Straight Jackets

What would a surviving group should half their members be are not only out of their heads but violent, suicidal and not just thinking about it, and about to run off into the night in a panic? Today many rely upon calling for help, going to the hospital, and the use of drugs rather than the old fashioned straight jacket to control those likely to harm themselves or others. The situation described below will be typical of a group of people who did not prepare well for the coming cataclysms, but also for those who did plan. The shock of loss and injury, the continuous grinding of problems, will produce more than the usual number of individuals quite out of their head, temporarily. Imagine the scenario described below with and without straight jackets, and compare the outcome. Here's the situation.

30 folks comprised of 5 families group ahead of the shift.

During the shift 3 old timers die of a heart attack, 7 members suffer broken bones most needing only a splint for a crack but 1 member having a compound fracture which gets infected and within a week they have stopped moaning and die. The wife of this man tends his dead body and everyone else is too busy to care, but when the smell finally gets to them they bury the man and his wife sits on top of the grave, refusing to eat. They have bigger worries and let her go her way, to death.

3 teen agers in the group are discovered missing one morning, taking the batteries and lights and canned goods with them. The group now has no food or light.

The father of one had hidden a gun and now brings this out and says he is going to hunt them down. He is purple with rage. The father of another of the teenagers says he can't allow that, that the kids will be back and in any case killing them solves nothing. Father 1 shots father 2 in the face, killing him after a few minutes of writhing in pain which the group must watch. Most of the remaining men in the group, and a few of the women, wrestle the gun from father 1 and restrain him, but he raves endlessly from that moment on, morning and night.

One woman who thought her stomach cramps anxiety has been getting worse, and internal injuries are suspected, or appendicitis. She now quietly moans, continuously, and after a week of not being able to eat and scarcely drinking, dies.

The group has been eating a stew made of anything edible in the surrounding fields, taking the cleanest water they can find. Since all ground water is polluted with dust, they let the water stand and pour off the top part, as best they can get. Many in the group begin having stomach aches and throwing up whatever they try to eat. The rest of the group feels it is only a matter of time for these individuals, and despairs of even understanding what is wrong or what to do.

The group begins to stay awake in shifts, as howling dogs have been heard and they fear attacks. They keep a fire going continuously, but the constant drizzle makes fire tending difficult and the group fears the day when no more wood, much less dry wood, will be available.

A number of the group begin so act shifty eye's sitting in corners with their backs to the walls, and fingering what could be described as weapons. One of them starts muttering warnings to others in the group who are utterly benign, such as small children or old women. One suddenly stands up and swinging a long stick, decapitates a toddler, or virtually so. Clearly out of his head, the group restrains him, and decides to restrain anyone else who is muttering threats also. The mother of the decapitated toddler is found dead, having opened her veins at the wrist. No one had time to notice her grief.

Most in the group talk only of food, constantly, with the others yelling at them to shut up about it.

Offered by Nancy.