Woeville - "Life is Cheap" - An Apocalyptic Survival Story

Nikkei_Simmer

Prologue

The End... Becomes the Beginning

The sun paled behind a miasma of yellowish grey; it had been that way for six years ever since the missile warheads fell. The resultant radioactive devastation that ensued from the nuclear strikes had reduced humanity to a token number of survivors. Food was scarce and there was an underscoring sense of resignation to a life that meant eking out some measure of survival though spartan. It was a tough existence meant to harden those inured to suffering and to weed out the weak.

Sunset Valley had been wiped from existence; being a military target, it was wiped clean from the map with three one megaton warheads detonating over Fort Gnome. Those who didn’t leave perished; starvation, radiation sickness – their bodies withering, the radiation slowly eating them from inside, or from predation – the weak suffered in this case being easy pickings for predatory animals or disturbingly from other humans.

It was clear to Yasunobu and to Fiona that they had to leave Sunset Valley. Mayumi had perished in the blast of one of the nuclear weapons as she’d been on a field trip with her young charges to Fort Gnome that very day that the exchange of humanity-ending weapons was unleashed. And a grieving Yasunobu and a very terrified Fiona had gathered up their surviving youngsters and escaped the area after the requisite remaining under sealed cover for two weeks. Molly had lost her mind after finding out that Sandi had been one of the casualties of the detonation at Fort Gnome – she stayed and perished, only wanting to be with her daughter in the very end. No amount of coaxing would induce her to leave.

Then there was no place to go other than into the desert wilderness – a problematic venture at best; a nightmare at worst, with food being scarce or contaminated, they’d subsisted by raiding highway rest-stop gas stations of their canned goods; the supermarkets being long since picked over by survivors and the perishables left unedible and rotting on the counters due to large counts of radiation. The electromagnetic pulse had rendered all cars unusable; their electrical systems fried by the surge of electricity that preceded a nuclear detonation. It was a terrifying six months of trying to make their way to any sort of habitable destination avoiding any pockets of radiation – population centers that were substantial enough to have warranted being targeted by the enemy.

The travel was made even more difficult by Fiona growing ill with radiation sickness sustained from exposure from her trying to get home to find her daughter who’d had been watched over by Yasunobu who had been her long-time family friend. The amount of radiation exposure she’d sustained in making the decision to not shelter-in-place for the two weeks away from River had resulted in a very costly outcome. Eventually they had to take shelter in a cave...watching her succumb to a horrific death. Considering the fact that they didn’t want to leave her, cremation was the only choice. Yet they didn’t have a crematorium. So the only thing they could do was to burn the body in flames and carry her bones on their journey to wherever they would end up. River grieved her loss immensely.

However the journey would not end up with even that number remaining. Yasunobu though he tried his best, was only human. Eventually he came down with the same symptoms as Fiona’d had and succumbed in much the same way and that meant Haruo had to dispose of his remains the same way in which Yasunobu had disposed of Fiona’s.

That day also meant that River and Haruo; still teenagers came to a realization of an immutable fact- their lot in life was to grow up very quickly. From that day on, it meant that the two were an inseparable pair.

Nikkei_Simmer

Chapter One


Woeville, even the name gave an idea of what the general temperament of the community was like, was a lawless place that meant that you had to be on your guard at all times. Haruo gazed out at the community with a taciturn gaze before turning to head down into their make-shift underground bunker. Somehow, he’d come across a sheriff’s detachment and they’d managed to break into the armory – now loaded for bear with two M4s .226 LR and two Desert Eagles .50s, they knew that they would be able to defend themselves. Two teenagers in the middle of the desert were easy pickings, if unarmed, less so now since they’d managed to find themselves weapons.

“Promise me that you’re not going to do like Molly…” Haruo had told River who’d shaken her head at the thought. “We’re in this together.” He left unspoken the words that stated clearly that he wouldn’t be able to survive this on his own. It was then and there that their pact was sealed – she was his, he was hers and nothing would ever separate the two of them and that pact had grown into a bond of love. That was seventeen and nineteen. It took another two years before they stumbled across Woeville.

Then it was another year of staking out a claim on a stretch of uninhabited land...and building a place where they could call home, digging out the foundation of what would be a place that they could take refuge and from there they would build it up into a defensible position, to be guarded by them and by their ensuing heirs.

“I don’t like the fact that our food-stocks were raided.” Haruo was frustrated. Now twenty-two, he’d been hardened by the fact that they’d had to eke out a survival on their own from such a young age. He didn’t trust easily and the fact that someone would make off with their food invited retaliation. This was a lawless community and the advantages were for those who had numbers and strength.

“I know…” River replied, “Those were the last of our resources and we were short to begin with.”

“It has to be one of the others...they know what we’re doing and they want our land. I’m not letting them have it.”

"Honey, we don't want to start a war over it...we only have so much ammo to do anything with."

Haruo turned to look at his de facto wife who gazed back at him in concern; they’d gone through too much together to be anything else but a couple, “I don’t want them thinking that they can walk all over us and get away with it.” a prophetic announcement that bode ill for whomever had purloined their food-stocks. He and River had managed through hard-toiling over the past year to make a life for themselves and to give themselves a fighting chance. He’d learned a lot, from reloading his cartridges after hunting, to making his own gunpowder and caps. Here, as in the Wild West, there was a price for stealing. They hung cattle rustlers and thieves back during the 1880s. Now it was the 90s post-apocalypse and life was back at that era of gunfighting and eye for an eye. Except that now there were automatic weapons and sniper rifles. That made this Second Wild West even more dangerous than before. And Haruo was prepared to make those who didn’t know right from wrong suffer the consequences of their actions.

“Just don’t make your vendettas cost us our lives…” River told him. Not only were there the two humans, but there was Hunter and Loki.


“We need to restock our food which means we’re going to have to go out and pick stuff from the gardens.” Haruo stated. River knew that meant that they both had to go out. One to pick, one to stand watch to warn of any intruders. You couldn’t drop your guard for one second while out of the bunker or you could get jumped by any number of assailants. River took the M-4...

...and Haruo put on a leg holster with a Beretta M9 in easy reach and then they headed up to the surface.

The desert had its own set of problems that came along with it, snakes, spiders,,centipedes, scorpions. beaded lizards, etc, could all make your life a living nightmare if you weren’t a fan.

Haruo and River did not walk side by side they walked in tandem covering both sides of the street for better fields of fire. They knew, all too well, from anecdotal evidence from Haruo’s fascination with military books that too many soldiers died from not having clear fields of fire. Your muzzle of your weapon had to have at least one hundred eighty degrees of covering fire and ready to cover anyone who was approaching them on the street. You did not want to hit a friendly body within that range so each started their one hundred eighty degrees of fire-coverage from the center-line in the road or an approximation since Woeville had no paved roads.

Even children were held in suspicion while out. River and Haruo held everyone else in suspicion. A child could have an explosive device or a weapon hidden on her person so River’s eyes never wavered from an approaching person while on their walk up to the “community garden”.

It would sound horrific to someone but these years had hardened the both of them. If there were threats in the area, they were neutralized and age or attractiveness had nothing to do with it. The lesson of daily survival was a harsh taskmaster in these unforgiving lands and either one grew callous or one died through one of the many ways, by the hand of nature or man.

Mother Nature was quick to seize upon the opportunity to eradicate those that she figured were doing her harm or from sheer malice.

(to be continued)...

texansky

Great beginning!

Nikkei_Simmer

Chapter One (Part Two)

It appeared to River that the walk from their lot had not elicited a lot of attention from the rest of the populace. Whether it was the fact that they were carrying or they’d had the experience of having members of their family end up the loser in gunfights, that they knew to not mess with people who carried their weapons openly and at the ready. River and Haruo had started carrying their M4s at what was called the collapsed low ready position as they walked. That way their muzzles were pointed at the ground safe, but their hands were on the weapon ready to use it if need presented.

Hunter was busy with pawing around in the dirt, several years of being on his own had made him hardy and able to avoid pockets of fall-out infected ground. It was uncertain as to what breed of dog Hunter was, but he was definitively a mutt. However...it was clear that his genetic background was definitely a Spitz. He was heavy set and big for a Spitz but he carried his weight well and he was fast and aggressive. It was yet another reason why Haruo and River were never messed with. The rest of the populace were well aware that Haruo would unleash his dog on them if they so much as twitched the wrong way.

Loki was a simple black cat who happened upon them, like Hunter, on their journey to sanctuary. He was very aggressive owing to being a stray who had been hunted by a cougar, just before Haruo shot the big cat saving the little one. He now was a member of the pack, Hunter accepting him. Loki was an efficient hunter being on his own for three years, which was impressive considering that house-cats were being slowly killed off by larger and more aggressive prey. Loki had to be a wild-cat in temperament, helping his survival instincts while being on his own, but reverted back to his housecat temperament, but those three years had done something to him in terms of mental stability. When he slipped out of the bunker to go on his hunting expeditions, he was back in survival mode; a wildcat ready to pounce on whatever prey or attacker that he could, lacerating them to the bone with strikes with claws extended.

Social norms were a thing of the past. Everyone perceived everyone else as a potential threat; either grasping for survival by stealing or looting or eyeing power by killing others around them so that they became the top dog. All Haruo and River wanted was to be left alone and that meant making themselves as unpalatable a target as possible, which meant they needed to look as if they presented a threat to the rest of the population, strong enough to deal with any potential threat to their safety, which meant going armed at all times and presenting the image that they would deal with anyone who sought to take anything of theirs with lethal force.

River’s husband; she been calling him that, ever since they’d had to bury Haruo’s father; started working on harvesting the fruits and vegetables once they’d reached the consignment store/community garden. There was a shortage of fresh fruits and vegetables available in the wake of the apocalypse, with a lot of berries and fruits going extinct. Some wanted to bio-engineer them back into existence, however there was no guarantee that they would taste anything like the ones they were used to, if they were even edible.

Considering how bio genetically engineered a banana was already, the likelihood of getting the same edible banana with the same taste was impossible. The current banana, before the apocalypse that one could find readily in grocery stores, was a result of years and years of man tampering with it to produce a banana that was seedless, sweet and edible. The natural banana that had very little edible inside and jam-packed with seeds was extinct. Even the harvesting ritual had been tailored to preserving the original plant, a eunuch, genetically cloning the plant and picking its fruits over and over again. No more banana cream pies for Haruo ever again, unless someone did the genetically-impossible, which was to bring back the edible banana from complete extinction.


In this landscape torn apart by the ravages of time and war, the sunsets because of dust kicked up into the air were always still spectacular.

And it appeared as though some trace of the of the past able to be recovered at least psychologically when one took the time to view the sunset. It almost made this part of Purgatory seem tolerable. Once sunset hit, Haruo and River strove to be back in their bunker, doors locked up tight; a metal bar jammed across the door frame to block people from battering the door in – intruders would make so much noise that the cat would be alarmed, the dog would start barking and the human occupants would be able to be alerted and reach for their weapons. Woe be to any burglar who tried to get in.


River and Haruo took showers and decided that they would sleep until next morning. Retiring to bed, River cuddled with her husband and they fell asleep, hoping the next day they would be able deal with the rigors of getting a garden going.


(End Chapter One)

Nikkei_Simmer

Chapter Two

(Part One)

It didn't get any easier. With the advent of a car-less society thanks to EMP. The only ones with cars were the ones that had the least amount of electronics in their vehicle's chassis'. Since there wasn't many who owned a jeep, the denizens of Woeville were on foot and that made life extremely difficult walking a fair distance to get anything done.

On top of that clear skies were rare and far in between. Going outside was nervewracking because one didn't know exactly what weather system was going to bring what sort of long-lasting problems; the clouds being ominous and threatening. Whether the climate circulation system was bringing in radiation from those cities that were decimated by the nuclear fallout. What Haruo and River tried to do was to restrict their time in any form of precipitation and to shower off well after doing so. Some of the megaton bursts weren't air-bursts - some were targeted to take out ground-targets which meant a surface-detonation that kicked up increased amounts of radioactive dust that went into the stratosphere and started circling the globe.

One could say though that the community newspaper girl was one hardy little human; she was out in all weather to make her deliveries. No radiation was going to stop her from making her rounds. Hopefully that wouldn't prove to be the death of her.

Haruo had found a workbench in the abandoned military base, which owing to it being a military detachment site wasn't nuked off the face of the planet. There they were able to start constructing things that would help them get through their life.

There was a fishing site near the base that Haruo saw was stocked with fish, but unfortunately the skill level required to catch these fish was far too high, he needed to start on the minnows, but unfortunately that meant trekking out to an oasis in the middle of the Watcher-forsaken desert and he wasn't about to suck down precious water resources for that while they had so little. Fishing was going to have to wait, at least until they got water-purification reservoir where they could get drinking water that was not potentially contaminated.

What Haruo and River had was solace in each other, a comfort and a balm in trying times. And that would prove to be both a blessing and a curse. What rations they had were going to be lessened as interactions of that sort, led to "increases in population". Increases in population meant more mouths to feed - therefore in a restricted food situation, more population means less resources to go around.

Sometimes "holding off" was better for the sake of their limited resources.

(end Part One)

Nikkei_Simmer

Update: Tiny won't take the major mods...that I installed on and complains so I'm going to have to shelve this one for a while until I get a decent computer (with graphics card).