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The Unwritten Stories: Those Who Survived and How They Died

Dean Morrow

Chapter 2

After the first week, Maggy was sluggish, irritable and she was slowing us down. It was her own fault for not eating. Gross or not, the spiders were necessary fuel, and I could tell Maggy refusing it made Ana upset. I don’t blame Ana for being upset, it was disrespectful to not only her wife, but to the rest of the group, which was doing all it could to make the trek easier. Maggy’s stubbornness caused a rift in the group. Usually Maggy and her cousins, Harper and Carter, stuck together when group disagreements came up, but this time was different. I could tell Carter was getting sick of picking up the slack for Maggy, and Harper was getting sick of Carter’s angry outbursts and “negativity towards the family”. At least that's what it looked like from my perspective.

So, between the 20 somethings family drama, and Ana and Ximena’s elder millennial marital spats, it was just me and Jodi left in the wake of it all. Jodi was the reason I decided to get in the car and go on this suicide mission. She was an even keeled, quick on their feet, and quick to action type of person that could give anyone the confidence and drive to keep up with her, even me. It wasn’t just me that she pulled into this expedition either. She introduced all of us and made sure we were all heading to safety after the Cataclysm.

 I knew her as a next door neighbor. We lived yard to yard for half a dozen years or so, but we didn’t actually get to know each other until the Cataclysm was threatened on tv so often that it felt like your neighbors were the only people you could really rely on. 

Just over two years ago I heard a knock on my door. I was in the middle of a digital conference call with over 200 participants, and that was just my department; Anticipated Administrative Accounts Payable, the triple A P. Our job was to guess what money would be spent and where. They didn’t know the difference if I was there or not anyway, so I chose to answer the door. There, stood a six foot tall brunette with much more dedication to the gym than I ever had, “Howdy!” she said confidently. 

“Uh, hi” I muttered back more as a question than a greeting.

“My name is Jodi, I live right next door to you and figured I ought to finally introduce myself to the guy who keeps parking in front of my driveway!” 

“Oh no I don’t–” she cut me off mid sentence.

“I’m just kidding! I know that’s not you. You wouldn’t dare park that pretty little Preon on the street.” It felt like she was yelling but there was no anger behind her voice; just volume and enthusiasm. 

“I’m sorry, I’m actually on a work call right now I-” I whimpered trying to get out of this one-sided introduction. 

“No of course, I just wanted to take a little time out of my day and make an effort to introduce myself to the people I share the neighborhood with, y’know? You never know when you might need to borrow a cup of sugar.” 

“Uhm, yeah of course. Well I’m Dean. I don’t really do sugar anyways so…” 

“Sure thing, Dean. I’ll skip you if I ever need sugar then.”

And off she went to the next unsuspecting neighbor. I had no clue what to make of it but from then on anytime she had extra food or opened a bottle of wine that she wasn’t prepared to finish on her own I got an invite, or more often than not her inviting herself to come in, and pour a glass and heat up some dinner. It was nice to have some company though. Jodi was bright and confident unlike anything else in my life at the time, and I wasn’t sure what she saw in me as a friend, but the more I talked with her the harder it was to miss how intense she was and how ready she was for a potential disaster. It was almost as if she was excited. I realized then that I may have been the only one who had opened the door for her and then it made sense why I was the friend she clung to. After a few weeks of getting to know her and her fear for the future she told me about some other victims of her infectious extroversion. A few kids that went to her gym that were enamored by how much she should squat and begged her to help them train. There was also an older couple that she’d met during a winery tour or tasting or maybe it was a cruise. I don’t really remember. I just remember it was something that only rich people or old people did. 

I enjoyed hearing about these random people she had met in her everyday and not so every day life too, even more so when I got to meet them myself. She took me to her gym a few times, getting me back into the habit of some daily activity and she also reminded me that it was okay to go out to dinner and have long winded complaining sessions about the state of the world with people who had seen it burnt to the ground and rebuilt a few times over. A couple years later, all of these people packed into a solar cell delivery car and pulled up to my house with Jodi screaming at me to get in the back. Again, not yelling, just volume and enthusiasm.

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"Poetry" that no one will see pt 1

It feels like a deal with the devil.

Trading my soul for a night with you.

Still you leave unsatisfied;

even if I gave you what you wanted,

would you you need more?

I don't think I have anymore to give.

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The Unwritten Stories: Those Who Survived and How They Died

Dean Morrow

Chapter 1

The sky is gray and cold. Almost indistinguishable from the horizon, but what the sky had that the earth didn't was a singular blood red beacon floating through it day after day. I’m thankful for the warmth, don't get me wrong, but I swear it’s taunting me. “I get it! You can come and go as you please!”. 

If not for my obsession with the red, smug, son of a bitch, I wouldn't know that it's been about 38 days. Thirty-eight days of wandering through this wasteland. I only made it this long after noticing a small bite on my calf after the first week. I knew there had to be something else living out here, and there was. Trapdoor spiders, known to live in deserted wastelands like this, are not the most delectable option, but since the expanse of the desert, since the Cataclysm, there are enough of these critters to stay alive for weeks at a time. 

I’m not really sure where my destination is, but as long as that pompous, red, bastard stays on course, so will I. 

I know it sounds like I hate the sun, but I promise I'm smarter than that. I do get jealous that it gets to leave, and then I get lonely when he’s gone. I remember when we could see the moon through the smog, and back then it wasn’t so lonely, but now the darkness is endless, and punitive. I lie in the dark, wrapped in the plastic sheeting and random scraps I have found walking through the wasteland, and I think of the old stories my great great grandparents recorded for me before they passed. The boy with wax wings, and his descent. He got to fly! He could almost touch the sun! Is that not worth the fall? At least he got to see what it was like from the top. I’ve never gotten close to a freedom like that in my life, but here I am still, alone and I’ll probably end up dead on the ground just the same as him. Actually, I think he even got to die in the ocean not in the desert with nothing but spiders as both food and friends. 

 ~

Morning is a rude awakening, but I can’t be upset that I made it through another night. The odds really aren’t in my favor after all, never really have been, but I have survived longer than anyone else, so maybe my luck is turning. 

There were seven of us just before the cataclysm hit. We knew it was coming, and we were looking for anything remotely resembling safety. Two of us were older, late 60s at least, experienced and weathered, ready for the fight, but brittle still. Three of us were young and sturdy, ready for the task at hand but weak where it mattered; unhardened by life still. They went quicker than the old folks. One of us was brave and smart and strong - perfectly equipped for this journey - and the last of us was lucky. 

The old folks had a safe house - a cabin in what used to be New Mexico - and we were confident that we could make it if we stuck together, and if we could make it there, we could survive. There was a plot of land to grow food, a well on the property, a basement more akin to a bunker built back in the aughts, and the best part: a KILN. KILN was an abbreviation. It stood for Kinder Induction and Lumens Nodule, and it was only legal in New Mexico. Specifically in Los Alamos, which was used to nuclear tragedies for over 100 years by the time the KILN had made it through its testing phases. A 27% success rate was all they needed according to the Uni-CRON Safety Commission. German engineering really is something. Coming up with a mostly safe and fully self-sustaining  micro nuclear reactor for households is a feat in and of itself, but to make such a product and have it outlive not only the company but modern society itself is a true testament to the importance of such superior craftsmanship. 

If we could just make it to the safe house we could not only survive but live comfortably with hot showers and fresh vegetables. So off we went. Seven in a car meant for six, taking turns riding in the back of the cargo. Considering we were as far as we could be from our destination we made good progress pretty quickly. We hit the panhandle of New America - previously Texas - in less than a day. That was when we realised that we may have bitten off more than we could chew. 

The solar cell in the car wasn’t meant to run over 24 hours at a time. The car itself was a daily driver not really meant for anything more than an hour commute or a few deliveries at a time. Inevitability struck, and we found ourselves in what used to be the town of Panhandle, no car, no water, and no idea how we were going to make it to the safe house. Almost no idea at least. As long as we kept heading west we were bound to pass through Los Alamos. Luckily the big red devil in the sky made for a good compass. So, we took what we needed from the car and set out on foot. The first few hours were the hardest considering we broke down at the reddest hour of the sun. In retrospect it would’ve been smart to hole up in one of the many abandoned buildings in the town until the sun went down, but with the darkness comes mischief so we kept on through the heat to make as much progress as we could in the light of day. 

It’s hard not to blame myself for the misfortune of my friends. My negativity was repulsive. I couldn't help but complain about the heat, the lack of planning in choosing our mode of transportation. Anything there was to complain about, I did, and I blamed everyone but myself. 

Ximena and Ana were used to the desert. Unfazed by the heat, the cold and the lack of water, they led the group confidently towards sanctuary; all we had to do was keep up. Occasionally they would get into a hushed argument over whether this cactus was okay to pull water from, or if this “araña” was “segura para comer”. That’s how I learned the ever plentiful trapdoor “araña”, the very same bug that had been chewing on my calves while I slept, was a safe snack. I wish I had paid more attention to their arguments and made mental notes of what I could and couldn’t eat. It may have given me more options besides the bitter, crunchy, gooey arachnids I had been subsiding on for the last few weeks. 

I remember the first time they gave each of us a spider to eat. No frills, just no longer moving and a little warm from burning off the hairs. I was petrified, but I was also starving. The first leg got stuck in every tooth, the back of my throat and halfway down I felt like it was crawling back up. With nothing to wash it down with but more bug, I decided to just eat the rest of it whole. It actually had the same flavor as chicken as far as I can remember. Maybe I’ve just eaten so much spider that that is my new benchmark. Regardless, an inoffensive flavor, maybe a little bitter once you bite into the abdomen, but most importantly it kept us satiated. Most of us at least. The youngest of us, Maggy (short for Magnolia I think),  just couldn’t handle the idea of eating ‘critters’. She was scared enough of them alive but eating them was out of the question. Retrospectively, I understand, but at the time I couldn’t imagine complaining in front of Ximena and Ana. They were doing everything they could to keep us alive and get us to the safe house. Guiding us through the desert like biblical prophets. After all it was their cabin, their forethought to stock it full of non-perishables, and to enroll in the KILN project when it became available. The viability of the cabin was intentional and we owed them more respect than Maggy was showing them. The two of them had seen enough of the world to know it wouldn't last much longer. Thank God - or whatever is out there to thank. 

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The Unwritten Stories: For Those Who Survived and How They Died

The goal here is a book. A book comprised of 7 short stories, each of which falls into one of the seven basic plots. Their connecting string will be that they are all based in the same post apocalyptic world - more than likely all within the 48 contiguous states of the United States.

Seven basic plots:

Overcoming the monster - to overcome yourself. You are your own worst critic? Alone wandering the wastelands, you must come to terms with being your only companion. With the wrong youve done. The things you never did.  

Rags to Riches - once the lowest of the low; an unhoused woman is able to use her time on the streets to become the head honcho. She has been there and done that. Refers to herself as “King”. Inevitably results in a revolution against her and her tyrannical ways 

The Quest - How long has it been since you had a fresh fruit or vegetable. Scurvy is BARELY avoided due to an odd surplus of tang stored in a bunker for y2k…50 years ago. There is a rumor of a self-sustaining terrarium style warehouse in Mexico that has tomatoes, peppers, and the elusive AVOCADO. Western style quest through texas now known as new america 

Voyage and Return - Metamorphosis but there is a return. Experimental transitionary procedures to put yourself into a more resilient and efficient body in these difficult times. Most who want to undergo this operation of sorts want to be dogs and cats so that can be taken care of and loved by human caretakers. You unfortunately can only afford to be put into … a raccoon. There has to be a way back. I mean you have opposable thumbs after all. Make your way back to the lab but not without meeting other cerebrally overhauled kind for efficiency - COKE -

Maybe it was for the wrong reasons but maybe living as a wild animal is better than living as a human in a cage. 

Comedy - duo oldest and youngest brother stoner and booze hound make their way through life like nothing really changed. Its kinda great that we don’t have to pay taxes anymore - mom did that for us anyways. Oh yeah. But hey no one is yelling at me for having beer for breakfast anymore. Lifetime free beer - beer piss. Usually hungry because garden space priority is for bud. Brother names Bud and Wiser? Bread is made or found but mostly used for making crude hooch. Dumb and dumber style predicaments. 

Tragedy - Technically these are all tragedies, but so is life. The story of a bright young woman. Rough child hood alcoholic parents, devoted in her beliefs, assaulted. Burdened with a child. But optimistically loves and raises the outgoing fun loving child to live happy beautiful life only for the cataclysm to take it all. For what? What was the point of suffering Rebirth - A “peace” officer is sent on a busy work assignment by his captain to make sure that a small “terrorist” camp that was “liberated” (firebombed) is still out of commission. On his journey he misses his connecting tube line and eager to make sure he accomplishes his assignment finds himself surrounded by the people he has been oppressing making him realise that he is on the wrong side of history. By the time he makes his way back home he wants to take a stand and make a difference. This is what they all do. This is how they all die.