Райан Уэстфилд - Finding Shelter

Sadie felt the coffee’s warmth spread through her.

She was sitting on a little rock by herself at the edge of the camp. Everyone was busy. Either sleeping, like her mother, if they’d had a night shift, or they were already working on some project or chore.

James and Dan, who’d become inseparable friends since Dan’s arrival at the camp, were hunkered down over a little fire they’d made, eating their breakfast, and making their plans for the day. No doubt, Dan had some new project cooked up in his mind that he was briefing James on.

Sadie had already eaten, and she was feeling a little jealous of James’s friendship with Dan.

She still missed her friends from school, back before the EMP. Now that things had been a little calmer in the last several months, there’d been more time to think about those friends and what had happened to them.

Her mother had advised her, in her usual somewhat brusque way, that more than likely her friends were already dead. Her mother didn’t believe in sugarcoating things or making them more palatable. She fully believed, as did the other adults at the camp, that James, Sadie, and Dan would be at a huge disservice if truths were hidden from them, no matter how ugly they were.

And it would have been almost impossible for Sadie to not understand the reality of the situation. After all, she’d been through it all with everyone else. She’d been shot at and almost killed. She’d shot and killed people herself. She’d killed adults who, before the EMP, might have been politicians, teachers, policemen, stockbrokers, insurance salesmen, or anything at all.

People had gone crazy. That was Sadie’s takeaway from the whole situation.

Unlike the adults, she knew that she was going to grow up and become an adult in this world of chaos and violence. She had a different perspective than the adults did. And, unlike them, she would soon gradually forget the peaceful pre-EMP world of her childhood. The new reality would, for her, become the only reality. Everything else would be just a distant memory.

Sadie still vividly remembered when the hordes of the insane, crazed, desperate people had invaded. She could still see their faces and hear their screams. In contrast, the memory of sitting in the cold, boring classrooms before the EMP were fading rapidly.

The previous few months had been relatively calm. Those strangers who had stumbled upon the camp had been friendly, or at least not violent and dangerous. They’d exchanged news with the adults, traded the odd supply here and there, and continued on their way.

Food wasn’t much of an issue, and everyone was eating pretty well. Plenty of calories. Plenty of protein.

There was plenty of venison. Her mother was responsible for providing most of it.

And there were a lot of canned and packaged foods. Taken, mostly, from the surrounding areas on the expeditions that the adults would take.

Max had explained how, in terms of food and pre-EMP world supplies, they were right now in something of a “sweet spot.” What he meant was that while there were a limited number of pre-EMP products left in the world, at this point so many people had died off that there were a limited number of “consumers” left. Of course, eventually, all the products that had been found would be consumed, and there’d be nothing left. But for the moment, it wasn’t that hard to take a short expedition to some nearby out-of-the-way store that hadn’t been hit by the mobs and find some supplies.

There were fewer people out than before, which made such trips possible. But, of course, many of the people left were exceedingly vicious, not to mention dangerous.

A big issue with the food was that they were still relying heavily on packaged foods from the pre-EMP world. And those products would never again be produced. Max had wanted to get farm animals. He’d wanted them to have their own continuous supply of milk, eggs, and eventually meat. But they hadn’t yet gotten that far. The few expeditions they’d taken to farms had turned out nothing but dead farm animals. The people who’d cared for and fed the animals had long since died, leaving the animals to either starve or escape. Most of them had starved.

They couldn’t rely on venison as their only food. Something might happen to the deer. Someone else might hunt the populations down. Or who knew what else. They’d come to expect the unexpected. Which was why Max wanted their own reliable food supply.

Not to mention the fact that it was dangerous for Sadie’s mother to keep heading out on her own on her hunting trips. Sometimes she took others with her, but in general they were needed back at camp for some project or another, like helping build a shelter, construct a fence, or to work on the drinking water systems or toilets.

Everyone knew that however “peaceful” the current times seemed; it was still exceedingly dangerous to venture away from the camp.

Sadie herself was under strict orders never to leave alone. In fact, she hadn’t gotten to leave at all since they’d gotten there.

From where she was sitting, she glanced again at James and Dan. They had a map out in front of them now and they were peering at it intensely. On more than a couple occasions, they’d both been allowed to leave together. They’d hadn’t gone very far, but they’d gotten to do something important, scout out a potential site for burying backup supplies.

Sadie was jealous. Jealous of their friendship. And jealous of their little useful expeditions. No doubt they were planning another one now, although she could barely hear their voices.

Sadie took another sip of the coffee, and her thoughts turned to the man who’d come by two weeks ago. He’d been in his fifties, with a weather-beaten face and a long, unruly beard. On his watch, Max had found him wandering around the outskirts of the campsite. Max had confronted him, and they’d had a brief standoff, each of them pointing a gun at the other. The man, who’d given his name as Holstead, had agreed to surrender his weapon.

After a long talk, during which time Max had decided the man wasn’t a threat, he’d brought him back to the camp, and they’d all sat around the campfire late into the night, discussing the world, the EMP, and trading bits of news.

Holstead had confirmed what others had said about Grant and his militia. Of course, Holstead hadn’t seen any of it with his own eyes, but he’d heard it from others.

Holstead had told them about a family that was living not that far away from them. He’d stayed the night at their house, after having an encounter similar to the one he’s had with Max. Encounters like that were getting more and more common. And at the same time, encounters where everyone shot first, to kill, were getting more common as well.

Holstead had said it was a little family of three. A mother, a father, and a daughter, who was about Sadie’s age. Sadie could still picture Holstead pointing at her as he’d explained the daughter’s age.

That family was supposed to be only a couple miles away, in a little house on a little road without many other houses. They were just outside the official park boundaries, and apparently the house was tucked out of the way enough that they’d avoided trouble, for the most part. It was a relatively peaceful area. The mob hadn’t gotten them, and the marauders and murderers and thieves hadn’t gotten them either.

Sadie glanced again at James and Dan. She felt the jealousy rising in her, coming up from her stomach.

She wanted a friend of her own. She thought of the friends from school who were likely dead.

It wasn’t fair. Why did her brother get to have a friend? After all, Sadie had to spend all day with the adults. And they weren’t bad, but they could get a little tiresome. Max, for instance, was always barking orders at everyone.