by Sage du Toit
Sam divided the soup into four bowls and took them and the crackers out to the cafeteria, where they all sat and ate together. While they ate, Tom brought up how he wanted to make something to cage flies and grow maggots. Sam was surprised when Oscar asked if they were going to grow maggots to feed to the chickens, he said his grandmother had done that to fatten her chickens up. Tom and Sam both looked at each other, they hadn’t even considered using the flies as food for the chickens, but it made perfect sense. Tom asked Oscar if he knew what his grandmother did to grow the maggots. He said she just put out leftovers and waited for the maggots to show up. He said sometimes she added honey to attract the flies, but oftentimes that attracted more bees than flies.
Sam could tell that Tom was getting some ideas. He asked Oscar if he would help him make a fly cage and he readily agreed. Sam was reminded of the chicken cage and how everyone wanted to help with it. Just as she thought that Craig said that he would also like to help if he could. Tom agreed and after everyone was done eating they started to discuss plans of what they would need and how they could put it together. Oscar said it didn’t need to be big, explaining that his grandma would get hundreds of maggots in a single can. He explained that she used old coffee cans.
They went to the kitchen to see what was in there they could use. They decided to take a can of soup and pour it into a shallow dish to sit out for the flies, there was plenty of soup. They sat it outside and hoped some of the flies would come back. Sam suggested they take a second bowl and put it in the other building where the flies had been, there were bound to still be flies that hadn’t left.
Tom and Sam took the second bowl over and decided to look through that building since they hadn’t gone in last night. The sat the soup on the counter of the nurse’s station that was at the front of the building and walked down the long hallway. Most of the doors were shut, without thinking about it, Tom opened the first closed door they came to. A swarm of flies immediately enveloped the two of them and they both ran back to the entrance and outside. The flies all disbursed and they looked at each other and laughed. Of course, flies would also be in the closed rooms.
They put their gas masks on, that they still carried on their hips at all times. They went back into the building and went through, opening every door. They got to the last door and Sam stopped Tom. She suggested they wait and get something to catch some of the flies in as they exited, then they could use those flies to start their fly farm, instead of waiting and hoping flies would show up and lay eggs in the soup. Tom gave her a big hug and said he knew he kept her around for a reason!
Just to make sure the last room also had flies in it, they cracked the door just slightly and left a few of the flies out and then closed it back. They went back through the rooms they had opened and saw there were still flies in the rooms that hadn’t left, so there shouldn’t be any problems getting flies. Tom pointed out that the corpses in the rooms were nothing but bones and bits of leathery skin. There was also very little smell. The flies had done a good job cleaning up. They were desperately needed in the world right now. They shut the doors back to the building, not wanting to release any more of the flies until they had what they needed.
They went back to talk to Oscar and Craig and to let them know they were going to go to the library to look for books on insects and flies. With a straight face Craig asked, “How are you going to check out books without a library card?” They all laughed. The men wished them luck and asked if there was anything they could do in the meantime. Sam suggested they go through the kitchen and plan out a few meals for them. She thought it would at least give them something to do. They agreed and after checking on the cats and chickens, Tom and Sam went out to the truck to go look for the library.
As they were leaving, Sam stopped to look around the nurse’s station and was happy to find a local phone book. Tom pulled away from the hospital as she found the town map in the phone book and located the library. Luckily the town had a library, the town is what her Dad would have called a one-horse town. Thinking of her Dad made her slightly anxious to be on the way, but she had a feeling these flies could be important in the end.
They quickly found the library, which was locked up tight. They hadn’t seen any evidence on the way there that anyone was still alive in the small town. Tom quickly popped the front door open with his pry bar and they both started searching through the shelves. Sam located the library’s old-style catalog and searched through the draws to find out where books on flies and farming would be. She used the small pencils and paper that were sitting on top of the catalog cabinet to write down the numbers. Tom found her and saw what she was doing and took the one on flies while she went to look at farming books.
Sam exclaimed when she also found a book on chicken farming. She took all of the farming books and was super excited when she found a book on insect farming. She called out to Tom and told him what she had found. He came to her and showed her the book he found on types of insects and then took the book from her on fly farming. He took it over by the window and started leafing through it. Sam decided to look for a few more books that would be useful and went back to the catalog and then to the book stacks to look for the books she was interested in. She found books on building windmills, composting, animal care and survival techniques.
Sam found a box behind the front counter and loaded all of the books they had found. Tom was still looking through the fly farming book, so she decided to look at the periodicals the library had. She found a Vegetable garden magazine and added that to the box and then went back to the book stacks to look for any books on vertical gardening. She found several different ones, including one on sustainable gardens. Sam realized she could spend all day in the library and probably walk out with half of the books. She knew they probably had these same books in the library near her home in Texas.
Tom finally looked up from the book and said he had a good idea of what he was going to need, now they needed to find the hardware store. They took all of the books out to the truck and Sam looked in the phone book for the local hardware store. She shook her head when there wasn’t anything listed except for the local general stores. Tom said he remembered passing those on the way to the library, so hopefully they would have what he needed.
The two general stores were almost right next to each other. They stopped at the first one and went inside. The front door was unlocked, but the store was completely untouched inside, they both looked at each other in surprise and then shrugged. They each took a metal shopping cart went different directions in the store. Sam wanted to get some more kitten food and maybe a few more toys for the kittens as well. She also picked up a bag of pine wood shavings for the chick pen. Other than the store being dark, she felt like she was on a normal shopping trip. She tried to think of what else she might need and picked up some feminine supplies and condoms.
She was about to go look at the food section when she saw Tom and asked if he was finding what he needed. She looked in his basket and saw that he had a few small plastic containers and a couple small fish nets. He asked her where he would find sponges and she said either the bath section or kitchen section. They both walked down the back of the store where there were containers of all types and Tom picked up a couple of small buckets with lids and Sam took two small ceramic containers with lids that would be perfect for the cats.
They again went separate ways; Sam scouted through the food section and took as many different types of non-perishables as she thought they could use or give to the two men. She thought about the two men and then added more food, including all of the jerky she could find, as well as nuts, crackers and canned cheese. She found Tom at the front of the store, putting his items in the plastic bags at the cashier station. Sam went to the next station and started bagging her items up. She added some candy bars and gum that were next to the station and saw that Tom was doing the same thing. They found they were great items to pass on to others and grabbed them whenever they could and when they h
ad room.
Tom said he thought he found everything they needed at this store, so they didn’t stop at the second general store. When they got back to the hospital, they parked in the same place by the emergency room entrance. Oscar came to the door and saw them unloaded the bags from the back of the truck and he came out to help. They hauled everything in and down to the cafeteria. Sam couldn’t help but wonder if there was a better place they could park, that was closer to the cafeteria and she suggested it to Tom. He laughed and said he should have thought of that. There was a parking area on the other side of the building, just outside of the cafeteria.
Chapter 26
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5 March 2021
Meadville, MS
They all worked together to make a portable fly farm. There were three different parts that were removable; there was an area for the adult flies to lay their eggs, then the medium containing the eggs would be moved to the second part to await the larva to hatch. They could then be harvested as maggots from this area or be allowed to grow into pupae which would crawl out and go to the third section. The pupae could either be feed to the chickens or allowed to hatch to repeat the cycle.
They tried to make it easy so it could be cleaned. They had all taken turns looking at the books about insects and fly farming and the biggest thing they saw they had to worry about was keeping the medium that the maggots were in as dry and fresh as possible, to keep botulism from forming. They all found it very fascinating and once they had a working fly farm ready, they caught several flies from the other building and put them inside.
It was also time for Tom to remove Craig’s bandage and remove the maggots from his wound to see if they had done their job. They all went into the surgery and carefully washed up and prepared for what the guys were calling, ‘mission maggot removal’. They all seemed to be in good cheer and Craig was looking much better so they all had high hopes. He told them that it felt like the maggots were moving around a lot more and trying to get out. Tom said that was a good sigh, that should mean that there wasn’t any dead flesh left for them to consume.
Tom removed the top gauze, which they had needed to replace several times due to the drainage from the wound. He then had Sam hold a basin under Craig’s arm as he carefully peeled back the top layer of the maggot cage. The maggots started falling out and down into the basin. Previously, they all would have been sickened by the sight but after reading the books and coming to believe that the maggots were beneficial and not to be considered gross, they had all changed their views.
Tom carefully rinsed the rest of the maggots out with a bottle of saline that had an angled tube on top. He used long tweezers to loosen a few maggots that weren’t coming off and then he patted the wound dry with fresh gauze. They all looked at the wound in amazement. There was only pink flesh remaining and they could see that it was already starting to heal. Tom smiled happily and removed the rest of the maggot cage dressing. He carefully cleaned around the wound and applied an antibiotic cream and then a fresh dressing.
He advised Craig and Oscar that the dressing would need to be replaced every day and possibly more often if it became soiled. He explained that there would still be drainage from the wound, but it was healthy drainage. They should keep it covered with the antibiotic ointment to keep the dressing from sticking.
Tom sat back and said, “Well that’s it then! Mission maggot removal complete!”
They all chuckled and Tom and Sam started cleaning up the surgery while Craig and Oscar went to make lunch for everyone. After the two men left, they discussed leaving immediately after lunch. Tom said, “You know, they aren’t bad buys. Maybe we should invite them to go with us, or offer them a ride further south?”
Sam thought about it and agreed with him. Oscar seemed to know a few more things about chickens that Gretchen hadn’t taught her and both of the men had helped with the fly farm. They went to the cafeteria and found the two men were still in the kitchen cooking. They could smell something delicious was baking in the oven and Oscar was making a mouthwatering creamy pasta on the stove. He said worked at an Italian restaurant before he was sent to the pen for selling drugs out of the back of the restaurant. He laughed when he told him them that one of his best customers had been his own boss.
The resulting meal was delicious. The creamy pasta had mushrooms, black olives, garlic and artichokes in it. They had even made several loves of French bread and a mixture of spices in olive oil to dip the bread in. They all were quiet as they dug into the delicious meal and then Tom brought up the topic of them leaving soon. The two men looked at each other and Sam thought the look they exchanged was sad, but it didn’t last long because immediately Tom asked them if they wanted to join them going to Texas or they could drop them off somewhere along the way.
Both men relaxed and took each other’s hand and nodded at each other. Craig said they had talked about it last night and how thankful they were for Tom and Sam coming along when they did and they weren’t looking forward to them leaving and being on their own again. He said they felt a bit lost and were afraid of falling in with the wrong people again. They explained that they didn’t want that to happen and said that if they had the room, they would love to join the for the trip to Texas.
The rest of the day was spent repacking the truck and making room for the two men. Sam reminded Tom that they still needed to go back and get the fuel, so they had to leave room for that too. It wasn’t too hard to make room, they simply stacked the cat carrier on top of the chicks carrier and moved their bugout bags to the front of the truck. They packed some extra medical supplies and found a secure place in the back of the truck to put the fly farm.
It wasn’t long before they were ready to go. They backtracked to the overpass where they had left the fuel cans and reloaded those after topping off the tank. They were all well rested and had plenty of coffee and food ready to eat on the go. Before they took off, both Tom and Sam gave each of them one of their guns. They wanted them to be able to defend themselves and the group that they were now part of. The men thanked them and told them that they would do their best to help keep all of the them safe.
Sam pulled her map back out and they took back off. She glanced at the back seat and saw Lucky was sitting up in the travel crate looking out the window through the door of the crate, one of the benefits of stacking the crates, the cats could now look out.
The miles went by fast and it was nice to have two extra pairs of eyes when they went through a heavily developed area. They hadn’t even gone forty miles when the two men proved to be even more helpful, they came upon a large suspension bridge that was blocked by several cars in the road. They didn’t look to be crashed, just stopped and blocking the road. Craig couldn’t help to push the cars, but he stood as a lookout to make sure it wasn’t an ambush and to make sure no one snuck up on them. Oscar and Tom did most of the pushing while Sam steered the cars to move them out of the way. They had to stop and do the same thing twice before they were over the long suspension bridge. They all pointed to the Louisiana state sign as they passed it.
They saw a few signs of other survivors in Louisiana, vehicles cleared off the roadway and open doors on businesses and sometimes busted windows. They didn’t stop or slow down unless they had to. When they passed by the north side of Alexandria, they hear some gunshots. They weren’t sure if the shots were directed at them, someone else, or were just a warning not to stop. They didn’t even slow down, Tom picked up the speed a little until he felt they were safely out of the area.
The fuel tank showed they had a quarter of the tank left when they crossed over into Texas. Sam signed in relief to have finally made it to Texas and Tom grabbed her hand and squeezed it as he smiled and said, “Finally!” There were smiles all around, but they knew they weren’t there yet. There was still the question of if their families were still alive. Texas was a big state and they still had a lot of miles to cover.
They pulled
off on a side ride, in what felt like the middle of nowhere to refill the tank and take a break. Sam let Lucky and the kittens out of their carrier on the side of the road. There was a nice sandy spot and they quickly made use of it as a litter box. She also checked on the chicks, but they were peacefully asleep. Oscar pulled some sandwiches out for everyone to eat and Sam realized she was a little hungry. She checked her watch and it showed to be just after 4 pm. When they were done eating and taking bathroom breaks in the bushes, they loaded the cats back up and took off again.
Sam checked her map, she wasn’t sure exactly where they were because there were no landmarks around, but from her last check on the map, she estimated they were only about sixty miles from her home. She told Tom how close they were and he grabbed her hand again. Sam’s felt like her skin was almost vibrating, she was so anxious and on edge. They should get there right before sunset.
The miles based by fast and Sam was getting more and more excited as she started to recognize landmarks and businesses. She warned Tom to slow down when she knew that the road leading to her parent’s house was coming up. The road was a long dirt road and she worried that it might be washed out in parts, as it tended to do with bad weather. The road needed constant upkeep to remain passable, but she wasn’t sure who would be doing it without the heavy equipment needed to maintain it. She was rattling all of these thoughts off out loud and she realized her nervousness was showing.