Just Trying To Stay Alive: A Prepper's Tale

by Michaels, Brian

  “They seemed nice,” Katie said.

  “Believe me, those two are trouble,” Emma replied.

  “OK, so I think we all noticed that there is something different about those two groups,” I said. “What else did you notice?”

  “There didn’t seem to be many families,” Katie added. “It just looked like a bunch of old men and boys mostly. I saw a few women, but no one my age.”

  “That’s right,” Emma said. “I didn’t see many women except in with those last two groups.”

  “I didn’t see many guys my age that looked interested in playing football either, so I guess I won’t be playing any football,” Logan added sounding disappointed.

  “What did you notice about the people around your age?” I asked Logan, “besides that they seemed to be the only ones talking.”

  “They all seemed to have a lot of neat tattoos,” Katie replied.

  “I don’t understand why young people get all those tattoos,” Emma added. “I think they look terrible and they are going to look even worse when they get older and start to sag.”

  “The people I’ve seen on the outside with a lot of tattoos, before the infection started, were mostly trouble makers,” I said. “Mostly in motorcycle and street gangs, so I think we should steer clear of them until we know more.”

  Katie rolled her eyes.

  “Also, have any of you seen any other soldiers since we arrived here?” I asked.

  “No I haven’t,” Emma replied. “Where do you think they are? Maybe they are in the building and we’ll see them later?”

  “Maybe there aren’t any more,” I replied. “There were four on the helicopter and the doctor, I have a feeling that there aren’t many more than that.”

  “That’s doesn’t sound right,” Emma said. “Why wouldn’t there be more soldiers here? Who is going to protect us if the dead show up?”

  “I saw a few dozen dead bodies lined up looking through the fence at us. It felt creepy,” Katie said.

  “Yeah, why aren’t the soldiers out there killing them?” Emma asked.

  “If there aren’t a lot of soldiers here, they should have allowed us to bring our guns so we could help defend this place,” Logan said.

  “Maybe that’s the reason they told us to leave our guns behind,” I added. “It would make it easier to control us if we were unarmed.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Emma said.

  “I think I’ll go back over and talk to the two guards again later to see what I can find out about that,” I said.

  “Maybe when they ring the bell and distribute food and water, you’ll see more soldiers then.” Emma suggested.

  “When are they going to serve dinner?” Katie asked. “I’m getting hungry.”

  “Me too,” Logan added.

  “Why don’t you eat some of the snacks we brought with us,” I said.

  “Oh, I forgot all about those,” Katie said and scampered into the lean-to to find her pack.

  “I suggest that we eat our snacks in the lean-to,” I said. “Something tells me we should keep the fact that we have food to ourselves for now. I don’t want to attract any attention, especially if the people in here are hungry.”

  We all crawled under our lean-to with our backs to the yard and ate our snacks.

  Then we all decided to take a nap.

  I laid back near the front of our structure and closed my eyes, but I just mostly listened to our surroundings as I thought about what we had seen on our walk.

  Near the end of the day as we were sitting next to our lean-to, we heard a bell ring.

  “That must be the dinner bell,” I said.

  “It’s about time,” Katie mumbled.

  “Logan, you come with me,” I said. “Emma, you and Katie wait here until we come back with our dinner.”

  “Can’t I go with you?” Katie asked, sitting up looking anxious.

  “No, Katie I want you to wait here with your mom,” I replied.

  Katie slumped back down, looking disappointed.

  “We’ll be right back,” I continued as Logan and I got up and headed for the building’s main entrance.

  Logan and I rounded the corner of the building and I was surprised to see the soldiers were coming out of the building and that they had set up five distribution stations.

  Each distribution station was manned by five soldiers, two of the soldiers held rifles and stood guard while the other three soldiers took turns handing out bags to the survivors that had lined up in front of each station.

  As I studied the scene in front of us, I noticed that four stations were handing out bags and the fifth station was handing out a small bundle of wood.

  As I studied the lines, I soon realized that one line was made up of the people from the two groups, the ones with the tattoos, while the other three lines were made up of the unusually quiet and subdued survivors.

  I also noticed that the line next to the loud obnoxious group only had a few people in it compared to the other two lines.

  My observations told me two things.

  First, there were a few more soldiers here than I had thought and second, the quiet subdued survivors were trying to stay as far away from the obnoxious group as they could.

  I began to realize the dynamics going on around me, somehow a pecking order had formed among the survivors.

  It appeared that most of the survivors were afraid of the obnoxious group, but other than that I couldn’t tell why.

  “Let’s go to the third line,” Logan said. “It looks like it is moving a lot faster than the other lines.”

  I cautiously followed Logan over to the third line as I kept an eye on the tattooed people that were talking loudly in the fourth line.

  As we stood in line, I could feel the eyes staring at us from the noisy fourth line. The stares were partially curiosity, but I also knew the stares were meant to intimidate us.

  I knew I was right when I observed people being approached after they received their food bag by members of the tattooed group. Most of the confrontations ended with the quiet survivors reaching into their bag and handing over some of their food.

  I now also had the answer to who it was that the guy in the restroom meant when he said they were watching.

  I also understood what that guy meant when he said that they don’t like it when we talk among ourselves. The quiet, subdued in the camp greatly outnumbered the obnoxious group, so the obnoxious group wanted to be sure there would not be any challenges to their authority.

  So much for us joining a group of survivors like ourselves that we could work with to survive this nightmare.

  Instead of now just having to worry about the dead, I could see where we would have another problem to worry about.

  As we received our bag of supplies, we were approached by a large dirty tattooed guy that would look at home sitting on top of a big Harley Davidson.

  “They put a can of corn in our bag today,” He said and looked straight at us. There wasn’t the slightest hint of a smile on his face. “I really like corn.”

  “Well, I hope they put two cans in your bag today,” I replied and smiled, then looked at Logan. “Let’s go get our wood.”

  I brushed against the guys arm as we left instead of taking a wide berth to walk around him. That was my message to let him know I wasn’t intimidated.

  Logan and I collected our small bundle of wood and returned to our spot.

  When we returned and looked in our bag, we found we had been given a can of corn, two cans of vegetable soup, a small bag of oyster crackers and couple of tins with “Cherry Pie MRE” written on them.

  “Not much for a family of four,” Emma said.

  “No, but I feel even worse for the groups that were intimidated into giving away part of their food,” I thought.

  As we built our fire and ate our small dinner, I told Emma about what I had seen and what my interpretation was.

  “This isn’t what I was hoping for when we came
here,” Emma said. “Brian, I’m sorry I pushed you into this. Do you think we could go back home?”

  “You didn’t push me into this,” I replied. “I thought it could be time for us to get away from the house while we could too. I still think leaving the house was a good idea.”

  “You do?” Emma asked.

  “I do,” I replied, “but not for someplace like this.”

  “Do you think we could go home?” Emma asked again.

  “I’ll ask Hank about that tomorrow,” I replied. “But I wouldn’t count on it, even as bad as this place seems, it still might be the best place for us for a few days or weeks. We’ll just have to stick together and watch our backs until we figure out how to survive peacefully if we have to stay here for any amount of time.”

  “I’m going to go down to the bathroom,” Katie said interrupting our conversation.

  “I think I should go with you,” Emma replied. “Give me a few minutes to clean up our dinner mess.

  “That’s OK, Emma,” I said. “I’ll go down with Katie.”

  “I think I can go by myself,” Katie protested.

  “I don’t want anyone going anywhere by themselves,” I replied. “Besides, I want to talk to you.”

  “About what?” Katie asked.

  “We’ll be back in a few minutes,” I said and got up.

  Katie looked at me curiously as we started to walk.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

  “It’s not that you did anything wrong, normally I wouldn’t be too concerned,” I replied. “But under the present circumstances I felt we needed to talk about this now.”

  “OK,” Katie said looking worried. “Talk about what?”

  “You’re a good girl, you know I believe that,” I said as we walked past the front of the building. “But I don’t think you realize what you are doing, and if we don’t discuss it, I’m concerned it will end up getting you and us into a situation we don’t want to be in.”

  “This sounds serious,” Katie replied.

  “It is, what I’m talking about is your behavior and your attitude,” I continued.

  “But I thought you said I didn’t do anything bad,” Katie replied looking confused.

  “You didn’t do anything bad intentionally and what you are doing in itself isn’t bad,” I said. “But what you are doing in here is going to cause problems.”

  “What kind of problems am I making?” Katie replied, tears forming in her eyes. “I don’t understand?”

  “Let me give you an example,” I said. “When the soldiers were helping you on the helicopter, you kept smiling at the soldiers. When the doctor said he would like to show you around the base, you told him he had to talk to me first as if you wanted to go with him and your mother said that you were smiling at those two tattooed guys that walked to the bathroom earlier.”

  “Are you saying that I’ve been flirting?” Katie answered wide eyed. “Honest Dad, I wasn’t flirting because you told me that I should never flirt with strange guys because I could be giving them the wrong idea about what kind of girl I am.”

  “I don’t believe you were intentionally flirting, but I also don’t think these guys around here knew that,” I said. “Katie, you’re a very pretty girl and if you haven’t noticed, there aren’t very many pretty girls around here. If you act too friendly with any of these guys, trust me, they are going to take that as a signal that you are interested. All these guys around here are going to be looking at you, and if you act too friendly, with the kind of guys I’ve seen around here, it is going to create problems.”

  “But the soldiers are nice guys,” Katie replied, “and most of them aren’t much older than I am.”

  “They might all be nice guys,” I said, “but you are the only girl in town. The last thing we need is to have those guys fighting over who gets your attention. Like I said, normally how you react wouldn’t be any big deal, it would be harmless. But these guys aren’t like the guys that you see at school. I’m sure you are enjoying all the attention, but here, but these guys and this place is something that you don’t know anything about.”

  “Dad, don’t you think you are just being too protective of me,” Katie replied. “I understand what you are saying, but do you really think these guys around here are looking at me like that. I appreciate how you look after me, but sometimes I think that I’m never going to have a boyfriend because you are going to scare them all away.”

  “As much as I would like to think I was that intimidating, I know that is never going to happen,” I said. “But I just want you to think about it and be aware of what’s going on around here. I’m not yelling at you, I’m just trying to keep you and all of us safe. I know you would never do anything wrong intentionally, but I also know that being around the kind of people I see in here is something new to you and there are many things that you still need to learn about people.”

  As we reached the restroom tents, Katie said, “I think you might be over reacting, but I promise I will try to be more careful about how I’m acting.”

  “I know you will,” I replied and gave Katie a hug. “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings, if I did, I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll meet you out here in a few minutes, I’m going into the men’s tent,” I smiled and watched Katie go in the women’s tent before I turned to go into the men’s tent.

  When I entered the men’s tent, the man I had seen and talked to before was just getting ready to leave.

  “Hi,” I said quietly. “Do you have a minute.”

  The man smiled slightly, after looking around nervously and listening to the sounds outside the tent.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t hang around and talk to you before,” he replied, “but I didn’t want them to see me talking to you.”

  “Those loud people down at the end of the yard with all the tattoos?” I asked.

  The man nodded.

  “I saw them taking some of the other people’s food today out near where the soldiers were giving everyone their supplies and firewood,” I said.

  “They do that every day,” he whispered. “If you don’t give them your food when they ask for it, they will come around at night and beat the crap out of you, take your tent or your blankets or even rape your women.”

  “Those bastards,” I exclaimed, “Have you reported them to the soldiers?”

  “It doesn’t do any good, especially now when there are so few of them and of us left,” he replied. “At first it wasn’t too bad when we were over at the Air Force Base, we had buildings and hangars to hide in and there were a lot more of us. They didn’t seem to bother us as much when we had more people around us.”

  “How many people and soldiers were over at the base?” I asked.

  “There were maybe five hundred soldiers and a lot more than a thousand of us, maybe more I really don’t know for sure,” he replied. “The soldiers had been letting in anyone looking for shelter or somewhere to get away from the infection. I guess my old lady and I had been there for two weeks before things started to come apart. About a week ago the infected started to show up in in large numbers, before we knew it, they started to break down the fences and get into the base. The soldiers tried to defend the base, but they soon realized that it was useless because of the huge waves of the infected that kept coming out this way. So, two days ago the soldiers decided to try and move all the survivors over here to this old deserted National Guard base that they used for storage.”

  “Did they fly everyone here over on the helicopter?” I asked.

  “No, they had about a dozen trucks over at the base, so they started loading people in the backs of the trucks and driving us over,” he replied.

  “I don’t see any trucks around here,” I said. “What happened to the trucks?”

  “Everyone you see here was brought over on the first run,” the man replied. “The trucks went back for more survivors, but they never came back. The soldiers here flew back to the base in the helicopter to find
out what had happened. They were only gone for about a half hour before they returned saying that the base had been completely overrun and that everyone had been killed.”

  “So, how many soldiers are here now?” I asked.

  “About thirty is all that’s left, they do the best they can, but they can only do so much,” he replied. “Believe me, it was a real bloodbath over at the base. We were lucky that any of us got out alive. The day they drove us over to this place, people were running around screaming everywhere as the infected overran the soldiers and flooded across the runway and into the living area. I saw hundreds of people, bloody messes as they were attacked and torn to pieces.”

  “I’ve seen things like that too,” I replied.

  “We all saw things over there that we would like to forget, friends, family members, little kids, all brutally torn apart and eaten right in front of us. It was terrifying how fast it all happened too,” he said. “The best I can tell, most of the soldiers died over at the base during our last few days there, along with most of the survivors. Like I said, it happened so fast the soldiers barely had time to get anyone out.”

  “When we came in this morning, we flew over the base,” I said. “I saw what looked like thousands of the dead surrounding and trying to get into one of the hangars. Do you think there could still be people and soldiers alive in that hangar?”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it, that’s where most of us stayed when we were at the base, in the hangars,” he replied. “But if they are there and still alive, there isn’t anything the soldiers here can do about it. There aren’t enough soldiers here to defend this place and they aren’t dumb enough to try and arm the kind of people we have here. That would be suicide.”

  “Did you ever think about trying to get away from here and go it on your own?” I asked.