Surviving the Fog - Howard the Red: Surviving the Fog, #3

By Stan Morris

My name is Howard, and this is my account of how I and forty-seven other teenagers, attending a summer camp in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, survived the Fog that congealed in the month of May, covering the Earth and killing almost the entire population of our planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stan Morris
• Release date: Dec 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9798223528388

Stan Morris

Stan Morris was born during the Truman Adminstration in Linwood, California.  He lived in South Gate, Lakewood, and Norwalk before his family moved to Concord, California in 1964.  He was educated at a variety of community colleges before receiving a degree from Eastern New Mexico University.  He has a wonderful wife, two grown gainfully employed children, and a thirst for reading, writing, watching sports, gardening, and international travel.

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Surviving the Fog-Howard the Red

By Stan Morris

Copyright 2014

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter One

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They took Jackie, Ralph, a girl managed to choke out between sobs.

What do you mean?  Where's Jackie?  Ralph’s trembling tone suggested that he was on the edge of panic.  I couldn’t even speak.

They took her.

Ralph spun to where we stood, frozen, in shock.

They got Jackie, Chief!  They got Jackie!  Please, Chief, please help me go and get her back!

There was desperation in his voice.  Jackie was the last adult left in our summer camp.  The attackers had also taken Maria, one of our campmates.

I will, Ralph, I will, Mike replied.

Mike didn’t sound much better, but he was already thinking, like he always did, and even through his own terror, he was already formulating a plan.  It was an incredibly stupid and brave plan.  He and the Spears, our gang, would chase the motorcyclists who had taken Maria and Jackie.  All of the Spears would accompany him, except for me.

He turned to me and said, You're staying here.

I felt relief, and then humiliation that I was so relieved.  I had no idea why he was putting me in charge, but he added, That's final.  Get everyone across the river.  Do whatever you have to do to make them go.  Then get a lot of wood, and put it on the bridge.  Get the camp fuel ready, but don't put it on the wood unless they come back.  If they do, then put all the camp fuel on the wood and light it.  Try to burn the bridge down.

Chief, how will you find them? I asked.

There's Fog all around us.  They can't be far.

It took only minutes for them to gather their gear, run up the slope, and disappear.  Meanwhile, wondering how to begin, my bewildered eyes shifted from side to side, scanning my terrified campmates.  Then my gaze lit on the body, and the kneeling girls begging him to wake up.  It was the moment I realized that I had been deceiving myself, and I accepted the reality of what had happened to the world.

~~~

My name is Howard, and this is my account of how I and forty-seven other teenagers, attending a camp in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, survived the Fog that congealed in the month of May, covering the Earth and killing almost the entire population of our planet.  This account also contains information about other people, including the person most people are interested in, Mike.

Sometimes people ask me why, even after I heard about the Fog, I took orders from a thirteen-year-old boy, since I was seventeen and a lot bigger than Mike.  My answer is that it wasn’t about letting him boss me; it was about feeling stunned with disbelief, numb with indecision, and frightened that my grandparents might be dead. Having anyone, anyone at all, take charge and make decisions was an incredible relief.

And at first Mike didn’t give commands, just suggestions, though in the minutes after our camp was attacked, he certainly took charge.  As I stood frozen into immobility, death around me, and only vaguely aware of the crying and screaming from other frightened people, a tiny portion of my mind realized that I had better start taking Mike’s warnings seriously, and if I wanted to stay alive, I’d better believe that Mike was our Chief.

~~~

Just after my first birthday, I was left with my grandparents, while my parents attended a convention in Phoenix, Arizona.  On the last day of the convention there was a party, and afterwards my father must have decided to drive home to Los Angeles instead of staying overnight.  When I was older I overheard my grandfather suggest, in a bitter tone, that my father had not wanted to pay for another night in a hotel.  My grandmother reminded him that my mother had back trouble and probably wanted to sleep on her own mattress.  The reason for the accident didn’t matter to me.  My parents were dead, and before long my memories of them faded.  I was raised by my grandparents, and I loved them dearly.

We were living in Poway, a city in southern California, north of San Diego.  It was a bedroom community, most of whose citizens worked for various government installations in the area.  My grandparents were not Catholic, but after attending Poway Middle School, they enrolled me at St. John’s High School where I played junior varsity quarterback in the church league.  I was seventeen years old that spring, finishing my junior year, tall for my age, and as healthy as Paul Bunyan’s pet.

It was Pop’s idea for me to attend the camp in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Nana didn’t say much about it, but I could tell she was not enthusiastic about the idea.  Information about the camp was circulated among the members of our church, and there was a lot of discussion about the purpose of the camp, and much of the discussion was heated.  The arguments for and against it were not surprising, considering that the camp was designed to preach sexual abstinence, but also to teach various methods of birth control.  Our minister was reluctant to endorse the camp, but he didn’t oppose it either.  I wasn’t opposed to going to the camp, but I was embarrassed about its purpose.

Isn’t this for kids? I complained gently to Pop. I’m too old for this.

Seventeen is not too old to learn the specifics of birth control.  You know a lot of general information from your school classes and from what I’ve told you, but it wouldn’t hurt you to learn what girls have to do to protect their selves.

I can Bing it.

You can always search for information on the net, but this way you’ll have a good time while you’re learning.  You’re a good student, and you’re involved in a lot of school activities like football and student government, but you don’t get enough exercise during the off season.  Go up to the Sierra Nevada Mountains and play for three weeks.  I think you’ll have fun.

Pop and Nana gave me a lot of freedom, and in return I felt compelled to take their advice, even when I thought that advice was of dubious merit.  My ex-girlfriend was a year older than me, and we had just broken up, so I didn’t have a relationship to hold me back.  The camp sounded like a good place to meet girls, and I confess that the idea of meeting girls who knew about birth control appealed to me.  I swallowed my pride and agreed to go.

Pop and Nana drove me in their old Ford sedan to a church in Los Angeles, where most of us from southern California were catching a private bus.  I left Los Angeles in May, riding in a long, yellow school bus with about twenty-four other teenagers, girls and boys.  I was the only person from my church attending that first camp session.  Other teenagers from my church, those whose public school terms did not end until June, were planning to attend later sessions.  Some people on the bus were leaving school a few weeks early, but St. John’s ended its term in mid-May, so I was only missing a week.

The smelly bus had been chartered by the camp administration, and the driver was a Hispanic man named Ignacio.  I knew him vaguely, because he attended a church belonging to the same denomination as mine, Congregational.  His wife was pregnant, and he was out of a job, so he needed the income this temporary position would provide.  He was a nice man, even though he teased me, calling me Howard the Red, because of my red hair.

Most of us didn’t know each other, so we were reserved at first, but as the bus made its slow way over the Tehachapi Mountains, north of Los Angeles, we loosened up and began to converse.  Occupying a seat across the aisle was a girl named Desi, who was a year younger than me.  She was cute and had a nice figure.  An obnoxious guy was sitting in the seat behind her, and he kept looking over her shoulder, trying to see down the front of her blouse.  That was Douglas, though I didn’t know his name at the time.  Twin boys, Nathan and Kevin, sat on the bench seat with him.

I was the oldest boy, except for Ralph who was also seventeen.  We were a typical mixture of southern California kids.  We were of different ethnic groups and ages, but most of us were Caucasians like me, or Hispanics like John.  There were a couple of African-Americans travelling with us, and a girl from Las Vegas, Nevada, named Makayla, who looked Polynesian.  Most of the girls were trying to catch the eye of a blond boy named Pete.  He happened to be sitting next to me, so I drew some attention, too.  The girls occupying the seat in front of us turned around and kneeled on their seat, so they could talk to us.  The girls sitting behind us hung over the edge of our seatback and listened intently while Pete and I spoke. 

What school do you go to? he asked.

St. John’s.  It’s a Catholic school.  What about you?

Poway High School.  I run long distance.

I play football, I said. I’m the quarterback.

What grade are you going into?

I’ll be a senior.

I’ll be a junior.  My birthday is in August.

Do you have a girlfriend?  This was asked of Pete by a girl sitting behind us.  Several other girls waited avidly for his answer.

Pete grinned.  Lots.  Laughter and groans followed his statement.

How about you, Red? a different girl asked. Do you have lots of girlfriends, too?

Given my complexion, it was easy to see my blush.

No, she broke up with me when she went to college.

Oh, ho, a college girl.  You must be experienced.

The laughter grew loud, and my face stayed red as I was teased good-naturedly.  Though I was not a virgin, my girlfriend was a conservative person, and she was saving intimacy for a later time.  I had tried to talk her into having sex, but she had refused.  The truth is that I was not experienced, but it was fun letting them think otherwise, because it made me seem more mature than I really was.

Back in your seats, Ignacio yelled and the girls settled back, but it wasn’t long before they were hanging over the edge again.

I might have dismissed Pete as a pretty boy, as Pops sometimes said disparagingly about vacant headed movie stars, but Pete was no dummy.  He was interested in astronomy, foreign affairs, and electric cars, and he could discuss those subjects and more.  He and I hit it off, and we had become friends by the time we arrived at the camp.  There were other guys around us that we connected with, more or less.  One them was John, a tall Hispanic, though he was not as tall as me.  John was quick with a pun, some of which were good and others that caused us to groan.

From Los Angeles, Ignacio drove north on Interstate Five, but when the road divided he stayed on old Highway Ninety-Nine.  We stopped in Bakersfield and ate lunch at Ignacio’s church whose pastor had volunteered their youth hall.  The members provided sandwiches, potato chips, and soda.  From Bakersfield we rode to Portersville where we turned east toward the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The central California heat had not yet made its appearance that year, which was lucky, because the bus had no air conditioning.  As it was, we were pulling off as much clothes as decency allowed.  I was sweating, and my feet were hot, so I took off my high tops and socks.  Other people were experiencing the same, and the bus began to take on a nose wrinkling odor, but when we entered the mountains, the air cooled off fast.  By the time we arrived at the camp, some of us southern Californians were pulling pants over our shorts, and others were shrugging into jackets to cover thin t-shirts.  There was plenty of snow on the mountain tops, and we passed several shadowed places where clumps lay on the ground. There was still a lot of the white frosty powder amid the trees.  The landscape changed faster than I had imagined.  In an hour we went from dusty flat land to forest, and soon we were passing foothills that rapidly grew to towering mountains where huge cliffs of grey granite seemed to be the norm.

When we reached the camp, I saw that some campers had already arrived.  Those were people from central and northern California, and there were also a few from Nevada.  We were not the last to arrive, for as we piled out of the bus, vehicles were still pulling into the gravel parking lot.  Everywhere, teenagers were pulling sleeping bags and suitcases out of cars or trucks, and carrying their gear across the narrow wooden bridge that spanned the small creek separating the girls’ cabins from the guys’.

Howard, Pete, John, Ralph, you guys are in cabin number four, Ignacio called. The numbers are on the front side of the cabins.

We grabbed our gear and headed for the bridge.  The ground was too rocky to roll the suitcases, so we had to carry them.  We found cabin number four and were soon joined by two others, Brian and Tomás.  They were from Monterrey, and they immediately started bickering over who got the top bunk.  After they exchanged angry words, the rest of us made them flip a coin.  Tomás won, and then, for some reason, he chose the bottom bunk.

We were organized by ages, six to a cabin, and the guys in our cabin were the oldest.  There were teens as young as twelve in camp, but most of us were between fourteen and sixteen.  At seventeen, Ralph and I were the oldest campers.

When we were settled, we went to the cafeteria-kitchen that doubled as a recreation-lecture hall.  It was housed in a large cinderblock building, running east and west, and covered by a metal roof.  There were standard sized windows on the south side, but the north side was a solid wall.

The main entrance was on the west end.  The kitchen was in the north-east corner of the big hall, and it had an exterior door opening on the north.  Inside, it had a long interior window with a counter from where we would line up and receive our trays of food.  A raised podium had been built along the east wall next to the kitchen, allowing lecturers to be seen from the front end of the hall.

Cardboard boxes were stacked high along the north wall, but close to that wall, a few steps from the kitchen, was a movable salad bar filled with fresh fruit in the mornings and with salad selections in the evenings.  We had arrived just after lunch, so we ate our first meal that evening.

Outside this building, attached to the east end, were two bathrooms, a storage room, and two large shower stalls containing multiple shower heads.  Solar hot water panels on the roof provided plenty of hot water as long as you waited until the sun had been up for thirty minutes.  There were two big tanks on top of the roof, welded in place according to Ignacio, and there was another tank in the storage room; all connected.

Why are the tanks welded to the roof? I asked Ignacio.

Makes them harder to steal when no one’s here.

The shower water was not potable, meaning we were not supposed to drink it, because the pipe to the roof split off from the main line before the section containing the water purifier.

We had been told not to bring tablets, smartphones, or laptops, but apparently some people thought the rules did not apply to them, because several of these devices were confiscated while we waited.  I had brought three devices, an ereader which was allowed, an old Nokia cellphone which was also allowed, and a smartphone, carefully hidden in my suitcase.  I had something else hidden in my suitcase; a pack of condoms in case I got lucky.  Maybe I had visions of meeting an amorous counselor of the female persuasion, or a girl from across the creek who wanted to practice birth control.  I had not needed to bring those condoms, for there were over a thousand condoms waiting in those cardboard boxes.  Why so many?  Because, we were only the first group of campers.  Other groups would attend later sessions.  The Camp Administrator was planning to hand out lots of condoms.

Pete and I found an empty table, sat down, and started eyeing the girls, grading them on their physical development, body shape, and facial appeal.  Yes, I know that’s shallow, but we were teenage guys.  John had sat at another table where Desi was sitting.  There was another girl sitting with them, even better developed than Desi, and I heard one of her friends call her, Erin.  There were other very cute girls, but most were too young for me.  I wouldn’t have minded dating a couple, but nailing them was out.

We milled around, until an older lady called us to attention.   She gave a speech mostly aimed at the parents; a lot of these are the rules, this is who we are and what we stand for, blah, blah, blah, and after she finished her spiel most of the parents left.  We were told to go unpack our gear and explore the area, so Pete and I ambled back to our cabin, followed by our cabinmates.

Three, green wool, Army surplus blankets were rolled up at the foot of each bunk, along with three white sheets smelling faintly of bleach.  Most of us had brought sleeping bags, but I was glad to see those sheets and blankets, for I knew they would be more comfortable to sleep in.

Erin’s got nice rack, Pete observed, and we laughed.

Yeah, I wonder if she practices birth control, I added.

You guys are dims, John said. Desi’s the real woman.

She’s nice, too, Pete replied agreeably.

Jackie is a woman, Ralph said, a little stiffly. Erin and Desi are just girls.

Who’s Jackie? Tomás asked, just as puzzled as the rest of us.

She’s one of the counselors.

For a moment we all stared at Ralph, and then we burst into laughter.

Brother, you’re a better man than me, Pete exclaimed though a chuckle. That was fast work.

Dude, Brian said, a note of appreciation in his voice.

A lot of nice little tail running around, too, Tomás said. Did you see the little blond mouse with Makayla and Gabby?

Pete shook his head.  Jailbait.

Old enough to pee, old enough for me, Brian quoted, and then he and Tomás headed out through the door flap.  John silently raised his middle finger at the flap.

Assholes, Ralph muttered.  Pete and I shared a glance that said, exactly.

Let’s check out the camp, Pete suggested, so he, John, and I left the cabin, leaving Ralph to finish unpacking. Outside, I took a deep breath.  The air was thick with the scent of pine drifting down from the trees covering the higher slopes.

Our cabins were set on level graded pads cut into a slight incline that grew steeper as you traveled north.  East of these crude cabins was the large A-frame cabin of the Camp Administrator, and just south of the A-frame was the cafeteria.  The camp was in a valley that sloped from higher ground in the east to the west.  The creek split the valley unevenly with most of the camp on the narrower northern side.  There was a huge meadow on the south side, and that’s where the parking lot and the girls’ cabins were.  A wide track had been carved around the meadow, and it looked like a truck, or some other kind of heavy equipment, had been used to flatten it.

On the west side of the girls’ cabins we saw volleyball and badminton poles, but the nets had not yet been strung.  There was horseshoe pit, a lawn dart pit with foam tipped darts, and a big sand pit with a coiled rope lying nearby.  Much farther down the meadow we could see hay bales.  There were other guys walking around, and by chance we came to stand by a trio.  Pete spoke to them.

Hi, guys.

They greeted Pete with salutations.  It was the twins, Kevin, and Nathan, and with them was another guy, about the same age, who introduced himself as ‘Mike.’  They were all close to the same height and weight.  Mike had short sandy hair, and the twins had longer brown hair hanging over their ears.

It’s cold here, complained one of the twins, I wasn’t sure which.

Nice view though, John said, looking across to the other side of the creek.  In the distance we could see Desi standing outside her cabin, arms locked behind her head, stretching.

Is that a cave? Mike asked, pointing up the northern slope.

Looks like it, Pete said.

We could see a big grey-speckled granite rock, rising from the earth.  It had a concave opening, like it had been hollowed out.  Fir trees grew on the mountain side above it, and there were more trees on either side, but the ground was clear below the tall shallow cave, except for sparse tuffs of light green grass.

You want to go take a look? Mike asked the twins.

Nah, they chorused.

I do, John said.  He and Mike started trudging up the grassy slope.

You want to go? I asked Pete.

Not really, he replied, so we headed toward the creek.  The twins went back to the cabins.

Spring flowers had sprung from the earth, and some had petals that were open, but most were just budding.  I didn’t know their names at that time, but blue, yellow, and orange were the predominant colors.  The density of the grass increased as we neared the water, and it was greener.  The creek was much too wide to jump, and there was no way to cross, unless we walked back to the footbridge below the cafeteria.  I wondered how the camp builders got their materials across the water.  At present, the noisy water was rushing past on its way to the central California valley.  Erin and another girl were standing on the other side, and Pete waved at them.

Hi, he hollered over the rumble of the water.

Hi, one called, and she waved back.

I’m Pete.  This is Howard.

I’m Gwen.  That’s Erin.

They were both blond and attractive, but Erin was exceptional, especially her breasts.

What are the hay bales for? Pete asked

Archery, Gwen yelled.

It was impossible to hold much of a conversation over the din from the creek, so we exchanged more waves and moved away.  Soon we heard a ring from the electronic bell in the cafeteria, so we tromped back through the moist field.  As Pete and I entered the cafeteria we met up with Ralph and Tomás, so he and I followed them into the hall.  Ralph led us to a table where the twins, Douglas, and a guy named Tyler were sitting.

Find another place, Ralph told them.

We were here first, Douglas protested angrily.

Tomás laughed.  And now we’re here.  Find another place. 

Come on, Tyler said, and the four boys got up and moved.

Pete and I exchanged glances, and then we sat.  I had noticed Mike and John heading our way, but they overheard the conversation and veered to another table.  I wasn’t crazy about hanging with Ralph.  He was already getting a reputation as a bully, and I noticed Ignacio keeping an eye on him.

Dinner was the usual slop adults feed to teenagers at these events.  We had a choice of a hotdog, a hamburger, or a salad from the salad bar.  Nothing tasted particularly bad, and nothing tasted particularly good.  They were cutting the skim milk with powdered milk, so it tasted like cardboard.  I preferred the fruit juice. Normally I would have made a hamburger, but to be on the safe side, I settled for a salad.

After dinner, the woman running the camp gave a speech.  It was something about polygamy and why it disappeared, and then Ignacio told a story that was supposed to reinforce the idea that polygamy was wrong.  I didn’t get the point.  Polygamy was illegal, so why worry about it?

After that there was a halfway interesting discussion about the laws of nature and how they related to values we lived by.  The point the woman made was that if we traveled a million light years from earth, those values would still hold true, just as the laws of nature would still hold true.  I had actually thought about this before, during an episode of Star Trek Enterprise, that had suggested how the Prime Directive originated.  Personally, I thought the Prime Directive sucked.  If they came across a civilization that was shoving children into railroad cars and sending them to die in gas chambers, they would not intervene?  That was not the way I was raised.

Next up was a trip around the track on the girls’ side of the creek, so we all marched over the bridge; girls’ in the lead, and the guys’ trailing behind.  It was becoming clear that our interactions with the female gender would be limited.  For the most part the camp was dry, though there were some muddy areas that we had to walk around.  A long section of the path drew near to the creek, so we were able to stroll along the water.  Except in a few bare places, there were rocks and small boulders all along the banks of the creek.  Small knee-high reeds and wild flowers covered a lot of the wet ground lapped at by the water.

I enjoyed the walk, and Pete was always an agreeable companion.  John kept making puns, some of which were horrible, but most of us were in a good mood, so we even laughed at the bad ones.  It was a long way around the track, and by time we neared the bridge, some of the younger guys, like the twins and Tyler, were complaining.  I noticed one guy not complaining.  He seemed impatient that we were taking so long.  That was Jacob.  When we were down at the far end of the track, he wandered off toward the trees, and Ignacio had to call him back.

There were nine Porta Potties between the bridge and the cafeteria.  There was another on the north side of the A-frame cabin, but it was reserved for the Camp Administrator and the female counselors.  At nine-thirty the LEDs in our cabin flickered, an alert that lights out would occur in thirty minutes.  The only reason to be out afterwards was if a bathroom run was needed.  Right after lights out, I grabbed my smartphone, stuck it into a pocket of my jacket and headed toward the toilets.  I had to pretend to Ignacio, who was on wandering-camper duty, that I had drunk more than my share of fruit juice.

In the future, please use the facilities earlier, he admonished me, and then he allowed me to continue.

To be truthful, I did need to use the facilities.  The cold air seemed to be responsible.  But after peeing, I pulled out my cell, checked my social sites, made a quick call to a friend, and then I called Pop.  He was a late sleeper, so I knew he would be up.  I had forgotten to call earlier, so I let him know that I had arrived, and that everything was fine.  After that I went back to my bunk and slept until the bell rang at seven thirty.

I don’t remember a lot about that first week, other than that first day.  The next morning I managed to have a conversation with one of the female counselors whose name was Nanami.  She was Japanese, about thirty, with sleek black hair flowing to her shoulders, and to my seventeen year old eyes, extremely cute.  It seemed as if she was flirting with me, and after the Camp Administrator gave a lecture in the cafeteria about condoms, I wondered if a summer affair might be possible.

Nanami was in charge of checking the device that controlled the charge in the huge battery array below the wind turbine.  She did that daily, and when I expressed my interest in alternate energy, she allowed me to accompany her.  It was a thrill to be alone with her in the shack, but she always kept a professional demeanor.  I remember being impressed with the wind turbine, and the way it provided electricity to the camp. It was a simple, three-bladed steel unit with the tower on the windward side, so it did not need a motor to point the blades into the wind.  On the ground below, there was a small cinderblock building that held the controller and the rack of batteries.  Other than the A-frame cabin, it was probably the most weather safe building in the valley.

We went on a lot of hikes that week; upstream on a worn path that ran along the creek, west into the forest where we saw dozens of deer, and up the steep north slope, where squirrels glared at our party and black birds screeched derisively at us.  From time to time, light showers blew through, and I shivered from the feel of the cold moist wetness on my head and face.  The showers were nothing like the warmer rains that fell in southern California.  Once we woke to find a dusting of snow on the ground.

I vaguely remember doing other things that week.  Pete and I hung together most of the time.  Nanami refereed a coed