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SURVIVAL SCHOOL by Kurt Saxon copyright 1981
RATHER THAN WRITE TWO MORE EDITORIALS TO FINISH OFF THIS
VOLUME(5) OF THE SURVIVOR, I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE AMUSED BY THE TWO
MOVIE SCENARIOS I WROTE BUT NEVER SOLD. "WHAT WITH DISASTER AND
HORROR FILMS ALL THE RAGE, SUCH A MOVIE MIGHT BE A BOX OFFICE
SMASH. READ THEM FOR YOURSELF AND DECIDE.
The New Age Survival School is in Carson, California, just 10
miles from the Los Angeles Civic Center. It is in an old garage
with about a half acre of floor space. Partitions separate the
classrooms, except for a trailer home, padded inside and out and
used as a muted firing range.
It is run by Captain Jack, a psychotic ex-Green Beret who
wears a camouflage jacket and a Dodgers baseball cap. Captain Jack
is a hand-to-hand combat expert and teaches all comers.
His partner, an ex-Holy Roller preacher, is Daniel Pomfritt,
predicting Armageddon without the rapture. His course prepares the
student survivalist to accept the coming chaos as God's plan to
separate the wheat from the chaff. His ace in the hole is an ugly
old gray school bus outfitted with extra fuel tanks and enough food
and supplies to keep a dozen passengers fit for a month.
Wally Moon is the Survival Backpacking expert and also teaches
first aid and bird watching.
"Gimpy" Terwilliger teaches firearms use and is a fast draw
expert. He wears a wooden leg due to his gun often firing before
it clears his holster.
Frank Drago is a defrocked high school chemistry fired for
emptying the school during a noxious experiment. He teaches
improvised weaponry and poisons for defense and protection.
Wanda Jordan is a loudmouthed ex-roller derby queen who
teaches food preserving and knife fighting. She is also Captain
Jack's mistress.
The students are a motley selection of ineffectual types,
mainly white collar and a whole outlaw motorcycle gang of twelve
who call themselves the Nordics. Daniel Considers the Nordics as
his twelve apostles, sent to him by Providence. The Nordics
consider Daniel and the school a cover for their various criminal
activities.
The school has been running fairly smoothly until the
Survivalist's predictions of collapse have been coming true. The
rising crime rate makes getting to survival school class a
challenge in itself.
The overall plan of the school is to relocate the staff and
its wealthier students to Oatman, Arizona, three miles across the
California border. The Nordics are helpful in driving truckfulls
of supplies from the school and local stores, burglarized after
school hours.
As the national economy breaks down, Los Angeles county
becomes a jungle. Utilities and services are spotty. Brownouts
occur daily as fuel runs low and terrorists destroy power facilities.
The poor protest budget cuts by ransacking welfare offices.
From there they spread out to riot and loot until dispersed by
increasingly violent clashes with police and National Guardsmen.
As downtown Los Angeles goes up in smoke the Survival School
staff and students prepare frantically to make their move. They
load the last of the supplies into the bus, assemble the Nordics
and head down Del Amo to the Long Beach Freeway.
Several accidents have blocked the freeway onramp. As the bus
slows down the owners of the jammed cars try to commandeer the
bus. They are gunned down by the staff and the Nordics.
As the job of pushing the wrecks out of the way is completed,
a Yellow Alert comes over the bus's radio. Missiles are heading
north out of Russia.
When the way is cleared, the party surges onto the nearly
deserted freeway. Aside from a few cars weaving around an
occasional unreported wreck, the freeway is clear, due to the
shortage of gas. Before many others who had also heard the alert
can get to the freeway, the party is already on 91.
By the time they storm 605 the Red Alert comes in over the
radio and a lone air raid siren sounds in the distance, four
warheads hit--L.A. International Airport, the US Naval Station,
Terminal Island and the Long Beach Naval Shipyard.
The four blasts shake the area and the freeway rocks twenty
miles away. Four columns mushroom out over the stricken area,
painting the night sky with a red pall of death.
Within minutes every freeway onramp is clogged with those
doomed souls who have some gas in their tanks and try to leave the
area. The biggest danger from the influx of more desperate drivers
is their determination to hijack other vehicles before their own
run out of gas.
At the sight of the church bus, several drivers try to
commandeer it by running it onto the freeway shoulder. They are
shot, but not before running over four of the Nordics.
The remaining Nordics move and take up the lead. To save
ammunition, Frank activates a weedkiller's tank of cyanide and
sprays its poison gas at cars approaching too close to the left
side of the bus. Dozens of cars are strewn in their wake by the
time they reach the desert past Yorba Linda.
No traffic comes toward Los Angeles. When drivers ahead see
"JESUS LOVES YOU" painted across the front of the bus, they slow
down. If they make a move to block the bus they are fired on by
the Nordics. By the time they turn north on 15 three more Nordics
are lost to would-be hijackers who fire back.
By the time they pass Cucamonga, the geiger counter in the bus
is beginning to crackle as the blanket of creeping radiation rolls
over the instant wasteland. The inversion layer claps a dead hand
over the Los Angeles Basin.
When they come to the Barstow Freeway they see it is clogged
with regugees leaving San Bernardino. The bus shoots onto the
freeway at the first fortunate gap. The four remaining Nordics are
delayed until there is another gap in traffic.
As the crush of traffic threatens to swamp the bus, Frank
consults with Captain Jack and they decide to block the highway.
Frank and the rest begin throwing out cyanide smudge pots all over
the road. Within seconds they are alone, except for the traffic
ahead. The last four Nordics are sprawled just outside Victorville.
By the time they reach Daggett, traffic has thinned and it's
full speed ahead. Then their motor conks out.
Now it's their turn to commandeer a vehicle. They position
some out-of-gas vehicles so that other drivers getting through the
jam behind have to slow down. They all stay out of sight until a
beer hauling semi cruises up and, instead of slowing to weave
through the roadblock, it stops. Two scrounges, who had probably
stolen it, get out with guns and make as if to search the bus.
Wanda shotguns them as they open the door.
It only takes fifteen minutes to attach the semi to the bus.
Daniel gets behind the wheel and Wanda rides shotgun in the cab
beside him.
When they finally pull into the little town of Oatman, they go
to Captain Jack's refuge there. With a semi full of beer and half
the stealable valuables from Carson, they are ready to weather the
storm.