The Pandemic Diaries [Books 1-3]

by Callahan, K. W.

  For now, Dylan and I have to finish getting ready for church. It’s the one time each week where the entire town can come together as one and at least pretend to act neighborly to one another.

  Gerald has been trying his best lately with his sermons, preaching about “loving thy neighbor”, “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us”, and telling various stories of unity and community in an attempt to bring us closer together. I’m not sure it’s working. It feels good when we’re there listening to him, but once we’re out in our daily lives, it’s back to that certain level of distrust.

  On a happier note, I’m going to wear the jewelry that Chase gave me for Valentine’s Day. I’ve been holding off, not wanting to seem like I’m trying to be flashy or flaunting our relationship (especially in front of Erika), but I think church would be a nice opportunity for him to see me wear them. They’re not really me (I didn’t wear diamonds much before the flu…other than my wedding ring), but I want Chase to understand that I appreciate his gifts and his thoughtfulness.

  2:21 a.m.

  Well that backfired…BIG TIME. I couldn’t have picked a worse day to wear Chase’s jewelry.

  Unbeknownst to me, Barker had decided to make a statement of his own at today’s sermon. Toward the end of the sermon, when Gerald typically opens the floor to questions, comments, and concerns (it becomes a brief town hall meeting of sorts since we’re all gathered together), Barker usually says a word or two. He normally doesn’t have much to say, I think he just has trouble letting Gerald hog all the attention. He typically talks about how the scavenging missions have been going, any outside news that has been received (which tends to be not much), and how various projects the townspeople have been working on have been progressing. So today, I wasn’t expecting much from him in the way of anything earth shattering.

  But that’s Barker for you. As with our last encounter at the store, I wasn’t at all prepared for what he was about to pull. His little speech began with a scavenging team progress report. He explained how their expanded search radius around Glasgow has increased the supply stream steadily trickling into town (which everybody already knows).

  At this point, I figured it was just going to be another boring rehashing of things we already know and stuff he’s gone over repeatedly. But Barker wasn’t going to let us down. He was about to spring a surprise on all of us…especially me.

  He went on to say, that due to our increased supply levels, it appeared that we were starting to get complacent regarding our inventory – specifically at the general store. He referenced our last month’s inventory count as proof that there was theft occurring at the store.

  While we take general inventory of the supplies coming in and what has been sold from the store shelves each day, we also do a month-end count of everything we have on hand both on the store shelves as well as in the stock rooms. This audit is conducted by two store employees – one from Glasgow, one from Spencer – along with a town leader rotated each month…Gerald or Barker. It was Barker’s turn this month.

  After things had calmed down in the church, and everyone had quieted their chatter regarding this late-breaking news, Barker said that there was a large discrepancy at the end of February (I knew I made mistakes when Barker made his advances on me while I was doing my counts). Anyway, he went on to say that he didn’t have any direct proof to link the person or people who might be involved in the theft, but he had personally seen at least one of the store employees flaunting several new personal possessions. And there I was, sitting in church with my new diamond jewelry on. I felt my face burning under the accusatory stares of the town’s residents.

  I’m almost positive there hasn’t been any theft. It’s probably just a case of my miscounts due to Barker hitting on me, but it’s too late to prove it now.

  I wanted to rip Chase’s jewelry off and scream, “Just take it! I don’t even want it!” But I did my best to remain impassive since I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. Still, I felt like such a criminal. I know that Barker can’t prove anything, but I can’t disprove it either. And while I’m not the only one subjected to his accusations, I was the only one wearing diamonds at church today. I was just trying to make Chase happy, but as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

  Barker then said that he’d like to replace the people working at the store. He said that he thought it would be a good idea to rotate the employees working there regularly to help keep incidents like these to a minimum. It really makes me angry. There WAS no incident! I’m sure of it. Our store employees are good people. There’s no way anyone was stealing…unless it was Barker himself (which wouldn’t surprise me). And now I feel guilty as hell, not because I did anything wrong, but because I’m sure that it was my inventory errors that led to all this. Now everyone at the store is facing being replaced because of me.

  I don’t know if Barker did this in reprisal for my rejection of his advances or because he’s trying to cover his own ass for taking stuff. Tomorrow, he wants to vote on whether or not to replace the current store staff with new people.

  I’m pretty devastated over all this. It not only calls my credibility into question, but that of my co-workers. Plus, what am I going to do if I’m not working at the store? I mean, I’m sure I’ll find something, but the store was the one thing I felt confident and comfortable doing. And minus my apparent inventory screw up last month, I was damn good at it.

  Fucking Barker! I hate that asshole! I wish that piece of scumbag trash would just shrivel up and die!

  Monday, March 17 th

  10:02 a.m.

  Well, it’s official. Dylan and I just got back from a special meeting regarding the store personnel, and I’ve been fired. Actually, I guess ‘fired’ is a strong world…all four of the store’s staff were “reassigned”. The vote for making this change passed 53 to 26. Frankly I’m amazed that we got 26 votes in favor of allowing us to remain after Barker’s little stunt in church the other day. But since the native Glasgow votes count double, I’m not exactly sure how many people actually supported us.

  Gerald did his best to smooth things over saying that it was nothing personal against any of the store employees but that Barker had a point regarding loss prevention. He agreed that rotating personnel on a quarterly basis was a good idea to also help keep the staff from becoming too complacent in their work.

  Still, it hurts. I even spoke up, hoping that accepting responsibility for the inventory fowl-up might at least take some of the heat off the other store employees. I explained that I was felt it was most likely my fault we were in this predicament and that I was probably the one who had made an error. But it didn’t matter. The vote was to replace ALL the staff members.

  Now the other people who were working at the store are pissed at me. I think that Lamar understands, but the two Glasgow natives just sat there glaring at me. I feel terrible. We’ve been re-assigned to working in the community garden. I don’t think it’s a terrible thing, and working outside might actually be nice, but the store jobs were cushier gigs. Gerald and Barker each nominated two new individuals (one of whom is Barker’s son, Craig) to replace us, and they received the majority vote needed to assume the roles.

  We swap out our positions at the start of next week.

  6:58 p.m.

  Chase came over for dinner tonight. He brought a fish for me to fry, and I made rice and green beans to go with it.

  While I was preparing dinner, he explained that Erika is now pissed at me too. Up until this point, she has had a sweet job refilling the town’s vehicle fleet with fuel and checking the air pressure in tires. It was a job that she could do whenever she liked so that she could also care for her son, Travis. She’s one of the people newly assigned to the store (a job she really doesn’t like since she has to be there ALL day and work with other people). He said she was bitching about it – and about ME – almost the entire time (almost a WHOLE hour) she was doing her job at the town’s vehicle fleet station.

  Grea
t, nothing like have a bunch of people pissed at you in a town with a population of only 60. Word spreads fast in a small community, and everyone knows when someone is on the town shit list.

  Personally, I don’t mind all that much that Erika is upset about the job transfer since it keeps her and Chase father away from one another. It’s not that I don’t trust HIM, but SHE’S a different story. And knowing their shared history, I can see proximity leading to issues of the physical kind. Erika is the type of woman that when she wants something, she goes after it with a vengeance. And while I think I have a leg up on her both in brains and beauty, Chase is only human. He has so far exercised pretty good self-control (as far as I know) regarding his old flame, but Erika can be VERY persuasive. Therefore, having her stuck at the store working all day rather than out-and-about with a lot of spare time on her hands and hanging around Chase at the fleet station, is just fine with me.

  Wednesday, March 26 th

  8:14 p.m.

  So I actually kind of like my new job. The weather has been great lately – mild and not a cloud in the sky – and I love being outdoors in the fresh air for a change. While there hasn’t been much in the way of results to show for our hard work yet, we all know that our efforts will eventually be rewarded.

  We’ve been spending our time preparing a space about the size of a football field. It’s a damn big undertaking, but we figure we might as well go big so we don’t have to try to expand the garden later. Most of the first week I spent gathering old fencing from around town to put up to keep wildlife away from our crops. It’s amazing how many materials you need to cordon off a space this size.

  This week, we’ve been working on getting that fencing up. After we’re finished with that, we’ll start plowing the space we’ve cordoned off and getting things like tree roots, rocks, or other debris out of the growing area. Then we’ll work to put down additional top soil and fertilizer where needed before we start planting.

  It’s a lot of work. There are ten of us who have been put to this task – seven men and three women. I include Dylan in the seven men. He’s just as hard a worker and often exhibits more energy and enthusiasm than most of the other men. His education has been left to me in the evenings for now since we need all hands in the garden to make the spring planting a success.

  Our efforts are led by Jack and Jared, two men from Spencer who have previous farming experience. They push us hard and expect a lot from us, but they are fair, do just as much work as the rest of us, and lead by example.

  I’d say that the only downside to my work is that the two Glasgow natives from the store are still harboring a grudge about me costing them their previous jobs. They make their distain for me blatantly obvious with dirty looks, and snide comments, but I can take it. It’s not like I’m here to make friends with everyone. If they like me, great…if not, so be it. I have Dylan, and I have Chase. And that’s all I really need. Would I prefer to get along with everyone? Sure. But I’m not going to go groveling for forgiveness. I feel like telling them WHY I made the mistakes on the inventory count to begin with, but I don’t think it would help. They probably wouldn’t believe me, and my account of what happened would only get back to Barker, which could lead to more issues.

  Instead, I just keep my mouth shut, my head down, and work my tail off. It’s the best thing, and about the ONLY thing I can do right now.

  Friday, April 4 th

  12:42 p.m.

  Well, I guess you could officially call Chase and me an “item” now. While we’re not living together, and neither of us have attempted an “I love you” yet, I think it’s safe to say that our dating relationship is solidified.

  Lately, he has been coming over for dinner several times a week (I can’t blame him after experiencing HIS cooking) – and yes, we’ve consummated the relationship. I won’t get into any more than that, but it’s safe to say that I was completely satisfied in all regards. And I think that in our current world, a fair enough amount of time has elapsed since Chris’ passing to begin getting serious with someone new.

  I think it will take some amount of time for me to feel completely guilt-free about being with another man. But what am I supposed to do, take a vow of abstinence and become a nun? Chris knew that he was number one and the ONLY one when we were together. He proved his love for me and the kids in the most devoted way possible – by giving his life to protect us. And I’m almost positive that he would want me to find someone who exhibits similar qualities in this new and rather dangerous world. Even though he and Chase are very different in personality and interests, I think that Chris would approve because Chase treats me with respect and as an equal.

  On the work front, there’s not much to report. We’re finally done with putting up the fencing. It took a lot more time and effort than I expected, but I shouldn’t be surprised considering the size of the space we’re working with.

  Chase got a tractor up and running so we could start plowing the field. It will be nice to get the crops planted and finally start to see some results from all our hard work. The supplies that have been arriving from the scavenging missions have started to dwindle again. And as anxious as we are to see our farming efforts come to fruition in the form of some bright green shoots popping forth from the good earth, we don’t want to jump the gun. Jack and Jared said getting things planted too soon, only to lose them to a late-spring cold front, could set us back far more than waiting an extra week or two. The native Georgians are pooh-poohing this conservative stance, saying that once the cold weather breaks in this part of the country, it’s over and done with; but Jack and Jared said they’ve seen it happen too many times and won’t be swayed. I tend to agree with them, and I’m content to leave such things up to the people with the experience behind them.

  Tuesday, April 8 th

  9:19 p.m.

  Today was Dylan’s 10th birthday. Poor little guy. He didn’t even really seem like he cared. He used to get so excited about his birthday, but now it’s just another day. I managed to get him a couple pre-packaged cupcakes (the kind you’d find at a gas station) along with a candy bar for his birthday treats. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the best I could come up with in this weird world of ours. Toys are a dime a dozen now since there are so many of them just sitting around in abandoned houses, and I can’t exactly go to a bakery and buy him a cake, so this will have to do.

  I invited Chase over for dinner tonight, and we made fried chicken (Dylan’s favorite, and a real delicacy these days) with rice and pasta. Chase allotted me some extra script from his own weekly payment just so we could afford two chicken breasts. But it was worth it. Dylan’s eyes lit up at the sight of the chicken breasts. Chase and I made some extra pasta for us so that we could watch Dylan enjoy all the chicken he wanted – he ate almost ALL of it! But it was worth missing out on the meat to make Dylan’s day just a little more special.

  Monday, April 14th

  3:13 p.m.

  There’s no time to write in the mornings anymore since, upon Jack and Jared’s recommendations, we’ve moved the start of our workday up to 7 a.m. They say that with it getting light out earlier, and with the temperature increasing, we’ll find ourselves glad to sacrifice getting up at the crack of dawn in order to be finished with our work earlier.

  Today is the seven-month anniversary of Chris’ passing. It’s not really something I want to dwell on as it brings back so many memories. Probably one of the best – or in a way, the worst, since it makes me realize all that I’ve lost – is recalling our Labor Day picnic in Riverside. It was our last truly happy and relatively carefree day spent together as a family before the flu really started to dominate our lives. That day, there was still so much to look forward to, so much we didn’t realize we had at the time, so much to be lost. We were so naïve about the death and destruction that was looming at our doorstep.

  See? It’s such a wonderful memory of a wonderful day, yet it brings up such painful realizations at the same time.

/>   I still remember talking to Chris about possibly using Riverside as the staging site for Violet’s 5th birthday, a birthday that never in a million years would I have guessed would be spent in Spencer, Indiana…without her father…and that it would be her last.

  This was why it was better when I worked later into the day. There wasn’t as much time for this type of thinking. It’s too damn depressing. I’m going to see if Dylan wants to take a walk. Maybe getting outside will help take my mind off things.

  5:09 p.m.

  Well that was a bust! Here I wanted to get outside to help take my mind off my troubles, and I only ended up encountering more problems.

  While we were walking down Main Street, Dylan let out a sudden screech. It scared the living daylights out of me. At first, he said he thought he had been stung by a bee, and showed me a big welt in the middle of his forearm beneath his shirtsleeve. But I thought it unlikely a bee had stung him through the sweatshirt he was wearing. My thought was more along the lines of a spider bite.