Survivors – A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Finding a brushy patch, Andy disconnected the trailer and laid his bike down. Then he backed the trailer into a clump of brush. The ground here was fairly level. Fortunately, it wasn’t raining. It took him just a couple of minutes to set up his camp. His sleeping bag was kept stowed inside his bivouac bag. All that he had to do was lay it out on top of his ground pad.

After rolling back a large rock and relieving himself, he returned to his bike trailer and washed his hands with a water bottle.

Andy sat and prayed. He had a lot to be thankful for. He pulled out an MRE at random. He was ravenous, and wolfed down nearly all of its contents in just a few minutes, not bothering with the niceties of the heating packet and the drink mixes. After eating the chicken and rice entree, he gobbled down the entire packet of crackers, followed by several slugs of water. Then he tore off the corner of the peanut butter pouch and began squirting it directly into his mouth. Finally, he put all of the candies into his shirt pocket.

After zipping closed the clear plastic front of the bike trailer, Andy sat down and kicked off his sneakers. They were still wet from an earlier rain shower. He realized that he would have to alternate between his two sets of sneakers on this trip: this pair that would only rarely dry out, and the pair that he’d keep dry. The latter he would wear only on days when there was no threat of rain. He put the shoes into a plastic bag and tucked it into the foot end of his bivy bag. He draped his rain gear over the sides of the trailer to help camouflage it. He’d have to do something about the bright yellow color. Before crawling into his bag, he rolled up his coat inside out to use as a pillow, and tucked the SIG under it. He took off his damp socks and put them between his outer shirt and T-shirt to dry overnight.

It took Andy several hours to get to sleep. The stress of the incident with skinhead robbers still had him cranked up. His mind was racing with a thousand questions: What could he have done differently? Probably not much. Had they reported him to the local Polizeistation? Probably not. Had they wet their pants? Probably. Andy chuckled. He was worried about his prospects for getting back to the United States. He was worried about his fiancee. He was even worried about the chain and derailleur on his bicycle.

Unable to sleep, he nibbled on the leftover candy and listened to the breeze and the sound of the raindrops dripping off of the tree branches. He whispered to himself: “Dang, I forgot to brush my teeth. Oh, well, starting tomorrow.” As he finally drifted off to sleep, Andy worked on a mental checklist for the next day: “I need to get more calories. I need to keep fully hydrated. I need to watch my gear settings well in advance for hills. I need to reorganize the trailer so that the gear that I need most frequently will be closest at hand. I need to check my six more often. I need to find a way to keep my socks dry. I need to take smaller snacks rather than just three large meals. I need to reposition the magazine pouch so that it won’t dig into my side. . . .”

He awoke just before dawn the next morning, feeling sore in his buttocks, thighs, and lower back. Obviously, bicycling used different muscles than he had been using with his regular PT regimen. There would be some inevitable adjustments to this mode of travel.

After the eastern horizon started to lighten, he shook the water droplets off his bivy bag and rolled it up. In the distance, a cow was mooing for its calf. He could hear but not see just one car or light truck drive by on the nearby road.

He took ten minutes to clean and oil the pistol and to top off the magazine that had two rounds expended. Between the boxes and what was already loaded in the magazines, he still had almost 450 rounds of 9mm ball ammunition available-about nine pounds of ammunition and magazines. He was willing to shed weight from his load in water and food, but not ammunition. That was a priority.

His breakfast was a small can of peaches, a half-crushed breakfast roll that was left over from the previous morning at the BOQ Fruhstuck room, and a bit of jerky.

Out of habit, he buried his empty food wrappers and the dirty pistol cleaning patches. That was what he had always told his troops was good litter discipline for the field.

Andy stowed his gear and, in the process, shifted a few items between his various bags and compartments to put things within closer reach. He checked the pressure of the bike’s tires, then hooked up the trailer. Looking around his campsite, he was satisfied to see that the only signs of his presence would be some crushed grass.

He quietly walked the bike back down to the road. It was starting to rain again.