Survival

Chapter 20 Shelter from the Storm

Gunnar found shelter after he walked through the desert like a strung-out junkie for days. An abandoned ranger's cabin was now home.  He sat on the hard cushion of the armchair, legs set up on the battered coffee table. Wooden walls surrounded him and a fireplace burned brightly when the temperature did not. Tonight's fire marked his third solo attempt at the craft, and he had it almost down to a science. To save his propane, he ate his canned pasta cold. This was the life, night time fires, a soft bed and complete isolation. There hadn't been any run-ins with other humans since the bandanna gang.

He tried not to think about it, but going back to that store was unavoidable. The food wouldn't last him forever, even if this ranger had stocked up for the year to come. There wasn't much to do out here, but Gunnar found his exploration of the surrounding area took enough time out of the day.

A black leather sketch-book lay on the table beside his feet. The fire crackled, and stole his attention; the wood supply was running low. He eyed the pages in the notebook as possible kid-, kindle, kindy- whatever that word was that Trevor had used last week. Before he tore out a page, a smooth black pencil fell out, the kind he used to draw with in art class freshman year.

A sketch on the first page caught his eye. A tall sky-scraper took up a third of the page. Gunnar found the roof most interesting. It had an entire park growing at the top, even large trees. The smaller building wasn't finished, only a light frame took shape on the paper. Its lines lacked the definition of the first building.   

Gunnar's fingers twitched and he grabbed the pencil. Something about that small building needed to be finished; he just couldn't pinpoint it. Before he knew it, the fire had died out, and he found he could no longer draw without its light. He had filled five pages with similar drawings of strange buildings. The structures didn't resemble any he had seen in his seventeen years of life. They probably existed somewhere, on TV or in richer parts of the city he went by in city buses as a kid. He didn't dwell any more on the drawings. He left the book on the table and went off to bed.

The light of morning sunrays burned through the curtains, forcing him out of bed. He grabbed a box of crackers for breakfast and sat down in front of the sketchbook. His fingers had that itch again, and he had an image in his mind he just couldn't shake. The sketch didn't turn into a building this time, but an object. It was simple, made up of wood, tarp, rope, and plastic. The wood beams supported the tarp that was slightly raised in the middle like a roof. Four waterproof boxes sat raised off the ground just below the tarp. The thick plastic boxes had small holes so the water could run through into a pipe, which connected to a large barrel. He knew the barrel also needed to be weighted down since the storms lately were enough to knock a person off their feet without issue.

Once the sketch was finished, Gunnar figured it would be a decent idea to build the thing. Time was his ally. It couldn't be too hard. He had put together really cheap furniture before for his mom. None of the instructions were in English, so this had to be easy. The instructions were all contained in the picture and his head.

Shops class was a place where he belonged in school, and this felt just like that except there was no teacher to get in his way. He chopped the wood until it was at the right height and found a good way to solidly dig the pillars into the ground. Nothing would be higher than three feet so it couldn't be easily spotted or be blown down.

If this actually worked, which he really doubted, he could be set for water as long as there was rain coming down. It had been dry for a few days but the air seemed heavy and stickier today so maybe he'd get this up just in time for some free water. It was better than standing out there with a bucket or bottle. He had done that the last few times, but the winds were way too brutal in those storms. He sighed. This silly contraption would probably just blow over after all this.