TEOTWAWKI Part VII: Laws of Survival, Mad Dogs, and The Most Interesting Man in the World

“Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean.  I mean plumb, mad-dog mean.  ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win.  That’s just the way it is.” – The Outlaw Josey Wales

Somehow, I don’t remember seeing this cartoon.  It just looks awesome! (h/t)

 

This is part six of a multipart series.  The rest of them are here:  (Civilization, The Iron Triangle, and You, Civilization After an EMP: TEOTWAWKI (Which is not a Hawaiian word), TEOTWAKI Part III: Get on your bikes and ride!, Internet Cats, TEOTWAWKI Part IV and The Golden Horde, TEOTWAWKI Part V: Camaro and Camo,  TEOTWAWKI Part VI: The Rules Change, The Center Cannot Hold)

The story to date:  Our resourceful protagonist was far from home the night in February when an EMP hit, taking with it all of the society and the plentiful PEZ® it has provided.  He’s bicycled and walked until he’s only 45 miles from home, 70 hours after the EMP.

2:30 AM

The rain had started after midnight.  Before that, the night had been clear – I’d looked up and watched the Milky Way stretching across the sky.  I’d dozed and woke up, putting more wood on the fire.  But it wasn’t the rain that woke me up, it was the wind.  Just before the rain hit the wind went from a gentle breeze to big gusts of cold wind, followed by short pauses of stillness that teased me, made me think it was over.

Then the rain.  Cold, bitter, windy rain.

My fire had been blown out before the accumulating rain had a chance to form into streams that would have extinguished it anyway.

And the rain continued.  I jumped out of my sleeping bag and tossed my poncho, which had been over the sleeping bag, back on over my clothes.  So much for a night’s sleep.

The rain intensified.  I had tied off the emergency tarp above where I was sleeping, forming a sort-of tent, and I crouched under it.  I pulled the sleeping bag back around me and continued to crouch in the wind and rain.  The rope holding one corner of the tarp worked its way free in the wind.  I grabbed at the rope and pulled the tarp tight again.  A quart of nearly freezing water dropped right on my leg and foot as I disturbed a ripple in the tarp where water had pooled.

As I became fully conscious, I began to worry.  I wasn’t yet horribly wet, and the poncho would mostly protect me as I squatted under the tarp.  My feet, however, were in hiking boots that weren’t particularly waterproof.  And they were already wet and cold.

And the wind continued.  I shivered.  This was winter in the Midwest.  Sometimes snow, and sometimes cold wet rain, which was worse.  Snow was at least beautiful.

I finally pulled the sleeping bag under me, and managed to sit down and stay dry despite the water outside.  My feet were cold, but as the rest of me was dry, I eventually fell back asleep sitting up.

I woke up with a very stiff neck under a dark tarp.  But the rain had stopped.

My feet were still soaked, my hands were cold.  But I did have wool socks, and the wool would help retain heat even wet.  I had no idea what time it was.  I opened up a can of “cling pears” and drank the cool, syrupy liquid before eating the pears.

I tossed the can on the ground.  Littering used to be a thing I thought I’d never do.  Now?  I wasn’t going to carry an empty can to try to find a trashcan after the apocalypse.  In the dark, I got out of the tent.  The moon was out now and I could see my breath from its faint light.

I looked down.  The sleeping bag was now covered in mud and soaked with water.  I lifted it.  Probably thirty pounds.

I hated to leave it, since I knew that they wouldn’t be making sleeping bags again anytime soon, but lugging it the 45 miles to home was also a non-starter.  I packed everything else back up into the pack, after shaking the water off the tarp.

I started walking east.  Dawn was on the horizon.  I was a little surprised – I didn’t think I’d slept that long.  One thing I’d made on the road was a little spear – nothing more than my cheap Chinese knife duct taped to a sturdy stick – it doubled as a walking stick.  A pointy one.

Most houses were what you’d expect on a lonely country road.  A single-wide trailer from the 1980’s.  A farmhouse from the 1940’s.  A mini-mansion (ranchette style) from 2006.  But this house was amazing.  A brick wall, six foot high, and thick ran around the yard.  A three story brick . . . castle?  It looked like a silo, being round-ish, but had windows and obvious floors.

I shook my head.  No idea what that castle could have been.  A Victorian girl’s playhouse?

The main mansion looked like something a well-to-do merchant might have made.  I’d lived in the area for years, but never knew this house existed on this dirt road.  It was designed well before electricity, certainly.  That might be a plus for the new owners.  I could see smoke coming from the chimney, but kept walking.  I was only three miles from the highway.

About half a mile from the farmhouse a dog ran out onto the road.  It barked and growled.  It was mainly a German shepherd, but I could see that it wasn’t a purebred.  It was also barking and growling at me, so the pedigree was at best an academic discussion, all things considered.  It looked skinny.

I did not want to get mauled by a dog.  I also didn’t want to shoot it, if I could avoid it.  It was probably just hungry and scared.  But I was going home, and I was going to keep going on this road.  I stood upright, with my “spear” in one hand.  My pistol was in my jacket pocket – I could get to it easily if I had to.

I talked lowly, kept telling the dog, “It’s okay, boy, it’s okay” in a calming voice.  I walked slowly toward it.  It barked harder, jumping back and forth.  Agitated.

I kept walking, slowly.  The dog kept barking.  I went to the far side of the road, moving slowly, so I could give the dog a wide berth.

Finally I was side by side with the dog on the road.  It lunged.  No time to pull the pistol, I slashed with the stick, hitting the dog with the butt of the stick, rather than the blade side?  Why?  I have no idea.  But I struck the dog firmly in the ribs.  The knife blade passed in front of my face far closer than I wanted.

I quickly reversed my grip and pointed it back at the dog.

The dog that was backing up.

I’m pretty sure if the dog had been trained to be violent, I would have been in trouble, up to and including dead.  Thankfully, the dog sucked at attacking.  It was probably someone’s pet.  It lunged again.  This time, I stabbed it with the knife at the end of the stick, a glancing blow off of its chest.  It yipped as it ran away, off into the trees.

I looked at the knife – no blood, and only a spot or two on the ground.  I apparently sucked at spears.

I backed away from where I thought the dog was, so I’d be able to defend myself if it decided to make another run at me.  I pulled the pistol.

I was shaking.  It’s not often that violence is required.  Sure, I hunted deer, but the deer don’t have canine fangs and attack back.  After a few hundred yards I stopped walking backwards and turned around and started walking forward, glancing behind me occasionally to make sure the dog wasn’t getting ready to attack.

As I got to the stop sign at the main highway, I found myself for the third time in three days staring down the barrel of a gun.  This time an AR variant.  And as I looked to the left I saw another man pointing a deer rifle at me.  The rush of adrenaline didn’t stop me from noticing that both men had their fingers on the triggers of their rifles.  And the dead body off to my right.

“Where you headed, spear-boy?”

“Millerville.”

“Not this way, you ain’t.”

Fort Custer, EMP +3

There were three battalions of troops at Ft. Custer, with an average number of soldiers per battalion of 3,000, but only 7,000 soldiers lived on base.

The sergeant in charge the 1^st Platoon of Charlie Company usually lived on base.  But he had been on leave in Georgia.  Nobody had seen Lieutenant Janson since before the EMP went off.  He lived off of base.  Everyone knew him as a rookie who was homesick for Alabama, everybody had bet he was headed that way.  1^st Platoon, Charlie Company didn’t have anyone in command.

And that was a problem.

Initially, everyone had gone to chow on the first day after the EMP.  Sure, it was dark, but this was the Army, right?  They know how to cook even without power.

No.  The mess hall was just that, a mess.  There was milk, and boxed cereal, but there wasn’t anything hot.  And there weren’t any lights beyond flashlights.

A colonel had shown up, and barked a few orders before heading out of the mess hall.  The short version was that everyone was supposed to, except for meals, hunker down in their barracks until further orders arrived.  At lunch, someone had thought to get MREs and set them out, along with bread, peanut butter, jelly, and fresh fruits.  Sodas were out in the serving line.

Dinner was much the same.

The biggest stress on the troops was the lack of information.  Have a mixture of 7,000 mainly men, many at their peak of testosterone production, who were wired to be busy and have them do nothing?  A bad idea.

Day two and breakfast was there, but looking pretty meager.  Someone had gotten some lanterns going and had managed to hook propane up to the stoves so they had some hot food.  Things were improving?

No.  By dinner, the MREs were the picked-over least favorite food and the propane was gone.  The base store, or PX, was likewise empty.

The morning of day three, a corporal in 1^st Platoon, Charlie Company asked a simple question.

“They’ve forgotten us.  Who wants to get out?”

### (for now)

I’ve taught survival basics (the half-hour course, not the six weeks living in the forest fashioning an iPhone® out of bone and discarded pop cans) and have tried to drum into my students the simplest survival rule – the rule of 3’s.

• 3 seconds without Facebook©.
• 3 minutes without air.
• 3 hours without shelter.
• 3 days without water.
• 3 weeks without food.

Those laws are, of course, wrong.  I’ve seen an adult female live a full minute without Facebook™, once.  Some people can hold their breath for 4 minutes, or even slightly longer.  But nobody can do it for 3 hours.  And under certain climates you can make it longer than three days without water.  Or you might die in a day without it under certain conditions.  And I could probably make a few months without food, and my pants would fit a lot better.

But today’s lesson is shelter.  200+ days of the year where I live now, shelter wouldn’t be required to live.  In Los Angeles?  Probably 365 days a year.  But in a cold, driving wet wind with wind chill?  Yeah, you can die pretty quickly.  Clothing really matters in a situation like that.  Wool is your friend.  But in the high mountains in summer?  Put a cotton t-shirt on and get it wet from sweat?  You could have hypothermia in July.

Dog packs exist in the rural Midwest now.  After an apocalypse, they’d get bad, quickly.  Our hero ran into a lone dog and scared it away without too much trouble, probably because it was a scared house dog.  In a pack, however, they kill for fun.  And once they were hungry?  They’d be pretty good at it.  After a few weeks, a dog pack would likely become as dangerous as being between a Kardashian and a camera.

Fort Custer is made up.  But what happens when you have high testosterone trained warriors in an environment without a command structure?  I’m thinking we’ll know after a few more posts.