60 BULLETS
My heart pounded in terror and I squished over the seat, bringing the seatback forward because no effing way was I stepping foot on that ground again and I needed my hunting rifle. The awkward position reaching for the case with me stuck butt up in the air pressed painfully into my bruised front, but that didn't matter now. With a full-on lunge, I grabbed the case and brought it up, quickly putting the pieces together and fitting on the scope. I only had five bullets in the case, the rest in the tool bin in the bed. My eyes scanned the darkness, my headlamp doing the bare minimum for viewing. Five would have to be it because that door was not opening ever again. I gulped, ready for a long sleepless night.
My rifle flew to my eyes at every sound during the night and twice my headlamp lit the glowing eyes of forest creatures. But as the sky began to light, I knew I had survived.
One night down.
My fear somewhat diminished as the area began to light and I turned my headlamp off with a groan of relief. Now that I could see, maybe predators would be less likely to attack. I'd finally rest my eyes for a few moments.
The sun was high in the sky when my so called few moments were up.
I jolted awake, my rifle already clutched in my arms, trying to get a sight of something, though I couldn't hold it correctly in the cramped area. I scanned the surroundings a full minute before I sat the gun across my lap and rubbed clammy hands across my face.
Taking a glance at my cell, I leaned over and turned it on. Still no signal. No. Would it ever get signal again? Was this real? Was I on some other planet? I bent to peer out the window at the nearby plants. Yep, they all looked so foreign. And last night. Those stars and those planets? Was it a dream? This was all a joke right?
Maybe I got in a car crash on the way home and this is me hiding in my brain, in a coma somewhere?
Right?
Right?!
Please let that be it.
I felt up and down my arms, hands continuing to my face and I sure did feel awake. A pinch confirmed that I felt pain, but to be honest I still wasn't one hundred percent sure. I mean, who drives down the road and ends up on another planet?
That was seriously messed up.
Either way, there was a more pressing issue at hand. I needed to relieve a very full bladder. That meant stepping foot outside this cab. I surely couldn't do it. Looking around the cab, I tried to spot anything that would help my situation. An old paper drink cup? I even thought about my cooking pot from last night, stored safely in the back cargo bed. Though I wasn't sure I was desperate enough to relieve myself in a pot I'd later need for meals.
"Okay Eleanor. You have done emergency preparedness for ten years now. On your own for the last six. You take care of a whole farm. You can shoot an elk at three hundred yards and field dress it yourself. You have a hundred and fifty thousand subscribers. You can't let them down that you were too afraid to even pee in an emergency situation."
A glance outside the window, showed I was still scared.
But what kind of emergency situation is waking up on a different planet?
I growled to myself, continuing my pep talk. "Do it! Do it now!"
And I cautiously opened the door, letting fresh air fill the cab. I took a deep breath and the air smelt beautiful. Even being out in the country, there was always still something in the air that hinted at the pollution coming from big cities. This air was different, all spice and earth, rich and full. The way you'd imagine Earth to smell like a thousand years before factories. And well, hey, if I'm breathing, I guess this place has oxygen. Maybe that's a little of this feeling too. I lived at a fairly high elevation. When I've been to sea level it felt like this, almost easier to breathe. This place must have more oxygen, even though I'm on some mountain somewhere. What would it be like at their sea level? Would they even have a sea level?
Remembering the reason to open the door, pangs filled me, and I rushed from the cab. I wasn't afraid of the world now; I was afraid of having to wash my pants. Found a bush and did my business.
Now that I was a little more aware of my predicament, I knew I had to be careful with my supplies. That meant not using my drinking water for sanitary, so I found the mini bottle of hand sanitizer on my seat and used it. I'd have to find a source of water soon though, I had only maybe fifty uses of sanitizer in this bottle.
Hopefully, I'd wake up before it was gone.
Letting the full situation really sink in, I tried to remember all my trainings. It was literally like I never had any. Not a single thing was bubbling to the surface that I should do. I realized it must be some level of shock and tried to focus on deep breathing. I would not go into shock. I would not go into depression. I would survive. I would survive and find a way.... But my eyes opened feeling the sadness set in. How would I find a way back to Earth? My body already felt resigned to the fact that this is now my life.
And if this was my life, I would live.
A new feeling of strength seeped into my muscles. I would survive. Step one in training was actually not finding food or shelter. Step one was always having the will to survive. Yes. I had the will. Goosebumps chilled my arms. This is what I've prepared for for ten years now. How to be in a life-threatening situation and make it out the other side. I may not make it out, but I would go down trying.
My will solidified.
I would do this.
Next step I needed to do was log supplies. I started with the strewed contents of my purse.
Stupid receipts galore. At least they'd make okay kindling. Hairclip and ties. Button sewing kit. Tissues. Mini notebook and pens. 2 protein bars. 10 DayQuil. 6 bandaids. Empty prescription bottle. Ibuprofen. Handful of cough drops. Army knife. Whistle. Travel intimate cup. Costume ring that I lost from Halloween. Lighter. Spent nail file and chapstick. Poncho. Decorative keychain. Mascara.
Okay. I think I can work with that. But my thoughts sounded worried, even to me. I went outside to check the two bins I always carried in the back, but first a look over my items from the feed store.
2 bags of chicken feed. 1 bag of chicken scratch. 2 bags wood shavings for bedding. 1 solar panel for an electric fence.
Bin one. My farm supplies.
Hammer but only six nails leftover. Small handsaw. Hunting knife. Multitool. Hand shovel. Collapsible bucket. Ammunition box for my rifle brings me to 60 bullets. Screwdriver set. 1000 feet wire.
I groaned. Duct tape. Why did I not have duct tape? I glanced between the solar panel and the wire. I wondered if I could rig the wire as fencing and give myself some sort of perimeter safety. It may not be possible, but it's probably high on the to do list.
Bin two. My emergency supplies.
Sleeping bag. Basic first aid kit. 1 change of clothes and it looked like I hadn't updated the clothing for a while, the pants were too small. Firestarter. Water filtering straw and 20 water bottles. 3 days of dehydrated meals and 14 2000 calorie biscuit rations. And then my thermal cooker, butane stove, and kitchen tools.
You'd think I'd be happy with how prepared I was, but this was nothing compared to my supplies in storage. I didn't have a bunker, but man I miss my food storage room right now. Three days of dehydrated food was going to be nothing.
Okay, so I have shelter. I have a sleeping bag and the cab. I have some water and some food, but next step is to find water.
On the hike yesterday, I saw a lake... what the eff is that!
I screamed at some rodent running from behind the trees to under my truck. I jumped to my feet in the cab and raised my rifle, like I needed a full rifle to hit something five feet away.
As it ran out the other side of my truck I watched in apprehension. Basic rough brown furball about the size of a cat. Thin rounded ears the size of dinner plates and three sharp pointed tails straight out at attention like porcupine quills.
I stared at the trees where it disappeared into the undergrowth like the place was about to catch fire. My heart thundered. That was definitely no animal I'd ever seen before.
"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."
Quickly I twisted to the opposite side of the truck, my gun taking aim as I realized the furball could be running from something. My ears perked up trying to listen to any ricocheting coming through the underbrush, but the only sounds came far in the distance. Some screeching bird that's caw sounded deadly even from this far.
I'd keep my rifle handy for that one.
Or maybe that bird would keep my time here short. A sigh pressed my chest. That would be helpful too, since I wouldn't have the heart to do it myself.
Okay whatever. Back to business. I need food and water. I downed a protein bar and water bottle. Then put all the empty water bottles in my purse, with the water straw, calorie ration biscuit, and flung the rifle over my shoulder, the pepper spray in my pocket.
Here we go.
I walked two hundred steps, dragging a walking stick for a trail back and noticed no water. Same thing in four other directions.
Coming back from the fourth, was those same hot pepper ark plants I'd seen on the hike the day before. Guess those are as good as any to see if they're edible. I did like eating green peppers at home like apples, so hopefully these wouldn't be the ghost pepper variety.
It had been a while since I read how to test new fruits and vegetables if you didn't know if they were edible or not, but I was pretty sure I remembered that you just test the plant on your skin first. So I picked one of the slim peppers and broke it in half. I tried to smell it, if I could smell any spicy in the air, but I couldn't.
I was kind of nervous, just rubbing pepper juice into the soft underskin at my elbow. Would that even be a good idea on my easily irritated skin anyway? But I needed to find food in this place fast and after you test it on your skin there is still a few more days of testing before you can eat a full piece. So better to start now.
I got out a pen and wrote a note on my skin above the new juiced area: Pepper.
Then I got back to my water search. My next choice of path, at two hundred feet in I could hear the familiar trickle of running water. I kept walking and even tried for a few circles before I found it a couple minutes later. It was a small stream of water, no larger than a drizzling bathroom sink, that pushed out from a giant round boulder. It formed into a small pool below about the size of my truck's tire. I was hopeful it would be a freshwater spring with how it fell from the rock though. But I wasn't testing anything yet. My water straw was supposed to filter for three years, so I wasn't worried as long as this hole wouldn't dry up.
I dipped the empty bottles in the small pool and returned them to my purse. My stomach growled at the bush only a step over that held delicious looking fully ripe blackberries. It wasn't the blackberries I had on my farm, the bush was rounded instead of vines, and the berries doubled the normal length, so I still knew to be cautious. Picking up a berry, I rubbed the juice next to the pepper spot and then tossed what was left of the berry to the ground. If those end up edible, I'm going to hurt myself for throwing one away later. A quick note on my arm said: Blackberry. And then I rinsed the juice from my hands in the small pool.
I made harder scrapes into the earth and vegetation to find this trail again as I headed back to the truck.
On my way back I looked over the other plants. There were mushrooms growing on one side of a falling tree trunk. I'd always been weary of wild mushrooms even at home because of how deadly they could be, but I was desperate for food close to basecamp. I said a small prayer and broke a mushroom cap off and pressed the gills into my arm with their own label.
I got back to my truck and placed the water bottles in the bed. Then went on the search for some more foods to test.
There was a patch of potatoes that were in line of site of the truck. I found another of those rainbowed trees with the scratchy burrs and dug into them. I wanted to describe them like baseball sized rambutans, white soft fruit and super juicy. Some red elderberries and ground vining mandarin oranges were next, followed by two different colors of turnips.
While I was trying to write the last on my right arm: Blue Turnip. I realized my left arm was burning. I turned it over to check my lists and under the blackberry label my skin was starting to bubble with fingertip sized boils.
I said a curse word and shot back to the truck. I realized that my hands had red sunburning all over and the fingertips of my right hand were also burning with a similar small set of boils.
Another curse.
At least I didn't eat those berries.
I reached for the pool water bottles and uncorked one to flush the burning berry toxin from my arm. But a voice at the back of my head made me look at my sunburned hands again. The sunburn was on both back and front of my hands and stopped in a clean line at my wrist. A pause as I tried to piece the information together as my arm and fingertips flamed.
The water? My neck prickled with fright.
I tossed the bottle on the ground and the precious water spilled into the broken grasses while I jumped up to the bed for a fresh bottle. I drenched my arm and fingertips with the whole thing. The water only briefly helping quench the fire. I emptied another bottle over trying to delicately wipe at the area. I clenched my teeth through the pain. Now wishing I'd kicked that darn berry right into the effing dirt where it belonged.
Oh freak, my arm hurt! I blew out, my face contorted, teeth clenched, body rocking. Great. Day two and already an injury to deal with.
Slowly, I got out the first aid kit and there was a small jar of my homemade salve. I bit my lip already knowing this was going to hurt and slid my fingers through the yellow paste and rubbed it into my arm. The screech of pain could not be helped. Tears dotted my vision and I held still trying to breathe through the ache.
When I could finally see again, I rubbed salve over my fingers and hands. Then got out a rope of gauze and wrapped it around my forearm over the burn.
I sat for a few more minutes, nibbling on a ration biscuit and taking a drink of water, but ignoring the burn was all I was going to be able to do for now. In my mind I stood in front of my beautiful medical cabinet and grabbed for my bentonite clay that worked wonders for burns. I rubbed the quiet tears from my eyes and looked over my arm. The other places with plant juice looked okay for now, but I'd need to reapply the first few things again. Even the pen ink was mostly washed away.
Shoot. Now I really needed water. I'd dumped two whole bottles before I even knew what I was doing. Finding water was getting more important by the minute.
But I'd start dinner first.
With a pang of guilt, I put a pot of water on to boil on the small stove. I shouldn't be using all my water now, but with the injury I'd need a good meal. So I poured the contents of the dried food pouch in and shut the pot into my thermal cooker. I'd need to wait for it to rehydrate a few hours. A quick look to the sun showed it would probably be ready at dusk and I could eat in the cab and get ready for night number two.
Number two. Would I ever get back home?
Taking a quick hike around, I reapplied the pepper, potato, and rambutan juices. I looked at my still stinging fingertips. Should I use three of my bandaids already? I blew on the burn as the truck came back in sight. I didn't want to, but I guess scratching the boil bumps and tearing the skin would be worse than saving the bandaids for later. Pulling the first aid kit from the emergency bin I placed bandages around my aching fingers with another dose of salve.
I wouldn't look at my arm yet. But a glance down did startle me. At the soil, where the water bottle I threw poured, plants were withering and blackening in a small circle.
Crap. That meant I was right. That water was no good, maybe having something to do with the death berries, and I hadn't seen any other sources today. "Well, at least we answered one question today. I'm staying away from the nightlock berries and nightlock water."