Nuclear War Club: Seven high school students are in detention when Nuclear War explodes.Game on, they are on their own. (20 page)

“Anything happen?” asked David.

“No, Karen made fresh coffee by the fire,” Zeke said. “Liu relieves you at three am.”

Zeke handed David the binoculars and the whistle. David grabbed the M-16 and put his 9 inside his belt. He touched his hiking boot to be sure the knife was there. He checked his patrol backpack, confirming the flashlights, the rope, the parachute cord, the signal mirror, chocolate bars, caffeine pills, K-Bar knife, canteen and extra ammo clips were all stored in the designated pockets, so he could reach for them in the dark.

David was always surprised how cold it got in the desert at night. He added a long sleeve shirt. The sky was clear with a half moon. He walked up to the fire, and poured his canteen full of coffee. He instinctively counted all the sleeping bags around the fire to confirm everyone was here.

Zeke was already snoring before he left. David shut one eye, and focused on listening before he left the fire. He would open his eye when he left so that it would not have any night blindness caused by his pupil contraction from the firelight.

“It’s David,” he said as he climbed the canyon wall.

“Here,” said Karen.

“See anything?” David asked.

“No,” said Karen. “We need to patrol the perimeter.”

David noticed that Karen was very careful not to be sky lined by the horizon, staying well off the ridge. She still had a limp but moved without difficulty on the ledge leading down to the well path.

She patrolled with her AR 15 horizontal, but pointing down slightly. David noticed she had a headlamp wrapped around her ankle, but turned off.

“Put socks over your magazines,” she said softly, as she stopped. “I can hear them rattle.”

“I didn’t bring any socks,” he said. She tossed him a pair of her wool socks, and he inserted two spare magazines into them. David noticed all her magazines but one had socks on them to muffle the sound.

“I used to ride out with my Dad on the cattle range. We would camp out and wait to ambush the wolf packs attacking the cattle. One night he caught some cattle rustlers from Mexico. All because of the sound of their spare ammo clips,” she said.

Karen paused about every five to seven steps, flattened herself against the canyon, listened, and looked for movement. She scanned every direction constantly.

“How are you feeling?” David asked.

“Fine, but we can’t talk while on guard duty. Most of this is listening, especially to any normal sounds you
don’t
hear,” she said.

Karen propped up her AR15 pointing to the trail leading up the canyon, zeroing in on the curve around the midpoint. She then took a shotgun and pointed it to the other side. Karen and David sat leaning against the canyon wall crevice, each facing a different direction, about a yard apart.

They didn’t talk, or have any physical contact. But David felt a euphoric completeness, a sense of connection, just sitting in the dark with Karen under the stars. The three hours seemed like minutes to David, as they walked back to the camp to wake up Liu for her shift.

He hoped Karen felt the same.

44.

Doron waited excitedly the next morning until Karen finally woke up. When she came up to the campfire around ten am, Doron found David, and woke him up.

“I have an idea I want to try out,” Doron said to David.

David got up, put on his boots and stumbled to the campfire. Doron handed him an aluminum canteen holder full of coffee. Liu, Ashley, Zeke and Jorge joined them around an excited Doron.

“When we get in a firefight, we usually have extra rifles captured from the dead greens,” Doron bubbled.

“Unless, of course, we
lose
, then it doesn’t matter,” Doron added.

“The mechanics of shooting are easy, squeeze the trigger. It’s the execution and aim under fire, chaos, and panic, that is infinitely complex,” Doron continued.

“Karen has what the Germans called in WW2 fingerspitzengefuhl- a fingertip feel, a sense quicker than thought, on where and how battlefield is shaping up, and where to shoot. It’s not just that she is a great sniper, it’s that she knows where to shoot and set up,” Doron said.

“We could have a force multiplier if Karen could move around from one area to another, while the greens continued to shoot at her last location,” he explained.

Doron had read “force multiplier” in one of the Army books last night, and could not wait to use the term.

Karen nodded.

Doron showed them a metal circular device that looked like a manual kitchen timer where you turn the dial to the number of minutes before the alarm sounds. It was designed to clamp onto the trigger and had a circular disk spring he had removed form an actual timer, and two levels of steel pegs.

“You turn the circular disk like a timer, then set it over
the trigger and tighten the clamp,” Doron demonstrated.

“The lower pegs do not hit the trigger, the raised pegs fire the trigger. Like a player piano uses notches to press the keys,” Doron said.

“The steel pegs are flexible, like the tongue on a door lock that will press in,” Doron explained, pushing them back.

“You can set the device to shoot one, two, or three shots by adjusting the lowered and erect pegs.”

Doron took an M16, pointed it towards the canyon wall, inserted a magazine, and loaded a round in the chamber. Then he took the device he had made, and quickly tightened the vice grips below the trigger. Karen watched carefully as Doron then adjusted the steel pegs over the trigger on the M16. Suddenly Karen understood, Doron had invented a double spring loaded hammer that would press the trigger unmanned!

Doron placed rocks around the M16 so it would not move, then yelled “Fire in the hole!” and wound the spring loader one twist. The coil unwound, moving the depressed steel pegs over the trigger, then the raised steel pegs hit the trigger, and the weapon fired.

“Great!” said David, realizing this could cover their maneuvers and retreats in firefights.

“But there is more!” Doron said excitedly, mimicking an infomercial

“The device can be used on a pistol or a shotgun!” Doron said, quickly switching it to a 9mm

“We can use this to shoot and scoot,” Doron said proudly.

“Assume Karen or one of us are in a fixed position shooting at greens. They have us sighted. We raise an M16, set the timer, and run to another position. The greens will continue to fire at the position, especially if Karen has been head shooting the greens. We maneuver around, and kill the greens!” he explained.

“Very impressive,” Karen said.

She reached over to the M16, removed it from the
rocks, ejected the ammunition magazine, cleared the chamber, then removed the device.

It weighed about a quarter of a pound, Doron had used solid steel from the ranch machine shop.

“Hand me an AK ,” Karen said.

Liu handed her one from the stack they had retrieved from the greens. Karen carefully pointed the weapon towards the same wall, then attached the device. The trigger impact pegs were adjustable and it fit.

“It’s adjustable and will fit everything from a M16 to a 9mm pistol!” Doron confirmed.

“Doron, we will have to test this out under field conditions, but you are a genius!” David said enthusiastically.

Karen nodded.

“Doron has
always
been a genius,” Ashley gushed.

“Every time I shoot, I expose my position,” Karen explained to everyone. “Then they know where I am. Then they maneuver to cut me off or grenade my position.”

“With this, I can take some shots, set the auto fire device, then maneuver around the enemy who are still focused on the gunfire from my old position,” Karen said.

“Remember everyone but except professional soldiers believe every shot is aimed at
them
. We can use that fear to survive,” David said.

“It allows you to escape and kill them while they expose their position to return fire,” summarized Ashley.

“And Doron invented this on his own!” Ashley said.

“Exactly!” said Karen.

Jorge and Liu smiled at each other and at Doron.

“What do you call this?”

“I haven’t named it yet,” Doron said.

“What about Doron’s Deathmaster?” said Karen.

Doron beamed.

“Can you make six of these?” David asked, as Liu tried to refocus.

“Sure, if I can get help from Zeke and Jorge,” Doron
replied.

“Done,” said Zeke.

“This is a really bad boy,” said Jorge with respect, holding the device. They were improvising, adapting, and overcoming. The Doron Deathmaster was simple, effective, easy to assemble with crude materials in a field setting, and ingenious.

“Karen has recovered, she ran me ragged on guard duty last night. So let’s have a team meeting to decide what we do next,” David said while waiting for dinner.

“What’s wrong with staying here?” asked Ashley.

“We just need a meeting, and let everyone have their say,” David said.

“Why not this afternoon? We will have an early dinner and have this meeting before dark and guard duty?” Doron asked.

“Pasta, tonight,” Jorge said.

Doron knew Pasta was everyone’s all-time favorite. It was one of the few meals that tasted almost the same as before the nukes. The pasta was the same, the tomato sauce was canned, the mushrooms were canned, and the black olives were canned. He wanted some Kalamata olives in jars if they could ever find them. Fresh onions would have been best, but the dried onions were fine. And there was lots of pasta, everyone could eat all they wanted.

What Doron really missed, and craved every day, was fresh bread. He dreamed about fresh bread and real butter. Jorge said he was hoping he could find some flour and yeast to bake bread.

Diary of Liu Nguyen

Doron has it bad for Karen. Doron is so used to being rejected, that Karen’s politeness excites him
.

The Deathmaster was like a Valentine gift to her
.

Ashley makes it clear she is available for anything David wanted, and she meant anything, anywhere, anytime. Ashley even set a “wardrobe malfunction” trap for David. She is shameless
.

Ashley told me she had not invited Doron to a party at her house, because Doron was ugly, and would not fit in. Her Dad exploded, screaming that Ashley was shallow. Her Dad said Doron had a great future, he had read his website
.

Ashley’s Dad predicted Doron was the one everyone would claim to have been close friends with at the twenty year class reunion
.

45.

David noticed they paid Jorge the ultimate compliment, no one spoke a word as they ate. Liu had insisted on taking guard duty during dinner, to relieve him. He thought that was very considerate, he always took guard duty during meals so the tribe could talk. It was the only time everyone was together as a group. Each person savored the pasta they ate from large styrofoam coffee cups with plastic Wal-Mart spoons.

“Jorge, this is the best,” David said.

“Yes,” agreed Zeke.

The whole wheat pasta was exactly firm enough. The aroma of the tomato sauce with onions, mushrooms, and olives, was mouthwatering. Jorge had found some dried parmesan cheese in a green tube that they sprinkled on top of their pasta.

“We need to decide what we do next,” David said as everyone finished. He had decided to just assume, as a hidden premise, that they would stay together as a team. Doron alone seemed to notice the “we’ twice in one sentence.

“Won’t we be rescued soon by the military?” Ashley asked David.

“What do you think?” David asked everyone. He was determined this was not going to be a lecture from him. He needed their advice and consent.

“Unlikely,” said Doron. “We have not heard or seen any aircraft, helicopters, or military trucks. We have to assume the military was probably a main target. Also, we have driven almost a hundred miles looking for our families through one of the most populated area of California, and we only ran into the greens, no one else alive. We did see a lot of corpses that apparently survived the initial blast, then died of radiation because they did not shelter.”

Karen spoke up, “We need a secure water source, we
need canned food for the short term, and long term fresh food. We need to be prepared to defend ourselves as a team until we find a government or a military base.”

Zeke nodded, and everyone seemed to agree.

“Who or what do you think attacked us?” David asked.

“What difference does it make?” asked Ashley.

“If this was an isolated nuke we should be able to find a functioning government easily. But if this is a full scale nuke attack on the major cities, we are not only on our own, but we will have to defend against survivalist predators, as well as terrorists,” David explained.

“Why can’t get radio or television news?” asked Karen.

“Could be the EMP took them out,” Doron said. “Or it could be the major cities were attacked and the emergency generators in the small towns have stopped.”

“Or maybe any surviving transmitters were targeted,” added David.

“What do you recommend, Doron?” asked Ashley.

“California has major targets on the west coast. We should head east, see if we can find a friendly government or military base. We should stay concealed, we can be wiped out by a firefight, ambush or bomb,” Doron answered.

“How can we travel concealed?” pressed Ashley.

David struggled not to laugh, Ashley seemed to treat everything Doron said with an almost worshipful adoration.

“We avoid the roads, travel down the power line right of ways, railroad, or telephone pole right of ways,” Doron answered. “Our enemies will still assume people only travel on roads. I read that special forces troops usually stay off trails, it’s the same principle.”

“What kind of map has those marked?” asked Ashley.

“My Dad also had a civilian private pilot’s license. If we can find one, their maps show power lines and telephone poles since they are visible from the air,” Doron said.

“Doron, that’s incredible! How do you know all this?” Ashley said.

Zeke turned so Ashley could not see him, then glanced at David and dropped his jaw like he was going to puke.