Sam Sheridan - The disaster diaries: how I learned to stop worrying and love the apocalypse

THE PENGUIN PRESS

Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa), Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa Penguin China, B7 Jiaming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in 2013 by The Penguin Press,

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright Sam Sheridan, 2013

All rights reserved

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Sheridan, Sam.

The disaster diaries : how I learned to stop worrying and love the apocalypse / Sam Sheridan.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-101-60586-8

1. Sheridan, Sam. 2. SurvivalUnited States. 3. DisastersUnited States. 4. Preparedness. 5. Self-relianceUnited States. 6. Emergency managementUnited States. I. Title.

GF86.S537 2012

613.6'9092dc23

2012030937

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For Patty and Ace,
from the luckiest guy on Earth

You are responsible, 100 percent, for your outcomes and actions. Keep that in mind as you read this book. This book cannot make you any safer; only you can do that.

The advice and facts presented in this book are presented for fun, to inspire thought, and for the betterment of humanity, whichever is easier. Most of the scenarios imagined are dangerous and horrible. Please dont take anything in here too seriously without verification and your own personal study. Consult a medical professional or local law enforcement. As Lenin used to say, Trust, but verify.

Theres an element of risk to some of the activities in this book. If you try them, thats your lookout.

CONTENTS

RISE AND SHINE

In the dark room, caught between sleep and dreams, a noise drifts into my consciousness, rushing like the wind in the trees.

I slip from bed, trying to place the sound as it grows louder. My bare feet press against the cold wood floor. A rainstorm? I pull the curtains and touch the cool glass. No rain against the windows.

I stand wondering, squinting into the darkness as the rumble grows, jarring my ankles, shuddering in my knees. The house trembles.

And suddenly, I can hear the sloshing over the pavement, seawater thudding hard into the gate, a terrible authoritative knock. Out the window the streets are vanishing under the white foam, and then the water, torrid and black, natures true face revealed: indifference. All that water has to go somewhere. Too late for the car, its hood deep already. I holler at my wife, snatch my infant son from his warm crib, and dash for the stairs. The deafening noise presses us forward, glass exploding and cold seawater rushing in to fill up everything. Its already waist deep as we slog through and pull ourselves up the stairs, gasping. The ocean churns in the living room. I know more water is on the way.

Im the guy who twists in his bed, snarling into the pillow, during what Nabokov called the wolf hours of insomnia. I gnaw at my worries like a dog without a protective cone collar.

Im sitting on the sand with my family, watching the quiet surf wandering up the beach, with just a hint of onshore breeze building. A gull wheels overhead, cawing.

Then a bright flash, a blinding burst somewhere behind me, over the heart of Los Angeles. The blue sky crackles and turns incandescent white, brighter than the sun; and now its burning us. I throw myself over my son as the heat rips my back. Theres pain, and I can feel the skin bubble. First the hush, then shouts, then screams.

I know what it is, Im up and running with the child in my arms, before the flash fades and the mushroom cloud stands revealed. We have to get inside, underground, before the blast wave hits and incinerates us, but we dont even have a basement. Where am I running to?

I mutter and turn in bed and punch the pillow helplessly, not quite awake, unwilling to give up.

Another me stands outside in the quiet night streets of my neighborhood, lit with streetlights shrouded in fog. I hear the rumble of distant surf and smell the heady ocean breeze. A low moan whispers from the darkness, somewhere out of sight.

What was that?

The moan builds, and now its the throaty hum of a hundred moans, along with breaking glass and a whirling car alarm. Slapping feet. They come at a run: zombies, the living dead, blind and frothing, their bodies flashing staccato through the misty pools of light. I dash inside, but the ground floor of our house is all glass, no barrier to that hunger. Up the stairs we go again, screams and smashing all around.

That does it. When we get to the zombies, I might as well call it a night.

Three thirty in the morning is as good a time as any to start my day. Outside, the nights blacker than an oil slick. Under the harsh kitchen lights, the gurgle of the machine and the bitter smell of coffee reassure me that all is not lost.

Not yet. The world is still turning, life proceeds. The nightmares are, for now, confined to my sleeping hours.

Is it just paranoia? A noisy mind, as the Buddhists say? Too many late-night double features? Or is something radical headed our way; are my dreams premonitions, warnings from my subconscious?

And if so, if so, whats to be done about it?

Im a long way from home, here in the City of Angels. Im an East Coast boy, and maybe the key to my insomnia lies in my past. Maybe its obvious.

I grew up in the historic village of Old Deerfield, Massachusetts, famous for the Deerfield Massacre. In the winter of 1704, the French and Indians came over the wall in the dead of night. They came over the wall, silent, tomahawks in hand. Children just like me raced through the snow and were caught, scalped, their brains dashed out. Half the town was enslaved or killed.

Many of the houses on my street were preserved as museums, the private fortresses of colonial New England. Their insides were dim and still, frozen in time, available to tour. As a little boy I knew by heart which doors had tomahawk holes hacked in them. I stood guard through the endless summer of childhood, watching for Indians creeping through the cornfields behind my house; listening, amid the burning thrum of cicadas and the frogs peeping in the long grass, for war howls.

Perhaps the simple explanation is correct, that these childhood fears marked me. When I think about the kinds of activities Ive engaged with over the years, they do seem to sway toward preparing for dangerand, lets be honest, violence.