Zombie apocalypse fiction – Ruth’s story #142 Prepping for the Kayak Point trip, dealing with bigots & threat of a coup #TEOTWAWKI #SHTF #WCS

Warming up my old Dodge truck, Shack and I give our vehicle a quick touch up. Tires needed some air, and we had to reinstall the batteries, removed for charging. Damn diesels take two batteries.

Our truck has gained some weight. The lads added metal side skirts protecting the tires. Inside the doors, we stuffed old soft ballistic vests, and welded an ugly as all hell grate and chain protection over the windows.

I am surprised at the amount of weapons, vehicles and personnel we are taking to Kayak Point. I wonder if Sam, Doc and Pastor know something that they have not shared with me. This feeling is not good, as I feel left out of the loop.

Expressing my concern to Sam, he explains that we will be meeting survivors from nearby Whidbey Island at Kayak Point. These survivors live in an old coastal gun installation on the island. They want to trade, as well as gather salt with us.

I am ok with meeting other survivors; I just wished they had told me about it. I also learned that Sam and Doc are as concerned with Pastor’s behavior as I am. There is some discussion about moving up our departure which I am all in agreement with.

Pastor and his lackeys, including Carmine, are ensconced in the main building which depending on who you ask is either the palace or the governor’s bunker. The Adventists, if we can even call them that have started pulling away from the convoy. We are starting to see more divisions between the two groups.

There has been some grumbling about the convoy leaving taking most of the ethanol and weapons, but so far nothing serious or Pastor has kept a lid on the discontent. The change in Pastor, and the general vibe (as Shack calls it) in the village has caused some of the former Adventists to decide to travel north with the convoy rather than stay.

So our two merry groups are in a constant state of flux. I have no idea of who is staying and who is going. Oy, vey ist mir! Just as I think I have a grasp of who is coming or staying, some asshole changes his or her mind.

I avoid the palace as much as possible as I come out of there feeling as if I need a change of clothes and a shower each time. The last time I was there I was positive there was going to be a fight between the few convoy personnel and the former Adventists, whom we have taken to calling villagers as it is more fitting now.

Because of the death of electronics and other powered forms of entertainment, card games and board games have risen again as major forms of entertainment. There is almost always a game of cards taking place in the palace at even given time. As people are want to do, there is some betting going on, most of it good natured.

Currency used for betting is usually cigarettes, ammo, guns and even sexual favors. I was tempted to get into some of the games for the chance to win cigarettes until I realized women in the games were encouraged to bet with their body as collateral. No fucking way, am I that desperate for a cigarette, that I will use my body to purchase them.

What nearly caused the fight in the palace was not the women using their body as currency, that has been going on as long as our species has been around, it was the comments Pastor made about the deck of cards. I admit that despite living here almost 20 years, sometimes American idioms escape me.

I had to ask a few of the older guys what Pastor meant when he said they were playing with a “Rodney King deck of cards.” It was at this point that I realized that other than the few tribal members, the villagers are all white. It was Longfeather who explained the Rodney King reference to me.

Even Iain, many years later had not heard the reference before, but he says there was not a large black populating in the Pacific Northwest even before KCAP wiped out about 95% of the population.

I learned from Longfeather that a Rodney King playing deck is 52 clubs and one spade. I know spade is a derogatory term for a black person. I was surprised to hear Pastor, a former man of the cloth, use such a nasty pejorative. I realize that Pastor said it because of the presence of Doc. The two men have never gotten along, but it seems worse now that Doc is infected.

Since I was not even born yet when the unfortunate Mr. King was beaten, it is not surprising I was not familiar with the term. As Doc is one of only a handful of blacks (although, being of Moroccan Berber decent he tells me that he is not technically black, despite his skin color) among the people within the village.

I know that survival does not favor the PC crowd, and it appears that mostly crude, brutal, bigoted assholes have survived. You would think a damned zombie apocalypse would finally wipe bigotry off the map. Apparently even fucking bigotry is immune even to a zombie apocalypse. Just what we need in camp, a bunch of fucking khnyoks.

Since then, Doc and I have avoided entering the palace. Sam only goes in there when absolutely necessary, preferring to talk to Pastor through courier or radio. Junior will not go into the palace anymore, either. I wonder what happened to put Junior off going into the palace as he is Sam’s primary courier.

Bigotry aside, preparations for the Kayak Point trip continue. The lads from the convoy artillery detachment made a week-long trip to the old naval station in Everett. They did not come back with much, but they did recover an old Mk 38 naval variant of the M242 25mm Bushmaster cannon.

Mounted on a 5-ton flatbed truck with a pair of Honda gas-powered generators, the old manual 25mm cannon will be a formidable addition to our armaments. I am not sure what ammo the lads recovered from the squids, but I hope they got some good stuff other than practice rounds. Even the blue, 25mm practice rounds are a formidable projectile, able to penetrate nearly anything we are likely to encounter.

The MGS Stryker is coming along to Kayak Point while the mortar Stryker will stay in the village due to problems with its transmission. Along with the snow plow, two of the flat-bed HEMTTs come along for hauling salt and coal.

Next week: part 2 of the Kayak Point preps