Chapter 1 The Trek

James packed up his gear and put out his fire.When he was packing his gear he dropped his cell phone from his ruck sack. James forgot he even had that the phone was in his bag. When the attacks happened and James lay in hiding all he had for memories was on his cell phone. Pictures, videos, and voicemails of loved ones all that remain when the system was still running before it eventually came crashing down, but now the cell phone network was destroyed and James only had a paper weight of a dead cell phone. James took the cell phone and with one hand was about to throw it away but he didn’t, because he had hope one days that he could fire up the cell phone one more time and commit pictures to memory. So James took his phone and put it back in his rucksack to be forgotten once again. The spring had started with rain every other day and it felt like Mother Nature really wanted to make life miserable for survivors. He debated whether to make a skiff for his gear or just throw it on his back.

Heading north just seem like the right idea to do. Colorado Springs has to be intact. Even though the area had three military bases like; Fort Carson for the Army and Peterson Air Force Base, plus ENT Air Force Base for the Air Force widely known for NORAD and Cheyanne for their government importance. You would think the government would have sunk money to protect Colorado Springs for without it there would not be any bases to run. But what of the condition the area, James had to figure it out on his own. With all this contemplation in James’ mind the only thing was start walking.

The world seemed so small from his point of view when a few years ago he could jump on a plane or just go onto the internet to surf the world at his fingertips. While walking he could not but see down planes and search through for supplies.

James always did like the peanuts and he was not always getting the essentials from using his hunter gatherer techniques. He had to be resourceful in find wild onions or being from the Southwest eating off a prickly pear or two. He did remember when he lost his filter straw and was so thirsty that he drank stagnant water from a stream that his bowels turned inside out. The experience reminded him in the future to always process water. In some cases when had time James made a distiller out of copper piping and a pot he had found in an abandon home. The experience of being lonely made him very creative on how to survive. Although meeting the occasional human was an occasional treat depending if they were trying to kill him or not, James became very wary on becoming close to another human.

You would never know who was friend or foe. He remembered this one time that he met a girl and thought he would settle down and get close, but she was bait and the bandits were trying to get to his supplies he carried on his back. Another time he would come across patriots but their attitude was more radical than he cared for. Now granted there was militias he did come across that shared his values and he would have stays if there were not constantly fighting with other factions.

With towns falling to their own bureaucracies and the police creating own little coups to take over their counties. The United States reverted back to tribalism on unseen scale since the medial times. From what James heard from other Texas held together as well as Utah for economic and religious reasons. But other than that California was swallowed up by Mexico only for them to collapse on themselves when the world fell. Canada took over some parts of the Dakotas for the gold and oil. United Kingdom tried to establish their own version of the thirteenth colonies but the East Coast fought them back once again, but the fight stretched the remaining part of the East Coast Armies thin which led to the infighting within the government.

 The Southern States tried to reestablish the south but only to flounder on the immigrants and welfare system that was reestablish made those states fall into more chaos with racial division and economic turmoil. The haves and the have-nots were running amuck with their version of socialistic Darwinism that eventually led to sectors of Elites running New York and the former District of Columbia.    

 James had nowhere to go. He would not fit in anywhere. He was not rich and I never saved enough gold alongside the ammo and supplies he would stash. The United States Dollar was no more and was equivalent to the Deutschmark or the Soviet Ruble. What dollars he had been now used for fire starter or kindling. The barter system was back in full swing and James got really good at bartering. The best example was when he needed boots due to the others being worn off so much that James would trade some medical iodine he saved along the way.  Luckily doctors still existed and James found a few that would trade for cigarettes or occasional porno mag. Men are men and they all have their weaknesses.

When on your own reflecting is your friend either that your enemy. Today was trying to swing all the songs in his head from his childhood or watching all of his favorite movies with no big screen movie theater around. The sky was his theater, the wildness was surround sound. With the world collapsing the animals knew before we did and started taking over towns that were abandon. Storm drains became caves to all sorts of animals like bears, bats, and the one time a pack of wolves. James was better off on the outside of towns where his skills were best used making tree stands or lean-to shelters. Nature was his Home Depot, his Lowes when he needed the bare building essentials.

While walking James always had a compass, his grandfather said you will never be lost if you knew the direction you were going. James took that to heart from his grandfather’s lessons every time he would visit on the weekends. He as a younger boy would volunteer as a boyscout at the retirement homes where his grandfather stayed till his death. Oh how grateful James was that his grandfather was not alive to see this turmoil he was in. For his grandfather was a World War II veteran and a proud one at that, he would be ashamed of the United States; being destroyed so easily from outside and from the inside. James came back from Marine Boot camp and he would visit his grandfather and just sit and listen to the atrocities that his grandfather had faced. Right then and there did James truly know his grandfather? Even before grandpa had died while James went to Iraq for the first time his grandfather sent him one of the only letters he got while fighting in the war.

It said,

In this letter there are more words than I can describe how proud of you and what you are doing for standing up for our country. If I were younger and in your shoes I would have done the same thing after September 11, 2001 when the terrorist attacked us. It felt like my Pearl Harbor to me. So in this letter I enclosed my most prideful possession it what you called a can opener. Back in my day we didn’t eat from bags ready to eat we had real cans. So I am leaving this to you so you can never be hungry again.          

Love,

Grandpapi Joe

   To James that letter he remembers verbatim and where he stood over the Rockies the he still had grandpapi’s can opener. Honestly without that little can opener James would have starved on a number of occasions when he came across all sorts of can goods.

As James walks he could not help but think of all the loved ones who passed on. What would they say that he is the survivor carrying on the linage in this savage world? It would be like in the movie Star Wars, when Luke Skywalker is looking across the fire and seeing Obi Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and his father Anakin Skywalker. Is James ancestors follow behind him in a trail of ghost or will he sit down one day and see grandpa just whittling on a stump. What would he say? Use the can opener; it is not as cool as, use the Force, Luke.

James only had his humor and his wit for he would go insane. The Rockies were long and mean. The terrain would go from plains to mountains in the matter of hours. Out in the distance while trek was long about three days since he had left the New Mexico border James came across a column of smoke in the distance. The smoke was not of a natural state like a forest fire. James in the past when there was fire departments and the forest service, he would volunteer for wild land firefighting, James participated in the explorer program and would eventually pursue it in college. So James knew what a forest fire looked like up close and this was not it.

As James got closer he would see multiple structures or shanty buildings roughly made to looks like something out of Southern Argentina or Venezuela. As he neared the town because it became abundantly clear it more town than village James found a rough cut road from the path he was walking. Upon that road he found a sign that said, Welcome New El Paso, Gateway to the west. Around the road James could see farms and livestock grazing to him this seemed out of the ordinary. From where he came the land was either barren or devoid of life other than nature taking over. James had no map and had to think did he really travel more east than north. None of this made any sense El Paso was in South East Texas not southern Colorado. A boy and a little girl came running by and they stopped, looked, and screamed at James.

The two children scream, Stranger danger, and went to the nearest hut they could find. The noise of the two children brought attention to some more adults nearby working in their own personal garden. James was taken back this like he had kicked someone’s dog or drowned a kitty in a pond. Then all of the sudden a mob came rushing at James and they surrounded him like a swarm of wasps. If you see it for yourself it was not turning out to be a good situation for James. On top of that he was armed which seemed to anger the mob even more. James not trying to escalate the tension put his hands above his head.

A tall man walked through the crowd with a shot gun slung over his shoulder. He would appear the authority figure of the town. As the man grew closer he could see burnt scars over the man’s arms and partial his face.  A man of six foot five inches with scars can intimidate any man like James. Right then and there the scarred man took his shot gun off his shoulder and with a defensive stance butt stroke James right in the face, knocking him out cold. The sudden feeling of a wooden butt stock gave way to shooting pains. The in James unconscious he was awoken to several men stripping him in a dark room, his firearms were gone, his clothes remained intact, but he could not see his pack or the remainder of his gear.

Where? Am I? James had asked his assailants. Not one of the four men spoke a word. The scarred man came back again only to thump him in the head. The world went dark; James began to dream, to remember his past. The dream became clearer and clearer, the scene was Christmas back in Albuquerque. Scented candles of apple cinnamon, mom baking in the kitchen, Dad arguing with his brothers, his sister nowhere to be found, he was home.