textfiles/survival/bugoutsc

SCRIPT OUTLINE FOR "BUGOUT"  by Kurt Saxon     copyright 1981
     The Collapse has come and the American people have finally 
awakened from the American Dream to a nightmare reality.  A little 
over a month has passed since the announcement of the bankruptcy of 
Social Security and all its backup systems.
     Millions being unloaded from the Social Security system to the 
already reeling welfare systems have caused a halt in most social 
programs.  The cities are racked with violence, looting and 
wholesale slaughter.  City police forces are quickly decimated.  As 
fast as suburban police units are called in, they disappear, either 
deserting or dying in the street fighting.
     National Guard units are giving up as their members quit and 
go home to protect their own.  Army units not slated for the Middle 
East are sent to contain the rioters and keep them inside the 
cities proper.
     Social services and most utilities have broken down in most 
cities and their suburbs.  All stores have been emptied, either by 
looters or their owners, of all food and commodities used on a 
day-to-day basis.
     Suburbanites are getting hungry and crowds of neighbors are 
making house-to-house searches for stored food supplies.  Water is 
in short supply as hot water tanks, car radiators and toilet boxes 
are emptied for drinking.
     The commercial trucks are either out of gas or cargo.  No help 
is expected by anyone.  Trucks appearing in the suburbs are 
privately owned or stolen and guarded by armed profiteers.  Their 
cargos are food, medicines, warm clothing, flashlight batteries and 
anything else in short supply.
     A street sweeper with its water tank filled from a ditch 
somewhere, appears to sell the precious fluid to the highest 
bidder.  "Only gold, silver, jewelry; just what we can carry.  No 
bills, yells its new owner, as his sidekick points a shotgun at the 
customers.
     A frail old man leaves his home with a bucket and a pocket 
full of gold coins.  "All I have you'd want is a Krugerrand.  Can't 
you make change?  Can't you come back until this is used up?"
     "Hell no," says Sam.
     "But this Krugerrand cost me $600.00," whines the old man.
     "So," laughs Sam, "You just bought yourself a $600.00 bucket 
of water."
     Elsewhere a $3,000.00 diamond buys a can of asparagus.  Five 
aspirins for a sick child costs one mother her wedding ring.
     Urban survivalists shoot on sight, littering streets with the 
bodies of both foragers and passers-by.  The noise and the bodies 
aid mobs of marauders in finding more food caches.  Most urban 
Survivalists are burned out, dying with their destroyed supplies.
     The brownouts continue and everyone who dares the street goes 
armed.  Few believe the town's emergency power system can last long.
     Phil Blake shoots no one, except the three revolutionaries he 
caught running away from the Glen Ellyn, Illinois power plant where 
he worked the evening shift.  He got them all but the electricity 
went off when the case of dynamite took out the transformer.
     Driving down back streets away from the prowling suburbanites 
he remembers his wife insisting, "But the government will do 
something."  It didn't.  "People will work together."  They didn't, 
except in temporary cooperative looting.
     When he reaches his darkened house he gives the password and 
Greta opens the door.  She only lowers her pistol when she 
recognizes him by the light of the penlight she holds.
     "Are you ready to relocate now," he asks sarcastically.  She 
doesn't answer but helps him load the four year old twins into the 
cab of their camper-backed pickup.
     There is no room in back as it is filled with survival 
supplies he had been gathering for months.  This was his Bugout 
vehicle.  He had begun preparing it between silly arguments with 
Greta about leaving such a good job, now non-existant.  Also, good 
friends, two of whom she had been forced to shoot that afternoon 
when they had threatened to kill the children unless she gave them 
food.
     As the truck moves out of the yard the moonlit sky is further 
illuminated by three flashes of blinding light.  Three warheads out 
of the ten aimed at Chicago have hit at 11:00 P.M.
     As the three mushroom clouds converge in a ragged atomic 
umbrella twenty miles away, earth tremors shake the street as Phil, 
with lights out, makes his way down Park Blvd. to 55.
     The goal is Harrison, Arkansas where Phil's friend has a 
doomsday ready survival complex.  The object is to get there before 
Doomsday begins, if it hasn't already.
     In the twelve miles between Glen Ellyn and 55, Phil has to 
shoot three people who try to open the truck door as he slows for 
obstacles.  Whether they are looters or just wanted a ride is of no 
importance.
     The twelve miles to 55 takes over an hour.  The 267 
Interchange is surprisingly clear and Phil has to use his truck to 
push only one car out of his path.
     The highway seems clear except for scattered vehicles 
abandoned and looted.  Phil's Geiger counter is beginning to 
crackle even though the slight breeze is blowing toward Chicago.
     On 55 Phil averages between 20 and 80 miles an hour.  Near the 
larger towns the interchanges are so clogged with stalled and 
wrecked vehicles, Phil has to go around on side roads.
     Leaving Interchange 33, Phil drives straight down to Chester, 
bypassing St. Louis and crossing the Mississippi River at 9:00 A.M.
     The next several hundred miles are a nightmare of detours, gas 
foraging and shootouts with both looters and citizens guarding 
their territories.  They have escaped serious radiation from 
Chicago as well as from the atomic pile which had been St. Louis.
     Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas are one great fortress 
protected by hillbillies made savage by the events of the past few 
weeks and hours.  Nearly every road is blocked and guarded by armed 
citizens, shooting or turning away refugees.
     Killer caravans form, made up of desperate refugees 
cooperating in storming checkpoints.  Most of them simply want to 
get to a blocked destination.
     Outside Mountain Home, Arkansas Phil comes upon a firefight 
between Caravaneers and a small group of townies.  He must decide 
whether to join the Caravaneers or side with the outgunned townies.
     Since this is their territory Phil makes the tactical decision 
of getting with the townies.  He turns on the Caravaneers and after 
shotgunning six they retreat.
     The townies then let him through for a safe passage to 
Harrison.  This is the end of the beginning.