Driving home from work, Dean Westin cursed at traffic. Anxiety used to creep up inside of him when he was stuck in gridlock- a side-effect of his time in the Middle East that he had worked hard at pushing down- but this was new and different. After Toba, and California, and worries about Yellowstone, the U.S. Army Staff Sergeant began to wonder how long before panic set in here in Omaha. Scenes from disaster movies filled his imagination in exactly situations like this- stuck in traffic, desperate to get somewhere, either to escape the city or get to his family- and unable to do anything about it.

Since he was a teenager, Westin had decided he would never be helpless. To him, that meant learning to be able to protect himself and defeat any threat in any situation. Years of mixed martial arts training, including Muay Thai; Brazilian Jiu Jitsu; Shootwrestling; and Wing Chun, were paired with a sprinkling of Maphilindo Silat and Sayoc Kali to provide him with the tools to fight with his bare hands as well as edged and blunt weapons. His parents had never been big fans of guns, though they didn't discourage against them either. If he wanted to expand his skill-set to include firearms, he needed to make a decision. After 9/11, though, that choice was made fairly easy. Military service had skipped a generation in his family- with both of his grandfather's serving during Vietnam in different capacities, one in the navy, the other the air force. After watching the towers fall, a deep sense of duty to protect the innocent and prevent any further tragedies like that spurred him to join, the only Westin in two generations to volunteer to serve. Even though he wasn't old enough to enlist until several years later, that fire had still burned in him, and off he went to seek out and bring pain to those that wished to cause more of the same carnage he vowed to fight.

His time in the military only bolstered his mindset of physical preparation for physical violence, this time coupling battlefield tactics ranging across a variety of terrain and situations with an array of weapons and equipment. When his active duty contract came up, he elected to switch over to the civilian side of things, but signed on with the national guard in his wife's home state of Nebraska. After settling here, he found himself fascinated with apocalypse scenarios that seemed to be gaining in popularity with mainstream culture. When he had served on active duty, the idea of facing a natural disaster seemed to have a pretty simple solution centered around the military base he operated out of. Now as a part-time soldier and civilian, he was realizing that if things were to go completely pear-shaped, he would have to rely on his own supplies and equipment.

Confident in his training, he supplemented his knowledge and skills with weapons and supplies based on the education he'd been given by the Army. Some called him a prepper. It wasn't a term he preferred, but he accepted it. He didn't have a bunker, or a plan to raise rabbits a source of food, or even the skill with a bow and arrow to take down large game when society had collapsed and so much time had gone by that firearms were no longer a viable option to hunt with. No, Dean just liked to be able to take care of himself and his family just in case the worst came to pass. 

And now those plans and supplies and fantasies about living a life off the grid under a social collapse were crawling through his brain. The disastrous volcanic eruption, the earthquakes and tsunamis, the global conflict all around, all of that caused a sense of anxiety and hyper vigilance that had him on edge. Working with school children every day, he put on a brave face when they expressed their concerns and fears, but even some of them had stopped coming to school- no doubt pulled out by their parents in fear of the worst. Now he was wondering how long he should wait, how far he should let things go before he took extreme measures himself and began to implement the plan he and his friends had talked about just in case of an situation like the one going on around them. Ammunition had flown off the shelves, and people had pulled up to Wal-Mart to buy pallets of bottled water just a few days ago. Canned food was being horded, and some people were even beginning to build large fences, installing concrete support structures in their yard (homeowners' associations be damned) to stave off looters and rioters in the case of a civil revolt.

Gripping the steering wheel of his Toyota Tacoma and gritting his teeth, Dean felt his heart rate start to raise. He had told himself years ago to not let being stuck in traffic bother him- no one was going to lob a grenade at his vehicle or set off an IED on Interstate-80, but now, the scenes from movies like World War Z, with six-lane highways turned into parking lots as panicked civilians abandoned their vehicles to escape their fears on foot began to creep into his mind.

How much longer would it be until things got that bad here? They had already mobilized the National Guard in several states out West. How long until his unit was called up to support them? He had been there to assist with hurricane relief several years ago, and his CERFP unit had been put on alert during several major disasters, but every time before he had gone knowing that things at home were stable and secure. This time, he didn't think he could leave his family if they called him up. It seemed like it was just a matter of time before the social structure around them crumbled and people devolved once again into tribal systems, fighting each other for survival in a panic to protect themselves from uncertain doom headed their way.

Flipping open his phone, he looked down and selected the number of his now-ex-wife. They weren't together anymore, but they still cared about each other, and their children were the brightest lights in their world. He worried that if something happened in the coming days, they wouldn't be able to get to each other.

"What would you say about you and kids staying at my place for a few nights? Just until everything going on settles down. I don't like the neighborhood you live in, not with the way things are right now."