—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 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 started 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 p
ieces 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.
Chapter 28
Trouble
We camped by a pond in a thickly forested area north of the town of Savannah on the sixth day of our journey. Early in the morning, two does and a fawn came to the other side of the pond to drink while we watched in awed silence. After they left, we excitedly talked about how great it would be if we could catch a deer and started thinking about how we could manage that. We knew we’d have to have to have something bigger than the traps and snares we used for small game, so we threw around some ideas using the stun guns and/or knives, but none sounded sufficient to bring down something that large. Still, we couldn’t let the thought of a juicy slab of venison go, and we continued to talk about it as we resumed our trek.
Late in the afternoon we passed a farm next to the highway. We could see a man, woman, and two teenagers working out in the field with what appeared to be some old-fashioned farm equipment and horses, presumably planting or getting the field ready to plant. Several minutes later, we passed the farmhouse and thinking that nobody was probably home since they were in the field, we decided to “borrow” some items. We all felt kind of bad about it, but this was survival after all. We were careful not to disturb anything, taking just some hard biscuits, a few potatoes, and some apples. As we were leaving, something shiny must have caught Doug’s eye because he went back in and came out carrying a pistol and a partially full box of bullets. Dakota about had a cow when he saw it.
—What the hell are you doing with that? You can’t just take that!
—We’ll just borrow it for a while. Maybe we can shoot a deer tonight, then return the gun tomorrow.
—I don’t know. You’re crazy, man. Taking some food is one thing, but a gun…
—It’s alright. I said we’ll return it. They probably won’t even notice it’s gone.
We got to thinking about how nice it would be to eat some real meat and to have a full stomach for the first time in a long time, so we finally all agreed to go along with Doug’s plan. I think hunger and exhaustion were getting the better of us by then, and none of us could think straight.
That night as we camped, we kept hearing animal noises. We could identify the mooing of cows and neighing of horses, and even the occasional crow of a rooster. There were other noises, which we thought might be sheep or goats, but we weren’t sure. Since we hadn’t seen any deer, we decided to investigate the farm animals and maybe take a few chickens, a lamb, or a goat instead of worrying about trying to catch a deer.
We walked toward the animal sounds and found that they were coming from a nice farm just off the highway. As we hid in the trees, we could see, by the light of an almost full moon, pens of goats, chickens, cows, and horses behind a large, dark farmhouse. Three big silos sat on the side of a gravel driveway between the pens. We started to creep closer to the driveway, but some dogs caught scent of us and came barking. Dakota quickly took some pieces of rabbit meat that he had saved to cook later and threw them to the dogs. That quieted them down and placated them enough to let us into the yard.
We decided that Matt and Doug would take one of the goats and Dakota would grab a couple of chickens, but first I would climb the silo to see if I could get some grain to lure the animals to us. The bottom rung of the ladder to the silo was about shoulder-high to me, so I had to jump up to get my feet on the bottom rung. As soon as I touched the ladder, I knew I was in trouble as an intense pain shot into my arms and through my entire body. The ladder had apparently been rigged to deliver an electrical shock. After that, I lost consciousness for a time. The next thing I knew I was being dragged by someone toward the house. I knew I had been caught.
I panicked, my body still tingling and my mind exploding with fear. I was sure that whoever had captured me was going to kill me. I didn’t even remember at that point that I had wanted to die; instinct took over, and my only thought was that I had to get loose. I started to pull and roll out of my captors’ grip, but I wasn’t strong enough yet. A few seconds later, a gun was shoved into my face, and a woman yelled at me to stop struggling. I was about to give up when a shot rang out, and I thought for a fraction of a second that the lady had shot me after all. But the reactions of the woman and the two teenage boys holding me told me that the shot came from the distance. The guys! I heard someone yell and then men shouting.
I gave up then. I didn’t even want to face it if one of the guys had been shot. An old man rushed out of the house and he and the woman carried me inside while the boys ran off toward the field where the shot had come from.
They sat me in a wooden chair by the fire and tied my hands in front of me. I had expected them to tie me to the chair or beat me, but instead they tried to make me comfortable. The woman who had held the gun on me looked me over and asked me if I was alright. She was a pretty woman, dark blond hair, probably in her late thirties or early forties. I nodded in response; I didn’t trust my voice at that moment and I didn’t want to sound like a simpering foo
l. Besides the older man, there were two older women, grandmas probably, who were looking at me with concern. My mind was still a little numb from the electrical shock and the fear of being caught, so I couldn’t figure out why they would be treating me with such care.
Just then, a young man and woman came in. The woman—or maybe she was just a girl—was crying, and the man was holding his ear, with blood dripping through his fingers. I had a sick feeling in my gut, thinking that maybe Doug had shot at him. That was so uncharacteristic of the usually happy-go-lucky guy I knew, and I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around that thought. The first woman—I thought she must be the mother of one of these two—started tending to the bloody ear, and then the door opened again. A man carrying a dog and the two teenage boys came in. The man laid the dog on the coffee table and looked over at me.
—What’s his story?
The older man answered.
—He’s just a scared and hungry kid, John.
The man with the dog—John—looked thoughtfully down at the dog for a few seconds, then back at me. His voice was quiet when he replied.
—Well then, give him something to eat.
That set off a flurry of activity with the grandmas scurrying into the kitchen like someone had just pushed their “on” buttons. They soon came back with a plate of delicious-smelling food and a huge glass of milk. I tried to refuse it. I didn’t deserve their kindness; after all, I had trespassed on their property and tried to steal from them. Yet I hadn’t seen this much food—normal-looking food—or even milk for over a year and a half. I fought off the hunger and the desire, but they got the better of me, so I accepted the food with shame in my heart and tears in my eyes. One kind grandma patted my shoulder, but instead of comforting me, it just made me feel guiltier, and I couldn’t stop the tears flowing down my cheeks.
Teenage Survivalist Series [Books 1-3] Page 28
