Читать книгу Last Stand - Robert Ciancio - Страница 12

5

I traveled for most of the day, continuously getting a compass bearing and moving from tree to tree. I moved slow and deliberate, keeping an eye on my surroundings, looking for anything that didn’t fit with the normal contours of the woods. A green bush when everything around it was dried up and dead or a dead bush when everything else was green. These types of things were clues to a possible trap or ambush of some kind. I would stop occasionally to listen for anything out of the ordinary, listening for whispers, the clank of steel on steel, or a cough. It was tedious work and took a lot more time than just taking a hike through the woods on a weekend camping trip. After a while, you started to notice the weight of everything; your pack, the rifle, even the pistol on your hip felt like it weighed a ton.

Things went like this for several days, with a couple of breaks a day for water, and a snack. Then, when I’d stop at night, I’d eat a bigger meal. Eating at night before I slept would help keep me warm at night while I was sleeping. I was setting up quick lean-to shelters with my tarp and not much else.

About the fourth day, as the afternoon was progressing, I noticed that it started to get darker, and the temperature was getting cooler. I could tell that it was going to rain. I started to look around for some thicker tree groupings. The more trees there were together, the easier it was to set up a shelter and avoid the rain.

I looked ahead of me and saw a cropping of huge rocks. I walked over to them and started to look around for some kind of overhang that coupled with my tarp could make a pretty serious shelter. I couldn’t believe my luck, but I found a cave. I had always been told that you should never use a cave for shelter, as animals also used caves for shelter. But it looked like a pretty serious storm was moving in, and I didn’t want to be caught in the storm, so I decided to take my chances.

I switched on the flashlight that was attached to my AR and started to search the cave. It wasn’t a cave that went underground for miles, turning into a labyrinth, but it was just a big indentation in the rock that went back maybe twenty to thirty feet. There were no tracks or scat droppings of any kind, so I figured that I would be okay to stay there. In the northeast, especially in the PA and Maryland areas, I knew from experience that black bears were prevalent and I needed to start being more aware of the possible dangers.

I dropped my pack and immediately went out into the woods for kindling and firewood. Even though it was going to rain and the temperature was going to drop, I knew that I would only need a fire for cooking dinner and coffee, nothing more.

I found some old man’s beard, some small twigs, and some larger dry wood. I wrapped it all in my shemagh and carried it back to the cave. Using my lighter again, I started the fire. The fire kit I had contained several lighters. They were light and inexpensive and were literally life savers. I also had the ferrocerium rod, but I wanted to keep that for later. I heated up water for dinner and coffee. By this time, it was raining outside, so I took my Klean Kanteen outside to the mouth of the cave and set it up to catch the rain water. This would be good, clean water that I would not need to boil.

I decided that I was going to stay here for a couple of days, get some rest, do some hunting and trapping, and try to supplement the food I had left, which wasn’t much more than a few pieces of jerky, some oatmeal, and the packs of tuna.

In the morning, my plan was to take out the two rat traps and the conibear trap that I had and set them up to do what was called passive hunting. I also had the slingshot that used arrows that I would use to do some active hunting. But for now, I was going to get some sleep. I took my tarp and unwrapped it, enough to give me some cushion on the cave floor. I placed my pack at an angle against the cave wall to use it as a makeshift pillow. I unwrapped my sleeping bag and soon drifted off to sleep.

I woke up the next morning and checked the coals of the fire. They were still warm, and with some TLC, I was able to restart the fire so that I could heat up some oats. It was still cloudy and drizzling outside, so I decided to stay in and stay dry. I’d hunt and trap when it quit raining.

I lay around the cave all day with nothing to do but think. Out here in this cave, things were quiet and peaceful. I wondered how things were everywhere else. How violent had the world become?

We were about six weeks into this event. The most vulnerable would be the elderly, children, and those who needed medication to survive. The medications needed to live would eventually run out, not just in their own homes but everywhere, and there was no longer any type of transportation that could resupply the things needed like medication and food.

Hospitals and nursing homes have generators, but they would eventually run out of the fuel needed to run them, and the machines needed to keep people alive would shut down, and the people attached to them would die, if they hadn’t already.

Those people with illnesses like diabetes, who needed medication to survive, would soon run out. If they had enough to last a while, it would need to be refrigerated, but without electricity, it would soon lose its potency and go bad.

This event, this NEMP, would eventually end up killing hundreds of thousands of people. They would die of medical complications, lack of medication, and starvation. Because without the knowledge of how to hunt and grow their own food, and the inability to go to the grocery store to buy their food, people today are lost. Hundreds of thousands of people would die because of their reliance on technology. With these morbid and depressing thoughts running through my head, I soon drifted back to sleep.

A crack of thunder and a lightning strike brought me back to the here and now. It was still raining outside, but I could see that the sun was starting to go down. I decided to skip dinner and just have a cup of coffee. I relit my fire, made my coffee, and went back to sleep.

I woke up the next morning, and it looked like it was going to be a better day. I gathered some firewood, lit yet another fire, and heated up some oatmeal. Once my belly was full, I dug out the rat traps, the conibear trap, and the slingshot. I slung my AR and set out. I had a couple of MRE peanut butter packs that I was going to use to bait the rat raps.

It was no longer raining, but the ground was still wet, and water was dripping from branches and leaves above me. I found a tree that had a branch about face level. I used some generic string to tie one of the rat traps to the branch. I set the trap and baited it with peanut butter. I found a similar tree a few yards away and set up the second rat trap the same way. If I was lucky, I’d get a squirrel or two.

I then began to look around for a game trail. I found what looked like several small animal paths leading off in the same general direction. I followed one of the trails, which led to a small stream. I made four stakes that I could use to secure the trap, setting it up a foot or two from the stream along the game trail. I had also brought along a piece of jerky that I had soaked overnight in water to soften it up. I used the jerky to bait the conibear trap. Again, if I was lucky, I might be able to catch an opossum or raccoon that I could then use to make some jerky of my own. Once I was done with that, I set out to actively hunt with the slingshot.

I went to one of the other game trails, sitting and waiting for something to come along. Nothing did, so I decided to move around a little. I hunted for about three hours, walking, stopping, and watching, but I had no luck. It was about noon by this point, so I went back to the cave to take a break. I unpacked the oatmeal and made some more oats. Oatmeal was pretty much all I had left. I had a few pieces of jerky left, but I was saving that for dinner.

It started to rain again, so I relit the fire again and chilled out in the cave for a few hours. After the rain let up, I slung the AR and went out to check the traps. One of the rat traps produced a squirrel, but the other rat trap and the conibear trap were empty. I left them there, thinking that they may produce something overnight.

I stayed in the woods about two hundred yards from the cave. I used a sharpened stick to dig a hole about a foot or so deep. I placed my hands on the squirrel’s body and thanked it for its sacrifice. I also thanked God for delivering it to me. I then gutted and cleaned the squirrel, burying most of the guts and skin in the hole. That way, if predatory animals smelled the scraps, it wouldn’t bring them to the cave where I was sleeping. A couple of pieces of the intestine I kept to use as bait for the conibear trap.

I went back to the cave, put the guts in the empty oatmeal bag, and buried it in my pack. I then put the squirrel on a stick, seasoned it with some pepper and smoke-flavored powder, and roasted it over the fire. It tasted pretty good. It was starting to get dark out, so I kept the fire going and relaxed, leaning up against my pack. I wasn’t tired so my thoughts turned toward Josh, Heather, and their boys, Bill and Chris.

I met Josh when I started working as a sheriff’s deputy. We soon became friends, and our friendship grew over the years until I was spending my days off hanging out with him and his family. Soon, his family became my family. I wasn’t afraid to say how much I loved them all. I hoped with all my heart that they had all survived this thing and were doing well. Josh had also spent time in the military, and was my assistant team leader when we were on the sheriff’s department SWAT team. He was smart, tactically oriented, and would be able to protect his family if the need arose.

Mike was also married. He and his wife, Mia, had a boy. Tony was twenty and was away at college. I hoped he was at home when this all went down. Mike was also a sheriff’s deputy, but we had met several years previous when I was at college and on the college shooting team. Mike’s dad, Mike Senior, was my shooting instructor. I met Mike Senior’s family at that time and soon became a friend of the family. The whole family was shooters and participated in the shooting sports. Mike Senior taught shooting skills, tactics, and reloaded his own ammo. Mike Junior was SWAT trained and also had a tactical background. I’m also sure that Mike would have been able to take care of his family if need be.

The cool thing was that everybody lived in the same community, so they were all together and would be able to support each other. I wasn’t sure how bad things were up there though. Indiana, Pennsylvania, was a four-square mile town, but there was also a college that had a lot of students. The area surrounding the town was mostly farmland, with smaller towns sporadically placed throughout the county. The community where Josh, Mike, and Senior lived wasn’t quite country, but it also wasn’t a town or city either. There were several miles of woodland around the area which could provide the community with meat if people were taking the initiative to hunt. The only problem was that this area had a lot of hunters who would also be hunting to support their families. With that many people hunting, eventually the available meat would dwindle down, and meat would be hard to come by. I hoped that Mike and Josh were able to take control of their area and get everybody to work together. They were both leaders, and if they were left to it, they could keep people alive.

Before I knew it, I was sleeping. I slept all night, and when I woke in the morning, the rain had broken and the sky was clear. I decided to stay one more day and set out again in the morning. I grabbed my AR, my slingshot and the arrows, and set out to the remaining rat trap. It was empty, so I cut it down and moved it several yards away to another tree. I cleaned off the old peanut butter, tied it to a new tree branch, and rebaited it with fresh peanut butter. I also reset the other rat trap on a new tree, with fresh peanut butter.

I then went to the conibear trap and also found it empty. I took it apart and moved it to another area where the tracks seemed fresh. I reset it, baited it with pieces of the previous night’s squirrel guts, and set out to do some active hunting again. I hoped that the animals had stayed low during the last couple of days of rain and that they would come out now when it was nice.

On this day, I was lucky. After about an hour, I saw a rabbit moving through the trees munching on some greens that were sprouting up through the brush and leaves on the forest floor. I was maybe ten feet from it. I notched an arrow in the pull string, pulled back on the slingshot band, took aim, and shot. I hit the rabbit right in the rib cage. It squirmed around, screaming, trying to get away, but at the angle that I shot from, it had stuck the rabbit to the ground. I pulled my knife, grabbed it around the waste where the arrow was, and severed its spinal cord. I again gave thanks to it and God. I decided to clean it here, so I went through the same process as I had with the squirrel from the previous night.

By the time I finished cleaning the rabbit and had carried the carcass back to the cave, it was lunchtime. I roasted the rabbit over the fire and ate until I was full. After lunch, I lay back against my ruck and took a short nap. After I woke, I decided to go check the other traps. It was getting later in the day, and I wanted to take the traps down if they had not produced anything. I wanted to wake in the morning, pack my gear, and set out. I didn’t want to worry about going to get the traps before I left.

I got to where I had set up the rat traps and they were empty, so I dismantled them and put them in my cargo pocket. When I got to the conibear trap, I was glad to see that I had trapped a rather large groundhog. A conibear trap breaks an animal’s neck when it is set off, so the groundhog was dead when I got to it. I had to be careful when I set these things up because a dog can easily be killed if it inadvertently sets off a conibear trap.

I again gave thanks and cleaned the groundhog, buried the guts and fur, and took it back to the cave where I roasted it. I cooked it longer than I should have so that it would dry out more. I could eat it over the next couple of days as either jerky or I could add it to water and make a quick stew. I put the groundhog meat it the bag that had held the oats and stored it in my ruck.

By the time this was all done, it was getting dark in the cave. The majority of my gear was packed, my water containers were full, and I now had some food to last me for a few days at least.

I took out my head lamp and maps. I knew where Norman and Amanda’s house was, and by using the topography, I had a pretty good idea of where I was now. Using the distance meter on the map, I guessed that I had maybe two more weeks of travel before I got home, maybe three if the terrain got worse.

I lay awake for several hours when I finally decided to walk out to the mouth of the cave. It was a clear, cool night, and the stars were bright and lit up the sky. I sat there and watched the sky move, thinking about how beautiful this was. I thought about how much of a shame it was that I had to experience it when the world was falling apart. It got me thinking about how far reaching this thing was. Was it just the United States, or had this reached as far south as Mexico, and as far north as Canada? Was this a strike from an enemy country, and if so, had we retaliated? These were questions that I would probably never know but were questions that I’m sure were running through more minds than just mine.

I eventually got tired enough to go back into the cave and try to sleep. I lay down against my ruck and was asleep faster than I had expected.

I woke up the next morning, feeling refreshed. I packed up the rest of my gear, slung my ruck and AR, and set out.

I traveled the whole day, never experiencing anything out of the ordinary. I tried hard to avoid towns or heavily populated areas, choosing to stay as much in the woods as I could. Sometimes, as I crossed roadways, I could see cars littering the roads.

About the middle of the second day after I left the cave, I heard a girl screaming. Not the type of scream like if she saw a mouse but a true honest-to-God scream like she was in fear for her life.

I moved in the general direction of the scream and came to a small clearing. It looked like a power line with a small tool-type shed in the middle of it. There were two men in front of the shed, holding down a pretty brunette girl that looked to be in her late teens. The men were rough-looking. They both had shaved heads, wore jeans, boots, and T-shirts. Guy one was bigger, maybe weighing in at 235, while guy two was maybe 185. They both looked to be in their late twenties, early thirties. There were two rifles lying on the ground beside where they were attacking the girl. They looked like Mini 14s that had been converted to polymer stocks.

The girl was also in jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt. She was screaming and fighting with all she could as she was being held down. Guy number two fought just as hard as he pulled down her pants. There was no way that I could let this go.

I dropped my ruck, and unholstered my 1911. I left the AR with my ruck, using some brush to conceal its location the best that I could.

I moved slowly and steadily toward the shed, coming up on the back side of it. The rape was taking place in the front. I moved around the side of the shed, coming up to the corner behind guy number two. I peeked around the corner and saw that the girl was still fighting, temporarily able to hold them off. I decided to attack and move forward. Both men were so engrossed in assaulting this girl that neither noticed me. I grabbed guy number two around the neck and performed a contact shot to the base of his head, below his right ear. Brain and blood blew out of a hole that appeared near the temple behind his left eye. As he slumped to the ground, my front sight found guy number one.

Guy number one was so busy watching the fear and agony on the girl’s face that it took him a second or two to figure out what was going on. It was the few seconds that I needed to get the drop on him. I pulled the trigger. Guy number one’s head snapped back as the .45 round hit him at the bridge of his nose. The bullet entered the medulla oblongata, shutting off any motor function in his body. He dropped straight to the ground. The fight was over.

The echo of the gunshots vibrated through the area, causing birds to bolt from their perches, and the insects to quiet down. All that could be heard was the echo and the young girl’s hysterics.

The girl was frantically pulling up her pants, trying to back away from me.

“Sweetheart, it’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.” I put my 1911 back in its holster, putting my hands up, palms forward, trying to show her that I didn’t want to hurt her.

“What’s your name? Honest, sweetheart, I’m not with these guys. I don’t want to hurt you.” Buy this time, she was dressed again, but she was still panicked, which was understandable. She turned from me, and ran up the power line, disappearing into the woods about fifty yards from the shed. I decided not to follow her.

I went back to where I had dropped my gear and retrieved my stuff. I then went back to the two dead guys and took the time to check and see if they had anything I needed or if there was anything to give me an idea of who they were. They had no identification on them and nothing really worth taking except for their ammo. The Mini-14 used the .223 round so I could use that. They each had a magazine in their weapons and carried a second magazine in a pocket. That gave me four thirty-round magazines, or 120 rounds. I couldn’t use the magazines in my AR, so I emptied the rounds into a sock and put them into my ruck.

I couldn’t leave these guys out in the open, so I drug them behind the shed, into the wood line, using brush, leaves, and rotted, fallen trees to cover up their corpses. Once I had cleaned up the area to hide what had happened, I spent several minutes just listening. I wanted to see if anybody came to investigate the gunshots or if anybody came looking for the two guys I had just killed. Once I was sure neither of those things were going to happen, I got my gear back on and set out.

I got to where the girl had disappeared into the woods. There was a path there that went in a general northwest direction, which was the direction that I was going. I moved along the path for about a hundred yards when I heard a branch snap behind me. I dropped to a knee and turned around. I immediately heard a twig snap behind me again. This time, when I turned to check my six, all I saw was the butt of a shotgun as it struck me in the face. My world went dark.