When the Power Is Gone: A Powerless World - Book 1 by P. A. Glaspy Page B

air conditioning. Did I mention how much no electricity sucks? They went to the storage building and started organizing the piles we had dumped there from what we grabbed at Bob and Janet’s. Russ opened the first trailer, pulled out the ramp, and walked in. He turned on a light and scooted some boxes against the wall.
    “Alright fellas, we need to get these piles organized. I want us to be ready to go as fast as possible, in case everything turns to shit. Heavy stuff goes on the bottom, but don’t fill the floor up. We need to save room for last minute items that might be heavy or cumbersome. Oh, and watch out for the garden. If you step on those plants, you are toast. You know how your mom loves radishes.”
    We had turned up a small plot for a garden. We would get plenty of fresh veggies from the farm during the summer, but it was also nice to have some right out back – tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes and best of all lettuce – those things we could eat every day, and did. The radishes were almost ready, the lettuce was ripe enough to start pulling, but the tomato and cucumber sets were still in the sun room. No reason to plant them now. I’d just keep them watered, and hope we could take them with us to the farm. Not that Millie wouldn’t have some as well, but they were already started. And can you ever really have too many tomatoes or cucumbers?
    I was watching the guys out the back door when Janet walked in from garage carrying a half thawed roast. “Do you think Russ would fire the generator up again, so we can use the slow cooker? If not, I’m going to have to try to cook this on the camp stove, and I’ve never cooked a roast that way. If we can use the slow cooker, we can set it and forget it. Come to think of it, do we even know if the slow cooker still works?”
    I shrugged my shoulders, and headed for the pantry. “No idea, but there’s only one way to find out.” I pulled out the cooker and crossed my fingers. Janet went to the door and called out to Russ.
    “Russ, can we get power to run an outlet for the slow cooker? We want to make a roast for dinner tonight. That should be company worthy.”
    Russ thought for a second, then smiled. “I can do you one better than that. I have a little gem that should work for you. Let me get it.” Russ went to the garage and opened his faraday cabinet. He pulled out a small portable power pack. “I just refreshed the charge on this last weekend. I think the charge will last through your cook time.” He carried the pack into the kitchen and set it on the counter. He turned it on, and showed Janet where to plug the cooker into it. She quickly put the roast and seasonings together, put the lid on, and turned on the power. The light lit on the front, and we cheered the cooker on. No chip then. Sweet! I went up to Russ, planted a big kiss on him, and shooed him back out the door.
    We still got Russ to fire up the generator, since we were still working on dehydrating meat. He thought we would be safe to use it for today. Tomorrow was another story. But we were ahead of schedule, and almost done, so we should be able to finish it today.
    After a lunch of fried pork chops and French fries (yes, I know not so healthy, but the freezer was still thawing stuff faster than we could cook it), Russ and Bob headed over to Brian’s house. The guys had spent a very productive morning getting the supplies and trailers organized, so Russ had the boys splitting wood. We had a wood burning stove in the den, and though he didn’t think we would run out of propane for the camp stoves, better safe than sorry. If we had to, we could cook on the wood stove. Plus, keeping them busy kept their minds off all the technology they no longer had. Both boys were huge gamers, playing pretty much every night and weekends, and a lot of the time past their gaming curfew. More importantly, tired kids went to sleep quickly, and slept soundly. I’d be willing to bet they crashed right after supper