Zombie apocalypse fiction – Ruth’s Story #196 Stuck For The Day Somewhere Near Warm Beach, WA #TEOTWAWKI #SHTF #WROL

Filling this morning’s muddy drizzle is debris from the nearby impact. We are far enough away that none of the big stuff hit us, but all the dirt and pulverized rock kicked into the air is coming down with the rain.

Creating a black slimy mess, the raining mud coats everything with a thin, black slurry. With the weather reducing visibility, increasing the likelihood of a crash the colonels decide to stay another day. Hopefully the bad weather keeps zombies and hostile survivors away.

One good thing about black raining, mud is that it muffles the camp’s noise. Even with judicious sounds and light discipline a camp this size still makes considerable noise. Hiding a large group such as this is a fantasy extra vigilance and caution is expected of our snipers and guards.

Increasing the number of guards, while keeping the roaming Scouts in the field, requires everyone, including the colonels, pulling a period of guard duty. Scouts are split between two shifts putting them on a six hours on, and six hours off rotation. No one is exempt from guard duty with the exception of the pregnant, convoy personnel still nursing children, and any child under the age of 14.

Fielding so many people with varying degrees of firearm competency is fucking asking for Murphy to fuck us. I have a bad feeling that something bad will happen, I just hope that it does not affect me or mine.

Breakfast this miserable morning is a slightly more than three years out of date MRE. I have drawn menu #24 Southwest Beef and Black Beans (AKA: south-of-the-border diaper disaster according to the soldier who handed it to me).

After carefully slicing open the heavy brown plastic bag I dump the contents on the Dodge bench seat. Normally we would eat in the chow tent, but our cooks and kitchen crew had already ripped the kitchen and chow tent down in preparation for travel today. The grumbling kitchen crew is putting up the chow tent and the kitchen in this shitty black raining mud.

Shack, Honey, Monster and I decided to eat lunch in our truck. Shack ducks behind the bench ensuring our two 70-something years old tin cans of Educator Biscuit Company, Survival Biscuits are secure.

Each Office of Civil Defense 17 pound tin holds about 1,500 biscuits we have two of them behind the Dodge’s bench seat. I was wrong Shack was not after survival biscuits, he was after something quite a bit better.

Shack retrieved his precious plastic can of honest-to-God Tang. Not quite as good as freshly squeezed OJ, the kids like the Tang. Carefully scooping the precious orange powder so that none is wasted Shack makes one liter desert tan plastic canteens of Tang for Honey, Monster and then himself. I pass on the Tang this morning I want something hot instead.

Neatly folding the brown MRE bag I store it with the others in the truck bed tool box behind the cab of the Dodge truck. A hot trade commodity the heavy plastic MRE bags are used for many things such as keeping gear dry, a waterproof shoe liner, and food storage.

Sorting through the contents of the MRE I separate what I will eat now from what I will snack on while in the truck. Stripping cardboard boxes from meal packs and compacting the bulky MRE results in a decent pile of fire starter for the stove in our tent. For eating later I shove the kippered beef stick with the flour tortillas along with the jalapeno cheese spread into my BDU pants thigh pockets.

I know that shoveling the beef and bean mix into a tortilla is what I am supposed to do and then covering it with the cheese spread, but I do not have time this morning. Shack and I have drawn both guard and radio duty. While waiting for my little trusty Esbit stove heating water for my packaged mocha cappuccino I eat the cold spiced apples in sauce.

Following the advice of Shack and other US soldiers experienced with this MRE, I hand the packaged chocolate and banana muffin top to Monster and Honey for sharing. I had not noticed until this morning, but Monster is now talking similar to a four-year old child. Monster is five months old, and already walks, runs and now talking. Granted, he talks like a child, but damn Monster is growing fast.

Honey raises her eyes when I offer her the MRE muffin top snack. “Bog zaveshchaet delit’sia (Russian – God instructs us to share) I explain. Honey snatches the snack ripping it open before I could even contemplate changing my mind. Not sure if Honey understood or is just too hungry to care.

Watching as the two infected kids eat, I am amazed at how much food these two eat. No that is not correct Shack explains to me that Honey and Monster scarfed down the packaged MRE snack.

With their higher metabolism, the two kids require almost twice as much food as Shack and I. Not only are Monster and Honey still growing, but the KCAP infection increases their metabolism making them hungry all of the time.

Since joining the convoy Honey, has grown at least three inches becoming a willowy, thin young woman with whipcord-like muscles. Watching Honey walk around our truck, Monster piggy back riding her shoulders, I believe that Honey will be stronger than Shack and I put together.

I have watched Honey effortlessly toss our rolled dripping wet canvas tent followed by our sleeping gear into the back of the Dodge truck. Usually it takes three of the guys to toss our rolled canvas tent into the truck.

Monster usually helps Honey cover everything in the Dodge truck bed with a tarp. Since we are not leaving today, the kids have other chores. Monster carries our emptied chamber pot back into our tent. I see some ass hat has painted a yellow smiley face on the bucket with the words “Have a Nice Day” underneath.

Shack hands Honey and Monster a pair of sealed MREs. The two KCAP-infected children eat more than twice what most convoy members eat. I notice that Shack returned from the Colonel’s tent carrying two crates of MREs. Since I have been with the convoy, the Colonels have jealously guarded our finite supply of MREs.

Seeing Shack arrive with two sealed cases makes me suspicious.