Survivors (9 page)
Authors: Rich Goldhaber
I said, “It’s going to be a terrible job. George
and I saw a body over in the energy plant and I
threw up. It was disgusting.”
Jessie said, “Let’s search the North Lake
Village complex first. I’m thinking if about four of
us focus on checking out every building, we can
finish the work in one day. We can move onto the
other areas of the campus over the next few days.”
I added, “We need to pay a visit to the
Home Depot. We’re going to need new locks for
each of the apartments we move into. Bill, how
many people are you going to need to finish up at
the water filtration plant?”
Bill answered, “Jessie finished all of the
electrical work. I’m thinking four of us should be
able to finish the whole thing tomorrow.”
He then stood up and asked for everyone’s
attention. “Listen up everyone. Tomorrow afternoon
we’re going to turn the water back on, but nobody
can drink any of the water for a couple of days.
We’ll have to let the bad things work themselves
through the pipes. Don’t drink or prepare food with
the water unless it’s boiled first.”
Josh walked up to our table and brought
over a lawn chair. “I’ve been thinking about the
fresh meat and produce problem.”
should do?”
Josh cleared his throat and looked down at
some handwritten notes. “Here’s the thing. We’re
probably going to have to feed hundreds of people,
assuming others want to join us. First, we’re going
to need a place to freeze and refrigerate the meat
and produce. I’m thinking the Costco near here will
be perfect. If we get lucky, they may already have
backup generators that can run the refrigeration
equipment until we can restore power.
“And like I was saying yesterday, we can
drive up to the Publix Replenishment Center with a
convoy of refrigeration trucks and move their inventory down to the Costco. That should last us a
couple of months, maybe six months tops.
“The biggest problem is how we find a longterm source of meat and produce. I’m thinking
there must be survivors over in Immokalee. They
grow all kinds of fresh produce there. Maybe they
can supply us with food.
“The meat is a bigger problem; I know some
of Publix’s meats come from an area south of Orlando. We need to find some ranchers who survived.”
As I was processing Josh’s take on things,
Blaine added some interesting perspective on our
new way of life. “At college, I took a course on the
history of money. They talked about how money
developed in ancient societies. My professors explained societies start out by gifting. Actually our
society is starting out as a scavenging society. I
guess that sounds better than stealing.”
Blaine answered. “They’re usually small
tribes or communities. People give food and other
things to people without asking for anything in return. They know the others in the society will do
the same thing. Our people working at the water
filtration plant aren’t asking to be paid. They’re
working because they know people like Beth are
going to help feed them. Everyone knows we’re all
in this together.
“But now let’s think ahead. Maybe a year
from now we establish contact with survivors living
in Tampa or Orlando. Tampa may have a supply of
gasoline we need. They’re probably not going to
just give it to us. They’ll probably want to trade for
something. That’s when we’ll become a bartering
society.
“Then maybe five years from now we’ll be
trading with people living in Atlanta. We may not
need what they have to trade. That’s when money
enters the picture. Back in ancient times, people
accepted gold as an alternative to bartering, and
you know the rest of the story.
“So the question I will ask each of you is
what are we going to barter with when we trade
with people living in Tampa?”
Jessie, who was quick to pick up on
Blaine’s comments, smiled and said, “We’re going
to be the infrastructure people. Think about it.
Look how quickly we provided electricity and water
for our group. We’ve done it by leveraging our understanding of solar power. We can become the infrastructure society, and we can provide power to
Tampa, Orlando, or maybe even Miami. We should
focus our technical resources on understanding
how to reestablish infrastructure.”
George said, “We can become the new Florida Power and Light supplier for all of Florida, but
what about telephone service? That will be a real
problem. We need to hope one of our survivors understands how the telecommunications system
works.”
Bill said, “Let’s ask Margaret to research
the subject. They’ve got an engineering school
here; they must have books in their library about
how the telephone system works.”
I waved to Margaret who was looking in my
direction. After I asked her to research the subject,
she walked away with a smile on her face. She now
understood why her skills were going to be in such
demand.
After consuming the best apple pie I had
eaten in a long time, I kissed Beth on the cheek
and complimented her on the dessert. She was ecstatic. I continued walking around the beach and
found some time to play kickball with the two boys.
By nine o’clock, everyone had found a vacant apartment. Mary and Margaret bunked down
with the little ones, and I knew between both of
them the kids would be well cared for.
Patty and Greg volunteered to wear the
hazmat suits and help dispose of the dead bodies.
Greg said he had served in the First Gulf War and
had already seen the sight of burned and decaying
flesh and nothing could bother him anymore.
Stan left to find the digging equipment, and
Bill and his team left to complete the work on the
water filtration plant. Josh, Jessie, and I decided to
break into the nearby Costco and see what the status of their refrigeration system looked like.
Josh said, “We’re going to need a ladder to
get onto their roof. We can enter through the skylights. That way we won’t have to break through
any steel doors. There’s a Home Depot just off
Daniel’s Parkway. We can take one of their trucks
to transport the ladders and maybe bring some
food back for Beth.”
I borrowed a sledge hammer from the complex’s tool shed, and we left in Josh’s car. A few
well-placed blows on the Home Depot front entrance shattered the glass door, and we stepped
carefully into the dark building. The emergency
lighting had long since stopped working.
We located some flashlights and batteries
near the checkout counter and then found a long
extension ladder easily capable of reaching Costco’s roof. I took some empty carts and filled them
with all of the front door locks I could find. We
could use these to replace the locks on each
apartment and give our new residents a heightened
sense of privacy. Josh found a hundred foot long
package of a strong nylon rope we could use to
drop down from the skylight, and Jessie located a
couple of hacksaws to cut through the steel grates
Josh said were protecting the skylights.
I found the keys to one of the rental trucks
on a rack behind the rental counter, and after
loading up a flatbed truck, we headed over to Costco.
We parked in the back of the building, and
Josh looked at some equipment behind a fenced-in
area. “We’re definitely in luck,” he said. “They’ve
got an emergency generator and a huge tank to
hold gasoline.”
because the generator isn’t working.”
I said, “Maybe we can transfer some gas
from the gas station to the gas tank. It looks like
only a couple hundred feet.”
Josh said, “Let’s get inside first. Then we
can figure out what to do. If we’re really lucky, the
freezer may still be cold.”
The three of us carried the ladder from the
truck and leaned it against the back of the building. All three of us climbed onto the roof and stood
around the closest skylight. We took turns cutting
through the steel grate, and then Josh pried open
the plastic skylight with a crowbar.
After the skylight was removed, Jessie said,
“I’m the lightest. You guys can lower me into the
building, and I’ll open the emergency exit on the
side.”
We tied one end of the rope around Jessie’s
waist and lowered her slowly through the open
skylight. We climbed down the ladder, and by the
time we reached the emergency exit, Jessie was
opening the side door.
I had been in this Costco several times, but
today all the lights were out, and it was kind of eerie just walking around in the twilight created by
the many skylights in the roof. The smell from rotting bananas filled the air. It was both sweet and
pungent at the same time.
At first I wondered why people hadn’t
cleaned out the shelves, and then I realized it was
because the CDC had warned everyone to stay in
isolation. People didn’t want to risk getting infected.
Josh immediately walked up to one of the
freezers and opened the door. It wasn’t ice-cold,
but it was definitely cool. The temperature on a
thermometer read thirty-nine degrees.
today, I think we can still save what’s inside.”
Jessie said, “We can’t transfer the gasoline
with our little hand bilge pumps; we’re going to
need a portable pump.”
Josh said, “I know just the thing. I think
they have battery operated pumps at Home Depot.
Why don’t I go back there and get what we need to
transfer the gasoline. In the meantime, you guys
can see what we can salvage in the way of food in
the refrigerator sections.”
It sounded like a good plan, and after Josh
left in the truck, Jessie and I checked out what
food we could save. The temperature in the refrigerator sections indicated almost eighty degrees. It
didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand almost
everything in these walk-in coolers was spoiled. We
worked our way to the clothing section and Jessie
said, “I’m going to change into some fresh clothes.”
It seemed like a good idea, and we both
walked the aisles searching for the perfect outfits. I
found some beige cargo shorts and a blue flowery
Tommy Bahama shirt. I picked out packages of
underwear along with some white sport socks.
Jessie began changing clothes behind a
display, and I did the same behind another counter. As I striped off my dirty clothes I noticed Jessie
looking. “Hey, no fair looking,” I said.
you were looking at me?” she said.
We both laughed and soon we were admiring each other’s new look. We found two large carts
and began checking over the fresh produce. Of
course it wasn’t very fresh anymore, but the apples, potatoes, onions, watermelons, cucumbers,
and peppers looked okay. We quickly filled up our
two carts and then I thought about how we would
load everything onto our flatbed truck.
I found a propane powered pallet truck in
the back of the store, and started it up. After studying the controls, I moved it slowly into the main
section of the store. Jessie and I were able to manually lift the steel roll-up door sealing the front entrance to the building. Now we could use the pallet
truck to move pallets of food from inside the building to the parking lot.
Jessie said, “Let’s do Chinese. We can take
stuff from the freezer.”
“Let’s take some Mexican too,” I said, “Everyone may not like Chinese.”
I moved the pallet truck over to the frozen
food section, and I located an empty pallet that I
placed on the forklift. We found Orange Chicken,
Egg Rolls, Won-Ton soup, and then moved onto the
Mexican food section and settled on some chicken
enchiladas and guacamole. We soon had a full pallet, and with Jessie following, I maneuvered the
pallet truck slowly out the front door just as Josh
returned from his Home Depot trip.
He parked next to the pallet forklift. I studied the controls and after a few unsuccessful tries,
I was able to lift a pallet onto the truck. While Jessie and I finished loading the truck with pallets of
food, Josh began setting up the pumping system to
transfer the gasoline from the underground gas
station tanks to the empty generator tank.
He was finally ready to start the pump.
“Listen guys,” he said, “a spark could touch off this
gasoline, so why don’t you move the truck and stay
in the corner of the parking lot until I do this. No
use getting three people killed.”
Josh had a point. Jessie and I moved the
truck to the far corner of the parking lot, and we
waited behind a couple of palm trees. If the whole
place went up in flames, the trees wouldn’t provide
much protection, but it was better than nothing.
Josh attached a jumper cable from the
pump to the battery in his car, and nothing blew
up. He ran to the generator tank and checked the
tubing leading into the supply tank. “It’s working,”
he screamed. He ran back to where we were standing with a smile on his face. I think it’s going to
take about a half hour for the tank to fill. The
pump’s pretty slow.”
lunch.”
She ran back into Costco and returned ten
minutes later with; a kosher salami, potato chips,
and some bread that wasn’t quite stale. She had
found one of those expensive ceramic knifes and
began slicing up the salami. She had also collected
some apple juice and soon we were dining on an
acceptable lunch while we waited for the generator
supply tank to fill.
Josh finally shut down the transfer pump
and capped off the underground gasoline tank and
the generator supply tank. Jessie found the start
switch and the engine started to turn over. It
coughed a few times as it sucked in some fresh gas
and then started right up. We walked back inside
Costco and checked out the freezer and refrigerator
areas. Coolant was circulating in both areas and
we could feel the ice-cold air being pumped into
the rooms.