Surviving the Fog (2 page)

All week, Mike had avoided thinking this very
thought. Get up, play, do your chores, eat, play some more, and
then go to bed. He had followed the camp routine. The adults would
be back. His parents were at home. He had avoided considering any
other scenario. But now, he had to face a terrifying
possibility.

"There's something very wrong," he said, his
voice shaking.

"Yeah," agreed John glumly.

"Do you think our parents are all right?"
whispered Eric, his stomach fluttering.

Mike really wished that Eric had not asked
that.

"We've got to do something," Mike said.

"Let's go talk to Jackie,” John
suggested.

"All right," Mike replied, but privately he
didn't think that Jackie knew what to do any more than they
did.

They left the Admin's cabin, walked past the
dining hall, and tromped over the wooden bridge to the girls’ side
of the camp. Eric followed along silently. Mike and John ignored
him.

Of the cabins on each side of the river, one
on each side was reserved for the counselors. Two counselors shared
each cabin. The counselors slept in comfortable double beds,
instead of the bunk beds used by the teenagers.

The three boys found Jackie lying in her bed,
on top of her covers, staring at the canvas ceiling. Although the
campers and counselors had brought sleeping bags, all the beds were
covered by a mattress cover, two sheets and two heavy woolen green
blankets. Some of the campers preferred to sleep in their sleeping
bags. Others used the blankets, so they wouldn't have to roll up
their bags at the end of the three week camp.

"Hey, Jackie," John greeted her.

The young woman looked over at him
listlessly. Jackie was a young woman with blond hair and a slim
build. She was usually quite attractive, but her face and eyes
seemed red and swollen now, and she was emitting a faintly
unpleasant odor.

"Hey, yourself," she replied as she glanced
at them, and then her eyes turned towards the canvas ceiling again.
The boys looked at each other.

"Um...Jackie, when do you think the Admin
will be back?" John asked.

"She'll be back when she's back," Jackie
answered in a dull voice. She had heard this question often in the
week since the other adults had disappeared. She closed her eyes.
John looked at Mike helplessly.

Mike took a breath and then spoke firmly.
"Jackie, we think that something is wrong. Something is really,
really wrong, Jackie."

"There's nothing wrong. Now go away," Jackie
ordered.

"But, Jackie, Eric tried to get someone on
the radio phone. There's no one there!" Mike's voice was rising
with a hint of panic, as he tried to get through to the young
woman.

"You stay out of the Admin's place!" snapped
Jackie. "Now go away." She turned her head towards the wall.

The boys look at one another.

"So what's the lecture about tonight?" John
asked.

"Just leave me alone," she demanded, as she
turned and pulled a blanket over her head.

The muffled reply sounded almost like a
sob.

Defeated, the boys left her cabin. Outside,
several girls were standing around waiting. They followed the boys
until they were far enough away that Jackie could not hear them
talk.

"She's been like that all day," said a black
eyed girl named Makayla. "She just keeps saying that the Admin and
the other counselors will be back soon. I'm really getting
scared.”

"Me, too," a girl named Kathy said, with a
quiver in her voice.

"Do you think she's right?" a third girl
asked.

The boys looked at one another.

"Not really," Mike admitted.

"When do you think our parents will come
looking for us?" Makayla asked.

"I don't know," Mike answered. Kathy choked
back a sob.

There was nothing more to say. The boys
crossed the bridge to their side of the river. Eric went back to
the dining hall, while Mike and John walked west along the river.
Trying to distract themselves, they discussed which of the three
girls that they had just left, they liked best. They avoided the
subject of the missing adults.

At one point, they sat down and watched some
girls who were practicing archery on the other side of the river.
The girls were using hay bales. The boys were supposed to practice
as a group also, but there were no male counselors to lead them.
These girls had obviously decided to practice on their own. Another
girl was running around the huge crude track that had been plowed
around the meadow and flattened by truck tires.

"Who's the girl running?" Mike asked.

"I'm not sure what her name is," John
answered.

"She's cute."

"Yeah, but she's no Desi."

"How old is she?" Mike asked hopefully.

"I think she's fifteen," John replied.

Mike grimaced. He had discovered that fifteen
year old girls generally showed very little interest in thirteen
year old boys. As it grew dark, the boys walked back up the river
to their cabins.

Since there were no adults around, the boys
were starting to stay up later and later at night. That night,
after the other boys had retired to their bunks, Mike went back to
the Admin's cabin and retrieved the key. He let himself into the
cabin, and he checked the radio phone again, only to find that they
had neglected to turn it off. The battery was dead.

Disgusted, he laid it back on the desk.
Turning around, he saw the bed. He took a step and stood by the bed
for a minute. It looked comfortable. Slowly, almost cautiously, he
lay down on top of the covers. He could see out the high window on
the front of the cabin. The stars were bright, and he watched them
for a time.

After a while, he got up and removed his
shoes, socks, pants, and flannel shirt. Wearing only his t-shirt
and briefs, he got back into the bed and crawled under the covers.
He felt like he was doing something that he shouldn't, but in a
strange way he felt like he was at least doing something other than
just waiting for something to happen. He quickly fell asleep.

The next morning, Mike awoke late. He put on
his clothes, and he went outside. He locked the door, but as he was
about to place the key under the mat he hesitated. After a moment,
he put the key in his pocket.

Mike went to the dining hall looking for
John. The kids in the dining hall were installing a new box of milk
in the milk dispenser. AAP had purchased large bags of dry cereal,
cases of canned food and a lot of boxed milk that they usually
mixed with powdered milk, and they offered the most common canned
vegetables and fruits. Mike found John wolfing down his second bowl
of cereal. A boy he didn't know well, but whose name he knew was
Jacob, sat on the other side of the table.

Mike looked at John for a moment, and then he
asked, "What are we going to do when our food runs out?"

John paused with his spoon halfway to his
mouth. He looked unpleasantly surprised at Mike’s question. He
stared at Mike, and then he slowly finished eating the
spoonful.

Carefully, he sat his spoon down, and then he
asked, "All right, dude, I give. What will we do when the food runs
out?"

"Whatever we do, we better think of it now.
How will we keep warm this winter?"

John looked even unhappier at that question.
"Maybe some other adults will show up to help us. Not the Admin and
the counselors, but some other adults."

"What if the adults who show up don't help
us? What if they just take our food? What if they're the kind of
adults who hurt kids?"

John scowled. "Man, you are really pulling me
down this morning. Let me finish eating before we discuss the end
of the world, okay?"

Mike went outside and walked down to the
river. He walked downstream until he was opposite the bales of hay
that were used for archery practice. He stared thoughtfully at the
bales for some time, and then he went back to the dining hall. He
walked around the building until he came to the storage room on the
east end, and then he entered the room.

In the storage room, mounted on a rack of two
by fours, was the overhead tank for the hot water that was produced
by the solar panels covering the roof of the dining hall. Under the
rack were several barrels holding empty aluminum cans that had
contained fruit juice and diet soda. The only soda that was served
to the children was diet soda. The boys seldom drank it, but some
of the girls did. The boys and most of the girls preferred the cans
of sweetened fruit juice.

Mike took several empty cans from a bin, and
then he went back to the Admin’s cabin. Once inside, he looked
through the tool chest until he found a pair of metal snips.
Carefully, he cut apart an empty can and flattened the aluminum.
Then he cut out a piece of metal in the shape of a spear tip.

Mike left his work on the desk, and he went
outside after making sure to lock the door. He walked east until he
was deep within the forest. He searched for and found an old fallen
tree with straight branches. When he was satisfied, he broke off a
branch that was about as long as he was tall, and went back to the
cabin. Inside he found a box cutter in the tool chest, and he used
it to split the end of the branch. He forced the blunt end of the
aluminum spear tip into the split.

Mike left the cabin again and crossed over
the bridge. He walked down to the hay bales. Standing a ways from a
bale, he grasped his newly made spear, and he threw it at the bale.
When it hit the hay bale, the spear tip and wood broke apart and
the aluminum tip bent.

It would take Mike several days and many
trials to get an aluminum spear head which would not bend, and to
discover how to fasten it to a branch so that it would not come
apart. Eventually, after folding a layer of aluminum around two
other pieces of aluminum, he made a spear that would penetrate the
heavy bale. By using a file, he was able to get a very sharp edge
on the side of the spear tip. He weighted the spear by attaching
fishing lead to fish line and wrapping it around the shaft, just
under the spear head.

On his way back to the Admin’s cabin, he met
Jacob at the bridge. He was about to pass by, when the other boy
called his name. Mike looked at Jacob and saw that Jacob was
wearing his backpack, and that it looked full. Mike did not know
much about Jacob, except that the other boy always seemed to be
going off by himself. Mike thought that Jacob was a year older than
he. Jacob had black curly hair like Eric, but Jacob’s eyes were
hazel instead of black.

"I'm hiking down the road," Jacob
announced.

Mike looked at him blankly.

"Where to?" he asked.

"As far as I can go," Jacob answered.

Mike was alarmed. "Hey, that might not be
such a good idea," he responded.

"Well, I'm going," Jacob replied.

"Are you going to be back before night?"

"If I find someone."

"What are you going to do if you have to stay
out overnight?"

"I've got my sleeping bag. It's down filled.
I'll be warm."

"You got food?"

"Enough for three days."

Mike stared helplessly at Jacob. He did not
know what to say. This was stuff for adults to consider. This was
not stuff for a kid like him to be worried about.

Feeling defeated, Mike said, "Be careful,
okay?"

"Okay," Jacob said, and then he walked away.
But after a few steps he stopped, and turning back he said, "Hey,
Mike. Thanks."

Mike waved.

"See you," he said more cheerfully than he
felt.

Jacob turned and walked away. Mike watched
him climb the low hill, and when he disappeared down the other
side, Mike went back to his cabin to work on his spear.

While Jacob was gone, Mike practiced every
day with his spears trying to find the best design. John and Eric
joined him. Two other boys, Peter and Howard, expressed interest in
what he was doing, and they also began to build spears. Between the
five boys, they found a design that was sturdy and could easily
pierce the bales. Each day, they practiced throwing their
spears.

Late in the afternoon of the sixth day since
he had left, Jacob returned. Jacob was hungry and exhausted. There
was a bleak look in his eyes. As he approached the camp, he noticed
five boys out by the bales. When he realized that Mike was one of
them, he turned that way, and went stumbling down to the bales.

Mike had just thrown a spear, hitting the
paper archery target that the boys had fastened to one of the
bales, when he turned and saw Jacob. At once, he hurried over to
the returning boy. Jacob was so spent that he was struggling to
remove his backpack. Mike quickly grabbed it and took it from
him.

"Are you okay," he asked anxiously.

"I'm just tired. And really thirsty,"
answered Jacob in a weary and raspy voice. "I need a drink of water
real bad. I didn't drink anything since last night. And I never ate
yesterday or today."

"Pete, run up to the hall and get some water
and food, quick!" commanded Mike. Pete nodded and swiftly ran to
the dining hall.

"Did you find anyone?" asked Howard
eagerly.

"Howard, let him drink something first," Mike
said.

Howard grimaced, but he nodded. Mike
understood Howard’s impatience, but he had gotten more and more
worried each day that Jacob had not returned. Now that Jacob was
back, Mike was more relieved than anxious for news.

Pete was fast, and shortly Jacob was drinking
a bottle of water and devouring a sandwich. The others waited
patiently while he regained his strength. Presently he finished
eating, lay back on the grass, and sighed sounding very sleepy.

"Well?" John asked, unwilling to be silent
any longer.

"I walked three days," Jacob began. "On the
morning of the third day, I didn't eat any of my food because I
wanted to conserve some. That afternoon I found it. The fog, I
mean. It was about four o'clock. I know because I checked my watch.
I was about a half mile past the seven thousand feet sign. The
elevation marker, I mean.