by Sean Little
I took the Escalade to Walmart next. Again, the doors were ripped open, the glass shattered. I went to the housewares section and carried out a few dozen heavy Rubbermaid storage containers. I filled them with canned goods, medicine, candles, and whatever water I could find, which wasn’t much. I loaded up on dog food, wet and dry, for Rowdy, and even remembered to find some food and water bowls for him.
Walmart had a pharmacy. The pharmacy had heavy metal curtains that had been closed and locked. It looked like someone had tried to open them by bashing them with bats from the sporting goods section. The gates had held. I used my trusty power drill, though. When I raised the curtain, I found the majority of the pharmacy still intact. Jackpot.
I loaded up as many containers as I could with drugs. I knew that anything that ended with -illin or -cycline was antibiotics. I was going to need those eventually. I took painkillers, like hydrocodone, that I recognized from prescriptions that treated my parents’ various injuries and ailments. I took antacids. I took the industrial-strength aspirin and ibuprofen. I found the corticosteroids (anything ending with -sone) and I took them. I wasn’t sure what I’d use them for, but I knew that the library would have books about drugs, and I could figure it out when I had more time. I closed the curtain after I loaded up a few containers. The rest could wait until I came back.
I loaded up a container with toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste, and mouthwash, too. I even made a mental note to raid a dentist’s office and get picks and mirrors and other tools. I was going to need that stuff. There were no more dentists. One of my favorite movies was Cast Away with Tom Hanks. There’s that beautifully horrific scene in which he does his own dentistry with a rock and an ice skate blade. I knew that without a dentist, my teeth would be in danger of rotting. I’d read somewhere online that most people could survive without a dentist if they just brushed three times a day and flossed daily. I was determined to be that sort of guy. What choice did I have?
I took Band-aids and Ace wraps, hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol, Q-tips and cotton swabs. I didn’t know what I’d need, but I knew that if I needed it, it would probably be in an emergency, so I wanted that stuff nearby. The rest of the day, I went back and forth from all the major stores in town scavenging what I could, everything I thought I’d need.
At Costco, I found a nice bed and a king-sized memory foam mattress. I added sheets, towels, and a comforter set and pillows. I found microfiber fleece blankets. I took a dozen of them, not knowing if I might need them. I took soap and shampoo in bulk. I took all the batteries I could carry. I loaded them in the Escalade and drove them to the library.
My last stop of the day, near dusk, was at Cabela’s. In 2015, Cabela’s opened a massive store in Sun Prairie, just off the highway. It had everything for hunting, fishing, camping, and outdoor survival. I imagined it would be pretty well picked over like everything else, but I got to the store, I was surprised to find the doors still intact.
I drilled the locks and stepped inside to find two corpses slumped near the door, a pair of shotguns nearby. That answered a lot of questions about why no one ransacked the place. I wondered if they were employees of the store or a couple of guys who knew that Cabela’s would be the goldmine for post-apocalypse life and wanted to protect their stash. Either way, they went down swinging. I was grateful to them for that.
Cabela’s had been fairly picked over before the Shotgun Brothers made their last stand, but not as badly as the grocery stores and Walmart. With my trusty flashlight to light the way, Rowdy and I loaded Rubbermaid containers with camp meals and seasonings, heavy-duty cast-iron campsite cookware and grill racks. We looted tools for cooking, camp plates and silverware, cups, and canteens. I found water purification tablets, miles of good rope, a camp shower, and everything else that glorious store held for us.
I made three trips to Cabela’s, loading the Escalade each time. I got as many items of clothing as I could: warm shirts, jeans, hiking pants, socks, a couple different pairs of hiking boots in my size, underwear, long underwear, a pair of arctic parkas, gloves, mittens, scarves, winter facemasks. I was going to look like a Cabela’s poster boy.
Can I pause in my story here to take a moment to expound on the nature of socks?
Do not, I repeat in capital letters, DO NOT overlook the value of quality socks. Growing up, my mom always bought me socks in bulk packs from Target, the kind where you get twelve pairs of socks for like $11.99. They were nice socks, but they were basically cloth tubes that hold your foot. They offered no support, no comfort, and they are as like to slide on your foot as not, which increases the possibility of blistering. At Cabela’s, I took the best, most expensive socks: wool hunting socks, hiking socks with arch supports and orthopedics, sport socks that cost $12 for a single pair or better--and they are amazing.
I get in the before time, in the long, long ago that most of us couldn’t afford to toss major jing after good socks. That’s an extravagance for silly rich people like Gwyneth Paltrow, but if you have the means to splurge on quality socks and you’re not, then you’re just a fool.
Washing socks often and well, and taking care of your feet is equally important. Foot pain makes everything else in life harder. If you feel comfortable on your feet, you’re probably going to have a good day. I got the best socks I’ve ever worn, or probably ever will wear, at Cabela’s. Granted, I stole them from an empty world in the dawn of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but my feet were feeling good, y’all.
After the clothes and camp supplies, I went to the gun section. Keep in mind, I’m not a gun person. I have no experience with guns, save for thinking I was going to kill myself with a Glock the night before. The gun section was pretty clean. I guess when people sense doom, they rush to find weapons to help assuage their fears. Can’t blame them for that, I guess. I had to drill a couple of locks in various drawers until I found the keys to the gun racks, but once I did, I picked a half-dozen good weapons: a pair of hunting rifles with scopes, a pair of nice shotguns (one pump and one semiauto), a pair of handguns (one revolver and one semiauto), and I also picked up a compound bow with a sixty-pound draw. I loaded the weapons, and returned for a couple of Rubbermaid containers of ammo. Most of the ammo was gone, but I found some boxes in a back room and took them all. I got holsters and shoulder-straps, too. Anything that might make life easier. Maybe later, I’d even return for a gun rack.
I also took a pair of good generators and a hand-pumped gas siphon. The generators ran on gas, but I could siphon gas from cars all over Sun Prairie, and even from the tanks at the convenience stores, if I could figure out how to get them opened. I could have electric light if I really needed it, and maybe on occasion run power to a TV and watch a movie.
I returned to the library, unloaded all my gear, and started to figure out how to live in this new location. I didn’t have any wood stockpiled yet, so I ended up firing up one of the generators and connecting it to a hot plate to cook a few packs of Ramen with canned chicken. Rowdy ate a stack of dry food with a half-can of wet on top of it. After he wolfed down his dinner, I let him out to answer the call of nature. I used the facilities in the library, but had to pour water in the bowl to flush it. I knew I would have to find a different source of water for that. I couldn’t waste potable water on the toilet. Maybe I would have to dig a latrine outside. That wouldn’t be too horrible. I used camp latrines when I was a kid in the Cub Scouts, but what would I do come winter?
Winter.
Wisconsin was not exactly known for its friendly, hospitable winters. In the back of my head, winter was always going to be a rough time in this new world of mine, but I hadn’t really thought about specifics. At that time, mid-June, it was hot and humid. Winter was the furthest thing from my mind, but I would be damned if I was going to hoof it outside and squat in a snowdrift for six months of the year.
I don’t want to sound like George R.R. Martin, but winter was coming. I was going to have to think long and hard about how to survive winter. The firs
t step was going to be by hauling a ton of wood to the library. I might need a chainsaw and a splitting maul.
Survival: It’s not just guns, food, and water.
JOURNAL ENTRY FOUR
-Scavenger, Master of Wood-
The bed I’d procured from Costco was delightful. I’d never slept on memory foam before and after my first night on it, with new sheets and a lot of pillows (as well as my best elephant buddy, Tusker), I wondered why anyone would ever sleep on anything else. I’d never slept on a king-sized mattress either and that was equally glorious. I had all the space I needed. Even Rowdy liked it. He slept on half of the king-sized mattress, taking up as much room as his rangy Labrador body could get. Before we’d gone to sleep, I’d barricaded the door to the library, just in case, and had gotten a book on guns from the nonfiction section of the library to learn how to load the semiauto I’d taken from Cabela’s. It rested on the table next to me, safety engaged--just in case. I have no idea what I was scared of, other than the oppressive feeling of being utterly alone. I wasn’t worried about wild animals or zombies or anything stupid. It was like I needed the gun to let myself know that if I got into some sort of trouble, I would be able to handle it. The gun was a symbol, more than anything else. It was reassuring.
The morning came with the promise of clear skies and a warm sun. I ate Pop-Tarts and drank a bottle of water. After I ate, I brushed my teeth obsessively. I flossed. I used mouthwash. It felt strange. I was always pretty good about brushing my teeth before the Flu; I’d only had one cavity. Now it felt like brushing my teeth was a life or death thing. I used a pack of Wet Wipes that I’d taken from Walmart to give myself a sponge bath, and then I got dressed in a t-shirt, cargo shorts, and new socks and hiking boots and went about my day.
I knew quickly that the Escalade was not going to be the best vehicle for making as few trips as possible. I needed something bigger. Rowdy and I drove to a lot where I knew a few U-Haul trucks were kept. I took the biggest one on the lot. I had to drill the keybox, but that was no feat. I abandoned my dad’s SUV; the Escalade was nearly out of gas, anyhow. The U-Haul was fully fueled, so it would last me for a little while, at least. I made a mental note to get few gas cans and figure out a fuel supply. Gas evaporated, so I would have to use it while I could. I had, at best, maybe two years before all the gas either evaporated or went bad. In another few months, between gas, batteries, tire-rot, and generally sitting and not being used, I estimated that most vehicles would become blocks of useless, rusting metal.
I spent the day doing two things: looking for wood and water. That was about it. I broke into every Target, Walmart, Shopko, grocery store, convenience store, and hardware store in Sun Prairie, the east side of Madison, and Cottage Grove. In the stores, I looted water, non-perishable foodstuffs, and canned goods, although the pickings were meager. I had more than enough cans of kidney beans to last a lifetime, and pallets of Ramen. Beggars can’t be choosers, though. With each store, my stockpile grew. As I drove the truck, I stopped every time I drove past a house where someone had cords of wood stacked and ready for a fire. I loaded all the wood I saw into the back of the truck.
When I returned to the library, I loaded all the wood into the community center room. It was a big, open space usually used for large gatherings. It could hold tons of wood, plus I wouldn’t have to go out in the snow to get more of it during winter. Big win for me. It took a long time to unload all the cords of wood I gathered from homes that day, but when I finished, I was shocked to see how small the pile actually looked. It was literally thousands of pieces of wood, but it seemed to barely fill a corner of the community room.
Rowdy was seated next to me, staring with his dark Labrador eyes. “Gonna need a lot more wood,” I told him. He thumped his tail in response. My voice sounded foreign, strange. I hadn’t heard it in two days. I hadn’t really spoken to Rowdy. I never had a pet growing up. My mom was scared of dogs, and my dad was allergic to cats, so it was just never an option. I played with neighbors’ pets, but only to give them a pat or throw a ball for them. I felt silly talking to a dog. It didn’t understand me. It didn’t speak English, but then I realized that Rowdy was my only companion. He was all I had in the world. If I didn’t talk to him, I just didn’t have need to talk. I wondered if my voice would go away if I didn’t use it. I wondered if I could lose the ability to speak. There was a movie I saw once, I forget the name, but Kevin Bacon played a kid who was thrown into solitary confinement for a minor crime. He went insane and started repeating a baseball game he’d heard on the radio once to himself over and over. No contact with other people drove him insane. I didn’t need something else to worry about at this point. Staying healthy, not getting a dental abscess, finding food and water to sustain me for sixty years--that was plenty to worry about. I didn’t need to worry about losing my sanity or my voice, either. These are the little things that you don’t really think about when you think about surviving an apocalypse as the last man in the world.
I made it a point to speak aloud more often. “Let’s go outside, Rowdy,” I would say, mustering proper levels of enthusiasm to get a dog excited about the prospect. Or I would ask him if he was hungry. Or I tell him it was time for bed. When I started reading books, I read aloud. It helped me not feel so lonely, but Rowdy genuinely seemed to enjoy hearing me speak. He would thump his tail and wiggle his body next to mine, resting his wide head on my thigh.
I was surprised about the amount of doubt I started experiencing, too. I was being responsible. I was doing what I needed to do. I was forward-thinking and planning. I couldn’t fathom what else I could do to make sure I would be okay, that I would keep surviving, but I started second-guessing myself. I started thinking that maybe I should move my base of operations out to some sort of family farm. Maybe that would be the logical step, but without power tools, I wasn’t sure if I even could farm. I was a hardcore suburban boy. I could barely use a drill. I’d never even been around a cow or a horse. Being on a farm would be a disaster. I was a scavenger, I decided. A hunter-gatherer. I wasn’t agrarian. I didn’t think I could be, but I was resourceful and had weapons. That would have to do.
I went to bed after another Wet-wipe sponge bath and some canned tuna for dinner. I slept well. Rowdy had firmly established his part of the mattress, I had the other half.
The next morning, I became Master of Wood. I say it like that because I am never, ever going to mature as a human being and jokes about boners will always be funny to me.
I dressed in the clothes I’d worn the day before (save for new socks--take care of your feet!), and went out in the U-Haul with my dog. I geared up for the unknown. I was going out farther than just the stores in Sun Prairie and east Madison. I didn’t know what I would need. I strapped a gun belt to my waist and took the Browning semiauto (safety engaged--shooting myself in the leg would definitely hamper me). I got some food and water for lunch. Then, I tooled to the hardware store in town. I got cable-cutters, an axe, a hatchet, and a chainsaw. I loaded the saw with gas and oil and made sure I knew how to use start it before I left the store. I siphoned gas from a few cars that were on the streets of a nearby apartment complex. I filled two two-gallon containers and loaded them into the back of the U-Haul. I left town, driving south toward some farms. I had a friend who lived in a small housing development south of town, and when I used to cycle out to see him, I’d have to pass farms where I knew there would large wood piles or fallen trees. The first farm I came to, I saw a stack of wood alongside the garage. It wasn’t a standard farm, just a National-style farmhouse with a single outbuilding, an old shed converted to a garage. I pulled the truck close to it and tossed all the wood into the back. I wasn’t neat about it like I’d been the day before; I just chucked wood.
It felt strange, you know? It felt like I was stealing. It felt like at any second, a black-and-white squad car with flashing lights would pull up and some stern-faced officer of the law would get out and ask me what I was doing, or the owners of the ho
use were going to rush out and start screaming and waving a gun around. It put me on edge. It made me sweat more than normal. Even when I’d been doing it for almost an hour, I still felt like I was going to get busted. When I’d loaded the wood, I went to the house and broke open a glass sliding door. No dog rushed out. No cat seemed interested in what I was doing. And there was no smell of rot, just a dusty, flat smell, a smell of emptiness, vacancy.
I had refrained from going into homes so far because it felt intrusive, and I didn’t want to see the bodies. It felt sacrilegious actually, like I was robbing tombs. I know that’s sort of a silly thing to say. And maybe, in time, I would need to get over that feeling, but I was in no hurry to do so. This house was different, though. It felt empty. It smelled empty. It didn’t feel like it was someone’s final resting place.
With Rowdy at my heels, I stepped inside. Crossing the threshold still felt intrusive, though. The house smelled dry and close. The windows hadn’t been opened in some time. The air was dull, like the library was when I first opened it. Fat motes of dust hung in the light.
I wandered into the kitchen. I made the mistake of opening the refrigerator. Everything inside had definitely turned. The smell choked the air with putrescence. I closed it. I checked the cabinets and a pantry. There were a few things that I might have taken, but I didn’t since I knew I could come back if I really needed them.
I wandered through the lower level: a bathroom, a study, a living area with an old, well-worn couch, a dusty recliner, and a wood-burning stove for heat. I found the door to the basement. It was an old basement and smelled like mildew. There was nothing there but old junk and storage. I wandered upstairs, feeling like the steps were an insurmountable challenge. It was weird enough being in someone else’s home, someone who I did not know and would never know, but to ascend into their private world like I was, it made every step feel taller and harder to reach. Even Rowdy stayed at the base of the stairs watching me nervously, perhaps because of previous training, or perhaps he just didn’t like stairs. I went alone.