The Wayward Axe

The Wild Ride-3-1

“He could drag his small tent out and make a regular campsite complete with a fire pit but on the other hand why set up anything if he was leaving out at first light in the morning?” Farley pondered, deciding he would just sleep in the van with his backpacking gear. He got his SilverFire Scout backpacking stove and found a few wooden sticks to heat his dinner with.

Tonight’s menu was fried Spam and a MRE apple dessert. If he didn’t eat all the Spam in one sitting he would throw the leftovers in a Ziploc to eat later for breakfast on the trail. It should keep that long he figured and went back to thinking about what food he should carry with him on his journey in the morning. That was indeed a troubling question to him because he had no idea how far he would have to go or how long he would be staying once he got there and was able to hike back to retrieve more supplies.

“I got that collapsible hand truck in the van, hell I got a collapsible deer cart in there also that I could haul about half my s**t with if I knew what distance I have to travel.” Farley thought as he cursed once again the map he was relying on that didn’t show these back roads. By his best estimate it was 10 or 12 miles to the lake from where he had ended up at and maybe another 8 miles to that rental cabin over by the State park area but he wasn’t exactly clear on that and remembered how lost he had gotten traveling many lake dirt roads in order to find it.

“Hell 10 miles if I force march myself would put me there at the beginning of the lakes shoreline around 5 in the afternoon if I didn’t fall out after the first few miles.” He thought to himself realistically remembering how hard that was to do when he was in his prime at 18 in the army with full gear let alone now several decades later and trying it with even more gear.

“I might just be away from all this food for a lot longer than I originally thought.” Farley considered, thinking he was a fool for not wanting to use his big cabin tent to cover up that stash of goods better. He had thought about just opening and laying the tent over some of his goods to resist the rain better but he didn’t want to consider coming back to a soaking tent or it becoming damaged from all the camouflage he would have to pile on to hide it. On the other hand if he was gone for weeks or a month for that matter, those cardboard boxes of cans of freeze dried food would probably be losing their labels next time he saw them so he reluctantly got up and set about making his main cache more water resistant.

Farley wasn’t amazed that he hadn’t seen any cars out on the road he was stuck on today but he did wonder about it. I mean the solar storm didn’t take out all the cars’ electronics as many people had expected. Most vehicles seemed to run and function just fine, well at least in his general area anyway; maybe they had problems further north. The Solar Storm was more than powerful enough though to create havoc and mayhem on every electrical grid in North America and Europe though through a series of cascading power events to declare lights out for the majority of the world as well as created many days of radio black outs. It took a week for most folks to even hear about and begin to understand what had happened to the world and its technology.

Farley had pretty much known from the very beginning that it was an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse” event and his “oh s**t!!” moment began much sooner than most folks the minute he turned on his radio after the lights went out. His cell phone had gone out at the same time the power went off.

He didn’t know why, but he had gone outdoors and looked towards the sky for some kind of sign before shrugging off such a notion of seeing an aurora and trying to start his car then tune in his radio. When nothing but static greeted his ears after a channel search he raised his eyes to heaven again and thought “Ah Hell” before slinking dejectedly back in the house looking at the ground sadly. His mind clouded with worry about what he knew was ultimately coming. He knew some kind of EMP event was occurring and he had anticipated its consequences for years. This was no game or hobby now, a bit of excitement but mostly dread came over him at the realization it was only him and his preps against the world now.

He only had one brother for family but he lived far distant in another state. Farley’s phone worked because he had an old model but his brother had overlooked that particular prep in order to have the latest in convenience and technology of remote phones so his did not work without electricity. No way to get in touch with him now and no other preparedness minded folks in town he wanted to call so he just hunkered down and started playing in his preps and turning the apartment into his own version of prepper central.

He was now officially his own Chief Chaos officer and he set his place up to ride out the fall of society as best he could. He wasn’t worried that everyone would go bonkers or turn into zombies as soon as the news was out because he had ridden many a hurricanes aftermath out before and so had his neighbors; they were pretty resilient when it came to disasters.

Most people living in the city would be fine for weeks and they actually became better people and helped each other out after such a disaster. This gig was a little different though. No National Guard show of force or convoys bringing in relief supplies so it probably would get real interesting around here, he decided, and that’s when the first thoughts of bugging out had come to his mind.

He had tried to use some of this early warning or wisdom he had to think about doing a run to Wal-Mart to see if they were trying to operate after the power loss but blew it off as probably a fruitless idea. No, he was stuck where he was at with what he had on hand and that was going to be it for how long? Forever? Farley shuddered at the thought and then dismissed it optimistically.

Over the coming weeks as he scraped by, Farley knew hell and misery was going on outside his door but he just shut himself in after the first two weeks and tried not to warp his mind further by over-listening to the news on the radio. Saturating yourself in that 24 hours a day can cause a lot of harm to your psyche; it was particularly a problem in children he remembered, and grimaced at the thought of all the households that were doing exactly that, figuring what else do you do while waiting to be rescued or watching the chaos unfold but listen to the news?

Farley himself, however, was bored to death with the monotony of things but he busied himself with packing and repacking his gear getting ready for this dang fool bug out mission he was going on and kept his head down and away from extra problems that might cause his demise before he even ventured out.

He did a lot of map work in his constant plotting and scheming, looking at direct routes and reviewing alternate routes trying to guess and second guess where he might go and how in the world he would get there. One big question mark in planning his trip was that he didn’t understand how the bazillion miles of power lines and transformers would affect his trip.

Lines were down everywhere and were lying in the road in some places having been blown or burnt off transformers, while in other areas they looked normal. Substations, he noted, usually received the brunt of the damage and the smoke of them burning permeated the air with ozone and burnt insulation smell for days. The fire department fought many a valiant fight saving bits of the city until the exhausted workers and volunteers wore out. Many folks became homeless the first days from fires and they soon overwhelmed what little bit of help or charity that was still available from the preexisting infrastructure.

It was the luck of the draw and how far off you were located from such conflagrations of smoke and despair that set the tone for your own beginning of these end times and Farley considered himself lucky that he and his preps hadn’t gotten burned up yet. Whenever the yahoos started burning down their neighborhoods with unattended or unsafe cooking fires or did something else really stupid like they always did burning this or that in protest that they weren’t getting their entitlements, the cities in America would soon be smoking hulks from the uncontrolled fires and the raging firestorms they would cause.

Farley couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around that fact. Yes, he had heard of millions of acres burned in wild fires and he had heard of the great fires in history that had devastated cities like San Francisco but nothing like the grand scale of firestorms going on nationwide now.

San Francisco was toast by the way, as well as most of California was, devastated from the quakes. The sky’s horizon around him was a constant red-black as fires burned out of control miles away. Reports of this or that major cities fires or vast woodlands burning uncontrollably droned on and on in travel advisories and alerts on the emergency broadcast channels to the extent that he decided that hell was now just part of living and he didn’t have any fireproof suit to escape it.

He had him, his preps and what passed for a semi-reliable bug out mobile with a half tank of gas to get the hell out of dodge and go somewhere safer for the moment but he had no idea what he would face on his way or experience once he arrived. The main thing was he didn’t want to get caught somewhere out of gas and trying to out run a fire on foot so the plan was to travel as close to water as he could and hope he didn’t get turned around too many times.

Distant memories of traveling some roads and the possible hazards on them plagued him. His normal course of travel for going to the lake traveled right across a small reservoir dam. As far as Farley knew, Alabama had only been hit with some minor quakes and that road might be o.k. but on the other hand it worried him and he found a detour around it but that detour had its own detours and now he was pretty much disoriented and confused.

That he had his preps and mostly good health to depend on he counted as a blessing and didn’t spend much of anytime feeling sorry for himself. He was better off than a lot of folks he figured and spending his youth hunting and fishing would give him some advantages but not a lot in surviving now. The main thing he decided that was in his favor is that he had experience gained from age and patience from facing life’s adversity before and keeping a positive outlook. He had a plan, he had knowledge to see it through and if he just could get a bit of luck on his side then maybe he might just make it a few more winters. Despair was not normally a part of his vocabulary and he sure didn’t need to let his guard down and allow any thoughts of ever giving up creep in. Hell, he thought optimistically, this is the biggest adventure he would ever go on and he planned on making the best of it to the best of his ability.

He wasn’t being overly optimistic, nor was he kidding himself in any way about the hazards and dangers he would be soon facing, he knew it was going to be brutal. He knew he could well die before 2 weeks were even out but he was boyishly thrilled at the prospect of utilizing old skills and new knowledge to overcome what he foresaw as a future.

“Shout at the Devil, you old Farley, you! Time to piss on the fire, howl at the moon and get this show on down the road. Hot damn, time to get ready for tomorrow while living it today!” He said to himself before opening his last hot can of beer and starting to organize his pack one more time with a different outlook on coming back after the supplies he was leaving.

“Man, I am going to be stove up as hell by the time I just get to the lake trying to hump this little bit of equipment. I need to be moving slow, pacing myself and eating well to even get that next 8 or so miles under my belt so just that part will take me a few days and I will still be pushing it. Let’s see that first 10 miles I might be able to hike in a day, no, break it into two days and don’t kill myself while I am trying to get used to this existence. Take yourself two days buddy and break in the boots and the body.” Farley thought sagely to himself.