It’s weird to see the glow of the fires. Stranger yet is that the city seems deathly silent. Other than the distant smatter of occasional gunfire, there are no honking vehicles, no rumbling trains, no airplanes roaring overhead on their ever-present flight paths to and from O’Hare and Midway airports, no emergency response vehicle sirens…nothing. It’s like the city is dead…and now it’s being cremated.
Tuesday, September 10 th
7:17 a.m.
The kids slept with us in our king-size bed last night. I think that seeing the fires kind of scared Dylan, and I can’t say it did much good for me or Kate either. Kate wanted Violet in the bed with us after going up on the rooftop, so I went in and gathered our little sweetheart from her bed and put her in ours with us. It was nice (albeit a little cramped and certainly somewhat muggy) having us all sleeping in our stuffy bedroom. We haven’t slept all together like that for years. Thankfully, there was a decent breeze, so I opened the windows to help cool things off inside. It was comforting waking up in the middle of the night and hearing the soft sound of the kids breathing. Every so often, one of them would twitch or jolt awake at the sound of gunfire, which seems to be growing ever closer to what has so far been our relatively safe and quiet little enclave.
Upon waking this morning, we found the power still out. Since the natural gas was still on, I cooked all the eggs we have left and used some of the deli-sliced ham and cheese to make ham, egg, and cheese sandwiches on white bread. I made each sandwich with two eggs. Dylan, Kate and I each had two. Violet ate almost an entire one on her own. I hard boiled the rest of the eggs just to have them cooked and ready to eat.
The stuff in the cooler is holding out. About half the ice has melted. This has turned the interior of the cooler into a soupy, slushy mix, but it’s still cold, and that’s what matters. We’ve been eating like royalty lately, stuffing ourselves full just to try to finish what will go bad in the next few days. The inside of the refrigerator hardly feels cold anymore. Instead of water or juice, we’ve all been drinking milk just to try to finish it before it spoils. We should finish it by lunch time.
9:49 a.m.
Boy, am I glad I got so much food cooked when I did. Our natural gas went off about 40 minutes after I was done hard boiling the eggs. Our water service went off too when I was about halfway done loading the dishwasher. I have a bad feeling that like the electricity, these city services won’t come back on any time soon. I told the kids that we really have to start conserving our water supply now. I set aside a couple pots for teeth brushing (which we will only do once a day now and under parental supervision to keep water usage to a minimum). The dirty water from these activities will be kept in a bucket that we will use for filling the toilet tanks. I also explained that we will only be flushing the toilets once a day. The kids found that disgusting, but I told them we don’t have a choice. Once we flush them, they won’t refill on their own and we’ll have to use our own fresh water to do so. I even took them in the bathroom and removed the lid from the toilet tank to show both of them how it works. I think Dylan got it; I’m not so sure about Violet. Either way, they know not to flush. I pulled out extra air freshener and told everyone to keep the bathroom doors closed to help contain any smells. I also taped socks on the toilet handles as reminders, since flushing is so ingrained in our daily routine. Then I went around and turned all the sink faucets in the kitchen and bathrooms to the “on” position so that we will hear the water running if it comes back on.
This is getting serious. I mean, it was serious before, but it’s REALLY serious now. We haven’t even been without water for an hour, but I’m already realizing just how dependant we are upon it. We can’t wash our hands, do dishes, take showers, brush our teeth twice a day, or just get a drink whenever we want one. Thank God we filled up the extra containers with water ahead of time. Still, with four of us, I’m not sure how long what we have will last. Worse yet, our suburb doesn’t have any creeks or streams running through it or lakes nearby. The only thing we can use for additional water would be rainstorms, and those can be hit and miss during September in Chicago.
I pulled hand sanitizer and some extra sanitizing wipes out for the family to use. We’ll use them to try and keep things halfway clean and provide some feeling of freshness, but I don’t know how far stuff like that will go. Having been pent up in this oven all day every day for almost a week, things are starting to get kind of stinky. And without water to bathe, and not being able to flush regularly, I think it’s quickly going to get a hell of a lot worse.
Guess I’ll worry about that later. For now, I’m going to get the camp stove set up and test it out. It’s been years since we used it last, and I’m kicking myself for not having tried it out a couple days ago before we lost all our utility services.
9:54 a.m.
Whew! The camp stove still works – thank God! I have two small propane tanks for it that feel full and another that feels close to empty. I have no idea how long the fuel supply will last. I’m just thankful we have it at this point.
1:22 p.m.
I have to admit, not having electric service didn’t bother me as much as not having cooking gas and fresh running water. Without those two things, it has been a real eye-opener. I can deal with reading books and playing board games as forms of entertainment instead of watching television. I can handle boiling hot dogs on the stove instead of throwing them in the microwave. I can get used to lighting a few candles and using flashlights at night instead of interior lighting…it’s even kind of fun (to a point). I just never realized how pertinent natural gas and fresh, clean, running water are to our general day-to-day living. I have a feeling that most people don’t even think about all the times throughout the day they just go to the sink to rinse a dish, fill a glass with water, or wash their hands. It’s just an expectation to be able to flip on the faucet or flush the toilet, something we apparently have taken for granted for far too long.
By the looks of things, I guess the situation in the outside world isn’t getting any better. Now that we’ve lost city services, I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever get them back. I mean, what the hell is going on here? Is this flu going to destroy the world? Is life as we’ve known it over now? I was planning for this thing to last a week…TWO at most. But now…well, I’m not sure what to think. Things aren’t just going to fix themselves. If the people who run all these services and keep us safe – the government, emergency personnel, and all the rest – are dead or afraid to go to work because of the flu, how are we ever going to get things back to the way they were? And if we CAN finally get reorganized, how long is it going to take? Weeks? Months? Years? What are we going to do in the meantime for food and water? We’re good for now, we can hold out a couple more weeks, maybe a month; but then what? Am I going to have to go out and hunt squirrels? It’s not like we have a lot of wildlife and big game animals around this part of Chicago.
Okay, enough of these depressing thoughts for right now. My rant-writing isn’t helping things. I think that with the way things are right now, we just need to focus on getting through each day. Every day seems to present us with a new challenge, and I guess that just trying to adapt to our ever-changing situation should currently be our top priority.
It’s hot today. Worse yet, it’s humid. We’re sweating like crazy which means we’re going to be drinking more water. I’m going to go see if I can’t stuff some more food in the kids’ bellies before it spoils, then see if they’d like to play a game or two of Candy Land, listen to a story, and take a family nap. The more we sleep, the less bored we are which means less fighting between the kids. Plus, when we’re sleeping, we’re not consuming our precious water supply.
8:42 p.m.
The kids are already in bed. I think they’re feeling tired largely because they haven’t gotten much activity lately. I wish I could take them outside and let them run around and play. I think Violet is doing better than Dylan. She’s used to being home with Kate all day, and she putt
ers about making us fake meals with her toy dishes and plastic food, dressing and undressing her dolls, painting pictures, or making things out of Play-Doh. Dylan, on the other hand, is used to getting out and having recess at school, getting to burn off some energy playing with his buddies, and generally being a silly eight-year-old. I’m sure it’s hard for him being cooped up not just with his parents but with his four-year-old sister all day long. For me, it’s so far been a kind of stressful stay-cation during which I’ve been able to enjoy more quality time with my family than I’ve had in a long time…maybe ever. The longer it goes on, though, the more stressful and troubling the situation becomes.
Kate’s sitting here beside me on the couch, reading a book by candlelight. We’re drinking warm beers. Thankfully, it doesn’t get completely dark until around nine; still, I feel like we’re living back in the pioneer days. Unlike our ancestors, we don’t even have things like oil lamps or a fire burning in the hearth to help us see – it’s either flashlights or candles…oh, and the electric lantern, which isn’t all that great since it runs off a big battery that’s pretty old and that we don’t have a replacement for.
I made dinner on the camp cook stove tonight. It was actually kind of fun. I set the stove up on top of our regular stove, opened the kitchen window for ventilation, and had at it. I didn’t try making anything too fancy. I mostly just warmed up some of our pre-cooked meat (pork and the last of the chicken breasts) and made some shells and cheese macaroni. All the milk is gone now and almost all the meat. There are a couple pre-cooked burgers left that I’ll probably scramble for lunch tomorrow and put with a box of mac ‘n cheese.
I spent a lot of time watching out the windows of our condo this afternoon and early this evening. There wasn’t much to see, but that was kind of the point. I wanted to get a better perspective on just what was going on out there in our community, which from all outward indications, doesn’t appear to be much. Occasionally, I’d see someone hustle past on the sidewalk or hurry through the back alley (the dead body is still laying out there by the way). Sometimes I could tell that the person I’d see was carrying a weapon – a rifle or shotgun or something. Other times, I wasn’t sure if they were armed or not. What I DIDN’T see was any law enforcement personnel of any sort, and there were DEFINITELY no National Guard units present.
I also tried the radio again today. I got nothing but static.
11:02 p.m.
I went up on the roof by myself tonight. Things looked worse than yesterday. It appears that the fires have spread and are even closer to us now. I wonder if all the fires were set by looters or if some of them occurred due to people leaving things like stoves and ovens on (when the utilities were still up and running) before they succumbed to the flu?
Oh, and something REALLY stinks in our back stairwell. I’m hoping that it’s just someone’s garbage that hasn’t been taken outside, but I don’t know for sure. I really don’t want to investigate.
On other fronts, I checked the situation with our cooler full of perishables on the way back inside from the roof.
It wasn’t good.
There were still a few ice cubes that hadn’t melted, but it was mostly just food packages floating in cold water. One more day and I think the warm weather will have completely taken over and whatever is left inside will be at the whim of time and temperature.
Wednesday, September 11 th
7:54 a.m.
Well that was a fun night (sarcasm on full blast). I ended up moving all of us into the living room to sleep. I pulled the single mattresses off the kids’ beds and put them down on the living room floor for Kate and Violet. I slept on the futon while Dylan took the sofa.
The reason for our change of sleeping spots was all the gunfire outside. It has moved closer…too close. I even heard what sounded like several stray rounds hit the building’s brick exterior. That was enough for me. I realized at that point that it was only a matter of time before one came in through the window, and I don’t want anyone in front of it when it happens. While they might be accustomed to such things on the south side of the city, we aren’t where we live. And since the living room is positioned toward the interior of our U-shaped condo building, and the windows face the courtyard, it is far better protected from stray projectiles. The downside to this new sleeping arrangement is airflow or lack thereof. There’s piss poor circulation for the stagnant air inside this part of our condo. This means that it is more stifling sleeping in the living room than in our bedroom. Even with the windows open, we just don’t get the same sort of breeze. Most of our weather systems come in from the south or west, and our living-room windows face north. Any wind we do get from this direction is largely blocked by the units across from us. Worse yet, with the power off, we couldn’t even put a fan on to help circulate the soup in which we attempted to sleep. Needless to say, no one slept well, and we’re all kind of cranky this morning. Add to this, we’re now largely confined to the living room since most of the other rooms have exterior facing walls and I don’t want anyone passing in front of windows if at all possible. The kitchen only has one window on its west wall that faces out over the back alley. I moved the refrigerator in front of it so I can still cook there without risking getting hit by a stray bullet.
We make quick bathroom breaks, which works out since we’re down to one flush a day and the smells are pretty unbearable. Kate even made airtight barriers out of plastic wrap to cover the seats in an effort to contain the stench. It’s a pain to remove them, but it sure helps.
Kate is having the kids each make up a list of things they want from their rooms. They’re working on the lists now. I’ll make a quick trip to collect the stuff once they’ve finished.
The gunfire used to stop after daybreak, but now it seems to continue intermittently and from different positions around us throughout the day.
12:02 p.m.
We finished our perishable stuff from inside the cooler for breakfast and lunch. I saved the water from the melted ice. I didn’t keep it for drinking since some of the meat juice and other food residue has leaked into it, but we can use it to flush the toilets, which everyone is definitely in favor of.
The gunfire seems to have subsided momentarily. Boy, I never thought I’d live in a time or place where gunfire arrived with regularity. The kids are playing quietly in the living room. The batteries are finally starting to die on their electronic devices. They’re mad because I won’t let them use fresh ones. I tried to explain that we need them for things like the flashlights and radios, but they don’t understand. Violet doesn’t get why flashlights are more important than her educational video games. Dylan understands, he just doesn’t like it. Poor things are bored out of their minds. Dylan misses his friends. He said he’d even take going to school over being stuck inside for another day. That’s how desperate he is. When Dylan – who is definitely no fan of school – wants to go sit in class all day, you know things are pretty bleak. Kate finally broke down and let them play on her work computer since she apparently isn’t going to need it anytime soon. The battery won’t last long, but every hour we can keep these kids happy and occupied is another hour we can retain our collective sanity.
2:51 p.m.
So much for the peace and quiet we were enjoying. At around two, there was suddenly a flurry of activity in the streets outside our condo building. Being on the third floor, and right near the heart of our little downtown, we can see all the way over to village hall that sits just off Main Street. From this vantage point, we watched as several groups of people, maybe ten to a dozen people in each group prowled the streets. They all looked like they were carrying heavy weapons – rifles, automatic weapons, shotguns, those sorts of things. A couple even looked like they had machetes. My initial reaction was that these people hadn’t come to enforce law and order, and boy was I right. They started their destruction by breaking into the local hardware store. There, they got a hold of some axes and chainsaws which they then turned upon the plywood-covered en
trances to several of our local eateries. Potter’s Irish Pub was the first to go up in flames. I don’t know if this was in reprisal for not finding any food inside or it’s standard fare for these sorts of groups. The next building to go up was our local convenience mart, and shortly thereafter, I was dismayed to see smoke pouring from Devries’ Grocery Store. It’s currently engulfed in flames as are several of the Victorian mansions down the street from us.
As I sit here writing, I’m stunned by the senselessly destructive nature of human beings; but sadly, I’m not surprised. I think I’m going to take a quick trip downstairs and make sure our entry vestibule and stairwell doors are secured.
3:03 p.m.
I’m glad I checked our entryways. The vestibule door was still unlocked, so I locked it. I think that later today I’m going to see if I can find some wood in our storage area to put up over the glass panels in our downstairs stairwell door. I know it won’t stop someone who is bound and determined to get inside, but it might be enough to deter them. I’m sure that…
The Pandemic Diaries [Books 1-3] Page 6