Free An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) by Darrell Maloney Page B

yellow it is, the more dehydrated you are. If you piss yellow, you’d damn well better get out your canteen and guzzle that son of a bitch.”
         Dave never forgot that sage advice from the old gunny, and even before the world went black he made a point to make sure his urine never got too dark. In the summertime, he’d used another piece of the gunny’s advice as well.
         “When you’re working all day in the hot sun, you’re gonna sweat. And that’s a good thing. It’s your body’s air conditioning system. Your body sweats so that the passing breeze can cool you down.
         “What you have to remember, though, is that you have to take in a lot more water when it’s hot and you’re sweating.
         “If you ever stop sweating on a hot day, you’re in a world of hurt. That means your body has no more extra water to give out. And it means you’d better get some water into your system pronto or you’re gonna be a dead Marine. And I don’t allow dead Marines in my class. If you die in my class because you’re too dumb to drink enough water, I don’t care if you’re dead or not. I’m gonna kick your dumb ass anyway.”
         Gunny Campos had a way with words that was common with his generation of Marines. He’d been old school, had come up through the ranks before the Corps became sissified, and started teaching courses about sensitivity and respect for others. Campos and his comrades weren’t afraid to swear to get a point across.
         Dave, on the other hand, had gone through in the day when swearing at recruits was frowned up. When it was supposed to hurt their feelings or something. And he found himself wishing they’d left his Marine Corps the way it was. When toughness counted more than feelings.
         It was mid morning now, and almost time for him to go to bed.
         But first, he had a couple of daily chores to attend to.
         He picked up several pieces of firewood from his wood pile in the back yard and carried them into his safe room. He stacked them on the brick step next to the fireplace, in case he slept until it got dark again. He didn’t mind collecting wood in the dark, but it was easier to select the pieces he wanted in the daytime.
         He went to the garage and opened up his chest freezer.
         The wiring in the freezer had been fried from the EMP, but he’d been able to save it by replacing the bad wiring with wire from a heavy duty extension cord. Now it was connected to his generator and ran for two to three hours per day, whenever his generator was running. It seemed to be enough to keep everything frozen, as long as he didn’t open the door to the freezer any more than he had to.
         But he was never in the freezer for long. He only had two items in it, and it was neatly organized so he never had to root through it looking for something.
         Zip lock bags of rabbit meat were stacked on the right side, slices of bread in zip lock bags were stacked on the left. It was an easy system, and allowed Dave to get in and out of the freezer very quickly.
         He took two packets of sliced bread and one packet of meat from the freezer, then laid them on top of it. Then he went to the corner of the garage, on the far side of his Faraday cage, and opened up a box that said “old clothes.”
         He took two sweaters from inside the box and put them inside.
         Beneath the sweaters were twenty six-packs of Armor Vienna sausages, in little cans.
         He took the plastic cover off one of the six packs and removed a tiny tin of the hot dog-like sausages, then put everything back in place.
         From another box, marked “purses and shoes,” he removed a zip lock bag of dried vegetables. He tucked it under one arm, picked up the bread and meat, and carried everything to his safe room.
         He’d actually had fun helping Sarah prepare the dried vegetables. Much of it had come from their own garden,