Prepper's Crucible (Omnibus, Volumes 1-3): A Post Apocalyptic Tale (Preppers Crucible) Read online

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  Copyright 2015 by Bobby Andrews

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, in any media or by other means, without the express written consent of the author. Any infringement on this work could lead to criminal and civil liability.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or any other events or places is coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to the thousands of people who read my series, “Prepper’s Crucible.” I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to read the book and, in many cases, for posting positive reviews.

  I would also like to thank my editor, and wife of thirty years, who took the time to ensure that each volume was as clean and correct as it could be.

  As this saga continues, I find myself increasingly sucked into my own story. Although I honestly don’t know what comes next, I am as curious as you to see where this one goes.

  --Bobby

  CHAPTER ONE

  Don awoke early that Saturday morning. It was like any other morning; he rose with a soft groan, went to the bathroom, and turned on his coffee maker. After the coffee brewed, he moved to his porch, where he sat sipping his coffee, contentedly watching another beautiful Arizona sunrise. He was a large man, standing six feet three inches, but very rangy. His dark hair and rugged good looks fell short of being handsome, but he did not dwell on it, or even care about it. After finishing his second cup of coffee, he went inside and put on his gym shorts, T-shirt, and Nike tennis shoes to prepare for his daily morning run of three miles. His wife, Kate, had already left for work at the local bank. They met eighteen years prior, while Don was in the military, and despite his deployments, remained committed to each other with a deep undying love that brought joy to both of their lives. Unfortunately, they were unable to have children, and while both were curious as to why, they had decided to let sleeping dogs lie and accept the fact that it was simply not to be.

  They bought the ranch, just outside of the National Forest on the northern side of Prescott, with an inheritance Don received from his father, a wealthy businessman who started and succeeded in several businesses. If not for that, they would live on his military retirement, and that would have forced Don and Kate to live in town in a condominium, rather than on a six-acre spread seven miles outside of town. He had been a Ranger with the 10th Mountain Division and served four tours: two in Afghanistan, and two in Iraq. Upon completing his third tour, he learned of his father's death, but decided to remain on for two more years so that he could qualify for his twenty-year retirement.

  Don enjoyed living on the ranch more than Kate did. He loved to hunt and fish and work around the place. When he had all his chores done, he would often go camping or hiking through the nearby hills. Living near the National Forest gave him many opportunities to explore the hills around him, and he missed no chance to learn more about the area. He even discovered a well-hidden cave, two miles from his house, that was an ideal emergency bug-out location should they ever have to abandon the ranch. It would also be a good location to store spare supplies.

  As Don jogged by his barn, he noticed a thunderstorm to the northeast of the ranch. He continued his run until he reached the boundary line of this property. He stopped and took a moment to catch his breath, and then started running back to the ranch house. Don ran every morning, as he had when he was a Ranger, to maintain a level of fitness that would allow him to endure hardships yet unknown. He believed, as he learned in the military, that being prepared for the unexpected usually paid off, and it had several times for him during his career.

  He spent the last four years as a prepper, even though his wife and friends sometimes ridiculed him for being paranoid. He was joined in this effort with two couples from Phoenix, who he had met at various shooting events around the region. Together, they had stockpiled dry goods, ammunition, and fuel on the ranch. They had also turned the barn into a giant Faraday cage by placing corrugated metal over the outside and roof of the barn, then driving copper spikes into the ground at each corner to ground the entire structure. Inside the barn, protected from any surge in power, they placed replacement parts for every system on the property, including solar panels, motors, pumps, a diesel generator, and spare wiring.

  As he approached the ranch, he noticed a small aircraft circling over the Embry Riddle School, a college in Prescott where students went to study aeronautical engineering. As he stopped in front of the porch, the airplane dove abruptly, and then seemed to spin out of control. Shortly after a plume of black smoke rose from where the plane apparently crashed into the ground.

  Going inside his house, after staring a minute in disbelief at the rising smoke, Don turned on the radio to listen to the news. It was dead. He picked up his cell phone to call his wife, but it didn’t work either. Growing increasingly frustrated, he turned the overhead light switch on and it wouldn’t come on either. What the hell is going on, he thought. Moving back to his front porch, he looked over to the highway, directly to the west of his house, and noticed several stopped cars on the road, two of them with their engine compartment hoods up. He could barely make out people attempting to get their car started, although he could not hear the whine of the solenoids. Pausing for a moment, wondering why the cars would not run, he pondered the situation. He could understand power outages to the house, and had them before, but that did not explain why his cell phone wouldn’t work. He looked again and noted two people waving their cell phones around in apparent frustration.

  Don walked to the bathroom, stripped off his clothing, and turned on the shower. After bathing, he noticed the water pressure was low. He got dressed in his usual jeans and work shirt, and went outside to check the pump and tank that supplied water to his ranch house from two separate wells. The tank was a five-hundred gallon reservoir, and a wind turbine, supplemented by solar panels, powered the pump. The panels lay in a neat row on the barn’s roof. He also had a diesel-powered backup generator stored in the barn. Don wired the power sources to eighteen industrial batteries that were in his barn as well. This arrangement ensured a steady supply of both water and power, if the grid went down. He noted that the tank level was lower than usual and the pump was not attempting to refill the tank. He examined the pump, but it looked fine, so he went to the breaker box on the outside of the barn, and noted all the circuits were broken. He flicked them on and off, but the power did not come back.

  “Hey, Don,” his neighbor Ben shouted. Don turned to face him as Ben approached on his horse. Ben was a retired rancher who still maintained a small herd and occasionally entered cattle into local competitions. He won his share of ribbons and local ranchers considered his the last word on cattle breeding in the county. He had two boys, both grown and living in Phoenix due to the few well-paid jobs available locally. Two years prior, Ben’s wife had passed away and the boys made a point to come back on weekends whenever they could. They were both in their mid-twenties and single.

  “Howdy Ben.”

  “You got any power?”

  “Nope. You?” Ben shook his head in the negative. “Wouldn’t be on this horse if the pickup started.”

  “You see those stalled cars on the highway?”

  “Yep, looks like something’s up.

  Don stopped to consider the situation for a moment, and then it struck him that only a power surge could wipe out everything that was not working.
/>   “Holy crap,” he whispered, his face draining of all color.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s finally happened,” Don said slowly. “There can’t be any other explanation.”

  “What happened?”

  “The power outage. It has to be an EMP.”

  “A what?”

  “Electromagnetic pulse.” Don replied, slowly shaking his head. “You say your pickup won’t start?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Let’s see about mine.” He walked over to the open garage on the ranch house, got in his F-150, and turned the key. Nothing happened. “Yep,” he said grimly. “It’s gotta be an EMP.”

  “So, what’s an EMP?”

  “It’s an electrical pulse that is generated by detonating a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere. It takes out anything that runs on electricity. We are in a whole new world right now my friend.”

  “How long will the power be out?”

  ”A very long time. Somebody just fried every power plant, transformer, computer, and everything else that runs this country. If you don’t have electricity, you can’t make parts to replace what was burned out. This could go on for a long time. Maybe years. Hell, maybe decades for all I know.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Well, if cars, cell phones, and household electrical all don’t work, it can’t be anything else. The pulse knocks out everything, even equipment not even connected to the grid, like cars and cell phones. So, it has to be an EMP.” Don shook his head with a grim expression.

  “Let’s not overreact,” Ben said. “I’m sure the military has some plan for this. They must have stockpiled electrical parts and such.”

  “Ben, I was in the military and trust me; they are no more prepared for this than most of the people in this country. They may have managed to harden some Humvees or maybe even a few helicopters. But, nothing could prepare them to manage a crisis of this magnitude. The outage might affect the entire country for all I know.”

  “What about FEMA?”

  “They can’t even handle localized hurricane relief efforts. How do you suppose they will do with trying to manage an entire country?”

  Don considered showing Ben the contents of the barn, but quickly rejected the idea. Although Ben was a friend, the fewer people who knew about his preps and the capability of the ranch to generate power and water, the better. He decided to wait until Ed and Bud, his prepper friends from Phoenix, arrived before restoring power and water to the ranch. It would be best to lay low for the time being and not attract attention. He decided to run the diesel generator a few hours a day to keep the freezer cold. He just stocked the week before, which got him thinking.

  “Ben, how much food do you have at home?”

  “Not Sure. Guess maybe enough for a week.”

  “We need to get to town and get as much food as we can, while the stores are still stocked.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There probably are no trucks or railroads to resupply the stores and food is going to run out sooner rather than later. The average store has enough on the shelves to last two days—three at the maximum. When people realize that the stores are going to be empty, there will be chaos. We need to beat them to the punch or there won’t be anything left.”

  “Well, that doesn’t really seem fair to everybody else. They need to eat too. What about families with kids? What are they gonna do?”

  “What would you do?”

  He thought about it briefly, and then slowly said, “whatever the hell it took to feed them and keep them alive.”

  “Exactly my point. It is going to get nasty in a few days when people start running out of food. You better be prepared for it. This is survival of the fittest territory we are entering. I can’t tell you what to do, or what is right or wrong in this situation. I can only tell you I’ve decided to take care of me and mine no matter what happens.”

  “Seems like we don’t really have much of a choice,” he said, obviously reluctant to accept a new reality that was so uncompromising as to offer seemingly impossible choices.

  “It seems that way. For what it’s worth, I feel the same as you about it, but we have to accept the new world for what it is. Not what we want it to be. Do you still have that old ATV? The four seater?”

  “Yes I do. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, there's not much electrical on those older ATVs. I have two of them here. I'm guessing they will run. I also have an old Jeep that will probably run. We could go to town and stock up on groceries. I need to pick up Kate at the bank since her car is probably dead. We probably should get some cash if we can, because I'm going to bet the ATMs are all down and credit card payment systems aren’t working. At some point, the only thing people are going to accept is cash or gold. I don't really know, but it’s best to assume the worst and be prepared in the event the systems fail. I can always put the cash back in the bank.”

  Don opened the metal door to the barn, walked over to an ATV, sat down, and turned the ignition switch. The motor fired immediately, and he motioned to Ben to sit in the passenger seat. Ben walked to the ATV and sat next to Don. They drove through the door, and Don left the ATV idling while he carefully locked the barn door with a large gauge padlock.

  “All right, let's go see if your ATV will start and then we can head into town. We might attract a lot of attention in the Jeep, but I'm willing to bet there are a lot of ATVs running around right now.”

  They drove down the dirt driveway to the ranch house and turned left on the gravel road that led to Williamson Valley Road, stopping first to get Ben's ATV. It was in the garage, so they manually opened the garage door by pulling the release string from the inside. Ben sat in the ATV, turned the ignition, and was delighted when it started immediately. They then rode in tandem to the highway, turned south, and began to encounter people standing next to stranded vehicles.

  “Hey, stop!” said a man in a suit holding his dead cell phone in his hand. “Can you give me a ride to town?”

  “Us too?” said a young woman with a small boy.

  “Sure,” Don replied after carefully inspecting them. “Hop in.” The man rode with Ben and the others with Don. Ben stopped once to pick up another stranded woman, and the group made their way into town. Most of the now pedestrians watched them pass without incident. There was a near episode with two teenage boys standing next to an older muscle car who tried to block the road, but they steered clear of them by driving into the ditch and getting back on the roadway when they were away from the site.

  “Do you know why everything is broken?” the woman asked with a concerned expression on her face. She sat in the passenger seat waiting for an answer.

  “I’m not really sure. But I think whatever is going on is pretty serious,” he replied, not wanting to get into another discussion about EMPs.

  “What do you think we should do?” She nodded her head toward her son.

  “Best thing to do is go get as many groceries as you can, and go home. Stay inside until we see how things shake out.”

  “How am I supposed to get the groceries home?”

  “Take the cart. Look, I would like to give you a ride, but I have to pick up my wife, get groceries myself, and get home to hunker down. Sorry, but I can’t be a taxi to the whole town.”

  “Will you drop us off at the Fry’s?”

  “I guess I can do that. It’s not far out of the way,” Don relented, feeling sorry for the woman even though he knew he should get his business done quickly and get home.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  “Least I could do.” He motioned Ben to stop and said, “I am dropping them at the Fry’s and going to get Kate. Then, we are going to Walmart to buy food. What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to do the same. But, I don’t bank at Kate’s bank, so I’ll meet you back at the ranch.” They parted ways; Don dropped the woman off, and drove to the bank to get Kate.

  Kate waited for
Don in the bank, watching the line outside get longer. She was younger than Don, at forty-two to his forty-eight years. She stayed fit by doing yoga and jogging with Don three times a week. Although she was starting to show a few signs of age, her blond hair and deep-blue eyes gave her a more youthful appearance. Kate was the eternal optimist, while Don held the conviction that Murphy was alive and well, and it was only a question of time until his law came hammering down on you with a vengeance. As Don parked the ATV in front of the bank, Kate spied him through the large plate glass windows and exited the building. She kissed his cheek and said, “am I glad to see you! Nothing is working. Cars, telephones, power. It’s all gone.”

  “We’ve talked about this,” Don replied, looking serious.

  “Is it an EMP? Oh my God!”

  “I’m pretty sure it is.” Don watched as her look of shock turned to concern and said, “can you get money from the bank?”

  “We are doing manual withdrawals for customers now.”

  “Let’s get as much as we can.” Kate just blinked once, lost in thought and clearly growing more concerned.

  “I’ll be right back.” She entered the bank and walked behind a vacant cashier window. Don watched as she emptied the drawer of money and placed it in her briefcase. She emerged without a word and they got in the ATV.

  “How much did you get?”

  “I think about eight thousand. I left the withdrawal slip in the teller drawer, so it’s all legal.”

  “Good job, babe.” He said, leaning over to kiss her.

  “Watch it, sailor,” she replied with a short laugh, but the anxiety was still on her face.

  “Let’s hit the Walmart and head home. I want to hunker down before dark.” They drove to the Walmart and noted that there were several ATVs parked in the lot and a number of people milling around. The greeter approached them and said, “sorry but the store can’t process credit cards, so it’s only cash today.”

  “That’s fine,” Don replied and went to get a cart. He motioned for Kate to get one as well. They had split the money in the ATV and both intended to leave with full carts. Loading that much in the ATV could prove to be challenging, but they decided to make do and stock up as much as they could.