The Bugging Out Series 1: Bugging Out by Noah Mann

Author:Noah Mann [Mann, Noah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Preparation, survival, prepper, survivalist, post apocalypse, bug out, apocalypse
Amazon: B00K7J1I82
Publisher: Schmuck & Underwood
Published: 2014-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty Two

Forty five minutes it took us to reach Del’s house, following a trail worn thinly through the dying woods, bare branches above shielding enough of the forest floor from the storm just ended to allow the path to be made out. He’d been careful to not leave obvious tracks, just nonspecific tells of the way to go. A twisted sapling. A rock on its end. But even in the dark, moving only by the meager glow of our headlamps, Del never lost the trail. These woods were his woods. He was intimate with them. In them every day for four decades.

He likely knew them better than any person.

He took me straight through his modest house, its walls roughhewn lumber, rustic and warm, like someone had slapped a roof on the forest, to the only bedroom in the back.

“There you go,” he said, gesturing at his old bed, a thin layer of comforter atop it.

Then I saw the wire. It snaked from beneath the comforter to an electrical inverter in the corner, deep cycle battery wired to it. A pair of cables were tacked to the wall and disappeared through a precisely cut hole in the timber ceiling.

“Electric blanket?”

Del nodded.

“I have it set on a timer,” he explained as I went to the bed and examined the setup he’d constructed. “It runs fifteen minutes every hour through the night. Keeps me toasty. The battery’s good for a full night, then charges the next day. I don’t have it wired into the rest of the circuits. That way if the timer craps out and it turns on, it will only drain this battery.”

“You hooked to solar?”

“That and a hydro impeller,” Del explained, revealing that at least part of his energy needs were being met by a pint-size version of hoover dam. “I have it set in the creek out back. Even when it freezes there’s enough flow under the ice to keep a few lights on and keep me warm.”

“Unbelievable,” I commented. “This is stupid simple, which means I should have thought of it.”

“You could rig one up at your place to keep the smoke signature down. I have an extra timer thingamajig you could wire in. All you’d need is the electric blanket.”

That I didn’t have. And I wasn’t sure where to get one.

“I could try scavenging a store, I guess.”

Del shook his head, not keen on that idea.

“You’d be better off trying some abandoned houses,” he suggested. “Away from any sizeable population. Just in case that Major fella isn’t a rumor.”

It was a good idea. Glancing at the method of staying warm he’d crafted, I could see that Del Drake was brimming with them.

“Wanna see something else?”

“Sure,” I said.

Del led me down a short hallway, to a door that, if the implied layout of his house was correct, should be a second bedroom. It was and it wasn’t.

“Holy....” I exclaimed in a slightly truncated fashion as he opened the door.

“My favorite place in the whole damn universe,” he said.

I

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