by Ron Foster
Slim went to the lock box and peered in the side window a moment before meeting Tina and Travis back at the van
“That things a piece of cake to get off, might have to beat the hell out of the box but if there is a key in there we will get.” Slim said smugly as he searched for the hand axe in back of the van and put it in a Styrofoam bait bucket.
“Good deal! You can have at it as soon as we check out the balcony and get some lines in the water.” Travis said as they prepared to carry some fishing gear down to their dock.
Things went as planned and except for Slim’s noisy bit of hammering key retrieval going on as Tina and Travis pretended to fish under the very suspicious gaze of the across the water couple nothing else happened before Slim opened the backdoor and called down to them to come up for a minute.
“In like Flynn!” Slim said with a grin as they got closer.
“You the man!” Tina smiled back and stepped into the house.
“I haven’t been up stairs yet, but it appears to be is what it is. Just a great big old empty house. Well not that empty, it has some plush carpet on the floor in the living room and a fold up card table and some chairs the realtor must have been using for us to sit down and have dinner at.” Slim explained about their new accommodations.
They explored the reminder of the house. It was a five-bedroom three bath open floor plan and they were grinning like Cheshire cats that for now anyway it seemed to be all their own.
“Don’t you start talking about how you want to decorate this place.” Travis quipped at Tina who was checking out the kitchen cabinets and pantry just in case.
“I am not but we have first dibs on the master bedroom!” Tina said laughing at Slim who good naturedly joked it should be his because he was the one to break in first wasn’t he?
“They made a few half-hearted attempts at casting some lures up and down the bank into the water and from the pier for about an hour putting on a show of innocence for the fisherman across the channel before they put up their rods and got ready to go back to the Marina.
5
Act Your Wage
“I am sure I don’t need to remind you all not to say anything at all about where we are staying but I will say it anyway.” Travis said driving back to the docks.
“Hey! I ain’t saying nothing to nobody! Look over there; Harvey and Billy Lee are back. I guess they had good luck after all fishing, either that or they haven’t got around to starting yet.” Slim said skeptically eying the two would be stool guards. He thought of them as “would be” because it was most likely they would be looking for opportunity of doing or thinking about something else rather than their guard duties. They would be or could be whatever it was the notion or job they invented took and that is what they mostly did, sit around and think about doing things but not accomplishing much of anything directly.
“The way that Stacy talks so bad about them two barter weasels it’s hard to say what it is exactly that they think they accomplished. Guess we will know in a minute if they are really going to be able to help feed us tonight.” Tina said as they pulled into the parking lot.
The group got out and Harvey and Billy Lee walked over to them all smiles and happy chatter about how they already had the pot on to boil water for some crabs they had caught but apologizing that the ones they got weren’t very big and that they hadn’t caught all that many today. Billy Lee then informed them that he had already gotten their fish from Vic and he hoped they didn’t mind that he had cleaned it for them and used the entrails to rebait their crab traps.
“We could have done much better at catching them little pinchers if we had us some chicken legs or necks for bait but that kind of crab fishing will probably never be done like that around here again anytime soon.” Harvey said thinking dreamily of post collapse conditions with stocked supermarkets, bait houses and food surplus to allow the luxury of using poultry for trap bait.
“Why thank you Billy Lee, I appreciate that. Later on, I want you to please take us down to their boat after supper so we can thank them personally for the fish.” Tina said wanting the opportunity to get to know folks better at this Marina.
“Oh, they will probably wander themselves down this way on their own soon enough I reckon. It ain’t as often as you would think that we get any company coming around here. Not too many folks have got the gas to do it for anymore for one and for another there really ain’t all that many people still left hanging around here what with the obvious fresh water shortage we got. We were experiencing some kind of drought or something shortly after the grid went down, no rainfall at all to speak of for a long time and folks couldn’t collect rainwater to drink like they were used to the first few weeks or month of the pipes being shut off. They just up and moved on, inland I guess. Let me give you an old sailor’s survival advice, NEVER MOVE INLAND! Remember that now my friends never move inland… Hey, we are going to get some more company coming here to meet you shortly that I need to tell you about. Another set of friends of ours will be coming back around here directly and they wanted to talk to you about a trade maybe.” Harvey said telling them to come around to the back of the building where they had a propane tank tripod burner heating up a big kettle of water.
“No sense us advertising what it is that we are doing to make a point of tempting starving eyes.” Billie Lee said advisedly to them regarding not wanting to be seen cooking anything by any cars passing by on the road.
“You get very much traffic just passing by here?” Slim asked.
“Some, a few cars here and there, but usually it is just folks coming by here wanting something or begging for food but not many. Ain’t a whole lot of folks left that stayed over on this side of the beach after the water got shutoff like I told you. Hey, I don’t have any spices to throw in the water to season up them crabs that is unless you all got some to donate for the cause.” Harvey stated hoping they had some crab boil or something else that was scarce as hen’s teeth around here.
“All we got is garlic and salt to add to the pot.” Tina said.
‘Garlic I will take you up on, those crabs are going to be cooking in seawater so we don’t need no extra salt.” Harvey replied.
“What are the friends you mentioned looking to trade for these days?” Slim asked.
“Well you might say apple butter is what they are offering but it’s a bit more complex than that. You see they used to run a bed and breakfast from their home to make a little extra money and if you want you can have biscuits and apple butter to trade for or you can just trade them for the jar of spread.” Harvey said letting the thought of maybe having homemade biscuits sink in.
“You mean for us to go stay with them? I wouldn’t want to do that, not even for a biscuit.” Travis said not liking any part of what he thought the offer was.
“No not stay with them. I didn’t mean that. Lord no, not by a long shot was I advising you to do that. Those days of inviting strangers into your home to bed down now are long gone. It’s just an option on the dinner table you might say and a way for them to get paid an extra service sort of like catering. Sometimes they offer something like that or a whole meal to the folks staying at the marina. Kind of like delivering a box of donuts or delivering a pizza or something.” Harvey replied.
“Warn them about the donuts!” Billie Lee said making a face.
“That was just an experiment and a culinary mistake I don’t think they will ever make again.” Harvey said huffily and then he sighed and merrily explained to the group that little bad tasting fiasco Billie Lee was referring to.
“Well I don’t want Billie Lee here to turn you off on their cooking, I must say generally speaking its pretty good all things being considered, however because we lack certain ingredients these days of course to fulfill a recipe or the cooking fire gets too hot it can taste anywhere from sort of weird to downright unpalatable if you don’t know what went in it. Those biscuits they are offering if you decide to get some might be a little off in flavor for you
r taste buds but they are what they are, and they are indeed a biscuit. They are wholesome and edible especially when dowsed in whatever kind of jelly they are offering at the time. The jelly they use for trade is oftentimes homemade jars they had left in their pantry from before the grid went down. They must have stored up a lot of it over time it seems to have any surplus to offer. Now back to the biscuits, you see around here what you find the most of other than flour or corn meal is big sacks of seasoned fish fry flour from the abandoned restaurants and although it’s good for cooking fish ain’t worth a damn to make biscuits or a cake out of. When it’s available she dilutes that fish meal down with real baking flour but she doesn’t seem to always get the mixture right. That is particularly so when all she has to work with is extra crispy mix with corn meal in it to work with.” Harvey said thinking of what a mess it turned out to be with Billie lee. Molly and Bo trying to drop dip deep fat fry them crab cake looking donuts into a pot of smoking oil on their crab pot propane burner.
“No eggs or milk neither to go in a recipe.” Billie Lee said still grimacing from the taste of the so-called donuts they had attempted to fry in reboiled clarified cooking oil from an abandoned Captain D’s restaurant that was most likely had been used a time or two for cooking fish or French fries. They ate them burnt half done globs of dough anyway; no food ever went to waste these days but them so called donuts were hard to choke down even rolled in granulated sugar.
“What is the price of just a jar of apple butter? I am not too sure I care about trading for any of those biscuits you are talking about. “Travis asked
“She will give you a sample of her cooking most likely and you can decide for yourself, those hockey pucks looking things really ain’t so bad, they just have a different flavor than what you would expect. I kind of like them myself, not as much as I like a real biscuit mind you but they are tasty and the only biscuits you ever see around here. I don’t know what she wants for that apple butter, I told her I saw that you had some silver dimes though and her face lit up.” Harvey advised with a wink.
“I wish you hadn’t told her that, them dimes are sort of special to me and I don’t value them in trade biscuits I am going to be sorry to tell her. Anybody got any canned goods to trade?” Travis asked.
“That apple butter was canned by someone, it’s a canned good same as a store-bought shelf good, maybe better. I hear tell that jar came from one of the Future Farmers of America chapters in West Virginia. Some kind of relative was always sending them stuff before the storm plus what they bought or put up canning on their own. Keep in mind that canning jar it comes with has value, she will trade you something back for it when you’re done eating the contents. Mason jars are in very short supply these days as you can well imagine.” Harvey said bound and determined to earn or make some kind of commission for help promoting this deal for Bo and Molly.
“I agree Harvey, that’s a rare commodity indeed for you to be offering. I just hope she don’t have it priced like one and expect too much for it.” Travis said.
“Oh, it’s a barterable trade, I don’t know what she wants for it exactly, you will have to talk to her or Bo. Could be she wants something she needs a silver dime to buy or could be maybe you got something else interesting for barter she may want. Anyway, they will be here later on and I told them I would give you a heads up they were coming. Do you want us to cook your fish for you or do you want to do it yourselves?” Harvey asked.
“I don’t have anything to trade someone for fish cooking.” Travis said with a smile at the audacity of the old scrounger.
“Well sure you do, you got exactly what I need. That’s a big fish and we only want a little portion of it for cooking it up and cleaning it for you.” Harvey said hopefully.
“No problem! We don’t mind sharing with you and Billie.” Travis replied and the group found themselves some seats.
6
Good Housekeeping
Travis, Tina and Slim got back to what they referred to as their beach house after dinner and they dutifully did the same honk the horn warning advisory when they came in the drive way. All was quiet and they sat and talked with hushed voices on the balcony. Sound carries far at night and across water easily. They didn’t see their mysterious and stand-offish fishing couple across the lagoon but they noted a soft light emitting from one of their windows as darkness fell. There was a full moon out and in the eerie semi lit darkness they strained their eyes looking for sources of light which would indicate human presence and occupation. The dang firefly’s were out tonight also and the flying bugs caused several false alarms or light sightings as they peered out of the houses windows and they even eventually decided to walk down the drive way to the road to get a better understanding of their surroundings and guess at the numbers of the surviving apocalypse homeowners still evidently living in the area.
They counted six lights and one moving light coming down the road was evidently someone carrying at flashlight but it and the unseen person holding it past them by. They smelled wood smoke on the wind but saw no flickering flames of any campfires.
The house with the car closest to them showed no light at all but Tina had noted all the windows in that house today had been heavily curtained. She cursed herself for not thinking to put up their own ponchos as window shades in the living room that they were going to be sleeping in. She wished they had done it when it was still light outside but it couldn’t be helped now. It was either they shine their flashlights around while trying to attach the ponchos to curtain rods in the dark or sit in the twilight so they took the risk. You could still see some light escaping from their windows but the effort offered them a lot of concealment anyway. The partly open windows let in night sounds as well as the lagoons lapping water noises but nothing than a cooling gentle sea breeze came in to disturb their fitful slumbers.
They had stayed up late and slept lightly on and off keeping one person always awake and watching and listening until the breaking dawn. A couple handlines were secured to their dock with a few bits of precious jerky for bait in hopes that some passing fish would take an interest and bite.
Travis joked that Billie Lee had bested them pretty good by volunteering to clean their fish and using the offal from it for crab bait. If they had ended up with the fish’s head they could have caught their own crabs or fish maybe but they lacked a net or trap for that particular task. They added those essential items to “things to look for” on their list of needed scavenging stuff they would be out digging around and seeking today and after a quick look around got ready to set off to go “looting and looking” as Slim liked to call it.
They hadn’t picked up any leads or suggestions of where to go looking today. Nobody at the marina had directly refereed to scavenging much other than if you find this or that please keep me in mind. The marina didn’t go out scavenging it seemed, they didn’t need to or they found it safer just not to, who was to say. That it was a fact of life to have to scavenge and lots of folks only means of survival went unsaid, but the practice itself seemed to be frowned upon in some ways.
It wasn’t so much the idea of pilfering goods that bothered them as it was the home invasion aspect of things that could turn real nasty if you were reckless or careless on either end that seemed to be the sticking point. That mistakes, miscalculations and often times fatal misunderstandings occurred frequently since was the biggest objections. All the stores had long been looted and it was a horrifying unsolvable risk that all endured to consider going looking in private homes. That most people would gladly leave alone a known to be occupied house was the norm, however for one class of people they just saw opportunity and those villainous souls weren’t above murder, robbery or rape to get what they wanted. The problem with it all was that you didn’t know who was knocking at your door and why. Could be people would leave when you hollered what do you want or could be sometimes you were better off not answering and ambushing lowlifes coming to rob you.
Stress, short tempers, hunger,
despondency, mental issues and a host of other ills and woes clouded people’s judgments as well as the ever-present paranoid desires for revenge or reckless self-protection. For some panicky people shoot first ask questions later was the only theory of survival they had with the inherent inevitable risks of such a bad policy. The non-communicators, the fearful, the unadaptable to apocalyptic life, the more dangerous than other people who shot fearfully or otherwise without warning. They were to be feared more than your chances of actual starvation or robbers.
These morally and mentally challenged people were their own worst enemies, doomed to die for their lack of social survival skills and their own mad blood lust. Known killers were to be feared and things that were feared had their own way of committing suicide or needing to be shot first chance someone had.
Natural avoidance of other survivors, calculated extreme avoidance of dangerous looking armed groups, avoidance of anything that might affect your safety was the norm but for some like the marina folks, community is what was needed to survive. A civilized community with its own self-imposed moral laws codes and ways of dealing with this collapse was brought about by working with other likeminded people that saw no reason to go bat shit crazy and instead tried to rebuild a society with what they had and protect each other as best they could.
Would there be a day again in the future when all nonresidents weren’t ordered out at dusk at the Marina? Could be, it was their decision as for when, but for now it was hostile territory at night for anyone trespassing as far as Travis’s group knew and they had just been warned. Still and all what you might consider a gated community up the road wasn’t such a bad thing and that they were allowed to visit during the day was great and it sure was a huge start on a better life than what they were living like down at the fish camp.