Unprepared Page 6

  “Yeah,” Kelly responded. She could work with that.

  “There was a lunar eclipse last night and it caused… a fluctuation in… the batteries... mimetic poly-alloy,” David said, almost triumphantly.

  The salesman paused, looking at David, before turning to Kelly, while Kelly shot a glance at David, a pained expression on her face. David responded with a quick raise of his eyebrows and a shoulder shrug.

  “It’s temporary, though,” Kelly said. “Trust me, I’m a scientist in... battery technology. At the University of… Phoenix.”

  Now it was David’s turn to shoot a surprised look at Kelly, with a expression that could only be translated as, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “Give it a couple of hours for the moon to pass behind us and all the battery alloys will settle down. I heard scientists on TV this morning talking about it. It’s just temporary,” David said.

  Kelly nodded. The dealer looked back and forward between the two, the two key fobs in his hands.

  “Couple of hours, huh? Well... If you say so,” the salesman said, not entirely convinced. “So... you guys wanna wait for the moon to go away and test drive these cars?”

  “We'd love to, but we’re on a tight schedule, unfortunately,” Kelly continued. “You’ve been very helpful, but it’s my grandmother’s birthday and we're heading to her place. We’ll be back this afternoon though, if that’s OK?”

  The salesman, still wearing a frown of mild confusion and distrust, gave a weak nod. Kelly put on a fake soothing smile and turned to David, taking his hand. The silence of the air was broken by the sound of horse hooves on tarmac, as they began walking out of the car lot.

  “A battery scientist?” scoffed David, smiling. “The University of Phoenix?”

  “Hey. It worked. I just gave him the AT&T approach: drown them in bullshit and hope they won’t smell it.”

  It was just after eight in the morning as the two made it back to the roadside in time to meet with the county sheriff who was on horseback. He had a police radio on his chest, non functioning of course, and a rifle over his back. It was a sight to behold. A combination of modern man and western gunslinger. His horse walked in the middle of the road, meeting with David and Kelly on the edge of town, all three heading in the same direction. For a brief moment, they formed a trio.

  “Morning,” said the sheriff. “Where are you two heading?”

  “Lynchburg,” Kelly replied.

  “I’m heading there too,” said the sheriff. “Our radios and phones are down and I have to get answers.”

  “Was it true a plane crashed yesterday?” David asked.

  “Yep. It’s a hell of a mess. A Delta Airlines plane. Looks like a 757. A couple of witnesses said it just fell out of the sky and flew into a hill on the other side of town with no survivors. I can’t get hold of the FAA or anyone in Washington and things are falling apart here in town. There’s only me and a couple of deputies and someone was already shot dead for looting this morning. I’ve gotta get some answers. I’ve got to figure out what caused the crash and what's causing the power cut.”

  Kelly and David nodded. They had answers to those questions, but they wouldn’t put the sheriff at ease, so they kept their mouths shut.

  “You guys be careful. A few people wandered into town last night, saying their cars broke down. I expect a great many more spent the night in their cars outside town on the roadside. I can’t be everywhere, and it looks like thieves and criminals are starting to realize it.”

  “Alright. Thank you, sheriff. We’ll be careful,” David replied.

  The horse naturally walked faster than David and Kelly could on foot, and it was only a matter of minutes before the sheriff had got a couple of hundred yards ahead of them.

  “Hang on a sec, Dave. Let me get out the map.”

  David stopped and Kelly unzipped the backpack strapped to his back. She reached in and pulled out the map, the morning sun illuminating it brightly. She also fished around in the backpack, feeling for the little compass which had slipped to the bottom of the bag. Reaching around inside the bag was causing David’s torso to shift about. She grabbed it and pulled it out, flipping its little stainless steel lid open, taking her a moment to figure out which way was north, then east. Kelly looked at the road ahead, empty except for a late model car parked awkwardly a hundred yards in front of them. She looked at the map. Then the road again. Then the compass. Then back to the map.

  “OK. So, we’re here,” she said, pointing to Bedford on the map of Virginia. “We wasted half an hour with the car salesman, but I reckon we should still get home before nightfall, as long as we don’t have any problems.”

  She studied the map closely. It’s a shame it was a map of the entire state, rather than a localized map of their area. With local roads and streams being so minute and often omitted, they were going to have to use it more as a general guide than a trusted pathfinder. Kelly lifted the map and placed her finger on a location just northeast of Bedford.

  “If we get off the road somewhere around here, we’ll be able to go inland, through the trees. We can continue for perhaps a mile, but then we’re going to get to a creek. I can’t see how wide it is on this map, so we might get our feet wet. I’m not sure. All I know is that we’re best to get off the road.”

  “Well, we've gotta start somewhere so let’s get moving,” David replied.

  It was going to be a long day.

  The sound of birdsong is normally an ignored symphony. You hear it so often you drown it out, not unlike the sound of your windshield wipers in the rain, or “Hotel California”. It’s everywhere and so common that it becomes forgotten background noise. But on this morning it was louder than normal; emphasized by the lack of human-made sounds, from tire noise to tractors to aircraft. The sounds of nature were loud enough that David lowered his mental defenses and allowed this background sound to the fore.

  “I never really noticed how loud the birds were,” he said, stating the obvious.

  The birds chirped, only being interrupted by their sneakers trudging on the forest floor.

  “Well, there is a season, turn, turn, turn,” Kelly responded.

  David let out an exasperated sigh.

  “Music jokes, now of all times? You know exactly what I mean.”

  “I’m just lightening the mood, but you're right. It really is beautiful out here. Though I’d be lying if I said my thoughts weren’t about what waits for us back home.”

  “Yeah, I know. I reckon the center of town is probably already under military control to stop looting. Our place should be fine though. We’re a good distance from the city center.”

  The sound of water babbling gradually became audible over their footsteps and the sounds of birdsong.

  “Can you hear the water?” David asked.

  “Yeah. It sounds like it’s fairly close. Speaking of water, this morning, in the motel room, I could only fill up the water bottle halfway. The taps had no pressure and it started blowing out brownish water.”

  “That's interesting,” David replied. “Bedford’s town supply must rely on pumps. I guess you never think about water until it stops.”

  The two walked in single file with Kelly in front, being the navigator with the map and compass. She was the first to see a flickering of light bouncing off the ripples on a stream.

  “There’s the stream.”

  They got closer. With each step it became apparent that it was more like a small river than a stream. Kelly raised the map as she approached the water’s edge. It was a good fifteen to twenty feet across.

  “Little Otter River,” she commented, looking closely at the map. “It’s just a thin blue line on the map so I was kinda hoping we could just hop over it.”

  “Well, the word ‘river’ written on the map could have been a clue as to its size,” David responded.

  The two of them stood at the river’s edge in the gradually warming morning air, looking at the body of water in front of them. />
  “If we wade through it we’ll be walking the next 18 miles in wet clothes and soaked shoes,” David said, stating the obvious.

  “Well, let’s see those paper-white legs of yours. We’ll strip from the waste down and carry our clothes over.”

  “Oh,” David said. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

  Kelly began taking off her left shoe and sock, standing on her right foot. David undid his jeans. It took a minute before they were both standing naked from the waist down, clutching their underwear, pants and footwear.

  “Ladies first,” David said with a smile, nodding towards the water.

  “Oh, so now you’re a gentleman?”

  Kelly waded into the water first.

  “Shit, it’s not exactly tropical!”

  David followed her in.

  “Fuck me. It’s fucking freezing!”

  They waded forwards, carefully. Slipping or tripping on a submerged stone could result in wet clothes and shoes, a sprained ankle or perhaps worse. Both felt the ground with their feet, slowly and methodically. The cold water swirled around their waists and their breathing increased. The discomfort was temporary though, as they soon exited the other side, standing on the mud of the other bank, dripping wet. Kelly placed her things on the ground first, grabbing her underwear and wiping water off her legs with her spare hand. She glanced over at David’s penis.

  “Looks like it was colder for you than it was for me,” she joked.

  David looked down, wondering what the hell she was on about.

  “Oh, ha-ha,” he said, sarcastically. “You know, if you wanna perform CPR on it, I think we can save it.”

  “Tonight,” she promised, sliding her underwear up her legs.

  With their pants now on, they sat on the leafy dirt, a few feet away from the river and folded their legs slightly, drying their wet feet as best as possible on their pant legs, before slipping their socks back on and doing up their shoe laces. Kelly stood up, map and compass in hand.

  “I reckon it’s been half and hour since we left the road. It looks like there’s a trail less than a mile from here. It doesn’t look like a main road, so there shouldn't be any traffic. There are a couple of houses there, though.”

  David nodded.

  “Alright, babe. Let’s go.”

  ◆

  In a way, being a prepper is a bit like having car insurance. It’s a necessity, and it offers a feeling of security, but you hope you never have to use it. Of course, there are those in the prepping community who yearn for the day when some kind of apocalypse transpires, but the reality is that most preppers are living in a fantasy world. They’re like commenters under YouTube videos: nothing but talk and ego. When the shit does actually hit the fan, their $40 Amazon.com prepping kits, including some string, a Chinese pocket knife and a box of matches, turn out to be about as useless as a chocolate teapot.

  Hobby preppers tend to romanticize a major disaster, imagining themselves venturing into the forest and catching wild animals in peace, but in reality, two or three days after their beer has run out, they would turn tail and head home, only to be shot by some looter in their own living room.

  To be truly prepared for a real doomsday scenario, you need to plan professionally, and most importantly, not to tell anyone. Take away a man’s food, and friends soon become enemies. In order to survive, you need to hide, and if seen, paint yourself as being just as helpless as the general populace.

  Besides, if you tell anyone you’re a prepper before any disaster happens, you'll open yourself up to ridicule. Your colleagues will label you as a nut-job or a conspiracy theorist and jokes will be had in the lunchroom at your expense. Until, of course, the shit hits the fan (or SHTF, as preppers write), and those colleagues find themselves knocking on your door for help, or worse.

  It’s better to save yourself the hassle, both before and after a disaster, by keeping your dry-stored food cupboards stocked full and your mouth firmly shut.

  ◆

  It was about 10 AM by the time they’d exited the forested area and reached a trail. It was a gravel road, which meant walking on it made a fair amount of noise. There was no sign of human activity, which suited them fine. Besides, anyone isolated out here, a couple of miles from town, with no cell phone or TV, probably thought it was a minor event and wasn’t yet a threat to their safety. It’s only when large groups of people get together does rumor and tension spread.

  As they walked around a gentle bend in the gravel road, a house appeared on the left hand side with a confederate flag hanging on the front. Kelly took this not as a sign of the homeowner’s sense of pride, but rather as a warning sign to stay away. They moved off the gravel part of the road and walked on the grass alongside, adding a few more feet of distance between them and the house. They were soon spotted, however. The screen door on the front of the house opened, and a woman with dark hair and a shotgun walked onto the porch.

  “What’re you doing here?!” she shouted.

  Their heart rates increased. They kept walking, eyes front.

  “Y’all deaf?” the woman shouted. “I said what’re you doing here?! This is private property!”

  Kelly slowed her walk and turned to the woman, shouting back, “We’re sorry. We were just enjoying your beautiful nature. We’re leaving your property. We’re sorry for bothering you.”

  The woman didn’t respond, standing on her porch with her rifle in her hands, aimed downward. They picked up their walking pace. Kelly was in front, and their Glock was in the backpack, behind them both. It would risk escalating the situation if she were to fall behind and visibly reach into the backpack. They said nothing, now almost race walking.

  After what felt like five minutes, but was probably only ten seconds, the woman with the shotgun shouted at them once again.

  “Get outta here, you hear me?!”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Kelly shouted back, her heart pounding.

  They walked quickly onwards, becoming more confident with every yard traveled that they were getting out of range of the shotgun’s buckshot. It was a good five minutes before either of them spoke, with David breaking the ice.

  “This place is fucking nuts! We were just fucking walking.”

  “I know. But this is why we need to stay off the road. It’s only going to get worse as people get crazier.”

  “I think that bitch was crazy well before the EMP attack,” David said, angrily.

  Kelly reached into her pocket and pulled out the compass, stopping for a moment. Her hands had now stopped shaking.

  “We’re heading north. We need to be heading east.”

  She looked eastward.

  Let’s cut straight through these trees. Besides, I don’t want to deal with any more crazies like Florence Methingale back there.”

  David exhaled, nodding.

  “Fucking fine by me.”

  “But according to the map, we have to cross a main road in a few minutes. There might be houses there too.”

  David gave a single nod, both of them still uneasy from their interaction with the mentally unstable woman. They pressed on through the trees and into a clearing.

  Kelly led them both along the treeline until they reached the highway, which had a few houses and a small business down the road to their left. They stopped, scanning the area with every sense evolution had bestowed upon them. David raised his hand up.

  “Listen.”

  The two listened intently.

  “I hear it,” Kelly replied. “It sounds like a lawn mower.”

  Kelly perked up.

  “So maybe… Maybe this was the perimeter of the EMP attack? Maybe some things from here on are working fine? Lynchburg might have escaped unscathed.”

  David shook his head. Kelly was the navigator and the brains in their relationship, but David was the gadgeteer.

  “Nah babe, it’ll be a really basic engine. Sounds like a two-stroke.”

  “So some engines can still run? How? How’s that engine creating a s
park?”

  “It must be an older mower which generates its spark by a magnetized disk on top. It’s just spinning magnets. No microchips.”

  Kelly looked disheartened.

  “Babe, don’t worry,” David responded. “This could be good news. It means that the gas we have at home could be useful for someone out there as bargaining currency.”

  Kelly turned to David, a look that warned him sarcasm was coming.

  “Oh yes. Perfect for someone who wants to cut their grass as the world burns.”

  She was joking, but she knew David was right. Everything useful or desirable has value in a crisis. Gasoline, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol - it all has its price when there’s none available. This meant that their little stash of all the aforementioned items, safely hidden back at home, could help them bargain their way out of a future problem, if need be.

  Once they were sure the coast was clear, they walked across the road and behind a line of trees on the opposite side. If people were still blissfully cutting their grass, 20 hours after the beginning of the end of the world as they knew it, then perhaps they didn’t have to worry too much about muggers shooting them for whatever tiny things they had in their backpack. Not yet, at least.

  Kelly studied the map and suggested a course adjustment.

  “So, we can’t take the roads, and walking through these fields is really slow-going, especially when we come to the next river. So I reckon we should head southeast for a couple of miles. There we should meet with the train tracks, just as they cross over the next river. Then we can just walk the tracks until we get to the outskirts of Lynchburg.”

  “Aye-aye, captain,” David responded.

  Podcasts and music were always great ways for David and Kelly to pass the time when bored, but those things were luxuries of the past. All they had now, as they walked from forest to clearing to forest to clearing, were pop culture references, which they quickly turned into a game. David repeated a line from a movie or TV show and it was Kelly’s job to name the title.

  “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

  “Easy. Apocalypse Now.”