Day One
I've been a busy bee today, which of course means I'm absolutely bloody knackered. Going from two years of sitting on my backside, reading and munching away, to a flurry of activity; well, I should have prepared myself a bit better. If that door is going to open, I want to be ready for anything, and being eaten by a mutant zombie-like-thing because I've got a stupid stitch in my side and my legs are aching from all the bloody squatting I've done isn't part of the plan.
George piled all his old books on the floor; there's three whole rows of them and today's task was to go through each and every one and sort them in order of usefulness. That's where the squatting came in. I don't know that anything there will be of any real use, but I've started a list of anything I might need when I venture outside for the first time.
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Mask
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Weapon
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First Aid Kit
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Torch
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Food
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Water
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Rachael
I need to make sure that I have enough to survive on should something go wrong and return to this place become impossible. It's more likely I'll stub my toe and die of infection than the mutant zombie-like thing, and about all I have for a weapon is a crowbar used to open the food crates. Still, I can't just stay in here forever.
Can I?
No, I'm going to need more food before long. George obviously had everything set to last 2 years, so there's no telling how long the generator will last (and thank GOD for the instruction books where that's concerned!) and the water pump and filtration system can't possibly last forever. In all the books I've read and films I've watched about the end of the world, the heroes always seem to be travelling the country trying to start a new settlement.
Fuck that.
I'm pretty sure that there have to be other survivors out there somewhere – they're rather like cockroaches, they pop up everywhere – but I don't feel the need to seek them out. People were bad enough before the bombs hit, and that was with laws and consequences. With that all gone, it's going to be survival of the fittest, the strongest survive and all that shit. Not one of those end of the world books I've read focused solely on the goodness of man; no, they weren't shy about detailing the atrocities either.
I've had two years to think about this. To mourn. The fact that the only people I mourned were my parents, George – and Jess a tiny little bit – kind of says it all really. Besides, people put us in this mess in the first place!
We're better off alone, Rach.
Anyway, back on task. First, I need to take stock of the situation up there. Are there any buildings left standing? I have exactly 2 months and 3 days’ worth of food remaining, if I'm careful. I'll need to scavenge from somewhere, and it would really be very nice if I didn't have to dig under a ton of concrete and god only knows what else first. We're in a small town, barely bigger than a village – and I'm still alive – so I think it's safe to say we weren't hit directly. There must have been some damage from the initial blast; apparently that can stretch out for quite a distance, and we're not that far away from Manchester.
God knows if there's any high target army bases anywhere close by. I don't think so, but what I do actually know could barely fill a book. There's bugger all I can do about the radiation, but let’s hope George's old World War II gas mask will sort that. If not, I'm screwed anyway.
And what about other countries? The whole world can't be gone, can it? I know 'World War III' kind of implies otherwise, but there at least has to be a winner. Right? God, I can’t think about that now. It's all too much and too far away. Focus. Survival.
Jesus, my legs are killing me!
I wish I'd spent the last two years doing sit ups and push ups. I'd known I should, I'd told myself to at least try, but it always seemed so far away. There was always a 'eh I'll do it tomorrow' promise that went unfulfilled. Don't get me wrong, I haven't been completely idle, this place is too small for that; there are always things that needed cleaning up, putting away, even plates that need washing. When you think about life in an underground bunker, the last thing you expect is to have to do the bloody washing up.
I've lost weight, at least. It would have been impossible not to, living on the tinned beans, soups, fruit, nuts and even some of those MRE's the books are always on about. Bet you didn't know you could buy those on the internet, did you? Neither did I until I saw the receipt. They weren't cheap, but they're not half bad considering. The fudge brownie? Yum. Still, I've been careful with my rations. I'd rather be eaten by that aforementioned zombie than starve to death or die of dehydration. Too slow.
Geez Rachael, you really need to stop going off on a tangent.
So anyway, depending on how bad things are aboveground, I need to find a place to set up base. No colony or anything like that, just a nice place for me and you to park my backside, eat, sleep and be merry. I wouldn't mind some new books either, I've read these cover to cover and can more or less recite pages at a time.
Huh, I just had a thought; Anything in the world I ever wanted in the past could be just sitting out there waiting for me to take it. That's kinda cool.
Things to do:
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Get Travel Kit Together.
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Do some sit-ups.
Things I miss:
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My Computer. My bloody hand is cramped to hell after all this writing!