Grid Down Reality Bites Read online




  Grid Down

  —

  Reality Bites

  Bruce “Buckshot” Hemming

  and

  Sara Freeman

  Copyright © 2011 Bruce E Hemming

  Second Printing

  All rights reserved. ISBN: 1460980387

  ISBN-13: 9781460980385

  Copyright © All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, for profit or gain by sale, trade, barter, or otherwise © without the expressed and prior permission of authors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this book is accurate and complete. The information contained in this book cannot replace good judgment and decision making. Nothing in this book is intended to express or imply any warranty of the suitability or fitness of any product or service. The reader should consult with a professional or a specialist to ensure the suitability and fitness of any product or service they intend to use. The author is not engaged in rendering professional advice or services to the individual reader. The ideas, descriptions and suggestions contained in this book are not intended as a substitute for consulting with a professional or a specialist. The author and/or publisher shall not be liable or accept any responsibility for any loss, damage, injury, prosecution or actions brought against any person or body as a result of the use or misuse of any information or techniques contained in this book.

  Outdoor activities are by their very nature potentially hazardous. Those participating in such activities assume all responsibility for their own action and safety and should consult with a physician prior to engaging in such activities if they have any medical conditions or health issues.

  eBook formatting by MrLasers.com

  Grid Down tells a series of chilling scenarios about how things may very well “go down” when it’s TEOTWAWKI. The authors are captivating story tellers, and they spin an often shocking tale of post EMP America. This narrative is so realistic and detailed, and it’s all too likely this won’t turn out to be a story after all, but our reality.

  ~V Stevens, MD

  Grid Down is a very informative book project that I am happy to know is going to print. It was hard to wait for each chapter to come out because of the impact and activity in the book effort. Story flow is very good and kept me very interested from the beginning.

  ~Good Luck Bruce and Sara! Congrats, William Guinn, OK

  Grid Down is a great training manual written in the form of a fictional novel about what could very possibly be our future. Bruce and Sara not only tell you what you need, they also tell you why you need it.

  ~GM Holland, MI

  Grid Down is an edge-of-yourseat nail biter that you can’t put down! Bruce and Sara have brought a dramatic in depth look into a fierce reality we may all face, in this TEOTWAWKI scenario. This book is not only suspenseful, gripping, but eye opening informative on ways to prepare for a very possible future!!! A+

  ~Jeffrey Crawford, South Carolina

  Grid Down Reality Bites is not only a spectacular learning experience of everyday needs for survival but it is also a magnificent suspense thriller. At the end of each chapter I was held breathless and wanting more. I became one with each set of characters and felt their joy and sorrow. Now I wait with bated breath for the sequel.

  ~Best of luck with the publishing. Don Biscardi, Kenosha, Wisconsin

  Grid Down is a post-EMP disaster novel, carefully researched and entertaining. However, its true value is as a manual for would-be survivors. The well-developed characters in the story are each at different stages of life and of personal disaster preparation, and the author does a superb job of presenting solid advice and concrete actions that readers can follow to increase the likelihood of their own personal survival. This book is an excellent addition to any survival library, and a fine book to loan a friend or family member not yet convinced of the necessity for disaster preparations.

  ~Name withheld by request

  Grid Down is a remarkable masterpiece that will become a classic in the survival category. So much is going on that every single person out there will be able to identify with at least one of the characters. Keeps you on the edge of your seat, great information, great story line. What more could you want? I highly recommend this book.

  ~Name withheld by request

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Strange Times

  Chapter 2

  21st Century Mountain Man

  Chapter 3

  The Day Everything Stopped

  Chapter 4

  The Wonders of Chaos

  Chapter 5

  Nothing Works

  Chapter 6

  Reality Sucks

  Chapter 7

  The Best of Plans Have Flaws

  Chapter 8

  Silent Game Getter

  Chapter 9

  Silence is Golden, Duct Tape is Silver

  Chapter 10

  Starving Hunters

  Chapter 11

  Ungrateful Woman

  Chapter 12

  Fly Like the Wind

  Chapter 13

  High Emotions End in Disaster

  Chapter 14

  Split Up

  Chapter 15

  Travel or Stay

  Chapter 16

  Fight to the Death

  Chapter 17

  Reunion

  Chapter 18

  The Mothman Warning

  Chapter 19

  Hellhounds

  Chapter 20

  Surprise Attack

  Chapter 21

  Survival Snaring Made Easy

  Chapter 22

  Gray Wolves; The Unknown Battles

  Chapter 23

  Trading with Junk Silver

  Chapter 24

  Thanksgiving Dinner

  Chapter 25

  Christmas & Giving Thanks

  Chapter 26

  Just One Big Happy Family

  Chapter 27

  High Emotions Bring Trouble

  Chapter 28

  A Pregnant Pause

  Chapter 29

  Don’t Drop Your Guard

  Chapter 30

  Frozen Pipe

  Chapter 31

  Spring Beaver Trapping & Smelt Run

  Chapter 32

  Strange Meeting

  Chapter 33

  Survival of the Fittest

  Chapter 34

  Rainbow Warriors

  Chapter 35

  We Are the Resistance

  Chapter 36

  A Hell of a Way to Start the Morning

  Chapter 37

  Indian Guardian Spirit

  Chapter 38

  The Heat of Battle – Missing & Wounded

  Afterwords

  Grid Down Volume 2 – Perceptions of Reality

  Chapter 1 Excerpt ‘Lost & Forgotten’

  Chapter 2 Excerpt ‘Hope Springs Eternal’

  Chapter 3 Excerpt ‘The Long Way Home’

  Resources

  Chapter 1

  Strange Times

  “If God is watching us, we might as well be interesting.”

  ~Solomon Short

  Working as a nurse in a hospital took a special kind of person. Jane Goodwin was this special type of person. She met the daily challenges she faced in
her job with compassion and caring. It was hard, rewarding work that took a person from the highs of saving someone’s life to the lows of watching a child die and being unable to save him. Those intense moments when someone’s life hung in the balance was what it was all about. Meeting those challenges with skill and calmness was second nature to her. It was sometimes easy to forget they were people you were working on and not just bodies that required your services. She made a conscious decision to never forget they were people with feelings and loved ones waiting and praying for them to recover. It showed in everything she did. She was respected by both doctors and colleagues. Her patients loved her and she usually had a kind word for almost anyone.

  She always thought of everyone’s needs and the little details that brightened even the most horrendous day for her charges and coworkers. Everyone said she was much too giving, and much too kind. They seemed to forget those quick stinging rebukes she could deal out if she caught you in a mistake.

  Jane understood the stress everyone was under especially lately with all the new biological training they were doing. Since the anthrax scare of 2001-2002, this new training was mandatory at most hospitals. Jane and her coworkers were taught the guidelines and procedures that were set up to help lessen the impact of contamination. Containment, isolation and biological sterile procedures were for the protection of health care workers. They were taught that using these strict guidelines would stop the spread of a biological contaminant. Or so they said. It was all just a theory. It had not been proven yet. Still, it was better than nothing, Jane thought.

  How little people truly understood was about to become painfully clear. The U. S. and the rest of the world were not ready for the devastating effects and the speed of infection a highly contagious virus would cause. Nor were they ready for the deadly results that would follow.

  When people said how good she was she always laughed and said, “You have it all wrong. I am very selfish. I do it because it makes me feel good.” They would laugh and shake their heads at her, not quite understanding her meaning. They just didn’t get it at all, she thought. The running joke on her floor was “And who takes care of you?” She would always smile and say, “Joe does.” Joe was her husband.

  Jane’s husband, Joe Goodwin, was a retired Army Sergeant. Joe and Jane had a small twenty-acre farmstead in southern Minnesota with chickens and a pig they raised for butchering every summer. It was a good life. Joe was a hard-working man and very good at his job. He was very down to earth and practical. Like most folks, he always concentrated on his job and daily living concerns. At home it seemed there were never enough hours in the day to complete everything that needed to be done that day. Running a farmstead was not an easy thing to do and organize when the two caretakers also had full-time jobs. You could make lists of what you planned on accomplishing in a day and were happy if you really had the time to do half on the list. It seemed every job that should take x amount of time ended up taking twice to three times as long as it should. He thought, Just like contact with the enemy. That is how long any plan really lasts. You do the best you can.

  They loved the life they had even if at times it was pretty frustrating trying to get everything done when they wanted. The running joke between them was how long and what jobs were on the “List.” Things were running a lot smoother since Joe retired.

  In 2009, Joe went on a survivalist tangent. It started with watching a movie called 2012. It got him thinking and contemplating things out in the world. He then found out about the militia and what they were doing. The more he read and listened to the information, the worse he got. He started talking about the New World Order plans for mass genocide, the dollar collapsing and the H1N1 flu virus and how the vaccine was meant to kill off the earth’s population.

  Joe always joked about the environmentalist and animal rights folks. He felt they were just a bunch of dope smoking hippies that were stoned one night and figured out a plan to make a living without working by bilking money out of women and children. They used women and children’s caring nature for animals and the environment to evoke an emotional response from them measured in how much money they could donate to the causes and to pay themselves a high salary. The hippies cried about animals being mistreated, the trees being cut down, bad water or whatever they could think up. The donations flew in from suckers all across the nation and the free loading hippies got set up in a great lifestyle. Of course, it was non-profit, but the salaries and expense accounts of these people were right up there in the six figures for most of them. How these people slept at night having school kids donating their lunch money for their fake causes was beyond Joe. What really upset him was most of the people believed them with a religious zeal. They preached it and shunned anyone who had a different view point. They often labeled those nonbelievers as evil.

  Joe was now turning into a full-time survivalist and he researched a lot of things on the internet. He worked on wind and solar power and bought bulk grains which he stored in fifty-five gallon drums. Before he became more survival minded, he used to collect some of the spilled over grain at the local grain mills to feed his chickens. He collected a few buckets each year and now he was collecting as many fifty-five gallon drums as he could get. Joe stored some gas with preservatives and switched their electric cook stove to a propane cook stove. A huge propane tank was purchased to store a few years’ worth of propane. Joe also stored some heating oil for the diesel generator he bought. He was buying up guns and ammo like mad and his reloading room for ammo looked like he could make enough bullets for an army. He bought some gold and silver to store for currency when the dollar finally collapsed.

  Joe’s old Army buddy, Preston Riley, had just retired in Madison, Wisconsin. Preston and Joe stayed in touch with each other through emails when Preston couldn’t visit. Preston was a helicopter mechanic and was now working at a small airfield. His wife divorced him a few years ago and he was now living with a woman named Sharon who loved the bright lights, fancy restaurants, and parties. He should have known better than to get involved with another city woman after divorcing his first wife.

  Preston was an outdoor person like Joe who liked to hunt and fish. Preston bought twenty acres of land right next to Joe and Jane when they bought their farmstead. He bought and set up a small two bedroom trailer for deer hunting. He came around once a month to visit and check on his property. Joe and Preston hand dug a well and they added a few solar panels to the trailer to run the lights and radio, but nothing fancy at all. Preston found a wood burning hot water heater on the internet and installed it. It was his one luxury for hunting season. Nothing beat a hot shower. A solar panel with a twelve volt water pump pressurized the plumbing. Joe joked it would have been easier to run three hundred-foot-long extension cords out to the trailer from his property. Preston always worried about security; he took down the solar panels and stored everything inside the trailer out of sight when he was gone. The trailer was grounded on two ends and the metal sides and roof provided plenty of protection from the elements.

  After listening to all the information Joe picked up on about the things going on in the world, Preston decided to make this his SHTF (When the Shit Hits The Fan) retreat, too. Preston felt it couldn’t hurt to be prepared for a disaster or whatever. One thing the military taught him was to cover your ass. If nothing ever happened, he had a cool hunting camp. It was a win-win situation as far as he was concerned. Another thing the military taught him was to not trust politicians. Joe felt that with politicians running the world, anything could happen. They didn’t always have the people’s best interest in mind.

  Jane put up with these two, thinking of them as boys playing end of the world games kind of like a mild mid-life crisis. They weren’t city type people, so instead of flashy sports cars and fashionable clothes they played ‘what if it was the end of the world?’ When Preston came up once a month to visit, most of the time it was fun. They had good times and laughed a lot. But lately the talk had gotten out of hand,
she thought. There was way too much talk about the New World Order and stuff about the powers that be trying to crash the whole financial system and releasing a biological weapon to kill off 90% of humans on the planet. This kind of talk gave her the chills. She was recalling the recent biological training she had undergone. All of this was running through her mind, giving her lightning-like glimpses of the horrible pictures and video evidence she had been shown of the horrible results of biological attacks.

  Joe started doing deep research into the top ecology people. Those no good hippie people were on a power trip. He wasn’t sure if they were really insane or started to believe their own press or what. They were openly calling for a mass genocide of people to save the planet for the animals. How insane was that? Even some people like Patrick Geryl in his book, How to Survive 2012, had really crazy stuff like that in it. In his book on page 184, a heroic battle for the wisdom cult had the legend of the rainbow warrior. Under the symbol of the rainbow all races and all religions of the world will unite. Together they will proclaim the great wisdom of living in harmony with each other and creations of the Earth. The ones who are teaching this will become known as the rainbow warriors. Although they are warriors, they will have loving hearts and carry with them the “Old Ones’” knowledge and spiritual way of living. And they will do no harm to any living creature. The legend tells they will be a FORCE of peace and harmony.

  On page 185 in the author’s own words, it said: ‘We will conquer. We simply have to. ONLY WE WITH A WELL ORGANIZED VISION WILL BE ABLE TO RE-ESTABLISH CIVILIZATION. And like a phoenix, we will arise from our ashes, ruling the world in an ecological way with an essential message for all future generations.’ There is a lot more of the same kind of thing, but it was clear in his writing what he was saying. The eco-cult warriors will make everyone become vegetarians or they will kill you. That was the message, loud and clear.

  This is some whacked out stuff, Joe thought. You have got to be kidding if anyone would really believe this crap. He found so many more books, articles and manifestos with the same kind of theme. They were about death to the humans and a worshipful idealistic attitude to the animals. There were thousands of them all over the place. This was some crazy, scary stuff. He did more research and found that this stuff was being taught in colleges. It was being taught in grade schools, too. Remember the kids giving up their lunch money to save the animals? Oh boy, he thought.