Doing The Apocalypse Shuffle: Southern Prepper Adventure Fiction of Survival Grid Down (Old Preppers Die Hard Book 2) (18 page)

“Hell no, if we get there and somebody already busted that gate that meant they spent some time busting into it and if he’s got all that crap and gear you say, I just as soon leave it alone. Dump, I ain’t no sissy or whatever but like I said, the better part of valor is choosing my damn fights and I choose not to fight things for stuff I don’t really need at the moment. I know he was your buddy and all that and you’d love to go wreak havoc on somebody but we can’t drink so well if we got holes in our bellies, if you know what I mean!” Farley said sounding to Dump truck like he was going to try to crayfish out of a full confrontation.

“I didn’t say we have to do the charge of the Light Brigade up there, I just said we have to take care of it.”….Dump began.

“Hell no! If there’s any kind of confrontation down there we don’t need it, buddy! We ain’t got shit to prove and whatever is there we don’t need that badly. I myself personally, don’t have a damn thing to prove or want from the place if there’s any kind of trouble that comes with it. I like you my friend, but I’m not dying over nothing or getting revenge for your boss that I never met!” Farley said adamantly.

“Aw hell, I thought you were Indian. Isn’t it a good day to die?” Dump said drunkenly belligerent.

“I’ll watch you if you just want a witness to your dumb ass death, what’s the old saying “fools charge in where angels fear to tread.” I am not doing it, I could sit out there and take pot shots at them from a distance without a scope and stir up a hornet’s nest of God knows what, but I don’t need to do that. We can always come back another day. I got lives depending on me, shit we’re eating turtles over there where I’m at and those things have proven smarter than we are. Now a turtle like an ostrich, ain’t the brightest creature in the world but they got two things going for them that you and me might need to consider: they both hide their heads when danger is apparent and although the speed of the two of them differs in getting away from a problem, they both are very adept at it. You ever seen a turtle dive into the water when it thought danger was threatening or a fish to get after? You ever seen an ostrich drop down to make itself small if it had an enemy on the savannah?” Farley asked.

“Man, you ain’t no fun! Ok, point noted. If there is anybody there, we wait, we watch, we fight them another day on our terms.” Dump said.

“Now we can be contradictory and do what in the military was called suppressive aggressive or interdictory fire, hell we used to call it harassment fire just to scare the bejesus out of somebody or pop a cannon off and hoped they moved on. That means you or I pop a cap off at them as long as they are staying anywhere around that place and either let them stay or threaten to attack them as they leave.” Farley said getting into his devious guerilla fighting style that peasants used to take down rulers in history.

“Ok, Dump I got to go home for a few and tell folks that me and you are going off to play for a bit. That should take me about 30 minutes until I get back here, you hang tough for a few and although I know you’re acting fine, lighten up on that beer my friend, we got to go to work.” Farley said, regretting putting his down also.

“No problem, hey why don’t I just follow you and then we go? Where do you live at anyway?” Dump said broaching a question Farley was dreading.

“You know what is a hell of thing, Dump? Here me and you meet up at the end of the world as we knew it, share some beer and I am willing to go play backup in a possible firefight with you in order to get me a shotgun but I ain`t willing to tell you exactly where I am living yet.” Farley said regarding the man.

“Now that is pretty screwed up, Farley, but I guess we really don’t know each other that well. Hell we just met, this is a strange thought to think about, reminds me of a bar fight. You can take a group of strangers all sitting at a bar and us men folk like me and you start sizing each other up and taking sides before we even get to know one another. We will sit there and talk, get drunk, tell personal secrets about our lives, etc. but we never reveal much about where we stay or who we give our phone number to. I understand, Farley, no worries and hurry back.” Dump said wondering himself why it was ok for Farley to go off and carry back Lord knows who with him if he had a mind to steal his scooter or something but for some reason he trusted the man.

“Yea I guess we just keep it as that I “live back that way and you live off over there somewhere” for a little while.” Farley said grinning.

“Well, Connors’ house is back yonder way but you will soon know where that is at. Hey, Farley, you got me at a disadvantage here, you got to haul all that gear and stuff we got to get from Connors back to my place.” Dump said contemplating with a fake “what the hell?” look on his face as he proceeded to twirl the end of his moustache in comical contemplation.

“Dang buddy, that’s right! You are going to have to show me Casa Dump Truck today! Now you got me wondering what kind of a place that you got. I envision a garage and yard full of rusting steel junk that needs to be repurposed for projects.” Farley said with a smile.

“Well, you are partially right, I got a big garage, a three bay affair but I live upstairs over the office. It’s an old cinder block country affair that used to serve as a country auto repair place before they changed the county roads. Ha! It isn’t like my house is a secret from any one; you know what’s painted over the side of the roof?” Dump said chuckling with a devilish grin.

“What?” Farley asked, as curious as can be.

“Both sides of the roof have painted on them “See Dump City!” Truck said with a loud laugh.

Farley about fell out laughing, imagining such a structure and its owner and pegged it right that Dump had a table or two around the place made out of old wooden cable or wire spools.

“You see there are still a lot of old barns and buildings and such around that I have seen in my travels that had that “SEE ROCK CITY” logo painted on them and one day I was watching a Clint Eastwood movie where he made the inhabitants paint the town red before he would help them so I got a bit of a buzz on and a paint brush and decorated the house. That reminds me, don’t drink any moonshine made by a fella called Furley Turnipseed. That has got to be the worst tasting, most mood changing firewater that might yet still be available around here. Come to think about it, how screwed up is it going to be when I introduce the two of you? I can’t even conceive of drinking that rot gut with a Furley and Farley to keep up on names with. I can see it now, when I say hey Furley meaning Farley and vice versa but I can dang sure tell you two apart otherwise. Why I bet I could stick four Farley’s in that mans overalls. I kid you not, that boy has a belly so big that he hasn’t probably seen his feet since he was 14 and a set of ears that looks like a Volkswagen going down the road with both doors open!” Dump said laughing.

“You ain`t right boy!” Farley said chuckling.

“Now you got me to thinking, Dump, how much of a batch of shine do you think that old man can brew anyway? What I’m asking is does he have one of them big two hundred fifty gallon tanks or is he a small distiller?” Farley questioned as Dump was busy second guessing himself if he actually needed or wanted another beer before going on their mission.

“Hell, he’s got a three hundred fifty gallon thump still that I know about. Now I’m pretty sure if he had enough mash around to do a run he would be cooking. But finding sugar and corn or barley these days would probably be monumental. You want to go in the liquor business, Farley?” Dump asked.

“No, I was thinking more on the line of mixing it with gasoline if Furley has the skill to get that high a proof of alcohol consistently.” Farley stated.

“Oh he’s consistent, you better mix that shit fifty-fifty with water if you got any sense. In my opinion, he makes that stuff like the comic strip Lil’ Abner where they make the ol’ pickle juice with skunks and such. Now don’t get me wrong, you can pour a little of that stuff out and it burns blue fire when you light it and you can tell whether it’s drinkable, but the taste, tastes like the bottom end of a Libby’s corn can with rubbing alcohol in it Neither Furley’s booze nor him is aged to perfection and that wife of his is one ugly woman. I tell you what boy, that ol’ woman’s face would make a freight train take a dirt road. But she’s a kindly woman to everyone but Furley. What’s funny Farley, is that woman of his is the most suspender grabbing person that you will ever see and if she don’t have a mitt full of his overalls normally, she’s reaching for them to grab and get his attention about something. It’s funnier than hell because he’s got a habit of carrying a can of Red Man in the front of his overalls and when she gets to jerking on it you can see the can pop out the top of ‘em!” Dump said laughing. “That woman can make and cook some biscuits though, “Cat head biscuits” she calls them. You know what cat head biscuits are Farley? They the size of a kitten’s head when you cut a biscuit piece out of the dough before you stick them in the oven and the size of a cat’s head when they come out!” Dump said.

“Oh yeah, Dump, I know all about those things – cathead biscuits, many a grandma has made those things for me. I bet there are a hundred recipes for those things, you got baking soda or baking powder or you just set them in the window to rise. I still have to smile to myself every time I go in a grocery store that you will occasionally see a sack of flour with a dish towel attached to it! Some folks still make those don’t you know, Dump?” Farley said with a smile.

“Aw hell, most everybody thinks the first step of making biscuits these days is to whap a can of Pillsbury biscuits against the counter. Now in our times, it sounds funny for us to hear how our grandmothers would tell the folks making their dresses or underwear out of flour sacks let alone no matter how many of us moved out of the house ended up with how many kitchen towels that were passed down to us that came out of them flour sacks. I guess these days everybody’s going to have to relearn things but I can’t see anybody making things out of flour sacks or worrying about finding clothes because in modern society, there are closets are full of pre-made goods. Farley, on a somber note, there’s a lot of dead around here and whoever got Connors had to be just plain wicked to cut him that many times. What’s the old saying? Desperate people do desperate things and nowadays everybody’s desperate, but that looked like a psychopath or something like the cops say, there was anger or insaneness there. That wasn’t just a normal robbery for money or food.” Dump said somberly.

“You said this wasn’t the first occurrence of somebody getting cut up like that. I assume Connors was armed, he’s a bar owner, right?” Farley questioned, cocking one eye at him.

“Oh, he was always armed. He had his favorite pistols but you never could tell what he was carrying because he was kind of like a collector if you know what I mean. That’s another thing, Farley, there should be lots of different kinds of holsters, shotgun barrels, ammo pouches, butt packs, etc. around that place that’s not in the safe that we can gather up and salvage. Those are trade goods, they may not be what somebody wants but try and find you a leather worker these days.  Barnett as you know has been kind of setting himself up as a trading post, could be we find a little value in those types of items. We need us a safecracker is what we need, Farley. Or at least, somebody that’s got some kind of idea of going about getting into one of those things. I would take a cutting torch to the hinges but as far as I know that one is made so that doesn’t happen.” Dump said looking towards Farley who was studying the roads in the distance and wanting to get back to his makeshift tribe and inform them of his plans.

“I have no idea of how to get into one of those damn things, either, so as far as I’m concerned that’s what going to be classified as a ‘never’. I’m never going to get to it so I’m not going to worry about it and neither should you. Those guns are gone as far as we’re concerned. Now if he has as much money and as many guns as you’re talking about, I’m sure he’s got guns stashed in every room of that place. You got as many guns as you got rooms and I can guarantee you they aren’t locked up. Which brings us back to a new consideration that I’ve been thinking about, this little snatch and grab you got me going on?” Farley said pausing.

“And that is what, Farley?” Dump said narrowing his eyes.

“Well look at it this way, normally if somebody says let’s go rob something it’s share fifty-fifty or whatever. We aren’t exactly going to rob nobody and I figure you got full rights to whatever is there but the question remains is that you’re asking me to put my life on the line for a $350 shotgun and you’re going to be loading up on thousands of dollars worth of guns and gear as well as food, and in my calculations that just doesn’t seem fair for me to put my life on the line for.” Farley said taking the fun of what was once a lark and a drunken deal to what was now a more sobered and studied appraisal of the situation.