State of Panic: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (2 page)

“Just my luck,” Billy said before taking his pot down to the water to rinse out.

“Try not to fall in this time, Billy,” Dan said.

“Fuck you,” Billy replied.

“That’s one more stone.”

Billy picked one up. That was another rule. If you swore out here you had to pick up a stone and put it in your bag. Of course this would make it heavier and in turn cause untold frustration, which usually led to more cursing. So far it had turned into a bit of a competition as to who had collected the most stones. Billy currently had taken the lead.

Dan Adams wore a coonskin hat and a checkered shirt. He had one of these odd-looking mustaches that drooped down the sides of his mouth and off the edge of his chin. He looked every bit at home in the wilderness as would a squirrel. A longtime friend of Murphy’s, Dan had been a medic in the military; he usually would recount stories of his time in the war. Some of the crazy things he had seen. Guys with arms and legs blown off weren’t the worst, according to him. It was seeing toddlers sent out towards a convoy of troops with C4 attached to them. When he wasn’t making us want to chuck up what we had for dinner, he was cracking jokes.

“So listen, guys. You’ve been out here a month now. I know for most of you it has been probably the hardest thing you have ever done but I want to tell you that we are proud of you.”

“Oh great. Does that mean we can go home now?” Corey asked in a joking manner.

“Sorry, Corey. Not for a long while. We have you for another month and believe me a lot is going to happen in that time. We like to ease you guys into this. That’s what the first month is about. Getting you adjusted to taking responsibility. For some of you this is the first time in your life you haven’t been filled up with drugs or tobacco and I want to hear from you what that feels like.”

“Shit. Yeah, that’s about it,” someone muttered.

“Well, I doubt Luke here is going to have much to say,” Billy remarked before laughing.

“Screw you, Billy.”

“Luke, give your mouth a rest,” Dan said.

“Who wants to go first?” Shaw asked.

No hands went up. There was near silence. All that could be heard was the lapping of water against the shore. In the darkness of the forest, wood crackled and popped as ash floated up into the air.

“I’ll go,” a guy by the name of Zach replied.

“Right on,” Dan replied.

“Well.” I cleared my throat. “For a program that I thought would have been like military boot camp it’s far different than I expected. I’m not saying it’s easy but it’s definitely allowed me to reflect on some of my decisions.”

“Are you sure you’re not high?” someone asked. “As this place sucks.”

Billy and a few of the others chuckled.

“Quiet down. Who else wants to go?”

Everyone’s eyes looked at each other.

“Sure. I’ll go,” I said.

“Okay good. Sam, what has meant the most to you about this time?”

Luke smirked and tapped a stick against a rock waiting for me to speak.

“I don’t know. Maybe a sense of being part of something bigger than myself.”

“In what way?”

I breathed in deeply and gazed into the orange flames. The smell of burnt wood carried on the air brought with it the scent of the forest.

“I’ve been bounced around foster homes my entire life. You always think the next one is going to be the one.”

“And is it?” Murphy asked. “I mean, the one you are in now?”

“I think I stopped asking that question a long time ago.”

“Do you think your foster parents don’t care about you?” Shaw asked.

“Well, I mean they sent me here, didn’t they?”

“Right. But doesn’t that mean something to you?”

“It means something to me. My father’s an asshole,” Billy said.

“Billy, if you are not being asked to speak, kindly refrain from opening your pie hole,” Murphy said.

“Go on, Sam,” Dan urged.

I sucked air in between my teeth. “I don’t know.” I tossed a twig into the fire and watched it burn up.

“What about that swastika tattoo on your wrist? What does that mean to you?”

I glanced up at Murphy but didn’t answer. He knew what it meant but he wanted to hear it from me. The others looked on with curiosity. It wasn’t that I was a neo-Nazi sympathizer or anything that someone might have assumed. It was that I had found a sense of belonging among a group that had welcomed me in. Hell, it could have been anyone. It just happened to be them.

“Yeah, are you racist?” One of the black kids in the group spoke up.

“No.”

“Then why are you wearing that dumb tattoo?”

“Fuck you, man.”

“Oh yeah? You want to go?”

The guy jumped up and before either one of us could throw a punch, Murphy and Dan got in the middle.

“Settle down. I think we are getting away from the main point here.”

“I’m not racist.”

“No?” Luke asked. “Then why the tattoo?”

I shook my head and pushed a sleeve down to cover it. “I’m done talking.”

“We’re just trying to find out where all that hate stems from,” Luke added before smiling.

“Well, why don’t you come over and I’ll show you.”

Luke scoffed. “I wouldn’t waste my breath on you, skinhead.”

“Enough!” Dan pointed at Luke.

“It’s okay, Sam,” Murphy said. “Who else would like to share?”

I heard the murmurs among the others. Ever since I had shown up at the program with a skinhead and the tattoo there was clear animosity. I ran a hand over my head. It had changed a lot over a month. It wasn’t as short, but in their eyes I was still a skinhead. I couldn’t blame them really, for before this, that’s what I had portrayed myself as. A green bomber jacket, tight jeans, tattoos, hair buzzed off and a mouth and attitude to go with it.

I ran with the skinheads, just as each of the others chose their group. I was no different than them. I carried the same hate as they did for authority. But I was no racist.

In all honesty I didn’t know why I got that tattoo, other than I wanted to fit in. And, for a time I had. I scoffed now as I thought back to the day I was busted. The very people I had called my brothers were the ones that left me in the dust.

As the fire burned low and each of us shared something about our time at Camp Zero, I reflected on what Murphy had said about my foster family. Had they sent me here because they cared? Or was it a last resort before they sent me back to child services to be placed with another family? I wasn’t sure.

I watched the flames flicker.

“Brotherhood.”

“What?” Murphy said as he lay on his sleeping bag across from me.

“You asked me what it meant. Brotherhood.”

“Are you sure about that?” Murphy replied.

D
awn began
like any other and yet it wasn’t any other morning. Unbeknownst to us, today would be remembered in history as the greatest terror attack that the United States had experienced. It would overshadow 9/11 and throw the United States back to a way of living reminiscent of the 1800s.

We awoke at a little after six, just in time to see a deep orange sun rising over the tops of the mountains. A heavy mist lingered in the air making its rays look even more hypnotic. I breathed in the smell of pine and stared at the bubbling river. There was something very serene to being in the wilderness. Whether we knew it or not, it worked away at the noise in our heads. All the voices that told us we needed to be this or that, or had to be doing something more. It asked for nothing except respect. It was peaceful but that peace would be short-lived.

After having breakfast, we packed up and headed back towards Naples, Idaho, which was where the main office for the camp was. The goal was to collect mail that had been sent to us by our parents and then head back out into the wilderness.

That morning I had tried to pen a letter to my foster parents, Jodi and Brett. They were the eighth set of foster parents that I had since I was four. I never knew my birth father or mother. I only remember being handed off from one family to the next. Each time it was the same. I ran away, caused problems at home or was expelled from school. None of them were ready to deal with my antics and I wasn’t really sure how to behave. One doctor said it was a chemical disorder, another a mental illness. Others said it wasn’t any of those things. They notched it up to drugs and running with the wrong crowd.

I don’t know what it was. I gave up a long time ago figuring it out. It was easier to agree with child services and hope that the next home was better than the last. The fact was, most of the families were just taking kids in to make some extra money. I was meant to be seen and not heard. Eventually I just decided not to be seen.

Jodi and Brett were different in more ways than one. They were African Americans. They didn’t have a son or daughter like previous families. They had tried to have kids and for whatever reason couldn’t. Fostering wasn’t something they did for the check. At least that’s the impression I got. They honestly seemed to care. Maybe that’s what freaked me out. I had become so used to being beaten with a belt, sexually abused or cursed at, that any degree of care caused me to question motive. I still wasn’t sure what theirs was.

Murphy was the only one who didn’t try to label me. Instead, he listened and posed questions. He was the first, along with Dan and Shaw that attempted to help me see them as family.

Once a week we picked up letters. There was always one there from Brett. I never read it. I stashed the letters inside my bag. Instead I would watch the others react to the letters they received from the same people who put them here. Well, it wasn’t the parents, it was the court but the parents approved of it. So in my books, it was Brett and Jodi who sent me here. At first I took offense to that decision. But slowly I was beginning to see that maybe it was for the best.

Those I ran with weren’t die-hard supremacists. At least I didn’t think so. More like wannabes hoping to impress an older generation who were more committed. I had met the group through a local martial arts dojo. The head honcho, or guy that was in charge, was using the place as a means to recruit younger kids. I was fifteen when I was introduced to them. Two years later I earned my red laces. It’s hard to say at what point I stepped over the line. The indoctrination was subtle. We’d meet every week in the basement of the dojo, listen to punk music, get drunk and they would talk about having a pure race.

To be honest, most of what was said went in one ear and out the other. I didn’t agree with them. I couldn’t wrap my head around why being a Jew, black, or whatever, mattered. It was immaterial to me. No, I was there because they welcomed me in. That was it. Hell, I was pretty sure if a local religious group in town had befriended me I would have walked down a very different path to the one I was on. But that never happened. I fell in with the wrong crowd, the judge said. And for that I was here to a pay a price.

We hiked from seven in the morning until one in the afternoon. By the time we arrived at Camp Zero’s headquarters, the sun was beating down on us. All of us were exhausted and ready to call it a day. But we knew it was just the beginning of another long hike out into the harsh wilderness.

Murphy unlocked the door and instinctively hit the light switch. A generator kicked in and fluorescent lights flickered before turning on.

“That’s odd.”

“What?”

“The generator kicked in.”

“Maybe it’s blown a fuse,” Shaw replied.

Dan had gone off to collect the mail from the box while Officer Shaw tried to keep us quiet. Everyone was grumbling about having to hike any further.

“You think we could spend the night here? You know we’ve been hiking non-stop over the past month, up and down the mountain range, through the forests. I’m all for taking in a bit of nature but this is like overkill. Are you trying to kill us?”

“I second that, my feet are killing me.”

We hadn’t showered or shaved in several weeks and all of us stunk to high heaven. The only way we could clean ourselves was when we were close to a river. And no one was brave enough to endure the icy cold water on their nutsack.

“My back feels like it’s about to break.”

Murphy came back out with a big case of water. “Dear god, you guys wouldn’t last a day in the military.”

“That’s why I’m not joining,” Billy said.

“I don’t know, I kind of like the idea of seeing the world,” Corey added.

“Dude, you aren’t going to be seeing the world. Just bullets flying over your head, and knowing your fat ass they wouldn’t have any problems painting a target on you.”

Corey stuck his finger out. “I swear I’m going to…”

“Going to what?” Billy tossed off his backpack and leveled up to Corey which was kind of insane really. They were like David and Goliath. I had to hand it to Billy though, the kid had some balls, especially after having been slapped down by Corey three times over the past month already.

“Settle down.”

They both glared at each other and turned away.

Dan returned with the mail and began sorting through it. He tossed some of it out to different guys and then tucked the rest into his back pocket.

“Anything for me?” Luke asked.

“Not this time.”

“Kind of figured,” he replied. “Hey Murphy, you got any cigarettes in there?”

“What did I tell you?”

He shook his head in frustration. Nicotine addiction was a bitch. I felt his pain. I had gone through the whole aching for a cigarette from the first day we had arrived. They had allowed us to have one before we set out hiking but it was kind of pointless as it only made me need another.

I cracked open a bottle of water and chugged it down then poured the remainder over my head. My body trembled as it ran down my back. The temperature that day was hovering in the high seventies. As they sat around reading letters, I noticed Murphy looked concerned.

“Everything okay, bud?” Dan asked.

“Generator’s on.”

“And the phone?”

“Phone’s not working. Not even getting a signal. Radio is getting static.”

I was laid out on the ground trying to get some shuteye while at the same time listening in on the conversation. Murphy went around the side and I saw him fiddling with a gray metal fuse box. He muttered something to Dan and he took a look.

“Listen, I’ll take the truck down to the general store and see what I can find out. Might just be a downed line.”

“Bring back some beef jerky,” Billy hollered. His words fell on deaf ears. Much of what we suggested carried little weight around here.

Letters from parents were usually the same. At the beginning of the program we were encouraged to write to them, tell them how things were going and apologize for our behavior. We weren’t forced to do it but some of the group thought if they acted as though they were remorseful, their parents would pull them out. Others pleaded. Some wrote that they had learned their lesson. Of course they were all lying. In the first week I had even done it myself, though I kind of figured it would do little to help me. In the minds of Jodi and Brett Anderson I was a lost cause in need of saving and Lt. Scot Murphy and his crew were the ones to do it.

As a few finished reading, I glanced over to Shaw and Murphy. Both of them were standing a few feet away talking. Despite the fact that nothing appeared to be working, neither of them looked too worried.

I turned my attention to the others who were scattered around the camp. Some sat on the picnic tables chatting while others tried to sneak in a few minutes of sleep. All of us had got used to roughing it over the month. The first few weeks were brutal but once we knew that we were here to stay, it didn’t take long for our minds to readjust. Of course we still craved creature comforts but without them in sight, and without technology around us, there was nothing to distract us except the wilderness. Living in the wild was like detoxing from a polluted world. It wasn’t just coming to terms with how our actions had landed us here, it was coming to grips with the fact that our entire lives ran off the grid. We were a generation that spent so much time in front of cellphones and tablets and god knows what else, that we were missing out on the very thing that was in our backyard — real life.

An hour later, when Dan returned he was driving pretty damn fast. The truck careened into the parking area, kicking up gravel. He signaled to Murphy to follow him inside. Shaw remained outside to keep an eye on us. A couple of the guys started causing a fuss and Shaw went over to break it up. Naturally I was curious. I got up and wandered over to the door. It was slightly ajar.

“Are you sure?”

“That’s what Jake said. We are under attack. The cities have been hit.”

I furrowed my brow and then pushed the door open. “Under attack?”

Dan pointed to me. “Outside. Now.”

“No, what’s this about being under attack? What the hell are you on about?”

Luke must have overhead me as he got up and wandered over. Now two of us were standing in the doorway badgering them with questions. We weren’t stupid. There was no power and I’d heard him correctly.

“Look, just settle down. I don’t want anyone freaking out.”

“Freaking out? Then tell us what’s going on.”

Murphy looked at Dan. “You think you can get the ones from—”

He hadn’t even managed to get the rest of his words out when outside the others erupted in a collective gasp and cursing. I turned and noticed them looking up and pointing. As I stepped outside, my eyes bulged. Coming down a short distance from us was a 747 plane. Out of control and in a death spin, there was no way that plane was going to pull up.

It was about to crash.

Murphy screamed. “Move!”

The explosion that followed echoed throughout the valley.