Clark Story #1A

S

scrachline

Contributing Member
Clark Story #1A

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I named the main character in all my stories Clark - there was no reason to do that. I just did it and can now call all the stories the Clark series.
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Just a short prep story #1A

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Clark lived in a 4 room house on the riverbank in a small 1200 peopled town. The property was 300 foot by 300 foot and he had a large back yard. The house was 40 foot above the river and he had devised a small lift to pull his 18 foot tri hulled 85 HP boat up to his car/boat port. The boat had a small after market canopy installed in case he got caught out while fishing in bad weather on the Kanawha River in West Virginia. The property was bounded by an 8 foot green slatted chain link fence all the way to the river.

There was a 16 X 24 metal shed behind the house a dual aluminum car port by the double entry drive electronic gates. 16 empty rabbit hutches had been built several years ago onto the back of one side of his house. He had had a dog but it died of old age several months ago. The city ordnances did not allow chickens in the city limits, but that didn’t bother him. He built a coop capable of handling 16 layers. He liked fresh eggs and fried chicken.

He had worked himself into a dead end job driving heavy equipment for one of the wealthy business men in town and had resigned himself to dying of old age while driving an end loader or whatever.

That fall while deer hunting he met up with 2 really talkative younger fellows who had just came back from the war zone. Everyone had shot a deer and decided to stop at a watering hole for a few beers before heading home. He listened intently to these fellows about the coming storm and the preparations they were making. They turned him on to some web sites. He wrote them down and decided to use his computer for more then just down loading country music.

3 weeks later Clark leaned back in his computer swivel chair and said something out loud – Holy Chit…He had an 80 page spiral notebook full of notes and things to do. He was frugal with his money and drank beer at home and rarely went to any of the local beer joints unless he was woman hunting.

That weekend he brought the back hoe home with him – He told the boss he wanted to tinker with the hydraulics because one side of the shovel was kind of sticky. The shop was only 900 yards from his house so he just drove it down the back street and into his yard. He couldn’t afford one of those high dollar concrete bomb shelters – But he sure could make a 20 X 20 X 12 or 14 foot deep hole to hide in. That weekend he dug it and stood there kind of slack jawed at the pile of dirt he had piled up. He thought about that for a little while and said I can use a lot of it to cover the top of the hole and when it gets dark I can use the end loader to dump it in the fast flowing deep river. He knew that was against all kinds of laws, but heck it wasn’t anything but clean dirt and wouldn’t hurt any thing or anybody if no one knew about it.

He put a tarp over the hole and made more plans. The railroad was doing a massive amount of track repair about a half mile from where he was doing some digging for another company.

That week he drove a fork lift over to the humongous pile of copper pressure treated railroad ties. He told the work foreman he needed some old or new ties to put a fairly large shed on he was building out at his hunting camp. Well, his house was his hunting camp, the way Clark figgered it. The foreman told him to keep it quiet and come back after 6 pm and take all he needed from either stack. The railroad had dumped several hundred more ties then was needed on this job and would not miss any. Clark asked him what he drank; he got a response and grinned. He told the foreman he would see him next Friday on payday.

That evening he drove the fork lift back to the pile of rail road ties and walked back to the shop to get a dump truck. He loaded 300 or so ties into the dump truck. Drove the fork lift to the shop and walked back and got the loaded dump truck. Dumped the ties in his yard, took the truck back and had a beer and a burger for supper.

Now that he had some of his building materials which by the way were all free. He thought about what to put under the ties to keep the dampness down a little bit. He knew where gravel and sand was but did not know enough about it. He decided to ask an engineer at the local college that he had had a few beers with.

Several days later after finding out what he did not know, he dumped a load of sand in the hole and spread it out to about 4 inches thick. Ok I need some more knowledge he was thinking – Drinking water, waste removal and the most important of all cheap filtered air. He stopped for a day or two and did some research. OK a sloped pipe with a ¼ inch slope will take the waste and water out to the bank where it would be washed eventually into the river. Now how to get that pipe the right slope and a 4 inch hole through 20 feet of hard soil. Guess I am gonna have to talk with the engineer again, he thought. A quick lesson with a transit and he could use it. Next he had to go to the big city and rent a horizontal gasoline drilling rig with enough sections to drill 20 feet. It was a good thing he talked with the people who he was renting the equipment from – They told him in order to get a 4 inch pipe through the hole he would need a 4 and ½ inch bit. They then showed him how to slide the pipe in and make sure the sections were glued together. The bit and drill extensions could be pulled out the other side when the hole was finished. 2 more 4 inch holes were drilled 6 feet up, one 4 feet from the drain and the other 8 feet away from the waste drain – This was for his air intake and exhaust. Eventually he would buy a 100 X 100 foot sheet of contractor 8 mill plastic to cover the inside and seam it together to totally eliminate 99% of the dampness. Probably have to lay some plywood over it to keep from tearing it.

He now had a way to dispose of waste and a means to get air into the place. Next job to tackle was water – he had read city water could not be depended on if the power was off. He did some measuring beside his house and decided he could fit a rather large water tank in that spot. He also noticed he could disconnect the roof down spout and run that into a barrel or even into the tank he was fixing to put there. So far he had only spent money to rent the drill and buy the pipe glue – The pipe was extra left over from other jobs. He needed some of that galvanized roofing to put over the rail road ties for his roof.

The engineer and he were tipping a few beers one evening and Clark was asked what he was doing. Clark remembering all those warnings to not tell anyone anything; he told a small lie and said he was building a bomb shelter out in the woods near his hunting camp. The engineer told him that was a really smart thing to do and he told him he belonged to a MAG (Mutual Assistance Group). He also told Clark to keep that quiet and he would not mention his bomb shelter to anyone either. They continued to talk and Clark fessed up he wasn’t sure how much of a load those railroad ties would take if he put 8 foot of dirt on top of them. The engineer laughed and said that’s an easy one. Just make sure you put all of your upright ties in 8 to 12 inches of cement so they won’t shift sideways and you will have the structural equivalent of a concrete shelter, well almost. Clark was relieved to hear that because he was stumped. They talked a little more and the engineer told him to make sure all the ties on top are tied into the upright ones with a 2 inch wide metal L, 6 inches long on each side with at least 4 four inch lag bolts on each side of the L.

He had a good drinking buddy who worked in the metal fabrication shop at a local business. He looked him up one evening and told him another small lie. He said he was working on a job and needed 200 of the metal L’s and gave him the specs. The guy said no way I can make that many and get away with it. Let me talk to the boss and see if I can’t get them on the cheap. 3 days later he called Clark and said 100 dollars – Clark breathed a sigh of relief because he had looked the price up and they were about 5 bucks a piece. He told his friend make them as soon as you can and I’ll get the money.

He definitely was not going to ask the metal shop man about the 1600 4 inch lagbolts. Which he probably only needed about 500. He was going to have to bite the bullet and buy a fiber glass water tank or something that would hold up in the cold weather. He thought about putting a heater coil in it running off of a solar panel and battery. He would think about that and research it.
 
S

scrachline

Contributing Member
The 160 watt solar panel price almost gave him a stroke. He needed it and 2 golf cart batteries to have light and a small DC fridge in his shelter. He started building the box for the batteries and charge controllers that week end. There was no way he could get any of his mining buddies to abscond 2 mine buggy batteries – So he bit the bullet again and ordered them from the internet. The batteries were a good price, but the shipping cost made him sick. When he ordered the solar panel he ordered six 39 led dc screw in lights to light the shelter. He was still waffling about the small AC-DC fridge until he thought about cold beer. That settled that, he bought it.

Piping for the water was next – he brought the small backhoe trencher home that weekend and dug the water pipe trenches. He bought home one inch plastic water pipe because that was all they had left over from another job, but that was OK because he was going to reduce it to ½ inch when he hooked everything up. He needed help now to dig the footer, mix the cement and man handle the ties into the hole. He could not trust anybody in town. He talked to the engineer and he was out with a bad back. So, who do I call next? He called one of the young fellows that had started all this and explained his problem. He said they could help him on the week end and they had just finished their shelter. He told them he was going to pay them and the young guy said that would be fine.

He had to make a simple jig to keep his chain saw straight when they cut the 60 ties. He berated himself hard for not taking into account the 8 foot lengths of the ties and he could have made the hole 24 X 24 or 16 X16, nope he thought 16 X16 was too small, and saved a lot of work. It took 2 weekends to get the ties cemented in and the heavy duty galvanized roof screwed down with 2 inch stainless steel screws and the edges and screws caulked with some type of 50 year neoprene caulk. Clark found several pieces of the rubber that goes on roofs and they seamed it together and used the glue to hold it together forever he thought. OK now to put the dirt back on top of the roof and see what’s left. He checked his list to see if everything was done before the dirt replacement. He had put 3 extra 1 inch pipes in, in case he needed some more wiring. They were capped off and buried 6 inches deep. The electric from the solar panel was in – the water line was in – the waste drain was in and capped off – the in and out air pipes were in. He had run city electric in and that is what was being used to light the 4 foot fluorescents installed beside the 6 39 LED DC lights.

The dirt was back hoed onto the roof and leveled off. The door gave him fits when he installed it. It was a 48 inch wide 72 inch tall solid metal one from an abandoned mining building and weighed at least 300 pounds. He took the metal frame from the building the door was hung on and had to do some fancy metal sawing to get everything air tight. He spent 80 bucks on lead impregnated tape and covered the outside and inside of the door, he had no idea if it would stop gamma radiation, but it sure made him feel good. He was going to do the same to the inside of the outer door. He also placed 18 solid 12 inch cinder locks inside to put against the inner door for more radiation protection. There was another door that covered the downward steps to the shelter and Clark did not know and had no idea how to camouflage it. The outer door was also 48 inches wide 72 inches tall and was a two inch thick solid piece of oak that had a sheet of aluminum on each side and it was heavy. He hoped he wasn’t injured or sick when he had to come in because it was a beast to get that outer door lifted up. It was a good thing they didn’t use creosote anymore to dip those rail road ties in any more or the stink would not have allowed him to stay in the shelter without a gas mask.

He checked his HEPA filter he had installed on the incoming air pipe and the small 4 inch DC fan pulled outer air in fine. There was another small HEPA filter in the exhaust pipe to prevent any radiation from coming through the 20 foot of pipe back into the shelter. For now he placed a cap on the exhaust pipe and a cap on the intake to keep rats bugs or bees from building nests. He had a 20 foot screw together pipe to push through the pipe to remove the covers if he was inside. He decided to change that in the next few weeks with a plastic fly screen and a ¼ inch metal rabbit cage type screen inside behind the fly screen.

The toilet was flushed and clean water ran out and dropped about 7 feet down onto the hillside. The sink drained into the same pipe. City water was now forcing pressure through the 500 gallon tank he had installed beside his house. He would have very little pressure if the city water failed. He thought he had done a good job for the 1800 dollars he had spent in the past 4 months. He would have to devise a way to turn the small solar panel on from the shelter, or make sure he did it before entering the shelter, that heated the water in the tank if things happened in the winter.

Things went smoothly for the next few months – Clark bought a steel building and had it placed on a concrete pad beside his aluminum building. It was 16X24 also and cost more then he wanted to pay. He had been out of debt until he started on this project. The long term supplies set him back several hundred dollars. But 2 more months and that credit card would be ready for use again.

Clarks weapons were inventoried and inspected – A 300 bolt action Winchester magnum with a 26 inch barrel in stainless steel – a .22 8 inch barreled revolver, a Ruger 10-22 rifle , a colt 223 rifle, a browning 30-06 semi automatic, a semi auto browning 22 with a 5 and a ½ inch bull barrel, a 1911 45 colt auto pistol, a 357 S&W 4 inch barrel revolver, a 12 and 20 ga pump shotgun. When he was talked into going coon hunting several years ago, he saw the light (pun intended) to having a generation 2 or 3 night vision monocular or head band type. He saved his money for a little bit and bought a generation 2 head band. It was a shame because he never went coon hunting again or had any use for it so he packed it away minus the batteries and forgot about it.

He had a steel gun safe installed in the steel building and stored his weapons there. The reloading equipment was mounted on 2X12 tables in the other building and was not moved.

Clark celebrated his 35th birthday with a hussy he had picked up in a beer joint 20 miles from his house. It was an enjoyable night.

Deer season was upon him and he took wed thur and fri off for an extended hunt. It was a short hunt he shot a 10 point 250 pounder at daybreak on the first day of the hunt. Gutting the deer and letting it hang for a few hours in the 35 degree weather. He settled down to have a beer and think about his situation. Not much more he could do except plow some ground up beside his 2 sheds and get it ready for a big garden. He had a plow and thought a 40X40 foot garden would supply him with enough food each summer. He had his parents canning supplies and 2 or 3 gross of jars. He had read that lids went bad after a few years. He would stop and pick up some or order them off the internet after he checked the prices.

He stopped at the watering hole he and the 2 young fellows had stopped at last year and upon entering he saw them sitting at a table. They waved him over. They told him they had shot 2 young spike bucks and had left them hanging 10 feet up in a tree and would get them in a day or 2 because the temperature was right to age them in the chilly weather. The conversation continued on and they let him in on some goings on in the world since they still had many friends on active duty in the military and they kept in contact with them through the internet. They looked at each other and nodded their heads ok. They asked him if he had any long range communications. He said no.
 
S

scrachline

Contributing Member
It went back and forth for a while and he got their frequencies. He learned more then he wanted to learn. This would cost him some more money. A short wave set and an antenna. Buy several tons of chicken feed and if he liked rabbit several tons of rabbit pellets. Make absolutely sure he had enough ammunition to last him a lifetime. He sat there in a small alcoholic daze. The news that was not being reported on the main stream media or the survival websites was bad. These boys had never steered him wrong before so he took what they said and would take action on the information.

The next morning he went to the college and found the engineer. He reported what he had learned and the man told him everything he had heard was 80% accurate. The engineer was cool, he gave Clark some radio frequencies and told him not to call those frequencies for at least 14 days after anything happened and the last piece of information he gave out was, keep your short wave set unplugged and disconnected from the antenna. Chit was all Clark said. He drove to the city and went to the Radio Store and bought what had been recommended. The dang card had just been paid off and now he was in debt again.

He went to Walmart and bought 20 boxes of 550 round 22 caliber. After looking at the prices on ammo he decided he could reload what he had 40 times cheaper then what he would pay for ammunition here. He stopped at a gun store and bought 16 pounds of rifle powder, 8 pounds of pistol powder and 2 pounds of black powder for his 50 caliber Hawken. He had several thousand rounds of just bullets and at least 10,000 primers. He was set for ammunition.

He was afraid to go to work but made sure he was always close to his vehicle where he could get home in less then 2 minutes. Nothing happened for 3 weeks. He had installed his shortwave ham set and tested it. He also ordered on the internet 4 GMRS radios and 1 ham portable transceiver. Why not he said – he installed a CB with a 12 foot whip antenna in his auto. Another month went by he paid his credit card off. He had a fairly good wood stove that he could cook off of in his house and he thought about wood for winter. He took his pick up and chain saw 3 miles away up a holler and proceeded to cut 4 inch thick hardwood trees down so he wouldn’t have to split them - He made 12 trips in 4 days to that stand of trees and he had 12 or more cord of wood drying under a 400 dollar car port he had installed for just that reason.

2 more months went by and he and the engineer were drinking a beer at the local watering hole. The man asked Clark if he had any gas masks or N-100 masks in case of some type of air born incident. Clark said no. Well I would think about getting something the man said. The conversation revolved around 2 women who had just entered the bar. One of them was really ugly and she hit hard on the engineer. Clark laughed and got up to go home. The pretty lady said hey stranger to Clark. He looked at her and did not recognize her. She said we went to school together over in the next town. For the life of him he could not recognize her or he had lost his memory. She refused to tell him her name and that intrigued Clark. She knew all the people he had went to school with and he still could not pull her name out of the hat. She gave him a telephone number and said call her sometime. He asked her who should I ask for – she responded with, the unknown girl. She left and Clark followed out and walked around the corner and went home.

The telephone number with unknown girl was laid by the telephone. Clark ordered the masks and he even went so far as to spend a couple of hundred dollars on Tyvek suits. That concluded Clarks buying anything except replacement supplies.

He went into the shelter the next weekend and inventoried the stuff he had for a 45 day stay. A partial list, 20 cans Coleman fuel – stove right under exhaust port, 90 cans Dinty Moore beef stew, 30 cans spam, Coleman oven that fits on stove to bake bread, country mill grinder, 10 five gallon buckets hard white wheat, 5 five gallon buckets pintos, 10 five gallon buckets rice, 10 one gallon cans milk powder, 5 one gallon cans whole egg powder, 6 one gallon cans hamburger rocks, 2 five gallon buckets kidney beans, 1 five gallon bucket candy, 4 gallons corn oil, medical supplies including KI03 and anti biotics, tooth brushes, paste, soap 5 gallon bucket to take sponge bath in – he thought long and hard about adding a simple shower with a hanging bladder over it to put warm water in – that went on his next month project. If he had to stay in the shelter over 30 days water would become a problem. He put on his list 36 one gallon jugs to store in corner, there were 2 bunk beds with blow up or self inflating mattresses on the beds. Sheets, blankets and towels. He had followed several lists and had incorporated them to his liking. There were many more items not mentioned on the list. He had even bought a small lap top and loaded it with how to stuff. The radiation detector was not cheap and it was stored minus batteries in a plastic small tote.

He called the unknown lady the next afternoon………
 
S

scrachline

Contributing Member
Dog gone it – no answer – he would try again tomorrow which was a Saturday. He went over his finances and saw one more payment and he would be out of debt again – He thought that 800 dollars he was making a week as a heavy equipment operator wasn’t very much, but it was a living. He made a quick decision and decided to go Honky Tonkin. After a quick shower he put on his pull up wide toed cowboy boots thinking that they would be appropriate for the Red Neck bar he was going to. He drank too much. He woke up in a strange house lying beside a chunky woman he had never seen before. Ah well he thought it wasn’t the first time and he hoped it wasn’t the last. The woman was nice, she cooked him breakfast and took him back to the bar where his auto was parked. He told her he would call and went home.

He didn’t feel like doing much today and he definitely didn’t want to drink any alcoholic beverages for at least a week or so. He was watching the local news when that big buzzing sound came through the TV speakers. It was a severe weather warning. He noticed that a fast moving storm would pass through his section of the county in 15 or so minutes. He looked around outside and folded up his outdoor plastic porch chair. Chit, the power went off in the middle of the storm. He pulled out a lantern and lit it. The battery powered radio was turned on and he looked for a country western station. His phone rang; it was his neighbor up the block. Clark was informed the electric sub-station on the side of the hill that powered the town had been completely destroyed by a lightning strike. The projected repair time was 6 days. No, Clark thought all his frozen food in the chest freezer would spoil and it was really inconvenient to be without electricity for more then a few hours. More money he thought. A generator would have to be bought and a supply of fuel stored. Argghh, just when he was to make that last payment on the credit card, this happens.

He dressed and strolled out to his pick-up, he knew there wasn’t much use going to the local Lowes because the whole town would have rushed there and bought up everything. Thinking about it for a minute or two he decided to drive to a Lowes 80 miles from here where he would have a better selection to choose from.

Two hours later he pulled into the huge parking lot. Looking over the 16 or more generators displayed, he read the literature and made a decision. Dang a whole weeks wages the thing cost. Go ahead big boy and bite the bullet he told himself. It was a good thing he had read those forums about generators and how to hook them up a while back. He had to buy several other items to hook the thing up to his whole house electric system. He needed a 6 foot 6 guage dryer cord to plug into his existing dryer outlet and run the wire through the wall outside to a 220 outlet – a 220 outlet and a electrical box to put it in – 6 foot of 10 guage wire to make a plug with 2 male ends to plug into the 220 outlet and the generator 220 outlet. 5 five gallon plastic gasoline containers, metal if available – some Stabil or Pri-G – He had read the literature on the generator he was buying and there was no oil filter to change, just change the oil. He definitely did not want to pay the price Lowes had on 30 weight oil, he would stop at NAPA and pick up the oil there. When he walked out the door he was 950 bucks lighter. And he still wasn’t done – He opened the top of the box the generator was in and drove to a gas station – Dang 4.09 for gasoline. 32 gallons later after filling the 5 gallon containers and the generator up he drove off, another 100 and some bucks lighter. He stopped at NAPA and bought 3 quarts of 30 weight oil for another 6 bucks, but he grinned, Lowes wanted 3.39 a quart. Well there goes another complete week’s wages and some part of the following week money.

He got home, gathered some tools up and put the handles and wheels on the generator. The thing was too heavy for him to lift up the porch steps. He went and got a couple of 2 X 4’s and wheeled it up on the porch where it would fortunately be out of the weather. He parked it so the exhaust was pointed towards the yard and began the rest of the work. 1st thing he did was use his portable electric drill, which fortunately for him he had left one battery in the charger, to drill the hole through the porch wall inside beside the dryer outlet. He just looked at all that extra cord and thought I should have bought the 3 foot cord. Oh well better to have too much then not enough.Next he pulled the cord through the wall and sat there and hooked it through the back of the electric box then he screwed the wires onto the 220 outlet, the box was then screwed to the wall and a cover plate put on it. That was one little job done. Next he skinned the wires on the 6 foot of 10 guage wire and hooked them to the 2 male plugs and he was ready. He went in the house and turned the main breaker off and unplugged the freezer and fridge and made sure all the other breakers were off, he would turn them on one at a time for whatever he needed. He punched himself on the head and asked himself why he had unplugged the fridge and freezer when he could just as well turned the breakers off. Too much alcohol must have destroyed some brain cells was all he could think of.

The generator started on the 1st pull. He turned some lights on and then the fridge and freezer. That wasn’t so bad he thought except it cost so much. I should have bought a small generator a long time ago just for something like this. Well its done now.

The phone rang it was the unknown girl…..


just a prep story CH 3

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Clark let out a choked snorting kind of laugh when he looked at the caller ID – It said - unknown girl… He tried to quit chuckling as he answered the phone. The conversation was a good one and he finally learned who she was, most importantly, her name. It was Barbara Sue and she was one year behind him in high school. He was standing by his bookcase and pulled out his senior yearbook. He had to put her on hold for a second while he screamed out a No chit. The girl in the high school yearbook had braces on her teeth, superman glasses, pig tails and weighed 75 pounds. She told him she was going to visit her parents and would be gone for a month. When she got back maybe they could get together for dinner and talk about old times. Clark wholeheartedly agreed with her. A month would be long enough to get out of debt again.

He ran the generator 2 hours every 4 hours just enough to keep the fridge cold and the freezer goods frozen. The junction power relay box for the Cable Company was on the downhill side of the sub station and he had no TV or internet. This was just peachy he thought, Maybe he would look at that Direct TV and Satellite internet system again.

9 days later the power was restored to the town. He decided it would be prudent to park the generator in the steel building where it would be out of sight to a sneak thief who could use a boat and come straight into his property from the river. He put on his to buy list 3 motion sensor lights and the one on the house would have an interior alarm on it. The 2 he was going to put close to the riverbank where it would cover the entire back of the property. The thought of putting an 8 foot fence up with a gate to put his boat in the river had crossed his mind many times. The cost of 300 foot of 8 foot fence and the poles was doable, but he just kept putting it off. He finally put it on his things to do/buy list.

3 weeks later he was out of debt and while he was buying the motion sensor lights he saw a reasonably priced dual cam security system that showed the 2 different areas the cameras covered on the monitor on a split screen. He talked to the resident expert about the system and learned that it could be hooked into a laptop in a separate location for dual location watching. He thought this was a neat system for the price and was going to buy it 2 or 3 weeks from now.

For a month he kept a low profile and only drank 4 beers at home. He was afraid to go to a beer joint thinking he would run into that chunky lady. He thought if he didn’t do any good with Barbara Sue he would resume the beer joint woman hunting rounds again.

He called Barbara Sue several times, but he guessed she hadn’t got back yet. While doing some more reading on solar he kind of figured he needed another set of 6 volt batteries to run the Ham station and maybe another set to keep the laptop fired up so he could monitor those 2 security cams he was going to install. The engineer found out the information he needed and how to split the signal and how to power the cameras once the city power was off. He was right, another solar panel and 4 sets of 6 volt golf cart batteries would be sufficient to run what he had. Dang he would have to wait a month or more before he bought another solar panel, but right now he bought the security cameras and the extra 3 sets of batteries. All of that was 1 week’s wages. Now next month he would spend another week’s wages just on a stinking solar panel. He would have to have the engineer get one of the electronics people to draw him a diagram on how to hook all the batteries together.

Barbara Sue returned about 10 days later. She called to let him know she was back. They made a date for Friday evening. Clark had a choking fit when she came out the door of her house. She looked like a Miss Universe winner and when she got closer to him she smelled better then anything that had ever hit his scent receptors. He didn’t do anything for 10 seconds but stare at her. She gave him a bright full tooth smile and asked, “Are we going anywhere?” Clark was smitten. The little cherub with the heart arrows had shot 10,000 arrows into him. He finally came to his senses and reached for her hand. They walked to his automobile holding hands like 2 teenagers.
 
S

scrachline

Contributing Member
just a short prep story CH 4

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The date was a dream for Clark; they went to a nice restaurant in the city. He learned why she looked like she did in the yearbook picture. She was only 13 then and she had been advanced many times through grades because of her smartness. That made her about 5 years younger than Clark. He learned that her parents had retired and moved into a Condo in Fl and she was living in their house in the next town over. She had a consultant job for an Engineering firm and her specialty was resolving computer main frame problems. Clark was kind of speechless during this time and thought – I wonder if she sees anything in me other than my rugged good looks (he rolled his eyes to himself at that thought).

They did hit it off though and she asked him when they could do it again. He, trying to be cool, said, ‘in about 15 minutes.’ She laughed that low sultry kind of laugh she had, and they then went for a drive through a small wilderness park close to the restaurant. He gave out a lot more information then he received and cared not a whit as long as they were together and talking.

The dating went on for a few months before things got hot and heavy. She asked him to spend the night and boy was he ever ready. All he could think of for the next few days was WOW, after all these years, I have found a real keeper. Then the thought entered his mind. I wonder if she thinks the same way. Not holding anything back the next date he asked her. She said she was ready for a long term commitment if he was. OK, that took a load off his mind. Things settled into a routine after that.

On one of his jobs demolishing a building and hauling the debris away, he noticed the 800 yards or so of outriggered 8 foot tall green slatted chain link. He asked the construction crew boss if he could have 100 yards or so of it with the poles. The boss told him to do it on his off time and give him 30 bucks for the diesel he was going to use running the forklift to raise the poles out of the ground. Clark agreed to that and thought that was cheap for 100 yards of 8 foot chain link and the poles. He forgot to mention he was going to take the drive through and one walk way gate.

That afternoon when he got home he went out on the street and hired 2 high school teens to help him the next evening. He had them cut the fence every 50 feet with his bolt cutters (it was quicker then having them clip the bottom and top and unscrew it) and roll it up and tie the roll together with some bailing wire so he could use the forklift to put the rolls on the back of his pickup. He then handed one of them a 12 pound sledge hammer and told them to walk behind the forklift and as soon as he got a pole lifted out of the ground for one of them to beat the cement on the bottom of the pole till it fell off. The teens traded jobs every pole, one removed the chain from the pulled up pole and beat it off while the other hooked the chain onto the next pole. He took 45 poles, the poles were that old timey 2 inch 1/4inch thick walled iron water pipe that was common when steel was cheap from 50 or so years ago. He had to make 4 trips in his pickup to get the stuff home. He paid the boys a hundred bucks and told them he had another job helping him put it up in a week or so.

He borrowed the backhoe with the auger that weekend and after measuring out where he wanted the poles he dug a 3 foot deep hole, the poles were 11 feet long. And he needed about 40 holes. He almost forgot about the walkway gate holes. Before he left work the following Friday he used the end loader and filled his pickup with broken bricks to augment the cement mix he was going to put in his fence post holes. He didn’t know if he could get that much work out of the 2 teens in one shift and decided to do the job on 2 Saturdays. He figured it out right. 20 holes a day filled with mixed cement, broken bricks and leveled took a whole day. He waited for the 3rd week for the cement to set up and they strung/stretched the fence and bolted the gates onto the poles. He now had what he thought was a reasonably secured back fence. He didn’t know how handy that fence would be later on. He guess he had fudged a little or the teenagers couldn't count. He had 6 more rolls of the chain link stacked up in a pyramid pile at the back edge of his property.

His love life was idyllic and he had even managed to save a bunch of money due to a couple of week end over time jobs. He finally got the 2nd solar panel installed and the security cams. He patted himself on the back for a job well done. Remembering what the 2 fellows had told him about chicken feed and rabbit pellets He put a cheap aluminum 16 X 24 aluminum building right beside the other 2 and put gravel down and stored the cracked corn and rabbit pellets on pallets. He thought about mice and after looking the building over that was sitting on a 6 inch concrete footer. There was no way mice could get in unless one ran in the open doorway or they were already in the food. He sat out a bunch of traps, sticky paper and rat/mice poison. He then sprayed the building to kill any 6 or 8 legged critters that were not supposed to be there and locked the door.

Deer season was just around the corner and surprise, surprise, Barbara Sue said, “Let’s go shooting.” Clark’s jaw unhinged a little at that comment and wondered what else he did not know about his (he hoped) soon to be bride. She owned 2 magna ported magnums, the 1st was a 28 inch barrel .264 Winchester Magnum that her dad had bought to do some long range shooting, and the other was a .300 Winchester Magnum. Both bolt action rifles had the same scope a 4 X12 Redfield wide field parallax correctable with a range finder. Clark guessed when her dad had bought those guns Redfield was a number one optic. The rifles both had limb saver recoil pads. Clark had shot a no recoil pad installed .264 a long while ago and he still cringed when he thought of the bruise that thing had put on his shoulder. She had an Ithaca feather light 20 guage pump and a new 8 shot 357 S&W revolver. He asked where the .22’s were – She said she never got into plinking, just long range stuff and skeet. WHOA, he thought.

He hung his head in shame when she started off at the 600 yard mark. He put his rifle back in the case and put it in the truck. There were other days he could practice alone. He was going to sit this one out and be an observer and a target changer. Dang she kept 10 shots at 600 yards on a playing card (it was an ace of spades) with that .264. She said today is a good day to shoot, no wind. The .300 she did a little better with, the group was a little tighter on the card. She said I feel pretty good today - set up 4 more targets, 2 at 800 and 2 at 1000 yards. Ah Ha he thought her group opened up with the .264 at 800 only 6 of the bullets were on the card 3 were about half inch away left and he guessed the last was a flyer, it was 6 inches away and right. She let the .264 cool down and shot the 300. 6 out of 10 were on the card 1 was 5 inches high and 1 was just about a ¼” low, 2 of them were in the same hole 1 inch low.. Dang Clark was thinking to himself she’s jumping around all over that target and he mentally rolled his eyes. Clark asked her if she was sure she wanted to shoot at something that far away. She grinned at him. She didn’t get one in the card at 1000 yards with the .264. They were all clumped together in a 12 inch circle 5 inches to the left. The .300 she hit the card twice and the other 8 clumped in a 9 or 10 inch circle 9 or so inches right. Clark didn’t say anything he waited on her to comment on how great her shooting was. She let out a few choice cuss words and said I knew I should have bought those 2 high dollar bull barrels and receivers when I had the chance. My shooting today really sucks she said. Clark smartly kept his mouth shut and only wished that he could shoot that good with a production rifle. Or heck any rifle.

A few days went by before Clark said anything about her shooting. She had a weird habit of smoking one cigarette a day with her morning cup of coffee. And he jokingly said maybe it’s that cigarette you are smoking in the morning. She thought about it a few minutes and said nope the carcinogenic effects of the nicotine have been absorbed and trembling effects of tobacco tar have left my body long before I went shooting. He again smartly kept his mouth shut.

Things were really looking up he thought…
 
S

scrachline

Contributing Member
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just a short prep story CH5

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They had been rotating staying a weekend at her house and one at his for about 2 months. They were extremely lucky they were at his house.. The phone rang at 214 am on a Sunday morning, it was Dec the 7th. Clark looked at the big lit up display on the caller ID and finally figured out it was the engineer’s cell number. The conversation from the engineer was kind of muffled. Clark said it is difficult for me to understand what you are saying. After listening closely and turning the phone reception up he could make out what the man was saying. Do not go outside unless you have an N100 mask on. There has been some type of airborne virus or several types released worldwide. Stay in your shelter until you hear the all clear. Chit, Chit, Chit. He ran into the kitchen and grabbed the partial box of N100 masks he had, put one on and took one to Barbara Sue. As he was sliding it over her head he lifted his mask and said, “don’t ask any questions right now, just please do what I say.” Get your clothes on and if you have any feminine products, toothbrush and whatnot, gather them up in that small carry bag and follow me and do not take your mask off for any reason. He pulled the cord that connected the solar panel that turned on the heater in his outdoor water tank. She helped him lift the door up to his shelter that she had only heard about in sort of an off handed way. They entered and he dropped the door down and pulled the interior sliding bolt to lock it. He finally got the pad lock off his metal door and they entered. He turned the LED lights on and folded out 2 lawn chairs and they sat down. Turned on the 4 foot UV tube light in front of his HEPA filter to hopefully destroy any air born virus particles and then turned on his DC blower motor to draw outside air in and turned on an additional blower that he had added to the exhaust to help blow the interior air out of the shelter. He left his mask on and told her what he knew. He told her he would turn on the short wave and local AM and FM station radio in a few minutes. The engineer had given him some hints if he had to enter his shelter and he was contaminated. A lot more research by Clark had garnered much more information.

He told her he had had it calculated out how long it would take to replace the contaminated air in the shelter. 3 hours. He also said he had some diluted bleach solution to spray everything in the shelter, including them and the outside of their masks right before they took them off. The waiting began. Clark thought the minimum 3 hours was somewhat iffy and had decided to go 9 hours before removing the 12 to 24 hour one time use mask. And he told her the same thing.

It would be hard to sleep with the mask on so they decided to play some cards, board games and listen to the local news for the next 7 or more hours. The only weapons they had were his 45 and 36 rounds and her 357 with 28 rounds of .38 158 grain hollow points. It would be enough. About 7 AM some scattered reports of people dying in the streets started to trickle in. Clark had one of those moronic grins on his face and thought those 2 young fellows were right. Chit. He had forgotten to warn them. To late now, alll he could do was hope for the best. He thought about it some more. They hadn’t warned him either. So he forgot about it.

1130 AM they resprayed everything including their face masks and Clark pushed the face masks out through the 20 foot exhaust pipe and installed a new HEPA 4 inch filter.

The temperature was a chilly 54 permanent degrees 6 feet under the ground here unless he turned the Coleman stove on to cook something. Not to worry he had thought of that and had boo coo winter clothes.

News was not good, there were millions of people dropping dead everywhere around the world.

They waited and waited. Clark had to hang a sheet in front of the commode – it was awkward and not kosher wiping your butt with someone looking at you. The shelter was cozy and since they had no problems or idiosyncrasies that irritated each other, they got along hunky dory. The shower he had installed with the small DC boat pump to pump the water out to the sink worked great with a little heated water in one of those 5 gallon sun shower bags. More talk started coming in from the short wave, it was not yet time to contact the engineer, so they just listened to the reports of the massive die off that was circling the globe. The local AM and FM station had quit broadcasting 3 days ago, 6 more days to go before contacting the engineer or the 2 young fellows to see if they were OK.

Day 10 the shelter shook like there was a small earthquake close by. There was no damage as far as Clark could tell. He ran a 2 inch strip of duct tape around the door in case of a misalignment.

Funny the short wave did not receive anything but static any more.

just a prep story CH 6

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She was asleep and he was running scenarios through his mind. Why didn’t I make a double air tight entry way with a drain so I could leave my contaminated stuff out there. Could have put a small cement pad there and a drain out to the riverbank – Well it is just to late to think of what I coulda – shoulda done and I am going to have to live with it – I think I screwed up big time by plugging in the short wave receiver, Dang the engineer told me 14 days before contacting him - Just plain stupid of me to do that – I really think that was a nuclear weapon that detonated in the big city or even the plant several miles up the river. Now what am I going to do – I am afraid to open the door to use the radiation detector because there may be active virus in the outer stair well – Well follow that rule – wait 14 more days before doing anything – Maybe I can hook up that tube short wave receiver to the incoming antenna and use it. I will wait 14 days before I do anything, especially take that tube radio out of the plastic water proof tote it is in. Good thing I had not plugged in the transmitter – just the receiver. I can still transmit and hopefully the tube radio will receive on those frequencies I have written down in my book.

They talked about the scenarios he had thought of and her being a smart lady sort of agreed with him - She told him if you have some wire I can hook up the probe on that radiation detector you have and we can slide it out the exhaust pipe until it is hanging there and we can get a reading from it. But I agree 100% with you – We will wait 14 more days before we do anything – We can hook up one of your cheap radios to the short wave antenna and see if anything is receivable – If there is nothing but static – We will have to wait until the ionization of the air waves stabilizes out before any type of radio wave will propagate through it. He looked at her and said, “Now I know why I got hooked up with you, you are brilliant.” She blushed and said, “it is awful living in a vacuum. We need more information on this air borne virus and the radiation if there is any before opening that door.”

They talked about the virus thing and he blurted out what he thought he knew about virus longevity and how cold weather should have affected its viability. She shot that down really quick and told him that an engineered virus or a bunch of them strung together with cold weather variants may have an indefinite life span. That destroyed his basic common sense understanding of what he thought he knew. He again thought knowledge is wonderful and sometimes common sense has no value to it. So what does one do when stuck in a hole in the ground for who knows how long with a beautiful woman - I’ll leave that to your imagination.

just a short prep story CH7 and the finale

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What Clark did not know and never would was he had really built his outer door to an air tight standard. When he closed it for the entry into the shelter the door hermetically sealed against the 1 inch thick soft rubber molding he had placed in the frame. He thought he was water proofing it, which it also did. Another thing he did not know was the virus had not yet reached the area he was living in, one more hour before that happened. And the big thing he would never know was the lead tape he placed on both doors stopped enough of the gamma radiation that the 2 inch thick steel door and the cinder blocks cut the radiation level down to about background levels. The outside gamma levels were enough to kill a human in less then 1 minute if one were exposed to that level. That does not mean they would die in 1 minute. It meant they would die maybe tomorrow or even linger a horrible death 3 to 5 days later. But make no mistake they would die if exposed. One other thing the massive amount of gamma radiation did. It cut the lifespan of the exposed virus down from its engineered lifespan of 60 days to less then 30 by damaging its internal structure rendering it incapable of reproducing.

The Middle Eastern Muslims and the Chinese had made this virus and thought they had a vaccine for it. It was extremely contagious and was airborne and contact infectious. What they did not know was it mutated about a week after they had all their people vaccinated. A million infected carriers with small air releasable canisters were sent to all points of the globe and the weaponized virus was released at midnight eastern standard time Dec 6th. CDC got its 1st case at midnight on Dec 7th. The engineers’ sister worked the midnight shift at CDC and he was notified at about 1 AM. The only other person besides his MAG group he notified was Clark.

The world was a shambles. The United States had unleashed its' entire nuclear weapons arsenal on the Middle East, China and Russia. It was a dying last gasp from a mighty nation. The carriers of the virus were extremely effective in their mission. 98% of the worlds” unprotected population died in the 1st 10 days. Any person who ventured outside of an air tight shelter in the next 20 days also perished. All the vaccinated carriers died on the 11th day of their vaccination. The vaccine just was not capable of stopping the mutated virus.

The living leaders of Russia and China fired back at the US, but most of their nuclear armament people were dead or dying – Still the US was hit with 300 multiple nuclear war heads and this caused tremendous damage.

60 days later Clark and Barbara Sue had to leave the shelter, regardless of their edibles, they ran out of water. They wore their masks off and on for 2 weeks and they did not die. So they decided to live a normal life if there was such a thing in this time. They gathered some chickens from under a house several miles away and Clark captured some rabbits in Have-A-Hart traps and they were set for protein. The fence came in handy by protecting the running loose chickens and the pet rabbits that inhabited the yard from the large packs of wild dogs.. They could always trap a rabbit in a trap in the yard. They never heard from the engineer or the 2 young fellows. It was 7 years before they saw another human, other then their 3 kids.

And that folks is my short how to prep story.

A comment on story

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Let me answer a few questions brought up during the story – Clark built this place for a 45 day stay - end of chapter 1 – He actually spent 84 days in the shelter – He had 36 gallons of extra water plus various drinks in the shelter. Remember he had spent 10 days in the shelter before bombs went off – Then he waited 14 days before he tested the radiation on Barbara Sue’s probe. Then he waited 60 more days before leaving the shelter. 84 days – Also he had a low volume flush toilet – more water usage – the shower and what water they used to cook with. Gee whiz – they used a lotta water. This was his plan for surviving in a nuclear attack – he had never thought of holing up for an airborne virus attack. You have to remember this guy was just paying attention to the small amount of what he thought was reliable information he was receiving. The other thing I gotta mention is the water pressure maintained for at least 6 to 10 days. So ya gotta factor that in. I had written several more chapters and decided to stop while I was ahead. The guy they met was a good guy – they visited and he told them he was traveling around meeting people who had broadcast their locations and wanted to be met up with. They had a pleasant visit and that is or was the end of what I wrote. I missed a few things I should have mentioned on prep things – maybe in another story I will bring them out. Thanks again…..
 
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