May 16, 2013

I stole a car today. Or at least I'm going to if no one shows up by morning. After the incident at my cabin yesterday, I was thankful to find that my truck hadn't been discovered. I got the old map out of my glovebox and plotted out a course that would keep me away from any of the CDC's decontamination camps for the time being. If they are part of the group that burned out my cabin, my gut tells me I'm better off on my own for the time being.

I set out at first light this morning, keeping to the back roads. It's surreal that there is no one out moving around. I know I'm in the boondocks out here, but there hasn't been a single person anywhere.

I stopped for gas a few times, but the electrical grid must be down all over. With no power, there was nothing I could do. I managed to find a bit of food and some drinks here and there, but almost every place looked like it had been ransacked well before I got there.

I made it as far north as Atlantic, Iowa and then I decided to call it a day. I'd been driving for almost eight hours and my gas tank was nearly empty. When I couldn't find a working gas station in Atlantic it occurred to me that my truck wasn't going to cut it. Having the 4X4 is nice, but 10 miles per gallon just isn't going to get me anywhere.

I'm holed up for the night in a place called Wyman's, an auto dealership. I've picked out a used Subaru that I'll be taking as a trade for my truck. It's smaller so it should get better gas mileage, but it's still got at least all wheel drive.

I don't know what the roads are going to be like when I get to Montana, so I figure I better be prepared. That's funny. That's what my Facebook "friend" used to say to me. He'd post all these sketchy doomsday scenarios and conspiracy theories and tell me that one day the shit was going to hit the fan.

"You better be prepared, man, cause one day it's going to get real ugly real fast and only the ones that are prepared are going to make it out alive," he wrote to me a few weeks ago.

I can't remember now where he had mentioned he was from  other than that it was somewhere in Montana near a college. Where the hell had I even "met" him? I'd never actually seen him in person, we'd been members of one of the same Facebook groups. Must have been for a TV show or something.

Eating the last of my beef jerky today, I didn't feel very prepared. I'm almost out of food and I'm not sure how many days it will take me to get to Montana. Maybe I'm not ready for this. Maybe I should just try to find a CDC camp.