When The Fault Breaks: Life Will Never Be The Same Read online

  Ann suggested we see if we can catch fish for everyone that night and Ramon jumped up and exclaimed enthusiastically, "Fishing! I'll help." Sandy was all over that too so the three of us grabbed my gear and we headed to the lake to catch some dinner. Ann took off with everyone else and they walked around the lake gathering whatever they could.

  You can learn a lot about someone waiting for a fish to bite, I have always felt I'm a good judge of someone's character and I was finding I needed to rely on it more now. I got the feeling we could trust all of them. I would have hated to tell Ann she was right, I would have heard her say I told you so, but did we really have any choice. It was something we were going to have to do much more from now on.

  As the three of us returned to camp with enough fish to feed us all we passed by Ramon and Sam's rig. I was impressed by the look of it and saw a few things on the outside I didn't recognize. After handing the fish to Ann I asked Ramon about what I saw on his rig.

  I think Ramon was still unsure as to how much information he wanted to share with everyone so he simply responded he had made a few improvements so I left it at that, besides it turned out I was the only one there that ever gutted a fish before and Ann never does it. We set up a nice prep line and cleaned the fish and handed them down line to get them ready to cook, everyone interested got to take their turn cutting them up.

  It wasn't long before the incredible smell of trout cooking filled the air and my stomach started to growl. The eight of us worked really well together that night, like we had all known each other forever.

  Ramon had incredible luck, I only caught a couple and Sandy only caught one, we sat around the fire that night and enjoyed an unbelievable fish dinner that everyone chipped in on and enjoyed the quiet of the night. As I had with everyone else before, I asked Ramon and Sam if they would tell us their story.

  Ramon began, "We don't have a horror story of our getting here. We have been Preppers for many years and have been planning for this for some time, including a couple dry runs to see how long it would take to get here. That bus behind us is a mobile Preppers unit set up for just this type of situation."

  "What have you done to it?"

  You could clearly see that Ramon was not very comfortable giving up top-secret information like that. I noticed and spoke up.

  "I understand the need to keep as much information as possible from people you only just met today. It is important to keep good Op Sec. on your rig, as us Navy boy's always say, '"lose lips sink ships.'"

  Ramon replied, "You are right Peter I'm VERY hesitant to tell anyone about what I have in there but this is different than before the quake. I would never see them again and never trusted my neighbor anyway he was an asshole.

  Now it's the eight of us out here needing to rely on each other much as we did tonight to make this great meal. We need to find a way to trust each other and in this situation that would mean showing each other what we have so we can better manage our resources."

  "I could not agree with you more Ramon, Ann and I had this same conversation the night of the quake and came to an understanding, not necessarily an agreement."

  Ann looked over at me with pursed lips and a scowl on her face.

  Ramon smiled and said, "It's okay Peter oddly enough I agree with both of you. I don't like telling anyone what we have but in this case I believe I need to. Rather than telling you, it's easier to show you so follow me and I'll give you all the grand tour."

  Ramon turned and with a remote in his hand turned on all the outside lights. It lit the area up like a Christmas tree. We all got up and followed Ramon and Sam to their rig, Ramon began with the outside, as we walked down the passenger side Ramon lifted one of the underbelly storage compartments and the lights inside it came on automatically.

  Ann poked at Ramon, "Show off."

  "Thank you Ann that was what I was going for. So this bay is my fuel cell. We installed this secondary underbelly mounted twenty-gallon propane tank. Here you see two more seven and a half gallon portable tanks all plumbed through these transfer valves."

  Ben asked, "So how long will all that propane last?"

  "Without using the propane for hot water or heat, it will last over two years, longer if we cook outside on the grill or over the fire most of time. If we use it mostly for baking it will last even longer."

  Ramon pointed to the lower front corner of the bay and said, "The upside-down tote you see is a hybrid wind/hydro generator using a Fisher Paykel washing machine motor. It turns out that the motor that turns the drum makes a near perfect generator even at low speeds. I used the 80SP model because it starts producing at slower speeds and still exceeds five hundred watts of power when it gets up to speed.

  I asked, "What do you mean hybrid?"

  Sam was the one who made it and replied, "The turbine is designed to be used for both wind and water to spin it. When mounted on the tote it can be placed anywhere like on a table or any flat surface. But if we are next to a stream with a three-foot fall, we use ever smaller three feet foot lengths of PVC pipe and shoot the water into a hydro turbine built into the same turbine that spins it in the wind."

  I replied, "That's brilliant, you can use it anywhere then."

  Ramon nodded and said, "That is right, and if we set it up at the top of a hill or cliff face we get the roof effect and it runs even better. We made two of them so we can use one or the other, or both if conditions are right."

  Ramon pointed to the roof and continued.

  "That box on the roof contains five hundred watts of solar panels stored in it. The lid is a solar tracker that we can either use on top of the rig if we are in the sun, or taken down and placed in full sun. We set the collectors up in a sunny location and the tracking system does the rest, plus there is five hundred more attached to the roof. As we continue around the back, the pole on the driver side is a telescoping Ham antenna, if there are no questions then let's go inside."

  So far I was impressed so I put my hand on his back and said, "I like you…I think we could be good friends."

  Ramon nodded his head slightly and put out his hand and said, "Thanks I'd like that."

  As we entered his rig my eyes were drawn to the lights that were clearly, at least to me, part of a very extensive control center. I raised my eyebrows and I grunted like a TV show tool man.

  Ramon noticed my response, smiled and said, "I see you noticed my command center."

  "I did…WOW."

  "Nice ain't she?"

  As I stood there I tried to see if I could identify all of what I saw.

  "Let's see now…this section monitors the power, with both analog and digital meters for voltage and amps, this one says solar at 12.2v DC coming in and batteries holding at a nice 13.4v DC. These ones are for wind, and this one is the hydro."

  "Very impressive Ramon."

  "Thanks Peter."

  "How much total power do you produce?"

  "Running at peak, with all three producing, it can exceed two kilowatts of power."

  "Holy shit! That's enough to power all three of our rigs, full time."

  It seemed Ramon was starting to understand the need to work together and said,

  "That's right…hey that gives me a thought. Why don't we circle the rigs like the pioneers did their wagon trains against the Indians, but in our case to keep out the zombies instead?"

  We all laughed so hard on that one. It felt good after the last few days.

  As if we planned it, Ben and I said, "I'm game."

  Sandy replied, "Hell yea."

  I continued going over the panel.

  "Now I see this is your comm's area. Dude you have a Ranger RCI69FFB 400 watts Modulation SSB 10 Meter Radio."

  "Yep it has over four hundred watts of USB, LSB, AM and FM radio."

  "Nice…oh and a nice scanner too. I like that."

  "It is the Uniden BCT 15X it scans everything, air, ham, weather, all of it, over nine thousand channels."

  "Sensors? You have this rig set up
with sensors? Let's see now, there's motion, infrared, sound and light activated, and …is that a radiation sensor? Really?"

  "Of course it is, I told you this is a serious Prepper's Rig."

  "That may just come in handy sooner than later when one of those nuke plants out there fails, and fail they will."

  "This thing is great Ramon, I bow to your greatness."

  I bowed slightly with my hand out and we all had a laugh at my expense.

  We continued back.

  "When we picked it out we wanted bench seats instead of a dinette and made both benches insect and rodent proof. We have over a year's supply of staples like rice, flour and sugar. As you can see the refrigerator is a residential type and there's a pantry for all the simple pleasures in life, like spices and tons of staples."

  Ben asked, "But won't the refrigerator burn up all your propane?"

  "No because we produce all the power we need to keep it cold, with four massive absorbed glass mat scissor lift batteries for storage. Those batteries provide the power for two 2500w 240/120Vac inverters, so we don't need to ever run the generator."

  Ben remarked, "But the batteries won't last for more than a few years."

  "Not really Ben, the glass AGM's will last ten years with no maintenance except for checking the terminals."

  "We installed a two-way chest freezer in one of the underbelly bays. The day of the quake we filled up all the freezers before we took off, so we have a few months of meat, but it will run out soon enough. What sucks is I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, so hunting is not much of an option. We hoped we would find other people with those resources or skills."

  "Well Ramon you're in luck, Ben here has an arsenal so we will be able to defend ourselves; you have more staples than either of us but we have the means and skills to get fresh meat. Plus, we have enough seeds for everything we need and then some."

  Sandy said, "We don't have much like that to add but we sure can carry our weight, and you really don't want to be in front of Tammy with a rifle."

  Ben said, "No matter who else finds their way up here, if all eight of us stay together we will all be just fine."

  "Tomorrow let's get busy arranging our rigs in a large square with the fire pit here in the middle."

  Ben added, "Alright Peter, my bet is we are going to be here a while so maybe we could enclose all four rigs with logs from the ground up with only some windows exposed. We can even make shutters to cover the windows for storms and security."

  Chapter 3: Circling The Wagons

  I figured a simple design was the best so I took the lead.

  "We can use enough logs to completely enclose the exterior. Then fashion large log doors from branches to complete the structure and finish the entire area like an old west fort."

  Shaking her head Sandy said, "Boys always wanting to build something. What makes you think you can build something like that, it's not like you were around in those days?"

  I smiled and looked over at Ann, she was smiling back shaking her head with this little laugh.

  Ann had to respond to that, "You don't know Peter very well, trust me if he says he can build something, he can."

  Beth beamed, "And I am so happy for that, these guys are going to build us a fort, how cool is that? What can us girl do to help?"

  "You girls can start cutting a trench around the whole thing about two feet deep while the rest of us will go hunting for the right logs."

  Four tall poles were set in the ground about six feet apart in the middle to make a top center part of a simple roof structure, then we tied those to four strong corner posts using smaller poles, then after some cross supports we covered the entire structure with tarps. A large opening was left in the center of the roof to allow smoke from the fire pit to escape. The four center poles also allowed us to suspend things over the fire at any height for cooking and smoking.

  "Peter I don't think we are going to have this place to ourselves for very long. I am sure if we found it so will others."

  "Regrettably Tammy I am certain you are correct that you guys will only be the first ones."

  Over the next couple of days, we didn't see anyone new but it was enough time to close in the fort, then they came, some in groups others were alone. Almost all of the motorhomes were older ones because many of the newer ones do not have the higher clearance to make it here. There were several folks who arrived in those nice RV trailers with very high clearance, but the passage was just too much for most trailers. And there sure were lots of tents.

  Among the new arrivals was a small group of people on foot; their leader was a big black guy who said his name was John and that they were from Tucson, AZ. This guy had the deepest voice you have ever heard, and despite his intimidating look, in time we learned he was one of the kindest people we had ever met.

  In his past life John was a cop before the quake and was on duty the day it hit. He had not been able to get to his family and lost them all, so he was alone. In his travels he met the others in his group and they just headed up far away from the mayhem.

  John was standing watch over the road leading to camp with one of his fellow travelers, Allen. They had only been on watch for a few hours when he saw someone coming up the road. John told Allen to keep an eye on them while he came and got me. He came running up to our compound to tell us.

  "Peter come quick we have some new arrivals and they look like they are in very bad shape."

  Thanks John, you return to your post and send Allen back with them, we will help them here in camp.

  Before John could even turn around, Ann grabbed several containers of water and took off to help, with John trailing behind. I stayed behind to get ready for our new guests.

  Ann was the first to reach them, all they had was the clothes on their back, no food, no water, nothing, they were in bad shape.

  "Hi my name is Ann welcome to our little oases, first things first I bet you need some water."

  They all grabbed the water and inhaled it.

  "Please follow me and I will take you to what we like to call the fortress you see up there, you can get some food, more water and rest to start with."

  "Hi Ann my name is Allen and this is my wife Sheryl and these are our kids."

  Allen stood a whopping five feet three with an attitude to match it; he had short brown hair and said he was a carpenter but hasn't seen much work these days, while Sheryl is a red head who towered over Allen. We eventually learned that Sheryl had a very short fuse.

  Ann replied, "Nice to make all your acquaintances we are almost at our compound where my husband Peter is getting some food ready for you guys, he will help you in any way he can."

  "Thank you Ann."

  "Don't thank me I haven't done anything but bring you some water."

  Sheryl exclaimed, "That was the one thing we needed most."

  It only took a few minutes for our new group to arrive. By then I had several MRE's pulled out for them to choose from. I opted for MRE's because they are quick and easy meals ready to eat, hence the name.

  Ann introduced them to me, "Here they are Peter, this is Allen and his wife and kids."

  "Hi my name is Peter and we have several MRE's to pick from, feel free to dig in. They are not the best food in the world but it is something quick."

  Sheryl answered, "I don't care what it is as long as it is food thank you. It has been several days since we had anything but water from a creek."

  "After you have had a chance to get some food in you we will see what else we can do for you guys."

  "Thank you Ann, you are all so kind."

  "I think you will find that to be the case with most of the people here."

  Sheryl was devouring ravioli in red sauce while sitting near the fire when she finally started to open up a bit.

  "Oh My God it feels so good to be warm again. It has been a week since we have had a fire. The last time we did, the fire caught the attention of others and we had to abandon all our supplies when we hear
d a bunch of loud people approaching. Allen stayed back to see if they would move on but they didn't so we took off."

  "Well Sheryl you are safe for now and everyone here will help out as they can. Why don't I introduce everyone here? Going around the fire to my left is Ben and his wife Beth, Tammy and her wife Sandy, then there is Ramon and his wife Sam."

  Clearly unhappy with my comment Sam was a bit taken back and quipped.