EMP (Book 3): 12 Years Old and Alone

by Whitworth, Mike

  I heaved the basket of jerky up in my arms and set off to look for a better campsite.

  By the way, the cougar meat tasted like really gamey pork. I found I tended to wait until I was really hungry before I ate any. Sackett loved the stuff.

  Me and Sackett found a good campsite by a small stream. It was isolated and far from any trail.

  I was sitting on a log chewing on a piece of cougar jerky while some water was boiling on the fire when I saw the people. I saw them because Sackett was staring in their direction.

  Chapter 6

  There were three of them, a woman and two kids. The boy looked to be about my age. The girl a little older, and the woman about Mom’s age.

  They looked like shit.

  There’s no other way to say it. They were filthy, even dirtier than me. They were thin as fence posts. Their clothes were ripped and torn and they moved like the living dead, if that fast.

  I took the pistol from my pack and loaded it. With it in my right hand, I got behind a tree and hollered, “Hey Lady.”

  All three stopped and stared. I don’t think they could see me.

  “Who is it?” The woman said. The children cowered behind her. I lost any respect for the boy. He should've been trying to protect the woman and girl. But then maybe that was just movie behavior from before the lights went out. What the fuck did I know? My mom kicked me out.

  I stepped out from behind the tree. “Up here, Ma’am.”

  “I see you now. Why you’re just a boy.”

  “Yes Ma’am.” I could've said something else, but yes Sir and yes Ma’am are hammered into southern kids from before we can talk.

  The lady and the kids approached. Sackett took a position beside me. He didn’t growl, but he was wary.

  “Do you have any food?” The lady asked as they came closer.

  I debated if I should feed them. It wasn’t much of a debate. I had more than I could eat before it went bad (I didn’t expect my first jerky to last as long as store-bought). Besides, they looked nice enough, albeit they smelled like a skunk caught in a dirty toilet. I handed each of them a handful of cougar jerky.

  The woman looked hers over and asked, “What is this?”

  “Just eat, Ma’am. It ain’t too bad.” The boy and girl were chewing theirs already. The woman put a piece in her mouth and winced at the taste.

  The girl said, “Just eat it, Mom, just eat it.”

  So she did. There was no conversation while they chewed the jerky. I wondered if that was why Indians were so stoic, because they had to chew so much they didn’t have much time for talk?

  Later I found out the three of them had been wandering in the woods for almost a week. They had been staying at a rental cabin on the edge of the Ozark National Forest when the lights went out. The lady’s husband was supposed to join them the next day but he never showed up. After they ran out of food at the cabin, they went into the forest in search of food and help.

  They latched on to me like I was the second coming of Jesus. I reckon they thought it was my role in life to take care of them. Shit, I could hardly take care of myself.

  No good deed goes unpunished. I’d heard that one all my life. Now I understood.

  I was fucked.

  I hadn’t even learned their names before we all got the shits. I had some boiled water in my one pot. I didn’t always boil my water, but I tried to, especially when it was from a stagnant stretch of a slow moving creek, like this one.

  I guess I shoulda been paying more attention. I found out later, that, when I wasn’t looking, the girl used the water in the pot to wash her face. Then she put some water back into the pot from the creek and didn’t even put it on the fire to boil. She never told me nothing about it. That’s how all four of us got the shits, by drinking from that pot full of dirty water.

  I had a roll of toilet paper in my pack. It vanished so fast I thought Sackett ate it.

  Now there’s the shits, and there’s the SHITS. We had the SHITS. The woman and girl took the roll of toilet paper and went one way while the boy went another, holding his ass in both hands.

  It struck me so fast I hardly had time to get behind a tree and drop my pants. I didn’t even have time to squat before I sprayed the woods behind me. Let me tell you, the smell of unwashed bodies, homemade cougar jerky, and poop is enough to make anyone throw up. It did me. I was puking from the front and blasting from the rear, wondering what else could go wrong when I pissed all over my pants. Man, this was some kind of super bug.

  Ten minutes later I pulled up my pants and went straight to the creek and then a good way downstream to wash off. Once I had washed off and washed my clothes, I collapsed on the bank. Sackett lay down close by. Usually he crowded in right next to me, but not this time. That’s how I knew there was another round coming.

  I didn’t bother to get dressed. I just bent over and waited.

  And I blasted again, and then again ten minutes after that. It must have been some kind of clockwork bug or something.

  The worst thing about the shits is having to go when there’s nothing left. That’s when your stomach just squeezes tight and hurts, and then squeezes even tighter and hurts some more, until you think it’ll never end.

  But I got over it before the others. I spent the next day tending to some foul-smelling people. The cougar meat went uneaten, except by Sackett who seemed unfazed by the shitstorm.

  Now I ain’t no nursemaid. My mom always said I was worthless around sick people. But then she said I was worthless for a lot of things, especially when she was drunk.

  But I managed. I boiled water and washed clothes in the creek and then did it all over again, stopping a few times for a blast from the past myself.

  Three days later we had to move camp. There were turkey buzzards circling overhead, and all of us moved like marionettes with broken strings. Sackett led the way and I came up the rear toting all the stuff. The lady and her kids hung onto one another and staggered forward a step and sideways a step. It was a slow go.

  But I found a good campsite. I made a fire and boiled some water from a fast-running creek nearby, and gave everyone something to drink and some cougar jerky.

  The whole time I was nursing those folks back to health they complained that it was my jerky that caused them to be sick, even after the girl admitted to replacing the boiled water with dirty water. I tried to explain what happened, but they didn’t get it. They just kept complaining while they ate more of the cougar jerky they thought made them sick.

  I finally said the hell with it and worked on a bow and arrows. I thought the boy would take an interest, but he just kept wanting to know when the lights were gonna come on again so he could get back to his tablet, where ever it was.

  So I sat and studied on what I was doing. I studied so long the woman called me lazy, but I ignored her.

  The last bow I had made was shaped real nice. It bent smoothly, with no kinks. I hardened it over the fire. The wood dried nicely over several days, and the bow grew stronger. The first ten times I shot it, it was sweet. I thought I had me a bow, and then it broke. It broke along the back side where the bend was in tension. I remembered the crack as the bow collapsed in my hands and the splintery nature of the break.

  Why was it then, when I just strung a green stick, the bow didn’t break, but just got weaker with every shot. I dug out a couple of new arrow shafts I’d cut the day before. I bent one into a bow and tied it that way with a piece of string.

  I watched intently as I held it in my left hand and pulled the string. It bent just fine for one hundred tries. I counted. The mini-bow grew a little weaker every few pulls. I loosened the string every ten pulls. It took on more and more of a bend each time.

  Yet when I dried the wood over the fire, the miniature bow broke on the third pull. As I was working out how to make a good bow, the girl asked her momma what I was doing. The mother held her hand in front of her face when she replied but I heard her.

  “It’s obvious, Laura. The
boy is plumb crazy. There isn’t any reason for him to be doing that.”

  I ignored them and kept on with my experiments. I was beginning to understand that the Indians knew a heap more than folks nowadays thought they did. Living without a Walmart took brains and knowledge, a lot more of both than I'd ever imagined.

  I wished I’d paid more attention to the survival vids. But I knew that, no matter how well-intentioned the makers, vids could only convey so much information. The problem was that there was so much knowledge about surviving that was lost. The Indians never wrote it down, and it just disappeared as the times changed.

  Well, if I was gonna survive, I had to rediscover some of that lost information for myself.

  I got up and fetched some more water to boil. These people went through water almost faster than I could boil it. The girl kept complaining about the taste of the boiled water. I only had the one pot, so I couldn’t slosh it back and forth between two pots to improve the taste like the guys did in the vids. Besides, I was starting to like the dead taste.

  I was still thinking on the bow-making problem when I fell asleep. Sackett curled up close to me. Instead of having my pack as my pillow, I lay my head on Sackett. He didn’t mind. Besides, the girl and her mom were using the pack for a pillow. They hadn’t even asked. I was glad the pistol, which was in the pack, was unloaded, or they might have blown their brains out by accident.

  Once Sackett growled softly in the night, but I barely heard it. I was sleeping hard.

  In the morning they were gone—with all my shit.

  I got up and took stock of what I had left. My knife was on my belt, and my small sharpening stone was in my pocket, but the Buck folding knife had been in the pack. The lion skin and my bow and arrows lay where I left them the night before. I reckoned they didn’t think any of that was useful.

  The pack, the pistol, my extra clothes, and my blanket were gone. At least I had my jacket because I wore it to bed. I was glad I’d left my shoes on or I figured they would’ve taken those too. Ungrateful bastards.

  Of everything, I missed the pot the most, the pot and the remaining matches, which were in the pack inside the pot.

  I thought about following them, but they had the pistol. If they would steal from a kid, they’d shoot a kid. Oh well, I was glad to be rid of them. After they stole my stuff I no longer felt a responsibility towards them. I’d be happy to go my way and let them go theirs.

  My biggest problem now was how to boil water. I figured I could just chance it, but once burned, twice shy. I didn’t want a case of the shits like that ever again.

  I knew I could make a bark basket and use hot stones to boil water. So I did. Me and Sackett drank it , ashes and all. I didn't have anything to carry water. They took my canteen too.

  I could go the rest of the day without a drink but I was gonna get hungry. Those people even took the rest of the cougar meat they complained so much about. I was getting tired of it anyway. I’d ask Sackett to fetch us a rabbit later.

  There was a campground about five miles away that I’d noticed a few days ago. I might find a pot and maybe an empty plastic gallon jug to use as a canteen there as well as a lighter or some matches.

  The campground was deserted. There was a shower shack and two ratty trailers on pads. A little farther away was a brand new, big-ass fifth wheel trailer sitting in the sun. A fancy truck was parked nearby. That was the trailer I had my eye on. It was best to watch the place for a while though. I wanted to avoid people.

  So me and Sackett sat under a tree for a few hours, just watching and listening. When Sackett went to sleep I figured there must not be any danger and I circled around and came up to the fifth wheel trailer from the back.

  I eased up to the door and tried the handle. It turned freely. The trailer was unlocked.

  I opened the door and peered inside. As my head passed the door frame, I saw him sitting at the dinette booth facing my way, his face all twisted like in a horror movie. I jumped off of the step and ran like hell, heedless of what direction I was going.

  I ran until I realized the man I saw hadn’t moved. I stopped, breathing so hard I thought they’d hear me in Hot Springs.

  My knees were shaking. Seeing the man surprised me. I leaned against a tree and then sat down until my breathing was normal again. Right about then I figured it was best I’d done had the shits, cause if there was any left in me, seeing that man would’ve scared it outta me for sure.

  Sackett wandered up and licked me on the nose. That gave me the courage to go back to the trailer.

  I peered past the doorframe again. The heat slapped me in the face like a biscuit pan hot from the oven. I became an instant sweat machine. I was soaking wet in less than a minute.

  The man just sat there, unmoving. It took me a while to realize he was dead. He must have been dead for quite a while because I didn’t smell anything.

  I crept toward the dead man. His face was all dried up and his skin was deep brown. Shit, the guy was a mummy.

  I wondered if he’d been alone and what happened to his family? Up close, other than being a mummy, he was just average and non-threatening. When I looked close, something about his face, even shriveled and twisted as it was, made me like him. He looked like he’d been a nice guy. Suddenly, I was sorry I’d never known him.

  Shit, no point in getting sentimental. The last folks I met ate my food and stole my stuff. I did thank the mummy for the stuff I was gonna take though. It seemed like the thing to do.

  I searched the trailer for useful stuff and struck gold. I found three pots, a frying pan, several kitchen knives, blankets, a box of kitchen matches, several candles, some clothes that were too big for me, and oodles of smaller items. There was no food or water.

  I piled all the good stuff on one of the blankets under a tree. It took me three trips. When I was done I sat down and rolled everything I’d found into a blanket pack. I used several shirt sleeves to tie it up and make some shoulder straps. While I was doing that, I realized that the hot trailer had mummified the man in a matter of a few weeks after he died, probably from lack of food and water.

  What was it with people? It seemed to me that most of the people I’d met since the lights went out, except for the Templemans, were either mean or stupid, or both. I saw no reason for that man to die. All he had to do was catch a few fish in the stream behind the campground and boil some water.

  I hauled my pack into the woods and hid it. Then I went back and scrounged stuff from the other two trailers and the shower house. Hell, I even took a few bars of soap. I hid that stuff with my other booty, and sat down to think.

  It had been late August when the power went out. Now it was heading into November. I’d lost track of exactly what day it was. The nights were growing colder, but they weren’t bad yet.

  I’d soon need somewhere to hole up for the winter. I made a small pack of essentials, and hid the rest of the stuff as well as I could. I’d come back for it later.

  “Sackett, we need to find us a good cave for the winter.”

  Sackett just rolled his eyes at me. I guess he had a right to think I was dumb, but he had an irritating way of expressing it sometimes. But he was my dog and I loved him. I didn’t ever want to be without him.

  For the next two weeks we wandered the forest. We found a couple of cool overlooks, a waterfall, and several good natural campsites, but no cave. I considered staying the winter in a cabin at one of the tourist campsites, but man-made stuff draws people like shit draws flies. I didn’t want to encounter any more people.

  Sackett was getting good at catching rabbits. He got one almost every morning and sometimes in the evening too. Once he caught a skunk and we both stunk for a week. I found out skunk don’t taste too bad if you eat the end away from the stink gland.

  While we were skunkified, I rolled some toilet paper around each of my matches and dipped them in melted beeswax from an old beehive I found in a hollow tree. That made them waterproof and they stayed lit for over two
minutes when struck. But I was running out of matches and had to be careful with them.

  I was still working on my bow and arrows. I had a bow that worked fairly well now, and three good arrows fletched with buzzard feathers stuck on with glue made from pine pitch, rabbit turds, and ground charcoal. The arrows were tipped with sharp stone chips.

  To keep the bow from breaking I bound it with thin strips of cougar hide where it bent the most. So far it was holding up and I was getting to be a better shot. In fact, I’d grazed a rabbit that morning.

  But what I really needed was to learn how to make fire before I ran out of matches. I could search for more matches, but there was no guarantee I’d be able to find any. No, I needed to know how to do it primitive style.

  I set out along the creek bed looking for a chunk of flint. I found lots of chert, but I wanted good gray flint like some of the Indian arrowheads were made of in the museum we visited on a school trip.

  I didn’t find any, so I sat down on a stream bank and started trying to make sparks with various rocks on the spine of my knife. It kind of sparked with the chert, but not very well. I kept the best piece of chert anyway.

  Then I started thinking. The pioneers didn’t have stainless steel. My knife was made of stainless steel. Maybe I needed a piece of rusty steel.

  For three days I kept my eyes open. I didn’t find any rusty steel. Then one day I found an old horseshoe hanging on a barbed wire fence. I tried the chert on it and got better sparks.

  I shot my first rabbit that afternoon, right through the head. I made out like it was nothing, but I was excited. I didn’t want to kill the rabbit, but I was so hungry my belly hurt.

  I remembered that the Indians always thanked the game they killed and the Great Spirit or something. So I said, “Thanks Mr. Rabbit for saving my life. I owe you one.” That made me feel better, but I woke in the middle of the night thinking how silly it sounded.