by Rick Tippins
Bob had talked about it along with everything else, but telling someone to purify water and telling them to learn to fight and operate a firearm were two very different things. It wasn’t like he could run down to the local strip mall karate shop and get in a quick couple of lessons or go to a range and pay some retiree to teach him to shoot. All that was gone; he had to learn on the fly.
Once he reached the open doors, Jared lay flat on the ground next to the wall, only his head poking around the doorjamb to gaze into the inky blackness of the store’s interior. Not a sound emanated from inside the store as Jared lay motionless, feeling the still-warm concrete under his body. He lay there for just a moment, feeling weirdly relaxed and at ease as the warmth penetrated his body.
Jared caught himself, shook his head, rose, and strode straight into the store. He went directly to the front counters and leaned down, closely inspecting all the gadgets placed near the checkout area. Finally, he found what he was looking for, a Cyalume light stick. He pulled the light stick from its wrapper and fished an old sock out of his pants pocket. The light stick was the perfect tool for what he was about to do, better than a candle by a country mile.
The light stick would last for twelve hours, radiated no heat, was not toxic, and could be slid quickly into the sock if he needed to extinguish its light. A candle was hot, messy and a fire hazard. Candles had their place, and Jared fully intended to take some tonight, but just not for this retrieval operation.
Jared walked slowly around the store, wishing REI had traditional aisles so he could just go up one and down the next, covering all the aisles, getting everything he needed and leaving. Instead the store was set up with some items being displayed in traditional aisles while other items were grouped together with what Jared thought resembled little more than jumbled disorder.
He made his way to the backpack area and chose a sturdy pack designed for weeklong backpacking trips. He sat down facing the front of the store and went through every feature the pack had. Once he had familiarized himself with all the pack’s pockets, zippers, compartments and straps, he slung it onto his back and set off to find a sleeping bag.
Jared quickly chose the most expensive sleeping bag he’d ever seen. It was light and rated for temperatures rarely seen in California. He took the sleeping bag and dragged it around the store, filling it with the rest of the items he had come up with as vital survival gear. There were tiny stoves for cooking along with the fuel canisters that fed them. There was a very expensive—well, inexpensive—water-purification system and pills for purifying water. Since he wasn’t paying, everything was classified as inexpensive as far as Jared was concerned.
Jared hadn’t had the pills on his list and hadn’t even known of their existence before seeing them next to the water-purification system. He grabbed light sticks, and he hoarded maps. He shopped for a tent and chose a two-man tent rated for three seasons. Jared went through the store, slowly filling the sleeping bag until he had everything on his list plus a couple of items he hadn’t even thought of, like the water-purification pills and a small hatchet.
He took the water-purification pills because they were tiny, light and seemed like a good backup to the mechanical purification system he stuffed in the sleeping bag. He scavenged a flint for lighting fires for the same reasons, lightweight and a good backup to the stove. Jared knew the stove would only be useful as long as he had fuel for it. Failure to locate more fuel would mean tossing the stove and moving on to a more time-honored method for heating food or water. He continued his shopping spree, dropping a set of titanium cookware along with water bottles and utensils into the sleeping bag.
Next Jared moved to the men’s clothing racks and quickly grabbed pants, shirts, and a jacket. He chose a light jacket and planned on layering his clothing in order to stay away from a larger style jacket that would be too hot most of the year. Jared slipped into the new clothes and headed to the shoe area.
He had no idea how many miles a pair of shoes would last, so he planned on taking two pairs of the same shoe. He tried on shoes, one brand after another, walking around in the darkness and wiggling his toes like any other time he’d bought shoes. He finally settled on a pair of rugged trail-running shoes made by Solomon. He liked how light yet supportive they were, and stalked around the shoe sales area, climbing up on one of the false rocks the store had for customers to test shoes on.
Jared didn’t possess much knowledge about backpacking equipment so he often times chose the most expensive item hoping it would be the best. Shoes, on the other hand, were a little different. He felt they should be based on a combination of price along with fit and comfort. If they were expensive and hurt his feet, he’d have big problems. Jared crammed the extra pair of shoes into the sleeping bag, then dragged it towards the front of the store.
When he neared the front of the store, Jared slid the light stick into the sock, stuffing it into a pants pocket. He was about to exit the store when he looked at all the bikes lined perfectly up in four rows.
Why hadn’t he thought of that? He had a bike already and used it to make the last part of his journey home, and there was the issue of---the thugs at the market who had brazenly taken it from him. He walked over to the bike rack and spied a bike trailer. Who knew they had those, and how awesome for me. He could haul four or five times the gear with a trailer and wouldn’t have to have an uncomfortable pack on his back as he rode.
Jared carefully looked over several different trailers and chose one he felt suited his needs. Next he went through the rows of bikes until he found one he felt fit his size and weight. He attached the trailer to the bike and then loaded the bulging sleeping bag and pack into the trailer.
Jared pushed the bike towards the front doors, straining his eyes and ears for any sign of danger. Hearing nothing to cause him concern, he shuffled forward, out the doors, and south along the highway fence. He wished he could get the bike onto the highway and move away from the store, but the fence would have been too difficult to get over with all his newfound equipment.
Once away from the front doors, Jared climbed on the bike and began pedaling through the connected business parks located along the highway. He rode until he found a secluded area to the rear of a business that backed up to the highway. He dismounted, pulling his bike and trailer under a large mass of bushes.
Jared found he could nearly stand once inside the bushes without being visible from either the highway or the business’s parking lot. He removed all the gear he took from the REI store, dumping it on the ground in the darkness under the bushes. He fumbled blindly in the darkness, looking for the tarps he’d taken.
Finding them, he strung them up inside the bush in order to block any light from escaping the bush and alerting anyone to his presence. Once he secured the tarps, he fished the sock out of his pocket and removed the light stick. He hung it from a branch and then began the tedious job of unpacking all the gear.
He first removed everything from the store packaging, separated the trash from the gear, and then organized it into piles. Food, cookware, utensils and stove in one pile, while other things, like the water-purification pills and system, were in another pile.
After Jared finished this, he began packing the backpack with items he felt were the absolute essentials for survival. His plan was to have the pack as an emergency and backup system to the trailer. If he ran into trouble and was forced to abandon the bike and trailer, he planned on having the pack furnished and ready to be grabbed, donned and carried to a safe place with enough provisions to sustain him for a week or more. Jared sat on the hard ground, packing, unpacking and repacking gear, trying to get the load out just right.
He thought about how fragile and one-dimensional his plan of survival was and how it relied on some very thin contingencies. Sure, he had water bottles and he had water-purification capabilities, but he could only carry enough water for a couple of days at most, but what good were water-purification capabilities without water. He had to find wat
er sources along his route or he was dead in the water, so to speak.
Food would also be a gigantic issue in the future, and Jared knew this could be just as deadly, although much slower to affect him than the water issue. He knew he had enough food to last about a month, but after that he would have to find a food source. This concerned him greatly since he had no idea what lay ahead in the way of stores. Would they be ravaged, picked clean, would there be people along the way willing to trade or help out?
He didn’t know and couldn’t know until he was on the road and actually beyond any point of return. It was a little like being handed a parachute by a complete stranger and asked to leave the aircraft. He would find out how well the parachute worked and, if it didn’t, he was dead.
Jared had never hunted and never had an interest in it until now. The problem was he didn’t have a gun and hadn’t the slightest idea where to even look for an animal to hunt. Even if he were able to bring an animal down, he’d never butchered anything other than a fish when he was younger, when his father had taken him fishing up in the Sierras. He hadn’t liked it as a kid and doubted the feeling would change now, but his new mantra was slowly becoming “you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.”
After rearranging the gear in the pack and bike trailer nearly a hundred times, Jared spread out the sleeping bag and climbed in, exhausted from the day’s activities. Wrapped in the sleeping bag, hidden inside the bushes with the tarps draped about him, Jared felt pretty safe, like a moth in a cocoon, insulated from the uncertain world outside his foliaged sanctuary.
Chapter Thirteen
Voices cut through the crisp morning air, startling Jared out of a deep slumber. He didn’t move, lying completely motionless in his sleeping bag. He tried reaching back into his sleep memory in a futile effort to determine the direction the invasive voices came from. He didn’t have long to wait, as the voices again drifted across the cool morning air from the direction of the highway. Jared slowly moved his arms up and out of the bag, after which he slid his entire body out and onto the har, cold ground. He slithered on his belly to the edge of the bush fort he constructed the night prior, searching for those responsible for disturbing his morning slumber.
Jared spotted them, a man and woman, the man wearing a small backpack while the woman pushed a stroller. Jared squinted in the early morning’s brightness, just able to make out two tiny feet protruding from the front of the stroller. The presence of a baby relaxed him a little as he lay back on top of the sleeping bag. He wiped his hand across his face, staring up at the morning sun, whose rays were stabbing through the branches of the bush and warming his exposed skin.
He waited until the couple passed before rolling over and setting up his tiny stove. He placed a titanium pan on the stove, lit the heating system, and filled the pan with water. As the water came to a rolling boil, Jared reached over, cutting the fuel flow to the stove. He ripped open a dehydrated bag of eggs and bacon before pouring some of the hot water in and resealing the bag. He set the bag aside and prepared a small cup of instant coffee, which smelled absolutely glorious. Today is going to be a better day than the last four days combined, and all because of this one little cup of java, he thought.
After eating in absolute silence, Jared sat back and slowly sipped the black coffee until it was gone and his insides glowed with the hot fluid’s heat. After allowing his breakfast to settle, Jared stowed all his gear in the pack and bike trailer. He rolled the tarps up and sat back, thinking about his next move.
He still needed some items if he wanted to start his journey. He needed a pair of bolt cutters to circumvent the many barriers modern man had seen fit to erect at every turn. To simply enter the highway with all his gear, he needed to either ride to an on-ramp or cut a hole in the fence. Jared didn’t like the thought of being trapped on the highway with no alternative except to flee or stand and fight.
He felt fairly certain he would not be doing any fighting, which left fleeing. Jared realized it would come down to a simple race like ones he saw on National Geographic. If he were faster than those pursuing him, then he would live to see another day; if not, well, he didn’t want to think about the “if not.”
He did like the fact that he had seen a lot of people on the highway, and most seemed harmless and quite frankly too distracted with their own troubles to pose any real threat to him. They seemed like normal people just trying to get wherever they were going. Other than the car burglars the night before, he hadn’t seen anyone committing any questionable acts of moral turpitude.
For the rest of day five, Jared rode the bike through the industrial area of San Carlos, looking for a pair of bolt cutters and a small tool set he could use to work on the bike with. He kicked himself for not looking for a bike tool kit at the REI, which undoubtedly would have been lightweight and had only the tools necessary for bicycle-repair-type operations. He kicked himself a second time for not grabbing a few extra tubes and tires as well.
As he rode, Jared passed people who seemed to be doing the same thing he was. Everyone was scavenging anything they felt bettered their odds of survival in this pitiless new world. No one bothered him, much to his relief, and he didn’t attempt to talk to anyone, but instead avoided people as much as possible. When he observed someone ahead, he would cross the street or even turn down a side street, completely avoiding contact. People got the message, and nobody so much as called out to him.
By the end of the fifth day, Jared had all the things he felt he needed to start his trek across the country where he hoped to find his parents. He rode the bike back out to the highway and started pedaling south. He planned on getting to the San Jose area before nightfall, find a place to hole up, and start mapping out his route. It was September and Jared knew he might not make it through the mountains to the east before he was smashed with serious weather. Crossing the Sierras in October or November was something he would rather avoid. Any delays would put him closer to snow storms than he cared to be. He had formulated a loose plan in his head over the past couple of days that would take him south to warmer and flatter lands.
Jared wanted to stay a fair distance away from the Mexico border, feeling that the natural lawlessness of that country with the Cartels would exacerbate the current state of Southern California. He picked his way through the maze of vehicles, passing more and more people on the highway. Today was different from yesterday; the people looked just a little more desperate. The looks he got came from a bit wilder eyes than the day before. People surveyed his bike, trailer and gear with more calculating looks than they had the day prior. It was as if they were taking inventory of his possessions and evaluating the risk-benefit factor in attempting to seize his belongings. Jared felt less and less comfortable the closer he got to San Jose.
Jared heard gunshots in the distance on more than a few occasions, and as he pedaled across overpasses, he gazed down into the neighborhoods and could see looting, burning and utter chaos. People were beginning to panic, becoming desperate in their fight for the last of the supplies in their neighborhoods. Jared was sure that more than a few of these people would have come after him had they possessed the ability to move fast enough to catch him as he pedaled through the deteriorating wreckages of recently civilized neighborhoods.
After actually witnessing a man run out of a store, a second man in pursuit, guns in both men’s hands, along with the subsequent gunfight that followed, Jared pulled over and tore open his map. He hadn’t waited to see who won the gunfight. Instead he stood up and pumped the pedals till his legs burned like California wildfires. Jared pedaled hard until he reached a large line of bushes, pulled over, and secreted his gear.
Out of breath and completely terrified, Jared studied the map, knowing he had to bypass the city somehow. Passing directly through the city was likely to result in either his death or the loss of everything he gathered. The fights he witnessed so far had been over small amounts of food, small enough for one person to carry.
As he perused the map, seeking an alternate route, he considered the fact that he was dangerously one-dimensional, and this scared him. He was not confident in his ability to stand and fight, knowing full well his fight record was 0-1 after the market beatdown. He also was acutely aware he had no ability to keep anyone at bay due to his lack of firearms. This left running and hiding as his only defense, and it left him feeling impotent.
Jared studied the map a full fifteen minutes before deciding on a route that would take him down below the southern end of San Francisco Bay. Jared would use surface streets as much as possible, working his way over to Route 130. The map indicated Route 130 would take him through what appeared to be a very remote area heading east towards Highway 5. Once he reached the 5, he would continue using country back roads, making his way southeast, skirting the foothills of the Sierras. He would continue southeast until he reached the Indian Wells area, where he wouldn’t be accosted by severe cold weather.
It seemed like an easy plan, with water being the only real issue Jared was constantly thinking about. He came up with a few water sources like pools, creeks, ponds, and animal water troughs. He hoped he would be educated along the way, resulting in his finding other water sources, but wasn’t counting on it.
In the end, he realized he had to pick his way through San Jose; there was no other way through. Jared was a little more than nervous about it, but knew he would just have to be extra vigilant or pay the price.