Role Playing Survival

[MinutemanCO]

Gave it a shot. Not my best work. I think I probably could have written this story for days...
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“Damn it all!!” Briggs kicked the fender out of sheer aggravation. “Friggin’ thing’s never gonna work. What, was I asleep during autoshop?”

He climbed out of the engine compartment of the half ton Ford. Frustration turned to anger. He threw the 5/8 inch into the weeds. After stomping around the yard muttering obscenities, the thirty-nine year old man composed what was left of himself.

“Easy man. You’re losing it.” He watched the dust blowing through the burned out neighborhood. In the distance someone screamed. The sound of glass breaking echoed from a block or two away. Don't want nothin' to do with that.

“I gotta get out of here. I gotta stop talking to myself. Just who the hell am I supposed to talk to? Huh, you idiot? Molly and the kids ran to the shelter in Greeley. Everyone else disappeared or up and died on me. There’s nothing left.”

Matthew Briggs turned and walked the two miles back to his makeshift lean-to at the far end of the wheat field. His walk seemed to take on an air of confidence. He had decided.

The virus hit like a hurricane back in ’14. The missiles fell from the sky like rain a few months later. The flashes on the horizon were overwhelming, something out of a weird movie. Surreal even. Denver… gone. Colorado Springs… gone. Boulder… vaporized… friggin hippies. What do they think now of the global communist movement they loved so much?

Briggs hunkered down in situ for a long time. He tried to get Molly to stay. He succeeded for two years. One day, she just up and left. Said there had to be something better out there and that living in a shithole on the outskirts of Platteville, Colorado was making her crazy. Will and Sarah went with her. He would have had to kill Molly to keep her from taking the kids. He wasn’t that crazy… not yet. For a few weeks, it hurt. The pain came in waves – loneliness, followed by despair, chased by despondency. Briggs was one of the lucky ones. The deep depression didn’t crush him.

He remembered the guy down the street – what was his name? Doesn’t matter. His wife and kids died from the virus, the initial outbreak. He saw the poor dude walking the streets for a few days afterward. He looked like a zombie. After a week, Briggs found the guy in front of his house, splayed out on the front lawn amid a stain of dried blood. The self inflicted wound left him with a baseball-sized hole in the back of his head. Expediency dictated. He rolled the rotting corpse over and found the Beretta half buried in the dried grass. He popped the mag, tucked the gun into his belt and searched the house for supplies.

His stores were dwindling. He harvested the grain that had seeded itself in from the prior year back in September. It was holding up reasonably well, but everything else was bare bones. He had to get moving.

For years Briggs resisted the move to the mountains. The environment was harsh and unforgiving. His hope was that there’d still be an abundance of mule deer, elk, rabbit and trout up there. The summer homes of the more affluent would be open for habitation. At the upper end of Fourth of July Road was a series of well built cabins rarely occupied by the owners. He’d head for one of the more rugged structures he remembered near the treeline. Briggs knew from decades of hunting, fishing and camping how to survive in the alpine forests that dominated half of Colorado, but didn’t want to make the move until it was absolutely necessary.

He caught word from transients that the Chinese were moving in with a huge force from Canada. Venezuelans and Bolivians up from Mexico. They were certain to roll through north central Colorado between the serious hot zones. That would put the bastards right in his lap. Can’t have that.

Briggs packed his loose supplies into the metal frame ruck he’d kept for just such a purpose. He slung the old pack and attached two water bottles to his belt. Damn thing must weigh a hundred pounds. He holstered his sidearm and held onto his shotgun just in case. He already buried what was left of his stored goods. He’d try to come back for them before winter blew in for real.

His thoughts turned to the small church community up near Nederland he’d once been a part of eight or ten years ago. Those folks, the ones who weren’t killed by that stinkin’ virus, were well equipped to ride out a storm like the one that hit the US. He’d have to convince them to accept him into their little group. Might not be as easy as it sounded, even if they did remember him. He had a lot to offer, though – hunting skills, construction experience, survival and tactical abilities.

Briggs walked.