| progress? |
[14 Apr 2005|01:24am] |
I went too far exploring and looking for food and wound up without gas in a small settlement of about 7. They were all ecstatic to find another survivor and gave me space in the shelter they shared. It was in the basement of an old high school gymnasium. They were still living on a mountain like stock of MRE rations that had been piled up for at least 200 to live a month in the shelter.
When I explained that they could live off food in the local markets they agreed to let me have all the rations I could carry back and would negotiate for more if I returned. I spent the rest of my time helping them bring food from local supermarkets to their shelter and eventually found a perfect old 56 Chevy Nomad, having left the bug a day's walk behind me.
It took a few days work to get the station wagon running, and I had to siphon even more fuel halfway back because of a bad hose I couldn't replace until I got back home. Even now that it's fixed it gets atrocious gas mileage and should only be used for extreme situations.
I hope to get some contact at least from survivors in the Cheyenne Mountain Military shelter, or maybe Civil Defense people. I would expect even military personnel from active Missile silos, maybe in Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado. The lack of contact has made me extremely worried about the state of affairs the nation is in. While I did not look for them, I am made even more nervous that I didn't see any missiles leaving. While it would be good to know that there are more survivors in the rest of the world, but it also means that we were surprised, and on a massive level.
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| Marci: water wheels and automatic weapons |
[01 Apr 2005|11:04pm] |
I was working on my handguns to try and move the thumb switch from the left side of my left hand gun to the right so I could use it and I think I figured out how to take out the part that restrains the firing pin after the empty shell is ejected. I have to read the manual again but I'm pretty sure I can get guns to fire in automatic. They'd be more likely to jam but I don't think I'd have the same problems with my aim, at least in my off hand.
Ashurn did not return last night. He went out to scavenge for food like usual but didn't come home. He'll be disappointed when he gets back. Abel brought in a pair of pigs and we ate in town like kings. Ashurn's food keeps us alive, but Abel's food keeps that survival worth while.
I've suggested a plan to build some water wheels powered by the stream down the hill about ½ mile from where we built up the farm in town. I also think we can build a sort of springhouse for basic refrigeration. The men in town didn't like the fact that these things would have to be so far from the thing in town they were now protecting with their guns, but the importance of refrigeration and water power can not be overestimated.
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| Local strength |
[29 Mar 2005|12:49am] |
I've been bringing food back for a while, but haven't found better transportation than the VW yet. I had to change the fuel line because I leaked an entire tank of gas. Marci explained that two people died taking food. They died trying to survive and I don't see who we are to judge them for that.
Marci made some contraption to try and churn butter with wind power but it was a total failure. She got pissed and smashed it to bits but I was impressed by the effort and creativity. It meant a lot to her to try and do something productive while still injured; she seems to have a fear of becoming dead weight. I'm very impressed by her tenacity.
The people in town are now armed with pre-war guns and also improvised weapons ranging from kitchen knives to metal pipes. I figure that as time passes and the ammunition supply starts to wear thin, we may start to see much stranger weapons. I remember building cannon that shot a two inch steel ball bearing out of a length of pipe when I was a kid and figure we may be headed in that direction now. The reality of the need for weapons clearly became all too clear with Marci's injury, and now downtown looks like a spagetti western.
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| Marci: Politics |
[24 Mar 2005|03:38am] |
Ashurn went out looking for food to keep the people in town peaceful. They seemed to have calmed down for a little bit once they had moved out of the shelters and began squatting in the various buildings in town. Unfortunately cabin fever was not the only problem they had.
A couple was killed today in the street because they had been caught last night stealing from the cache of food Ashurn had brought back the day before. The food was supposed to be free but apparently they took almost all of it back to hide for themselves. I could understand better if they were shot to keep them out or shot by guards watching the food. Killing them today after we had all night to think about it seems a bit Stalinistic to me. A bit like the behavior of rats.
This seems to be sinking in gradually in the community. People are beginning to seem to begrudgingly realize they were a little out of line, unless they are one of the extremists. About a quarter of the community in town seems hell-bent on turning life into some kind of dog eat dog hardship, but most people seem to want to try and keep things present. The divide is growing gradually deeper and I worry for the future.
On a lighter note people seemed excited to see me again after I was the only person injured in defending the food. I've lightened up on the painkillers and only use one crutch now, but I'm getting sick of the limited mobility, especially in a place like this. I hope Ashurn finds that station wagon he was hoping to find so he can haul more food off from his finds.
Since it's so breezy here I've started building a wind powered machine to churn Ashurn's butter out of Abel's milk. Basically it's a large aluminum propeller blade driven by the wind operating a piston made out of a broom handle, moving a potato masher up and down in a bucket of milk all night. The only part I haven't worked out is how to lubricate the turbine so it's easier for the wind to turn; I think I'll make a graphite powder out of crushed pencil lead.
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| Venturing forth into Nod. |
[18 Mar 2005|01:52am] |
I went east to try and find more supplies for my settlement. I took my usual armament of the .50 handgun but also took the sword that Marci had stolen for me. She had proven it could be useful.
I drove the on the wrong side of the freeway. The Eastbound lanes were a parking lot but nobody was going west, so it was clear for at least a dozen miles. I had gone down wind from the Waste City, most of the small towns didn’t have shelters like where I lived, so I was likely to find ghost towns from the worst of the fallout.
About ten miles out I pulled off to scavenge and spent about 15 minutes walking the streets in silence. It was so sun-baked and barren. I loaded the car with supplies from a gas station convenience store but was unable to find any sort of weapons cache or store. When I had consumed almost half my fuel I had to turn back. How long can we live on cheese curls and chef Boyardee.
I found some bodies. They looked like they died from radiation sickness waiting for some kind of military help that never came. I opened up their wallets and took their drivers licenses if they had them. I can’t explain why, it just seemed like they deserved to be remembered by somebody still alive. I don’t know if I should combine them in a sort of memorial, or give them a symbolic burial (the driver’s licenses, not the bodies).
Scavenging food has gotten better, the rotten meat has turned to mud and the dairy is sealed. I did find bucket with a lid that was clean and think that if I use a broom handle with a potato masher on the end I can churn milk from Abel’s farm into butter. With stored grain from other farms and his, we’ve succeeded in making bread in a Dutch oven style, but it just lacks the subsistence we need in these quantities, and I think butter will help. If not, ill be able to waste some perfectly good milk.
I’m beginning to question if I should have given Marci the crutches. She’s up and about, sooner than I think she should be. I admire her spirit, but worry about what it will do to her recovery.
It’s hot out and I want a Slurpee.
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| power vacuum |
[15 Mar 2005|03:11am] |
I was up feeding the chickens and about thirty or forty men and women from the village came walking and biking up the street. They looked worked up.
It turned out that other representatives of the people hoarding the food had come into town at night and burned the supermarket. They demanded to know what should be done. When I asked why they came to me they seemed upset. They demanded to know who else they should come to.
They apparently figured I was some sort of leader because I had shown them how to forage and grow food, I was the healthiest, and I had shot one of the invaders.
I was able to calm them by telling them I would start making trips to a farther supermarket in the car and bring back enough food to last until the farm came up productive. I also offered to help arm them and help them guard their food. They mostly approved, but one insisted that I move out of my shelter and let the old missile silo serve as a lockable food source.
I had to explain that it was too far from town to store food and that there wouldn't be enough gas to move the food back and forth for much longer. They weren't satisfied until I offered to give 8 of the next 12 chicks my hens raised.
If I had been their unknowing leader, it was clear that I was now only going to be an advisor, and I wish I had known so I could have avoided letting them down in such a profound way. They finally dispersed arguing amungst themselves. This could get ugly. Very ugly...
I have to decide if I want to distribute the guns that I had stolen from the gunsmith/hunting store. I don't want the community to be as unstable it is and be armed with guns, but I also don't want to be victim to these food-hoarding marauders. They may have guns of their own but also may not.
I figure I should if only because Marci and I have guns, and that means that we have no right to tell anybody else they can't have the same as us. But I don't want to deal with the consequences if somebody I give one to can't be trusted. I can't dwell on this much longer today.
Marci has stopped bleeding so badly, but is still badly injured. She has been changing her dressings every day and I've picked up a few supplies for her, more gauze, bandage, and tape, as well as crutches and antibiotics.
She only uses one crutch and has little time for pain, it seems. She clearly doesn't seem to be about to let the wound hold her back, even though it will clearly leave her with a pretty unique limp. The cut was deep and clearly caused muscle damage.
I'm going to radio Abel and tell him about what's gone on and see if he can help in town or here.
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| Marci: He said the sword was silly |
[12 Mar 2005|04:07pm] |
So I had the unpleasant experience of waking up wrapped in blood-soaked sheets. I had a few minutes panic before I could remember why. Ashurn had been considerate enough to leave a few gallon jugs of fresh water next to me, as well as the bottle of painkillers and the camper's toilet.
I downed some painkillers and reflected on the fight. It was a handful of outsiders trying to destroy the food supplies in surviving towns. They had some way to produce food they could sell, not enough to feed everybody, just enough to make the cost of food oppressively high. There was no way that the people here going to give up the food that Ashurn had shown them how to grow and salvage.
The invaders lit torches and started to push towards the market, but a kid getting water from the well started shouting and yelling for us to come.
We lined up and two guys with knives singled me out so I thumbed out my sword and hit one with a doh. A kendo strike to the abdomen. Then there were gunshots, so I abandoned the sword and went for my handguns. Ashurn had shot somebody sneaking up behind me and I pointed one gun at him and one at the remaining guy with a knife. The guy on the ground still had his gun and I had to shoot him again or he'd shoot me, and that was when I got cut in the leg.
Ashurn drove me back to the shelter and tried to carry me down and I told him to go fuck himself. When I got down I dressed the wound, took some painkillers and fell asleep. I've been bleeding a lot. I'm getting worried about whether the bleeding will really stop, and then infection. I'm going to ask Ashurn to knock over a pharmacy for some antibiotics.
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| He Looked Like Me |
[09 Mar 2005|09:58pm] |
I have killed. I did what I condemned so many others for doing. I shot another human being.
The troublemakers came back with a few others. They were going to where the food had just been planted. They were looking for people who had food.
They wanted to be the source on food, they knew that supplying food meant power, but it would mean that we wouldn't be able to barter for enough. Food was our greatest commodity, what else could we spend?
I was in one of the rooms on the abandoned hotel delivering the MREs to the pregnant woman, she's about 6 months along and had been moved there for comfort, the shelter they had was particularly unpleasant. I heard shouting and saw outsiders.
They were lighting torches and were going to burn the old supermarket. A handful of the locals were getting between them and the food and there was shouting and stone throwing.
I bolted downstairs. I watched through one of the broken first floor windows, and I took the safety off. I saw Marci among the villagers; I didn't even know she was in town. She flicked her sword out of the scabbard like I'd seen samurai in movies do.
Of course, being the best armed meant that two of the outsiders teamed up and started approaching, they both had knives and they looked mad. Like I would, they clearly assumed that she didn't know how to use a sword in the modern day and that it must be a show piece, but I knew from personal experience the swords were sharp enough to cut wood. I never carried mine but maybe I should. They both went to cut her at once, so she ran past, with them on her right, putting her target between herself and the second attacker, and gave a slice.
I've never seen a human being open up like that, it was vile and messy and blood had already pooled at his feet when he hit the ground. She had run maybe ten feet past her target when she turned, using two fingers to clean the blade. One of the villagers started swearing and everybody stopped what they were doing to stare.
One of the outsiders was watching from behind another building and started sneaking up behind Marci and the locals, bringing a handgun out of his coat silently. Marci was breathing heavily and looking stunned by what she had done, apparently by reflex (I wonder now if she could do it again if she wanted to).
I didn't have the where-with-all to shout and warn the villagers, particularly Marci because she was the only person I knew carried guns. I did what I could, I took aim, got scared, grit my teeth, and I fired. I was expecting him to be sent up into the air, considering the caliber of my weapon, but his far leg just kicked out from under him and he dropped, firing an un-aimed round. He seemed distracted enough by the injury to his thigh that he forgot to draw back the hammer on his revolver to fire again.
Like a hibachi chef, Marci had her sword away and a gun in each hand, one pointed at the downed man with the gun and one, to my horror at me. She looked at me with the look of somebody ready to kill and it took her a moment to realize that I was not a threat to her. A moment that took forever to me, and she turned, pointing her spare weapon at the man with a knife that she had not opened up a few moments earlier. A third man took off running, realizing that he didn't have a gun pointed at him and a local hit him in the face with a rock he needed two hands to lift over his head.
When the man I had shot figured out he needed to pull back the hammer, and reached to do so, Marci opened fire. She was shooting with her off hand and only hit him in the shoulder after emptying the entire magazine and finally shooting him in the shoulder with the other gun. When she turned to shoot at him, the man with the knife realized his opportunity and dove forward, knifing her in the leg before the villagers took to beating him to death.
There was only one left but he took off running when I came out of hiding pointing my gun at him and screaming blind rage. I chased after him a few blocks in order to scare him out of town and fired a few rounds into the air.
When I walked back I found that Marci had managed to get to the well to wash her injury and was bandaging it herself with the torn pant leg. I told one of the locals to drive behind me on the scooter and threw him the keys since I didn't want to leave it in town without Marci driving it home. He struggled to keep up as I drove back to the shelter. I was going to carry Marci down the steps but she graciously declined and hobbled down on her own, I got her the medical kit, wishing I had the stuff for stitches, and she taped on gauze pads tied the pants leg on over top of it to keep pressure on the wound.
She took two tabs of Oxycodone and a shot of Scotch and went to "sleep it off."
Our guest was hungry so I gave him an MRE and we had a very minimal conversation and he introduced himself as David Hurst and he was full of questions about the shelter and the chickens and Marci most of all but I didn't feel like talking, or eating. He's down sleeping now, I don't feel like doing that either. I have a lot I need to think about.
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| Marci: Sojourn to the Waste City |
[08 Mar 2005|07:28pm] |
Some part of me wanted to go out towards where the nearest bomb went off. The part of me that rubbernecks after car accidents. I took the car and headed towards the old city. The Waste City.
The skyline was gone. I could see from the highway that the buildings had just been obliterated. As I got to the outskirts of the city I started seeing that the walls toward ground zero had all been bleached, by the flash from the bomb I suppose.
Getting closer I could see fire damaged buildings. It looked like just about anything soft and exposed to the flash caught fire. I saw burned out skeletons of buildings that used to be homes and stores and city things.
There were bodies. The smell was incredible, death stinks like rancid pork chops. As I got closer to the city, keeping my eye on the Geiger counter, I had to get out of the car, the rubble was too dense.
I got as close to ground zero as I dared. I found bodies closer to the center that had been turned to black ash. I couldn't help but think you could play a sick game of chess with the white-ash people found in Pompeii and the black ash victims of the bombs.
There really was nothing left. Nothing to find, nothing to salvage, nobody to save. I have to say I was happy to come home to find geese on the barbeque for dinner.
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| current events |
[08 Mar 2005|07:46am] |
I picked up the rooster and paired him up with a hen and hopefully we will soon have chicks and I will be able to maintain an even better food supply.
The foods I planted in the garden by the shelter have started to sprout and I hope they will grow quickly and without sickness.
I found out that there was a pregnant woman at a nearby shelter and tomorrow I'm going to bring her a few dozen MRE meals. Nobody seems to know of any survivors with medical training and this makes me worry for her and for the rest of us.
I saw survivors from another town; they seemed to be ruffians looking for trouble. They hassled some of the guys working on the little farm in town but decided that there was nothing to steal or destroy here and they moved on towards California.
With the destruction of America's great somewheres, the nowheres have become everything.
All this and Marci spent the day lounging in the sun.
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| GOOSE |
[04 Mar 2005|08:47pm] |
The well is done. Now the people in town have water and soon they'll have crops coming up to eat. Until then they'll be fine eating imperishable from the supermarket.
There were a lot of large birds flying over head today. I got the shotgun and raced to put it together. I got up and watched and within a few hours there were geese flying overhead. I took a few shots and bagged two birds for dinner.
If they were flying they were healthy enough to eat and as long as I don't eat any of the organs that concentrate fallout radiation, mostly the liver, brain and thyroid, or kidneys, they're fine to eat. I decided to save coal by cooking over a wood fire from trees around the shelter.
Marci made a run to the market on the other side of town for feed for the chickens; she came back with a few hundred dollars of pre-war cash. The novelty of its total lack of value after being so important so recently left us really more melancholy than amused.
I radioed to Abel and spent a while bartering for a rooster, I can go pick it up tomorrow for 2 gallons gas and 30 fluid oz. of 5w35 motor oil.
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| the food front |
[03 Mar 2005|12:29pm] |
I've done nothing but work and sleep for the last few days converting the park into a life-supporting farm as well as keeping the garden at the shelter watered and attended.
We cleared out the top two feet of dirt inside the stone wall of the park, digging in teams and putting the dirt on a tarp and dragging it away. The dirt exposed now didn't come up contaminated when I swept it with one of the Geiger counters, and farming here should be good. Two guys more athletic than myself volunteered to dig the well and we don't think it will be much farther before they hit water.
We planted seeds from a local garden store and I could see that a lot of people who looked hopeless and destitute could now face tomorrow with a sense of optimism for the first time since the blinding flash.
The eggs have been coming regularly, and the jerky supply is good. I've been giving the survivors I was working with MRE meals for lunch.
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| Marci: tired |
[28 Feb 2005|06:14am] |
God damn I'm tired. We moved so much dirt today to start farming. We still have half the dirt to move and we've begun planning to figure out how to dig some kind of well on site.
I'm going to bed so I can be properly sore tomorrow.
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| dig |
[28 Feb 2005|04:57am] |
Can't write, moved dirt all day.
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| busy busy |
[26 Feb 2005|06:11pm] |
I set up a pulley at the top of the stairwell so I don't have to carry the buckets of water all the way up. I just hoist them up and tie off the end of the rope and then go up the stairs unburdened to water the plants.
Marci gave me a ride into town with half the jerky in a duffel bag. I found a bicycle I can use, a nice road bike. I met up with Abel and gave him his share of jerky.
I saw the survivors Marci met. These people really had a new kind of nothing in this community. Their bank accounts are gone and they are left with nothing but what they have in their wallets and paper money means nothing without the bank records to back it up. My bag of gold makes me outlandishly wealthy in this new world. Tomorrow I go back to start digging up the top two feet of dirt in the park down by the McDonalds so we can start a small farm.
I should put one of those two wheeled seats for two kids on the back of the bike; I could pull all kinds of stuff like a car's trunk.
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| Marci: life! |
[25 Feb 2005|06:32am] |
There were people in town today. Not a lot of people, but enough. I met a crowd of maybe thirty or forty other survivors, about half of which had thin hair and radiation burns. They all seemed excited to see other survivors. There was a lot of arguing about what could be eaten and where food could be found so I told them what Ashurn told me and everybody went to rip apart the nearest supermarket.
Tomorrow I'm going back to organize plans to start growing new food in the park by the McDonalds. Ashurn and Abel made jerky today, a lot of it. And they had three steaks of fresh meat left over for grilling. It was delicious but made us all sick afterwards. We hadn't eaten food like that in a very long time. He better be planning to do something with that rotting cow at the top of the stairs.
I should steal a bicycle so I don't need to use gas to get into town.
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| fresh foods |
[25 Feb 2005|06:23am] |
I pulled out the electric pump for the well and put a can with a weight in the bottom on the end of a string and filled the buckets that way. I don't want to waste any gasoline I don't have to. I've even started using candles in the shelter instead of the lamps or flashlights.
Marci helped me fill the buckets and then went up to get the eggs, feed the chickens, and make breakfast while I carried the buckets up to water the plants.
I saw birds flying over head today. They are the first wild animals I've seen since we took shelter.
I went to the farm on the outskirts of town and put a cow that Abel, the farmer, killed on top of the car and drove it back to a wide space of asphalt where we put strips of finely cut beef onto a chicken-wire rack we made so they would dry into jerky. There is an unbelievable amount of meat in one single cow.
Just after sundown we cooked up 3 huge, fresh steaks and ate like royalty. I drove back and brought in the jerky and bagged it up. This was the first day since the bombs fell that I did not eat an MRE. It was the first day I felt there was some hope. Tomorrow I give Abel half the jerky and get to keep half myself for helping make the jerky and for disposing of the cow carcass.
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| Dead City |
[24 Feb 2005|12:56am] |
We went out to Devon. Most of the carnival stuff was set up for the fair, but all of the stables were empty, It either hadn't started or it was over. I used to go as a kid and now I would never go again. I took a huge teddybear. The bumper cars were all over-turned, probably from a local blast, the Ferris wheel was still standing, but some of the beams looked bent. It's hard to believe that just a month ago nuclear death reigned from the sky.
Marci and I climbed up the stairs of an abandoned hotel, the smell made it clear that a lot of people died here. Marci and I looked towards the city. It was just gone. I cried.
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| And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death |
[22 Feb 2005|06:07pm] |
It occurs to me that I will now never achieve my lifelong wish of eating sushi off of a beautiful naked woman.
I put the chickens in their coop. This morning I had eggs for breakfast. I fried up all four on a butane camping stove I picked up yesterday from the old EMS, and Marci and I had a fresh egg breakfast.
I brought up all the trays of dirt, and started planting things. Beans, tomatoes, lettuce, green beans, potatoes, wheat, strawberries, and blackberries.
After stopping at the hardware store again I finally had enough extension cords to run down to the old well and power the pump. Put through the purifier this will be used to water the garden. I have to carry the two buckets up seven half-sized flights of stairs to get it topside. My shoulders are tired.
I will bring back my people from captivity and we will rebuild the waste cities and live in them; and we will plant vineyards, and drink the the wine of them. We shall allso make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
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| Marci: oooh, dinner |
[21 Feb 2005|11:39pm] |
I have never eaten a meal I've loved more than that chicken dinner. Ashurn managed to barter for some chickens and cooked one up for dinner. The two of us just devoured it with our bare hands. It was simply delicious.
He built a chicken coop and tomorrow the cement will be dry and soon after, we should have eggs, and there wont be chickens bound by the ankles flipping out on the floor.
We need a rooster so we can raise more chicken dinners to eat.
The field radios are really useful out in, well, the field.
We're going to go sew the beans and try and get them growing.
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