One Man's Opus: A Survival and Preparedness Story Page 3

  Opus chuffed at her and looked over at me.

  “Traitor,” she muttered and closed the door.

  I watched out of the side mirror as she walked around, kicking one of the rear tires and then lost her as she went to the other side. Finally, she got into the side door and I waited, wondering if it would fire up. After a couple minutes, I heard it crank and fire immediately. She revved it a couple of times, and I turned the van around and left. A moment later, she followed.

  “So your mom has her own business, drives forklifts like she was born on one. She knows about motors and motorhomes. Plays paintball and likes guns. Tell me again, is she some kind of axe murderer or something?”

  When the dog remained silent, I stole a quick glance and saw him just staring at me. He turned away a second later as if to call me a dumbass. I could take the criticism and I’d believed Al, so my judgment was obviously shit. I could see the motorhome following me the entire way back. It was easy to see, it was nearly as big as a school bus! When we got back to the mini-storage, I hopped out and opened the gate. As I was pushing it open wide, Opus exited my van from the still open door and took off running toward the pole barn.

  I got back in my van and parked in front, and watched as Tina expertly pulled in and made a three-point turn, backing the motorhome up next to the barn. Only part of the bumper stuck out. I got out and walked over.

  “Want to store your stuff from today in there, and when I get the dumpster empty you can help me do the rest?” she asked, tossing me the keys.

  “Sure. Hey, you said I could plug this in, do you mind if I do that before I head home?” I asked her.

  “Go ahead, just turn off the fridge and heaters, unless you want to pay the utilities.”

  “You got it. I don’t need those anyway, but it’d be handy to be able to turn on the lights.”

  “Yeah, I don’t care. Looks like you need a little cosmetic stuff done on the inside; I have tools in the barn if you want to work on it here.”

  “Sure,” I told her, giving her a smile.

  She returned the look and smiled back.

  4

  The twenty-ninth of the month hit. That was the day Amazon paid out its royalties to authors and publishers. Since it was the end of April and almost May, I started looking online for upgrades for the motorhome. A lot of places I went to didn’t have internet signal, but they did have cell phone. I researched it a bit and decided that I would get some type of air card for the internet, though I would only need it to check email and transfer and backup files. So a prepaid wireless internet hot spot it was. Then I got to thinking about signal boosters. I didn’t know much about those, so I put that on the back burner.

  “Hey, man,” Al said, knocking on my door, “You know that babe I was talking to?”

  “The girl who works at Taco Bell?”

  He winced but nodded. “Yeah, man, I’m taking her out to the Machine Shop later on. Her older sister wants to go, but doesn’t want to be a lame-o and show up as a third wheel.”

  “No thanks, man. Too loud, too many people.”

  “What are you going to do then?” he asked me.

  “I was thinking about checking out some state land with the van, maybe find someplace to take the War Wagon for a week or so.”

  “So you named it after the books in the Deathland’s Saga you’re always reading?” he asked me.

  “Pretty much,” I told him with a grin. “Plus, there’s some state land near the Alpena National Forest I’ve always wanted to check out. There’s a bunch of landlocked lakes to hike back to. I could get some writing done and relax.”

  “Dude, if I didn’t have to work, I’d totally join you. Especially when you get the motorhome going. That thing can be party central, man.”

  Yeah, not happening.

  “We’ll see. I’ve never driven it before, so I’ll have to take it slow and plan my turns ahead of time.”

  “Yeah, my mom always did that for my dad, all the trip planning… Hey, man, I’m gonna get ready. Don’t forget to lock up, bro.”

  I waved him off and went back to my computer. One more thing to think about… keeping the batteries charged. Also, testing to see how long I could run the 12v lights plus my laptop without needing a recharge. Solar panels. I looked up all kinds of solar panels for a couple of hours till I realized that I was spinning around and round in circles. I changed my clothes, threw my laptop in my case, grabbed my keys and headed out.

  “Can’t get enough of this place, or are you psychic?” Tina asked as I walked toward the gate, key in hand.

  “I was going to mess around with the motor home and see if I could figure out how long I could run the batteries before the safety switch shut the power down.”

  “Um, you can run it dead, there’s no safety switch to cut these bad boys off. I think they have those you can wire in, but in the 80s they weren’t common.”

  “Oh, well, you care if I dink around after I give you a hand? You were gonna ask me to help you, weren’t you?”

  She nodded and opened the gate. I hopped back in my van and drove in. I saw the forklift and the dumpster in front of the unit we’d worked on the previous week and parked close by. I still hadn’t moved my ‘to keep’ pile, and figured I’d do it while I was there.

  “You’re stuff’s still there,” Tina pointed.

  I picked up the tote with the hunting clothing in. It wasn’t that I was ready to start again, but the memories that opening it up evoked were pleasant. Plus, the clothing was just about the right size to fit. I’d have to wear a belt, but I doubted I’d wear them. Still, I loaded them into the side door of the van and went back for more. I found a few more things that had been moved to my pile since: two camp chairs, a folding table, and a small Coleman stove.

  “If you don’t want those, I’m going to pitch them. Figured they would work for an outdoor kitchen for when you use your motorhome.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and loaded those up, too.

  She’d already gone through and sorted a lot of stuff, so I mainly worked on chucking things into the dumpster till there was just a pile of empty totes and lids in the middle of the unit.

  “Wanna drive those over to the pole barn while I park this dumpster?”

  “Sure,” I said and dragged those back and put them into my van as well.

  She locked up, and I waited for her to move the dumpster so I could follow her toward the barn. I hadn’t been in the barn before, but as soon as she dropped the blue dumpster and backed in, I followed with the van. The barn was easily big enough to fit six or seven vehicles. One wall was made up of a workbench, and another had toolboxes, the rolling kind. I whistled when I saw the rest.

  Two computer workstations sat near the back where the forklift was parked and there was a small lightbox set up. I could see different products on display and two sets of shelves holding things. Her eBay business?

  “What’s all that stuff?” I asked.

  “Stuff that I scavenge once the auction stuff is done. I save some, put some up for sale. After a while, I figured who wants certain types of things so I just call them when I have something. Why, you looking for something special?”

  I hesitated and thought about my earlier internet searches.

  “Well, it’s a bit premature, but I was thinking of taking the motorhome up somewhere on a test run, but the areas I like don’t get good cell phone reception so I’d need to bring a signal booster of some sort. Maybe a tower or an extendable flag pole type of thing?”

  “You know, I think I’ve got something.”

  She started marching, but not toward the racks. I followed her toward the long work bench. She stopped and pointed near the rear corner where my motorhome was parked on the other side of the wall.

  “It’s probably overkill, but somebody left that with a wind turbine.”

  It wasn’t an extendible pole, it ended up being a boxed set of an antenna or TV tower. It came in a few boxes, and I just shook my head, confused. r />
  “No, maybe not. I was looking for something mobile to take with me. I think I’d have to bolt that to a tree or bury the base in concrete or something.”

  “Yeah, this is more for a home base. Hm… You can have it if you want, I was thinking of scrapping it if the wind turbine doesn’t sell.”

  “If I only had a place of my own,” I told her lamely.

  “So, buy a chunk of land to park your motorhome on. It’s cheap right now.”

  Once a week, I spent time helping Tina getting things caught up with the units she had to empty. I scored a tent and some other stuff that I swore I’d never need, but that Tina insisted were necessary. I was soon going to progress from being a rough camping aficionado to a glamper the way things were going. That was why I left the motorhome behind, packed up my van with my usual late spring gear and got on I-75 and headed north.

  From Flint, I had no idea where I wanted to go. That was the great thing about being self-employed and able to work from anywhere. As long as I could get to a Wi-Fi signal somewhere, I could upload my books, get edits done, and coordinate with the lady who did my covers and the virtual assistant I’d hired. I’d done this many many times and I told Al that I would PayPal him rent if I was gone more than two weeks. He made me promise to call and asked how things were going with Tina.

  I blew the question off and asked him about Taco Bell girl. Apparently, her name was Sonja, and the reason I hadn’t seen him much was because when he got done working at the auto parts store, he went there or hung out with her at the nearby park. It was kind of funny, ironic and sad all at the same time, watching somebody fall head over heels in love that is.

  One of the new things I had packed for the trip, was a bucket of freeze dried food. I’d gotten it on Amazon for $150 with my Prime shipping. I’d been reading more and more about prepping and I knew it was probably an extravagance, but I wanted to try it out. I’d also packed my larger Katadyn Hiker Pro. Dehydrated food needed water to make it edible and some of it probably needed to be cooked too. So my normal water needs had just gone up by at least a third. That was why I was looking for state land near a pond, lake or river to pitch my one man tent. One other extravagance I took was a small portable solar panel and a controller safe enough to charge my laptop’s battery. I wasn’t ready to go whole hog yet and buy a big system.

  I ended up seeing something about jerky somewhere off of an exit near Standish, and I got off there. I bought a couple different kinds, figuring that adding some kind of meat group would either be an epic mistake or an awesome win. Walking out, I saw on their cork board an advertisement for a rough campground on private property. I clicked a picture of it with my phone in case I couldn’t find anywhere and decided to head west toward I127 and see what I could find.

  Forty minutes later, I had my map out and found myself on a two track that wasn’t listed on my GPS. It was from an old lumber lease where the land had been clear-cut. The lumber companies would lease some old growth land from the state, cut trees, replant, and move on. That way large swaths of the forestland could regrow and the natural resources could be recycled. I found that BLM and lumber leases were the best for dispersed camping. This one had a creek that ran through it, according to the map.

  Another half hour of driving and I caught the scent of water in the air. It wasn’t the swampy, marshy smell, but the fishy fresh smell of running water. I turned the van off and parked there, not worried about passersby because I hadn’t seen a soul since I’d pulled off the main road. I got my compass settings and started walking. It wasn’t even a minute and I was walking down a ridge line to see the creek. I went back to the van and went to look for a good spot to camp.

  There’s something magical about getting away from it all. I was so far back that the animals weren’t afraid of showing themselves near me. Probably none of them in their lifetimes had really encountered people. I knew deer lived older than some, but the clear cutting had been done at least a decade in the past and some of the new growth was reaching ten to fifteen feet tall on the creek side of the cut. Squirrels ran about in their squirrel business, cussing out everything that startled them. A skunk wobbled into camp one day to watch me from twenty feet away. In the evening, I’d hear a hoot owl from somewhere, until the coyotes would start singing at night.

  I dug a fire pit in the sandy soil, lined it with rocks, put my tent under an evergreen and just wrote, enjoyed the silence and, on sunny days, laid out on my sleeping pad in the sunlight in a clear patch I found about twenty yards from my camp. And… I wrote some more. Take away distractions, take away the internet, and take away anything more stressful than keeping a fire going, and I could get a lot done. And I did get a lot done. For me, my PNR titles went from about 25,000 words to 40,000 words on average and, in a week, I had two titles done. One thing I didn’t have, though, was the Internet. On the eighth day, I packed up.

  I headed back toward town and a McDonalds I’d seen a sign for. McDonalds meant coffee and free Wi-Fi. As I hit the main road again and left some of the taller hills behind me, I remembered to plug in my cell phone and turn it on. It came on immediately, not having lost charge from me killing it from when I first camped. I waited to see if it was going to get a signal and it buzzed a couple of times. I had a message from Al asking me if I was having fun, and a text from Tina asking me to meet her at the mini-storage to see if I wanted her latest find. The date was two days ago, so when I got into town I’d get ahold of her.

  That was when I saw the restaurant. It was a local place with a sign out front. Half the lettering was dark, having burned out and never been replaced. Still, the sign said free Wi-Fi and homestyle biscuits and gravy. The biggest draw? There were two cars in a big parking lot there.

  I parked, grabbed my laptop case, and walked in.

  “Table for one, hon?”

  My eyes still hadn’t adjusted from the bright outdoor light to the darker interior, and I squinted. The woman was a little older than me, with dark curly hair and a figure that spoke of too much time indoors, much like mine.

  “Please, and can I get one close to an outlet?” I asked her, patting my computer bag.

  “Sure thing, getting caught up with work?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I have to do some backups and check my email.”

  “No problem. You want to sit by the TV or the fireplace? I got outlets there and there.” She pointed.

  “Firep… wait, by the TV I guess, if the news is on.”

  “You’re wondering if it’s gonna happen here too, aren’t you?”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, following her toward the table.

  “The so-called protests. In Baltimore.”

  I shrugged, confused. I would figure it out, but I needed to get online.

  “Oh, a man died in police custody in Baltimore. I guess they’re flipping police cars and burning stuff. I always wonder why folks from the big city want to do that kind of stuff in their own towns.”

  “I’ve been in the woods,” I told her.

  “Oh… Like a hunter, then?”

  I forgot, not everyone in rural areas appreciated it the way guys who live in or near the city do. The pace of life was different.

  “Sort of, more like a camper.”

  “I gotcha, special of the day is—”

  “Big order of biscuits ‘n’ gravy, two orders of bacon, and keep the coffee coming till I call uncle.”

  She gave me a sly grin and a nod and headed off toward the back. I took the opportunity to put my light jacket down and opened my laptop bag, plugged in my charger and got everything situated. Then I took my computer off suspend, so it booted up right away. The Wi-Fi was open, so I got right on and let my Dropbox start synching. While that was going, I opened Chrome and went to Outlook to check my email.

  After a week, I had almost one hundred and thirty messages to go through. Sadly, only about twenty of them were fan mail, a big chunk of them were newsletters I never signed up for (at least that I could remember) and th
e last bit was junk, pure drivel. I answered the fan mail, sent the two stories I finished in the woods to my editor, and got on Facebook.

  Story after story about Freddie Gray, the Department of Justice, and Loretta Lynch - and everyone had an opinion on something. So that was what the waitress had been talking about. I started reading some of it then looked up and saw some of the same reporting going on on the TV. It was crazy. Riot shields, police holding a line while being pelted with chunks of brick, and bottles of God knows what. I knew nothing about this, and went to a couple of websites. Sure enough, there was a lot of information out there and the coroner had ruled the man’s death a homicide. Six cops were under investigation.

  “Want some company?” I heard, and looked up as a man in his late sixties or early seventies sat down across from me.

  He tossed me my computer bag, and I caught it over the screen of my computer. I was about to complain when I noticed the clear poly tube. It led down to a rolling contraption that looked like an oxygen machine.

  “Sure,” I told him.

  He nodded and bent and plugged the machine into the outlet near the floor. The machine turned on softly, and he took a few big deep breaths before sitting up straight and looking at me. I’d been almost annoyed before, but now I understood.

  “Fire’s too hot to sit next to, and I like watching the purty news anchor ladies,” he said, and nodded toward the TV.

  “I don’t mind, I’m just catching up with what’s been going on.” I nodded at the TV, where a reporter was interviewing someone from the police department about the protests.

  “Where ya been that you haven’t heard about these idjits?” he asked, hooking a thumb in the direction of the screen.

  “Well, I work from home and don’t watch TV much. I came up north here to camp, and I spent a week in the woods writing and hanging out.”

  “A week in the woods? You look clean pressed and clean shaven to me,” the old man said.

  “Took a bath in the stream,” I admitted sheepishly, “and I brought clothing to wear when I came out to go somewhere public. I’m Rick, Rick Carpenter.”