"BugOut" From 1981

SCRIPT OUTLINE FOR "BUGOUT" 
 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.
by Kurt Saxon copyright 1981