by Pete Thorsen
So now you walked, pedaled, or rode horse. Cal had tried all of those since the Event. He did not like walking but for him he liked it better than the other two options. He really did not like horses; he had got two of them a week back when two guys had jumped him when he was fixing breakfast one day. They were stupid too.
Instead of staying well back and shooting him without warning like a reasonable person would have done they walked right into camp and pointed their guns at him. Maybe they didn’t know some people could move, draw, and fire all that quickly but they found out. Cal’s excellent hand-eye coordination plus his natural athletic ability had saved him more than once. I guess it is better to be fast than smart sometimes Cal thought. But those guys had horses and a fair amount of gear. Cal thought he had hit the jackpot. But he learned different. Did you know horses bite? And that they bite hard? Horses can kick too. And they are dang good at it. Those were the last horses that Cal ever had. They do make good trading stock though.
Bicycles don’t bite or kick and on a good day you can ride a long ways on one but Cal just did not like riding one. Plus it was not very practical to try to carry much on one. They do make good trading stock though.
Chapter One
Calvin Johansson was a lean mean fighting machine. He was lean and wiry and at just over six foot he was tall, also he was mean or maybe that is too harsh. You could certainly say he was uncaring toward his fellow man though. He often said that you make your own circumstances or in other words what happens to you is your own fault. Not that a lot of stuff had not happened to him, because it had. He had been arrested three times for disorderly conduct or for fighting; that’s easier to say. But he blamed only himself, well and the other guy or other guys as was often the case.
Cal was very athletic and was a natural at most any sport. Not that he really played any sports. Because he didn’t see the point. He really did not care if he would have been good at football or basket ball or any sport. He did seem to enjoy fighting though. At the urging of a couple of his part-time friends he took Taekwondo classes and he was very good at it. Even though he was thrown out of two different dojos. They both told him he didn’t fit in but of course they were just being polite. They really thought he was a jerk and would likely hurt or kill one of the other students. At the third dojo the Master either saw something in him the others didn’t or maybe took pity on him but the end result was he allowed Cal to stay.
Cal couldn’t spar with any of the other students though but he could spar with the dojo’s Master. And they did spar fairly often. At first Cal could not last long against him but as he learned the sparring sessions lasted longer and longer until both men were puffing and covered in sweat. Then the Master called a halt to their sparring sessions. He said (and truthfully so) that if they continued one or the other would be seriously hurt and he freely admitted that it could be either one of them. But he did continue Cal’s training and they would still practice spar while Cal was learning a new move thoroughly.
Some of Cal’s part-time friends (the only kind Cal had) were also into the shooting sports so naturally Cal tried that out also. He found he liked the cowboy action shooting. He liked the speed and the moving to different targets and different guns. He did it for awhile but again even though he was good at it he really didn’t fit in. But that was OK with Cal as his attention span wasn’t all that long anyway. Or maybe he just had not found anything he really liked enough to stick with. The Taekwondo was the only exception. Even with that he never wanted to test and get a higher belt because he didn’t see the point. He would have been happy with a white belt the whole time.
If you could call Cal’s life somewhat exciting you could not call his job that. Cal was a fork lift driver at a large warehouse. He just drove the fork lift all day moving pallets of items from one spot to another. But it was a good job and the wages were high with steady hours and not a lot of interaction with other people which Cal liked.
Cal was at work when the Event happened. He was lucky that day because he happened to be driving a propane fork lift instead of a battery powered electric. His lift just stopped and smoked a little but the electric ones had the batteries explode killing or injuring the drivers (they sit right on top of the very large batteries). There were fires started everywhere and not just where Cal worked. Everywhere there was electric wiring it got very hot and many places where there was wire it started things on fire. In just a few minutes almost every electrified building in every civilized country in the world was on fire.
Every plane that was in the air crashed immediately. Every car, bus, truck, motorcycle, ship, or train stopped and many caught fire. The batteries in everyone’s cell phone burst at the same time all the little wires in there got really hot, not that they really caused any injuries but people sure dropped them fast. The people with pace makers all keeled over when the batteries burst and the wires got very hot. Outside many people watched the overhead electric wires just sag down gradually to the ground; in places that were dark you could see the wires turn bright red from the heat.
The devastation was incredible everywhere. If the electric would have just stopped that would have been only an inconvenience to most but the fires everywhere destroyed everything. Everything in the cities was burning and there was no way to fight the fires with no fire trucks running. In fact many of the fire trucks were themselves on fire as were the fire stations.
Soon it was about impossible to breathe anywhere near a city because of all the smoke. Even in the rural areas the houses were burning from the hot wires and many places when the hot long distance transmission wires sagged down to the ground they started wildfires.
Cal was doubly lucky as the warehouse where he worked was on the edge of the city as warehouses and industrial parks often are found. Cal could see the smoke in every direction and knew enough to head away from the city and out to the country. His truck was toast but he had his cowboy guns in there so he got the revolver with the holster and the rifle. They both shot the same ammo in his case they were 44-40 caliber of which he had a couple boxes in the truck. His lunch box in the truck was actually a small cooler and he put everything in there he found in the truck that he thought might come in handy. He stopped long enough to load the handgun and the rifle and put the sling on the rifle so it would be easier to carry. Grabbing his lunch box and his light jacket he left heading directly away from the city.
Even out on the edge of town it was very hard to breathe and when a breeze picked up blowing in his face he was very grateful. He realized the breeze was likely caused by the city on fire that was sucking the air from all around to feed the fires. It didn’t really matter to Cal, he just was thankful to have the breeze.
He never even stopped to think about the thousands of people that were dying in the city; he was just thinking on how to save himself not that he could have done anything for all of them anyway. He walked steadily for the next couple hours or about two hours he figured anyway. When the event happened his battery powered watch had become uncomfortably warm on his wrist and he had thrown it away.
When Cal came to a rise he climbed to the top and made a complete turn to look in every direction. Cal worked and lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming and from this rise he could plainly see that he no longer would be working there. The whole town must be on fire he thought from the huge amount of smoke that covered a very large area. As he had been walking he had heard distant explosions of who knows what blowing up in the fires.
He was on the south edge of the city and just decided to keep heading south but to make walking easier he was going to go to Interstate 25 that he could see to one side. He hoped he could catch a ride on the highway and maybe find out what was going on.
When he got to the Interstate highway he could see many cars and trucks stopped and some had smoke coming from them. People were standing around or walking on the road and no moving vehicles were in sight anywhere. Cal just continued to walk south as he knew there was nothing left to the north
where Cheyenne once stood.
Some people tried to talk to him but he didn’t hang around for any conversations. What was the point? He could tell from snatches of overheard conversations that no one knew what happened or what was going on. When he guessed that it was about noon he stopped and sat in the shade from a semi to have some lunch.
Again some people tried to talk to him, likely looking for a handout when they saw him eating and drinking. Those that had the nerve to approach an obviously armed man he told to beat it or he would beat them. They could see he meant it too. He only ate a light lunch as he suspected that food and drink might be a problem at least in the short term (that happened to be exactly backwards from the true situation). Done with his lunch he started walking again and he hated walking. Wearing steel toed work boots did not help the situation either.
Shortly after lunch two idiots actually confronted Cal as he walked past them.
“Hey why don’t you share what’s in the cooler? We are hungry and thirsty.”
“Why don’t you close your pie hole and stay away from me?”
“What are you going to do shoot us, tough guy?”
Cal was considering doing just that but thought he should conserve his ammo. So he said “No I don’t think I’ll shoot you but I will beat you unconscious and go through your pockets to see if you have anything I want.”
“We’ll see about that, tough guy.”
Then the idiots rushed Cal. The first got a very solid side kick to the mid section and was out of the fight, the second received a light jab to the throat that stopped him and made him start having trouble breathing. Both were now bent over and Cal kicked both on the sides of their heads and not very lightly either. He had never even set down his cooler.
Cal then calmly bent over and went through the pockets of the two idiots but only found some cash and a rather nice four inch folding knife in a sheath that one had on his belt. He took all the cash and the knife of course plus the lighter that one had.
He never checked to see if both of them were still alive because he didn’t really care. There were the ones that attacked him after all. And it was becoming very obvious that law enforcement was at least temporarily anyway a thing of the past. When done he continued walking south on the wide highway. A couple people (there were people everywhere on the highway because it received a lot of traffic) had seen the exchange between him and the other two and they gave Cal a wide berth as he walked by.
When Cal saw that the sun getting closer to the horizon he again stopped and ate the rest of his food in the cooler. He finished the drinks he had with also. Now when he started walking again he checked each vehicle to see if it was locked and even if locked he looked in the windows.
The unlocked cars he went through thoroughly. He found some water bottles and a couple cans of soda which he put in the now empty cooler he carried. He found snacks and candies which were also put in the cooler also a couple different small tools when found that he decided to keep. One car had a blanket which he took and folded so it would stay on his shoulder like in the old bandit pictures.
When it was close to dark he stopped at an unlocked car and seeing that it had reclining front seats he slid the passenger seat all the way back and laid it as flat as it would go. It still was too short for his frame but it was indoors so he thought beggars couldn’t be choosers so after locking all the doors he covered up with the blanket and promptly went to sleep.
It was not all that pleasant in any of the cars because the wiring had all got very hot and inside each car it smelled like burnt plastic. Better than sleeping on the pavement though.
Waking at what he first thought was morning because it was so bright out but looking at the sky it was full of different colors, many of which were quite vivid. It reminded him a little of pictures he had seen of the 'Aurora Borealis' or the northern lights but he didn’t think they got this bright or had so many vivid colors. It was almost as bright as day outside. That was certainly a strange sight to behold. Whatever it was he was still able to go back to sleep until the real morning came.
Chapter Two
Cal woke stiff from the poor sleeping position but he had rested well enough. He thought he should come close to Fort Collins by tonight but it depended on how the day went. He had decided that he might get a little more aggressive in his searching today if things looked to be the same as yesterday.
He had seen no running vehicles yesterday and that included no planes at all. The no planes was troubling as this was obviously a disaster and you would think the government and news stations would be constantly flying over to show the devastation and give reports.
He was about halfway between two fair sized towns so there should be all kinds of emergency vehicles and helicopters. He was beginning to think this was wide spread and it would have to be very wide spread to stop all the jet planes from flying over. Troubling indeed. But first things first. He had some snacks for breakfast along with a can of sugary cola for the sugar boost and caffeine to get him going.
By noon Cal was sure that this deal whatever it was had to be nationwide. He had kept an eye out and there had been no planes or any high flying jets or any emergency vehicles on or over this major interstate highway.
The people he saw were now all walking one direction or the other instead of just standing around waiting to be ‘rescued’. By what he thought was about noon he had heard that Fort Collins was all burning. He had been guessing this was the case but now he had conformation from some of the people walking north on the highway that had seen that next city burning. Cal didn’t change his direction but continued south toward what he now knew was more devastation.
Off to the right he could now see a couple houses here and there and they had burnt also. Now he was stopping at and checking every vehicle he passed. This included any and all trucks that weren’t locked. He had thrown away his cooler when he had found a backpack in one pickup. It wasn’t real handy with the backpack on and trying to have the rifle slung on his shoulder but both he thought might be vital items to keep.
Many people it seemed had kept water or soft drinks in their vehicles that they had left there for whatever reason when they abandoned those vehicles. He had also found plenty of snack things but no real food. When he came to a semi truck from a grocery store he was determined to get into the locked back of the trailer.
Luckily he had planned for this and had been keeping watch at the fence line along the highway and at an intersection a couple miles back had seen an extra steel fence post just leaning against the fence. He had walked down and grabbed it and had carried it ever since like a walking stick. Now he used the six and half foot long post to easily twist off the lock on the semi trailer doors granting him access to what was inside.
When he opened the door he was greeted to about a half full trailer of stuff. He started going through pallets and grabbing things he thought would be easy to carry and could be eaten without cooking. There was plenty and he wished he had some way to carry more but he completely filled the backpack. Then he ate as much as was practical on the spot and then closed the back doors of the trailer before he left.
Cal had thought of a plan. He kept walking south but watched to the sides looking for any houses or buildings. A few miles farther he saw houses in the distance and left the highway to investigate. Getting closer he could see the houses were in various stages of being burnt with several still smoking. But he went up to each and every house. Some had people around and he avoided those. He was not afraid of any people but he just wanted to have no interaction with anyone.
He mainly looked in still standing garages and any and all out buildings especially those little steel ones commonly sold in hardware stores and such. In one he found a little two wheeled garden cart and tried pushing it a little ways but decided it would be worse than the back pack. He kept looking and found several items that he thought may come in handy but were just not practical to carry with him.
Then he found a gre
en four wheeled garden cart with pneumatic tires and a steel body. It pulled easy and had sides on it. In the place just before this he had seen a tire pump and he went back and got it and then pumped up all four tires until they were hard. It didn’t take long pulling the wagon that Cal noticed that the handle was too short. He often hit his feet on the wagon when pulling it. For now it would work but he would have to make some changes before he would be happy with it.
He turned on a street or road that paralleled the highway and continued to visit any standing buildings that had no people around them. In one he found some tools and threw a couple into the wagon that also now contained his backpack. Lying outside at a place that was under construction he found some metal conduit that was about the same size as the handle of his wagon. He took a piece over to a now dead skid steer loader sitting there and by sticking the conduit in a couple different spots to hold it solid he was able to bend it around on one end to make a serviceable handle.
Then using the hacksaw he had in the cart he cut the conduit to the length he thought would work well. He then found a small piece of wood that he whittled down some until he could shove it in the end of the pipe. Taking the hammer and punch he had in the wagon he used the punch to make a hole on each side of the pipe across from each other. The wood kept the pipe from just bending flat when he pounded the holes. Then he removed the original handle from the wagon and attached his homemade one that was considerably longer. Leaving that area pulling his wagon he found the new longer handle to be a big improvement over the original. Just ahead he saw a spot that he could get back on the highway to continue his journey south.