Bug out

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Bug out is a survivalist term used to describe the act of leaving/escaping from a danger area, such as a large city, to one's safe location during a time of crisis. It is a popular theme in many works of survivalist fiction. One example:

	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.
— Script outline for "Bugout" by Kurt Saxon © 1981