“Don’t worry about it.” Clay said, trying to sound unconcerned. He hated needles of any kind. He felt the sting as the lady passed the needle back and forth into his face. The tug of the string through his skin was the worst part. He swore he could feel the individual fibers of the thread rubbing as it passed through him. When she finished, Clay had eight stitches in his cheek.
“There. That should do, dear.” Mrs. Gray said as she reached back into her bag and removed a maxi pad. “There will probably be some scarring, but hopefully it won’t be too bad. Maybe it’ll even impress your young girlfriend. Every time she looks at you she’ll be reminded of how you saved her.” Somehow, her words made Clay feel a little better.
“What’s with the pad?” Clay asked as Mrs. Gray cut it into strips.
She took one of the strips, placed it over the wound, and taped it onto his face. “There’s not much for bandages around here. The material in the maxi pad is pretty much the same thing and works as a good bandage.” She handed him the rest of the makeshift bandages and left to go check on Leesha.
Leesha was almost asleep when Mrs. Gray came in to check on her. After days in the sewer and the streets of the protest before that, the couch felt like a little slice of heaven. Mrs. Gray took a damp cloth and wiped the dirt and soot from Leesha’s face. “Aren’t you just a pretty little thing.” Mrs. Gray said. “Are you Puerto Rican?” She asked.
“No. I’m blended.” Leesha said. “My dad’s white and my mom’s black.”
“Oh. You look so like my sister did at your age. You could be my niece. I thought maybe you might be from Puerto Rico as well.” When she had cleaned her face, Mrs. Gray asked her, “So, what’s wrong with your leg, hun?”
“I tripped and fell while we were escaping the protests. Some fat asshole fell on me when I went down and hurt my knee. It’s feeling a little better but it still hurts.”
“Let’s get these pants off of you and have a look.” Mrs. Gray said. The men turned away and went into the kitchen with Clay while the women stayed to assist Mrs. Gray.
Scott and JJ sat down at the table where Clay leaned over, holding his head in his hands. “You ok, buddy?” JJ asked.
Clay raised his head. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just dead tired. How’s Leesha?”
“We don’t know yet.” Scott said. “Mrs. Gray was getting her pants off to have a better look when we decided we needed to be elsewhere.”
“Listen, I’m sorry about what happened at the barrier earlier. If I had known who you were and what you had been through, I would have let you in ASAP. I know the last thing you wanted to find was some bitter old bastard pulling a gun on you.”
“It’s ok.” Clay said. “I understand you were just trying to protect your family. I would have done the same thing, except I probably wouldn’t have been as nice about it.” He looked over JJ. “Speaking of protecting your family and such, what have you guys been up to? That barrier was a pretty good idea.”
“I know.” JJ said. “I wish I’d have thought of it. Scott here had convinced me that we needed to leave the city. We started packing up and getting ready to go when the shit hit the fan Tuesday night. A lot of our neighbors had already left when the fires started. We were scrambling, trying to get out with everyone else, but we didn’t have much food or supplies. Things were getting scary by Wednesday. We planned to get out Thursday morning, when one of the guys who heads up the neighborhood watch came by Wednesday afternoon. He said he was holding an emergency meeting of the neighborhood to help us protect ourselves. He’s the one who organized everyone to set up the barricades. He convinced some folks from around the neighborhood to concentrate on this block. He said that was the only way to make this place ‘defensible.’ Lots of folks, like Mrs. Gray, who were single, opened up their homes to allow several families to stay on this block for a little while. We had just about everything set up by Wednesday night when people started flooding the streets outside the neighborhood. Tom Dabrowski, that’s the guy’s name, convinced everyone to pool together what weapons there were in the neighborhood and set up guard shifts. I wish we had more guns, but you know Chicago.”
“This Tom guy sounds like he’s got everything all figured out. What’s the deal with this guy? What made him so qualified for everyone to fall in with him?” Clay said.
Scott answered, “Everyone was scared. They kept calling 911 and the police but never got any answers. I guess the systems were overloaded. Anyway, by Wednesday, Tom shows up with a plan. He says that when the cops don’t protect us, we have to protect ourselves. He said he was in the Air Force security forces back in the ‘90s. No one else had any better ideas so everyone just fell into line.”
“Anyway,” JJ said. “He found us a few shotguns and a couple of hunting rifles from some people in the neighborhood. We all share out the weapons when we do watch.”
“All of that sounds pretty good to me.” Clay said. “So, what’s the plan? You guys just going to stay here and try to wait it out?”
“I think that’s the best plan.” JJ said. “I didn’t have much food here at the house. A lot of the neighbors didn’t have a lot either. One of the guys who lives next to Tom worked for a distribution center for one of the local grocery store chains. I forget which one. Anyway, he told Tom about some trucks that had come in Monday, but that the company was holding back because of problems with credit or finance issues or some shit. Anyway, Tom led a group of us over there early this morning and we were able to ‘borrow’ one of the trucks. It was packed full of food. The neighborhood should be good for a few weeks or more. Tom has set up some of the women to cook and ration it out. He’s really got us all to come together. Hell, I didn’t know half the folks on the block two days ago. Now we’ve pretty much met everyone, and we’re pulling together like you wouldn’t believe. Everyone donated all their food stocks, weapons, and even homes to the common kitty. I think Tom really knows what he’s doing. I wouldn’t have believed all of it if I hadn’t seen it. I’m just thankful he got it all working, because he’s feeding us.”
“So, why didn’t you guys get both trucks?” Clay asked.
“We tried. We couldn’t find the keys for the other one, so we sent a group of guys back in their trucks and SUVs to get the rest. When they got there, the whole warehouse was burning. Guess the mob finally made it to that part of town, we have the first truck. That should be enough to get us through.” JJ said.
Clay noticed that Scott hadn’t said anything and looked disgusted. “Scott, I know that I don’t know you, but you look like you might punch someone. You don’t think all of this is a good idea?”
“I don’t. I think this a horrible fucking idea.” Scott said .
“Why’s that?” Clay asked.
“No, no, Clay. You don’t want him to go down this path again.” JJ said.
Scott didn’t pay any attention to JJ. “Because I think the whole thing is about to collapse.”
“What the neighborhood?” Clay asked.
“Not the neighborhood, son. The whole country.” Scott answered.
“That can’t happen.” Clay said. “They’ll get the riots calmed down, rebuild, and get everything back to normal. Surely they will.”
“Not this time.” Scott said sounding angry and sad at the same time. “I thought that too for the first couple of days after the war started and the markets crashed. I held on to that belief even when the riots took a turn for the south on Monday. Since we’ve been staying here with Jan, I’ve been thinking about nothing else. I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to be as far away from Chicago or any other big city as possible.”
“And why’s that?” Clay asked.
“Everything we have today runs on oil. Everything we have, from our electricity, to our food depends on it. The war and the economy are going to throw a big hiccup into the entire supply system. When the guy from the warehouse started talking about the trucks being in the distribution center and the company holding on to it, that got me thinking.
That just didn’t make sense to me. I got to thinking about why they would do that. It wasn’t until I thought about it from a business point of view. The inflation from the higher gas prices is going to make everything go sky high. The government is announcing that they are going to make new money, but that won’t be out for at least a month. It doesn’t make sense for the companies to ship things when they have no idea how they will be paid. If the credit’s no good and cash is suspect, where’s the incentive for them to keep operating as normal? When you throw in the danger that they will putting their drivers in to deliver to a place like Chicago that has gone batshit crazy, not to mention that most of the stores have now been looted or burned, would you keep sending shipments in, even if you could get them?” Scott finished. Clay nodded his head in agreement.
Scott continued. “Now’s here’s the scary part that I haven’t even mentioned to Jan here. If everything breaks down, the supply chain, the stores, the credit, all of it; what are we left with? We are basically put back into the frontier days. The power has already gone out. One of the guys in the neighborhood who worked for the electric company said that was to be expected given the fires and all. The collapsing buildings might damage the power grid or whatever and a whole section of the city loses power. He said they tried to call him in to help fix some of it, but he won’t leave his family with all of the riots. Can’t say I much blame him. It’s not exactly the best time to send in repairmen. You mentioned rebuilding. How long do you think it’s going to take to rebuild all of the shit that’s been burned or destroyed in the last three days? Months? Years? What happens to that entire infrastructure during that time? Is there enough of it left to sustain the folks while we build the new?
“It was really the food truck that we stole that solidified everything in my mind. People are going to start stealing whatever food or resources that are left. When they realize what has happened, people will be killing each other over a can of tuna. There’s still some food in the grocery stores that haven’t been burned and the depots like the one we raided last night. How long will that last? You were in the thick of it, Clay. You went without food for what, two, three days? How are people going to react when they haven’t had any food in a week? A month? Think about this.” He said as the turned to JJ. “Given the myriad of shit that could and is going wrong to send us back to pioneer days, do you have any idea what the population of Chicago was before they built trains and trucks and other shit to move people and food in here?”
JJ shrugged and shook his head. Scott answered. “It was around half a million. That’s where it was in the late 1800’s before the trains and trucks. The city now has close to ten million. Without the infrastructure to bring in food, how long do you think that ten million people can go without resupplies? How much food does it take to feed that many people? I know that the population has decreased somewhat in the last couple of days between the ones that died in the streets and fires and the ones who got the hell out of Dodge when the riots happened; but how many do you think are left? From what Clay has told us, they’re not even picking up the bodies yet.” Scott breathed deeply and sighed.
Scott had succeeded in terrifying the men. Neither one of them had thought of it that way. JJ second guessed his decision to stay. He had thought only of the food for the week. What if it did take longer than that? “Scott, won’t the government do something to fix this? You know, like they do in normal disasters like hurricanes and tornados? If we can just hold out here for a week or two, FEMA or someone will show up with food to see us through the rebuilding.”
“Maybe.” Scott said. “But I doubt it. Look back at Katrina. The hurricane wasn’t that bad. It didn’t kill that many people. What really turned that whole thing from an unfortunate storm to a full-out, goddamned disaster was the half-assed way the aid was delayed and distributed. That was only three days of screwing around that turned New Orleans into a hell on earth for a lot of folks. It’s been three days here, Jan. You’ve seen the helicopters flying around, but have you seen any aid tents, anyone handing out food and water?” Jan shook his head. “The last reports we saw on the TV before the power went out were about most other big cities in the US going through the same type of crisis. When FEMA shows up at a disaster area with food and clothes, they have to bring that aid in from somewhere. If the whole country is as fucked up as Chicago, where are they going to get enough aid? Who’s to say that they won’t decide they can’t save everyone and give priority to say DC over us?”
“Where do you want to go?” Clay asked. He had turned about as pale as a black man could. JJ looked down at his own hands as they shook. Scott was right. Even if the neighborhood did survive the riots, the supply truck they had taken would only last for a couple of weeks. What would happen then?
JJ turned to answer Clay’s question. “Scott has a brother down in Alabama who has a farm. He thinks we should try to get down there.”
“That’s a long way, Mr. Reed.” Clay said. “You think we can make it? If what you’re saying is true, then won’t it be dangerous to be on the roads?”
“Yes, it will; but I think our best bet is out in the open, moving toward the farm rather than waiting around here for mobs of starving people to find us.”
“JJ, I think Scott’s right.” Clay said. Before he could ask when they should leave, Mrs. Gray entered the kitchen.
Clay shot out of his chair and asked. “Leesha, is she going to be ok?”
“She’ll be fine.” Mrs. Gray assured him. “Just light sprains on her ankle and knee. Let her stay off of them and rest for a couple of days, and she’ll be ok. I taught her how to use the ace bandages and tape that you gave her. I would tell her to ice it, but I’m not sure that’s possible with power out.”
“Thank you so much.” Clay said as he hugged the lady. “What do I owe you?”
“Oh not a thing, Mr. Tomin. I’m glad to help. But, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a couple of other people to go check on before I head home tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She said as she turned to go.
The men reentered the living room where the women sat talking. That night they adjusted their sleeping arrangements to accommodate Clay and Leesha. Leesha and Clay went to bed early on sleeping bags in the living room, while Scott and Clay filled Tara and Sherry in on their conversation with Clay about the seriousness of the situation. They sat together in the kitchen late into the night planning their trip to Alabama.
Chapter 10
The sun was just beginning to set on what turned out to be a beautiful Saturday in southern Tennessee. “Hey, Will!” Chuck shouted into the cabin. “We got people coming down the road!”
Will had just finished repairing the generator and making sure the electricity worked in the cabin when he heard Chuck’s call. He grabbed one of the AR-15’s that Joey had brought with them and ran out to the front porch. He saw the big Ford truck coming down the unpaved driveway. “Don’t worry, it’s Uncle Barry and Aunt Pam. They probably have George with them.”
The truck pulled up beside the Chuck’s camper. “Hey, Will!” Uncle Barry said as Will’s parents’ car emerged from the trees about eighty yards away from the house. Their car pulled up behind Barry’s truck. His mom opened the door and a massive golden dog jumped out and sprinted over to Will. Will tried to fend off the hundred and twenty pound golden retriever/chow mix that attacked him with playful jumps and licks. “Hey, Bear! I love you too buddy.” Will said.
Will’s parents exited the car. “Where’s grandma?” Will asked.
“We stopped by the home.” Jim said. “They haven’t had any problems so far. It’s a good distance out of town. After we talked with the staff, we decided she would be better off there. The cabin is not going to be a good place for her. They have provisions for emergencies up there and can care for her.” Will hated himself for admitting it, but his dad was right.
“So, who all we got here?” Barry asked.
“Uncle Barry, this is Chuck Williamson, my future father-in-
law.” Joey and Kerry walked out from behind the camper. “This is Jenny’s mom, Kerry and her brother, Joey.
“Everyone, this is my Uncle Barry and Aunt Pam and my cousin George.”
Everyone shook hands and greeted each other. Chuck walked up to Barry and extended his hand. “Mr. Johnson, thank you so much for letting us stay here. It means a lot that you would open up your home to me and my family.”
“Don’t mention it.” Barry said. “If you folks don’t have a safe place to go, you are more than welcome to stay here until all of this blows over. Besides, we hardly ever come out here anymore, only once or twice a year.” He looked over at Will. “So, you look like you’ve been busy. What all have you gotten done?”
“We got the generator up and running again, as well as the well pump. We’re working out the sleeping arrangements. We were expecting you guys yesterday. We made it here Thursday night. What took you guys so long?”
George answered. “It took us a little longer than we thought to get everything ready to go. We started on the highway and hit all the traffic. We were forced to take the little county back roads. It was probably for the best since the highways are becoming a mess. You’d think with gas so expensive and in such short supply, there wouldn’t be so many folks on the road; but as your brother-in-law predicted, those that could get out of the populated areas did. We got stuck for three hours. When we finally got to the cause, it was a wreck, pretty bad one. They had tried to call the cops, but they were too busy with other stuff to get there. Apparently someone just pulled out the injured folks and finally pushed the cars off the road so people could get by... Crazy.”
“Well, we’re glad you all made it ok.” Jenny said. “We were getting really worried about you, especially since the cell phones died yesterday.”
“We’re getting ready for dinner. I’ll go thaw out some more fish to fry while you guys help Mr. Johnston and George unload the truck.” Kerry said.
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