Time Lost: Teenage Survivalist II (13 page)

BOOK: Time Lost: Teenage Survivalist II
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Chapter 26

Life After

 

 

I awoke sometime in the late afternoon.
I sat up slowly, remembering my sore body this time. I was still by the fire, but no one else was around. Slowly, I took in my surroundings. I was no longer in the building where I had lain with Sara. This building was burnt out as well, but three sides were still intact, complete with windows and doors, as well as the ceiling above me. The only open side faced east apparently, as the sun was shining in the windows on the opposite side. The fire in the shopping cart burned near the edge of the ceiling on the east side, its smoke blackening the high ceiling a bit before it made its way out the opening.

I was lying on the floor, which was carpeted with a dirty institutionally-patterned rug, and covered by a thick quilt, its bright colors smudged with soot and stains. Behind my head was a rolled up shirt or jacket of some sort.  I carefully, painfully, stood up and looked down at my clothes in disgust. They were filthy and I smelled like the lost souls had in the police van. I winced, the memories of that night and the next morning smacking me in the face and taking my breath away.

Despite the warm sunshine hitting my back through the windows and the fire in front of me, I shivered and moved closer to the fire. Just then, Big Brother came in carrying a load of busted up boards, which he dropped close to the fire. For the first time, I got a good look at him. He was a huge bear-like young man with a thick dark beard and unruly dark hair. His clothes were torn and dirty, just like Blondie’s. He wore only a flannel shirt over his jeans.

When he saw me, he looked genuinely pleased and he welcomed me back to the living with a huge smile.


Hey, look who’s up! How’re you feeling, bro?

I tried to smile back and shrugged.


What’s your name, bro?

I didn’t feel like talking, but I really didn’t like the nicknames these guys were calling me so I squeaked out my name.


Glad to meet you, Ben. My name’s Dakota. Just make yourself comfortable. We don’t have much, but whatever we have is yours to share.

I nodded at him, happy to be able to call him something other than Big Brother. I tried not to let my guard down, but Dakota’s manner was so kind and unassuming, I couldn’t help but warm up to him a little. His gentle comfort while I had cried had made an impression on me as well, and I found myself smiling weakly at him despite my resolve never again to make a personal connection with anybody else.


Doug and Matt are out looking for some food. We’ll probably have some more rat stew for dinner. It’s their specialty.

Dakota winked and chuckled
, and then began stacking the wood, much of which looked like busted-up furniture, on the bottom rack of the shopping cart and stoking the fire inside the basket, presumably to get it ready to cook the delicacy of the day. My stomach grumbled, and even though I had been intent on starving myself to death, I looked forward to the food. I was sickened again by my cowardice; I couldn’t even die or starve myself to death when I wanted to. Everyone important in my life had died a heroic death: my dad giving me his food so I would survive; Mom taking care of a sick child; Sara standing up to a murderer. Why couldn’t I just refuse to eat, let go of life, and join them?

Before long, Doug and Matt entered the building, laughing and joking. It had been so long since I had heard anyone enjoying life that it sounded alien to my ears. The blond-haired one, which I later found out was Doug, was carrying two fat, dead rats by the tail in one hand while the other hand was holding something behind his back. When he saw me standing by the fire, he grinned and exclaimed,


Hey! This is cause for a celebration! Good thing I caught this for our dinner.

He pulled a large brown rabbit from behind his back and held it up like it was a prize catch. Well, maybe it was for them. Sara and I had eaten rather well all summer living in the park, but these guys had probably been living in the city proper all this time and had had to make do with whatever little rodents and birds they could find.

The curly-haired guy was named Matt and he had a prize to share as well. In his coat pockets, he had stashed several dandelion plants, which had somehow not only survived in the snow, but had thrived with the extra moisture. Dakota and Doug began dressing the animals while Matt melted snow in a pot set on some kind of grate placed over the top of the shopping cart. He washed the plants in the pot, then threw the water out and melted fresh snow. When the water was boiling, Dakota tossed in cut-up chunks of meat and dandelion. After a half hour or so, the stew was done and Dakota let me eat the first helping from his own bowl and spoon. I was touched again by his kindness.

After we had all eaten our fill, we sat around the fire and the guys told me their story. Somehow they knew not to ask me about mine yet; it was still too raw and painful. Maybe it always would be.

The three had been electrical engineering students at UMKC. They had lived in the dorms until shortly after PF Day when the university had been forced to kick them out. All three were from different parts of the country. They had stayed in Kansas City, living with friends until the power was back on, and then waited around to re-enroll at the university. After the power went out again, they decided to walk to Doug’s home in Omaha in the spring, as it was the closest. Until then, they had been living in the buildings downtown, moving every now and then to avoid gangs and the police. They were all very eager for me to accompany them to Omaha, especially Doug.


So, Ben, you’re coming to Omaha with us, aren’t you? You know my family would be happy to have you.


Naw, I’ll just stay here.


Do you have family here? Somewhere to go?

I shook my head, not wanting to give out too much information. My plan was still to figure a way out of my life and the hell it had become.


I’ll just live downtown here like I have been.


No way, man. We couldn’t just leave you here on your own. You’re coming with us.

I knew I wasn’t going to go with them, but I didn’t feel like arguing, so I just let them think I was. That seemed to satisfy them and they began telling jokes, laughing, and just having a good time. These guys really knew how to enjoy life and make the best of a bad situation. I found myself grinning at some of the crazy things they came up with, despite myself. It had been a long time since I had felt like laughing at anything and the sensation was oddly comforting, even though, at the same time, I felt guilty for enjoying myself.

Matt was an avid fan of zombie movies, books, and all things undead. He was great at telling scary stories that had hilarious twists at the end. He pulled several zombie-apocalypse books and instruction manuals out of his dusty backpack and excitedly showed us various tips and techniques that could be used for general survival, some of which they had already put to use in catching dinner. One device was a very clever small animal trap made out of an old paint can, rubber bands, and some wire. He was able to catch mice, rats, voles, birds, even an occasional rabbit with it.

The devices that warned of an impending attack intrigued me a tiny bit, even though, as far as I knew, none of the casualties of PF Day had as yet come back from the dead to feast on anyone’s flesh. One of these used a trip wire and a musical birthday card. Another used one of those personal bodyguard alarms. They also made defensive weapons: a stun gun from a discarded disposable camera, the kind with the flash built in, and another with a cell phone that was useless for communication, yet still had enough voltage to use as a taser. I couldn’t compel myself to get interested enough to learn how they were made, however, talking about them was an amusing distraction for my troubled mind.

The longer I stayed with these guys, the less I thought about ending my life. Their interest and zest for life was contagious and I found myself changing my mind about going north to Omaha with them in the spring. I never did tell them my entire story, though. I told them about Dad and Mom dying, but left out the divorce and all the heartache that had brought, because I was at peace with all that.

I know they were probably very curious about Sara—who she was and how she died—but they never pried, and I decided to keep her story to myself. My memories were the only things that I had of her to keep, and I didn’t want to share those with anyone yet. The guys showed me where they had buried her, though, in a little urban garden near where she had died. They left me there alone and waited a few blocks away, telling me to yell if I needed them. They had made a grave marker for her out of two pieces of metal, probably taken from the skeleton of one of the burned buildings, tied into a cross and thrust into the ground. I visited her grave a few times that winter; the last time I was there was in early spring, right before we left Kansas City. I found a bunch of purple flowers blossoming inharmoniously in front of the ugly ruins of a building and placed them on her grave. I promised her I’d see her again someday and would think of her shining down on me from heaven every time there was a rainbow.

 

 

Chapter 27

The Journey North

 

 

Sometime in early April we starte
d
our journey to Omaha. We figured it would take a couple of weeks for us to get there, barring any unforeseen circumstances. The guys had two backpacks each and a large duffel bag full of stuff to take. Matt found a discarded metal coffee can and after the guys inhaled the leftover aroma from inside for several minutes like drug addicts snuffing paint fumes, they poked a few holes in it near the bottom and scooped the coals from the fire into it. They poked some holes in the lid as well and placed the can in the bottom of the shopping cart, piling the stack of wood pieces they had scavenged on top. They covered the wood with a raggedy piece of plastic to keep it dry, then stowed the duffel bag and two of the extra backpacks on the bottom shelf and on top of the wood. We each strapped on a backpack and we were ready to go.

I briefly considered taking them back to Swope Park to get some more supplies from the caches we had buried there and to retrieve my gym bag, but the thought of facing the place where Sara and I were almost happy was just too painful. Plus, I really didn’t want to see Aaron and the lost souls and have to explain where Sara was. In the end, I said nothing to the guys about the park, and we began to make our way north through the city.

We skirted the downtown area, hoping to avoid the worst concentration of criminals and police, and instead stayed on the barren interstates. We took turns pushing the cart, but it wasn’t long before it got cumbersome. It took a day and a half of almost non-stop walking to make it completely out of the city and to a place with woods a few hundred feet off the interstate where we felt safe making camp and spending the night. It was too hard to get the cart through the underbrush and trees, so we abandoned it at the edge of the trees and carried everything to a clearing where we set up our camp. It was early afternoon, but we were exhausted and cold after walking all night and we wanted time to make sure our camp was safe and would provide shelter should the weather turn bad by morning.

We found the perfect campsite between several big evergreen trees, whose long, thick branches swept the forest floor in a ring around a ten-foot clearing. After sweeping the ground of pine needles, we started a fire with our still-smoldering coals in the middle of the clearing, adding the wood we had brought, branches we found on the ground, and armfuls of dried pine needles, which we found made fantastic tinder. We soon had a nice, warm fire going. Dakota called it a
commanding fire
and we all had to agree that the name fit. I found a creek nearby and started warming some water from it over the fire, while the other guys set animal traps and trip-wire alarms around the perimeter. I gathered some fresh pine needles to make a nutritious tea, and then swept up big piles of needles for our beds under a huge pine tree.

We all decided to hit the sack soon after sunset since we were so tired from our trek out of the city. Sometime during the night, we were awakened by the sound of rain, but we stayed nice and dry under the tree. Luckily, Doug had remembered to gather some hot coals into the coffee can and store them safely under the tree so we could start a fire again. By morning, it was still raining lightly and I showed the guys how to make a pit fire under the boughs of the tree so we could warm up some water for more pine needle tea.

We had gone to bed hungry, as there hadn’t been enough time to catch anything in our traps to eat. In the morning, however, we found two squirrels and a plump robin in our traps and snares. It wasn’t nearly enough to fill our empty bellies, but it helped ease the hunger pains. The guys tried to give me a bigger share of the food, saying that I was a growing boy and needed it more than they did, but I wouldn’t take it. As it was, each of us only got about a palm-sized piece of meat. We even sucked the meager marrow out of the bones of the squirrels. After that, we sat under the tree around our pit fire to wait out the rain shower.

We decided to stay another night in that campsite. The fresh air and nature around us were such a refreshing change after spending most of the winter in the ruins of downtown Kansas City. We were able to trap some more small animals to eat and I found some cattail shoots surrounding a nearby pond. We also gathered a large pot full of young dandelion leaves. After a day of foraging and eating and a good night’s sleep, we were refreshed and ready to continue our journey the next morning.

We started out at dawn the next day, deciding to reorganize our packs and leave the duffel bag and shopping cart behind. The bag was full of all kinds of electronic devices, tools, and odds and ends which the guys hated to leave behind. They picked out the best and most useful pieces and stuffed them into the already full backpacks. We each carried one pack and took turns carrying the extra two.

The day was beautiful, sunny and warm, and the walking along the interstate was pleasant. We walked non-stop until late afternoon, passing a few houses and farms just off the highway. When our stomachs started growling and our strength began waning, we decided to stop at one of the houses and ask for food. We chose a big newer home, the kind that company executives used to buy to get away from the corporate grind, thinking that they may have more to share than others. When we approached the house, we heard some people talking around back, so we made our way around the house. A man, woman, and two children were working the dirt in a large rectangle garden, probably getting it ready to plant. They looked up, startled, when we approached. The man confronted us defensively, while his wife and kids hugged each other fearfully behind him.


We don’t have anything. Please don’t hurt us.

After our initial shock at the family’s reaction to us, Doug tried to reassure the man.


Sorry to bother you, sir. We don’t mean any harm. We’re just passing through and wondered if you could help us out. It’s okay if you can’t.


We just don’t have enough to feed us, that’s all. We’d like to help you out if we could, but we hadn’t recovered from the first PF Day and then the second…

He shook his head sadly, but still eyed us warily. Doug quickly assured him,


Like I said, it’s okay. We’ll just keep going then.

We didn’t talk for a while. The family’s fear unsettled us a little; we hadn’t expected that. Maybe they had been the victims of some of the gangs of released prisoners. Or maybe just desperate people searching for anything to cling on to life. In any case, we didn’t consider that people living outside the city might have trouble of that sort as well and it made us a little leery about exposing ourselves to the threat of gangs too. We decided to make camp early as far off the highway and into a thick woods as we could.

The next day we made it to St. Joseph, a medium-sized city with lots of nice neighborhoods and homes right off the highway. We tried to beg for food at a few of these homes, but were met with fear, suspicion, and sometimes, downright hostility. One homeowner even met us at the door with a rifle, although it was doubtful he had any bullets to shoot us with. Several people were nice and said they wished they could help us, but everyone was bad off and didn’t have anything to spare. When we saw the skinny, sickly-looking children and the sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks of the adults, we completely understood their reluctance to help strangers. After a while, we just quit trying and continued our journey north, camping in the woods between towns and foraging whatever food we could.

The journey stretched out longer than expected since we had to quit walking early every day in order to set our traps, find food and water, and set our perimeter warning devices. I was more grateful than ever that I was with some guys that were not only kind and generous, but were also geniuses when it came to constructing gadgets to keep us safe.

BOOK: Time Lost: Teenage Survivalist II
10.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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