TEOTWAWKI: Beacon's Story

by David Craig

  It had made him popular on high school football teams and with some girls, but the choice to concentrate on brawn and ignore developing his brainpower had stifled his growth into manhood.

  Bull's armament reflected his philosophy in life; he carried an iron sighted rifle chambered in a caliber named after an African Big Game hunter. The .470 Capstick would stop a rhino in its tracks but was overkill for the game around the Settlement.

  Beacon told him, "Bull, if you shoot a deer with that cannon it'll destroy half the meat."

  Bull said he wanted to have "enough gun to do the job." But it really didn't matter because with all the noise Bull made tromping through the forest he never got close enough to see a deer much less shoot one. Which was a good thing because Bull didn't have much the ammunition for the elephant gun; the ammo for it had been hard to get even before The Blowup.

  Bull's sidearm was a Dirty Harry .44 magnum revolver with a barrel over eight inches long again too much gun for the available targets but ammo was easier to find.

  The teaching session was a total loss. Unaware that he was still several miles from the fort Bull was rushing to be first through the gate so as to proclaim his conquest of the forest. Beacon just wanted the patrol to be over so he could report Bull's failure and refuse to ever take the young man out on patrol with him again.

  There would be resistance to his decision. Bull's sister had demanded Beacon teach her brother the "easy" job she claimed Beacon was keeping to himself. She would demand her brother be assigned to share the fort's scouting, hunting and trapping duties.

  Beacon had already made up his mind. Bull couldn't find his way once he got off beaten paths and in his bullheadedness had become thoroughly lost three times turning what was supposed to have been a one day patrol into an overnight stay in the woods. Bull hadn't liked that.

  Caught out in the wilderness without blankets or cooking utensils Beacon had made do. Spotting a squirrel midden Beacon chopped down a six foot sapling about an inch in diameter with his Randall and cut off all the branches. Then he tied it between the two trees nearest the midden with rawhide.

  Reaching into an inner pocket of his buckskin shirt he pulled out two thin tightly coiled brass wires which he tied to the middle of the sapling about two feet apart. Each wire had a small noose at the other end. He bent the wire up so the nooses were exactly over the top of the sapling.

  The snares set, Beacon guided Bull up into a box canyon scouting for a campsite. In the late afternoon he led the exhausted Bull back to the midden where two dead squirrels were hanging in the wire nooses.

  Beacon harvested the squirrels, reset the snares and began working on the campsite since Bull's stumbling around in the woods had taken them so far from the fort he would learn how to sleep in the woods whether he liked it or not. The cloudless sky promised bitter cold but no rain or snow that night.

  Beacon found a secluded spot between a boulder and a downed tree in a nearby depression out of the wind and, more importantly, out of sight of anyone not already in the small valley.

  Pointing out a spot next to the boulder he said, "Just do what I do and you'll sleep warm tonight."

  Beacon cut a digging stick and began scraping out a shallow trench, near the downed tree, about eighteen inches wide by a foot deep and as long as he was tall. The Randall would have dug deeper and faster, but Beacon wasn't about to damage its seven and a half inch blade in the dirt. Bull had no such compulsion and attacked the dirt with his twelve inch Bowie knife.

  Once the trench was complete Beacon gathered and threw in some dry squaw wood from the ground and nearby trees alternating it in layers of a tic-tac-toe pattern for the length of the trench. Then he threw dry leaves and twigs on top to act as tinder and help spread the fire he was about to build.

  He built a small fire in the trench then Beacon gathered more of the small easily broken off branches of squaw wood from nearby trees and threw them in telling Bull to do the same.

  While the firebed burned he skinned, cleaned and spit the two squirrels on sticks he'd cut with the Randall. Then he put them over the fire to roast while he gathered more squaw wood.

  Beacon thought of his neighbor, "Prepper Pete" as he gnawed on his squirrel-sickle. Pete's stores ought to be running out soon, assuming he and his family had survived the looters, gangs and marauders. Beacon wished him luck but had no desire to go back into the Hell hole that the city had become to find out.

  Most of the die off occurred during the first winter. The old and the clueless had been the first to go. Senior citizens bereft of family were hard pressed to compete with younger generations. They starved or were killed for food in their own homes. Many attempted to flee in their cars. Unable to refuel or walk far they died where they ran out of gas.

  The younger generation, who'd chosen to ignore the building storm, spending their money on 'the good life' instead of preparations got to watch "TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It)" on their big color TV's -- until the power went off at the networks. Then they watched it for real in their neighborhoods.

  Prisoners were released, broke out or starved in their cells. It took a while for miscreants to realize law and order was not going to be restored. Once that fact became real to them they made up for lost time. Newly formed bands of brigands battled established gangs as they looted entire city neighborhoods.

  But it wasn't always safe for the marauders. Armed homeowners took a toll on them and where they ran into organized neighborhoods armed "Preppers" fended them off, but at some cost. When the outlaws went up against survivalists they were out gunned, out strategized and often nearly wiped out. But that didn't happen often because preppers and survivalist groups were few and far between.

  Preppers who'd noted the gathering storm but bet on it being a "When The shit Hits The Fan" event were horrified when they realized the transitory event they'd prepared to weather in comfort while waiting for government to restore order was morphing into a real TEOTWAWKI "the end of the world as we know it" scenario without government or order.

  Those who'd made their preparation known soon found neighbors dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar, a can of evaporated milk and a canned ham. For a short while some preppers became monarchs of the glen then, as the food ran out, learned that starving people who knew where food was weren’t willing to just go away and starve when the monarch decreed that there was no more to share.

  Some monarchs turned rogue, fancying themselves as modern day Robin Hoods they led foraging expeditions in search of food for their followers; often clashing with other groups. Others tried to hold on to what food they had left. The disputes usually ended in bloodshed but the point was moot; no matter who won eventually the food ran out.

  By spring the cities had turned into ruins populated by individuals imagining themselves to be Billy the Kid's, Jesse James' or Bonnie & Clydes. Gangs held grocery warehouses and small groups in the suburbs tried to hold fortified neighborhoods surrounding budding backyard gardens against all comers.

  Tin-pot despots held power only as long as they could feed their followers and tended to be violently deposed by envious underlings. Family fiefdoms had a better chance of fending off pretenders to their thrones. People who organized or joined groups tended to live longer than loners. Members of well armed kibbutz style farming communities tended to outlive outlaw nomads.

  Air, water, food and shelter; the basics had to be met. Air was everywhere and shelter was abundant in the cities and suburbs but at first they had to learn to avoid the places with rotting corpses. Even water wasn't that hard to come by if you were careful to stay near water sources. But food…

  Preppers like Pete who'd kept quiet about their stores lasted longer, but it's hard to hide the fact that you've got food when you're the only one in the neighborhood who hasn't lost weight. What saved them was the fact that by then most of their neighbors had become refugees. Still there'd be the occasional gang of garden robbers to fight off.

  Beacon's firebed
was a foot from the downed tree which would keep the leaf litter blanket he was about to make on him. He found a small log and put it on the other side opposite the tree to help keep his leaf litter bedcovering from sliding off on that side.

  As he gathered dry leaves and grass he noticed Bull wasn't collecting near enough bedding.

  "Bull you'd best be getting' more pine needles and grass if you want to sleep warm tonight."

  "Naw, it ain't that cold."

  "Suit yourself; I can't do everything for you."

  When he had a solid layer of embers Beacon covered them with about five inches of dirt and stomped it down being sure to cover the edges and the corners. Then he piled the dry leaves, pine needles and grass he'd gathered on top of the dirt to a height of about two feet.

  He advised Bull to gather more leaves when he finished his squirrel-sickle, but Bull stubbornly sat by the fire picking at the bones of the squirrel.

  Beacon decided "tough love would be a good teacher that wouldn't endanger the kid and might even encourage him to listen next time.

  As the world around them descended into total darkness; Beacon burrowed into the pile of leaves with his rifle in one hand and backup revolver in the other.

  In the morning Beacon found a shivering Bull huddled in a thin layer of leaves. Retrieving his snares, and two more dead squirrels, Beacon fed the kid breakfast and got them started in the right direction to get back to the fort.

  Bull's bullheadedness got them off course in less than a mile.

  It hadn't started out well either. Going out across the meadow from the fort Beacon had tried to show Bull how to keep his "head on a swivel" while still within sight of the fort.

  "It means to look in all directions for signs of danger as you walk." Beacon gave the short version after seeing Bull wasn't paying attention to his longer explanation.

  Bull had tried it for a minute, "It makes my neck hurt," he said resuming his straight ahead glare at the ground ahead of him as he charged across the meadow.

  Beacon had then tried to show Bull the distance eating energy conserving Plainsman's Walk; "Swing your lower legs out from the knee until the knees are straight when the heel of your foot hits the ground, it'll add an inch or two to each of your strides".

  "What's a few inches?" Bull bellowed as he trotted a few steps to catch up with Beacon.

  Once on the trail within the tree line Beacon tried to show Bull the Woodsman's Walk; walking a short distance then stopping to listen and observe before walking again.

  "I'm not interested in all that crap; just show me how to stalk like an Indian," he said stepping on dry leaves as he hurried past Beacon.

  "Well you could start by not stepping on branches and avoiding patches of dried leaves."

  "Aw they don't make all that much noise and going around them slows me down."

  Bull liked the Scouts Pace or Wolf Lope a Combination of an easy trot and walking—50 steps walking—50 steps at a dog trot repeated at a steady rate of one mile in 12 minutes. But when they stopped to rest he sat out in the meadow refusing to come back in to the shade, and near invisibility, within the tree line.

  They'd followed the trail in the tree line down to the lakeside village where Beacon learned that Bull's idea of a stealth approach was to charge the objective.

  The village seemed deserted but Beacon knew refugees, looters and others often sheltered in the abandoned buildings and he didn't want to stay long with Bill charging around like a bull in a china shop .44 magnum revolver in one hand big bore rifle in the other.

  Back in the woods, but off the trail this time Beacon had hoped letting the kid get himself lost a few times would teach him to respect the woods but the eighteen year old learned nothing from his mistakes.

  Beacon had also hoped to shoot a deer as they returned to the fort but the kid's headlong assault into every bush that got in his way had quashed that hope. He was so loud even distant birds took flight at his approach.

  To patrol with him would only endanger both their lives so Beacon had crafted his response. Maggie was a politician who employed Machiavellian tactics to get what she wanted and right now she wanted what she considered a "cushy" job for her little brother. Unwilling to believe she would be putting her brother's life at risk if she got him the "job" she'd keep pushing until something gave.

  Beacon wouldn't argue. He'd just refuse to take Bull out with him again. They could do what they wanted with that. She could send Bull out to scout and hunt all she wanted. When she wanted meat again she'd change her mind and give the "cushy" job back to Beacon.

  "Keep your voice down you're giving our position away." Beacon whispered as Bull pushed past him on the trail.

  "There's nobody around to hear me!" Bull snarled as he stepped on a dry branch sending a loud crack reverberating through the forest, "C'mon, the fort's right over that hill," he called over his shoulder as he hurried on.

  "Wrong hill," Beacon thought as he stepped over the remnants of the broken branch. He'd let the kid get lost again. Maybe that would dampen his adore for the 'cushy' job. Beacon followed along slowly. He'd follow the kid's trail and catch up to guide him only if it looked like the kid was wandering out of the sanctuary's holdings into zombie territory.

  A half hour later Beacon heard shots about a hundred yards ahead followed by the boom of Bull's big rifle and then some more shots. Hurrying forward he topped a rise to see the fight through the trees.

  Bull had accounted well for himself. Wounded in the initial shots of the ambush the kid had charged his attackers taking out one behind a log with his elephant rifle and wounding another through a tree. But the cost had been a bullet wound high on his right thigh and another in his belly.

  Unable to run Bull had taken a position between two large trees and was trying desperately to keep the three remaining unwounded ambushers from outflanking him. As Beacon raised his rifle to provide Bull some covering fire the kid leaned out around one of his trees to take a shot at one of the three maneuvering zombies, the one he'd wounded one fired a shotgun hitting Bull's left shoulder.

  One of the zombies had circled around and was approaching Bull from a position that put his back to Beacon. Shifting his point of aim Beacon put a single round from his scoped Ruger 10/22 into the wounded guy's face then returned to his original target putting a single round into the base of the guy's skull before he could react to the sound of Beacon's first shot coming from behind him. Two zombies left that he knew of.

  Beacon could hear someone running through the fallen leaves uphill to his right. He dared not go to Bull's aid until he'd accounted for the other ambushers.

  Holding his Dirty Harry magnum revolver in his right hand Bull fired at someone on his right. If Bull wasn't shooting at phantoms that put the other attacker downhill and directly in front of Beacon. He'd circle round to his right taking out the attacker uphill and then the one down below.

  Letting the bushes screen his movements as best they could Beacon quietly moved uphill until he could see as well as hear the ambusher who still seemed blissfully unaware of Beacon's presence. He was edging forward through a thicket trying to sneak up behind the tree Bull was leaning against. The bushes blocked Beacon's shot. Even a tiny twig could deflect one of Beacon's little twenty-two long rifle hollow-points.

  Keeping the Ruger trained on the ambusher Beacon looked over the scope as he quietly, one foot at a time, walked toward him. Just then Bull started screaming Beacon's name, cursing him and demanding Beacon come to his aid.

  Great, now everybody would know Bull was not alone. The guy in the thicket raised his head to look around. Beacon snapped the rifle up and fired a hurried shot. It went low. Instead of hitting the guy in the temple it struck him in the throat. He went down out of sight with a blood-curdling scream.

  Beacon quietly circled higher on the hillside up behind the position he'd last seen the screamer. It took a minute that seemed like an eternity as gunshots echoed up from below, but eventually Beacon saw the guy clut
ching his throat with one hand while trying to pull himself up with the other. Bull was still yelling curses at Beacon but his voice was becoming weaker.