EMP (Book 3): 12 Years Old and Alone

by Whitworth, Mike

  “Well, sure. It’s flat and the trail is wide here.”

  “Aren’t you worried about someone happening on us while you’re cooking?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Mark said. “Should I be?”

  “Yes Sir,” I said. I told them about the tracks I’d seen. “What if the two men come back?”

  “We haven’t had any trouble so far,” Linda said.

  “You’ve been lucky,” I said. “Both of those men are bigger than any of us.” I hiked up my pack and started up the hill on our left.

  “Where are you going, Trevor?” Mark asked.

  “Up yonder where I can travel out of sight.”

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Yes Sir. My belly is about ready to kick my ass for some food, but it ain’t safe here.”

  “Very well, we’ll come with you.”

  So we all hiked to the top of that hill and then I lead them four more hills away and found a concealed spot.

  “This spot looks good,” I said.

  “It’s very well hidden. Did you know about this spot?”

  “No Sir, but I been studying what to look for.”

  “Since the EMP?”

  “The what?” I asked.

  “Since the lights went out,” Linda said.

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “Where are you from Trevor?”

  “A little town about 20 miles from here, over that way.”

  “And you came this far on foot?”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  Mark dug a camp stove and a pot from his pack and started some water boiling. After a while he added some stuff from a foil bag. “I hope bacon and eggs suits everyone.”

  I didn’t see any bacon or eggs in that bag, just little chips of something. I watched as the water boiled and a mess of scrambled eggs and bacon bits appeared in the pan.

  “I guess you’ve never seen freeze-dried foods before?”

  “No Sir.”

  “They taste good, are easy to prepare, and are lightweight.”

  They did taste kind of good. I scarfed my share down, except for the half I held back for Sackett. He needed his half.

  Linda smiled, “By all means, give Sackett his share.”

  I did and he wolfed his down too. Mark and Linda ate more slowly. I wondered if they had even been hungry since the lights went out.

  “Why are you by yourself?” Linda asked. “Where’s your family?”

  So I told them about my mom and sisters. I left out the part about my mom kicking me out. That was too embarrassing.

  “So you’re an orphan?”

  “Not really, my dad is somewhere. I just don’t know where.”

  “Well, you can stay with us,” Mark put a hand on my shoulder. I was impressed by the big gold-colored watch he wore on his wrist.

  His hand on my shoulder started tears in my eyes, but I fought them back. These were nice people and they liked me and Sackett. Linda was kneeling and petting Sackett.

  “Don’t worry,” Mark said. “We’ve been planning for something like this for years. We have a place on private land near the Ozark National Forest. We have plenty of food and supplies there. You can ride this out with us until things return to normal.”

  I had my doubts that things would ever return to normal, but I kept my mouth shut.

  So me and Sackett ate more eggs and relaxed. I loved Sackett. He was a great dog; the dog I’d been waiting for my entire life. But it was nice to talk to people again, especially good people. There hadn’t been very many nice people in my life before the power went out.

  Living on the wrong side of the tracks can be like that sometimes, especially after Jimmie, my best friend, moved away last year.

  While I fed more eggs to Sackett, I went over in my head what I’d learned since the lights went out. Basically, I’d learned three things.

  First, people were seldom who you thought they were, they were always worse. I studied Mark and Linda and wondered what they would be like with empty bellies. Second, it’s better to avoid people. And third, pay attention and think things out ahead of time. I was still working on that last one, but the better I thought things out, the better things went for me.

  Thinking was hard work, way more difficult than school where all the subjects were nicely compartmented.

  While I was thinking and Sackett was tongue-washing my hand for the last trace of egg, Mark took a radio from his pack and started fiddling with the dials.

  “Maybe we’ll find a signal today?”

  “That would be nice,” Linda said. “What do you think, Trevor?”

  “I think that thing makes too much noise. Do you have earphones for it?”

  “Of course,” Mark said, “but we both like to listen.”

  “So might anyone else nearby and they might want what you have.”

  “But we are so far away from everything.”

  “Remember the tracks I saw?” I said.

  “Use the ear buds, Mark. Trevor might be right. OPSEC, you know.”

  “Okay.” Mark dug some ear buds out of his pack and sat listening while he fiddled with the dials on the little radio.

  Sackett’s ears went up, so I listened too. I raised my hand and held a finger to my lips. Linda noticed and stopped talking. She had to touch Mark’s shoulder to make him stop talking to himself while he listened to static on the radio. Mark finally looked up and saw the finger I held to my lips and stopped talking to himself.

  Then I heard it. Someone was walking through the woods, someone who wasn’t very careful about where they put their feet. There was more than one, but I couldn’t tell how many.

  We sat quietly for a minute. Then I heard a voice.

  “I’m telling you, I smell bacon and eggs.”

  “Naw man, no way.”

  “Yeah way, from over there.”

  I realized they were downwind of us. It was time to leave. I dumped the rest of the eggs from the pot and quietly covered them over with dirt and leaves. I motioned for Mark and Linda to follow me. It took them thirty seconds to decide, but then they stuffed their gear into their packs and followed along.

  I thought about how to avoid the men I heard. The smell of the bacon and eggs would draw them right to the spot where we’d been. Since the men apparently had good sniffers, I needed to get us downwind of them. The problem was that they were directly downwind of us now. That meant we had to move at right angles to the wind, and then work our way back across the trail and into the hills on the other side.

  I mentally kicked myself in the ass. Another lesson learned. From now on, I always had to take the wind direction into account. If I’d taken Mark and Linda somewhere on the other side of the trail, the men wouldn’t have been able to smell the food and they wouldn’t be coming our way.

  Maybe the men were nice people like Mark and Linda, but I doubted it. There was an aggressive need, a want, in their voices that told me they were hungry, and, other than Mark and Linda, I hadn’t met any nice people since the lights went out.

  Mark leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid, Trevor?”

  I whispered in his ear, “No Sir. Those men could have guns.”

  “I have a gun. I can protect us.”

  “Better not to fire a gun now. The sound could draw even more people to us. A gunshot can be heard for miles across these hilltops.”

  “Okay, lead on.”

  So, with Sackett nosing out the way, I led Mark and Linda away from the men. Two hours later we were several miles downwind of the trail.

  We stopped to rest in a hidden spot on a hill top with a 360-degree view of the surrounding pastures and forest. I wondered if the Indians had to be so careful. They probably did. What I read said that there were a lot of wars between the different tribes. Of course, I didn’t know if the history books were true or not, but I figured they might be. Dang, I was starting to doubt damn near everything lately.

  Sackett was alert. He wou
ld most likely detect a threat before I did. Mark and Linda seemed oblivious, kind of like I used to be before the lights went out. I eased over, staying low, and sat down beside them.

  “Where are you folks from?” I asked.

  “From Hot Springs,” Mark said too loudly.

  “Yes, we’re preppers,” Linda said.

  I’d heard of preppers. They hoarded food and supplies just in case of bad times. Nobody in our neighborhood had enough money to buy all the food his or her family needed every week, let alone put any aside for the future. Nor could anyone afford any fancy black rifles like Mark's, although I knew a guy that stole two AR-15s.

  “We need to get to our land. We have supplies there.”

  I asked exactly where it was and Mark showed me on a map he took from his pack. I studied the map for a while.

  “I can get you there, if you like. I’m good at reading maps.”

  “That would be good,” Mark said. “I’m kind of lost.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  And so they followed me and Sackett. As we walked I wondered why these two didn’t have the skills that the prepper vids said all preppers should have? I’d watched a few prepper vids, but I never paid much attention to the idea of accumulating supplies or equipment for two reasons. One, I had no money, and two, I was twelve-years-old and had better things to do.

  Every time I tried to make something I’d seen on a vid though, I found I didn’t really know how, unless I’d actually done it before. Even though I may have watched a vid on how to do something more than once, I still had to figure it out for myself. I reckoned the Templeman’s were having the same problem.

  After giving it some thought, I decided skills were better to have than stuff. And then I thought, you dumb-ass, you don’t have either. So I guessed Mark and Linda were better prepared than I was, but they sure seemed naive. Maybe because they didn’t grow up on the wrong side of the tracks.

  Two days later, we were at their bugout location. I was becoming fond of freeze-dried food and so was Sackett.

  I stayed an entire week with the Templeman’s. In some ways they were the parent’s I’d always wished I had. They were caring, kind, thoughtful, and they both loved Sackett. Every day I helped Mark get the place ready for an extended stay. When I wasn’t busy helping Mark, I helped Linda in the house.

  For the first time in my life I found out what it was like not to be yelled at and called worthless, stupid, or an idiot. Mark and Linda both listened to what I had to say like I was an adult. They didn’t always agree with me, but they never denigrated what I said.

  I wondered if my real mom and dad were like that. I wasn’t even walking yet when my mom passed away and I never knew anything about my real dad, not even his name. I knew very little about my mom because my stepdad never wanted to talk about her. I could see the hurt in his eyes every time I mentioned her.

  And the bed! I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to sleep in a real bed. My bed at home was infinitely better than sleeping on the ground, and the bed at the Templeman’s was infinitely better than my bed at home.

  I even had my own room and they didn’t fuss when Sackett slept on the bed with me, which he did every night. I was in heaven.

  But something stunk in paradise. I felt like I was losing my edge. I was depending on Mark and Linda for more and more and acting like a child. Don’t get me wrong. I loved it. It was the childhood I dreamed about—two loving parents and a dog. It just didn’t get any better than this. But I had to go. I had to go because I needed to sharpen my survival skills, not deaden them by relying on stored food.

  I tried to explain that to Mark, but I don’t think he understood.

  Mark said, “Trevor, why don’t you stay with us? We want you to stay permanently.”

  “And Sackett too,” Linda said. “You know we've never had children…”

  “But we’ve always wanted children,” Mark said.

  “I got to be going,” I said. “But I’ll stop in from time to time.”

  “Well, come back and spend the winter with us,” Mark said in a weaker voice than I’d heard him use.

  That idea sounded really good. “I’ll think on it,” I said. “I’ll come visit from time to time though.”

  “That’s a deal, then.” Mark stuck out his hand and I shook it.

  An hour later, Sackett and I were headed into the Ozark National Forest. In spite of the tears flowing down my cheeks, I had me a bow and arrows to make.

  I thought about Mark and Linda as Sackett and I walked, stopping from time to time to cut arrow shafts, and once a hickory sapling for a bow. Oh well, I’d always been too damn independent. I knew that cause my mom told me so all the time.

  Besides, from what Mark told me had happened, I didn’t think things were going to go back to normal for a very long time, probably not in my lifetime. Mark thought things would be back to normal in two years at most. He said they had enough food for three years, and that should be plenty. I figured they’d be out of food in under two years, even with me gone.

  No, I had me an education to get, one that can only be taught by the land. If I lived long enough to gain the knowledge I sought, I vowed to go back and help Mark and Linda.

  I know, it seems silly, a twelve-year-old boy planning on helping two grownups. But hey, that’s just the way I am, kinda stupid at times.

  Three evenings later, I was cooking a rabbit that Sackett caught and working on my bow when the cougar showed up.

  I’d heard tales of mountain lions here in Arkansas, but I wasn’t sure I believed them. Sackett got between me and the lion and growled, a deeper, louder growl than I ever heard him make. I dug the pistol out of my pack and loaded it. Mark had taught me to shoot it. I could now hit a tin can at twenty feet.

  “Back, Sackett,” I said. “To me.”

  Sackett stayed between me and the cat, who was now growling, hissing, and inching his way toward our rabbit. I stepped to one side and aimed the pistol.

  “Git from here, cat,” I yelled. “You git from here.” I thumbed the hammer on the pistol back, holding the gun in both hands and pointing it at the cat’s head.

  The cat didn’t pay any attention to me. He kept coming. I backed up a step, but Sackett held his ground, growling louder than the cat.

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Mr. Cat,” I said. “Cause you know I’ll shoot you.”

  That old cat looked me in the eye and froze in place, like he could tell I meant it.

  “Go away, cat,” I said.

  The cat growled and twisted his head while twitching his tail. I knew that move. I’d watched alley cats fight a hundred times in the neighborhood. Mr. Cat was gonna charge.

  So I shot him.

  The gun was loud and the sound of the shot echoed throughout the hills. I aimed again, but the big old cat was down. Sackett had it by the throat. I moved closer.

  The cat was dead. My shot had taken it through the eye and passed right out the back of his head. I felt sick.

  “Mr. Cat, I done told you I’d shoot. Why’d you make me do it?” I felt tears flowing down my cheek, just like the first, and last, time I shot a bird with Dave Henson’s BB gun.

  Maybe it seems silly to cry over a dead cat that had less than proper intentions toward me, but I remembered Mom and my sisters. I didn’t want to kill anything, although I reckoned I’d kill a rabbit to eat, but even that seemed difficult at the moment.

  Right now I wanted to go back to Mark and Linda and let them look after me, even though I wondered if they were capable of looking after themselves. Twelve is a difficult age, sometimes you feel all grown-up, and sometimes you don’t. Right now I didn’t.

  When I was done crying, which took a while and confused Sackett, I thought about what I should do with the cat. I estimated that the cat weighed more than either me or Sackett. I always made good grades in math and science. It was English and history that dragged my grades down. Well, to be truthful, conduct may have been my worst grade every
term.

  I wasn’t too sure about eating mountain lion, especially one as old and tough as this one, but I was hungry. Hell, lately I was always hungry.

  I set about skinning that old cat, and then cut the meat up into thin strips to make jerky like I’d seen done on the Internet.

  I wondered if I should stay here, or move along in case someone heard the shot and came looking. But it was too hard to move that much meat. I built up the fire and made a frame of saplings tied together with strips of raw cougar skin I cut from the cat’s legs. I also removed the entire skin with my hunting knife. It had a few holes in it when I was done, but I studied as I went, and the last of the hide came off with no cuts.

  In an hour I had the frame propped over the fire and loaded with strips of cougar meat that I hoped to dry into jerky. I had a salt shaker in my pack, so I salted the strips hoping it would make them taste better. Then me and Sackett finished off the rabbit.

  After we ate, I started scraping the remaining flesh off of the cougar hide with my knife. It worked best when I draped the skin over one knee and used the knife as a scraper. It was slow going and I gouged the skin at first, but I got better at it.

  When I was done scraping the skin, I turned all of the meat strips over on the rack. Making cougar jerky was going to take a long time, especially on my small rack.

  I dug a trench two feet wide and six feet long, and maybe six inches deep. I filled the trench with broken branches and set it on fire. I was getting low on matches. I needed to learn other ways to make fire soon.

  Before the lights went out, I’d have said I already knew maybe fifteen different ways to make fire without matches. After my experience with the fish trap, basket, and bow and arrow making, I realized that I was only familiar with the concepts. It was going to take me some experimentation, maybe quite a bit, to learn how to do things well enough to do them quickly when I needed to.

  While the fire in the trench was burning down to coals, I cut more saplings for another frame. When I the frame was in place over the fire, I hung more thinly-sliced cougar meat over it. This larger frame held the rest of the cougar meat.

  It took me two days, but I dried all of the cougar meat into jerky, or at least what I thought was jerky. I bundled it all up in a huge basket I wove from bark. This basket turned out better than my first basket, but was still far from pretty.