Zombie apocalypse fiction – Ruth’s Story #191 On the Road Somewhere Between Warm Beach & Anacortes, WA #TEOTWAWKI #SHTF #WROL

I am not sure how long Monster sits outside in the rain, but eventually he climbs back inside the cab through what the Americans call the beer window. Monster is dripping wet, but he does not seem to care.

I turn up the heater in the truck diverting most of the heat to the floor underneath the dash where Monster sits on the floor by Honey’s legs. Monster pouts on the cab floor for the rest of the morning.

During the midday stop for lunch and to use the bushes, everyone gets wet as the pouring rain does not slack off. Sitting in the idling truck, Jim calls on the radio checking fuel status. Our truck is at a half tank in the main but the bed tank reserve is full of 110 gallons of diesel.

We eat our midday meal in the truck using the bushes as needed. Shack and I drink luke warm canned beer, cannot remember the brand because it was so unmemorable. One of the new girls who joined us at Warm Beach comes by checking ammo status and doing a personnel check. Everyone has a task in the convoy. No one rides for free.

Shack calls what Dolcent does “counting noses.” I have to remember that the young woman prefers Dolcent and always threatens dire consequences if someone calls her Dolly. It would be interesting to see what happens if someone yells, “Hello Dolly.”

Dolcent’s clothes hang off of her flapping in the wind like a scarecrow. Dolcent was probably quite chubby before she went on the KCAP crash diet. Like most youth these days Dolcent did not get enough exercise and probably had a very poor diet. Dolcent at least had good dental care her teeth are perfect and blindingly white.

Dolcent has a very pale complexion, with kinky brown hair roughly hacked to collar length. Dolcent’s most striking feature is her large, expressive eyes one blue and one brown. I wonder if she is mixed race, but I do not bother asking her. The young woman has a bit of chip on her shoulder, and is rather surly.

Dolcent carries a Hi Point .40 S&W carbine slung over her back. We frequently find Hi Point guns, as the ugly inexpensive weapons were very popular prior to KCAP. Hi Point magazines are not as common.

For such an ugly and heavy weapon, the Hi Point carbine is remarkably reliable. Hi Points are not known to be ammo picky which is an excellent quality these days when you cannot be choosy about the ammo you use.

I am not sure if Dolcent carries a pistol, the long shapeless US Navy rain coat she wears could hide any number of weapons underneath.

Since she joined the convoy most of the times that I have dealt with Dolcent I have had to resist the urge to hit her. From her actions, I believe that Dolcent is perhaps a little immature and has found herself thrust into adulthood way before she was ready.

Lunch today is potted mystery meat mixed with UHT mayonnaise spread on stale high-calorie survival crackers. The survival crackers are from the Office of Civil Defense; the early Cold War precursor to what eventually became FEMA.

We have quite a few cans of civil defense all-purpose high-calorie survival crackers. Rick brought several tins of the survival crackers, stored in the Mercer Island tunnel. The tins of survival crackers were removed from another site, most likely a fallout shelter.

The survival crackers were to be temporarily stored at the Mercer Island tunnel. Fortunately for us someone forgot about the crackers. Rick knew where the tins of crackers were, tossing them in the snow plow when he left.

The chewy, stale crackers are followed by various American MRE snacks. I eat some MRE chocolate chip cookies, washing them down with orange-flavored sports drink from another MRE. The orange drink helps wash the horrible after taste of the UHT mayonnaise out of my mouth.

Shack munches on some dry roasted and salted almonds, washed down with lemon-lime flavored sports energy drink. The convoy is out of Red Bull, Monster, AMP and other high caffeine and sugar drinks. I believe Shack and a few of the other lads are suffering withdrawals.

I watch Honey and Monster wrestle with P38 can openers, dueling bravely with a quartet of 1951 Korean War era B1 and B2 unit food ration cans from an RCI. When the P38s puncture the first can I hear a hiss of escaping gas. I move making sure that I am not down wind.

After lunch, after checking the blade’s edge for damage, I clean and oil my Glock knife thoroughly before sliding it back in its sheath . I used my knife to open some particularly tough plastic MRE packaging.

“Babe, as an Israeli operator why don’t you use a Du Star knife?” I did not hear Shack walk up to me. Standing beside our idling Dodge truck, he startles me a little.

“Well sweetheart Shack, some of the other Sayeret soldiers did, but I prefer the simplicity of the Glock knife. My Glock knife is lighter with a slenderer blade than a Du Star. For most of my clandestine wet work, I found that I could slip my Glock knife between the ribs far easier than trying to cram a thick Du Star blade in the same spot. Shack, where did you learn about Du Star knives? They are not common in the States at all.”

“I saw it in a magazine – here,” he says, handing me a heavily dog-eared, glossy magazine. Flipping through the tattered magazine, I quickly realize that it is aimed at the gear queer crowd who wanted cool tactical douche ware to show off to their friends.

I always hated when, particularly guys, would deck themselves out in expensive tactical douche ware. Most of the shit this style of magazine pedaled were designed to catch the wallet of a pathetic individual wanting to look like a clandestine services operator.

I never understood the assumption that wearing a lot of tactical douche ware with dubious combat worth should impress women (or men, if that is your bent). I suppose the idea is that the suitably impressed would then fling themselves at the gear queer.

One of the many things that I have always hated about Americans was their frequent assumption that money can buy everything. Just because you deck yourself out to look like some super secret squirrel operator draping yourself with expensive tactical douche ware, does not mean that you are in any way shape or form a true clandestine operator.

Most members of the clandestine forces hate the tactical douche wearing gear queers with a passion bordering on obsession. Not only do they look like fools, but they give the uninformed and simple-minded the wrong impression of the members of the clandestine forces.

Most personnel in the super secret squirrel outfits are quiet, humble professionals who do not go around wearing symbols of their elite units all the time. I never walked around with the Maglan symbol on my person unless I was in uniform.

Members of elite units have no need to brag about their membership in a unit or about their exploits. The Americans call individuals that brag (i.e. – lie) about their exploits while in an elite unit a poser, which is a very good description. Extremely few, if any of the posers were actually members of the elite units they purport to have belonged to.

We drive the rest of the day in the pouring rain. Impeding our travels north are the numerous abandoned vehicles. Sometimes blockages are so severe that we are forced to backtrack and seek another route. GPS is worthless, and maps are near impossible to find.

Turning this many vehicles around, especially the larger vehicles such as the HEMTTs, the snow plow, and the fuel tanker takes considerable time.

It is during one of these turn around fiascos, that we are suddenly and viciously attacked.