Free Will of Man - Part Five by William Scanlan Page A

conclusion the airport was empty. I imagine it has been ransacked of any food. The pirates aren't too far away and I imagine they found it a long time ago.
    But if I can get to it, maybe I can find something of use. I also notice the airport is completely surrounded by the fence I mentioned. If that fence has no tears or openings, it will keep the wolves away from me and I can roam freely. However, the fence is about a quarter mile away and that is plenty of distance for the wolves to catch me.
    On a flat track, I can run the four-hundred meters in under a minute. However, the path is covered by dipping hills, thick vegetation, fallen trees, and anything else you'd expect to find in a forest.
    I will have to buy my time until the wolves give up and leave. I remember my science lesson on the four basic needs of living things. All living things need food, water, shelter, and air. I have one of the four. I know if I am to stay here, I will have to evict those rattlesnakes, and move into the cockpit. Then I will have to find food. Water will come soon with the incoming storm, and I will use the cockpit for shelter. If I can accomplish all that, then I will have my four basic needs to survive.
    I scavenged through my backpack and laid everything out so I could survey my supplies. I had my atlas, a knife, a roll of duct tape, a bag of zip ties, a machete, a compass, a zip lock with five lighters in it, a bottle of pain/fever reducers, a bottle of water purifier, a book on survival skills, a thermo-blanket, a box cutter with extra blades, my wetsuit, thermo gloves, water proof seal-skin socks, a hundred feet of climbing rope, one small cooking pot, a small thermos, some other miscellaneous things, and the pistol Dad gave me.
    I picked up the pistol and realized how heavy it was. I smirked when I realized I carried that useless thing this whole time. I never did fire it. Part of me is glad I never had to use it. Another part of me wanted to shoot it just to shoot it. I didn't see any future use for it, so I threw it at one of the wolves - I missed.
    I looked at the sky and saw the sun was directly overhead. I figured I had about four to six hours to rid the cockpit of those rattlesnakes. This was not a task I wanted to rush. I remembered studying reptiles and remembered they are most active during the sunny part of the day and like to venture out just as the sun is going down.
    Today was particularly cool and cloudy. This hopefully meant the snakes were snuggled in their warm nest within the flight suit I found them. I slowly peeked into the broken windshield of the cockpit. I scanned for any movement and saw none other than a slow moving bulge within the belly of the dead pilot. It still creeped me out.
    I left my backpack on the wing and stuck five zip-ties in my mouth. One for each sleeve, each ankle sleeve, and one for the collar. My plan was to zip-tie shut any openings the snakes might try to exit from, then pull the flight suit (with snakes inside) out of the crushed window and down onto the ground beneath.
    I brought my rope with me to pull the flight suit out of the cockpit. After taking a deep breath, I slowly lowered myself into the cockpit. The cockpit was silent and I listened for any rattling. There was no sound, but there was a little movement in the snakes nest.
    The ankle sleeves would be my first task. If the snakes were to crawl out from there, I may not see them while I was securing the other exits. I slowly wrapped the first zip-tie around the skeletons left ankle and then slowly pulled the zip-tie. I know snakes are sensitive to vibration and I could feel every click the zip-tie made as it zipped shut. The ankle sleeve slowly closed and I gave it an extra firm, but gentle tug to secure it.
    The other ankle sleeve was a little harder to reach since it was positioned under the control panel. It was a dark spot, and a perfect location for a snake to be hiding, but it had to be done. I peered into the darkness of the