Monte Vista Village, Toxic Soup (The Survivor Diaries) (2 page)

When I woke up today, there was no electricity. We knew that if we made it much longer, it would be gone soon.

Mom started to fuss about the food in the refrigerator, which made pragmatist Mark livid. But I actually agreed with her. We needed to start to deal with our reality, day by day, minute by minute.

“Honey,” I implored. “We have to do something with the food. We can’t afford to waste even a mouthful.”

“Fine, let’s do it. Bring me all meat items and I will fire up the grill. Maybe I can dry them into jerky somehow.”

I took a deep, grateful breath. He is actually getting on board. At least I hope so. I did hear a grumble, though. “Man, you two,” he said under his breath. First it’s “buy up everything in the store”, and now it’s let’s become “Doomsday Preppers”, like on television. Maybe you will get your own reality show.”

I blew off the comment because he was actually starting to help.

By the way, I don’t want to make my husband out as some kind of jerk. Most of the time, he is just the opposite, actually. He just doesn’t do that well at planning in general, especially not for the end of the world. I had always been the unofficial “prepper” in the family. With my emergency box of band aids and ointment, seed vault and hand cranked NOAA Radio and Charger-in-one, I am the self-appointed disaster readiness professional of our family. If I had only known it would come to this, I would have been way better at my job. Something tells me that we are not even close to being prepared for what is to come.

Mark has actually been
helpful getting some things ready, despite his superstition about planning too much. I just can’t see that me being prepared is the reason we might be in the path of global destruction.

I needed to get out of the house while my husband focused on his grilling. I hadn’t really been
going out very much for the last couple of days. I just expected, and wanted, to die in my own home with my family if it was going to happen any time soon. I didn’t want to be caught at the grocery store when it happened. That’s a too unceremonious way to go. But at the moment, I only felt the need to get out and walk for a while.

For the last
few days I have been thinking about getting to know our neighbors. I had always thought it sad that Mom had lived here, in the same house, for nearly three decades and barely knew any of our neighbors. My need to meet them wasn’t exactly altruistic. I thought it best to begin to compile a list of those people closest to us; what they did for a living, how old were they, and how willing did they seem to come together as a community, if it came to that. I wanted to start a list of assets, so to speak. Did they own generators; have they been stock piling food and water? Whatever they were willing to disclose, I was there to hear.

So, I reached for my tablet when it dawned on me that it wouldn’t be that helpful for the long run to use anything that required electricity. Instead, I found a clipboard, some paper and a pen, and I set off about my task, not knowing what to expect.

In our defense, none of our neighbors ever seemed to talk to each other, either. We have had a bit of an ongoing feud with the people to the right of us. They left the dogs out, howling until the wee hours of the night all of the time, and we were known to yell at the little yappers over the fence when it got to be too much. You know, just typical neighbor stuff. The idealistic, close knit neighborhood, with block parties and long chats in the front yard, we were not. Even just after we moved here when I was a child in the early 1980’s, we never even trick or treated, nor have we ever had any children come to our door and demand candy or reap the tricks that might befall us if we did not deliver the goods. We never had any sense of community what-so-ever. Hopefully, my walk from house to house today will have an impact.

I put the leash on Hershey
, our handsome Chocolate Lab, and started at the house next door on the left. Sadly, we had never spoken more than a hello to those people. If I recalled, they were an older couple with a quiet, small, white dog. We have never seen much activity from them, and assume that they owned other homes where they spent most of their time.

I walked down their long set of stair
s, that matched our own. Like ours, many of the homes in our neighborhood sat on stilts on the hillside. We all used to have beautiful views of the bay until the trees in our forests grew so tall that we could only see the mostly clear, blue water from the street above our homes.

I took a deep breath, and actually felt that old shyness well up from my childhood as I knocked on the
first door. Nothing. I tried the bell, forgetting that we had no electricity. Finally, I knocked one more time, not sure if they were just afraid to come to the door with everything going on, or they just were not home.

I left and tried the next house.
Same problem. I guessed that I would be encountering this quite a lot today, and I was right.

Three houses down, I walked down the ramp and I finally found someone willing to open the door. I actually knew these neighbors. Well, at least we had had conversations on the street while walking the dog.  I had almost forgotten their last names because we always just called them “The Architects”. The Richmond’s are both architects, and Jill opened the door wide and gave me a hug so hard I could barely
breath.

“Thank God you came,” Jill burst out with. I was confused. Had she been waiting for me?

“Hi, Jill,” I just barely breathed out. Hershey jumped up, excited for the group hug.

“Let her go,” exclaimed Joseph, as he rolled to the door in his wheelchair. “Come in, come in.”

“Hershey, down boy,” I commanded.

Jill must be in her
sixties. She is of sturdy build, with long grey hair and glasses. Joseph is about the same age, and if I recall, he has been in the wheelchair for around ten years. I am not even sure what put him there, but I would never come out and ask. I was raised with manners. Truth is, it doesn’t really matter.

I had never been inside their house before. There was a giant, floor to ceiling, bay window overlooking the whole bay. The trees had yet to obscure their view. I would be jealous if I hadn’t believed that none of us would be around to enjoy it
soon enough. In fact, this house would probably come crashing down when the bombs hit, as would ours.

Jill had been inside our house several times asking to look in our yard for her lost cat. Ever
y day for a month she would put up flyers and searched the neighborhood for her beloved sixteen year old cat. She was a very driven woman. Sadly, she never did find Bunny, the cat.

“I was thinking about coming to see you and your mother. How are you guys doing? We are a mess. I can’t reach my daughter in North Carolina. She must be so scared.” It was like she had been keeping in all of her fear, and with the sight of me she opened up the avalanche
of worries she had built up and just let it all out.

“Stop, Woman! Let the girl tell us
what she came here for! Please,” Joseph scolded.

“You’re right,” she said. “Come and have a seat.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking the proffered seat. Hershey came and settled in at my feet. I pet him as I spoke. I think petting him was a way of keeping myself calm. “Actually, I just went to the two houses between us and no one answered. I’m glad you did. I was getting ready to give up.”

“Well,” started Jill.
“I know that the Kaufman’s are at their home in Chicago. He’s a pilot, as you know.” I actually didn’t know that, but, embarrassed, I just nodded my head and she proceeded. “I heard Chicago was wiped off the map, so I guess they won’t be coming back. Too bad, really. They are, were, such nice people.”

She stopped and I could read the sadness on her face. She was thinking of her daughter, I was sure of it. I reached out and patiently placed a hand on top of hers. A tear slid down her face.

“Anna and Stan are at home,” she went on. I think Anna is in a bad emotional state. That’s probably why they didn’t answer.”

“I thought that might be the case. They don’t know me from Adam, so I completely understand.” And I did. I don’t know that I would have opened the door to a stranger right now, either. I continued, “I thought it might be a good idea to take down some information about our neighbors, in case. You know…” I trailed off.

Understandingly, Jill shook her head, but Joseph took over. “What kind of information are you looking for?” He looked at me with a distrusting grimace.

“Joe,” Jill proclaimed. “Stop it.”

I went on, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “Well, things like, what you do for a living, what you might need in the upcoming days, what you might be willing to give to those who might be in need, that sort of thing.”

“Ah, huh!
That’s exactly what I thought!” He said, as he raised a finger. “Can’t you see I am in this wheelchair? What do you think I can do for you?”

Before Jill had a chance to admonish him, I started to defend myself. “Like I said, I thought I could get a chance to find out what you might...”

He interrupted, “Sure you are.”

Jill stood up and looked him in the eye with anger. “Shut up, Joe. This instance! This thoughtful lady came here to help and all you are doing is yelling.
”

Jill turned from her husband and continued.
“Laura, why don’t I go around with you and see if I can help, too. This is really a great idea. We need to come together more than ever now.”

Jill grabbed her sweater, and blasted a dirty look at her husband who now bo
wed his head. I wasn’t sure if it was shame or just worry that he had angered his wife, but he turned and rolled away.

I was glad she had put an end to the conversation. My heart was beating hard. I have always cowered at confrontation.

We walked up the ramp to the street and Jill gestured at the bench in front of the house. “Now, let’s try again. What types of questions were you going to ask?
“Like I said, I thought first to ask about occupations, or maybe even hobbies people might have.”

“As you know, we are both architects. We built this very house.”

I looked at it admiringly and smiled. I continued, “Also, what types of things would you be willing to contribute to a community pool. I thought that, if enough of us survive,” I paused, waiting to see how she reacted. She nodded her head for me to go on. She knew the truth. I continued, “We could bring our resources together, at least at first.”

For the second time today, this woman who I barely knew pulled me into to a heartfelt hug. This time I submitted, with relief. I knew that we were no longer going to be strangers
after today. It was a reassuring feeling.

We spoke for the next half hour. She threw out ideas and we brainstormed together. With the morning almost gone, I invited her to dinner tonight. I apologized that we had no way to get Joseph down the stairs
to my house. “No bother. He has been in such a mood, since…” she stopped as if lost in thought.

It hadn’t occurred to me that Joseph’s surly attitude might be connected to his concern over his daughter. I felt badly for my first impression of him earlier. I couldn’t abandon my compassion for others at this time, either.

“Well, we will see you tonight and tomorrow we will hopefully have enough of a plan to continue with this neighborhood poll,” said Jill as we parted.

I walked Hershey down the street with the first real smile I
have had since we had heard about the attacks.

When I got home, I told my mother and husband that I had invited Jill to dinner.

“Don’t you think that we should be saving as much of our food as we can,
and not giving it out to strangers,” my mother asked.

Mark’s expression was of anger. Having been raised in Africa, one of 16 children and the son of a road side fruit vendor, he had been taught to give
; no matter how little one had. He turned and began hammering the wood we had purchased during one of our supply trips on to the window frame, but I could practically feel the steam coming from his ears.

After the last week and a half of this ordeal, we
had
begun to ready ourselves for whatever might come our way.  Since the first day they began, as a matter of fact. There have been several types of attacks, so we just were not sure what to be ready for.

Okay, now it’s time to confess. I am an apocalypse book junkie. I have read every free
e-
book out there. From novel to survival guide, if it was free, I downloaded. Even with this in mind, and my small emergency stash, I had not readied us nearly enough.

This
made me think of Bri and Ammie. Are they ready, do they have enough food and water? Will they have enough gas to make it here to their childhood home? I need to stop writing for a minute. My tears are rolling so hard that I can’t see and I am making my “diary” pages soggy.

A Few Minutes Later

Since there were reports of nuclear attacks in big cities, and chemical and missile attacks in the mid-west, we bought enough wood to cover our windows. My mother’s house is so big we had to rent a truck, the kind you use to move residences with, and as much wood, and of course supplies, as we thought would do the trick. That, we reasoned, would cover the windows in case blasts sent glass flying everywhere. It would also keep the light we might have from the lanterns in, so anyone outside looking for possible supplies would be unable to see inside. 

But I still didn’t believe it would help enough to keep out radiation or biological chemicals. So, we purchased as many rolls of tarp and duct tape as the store would allow. There were not official
store rationings at the beginning. I know that most shops had placed a limit on what you could purchase just a couple of days ago.

With information from the internet (
when it was still up) we were buying things I never really thought about, like Potassium iodide pills for low levels of radiation. Although I have read all of those apocalyptic books, I guess I just looked at it as an interesting subject; a hobby. I never thought about it seriously enough. Why would anyone engage in a World War? It would certainly mean that there would be almost none of us left. I still don’t feel like it is happening. At some moments, I am so scared and at others I am light headed with adrenaline. Is this really happening? When will I wake from this? At night, before bed, I think that I might not wake ever again.

Look at the time! Jill will be here any minute now. Company is company, and I can’t be rude by not being ready.