They all laughed as much as their tired bodies would allow, and Jim used the keys he’d taken from the dead man, got into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.
“You know how to drive one of these things?” said Jessica.
“Not really.”
It turned out that it wasn’t that difficult. Then again, it wasn’t like there was any traffic.
Driving back around the lake in the RV was a lot easier than having to walk around it or having to swim across it.
As he drove, Rob was pouring out cereal, measuring out sugar, occasionally spilling things when they went over bumps. Aly was resting in a chair, observing and criticizing, and Jessica had taken it upon herself to review the entire RV to see what kind of supplies they had at their disposal.
“Lots of pills here,” she’d call out when she came across another stash of pills.
“Seems like that’s all they have.”
“Well, pretty much. There’s not much in the way of survival gear.”
“Hopefully no one’s stolen our stuff from where Jim stashed it.”
Jim ignored the chatter for the most part, and let his mind wander a little as he drove. He thought about what they would do next. It wasn’t just enough, after all, to have gear and supplies. Nor an RV.
No, they needed more than that. They needed a secure location. They needed to be strategic.
Maybe they could stay at the lake. But one couldn’t say that it had worked for them so far.
And now without a home, what reason did they have to stay at the lake? Sure, there were other empty houses that they could move into. But Jim found that now he had a different perspective on the post-EMP world. When it had happened, all he could think about was getting out of Rochester, getting far away.
Now he realized that there was more to it all than just getting out of the city. It was clear that the power wasn’t going to come back, and that society was just going to further disintegrate from here on out. They were in this for the long haul, and likely it’d be better to get even farther away.
“What’re you thinking about, Jim?” said Jessica, suddenly sliding herself into the passenger seat next to Jim.
“Where we’re headed next.”
“You’re thinking the same way I am, then. We can’t stay here.”
“I guess we could. But I don’t see a good reason to. And if we’re going to try to maximize our potential for survival, we’ve got to find a place where everything works out just right.”
“Stack the deck, you mean.”
“Yeah, if you want to use a card metaphor.”
“So where are we headed then?”
“Not sure yet.”
“How about Canada? Fewer people up there.”
“Too cold.”
“You’re from Rochester, aren’t you?”
“Born and raised.”
“And yet you’re afraid of a little cold?”
“Not afraid,” said Jim. “But the winter’s a different beast when you don’t have central heating. The idea is to find the perfect intersection of all the different variables. It’s not just about finding a place with fewer people. It’s about finding...”
“I get you,” said Jessica. “We need a place that’s easy to live at, yet no one else wants to go there.”
“It sounds impossible when you say it like that.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“We’ll do the best we can.”
“You really think we should leave?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe we should take a vote.”
Jim shook his head. “I’m going to get us out of this,” he said. “We’ll head to Pennsylvania.”
“Pennsylvania?”
Jim had simply opened his mouth and the words had come out, but now that he considered it, Pennsylvania wasn’t a bad option. It’d be a little warmer, and the northwestern part of the state was much less populated than the Eastern Seaboard.
“But why not go farther? Wyoming or something like that? We’ve got an RV. We can go as far as we want.”
“There isn’t much chance that we’ll be able to make it that far. Think about it, we need fuel for the RV. And fuel for us. If we drive across the country, we’ll be out in the open, not knowing where we are. Then we’ll be driven to do stupid things out of desperation, taking risks for gas and food. We’ll be sitting ducks, essentially.”
“Moving ducks, you mean,” said Jessica, apparently trying to make a joke.
“Targets, either way you look at it. Anyway, the shorter we keep our trip, the better off we’ll be.”
“But what about the owners of this RV? Didn’t they drive from across the country or something? They made it this far OK.”
“I don’t know if they were telling the truth. Look what they tried to do to my wife. And anyway, things are just going to get crazier from here on out. During the immediate aftermath of the EMP, a lot of people probably stayed put. Now they’ll be leaving their houses, and they’ll be desperate and hungry, ready to do anything to keep themselves and their families alive.”
“You’re saying they would have had an easier time of it when they were driving out?”
“Exactly. Who knows what things look like now.”
“You’re probably right. So, we go to Pennsylvania and then what? Find some abandoned house there?”
“Why get another house? We’ve already got one right here.”
“The RV?”
Jim nodded.
They were almost all the way around the lake, almost to the spot where Jim had hidden their gear and food.
“Stay in the RV?” said Jessica, sounding incredulous, and maybe a little annoyed. “Are you crazy? This thing is small. Ridiculously small.”
She was right. It might have been called a midsized RV. But really it was just a little larger than a large work van, the kind that plumbers used.
“There’s not enough space for us in here. There are four of us.”
“We’ll have to make it work,” said Jim.
“But why? Why not just find some house somewhere.”
“Hear me out,” said Jim. He felt much better now that he’d slept, and his mind was working rapidly, piecing together the plan as he spoke. “Now what’s the main disadvantage of a house?”
“The disadvantage? I don’t know if there are any. All I can think of are the advantages. Like shelter, warmth, a place to sleep. Walls and doors that help us defend ourselves. Keep the bad guys out. Way more security overall than an RV with tinfoil walls.”
“Well, here’s one huge disadvantage,” said Jim. “A house stays in the same place. All the time. It doesn’t move around.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. But you were just saying that we’re not going to have gas to simply drive the RV from one location to another. And that’s too dangerous and all that.”
“I’m not explaining myself well,” said Jim. “What I’m suggesting is that we hopefully make it down to Pennsylvania, scope out a good spot far out in the woods where no one goes, and then park the RV there. And live in it.”
“OK, I think I’m seeing where you’re going, but...”
“The thing is,” said Jim, cutting her off. He was starting to get excited about the idea. It seemed like it really might work. “With a house, everyone knows it’s there. It’s going to be on various maps, city plans, all sorts of papers that people can find. And people remember. They know where a house was. Sure, you can try to hide it. You can try to obscure the driveway with branches or something, but that really only goes so far.”
“Wait,” said Jessica. “Are you saying that what we do is park an RV out in the woods, and the advantage over a house will be no one knows it’s there, or ever was there?”
“Exactly.”
“You know, that’s really not such a bad idea. We’d be invisible, essentially.”
“As long as we get far enough out. I’d want to avoid places like state parks. Those are on the map.”
&n
bsp; “Then what do we want?”
“Maybe some private land that’s not used. Someone who had too much land than they knew what to do with. Let it overgrow. Let it go to seed.”
“Private land? You really think that’s a good idea?”
“Definitely. It’s even less likely now than ever before that the owner would use it.”
“I guess the property deeds don’t really mean much now.”
Jim shook his head. “It’s a shame,” he said. “People worked for what they had, and now? Nothing. They’ve got nothing. The strongest will take what they want.”
“You’re getting off topic a little bit.”
“Breakfast is ready,” called out Rob, sounding a little overexcited, probably because he’d never been much of a cook.
“And I think it might actually be edible,” added Aly. “Thanks to my help.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you, Aly.”
Breakfast was a plate of fried sandwiches. Rob had combined canned ham and fried eggs, one of Aly’s makeshift recipes. He’d fried the pieces of white bread in so much oil that it was almost like deep frying, with the slices of bread completely submerged in the oil.
“Here you go,” said Rob, handing Jim a sandwich.
Jim reached back and grabbed the incredibly greasy sandwich, getting grease all over his hand.
“That’s delicious,” said Jim, taking his first bite, unable to stop chewing long enough to speak with his mouth closed.
And it really was. He hadn’t eaten anything in so long that the sandwich really could have been anything and he would have found it delicious.
But the sandwich really was good. The huge hit of fat, protein, and carbs was just what he needed. Jim knew that fat had more calories per unit of weight than carbs or protein, so deep frying the bread for the sandwiches really was a good idea. A good way to get some extra calories.
“We’re lucky to have all that coconut oil,” said Jessica.
“I just don’t want to know what they were doing with it in this RV.”
“Gross.”
“Don’t worry. We’re all too hungry for it to matter anyway.
“You’re right.”
A few minutes later, they’d reached the stash of stolen supplies that Jim had left. He stopped the RV, made a mental note of the fuel gauge position, and everyone except Aly set to work hauling all the gear into the RV.
It took them about ten minutes of many trips back and forth. It wasn’t hard work, and it was nice to have his stomach full for the first time in a long, long while. The food made his body feel warm and whole again. He made a mental note to keep eating plenty of coconut oil. It was an easy way they could get calories, and it would keep them warm in the winter. And after the coconut oil ran out? Maybe they’d be able to render deer fat for a similar product. After all, it wasn’t like they’d ever get any more coconut oil again. It was just one of countless food products that were shipped daily from far-off countries to the United States, and as far as Jim knew, that entire shipping system was as dead as disco, which itself now had absolutely no chance of a comeback, given that there was no electricity.
With the gear in the RV, there was considerably less space than before, but there were still places for everyone to sit. Aly, though, needed more rest and lay on the bed, which was permanently installed, compared to those folding types.
Everyone agreed with the plan that Jim and Jessica had come up with, but there was some concern that they wouldn’t actually be able to reach Pennsylvania. After all, even smaller RVs like the one they had were notorious gas guzzlers. Jim estimated that, at best, it might get something like twenty miles per gallon, and that was really pushing it. He could make sure to drive slowly, keeping off the accelerator as much as he could, but the RV was heavy, and his efforts would really only amount to so much.
So if they couldn’t make it to Pennsylvania, they’d settle for somewhere out of the way in the southeastern part of New York state. How far they got depended on the availability of gas, and the condition of the roads.
They really didn’t know what they were getting into. There was no traffic report. No news channel to watch, telling them that such and such a highway was clogged up with cars sitting bumper to bumper.
They’d just have to try it out and go from there. There was only so much planning they could do without any more information. And when the time came to make the decision on where to park the RV, they’d just have to go with their gut instincts.
26
Rob
Rob was OK with the plan. He figured that they’d done the best they could, right after the EMP. Heading to the lake house had been a good decision. Just because it hadn’t worked out in the end didn’t mean it’d been the wrong thing to do.
They were still alive. And they had a chance to keep living. Those were the things that mattered most.
Rob also figured that Jim knew better than he did. He didn’t totally trust himself. He’d improved somewhat, and at times he’d felt like he’d been on the right track. He’d done some good. He’d saved Jessica, but then again, he’d frozen up at the wrong moments, crucial points where he could have been more useful, like when he and Jessica had been escaping in the Subaru.
It hadn’t been that long since the EMP, but it had felt like a lifetime. Things had changed. For all of them. But for Rob in particular. He knew that his thoughts were different now. He thought about things in a completely new way. Instead of scrambling to pay his bills, or avoid getting his car towed, he was thinking about the really crucial things in life: food, shelter, and friends.
He knew very well that if he’d been on his own, he’d be a dead man. Likely, he would have starved to death or met his end trying to find food. Maybe a knife, or a bullet to the stomach. It wouldn’t have been pretty, whatever it would have been.
Rob had always heard that humans were social animals. Back in the pre-history times, humans had roamed the earth in small groups, hunting animals and finding edible plants, making medicine from their extensive, scientific-like knowledge of the environment in which they lived.
Those early humans wouldn’t have gotten far if they hadn’t been in groups. If they’d wandered, alone, or in pairs, they would have quickly met death, and the species as a whole would have never survived.
The modern pre-EMP world had, in a way, made everyone feel that they were in their own world. Before the EMP, rates of isolation were higher than they’d ever been. For the first time in history, people felt like they didn’t need anyone else. Sure, that wasn’t everybody, but Rob had noticed it in himself. And it’d made sense. After all, he’d been responsible for his own taxes, paying his own rent, buying his own food. Basically, everything he’d done had been for him and him alone. Sure, not everyone was in that situation, but plenty were.
Before the EMP, entertainment had been a huge industry, and it just so happened that the more the industry progressed, the more individualized entertainment had become. Decades earlier, families had clustered around their one radio, and then their one television. But right before the EMP, it wasn’t unusual for each family member to have not only their own TV, but their own computer, their own individual phone, and who knew what else. Families didn’t have to watch the same programs, which was good in a way, but overall it had probably made each person simply feel more cut off from everyone else.
And feeling cut off was no way to survive in a post-EMP world. Rob realized now more than ever that he had to rely not just on himself, but on Jim, Aly, and Jessica. Together, they had a chance. And on their own? Probably not much of one.
If, before the EMP, Rob and Jim and the others had had the foresight to connect with others in an informal sort of way, things might have gone a lot differently for them. For instance, they could have planned things out so that they’d have had not only a place to head after the EMP, but similarly minded people with whom they could trade goods and services with. Maybe someone would have a patch of potatoes, and another perso
n would have a bunch of chickens.
That wasn’t to say that Rob had any problem with individualism. It might have seemed somewhat contradictory, but he felt more like an individualist now more than ever. After all, he knew that he was totally and completely responsible for his own survival. It wasn’t like there was any government or group that was going to step in and save him when things went bad. There wasn’t just no 911 system, but there were no fire departments either, nor hospitals, nor any other social services.
It was just Rob and his little bands of friends. Each one of them had to pull their weight, or the whole metaphorical boat could sink. They were each individuals, yet all part of a cohesive group that would help each one of them survive.
“You OK, Rob?” came Aly’s voice.
“Huh?” said Rob, realizing that he’d been staring out the window for quite a while, not paying attention to what had been going on around him. “Uh, yeah. I’m fine, why?”
“You look like you’re daydreaming or something.”
“Just thinking.”
“We’ve got a lot of that to do. Here, check these out. Turns out this RV is loaded with maps. Help me with them, would you?”
“Sure,” said Rob, as Aly handed him a couple of folded maps of the eastern states.
Rob glanced at the maps, and then back out the window for a moment.
Suddenly, he realized that what he was looking at was familiar. It was the same road that he’d been on just yesterday when he’d been trying to find Jessica.
They were right near Danny and Lonnie’s house. And about thirty seconds later, Rob spotted their house.
Something didn’t look right about it. Then Rob noticed it: the front door was hanging wide open, completely visible from the street.
“Stop!” cried out Rob, reacting on instinct, rather than thinking about what he was doing.
“What is it?” said Jim, from the driver’s seat, already slowing down the RV.
“I know the people who live there,” said Rob, who was already getting out of his seat.
Surviving: The Complete Series [Books 1-3] Page 31