SHTF Fiction: A Change of Major (Chapter Two)

"OK, Chuck. What are we going to do?"

"Mike, get your things together. Pack clothes, grab your coat and all the food you have in the room"

"Um, I got a couple of sandwiches and some sodas. Not a whole lot there buddy".

"What about Allen's stuff?"

We both looked to the Allens side of the room. Under his bed was what we called The Pantry or The Stash. Allen's parents sent bi-weekly shipments of "snacks" for Allen. The snacks however, were more in line with Allen's religious edict of storing a year's worth of food under the bed.

Under the bed there was two flats of ramen noodles. A flat of canned tuna fish. A case of pop-top canned fruit. A case of single serving canned Chef Boy-r-Dee. Fruit roll ups. Bags of pretzels. Individual packages of cheese and crackers and much more. Come back to the dorm late at night? Allen's stash was there waiting. Short on cash until payday? Grab something out of Allen's stash. And so it went like a big joke. Allen was cool with it as long as you didn't eat what ever was his favorite or act like a big bogard all the time.

"I can't take that, it's stealing"

"He's back home in Utah. We probably will never see him again. He comes back here, I will personally go to Costco and buy everything we ate"

Before I could answer, Chuck added "There's another thing Mike. It's why I wanted to get your help with this. Is your truck down in the lot?"

I looked up from my drawer where I was pulling socks and tshirts out and stuffing them into my backpack, "Yeah. Why? Is it far where we have to go?"

"No, your truck is older. What is it like a 1970 or something?"

"It's a 72. why?"

"Then it will probably work after a nuclear detonation. There's thing called EMP, which, forget it. There's no time. We need to take your truck" Chuck shouted as he ran down to his room..

My truck was a 1972 International Harvester Scout with the rag top. It belonged to my dad when he was younger and after some serious restoration, gave it to me for college. There was not a curb, yard or obstacle that thing couldn't overcome and that came in handy on a few late Saturday nights. I loved the Beast, as I called it, and my friends, both here and in Dallas associated the truck with me.

Packing in a hurry was not a problem, I just pretended I was going on an extended camping trip. I pulled out my only other two pair of clean jeans, a pair of cargo pants, three or four t-shirts, all of my socks (including the two heavy pairs) and underwear, my Patagonia thermals along with another set of no-name thermals, a few pullover long sleeve shirts, a sweater, a pair of sweats and my fleece lined mocassins.

In the pack was a full length rain poncho along with a Goretex shell, at least two pair of gloves, a navy watch style hat along with a baclava. I was pretty sure I had at least one set of gel liners for my boots in a side compartment as well. The rest of my clothes were either for dress up (like khakis) or would not be of use (like a dozen or so t-shirts or my bathing suit).

My camping gear consisted of a weather rated sleeping bag, a ground cover, a two man Slumberjack backpack, a spare tarp, a single burner stove, mess kit, along with a spare steel cup, 1 quart pot and a few other food related things. There was also a handful of Mountain House meals in the bottom of the back somewhere as well. I had a Katadyn water filter wrapped up in a sock along with a spare cartridge, some purification tablets and about a half dozen different sized water containers including my Kamelback. I knew there were other things like an extra knife and a hatchet but I did not pull everything out due to the time.

Chuck came back a few minutes later with a hand truck with two large duffel bags piled on top.

"Here, give me a hand with this"

"Where did you get that" I asked looking at the hand truck.

"Downstairs. They use them for moving day. Look out".

Chuck had a third, large empty duffle bag, which he started loading up with Allens food stash. We quickly removed cans from the cartons and broke apart the plastic wrap holding the ramen noodles together and crammed most of it into the bag before I started grabbing some other things like my sodas, bathroom stuff and a flannel shirt hanging in my closet.

"Um Mike, one more thing"

"What?"

"You have a gun don't you? A shotgun, right?"

I looked down at the floor. "Chuck keeping a gun on campus is against school rules. It has to be stored offsite if the resident is living in a college run and owned residence such as this dorm" I stated matter of fact straight from the school manual.

"So I keep it hidden in my truck" I finished. "And normally park in the parking garage which is technically not a residence and therefore, offsite".

"Good, we might need it"

"Whose gotta a gun?"

We turned. It was Curtis, we had forgotten about him.

"Whose got a gun? And what's up with that siren? Is there a tornado or something?"

I guess Chuck had not planned on telling Curtis, which in retrospect, was kind of mean. Curtis might be a slacker, but he was an OK guy. I ignored the look on Chuck's face and told Curtis what was going on.

"Curtis, there is a war breaking out and those sirens mean we might be under attack. Chuck has a plan and if you want come along, get some clothes and stuff together but hurry".

Chuck looked at me and I could tell inviting Curtis was not in his plans, but before he could speak, I cut him off, "My truck, my camping gear, my gun, my room mate's food. Sorry dude, but your gonna have to give on this one. I hope you have a good plan."

"I do. Come on, let's get out of here"

I put on my coat and backpack, loaded down with clothing and personal gear and picked up the third duffle of food which we piled on the handtruck. I put my sandwiches, chips and soda in a shopping bag, grabbed my sleeping bag and a mesh laundry bag which I stuffed some shoes and bedding into and went into the hallway. It was more gear than I would normally want to haul, but under the circumstances, better to have it than need it and not.

Curtis came out of his room wearing shorts, a tshirt, a pair of untied high top sneakers and some stupid ski hat with long flaps on the side and stuffed bear sewn on top. He was holding his backpack he used for school and pillow case packed with clothes or something. He looked like he was going to crash a little girl's slumber party rather than to some secret shelter to survive the end of the world.

"We got time to swing by McDonalds or something? I am starving. Oh, after we put this stuff in the car, can I run back up and get my 360 a few games?"

Chuck and I exchanged looks and then started down the hallway. "C'mon Curtis! We got to go now!" Chuck said.

SHTF Fiction: A Change of Major

I was a junior that year at A&M in College Station studying business administration. I had started, like so many other high minded freshmen, studying engineering, but after the first week of classes realized my instructors might as well have been speaking Swahili as I had no idea what they were talking about. I switched over the biz admin and plodded away at my studies earning passably decent grades at least as far as my parents were concerned.

I had an older sister who as nice as she was, was a tough act to follow. Valedictorian, class president and scholarship to American University in Washington, she graduated with honors and was recruited by a consulting company which focused on government related business. She earned a top salary and was on a five year fast track to senior management her first year out of college. She was now living in northern Virginia to be near "the city" as she called Washington D.C. and was having a great time.

I had nothing against here as she was a wonderful big sister and always encouraged me in my school, sports or anything else I liked to do. And I could not blame my parents for being as proud of her as they were since they treated me fairly and provided for my college education at A&M as well as sending money and other neccessities as needed.

It was Thanksgiving break, the Wednesday the day before to be exact and I had the dorm to myself. My parents were visiting my sister in Virginia for the holiday and we all decided it would be best if I skipped out due to the travel hassles. My room mate, Allen, had flown home to Salt Lake City Tuesday morning after classes. In our quad, only Curtis next door and Chuck, in one of the other rooms, remained behind for the holiday. The rest of the dormitory was a ghost town as it often happens during the holidays.

Chuck studied electrical engineering and came from Minnesota. His parents could not afford to fly him home both for Thanksgiving and Christmas so he offered to stay in town.

Curtis on the other hand, had no problems with money. In his case, his family had other plans for Thanksgiving which did not include him so he was left to his XBox 360 and trust fund to pass the time. Curtis' hailed from Southern California and was part of a family made famous by his great-grand father, founder of a well known aircraft company, where Curtis' father was president while his uncle was chairman of the board at the time.

It was decided at birth that Curtis would continue the family business and that meant a degree in engineering. Now three years and four universities later, Curtis was still working on that degree and the approval of his family.

Curtis was in his room with the door closed, headset on, playing some video game of mindless destruction and mayhem. I had my door open and had just come back from the sandwich shop with two huge sub sandwiches. One for now and the other for dinner or breakfast tomorrow. Knowing there was no meal service on campus, I had also purchased a six pack of cokes and a giant bag of nacho cheese doritos to flush out my gourmet Thanksgiving Eve meal.

I was about to unwrap sandwich number one when Chuck came down the hallway carrying a couple of shopping bags.

"Got your turkey day dinner there, Chuck?" I yelled as he passed my door.

"Um Mike, what are you doing? Don't you know what's going on?"

Yep, I am just about to eat this big ole sandwich. What's up?"

Chuck stood in my doorway. "Have you been watching the news? What's going on in the Middle East and China?"

Honestly, I had passed the TV down int the lobby four or five times and there was the usual 2 or 3 people sitting on the couches staring at the set. I saw it was the news and not a game show or soap opera they were watching and gave it no time. On the Internet I had logged into Facebook and iTunes and hardly ever looked at the lead stories on Yahoo or Google News.

"It's like a war or something. What's new with that? They are always fighting over there".

"Mike, its more serious than that. It's about to boil over into World War 3. Hey, I was going to talk to you and there's not much time. Look, my brother called me last night from San Diego. He is in the Navy and stationed on the Ronald Reagan, that's an aircraft carrier, and told me some stuff they are not saying on the news before his ship pulled out early this morning. He told me to get some where safe as soon as possible because we don't have much time"

"Time for what? You are not making sense.."

"Before the bombs fly. Nukes, you know nuclear bombs"

"That's stupid. Whose going to bomb us? They don't have any nuclear bombs in Iran, China can't hit us and only the Russians have them but they are our friends now, right?"

"You got it all wrong, Mike. Long story short, the US and the Russians are having a stare down over Syria and Iran. A US ship was attacked and some American planes were shot down near Iran. The US and Israel dropped some bombs on Iran and then Israel dropped some on Syria. China is on the sidelines but apparently is taking Russia's side right now. Supposedly a nuke was dropped on Tehran and the world is going nuts. Russia is threatening to retaliate against the US with nukes and the US is saying the same back"

I set my sandwich down on the bed and rolled my chair over to the desk and flipped open my laptop. I pulled up Yahoo and saw the entire page was covered with urgent stories, the worse of which featured a mushroom cloud photographed (from a distance) over a city in what looked like a middle eastern country. "Tehran, Damascus bombed!", "US carrier attacked!", "WAR" and other similar links.

At that moment, we heard the low wailing of the weather siren start to howl outside. We both turned to the window and said the same expletive simultaneously.

Be Prepared For Anything Survival Guide