Something about the way she said it made me think she had suddenly changed the subject.
— Are you talking about the zookeepers?
— Yes… and others…
She paused then. It seemed that she wanted to say something else, but I didn’t want to hear it so I turned away and told her I was tired.
Chapter 19
Wilderness Survival
The summer and fall were filled with learning valuable survival techniques from Aaron, the keepers, and even a few of the mentally ill people who frequented our campsite. As it had for the past several months, Time seemed to stand still for us, even though it had been restored to the rest of the world through the repair of the power grid. We, however, lived as though the power was still off; electricity held no interest for us, except to recharge Sara’s iPod at one of the picnic grounds’ outlets from time to time.
We were able to find many items from the freight cars to help with our survival and make our lives easier. We tried to help the homeless people who, even though they had lived around the train for several months, had not felt comfortable entering the cars to scavenge. Aaron said that most of them were too paranoid to sleep within any kind of enclosure and that quite a bit of their mental problems were actually caused, or at least made worse, by confining them in mental institutions. He worried that it was only a matter of time before the authorities started rounding them up again to institutionalize them for “their own good.” Aaron almost spat out those last three words; there was no question what he thought about the prospect.
We made the train our home base for the next few months. We slept inside the car when it was cool or raining and on top of it when the temperatures soared. The trees shaded our car and a few others around it during the day so the metal never got too hot. On especially hot nights, we brought buckets of water from the river to cool down the roof and ourselves.
We had some intestinal problems due to bacteria and parasites in the water before Aaron told us to boil buckets of river water for drinking. He made us a tonic from the stinging nettle plant to help detox our system.
During the days, Aaron showed us various techniques for trapping animals. He taught us how to make snares from a piece of wire and where to place them on animal trails for catching small game. He showed us how to set up pitfall traps and bucket traps. He even showed us how to dam up a small section of the river or a creek to catch fish. Then he demonstrated how to correctly skin and gut the animals we caught and how to preserve some for eating later. For every two animals we ate, we tried to preserve at least one by smoking and drying it out like jerky.
Aaron also knew all about edible plants. He showed us how to find and use cattails, which he called the grocery store of the wild. Most of its parts are edible: the young shoots and stems taste like cucumber, the flower spikes like corn on the cob, and the rhizomes can be made into flour. Aaron was careful to show us the difference between cattails and its poisonous look-alike, the blue flag iris, which has leaves separate from the stalk, unlike cattail whose leaves sheathe the stalk.
We also learned how to identify and collect lamb’s quarters, dandelion leaves, and nettles for a wild salad and many wild berries and fruits. We collected pine needles to make pine needle tea, which Aaron told us contains four times the vitamin C of orange juice. By the end of summer, we were feeling quite confident in our ability to survive in the wild. Aaron taught us that survival is about finding solutions to your problems. He would always say that people who sit around and cry over their problems usually don’t survive.
Two or three days a week, we went to the zoo and helped the keepers care for the animals that were still holding on to life. Some of the pens and enclosures had bodies of fresh water available to the animals, but others had to be supplied by carrying buckets of water. It seemed a never-ending task and it sounds heartless, but I was glad that there were fewer animals to be taken care of. It was quite a bit easier after the keepers were able to get some gas to run their tractors and ATVs, although there were always dead animals that needed to be butchered to feed the carnivores and plants to be gathered for the herbivores. In return for our help, the keepers taught us veterinary care which, they reminded us, could be used on humans as well, and shared some of the butchered meat with us. It seemed odd eating exotic animals, like kudu and wild boar, but after cooking them over a fire, they all tasted pretty similar in the end.
Sometime in late summer—we had no idea what day, as there was no reason for us to keep track of time—two men from the railroad came walking up the tracks from where they had parked their company truck on the side of the nearest road. Sara and I hid in the woods while Aaron talked to them. One of them questioned him, while the other checked the engine over.
— Anybody living in this train?
— A few lost souls is all.
— Well, the railroad sent us to check out the condition of this train. I’m afraid we’ll be getting it ready to move soon. Tell all your people to get their belongings and whatever they need out of here in the next few days. We’ll be back here with the engineers on Friday to start it up and drive it out of here.
We could tell that the men were kind and concerned about the future living conditions of the “lost souls.” We were worried that they would report us to authorities who would no doubt determine that the best thing for us would be to gather us up and send us to various “appropriate” institutions, like psych wards, prisons, orphanages, and schools. There was no way any of us wanted that and now that we had freedom, we were determined to do anything it took to keep it.
For the next three days, we unloaded anything we thought might help us survive out of the freight cars and carried it to secret caches deep in the woods. We made the caches by burying several large plastic trashcans from the hardware car of the train in various places throughout the heavily wooded areas of the park. The lids were level with the ground and we camouflaged them with leaves, sticks, rocks, and whatever other kind of natural litter we could find on the ground. Into them, we stashed hardware items such as tools and wire, flashlights and batteries, lighters, pans, medicine and horse blankets, and anything else we found in the hardware and veterinary cars that we thought might helps us. We even found several tents that we distributed among the lost souls and kept one for ourselves. We didn’t feel like thieves for scavenging the stuff from the train because we were in a survival situation and the railroad man had told us to take whatever we needed.
Before the men came back to get the train, we were set up to live in the woods like nomads. We chose places that would be difficult for the authorities to find us and used Dakota pit fires to remain inconspicuous. These are made by digging two holes in the ground a few inches apart with an underground tunnel connecting them. The fire is built in the bottom of one hole, while it is fed oxygen through the other hole. The flame is concealed and they’re always built under a tree to disperse the smoke. Aaron showed us how to make them and told us that he had learned it while in a special ops unit in Vietnam.
In the evenings, those of us still living in Swope Park would gather around a communal fire made by Aaron, and he would tell us stories. Sometimes they were Bible stories with Aaron playing the different parts; at other times he told about his various missions in Nam. Many times, a few of the mentally ill people would get uncomfortable and leave, but most stayed and enjoyed the entertainment. Sara and I remained the only young people living in the park.
After Aaron tired and went to bed, Sara and I would slip off to our campsite. Every few days, we’d find a new campsite just in case someone was watching us. We were very paranoid about being found, whether by Matthew’s gang or by the authorities. Either possibility seemed to hold terrifying outcomes for us. Looking back now, I can see that one prospect was infinitely worse than the other.
We slept in the open most nights that summer, setting up our tent only when bad weather threatened. We slept side by side, though not touching, as the nights were usually hot. Lying night
after night next to that beautiful girl, my shell-shocked mind and frozen emotions began to thaw and I felt more alive than I had since my parents’ deaths. Aaron said that we, like most of Americans, were probably suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, like so many of the veterans of foreign wars. Sara was still quite traumatized, I suppose, because every time I tried to touch her romantically, she’d flinch and move further away from me. She always slept with her back to me like she was trying to shut me out. Sometimes, I got so frustrated, I’d have to go off into the woods until I could get myself under control again.
One evening, Aaron went to bed early, saying he had a bad headache and didn’t feel like talking to anyone. A lost soul named Patrick decided to take his place as storyteller that night. Patrick was a Vietnam vet also and had always come across as one of the more “sane” ones of the group, even though I could tell that he still suffered from PTSD like the rest of us. He was quiet most of the time and wasn’t prone to muttering or ranting like some of the others, but there was a weariness about him, like he was just tired of living, tired of trying. I think I felt most sad for him because it seemed like he knew what was happening around him, unlike the others, but he didn’t have the heart to work very hard at surviving. That evening, though, he became a different person while telling his story.
Like Aaron often did, he told us a story about the war. We knew he meant Vietnam, because that was the war that completely changed these men’s lives forever; the war that made them lose their sanity or their faith in humanity. I had often wondered what exactly it was about that war that was so unlike the others, but the battles that Aaron and Patrick described were much different than those I’d read about in other wars.
That night, Patrick told us about one mission when his unit was sent to force the Commies back across enemy lines. They believed they were chasing a retreating army but instead, ended up outwitted and surrounded by them and swallowed up by the dense jungle. They couldn’t see or hear the enemy; they could only sense that they were there, like the hundreds of snakes hanging on the branches overhead or slithering through the leaf litter under their feet. Both adversaries were terrifying, although the tough Marines wouldn’t admit being scared to anybody. During the day, the enemy continually fired shots into the clearing where Patrick’s unit was trapped, picking off the soldiers one by one. There was never anyone to shoot back at; the enemy was like armed ghosts in the dense jungle. At night, the exhausted Marines tried to sleep in shifts, but the zillion stinging flying insects and venomous crawling ones made one almost wish to be put out of his misery by the Vietcong. Charlie, which was what Patrick called the enemy, was often happy to oblige, slipping silently past the sentries and stabbing unsuspecting soldiers as they fitfully slept. By week’s end, when the US helicopters finally arrived to liberate them, the Marines were completely spooked and demoralized. As Patrick told the story, his voice became gruffer and his tale more urgent, like it was vital that he get it off his chest.
Patrick went on to describe how his best buddy was killed right beside him one night. It was pitch black and Patrick desperately wanted—needed—a cigarette, but they didn’t dare light one up for fear the enemy would spot them and shoot. He and his buddy decided to hide in some bushes and share a smoke under the cover of the foliage, the need for a cigarette being great enough for them to risk their lives, they thought. As they sat and smoked, a knife came whizzing through the leaves, stabbing his friend in the neck. As he lay there gurgling, cigarette still hanging out of his mouth, Patrick grabbed the knife and hurtled it back through the bush in the direction it had come.
Patrick’s voice had risen to a shrill, half-crazed tremble. I didn’t actually see it when he reached into his waistband and pulled out a big hunting knife and hurtled it toward Sara, but I heard it coming. It seemed like it was traveling in slow motion and in the same slow motion, I thrust out my hand to deflect it. I managed to tip the handle enough for it to just nick Sara’s arm before it continued off into the darkness. For a second, I felt all the adrenaline, fear, and torture that Patrick and his fellow Marines must have endured. The whole experience was surreal and frightening.
When Patrick calmed down a bit, after the crazed look faded from his eyes, he was inconsolably sorry he had hurt Sara. He cried and sobbed over her for several minutes while she repeatedly reassured him that she was okay. I wasn’t okay, though. All the fear of the night we escaped from the gang hit me like a sledgehammer. I felt that nowhere was safe for us in this crazy new world that Time had forgotten.
Chapter 20
The Beast
The summer came and went with the blur of everyday monotony. Though the days were still warm, at sunset the temperature cooled quickly and darkness fell early. We began to leave the communal fire earlier and sleep in our tent. Even with the dog beds and several blankets, we often woke up shivering and couldn’t wait to stoke our ever-burning pit fire to get warm.
One chilly autumn morning—it must have been late September or early October—Sara and I arrived at the zoo to help the keepers for the day. We noticed right away that something wasn’t right because the keepers weren’t where they could usually be found at that time of day. We also noticed the absence of the lion’s occasional roar. We had gotten so used to hearing him roar every half hour or so throughout the day, we normally didn’t even notice his plaintive wails, but today, the absence of them was even louder than the roar. It reminded me of how deafening the absence of traffic and sirens was after PF Day when I had lived downtown.
We searched the zoo, starting at the Africa section, because we feared that something was wrong with the lion. He was in his pen looking lazy and satisfied, as a lion should, although he was unusually quiet. Puzzled, we continued searching until we came to the savannah area of the zoo, which sat below the hill from the lion enclosure. From the gate of the savannah land, we could see all five of the keepers crouched down around the body of some kind of antelope. We couldn’t tell if it was alive or dead from this far away, but it was obvious that the keepers were frantically trying to do something to it. Not with the slow, measured motions of butchering, but with an urgency that seemed to represent life-saving methods.
We entered the enclosure and sprinted to the group. As we neared, we could tell that it wasn’t the large animal they were working on, but a calf that was mewling softly yet plaintively. It and its mother looked like small deer, although I knew from working with them that they were really impala, a species of antelope. We knelt beside the keepers who were pressing bandages against the baby’s bleeding flesh, trying to stop the blood loss. They explained that the mother and calf had been attacked by something big with claws and teeth, and we were sickened by the appearance of the mother impala. Her body was torn to shreds and half eaten.
One of the keepers, Jim I think, told me to hold the calf’s head so they could try to stitch up its gashes. As I held its head tightly in my lap, it looked up at me, its doe eyes wide with fear and shock, imploring me to help it or maybe just to let it go. It convulsed suddenly, kicking out its legs in all directions and almost striking the keepers with its tiny hooves. Then it slackened, its tongue lolled out, and its head fell back limp on my lap. I watched as the light in its deep moist eyes dimmed and then went out altogether, like someone had turned down a dimmer switch on a lamp. It was the first time I had actually witnessed the death of a mammal and it affected me greatly. I had seen animals and people after they had died, I had killed fish and birds and frogs, I had even been responsible for the deaths of small animals in my snares and traps, but never had a mammal died before me, let alone in my arms. This animal meant nothing to me, yet its death thrust a knife through my heart and I couldn’t stop a tear from sliding down my face. I didn’t need to be embarrassed, though, because when I looked up, it seemed everyone was affected by the loss of this innocent creature.
We talked about it later in hushed tones like we didn’t want anyone around to hear us. The keepers couldn’t figur
e out what animal could have done this. It seemed pretty obvious that it was a big cat, but the lion and the two brother tigers were still in their enclosures, as were the few cheetahs and leopards that were left. The keepers thought it possible that a wild mountain lion had somehow entered the zoo, lured in by the strong odor of dead and dying animals. The ground in the savannah land enclosure was too dry and covered with the hoof prints of panicked animals to distinguish a cat track, so it remained a mystery. None of us could quite understand why the death of this little animal affected us so much more than the hundreds of other animals and thousands of people that had died since PF Day. Maybe it was because we had a chance to save it and couldn’t. Or because it had seen its mother get eaten and needed us to fill in the maternal role. Or maybe it was just its innocence, its tragically shortened life. Whatever the case, I couldn’t shake the image of its pleading eyes staring into mine.
I stayed away from the zoo for a couple of weeks after that day, always using excuses like I was tired, or didn’t feel good, or that I wanted to do some fishing and hunting to make sure we had enough food for the coming winter months. Sara went without me, never questioning my real motives. I suspected she knew exactly what ailed me, but didn’t let on because she knew how much it had bothered me.
One warm autumn afternoon, Sara came back from the zoo to find me filleting my successful catch of catfish and bass to smoke over the fire. I could tell there was something she wanted to tell me, but she was oddly reluctant. Finally she just came out with it.
— The power’s out again.
I had thought I’d heard some popping noises, but our campsite was at the bottom of a deep ravine and sounds from the outside world filtered down to us muffled and distorted. I had ignored them, just like I usually did. Yet, I couldn’t help but be a little curious about it.
Time Lost: Teenage Survivalist II Page 10
