a trading post. See what I can scavenge around here for more stuff to trade before taking off. But had to ask Jennifer if it would be okay if we left by Friday. Kind of surprised she said yes because I know she's worried about her mom. But she also said no later than Friday and I said okay. Told the 3 of them they could take the stuff the guys had bought on Monday. Told them I just thought of some stuff that might still be at Home Depot and had to take off. Jennifer said she wanted to go too, but Herbert didn't care for that idea at all. Told him that I'd leave Prince with him and he could help Grandma Marcy, Grandpa John and Uncle Benny set up their store. He thought it over and said okay. The 3 of them looked at me and nodded their heads when I gave them their new titles to Herbert. Got the bikes and carts and off we went.
Passed some people coming back with supplies and we waved back to each other. Some people called out asking how I was doing. Said I was pretending to be a hooker pedaling my a$$ around town and they laughed. Jennifer actually snorted while trying to keep from laughing. Turned to her and said, what? You don't think I can make it as a male hooker? That's when she really started laughing and said I was terrible....and told her yeah, but I'm GOOD at it. And got her to laughing more which was a good thing.
Introduced myself to the guard & civilian there and they had heard what happened the night before and knew who I was. Told them what I wanted and what I was going to do. They both said okay, but too make sure I gave my receipt to the Sgt. Major. Found only some of the garden tools still on the rack, but enough for the three of us to use and all the vegetable/flower seeds which nobody thought of taking. Jennifer asked why the flower seeds and told her that some people know they're good for medication purposes. Don't know what does what, but... And grabbed a dozen of those 5 gallon buckets with lids near the door along with some boxes of nails and hammers. Added everything up with came to a little over $300 and made 3 copies of what I was taking. Gave one to the guard/civilian and had them sign the other 2 copies, then headed back to camp.
Gave John, Benny & Marcy a shove, hoe & rake and one half of the vegetable/flower seeds and said didn't know if it was too late to plant or not. If it was still okay, maybe they could get some food growing/harvested just in case. And if there was surplus, they could sell/trade it. John asked me if I thought things were going to get so bad they had to grow their own food. I looked at the 3 of them and said it's NOT going to get bad. I think it's going to get real f*cking ugly unless we start getting a handle on it in a week or less. Asked him to remember what it was like during the Korean war and the cities the Marines passed thru. As a modeler, I've seen a lot of photos of what Korea was like during the fighting over it and could see John did too. And could see him changing mentally from here and now to what he was like back then. Said I hate to ask, but want one of the 9's back from you guys. In return, I'll give you a .45 with 100+ round for it, maybe more if I can find/get some. John said okay, but why? Said I'm not going to have Jennifer unarmed any more. Queenie/Prince are a lot of protection/deterrent, but.... Jennifer objected, saying she's never used a gun before and didn't care to be around them. Said we'd talk about this later and she said okay. Swapped gun/ammo/magazines with Benny, put the stuff away and headed to see Pearl Diver on how she's doing and offer of going south with us.
She's busy directing the guard mechs on what parts could be taken from a truck and used on theirs. Seems she's an Army brat and her Dad drove an Abrahms in the Gulf War. And knew how to turn a wrench. Said she'd stay here and help out which I understood. Asked how those "volunteer" lard a$$es were doing and said the guard put their a$$ right to work and kept on them. Remembered the 3 (4?) teenagers that were with us on our trip north and asked about them. Said the girl volunteered to help get supplies and is one hell of a worker. Hasn't seen the boys, but know they aren't doing any details like getting supplies, picking up trash, etc.
As to Aaron, she hasn't seen him since the Sgt. Major ripped him a new one. Seems Aaron isn't only a lawyer, but a well known one. He was trying to throw his weight/reputation around, getting extra food & supplies without doing any work. He actually got some when the Sgt. Major heard about it and ripped new ones on the 2 guardsmen who let him have the stuff. Aaron hauled a$$ for parts unknown. Knowing Blevins, if there's a $hit job, those 2 will pulling it for awhile. It also set an example for other guardsmen of what not to allow. Think the guard at Home Depot let me have that stuff because I had been in the shooting earlier yesterday and I was up front about wanting it for myself. Found myself getting tired/beat, so wrote a note to go along with the 2 receipts, the money and gave it to the guard at the gate with the request she pass it on to the Sgt. Major. No problem she said and I went back to camp.
At camp, wiped my feet down with a wet washrag and changed socks. Starting to smell like a stinky b*tt as I'd tell Simon or Grizzly when they farted....and trying to act all soooo innocent about it. Wondered how they & family were doing. Thing is, can't really afford to think of them now. Just trying to survive/get by is hard enough. Prince was busy playing with the kids, while Queenie stayed near Jennifer. The kids have been thru a lot....give them some normal time. Rubbed some Vicks inside my nose as it was a little dry and chest was just hurting a little bit. Didn't help things finishing off that half a cigarette I started earlier today. Wondered how long the Vicks was going to last and where could I get another bottle. At least I had a small bottle of baby power for my crotch and foot powder for my feet.
Jennifer came over and sat next to me and when I say next to me, her body is next to mine which kind of surprised me. Not that I was going to pull away from her, stinky b*tt or not. Wanted to know what happened last night. Queenie got to looking at me and then where Prince & the kids were playing. I told her go and she took off to join in.
Jennifer said she heard some of the stuff, but not everything. When Reginald & the guys came over with me in a stretcher, she got scared. And the guys would only tell her a little bit. Told her just that Navy & I distracted the bad guys while the other guys did all the shooting. But there were 4 more dead people because of me. Asked what I meant and told her about the guy who died strapped to the truck when we left Hooters. We really hadn't talked much on the way up here, so she wanted to know that story. Gave her the highlights (but NOT about the bank), ending it with the part where we met. Must of been something in my voice when I talked about Patricia and for a second or two, her eyes narrowed. No idea what ticked her off about that. And speaking of her, wonder how she & her parents are doing. And how far north they are from us?
Told her about Blevins, the guard offer and going south, but needed to know where she lived. Says north of Sheridan and I had no idea where that was. With the road atlas figure it's 40-50 miles south of here. A lot further than I had thought/believed as I thought it was 20 miles or so from where we started from. One thing when you're in a car....10-15 miles difference is no big deal, but when you have to walk it, it's a whole new story. Jennifer said some people had earlier offered to buy the bikes/supplies, but told them they'd have to talk with me first. Aaron had also tried buying one but she remembered the ant/grasshopper story along with the stuff that came spilling out of his backpack. Says after seeing him like that, he gives her the creeps. And he doesn't look at her like I do. Got read in the face and when doubt, say nothing, so didn't. Then she smiled and said, remember, I'm your girl....uh lady friend. Asked & was told she'd never let me forget that little incident. The way she said it I knew I was being teased which was okay, but....
Asked her about the ammo on bob and she had no idea what I was talking about when I said bob. Told her it stood for bug out bag from the prepper tv series, not that I was one of those people. Told one of the guards dropped the ammo off, but it wasn't one of the guys. Told her I once broke down for 3 days north of Yucca Mountain travel plaza from Christmas Eve till the day after Christmas. And that required explaining. Told her after that, I wanted to be better prepared as I had traveled thru some pretty desolate country when I was driving otr. Thank God she never thought of asking me if I always carried a gun in the truck on my travels. Or maybe she didn't want to ask. Went to bob and dug out the hand crank radio and flashlight I bought last year....nothing but static from the radio of course. She'd never heard of or seen one before, so explained I bought it mainly for the satellite weather broadcasts and since both were hand cranked if needed, I'd never have to worry about batteries going out on me. Makes me wonder if all the satellites got fried. It's dark and diary is finally caught up.
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Post by nancy1340 on May 15, 2014 22:49:57 GMT -6
Heck we've even had people post poetry here. Sometimes you do go to far and we've been meaning to talk to you about it.LOL
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