EMP (Book 3): 12 Years Old and Alone

by Whitworth, Mike

  EMP

  12-Years-Old and Alone

  Mike Whitworth

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Other Books by Mike Whitworth

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my wife, Diana, whose unfailing love and support mean the world to me. This book is also dedicated to my dog, Bear, who passed away last year. I adopted him from a shelter when he was three-years-old. Bear was a labernese, a mix of black lab and Bernese mountain dog. The dog in this book is partly modeled after Bear. Bear was the sweetest 130 lb. of dog I have ever known, and he could also be the stubbornest. He is missed.

  Chapter 1

  One week after the lights went out, Mom locked me out of the house.

  “Mom, let me in.”

  “Go away, Trevor. You don’t live here anymore.”

  “But Mom…”

  “I’m not your mother.”

  “But Mom…”

  “Go away Trevor. We don’t have enough food for you here. Just go away.”

  “But Mom…”

  “Go away, or I’ll have to shoot you.”

  I stood on the unpainted board porch in my shorts and tee-shirt wondering what I was gonna do. Mom sounded like she was drunk, but there was something else in her voice. She sounded more determined than usual.

  I knocked on the door. “Mom, can I at least get my stuff?”

  “Go away Trevor or I’m gonna shoot right through the door.”

  “Mom, Dad won’t like it if you do that.”

  “Your dad’s gone and he ain’t coming back. And I’m not your mother. I was just married to your dad. Go away!” She screamed the last at me. Her voice was shrill, shrill and desperate, cracking on the last syllable.

  I stepped sideways away from the door. I may only be twelve, but I ain’t stupid, even if I do use the word ain’t. Hell, nearly everybody in this part of Arkansas uses ain’t and a shitload of worse words. I’ve been known to toss a few cuss words out into the ether myself.

  Maybe tomorrow Mom would be more reasonable. I just needed somewhere to sleep tonight. Things might be better in the morning.

  Then again, they might not. Things sure hadn’t gotten any better since the lights went out. Just yesterday, Old Mr. Redfern shot and killed two men who tried to break into his house, and the cops never even came. Mr. Redfern just dragged the bodies into the woods and left them lay under a big old oak tree. I know. I snuck over and looked at them. They were gross. I sure as hell wasn’t gonna knock on Mr. Redfern’s door asking for help.

  Mom throwing me out of the house wasn’t fair. I brought enough fish home for everyone to eat every day since the lights went out up until yesterday.

  Mom had been meaning to get to the grocery store but hadn’t made it. When we walked to the store two days after the lights went out, it was empty. Just fucking empty. There wasn’t shit left on any of the shelves.

  I hopped off the porch and headed for the woods. There was a spot down by the creek where I’d stashed my fishing pole, a fillet knife, and some matches.

  Strangest thing, before the power went out, I could catch a mess of fish near about any time I wanted. Now, only a week later, the damn creek was almost fished out. Yesterday, the creek had been lined with people fishing, and probably would be today too. I’d be lucky to catch one or two small fish this afternoon. Maybe if I brought a fish or two home, Mom would let me back in the house?

  Sure enough, the banks of the creek were crowded. There was someone with a fishing rod every ten feet. I fetched my fishing pole from its hiding place and joined right in. I didn't catch a damn thing but I lost a hook and sinker.

  People sure were getting desperate for food. By late afternoon they were crowded together along the creek bank, almost shoulder to shoulder. Every now and then a fight would break out over a fish. I reckon an empty stomach has a bad effect on folks. I never understood that before the lights went out. Now I was catching on, or so I thought.

  Just before dark, I took my fishing pole, knife, matches, and empty belly and went looking for a place to sleep.

  I waded across the stream in a shallow spot where no one was fishing and climbed up the hill on the other side. There was a spot I knew three hills away. It was a rock overhang, hard to get to and well-hidden. I found it last summer when I was exploring. I think the Indians used to camp there.

  I knew how to build a fire. I learned watching vids on the Internet. I had no idea what people used to do before the Internet. There was no way they could have learned anything unless they were rich. Books were too damned expensive.

  Don’t get me wrong. I love books, but the Internet is free and books aren’t. We lived just outside the official city limits and the library charges you if you don’t live in the city limits. Mom refused to pay the library fees. I was surprised she paid for Internet, but she really loved her social networking shit. When she wasn’t drinking, that’s what she was doing.

  Early September nights in northern Arkansas can get chilly if all you’re wearing are shorts and an old tee shirt. The fire felt good and the gray rock overhead comforted me. I poured some creek water from an empty plastic pop bottle into a tin can and set it on the edge of the fire to boil some drinking water. I’d found both the plastic bottle and the tin can near the creek.

  I did okay sitting on the bare brown dirt and dozing by the fire all night. The fire made me feel safe, safe and warm. Well, at least on the side facing the fire. It’s a funny feeling to have sweat splashing off your face, and your ass near freezing, but I made it through the night.

  At first light I used the knife to dig a cargo pocket full of worms and headed back to the creek. I hoped to get there early and catch a fish.

  There were two guys there ahead of me. I found a likely spot well away from them and went to fishing. Darned if I didn’t catch a fish, and then another. I was focused on a nibble that pulled my red and white bobber half under, when a man slipped up behind me. I smelled his sour sweat just before he knocked me down and stole my fish.

  Son of a bitch, it was Mr. Watts, my fifth grade teacher, the only guy teacher in the school. After he knocked me down, he ran away, not only with my fish, but with my fishing pole too. Shit, I really liked the guy when I was in fifth grade too.

  Man, things were sure getting strange since the lights went out. People weren’t who I thought they were any more. First Mom, and now Mr. Watts. Just because the lights went out and food was getting scarce was no reason for people to behave badly.

  With no pole, my fishing was over. I headed home. Maybe Mom would relent this morning? Maybe she was sober now? Besides there was another fishing pole in the garage, if somebody hadn’t beaten me to it. If Mom took me back in, and the old fishing pole was still there, maybe I could catch some more fish. Then I could feed Mom and my sisters.

  There weren’t many people stirring on our street as I walked
home. The porches, usually nearly full of people gossiping, were empty. Nowhere could I hear a lawn mower. That seemed odd since mowing grass in Arkansas is taken nearly as seriously as football.

  Ours was a poor neighborhood. The lots were tiny, often with less than six feet separating one house from the next. Small, well-kept houses were interspersed among the more common unpainted shotgun shacks. Some of the nicer houses were painted in bright colors. Others were painted with whatever color paint could be scrounged. Battleship gray was popular because some people could steal it from work. The street was narrow, with most cars and pickup trucks parked on the street. Few houses had garages, and all of those were single-car.

  I made it home with no trouble, not that I was expecting any, but after Mr. Watts stole my fish, I was cautious.

  I tried the front door. It was locked. I knocked.

  “Who is it?”

  “Mom, it’s me.”

  “Trevor, I told you to go away. We can’t feed you anymore.”

  “But Mom?”

  “No, you’re on your own now. I hereby declare you a man grown. Git your ass away from here. I mean it. If you ever come back again, I’ll shoot you.”

  “But Mom, you need me to help you take care of Mary and…”

  “No I don’t. I’m gonna count to three and then I’m gonna start shooting. Git from here, boy!”

  I ran. Mom was famous for her temper and I was beginning to believe she’d shoot me. She must’ve gone plain old rat’s ass nuts. Shit, maybe that was why Dad left? But I didn’t understand why he didn’t take me with him. In any event, I ran, not even taking time to look for the fishing pole in the tiny garage.

  I didn’t know where to go, so I decided to go back to the rock overhang. I wasn’t worried, just hungry. Besides, I knew a spot not far from there where there just might be a few ripe black huckleberries left, if the critters hadn’t got to them first.

  And they hadn’t. The huckleberry bushes were scattered over an acre and a half glade in the woods. I doubted if any of the other kids knew about this spot. They spent most of their time on smartphones, laptops, and tablets—most of all, tablets. I spent as much time in the woods as I could, even when Mom spanked me for it, and then stayed up late with my ancient laptop surfing the web for information about the woods. I reckoned I knew as much about how to survive in the woods as anyone my age.

  I didn’t have anything to carry huckleberries in, so I made a grass basket, weaving it from the long wide green blades that grew between the huckleberry bushes. It took me a few tries to get the weaving down. When I was finished, the basket looked more like a purse. But it held huckleberries after I stuffed some more grass into the bottom so the berries wouldn’t fall out.

  I held my green basket in one hand and went from bush to bush picking the shiny blue-black berries. I gathered a quart and a half of the tart little delights. That was nearly the last of them in this spot.

  I considered taking the huckleberries back to Mom, but when she was mad, there was no changing her mind. She might shoot. I also thought about sneaking some of the huckleberries to my stepsisters but, since Mom had Dad’s shotgun, it didn’t seem wise.

  I decided I’d go back to the overhang, build a fire, and eat huckleberries in relative comfort. But maybe I’d eat just a few now to assuage the pain in my belly?

  Shit, that didn’t work. Once I got started I ate every damn one of them before I could get out of the glade. I reckoned I was hungrier than I thought.

  Satiated, I searched for any huckleberries I missed, poking my hand deep into the bushes and feeling for any that were left. I found a few and put them in my container. I didn’t have the heart to call it a real basket. I’d watched an online vid on how to make this kind of basket at least twenty times. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why my first attempt didn’t turn out better.

  The fire was warm again that night, and I stuffed some grass under my tee shirt and down my shorts legs to stay warmer. It worked, but it was itchy as hell. It almost wasn’t worth the effort. I was glad I hadn’t stuffed any grass into my underwear. Come morning I shucked out of my clothes and beat that damn grass right out of them. As much as I could, anyway. My shirt was still itchy, but my shorts weren’t so bad.

  This sucked. I needed a change of clothes, my canteen, and my camping gear. It was all back at the house. Geez, what was wrong with Mom? She wouldn’t even let me get my stuff. Damn it, it was my shit, paid for with money I earned mowing grass with the old push mower I fixed up.

  I made up my mind. I was gonna go get my stuff, but first I needed something to eat. The huckleberries I had left didn’t put a dent in the pain in my belly.

  My fishing pole was gone but I still had the fillet knife hanging from my belt. I headed back toward the creek, this time angling far upstream of town. I was in luck. Nobody was fishing there.

  First I sharpened my knife on a flat piece of hard shale. Then I cut a shit-load of nice, straight saplings about an inch in diameter. They were easy to cut. All I had to do was bend them over almost to the ground and then push my knife blade straight down into the middle of the bent part. They severed easily and had enough of a point for my purpose with no further work.

  Whacking the little limbs from the sides was easy too. I held the six-inch blade fillet knife by the knob on the back of the handle and swung it like a tiny machete. It worked great.

  By the time I got back to the creek, I had a big bundle of six- to seven-foot-long saplings across my shoulder, tied together with a thin twisted wild grape vine. I walked along the creek bank looking for the right spot, narrow, not too deep, and with a sandy bottom. I was gonna make me a fish trap. I’d watched a vid on how to do it and it seemed simple enough.

  I wedged one end of a sapling into the fork in a small tree and bent it sideways where I wanted to cut it. Cutting through the bent section was easy, although I had to be careful to let up the pressure on the knife just before it cut through so the knife didn’t fly forward. It took me less time than I thought it would to cut the sticks to length, a foot longer than the water was deep.

  I mentally mapped out the location of the trap, stick spacing, and the number of sticks I needed. I was good with math so that was easy. I had to make three more trips to cut saplings before I had enough.

  Once I had all the sticks cut to length, I looked for a rock to pound them into the stream bed. Finding a good rock was easy. This was Arkansas. It was harder not to find a rock than to find one.

  I kicked my shoes and socks off and waded into the cool stream. The water came up to my knees and the sand and smooth pebbles felt good under my toes.

  I pounded a line of sticks an inch or less apart into the stream bed, angled upstream. Even though the bottom was sandy, I had to dig out a rock or four almost every time I pounded in a stick.

  It was noon before I had the first row of sticks in place. It ran from the bank to the center of the stream. I’d picked a narrow spot in the creek on purpose. The creek was only ten feet across here, but it still took a lot of sticks. The second row from the other side was easier because I had a routine going. Once I had the two rows in place, separated by a six-inch gap in the deepest part of the creek, I pounded more stakes in downstream of the gap and made an enclosure.

  Once the fish trap was finished, I cut a whippy pole longer than I was tall and walked upstream along the bank. When I’d gone a hundred feet, I waded to the middle of the stream. The stream was deeper here but only up to mid-thigh.

  I swung my pole back and forth and splashed water with the tip, making as much noise as I could and moved slowly toward my trap. The idea was to drive fish into my trap. In Africa, they call people who beat the bush and drive game toward the hunters, beaters. Okay, I was a fish beater. Other than the fact I was hungry as hell, and getting pretty tired, this was fun.

  When I got to the fish trap, there were a dozen fish in it. I knelt down so my knees covered the opening and grabbed for the fish. They were mostly small perch
and sunfish. I got stabbed by spines a couple of times, but eventually I caught eight of the little buggers and crammed them into my grass basket-like thing. I had to fold the top together to keep the fish from jumping out. The rest of the fish escaped between and around my legs.

  It was almost dark and I was at least eight miles from our house. I’d have to catch some more fish in the morning for Mom and the girls. Right now, I was gonna start a fire and eat these fish, every damn one of them. My belly applauded as I got the fire going and gutted the fish. Soon I had one cooking on a stick propped over the fire, and some water boiling in a tin can someone had used for worms and tossed. After a while the fish on the stick just fell apart and dropped into the fire. I put the rest of the gutted and scaled fish on a flat rock on the edge the fire. That worked better.

  Man, those fish were good, even if parts of them were burnt. But I liked burnt. Mom burnt the toast every time she made breakfast and then told us to eat it anyway because charcoal was good for us. I’d never had unburnt toast until I took over cooking breakfast three years ago.

  I curled up under a tree near the fire and went to sleep. I slept like a comatose rock.

  The fire was out when I woke at daylight. I was a little stiff and beginning to appreciate a mattress more than ever before. But mostly I felt great, especially since I could just pee anywhere and didn’t have to wait until my sisters were out of the bathroom. Peeing in the woods was a luxury I truly appreciated. Nobody bitched if I missed with a few drops.

  I got to thinking about the fish trap and decided it would work better with another trap box beyond the first, so I took the morning and made one. I was hoping the second chamber would help keep the fish from finding their way out as easily.

  It worked like magic. In two more hours and only one round of fish beating, the trap contained almost two-dozen eating size perch and a couple of small crappie. I wrapped my hands in strips torn from the bottom of my tee shirt and went fish-grabbing. It took a while but only one got away. I needed a net. I vowed to either find one or figure out how to make one later.